Jewish Life February 1955

Religious Crisis In Jerusalem —Editorial

Kashruth In Our Hospitals Conquest of the Unholy Israel*s Economic I Path Journey To Djamal ¡TOÉ

—A Short Story

Chosid from the Left Bank

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S aul B ernstein ; Editor M. Morton R ubenstein D r. E ric Opfenbacher R euben Gross R abbi S. J. S h arpm an

Editorial Associates

• EDITORIALS WHEN JEWS STONE A SYNAGOGUE ...... .

BEHIND'THE MASK ...................... ........ .....

FAIR SABBATH LAW IN SIGHT ....... ,........ .

A CONSERVATIVE BLUNDER .................

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M. J udah Metchik

Assistant Editor Cover by P aul H ausdorpp

Inside Illustration by N orman N odel

JEWISH LIFE is published bi-monthly. Subscription one year $1.75, two years $3.00, three years $4.00.

All rights reserved

• ARTICLES KASHRUTH IN OUR HOSPITALS ...... 8 Benjamin Mandelker HOLINESS AS A DYNAMIC CONCEPT ... 13 Jacob Chinitz ISRAEL'S YEAR OF PROGRESS ............_.. 24 '■’’ V: Halevy-Levin CHOSID FROM THE LEFT BANK ...... ..... 32 Gershon Kranzler RAV SHERIRA GAON ...... 37 Meyer Waxman

• SHORT STORIES Editorial and Publication Office: 305 Broadway Neiv York 7, N. Y. BEekman 3-2220

Published by U nion op Orthodox J ew ish Congregations of A merica Moses I. F euerstein

President Max J. Eira, Rabbi H. S. Goldstein, William B. Herlands, Samuel Nirenstein, William Weiss, Honorary Presidents; Samuel L. Brennglass, Nathan K. Gross, Benjamin Koenigsberg, Ben­ jamin Mandelker, Vice Pres­ idents; Edward A. Teplow, Treasurer; Reuben E. Gross, Secretary.

JOURNEY TO DJAMAL .. . ............. 19 Libby. M. Klaperman SEYCHEL AND' UNCLE PINCUS ............... 44 Martin S. Dworkin

• BOOK REVIEW UNDERSTANDING THE SABBATH Simon L. Eckstein

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• FEATURES AMOlfG OUR CONTRIBUTORS g i .

LEtTEjRS TO THE EDITOR

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•S ER V IC ES KASHRUTH DIRECTORY ............................. 62 Credits: Photb^ oh pages 26, 27 and 30 courtesy of the In­

formation Department, Jewish Agency, Jerusalem.

flwnyOut Contributed BENJAMIN MANDELKER is vice president of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of Am erica‘dnd chairman of the Committee for Kashruth in the Long Island Jewish Hospital.

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RABBI JACOB CHINITZ, whose article "Spinoza's Christian Bias" appeared

in the Tishri issue of JEWISH L i f e , is spiritual leader of Congregation Ahavas Achim in Detroit, Michigan. An alumnus of Mesifta Torah Vodaath, Yeshiva Uni­ versity and Columbia University, he is a lecturer in the Synagogue Adult Insti­ tute of Detroit

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DR. MEYER WAXMAN is Professor of Bible, Jewish History and Philosophy at the Hebrew Theological College of Chicago. He has written several importantworks including ”A Handbook of Judaism" and the four-volume "History of Jewish Literature."

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GERSHON KRANZLER, a frequent contributor to JEWISH LIFE, is author of several Jewish textbooks and numerous poems. He is the principal. of the Beth Jacob—-Esther Schoenfeld High School in New York City.

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MARTIN S. DWORKIN, a free lance writer, is a regular contributor .to leading

periodicals. $

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LIBBY M. KLAPERMAN is author of two books, "Adam and the First Sabbath" and "Stories of the Bible." The wife of Rabbi Gilbert Klaperman and the mother of four children, she finds time also to serve as educational director of thdj UOJCA's Women's Branch.

MISLEADING NAME

The attention of our readers is called to the fact that the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America has no connection with a group designating itself the “United Orthodox Jewish Con­ gregations and Organizations of America,” which has sponsored a mass meeting in New York City concerning the Meah Shearim conflict. Action is being taken to prevent further use of the abovequoted misleading designation. o

Jewish LIFE

WHEN JEWS STONE A SYNAGOGUE

j^TTACKS upon synagogues are not unfamiliar occurrences in Jewish history. Such attacks are, in fact, a characteristic manifestation of Jew-hatred, and Jew-hatred, as is well known, is a very old story.

A new page has now been written in this story — a page written, for the first time, by Jews themselves, and on the sacred soil of the Holy Land. Within recent weeks there occurred in Jerusalem the stoning,

by Jews, of a synagogue.

The attack was committed by a body of vigilantes affiliated with Histadruth, Israel’s labor federation. It was done, apparently, in planned retaliation for demonstrations by residents of the Meah Shearim quarter of Jerusalem against a club for young people established by the Histadruth on the border of this devoutly religious community. In an open yard fronting the club, there were flaunted in the faces of the Meah Shearim residents practices abhorrent to them, such as violations of the Shabboth and the mixing of boys and girls at games. No doubt with good reason, the Meah Shearim residents deemed the placing of the d ub at that location a deliberately planned provocation and an attempt to seduce their children into the irreligious camp. They reacted accordingly. Determined to suppress this opposition by force, the club’s sponsors brought truckloads of their private strong-arm force to the scene, armed with clubs. While the police j§J- the Jewish police of the Jewish capital of the Jewish state — obligingly stood aside, the Histadruth “Civil Guards” swept in a bloody attack upon the helpless defenders of Meah Shearim, capping their foray with the inevitable attack upon an adjoining synagogue. Hostilities were suspended only when the Jewish police of the Jewish capital of the Jewish state seized and carried off to prison ^^Hnot the vigilantes, but a number of the Meah Shearim demonstrators.

T H E FOREGOING "incident climaxed — for the moment H a ^otm* * and increasingly bitter series of conflicts between some Meah Shearim elements and the non-religious groups which exert so potent an influence in Israeli affairs. Most residents of Meah Shearim, en­ wrapped in a profoundly pious mode of life, are remote from any concept of militancy. Some among them, however, challenge the bona fides of a Jewish state not based on the Torah and, unlike the representative religious parties, refuse to participate in its functioning and development. Particularly noted for its hostility to the present state January-February, 1955

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of Israel is a small, militant group known as Jhe Neturey Karta, headed by Rabbi Amrarn Blau. Arrested many times for his defiance of the authorities, Rabbi Blau and his*, followers practice a policy of non-recognition of, and non-cooperation with, Israel's government.

On the fringes of this group there have gathered others, of questionable identity, whose extremism takes, on violent forms difficult to reconcile with Jewish religious belief.

TH ERE HAS been an apparently concerted attempt on the part of the irreligious forces — whose minority status among the population comes into ever-clearer contrast with their political predominance — to exploit the intransigeance of the Neturey Karta in such manner as to embarrass the religious parties in the state and confuse the general public as to the whole situation. When Meah Shearim residents react with violence to the routing of vehicular traffic through their quarter on the Sabbath, again a deliberate provocation, a picture is painted, not of irreligious assimilationists engineering the de-Judaization of Israel, but of religious bigots seeking to impose their personal pattern of life upon an unwilling country. When questionable elements, representing them­ selves as religious Jews, stone and burn cars on the Sabbath, organized religious Jewry is held up as a band of dark revolutionaries whose religious pretensions* unmasked by this flagrant chillul ShabbotJi, are but a means to a sinister end. In short, politically naive Meah Shearim has been a simple foil in the adroit hands of the irreligious forces, its energies being exploited to the very contrary of its aims.

TT REMAINS to be seen whether, in lending itself to this purpose, Histadruth has not overreached itself. Despite frantic attempts to suppress the news of the attack upon the Meah Shearim synagogue, the truth has spread throughout Israel and the Goluth.

Revulsion This time, the public will not be bamboozled nor will Brings it be easily placated. No Jew of conscience can rest Remedy until the conditions which brought about this evil occurrence are radically remedied. If revulsion against the attack leads to a strengthened realization of Israel's Jewish character and destiny, if the event discloses to Rabbi Blau's group the trap into which they have been led, the strategy of Histadruth may in the end have served a far nobler purpose than its authors ever conceived.

BEHIND THE MASK

REFERENCE has been made, in the above editorial, to elements at­ taching themselves to the Neturey Karta yet, there is reason to surmise, to be distinguished from that group. We enlarge upon this 4

Jewish LIFE

distinction here as being based upon actions inconceivable upon the part of religious Jews, and upon the painstaking anonymity of the perpetrators of these actions.

There is no intent here to pass judgment upon the Neturey Karta.

The overwhelming majority of religious Jews reject their position with regard to the State of Israel, and deplore their policies. At the same time, the integrity, courage and religious dedication of Rabbi Amram Blau and his followers are unmistakable. It is because such actions as the stoning, overturning and burning of automobiles on the Sabbath are incompatible with belief in Shemirath Shabboth, .with the religion for which the Neturey Karta stands, that it becomes hardly possible to believe that Rabbi Blau and his group can perpetrate such actions. It is incredible, too, that Rabbi Blau and his cohorts can be the authors of certain anonymous leaflets which have been distributed at meetings in Israel, the United States, England and other countries, villifying and horribly slandering Dr, Isaac Herzog, Chief Rabbi of Israel.

The anonymous gentry who distribute these anonymous leaflets permit the inference to be drawn that they do indeed emanate from Rabbi Blau’s circle. It is most earnestly to be desired that Rabbi Blau publicly dissociate himself from these outpourings, for the unfortunate alternative is that the contrary assumption will prevail, to his lasting discredit. rPHIS propaganda serves but to breed internal strife and bitterness among religious Jews and to defame them in common. It appears very much open to question whether its sponsors are in fact that which they anonymously represent themselves to be.

We take this opportunity, therefore, to invite those responsible for the leaflets in question to state their case openly in the columns of J ewish Life ^ ^ attaching their names thereto as do men of genuine conviction. Scurrilous anonymity is the method of the fraud and the coward. It is not the method of the religious Jew. We challenge the perpetrators of this propaganda to identify themselves, enabling the public to judge whom they do or do not represent.

FAIR SABBATH LAW IN SIGHT

The Joint Committee for a Fair Sabbath Law, established four years ago under the sponsorship of \he Union of Orthodox Jewish Con­ gregations of America, now views with optimism the prospect of success for its aims. Under the present Sunday Closing Laws of the State of New York, all stores, except for certain favored categories," are obliged to close on Sunday. There is no exemption for establishJanuary- February, 1955

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ments which are closed on the Jewish Sabbath. An amendment grant­ ing exemption, by local option, to those who observe a day other than Sunday as their Sabbath has been formulated by the Joint Committee.

Important political support among both major parties has been secured.

Both Governor Averill *Harriman and Attorney General Jacob Javits have publicly endorsed the amendment. There is ground for hope therefore that a form of religious discrimination prevalent since colonial days can now be corrected.

The persistence of this legal injustice, incompatible as it is with American traditions of democracy and religious freedom, is due no less to inadequately organized resistance among its victims than to obstinacy Qfn the part;of those who see the present law as securing the sanctity of the Sunday^Sabbath. Over many years, Jewish efforts to secure relief from the discriminatory laws, uncoordinated and void of political realism; were unavailing. With this situation in mind, the Union of ?Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America called upon representative Jewish organizations of every kind to join with it in establishing a common instrumentality for this purpose. The Joint Committee for a Fair Sabbath Law has moved forward steadily towards its goal, which is now in sight.

Final victory can only be assured, however, by articulate support from the Jewish public. We urge our readers in New York State to themselves call upon their representatives in the State Senate and Assembly to favor the desired amendment and to have their friends and. acquaintances do likewise. With yoi^r help, now, justice can be done.

A CONSERVATIVE BLUNDER

TF THE ACTION flf -the Cojnspryafivet leadership in projecting an , illegitimate Ket|mbajh and a . make-believe Beth Din is eloquent of the ailments o f,that group, the1manner in which the venture has been received within thè GÒmmui^y.^ large testifies no. less that American Jews are far from heing; lost !to ?& sense of Jewish sanctities. Ill con­ ceived and ill begotten^ this project has been rewarded by contempt and disgust on all , sides. ,;Sqme important .elements within Conserva­ tive ranks have themselves "manifested their shame and displeasure.

Clearly, the leaders of Conservatism have, - from the point of view of their own interest as well as that of Americail Jewry, committed a major blunder.

• * ' -vr t: In endeavoring, by this measure, to, achieve a purpose and a stand­ ing for which it is not qualified, Conservatism has advertised its sense, of basic deficiency. Feeding upon the confusions of our time, the move­ ment has developed upon th e: sacrilegious premise that the Torah is man-made rather than G-d-given, and that accordingly Jewish belief 5 Jewish LIFE

and practice are mere folk-habits and Jewish law has no binding force.

This doctrine, bearing a hopeless inner contradiction, has caused the movement to become enmeshed in an endless series of barren perplexi­ ties. Since Conservatism deems Jewish law as not binding upon its constituents, then nothing in its frame of reference can bé held ob­ ligatory upon them — for surely there can be nothing binding about man-made decisions, whether of today or yesterday.

OLOUNDERING amidst anarchy, Conservative leadership has sought * a device which might bear an aura of authority. In contradiction to the very nature of their cult and in the face of their own lack of religious qualification they — with breathtaking Opportunistic chutzpah H | have turned to an institution whose Device provenance lies solely in the domain of* sacred , Jewish Law. And, seeking a popular gimmick with which to launch the new venture, they have intro­ duced — with high-pressure sales promotion technique — a quack “Kethubah” guaranteed to provide in one and the same package for both marriage and divorce.

Condemned by Jewish authorities throughout the world, univer­ sally rejected by G-d-fearing Jews, the measure remains a source of embarrassment to its ' proponents. They face the alternative of either permitting the project to lapse or of causing those who are beguiled into accepting it to cut themselves off from Jewry. tX fH IL E the Conservative Kethubah and Beth Din warrant particular •v condemnation, no inference must be permitted, by omission, thát the movement in other respects bears Jewish validity. No aspect of Conservatism, as its principal spokesmen of today An express its doctrines and as these doctrines are reOpen fleeted in, or áre the reflection of, general practice, Pit conforms with the essentials of !Jewish law, belief and teaching. Recognition of this fact has been long overdue. Many well meaning and *even devout people have, been deluded by the “traditional” face of Conservatism. Clergy and congregants alike, misled by the belief that Conservatism offered ah easy way into Judaism, have found themSelves enmeshed in a mechanism of de-Judaization. The Beth Din-Kethqbah affair, in bringing shocking* realiza­ tion of the open pit into 'vthich1so many* are blundering, will have a salutary effect.

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January- February, 1955

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A Progress Report On A n Advancing Campaign

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By BENJAMIN MANDELKER TH ERE WAS an amazing devel­ opment in Kashruth this past summer. St. Vincents Hospital and St. Clare’s, the two largest Catholic medical institutions in New York, inaugurated the serv­ ing of a kosher plate to all pa­ tients requesting it.

The steps taken to assure the Kashruth of the food were most interesting. A kosher caterer pre­ pares the meals in his own kitchen, places them in individual aluminum containers, freezes them and de­ livers them to the hospitals. When a meal is desired by a patient, a container is warmed and delivered to him intact. New plastic cutlery comes with each serving.

The plan of the Catholic hos­ pitals was soon adopted by $ dozen other non-Jewish hospitals in New York. Among the institutions 8

which introduced the kosher plate was the New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center, which is generally considered one of the outstanding medical centers in the nation.

T H E ACTION of the non-Jewish hospitals left the directors of five New York City Jewish hos­ pitals out on a limb. They were the heads of the five completely tereyfah Jewish hospitals, namely, Montefiore, Bronx, Joint Diseases, Jewish Memorial and Beth David.

During the long years while the Committee for Kashruth in the Long Island Jewish Hospital was waging a vigorous open battle for institutional (jietary observance, these gentleman would not concede the obligation of a Jewish hospital to provide kosher food at all. Sud­ denly they found themselves in the Jewish LIFE

illogical and indefensible position of being less considerate of the needs of Jewish patients than nonJews.

Their stock argument, that since their institutions were “non-sectar­ ian” they were not obliged to con­ sider the religious dietary wants of Jews, was decisively quashed. Cer­ tainly the Catholic and the other non-Jewish hospitals were as “nonsectarian” as they, and yet they made provision for Kashruth.

One of the five embarrassed Jew­ ish institutions took quick steps to extricate itself from its awk­ ward position. Beth David Hospital, which had been established as kosher by its original founders but which under later regimes had turned tereyfah, indicated that in its new building it would intro­ duce some Kashruth by adopting the “tereyfah-kosher” plan initi­ ated by the Long Island Jewish Hospital.

