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Friday, September 18, 1M»
OFF THE RECORD—By Nathan Ziprin
Sir Jacob Epstein
When Jacob Epstein was born
on Hester Street some seventy-
eight years ago, New York’s
lower East Side was first in the
process of becoming a Jewish
bastion in America and an m-
telectual reservoir that was to
produce artists and writers and
jurists and men of science who
were destined to make a pro
found imprint on every facet of
American civilization. The peak
of Jewish immigration from
Eastern Europe was still almost
a quarter of a century away,
and Jewish life on the East Side
had barely begun manifesting
the symptoms of the picturesque
pattern it was to assume.
The immigrants had been im
pelled to the new world by its
promise of freedom and security.
The Czarist whip was sharp, the
wrath of the pogromists was
over the lands and the open
gates of America were beckon
ing with new promise. They
severed roots, the immigrants,
and rapidly they strove to be-’
come part and parcel of the new
pattern. Beard and peoth van
ished and kerchief over femin
ine head. They worked on the
Sabbath, the men, some out of
sheer revolt and others in silent
and sad submission to a new
reality. There was a price to be
paid for freedom and security.
Was tradition and ritual and
heritage and ancestry to be
sacrificed for that acquisition?
The answer to the question was
left to a riper Jewish communi
ty.
The Jewish community of the
East Side in the early days of
Jacob Epstein—who was to die
Sir Jacob—was in too formative
and fluid a state to cope with
such problems. The Jewish immi
grants who peddled their wares
on Hester Street were too pre
occupied with immediate prob
lems of settlement and aajust-
ment to think of the future. The
atmosphere could hardly have
been said to bd conducive to in
tellectual and artistic creativity.
This could very well have been
the moving force behind Ep
stein’s compulsion to settle in
Europe. Let it be said, however,
that Epstein was genuinely in
love with the East Side, so much
so that when his parents decid
ed to move to Harlem, most co
veted area of the time, he re
fused to join them.
Epstein, it seems, had more
than a nostagic hankering for
the East Side. Surely his artistic
intuition must have prompted
him that the bare' soil of his
cradle was now growing rapidly
into an intellectual and artistic
edifice. He had been in London
only two years when he return
ed for a visit to his old haunts.
This was in 1907, the year of
one of his great achievements.
The Queen of England had pur
chased his bronze “Head of an
Infant,” and, with royalty as his
patron, Epstein’s fame catapult
ed to new heights. It was not
long after this that he was com
missioned to do sculptural dec
orations on a new building of
the British Medical Society. His
nudes shocked the British pub
lic and critics and he at once be
came the simultaneous object of
vituperation and adulation. Since
then, and until his very death
some weeks ago, he remained
the century’s most controversial
figure. But had he remained a
few years longer in London be
fore returning to the United
States he would have seen on
the East Side what he then only
sensed. The confused immigrants
of his day now had a clarity of
purpose. The wifeless immigrants
were now heads of families.
And those who had left wives
and children abroad had already
cleared their debts on steamship
tickets. The streets on the East
Side were beginning to flower
with youngsters. The immi
grants had not yet shed their
old tongues, but neither were
they now their only instru
ments of expression. The Jew
ish map that was the Blast Side
had begun taking on color and
character. The early wanderers
from the well were now trek
king back. Freedom and securi
ty no longer meant submergence
to the stfeam.
When Epstein was bom there
wasn’t a single Yiddish daily in
New York. Young Jacob was fitfe
when his father bought the
first isue of the Tageblatt in
1885. Now, in 1907, there were
several Yiddish newspapers. Had
he waited a few years, ne would
have found a great transforma
tion in the character of the new
Immigration. The early comers
were escapees from Czarism and
service and very often deserters
from debt and obligation. Now
there was a new element coming
to the shores — intellectuals,
scholars, scribes, artists, scient
ists, poets and professionals.
Even the pious were arriving
now And there occurred a re
markable transplanting of Jew
ish life. Values began taking on
their rightful place.
