Norman Podhoretz. Ex-Friends: Falling Out With Allen Ginsberg, Lionel and Diana Trilling, Lillian Hellman, Hannah Arendt, and Norman Mailer. New York: The Free Press, 1999. 244 pp. $25.00, cloth, ISBN 978-1-893554-17-7.
Reviewed by Albert S. Lindemann
Published on H-Holocaust (October, 1999)
Ex-Friends has been widely reviewed in the been composed primarily as a book review cover‐ mainline print media, but the book may seem a ing all aspects of the book but rather as an extend‐ surprising choice to be reviewed in H-Holocaust ed review essay exploring those themes. and H-Antisemitism, since it is natural to assume, This is Podhoretz's third book devoted pri‐ especially given the eye-catching title, that it is marily to autobiographical themes. The frst two, mostly concerned with literary and political mat‐ Making It (1967) and Breaking Ranks (1979) were ters, and with that mainstay of memoirs, gossip longer (each over 350 pages, while Ex-Friends is about the private lives of famous people. Pod‐ 235 pages) and more audacious. Although Pod‐ horetz does ofer his readers some gossipy tidbits horetz claims that his new book ofers his readers (did you know that Hans Morgenthau had an af‐ new material, except for the frst chapter and fair, well, maybe, with Hannah Arendt?). And "few bits and pieces" in the others, he has in fact parts of the book, in particular the opening chap‐ recycled quite a bit from his earlier books. There ter on the poet, Allen Ginsberg, those dealing with are, to be sure, some interesting new details, and the novelist, Norman Mailer, or with the literary twenty or thirty years have passed; inevitably critics, Diana and Lionel Trilling, are germane to similar information now looks diferent, some‐ these lists only in an indirect sense: They illus‐ times in fascinating ways. All three books, at any trate how little antisemitism and the Holocaust rate, are beautifully written and reveal a man, preoccupied these particular Jewish luminaries in whatever one's general attitude to him, of undeni‐ the decades immediately following WW II. But the able talent and sophistication. chapters devoted to Lillian Hellman and Hannah Neoconservatives have in recent years been Arendt ofer some intriguing if also troubling in‐ less in the news than they were in the 1970s and formation about how current attitudes to the 1980s; feelings about them, pro or con, have quiet‐ Holocaust came into being, as well as about the ed down. Even their strongest detractors can evolution and paradoxes of Jewish attitudes to an‐ hardly deny their overall importance, and they tisemitism. The following remarks, then, have not H-Net Reviews themselves can feel something like "mission ac‐ leftist inclinations. In reaction to Adolf Eich‐ complished," particularly in such areas as Ameri‐ mann's trial in 1961, the National Review referred can policy toward the Soviet Union and Israel, or to the "Hate Germany movement" that was insti‐ in the new respect for the role of the free market gated by the Israelis and supported by American and the discredit of leftist economic perspectives. Jews. "It is all there: the bitterness, the refusal to Podhoretz was a major player in that mission, as forgive, the advancement of Communist aims." A editor of Commentary magazine from 1960 to minister of the time wrote that he could see little 1995, as well as author of six books and hundreds ethical diference between the hate of the "Jew- of articles and editorials. Over the years he out‐ pursuing Nazi and the Nazi-pursuing Jew," and a raged many; he ranks as one of the most widely Catholic observer alluded to "some infuential reviled neo-conservatives, if not the very most people who -- like Shylock of old -- demand their (it's a pretty competitive feld). Revealingly, his ex- pound of fesh."[1] friend Ginsberg is included in this volume not re‐ For Jews to move to the right, inevitably edg‐ ally because they were once genuinely close but ing toward alliances with other right-wing forces, because Ginsberg came to consider Podhoretz -- was not entirely unprecedented in modern Jewish conventional, careerist, stufy --as symbolizing all history, but it could not be considered an entirely that he was rebelling against. In turn Ginsberg comfortable direction, at least not for the great serves as a convenient symbol for Podhoretz of majority of the American Jewish population. It did the moral nihilism and malignancy that he be‐ not help that the so-called "moral equivalence" ar‐ lieves began to eat away at the left from the mid- gument (Nazism and Communism are morally the sixties on. His revulsion for what left-wingers, a same) was favored by the neocons, including Pod‐ large proportion of them Jews, were up to in those horetz. If Nazis and Communists are basically the years easily exceeds Ginsberg's aversion to neo‐ same, did that not suggest that Communists in the conservatives, most of whose leading fgures are 1930s through the 1950s, signifcant numbers of Jewish. Podhoretz writes, for example, of "the Jews among them, should have been, like Nazis, cesspool of Haight Ashbury" (48), and he treats his put in jail, if not sentenced to death, as Eichmann readers to some graphic excepts from Ginsberg's was? And even those Communists who had not poetic paeans to anal intercourse, fecal odors and participated directly in mass murder but simply all. (54) defended Stalin and the Soviet Union as "progres‐ This kind of graphic, hard-hitting language, sive" -- were they not to be shunned and ab‐ the use of such concepts of leftist flth, decadence, horred, treated as Nazi sympathizers who them‐ and depravity, cannot help but set of certain selves did not murder have been treated? Of alarms. Antisemites write like that. Historically, course, two Jewish Communists, Ethel and Julius extreme right-wingers have seen Jews as particu‐ Rosenberg, were put to death -- charged, to be larly dangerous to a Christian moral order and to sure, with more than being Communists, but the social peace; Jews were believed to be destructive‐ pain that trial caused American Jews suggests ly dissident, unpatriotic, and unusually prone to something of the treacherous symbolism, the Pan‐ sympathy for Communism. Jews were also be‐ dora's Box, of equating Nazism and Communism, lieved to be heavily involved in such morally given the extent to which McCarthyism could feed damaging activities as the liquor trade, pornogra‐ on it. phy, and prostitution. Not long ago the so-called More will be said below about the issue of paleoconservatives aligned with William F. Buck‐ moral equivalence, but there is no denying that a ley's National Review regularly made comments majority of Jews in America, as in most countries about Jewish destructiveness, vengefulness, and
