Jewish Life Spring-Summer 1982

$ 2 .5 0

W ho Are the Real Palestinians? The M yth of a Palestinian State/ A historical and ideological statement on the realities of Palestinian statehood.

The Jewish Family: Realities and Prospects/ Jewish family life in America sits for a portrait.

How M any Are W e? Where Are W e G oing?/ The demo­ graphic facts of life — and death.

"Baruch Ha'Shem, Not So G ood /' Some Concerns of Jewish W om en/ A clinical psychologist listens with a "third ear" to what women are saying.

From the Jewish and the Secular Press/ A new feature: A Conservative View of Teshuva/ A View from Lubavitch/ Getting a 'Get'

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

Editor Yaakov Jacobs

Production Manager Marla Silver Circulation Anne Neuwirth Editor Emeritus Saul Bernstein 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 Sheldon Rudoff Michael Shmidman Pinchas Stolper Baruch Taub Shimon Wincelberg Maurice Wohlgelernter

Mrs. Linore Ward and Family have established the Jess Ward Memorial Jewish Life Fund 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 Fund 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.

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

Volume VI, Number 1 T a m m u z 5 7 4 2 — S p rin g /S u m m e r 1 9 8 2

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J ine Contents

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Who Are the Real Palestinians? The Myth of a "Palestinian State"/ Harold Fisch

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The Jewish Family: Realities and Prospects/ Reuven P. Bulka

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How Many Are We? Where Are We Going?/ Chaim Waxman

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"Baruch Ha'Shem, Not So Good," Some Concerns of Jewish Women/ Janet Wolf

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From the Jewish and the Secular Press/ A new feature: A Conser­ vative View of Teshuva/ A View from Lubavitch/ Getting a 'Get'

Note to Readers Readers are reminded that Jewish Life has been published, with some interrup­ tions, for close to fifty years. The new series, of which this issue is Volume Six, Number One, began in 1975. Readers wishing to know more about our publishing history are invited to write. Back issues of Jewish Life, when available, may be ordered by pre-payment of three dollars which covers cost of postage. Inquiries concerning purchase of bulk subscriptions by congregations, organizations and schools at reduced rates are invited.

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Peace for Galilee The bulk of the material in this issue was prepared before Israel's forces drove into Lebanon. From certain quarters the response was predictable: outrage at the violation of Lebanese territory from those not outraged by the PLO and Syrian presence in that land; tears about civilian casualties from those who do not cry when Jewish blood is shed; and appeals for statehood for the "Palestinians" from those who were not the least bit concerned when Arab states denied statehood when it was in their hands to deliver it.

In this issue . . . . . .

Who

AreThe Real Palestinians? The Myth o f a Palestinian

State by Dr. Harold Fisch, raises questions that will be all the more important as Israel's enemies try to revenge the defeat of the PLO by pressing more and more for the establishment of a "Palestinian State" in Israel's heartland. Here, a world-renowned scholar and leading ideologist of traditional thought reveals the historical truths, that the world — in its hatred for Jews and the Jewish state — refuses to face. That some American Jews and even Israelis have also been taken in by the myth is especially deplorable. We are pleased to offer this definitive statement to our readers at this critical time for our people.

Faced with rising threats from the outside, the Jewish People's in­ ternal strength remains the Jewish family. In The Jewish Family: Realities and Prospects, Rabbi Reuven P. Bulka examines how we are doing in a society where family structures are being eroded. He focuses on such matters as divorce, single-parent households, and intermarriage, and their effect on Jewish survival.

Demography, the study of population statistics, is often perceived as being a matter of interest only to scholars. For the Jew demographic figures can be a matter of life and death. Are we shrinking in numbers in an irreversible trend? What is assimilation doing to our. ranks? — and what of intermarriage? Dr. Chaim Waxman provides us with some chilling facts in How Many Are

We? Where Are We Going?

In Orthodox journals, and in public pronouncements by Orthodox thinkers, we have been told that we have not been spared the damaging effects of a growingly hedonistic society. With the out­ ward trappings of Orthodoxy becoming more apparent in 2

American society, the spiritual underpinnings are weakening. In "Baruch Ha'Shem, Not So G ood," Dr. Janet Wolf examines some of the emotional and spiritual concerns of Jewish women which may possibly go to the heart of what ails American Orthodoxy — men as well as women.

From the Jewish and the Secular Press is a new feature in this issue, which we hope to continue on a regular basis. We will be offering selections from various sources not normally accessible to our readers. We welcome readers' comments on this feature, and sug­ gestions for future selections.

In Forthcoming Issues What have Franz Kafka and Isaac Bashevis Singer in common?

Both were deeply concerned with the problem of alienation from Jewishness and its opposite, Teshuva. Kafka's concern was lived out in his lifetime when he went from being a typical assimilated Bohemian intellectual to a searching Jew studying the Hebrew language, and in his last years delving into Talmud. Singer, com­ ing from a rabbinic home whose values and beliefs he rejected, has manifested his fascination with Teshuva by creating characters who return to Torah. In a forthcoming issue we will deal with these two writers with a view to learning more about what drives Jews away from Yiddishkeit — and what brings them back.

Many of the young Israelis who were in the frontlines in Lebanon were students of the Hesder yeshivos in Israel. In our next issue we will feature an article on the background and ideology of these yeshivos which combine Torah learning with military train­ ing, written by the distinguished Rosh Yeshiva, Rav Ahron Lichtenstein.

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“Who A re the Real Palestinians?" is from The Zionist Revolution, copyright by Harold Fisch, 1978, reprinted through special arrangement with St. M artins Press, Inc., 175 Fifth A venue, New York, New York, 10010.

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Harold Fisch

Who Are the Real Palestinians?

The M yth of a "Palestinian State" The biblical Covenant, especially for those who begin with no special feeling for the Torah, would seem to have nothing in its favor to make the detached observer view it with greater respect and sympathy. Most revolutionary myths of the past have claimed, to be the means of advancing the human race and have ended up by advancing the interests of some powerful and usually unscrup­ ulous group of politicians. Why should the Jewish covenant myth fare better? And why bother with it at all if it involves a relatively insignificant part of the human race in comparison, say, with the religion of Communist China which, destructive though it may be of some human values, involves the destiny and beliefs of close to a billion men and women?

It is necessary then to insist on the qualitative distinction of the covenant idea and of the revolutionary movement which it has in­ spired, which gives them a special claim to attention in our dark and troubled times. I refer to the uncompromisingly ethical dimen­ sion of Zionism, to its commitment throughout the years of strug­ gle on behalf of the restoration of Jewish peoplehood to the moral imperatives. Judaism does not require of its adherents a super­ human ethical code; the Jewish people is obedient to a law which was given to human beings, not angels. But if the Jewish people's mission is within history, amid its dust and heat, its aim is never­ theless to redeem history by means of righteousness — righteous­ ness in society and righteousness in political life. This is the essence of what I have called the Zionist Revolution. There are forms of inhumanity, unhappily common in our twentieth-century political experience, which Zionism and the Jewish state have religiously (the word may stand) avoided. O f course the Jews have not had the credit for this. The rule is that in pursuit of political aims all things are permitted, and people are not used to exceptions to this rule. When we view the rise of the many new states in Africa, in Asia and in the Indian sub-continent in the past few decades, we see that the normal course of their history has involved inhumani­ ty on a massive scale, including rapine, robbery and murder. To take but two examples, one may cite the creation of Bangladesh by India after the earlier enormities practised on its population by the authorities of West Pakistan, and the brutal suppression of the Ibo people of Biafra by the ruling tribes of Nigeria at the end of the last decade. In both these cases the human suffering involved was such

Dr. Harold Fisch has published studies o f various aspects o f English and Jewish literature, and has been Professor o f English at Bar Ilan University since he went to Israel in 1957 from his native England. He serv­ ed as a member o f Israels delegation to the United Na­ tions General Assembly in 1977.

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Arab publicity, aided by the as to defy description. What is more, liberal people in the West, propaganda machinery o f the after registering initial shock and horror, have on the whole ac­ Soviet Union, has attempted with some success to project cepted all this as the normal process of history. During the Turkish an image o f the brutal Israeli invasion of Cyprus in 1974, the Greek residents of the newly con­ soldiery as morally no better quered areas were summarily evicted and Turks brought in in their than the Nazis, and o f the place. Had Israel managed its wars this way there would be now Arabs as their innocent vic­ no Arab residents west of the Jordan river. When the Israeli army tims. This is reminiscent of marched into Hebron in June 1967 it was entering a town which the medieval blood libel, under the cruel dispensation had slaughtered a portion of its Jewish citizens and evicted the rest o f which the victim was in 1929, and yet the Arab population was left unmolested. The made guilty o f the crime most recent example of the way wars are usually managed by already meditated in the other people in the Middle East was provided by the Lebanese civil unconsciousness o f the criminal, if not actually com­ war in 1975 and 1976. Two communities were then struggling for mitted and the guilt suc­ control of the country, and in that instance, as the Lebanese cessfully transferred. For observers themselves testify, beastliness of every kind was the while many thousands o f rule.

Jews were killed by Chris­ tians in the Middle Ages for the simple crime o f being Brutality on Both Sides?

Jews, not one single Christian was ever murdered by Jews Jews and Arabs, as often happens in history, are in competition for being a Christian, a fact the truth o f which was simp­ for the same piece of land, According to human precedent there ly not accessible to the ima­ ought to be a fairly equal measure of brutality on both sides. In­ gination o f medieval men.

deed liberalism itself seems to forbid one to think otherwise. Since men are thought to be equal, how can one group of men exhibit more vicious characteristics than another? Thus thirty-odd years after the Second World War there is current a kind of liberalism which compels people to agree that the aerial bombardment of Dresden was as heinous as the mass murders perpetrated by the S.S. in the concentration camps, or that the bombing of Hamburg was equal in criminality to the bombing of Rotterdam! It is as though crime and the reaction to crime are morally of the same order. People who make equations of this kind do not usually stop for precise moral stock-taking, for it has become a shibboleth of liberalism and of the morality of the New Left that, since war is an abomination, both sides to a war are, of necessity, equally abominable.

Can one dare to suggest in these circumstances that with regard to the Arab-Jewish struggle there is a marked difference in the con­ duct of the struggle on both sides? At the risk of seeming illiberal, one must affirm that there is such a difference. The simple truth is that Israelis normally refrain from attacking civilians; Arabs nor­ mally do not. Knowing this, Arab troops frequently shield themselves behind women and children during military opera­ tions. Many Israeli soldiers have paid with their lives for their restraint in these situations. These are facts which may seem un­ palatable to the liberal conscience (which is more comfortable with the thought that all nations are equally unrighteous than with the

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suggestion that one nation might be more righteous than another — and if that nation is the Jewish nation, the discomfort, is com­ pounded). Any honest examination of the evidence will confirm these facts. The Fatah (the military arm of the Palestine Liberation Organization) regularly attacks civilians and regards a busload of children as a legitimate target. They make no secret of this. Israeli soldiers in pursuit of the Fatah into Lebanon and elsewhere regularly clear each target of civilians before attacking, often ex­ posing themselves to acute danger in the process. Both Arabs and Israelis know these facts very well. They also know that there is a sharp difference between the treatment of prisoners of war on both sides. This can yield practical benefits for Israel. Arab soldiers, knowing that Jews do not normally torture or kill their prisoners, frequently surrender in the early stages of an engagement.

The Red Gross and Evenhandedness There are various ways of encountering the disturbing implica­ tions of all this. It seems so improbable that there should be a gross moral inequality between the two sides to thé Middle East conflict that many people, out of a simple sense of fairness (there may be darker motives also), ignore the evidence. The result is a spurious balancing of the moral accounts. The International Committee of the Red Cross tends towards this kind of even-handedness in its reports. But there are also more devious strategies known to the human psyche which help it to deal with such an unfair distribu­ tion of good and evil. One of them might be termed guilttransference or guilt-substitution. The Bible phrases it 'to call evil good and good evil' (Yeshayahu 5:20). Arab publicity, aided by the propaganda machinery of the Soviet Union, has attempted with some success to project an image of the brutal Israeli soldiery as morally no better than the Nazis, and of the Arabs as their inno­ cent victims. This is reminiscent of the medieval blood libel, under the cruel dispensation of which the victim was made guilty of the crime already meditated in the unconsciousness of the criminal, if not actually committed and the guilt successfully transferred. For while many thousands of Jews were killed by Christians in the Middle Ages for the simple crime of being Jews, not one single Christian was ever murdered by Jews fo r being a Christian, a fact the truth of which was simply not accessible to the imagination of medieval men. The analogy is not so remote from the present Arab-Israeli struggle. The blood libel is still disseminated in Arab lands and finds expression in textbooks used in Arab schools. And even at this date the infamous Protocols o f the Elders o f Zion , a nineteenth century forgery originating in czarist Russia and pur­ porting to describe the international Jewish conspiracy against mankind, continues to be published in Arab lands for use in anti-

The simple truth is that Israelis normally refrain from attacking civilians, Arabs normally do not. Knowing this, Arab troops frequently shield themselves behind women and children during military operations. Many Israeli soldiers have paid with their lives for their restraint in these situations.

These are facts which may seem unpalatable to the liberal conscience (which is more comfortable with the thought that all nations are equally unrighteous than with the suggestion that one nation might be more righteous than another — and if that nation is the Jewish nation, the discomfort is compounded).

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Israel propaganda. We are not as far away from the Middle Ages as we sometimes suppose.

But there is another way of dealing with the manifest discrepan­ cy between the moral posture of Arab and Jew. When Mr. Arafat appeared before the General Assembly of the United Nations, ostentatiously flaunting a pistol in his belt, he got a better recep­ tion than the Israeli representative who spoke later and who clear­ ly lacked such strange accoutrements. It may be assumed that many of the delegates who applauded Mr. Arafat represent states which live in deadly fear of terrorism of the kind which M r. Arafat and his organization have instigated in various parts of the world.

Why, then, the applause? Here the very aggressiveness of the PLO representative is felt to lend weight to his just grievances. The argument is that the Arabs are driven to desperate courses by the wrongs they have suffered, while the Israelis, who are the true ag­ gressors, are naturally more subdued. Thus the observance by Israel of standards of civilized behavior becomes a sign of shame, while the defiance of those standards on the part of the Arabs becomes a sign of violated right! This peculiar logic depends on the acceptance of the thesis very loudly proclaimed by the Arabs and their numerous allies that the Jews are, in fact, aggressors. And yet oddly enough for this argument, the pattern, from the very begin­ ning of modern Jewish settlement in Palestine, has always been one of Arab attack followed (or not follpwed) by Jewish retalia­ tion. How does this square with the charge of aggression? The earliest troubles, those of 1920 and 1929, were basically pogroms perpetrated by Arabs on Jews, the first in Yerushalayim and the se­ cond in Hebron, when Jews turned to the British for redress (which of course never came). Nor was there at that time any question of usurpation. Jews had lived in Yerushalayim and Hebron throughout the Arab period and long before the Arab conquest, and, in fact, they had constituted a majority of the population of Yerushalayim from about the middle of the nineteenth century.

The later story was not essentially different. It was again a matter of Arab attack followed by Jewish counter-attack. That was the pattern in 1936 and again in 1948 when the Arab armies from Syria, Iraq, Egypt and Trans-Jordan attempted to invade the new­ ly founded state of Israel. The Jews could honestly say in all those years: 1 am for peace, but when I speak they are for war' (Tehilim 120:7).

Speaking in 1924 not only for his party but clearly for the Jewish Yishuv as a whole, Ben-Gurion declared: 'History has decreed that we should live together with the Arabs.' He went on to say (in 1928) that 'According to my ethical point o f view we do not have the right to deprive a single Arab child o f his due in order to gain our aims.'

