Jewish Life April 1961

A G IN G W IT H A F U T U R E • S H E T O T A L S Y N A G O G U E ¡ f ï ï E U .N . S U R V E Y O N A N T IS E M IT IS M

A P R IL , 1 9 6 1

This is no 20 plane

by Harry Golden 1 As you fasten your seat belt on El Al’s ¡is as old as itself, and as modern. El Al’s Britannia, the pilot makes his opening (Service at Idlewild, London, Paris, and announcement in the Hebraic accents of Tel Aviv is quick, personal, and punctual. a Biblical prophet. Immediately, he transr It is an important link between America, lates this into precise Oxford English. Europe and the Middle East and you are But by this time the versatility of the El treated importantly flying on it.

A'l crew does not surprise you. I found El A1 is a cosmopolitan airline. I flew out shortly after we took off from Idle-i it. I know. Nor is this merely a matter of wild that the trim, efficient, quite pretty personal pride. Half the passengers who Sabra stewardess had been a sergeant iii cross the Atlantic on the Britannia, fly the Israeli Army. Later, when I was in­ only to London or Paris. And the atmos­ vited forward to meet captain and crevK phere on El A1 is closer to $10 cham­ I learned they had been trained by one pf pagne than to 2c plain. In fact, if you the world’s great pilots, Flight Superin­ order “for 2c plain” you will have to pour tendent Tom Jones. it from a Schweppes bottle.

None of this is surprising really, be­ Nothing gives you as much a sense of cause most of Israel’s history is inextric­ belonging to the twentieth century as fly­ ably involved with the age of flight. ing. And no flying is as easy and as thor­ Israel is the only country whose airline oughly enjoyable as an El A1 flight.

Vol. XXVIII, No. 4/April, 1961/Nisan, 5721

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EDITORIALS AN ERA ENDS; AN ERA BEGINS ....................

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GOVERNMENT AID TO RELIGIOUS SCHOOLS . . ..

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ARTICLES

Saul B ernstein , Editor

ON SAYING IT IN GATH/lsrael I. Taslitt ...........

M. M orton R ubenstein R euben E. G ross Rabbi S. J. Sharfman Libby K laperman Editorial Associates

PESACH IN JEWISH ART/Cecll R o t h ................. 13 AGING WITH A FUTURE/Wllliam P o s n e r ........... 17 OF JEWISH PROFESSORS AND HUMAN RESPONSES/ Arnold Schley .......................................... 27

T hea O dem , Editorial Assistant JEWISH LIFE is published bi­ monthly. Subscription two years $4.00, three years $5.50, four years $7.00, Supporter $10.00, Patron $25.00.

Editorial and Publication Office: 84 Fifth Avenue N ew York 11, N . Y. ALgonquin 5-4100

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THE UNITED NATIONS SURVEY ON ANTISEMITISM: PROLOGUE OR EPILOGUE/lsaac L e w in ........... 31 THE TOTAL SYNAGOGUE/Nachum L. Rabinovitch .. 38 ^

SCHOOLS AND CHILDREN OF ISRAEL/,, Saul Slge lsch iffe r.....................................

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REVIEWS JERUSALEM UNDER SIEGE/I. Halevy-Levin ........ 54

Published by U n io n of O rthodox Jewish Congregation of A merica M oses I. Feuerstein President Benjamin Koenigsberg, Nathan K. Gross, Samuel L. Brennglass, M. Morton Rubenstein, Harold M. Jacobs, Vice Presidents; Edward A. Teplow, Treasurer; Herbert Berman, Secretary; Harold H . Boxer, Financial Secretary.

Dr. Samson R. Weiss Executive Vice President

A NEW HEBREW-ENGLISH EDITION OF THE TALMUD/Samson R. W e i s s ...............

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JEWS IN ENGLISH FICTION/Ward Moore .........

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THE RELIGIOUS FOUNDATIONS OF INTERNATIONALISM/Manuel Laderman .........

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

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BETWEEN THE PAGES .............

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ON THE JEWISH RECORD ..........

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Drawings by Ahron Gelles

Second Class postage paid at N ew York, N . Y .

APRIL, 1961

Copyright © 1961 by Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America

WILLIAM POSNER, a graduate of the City College of New York and the University of Pennsylvania School of Social Work, has worked for twenty-five years in the fields of child care, family service, and services for the aged. He is executive director of the Jewish Community Services of Long Island and has written and lectured extensively on aspects of social work.

Mr. Posner served as consultant to the Section on Social Serv­ ices of the recent White House Conference on Aging.

ARNOLD SCHLEY is the pseudonym of a member of a col­ lege faculty. He has contributed articles under his own name to the “Journal of Modern History,” the “Historian,” and “Jewish Horizon.”

among our contributors

ISRAEL I. TASLITT is vice president of the Union of Ortho­ dox Jewish Congregations of America for the Great Lakes Region. He writes regularly for the Cleveland “Jewish Review and Observer,” and heads a firm engaged in publishing educa­ tion material for Jewish schools. Mr. Taslitt is the author of “At the Walls of Jericho,” a book for teenagers, published re­ cently by Bloch.

CECIL ROTH, eminent Jewish historian, is the author of such outstanding works as “The Jews of Venice,” “A History of the Marranos,” and “A Short History of the Jewish People.”

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

DR. SAUL SIGELSCHIFFER is the principal of Herman Ridder Junior High School 98, The Bronx, and professor of edu­ cation at Yeshiva University. He has recently returned from an eight-month visit to Israel, where he spent considerable time observing the schools and juvenile courts of that country.

RABBI NACHUM L. RABINOVITCH is the rabbi of Brith Sholom Beth Israel Congregation, Charleston, South Carolina.

A graduate of Baltimore’s Ner Israel Rabbinical College, Rabbi Rabinovitch is co-editor of Hadorom, the Hebrew scholarly journal published by the Rabbinical Council of America.

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An Era Ends; An Era Begins HE painful decline of David Ben-Gurion as political leader of the state of Israel marks the end of an era. In its outward manifestations, this climacteric has been unedifying. A statesman of historic stature has gone through a process of shrinkage, at the close of which he is reduced to the proportions of a per­ plexed politician. The party he has headed has lost its elan as a force for the translation of an ideology into a program of life, and remains a quarreling complex of vested interests. The Zionist movement in whose program he played so focal a role, and which he then disowned, is devoid of real objective and flounders pathetically in search of a reason for continued existence. And the state whose birth he guided and which he has headed, except for a brief interval, ever since, stands hesitant and confused, its ideal and sense of direction all but stifled under the chaos of competing egos and interests.

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Down to Is the epic calibre of Israeli life—and, through its worldMediocrity? wide reverberations, that of Jewish life everywhere—largely spent? Can Israel rise to the full grandeur of its moral potential?

Will the state of Israel find its level, after all, as “just another Levantine state”? And are the aspirations of the house of Israel, iterated through the generations, through the centuries, through the ages-—are these to be halted on the road to realization?

The facts of the moment do not encourage a challenging response to these questions. But it is well to remember that Jewish life has never been restricted to the facts of the moment.

Greater realities than those of immediacy have again and again proved decisive in Jewish affairs. Our history, from Yetziath Mitzrayim to the birth in our own time of the state of Israel, demonstrates that the purpose in Jewish life rises upward, insuppressible, from the physical format in which it is embedded.

N THE perspective of this thought, we may remain confident in the role of the state of Israel. It would be well, though, for

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Israel’s people and particularly for those in positions of leader­ ship to face squarely the fact that the era now concluded has ended in a spiritual morass for which no degree of practical achievement can lastingly compensate. The imposition of secular­ ist ideologies on Israel’s social and political life made this situa­ tion inevitable. These foreign dogmas provide no nurture for Jews, M om ent for the Jewish state. Because Judaism and secularism are opfor posites, it was a contradiction in terms to embrace the two in Re-direction a single state. The contradiction has taken a heavy toll; under the best of circumstances it will leave a harsh imprint on the Israeli mind for long to come. But this is the moment for Israel to re-direct its path. During its first thirteen years, the socially dominant forces of Israel remained locked in a spiritual and intellectual Golah. They were like the fabled prisoner who, given freedom after a lifetime behind bars, scurried back in terror to the familiar security of his cell. Now comes the moment when freedom as a reality is finally to be faced—the freedom to be, not a similitude of the prison warden, but one’s own Jewish self.

Since the days of Pinsker and Herzl, Jewish minds and ener­ gies have been dominated by the goal of building a “state of Jews.” That historic goal has been achieved—but with all the glory and miracle of the achievement, it is plain to all that the need of the Jew—and of mankind—is not for a Judenstaat but for a Jewish State—the Commonwealth of the people of the Torah. Let this now be the direction of Jewish aspiration, so that Medinath Israel rise strengthened with Jewish purpose, bringing blessings to its people, to Jews abroad, and to all the families of mankind.

Government Aid to Religious Schools HE QUESTION of including schools of religious denomina­ tions as beneficiaries of the Federal aid-to-education bill has become a central issue in American political life. The debate marks a new stage in the evolution of American society, as well as in the approach to public education. Also, and not least signifi­ cant it marks a new stage in the emergence of the Roman Catholic Church as a factor in American political life.

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What is the Jewish position on this issue? According to a wide array of leading Jewish organizations, American Jews at large are opposed to inclusion of religious schools in the bill’s provisions. There is little doubt that the organizations do in fact reflect a large body—if no longer a preponderance—of Jewish opinion. Almost instinctively, as well as by reasoned conviction, many Jews not only share President Kennedy’s expressed view 4

JEWISH LIFE

A ppre- that inclusion of religious schools is unconstitutional but deeply hensions fear that it would violate the very foundations of American life.

The apprehension is shared by countless non-Jewish Americans of every creed and persuasion.

In view of the clear indication that the great majority of Americans oppose the inclusion of religious schools in the Fed­ eral aid-to-education bill, it is striking testimony to the political power of the Roman Catholic Church that this phase of the bill is being so hard-fought. Even should the bill be passed minus the religious provision in the present session of Congress, the asser­ tion of Catholic power will leave a lasting impress on the Ameri­ can political configuration.

The implications of this situation are manifold, For us Jews, there are some special implications.

E MUST be aware that every step towards the further ad­ vancement of Catholic power on the American scene spurs action by Protestant forces to consolidate their own strength and to cling the more determinedly to their priority position in American society. The schools are a pivotal battleground for Protestant-Catholic rivalry. The more potent becomes the Roman Catholic educational system, the more persistently to the Protes­ tants strengthen their hold on the public schools. Under any circumstances, Protestantism tends to view the public school as Protestant the area in which the country’s children can be at least favorably Domain conditioned towards its premises and tenets. With the prospect of government subsidv of parochial schools constantly looming closer, this tendency becomes ever sharper. Be it noted that the Roman Catholics rarely oppose the Protestant “parochialization” of public schools; the more patent becomes the sectarianization of the public schools, the better becomes their own case.

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W hat A bout Jewish Children?

