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Symposium on Jewish Choices By TUDNN SEIT)

"The Watchmtker," by Yehuda Pen, 1914

Paul Robeson and Black-Jewish KinshipBy PAUL RORESON /t{.

By VIRGINIA SNITOWSeeing lsrael Again

The Power of Jewish Women By MrMr Rr.uESroNE

v

I-or his 20th yortz.eit. April9. 1E98-.1an.23. 1976 men of the Hebrew faith in John Brown ' sbrave company of men who fought toemancipate the slaves in Kansas in 1855;that many Jews contributed money topurchase thefreedom of escaped slaves;that many Jews distinguished them-selves in the Northern Army during thewar to end slavery. It is nothing new,then, that we espouse here today. . . .

"Some time ago, at the time of thedisgraceful anti-Semitic outbreak inBoston, I said, 'America has a choice,either to fulfill its historic destiny andabolish inequalities, or follow the fas-cist idea of dog eatdog. The struggle forfreedom in which we zue presently en-gaged means the freedom of all indi-viduals."'

Four years later, in 1949, my fatherencountered anti-Semitism in a vastlydifferent context and challenged it inhis own unique way. On a visit to theSoviet Union, Paul was given a hero'swelcome in Moscow and throughouthis tour of several other major cities,including Stalingrad. Yet from the mo-ment of his arrival he was troubled by asinister refrain in the newspapers. Acrusade against "Cosmopolitanism andZionism" was beingconducted in a con-text that manifested an unmistakableanti-Jewish undertone. Paul respondedby immediately asking to see some ofhis personal Soviet Jewish friends, be-ginning with Solomon Mikhoels, agreatname in the Soviet theater, and ItzikFeffer, an outstanding poet.

Paul was told that, unfortunately,Mikhoels had died recently of a heartattack, while Feffer was away on vaca-tion. Finally, when Paul returned toStalingrad with only a few days leftbefore the end of his visit, he demandedto see Feffer with such determinationthat his hosts promised Feffer wouldvisit him on June l3th, the day beforePaul's nationally broadcast farewellconcert in Moscow. In the early morn-ing of that day, Iuik Feffer was roused

JRm;anv ,1996

from his cell in Moscow's dreadedLubyanka prison, transported to hishome underguard, and then released inthe lobby of Paul's hotel that after-noon.

As Paul greeted him warmly at thedoor of his suite, Feffer indicated withgestures that the rooms were bugged,and the two proceeded to speak nor-mally about uncontroversial matters inRussian. But on another level, usingsign language and abbreviated noteson scrap paper, they shared an unfor-gettable communion - the pain andterror of Stalin's secret 1948-1949"purge," notonly of the SovietUnion'sleading Jewish intellectuals but also ofthe best and brightest Communists inLeningrad and Moscow. Paul playedhis role at least as masterfully as Feffer,who knew that he was playing his for alast chance at physical survival.

As Feffer spoke of mundane matters,he wrote the words: "Mikhoels mur-dered on Stalin's order." And while hetold a hilarious joke about himself anda close friend, he drew a finger slowlyacross his throat. When Feffer rose togo, the two men embraced as brothers,and Paul was left to ponder what hecould do to save his friend.

My father's farewell concertthe nexteven ing in Moscow 's ha l lowedChaikovskii Hall was remembered fora long time, not merely because he wasin magnificent voice but primarily be-cause of the extraordinary passion hecommunicated to his audience. Today,the old-timers swear that nothing theyever heard from a concert stage matchedthe emotional power of Paul's last songon that occasion.

After he had finished singing "Ol'Man River," the last song listed on theprogram, he raised his enormous handto still the applause. Then he announcedthat he would end his concert with asingle encore - a special song he hadlearned recently and wished to dcdi-cate to his dear friend Solomon Mi-

By PAUL ROBESON./n.

that they were describing in words andmusic. And by the way. . . these songswere largely written not in the Negrodialect, but in a language caught fromthe Bible itself. . . .