Coming To Terms With the Arabs It may be said, and often is said; that while the Jews were perhaps morally sensitive with regard to the Arabs, they were politically obtuse. They managed to ignore the Arabs as a political entity. They did not reckon with their rights and claims. Now, 8

whatever else the early Zionist leadership may be charged with, it certainly cannot be argued that they were politically obtuse or that they lacked a sense of legality. Ever since the Basle Program, the emphasis had been on a homeland secured under public law'. It was clear to all that such an achievement was impossible without consideration of the 'Arab problem'. The Zionist leaders desired to come to terms with the local Arabs, believing earnestly in the possibility of peaceful co-existence based on the recognition of the full human rights and dignities of the Arabs in the area. David Ben-Gurion reminded his fellow settlers in 1918 that 'Palestine is not an unpopulated country'. In the years prior to the establish­ ment of the state he sought out such Arab leaders as Musa Alami and Fuad Bey Hamzah in an attempt to negotiate with them the question of free Jewish immigration and to seek their co-operation for the joint development of the country. It was axiomatic with him, and indeed with the Zionist leadership generally, that the Arab residents in Palestine would remain there and share the benefits which the Jewish National Home might bring to the coun­ try. There was no question of eviction or usurpation. Speaking in 1924 not only for his party but clearly for the Jewish Yishuv as a whole, Ben-Gurion declared: 'History has decreed that we should live together with the Arabs.' He went on to say (in 1928) that 'Ac­ cording to my ethical point of view we do not have the right to deprive a single Arab child of his due in order to gain our aims.'

This may have been a trifle high-minded in view of Arab ani­ mosities even then apparent, but it was certainly not morally in­ sensitive or politically obtuse. Those at this time who speak of the blindness to the Arab problem of the early Zionist pioneers are, in fact, themselves guilty of blindness to an important part of early Zionist ideology. All the major leaders of the Yishuv gave earnest and continuous thought to the nature of the relationship with the indigenous Arab population of Palestine. Like Jews of all times, they were much given to moral debate and self-questioning, and this was the area in which the habit was chiefly exercised.

Chaim Weizmann was quite emphatic: 'The world will judge the Jewish state by what it will do with the Arabs.' Nor did the na­ tionalist right wing have an essentially different view. The revi­ sionists, precursors of today's Herut party, worked out a plan in 1934 according to which a future Jewish state would offer 'civic equality' to Jews and Arabs, and 'where the Prime Minister is a Jew, the vice-premiership shall be offered to an Arab.' No less!

Vladimir (Zev) Jabotinsky, the leader of the revisionists and political mentor of Mr. Menahem Begin, expressed what was go­ ing on in the minds of the Zionist leadership as a whole when he declared in his address to the Palestine Royal Commission of 1936 that the Jews were ready to guarantee to the Arab minority in a Jewish Palestine all those rights, privileges and equalities to which

Vladimir (Zev) Jabotinsky, the leader o f the revisionists and political mentor o f Mr. Menachem Begin, expressed what was going on in the minds o f the Zionist leader­ ship as a whole when he declared in his address to the Palestine Royal Commission o f 1936 that the Jews were ready to guarantee to the Arab minority in a Jewish Palestine all those rights, privileges and equalities to which the Jews had aspired in the lands of their disper­ sion but had so rarely ob­ tained. This seems to have been the guiding principle.

Now that the Jews were to have a home o f their own, they would show the world how the stranger in one's midst should be treated.

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In 1922 the Council o f the the Jews had aspired in the lands of their dispersion but had so League o f Nations granted a rarely obtained. This seems to have been the guiding principle.

Mandate to Great Britain to Now that the Jews were to have a home of their own, they would administer the territory o f Palestine on its behalf, and in show the world how the stranger in one's midst should be treated. the preamble to the Man­ Land would be bought not seized. There would be tolerance, date, formal recognition was neighborliness, a sharing of blessings. This was not merely a pious given to 'the historical con­ nection o f the Jewish people wish but a policy. As a matter of principle land was bought from the Arab effendi, often at grossly inflated prices. In most cases the with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting land bought was not even being worked or farmed. The land of their national home in that Rishon le Zion was a sand dune, that of the Jezreel Valley, a country'. There can be few malaria-ridden swamp. In all these cases the full price was paid nation-states, if any, whose and the land freely and legally transferred. Under the terms of the moral and legal basis has been defined in an interna­ Mandate of the League of Nations, it was natural to suppose that tional instrument o f such the British administration would make available tracts of authority.

government-owned land for the purpose of Jewish-owned settle­ ment, but in fact this was not done on any significant scale. In­ stead the Jews were obliged to purchase whatever land was available on the private market. When fellahin (or serfs) were dispossessed as a result of the sales made by their absentee landlords, they were regularly compensated by the Jewish pur­ chasers under the 1922 Protection of Cultivators Ordinance. There can hardly have been a more fastidious process of 'occupation' or 'dispossession' than this in the history of nations. It is sometimes said that the Jews have made the Palestinian Arabs pay for Jewish suffering in the Diaspora by dispossessing them of their land. If the psychological motives of the early Zionist settlers are sifted, it will be seen that the contrary is true: they were striving to give expres­ sion to their sense of moral outrage at the treatment so often ac­ corded to Jews in the lands of their dispersion by a kind of extra scrupulousness, by examplary conduct in the sphere of JewishArab relations.

" Arabia For the Arabs; Judea For the Jews . .

But of course on one central principle there would be no com­ promise; the principle that the country would be the national home' of the Jewish people where, as a consequence, Jews would have a natural and inalienable right to come and live and so 'renew their days as of old'. For this is what the Zionist dream was all about. Shall this be charged to them as their 'original sin'? Should they not have had the sense to realize that this claim could not ultimately be sustained, for it clashed with the sovereign rights of another people?

Now if there was such a clash of sovereign rights it is remarkable that so many just and morally sensitive statesmen outside the Zionist party and the Jewish community were unconscious of it.

Lord Robert Cecil, speaking of the Balfour Declaration of 1917, ex-

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pressed the prevailing sense of justice: 'Arabia for the Arabs; Judea for the Jews; Armenia for the Armenians.' It seemed fair on any human scale. And what is more, this view was later endorsed by the whole international community. For in 1922 the Council of the League of Nations granted a Mandate to Great Britain to adminis­ ter the territory of Palestine on its behalf, and in the preamble to -the Mandate, formal recognition was given to 'the historical con­ nection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country'. There can be few nation-states, if any, whose moral and legal basis has been defined in an international instrument of such authority.

Arabs Welcome Jews Home Shall we say, then, that all the Western world was in conspiracy with the Jews against the Arabs? Mr. Arafat would argue that Zionism was the original sin of the international community as a whole, for which it must now pay. But the odd thing about this ar­ gument is that the Arabs, too, were evidently in the conspiracy.

The elementary justice of the Zionist cause was recognized in 1919 by the acknowledged leader of all the Arabs, the Emir Feisal, who later became King of Iraq. At that time he addressed his now famous letter to Judge Felix Frankfurter (then the legal represen­ tative of the Zionist Delegation at the Peace Conference in Ver­ Mr. Arafat would argue that sailles) 'wishing the Jews a most hearty welcome home'. In the Zionism was the original sin o f the international com­ agreement he contracted at that same time with Dr. Chaim Weiz- munity as a whole, fo r which mann, Feisal made clear his acceptance of the Balfour Declaration it must now pay. But the and of the necessity flowing from that Declaration 'to encourage odd thing about his argu­ and stimulate the immigration of Jews into Palestine on a large ment is that the Arabs, too, w ere evidently in the con­ scale'. It is clear from these documents and expressions of goodwill spiracy. The elementary that, in so far as there was a people whose 'home' was Palestine justice o f the Zionist cause by and who were entitled to return to that home, then that people was recognized in the acknowledged leader o f was the Jewish people. They were, in effect, the 'Palestinians'. all the Arabs, the Emir The Emir Feisal was later to change his mind, as Arab hostility Feisal, who later became to the Jewish presence in Palestine became fiercer in the years King o f Iraq. A t that time he following the First World War (and when he himself saw that he addressed his now fam ous had failed to achieve his own ambitions in full), but his cor­ letter to Judge Felix Frankfurter (the legal respondence with Frankfurter and his agreement with Weizmann representative o f the Zionist were, nevertheless, not momentary aberrations. The fact is that Delegation at the Peace Con­ there had always been a certain lurking but quite definite con­ ference in Versailles) sciousness among the Arabs of Palestine that the land really be­ the Jews a most hearty wel­ com e hom e. ' Feisal made longed to the Jews and that one day they would return to claim it. clear his acceptance o f the This point was made by Ambassador Amiel E. Najar, an Israeli Balfour Declaration and o f of Egyptian birth, in the course of an impressive statement before the necessity flow ing from the Special Political Committee of the 32nd UN General Assembly that Declaration to en­ courage and stimulate the on 14 November 1977. Speaking of the, hundreds of thousands of immigration o f Jews into Jews who fled from the Arab States to Israel in 1948, he declared: Palestine on a large scale.

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There was no time during the Those Jews, coming from Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, whole Arab period when Morocco and Yemen, did not come to Israel without the Arab States know­ Jews did not reside in greater ing about it but, on the contrary, with their absolute knowledge. The Jews of Iraq and Yemen, for example, were directly transported by air . . . or lesser numbers in Palestine: for the Arabs they The Arab States thus acknowledged before all the world that they believed were a presence not to be that the natural refuge of the Jews was the land of Israel. put by. So far, the unsym­ First-hand experience of the Arab world enables me to state that there is no pathetic obseiver may con­ Arab Moslem who does not know that there is a traditional biblical link be­ clude that there was, indeed, tween the land of Israel and people of Israel/ Official UN record. a recognized Jewish remnant, A/SPC/32/PV.23. much as there is a recognized Red Indian remnant in North In most cases the Arabs of Palestine had preserved the original America, but that politically Hebrew names of the places in which they took up residence: Azthey had been replaced by the Palestinian Arabs, whose zah, Beth-lehem, Hebron, Tekoa, Samua (the biblical Eshtemoa). homeland Palestine had now The erection of mosques on Jewish sacred spots such as the Tem­ become and who regarded it ple Mount in Yerushalayim or the Cave of the Patriarchs in as such — much as the white Hebron indicated a strong desire to Islamize the countryside; but inhabitants. But this is in another sense it indicated a veneration for places whose precisely what did not hap­ pen. holiness rested originally on the Jewish biblical tradition and on

that alone. In Yerushalayim and Hebron the original Jewish con­ struction, dating from the Second Temple, was preserved. Arab landlords have been known to justify exorbitant prices charged in land sales to Jews on the ground that they deserved payment for having acted as caretakers for the Jews over the centuries!

Arabs Never Made Palestine Their Homeland A certain ambivalence in the Arab attitude to the Jews can be detected. There was no question of according them political rights — they were an inferior people without political rights — but at the same time there was no doubt about the connection of the Jews with the land. It was real and it was continuous. There was no time during the whole Arab period when Jews did not reside in greater or lesser numbers in Palestine: for the Arabs they were a presence not to be put by. So far, the unsympathetic ob­ server may conclude that there was, indeed, a recognized Jewish remnant, much as there is a recognized Red Indian remnant in North America, but that politically they had been replaced by the Palestinian Arabs, whose homeland Palestine had now become and who regarded it as such — much as the white inhabitants of North America have come to regard America as their home after replacing and largely eliminating the original Indian inhabitants.

But this is precisely what did not happen. The fact is that the Arabs never made Palestine their homeland; they never created in it their own national institutions or their own proud national 'Palestinian' ethos. Historically until the time of the Balfour Declaration there was no clear Arab claim to a state called Palestine and there was little Palestine nationalism among the Arabs as distinct from a generalized loyalty to the Arab nation 12

centred in Hedjaz. The Arabs of Palestine, whose numbers in the nineteenth century never exceeded half a million, did not feel themselves essentially separate from the Arabs of Syria and beyond. Certainly they fought Zionism, but they did so more often than not in the name of a greater Syria'. The name Palestine was, as Bernard Lewis points out, a Roman usage 'to designate the territories of the former Jewish principality of Judea'. It meant everything to the Jews but little to the Arabs as a distinct historical or geographical entity: For them there was not such a thing as a country called Palestine. The region which the British called Palestine, was merely a separated part of a larger whole. For a long time organized and articulate political opinion was virtual­ ly unanimous on this point.

One can go further than this. Not only did Palestine as such not constitute for the Arabs a central object of love and loyalty, but until very recent times they actively resisted the idea of a separate Arab Palestine nationhood. It will be remembered that the resolu­ tion of the United Nations of 29 November 1947 spoke of the set­ ting up of two separate states in Palestine: a Jewish state and an Arab Palestine state. The recommendation was accepted by the Jews, rejected by the Arabs. We are accustomed to thinking of the Arab invasion of Palestine which followed as aimed at preventing the establishment of a Jewish state — as indeed it was. But it was also aimed at frustrating the plan for establishing a separate Palestinian Arab State! There was no support for such a concept in the Arab world, except in so far as it would serve to replace, and thus render null and void, any Jewish independent entity in Palestine. The Arabs of Palestine, who had risen under the egregious Haj Amin El-Husseini in the twenties and thirties in an attempt to stem the tide of Jewish immigration and settlement, claiming 'Palestine' as their own, were evidently not prepared to accept the challenge of an independent 'Palestinian state', in however substantial a part of Palestine, if this meant leaving the Jews in situ in the remainder. In fact it may be claimed that they feared any move such as the establishment of a separate 'Palestine' which might prejudice the larger unity of the Arab peoples. And when the Arab-Jewish war of 1948 ended and the Jordanians and Egyptians found themselves in control of a large portion of Western Palestine, comprising Judea, Samaria, the Gaza coastal strip and East Jerusalem, they made no move whatever to set up a 'Palestine Arab state' in those regions. Instead, the Jordanians an­ nexed their portion and the Egyptians left the inhabitants of the Gaza strip stateless. All this did not provoke the 'Palestinian' in­ habitants to rise up against the foreign yoke during those twenty years from 1948 to 1967 in order to establish their own state in 13

t Palestine.

In fact the opposition to Zionism, fierce, deep and bitter as it was< was chiefly in the name of an Arab nation whose empire stretched from the Atlantic to the Persian Gulf, rather than in the name of Palestine or the violated rights of the Palestinian people.

What the Arabs objected to was a Jewish independent state planted in the middle of their great empire, a Jewish nation-state in however small a part of that great Arab world. It was intolerable that Jews should have their own land, even if it amounted to less than ten thousand square miles out of a greater Arabia comprising eventually four and a half million square million square miles! It was entirely unjust for Jews to presume to rule over an Arab minority of a million souls, while it was entirely just for the Arab masters of Syria, Iraq and Sudan to rule over many millions of Kurds, Druzes and Nilotic negroes. Here was the original sin of Zionism.

The Jews o f Yemen now liv­ ing in Israel have to this day strong sentiments,towards the towns and villages o f Yemen and strong feelings for the property they left behind in 1950 (and we may add that their ancestors had livpd in Yemen even longer than the Arabs had lived in Palestine), but does this make them Yemenite na­ tionalists? To construct a na­ tionality and a claim to sovereignty on such a basis would be a work o f fiction.

Change of Arab Attitudes It is against this background that we must judge the changes in the Arab attitude to themselves and to Palestine which have taken place in the past thirty years. During this time they, too, like the Jews and the Christians, have undergone an identity crisis, one which strangely resembles those that we have already examined.

In the case of the Jews the historical tasks of Jewish peoplehood have transferred themselves to the new Jewish Israeli nation recon­ stituted in the small territorial area of Zion. This has been the fun­ damental change of the past thirty years. Similarly, it might be said that as a result of the crises of 1948, 1967 and 1973 the Arab nation has gradually delegated the historical task of opposing Zionism to the 'Palestinian people'.

