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Brisbane Comments on Visit of Zangwill

October 9, 1923
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The following comment is made by Arthur Brisbane relative to the arrival here of Israel Zangwill, in the syndicated column “Today”:

“Zangwill is here to visit Nathan Straus and address the American Jewish Congress on “The Problem of the Jewish People”. It’s an old problem, for from settlement, as old as the problem of a cat with many doge in the neighborhood.

“It takes much education to teach a dog that there is no good reason for biting a cat. It’s hard to teach a cat that it does not pay to scratch a dog’s face.

“Human beings hate each other like cats and dogs, because of slightly different characteristics, instead of realizing that a combination of all these characteristics have built the world and everything worth while in it.

“Zangwill attacks Hilaire Belloc’s book, “The Jew”. That’s waste of energy, as foolish as that of the dog who chases a cat up a tree.

“Zangwill has genius, real intelligence; Bellow has neither. His book is a cheap performance, well included in Lloyd George’s sufficient description of anti-Semitism as “extraordinarily stupid”.

“Zangwill’s intelligence shows in the fact that he sees and describes all sides of Jewish character not continuing himself to exclusive praise.”

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