Jewish Authors in Weird Tales

With his story "Fear" in the April issue of 1923, David R. Solomon (1893-1951) was the first Jewish author that I know of to be published in Weird Tales. There were others who followed and more, I'm sure, awaiting discovery as I go along in this blog.

So far, I have covered the following Jewish authors who were published in Weird Tales:

• Isaac Asimov (1919 or 1920-1992) was born in Russia and grew up in Brooklyn. He was the author of hundreds of books, including books on both science and the Bible. He considered himself a secular Jew.

• Max Brod (1884-1968), a native of Prague, fled the Nazi takeover of his city in 1939 and spent the rest of his life in the land that became Israel, and after 1948 was and still is Israel. He took with him the papers of his friend Franz Kafka (1883-1924), thereby saving them from destruction.

• Harlan Ellison (1934-2018) was one of the most well known--and perhaps notorious--of all science fiction authors. He called himself in more than one interview "a stiff-necked Jewish atheist."

• Myrtle Levy Gaylord (1895-1960), descended from Russian-Polish Jews, was born in San Francisco. She was a pulp fiction author and a journalist who worked in Spokane, Washington.

• S. Gordon Gurwit (1887-1955), originally Gurivit or Gurevit, was the son of Russian-born immigrants to America. His wife, Ruth (Stein) Gurwit (1894-1981), and son, Montgomery Stanhope "Monte" Gurwit (1920-1993), were also writers. They lived in Chicago and Florida.

• Henry Lieferant (1892-1968) was born in Austria, in a city that is now part of Poland. I don't know for a fact that he was Jewish, but I believe that he was. His original surname may have been something other than Lieferant. I base that supposition only on the fact that I haven't found anything on him from before the Great War. He came to the United States in 1910. His wife was Sylvia B. Saltzberg.

• Richard Marsh (Richard Bernard Heldmann) (1857-1915) was a British author of German-Jewish descent. His grandson was the author Robert Aickman (1914-1981).

• Edith Ogutsch (1929-1990), daughter of a cantor and teacher of religion, was born in Germany and escaped from the Nazi regime on board a Kindertransport to London. She grew up in England and came to America in 1947. She was primarily a poet. 

• Sylvia B. Saltzberg (1896-1952), wife and writing partner of Henry Lieferant, was the daughter of Jewish immigrants from Russia or Lithuania. She worked in medicine in New York City before becoming a writer. She and her husband wrote a number of romances involving doctors and nurses.

• Nathan Schachner (1895-1955) was the son of Austrian-Jewish immigrants. He was born in New York City, educated in law and chemistry, and worked as a writer of both fiction and non-fiction. He was director of public relations of the National Council of Jewish Women and a consultant with the American Jewish Committee.

• Oscar Schisgall (1901-1984) was born either in Russia or Belgium. Most sources say Belgium. His parents, however, were Russian Jews. According to the 1930 Federal census, he spoke Flemish before coming to America in 1925. His novel Swastika (1939) was adapted to the silver screen as The Man I Married, also known as I Married a Nazi (1940).

• J. Schlossel (1902-1977) was Joseph H. Schlossel, a Jewish writer who was born either in New York or Canada, lived in Canada for several years, after that in New York, and wrote just six published stories.

• Nadia Lavrova (1897-1989) was born Nadia Lavrova Shapiro in Irkutsk, Russia. I don't know for a fact that she was Jewish. At some point she dropped her surname Shapiro and went by the pen name Nadia Lavrova. However, her father was named Lazar Solomonovich Shapiro (1863-1934). If I understand Russian naming properly, that means his father was named Solomon, of course a Hebrew name.

• Henry Slesar (1927-2002) was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Ukrainian-Jewish immigrants whose native language was Yiddish and who came to the United States in 1921. He was an extremely prolific writer, including for CBS Radio Mystery Theater, a show we listened to when we were kids in Indianapolis. I believe it came out of a station in Chicago, and it played in the evening. I remember the sound of the creaking door and the host's closing words: "Until next time, pleasant . . . dreams?"

• Arthur Leo Zagat (1896-1949) was, like his writing partner Nathan Schachner, born in New York City and studied law and chemistry. In 1941, Zagat was elected to the national executive committee for the pulp writers' section of the Authors League of America. Oscar Schisgall served as chairman, while Zagat was treasurer.

