Intifada TO THE EDITOR: While I do not disagree with the four essays by Nor- man Podhoretz, Daniel Pipes, Hillel Halkin, and Efraim Karsh on the current situation in Israel ["Intifada II," December 2000], I do quibble with the underlying assumption that the al-Aqsa intifada succeeded in radi- cally altering the perceptions of the Israeli public.
As one might expect, the renewal of wide-scale Pales- tinian violence shocked many Israelis, and the re- sponse of the Barak gov- ernment profoundly weak- ened the prime minister’s public standing; but that does not tell the whole sto- ry. In a Gallup/Ma’ariv poll conducted in December, Is- raelis were asked whether Barak, having resigned as prime minister, had a man- date to make a deal with Arafat during the period leading up to the February 2001 election. According to the poll, the country was split, with 46 percent be- lieving Barak would still have a mandate and 47 per- cent believing he would not.
Similarly, 59 percent were in favor or leaning in favor of a referendum based on a "permanent peace agree- ment between Israel and the Palestinians," with a near majority preferring such an agreement, "including com- promises over Jerusalem and a declaration ending the conflict with the Palestini- ans," to an interim agree- ment. On the flip side, 56 percent said there was not "a partner for peace on the Palestinian side." One is tempted to disre- gard such polls, particular- ly in light of the fluidity of events on the ground. But there can be little doubt that Israeli public opinion has continued to be schizo- phrenic about the peace process. While skeptical of Palestinian intentions, a ma- jority of Israelis still hunger for a permanent agreement and remain unwilling to en- tertain the bitter (if more sober) alternatives. It is this political reality that drove Barak forward and that had bent his predecessor, Ben- jamin Netanyahu, however reluctantly, in the same di- rection.
Until the Israeli public gives its politicians a man- date to resist-however long and hard the road may be-more concessions will surely follow.
GARY M. OSEN Oradell, New Jersey To THE EDITOR: Your excellent essays omit one major factor that is responsible for Israel’s ab- surd willingness to give up land in exchange for vague promises from sworn ene- mies. The problem is not, as some of the essayists claim, that a good part of the pop- ulation has become weary and demoralized, or has bought into the peace pro- cess. Rather, Israel has be- come the victim of its own secularism. Having been taught for a generation that the Bible is not sacred but is simply a source book for archaeological digs, that the land is not holy, that Jewish history and Jewish destiny are without special mean- ing, and that the prophets of Israel were merely good poets, Israelis have inevit- ably come to possess no se- rious attachment to the land and to have no qualms about giving it away.
Israel’s indifference to the Arab destruction ofJoseph’s Tomb, its willingness to trade away Rachel’s Tomb, and the cavalier treatment of Juda- ism’s holiest site-the Tem- ple Mount-are all traceable to a secular indoctrination that has emptied Israel of Jewish pride and self-respect.
After all, why concern one- self with aJewish history that goes no further back than Theodor Herzl? It is no coincidence that the only groups in Israel that are still fully conscious of their heritage and that have not lost their spirit and courage are precisely those groups that have not been secularized, and for whom [3]COMMENTARY MARCH 2001 Judaism and Torah are liv- ing entities.
[RABBI] EMANUEL FELDMAN Editor Tradition Jerusalem, Israel To THE EDITOR: The four depressing ar- ticles in "Intifada II" sug- gest that the crisis facing Is- rael is self-inflicted and largely psychological. This certainly seems to be the case. No other people would allow an uprising like this to go on without crushing it.
Would the United States tolerate, even for one day, known terrorists operating within its borders, smashing up religious shrines, shoot- ing into apartment build- ings, stoning and fire- bombing cars on the roads, blowing up school buses, or kidnapping, torturing, and then butchering soldiers? Israel’s weak leaders might have looked to the late King Hussein of Jordan to learn how to deal with an intifada.
In 1970 Yasir Arafat tried out a similar terrorist campaign in Jordan. King Hussein im- mediately ordered his army to defeat Arafat’s forces; 5,000 were shot down in what is now mourned by Palestinian Arabs as "Black Septem- ber." King Hussein saved his country and received the re- spect of the entire world.
GEORGE E. RUBIN New York City To THE EDITOR: The authors of the arti- cles in "Intifada II" seem to argue that Israel’s own ac- tions are responsible for its current situation. Nowhere are there references to out- side pressure from the U.S.
or Europe. But, although Is- rael may have been at fault at Oslo and perhaps even until recently, certainly its current travail is to a great degree the result of exter- nal influences. Note the vote of fourteen to zero at the UN condemning Israel’s use of violence against the Palestinians, criticism from the U.S. for responding to Arab attacks, and thunder in the European press for Israel’s role in the deaths of Arab children.
Daniel Pipes wants the U.S. to help Israel out of its fix by providing military and diplomatic support-be- cause, he argues, it is in America’s interest to do so.
But what is the U.S. likely to do if confronted with a choice between its support for Israel and its oil supply? MORRIS ALTSCHULER Rockville, Maryland To THE EDITOR: As an eighty-six-year-old man who lived through a narrow escape from the Nazis but whose family per- ished in Auschwitz, I can- not believe that I am now witnessing in Israel a repe- tition of the treacherous ap- peasement that took place in the months leading up to World War II. Just as the Western powers of Europe thought they could ensure the peace by signing a treaty with Hitler and the Nazis, Ehud Barak pursued utopi- an illusions of peace with Yasir Arafat and the Arab leaders.
