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Book Review  by Ida Nasatir

Letters to My Son by Dagobert D. Runes

April 14, 1950—Ida Nasatir book reviews—Letters to My Son by Dagobert D. Runes—Southwestern Jewish Press, page 5: It has become a current practice to give this excellent, rather small book as a gift to the young Bar-Mitzva boy. However, the contents of the volume can be read to advantage by any adult. The best kind of advice any father can give his son is, after all, concerned with the eternal verities: truth, justice, fair play. Taht is the kind Dr. Runes gives to his son in this moving and valuable book.  He does not tell his boy how to make money, or how to "get ahead" in the world, or even how to match his ties with his socks. He tells him his own philosophy of life, and urges the boy to interest himself in it. It is a good philosophy. It is not expressed in the same old trite terms of "doing good," but in the quiet discussion of vital human issues. The first letter in the book, is on the People of the Book.  He tells why Jews earned that title and why others would do well to merit it, too. He writes on friendship, on the reaction of whites to negroes, on God, and on religion as he sees those subjects, on mental and moral courage, on aspects of wealth and success, on having a social conscience, on living in an "ivory tower," on love and books—and, as if this were not enough, he also writes on other subjects. His chapter, or rather, his letter, on Jesus the Jew and the crime of modern anti-Semitism is a stirring one. It is good that Dr. Runes has, in this volume, shared his advice to his son with other fathers and sons. It is advice worth pondering. Did I say it will interest grown-ups? It decidedly will.