Jewish Life April 1960

Nison, 5720 — April, 1960

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Ben Gurion in America * UN Action on Reli­ gious Discrimination * W h y the Neturei Karta?

Careers in Business * Jewish Colonization in C an ad a * At the G ate w ay to the Sahara

The Star of David now shines over IS lands People all over the world, in New York, Tel Aviv, London, Paris, Rome, Berlin* Brussels, Amsterdam, Zurich, Vienna, Athens, Istanbul, Nicosia, Uganda, Johan* nesburg and Teheran now look up and see the Star of David flashing across the skies. When El A1 was first established in 1949, right after Independence, it was a tiny 3-stop airline. But as Israel’s needs grew, El A1 grew with them. Today, its giant jet-powered Britannias service sixteen nations on four continents. And besides carrying thousands upon thousands of passengers, El A1 has become a major lifeline between Israel and the outside world, g j j Jg ra e l A irlin es*

í^'skLIFE

Vol. XXVII, No. 4/April, 1960/Nisan, 5720/

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EDITORIALS THE DRIVE FOR FREEDOM ...............................

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BEN GURION IN A M E R IC A ...............................

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Saul Bernstein , Editor M. Morton Rubenstein Reuben E. Gross Rabbi S. J. Sharfm an Libby Klaperman Editorial Associates

ARTICLES UN DEVELOPMENTS ON RELIGIOUS DISCRIMINATION/lsaac Lewln ......................

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THEA Od e m , Editorial Assistant

THE GUARDIANS OF THE CITY/Urlel Zimm er........ 13 JEWISH LIFE is published bi­ monthly. Subscription two years $4.00, three years $5.50, four years $ 7.00, Supporter $ 1 0 .00, Patron $25.00.

HAGANAH’S ELUSIVE TRANSMITTER/ Reuben E. G ro ss.........

WHAT HAPPENED TO JEWISH COLONIZATION IN CANADA/Jacob Beller......... ... ........

Editorial and Publication Office: 305 Broadway N ew York 7, N . Y. BEekman 3-2220

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THREE EXAMPLES/Arnold J. Miller..................... 32 CAREERS IN BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION/ Walter Duckat........................................... 36 AT THE GATEWAY TO THE SAHARA/Eli Rothschild ... 46 THE CHALLENGE OF ANTISEMITISM/1. Grunfeld.... 51

Published by U n io n of O rthodox J ewish Congregations of A merica

Moses I. Feuerstein

TOWARDS ECONOMIC INDEPENDENCE/ I. Halevy-Levin.......................................

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MEMBERSHIP MEETING/Michael Rosenak........... 64

REVIEWS

President Benjamin Koenigsberg, Nathan K. Gross, Samuel L. Brennglass, M. Morton Rubenstein, Vice Presidents; Edward A. Teplow, Treasurer; Herbert Berman, Secretary.

Dr. Samson R. Weiss Executive Vice> President

A TESTIMONY TO FAITH/Israel Klavan............... 71 A PHILOSOPHY OF JUDAISM/Manuel Laderman... 75 TANACH FOR TODAY/Hugo Mandelbaum ...........

DEPARTMENTS AMONG OUR CONTRIBUTORS..........................

Second class postage paid at N ew York. N . Y.

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Copyright © 1960 by Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America

April, 1960

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among our contributors

DR. ISAAC LEWIN, chairman of the World Executive of Agudath Israel, American Section, and professor of Jewish History at Yeshiva University, represents Agudath Israel in the United Nations Economic and Social Council.

URIEL ZIMMER writes for publications in various parts of the world in Hebrew, Yiddish, German, French, and English. He is the United Nations correspondent for Hakol, a Jerusalem daily, and is the translator of Tanya, a book on the essentials of the Lubavitcher school of Chasidic teachings.

REUBEN E. GROSS, who is a graduate of Yeshiva College and Harvard Law School, practices law in Staten Island, N. Y. He is an editorial associate of J ewish L ife and chairman of the Armed Forces Commission of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congrega­ tions of America. Mr. Gross’ interests include keeping in touch with remote corners of the world via amateur radio.

DR. ISADORE GRUNFELD is a Dayan of the Beth Din of the Chief Rabbinate of the United Hebrew Congregations of Great Britain. A lawyer as well as rabbi, Dr. Grunfeld’s writings cover the spheres of religion, law, and economics.

JACOB BELLER is a widely-travelled Yiddish journalist of note.

His last contribution to these pages was “Across Boundaries in Latin America,” in our Nisan/April 1951 issue.

WALTER DUCKAT is supervisor of the Vocational Guidance Division of the Federation Employment and Guidance Service, and is a lecturer on the graduate faculties of Yeshiva University and the City College of New York. His present article is one of a series on career prospects for observant Jews.

MICHAEL ROSENAK, who has been living in Israel for the past two years, is a graduate of Yeshiva University and Columbia. He teaches English and history at the Midrashiya (religious high school) in Pardes Chanah.

ELI ROTHSCHILD is a journalist for various North African newspapers. He also serves as public relations officer for Ozar Hatorah, the network of schools and yeshivoth in North Africa, Iran, and Israel, combining religious with general education.

ARNOLD J. MILLER, a practicing attorney in Worcester, Mass., is a past vice-president of the National Council of Young Israel and past president of Young Israel of Worcester.

Cover: Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik and David Ben Gurion at Yeshiva University during the Israeli Prime Minister’s recent U. S. visit. A private meeting between the two occurred earlier, but it is not known whether their talks affected Rabbi Soloveitchik’s prior decision withdrawing his candidacy for the Israel Chief Rabbinate.

(Photo courtesy Yeshiva University.)

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T he D rive fo r F reedom HE CONCEPT of freedom as a conscious goal of the human spirit owes its origin to the events which we re-live each Pesach. Because of this, because the ideal of freedom as man’s Divinely-ordained heritage is integral to the Jewish scheme of things, Jews are and must be responsive to the urge for freedom wherever it appears. Today we see that urge mirrored daily in the world’s newspapers as manifestations of the “racial explosion,” rising in force from day to day. Subject peoples in areas once, but no longer, distant from the world’s ruling centers are moved by a great impulsion to self-rule. In the United States itself, in this very heart of modern civilization, built upon the principle of freedom and equality for all, we see the Negro populace straining against the remaining fetters of subjection. To all of these we owe the utmost of our moral support.

It is highly to the credit of Southern Negro leadership, in par­ ticular, that they have based their cause on spiritual foundations: they seek their rights not merely as obligations of American I ° n society but as G-d-given rights. In so doing they have reminded all Spiritual men that freedom not grounded in awareness of Divine SoverFoundations eignty is an illusion, whose reality is the changing of one form of human subjection for another. Much can be lost if, amidst the passions of the drive for national or social liberation, the very heart of freedom is swept aside.

We Jews must especially welcome this reminder. For all the problems that beset Jewish life today, it is a fact nonetheless that with the conspicuous exception of Soviet Jewry—we enjoy a greater measure of social freedom and security than for many centuries past. We must not fail to employ this status to proper purpose. Let us ever remember that social freedom is but auxiliary to spiritual freedom. For us, freedom means the unfettered will to fulfill that role for which the people of the Torah was brought forth from Egypt.

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Ben G urion in A m erica ROM the standpoint of international relations, David Ben Gurion s unofficial” visit to the United States has enjoyed substantial success. Israel’s Prime Minister seems to have made a favorable impact on wide sections of the American public and upon the higher echelons of Government too. There are encour­ aging signs that Ben Gurion’s informal talks with President Eisenhower, Secretary of State Herter, and Congressional lead­ ers have contributed to a more sympathetic understanding of Israel’s situation on the part of our Government.

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It is indicated that the Administration will not depart from its policy of barring U.S. arms shipments to Israel, even in the face of the massive shipments of Soviet bloc arms and planes to the Arab countries. Apparently, however, our Government will give silent assent to measures by other Western powers to coun­ terbalance the mounting Soviet-Arab threat to Middle East peace.

And it appears that a more liberal policy of economic aid to Israel may be instituted by this country.

Ben Gurion’s visit has brought sharpened awareness of the explosiveness of the Middle East situation— and of the fact that it can be resolved only by concerted action on the part of the Spur world Powers, of East and West alike. There is talk of an agreeto ment among the great Powers to check the Middle East arms A r a n race. Such a move is the necessary pre-condition to the settlement of the issues which keep the Middle East in turmoil. If Ben Gurion’s visit will have spurred action towards this end, it will have been a major contribution to the problems of our time.

THER aspects of Prime Minister Ben Gurion’s American journey do not call for like commendation. His tete-a-tete O with Konrad Adenauer in the West German Chancellor’s New York hotel suite was of that order of statecraft whose inner compulsions are hidden from the eyes of ordinary mortals. The meeting may have produced practical gains for Israel, but did this objective require a heavily publicized, tears-andqperspirationsaturated coming together of the leaders of the state which is heir to murdered millions and of the regime which is successor to those who destroyed them?

This is the age of speed-up. In the field of power politics, as in the realm of mechanics, time is telescoped; this morning’s bitter antagonists may be reconciled by noon, and allies by evening. Such is realpolitik, whose premise it is that ends justify means. But in Jewish life a higher ethic than the expediencies of Expiation realpolitik must apply. Those who were tortured, butchered, and or burned alive are and will remain a living reality, a compelling P l i n r v force in Jewish affairs. Their martyrdom cannot be commuted expediency practical considerations; it can be expiated only in the eleva­ tion of Jewish life and of all mankind. Whatever the circum­ stances leading to the Ben Gurion-Adenauer talk, it is difficult to conceive that such a meeting, but a short few years after his­ tory’s blackest crime, can be morally justified.

Unfortunate, too, was Ben Gurion’s widely-publicized address upon being awarded an honorary degree by Brandeis University.

The message, rather ostentatiously exhibiting his erudition in fields of worldly culture, revealed much of the Israeli leader’s outlook—perhaps more than he himself was aware.

The values which David Ben Gurion holds aloft, according to this talk, are not those by which the Jew has been guided 4

JEWISH LIFE

throughout history. True, he professes to believe “wholeheart­ edly” in the prophecy of Isaiah: /, the Lord, have called thee in righteousness, and have taken hold of thy hand, and kept thee, and set thee for a covenant of the people, for the light to the nations. But he hastens to assure the world that he is no “chau­ vinist” because “I do not hold that we are a ‘chosen people’.”

HE BELIEF in the Divine election of the people of Israel ^ ¿ —the belief which has ever been that people’s basis for existence, iterated and reiterated in the same Bible from which Mr. Ben Gurion picks and chooses at his discretion—is disowned and discredited by the first minister of the re-born Jewish state, as baseless chauvinism. In its place, he offers as shining truth the proposition that the distinction of the Jewish people lies in having created of itself, “in days gone by,” great spiritual leaders now admired by all mankind. Which of these contrasting beliefs is indeed the quintessence of chauvinism? Which of them surges free and true out of the wellsprings of inspired, unpolluted Jew­ ish strength, and which from a mind that cringes in bondage to man-made idols?

In like vein, Ben Gurion parades a succession of Biblical verses to support his eager claim that “the Jewish people in days gone by was privileged to be one of the three ancient peoples that bequeathed immortal values to mankind.” The other mem­ bers of the trio were India—on the characteristic premise that Buddha was an Indian, although his teachings have had prac­ tically no adherents in that country, to this day—and Greece, Diplom atic which gave birth to great thinkers and philosophers who are to be valued, according to Mr. Ben Gurion, largely because they Trio were the forerunners of modern science, “the most universal triumph of our era.” Israel’s claim to eminence, according to Ben Gurion, lies in its having-—in days gone by—produced prophets whose teachings were akin to those of the founder of Buddhism and which complemented in the moral field the achievements of the Greek philosophers. It is perhaps coinci­ dental that in this re-shaping of Israel’s role to fit this setting, a certain diplomatic alignment of contemporary application is also achieved.

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N worshipping at the shrine of Great Men, Ben Gurion is at one with Christendom in seeing no greatness among Jews after the Biblical era. “When we went into exile . . . we did not continue to create anew, save for the making of interpretations and interpreta­ tions of interpretations about our sacred writings. Our spiritual lives, like our material lives, were impoverished and shrivelled . . .

We lived in a political, an economic, and also a spiritual ghetto.”

Mr. Ben Gurion is famed for his knowledge of many languages and for familiarity with many books written in many tongues.

And of Hebrew he is surely a master. Yet it is evident that he is

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tragically deficient in the language of his own people. Between him and the world of Jewish understanding communications are blocked; what comes through to him is by way of nonnJewish spiritual channels, and sifted through a sieve of hostile values.

For the Ben Gurions of our day, the entire sweep of Jewish history since the fall of the Second Jewish Commonwealth has neither meaning nor value. The entire sequence of giant figures, from Yochanan ben Zakkai to the Chofetz Chaim, generation after unceasing generation of spiritual heroes who shaped and 2,000-Year guided Jewish destiny, nurtured the unceasing flow of Jewish Gap creativity, forged irreplaceable, unique treasures for the store of human values— all, to the Ben Gurions, are as the dust under their feet. And all that is comprehended in the experience, the striving, the goal, the achievement of Jewish life itself through two thousand years, the wonder of all wonders in all the human story—all this, to the Ben Gurions, is dross.

Oh yes, Mr. Ben Gurion does manage to find a single Jewishborn figure of worth in the long “Ghetto” ages—‘B aruch Spinoza.

This solitary luminary “rose from our midst and in his lofty thought ascended to the skies, he was cast out of our nest and shed his light on others . . . ” N David Ben Gurion can be seen in enlargement the talents, the characteristics, and the limitations of many Jews of our time. He is the prototype of dedication to the aim of upbuilding the Land of Israel as a state for Jews, and to this aim he has given the utmost of his high abilities in statesmanship and political know-how. But the intellectual apparatus with which he functions is scarred and distorted by the impact of forces foreign to Jewish life. Ben Gurion is perhaps the most eminent contemporary Contra- Pr°duct of that school which, evaluating Jewishness by non-Jewish . standards, envisioned a Jewish state in nonjJewish terms. In a diction crucjai moment of history, Divine Providence turned these drives Exposed to the service of Jewish need. There resulted the achievement of the Jewish state, to which Ben Gurion and others of his kind made a vital contribution. Yet with this very achievement, the fatal inner contradiction of the Ben Gurion outlook stood exposed.

The concept of a de-Judaized Jewry, of a Jewish life to be sus­ tained through non-Jewish nurture, is a hopeless anomaly. It can­ not function in the Golah; kal Vchomer it cannot function in the Jewish state, for it is in conflict with the free flow of the indige­ nously Jewish spirit, of the building upon inherently Jewish values, which a Jewish state makes mandatory and inevitable.

David Ben Gurion’s American message has shown that he, the outstanding spokesman for Medinath Israel as the only enduring vessel for Jewish life, has himself failed to grasp the ultimate meaning of the Jewish state. Unless and until he can awaken to this meaning, his leadership will be in vain.

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JEWISH LIFE

UN Developments on Religious Discrimination

By ISAAC LEWIN

RTICLE I of the Charter of the United Nations declares, as one of the purposes of this great organization, that it is “to achieve international co­ operation . . . in promoting and encour­ aging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion.”* Subsequent documents such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (December 10, 1948) reaffirm this fundamental principle of prevent­ ing discrimination on the ground of religion.

It is, however, quite difficult to cross the bridge from theory to practice in the area of discrimination. In an at­ tempt to get down to particulars, it was recognized several years ago that a study had to be made of actual world­ wide conditions with regard to discrim­ ination. The UN Commission on Hu­ man Rights appointed a special body, called the Sub-Commission on Preven­ tion of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities, which undertook the for­ midable task of making the study and coming forward with specific proposals.

In October, 1952, the Sub-Commis­ sion decided upon the fields in which to concentrate its study. Its original proposal included discrimination in

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(1) education, (2) employment and occupation, (3) political rights, (4) residence and movement, (5) immi­ gration and travel, and (6) family rights. Discrimination in the field of religious rights and practices was over­ looked.

HIS writer participated in the de­ liberations of the Sub-Commission as an accredited representative of the Agudas Israel World Organization, which enjoys consultative status with the United Nations Economic and So­ cial Council and its subsidiary organs (among them the Commission on Hu­ man Rights and the Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities), and paid particular attention during its discus­ sions to the problems of religious dis­ crimination. History eloquently attests to the immeasurable misery caused throughout the ages by religious dis­ crimination. Why should this particu­ lar field have been omitted from the official study undertaken by the United Nations?

On October 7, 1952,1 addressed the Sub-Commission and informed the as­ sembled members of the unhappy Jew­ ish experience with such discrimina­ tion. I mentioned Shechitah and Sab­ bath observance, which were then and

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Nations—that of religious rights and practices.

T subsequent sessions of the SubCommission, the study of discrim­ ination in religious rights and practices was given its well-deserved priority. A special rapporteur, Dr. Arcot Krishnaswami of India, was appointed, and he turned his boundless energy towards the goal of completing the study. The UN Secretariat assisted the project by compiling, in eighty-six so-called coun­ try-papers, all the information avail­ able on religious discrimination in countries throughout the world.

The Sub-Commission, in its session of January, 1960, concluded the study Ambassador Gunawardene of Ceylon, of discrimination in the matter of re­ Chairman of Human Rights Commission ligious rights and practices by adopting a set of principles relating to discrim­ are now endangered by religious dis­ ination in respect of the right to free­ crimination, and suggested that this dom of thought, conscience, and reli­ form of discrimination should be the gion. These principles are of historic first worthy of study because of its importance. Even if not yet effective many practical implications. Sir Fred­ with legal sanctions, they represent a erick Pollack’s comment in Essays in high standard of ideals for which the the Law helped get the point across: nations of the world should strive.

“As in thinking of the law most men are The document divides into four parts apt to dwell too much on the difficult with a preamble. The provisions relate, cases where disputes arise, and too little among others things, to freedom of on the plain cases where disputes are worship, pilgrimages, performance of prevented, so, in thinking of moral rules as they exist in practice, one is apt to rituals, funerals, holidays, dietary prac­ dwell too much on open and unsettled tices, dissemination and instruction of cases of conscience, and too little on the religion, training of personnel, con­ innumerable matters of daily conduct scientious objection to military service, where duty is quite plain, and the only difficulty is, to do or to get done what and protection of information received is perfectly well known as the thing that in confidence.

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ought to be done.”

The British representative to the Sub-Commission, Mr. Hiseocks, rose immediately to approve of this sugges­ tion and urged that it be accepted. At the next meeting, the member from Sweden, Mr. Ekstrand, submitted a formal proposal incorporating the sug­ gestion, and the Sub-Commission de­ cided to add a seventh area of discrim­ ination to be investigated by the United 8

T WOULD be going beyond the framework of this article to dwell on detailed proposals submitted to the Sub-Commission at its yearly sessions from 1957 to 1960. I was quite grati­ fied, however, to note that repeated demands concerning guarantees for Shechitah resulted in the adoption of the following principle: “No one shall be prevented from

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observing the dietary practices pre­ scribed by his religion or belief.

The members of a religion or belief shall not be prevented from acquiring or producing all materials and objects necessary for the performance or ob­ servance of prescribed rituals or prac­ tices, including dietary practices.

Where the Government controls the means of production and distribution,

Judge Philip Halpern, American repre­ sentative to the Sub-Commission on Pre­ vention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities.

it shall make such materials or objects, or the means of producing them, avail­ able to the members of the religion or belief concerned.”

Concerning access to the Wailing Wall and other shrines, which I at­ tempted several times to bring to the attention of the Sub-Commission as well as the full Commission on Human Rights, the following principle was in­ cluded: “Everyone shall have the freedom, as acts of devotion, to journey to sacred places, whether inside or outside his country.”

Discrimination as to the observance of holidays, was treated in the follow­ ing clause: “Due account shall be taken of the April, 1960

prescriptions of each religion or belief relating to holidays or days of rest.”

HE FORMULAS presented to the Sub-Commission were often much more specific than the language the Sub-Commission accepted. For in­ stance, concerning the observance of religious days of rest and holidays, my suggested draft was: “Any person who, in accordance with the laws of his religion, observes a day of rest or holiday different from that of the majority of the population, shall be permitted to engage in his regular trade, business, or educational activi­ ties, or other work, on the day of rest or on the holiday observed by the ma­ jority of the population.”

This suggestion was based on the op­ portunities for severe discrimination against Sabbath observers which out­ dated statutes presented and on the severe economic hardship which two days of non-business activity would impose. The religious minority is com­ pelled to abstain from work for two days of the week—the legal, secular day of rest, and the religious o n e while the majority has one additional day at its disposal. Indirectly this is tantamount to pressure on those who cannot earn a living, in just five days to give up the observance of the re­ ligious day of rest. The hardship on school children in countries which re­ quire six days’ attendance was also mentioned. Children belonging to a re­ ligious minority could thus be forced to violate the religious day of rest by attending school.

The Sub-Commission was not willing to go to the lengths urged by this pro­ posal. However, the version adopted was preferable to the original draft, which read: “The prescriptions of each religion or belief relating to holidays and days of rest should be taken into account, subject to the overriding consideration of the interest of society as a whole.”

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The last qualification would, of course, have made the entire principle illusory. The elimination of the qualifi­ cation considerably strengthened the provision.

HE DEVELOPMENT of the prin­ ciple on the religious education of children, particularly orphans, was

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brought up in the religion of their parents.”

The chances that such categorical wording would pass were very slim.

