Jewish Current Issues

T. S. Eliot, Louis Zukofsky, Emilio DeGrazia

In October, Literary Hub held a symposium in honor of the 100th anniversary of the publication of T.S. Eliot’s poem, “The Waste Land,” which it called “the most important poem of the 20^th century.”

One of the participants, Jahan Ramazani, a coeditor of The Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry, noted that Eliot’s poem had impacted poets from many diverse backgrounds:

The Jewish objectivist poet Louis Zukofsky’s “Poem Beginning The,” written in the 1920s, adapts Eliot’s techniques of extensive quotation, collage, fragmentation, difficulty, and self-referentiality, playfully incorporating Jewish folk song and translations from Yiddish poetry, alongside high-cultural references, while responding optimistically to the recent Russian revolution.

I had never heard of Zukofsky, but I located a bookseller who had an 826-page book of his poetry for sale: Emilio DeGrazia, Professor Emeritus English, who taught at Winona State University from 1969-2002. The Zukofsky book is simply titled “A” and is a single poem broken into 24 chapters. 

Reviewing the book in 1976 in The New York Times, Hugh Kenner wrote that “A” was “the most hermetic poem in English, which they will still be elucidating in the 22nd century.” I found it hermetic in the sense that I was not able to penetrate it. 

But along with the book and the bill, DeGrazia send me, gratis, a lovely poem of his own, titled “What Leaves Know” (2020) -- which was worth the price of the book:

WHAT LEAVES KNOW

The power of place,

Their role

In the dazzling outcome of roots.

The art of living within view

Of the two fragrances of life,

Sun and shade.

 

The politics of free passage

For air allied to no state.

 

The turn the other cheek tactic

For storms gone wild.

How to brew the air we crave.

 

How to orchestrate

The incomparable music

Composed by anonymous winds.

 

Leaves know how to sway

And dance,

How to put their colors on,

Blaze away, be

 

Outward and visible signs

Of a big beautiful thing

Wonderfully in the way.

 

On foggy still nights

They know the atonement of sleep,

The moment to let go.

 

The poem is from, in the words of Joyce Sutphen, Minnesota Poet Laureate, "DeGrazia's marvelous new collection of poems, What Trees Know, ... they certainly picked the right poet to speak for them."

She writes that "DeGrazia is, at heart, a teacher, one whose very nature is to lead others in an ever-expanding quest for knowledge, and as in all great quests, he ends up where he began -- with family, nature and wisdom that comes from the heart."

It reminds one of the last stanza in Eliot's poem "Little Gidding" in Four Quartets: "We shall not cease from exploration/ And the end of all our exploring/ Will be to arrive where we started/ And know the place for the first time." 

Here is a video of Dr. Emilio DeGrazia: "Emilio DeGrazia: Professor Emeritus English" by Retiree Center, Winona State University

Webcast THURSDAY, AUG. 11, NOON PACIFIC (3 PM EASTERN): David Kertzer's "The Pope at War"

THE POPE AT WAR

When Pope Pius XII died in 1958, his papers were sealed in the Vatican Secret Archives. Open the vault with David Kertzer during this riveting discussion about his new book, The Pope at War.

REGISTER HERE.  

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Thursday, August 11, 2022

Noon Pacific -- 3 p.m Eastern 

Online

Based on thousands of never-before-seen documents not only from the Vatican, but from archives in Italy, Germany, France, Britain, and the United States, The Pope at War paints a new, dramatic portrait of what the pope did and did not do as war enveloped the continent and as the Nazis began their systematic mass murder of Europe’s Jews. Join author David Kertzer and AJU Board Member, Rick Richman for a jaw dropping discussion about this instant New York Times bestseller. Buy the book HERE. 

The Holocaust in a Single Short Story

Today is Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Day. Every year, Israel chooses six survivors to light torches at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem on this day, in memory of the six million who were murdered during the Holocaust.

Here is the capsule story of one of them, Shaul Spielmann, born in Vienna in 1931, deported in 1943 – twelve years old -- to Auschwitz with his family:

Shaul's name was on the list of prisoners destined for extermination, but his father Benno, who worked in the camp office as a registrar, moved it to a list of older boys, thus saving him from death. In January 1945, Shaul and the other prisoners were forced on a death march. "We walked in forests, on paths strewn with corpses. At night, the prisoners lay on the ground in the frost; by morning, some had frozen to death." After liberation he immigrated to Israel and fought in the War of Independence and subsequent Israeli wars. He worked in Magen David Adom, saving many lives.

Here is the full stunning story, set forth below so you don’t even have to click to read it.

Shaul Spielmann was born in 1931 in Vienna, Austria, the only son of Benno, an engineer at the Austrian Electric Company, and Jossefa, a pianist who ran the family-owned delicatessen.

"The day after the Anschluss in March 1938, the principal informed me and the other two Jewish students that because of the Nuremberg Laws we could not continue to study at the school. I returned home in tears. My father told had also been fired."