The first moves in this direction were made soon after the ArabJewish war of 1948. Some 600,000 Arabs fled at that time from the area of the new Jewish state and sought refuge in surrounding Arab lands (the greater part of them found themselves in those parts of Palestine itself which remained outside the borders of the new Jewish state). They were victims of war — as, indeed, Were the 600,000 or so Jews who fled at the same time from the Arab states of North Africa and the Middle East. The natural thing would have been for these unhappy people to have been rehabilitated in the Arab lands of their refuge, in much the same way as the Jews fleeing from Arab lands were rehabilitated in Israel. Instead of this the Arab world began to conceive a different plan, a plan to separate them artificially from the other Arabs in order to stress their separate identity. The refugees were confined to refugee camps and shanty towns in Gaza, Judea, Samaria, in Lebanon and Syria. They were deliberately, and as a matter of 14

policy, prevented from finding employment among their Arab brethren in nearby towns and settlements. Their Palestinian identi­ ty or personality was thus not so much the expression of certain shared national aims and values, but the result of a policy of quarantine and isolation. The Palestinian Arabs were not allowed to assimilate themselves into their Arab surroundings. Their only hope for normal existence lay in the idea of a return to Palestine. A partial exception to this was provided by the Jordanian ad­ ministration on the West Bank, that is to say, in the provinces of Judea and Samaria. There, too, as the visitor may see to this day, the Jordanian government had confined the refugees to their camps and had largely prevented them from infiltrating into the towns (Palestinian towns, it should be noted), but they had not prevented them from drifting away to the more distant Arab lands, especially to Kuwait and the oil sheikdoms of the Persian Gulf. Tens of thousands of the younger generation of refugees, in fact, emigrated eastwards during the years from 1948 to 1967, to find a new and productive life in other parts of the Arab world. It is hard to believe that they live there in the profound con­ sciousness of being in exile'.

Creating a "Palestine People" But they were the fortunate exceptions. The larger part of the unhappy population of the refugee camps became the nucleus of a new 'Palestine people'. The purpose of their new-found nationality was not the creation of a national existence for themselves in Gaza, Judea or Samaria, or on the east bank of the Jbrdan (although these are just as much a part of 'Palestine' as Jaffa or Ramlah). The purpose was to dramatize, through their suffering, the need to br­ ing the Jewish state of Israel to an end. Pan-Arabism has made the refugees its victims, so as to convert them into a political instru­ ment for the holy war against Israel.

For the refugees themselves this was the beginning of a profound crisis of identity rendered infinitely more acute by the Israel vic­ tory of 1967. From then on we find an enormous emphasis placed on 'Palestinian rights', 'Palestinian nationality' and the 'Palestinian Revolution'. There is an element of fantasy in all this. Of course the refugees had local patriotism: those who had fled from Acre had a feeling for Acre; those who fled from Jaffa had a feeling for Jaffa, and so forth. And of course they had common interests, aris­ ing out of their fate as refugees and their bitterness against Israel.

But does this add up to a corporate nationality? And does this con­ stitute a claim to sovereignty? On this basis any group of refugees might lay claim to the land they have left behind them. The Jews of Yemen now living in Israel have to this day strong sentiments towards the towns and villages of Yemen and strong feelings for 15

the property they left behind in 1950 (and we may add that their ancestors had lived in Yemen even longer than the Arabs had lived in Palestine), but does this make them Yemenite nationalists? To construct a nationality and a claim to sovereignty on such a basis would be a work of fiction.

An objective study of the Arab Palestinian struggle must yield the conclusion that the natural bent of the Arabs of Palestine was toward an Arab nationality and a common Arab loyalty. If they have developed instead a strongly emphasized Palestinian na­ tionhood, this was not due primarily to cultural need and to deeply cherished memories binding them together as a people belonging to a certain land and no other. It was due rather to fantasy, to a selective reading of history and to an educational program de­ there isa signed to foster such an awaieness.

ft is suggested that symmetry between the a. . . . .. , , . . , . . , Palestine people and the A t thls pom t f m ay be obJected ^ a t whatever may be the Jewish people, both o f whom origins of their separateness, the fact is that the refugees have come achieved their national selfthink of themselves as a separate people, as a nation with its own awareness at about the same history and its own destiny, unable to assimilate into the surroun-

territorialspace, m d T is°on - ding PeoPles- Their peoplehood is therefore a fact and must be res ly a pity that they ‘happen pected as such. This is the argument often heard from the supto claim the same space. porters of a Palestine national homeland to be created in the proWhat we have therefore is a vinces of Judea, Samaria, and Gaza. And although the national which two more or less equal consensus in Israel denies this argument, it has become more and rights are pitted against one more insistently pressed upon Israel by both friends and enemies another . . . and it has penetrated the thinking of many Israelis. It is suggested Against this argument that there is a symmetry between the Palestine people and the

M

B

K

P people, both of „horn achieved .heir national selfawareness at the same time. Both have a claim to territorial space, and it is only a pity that they 'happen' to claim the same space.

What we have therefore is a kind of Greek tragedy in which two more or less equal rights are pitted against one another.

insisted that there is no real symmetry between the two situations.

The Positive Drive of the Jewish Spirit Against this argument, which has been repeated to the point of cliche, it must be insisted that there is no real symmetry between the two situations. In the case of the Palestinian Arabs we have an invented national identity — its shaping force is external rather than internal. Sartre maintained that it was only the outside pres­ sure on the Jew which created Jewish identity. In this he was wrong. He overlooked, as we have said earlier, the positive drives of the Jewish spirit, the need for a specifically Jewish self-expres­ sion. But his formula would fit the case of the 'Palestinians'. It was precisely the pressure of their environment, both Arab and nonArab, which has fashioned for them a special Palestinian identiy.

One can go further than this. The Palestine national identity was invented as kind of antithesis, a parody of Jewish nationhood.

16

They too would become a nation apart, bearing the promise of salvation. But that salvation would come with the subversion of the Jewish state, followed by the physical destruction of its Jewish inhabitants and the sharing of the resultant spoils in one unbelievable orgy of national restoration. This is the content of the educational program that was set up for the generation of refugees born in the camps. It is reflected in numerous text-books and classroom illustrations. We have here a strange imitation of the doctrine of Jewish nationhood — a dark replica of the Jewish peo­ ple awaiting the promise of the Return to Zion.

PLO: The Photographic Negative of Zionism To balance the Zionist myth there is the anti-Zionist myth of the Palestine Liberation Movement. The Palestine Arab nation, or rather anti-nation, represents the inverted image of Israel. It thus hardly exists in its own right. If, like Israel, it too has arisen out of the historical pressures of the past thirty years, then it has arisen as the photographic negative of Zionism. While Zionism came into existence in order to express the creative needs of the Jewish peo­ ple, in order to build a people anew, the Palestine Arab nation has been created in order to frustrate by every means the creation of Israel. Its aim is not to build but to destroy. It is not the love of the land which inspires it but the hatred of the Jewish inhabitants of the land. From this point of view it may be claimed that Palestin­ ian nationhood is a profoundly unnatural creation whose raison d'etre is bound up with the rise of the Jewish national movement, the coming into existence of Israel and the felt need to bring that existence to an end.

The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), founded in Cairo in 1964, was not exactly a spontaneous creation of the Palestine people. Much of the original impetus, as is well known, came from the larger Arab states confederated in the Arab League. Its founder and first leader was Ahmed Shukeiri, who had been assistant to the Secretary General of the Arab League. Of course, having been set up, it developed its own dynamic, though it was never free of the influence, indeed control, of the Arab states in which its organ­ ization was based. Thus the political and military command has been located at different times in Gaza (before the Six Day War), Cairo, Damascus and Beirut. While the natural constituency of thé PLO is to be found in the refugee camps in Syria and Lebanon, it is worth noting that the attitude to it of the Palestinians who are not refugees is ambiguous in the extreme. It was unsuccessful in establishing itself as a Palestinian underground movement in the towns of the West Bank, Nablus, Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Hebron, after they had been occupied by Israel in 1967, and east of the Jordan the 'freedom fighters' of the PLO have been rejected by 17

King Hussein and his people, a majority of whom are, of course, Palestinians. What all this means is that the ontological basis of the PLO cannot be taken for granted. Its appeal to the Palestinians, in particular to those not actually confined in refugee barracks, is not self-evident. The very fact of a Palestine national identity, as something specific and separable from Arab nationality, has to be constantly fought for, agonized over, proved and then proved again.

To illustrate this we can do no better than turn to the document which defines the aims and character of the Palestinian Revolu­ tion, namely the National Charter or Covenant, drawn up originally in 1964 and revised at a meeting in Cairo in July 1968.

There was a further revision in 1974. The very first paragraph (in the full, 1968, version) introduces us to the problematic nature of The establishment o f Israel in 1947 is said to have been 'en­ the Palestinian identity: Palestine is the homeland of the Arab Palestinian people; it is an indivisible part of the Arab homeland, tirely illegal'; the Balfour Declaration is 'null and void' and the Palestinian people are an integral part of the Arab nation.' for the Jews are not a nation Integral or separate? The Covenant performs a difficult balancing which qualifies for statehood: act between the two. The need to establish a Palestinian identity as 'Judaism being a religion, is not an independent nationali­ something separate from general Arab nationalism and, at the ty. Nor do Jews constitute a same time, to transcend it in favor of the larger vision, are revealed single nation with an identity in later paragraphs of the same document: of its own; they are citizens o f the states to which they belong.' There is thus no.

Jewish national identity, and consequently there can be no Jewish state.

The Palestinian people believe in Arab unity. In order to contribute their share toward the attainment of that objective, however, they must at the present stage o f their struggle, safeguard their Palestinian identity and develop their consciousness of that identity, and oppose any plan that may dissolve or impair it (Paragraph 12; author s italics).

Palestinian identity' has to be kept up, but only for 'the present stage' of the 'struggle'; the ultimate aim is 'Arab unity'. Never yet achieved in history, this unity has to be brought into existence somehow by constant invocation. The Palestinian Revolution has a critical role to play in the bringing about of this longed-for eschaton. This is made clear in a cryptic sentence in paragraph 13: 'Thus, Arab unity leads to the liberation of Palestine, the liberation of Palestine leads to Arab unity.' This seems to mean that all that prevents the achievement of 'Arab unity' is the for­ eign body named Israel. Once the war against Israel and Zionism has been prosecuted to a successful conclusion, 'Arab unity' will be marvellously achieved. Likewise it is the inner strength, the cohesive moral force provided by that unity, which ultimately makes possible the 'liberation of Palestine'. It is sometimes said that the Palestinians are the key to the Middle East conflict. The implication is that is that it is their struggle, and that once some way can be found of satisfying their desire for a home in Palestine, they and the rest of the Arab world will be content to see a Jewish and Palestinian state living side by side. This, 18

however, is contradicted by both the spirit and letter of the Cove­ nant. The war is ultimately one of the Arab nation as a whole, and its fore-ordained aim is 'Arab unity'. More than that, it is, astonishingly, a war for the very existence of the Arab nation as a whole: 'The destiny of the Arab nation, and indeed Arab ex­ istence itslf, depend upon the destiny of Palestinian cause.'

The Covenant is a pseudo-religious document. It contains a vi­ sion of heaven (Arab unity) and it contains a vision of hell (Zion­ ism, the state of Israel). The successful attainment of the one de­ pends on the elimination of the other. This is the 'harrowing of hell' which must precede the final phase of messianic fulfillment.

The politicidal intent of the document may not be glossed over.

No moral, social or ideological content is provided for the term 'liberation of Palestine' other than 'the elimination of Zionism' (paragraph 15). The establishment of Israel in 1947 is said to have been 'entirely illegal' (paragraph 19); the Balfour Declaration is 'null and void' (paragraph 20) for the Jews are not a nation which qualifies for statehood: 'Judaism being a religion, is not an in­ dependent nationality. Nor do Jews constitute a single nation with an identity of its own; they are citizens of the states to which they belong.' (paragraph 20) Paradoxes in the Palestine Covenant There is thus no Jewish national identity, and consequently there can be no Jewish state. If it seems to exist, then it should not and cannot really be there. Paradoxically, while the Jewish state is evidently so powerful and dangerous that it poses a threat to the very existence of the Arab nation (paragraph 14), it cannot really represent an 'independent nationality' since the Jews are a non­ nation, merely a religion, whose members are citizens of the states in which they happen to reside (paragraph 20). This is a paradox.

But the Palestine Covenant harbors many such paradoxes.

Another may be noted in the very definition of 'Palestine' as a geo­ graphical entity. In paragraph 20, the Mandate for Palestine in which the League of Nations authorized the setting up of a Jewish National Home is said, as we have remarked, to be 'null and void', but in the second paragraph Palestine, the country which has to be liberated by and on behalf of the 'Palestine people', is defined 'ac­ cording to the boundaries it had during the British Mandate'. The point is that since Palestine has no well-defined existence as a separate territorial or national entity in the Arab tradition, it can­ not be geographically defined except by invoking the League of Nations Mandate, which in turn rests on the claim, therein upheld, of the Jewish people on a certain land called Palestine!

The Palestinians have thus a highly problematical identity.

Their ostensible aim is self-determination and sovereignty in an 19

Arab Palestine (paragraph 9); this aim can be achieved only by the elimination of Israel and Zionism (paragraph 15); but on the other hand, the need to liquidate Israel provides the sole basis for a Palestine national identity. There is even, as we have seen (paragraph 12), a hint that with the accomplishment of its historical role, namely, the liberation of Palestine, the Palestinian Arab people might disappear and merge itself in the larger Arab collectivity. The words liberation, unity, progress' (paragraph 22) cannot conceal the negative character of the impulse behind the whole so-called Palestinian Revolution. It is not a dream of salva­ tion but one essentially of destruction — the destruction of Israel in the name of a mythical 'Arab unity'. When translated into historical terms this means, at best, the integrity of the greater Arab empire as it has been reconstituted as a result of the two world wars of our century. Palestinian national identity is the in­ strument for serving this grander purpose, by means of the elimination of Israel. Once that has been brought about it will real­ ly have no further role to perform.

Indeed when the count o f the victims o f Arab terror at­ tacks is made, it will be found that there have been more Arab victims than Jews. Sometimes this is the effect o f chance, o f a certain randomness in the sowing o f destruction; in other in­ stances buses conveying Arab workers to their places of work in Israel are made the deliberate object o f at­ tack. When neither Jews nor Palestinian Arabs offer themselves as targets for destruction the zeal o f the liberators is turned against other communities, against Christians and Moslems in Lebanon or against Arab diplomats in Vienna. For, ultimately, the Palestinian Revolution is an instrument o f destruction. Politicide is both an aim and a method; it is o f its essence.

Two Conflicting Covenants?

We may thus conclude that we have in the Middle East crisis two Covenants standing over against one another. There is, on the one hand, the Jewish Covenant, with its dream of salvation to be achieved through the 'liberation' of the Jewish people and its return to Zion where it will refashion the ethical civilization with which it is charged: 'For out of Zion shall go forth Torah and the word of the Lord from Yerushalayim. But this purpose does not remain within the limits of a religious confession. The dream of salvation requires the political process; it operates within history by means of a land and a polity. Zionism is a revolutionary program; it has behind it all the power, all the readiness for sacrifice, even for armed struggle, which we associate with the great revolutions of history. The Jewish people is in no position to relinquish its aims, since these constitute the very basis of its existence.

And then, on the other hand, we have the 'Palestinian Cove­ nant', a program curiously fashioned in imitation of the Zionist Revolution. Here, too, it is proposed that a people return 'home' from 'exile' in order to 'provide the Holy Land with an atmosphere of safety and tranquility' (Palestine Covenant, paragraph 16). But its basic premise is the denial of any political rights to that people from whose connection with it the land in fact derives its holiness!

