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Fife Twe THE SODTHEKN ISRAELITE Friday, Sept. 8, 1961 Off the Record —by Nathan Ziprin Midrash David For the past twenty-five yim David Schwartz bftsbnen witt ing a weekly column fttr the Jew ish Telegraphic Agency In the tradition of the brilliant feuille tonists of another day: Rim he has collected his sheave* into bookform under the modest title “Hainan Taschen and Roths child's Millions” when a more fitting one would have been “Midrash David.” The publishers (Twayne) de scribe the book as a collection of Jewish wit and humor, but it is more than that description en compasses, for it derives its roots not alone from folk wisdom but from sacred tome, history and human experience. Pgvid Schwartz is a keen ob server of his surroundings, of the madness about us, and he reacts to the climate not with weari some semantics in the style of the sophisticates but with a hu mor and satire that not only pierce but illuminate the theme, the midrash. Essentially a' sad person, TO NEWARK? Stay m tMw nedeee MfivtHlHy ftniUfc#4 if Tflfi ft, ftir EUGENE J. ROONEY, Managing Dir. Cswplslety At CmdMiasd wRh ladMdvl »—> Cslrsl /\l I - (i M *- - -I » WiympK MIV Card Ream Television Ra OVERLOOKING THB OCEAN. COLLINS AVS. AT SOtm ST. IV! I AM I BEACH Schwartz likes to rock himself into security to the tune of wit. Chochma, wisdom, through the ages has been a weapon of Jew ish survival, and it is brilliantly reflected in every page of the 206-page volume. There is no theme he touches to which the author does not bring an appro priate anecdote or adage. Nor is there a theme he touches that stands by itself. Always he finds strikingly original relationships to other events and persons. The volume essentially savors of folk wisdom, lore, legend and Jew ish tale, yet it is replete with erudition and history, not in the textbook but in the human sense. To every subject he touches, Schwartz introduces a paragraph, a page, a line from history and from tomes of wisdom, ancient and modern. The world to the author does not move in a vacu um, nor is it a missile that has lost its path or its links with the generations of man. There is continuity in history and in human relationships, and it is against this perspective that Schwartz pours out his wit. It would be easy to belabor this point with countless illustra tions. A few will suffice. In a column on Purim, he remarks that the Book of Esther affected American history. For a moment the reader pauses in surprise, in disbelief. But Schwartz quickly brings him out of the daze with a brilliant explanation. When ratification of the Constitution was before the Massachusetts state convention, a preacher ob jected to its adoption on the ground that it did not mention God. One of the delegates, a young lawyer, retorted that the omission was not fatal since some of the biblical books had not mentioned God either. When the stunned preacher demanded proof, the young lawyer pro duced the Book of Esther and the Constitution was of course rati fied. The men of the Midrash, he ruminates elsewhere, “seem ed to like their heroes a little earthy,” and he treats us to a salty story about a rabbi in the days of the Talmud who was so delighted at couples being mar ried that he would seek out weddings and dance with the bride in his arms to exhaustion. When one of his pupils asked him whether he might not emu- uate his teacher in that respect, the rabbi replied yes, but only if there were no sinful in ten- ions. One of the finest pieces in the book is on humility. A Jew who had sought to impress the Cha- sam Sofer with his erudition kept on professing lack of claim to learning. Whereupon the vener able Sage reminded him: “Listen, my friend, you are not so great a man as to have to be humble.” In a column dealing with She- vuoth, marking the Giving of the Law, Schwartz refers to a dia logue in a sacred tome wherein it is asked why God had chosen Mount Sinai for the historic event when there were higher and more imposing mountains in the world. He finds the answer in a Midrash which says that OPEN TILL TONIOHT If you enjoy the finer thing* in life, then you must see Lo Vista Villa*—for her* i* a blend of urban arid sub urban living that offers you the quiet and serenity ot •state living. See the furnished model apartment today La Vista Villa La Vista Road atCkeeklre Bridge 1 Resident Mgr. — ME. 4-44*7 God chose Sinai for the revela tion precisely because it was so small a mountain. God loves the humble. There isn’t a facet of human interest that Schwartz overlooks, and he brings to every theme a refreshing angle. Take Beatniks, for instance. To whom would it occur to search the Bible for a forerunner to that elan? Yet Schwartz finds one in the Bible —Samson, of whom he says he “liked to go down to the Philis tine girls in the dives and read poetry. It wasn’t exactly poetry. It was riddles really, but modern poetry is a riddle too." Here is a truly perceptive observation. The volume is replete with gems on every page. Schwartz has no literary pretensions. In his own craft, however, he is a uni que and incomparable artist with colorful and deep dimensions. Man’s path to man is through the word and its telling. And Schwartz has told the story ex ceedingly well. Report On Reform Fund Campaign NEW YORK, (JTA)—The Combined Campaign for Ameri can Reform Judaism raised a total of $2,489,000 in its 1960-61 nationwide drive for support of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations and the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, it was reported last week by Irving S. Schneider, the campaign’s executive vice- chairman. Reporting to the campaign’s national council and to the gov erning boards of the two bene ficiary institutions, Mr. Schneider noted that the 1960-61 cash total came to $152,000 more than was raised last year. The campaign head termed the cash outcome “especially gratifying in view of the fact that most of the fund raising effort was conducted dur ing the general business reces sion. For most of the year,” he noted, “gifts lagged seriously as compared with contributions the year before. It was not until late April that there was a nota ble increase in the volume and size of gifts and grants.” ’ 1 On Conn. U. Faculty HARTFORD, Conn., (JTA) — Dr. Edith Varon, former research director of the Jewish Family and Children’s Bureau of Balti more, has been appointed asso ciate professor at the University of Connecticut School of Social Work. 1 zi IM ISI to raei ““ May all your fondest withe* come true ... (or you and your dear ones and for ell of ItreeL S.S. Israel, S.S. 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