In 1949, the Philippine representative to the Commission on Human Rights, Mr. Ingles, proposed the following compromise: “In the case of an orphan, the pre-

The author in discussion with Dr. Awad of Egypt (left). Chairman of the SubCommission. On the right. Dr. Lawson of the UN Secretariat Human Rights Division.

very interesting. On many occasions when I addressed various United Na­ tions organs, I urged that Jewish chil­ dren whose parents died al kidush hashem and who were saved by gentiles, be reared in the Jewish religion. When, in 1949, the Covenant on Human Rights was drafted by the Commission on Human Rights I proposed that the following clauses be inserted: “Children whose parents were killed in a war or other catastrophe shall be 10

sumed will of the parents as regards the religious teaching to be given to him, shall be taken into consideration.”

Mr. Ingles’ proposal was then sup­ ported by France, Uruguay, and Iran.

It could not gather a majority and was not included in the Draft Covenant which, incidentally, was never adopted as a whole. When, in 1960, the SubCommission on Prevention of Dis­ crimination was about to adopt the principles on religious discrimination, JEWISH LIFE

Mr. Krishnaswami presented the fol­ lowing formula: “When a child is torn from its family environment, the decision as to the re­ ligion or belief in which that child is to be brought up should be made primarily in accordance with the ob­ jectively ascertained interests of the child, due attention being paid to the expressed or presumed wish of the parents.”

In case of a child who has been deprived of its parents, their expressed or pre­ sumed wish should be duly taken into account, the best interests of the child being the guiding principle.”

“Objectively ascertained” interests were changed to “best” interests. The word “primarily” was dropped. The emphasis was put on the expressed or presumed wish of the parents, and the “best interests” of the child were called the “guiding principle.” The difference is obvious.

BVIOUSLY, Dr. Krishnaswami indicated some understanding for the gravity of our problem, but his so­ lution was unacceptable to us because HE FINAL report presented by of the clear intention to make the de­ Dr. Krishnaswami to the last ses­ cision turn primarily on some objec­ sion of the Sub-Commission included tively ascertained interests of the child. an introduction in which he stressed How could we expect the decision to that “truly great religions and beliefs be made in favor of retaining the are based upon ethical tenets such as parents’ religion if some undetermined the duty to widen the bounds of good­ deciding body would be required to neighborliness and the obligation to ascertain “objectively” what the inter­ meet human need in the broadest ests of the child were? Furthermore, sense.” He specifically cited, as illustra­ Mr. Krishnaswami’s report mentioned tive of those “who through the ages, not only “material welfare” but also have raised their voices in favour of “spiritual elements” involved in the tolerance and religious freedom” : King problem. It therefore seemed (and Asoka, patron of Buddhism; St. this was suggested to the Sub-Commis­ Thomas Aquinas, a leading exponent sion) that under such a provision the of Catholicism; Suarez, a sixteenth decision as to the orphan’s religious century Catholic authority: Moham­ training might hinge on a resolution of med, the founder of Islam; and John the age-old dispute as to which religion Locke, the seventeenth-century phil­ is the best. It was clear that no one osopher. wanted to implicate theological strug­ The teachings of Judaism with re­ gles in the solution of the problems of gard to tolerance to strangers were un­ a helpless orphan. It seems a matter of fortunately overlooked. The Sub-Com­ simple justice to both the murdered mission was therefore reminded of the parents and to the surviving orphans immortal and unsurpassed ordinances to restore the status quo ante with re­ of the Bible concerning tolerance to gard to religion, and I made that sug­ strangers: And if a stranger sojourn gestion once more to the Sub-Com­ with thee in thy land, ye shall not do mission. him wrong. The stranger that sojournThe outcome was a complete revision eth with you shall be unto you as the of the structure of the principle which homeborn among you, and thou shalt now contains the following wording: love him as thyself; for ye were stran­ “Parents or, when applicable, legal gers in the land of Egypt: I am the guardians, shall have the prior right to Lord your G-d.” (Vayikra 19:33-34). decide upon the religion or belief in which their child should be brought up. I mentioned also that the Talmud

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(Gittin 61a) prescribed that a Jew must visit the sick among non-Jews, bury their dead and comfort their mourners, just as he must perform these acts of compassion with regard to his Jewish coreligionists. The nonJewish poor must be supported on a par wPh the Jews: they are entitled to share alike in the gifts for the poor which must be left in the field at harvest time. These regulations which were prescribed, according to the Talmud, in order to further peace (just as the “entire Torah has the aim of furthering peace, as it is written—Proverbs 3:17 — Her ways are ways of pleasantness and all her paths are peace”), were called to the attention of the Sub-Com­

mission. The American representative, Judge Philip Halpern of Buffalo, N. Y., moved then that the immortal quota­ tions from the Bible be added to the report. This was a suitable finishing touch to a document of such great im­ port to all religious minorities.

S RELIGIOUS discrimination im­ possible now that the “Principles” have been adopted by an organ of the United Nations? Nobody is so naive as to believe that their practical effect is that great. But the moral compulsion inherent in such an international agree­ ment and the ethical standards it sets for the worldwide community should not be too easily discounted.

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EACH A POTENTIAL BLESSING The four sons occupy a key place in the Hagodah. The author states their questions and then spells out the answers, both of which are based on Biblical texts. The Torah is realistic; not all children are chachom im .

Life presents us with a variety of sons, ranging from the wise to the wicked.

And parents cannot and should not ignore any of them. We have to listen carefully to the questions of a ll and seek to answer them. No matter what the pressure or provocation, we must maintain our relationship to all kinds of children. For so long as they sit at the Seder, ask questions and lend an ear to our replies and the teachings of the Torah, there is hope—and reason for optimism. This explains the rather unusual introduction to the passage of the four sons: "Blessed be the Presence, blessed be He, blessed be the Giver of Torah to His people Israel, blessed be He." Four times the word B o ru c h (blessed) is repeated. This is to show that each son, of the four, good or bad, is a blessing. Each child, no matter what his attitude is now, may potentially be a blessing. Today's R o s h a may be tomorrow's C h o c h o m and today's T a m may very well become the wise disciple the following year.

—Rabbi Abraham Kelman

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JEWISH LIFE

The Guardians of the City

By URIEL ZIMMER

ABBI YEHUDAH the Prince

XV sent Rabbi Chiya and Rabbi

To many, “Neturei Karta” is a synonym for the bogey man. To others, the name conveys the idea of fanatic­ ism, bigotry, and what-not. To others again, it is the Enemy No. 1 of the Jewish People and of the Holy Land.

Very few, however, are even aware of the meaning of the name, and less still are those who have any amount of actual knowledge about the move­ ment carrying that name.

“Neturei Karta” can be fully under­ stood only against the background of the picturesque scene of Jerusalem; and Jerusalem, in turn, has something in it that cannot be conveyed in words, that cannot even be grasped by see­ ing, but that must be lived in to be understood. It is therefore only an external description that can be ex­ pected here.

Yossi and Rabbi Ami to tour the towns of Eretz Israel to establish there teach­ ers and sages. They came to one place and found there neither teachers nor sages. Thus, they spoke unto them: bring us the guardians of the city.

They went and brought the policemen of the city. Said they: Are these the guardians of the city? nay, these are the destroyers of the city. And who are the guardians of the city?— “The teachers and sages” they answered, for the Scripture says (Psalms 126) : If the Lord build not a house, in vain have its builders labored for it. (Yerushalmi, Chagiga, Ch. I, 7).

This Talmudical episode, repeated several times in the Midrashim, has certainly inspired the way of thought of thé Jewish people. The Sages of Isrâél Were always regarded as the true T IS a well-known rule of logic that “Guardians of the City” and it is they every definition consists of two who have guarded it throughout the parts: statement of the group to which generations. the object belongs, and description of “Guardians of the City” or, in the the specific characteristic by which language of the above Talmudical quo­ the particular object of definition dif­ tation, “Neturei Karta”—in the spirit fers from the other parts of its group. of this quotation, is also the name that In an attempt to find a definition for has been chosen by a movement in “Neturei Karta,” therefore, let us try Jerusalem, and here the stress is both to follow the same narrowing-down on the “guardians” and on the City— pattern, and subsequently dwell upon the Holy City of Jerusalem, of course. each of the two parts.

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April, 1960

13

Neturei Karta is part of the nonZionist trend within Orthodoxy, and it is the Jerusalem brand of that trend.

In other words: the specific trait of Neturei Karta consists of its local Jerusalemite color. This coloring marks

it out from the far larger trend of which Neturei Karta is part. Let us therefore first present the trend as a whole, and later refer to its specific Jerusalem brand.

Orthodoxy and Zionism

PPOSITION to the modern Zion­ ist movement on the part of im­ portant segments of orthodox Rabbinic leadership is as old as the Zionist move­ ment itself. Some orthodox quarters nowadays may not feel very comfort­ able about it, but it is a fact that while some segments of Orthodoxy sup­ ported Zionism from the first, some outstanding Rabbinic personalities ranked foremost among the opponents of Zionism from its inception, and this opposition was shared throughout the Jewish world, across the boundaries of Chasidim, Mithnagdim, etc. Rabbi Chaim of Brisk, the Lubaviteher rebbes, the Rabbinic and Chasidic leaders of Poland, Galicia, and Hungary, the rabbis of German Orthodoxy were all equally opposed to Zionism from its very beginning.

This opposition was voiced in va­ rious styles and versions, varying ac­ cording to individual and local back­ ground. They all regarded the phil­ osophy of Zionism as diametrically op­ posed to the most basic principles of Judaism. This author has made an at­ tempt elsewhere* at analyzing this ideology in detail. Space does not per­ mit more than a brief summary of its principles here:

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*Yahaduth Hatorah Vehamedinah; Jerusalem, 1959 (shortly to be published in English in L o n d o n ).

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Secular Zionism or Jewish National­ ism represents an attempt at trans­ forming the Jewish people to a new identity, to “a nation among the na­ tions” instead of “the Chosen People” of G-d. Hence, all the basic definitions become forcibly molded into the pat­ tern of non-Jewish nationalism. Torah, the soul, the raison d’etre, the condi­ tion sine qua non for the existence of the Jewish people, nay of the entire world—becomes a “religion” which, under modern concepts, is the private domain of each individual. Eretz Is­ rael, the Holy Land, becomes the “na­ tional home”; and the State or — in former years — the striving to achieve the ;“Judenstaat,” is also part of the general trend of secularization and transformation of the hallowed idea of Messianic redemption. This trend, therefore, is seen as diametrically op­ posed to Torah, hence the fierce ob­ jection to Zionism. No one denies that there have been.other orthodox Jews who—with more or less justification— held different views and some even re­ garded Zionism— and later the State of Israel—as “the dawn of the Mes­ sianic era.” It is not the intention here to go into that controversy, but it re­ mains a fact that there has always been an orthodox anti-Zionist view, and that such views have been adhered to by veiy outstanding Rabbinic leaders.

JEWISH LIFE

When the State of Israel came into being, very few among these high-rank­ ing orthodox leaders, if any, changed their views. The State of Israel being the realization, the implementation of Zionism, there could be very little done to change the objection in principle.

Neither did the reality of the State war­ rant any such change of view or dis­ prove the original negative attitude towards Zionism. There could, in the view of this trend, be only a question of what tactics should be applied, in light of the fact that what had former­ ly been an organization built on volun­ tary membership has now become a State with means of law-enforcement, etc.

On the other hand, it is a fact that very few among these Rabbinic lead­

ers have spoken up for their own view since the inception of the State of Is­ rael. Whether the reason was a lack of courage, a fear of the loss of funds for the institutions led by them, or otherwise—the fact remains. This has created the erroneous belief among the masses of Jews that non-Zionism on the orthodox side is confined to a small sect of fanatics. To put it very mildly and carefully, non-Zionism in Orthodoxy is still a quite powerful trend with a considerable following, although there may be differences of opinion as to the practical steps to be taken in dem­ onstrating that view. This, in general outlines, is the world-picture of which Neturei Karta, basically, constitutes a local cell.

The “Old Yish uv”

ET US now turn to the local Jeru­ salem scene. Many people take Neturei Karta as synonymous with the “Old Yishuv.” This is very inaccurate.

There are many active followers of Neturei Karta who could not easily be classified as being part of the “Old Yishuv,” and there are lots of members of the “Old Yishuv” who are in no way “Neturei Karta.’- Yet, one might say with some accuracy that Neturei Karta considers itself as the defender and spokesman of the Old Yishuv, and it is on the soil of the Old Yishuv that Neturei Karta came into being, and it is only against this background that it can be understood.

The Old Yishuv is the realization of a movement which came into being some 150 years ago, a movement which swept throughout European Jewry of that era. The sources of the movement

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April, 1960

are to be sought entirely in the spiritual field, although the turmoil of the Na­ poleonic era may have had some in­ direct bearing on the environments in which it was born. The disciples of the Gaon of Vilna, the disciples and fol­ lowers of the Baal Shem Tov and the Maggid of Mezriteh—headed by Rabbi Mendel of Vitebsk the adherents of the “Chasam Sofer” of Pressburg, sent groups of selected scholars and pious men to dwell in the Holy Land and de­ vote their lives there to the study and pursuit of the Holy Torah.

There was no outward stimulus, no general movement of Jewish emigra­ tion existing at that time in Central or Eastern Europe. The journey to the shores of the Holy Land entailed many perils, taking many months and often years. The homes these emigrants left behind were snug and warm, however 15

of the unsung heroes of the Old Yi­ shuv. It is important, however, for our topic, to define, however briefly, the ideology animating them: By com­ ing to the Holy Land they had not only sought self-perfection through and on the sacred soil, but they also felt they were carrying out a certain mission for the entire Jewish people, and particularly for the Jewish com­ munities whence they emanated. Those communities, in turn, regarded them as their representatives and considered it a duty of honor to care for their livelihood. There was no need for voci­ ferous fundraising, but “Rabbi Meir Baal Haness” was a popular institu­ tion to which practically every Jewish man and woman contributed volun­ tarily.

The sons and grandsons of those first founders of the Old Yishuv were already born on Holy Land soil. It is true that their idealism may not have displayed the tension, the dynamic force inherent in every “first” effort.

On the other hand, their roots in the soil of the Holy Land were even deeper.

To them, the Judean hills, the magic blue of Lake Kinnereth, the frowning, mysterious mountains of Galilee around Safed were not only the Holy Land—but home in the most simple and literal sense of the word. These mountains and hills resounded not only T WOULD go too far beyond the with the voice of the ancient fore­ scope of this article to give even a fathers, but also with the memories of brief outline of the fascinating history their own childhood.

modest, and their new country was wild, governed by a corrupt Ottoman hierarchy and populated by savage Arabs and Bedouins. Ardent love of the Holy Land made it possible for them to overcome all these hardships.

Plagues, diseases, often hunger and dis­ tress could not deter them. It was not, as is so often erroneously stated, in order to die and be buried in the sacred soil, but in order to live there a saintly and devout life that these people had come to the shores of Palestine.

When an earthquake of 1837 in Safed—then the main center of the Old Yishuv — killed a comparatively large number of the immigrants, these pious Jews only asked themselves: What sin had they committed to de­ serve such punishment? And they found their fault in that they had concen­ trated only in the Holy City of Safed which at that time — as a crossroad of camel caravans — offered more eco­ nomic stability, and had neglected her older sister Jerusalem which, accessi­ ble only through a hazardous journey through the Judean hills on donkeyback, offered but little security. It was then that the European (“Ashkenazi”) part of the Old Yishuv in Jerusalem was founded, first inside the ancient walls of the Old City, and later outside the walls to the North and West.

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The Clash

HE TURBULENT era of the 19th and early 20th centuries in Eastern Europe had its equivalent also in Jeru­ salem, though less fiercely. There could have been no serious clash with such

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elements as the “Maskilim,” since there were so few of them amidst the walls of Jerusalem, but they did occur oc­ casionally.

With the advent of Zionism, a new JEWISH LIFE

element entered the scene of the Holy Land.

It is an almost forgotten fact that the first agricultural settlement outside Jerusalem — Petach Tikvah — was founded by sons of the Old Yishuv.

The by-laws of the Association organ­ ized for the founding of that “colony” — as it used to be called then—would now sound like a “fanatic” and “ex­ tremist” code.* The later “colonies,” however, were founded by an entirely different ele­ ment. The young Zionists had come to Palestine for a purpose precisely op­ posite to that of the old Yishuv: to create on the soil of the ancient Jewish “homeland” a new type of Jew, a Jew not dominated and governed by the Torah, but a Jew aiming to build a “nation among nations.”

The people of the Old Yishuv were opposed to these tendencies. But, what is more, they saw in these tendencies not only an effort to change the iden­ tity of the People, but also the identity of the Land which was so dear to them.

In other words, their opposition was based not only on their religious views in general, but also on their particular attachment to the Holy Land. No won­ der, therefore, that the clash on the soil of the Holy Land was more vehe­ ment than elsewhere.

FTER World War I, the Zionist Organization and its affiliate in­ stitutions gained a certain degree of official recognition by the British auth­ orities who had in 1917 issued the Bal­ four Declaration, and later appointed Sir Herbert Samuel as High Commis­ sioner for Palestine. These were the results of efforts made by world Zion­ ism, particularly by those of its leaders who had influence in London.

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*See “ T hey Founded the State of Israel,” Jewish Life, December, 1958.

April, 1960

The Old Yishuv saw itself in danger of being forced to give up its own in­ dependent way of life. To combat that danger, it sought the support of an­ other Jewish world organization, Agudath Israel, which was then outspok­ enly anti-Zionist, and which had been founded in 1912 as a combined effort of Rabbinic leaders from Poland, Lithuania, Russia, and Germany for the explicit purpose of combatting Zionism. The present leaders of Neturei Karta were at that time active members of Agudath Israel. Amram Blau, for instance, was the editor of Kol Israel, then the official organ of Agudath Israel in Jerusalem.

To fully describe what the battle was actually about would require much local detail, yet at least the major points are necessary to obtain an idea.

The British authorities, in the “Palestine Order in Council”—which served as a sort of constitution for the Mandatory territory of Palestine — recognized a “Jewish Community” — Knesseth Is­ rael — of which every Jew above the age of eighteen had to be a member.

This “Jewish Community,” (whose governing council was the “Vaad Leumi”) was practically a unit of the Zionist Organization. In other words, this in effect meant a compulsory affilia­ tion with the Zionist movement. Agu­ dath Israel successfully achieved the right not to be a member of the Knes­ seth Israel. An “Orthodox Commu­ nity” (Eda Charedith) was founded which, at that time, was regarded a synonym for Agudath Israel. The Chief Rabbinate, recognized by the British, was also part of the Knesseth Israel.

The Agudah founded its own Rabbi­ nate, headed by the late Rabbi Sonnenfeld.

During later years when European leaders of Agudath Israel began tak17

Eda, who was esteemed and recognized by both.

In 1946, Rabbi Moshe Blau sudden­ ly died in a very dramatic way, at the age of 61: He was on a boat on his way to Europe and the U.S. and diedon the Mediterranean island of Mes­ sina, where he had been taken off the boat in an effort to perform an emer­ gency operation. His body was flown to Eretz Israel. Rabbi Blau, to be sure, was a staunch and proud Agudah lead­ er. Yet, he had been a son of the Old Yishuv, the sixth generation—on his mother’s side—in the Holy Land. It was no secret that, despite the sharp and merciless criticism aimed at the N the beginning, the group’s activi­ Agudah by his own brother and other^ ties consisted of sporadically pub­ leaders of Neturei Karta, in their heart lishing posters (much of Jerusalem’s they loved him as “a chip off the old controversies to this day are being block.” Many a Neturei Karta’nik who fought through a battle of pasquevil- was among the 10,000 people who at­ les) criticizing the Agudah leadership. tended his funeral shed a tear when Rabbi Aaron Katzenellenbogen, occa­ the aged and patriarchal Rabbi Dush­ sionally also Rabbi Amram Blau, in insky, with a shaking voice, proclaimed: their frequent public speeches, used to “We have all sinned against him—let criticize and sometimes poke fun at us all say the prayer of confession” the Agudah leadership. A piquant note and, at the head of the massed thou­ was added to those attacks by the fact sands, the venerable rabbi beat on his that both had brothers who occupied heart with his right fist when he pro­ leading positions with the Agudath Is­ nounced the words of the Oshamnu rael. Rabbi Aaron Katzenellenbogen’s prayer. brother is Rabbi Raphael Katzenellen­ bogen, presently affiliated with Poale FTER the death of Rabbi Moshe Agudath Israel, and Rabbi Amram Blau, the Agudah leadership Blau’s brother was Rabbi Moshe Blau, went over more and more to Polish the famous Agudah leader and repre­ immigrants who had little understand­ sentative before various political and ing for the spirit of the Old Yishuv. governmental bodies.

The secession of Neturei Karta from In 1945, elections were held to the the Agudah became more outspoken.

E d a . Charedith, the separate Jewish The establishment of the State of Community founded by the Agudah, Israel in spring 1948 was followed by to which both groups still belonged. The the death of Rabbi Dushinsky in late list, or lists, of Neturei Karta won the elections, and the Agudah was practic­ 1948. With his passing away, the last link between Neturei Karta and their ally left out of the Eda Charedith. Still, there was the person of Rabbi Joseph mother organization was broken.

The various clashes between Neturei Zvi Dushinsky, the chief Rabbi of the

ing more interest in Palestine, the Eda Charedith was regarded only as a cell of the Agudah. In the early thirties, an Agudath Israel delegation from Poland visited Palestine. The clashes between the Agudah and the Vaad Leumi had become bitter. The visitors regarded it as their duty to bring about a sort of armistice. The local leaders maintained a different attitude. To make a long story short, a compromise was finally reached, and the younger, extremist group was expelled from the Agudah.

This group was to become the Neturei Karta. The name was assumed about 1940.

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JEWISH LIFE

Karta and the authorities of the State of Israel, the refusal of the former to award even a “de facto” recognition to the other, etc., etc.— are well known and have been highly publicized. It would serve no purpose to recite them here.