The Palestine Revolution, no matter how deeply we sift it, has no higher aim, no more transcendent value, than 'Arab unity' and in the pursuit of that all things may be permitted. Airplanes may be pirated, school children may be terrorized, Arab villagers and workers themselves may be murdered. Indeed when the count of

20

the victims of Arab terror attacks is made, it will be found that there have been more Arab victims than Jews. Sometimes this is the effect of chance, of a certain randomness in the sowing of destruction; in other instances buses conveying Arab workers to their places of work in Israel are made the deliberate object of at­ tack. When neither Jews nor Palestinian Arabs offer themselves as targets for destruction the zeal of the liberators is turned against other communities, against Christians and Moslems in Lebanon or against Arab diplomats in Vienna. For, ultimately, the Palestinian Revolution is an instrument of destruction. Politicide is both an aim and a method; it is of its essence.

There is in all this, however, something even more deeply dis­ turbing than all the political tendencies of the Palestinian Revolu­ tion; I refer to its suicidal tendencies. The notion that the Zionist creation in the tiny area of Palestine represents a threat to the very existence and life of the greater Arab people and to their enormous empire (see Palestine Covenant, paragraph 14) is a fantasy. But fantasies can take on a dangerous life when entertained with suffi­ cient tenacity and passion. To give an example: between 1968 and 197Q the Arabs, recovering from the shock of the Six D % War but unable, as yet, to mount a full-scale attack on Israel, declared in­ stead a War of Attrition. On the Jordanian front this took the form of the sporadic bombardment of Israeli settlements mainly in the upper Jordan valley. The attacks were carried out by the Fatah (the military arm of the PLO) with the full support of the Jorda­ nian army. Israel called upon King Hussein repeatedly to curb these attacks made from his territory and called upon the Fatah to desist, but to no avail. The result was that the Israeli army was called in to return the fire and the Jordan valley became the scene of constant but static warfare. In mid-June 1969 the New York Times published an editorial in which it spoke of the Middle East turning into a wasteland for both sides, the Arab and the Israeli, their cities and fields being gradually reduced to rubble, etc. It sounded as though that ought to have been true — for, after all, the Arabs were investing a great deal of moral and material capital in their bombardment of the Israel front line and in their terrorist operations in the rear. Yet the strange truth is that the real ravagement and destruction was all on their side. When the count was made it was revealed that not one single village on the Israeli side of the Jordan valley had been laid waste, not one settlement had been abandoned by its settlers, whereas the visitor to the area could see even with the naked eye that on the Arab side a vast area of farming land had been abandoned, and that its population of upwards of 100,000 souls had left its towns and villages and fled to the mountains. And all this because of the suicidal tactics of the Jordanian army and the Fatah. In 1979 the Fatah , having achieved such disappointing results in open warfare and through its incur21

sions into Israel, turned its attentions to the hijacking of aircraft on international routes. At this point its activities became such an acute embarrassment to King Hussein and his government that in September he mounted a violent attack upon the 'Liberation army' and the refugee camps in which it was based. In a series of bloody engagements several thousands of the liberators were exterminated and the whole organization was expelled from the Jordanian kingdom, i.e. eastern Palestine.

The devastating effect of the War of Attrition on the Egyptian front is well known. Launched by President Nasser as a means of bringing Israel to her knees, it ended in June 1970 with the Israeli line intact and many thousands of Egyptians dead. The casualties on the Israeli side, though heavy, bore no numerical comparison with those of the Arabs.

All this is the effect of thanatos, a death-wish which proves to be potentially even more dangerous than the other destructive forces released in the Arab struggle against Israel. Moreover it is a force which Israel is hopeless to arrest, because when the attack is launched Israel has no option but to defend herself, come what may. For Israel is fighting for life itself and, more than that, for the fountain of life, for the tree of life in the midst of the garden.

22

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Reuven P. Bulka

The Jewish Family: Realities and Prospects Jewish community is Jewish family: the fate of one is the fate of the other. Judaism's genesis was in the family. It emerged from a father, his four wives, and their twelve children, and the ensuing extended family which moved as a group to a new location, ex­ panded, proliferated, was redeemed, and as a collective family received the Torah.

With other religions it was the reverse: a prophet or a redeemer, claiming to have received a directive from God, shared this message with disciples who would gather up more followers voluntarily or by force. The revelation came first; the family of followers second. In Judaism the family came first; the revelation was directed to an existent family.

This societal-theological evolution of Judaism is linked to the conception of Judaism as a way of life emanating from monotheistic faith, rather than being a mere affirmation of faith.

As a way of life, it flourishes when lived out in a harmonious en­ vironment. For a long time the extended family, extending into a community, or later a shtetl, was most conducive to and ap­ propriate for actualizing one's Jewishness.

While there are a number of shtetl-like Jewish communities in America, shtetl life is more history than prospect. The realities of the American lifestyle are with us, and solutions to whatever pro­ blems confront the Jewish family must be found within the context of the existing structure.

This presentation proposes to project a picture of the philosophies and patterns unfolding in the American community in general, their effect on the Jewish community, and the impact of these developments. Five distinct areas which affect Jewish family life will be examined: 1) lifestyle, 2) divorce and single paren­ thood, 3) fertility, 4) intermarriage and 5) the woman's role. In the mix of these often interlocking areas, a developing pattern will emerge which will clarify the context within which we are working and help focus on the future direction communal policy makers should embark upon.

Dr. Bulka is Rav o f the Con­ gregation Machzikei Hadas in Ottawa, Canada. He is founder and editor o f the journal Psychology and Judaism. His "Logotherapy A The Self and Privacy Step Beyond Freud: Its relevance for Jewish That the family faces so many problems can be attributed in Thought" appeared in the large part to a new ethic which has pervaded America: the ethic of Fall Winter '77-78 issue o f self-realization. This ethic emphasizes the individual's search for Jewish Life.

25

Uri Bronfenbrenner the self above all other considerations. The glorification of the self calculated a little while ago has brought with it a capacity to rationalize personal decisions that the average father spends about twenty minutes which may either prevent the creation of or undo existing families. per day with his child, o f The self-realization ethic, or narcissism, the "me" generation, may which only 38 seconds is true be seen as the natural extension of a philosophical world view intimate contact. This is cer­ which posits the human right "to life, liberty and the pursuit of tainly not a time allotment which conduces to a child's happiness." feeling a sense o f rootedness The accent is on individual needs and how they may be fulfilled. in the world and warmth in One marries an individual who fills personal needs; has children in the home environment.

order to fulfill the procreative urge; joins the work force to find oneself. This almost one-sided search for the self often neglects the needs of others, and creates insular lifestyles accentuating privacy, or space and time for oneself.

People value privacy as if it were their most prized possession.

Our social structures betray the primacy of privacy. We live in private homes or semi-private homes; hospitals have private rooms or semi-private rooms, as if the element of privacy with whatever adjective precedes it is a measure of what is good. But privacy comes at a very painful price: not having others when the need for companions is keenly felt. Hence the proliferation of a unique twentieth century epidemic, the ubiquitous manifestation of loneliness.

The home structure which has evolved in America has resulted in a new phenomenon. This is certainly not the first generation in which children must have a working relationship with their parents; but it is the first generation in which children must have a working relationship only with their parents. The pen privacy has just about locked everyone else out from being a significant life force in the child's development. Phillippe Aries apt­ ly describes the modern family as a "prison of love," where the child has to get along with parent, or else. It is not surprising that in such a pressure cooker, feelings of guilt should arise and feelings of hostility — if repressed in the home — are vented in other en­ vironments, most notably the schools. What is developing is not so much nuclear families as the potential for nuclear explosions.

Parents Never Have Enough Time Time, that most precious of commodities, is one which no one seems to have enough of. Parents do not have enough time to teach their children; to enjoy their children — what previously were home responsibilities are now contracted out. In previous times Jewish education was transmitted through living example and through joyful parent/child experiences. This aspect of the child s development is now relegated exclusively to specialists in the field, teachers. Even the initial years of a child's development are increasingly becoming the responsibility of day-tare centers.

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Fathers and mothers are generally spending less and less time with their children. Uri Bronfenbrenner calculated a little while ago that the average father spends about twenty minutes per day with his child, of which only 38 seconds is true intimate contact. This is cer­ tainly not a time allotment which conduces to a child's feeling a sense of rootedness in the world and warmth of the home environ­ ment.

With all the talk of the single-parent family, it should be observ­ ed that there are many families made up of a husband, wife and children, which are, in effect, either single-parent or even parentless. The findings of Bronfenbrenner that one third of all mothers with children under three are working and that an in­ creasing number of children are coming home to empty houses in­ dicates that the symptoms of single-parent families may prevail in many more households than statistics indicate. Bronfenbrenner notes the danger that children coming home to empty houses is as reliable a predicter as any for such future troubles as dropping out, depression, and addiction.

Self-Realization and Divorce The ethic of self-realization has been implicated by a leading sociologist, Robert Weiss, as a prime factor in the increasing divorce rate, which hovers between 30% and 40% and — if trends continue — may rise to somewhere close to 50% . Weiss contends that in all the divorces he has studied, the ethic of self-realization has been an important factor in the split if not the primary fac­ tor.

Not all single parents have assumed that role because of divorce or separation. Approximately fifty four percent of single parent­ hood is related to divorce or separation, while forty percent of single parenthood is due to the death of the spouse. Single parent­ hood has become an accepted fact of life in America, so much so that in a recent survey seventy four percent of Am ericans^id it is morally acceptable to be single and to have children.

Of course, single parenthood which results from the death of a spouse cannot be avoided by any social strategies; but divorce is a different issue. Using data from the National Opinion Research Center study of 1973 to 1975, Glenn and Weaver point out that seventy one percent of never-divorced men say they are happy in their marriages and sixty eight percent of remarried men describe themselves as very happy in their marriages. For women there is a slightly greater gap, in that seventy percent of never-divorced women say they are happily married, and only sixty one percent of formerly-divorced women say they are happily married. Why this is so is open to conjecture, but it is clear that there is nothing characte'rologically wrong with individuals who divorce. They 27

Why this is so is open to conjecture, but it is clear that there is nothing characterologically wrong with individuals who divorce. They show a resilience, an ability to bounce back. Indeed, almost eighty percent o f those who divorce do remarry, and the fact that it works the second time around leads one to question whether the first divorce was really necessary.

^eìlikr/ewÌhac o ^ ber °f shoW a resilience' an ability to bounce back. Indeed, almost eighty munities in America, shtetl Percent of those who divorce do remarry, and the fact that it life is more history than pro- works the second time around leads one to question whether the spect. The realities of the first divorce was really necessary. g

t l S

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problems confront the Jewish family must be found within the context of the existing structure.

Berry. >n a 1978 study of d iv o ra in Wisconsin, showed that apProximately one out of every ten divorces should never have taken place, based on the feelings of the former spouses months after the finalization of divorce. Have we been too liberal in accepting divorce as the escape hatch for a marriage which does not work?

The more people divorce, the more it becomes accepted, and the less likely a couple will be to work out their problems when con­ fronted with a crisis.

A study by Leo Davids estimated that in 1977 there were 1,000 divprces among Jewish families in Canada, with the likelihood that the years following 1977 were no better, and probably worse. Ac­ cording to Ben Schlesinger there are approximately nine to ten thousand single-parent Jewish families in Canada and between thirteen and a half to fifteen thousand children who have either a single mother or a single father.

The Single-Parent Family

The proliferation of single-parent families will continue to test the resources of the Jewish community. Especially when the split emanates from divorce, the fallout has repercussions which go beyond the immediate family. The increasing rate of divorce has the effect of rupturing family ties, and splits the families of the divorcing couple into a "them-versus-us" confrontation. In the long run this can have a devastating effect on the cohesiveness of the Jewish community. It is therefore imperative for the communi­ ty to learn how to live with divorce peacefully, rather than to let it escalate into hostilities pitting one family against another.

Some observers feel that single parenthood does not bode well for more than just family solidity reasons. The combination of single parenthood in a nuclear context often radically detaches thè parent and children from any semblance of community, so that the level of Jewishness goes down in many of these families. On the other hand, many single parents send their children to yeshiva day schools since day school classes start earlier and end later, thereby offering more convenient child care. Additionally, many single parents, because of the economic burdens thrust upon them, go back home to their own parents. Parents are often a source of par­ tisan support during the marital crisis and it is not unlikely that in the economic pinch which follows, the older generation family is leaned on again. This has its obvious disadvantages for those who crave privacy, but in an ironic: way brings families back together in an extended set-up. This is happening acfoss America for 28

economic reasons, not only in single parent families, but even among marrieds.

It is important for the community to create imaginative Jewish living programs which integrate the single-parent family into a communal structure which up until how has been almost ex­ clusively oriented towards the two-parent family. Day care centers for children of single parents, as indeed for children of two parent families, are also an important area where Jewish values rhay be shared in a happy environment. Single parenthood can be a stimulus to greater Jewish involvement rather than a harbinger of spiritual attrition.

Some even recommend that children of single parents be allow­ ed to attend yeshiva day schools free of tuition. Such a move, no­ ble as it sounds, may be counterproductive, for we may cause a revolt among two-parent families who already are feeling the pinch of escalating yeshiva tuition costs, and who might find it in their interests to concoct a mock separation to gain free tuition for their children.

Any discussion of the Jewish family perforce invblves a discus­ sion o^ reproduction. Fertility trends, too, have fallen prey to the 'ethic of the self-realization" syndrome. In general, Americans have veered away from an emphasis on family life. More people are either remaining single or living together. A recent survey showed that more than fifty two percent of Americans felt there is nothing morally wrong with living together when not married.

In 1957, eighty percent of those surveyed felt that women who remain unmarried must be either sick, neurotic, or immoral. By 1978 only twenty-five percent felt that way. This may be due to a more precise appreciation of what it means to be neurotic or sick, but it also indicates, in line with other findings, a more liberal view toWards the need to be married and to procreate. Less and less peo­ ple —■only fifteen percent of the population — feel that four or more children is the ideal family size; fifty percent feel that two children is the ideal.

This liberal attitude has spilled over into the Jewish community, in extremis. The estimated fertility rate amongst Jews is 1.7 per family, meaning that we are wrestling not with zero population growth, but negative population growth. More Jews opt for never marrying, perhaps scared off by the rising rate of divorce and the tales of woe shared by victims of divorce.

In Boston, for example, only twenty seven percent of the adult population was not married in 1965, but by 1975 fully forty-four percent of the adult Jewish population was not married. In the 21-29 age grouping, the percentage of those married tailed off from fifty-eight percent in 1965 to forty-two percent in 1975. Addi­ tionally, aside from the living-together syndrome, some are either marrying late or marrying early and holding off from having

children, either to pursue a career or for fear the marriage may not work out and they would rather not be stuck with children. The lateness of the childbearing age often precludes having more than one or two children. Besides this, many couples would not have wanted more than one or two in any event.

Though it is questionable whether the quality of family life is af­ fected by its size, (some feeling that a larger family has more in­ teraction and sharing of roles and therefore is a more viable entity, and others maintaining that a single child may have the advantage of individual attention and develop into a more rounded per­ sonality) the fact remains that low fertility rates do not bode well for the future of the Jewish community. With the already alarming attrition caused by intermarriage, and compounded by a negative population growth, the size of the Jewish community of the future will be diminished, possibly weakening the strength of a communi­ ty which has always gleaned much from numerical strength and closeness.

The "me" generation, which has been employed as an omnibus explanation for much that has gone haywire, is probably somewhat involved in the intermarriage dilemma facing the North American Jewish community. Elazar's 1976 survey of the American Jewish community found twenty-five to thirty percent of the population totally uninvolved in Jewish life. Elazar called these people "peripherals." Then there are the "contributors and consumers," who identify with the community but are only minimally associated, again numbering twenty-five to thirty per­ cent. At the very least, then, at least half the American Jewish population is only tenuously bound up with Jewish destiny.

