Novels I read years ago deeply moved me because the villian was “sent to Coventry” or the misguided girl was branded with the “scarlet letter.” Later in life I sat in on a Zionist meeting and heard on excited rabbi demand that a “Charem” (excommunication) be proclaimed for another rabbi who had expressed heterodox opinions.
I thought the excited rabbi was funny. “Coventry,” the “scarlet letter” and the “Charem” were, to my mind, punishments so wildly exaggerated and so out of proportion to the crimes committed by my villain, the girl and the rabbi.
I myself felt immortal because I knew of no crime for which I could cry excitedly for the excommunication of a fellow being. There were always possibilities, explanations which mitigated in my mind against the culpability of the “criminal.”
But in the case of this man whose name I leave blank, there are no excuses, no justifications To mention his name would be to serve his purposes. He craves the mention, any mention which brings him to the attention of the curious–for therein lies his profit. For years he thrived on the sale of pornographic literature. He is one of those salacious minded individuals who never owned a friend and never will. He hobnobbed with society’s derelicts and outcasts–who in turn despised him.
Now this pariah, a Jew by birth only, publishes a book on Jews the filthiest, most contemptible on slaught against the Jews.
We cannot pity him. There is no mitigating excuse. The book is insincerity itself. The author has no convictions.
Eking out a meagre existence for years from his preying on society, this scavenger saw what he thought was an opportunity to “sell.” He visualized all Jewry up in arms, the press protesting his treachery and viciousness, and the curious buying.
It requires no ten men and a ceremony to declare a “Charem” on this outcast Silently but most effectively, this man has been put beyond the “pale.”
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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.
