The Southern Israelite. (Augusta, Ga.) 1925-1986, April 22, 1966, Image 6

The Southern Israelite., April 22, 1966, Image 6

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Newspaper Page Textf»l« su TUB 80UTHEBN I8KABLITB Friday, April 22 ,1966 Historians Hear Analysis of Jewish Objectivity and Social Science MEMPHIS — “The Eichmann Trial dramatically revealed the curious ambiguity with which the social scientist views the Jewish people," Dr. Howard Morley Sachar declared recently at the 64th Annual Meeting of the American Jewish Historical Society in Memphis. Dr. Sachar, professor of history at George Washington University, Washington, D. C., pointed out that liberals who uncritically ac cepted the less than impartial trial and conviction of Henri Pe- tain at Paris, or the even more complex and debatable trial of Nazis by a court of conquerors at Nuremburg, suddenly became exercised by Israel’s capture and trial of Adolf Eichmann. This double standard was no longer invoked by anti-Semites, but rather by Christian friends of the Jews who require Jewish perfectionism as the surrogate for their own consciences. Even now the Jewish people and ethos is so deeply imbedded in the Christian psyche that Christian scholarship is not fully capable of treating Jews with objectiv ity. Neither, however, are Jewish social scientists, as revealed by the “near-hysterical” Jewish re action to Hannah Arendt’s book Eichmann in Jerusalem. The res ponse of Jewish scholarship to Dr. Arendt’s celebrated appraisal of the Jefcnsh catastrophe has been polemical, not objective. Reviews “responses” have sought!^redeem the “honor” of the martyred Jews of Europe— although Dr. Arendt did not im pugn that “honor,” and although she herself made clear that Jew ish “honor” requires no more de fense nor redemption than does the reputation of other terrified and passive victims of Nazism. The unhappy fact is that mod em Jewish historiography has been riddled with polemics since the dawn of modern Jewish scholarship in the early nine teenth century. Because the Jew ish people, fighting for survival, has been in a state of continual crisis, Jewish scholarship has been continually mobilized to ex plore alternatives among survi- valist movements — such move ments as Zionism, anti-Zionism, acculturation autonomism, or radicalism. As a consequence of this involvement in burning con temporary issues, the line be tween objective historiography and polemics has frequently been blurred Although now, increas ingly, American Jewish scholars are turning to the history of the Jews in America, there is still a tendency for scholarship to be come infused with polemics. The memory of — perhaps even the guilt of surviving—the European catastrophe has strongly tinctured the Jewish view of the role play ed by the American-Jewish com munity. So does the sense of ob ligation to the Jewish victims of persecution elsewhere Often, too, the freedom of action of Amer ican Jewish scholars has been limited by the national philan thropic and service agencies for which they work. Dr. Sachar declared: “Yet one must finally ask whether in this country, at long last, the circum stances of crisis are changing. It seems to me that they are, and this largely because of the im pact of the Republic of Israel upon Jewish status, self-respect, and self assurance. That impact has in large measure been res ponsible for the flowering of Jewish creativity in recent years. It is expressed not merely in the extraordinary numbers of Jews holding leading positions in the world of literature and the arts, nor even in the willingness of these people to deal with Jew ish themes. It is rather in the objectivity they bring to these themes. Neither saccharine nor pathological, their plays, novels and memoirs are increasingly pungent, self-critical, remorse lessly honest, at times acidulous in their unblinking self-apprais al.” Dr. Sachar went on to say: “I suspect that the time is nearly upon us when the Jewish intel lectual community will phleg matically accept the same clin ical and objective evaluation of the recent Jewish past that Jew ish belletrists are providing for an, admittedly, much happier Jewish present. The younger gen eration of educated Jews, the first truly secure generation in mod ern Jewish history, is less willing to permit artificial distinctions between the growing honesty and courage of Jewish aesthetics on the one hand, and the lingering polemics and special pleading of Jewish social science, on the other. Moreover, even those Jewish communal leaders who have been fearful of “washing dirty linen in public” now recognize that ob jectivity is more than the luxury of security. It is also the guar dian of security. “Every worthy Jewish agency and institution benefits when data is sound and conclusions are fearless.” In his Presidential Address, Dr. Leon J. Obermayer, presi dent of the American Jewish His torical Society, announced that that the 74-year old Society is planning to move to the campus of the eighteen year old Bran- deis University at Waltham, Mas sachusetts, during the coming year. The architects of its new build ing are Harrison & Abramovitz, of New York, who created the Master Plan of the Brandeis campus and have designed many of the buildings now on the