Jewish Post, Indianapolis, Marion County, 11 April 1952 — Page 24

THE NATIONAL JEWISH POST

Friday, April 11, 1952

HOOKS

WILL THE BED CHAHMELS SEIM EVES FINALLY BE SQUASHED?

one of his organizationa represented “two million adherents’” He has, of course been disa vowed by virtually every import ant representative Jewish organ! zation. but this makes no differ

THJE Jt lMiKJS ANI> THK New Minsses hall in the thirties! enee to a TV executive harassed 41 IHiKIl by- Merle Miller Virtually every one of the 515 by a few- phone calls, rtoubleday, MILS* had their pareers ruined. When a The mechanism tuts not been By MKYEK 1.KV1N pair of stars like Frederic March found to control the perverted |> ECENTLY a friend of mim'. and his wife Florence Eld ridge use of such titles as rabhi and IV a writer, was suggested for report total earnings of less than reverend. a radio adventure series, $3 for the year that followed Certainly Merle Miller’s book The producer said, “Say He’s publication of this bilge, the direct gets right down to the germ and good.” And then added ‘But isn’t effect of Red Channels can be squashes the germ, Hut other

seen. germs by now haw.' been proBui the indirect effec t is im- pugated, and will we ever again measurable. For hundreds of get them under control? writers and actors and producers, Irwin Shaw’s The Troubled Air like the one mentioned itbove. seemed effective about this same have been sucked down in the matter, and yet had little real hysterical whirlpool. effect. Perhaps Miller’s book, beAnd of course the quality of big directly to the point, will get radio and TV programs have been more results. It should be spread, debased. But ail other media also in a crusade to save our culture have suffered indirectly. I know and sanity, of magazine editors who have their personal blacklist. Timidity, always characteristic in the film work!, now pervades the theatre,

too.

■JkyfFKl Ji. Miller has made an ATI investigation and report on

ne in Red Channels?’’ “No, not at aU.” said the writer's agent. The pro d u c e r was still unsatisfied, perhaps because the writer had a very obvious Jewish name i some thing like Meyer Levin). He reached into his desk for “the table of rhe air” and looked up the writer. The name was not in Red Chan

nets.

"Th. re!” said the agent. “I told

you he’s absolutely clean," the Red Channels monstrosity. “Well, m tel! you ” ruminated for th( ‘ Ameriearr Civil Liberties he produced, “what bothers me Union. It is now published as

s that he sounded as though he The an d the Judged. AOMITTKBLY, some laymen might be in Red Channels. I guess Perhaps there Is “nothing new who have risen to positions of nis name will have that effect “* fhe Red Channels prominence in the Reform Moveon other people too" b°ys said there was nothing new ment, have introduced into it And that made the writer in a what they listed; it was the many of the qualities of a wel phrase created since the notorious f ifect °f I bria « in « 11 *“ to ^ ther **** feder ^ on su .^ ^ th t ,m . a " i. in one place. whose contact with the Jewish

But there is a difference: Red institution is purely financial. Channels made no pretense of This seems to be the limit and checking the accuracy or the the extent of the identification or significance of any statement, commitment required. The syna-

ey-Mns is the spread of the The ex f .B.1. boys admit this now, gogue suffers from this type of I wave started a few years even th ^> Aie soixy so Individual as does the Jewish ago when a book called Red Chan- man T innocent people got hurt, community generally, nels was put out by three for- 1x1 iMct - one ot the ^rec got - RABBI ERIC FRIEDLAN1) mer F.BJ, agents, who listed 151 out of the hu*inew and set him- • radio and TV personalities as be- 8011 U P ^ a IHtblic relations eoun .SOMETHING will have to be origing to communist and/or ^ wit h sucb Accounts as Colum- do ne to p ro tect American Jewry ■ nmmunist peripheral organ!* *“* Pictures, selling his services f rom the civic protective agenc-

AI.IKUT

personality." So he did not get

the job

HIS is the spread of the

laiiona.

T recall one famous actress itsHd because she had been the judge of a beauty contest at a

to counteract the effects of such documents as Red Channels! (Ever heard of selling “protec

tion” in Chicago?)

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- BERNARD G. RICHARDS

•

IT IS ALL well and good to

Bui on the other side. Merle Q f religion as a great CornMiller's book is scrupulously forU . r> but religion must never checked, the work of a master ^ rt . gard ^ as a crutdh to give

reporter He, too, has brought everything into one place and perhaps the effect of it in this book will do something to restore sanity in the communication ir dustries. For he shows how the great corporations and great advertisers have let themselves become hysterical, because of the “pressure” In the form of a few dozen organized phone calls

•

TETOT the least unpleasant ele1 s| mem in this dirty, destruc live business was the work of Rabbi Benjamin Schultz, a rabbi

us help when burdens deseend. We must think of true religion as a flaming sword cutting through the selfishness and greed which prevent us from building the better world. —RABBI SAMUEL D. SOSSKZN. • THE EFFECT of "rich clubs” on the community is to “help to bring under one roof those who interfere with the improvement of Jewish life.” —DR. MQRDECAI M. KAPLAN THK ESSENCE of Judaism is

with no congregation but with religion. It is ethics. It is the a letterhead, who claimed that doctrine of good will and toler

ance. Judaism is that or nothing

THE IDEAL GIFT

9m AJ2 OttCMlMM and Age* . One-volume English edition •’

VISCOUNT HERBERT SAMUEL

I TIWSK AS I PLEASE

IT'S DOWM AGAIN; IT'S IIP AGAIN— MORE ON VICISSITUDES OF YIDDISH By CARL ALBERT . . Tr~t VERYBODY laughed when the T.V, comedian used a coupl* of IG Yiddish words everybody, that is. except my children. Ami I suddenly realized that the juicy, homey, delicious warmth of Ykf dish, with all the pungency, the richness and the emotion which it encompasses, is lor the most

twu-t lost to the young generation.

