In Yiddish to call a person prust is to say that he looks at things plainly and simply—in effect, to characterize him as a philistine. I suppose the Anti-Defamation League’s attitude about many matters close to the hearts of prominent civil libertarians and intellectuals has at times been viewed as prust. Again and again we’ve been compelled to play philistine, not the happiest role for a Jewish organization, a goodly number of whose members are card-carriers in the intelligentsia.
We Jews are, after all, the people of the Book—even if the book is sometimes by A1 Goldstein. We’ve been brought up to believe that the book and the printed word are sacred, even wondrous, and that scribes are the bearers of higher truths.




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