Iphigene Ochs Sulzberger, who died at age 97 in 1990, has a place in American Jewish history. Her grandfather, Isaac M. Wise, founded the first Jewish seminary in the U.S., the Hebrew Union College. Her father, Adolph Ochs, bought the Times in 1896 and made it the great paper it is. Today the Times publisher is her grandson, Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr.
In 1976, when Mrs. Sulzberger was in her mid-80s, she granted an interview to the American Jewish Committee. The interviewer (the late Elliott M. Sanger, of WQXR), asked her about Jewish stuff.
Q. How important do you think the survival of Israel is to the security of the Jews in this country?
A. I don’t know. I don’t suppose it really basically would affect the survival.
Q. Well—survival I think is a very strong word.
A. It will arouse anti-Semitism in some sides and in other sides it’ll react the other way, depending on the type of person. At the time of Hitler I know there were people who thought, well, he had a good point.
Q. Yes, that the Jews had it coming to them.
A. And of course it’s always easier to hate than to understand, you don’t need to use your your brains.
Q. That’s right. The next question is one that you, I think, have had some experience with and I don’t know whether you wish to answer it. How do you respond to your children’s marrying someone of a different faith?
A. It depends on the person they marry. Some of them I’m just delighted with and one in particular I wasn’t so pleased, but that was purely the individual..
Q. It had nothing to do with the religion?
A. No….
Q. What difference has it made that you are Jewish?
A. My father always said if he hadn’t been a Jew he would have had more difficulty making a success in life because he felt the pressure that was brought upon him to prove himself and also the lack of social diversion had helped him… It’s made me more tolerant, more understanding of people who suffered against prejudice… I don’t want to let down my ancestors. Because I feel that people over the years have sacrificed so much for their tradition and their place. Nothing on the face of the earth would ever make me convert…
A few comments. Mrs. Sulzberger was an assimilating German Jew, and a very worldly woman. You will note that the interviewer tries to push her into chauvinistic statements about Israel and Jewishness, and she refuses to go there. Indeed, her husband, former Times publisher Arthur Hays Sulzberger, was at times an anti-Zionist. Two things she says make me smile. First is her comment that her father was a success because of the Jewish absence of “social diversion.” Then there is her take on intermarriage. She shows that you can love your Jewishness and also love your assimilation, love your non-Jewish relatives.
There used to be a word for this attitude in Jewish culture: liberal.
(The transcript is at the NYPL’s Jewish Division)
You have got to be kiding,the Times buried the holocaust on page 333, and is hardly a paragon of anything, particularly journalistic excellence, And there are currently NO Jewish Sulzbergers left has there will be no Jewish Weiss's left, And we has apeople will be better for it
We get it. You're in an intermarriage. Congratulations.
Bill, why don't you worry about the coming war with Iran — which could easily develop into WW3 — instead of the purity of the Jewish bloodline? I just don't get your priorities. Why do you insist on treating human beings like pedigreed livestock?
Brenda, Phil is the one that keeps writing columns about this. Marrrying out is forbidden by Jewish law, notice I said Jewish law, not civil law. Everybody makes their own choices. But, you have to notice that Phil writes about this a lot. Like he feels guilty about this somwhow. Look, before the rest of the holocaust denial crew weighs in here it has nothing to do with racial superiorty or blood lines. Its about continuity, the Jewish part of the Sulzbergers are gone, finished. And for Phil Weiss to quote this woman like she is some sort of ideal is incredibly insulting. His whole raison de etre for this column is that he has a Jewish name and continually rails against Jews and Israel. Its man bites dog, and yes it bothers me.
The same way it bothers me that a certified lunatic actually two, the North Koreans and the Iranians are going to have the bomb. And for all you anti-semites out there it should worry you too. Everything is not about the Jews and Israel, it really isn't.
Bill, the phrase 'certified lunatics' is obviously one of your propagandist constructs, but if you simply mean 'lunatics', then all the zionist bomb weilding leaders – who unlike the Iranians or the North Koreans have completely ignored the NPT – qualify.
Kameraden Rowan: International treaties aren't worth the paper their written on. If anybody needs the bomb its Israel. They have never threatened their neighbors with total destruction. The Iranians and North Koreans have. I know your the kind of guy that liked Halifax over Churchill but some of us beg to differ
Bill, with respect, I think you are misreading Phil. I do not see him as using his column to work out a personal neurosis. I think he is a well-read person who sees the writing on the wall all too clearly, who realizes how much our present situation represents a danger not only to our country generally but to American Jews particularly, and who is doing what he can about it. He is taking an enormous risk, not only with his career but with his very life. A person doesn't undertake to do what he is doing because of some intensely inner-directed Woody Allenish neurosis.
Brenda:
Come on you've got to be kiding, "he's risking his life". That's when you piss off the Moslems. Irritate the Jews and you get a book deal, you know that.
