Jewish Life Spring 1981

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Comments: Pesach in Prison /On The Divine Name, and Other Matters of Style /Welcome to our Editorial Board /An Enragement: The Battle of the Mikvah.

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An Editor's Plaint: Plus Ce Change, Plus C'est La Meme Chose /A Jewish editor raises some serious questions about the quality of American Jewish journalism—and journalists.

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A Walk Around the Central Park Reservoir /On the publication of The Path of the Pioneer, by Dr. Leo Jung, the dean of the American rabbinate, and a literary pioneer.

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What Did They Know? The concluding section of a major study of the American Jewish Press during the Holocaust years.

The Issue: Creative Writing /Some poetry and short stories from new literary talents—several from California's Beth ------- --------------- — -----g ' jj e Writing Workshop.

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A publication of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America /Orthodox Union

Volume V , N um ber 1

Iyar 5741/Sprlng 1981

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Editor Yaakov Jacobs Managing Editor David Merzel

M rs. Linore Ward and Family

Editor Emeritus

have established the

Saul Bernstein

Jess Ward Memorial Jewish Life F und

Editorial Board Marc Angel Julius Berman Isaac Bernstein J. David Bleich Judith Bleich David Cohen Jack Simcha Cohen Samuel Cohen William Helmreich Lawrence A. Kobrin David Kranzler George Rohr Sheldon Rudoff Michael Shmidman Pinchas Stolper Shimon Wincelberg Maurice Wohlgelernter

Production Assistant

to assure the continued publication of Jewish Life in its expanded format and to continue the dissemination of Torah ideology to English-speaking Jewry throughout the world.

The F und is a tribute to the sacred memory of Jess.Ward who in his lifetime gave of his talents and his means to his fellow Jews.

We pray that these pages shall be a worthy memorial to his committed life.

Shari Ehrman

A publication of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America Sheldon Rudoff, Chairman, Publications Commmission

Volume V , N um ber 1

Contents 2

Comments: Pesach in Prison /On the Divine Name, and Other Matters of Style /Without Comment

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Plus Ce Change, Plus C'est La Meme Chose /A Jewish Editor's Plaint

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Books in Review A Walk Around the Central Park Reservoir: An Autobiographical Collage

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What Did They Know? The American Jewish Press and the Holocaust, September 1939-December 1942; Part Two/Alex Grobman

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The Hills Are Alive with the Sound of Jeering /Paula Van Gelder

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Rabbi Ben Zion Levi's Story of Tzefat /Anna Olswanger

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The Golden Chain /Mira Lederer Salomon

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With Crooked Teeth, Smiling /Frieda S. Korobkin

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Poetry Wings 2 /Burning Bush /Chaim Feinberg Strings Attached /Masada /Burying The Scimitar /Console Design /I.E. Mozeson After the Visit /Linda Hepner

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Letters to the Editor

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Because of the small staff producing Jewish Life, contributors are asked to send an inquiry before Submitting manuscripts, and to be patient in waiting for a response. We regret any inconvenience we may have caused in this regard, and we trust we will be able to increase our efficiency in the future. ^Copyright 1981 by the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America.

Material from JEWISH ^IFE/ including illustrations, may not be reproduced except by written permission from this magazine following written request.

JEWISH LIFE (ISSN #00-2165-77) is published quarterly. Subscription: 1 year— $10.00, 2 years—$18.00, 3 years—$25.00. Foreign: Add $.50 per year. Single copy $2.50, Editorial and Publication Office: 45 West 36th Street, New York, N.Y. 10018. Second Class Pqgtage Paid New York, N.Y.

Pesach in Prison T h e C om m ents rega rd in g Y o s ef M en d elev ich w ere w ritten p rio r to Pesach, w hen this issue was scheduled to a ppear. F o r various adm inistrative reasons, publication of this issue was delayed, fo r w hich we apologize. W e leave it to the read er to ch a n ge the tenses. A s we go to press we note that M en d elev ich will soon be visiting this country a nd we pray that he will not be co-opted fo r the purposes of partisan organizational advantage.

Imagine someone imprisoned for many years, with uncertain prospects for freedom, storing up scraps of food, and then one day inviting his friends to his cell with the declaration: "Many years ago, after a long prison confinement, I was freed, and this day I celebrate the anniversary of that freedom!"

This is not a parable: this was done by Yosef Mendelevich in a Soviet prison camp; it was done by Jews in concentration camps and it was done by millions of Jews throughout our history who celebrated Pesach at the seder while living under some decree of slavery.

Pesach is a celebration of freedom—it is that and much more.

It is a statement of creed: belief in the peculiar relationship which binds God to the Jewish People; a belief that the Almighty wants all men to be free; a belief that freedom is the other side of the coin of Torah—that they depend one upon the other; and the belief that whatever our circumstances on any given Pesach, we celebrate Pesach and the seder as a manifesto of our conviction that the People of Israel and all mankind will ultimately be redeemed.

"Pesach presented the most difficult obstacles," Shimon Grillius told his interviewer, in describing his years in a Soviet prison camp, where Yosef Mendelevich was his rebbe and mentor (Jewish Life, Fall 1980). Where does one get even the symbols of pesach, matzoh and maror? And celebrating the Festival of Freedom in a prison presented no small psychological problems to these Soviet Jews.

One Pesach Yosef's ingenuity in providing some symbol of maror simply gave out. At the seder he told his brothers"since we have no maror, w e place our own suffering between the two pieces of matzoh."

Yosef Mendelevich will celebrate this Pesach in his homeland—free at last; yet as he places some real maror between the matzohs, he will surely add the suffering of his brothers still in Soviet prisons. When he arrived in Israel he was greeted by a national outpouring of love and gratitude, and he stood at the Kosel in his parka and fedora to pour out his joy and thanksgiving to the Author of Liberty.

When Mendelevich was in prison, a kibbutznik from Kibbutz Yavneh wrote to him every week; and Reb Yosef wrote that when he is free he would come to the Kibbutz to 2

greet his correspondent. A group of American talmidim at Yeshivat Kerem B'Yavneh, alongside the Kibbutz, went to see and to listen to their brother. One of these students wrote to his parents: "Yosef addressed us in Ivrit, which he had been speaking for only eight days. He spoke very slowly, so I was able to understand every word. I think Yosef Mendelovich is one of the great tzadikim of our time /7Those of us who were not there understood him too, and when we sit down at the seder \yherever we are in the world, we will be thinking of Reb Yosef, and we will know why we celebrate Pesach and we will know why we are Jews.

On the Divine Name, and Other Matters of Style The written word has always been sacred in Jewish tradition and law. The writing of a Sefer Torah is governed by a large body of halacha. In a similar vein, the various names of the Almighty when they appear in writing, may not be discarded in a disrespectful way. This has given rise to the tradition of the burial of sifrei kodesh which are no longer usable: called in the vernacular "skaimos/' literally "names," but meaning in this context names of the Deity. This reverence for the Deity even when symbolized by written—or printed—letters has carried over into languages other than Lashon Kodesh, the Holy Tongue.

And it is this consideration that accounts for spelling the English word designating the Almighty as "G -d." We have in the past followed that procedure, even though halachic authorities have ruled that it is not mandatory. We will no longer follow this practice for several reasons, the most obvious having just been stated. We have also come to feel that it is jarring to the eye, and to the mind. This writer was.pushed into making that decision by yet another consideration. Pretwentieth century writers and editors—to say the least more inhibited about such matters than our contemporaries—would use the abbreviation "G -D " to indicate to the reader that someone had invoked Divine damnation on someone else. We would hardly want any of our readers to misunderstand our meaning in that sense. Yet another consideration has been the absurd lengths to which this practice has led some editors. In volumes containing Hebrew texts replete with the Shaim Ha'Shem, English texts in the same volumes jarringly revert to the spelling "G -d." We need not further belabor the point.

This takes us to other matters of style. With the proliferation of Jewish studies printed in the English language, scholars have popularized the technical transliteration schemes, which are certainly valid in scholarly works, but which we believe are unnecessary in popular writing, and can

indeed confuse the reader. We have therefore adopted the policy of transliterating Hebrew and Yiddish words and expressions as the writer would pronounce them in conversation, and as the reader would "hear" them. It is interesting in this context, that in modern Hebrew speech (a subject we hope to deal with more extensively) many words, originally Hebrew, but used in Yiddish with additional connotations, have been retained in their Yiddish pronunciation. One example will suffice. "Tachlis" in Hebrew means an ending. Adopted into Yiddish it came to mean the practical resolution of a matter, somewhat synonymous with another Yiddish expression which appears to have worked its way into current slanguage: der untershte shura, "the bottom line." Spoken in the Israeli pronunciation as "tachlif" it simply would not mean the same thing. There is an old anecdote that tells of a speaker at a Zionist conference, angered by a long, drawn-out debate, calling out "Tachlit" only to be told, "the devil with tachlit, let's get down to tachlis." Nu, tachlisl A problem that frequently confronts writers using the English language is, when do you translate a Hebrew or Yiddish word or expression, and when do you assume the reader understands it. For those words that have become part of English usage-kibitzer, ganef, shamus (for the uninitiated, a policeman)—there is no problem. But what of Bais Ha'Mikdosh, Loshon Kodesh, Bais Hamedrash, and their like. Here we will be guided by such periodicals as, for example, The New Yorker, which in its fiction pieces assumes the reader's ability to understand the word or expression, or the reader's ability to make it out from the context. For readers of Jewish Life, we feel at least as free to make the same assumption. And so within reason, and retaining the right to be inconsistent (something we often are anyway) we will be making these assumptions. For the reader who may stumble on an occasional usage, we suggest: consult your local rabbi.

As in all matters relating to Jewish Life—and Jewish life—we welcome our readers' comments.

Without Comment "Teaneck is more urban, broadly based and dynamic than most suburban communities," says Leslie McKeon, a sculptor who spent years in Israel and Sierra Leone. "It's really a majority of minorities."

One set of statistics seems to bear out Mr. McKeon's assessment: *There are 23 languages spoken here, including Urdu (an Indian language), Korean and Arabic. *There is an Orthodox synagogue, many of whose worshippers are ordained, but not practising, rabbis.

T h e r e is a Baha'i center made of logs, and there is a Roman Catholic church that has been used by a Moslem congregation waiting for its mosque to be finished.

Beneath the easy amalgam, however, there are—as in any community—points of friction, not the least of which is the one between young people and the police. The young people say the police are "hassling" them; the police deny this, contending they are just trying to stem a rising tide of burglaries.

Teaneck was not always a melting pot. Before World War II, it was, like many suburban communities, mostly white Protestant, with a small number of Catholics. After the war, Jews began moving in, and in the 50's, blacks.

Now the minorities are the majority here.

"Teaneck seems to do a pretty good job of integrating all of these groups into the community/' said Rabbi Louis Sigel of Temple Emeth, the larger of the town's two reform syagogues.

"O f course, there are enragements once in a while."

One of the more recent "enragements" was the "Battle of the Mikvah." When an Orthodox group began to build a mikvah—a ritual bath used primarily by the Orthodox—there was a loud outcry, much of it from other Jews.

"It was problem," (sic) Rabbi Sigel said. "Non-Orthodox Jews felt that-they had put a lot of investment into accomodating their Jewishness on the American scene. They resented a group of people, also Jewish, who, in their more visible religious expression, were 'rocking the b o a t.'" \

—The New York Tim es (New Jersey Weekly) M arch 1, 1981

Welcome to our Editorial Board Sheldon Rudoff, Chairman of our Editorial Board, has announced the appointment of four new members: Rabbi Marc Angel, Rav of the historic Spanish-Portuguese Congregation of New York City; Rabbi Isaac Bernstein, Rav of the Jewish Center in New York City; Rabbi Jack Simcha Cohen, former Chairman of our Board, and now Rav of Congregation Shaarei Tefila in Los Angeles, California; Dr. William Helmreich, Professor of Sociology at the City College of the City University of New York; and Dr. Maurice Wohlgelernter, prominent author, and Chairman of the Department of English at Baruch College of the City University of New York. Dr. Helmreich is the author of a major study of the yeshiva in America soon to be published by MacMillan—a portion of which will appear in our next issue.

Each of these will bring new strengths, new insights, and new wisdom to these pages. We welcome them to Jewish Life and we know that their contributions will add luster to our journal. We are grateful for their willingness to serve, and we herewith express our deep gratitude to the members of the Board who have served us so well and will continue to do so.

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The Issue: Creative Writing It is a truism in the world of literature that fiction, which arises from the imagination and the life experience of those who write "creatively," often manifests greater measures of truth than other forms of writing which purport to represent truth. While there are examples we might cite that are closer to home, there is perhaps no greater irony than that which lies in the name of the official newspaper of the Soviet Union: "Pravda" (Truth). No: we are not suggesting that journalistic and other forms of writing be abandoned in favor of fiction.