Intermarriage: Symptom or Cause?

The rate of intermarriage, when viewed against the background of Elazar's findings, should hardly be surprising. It is generally believed that in the United States the intermarriage rate hovers around thirty-five to forty percent. Even more alarming is the finding in the. National Jewish Population study of 1971 that fully forty-three percent of all American Jews feel there is nothing Additionally, a study by Bahr and Day in 1978 im­ wrong with intermarriage, and among the then 20 to 29 year-olds, plies that it is not women's sixty-nine percent felt it is okay for a Jew to marry a non-Jew. In working which affects the Canada, based on the Statistics Canada release of 1978, the inter­ family as much as the at­ marriage rate is just short of 40% . This is pure intermarriage with titude o f women who work.

If the work is an escape from no conversion. If one included marriages following conversion, the family it can be harmful, the rate would probably be closer to forty-five or fifty percent. but if it is an expression o f Intermarriage is merely a symptom, a manifestation of a sense of responsibility for the family, detachment from the Jewish community. In some cases, the then it need not be an im­ pediment to the family's prevailing attitude is that present satisfaction — the omnipresent flourishing. ethic of self-realization — takes precedence over any long range 30

commitment to Judaism or the Jewish People. The pleasures of the moment are much more important than matters of ultimate con­ cern.

The implications for family life of a growing intermarriage rate are obvious. It has been found that the intermarrieds have weak family ties, but it is unclear whether the weak family tiesJead to the intermarriage, or the intermarriage creates weak family ties.

Probably both are true. In my own observation, intermarriage, when it involves conversion, may bring the husband and wife together, but the parents of the married couple remain far apart.

The support base of a grandparent generation for the children is compromised, if not totally destroyed, by the intermarriage. The qualitative effects of this on the next generation of Jews in America will probably not be clear for some time, but the prognosis is bleak.

Women in the Work Place Much debate has gone on about the effect of the women's libera­ tion movement on the family. The changes in women's position withinkhe family are well known; they are reflected in such fin­ dings as that whereas in 1938 seventy-five percent of the American population disapproved of women earning money if the husband was capable of supporting her, in 1978 only twenty-six percent felt this way. Whereas in 1970 only thirty-three percent believed that both sexes have the responsibility for caring for their small children, in 1980 fifty-five percent felt this way. This second find­ ing indicates an encouraging development in what many had heretofore felt was a threat to the family. The woman's joining the work force has created the need for balanced parental responsibili­ ty, and has pushed the husband into a more significant parenting rolé, at least theoretically.

Additionally, a study by Bahr and Day in 1978 implies that it is not women's working which affects the family as much as the at­ titude of women who work. If the work is an escape from the family it can be harmful, but if it is an expression of responsibility for the family, then it need not be an impediment to the family's flourishing.

Insofar as the work situation itself is concerned, there are in­ teresting developments which need to be more carefully monitored. From 1947 to 1977 the number of men in their prime working years who dropped out of the work force doubled. At­ titudes to working are changing. In 1969 fifty-eight percent felt that hard work always pays off. By 1976 only forty-two percent were so inclined. In 1970 one third of the population felt that work is the center of their life; by 1978 only fourteen percent felt this way. Women who embark on careers out of necessity may even31

The estimated fertility rate amongst Jews is 1.7 per fami­ ly, meaning that we are wrestling not with zero population growth, but negative population growth.

More Jews opt for never marrying, perhaps scared o ff by the rising rate o f divorce and the tales o f woe shared by victims o f divorce.

tually find work to be the drain and bore men have already found it to be, and may reduce the emphasis on work and reaffirm family values. Thus, what seems a threat to the family is not necessarily so.

Within the Jewish community the higher rate of unmarrieds and lower fertility rate are probably related to the new role of women, but the developing attitudes to work may neutralize this effect. For the present, however, the feeling persists that the new role assum­ ed by women has not enhanced Jewish family life.

The Future of the Family On balance, some of the trends within American society do not augur well for the future of the family. Simultaneously, what is true of America in general usually impinges, sometimes with even greater impact, on the Jewish community. Nevertheless certain factors need to be taken into account when assessing the present and future of the Jewish family and the Jewish community. The family still remains a potent social institution in America. It is, in the words of Mary Jo Bane, "here to stay". Additionally, the swing to the right in the United States has brought with it the espousal of a return to oldtime values, one of which is the strong family.

In a number of areas, a collective effort by those in positions of influence with the Jewish community can enhance the future of the family and thus ensure Jewish continuity. A balanced combination of philosophy and policy is essential in this regard. Attitudinally, or philosophically, those who shape Jewish minds should not shrink from sharply attacking, both from the philosophical and practical viewpoint, the ethic of self-realization. There is enough literature to show that this ethic does not even serve the interests of the self-realizers.

Instead, the ethic of self-transcendence, the notion of sharing and outer-directed concern, should be encouraged as the essential dynamic in human relations, especially husband/wife and parent/child relations. One gives up a little bit of the self in order to make the lot of others better, but in that process an entire en­ vironment is enhanced, and often to the benefit of the selftranscenders.

The notion of outer-directed concern can be enlarged to incor­ porate the notion of marriage as expressing a shared destiny with It is in the community's long one's partner in life. This is best developed in a coherent Jewish range interest not to see the lifestyle which has a futuristic focus to it and in which marriage is elderly as an isolated group oriented towards the ultimate destiny of the Jewish people. Shared which need be cared for destiny as a reason for sharing a life together is a frequently miss­ separately, but rather as a ing ingredient in Jewish marriage. Reintroducing this ingredient in­ vital component to be in­ tegrated into the community. to Jewish marriage is obviously dependent upon reintroducing the 32

notion of Jewish destiny as a principle of communal life in general.

Israel's precarious position, the spread of anti-semitism, the show­ ing of "Holocaust" and "Masada," have, amongst other factors, made the subject of "Jewish Destiny" much more relevant and g crucial. If this is firmly established as a principle, the family will become more entrenched as the prime effector of Jewish destiny, with simultaneous effect on fertility and intermarriage, two crucial factors in the Jewish community's future.

Secondly, in line with the increasing skepticism about the ful­ fillments from one's work, it is ppportune to stress the fulfillments which accrue from devoting oneself to inner space, the home en­ vironment. The fulfillment gained from a family flourishing in a happy environment is at least as rewarding and vital as getting a raise in salary or a promotion.

In terms of policy, the emphasis on inner space need not be restricted to the home. Inner space can include the various places of communal gathering which are homey in spite of their size, and oriented around an extended family of various units related by a common bond rather than by blood ties. The synagogue and com­ munity center can serve as catalytic agents for bringing diverse components of the Jewish community back within the communal matrix. Environments of extended familism can help make single­ parent families feel more at ease and at home within the communi­ ty, and if proper attention is given to the fifty percent who are on­ ly peripherally involved, they too can be part of a "broadening of the base" for the Jewish community of tomorrow.

Concern for the Elderly

1

While the actual practice of helping is usually expressed on an individual basis, the policy making of the community should be geared toward the collective whole. Nowhere is this as important as in the community's concern for the elderly, who, because of various trends, are becoming a greater proportion of the popula­ tion. It is in the community's long range interest not to see the elderly as an isolated group which need be cared for separately, but rather as a vital component to be integrated into the communi­ ty. This approach, which has been suggested as vital for single pa­ rents, is as important, if not more so, for the elderly, and for those who would benefit from their sagacity and experience even as they are slowed down by the more relaxed pace of the older generation.

Integrating the aged into the community is so important for a younger generation which, in Bronfenbrenner's words, often does not see an older person until the late teens.

It should be realized than not only do the elderly benefit from the attention given to them by the young, the young get a definite sense of involvement and importance by the smiles and radiance 33

they bring to the faces of the elderly.

A case illustration of this is an experience in the University of Hartford, which I visited recently. The university purchased a senior citizens residence with the thought of transforming it into a dormitory facility for its students. The senior citizens, however, loudly protested their certain eviction, and the university was for­ ced to backtrack and allow those senior citizens who occupied apartments to remain, with the other rooms filled with university students.

Amazingly the integration has done wonders for the students and for the elderly in that home. The students relate very well to the elderly, care for them, and are invited to their homes for meals.

The elderly, being on campus, often attend courses as part of the university's noble attempt to bring them as much as possible into the university setting. What happened in the University of Hart­ ford, with proper policies and direction, can happen in any North American community, and certainly in any Jewish community.

Margaret Mead's recommendation of three generational com­ munities housed together is one possibility, but variations abound.

In the end, we are to a certain extent accidents of societal trends over which we have no control, but at the same time we do have some say in the direction of our lives. We can protest philosophies, we can, working within the inescapable constraints thrust upon us, make the best of situations and often transmute them to our advantage. Jewish history is a history of reaching the unreachable and attaining the unattainable.

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36 Photo Courtesy: Audrey Seidman

Chaim Waxman

How Many Are We? — Where Are We Going?

Knowledge of demographic factors affecting American Jews in general and Orthodox American Jews in particular is essential for planning for the future. Yet the traditional Jewish ayersion to counting heads still prevails in the American Jewish community to­ day, though it is not based upon the beliefs of the past. American Jewish demography is highly speculative: we simply do not have a firm data base. Since we are officially a religious group, rather than an ethnic group, and since the United States Census has not asked a religion question since 1957 — it was Jews, among others, who were opposed to allowing the Census Bureau to ask questions on religion — we have been deprived of what might have been an excellent source of data. We are left to rely on very limited studies by social scientists who happen to include samples of Jews in their specific surveys, and studies of specific Jewish communities usual­ ly conducted by local Jewish Federations. The quality of the latter varies widely from study to study, though the general standards of such studies have improved of late. We also have some data from the National Jewish Population Study, which was sponsored by the Council of Jewish Federations. But the study was never com­ pleted and analyzed, and the data are at least ten years old. With all of these reservations in mind, some relevant American Jewish social patterns emerge, and we can examine their significance for the continuity of Torah life in American society.

The most recent data available indicates that the Jewish popula­ tion in the United States numbers about 5,900,000 pepple, about D r. W a x m a n was ordained 2.7 percent of the total population. at Yeshiva University and is When we compare these figures with those of the 1930's, we see Professor o f Sociology at that we are becoming an increasingly smaller proportion of the to­ Rutgers University. We tal population. We have decreased from 3.7 to 2 . 7 percent in less welcome him to our pages. than fifty years. While this fact in and of itself may not be very sig­ This article was originally nificant, it suggests certain trends which are of major significance. delivered as a paper in a Where Do America's Jews Live?

Another change taking place is geographic distribution. Until recently, Jews were concentrated in the major urban centers and in the Northeastern part of the country. That was the case since the beginning of the massive immimigration of about three million Jews from Eastern Europe in 1881. During the 1970's, in particular, this pattern has changed noticeably. Whereas in 1968, 64 percent 37

slightly different form to the 37th Annual Convention of the Rabbinic Alumni o f Yeshiva University under the title " D e m o g r a p h ic C h a n g e s

a n d th e Im p lic a tio n s f o r th e C o n tin u ity o f T o r a h L if e ."

Demography is one o f the less glamorous aspects o f sociology; yet it deals figuratively as well as literal­ ly with life and death.

of the Jewish population in the country lived in the Northeast, by While the evidence on mar­ riage, for example, indicates 1979 that figure had declined to 57.9 percent. The South, in which that American Jews are still about ten percent of the country's Jews resided in 1968, had almost marrying at a higher rate 16 percent of the Jewish population in the country by 1979. More­ than non-Jews, it also in­ dicates that there has been a over, not only are Jews spreading out around the country, evi­ decline in the rate o f mar­ dence suggests that they are becoming less urban. riage among Jews. When we The geographic patterns have implications for the future in at compare a study o f Boston in least two very important ways: 1975 with one in that same • dispersion weakens the critical mass which most sociologists see city in 1965, we find that whereas in 1965, 73 percent as important for maintaining ethnic group identity and iden­ o f the adult Jewish popula­ tification, and tion was married, by 1975 • the more one is geographically mobile — as American Jews in­ this figure had declined to 56 creasingly are — the less one is likely to develop strong local ties percent. and the less is the local community going to try to reach out to newcomers perceived as only transients. So growing geographic mobility will probably mean, both as cause and effect, weaker ties to Judaism and the Jewish community.

Geographic mobility has serious consequences in another way: it places very heavy strains upon the institutional structure of the American Jewish community. Since most American Jewish institu­ tions and agencies were developed at a time when the Jewish com­ munity was centrally located within a limited number of denselypopulated areas, geographic mobility will require that they branch out and establish new facilities and provide services in many new and diverse areas. This new reality will require major policy deci­ sions, both in design and financial feasibility, and is an issue which confronts the Orthodox as well as the general American Jewish community.

How Do Jews Earn A Living?

A third area of change within the American Jewish community which has implications for the future concerns occupational pat­ terns. Since the early 1960's, there has been a discernible decline in the number of Jews in the managerial and proprietary occupations and an increase in the number of those entering the professions.

This pattern may affect American Jewry in several ways. It sug­ gests that increasing numbers of employed Jews are salaried, rather than self-employed, and we know that the potential for financial support of Jewish communal institutions is much greater among those who are self-employed than among those who are salaried* because of the tax structure and the fact that entrepreneurs are generally more wealthy than professionals.

Marshall Sklare has expressed concern about the impact which the new occupational trends will have on the life-styles of American Jews. He foresees increasing numbers of American Jews adopting professional life-styles and relinquishing their ethnic 38

ones. For the Orthodox community, therefore, the challenge is to provide the education and training which would enhance the capabilities of Orthodox professionals to integrate their profes­ sional life-styles within the traditional normative Jewish structure.

In fact, the potential for such integration is much greater today, given the proper education, because of changes in American cul­ ture and technology. American culture is much more receptive to cultural pluralism than it was a generation or two ago, and we are therefore freer to maintain our own ethno-religious traditions even within the professions. And, American technology has further enhanced the five-day work week and increased the availability of attractive kosher food, so that one can much more easily observe shabbos and kashrus in every area and every level of our society.

Even the potential for Torah-leaming has been enhanced by technology and cultural advances. The challenge is to build upon and realize these potentials.

What's Happening To Marriage?

As we turn to the realm of family life our concern about the fu­ ture becomes greatly intensified. There are sound sociological reasons for suspecting that the Biblical verse "Ma Tovu Oholecha Yaakov praising Jewish family life, is more than descriptive, but normative. It not only praises the state of Jewish family life at the time it was spoken, but alludes to the central role of family life in group preservation. That being the case, current American Jewish family patterns present us with a very serious dilemma. While the evidence on marriage, for example, indicates that American Jews are still marrying at a higher rate than non-Jews, it also indicates that there has been a decline in the rate pf marriage among Jews.

When we compare a study of Boston in 1975 with one in that same city in 1965, we find that whereas in 1965, 73 percent of the adult Jewish population was married, by 1975 this figure had declined to 56 percent. More specifically, in the 21-29 year age category, the percentage of those married dropped from 58 percent in 1965 to 42 percent in 1975. Overall, the segment of the Jewish population which is single — never married — rose from 14 percent in 1965 to 32 percent in 1975.

Even if these figures are not quite representative of the national Jewish picture — Boston is hardly a representative American Jew­ ish community — and we were to suggest that there may be a post­ ponement of marriage rather than an actual decline in the rate of marriage, we would still have cause for concern. While Boston has characteristics which make it unique, such as a high proportion of residents involved in the academic community, it may nevertheless portend trends which will diffuse to other American Jewish com­ munities in the not-too-distant future. Also, even the postpone39

merit of marriage, especially past the age of 30, lowers the pro­ bable birth rate: the later people marry, the less likely they are to produce a large family.