I have also written about Jewish authors of science fiction and fantasy who were not in "The Unique Magazine":

• Ben Hecht (1894-1964)
• Marvin Kaye (1938-2021)
• Barry N. Malzberg (b. 1939)
• Arthur Porges (1915-2006)
• Robert Scheckley (1928-2005)
• Rod Serling (1924-1975)
• Herman Wouk (1915-2019)

I write on this topic today because of the current world situation. In September, I wrote about how old gods have returned to earth. Now we see clearly that an old hatred has returned, too. It is in fact one of the oldest hatreds in the world and has never really gone away. Like the plague in Albert Camus' novel, it withdraws from time to time into its hidden places, only to come forth again with renewed virulence. That hatred is of course Jew-hatred, and it lives again--more accurately it shows itself again--at our highest levels of government and academia, as well as in our news media. It also lives at the lowest intellectual levels, namely among high school and university students, White House interns, people on the Internet, and even members of Congress, who have chased, surrounded, harassed, threatened, attacked, insulted, chanted and protested against, and attempted to silence, intimidate, and dehumanize Jews, as well as the non-Jews who stand with them. These are human beings and our fellow Americans, and yet they have become fair game, as if this were Nazi Germany or tsarist Russia. I never thought we would see such things here, but the America that once was may not be any longer. Maybe we are at the beginning of a new terror and a new tyranny in our country.

In any case, I can imagine a group of Nazis and klansmen showing up at a pro-terrorist rally on a university campus somewhere in America. They believe the exact same things as the pro-terrorist students and professors, speak the exact same words, carry the exact same signs, only to be told, "Go away. These are our Jews to hate." Although they believe the same things, have the same aspirations, and are ultimately of the same piece, the supporters of terror and the apologists of pogrom believe themselves to be different from Nazis. As always, people on their side of the political spectrum lack self-awareness. I imagine also a different version of the scene in Blazing Saddles in which there are Nazis, klansmen, and other villains waiting in an employment line. Now add some twenty-first century university students and idiot congresswomen to the line and reverse the roles. Now Cleavon Little holds Gene Wilder by his shirt collar, shouting, "Hey, boys, look what I got here." Now the university students go chasing after the Jew, with glee, in hopes of harming or even killing him. Remember that the klansmen in the movie wear on their robes emojis, a major form of communication in our post-literate age.

There are probably those who would prefer that I not name or recognize Jewish authors, especially someone like Max Brod, who was a Zionist and who lived and died in Israel. But even Isaac Asimov, who considered himself an atheist and a liberal, was proud of his Jewish identity and heritage. He would not disavow his religion or culture or his own given name. According to journalist Stephen Silver, Asimov's "own personal success" was unimpeded by antisemitism. Nonetheless, Asimov found it "'difficult to endure . . . the feeling of insecurity, and even terror, because of what was happening in the world'." (From "Judaism Was Complex for Isaac Asimov, Whose 'Foundation' Series Is Now a TV Show" on the website of The Times of Israel, September 24 2021, here. The ellipses are in the original article. The full quote is from I, Asimov: A Memoir [1994], pp. 20-21.)

We know now that liberalism and progressivism are luxuries among Jews. In ordinary times, their political beliefs might be enough to ward off the subtler forms of anti-Semitism and Jew-hatred that live among their fellow liberals and progressives. But in times of terror, they will not protect them. Even an atheistic or socialistic Jew--a cultural versus a practicing or devout Jew--is Jewish enough to be subjected to anti-Semitic terror, murder, and imprisonment. In other words, in the hierarchy of progressivism, some people are worthy and some are not. Like women under transgenderism, Jews can and will be canceled, silenced, and erased, sometimes, as we have seen in the case of Paul Kessler, with lethal aims and results.

If they were still living, I might hesitate to name the Jewish authors listed above, as that might give terrorists, including intellectual terrorists, a list of targets to go after. But I name them, I recognize them, and I give them credit. I stand with them and with the Jewish people as individuals and as a whole, past and present, and with the nation of Israel in its fight against Jew-haters, murderers, rapists, baby-killers, terrorists, and pogromists. Their cause is righteous, God is with them, and I believe they will prevail.

