The world has seen a lot of sick anti-Semitic literature, but I've just discovered a piece of sick pro-Semetic literature. An interpretation of Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass, claiming that it is in reality entirely devoted to Judaism, though expressed in secret code.

The book is Lewis Carroll's "Through the Looking Glass" decoded, by Abraham Ettleson, M.D.; a Phoenix, Ariz. physician. It's published by Philosophical Library, 1966, and sells for $3.75. Dr. Ettleson spends 84 pages "decoding" Carroll, and coming up with such facts as:

In the Looking-Glass world, all things were reversed. This is a reference to the Hebrew language, which is read from right to left, instead of from left to right.
If you divide the word "Jabberwocky" in half, and spell each half backwards, you get a phonetic spelling of "Rabbi Yakov". And there was a real Rabbi Yakov living in the 1700's, which proves the validity of the message hidden in the word. (By a strange coincidence, this Rabbi Yakov is one of Dr. Ettleson's ancestors.) The whole poem, "Jabberwocky", is really an encoded retelling of legends about the holiness of his ancestor, which can be verified by reading the article in the Jewish Encyclopedia about Rabbi Israel (Yakov) Ben Eliezer (ca. 1700-1769).
The fight between the Lion and the Unicorn is a retelling of the Exodus from Egypt, with the Lion being Pharaoh and the Unicorn being Moses (who has a horn in Michelangelo's famous sculpture of him.)
Hatta is another reference to Moses, because if you spell it backwards, you get "attaH", which is the Hebrew word for "thou", and when God spoke to Moses he always addressed him as "thou".
The White King is obviously God, which makes his Memorandum Book the Torah.

And so on, at great length. Many of the "decodings" refer to matters of the Jewish cultural history and religious practices that are obscure to me. Dr. Ettleson states that he is aware of the traditional stories of how Carroll came to write Alice and this book, but since those stories are so greatly at odds with the internal evidence that he has discovered, they must be unfounded speculation. As to the reason why Carroll wrote this great Judaic work, and put it in code so nobody would know what he meant, Dr. Ettleson is silent, merely noting in a brief introduction that Carroll was a complex individual, fond of codes.

--COMMENTS ON LAST WEEK'S DISTRIBUTION

Chuck Crayne -- All this talk about the danger of non-F-UN CON people wanting to attend the LASFS Meeting at the F-UN CON sounds like pointless blather to me. Can you picture hordes of deadbeats standing around down in the lobby, waiting for the LASFS Meeting to start so that they can madly rush up and invade the F-UN CON area for the 5 minutes or so that the Meeting is likely to last? It's a humorous picture, but not a very believable one. ## I suppose that somebody is likely to suggest that we don't adjourn that Meeting until the end of the Con, and declare the Con to be a LASFS program. This suggestion is usually made at any convention at which LASFS rump Meetings are held. I suppose it's technically possible to do this, but remember, if the whole F-UN CON becomes a part of the LASFS Meeting, the Secretary will have to take Minutes of everything that goes on during the four days.

Bruce Pelz -- "Amos Wail" is still appreciated; keep it coming.

Yarst! I don't feel like doing any more dist'n comments. Here's a list of the kings of the Aztecs, instead.

Acamapichtli, ca. 1375-1396
Huitzilihuitl, 1396-1417
Chimalpopoca, 1417-1427
Itzcoatl, 1427-1440
Moctezuma I (Ilhuicamina), 1440-1469
Axeyacatl, 1469-1481
Tizoc, 1481-1486
Ahuitzotl, 1486-1502
Moctezuma II (Xocoyotzin), 1502-1520
Cuauhtémoc, 1520-1521

The Aztecs were a wandering tribe until about 1325, when they founded the city of Tenochtitlán and settled down. It wasn't until about 50 years after that that they felt strong enough to declare themselves free from the control of all other city/tribes, and the Aztec chief assumed the title of King. (Or what passed for a King in the Mexican social structure.)