Confusion, but Progress

T H E sixteen Jewish hospitals in • New York now show a jumbled Kashruth picture. We now have four different Kashruth systems: completely kosher, tereyfah-kosher, the kosher plate, and completely tereyfah. We must keep these dis­ tinctions. in mind if we are to judge the situation accurately. Fol­ lowing are the sixteen New York City hospitals classified under these heads: Completely Kosher Maimonides yMk Federation of Jewish Philanthropies affi­ liate Lebanon — Federation affiliate Beth Israel — Federation affi­ liate Beth Abraham Home ^ ¿ F e d ­ eration affiliate Beth El Jewish Sanitorium Brooklyn Women’s Tereyfah-Kosher Long Island Jewish — Fed­ eration affiliate Hillside — Federation affiliate January-February, 1955

Beth David — (tentative) Kosher Plate Mount Sinai Federation affiliate Jewish Hospital of Brooklyn ^KHFederation affiliate Completely Tereyfah Montefiore — Federation affi­ liate Bronx — Federation affiliate Joint Diseases Federation affiliate Jewish Memorial QTATISTICALLY, this situation represents solid gains for Kash­ ruth. In twelve out of sixteen Jew­ ish hospitals there is now some provision for kosher food. This was not true two years ago. Then we had fifteen Jewish hospitals and only seven of them supplied kosher meals. Credit for this substantial gain is duG to the efforts of many.

The writer i$ of the opinion that the agitation conducted by the Committee for Kashruth in the Long Island Jewish Hospital had 9

a stimulating* effect. Deserving of commendation is the New York Board of Rabbis, which has, without publicity, consistently pro­ moted Kashruth iri Federation in­ stitutions. The Federation of Jew­ ish Philanthropies has, in recent months, exerted a very consider­ able influence upon its member institutions and deserves credit.

On the side of progress must also go the availability of the kosh­ er plate in non-Jewish hospitals; an innovation that represents a great step forward. Credit for this gain belongs exclusively to the New York; Board of Rabbis.

There are other related recent gains. The Kaufman Campgrounds, established on Staten Island in 1953 an activity of Federation, serves kosher food exclusively. The BronxEmanuel Camps for the Aged, opened in 1954 and likewise a Fed­ eration affiliate, is also purportedly kosher. All dinners sponsored by

Federation itself now conform to the Dietary Laws. A serious at­ tempt is apparently being made to open a kosher home for the aged under Federation auspices. This is aimed to correct the shocking situ­ ation that to this day Federation has been assisting only one home for the aged, and that one is tereyfah ! In addition, Federation offices are now closed on both days of Jewish holidays,3- a practice that some of our national organizations might well emulate.

Progress may be read in these actions, but even more so in the fact of recognition of Judaism in our philanthropic undertakings.

This récognition is new, or newly stressed. It gives promise that Kashruth as well as other Jewish religious observances will eventual­ ly fihd their natural place in our Jewish institutions and communal affairs. ' •|

"Partial Kashruth"

£NCOURAGING as all these Kashruth gains are, they show a dangerous trend. It is to be noted that all the recent progress in the hospitals involves “partial Kashruth.” Long" Island Jewish Hospital, Hillside and soon Beth David introduce not complete Kash­ ruth, but thé tereyfah-kosher sys­ tem, which meaiis two separate kitchens — one teréyfah ànd one kosher. Mount Sinai and Brooklyn Jewish have similarly not adopted complete Kashruth, but spear­ headed the kosh■ër:•:^laté-•plâ^^ déID

scribed above in connection with the Catholic hospitals.

Both of these are unsatisfactory arrangements, and we dare not per­ mit them to become a pattern.

When a non-Jewish hospital in­ augurates the kosher plate we must be very grateful. That is all we can expect from a non-Jewish in­ stitution: we cannot possibly ex­ pect it to go in for complete kash­ ruth. But Jewish institutions, agencies of the Jewish community, sustained by Jewish funds, bearing J ewish names, directed by Jews Jewish LIFE

confidence and ease in the patient.

The tereyfah-kosher set-up cannot do this.

and serving Jews mainly, have a special responsibility, even if that responsibility be only td strive to assure complete relaxation of mind and spirit in the Jewish patients in their care.

The tereyfah-kosher plan calls for two kitchens — ,one tereÿfah and one kosher. While Kashruth may appear to be safeguarded by the kosher kitchen, the practical problems involved in maintaining proper supervision inside the kosh­ er kitchen of a tereyfah establish­ ment are formidable. Extraordi­ nary and unceasing supervision is required to control supplies and keep the tereyf ah from -being mixed with the kosher. Outside the kitchen itself, the distribution of the food t"— —which takes place in all the rooms — is bound to lead to intermixture. 'The religi­ ously observant patient in sucjh. a situation is under the tension/gen­ erated by his well-founded apprehension that his meals may not be authentically kofcher. A satis­ factory kosher plan must be fool­ proof administratively and invite January - February, 1955

T H E kosher plate has other draw­ backs. The first is the obvious one that it covers only the dinner meal. For breakfast and lunch the patient must be on his guard and cope with these two meals served , him on tereyf ah dishes. Further­ more, he must be alerted to the fact from the very beginning that only the kosher plate is kosher.

Considering that the patient has enough other worries on his mind, it is unfair to subject him to the necessity of learning and remem­ bering that in that particular Jew­ ish hospital, when one indicates a preference for kosher it means but one kosher meal per dây. An ac­ ceptable kosher plan should be simpler, and in the opinion of the writer nothing less than complete Kashruth will do.

Partial plans and similar pallia­ tives are misleading and diver­ sionary. We must face .the central i^sue frankly r and boldly. As a matter of propriety, self-respect and sound practice, every Jewish institution should be completely and strictly kosher.

Those who realize this must con­ tinue to urge our point of view upon thé leaders of. our philan­ thropic institutions. That they have responded to oiir past urgings'indicates that" we do not speak to deaf èârs.

I We must give the widest pos­ sible publicity to tlie fact that some kosher food is now available

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for those who request it. We must urge patients to make such re­ quests, so that it be clearly demon­ strated that our plea is based not only upon ideological an4 religious grounds, but also upon the needs and desires of those to whose ser­ vice these institutions are dedi­ cated.

TTHE TIDE towards Tarfuth, which mounted during a whole

generation and which reached its •high point when the Long Island Jewish Hospital adopted its origi­ nal plan to be completely tereyfah, has been checked. We are witness­ ing the beginnings of the first swells towards Kashruth. We dare not fail to recognize this. We must augment them by every means at our disposal, until they become the full running tide. Now, of all times, we may not relax our efforts.

PURIM, AN EVERLASTING MEMORIAL Even if the festivals will cease, the days of Purim will never cease, as it is written: "These days of Purim will not pass away from among the Jews, nor the memorial of them perish from their seed."

—Midrash Proverbs 9

WORDS CAN HARM Just as a man may wrong another in business transactions, so may he also wrong him with words. One should not say, "For how much will you sell me this?" when he has no desire to buy.

On<? should not say to a penitent sinner, "Remember your former deeds," Nor to a proselyte, "Remember the deeds of your fathers."

(Mishnah Bava Metziah 58b)

SIMPLE FUNERAL In former times funerals became increasingly elaborate un­ til the expense was a heavy burden upon the relatives of the de­ ceased. When Rabban Gamliel died he requested that he be shrouded in simple flax cloth. This custom was then followed by all the people after him.

(Kethuvoth 8b)

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Jewish LIFE

Judaism9s Unique Vision of All-Encompassing Kedushah

By JACOB CHIN ITT* T H E TERM “holy” is perhaps more closely associated with religion than any other term. The word “holy” evokes mood and spirit.

“Goodness” has a more terrestrial ring. Spirit and purity belong to the realm of the ethical and moral.

But “holy”—Kedushah—shifts the consciousness of speaker and listen­ er and reader into a higher mental altitude, with ritual, rite, ceremony, and religion trailing behind. Thus we refer to holidays or Holydays, Holy Scriptures* Holy Places and the Holy Land.

Holy and holiness are used as ad­ jective and noun, but not as verb. It applies to the elevated but motion­ less. G-d as the Holy One is still in His Eternity. Holy space and holy time are fixed entities and immovable.

And yet in Hebrew, the noup Kedushah is moved from its settled spot by the various active gramJanuary - February, 1955

matical forms, and becomes a tran­ siti ve verb. More significant are the religious forms of: Kedushah, Kiddush, Kiddushin, Kodosh, Kaddish, Kodesh, LeKadesh, which indi­ cate degrees of conferring and re­ ceiving holiness as well as being holy in essence or in existence. The English for these aspects of Kedu­ shah entails the use of another term: sanctification. Thus G-d is Holy, but He sanctifies the Sab­ bath, Israel and the Festivals. Still another English term for this tran­ sitive process is to hallow, or to make holy.

TH ESE grammatical considera­ tions reflect serious theologi­ cal issues. Just as the immanence hnd transcendence of G-d present a difficult paradox for religious thinking, so does the concept of holiness strike us with its restric­ tive nature on the one hand, and its ¡1

all-enveloping nature on the other hand.

It has been pointed out that in its primitive form, the word Kodesh had the element of taboo, or special purpose in its meaning.

Thus, even the Torah uses Kodeysh and Kedeyshah for male and female prostitutes. In the more exalted sense of holiness, Kodesh also as­ sumes the attitude of restriction, separation, elevation from the mun­ dane. Upon the verse: Kedoskim Tiheyu—Ye shall be holy, the Rab­ bis comment: ‘-As I am separated so shall ye be separated; as I am Holy so shall ye be holy.”

Another Rabbinical phrase ex­ presses this concept of separation as being the essence of Kedushah: Lehavdil beyn hakodesh uveyn hachol—To separate between the sacred and the profane. This idea is brought out clearly in the twin sanctification and de-sanctification contained in the Kiddush and Havdolah of the Sabbath day. In fact, much of Jewish law is absorbed with the process of the sanctifi­ cation of time and place—Kiddush Mokom and Kiddush Zeman, the setting aside of special areas in space and special periods of time as being possessed of inherent holi­ ness or potential holiness.

pie, objects, resources and time for the purposes of fulfilling G-d’s will in* holiness: Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of Hosts, the whole earth is full of His Glory.

The Aramaic interpretation ela­ borates even more clearly upon this impenetration of all reality, all space and time, by the holiness of G-d. “Holy in the high heavens, Holy on earth, Holy forever.”

Here we have a wiping away of all lines of demarcation between holy and unholy. Holiness suffuses heaven as well as earth, weekdays as well as Sabbaths. The expand­ ing nature of holiness is found in the advice of the Rabbis: “Sancti­ fy yourselves in what is permit­ ted.” So it would seem that the Chullin, the profane, is as suscep­ tible of holiness as the Kodesh is liable to Chillul, or the loss of holi­ ness. The other side of the paradox presents us, therefore, not with static designations of holy and un­ holy, but with a dynamic interac­ tion and conquest of the unholy by the holy.

2 SIMILAR movement towards ^ concentration, coequal with the corresponding movement back to the envelopment of the whole, is found in the doctrine of creation II ND YET, on the other hand, we in the Kabbalah. The mystics, as ^ are fond of speaking of the the philosophers before them, were lack of separation in Judaism be-* faced with the problem: How can tween the sacred and the profane, the world coexist with G-d? If between religious and secular. We G-d is omnipresent, then the world constantly proclaim that Judaism cannot be present anywhere. If the is a way of life, commanding and world occupies space, albeit a finite commandeering all available peo- space, then G-d cannot be omnipresJewish LIFE !#■

ent. One of the solutions to this problem revolves around the term Tzimtzum—concentration, or with­ drawal. According to this theory, G-d concentrates His essence and withdraws into Himself, leaving room for the Creation. But Crea­ tion cannot exist without G-d’s sup­ port. Therefore, G-d expands Him­ self and flows into the world to keep it in existence. This He does through the Sephiroth—the series of ten emanations through which He reveals Himself.

The clue to the nature of holi-

ness must come from G-d. It is He whom we call Hakodosh Boruch Hu—the Holy One Blessed Be He. G-d is the source of holiness. His is the perfect holiness. He is the most unique, the most set apart.

He is the essence of purpose. But He is also the source of active holi­ ness, that is, hallowing or conse­ cration. In the following Midrash is expressed this double nature of holiness in G-d Himself: “I am Holy in Myself—and I Sanctify Myself.”

The Flow of Holiness

TH U S BOTH the passive and the active holiness are found in G-d. We also see that the object of active holiness, or sanctification, need not be the unholy. The holy too can be sanctified, as it can be desecrated. G-d sanctifies Him­ self. And it goes further: man is given the power of sanctification.

Man can sanctify, not only the mundane, but even,G-d. “I sancti­ fy Myself, but yet I will sanctify Israel, and Israel will sanctify Me.” G-d risks His holiness in the hands of man. He Submits Himself to the possibility of Chillul Hashem t-r-the desecration of the Name—for the sake^of the possibility of Kiddush Hashem—the sanctification of the Name.

The flow of holiness in the dyna­ mic sense would be as follows: From Omnipresence to Transcend dence through Tzimtztim. From the upper heavens back to support the creation and sanctify space, time January-February, 1955

and persons. From man back to G-d to sanctify His Name.

We can therefore say, perhaps, that the difference between the sac­ red and the profane is that the sac­ red is actually so, while the pro­ fane is potentially sacred. The pro­ fane is not really the unholy but* the unsanctified. The sacred, in turn, is capable of greater sancti­ fication/ Only G-d’s holiness is static in its perfection. And even G-d’s Name, in the world, can be either sanctified or desecrated. The holy is set aside, then becomes an agent to transmit holiness to the unholy. The holy must conquer the unholy. In terms of religious and secular, the religious is that which is set aside for the purpose of mobilizing the secular under the banner of holiness. The secular is potentially religious. The religious is capable of becoming secular.

There are two areas: Kedoshim and Chullin, the religious and the secu15

lar. But they are not permanently delimited in a static equilibrium.

They are in a relation of tension, flux and dynamic flow. ^ H E PREVAILING attitude in modern Judaism of emphasiz­ ing love as against fear may be necessary to counteract the influ­ ence of superstition. But a universalistic expansion that is not rooted in a base of concentrated partic­ ularism does not increase holiness.

On the contrary, secularism and the area of the profane envelop the area of the sacred and the holy.

The secret of Judaism is precisely this blend of the particular and the universal. There must be a partic­ ular people to forge holiness in white-heat concentration and then spread holiness to the neutral and unholy areas. This may sound like the religious imperialism of which liberalism is so wary. We do not wish to return to the intolerance of religious wars and the fanatic aggressions of one faith against another. But there is an unavoid­ able spiritual imperialism involved in any sincere religion. The head­ quarters, the base of operations, is established in the act of separation from the secular. Holiness becomes

the centre from which radiate in­ fluence and benign pressures to cqnvert unholiness into holiness.

Much is made of the humanistic attitude of Judaism. Asceticism is considered to be frowned upon by tradition. The atonement sacrifice brought by the Nazir is quoted of*^ ten to demonstrate the fullness of life that the Torah has in mind for its adherents : That man might do these things and live. “The Sab­ bath is given over to you, not you to the Sabbath.”, The pro-life atti­ tude of the Torah needs no defense.

But it remains true that the first step in the religious process is one of separation. Separation from Tumah—uncleanliness. Separation from Chullin—profanity. Separa­ tion of light from darkness. The Sabbath> as Abraham Joshua Heschel notes in his book on the Sab­ bath, is “holy unto you—Ki kodesh hi lochem” Yet the essence of the Sabbath is that it is separated from the days of the week. The Sabbath is not a week-day/ From its separate position, the Sabbath can radiate holiness to the week. A Jew can begin his Sabbath pre­ parations on Wednesday. He can make Havdalah until Tuesday.

Temporary and Permanent Sanctification

lTlHREE institutions in Judaism are called holy: G-d, Sabbath, Israel. G-d’s Name is hallowed, as we have seen. The Sabbath has to be hallowed by the Kiddush. Israel, too, is sanctified by G-d. The Holy Land is not holy by its own virtue, but it has to be hallowed by Israel.

16

In the Halochah we find a distinc­ tion between the Kedushah Rishonah;—the first sanctification of the land by Joshua-—and the second sanctification by Ezra* The first was temporary. The second was permanent.

Holiness in Judaism differs from Jewish LIFE

two extreme theories. It differs from a total denial of holiness which refuses to “set aside* any area of the holy. This concept of homogeneous value is associated with pantheism. The English poet Blake said, “Everything that lives is holy.” To say that everything is divine, or to say that everything is corrupted, is to say the same thing. Where there is no up or down, higher or lower, holy or un­ holy, everything is reduced to monotony and extinction.

Holiness in Judaism also differs from the static concept of holiness which makes a differentiation in origins, but leaves the specified and the unique without any relation­ ship to the rest of reality. This concept of holiness, once and for all is associated with deism. G-d is Holy somewhere in His heaven, but

His transcendence never descends to earth. Such a G-d makes no dif­ ference to the world and to man.

Holiness cannot be moved from where it is. It remains in the seventh heaven. But holiness in Judaism is dynamic, moving from heaven to earth, and earth to heav­ en. G-d sets the standard for dif­ ferentiation by being different from the world. But there is dif­ ferentiation in thè world as well, insofar as G-d's standard is imita­ ted by man. Although G-d is com­ pletely other than the world, there are worthy degrees of otherness within the world which man can reach. Although G-d is completely other, He is yet involved in man's moral conduct, and His reputation in the world depends on whether man reaches from one station of holiness to another.

