To the Editor:

Norman Podhoretz [“‘Is It Good for the Jews?,’” February] has discovered that Hillel the Elder’s dictum applies, alas, even in America. Hillel taught, in Pirque Avot (1:14), “If we are not for ourselves, who will be for us? But if we are for ourselves alone, what are we?”

In the millennial swing of the Jewish space-time pendulum between particularism and universalism, Hillel, the liberal par excellence of his time, put first things first.

Ely E. Pilchik
Short Hills, New Jersey

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To the Editor:

. . . After more than two decades of incessant prodding from the liberals, the government is acting, after a fashion, to dismantle de facto impediments to equality, but only recently has the question of Jewish self-interest—is it good for the Jews?—been raised. . . .

It seems to occur only rarely to many Jews, and not at all to intellectuals, that Jews have thrived in America precisely because of what government has not done and may not do (Congress shall make no law, etc. . . .). It is under this definition of liberty that Jewish interests have been advanced in America. . . .

Within a span of two generations, the bulk of the American-Jewish community moved from pushcarts and sweatshops into business and the professions. . . . For other ethnic groups such an achievement might logically have been expected to lead to at least a minimal conservatism. But for Jews, better illogical than illiberal! To be in society but not of it socially has made the continued quest for full acceptance as psychologically imperative in permissive America as in restrictive Europe. . . .

For all too many Jews, this inner longing for social equality is of paramount importance; and the need for acceptance makes of Jewish liberalism not a conviction but an emotional state of mind. . . .

But there is yet another dilemma: How can so overtly successful a people admit to so much anxiety? It was this that caused many Jews to gravitate to an identification with the black problem—to serve, although in a roundabout way, their own special interest. To promote black uplift was to set a floor beneath which Jews could not fall. . . . If blacks were eventually to be accepted as full equals, then finally, perhaps, the Jews would be too. And now we are at a crossroads. In concrete terms, to support government-sponsored programs to achieve equality in the interest of social justice for blacks, who at the moment hold the strongest claim on our national conscience, may very well compromise the concept of legal justice for the individual under which Jews historically have experienced their most favorable treatment. . . .

Sol D. Kaufler
Northridge, California

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To the Editor:

In “‘Is It Good for the Jews?’” the only specific evidence of anti-Jewish (as distinct from perhaps generally inequitable) activity that Norman Podhoretz cites is the Truman Capote statement on the Jewish literary “Mafia.” Out of this statement Mr. Podhoretz weaves a web of fears that remind him (“ominous echoes,” no less) of “Berlin and Vienna in the 20’s.” When he discusses the percentage proposal put forward by John Kenneth Galbraith et al. and refers to Paul Seabury’s thoughtful article in the same issue, he plies his fear-mongering trade once again. For what he tries to do—unsuccessfully for me and I hope for many other readers—is to construe what may indeed be a broadly inequitable approach into an anti-Jewish drive. Jews may be more strongly affected by a given policy or proposal than another group or groups, but inequity hits a broad segment of society and is not in itself evidence of anti-Jewish motivation.

Mr. Podhoretz does not have a monopoly of worry or concern about some current trends and policies in the “equal opportunity” field. And a fair number of people, like Mr. Seabury, discuss these issues thoughtfully and responsibly. It’s quite another thing to seize on disparate bits and pieces with different purposes and motivations and whip them into a diabolical mix labeled anti-Semitism. . . .

Mr. Podhoretz provides no evidence that what is good for America has ceased to be good for the Jews. We don’t need any more Meir Kahanes, even when they come in intellectual clothing.

Robert B. Goldmann
Englewood, New Jersey

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Norman Podhoretz writes:

In accusing me of whipping up fear and hysteria, Mr. Goldmann both misrepresents the argument of “‘Is It Good for the Jews?’” and falsely characterizes its tone. Thus I took pains in that article to specify the ways in which the Jewish position has improved in recent years, cautioning the reader to keep those “reassuring” developments, as I called them, in mind while considering the other—and in my view more salient—respects in which the Jewish position in America has been deteriorating I also explicitly stated that those who support some of the tendencies which are harmful to Jewish interests, especially proportional representation according to race and sex, have not been doing so primarily out of any desire to discriminate against Jews. And I ended by saying, as I had already said in an earlier piece, that these developments warrant “neither panic nor hysteria but a certain anxiety.” Is this, in Mr. Goldmann’s words, “fear-mongering”? Given his professed concern with the problems I was writing about, I don’t understand why he should wish to characterize my piece in such false and abusive terms.

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