by Seth Lipsky
21 “I would rather see the Forward go under”: Epstein, Profiles of Eleven, p. 103.
22 “Which is the most vital,”: Oswald Garrison Villard quoted in Tyler, A Vital Voice, p. 41.
23 “A great misfortune,”: 1924 Forward headline quoted in Moses Rischin, “The Promised Land in 1925: America, Palestine, and Abraham Cahan,” YIVO Annual 22 (1995), p. 86.
24 “utterly incomprehensible when found among”: Gordon J. Goldberg, Meyer London: A Biography of the Socialist New York Congressman, 1871-1926 (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc.), p. 129.
25 “Polish Aliyah”: Yaacov N. Goldstein, Jewish Socialists in the United States: The Cahan Debate, 1925–1926 (Brighton, U.K.: Sussex Academic Press, 1998), p. 13.
26 “harrowing”: Ibid., p. 14.
27 “a pivotal factor in the intensification”: Ibid., p. 13.
28 “support the policy”: Ibid.
Chapter 11
1 “the miracle”: Goldstein, Jewish Socialists, p. 20.
2 “the lion [was coming] out of his lair”: Ibid., pp. 20-21.
3 “The thing is of such unusual consequence”: Forward Association minutes, August 7, 1925, quoted in Moses Rischin, “The Promised Land in 1925: America, Palestine, and Abraham Cahan,” YIVO Annual 22 (1995), pp. 88–89.
4 “proclaiming the Forward’s Palestine series”: Vladeck to Cahan, September 21, 1925, quoted in Rischin, “Promised Land,” pp. 89–90.
5 “Today Genosse Cahan arrived in Jerusalem”: Ibid., p. 90
6 Cahan’s dispatches from Palestine: Rischin, “Promised Land,” pp. 88–96
7 “offered to make a substantial cash”: Ibid., p. 96.
8 “As the ship was not anchored far offshore”: Abraham Cahan quoted in Goldstein, Jewish Socialists, p. 73.
9 “I treat Zionism in an entirely non-partisan way”: Ibid., p. 21.
10 “They feared that my journey”: Ibid., p. 23.
11 “the dissenters seem to have been correct”: Ibid., p. 23.
12 “I came to Palestine with that single-minded resolution”: Ibid., pp. 71–72.
13 “had migrated to America before the Bund”: Ibid, p. 24.
14 “the Jewish settlements of the new kind”: Ibid., p. 80.
15 “to clarify to the American reader”: Ibid.
16 “I always found it difficult to tear my gaze”: Cahan quoted in Goldstein, Jewish Socialists, p. 97.
17 “I’ll tell you the truth”: Ibid., p. 26.
18 “factory owners, businessmen, and bankers”: Ibid., p. 70.
19 “Generally it may be said that a quiet struggle”: Ibid., p. 71.
20 more than 150,000 Jews were resettled: Jonathan Dekel-Chen, Farming the Red Land (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005), p. 4.
21 “because it raised millions for the Crimea settlement”: Goldstein, Jewish Socialists, p. 76.
22 “apart from the oppression and despotism”: Ibid.
23 “Zionist chauvinism is so strong that it has become”: Ibid., p. 89.
24 “When you tell a revolutionary in Palestine that you”: Ibid.
25 “kissing the sand dunes of Tel Aviv”: Ibid., p. 92.
26 “I can’t help it”: Cahan quoted in Sanders, Downtown, p. 441.
27 “The great public draws”: Quote from Ben-Gurion diary in Rischin, “Promised Land,” p. 98.
28 “a genuine labor leader and not one of the dime-store”: Ibid.
29 “the Arab question is closely connected”: Goldstein, Jewish Socialists, p. 94.
30 “extremist chauvinists”; “not because this was once their home”: Ibid., pp. 94–95.
31 “The Iron Wall”: from “utterly impossible” … to “abandon all idea of seeking an agreement at present”: Originally printed in Razsviet, April 11, 1923. English translation via Jabotinsky Institute, online at http://www.jabotinsky.org/multimedia/upl_doc/doc_191207_49117.pdf [minor typographical errors corrected].
32 “the fine things we see in it now are doomed to vanish”: Goldstein, Jewish Socialists, p. 112.
33 “Comrade Abe Cahan declared that despite”: Ibid., p. 136.
34 “we are not Zionists” in Zivion’s sense … But “we are Jews!”: Ibid., p. 48.
35 “all the telegrams and articles sent by Comrade Cahan”: Ibid., p. 161.
36 “I am not a Zionist … but I have never defined myself”: Ibid., p. 230.
