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Beyond the ‘Day of Hate’: The best strategy to keep American Jews safe over the long term
(JTA) — My synagogue sent out a cautiously anxious email yesterday about an event coming this Shabbat, a neo-Nazi “Day of Hate.” The email triggered fuzzy memories of one of the strangest episodes that I can remember from my childhood.
Sometime around 1990, in response to local neo-Nazi activity, some Jews from my community decided to “fight back.” I don’t know whether they were members of the militant Jewish Defense League, or perhaps just sympathetic to a JDL-style approach. When our local Jewish newspaper covered the story, it ran on its front cover a full-page photo of a kid from my Orthodox Jewish high school. The photo showed a teenage boy from behind, wearing a kippah and carrying a baseball bat that was leaning threateningly on his shoulder.
As it happens, “Danny” was not a member of the JDL, he was a kid on his way to play baseball. Sometimes, a baseball bat is just a baseball bat. But not for us anxious Jews in America: We want to see ourselves as protagonists taking control of our destiny, responding to antisemites with agency, with power, with a plan. I’m sorry to say that as I look around our community today, it seems to me that we have agency, and we have power — but we certainly don’t seem to have a plan.
The tactics that the American Jewish community uses to fight back against antisemitism are often ineffective on their own and do not constitute a meaningful strategy in the composite. One is that American Jews join in a partisan chorus that erodes our politics and fixates on the antisemitism in the party they don’t vote for. This exacerbates the partisan divide, which weakens democratic culture, and turns the weaponizing of antisemitism into merely a partisan electoral tactic for both sides.
Another tactic comes from a wide set of organizations who have declared themselves the referees on the subject and take to Twitter to name and shame antisemites. This seems to amplify and popularize antisemitism more than it does to suppress it.
A third common tactic is to pour more and more dollars into protecting our institutions with robust security measures, which no one thinks will defeat antisemitism, but at least seeks to protect those inside those institutions from violence, though it does little to protect Jews down the street. Richer Jewish institutions will be safer than poorer ones, but Jews will continue to suffer either way.
A fourth tactic our communal organizations use to fight antisemitism is to try to exact apologies or even fines from antisemites to get them to retract their beliefs and get in line, as the Anti-Defamation League did with Kyrie Irving, an approach that Yair Rosenberg has wisely argued is a no-win proposition. Yet another tactic is the insistence by some that the best way to fight antisemitism is to be proud Jews, which has the perverse effect of making our commitment to Jewishness dependent on antisemitism as a motivator.
And finally, the most perverse tactic is that some on both the right and the left fight antisemitism by attacking the ADL itself. Since it is so hard to defeat our opponents, we have started beating up on those that are trying to protect us. What could go wrong?
Steadily, like a drumbeat, these tactics fail, demonstrating themselves to be not a strategy at all, and the statistics continue to show a rise in antisemitism.
Perhaps we are too fixated on the idea that antisemitism is continuous throughout Jewish history, proving only that there is no effective strategy for combating this most persistent of hatreds.
Instead, we would do well to recall how we responded to a critical moment in American Jewish history in the early 20th century. In the aftermath of the Leo Frank lynching in 1915 – the murder of a Jewish man amid an atmosphere of intense antisemitism — Jewish leaders formed what would become the ADL by building a relationship with law enforcement and the American legal and political establishment. The ADL recognized that the best strategy to keep American Jews safe over the long term, in ways that would transcend and withstand the political winds of change, was to embed in the police and criminal justice system the idea that antisemitism was their problem to defeat. These Jewish leaders flipped the script of previous diasporic experiences; not only did they become “insiders,” they made antisemitism anathema to America itself. (And yes, it was the Leo Frank incident that inspired “Parade,” the forthcoming Broadway musical that this week attracted white supremacist protesters.)
For Jews, the high-water mark of this strategy came in the aftermath of the Tree of Life shooting in Pittsburgh. It was the low point in many ways of the American Jewish experience, the most violent act against Jews on American soil, but it was followed by a mourning process that was shared across the greater Pittsburgh community. The words of the Kaddish appeared above the fold of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. That is inconceivable at most other times of Jewish oppression and persecution. It tells the story of when we are successful – when antisemitism is repudiated by the general public. It is the most likely indicator that we will be collectively safe in the long run.