We do suggest that from the product of a mind released from the world of facts and reality—which allows the heart to record its feelings without filtering them through the intellect—we may gain valuable insights which might otherwise have been denied to us. An old proverb has it that "D'vorim ha'yotzim min ha'laiv, nichnasim 1'laiv," "Words which go forth from the heart, enter the heart." It is a favorite for masters of ceremonies who recite it following a round of oratory which is deemed to be sincere—who is to quarrel with an old proverb. But perhaps we can read it somewhat differently: as an affirmation of what we have been trying to say. Words which go forth from the heart without intellectualizing, without mental gyrations and agonizing over their meaning and possible hidden implications, more easily and more smoothly enter the heart and the consciousness of the reader. In this issue we present an extensive offering of short stories and poetry in the belief that what our contributors are saying by telling a story or using words unconventionally in poetry may open our minds to certain truths in a time when words—even "Torah words"—are becoming tired and meaningless from over-use or misuse—or deliberate abuse.

Perhaps we protest too loudly. Our Torah is filled with parables and poetry—let the heresy-hunters think before they strike. There is indeed one opinion in the Talmud that Iyov, the hero of the Book of Job, was a figment of the imagination of no less a Gadol Ba'Torah than Moshe Rabbeinu himself. It is for this reason among others that we must reject the kind of "Orthodox fiction" where good must truimph and evil be cast to the earth, as if the world of fantasy must be "more perfect" than the world conceived by the Creator.

Admittedly, the mind does recoil from the thought of Moshe Rabbeinu taking time from his dual mission of leading his People and teaching them Torah, to sit down to write a "morality play." But when we understand the Book as a Torah exposition of Good and Evil, Reward and Punishment, and

Divine Providence, we can better appreciate why indeed, according to that one opinion, it was Moshe alone who was best equipped to write such a work.

Enough words: read and enjoy; read and learn; read and feel—or just read.

In forthcoming issues: Making it in the Yeshiva: from a major work soon to be published Torah Values in Modern Israeli Fiction Reform Judaism's Search for Respectability in Eretz Yisrael The Changing Orthodox Synagogue A Portrait of Cain—A New Approach to Biblical Personalities "Project Renewal" Citizen Participation in Rehabilitating An Israeli Neighborhood The Unsung Tel Aviv Peace Treaty of 1976 A Book Roundup: Titles published by Jewish and trade publishers in the last year ...More Short Stories ...More Poetry

New Features: A Letter From Yerushalayim: reflecting the current thinking and happenings in Israel's religious, intellectual and secular areas.

Unorthodox Opinions of an Orthodox Jew.

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A Jewish Editor's Plaint

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Perhaps our readers have, no less than ourself, been struck, at times, by the absence of interesting articles furnished by editors of all kinds, especially those conducting the Jewish papers. We are perfectly aware that our own magazine has not escaped the censure of being very far from what the public had a right to expect from it, and many no doubt of those who ought to be readers, since they are subscribers, throw aside, as totally unfit and unworthy of their notice, the various numbers as they issue from the press. Every one imagines that he or she knows how to conduct a public journal, and everyone also thinks that from the large and open field of literature it is the easiest thing in the world to cull any quantity of entertaining and instructive pieces, even admitting that original contributions of sufficient merit should not be always accessible. This would be true, if an editor could have all the requisites for the task within himself to do the subject full justice. He should have robust health, in order to enable him to search into all the works relating to his branch of literature, without affecting his bodily well-being; he should have a strong mind to bear the constant strain on his intellect, without flagging or weariness; he should have knowledge of all languages in which books interesting to his readers are written, in order to be able to make use of their contents; he should have the means to acquire all these treasures of knowledge the moment they are offered to the world; he should have ample leisure, and not be disturbed by mere business details and other harassing circumstances, from devoting himself entirely to his profession; he should be gifted with an equable temper, so as to remain unmoved when he or his friends are assailed, his or their character vilified, and proceed with his task as though he saw or heard nothing which is disagreeable to him and his readers; he should have, withal, an original mind, capable of not alone grasping the questions of the day as they arise, but also be able to think for the world, and to indocrinate them with views which they have not had before; he should also be able to gather around him a band of devoted adherents, who will at all times supply him their own labors, and assist him with advice, reproof, and encouragement,—advice, to direct his attention to things which may escape his observation; reproof, to remind him gently whenever he fails in his duty or lapses into a mistake of fact or policy; and encouragement, to let him know that he has done or said something which his friends, at least, have reason to applaud;—and finally, he should have a large number of readers, who have sufficient sympathy with him and his

productions, so as to spur him to active exertion and to persevere in the course he may have thought it his duty to enter on.

Were we, now, such an editor, so blessed with health, intellect, knowledge, wealth, leisure, amiability, originality of mind, devoted friends, and applauding, though discriminating readers in large numbers, we should, to a surety, be able to do a vast deal more to amuse and instruct than we are now able to do. But, the truth is, that we do not lay claim to any of the qualifications we have enumerated in its full limit. To bodily strength we have always been, a stranger, and health has been bestowed on us in a very limited degree; of intellect and knowledge our share has been exceeded by many of our contemporaries; of wealth, to acquire a library in which we might find all we needed, but little has ever been bestowed on us; full leisure for the business of editing our magazine we have never had, and we have always been enabled to devote to it only those portions of time left to us from other pursuits.

As to originality, herein, perhaps rests our greatest merit: we have endeavored at all times to offer freely our opinions, such as they were, on whatever struck us as worthy of being presented to our readers.

We have had but little aid to make our magazine as interesting as many may have thought it could have been made, and our unaided mental resources did not enable us to satisfy our own desire, nor to reach the point of excellence which we had set up as our goal.

We trust that this confession is candid enough: we plead guilty to sins of commission and omission, and regret that we cannot throw even the mantle of charity over our defects. But we must be equally candid as regards other magazines and journals, and say that they, in our view, bear the same marks of imperfection as ours, and are as bad, or worse, at times, than can be laid to our charge. It is, we fear, inherent in the literature of the age, that writers spread out their thoughts with such a large amount of diluent matter, that their precise quality is very difficult to be ascertained, and that, consequently, quantity is given us by nearly all, instead of quality. Instead of a concise treatise on any given subject, as was done by the ancients, magazine and newspaper editors and contributors have acquired the habit of launching out in wordy articles, where it appears the greatest pains have been taken to express the fewest thoughts by the largest possible quantity of words. Not a noun is employed without three epithets, at least, being applied to it, and no idea is presented in its simple form; a man is never good alone, he must be great, powerful, and good; it never rains, but the clouds overcast the bright face of heaven, and they are then distilled in pellucid

streams, running down to the thirsty earth. We would not care if this exaggeration were to be confined to style only; for then it would exhaust itself in a ridiculous exhibition of schoolboy pedantry, anxious to show how much it has learned and how superior it is to the simplicity of our forefathers, who used epithets only to express inherent qualities worthy of being dignified, and who employed poetical imagery when they wished to glorify what is glorious. But the mischief to which we would especially refer, is the exaggerated manner in which all ideas are presented, whether these are political, scientific, or religious. There is an evident partisanship observable in nearly all the publications of the day, and few conductors of the press are honest enough to express an opinion regardless of their interest, and without dreading to offend those through whose bounty they are supported.

Rabbi Isaac Leeser, Editor, in XV Number 11 , February 1858

TOccident

A Walk Around the Central Park Reservoir: An Autobiographical Collage The Path of a Pioneer/The Autobiography of LeoJung is the eighth volume in the Soncino Jewish Library series, which is in effect T h e J e w i s h L i b r a r y / 8 . the collected works of Rabbi Jung, previously published in The Path of a Pioneer/ various editions over seven decades. It is incredible that this The Autobiography of Leo man whose spoken and written words have influenced perhaps Jung, The Soncino Press/London and New York, 1 9 8 0 . four generations of English-speaking Jews is still carrying high the banner of Torah-true Judaism"—an expression he coined, but which he now appears to feel has outlived its usefulness: it has become redundant as Orthodoxy has become normative Judaism. His pamphlet Essentials of Judaism, published by the Orthodox Union many years ago became a classic statement and has recently been translated into Russian to guide a new segment of Amercian Jewry that has come to our shores.

In her Foreword to the new volume, the late Dr. Nina Adlerblum explains why and how Rabbi Jung became as she put it, "THE Rabbi Jung."

More than anyone else, Rabbi Jung touched the pulse of his time and properly diagnosed its ailment; his cure was quick and effective. He rejected all palliatives; neither watering Judaism nor rebuilding it on the pattern of American philosophy, great a philosophy as it is in itself. A clipped Judaism would be like a bird without wings. Nourish our sick generations with the ingredients of the Torahitself aijd the whole world will be reconstituted! There is but one straight line; seek the source from which to drain and regain strength. Go back to eu orah-tu 'T J daism'and it will lead you to a healthy and full life! Learn it and you will become enriched with a rebirth of spiritual values; feel it and practicing it will be no burden!

The Path of a Pioneer is not a conventional autobiography. It brings together snatches of Dr. Jung's unpublished letters, statements, remarks, and manifestos loosely tied together with the author's commentary and interspersed with letters addressed to Rabbi Jung over the years by American Presidents, world statesmen, and some very delightful letters from one A. Einstein. It might better be subtitled—to borrow M ore than anyone else, Rabbi from another recently-published work — an "autobiographi­ Jung touched the pulse of his time cal collage. But what a magnificent collage! For present and and p ro p erly diagnosed its future scholars studying American Jewry and American ailment; his cure was quick and effe ctiv e.

He rejected a ll Judaism it is a treasure that would have been impossible to find palliatives; neither watering in any of the great libraries of the world. Rabbi Jung has Judaism nor rebuilding it on the ransacked his own files and his own life to create a portrait of pattern of Am erican philosophy, the last seventy years of Jewish life, as well as a portrait of great a philosophy as it is in itself.

A clipped Judaism would be like a himself. It is a sort of chomer Vdrush, the raw materials not for bird wtihout wings.

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sermonizing, as the expression is commonly used, but for analyzing, studying, understanding not only what has happened but what must happen in the years to come if American Orthodoxy is to reach those heights which have been Dr. Jung's goals and dreams. A good deal of the volume deals with The Jewish Center, the congregation which Rabbi Jung built, which became a prototype for American Orthodox congregations: again, providing documents and materials for several doctoral dissertations.

But: The Path of a Pioneer is more than a source-book for scholars and interested laymen. It is an inspirational manual for all those who are dedicated to or searching for the genuine religious experience of Yiddishkeit. What once would have required a walk around Central Park Reservoir, which was an adjunct to Dr. Jung's study, is now available to all who will Rabbi Jung has ransacked his own search it out in this volume. Herman Wouk has said it best files and his own life to create a portrait of the last seventy years of perhaps, in A Word of Thanks which appeared in the Jubilee Jewish life, as well as a portrait of volume published in 1962 in honor of Rabbi Jung's seventieth himself. It is a sort of chômer I'drush, the raw materials not for birthday and his fortieth year as Rav of The Jewish Center.

Wouk tells how he happened to walk into the Je wish Center on sermonizing, as the expression is commonly used, but for analyzing, Yom Kippur of 1937. studying, understanding, not only I had heard of Rabbi Jung, but I had never met him nor heard what has happened but what must him speak. Sermon time came. I settled back, my mind closed to happen in the years to come if enjoy my own meditations.

American Orthodoxy is to reach The voice surprised my warm curiosity, blending solemnity and those heights which have been D r. ironical humor. The words surprised me: clear, literate, striking Jung's goals and dreams. words, neither pompous nor affected.

I began to pay attention and then the ideas surprised me: religious ideas, articulated in the light of secular wisdom I had learned, and some secular wisdom that I hadn't learned. Spoken in this manner, viewed in this fresh light, the Judaic commitmentof my Hassidic grandfather seemed not naive but wise beyond secular wisdom.

I got on my feet, craned my neck to get a glimpse of the speaker. I saw an unusually handsome man with commanding eyes, a neat beard, faintly tinged with gray, and spare controlled gestures.

Naturally, I made it my business to become friendly with this man. I found him quite approachable, busy as he was. He had a custom of walking around the Central Park Reservoir every day. It soon became a settled thing that I accompany him on these walks.

Through hot days and cold, through sunshine, fog, snow and rain.

He liked his walks in all weathers. We marched around the oval cinder path, enjoying the air and the view of the skyscrapers, and thrashing out one by one my classic theological conundrums. We talked at length, too, about the ideas and commitments of the Jewish faith.

During my service in World War II as a naval officer I kept up a steady correspondence with him. I came back after three years in the Pacific. Dr. Jung and I still managed an occasional Central Park walk. His stride was as springy, his pace as brisk, and his controversial wit as swift as ever. By then I was not arguing against him very much. The years at sea had allowed me time to 14

think things through. I had arrived at the general orthodox position I hold now.

We began to dream, to talk, and to plan of propagating that view. He formed a discussion group of young men with traditional views. In my case, Dr. Jung's influence on a young man had a positive result, but he has had an equally powerful effect on the 1 goton my feet, craned my neck to lives of thousands of other people; this effect being expressed in get a glimpse of the speaker. 1 sa their daily private actions. cm unusually handsome man with Wouk credits Dr. Jung with having planted the seed for his commanding eyes, a neat heard, now classic defense of Orthodox Judaism, Is But it faintly tinged with gray and spa re, was thirteen years in reaching fruition. Wouk felt not quite up contolled gestures.... to the task and wanted to fill some of the gaps in his learning. "I learned a great deal," during those years, he writes, "but the margins of mastery seemed to recede, At last I despaired of learning enough, and sat down to execute the assignment. I sent the finished book to Dr. Jung, and had the benefit of a detailed and wise critique, which made the work better."