2 H-Net Reviews of Europe, have long stood proudly on the left New Left for Communism (a sympathy that was (mostly the moderate rather than radical left, it really more a revulsion from "Amerika") or for the should be said) even after a phenomenal upward revolutionary peoples of the Third World (strug‐ mobility. There is similarly no denying -- most gling to free themselves from American imperial‐ Jews take pride in it --that Jews have been promi‐ ism). Indeed, the self-hatred of the left also often nent in support of gay rights and other such hot- involved its becoming antisemitic, and so as far as button issues as abortion that the Right associates Podhoretz and other neoconservatives were con‐ with moral depravity. Indeed, American Jews cerned, the danger to Jews, and especially to the have notably spoken up in support of a wide vari‐ state of Israel, was no longer primarily from the ety of unpopular causes and in defense of various right but from the left -- and, again, from leftist, social pariahs, just as the Christian right has gen‐ destructively critical, self-hating Jews to a very erally opposed or damned them. The left that Pod‐ prominent degree. horetz himself attacks in this book is almost ex‐ It can come as no surprise that leftists have clusively a Jewish left; all of the ex-friends fea‐ replied in kind, typically dismissing Podhoretz as tured in the chapters of Ex-Friends are Jewish, as a hypocrite and an opportunistic sellout. Jews on are the scores of others who make various cameo the left have in particular reviled him as a betray‐ appearances. A natural question arises: Is there er of central Jewish traditions; he is a "Jew with‐ then something specifcally Jewish about this out mercy." That phrase was adopted by Earl American left that Podhoretz considers so cancer‐ Shorris as the title of his 1982 book attacking the ous? Do Jews have a special responsibility for the neo-conservatives.[3] He charged that these "new" ravages, moral and otherwise, of the sixties and Jews were fnally not real Jews because they no seventies? longer identifed with the oppressed. By "making Podhoretz, like most neoconservatives, avoids it," Podhoretz became for his detractors the Sam‐ that question, or brushes it aside as unworthy of a my Glick of the intellectual set, driven by raw am‐ serious response. One Jewish ex-radical neo-con‐ bition, sucking up to those in power, and in efect servative has, however, ofered some searing tes‐ shouting "to hell with rachmones; the poor should timony in that regard: "It was not my parents' ide‐ get of their dufs already!" Aside from their al‐ alism that elicited fear and provoked hostility leged disdain for the economic underclass, the from the goyim. It was their hostility toward the neoconservatives have been charged with lacking goyim, and indeed everything the goyim held genuine or credible sympathy on a range of is‐ dear, that incited the hostility back." Leftist pas‐ sues, prominent among them the plight of homo‐ sion "is a mirror of the dark center of the radical sexuals, the sexist oppression experienced by heart: not compassion but resentment . . . not the women, or the racism faced by people of color (al‐ longing for justice but the desire for revenge."[2] though paradoxically, those Jews considered Podhoretz does touch indirectly on the issue of a "most Jewish" in a traditional religious sense, the special Jewish role in the left by emphasizing a re‐ ultra-Orthodox, have been charged similarly with lated point: The proclivity of Jews to be overly a lack of sympathy in just those areas). critical of themselves ("self-hatred") and the grave Podhoretz's admirers see him, quite the con‐ danger that excessive self-criticism has presented trary, as he presents himself: a man fghting at to American Jews in the twentieth century; he be‐ considerable personal cost against the ever more lieves a related self-hatred began by the threatening currents of the late 1960s. And he per‐ mid-1960s to infect the American left in general. ceived a wide range of threats -- to public order Leftist self-hatred --for being American, or afu‐ and private property, to public education, to Is‐ ent, or white -- was related to the sympathy of the
3 H-Net Reviews rael, to American interests throughout the world, them, including Jackie, eventually stopped invit‐ particularly from an expansionist Soviet Union, ing him to dinner (Making It was more than she and even to the life of the mind, given the anti-in‐ could stomach), but with enemies like those, who tellectualism of the radical left. One man's rene‐ needs friends? Above all, the personal charm of gade is of course another's prophet, and Pod‐ the man, at least when he wants to turn it on, horetz did often bring to these controversies a seems undeniable; his recent [Feb. 1999] appear‐ prophet's passion. Or perhaps a zealot's excesses: ance, discussing his book, on C-Span2 ofered fur‐ In 1969, Podhoretz charged a journalist with ther evidence for those who doubt it. But one has wanting "to shove the Jewish people back into the to ask, is this avuncular, urbane, and sometimes gas ovens."[4] What had the journalist done to self-mocking individual the same "poor Norman" earn this monstrous charge? He had written in alluded to by Tony Judt -- the "back into the gas support of black community control of schools. ovens!" Norman? Will the real Norman please Tony Judt, in a recent review of Peter Novick's stand up? The Holocaust in American Life, complains that With any memoir, a central question must be: "poor Norman Podhoretz is wheeled out time and "How accurate and how honest?" In recent years, again to illustrate the unwisdom of invoking the memoirists as diferent as Albert Speer and Elie Holocaust whenever you want to cast aspersions Wiesel have been charged with what Winston on your critics."[5] Whether or not he has made Churchill once called "terminological inexacti‐ cheap shots in Podhoretz's regard, Novick surely tudes" (when he was forbidden to use the 'l' word has a point that overuse of the Holocaust imagery in parliament) or what Huck Finn referred to as has contributed to a degradation in the quality of "stretchers." Podhoretz, in that familiar tradition discussions involving Jews in America, and it is of memoirists, obviously strives to make himself only fair to inquire into Podhoretz's role, as a look good. But is he, as it were, remaking it? The prominent and respected intellectual, in that book opens with this disarming sentence: "I have process. As Novick observes, "Once one starts us‐ often said that if I wish to name-drop, I have only ing imagery from that most extreme of events, it to list my ex-friends." He added on C-Span2 that becomes impossible to say anything moderate, he has lost "hundreds of them." Brave words and balanced, or nuanced; the very language carries quite a record, suggesting an uncommon self-as‐ you along to hyperbole. . . . Anyone who scofed at surance and a lack of regret or ruefulness (how the idea that there were dangerous portents in many people could speak of hundreds of former American society had not learned 'the lessons of friends without at least some sense of self doubt?). the Holocaust.'"[6] Later in the book he writes even more defantly Any reader of Podhoretz's autobiographical that "I never stop counting [my] blessings . . . since volumes might readily assume that he would I shouldered the burden of challenging the reg‐ agree heartily with the need for nuanced, careful nant leftist culture that pollutes the spiritual and judgments; he time and again laments the anti-in‐ cultural air we all breathe, and I do so with all my tellectualism of at least a major element of the heart and all my soul and all my might." (21) left, and the prevailing tone of his writing is any‐ Still, these legions of former friends were a di‐ thing but simplistic. He has led an enviably rich verse company, by no means all Weathermen ter‐ life, making friends -- for a while at least -- not rorists or Ginsberg moral nihilists. One has to only with a large number of prominent writers wonder how they all ft into the "regnant leftist and intellectuals but all manner of politicos and culture." More to the point, one wonders, looking glitterati, as far afeld as Jackie Kennedy. Many of back now as the century is about to end, if they
