Ee PRN Ow STEN The Lower East Side and Early Jewish . Peele bee SANFORD STERNLICHTAAYFS Samuel Ornitz 1890-1957 Samuel Onitz was a compassionate writer who was deeply commit- ted to social causes. He had the courage of his convictions and used his skills for che betterment of humankind. Ornitz made his living as a screenwriter. In the early 1950s—as one af the notorious Hall wood ‘Ten, a group of writers accused of being communists during the McCarthy-era witch hunt—he refused to give up his constiru- tional right not to incriminate himself and others by stating chat he was now or had been a member of the Communist Party, or that he knew of colleagues who were members, Ornitz affirmed thar even posing such questions was wrong, For his courage he went to prison. Unlike other blacklisted Hollywood writers, he chose not to write under a pseudonym after being released from prison. Samuel Ornirz was a true champion of civil liberties. Samuel Baclisch Onnitz was bern on Hester Street, the same street on which the great modern sculptor Sir Jacob Epstein had been born ten years earlier. Ornitz’s parents were newly arrived Palish Jewish Immigrants. He attended the Henry Street Public School and a Jewish school for religious instruct cultural courses at the Henry Strect Settlement, After two years of study at City College, New York, he selected social work as his initial career choice, hoping ta help prisoners, children, and the poor. Ac twenty-four he married Sadie Lesser, with whom he had pwo sons. Abandoning social work, Ornite began to write, eventually winding up in Hollywood, where he collaborated with some of the finest screenwriters of his time, including Nathanael West and Bud 98 ion. He alsa tookFeriy fewin American Writers Schulberg. Ornitz wrote screenplays for Paramount, RKO, Univer- , and Republic, He was also instrumental in founding the Screen- s writers Guild, Although he wrote more than thirty screenplays, writer of fiction before he became a screenwriter. In 1923 he aneny- i Was a moausly published his best-known novel, Hauuch, Pannch and fowl, Set on the Lower East Side, it chronicles the way immigrants fought their way aut of poverty. The funny, picaresque novel is anticapital- ist. [t centers on New York City crime and political corruption, par- ticularly the misdeeds of an obese judge referred to in political car- toons as “Haunch, Paunch and Jowl.” In a first-person narrative the protagonist, Meyer Hirsch, a street- wise boy, relaces his rise from impoverished tenement life ro a power- ful New York judgeship. Meyer is a child of Russian Jewish immi- grants, He is a brawler and, from che age of nine, a gang leader on Ludlow Street. His facher fed Russia to escape military service and now works as a sewing-machine operator, while Meyer's mother struggles co keep the family together. Ac fourteen Meyer is a chief, mainly stealing food because he is always hungry. His gang goes in tor extortion of shopkecpers. Meyer, as the general, organizes the Jewish gangs to wage war against the Irish gangs. Ornice’s description of pang warfare among Jewish and Irish teenagers is vivid. While still in his teens, Meyer frequents the prostitutes on Allen Street. The gang, the former Ludlow Street Streetcarers (named for hitching dangerous rides) are now called the Ludlow Street Don Juans. Finishing public schooling, Meyer is sent to City College on Twenty-third Street because Uncle Philip has decreed chat he is co be a lawyer. He is put to work as a “runner,” seeking clients fora shyster lawyer. Meyer lusts after women and worries abour contracting a ve- nereal disease. At cighteen his admiring pals are out stealing law books for Meyer to study, He becomes a Democratic Party gopher and buyer of vores. He has learned that his intelligence could take him far in a ciey can by corrupt, small-brained men. Now a licensed lawyer, Meyer rises high in gherto politics. His love life is polarized: he worships the “pure” Esther but sleeps with the sexy maid Greeel. To Meyer's great disappoinument Esther marries his enemy, the [rishman Finn. But Meyer Hirsch is now so powerful he 99