37 his trip to the Soviet Union: see chapter 80 of Shub, On the Revolving Stage of History.
38 “going to be pro-Soviet.”: Ibid., chapter 80.
39 “No American journalist is better qualified”: Daniel Soyer, “Abraham Cahan’s Travels in Jewish Homelands: Palestine in 1925 and the Soviet Union in 1927,” in Yiddish and the Left: Papers of the Third Mendel Friedman International Conference, eds. Gennady Estraikh and Mikhail Krutikov (Oxford: Legenda, 2001), p. 70.
40 “I went everywhere as a Russian like all other”: Ibid.
41 “decided from the very beginning not to have any”: Shub, On the Revolving Stage, chapter 80.
42 “In the summer of 1918, however, he betrayed the Bund”: Ibid. 162 “Cahan told me later … that he had wondered how”: Ibid.
43 “Vendrov was still the Forward correspondent”: Ibid.
44 “one of us” … “one of the most moving moments”: Ibid.
45 tensions were running high: For an account of the Hebron massacre, see Jerold Auerbach, Hebron Jews (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2009), chapter 4.
46 “savage Arab masses, incited by their own leaders”: “The Next Destruction?” editorial, Jewish Daily Forward, August 29, 1929.
47 “not only because it marked a milestone”: Ibid.
48 “literally slaughtered like oxen in a butcher shop”: Ibid.
49 examples “of great heroism and self-sacrifice”: Ibid.
50 initially supported the Jews of Hebron: “Remembering the Hebron Riots, 1929,” Jewish Daily Forward, August 20, 2004.
Chapter 12
1 “It seemed that in Philetus’ district the Republican candidate” Stephen Beisman Sarasohn, “The Struggle for Control of the American Labor Party, 1936–1948,” M.A. Thesis, Columbia University, 1948, p. 1.
2 aspired to succeed Cahan as editor: Baruch Charney Vladeck Papers, Tamiment Institute Library, Bobst Library, New York University.
3 “absent minded and too busy with other things”: Shub, On the Revolving Stage of History, chapter 97.
4 “The minute Cahan learned of Vladeck’s death”: Ibid. 168 “getting ready to join Hitler against the West”: Ibid.
5 “Are you going to write about that?” …: Ibid.
6 “So it is with the ‘apikores’—when it comes”: Abraham Cahan, “Away Ye ‘Apikores,’ Hello to the Jewish Revolutionary Heart” (May 17, 1911), reprinted Jewish Daily Forward, May 16, 1997.
7 “The place of the ‘free-thinker’ ” …: Ibid.
8 “sepia-tinged portrayals of shtetl life”: Ellen Umansky, “Asch’s Passion,” Tablet, April 24, 2007.
9 “Since that time I have never thought”: Ibid.
10 “other, perhaps less conscious factors at play”: Ibid.
11 “One of the most richly creative works of fiction”: Ibid.
12 Asch had long coveted literary accolades: Ben Siegel, The Controversial Sholem Asch (Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green University Popular Press, 1976), p. 144.
13 “to reclaim Jesus” … “earth-bound Rabbi” … “lean and hungry-looking”: Ellen Umansky, “Asch’s Passion.”
14 “never had any unfriendly feelings” and subsequent: Abraham Cahan, Sholem Asch’s New Direction. The text quoted here was translated by Mindle Gross, commissioned by the author.
15 closed to him: Siegel, Controversial, pp. 150, 197–98.
16 “spoke like a deeply wounded man”: Epstein, Profiles of Eleven, p. 105.
17 “I am not religious. I am a total free-thinker”: Abraham Cahan, Sholem Asch’s New Direction.
/> Chapter 13
1 a “shameful document” … “Fascist devil”: Editorial, Jewish Daily Forward, October 1, 1938.
2 “Hitler has allies in his enterprise of setting the world on fire”: “The World is Burning,” editorial, Jewish Daily Forward, reprinted May 28, 2010. Translated by Chana Pollack and Myra Mniewski.
3 Cahan and Jabotinsky had corresponded: Louis Gordon, “ ‘An Old Jewish Journalist to Another’: The Private Correspondence of Ze’ev Jabotinsky and Ab. Cahan—‘I Still Expect You to Warn America’s Jews,’ ” Jewish Daily Forward, May 26, 2000, referencing Abraham Cahan archives, the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, New York.
4 “most certainly was aware of Jabotinsky’s role”: Louis Gordon, “ ‘An Old Jewish Journalist to Another.’ ”
5 “an exodus from Europe and the settlement of six million”: Ibid.