APRIL, 1961

Putting aside the broader questions, what is the effect of the situation on Jewish children? In hard fact, most are offered no alternative but attendance at publicly supported Protestant-geared schools; only a minority, at present, have the opportunity to attend privately supported Jewish day schools. Let us abandon all naivete on the question: American Jewish civil libertarian organizations may huff and puff but they are not going to make a dent in the real Protestant stand— because Protestantism is battling for its very existence. Leaving aside, as We said, the constitutional question and the question of struggle for social and political power, facing for the moment only the question: what is to happen to our Jewish children?—we must reckon with the fact that the Christian communities, tightening their grip on their respective schools systems, will inevitably fasten on to the minds 5

of those of our children who attend these schools. Whatever the outcome of the Congressional battle, it is imperative that all Jew­ ish children—not just the “leadership material,” not just the “cadres,” but all or at least a great majority of them—find their way to Jewish schools. And the schools must be built to find their way to the children.

NDER the impact of these considerations, an increasing num­ ber of Jews have been moving away from long-entrenched attitudes on the question of government aid to religiously affili­ ated schools. It is not that these favor such aid as a positive principle, but rather that they see basic changes in the American pattern of life which have rendered the former position factually untenable. They would by all means prefer no governmental sup­ port of any religiously oriented schools; they too are apprehensive of church-state ties; but confronted with the fact of Protestant domination of the public schools, they are forced to the position: either eliminate such sectarian dominance or treat all schools, and all religions, alike.

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The principle of separation of Church and State, dear to all Americans, is especially cherished by Jews, for self-evident reasons. Even among those who have arrived at a position of dissent from the majority view, many are not yet prepared to publicly espouse the inclusion of religious schools in the Federal aid bill. Yet it is clearly the course of wisdom for American Jewry to devote its fullest resources to the strengthening of the Strengthen Jewish day schools which have so providentially been established Jewish within the past fifteen years and to the creation of many more.

Schools Whether or not Congress votes for aid to religious schools, and even if the legal fiction of non-denominational public schools be miraculously transformed into fact, the development of the day schools must have first priority henceforth on the American Jewish agenda.

JEWISH LIFE

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On Saying It In Gath

By ISRAEL I. TASLITT

Under the im pact of modern social forces, the “senior of Jew ish values.

r r i HE CONCEPTS of censorship X and their implications have always agitated the thinking of free society.

As a favorite weapon of the tyrant in the suppression of word and thought, censorship invariably implies the stig­ ma of regimentation. On the other hand, its use has been advocated as an arbitrator in human relationships, seeking to fashion a balance between the right of the individual to self-ex­ pression and the right of society to protect itself from abuse of the privi­ lege.

In some areas this exercise of re­ striction and limitation is taken for granted. Where, for instance, matters of national security are involved, none would even label as censorship the pre­ vention of information leakage through unguarded speech or unauthorized writing. We therefore tend to exclude from the censorable that material which can be definitely classified as to whether or not its disclosure is in the public interest. By the same token we agree that measures must be taken to prevent such infraction of national security, and we do not question the APRIL, 1961

punitive regulations set forth as part of these measures.

However, when we come to areas involving moral and ethical considera­ tions, such as the dissemination of questionable material in the form of books, periodicals, and films, the mat­ ter becomes far more complex. Here we have neither the clear-cut category nor the unanimity of opinion with re­ gard to deleterious effect. Furthermore, functioning in these areas, in addition to governmental authorities on various levels, are religious organizations, civic bodies, and private groups. Each of these amici curiae may not only be interested in diverse facets of the prob­ lem but m ay ,also represent differing interpretations as to esesnce and de­ gree.

Jewish agencies functioning in the area of community relations have gen­ erally been opposed to any set pattern of censorship, regardless of the par­ ticular objective of its operation, on the grounds that, once the principle is accepted and the machinery for its operation implemented, its use may be directed at some future time against 7

minority groups and as a wedge for further assaults on the battlements of democracy.

N COMPARING this policy to the viewpoint of traditional Judaism it must be borne in mind that basic differences exist between the concepts of modern libertarian society and the way of life envisioned by the Torah.

The central theme of variance is in the approach to “church and state.”

Western civilization regards the separa­ tion of the two as indispensable to democracy. Judaism looks at civil and religious law as being one and the same entity, molded in the Torah and developed through centuries of study and legislation. The so-called religious or moral laws carry as much weight as those which fall into the civil category.

We read in Devorim: “If thou shalt hear it of one of thy cities . . . that certain men, wicked persons . . . have enticed the inhabitants of their city, say­ ing: Let us go and serve other gods, which ye have not known. Then shalt thou inquire and make search and ask diligently; and behold, if it is so in truth, and the matter is es­ tablished that such abomination is wrought among you, then thou shouldst smite the inhabitants of that city.”

Here, then, we have the first cardinal point of differences, namely, that re­ ligious belief in Judaism is a consider­ ation of national security, and the acceptance of other divine authority is therefore tantamount to treason.

However, the same stern measures are set forth and prescribed as well in matters of human relationships, such as the false witness and the rebellious son. Throughout this legislation runs the consistent theme of uviarta hora

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mikirbecha— “thou shalt eradicate the evil from within thy midst.”

This leads us to the next point: the rationalization of what is good and what is bad, since much of the argu­ ment for and against censorship stresses the factor of degree. On the other hand, Torah Judaism is com­ mitted to an evaluation based on prin­ ciple—and principle is not given to fragmentation.

HEN Adam and his mate were placed in the Garden of Eden they were given permission to enjoy the fruit of any tree save the Tree of Knowledge, with the warning that, once they had tasted of the fruit of this tree, their carefree mode of living would be no more, to be supplanted by the drive of the human intellect and its soaring into space.

The Tree of Knowledge was the symbol of this intellectual capacity. He who ate of its fruit, said the snake, would be endowed with the ability to know good and bad, tov vora. Since animals also possess similar ability, through instinct, we must conclude that the human area of discernment lies in areas other than physical and, furthermore, that this discernment will operate where one and the same ele­ ment can be either good or bad, all in accordance with the use to which it may be put. The Torah already has set forth what is good. Our moral dis­ cipline and positive use of intellect bids us to accept the guidance of the Torah and its formulae of civilization: “I call on heaven and earth to be witness this day against you, having set forth before you life and death, blessing and curse; therefore choose life, that both you and your seed may live.”

Coincident with the theme of this article, and being aware that in the

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discussion today of censorship and the censorable the area of sex occupies a place of prominence, it is interesting to note that this area was the very first one where Adam and Eve exer­ cised the power of discernment which eating of the fruit of knowledge had given them. Prior to that decisive moment “they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.?; Later, however, i f the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked.”

This is a most significant point, for in no other area of human experience is the line between Torah civilization and other criteria of human progress so sharply drawn.

Since the Torah recognizes the weakness of the individual as well as his powers of discernment, our Sages were careful to protect man from him­ self by a certain measure of high-level censorship. Works which they con­ sidered as not being in consonance with accepted religious teachings, such as Sefer Harjuoth (Book of Medica­ tions) were relegated to genizah, sup­ pression through concealment. The writings of the Sadducees and other sectaries of the period were classified as “not to be saved from a conflagra­ tion.” Foreign philosophers were not to be studied before full maturity had been reached. Later, following the in­ vention of printing, it was necessary for the Jewish author to obtain the approval (haskomah) of religious and lay readers in his community; other­ wise his work would not receive gen­ eral acceptance. All this came under the heading of assu s’yag la’torah, “set up a protective fence about the Torah.”

HILE the Jewish community constantly strove to free itself of internal apikorsuth and did not

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hesitate to use stringent measures against all heresy, its institutions were under attack by the forces of censor­ ship from without. The chief target was the Talmud, alleged by church and state authorities to be the recep­ tacle of derogatory and defamatory re­ marks about Christianity. The first mass burnings of the Talmud took place early in the fourteenth century.

Two hundred years later prayer books of all kinds were added to the pyre.

Rare indeed were the years, up to comparatively modern times, when this phase of censorship was not snapping at the heels of the Jewish communi­ ties of Europe. Exceptions were to be found in the reign of Josef II in Vienna, and under Sigismund II in Poland, when the Synod of Four Coun­ tries ( Vaad Arba Aratzoth) had the power to administer the internal af­ fairs, among them also publishing, of the community. The Synod, in turn, took care to delete passages which could in any way be considered ob­ jectionable to the authorities.

Elsewhere, permission was eventu­ ally obtained, through the liberal use of money, to reprint the Talmud. But the results were far from satisfactory.

Along with other religious books and writings, the Talmud had to be sub­ jected to censorship by Christian scholars and by apostates. These cen­ sors were not always blessed with erudition, and their errors in grammar and vocabulary, while often amusing, served as a reminder to the Jew that he was indeed in goluth.

The rise of Zionism gave the censors a new target, especially in Czarist Russia. Although Hebrew periodicals were permitted to appear, any men­ tion of official Zionist groups, such as the Chovevei Zion; drew sentences of fine and imprisonment. The same re9

striction was placed on the mention by name of any city in connection with a pogrom that had taken place there.

A DMITTEDLY these experiences do not form the fabric of Ameri­ can society and may therefore be con­ sidered as having no bearing on its attitudes, or even specifically Jewish attitudes, toward censorship. Indirect­ ly, however, they point to the histori­ cally proven fact that attacks on the Jew are not necessarily preceded by, or tied in with, assaults on the rights of other minorities or on the privileges of democracy in general. Sentiment with regard to the Jew tends to operate in an atmosphere all its own, more intense in one geographic area, less intense in another. And while the Jew must always strive for equality before the law as his right and privilege, he must also understand that his station jm d fate depend to a large degree on factors outside its scope.

For this reason it is important that we consider, along with the meaning of censorship insofar as all the vari­ eties of freedom are concerned, what it is that we want to liberate from the scrutiny of censorship. We must de­ termine whether, in truth, the elements which we seek to liberate are not the very same that would create the atmos­ phere so permeated with danger to the security of the Jew. By giving these elements, in the name of democracy, the latitude in which to function we may well be creating a threat to our­ selves. Censorship must be based on objectivity and, to be sure, on common sense.

AST January the United States Supreme Court ruled that city and state censors had the right to view a film before permitting it to be shown

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in theatres. The issue arose when a Chicago importer of foreign films re­ fused to submit them to the city au­ thorities for examination. In the 5-4 decision the dissenting judges, among them Chief Justice Earl Warren, main­ tained that prior censorship infringed constitutional guarantees of free speech, and that it came “perilously close to holding that not only may motion pictures be censored but that a licensing scheme may also be ap­ plied to newspapers, books and peri­ odicals, radio, television, public speeches, and every other medium of expression.”

This dissenting opinion was subse­ quently cited by the Appelate Division of the New York State Supreme Court in ruling that New York City authori­ ties should grant a permit to George L. Rockwell, leader of the American Nazi Party, to make a public speech in the city. Contemplated incitement to violence, the basis on which the city authorities had withheld the permit, was in the opinion of the court punish­ able only after the fact.

This reasoning is not easily digested.

Police authorities would regard with a jaundiced eye the issuing of a permit to carry firearms to a lawbreaker with a record of shooting with intent to kill, even though the applicant might not be at that moment under any indict­ ment. Rockwell has demonstrated in the past that his aim is to overthrow principles guaranteed by the Consti­ tution. He has abused privileges granted by the same Constitution for the furtherance of civilization and “the American way of life.” The contention of the court appears to have no more logic than the assumption that Rock­ well’s speech, to be made in the near future at this writing, will dwell on sweetness and light instead of on the JEWISH LIFE

promotion of the Nazi program in America.

