April 18, 1969

Page 1

NEBRASKA

SOCIETY

The Hike to Jerusalem By Philip Glllon The main event in tjie celebrations of Israel's twenty-first Independence Day will be the parade through Jerusalem at the conclusion of a three-day hike up the Judacari Hills in which 10,000 people, ranging in age from 6 to 102, are participating, "along with 10,000 teenagers in the Gadna Youth M o v e m e n t . The Three-Day Hike, together with the annual Song Festival,... Youth Bjble ~tjutz,~tlre award ofTsraeTPrizes and all-niglit dancing in the streets, will replace the annual military parade. The Three-Day Hike is an Israeli spring festival that has unostentatiously insinuated it" self onto the country's calendar of gay events. Now it lias received official recognition, on its thirteenth birthday, as the happiest way to celebrate the most jubilant day of the year, the annual Independence Day. Instead of the Israel Defense Forces going through their paces in a military p a r a d e civilians of all ages will don

Vol. 1XVII—31

their hiking boots and will trudge or dance their way to Jerusalem. Tradition At first, the Hike was organized in different areas each year, but s o o n everybody agreed: "Let us go up to Jerusalem!" Perhaps because Israel is making history fast, traditions grow at astonishing speed; by the beginning of the fifth Hike, the march to Jerusalem was ...as.: firmly_estiiblislied^as-if_ iL had taken place every year for' centuries! Friends from abroad heard about it and, for years now, foreign contingents have been coming to enjoy the spring hike with the Israelis. The hikers cover between fifteen and twenty miles a day, the distance varying according to the route. Most of the hiking is done in the early morning: they rise at tjj£ crack of dawn and set off across the hills. By midday -they are in eamp again, free to rest their weary feet or to go out visiting or sightseeing. ' The school children and old

Publication Of flip 101 No. 20th St. Omaha. Neb. C8102, Phojie-342-13GG

people of seventy and upujoin the Hike during the last two days. The greatest hero of all is Mordechai Joseph Doron, of the Holon Parents' Home, who has a birth certificate and other documents to prove,.that he is now 102 years old. At 95, he lost two ' teeth cracking nuts, and agrees that this is the wrong technique; apart from that, he has never been ill. • He intends to go on hiking unUJ-Jie_ls_1.29=o.r_.eyfitt_JS0, When he was a mere 93, somebody suggested to him that he should join the Hike; the organzers ridiculed the idea—until he outwalked boys 75 years younger than he was. They then referred him to a doctor to get a certificate* of fitness. He walked twenty miles to.the hospital, underwent all the tests the doctors could devise, and eventually exasperated them into granting him his certificate. Mr. Doran ascribes his energy and long life to drinking a tot or two of cherry brandy every_ day.

A GROUP OF MARCHERS, led by 102-year-old Yoscf Doron, arriving in Jerusalem at the end of the three-day march last year. .

April 23: Israel's 21st Birthday

OMAHA, NEBRASKA, Fit I HAY, Al'Itll, IB, 1OG9

Autopsy Protestors Attack Home of Hospital Director JERUSALEM (JTA)—The leaders of Israel's Orthodox religous establishment have.promised to attempt to restrain young zealots from further violent demonstrations like one which occurred here last week when a gang of about 80 Yeshiva students broke into the home of, the director of the Shaare Tsedek Hospital to protest against his refusal to prohibit autopsies at the hospital. . Dr. "Zorach Warhaftig, the " Minister for Religious Affairs, "pogrom" by M a y o r Teddy expressed regret over the in- Kollek of Jerusalem who urged cident and praised the hos- police to take every legal meapital's d i r e c t o r , .Dr. David sure against the perpetrators. Maier, as "a good doctor and Police took 79 of the raiders, a good Jew." members of the ultra-Orthodox The raid on his home, in "Eidah Charedit" group into which his aged mother was custody. They were released manhandled and f u r n i t u r e on parole for the Passover holismashed, was denounced as a day. The group is one of several extremist religious' sects which do not recognize the -State of Israel; it regards 1ho Satmar Ttebbe in New York as its spiritual leader. London (JTA)—Baghdad raDr. Maier himself Orthodox, dio announced that four more has followed the policy on auIraquis have been executed for topsies set by his predecessor allegedly spying for the United which was to let the hospital's Stales-. It said the four, were a l l . rabbi, rule in each case on Moslems and did not specify whether a post mortem was the manner of their execution permissible according to Jewin the Baghdad Central Prison. ish religious law. The zealots Presumably they were hanged. claimed the hospital's officiatThc Iraqi regime drew world- ing rabbi was not sufficiently wide condemnation and admo- Orthodox, nition from several Arab states Rabbi Joseph Sheinberger, when it hanged and publicly spokesman for the zealot group d i s p l a y e d the bodies of 14 said it would continue the fight Iraqis, nine of them Jews, in against . .Dr. - -Maier. - . — The organ! Baghdad and Basra last Jan. zation has conducted several 27. The hanged men had been demonstrations a g a i n s t the convicted of spying for Israel. pathologist, protesting his desEight other alleged spies were ignation as director-of the most hanged in Baghdad last Feb. Orthodox hospital—in J e r u s a 20, all of them Moslems. lem. .