We were lucky that this move to partner with the establishment was successful. I felt this deeply on a recent trip to Montgomery, Alabama. Seeing the memorials to Black Americans persecuted and lynched by and under the very system that should have been protecting them from the worst elements of society is a reminder that not all minorities in America could then — or today — win over the elements of American society that control criminal justice.
Visitors view items left by well-wishers along the fence at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh on the first anniversary of the attack there, Oct. 27, 2019. (Jeff Swensen/Getty Images)
A strategic plan to defeat antisemitism that must be collectively embraced by American Jews would build on this earlier success and invest in the infrastructure of American democracy as the framework for Jewish thriving and surviving, and continue the historic relationship-building that changed the Jews’ position in America. It would stop the counterproductive internecine and partisan battle that is undermining the possibility of Jewish collective mobilization.
It means more investment, across partisan divides, in relationships with local governments and law enforcement, using the imperfect “definitions of antisemitism” as they are intended — not for boundary policing, but to inform and help law enforcement to monitor and prevent violent extremism. It means supporting lawsuits and other creative legal strategies, like Integrity First for America’s groundbreaking efforts against the Unite the Right rally organizers, which stymie such movements in legal gridlock and can help bankrupt them.
It means practicing the lost art of consensus Jewish collective politics which recognize that there must be some baseline agreement that antisemitism is a collective threat, even if any “unity” we imagine for the Jewish community is always going to be be instrumental and short-lived.
It means supporting institutions like the ADL, even as they remain imperfect, even as they sometimes get stuck in some of the failed strategies I decried above, because they have the relationships with powerful current and would-be allies in the American political and civic marketplace, and because they are fighting against antisemitism while trying to stay above the partisan fray.
It means real education and relationship-building with other ethnic and faith communities that is neither purely instrumental nor performative — enough public relations visits to Holocaust museums! — so that we have the allies we need when we need them, and so that we can partner for our collective betterment.
And most importantly, it means investing in the plodding, unsexy work of supporting vibrant American democracy — free and fair elections, voting rights, the rule of law, peaceful transitions of power — because stable liberal democracies have been the safest homes for minorities, Jews included.
I doubt we will ever be able to “end” individual antisemitic acts, much less eradicate antisemitic hate. “Shver tzu zayn a Yid” (it’s hard to be a Jew). We join with our fellow Americans who live in fear of the lone wolves and the hatemongers who periodically terrorize us. But we are much more capable than we are currently behaving to fight back against the collective threats against us. Instead, let’s be the smart Americans we once were.
The real work right now is not baseball bats or billboards, it is not Jewish pride banalities or Twitter refereeing: It is quiet and powerful and, if done right, as American Jews demonstrated in the last century, it will serve us for the long term.
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The post Beyond the ‘Day of Hate’: The best strategy to keep American Jews safe over the long term appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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This 90-year-old Jewish performer and promoter is the Zelig of folk music
Harry Tuft was in a taxi with Judy Collins, who had her guitar with her. The cab driver looked back and asked if the two of them were folk singers. They replied in the affirmative.
“Folk music is dead,” the cab driver asserted.
“We kind of chuckled a little and said, ‘Oh, really, how come?’” Tuft recalled.
“Did you see Ed Sullivan last night?”
The passengers replied that they hadn’t.
“There was a group on there called The Beatles. Folk music is dead.”
To paraphrase Mark Twain, the reports of the death of folk music were an exaggeration.
“That was a time when, really, we didn’t know what was going to happen,” Tuft said during a recent Zoom interview from his home in Denver.
“I think it’s thanks to groups like Peter, Paul and Mary and maybe somebody like Joan Baez and Judy Collins and John Denver — people who were popular enough and smart enough to appeal to a larger segment of the population. They really kept folk music alive.”
The genre lived on, also, thanks to the efforts of the now-90-year-old Tuft, who was more than a bit player in the folk music revival during the 1960s. He founded the Denver Folklore Center in 1962 and, with others in 1979, founded the Swallow Hill Music Association, which presents concerts, teaches music classes for all ages and offers outreach programs. In 2012, Tuft was inducted into the Colorado Music Hall of Fame.
Tuft was also a link in the chain that led to Bob Dylan meeting the Beatles. He also may be the only nonagenarian who released an album this year.
“Friends, Lovers & Other Strangers” includes songs by artists like Bob Dylan and Paul Simon, as well as ones by some of Tuft’s friends. It also includes a cover of the Nat King Cole Trio’s “Nature Boy.”