4 H-Net Reviews were all consistently wrong about everything, a misrepresentation -- and here is a revealing while Podhoretz and the neocons were consistent‐ point -- that little troubled him at the time. ly right. His language suggests more than mere The Hellman-Podhoretz friendship started in tactical diferences or normal political jabs and 1957, more than a decade before he turned to the punches -- he refers to pollution, sewers and right, yet even so the beginnings did not appear at cesspools. Did the country in truth go completely all auspicious. The story as narrated in Ex-Friends in the wrong direction in those years in regard, has already been told in Breaking Ranks: his be‐ for example, to attitudes to gays, women's rights, ing incredulous when catching sight of her at a and minorities, and are we now in all ways worse cocktail party hosted by Lionel and Diana Trilling, for the change? Is there not fnally some profound for "it was hard to imagine the Trillings associat‐ ambiguity to the outcome of those passionate and ing with her, . . . [she] was the kind of [middle‐ bewildering years, even granting the all-too obvi‐ brow] writer for whom literary intellectuals like ous excesses and blunders on the left? Metternich the Trillings generally felt disdain and even con‐ once refected: "I cannot help telling myself twen‐ tempt." But "this cultural divide . . . was nothing ty times a day: How right I am and how very compared to the fact that Lillian was . . . a 'Stalin‐ wrong are all the others." If indeed Podhoretz is ist,'" That was the preferred term in these circles able to enjoy such Metternichean certainties, he to 'Communist,' since many of those now demo‐ has triumphed remarkably --heroically? (believ‐ cratic leftists had themselves once been Commu‐ ably?) -- over the man who once wrote that he nists, and most still held the red-baiting of the was "much given to anxiety," and was in particu‐ 1950s in horror.[9] lar "disadvantaged in the world of power by a Whatever her middlebrow perspectives and childish desire for everyone to love me and a ter‐ unsavory political associations, Hellman and Pod‐ ror of making enemies."[7] horetz became, as he writes, "fast friends almost Podhoretz's present rock-hard moral certain‐ immediately." What was the attraction? Friend‐ ties are hard to detect in his account of his long ships often have unaccountable aspects, but there friendship with Lillian Hellman -- quite the con‐ were some obvious enticements, especially for a trary, it is a story of human weakness, moral am‐ fercely ambitious young man who would later biguities, and wide-ranging paradoxes. That tan‐ write Making It: She was famous, well-connected, gled narrative reveals interesting details of anoth‐ and afuent. Mixing in her circles "was heady, it er, which is even more convoluted and, to many was exciting, and it was fun." But "the most fun of observers, deeply disturbing: The story of how all --playful, mischievous, bitchy, earthy, and al‐ Anne Frank came to be one of the most universal‐ ways up for a laugh -- was Lillian herself." (118) ly recognized icons of the twentieth century. It is Lillian's lively qualities, it must be said, were disturbing to some because the story of Anne at times expressed in ways that may startle cur‐ Frank that the world has come to know is roman‐ rent Podhoretz admirers. She harbored a barely ticized, bowdlerized, and "de-Judaized." The disguised hatred for the state of Israel, and she of‐ process of remaking Anne, as it were, bothers ten exhibited a "streak of Jewish anti-Semitism, Cynthia Ozick so much that she wrote in the New [including] . . . cracks . . . about some 'kike' or an‐ Yorker that it might have been better if Anne's di‐ other." Looking back, Podhoretz reports -- yet ary had been "burned, vanished, lost" rather than again a revealing point -- that he found these atti‐ her story being so ofensively misrepresented.8 tudes an "irritant" to the friendship, but he "never That misrepresentation had much to do with the took [them] to heart." (123-4) He presumably also well documented role of Lillian Hellman, while she and Podhoretz were still close friends. It was
5 H-Net Reviews never once charged her with wanting to push the insight into how Podhoretz and Hellman could Jewish people back into the gas ovens. have maintained their close friendship for as long Hostility to Israel and discomfort with Jewish‐ as they did. He was, in short, a strikingly diferent ness were not uncommon in Podhoretz's circles. man. His mentor, Lionel Trilling, whom Podhoretz de‐ Still, there were always a number of awk‐ scribes as the most intelligent man he has ever ward aspects to the friendship. He had a low opin‐ met -- again, in a pretty competitive feld -- had ion of the artistic quality of her work but could "violently negative feelings" about Judaism and not bring himself to be honest with her about it, Jewishness, especially in their Eastern European understanding full well that dishonesty -- that is, varieties. Diana's sentiments were, if possible, praise -- was a price to be paid for preserving the even more negative. Lionel once wrote that he friendship. There was a certain ironic justice to it would "resent it if a critic of my work were to dis‐ all: She herself was dishonest -- chronically, at cover in it either faults or virtues which he called times blatantly. There would have been a nice Jewish." (92) But Podhoretz, as he describes him‐ symmetry to it all if she had also hidden from him self at that time, comes across as anything but the her negative opinions of his writing, but we have stufy conformist and the prickly partisan in re‐ no evidence of that. What we do have ample evi‐ gard to Jewish issues that so many later consid‐ dence of is how she twisted events and personali‐ ered him to be. Indeed, he writes that he too was ties to make herself emerge as a person of uncomfortable with Jewish particularism, and in courage and principle. Podhoretz thinks that an essay published in 1963 he admitted that he Mary McCarthy may have exaggerated a bit in her sufered doubts about the meaning of Jewish sur‐ celebrated quip ("every word [Hellman] writes is vival. (He "often wondered whether . . . [Jewish] a lie, including 'and' and 'the'"), but he came to survival as a distinct group was worth one hair on recognize that a great deal of what she wrote the head of a single infant.")