The ideology behind all these acts and outbreaks is obvious, on the basis of our explanations earlier: “The State of Israel is an organic part of Zionism,

Zionism is against the Torah, and so is the State which implements it— and this not only because the State happens to be governed by non-religious people, but because the very idea of a ‘Judenstaat is foreign to Torah. In the same manner as we were not members of the Zionist Organization, therefore, we re­ fuse to have any relationship or give any recognition to the State, at least to such extent as is feasible.’’

Misconceptions

NSTEAD of continuing our deliber­ lines. Rabbi Amram Blau, the leader ations in the realm of theory, it of Neturei Karta, refused to abandon Imight be more useful at this point to dispel several commonly accepted mis­ conceptions about Neturei Karta, which, in a way, will render the pic­ ture more complete.

The charge that Neturei Karta “hate” the Holy Land is one of the most ridiculous ever made. These are people who, as said, are natives of the country for generations, and attached to it as one can only be to his native soil. Yet, it might be worthwhile to quote a few practical episodes, perhaps not commonly known: Meah Shearim is located on the extreme demarcation line between Israel and Jordan. In the Meah Shearim section, the so-called “Hungarian Houses” (Bottey Ungarn, built some eighty years ago with the aid of donations from Hungary), are the closest to the border. Jordan ter­ ritory is literally a few steps away.

During the siege of Jerusalem in 1948, this section was under the heaviest shell-fire. The majority of its residents then fled to the relatively safer quar­ ters located farther off the demarcation April, 1960

the Hungarian Houses where he lives.

Sure enough, he was wounded by an Arab shell, and had to be given medical care. No sooner were his wounds patched than he returned to his home, a few yards from the border, which he refused to leave.

Nor is this love of the native soil confined to certain sections of Jeru­ salem. It may not be generally known that already some thirty years ago, the very same people who now constitute Neturei Karta (as said, no group by that name had existed as yet by that time) founded a company under the name of “Ramatayim Zofim” for the purpose of acquiring a certain piece of land near the site of the Biblical town of that name (now on Jordan terri­ tory, Ramah, the site of the tomb of the Prophet Samuel) and founding a semi-agricultural settlement there. The company had been registered with the (British Mandatory) Government and practical steps had been taken, to im­ plement the plan* which failed of execution only for financial reasons.

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NOTHER favorite accusation is breaks of the Jerusalem police against the alleged fact that during the orthodox Jews at large, under the pre­ siege of Jerusalem, the leaders of text that they were Neturei Karta-ites.

Neturei Karta hoisted a white flag in Some on-the-spot pictures were pub­ surrender to the Jordanian forces. This lished in Time magazine and other writer happened to live in Jerusalem sources. This writer has more than throughout the siege. Moreover, as the once been an eyewitness to those news editor of what was then Jeru­ events. Once, as the readers will recall, salem’s only daily Hebrew newspaper they even resulted in the murder of Hayoman (Israel’s Hebrew dailies are Rabbi Segalov (who, incidentally, was mostly published in Tel Aviv and could not even a Neturei Karta’nik). Yet, on not reach Jerusalem on account of the the other hand, there has never been warfare; besides Hayoman, the only any demonstration or outbreak of Ne­ other Jerusalem paper was the English- turei Karta accompanied by more than language Jerusalem Post), I had a shouting and yelling. When a repre­ closer acquaintance with what was go­ sentative of the Agudah claimed sev­ ing on than the ordinary man in the eral years ago that he had been beaten street. I am therefore in a position to by some young boys of Neturei Karta, state that this accusation is absolutely the whole thing was later exposed by false. The only place where a white one of Israel’s outstanding weekly flag was hoisted in Jerusalem, and magazines {Ayin Bi-Ayin, certainly where a surrender to the Arab Legion not affiliated with Neturei Karta) as a did take place, was in the Old City, but publicity stunt and a hoax.

Then there is the strong and some­ there the notice of surrender was handed by the Commanding Officer of times poisonous language sometimes the local Hagana f orces, and there any used by the various publications, pam­ other alternative would have meant sui­ phlets, or posters of Neturei Karta. It cide. In all probability, this notice of is certainly disgusting to many, re­ surrender had the full endorsement of gardless of their attitude towards the the command of the Israel Army; at substance of the matters under discus­ any rate, the officer in charge was never sion. On the other hand, however, one reprimanded. Nor has it ever been must not forget two facts: first, this is claimed by anybody that this event the Middle East, after all. Strong, had any connection with Neturei pointed language is the general trend.

Karta.

During election campaigns, or other Another opinion frequently heard occasions, Israel’s various parties— all refers to their “violence.” The truth is of them—use a far worse kind of lan­ that while there is quite a lot of vio­ guage. Secondly, has anybody ever lence going on in Israel, Neturei Karta has practically no part in it. To quote taken the trouble to examine the lan­ but one example, only recently the guage used by the opponents of Neturei press reported about a Moroccan immi­ Karta? Compared with this, even the grant who, enraged about a social most poisonous attacks by Neturei worker who did not grant his wish, Karta are as child-play, and there is plenty of evidence to prove this point. bit her ear off..........Throughout the years, there have been a number of When one is hurt, he cries and only authenticated reports of brutal out­ rarely will he chose his words.

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JEWISH LIFE

INALLY, let us mention one more point which is the source of a great number of misconceptions: Neturei Karta has become a sort of scape­ goat, blamed for every evil, a sort of pretext granting a prior absolution for every sort of cruelty or violence. Let us quote only one typical example: Back in 1949, a demonstration was held in Jerusalem against the public desecration of the Sabbath. The dem­ onstration was organized by an ad-hoc, non-partisan committee, and at its head marched Rabbi Abraham Chaim Shag, then a member of the Knesseth (Parliament) representing Mizrachi.

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The Jerusalem police attacked the dem­ onstrators, the fire brigade used its hoses, there were several injured peo­ ple, etc. — quite a “usual” thing in Jerusalem. To my knowledge, Neturei Karta did not even participate in the demonstration, but if they did it was only in a very passive manner. The or­ ganizers, as said, belonged to an en­ tirely different background. Yet, dur­ ing the evening broadcast following that Sabbath, the official communique of the Kol Israel Radio stated that the police had been forced to disperse a Neturei Karta demonstration. . . .

Conclusions

UMMING UP, we reach the fol­ lowing conclusions: Neturei Karta is the Jerusalem brand of a world-wide existing view, shared ideologically by far broader cir­ cles around the world. Others may not have the courage to speak up for their own views, in view of their non-popularity, and in view of the possible dam­ age to their fund-raising efforts. Netu­ rei Karta may use sharper language, they may go to extremes in demon­ strating their view, but the view itself is by far not confined to the ranks of

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April, 1960

Neturei Karta. If there exists a dif­ ference between Neturei Karta and other groups holding similar views— it is in the deeper attachment, in the more ardent love for the soil of the Holy Land by which Neturei Karta are distinct.

Whether or not the self-assumed title of “Guardians of the City” has been a wise choice, one thing remains cer­ tain: They are not giving up their watchful guard over their mother-city of Jerusalem.

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Haganah’s Elusive Transmitter

By REUBEN E. GROSS

HE re-emergence of Israel as a nation after two thousand years, and its birth in the midst of a war— surrounded by the invading armies of seven nations—will undoubtedly fascinate historians and military an­ alysts for a long time to come. The part played by radio, however, both in the underground days of the Haganah prior to 1948, and in the struggle for independence in 19481949, is an essential and fascinating part of the whole story. Moreover, it is a story of “hams,” self-taught youth and men, following the basic handbooks of the art of radio com­ munication as their instructor, who learned enough in time to weld their little homeland and its meager re­ sources into a unified and cohesive fighting force.

The Haganah underground defense force of the pre-State Yishuv began the development of a communica­ tions section in 1936, in the days of the Arab riots and disorders. Since all receivers and ordinary broadcasts had to be licensed by the British Mandatory, and since shortwave re­ ceivers were more readily available than communications receivers and less likely to arouse suspicion, modu­ lated continuous wave telegraphy was used. With stations powered at five

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watts, the first regular schedules were established between Haifa and Tel Aviv. Needless to say, all messages were in secret code.

N THE beginning, there were only five operators in the country.

Upon their shoulders fell the job of adapting Hebrew to Morse code, and of training others in the rudiments of the art. In 1937 underground classes were organized in various vil­ lages, the instructors using ordinary buzzers and light signals. Students had further practice by copying the Haifa and Tel Aviv transmissions which were sent at thirteen to fif­ teen words per minute. These trans­ missions served as a means of test­ ing the students. The text of the message was brought to the local Haganah leader, who would decode the message. If it decoded properly, indicating proper copy, the student passed.

In the first year, operations ex­ panded. A network of six stations, at critical points throughout the coun­ try, with net control in Tel Aviv, was organized. Transmitters used small re­ ceiver-type tubes. With great ingenu­ ity these transmitters were built in­ side ordinary lamps, electric stoves, or some such innocuous-looking

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JEWISH LIFE

place. These measures, however, were wholly insufficient for the growing crisis. Hence, in 1938 when the com­ munication problems of Haganah called for a greater number of oper­ ators and technicians, a secret course, consisting of about thirty young men and women, was organized in Haifa.

It is noteworthy that in the two higher schools of learning in the land—the Hebrew University in Jeru­ salem and the Haifa Technion—there was not a single course that treated radio any more thoroughly than the average night school physics course.

Furthermore, there was no one in Haganah who could qualify as a licensed engineer. Neither was there an available textbook which com­ bined theory and practice in a man­ ner satisfactory to their needs except the Radio Amateur’s Handbook.

The personnel of this original pro­ gram was composed almost in its en­ tirety of young men and women in their late teens or twenties. Being frankly experimental in their ap­ proach, their efforts were not always marked with success. However, mis­ takes were never repeated, and their work always had the mark of in­ genuity, if little else. Materials were strictly receiver components. Genuine transmitter components were not used until well after the end of World War II. ORLD WAR II, however, simuh taneously halted and accele­ rated their activities. The commence­ ment of the war marked a cessation of Arab hostilities on the one hand, and the need for enlisting with the British on the other hand. Hence operations as Haganah units vir­ tually ceased during the war. How­ ever, their incorporation into the British Army proved to be a most

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fortunate arrangement on all sides.

About the time the war had begun, Haganah had perfected its first trans­ ceiver, a compact suitcase containing a small-tube transmitter and a threetube regenerative receiver. This ex­ perience was important in helping the men from Haganah achieve one of their most significant accomplish­ ments of World War II: the out­ fitting of th e . “Parachutists” with |diplomatic suitcases.” The “Para­ chutists” were the thirty-two boys and girls from Palestine who, in 1944, were dropped behind the Ger­ man lines in the Balkans. The “di­ plomatic suitcases” were compact suitcases containing a transmitter and receiver with which they maintained clandestine contact with British Head­ quarters in Cairo, from their various missions in Rumania, Hungary, and Yugoslavia.

Approximately one thousand Amer­ ican airmen and other Allied pris­ oners escaped from Bucharest in August 1944 by means of instruc­ tions received from Cairo via one of these “suitcases” set up in Bu­ charest by Avi, a shepherd from P alestin e;to cite only one of an innumerable series of services these sets rendered.

HUS, the war gave the boys of Haganah a chance to work and build transmitters above the “peanut power” class. One such setup was the Free French transmitter in the Middle East, located in Haifa, which was built there with power on the order of 300 watts. However, for their own purposes the Haganah stuck to low-powered amateur-type transmitters.

The end of World War II in 1945 brought about the resumption of Haganah activities on a scale un-

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dreamed of before the war. The primary task was to bring in immi­ grants from the DP camps of Eu­ rope, through the Mediterranean Sea, and past the British Navy. The first overseas transmitter was set up in Tel Aviv. The chief port of em­ barkation being in Italy, another station was set up there. At first, the ships carrying the so-called “illegal immigrants” carried no transmitters.

Later, however, they were equipped with 300-watt transmitters. The last of the overseas transmitters ran a couple of hundred watts. This trans­ mitter maintained contact with va­ rious points in Europe, and it is rumored that it was regularly heard in North America, too.* It was lo­ cated in a cement vault on Reiness Street in Tel Aviv; the entrance to it was virtually impossible to detect without prior knowledge.

The last and most unique piece of equipment built in the under­ ground days, the “Mem Kuf 18” * [Editor’s note: The author’s reference to a “rumor” would appear to be an un­ derstatement. In hearings at Washington, D.C. before the Federal Communications Commission in July 1949, he admitted holding regular schedules thrice weekly, and more, for about a half year with an underground station in Palestine with which he regularly exchanged enciphered messages until September 3, 1947, when representatives of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the FCC warned him of possible violations of treaty obligations of the United States and of regulations of the FCC. The said hearings Were brought on by the author who applied for restoration of his amateur radio operator’s license under the call letters W20XR, after it had been indefinitely suspended for the abovementioned transmissions. That application was granted, and the Commission substi­ tuted what it described as a “light penalty” —a six month suspension, in view of the applicant’s good character and ardent in­ terest in amateur radio.]

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was the Haganah’s special pride, be­ ing extremely compact and versatile.

It could transmit by voice or tele­ graphy and could send an unmodu­ lated telegraphic wave which could be received on a communications re­ ceiver or a modulated wave that could be copied on a simple receiver.

Transmission was o n 7 short waves, and the frequency could be received at the operator’s selection. These transmitters were contained in little black boxes measuring 10"x7"x6", weighing about ten pounds. The Mem Kuf 18 was generally operated in conjunction with a small Hallicrafter receiver which was modified so as to work in with the power supplies and switching arrangements.

An underground assembly line turned out 150 of these sets, at a time when possession of a transmitter was a capital crime.

Without these little transmitters the State of Israel could not have been possible. They supplied commu­ nications in the battle for the Jeru­ salem Road. They knitted together the scattered little villages and settle­ ments of the Jews into one unit dur­ ing the invasion by the Arab armies.

Even after the State of Israel was established in May 1948 and “sur­ plus” began to find its way into the Israel Army, many operators loyally stuck to their Mem Kuf 18’s.

HE MOST interesting project, however, for the signal men in Haganah was the building and oper­ ating of Kol Yismel, the Voice of Israel, which operated as a clande­ stine broadcast station from the latter part of 1945 until the Spring of 1948. To help in locating Kol Yisrael, the British brought one of their top direction-finding experts from their zone in Germany. Though

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closely followed by direction finders and goniometers, no transmitter was ever lost. The first such transmitter was a modified American-made war surplus transmitter having an output of only 50 watts. The second sta­ tion used about 300 watts— about the power of the smallest American broadcast station. The third and last Kol Yisrael broadcaster used about the same amount of power.

The modus operandi was to keep all transmissions down to ten min­ utes duration. The frequency, which was usually 6.500 megacycles, in the middle of the international short­ wave band, and the scheduled time, which was usually 2 P.M. was an­ nounced by broadsides on buildings and fences. When a transmission longer than twelve minutes was nec­ essary (as for example, when Kol Yisrael read a forty-five minute pro­ nouncement to the Anglo-American Commission) different transmitters were placed in different parts of Tel Aviv or in a nearby village. No transmitter would be on for more than ten minutes. At an appointed cue, one transmitter would break its carrier, and another one miles away would continue on the same fre­

April, 1960

quency, to be followed by another transmitter for another ten minutes, if necessary. Kol Yisrael maintained its schedules faithfully, never missing a broadcast even during a four-day curfew. Their proudest achievement, however, was the rebroadcast of a musical program recorded from a transmission by the ill fated ship Exodus— 1947.

It is noteworthy that the Haganah anticipated the highly publicized conelrad system which Ameri­ can broadcasters were only recently required to put in effect, for use in case of an air-raid, which is also based on a system of different trans­ mitters on the same frequency, trans­ mitting one after another from dif­ ferent directions, so as to confuse enemy direction finders.

AY, 1948 brought independence M and the end of the under­ ground. The Haganah became the Defense Army of Israel and the Communications Section became its Signal Corps. Development and ex­ pansion were rapid. The patterns of approach and the original per­ sonnel, however, persist.

m

What Happened to Jewish Colonization in Canada

By JACOB BELLER

J

ments in the neighboring provinces of Manitoba and Saskatechewan like Montefiore, Nareisse, Bender, Hamlet, and New Hirsch.

It can be said that the Jewish farm colonization plan in Canada met the same fate as that of Argentina. Today there remains only a vestigial rem­ nant of the Canadian Jewish settle­ ments. Throughout the cities and towns of Western Canada can be met the sons and grandsons of the Jewish colonists of two generations ago, who have abandoned the farms and sought urban livelihoods. In some cases one meets the former colonists themsel­ ves, by now, of course, well on in years. Many of these had already sent their sons to university while they were still toiling on their land.

Jewish farm colonization in Canada is older than its Argentine counter­ part. Nevertheless, even today in its decline much more is heard, from time to time, of the Argentine colon­ ies than those of Canada. Both are the products of a dream of the late Baron de Hirsch, who wanted to prove to the world that Jews too can be productive cultivators of the soil.

Whereas in Argentina today the Jew­ ish agrarian settlements receive con­ siderable public attention and are fre-

26

JEWISH LIFE

EWISH colonization in Canada started as far back as 1882 at the time of the first Russian pogroms.

The Russo-Jewish Committee which was established at the time in London negotiated with Alexander Galt, who was Canadian High Commissioner in England, and plans were completed for a farm colony for refugees in the Canadian Northwest. Twenty-six Jew­ ish refugees and their families settled in the area of Moosomim in what was later to become the province of Sas­ katchewan. After three years of hard and unrelenting toil on unfertile ground the colonists had to leave. A year later new attempts were made in Wapela and a third effort was made in Stamshorn, also in Saskatchewan, where the Canadian government was offering land for homesteading.

It was not until later, after the great wave of Russian pogroms when the mass emigration of Jews from Russia took place, that the ICA (Jew­ ish Colonization Association) under­ took its work in Canada. In 1892 it founded its first colony at Hirsch and soon after at Lipton, Saskatche­ wan. There followed many other col­ onies throughout the province in places like Edinbridge, Sonnenfeld, and Rosemary Air, as well as settle­

quently in the public eye, in Canada the colonists are the “forgotten men” of Canadian Jewish life.

6 6 T F YOU want to see a Jewish -I. colony with Jewish land work­ ers-—even native-born ones,” I was told, “you must go to Hoffer, which once was called Kiryath Shalom.” I was assured that there I would find a society constituted more or less of Jewish peasants—men who wrest a living from the soil. Some of these colonists, it was explained to me, were part-time farmers, that is, in the sum­ mer months they come to the farm for plowing and seeding ( some hire others for this work) and in the win­ ter months they live in the towns where they have some gainful occu­ pation. This, incidentally, is a com­ mon feature of Western Canadian life, where farmers hibernate in a nearby town where they are occupied at some job until the planting season returns.

The colony which was recom­ mended to me possesses a railway station and is named Hoffer after one of its earliest founders, whose family now lives in Regina. He arrived there with a group who had been trained for farming by ICA at its farm school at Slobodka Lesna in Eastern Galicia. The train stops there only twice a week, I was told at the Cana­ dian Pacific office, and sometimes travelers are marooned there. So om the advice of former colonists I made my way by bus as far as Weyburn— a town which filled a vital role in the early days of Jewish colonization and where there are today about three or four families. From there I was advised to take a car to the colony.

Weyburn, a typical town in the Canadian prairies, is located in the heart of the oil wells. The smell and “feel” of oil is immediately sensed April, 1960

by the visitor. Along the road to the town stretch trailers where the engi­ neers and workmen live. Thick clouds of smoke belch out towards the sky: this is the oil waste burning, for the cost of transportnig this refuse would be higher than the waste itself.

On Weyburn’s Main Street is Abel’s Department Store, owned by a Jew from Brooklyn, who in some unac­ countable manner came to live in the midst of these distant prairies. He had been asked to help me complete my trip; a hearty “Sholom Aleichem,” a few telephone calls, and soon I found myself in an automobile which cut across the steppes to the colony of Kiryath Shalom, or Hoffer, where I arrived the eve of Shovuoth.

T FIND myself in the home of a V recently-arrived colonist named David Hoffer, surrounded by homey hospitality and by a group of colon­ ists offering their broad, leather^ palms, tendering their greeting to a city visitor from the outside world who suddenly and unexpectedly pop­ ped up in this remote corner. The “baleboste” honors us all with a mid­ day meal of her own produce and we start to chat. Both the hospitality and the complaints remind me of the Jewish farm colony in the Argentine pampas where thirty years ago I was a teacher in the ICA’s Hebrew school.

It is as though these are the same faces.

“What all this talk and complaint will amount to you can see when you take a look at our colony”—this from Moishe Nolman, a colonist who can be considered as half a city-man, for he lives in Winnipeg in the winter and has a man to look after his farm. The first farm we visited was his land, which was under the care of a hired foreman. Soon we see an'21

other farmer coming toward us on his tractor—his name is Jack Feldman.

He is a youth in his twenties— a young master farmer with dust-cov­ ered overalls, bronzed cheeks, a laughing face, and a hearty “gut yomtov.” We walk on further and meet a second young farmer named Feier seated behind his tractor. It is Shovuoth today but as Nolman com­ plains: ¿¿“The Canadian-born young people aren’t observant though they do attend the synagogue.”

A Canadian Jewish colonist at work.

We walk to the home of an oldtime colonist—one of the earliest and one who had stayed on the farm— my companion’s father-in-law, as it happened. It’s a holiday and he is catching a festive after-dinner nap. His wife sits with an old-country, yellowpaged Tz’enah-Ur’enah (women’s Bi­ ble in Yiddish paraphrase) on her lap, reading the chapter of the week.