Bodies of water have apparently been good to Wouk: the Pacific yielded up The Caine ;M y the Central Park Reservoir tin u This Is My God. If thirty Leo Jungs had been effectively placed all over the United States at the time he began his ministry, I believe American Jewry would be largely orthodox in outlook; but there is only one Leo Jung. If ever he writes his autobiography—even if he records only those incidents and achievements that tended to the preserving of the Jewish people and the Jewish faith—it will be a vast book.

Rabbi Jung has written his autobiography, and it is a vast book. But it would take several Leo Jungs to do justice to his life and works, and the one Leo Jung is still too busy doing things for Yiddishkeit to spare more of his time for writing about himself.

The Path of a Pioneer is crammed with historic facts and statements. Dr. Jung writes about the early years of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, which he helped found and which has enjoyed his guidance ever since.

He was the first editor of what was to become Jewish Life, the first English language journal of American Orthodoxy.

In a classic statement made as a report of his second visit to Eretz Yisrael prior to the founding of the State, he writes of We marched around the oval the "two kinds of chalutzim"—those who came to restore the cinder path, enjoying the a ir and soil, and the B'nai Yeshiva, the pioneers who came to make the the view of the skyscapers, and thrashing out one by one my classic land "safe for the divine word." There is barely a Jewish theological conundrum s.

We personality, from Torah giants to secular leaders, whose name talked at length, too, about the does not appear in a historical context in the pages of this ideas and commitments of the volume. There is barely an institution in America, Europe, and Jewish faith. in Eretz Yisrael that did not benefit from the guidance and nurturing of Rabbi Jung, from yeshivos and Bais Yaakov schools to the Hebrew University. Over the years, under the direction and prodding of Rabbi Jung, millions of dollars went 15

from The Jewish Center to all points of the globe for every conceivable form of Tzedakah—staggering measured by today's dollar. No Jew, layman or scholar, can pretend to be informed on the past of American Jewry who has A t the first kosher luncheon ever to not dipped into this vast reservoir. be held at the Princeton Inn , following D r. Einstein's brief Would that space and time permitted this writer to dip address, D r. Jung decided to further into this historic document, but by the grace of God, surprise him. "I spoke in German and the noble efforts of his nephew S. M. Bloch of the Soncino on the fact that the school in honor Press, who tragically passed on before the book appeared, it is of the man who offered a new interpretation of time and space now available for all to read in the beautiful volume which is would be part of the University both in keeping with the highest standards of the Soncino dedicated to God who is beyond Press, and at the same time surpasses them. time and space."

A final word. Dr. Jung became acquainted with Albert Einstein when the inauguration of Yeshiva University's medical school (named for the great scientist) took place. At the first kosher luncheon ever to be held at the Princeton Inn, following Dr. Einstein's brief address, Dr. Jung decided to surprise him.

I spoke in German on the fact that the school in honor of the man who offered a new interpretation of time and space would be part of the University dedicated to God who is beyond time and space. Einstein was by no means an Orthodox Jew, but he enjoyed the reference, came over and shook my hand warmly. He considered the theological implication a compliment indeed! One of his letters to me refers to a criticism I had made of his offhand, insufficiently respectful reference to our classic faith. He replied in a charming note of March 23, 1943, in which he emphasizes what I had always suspected, that his background had deprived him of an appreciation of Jewish life and that in his lack of knowledge of the philosophy of Judaism and Jewish life he mistook our timeless faith for some form of parochial Protestant fundamentalism. When on the occasion of my next meeting I pointed out to him the basic principles of freedom of interpretation, he was very pleased. Altogether I am grateful for the privilege of having known him.

Would that Albert Einstein had early in his life been privileged to walk around the Central Park reservoir with Dr. Jung!

Yaakov Jacobs

16

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What Did They Know?

The American Jewish Press And The Holocaust, September 1939—December 1942 Part Two The German Invasion of Russia With the Nazi invasion of Russia on June 22,1941, the Reich began its first systematic efforts to exterminate the Jews. From the outset of this military campaign, the Jewish press provided fairly exact accounts of the atrocities committed against the Jews. This news was given wide coverage and was the topic of many editorials. On June 26, Samuel Margoshes warned his readers that 5,000,000 Jews were in the path of Hitler's invasion and that probably little would remain of Jewish life in the Soviet Union .86 In July, the Jewish press reported that hundreds of Jewish civilians had been massacred by Nazi soldiers in Minsk, Brest-Litovsk, Lvov, Prezemyl, ancj in almost all cities of the Volynian area. Reports also told of how Nazi bombs and artillery had wiped out numerous Russian villages and cities, killing thousands of Jews. Tens of thousands of those who feared the anti-Jewish massacres fled the Nazi onslaught.87 On August 11, a radio broadcast from Moscow described how the Germans had forced Jews to dig their own graves in the Nazi-occupied Minsk region.88 On October 2, it was reported that Polish circles in London had received information from many areas in eastern Poland and the Soviet Ukraine about the massacres carried out by Nazi troops behind the front lines. Thousands of Jews who failed to escape with the Soviet armies were "simply mowed down by machine guns." The Nazi soldiers were under orders to put the Jews out of the way because it would take too mubh effort to transport them to ghettos.89 The J.T.A. repprted on October 23 that Hungarian officers returning from the German-Soviet front had observed thousands of Jewish corpses floating on the Dniester River in the Nazi-occupied Ukraine. They estimated that in the Kamenets-Podolski region alone ten thousand Jews were slaughtered. The Hungarian officers predicted more of the same and noted that the Jews in the Nazi-occupied Ukraine were all facing starvation and suffered from lack of food and medicaments.90 A pledge of "whole-hearted support" to the

Alex Grobman was recently appointed director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center of Yeshiva University at Los Angeles. This is the second half of an article originally published in the A m erica n Jew ish H isto rica l Society Quarterly, with whose permission it is reprinted. Part One appeared in the Winter 8 0 / 8 1 issue of Jewish Life.

19

American Jewry had remained mere spectators.... Perhaps the magnitude of the suffering had made it seem unreal ; American Jews had become callous and this did not allow the agony to make an impression upon them ....

20

Jews in Soviet Russia in their fight against Hitlerism was broadcast over two radio stations, WMCA and WRUL on October 26, 1941. This half-hour program, which was sponsored by the Committee of Jewish Writers and Artists in the United States, was beamed to Europe over short-wave radio by WRUL .91 On November 16,1941, the Jewish press reported that it had received information from an unimpeachable source that "fifty-two thousand Jews, including men, women and children were systematically and methodically put to death in Kiev following the Nazi occupation of the Ukranian capital.,." Later dispatches stated that this number was an estimate of those killed. The Jewish press emphasized that the "details available...establish that the victims did not lose their lives as a result of a mob pogrom, but by systematic, merciless execution carried out in accordance with the cold blooded Nazi policy of Jewish extermination. Similar measures, though on a smaller scale, have been taken in other conquered towns ."92 On December 31, 1941, the Jewish press described how thousands of Jewish women in Kiev were ordered to move into mined cemetery grounds. Those who were not blown up were machine gunned to death by the German soldiers. News from other areas told of the massacres of at least 500 Jews in Jassy, Roumania, at the end of June ;93 of the execution of 6,000 Polish Jews in September at labor camps near the township of Zaremcy-Koscielna ;94 of the shooting of hundreds of Jews in Luxemburg, Yugoslavia, Austria, France, and Poland in November and December;95 of the high mortality rate (over 2,000 a month) in the Warsaw Ghetto ;96 and of the increase of Jewish suicides.97 The Contemporary Jewish Record concluded that the "extent of carnage and massacre...was unprecedented even in Nazi annals." While the journal believed that the Nazis planned to eliminate the Jewish communities under their rule, it was presumed that mass murder was to be used when "dispatch rather than greed was the prime consideration ."98 Norman Bentwich, former Attorney General of Palestine and a contributing editor to The National Jewish Monthly, observed that although American Jewry was aware of these executions, they had "not yet faced up sufficiently" to their responsibilities,99 Samuel Margoshes agreed that American Jewry had remained mere spectators to the "gruesome spectacle in Europe," but he did not know why, He thought that perhaps the magnitude of the suffering had made it seem unreal; that American Jews had become callous and that this did not allow the agony to make an impression upon them; that it was due to a "peculiar kind of Jewish isolationism;" or that they simply lacked the imagination to place themselves in the position of others who suffer. Whatever the reason,

Margoshes was greatly disturbed that these events had "failed to unite the Jews of the United States in a great effort to save the Jewish people from extinction/'100 This lack of unity was obvious not only within the American Jewish community, but to the non-Jewish community as well.

Breckinridge Long' ¿who as Assistant Secretary of State for Special Problems held back European Jews from immigrating to the United States, wrote in his diary that "the Jewish organizations are all divided and in controversies of their ow n...there is no adhesion nor any sympathetic collaboration—rather rivalry, jealousy, and antagonism."101 Throughout the period under review, American Jewish organizations were divided over how to deal with the problems confronting world Jewry. In August 1938, the American Jewish, Committee, the American Jewish Congress, B'nai B'rith and the Jewish Labor Committee established a coordinating body to unify their activities, but the effort ended in failure. Originally the American Jewish Congress had hoped that a single organization would emerge from this union.102 The Jewish Labor Committee maintained, however, that such a merger would "...deny that differences exist" and would "try to force everything into a single mold."103 The elitist American Jewish Committee also rejected the idea of a merger because they did not believe in "a single Jewish voice." The Committee asserted that American Jews were a very diverse group with differing interests, backgrounds, and ideas. Therefore, to impose consolidation would be undemocratic. Furthermore, the Committee insisted that Jewish well-being in the United States depended on the good will of the community and that the anti-Semites would be quick to point out that an agency of this sort was "proof of an exaggerated ethnic solidarity."104 In addition, the Committee had strong ideological differences with the American Jewish Congress that seemed irreconcilable. The Congress believed that huge demonstra­ tions, mass meetings, public protests, rallies and the boycotting of German goods were the most effective means of fighting the Nazis.105 On the other hand, the Committee contended that such public denunciations were not only futile, but often nullified "the efforts of individual intercessors employing the tried methods of backstairs diplomacy."106 Moreover union made "the whole matter appear to be a purely Jewish issue, with the result that Americans of other faiths would sit back and do nothing."107 For basically the same reasons given by the American Jewish Committee, B'nai B'rith opposed consolidation. They were willing to coordinate their activities, but refused to be bound by majority rule.108 This feeling of impotence toward affecting any immediate

"The Jewish organizations are all divided and in controversies of their own...there is no adhesion nor any sympathetic collaboratio n ^ ra th er rivalry, jealousy, and antagonism."

The elitist American Jewish Committee also rejected the idea of a merger because they did not believe in "a single Jewish voice."

21

Nahum Goldmann...maintained that the problem of European Jewry was more a relief problem than a political one. Political intervention was of no value, he declared, since, most of the governments were "practically puppet dependencies of Germany ."

change was perhaps best reflected in an address by Nahum Goldmann to the Inter-American Jewish Conference on November 23, 1941. He maintained that the problem of European Jewry was more a relief problem than a political one.

Political intervention was of no value, he declared, since most of the governments were "practically puppet dependencies of Germany." The only thing to do was to keep public opinion aware o f these unparalleled crimes and to obtain from the democracies a pledge that these atrocities would not be forgotten at the end of the war. In a political sense, therefore, the problem was for the future, after Hitler had been defeated .109 With the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the United States was "catapulted" into World War II. Edward M. Warburg, Chairman of the JDC, assured American Jewry that the Joint would continue its overseas relief work on a wartime basis. It would organize aid for the Polish Jews in Russia and augment its work in Central and South America .110 A number of individual Jewish organizations responded to the crisis by buying war bonds, contributing to the Red Cross, and by offering prayers for a speedy victory. Even before this new phase of the war began, however, most American Jews recognized that the future of all Jews now depended on loyal support of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.111 Reports of Poison Gas Experiment Throughout the first six months of 1942, reports of the systematic slaughter of Jews on the Russian front continued to reach America and were widely reported in the Yiddish and Anglo-Jewish press. Although the degree of space allotted these reports varied, information was available about the incredible brutalities and the wanton destruction of lives and property. There were many eyewitness accounts of these mass executions from Russian, Jewish, Polish, and Hungarian sources as well as from neutral diplomats;112 an admission by the Nazis on January 30, that they were killing Jewish war prisoners for allegedly shooting German soldiers;113 a series of pictures in the February 23 issue of Life magazine that substantiated some of these harrowing tales;114 and a report by a Bavarian Catholic priest on March 25 that the Nazis had killed an estimated 10,000 Dutch Jews in poison gas experiments at the Mathausen concentration camp. This report was confirmed on April 5, by the Dutch Government in exile and on June 8 by an American diplomat.115 In addition, there were many dispatches that told of the deportation of tens of thousands of Jews to concentration camps, to forced labor, and to "unknown destinations";116 of the Berlin order in early January occupied territory;117 of

22

appeals for help;11» and of the thousands of Jews in the ghettos who froze to death or died of starvation.119 JDC Representative Reports if American Jewry doubted the authenticity of these reports of massacres, this illusion should have been dispelled on March 13, 1942. On that day, S. Bertrand Jacobson, a representative of the JDC in Eastern Europe, revealed in New York that 240.000 Jews "who had been deported from Germany and all parts of Central Europe to the German-held Ukraine were murdered by the Gestapo, according to the testimony of Hungarian soldiers returning from the eastern front."