[10] He concluded about herself "could only be interpreted as delib‐ that acclaimed essay with these words: "I believe erate lies." (121-22) Still, the Podhoretz-Hellman that the wholesale merging of the two races friendship endured, the lies passed over (though [Black and White] is the most desirable alterna‐ some of the worst, it should be said, came after tive for everyone concerned. . . . The Negro prob‐ they were no longer friends). lem can be solved in this country in no other That a woman so dishonest and self-serving way." These were not, need it be said, the kinds of as Hellman should have played the role she did in remarks favored in Commentary magazine in the fabrication of the popular image of Anne subsequent years. Frank, through an enormously successful play Podhoretz, too, harbored some fairly hereti‐ that later became popular movie, can only be cal thoughts about Israel and the Israelis. After his termed disconcerting. Here Hellman's Stalinism frst visit, he wrote to Lionel Trilling that the Is‐ emerges as a key issue. Her exact relationship to raelis, "despite their really extraordinary achieve‐ the Communist Party remains uncertain; she may ments [are] a very unattractive people. . . . They're have been a member for only a brief period, but gratuitously surly and boorish." Such refections she undoubtedly remained a "fellow traveler" for must have been especially troubling to someone much longer. The main point is that she had a who hoped that the state of Israel could repair Stalinist's aversion to Jewish particularism, one "the ravages done to the Jewish personality by that went well beyond Podhoretz's own, or the fa‐ two thousand years of Diaspora." (156) His reser‐ miliar distaste for seeming "too Jewish" that was vations about Israelis at any rate provide further so common among many of her German-Jewish
6 H-Net Reviews background. She had no use for the play com‐ an uplifting story, one with redemptive "lessons" posed by Meyer Levin about Anne Frank. Promi‐ about the human condition. Such revisions were nent among its faws, she argued, was Levin's pre‐ no doubt defensible commercially and again not occupation with Jewish themes, which she plausi‐ contrary to Otto's wishes. But they were, to say the bly maintained would be fatal to its commercial least, difcult to reconcile with this bleak and ugly success. At any rate, she used her good ofces tragedy, and, more to the point, with this undeni‐ (perhaps not the best term) to hurry along the ably Jewish tragedy. process by which two non-Jews, successful com‐ Against Levin, Melnick, Ozick and others who mercial playwrights, were given the job of pre‐ bemoan how this Jewish tragedy was misrepre‐ senting Anne Frank to the world on stage. sented, it might be argued that a watered-down The rest, as they say, is history. The universal‐ yet highly popular story of Anne Frank was fnally izing, and de-Judaizing, of Anne Frank's diary has better than a story neglected or ignored, just as been explored in a number of articles and books, pop history, for all its simplifcations, can serve to most notably in Cynthia Ozick's above-mentioned awaken an interest where little existed before. New Yorker piece and in Lawrence Graver's study Such an awakened interest can then develop in of Meyer Levin, An Obsession with Anne Frank more serious directions. In spite of the many du‐ (1996). The actual process by which Jewish quali‐ bious aspects of Spielberg's Schindler's List, it did ties were excised from the diary in writing the bring the Holocaust to a wide audience in ways play is described in meticulous detail by Ralph that are hard to dismiss as in all regards without Melnick, in The Stolen Legacy of Anne Frank merit. And, revealingly, some of the same prob‐ (1998), a more sympathetic portrayal of Levin lems loom in it as in the presentation of Anne than is to be found in Graver. The strength and Frank, in particular the upbeat quality given to prominence of Anne Frank's Jewish identity are what was anything but an upbeat reality. Similar‐ certainly debatable, but there is little question ly, there is the problem of how representative that even before Hellman's eforts, the diary itself these stories can be considered. The surprising had been bowdlerized -- and frst of all by her fa‐ and fnally bafing actions of a corrupt man but ther, Otto Frank. "good German" (and Nazi party member), or the Otto deleted certain passages for perfectly un‐ travails of a family in hiding are remote from the derstandable reasons. For example, he removed obscene horrors that are at the heart of the Holo‐ some graphic passages dealing with Anne's caust. emerging sexual awareness -- this was, after all, There is the related and no less difcult issue the ffties. He similarly sought to tone down the of whether even the Jewish public was ready in bitter, wounding remarks that Anne made about the 1950s for a more truthful and somber play her mother -- these were, after all, her teenage about Anne Frank. Raul Hilberg recounts that in years, and her mother subsequently perished in 1989 it was explained to him that his The Destruc‐ the Holocaust. But Otto, too, was much concerned tion of the European Jews (1961) "had been pub‐ with universal themes and notably cautious about lished too early."[11] His extraordinary and in emphasizing Jewishness "too much." The play and many regards path-breaking book thus received then the movie evolved yet further than the diary, scant attention at frst, and much of that attention with no real objections from him, in the direction consisted of outraged, angry dismissal. Similar of focusing on Anne as a universal rather than as considerations certainly seem relevant for the a specifcally Jewish victim. Most strikingly the timing of the appearance of a play about a "too play and movie took large liberties in presenting Jewish" Anne Frank: If such a play, rather than the
7 H-Net Reviews now familiar one, had been ofered to the public, with Lillian Hellman. But the more important dif‐ it is a fair guess that it would have opened to ference was in his deep respect for Arendt. "Of all mixed reviews and half-flled houses, and would my [intellectual] elders . . . , there was none for have closed after a few performances. whom I had a higher regard than Hannah. The in‐ Podhoretz's own account ofers support for tellectual quality I prized most at that stage of my "the world was not ready" argument. He was life was brilliance, by which I mean the virtuosic hardly unaware of or insensitive to Jewish issues, ability to put ideas together in such a new and yet he writes that he was "not especially bothered surprising combination that even if one disagreed by the role Lillian played in the de-Judaization of with what was being said, one was excited and il‐ the stage version of The Diary of Anne Frank," luminated." (142-43) Early in their friendship he largely because of the sensational commercial resigned in disgust from Commentary's staf (be‐ success of the play. Meyer Levin tried to enlist fore he later returned as editor, in 1960) because Podhoretz, as so many others, in his cause but one of her "brilliant" pieces, having to do with the was unsuccessful, in no small part because Levin struggle for civil rights in the South, was judged to seemed to Podhoretz "more than a little para‐ be too much at variance with liberal and Jewish noid," a common judgment, it must be said, even opinion to be published in Commentary at that by those sympathetic to him. Podhoretz writes time. But his readiness to stand up for brilliance that "in retrospect, I think Levin had a good case." soon enough received another test, one that esca‐ (124) Probably most observers would now agree lated