These illusions were only encouraged by the interfer- ence and pressure of the U.S. in favor of Israel’s ag- gressors. After World War II, the allies forced Ger- many to cede a significant part of its Eastern provinces to Poland; France recovered the province of Alsace; and all of the German inhabi- tants of the Sudetenland had to leave. By contrast, after Israel was victorious in the Six-Day war with Egypt, it was coerced into giving back the Sinai up to the last grain of sand. Not only have the Arabs escaped punishment, the United States now con- tinues to supply Egypt with armaments.
ERNEST SCHWARCZ Mountain View, California To THE EDITOR: The essays in "Intifada II" are reasoned indictments of terrible deeds done to the people of Israel. There is no gainsaying the facts or the conclusions drawn from them. But these accounts will make no difference.
We have in the Middle East an object lesson in how otherwise decent people allowed the slaughter of Jews in Germany. Everyone wishes to be reasonable; no one wishes to be regarded as an extremist. But in this case, as in the case of Ger- many, a solution will require force beyond any yet seen in the Middle East. I hope, but doubt, that the Ameri- can military is already plan- ning for it.
ED HAEFELE Alliance, Nebraska To THE EDITOR: The articles by Norman Podhoretz, Daniel Pipes, Hillel Halkin, and Efraim Karsh are very pessimistic indeed; even so, they un- derstate the threat that faces Israel. Israel’s enemies in- clude not only Palestinians and Arabs but Muslims all over the world and Ameri- can politicians on the far Left and far Right, like Ralph Nader and Patrick Buchanan. Israel is small and unimportant, but it is the most hated country on earth.
GEORGE JOCHNOWITZ College of Staten Island Staten Island, New York To THE EDITOR: I much admire Norman Podhoretz’s analysis of the dire situation in which Is- rael finds itself. His de- scription of Oslo and its not-so-slow undermining of Israel’s territorial integrity is unfortunately right on the mark. But how does Mr.
Podhoretz then account for his relatively upbeat con- clusion? To assert, as he does, that "present circumstances will not last forever" is a given.
Nothing lasts forever. But an "unexpected surprise," in which the Arabs will ac- knowledge Israel as a sov- ereign state, is about as like- ly as the moon falling on Alabama.
If there is no solution, then so be it. Perhaps mir- acles do happen, but it would be far better to reaf- firm the legitimacy of Israel and whatever boundaries the majority of Israelis de- cide upon and to say, as Luther did, "Here stand I.
I can do no other," than to dream of a change of heart among the enemy.
JUDITH HIRSCH Boca Raton, Florida To THE EDITOR: Norman Podhoretz cor- rectly observes that almost everyone in the world took at face value the Palestinian Au- thority’s version of the 1996 events regarding the West- ern Wall tunnel–that is, that it was supposedly intended by Israel to undermine the foundations of the al-Aqsa Mosque-when even a cur- sory glance would have shown that the allegation was bla- tantly false. Worse, however, is the fact that Israelis them- selves are now spreading the Palestinians’ propaganda.
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THE COURSE CURRICULUM PART I (Lectures 1-12) Introduction … The Sources … Pre-Roman Italy and the Etruscans … The Foundation of Rome … The Kings of Rome … Regal Society … The Beginnings of the Republic … The Struggle of the Orders … Roman Expansion in Italy … The Roman Confederation in Italy … The International Scene on the Eve of Roman Expansion … Carthage and the First Panic War PART II (Lectures 13-24) The Second Punic (or Hannibalic) War … Rome in the Eastern Mediterranean … Explaining the Rise of the Roman Empire … "The Captured Conqueror"–Rome and Hellenism … Governing the Republic, I & I …
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Sulla’s Reforms Undone … Pompey and Crassus PART III (Lectures 25-36) The First Triumvirate … Pompey and Caesar … "The Domination of Caesar" … Social and Cultural Life in the Late Republic … Antony and Octavian … The Second Triumvirate … Octavian Emerges Supreme … The New Order of Augustus … The Imperial Succession … The Julio-Claudian Dynasty … The Emperor in the Roman World … The Third-Century Crisis PART IV (Lectures 37-48) The Shape of Roman Society … Roman Slavery …
The Family … Women in Roman Society … An Empire of Cities … Public Entertainment I-The Roman Baths and Chariot Racing … Public Entertainment II-Gladiatorial Games … Roman Paganism … The Rise of Christianity … The Restoration of Order … Constantine and the Late Thoughts on the "Fall" of the Roman Empire About Your Professor: Garrett G. Fagan (Ph.D., McMaster University, 1993) Is associate professor of history at the Pennsylvania State University in State College. A native of Dublin, Ireland, he eares’his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Trinity College, Dublin, and was a Killam Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of British Columbia. Before joining the faculty at Penn State, he held teaching posts at McMaster University and York University in Canada, and at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and Davidson College. Students at every institution consistently offered high praise for his courses in ancient history.
Shop securely on-line at: www.teachco.com "Tapes Take Top Teachers into Homes." -THE WALL STREET JOURNAL "Ivy League Courses for the Price of a Video" -INTERNATIONAL HERALD-TRIBNECOMMENTARY MARCH 2001 Uri Dromi, the former di- rector of the Israeli govern- ment press office, wrote that "[Netanyahu] started his term by inciting a blood- bath when he opened the tunnel under the Temple Mount, resulting in the death of dozens of Israelis and Palestinians." It is scan- dalous that Dromi does not know where the Western Wall tunnel is. Not only is the tunnel adjacent to the Temple Mount and not un- der it, but the controversial northern gate is in fact 500 yards away from the walls of the mosque.