Jacobson quoted one Hungarian soldier as saying that at one great tract of land near Kiev, he saw the ground "move in waves." The Germans systematically executed thousands of Jews and had buried their victims even before they were dead.

Jacobson declared that the Nazis had decided that there was only one solution to the Jewish questionr^extermination and destruction. This policy, he said, was being carried out in every country under German domination. He noted that in Yugoslavia, the Jewish population had been reduced from 68.000 before the Nazi invasion (April 6,1941) to a maximum o f 25,000. The Jews in Belgrade were "rounded up and taken in trucks, a hundred at a time, to nearby forests and executed ."120 The JewishFrontier and the Congress Weekly found "little ground to doubt the truth of these reports," because as the Jewish Frontier observed: "JDC representatives are not known to exaggerate any aspect of anti-Semitism." "But the most telling evidence of the extent of German mass-murder of Jews," the magazine concluded, was "the triumphant remark by a Nazi newspaper in the Nazi-occupied territory that the Jewish question has now been solved except for the five million Jews in the United States."121 The CongressWeekly stated that although many had hoped that these reports were exaggerated, there was no longer any reason to question the veracity of the facts. "No imagination," the Congress opined, "could invent this conception of a field heaving with the breath of those buried alive. Only men who saw it with their own eyes could bring it back."122 American Jewish History

In June additional information continued to pour in about the systematic slaughter of European Jewry. On June 17, the J.T.A. reported that hundreds of Jewish and Russian prisoners of -war were killed in poison gas experiments at the Liebenau Monastery in Wurtemberg. On June 26, the J.T.A. published a detailed report from underground channels that described the

Most American Jews recognized that the future of all Jews now depended on loyal support of President Franklin D . Roosevelt.

23

President Roosevelt.. .promised that the Nazis would not succeed in annihilating the Jewish people and that they would be held account­ able on the day of reckoning.

President Roosevelt received a delegation of prominent Jewish leaders, which appealed for action to stop the massacres. They were informed that any overt effort to rescue European Jewry would harm the Allied war effort.

24

massacre of 700,000 Polish Jews since the summer of 1941.

This account, which was published in London on June 25, revealed how hundreds of thousands of Jews were systematically executed in "the greatest mass slaughter in history" The Nazis employed machine guns, hand grenades, and mobile gas chambers that were carried on trucks. There was simply no question, the report concluded, that all Jews would be exterminated.

There could have been little dispute as to the authenticity of this report, which was published in both T h e N e w Y o r k T im e s and the Jewish press, because it was vouched for by Szmul Zygielboym and Ignacy Schwartzbart. Both Zygielboym of the Bund and Schwartzbart of the General Zionists were the two Jewish representatives on the Polish National Council in LondomJThis report was also verified on June 25 by the Polish Government in Exile. It was broadcast by the British Broadcasting Service and recorded by the Columbia System in New York ,123 Op July 21 , 1942, a demonstration attended by 22,000 persons was held in Madison Square Garden to denounce the atrocities committed by the Nazis and to express America's response to this mass slaughter. It was sponsored by the American Jewish Congress, the Jewish Labor Committee and B'nai B'rith .124 Although the American Jewish Committee did not actively participate in this meeting, they did send a note expressing their solidarity with the demonstration's aims.1?3 In a message sent to this meeting, President Roosevelt emphasized that all freedom loving Americans will "hail the solem n com m em oration ...as an expression of the determination of the Jewish people to make every sacrifice for victory over the Axis powers." He promised that the Nazis would not succeed in annihilating the Jewish people and that they would be held accountable on the day of reckoning .126 While there may have been a paucity of activity toward the rescue of European Jewry, there was no lack of effort in registering disapproval of Nazi horrors. On July 23, two days after the Madison Square Garden meeting, the chaplain of the House of Representatives opened the session of the House with a special prayer for the Jewish victims of Nazi persecution. On the same day the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America and the Church Peace Union sent messages of sympathy to the Synagogue Council of America and to various members of the clergy throughout the United States condemning the Nazi persecutors. August 12 , 1942, was designated as a day of fasting and of prayer throughout the United States. This was at the suggestion of the Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada. There were also protest demonstrations in Boston, Cleveland, Los Angeles and

St. Paul during the month of August.127 Again on August 22 , President Roosevelt repeated his earlier promises that the persecutors! would be prosecuted and asked that reliable information be submitted so that he could be kept apprised of the situation .128 On October 7, he expressed the willingness of the United States Government "to cooperate with the British and other governments in establishing a United Nations Commission for the investigation of war crimes ."129 World-wide demonstrations of sympathy followed. On December 8 , 1942, President Roosevelt received a delegation of prominent Jewish leaders, which appealed for action to stop the massacres. They were informed that any overt effort to rescue European Jewry would harm the Allied war effort. Thus, the most American Jewry could hope for was a joint statement by the United States, Great Britain, the Soviet Union and the governments in exile condemning the extermination of the Jews. This they received on December 17, 1942.130 From the beginning of the war, segments of the Jewish press attacked American Jewry for its lack of protest or moral outrage at the atrocities perpetrated by the Nazis against the Jews. Implicit in the calls for action was the fact that American Jewry understood what was happening in Europe, but for some inexplicable reason chose not to react in any forceful manner. After the Jewish press reported on conditions in the iublin Reservation, Samuel Margoshes asked why the American Jewish community was keeping silent: "Are we waiting for all those three and a half million Jews in Poland to be slaughtered like cattle? Are not the atrocities already perpetrated upon them heinous enough to move us to a public protest? The blood of our brethren is crying to us from Polish earth; shall we remain silent? We cannot, we dare not ."131 The Zionist Organization also charged American Jewry with complacency in the face of disaster .132 The Workman's Circle remarked that while the Yiddish press was "replete with stories of Jewish suffering," there was little response. The reason given was that "the heart, even as the mind, becomes accustomed to these things; and we are beginning to take these matters for granted."133In December, 1940, the Labor Zionists accused American Jewry of failing to exhibit in any "impressive or effective manner" that they were deeply concerned. Why, they asked, hadn't American Jewry kept a "death watch" near the German embassy and consulates during the last seven years? Even if the United States would not have permitted this symbolic act because of its neutrality, then why hadn't the Jews worn black armbands until the defeat of the Nazis? While they recognized that these symbolic expressions would not yield any "immediate tangible results," they believed that such

T ru d e W eiss-R o s m a rin ...o b ­ served that American Jews were "showing signs of cracking up under the mental and physical strain of 'news from Europe.' "

25

The Jewish press continually admonished American Jewry for failing to adopt a more aggressive response.... W hy the Jews in America acted in this manner is a question that still remains to be answered.

26

action would "tend to restore self-respect and emphasize the realization of loss, if nothing else ."134

By May, J.941, the reports of relentless pogroms, persecutions, expulsions and killings had such a devastating effect on American Jewry that there was a "widespread pessimism concerning the Jewish future." In the May issue of The Jewish Spectator,, Trude Weiss-Rosmarin, then on the editorial staff (later editor-in-chief) observed that American Jews were "showing signs of cracking up under the mental and physical strain of 'news from Europe.'" "Despair and discouragement" were "spreading fast among all classes and ages..." There were even "vociferous advocates of 'voluntary racial suicide' among young Jews," who felt it was "a crime to give life to Jewish children in a world" 135 which continually persecuted the Jews.

O ther writers also discussed the repercussions of this "apathy and resignation" that afflicted American J£wry. Jacob Lestchinsky, the noted Jewish sociologist, pointed out in November, 1941 that this despondency and the absence of political activity had an adverse effect on raising funds for relief. Furthermore, he felt that the leaders of the democratic world were prime contributors to this situation by having failed to speak out about the plight of the Jews .136 The American Jewish Congress was particularly incensed that no voice had been raised by either the United States or the British government expressing the "horror of free humanity at thi? cold-blooded extermination of a people." After all, these massacres were not only reported in the Jewish press, they were confirmed by the general press in both England and America. The Congress declared that there was no justification for this silence, whatever the cause .137 When American Jewry finally accepted the fact that Jews in Europe were being systematically destroyed, it did not dim their belief in the ultimate defeat of Hitler or in the inevitability of Jewish survival. The American Jewish Committee put it this way: "no amount of bad news from the battlefield can dim the hopes for the success of an eventual peace conference nor still the discussion of postwar problems and solutions."138 Until that time, most Jews believed that their only recourse was to intensify their help to the United States and its Allies;140 extend more aid and relief to European Jewry;141 and remind the Nazis that their atrocities against the Jews would be punished at the end of the war.142 Although the American press gave only sporadic attention to the condition of Polish Jewry during the first four months of the war in 1939, this improved somewhat throughout the rest of the period. On the one hand, while space allotted reports of Jewish persecution varied, the American press did provide

some essential information. It was particularly important for the atrocities committed against the Jews to be publicly acknowledged in the American press, since many Jews became skeptical about their veracity if they were not. On the other hand, the J.T.A. and the Yiddish press provided almost daily accounts of Jewish suffering and information was also available in the Anglo-Jewish press. At times, reports were exaggerated and fragmentary, but enough data was available to form a general idea of the tragedy occuring to the Jewish people, and information was neither limited to upper echelons nor its dissemination restricted.

While it can be argued that only a small fraction of American Jewry reads the J.T.A. or the Yiddish and Anglo-Jewish press, the editorials reflect a belief that this information was common knowledge in the American Jewish community. The Jewish press continually admonished American Jewry for failing to adopt a more aggressive response, but did not believe that this weak reaction was based on ignorance of the facts. Why the Jews in America acted in this manner is a question that still remains to be answered. What is clear, however, is that the average Jew in America had access to more information than is generally believed and should have,been aware of what was happening even before the Allies affirmed the truth of these atrocity stories on December 17,1942. After all, reports of the mass murder of Russian Jews began to appear in July, 1941 and by late 1941 it was an accepted fact that some Jewish communities were system atically and methodically exterminated. The use of poison gas was discovered in March, 1942 and during the same month S. Bertrand Jacobson, a JDC representative in Eastern Europe, revealed that it was Nazi policy to destroy all the Jews under their domination.

In late June, 1942, the two Jewish representatives on the Polish National Council in London vouched for the authenticity of another report detailing the systematic destruction of European Jewry, but American Jewry was still reluctant to believe that this was really possible. On October 9, 1942, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency informed American Jewry about the report that Gerhart Riegner, the World Jewish Congress representative in Geneva, had sent to the World Jewish Congress in London and New York through the American and British embassies in Switzerland.

Riegner reported that the Nazis had a plan for the mass extermination of the Jews in Europe and with this announcement the obvious could no longer be denied.

American Jewry reacted with protests, memorial services, a day of fasting, and periods of silence for the dead. By December 17, 1942, the Allies acknowledged the systematic destruction of European Jewry and publicly condemned it.

Gerhart Riegner reported that the Nazis had a plan for the mass extermination of the Jews in Europe and with this announce­ ment the obvious could no longer be denied.

27

The author acknowledges the assistance of the Lionel Bauman Foundation in the preparation o f this article.

Sources for the material in the footnotes have been abbreviated as followsB AH The American Hebrew A JY American Jewish Year Book CB Congress Bulletin CJC Chicago Jewish Chronicle JR Contemporary Jewish Record CW Congress Weekly DT Der Tog F Forward JA Jewish AdvocatefBoston) JC Jewish Criterion JE Jewish ExponenHPhiladelphia) JF Jewish Frontier JM J Jewish Morning Journal JS Jewish Spectator JSS Jewish Social Studies ,/ J.T .A .

Jewish Telegraphic Agency Daily News Bulletin N The Nation N JM The National Jewish Monthly NP New Palestine NR New Republic NYT The New York Times O Opinion TC The Call

D T (6.26.41), p. 1. (6.23.41), p. 7.

J.T .A . (7.8.41), p. 7/ (7.9.41), p. 1; (7.10.41), p. 7/ (7.16.41), p. 1; C W (7.25.41), p. 16; O (August, 1941), p.

2 2 ; CJC (7.18.41), p. 8; CJR (October, 1941), p. 554; D T(7.9.41), p. 1; F throughout July.

88. J.T.A. (8.12.41), p. 1; D T (8.12.41), p. 1; F (8.12.41), p.

1; CJC (8.22.41), p. 8.