into one of the most emotional afairs in the that Levin had a case, but few would be so bold as world of American Jews after WW II. It was also to say that the merits of that case should have one that may be considered a revealing signpost been obvious to all sensitive observers at the time in the process by which a wide public came to un‐ -- or that his play efectively presented that case. derstand the Nazi Final Solution to the Jewish Question. Podhoretz's account of the immediate post‐ war years gives further evidence, though not After the Israelis captured Adolf Eichmann quite so explicitly recognized by him, of how Eu‐ and put him on trial in 1961, Arendt wrote a se‐ rope and America were "not yet ready" to deal ries of articles in The New Yorker, beginning in with the Holocaust: He spent most of his time in 1962, and then combined them into a book, Eich‐ the army in Germany, less than a decade after the mann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of end of the war, explaining the dangers of Commu‐ Evil, in 1963. What was in those articles and book nism, not of Nazism or antisemitism, to American to bring forth such a storm of protest and indigna‐ troops. Novick's Holocaust in American Life de‐ tion? The afair has some puzzling aspects, even scribes how the Cold War pushed the Holocaust to this day, especially the extent to which Arendt aside, as it were, since German support against was charged with beliefs and statements that the Soviets was essential and there was no point were wildly inaccurate. Revealingly, Podhoretz -- to accusing and weakening our German ally.[12] who, as will be explored below, this time lost his Given his later career, Podhoretz's own activities taste for brilliance and joined the fray in attacking at this time ofer a particularly strong support to her --recognizes in Ex-Friends that the afair spi‐ Novick's point. raled out of control and that "many of the criti‐ cisms were either wrong or unfair, sometimes to By his own account, Podhoretz's friendship the extreme of outright defamation."(160) In try‐ with Hannah Arendt was slower in forming -- he ing to account for these reactions, perhaps the thought she would never call! -- less close, and most important point to be made is that she was considerably less fun-flled than his friendship reaching an audience not previously reached;
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Jews had debated among themselves many of the was dangerously prone to misunderstanding, es‐ matters she now discussed, including charges that pecially now that she was addressing not only Jewish leaders had cooperated with the Nazis and non-Jews but a much wider audience than those that Jews went meekly to their deaths, but not in a intellectually ambitious types who had admiring‐ journal like The New Yorker -- a shande far di goy‐ ly struggled through the dense and sometimes im! bizarre 500 pages of The Origins of Totalitarian‐ Most of those who have studied this con‐ ism. But even those who understood her reason‐ tretemps concur that Arendt's love of grand theo‐ ably well at times angrily disagreed with what she ry was accompanied by carelessness with details. wrote in this book. And, fnally, even those admir‐ She had penchant for forced or arcane distinc‐ ers who were willing to give her every beneft of tions, reveled in paradox, and delighted in being the doubt were occasionally bafed or put of by provocative -- all complicated by the kind of impe‐ some of her language. Who, to this day, is entirely rious tone that when used by a German Jew drove confdent that they understand what Arendt Eastern European Jews to distraction. She did not meant by the "banality of evil" (or, as she more sufer fools gladly, and she seemed to many ob‐ amply and engagingly formulated it in the closing servers to be particularly impatient with Jewish lines of her book, the "fearsome, word-and- fools. Even putting the best light on it, as Walt Ros‐ thought defying banality of evil") [14]? Anyone tow did at the time, she had no more tolerance for who thinks they do may be interested to learn "Jewish pomp, folly, xenophobia, and hypocrisy that the philosopher Karl Jaspers, her most re‐ than for any other variety."[13] That could easily spected intellectual mentor and close personal be perceived as lacking sympathy for the sufer‐ friend, wrote her privately about his own reserva‐ ings of the Jews. In the opening pages of Eich‐ tions and puzzlement concerning the term. In‐ mann in Jerusalem, she worked in sardonic re‐ deed, she herself later recognized, in a private let‐ marks about Israel, touching on topics that were ter, that at the time of writing the book, the term practically taboo at the time (e.g., how the Israelis, had implications she had by no means thought as the Nazis, outlawed intermarriage, or how the through.[15] Law of the Return, basing the right to immigra‐ Podhoretz in Ex-Friends does not much delve tion on Jewish descent, was the kind of "racist" into these elusive issues, nor is he ostensibly law vehemently opposed by American Jews for much interested, even now, in exploring the possi‐ the United States). She described Eichmann's trial bility that there were fnally some merits to as in origin a show trial, initiated and stage-man‐ Arendt's musings about Eichmann. It's a pity, but aged by the then prime minister, David Ben-Guri‐ perhaps understandable, since, to repeat, mem‐ on. It was a trial, moreover, in which the prosecu‐ oirists normally try to avoid making themselves tion was allowed to introduce mounds of irrele‐ look bad, and in this episode it is difcult to see vant evidence and witness after witness who had how he might be made to look particularly good, had no contact with Eichmann. As she pointed at least insofar as he fancies himself an intellectu‐ out, the prosecution built a large part of its case al who can, standing knowledgeably above blind on what the Jews had sufered in general, not on passion and prejudice, lay credible claim to show what Eichmann had done in particular -- again, the way to others. Central to Arendt's musings procedures that would not be allowed American was an issue of continuing concern to students of courts of law. the Holocaust and antisemitism, one that in turn In retrospect the extent to which Arendt was touches on a nettlesome aspect of the nature of riding for a fall may seem obvious; her writing historical understanding. Arendt bent her consid‐ erable talents in an efort to "understand" Eich‐