“I grew up in Philadelphia listening to pop music of the day on radio stations WPEN and WIBG, and R&B stations at night,” Tuft writes in the album’s liner notes. “This song was popular across the board.”
Tuft’s paternal grandfather, Dr. Jacob L. Manasses, was the founder of Bushkill Farms Camp, a Jewish boys camp in the Pocono mountains. Tuft went to Indian Lake, another Jewish camp in the Poconos. A counselor at his camp played the ukulele. Tuft, who played piano and clarinet, soon acquired a ukulele. “I found out there was such a thing as a baritone uke and it turns out that the tuning of the baritone is the same as the four highest strings of the guitar, so I was already two-thirds of the way to a guitar,” he said. “It was very customary in those days for Jewish kids somewhere in their college years to go to Europe so I bought a Chimes guitar and carried it with me.”
Tuft intended to become a doctor like his father and paternal grandfather. But his grades weren’t good enough to get into medical school. Instead, he graduated from Dartmouth in 1957 with a degree in philosophy. He went to graduate school for architecture at the University of Pennsylvania with thoughts of being a city planner.
“But music won out,” said Tuft.
While at Dartmouth, Tuft met Pete Seeger at a folk club. Seeger met with the club members in the afternoon and performed that night.
“He was really intent on getting us as a group to go out into the community and see if we could find people who had songs to offer. He arrived in a blue Plymouth station wagon with his kids on a mattress in the back. His wife, Toshi, set up a display in the hall and sold Pete’s Folkways Records after the concert. Here was this icon, this important person in my musical life in the moment, and he was just getting along,” he said.
“He requested a large log, and did a song called ‘Didn’t Old John (Cross the Water).’ It included a place to swing the axe. Unfortunately, the podium was very slick and Seeger ended up chasing the log all over the ‘stage.’”
After graduating from Dartmouth, Tuft joined the growing folk music scene that was centered around the Gilded Cage in Philadelphia. There, he met his lifelong friend Dick Weissman, a banjoist and guitarist who was in the Journeymen with John Phillips, who would go on to found the Mamas and the Papas.
Tuft eventually ventured out to Colorado, where he auditioned at The Exodus, a Denver folk club.
Tuft was told about the owner: “If he was going to hire you he would be critical and if he was not he would be nice to you. And he was nice to me, so I knew that I wasn’t going to get a job there.
“I had a repertoire that was out of the ordinary, and I was never really attracted to the ‘quote’ popular folk songs,” Tuft said. “As a matter of fact, when it came to trying to make a living playing in the bars what they wanted to hear were the popular songs by the Kingston Trio or Peter, Paul and Mary or the Brothers Four, and I didn’t know those songs.”
“I’m a sucker for a story, I’m a balladeer. I love ballads. Quite often, I do ballads of 10, 12, 14 verses because I like the form so much.”
The Exodus owner said that he thought someone could make a part-time living opening a folklore center like Izzy Young’s Folklore Center in Greenwich Village. “I sometimes joke and say that he was right. I opened a full-time folklore center in order to make a part-time living.”
Tuft also sold records, instruments, strings and accessories and it was the strings and accessories that paid the rent.
The shop became a way station for up-and-coming folk musicians traveling between Chicago and the West Coast. When Bob Dylan made his first cross-country tour and played in Denver, he had his mail forwarded to Tuft’s store.
“Even then, he had an attitude about him,” Tuft recalled. “The following summer I saw him at the Kettle of Fish in the Village, and he grudgingly acknowledged that we had met.”
After a visit to Chicago’s Old Town School of Folk Music, he started a school for Denver musicians and soon branched out into promotion. His first job was for Joan Baez who sold out a 2,400 seat house in March 1964.
Baez was involved with Dylan at that time and wanted to get him to meet The Beatles, who were playing Red Rocks on August 26. Baez was scheduled to play at the venue a couple days earlier, so a plan was hatched for her to come out a few days early so that she could meet the lads and arrange for them to meet Dylan in New York, where The Beatles were going after Denver.
The day before The Beatles’ show, Tuft and Baez went to see A Hard Day’s Night. The musicians met before The Beatles show and Tuft recalled that Baez and the band members were deferential to one another. Except for Ringo, who wasn’t interested and was reading a comic book.
