Letter to the Editor
- Letter to the Editor
I was appalled to read Ernest Heppner’s review of my book Strange Haven: A Jewish Childhood in Shanghai (University of Illinois Press, 1999) in the Spring 2001 issue. Nowhere in the review does Mr. Heppner mention, as any fair-minded reviewer should, that he authored a competing volume dealing with personal recollections of the Jewish refugee community in shanghai during the Second World War. Of course, this deceptive omission hides the fact that Heppner has reason to be less than neutral about my volume. Instead, the review was signed “Independent Scholar,” as if Mr. Heppner were an objective historian of the period without mentioning his possible bias. As far as I know, his scholar credentials and publications are limited to his book about Shanghai.
It is reasonable to expect reviewers to read the book they are working on carefully and to respond in terms of the author’s expressed purposes. Heppner failed to do that. his references to minor historical lapses in my book fail to mention that I specifically disclaimed preparing a historical treatment of the Jewish refugee community in Shanghai. Chapter 13 states that “I had resisted previous suggestions to write about my memories because I have neither the training nor the inclination for historical research. My academic and scholarly commitments had always made it difficult to find the time to begin such a major undertaking.” In my preface, the reader interested in a historical treatment is referred to David Kranzler’s definitive history, an expansion of his doctoral dissertation, of the Shanghai refugee community, Japanese, Nazis and Jews: The Jewish Refugee Community of Shanghai, 1938–1945. Furthermore, four paragraphs of the preface summarize Kranzler’s authoritative volume. Finally, the preface specifically mentions that mine was not a historical treatment of that period. Instead, “this personal account describes my memories of our stay in Shanghai. It is based on my recollections of how our family got to China, our life there, the lives of our friends, and what we saw of the surrounding community.” Any careful, unbiased reviewer, especially one claiming to be scholarly, should have referred to these specific disclaimers.
Fordham University, New York
- Ernest Heppner responds:
The tenor of Mr. Tobias’s reaction to my review of his book is disturbing. He substitutes a personal attack for reflection about substantive issues. His own admission of what qualifies his work and the disclaimers he makes regarding scholarly interests [End Page ix] suggest to me an uncertainty about his intended purposes in authoring the book. For example, he dismisses in a cavalier fashion what he views as “minor historical lapses,” claiming he has “neither the training nor the inclination for historical research.” We are asked to excuse this because his self-admitted academic and scholarly commitments seemed to get in the way of developing a book on childhood memories.
It should be noted that I tried to tease out some important conceptual frames emerging from his work: the position of Orthodox Jews and the different insights offered by his early school experience; the deep chasm between Polish and Central European refugees; the problems inherent in being isolated from other ghetto inhabitants—all important additions that deserve careful scholarly attention.
Finally, I was asked to write the review, and the phrase “Independent Scholar” was attributed to me, not by me. My own effort in no way competes with his book—as he contends—in that I made a concerted effort to place my recollections within a historical context. A reviewer deserves more than simply a personal attack.
