Learning Laughter
Potpourri
by Harcourt, Brace, $3.50.
Stephen Spender went to Israel specifically to study the country’s program of training and rehabilitation for refugee children, which has been in progress for twenty years but has recently been increased by the influx of Jews from the Orient and North Africa. His account of his trip covers much more than the children’s program, however, for he picked up information about farming, politics, economics, roads, mining, the split it between Israelis of European background and the newcomers from Persia or Morocco, and the financial troubles of the kibbutzes, lie even collected a wry old joke, once the standard question to immigrants: “Did you come out of Germany or out of conviction?” Some of what Mr. Spender saw he liked, while some of it worried him. His book is informative, varied, full of sharp vignettes. A crisp report that is sympathetic in tone but evades set intellectual conclusions.