Dear Friend Chaim Ehrenreich,

A big thanks comes to you for your article from last Friday, "Do They Only Want Artists With Sensational Names in Eretz Israel?". I have long felt that such an article will come and precisely from you. But I did not expect it so soon, maybe in a year or so. I'm glad you wrote it so quickly and so masterfully and understood the situation so well.

For the last several years I have negotiated with several managers and community leaders from the Land of Israel about the production of my Hebrew opera, "Ruth" in the Land of Israel. I immediately noticed from their remarks that it had nothing to do with our warm Jews, but snobs deceived by American jazz singers and dancers. One example:

I played the aria that Ruth sings to Naomi, "Al Tigrshini (Forget Me Not)," for one of the managers. He asked me whether the aria would be able to be sung by a shvartse (negro woman).

"What about a shvartse?", I asked.

"To us in Israel they are the greatest sensation." -- he answered me.

And he told me that Lana Horne already was in the Land of Israel three times, and she's coming here a fourth time.

One of the managers, a Jew from Israel, for whom our doors and pockets are open, said to me, with a sigh:

"Oy, Mr. Rumshinsky, when the opera 'Ruth' will be written in Italian or in Russian, I know that it will bring in a lot of money if it is performed."

Yes, friend Ehrenreich, we had hope with the Russian revolution, we lived through a Russian hell. I wish that we could have more nakhes [pleasure] and put on a better face for the sabras in Israel, and we should not be only "Diaspora Jews" to them.

-- Joseph Rumshinsky