Tuft also brought the Mamas and the Papas to Denver’s Municipal Auditorium Theater with 7,600 seats in 1966. Richard “Dick” Lamm, a friend and lawyer, fronted him $5,000 for the guarantee. Lamm later admitted that he had absolutely no idea who the Mamas and the Papas were. “That showed the amount of trust he had in me,” Tuft said. “And he said he was nervous until a week before the concert until they were on the cover of Life magazine.” Lamm used his profits to fund his first run for the Denver statehouse.
Later, John Denver offered his services for a benefit Tuft organized and helped raise more than $40,000 for Lamm’s successful run for governor.
Folk music endures, Tuft said, “because the best of folk music involves music. And the best of music is melodic. And whatever it is in our physical makeup that involves not just the heartbeat, which is our basic rhythm, but something about our voice, maybe, and the way we speak and our desire to communicate that all put together leads to somebody creating a song about something that happened, and if the kernel of it, either the music or the words, or both are such that people like it and repeat it and you get musical history, and history of countries and our country in particular, of the songs.”
Tuft is already putting together his next album — a double album of cowboy and western songs, traditional on one side and contemporary on the other.
“I’m a song addict,” Tuft said. “And I like to think that I have pretty decent taste in songs. Nothing pleases me more than to be able to find a new song, make it my own, and pass it on and open it up to whatever audience I’m able to bring together.”
The post This 90-year-old Jewish performer and promoter is the Zelig of folk music appeared first on The Forward.
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Israel has a lot riding on Nvidia, whose CEO resigned today
Jensen Huang, who co-founded Nvidia and has run it for 33 years, resigned as chief executive on Thursday, ending a tenure that turned a maker of video-game chips into the engine of the artificial intelligence boom. The decision followed revelations of an affair with a businesswoman whom U.S. intelligence officials suspect of being a Chinese spy, and allegations of a second relationship, with an executive who reports to him.
Colette Kress, Nvidia’s chief financial officer, will serve as interim chief executive while the board searches for a permanent successor.
The turmoil is a Silicon Valley story with a significantIsraeli subplot. Nvidia employs roughly 6,000 people in Israel, including on 18 floors of office space in a Tel Aviv skyscraper. Israel is home to the company’s largest R&D hub outside of the U.S. As well, Huang has been the driving force behind a plan to build a giant new campus in the country’s north. Huang has courted Israel for years, and the open question now is what happens to that commitment without him.
Nvidia’s Israeli business traces back to 2019, when it agreed to buy Mellanox, an Israeli chip company, for $6.9 billion. Mellanox made the technology that lets thousands of chips in a data center work together as one machine. That technology is now central to how AI data centers are built.
Huang kept Mellanox in Israel, along with its patents and its sales. The Israeli teams’ work is now woven into Nvidia’s newest products, and includes building a chip meant to rein in AI tools that act on their own.
In the second quarter of 2026 alone, Nvidia’s Israeli operation booked $17.5 billion in sales, nearly a fifth of the company’s worldwide revenue and more than four times the sales of Teva Pharmaceuticals, the multinational Israeli drugmaker. Analysts credit Nvidia with largely driving a 13% jump in Israeli tax revenue, and its workforce there has roughly doubled since Oct. 7, 2023.
A personal stake
Huang’s attachment to Israel is not purely commercial. On Oct. 7, Avinatan Or, a chip engineer at Nvidia’s Israeli operation, was captured at the Nova music festival along with his then-girlfriend, Noa Argamani, in a video seen around the world. She was rescued eight months later. Or remained a hostage for 738 days.
Nvidia colleagues held vigils with his mother, Ditza, and Huang stayed in touch with the family throughout. When Or was freed in Oct. 2025, Huang wrote to employees that “Avinatan has come home.” Huang later hosted Or and Argamani at the company’s headquarters in California. This March, as the war with Iran broke out, Huang told Israeli employees that he was “very worried” about them.
Huang has called Israel a “second home” for Nvidia.
That attachment is intended to last. In December, Nvidia announced plans for a campus in Kiryat Tivon, near Haifa, reportedly second in size only to its Silicon Valley headquarters. Construction is set to begin next year, and the offices are expected to open by 2031, with room for up to 10,000 employees.
What lies ahead
The next CEO has become a question in Israel, too. Kress, 59, has been Nvidia’s finance chief since 2013. The board says it will look both inside and outside the company for a permanent chief executive.
