To the Editor:

In his review of Irving Malin’s Jews and Americans [June] George P. Elliott makes a nasty crack about Hadassah, equating it with “good-hearted dumpy complacency.” I am a member of Hadassah, but I am not dumpy and at the moment I don’t feel very good-hearted either. Why is it that people concerned with the arts make it a point of honor to indicate their contempt for women’s organizations? I’ll bet that Mr. Elliott, if questioned, would loudly proclaim his respect for womankind in general, for the right of women to choose occupations fitted to their own circumstances and abilities, and maybe even admit the need for medical and vocational work in Israel. But, if he has thought about it at all, he clearly does not think that women can choose to act together with other women in order to achieve worthy goals, without revealing complete mindlessness. Would we show a more commendable intensity of dedication if we left our husbands and children and hopped the first plane to Israel like an over-age Jewish Peace Corps?

One would think that raising money to cure the sick and train the helpless indicates less complacency than snide but unspecific and undocumented remarks about those who do—would one not?

Lea Stern
Scarsdale, New York

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To the Editor:

. . . It was with pure delight that I read George P. Elliott’s review. . . . Isn’t it possible for critics to judge our “assimilalienated” Jewish writers solely on a literary basis for a change?

Gail B. Greenblatt
Columbus, Georgia

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To the Editor:

I thoroughly enjoyed George P. Elliott’s review. . . . Jewish self-congratulation in American prose is just about ripe for the hatchet. . . .

Chana Faerstein
Jerusalem, Israel

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Mr. Elliott writes:

“Dumpy” was snide, too easy, a type-casting word, and I apologize for having used it. “Good-hearted” surely is acceptable as indicating the impulse which brought Hadassah into being. “Complacency” is the injuring word, and I must defend having used it. It is my strong impression that Hadassah includes members who are moved only partly by the impulse to raise money for an eminently worthy cause; they also want to show off, look askance at competitors (the Pioneer Women perhaps?), be congratulated for their virtue. This does not invalidate the importance of their good works, but it does make them pretty hard to take sometimes. (If Mrs. Stern thinks people concerned with the arts are hard on women’s organizations, which by and large acknowledge the importance of art and artists, she should hear what they say about equivalent men’s organizations, which scarcely acknowledge so much as their existence.) I was opposing Hadassah to the Ark; in the scheme of. values which elevates the holy mystery of the Ark, fundraising for a worthy cause is certainly an honorable occupation but, like all good works, something to be humble about.