"Two days later, SA officers broke into our apartment. One put a gun to my head and told my father that if he did not hand over all the money, gold and valuables in the house, he would have to scrape my brain off the wall. Mother collapsed. Father gave them everything. I was terribly afraid the officer would accidentally shoot, because his finger was on the trigger."

The Germans confiscated the family's apartment and delicatessen. The family made a living from Benno's work in the Jewish community. They remained in Austria with Shaul's grandfather, who was too unwell to leave.

One night in September 1942, Shaul and his family were sent to a Jewish school that had been turned into a detention facility and from there were taken to the Terezin ghetto. About a year later, in November 1943, they were deported to Auschwitz.

"I wish I could forget the ramp at Birkenau. There, the gates of hell opened. We were surrounded by SS men with formidable dogs. Screams from the loudspeakers and bright spotlights on all sides." Elderly people, who fell onto the ramp as they exited, were trampled to death by those getting off the wagon. "It was freezing. Even the blood that had been shed froze."

Shaul's grandmother died in the camp. Jossefa became ill and was transferred to the Infirmary Block.

"I knocked on the wall and called her name until she answered me. I managed to move a wooden board and looked inside. She was a skeleton and could not get out of bed. One morning, her body was taken out on a cart."

 Shaul's name was on the list of prisoners destined for extermination, but his father Benno, who worked in the camp office as a registrar, moved it to a list of older boys, thus saving him from death. Benno was sent to another labor camp. "I saw my father among the marching prisoners. I managed to throw him a bag over the electric fence. He gestured with his fist: 'Hold on.' That was the last time I saw him." In August 1944, Shaul was selected for extermination. However, the Children's Block overseer, Viennese by birth, appealed the decision, arguing that Shaul was essential for work. Shaul was saved once more.

In January 1945, Shaul and the other prisoners were forced on a death march.

"We walked in forests, on paths strewn with corpses. At night, the prisoners lay on the floor in the frost; by morning, some had frozen to death."

 Shaul was liberated by the US Army in the Gunskirchen camp while suffering from typhus. After recovering, he immigrated to Eretz Israel (Mandatory Palestine) and volunteered for the Palmach. He fought and was wounded in the War of Independence. He fought in all the subsequent Israeli wars until the Yom Kippur War. He worked in Magen David Adom in the Negev area, saving many lives and training the younger generations.

Shaul and Myriam have seven children, 18 grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.

Andrew Pessin's "Nevergreen"

Andrew Pessin's novel "Nevergreen" -- the fictional story of a physician invited to speak at Nevergreen College, who becomes the center of a firestorm of unearned politically-correct controversy -- may remind readers of the real-life incident at Evergreen College involving Bret Weinstein, or perhaps the real-life one involving Pessin himself at Connecticut College, where he is a professor of philosophy. The main character is named simply "J" -- which may also remind readers of Howard Jacobson's novel of that name. 

But "Nevergreen" is also a remarkably well-written novel that stands on its own, as a compelling story, simultaneously satirical and serious. Its assured style is apparent from the first paragraph, where J is on his way to give the speech that will change his life:

He saw her from ten rows away, as she was coming down the aisle. The heavy bubble-themed sweater, the warm smile cast indiscriminately at the other passengers as she bobbed along. He dropped his eyes, anxiously glanced at the empty seat next to him, braced himself for the inevitable. "Good morning, friend!" the woman exuberated as she slipped her carry-on overhead and her carrion into the seat beside him.

The blurbs for this book come from such people as Liel Leibovitz of Tablet Magazine, William Jacobson of Cornell University, and Donna Robinson Divine of Smith College.

It is worth reading both as fiction and as a reflection on our real-life times. Much more information and background about the book is available at andrewpessin.com/nevergreen. Available at Amazon here. 

Did the American Military Die in Vain in Afghanistan?

Longtime readers of JCI will remember the short essay by Jordan Blashek, "The Making of a Marine," published here in 2010, five months into his four-year service commitment. The post received more comments, most of them from military personnel, than any other post in JCI's history.

Bari Weiss has just published Blashek's powerful essay, "Did My Fellow Soldiers Die in Vain?", in the wake of the loss of Afghanistan to the Taliban. Here is the beginning of the essay:

The other night, a friend texted to see how I was doing. We don’t know each other that well, but we had both served overseas in Afghanistan. We were sad — sad in a way that makes it hard to move. We felt the same way in 2014 when Fallujah fell to ISIS. That was painful too, but it taught us how to move forward. We learned that it’s just a matter of time before the stunned feeling washes away.

But then my friend sent another message. His first cousin Mike, a Marine lieutenant, had been killed in Afghanistan in 2009, and now Mike’s mother was devastated all over again. The past 72 hours had raised all those painful questions: What was it for? Did he die for nothing?

I broke down. I went into the shower and sobbed.

I’m not here to offer any political opinions or policy recommendations. There are enough of those flying around in the wake of the Taliban’s capture of Kabul, and they won’t change the conditions on the ground. They won’t help the tens of thousands of Americans and Afghan allies trapped there, hiding with their families or begging to be let into the airport.

