martillo@ihuxt.UUCP (Yehoyaqim Shemtob Martillo) (04/05/84)
I saw this story in the April 1, NY Times Book Review. A curious story concerning C.S. Lewis, which as far as I know has not yet appeared in any of the books about him. Lewis was not only a notable critic and storyteller, but one of the foremost apologists for Christianity -- more specifically the Church of England -- of his time. Late in life he married an American woman whose family were Jewish but had long since broken with their ancestral faith; she died while still in her 40's, and Lewis was left to look after her two small sons by a previous marriage. He sent them to the school attached to his Oxford college, Magdalen, and everything went smoothly until the younger of the boys, then 14, read some stories written by his mother in which Jewish characters were unfavorably portrayed. One in particular dealt with a ritual slaughterer, a shohet. His immediate response was to tell his stepfather that he wanted to become a practicing Jew, and indeed that he planned to become a shohet himself in order that this type of religious functionary could be presented to the world in a more sympathetic light. Confronted with a situation that he must have found completely bewildering, Lewis seems to have shown admirable patience and tact. He did his best to meet his stepson's demands, and turned for advice to the Oxford Jewish historian Cecil Roth. Meanwhile, however, the boy was going his own way, moving in a steadily more Orthodox direction. He taught himself Yiddish, got hold of some traditional Hasidic garb (though he was persuaded not to wear it while still in Oxford), and eventually left for Jerusalem, where he settled in the Orthodox quarter of Mea Shearim. The details of the affair -- it all sounds rather like an Oxonian and Anglican version of Philip Roth's story "Eli the Fanatic" -- can be found in the memoir of Cecil Roth by his widow Irene that was published by the Sepher Hermon Press of New York a year or two back. "Cecil Roth: Historian Without Tears" is a book full of interest, which preserves the memory not only of Roth himself but of some remarkable characters he got to know in the course of his career. There is Giuseppe Parde Roques, for instance, who Roth called "the last of the Marrano grandees" -- a philanthropist, a connoisseur, the scion of a family that had settled in Italy after the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in the 15th century. Roques, who lived in Pisa, was murdered by German soldiers who stormed his house only hours befor the town was liberated by the Allies. Mrs. Roth writes about him with great affection; given all the circumstances, I would particularly recommend her account to anyone about to pay homage to the civilizing influence of Ezra Pound.
yudelson@aecom.UUCP (Larry Yudelson) (04/11/84)
Yehoyaqim mentioned that Lewis is a Christian apologist. I would recommend, though, that readers of this newsgroup (i.e. even Jews) read his "Screwtape Letters" (about $2 in Bantam paperback). They are letters to a demon from his older and wiser uncle, telling how best to snare the human soul. All in all, it is the best mussar book I have read, since it improves your behaviour not by chastising, but by pointing out all the little sins you do that you don't even notice, such as raising family tensions and the like. I suspect that if I say more I will only be doing the book further injustice, so I won't say more, but it will make good yom tov reading. Chag Kasher V'Sameach, Larry Yudelson "Beware the Frumiest Bandersnatch"
urban@trwspp.UUCP (04/16/84)
I'll go even further. I'm your basic heathen agnostic/atheist humanist type, and also recommend "Screwtape." Even if you find the notion of "sin" to be dubious, THIS Lewis book is filled with excellent little psychological insights, and is always executed with wit. Worthwhile. Mike