Similarly, the action of the Chicago authorities was based on past experi­ ence with certain films. Under the guise of art, realism, and what have you, many of those films are based on the proven axiom that the exploitation of human weaknesses is more lucra­ tive than the serving of human needs. Their producers depend on the fact that we Americans are more concerned with the interpretation of principles than with the principles themselves, and that as long as some­ thing is left to the imagination the rest is beyond reproach. Like the devil spouting scripture, they point to the Song of Songs as the hechsher. Even spokesmen for some Jewish non-religi­ ous organizations have used this argu­ ment, stressing that the Bible itself indicates the use of frankness, candor, open-mindedness, and maturity in deal­ ing with the topic. Furthermore, our entire philosophy calls for a full pres­ entation of those matters which deal with human interrelationships.

HERE may be some substance to this claim. The study of sex, or more correctly the role of sex as a sociological factor, engages a consider­ able portion of Jewish jurisprudence, for the same reason that it was the first conscious reaction of Adam and Eve at the parting of the ways in the Garden of Eden. But the control of this factor was not left to moralizing; it was placed in the category of law.

From this standpoint boys in the yeshivoth knew “all about sex” long before they attained physical maturity.

Being familiar with the subject on the judicial level they were immune to its suggestive and seductive mysterious­ ness. It is a well-known fact that ven-

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dors of pornography do not get rich from hanging around Talmud Torah playgrounds.

In the general discussion of sex and censorship, on the other hand, much is made, not of the principle, but of the relativity of the matter. A 600-page novel replete with nibbul peh (ob­ scenity) ostensibly does not damage because its readers are bound to be mature of intellect (that this novel is “great literature” goes without saying).

As far as the “girlie” magazines are concerned, how do you really classify them? After all, only so much is re­ vealed, and then who reads the stuff anyway, etc. Of course, while we can­ not answer all this with precise statist tical truth, we do know that over half a billion dollars a year is a sum that indicates a substantial readership.

To paraphrase these questions we might bring up similar klotz hashes: How much physical effort must be ex­ pended on labor forbidden on the Sabbath in order for it to constitute a desecration of the Day of Rest? Or, how many mouthfuls of t’refah may a person eat before he becomes a transgressor of the dietary laws? r r i HE sum and substance of the differehce between the Jewish and the general approach to censorship is this: Others are concerned with de­ gree, opinion, assumption, and pro­ cedure. Many of these treat the subject with intelligence; few treat it from the veiwpoint of moral principle, perhaps because there is no feeling of com­ petence to judge what is right and what is wrong as the absolute incon­ trovertible elements of civilization.

Traditional Judaism has no such problem. The body of law which is its backbone provides the legal ap­ proach. Its moral law, which preserved 11

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the Jewish people while mighty em­ pires wallowed in immorality and rotted away into oblivion, is its guide to a healthy society.

If such a traditional Jewish evalu­ ation of censorship were to be imple­ mented, the first step would be to acknowledge the proposition that in­ herent in the American way of life is the ability to distinguish right and wrong in the areas where materialism and morals come in conflict. The prin­ ciple derived fro m . this proposition would state that all official sanction shall be withheld from anyone or any group producing or disseminating ma­ terial considered to be contrary to public interest.

This formulation obviously calls for answers to the following questions: What is the American way of life?

What is meant by official sanction?

Who is to decide what is contrary to public interest?

HE “American way of life” is of necessity what we profess it to be, despite the backsliding which charac­ terizes much of its routine experience.

Even though in practical terms ours is the society of Greece and Rome, it is nevertheless spoken of as the product of the “Judeo-Christian civilization,” recognizing the ethical and moral

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standards so implied as the cornerstone of this “one nation, under G-d.”

By “official sanction” is meant the issuing of municipal, county, state, or Federal permits demanded of individu­ als and groups by law as a condition to the operation of their enterprises.

Such permits should be withheld from anyone involved in any phase of feed­ ing the public with the poisonous pap of lewdness. While this may not elimi­ nate all the cesspools, it will neverthe­ less remove the stamp of public approval from the enterprises, for, in a democracy, this is the essence of official sanction.

The most difficult element in the concretization of this principle is the nature and makup of the body whose task it shall be to evaluate and censor such material. And yet, if we accept the proposition that our ability to iden­ tify wrong is to be the guide and the measure, the composition of this body will become only a matter of tech­ nicalities—scope, representation, form, and procedure. It will act as an official advisor to local and national authori­ ties, and while it should approach its task with an open mind, its motto should be: “Nothing that exploits the weakness of human nature shall be allowed to undermine the moral well-being of American society.”

JEWISH LIFE

By CECIL ROTH

F T tH E CONCEPTION of “Jewish JL Art” is a new one in the field of Jewish study. Until a few years ago, indeed, it was stoutly maintained that such a thing did ncf exist: I do not mean by this that sehoiars questioned whether there was anything Jewish in the various artistic manifestations of the Jewish genius, but that they (or many of them) questioned whether the Jews of the authentic tradition ever produced anything in the field of pic­ torial art, in view of the stringent pro­ hibition of “graven images” comprised in the Pentateuch. Recent research has shown that this idea is quite erroneous.

There were some periods indeed (un­ der iconoclastic rule in Byzantium, under Moslem rule in North Africa and Spain, and more recently as a re­ action against Catholic image-venera­ tion in Poland a century ago) when devoted Jews did avoid making or even possessing anything in the nature of the human likeness. But at other times during the past two thousand years, at least, the Jewish attitude to pictorial art was much the same as ours is to­ day, and only the very stringent were completely opposed to it in any shape or form. Indeed, I have recently edited a full-dress History of Jewish Art APRIL, 1961

(which has already appeared in He­ brew, and is shortly to be published in English) which makes it clear how the Jewish artists of our own day are only perpetuating a tradition which stretches back through the centuries.

One of the manifestations of this, which indeed is familiar to all of us, is in the illustrations to the Passover Haggadah, which in themselves con­ stitute an interesting chapter in the history of Jewish art. The Haggadah ritual as we have it today is perhaps nearly two thousand years old, and already in the Gaonic period it was transcribed into a separate book for use during the Seder ceremony. It was small in bulk, and therefore gave ade­ quate space for some amplification: it was used at home, and therefore did not have quite the same sanctity as a prayer-book taken into the Synagogue: and traces of illumination are discern­ ible very early. The earliest known to us are in Genizah fragments of the Haggadah dating back perhaps to the tenth or eleventh century, where at the appropriate point there are inserted sketches of the Matzah and the Bitter Herb: these same features are some­ times found in Haggadahs produced as late as the eighteenth century, as the 13

solitary decoration: an amazing in­ stance of the continuity of tradition in Jewish life.

Before very long however illumi­ nated and illustrated Haggadahs in the fully accepted sense begin to be found: and these too are now beginning to engage the attention of art historians, because they seem to throw a new light on art history in the wider sense, and perhaps on the origins of Christian ecclesiastical art.

WO main traditions of Haggadah illuminations are discernible, the Sephardi and the Ashkenazi: quite different from one another, and each of considerable independent signifi­ cance. The Spanish Jews, who had so long lived under Moslem rule, still pre­ served some lingering objections to illustrating their sacred texts in the conventional fashion, and it hence be­ came usual among them to confine the actual illuminations to the prelimi­ nary and final pages, as we see in the standard Spanish illuminated Biblical codices as well. Accordingly, in the classical type of Spanish illuminated Haggadah, the text of the service would be handsomely decorated, but only decorated—no more than this. On the other hand, in the preliminary (or pre­ liminary and final) pages there would be a series of illuminations, sometimes two to the page and sometimes four to the page, illustrating the historical background of the Haggadah: begin­ ning sometimes with the Creation, sometimes with the story of Joseph, and going on to illustrate the Egyptian Bondage, the advent of Moses, the Ten Plagues, the Exodus, the triumph at the Red Sea, and the observance of the First Passover: sometimes the Giving of the Torah at Sinai and the rest of the Pentateuchal story follow after this.

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The most famous in this tradition is the great Sarajevo Haggadah, so called because it is preserved in the National Museum in that city (where I had the privilege of examining it on the eve of Rosh Hashonah a year and a half ago): it was purchased half a century or more ago from a Sephardi boy in whose family it had been for many generations—and who, as an old man, was murdered by the Nazis in 1941.

But there are several other Hag­ gadahs in the same tradition, executed with varying degrees of excellence— in London, Manchester, and so on: one of them, the Kaufmann Haggadah from Budapest, has recently been re­ produced in color facsimile and may be studied at leisure from this. There is good reason to believe that this tradition is based on a much older cycle of illuminations originally used to illustrate codices of the Chumosh of which we have evidence in another medium in the famous frescoes on the walls of the Dura Europos synagogue, which made such a stir among art historians when they were discovered a generation ago. It is true that these Haggadahs are relatively late—none certainly antedates the thirteenth cen­ tury. But the destruction of Hebrew books in the Middle Ages at the hands of Gentile fury was so great that many older manuscripts certainly dis­ appeared entirely, leaving no trace: and the evidence we have shows, not that the tradition began in the thirteenth century, but that at this time it was already firmly established, having a long antecedent history. r p H E Ashkenazi tradition of HagJ- gadah illumination was quite dif­ ferent. In this (represented by the Nuremberg Haggadah now in the Schocken Library, Jerusalem, by the JEWISH LIFE

Yehudah Haggadah in the Bezalel Museum, by a codex in the National Library at Paris, and so on) the il­ luminations, somewhat less finely ex­ ecuted, run in a continuous series around the margins of the successive pages, and illustrate the text: the first part (before the meal) illustrating the story of the Exodus, and the second half concentrating on the Messianic deliverance and similar matters. Here, moreover, the Jewish legend and midrashic interpretation play a foremost role in the treatment. Each little sketch is accompanied by a somewhat crude rhymed couplet describing the subject matter. This series once more has been conjectured to hark back, by a different channel, to a very ancient Jewish artis­ tic tradition.

There are of course other types of illuminated Haggadahs besides these two main streams of tradition. There were some very interesting specimens produced in Italy. There is the famous Darmstadt Haggadah, which has been magnificiently reproduced in facsimile.

There is the curious Haggadah in the Bezalel Museum in Jerusalem, which shows all the Hebrew personages (though not the Gentiles!) bird­ headed. Doubtless there are others as yet unexamined. But enough has been said to show that there is an important tradition of Haggadah illumination in two streams, which, although known to us only from relatively late medieval specimens, obviously harks back to a very early prototype and may link up with the very first manifestations of Bible illustration.

After the invention of printing, the tradition of the illuminated manuscript Haggadah was reinterpreted in the new medium. The oldest illustrated Hag­ gadah follows exactly the ancient manuscript prototype, containing only APRIL, 1961

sketches of the Unleavened Bread and Bitter Herb. On a more ambitious scale, the oldest of which we have evidence is known to us only from a fragment in the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York, comprising a couple of pages discover­ ed in a book-binding with very interteresting woodcut illustrations. This probably belongs to about the year 1500, but it is a mystery where it was made—Spain, or Italy, or the Orient.