MLADEN ANDRIJASEVIC Beer Sheva, Israel To THE EDITOR: In his contribution to "In- tifada II," Daniel Pipes writes that the Oslo agreement "paid off economically: the boom experienced by Israel in the 1990’s can be partly at- tributed to a greater global willingness to trade and in- vest in the country." While it is impossible to know whether or how much of Is- rael’s economic growth can be attributed to improved in- ternational sentiment, the boom itself has been greatly exaggerated by cheerleaders for the peace process.
Between 1991 and 1999 the Israeli economy grew, on average, 4.7 percent annual- ly in real terms. This is cer- tainly spectacular, especially when compared to the 3.6 percent average growth in the American economy over the same period. But if we focus just on the post-Oslo period from 1994 to 1999, the Israeli economy in those years grew at an average of only 1.8 percent, as com- pared to 2.9 percent in the U.S.
The roots of whatever growth has occurred in the Israeli economy can be found in the economic sta- bilization plans put into place by the Likud-Labor government in the mid- 1980’s, the massive influx of Russian immigrants, and the valiant struggle by the Bank of Israel to reduce inflation.
The economic effects of the peace process were margin- al at best, and should not be used as a justification of that policy.
JosIAH ROTENBERG New York City To THE EDITOR: Of all people, Jews ought to understand the desires of indigenous Arabs and Pales- tinians to maintain their own community of interests and symbols in the face of threats by a dominant power.
Modern scholarship has found solid reasons for un- derstanding the biblical sto- ries of David and Solomon as something other than lit- eral historiography. What we know about the demo- graphics and economics of the Iron Age precludes the possibility that a Davidic kingdom from the Nile to the Euphrates existed circa 1000 B.C.E., or that a tem- ple of the size and grandeur attributed to King Solomon could have graced the hum- ble City of David.
But this scholarship does not negate the existence and importance of the Second Temple in the history of Jerusalem, and it would be self-defeating for any Arab leader or Muslim believer to pretend otherwise. Sim- ilarly, Jews and Christians should not minimize the importance of the al-Aqsa Mosque, which has been in place on the Temple Mount for nearly twice the 600- year duration of the revered Second Temple of the Jews.
Third-Temple Jewish mil- itancy, millennialist Christ- ian fanaticism, and Islamic jihad are three equally pro- vocative affronts to every- thing that the genuine deity represents within the world’s extended monotheistic fam- ily. Martyrdom is a tradition that we could now do well without. May God bless us all if we can only get this lesson through our irra- tionally nationalist and/or religious heads.
BOB GARNER Bozeman, Montana To THE EDITOR: COMMENTARY merits congratulations for the fine essays in "Intifada II." It is time that Arab and Pales- tinian university professors, artists, intellectuals, musi- cians, writers, journalists, and trade-union leaders is- sued a statement acknowl- edging the legitimacy of the state of Israel. Like their Is- raeli counterparts-A.B.
Yehoshua, David Grossman, Tom Segev, Shlomo Avineri, Uri Avnery, Amos Oz, Ady Ophir, Dany Rubinstein- they too must publicly ask for peace.
BARUCH COHEN Canadian Institute forJewish Research Montreal, Quebec, Canada To THE EDITOR: May I express my thanks for the outstanding series of essays in "Intifada II." I am a Jewish educator and have asked my students to read them in order to understand the sad events now occur- ring in Israel. I am grateful to you for consistently pro- viding your readers with ar- ticles of such importance.
PATTI MOSKOVITZ Foster City, California NORMAN PODHORETZ writes: Gary M. Osen may well be right about Israeli pub- lic opinion, and Emanuel Feldman may have put his finger on one of the reasons for the stubborn delusion that peace is possible under current conditions. But in my judgment, the factor Rabbi Feldman cites is only one of many, and not nec- essarily the most important.
Surely George E. Rubin has a point, though the late King Hussein is hardly a model for the Israelis to fol- low, assuming even that they had the stomach to follow it (which I very much doubt). This is why I dis- agree with Morris Alt- schuler about the relative weights of external and in- ternal pressures. The truth is that since Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres decided (on the grounds that I tried to describe in my article) to go forward with Oslo, Israel has been making conces- sions that no American ad- ministration-not even the Bush-Baker team, which was perhaps the most hos- tile of any since the days of John Foster Dulles-would have dared to demand, or ever did. From that point on, it has been successive Is- raeli governments that have taken the lead, not Wash- ington. True, Bill Clinton did some pushing, but his mad race to the finish line was preceded, and given a strong tail wind, by the un- precedented concessions Ehud Barak had already of- fered at his own initiative.
That this bears a terrify- ing resemblance to the poli- cies of appeasement recalled by Ernest Schwarcz is as ob- vious as it is-to me-in- comprehensible. For Jews, of all people, to buy into such policies so short a pe- riod after the most dra- matic demonstration imag- inable of their inevitable consequences, is something [6]Recent and Forthcoming Books from the Cato Institute It’s GetingBeer Allthe mne: 100 Greatest Trends of the Last 100 Years byStephen Moore andJulian Simon There was more material progress in the United States in the 20th century than in the entire world in all previous centuries combined.