I live in a small city that is home to a big university. On Saturday, October 7, I walked to a local museum to see an exhibit of art created by my friend S.P. Along the way, I walked through a student neighborhood. It was homecoming weekend, and so a lot of students were out in their yards, drinking, partying, and having fun. I saw a student wearing an Israeli flag like a cape. I didn't know then what had happened in Israel that day, but I'm always glad to see signs of support for Israel and for the Jewish people. If nothing else, the atrocities of that day have granted us a great moral clarity. It is absolutely crystalline, in high relief, precisely delineated, razor-sharp along its edges. We know now who is on one side of that line and who is on the other. In this era, there's a lot to be said for college students who like to drink and party and don't care anything at all about politics. Thank God for non-activists. But there is more to be said for one man who would wear--like a superhero--a flag bearing the blue Star of David in support of a people whom so many others, including in American universities, want to see exterminated and their nation destroyed. (Remember that the most popular superheroes were created or co-created by American Jews.) Last week, we witnessed the spectacle of three women on the opposite ends of academic power, three cowardly and morally reprehensible university presidents who were either unwilling or found themselves unable to condemn genocide against the Jewish people. Pick any other group and they would have spoken out against wiping them out. But in the halls of academia in America, the mass murder of Jews is nuanced and contextual, "nuance" and "context" being two words used to defend and apologize for these hateful women and their hateful ideas. Thankfully now one of them is gone from her position. We can only hope that the other two and all like them will soon be gone as well. They could go to work in fast food except that even in fast food there are standards of conduct that they could not meet.

The city in which I live is full of leftists, socialists, statists, progressives, and other kinds of Democrats. Some of these people put out yard signs, "Black Lives Matter" or "We Stand with Ukraine." This is of course extreme virtue signaling and conspicuous moral preening. In strong contrast, I haven't seen any "Jewish Lives Matter" or "We Stand with Israel" signs. The student with the cape stands alone. Never mind that Black Lives Matter, in its own words, "stands in solidarity with Palestinians," or that Black Lives Matter Grassroots issued a statement following the pogrom of October 7 beginning with these words: "When a people have been subject to decades of apartheid and unimaginable violence, their resistance must not be condemned, but understood as a desperate act of self-defense."* In other words, those Israelis got what they deserved for being oppressors, including, I suppose, the Jewish baby baked in an oven.

As for Ukraine, we should remember that the previous democratically elected government in Ukraine was overthrown--with the support of the U.S. government and/or people and/or elements within our government, I might add--and replaced with an unlawful regime; that the current Ukrainian regime has declared martial law, delayed elections, outlawed certain political parties, barred people from traveling freely, silenced dissenters, closed down churches, oppressed ethnic minorities, and now has the power to and in fact does regulate its news media; that Ukraine is utterly corrupt in moral, financial, economic, and political terms, that corruption easily demonstrated in the case of our current president's ties to Ukraine and its oil industry, if not other industries; and that there are or were Nazoid or Nazi-istic elements within the Ukrainian military, if not the Ukrainian government itself. Go ahead if you want, stand with that Ukraine.

There are people who have tried to draw parallels between Ukraine and Israel. I would say to them: Ukraine is not a democracy and not an ally of the United States. Its agents and sympathizers in our government actually tried to bring down our president. Israel, on the other hand, is both our ally and a democracy. The Ukrainian government suppresses or has banned the political opposition. The leader of the opposition in Israel is now a member of the war cabinet. Ukraine is a failure, a giant scam disguised as a country, before the war a playground for the worst of Western corruptocrats. Again, witness the ties our current president, through his son, has to Ukraine. Israel on the other hand is not corrupt. It is a free country. Israel is also an economic success, which is, truth be told, one of the complaints that its enemies have against it.** Israel will continue in its war whether the United States and Europe support it or not. Ukraine can't continue in its war without that support. Its president and other leaders act like entitled beggars who believe we must support them, must continue to pour money into their open maws--or else, they threaten. Finally, again, there are or were Nazis, neo-Nazis, or people who play at being Nazis within Ukraine, including within its military. Think of it: we are sending aid, including military aid, to Nazis, or as I've called them, Nazoids. What kind of crazy world are we living in? What have our elites become in their utter derangement?