But I do want to write to Mike’s mom, a Gold Star Mother watching all of this and wondering if her child died in vain. I want her to know what her son’s life meant to me. I want her to know what it was all for. 

Both essays are worth reading today.

Next Tuesday at Noon (Pacific): "American Jewry Today: Challenges and Opportunities"

This coming Tuesday, March 23, I will be interviewing Brandeis University Professor Jonathan Sarna, the preeminent historian of American Judaism, as part of the American Jewish University "B'Yachad" series. It's free. You can sign up for the Zoom webinar here.

 

Here is the AJU description of the event:

Brandeis University Professor Jonathan Sarna, who was named one of the most prominent historians of American Judaism by the Forward, joins AJU scholar in residence Rick Richman to discuss the current concerns and opportunities facing American Jewry today, from anti- Semitism to modern Zionism.

Monday, November 9: Kristallnacht and Jewish Disenfranchisement: Responding to Histories, Looking Forward

https://www.aju.edu/byachad-together/events/Kristallnacht-and-Jewish-Disenfranchisement-Responding-to-Histories-Looking-Forward (register at this link, no charge).

"Kristallnacht and Jewish Disenfranchisement: Responding to Histories, Looking Forward: Prof. Steven Windmueller in conversation with Rick Richman."

Prof. Steven Windmueller’s parents fled Nazi Germany in 1938. On the 82nd anniversary of Kristallnacht, the horrific night of devastation that claimed the life of Jewish communities, join him as he speaks to this moment and its effect on Jews both in America and worldwide, as well as his much anticipated volume on President Trump and American Jews.

Dr. Steven Windmueller is the Rabbi Alfred Gottschalk Emeritus Professor of Jewish Communal Service at HUC-JITR. From June of 2006 until June of 2010, he served as the Dean of HUC-JIR's Skirball Campus in Los Angeles. In March of 2009, he was appointed to the Rabbi Alfred Gottschalk Chair in Jewish Communal Service and he served in that role until his retirement.

Rick Richman is a resident scholar at American Jewish University and the author of Racing Against History: The 1940 Campaign for a Jewish Army to Fight Hitler. He graduated with honors from Harvard College and New York University Law School. He has written for Commentary, The Jewish Journal, The Jewish Review of Books, Mosaic Magazine, The New York Post, The New York Sun and other publications, and is the author of the chapter on American Zionism in What America Owes the Jews, What Jews Owe America. 

Rick Richman's essay on Kristallnacht, "One Who Fought Back: Herschel Grynszpan and the Holocaust," was published in Mosaic Magazine on April 25, 2019. His review essay on The Road to September 1939, "Could Jewish and Zionist Leaders Have Done More to Rescue the Jews of Poland?", was published in Mosaic Magazine on February 5, 2019. His essay on Ben Hecht and the Holocaust, "The Hollywood Legend Who Mobilized the English Language on Behalf of the Jews of Europe and Israel," was published in Mosaic Magazine on July 3, 2019.

Politics for the Common Good

This free webinar by American Jewish University will be broadcast on Monday, October 26, at Noon Pacific (3 p.m. Eastern; 10 p.m. Israeli time). You can sign up at the link:

https://www.aju.edu/byachad-together/events/Politics-for-the-Common-Good: 

Dr. Eilon Schwartz was invested in creating sustainable environments in Israel when he became increasingly concerned by the extreme social and political polarization and divisions he witnessed in all areas of national life. He therefore created the Shaharit Institute, a think tank and leadership incubator, that seeks to create politics that unite all aspects of Israeli society.

Join him in conversation with AJU’s scholar-in-residence, Rick Richman, to discuss the challenges Israelis face at this moment and how they might create a new national dynamic.

The Striking Parallels Between the Nominations of Louis D. Brandeis and Amy Coney Barrett

https://mosaicmagazine.com/observation/history-ideas/2020/10/what-the-first-senate-hearing-for-a-supreme-court-nominee-shows/

Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s Supreme Court nomination, and the possibility of another contentious Senate confirmation hearing, evoke the first time the Senate ever held such a hearing, a little over a century ago—when President Woodrow Wilson nominated, in the same election year in which he was running for a second term, a jurist who belonged to one of America’s religious minorities, and whose views were thought incompatible with the conventional opinions shared by the Washington establishment.

That nominee would go on to become the first Jewish justice to sit on the Supreme Court.

Continue reading here.

 

Video of "The Jewish History That Could Have Been"

American Jewish University: Holocaust Reflections -- The Jewish History That Could Have Been

A special series leading up to Tisha B'av. Jewish history could have been different. At the beginning of World War II, the leaders of the left, right and center of Zionism – David Ben-Gurion, Vladimir Jabotinsky, and Chaim Weizmann – traveled to America, a country paralyzed by isolationism, seeking support for a Jewish army to fight Hitler.

It is a little- known story of Jewish heroism and tragedy, unity and disunity -- with lessons for today. AJU Resident Scholar Rick Richman tells the story, and AJU Professor Michael Berenbaum joins the discussion of the Jewish response at the start of the darkest chapter in Jewish history -- and its current relevance. 

VIEW RECORDING.