Saint and Sinner

JN ITSELF, G-d's Holiness is in­ dependent of the actions of His creatures.; “For I. am Holy—l am in a condition of holiness whether ye sanctify Me or not.” But this side of G-d, His Face, man cannot see and It does not concern him.

In the world, however, G-d depends on man.

Undifferentiated virtue and un­ differentiated sin in man, the Fall of Man of Christianity and the in­ nocence of Humanism, have both tugged at the dynamic concept of holiness in Judaism throughout the ages. From the ancient cry of Korach and his group: “Ki Kol Hoeydah Kulom Kedoskim—For January - February, 1955

the whole congregation, they are all holy,” to the eclecticism of our own day, the vertical value structure of holiness in Judaism was dragged down to a horizontal uniformity.

This has nothing to do with aris­ tocracy and democracy. Holiness in potential is evenly distributed. Ho­ liness in actuality is uneven accord­ ing to achievement. The spiritual wanderer, the dilletante, the Jackof-all-philosophies, the unrooted virtuoso—these refuse to make a choice. Everywhere they see beau­ ty; everything is equally sacred or profane to them.

But a choice must be made.

There is an economics of atten­ ti

tion, time, spiritual commitment than cannot be avoided anymore than the economics of money.

A man's life cannot be spent for more than one central ideal, just as a dollar cannot buy mq;re than one dollar's worth. A gourmet finds the delights of the palate in many foods, but he nevef tastes a

solid meal. Universal guilt is just as futile and frustrating as univer­ sal innocence. In the presence of G-d, the greatest saint is the same size as the greatest sinner. But man is judged by a special stan­ dard which shows up the differ­ ence between saint and sinner.

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18

Jewish LIFE

•

They H ad Refused Ezra, But Today They Were Ready

By LIBBY M. KLAPERMAN gOROSON mopped his brow.

Boroson tugged at his mous­ “Does it always get | so hot tache. What was making him so here?” he asked of the two natives. touchy? He’d been this way ever Although he tried to make the since they had arrived in North question cheerful and matter of Africa, from the moment he had fact, it sounded plaintive in his set foot in this forsaken country. own ears. “I mean,” he added lame­ Was it the poverty, the ignorance, the backwardness that was eating ly, “it is hot.”

The natives said nothing. The him? He’d seen poverty and ig­ Agency man on the donkey next norance before. What was it then?

The donkey veered slightly and to him grinned.

Boroson jumped. It was the heat, “Some fun, eh?” he said.

For no reason at all, Boroson and the donkey, and just being in took umbrage at the remark. North Africa, he decided.

Boroson practiced his next sen­ “We’re not in it for the fun,” he said stiffly, and felt silly, speak­ tence in French so that the natives ing so formally while jogging up would be sure to understand him.

“How much further to go?” and down on the donkey.

The man nearest him shrugged The Agency representative sensed the rebuff and stared at Boroson his shoulders in answer.

The Agency man laughed. “What’s as if he were seeing him in a new light. If the guy didn’t have a the matter, Borry? Heat got you? sense of humor, it was no fault Just remember this little jaunt was your idea.” of his.

January - February, 1955

19

So it was* Boroson recognized that and, recognizing, began to analyze his motives. had prompted him to come to Djamal? he asked himself. After all, Djamal was only a community of twenty Jew­ ish families, living in very primi­ tive fashion. No train or bus ever stopped or even went into the hills, of Djamal, and the mountain trail could be crossed only by donkey or camel.

“This community in Djamal is like all the other communities of our North African Jews,” the head of the committee of elders had told Boroson, speaking French slowly and carefully. “You need not visit them, Mr. Representative.

They are anxious and ready to leave for Israel, and we have placed every single one of them on your list of names.”

“They asked that I come, didn’t they?” Boroson interrupted.

“They requested it, sir, if you could arrange it. But they will hardly expect it of you.”

To ask for something that you could hardly expect seemed a mon­ strous thing to Boroson. It summed up the very attitude towards liv­ ing that the Jews of North Africa had.

And now, sitting atop the jug­ gling donkey, Boroson knew what it was that depressed him about North Africa; what it was that made him decide to come to Djamal.

He smiled with a certain amount of satisfaction. It was to honor a 20

request that he was making this hard trip to Djamal. Now that he knew the reason for his depres­ sion, it was more possible jto bear.

“Aha!” the Agency man noticed the change of mood. “Borry is com­ ing out of it. Perhaps the scenery wrought the magic trick.”

TT WAS peaceful country. The hills seemed kind and protect­ ing, and the breadth of them was comforting.

“Guess you’re right,” he an­ swered warmly. After all, he and the Agency man had finished a bottle between them last night. “I was feeling kind of hellish for a while there.”

The natives were speaking to each other, a little too quickly for Boroson to follow.

“We’ve arrived,’’ the Agency man translated.

“A committee to greet us, Borry.

There’s a committee waiting.”

Their donkeys stirred a little as if aware that they had now reached their destination and that they would soon be able to rest. Boro­ son soon found himself surrounded by a great many strange, but smiling| faces. He smiled too, really smiled. (So this was Djamal!)

Valiantly, he tried to make out what was being said as he des­ cended from the donkey.

“I t’s a hearty welcome to us,” the Agency man translated. “You are blessed sevenfold for coming here. This will long be remembered in the annals of Djamal. Blessed is he who comes with news of Israel.”

Jewish LIFE

The last few words sounded like poetry to Boroson. “Blessed is he who comes with news of Israel," he repeated. In that moment, a great inner joy surged through him that he had made the trip here after all. He was bringing these people news of Israel, the news they thirsted for. pOROSON looked about him, at the skimpy huts that served as houses, the barefoot children, the women swathed in robes, the black bearded men. He felt as though he had turned back the centuries and was moving through the early days of the Hebrews.

Even as he stood there, the Jews of Djamal began to walk, single file, before him. One by one, man, woman and child came past him.

Some touched his garments. Some kneeled. The dark, swarthy faces, the glistening eyes swam before Boroson in a confused sea. He had the inane feeling that all this wasn't real, that he was dreaming.

“News of Israel," the murmur swelled about him. “Blessed is the bearer of news of Israel. Blessed is our deliverer."

The Agency man brought back reality. “I feel as though we got lost in a stage setting for a Bib­ lical play."

“You feel it too?" Boroson asked.

“It's almost fantastic. Their dress, their appearance, the hills around them. These Jews look towards us as — well^B prophets.

Unfortunately neither you nor I are equipped to play the role."

“But in a sense we are,* Boroson answered slowly. “We are the inter­ mediary which will bring them to Israel, to the homeland, to the place of their dreams."

“Perhaps so. Anyhow, let's get started. I'd like to leave tonight if we can."

A little further along, in a small clearing, there was much activity.

A campfire was being arranged, and Boroson, although recognizing the. inherent drama of sitting around a fire, thought of the heat with a shudder.

“A campfire," the Agency man exclaim ed u n e n th u sia s tic a lly .

“Goody goody."

“It'll be hot sitting around the fire."

“Hot nothing. Just watch the temperature drop as the sun sets."

■pY NIGHTFALL, Boroson had, a ^ slight headache from having spoken with so many people. The Jews of Djamal never tired of hear­ ing news of Israel. And was the land truly a land of milk and honey, 21

rich and fruitful? And were the policemen Jewish, as they were told ? Borosoh felt as though he were losing his own identity, be­ coming part of the painting, the setting that these Jews lived in.

He spoke slower and moved his hands more. He spoke of the orange groves, and the sheep. He spoke of the big cities and the settle­ ments. He spoke of concerts and plays, of pageants and festivals.

Sentences came from his mouth as if without control, and he could hear his own words, not before, but after he said them. This is the way Balaam felt, he thought, when the Lord caused him to bless the people of Israel.

By the time he was seated crosslegged near the fire, welcoming its warmth in the chilly night, nothing seemed strange to him. A lamb on a spit turned slowly over the fire, the rich smell of it making his stomach quiver.

“In honor of our guests,” the committee explained to Boroson, waving his hand in the general direction of the revolving lamb.

“Thus it has been with us for centuries. Whenever we have a guest, we roast a lamb or calf in his honor.”

Thus it was with Abraham, Boro­ son thought, hunched over his knees. The past and the present telescoped into one. The days of Abraham and the days of Boroson . . .

Boroson turned to the old man next to him, seeing him for the first time. “By plane, by boat,” he answered. “We will take you singly or in family units. Perhaps the children first, then the parents. Lit­ tle by little, we will bring you to the homeland.”

The old man shook his head in assent as he listened. In the light of the leaping flames, his beard seemed yellow on the sun-dried skin. Boroson watched the tears roll down the wrinkled cheeks. The Jew of Djamal did nothing to hide them.

“This time we will not fail,” he said to Boroson.

“This time?” Boroson asked, puz­ zled. “This time?”

“Yes, this time. You see, Mr. Representative, once before we were given the chance of returning to the homeland. It was in the days of Ezra the Scribe, many centuries ago. ‘Come, ye Jews/ Ezra called to us. ‘Return ye to the land of your fathers, and build ye the Temple of the Lord/ ” Boroson listened to the quavering voice beside him. He heard the prophetic words, and he was trans­ planted to the days of Ezra. These same - Jews sat with Ezra, sat around the campfire as they sat, now, with him. He, like Ezra, was the instrument of the Lord. The old man was speaking quietly, but in the dark, sfjent night, his voice sounded strong and firm.

%*TLJOW will we get to Israel?” the * gentle voice repeated in his ear, just above a whisper.

II WOMAN’S weeping blended in­ to the night. “Blessed is the Lord,” she was saying. “Blessed is Jewish LIFE

22

the Lord Who brought me to this day.”

“You did riot go with Ezra?” the Agency man asked.

I “We did not hearken to the call.

We were a stubborn and a stiff­ necked people.” The ancient voice took ndded strength. “The . fleshpots of Djamal smelled too rich for us. We would not leafve Djamal for G-d's land. We refused to re­ turn to build the homeland. And because of our refusal, because of us, the Temple was destroyed. That was our punishment at the hands of the Lord.”

Boroson started.

“Because of us,” the weeping wo­ man repeated. “Because of us, there was woe in Israel.”

“We have sinned, 0 our Lord, forgive us!” Other voices joined in.

“Do you truly believe it?” the Agency man asked, astonished. “Do the Jews of Djamal truly believe that they were the cause of the destruction of the Temple ?”

The old man's'eyes opened wide.

“Why, of course,” he answered.

“We have carried our guilt throughout the ages,” a strong voice said from the other side of the fire. - ‘From father to son have we carried it. And now at last the good Lord has seen fit to soothe our troubled souls. Once again He is giving us the opportunity to return to His land.”

“This time we shall not fail!” someone said.

“This time we shall not fail!” came another voice.

“Because of us,” the old man January - February, 1955

TH ER E WAS a stillness broken only by the crackling fire. A great sadness overwhelmed Boro­ son, sadness for his people, for his warm and sensitive people, for his brothers in Djamal.

“Because of you, Israel will be built, my brothers,” he said, the tears glistening in his eyes. “Be­ cause of you, each one of you, it will not fail.”

Riding back to the city in the still night, Boroson and the Agency man were silent.

“Who will believe it?” the Agency man asked. “Who will be­ lieve it?”

Boroson said nothing. The hills and the night and the skies wrap­ ped him in silence.

They refused Ezra, he thought.

But today they were ready. Today they did not refuse.

23

By L HALEVY-LEVIN T H E REFUSAL to recognize the facts of economic life, so char­ acteristic of the Yishuv throughout the Mandatory period and the early years of the State of Israel, is giv­ ing way to a more sober appre­ ciation of realities. It is true, there still remains an element — a fairly large element — that is convinced that faith moves moun­ tains. Seeing that the achievement of statehood was largely a triumph of faith, these people are steadfast in their belief that if only Israelis have faith, their political and eco­ nomic difficulties will vanish into thin air. But the more realistic section is growing stronger, and indeed, a certain reaction has even sef in. Many of the citizens of this 24

country refuse to credit the evi­ dence of their own eyes, that the economic situation has improved and that, to use a phrase of Leon Keyserling, noted American and in­ ternational economist, “Israel has successfully covered the first lap in its long and hard race for eco­ nomic survival.”

The first four years of Israel’s sovereignty formed a period of mass immigration and absorption, financed by what it would be a euphemist to call very unorthodox methods. The legacy of that period is four major problems |jr checking inflation, raising production, rais­ ing the standard of living and reducing the enormous adverse bal­ ance of payments.

Jewish LIFE

Israel's progress can best be gauged by the distance it has travelled towards this four-fold objective.

TT IS very interesting to note, in * parenthesis, the positive fear among national leaders lest the progress that has been registered induce a slackening of the national effort and lead to a recrudescence of psychological inflation. In star­ tling contrast to the brave confi­ dence that was the keynote of so many public and official utterances only two or three years ago, the nation is being called to greater effort and self-denial. The con­ stantly recurring theme in the speeches of Finance Minister Levi Eshkol is that the country must tighten its belt, that it must pre­ pare itself for another ten years of austerity and that any rise in wages not linked to increased out­ put would spell ruin for the coun­ try.

Yet as any housewife can testify,

and every economist must perforce corroborate, 5714 was, economical-: ly speaking, a very good year. It was literally the answer to a faring er's prayer. Rains fell in due sea­ son, at regular intervals, through­ out the winter, and in spring did not interfere with the ploughing and sowing of summer crops.

Damage by frost was minimal, and no storms shook the fruit from the orange trees. Indeed, there was even a severe frost in the com­ peting citrus groves of Spain which kept the price of Israeli oranges high.

From citrus, of which well over eight million cases were exported, to feeding grains, the yield of which f ig over 200,000 tons BBexceeded consumption, there was not an important crop that was not successful. The country scene was reminiscent of the words of the Psalmist, describing a similar state of affairs in this country thousands of years ago: Our gardens are full, affording all manner of store.

Increased Cultivation

liirAJOR factors in this achieve* * ment, besides favorable cli­ matic conditions, were a large in­ crease in the area under irrigated cultivation, from 600,000 dunams to 800,000 dunams in the course of a year, the emergence of the new settlers as agricultural producers on a substantial scale and the suc­ cess of a number of new, mainly industrial, crops.

The bumper yield has not only been an important influence easing January-February, 1955

inflationary pressures. It has stim­ ulated an increase — albeit, with the exception of citrus and citrus products, a modest increase — in agricultural exports, which included shipments of bananas, grapes, mel­ ons, tomato puree, ground-nuts, canned and fresh vegetables and eggs. Self-sufficiency has been achieved in the production of po­ tatoes and onions (of both of which large quantities have been im­ ported in previous years), vege25

Cultivation of cotton, launched only three years ago as an experimental project, was placed on a commercial basis in 1954. Above, a newcomer to Israel inspects a sampling of cotton grown at his settlement's plantation.

tables, fruits, eggs (which bids fair to become an important item in the export list) and cattle and poultry feed (which in previous years made voracious demands on the country’s limited fund of for­ eign currency).

In the cultivation of a number of industrial crops, spectacular suc­ cesses were registered. Ground­ nuts, for example, an important export crop and raw material for the edible oil industry, have been cultivated sporadically and on a small scale in this country since the beginning of the Second World War. Unexpected success in the cultivation and the marketing of the crop abroad provided a power­ ful stimulus to local growers. This 26

year already 1,000 tons have been exported, and with orders on hand for another 3,000 tons, total ex­ ports may fall not far short of 5,000 tons, which at current prices of $350 per ton, will bring in a sum of $1,750,000, a gratifying in­ crease in Israel’s modest agricul­ tural exports. Extensive areas in various parts of the country have proved suitable for ground-nuts, and in view of its importance for the oil industry, too, a rapid in­ crease in the cultivation of the crop is expected.

T H E PROGRESS made in the cultivation of cotton, though of smaller proportions, is hardly less remarkable. Experimental cultivaJewish LIFE

The quality of the cotton fibre surprised even the experts."

tion of cotton was launched in Is­ rael only three years ago, and dur­ ing 5714 was grown for the first time on a commercial basis. The yield — equalling and even ex­ ceeding that obtained in many other countries with a far longer experience and tradition of cotton growing — and the quality of the fibre, surprised even the experts.

A far larger area will be planted with cotton in the forthcoming season.

January - February, 1955

Other important industrial crops such as suger-beet and tobacco have already emerged from the ex­ perimental stage. During the out­ going year local growers have proved that they can relieve Israel of at least some of its dependence upon foreign sources of supply.

Some statistics for more im­ portant varieties of agricultural produce indicate the expansion of farm production. In the JanuarySeptember months of 1954, eighty 27

million litres of milk were mar­ keted, or 17% more than in the corresponding period of the pre­ vious year; 201.5 million eggs (an increase of 20%) and 104,000 tons of vegetables (a decrease of 3%).