9 H-Net Reviews mann, in the process confronting this old ques‐ liance," (Commentary, Sept. 1963) the issue of the tion: Does historical imagination unavoidably in‐ permissible scope of "understanding," of histori‐ volve one in "sympathy" for the protagonists un‐ cal imagination is central. So too is a related and if der study, whether they were virtuous or evil? possibly even more difcult question: In studying And is such sympathy fnally legitimate in exam‐ victim and victimizer is it ever permissible to ining extreme examples, in this case Nazis or oth‐ speak of an interplay, of degrees of mutual re‐ er varieties of anti-Semites? For many perhaps sponsibility? For the "describe-and-condemn" most readers and authors, the answer to the sec‐ school there is again a trenchant answer, especial‐ ond question is an emphatic No. ly when dealing with the relations of antisemite What then should the historical narrative in‐ and Jew: Never! In his article Podhoretz be‐ volve? Again, the answer for many is "describe moaned the lack of black-and-white moral clarity and condemn" -- and, please, no more than that! in Arendt's account of the Eichmann trial; in her Any efort to enter imaginatively and openly into "perverse" pursuit of paradox and ambiguity, she the moral universe of an Eichmann or a Hitler is had the audacity, on the one hand, to describe this morally treacherous, permanently and properly Nazi as banal and, on the other, the Jews as com‐ terra incognita. The Nazis were moral monsters plicit in their own destruction. In Eichmann's rightly relegated to Haman's realm: We may case, in short, she tried to be "sympathetic" in the stamp our feet and make noises at them to show sense of struggling to understand his mental pro‐ our revulsion, but we must reject the notion of cesses as those of a normal or banal human being, trying to understand them as human beings. In while she seemed uninterested in a comparable short, the irreducible mystery surrounding such efort in regard to the Jewish victim. Her account, evil must remain; historical analysis must not be Podhoretz ironically intoned, had "all the appear‐ allowed to weaken moral outrage. ance of 'ruthless honesty' and all the marks of profundity. . . . But if this version of hers can from Interestingly, this stance is close to Arendt's one point of view be considered more interesting, own in The Origins of Totalitarianism, where she can it by the same token be considered truer, or defned "radical evil" as "rooted in motives so more illuminating. . . ? Is the gain she achieves in base as to be beyond human comprehension."[16] literary interest a matter of titillation, or is it a In The Awakening, Primo Levi wrote, "Perhaps gain to the understanding?" (201-02). His answer one cannot, what is more must not, understand was fatly "No gain." How then did he think we what happened, because to understand is almost are to understand the confrontation of Nazi and to justify. . . . No normal human being will ever be Jew? As far as Podhoretz in this article is con‐ able to identify with Hitler, Himmler, Goebbels, cerned, what Jews or Jewish leaders did or failed Eichmann and endless others. This dismays us to do in confronting the Nazis did not matter "in and at the same time gives us a sense of re‐ the slightest to the fnal result. Murderers with lief."[17] However -- and here is a central, often the power to murder descended upon a defense‐ neglected point -- it was precisely in following the less people and murdered a large part of it. What trial and reading about Eichmann that Arendt else is there to say?" (205) came to doubt the validity of her own earlier con‐ ception of radical evil, which in turn meant a re‐ What else indeed? Undoubtedly Podhoretz consideration of the issue of whether it could be had a point about the imbalance, or at least the understood. seeming imbalance, of sympathy in Arendt's ac‐ count. Yet even granting her sins of presentation, In Podhoretz's article "Hannah Arendt on the know-nothing implications of his words sug‐ Eichmann: A Study in the Perversity of Bril‐ gest that it may have been "poor Norman" speak‐
10 H-Net Reviews ing here. Was there really nothing else to say? nize that "the Jewish victims must be seen as Was the story indeed so simple as, in his terms, heroic."[19] "monstrous Nazi" and "virtuous martyr"? Was the Hilberg surely has a point about how Amalek evil of Eichmann's character so patent that to ex‐ [the forebear of Haman and the symbol of abso‐ press puzzlement about him, astonishment at his lute evil in Jewish tradition] is to be presented, at apparent normality, morally reprehensible? Re‐ least according to some Jewish spokesmen, but he vealingly, even one of those who frst reacted neg‐ does not seem to recognize how much Jewish atively to Arendt's book, Arthur Hertzberg, later thought, even in the immediate postwar period, wrote her privately that "there are issues to be was itself divided about the Jewish victim as hero. discussed, and . . . you raised almost all of them, As noted above, knowledgeable Jews were aware but so far the discussion has not been equal to the of Jewish collaboration, and indeed there was no searing dignity of the subject, or the seriousness little "blaming the victim": Trials, several spectac‐ of your analysis, which has been treated quite un‐ ular ones, of Jews who had cooperated with the fairly by almost everyone, and certainly by me in Nazis were held in Israel. And far from stressing a few paragraphs."[18] Jewish heroism, many Israelis emphasized the op‐ It is fnally hard to understand how a man of posite -- that Galut Jews sufered from cowardice, Podhoretz's intelligence and sophistication could servility, and other character defects (presumably have assumed, with complete inner sincerity, what Podhoretz had in mind when he wrote of such an ultimately dogmatic and anti-intellectual the "the ravages done to the Jewish personality by stance. In particular it is difcult to understand two thousand years of Diaspora"). Ben-Gurion re‐ how he could have continued, again, with com‐ marked that the survivors of the Holocaust in‐ plete inner conviction, to maintain that he was cluded "people who would not have survived if entirely right and she entirely wrong. Raul they had not been what they were -- hard, evil, Hilberg, from whose book Arendt learned much and selfsh people, and what they underwent of what she wrote about the "collaborationist" there served to destroy what good qualities they role of the Jewish councils, had also been bitterly had left."[20] criticized -- indeed defamed and crudely misrep‐ A more hard-bitten interpretation of Pod‐ resented, much as she had been. In his view, it horetz's article on Arendt might suggest that the was the watchdogs of Historical Correctness, re‐ real issue was quite simple: As editor of Commen‐ fecting the "main current of Jewish thought" at tary magazine, witnessing the powerful waves of the time, that were responsible: "Modern Jews indignation in response to Arendt's articles and know, like their ancient forebears, the hazard of book, he had to recognize that a substantial de‐ giving the perpetrators a face, endowing them fense of Arendt would have cost him plenty. with identity and thought, allowing them a mod‐ Whatever the merits of such an interpretation, it icum of doubt or regret, of making them human. must be recognized that he by no means acqui‐ Remember only what they did" -- describe and esced even in that article to all the charges against condemn. He continues, "And what have I done? I her; he termed it "stupid" to maintain that she ac‐ insisted on delving into forbidden territory and tually defended Eichmann, for example. Finally presenting Amalek with all his features as an ag‐ what motivated Podhoretz to write the article gregate of German functionaries." Similarly, he must remain uncertain, perhaps even to himself; believed that he encountered hostility from lead‐ the truth may lie in some messy combination of ing Jewish fgures because he had failed to recog‐ calculation, emotion, principle, and encourage‐ ment by others.