Attitudes Toward Divorce Despite the special place of marriage in Jewish tradition, Juda­ ism does not view marriage as a permanent and interminable bond during the lifetime of both spouses. While Kidushin, by definition, it is a sacred bond, Judaism has always provided for its termina­ tion when remaining together becomes intolerable. Moreover, as the late Professor Nathan Goldberg pointed out in his survey of Jewish and non-Jewish divorce rates in Europe since the nineteenth century, in parts of Africa and Asia, including Israel, and in the United States and Canada, attitudes toward divorce vary from society to society and from group to group. In those societies where Jews showed a larger percentage of divorce than non-Jews, it was frequently the result of the Jewish emphasis on human digni­ ty, rather than the marital bliss of the non-Jewish population.

In the United States however, virtually all studies since at least the early twentieth century, indicate that Jews have had a lower divorce rate than the general white population. While there are no reliable current data, the evidence which we do have suggests that the Jewish divorce rate is still somewhat lower than the general rate. However, it has evidently risen dramatically during the past decade. For example, preliminary data from studies of the Jewish population of Greater Los Angeles indicate a doubling of the Jewish divorce rate between 1968 and 1979, although the 1979 rate was still noticeably lower than the general divorce rate.

Moreover, while it has been almost an article of faith, until recently, that the Orthodox Jewish divorce rate is very low — not only relatively but absolutely as well — there are indications that it too is changing. For example, for three consecutive years, Paradoxically, f o r A m e r ic a n 1977-1979, the leaders of the Rabbinical Council of America high­ Je w s, z e ro p o p u la tio n g r o w th lighted the issue of the rapidly increasing Orthodox Jewish divorce w o u ld m e a n a n increase in rate at their annual conventions. Many will remember that several n u m b e rs . (Zero population growth is taken to mean 2.2 years ago one of the most prominent members of the Union of Or­ thodox Rabbis (Agudas Harabbanim) who plays a central role in percent birth rate, replace­ ment level.) American Jews handling divorce cases in their section of the Orthodox community now have a birth rate o f ap­ bemoaned the rise of divorce in the yeshiva community. Though proximately 1.67, w ell b e lo w he was coerced into retracting some of his comments, it is obvious re p la c e m e n t le v e l. W h ile it is that he saw a real and significant increase. I have been told of tru e th a t q u a lity m a y b e m o r e im p o r ta n t £han q u a n ti­ similar patterns by rabbis intimately connected with the Beth Din t y , a s M ilto n H im m e lfa rb of the Rabbinical Council of America. And, Dr. Gershon Kranzler fre q u e n tly p o in ts o u t, y o u reported, in 1978, that the guidance counselor at a large girl's high c a n 't h a v e Je w ish id e n tity school in Boro Park, Brooklyn, with a student population of over w ith o u t Je w s .)

40

1,000, found that an estimated 8 percent of the students came from homes in which the parents were divorced. Given that this is a 'right wing" school, and it is a high school, it seems reasonable to assume that the divorce rate in the total Orthodox community, in­ cluding divorced couples with younger children and childless ones, is considerably higher.

There is yet another dimension to the problem: there is a wide range of evidence indicating that Jewish children of divorced parents experience special problems in a variety of institutional structúres within the community, and especially in school. Also, they and the parents they remain with have a sense of and actually experience a large measure of alienation from their community and its institutions. Many of them turn to institutions outside of the community for comfort and support, and they and their children often become completely estranged from the Jewish community.

For the Torah community divorce is an issue of major proportions because in an overwhelming number of cases the marriages are dissolved without g ittin . This means that the subsequent marriages of divorced women are in effect adulterous relationships,

While the available evidence

is sparse, what we do have sfron£/y suggests that only in riages do the

those intermarried couples receive anything approaching meaningful Jewish socializa»m n i .i ..i . i tion. I must confess that I am Mamzerus may well be thenorm within the contemporary more than a little perplexed American Jewish community, and it will continue to grow. as to why the "Torah com-' munity" has not been more Jews and Zero Population Growth aggressive in challenging the complacency o f the ‘'leader­ ship" o f American Jewry Jews are becoming a smaller percentage of the total American with respect to intermarriage.

population. But the problem is even more serious: we are growing smaller in absolute numbers as well. [Paradoxically, for American Jews, zero population growth would mean an increase in numbers.

(Zero population growth is taken to mean 2.2 percent birth rate, replacement level.) American Jews now have a birth rate1 of ^ap­ proximately 1.67, well below replacement level. While it is true that quality may be more important than quantity, as Milton Himmelfarb frequently points out, you can't have Jewish identity with­ out Jews. ] Certainly, we will not be able to maintain the kind of in­ stitutional structures we have developed in this country unless we have a population to support them and a population for them to serve.

As for the Orthodox community, while we have no solid data, what we do have indicates that the overall Orthodox birth rate is considerably higher than the total Jewish birth rate. In one sense, this means that the Orthodox will become an increasingly larger percentage of the American Jewish population. But there is little consolation in that because, whether we recognize it or not, the Orthodox community is dependent upon the total American Jewish population for its own survival and growth. Within the Or­ thodox community, the evidence suggests that while the so-called 41

Is it not a sad commentary "right-wing" birth rate is considerably higher than the general on the state o f affairs that American rate — a study of Boro Park found five and six children even within Orthodox Jewish high schools, centrist ones in­ to be quite common the centrist "modern" Orthodox birth rate is not that much higher than the national average, although it is sig­ cluded, there is not much more than a handful o f nificantly higher than the American Jewish birth rate. Centrists women principals? Beyond have a dual dilemma: American Jews are becoming an increasingly high school there is virtually smaller percentage of the Orthodox. nothing. If we do not create While the prospects for increasing the American Jewish birth meaningful roles within the Orthodox community, it rate are at best slim — given what we know about the virtually seems reasonable to predict universal inverse relationship between socio-economic status and that young Orthodox women birth rate, there is another factor which may have impact upon the will seek them elsewhere, size of the American Jewish population — immigration. However, and in the process many o f them may be lost to the largescale Jewish immigration into the country came to an end community completely. with the Johnson Immigration Acts of 1921 and 1924. Smaller im­

migrations of Jews into the country, such as Soviet, Israeli, and, to a smaller degree, Iranian Jews in recent years have added some­ what to the Jewish population of the country. Consequently, bar­ ring any major disruptions abroad or major relaxations of the im­ migration laws, it is doubtful that immigration will be a major ele­ ment affecting the American Jewish population.

Intermarriage and Survival The issue of intermarriage is the greatest concern to survivalists, and the evidence which we have supports their cause for concern.

The issue is very complex, and its implications can vary depending on how one defines the Jewish community. For those who are not part of the Torah community, who define the Jewish community solely in ethnic terms or who do not perceive themselves to be sub­ ject to Halacha, have simply accepted what they take to be a fait accompli. As David Singer has put it, the majority of American Jews have reconciled themselves to 'living with intermarriage."

This only makes things worse for the Torah community.

Intermarriage is indeed a problem of major proportions. For those who may be confused by the various intermarriage rates which are alluded to, we can put it simply: more than one out o f

every three marriages involving a Jewish spouse in America today is an intermarriage. Intermarriage is a term which refers to two basic types: conversionary, in which the non-Jewish partner con­ verts; and "mixed" marriage, in which there is no conversion. For Torah Jews, marriages in which the non-Jewish partner converts are not intermarriages; they are Jewish marriages, provided the conversion was proper. However, there is no consolation here, since most conversions are not done in accordance with Halacha, even in its most lenient interpretations. Moreover, approximately 75 percent of the contemporary intermarriages are mixed mar­ riages, with no conversion at all. While the available evidence is 42

sparse, what we do have strongly suggests that only in a small minority of intermarriages do the children of these intermarried couples receive anything approaching meaningful Jewish socializa­ tion. I must confess that I am more than a little perplexed as to why the 'Torah community" has not been more aggressive in challenging the complacency of the "leadership" of American Jewry with respect to intermarriage.

Orthodox Educational Levels One other area in which there have been changes in the social patterns of American Jews, including the Torah community, and which have implications for the future of that community is with respect to sex roles. American Jews have very high educational levels for both males and females, and increasing numbers of Jewish women have gone on to higher education and entered the work force, as has been the case for the country as a whole. The challenges which this has presented to traditional arrangements are well-known and need not here be belabored. However, the challenges to the Orthodox community are even greater than in the larger American Jewish community and in American society at large. Orthodox Jewish women, both centrist and "right-wing," are attending colleges and universities and entering the work force at high level occupations. Their minds are constantly being challenged and new vistas are constantly being opened for them.

In many respects they are approaching parity with men, if they have not already done so. But can the same be said for the extent of their Jewish education?

How many Orthodox institutions of higher learning for women are there in the country where women can receive the same kind of intensive Jewish education available for men? How many Or­ thodox parents attempt to provide intensive higher Jewish learning for their daughters? And what are the avenues and opportunities available within the Jewish community for women to use their Jewish education professionally? Is it not a sad commentary on the state of affairs that even with Orthodox Jewish high schools, cen­ trist ones included, there is not much more than a handful of women principals? Beyond high school, there is virtually nothing.

If we do not create meaningful roles within the Orthodox com­ munity, it seems reasonable to predict that young Orthodox women will seek them elsewhere, and in the process many of them may be lost to the community completely.

Perhaps I have presented a doomsday prophecy. That is not my intention. To balance the prognosis somewhat, let me point out that the Torah community is, in many ways, much stronger in this country today than at any other point in its history. Who could

have foreseen, even fifty years ago and less, the kind of communi­ ty which we have today? We often delude ourselves when we ac­ cept the popular stereotype of the generation of the Eastern Euro­ pean immigrants as if they were all or even largely Orthodox.

They were not. And the percentage of "non-observant Orthodox" was many times higher in the past than it is today. We no longer have any reason to be on the defensive within the American Jewish community. Our levels of educational, occupational, and income status are fast approaching parity with those of the non-Orthodox, and we have the potential to play a much more active role in the communal structure of American Jewry without relinquishing our principles. The larger American Jewish community is at least as dependent on us as we are upon them, if not more so, and we must learn to assert ourselves in constructive action with the larger Jewish communal structure.

While we cannot ignore the realities and dilemmas of the American Jewish condition, including those of the Orthodox com­ munity, neither dare we become disheartened and fatalistic because of them. Let us not forget that Avraham had two children and fifty percent assimilated; Isaac had two children and 50 per­ cent assimilated. We must learn to use our trepidations about the future in a constructive manner. As the late Professor Simon Rawidowicz pointed out, Jews are "the ever-dying people," each generation since very early on in our history, perceiving that it was the last one. With an outlook of uncertainty, let us begin again to belie the prognosis.

(Readers who wish to see more detailed discussions of Dr. W o ­ man's conclusions may see his: "The Fourth Generation Grows Up: The Contemporary American Jewish Community," An­ nals, American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 4 5 4 , March 1981, pp. 70-85; "The Threadbare Canopy: The Vicissitudes of the Jewish Family in Modern American Society," American Behavioral Scientist, Vol. 23, No. 4, March/April 1980, pp. 467-86.)

44

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Janet Wolf

"Baruch Ha'Shem, Not So Good:" Some Concerns of Jewish Women I first met Judy at a crowded Purim party. Her face, underneath a brown woolen tichel, had a resigned composure in comparison to those of the women near her who were nervously discussing recipes. Her "jeans" skirt with matching denim infant-carrier and her avocation of children's story-writer conjured up within me ideal images of modem, frum woman. I don't remember how it came about — our sitting out alone in the courtyard — maybe I told her I was a psychologist interested in the concerns of the modem traditionally-Jewish woman. Sometime past midnight I remember her confiding in me: I'm sick of being perfect. It sounds crazy — most people yearn for the things I have — but I keep hoping for an adolescent identity crisis. I remember going to an apple orchard near school and spending the afternoon watching the shadows of the trees lengthen across the grass.

I was lonely then, but at least I felt something: a kind of a presence in my life that gave it meaning. I'm not saying that I don't believe in God; I'm shomer mitzvos -j-’but I don't God. I love my husband and kids, but I don't know who I am anymore — except everyone else's image of a selfless, giving mother with enough minutes to spare to make a name for herself . . .

Judy does not have a personality problem, a marital problem, an employment problem. However, her anxieties are far-reaching and have been shared by a variety of women in groups I have dealt with to help them in their struggle with the integration of tradi­ tional Jewish and modem societal role expectations. I want here to begin to explore these issues as they relate to community ideals and pressures, halacha and spiritual growth, and roles within the fami­ ly.

Women in Relation to Community

Group members acknowledged the importance of the religious D r . W o lf is apracticin community which provides social and educational opportunities, psychologist in Los Angeles, religious guidelines, and emotional support. But some felt that California. She conducts while community support perpetuated a norm or halachic stan­ group sessions for — among dard, there was a general intolerance of deviation from the norms others — Jewish women who have opted for Torah obser­ of community minhageetn and a lack of appreciation for in­ vance. " B a r u c h H a 'S h e m : dividual differences. One woman relayed a painfully embarassing N o t S o G o o d " is her first experience at a schul function during her second year of marriage. contribution to Jew ish L ife.

47

I'm not saying that I don't It dawned on her that as some of the women asked "how are you," believe in God; I'm s h o m e r they were gazing at her stomach. It angered her that instead of car­ m itz v o s — but I don't feel ing about her well-being, they were conveying, in her perception, God. I love my husband and kids: but I don't know who I a not-too-subtle judgment regarding her failure to become preg­ am anymore except every­ nant. She was, in fact, trying to conceive. "But even if I wasn't," one else’s image o f a selfless, she added, "it's none of their business." giving mother with enough One group coined a term for this community dynamic; minutes to spare to make a "religiously-induced pseudo-intimacy". "Religiously-induced" im­ name for herself . . .

plied that the basis for commonality was exclusively religion — ex­ cluding commonality of secular interests or personal values. One woman elaborated: "Here we are, joined together by everything from Shabbos to baby-sitting co-ops with people with whom we have little in common beyond our Jewish souls." Group members did not disparage the basic value of helping one's fellow Jew, but they questioned the proportion of valuable "socializing time" spent with individuals with whom they felt little in common. "Pseudointimacy" implied that the sense of commonality was based more upon a conformity to norms than upon understanding and sincere appreciation of people as individual entities.

The women acknowledged that they were also participants in the superficiality they resented. Many felt disturbed about the degree to which they found themselves playing a role, but also felt that their fears of risk of self-disclosure were realistic.

In addition, the women felt torn between an attitude which values questioning and doubt as growth-producing rather than threatening, and simple faith in which incongruent issues tend to be avoided rather than wrestled with. While each woman saw some value in both attitudes, not one felt that she had found a comfortable balance between the two.

The "Baruch Ha'Shem" Society As a result, the sometimes envied simple-faith attitude, sometimes became a charicature and the brunt of some hostility.

The women identified in particular the tendency of some in4 dividuals to acknowledge God as the source of well-being to the exclusion of acknowledging personal doubt or discomfort. One member observed that while a few individuals may adhere to this attitude as a means of refocusing from the self to a more universal, Godly perspective, others adhered to it as a type of group membership. The women named this perceived group the "Baruch Ha'Shem Society ", "Baruch Ha'Shem" as a response to "How are you?" might indicate a faith that God will provide, that God is the source of well-being. However, the "Baruch Ha'Shem" response also seemed to manifest concern that the expression of fear or dissatisfaction is at best selfish, at worst irreligious, indicative, in­ deed, of a lack of faith in God. According to several of the 48

women, in order for genuine closeness to develop, people must let their rough edges show including their feelings of personal doubt and dissatisfaction. Not only did some of the women feel alienated, but some felt guilty and inadequate because in com­ parison to what they saw of others, they seemed so much less spiritually consistent or refined.

The groups did not seem to represent the judgmentalness perceived within the observant community. The women varied in relation to such issues as covering one's hair after marriage, wear­ ing pants, degrees of observance of the period of niddah.