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The improvement is, instead, the result of gains in per capita income, rapidly improving technology, and the shift from a manufacturing- to a service-based economy. The author also contends that the Clean Air Act of 1970 imposed steeper than necessary regulatory costs that actually slowed improvement. Goklany also presents the most comprehensive database ever assembled on air quality trends. * 1999/188 pages/$10.95 paper ISBN 1-882577-83-3/$19.95 cloth ISBN 1-882577-82-5 ( o Available at bookstores, or call 1-800-767-1241 (12-9 p.m. eastern, Mon.-Fri.) INSTITUTE Cato Institute, 1000 Massachusetts Ave., N.W, Washington, D.C. 20001. Web site: http/Awww.cato.orgCOMMENTARY MARCH 200I that, when all is said and done, I find almost impos- sible to understand. There- fore, while Ed Haefele is worried about whether the American military is ready for the big war (as distin- guished from the low-in- tensity conflict going on now) that both he and I ex- pect to break out one of these days, I am more wor- ried about whether the Is- raeli military is ready.
Why then, asks Judith Hirsch very reasonably, did I reach a "relatively upbeat" conclusion in my article? The answer is that, while agreeing with every word she writes, I cannot, after having living through the sudden demise of the Sovi- et Union, preclude the pos- sibility of some analogous "miracle" occurring in the Arab world. But the last im- plication I would wish to be drawn from this position is that Israel should wait around passively for the necessary changes, let alone that it should go on pursu- ing a delusory peace. As to the strategy Judith Hirsch proposes-which amounts to a form of "separation"- I said in my article that I doubted its viability, and to my own regret (since it seems no less attractive to me than it does to so many Israelis), I still entertain the same skepticism.
But, alas-in view of the evidence cited by Gary Osen-I am more skeptical than I was about the will- ingness of Israelis in their present condition to stand up for themselves in the war of ideas. Mladen Andrijase- vic gives us one example, and there are now Israelis who join with Bob Garner in lending credence to the latest turn in Palestinian propaganda, which is to deny that there ever was a Temple on the Temple Mount. Mr. Garner, while peddling spurious "scholar- ship" about the First Tem- ple, at least accepts the ex- istence of the Second Tem- ple, but Arafat and his min- ions and fellow-travelers (some of them Israelis, and others American or English Jews) even dispute that. And the Palestinians have done everything in their power to make sure that no further archaeological evidence of Solomon’s Temple will be unearthed.
Be that as it may, Mr.
Garner is very much mis- taken in the moral equiva- lence he draws among Jews, Christians, and Muslims.
Neither "Jewish militancy" nor "Christian fanaticism" is responsible for the war against Israel that the Arab world has been conducting since the state came into ex- istence, and that it contin- ues to conduct by a combi- nation of military and political tactics. Would that one could say the same about "Islamic jihad." DANIEL PIPES writes: I agree with Gary M.
Osen that the violence that began in September did not seem radically to alter the perceptions of the Israeli public. Although I did not address this matter in my COMMENTARY article, I did make precisely Mr. Osen’s point in a Jerusalem Post col- umn (October 25, 2000) ti- tled "Oslo’s Nine Lives." Emanuel Feldman argues that Israel’s problem is not that "a good part of the population has become weary and demoralized, or has bought into the peace process. Rather, Israel has become the victim of its own secularism." But these are hardly contrary points: as Rabbi Feldman himself goes on to suggest, one among many reasons for Is- rael’s weariness and demor- alization may be its secular- ism.
George E. Rubin’s sug- gestion that Israel learn from King Hussein’s actions in September 1970 is not realistic; there is no way that democratic Israel, always the focus of world attention, could or should employ the brutal methods of the Jor- danian armed forces back then. So brutal were those methods, indeed, that when more than 200 PLO fight- ers escaped Jordanian forces by crossing into the West Bank, they willingly sur- rendered to the Israelis.
Although Morris Alt- schuler chides all four au- thors in "Intifada II" for fail- ing to refer to pressure from the United States or Eu- rope, this was the premise of my entire article. Never- theless, one must be fair. It is true that the Clinton ad- ministration encouraged policies that another corre- spondent, Ernest Schwarcz, likens to "the treacherous appeasement" of Great Brit- ain and France in the 1930’s.
But in my judgment the ul- timate responsibility for these policies lies with Is- rael’s demoralized elec- torate. As for Mr. Altschu- ler’s question about what the U.S. government would do if faced with a choice be- tween its support for Israel and its oil supply, one need only think back 27 years to when the Arab oil boycott put tremendous pressure on Washington to abandon Is- rael, and it did not do so.
Josiah Rotenberg holds that Israel’s economic boom "has been greatly exagger- ated by cheerleaders for the peace process." I agree.
That is why I wrote only that Israel’s economic suc- cess could be "partly" at- tributed to its diplomacy.
HILLEL HALKIN writes: Most of the readers re- sponding to "Intifada II" seem to be in basic agree- ment with what its authors were arguing in their differ- ent ways. Writing from Is- rael at the end ofJanuary, I would only observe that, with the polls showing Ehud Barak about to be soundly beaten in his electoral con- test with Ariel Sharon, the Is- raeli public has seemed ready to give its politicians what Gary M. Osen calls a "man- date to resist" the irrational and self-destructive conces- sions made by the Barak gov- ernment to the Palestinians.