Hearing that a city guest from so far is here, he rises from his couch, sits down with us at the table, his wife brings out the holiday wine from the cellar—truly a paradisiac fermenta­ tion— brings out the cookies, and we 2$

fall into talking. He soon starts bemoaning his lot. He has been a cripple most of his life. He lost a leg here on the farm. It was the fault of an ICA administrator who wouldn’t let him go into the city in the winter as most farmers do. He had to do some shop­ ping, so he harnessed a horse and ^et out in the snowdrifts. He got lost in the great snow mass, the horse took fright, dragged him off with him, and he lost his leg.

UR NEXT visit is at the home­ stead of a new arrival who had O come all the way from Brazil. Seeing the difficulties newcomers must over­ come in the cities, he had decided to be a farmer and took a farm from the ICA. He points out where he has en­ larged his holdings, added new build­ ings, and invested his capital. Now, as it happens, there is no crop and the ICA wants its portion of the wheat.

“And,” he argues, “suppose with G-d’s help there should be a good crop some day, what kind of price does wheat fetch anyway?” No, he is not satisfied . . . “Leave?” Yes, he is free to leave at any time but he would have to leave naked and bereft. All that he has put of his own into the farm belongs to the ICA . . . “What will become of the children?” he says, “there is no Jewish schooling in the colony.”

I visit the shool built by the colon­ ists. Properly speaking, it cannot be called a synagogue, but a prayer-cabin.

It is a rather sad-looking, primitive structure; the bare wooden walls re­ flect a feeling of loneliness and neglect.

It is hard to believe that not far from here are synagogues and temples built with expense and luxury. Over a sim­ ple, unadorned ark hangs a silk Torah curtain with an embroidered half-obli­ terated “In Memoriam” inscription.

The raised platform and the benches JEWISH LIFE

are primitive in the extreme. In the far corner where ordinarily the wom­ en’s section would be located there stands an old case of books. The vol­ umes are dust-covered Yiddish books with the imprint of a library that once existed there: Tannenbaum’s “Black Diamonds,” Seifert’s novels, along with books by half-forgotten and ob­ scure Jewish writers in English— and all this in a thick film of dust that tickles the nostrils.

them? There is no teacher and no shochet.” Everything about us looks so forlorn and neglected— almost aban­ doned—a striking contrast to the au­ tomobile parked outside the open door ready to go to Weyburn.

HAT EVENING the whole col­ ony assembled in the shool and T I had an opportunity of getting to know them all, young and old. They arranged a kind of celebration in my

Newly-arrived settlers from Brazil pose in front of their home.

The baal tefilah is Moishe Globerson, an old colonist in his late seven­ ties now residing in Toronto, but who comes here on the Yomim Tovim to visit with the remnant and lead them in prayer. As a visitor, I was honored with one of the “better” portions of the Torah to read. The women sit wrapped in kerchiefs, the children stand about holding siddurim, but a farmer complains, pointing to them, “They are growing up without any Jew­ ish education; what will become of April, 1960

honor. I heard everyone’s individual problem, everyone there had some­ thing to get off his mind. A woman tells me she has saved up . . . an ulcer, for which she must go to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester. Here is another family of newcomers who landed here attracted by the dream of attaching themselves to the land . . . now they bemoan their hard fate and seek some advice from me on how to get out of this wilderness.

Two well-dressed young men who 29

would appear to be city gentlemen if it were not for their “cowboy hats” laugh when I fail to recognize them. “You only spoke to me yesterday,’* says young farmer Feldman, “when I was on the tractor.” “What a difference!

Then you looked like a farmer,” I ex­ plain, “and here you look like . . . a movie actor.” The only unmarried girl in the colony is introduced to me.

“Maybe you have a boy for her,” one of the women whispers into my ear.

The girl walks about with what seemed to me a sense of embarrassment. She is embarrassed that all the other boys and girls have left except herself, who apparently has no place to go and has been left behind.

OW I am in a farmer’s house. In the light of the oil lamp—the only illumination available—I can make out the lined, weather-beaten faces of the nearby farmers— the extremes of wind, frost, and heat have left their mark on their faces. They all have complaints.

Nothing was done as was promised.

“Even now,” one of them says, “things could be saved, if . . .” and another farmer interrupts with “. . . isn’t it un­ heard of that a Jewish farm colony should be without a Jewish school and let its children grow up without Jew­ ish education? We’re not able to raise the salary required nowadays for a Hebrew teacher. We don’t even have a shochet in the colony. Where is the ICA? What are the Jewish organiza­ tions doing?”

A third suggested : “What we should do is send a delegation to London, or at least to Montreal, to tell them that if things don’t improve everyone will leave the colony.” They have written to London before but apparently the letters are not received by the proper persons, though the address is correct.

A delegation to Montreal would cost

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a lot of money . . . Besides, who would have the courage to step forward and speak, for who dares to stick his neck out and later be a target for special observation? They’ve had bitter experi­ ence of this kind of retaliation before. ¿¿¡Besides*” another one adds, “we wouldn’t be permitted to get into any place where something could be done.”

Everyone present has grievances and complaints, even proposals for rem­ edy. From all the grievances and from what one sees, one can only conclude that from the very beginning the peo­ ple in authority did not take the whole thing seriously enough and did not suf­ ficiently appreciate that wrongs were perpetrated which were suppressed and overlooked. These wrongs were carried out by means of an espionage system started by the ICA officials, who induced colonists to serve as their tools in return for favors. To this day stories are told of a certain informer (since deceased) at whose name the colonists tremble. Some colonists were driven from their farms for pro­ testing injustices or for not obeying the rules. An elderly colonist tells about the difficulties of the early years when the farmers struggled against the capri­ cious climate and endured hunger and want . . . of how the snowfalls made all the roads impassable.

BOOK was brought forth, writ­ ten in Hebrew under the title Nishmath Kol Chai (The Soul of All Living) by Abraham ben Shlomo Feier, who also wrote another book, Zichron Avraham. The book is dedi­ cated to his son Shlomo Feier and his wife Peppi— among the first colonists here, industrious and honorable souls.

There follows a lamentation on those who have died, that begins: ¿‘Knowest thou Canada who lie buried in thy cold earth? Yechiel Michel Neiman, a

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JEWISH LIFE

scholar who came to plow thy soil.”

Then there is a poem on the death of a sixteen-year-old boy, Israel ben Meir Pechet, who devoted his young life to Torah-study and farming and who was cut off so young from this world. (The poem is dedicated to the memory of Shlomo Meir ben Chaim Feier of Yarmolinetz in Eastern Gali­ cia, father of the author.) The writer apparently was one of the early col­ onists. In his preface the author writes that he sought to “cleanse” the teach­ ings of such philosopher as Socrates, Plato, Kant, Humboldt, Wagner, and Voltaire. He succeeded in this “cleans­ ing” and gives the product to the reader together with teachings from our holy books. This was the human material of which the early colonists were made.

Elliot Feier, grandson of the author, drives me back to Weyburn in his car.

Elliot, a real farmer with bronzed face, broad Western-type hat, and a goodnatured smile, tells me of his happi­ ness and satisfaction with his work. He is taking his wife and son to the dentist in town. A native Canadian, he is quite satisfied with farming and finds it no worse than other professions. His main problem was that of finding a wife. The city girls of today don’t want to marry farmers. But now he is sitting with his pretty and amiable wife—also a colon­ ist’s daughter ^ and his little son.

What does he lack? He doesn’t care

April, 1960

for city jobs, business or the city way of life. Of course, there are dissatisfied colonists, but he’s not one of them. is t e n in g

to the accounts of

grievances and looking at all L there was around me, I realized that in the early years in Canada the ICA made the same error it made in Argen­ tina: the settlers were placed far from one another; they were surrounded with bureaucratic officials quite unfamiliar with the mentality of Eastern European Jews. Many of these officials behaved like petty Czarist despots and did as they pleased, paying no heed to the protest that arose. The writer of this article, while living in Argentina thirty years ago, witnessed the beginning of the decline of the Jewish settlements there. The ICA then behaved like true bureaucrats and even banished L. Chazanovitch from Argentina when he dared to speak up for the colonists.

It must, of course, be admitted that there are more reasons than this for the decline. Moreover, it is not exclu­ sively a Jewish problem. Among nonJews there is also a mass exodus from farm to city. And finally, one is driven to a second conclusion—that Jews can accomplish pioneer farm work only in a land which is theirs, where the en­ vironment is completely theirs, with all the requisite social and communal attributes—and besides all this, what is needed is idealism.

31

Three Examples

By ARNOLD J. MILLER

HOLOM ALBICHEM had his Kasrielevke and Mendele Mocher Seforim had his Tuneyadevka and Kabtzansk, and we here at this end of the Goluth have our Worcester. What is more, we have a Young Israel syna­ gogue in Worcester — and we have great problems. So what, you will ask.

There are many Young Israel syna­ gogues, you will say, and they each have their problems, all more or less the same.

Ah, but this is not so, not so at all.

First, it must be explained, Worcester is unique. Please do not dispute this with die. I was born here and I am an expert on the subject. The playwright Sam Behrman wrote “The Worcester Account,” which gives you a series of tantalizing views of this community in days gone by. Harry Golden wrote a best seller entitled “Only in America.”

Someday, perhaps, when my creative talents are fermenting and give me no rest, I’ll fashion a tome called “Only in Worcester.”

But enough of such digression. To return to the subject at hand, which in this case is our Young Israel syna­ gogue, let me say at the outset that it too is unique. Not like the problems of all other congregations are the prob­ lems of our little congregation. Lemoshol? For example? you will ask. Al­ right, I shall give you an example. In fact, for good measure, I shall give you three examples.

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To begin with, did you ever hear of the “Fence Viewers?” Aha. I already have you at a disadvantage; you are unfamiliar with this term. Let me ac­ quaint you with this ancient and hon­ orable office. For full information I could direct your attention to that most intriguing chapter of the General Laws of Massachusetts, entitled “Fences, Fence Viewers, Pounds and Field Driv­ ers”, but for our story you need not be so erudite. Suffice it to say that the Fence Viewers are appointed by the mayor of each city or the selectmen of each town and it is their duty to settle disputes involving fences between ad­ joining parcels of land. They view the fence, hold a hearing at the site, and thereafter make a determination re­ garding the maintenance, repair, or re­ building of the fence in dispute, and they can apportion costs in connection therewith. Their decrees may be upheld in court.

OW, if you will bear with me, I shall relate how the Fence View­ ers entered the life of our Young Is­ rael. There was in existence in the rear of our shool a most dilapidated fence. Tired, forlorn, it hung at a precarious angle and provided a most enticing and direct short-cut between two streets for all the various neigh­ borhood would - be juvenile delin­ quents. Its decrepit condition seemed to extend an invitation to our more

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artistic neighbors to adorn it with va­ rious items of refuse, tin cans, and starn garbage.

There came a day when our suffer­ ings exploded into action; I was dele­ gated to do something about it. First, I ascertained that we had three differ­ ent landowners on the other side of the fence. By employing simultaneous differential equations and then dividing the result by two, I determined each individual’s liability toward the cost of a new fence. After that I proceeded to seek out the different owners. The first two, being gentlemen and scholars, im­ mediately agreed to assume their share of responsibility. The third owner, how­ ever, proved to be a problem. First, he was an absentee landlord and I needn’t tell you about absentee landlords. Sec­ ondly, he turned out to be most de­ vious and cunning. But I am getting ahead of my story. About his crime and punishment you shall soon hear.

When I was unable to reach the third owner, a tenant of his assured me that her landlord would be most happy to join the project as she had often heard him express the wish that a new fence might be put up to keep all the trespassers out. With wise perspicacity I requested her to communicate with her landlord to make sure. Some days later with beaming countenance she proudly announced his complete agree­ ment.

With that I gave the contractors the signal to proceed. A gleaming new wire fence soon arose, adorned with several strands of barbed wire in bat­ tle array, above which only birds and no longer children dared to soar. The refuse was gathered up; the third own­ er put in a neat brick patio in his back­ yard; all was cleanliness, sweetness and light. That is, it was so until I sent out the bills. The first two owners paid April, 1960

readily, but the absentee landlord sud­ denly became more absent. He ignored my correspondence. It struck me that here was a man who wanted the best of all possible worlds: to have and not to pay. I was determined to defeat his nefarious scheme.

HAT, my friends, is where the Fence Viewers came into the pic­ ture. I lodged a formal complaint with them. Official notice was then sent out that a view would be taken and a hear­ ing held at the locus of the new fence.

On the day of the hearing I arrived early. Some minutes later I beheld a peculiar apparition. There was the ab­ sentee landlord himself, weaving his uncertain way towards me, supported by a towering countryman of his. When he reached me he began muttering drunken imprecations, punctuated by violent fist-waving in the unoffending atmosphere. His companion seemed to be in agreement with his sentiments. I gathered they were not too happy with me. Then off they meandered up the street. I called to them to remain, to witness the majesty of the law in oper­ ation in the persons of the Fence View­ ers. But they would have none of that and disappeared from view.

Soon came one of the Fence View­ ers. I explained the situation. Together we toured the neighborhood in search of the party of the second part but he proved to be in parts unknown.

Then we returned to the fence which the Fence Viewer proceeded to study with objective mien, assessing its mer­ its with expert gaze. Finally he pro­ nounced it satisfactory according to law. Now, my friends I do not wish to confuse you with technical details so I will content myself with saying that we secured a decree from the Fence Viewers ordering the landlord to pay his fair share. After certain

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further maneuvering and threats, I succeeded in obtaining payment. I understand, however, that said land­ lord is sorely disappointed with Amer­ ican democratic procedures. In any case, thus ends our first example on a happy note.

EFORE telling you my second ex­ B ample, let me ask you a question.

Did you ever have a three-story building threaten to topple over on your synagogue? This is no small problem, mind you. We are no longer talking about petty quarrels among baaley-batim. It is not, mind you, a situation where the rabbi is speaking too long and your innards are cry­ ing out in protest. This was serious.

It could have had fatal consequences, you understand. To be precise, and our sages admonish us that being pre­ cise is a virtue, the predicament was this. As you know, boys will be boys.

Well, some playful boys in the neigh­ borhood discovered that a few of the foundation stones of the building ad­ jacent to our synagogue were loose.

Well, from small acorns large oaks grow. Soon the yard of our synagogue was littered with small stones from the foundation, then larger stones, and then . . . perhaps you will not believe me, dear friends, but if you will gome to Worcester I will show you the visible proof . . . then mighty blocks of solid granite were dislodged and deposited in our yard. You may ask skeptically how boys were able to move those huge masses of stone weighing many hundreds of pounds each. All I can reply is that they must have discovered some new principle of science. I know that the science of physics deals with fulcrums and leverages and such, but these prin­ ciples are totally inadequate to ex­ 34

plain the accomplishment of these determined children.

Suffice it to say, the foundation of the adjoining structure was wholly undermined. D-Day was at hand. A towering shell hung over our heads like impending doom. What were we to do? Again our reaction was swift and forthright: I was delegated to act. Now never forget, dear friends, that ours is a blessed land of law and order, of support for the upright and the innocent. Immediately it struck me from whence might come our sal­ vation. Our local Board of Health is an efficient organization and is ever ready to jump into the breach when danger, pestilence, famine, and disease threaten. I called the Board of Health on the telephone and told them that the occupants of the house in ques­ tion were in dire peril; that there existed a public nuisance and danger.

On the very next day there could be seen a screw of men busily engaged in gathering up the rocks from our yard and cementing them back into the foundation of the structure next door. Now we utter our prayers in our little synagogue with a new-found serenity. How serene the landlord of the adjoining premises may have been I have never bothered to find out. In any case, our second example also ends on a happy note.

ND NOW to our third example.

When you took your three steps backward upon finishing Shemoneh Esrei, did it ever happen that the building jumped along with you? If your gabbai attempted to give a patsch on the bimah and missed because the bimah had jumped away, would you too not be alarmed? But do not allow me to mislead you. I am not describ­ ing anything supernatural. True, there may be some slight exaggeration in

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my manner of description; but vi­ brations, concussions, and sudden jars there were aplenty.

It was all due to the blasting. They had to build a new highway and it had to run by our synagogue. No place else was good enough. For weeks the blasting had been going on and now cracks had opened up on the walls and plaster was beginning to fall from the ceiling. We suffered innocently, silently, bravely. Was there no balm in Gilead? Was there no remedy for our discomfort, no recom­ pense for the damages to our prem­ ises? This time, my friends, I am afraid I must disappoint you. This time the power of the law was not on the side of the innocent and the

April, 1960

long-suffering. Our loss was the pen­ alty we had to pay to progress. The law in Massachusetts, and, I might add by way of an aside, in the great state of New York also, refuses to allow recovery for damages due solely to the concussion and vibration of blast­ ing, unless actual negligence can be proved. Nu, you go prove negligence.

To make a long story short, we still have our cracks and holes and we are getting used to them.

So, as I said at the outset, troubles we have, unusual troubles, unique troubles. Who else has dealings with Fence Viewers, with buildings about to topple over, with synagogues skip­ ping and dancing? For such troubles you must come to us in Worcester.

35

Careers in Business Administration HE ROLE of Jews in American business dates back to colonial times, when they were accredited with having introduced sugar cultivation in the Americas. They were also domi­ nant in cultivating and refining sugar and in supplying it to the markets of Europe.

Current Jewish prominence in the fur industry had its foundation in col­ onial times when Hyman Levy devel­ oped a flourishing trade with Indians.

One of Levy’s employees was John Jacob Astor, ancestor of the distin­ guished Astor family, who beat furs for Levy. The historian Werner Sombart declared, “During the 17th and 18th centuries, the trade of the Jews was the source from which the eco­ nomic system of the colonies drew its life blood.”

The Jewish peddler is also credited with having contributed to the open­ ing of new frontiers for industry and trade. Jews are believed to have intro­ duced the merchandising principle of small profit and quick returns. Thanks to Jewish enterprise, former class dis-

tinctions in dress were wiped out and the poor could purchase attractive clothing at low prices. Moreover, the multi-billion dollar garment trades pro­ vide employment for hundreds of thou­ sands of artisans, salespersons, and related personnel.

The roster of Jews who won distinc­ tion in business and commerce includes leaders in department stores, discount houses, resident buying, small retailing, factoring, real estate, and many other sectors of our economy.

In recent years, business administra­ tion has become one of the most popu­ lar fields of interest of the American Jewish college youth. Several years ago, the B’nai B’rith Vocational Service studied the concentration of our youth in this and other areas. They found that while about 16.5 percent of the total student body of the colleges were majoring in business administration, an estimated 30 percent of the Jewish stu­ dents were preparing for such careers.

There is reason to believe that this trend is still continuing.

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*

By WALTER DUCKAT

*

*

EXT to teaching, the field which phenomenal. Eighty years ago, only invokes the greatest student enroll­ one college offered courses in business.

N ment and offers the greatest number of Today, about six hundred offer degrees jobs is business administration. The growth of interest in this area has been 36

in it and currently graduate about 70,000 students annually.

JEWISH LIFE

Years ago, few business executives were college educated, but among busi­ ness leaders of today such schooling is commonplace. It is expected that in the future the non-college graduate among executives will become a rarity.

There are a number of reasons for the vast increase of students in business studies. First perhaps is the fact that some phases of business offer the possi­ bility for high income accompanied by prestige and power. Secondly, although some students of business administra­ tion push on for graduate degrees, most limit their formal schooling to a fouryear college course or less, while many professions require a considerably longer time. Some elect business admin­

istration as a major subject because the curriculum is usually less demanding than a liberal arts program. Many stu­ dents who would not be accepted or could not cope with a liberal arts pro­ gram manage to edge through a busi­ ness curriculum.

On the other hand, as business has expanded, it has become so complex that even minor mistakes are now costly. Taxation, governmental regu­ lations, social security, shifting trends in consumption and distribution, new methods, competition, and general economic conditions also make welltrained persons essential. The schools of business administration attempt to fill these needs.

Accounting, Banking and Economics

HILE there are literally scores of social security laws, and other respon­ specialties in business, we will sibilities which have augmented the limit our exposition to the broader need for accountants. The most cov­ areas, and especially to those which eted goal of accountants is the CPA seem to offer the maximum opportu­ title. To win this, in a number of states, nities for Jews. (It is still an ugly a college degree and several years of reality that many large corporations, accounting experience are prerequi­ mainly in heavy industry, banking, and sites. One must take a very rigorous insurance, are guilty of discriminatory examination which few candidates pass hiring or promotion practices despite the first time. There are about 45,000 laws outlawing discrimination. Where CPA’s in the United States and about there has been an easing of this policy, 500 are women. Net incomes of some it appears to be mainly in highly tech­ CPA’s range from $4,000 to $10,000 nical jobs where there is a dearth of a year. Beginning salaries for recent qualified personnel.) graduates range from $225 to $400 a Let us sketch these major areas. A month. very popular profession among Jews Their special training and knowledge and the fastest growing of all profes­ of fiscal matters often qualify account­ sions is accounting. It is one of the ants for promotions to high adminis­ youngest professions. In 1896, the first trative posts in corporations. Others Certified Public Accountant law was supplement their earnings by investing passed in New York State. Now, all in businesses they may serve. There is states have a similar law. Among the a strong demand for a variety of ac­ reasons for its swift growth are countants. There are many jobs for increased governmental regulations, accountants in city, state, and federal

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governments for those with a strong desire for security. Employees with high rank and seniority are paid up to $15,000 a year.

HE TWO major branches of ac­ counting are “private” and “pub­ lic.” Opportunities are greatest in pri­ vate business. Even in moderate-sized companies, the area is usually subdi­ vided into general accounting, cost Accounting, tax accounting, budgeting, internal auditing, and others. Control­ ling the cost of operations is one of the biggest problems of management in order to compete successfully.