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After the article appeared, Podhoretz accept‐ ing to defame and intimidate and silence people ed Arendt's rather surprising invitation to meet who criticize current Israeli policies, whatever privately with him and "thrash things out." He they may be. . . . If there's any comment in the writes that she greeted him in a friendly manner, press which they regard as insufciently sub‐ quipping "I may be brilliant but I am not per‐ servient to the party line, there'll be a food of let‐ verse." Later in the conversation she got to the ters, delegations, protests, threats to withdraw ad‐ point: "Why did you do it?" She thought she knew. vertising, etc."[22] Chomsky of course ranks as a She believed that he had been instructed or prime example of the self-hating leftist that Pod‐ strongly encouraged by infuential Jews to write a horetz so detests, but the question remains "hit" piece in Commentary. (Podhoretz writes in whether Chomsky's opinions make it justifable to Ex-Friends, "I had feared that she would think I use such methods against him or against others was put up to it by the AJC, and . . . I was to fnd the ADL, with its many resources and contacts, out that my fear was well founded.") (170) deems a danger. Arendt had become convinced that a circle of One of the greatest disappointments of these infuential Jews were conspiring to defame and memoirs is that Podhoretz does not provide us destroy her -- not quite the Elders of Zion but in with much information about what was actually that ballpark, akin perhaps to Hilary Clinton's said in that fve-hour discussion -- hidden tapes vast right-wing conspiracy. She was not entirely where are you when we really need you? This wrong (nor is Hilary), although "conspiring" is too must have been a fascinating exchange. He writes infammatory a word, since it was to an impor‐ in Ex-Friends that he had already described that tant degree an open campaign, several of whose conversation in Breaking Ranks, but in fact there leaders contacted her directly to indicate their is little more information about the real content plans. It is undeniable that a number of Jewish of the discussion in that book than in the present leaders and organizations, notably the ADL, one. And so certain questions must linger, as must launched an elaborately coordinated --and doubts about how forthcoming Podhoretz has "stupid" in Podhoretz's sense -- campaign to de‐ been about his role in the entire afair, to say nounce and defame her as an anti-Semite, a "self- nothing of how ambitious he has been in ofering hating Jewess" who had written a "pro-Eichmann interpretations of it. series."[21] On balance, Podhoretz's account of his rela‐ A consideration of the methods of the ADL in tionship with these two ex-friends, while in many this case cannot be pleasant for those who identi‐ regards intriguing, is in other ways disappointing. fy with ideals of the American Civil Liberties He does not fnally achieve his goal of making Union, and the large numbers of Jews on both himself look good, particularly since the lacunae, sides of this divide suggest the degree to which the things not adequately addressed, are all too this afair split the Jewish community. And it is a obvious. One neglected though certainly not com‐ lasting division, for this would not be the last in‐ pletely ignored aspect to the friendship with Hell‐ stance in which the ADL was believed to show man has again to do with the issue of sympathy scant regard for the rights of those it defnes as and understanding. Podhoretz laments in Ex- defamers and enemies. A decade ago Noam Friends the extent to which she won the admira‐ Chomsky, discovering that the ADL had a 150- tion of the mass public, most dramatically in the page record on his activities, "just like an FBI fle," Academy Awards ceremonies in the mid-1970s, charged that "the Anti-Defamation League. . . [has receiving a prolonged standing ovation "before a become] actually an organization devoted to try‐ television audience of ffty million Americans,
12 H-Net Reviews myself included." (137) He further laments how mer Communists, who also have gotten away with many other Communists or Communist sympa‐ murder, with a similar persistence and zeal? Who, thizers have never really had to face their past in indeed, in this country is even suggesting that the way that Nazis and Nazi sympathizers have. such be done? This imbalance is particularly lamentable if one These questions -- and many more of a kin‐ accepts the "moral equivalence" argument men‐ dred nature that might be posed -- point to some tioned above. Podhoretz remarks, "As any reader of the problems with the moral equivalence argu‐ of the obituary pages could testify, Lillian was not ment. Most Americans, and it seems a fair guess, the only old Stalinist to whom this same absolu‐ most Jewish Americans, fnally do not believe that tion was extended." Many of them have died and Nazis and Communists are to be considered moral have been celebrated as "progressive" heroes or equivalents, although it's also a fair guess that martyrs during the persecutions of the McCarthy most of them have not thought about the implica‐ period. "Very few of these people were ever held tions of the question with much tenacity. It seems morally to account, and Lillian perhaps least of all clear that even many staunch anti-Communists, of them." (137) Podhoretz included, have been able to extend But is his own attitude to her, expressed in quite a bit of "sympathy" to at least some Commu‐ those words, fnally consistent or coherent in a nists and fellow travelers; they have been willing, deeper sense? Are Nazis and Stalinists, or their in other words, to try to