Although Emanuel Feldman is certainly right that reli- giously traditional Israelis have shown, in recent months and years, more backbone than have many secular Is- raelis, the February elections will have demonstrated, I be- lieve, that "Jewish pride and self-respect" are not lacking among a large number of sec- ular Israelis as well.
Like the Rabin-Peres government that went to Oslo, the Barak government inflicted grave and perhaps irreparable damage upon Is- rael and upon its ability to stand up to an Arab world that still does not accept its existence. It will not be easy for any new government to undo that damage. The road back to a credible pol- icy of defending Jewish and Israeli interests, and con- vincing the Arabs and the world that these will not be forfeited, will demand years of determination and possi- bly bloodshed, for which the Barak government will bear much of the responsibility.
We can only hope that Is- rael’s new leaders will prove equal to the task.
[8]COMMENTARY MARCH 200I EFRAIM KARSH writes: George Jochnowitz is concerned that COMMEN- TARY’S authors may be un- derstating the threat that faces Israel. Although I hardly think that is the case, it is true that, in the world at large, there is a general tendency to downplay the degree to which Israel is in- deed, to use Mr. Joch- nowitz’s word, hated. That is precisely why, in under- scoring the intractability of the Arab-Israeli conflict, I sought to highlight a cen- tral albeit often overlooked source of Muslim-Arab re- jection of the Jewish state, namely, millenarian anti- Semitism.
Israel is widely perceived as an implacable enemy of Islam with whom there can be no real peace. This point was made by Yasir Arafat as early as 1994, when he compared the Oslo Accords to the Treaty of Hudaybiya, signed by the Prophet Mu- hammad with the people of Mecca in 628 c.E., only to be discarded two years lat- er when the prophet’s po- litical fortunes improved. It has most recently been am- plified by the categorical Arab and Muslim rejection of the sanctity, forJews, of the Temple Mount, includ- ing the Western Wall, and the uncompromising insis- tence on full control of these sites.
No less detrimental to the prospects for peace has been the historic Arab-Mus- lim dismissal of the notion ofJewish peoplehood, and continued adherence to the Islamic perception of Jews as a tolerated, if distinctly inferior, religious commu- nity living at the sufferance of the Muslim sovereign.
Hence the Palestinian in- sistence on a "right of re- turn" to territories that are now part of Israel, with a view to creating an Arab- dominated state in which Jews would constitute a mi- nority. In the recent words of Edward Said: "The Jews are a minority everywhere.
They are a minority in the United States. Surely they can live as a minority in the Middle East, in Israel." What makes the situation all the more disturbing, as Gary M. Osen aptly notes, is the reluctance of many Is- raelis themselves to ac- knowledge this stark reali- ty. Fatigued by decades of fighting, and yearning for a Gramercy Park Hotel Your Private Oasis Just South of Midtown Manhattan Imagine. .You’re just minutes away from a trip to Europe! Whether you’re dining on one of Chef Robert’s 20 freshly prepared Pastas (from $12.50 – $19.50) or planning a Wedding (packages beginning at $64 per person), you’ll find our hotel to be an Oasis of Olde World Charm.
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And yet, despite the writ- ing on the wall, successive Is- raeli governments turned a blind eye. This exercise in na- tional self-delusion reached its peak during Ehud Barak’s brief term in office. Not only was he prepared to negoti- ate with the Palestinians while they were actively subverting the very basis of the process on which these negotiations were predicat- ed, but the more audacious the Palestinian aggression, the greater Barak’s conces- sions.
And so, while the official Palestinian newspaper al- Hayat al-adida was telling its readers how Israeli poli- cies were guided by the Pro- tocols of the Elders of Zion, we had the spectacle of senior Israeli ministers still meet- ing with their Palestinian counterparts in the Egypt- ian resort of Taba to ask what further Israeli conces- sions might be required in order to reach a "compre- hensive" agreement for "peace." [10] -"As exceptional for the 2000’s as Rashi was for the 1000’s, this is the definitive Jewish commentary on the Five Books of Moses."-Baruch Halpern, Chaiken Family Chair in Jewish Studies, Pennsylvania State University :Friedman’s reading is close and keen…And yet none of what he writes is remote and obscure; it is rather in "Like the prototypical commentator, Rashi, Richard Friedman conveys a vast amount of learning with a light touch. His translations are fresh and vibrant.
His masterful commen- tary blends scholarly precision, literary sensi- tivity and spiritual reflection." -Daniel Matt, author of God and the Big Bang and The Essential Kabbalah easily accessible prose, which brings out the continuing vitality and power of the Biblical text in a compelling way.
-Peter Machinist, Hancock Professor of Hebrew and Other Oriental Languages, Harvard University "Friedman has had a place in the company of the great scholars of the recent past; now we find him another place…among an older generation of legendary commentators on the Hebrew Scriptures: Kimhi and Abarbanel, Rashbam and Nachmanides, and that perennial master of the written word, Rashi." -David Noel Freedman, General Editor of The Anchor Bible "This is the way to study Torah! Friedman has produced a commentary that is both traditional and modern … He models for us the most intelligent-and traditional-way to make the Torah live in our own lives." -Rabbi Elliot N. Dorff, Ph.D., University of Judaism , HarperSanFrancisco A Division of HarperCollinsPublishers www.harpercollins.com ‘There is something new under the sun!…It is must reading for all who regularly attend synagogue or church, all who are in Bible study groups, and any- one with an interest in religion. Delightful new insights abound." -Prof. Burton L.