89. J.T .A . (10.2.41), p. 3 ; D T (10.2.41), pr 3; (10.3.41), p .l; F (10.2.41), p. 1; CJR (December, 1941), p. 650.

90. J.T .A . (10.23.41), p. * 7/ N Y T (10.26.41), p. 6; CJRfDecember, 1941), p. 6 6 9 ; D T (10:23.41), p. 1; F( 10.23.41), p. 1; CW (10.23.41), p. 3.

91. J .T .A ;X l0.27.41), p. 3.

92. J.T .A . (11.16.41), p. 1; D T (1 1 .1 6 .4 1 ), p. l ;F ( H .1 6 .4 l f , p. 1; CW (11.21.41), p. 16.

93. F (7.9.41), p. 4; (11.13.41), p. 7/ N Y T (7.6.41), p. 7; C W (7.11.41), p. 15; J.T .A . (8.7.41), p. 2, 94. J.T .A . (10.30.41), p. 7.

95. J.T .A . (7.30.41), p. 3 ;( l 1.3 0.41) and throughout the period.

96. J.T .A . (7.30.41), pp. 1-2; JF (October, 1941), pp. 21-22, 97. J .T .A . ' ( 9 .1 5 .4 1 ) , p. 3 ; ( 1 1 .2 .4 1 ) , pp. 1 -2 ; N Y T (1 0 .13.41), p. 3.

98. CJR (December, 1941), pp. 6 49-650.

99. N JM (October, 1941), p. 56.

100. D T (9.2.41), p. 1; (9.20.41), p. 1.

101. Fred Israel, The W ar Diary of Breckinridge Long: Selections from the Years 1 9 3 9-1944 (Lincoln, Nebraska: 1966), p.

336.

102. CB (6.2.39), p. 2.

103. General Jewish Council, File Part 2, Vol. 2, No. 4, Junel 939, of the Jewish Labor Archives.

104. Nathan Schachner, The Price of Liberty: A History of the American Jewish Committee (New York: 1948), p. 11.

105. Naomi Cohen, Not Free to Desist: The American Jewish Committee, 1 9 0 6-1966 (Philadelphia: 1972), p. 225.

106. Cohen, op. cit.

107. Schachner, op. cit., p. 111.

86.

87.

28

108. Ibid., p. 119; Edward Grusd, B'nai B'rith: The Story of the Covenant (New York: 1966), p. 219.

109. CW (11.28.41), pp. 5-6.

110. N Y T (12.15.41), p. 15; CJR (February, 1942, p. 72).

111. J.T .A . (12.31.41), p. 2; CJR (February, 1942), pp. 727 3 ;].T .A .(1 2 .1 2 .4 1 ),p. 1; (1 2.17.41), p. 2; (12.22.41), p.

2; CW (11.14.41), p. 8.

112. CW (1.2.42), pp. 8-10, 11-12; (1.16.42), p. 3; (1 .23.42) ,pp. 5-6: D T (1.19.42), p. 1; JE (4.22.42), p. 4; JF(April, 1942), p. 4; N Y T (4.6.42), p. 2 ; (6.14.42), p. 1; CJR (April, 1942), p. 17; (June, 1942), p. 311; J. T .A .fl .8.42), p. 1.

113. J.T .A . (2.1.42), p. 3; F (2.1.42), p. 1; D T (2,1.42), p .l.

114. Life (2.23.42), pp. 25-26.

115. J.T .A . (3.25.42), p. 3; (4.5.42), p. 3; N Y T (4.24.42), p.5.

116. J.T .A . (1.5.42), p. 3; F (4.12.42), p. 3; C W (4.10.42), pp.

7-10; CJR (April, 1942), pp. 190-192.

117. J.T .A . (1.11.42), p. 1 ;F ( 1 .11.42), p. l;D T (1 .1 1 .4 2 ),p . 1.

118. J.T .A . (4.20.42), p. 1; (6.11.42), p. 4; CW (5.1.42) pp.45; D T (4.21.42), p. 1; JE (4.10.42), p. 4.

119. J.T .A . (1.6.42), p. 2; JF (March, 1942), pp. 4-5; (May, 1942), pp. 13-15; JS (May, 1 9 4 2 k pp. 13-17; N Y T (2.9.42) , p.2; (3 .1 .4 2 Í p. 2 8 ; CW (1.30.42), pp. 6-7; (2 .2 7 .4 2 ) , p. 5;F (1.10.42), p. 8; (1 ,1 5 .4 2 ) p. 3.

120. J.T .A . (3.15.42), p. 1; N Y T (3.14.42), p. 7;F (3:20.42),p.

3.

121. JF (April, 1942), p. 4.

122. CW (3.20.42), pp. 3-4.

123. J.T .A . (6.26.42), pp. 1 -2 ;N Y T (6.27.42), p. 5;(7.9.42),p.

8; D T (6.30.42), p. Í; (7.8.42), p. 1; A H (7.10.42), p. I/O (August, 1942), p. 15; CJR (August, 1942), p. 4 2 2 ; Midstream (April, 1968), pp. 52-58.

124. Report of the World Jewish Congress, 1942, p. 2; C W (8.14.42), pp. 2-5,15.

125. J.T .A . (7.22.42), p. 2 ;D T (7 .2 3 .4 2 ),p . 1; F (7.21.42),p. 3.

1 2 6 . 0 ( 7 .1 7 .4 2 ) , p. 1; N Y T ( 7 .2 2 .4 2 ) , p. 1; J.T .A Á 7.2 2 .4 2 ),pp. 1-2; (7.23.42), p. 2; C W (8.14.42), p.

1.

127. J.T .A . (7.23.42), p. 3; (7.24.42), p. 4; F (8 .1 2 .4 2 ),>p.l; A JY , Vol. 44, p. 192.

128. N Y T (8.22.42), p. 1.

129. A JY , Vol. 44, pp. 192-193.

130. Arthur Morse, While Six Million Died (New York: 1965), p.28; N Y T (12.13.42), p. l 1;(1 2 .1 8 .4 2 ), pp. 1 ,1 0 ,2 6 ,2 8 ; (12 .2 0 .4 2 ) , p. 2 3 ; C W (1 2 .1 8 .4 2 ), pp. 2-3; F (12.12.42), p. 2 ; (12.18.42), p. 4.

131. D T (11.29.39), p. 1.

132. NP (11.10.39), p. 4. Í 33. TC (November, 1939), p. 3.

134. JF (December, 1940), p. 4.

135. JS (May, 1941), p. 6.

136. CW (11.21.41), p. 3.

137. CW (10.14.41), p. 3.

138. CJR (August, 1942), p. 4 1 9 ; N JM (March, 1942), p. 2 2 4 ; C W (2.20.40), p. 3.

139. O (June, 1942), pp. 9-10; JE (5.15.42), p. 4; J.T .A .(6.1.42), p. 2 ; D T (5.9.42), p. 1; C W (5.15.42), pp.

3-12; JF (August, 1942); CJR (October, 1942), pp. 536540.

140. JE (7.10.42), p. 4; Ó ( Ju ly ,1942), p. 13; N Y T (1 2 .2 1 .42), p. 7; CW (6.19.42), p. 3; (7.10.42), p. 2.

141. TC (March, 1942), pp. 3 ,1 7 ; N Y T (3.22.42), p. 1; CJR(April, 1942), pp. 187-188; (June, 1.942), pp. 3003 0 1 ; J.T .A . (4.15.42), p. 3; D T (3.18.42), p. 1.

142. 0 ( 1 .2 3 .4 2 ) , pp. 5-6; CW (1.23.42), pp. 5-6.

29

Paula Van Gelder

The Hills are Alive With the Sound of Jeering If American television is a vast wasteland, then the Israeli version is a Sinai Desert, interspersed with a few cultural oases.

In America, the weekly guide to television is a utopian, mind-boggling affair, listing something like seven regular channels, plus several dozen ultra-high frequencies to choose from twenty-four hours a day. In Israel, you have the one state-operated channel, and if you don't like what's on, you can either turn on the radio, or crack sunflower seeds and curl up with a good book.

Much of the day is taken up with educational programming.

If you are home on sick leave, you may be lucky enough to amuse yourself by tuning in Elementary Physics or Intermediate Conversational French.

After the early evening Arabic programming, Israeli television offers several hours of entertainment. First the news, of course, introduced by a clock with its second-hand ominously sweeping around to indicate the exact time. The one news reader appears before a simple backdrop to give the day's events, interspersed with filmed sequences and occasional requests to Please Stand By. After the news comes the main event. If you're lucky, you may get a locally-produced panel discussion on Economic Implications of the Rainy Weather on the Wheat Crop. On a really good night, you'll get as a main feature an imported series such as Hawaii Five-O, or even a movie from abroad. That once-a-week feature turns out more often than not to be a Trevor Howard film made in 1943.

The one really beautiful thing is that these programs are not interrupted by commercials. However, since most of them were originally produced for American television, there is always a climactic moment when one actor looks at another significantly, the music mounts to a crescendo—and instead of fading away, the action goes right on.

If you live in Yerushalayim and have a good antenna, and wind and weather conditions are right, you should pull in excellent television reception from Jordan. You then have the advantage of being brought up to date on all the latest news of the Jordanian royal family, as well as receiving a broader choice of programming. With luck, you might catch two Hawaii Five-O's a week, or a good late movie from Amman, running well beyond the sensible time of around 11:30 P.M. that the Israel Broadcasting Authority has chosen to sign-off.

A fter the. news comes the main event. If you're lucky, you may get a locally-produced panel discussion on Economic Implication$ of the Rainy Weather on the Wheat Crop.

Paula Van Gelder is a member of the Beth Jacob W rit e rs '' Workshop in Beverly Hills. This is her first appearance in Jewish Life.

31

For what seems like fifteen minutes, you are treated to a series of commercial slides accompanied by taped narration advertising everything from soaps to dress shops to Egged buses. This part of the program may or may not be accompa n ied by wh istles, jeers, cheers or boos.

32

Even the Jordanian commercials are educational. It is somehow a comfort to know that Arab women have dry skin; too. One of the most popular station-breaks from Amman—I don't think it advertises anything^rfeatures a comely girl doing a belly dance to the tune of an old Beatles record.

Watching an old movie on television is a pleasure compared to going out to see a current film at the cinema. Ticket prices are high, yet demand is great, so it is wise to purchase your tickets in advance for the big Saturday night crush. I've never figured out why Saturday night is such a big evening for going out. Sunday is a working day, so even if you get to bed at midnight, it's up the next morning at 6:16 as usual.

Once you have braved the crowds outside the theater and fought your way to buy some refreshment in the foyer, you'll finally get to your seats, which superficially resemble those at theaters abroad, down to the chewing gum stuck to their undersides. As you look around, you may begin to notice some of the unique Israeli details—such as concrete floors instead of carpets, with cigarette burns and sunflower seed shells combining to form decorative, psychedelic mosaics.

The main differences between movie-going in Israel and abroad becomes apparent when the lights dim and the first features appear on the screen. For what seems like fifteen minutes, you are treated to a series of commercial slides accompanied by taped narration advertising everything from soaps to dress shops to Egged buses. This part of the program may or may not be accompanied by whistles, jeers, cheers or boos.

Finally, the main feature—always singular, since there are no double features—begins. Depending on the mood and composition of the crowd, there may or may not be funny remarks, hissing, whistling, laughter or group reading of subtitles (in Hebrew and French), usually during a poignant moment, occasionally accompanied by the sound of empty bottles being rolled down to the front of the theater.

My outstanding memory of "The Sound of Music" is rhythmic clapping as Maria walked down the aisle to marry Captain Von Trapp. Unfortunately, some of the audience assumed that this romantic moment marked the end of the film, and they hurried out immediately thereafter, never getting to see the Trapps climb every mountain between Austria and Switzerland. Part of their confusion may have beeri due to the fact that the projectionist had to change reels right after the wedding scene, so that those of us who remained got to view several hundred feet of a karate film— upside down—before we got back to Salzburg where we belonged.

When the movie feature finally ends, you may find that the management has cleverly scheduled things so that you have just missed the last number fifteen bus of the evening. You may then want to join one of the informal taxi pools that form as people ask one another which way they’re going. I understand that lifelong friendships have ensued from these simple beginnings.

A group of us once decided to avoid some of the rigors of the commercial cinemas, so we arranged for a private showing of a rented film at a friend's home for a not unreasonable sum.

Since there wasn't enough room in the living room to accommodate us all, we moved to the backyard, where we hung a sheet between two trees as a screen. Occasionally, a slight breeze did distort the images of Henry VIII and his contemporaries, and there was the recurrent rustle of curious neighbors in the bushes, but all in all the evening was a huge success.

Israeli entrepreneurs, perhaps sensing the desire of their audiences to participate, have come up with a way to tap this drive by holding communal sing-alongs at municipal auditoriums. Slides bearing lyrics to old favorites and popular hits are projected on a large screen on stage, while the compere plays the accordian, tells jokes, keeps enthusiasm high, and sings along with you. It may sound corny, but it's a great deal of fun.

Another, simpler kind of entertainment is the cabaret-type of evening often sponsored by student groups at one of .the universities. You may get to hear some of your favorite old jokes retold in Hebrew or delight in a number of Danny Kaye routines from twenty years ago. Some of these same performers may occasionally be spotted on locally-produced television variety shows, along with other celebrities like the "Tom Jones of Kiev" and the "Edith Piaf of Brooklyn."

