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Prominent But Not Eminent American Jewry
An Interview with One of Americas
A MERICA likes to classify its citizens. Like
the parts in an automobile. It fears those
who step out of their assigned cubicles.
The process is part of the domination of the ma
chine, its relentless disregard of individuality, its
bland avoidance of the human element.
I could affix to Dr. Abraham Rongy the identi
fication as one of the most distinguished gynecol
ogists in the United States. I should thereby be
paying homage to the passion for classification
without in any sense describing the man or con
veying the individuality of his mind. What mat
ter that patients respect him and fellows hold him
in awe! That merely transcribes the technique
of the man and not his content. The sophisticated
reader, bred on Fishbein’s medical follies and
Clendenning’s derision of the human body, will
smirk that the physician has only a dim grasp of
his own sphere and that all the rest is darkness.
Perhaps that is the average medico, his mentality
fashioned by the sickly grin of professional solic
itude, his straightforwardness tempered by the
need to be politic, sparing, kindly. Hut Rongy has
the swift incisiveness of the surgeon, is marked by
the uncompromising probing and ruthless cutting
away of false tissues.
To describe Rongy’s views on Jewish life would
merely dilute them. He speaks for himself. But
not with the kindliness of the bedside manner. A
career which has carried him upward on the med-
cal horizon has not torn his moorings from the
world at large. He not only observes Jewish life;
he is deeply a part of it. His evaluations are the
product of contact and not the Olympian disdain
of the outsider.
At a time when Jewish destiny seems so woe
fully entangled, what forces operate to unravel
the complexity and to point in the direction of
simple clarity? Rongy, a substantial figure in the
major movements in American Jewry inspects the
scene and concludes that Jewish leadership is an
aspiration and not a tangible fact. “Shlisshi-
chaser” is the vigorous Anglo-Hebraic epithet
which he has coined to describe the mad scramble
for pomp and power of those who try to rise to
glory on the rungs of Jewish opportunity.
“American Jewish life abounds in prominent
men but we have no eminent men. The leader
ship with which we have thus far been graced is
the symbol of outward .accident and not inner
power. Social or financial or theological success
has been transformed into communal capacity;
craftiness and adroitness play an important role in
the rise of Jewish leadership. It is a leadership
which has been imposed from without; it has not
been the spontaneous expression of natural dom
inance. The result is aimless, inept and irre
sponsible guidance. American Jewry is a vast hulk
drifting nowhere because its pilots are nitwits or
adventurers.
“Rarely, among the men with whom allegedly
rests the destiny of the Jewish people is there to
be found that inner grace and polish which are the
product of confident judgment. Vulgar and un
disciplined, few are able ever to abandon their own
ego. It is what they derive, not what they can
give that distracts their attention.
“It is this spectacle of ruthless quest for per
sonal aggrandizement or pitiful unawareness of
goal that is held up to edify the younger genera
tion of Jews. Our intellectuals are repelled. Not
for them to touch the hem of crudity and lust.
They seek other fields for their eager minds, other
[8]
Distinguished Physicians
By HENRY MONTOR
In this frank and unequivocal interview, which, we
predict, will create a sensation because of ^ its con
tent, Dr. Abraham J. Rongy, one of Americas out
standing medical scientists, gives his views on Jewish
leadership, Jewish religion, Zionism, Russia a
host of other topics of interest to every thinking
Jew. This interview is particularly timely as Dr.
Rongy has just been named chairman of the com
mittee preparing a celebration of the fiftieth anni
versary of Jewish press and literture in the United
States.
Dr. Abraham J. Rongy
channels for their pulsating energies. When Jewish
life, as epitomized in its leaders, reeks with vul-
garianism and impotence, how expect it to transfix
the ambition of young men nurtured on social
idealism ?”
It is not difficult to think of names as Rongy
talks. Without bitterness but rather with a sigh.
