Molnar Denies He Has Abandoned Judaism

I have not abandoned Judaism, Franz Molnar, the famous playwright, has declared here, contradicting the reports appearing in a number of papers recently that he has left the Jewish faith. I am a Jew, he said, and I shall remain a Jew. The worse things become for the Jews, the more I shall stick to my Judaism. I have two burdens to bear-my Jewish birth and the burden of being a Hungarian, although according to the Hungarian race purists, I am not a Magyar, notwithstanding the fact that my grandfather fought in 1848 for Hungarian liberation. I claim to be a Jew. I stand firm by my Judaism, even if this is no recommendation in present-day Hungary, and perhaps not in other countries either. But it is a question which does not affect my writing. Literature is apart from it.

So far as the Jews in America are concerned, Molnar, who was recently in America, said, it is very natural that they act as self-conscious Jews. Jewish feeling cannot be so outraged in America as it is frequently in Europe. America would not tolerate it for a moment if Jews were presented on the stage as clowns and made the butt of foolish jokes. Any play of such a character would be hooted off the stage. not by the Jews but by the Christians. Here in Budapest, the Jews act in a way as if they were highly amused by the anti-Jewish jests and insults which are heaped into the revues and operettas. If you tell me that Jewish writers, as, for instance, Shalom Ash, also condemn certain Jewish traits, I reply that that is perfectly in order. He regards himself as belonging to national Jewry, and he has a right to do it, as every great writer has the right to rebuke his own nation and thus to lead it into better ways.

When Franz Molnar celebrated his fiftieth birthday last October, he also declared, “I was born a Jew and I shall remain a Jew.” He received messages of congratulation from all over the world, and the French Government conferred on him the Order of the Legion of Honor. The Hungarian press praised him as one of the greatest play-wrights of modern times, ranking with Bernard Shaw, Gerhardt Hauptmann, Pirandello and John Galsworthy. At the triumphal arch which was erected outside his home by his admirers throughout the world. there was also a Jewish guard of honor representing Hungarian Jewry.