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author of Reading the Book: Making the Bible a Timeless Text i n boo k s t o r e s A v i I h I e e v e r y w h e r eCOMMENTARY MARCH 200I Inside Baseball To THE EDITOR: In "Where’d He Go, Joe DiMaggio?," [January] Jo- seph Epstein misstates Di- Maggio’s statistics for 1949, a noteworthy season for both DiMaggio and the en- tire Yankee team. It was the first year that Casey Sten- gel managed the team, and it saw the first of five con- secutive world champion- ships. As Mr. Epstein (per- haps misled by Richard Ben Cramer) would have it, 1949 was also the year Di- Maggio compiled a league- leading 39 home runs while playing in all but one game.
But this would have been impossible, since DiMaggio missed every game from opening day through the first two weeks of June be- cause of painful bone spurs on his heels. These eventu- ally forced him into retire- ment two years later at age thirty-six. The 39 homers and other numbers he put on the board must have been in 1948 or earlier.
STEVEN J. STEIN Greenwich, Connecticut To THE EDITOR: I write to correctJoseph Epstein’s error about Joe DiMaggio. Having attended the game in which DiMag- gio’s streak was ended almost 60 years ago (what Stephen Jay Gould called "the streak of streaks"), I can attest that the pitcher was Jim Bagby, Jr., not Al Smith, a team- mate. This kind of gaffe, as Mr. Epstein must know, is well nigh unforgivable.
HAROLD TICKTIN Shaker Heights, Ohio To THE EDITOR: Joseph Epstein is suffer- ing from a bad case of hero worship. He believes that Joe DiMaggio deserves credit because he despised Bill Clinton, Frank Sinatra, and the Kennedy brothers.
But none of these men beat their wives or abandoned their children.
ROSE BRESSLER Elkins Park, Pennsylvania To THE EDITOR: Having read both DiMag- gio: The Hero’s Life and Jo- seph Epstein’s article about it, I believe that Mr. Epstein summarizes the book accu- rately: DiMaggio was, the author Richard Ben Cramer tells us, a remarkably talent- ed and successful baseball player, and, in his private life, largely a jerk, though hardly the worst jerk that the world, or even organized sport, has ever seen. The likes of Den- nis Rodman and Babe Ruth, for instance, have set the bar much higher, or lower, depend- ing on how you look at it.
Mr. Epstein does not dis- agree with Cramer’s assess- ment, but he seems angry that Cramer apparently con- siders himself a better per- son than DiMaggio. This may or may not be true-I do not know whether Cra- mer, say, has a wife, much less whether he kisses her or beats her when he comes home, and Mr. Epstein, thankfully, does not enlight- en us on the subject-but the author’s personal life is hardly relevant to the qual- ity of the biography.
JOEL ROSENBERG Minneapolis, Minnesota To THE EDITOR: Since neither Richard Ben Cramer nor Joseph Ep- stein affords us a glimpse of DiMaggio as a man of let- ters, I offer the following anecdote. Some years ago, when the annual meeting of the Modem Language Asso- ciation was held in a San Francisco hotel, a colleague of mine, a Bronx native and lifelong Yankees fan, spotted the great man in the lobby and took the liberty of intro- ducing himself. DiMaggio was glad to be recognized and was very gracious. He did, however, want to know what MLA stood for. "Mod- ern Language Association," he was told. "Modern lan- guages?" replied DiMaggio.
"What the hell’s wrong with the old languages?" EDWARD ALEXANDER Seattle, Washington To THE EDITOR: Who would have thought that an inveterate Brooklyn fan like me could ever have praised the chief architect of those damnable Yankee victories against the Dodg- ers? In 1947, as a boy of ten, I first saw Joe DiMaggio cover the open pastures of cavernous Yankee Stadium.
[12] Position Available COMMENTARY is looking for a highly qualified and creative individ- ual to direct its business and marketing operations, including circulation promotion, advertising, website development, and fundraising. Appli- cants should be familiar with general business procedures and in sym- pathy with COMMENTARY’S concerns and outlook.
Please reply to: Department B COMMENTARY 165 East 56th Street New York, NY 10022LETTERS FROM READERS Indelibly etched in my mind is the image of him moving at the crack of the bat and loping like a gazelle to a rendezvous with the white sphere. And his own grace- ful, effortless swing! No other batting stance was so copied by young boys of that and subsequent eras.
Despite serious injuries, Di- Maggio could do it all and make everything look easy.
Joseph Epstein’s splendid review of DiMaggio: The Hero s Life captures the es- sence of a great man of sport whose very presence elec- trified those around him.
VINCENT CHIARELLO Reston, Virginia JOSEPH EPSTEIN writes: Baseball statistics, unlike those in social science and political polling, are serious.
Because they are, I am all the more ashamed of having gotten Joe DiMaggio’s 1949 season wrong, as Steven J.
Stein, in a kindly correction, surmises. The astonishing statistics I cited-39 homers, 155 RBI’s, a batting average of .320-were in fact for the year 1948.
Having made this egre- gious error, I am in no po- sition to turn my machine gun on Harold Ticktin’s correction, even though it is only partially accurate. On the night Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak end- ed in Cleveland-July 14, 1941-he faced two pitch- ers. Al Smith, the Indians’ starter, got him out three times; Jim Bagby, the re- liever, faced DiMaggio only once, in the eighth inning, and got him on a hard, tricky-hop grounder to shortstop Lou Boudreau, who turned a tough out into a double-play, thus ending the great streak. On this question, then, neither one of us is completely wrong, which is not a bad way for a friendly dispute to end.