"[Those] who composed these songswere naturally artistic, and they wereable to translate the grand epics of onepeople into. terms for their owninspiration."

Paul Robeson was conscious of thiscultural link between Jews and Afri-can-Americans throughout his life, andin later years he broadened his concep-tion of this common ground. On Nov.25,1945, in an address to the CentralConference of American Rabbis (Re-form) at the Jewish Institute of Reli-gion in New York, Robeson spoke pas-sionately about the necessity of unitedaction by Negroes and Jews in defenseof freedom for all Americans. He said,in part:

"I would like toquote what the editorof the magazine of the B'nai B'rithonce wrote in replying to someone fromthe South who lamented that 'We Jewshave enough problems of our own tosolve without helping Negroes to solvetheirs.' Answered the editor, plainlyand truthfully, 'So long as Negroes failto achieve complete libcration, so longwill Jews also suffcr discrimination,and so long as that is true, every othersegment of the American people facesa threat to its liberties. For liberty is asindivisible today as it was in Lincoln'stime, and no nation can long endurehalf slave and half free.'. . .

"Throughout the entire history of thestruggle of the American people fordemocratic rights. . . Jews and Negroeshave fought and died together. It is wellworth remembering that there were

Paul Robeson and Black-Jewish Kinship

f) nul Robeson's public recognitionI of the cultural kinship between Af-rican-Americans and Jews was long-standing and can be traced back to hisyouth. When my father was only 29years old, he spoke warmly of the closelink between Negro Spirituals and theancient Hebrew scriptures.In an articleluly 22, 1927 in The lewish Tribune,Sulamith Ish-Kishor referred to theNegro Spirituals sung so beautifully byPaul Robeson, and added that "Robe-son. . . was very willing to say what hethought was the explanation of thesesongs, and how much and in what re-spects the colored race had drawn inspi-rat ion and comfort f rom the OldTestament." Then she quoted my fatheras follows:

"The Hebrews were so war-like, soresentful of domination. The captiveNegroes of America took that race astheir model, in a way at least, by havingsuch a complete and absorbing interestin their history. . . .

"The Bible was the only form of lit-erature the captive Negroes could getat, even those who could read. It wasnatural for their quick imaginations tofind a. . . similarity between their con-dition and that of the enslaved He-brews. . . .

". . .Onc of the most beautiful of thespirituals, 'Go Down Moses,' is basedon that. It was rcally their own plight

PAUL RogesoN JR. hcs appeared herewith I I articles and reviews since Nov.,1981 . His book, Paul Robcson Jr. Speaksto America (Rutgers Univ. Press, NewBrunswick, NJ, 1993), was reviewedhere in Oct., 1993. IIe last appearedhere inSept.,1995 with " Eric Dyson onMalcolm X."

8 JEWISH CURRENTS

V

TATII . R0RI, :SONA N I) T' I I I,: 'T R AN S M I G RATION

0h. A MEI,ODY

I{' NowtN(;. of a dear friend'sI \ nr tcrcst in Paul Robeson, I

tillx:-rocordcd for her all the recordsol' all of Robeson's renditions ofYiddish songs. She was particularlystruck by the traditional (and pro-to-Marxist) vig fid (lullaby) "ShlofMayn Kind, Shlof Keseyder," hereadapted from the translation RuthRubin made in her A Treasury ofIewish Folksong:

Sleep, my child, sleep peacefully,I ' l l sing you a lullaby.When my little baby's grown,You'll know the difference

and why.

When my litt le baby's grown,You'l l soon see which is which:Like the rest of us, you'l l knowThe difference between poor

and rich.

The largest mansions, the finesthomes,

The poor man builds them onthe hil l .

But do you know who'l l l ivein them?

Why, of course, the rich man wil l!

Thc poor man lives in a cellar:Thc walls are wet with dampThat brings pain to his arms and

legsAnd a rhcumatic cramp.