Election of Officers; Salute to Israel Planned for Annual Federation Meet Reservations will be accepted until 5 p.m. today for the 65th annual dinner-meeting of the O m a h a Jewish Federation. The 6:30 p.m. event, Sunday, April 20, at the Highland Country Club, will also observe the 21st an-

Baghdad Announces tkw Spy Executions

31 Church-State Dispyfes Reported Pending iir-Cbinijs New York (JTA)—The Amer- "Congress shall make no law ican Jewish Congres reports respecting an establishment of that 31 cases involving disputes religion or prohibiting tho over church-state relations are free exercise thereof." awaiting decisions in Federal ' .' Bible and state, courts, the largest number of them—13—involving Leo.Ffeffer, special counsel the issue of public aid to sec- to the AJCongress, said- that tarian schools. The In/romation while many rural communities, was contained in a report of a particularly in the South, disnational survey conducted, by regarded the Court's ban on the AJCongress and was re- Bible reading in public schools, leased by George Soil. the incidence of defiance was Mr. Soil said the coses con- "minor" compared with "the cerning' state aid to parochial tremendous extent of complyschools all revolved around the ing with the rulings in every . . . . First Amendment which lays major city."

Setninri Class Postacc SlnRln Copy IS Conls Paid at Omaha, Neb. Annual Rale 5 Dollani

nlvcrsary of I s r a e I's Independence. Reservations may be made by calling 342-1366. \ Joe Bice, chairman of the nominating committee,- noted the importance of all interested members of the Jewish community participating in the election of officers to head the Jewish Federation. "I urge all who possibly can, to attend this i m p o r t a n t annual meeting where new leadership will be chosen," he said. "The meeting will also provide anjopportunity to express our;"appreclatlon"'to~ Harry Sidman upon his completion of two terms as president of the Federation," Mr. Rice said.

Joe Rice Nominating Chairman

ing the 21st anniversary of the State of Israel. Members of the 1968 campaign leadership, headed by Daniel Katzman, will be cited for their efforts • in the 1968 campaign. The 1969 Campaign personnel, headed by C. M. Newman, will be introduced.

• .' ••

In addition to Mr. Rice, members of the nominating committee'include: Morris C. Fellman, Howard Kaplan, Daniel Katzman, Ernie (I-Go) Nogg, C M . Newman and Ell Zalkin. Meeting Agenda Rabbi Myer S. Kripke and Rabbi Isaac Nadoff will participate in the program observ-

LONDON (JTA)—Lord Snow, the British scientist and writer, has come under attack for a suggestion he made in New York earlier this month that Jews may have a genetically superior endowment than other people. Lord Snow delivered Uie remark at founders' day exercises at the New Yojk school of Hebrew Union-College-Jewish Institute of Religion, tho seminary of Reform Judaism. British Education Minister Edward Short described it as "a completely spurious doctrine, reminiscent of Dr. Goebbels." Lord Snow disclosed here that he had received "a stack of paranoid and obscene letters from people accusing me of being in the pay of Jews.' He said he resented any suggestion that he was racist and added, "I do say that certain groups of people have a higher average genetic endowment—the Jews, judged by the crude test of their number of Nobel Prize winners, are a case in point." Lord Snow added that/ho was prepared to go to an all-black seminary in Alabama "and say, that if you look at the list of Olympic gold medallists, it is clear that the Negro race i s .

Harry Sidman Retiring President

disproportionately talented in . . .racing and 'the long jump." , Lord Snow's controversial remark was in answer to a rhetorical question he posed in his address at the HUC-JIR gathering: "Why have the Jews been so successful?" He noted that at no time could the world's Jewish population have exceeded 20 million and it may have been 17 to 18 million before the Nazi Holocaust, less than the present populations of Canada, Ethiopia, Spain or Turkey, i He added, "Take any test of achievement you like—in any branch of science, mathematics, literature, music, public life. The Jewish performance has been not only disproportionate, but almost ridiculously disproportionale . . .If we assume, as is probably sensible, that Nobel Prize winners are bound to' bo drawn from advanced societies, then... the. fair statistical distribution for Jewish people would be something less than one in 50 } . . Run your eye down-the lists of Nobel Prize winners for the last 25 years. You will find something be-, tween a third and a ..quarter have Jewishnames., : ... -


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April 18, 1969 by Jewish Press - Issuu