N the full sense, however, the tradi­ tion of the illustrated printed Hag­ gadah begins with the famous Prague edition of 1526-7—one of the most lovely woodcut books produced in the sixteenth century, With amazingly beau­ tiful pages as well as scores of margi­ nal cuts, produced by the brothers Shachor (Schwartz). This was often reproduced and had a great influence afterwards. In particular, it was copied almost exactly in certain respects in the two Mantua Haggadahs of 1560 and 1566, which used the same text but surrounded it by new borders in the style of the Italian Renaissance: a composite production, at times obvi­ ously hybrid but at times amazingly successful. This was in turn succeeded after a few less memorable experi­ ments by a series of Haggadahs pro­ duced in Venice from 1607 onwards at frequent intervals, with illustrations at the foot of every page and finely decorated borders, which had a great influence in the Mediterranean coun­ tries and continued to be imitated in Sephardi Haggadahs down to our own day. On the basis of this, there was published in Amsterdam in 1696 a very similar Haggadah, with new illus­ trations of much the same type but executed for the first time in cop-

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per-engraving, and to some extent influenced by the Protestant Bible illustration cycle by Merian, then popular in Holland: the artist was a convert to Judaism, Abraham ben Jacob, who had formerly been a Chris­ tian minister of religion but had come to seek refuge under the wings of the Shechinah. This edition was the proto­ type of all the later Ashkenazi Haggadahs which proliferated in Central and Eastern Europe down to our own day. It is curious to think that the famous (and somewhat insipid) pic­ ture of the Four Sons, or of the Rabbis discoursing at Bnei Brak, so familiar to all of us from our youth, is direct descendant of these copper engravings produced by a pious convert to Juda­ ism of nearly three centuries ago— and based in the last resort on crea­ tions of a Gentile artist intended for a very different purpose!

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F LATE years of course many, many contemporary artists have O tried their hands on this famous work, which has been the center of Jewish book-art for so long. Hardly a year passes without some new, memorable edition being produced: and it is rumored that shortly one of the most distinguished of contemporary artists is to be associated with a remarkable new edition. It is impossible to speak of these here. It will be enough if the reader receives a general impression of the subject, and remembers the few outstanding names associated with it: the Haggadahs of Sarajevo, Nurem­ berg, and Darmstadt, each following a different tradition: and the printed editions of Prague, Mantua, Venice, and Amsterdam, whose influence will without doubt be discernible in the volume which will lie in front of him on Seder Night.

JEWISH LIFE

Aging With A Future

By WILLIAM POSNER Under the impact of modern social forcesr the “senior citizen” has em erged in a n ew light. A Jew ish a p ­ praisal of the W hite House Conference.

HE White House Conference on Aging held in Washington from January 9-12, 1961 was the most re­ cent effort to bring to the attention of the American people the problems of older years. I say the most recent ef­ fort, for actually the public awareness of the problems of aging has been growing, albeit slowly, for at least the past twenty-five years, ever since the enactment of the Federal Social Se­ curity legislation in the 1930’s. During the past ten years, in particular, as a result of the heightened public interest and the influence of the mass media, the older population, their problems, and the attitudes of the community toward them have become matters of national concern. The White House Conference was, in essence, an expres­ sion of this concern and served to bring to the forefront in a bold and somewhat total way the plight of the older person in our day. Its unique­ ness, however, consisted in the fact that it went beyond the problems and presented for all to see the opportuni­ ties of older years as well. It occupied itself not merely with the negative real­ ities of aging but with the positive realities as well; not merely with the

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losses and declines that occur as we grow older, but also with the maturity, wisdom, and growth that exist as po­ tentials for the great majority of older citizens; not merely with the fears of aging but with the blessings as well.

Why has aging been a problem?

What is it about older years that fre­ quently brings forth feelings of fear and dread? What is it within our daily living and experience that has made old age a scourge and concern not merely for individual families but for the nation as a whole?

Although the answers to these ques­ tions may be common knowledge to many, to the uninitiated they may be not too well known. It would be help­ ful therefore to discuss briefly these questions as well as the answers. This may serve, indeed, as a proper intro­ duction to a comment on the White House Conference itself.

T IS important to state at the out­ set that in the main the “problems” of older years are recent phenomena and for the most part peculiar to American society. This does not gain­ say the obvious fact that older persons and their problems have been part of

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every civilization and every society.

The Bible, the Talmud, the Commen­ taries, and Midrashic literature are, as is well known, replete with references to old age, to relationships between young and old, to the responsibilities of the community toward the old.

Similar references are found in secular sources and in the writings of ancient civilizations. Who has not heard of the reverence given to the old by the Chi­ nese and Japanese? , The emergence of the problem in more recent times, however, is due to a combination of economic, social, and psychological changes that have taken place in our country. A primary fac­ tor in this emergence has, of course, been the growing percentage of older persons in our population during the past sixty years. In 1900 persons over 65 represented 4.1 per cent of the to­ tal United States population; today they represent close to 13 per cent of the population or 16 million persons.

It is estimated that by 1970 this age group will increase to 20 million and by 1980 to 25 million persons.

The presence of large numbers of older persons today is due in part to the large scale immigration that took place in our country from the 1860’s to the First World War. It is due also to the high birth rate of the same period. In addition to these factors, however, we have been experiencing a general increase in the life span. This represents, indeed, one of the great achievements of this century. We are reaping today the fruits of medical progress and the developments of new standards in almost every phase of living. Thanks to this progress the av­ erage child born today has a life expectancy of 70 years—the Biblical three score and ten. Even though in the past few decades large scale im­ 18

migration has ceased, the factor of longevity will continue to increase the numbers of aged among us.

URING this very same period that saw the beginnings of longevity, other changes were taking place—eco­ nomic and social changes—which had a direct effect upon those in their older years. Our country was gradually changing from a rural to an urban economy. In 1850 only 16 per cent of the population of the United States lived in communities of 2,500 popula­ tion and over. In 1947, 59 per cent of the population lived in urban areas and only 19 per cent lived on farms.

This period also saw the further de­ velopment of the machine, large indus­ trial development, and scientific and technological achievements.

The importance of these develop­ ments lies in the impact they have had on the patterns of living. In earlier days most work was done on the home farm with simple tools or by hand with the assistance of animal power. All members of the family participated in this work—young and old. Retirement was unheard of in this type of econ­ omy. Clothing was produced in the home and education and recreation were similarly home grown products.

The sick too were cared for at home and only rarely placed elsewhere.

As many of the changes mentioned earlier began to take hold, the house­ hold economy together with its familyoriented social relationships lost ground. People left to work at the machine and competitive industry out­ side the home. Children, no longer re­ quired to help in family production, went to school on the outside and the family necessities were likewise pro­ duced elsewhere.

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T WAS in the early 1900’s when we began to hear of “retirement.” Most of the people retired were those who for reasons of old age could no longer carry on in the competitive industry of the time.

There is no need to review here the parallel development of increased mechanization, labor organization, and the high standard of living during the past half century. Suffice it to say that in addition to their blessings they also brought into being many psychologi­ cal problems which are having their impact in present-day living. Many writers have commented upon the fact that our relationships today are char­ acterized by “other-directedness” or by a “market psychology.” It is pointed out that direction for our living comes not from within the family kinship group but from others; from the out­ side; from our mass media. We learn to rear our children from books; we eat what is advertised; we are sensitive to how others look upon us. The young parent of today, in particular, having grown up in a more “inner-directed” setting in his own parents’ household— the older people of today—finds at times a loss of old certainties, of selfassurance of his role as a parent. He often doubts whether his children can properly identify with him. He often feels a loss of self-esteem because of the shift in authority from him to the expert. In the past the precepts of grandparents were handed on to their children and grandchildren. Today we may find generations of child rearing methods questioned by outside experts.

With respect to the grandparent— the older person of today— all of the changes mentioned earlier tend to elim­ inate him from the home. He is a stranger, less endurable; his influence is largely negative. As a repository of

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tradition he finds no role in the mobile American family of today, which finds it difficult to establish roots. We con­ stantly think of the future, of goals to achieve, without relating these aspira­ tions to the past and to tradition. And since we no longer have the extended family of the past which was charac­ terized by three generational living and loyalty, less importance is given to the older person.

AS the development of the Jewish family in America differed from that described above? And what about the attitudes toward the Jewish aged in present-day family relationships?

The answer to these questions is that in the main the developments have been similar to those of the American family, although for somewhat differ­ ent reasons.

The Jewish family in America to­ day is essentially a first or second generation family, the adults or their parents having immigrated to this country. Regardless of their point of origin, the Jew brought with him to this country the attitudes, traditions, customs, and practices he lived by in the old country. These aspects of liv­ ing, transmitted to him by his forbears, were rooted in Biblical tradition rather than in the culture of his environment.

This was as true for family relation­ ships as it was of specific religious practices. The respective roles of the father, mother, children, grandparents, and the interrelationships between them were indeed determined by Bibli­ cal authority and practice. In this framework attitudes toward older fam­ ily members were clearly positive in nature as were the practices and fa­ cilities developed for their care in the community.

Although all of these elements were

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part of the immigrant Jew’s intellectual and emotional equipment, his separa­ tion from the old environment and his need to adjust to a new way of living had the effect of developing within him feelings of isolation, loneliness and insecurity, with the resultant de­ sire to submerge himself in the domi­ nant group of his environment; to accept the behavior patterns, fashions, and values of his neighbors. Thus, the same forces that made for change in the American family, as indicated earlier, made for change in the Jewish family as well. And although no defini­ tive research has been done to deter­ mine whether, as a result of the Jew’s religious values with respect to family relationships or his immigrant origins, he relates differently to his aged family members than do others, long experi­ ence in the field of family relationships point to little difference, indeed.

In the same way that the older per­ son has been given a diminished role in family relationships so has he been relegated to the proverbial scrap heap with respect to other areas of living.

The older person has fewer employ­ ment opportunities than younger per­ sons. Actually in this respect one doesn’t have to be really “old”— 65 and over—to feel the pinch. As far as employment is concerned age 40 or 45 is considered “old” and few em­ ployers are ready to take a risk with such a person.

Older persons on the whole have less income than others, and even those who live on pensions and social se­ curity find the managing marginal in­ deed. Among the consequences of low income are poor and inadequate hous­ ing and lack of sufficient medical care.

Coupled with these lacks are the insuf­ ficiency of leisure time activities and opportunities for creative outlets.

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Related to these so-called external problems are a whole array of attitudinal problems both in the community, and within older persons themselves which help to aggravate the situation.

Some of these have been alluded to earlier. Older years are seen as years of loneliness and boredom. They are looked upon as a time of losses—of friends, relatives, self-worth, and self­ esteem. Instead of seeing the older person as an individual in his own right as we do with younger people, we tend to stereotype him and cate­ gorize him in order to fit the picture or image we have of aging, which is generally a negative one. And since we type him as an ill person, as one who is invariably slow, as one who is for­ getful, as one who cannot fend for himself, we find it difficult to relate to him in positive and constructive ways.

In addition, since so many of us fear our own aging we develop a psycho­ logical block against those who are already old as a way of “delaying” that which is inevitable for us too.

Both the external and internal fac­ tors are of course related to each other, and those who have given attention to these problems point readily to the fact that lack of employment for the elderly, for example, is not due to “economic” reasons but to attitudinal ones. If positive attitudes were more prevalent there would be less discrimi­ nation toward them. If, in spite of our being a young country, we looked to the old instead of just being worshipful of the young, we would have far fewer problems with our elders.

AVING described the reasons why aging has become a problem in our day, I must hasten to say that in some small measure, at least, it has not »one unnoticed. During the past

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decade in particular efforts have been made in a very few communities to come to grips with the problems facing older persons.

Some strides, for example, have been made in the area of employment.