"I know your the kind of guy that liked Halifax over Churchill but some of us beg to differ"
Bill, do you realize that in practically every post you make you use "your" (see above example) as a contraction of "you are." I don't know if you are a native English speaker, but as long as you are defaming us as appeasers, anti-Semites and holocaust deniers I would appreciate it if you would defame us in proper English. The contraction of "you are" is not "your." It's "you're."
Gene
His whole raison de etre for this column is that he has a Jewish name and continually rails against Jews and Israel.
I don't know why you don't get it, Bill. Phil rails against neo-conservative Jews like you because they got us into the Iraq war for no good reason and he rails against Israel because its support for right wing settlers who keep building illegal settlements in the occupied territories is leading Israel, the Mideast and US with it into another world war.
Pearlstick – In Israel, specifics about intermarriage ARE dealt with in *civil* law. More bogus assertions on your part (to use your tired phrasing, "why am I not surpruised?").
As far as risks go, Brenda is correct. A good verification of that is "The Fate of an Honest Intellectual" – Noam Chomsky
http://www.chomsky.info/books/power01.htm
Lance, Lance, Lance, if you get your head and ass out of the neo-nazi web sites that you and your buddies Finkelstein and Chomsky like to inhabit the point was that Phil married out, fine good, its like cuting off the dead, corroding, desease ridden brach for the good of the tree. But yet he seems to feel the need to explain how great this is. And how brave he is. Ask Theo Van Gogh about bravery, Daniel Pearl maybe. Being an effete left wing pseudo-intellectual ant-Israel polemiscist in NY isn't exactly like being a marine in Falluja.
Pearlkins – Speaking truth to power isn't necessarily like being a Palestinian civilian in Gaza either but the risks are there nonetheless; personally and professionally.
Quit trying to drape yourself with the military because you've already admitted that you were too cowardly to risk your own chips for anything.
Typical of you to totally bypass how you were wrong on the civil restrictions on intermarriage btw. I guess in your mind, ignoring the extent of your mistakes allows your ego enough protection to pretend you know what the hell it is you're talking about.
Lance, Lance, Lance, Israel is a seperate country, I know you think the marching orders go out from Jerusaelm but that just makes you insane. Although I suppose that's exactly what I would say wouldn't it. And has far as Phil Weiss is concerned it seems to me that his career his going just fine. And I can't turn on the TV or pick up ther paper without seeing peanut Jimmys smiling face. By the way, nice move selling out the shah and geting khomeini in there, that really worked well
Bill, Bill, Bill. Let us get our head out long enough to remember Rabin. You remember Rabin, don't you? Yeah. Wasn't he the guy who made peace with Israel's most important enemy of the day? Jimmy Carter brokered that deal as I remember. Yeah. Now it's all coming back. Rabin gave land for peace — the majority of the Israeli population today would give land for peace, they are sick of war — and for that, the honorable Rabin was killed by a Jew from NYC. I would imagine that NYC Jew spent a lot of time agonizing over the purity of the Jewish bloodline, as well as over the land that G-d gave to the Jewish people a long time ago.
Brenda, that was Menachem Begin, not Rabin. and all the heavy lifting had been done by him and Sadat before
Camp David. Jimmy Carter gets WAY too much credit for that one and has been coasting on the for 30 yrs now. The question is not whether Israel will give land fopr peace, clearly they will. The question is whether the Arabs will give peace for land. And clearly they will NOT.
Bill, how about some commentary on the NYC Jew who killed Rabin and how that murderous impulse relates to Phil Weiss. That was one seriously pissed-off Jew, no?
Brenda, Rabin was killed by Yigal Amir, native born Israeli. The United States has also had a number of experiences with political assasination. Has have most countries. It would be quite a stretch to make this into some intrinsic Jewish problem.
I must have gotten Rabin's murderer mixed up with the NYC Jewish settler who shot up a Palestinian mosque. Thank you for clarifying that for me, however, my point still stands. Anyone who publicly and persistently challenges the current Israeli power structure — both here and in Israel — is taking a chance on his life and livlihood.
Now I would like you to address some points you initiated on the Camp David settlement.
The Camp David settlement was not simply arrived at 30 years ago, written in stone and forgotten. The peace with Egypt requires continual nurturing in order to survive. The US nurtures that agreement with an annual infusion of US$3B. In effect, doubling our annual gift to Israel of US$3B. Realistically, how long do you think this can go on, seeing as how we are ruining ourselves economically by continuously responding to unquenchable existential fears on the part of Israeli leaders? What about the Killing Of The Goose That Laid The Golden Eggs?
I think you conveniently left out the fact that that other 3 billion goes to Egypt, not Israel. Also, I would call the current state of Israel/ Egypt relations more like a nonbelligerency pact rather than real peace. We are spending a billion a day in Iraq, how much on South Korea, Bosnia, Nato. We have bases all around the world. We intervened to save Moslems in Kuwait, Bosnia, Lebanon, and frankly the Palestinians would be a dim memory if not for US intervention in holding Israel back. Are the Saudis worthy of our protection, the Pakistanis of our aid, why is Israel the target here. 400,00 people are dead at the hands of the Moslems in the Sudan, what about them.
