Yes, indeed, we get and want letters

By Oliver B. Pollak

JACKSON HOLE, Wyoming – Authors want to be read. We write because we are compelled and think we have something to say. Authors need readers, publishers need purchasers and subscribers.

The SDJW editor invites readers to “Leave a Comment” and post it. Comments are usually favorable. Readers can also correspond directly by email.

Sometimes people don’t like what I write, even though I was not wrong. Decades ago I criticized King Edward’s fascist proclivities and a reader wrote to the editor, “What does this guy know about English History” (a UCLA Ph.D. who taught English history for more than 40 years). The editor said, “Oliver, glory in being read.” This goes in the thickly file of rejection letters and book reviews that incorrectly spell my name – Pollack.

I have been privately chided for ideas presented in the SDJW that readers think should not been printed. Reasonable minds may differ.

Very careful readers send me screen shots of misspellings, the wrong word, a “you” that should have been a “to,” a word that should have been a plural, the need for a comma, and other infelicities. These comments are welcomed and a constant reminder for diligent proofreading.

Non-subscribers send me comments because they use Google Alert that monitors the Web for new content for book and movie titles, their own names and specific authors and places such as Boccaccio, Theresienstadt and Holocaust. Online Jewish news agencies and Jewish academics also harvest pertinent articles in the SDJW copy.

Fellow authors use Google Alert and send me personal emails. I have a habit in reviews to include wider reading on the subject, sort of a shout out. In the review of The Splendid and the Vile about Winston Churchill by Lars Erikson, I mentioned Cita Stelzer ‘s book Dining with Churchill.  Cita graciously sent me a copy of her most recent book Working with Winston, The Unsung Women Behind Britain’s Greatest Stateman (2019).

My last submission to the SDJW on August 7, 2020, “Postcards and the Kindertransport” elicited a response from Deborah Oppenheimer the producer of  “Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport.” It won the 2001 Academy Award for best documentary feature. Narrated by Dame Judi Dench it has appeared in theaters, HBO, PBS and is available on YouTube.

I send articles to non-subscribers to SDJW who I know to have an interest in the subject. They write gratifying emails thanking me and point out their experience and connections to the subject.

Letters start with salutations, they close with Cordially yours, Sincerely yours, Very truly yours, Yours truly, and Best wishes. Now they have further helpful and healthy appendages, “I wish you well in these difficult times.” “Stay healthy and safe.” “Stay in place, distanced and masked.”

Shalom

1. The biweekly J – The Jewish News of Northern California announced online on August 7, 2020, that henceforth that antisemitism will no longer have a hyphen.

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Oliver B. Pollak, Ph.D., J.D., a professor emeritus of history at the University of Nebraska Omaha, and a lawyer, is a correspondent now based in Richmond, California. He may be contacted via oliver.pollak@sdjewishworld.com