However, members initiated neither pressure to change nor patronizing attempts to understand differences among themselves.

The emphasis was rather on shared experiences and perceptions.

The women seemed to conclude: I'm neither crazy nor a bad Jew. Part of the problem is I'm under pressure in a community that doesn't always express the ideals of Judaism. And it's hard to be a one-hundred percent understanding, ra­ tional, ethical, all-around observant Jewish woman. At least I'm not the only one that's struggling.

Women in Relation to Self Several issues were raised relative to the self within a Jewish con­ text. Several ba'alei teshuva in the groups expressed conflicts regarding their religious development. Other specific halachic issues were addressed as well as difficulties internalizing the mean­ ing behind certain mitzvos.

Some of the women said that while they gained a sense of con­ tinuity and security in observance, they were losing a sense of its specialness. "Shut up kids, I'm lighting the Shabbos candles' became a symbol for the too frequent rift between observing the law and internalizing its spirit and meaning. This problem reflected a practical as well as spiritual challenge in that many of the women were too distracted to gain cognitive or emotional appreciation of the mitzvos they were performing. In contrast, men were viewed as having many more opportunities to experience religious obser­ vances — whether they be davening or learning — outside the home with little distraction.

One woman recalled the experience of lighting candles when she was single: It was as if the glow would melt away all the tensions of the past week.

Now I hear my kids nagging for something to eat as my husband cat­ ches the last minutes of the football game. It's so much more of a struggle to be my own person. I can't pray if I don't know what I feel.

One reason often advanced for men being obligated to observe 49

One woman relayed a pain­ fully embarrassing experience at a shut function during her second year o f marriage. It dawned on her that as some o f the women asked “how are you," they were gazing at her stomach. It angered her that instead of caring about her well-being, they were conveying, in her perception, a not-too subtle judgement regarding her failure to become pregnant.

, The women varied in rela­ tion to such issues as cover­ ing one's hair after marriage, wearing pants, degrees of observance o f the period o f niddah. However, members initiated neither pressure to change nor patronizing at­ tempts to understand difc ferences among themselves.

the positive, time-bound mitzvohs is their lesser awareness — in comparison to women — of a natural order outside of themselves.

The women in our groups generally agreed that they did have a greater awareness of time and a natural order not only because of their natural cycles, but also, because of the broad perspectives they need in managing their numerous roles. However, many women reported that their multiple roles spread them too thin.

What, in a spiritual sense, can be done to help women with their feelings of fragmentation?

Several of the ba'alei teshuva in the group expressed between the obligation to perform even those mitzvos which one does not understand and the value of integrating one's observance with one's own personality. Several of these women had felt push­ ed either by community values or their husbands to take upon themselves certain mitzvos before they felt "ready”. Some women retained their previous levels of observance despite pressure; others conformed to expressed values and harbored resentment; still others successfully grew to appreciate the mitzvos after they began to observe them. Two questions émerge from this conflict: (a) To what degree is "Do first, understand later" waived for the ba'alei teshuva who need to integrate at a gradual pace? (b) How is Shalom Bayispreserved when husband and wife grow to different levels of observance?

Many of the group members were familiar with various ex­ planations of woman's role in relation to halacha. They were also aware that while some halachos (example: mikvah) are Torahbased, other laws (such as those pertaining to women and learn­ ing) are influenced by the cultural contexts of the authorities mak­ ing the decisions. Several women said they would like to learn to differentiate between Torah Law, Rabbinic Law, and community minhag, not to avoid responsibilities, but to understand these im­ peratives relative to their sources, and to be able to separate halacha from someone else's minhag.

In addition, some of the women expressed difficulty with some of the laws themselves, particularly mikvah. Although the women were committed to the practice of Taharas some expressed difficulty with details of its observance. Some said they felt spiritually empty at the mikvah. They either felt that going to the mikvah verified the negative connotations they believed were associated with being in the state of niddah, or they felt bereft of purpose or meaning in immersing themselves afterward.

Women in Relation to Family Many of the grôiip members were mothers of young children, and most of the women were involved in full-time or part-time careers. Many of the women experienced problems of feeling 50

depleted by their children. Children were at times experienced as conflicting with professional fulfillment, a wife's relationship with her husband, or the need for an occasional period of solitude.

The women were tom between the modem values of success in career and the traditional Jewish value of fulfillment in the mater­ nal and homemaker roles. Some of thé women with young children felt guilty for leaving their children with sitters, but were unwilling to sacrifice their careers which give them identity and self-expression.

Jewish Supermom became the prototype of the woman who entertains numerous guests each Skabbos; has beautiful (spoiled) children; holds membership in half-a-dozen committees; enjoys a successful career; possesses a long list of talents (to be followed up "next year"); and is troubled by a vague sense of emptiness and depletion because she doesn't have time to féel. Each woman iden­ tified at least in part with several aspects of Supermom. Supermom's numerous functions made structured time a necessity. Pre­ arranged "quality time" with children was seen as an opportunity to enjoy them without feeling pressured and distracted. Pre­ arranged times to leave them with a sitter was regarded as equally important, not only to Supermom, but to her relationship with her children as well.

Many of the women mocked the ideal of the selfless, selfsacrificing housewife, at the same time that they subscribed to it.

One woman remarked: "Sometimes I think the notion of Aishes Chayil is a male conspiracy to keep women where men want them.

But sometimes 1 love it; it makes me feel needed." Another woman commented: I go through cycles. Sometimes I view my role as the one who — while the male is earning money and recognition in the public sphere — quietly holds it all together. Men, I think, are more one-track. I could be in the middle of a fantastic creative achievement and have to change the baby's diaper. That takes understanding and humility. But sometimes I ask myself what Divine purpose is served in keeping the bathroom clean. There is a thin line between humility arid martyr­ dom.

Several want a more equal division of responsibilities within their households:

questions emerge from this conflict: (a) To what degree is "Do first, under­

v .

I fppl as if mv husband takes me for granted in some ways. Why

and (b) Is Shalom Bayis preserved when husband and wife grow to different levels o f observance?

ed it wasn’t worth it. But it still feels demeaning.

The woman who picked up her husband's socks manifested a 51

conflict typical of many of the group members. They were quite Jewish Supermom became the prototype o f the woman aware of the degree to which unexpressed dissatisfaction could who entertains numerous build up into silent rage. But they also tended to feel that despite guests each Shabbos; has beautiful (spoiled) children; small changes, their husband were fixed into traditional role expec­ holds membership in half-a- tations. One woman said: dozen committees'; enjoys a successful career; possesses a It forced me not to see myself as the victim of his obliviousness — to long list o f talents (to be see it in perspective. The anger doesn't pay. But I'm not sure if I say followed up 'next year'); that because I've given up or because I've grown wiser. and is troubled by a vague sense o f emptiness and deple­ tion because she doesn't have Group members focused upon two areas in their relationships time to feel. with their husbands, religious conflicts and sexuality. Several women reported tension from being at different levels of obser­ vance than their husbands. (Examples of areas of disagreement were use of birth control, and degrees of abstention from physical contact during niddah). Resentment seems to exist on both sides: one feeling angry for being kept from a higher level of observance; the other feeling judged and manipulated.

A major area of concern was the effect of observance of taharas hamishpacha upon one's relationship with one's husband. Two areas of particular stress were mikvah night and the onset of the period of niddah.

Several women reported a sense of mounting vulnerability and tension the day before going to the mikvah. Along with this vulnerability was a fear of being seen as a sex object upon return from the mikvah. One woman reported: "Sometimes I think that I should just stay in the car. I know exactly what's going to happen." Another woman reported: "Intellectually I know that men are different from women — for them it's sometimes just a releasing of tension. I've told him how I feel, that I need to be reassured of his love. He tries — a little, but that male impulsivity always come through. I've come to accept that it's just going to be that way. It takes us a while to get back to being tender, or silly, or just appreciating each other's company."

The women also reported a sense of tension during the onset of niddah: "We seem to get into more arguments; it's as if the promise of physical tenderness helps me tolerate him more" . . . "It's as if he needs to distance himself from me" . . . "Sometimes it feels like an expression of anger on his part" . . . "I feel less worthwhile to hint."

There was also some discussion of the benefits of taharas ha-

mishpachah: Despite the frustration, I feel that the fact that I can't have a physical relationship all the time deepens our overall relationship. We need to find other ways of expressing our love and concern for each other.

52

Conclusion In retrospect, the women's group sessions seem to have created an opportunity for the expression and sharing of problems. Solu­ tions have not been found for the major conflicts identified. This is not surprising as each of the problems discussed is an offshoot of the greater conflict between acceptance of traditional Jewish feminine roles and the contemporary emphasis upon selffulfillment. Both sides of the conflict have been portrayed as the negative extremes of the sour-faced mother whose meaning in life revolves around food and the children she screams at constantly, and the glamorous single whose meaning in life revolves around being "perfect enough" to attract enough "quality men" to make herself feel worthwhile. However, the women acknowledged that the sour-faced mother could as soon be a woman whose giving emanates from wisdom rather than neurotic martyrdom, and the glamorous single could as soon be a woman whose achievement emanates from a creative drive to grow, understand, and con­ tribute to others. In essence: selflessness is not always "martyrdom" and self-fulfillment is not always selfishness. While ideally these qualities may co-exist, the women felt that in valuing both, their lives were taxed by an inevitable strain. One woman summed it up this way: It's not that I actually feel dumber each time I change a diaper. But it wears on my image of myself. I could read more: I feel un-informed in so many areas. But I feel depleted — maybe even afraid.

There are few role models for the traditional Jewish woman who values both selfless giving and self-fulfillment. The conflicts discussed present a challenge to the Torah woman to find a proper balance, taking into account the individuals whose lives she in­ fluences. Women's groups of the nature discussed here can be helpful in lending support and understanding in confronting this challenge. Such groups can also help in stemming the rising tide of divorce in the Orthodox Jewish community.

53

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From the Jewish and Secular Press One of the responsibilities of an editor is to read. It can be rewar­ ding; it can be tedious; it can be overpowering. This Jewish editor reads a great deal «-7 not only manuscripts submitted for publica­ tion; not only reactions to manuscripts by our very sophisticated editorial board members; and not only letters from readers, but scores of Jewish journals as well which deal with matters of Jewish concern, and secular journals which often deal with such matters — sometimes in a more intelligent and stimulating manner perhaps because they are more detached from sectarian Jewish concerns.

These newspaper and journal articles are clipped, noted and fil­ ed. They are recorded op a myriad of memory systems to jog the memory and to be susceptible to retrieval. The files wax fat; the memory systems get clogged and need memory systems to keep track of them; and few ever fly from the files to the brain to the typewriter to these pages.

A partial solution has come to the fore, for which I gratefully acknowledge the example of The W oodrow Wilson Quarterly, published by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Each issue opens with a section called "Periodicals," which reviews articles from periodicals and specialized journals. It brings together a small mass of good thinking on subjects that should be of concern to all thinking people.

Our approach will be somewhat different. We will cite news­ paper stories and articles verbatim, with as little editorial comment as possible — or none. Our objective in each case will be two-fold: to make available to you materials few readers of Jewish Life have access to; and to stimulate further thinking on the subjects dealt with, with a fond hope that readers will react and share with all of our readers their own thinking from the perspective of Orthodox JewishJife. We can best illustrate by going to our first piece.

The Ba'al Teshuva: A View from Conservatism The Teshuva phenomenon — we prefer that designation to Ba al Teshuva Movement" — has been the subject o f a special issue o f Jewish Ufe (Winter 1979/80) and has been the subject o f continued discussion here and o f course elsewhere. In good Jewish style , Or­ thodoxy has been harshest with itself in pointing out its weaknesses. Secular scholars have taken note o f the phenomenon, 55

although this writer knows o f no major w ork on the subject done by an objective scholar — except fo r a doctoral dissertation which we hope to get to in the future. Interestingly, the non-Orthodox . . . Orthodoxy seems to have an answer that looks religious groups have been strongly influenced by the phenom ­ like it works, but is uncom­ enon, and have reversed the pattern o f Orthodox emulation o f fortable with it because o f its non-Orthodoxy by adopting outwardly som e o f the Teshuva ap­ radicalism. proaches and the external manifestations. The discovery o f Simchas Torah by non-Orthodox congregations is a case in point. In Conservative and Reform literature that we have seen there has been little effort to deal with the challenge o f “Teshuva." It is for this reason that I share with you an extract from “Transforma­ tions: Acts that Create Jewishness," a Rosh Hashonah sermon delivered by Richard Yellin, spiritual leader o f a Conservative con­ gregation, which appeared in the O ctober 8, 1981 issue o f The Jewish Advocate of Boston.

Yellin was a chaplain in Korea where he met a young army lawyer searching fo r identity. He taught him to read Hebrew and the rudiments o f Mishna. Their ways parted until they met ten years later in Yerushalayim where the attorney urged the rabbi to return to Yiddishkeit. Yellin opens his sermon with som e homilet­ ics on Teshuva, and the proceeds to a discussion o f the need for greater religious observance.

As a community, we are in need of a return to Jewish behavioral patterns. Look at the level of observance in our community. This is a leading Conservative Congregation in the United States. We stand for Sabbath observance. The celebrations at the table? Yes, certainly, but what about the activities we're not supposed to engage in on the Sabbath? Do we even know what they are, to begin to consider their adoption? Only a minority seem to care.

The Conservative movement stands for Kashrut. But I don't believe that even a large plurality of Conservative families main­ tain a Kosher home. And so, I could go down the list of holy days, of celebrations, of prayer, of daily davening, of putting on Tefillin, of Jewish study. . . . Orthodoxy seems to have an answer that looks like it works, but is uncomfortable with it because of its radicalism.

Their method of dealing with assimilation is called, the Baal Tshuvah Movement. A Baal Tshuvah is somebody who has come back, in ways the Torah calls for specifically. There are hundreds of Yeshivas and tens of thousands of young people involved, wanting to re-convert to Jewish spirituality. It's a total immersion approach. We all should know about it because it takes seriously the message of Rosh Hashana.

But like the story of Abraham, the Baal Tshuvah movement has produced many break-ups within families, amongst friends. It has precipitated rejection of the western way of life and western 56

schools; it asks for total commitment; it sees many youth emigrating to Israel and assuming a totally new way of life. Some examples!?

The Story of Steve Consider the story of Steve first. I told him that I would tell his story of Rosh Hashana. Who was he? Steve was a young man that I knew in Korea. He was a lawyer in the Army Headquarters.

Steve was a young man searching for his identity — not particular­ ly committed to anything Jewish; assimilated, educated at the best western universities. In far away places, Jews tend to seek each other out, so he came to eat with a group of us at our Kosher kit­ chen. After the meal every day, we sat and studied. I taught him the Hebrew alphabet, and by the end of the year, we were study­ ing some Mishna — very simple and elementary. After the end of our military service, I lost contact with him. That was in 1971.

In March of 1981, I found him in Jerusalem. He was living in Meah Shaarim, the ultra-religious section of the city. He hadn't been back to the States in 8 years, hadn't seen his family. I found him on a Shabbat afternoon. He had side curls, payot: he had a shtreimel, the large fur-trimmed hat, and a kapota, a long black coat. We saw each other for the first time in a decade and embrac­ ed with tears in our eyes. He introduced me to his wife and lovely children, a tichel, a cloth, covered her hair whatever hair she had, seeing that it was cut very short. And he came outside to speak to our group. His name was now Shimon, not Steven. He changed his name. He had also written a book, called, Being Jewish , and listen to what he says in the book: "For both the Jew who wants to achieve a higher reality and the Jew who simply wants to improve the quality of his life, the Torah offers ^ complete program, guaranteed to produce reults. Torah succeeds because it forces the individual to face the truth every moment of the day. Unfortunately, most people accustom them­ selves to non-truth-oriented lifestyles, flowing along with the crowd and accepting the current expediency. They are being mis­ led or bogged down in systems that are partial or half-truth, but not the whole truth."

