The Taboo

"The editor of a Midwest newspaper asked me a question the other day," wrote Columinst Max 'When Lerner in the York Post. " 'When Kennedy ran in 1960,' he said, 'everyone was discussing Kennedy as a Catholic: there was a big to-do about it. Why doesn't anyone today write about Goldwater as a Jew? Is the Jewish theme more taboo in politics than the Catholic theme?' " To Lerner, who is a Jew himself, the question insisted upon an answer, and he was quick to supply it.

"I happen to believe that it isn't healthy," he wrote, "either for the country or the Jews, to stay away from the subject of Goldwater's Jewishness. To be sure, he is only a half-Jew by heredity and a converted Jew--an Episcopalian--by his practicing faith." But, Lerner went on, "the experience of Jews throughout history has been that even when they are only partly Jewish, and even if they or their parents 'are converted, the world thinks of them as Jews--and so does history. The case of the assimilated Jew in public life is a familiar one, and the question of whether or not he is also converted is not the crucial question. One thinks of Harry Golden's remark--the best one-sentence comment on Goldwater as a Jew that anyone has thus far minted: 'I have always thought that if a Jew ever became President, he would turn out to be an Episcopalian.'

"Why then the almost complete silence, except in the biographical studies? I think it is because despite the long history of religious toleration and enlightenment, or perhaps exactly because of that history, Americans are embarrassed at talking about Jewishness. You can speak of a man in public life as a Catholic, and no one catches his breath. But speak of him as a Jew, and both of you catch a whiff of possible anti-Semitism in the air. The irony of it is that Goldwater's following, which must have a largish proportion of people who regard Jews as foreigners and perhaps even as Communists, are quite ready to swallow his Jewishness and like it.

"There is no reason why we should not talk of this. One of the things I like about America is the crazy contradictoriness of American life. It is sheer delight for me to think of all those superpatriots in Texas and California, who would find Senator Javits anathema--andnot only because he is a liberal--whooping it up for dear old Barry. And it is a sheer delight to think of the paradox of Catholics deciding that Kennedy is too radical for them, and rooting for Goldwater, while Jews will be unmoved by Goldwater's Jewish ties and will plump for Kennedy."

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