A Jewish Protest

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30170, 29 June 1963, Page 3

A Jewish Protest

Portrait of a Jew. By Albert Memmi. Eyre & Spottiswood. 325 pp.

The author says: “This is a book that caused me the greatest pain. I detest it.” His readers will not detest it but will be perturbed at its exhibition of the ultra-sen-.sitiveness of the author to what he describes as antisemitism in the modern world. He raises questions that would not occur to most ■men of his nationality. Albert Memmi was born in a ghetto in Tunis, and took part in the ferment affecting young Jews as they saw the rest of the world as a monster seeking to destroy the Jewish race. He suffered much because he was a Jew. Now in Paris, an intellectual, he writes the story of his life, which, he says, is the story of every Jew. Everywhere he looks he sees hostility and hatred. It is noticeable that in all his references to the treatment of the Jews by the modern, world he does not mention the United Kingdom where the Jew has always been treated with respect and many have risen to high office in Government and the professions. It is jolting to read, on the authority of the New York “Herald Tribune,” that there are 40 publications in the United States that specialise, in stirring racism and antisemitism. Most Arab nations won’t admit Jews and the Soviet Union has deported an enormous number. It seems to him that anti-semitism is prevalent everywhere, even though there is no open hostility. Always, somewhere in the world, Jews are being oppressed, endangered and killed.”

The author is rootless. He has no stake in his race. He pays lip service to some of the religious rites of Jewry but has no belief in Judaism It is religion that has held the Jewish race together, in spite of all the frightful atrocities they have suffered and without it the Jew is not a fully integrated citizen of the world. “History is made without us. The Jewish fate is a degrading fate and almost all Jewry are oppressed, anxious and estran ged.” This is not a fact of the modern world. The author feels deeply, but allows his feelings to master calm judgment of the situation The book is informative and worth serious consideration but Mr Memmi does protest too much.