Retort to Nazis; BBC music; a guide book
A Jewish retort to the Nazis
The past week has brought no abatement of the sufferings of German Jewry. The orgy of repression goes on with undiminished vigour. And the gates of a new Ghetto are slowly but surely closing on the country’s six hundred thousand Jews …The brutal floggings reported in Frankfurt, where, under threat of death Jews were compelled to whip Jew, and even fathers and sons were forced into mutual assault, are enough to make the blood of any civilised being boil, and to render the worst war-time stories of Bosche savagery credible. Has Germany returned to the barbarism of the Hun? Or is it that at bottom the German despite his lip service to culture and civilisation, is naturally cruel and heartless? How else are we to account for the inhuman incidents that follow one another?
The Herzl Leikin broadcast
An explanation from me of the broadcast of Monday inst might clarify matters a little and might account for my playing of “a theme song from a popular film.” I had arranged to broadcast the beautiful ‘Hebrew melody and dance’ by that celebrated Jewish violinist and composer Zimbalist. At the last moment, however the director of programming informed me that the Zimbalist would be “unsuitable” and could I play something popular with the orchestra? The ‘orchestra’ consisted of two saxophones, one violinist, one ‘hot’ trumpet,a bass guitar and piano! With such a combination it would have been out of the question for me to play, let us say, Max Brach’s Kol Nidrei! I have received many letters from my Jewish radio enthusiasts asking me to broadcast our own national melodies. I can assure them that I shall do so at my very next appearance at the BBC. Herzl Leikin
A Jewish guide book
For some years past, my friends and others have been pestering me to write a guide-book to the Jewish antiquities of the Continent. They may save their breath in future, and invest their money in Marvin Lowenthal’s sprightly, scholarly and (within its limits) exhaustive volume which fills this function, in an admirable fashion, for Europe and Northern Africa. The author has had the ingenious idea of writing his handbook in the form of an introduction to Jewish history, illustrated by the antiquities of the countries in question; and a host of plates make it possible for the student to follow the journey luxuriously and inexpensively, from his armchair …When more peaceful times return, Mr Lowenthal’s book is certain to be a familiar site on the steamers which puff up and down the Rhine.