consider that our younger generation, our contemporary writers and artists, have nothing to give us except to make us realise our, and their own, shortcomings and failures, we contend that in the works of the best of them there is a serious effort to arrive at the truth-in terms of social and cultural values-whether or not the truth thus arrived might prove incompatible with accepted conventions. We prefer this search and probing to complacent conformity, which on the one hand leads to a false sense of security and, on the other, enforces a feeling of uncertainty in the face of real or imaginary dangers from within or without. Read the revealing and frank statement by Alexander Baron in this issue, and you will find in it a deep-seate:i Jewish consciousness and more Jewish awareness than in many a sermon and angry outcry from pulpit or platform, or in the columns of certain Jewish newspapers.
Mr. Sacher appeared to have been right in saying, "you seem to have the writers"; though, frankly, we could not know at first who and where they were. Our association with some of them date:i back to an earlier venture immediately after the war, but they were not many. Now we are happy to note that most of the new writers who emerged in recent years became associated with this magazine as contributors, some writing more frequently than others, but all of them genuinely concerned with its future. They derived littl~ profit from writing in these columns-how could they when, to maintain this magazine was and still is, a continuous struggle?-yet they felt that thereby they were not only maintaining a link with the community but also contributing towards raising the standards. When the late Louis Golding wrote, with reference to The Jewish Quarterly, that "it is likely to warm up the future of AngloJewish letters which has seemed so chilly for some time", we could only hope that this would be so. Our new writers assure us of a brighter future, and we would like to think that we had contributed a little towards it. What about our readers? Judging from the many letters of appreciation we received and continue to receive, the magazine found a ready response. It would, however. be wrong to assume that we have reached the limit of potential readers of a magazine of this kind. The mechanics of distribution and circulation apply to this periodical as to any other, and in
CONCLUDED AT TOP OF PACE 54
MESSAGES From William Frankel Editor, THE JEWISH CHRONICLE
THE LIVES OF LITERARY PERIODICALS ARE generally harassed, hectic and short, and the fact that THE JEWISH QUARTERLY is now entering upon its eleventh year is in itself an achievement. But it has much more to commend it than the mere fact of survival. At a time of increasing materialism and narrowness it helps to perpetuate much of significance in the Jewish cultural scale of values. It reflects the literary and artistic trends throughout the Jewish world, and has in the past been a proving ground for new talent. It has tried to raise the level of intelligent discussion in the community and in English-speaking communities abroad. Although its existence is due to the single-mindedness and persistence of its Editor, the fact that it has received some general support is one of the saving graces of Anglo-Jewry today.
From don Kimche Editor, JEWISH OBSERVER AND M.E. REVIEW
ANNIVERSARY GREETINGS ARE NOT USUALLY noteworthy for either their frankness or the truthfulness, not even when they are transmitted from one editor to another. It would, therefore, be idle to deny that 1 have, during the decade of THE JEWISH QUARTERLY's existence, often voiced my concern at the single-minded concentration of your magazine on the blackest side of Jewish life. There were also other occasions when I felt that your contributors avoided the full confrontation between the Jewish writer and Jewish reality of today. But. these are matters of opiniov- and fade into unimportance when viewed against your major achievement during these ten years: you have succeeded in arousing AngloJewry out of its literary complacency and you have created a forum without which much of what is now considered as AngloJewish writing might never have developed. For that, you and THE JEWISH QuARTERLY must take the credit-or the blame. I, for one, am certain that Anglo-Jewry would have been very much the poorer culturally and intellectually without THE JEWISH QuARTERLY and I hope that from your modest beginning you may become the force in Jewish literary life which your magazine deserves to be.