What about Sudan, Mr. Pearlman? What exactly is the world supposed to do about Sudan? It was Colin Powel who declared that there was genocide going on there. But if there is, it isn't officially being carried out by the government, it's being carried out by a militia that may or may not be unofficially sanctioned by the government, it is not known.
If it is a genocide, and it is being carried out by an independent militia against rebel groups and a lot of innocent civilians who happen to be black muslims while the militia is Arab, but it's not being carried out by the government, what is the world supposed to do, Mr. Pearlman?
It's something the government of Sudan has to put a stop to. It is the legitimate government and as far as we know, the government itself is not genocidal.
I don't see any basis in international law, or even in Nato's new world vision, for any military intervention.
Your missing my point Deb, 4000 dead Palestinians, most of them combatants vs, 400,000 dead blacks at the hands of the Moslems. There can only be two possible reasons for the fixation on one vs the non visibility of the other. An obsession with the actions of Israel specifically and World Jewry in general. or actually something equally has plausible. There are an astounding number of foreign correspondents based in Israel vs let us say Khartoum. The toilets work, the girls walk around with halters on and they don't get kidnapped. Its easy to be in Jerusalem, but go into an Arab country and piss off the government or the local jihadis and you run the risk of being beheaded. The UN has whole agencies, days, everything under the sun devoted to the Palestinians, yet nothing devoted to black africans, explain that one to me.
Besides questioning all your "facts", I'm more interested in the similarities than the differences, Mr. Pearlman. It is probably more clear that the armed-to-the-teeth Israeli settlers who live in the settlements on Paletinian territory are there with the sanction of the legitimate government of Israel than it is that the independent Arab militia in Darfur is there with the sanction of the of the legitimate government of Sudan.
In neither case has there been any military intervention from the international community.
I would be very surprised if there is nothing going on at the UN with respect to Darfur. But there isn't likely to be any talk of military intervention, any more than there is likely to be any such talk regarding Israeli settlers. Again, it is up to the legitimate government to get them out of there.
I just ran a Google news search on "UN Darfur", Mr. Pearlman. I suggest you do the same. You might learn something.
Again Deb, your missing the point. Black Africans get slughtered by Arab Moslems, some of the victims are their fellow Moslems, some Christians. Black Jews from Ethiopia get airlifted to Israel and appeals are made for aid from World Jewry and it comes. who are the racists here. Has far as the west bank goes it was never an independent country, by international law it is disputed, but on a practical level the Israeli experience coming out of Gaza and south Lebanon is that any teritory that is ceded becomes a launching pad for missiles and Iranian proxy forces. The Arabs can't live in peace among themselves. It is simply not reasonable for Israel to allow the coastal areas, where the bulk of the population lives, to live under a missile threat from the high ground of the west bank. Would you do that knowing exactly what would happen. the Palestinians have simply shown no interest or ability to construct a civil, reasonable society with a rule of law yet and until that happens Israel cannot put itself under a mortal miliatry threat to satisfy knee jerk liberals, leftist, jihadists, neo-nazi's and France in order to appease a bunch of lunatics.
Let's see, Mr. Pearlman…
Jews can't live outside Israel, or inside Israel, without living in enormous and understandable fear.
Doesn't sound like being Jewish is such a great thing. Yet there's nothing more important to you than continuity.
I don't think I'll ever be able to make much sense of that. You shouldn't waste any more of your time on me.
I believe Deborah wins that round, Bill.
Now let's get back to your inane response to my last post.
I "conveniently left out the fact that the other $3 Billion goes to Egypt" (!?)
Are you losing your concentration or what?
That was the point of my post, Bill. I was pointing out that not only does the US subsidize Israel to the tune of $3B annually –(that's above the table, there's plenty more in the form of huge 'loans' that are always forgiven by our heavily-lobbied Congress, plus all the military hardware Israel might like to have)– not only does the US subsidize Israel to the tune of $3B per year, it also gives an equivalent amount to Israel's old uber-enemy-du-jour, Egypt, to ensure that Egypt keeps the peace.
Or the non-belligerancy pact, whatever you want to call it. (Bill, let's not argue around the margins. I am about the same age as you are and neither of us has enough time left to us for this) Whatever you want to call it, the US is paying for it.
You may not have noticed that the once-enviable, once-invincible American economy has changed over the past few years. We have a trade deficit and a national budget deficit that is too big to be paid down. This is essentially the definition of bankruptcy. IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT THE MORALITY OF A FOREIGN AID DEMAND IS ANY MORE — whatever it is, we can't afford it. We're not talking morality or antisemetism or the right of Israel to exist. We're talking how much money we have, or don't have, to buy what we want to buy.
Bill, it is stupid of you, and others like you who love Israel, to brush off what people like us have to say as 'merely bigoted, merely antisemetic'. If you love Israel, then do what you can to push Israel to make peace with her neighbors while she still has that option. The free lunch is nearly over.