Thus it was through the artistry ofan African-American singer thatCathol ic-raiscd Celeste Lederer,Music Dircctor of the UnitarianChurch of Statcn Island, NY,playedher arrangement of this Yiddishmelody dur ing Sunday servicesthere on Sept. 24,1995 - in recog-nition of Rosh Hashana.

HERSII I - HNRTUNN

khoels, whose tragic and prematuredeath had saddened him deeply.

An anxious hush greeted Paul's men-tion of Mikhoels. One could hear gaspsasPaul went on to speak of his meetingwith Feffer, whom he describedas welland hard at work on his memoirs. Onecould hearapin drop during my father'sremarks about the deep and enduringcultural ties between the Jewish com-munities of the Soviet Union and theUnited States, about the shared tradi-tion of the great Jewish writer, SholemAleichem, and about the continued vi-tality of the Yiddish language. Finallyhe announced that he would sing "Zognit kaynmol az du gehst dem letztenvegi' the song of the Jewish partisanswho fought to the death against theirfascist oppressors in the Warsaw Ghet-to. Since the song had to be sung inYiddish, he introduced it by paraphras-ing the lyrics in Russian.

Never say that you have reached thevery end

When leaden skies a bitter futuremay portend;

For sure the hour for which we yearnwill yet arrive,

And our marching steps will thunder:we survive.

When he finished the song, there wasa moment of silence from the trans-fixed audience. Then, almost as one,all who were present released theiraccumulated tension l ike an explosivecharge. Although Paul's l isteners in-cluded many of Moscow's Jewish in-tellectual elite who were waiting forStalin's axe to fall on them, the greatmajority were Russian members of theParty elite which was being decimatedby a purge. Jews and Russians alike, insome places seated side-by-side, wereeither walking in the shadow of deathor had lost someone close.

After that first release, the ovationcontinued to swell and recede in a se-ries of waves which ebbed and flowed.

TIvo Poems

THE ORPHANED CHILD SINGSTO THE ORPHANED MOTHER

f he last day of shivahJ i tate an early morning walk

among the plants we have on the roofstopby the violasmama gave us slx years agosaying they come back every yearwhich they have donestopand want to kiss thembecause they're from mamai don' tbut stay by themand standingcryay liu liu mayn shepsele. . .a lullabywho is cradling whom?my tears mix with the dewon the violas

violas: flowers similar to violets

shepselc: little sheep

By PETER SCHLOSSER

END OF SHIVAH

+er the towels from the mirrorsJ let our faces see themselveswith grief streaks on the cheekswith swollen eyesand reddened lipsnowlet us go to lifeto lifewe toast ourselveson our return

so difficult to push open the door tolife

without the bolstering we're used toaware there is no phonecallto say hellojust check up on thingsand hear the halting voicethe audible shy smile

stiil it is the wayand so we goaway from shrouded mirrorsinto lifb

PETER ScIrlossER o/ New York last appeared here in Feb., 1992 with twopoems. He has sung at JnwlsH CURRBNTS concerts and luncheons.

People stood, applauded and cried out;they called my father by his patronymic- Pavel Vasil 'evich; some who weretotal strangers fell into each other'suums and wept; still others sat silentlywith tears streaming down their faces.The sound of this cry of hope was un-forgettable, and there is little doubt thatit was heard by the "Master" himself.Itzik Feffer and his colleagues were notexecuted until three years later, in1952.

Thus it was that Paul Robeson, one ofthe greatest voices of the century, gaveexpression to the suffering not only ofSoviet Jews but also of the countlessvictims of Stalin's purges. In Moscow,

JANUARY, 1996

as elsewhere, his priceless gift was,in the words of the late Black writerJames Baldwin, "the power to perceive,and the courage to resist."

In today's context of rancorous dis-putes between Jews and African-Amer-icans, Paul Robeson's example servesas a stern rebuke to those on both sidesof this divide who are more intent onventing their anger than on seekingreconciliation. Especially does myfather's legacy challenge those Afri-can-Americans who stridently spewanti-Semitic venom. The Robeson tra-dition refutes their premises and rejects

l 0 JEwISH CURRSNTS

their attitude.

l l