You may find that as inflation soars and your budget tightens, even an occasional night out may be too much for the family budget. In that case, you might try what some of my friends have done—tonight the Schwartzes are visiting the Ben-Davids to see last year's slides of their trip to Eilat. Home entertainment is fun and inexpensive, but be very careful not to laugh or spit sunflower seed shells—‘especially during the poignant moments.

©

Even the Jordanian commercials are educational. It is somehow a comfort to know that A rab women have dry skin, too.

33

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Rabbi Ben Zion Levi's Story of Tzefat My father believed that in the sixteenth century angels whispered in the alleys of Tzefat. He believed that the angels whispered secret names of God and that they whispered the names to rabbis and to scholars and to beggars. My father believed thaf prophets whispered in Tzefat and that dead scholars and night wanderers whispered in Tzefat. My father loved the beggars and the dead scholars. My father loved Tzefat. He sang and he danced Tzefat. But that was a long time ago and my father is dead now. Still I haven't forgotten Tzefat.

I haven't forgotten Tzefat's sealed caves or its jewelled Arks or its honeyed winds. And once when I traveled to Israel without my wife and without my sons I drove straight to Tzefat. I rented a car in Tel Aviv and drove one hundred forty miles straight to Tzefat.

"Down there is the cemetery," said the young Chassidic guide who sat beside me. He pointed to the cemetery and he said, "Down there is Ha'ari's tomb. Down there is Reb Yosef Karo's grave, Yaakov Beirav's grave."

"Yes,Y I answered. "Yes, yes."

"Their souls," said the Chassid, "all flew straight to the Garden of Eden. The souls of all the dead in Tzefat fly straight to Gan Eden."

"W hy?"

"Because of the air. Because of Tzefatrs pure air."

"Then it's the height?" I asked. "It's the height that makes Tzefat's air so pure?"

"It's the swell," he answered.

But I didn't understand his Ivrit: swell.

"Tzefat swelled," he explained. "Tzefat swelled long ago when God bent down from heaven and kissed the earth of the Galilee. Tzefat swelled from the great kiss."

We drove then into a sharp turn. At the bottom of the turn the Chassid said, "There's one of Tzefat's new apartment houses. We Chassidim built that apartment," and he smiled and nodded to a twenty-story building. "We built that one for our Chassidim from America and for our Chassidim from France, from England." I knew that I was supposed to gush "ah" over the twenty-story building, but suddenly the Chassid added, "Can you steer over there? Can you steer there closer to the house?"

We stopped at the house. As soon as we stopped two women ran over to us and they screamed to us, "A little boy fell out of a window! He's hurt himself. He's hurt himself badly. No one here has a car and you've got a car!"

"Tzefat swelled long ago when God hent down from heaven and Icised the earth of the Galilee.

Tzefat swelled from the great kiss."

Anna Olswanger is a free­ lance writer from M emphis, Tennessee who is currently working on a novel from which this story is taken. This is her first appearance in Jewish Life.

35

"all flew straight to the Garden of

"Didn't you call an ambulance!"

"We called the Red Magen David but no one's come and the child isn't moving. He isn't speaking." So a young woman holding her small son climbed into the back seat of my rented car.

"I know her/'whispered the Chassid. "Her name is Rita. Her husband is dead." I pressed the accelerator and we veered and We screeched along the curled streets of Tzefat while the Chassid called out directions to the hospital. At every stop sign I glanced into my rearview mirror and I could see there the child lying silent and still in his mother's lap. Blood from his bleeding brayi spilled through his mouth and spilled through his nose. I heard the mother Rita whisper, "Uri? Uri?" I heard her whisper, "Do you want som Do you want some ice cream? Some candy, Uri?" I thought candy and ice cream strange words for the mother to whisper. The boy whispered nothing.

"O ver there," said the Chassid, "below the next hill is Tzefat Hospital." I saw the hospital. I saw the emergency entrance.

We screeched still at the emergency entrance and I could hear Rita whisper, "Uri, get up." I could hear her whisper, "Uri, you must get up." But Uri didn't get up and the Chassid helped Rita

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carry her s° n int° the outer office of the emergency room. A

"Their souls," said the Chassid,

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nurse stood in the outer office with a roller stretcher.

"W hat happened? How long has he been like this?" But Rita didn't answer the nurse. Rita stared at Uri. "A t least half an hour," I said.

The nurse rolled Uri through two swinging doors into an Xray room and then we heard over the intercom, "D r. Shabati!

Dr. Shabati!" The Chassid and Rita and I sat down together in the waiting room. Rita still whispered. Even without Uri in her arms, she whispered. I thought I heard her call someone's name.

I glanced at the two swinging doors and through the broad crack between the doors I could see a cart with bottles of blood pass by. I could see Uri on his stretcher pass by and I wondered why so much blood. I looked at the Chassid. He wondered too.

Then I could see Dr. Shabati pass by.

"Only one doctor?" I asked the Chassid.

"O ne surgeon."

"In all of Tzefat? One surgeon for spines and hearts and children's brains in all of Tzefat?"

The Chassid answered nothing. I looked to Uri's mother and she still whispered. She still called someone's name. She hadn't heard my words to the Chassid.

The waiting room began to thicken now with the sick of Tzefat. It began to thicken with pregnant women and with old men who sat on hard plastic chairs and who waited.

36

■

# "Where's Shabati?" cried one old man to the nurse behind the emergency room desk. "Where's Shabati? I want Shabati.

I've got here such a pain."

"Later, Seltzer," I heard the Chassid say. "Shabati's busy."

"God! Is God busy too?" moaned Seltzer.

"God is very busy," answered the Chassid and he sat down next to the old man. I saw him put his arm on the old man's shoulder. I saw him put his arm on the old man's pain.

Shabati ran out of the operating room. I could see through the doors that he ran out with blood all over his hands. He burst into the waiting room and he shouted to the woman behind the waiting room desk, "Call Morgenstern at Hadassah! Call him now! Now!" The woman began to dial the number of Hadassah and then she screamed, "Em li lcav!" She had no line.

"Call the operator!" answered Shabati. "Call her and tell her you've got an emergency message."

"But I haven't even got the dial tone!" she exclaimed and she banged the receiver down. She picked it up again and again no line. Suddenly the phone rang. The woman behind the desk shouted into the phone, "You! Get off the line!"

"N O !" yelled Shabati. He grabbed the phone with his bloody hands and he yelled again, "Call Hadassah and ask for Morgenstern! Ask for Dr. Chaim Morgenstern. Tell him to call Shabati."

Morgenstern called. Morgenstern the neurosurgeon called and I could hear from the call that Shabati was stuck. I could hear that Uri had splintered his skull and that Shabati had now to chisel the splintered bone that squeezed Uri's brain. Shabati took notes. Shabati sweated. He ran back through the doors of the waiting room and he glanced at Rita. He glanced at the whispering Rita.

"R ita," I asked as I sat down beside her, "can you hear me?"

And then she paused, without looking at me she paused, and she said, "You must be quiet. I'm trying to hear. I'm trying to hear what he's saying so you must be quiet."

"You're trying to hear what who is saying?"

"D ov," she answered. "What my husband Dov is saying."

But the Chassid had said that her husband was dead. "He's standing right there," and she nodded to "there," but I couldn't see "th ere."

"He's standing in front of three rabbis," she added. "The rabbis are judges. The rabbis are a Beth Din. But I can't hear what Dov is saying to the Beth Din. I can't hear what he's asking or saying. What does he want? What does he want from the judges?" And suddenly Rita began to flush. Rita began to gasp. "I didn't mean for him to fall! I didn't mean for him to hurt himself !" And suddenly again she began to whisper softly

I saw the hospital... Mm screeched still at the emergency entrance and I could hear Rita whisper, "U ri, get up." 1 could hear her whisper, "U ri, you must get up." But Uri didn't get up and the Chassid helped Rita carry her son into the outer office of the emergency room.

"You're trying to hear what who is saying?" "Dov," she answered.

"What my husband Dov is saying." But the Chassid had said that her husband was dead. "He's standing right there," and she nodded to "there"....

37

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and to cry softly and I couldn't understand her soft words. I couldn't understand if she whispered to me.

I stood up. I realized as I stood up that Dr. Shabati stood behind me. With his hands smeared in blood, he stood behind me.

"U ri?" I asked him. "U ri?" But Shabati didn't answer me. He turned and he walked towards the doors of the waiting room. I followed him.

"I was late," he said. "I was late with the instructions from M orgenstern." I said nothing.

"He's dead," said Shabati. "Uri is dead." How could Uri be dead? How could prophets be dead? Or angels be dead? "You'll have to tell his mother."

"But I hardly know her," I said. "I just drove her here.''

"I thought you were her friend," he answered. "H er close friend."

"I'm a tourist. I'm a rabbi."

"Then if you're a rabbi you must tell her!"

"You're the doctor!" I said. "You operated."

"You don't understand! You don't understand about Uri's father and about me. We were born in Tzefat, both us, but he died in the Yom Kippur War. He died in the Golan Heights.

Now his son is dead. Now I've operated on his son and he's dead. I can't tell Dov's wife that the boy is dead." Shabati looked at me, without words he looked at me, and then he walked through the doors of the waiting room.

I looked at Rita. I looked at the whispering Rita and I walked over to her. She stopped whispering.

"The three rabbis," I started, "the ones you told me about, I know them. I know their names. Their names are Luria and Karo and Beirav. They're great rabbfis, Rita, learned rabbis."

She didn't look at me. She spoke to me, but she didn't look at me. She said, "They're dead rabbis. Luria and Karo and Beirav are dead rabbis. I know they're dead. Everyone in Tzefat knows they're dead."

"They are dead," I said, "and they whisper because all the dead in Tzefat whisper. All the scholars and all the prophets who wander at night whisper. The three rabbis whisper. They whisper and they nod and they listen to your husband Dov. Dov is standing in front of them like you said. He's telling them that he's lonely. He's telling the three rabbis that he hurts and that he's lonely and that he wants only what is his.

Only what he loves."

Rita looked at me. She looked frightened and she looked at me sad. "Do the rabbis rule," she asked, "that Dov may have what he loves?"

"They rule," I said softly, "that Dov may have his son."

How could Uri be dead? How could prophets be dead? O r angels be dead?

39

40 1

Mira Lederer

The Golden Chain The gentle snowfall has turned into a blizzard and the East River is blanketed in snow. The hospital room is warm and quiet; the white sterile sheets over my father's helpless body do not move. I can hear hiß shallow breathing and I wish I could cry. My mother's head is bent over the bed and I can see her tears falling onto the sheet. Gently, she is caressing my father's limp right hand. His left is clenched into a fist—I can feel its warmth as I place my own hand over his.

"Be brave," he had told my mother just before they had wheeled him into the operating room. "Be brave." Those were his last words. And now we are waiting. To the doctors, he is just an eighty year old man; to me, he is a lifetime of memories. *

*

M y native Yugoslavia was overrun by the Nazis in ten days.

They marched into Zagreb, the fair city of Croatia. Golden Conquerors on tanks and on horses, their uniforms clean and superbly pressed. It was 1 9 4 1 and we knew nothing of genocide; only that Jews were being deported to Poland and into labor camps.

*

My mother is a brave woman. She had to be, to survive. As I sit by my father's bedside, waiting for him to die, I remember our struggle for survival. For then, too, everything was reduced to a matter of life and death.

My native Yugoslavia was overrun by the Nazis in ten days.

They marched into Zagreb, the fair city of Croatia. Golden conquerors on tanks and on horses, their uniform sdean and superbly pressed. It was 1941 and we knew nothing of genocide; only that Jews were being deported to Poland and into labor camps.

The Nazis bought up whatever goods they could find in Zagreb, using printed money to give the plunder an aura of legitimacy. In the meantime, the Gestapo set up rules for the Jews to obey: food could be gotten only at certain times and in certain stores; living quarters had to be rearranged; yellow bands with the Star of David printed on them, had to be worn at all times.

The first Jewish victims of the Gestapo were the lawyers, including my father. They were rounded up and sent to a detention camp near Zagreb. Relatives were allowed to bring them food twice a week. My mother had to take a bus and then walk several miles to the camp. My little brother and I often accompanied her to help her carry the supplies.

One day, my mother and I set out toward an unfamiliar part of town. As soon as we were certain that we would not be recognized, we took off our yellow bands. Soon we stopped in front of a small, whitewashed house. A short, plump blonde opened the door and invited us into the house.

"Come in," the woman said, and led us into a musty parlor.

"Sit here," she pointed to two straight chairs.

Mira Lederer is a free-lance New York. The Golden Chain is an excerpt

writer from

fro m a w ork in p rogress, tentatively titled Give Me Your

Wretched.

41

M y mother unbuttoned the first two buttons of her high-necked blouse and reached fo r her aquamarine pendant hanging on a gold chain. She unclasped the chain and held the pendant against the light. It sparkled in the light, reflecting all the colors; of the spectrum.

