IS THERE A CURE FOR ANTI-SEMITISM?
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contact with it, I've been sufficiently exposed to it, to be very wary of
what one says in a large public gathering. So I wasn't really avoiding the
question. I gave instead an example by describing what had happened in
Chicago when the rumor was begun from the City Hall itself, from the
mayor's office, that J ewish doctors were infecting black children w ith
AIDS. In telling what had happened when people tried to discuss this, I
was already indi cating a sort of answer to your question.
Edith Kurzweil:
Thank you. I think, to put it somewhat bluntly, this
is what has happened to many of us at universities, because when you
start to open a discussion of these problems, you are frequently called
racist, and then there's no answer.
Saul Bellow:
Yes, that's it. I have already many times been described as
a racist, and some of my books have been trashed because of this. I think
I have some justification. Yes?
Qllestion:
Shutting up in the face of that is no answer, because it only
gets worse, I think.
Saul Bellow:
Well, I'm not exactly shutting up. I've gone public in
many ways. I've recently published a piece in the
New York Times
op- ed
page in which I pretty frankly stated some of my views. I don't know
how much, I don't know how far a novelist can be turned into a cru–
sader on a very significant public question. I try to avoid it. Yet I con–
sider the trend toward the suppression of points of view deemed to be
politically incorrect to be a very great danger. It's one of the reasons
why I do occasionally emerge from the paralysis of a private life to say
something.
Edith Kurzweil:
Well, I wou ld just add one more thing to your de–
fense, and that is, read the novels.
Saul Bellow:
Thank you, that's right.
Qllestion:
I have a less philosophical and more practical question: What
can the American Jewish community do at this time to combat black
anti-Semitism in its various forms, low and high? One thing that doesn't
seem to be succeeding is the effort to persuade black political figures to
stand up and attack Farrakhan and the others. I think, with the one ex–
ception of Major Owens, a very noble excep tion , the problem is that
black politicians are afraid that if they attack Farrakhan, Farrakhan will