National, state, and local agencies con­ cerned with the procurement of jobs have conducted broad educational campaigns in business and industry pointing up the experience and skills possessed by older workers. Bolstered by research findings which in all in­ stances point to the continued creativ­ ity and learning possibilities of older persons, these agencies have been able to dent the rigid attitudes of many em­ ployers toward a more flexible ap­ proach to older workers.

In some states anti-discrimination laws with respect to age have been enacted, making it unlawful for em­ ployers to refuse to hire persons for reasons of age alone. In the related area of retirement we are beginning to see some replacement of compulsory retirement plans with flexible plans. In a few industries both management and labor are cooperating in eliminating age 65 as the rigid retirement date, making it permissive if warranted by reasons of health, but allowing con­ tinued employment.

Advances have also been made in the area of housing for the aged. Al­ though poor and substandard housing has been a community problem for all age groups, there has been uniform recognition that the situation is par­ ticularly acute for older persons who, because of low income and other fac­ tors, are unable to afford the kind of housing that would help them preserve their health and self-respect.

As a result of these factors, a num­ ber of public housing authorities throughout the country have set aside APRIL, 1961

special apartments for older persons.

Built with the needs of the aged in mind, these apartments have special accommodations geared to health and safety. In recent years private build­ ers, as well as non-profit organizations, as a result of incentives provided by many state legislatures, have also con­ structed middle income housing for older persons.

N THE FIELD of social service new thinking has been done in recent years on the role of the Home for Aged—Moshav Zekenim—in the com­ munity. Standards of care have im­ proved and many of these institutions have become medical settings for those in need of nursing and custodial care, rather than “homes” for the healthy aged. The prevailing view today is to help the older person remain in the community for as long as possible, preferably in his own home. For those in need of care, services are brought to the home—-medical, nursing, occu­ pational therapy, and even “meals on wheels.”

Foster family care programs for the aged have been developed for those who for medical and social reasons cannot remain at home but who do not require institutional care. Many social service agencies have developed family counseling services for aged persons and their families to help them with their problems of adjustment.

Great strides have been made in providing leisure time activities and adult education programs for the aged.

Public and voluntary organizations have been doing a great deal of think­ ing and planning in this area. It is gratifying to note the beginning inter­ est of religious organizations, the syna­ gogue in particular, in this area. Signif­ icantly, the Union of Jewish Orthodox

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Congregations of America, at its last convention, devoted several clinic ses­ sions to this subject in order to assist synagogues in planning programs for the aging.

A great amount of medical and psychological research is also being done ih ah effort to come to grips with the biological and mental health as­ pects of aging.

Lest we be carried away by this capsule description of progress that has been made, let me express the caution that most of these programs are ex­ perimental and few indeed. We are only at the threshold with respect to our thinking and action, and it is for this very reason that the White House Conference and its deliberations are important for the future.

THE CONFERENCE

HE White House Conference on Aging itself was the end result of considerable planning and preparation.

Actually the first sugestions for the holding of such a conference were made at a national conference held in Washington in 1950. That meeting convened by the Federal Security Agency—a predecessor of the Depart­ ment of Health, Education and Wel­ fare—was the first effort made to gather together those individuals who at that time had already evidenced a concern for the aging. Out of that con­ ference came not only one of the first compilations of data and experience on the subject but a recognition of the need for a national approach to the solution of many of the problems of aging that had been identified. That a White House Conference could be used as a suitable vehicle for such an ap­ proach was demonstrated by the vari­ ous White House Conferences on Chil­ dren and Youth, which, held every ten years since 1909, had been effective in changing attitudes toward children and programs for their care.

Federal legislation for the holding of the White House Conference on Aging was enacted in August 1958 and signed by the President on Sep­ tember 2, 1958. The bill, known ast the “White House Conference oil Ag-

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ing Act,” provided for the holding of a “White House Conference on Aging to be called by the President of the United States in January, 1961, to be planned and conducted by the Secre­ tary of Health, Education and Welfare with the asisstance and cooperation of other departments and agencies; to as­ sist the several states in conducting similar conferences on aging prior to the White House Conference on Ag­ ing; and for related purposes.”

The bill, among other provisions, stated that legislation was needed to formulate recommendations for im­ mediate action in improving and de­ veloping programs to permit the country to take advantage of the ex­ perience and skills of older persons, to create conditions which will better enable them to meet their needs, and to, further research on aging.

ROM the moment of the law’s en­ actment, the appropriate Federal agencies began to set up the necessary machinery" for its implementation. In addition to the establishment of a na­ tional advisory committee, and a host of sub-committees covering some twenty subject areas, all the states and territories were encouraged to follow through in the spirit as well as the letter of the law by establishing state,

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regional, and local committees, by holding conferences and institutes, with a view toward the clarification of concepts, the compilation of experi­ ence, and the development of recom­ mendations for discussion at the White House Conference.

The two years of preparation for the Conference became one of the most intensive community efforts of recent years. It reached into virtually every city, county, town, and village.

The subject of aging over this period found its way into the agenda of the national, state, and local conferences of business, labor, health, welfare, and religious groups. Fraternal organiza­ tions, associations for the advance­ ments of science and education, uni­ versity and library groups, housing organizations— all became interested in considering the implications of ag­ ing for their work and programs.

The proverbial expression that “get­ ting there was half the fun” can appro­ priately be applied to this Conference.

It was the pre-conference preparations and discussions that really brought is­ sues to the forefront. And because this represented a nationwide effort it was possible, perhaps for the first time, to see the issues not merely in their gen­ eral framework, but specifically, as they related to different parts of the country, to large and small communi­ ties, to rural and urban areas, to spe­ cial interest groups, etc.

The recommendations that were de­ veloped as a result of the local confences were for the most part fun­ nelled through the various official state committees which in turn sent them on to Washington for analysis and compilation.

On the Federal level some twenty committees were simultaneously active in as many subject areas developing APRIL, 1961

background material and position papers for the guidance of states and local communities. The subject matter areas included among others Popula­ tion Trends, Rehabilitation, Family Life and Relationships, kesearch, Re­ ligion, National Voluntary Services, etc.

T THE Conference itself each of the twenty subject areas of sec­ tions was subdivided into many work­ groups and each of the 2,700 official delegates was assigned to a specific workgroup. No workgroup consisted of more than twenty-five persons, thus assuring opportunities for adequate participation by all. What was unique about these workgroups was their composition. The persons assigned rep­ resented not merely those who had a professional or special interest in the specific topic. It was the very purpose of the Conference to assign to the workgroups persons from different walks of life in order to obtain a cross-section of opinion and expres­ sion.

In addition to the workgroups to which the delegates devoted by far the greatest proportion of their time, there were a number of section and plenary sessions for the total conference and a series of special meetings to which delegates were specifically assigned.

Although extensive debate and con­ sideration of the recommendations was possible only at the workgroup and section meetings, the total Conference proved to be not merely exciting and informative, but a most important one from the standpoint of future concern and action.

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UNDREDS of recommendations were approved by the Confer­ ence. By far the greatest amount of

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controversy (and publicity) was occa­ sioned by the provision dealing with the financing of medical care. Al­ though the Conference went on record as believing that the best way of financ­ ing the health care of the aged was through the “Social Security mecha­ nisms,” the cleavage between this view­ point and the one espoused most forcefully by the, American Medical Association and others, to the effect that present programs are sufficient to provide adequate care, will continue to be a basic issue for many years to come.

With the exception of the above issue and several others on which basic differences were expressed, the Con­ ference, achieved a high degree of unanimity. Recognition was given to the respective roles of government and voluntary effort in the areas of hous­ ing, education, social service, research, etc. All sections without exception re­ affirmed society’s responsibility to all of its members regardless of age, to help them fill their basic human needs of adequate food, shelter, and cloth­ ing; to help them maintain their physi­ cal and mental health, and to provide care in the event of ill health; to help develop the opportunity for continued usefulness and meaningful activity; to help them with the opportunity to par­ ticipate in the life of the family and community; to enable them to exercise choice in performance of these roles and activities.

T IS significant that all sections of the Conference gave a high priority to the meaning of religion in the life of the older person. Indeed, the section on “Religion and Aging” provided in its policy statement many of the high­ lights of the Conference itself. I should

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like to quote several excerpts from this statement: “Religion’s concern with human dignity at every stage in the span of life de­ rives from the fact that each individual is created in the image of G-d. As a consequence, religion seeks to build a living fellowship of believers in which the aging find and share the true bene­ fits of being a part of the household of G-d. It is this conviction which likewise demands a concern for such matters as the maintenance of social welfare institutions by religious bodies and the proper conduct of those spon­ sored by Government or voluntary agencies in a manner consonant with the nature of man and the sanctity of existence. Similarly it is the basis of concern for the right of every indivi­ dual to a burial befitting human dignity.

Within the life of the congregation each older person should be treated as an individual. Each is entitled to re­ sponsible membership within the reli­ gious fellowship. Any attitude on the part of the congregation which hinders the exercise of this right must be re­ garded as a contradiction of religious teaching. It should rather be its concern to foster relationships calculated to imbue in the elderly a sense of belong­ ing, of being needed and useful in a vital way. This will go far to promote a richer religious experience for the ag­ ing and will likewise provide a salutary example to be followed in the family circle and in the outer rings of society.

We underline the obligation of religious groups to instill as an essential of sound family life an attitude of respect for the individuality and intrinsic impor­ tance of each aging member. Thus, while both the family and the congre­ gation will feel direct responsibility to provide special services, educational materials, and programs for tjie aging, every effort should be made to see that these do not involve an unnecessary separation from the main stream of JEWISH LIFE

familial or congregational life. It is urged also that all congregations make their services available to non-members

EWISH participation in the White House Conference was extensive.

Both as individuals and as representa­ Religion can assist the aging in finding tives of organizations Jews played a within themselves and in the fellowship significant part in the leadership of the of faith the resources to meet those Conference as a whole. Particularly problems and fears which seem inevi­ impressive was their role in framing tably to accompany one’s latter years. the recommendations and policy state­ In illness, trouble, and infirmity as ments of the various sections. In a well as in hours of joy and exultation the community of faith offers strength, sense the policy statement discussions comfort and benediction in many forms. were the most crucial aspects of the Religion binds a man to creation and Conference deliberations for they atthe Creator, and enables him to face temped to get to the core of the work the future with hope.” group decisions. It will be of special interest to readers of this journal to know that Dr. Samson R. Weiss, the HARPLY pointed up was the re­ Executive Vice-President of the Union sponsibility of organizations of of Jewish Orthodox Congregations of every type to develop a greater interest America, and Rabbi Charles Weinberg, in older persons and to provide the kinds President of the Rabbinical Council of of services and activities that would America, among others, were particu­ counteract loneliness, idleness, bore­ larly effective in seeing to it that the dom, and self-depreciation on the part statement on Religion was acceptable of the aged. Many of the recommen­ to orthodox Jews. dations related themselves to the attiThe value; of the White House Con­ tudinal component mentioned earlier. ference cannot be judged merely by It was stressed that unless individuals, the recommendations it produced. It organizations, and yes, society itself, is my view that the extent of its effec­ embarked on a program of attitudinal tiveness will be proven only as each change there was little lasting value in individual will see it as his respon­ all of the external progress we might sibility and obligation to look into achieve. This meant a concerted edu­ himself, examine his views, and come cational effort beginning on the elemen­ up with a renewed désiré to modify tary level and going through college. or change his sense of values with re­ It meant an effort, particularly on the spect to those already aged and to part of religious organizations, to find those who will become old—-including new roles for older people and to find himself. In this quest for change the new ways of utilizing their wisdom, Jew will need look only to his own maturity, and experience. It meant, heritage for courage and affirmation. too, a widened approach to the train­ In addition to the individual’s re­ ing of profesional personnel in which sponsibility for introspection there renewed emphasis would be given to exists the continued need for Jewish work with older persons. It meant organizations to emphasize programs finally a recognition of the need to for aging. This is particularly true for prepare for aging, for retirement, and the synagogue, which to many of us for the changes that take place in represents the all-embracing structure older years. in Jewish communal life. Although I

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do not wish to minimize the strides that have been made by many syna­ gogues in developing special programs for the aged, in terms of the country as a whole the interest has been mini­ mal indeed. In programming educa­ tional and leisure time activities the synagogue, too, has put its greatest emphasis upon the young and in many instances has resisted efforts to provide special facilities and personnel for help to the older person. It is a fact that most houses of worship are shut tight, insofar as program is concerned, the early part of the day. Yet, the retired older person can make use of the synagogue during these early hours.