There have been prophets who long since foretold the demise of Yiddish. Dr. Leo Wiener, noted linguistic authority and author of a his lory of Yiddish literature wrote as far back as 1898 that Yiddish, “in another twenty-five years . . . will be understood in America but by few, used for literary purposes probably by none.” How could he have foreseen the rich effluorescence of Yiddish literature in the half century

which followed?

Much has been made of the numerous Yiddish words which have found their way into English as an accepted par t of our every day speech. No less an authority chan H. L. Mencken has made a study of this phenomenon. In Supplement I to “The American Language" Mencken declares that many Yiddish words came into English via the German —that is, they penetrated the everyday speech of Reich citizens who in turn introduced them to America. Over sixty years ago, Mencken says, be used to hear Orman schoolmasters in Baltimore use such words as kosher, mashuggah, raazuma and tochos, which were part of their native German vocabulary. “In the early days of Hitler the Nazis made some effort to purge German of these words,” Mencken continues, "but apparent ly it was a failure. The curious reader will find in the Mencken volume a long list of Yiddish words now common In English, as well as references to a number of articles written on the subject.

★ ★ *

OHOW business makes the most frequent use of Yiddish, not only ^ to amuse audiences, but as a part of the genuine lingo of

Broadway.

George Jessel’s autobiography. “So Help Me.” is freely sprinkled with such words and phrases. Thoughtfully he added a glossary to help the ignorant find their way through such definitions as: Tsimmis compote; in slang, a big fuss or to-do; Pisher— a slang phrase meaning fool, idiot; A fire of zay may they burn; Bashchnauskit —hazy or woozy from drink. Incidentally, my version of the latter word has always been Farschnooshkit. Who is

right?

The most authoritative studies in the field of Yiddish have been written by Prof. A A. Roback. His volume, “Curiosities of Yiddish Literature,” contains many fascinating tidbits of information from which I excerpt a few: About twelve per cent of Yiddish is of Hebrew extraction . . , Goethe learned to write Yiddish in his teens and Heine’s mothei conducted some of her correspondence in Yiddish . . . Some years ago the Boston School Committee, pressed to engage an attendance officer who knew Yiddish, appointed an Irish girL She “learned” her Yiddish, she claimed, by a few months study of a textbook which turned out to be '‘Reshis Daas,” in Hebrew. She kept the job, too! . . . The Christian Science Monitor for about two years printed a special section in Yiddish . . . Minnesota's Gentile governor (this was in 1933) Floyd B. Olson, spoke Yiddish fluently and addressed Jewish gatherings in Yiddish , . .

•

T HAVE never been impressed by claims like the latter'““Every JL politician who can mumble a few words of the language is at once hailed as a Yiddish linguist. It has never been known to hurt his reputation among Jewish voters. Whatever may be its future, there is no doubt that Yiddish has had a permanent influence on the character of American speech. I am reminded of the famous Boston law suit when, the dis tingulshed Cabot family went to court seeking to restrain Kabotch nick from changing his name to Cabot, They lost, and the follow ing parody of a popular verse made the rounds; I come from good old Boston, The home of the bean and the cod, . Where the Lowells can’t speak to the Cabois, ’Cause the Cabots speak Yiddish, by God! More on Yiddish next week,

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| Arab Paper Demurs At New Moslem League * JERUSALEM — Some Palestine Arabs are not very enthus vostic about the attempted resuscitation of the Arab League in a Pakistan-sponsored Moslem League, according to The Jeru-

salem Post.

The Post reported the editorial barbs of Falastin, Jerusalem

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MANY RUSSIAN JEWS WIN ‘STALIN PRIZE' MOSCOW- More than 200 Jews in Russia were listed as Stalin Prize winners Tor 1951, it was reported from here by The Jewish Chronicle of London. The overwhelming majority of the Jewish prize winners were mentioned lor achievements in technology and the sciences. The> — __ won first prizes In aeronautics Old City Arab daily, against the oil and coal extraction, heavy new League. machine building, transport, etc. Falastin reportedly said, "Pal- Many were mentioned in dtemi esdne Arabs were among the cal and agricultural research most optimistie when the Arab and management, league was founded, and we Relatively few were mentionused to threaten the Jew* with ed In the arts, several receiving - top awards in literary criticism, 'The new league will follow in cinematography and music, the olds footsteps, so we might None were mentioned among as well stay quiet.” the industrial foremen, workers and farmers rewarded for theii Israel has exported about efforts in increasing production three million crates of cirrus Moat were p»•jf’syore heads of fruits, more than half of Which scientific institutes or faetorv diha* gone vo England. rector*.