To the Editor:
Dr. Gringauz’s “Jewish Destiny as the DP’s See It” [December] is to me one of the standout articles in COMMENTARY’s distinguished career. It may well become an intellectual landmark in the Jewish history of our time. For in it he has synthesized the Weltanschauung emerging from the Jewish catastrophe which will color and shape the outlook of world Jewry probably for generations to come.
Out of my experience of working and fighting at Dr. Gringauz’s side in a common cause, I want also to recall an incident by way of footnote to your capsule-biography of him. There was a trial of nineteen of our Landsberg boys arrested on the charge of participation in disorders directed against the Germans. Dr. Gringauz was the chief defense attorney before a high military court. Ranging far beyond the narrow questions of law, in his closing argument he developed from the recent histories of the boys the whole moral claim of Jewry before the bar of Western civilization and justice. To the Americans who heard him in that German courtroom, the sociological brilliance and moral eloquence of his plea were reminiscent of our two great “people’s attorneys”—Louis Brandeis and Clarence Darrow.
Dr. Gringauz was the finest cultural talent we had in the Sherit Hapleita. It is to be hoped that American Jewry also will recognize and utilize the extraordinary gifts he now brings to us.
In introducing him, as it has other little-Known voices, COMMENTARY has again underscored its role as open platform for young, new, and important cultural energies.
Leo Srole
New York City
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To the Editor:
I state with pleasure that I have read very few articles in my life giving such a deep and true analysis as Samuel Gringauz’s “Jewish Destiny as the DP’s See It.” The question remains, however, whether the DP will only symbolize the bridge between the fragments of the Jewish people or will also try in a practical way to raise these fragments to the mission of our time.
Anyhow, my cordial congratulations to Dr. Gringauz. I am sure his article will pave the way among the intellectual elements of his new environment.
J. Schwarzbart
World Jewish Congress
New York City
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To the Editor:
. . . It is so difficult in our days to say a new word, to describe a new situation. Dr. Gringauz has done it. His conception of the Scherit Hapleita is very original. He has looked deeply into the problem. Nobody before him had so worked out the peculiarity and originality of the people in the camps. . . .
Jacob Pat
Jewish Labor Committee
New York City
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