Albert Maltz was born in New York in 1908, the third son of Bernard and Lena Maltz, both of whom were Jewish immigrants. As a three-year-old he witnessed an anti-Semitic attack against his father and older brothers in the street outside their Brooklyn home. Maltz never forgot the incident and claimed that it made him sensitive to injustice.
Later in his childhood Maltz was inspired by real and imaginary family stories about brave outsiders who fought back against bigotry. In adolescence he became passionate about boxing because of his father’s advice that "A Jew must learn to fight” (Maltz, Citizen Writer in Retrospect). As a teenager Maltz was more athlete than scholar, but his fear of failure made him a good student. He showed enough promise at Brooklyn’s Erasmus High School to be
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Citation: Chura, Patrick. "The Cross and the Arrow". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 04 April 2024 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=41560, accessed 21 November 2024.]
