Saul Bellow’s To Jerusalem and Back was published in 1976, but it is full of observations that bear on Israel’s current war. One line in the book has even become somewhat famous. I’m winding up this series of excerpts with a passage from pages 126-127 of the original hard cover edition:
What is “known” in civilized countries, what people may be assumed to “know,” is a great mystery. Recently, a survivor of Auschwitz who lives in Chicago had occasion to testify before a grand jury and was asked by the jury foreman, “Why were you sent to this prison camp? What crime did you commit?” “No crime, there was no trial.” “That can’t be a truthful answer,” said the foreman. “When people go to jail it’s because of something they’ve done. You must have had a criminal record in the old country.” When I read Sartre on the Jewish question, I am less surprise by the remoteness of this grand juror’s mind. I am, if anything, surprised at myself and at my own assumptions. A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep.
I can’t vouch for the veracity of the story Bellow tells here, but the conclusion of the paragraph states an eternal verity of general applicability.
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