It must be recalled that 1953 was also a highly satisfactory year for local farmers; that in 1954 the poultry industry underwent con­ siderable expansion which, how­ ever, has not yet expressed itself in an increased output of eggs; and

that the decline in vegetable pro­ duction was due to the fact that full self-sufficiency in the produc­ tion of vegetables had already been achieved. Many growers are there­ fore turning their attention to the cultivation of other crops such as ground-nuts. The total value of agricultural production was IL. 227.5 million, which is IL.54 million (or 24%) more than that of the previous year, computed on the basis of 1953 prices.

Progress ij Industry

INDUSTRY, too, has made notable progress. The most striking rise in output was noted in the heavy industries, a large proportion of whose production is earmarked for export. Cement production rose from 285,000 tons in January-Au­ gust 1953 to 374,000 tons in the first eight months of 1954, while exports in 1954 are expected to total 135,000 tons. Cement is be­ coming an increasingly important item of export and its significance in Israel’s balance of trade will be enhanced now that a third large plant has entered production.

In this same period the produc­ tion of super-phosphates rose from 15.000 tons to 88,500 tons, and Is­ rael is now capable not only of supplying all its domestic con­ sumption but has already embarked upon the export of this important fertilizer. Other growing export industries whose output is increas­ ing are sulphuric acid (whose pro­ duction rose from 7,000 tons to 26.000 tons), rubber tires (an in28

crease from 70,000 to 91,000 tires) and Israel-assembled automobiles and trucks (from 983 to 2,360 vehicles).

The consumption of electrical power provides one of the most useful indices for the expansion of the national economy. In the first eight months of 1954, con­ sumption of power rose to 533 kilo­ watt hours, or approximately twen­ ty percent higher than in the same period in the previous year.

A closer analysis of this increase is instructive. Industry consumed 37% more power in January-Au­ gust 1954 than in the parallel eight months of 1953, agriculture 17% and other purposes, including do­ mestic consumption, 13%.

ISRAEL’S immense adverse trade balance indicates one of its gravest economic problems, and the narrowing of the gap between im­ ports and exports is one of its major objectives. A two-front bat­ tle is being waged, to accomplish Jewish LIFE

this purpose, efforts being simul­ taneously made to replace imports by domestic products and to in­ crease exports.

The current year has been marked by a comparatively rapid growth in exports, both agricul­ tural and industrial. In the January-October period of 1954 im­ ports aggregated IL.85.9 million as against IL.83.3 million in the same months of 1953. In this period ex­ ports rose from IL.17.5 million to IL. 26.5 million, an increase of just over 50%. Thus the foreign trade deficit totalled 300 million dollars.

In 1954 it is expected to be some­ what less than 200 million.

These achievements are qualified by the fact that Israel has not yet consolidated its position in world markets, and there were signs to­ wards the end of the year that its export drive was slowing down.

Trade relations with Turkey, Is­ rael's main qustomer for manu­ factured goods and an important supplier of her foodstuffs, consti­ tute a good example of the insta­ bility that still marks Israel’s for­ eign trade. As a result of the failure of her wheat crop last year Turkey is drastically scaling down her imports, and the prospects of this market for Israeli exports are, at present at least, uncertain.*

Living rose by 53% and in 1952-53 by 28%^ In the first ten months of 1954 the rise was only 7%.

Here, too, the still precarious na­ ture of the gains registered is ap­ parent. In August and September of 1954 a sudden rise in the Cost of Living Index, mainly caused by seasonal influences and the ap­ proach of the holiday season, gave rise to apprehensions that the in­ flationary spiral was about to be renewed, and credit restrictions were immediately clamped down as a preventive measure.

Employment has fluctuated wide­ ly, partly as a result of Govern­ ment efforts to cut down uneco­ nomic relief works and to transfer the workers to the settlements, but the total number of those seeking work registered in the Labor Ex­ changes has dropped from 17,000 to 13,000. It is noteworthy that the large increase in unemploy­ ment, prophesied during the sum­ mer and early autumn months, did not eventuate, largely owing to the brisk demand for labor by vege­ table and ground-nut growers. The ground-nut harvest has emerged as an important source of seasonal employment, fitting in neatly be­ tween the . vintage and the citrus picking season when, normally, the labor market has been at its lowest.

TJEALTHY economic expansion retarded, if it did not halt, in­ flationary tendencies. In 1951-52, it must be recalled, the Cost of

TN ALL parts of the country there are welcome signs that the new­ comers are settling down as farm­ ers or farm laborers, and to a considerable extent the relative abundance in the markets must be attributed to the contribution of 29

♦Editor’s Note: Since the writing of this article, Israel has granted Turkey credit up to fpur-and-a-half million dollars.

January - February, 1955

the new settlements. Over the past six years the settlement and plan­ ning authorities, and the small army of field workers, have gained invaluable,; ! experience in settling the newcomers on the land.

It will be recalled that in the initial years of statehood, settle­ ment on the land followed more or less the same lines as in the Man­ datory period. The new immigrants were placed on farms and given valuable equipment, and were ex­ pected within three or four years to master the rudiments of tilling the soil. But all too many of them did not possess the capacity, for responsibility and management es­ sential for independent farming, and mass desertion of the villages

was a result. Today, newcomers are given smaller allotments to de­ velop as small holdings, upon which they produce for domestic con­ sumption. They are employed as casual workers in groves, farming estates and in collective cultivation of their own and under expert supervision, and are thereby simul­ taneously enabled to learn practi­ cal farming to support themselves productively, and to contribute to­ wards the State’s production drive.

There are already clear signs of the development of a stable class of seasonal farm laborers, support­ ing themselves by citrus picking in the winter, the vegetable sea­ son, the vintage of table and wine grapes, cotton and olive picking

It's the first meal in Israel for these newcomers from Morocco.

30

Jewish LIFE

and concluding with the ground­ nut harvest in late autumn. In most of these families there is more than one earner and the new­ comers are adapting themselves to a higher standard of living than they were previously accustomed to and at the same time are saving money for housing and other do­ mestic investments.

TSRAEL’S finances, too, are sound­ e r than they have ever been before. The Consolidation Loan floated by American Jewry has given the State a breathing space, has enabled it to liquidate irksome short-term loans and to conduct its

finances upon healthier and more conservative lines. Israel’s credit in international markets has al­ ways been good, largely because leaders knew that in the last re­ sort world Jewry stood guarantor for the loans they granted, and stands higher today. Reparation funds are serving to equip indus­ try and agriculture, as well as a series of basic development proj­ ects, to stock-pile raw materials, to renew the mercantile marine and fishing fleet, and to refit and extend the railroad system, while increased exports have provided a useful ad­ ditional source of foreign currency to finance current consumption.

Facing Realities

T H E YEAR’S achievements are not yet consolidated but there are signs that they may continue.

The honeymoon of Israel’s sover­ eignty is over. National leaders are more aware of the realities of economics. The disintegration of the Left-wing *Mapam opposition group within the Histadruth has encouraged the Government to adopt necessary though unpopular measures, such as its stern insist­ ence upon linking wage increases with higher output.

The workers/ too, despite their powerful organization, show a more responsible appreciation of Israel’s

January- February, 1955

plight. Although the automatic cost-of-living allowance continues to be a dangerous source of infla­ tionary pressure, the Government, through the Histadruth (the lead­ ing members of both are identi­ cal), has at least succeeded in halt­ ing the annual all-around wage in­ creases, to which in other years employers invariably agreed, in the interests of industrial peace and because in the absence of any real competition, they could immediate­ ly pass on the extra costs to the consumers, namely in a large de­ gree to the workers themselves.

31

•

A n Interview With Henoch Lieberman

By GERSHON KRANZLER ^■HERE WAS something incon­ gruous in the quiet, reserved setting of the dignified hall of the American Jewish Congress House in New York City, where the pic­ tures of Henoch Lieberman were recently on exhibition. Even a cas­ ual first glance at his works re­ vealed a dimension of thought, of explosive, moving and moved moods that seemed oddly out of place in the elegance and abstraction of this temple of culture and philosophy.

Waiting for the artist to arrive, I made a preliminary round of his works, and I stopped at one called “Chabad Ecstasy.” Here, in the “Chabadnitze,” the room set aside

by Chabad synagogues for those who cannot exhaust the fill of their religious fervor in the routine run of the communal prayers, and who, like the subject of this painting, 32

spend hours in the ecstatic search for G-d, was the kind of setting appropriate to the passion and depth of Lieberman’s art.

The heavy, carved wood doors opened, and the elegance and dig­ nity of the room fell away, retreat­ ing before the power of the per­ sonality who has cheated these mas­ terpieces. It seemed as if the tall, husky man with the long, flowing, slightly greying, reddish beard, bushy eyebrows and peyoth be­ came splice and focus of the world he had recreated in his pictures.

TH ER E IS nothing of the blase artist abput Henoch Lieber­ man. He is a child of the good, black soil of the Polish-RussianLithuanian village, the typical shtetel of the eastern European reservoir of Jewry that is now Jewish LIFE

gone. He is related to this mothersoil with the special bond that has bound particularly the masses of Chabad Chassidim to the land in Russia, Lithuania, and Poland, and now in Israel. From this relation to nature, seen through the refrac­ tion of the Chassidic perspective, comes Lieberman’s strength of ex­ perience and expression. Though he is well grounded in the funda­ mentals of the academy, his art is soil-grown, or if you will soul-grown. He has spent years in the art capital at the Seine, yet he is not tainted by Left Bank in­ tellectuality. Lieberman is and wants to be nothing but the child of the shtetel, close to the grass, the trees, the moon, the sky and the heavens above them. He has sought to understand and to re­ create the beauty of its simple life where it really lies — not in the social, economic, or psychological structure, not in its mores and cus­ toms, in the garb, mannerisms and traditions of its people, but in the soul.

Henoch Lieberman is not satis­ fied with recording something that is irrevocably lost, like, the anthro­ pologist who preserves the primi­ tive or quaint culture of a lost tribe. On the contrary, what he is after is the “Nitzchiyuth,” the eternal aspect of life in the shtetel that transcends the locale of time and space. Take for example his picture “Kiddush Levanah,” the Blessing of the New Moon. A few men stand in front of the rough, wooden structure of the village synagogue, the children by their January - February, 1955

side. Above them is the wide-open canopy of a velvety sky, behind and around them the vast stretches of the fields. The young, bright moon lights the scene and the siddurim in the hands of the chil­ dren. A goat stands nearby watch­ ing them. One of the dreamy-eyed boys cannot restrain himself from looking up to the beautiful starry sky, while the men are immersed in devotion, seeing not the physi­ cal beauty of the sky, but the grace of the Creator who in His infinite kindness returns the light of the moon, and its multi-phased effects on the universe. Lieberman asserts vehemently that even the sky, the fields, the grass and the people, nay the goat of the shtetel, are something unique, a thing of beau­ ty incomparable and irretrievably lost. But what remains and trans­ cends the ruins of the shtetel, the graves, and death camps of the Nazis and Soviets is the sacred de­ votion, the experience of nature as a miracle of recurrent creation, genuine, unadulterated, breathing out of the picture, and inspiring the spectator with its perception of the relation of G-d, man and the universe.

TT IS not accidental that Henoch Lieberman, child of this century, born in 1901, has chosen a modified form of the popular primitive style of painting as the vehicle of his artistic expression. For the art of the soul tries to get at the very essence, rather than the incidental portrayal of that which the eye perceives. Yet Lieberman prefers 3a

to be compared to Rousseau, rather than to American primitives like Grandma Moses. For unlike the latter, Rousseau’s style is the prod­ uct of a highly qultured, thought­ ful master who intentionally choos­ es the primitive form as a tool to create the essential experience which he desires.

Though Lieberman is well versed in the techniques and life of the great artists of all ages, having spent much of his time in the museums of the countries through which his odyssey has led him, he is basically a self-taught man who disavows the lack of “Tzeniuth,” the contradictions of the artist morality. He wants to be Henoch Lieberman the Chosid who serves the Lord with his art, and nothing or no one else. He said ; to me, “One may take over particular techniques, details of perspective, composition,, brush-techniques and paint application. Yet one should only . paint what one experiences, and convey what is close to the heart.”

THUS Lieberman portrays the sum-total of his exciting life that started in a small Lithuanian Village, that gave him a thorough Talmudic and Chassidic training, that took him across eastern Eu­ rope and Asia as a member of the forced labor battalions as far as Siberia where he worked with Russians, Koreans and Chinese under the most strenuous condi­ tions to which human beings have been exposed. But Henoch Liebermari remained strong, even though 34

far from the Jewish environment in* which he was nurtured. He re­ mained strong because he_ is im­ bued with the Chassidic ^“brenn,” the ecstasy of a devout life, that takes ther adversities of fate as a challenge of Divine Providence to test one's inner strength and faith and affirmation of life itself. Even while in the slave labor camps, Henoch Lieberman continued to live and pray and paint sècretely at night or in the loneliness of the forests. ^■QNF0RTUNATELY^ life was not always kind to me,” the artist told me. “Providence has seen fit to test me with various ‘nisyonoth’ (test crises) which have impeded my full growth and creativeness.” He was only a Bar Mitzvah boy when World War I set Eastern Europe ablaze. During World War II the Nazis killed his wife and children. At the conclu­ sion of the war he made his way back to Poland. Finding himself left without a family, he escaped from the Iron Curtain and spent

Jewish LIFE

some time in Paris and London, working, studying, and finding public recognition for his art.

Lieberman arrived in America in 1952. Unfortunately, he has not yet been discovered by art patrons; of means, and the Chassidic paint­ er works in a factory during the day to earn his livelihood. But he lavishes his love on his art until late into the nights or early in the mornings.

Some of his richest and most sensitive works deal with the re­ current theme of music or dance.

Here the Chassidic thinking is at its best, as the artist catches the rhythm and depth of the musical experience of the people of the shtetel. There were many other Jewish painters who portrayed the “Klezmers” of old. Yet mostly their portrayals turned into paro­ dy, or at best into a grotesque of the “hopke-playing” of the Second Avenue variety. In such almost classic pictures as the “Jewish Symphony,” Lieberman introduces us to the musician and the musi­ cianship which are created by the simple experience of the folk mel­ ody, yet which are capable of ris-, ing to the greatest heights of har­ mony. The old man in beard and peyoth, with Tallith Koton, who plays the bass fiddle, is not an incompetent who scratches put the harmony to the fiddling of the youngster. The ecstasy of his face strongly resembles that of the men in the “Chassidic Dance,” one of Lieberman’s most famous pictures, and shows that the plain Jew is able to express the deepest reliJanuary i February, 1955

gious experiences in his music, as an act of sacred devotion, which Lieberman compares to the finest classical, religious music. of Henoch Lieberman’s larger works are done in gouache, which is more difficult than oil, but is a more expressive medium that never changes its colors. Yet pastels, aquarelles, cray­ on or conte drawings, particularly the portraits, show the strength of this Chassidic painter and his per­ spective. Rather than trying to copy the camera, Lieberman ac­ centuates the strong lines of the inner face and the personality. The portrait of a Hungarian rabbi, or of Zalminke, and most striking of all, the self-portrait, display his skill at sketching the experience of the soul, rather than the skin. m o st

Y e t the deepest type of affirma­ tion of life, in the face of the most tragic experience, Lieberman pqrtrays in his mightiest composi­ tion, “Mourning for the Six Million Jews.” The old patriarch in the center, in the words of the artist, is like a rock that persists through thq ages, a mountain off whom all the blows of fate fall. He sits and mourns the dead that are strewn abput the fields, his slain, burnt, murdered and tortured children.

But his inner eye sees only the end of an uprooted tree in front of him, from which new young shoots have emerged, new branches of the eter- , nal people that survives where big­ ger and mightier nations have fallen and disappeared. Beyond the 35

sad elegy of the mourning old Jew gazing out over his slain children, rise the music and light of a new morning dawning. lvfX7HAT ELSE do I possess that Divine Providence has not deemed fit to take from me, but this power to inspire others with the experience of Creation as I perceive it,” Henoch Lieberman ex­ claims, as he speaks of his burning desire to find more time and the chance to create more pictures.

Working in a factory for a bare livelihood has not crushed his spir­

it and faith. Henoch Lieberman feels that he has a mission to ful­ fill, his particular mission, the con­ sciousness of which seems to in­ vigorate and fill every fibre of this man.

Henoch Lieberman’s paintings hang in the famous galleries of Paris and London. Some day the American public too will learn to appreciate this rare artist whose work bridges the Jewish past and the present with a perspective of the eternal that speaks to us in the language of the soul.

Announcement The public is hereby informed that the ar­ rangement for © certification by the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America of some FFV brand biscuits and cookies, made

by Southern Biscuit Company, Richmond, Va., has been terminated. Henceforth, no products of the Southern Biscuit Co. will be made under the Kashruth supervision and endorsement of the UOJCA. Accordingly, no FFV biscuits will bear the © seal after the packages now remain­ ing in stores are consumed.

36

Jewish LIFE

•

A Great Teacher Who Brought Light to a Shadowed Era.