Haaretz speculated Thursday that two Israeli executives could be potential candidates. Both men studied at the Technion in Haifa. Michael Kagan, who was born in St. Petersburg, Russia and moved to Israel with his family after high school, co-founded Mellanox in 1999 and has been Nvidia’s chief technology officer for six years. Johny Srouji, born in Haifa to an Arab Christian family, joined Apple in 2008 and now leads its hardware work, including the chips inside its products.
Nothing so far suggests Nvidia’s plans in Israel will change. The Israeli teams work on products the company depends on, and the new campus has long been in the works.
Nvidia’s stock has fallen by about a third since early October, a loss of more than $1.5 trillion in market value, and the company is due to report earnings on Nov. 17. The numbers will matter in Israel. So will something they can’t show: whether Nvidia’s affection for the country outlasts its last CEO.
The post Israel has a lot riding on Nvidia, whose CEO resigned today appeared first on The Forward.
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I. B. Singer predicted the war between Fascism and Communism
יצחק באַשעװיס איז אַרײַן אין דער ייִדישער ליטעראַטור אין 1925, װען ער איז געװען בלויז 21 יאָר אַלט. אַז ער איז באַרימט געװאָרן אין אַמעריקע, האָט ער ניט געלאָזט איבערדרוקן אָדער איבערזעצן זײַנע פֿריִערדיקע װערק, װאָס זײַנען דערשינען אין ייִדישע צײַטשריפֿטן אין פּױלן.
לעצטנס האָט מען זײ אָבער אָפּגעזוכט און איבערגעזעצט אױף ענגליש אונטערן קעפּל „אױפֿן עולם־התּועה“. די דאָזיקע אױסגאַבע איז אַ קאָלעקטיװער אױפֿטו פֿון אַ גאַנצער גרופּע רעדאַקטאָרן און איבערזעצער, אַרײַנגערעכנט דניאל קענעדי, יאַן שװאַרץ, ראָזע װאַלדמאַן, אַגניעשקאַ לעגוטקאָ און אַנדערע.
אין זײַנע דערצײלונגען פֿון יענער תּקופֿה מאָלט באַשעװיס אַ ברײטן לײַװנט פֿון ייִדישע צרות אין דער נײַ־אױפֿגעקומענער פּױלישער רעפּובליק. כּמעט אַלע העלדן זײַנע זײַנען יורדים, װאָס שלאָגן זיך מיט די ביטערע עקאָנאָמישע באַדינגונגען און פֿאַלן נאָך טיפֿער אין יסורים און נױט.
גימפּל בעדנער, דער העלד פֿון „אױף דער עלטער“, איז אַ מאָל געװען אַ װאַסערטרעגער, אָבער איצט האָט ער מער ניט קײן כּוח פֿאַר אַזאַ אַרבעט. די אײנציקע שטיצע זײַנע קומט פֿון זײַנע טעכטער, װאָס האַלטן אַ שאַנדהױז. קײן סך אָרט איז דאָרט ניטאָ, מוז ער נעבעך ליגן אין דעם אײגענעם בעט, װוּ זײַן טאָכטער „באַדינט אירע געסט“.
דוד סװירסקי, דער העלד אין „צוריקװעגס“, קערט זיך אום קײן פּױלן פֿון ארץ־ישׂראל. אַן אַמאָליקער ציוניסט, איז ער אַנטױשט געװאָרן אינעם ציוניסטישן חלום און מיד פֿון זוכן „עבֿודה“ בײַ די חלוצישע ייִשובֿים. אָבער קײן מזל אין דער אַלטער הײם האָט ער ניט. זײַן פֿאָטער שיקט אים אַװעק, און מיר געזעגענען זיך מיט אים װען ער לאָזט זיך זוכן גליקן בײַ זײַן מאַמעס משפּחה אין אַ פֿאַרװאָרפֿענעם שטעטל.
באַשעװיס מאָלט אַ רײַכע פּאַנאָראַמע פֿון ייִדישן פּױלן נאָך דער ערשטער װעלט־מלחמה. אים זײַנען גוט באַקאַנט סײַ די אָרעמע ייִדישע גאַסן פֿון װאַרשע סײַ די װײַטע פֿאַרװאָרלאָזטע שטעטלעך. ער לאָזט דעם לײענער ממש שמעקן דעם ריח פֿונעם ביטערן דלות און ייִאוש. עס איז ניטאָ קײן נס װאָס קען ראַטעװען זײַנע העלדן פֿונעם ביטערן גורל.
