BOOKS
453
HALF AND HALF
IS CURLY JEWISH? A Political Self-Portrait Illuminating Three Turbulent
Decades of Social Revolt 1936-1965.
By
Paul Jacobs. Atheneum. $5.95.
The pundits might well consider
Is Curly Jewish?
an im–
portant case study in what they are pleased
to
call the "problem of
Jewish identity." I prefer to read it as a most lively account of one
man's Odyssey through the strange and wonderful world of American
radicalism, a plastic rendering of what it meant to be a radical in the
thirties, forties and after. Most likely, both readings are justified in some
measure. Jacobs' choice of title and subtitle seems
to
indicate that he
wished to pursue simultaneously two somewhat different aims.
"A few years ago," the book starts out, "I was asked what business
I'd been in during the depression. 'Trying to overthrow the government
by force and violence,' I answered, 'but business was lousy.' " This neatly
puts a finger on a key aspect of American radicalism. Business was always
lousy-even in the depression thirties. Radicalism in America, as distinct
from most of Europe, remained peripheral to the main currents of politi–
cal life. The radical was always a marginal man, and in effect radicalism
appealed mainly to people who were or felt marginal in the first place.
Whereas in England, for example, the radical tradition had deep and
enduring roots in a long tradition of dissent, its roots on American soil
were much more fragile . Not that it was simply a foreign import, like
parrot fever, as certain of its adversaries claim. Men like Eugene V. Debs
or Norman Thomas have drawn their strength and vision from peculiarly
American strands of ideas. Nevertheless, American radicalism generally
has drawn on European sources for much of its impetus and inspiration.
And this was especially true of the Trotskyist movement in which Jacobs
grew up.
Jacobs' parents were of German Jewish-middle-class origin. They
had come to America before he was born and spoke English with only
a faint trace of an accent. The family had certain pretensions to gentility,
looked upon the rich and prominent German Jewish families of New
York as models, and shared with German Reform J ews the dislike for
the "uncouth" world of Eastern Jewry. The Jacobses had contempt for
the Yiddish-speaking masses of New York; they ignored the Orthodox
synagogue around the corner and belonged
to
the "nice" brick temple
on the Grand Concourse. In these particulars Jacobs' background differed
from that of most of his fellow Jewish radicals, who had come to the