By MEYER WAXMAN T H E TENTH century of the common era constitutes a landmark in Jewish history. This century marks, on the one hand, a decline in the intense spiritual activity of the two Jewish centers of the Orient, Eretz Yisroel and Babylonia, and on the other hand, the establishment of new centers of settlement in European lands and in North Africa, as well as a marked rise in the spiritual activity and increase in learning in the older European and African centers.

The Palestine center, the influence of which began to diminish from the time Christianity became the dominant religion (middle of the 4th century) in the Roman Empire of which it was a part, never recovered its ancient prestige. Nor did fate spare the illustrious and glorious center of Babylonia, from which Torah went forth to all Israel for almost a millennium. Though we do not know exactly the causes which brought about the decline in Babylonia, yet the effects of that decline became evident in the middle of the tenth century. With the death of Rav Saadia Gaon in 942, the glory of the leading Academy of Sura ended. The Gaon Joseph ben Yakob, Saadia’s rival during his quarrel with the Exilarch, David ben Zakkai, succeeded him for several years. But due probably to the lack of support by students, he resigned and retired to the city of Basra, and Sura was closed altogether for a number of years. The glory of Babylonian Jewry was dimmed still more by the abolition of the Exilarchate. When a relative of the former Exilarch, David ben Zakkai, who was about to assume the Exilarchate, was killed in a quarrel with a fanatical Moslem in the year 941, that office was abolished by the Jews themselves.

37 January - February, 1955

A result of these events, spiritual activity lessened, for even the remain­ ing academy, that of Pumbeditha, suffered from the diminution of students and from lack of financial support. A number of countries, both in the Orient and in Europe and Africa,' which hitherto were entirely de­ pendent on Babylonia, had now established their own academies. Were the great Babylonian center to collapse before it succeeded in transmitting its accumulated treasures of learning, who knows what would have happened to these new plants of Jewish spirituality? Would they have borne the fruit which they did during the ages, or would the sprouts and shoots which made their appearance have dried up? Some of these centers lacked both intel­ lectual leadership and age-long tradition. Most of them lacked accumulated learning, established religious views and also authoritative warning against straying into strange paths, both of heresy and excessive mysticism.

There arose at this time two teachers who were blessed with all good qualities for the guidance of a scattered people, and, in addition, also with longevity, which enabled them not only to cause the light of the spirit to illumine once more the halls of the Babylonian academies before it set, but to spread its rays in all Jewish corners and transmit the accumulated treas­ ures to be preserved by the generations. These two were father and son, the Geonim Rav Sherira and Rav Hai. TDAV SHERIRA (905-1006) was the son of Rav Chaninah Gaon (head of the Academy) of Pumbeditha, whose father, Rav Yudai, was also Gaon of that Academy from 938 to 942. The family, according to Sherira’s state­ ment, was of Davidic descent, and a number of its earlier members held accordingly the office of Rosh Golah (Exilarch). But having been dissatis­ fied with the way this exalted office was acquired, often by bribery, they had foregone their right to that office and joined the scholars of the Academy.

When Aaron Saradja, the former opponent of Saadia, became Gaon in 942, Sherira became Av Beth Din (Dean) of Pumbeditha. He supported Saradja against Rav Nehemiah, son of an earlier Gaon of Pumbeditha, who claimed the Geonate as his due. Consequently, when Rav Nehemiah became Gaon at the death of Saradja, he removed Sherira from the deanship and ap­ pointed his brother, Hofni, in his place. At the death of Nehemiah (967), Sherira at the age of sixty-two succeeded to the Geonate which he held for thirty-eight years. He retired, though, from active duty two years previous to his death in 1003 and declared his son Hai — whom he had appointed Av Beth Din seventeen years earlier (985) — as Gaon.

Though we know little of Sherira’s life and activity before he became Gaon we must assume that it was extensive, and that his fame as a scholar and leader was spread throughout Jewry. Otherwise his ramified activity through the time of his Geonate could not have been carried on, nor could it have had such splendid results.

As soon as he became Gaon, Sherira set for himself one great aim, not 38 Jewish LIFE

only to raise the status of the Academy of Pumbeditha, both spiritually and financially, but to increase learning throughout the Jewish world in general.

With remarkable energy he began to carry on a correspondence with rep­ resentatives of hundreds of communities scattered throughout the Orient from Egypt to the confines of India, as well as with many communities in Spain.

(The correspondence extended, as we will see later, even to France and Germany.) In all these letters he appeals for renewal of support for the Academy of Pumbeditha and extols its age and accomplishments and its uninterrupted tradition from the time of Rav. But he is hot satisfied with merely requesting support, but pleads for increase of Torah in their own spheres, and urges large communities to establish their own academies.

Furthermore, he begs them to keep up the spiritual and intellectual relation with the scholars of Babylonia by sending, as in previous years, questions on all matters concerning Jewish learning and life.

T H E GAON’S efforts brought results. Not only were connections with the scattered communities reestablished, and not only did monetary contribu­ tions begin to flow once more into the treasury of Pumbeditha, but also students from many parts of the Orient and even from European countries began to arrive in great numbers. Rav Sherira, as said, was interested not in his academy alone, but in the rise of learning. He therefore helped to reopen the great academy of Sura, though it was for centuries the rival of Pumbeditha. This ancient academy continued its existence until the death of the Gaon Israel, son of Samuel in 1034. Sherira also appointed a former stu­ dent of the Academy of Pumbeditha, Elhanan, son of Shemayah as head of the Academy in Cairo, Egypt.

However, the most valuable part of his activity was the writing of numerous responsa to queries which came to him from all parts of the world, including fifteen queries from the famous German scholar and peytan Meshullam ben Kalonimos, the colleague of Rabbenu Gershom, the “Light of the Exile.” The queries were of various kinds, legal, historical, theological, customs and folkways. A large number dealt with correct readings in the Talmud, with the meaning of many passages, expressions, and even of single words. The number of responsa written by Sherira is greater than those written by any Gaon in the period with the exception of that of his son, Hai. Much sound wisdom and reason is evident in his responsa dealing with Agadic matters. When asked whether the cures for certain ailments given in the Talmud should be followed, he answered: “Our sages were no physi­ cians, and whatever they said was in accordance with their time and the particular conditions. Do not follow them in such matters, but rely upon what the physician tells you.”

Of great interest is Sherira’s general view regarding Agadic statements, which run as follows: Interpretations of verses or statements which are in­ cluded under the name of Agada, many of them are mere opinions, and in January - February, 1955

39

general, some are right, and some are. not. Therefore, we do not rely com­ pletely on the Agada. Statements and interpretations which are supported by reason, we will accept.* Rav Sherira also wrote commentaries on the tractates Berochoth, Shabboth, Gittin, Kethuboth and Baba Bathra, excerpts of which are cited by later authors, but the complete commentaries are lost. There is no doubt that many passages of the commentaries are included anonymously by sub­ sequent commentators, as well as by Rabbi Nathan of Rome in his famous Talmudic dictionary, the Aruch.

The Historic Epistle

j j LEADING contribution of Sherira is his famous historical epistle, which serves as a most important original document for the hislx)ry of the Tal­ mudic and Geonic periods. This responsum, which is really a book, was writ­ ten in the year 986 and was sent to the scholar Yakob, son of Nissim, leader of the community of Kairwan, North Africa, as an answer to his query. It seems that Kairwan had a number of followers of the Karaite sect who frequently attacked the Rabbanites, questioning the authority of the Talmud, its authenticity, and the proper order of tradition. Rabbi Jacob then turned to Sherira with the following questions: How was the Mishnah written and handed down throughout the ages?

Is it true, as Rabbi Saadia said, that its writing or compiling was begun by the scholars of the Great Assembly (Kenesseth ha-Gedolah) and the scholars of each generation added to it more and more, until Rabbi (Judah the Prince) completed it? If that is the case, why then are decisions usually given in the names of the Tannaim, most of whom lived after the destruc­ tion of the Temple? Why did the long line of scholars from the time of the Kenesseth ha-Gedolah leave the work of editing the Mishnah to the later scholars? Second, what is the reason for the successive arrangement of the tractates in each order of the Mishnah, as some seem not to have been logically arranged? Third, when did Rabbi Chiyya write or compile the Tosefta, after the close of the Mishnah, or while the latter was being compiled, and why did he undertake this work if its statements are in the name of the Tannaim of the Mishnah? Further, what is the nature of the Boraithoth (extraneous Tannaitic statements) and was the Talmud compiled or written? Fifth, who were the Saburaim — the scholars immediately after the redaction of the Talmud — and who succeeded them up to Sherira himself? rpO THESE questions Sherira answers: ** It is true that the Mishnah contains all laws which were handed down by the scholars of the ages in succession. Whatever the later scholars taught * Responsum quoted in introduction to the Menorath Ha-maor, by Isaac Aboab.

40

Jewish LIFE

merely repeated, often with some explanations, the statements of the earlier scholars. The earlier scholars, who lived in peaceful times, taught their students by transmitting their, statements, as well as explanations and rea­ sons for them, orally, and the students knew their masters. As a result, there were hardly any differences between the views of these scholars. The work of teaching went on dn such a way that even most of the names of the teachers of early times are unknown except for the names of the Pairs (Zugoth), that is, the president and dean of the Sanhedrin for a number of generations. It was only during the turbulent times for a number of years before the Destruction of the Temple, and especially during a few generations after the Destruction when the students scattered and orderly study was interrupted, that differences began to abound. The teachers then offered explanations of derivations of laws in different ways, whence arose differences in the decisions. During the generations after the destruction, several attempts were made at the Academy of Yavne to organize the law, but none of these attempts was fully accepted.

When, Rav Sherira explains, Rabbi Yehudah Ha-Nasi saw that the teachings by the various scholars presented differences in interpretation, he decided that it was time to have an authoritative organized text of study.

Rabbi Yehudah, together with a group of scholars, utilizing all earlier at­ tempts at organization, finally edited the Mishnah. When it is said that the Setam (anonymous dicta), which in most cases indicate decision, follows Rabbi Meir, it does not mean that Rabbi Meir made the statement, but that this statement is taken from Rabbi Meir’s compilation, who in his turn re­ lied on Rabbi Akiva’s work, which in its turn is based on the tradition of his teachers. Yet all other views were not omitted, except that they were

given in the name of the scholars who pronounced them. This edition re­ ceived full authority and was accepted as a basis for further study,.inas­ much as it included all views of earlier scholars with proper explanations.

Order and Arrangement

JJAV SHERIRA also states that the Mishnah was written down, though study went on orally. The Gaon says that it may be assumed that when Rabbi organized thef Mishnah, attention .was merely paid to the order of the chapters and single Mishnayoth in each chapter in every tractate, but the tractates were not necessarily arranged one after the other. The editors might have organized one tractate and then turned to another tractate which does not logically follow in sequence. However, he shows that there is a certain order in the arrangement in the tractates in each of the six divisions of the Mishnah/ The Tosefta which Rabbi Chiyya wrote down, the Gaon explained, is no second Halochic text. It contains primarily explanations of Halochic statements in the Mishnah. As a rule, where the Tosefta only explains the Mishnah and derives from the explanations an additional legal state­ ment, we follow it. But if it differs in decision, we do not follow it. Again, the Boraithoth (Tannaitic statements extraneous to the Mishnah and not in­ cluded in the Tosefta) contain other explanations or different versions of the decisions which were .collected by a number of scholars who were of the generation when the Mishnah was compiled. These collections, however use­ ful they might have been, were not considered as authoritative as Rabbi Chiyya’s Tosefta by the scholars of the generations of Amoraim who came after the Mishnah was edited, though they are often quoted. There are also the Tannaitic Midrashim, Mechilta on Shemoth (Exodus), Sifra on Vayikra (Leviticus), and Sif re on Bemidbor (Numbers) and Devorim (Deuteronomy).

These interpretations, Were organized by disciples of Akiva, and they are frequently quoted in the Talmud.

Growth of Oral Traditions

J t FTER answering the first three questions, Sherira explains the work of the Amoraim, the interpreters and expounders of the Mishnah, and gives a list of the leading Amoraim, primarily those who headed the Acade­ mies of Sura and Pumbeditha, but also mentions others who distinguished themselves until he comes to Rabbi Ashi, the . redactor of the Talmud. In this account he gives a general survey of the continual growth through the generations of the study of the law which was carried on by numerous teachers in various schools and how the conditions of life demanded addi­ tional decisions. As a result, the oral tradition grew to enormous propor­ tions. It became necessary not only to organize this mass of statements, but 42

Jewish LIFE

as a primary source for historians for the period of the Geonim in particuare also included, from time to time, statements telling us which view is decisive.

The Gaon continues to tell of the Amoraim following Ashi who com­ pleted the editing of the Talmud. He then goes over to the Saburaim, scholars who added comments to difficult passages of the Talmud, and also here and there inserted a number of statements of their own. Sherira notes a number *of such places. On the whole, his account of the Saburaim is top brief. We have another account b^ Abraha.pi Ibn D^ud who records five generations of Saburaim. *iv v He then passes on to the generations of Geonim, which period he begins with the year 586. In this account he is quite detailed. He gives the suc­ cession of the Geonim in full, telling us which academy each Gaon headed and what important works were produced by some of the Geonim and what important ordinances were enacted and by whom. He also notes certain leading events which occurred during that period. jVTEEDLESS to say, this epistle of Sherira Gaon is an exceptionally im­ portant contribution to Jewish historical literature. In fact, it serves as a primary source for historians fori the period of the Geohim in particu­ lar and for the Oral Law and its study in general. The epistle crowns Rav Sherira’s literary legacy to his people but did not mark the termination of his work, which was continued by his son, Rav Hai. Father and sou alike reaped honor among their brethren. It is told that on the Sabbath of the week on which Sherira died, a special Haftorah was read in the synagogues from I Kings, Ch. II, and instead of the words in verse XII, And Solomon sat upon the throne of David, his father; and his kingdom was established firmly, the words Sherira and Hai were substituted for David and Solomon.

ADVICE TO THE SCHOLAR Rabbi Akiva was once called upon to read from the Torah in public, but he refused. His students protested, "Our teacher, have you not taught us that the Torah is 'your life and the length of your days?'" (Bemidbor 30:20) "That is indeed true," re­ plied the Rabbi, "but I had not previously reviewed this particu­ lar chapter at least two times, and no scholar should undertake to lecture before the public until he has revised his material two or three times for himself, for even of the Holy One, Blessed Be He, it is said, 'He prepared it and||tearched it out/ and only then, 'and unto man He said/ " (lob 28:27-8) (Midrosh Tanchumah P. Yithro)

January - February, 1955

43

•

Biology and H eredity Create Quite a Fam ily Problem W ith:

mm 0

U A A A

7

U N CLE P 1 N CU S

By MARTIN S. DWORKIN TO

UNCLE PINCUS, his son Hiram’s studies in biology were so much esoteric nonsense.

Not that Pincus despised learning.

On the contrary, he thought very highly of it in its place, and was proud of his ambition to provide all his children with a college edu­ cation.

But learning somehow never ap­ plied to him — except rarely, when some naked fact or bald statistic could be fished out of the limit­ less ocean of things he did not know, to corroborate a vagrant opinion.

“What has this to do with LIFE?” he would ask, whenever some one of his offspring chilled his inspired conjeeturings by of­ fering “information.” To be ade­ 44

quate for LIFE, an idea, judg­ ment, or attitude had to spring out, full-born and self-justified, from seycheL TJNCLE PINCUS left specula­ tion as to why the world turned as it did to the rabbis ¡¡gj and to his neighbor Gumbiner. The ultimate irrelevance of learning with respect to LIFE appeared to be perfectly exemplified in the case of Gumbiner he of the endless and needless references to unknown and unimportant people: Aristotle, Kant, and a medieval galach name Aquinas, who was out­ rageously represented as “the goyisher Maimonides.”

How the world turned was a different story. This was not a Jewish LIFE

matter of knowledge, but of sey­ chel, which is something else alto­ gether. Did G-d know how to run the world? Did he"have to learn it in school, like Hiram studying his biology? G-d had seychel; more — G-d WAS seychel itself, absolute and unalloyed.

But even seychel is not impervi­ ous to certain slings and arrows, and it was Uncle Pincus’ outra­ geous fortune that his own Hiram took up biology in school and brought it home. For a while, it looked as if seychel was going to lose out, that “facts” — book­ learning — in a horrid imposture, was going to successfully usurp not only the seat of governance in the household, but the throne of the world as well.

TT WAS the not-so-^secret disap­ pointment of Uncle Pincus that none of his children bore a re­ semblance to anyone on his side of the family. This was so obvious to any observer that it could not be denied. Not .that his children were not handsome in their way; woe betide the foolish one who stated or implied that. After all, was not the one they took after the woman he had married? But they could have been so much more beautiful! He sighed, and shook his head knowingly and resignedly.

Max, the eldest, who was already out in the world, an evening col­ lege student who worked as an apprentice in the shop, grinned and shrugged his shoulders. LIFE had been so kind as to palpably demonstrate that he had no need January-February, 1955

to apologize for his looks. But Jeanie had just discovered her spindly legs, and her father's sighs for the beauty that had been lost made her feel that she had been terribly cheated. At these times, Jeanie resented her mother, and in her fantasies became the beauteous daughter her father deserved. Like most of what her husband said, these reminders that her children had been blighted at their births had small effect upon Aunt Rose.

