Fernando de Los Rios, Minister of Public Instruction in the Spanish Republic, has won a little attention in the international press through the circumstance that it was he, on behalf of the Spanish government, who extended to Dr. Albert Einstein the invitation to accept the chair of Research Professor of Science at Madrid University.
But Dr. de Los Rios deserves a place in the calendar in his own right. A little anecdote extracted from the story of his checkered career illustrates the uncertainties in individual and in national life.
About seven months before the good-natured Alfonso XIII was shooed out of Spain, Fernando de Los Rios was a member of the Socialist party and a professor of philosophy at the University of Granada. Marvin Lowenthal, author of “A World Passed By,” was then passing through Granada and called on Prof. de Los Rios. He found him in a state of extreme discouragement. There was no hope for a republic. The Spanish people, he said, neither liked nor disliked Alfonso. There might be a chance for a republic after Alfonso had died peacefully in his royal bed in Madrid, but not before. As he spoke, Mr. Lowenthal observed him taking books down from his shelves, putting some back, taking others out, apparently undetermined how many of his books to extract from his shelves for the armchair pile. Mr. Lowenthal asked him what he was doing. Prof. de Los Rios replied: “You see, I expect to go to prison soon and I don’t know how many books to take because I don’t know for how long I’ll be sentenced.” Prof. de Los Rios never went to prison. Seven months later he was Minister of Justice in the Republic of Spain.
During a Recent ocean crossing, Zalman Schneur, the poet, ventured beyond the passenger lines and ascended the gangway leading to the captain’s bridge. A common seaman approached the Hebrew poet and politely indicated that passengers were not permitted on the bridge and wouldn’t he be good enough to get off. M. Schneur deigned no reply, drawing up himself and his beard. Next a petty officer approached and repeated the seaman’s request. Still M. Schneur deigned no reply. Finally, the captain himself appeared and said: “I am sorry, monsieur, but you will have to get off; this is the captain’s bridge.” Whereupon M. Schneur drew himself up even more haughtily, saying: “You don’t seem to realize, monsieur, that you are addressing the greatest living Hebrew poet.”
“I am sorry, Monsieur Bialik, but the rule applies to all; you will have to get off.” A right smart captain!
Which is cousin to another story. At a studio party some years ago the young Joseph Schildkraut was engaged in the business of making an impression, so to speak, on a personable young lady. “Surely, you know who I am; my name is Joseph Schildkraut.”
“Yes, indeed,” said the bright young thing; “you are the son of the actor.”
Dr. Paul Schwarz, German consul in New York until about two weeks ago, had the honor to be the first German official stationed abroad to be booted out of office by Adolf Hitler, unless we except the German Ambassador at Washington, Dr. Friedrich Wilhelm von Prittwitz und Gaffron, who as an enemy of the Hitler regime, had the grace to resign. It seems to us that Dr. Schwarz’s protestations against the Hitler regime would have struck a more sincere note if they had accompanied his resignation, instead of following, as they did, his dismissal, for diplomatic procedure apart, he was fired. As a dubious servant of the German State, he had been compelled, some time ago, to outshout the delegation of protesting Communists who marched on the consulate and uttered harsh words about Hitler. But as a private citizen, let it be remembered, he entertained Professor Albert Einstein, and in justice to Dr. Schwarz, it must be said that he realized what that hospitable gesture might involve.
Dr. Schwarz is a solidly built, bristle-haired and bullet-headed German, a model almost for the Germans who sit for French and English caricaturists. He has a reputation for a thick hide and a quick wit. It is to Hendrik Willem Van Loon, the Dutch-American historian, biographer and illustrator, that we are indebted for the following story.
Shortly after the war, Dr. Schwarz was assigned, as consul, to a community in which Germany was, as a recent enemy nation, in very bad odor. Within a year, however, he had become the most popular foreign representative in that community. The method by which he turned potential enemies into actual friends—remember we are quoting Van Loon—was manifested in his first repartee to the first hostile remark addressed to him upon his arrival:
“Why didn’t you come here sooner? We’ve been three months without a German consul.”
“Well,” replied Dr. Schwarz, “it took them that time to find someone with a skin thick enough for this job. That’s why they sent me.”
A Writer of international reputation who has taken his Jewishness as a matter of course all his life made what seems to me a very penetrating remark on the case of Ludwig Lewisohn, the critic and novelist who, in his middle years, has found in Jewish history and in the Jewish spirit the integrating principle of his life and work.
Said this writer, whose identity we are compelled to conceal:
“Ludwig Lewisohn all his life has tried to join something. In his youth he joined the Methodists, and then discovered that he was not a Methodist. Now he is joining the Jews because he cannot stand alone.”
Well, if one must join something—and few men are born to stand alone—is it not better for a Jew to discover that he is not a Methodist, or Persian sun-worshipper, or the disciple of an Arabian rain god early in life rather than have him turn away from Judaism in his prime to a faith really alien to his bones because of spiritual discomfort with Judaism? Which is to say that if a Jew cannot remain a Jew all the time and must learn his Judaism only to the extent that he discards his Methodism, say, it is far better that he get his Methodism in youth than in middle age.
And yet there is a touch of irony in the situation. A Jew who has taken his Jewishness as a matter of course all his life, and never given a thought to it, said to me, “But Lewisohn is a Gentile Jew,” negating, in a phrase, the self-conscious and almost heroic efforts of a gifted and sincere man to achieve identity with his blood.
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.
