Newspaper Page Text
Page 9
The Southern Israelite
Are Jews Too Sensitive ?
The "Town Crier" Discusses More and Less Famous Jews
By MURIEL ASHER
It is significant that Mr.
Woollcott docs not start his
interview by saying “Some of
my best friends. . . /' You
know the rest. He’s brilliant,
witty, and hides his warmth
beneath a testy manner. Of
course he’s very much in de
mand—if for no other reason
than his way of saying vit
riolic things in the blandest
manner in the world. Miss
Asher spoke with him in his
apartment, which Dorothy
Parker named “Wits’ End’’
and which, in reality, is at
the end of a Gotham street
overlooking the East River.
—The Editor
"Jews are an objectionable, violent,
insufferable people,” Mr. Woollcott
paused to let the significance of the
words sink in. Without a change in his
voice or facial expression, he continued:
"The only people who, to me, arc more
objectionable are Gentiles.”
My interview with Mr. Alexander
Woollcott (Dr. Woollcott to be axact,
for he received his L. H. 1). from
Hamilton College in 1924) was the di
rect result of an evening of “Let’s play
the truth game.’ What do you think
of me?"—and all the exits were closed.
It was an interesting, if uncomfortable,
experience. Later on the “What do
you think of me?” became more gen
eral and there was much speculation as
to what non-Jews really think of Jews.
We created (and hated) a Jew who
was a charter-part rather than a
character. He’s restless, ambitious,
vulgarly rich or noisily poor. Some
times he’s talented, but he’s always
pushing. He’s suffering and vengeful.
He even speaks with an accent!
1 really wasn’t asking Mr. Woolcott
lu) ut him. We always hide this Jew’.
'W- winch at his very approach. He
•esnt exist—as a Jew. I wa merely
a ''king, "What do you think of us as a
And Mr. Woolcott is quali
fied to know, by dint of his contacts as
U'ant, playwright, dramaic critic for
•»r> on the New York Times, racon-
ir. radio town crier and early book-
nn, and, too, because he numbers
>‘g his friends so many who are
Mow can I tell you about Jews? I
vv no gentiles."
is is literally so. Four out of six
ie who come to play chess, or drop
for breakfast—which lasts until
and comes in tray form—are
i>h. Not that Mr. Woollcott has a
ection for Jews. He’s unaware
; ’.hem as such.
“The only time that I am aware that
people can be divided into such clas
sifications as Jew and Gentile is when
I’m in a room where there arc a num
ber of Jewish people. They possess
such a vital force, they vibrate so much
energy, that all one’s facultic are to
play to keep up with them. It’s too
much. It’s like eating fifty pieces of
fruit cake (Fruit cake is one of my
minor passions). Take Kdna Ferber,
for example. Brilliant and stimulating,
but after I’ve been in her company for
a while, I’m exhausted.
"I don’t know if this tremendous vi
tality is a Jewish trait. As I said be
fore, everyone I know’ is Jewish.’
That started us talking about G. B.
Stern, whose full name is Gladys Bea
trice Stern. Mr. Woolcott considers
her work finely imagined and com
pletely understood. “G. B. Stern has
been amusing herself—and us of late
years—by writing a Jewish version of
The Forsyte Saga’ in ‘The Matriahch,’
‘A Deputy Was King,’ and now ‘Mo
saic.’ I bis multitudinous mishpocha is
utterly exhausting. 1 enjoyed ‘Mosiac’
immensely, and felt when l finished it
as if I had been spending the week
end with thirty extraordinary animated
relatives.”
I wasn't daunted. “This restlessness,
and the relentless appraisal, arc they
Jewish traits also?” And now I’ll quote
verbatim.
“I don't know. One of the most pene
trating minds I have ever come across
is that of Dorothy Parker, which isn’t
her name at all. Her mother was
Scotch—a Gentile. Her father was
Jewish, connected in business in New
York here. Site, herself, was educated
in a Catholic convent. Myabc that, and
not her Jewish blood, accounts for her
melancholy. I do know she has the
most amazing, audaciously keen wit of
anyone in America. She and Ring
Lardner are about evenly matched.
She writes, but occasionally, for she
doesn’t care about it, and only does
so when she is bored. What wit and
humor tlverc is in her work, is but a
shadow of what she is capable in wise
cracks. More than one person has fold
ed up and withered after an onslaught
of her wit.
"It seems to me that some Jews are
uncomfortable and made uncomfor
table because of their sensitiveness as
to their race. They take even per
sonal affront as an affront to their
race because they arc Jewish.
“Today, in Paris, there lives one of
the most gifted writers in the Eng
lish language. His concern over Jewish
and Zionist problms obtrude through
his novels. He has been foremots in
defending Jews from anti-Semitism,
and has become one of the most ardent
Zionists in our time because of his
resentment of the treatment he re
ceived while he was living in the United
States and teaching at one of our col
leges. But that man mistook a natural
antipathy for halitosis as a sign of an
ti-Semitism.
“Oh, it must have started before that.
Probably as a prodigy of ten, his best
friend wouldn’t tell him. He'll most
likely go through life resentfully—we
should be grateful, for the substance of
what he writes isn’t half as important
as his complete mastery of style and
form. The book which came as an out
growth of his indignation at his treat
ment when he was teaching is a classic
—we owe it to halitosis.
“There are some people who arc con
stantly in a foment about something or
other, and who have no capacity for
facts. It reminds me of an experience I
had after I had been working for
twelve years as dramatic critic for the
‘Times.’ We formed a society of ex-
Times men—incidentally, I was the sec
retary. Every so often we’d have a
dinner and have a wonderful time.
Pretty soon word got ’round to us that
Adolph Ochs was hurt because he
hadn’t been asked. It was strictly a so
cial club, and we hadn’t an idea in the
world that he’d care to come, or else we
certainly would have asked him. You
know, Mr. Ochs is a gentle, lovable,
idealistic man—the sort of man whom
his employees both love and respect.
Of course we asked him. He w’as so
glad to come, he said that he’d pay for
the dinner. ‘Nothing doing,’ we answ
ered. It was our dinner, and if he
wanted to come, he’d come as our
guest. He did come. We all had a
swell time.
“There was a reporter who got wind
of this, who had been working on the
‘Times’ for a while becaue Mr. Ochs
had been friendly with his father, or
something. Pretty soon it was printed
(Continued on Page 15)
Chaplin Makes Return Call
YOU KNOW THEM :: NO NAMES NEEDED
When Charlie Chaplin recently visited Berlin, where the populace, except for the
Hitlerites, gave him a vociferous reception, he paid a' return call on Professor
Einstein which happened to coincide with the Professor’s fifty-secend birthday.
Charlie and Albert seem to have had a good time exchanging American experiences.