Her love for her husband, for one thing, had little to do any longer with what he said — or what he did, for that matter. In fact, the less she listened the more free was her affection for him from the ne­ cessity of comprehending what it was he was saying.

Not that Aunt Rose ever con­ sciously expressed it — to herself or anyone else ^ but it seemed to be her philosophy of life that un­ derstanding other people only leads to trouble. In her house, for ex­ ample, there was nothing to under­ stand. Milchigs had to be kept separate from fleischigs, meals had to be ready on time, the children sent off to school and dressed as neatly and cleanly as possible so people couldn’t point her out in the street as a negligent housewife.

It would have shocked Uncle Pin­ cus, the sophisticate, to know how near Aunt Rose’s unexpressed phi­ losophy came to his own.

Hiram believed with William James that there is no good in be­ ing educated, if you do not show it. His whole world was steadily subjected to the measure of what 45

he had learned, as he learned it.

What was lost in breadth of per­ spective was more than made up in relentless enthusiasm.

Observation discovers and cor­ roborates facts, and it was while observing, that Hiram first un­ loosed the storm that shook the power of seychel to its cosmic foundations.

JT WAS unusual for him to be so silent during supper. Usually, he could be counted on to leaven the family repast with some new witticism, mysteriously acquired or more mysteriously invented.

“This stuff’d gag a maggot,’’ he could say about Aunt Rose’s de­ licious chicken soup, without mean­ ing a word, but willing to defend his aphorism to the last — while he finished the soup. It was this latter fact that most impressed Aunt Rose, and taught her to prop­ erly locate her son’s attempts at humor as unworthy of notice or concern. For Uncle Pincus, how­ ever, more than culinary skill was at stake, “So, and for this I send you to high school, so you should talk like a gangster! Oisgehudevet kinder! And this is how my chil­ dren grow up — to become truck drivers?” In Uncle Pincus’ lexicon of horror and disparagement, no calling was so lowly and debased as that of truck-driver. Nor was he hampered in the full savor of his opinion by first-hand knowledge of any person in that profession, living or dead.

This time, Hiram was strangely — and ominously — silent. Aunt 46

Rose frankly, and Uncle Pincus furtively, examined their offspring for signs of some incipient illness 0- and were both disconcerted to find themselves objects of intense scrutiny on his part. There was no doubt about i t ; Hiram seemed in perfect health — and in full command of whatever purpose he meant to serve by this atypical be­ havior. Patience cannot be counted among Uncle Pincus’s salient vir­ tues, but he bore Hiram’s stares with a show of unconcern —• and with much inner unease. Knowing his son’s unpredictability — which is to say that he knew very little of him yp l he dreaded what was surely forthcoming, whatever it was to be. It was Jeanie who broke first before what she in­ evitably interpreted as an invasion of her personhood.

“Well, what are you staring at?” she shrilled. “Poppa, tell him to stop it,” which was almost the last thing Uncle Pincus wanted to hear at that point.

■

A final, unconscious attempt to salvage whatever it was that was going to feel the impact of Hiram’s new folly, Uncle Pincus looked up from his plate, and stared inquiringly into his son’s stare. The joust was soon over, and the vanquished attempted to betake himself to the friendly con­ fines of his pavilion. “Eat up like a nice boy, Hiram, and go and finish your homework.”

Conscious that he had gained the advantage, Hiram masterfully increased his adversaries’ disequiJewish LIFE

librium by remaining“ momentarily silent. Dutifully swallowing a few mouthfuls, he effectively disarmed his father’s directive, poised for an instant ta survey the military situation and then launched his cavalry to reconnoiter and make contact with the enemy.

“You know, we’ve been learning all about heredity in school.” The table affected unconcern, but the sally could be trusted to have ef­ fected its mission. “My teacher Mr. Staple says that you can tell Whether the moth­ er or father is stronger by which one of them the children take after.”

Now, Uncle Pincus believed with all his heart that seychel is the most powerful force in the world. And yet he knew just as certainly (for it was this very sey­ chel that told him) that no man is ever wiser than his children.

AN°. SO, Uncle Pincus sat before

Hiram’s onslaught, his mouth grotesquely open, utterly con­ founded by this new inanity, but with no way of showing anyone — including himself — that such it was: foolishness, and no more.

Aunt Rose had come in from the kitchen, a huge loaf of pumper­ nickel in her hands. The table January-February, 1955

company was silent; the room seemed charged with soundless­ ness; time itself had altered its advance to permit Uncle Pincus to find his breath again. But it was only Max, so splendidly at ease with the world, who could break the silence.

“J ust what are you selling now?” he demanded, his eyebrows lifted just a little, for effect. “This guy Staple must be some charac­ ter!” He turned to Uncle Pincus.

“You know, maybe it isn’t Staple at all. No te a c h e r could be such a dope. Every time my nudnick broth­ er here comes up with a new idea he blames it on Staple.” Then, be­ cause the smirk of superior knowl­ edge on Hiram s face was s till there, “Look, I took biology too, don’t fo rg e t, and we never learned any crud like that.”

Uncle Pincus was thankful for the respite given him by his eldest — as well as for the actual counter­ offensive that had been started. He was made very uncomfortable, however, by the motionless pres­ ence of his wife, looming behind him, the bread in her hands, like some great conscience.

“Nu Rosie, do we get any more bread, or not?” he asked, without looking at her, but showing as 47

much mere annoyance as he could muster.

Aunt Rose did move forward, and began to slice the loaf on the big plate with quick, sure slashes of the bread-knife. It w&s plain, however ¿and painfully so to Uncle Pincus — that she had been much affected by what Hiram had said. In fact, the implications of his younger son’s essay into gene­ tics were just now becoming ap­ parent to Uncle Pincus. He wished with all his heart that his wife would finish what she was doing, and return to her kitchen.

JJIRA M was not one to be easily put off by peremptory chal­ lenges — even from his older brother, nor by any frigidity in the initial reception of his expres­ sion. “It’s in the book, too,” he said, scornfully. “Some things in the parents are dominant — that’s stronger — and some aren’t. That’s all there is to it,” You see, this is the way the world is, Hiram was saying, and there was nothing his brother or his father could do about it. Certainly there was no denying the fact that all the children “took after” Aunt Rose. To explain that away would require something su­ perior to his biology — and not mere scorn.

Various aspects of his married life — including incidents long forgotten -— were now obtruding themselves upon Uncle Pincus’s consciousness. At first, he was con­ fronted by the outlandish thought that he was some kind of usurper: that the rightful ruler of this do48

mestic policy was held in bondage ip the kitchen, contrary to the sacred discoveries of science. Then, he was almost completely unnerved by the thought that Hiram’s pro­ nouncement which was also in the book — would hold necessarily, despite any lack of awareness on the part of those involved. The fact of the children’s features was inescapable; maybe there was some mitigating reason for this which could be discovered later. But who was then —• and always had been — the head of the house? Could it be that he had really been led around by the nose, that by some mysterious, omnipotent wile his seychel ^ %his very soul gig had been betrayed? Uncle Pincus squirmed inside himself, and grim­ aced weakly at his plate.

TEANIE was in a turmoil almost as deep and seemingly irresolv­ able. For if what her brother said was true, her lack of beauty was something supernal, and not to be denied. She was to be cheated in her life, not by weakness, but by strength. Instead of being further depressed, however, she soon felt a curious elation —a certain pure womanly feeling — rising to trans­ mute her defect into a kind of triumph. For the first time in her life she looked upon her father condescendingly, as upon one real­ ly inferior, but who had to be given the trappings, the mere pan­ oply of preeminence. And she was already enough the heroine of her own romance to recognize the mo­ mentous nature of this new relaJewish LIFE

tion of herself to her father. Nor was Uncle Pincus unaware that his child had somehow gone, leaving a worldly changeling in her place.

A glance into her eyes, and he be­ came at once an aged patriarch looking upon the now-grown off­ shoot of his distant youth.

A welcome caesura was provided by the ringing of the doorbell. It was Gumbiner, carrying a large plate, on which was something carefully wrapped in a clean white cloth. “Still eating?” he asked.

“Hello, hello, how is everybody ?

Nu Pincus, if you're so unhappy to see me I'll go home right away — after I give this cake to Rosie.”

He stepped into the kitchen, fol­ lowed by Jeanie who immediately took up a large towel and began to dry the dishes stacked up next to the sink. Aunt Rose looked at Gumbiner with a smile, which sud­ denly changed to an expression of utter horror as she looked past him to where Jeanie leaned against the wash-tub, the towel and a plate in her hands.

“Jeanie!” she shrieked, “what are you doing ?” Thrusting her visitor violently aside, she rushed at her surprised daughter and wrenched the towel away. “A miN chige towel yet! What's wrong with you? You'll make the whole house treif in a minute! Can't you see the blue border?” So that Jeanie could no longer be mistaken, she waved the offending cloth an inch from her eyes.

Thus rudely torn from her pri­ vate world, Jeanie recovered with a speed gained from many enJanuary-February, 1955

counters. “It's a clean one. I took it from the closet just before.”

“Well then,” put in Gumbiner, tightly holding the plate he had brought, pressing it high against his chest as if to protect it from destruction by Aunt Rose's holo­ caust. “Suppose you just call a blue towel fleischigs for this time, until it goes to the laundry.”

Aunt Rose snorted fiercely. “Aha! You and my husband! The shtot where you both are rabbonim hasn't been built yet!”

The exchange in the kitchen strangely revitalized Uncle Pincus in the dining-room. Milchigs and fleischigs were important, to be sure, but their management was to be found in the province of the housewife who presides over the house so that a man is left un­ trammeled for those weightier mat­ ters with which he must contend.

“Nu Gumbiner,” he said, still 49

expanding, “you came just in time.

My son has picked up some new nahrischkeit in school. Maybe a filozof like you can understand it.”

Gumbiner walked slowly into the dining-room from the kitchen* a smile on his face. What Pincus really means, he thought, is that it takes a nahr to understand nahr­ ischkeit. %%\XTHAT do you think?” Uncle v Pincus went on. “My highschool chochem here is saying that if the children look like their moth­ er it means that the father is no good.”

“Not no good!” Hiram almost shouted, “I never said that!” He turned towards Gumbiner. “The children inherit what they look like from the one whose genes are stronger. That's all.” In spite of his many campaigns, Hiram was not yet able to adjust with suffi­ cient rapidity to sudden changes in the adult terrain MW especially when that terrain was dramatically altered by the looming presence of an audience. He knew Uncle Pincus's power on the offensive, and felt a sinking inside — even though he could tell from the expression on Gumbiner’s face that the latter was less convinced by the content of anything his father said than he was intrigued by his per­ formance.

“Nu Gumbiner, azoi geht di velt.

I live a whole life, and now my ‘genes' are no good.”

“I didn't say that!” Hiram wailed, knowing that already all was lost: his father had decided 50

which enemy would be the easiest to annihilate, and had promptly in­ vented him. Hiram was completely disarmed. The best he could do would be to defend the flimsy for­ tress Uncle Pincus had erected for him until another blast of scorn­ ful irrelevance melted even that away.

Q.UMBINER could tell that the controversy, whatever its in­ tensity before, had passed its cli­ max. The atmosphere was that of a cylinder from which most of the compressed steam had escaped. Max was at the telephone in the foyer, joking with someone about a softball game on Sunday. Jeanie and Aunt Rose were chattering in the kitchen. Pincus was obviously at ease and in the course of mellow­ ing even further. Only Hiram was still concerned, and he had passed from desperation to resentful res­ ignation.

“Well, Hiram,'' he said, kindly, “you are partly right. But it's not the whole story.” Uncle Pincus flung his head in arrogant punctua­ tion of what his friend had said.

“Some things you inherit from one parent, some from another,” Gum­ biner went on. “You look like your mother; nu. But maybe you think and behave like your father?” ]JHA! thought Uncle Pincus, seychel is the strongest in the end. If there are any brains in the family, anyone with half a head of his own could tell where they came from.

“But it's not like that in the Jewish LIFE

book,” Hiram objected, “Mr. Staple . . . ” “Az-och-un-veh tzu Mr. Staple ^ him and his books together!” said Uncle Pincus, with finality. “What does he know about LIFE ? Do you think that only from books you learn everything?” He tapped his chest over the heart and then his forehead with a stubby forefinger.

“The most important thing you’ll never learn in school,” he said knowingly. “Seychel doesn’t come out of a book.”

Gumbiner smiled. “Nu, Pincus, he gets his seychel from you. You should be happy. Mazel to v” “From me only?” Uncle Pincus’s eyes were fiery and proud. “Do you

think you get seychel for nothing?

Does he have it already?” He snorted. “A uechtiger tog! It should happen so easy! Seychel you don’t get from ‘genes.’ For seychel you have to bleed and suf­ fer! You have to know LIFE be­ fore you have seychel!”

With this, he clapped his hands palms downward on the table.

Then, after a brief, charged mo­ ment, he began to elaborately roll back part of the tablecloth. Reach­ ing in his pocket, he took out the pack of cards he had put there before supper. “Come Gumbiner, a couple of hands. Hiram, go do your homework in the bedroom.”

MANY MEANINGS The school of Rabbi Ishmael taught: “ 'Is not My work like fire?' said the Lord, 'and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?' (Jer. 23:29). As a hammer is divided into many sparks, so one verse of Scripture has many meanings and many ex­ planations."

(Sanhedrin 34a)

REMOVE THE ORNAMENT Our Rabbis taught: "There was a fine and delicate reed flute from the days of Moses in the Holy Temple. Once the King or­ dered that it be covered with an ornament of gold, but its voice ceased to be sweet. The ornament was thereupon removed# and the flute regained its melodious sweetness."

(Era chin 10b)

January - February, 1955

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52

Jewish LIFE

Understanding The Sabbath

By SIMON L . ECKSTEIN THE SABBATH: A Guide to its Understanding and Observance, by Dayan Dr. I. Grunfeld, London, Sab­ bath League of Great Britain; New York, Philip Feldheim, 1954, 91 pp., $1.25.

TRADITIONAL JUDAISM as a movement is oft ineffectual in reaching the average layman because of a paucity in popular yet authorita­ tive literature. Only with difficulty will the layman usually find modest and readable books which have as their main purpose to clarify basic Halochic thinking on day-to-day mat­ ters that perplex the contemporary Jew. It is therefore with keen appre­ ciation that this reviewer read Dayan Grunfeld’s “hiyut hamachzik eth hamerubah” little volume on “The Sab­ bath.”

The subtitle of the book spells out January - February, 1955

its purpose and content—“A Guide to Its Understanding and Obser­ vance.” It is literary efforts of this distinctive type, popular in format, simple in style and modest size, yet spotlighting the basic cornerstones and institutions of Judaism, that the organized forces of traditional Ju­ daism in this country must make readily and inexpensively accessible to the laity.

The volume, in a minimum of ver­ biage but with a maximum of en­ lightenment, is written with profound feeling, and with a true cognizance of modern day needs and problems. The reader, whilst enjoying this type of Torah literature, will be impressed with some fundamental insights into the meaning of the Sabbath as well as an appreciation of the Halochic guideposts pertinent to its observance.

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Jewish LIFE

T^ISCUSSING, in an introductory chapter, the dignity of work, the meaning of spiritual freedom, the con­ cept of “Menuchah” or “rest,” the author culls from the Bible and Rab­ binic literature passages to ferret the true essence of the Sabbath as a day when “the Jew bears witness to the creative power of G-d.” Dayan Grunfeld’s purpose is to clearly indicate how, by the very “inactivity” of the Sabbath, we proffer our human powers, “in homage at the feet of G-d who gave them.” The book is replete with discriminating and clearcut definitions, as for example his paragraph on the meaning of “Menu­ chah.” He states that Menuchah is something more than physical rest.

“It is an attitude of mind, a spiritual state, induced by the experience that is Sabbath. It is compounded of many things.”

The second chapter deals with the concept of “Melochah.” The usual literal translation, “work,” does in no way convey the finer shades of meaning which the concept of Melo­ chah embraces in Halochic literature.

Dayan Grunfeld de'flnes Melochah in his characteristic fashion as “an act that shows man's mastery over the world by the constructive exercise of his intelligence and skill.” The reader will begin to see how this exposition will help him to appreciate that even an effortless Melochah such as switching on an electric light must cease on the Sabbath.

Throughout the entire volume the reader senses a conscious effort to blend the Agadaic elements of the Sabbath with its practical and perti­ nent Halochic aspects. Question^ of January-February, 1955

Sabbath observance in modern so­ ciety are delicately colored with the basic underlying ideal and ideas em­ braced by the Jewish Sabbath. Even a cursory perusal will convince the reader that the so-called maze of Sabbath laws is all part of a basic thought-out pattern directed by the ennobling and topical philosophy of the Sabbath message to all genera­ tions of Jewry.