I think it urgent that we keep the syna­ gogue doors open for older people for activities of all types. It will give them the sense that they are wanted and needed for more than just the daily minyon.

There are many older persons who will respond to “Golden Age Club” types of activities such as arts and crafts, ceramics, sewing. Certainly there is a potential for creativity in this area as well as Jewish content.

There are others who will care little for this type of activity. What about discussion groups or Torah study for them? Or the Mishnah class or Eyn Yaacov? What has happened to the Tehillim loggers some of us knew in our childhood? And can this too not become a creative and satisfying activity?

Because the older person has “time”

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on his hands, cannot the synagogue engage him in the friendly visiting of other members of the congregation and community who are ill and shut in; who are lonely and old? We need to establish once again the Bikur Cholim Society in which our older citizens can take real leadership. By helping older people participate in these activities (yes, Mitzvoth) we help them develop a new sense of achievement and self-worth.

BELIEVE the synagogue can play a role in developing an interest in the local Jewish home for aged or hospital. It can do more by way of encouraging joint older parent-adult child programs. Certainly the Talmud Torah can enrich its curriculum by giving greater stress to Jewish atti­ tudes toward the aged and in this way help to inculcate a sense of values in this respect. And for the young adult, should not the synagogue take the initiative of sponsoring discussions on preparation for aging? It is a basic re­ sponsibility synagogues owe to their members. We ought to be concerned with how we are going to age. What are we going to do with our added years, With our new leisure?

I have heard many Jewish older persons talk about a “Yiddishen Elter,” meaning by this, I am sure, a greater sensitivity in older years to religious values and practices. The synagogue can certainly help in making older years meaningful years.

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JEWISH LIFE

Of Jewish Professors and Human Responses

By ARNOLD SCHLEY

HE DEAN was pleasant, and even enthusiastic, in that stylized, orien­ tal way in which college administrators express aseptic joy. I was encouraged to hope that the teaching position was mine. The hope became a belief when I was asked to sign a loyalty oath im­ mediately after hurdling that most deli­ cate of subjects: salary. I had met my future colleagues; they had met me.

We accepted one another. For the six years since I had received the magic Ph.D., ticket to college faculty mem­ bership, I had sought in vain for a post such as this. At last my course preparation, foreign travel, publica­ tions, and experience had met worthy employment which would, at the same time, feature a more even balance be­ tween the material and psychic income of my profession. For this, my wife and children might well be grateful.

“In all fairness, Dr. X, I think that you should know that I am an ortho­ dox Jew.” In the best of all possible worlds, the moment of truth embodied in those words should have been casual and insouciant. The sentence ought to have been mouthed with the same

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calm indifference in which a man tells his boss that he is on jury duty, or has a dental appointment, or must at­ tend a funeral during working hours.

In point of actual fact, however, juries, dentists, and undertakers belong to the world of the expected, the normal, and the usual, whereas orthodox Jews in collegiate faculties are, like Samuel Johnson’s performing dog and his female orator, worthy of note because they perform at all, rather than be­ cause they perform well. The orthodox Jew is forever intruding himself upon the attention of others. He absents himself on odd days when no one else has a holiday spirit, declines to teach classes late on Fridays or on Satur­ days, and perhaps worst of all avoids the ubiquitous fried chicken and ham dinners which are the hallmark of faculty togetherness.

HAD had my moment of truth be­ fore and met the full range of human responses. There was the smug chairman of department, confident in his own election to salvation, who viewed my importune knocking at his

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Calvinist gate with dismay. There was the eighteenth century deist, slouched by his book-cluttered desk, nodding his head in tolerant and kindly amuse­ ment. There was the old Norman war­ rior, tweeds barely concealing his armor, pipe held swordlike in gauntleted claw, who shook my hand and my hopes in the same farewell. I had taken refuge in the arms of a big city public school system wherein a demo­ cratic magnanimity offered full religi­ ous freedom in exchange for pro-rata deductions from the paycheck.

I was surprised then, and mightily relieved, when the Dean of Instruction received the news of my religious in­ clinations without raising his head from the newly signed loyalty oath.

“Oh yes, we have another orthodox Jew here; you must meet Dr. Z.” I had a train to catch and five hundred miles to travel, so my meeting with Dr. Z was brief. I gathered, however, that his orthodoxy was pristine only in a comparative sense; which is to say when displayed beside the complete non-observance of the other five Jew­ ish faculty members. Dr. Z was, in fact, a sincere and active pillar of the local Reform temple, who regularly absented himself from classes on Rosh Hashonah (one day), Yom Kippur, and when conflict of schedule arose, on the first night of Pesach.

spots of mold; the deep carpet con­ tained hidden rot.

How deep was my Orthodoxy? Was it a life force worthy of the risk, not only of my livelihood, but of the se­ curity of my family? Was I alone? I thought of those others who had brought Torah to meet the Greek muses. How had they managed their peace with Academia; that Professor of Law in Philadelphia; of Philosophy in Columbus; of Mathematics in Wash­ ington; of Physics and of Education in New York? To what extent were they more secure in their Orthodoxy because they had never departed from Jewish observance while I was a baal t’shuvah, who had not become fully Sabbath-observant until I was aged twenty-five? I longed to write to these strangers whose unique experiences had made them comrades, and to ask them their answers. Were the rhythms of week, month, and year, the chang­ ing-changeless pattern of Jewish life, rich personal experiences for these educated orthodox Jews; or were the Mitzvoth mere habits, cold, uninspired, and drab as they had been to my first American ancestors eighty years ago?

I could not write to my colleagues. My position seemed unique to me. I would find my own answers. In the dying light of old candles, a new home would be lit and sanctified.

HE POSITION was mine; a letter and a contract confirmed it the next week. The most professionally rewarding experience of my life lay ahead. Into the warp and woof of those succeeding weeks I wove resig­ nation from the old and commitment to the new, the sale of one house and the rental of another; creation and destruction. Throughout the splendid new design, however, appeared little

HE DEAN was disturbed. I could see his distress mirrored in his pro­ fessional friendliness. Seven days ab­ sent in the fall; there was no point in mentioning that there would be four more in the spring term. The year in which I was beginning a new career was about as difficult as the Jewish calendar could make it. The president had a conference with me after observ­ ing my work. “As this is a public

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JEWISH LIFE

institution, we respect all religious viewpoints, but it seems that our other Jewish faculty people do not . . .”

No, they most certainly did not, and neither did many of the Jewish stu­ dents. To keep the peace and to demonstrate good intentions, I held optional make-up classes in the eye­ ing, burnt sacrifices for the much de­ bated holy days. Soon the dean found himself confronted by the complaints of inconvenienced students, as disturb­ ing to him as had been the original unrequited lost time. Was I a malin­ gerer, an eccentric, a charlatan, or worse? To him, even yet, Dr. Z was about as orthodox as possible and I was some sort of religious mutuation.

It is difficult to say when the change began. There was no one moment when I was suddenly at home. The faculty dinner-conferences remained an embarrassing burden to me as I threaded my way between acceptable vegetables, salads, and desserts and eschewed the proferred meats. Lest we should appear to be anti-social, my wife and I fled our house at the close of Shabboth to catch the dregs of a cocktail party which had begun on Saturday afternoon. My colleagues, like the dean, were considerate, but could not quite understand why I in­ sisted upon differences which other Jews ignored.

Perhaps the change began when the Dean of Instruction brought me a Hebrew letter to translate. Perhaps it began when the Dean of Students told me frankly that I was over-conscien­ tious about those evening make-up classes; it may have been when the librarian began to call me before mak­ ing a purchase in Judaica. Slowly I began to discover faculty members who had a deep and scholarly interest in everything Jewish. My wife, taking APRIL, 1961

a course in conversational Hebrew at a local synagogue, found herself lion­ ized at faculty socials in the same way as if she were an acknowledged au­ thority in Mandarin Chinese.

At the end of my first year, the president made peace by asking me to serve as sponsor of the campus Jewish Students Associaton; this before he officially invited me to return in Sep­ tember. The youngsters themselves had approached him to request my services for a three-year term.

The ice was breaking in other direc­ tions as well. The department chair­ man consulted me about the next year’s holidays before preparing my schedule, to minimize the number of hours lost and to eliminate the need for the obnoxious evening make-up classes. The registrar avoided schedu­ ling final examinations on Sabbaths or on Shovuoth. The Dean of Students offered to cover my exams if they ran too close to sunset on Friday.

HERE WAS one last citadel. The college was only five miles away from one of the nation’s largest and most productive Jewish communities.

Great yeshivoth, day schools, syna­ gogues, and other institutions reared their proud walls to the same sky which roofed our campus. Those five miles, stretched to a thousand, could not have more effectively separated the two worlds.

Here stood two proud, self-sufficient societies: orthodox Judaism and Prot­ estant Christianity, near, yet far in space and time. Each was the product of another society and another spiritual world. For our Jewish college students there was the great danger that they, ten per cent of the total student body, would spend four years on campus without achieving a Jewish context for

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their secular studies. There was a growing danger that they, my con­ temporary ancestors, would shed their religion even as they shed their for­ eignness. There was the danger that those five miles of suburban greenery would become the rabbit-hole through which a Jewish Alice would escape to an Anglo-Saxon Christian wonder­ land . . .

First there was the non-credit course in elementary Hebrew. It attracted more non-Jewish than Jewish students, but that fact alone made it a fashion­ able beginning. There was the hourly luncheon meeting for the discussions, informally, of Jewish principles and practices. The dean relaxed the rules against eating in classrooms.

Then came the night of the concert.

The principal of an all-day school con­ sented to send his choir and instru­ mental ensemble to our campus to offer a concert of Jewish music. Our promi­ nent notices were posted campus-wide.

A murmur grew and became a whine; the voice of querulous fear. Almost eerily came the questions: would the

choir wear yarmulkas, would their di­ rector be bearded, how would they dress? These were Jewish voices con­ cerned for the safety of their own guise in a Christian society.

HE EVENING was a triumph, musically and humanly. The voices carried the melody of Jewish tradition and Jew and Gentile lent the rhythm of their hand clap to the music of a mitzvah tanz or a horah. The program ended. The accordionist sounded a few chords. The crowd swept forward. The circles formed, widened, grew, broke, and joined again. The dancing sped.

