I have come back to a book I first read over thirty years ago, and it seems as relevant today as it was when it was published in 1938.
It was written by Louis Golding, who was a very successful novelist as well as literary critic, essayist and film script writer.
He was born in Manchester in1895 to a Ukrainian-Jewish family, described his politics as “strongly to the left” and in 1938 wrote The Jewish Problem which was published as a Penguin Special.
The book examines the history of antisemitism, and Zionism, against the backdrop of “The Nazi Horror” and concludes with a final chapter on “The Future”.
Reading that last chapter, written in 1938, before the outbreak of the last world war, and the Holocaust is not easy reading.
"A JEW cannot be blamed if, as he considers the present condition of his people, his heart is filled with despair. German Jewry, one of the oldest and most solidly established in Europe has been completely overwhelmed. Another great Jewry has followed that of Germany into the chasm, within the past few months, with catastrophic suddenness; Jewry strains its eyes, in an agony of apprehension, to know who goes next.
The great Jewish masses of eastern Europe, above all, are in peril. Today the doom involves more than half a million souls. What if tomorrow it should involve five millions? The prospect is too mournful to contemplate, but it is so far from remote that it must be contemplated.
The growth of anti-Semitism, the rise of economic nationalism, and the dark shadow of unemployment have made it increasingly difficult for even refugees from central Europe to find a haven elsewhere.”*
There will be some who dismiss re reading the book, given that we know what happened, but that is the point, knowing what happened makes reading the book all the more relevant.
And that of course is set against the rising tide of antisemitism, the small but none the less active group of Holocaust deniers, and that bunch that set out to argue that the present wave of antisemitic attacks with reference to Israel, which of course by extension falls into that obscene logic of blaming antisemitism on the Jews.
So, having read this book I am also interested in Mr. Golding, and have on order, Magnolia Street, written in 1933, and set in the High Town area of Manchester a decade earlier. It too is a book I read along time ago and while I am at it, I will also look out his films.
Picture; the cover of The Jewish Problem
* The Jewish Problem, Louis Golding, November 1938, reprinted, November 1938, and January 1939
He was born in Manchester in1895 to a Ukrainian-Jewish family, described his politics as “strongly to the left” and in 1938 wrote The Jewish Problem which was published as a Penguin Special.
The book examines the history of antisemitism, and Zionism, against the backdrop of “The Nazi Horror” and concludes with a final chapter on “The Future”.
Reading that last chapter, written in 1938, before the outbreak of the last world war, and the Holocaust is not easy reading.
"A JEW cannot be blamed if, as he considers the present condition of his people, his heart is filled with despair. German Jewry, one of the oldest and most solidly established in Europe has been completely overwhelmed. Another great Jewry has followed that of Germany into the chasm, within the past few months, with catastrophic suddenness; Jewry strains its eyes, in an agony of apprehension, to know who goes next.
The great Jewish masses of eastern Europe, above all, are in peril. Today the doom involves more than half a million souls. What if tomorrow it should involve five millions? The prospect is too mournful to contemplate, but it is so far from remote that it must be contemplated.
The growth of anti-Semitism, the rise of economic nationalism, and the dark shadow of unemployment have made it increasingly difficult for even refugees from central Europe to find a haven elsewhere.”*
There will be some who dismiss re reading the book, given that we know what happened, but that is the point, knowing what happened makes reading the book all the more relevant.
And that of course is set against the rising tide of antisemitism, the small but none the less active group of Holocaust deniers, and that bunch that set out to argue that the present wave of antisemitic attacks with reference to Israel, which of course by extension falls into that obscene logic of blaming antisemitism on the Jews.
So, having read this book I am also interested in Mr. Golding, and have on order, Magnolia Street, written in 1933, and set in the High Town area of Manchester a decade earlier. It too is a book I read along time ago and while I am at it, I will also look out his films.
Picture; the cover of The Jewish Problem
* The Jewish Problem, Louis Golding, November 1938, reprinted, November 1938, and January 1939
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