In public accounting, the accountant studies the organization’s records, veri­ fies the financial reports. He is con­ sulted on taxes, costs, governmental regulations, merchandising problems, and many other business matters. Auto­ mation or mechanized bookkeeping will undoubtedly eliminate many cleric­ al workers engaged in relatively routine clerical work, but the analysis or inter­ pretation of accounting, which is their main function, will not be affected.

To qualify as an accountant, one should possess above-average intelli­ gence, enjoy working with figures, pos­ sess a methodical and analytical mind, and have a good personality calculated to inspire confidence in clients.

While this vocation offers the oppor­ tunity for diversified, interesting and lucrative activities, there are some nega­ tive features. During the tax period, accountants tend to work many hours overtime. Also, many clients seek to pressure them to file dishonest tax re­ turns. But the honest practitioner gen­ erally manages to resist this pressure.

Also, many firms are reluctant to hire Sabbath observers because during tax return periods they work around the clock. The self-employed accountant can circumvent this, however.

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LTHOUGH there are a number of Jewish-owned investment houses, A commercial banks, and Jewish security analysts, finance and banking are main­ ly in non-Jewish hands. By and large, their hiring pattern has not been en­ couraging for members of minority groups. Where these are hired—usually as tokens of good will—they are seldom promoted to positions of importance.

In economics, however, many Jews have fared very well. The names Ginzberg, Wolman, Burns, David, and others rank among the country’s most renowned economists. Jewish econo­ mists are found on university faculties and on the staffs of some large indus­ trial organizations, labor unions, gov­ ernmental organizations, research bu­ reaus, and other groups.

Aspirants will find that a Ph.D. de­ gree is virtually indispensable for the better positions as economists. Mature persons are preferred in industry, and it takes about ten years of experience to qualify for a responsible job in this area. Undergraduate and postgraduate training should include a heavy con­ centration of courses in economics and statistics, since most of the economist’s duties may include gathering and inter­ preting economic data and forecasting trends.

Many practitioners have entered governmental service, and thence to important jobs in industry or labor unions. Incomes range from $7,000 to about $15,000 a year and more, espe­ cially for those who also accept addi­ tional assignments as consultants. In general, Jews have found their best opportunities in college teaching and governmental service. Probably, this will continue for an indefinité period.

NOTHER important sector of business is insurance — a field which until recently employed rela-

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tively few college men. Today, many firms seek to interest the college-trained person to find a career in insurance.

Potential earnings are very high for the gifted salesman. The insurance com­ panies seem willing to employ Jews as agents, but there are conspicuously few Jews in higher administrative posts. Of course, many Jews are self-employed as insurance brokers. It is easy to acquire a license, and no college education is necessary. Those who possess considerable drive, resilience, and persuasive­ ness will undoubtedly be able to do well in this field because of the wide range of insurance coverage which is carried by even persons of moderate income.

An increasing number of Jews ex­ press interest in the field of personnel, especially those who served in such capacities while in service. This field is most developed in large organizations, and involves duties relating to recruit­ ment and selection, placement, train­ ing, transfer, discipline, job evaluation, classification of staff, setting wage rates, counseling employees, adjudicating

grievances, handling labor relations, health and safety, compliance with gov­ ernmental regulations, dealing with those who resign or are dismissed from the company.

In the past no formal higher educa­ tion was considered necessary for per­ sonnel work. Today, many colleges of­ fer such training, and personnel jobs are held by psychologists, economists, law­ yers, social workers, and business ad­ ministration graduates. Students major­ ing in this field require at least an M.A. degree. They should study job evalua­ tions, time and motion study, labor re­ lations, tests and measurements, statis­ tics and economics.

Since only larger establishments em­ ploy personnel technicians, and Jewish firms are typically smaller enterprises, Jewish applicants have fared poorly in private industry. At best, the opportu­ nities are limited, the salary range from about $4,500 to $12,000. For the Jew­ ish applicant, the best opportunities continue to be in governmental service.

Advertising and M arket Research

NOTHER occupation which draws many young people is advertising.

There are a few large Jewish advertising firms, but most of the leading firms are non-Jewish. This is one of the most dif­ ficult fields to enter because while these agencies collectively deal in billions of dollars of billings, their personnel is relatively limited, and about a third are women mainly engaged in a variety of office jobs.

The major jobs in advertising are in 1) creative work such as copy writing, art, and typography, and in planning and presenting radio and TV programs; 2) sales; 3) research. Personnel in the last-mentioned field dig up facts upon

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April, 1960

which advertising plans are based. They study consumer’s preferences, buying habits, and how to get the best results from the advertising media used.

A college education isn’t necessary in some phases of advertising, such as copy writing, layout, and sales. Many advertising men doubt the value of present college courses in advertising.

In general, however, they favor a wellrounded college program with emphasis upon English. Many agencies conduct their own training programs. The American Association of Advertising Agencies in New York gives examina­ tions annually to those interested in the field. The outlook for newcomers is 39

poor unless they possess important con­ tacts and abundant drive and talent.

While the top executives earn very high income, many are dissatisfied because of the uncertainty of their jobs and the dubious social value of many of their duties.

sales analysis. Personnel employed are interviewers, psychologists, statisti­ cians, tabulators, and report writers.

While it is a growing field, the oppor­ tunities for newcomers are extremely limited. A number of Jews are promi­ nent in this work.

A relatively new field which has as­ sumed an important role in big business is market research. These practitioners study the markets for products or serv­ ices. They analyze companies’ sales rec­ ords, make forecasts, decide how to design products to win consumers’ pref­ erences, and test the effectiveness of advertising media. The research direct­ or’s major activity is making consumer surveys. This requires training in survey procedures, statistics, sampling, and

ETAIL management has attracted many Jewish men and women.

Because many of the leading depart­ ment stores, resident buyers, specialty shops, and other related firms in the country are Jewish-owned, there have been few obstacles in their path. While sales is the basic activity in these firms, there are challenging and lucrative ad­ ministrative jobs which beckon to the college-trained person. These include merchandise managers, buyers, sales

40

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JEWISH LIFE

promotion personnel, and their assist­ months to several years. Sales and sales ants. Interestingly, many if not most of management is expected to be one of the present executives in retailing are the main fields of employment for busi­ not college-trained, but in hiring new ness administration graduates for an personnel the emphasis is clearly in this indefinite period. direction and the college-bred person is preferred. Many large firms recruit NOTHER FIELD where Jews are college graduates for their own training highly active and important is real programs. Highly competent college estate. Some of the largest organiza­ graduates can become buyers in three tions in the country, such as Levitt to five years. Income for men and Brothers, Webb and Knapp, Glickman, women buyers, managers, marketing and others are Jewish-owned. Many experts, merchandise display, sales pro­ Jews of humble origins and scant for­ motion, and other executive posts pay mal education have built up vast hold­ from $6,000 to $50,000 a year in the ings. Even those less endowed with largest firms. And this field is expected vision, daring, and energy have found to continue to absorb a large number of real estate a highly stimulating and business administration graduates. profitable business.

Sales of any product or service is one Buying and selling, improving, fi­ of our biggest occupations. The relent­ nancing, and managing realty is one of less goal of industry is to continue to the oldest and most important forms of increase sales records. This is the major business. Over half of the wealth of the responsibility of the sales manager. country lies in real estate. Billions of While the best salaries are in heavy dollars-worth are bought and sold an­ industry and in large corporate enter­ nually. Hundreds of thousands of per­ prises, few Jews are accepted in those sons are directly employed in the trans­ posts. The best opportunities for Jews fer and management of realty, and in­ continue to be in soft goods, apparel, directly millions of others in building textiles, household furnishings, and and construction, and the manufacture related lines. and sale of household and industrial Sales techniques vary with the prod­ equipment. ucts sold. The sales manager is expected The real estate agent is the invest­ to be thoroughly acquainted with his ment counselor to millions. His major product and the market. He plans the duties are to sell, lease, manage, ap­ entire sales campaign, supervises the praise, and finance mortgages, invest, sales staff, recruits and trains the sales­ insure property, and to advertise. He men, chooses the sales appeals and the may arrange mortgage loans, bring techniques which they use. He assigns buyers and sellers together, find space quotas for each office and determines for tenants, help clients discover attrac­ the method of paying the salesmen. He tive buys in real estate and dispose of may advise the advertising and market their holdings profitably. He may also research division of the organization. collect rents and manage property.

Candidates for this field should Beginners usually start as rent col­ study, besides sales, buying, marketing, lectors, renting agents, lot salesmen, problems of retailing and merchandis­ mortgage department assistants, junior ing. Many firms conduct their own sales appraisers, assistants in managing de­ training program lasting from several partment, or listing solicitors. Many

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large organizations, such as utilies in­ surance companies, banks, building and loan associations, and others, require specialists in real estate.

There are also opportunities in real estate taxation, public housing, real estate credit, city planning and zoning.

Those who seek to become brokers may take a brief course for several months to obtain their brokerage license. No college training is necessary. What is essential for this aspect of real estate is a knowledge of the field and a high degree of persuasiveness. Appraisers, however, should possess analytical and judicious minds. Management and

mortgage lending require executive ability.

A number of colleges and univer­ sities offer majors in real estate, and the larger firms have become more interested in these graduates. Although real estate offers a very high potential income, much of the real estate sales­ man’s earnings are in commissions.

Many of our security-minded youth find this and what they term the unglamorous nature of the field unap­ pealing. With reference to the Sabbath observer, weekends are the most active for sales, but this is not an insurmount­ able obstacle.

Other Areas

HERE ARE many openings in high schools and colleges for qualified teachers of business subjects which may appeal to many young men and women.

Certainly, teaching permits the observ­ ance of Shabboth and Yom Tov with less difficulty than in most other phases of business administration. Many teach­ ers of accounting supplement their in­ comes by taking on small private ac­ counts or in aiding others to file their income tax returns in their after-school hours. Teacher’s salaries in larger met­ ropolitan communities range from about $4,000 to $9,000.

Another small but continuing need is for statisticians. Men and women in this field find employment with finan­ cial institutions, insurance companies, some industrial firms, and especially with various governmental agencies.

Salaries range from about $6,000 to $15,000 and higher for actuaries.

There are other broad fields, such as traffic management, credit collect­ ing, foreign trade, and financial man­ agement where some Jews are em­ ployed, but their best opportunities are

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not considered to be in those areas for the religiously observant Jew. In gen­ eral, any business graduate may en­ counter increasing competition, espe­ cially in production management, from engineers. Production management is a managerial specialty which attempts to increase the efficiency of any com­ pany’s manufacturing operations. Many schools of engineering are now offering courses in various phases of business administration to their students, which in some phases of management will make these men serious competitors to business administration graduates.

Automation is a loose term describ­ ing many technical innovations which are important in large manufacturing organizations, warehouses, and com­ puters to process data. The installa­ tion of automatic equipment to in­ crease productivity, quality control, and safety as well as labor-saving are in­ volved in automation.

Automation, however, is not always practical. There are many set-ups where the high cost and the relative inflexi­ bility of automation may be too costly.

JEWISH LIFE

These and other problems have to be resolved by qualified engineers and business experts.

anche of students in business adminis­ tration soon lead to an overglutted market?” In some fields such as adver­ tising, radio and TV work, and per­ HE entire field of business admin­ istration is still in a state of flux, sonnel, this is already true. Neverthe­ since there are still areas in our eco­ less, the general outlook for business nomy where persons of resourcefulness, is believed to be bright, which means acumen, and drive may achieve bril­ that the well-qualified should find a liantly as self-employed persons with­ niche for themselves although competi­ out a college education. Nevertheless, tion may grow keener. As for Jews, the trend appears irresistible in many they will probably continue in the fields phases of business towards demanding in which they are presently represented, such education. This suggests that ap­ with perhaps slightly more penetrating plicants graduating from better known into fields where they are currently in­ schools may be considered more fav­ conspicuous. But there seems little orably. doubt that those who will possess ad­ Many people are posing the dis­ vanced degrees will find jobs more quieting question, “May not the aval­ plentiful and more lucrative.

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JEWISH LIFE

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by Rabbi Dr. Immanuel Jakobovits A comparative and historical study of the Jewish religious attitude to medi­ cine and its practice. List price $6.00. Special Book Service price $5.00 3. BIBLE CONCORDANCE bp Dr. Solomon Mandelkorn Alphabetical index of Biblical words, indicating passages where they oc­ cur. This famous work is now avail­ able in a new popular edition in 2 volumes, .9% x 7. $12.50 4. THE SABBATH

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ACT TODAY — DON’T DELAY The UOJCA Book Service is non-profit, sponsored by the Union for the benefit of Jews everywhere. As a public service, it can bring you advantages you cannot find elsewhere. So ,avail yourself of this won­ derful opportunity. “Adorn” your home with the spiritual treasures that lie gem­ like in the star-studded universe of Jewish books!

by Dayan Dr. I. Grunfeld A concrete, sound and convincing guide to the practical observance of the Sabbath, following the classic ideas of Rabbi Sam son Raphael Hirsch, by an eminent member of the English Rabbinate. $2.00 5. THE NINETEEN LETTERS OF BEN UZIEL

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45

At the Gateway to the Sahara

By ELI ROTHSCHILD

OW touching are the scenes de­ scribed in the Talmud of the lives of Jews in the towns and vil­ lages of that era! Many of us feel an overwhelming longing for the everyday life that once went on in Surah, Nehardeah, or Pumbaditha; those times when Jews lived a richly Jewish life among themselves and re­ ligion was not merely a matter of prayer, ceremonies, or observance of Sabbath and Yomim Tovim, but an integral, inseparable part of everyday life. Later on in history, too, we have examples of Jews living com­ pletely among themselves according to the precepts of our Torah. Many famous authors—Sholom Aleichem, Shachnovitz, Mendele Mocher Seforim, and others—immortalized the life of the European Ghetto to which they owed their entire inspiration and creativity. We pay them homage today only because they have re­ created so vividly for those in far­ away countries the life of their brothers in Europe. Not only are we separated from them by physical distance and by time, but by a spir­ itual distance. These writers have given us a glimpse of the old loved and well-remembered past: scenes of

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Sabbath observance, our holy men, our Gaonim, Rabbonim, Dayonim, our pleasures and our sorrows. Now, we reflect sadly, this no longer exists.

For where does there exist today such adherence and fiery zealousness for the Torah; where do you find a Beth Din in all its glory with full authority to enforce the laws of the Torah? Where will you find so many of the things which gave such holi­ ness, beauty, and inspiration to our religion and our people?

ET what has just been described, as well as what I am about to describe, is not a life only of the past, to be found only in stories from the Talmud, or in legends of the days of the great Rabbinic and Chasidic spheres, or in nostalgic memories of our authors. It exists today in places that are by virtue of the air-age but a stone’s-throw away from all the great European capitals. Those scenes are reality still, in Morocco. There we can find cit­ ies—so-called mellahs, corresponding to the ghettos of Eastern E u ro p e populated entirely by Jews. There no­ body needs to be told, “Today is Shabboth.” He sees it all around. An

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JEWISH LIFE

area of several square miles in which all shops are closed and all places of prayer and learning filled to over­ flowing, and the sound of traditional zemiroth and nigunim fill the air.

And no one, not even one who in heart and deed is entirely unobser­ vant, would dare to be mechalel shabboth befarhesia, for none would dare to risk the outraged reaction of witnesses to such sacrilege. In Mo­ rocco we still find the community where— as were our Tanaim—many Jews are the poorest of the poor.

But to see them on Shabboth you would imagine that they are well off, happy, without a care in the world.

There one can witness a shabboth shekulo kodesh, where the whole day is spent in prayer and learning and the very meals are pervaded with holiness that makes one feel that seudath sh’lomo besha’atho could not have been much better. Nearly the entire congregation spends the whole Friday night until Shacharith in the synagogue, singing bakashoth—hymns worked out according to the Sidrah of the week. The praying takes a long time because it is done with joy and zeal, word by word, in a loud voice, and not as an unwelcome duty.

WILL describe only a few of the many incidents that I witnessed during my stay in the south of Mo­ rocco, in Tiznit, the gateway to the Sahara. Not only is there no contact with Europeans, but there is very little contact even with the popu­ lation of the north—with the Moroc­ cans on the other side of the moun­ tains. It is said that Jews have lived in this area at least since the days of the destruction of the Second Temple. A large territory surrounded by two immense walls circumscribes the Mellah. In Tiznit I saw and recognized many observances which up till then I had only known as they were written in the Gemorah.

I was the guest of the president of the community, who put his house at my disposal with whole-hearted hospitality. I was almost embarrassed by his attitude of treating me as if I were the baal-habayith and he the stranger. The best carpets which

could be borrowed for the occasion, as well as the most valued tableware and antique silver which ordinarily are reserved for extraordinary occa­ sions, were mobilized for my sake.

I will not detail the various courses that made up the meal prepared for me. Let me but say that after sitting with my host and his family on the carpet in the middle of which were bowls heaped to overflowing with every imaginable oriental delicacy, I had to summon all my energy just to be able to rise and walk to “my” bedroom (for it actually was the bedroom of my host which unknown to me he had emptied out for my sake).

But very shortly after having fin­ ally succeeded in finding rest and sleep at two o’clock in the morning (even at this hour the infernal heat of the Sahara had not fully sub­ sided) I was abruptly awakened by someone knocking on my door. With

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sleep in my eyes I opened the door to behold the patriarchal figure of a tall old Jew dressed in the long flowing robe called djellaba, his skin the color of golden copper, his long beard snow-white like gldwing silk.

“What is it?” I asked. “Uasmaan uaqama lis’lichoth,” (rise to go to S’lichoth) he replied. And so, to­ gether with my host I went to one of the dozens of synagogues which dot Tiznit, as the heavens hung clear­ ly over us, the sky arrayed with bril­ liant stars, and hundreds of palm trees whose silhouettes were cut by those of the red or white stone and earth houses which formed and filled the skyline, created a nearly para­ disiac atmosphere.

Even long before we approached the synagogue we heard the voice of the pay tan singing: O sleeper, do not sleep, leave your ways.

Stay away from the ways of man and look to the ways of the One who is above.

Hurry to serve the Rock of ages, as the shining stars above are doing.

Slumberer, why do you sleep? Go on to pray to the Lord!

ENTERED the synagogue to find it filled with Jews, each wearing his sassia (a black, fez-like hat, typi­ cal headwear for all Moroccan Jews), black or white djellaba and heavy, upturned-toe oriental shoes. In the entire synagogue were neither chairs nor benches. All were sitting on the floor, with feet hidden by the djel­ laba. No one functioned as chazan in the manner customary among the Ashkenazim. Instead different paytanim took turns singing, and, mixed together with the rest of the people, sang the most beautiful piyutim, un­

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known to us. Nor were the worship­ pers facing mizrach. Rather they were ranged around an almemar in the midst of the synagogue. No one uttered a word, other than the words of the selichoth prayers. Not once did anyone disturb the prayer in the slightest way. The usage among the Moroccans, as among other Oriental Jews, is that anyone sitting in the midst of the congregation recites the prayers in a loud voice. In this way those of the congregation who have no prayerbook or do not know how to read can follow the prayer slowly, word by word.

Another thing I saw, typical of nearly all Moroccan slats, were big vases containing oil, which are lighted in honor of the souls of the dead, or for yortzeit. It was on this occa­ sion also that I saw in practice still another ancient custom. On a rafter was a parcel. My host explained that it was the remains of an eruv chatzeroth, by virtue of which ritual the entire Jewish district has the status of a single precinct. Annually on the fourteenth of Nisan all the Jews bring a little meal and oil, and a loaf of bread is baked from the total quantity so that all the Jews become shutfim, co-partners, and may carry on Shabboth throughout the Mellah.

The melodies of the typically Arab tunes were so touching that I wit­ nessed no sign of tiredness in any of the assembled. I had the feeling of nearness to the Almighty when I saw the spirit of exaltation and enthusiasm which affected the entire assemblage.

N THIS desert town I had occa­ sion to witness many ancient folk­ lore practices which are performed at a Brith Milah and are designed to protect the newborn child from

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JEWISH LIFE

evil influences and djinns (ghosts).

Around the baby several amulets were fixed to hold back Lilith and her followers. I saw a remarkable Pidyon Haben. It began with a loud and noisy argument (feigned of course) between the Kohen and the father of the bechor, the first-born son, as to who was the rightful owner of the thirty-day-old infant. Each one supported his arguments by bringing proof from verses of Parashath Bo. At last the Kohen was victorious and began to depart with the bechor. But finally, moved by the pleading of the father and mother, he agreed to resell the bechor to his parents for the price of three old silver rials.

Another colorful practice I viewed was the local version of the Bar Mitzvah ceremony which among

these desert Jews, as with other east­ ern and Sephardic groups, is des­ ignated not “Bar Mitzvah,” but “Tefillin.” This marks the day when the thirteen-year-old boy puts on his tefillin (on a Monday or Thursday) and is called for the first time to the Torah. The boy walks through the streets, clothed in his new suit and tallith and holding two burning candles in his hands. His parents follow him, laden with gifts and playing music with Moroccan instru­ ments.

A rare opportunity presented it­ self when I saw a crowd of perhaps a hundred Jews crowded around a house. It was a marriage ceremony.

The bride, adorned in her bridal finery, arrived at the house mounted on a horse. Her face was painted all over with black and red henna.

"Mekonenoth" lamenting the passing of a respected Jew in the manner traditional to the Jews of Arab lands.

April, 1960

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The friends of the groom created a clamor and clatter by singing, beat­ ing on drums, and firing firecrackers into the air. An orchestra decked out in special costumes entertained the guests, who were feasting on the choice delicacies supplied and paid for by the bridegroom. All the wom­ en present showed their joy by ut­ tering their “yu-yu” cries which sound like Indian war-cries.