Shoes flew from nyloned feet. The thou­ sand miles from campus to yeshivah fell to five and dissipated in a froth of nothingness. The Jew, oldest non­ conformist in the world, asserted once more the integrity of his own spirit.

The accordion, the nyloned feet, the rubber heels, the covered heads, the intoxicating music beat at the crushing weight of uniform sameness. The black bars broke. We were free and I was at home.

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The United Nations SurVey on Antisemitism: Prologue or Epilogue?

By ISAAC LEWIN

N Cologne, Germany, stands a me­ morial tablet bearing the following inscription: “Here lie seven victims of the Gestapo. This memorial recalls Germany’s most shameful period, 1933-1945.” On December 24, 1959, vandals blotted out the second sentence of the inscription with black varnish and simultaneously smeared antisemitic slogans and swastikas on the walls of the synagogue of Cologne.

News of the incident spread all over the world, and in its wake followed numerous similar acts. Swastikas sud­ denly appeared on Jewish communal buildings. Threatening letters were received by Jewish community leaders.

Antisemitic slogans and posters were daubed and plastered on Jewish homes and automobiles. Jewish cemeteries were desecrated. Antisemitic signs ap­ peared on various public buildings.

At the same time, the governments of the countries where such incidents occurred overwhelmingly condemned them and expressed public regret over the commission of these acts. The United Nations Sub-Commission on

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Prevention of Discrimination and Pro­ tection of Minorities was then holding its annual meeting, and the initiative was taken at this meeting by the In­ ternational League for the Rights of Man, one of the non-governmental or­ ganizations which participate in the sessions of the ECOSOC and its sub­ sidiary organs, which asked that the Sub-Commission act on the problem.

The Sub-Commission decided, and the resolution was later ratified by the Commission on Human Rights at its meeting in Geneva in March 1960, to “note with deep concern the manifes­ tations of antisemitism and other forms of racial prejudice and religious intolerance of a similar nature which have recently occurred in various countries and which might be once again the forerunner of other heinous acts endangering the future.” The Commission on Human Rights ex­ pressed its gratification that “govern­ ments, peoples, and private organiza­ tions have spontaneously reacted in opposition to these manifestations.”

The Commission condemned the inci31

dents as “violations of principles em­ bodied in the Charter of the United Nations and in the Declaration of Human Rights.” It urged the various governments “to take all appropriate action to prevent effectively such acts and to punish them where they have been committed” and requested the Secretary General of the United Na­ tions to obtain information and com­ ments from the governments on the subject of the antisemitic manifesta­ tions. The Commission also directed the Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Mi­ norities to evaluate, at its next session, the material received from the states, UNESCO, and non-governmental or­ ganizations and authorized the SubCommission “to draw such conclusions therefrom as seem to be justified . . . [and] recommend such action as seems to be desirable.”

During the remainder of 1960 vari­ ous governments, Jewish non-govern­ mental organizations accredited with the U.N., and the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) submitted material regarding the recent wave of antisemitism. The documents were presented to the Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Pro­ tection of Minorities at its session in January 1961, and the subject was de­ bated from January 25 to January 30, 1961. This probably constituted the most important international de­ bate on the subject of antisemitism in our day.

EFORE the debate began the SubCommission had before it a spe­ cific proposal as to how the subject should be treated. This proposal took the form of a draft resolution sub­ mitted on January 23 by the member

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of the Soviet Union, Valenty Sopozhnikov. Mr. Sapozhnikov’s resolution carefully avoided mentioning anti­ semitism, and suggested merely that the General Assembly of the United Nations be asked to call upon “the governments of all States to prevent any manifestations of racial, national, or religious hatred or discrimination, and in particular to rescind discrimi­ natory racial laws wherever they exist; to adopt legislation, wherever it is not yet in existence, prohibiting such discrimination; to take legisla­ tive action to combat the propagation of racial, national, or religious hatred or discrimination, and to prohibit the activities of racist organizations which foment hatred between peoples and racial, national, or religious groups.”

It was obvious from the very outset of the discussion that some members of the Sub-Commission (experts in their field, appointed ad personam, but nonetheless committed to the poli­ cies of the governments they repre­ sent) wished to gloss over the precise problems of antisemitism and ascribe its manifestations to the general cate­ gory of “racial, national, or religious hatred.” Many of the governments which replied to the questionnaire is­ sued by the Secretary General said that they believed the activity which sprouted in Cologne and spread to communities all over the world to be merely coincidental and harmless. The German Federal Government dis­ cussed the Cologne incident at length and concluded that the vandals were two individuals of “a primitive mental disposition” who “had no idea of the meaning of concepts such as consti­ tution, basic rights, or democracy.”

Of other antisemitic incidents in Ger­ many, the Federal Government said, “According to the thorough investi«JEWISH LIFE

gation undertaken by Federal German authorities . . . these occurrences can­ not be considered as organized and planned actions.” Nearly all govern­ ments which submitted replies to the Secretary General minimized the in­ cidents within their own boundaries; some thought, however, that the prob­ lems elsewhere were more serious.

Mr. Sapozhnikov said in the course of discussion that “the wave of Nazi antisemitism which had begun in the Federal Republic of Germany and broken over many countries in West­ ern Europe and America had shown once again that nazism was not dead.”

The obvious implication was that antisemitic incidents reminiscent of nazism had occurred only in Western Europe and America and not in the rest of the world. Mr. Sapozhnikov further stated that the German reply quoted the Minister of Interior, “the Nazi Schroeder . . . who, in order to white­ wash himself, had even said that the manifestations were instigated by the communists.” He then made reference to the activities “of certain American Zionist organizations which were help­ ing Schroeder to whitewash himself and were circulating vile slanders against the Soviet Union.” This last comment was obviously directed at the statement of seventeen American Jewish organizations regarding “the plight of Soviet Jews,” which had been submitted by the Coordinating Board of Jewish Organizations (com­ prising B’nai B’rith and the British and South African Bioard of Depu­ ties) and filed among the official docu­ ments of the Sub-Commission on this subject. The document stated that “re­ ports whose veracity can no longer be in doubt clearly indicate that a special policy is being applied against Soviet Jews both as individuals and APRIL, 1961

as an ethnic, religious, and cultural group.”

THER members of the Sub-Com­ mission also belittled the im­ portance of the antisemitic wave. Dr. Matsch of Austria stressed that “the number of cases in which the manifes­ tations in Germany had been directly instigated by nazi organizations was relatively small. Furthermore, a third of the manifestations which had oc­ curred had been the work of small children who did not understand the full import of their acts.” The Arab member of the Sub-Commission, Mr. Abdel Ghani, said that “the wave of antisemitism had swept over the whole world but had stopped at the borders of the Arab world,” and he quoted an article by a British author in the “New Statesman” which said that “the Jews themselves were partly re­ sponsible for antisemitism.”

Professor Hiscocks of England said that his position lay somewhere be­ tween that of Mr. Sapozhnikov and that of Mr. Ghani. He believed “that there was no very serious danger from the small, diversified, and often ludi­ crous neo-nazi organizations, whose meetings . . . attracted practically no young persons, but, for the most part, pathetic thwarted people who were trying to live again a disreputable, but to them glorious past.” Colonel Raymond, the United States member, said that “the problem of antisemi­ tism had not been solved, and sporadic desecrations of Jewish property no doubt continued, but the extraordinary wave of such manifestations had ap­ parently terminated.” He continued, “In spite of a number of serious in­ cidents, the great biilk of cases had been of a trivial nature, and appeared to have been the work of juveniles,

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reflecting a juvenile tendency to par­ ticipate in more or less violent demon­ strations for or against a wide variety of causes.”

Mr. Krishnaswami of India said that “fortunately, the wave of swas­ tika daubing had been the work of a few cranks. Although the inter­ national community should suggest measures to check manifestations of antisemitism, it was important to bear in mind the fact that the outbreak which had prompted he Sub-Commis­ sion’s action at its twelfth session had died down since then. At the present stage it might not be very wise to keep the 1960 incidents alive by lay­ ing undue stress on them.” Statements were subsequently made by Messrs.

Ketrzynski (Poland), Saario (Fin­ land), Juvigny (France), Abu Rannat (Sudan), and Fabregat (Uruguay).

Dr. Beer of the International League for the Rights of Man then addressed the Sub-Commission as the first of the representatives of the non­ governmental organizations. He ap­ pealed for the appointment of a spe­ cial rapporteur who would be directed to follow future developments and re­ port to the Sub-Commission. All five Jewish non-governmental organizations accredited with the Economic and Social Council then presented their views.

HE present writer spoke first and urged the Sub-Commission to re­ ject the innocuous causes which the reporting governments attributed to the recent antisemitic outbursts. Jac­ ques Maritain had said of antisemi­ tism that it “diverts men from the real tasks confronting them,” and it was odd to see that those who made it their real task to combat antisemi­ tism fell prey to similar infirmities—

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they were too easily diverted frofn the real issues that confronted them. The most sincere analysts of this unfortu­ nate world-wide disease offered far­ fetched diagnoses in place of conclu­ sions based on objective? irrefutable facts; they provided well-meaning but impractically vague suggestions in­ stead of down-to-earth remedies.

UNESCO had taken a more serious view of the incidents, but decided that the underlying motivations were not antisemitic. The UNESCO report con­ cluded, “It would be wrong to under­ estimate the antisemitic aspect of a phenomenon whose real causes are un­ related to antisemitism as such.” I suggested to the Sub-Commission that UNESCO, though recognizing the gravity of the problem, had gone as­ tray by avoiding the diagnosis to which all the symptoms pointed. UNESCO had determined that the incidents were the expression of “latent frustration and resentment,” and advised that “the manifestations, whatever their origin, must be interpreted as symptoms of social tensions or moral unrest that cannot be treated lightly.”

But why was the unrest and tension so patently present released in the direction of Jews? Why is it not a class of society, a particular calling, or a geographical entity rather than a religion that becomes the target toward which pent-up emotions are directed?

Anti-Jewish feeling throughout his­ tory, be it in ancient Rome or in Czarist Russia, has focused on the re­ ligious observance and rituals of the Jewish people. Antisemites always for­ get that it is to Judaism that the world owes the idea of monotheism, the seed for both Christianity and Islam, and that the Jewish sacred books have been the foundation for the developJEWISH LIFE

ment of a civilized society. Hate for the Jewish religion has taken the place of the gratitude which is actually due it.

The Nazis, of course, varied the approach and condemned the Jewish race, but the emphasis has again turned to religion, and the anti-re­ ligious aspect of antisemitism persists today. In its issue of August 9, 1960, the official newspaper of the Com­ munist party in Buinaksk, which is located in the Daghestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, echoed the hateful blood-libel of centuries ago: “The Jews do such uncouth things. For example, a Jew who did not drink the blood of Moslems at least once a year was not considered a true believer. Consequently, many Jews buy five to ten grams of blood from Moslems, add it to a barrel of water and sell it as ‘water with Moslem blood’.”

In its issue of July 30, 1960, the same journal discussed the question of whether the time had not come to close the town’s synagogue and advised that it would be good to do so. Was it not likely that the same feeling that in­ spired this ruthless advice was also responsible for the shameless desecra­ tion of the synagogue in Cologne?