6 “a certain opposite opinion”: The text quoted here is from the English-language translation reprinted in Louis Gordon, “ ‘An Old Jewish Journalist to Another’: The Private Correspondence of Ze-ev Jabotinsky and Ab. Cahan—‘5 Million or 6 Million is a Pretty Small State,’ ” Jewish Daily Forward, May 26, 2000.
7 “How to take care of five million or six million”: Ibid.
8 “The question of whether AK or VJ does or does not believe”: Louis Gordon, “ ‘An Old Jewish Journalist to Another’: The Private Correspondence of Ze-ev Jabotinsky and Ab. Cahan—‘I Still Expect You to Warn America’s Jews,’ ” Jewish Daily Forward, May 26, 2000.
9 “To be sure, you and I look at things”: Ibid.
10 “The death of Vladimir Jabotinsky at this grim time”: “The New Foundation,” editorial, Jewish Daily Forward, May 26, 2000, citing editorial of August 6, 1940.
11 “heavily embroiled in the fight against the Nazis”: David Shub, On the Revolving Stage of History, chapter 107.
12 “I don’t care what happens to me after that”: Ibid.
13 “Hello, Socialists!”: Ibid.
14 “But God forbid, under no circumstances”: Ibid., chapter 111.
15 “How can it be, that Anyuta is dead?”: Ibid.
16 “did not lose even one single reader”: Ibid.
17 The Forward’s erstwhile competitor, the Tageblatt: Sanders, Downtown, pp. 448–49.
18 “This is the happiest day of my life”: Shub, On the Revolving Stage of History, chapter 111.
19 “my everlasting friend”: Ibid.
20 “He was one of the first to fight Communists”: “10,500 Pay Tribute to Abraham Cahan,” New York Times, September 6, 1951.
21 “We should as Americans say ‘Thank God’ for the day”: Ibid. 186 “How many unions would have been captured”: Ibid.
22 “tribute from the Government and the people”: Ibid.
23 “furthering social progress and Yiddish”: Ibid.
24 “a great scholar of literature”: David Shub, On the Revolving Stage of History, chapter 111.
25 “The Bible is unquestionably the most beautiful book in the world.”: H. L. Mencken, Treatise on the Gods (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006, with text of 1946 revised edition), p. 286.
26 “the most unpleasant race ever heard of”: Citing 1930 edition of Treatise on the Gods in Terry Teachout, The Skeptic: A Life of H. L. Mencken (New York: Harper-Collins Perennial, 2003), pp. 247–48.
27 “only a small part of a discussion that was generally”: H. L. Mencken, My Life as Author and Editor (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993), p. 247.
28 “sticks in my mind to this day”: H. L. Mencken, “Abraham Cahan,” in A Second Mencken Chrestomathy (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995), p. 282; first published in the Forward, April 21, 1940.
29 “the mature and painstaking work of an artist”: Ibid., pp. 283–4
30 “Abe Cahan was never a sworn Jewish nationalist”: David Shub, On the Revolving Stage of History, chapter 111.
31 “I cannot escape from my old self”: Abraham Cahan, The Rise of David Levinsky (New York: Modern Library, 2001), p. 518.
ABOUT THIS AUTHOR
SETH LIPSKY is the founding editor of the Forward and of The New York Sun. He is a former foreign editor of The Wall Street Journal and served as a member of its editorial board. He served as a combat reporter in Vietnam for Pacific Stars and Stripes and is the author, most recently, of The Citizen’s Constitution: An Annotated Guide. He lives in New York City.