Before long, the East Side be
came a great spiritual and cul
tural reservoir. It became a
piece of Warsaw, Vilna and Jeru
salem, too. Synagogues thrived
alongside secular institutions of
learning and art. The influence
of the rabbinate and the intell
ectual laity was beginning to be
felt. Yiddish found new roots
and erupted into a vitality and
'renaissance whose upshot on
American soil was a literature
unexcelled in the history of
Jewish peregrinations and un
matched by many modem and
ancient tongues. The leavening
process was on and its yield was
men of the pen and of tome.
What the course of Epstein’s
artistry would have been under
the warm glow of those skie3,
now unfortunately considerably
obliterated, is within the realm
of conjecture. Yet it is perti
nent to ask, now that he has
become of the artistic ages,
whether Sir Jacob Epstein, the
Knight of Hester Street, was a
Jewish artist.
Epstein may well have re
jected the cognomen “Jewish
artist," for his stveep was truly
wide, yet his themes are often
drawn from sacred scripts, be
traying an artistic mobility re
miniscent of Moses drawing
living water from stone with
cane.
Sir Jacob now reposes amidst
trees in a Christian cemetery,
yet Hester Street mourns its
most illustrious son even thuogn
in the end he silenced its tongue
for kaddish.
Southeast Camping Group Selects
Herman Popkin as New President
WASHINGTON — Albert Z.
Elkes, 39, has been appointed na
tional director of Membership
for B’nai B’rith.
Mr. Elkes has been assistant
director of the department since
joining the national staff in
1949. He succeeds the late Max
N. Kroloff, formerly of Atlanta.
AUGUSTANEWS
Mr. and Mrs. Simon Morris of
Valdosta, spent Labor Day week
end with Mrs. Dora Smolen and
family.
Mrs. Murray Schulman was in
charge of the Hawaiian dinner
dance held at the Y.M.H.A. Rec
reation Center last weekend.
Sheila Bogo and Margie Blank
spent a few days recently in
Savannah and Charleston visit
ing friends.
Mrs. Ethel Cohen, Mrs Sara
Dietz and Mrs. Dora Smolen
visited friends and relatives in
Atlanta recently.
Ex Nazi Loses
Editors Post
In Germany
HAMBURG, (JTA) — Four
editors of “Krystall,” one of the
most widely-circulated picture
magazines in West Germany,
have won their fight against the
appointment of a former Nazi
diplomat to a key post on the
publication.
Axel Springer, the magazine’s
publisher, announced that Dr.
Paul Schmidt, had “voluntari
ly” resigned as political editor of
the publication. The four editors
had refused to work with
Schmidt and had threatened to
resign if he remained a member
of tne staff.
Schmidt, a former official in
the Nazi Foreign Office under
Joachim von Ribbentrop, had
been effected quietly, for the first
a major role in the deportation
of Jews from Hungary in the
summer of 1944. He was the
author of a memorandum to the
Nazi Ambassador in Budapest
which outlined preparations to
be made for the large-scale de
portations and measures to fore
stall any outcry in the free
world.
“We must prepare the forth
coming large-scale action against
the Budapest Jews by inciting
incidents of sabotage and revolt,
he directed the envoy. He said
explosives should be planted in
synagogues and Jewish com
munity buildings “so that the
enemy will not be able to shout
about German cruelty."
menu
Herman M. Popkin, Atlanta,
co-founder and director of Blue
Star Camps, Hendersonville, has
been elected president of the
Southeastern Section of the
American Camping Association.
The Atlantan,
widely known
throughout the
South for his
service as di
rector of the
Southern Zion
ist Youth Com-
mission, as
well as his
Blue Star As-
aociations, was
Herman Popkin chosen at the
camping group’s annual fall con
ference held last weekend in
Hendersonville.
He succeeds Ellen Hume Jer-
vey of Charleston and Camp
Rockbrook, Brevard, N. C.
