[Vwoolf] Leonard Woolf, Self-Hating Jew

[Stuart N. Clarke]

“Bennie -- as my cousin was always called -- lived alone in London, and he had a standing invitation to our Sunday lunch; he was nearly always there. When I was ten, he must have been about twenty-three or twenty-four. He was almost, to look at, the comic Jew of the caricature, and he was that curious, but not very uncommon, phenomenon, the silly Jew who seems deliberately to exaggerate and exploit his silliness. He was the Jew so accurately described by one of the Marx brothers: ‘He looks like a fool and talks like a fool, but don't let him deceive you -- he is a fool.’ Sooner or later, usually towards the end of lunch, Bennie would contrive to say something of inconceivable imbecility. My father with an effort, would restrain himself and ignore Bennie. But Bennie was a masochistic moth who could not keep away from the devastating flame. He would turn with imbecile innocence to my father and ask him whether he did not agree with the imbecility. My father's fingers would begin to beat a nervous tattoo upon the tablecloth and all the little Woolfs fell silent round the table, staring apprehensively at the insensate Bennie. ‘But, Uncle Sidney,’ he would say, ‘Uncle Sidney, it is true, isn't it, that red-haired people in France are not taxed?’  ‘No, it is not true, Bennie, and no one in the world but you would believe it.’  ‘But, Uncle Sidney—‘ and then my father would throw up his hands and let loose upon Bennie's head the torrent of his exasperation.”

“Sowing” (Hogarth Press, 1960), pp. 30-1.

Who of us can honestly say we’ve come across a Jewish person with equally stupid opinions?

Stuart
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