I would like to assure Rose Bressler that I am against wife-beating. (A courageous stand to take, but there, I’ve done it.) But she stretches things considerably when she says that DiMaggio "aban- doned" his son; I think he did the best he could as a father under rough conditions. She is correct, though, in saying that I like his choice of ene- mies. I would only add that this is not for political reasons: like DiMaggio, though with- out his personal experience, I find Frank Sinatra, John and Robert Kennedy, and Bill Clinton to be genuine and deep creeps.
Joel Rosenberg should understand that I too know nothing about Richard Ben Cramer’s personal life; nor am I interested in learning anything about it. My com- plaint about the moral stan- dard of his book is that few if any of us are good enough to have lived up to it. Had I been a young man in DiMaggio’s place, I know I could not have.
I thank Edward Alexander for his amusing anecdote, which, qualifying as it does as fine lore, I consider a con- tribution to U.S. history as well. Thanks also to Vincent Chiarello for his picture of Joe DiMaggio as a loping gazelle on a rendezvous with a white sphere. Sweet.
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Mellen has been serving the scholarly communityfor 27years. www. mellenpress. com [13]COMMENTARY MARCH 2001 Proust & the Jews To THE EDITOR: Algis Valiunas ["Proust’s Way," December 2000] seems determined to view Proust as a weak-minded social snob who somehow turned into a genius. He seems particularly annoyed with a letter Proust sent to his aging literary mentor, the Comte Robert de Montesquiou (the chief model for the decadent Baron de Charlus in In Search of Lost Time), who had made anti-Semitic re- marks in the young writer’s presence. In this letter, Proust let Montesquiou know that though he and his brother were Catholics, their mother was Jewish, and any future remarks of a similar nature would be considered wounding.
Mr. Valiunas, ignoring Proust’s famous habit of "Proustifying" (without which we would have no In Search of Lost Time), wants him to be a slam-bang con- fronter, 2 lst-century style: "Proust’s tacit fear," he writes, "was that if he de- fended the Jews he would be taken for a Jew, and what he wanted above all was to be thought of as a Christian gentleman. … Proust was only as forthright as his so- cial cowardice-his fear of sacrificing his respectabili- ty-would allow." But respectability was nev- er Proust’s problem-his fa- ther was the top doctor in France, his mother’s uncle was Adolphe Cremieux, pres- ident of the Alliance Israelite Universelle and lifetime sena- tor in the French govern- ment. Nor were his ambi- tions so mundane as wanting to be thought a "Christian gentleman." In The Guer- mantes Way, he wrote: There were in this cafr …
men of real intellectual and moral worth, of profound sensibility. They repelled- theJews among them, prin- cipally the unassimilated Jews-those who could not endure any oddity or ec- centricity of appearance….
Among the Jews especially there were few whose par- ents and kinsfolk had not a warmth of heart, a breadth of mind, a sincerity in com- parison with which Saint- Loup’s mother and the Duc de Guermantes cut the poorest of moral figures by their aridity, their skin- deep religiosity which de- nounced only the most open scandal, their apolo- gy for a Christianity which led invariably… to a colos- sally mercenary marriage.
In short, Proust was not the timid half-Jew fearfully living in an alien Christian society that Mr. Valiunas de- picts. His most intimate world very much included Jews and half-Jews-his lover Reynaldo Hahn, the Bizet family, Madame Strauss, L6on Blum and his brother Ren6, the Halvy brothers, and the Sidney Schiffs. The prestigious La Revue Blanche, to which he contributed, was started by Thade [141 lLETTERS FROM READERS Natanson and his brother, the sons of a Polish Jewish businessman.
When it comes to the Dreyfus case, to which Proust gave many years of his life, Mr. Valiunas makes it sound as though he was simply boasting when he said he was the first Drey- fusard. When Proust per- suaded Anatole France to sign a petition to free Emile Zola (who had been im- prisoned for writing in sup- port of Dreyfus), France commented that this action risked getting them all thrown into prison along with Zola. Proust’s quick move in securing France’s signature produced imme- diate results, and thousands of signatures from the Sor- bonne. It helped turn the tide for Zola and for Drey- fus. Proust also insisted that his doctor-father use his pull with the French govern- ment to intervene on behalf of Dreyfus’s health. Why deny him the role he played? Finally, according to Mr.
Valiunas, the reason Proust did not correct "an anti-Se- mitic newspaper," which had referred to him as one of the "young Jewish writ- ers" who defied decency, was his fear of calling at- tention to himself. Here and elsewhere Mr. Valiunas bases himself on the recent biography by William C.
Carter, who seems to think that Proust did not under- stand much about politics.
Yet Proust’s voluminous correspondence indicates he had a keen political sense.
He well understood the threat to France posed by the propaganda of the rad- ical Right and in particular by the anti-Semitic ravings of La Libre Parole, which was not just any newspaper. He would therefore never have given its editors the satis- faction of pointing out that he was a baptized Catholic.
Albert Camus, like Proust the offspring of a double heritage, got it right when he observed that Proust des- perately needed to unify the universe. With every breath in his being, Proust in his great novel obsessively en- twines Jew and Christian. In Search of Lost Time contains eleven references to Queen Esther-the all-time exem- plar of successful intermar- riage! He dares not see these religions as separate entities if he is to maintain his bond with his mother. The Drey- fus Affair provided Proust with an engine and vocabu- lary for externalizing that bond, just as John Ruskin’s theories on art afforded him, ever the mediator, a non- theological bridge to the Catholic churches of his childhood.