cam pus, the Lincoln Center in New York, and many other well known public buildings. The Society has received from the Estate of the late Lee M. Friedman, of Boston, Massachu setts, a former president of the Society who was born in Mem phis, Tennessee, approximately $1,600,000, part of which is being used for building purposes. The Society will continue as an inde pendent organization, and the ground upon which the building is being constructed is being con veyed to the Society by Brandeis University. Dr. Obermayer reported that during the past year the mem bership and the income of the Society have been the largest in its history. He pointed out that the microfilming of approximate ly 70,000 documents from the New York County Archives in the Hall of Records of New York, dating from the 17th Century, has been substantially completed, many of the items having Jewish histor ical significance. A substantial part of the cost of this work was underwritten by Dr. Philip D. Sang, of Chicago, chairman of the Executive Council of the So ciety. These old records are rap idly deteriorating and unless copied promptly will be com pletely lost to the future histor- The Society, he stated, plans to undertake an important new program, which is being financed by private contributions, the pur pose of which is the establish ment of a closer relationship be tween Israeli and American his torians, under the joint sponsor ship of the Society and the Insti tute of Contemporary Jewry of the Hebrew University, Jerusa lem. In order to make the Israeli student and the American stu dent more fully aware of the Jewish history of each country, a program is being worked out for publishing American Jewish text material in Hebrew and Is raeli text material in English. This will require the editing, translation, publishing and dis tribution of existing material and the compilation of an adequate exchange bibliography for stu dents in each country in their own language. Dr. Moshe Davis, former provost of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, director of the Institute of Con temporary Jewry, and a vice president of the Amercian Jewish Historical Society, thus with ex perience in teaching in both America and Israel, states that “this project is of tremendous importance not only for its schol arly aspect, but also for promot ing basic scholarly communica tion between Americans and Is raelis.” The Society is also embarking on a new program to preserve historic monuments in the Car- ibbearg area, including old ceme teries and synagogues, particul arly in Surinam, Barbados, Cu racao, Nevis and other islands where large numbers of Jews lived in the 17th and 18th Cen turies. The Honorable Harry A. Iseberg of Chicago is Chairman of the Committee in charge of this activity. Escaped Hitler in 1933 Professor Strikes At Roots of Nazism UNITED NATIONS, (WUP)— George L. Mosse, Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin, visited the United Nations for the firsrt time this week and opened up a new hori zon of thinking among corre spondents on the question of Germany—and this at a time when Bonn is making a new bid for a return to a Big Power role in Europe. The German-bom and German- educated scholar, holding de- Times Criticized for Publishing Distorted Article on Arab Refugees bv David Horowitz UNITED NATIONS (WUP) — The New York Times came in for some strong criticism for having published a lengthy article in its March 21 issue on the Arab refugees. Written from Beirut. Lebanon, by Times correspondent Thomas S. Brady, the feature story was filled with distortions and falsifi cations. Among those who spoke up against the article here at the UN was the noted international legal authority Dr. Emilio von Hof mannsthal. who is the U. S. cor respondent for Die Furchc of Vi enna. Losing no time, the indignant Dr. von Hofmannsthal decided to let the Times know how he felt about the article and about the paper itself for allowing it self to print untruths. In a pro testing letter, a copy of which your correspondent's colleague brought to the WUP Bureau here, Dr. von Hofmannsthal pointed to some of the errors in the Brady feature. “I was amazed.” the legal ex pert wrote the Times, "to note how such a well-informed news paper such as yours could have published an article based either on ignorance or distortions like the one which appeared in your issue on March 21 on the "Arab Refugees" by Thomas F. Brady. “No responsible correspondent writing on this topic should have ignored or concealed the follow ing historic facts: “1. The Arab refugees left their country on the explicit orders of the Arab High Command which had threatened to treat them as “collaborators of the Jews” in the event they did not leave im mediately. On the other hand, the Jewish authorities implored them to remain guaranteeing their safety. Mr. Brady might have checked the declarations w'hieh the British and French Ambassa dors made in the Security Coun cil during that period in ascer taining the true facts before ven turing to write on the subject in a one-sided manner. “2. It is not true that 800.000 Arabs had left the territory of Israel, as Brady states. A study of the records reveals that the Arabs then residing in Palestine did not manlier more than 500.- 000. Of these. 