This paragraph is characteristic of the whole book. It's an un­ compromising statement about "Torah-over-everything," com­ plete dedication, a complete rejection of lifestyle that this western young man had known before. Ten years ago, I was certain who I was, the Rabbi, the Jew. Steve didn't know where he was going.

When I saw Shimon in March, he was absolutely certain who he was, and I was the one being challenged.

I wrote to him when I got home. I quote a part of the letter:

Steve was a young man that I knew in Korea. He was a lawyer in the Army Head­ quarters. Steve was a young man searching for his identi­ ty not particularly com­ mitted to anything Jewish; assimilated, educated at the best Western Universities.

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"1 reject most o f the values I have been taught in the com­ placent suburban community in which I lived, including the cold watered-down, ra­ tionalistic Judaism I knew: German Idealism and Mendelsohnian religion o f natural reason with Stephen Wise's emphasis upon good citizen­ ship. "

"Dear Shimon (Steve), I can't tell you how shocked I was in learning that you were in Jerusalem, and how thrilled I felt at being in your home. When I got back to the United States, I found your book sitting in my library, not knowing you had written it. I have serious problems with your book and I wish that I could talk to you more about it.

"What a remarkable transformation you've made! I wonder to what degree our former relationship in the Kosher kitchen in Ko­ rea, had upon the direction of your life. I don't mean to intrude in­ to your world and into your private life, but I must tell you that our meeting had a profound impact upon me."

This is the letter I received: "Dear Richard, Thank you for your letter which I found quite revealing. Our situation in the world is described in the Gemorah, as "kidnapped children," meaning that, for whatever reason, we never received the truth from our parents about what really being a Jew means. I was blessed to find out finally, after reaching 30 years of age, and having to leave the place and culture I was raised in. 1 eventually found Torah. The question is, how, when and where will you come to know? You want to know, but without knowing the truth, you're clearly suf­ fering an impossible tension and frustration. Sure, on the outside, everything is beautiful and smooth. The way you describe your life in your community, can't be the way the Jewish people are supposed to live. Don't convince yourself that within that system, you can make adjustments and corrections that ultimately will make it work. Realize that you can't build anything on a false foundation. And when you say the Sh'ma Yisroel alone or in your congregation, know that there is only one answer: 1 0 0 % accep­ tance of Torah and Mitzvos — the unbroken chain from God at Sinai, to the Code o f Jewish Law and the interpreters who follow the Shulchan Aruch. I know that such a change will be very hard for you and your family, but come and learn, in the Holy City of Jerusalem, the truth about Yiddishkeit. Then you could go back and cause a real revolution in your Congregation — converting American Yidden to the truth, to Torah." Steve ends his letter, "Enjoy the Torah. Shimon."

The letter is real and it represents the philosophy of a young man who many of us would have been very proud to call our son.

And there are tens of thousands of people like him engaging in what's called "A Torah-true Judaism."

Or take the case of Phyllis/Chana, who wrote an article about her experiences, which won a prize in a contest on the Baal Tshuva Movement in Israel. Here is what she says: "I reject most of the values I have been taught in the complacent suburban community in which I lived, including the cold, watered-down, rationalistic Judaism I knew: German Idealism and

58

Mendelsohnian religion of natural reason with Stephen Wise's em­ phasis upon good citizenship. This logical and theologically empty religion offered me nothing that was not readily available through other spiritual resources. The Judaism I learned and experienced was quite similar to the liberal Christian sects in American, stress­ ing universalism and a common Judeo-Christian heritage. Besides lacking any love or even respect for the traditions of Judaism, most of the Jews in our congregations seem to have a passion to appear similar to the Gentile neighbors. Most deck their homes with a glit­ tering tree in December, and the congregation Shabbat service took place on Sunday morning.

"And thus, I went off to study at Wellesley* College, feeling ra­ ther agnostic and not at all Jewish, being aware of no positive reasons for my Jewish identity. But then I got involved in Hillel at Wellesley and I began to question. And I spent my Junior year abroad in Israel. And then I came back to Wellesley to finish my education, and I met a Chasidic Jew teaching logic in Wellesley's Philosophy Department. And he took me to Shabbos dinner, and I saw the harmony, respect, gentleness arid joy which pervaded the homes of families I visited. And all this seemed to be related close­ ly to their observance of Halacha.

"Only by actually attempting to live according to the Torah, could I begin to understand the significance of its teachings.

"A few months later, after finishing Wellesley, I boarded an airplane for Eretz Yisroel. My emotions were quite mixed as I left my family and friends behind and set out alone. I was regretful that I had not succeeded in opening their eyes, and I viewed the loss not only as mine and theirs, but also as part of the tragic trend of erosive assimilation that now decimates our people. But I was filled with a seijse of guidance, a purpose and a power."

"And the Lord said to Abraham, 'Go out of the land, from your family, from your father's house into the land that I will show thee."

Phyllis/Chana's leading a Baal Tshuva's life in Jerusalem today.

The Baal Tshuva Movement seems to be bringing all types of Jews back into the fold — from the most sophisticated intellectuals to the culturally deprived. And it all involves radical change.

But, is this the meaning of Rosh Hashana? Is this what's beging asked of us? How do we relate to these stories?

Is there anything that we can glean from this type of Yiddishkeit? Is it saying anything to us? Do you laugh at Shimon Horowitz, and say "That's okay for him. It has no meaning for me." I must tell you, I have severe problems with this form of fun­ damentalism — the quick-fix Torah, Torah-true radicalism. I don't want to close myself off from the rest of the world. I don't want to lock myself in a secure ghetto. I relish the pluralisms within which

I must tell you, I have severe problems with this form o f Fundamentalism — the quick-fix Torah, Torah-true radicalism. I don't want to close myself o ff from the rest o f the world. I don't want to lock myself in a secure ghet­ to. I relish the pluralisms within which I live.

59

I live.

I also recognize that this complete form of Judaism has its pro­ blems, for I have grown up with many Torah-true Jews who have broken away from the closed world, who have radically transformed themselves in the other way — shaving off their payyes, ripping off their shtreimels, running to the enlightenment, rejecting their Orthodox parents, going to Cheder and Yeshiva and being upset by dogmatic belief. I am also upset by the implications of radical transformations which mean there has to be some form of rejection. I am not Abraham. I don't want to leave my home and my family and the environment that produced me. How do you hold on to Judaism without breaking roots?

The Ba'al Teshuvah: A View from Lubavitch In recent issues of our magazine, some articles were published . . . which took on the nature almost of a debate concerning the role of the Baalei Teshuvah and their integration into the general religious community. These articles . . . elicited extensive and emotional reader response.

First may we say that we may have done a poor editing job, since some readers misread the message of [one] article as con­ stituting an attack on Baalei Teshuvah, cholilah — something which is the very opposite of the philosophy of Chabad, as they correctly protested.

Far from it — reaching out to draw every single Jew to a life of Torah is one of our most essential aims. But as we do so to the best of our ability, we must not only find the most effective means to reach that aim, we must also be realistic that problems accompany our efforts even after they are successful. We emphatically do not agree with those who feel that a frank discussion of such problems is wrong because it might discourage potential Baalei Tshuvah, who face such formidable adjustments already on their pit-strewn road. Others believe that such airing of problems provides handy alibis for those who are too selfish and/or too lazy to join the work of hafotzah — of reaching out to bring others to Yiddishkeit.

But sweeping problems under the rug is not our way.

The truth is that, happily, long-term problems affect only a minority. We know from experience that the majority of Baalei Tshuvah, given enough time, eventually become an integral part of the body of religious Jewry in all important aspects. And any frum person who uses that minority who do not adjust to excuse his/her lack of participation in hafotzah efforts or involvement 60

with newcomers to the frum community is a sad cop-out. This is certainly not the Torah, the Chabad way.

Our position is that as we expend even greater efforts to reach and influence every Jew, we must at the same time intelligently and realistically face up to the adjustments and problems inherent in such work, for both — those who reach out and those they in­ fluence — and look for appropriate solutions as we build a com­ munity unified in its commitment to Ahavas Hashem, Ahavas Hatorah and Ahavas Yisroel.

Die Yiddishe Heim, Spring 5742 (Rachel Altein, Editor)

Brooklyn Man Ordered to Give 'Get' to His Israeli Wife An Israeli woman moved a major step closer this week to finally obtaining her religious divorce after a nineteen-year wait when a State Supreme Court justic applied the doctrine of comity and directed her husband, now an American citizen residing in Brooklyn, to comply with a Rabbinical Court order that he grant her the divorce.

Justice Arthur S. Hirsch, in a decision he described as one of ap­ parent first impression, ruled enforceable by the New York courts the Rabbinical Court directive that the husband provide the relig­ ious divorce, or "get." He termed the order the equivalent of a "final judgment" acquired here.

Justice Hirsch, in his decision in . . . v ... vs. ___ .., filed in Kings County, Special Term, Part 5, noted that the husband,....... .., fled Israel and abandoned his wife, ......... and two infant children in 1963 rather than face possible imprisonment if he failed to comply with the religious order. The wife's action for a get — without which a marriage cannot be terminated under Jewish Law — was initiated a year earlier and produced an agreement which required the husband to grant the get.

The husband, who could now face contempt penalties were he not to comply* raised numerous defenses to his wife's summary judgement motion, under the doctrine of comity, in effect recognizing the Israeli decree as one issued by a New York court.

The objections included contention that a Rabbinical Court had exclusive jurisdiction over the matrimonial action and since New York had no similar court, Justice Hirsch lacked power to enforce the decree; that the Rabbinical Court order was not "final" since it dealt with a matrimonial action "readily prone to modification"; 61

and that comity could not be applied because there was no recipro­ city.

As to the latter claim, Justice Hirsch rejected it in ruling that "while it is true that the State of Israel does pot recognize any civil divorce as being determinative of the marital status of its Jewish residents, New York State has for some time adopted a liberal pol­ icy of recognizing foreign judgments through comity, ignoring the doctrine of reciprocity."

The court pointed out that there are only two prohibitions against the appliation of comity and none were valid in the instant case. The objects must show that a judgment was fraudulently ob­ tained or that it was "offensive to public policy."

In conclusion, Justice Hirsch held that since the Rabbinical Court order is "jurisdictionally well-founded, free from the taint of fraud and not contravening our public policy . , . this court will, under the principle of comity, recognize the Israeli decree and will enforce the directives therein."

He ordered the defendant to "schedule an appointment with the Rabbinical Council of America and he is to perform all the ritual acts of the 'get' ceremony in accordance with the directions of the Rabbinical Court."

— Maftin Fox, New York Law Journal, Septembe

62

63

"Pretty Ladies" To the Editor: Congratulations on the latest issue of Jewish Life. It is a fine work. . . . While reading the magazine my young son asked me what I was reading, to which I answered "a Torah journal." He then asked me what "the pretty lady" is doing in a Torah magazine.

I am at a loss . . . to answer him. Perhaps you have a suggestion.

The advertisement does not seem to be up to the standards of Torah and Yiras Shamayim for which the UOJC stands.

Kalman Packouz St. Louis, Missouri

The Editor Replies: I deeply appreciate your letter. No doubt other readers found the advertisement in ques­ tion objectionable, but did not take the trouble to write. You and your son are quite right: the advertisement did not belong in Jewish Life. In general journalism there is a tension between the "editorial side" and the ''business side." The former wants to produce a superior product; the latter wants to assure that the publication survives. In a time when Jewish journals of any kind are rare, and short-lived, Jewish Life is not unmindful of our approximately fifty years of 64

publication, and all of us want it to enter its se­ cond half-century sound in soul and body.

Nevertheless, the editor, who did not vigor­ ously oppose use of the advertisement copy must be held responsible and I apologize to all those who took offense. Tell your son, Mr. Packouz, that it is an important Torah lesson that one must be prepared to admit being wrong, even as it were, in the presence of what our circulation consultant tells us is as many as one hundred thousand readers.

It has long been public policy in our land, which so cherishes freedom of the press, that a journal has the right to deny space to advertis­ ing copy which it finds objectionable. In the case of a Torah journal — a description we pray we are worthy of — it is a right we must even more zealously protect and exercise.

In the case at hand, let it be clear that Torah values do not militate against publishing a pho­ tograph of a "pretty lady" per se. If this editor chose to use a photograph of a contributor, that person's gender would not be a determining fac­ tor, nor would I wish to exclude a female con­ tributor who is "pretty." What I trust our reader objects to —*- as I should have — is the exploitation of a "pretty lady" to sell a product.

Surely it is a long way from exploitation of a female face to the kind of exploitation which our society appears to accept, but long voyages begin with single steps. More objectionable to this writer was the caption which headed the ad reading "Capture the Essence of a Nation." We appreciate the pun in "essence" — a clever way to relate a fragrance to its country of origin, but any way the pun turns, it distorts the editorial consensus of what we believe to be at the heart of our love for Eretz Yisroel.

Anyone who has studied the Written and Oral Law knows that we are not a prudish peo­ ple. Yet our tradition opposes the verbal or graphic representation of human sexuality in any mundane or humorous manner. The Sages summed up this attitude by saying that while everyone knows why a bride enters the Chupah, one dare not make that the subject of jest.

We will exercise greater care in the future in accepting advertising copy, and we trust that our readers will continue to scrutinize our deci­ sions. Again: we are sorryI

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PRAISE FROM RABBI MOSES FEINSTEIN “ I wish you success with Luach Limud, which serves the f very important purpose of elevating Torah learning and making it available to laymen. Educators can also use this great innovation to teach Mishnah to their students, and encourage its transmittal to parents at ACCLAIM home.”

The Month of Nisan

FROM RABBI "JOSEPH B. SOLOVEITCHIK..

During the

"Any project which furthers the study of Torah and makes it more accessible is of enormous value!

I believe that the Luach Limud Torah Diary of the Orthodox Union is an innovative and worthwhile^ endeavor. My best wishes / . for your continued A w m S S t fit \ ^ r y \ W t

&

feelings of R

"^ T re m e m b e n k (except duringthe dj the Sabbath at M .« f prior to ^m oy.ng .; weekdays, and W j, )S customary literally, "moneY purchase mflfu.lt to| V Beginning w,th the custom of reaj ( the portion of the | the princes of lsra „f Nisan. (See

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size 4 " x 8".

.and M ISH N A H at 3:00 wherever you are.

L U A C H & L I M U D am o n t h l y p o c k e ts i z e ,

r ™ “ “ # ™ ™ " ™ Luach Limud/Orthodox Union Order Dept.

b u s i n e s s d i a r y a n d T O R A H j

P .O .B o x 17305 !

Milwaukee, W I 53217 TORAH DIARY

s t u d y c o m p e n d i u m .

• A monthly magazine type, pocket size, business diary.

• Combines a daily T orah study program and daily business appointment calendar information.

• Provides luach. daily. Sabbath and Holiday taws and observances, candle lighting, end of Sabbath times for fifteen cities.

SUBSCRIPTION ORDER FORM □ Yes, please accept my subscription to the Luach/Limud Torah Diary at $18 for twelve monthly diaries. Please find my check enclosed. ($24 for foreign air mail subscriptions)

□ Please bill me through Visa or Mastercard.

MasterCard* Account No. pn my CREDIT CARD:

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• Torah study based on a revolutionary new translation and com m entary o f the Mishna.

• An ideal gift, a valuable daily personal reference and educational program.

• With convenient plastic carrying case.

VISA* Account No. on my CREDIT CARD:

I I I I I I I I I IT T SUBSCRIPTION NAME ADDRESS CITY/STATE/ZIP

k n u u i I TORAH DIARY

GERTZ GRAPHICS Inc. — (212) 233-7669

EXPIRATIONDATE

mm

MONTH YEAft