Seeing What We Look For
To the Editor:
I wonder whether you noticed the amusing disparity of views in your March issue in which, in a review on page 294, Mr. Richard H. S. Grossman finds Israel rejecting America as a political and economic guide in favor of England while, in a letter on page 292, Mr. Abraham M. Hirsch finds Israel lacking in interest to an American Jew because it is playing the sedulous ape to America.
The whole matter reminds me of the late Lewis Browne’s interesting interpretation of the motives which led Neville Chamberlain to take along that celebrated umbrella which accompanied him to Munich. You will remember that various explanations were offered. Some thought it signified frightened timidity; others thought it symbolized wise precaution; still others thought it evidenced a fine personal humility. I heard Mr. Browne reject all of them in favor of his own view. He simply pointed out that it was raining when Mr. Chamberlain left London and, being English, he would naturally assume that the climate all over the world would be what it was at home.
Obviously, we see what we look for, and Mr. Hirsch’s letter makes it very clear that there are American umbrellas, too, and that they also obscure the vision.
Harry Cohen
President, Bronx Zionist Region
Zionist Organization of America
Bronx, New York
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