JEWS IN AMERICA FROM 1800 UNTIL WORLD WAR II ---- Episode 7

           A LITTLE ABOUT ROBERT OPPENHEIMER'S 
       PARENTS AND THE CUSHY LIFE INTO WHICH
      ROBERT WAS BORN ON APRIL 22, 1904 

   That Felix Adler officiated at Julius's wedding was extremely apt, since in the years that followed Julius was to become one of Adler's leading and most devoted disciples, his rise to prominence in his uncles' company running parallel with his rise within the Ethical Culture movement. At the time of his wedding, as the Rothfeld brothers were entering their sixties and approaching retirement age, Julius Oppenheimer was preparing to take over the running of the company. It was an opportune time to seize the reins. The advent of readyto-wear suits, which cut overheads, lowered prices and increased demand dramatically, had given the entire tailoring industry an enormous boost, and business was extremely good. The Rothfeld brothers did not live to see the best years f their company. Longevity was never a family trait and both brothers died before they reached seventy, Solomon in 1904 and Sigmund three years later. Upon Sigmund's death, in December 1907, Julius became president of Rothfeld, Stearn & Co. , which now had offices in that most prestigious of all New York addresses : FIFTH AVENUE. At thirty--six years old, Julius Oppenheimer was a man of means and substance. 
  Julius and Ella Oppenheimer, though never ostentatious, certainly led what many would consider a luxurious life. Son after they were married they moved into an apartment at 250 West 94th Street, just down the road from Ella's mother. It was a fairly large apartment in a fairly smart neighborhood, but nothing very out of the ordinary. Where, however, they went way beyond what most people would regard as being essential  to a civilized life was in the furnishing and decorating of the apartment, particularly with regard to paintings that adorned its walls. It was in those days customary among wealthy German Jewish New York families to have a private art collection. In this respect, as in so many others, the members of "OUR CROWD" tended to veer on the side of conservatism, caution and conformity. Abby, the central character in Emanie Sachs's Red Damask, sneers that they "haven't enough physical courage to go in for sports like the rich Gentiles, and a little too much brains. So they go in for art collection with an expert to help. They wouldn't risk a penny on their own tastes." 

   Left to his own devices, Julius might have fallen into the kind of conservatism mocked by Sachs, but in Ella he had his own expert, one who, having studied Impressionism in Paris, was certainly not afraid to risk money on her own taste. The result was an 

extraordinary private art collection that was the to be the pride of the family for generations. It included a Rembrandt etching, paintings by Vuillard, Derain and Renoir, no fewere than three Van Goghs --- Enclosed Field with Rising Sun, First Steps [ After Millet] and Portrait ofAdeline Ravoux and a "blue period" Picasso, Mother and Child. 
   The private contemplation of fine works of art might be seen as the very opposite of the way of life promoted by the Ethical Cuture Society, a society that emphasized social responsibility and the importance of the deed , of doing something practical to help those less well off than oneself. This was a society that set up educational programs for the working class ; that put forward practical suggestions for improving the health, the working conditions and the housing of New York ; that involved itself in trade-union disputes ; and that helped set up a number of nationally important campaigning groups --- the National Child Labor Committee, the Civil Liberties Unions, the Ladies's Garment Workers' Union, the Society for the Advancement of ColoredPeople, and so on. Spending large sums of money [even though JuliusandElla were"early buyers" of Van Gogh and Picasso, the cost of these paintings was still considerable] on works that would be seen only by one's immediate family and one's closest friends scarcely looks consistent with the ethics that inspired the movement and its many social and political initiatives. 

 And yet, when looked at in another way, it was not only consistent with Adler's vision, but a fulfillment of it. Despite the practical nature of much of the work of the Ethical CultureSociety, and despite its repudiation of theology, Adler's vision was first and foremost a spiritual one. His central motivation was to find a way of preserving the spiritual guidance that religions had provided, even after all faith in religious beliefs had been abandoned. He thought he had found what he was looking for in the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, with its emphasis on what Kant called the "Moral Law," which Kant thought all of us would find in our hearts. In a famous passage that Adler quotes in his discourses , CREED AND DEED, Kant writes : "Two things fill the soul with ever new and increasing admiration and reverence : the star-lit heavens above me, and the moral law within me." According to Kant, the moral law is the same for all people at all times and at all places, and according to Adler : "The moral law is the common ground upon which all religious and in fact all true men may meet. It is the one basis of union that remains to us amid the clashing antagonisms of the sects. . . all that is best and grandest in religious dogma is due to the inspiration of the moral law in man." 
   What, then, is the moral law ?" In Kant's formulation, it is this : "act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law." This means something like : do as you will be done by ; or : do to others what you would be happy to have done to you. Adler's formulation, however, is rather different :"The rule reads, 'Act so as to bring out the spiritual personality, the unique nature of the other." 
   One brings out the "spiritual personality" by awakening in other people the sense of the sublime, of the infinite. Art is able to do this, Adler emphasizes, since it is a "high endeavor" and "Truly disinterestedness is the mark of every high endeavor." Thus : "The pursuit of the artist is unselfish, the beauty he creates is his reward." The goal of life is to pursue "the Ideal," which "is a void of form and its name unutterable." We can find the Ideal within ourselves --- in fact, we can only find it within ourselves ---through the discovery and appreciation of the moral law ; and the "high endeavors," of art, science, and public service, can help us find it. So the acquisition of fine works of art does not, after all, constitute "luxurious living,"but rather a means of fulfilling the "MORAL LAW." 
  It was in an environment governed by this idiosyncratic version of the moral law that a concerted effort would be made to "bring out the spiritual personality" of J. Robert Oppenheimer.