Anyway, it would of course be an absurdity to say that there are Nazis within Israel. In actuality, the people with Nazi-istic aims are on the opposite side, in Gaza, Judea, Samaria, and perhaps worst of all in Western governments and universities. These people live by pretzel logic. Russia is warring against Ukraine. Russia also supports the terrorists in Gaza. The pro-Ukraine people in the West are against Russia. Many of them are also against Israel (Jews in general) and in favor of the terrorists that are trying to exterminate them. Our current president is soft on Iran, which wants to destroy Israel and the Jewish people, and yet he's called "Genocide Joe" by the pro-pogrom people in America for his support of Israel, such as it is. The Canadian Parliament recently applauded a Ukrainian Nazi for fighting against Russia during World War II. Meanwhile, in America, there are antifa people who want to punch a Nazi, and yet I'm certain that there is a lot of overlap--maybe complete overlap--between them and the Jew-haters in our country. Antifa really likes Nazis and they want to punch them, both at the same time. How do these people keep all of their hatreds and all of their loyalties straight in their heads?

So is this blog the right place for these things? Maybe. Maybe not. But other than my yard, where I could put a sign that would probably be ripped out, it's the only place I have. Also, this is my blog, and I get to use it as I please. Beyond that, as a writer, I would like to have my thoughts known on such important topics, including as they pertain to other writers, their words, their ideas, and most of all their lives. Beyond that still, if we are to be decent people, we must call out and confront indecent people. These are, after all, the two races of men as identified by Victor Frankl, a Jew and a survivor of the Holocaust.

In these past two months, we have seen extremes of indecency and depravity, not only in the terrorists and pogromists of Gaza but also in their supporters and apologists in the West. On October 7, there were more Jews murdered in the world than at any time since World War II, more Americans killed at any one time by Islamist terrorists since 2016, and more Americans taken hostage by that same brand of terrorist since 1981. I think, anyway. It's hard to say for sure because the numbers and the facts are so hard to come by. It's clear that we're not supposed to know how many Americans were killed on October 7 nor how many are being held hostage by the terrorists. The figure I have for the number killed--33--is ultimately from a French-language source. Apparently, American "journalists," a really incurious group when you get down to it, can't bring themselves to look into or talk about these things. Ask the Internet how many Americans were killed or how many American hostages are being held. You will get nowhere fast. The facts and the figures have gone into the memory hole.

To get back to my point, we must speak out against indecency and depravity whenever we can, wherever we can, and in whatever way we can, especially when those around us remain silent.

So today I write in recognition of Jewish authors and in support of Israel and the Jewish people.

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*Never mind also that Black Lives Matter was founded by self-admitted "trained Marxists" and that they want to do away with the family, as Marxists do the world over. Remember that Marxism is very often anti-Jewish. In Karl Marx's own words: "In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism." (Apparently, Marx used the N-word when writing about his Jewish rival, Ferdinand Lasalle. That's supposed to be an unforgivable sin, but to Marxists, I guess, Marx was the perfect man.) Remember that a Jew, Leon Trotsky, was one of the lead villains in Stalin's great, horrific, decades-long drama of terror, and that another, the fictional Emmanuel Goldstein, plays that same role in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. Now remember the words of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., regarding the oppression of Jews in the Soviet Union, from fifty-seven years ago this week:

"We cannot sit complacently by the wayside while our Jewish brothers in the Soviet Union face the possible extinction of their cultural and spiritual life. Those that sit at rest, while others take pains, are tender turtles and buy their quiet with disgrace."

Whom do you prefer, Dr. King or BLM? Like Ukraine, Black Lives Matter is a scam, essentially a moneymaking operation for its leaders. Go ahead if you want, support that scam, too.

**Socialists, whether they be Nazis or Bolsheviks, are anti-liberal. They despise free-market economics and free associations among men made outside of the State. These things they call capitalism. Where there is freedom, some people will have more than others. Some will be more successful than others. That's one of the reasons that socialists hate freedom, especially free economic activity. Non-Jewish envy of Jewish success partly--or maybe wholly--explains the hatred that socialists have for Jews. As Ambrose Bierce wrote, success is "the one unpardonable sin against one's fellows." Remember here that the Palestinian Liberation Organization includes or has included Marxist, socialist, and Maoist groups. Remember also that some of the most rabid anti-Israel and anti-Jewish Arab regimes are or were Ba'athist regimes, Ba'athism being just another brand of socialism. Finally, remember that António Guterres, the current secretary general of the United Nations, by the way another Jew-hating organization, is also a socialist. He as much as anyone wants Israel to lose and the terrorists and Jew-murderers to win this war. We can predict that the closer Israel comes to victory, the more desperate will be the calls for ceasefire from him and his fellow travelers.

So, as an aside, a maxim:

If people are free, they will not be equal. And if they are to be made equal, they can't be permitted their freedom.

Original text copyright 2023 Terence E. Hanley