In 1925 Mr. Waldo Frank described himself as “a Jew to whom the term has an increasing import.”
Eight years later, writing in the New Republic on “Why Should the Jews Survive?” he promises a book on the problem of Jewish survival—”if he lives long enough to become a Jew.” At the rate he is traveling, and considering the definite limitations which a cruel fate has placed upon the length of human life, we are afraid that he may never get to write his book.
Mr. Waldo Frank is now 44, old enough, according to rabbinic reckoning, to have reached the “age of understanding.” Yet he is still undecided whether he is a Jew or not. His approach to Jewish life through the years of his active literary career during which he found time to make scholarly studies of Latin America, of Mexico, of Peru, of Chile (though not of Palestine), to visit “Virgin Spain”, to take part in the “Re-discovery of America” and to see the rise of “Dawn of Russia” (though not in Zion), has been so tentative, so casual and so condescending that to this day many Jews do not know whether Mr. Frank is a Jew or not. In fact he does not seem to know himself….
We do hope that before the allotted terminus of three score years and ten will have been reached, Mr. Frank will be in a position to announce to the Jewish world, so long held in breathless suspense, that he has finally decided to cast in his lot with this leaderless, functionless, moribund but somehow inescapable people—the Jews. Those of us who will still be living at that time will welcome him with the traditional Jewish excess of joy at the return of a prodigal—and all our troubles will be over.
We shall be content to wait, albeit in suppressed excitement, for his book, provided Mr. Frank will forego in the future the temptation to anticipate himself by such random and fugitive articles like the one recently published in the New Republic. They are disenchanting hors d’oeuvres. They destroy the glad anticipation of a rare, new and delectable dish which the promise neatly implies. Frankly they suggest the staleness and sourness of old hash warmed over by the pale flame of a new philosophic “pilpul.”
Even the technique which Mr. Frank employs in his article is distinctly reminiscent. It recalls the technique which so many Jewish intellectual revenants employed when, for a few years after the War, they blustered upon the American Jewish scene. It is not difficult to summarize this technique.
(1) Deny categorically that there is “anything alive in contemporary Jewry.” That sets you up at once as objective and prophetically courageous. Goyim, especially, are impressed—and delighted—with such exhibitions of racial flagellation.
(2) Castigate and make sport of all present Jewish leadership. That will show how much you have been missed.
(3) Brush aside contemptuously all that has gone on before or that is going on now in the many movements in Jewish life—nationalism, religion, Zionism, education, art, literature, communal organization, etc.—all the groping and experimentation, all the earnest wrestling with the problem not of “Why Jews Should Survive” but “How?” in which hosts of thoughtful men and women are daily engaged and write it all down as worthless and misguided. This will exalt you above the commonplace and will clear the decks for your own epochal pronouncements.
(4) In your wholesale exposé of Jewish life, make sure never to include yourself in the category of those condemned. Never acknowledge any share in group responsibility. Never beat your own breast and say “mea culpa.” Never say our sins, our backsliding, our decadence, but always and in stern and righteous anger denounce your or their materialism, corruption,
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