די אַלטע סטאַבילע װעלט אונטער דער שליטה פֿון די מעכטיקע אימפּעריעס, דער רוסישער און דער עסטרײַך־אונגאַרישער, ליגט אין חורבֿות. די נײַע פּױלישע מלוכה איז שװאַך און אָרעם און זאָגט ניט צו קײן צוקונפֿט פֿאַר ייִדן.
אין די װערק פֿונעם װאַרשעװער פּעריאָד פֿון 1925 ביז 1935 דערקענט מען בפֿירוש די השפּעה פֿון י. ל. פּרץ, סײַ אין די פּרטימדיקע, נאַטוראַליסטישע שילדערונגען פֿון די שטעטלעך און סײַ אין די פֿיגורן פֿון כּלערלײ מערקװירדיקע פּערסאָנאַזשן: מקובלים, משׂכּילים, חסידים, ציוניסטן, אַפּיקורסים און סתּם ייִדן פֿון אַ גאַנץ יאָר.
דאָס זאַמלבוך נעמט אויך אַרײַן אינטערװיוען מיט ייִדישע מחברים, װאָס באַשעװיס האָט געמאַכט פֿאַר דער װאַרשעװער צײַטונג „ליטעראַרישע בלעטער“.
הלל צײטלין באַגריסט באַשעװיסן אין זײַן דירה, װוּ ער לערנט חסידות מיט זײַנע תּלמידים. ער האַלט, אַז מחוץ פּרץ, אַנ־סקי און דער נסתּר האָט די ייִדישע ליטעראַטור ניט קײן אמתע דערגרײכונגען. צײטלין באַדױערט, אַז ער מוז ציִען פּרנסה פֿון דער ליטעראַרישער אַרבעט און באַקלאָגט זיך, אַז ער קען קױם קריגן אַ פּאָר גראָשן פֿאַר זײַנע װערק. אָבער פֿאַר לערנען נעמט ער ניט קײן געלט.
מלך ראַװיטש זעט אױס מער װי אַ דײַטש אײדער אַ ייִד, שרײַבט באַשעװיס. אַנשטאָט צו באַגריסן באַשעוויסן מיט אַ „שלום־עליכם“ װײַזט ראַװיטש אױפֿן זײגער, װײַל באַשעװיס איז אַ פּאָר מינוט שפּעט. נאָך אײדער באַשעװיס שטעלט אַ פֿראַגע, הײבט ראַװיטש אָן צו דערצײלן װעגן זײַן ליטעראַרישן װעג. ער גיט באַשעװיסן אַ גאַנצע דרשה װעגן זײַן „אידעאַליסטישן“ צוגאַנג צו ליטעראַטור: די אידײ איז דער עיקר, זי איז די „נשמה“ פֿון אַ קונסטװערק. פֿאַר ראַװיטשן זײַנען די װיכטיקסטע ייִדישע דיכטער פּרץ מאַרקיש און ה. לײװיק.
דער סאַמע לעבעדיקסטער שמועס האָט באַשעװיס מיט פּרץ מאַרקיש. ער כאַפּט מאַרקישן ממש אַ פּאָר שעה פֿאַר זײַן צוריקפֿאָרן קײן סאָװעטן־פֿאַרבאַנד אין יולי 1926. מאַרקיש איז אױפֿגערעגט, מסתּמא ווײַל ער מוז צוריקפֿאָרן, און „שרײַט“ זײַנע ענטפֿערס צו באַשעװיסעס פֿראַגעס.
ליטעראַטור איז פֿאַר מאַרקישן די „לעבעדיקע אָרגאַנישע ענערגיע“ װאָס פֿליסט פֿונעם יחיד צו דעם כּלל און צוריק. ליטעראַטור האָט ניט קײן צװעק, זי איז אַן אײביקער פּראָצעס פֿון װערן.
מאַרקיש טענהט, אַז די רעװאָלוציעס, מלחמות און פּאָגראָמען צװינגען מענטשן צו קערן זײערע פּנימער צו דעם רעאַלן לעבן. און איצט, האַלט ער, קומט די ייִדישע ליטעראַטור נענטער צו אָט דער נאַקעטער װירקלעכקײט.
עטלעכע חדשים נאָך מאַרקישעס אָפּפֿאָרן קײן סאָװעטן־פֿאַרבאַנד האָט זיך ישׂראל יהושע זינגער, באַשעװיסעס עלטערער ברודער, אומגעקערט קיין אַמעריקע פֿון אַ צװײ־חדשימדיקער רײַזע איבער „נײַ־רוסלאַנד“.
