To the Editor:
I take Mr. Cushman’s letter in the November COMMENTARY criticizing my review of Dr. Cohen’s and Dr. Grayzel’s books as an explicit, if indirect, confirmation of what I tried to say.
I had only implied that the aim inspiring the two authors was obviously nothing more than the attraction of as many easygoing readers as possible, and not that revelation of the “sublimity” of our Jewish heritage which is promised in Dr. Grayzel’s preface. Mr. Cushman frankly offers as the main reason for his praise of the two works the fact that thirty-three thousand copies of Pathways and nineteen thousand copies of Grayzel’s History have already been sold. This argument, it seems to me, helps indeed to clarify the situation.
If the number of copies sold could sufficiently demonstrate the value of a book, what about, say, the world-wide popularity of thousands of silly detective stories and the infinitely more limited reading public for good literature, what about the comics and cross-word puzzles which are certainly far more intensely studied by an overwhelming majority of newspaper readers than even the best reports of the best political analysts? If the number of copies sold or not sold were any sound criterion of the importance of a book, why should one bother at all about writing a review? The “must” items of our reading lists could, then, be ascertained far more objectively by sales figures than by any “subjective” appraisal.
And the use of the work as a textbook? Has Mr. Cushman never heard of bad textbooks?
Mr. Cushman feels certain that “Pathways has removed the dust of centuries and enables us to see the panorama of the past in clearer perspective.” I think that Pathways has marred the stark eternal beauty of our Bible by the use of cheap modem cosmetics. I believe that, not only from the viewpoint of the scholar but even as popular reading, Dr. Cohen’s and Dr. Grayzel’s books are not good enough; and, as I tried to state, I think there are objective reasons for disliking this kind of popularizing and my wish to make the reading public aware of its perils.
David Baumgardt
Washington, D. C.
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