The woman made herself comfortable in an armchair, lit a cigarette and said to my mother, "Let me see it /7 My mother unbuttoned the first two buttons of her highnecked blouse and reached for her aquamarine pendant hanging on a gold chain. She unclasped the chain and held the pendant against the light. It sparkled in the light, reflecting all the colors of the spectrum. The exquisite blue stone, a cherished gift from my father, was set in a delicate antique platinum frame. It was to be mine on my twenty-first birthday.

The woman reached for the pendant. "It is beautiful,77she sighed. Then she pointed to my mother's left hand. /7I want this too .77 Quickly, my mother covered her diamond ring. /7That was not our agreement,77 she whispered.

7<You want your husband back, don't you ?77 Silently, my mother parted with her engagement ring.

The woman tried to put the ring on her own finger, but it was too tight. "I'll have it stretched," she said, and turned to me. "Your father will be home tonight."

We walked out into the sunshine. After a while we put on our yellow bands again.

"Who was this woman?" I asked.

"Her husbknd is the new Chief of Police. She was your Aunt Milka's childhood friend."

Aunt Milka was Gentile. She was married to a distant relative of ours and tried to help whenever she could.

A few days later, we fled Zagreb. The Chief of Police had provided us with false identification papers and permitted us to leave for Italian-occupied Dalmatia.

We stayed in Split for two months and then went on to Padua, Italy.

Survival was bought through another's greed. * * *

Silently, my mother parted with her engagement ring. The woman tried to put the ring on her own finger, but it was too tight. "I'll have it stretched," she said, and turned to me. "Y our father will be home tonight."

Padua was a sanctuary for three months. Then my parents were arrested.

I didn't know what to do. I was frightened and alone, responsible for my little brother. The police allowed us to visit my mother in jail, but not my father. Mother told us to go to the Questura, the Italian police. The Italians would not be cruel to children, she said.

Desperate and frightened, I took my litttle brother by the hand and we went to the Questura. There we cried and carried on until a policeman took us up to the office of a detective Bianchi. The man looked kindly and old enough to be my grandfather. I told my story and then started to sob.

The sight of two crying children must have moved the man's

42

*

Italian heart. For he spoke gently. "I wish I could help, but you came here with false papers. For that we would only arrest your father. However, your mother is a wanted criminal, a communist. We will have to send her back to Yugoslavia."

I was terrified. "My mother has never been involved in politics," I cried out. "Never, never. This is a horrible mistake."

He took a sheet o f paper from a folder and handed it to me.

"Read for yourself."

My Italian was poor. I could only understand a word here and there. Two names were on that paper, similar to my mother's and mine. Next to the names was the word communista. Suddenly, I realized what had happened. My mother and 1 were mistaken for two sisters from Zagreb, both communists jailed in Zagreb for the last few years. The sisters' last name was the same as ours, the first names similar to my mother's and mine. Apparently, a case of mistaken identity.

I began to explain in broken French and Italian. There was a mix-up ip names—I pointed out that I was only sixteen years old, hardly an age at which I would be a seasoned political prisoner. As I kept talking, Bianchi kept writing. I couldn't figure out whether he believed me or not. Finally, he stopped writing and told me he would see what he could do.

My brother and I returned to our rented rooms. We waited in panic for word from Bianchi. Three days later, my mother was released from prison. She told us that Bianchi had visited her in jail and she had promised him money. He could do nothing about my father.

My father was sent to Asiago, near Cortina. There he was to wait for deportation to the infamous island of Lipari and held as a political prisoner of war. My mother, brother and I were sent to a small town near Padua, where we were to be confined as civilian internees. Fortunately, my father was not sent to Lipari—instead, with the help of more money, he was reunited with us a year -later.

Once more, survival was bought through another's greed.

M y father felt he had to take a desperate step. T h e re r was no choice. H e approached a German soldier and asked to talk to the commanding officer.

★ * ★ The Allies invaded Sicily in 1943. Mussolini's government collapsed and General Badoglio took over until Mussolini was restored to power by the Germans. The German Army marched into Italy from the North, to fight the Allies who were advancing from the South.

At the first news of the German invasion, we packed all our belongings and fled by train to Padua. From there, we took a southbound train to Bologna, hoping to continue southward toward the Allied lines. The train was brimming with civilians and Italian deserters who were fleeing from the Germans.

43

Life was difficult in Rome. We had to stay in line for hours to get some drinking water or fresh bread.

There were bombings until Rome was declared to be an "open city." ft was dangerous for my father and brother to leave the apartment, because the Germans often blocked off streets at unexpected times, rounded up all the men and shipped them off to labor camps.

Most of the young soldiers had discarded their uniforms trying to look like civilians. The train was so crowded that it was difficult to find a place to stand, let alone sit. People were literally hanging out of windows, while some were lying across the roof of the train.

It took us two days, instead of two hours, to reach Bologna.

The train kept crawling and stopping. At one point, it even returned to Padua, only to resume its trip to Bologna.

In Bologna, the Germans caught up with us. The passengers were told to get out and line up for an identification check. We thought we* would be caught, but the Germans were only interested in the papers of thé young men. The deserters were led away at gunpoint and the civilians were told to find their own means of transportation.

My father felt he had to take a desperate step. There was no choice. He approached a German soldier and asked to talk to the commanding officer. My father's flawless German and his imposing scholarly manner helped him get an interview with a captain. We waited by the road, tense and exhausted.

When my father returned, he was elated. In his hand he held the most precious of all documents, a lascia passare, a pass to Rome.

"How did you manage?" my mother asked.

He smiled his gentle smile. "I told them I was an Italian businessman from Rome and that we were caught in Milan by the American bombings. I explained that I spoke perfect German because I had studied in Vienna."

"Didn't they ask to see your identification?"

"They did," my father grinned happily. "But, I told them that everything was destroyed by the bombings. They believed me.

I guess they figured that no one would dare to invent such a story. And look at that—we have four seats on a German Army camion which is leaving for Rome tonight. But you must speak Italian only," he warned us1."We don't want any slip-ups.

I'm supposed to be the only one who speaks German."

We came to Rome in a German camion carrying war supplies for the Nazis. *

*

*

In Rome we found shelter, ration cards and false identification papers through the help of an underground refugee network. Money was provided for by the International Red Cross and the sale of our dwindling supply of valuables.

In the distance we could hear the rumbling of heavy artillery at Anzio. The sounds were comforting because we thought the Allies were near. Many months passed, however, before liberation became a reality.

44 1

Life was difficult in Rome. We had to stay in line for hours to get some drinking water or fresh bread. There were bombings until Rome was declared to be an "open city." It was dangerous for my father and brother to leave the apartment, because the Germans often blocked off streets at unexpected times, rounded up all the men and shipped them off to labor camps.

Finally, in June of 1944, liberation came. Our apartment faced the northern end of the city. From the window, we could see the last columns of weary German soldiers, trudging toward Florence. Frightened young men, their uniforms in disarray. But the cruelty remained. As the Germans filed past the silent crowds, a young boy stood on the sidewalk, his bicycle next to him. Suddenly, one of the soldiers leaped out of the column, pointed his bayonet at the boy and forced him to give up his bike. I could see the German ride away on the bicycle, while the boy remained on the sidewalk, crying.

The Allied troops marched into Rome the following day. A new life was to begin for us in America.

Finally , in June of 1 9 4 4 , lib era tio n ' - c a m e ....F rom the window, we could see the last colum ns of w eary G erm a n soldiers, trudging toward Flor­ ence.,.. The Allied troops marched into Rome the following day, A new life was to begin for us in America.

It is dark and quiet in the hospital room. Only a small lamp is lit by my father's bed. My mother is asleep in the armchair, her face worn and her white hair dishevelled. Outside, the worst of the. blizzard is over.

My father's fist is unclenched. Has he given up the fight for life?

I walk over to the window. It has stopped snowing. Sobs rise to my throat but I won't let go. I have to shield my mother from my own grief. .

I turn around and look at my father once more. He has I stopped breathing.

45

Frieda S. Korobkin

With Crooked Teeth, Smiling We are walking to the river, Papa and I. In reality, I am not We are walking to the river, Papa walking, but gliding over water, sailing in air. The pavement is and I. In reality, 1 am not walking, gliding over water, sailing in liquid beneath my feet, which have no momentum of their but air. The pavement is liquid own. My arm has forgotten to ache from being suspended at beneath my feet, whicli have no his side, and my hand, which he has clamped tightly between momentum of their own. ... There his long, thin fingers, is numb, entirely without feeling. There is no feeling in any part of my body except in my chest where a joyous is no feeling in any part of my body except in my chest where a constriction reaches right up to my joyous constriction reaches right up to .my throat and throat and threatens to choke off threatens to choke off my breathing. I am completely my breathing. weightless, without substance. Papa soars beside me, above me. In his free hand he conveys the thick book which accompanies him wherever he goes. For once, it arouses no jealousy within me. It is enough to be at his side. Today I have no brother, no sister, no mother. There are just Papa and I. Papa, in his black coat and hat and dark red beard attached to his lean, ascetic face, the forehead of which is marked on either temple by fine, thin veins which nevertheless stand out like auxiliary roads on a country map. I, in a long-sleeved, faded cotton dress which once was bright with clusters of spring flowers when my sister first wore it; and on my feet the cracked brown shoes which look more and more like the faces of two nonagenarians—shoes which lace right up past my ankles and which have known two other pairs of feet before mine.

We are floating along in the direction of the park which leads down to the river. Why am I not in school? Is it because my kindergarten teacher has reported that I spat into my neighbor's spinach the day before? Nothing has been said. I get up in the morning and there is Papa, in good humor, folding his talis and wanting to know whether "a certain young miss would like to accompany'her father today?" He does not really say "accompany" but uses a less formal phrase, something like "tag along." One would never suspect this morning that only the night before he and my mother exchanged harsh words; words which assaulted me in my half-sleeping, half-waking state and dkinder, words which left my which, as always, concerned mother weeping. In recent months there is either a sigh-filled silence between them, or voices which have always been used to quiet tones, raised in unaccustomed anger. Or, I think, in pain. ★ * Frieda Korobkin is a member of We are sitting on the grass verge which slopes down to meet the not-so-blue Danube. (Why does the song lie?) The water makes gentle, musical sounds as it washes against the shore. I

the Beth Jacob Writers' Workshop in Beverly Hills, California. This is her first appearance in Jewish Life. J

47

One would never suspect this morning that only the night before he and my mother exchanged h arsh w ords; words w hich assaulted me in my half-sleeping, half-waking state and which, as always,^concerned de' kinder....

open the brown paper bag which I have brought with me, scoop out a handful of salt, and carefully sprinkle the river wtih it. Somewhere I have heard that salty water keeps people afloat even if they are unable to swim and I am determined that the Danube shall be bouyant for non-swimmers like myself. A pleasure boat cruises up the center of the river on an early summer outing. Music blares from the vessel and carries to our spot. Papa looks up from his book, his thumb frozen in mid-air as it comes up from its nose-dive over the open page; his other hand is arrested in the act of caressing his beard. He is staring across the water, not seeing, his lips moving but making no sound. Soundlessly and slowly, his lips move as if not sure of the words. This pose of his, one I have seen before and with more and more frequency of late, each time has the power to shred my insides into ribbons of anguish. I continue my activity, but the joy has gone out of it. Small gray waves swish up in quick, frenzied motions from the boat's wake and reach almost to our feet.

Papa's voice. I turn quickly, gladly. He speaks slowly, still gazing in the same sightless way out over the water which now is empty and calm. Surprisingly, he is talking about genies.

What, he wants to know, would I wish for if a genie were suddenly to appear? I do not have to think. This is easy. I laugh, delighted with the game. "Half shoes, Papa. Oh, half shoes," Then, I think to myself, I will be like the Ginzburg girls on our street with half shoes. Papa's soft brown eyes lose their dead, vacant look as they focus on me and come to life again. He throws back his head and laughs with me, revealing his two crooked bottom teeth which overlap. I realize that I have not heard him laugh or seen that crooked smile for weeks. Then he pats me on the head and continues smiling. Saying nothing, he just pats me on the head and smiles. *

Papa's soft brown eyes lose their dead, vacant look as they focus on me and come to life again. He throws back his head and laughs with me, revealing his two crooked bottom teeth....

*

*

November. It is cold; a bone-eroding cold, outside and inside.

There is no longer any heat in the flat. Papa sits, no...crouches over his book day and night, swaying to and fro, to and fro, his overcoat never leaving his back. He drinks endless glasses of hot tea and, when his hands are not wrapped around the warm glass, they rub each other inta steady washing motion in his lap.