Other officers elected by rep
resentatives of the private and
agency summer camps in at
tendance include:
Vice presidents — Wyatt Tay
lor, Raleigh, director of the
YMCA Camp Sea Gull, Arapha-
hoe, N. C., and J. O. Bell Jr.,
BY HENRY LEONARD
*’Me join a Temple, Sam, for what purpose? My daughter
was married at the Chateau, my son will be Bar-MJtzvah
at Hotel McAlister . . . and when I pass on, there are a
dozen mortuaries eager to do the job."
^•pr fIM, Lf*r4 tnnkf
New Director
For Hillel
WASHINGTON — A rabbi
whose ministry for nineteen
years has been the college cam
pus today was named national
director of the B’nai B’rith Hillel
Foundations.
Rabbi Benjamin M. Kahn, 46,
who joined the B’nai B’rith Hil
lel staff in 1940 as director of the
foundation at Pennsylvania State
University, will assume overall
direction of the cultural and re-
lgious programs for Jewish stu
dents conducted by B’nai B’rith
on the campuses of 214 colleges
and universities in the United
States, Canada and abroad. His
appointment was announced by
Dr. William Haber of Ann Ar
bor, Mich., chairman of B’nai
B’rith Hillel \Commission.
Rabbi Kahn, who was ordained
in 1938 by the Jewish Theologic
al Seminary of America, will
take over his new duties here
September 1. He succeeds Dr.
Judah Shapiro who resigned sev
eral months ago.
A native of Lowell, Mass.,
Rabbi Kahn was graduated from
Harvard College and did gradu
ate work at Columbia Universi
ty while simultaneously prepar
ing for the rabbinate at the
Seminary. Follbwing his ordina
tion he served for two years as
assistant rabbi of Anshe Emet
Synagogue in Chicago before en
tering Hillel Service.
While at Penn State he held
faculty rank as a lecturer In
Hebrew. Until his recent appoint
ment, he retained the Hillel post
at Penn State for all of his 19
years on the campus, except for
a one-year leave in 1944 when he
successfully established a Hillel
foundation at McGill University
in Montreal.
Rabbi Kahn is married and
has two children. His headquar
ters will be in the B’nai B’rith
Building here.
Camp
N. C.; secretary — Mrs. Wyatt
Taylor, Raleigh, Camp Sea Gull;
treasurer—Dr. Taylor Dodson,
Wake Forest College, Winston-
Salem, director of the Future
Farmers of America Camp,
White Lake N. C; executive
secretary—William H. Waggoner,
Camp Windy Wood, Tuxedo.
Over 300 camp directors, lead
ers and staff are affiliated with
the Southeastern Section.
Aboab
This is another in the series
of Covenant Books published by
Farrar, Straus and Cudahy and
the Jewish Publication Society.
It is ostensibly for children ap
proaching teen-age and those
just in this category. At the risk
of admitting something, although
we do not know exactly what,
we found the volume fascinating.
Well-written, charming, direct
without persiflage or hidden in
nuendo or psycne of any sort,
the book tells the account of the
first rabbit of the Americas. The
pace swept us along with great
interest and the way of life the
author details is auite edifying.
Rabbi Aboab, a Dutch hanam,
accompanies a group of Jews
from Amsterdam to Racife, a
colony in Brazil, at the invita
tion of the first American Jew
ish congregation.
It is a worthy book for chil
dren and young people and their
parents too can read with ad
vantage.
Emily Hahn the writer has
had quite an adventurous and
peripefetic life herself. Born in
St. Louis, she secured degrees
in science and mining engineer
ing, no less. She spent seven
years teaching at a university in
Hongkong and was there when
the city fell to the Japanese. She
is now living in England with
her husband, a major, and their
two children. She has written
“The Soong Sisters,” “China to
Me” and several children’s books.
She contributes often to the New
Yorker.
—ADOLPH ROSENBERG
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