I heard similar sounds when as­ sisting at a funeral of an old, re­ spected Jew. Dozens of specially trained women sang sad heartrend­ ing dirges as did mekonenoth like those mentioned in the Bible, while all the assembled lamented and cried with a cry which slightly resembles the cry of wolves. After a while I found my emotions carried along by

50

that sadness until I became not a mere spectator but a participant.

HENEVER I think back to my stay in the Sahara it amazes me to remember what great power and authority the Beth Din has among the Jewish communities there.

Police are unconditionally duty bound to execute the decisions of the dayonim. The verdict of the Beth Din becomes law.* 1 Without doubt, I have seen the people of whom we read in Balak: “Here is a nation which rests by itself and with the other nations will not be mixed.”

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*This article was written prior to the announce­ ment by the Moroccan Government withdrawing civil powers from the Battey D in of the country.

JEWISH LIFE

The Challenge of Antisemitism (Some thoughts on the recent Anti-Jewish outbursts)

By I. GRUNFELD

HE GRIM and bizarre story of the recent world-wide anti-Jewish manifestations continue to occupy the minds of responsible men everywhere.

It is difficult to assess the real mean­ ing and significance of these incidents.

One hears different and utterly opposed views. Some consider the daubing of swastikas and anti^Jewish slogans on synagogues, public buildings, and Jew­ ish homes not as the work of neoNazism, but as mere hooliganism and trivial nastiness which ought to be ig­ nored in order not to give undue pub­ licity to a lunatic fringe. Others, how­ ever, take a more serious view of the recent events. They hold that it is dan­ gerous to ignore Antisemitism. It is a weed that can grow fast. In the view of that school of thought, the outrages could not have occurred at the same time and in the same form without in­ spiration and without a concerted direc­ tion somewhere.

As one who watched the rise of Nazism in Germany at close quarters, I must confess that such phrases as “lunatic fringe,” “trivial nastiness,” and “hooliganism,” used in connection with manifestations of Antisemitism, do not impress me very much. We all know the unspeakable horror .and trag­ edy which that “lunatic fringe” has brought upon the world. Jew-hatred has rightly been described as a cancer cell

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of the human mind; and no responsible person takes undue risk with cancer.

What makes the present outbreak particularly sad and disappointing is the fact that it arises so shortly after the horrible sufferings of the Jews caused by this very Antisemitism at a time when one would have expected not only sympathy for the Jews, but a sincere, self-searching attitude and an atoning spirit on the part of the world’s population. Catastrophes, the like of which have never been known in the annals of man, have shaken the minds and souls of our generation. Jews— and non-Jews—have been murdered in their millions, and, in the last resort, this whole tragedy was caused by Anti­ semitism. The blood of the victims is not yet dry, and the ashes of the cremetoria have hardly settled— and from the ruins that cover the face of the earth, the flame of Jew-hatred rises again. On the very walls of the Crema­ torium in Dachau, which has been pre­ served as a warning memorial for man­ kind, the swastika has been daubed again, and, in such an out of the way place as Porto Alegre (Brazil), there appeared the sadistic macabre slogan “We want soap of the Jews.” Everyone knows, or ought to know, to which event of human depravity this slogan refers. Surely in view of such mani­ festations, it needs a very courageous 51

humanism not to despair in the future of man.

HATEVER significance or insig­ nificance one may attach to the re-appearance of swastikas and antiJewish slogans in recent weeks, it re­ mains a fact that these ugly phenomena were not localized in Germany. They were world-wide. According to reliable sources, some thirty-four countries are involved.

It is hard to believe, though it is of course possible, that this new world­ wide outbreak of racial hatred has no deeper significance, and was unwitting­ ly aided by press and television publi­ city in a world made small by the anihilation of distances. We cannot rule out the possibility that the scrawlings of the nauseating signs of hatred are the work of a world-wide movement.

If that be so the question arises, why was just the present moment chosen?

All these things we do not know. But we ought to know. And I fully agree with the suggestion recently made by Mr. Maurice Edelman, M.P., that a Research Bureau, backed by all respon­ sible Jewish organizations, should be set up. I further agree with the opinion that the struggle against Antisemitism must not become a matter of Jewish party politics, of the cause of exag­ gerated emotional outbursts. The Re­ search Bureau must be impartial and manned by first-class experts, who are not committed to any Jewish party politics. For it is a well-known fact that many Jewish leaders of today tend either to exaggerate or to play down symptoms of Antisemitism, in accord­ ance with their pre-conceived party notions.

Every responsible Jew realizes that it is necessary to keep a sense of pro­ portion. Exaggeration can do as much harm in the present situation as under­

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statement; but we must be watchful.

We dare not be complacent. We owe this watchfulness to the memory of six million Jewish martyrs, to the future of our own children, and above all, to the overwhelming majority of rightthinking men all over the world, who have unanimously expressed their' re­ vulsion at the ugly events of the last few weeks.

MONG the many newspaper ar­ ticles I have read on this problem I think the leading article headed “Evil Seed” published by the Times (of Lon­ don) on January 5th is the most deepsearching. It rightly mentions that “be­ fore 1933 civilized men, Jew or Gen­ tile, would have ignored these mani­ festations of guttersnipe malice as a thing beneath contempt. After the hor­ rors that Antisemitism has inflicted on Europe in the past generation they can­ not be so complacently passed by.” And it goes on to say: “. . . there are these disturbing reminders that the evil seed which Hitler so dreadfully cultivated is capable of germinating in quite other soil. In the long perspective of history, no nation in Europe has a wholly clean record in its treatment of the Jews.

Though, as England has good reason to know, they repay with labour and loyalty the hospitality of any country that gives them harbourage, they yet insist on preserving the identity of a peculiar people, as they believe that they, are divinely commanded. That honourable exclusiveness sems to evoke some primitive hostility planted very deep in the European mind. To the Benei-Israel, the present outbreak, measured against the tragic centuries of the Diaspora, must seem a trivial thing. It is for Christendom to take it seriously.”

I have quoted at length from this article, because I consider it of histori-

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cal importance. By stressing the fact that Antisemitism is in reality anti-hu­ manism, and therefore not only, and not even mainly, a concern of the Jew­ ish people but of Christendom, and indeed the whole of humanity, this ar­ ticle has touched the crucial point of the matter and perhaps opened a new approach to this question. In addition, this article clearly recognizes the con­ nection between Jew-hatred and the continued existence of the Jewish peo­ ple as a separate and identifiable entity among the nations, a position which is called by the writer of the article, “honourable exclusiveness” and consid­ ered by him as the necessary conse­ quence of the election of Israel and its Divinely ordained task in the world.

These two points, namely the rec­ ognition of Antisemitism and anti-hu­ manism, and its connection with the theological problem of the election of Israel, so lucidly stated by one of the world’s leading newspapers, mean in­ deed a step forward towards a clearer understanding of the deeper roots of the perennial problem of Jew-hatred. n t i s e m i t i s m has found various explanations. On the psychologi­ cal side it has been considered as a residue of primal beastliness, of the lust for destruction, of the lurking evil in the human mind that will out. Thus psychology believes Jew-hatred to be an age-old excuse for an elemental hat­ red which is the outcome of primitive fears in front of the mystery of exis­ tence, and especially of the existence of what seems to many, a mysterious people. On the sociological side Anti­ semitism has been explained as jeal­ ously, “dislike of the unlike,” especially of an identifiable minority, and their rational fear of being ruled by it. There is, so one argues, the constant need of irresponsible nationalist leaders to have a scapegoat at hand when things go

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wrong, in order to divert the passion and dissatisfaction of the baser ele­ ments of the population.

All these explanations have some truth in them, but they remain on the surface. In reality the elemental hatred of the Jew has something mysterious about it. It contains a supernatural element and has a metaphysical touch* It is somehow connected with the his­ toric mission of the Jew in the world, which demands the preservations of the identity of our people.

This brings us to the question of Israel’s election, which those who do not understand, or do not want to understand, call particularism, or even group arrogance. It is impossible for anyone who wants to discuss on a high­ er level the problem of Jew-hatred not to deal with the question of the election of Israel. It is dealt with in nearly every text book on the Jewish religion. There are however two books to which I would like to draw the readers’ special attention. They are “Humanism and Judaism,” by Mendel Hirsch, published some years ago in an English edition by the B’nai B’rith in London and “Why I am a Jew,” by David de Sola Pool, New York 1957.

In both these works, and in many others of similar kind, the true char­ acter of Israel’s mission in history, and the necessity for the preservation of the identity of our people as a vessel for the universal religious idea, are presented. Whilst prophetic sentences like: Ye are M y witnesses, saith the Lord, And My servant whom I have chosen (Isaiah 43:10) or: I will also give thee for a light of the nations, That My salvation may be unto the end of the earth (Isaiah 49:6) clearly point to the election of Israel, there are other prophetic utterances which show that the election is not confined to Israel, but is intended finally to include all 53

men. Such prophetic utterances are for instance, You are like the Ethio­ pians unto M e, O children of Israel, saith the Lord. I brought up Israel from Egypt, and the Philistines from Kaphtor, and Aram from Kir (Amos 9:7), or Blessed be Egypt M y people, and Assyria the work of M y hands, and Israel M y inheritance (Isaiah 19:25).

A similar universalism is expressed in the prophetic utterance: For M y house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples (Isaiah 56:7), and in the famous saying of the prophet Malachi: Have we not all one father? Hath not one G-d created us? Why do we deal treacherously every man against his brother (Malachi 2:10).

ROM its very inception universalism was inherent in Judaism. The Bible starts with the story of man and not of the Jew. When Abraham was chosen by G-d, the mission entrusted to him and his children was at once epi­ tomised in the words Through thee all the families of the earth shall be blessed (Bereshith 12:3). When G-d speaks of Israel as His “first-born son” the under­ lying meaning is, as has been aptly ex­ plained by Samson Raphael Hirsch, that through Israel the generating powers of humanity are opened; through Israel the march is started in which all nations shall step forth as His sons.

Almost every page of our prayer book has a touch of this universalism, culminating in the great hope of the unification of mankind under one G-d, Who is the Father of all as expressed in the sublime Alenu prayer, which is recited every day. According to the Rabbis’ teaching, no prayers, even when said at home, in the morning, afternoon, or evening, are aptly con­ cluded without expressing the idea of looking forward to that great dawn,

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when all men shall gather around G-d, to whose dominion all of them shall willingly submit in united allegiance, “on the day when they shall acknowl­ edge that He is one and the same G-d for all.” In public worship, however, that is to say wherever ten Jews join in prayer, special expression is given to this thought at the end of each sub­ division of the service, in the Kaddishprayer, that G-d’s Kingdom may come “in your lives and in your days.” Pub­ lic lectures on Torah and Talmud are likewise not concluded without the re­ minder, by the Kaddish-prayer, of Is­ rael’s call to act as priests of mankind, which constitutes the very purpose of the study of the Torah. And at the de­ parture of the Israelite, his friends, as this thought at the end of each subtheir last mark of affection, at the side of the grave, unite in the same prayer with the same purpose in their minds.

Thus the son, during the year of mourn­ ing and on the anniversary of a parent’s death, marks the remembrance of the mission received by his people, and in his desire to honour and bless his parent’s memory, steps forward and recites in front of the community this same prayer of Kaddish.

UR SAGES have stated with great emphasis: “Whether Jew or Gen­ tile, the Divine Glory rests upon a man in accordance with his own deeds.” In fact, the attitude of Judaism to all other religious denominations and to all hu­ man searchings for knowledge in gen­ eral is quite different from that of all other religions. ¡It is perhaps the only religion which does not say, extra me nulla salus, which gladly welcomes every advance in enlightenment and virtue wherever, and through whatever medium, it may be produced. The Jew is bidden to look forward to this con­ tinuous intellectual and moral improve-

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ment of mankind, and its ever wider diffusion, by his own literature which prophetically illumines the course of history. Judaism is perhaps the only religion, the adherents of which are taught to see a revelation of the Divine in the presence of a man who is dis­ tinguished for knowledge and wisdom no matter to what nation or religion he belongs, and to greet the sight with a blessing to G-d “Who hath bestowed of His wisdom on mortals.” The late Chief Rabbi of Palestine, Abraham Isaac Kook, once expressed himself: “It is not the purpose of the enlightenment that derives from Israel to absorb or destroy the other religions . . . but to stimulate them toward perfection and higher development . . . This applies particularly to those religions whose foundations rest in part of the light of Israel’s Torah.” (Igoroth, ed. Jerusa­ lem 1923, p. 18).

Judaism is in reality a world historic institution. The soil of its origin lies in the development of mankind, and the ultimate goal of all mankind is also its own goal. It is only the truths which Israel was destined to contribute to the thought-symposium of mankind, which has made possible thé very conception of a universal history.

The doctrine of the election of Israel has an abiding validity. Of course, we cannot expect as yet that the nations of the world recognize this election of Israel. The non-*Jewish agnostic who interprets the history of our people in merely naturalistic terms, will of course, not accept the doctrine of Israel’s elec­ tion, even though he may recognise the greatness of Israel’s contribution to civilization. And as for the believing Christian, he is influenced by the Chris­ tian dogma that the Church has taken over the role which G-d once bestowed upon Israel. Strangely enough, it is only the Jew-haters who have involuntarily April, 1960

recognised the principle of Israel’s elec­ tion—hence the diabolic fanaticism of their struggle. In their intuitive aware­ ness, they feel that in the revolt against a universal G-d, with an implied uni­ versal moral code, they must strike at Israel as the carrier of that idea.

HERE IS an important difference between anti-Judaism and Anti­ semitism. Anti-Judaism, which belongs to the Middle Ages, appears to be on the wane. Thanks to the work of en­ lightened Christian theologians like R. Travers Herford and James Parkes, in our own days, it is more and more rec­ ognised by Christians that the advent of Christianity has not made the con­ tinuation of Judaism obsolete. Whereas until fifty years ago non-Jews spoke of “the Christian inheritance of European civilization,” the vogue today is to cife the “Judeo-Christian heritage.” Th£ same idea is being propagated by the historian Arnold Toynbee, when he says: “Twice by now, Gentiles have run away with the Jewish vision of G-d and have embodied it in two successive deviationist Judaic religions, Christian­ ity and Islam. Is not the Jews’ own mis­ sionary work overdue?” (Jewish Chron­ icle, Oct. 2nd, 1959). I fully agree with this sentiment of Toynbee’s as long as he recognises — what so far he is not yet prepared to do — that Israel’s en­ durance and continued identity is nec­ essary for the ultimate salvation of mankind, however much suffering it implies for the Jews. The purpose of history will not be accomplished by Israel being forced into absorption by the masses of the nations, but by the reverse process, namely by the nations at last recognizing that it is just in the principles which have been long repre­ sented and held aloft by the House of Israel in the midst of its struggle for existence, that their own happiness and security also rest.

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OWEVER important it may be to explain the true meaning of the doctrine of Israel’s election to -the Gen­ tile world, it is even more important, especially in our own days, to enlighten our Jewish youth about the sublime destiny of the House of Israel in the history of man. For our youth, the last few weeks must have been very per­ turbing indeed. -How will our young generation react to the unexpected re­ surgence of Antisemitism? There is the great danger that being a Jew might mean to them merely a cruel fate of belonging inextricably and enexplicably to an eternally persecuted race. This feeling, if only taken in its negative aspect, without the positive element concerning the greatness of the Jewish task and destiny in the history of man, may easily lead to despair and under­ mine their will to live as Jews. Therein lies, in my opinion, the greatest danger of the recrudescent Antisemitism for our own future.

One thing is certain in my mind: we must accept the challenge of Anti­ semitism from a higher point of view —that of our religious destiny. For it is only the religious idea, the declaring of G-d as in the Centre of all reality, which gives meaning to our survival.

The only dignified reaction — apart from watchfulness and defense where and when necessary and possible — is a rededication of our young generation to the glorious task of Israel to testify to G-d and the spiritual values in life.

Such a re-dedication implies not only loyalty to the Torah -as our priceless spiritual treasure, but an active partici­ pation in all activities that work for peace, equality, and harmony among men, in all movements, inside and out­ side Jewry, whose aim it is to secure the moral principle as the supreme law of life.

Our youth must be taught that for

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the Jew to be religious means to con­ ceive of all human activities as falling within one scheme whose character is determined by the spiritual destiny of mankind. In other words, they must be given a sense of vocation and aware­ ness of Jewish destiny. Then they will know the true meaning of Jew-hatred and the suffering and hardship which it may spell. Jewish history will teach them that the Jew has always been, and will always remain, the barometer of civilization, and the seismograph which faithfully registers the world’s moral health. This is our sublime des­ tiny which we must joyfully accept or dissolve among the nations. There is no other course.

E JEWS must show in our days, as we have always done, a cou­ rageous humanism, founded on our re­ ligious historic task. We are committed to this task as well as to the vision of man’s boundless potential for good, in spite of everything. We are, as our Sages expressed it, issurey tikvah, “prisoners of hope.” Ours is not a super­ ficial optimism for which, G-d knows, we of all people have no reason. Our optimism is rather the inescapable con­ sequence of our fundamental concep­ tion of the dignity of the human soul as created in the image of G-d, of the one-ness of all humanity, which flows from the one-ness of G-d, and of the moral freedom and capability of man to do that which is good. We are once and for all committed to a universal moral human service. In the Torah, we hold a trusteeship for the whole of mankind. The G-d of Israel, Who en­ trusted us with our task, will preserve us.

Trust in the Lord; Be strong and let thine heart take courage; Yea, trust thou in the Lord.

(Psalm 27:14)

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Towards Economic Independence

By I. HALEVY-LEVIN

Je r u sa l e m

IX YEARS from today, in 1966, Germany will have paid its last Restitution installment — forty-five million dollars — to Israel. In that year Personal Compensation Payments to Israeli citizens — which last year brought in foreign currency to an amount of sixty-five million dollars— will shrink to ten million. In other words, in the immediate, foreseeable future Israel must reckon with a drop of well over one liundred million dol­ lars annually in its foreign currency revenue on account of these two items alone. Actually, however, the shortfall must be expected to be much larger.

In 1958/1959, the last fiscal year for which final figures are available, of a total foreign currency income of $608 million, little more than one-third came from exports, shipping, tourism, etc.

Investment — including Development Bonds —- and personal transfers of funds accounted for ninety million, but no less than $278 million came from unrequited capital imports j i | Restitu­ tion and Personal Compensation Pay­ ments, American grants-in-aid and foods surpluses, United Jewish Appeal contributions and gifts — which sooner or later must dry up or decline dras­ tically.

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In the past twelve years economic disaster in Israel has been staved off by a series of miracles. The first was was the $130 million loan granted by the Export Import Bank, immediately after the founding of the State when Israel was—literally—fighting for its life. It was followed in quick succes­ sion by the defreezing of the not-inconsiderable Palestine sterling balances, general American grants in money and kind, and the German Restitution and Personal Compensation agreements.

The most astounding miracle of all, of course, was the uninterrupted flow of aid, on an unprecedented scale, from Jews outside Israel—mainly in Amer­ ica—through the United Israel Ap­ peal, the Bond drives, commercial (and sub-commercial) investments, and out­ right gifts.

UT the day of miracles is past. For­ tunately that is generally rec­ ognized here and Israel must begin to pay its own way. Not only is the end of the Restitution and Personal Com­ pensation payments already in sight.

The haggling that has preceded new American grants, the interminable and inconclusive negotiations over Israel’s application for a seventy-five million dollar development loan from the World Bank, show the shape of things

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to come. Even Jewish aid to Israel, in its present volume, cannot go on forever.

The economic independence which Israel is aiming at has been realistically defined by Levi Eshkol, Minister of Finance. It implies maintenance of the present standard of living by current earnings, that is by the export of goods and services, and a level of saving to finance investment and amortization sufficient for the economic absorption of the country’s natural increase. De­ fense and the absorption of new immi­ grants are commitments in which the Jews abroad will be expected to share.

The expansion of the national economy must be financed by investment on normal commercial lines — liberally aided by Government loans, tax exemp­ tions, etc. m iw hile any improvement in the standard of living must be set off by higher productivity.

One immediate result of this spirit of economic realism has been a new approach to the complex of wages, prices, and inflation, from which Israel has suffered for many years. Through­ out Israel’s first decade (in fact the system goes back to the abnormal con­ ditions of the Second World W ar), wages were linked to price levels by a Cost-of-Living Index that developed into an economic seismograph, regis­ tering not only the spiraling prices of an inflationary economy, but even the sharp seasonal fluctuations induced by high-priced, hard-to-get fruits and veg­ etables. The inherent difficulties of an economy forced to support hundreds of thousands of new immigrants, whose productive integration was necessarily a very gradual process, were com­ pounded by the keen rivalry between the Histadruth parties — Mapai, Achduth H a’avodah and Mapam — for the favor of the workers, and apprenhensions regarding the reaction of the lat­ 58

ter if they should be required to make the first contribution towards breaking the vicious circle of rising wages and prices. It called for no small degree of political courage on the part of Mapai, as the dominant party in both the Gov­ ernment coalition and the Histadruth, to try and weaken the nexus between wages and prices by the devious meth­ od of reforming the Cost-of-Living In­ dex. Today the Index is reviewed only once in six months instead of once in three, while out-of-season fruit and vegetables (of which the ordinary housewife buys very little in any case) have been excluded from the hypo­ thetical food basket upon which the Index is based. Most important of all, wage hikes have ceased to be auto­ matic and come into effect only when the rise in the Cost-of-Living Index goes beyond a given percentage.

ODEST though they are, these M reforms have paid off handsome­ ly— as indeed everyone with a particle of economic sense foretold they would.

1959 was an election year, when tradi­ tionally politicians discard much of their political and economic responsi­ bility, but it was the most stable year, economically, in Israel’s brief history.