understand what Com‐ defenders and sympathizers, indeed morally munists as human beings believed and to grant equivalent? And if so, how might the Stalinists that they were in some instances misguided ideal‐ have been held to account -- some sort of Nurem‐ ists or selfess people of good will. A similar will‐ berg trial? Might we then term Communist Party ingness holds far less in regard Nazis or their de‐ members (or the great majority of the population fenders. How much sympathy can most people, of Soviet Russia) "willing executioners," or per‐ especially those who lived through the Nazi years haps "monstrous Communists," while their non- -- and above all Jews -- work up for, say, Ezra Communist victims were "virtuous martyrs" -- Pound or T. S. Eliot, let alone Hitler and Heydrich? and are we then to insist that there is simply noth‐ The notion of a misguided but idealistic Nazi is ing else to say about the subject, or that to do so is still not received with much enthusiasm in the immoral? So many Germans and even Nazis have countries that fought Nazi Germany. Indeed how claimed "We didn't know!" They have not been "understanding" are most Jews, again especially widely believed. When the same words are pro‐ those old enough to remember the late 1930s, to nounced by ex-Communists, especially those Com‐ Charles Lindbergh? He was not a nazi, a nazi sym‐ munists in free countries who had ample access pathizer, or even an anti-Semite, but to be sure he to overwhelming evidence in regard to the Stalin was impressed with Nazi power and opposed to era's terror and mass murder, how can they be committing American forces against Nazi Ger‐ believed? Germans during the Nazi years obvious‐ many -- and is thus seen as lastingly tainted and is ly had much less ample and reliable sources of in‐ hated for his isolationist role (one of course that formation, and we can hardly conclude that doing undoubtedly did anti-Semites to its banners). Pod‐ something about Nazi evil was easier for them horetz confesses to an enduring afection for Lil‐ than denouncing Stalinist Russia was for Ameri‐ lian to the very end of her life. How might it seem can Communists. Simon Wiesenthal is hunting if he described a lingering afection for a clever, down former Nazis to general applause -- and a fun-loving, bitchy, and lying former member of sense that these men have gotten away with mur‐ der for too long -- but who is hunting down for‐
13 H-Net Reviews the American Nazi Party or admirer of Nazi Ger‐ [10]. "My Negro Problem -- and Ours," Com‐ many? mentary, Feb. 1963, reprinted in Norman Pod‐ There is fnally not a lot of fresh understand‐ horetz, The Commentary Reader (New York, ing in Ex-Friends, and there is less new informa‐ 1966), 376-387. tion than Podhoretz claims. The merits of the [11]. Raul Hilberg, The Politics of Memory book are real but small scale: The writing is skill‐ (Chicago, 1996), 123; the words are those of Judith ful, the overall tone anything but simplistic, and Sklar, then President of the American Political Sci‐ the cast of characters fascinating. But there is a ence Association. notable lack of a broader, kinder wisdom in this [12]. The point has been made, though less remarkable if also puzzling man, even as he ap‐ amply, by a number of historians, among them proaches his eighth decade of life. The book does Shapiro, Time for Healing, Chapter One, The Af‐ not have, in short, "all the appearance of 'ruthless termath of War. honesty' and all the marks of profundity." And, we [13]. The Herald Tribune, May 19, 1963. are left to conclude, that's the way he wants it. [14]. Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: NOTES A Report on the Banality of Evil (New York, 1963; [1]. Quoted in Peter Novick, The Holocaust in revised and enlarged edition, 1964), 252. American Life (New York, 1999) 129, 130. [15]. Elizabeth Young-Bruehl, Hannah Arendt, [2]. David Horowitz, Radical Son: A Genera‐ For Love of the World (New Haven, 1982), 362 f. tional Odyssey (New York, 1997), 44; David [16]. Cf. the discussion in Young-Bruehl, Horowitz and Peter Collier, Destructive Genera‐ Arendt, 369. tion: Second Thoughts about the Sixties (New York, 1996), 309-11. [17]. Primo Levi, The Awakening (New York, 1965), 213. [3]. Earl Shorris, Jews Without Mercy (New York, 1982). The theme of Jews as standing on the [18]. Young-Bruehl, 367. left because of Jewish religious tradition is an old [19]. Raul Hilberg, The Politics of Memory: one, recently and knowledgeably covered in Ed‐ The Journey of a Holocaust Historian (Chicago, ward S. Shapiro, A Time for Healing: American 1996), 132-33. Jewry since World War II (Baltimore and London, [20]. Tom Segev, 1949: The First Israelis (New 1992), especially in Chapter Seven, "From Culture York 1986), 138; cf. Novick, Holocaust, 69 to Causes." [21]. Novick, 127 f. [4]. Novick, 177. [22]. Noam Chomsky Language and Politics, [5]. The New Republic, July 19 & 26, 1999, p. New York, 1988, pp. 642-3. 38. Copyright (c) 1999 by H-Net, all rights re‐ [6]. Novick, 177, 178. served. This work may be copied for non-proft [7]. Making It, 300. educational use if proper credit is given to the au‐ [8]. "Who Owns Anne Frank?" The New York‐ thor and the list. For other permission, please con‐ er, October 6, 1997. tact [email protected]. [9]. Ex-Friends, 104; compare the account in Breaking Ranks, 315 f. --certainly more than "bits and pieces" repeated.
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Citation: Albert S. Lindemann. Review of Podhoretz, Norman. Ex-Friends: Falling Out With Allen Ginsberg, Lionel and Diana Trilling, Lillian Hellman, Hannah Arendt, and Norman Mailer. H-Holocaust, H-Net Reviews. October, 1999.
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