BARBARA PROBST SOLOMON New York City ALGIS VALIUNAS writes: Barbara Probst Solomon seems determined to com- plicate what is simple and to simplify what is complicat- ed. She writes that I portray Proust "as a weak-minded social snob who somehow turned into a genius." Actu- ally, I think that Proust was anything but weak-mind- ed. However, he was certain- ly weak-kneed–and why should such weakness be somehow antithetical to lit- erary genius? Proust is hard- ly the only writer of distinc- tion to have been a colossus when sitting alone at his desk and a less imposing creature, even on occasion a moral dwarf, when he poked his nose out into the world.
The letter Proust sent to Montesquiou does serious- ly annoy me, and so does what Barbara Probst Sol- [15]LETTERS FROM READERS omon has to say about it. In referring to Montesquiou as Proust’s "aging literary mentor," she implies that Proust’s reticence was a mark of understandable, even admirable delicacy; in fact, Montesquiou was forty years old at the time, and, although fast living does take its toll, he was not in any evident danger of stroking out at a display of impolitesse from his young acolyte. As for Proust’s "Proustifying": when he ob- served to Montesquiou that, since his mother was Jew- ish, he was "not free to have the ideas I might otherwise have on the subject," it is clear to me that Proust could not even bring him- self to tell Montesquiou that he was wrong about those Jews of his; if it were not for his mother, in oth- er words, Proust might have regarded Jews as Mon- tesquiou did.
Proust saw, as my corre- spondent does not, that however distinguished or well-connected his father might be, the son of a Jew- ish mother enjoyed his re- spectability on sufferance: one slip, and the social po- sition Proust so cherished could be compromised, or gone. A gentleman honored his mother, but a Christian gentleman did not fuss when another Christian gentleman maligned his mother’s unfortunate lin- eage. True as it is that Jews had a place in French high society, and that Proust had good Jewish friends, he was nevertheless anxious about losing his position in a predominantly Christian world.
The passage from The Guermantes Way that speaks well ofJews and disesteems anti-Semites and Christian hypocrites is hardly un- known to me. Far from denying that Proust bold- ly attacks anti-Semitism, I stated plainly that anti- Semitism "is everywhere in Proust’s novel," and I showed that Frenchmen of the highest social standing are some of the most repellent transgressors. But I also mentioned that Proust ded- icated The Guermantes Way to Leon Daudet, a writer friend of long standing who made a career of anti-Semi- tism. Proust worried about being in bad odor with the likes of Montesquiou and Daudet as they clearly did not worry about being in bad odor with him.
That Anatole France said Proust was risking his freedom by circulating a pe- tition for Zola’s sake, that Proust’s brave alacrity was decisive in winning "imme- diate results," and that Proust pressed his father to help Dreyfus are all news to me. "Why deny him the role he played?" Barbara Probst Solomon asks. But that role is mentioned neither in the biographies by William C. Carter and Jean-Yves Tadid on which I based my essay nor in the other books on Proust that I consulted. Indeed, Tadit, the most venerable of Proust scholars, indicates clearly that Proust’s December 1897 attempt to collect sig- natures for Zola’s cause was far from a success, and it was only a month later that the course of events in the Dreyfus Affair gave new life to the petition drive. Al- though I would be happy to be instructed otherwise, it looks to me as if Proust is being given considerably more credit than he de- serves.
Did Proust demand that his father exercise his clout on Dreyfus’s behalf? Tadi6 and Carter say only that Dr.
Proust refused to speak to either of his sons for a week after they signed a Drey- fusard petition. Tadi6 adds that it was precisely because Dr. Proust was so formida- bly respectable-he knew the government ministers and was a close friend of the president of France-that his sons’ unseemly politics caused him such consterna- tion. Even an eminent Christian doctor could not be too careful.
Why did Proust fail to inform the editors of La Li- bre Parole that he was not a Jew, as the anti-Semitic newspaper claimed he was? Following William C. Car- ter, I suggested the reason was his fear of being singled out for special attention. For this both Carter and I are chided, and Carter is called ignorant for thinking that Proust was a political inno- cent. But Carter’s point is that Proust understood pol- itics well enough to know he did not wish to place life and limb in peril. As Bar- bara Probst Solomon her- self points out, these were threatening things Proust was dealing with, and he had good reason not to make himself an even more inviting target for thuggery.
Finally, that Proust "need- ed to unify the universe" is a suggestive notion, and one that arguably manifests it- self in his teaching that goodness is to be loved wherever one may find it.
But Proust also shows that goodness is extremely hard to come by, that the uni- verse resists unification.
Perversity and chauvinism are obdurate. Jews fall in love with Christians and Christians with Jews, but love does not erase the dif- ferences between them.
Swann does not cease being Jewish, nor does he want to, because he marries Odette, or because he is the only Jew accepted in exclusive so- ciety; indeed, he feels the sting of anti-Semitism all the more sharply because it comes from people he con- siders friends. Although I find the sentiment ex- pressed by Barbara Probst Solomon very appealing, I would not attribute it to Proust without serious qual- ification: it will only be re- alized, if at all, in another world, and Proust knew all too well how things work in this one.