TTHE AUTHOR, in his preface, ex­ presses the hope that “the book will assist those who unfortunately have lost the Sabbath to regain the peace and blessing which are to be found in its observance.” It would seem to me that the already devout and observant layman, too, will gain from this work an insight into the motivations of Sabbath observance.

The reader will begin to see the Sab­ bath “tree” more clearly and mean­ ingfully amidst the “forest” of Sab­ bath prohibitions,. restrictions and preceptives. The recurrent emphasis is made that the Sabbath laws are not a “haphazard mass of laws but a consistent, co-ordinated body of legislation derived from and conform­ ing to one central, underlying idea.”

The volume is unencumbered by dialectic and turgid “sermonics” but is direct and ever drawing upon the original voluminous sources of Jewish Codes. It represents the Jewish in­ terpretation of the Jewish Sabbath.

The Sabbath League of Great Britain deserves our commendation for publishing a volume which suc­ ceeds in its efforts of providing “a guide to the proper understanding and observance of the Sabbath.”

55

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©

Jewish LIFE

London, England May I refer to your thoughtful editorial on the “Menace of Calendar Reform” (November-December issue) and to your reference to the recent conference here in London of Jewish religious leaders from a number of countries? Tribute should be paid to Chief Rabbi Israel Brodie, who, in cooperation with authorized representativeS of the five Jewish nonGovernmental organizations, achieved complete co-ordination on the subject of Calendar Reform throughout Eu­ rope, the British Dominions and else­ where.

I would also like to make one brief correction in your editorial.

You state that the United Nations resolution required “the views of all Governments with regard to the In­ dian-sponsored proposal.” In fact, the resolution adopted states that “It was necessary (desirable) to obtain the views of Governments both members and non-menibers of the United Na­ tions on (it) the desirability of Cal­ endar Reform.” The words which are included in the brackets appeared in the original resolution. The other words were the United Kingdom January - February, 1955

amendments. Thus, all Governments have been asked their views on the desirability or otherwise of Calendar Reform, without reference to the In­ dian-sponsored proposal.

As you say in your editorial, the Indian resolution “was opposed by Pakistan.” This is perhaps regret­ table as it involves domestic political implications, which should be ex­ cluded from what is purely a reli­ gious or economic issue.

M. R. Springer •¡c ¿¡c $ Brooklyn, N. Y. I read with avid interest your edi­ torial about the dangers that the new Calendar Reform plan, recently pro­ posed before the United Nations, con­ stitutes for Torah and Shabboth-conscious Jewry.

I myself have given this problem some thought and I personally have arrived a t . a panacea which seems almost too simple to be my own origi­ nal idea. Why not let the extra 4fworld day” accumulate every seven jyears to make a new week (similar to the leap year system we have every four years on February 29) which could keep our seven day cycles in57

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(Prepared by Dr. Sid­ ney Hoenig of Yeshiva University.)

58

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Jewish LIFE

tact? The months would then be just as stable.

Moshe Weiss * * * Editor’s Note: We are not quite sure whether Mr. Weiss’ idea is “original” but we certainly recognize its impractibility since no account has been taken of the extra day that arrives with leap year. In each seven year period there would be eight, not seven, days left over. It would therefore be required, in addition to the new week every seven years, to add another week after the twenty-eighth year to offset the seven leap year days ac­ cumulated during the intervening period. * * * Pusan, Korea I was very much interested in Dayan Grunfeld's article on Jewish family life which appeared in your last issue. With reference to his dis­ cussion of divorces, I remember a re­ cent incident.

A Jewish couple approached me on getting a divorce, and no reconcilia­ tion was possible. I suggested, at the

time, that they both make definite ar­ rangements for a Get, before the civil divorce proceedings would be com­ pleted. Their divorce lawyer was in a different city, and although he was Jewish, he knew little about Jewish divorce procedures. He thought it unwise to have the divorce proceed­ ings in the courts await the definite arrangements for a Get. I learned later that my advice was followed.

There must be thousands of Jewish and non-Jewish lawyers who are un­ informed about the necessity and pro­ cedures involved in getting a Jewish divorce. I believe that many of them would volunteer to help their troubled clients, if the necessary information could be brought to their attention. I believe it would be proper for the Union to publish a pamphlet ad­ dressed to the lawyer, Jewish or Gentile, stating in concise form the problems involved and the unfortun­ ate consequences which may follow, if their Jewish clients will not make ar­ rangements for a religious divorce.

Chaplain (1st Lt.) Joshua J. Epstein

M ACARONI SPAGHETTI Pure Egg Noodles

KOSHER and PAREVE January-February, 1955

59

REFRESHING, FLAVORFUL

...D ELIC IO U S!

Prepared under Rabbinical Super­ vision, in America's most modern Ice Cream Plant m

{jostas

ICE CREAM

FOR FINEST QUALITY

*

from the spotless kitchens of MOTHER’S FOOD PRODUCTS* INC. Newark 5, N.J..

Gordon’s “Magicpak” Potato Chips are crisp er, with double cellophane bag, plus moisture­ absorbing “MagicP a k ” to protect freshness and flav­ or.

<S)

Crisp Potato Sticks! D e l i c i o u s hot or cold in va­ cuum-packed cans and packages.

Jewish LIFE

G o ld ’s 100% - pure

HORSERADISH

KOSHER BABY MEATS

Famous for Quality and Kashruth

<S>

Traditional Jewish Style

A REAL delicatessen treat H AD AR ‘‘K O SH ER FO O DS FRO M TH E C R A D LE O N. .

I

b P 1c° * M AN ISCH EW ITZ “ Th e G re a te st N am e in K o s h e r F o o d s !"

Frankfurters, Salami, Bologna TRY OUR

Corned Beef, Pastrami, Tongue ,{u) Supervision and endorsement

OXFORD PROVISION, Inc. 549 E. 12th St. Famous TAAM-TOV Kosher Cheese * American

New York City

Phone: ORegon 4-4490, 3-2770

* Swiss

* Sliced American

* Edam

* Cheddar

* GOUDA

Tel. BElle Harbor 5-9671 -9552 NEptune 4-4244

* Spread

* MUENSTER

W A SH IN G TO N H O TEL

Supervised by: Rabbi Dr. J. Breuer New York City

Catering for All Occasions © Supervised and Endorsed by

Also ask for our SCHMERLING'S Kosher Imported Gruyere Cheese

SCHNALL PRODUCTS COMPANY Brooklyn 25, N.Y.

PResident 2-3615

January - February, 1955

Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations

Open All Year Levine Management — # — 124-05 ROCKAWAY BLVD. ROCKAWAY PARK, N.Y.

61

UNION OF ORTHODOX JEWISH CONGREGATIONS OF AMERICA

Kosher commodities and establishments under official © supervision and en­ dorsement.

KASHRUTH DIRECTORY Issued Shevaty 5715 — February, 1955 LOOK FOR THE (Q ) SEAL - AND BE SURE!

r, ......

,

The © seal is your guarantee of communallyresponsible Kashruth supervision and endorsement, conducted as a public service by the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations .of A frica—UOJC. All items in this Directory are ©, receive the constant inspection of and are passed upon by the Rabbinical Council of America, Rabbinic body of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations.

CONSUMERS ARE CAUTIONED TO: • Make sure that the @ seal is on the label of every food product.

• Make sure that the seal shown on the label is the © *— beware of imitations!

• Read carefully the list of ingredients of each © product to ascertain whether it is a meat or dairy product. The © does not necessarily mean that the product is Pareve.

—

•

—

Please note that the © seal of Kashruth supervision and endorsement is exclusively the symbol of: Union oi Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America 305 Broadway, New York 1. N. Y. BEekman 3-2220

62

Jewish LIFE

UOJC HASHRUTH DIRECTORY All items listed Below bear the (y) seal.

Items listed (y)P are Kosher for Passover when bearing this or other UOJC A Passover Hechsher on label.

Items listed • are Kosher for Passover without Passover ^Hechsher on label. * Indicates new (y) endorsement. ^

Apple Buffer *Musselman ’s ( T he C, H . M u sselm a n Co., B ig le r v ille , P a .)

Apple Sauce *Musselman’s ( T he C. I I . M u sselm a n Go,, B ig le r v ille , P a .)

Heinz — w ith © label only Strained Vegetable» & Salmon Strained Cream of- Tuna Strained V egetables Strained Fruits V ■: Chopped Mixed V egetables Strained Puddings Strained Orange Juice ; Strained Tomato Soup Strained Vegetable Soup Pre-Cooked Cereals (Barley, Oat­ meal, Rice) *Junior Creamed Carrots Juhior Vegetables Junior Fruits Junior V egetable Soups Junior Puddings (H . J . H e in z Co., P itts b u r g h , P a .)

Beech-Nut — w ith © label only Strained V egetables , Strained Fruits - »Strained V egetable Soup Strained Tomato Soup Strained Puddings Strained Fruit Dessert Strained Plums w ith Tapioca ; Cereals Junior Vegetable^ * Junior Fruits Junior Vegetable Soup

January - February, 1955

Junior Banana Dessert Junior Puddings Junior Plums w ith Tapioca Junior Fruit Dessert Junior Chocolate Pudding

. -j

{B e e c h -N u t P a c k in g Co., N ,Y .C .)

Beans Heinz Oven Baked Beans w ith mo­ lasses sauce Heinz Oven Baked Beans in tomato sauce (I I . J . H e in z C o.) , *Freshpak V egetarian Beans in Tomato Sauce ( G r a n d U n ion F o o d P a te r s o n , N .J .)

M a r k e ts , E a s t

Beans & Frankfurters *White Rose ( S e em a n B ro s ., In c., N .Y ., N .Y .)

¿ j B I V l C A K E S , COOKIES CRACKERS © P Barton’s Bonbonniere (B a r to n , In c., B r o o k ly n , N .Y .)

Dromedary Chocolate Nut Roll Date N ut Roll Orange Nut Roll (above contain milk)

/

{T h e H ills B r o th e r s Co., J V .Y .C .)

Golden Cracknel E gg Biscuits (O o ld e n C ra c k n e l & S p e c . ¡Co., D e tr o it)

Ry-Krisp *(R a tsjto n -P u rin a , S t. L o u is, M o.) *Continental Favourities v Viennese Cookies (A B O B a k m g \ Coi, In c f^ k f y ^ m Y . )

63

UOJC KASHRUTH DIRECTORY Heinz Horse Radish 57 Sauce Chili Sauce Hot Dog Belish W orcestershire-Sauce Tomato Ketchup

CAKE MIXES

(H . J . H e in z Co.)

Law ry’s

DromedaryDate Muffin Mix Fudge Frosting Mix (above contain milk) Corn Bread Mix Corn Muffin Mix Cup Cake Mix D evil's Food Mix Fruit Cake Mix Gingerbread Mix White Cake Mix

Seasoned Salt ( L o w r y 's P r o d u c ts In c ., L o s A n g e le s , C a l.)

Mother’s *© P Horse Radish *<©P Bed Horse Badish w ith Beets { M o th e r s F o o d P r o d u c ts , N e w a r k , N .J .)

Pride of the Farm Catsup (H u n t F o o d P r o d ., F u lle r to n , C a l.)

( T he H ills B r o th e r s Co., N .Y .C .)

Golden Mix

Cranberry Sauce

Pancake Flour Mix Waffle Flour Mix ( G o ld en M ix I n c :|j W a r s a w , I n d .)

*© P April Orchards ( M o r r is A p r i l B r o th e r s , B r id g e to n , N .J .)

Dromedary

Camps lfor childrenI Camp Mohaph (G le n S p e y , N .Y . — N .Y . office 4320 B e d f o r d A v e n u e , B r o o k ly n , N * Y .)

(T h e H ills B r o th e r s Co., N .Y .C .)

*© P Eatmor (M o r r is A p r i l B r o th e r s , B r id g e to n , N .J .)

Dessert Topping *Qwip ( A v o s e t Co., S a n F ra n cisc o , C dl.)

© P Barton's Bonbonnière ( B a r to n , In c., B r o o k ly n , N .Y .)

Dietetic Foods © P Mother's Low Calorie Borscht (M o th e r ’s F o o d P r o d u c ts )

*Sugarine Liquid Sweetener

Cereals

(S u g a rin e Co., M t. V ern o n , III.)

Skinner's Raisin-Bran

Raisin W heat

( S k in n e r M fg . Co., O m ah a, N e h .)

Ralston Instant Ralston Regular Ralston ( R a ls to n P u r in a Co., S t. L o u is , M o .)

Condiments, Seasonings © P Gold's Horseradish ( G o ld P u r e F o o d s, B ’k lyn , N .Y .)

64

Dishwashing Machine Detergents •

All (M o n sa n to C h em ical Co., S t. L o u is, M o .)

•

Spic & Span ( P r o c to r & G a m b le )

*Super Suds Blue (C o lg a te -P a lm o liv e G., J e r s e y C ity , N .J .)

Jewish LIFE

UOJC HASH RUTH DIRECTORY All items listed below bear the © seal.

Items listed © P are Kosher for Passover when bearing this or other UOJC A Passover Hechsher on label.

Items listed • are Kosher for Passover without Passover ^Hechsher on label. * Indicates new © endorsement.

■ Dressings

Flavor Improver

Garber's Misrochi Salad Dressing

Ac'cent

(G a r b e r 's E a g le O il C o rp ., B ’k ly n .)

(M fd . b y In te r n a tio n a l M in era ls a n d C h em ical C o.)

Heinz French Dressing ( H . J . H e in z C o.)

Food Packages

Mother's *Mayonnaise *Salad Dressing

® P Care ( N e w Y o r k , N .Y .)

(M o th e r's F o o d P r o d u c ts , N e w a r k , N .J .)

Food Freezer Plan Yitzchok Goldberg & Sons ( N e w Y o r k , N.Y.)

Royal Snack Cream Herring

Matjes Fillets

Spiced Herring Lunch Herring Herring Cocktail Tidbits Salmon (in wine sauce) (8 . A . H a ra m ^ C o ., N .Y .C .)

Mother's Old Fashioned © P Gefilte Fish Sweet & Sour Fish (M o th e r's F o o d P r o d ., N e w a r k , N .J .)

( W e s t g a t e -C a lifo rn ia ■

Tuna S a n D ie g o , C a l.)

P a c k in g

*Golden Angel Gefilte Fish (P u r e P r o d u c ts S a le s C o rp ., B 'k ly n , N . Y . )

Star-Kist *Frozen Fish Sticks *Tuna *Egg Noodles and Tuna Dinner ^Frozen Tuna Pie ( S t a r - K i s t F o o d s, In c., T e rm in a l I s la n d , C a l.)

*® P 1000 Springs Rainbow Trout (S n a k e R i v e r T r o u t Co., • B u h l, Id a h o )

January - February, 1955

Milady’s Blintzes (blueberry, cherry, cheese potato—all are milchig) Waffles ( M ila d y F o o d P r o d ., B 'k ly n , N .Y .)

Breast O'Chicken Tuna '

FROZEN FOODS

Associated *Waffles (A s s o c ia te d F o o d S to r e s C orp., N .Y .C .)

Pure Dairy *Waffles (S e r v ic e F ro z e n F o o d jQ.<orp., B 'k ly n , N .Y .)

Indian Trail *©P Cranberry Orange Relish (C r a n b e r r y G r o w e r s, In c., W isco n sin R a p id s , W ise .)

Fantails *Canapes *Cocktail Frankfurters *Codfish Puffs *Kashe Knjshes *Potatp Kfiishes (C h ase F o k d P r o d u c ts C o rp ., B 'k ly n , N .Y .) ,

65

UOJC KASHRUTH DIRECTORY Frozen Foods IConfd) Home Town *Blintzes *Fishcakes •Pancakes( H o m e T o w n F o o d s, In c., H a r r is , N .Y .)

*© p 1000 Springs Rainbow Trout (S n a k e R i v e r T r o u t Co., B u h l, Id a h o )

(S e e also S c o u rin g P o w d e r s )

© P Brillo Products ( B r illo M fg . Co., B ’k ly n , N .Y .)

Star-Kist

^Bright Sail

•F ish Sticks 1 *Tuna Pie

Cameo Copper Cleaner

( S t a r - K i s t F o o d s, Ine^ T T e r m in a l I s la n d ) IC a l.)

Fruit — I Dried— bulk only @P California Packing Corp.

(S a n F ra n cisc o , C a l.)

Fruits — I Packaged) Dromedary Dates Fruits and Peels Moist Coconut Shredded Coconut (T h e H ills B r o th e r s C o,, N .Y .C .)

Musselman’s *Cherries •Sliced Apples (T h e C. H . M u sselm a n Cq., B ig le r v ille , P a .)

Gelatin Desserts — Vegetable Berish’s Beal Kosher © P Gel Desserts (flavored) UnfLavored V egetable Gelatin (O r th o d o x K o s h e r P r o d u c ts , B r o o k ly n , N . Y . )

Glycerides Emcol MSVK (T h e E m u lso l C o rp ., C h icago, III.)

Glycerine — Synthetic

(A & P F o o d S to r e s , IS .Y .C .)

(C am eo C o rp ., C h icago, III.)