Prices rose by no more than an aver­ age of 31 per cent. Industrialists and businessmen with an eye to exports found that they could plan further ahead without making provision for unforeseen wage rises, which would price them out of the markets. And though the confidence of the Israeliin-the-street — who has little of that thrift characteristic of Jews the world over — has not yet been fully restored, there is little doubt that if economic and monetary stability continues he Will begin to save (and invest) more and spend less.

The reform of Israel’s agriculture, JEWISH LIFE

Fishing plays an important role in the consumer economy.

Here, a small boat on Lake Kinnereth.

which is proceeding by fits and starts, is inspired by the same spirit of realism.

Mixed farming, based upon dairying, poultry-breeding, and vegetable-grow­ ing, which together with citriculture, constituted the bulk of Israel’s agricul­ ture down to 1948— and even later— made political and economic sense un­ der the Mandatory regime. The best that could be expected from the British administration was a policy of non­ interference in Zionist efforts to create a Jewish farming class. The production of milk, eggs, and vegetables could, more or less, rely upon the urban Jew­ ish market even if their prices were higher than local Arab or imported (from the neighboring countries) pro­ duce. Anything more ambitious, call­ ing for Government encouragement, could not even be contemplated. Need­ April, 1960

less to say, cases of official obstruction were also not lacking, as for example Jewish efforts to develop a sugar-re­ fining industry based upon home-grown beet (today one of the more promising projects of current agricultural develop­ ment plans).

The expansion of mixed farming continued after 1948, partly because of official—this time Israeli—inertia.

But before many years were out the new farmers began to send more pro­ duce to the towns. Recurrent gluts were followed by substantial subsidies to pre­ vent the flight of the new settlers to the towns. Soon it transpired that all the cultivable land—just less than a million acres—was under the plough and all the irrigable land for which there was water, irrigated. Further in­ tensification of agriculture must wait 59

Part of the potash works on the Dead Sea at S'dom, providing a raw material export product.

until the water of the Jordan River reaches the Negev. Thus an entirely new situation emerged. Land and water had become the limiting factors of Israel’s agricultural development.

HERE WAS a time when Eretz Israel was regarded as a waste­ land. Anything that could be made to grow was an achievement. Costs of production, markets, prices, were sec­ ondary considerations. Today we know better. Israel is not a desert, it is a country suffering from age-long ne­ glect, and though rainfall is sometimes erratic, the climate is a good one. For some things— citrus, for example— conditions are ideal. Its geographical location, close to the European mar­

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kets, is also favorable. These are some of the factors in the minds of Israel’s planners.

Israel is notoriously poor in raw ma­ terials, but it has been discovered— rather late in the day—that certain industrial crops grow well here. For example, cotton, commercial cultiva­ tion of which began only six or seven years ago. Yields are high, quality is good, and costs of production, taking into account the inexperience of many of Israel’s farmers and the fact that it is a comparatively new crop, not ex­ cessive. The same applies to sugarbeet, ground-nuts, various oil seeds, agava (from which sisal fibre for ropemaking is produced), etc. All these crops replace imports and to a certain JEWISH LIFE

extent, in the form of manufactured goods, textiles, sweets, edible oils, ropes, can even be exported. Dairying, on the other hand, the experts empha­ size, is based too much on imported feeding stuffs and in any case milk is being over-produced. Wherever possi­ ble industrial crops must replace fodder and uneconomical dairies must be li­ quidated. Poultry breeding, too, was being regarded with a jaundiced eye— though it had one factor in its favor: it constituted an excellent occupation, requiring small investment, for new immigrants unversed in agriculture; until less than two years ago it suc­ ceeded in penetrating info European markets, and earning some of the for­ eign currency to pay for imported feed.

Proximity to Europe is another fac­ tor the planners want to exploit. Moshe Dayan’s tomato scheme is a good case in point. Israeli housewives like the large Marimond tomato, but in Eu­ rope they prefer the smaller Money­ maker. The Israelis must get used to the Moneymaker, Mr. Dayan has de­ creed. If Israeli truck-farmers concen­ trate upon one variety, the Money­ maker, the best produce can be sent to Europe and the culls consumed lo­ cally—as is the case with citrus.

HOUGH there are more ambi­ tious plans for the development of Israel’s industry— agriculture’s absorp­ tive capacity is almost fully exploited— no important shifts in the present structure of production are contem-

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Experimental agricultural station at Beer Orah, deep in the Negev.

April, 1960

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plated at present. What is required of it mainly is that it should emerge from the hothouse conditions in which it has developed since 1948—there is little competition in Israel’s domestic mar­ ket—raise output and quality, and low­ er costs to compete effectively in the world’s markets. Industrial develop­ ment is being linked to some extent to agricultural development and also in some degree with plans for wider distribution of the country’s popula­ tion. The re-organization of agricul­ ture will be on a regional basis, in the center of each district being a country town, which in addition to supplying various economic, social, cultural and other services, will have cotton gins, oil presses, sugar refineries, canneries, and factories, to process new materials produced on the farms in the neigh­ borhood.

Generally speaking, however, the view is gaining that Israel’s economy is hardly strong enough to sustain a major shift in the expansion of exist­ ing enterprises, establishment of new ones (those set up in new areas will be given liberal loans and other fa­ cilities), and the development of the thousands of little workshops into larger, more economical units.

T IS still too early to established whether 1959 was indeed a turning point in Israel’s march toward eco­ nomic independence, as Pinchas Sapir, Minister of Trade and Industry, claims.

Certainly the progress registered was definite and substantial. Exports of goods, shipping, tourism and other serv­ ices rose from $237 million in 1958 to $295 million, that is by 24 per cent.

In the same period, however, imports rose by no more than four per cent.

In 1958 exports paid for 42 per cent of Israel’s imports. In 1959 the figure was 50 per cent, while the adverse bal­

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ance of trade dropped by $35 million.

Israel’s total output (Gross National Product) rose by 11-12 per cent; agri­ cultural production by 16 per cent, and industrial production by 14 per cent.

Real personal income increased by 11 per cent. Unemployment reached the lowest figure recorded since the estab­ lishment of the State. The only nega­ tive feature indeed was the fact that most of the higher income went into consumption and that so little was saved. Long years of inflation, it is clear, have induced a spending psy­ chosis which it may take some time to cure. Export figures for the first quar­ ter of the current year indicate that the upward trend—notwithstanding keener competition in Israel’s main markets and the Arab boycott—which began in 1959 is continuing unabated. Tour­ ism, an increasingly important item in the national economy, is expanding, with 83,000 visitors—more than even in the Tenth Anniversary year—com­ ing to Israel in 1959.

Mr. Eshkol has forecast that in the current year exports will rise by an­ other fifty to sixty million dollars, but this year no appreciable dent will be made in the adverse balance of trade, as imports, mainly of investment goods, will increase in roughly the same amount. Output, it is foreseen, will also continue to expand, though not in the same degree as last year, while the economy is expected to absorb another 25,000 workers.

Mr. Sapir has outlined the immedi­ ate objectives of industry in a Four Year Plan.

HE PLAN is based upon the as­ sumption that in the 1960-1963 years 140,000 immigrants will come to Israel. (In other words no major in­ flux from either North Africa or East­ ern Europe is expected.) In these four

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years the investment of IL. 1,200 mil­ lion is expected to raise industrial out­ put from IL. 1,900 million to IL. 3,000 million and to provide employment for another forty to fifty thousand work­ ers. Exports of goods must be doubled to $350 million, while the target for

invisible exports—shipping, tourism, etc., has been set at $240 million ($115 million last year). The adverse trade balance, accordingly, will be reduced by $100 million, to $200 million—not yet economic independence, but that much nearer.

THE SECOND SON The R osha. . . must never be treated with disdain or enmity. We must approach him with understanding and sympathy. "Blunt his teeth/' the Hagodah tells us. Argue with him, debate with him, teach him, educate him. Show him that his scale of values is completely distorted, that the argument from convenience is unworthy of an intelligent person. Dull the sharpness of his complaint by demonstrating the valuelessness of his prejudices. Teach him that questions about Judaism can be meaningfully answered only when they are asked with the reverence of an "insider," and not with the flippancy of an "outsider" to the Tradition . . .

Perhaps all we have said can best be summarized in the answer given by the Ba'al Shem Tov. . . A man whose son had stopped observing mitzvoth and deserted the ways of his father came to the Rabbi with tears in his eyes to complain of his bitter lot. With choked voice he asked, "Rabbi, I have done everything in my power to keep him righteous and observant.

What more can I do now?"

The Ba'al Shem answered in three words—three words that deserve to become the foundation of Orthodoxy's philosophy and orientation in the modern world. He answered, "Love him more."

That is the key to the problem of the Second Son. —Rabbi Norman Lamm

April, 1960

63

Membership Meeting

By MICHAEL ROSENAK

UITE by chance, I attended the annual membership meeting of a synagogue this past week. Strictly speaking, I am not a member of this particular congregation and, as a mat­ ter of fact, had no notion that I was going to a meeting when I went. No invitations, stenciled, printed, or pub­ lished, preceded the meeting; no posters proclaimed its approach. Nor, in nearing the synagogue that day, was I drawn by the spectacle of hectic preparations or by the scent of ap­ petizing refreshments. In fact, my only contribution to the circum­ stances of my presence was . . . that I went to shool. Not so unusual or out-of-the-way, considering that it was Shabboth morning.

Be it stated without evasion that nothing particularly world-shaking or even distinguished took place. No sol­ utions to the Jewish problem were sought or found. But, if undistin­ guished, the gathering I witnessed was not insignificant, not to participants, nor, perhaps, to some future cultural historian who may wish to take a rest from the deluge of superlatives which characterize our times; who may wish to retreat, for a refreshing moment into the petty particulars of Jewish life in a small town in Israel.

And in Pardes Hanna, the over­ sized village in which our meeting is

Q

64

staged, there are no superlatives. One might say that superlatives are in bad taste. The thirty minyonim in the moshavah are as unpretentious as all acceptable public institutions, those of the Histadruth not excluded, strive to be. In my minyon, between forty and fifty men and boys daven Friday night and Shabboth morning. And that is really all they come to do. The minyon has no social activities, no Onegey Shabboth, no Golden Age Club, and no Jewish Kindergarten.

For those and other activities, there are one’s friends, the political party, the Government. And, in fact, this minyon is housed in the building of a certain religious party, the party to which most of the worshippers pay dues.

N on-card-carrying sympathizers, like myself, can choose to go to this or another minyon for any individual reason whatsoever. I like this one. I walk out of the house, turn right into a sandy lane, walk for three minutes past orange groves with a fine back­ ground view of Mount Carmel, turn right again, and I’m there. The serv­ ice begins at eight and is over by ten.

The people come mainly to pray, though the long wooden tables are not inconducive to such venial sins as occasional conversation. And there is even a little bit of community singJEWISH LIFE

ing which, in the main shool, is con­ sidered a particularly venomous form of modernism. Naturally there are drawbacks . . .

UT I must continue. The annual membership meeting. The first evidence of things to come . . . the Gabbay runs into the adjoining kit­ chen just as our Baal Musaf, a Ru­ manian newcomer, is racing through the details of the Sabbath offering. He returns quickly with ordinary, almost clean water glasses, and is back at his “seat” in time for the Priestly Bless­ ing. After Oleynu, he comes up with several bottles of cheap cognac, a few cookies, and a bottle of red wine. Sev­ eral men, unimpressed and unenticed, head for the door. The Gabbay bangs on the table, pleading with them to re­ member that “this is the week of our Kiddush and meeting. Please sit down.”

A few hardy souls maintain their home­ ward direction; the rest take seats, par­ take of the cognac after the usual Sab­ batical preliminaries, munch cookies, and rub their hands together. (We have no central heating.)

The Gabbay welcomes all and an­ nounces that the meeting is in ses­ sion. First he will speak of the bud­ get. Naturally, it being Shabboth, he will mention only general matters, but the chaverim are kindly requested to study the income and outgo, which are detailed on a slip of paper on the bulletin board. A little over four hun­ dred pounds have come into the bank account; only three hundred and sev­ enty-three have gone out. (A rustle of smiles.) But, let no member think that there is really a surplus. The opposite is the case. The money is as good as spent. The synagogue needs benches and tables. Many benches have to be repaired. And this is a good opportunity to thank Chaver

B

April, 1960

Zechariah, who gives of his time one afternoon a week, to care for the needs of the congregation.

Our Gabbay, Shabboth or no, spares no effort and forgets no detail in praise of Zechariah, our sole Ye­ menite. Zechariah has persuaded his cousin in Hadera to donate a very re­ spectable bookcase to the shool; when something has to be fixed, it is Ze­ chariah who runs to the center of the village, bargains with the wagondrivers, loads the wagons with ben­ ches and chairs, coaxes the carpenters to work quickly and get the benches back to the shool before the follow­ ing Shabboth. Zechariah, in short, is the mainstay of the minyon. But benches cannot be repaired everlast­ ingly. We need . . .

“Wait a minute.” The elder states­ man of the gathering, a balding gen­ tleman of sixty, raises an exasperated hand. He has, his gestures make clear, gotten the drift of the remarks. He and his fellows are being asked to dig deeper into their temporarily empty pockets.

M T N the Gemorah,” he begins 1 rather pompously, “we learn that Rabban Gamliel, while he was president of the academy at Yavne, allowed into the House of Study only those who came to hear and to learn Torah. Those whose outer appear­ ance matched their true and inner character. But when Rabban Gamliel was deposed, the doors were opened to all.” (At this point, two fathers stuff two cookies into two open and articulate mouths.) “And, says the Gemorah, four hundred benches had to be added to the House of Study.

Why does the Gemorah tell us how many benches and not how many new students came? Because,” the speaker’s voice rises in triumph, “be65

cause the newcomers came only to posal, there simply aren’t enough be seen. They needed comfort. They books around. Why don’t the chave­ needed benches. A person who comes rim contribute books? There aren’t to learn needs his head and his feet, even enough for the weekly shiur.

Mention of the shiur brings Pinnot benches. Now I ask:” He looks in all directions to see whether every­ chas almost to his feet. The chaverim one is following him, “Why so many seem determined to sleep away the benches in our shool and so few peo­ precious Shabbath morning hours, in­ ple? All around us we see benches, stead of coming to the Mishnah shiur at 7:30 A.M. Do they want the benches, and where are the Jews?”

The second Gabbay is ready. Hav­ voice of the Torah to be completely ing displayed his remarkable memory drowned out by the blare of secular throughout the year in summoning loudspeakers? Why don’t they come? the chaverim to the Torah by their Pinchas is right. No question about multiple names, he now reveals his that. Needless to say, no one wants Talmudic acumen. “If there is no or likes secular loudspeakers but un­ bread, there is no Torah.” In other fortunately everyone likes to sleep words, let the people come to be seen, late. And if only Pinchas would pre­ but let them come. Do we detect a pare his shiur properly more would note of disharmony? No, it is only come, but it’s impossible to tell him the almost empty cognac bottle being that. It would embarrass him. Next passed to another table. Both speak­ week, we shall definitely make the ers are right, of course, but let the effort to come. meeting proceed. “Yaakov, please A heated discussion follows on the don’t talk out of turn.” Yaakov has subject of nusach. Every year, differ­ asked Shimon whether the cookie ent piyutim fill out the High Holy plate next to him is completely empty Days services; every week a different or not. (Yaakov’s little boy is being version of the Kedushah is heard, a little difficult.) either the Askenazic beginning with The budget has been disposed of. “Naaritzcha,” or the Chasidic begin­ Naturally all are in favor of large ning with “Kether.” The situation is contributions and better benches, but intolerable and must be changed. today is Shabboth and the carpenter, HE LAST of the cognac having almost dozing at our left, is in no been consumed, the discussion condition to build benches at the mo­ enjoys almost undivided attention. It ment in any case.

HE floor is given to a teacher of is also the first of the day that rouses Hebrew in the elementary school. real allegiances and basic issues.

Why, he asks, is the new bookcase Sh’muel, who came to Pardes Hanna not kept in proper order? All the via hachsharah and kibbutz, now books (such as there are) are thrown owns one of the local bookstores. He together; holy and profane, Torah is something of an intellectual and and (Vhavdil) trivialities. A bookcase has the proper perspective to point in a shool should be devoted to out that as long as there is no “nuTorah. All agree. Zechariah makes a • sach Eretz Yisroel,” it is impossible to mental note of it. Of course, adds the arbitrarily designate one liturgy as the teacher, perhaps muffed at the indif­ correct one. We must manage. After ferent reception tendered his pro­ all, everyone comes from somewhere

T

T

66

JEWISH LIFE

else, and everyone must pray accord­ ing to his tradition.

“And is it educational if my son hears one Kedushah one Shabboth and another one the following Shab­ both?” Boruch, a chicken farmer with progressive views who is suspected of voting for Mapai, joins in. “Is the synagogue, the cultural center of Jewry in all generations, the place to sow disunity? Can we betray our charge to create a united nation?”

“What do you suggest, Baruch, that we all say ‘Naaritzcha’?”

“Not I,” contributes the elder statesman. “My father said ‘Kether’ and I say ‘Kether’.”

The younger boys are stifling gig­ gles, and those younger still are de­ manding cookies. Some call for quiet, thereby adding to the general anima­ tion. The gabboim try to control the discussion. Finally, Jews being sensi­ ble people, a decision is reached. The reader must lead the congregation, not as he wishes, but as the congre­ gation demands. And, since the con­ gregation is divided in this matter, the baal iefillah shall pray according to the liturgy of those who think as he does.

The inevitable reminder that there are still some outstanding pledges, and it remains only to elect new gab­ boim. Nominations are in order. The gardener raises a hand. “With such a favorable budget report, and consider­

April, 1960

ing that the gabboim always come to the shiur on Shabboth morning, I think that they should stay on for another year.”

The gabboim smile. The men get up. The meeting is over.

OBODY has asked why there is no place in the synagogue for women to pray, or why the Torah reading is usually so badly prepared, or why the minyon starts so late on Friday evenings. But never mind. It is Shabboth and the cholent will burn.

And just what can be suggested?

To stand on the heads of the men who read the Torah, the truck-driver and the barber? Both of them are tired at night and can’t be expected to prepare the reading after working since early morning. And women don’t come to shool on Shabboth in any case. There are babies, and the codes which say in no uncertain terms that women are not obligated to come.

So why all the fuss?

A short stroll up the sandy lane past orange groves, with the Carmel range at my back. A left turn and I’m home, almost an hour later than usual.

“Didn’t you go to the—minyon to­ day?” my wife asks. “It’s almost eleven.”

“Oh yes, but they had a member­ ship meeting. I have to tell you about it.”

But first we make Kiddush.

N

67

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68

JEWISH LIFE

From Shivery to Freedom T he Rabbi said to him : We believe in the G-d of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who led the children of Israel out of E gypt w ith signs, wonders, and deeds . . . In this way did Moses open his words to the m ultitudes of Israel, “I am the Lord, thy G-d, who has brought thee out of the land of E g y p t. . . ” and he did not say, “I am the Creator of the universe, your C reator” ; and so, also, have I answered you when you asked me about my faith. I told you w hat I am obliged to believe, and w hat the whole Jew ish community is obliged to believe, because they were convinced of th a t revelation by th eir immediate observation and, later on, by unbroken tradition which is ju st like visual experience.

Rabbi Y ehudah H alevi You should note th a t the remembrance of the redemption from E gypt teaches us to look forw ard to the redemption to com e; as the Prophet declares, “Like in the days of thy com­ ing out of the land of Egypt will I show unto it m arvels.” And it said, “Behold I redeem you in the end as a t the beginning,” to indicate th a t the two redemptions are connected one with the o th e r . . . So th a t the Sages explained G-d’s statem ent to Moses, “I shall be th a t I shall be,” to mean th a t G-d would be w ith the Jew ish people in th eir sufferings then as well as in th eir later sufferings among the nations . . . Therefore, the Sages ordained th a t we perform the statutes of Pesach with joyful haste, to point out the forthcoming redem ption; and therefore, too, the blessing over the redemption which en d s: “May the Lord, our G-d, let us attain to other festivals . . . rejoicing over the rebuilding of Thy city, and gladdened by Thy service.”

Rabbi I saac A barbanel E very man ' s heart is molded by his d eed s. . . Once you understand th a t you will no longer be surprised by the m ulti­ tude of commandments in memory of the exodus which is a cornerstone of the Torah . . . Even if a man is all by himself, he has to retell the story so th a t his h eart be stirred u p -f o r the word affects the heart. Similarly, we add to all our prayers and blessings the phrase, “in memory of the exodus from E gypt,” for this event is symbol and proof th a t there is an eternal and omnipotent G-d who rules our world . . .

Sefer H achinuch April, 1960

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JEWISH LIFE

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A Testimony To Faith

By ISRAEL KLAVAN

THE SANCTITY OF THE SYNA­ GOGUE, Edited by Baruch Litvin; Traditional Educational Association, $5.00.

T IS a fact that in recent years orthodox Jewry upon the American scene has achieved a new status. That status is readily obvious and is due in large part to the fact that Orthodoxy and its adherents have gained a re­ newed sense of security and with it a readiness to articulate their position, to speak up for their rights, and de­ fend their ancient heritage with pride, dignity, tenacity and, where necessary, even militantly.

Nowhere is this new vigor of Ortho­ doxy more obvious than in the story of Baruch Litvin’s struggle to restore the sanctity of the Synagogue in his community of Mount Clemens, Mich­ igan.

Obviously, Mr. Litvin’s struggle must be viewed in the perspective of its significance to the total American Jewish community rather than as an isolated case in a small town. Simi­ larly, the use of the term “sanctity of the synagogue” with special reference

I

RABBI ISRAEL KLAVAN is executive vice-presi­ dent of the Rabbinical Council of America.