My sister, my brother and I play our games in half-hearted fashion, desultorily. Even our squabbles are without enthusiasm. There is little food left. They have closed our grocery shop. First they break all the windows and ransack the shelves, then my parents are forced to sweep up the broken glass and debris, then to kneel and scrub the pavement. I do not witness this indignity. The windows of our flat face the back courtyard and we younger children are not allowed down

48

■

anymore. Every morning my mother leaves the house with my sister, each of them carrying a saucepan. They queue up outside the community center for the daily food ration. Each day they creep home a little more weary and silent than the day before and climb fully clothed into one bed where they hold onto each other for warmth. My brother and I climb in, too, fighting for a place next to our mother. Fighting to get on top of her, under her, inside her. Back inside her womb. *

*

*

"Nein! Nein! Nein! Yosef. Nein!" screams my mother and then disintegrates into convulsive sobs. Their voices again insinuate themselves into my sleep. But this time only my mother's is raised. Papa speaks softly, resignedly, sadly. "Es muss so sein." A decision has been reached. It must be so. *

*

Each day they creep home a little more weary and silent!than the day before and climb fully clothed into one bed where they hold onto each other for warmth. M y brother and I climb in, too, fighting for a place next to our mother. Fighting to get on top of her, under her, inside her.

Back inside her womb.

*

Again my hand is in his. But this time I do not feel the actual flesh of his fingers, just thelong,bony outlines, for my hands are protected by mittens which are attached to each other by a long string drawn through my coat sleeves and around my neck. His hands, too, are wearing gloves, but his grip is hard and tight, tighter than I can ever remember, as if he will never let me go. He has forsaken his book for an old, brown leather suitcase which is miraculously held together by an apologetic piece of string and my mother's prayers. Again I am alone with Papa. My brother and my sister, who trudge in the snow

49

The shoes...are very glossy and smooth. T heir shiny surface is like a m irror in which I behold my image as it slithers elusively about in ripply waves. I hold one shoe up to my face and peer into its black looking-glass. A face peers back at me. His face: distorted, smiling, with crooked teeth.

alongside us carrying paper bundles also tied with string, are mere shadows, non-existent. It is nighttime. The streets are brightly lit and busy. Soldiers, civilians, people throng everywhere. It is some time since I have been outside at night and I look around, taking in the Christmas ornaments, the flags and the pictures which are everywhere. A strange looking man with penetrating eyes and a funny mustache looks down on me at every turn. We are jostled by some soldiers. There is a flash of steel. Papa pulls my hand. I look up.

His beard is no longer there. Just a jagged red mess attached to his chin. Laughter. I cannot move. My legs are frozen to the spot just as they were one afternoon a few months ago when, on coming into our building after playing with my friends, a man sprung out at me from the shadows and thrust his hand up my dress from behind. The armbands with their compelling, invincible insignia have a hypnotic effect on me. I cannot take my eyes from them. I cannot move. Papa is thrown against the wall, jerking me after him. More laughter. Silently, we continue on our way. Not once has he uttered a sound. I peer up at him. His lip is bleeding, his face has taken on the hue of cold ashes. The yellow street lights reflect ghoulishly in his eyes which stare sightlessly ahead. My hand stays glued to his, his to mine. * *

*

Three days later, in sleeting rain, we arrive in London. My sister, my brother and LW e sleep in a large room, a d filled with children. A family comes to adopt me. Temporarily.

For the duration. A husband and wife with two sons. They live in a real house with rooms both upstairs and downstairs, all of them heated. There is a bathroom upstairs with two taps, one for hot water, the other for cold. Downstairs there is even a separate lavatory with a sink and two more taps. Not at all like our flat with its solitary lavatory and cold water and wooden bathtub which, on bath nights, is dragged to the center of the floor from under the kitchen table and filled with water heated on the stove. The people must be rich. On the very first day they buy me new clothes. A dress, a skirt, some blouses and jumpers. New underwear. And two pairs of "half" shoes. One is for school with laces, black. The other pair, also black, is for "good" with a strap around the ankle. It is to be worn with white socks which reach all the way to my knees. It is much fancier than the Ginzburg girls' shoes. The shoes for "good" are very glossy and smooth. Their shiny surface is like a mirror in which I behold my image as it slithers elusively about in ripply waves. I hold one shoe up to my face and peer into its black looking-glass. A face peers back at me. His face: distorted, smiling, with crooked teeth.

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JE W IS H LIFE A Statem ent of Purposes ... In the pages of Jewish Life we will share with you insights into the Jewish past as they clarify the Jewish present, and as they help us to see into the future. We will examine the Jewish present in the light of the past, and in the light of what must be our future aspirations. We will look into the future, not with any mystical powers—there are few Jews today who lay claim to such powers—but with the techniques 'made available to us by the Jewish mind and the Jewish heart refined by Torah learning and historical Jewish experience ... ... Jewish Life will continue to be a platform for the expression of diverse points of view in the American Torah commun­ ity. Here these criteria alone will gain admittance to the minds of our readers: a commitment to Jewish values, and an articulate expression of a point of view on matters of interest and deep concern to other committed Jews. Surely not all readers will agree with our application of these criteria-—and we earnestly look forward to hearing from them. Writing is a mystique I hope to explore in these pages, particularly as it relates to the articulation and in­ terpretation of Torah values and concepts. And reading too is a mystique: but the two can function only in unison... ... Most people who read are aware of the difficulties^of trans­ lating from one language into another. When a judge an­ grily said to a Yiddish interpreter that there must be an English word that means "shofar," the reply was "it's a horn." When asked why he didn't say so to begin with, the interpreter shrugged his shoulders and said, "Because it's not a horn!" But few readers realize that all writing is in a sense "translation," particularly when we try to express.

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All such attempts must, therefore, by definition, fall short of their mark. It shall here be our objective to come as close to the mark as we can in stretching the English language to accommodate Torah categories and Torah concepts as Jews have in the past used other foreign tongdes. in these difficult tasks we solicit your help, your under­ standing, your patience—and your prayers.

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Wings 2 Zayde, I could speak of you forever, oh memory carved from majesty, of your tangled eyebrows, deep as stream-watered bushes, that still blossom in dreams and beckon to me, home of the hare, the deer, of all things graceful and mercilessly hunted.

Of your presence, the long sweet greenhouse of roses I flourished in, oblivious to sorrow's ice.

Of your hands, ten fabled fingers carved by God from justice and from mercy: ten warm embers curled around some March-blown, half-frozen bird; or, rolled into a fist of retribution, striking a Jew-baiter down.

Of your back, a granite mountain bowing east to God, praying for vengeance on nazis, mercy for broken wings.

Of the way you burst in from the night, in a shower of snow flakes, the wild spirit of snow, light tumbled from heavenly regions and scorning the lacklustre earth.

Of the past, its perpetually wet paint smearing me anew, then darting off, elusive as the hummingbirds you snared and let go.

Oh where are you now, blessed Zayde, tender bear with your raw eggs and onions, anatomy of my fondest dreams?

Not in yellowed snapshots, your face fogged out like the sun in autumn haze, your smile overshadowed.

Not in tattered prayerbooks, the pages thick with your thumbprint, a burned-out constellation whose light outlives its end.

Chaim Feinberg, who lives in Yerushalayim, has contributed to these pages in the past.

54

Nor in the miraculous lamp of visions, where still I ride your shoulder, a sparrow in the oak's heavenly heights.

No, Zayde, not in the prose of the earthbound, but in the song, in the sweep of the comet, the hawk, the curve and crescendo of the heart's farthest flight, in all things winged, praising Heaven, and free.

Burning Bush In the interior of interiors where the soul holds sway, like a royal garden carved from the radiant birth of day, No shadow shall diminish there the dominion of light: facing east on every side, the garden defies the power of night.

Sun bursts in a shower of sunbeams, every ray a darting bee that dives in flowers and, dipped in nectar, buzzing free, It pours fresh yolk in hollows, swallows the garden in its flame, and leaves each bush a burning bush, murmuring God's name.

I. E. Mozeson

Masada Masada rises like a rusted ax-head in the Dead Sea plain.

We hack away at history, sift the sands of man to find bones molted for the moment by those who chose to survive survival.

Strings Attached We are all survivors, brother, But how will I outlive my last Sibling. We were single strands Knotted above like a tallis end.

Love was as woolen And embracing as a tallis.

On the fringes of our father's Worship, we absent-mindedly pulled The strings of Papa's prayer shawl.

During the priestly blessing, We wrangled in the wings Of his tallis tent.

His tallis embraces your coffined Body before me. Broken off, Ritually, is one set of fringes, One set of knots and strings.

Mr. Mozeson is a poet living in New York City. He recently published The Watcher, based upon his experiences as a shomer in a funeral chapel.

A hand has come sliding Over knots, pulling strings.

Surviving has left rope burns In my heart. I know well meet Somewhere under Papa's tallis.

56 1

Burying The Scimitar Call me, Ishmael, Call me my half Brother. We were banished From the crotch of the world, The womb stretched From Africa and Eurasia. We have returned Bearing scars and gifts of two millenia.

Sadat called on Begin in Jerusalem, Upstaging my birthday in Manhattan.

It was a day of reconciliation For familial foes Only a wilderness away. In Brooklyn, My Cleopatra, the less scarred And more gifted of my better halves, Called to open diplomatic channels.

Love, let me fly My flag in your port At the V of our lives.

Golda kissed Sadat, surely you could Be my just And lasting Peace in Jerusalem.

Console Design Shrieks bitten back in clenched fingers pressing lips could yet sing beyond a grave of nature and her seasonal swallows.

I am one such bird of darting high consequence and sweeping generalization who would view a patchwork universe basted upon eventualities.

There is a tree.

It dangled buffered chestnuts before Ann Frank's window.

She no longer sees what lies in twisted branch design to balance away an insanity.

Who will vindicate the rain, will justify the flood.

57

Linda Hepner

After the Visit "Do you miss him?"

"Yes, of course I do," she said And yet her words were halted for she saw inside her memory, A passing glance, like January shoppers glimpsing as they go A shred of tinsel in the workday windows, "Of course..." she saw a Turning shoulder, hunched, His suit grey-blue and checkered, Hair abundant—black but Peppered grey—no mostly grey— A cup half-finished, Tea leaves lying cold against its side...

No—white—his hair was white And black was merely memory of memory.

That wet December when they met and talked, Drank tea and gazed upon the massing clouds, Made plans, let time drift, Whiled the hours away With parlor games and he Told tales of some distant childhood To grandchildren—when Then did she once study him, Remembering the father he had been Or watch, consider, understand And then prepare to see the whitened hair?

Now she scans the scene and finds no face, No voice or conversation, all is gone, They spun the time away, but did not watch Each other, each absorbed in plans And clouds and telling tales.

Envoi: Where is the man who came here in the rain; Where is the man she met but did not see; Where is the father of her childhood...

She calls but cannot grasp the memory.

Linda Hepner is a poet who is associated with the Beth Jacob Writers' Workshop in Beverly Hills. This is her first appearance in Jewish Life.

58

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By Mossad Eliezer Hoffner The Brochos Booklet is a publication of NCSY / National Conference of Synagogue Youth / Orthodox Union This handy booklet tells you which Brocho to make on hundreds of items— Alphabetically arranged with footnotes and explanations and all according to the latest P'sakim of

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The Editor Replies:

To the Editor: In the most recent issue of Jewish Life (Winter 1980/81) you printed two letters criticizing your comments on the "Boston Fifty-Six." There were many things wrong with the substance and form of both letters.

Following the letters was "Rabbi Bleich Replies"—but he only replied to the second half of Mr. Pinsky's diatribe. (Very well, indeed, I would say.) But as the editor and author of the original article so viciously attacked you had the privilege and duty to make your reply; not for personal satisfaction, of course, but to give your readers the proper answers. That's what I thought and expected on page 64 and following. What a disappointment when 1 found only the usual listings of names!

Congratulations to you on your excellent work as editor (in spite of my tiny suggestion above), and I look forward to reading you and those articles selected by you from issue to issue.

Irving I. Gavrin Parsippany, New Jersey

I appreciate Mr. Gavrin's concern for my feelings and his kind words of praise. (As a mater of editorial policy I have generally refrained from publishing letters of praise because I have felt they serve little purpose other than inflating the editor's ego, which in turn can be destructive of creative energies.) I gain adequate satisfaction in knowing that people out there are reading Jewish Life, and from permitting our readers the last word when they take the time to write us—a satisfaction which in this instance Mr. Gavrin has denied me.

In this context I would like to add another word. I have been criticized for allowing to go unanswered the letter in our last issue by Rabbi Pinchas Stolper, Executive Vice Presi­ dent of the Orthodox Union, publisher of this journal. Rabbi Stolper was critical of the editor for publishing the article by Rabbi Ralph Pelcovitz in our Fall 1980 issue which examined the "Teshuva phenomenon" in a critical light. This was his privilege, as it was the privilege of Rabbi Pelcovitz, one of the most respected and articulate leaders of American Orthodoxy, and a frequent speaker at various convocations of the Orthodox Union, to state his position.

No doubt, Rabbi Stolper's letter went beyond the scope of an ordinary "Letter to the Editor," but he did project a perspective on what has been happening in the return of young people to Torah—which surely belonged in the pages of Jewish Life, as did the article by Rabbi Pelcovitz.

I have never—nor would I care to—preside over any publication which closed its pages to diverse points of view in the American Torah community. As an editor I lay no claim to any special wisdom which would make it possible to say a final word on Torah issues where reasonable people disagree.

Perhaps I have been long-winded in stating my belief that no editor is in any way compromised by giving the reader the last word. But readers may take consolation in knowing that, having said all this, I foresee no need to say it again.

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