Jewish Post, Indianapolis, Marion County, 5 January 1962 — Page 13

The Notional Jewish POST and OPINION

Friday, January 5, 1962

Synagogue % School management

ADMINISTRATION • KQUIPMENT « SUPPlIlf • Off I

TccCies Up Cudgels on "Shocking" Comment Defends Raymond Katz, Others, for Jewish Art

By Myron Schoen

A letter which appeared in the December 22nd edition of this paper prompts m" comment once again on the . ectural and art aspects of the c. jmporary Amer lean synagogue building. I wrote

but a few weeks ago that the architect Percival

[ | S Goodman and

the artist A ' 111

Raymond Katz, need no defense from me. What is more, the letter writer i n question reveals a shocking lack

Schoen of knowledge of their contributions when he refers

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to one as a “second-rate architect” and to the other as a “third-rate artist-designer”. To admire and appreciate the work of Sidney Eisenshtat of the west coast as exemplified by his design of Temple Sinai in Beverly Hills, California, does not in any way eliminate and mitigate against *he letter writer’s sin of omiss-ion or commission. To attribute Mr. Eisenshtat’s ability to design buildings which are Jewishly meaningful to his devotion to the precepts of the Torah and his involvement in Jewish life is a tribute indeed. To assume that Mr. Goodman and Mr. Katz are not as deeply committed to these precepts is to once again reveal a woeful lack of knowledge. The inspiring works of both of these men whose cudgels I have this time knowingly taken up, will refute any attacks upon them as artists and as Jews. From coast to coast there are testimonials to their greatness. Men and women by the score, Conservative, Orthodox and Reform, worship study and socialize in buildings which they have made beautiful and holy by their talents. Some are monu-

mental is size and costly in dol* All of us may find that a proper lars while other are modest in evaluation is imposeible because of

proportion and inexpensive - but each represents a part of their devotion and an expresion of their

Jewishness.

The Torah may be immutable to some of us, while to others it may not be God given and therefore subject to interpretation. However, the Jewish house of worship has most assuredly gone through a vast metamorphasis since Biblical times. One thing scholars seem to agree upon, be they Conservative, Orthodox or Reform - Jewish houses of worship and modes of art have invariably refelcted the cultures and civilizations with which they have

mingled.

This change, sometimes radical and other times subtle, is being

the stereotypes which immediately come to our mind-stereotypes created by contemporary religioustheme motion pictures and books, as well as the liability of a Jewish education limited to our childhood or at best, early teens. I found this best expressed in a book review which appeared in the New York Times of December 24th

last.

The reviewer was Martin E. Marty, associate editor of The Christian Century and the books were the “Illustrated World of the Bible Library,” published by Mc-Graw-Hill Book Company, written and edited by outstanding Biblical scholars from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. The following quotes from Mr. Marty’s

acknowledged and written about | review have, in my opinion, relemore and more. A few months; vance t 0 our su bj e et:

back I had occasion to refer in

flowing terms to a volume published by the McGraw-Hill Book Com-

“Many of the modern mythologies concerning the Bible are chal-

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pany. Edited by a Jewish historian | en g e d by these volumes. The manof note, Cecil Roth, it was titled in-the-street s picture of devils ;is “A Pictorial History of Jewish red-underweared ogres with forkArt”. This handsome volume may tails, of angels as effeminate not be the most definitive one on adolescents^ strumming harps on cellent overview of the problem folklore, opera and the cartoon, we are dealing with and should devils and angels did caution one not to make hasty abound in the Palestinian, Mesojudgements on the Jewishness of potamian and Greco-Roman milicontemporary artists and archi- j eus > l )U t such creatures surely

have a right to appear in the authentic guises of men’s ancient imagations. What appears in “The Library” turns out to be even more dramatic than most of us would |

have anticipated.

tects.

Schwartz’s GOODMAN BROS.

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“Readers whose picture of tha world of the Bible is based upon the portrayals of moderns with pasted-on beards and cheap bathrobes will be forced to make drastic revisions of their views of Bibical lore. . . They do not care for the Williamsburgs (Virginia not Brooklyn) of Palestine. . . Inevitably the movement is from religion to history to esthetics. A great barrier to recent Biblical study is the Sabbath school and Sunday school picturization of Bibical heroes. Samson is made to look like a matinee idol; the Lord (someone has said), like Lord Fauntleroy.^ Real life is more cluttered, more messy, more violent, more ecstatic than most religious art would suggest.” To use Mr. Marty’s well turned phrase, the great barrier to an understanding, appreciation and further development of a more meaningful architectural and art form in American Jewish life, is the fact that most of its critics come to their task armed with a background limited to a few years of Jewish education and most of that back in their childhood. We need more men like Eisenshtat, Goodman and Katz whose practice of Judaism may vary in form but is constant in a most important sense - that of constant practice. Rabbi's Grandson Born Circumcised The odds were 2,000 to one against it. But it happened. The grandson of a London mohel was born already circumcised! The child’s grandfather — Rev. J. Davidson — was called to Birmingham last week by his son to perform the Brit Milah for the baby. Rabbi Davidson was amazed to find that the child—Ashley Simon — didn’t need the operation. He had been completely circumcised since birth. It was necessary for Rabbi Davidson to make only a slight incision to comply with the Milah Law.

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