April, 1960

to the separation of the sexes in the synagogue during worship must not be taken to mean that this represents the total aspect of synagogue sanctity. It is a*phenomenon peculiar to the Amer­ ican Jewish scene that the seating arrangement in a synagogue has come to be the distinguishing mark between Orthodoxy and those who have strayed.

Some will regret that this should be so, others, like Mr. Litvin, will recognize that this is merely a challenge which has been thrown down to the orthodox Jewish community, a challenge which must be met in every way and even head-on, as Mr. Litvin has done.

Every volume reveals something about its author and while this parti­ cular volume represents basically a collection Mr. Litvin has made, it does reveal considerable of the nature of the man, his character, and his tenacious dedication to a cause. When Baruch Litvin was faced with the problem of establishing his case in a court of law, he found it rather difficult to gather the Halachic sources. This was not be­ cause the Halochah was unclear on the subject, but rather that the question was a comparatively new one in Jewish life and the early Halachic sources had not found it necessary to specify and 71

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JEWISH LIFE

BARUCH LITVIN

spell out the details of this question. He turned to many of the scholars of our generation for guidance and it is their responsa which form the backbone of this volume. His victory in the Mount Clemens case was indeed a precedent­ setting one and as he says in his fore­ word, the purpose of this volume is to gather the literature on the subject and thus make it available to the Jewish community.

ASICALLY the volume can be di­ vided into several parts. The most important is represented by the Halachic section in which are set forth statements and Halachic responsa by the outstanding scholars of our gener­ ation, and of the immediate past one.

Among those, the most clearly defined are those by Eabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Rabbi Aaron Kotler, Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, and Dr. Samuel Belkin. Mr. Litvin has also included in this volume the legal case, embodied briefs—in­ cluding the decisively important brief amici curiae prepared by Samuel L.

B

April, 1960

Brennglass in behalf of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America and the Rabbinical Council of America—and the decisions rendered in the Mount Clemens and New Orleans cases. He has not, however, limited himself to these two themes. He has also added some background material and apologetics which explain the theory and the philosophy of the ortho­ dox Jewish community towards the sanctity of the Synagogue and with respect to Halochah in general.

The book includes several essays which define the position of the woman in J ewish life and the philosophic rea­ sons for the separation of the sexes during worship. Noteworthy among these is an essay by Rabbi Norman Lamm, which appeared originally in “Tradition,” a journal of orthodox Jewish opinion published by the Rab­ binical Council of America. The reader will find particularly interesting the essays of Dr. Samson R. Weiss on Faith and Observance, and the one on the Religious Foundations of Jewish Law by Saul Bernstein, as well as edi­ torial articles on the issue taken from J e w i s h L i f e magazine. Similar inter­ est will be found in the essays of Solo­ mon Schechter, Nahida Rene, and Nina H. Adlerblum.

Mr. Litvin is to be commended and congratulated for the wonderful job he has done in gathering this material and for the method in which he has pre­ sented it. The editing of this volume is particularly impressive; the transla­ tion from the Hebrew is good, as is the technical format and the appearance of the volume. It is attractive and can take a prominent place in any library.

It is this reviewer’s feeling that this is a volume which will shortly become a classic and that everyone ought to secure a copy for himself.

73

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JEWISH LIFE

HERE ARE certain criticisms of a minor nature which this review­ er wishes to offer. Mr. Litvin should have put more of himself into the vol­ ume. He has confined himself to a brief introduction. He should have written, in a personal manner, the story of his struggle. That is a historic record which could have become in itself a source book for future historians. In this reviewer's opinion, it could have very well substituted for some of the additional material such as letters of congratulations, etc., by some who jumped on the bandwagon after the victory was complete. Too, some of the implications drawn from this struggle

T

are not entirely valid. The essays on the distinction between orthodox Juda­ ism and Conservatism, among which those of Rabbis Harold P. Smith and David B. Hollander are examples, are of interest. They do not necessarily reflect upon the struggle which took place. This reviewer questions whether the Mount Clemens case represents the struggle between Orthodoxy and Con­ servatism as much as it does an inner striving within Orthodoxy for under­ standing of its heritage, as well as a definition of the role and position which it must occupy as a community upon the American Jewish scene.

A Philosophy of Judaism

By MANUEL LADERMAN G-D, MAN AND HISTORY, by Eliezer Berkovits; 1959, Jonathan David Publishers, $3.95.

ROFESSOR Eliezer Berkovits of the Jewish University of America's Hebrew Theological College in Chicago has provided the thinking Jewish com­ munity with a stimulating study in the theology and history of Judaism.

Dr. Berkovits was formerly a rabbi in England and Australia, and published several good volumes of sermons while in that capacity. He has now been brought to America by the Chicago Yeshiva to enlarge the intellectual horizons of its students, and, through

P

RABBI M ANUEL LADERM AN is spiritual leader of Congregation Hebrew Educational Alliance, Denver, Colorado.

April, 1960

his writing in various publications and in his books, to enlighten the entire American Jewish community.

This volume of some 200 pages deals critically with philosophy and its im­ pact on religious thinking. Disagreeing with the usual Jewish approach, which emphasizes the intellect, Dr. Berkovits has chosen rather to follow Yehudah Halevi, the “most J ewish of philosoph­ ers." This approach allows for a more emotional, a more exciting kind of re­ ligious philosophy.

It appears to me to provide a Jewish analogy to the current vogue of Karl Barth and Emil Brunner in Protestant circles, which in turn has certain an­ alogies with existentialism. The em­ phasis on intuition, on the religious experience, on will, is characteristic of 75

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76

JEWISH LIFE

much that is current in contemporary Revelation is not its content, the word religious philosophy. The author is of G-d, but the very possibility that bothered, as many have been, with the it should occur, the encounter itself. apparent disjunction between the very In studying the encounter, the auth­ cold Absolute and the negative Divine or raises two questions. One, is it pos­ Attributes as posited by Maimonides, sible; and two, is it reliable? Relying and the very warm feeling that a wor­ largely on Hume, he takes the position shipper requires if he is to address that necessarily the kind of experience: G-d as “Ovinu She’bashomayim.” which religion relates regarding Revel­ Berkovits tends to downgrade the ation cannot be subjected to the test so-called metaphysical “proofs” for the of experimentation which science uses. existence of G-d, and prefers to accept By definition the fact of Revelation is the living experience of “the encoun­ “essentially irrepeatable.” Hence there ter” with G-d which comes in the revel­ is nothing which a priori makes such ation at Sinai and of the prophetic an encounter impossible. insights of all the Neviim. Thereby he As to the credibility of the record bridges the great gulf between the transcendent G-d of the philosophers of the encounter, we must accept thej and the “gracious and merciful” G-d prophetic claim at its face value. He of our religious experience, “Can a quotes, among others, the intense ex­ man pray to a hypothesis?” is the chal­ pression of chapter 20 of Jeremiah, lenge which he discusses. He notes that verses 7 to 9, Then there is in my heart the Bible nowhere attempts to prove as it were a burning fire shut up in the existence of G-d, but begins im-: my bones. He deduces that “If words mediately with, In the beginning G-d like these do not describe a true event created the heaven and the earth. Simi­ and experience, all human search for larly the Ten Commandments do not truth is futile; for then the very idea begin with a discussion about G-d’s of truth is due to a mere hallucina­ existence, but an affirmation I am the tion.”

The encounter is only occasional.

Lord thy G-d who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house, G-d reveals Himself, and also hides Himself. He hides Himself, according of bondage. to the author, to give man a greater O Berkovits “the fountain of reli­ opportunity for fulfilling his own life gion is not the affirmation that: and potential in freedom. If G-d were G-d is, but that G-d is concerned withj to be constantly revealing Himself to man and the world.” How do we know! us, there would be not faith but a com­ that G-d cares? “By experiencing His pulsion to faith, which would deprive care and concern.” The foundation of religion of its greatest glory. religion is not an idea, but an event.

Sinai is an event in history, but also The Bible always speaks of commu­ a continuing experience which each one nication and relationship. “And G-d of us must discover for himself. “All said,” “and G-d spoke,” “and G-d ap­ faith is an act of Re-cognition,” mean­ peared.” His attributes are always re­ ing that it is an experience of knowing lational. This living sense of the en­ again what we have known in the past.1 counter with G-d is manifest through­ G-d, however, is removed and remote. out the Bible.

Quoting Zephaniah, chapter 3, verse The most impressive aspect of 17, He is silent in His love.

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April, 1960

77

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JEWISH LIFE

OUCHING upon the problem of science and religion, Dr. Berkovits takes the position that the religious idea of the Creation intends to tell us, not “how the world came to be, but what the world is.” Elsewhere he says, “Whatever evolution may ex­ plain, it does not explain the begin­ ning.” Similarly, “The leap from Noth­ ing to Something (creatio qx nihilo) is far greater than from Something to all the riches of the cosmos.” “To imagine that the evolutionary hypo­ thesis could render creation superflu­ ous is about as logical as to say, that since the invention of the telescope man is no longer in need of eyes.”

At this point one would like to offer the suggestion that the thought of G-d resting on the seventh day, therefore, is simply a reflection of G-d's. with­ drawal from the act of creation, and permitting the unfolding process of the actualization of His intention in the natural order.

Like every religious philosopher Dr. Berkovits deals with the problem of theodicy. How does one explain or jus­ tify or understand the fact of evil in a world created by a good G-d? Ad­ mitting that no one can fully answer this question, he proposes that since man is imperfect, there must be evil.

Not all evils are;without some justify­ ing virtue. Without evil there would be no recognition of goodness; without temptation, no sense of holiness; with­ out war, there would be no love of peace; without selfishness, there would be no ethics; without irrationality, no delight in rationality. “Imperfection as the source of the need of the world is the challenge for m an; as the source of freedom, it is man’s only opportu­ nity to meet the challenge.” G-d took a “ris” in Creation, but we believe that ultimately Creation cannot fail. At this point one would offer the thesis that

T

April, 1960

for us Jews the belief in the Messiah is the guarantee that ultimately Crea­ tion will be justified.

The possibility of progress, as he sees it, is also a reminder of the “dan­ ger of degradation.” This is a very healthy statement, in my judgment, because we have outgrown the 19th century feeling of the inevitability of progress.

Summing up, Berkovits calls his a “philosophy of critical optimism.” This is a good phrase, and involves in it much that all of us who are of orthodox conviction would accept as significant for our own thinking.

ART TWO of the book discusses “Encountering the World.” The Torah is “the avenue of contact beyond the point of encounter.” The Torah is of a ritual and an ethical nature, and the ritual, according to Berkovits, is not divested of ethical overtones. He feels that in the act of disciplining our­ selves through the ritual requirements we learn to meet the actualities that come in our social responsibilities. The! “Holy deeds,” the Mitzvoth, lead from “non-egocentric conditioning into deocentric behavior.” For Berkovits the phrase “Mitzvoth Maasiyoth” is a tautology, because he sees all Mitzvoth as involving deeds. A qualification is necessary at this point, since the con­ stant Mitzvoth of faith, the six that Maimonides speaks of, do not involve action at all.

Thus he sees the ritual command­ ments leading to ethics, though not exhausted in their ethical implications; but having significant religious mean­ ing. Similarly the social relationships which are primarily in the ethical! realm, also have a religious nature.

P art three is entitled “Deed and His-:, tory.” In it Dr. Berkovits takes up the question of the place of the Jewish

P

79

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nos ?© min FROM TWILIGHT TO DAWN, The Traditional Pessach Hagadah, Arranged by Rabbi Slomo Kahn.

A unique presentation of the Hagadah with com­ plete Hebrew text. English commentaries, text, guiding and explanatory notes printed separate­ ly for each Seder night. A helpful guide for the Seder Leader, a delight for the participants and a must for the housewife with its special in­ structive “Pessach Manual” for a kosher heme.

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JEWISH LIFE

people in the Divine scheme of things.

Tp carry out this great lesson of the encounter, a chosen people was neces­ sary, and we were given that high task. (The Halevi influence is most obvious in this section.)

One might say that in the nature of things Galuth was normal, since we were always challenging the resistance of the rest of the world to the great lesson of religious emphasis which the Torah had given us to carry out. “Jew­ ish history is inseparable from world history.” From the days of Abraham we knew that exile would be insep­ arable from loyalty to the “G-d-oriented course” of our destiny.

ERE again of course the problem of justifying G-d‘s ways becomes apparent. Why should we have suf­ fered as we have? Again the element of man’s freedom is involved. “One cannot frighten people into goodness.

In order to be good, man has to choose the good; but there is a choice only where there is freedom.” Another ex­ pression of this is in his words; “His­ tory is man’s responsibility.”

At this point the author introduces a very excellent discussion of the na­ ture of miracles. “In every miracle his­ tory is at a standstill. But the stuff of history is the deed of man.” How­ ever one explains the appearance of miracles, they are obviously & suspen­ sion of what should be the natural un­ folding of the processes by which G-d has given into man’s care the achieve­ ment of a social life which is the ful­ fillment of his highest challenges. “The miracle may be one of G-d’s ways to safeguard the intended ultimate out­

H

April, I960

come. Only the deed is according to plan; the miracle is a stop-gap . . . a sign of a serious breakdown in his­ tory.”

We believe of course, says Berkovits, that man has a rare gift in T’shuvah.

This is his manner of redeeming him­ self, It is also the way by which the world can redeem itself.

Ultimately it may be that we cannot carry out by our own efforts, by lifting ourselves by our bootstraps, to achieve all the goal of human history, and hence we shall require the Divine in­ tervention of a Messiah to achieve our social goals, and the resurrection of the dead to realize the promise “that alone justifies the travail of all times.”

Because G-d cares, “He is the pre­ server.” “Nothing worth preserving is ever so lost in history as not to be found again — be it even beyond history.

On this high note Berkovits con­ cludes this very stimulating and im­ portant study of Jewish theology.

HERE ARE some minor faults to be found in the inexactness of the editing. F ar too many words are mis­ printed, and there was carelessness in the proof-ieading.

This is of no great concern. The im­ portant thing is that we have here a very challenging discussion, which offers an intellectual stimulus to the orthodox Jew, that will rank with the great debate which is going on in re­ ligion generally. We welcome this effort

by Professor Berkovits, because it places our point of view on a level com­ mensurate with the grandeur of its subject and the glory of its past.

T

81

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JEWISH LIFE

Tanach For Today

By H U G O M A N D E L B A U M

CHAZON HAMIKRA, by Yissachar Jacobson; Sinai Publishing House, Tel Aviv.

its meaning is given in our life as in­ dividuals and as a people. Is the main concern of teaching the material con­ tent of Tanach which could make the HE reconstruction after the holo­ diligent student the winner and hero caust of World War II of the bod­ in a World Bible Quiz? Or does its ily home of our people is paralleled content have a reality which is meant by efforts to reconstruct also its spir­ to impress itself upon our way of life? itual home. The study of Torah has Is it a source book for the renaissance been renewed and intensified in this of our people modeled on the heroes country by the transplantation of fa­ of a people who in classical time lived mous European Yeshivoth and the a “natural” life upon their native soil movement to open Yeshivoth Ketanoth without having experienced the “de­ in all cities with a sizable Jewish pop­ cadent” influence of life in a Galuth? ulation. The “Book,” our Tanach, has Can its meaning be fathomed by a come again into the foreground of Jew­ secular approach which considers the ish education by being the core subject Bible the product of the literary genius in all schools in Israel, orthodox or of the Jewish people? Can it be reached otherwise. The study of Tanach which by the critical approach which tries to is somehow and for some reason rele­ penetrate to an “original” text by peel­ gated to a place of secondary impor­ ing away “accumulated” textual lay­ tance in the curriculum of our yeshi­ ers and cutting apart textual sequences voth, has become the number one sub­ until the pieces fit into a preconceived ject in all Israeli elementary schools. scheme? Can we penetrate to the ulti­ But at this point of equality in the mate meaning of the word while deny­ subject matter, the unity of education ing the Tanach its Divine origin and in these schools stops. negating thus the fact that its content In order to recognize the difference demands a responsibility of us beyond we have to focus our attention upon intellectual comprehension, aesthetic the manner in which the Bible is read, appreciation, and moral appraisal? how it is taught, and what function Can we comprehend the Tanach with­ out commitment to the Sinaitic Revela­ DR. HUGO M ANDELBAUM is associate profes­ tion, upon which it is based, and the sor of geology at Wayne State University, Detroit, Taryag Mitzvoth that are referred to Michigan.

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April, 1960

83

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JEWISH LIFE

and implied in its text? Can we hope to find a true meaning of the Tanach if we divorce it from Torah She-be’al Peh or neglect the Midrashic and Tal­ mudic references, and the interpreta­ tion taught by the rabbinic authorities of post-Biblical, medieval, and modern times?

E ARE not the '“ People of the Book,” as somebody called us, but we are the “People of G-d,” as the Torah calls us. Not the “Book” has formed the life of individuals and that of our people as a whole, but the sub­ mission to the will of G-d and His commandments as revealed to us in Torah She’bikthav, the Tanach—and Torah She-be’al Peh, the Oral Torah.

Without knowledge of Torah She-be’al Peh there is no access to the under­ standing of our Tanach. This is essen­ tially the reason why Tanach is rele­ gated to secondary place in the cur­ riculum of our yeshivoth. There is no way to the understanding of Tanach that does not pass through the gateway of Torah She-be’al Peh.

W

LL these points have to be pon­ dered in reviewing a rather uni­ que commentary on our Tanach which was completed last year by the pub­ lication of the second volume of Chazon Hamikra, by Yissachar Jacobson. Rab­ bi Jacobson is not a newcomer to the field of literature on the Tanach. His commentary on the Chumash, titled Binah Bemikta, was reviewed in this magazine some years ago ( J e w i s h L i f e , Dec. 1953). He has published workbooks for the teaching of Tanach on Nevi’im Rishonim, Job, etc., in which he encourages the student by ap­ propriate questions to find the mean­ ing of the verse by comparing parallel places in other books of the Bible, and by evaluating the interpretation given

A

April, 1960

by our great commentaries by a com­ parison of one with the other. Now the author, well known in Israel educa­ tional circles, presents us with a com­ mentary on “Nach,” using similar methods as those employed in Bina Bemikra.

The subtitle of the present publica­ tion reads: Topics in Tanach based upon discourses on the Haftoroth of the year. As this subtitle indicates, the books is not a running commentary on Tanach. It rather singles out a certain topic emphasized in the weekly portion of the Haftorah, portrays in 79 essays (the Haftoroth of special days are all included in the commentary) a compre­ hensive picture of the world of ideas of our Prophets, and the way in which they guide the individual and the people.

Each topic selected for discussion as highlighted by a particular Haftorah is developed completely by comparing parallel sources, by reviewing all com­ mentators that speak to this point, both classical and modern, and by drawing clear conclusions from such compari­ son. Thus a unified concept of what may be called Chazon Hamikra, the vision, the viewpoint, the directive power of the Bible becomes outstand­ ingly clear.

FTER a brief paragraph on the textual structure of the Haftorah and its content there follows in most cases a short discussion of the connec­ tion of this portion with the content of the Sidrah before the more detailed discussion of the main topic is under­ taken. These topics encompass a wide range of of subject matter of which only a few shall be cited here: the es­ sence of prophesy, the essence of holi­ ness, reward and punishment, exile and redemption, symbolism and miracles, prayers and dialogues within the pro-

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85

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JEWISH LIFE

phetic books, differences in personal­ ities and in the fate of the Prophets, the position of priests, women, friends, mothers in the Biblical literature, etc.

The method is unique. It cannot be used and is not meant to be used as an introduction and first entry into the world of the Bible. But the presenta­ tion in such a fashion to adults or to adolescent youth with a fair knowledge of Tanach as prerequisite has great advantages. The interest is focused on an outstanding problem whose proper conception is vital to the understand­ ing of the Jewish outlook on life, and as such, to the development and de­ portment of thq Jewish personality.

Secondly, the emergence of such a fo­ cal point is facilitated by the elimina­ tion of the scattering effect of irrelevancies on one hand and by the con­ centration of light from all available sources assembled to bear upon the particular problem under discussion.

The associations tied between the vari­ ous parts of Tanach and between the various: commentators of all ages re­

sult in a greater familiarity with the Bible.* It provides the reader and the student with a vantage point from which he views as if from a higher level the singular events and partic­ ular expression. This enables him to conceive the plurality as unity and scattered points as lined up on converg­ ing lines.

HE AUTHOR has extensive ex­ perience in teaching Tanach in high schools as well as in adult study circles. He calls this approach in the introduction to the book “perhaps a daring experiment.” After perusal of the book, I believe that the experiment is quite successful. Everyone who stud­ ies Tanach with this guide at hand will greatly benefit by being shown new vistas, being guided by the best of our commentaries towards a comprehen­ sive understanding of the world and vision of our Prophets, a world which does not remain the object of our in­ tellectual curiosity but which evolves as the guiding power of our existence.

T

NEVER SAY “DAI" Whereas the word “Dayenu" means “it is enough for us," the word Dai" by itself simply means “it is enough." “Never say d ie ," may be an American colloquial expression and a western challenge to courage. But the same might also be said for its Hebrew equivalent:—“never say D a i. " The ultimate distinction between the Hebrew D a i, “it is enough," and the English “die," meaning death, is not too great.

And just like the Dayenu refrain of the Hagodah, life cannot be prop­ erly composed unless it leads to the “u b a n a h lo n u eth beth h a b 'c h ir a h ," to the construction of a structure of holiness in our personal lives, at home and in business, at work and at play, so that (and to use the phrase with which the Dayenu is summed up) “k a p e r a l kol a v o n o th e n u ," our trans­ gressions and errors be erased and atoned for.

—Rabbi Hayim Donin April, 1960

87

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JEWISH LIFE

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