WHY I AM A JEW BY EDMOND FLEG TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH BY LOUISE
WATERMAN WISE VITH A FOREWORD BY STEPHEN S. WISE NEW YORK BLOCK
PUBLISHING COMPANY Tbe Jewish Book Concern 933 DEDICATED TO MY
GRANDSON who is not yet born FOREWORD From time to time Jewish
books come out of France which arrest the attention of the Jewish
world. Such a book was Darmesteters Hebrew Prophets, the richness
of the content equalled by the beauty of the style. Pallieres
Unknown Sanctuary, not written by a Jew, came not very long ago as
a revelation to those who had not heard of the thrilling quest of a
sanctuary by one pre paring, as he imagined, for the Catholic
priesthood. Each of these a document of the first importance The
one an involuntary tribute by one Jewishly self exiled, the other
the passionately eager song of a soul finding home at the altar of
Judea. And recently another of the sons of French Jewry, Edmond
Fleg, has renewed the unfading glory of the Franco-Judean literary
tradition, which includes the immortal name of Rashi of Troyes.
This glory seems to shine most brightly when Jewish life is at its
darkest, for literature meaningful and rich is not so much the
utterance of fullness of life, as the prophecy of a happier by a
poorer age. Why I am a Jew, by Edmond Fleg, belongs to vii viii
FOREWORD a series of little books published under the general
title, Leurs Raisons. It is a chapter in an auto biography which
includes The Child Prophet and, strange though this may sound, The
Life of Moses. For Edmond Fleg is another of the Shomerim watchmen
upon the tower, prophets of an unex pected renaissance in one of
the oldest and, as it seemed, least vital of world Jewries, France.
Why I am a Jew is anatypical narrative of a Jewish experience. The
tale, written with Gallic charm and Hebraic warmth for an unborn
grand child, is of the life of a Jewish child reared in the
alienative atmosphere of an outwardly Orthodox but basically
unobservant Jewish home. Comes the environment of secularism in
school and college, which in a dominantly Christian world is deeply
and pervasively Christian, and then LAffaire, the testing of
France, though France knew it not, by the Dreyfus trial to France a
test and for some great Jews, such as Herzl, Nordau and Fleg,
revealing and cleansing. And yet for Fleg this was not enough, and
in the arena of his innermost life battles remained to be fought,
battles of the intel lectual life, wars of the spirit with the
tempting hosts of doubt and cynicism. It was not easy to make his
way back to that which in essence lay behind him. Escape tempted.
Freedom beckoned. But the call of FOREWORD ix truth was most
imperious to his soul. And in the end he suffered no lesser
considerations than those of truth to govern his decision to take
his place once again with his people. Since his return, he has
given much to his peoples cause in a series of books, which are as
vital as his re-born faith and his re-won loyalty. While yet a very
young man, Fleg became eye witness in one of its earlier Congresses
of the Zion ist, what shall we call it movement or cataclysm. And
Fleg, prepared by much that had gone before, found therein not so
much reason as justification, not so much proof as prophecy of the
ultimate faith that became his own. There are books which are
called epochal because they give rise to epochs. Why I am a Jew is
epochal in another sense, in sum ming up an epochin the life of
Westernized, de ghettoized Jews who think as humans, philosophize
as Westerners, feel as Jews. Over and beyond the closely knit
reasoning for the faith that is in Fleg, his is a lyrical
exultation over the faith that, finding good, he longs to hand on
to childrens children. Mystic is his exaltation of a faith, which,
because most simple and free from complexities and subtle ties,
allows fullest play for that direct, immediate, unimpeded access to
the Truth of Truths, which is the religion of his people...
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