Perspective
Roth, Irene
PERSPECTIVE CECIL ROTH, RUSSIAN JEWS, THE HOOT MOUNTAIN A strong wind blew across Mount Gezim, the Holy Mountain, as I stood by the side of the tall, gaunt figure of my host and old acquaintance,...
...The powerfully built father was formerly a professor of civil engineering...
...They examined the book, and assured me that, despite the slimness of the volume, it had in no way been abridged...
...But when I mentioned this to my new friend, he replied, "Not at all—I read it in Russian...
...I knew of no Russian edition...
...They, too, had studied and learned much from the work...
...I had assumed that copies of the English paperback had been smuggled into the country...
...The small, frail mother had been severely beaten up by hooligans, suffering a severe concussion prior to leaving her country three months earlier...
...Others whom I questioned appeared to have known of the work...
...Cecil Roth was wont to remark that if even one Jew, of uncertain allegiance to Judaism, had by any one of Roth's writings been influenced to return to the heritage to which he was bora, then he would consider his work had not been in vain...
...However, all efforts he undertook to obtain another were futile...
...The family has now left for a short period and, before doing so, the elder son called me to say "au revoir," and again to say, "We thank you for your husband, for what he enabled us to be...
...The ancient Biblical cities of Samaria and Nablus lay stretched below...
...Yet within hours I received from my informant his personal copy of the book...
...Once again I was told of the great indebtedness of the Russian Jews to Cecil Roth, again told of the many hundreds of Russians who regarded his work as their sacred Bible, how it had become the sole source of their information and guidance on Jewish history...
...Like many other Russian Jews, he told me, it was my husband's work that served as his introduction to Jewish history...
...I expressed surprise that he had known my husband...
...I have become good friends with these two distinguished brothers, who teach and are engaged in mathematical research at Columbia University...
...But the young man who sells Russian publications on the pavement outside the Hebrew University informed me that he had once had a copy...
...We had partaken of the traditional Passover fare at luncheon, numerous courses of lamb, chicken and rice...
...Recently, in New York, I met two brothers, mathematicians of considerable repute, who had lately arrived from Kiev with their parents...
...My fellow guests were a professor from the Hebrew University with a couple of his field workers from Haifa, an elegant fine-featured Russian emigrant, and a noted mineralogist now a lecturer at the Haifa Technion...
...it appeared to have been "around" for some five years...
...Through my husband he had become interested in Jewish history, and through that interest he had Irene Roth is the widow of Dr...
...A slim paperback, small enough to slip into a man's pocket, tiny print on fine paper...
...The only explanation was that it had been produced in Munich, Paris, or Israel and thence distributed throughout Russia...
...My friends at the Russian desk at the Foreign Office in Jerusalem, who knew the original work well, shared my excitement...
...Copies had become few and scarce...
...In the original English edition, in Hebrew, French, German, and Japanese it has long since spread to many far-flung lands...
...What a source of pride, what ample compensation for the long labor of research and work which went into the compiling of this history...
...On learning who I was, they approached me with awe and excitement...
...PERSPECTIVE CECIL ROTH, RUSSIAN JEWS, THE HOOT MOUNTAIN A strong wind blew across Mount Gezim, the Holy Mountain, as I stood by the side of the tall, gaunt figure of my host and old acquaintance, the High Priest of the Samaritans...
...decided to emigrate to Israel, to which country he had become greatly devoted...
...The proprietor of the Russian book shop in Jerusalem was unaware of its existence...
...Cecil Roth, historian and author of The History of the Jews, From Ancient Times to the Six-Day War...
...Nowhere was there any indication as to who translated this clandestine work or where it had been published...
...I was told how the entire book had been surreptitiously typed out, time and again, to be circulated in samizdat form, which was the manner in which my present informant had first read it before seeing a copy of the printed version...
...No author could seek a greater reward than acclaim such as this...
...Deeply touched to hear this, I recalled that some time previously I had seen a press report to the effect that the Moscow police had raided homes in that city and confiscated numerous copies of Cecil Roth's History of the Jews...
...It was there that the Russian guest approached me saying that he had only just realized that I was the widow of the Oxford historian, Cecil Roth, and he wanted to express to me his intense gratitude for the help which my husband had made available to him...
...I could scarcely believe him...
...The author's name and full title of the book appeared in Russian characters on the title page with this notation: Translated from the English...
...Had they perhaps met in Oxford?' I inquired, and was even more amazed when he informed me that he knew of him only through his books and especially through careful study of his work The History of the Jews...
...They live in a large, bare apartment adjoining the campus, the portal of each door adorned with an imposing bronze m'zzuzah...
...But that it is now available to thousands in Russia hitherto bereft of the knowledge of their own history is surely the most glorious climax to a lifework of dedication...
...Hearing about one in such an unlikely setting—on the summit of the Holy Mountain—made me doubt whether I had understood him correctly...
...The thick, heavy, home-baked unleavened bread had rendered us lethargic, glad to linger in the stimulating breeze which always prevails over the mountains...
...Their parents, unlike the sons, have yet to master the English language...
Vol. 3 • September 1978 • No. 9
