Since Bella had never had a real grounding in moral teachings, she drifted from group to group, finally settling in with a group of girls who were highly intellectual and concerned with social problems. She became best friends with Ruth Goldstein, whose home was Old Testament Orthodox Jewish. Ruth, however, was more interested in the problems of the “proletariat.” Together, they became a part of an amorphous group who fell for the new thinking. Here are her own words: “…we developed a sort of intellectual proletariat of our own. We discussed revolution, sex, philosophy, religion, unguided by any standard of right and wrong. We talked of a future ‘unity of forces of the mind’ a ‘new tradition,’ a ‘new world,’ which we were going to help build out of the present selfish one.” The young intellectuals drifted into agnosticism, many into atheism.
It is interesting to note that at many stages throughout her life, Bella did flirt with traditional spirituality. She loved Mrs. Goldstein’s observance of the Jewish High Holy Days for the beauty of the Old Testament readings and the touching singing and ceremonies; and during her year in the Catholic hospital she had longed to discuss Catholic dogma with a priest or sister but she never did. By her second year at Hunter, Bella was a committed believer – in science, evolution and intellectual achievement. Spiritual beliefs were not provable by science, therefore not worthy of consideration. Hers was a group of eager young people ready to transform the world; yet they had no true values of their own, no moral compass with which to guide them. They were ripe to accept Marxist theory.
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