The State Prize awarded last October to the famous Jewish writer, Max Erod, whose recent book “Reubeni, Prince of the Jews”, created a literary sensation, should be withdrawn, because he is a Jew, and the jury which awarded him the prize includes two Jewish members, Deputy Schollion, a Hitlerist member of Parliament, demands in an interpellation addressed to-day to the Minister of Education and Fine Arts, and supported by a number of other antisemitic Deputies.
Max Brod’s “Reubeni, Prince of the Jews” deals graphically in part with the terror which antisemitism is able to spread among a Jewish population. There is one scene, something very similar to which was enacted very recently in Lemberg, when after the serious anti-Jewish outbreak of 1929, following the passing of a Corpus Christi procession, which it was alleged some Jewish students had mocked at from a window, an appeal was published in all the Jewish papers, calling on the Jewish population to shut their shops and keep their windows closed while the procession passed to avoid any recurrence of the outbreak.
In Max Brod’s book, the incident described occurs in medieval Prague. Hirsohl is shown shutting all the windows, examining the window catches, pulling the children over to the opposite wall and standing them in a row with orders not to move. “Outside they were singing a choral and waving church banners. Boys with lighted candles and incense burners led the procession, and a mob of people followed. In the centre was a priest carrying the monstrance. Ever since, on a similar occasion, the rumour had gone abroad that Jewish children had thrown sand at the sacred vessel as it was borne past the wall on the way to a sick person- a rumour which resulted in the invasion of the Ghetto by the townspeople and the murder of a thousand Jews – the Jewish Council had given strict orders that all windows facing the Christian Town must be kept closed and all the streets and gateways in the vicinity empty on the approach of priests and processions”.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.