Who is this man who stands ready to face the
blasting rebuke of those he condemns? Hut Rongy
is one of those laymen who have penetrated be
yond the veil of public adulation. Not for him to
stand with head bowed as the populace applauds
frantically the antics of its favorite demagogues.
His stinging indictment will serve like a lightning
conductor to bring down the stroke on his head.
Hut he speaks the voice of the generation which is
forsaking Jewish life, seeking its hope and its
anchor elsewhere.
^ es, there was a time when Jewish leadership
displayed itself. It was in the early days of the
labor movement, when tens of thousands of im
migrants swept into the land and offered to their
leaders a problem of adjustment and integration
that was unparalleled. A man like Abraham
Cahan and his associates. They provided direc
tion; they gave strength; thev imparted vitality.
I nder their masterful craftsmanship a race of
Jews was transplanted to America and given a
new creed and a new outlook to displace the up
rooted values of Eastern Europe. In the transition
period these Jen's in the labor movement gave
every sign of intuition and sympathetic understand-
ing. They sensed a problem, coped with it. solved
it. By comparison with what was accomplished
in that domain, Jewish leadership of
geoisie is a dull imitation.
“Wherever we look today in American Jewish
life we see disorganization, dismay, aimlessness.
Orthodox, conservative, reform Jewries. Divided
by dogmatic barriers, but undifferentiated other
wise. The leaders of orthodoxy are uncouth, un
cultured. Reform is struggling in the quagmire
of self-deception. However, both orthodoxy and
reform have a semblance of direction. But con
servative Judaism is an epicene creation, addin j
nothing, provoking nothing.”
One naturally concludes that desiccation is the
answer. But Rongy, though offering no panacea,
finds a ray that penetrates the black doubt.
“Jewish life in the United States can be active
and can survive only if it is bound up with Zion
ism. For Zionism creates within the Jew a con
sciousness that some place, somewhere he can lead
a normal life, where the complexes of both supe
riority and inferiority will be dissipated. Without
that driving urge of nationalism, the hope for
Jewish continuance is a self-delusion. There i»
not enough in Judaism as a pure religion to keep
the Jew from being torn away by the vigorous cur
rents of modern life.
“We merely amuse ourselves with fancies when
we refuse to recognize the drift away from
Judaism. By that I mean the Judaism of ritual,
ceremonial, the Judaism which linked a nation in
the ghetto but which has not the inner strength
to resist the battering of the new scientific out
look, the consciousness of the dark elements in
man’s religious background.”
This man, talking calmly and systematicaliy,
was not merely deriding those Jews who strev>
their religious identification. He was not juxtapos
ing nationalism and universalism. He was que>
tioning the necessity for Judaism as a religion.
For him Jews are inextricably bound by thei:
racial comradeship. In common with other ad
vanced people, they are shedding the trappings m
bygone ages. That is his belief. But how justify
the continued existence of the Jews as a separan
phenomenon ?
“Those who say that the Jew has a peculiai con
tribution to make to world culture are merelv
voking colorful phrases. There is nothing t
the Jew has done in modern times that his ntig
bor cannot do. The passion for peace? > u t!
there are other men who have achieved greater
progress for pacifism. Why should Jews
and delude themselves with grandiloquent ora
tions on ‘culture’ and ‘civilization? Ilu\ a t 1
part of the mechanism of the world, sharing ■
defects and its virtues, but not in disproportion.
“Jews must and will exist as Jews becaiw -
world is not prepared for that eventful am a g ,un ‘
tion of which the prophets so glowing 1\ P r ‘ 11 ' ‘
As long as the world thinks in terms of natl<, ^‘.
ism, so long will the Jews be forced
their identity. Only in that fashion can a .
as an individual express himself. I he "
not permit him any other channel of de\ ' ’ A
It is, therefore, important that he integral
self in his people, align himself with then ^
efforts to stabilize themselves as a comm ^
excommunicating himself from his group. ^ ^
cuts himself off from the normal and na
of individual progress (Please turn
* THE SOUTHERN I SR-