לױט זײַן אײַנדרוק, האָט די סאָװעטישע קונסט אָנגעװױרן דעם גײַסט פֿונעם ראַדיקאַלן אַװאַנגאַרד און האָט זיך אומגעקערט צום טראַדיציאָנעלן רעאַליזם. די דאָזיקע טענדענץ איז זינגערן געװען צום האַרצן װײַל ער איז אַלײן געװען אַן אָנהענגער פֿונעם רעאַליסטישן סטיל.
צום באַדױערן האָט דער איבערזעצער דאָ געמאַכט אַ פּאָר גרײַזן אין די נעמען פֿון סאָװעטישע שרײַבער: דער מחבר פֿון „גאַלאָפּ“ הײסט עזרא פֿינינבערג און ניט Feinberg, און איציק קיפּניס איז ניט קײן E. Kipnis. דערצו איז דער ענגלישער אױסלײג פֿון ייִדישע נעמען ניט אױסגעהאַלטן: איזי כאַריקס נאָמען שרײַבט מען סײַ Kharik סײַ Charik.
באַשעװיס האָט פֿאָרמולירט זײַן אײגענעם עסטעטישן אַני־מאמין אינעם עסײ „צו דער פֿראַגע װעגן דיכטונג און פּאָליטיק“, װאָס איז אַרױס אינעם קלײנעם ליטעראַרישן זשורנאַל „גלאָבוס“ אין 1932.
דאָס איז אַ װיכטיקער דאָקומענט אין דער געשיכטע פֿון דער ייִדישער ליטעראַטור, און עס קומט אַ ייִשר־כּוח די רעדאַקטאָרן און דער איבערזעצערין װעראַ סאַבאָ פֿאַר מאַכן דעם דאָזיקן מקור צוטריטלעך אױף ענגליש.
„דער גײַסט פֿון פּאָליטיק האָט אפֿשר נאָך קײן מאָל נישט אַזױ אַרומגעכאַפּט דעם מענטש װי הײַנט. […] די מלחמה צװישן װעלט־פּראָלעטאַריאַט און דעם פֿאַשיזם דערנענטערט זיך. אידעיִש איז די אַרמײ פֿון דער צוקונפֿטיקער װעלטשלאַכט שױן מאָביליזירט.“ אַזױ שטעלט באַשעװיס זײַן דיאַגנאָז דער תּקופֿה, װאָס װעט זיך ענדיקן מיטן חורבן.
באַשעװיס שרײַבט מיט לײַדנשאַפֿט און קלאָרקײט. ער איז אַ שאַרפֿער קריטיקער פֿון ראַדיקאַלע פּאָליטיקער, סײַ די רעכטע פֿאַשיסטן סײַ די לינקע קאָמוניסטן. סײַ די, סײַ יענע „צײלן שױן זײערע סטאַדעס און מ׳באַשטימט יעדן זײַן אָנטײל אין דעם צוקונפֿטיקן בלוטבאָד.“ די פּאָליטיקער פֿאָדערן, אַז אַ שרײַבער זאָל ענטפֿערן אױף דער פֿראַגע: „מיט װעמען גײסטו? פֿאַר װעמען ביסטו?“
אָבער דער קינסטלער, האַלט באַשעװיס, איז בטבֿע אַנדערש פֿון דעם פּאָליטיקער. דאָס איז „דער מענטשן, פֿאַר װעלכן די פֿלײש־אַריטמעטיק פֿון פּאָליטיקער איז פֿרעמד און עקלדיק“.
אַלע עכטע קינסטלער האָבן „אײן בשותּפֿותדיקע אײגנשאַפֿט: זײ האָבן אָפֿענע אױגן צו זען, װי אומגליקלעך דער מענטש איז. דערין באַשטײט זײער טאַלאַנט.“
ער איז געװען בטבֿע אַ פּעסימיסט, װאָס האָט ניט געגלױבט אין גליקלעכע חלומות. די סאַמע געלונגענע פּערסאָנאַזשן זײַנע האָבן ניט קײן מזל אין לעבן, סײַ אין פּױלן פֿאַרן חורבן און סײַ שפּעטער אין אַמעריקע. זײַנע ווערטער אין אָט דעם אַרטיקל דינען טאַקע ווי אַ שליסל צו באַשעװיסעס קינסטלערישן װעלטבאַנעם.
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