• Fab • Kir km an Detergents 1 *Super Suds Blue

® Vel (C o lg a te -P a lm o liv e C o.?^i J e r s e y { C ity . N .J .)

Felso Roí (F e ls & Co.? P h ila d e lp h ia , P a .)

-Finish SoilaxJU, (E c o n o m ic s L a b o r a to r y In c., S t. P a u l, M in n .)

Glim (B . % B a b b it In c., N e w Y o r k , N .Y .)

My Pal ( P a l P r o d u c ts C o., B r o o k ly n , N .Y .)

® Cheer • Dreft • Oxydol Joy ® Spic & Span • Tide ( P r o c to r & G a m b le, C in cin n a ti, O h io )

*Sail .

(A & P F o o d S to r e s , N .Y .C .)

*Shell Synthetic Glycerine

Sprite

(S h ell C h em ical C o rp ., N .Y .C .)

(S in c la ir M fg ., T o le d o , O h io)

Honey © P Garber’s Misrochi ( G a r b e r E a g le O il C o r p 4 W k ly n N . Y . )

66

® Trend (P u r e x C o rp . L td ., S o u th G a te , C a l.)

*Winko Liquid Detergent (L in e o P r o d . C o rp ., C h icago, III.)

Jewish LIFE

UOJC KASHRUTH DIRECTORY All items listed below bear the © seal.

Items listed © P are Kosher for Passover when bearing this or other UOJC A Passover Hechsher on label.

Items listed @ are Kosher for Passover without Passover ^Hechsher on label. ,, * Indicates new © endorsement.^

ICE CREAM, SHERBET ©P Barton’s Bonbonniere { B a r to n , I n c .)

Costa’s French Ice Cream ( C osia’s I c e C re a m Co., W o o d b r id g e , N .J .)

MARGARINE ±»erisii‘s Beai Kosher (milchig) {O rth o d o x K o sh e r P r o d u c ts )

Crystal Brand (milchig) (L . D a itc h

& Co., N .Y .C .)

*Dilbro (milchig) { D ilb e r t B ro s ., G lendale,, N .Y .)

*Met *Tee-Vee ( M a rch io n y Ic e C re a m Co:,' N .Y .C . d is tr ib u te d b y M e tr o p o lita n F o o d CoQ¡ B r o o k ly n , N .Y .)

Industrial Cleansers Artie Syntex M. Beads (C o lg a te -P a lm o liv e Co., J e r s e y C i ty , N .J .)

Institution X Orvus Extra Granules Orvus Hy-temp Granules Orvus Neutral Granules Cream Suds { P r o c to r & G a m b le, C in c in n a ti O h io)

Mar-Parv (pareve) Miolo (milching—bulk only) * Nu-Maid (milchig) Table-King (milchig) {M ia m i M a r g a rin e Co., C in ca n n a ti, O h io)

i

Mother ’s (milchig) Mother’s Pareve {M o th e r’s F o o d P r o d u c ts , .

*New Yorker (milchig) 1 { R o s ly n D is tr ib u to r s , M id d le V illa g e N .Y .)

Marshmallow Topping Marshmallow Fluff { D u r k e e -M o w e t, I i i s . y ' ^ l *

Jams and Jellies

E a s £ L y n n , ‘MasSi)*i

Berish’s Beal Kosher Pure Fruit Jams Marmalade Marmalade Butter

J'

{O rth o d o x K o s h e r P ro d u ctsfy^ l B ’k lyn , N . Y . )

vl

^

Mayonnaise *Mother ’s {M o th e r’s F o o d P r o d u c ts $ N e w a r k , N .J .)

Heinz Jellies | M H . J . H e in z C o.)

'

© P Barton’s Bonbonniere { B a r to n , I n c .)

MEATS AND PROVISIONS

Juices Heinz Tomato Juice Musselman’s

Yitzchok Goldberg’s1; • Meats © P Corned Beef

*Apple Juice *Tomato-Juice {T h e C . H . M u sselm a n C o.M%h

© P Tongue (7. G o ld b e rg & S on s,

{H . J . H e in z C o.)

B ig le r v ille , P a .)

January-February, 1955

2 2 0 D e ta n c ey S t., N .Y .C .)

67

UOJC KASHRUTH DIRECTORY Meats and Provisions (Cont'd) • Frozen Méats © P Salami © P Frankfurters Pastrami (I. G o ld b e rg & S on s, 220 D e la n e y S t., N .Y .C .)

Peanut Butter Beech-Nut {B e e c h -N u t P a c k in g C o.)

Heinz {H . J . H e in z C o.)

Pie Fillings *Musselman's

Oxford

{T h e C. H . M u sselm an C o., B ig le r v ille , P a .)

*@P Bologna *© P Corned B eef *© P Frankfurters © P Salami © P Tongue

Popcorn *TV Time Popcorn ( B & B E n te r p r is e s , In c., C h icago, III.)

{O x fo r d P r o v is io n s , In c., 549 E . 12th S t., N .Y .C .)

Meat Tenderizer Adolph's {A d o lp h ’s F o o d P ro d u c e s, B u r b a n k , C a l.)

POTATO CHIPS

*So-Ten (S o -T e n Co., M e m p h is, T en n .)

Mustard

Gordon's *Potato Chips *Potato Sticks *Tater Sticks

Heinz Brown Mustard Yellow Mustard

{G o rd o n F o o d s, In c., A tla n ta , G a .)

{H . J . H e in z C o .)

Kobey's

Noodles & Macaroni Products

^Potato Chips ^Shoestring Potatoes.

*Buitoni Macaroni Products { B u ito n i F o o d s C o rp ., So. H a c k e n s a c k , N .J .)

{ T a s ty F o o d s In c., D e n v e r , C o l.)

*Monarch Shoestring Potatoes

Heinz Macaroni Creole

{ R e id M u rd o c k , D iv . o f C o n s o lid a te d F o o d s, C h icago, III.)

(H . J . H e i n z C o.)

*Pennsylvania Dutch Egg Noodles

Sunglo *Potato Chips ^Shoestring Potatoes

{M eg s M a c a ro n i Co., H a r r is b u r g , P a .)

Skinner's Egg Noodles Macaroni

Spaghetti Vermicelli

{ T a s t y F o o d s In c., D e n v e r , p o l .)

{S k in n e r M fg . Co., O m ah a, N e b .)

*Warner’s Potato Chips { E a s t C o a st F o o d C o rp ., R iv e r h e a d , N .Y .)

Oil © P Garber's Misrochi { G a r b e r E a g le O il C o rp .)

Poultry — Frozen

Mazola

•

{C o rn P r o d u c ts R e fin in g C o rp ., N .Y .C .)

© P Nutola { N u to la F a t P r o d u c ts C o.)

68

Yitzchok Goldberg & Sons { N e w Y o r k , N .Y .)

•

Menorah Farms {M en o ra h P r o d u c ts , In c., B o sto n , M a ss.)

Jewish LIFE

UOJC KASHRUTH DIRECTORY All items listed below bear the @ seal.

Items listed © P are Kosher for Passover when bearing this or other UOJCA Passover Hechsher on label.

Items listed • are Kosher for Passover without Passover * Indicates new Hechsher on label. © endorsement.

Prepared Salads Royal Snack Beet Salad; Cole Slaw, Cucumber Salad, Garden Salad, Potato Salad {8 . A . H a m m Co., N .Y .C .)

Mother’s *Cucumber Salad *Potato Salad {M o th e r 's F o o d P r o d u c ts )

Heinz *Vegetable Salad {H . J . H e in z C o.)

Pudding ©P

Berish’s Real Kosher Chocolate Pudding

Mother’s Pickles © P Chorkins f e p Sweet Red Peppers ' © P Pimentoes |0)P Pickled Tomatoes S^ueskraut Deluxe © P Pickled Country Cabbage *Dicod Sweet Pepper Relish • C o r n Relish *Sweet Pickled Watermelon Rind *Sweet Diced Mustard Pickle ^ C ren ad in e Melon Balls *Mint Melon Balls *Kosher New Spears C a lifo rn ia Pimentoes *Hot Cherry Peppers {M o th er's F o o d P r o d u c ts , N e w a r k , N .J .)

( O rth o d o x K o s h e r P r o d u c ts )

Rice

Carolina Beauty

Heinz Spanish Rice

Pickles

(H . J . H e in z C o.)

{M o u n t O live P ic k le Co., M t. O live, N .O .)

Silver Lane Pickles

RELISHES PICKLES, ETC.

Sauerkraut

{ S ilv e r L a n e P ic k le Co., E a s t H a r t f o r d , C on n .)

Resorts Heinz

© P Pine View Hotel {F a llsb u r g , N .Y .)

Pickles ( H . J . H e in z C o.)

*Dill Gherkins *Dill Sandwich Chips India Relish Hot Dog Relish Pickled Onions Sweet Relish *Sweet Cucumber Disks * Sweet Cucumber Sticks Cocktail Sauce Southern Style Relish' Hamburger Relish {H . J . H e in z C o .)

Dolly Madison Pickles (I I . W . M a d iso n C o., C lev ela n d , O .)

January - February, 1955

© P Washington Hotel {R o c k a w a y P a r k , N .Y .)

Salt •

Mogen David Kosher Salt {C a r e y S a lt Co., H u tch in so n , K a n s a s )

© Morton Coarse Kosher SaHN'*; © Morton Fine Table Salt*^ • Morton Iodized Salt {M o rto n S a lt Co., C h icago, III.)

© Red Cross Fine Table Salt • Sterling Fine Table Salt © Sterling Kosher Coarse Salt {I n te r n a tio n a l S a lt Co., S c ra n to n , P a .)

69

UOJC KASHRUTH DIRECTORY Sandwiches — Prepared

© P Nut-Ola Vegetable Shortening

*Kosher Snak

(N u t- O la F a t P r o d ., B r o o k ly n , N .Y .)

( K o s h e r S n a k D is tr ib u to r s , B ’k lyn , N . Y . )

Sauces

Silver Cleaner •

*Heinz Savory Sauce ( H . J . H e in z C o .)

Instant Liquid Dip ( L e w a ll I n d u s tr ie s , N .Y .C .)

*©P Lamco Silver Polish (L a m c o C h em ical C o., In c., B o sto n , M a ss.)

SCOURING POWDER

Soap © P Nutola Kosher Soap ( N u to la F a t P r o d u c ts )

( S ee a lso H o u se h o ld C lea n se rs)

•

Bab-o

*Bleach Bab-0 •

B abbitt Cleanser (B . T . B a b b it C o ^ N iY .J S T .Y .)

Cameo Cleanser ( C am eo C o rp .)

® A jax Ben Hur (bulk only) • Kirkman Cleanser • New Octagon Cleanser ( C o lg a te -P a lm o liv e Co., J e r s e y C ity , N . J .)

•

Garber’s Misrochi Cleanser ( G a r b e r E a g le O il C o., N e w Y o r k )

Kitchen Klenzer ( F itz p a tr ic k B r o s ., C h ica g o , III.)

•

Old Dutch Cleanser (C u d a h y P a c k in g C o., O m aha, N e b .)

• •

Lustro Polishing Powder May Pal Palco Polish Powder Pal-Lo ( P a l P r o lu c ts Co., B r o o k ly n , N .Y .)

Shortening National Margarine Shortening ( N a tio n a l Y e a s t C o rp ., B e lle v ille , N .J .— B u lk o n ly )

Delmar Margarine Shortening (D e lm a r P r o d u c ts C o rp ., C in n ., O. — B u lk o n ly )

© P Garber’s Misrochi Pareve Fat (G a r b e r E a g le O il C o.)

70

@ P Brillo Kosher Soap ( B r illo M fg ., C o., B ’k lyn , N .Y .)

Soups Golden Angel *Borseht *Schav (P u r e P r o d u c ts S a le s C o rp ., B ’k lyn , N .Y .)

'

Gold’s © P Borscht Schav Russel (G o ld P u r e F o o d P r o d ., .

B ’k lyn , N .Y .)

Heinz Cream of Mushroom Celery Cream of Green Vegetable Cream of Tomato Condensed Cream of Mushroom Condensed Cream of Green Pea Condensed Gumbo Creole Condensed Cream of Tomato Condensed V egetarian Vegetable (H . J . H e in z C o.)

Mother’s © P Borscht Cream Style Borscht Cream Style Schav Mushroom and Barley (M o th e r’s F o o d P r o d u c ts ) N e w a r k , N .J .)

Jewish LIFE

■ Soup

UOJC KASHRUTH DIRECTORY All items listed below bear the (y) seal.

Items listed © P are Kosher for Passover when bearing this or other UOJC A Passover Heehsher oh label.

Items listed ® are Kosher for Passover without Passover ^Heehsher on label. * Indicates new (g) endorsement

Mix

M. Wolozin & Co.

Joyce Egg Noodle Soup Mix

(36 E ld r id g e S t., N .Y .C .)

( J o y c e F o o d P r o d u c ts > P a te r s o n , N .J .)

Zion Talis Manufacturing Co., Inc.

Nutola Chicken Noodle Soup Mix Noodle Soup Mix (N u to la F a t P r o d u c ts C o.)

(48 E ld r id g e S t., N .Y .C .)

Vegetables Dromedary Pimientos (T h e B i l l s B r o th e r s Co., N .Y .C .)

Vegetables — Dehydrated © P Basic Vegetable Prod.

with ©

label only (S a n F ra n cisc o , C a l.)

© P Gentry, Inc. — w ith © label only © P Garber's Misrochi ( G a r b e r’s E a g le O il C o.) ® P Gentry Paprika ( G e n tr y , In c., L o s A n g e le s , C a l.)

Sugar © P Flo-Sweet Liquid Sugar @P Hudson Valley Refined Granulated

Sugar

( R e fin ed B y ru g s & S u g a rs , In c., Y o n k e rs, N . Y .)

*Sugarine Liquid Sweetener ( S u g a rin e Co., M t. V e rn o n , III.)

Syrup © P Berish’s Real Kosher Chocolate Syrup True Fruit Syrups Im itation Fruit Syrups

(L o s A n g e le s , C a l.)

Vinegar © P Garber's Misrochi (G a r b e r E a g le O il C o .)

Heinz Cider Malt Salad Vinegar Tarragon White Rex Amber (H . J . H e in z C o.)

*Musselman's Cider Vinegar (T h e C * I I . M u sselm a n Co., B ig le r m lle , P a .)

Vitamins — Bulk Coilett-Week-Nibecker Co. (O ssin in g , N .Y .)

( O rth o d o x K o s h e r P r o d u c ts )

© P Barton's Bonbonniere ( B a r to n , I n c .)

Tzitzith W OOLEN

M. Wolozin & Co. RAYO N , FOR RAYO N T A L E Y T H IM

Leon Vogel (66 A lle n S t., N .Y .C .)

January - February, 1955

Vitamin Tablets Kobee Kovite Vitalets (F r e e d a A g a r P r o d ., N .Y .C .)

Wine @P Hersh's Kosher Wines (H u n g a r ia n G r a p e P r o d u c ts , In c., N .Y .)

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TWO MONUMENTAL WORKS REPRINTED MAIMONIDES' GUIDE OF THE PERPLEXED A full unabridged edition containing all the Hebrew and English notes and com­ mentaries by M. FRIEDLANDER. Reprinted from the famous and scare 3 volume edition. Published in London in 1881.

Three volumes in One Biblepaper, 1,056 Pages.

Cloth binding $7.50 MAIMONIDES' MISHNEH TORAH Hebrew Only Edited from Rare Manuscripts and Early Texts, Vocalized, Annotated and Provided with an Introduction

by P H IL IP B IR N B A U M

Price: $5.00 HEBREW PUBLISHING COMPANY 79 Delancey St. New York, N.Y.

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Hotel Diplomat Kosher Kitchen is under the supervision of Rabbi Abraham Retchlin •

Hotel Diplomat can accommodate from 50 to 1,000 people.

•

J. Edward Saltzman, owner and caterer !;■=

108 West 43rd St, New York Telephone BRyant 9-2387 - 8 - 9

Jewish LIFE

VEL makes dishes shine without washing or wiping!

Vel soaks dishes clean. Don’t wash, just soak; don’t wipe, just rinse. And the hand test proves there’s no “Detergent Burn” to hands with VEL. It’s marVELous!

AJAX Cleanser with “ Foaming Action” Foams as it cleans all types of tile, porcelain surfaces, pots and pans. . . up to twice as easy, twice as fast! Floats dirt and grease right down the drain!

FAB washes clothes whiter without a bleach Whiter than any other product with a bleach in the wash water. Saves work, saves hands. Washable colors look brighter, too. Also wonderful for dishes.

A L L O F T H E S E F IN E P R O D U C T S B E A R T H E S E A L O F A P P R O V A L O F T H E U N IO N O F O R T H O D O X J E W IS H C O N G R E G A T I O N S O F A M E R I C A

C O L G A T E -P A L M O L IV E

©

COM PANY

ÉÉgi

'¡r/é# # *

The© seal of approval of THE UNION OF ORTHODOX JEWISH CONGREGATIONS OF AMERICA is on the label.

H E IN Z VEGETARIAN BEANS w