100,000 stayed be hind in full safety. No single Arab source in the year 1948 had estimated the number of refugees as being higher than 400.000. To explain the physiological miracle how that number could have been quoted as being 900,000 in 1956 and currently 1.2 million, one has only to study the reports of the United Nations Works and Relief Agency for Palestine Ref ugees. (UNWRA), which contain numerous somewhat restrained complaints on the padding of the relief rolls through cheating and infiltration. ”3. I have visited several of their refugee camps and I did not find the conditions there so de grading and poor as your cor respondent makes them out to be in his article. I found the hygi enic and educational conditions far superior to any of those that obtained in their former Pales tinian villages or. for that mat ter, in most of the Arab towns today. The very fact of the con tinuous infiltration of non-ref ugee Arabs into the camps proves that these camps hold some at traction lacking in Arab villages. It might also be asked why an alleged half million able-bodied refugee workers have not been enlisted for work in improving the conditions within the camps. “4. The ‘host countries.’ as the records show, have expropriated from those Jews whom they ex pelled three times more in prop erty and funds than what the Arab refugees had left behind. Why do they not use the one third for compensating their ref ugees and refund the balance to the victims now residing in Is rael?” The Times, which publishes “all the news that’s fit to print,” may not see it fit to print Dr. von Hofmannsthal’s letter. The truth, however cannot he hidden and historic facts cannot be dis torted. Still, the Arabs in the U. S. could not have .asked for a more powerful propaganda missile than the Thomas F. Brady article. grees from Cambridge and Har vard and who has already made his mark as an authority on German Fascism with his book, "The Crisis In German Ideology,” has now completed an important anthology which in essence represents a history of the gen esis and evolution of Nazism. Entitled “Nazi Culture: Intel lectual, Cultural and Social Life in the Third Reich,” the 512-page volume dissects the Nazi-Ger man mentality and digs deeply into the sub-soil from which the Nazi poison-plant sprang and is still spreading like a strangling weed around the globe. Grosse and Dunlap plans to release the book on May 16. What makes this work so im portant and so different is that it reveals the Nazi ideology not as a chance product of a fiend ish political party but as the cre ation of all the popular culture which had preceded Hitler by decades of development of the German state in the heart of Europe. This book may contain the answer to the question people never stop asking: How could a “civilized” people like the Ger mans become the ecstatic fol lowers of a monstrous doctrine which embodied in itself the most vicious manifestation of conquest and domination through death. During the interview, Prof. Masse—who managed to get out of Germany the year Hitler came to power in 1933—warned that other states contain similar seeds of Fascism, but none, he emphasized, were so deeply- rooted and capped with the icy poison of racialism as Germany. In this connection, he pointed to the importance of distinguishing between Fascism of the Nazi vintage and Fascism which is just plain political reaction as it had been in Rumania under the Iron Guard. Because the Hitler ideology is rooted more deeply in the Ger man culture than in the mere political top-soil of the nation. Prof Mosse draws a vital political conclusion: Germany must re main divided because her reuni fication—in the face of her lingering cultural legacy—could hasten a rebirth of a Nazi Ger many. On this point, the noted scholar was adamant. Jewish Police Chief Incurs Wrath of Irish From Intermountain Jewish News Denver, Colorado NEW YORK -Sanford Garelik is the first Jew and the youngest man ever to become Chief In spector in the history of the New York Police Department. And it is the contention of his aide, Capt. Cyril R. Regan, that the controversy which has swirled around the appointment is not political, but racial. "If his name had been Sullivan or McCarthy there wouldn’t have been one-tenth the trouble," says Captain Regan. “There’s never been an Italian or a Jewish chief before. His appointment was a threat to the Irish dynasty in the department. The resentment to Garelik has been occasioned by the feeling that they, the Irish, had a vested right to these high positions.” Garelik’s appointment by New York Republican Mayor. John Lindsay, followed the sacking of the city police commissioner, who had objected to the decision to create a civilian board to review charges of police brutality. Two former police commissioners, both Democrats, have stated that Gar- eliks selection was "political.” Garelik, 47, is the son of an orthodox couple who came to this country from Eastern Em ope at the beginning of (he ren tury. After attending the University of North Carolina, he took the po ice department examination in New York. Garelik was placed m the first 300 out of 30.000 can didates. He advanced through the ranks more quickly than any one in the records of the New ^ork Police Department.