Also Available as eBooks from the Jewish Encounters Series:
THE LIFE OF DAVID • Robert Pinsky • 978-0-307-42891-2
MAIMONIDES • Sherwin B. Nuland • 978-0-8052-1227-3
BARNEY ROSS • Douglas Century • 978-0-8052-4272-0
BETRAYING SPINOZA • Rebecca Goldstein • 978-0-8052-4273-7
EMMA LAZARUS • Esther Schor • 978-0-8052-4275-1
THE WICKED SON • David Mamet • 978-0-8052-4274-4
MARC CHAGALL • Jonathan Wilson • 978-0-8052-4274-4
JEWS AND POWER • Ruth R. Wisse • 978-0-307-53313-5
BENJAMIN DISRAELI • Adam Kirsch • 978-0-8052-4261-4
RESURRECTING HEBREW • Ilan Stavans • 978-0-8052-4262-1
THE JEWISH BODY • Melvin Konner • 978-0-8052-4266-9
RASHI • Elie Wiesel • 978-0-307-37867-5
A FINE ROMANCE • David Lehman • 978-0-8052-4271-3
YEHUDA HALEVI • Hillel Halkin • 978-0-8052-4283-6
HILLEL • Joseph Telushkin • 978-0-8052-4289-8
BURNT BOOKS • Rodger Kamenetz • 978-0-307-37933-7
THE EICHMANN TRIAL • Deborah E. Lipstadt • 978-0-8052-4291-1
SACRED TRASH • Adina Hoffman and Peter Cole • 978-0-8052-4290-4
BEN-GURION • Shimon Peres with David Landau • 978-0-307-90689-2
WHEN GENERAL GRANT EXPELLED THE JEWS • Jonathan D. Sarna • 978-0-8052-4303-1
THE BOOK OF JOB • Rabbi Harold S. Kushner • 978-0-8052-4307-9
THE WORLDS OF SHOLOM ALEICHEM • Jeremy Dauber • 978-0-8052-4316-1
THE RISE OF ABRAHAM CAHAN • Seth Lipsky • 978-0-8052-4310-9
For More Information about the Publishers:
www.schocken.com
www.nextbook.org
The assassination of Czar Alexander II by members of Narodnaya Volya on March 1, 1881, was followed by pogroms throughout the Pale, but it stirred in Abraham Cahan hopes for a Russia without Romanov rule.
Cahan (in 1883) was twenty-one years old when, in the crackdown on revolutionaries following the assassination of Alexander II, he fled Russia, one step ahead of the police. (Forward Association)
After arriving at America in 1882, Cahan taught school and began writing not only for socialist journals but also for the general press. (Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, George Grantham Bain Collection)
Lincoln Steffens who brought Cahan to the New-York Commercial Advertiser. “ ‘We’ had use,” he wrote, “for anyone who, openly or secretly, hoped to be a poet, a novelist, or an essayist.” (Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, George Grantham Bain Collection)
William Dean Howells helped establish the genre of American literary realism and took Cahan under his wing. It was Howells who seized upon the name that became the title of Cahan’s first novel: Yekl. (Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division)
H. L. Mencken, the sage of Baltimore, at the Evening Sun in 1913. He corresponded with Cahan, and the two dined together, agreeing that Mencken’s derogatory references to Jews were, as Mencken wrote, “only a small part of a discussion that was generally favorable to them.” (Reprinted by permission of The Baltimore Sun Media Group, the estate of H. L. Mencken, and the Enoch Pratt Free Library of Baltimore, in accordance with the terms of the will of H. L. Mencken. All Rights Reserved. Photograph courtesy of the Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University)
Jacob Riis, celebrated reporter of his day, rose to fame at The New York Sun and showed a young Abraham Cahan how to make his firs
t telephone call, telling him at the New York Police Department’s press room, “You have to call it in.” (Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Frances Benjamin Johnston Collection)
Samuel Gompers, future president of the American Federation of Labor, worked in the same New York City cigar factory as Cahan at a time when organized labor was starting to stir throughout America, including on the Lower East Side. (Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division)
Cahan’s use of the techniques of yellow journalism, learned from his contemporaries William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer, kept the Forward’s circulation climbing and required a small army of newsboys. “300 People Burned in a Theater”; “Pittsburgh Millionaire, Bachelor, Gets 2 Wives After Death”; “8 Bandits Ravish Girl in Mid-day on Washington Street”; “70-Year-Old-Worker Takes Job and Drops Dead”; and “She Burned Out Her Husband’s Eye with Carbolic Acid” were typical Forward headlines. (Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division)
The Forward Building housed not only the editorial offices but also, on the top floor, the composing room, where mechanical mastodons formed hot lead into lines of type. The lower floors had space for a meeting hall with a thousand-person capacity and for the headquarters of several unions and fraternal organizations. (Forward Association)
Twenty-three-year-old Clara Lemlich helped instigate a strike in the garment industry in 1909, when she stood up at a meeting of the Ladies’ Waist Makers Union and declared, “I’m tired of listening to speakers who talk in general terms … I offer a resolution that a general strike be declared—now.” She later betrayed the garment workers, joining the communists. (Courtesy of the Catherwood Library Kheel Center at Cornell University)
“For No Reason, a Savage Mass Murder Has Occurred” was the headline in the Forward two days after a fire broke out on March 25, 1911, at The Triangle Shirtwaist Company. One hundred and forty-six persons perished, mostly young women. Wrote Cahan in an editorial: “Who is the Angel of Death? Who is the thug? Who is the mass murderer? Must we again say it is that gluttonous ravager of humans—capital?!” (Forward Association)