To refuse to recognize the affinity be­ tween the seemingly impassioned and the passionless guises of antisemitism was to reject the most obvious diag­ nosis. It could not be mere coincidence that both forms so often appeared hand-in-hand. France-Soir and many United States newspapers had re­ cently published accounts of religious persecution in North Africa, where not only had rabbis been beaten in the streets and children in school mis­ treated because they had worn skull­ APRIL, 1961

caps, but the authorities also insisted that Jews bear Jewish names in order to facilitate identification.

If indeed antisemitism were no more than a release of childish emotions, it might be cured along with other forms of juvenile delinquency. But all too often it is embraced by thinking adults. Nazi racist theories had not been mere political propaganda; they had become a living part of German culture and were eagerly absorbed by scientists and scholars.

Public statements by German Nobel Prize winners Johannes Stark and Philipp Lenard bore witness to the fact that responsibility for antisemi­ tism could not be traced only to “in­ dividuals of a primitive mental dis­ position . . . [who have] no idea of the meaning of concepts such as con­ stitution, basic rights, or democracy.”

Could not one of Hitler’s cultural elite —the scientists and philosophers who had embraced the cult of hate—have desperately desired to blot out a ref­ erence to the Third Reich as the most shameful period in German history?

N interesting incident occurred while I was thus addressing the Sub-Commission. At this point I quoted from a statement made by Professor Alfred Baeumler, an im­ portant German philosopher, who bit­ terly attacked both the Jews and “bolshevism,” He suggested that na­ tional socialism established an organ­ ically founded Weltanschauung which did not “content itself with piecemeal curing of the symptoms but attacked the evil at its root*” Mr. Sapozhnikov, apparently not realizing that the at­ tack on bolshevism was part of the quotation, rose immediately to a point of order and said that “the Sub-Com­ mission was supposed to discuss last

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year’s outbreak of antisemitic mani­ festations, not to listen to provocative and slanderous- attacks against the USSR” (Official United Nations Press Release SOC/2803). A discussion of the duties of non-governmental repre­ sentatives ensued, and it was agreed that attacks against governments of member states could not be made.

Upon being given the floor once again, I pointed out that when the German professor was making his attack on the Jews, the gas chambers of Ausch­ witz, Belzetz, Treblinka, and Maidanek were working overtime to consume the lives of six million people. It was, indeed, no “piecemeal curing of symp­ toms”; it was, as Professor Baeumler wished it, an attack upon the “evil at its roots.”

Surely the outbreaks could not be dismissed as lightly as the documents would have it. I urged the Sub-Com­ mission to continue its study in order to discover the link between the coldly planned and the emotional manifesta­ tions of antisemitism and suggested that the new material submitted by the non-governmental organizations be forwarded to the governments and that they be requested to submit their opinions and take action at the next session. Only by a recognition of the interrelationship between all forms of antisemitism and a careful analysis of the common factor could the re­ appearance of antisemitic waves be forestalled.

The representatives of the other Jewish non-governmental organiza­ tions then addressed the Sub-Commis­ sion and discussed many important aspects of the problem. Summaries of these addresses, delivered by Mr. Salzman of the Consultative Council of Jewish Organizations, Mr. Katz of the Coordinating Board of Jewish 36

Organizations, Dr. Perlzweig of the World Jewish Congress, and Mrs. Polstein of the World Union for Pro­ gressive Judaism, are available in the Summary Record of the session.

The privilege of member nations, particularly the Soviet Union, again was discussed when Mr. Katz was in­ terrupted by a point of order made by Professor Hiscocks of the United Kingdom with reference to the state­ ment that, “While the USSR has es­ caped the swastika epidemic, antiSemitic incidents had occurred in Malachowka, a town in the vicinity of Moscow, three months before the epidemic.”

Mr. Sapozhnikov later delivered a lengthy statement on antisemitism in the Soviet Union. He said (in the words of the official United Nations Press Release) that “the USSR had been the first to proclaim—in 1917— the principles of self-determination and equality of rights. Jews in the Soviet Union enjoyed the same rights as all the other nationalities in the country. They held posts in rocket de­ velopment, he stated. In higher educa­ tion, he said, the proportion of Jews was larger than their proportion in relation to total population.”

This was all, of course, quite beside the point. No one had maintained that the USSR discriminated against the Jews in law, or that the official legal status of Jews in Russia was inade­ quate. It is the more ordinary and unofficial activity, such as the publi­ cation of the blood-libel in the Daghe­ stan Communist newspaper, that causes alarm.

FTER a prolonged discussion the Sub-Commission decided to men­ tion “antisemitism” in its resolution, though parenthetically. The resolution

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finally approved by the Sub-Commis­ sion read, in relevant part, as follows: “The Sub-Commission . . . Noting with concern that such manifesta­ tions of racial, national and religi­ ous hatred, including anti-Semitism, are fraught with danger to the pur­ poses of the United Nations and the rights and freedoms set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights . . . Decides to take up this item at a later session, should cir­ cumstances render it necessary, in order to consider, in cooperation with Governments of States Mem­

APRIL, 1961

bers of the United Nations and of the specialized agencies, and non­ governmental organizations in con­ sultative status, further measures for the eradication of racial, national and religious hatred.”

Will “circumstances render it neces­ sary”? This is, of course, the central unanswerable question. Unfortunately, the discussion in the Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities provided no clue as to the answer. Nor did it con­ vince us that antisemitism belongs only to the past.

37

The Total Synagogue

By NACHUM L. RABINOVITCH

A call to the lo ca l s y n a g o g u e to a s s u m e a b ro a d ly e n c o m p a s s in g role in A m e r ic a n J e w is h c o m m u n it y life in fu lfilling the n e e d s of the “ jo in e rs”— a n d of the J e w is h future.

with the synagogue. But these had an

HAT will American Jewry be W like in fifty years? Although organizational structure of their own.

Jewish life in America, as yet, is far Thus in most towns of any size there from having developed fixed forms, all observers agree on two things: First, more and more Jews are trying to find their Jewish identity. To this end they have become “joiners,” affili­ ating themselves with other Jews who are also in search. And second, this need for identification is no longer being satisfied by the various secular organization, whether Zionist, cultural, or even philanthropic. In fact, the Zionist organizations are rapidly going the way of the Yiddishist and radical movements which have all but dis­ appeared from the American scene.

More and more, the trend is to the synagogue.

The synagogue is, of course, an ancient institution, and one might sup­ pose that its scope and its functions are well defined by its long history.

But that is not so at all. In fact, for many centuries the structural unit of organized Jewish life was the Kehillah, with the synagogue serving but one aspect of the community’s needs. The synagogue was the House of Prayer.

It housed also other community func­ tions; especially the Beth Hamidrosh— House of Study—was often combined 38

were severah synagogues to accommo­ date the people for prayer but they were all instruments of the one Kehil­ lah. A Jew was identified as such by his association with the Kehillah, not with a particular synagogue.

Today the situation is radically dif­ ferent. American Jewish life, for all the proliferation of “national” organi­ zations, is highly decentralized, and almost the only organizational unit of any consequence on the “grass-roots” level is the individual congregation.

The Jew who wants to “identify” turns to the synagogue and it is the local congregation which can, if it will, utilize the potential of its membership as no other grouping can.

F the synagogue will limit itself, however, to being just a House of Prayer, it will fail to meet the chal­ lenge of our times. The orthodox syn­ agogue especially faces an awesome responsibility. For observant Jews, who pray every day, are wont to be satis­ fied with the limited traditional role of the shool because for them the syn­ agogue is only one pole of their religi­ ous life, while, for example, the home and the Yeshivah are no less impor-

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JEWISH LIFE

tant. The Jewish survival of the masses of American Jews demands that their potential resources be channeled to­ wards cultivating a full Jewish life.

Such a life has many needs, ranging from Torah education through Shabboth, Kashruth, Taharath Hamishpochah, Hachnosath Orchim, to phil­ anthropy and Chesed Shel Emeth.

Unfortunately, many individual Jews feel no Jewish needs other than identi­ fication. They are not interested in the whole complex of Jewish values. For them the Christian pattern of churchcentered religion is adequate. There­ fore they will not become involved in any type of organization other than the synagogue. If the synagogue, how­ ever, will broaden its function to in­ clude all the other truly Jewish needs, it will be able to exert a powerful influence upon these “Jews by mem­ bership only.” Furthermore, they will be contributing through their syna­ gogue to the development of those other vital community services. With­ out the broad base of popular support which only the synagogue enjoys, none of these essential institutions can thrive.

But the search for identification has brought about more positive results than merely “joining.” There is a con­ stantly growing demand for Jewish education for the children. Although there is little understanding of what constitutes “Jewish” education, there is a genuine desire to “give our chil­ dren what we missed.” Less tangible, but hardly less real, is the urge towards a meaningful Jewish life on the part of the adults themselves.

F THESE are the things that people want, it is to be expected that the congregation that gives them will flour­ ish and grow. Can the orthodox syn­ agogue provide for these needs? Well, if it cannot or will not, in many neigh­

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APRIL, 1961

borhoods, it will not survive the com­ petition with the sectarian groups. And without the orthodox synagogue, who will organize the resources for the sup­ port of all the vital Jewish community functions? To put it bluntly, who will maintain genuine Torah education?

Who will uphold Jewish standards?

Who will care about Mikvoth? Who will provide for Kashruth? And so on and so on. Even in the orthodox con­ gregation only a minority is actively interested in all these things. Outside it there is, at best, indifference.

Thus the individual congregation must see itself as responsible for the totality of Jewish communal life. To effectively discharge this responsibility, it will need to develop its organiza­ tional strength to the maximum by recruiting as many “joiners” as pos­ sible.

What can the orthodox synagogue give the American Jew? He who seeks identification only must be attracted by emphasizing the glories of our age-old rites. Americans generally yearn for pageantry and color. Let us give them the “beauty of holiness.” Too many think of Orthodoxy as “old fashioned.”

We need to present it as “ancient and timeless.” Unless we make the vesti­ bule inviting, many will never get to the inner chamber of the palace.

Most important, we must offer the future: we must offer education for the children. But it must be genuine Torah education and it must be quality education. Here lies the key to the future of American Jewry. Can we afford to neglect it?

HE amazing growth of the Day School movement shows how peo­ ple will flock to the school of educa­ tional quality. But we have not even begun to tap the vast potential. And already we are faced by serious finan-

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cial and ideological problems. If these are to be overcome, how logical it is for the synagogue and the school to join hands. The school can become the raison d’etre of the congregation, its pride and its major attraction, while the congregation can marshall its re­ sources for the maintenance of the school—resources which the school, if it stands by itself, cannot command.

In the small community, where there is only one synagogue, this can be relatively easy. For the very large con­ gregation, too, this totality of respon­ sibility is not impractical to achieve.

But What about the average-size syn­ agogue? Even in suburbia there are usually several congregations, and it is not feasible to have several small day schools and Talmud Torahs when one will do the job more efficiently. Can the principle of the total-synagogue still be applied? It can, if there is will­ ingness to recognize its basic character.

Several examples illustrate this well.

Certainly every synagogue can. have a mikvah. Indeed in the large cities the very word evokes in the minds of many people foggy suggestions of dis­ dain mixed with amusement. Not the least cause for this shameful state is unfamiliarity. If every synagogue had a mikvah, everybody would get to know more about it and it would cease to have its present semi-mythical associations.

Another vital function is Chevra Kadisha. The funeral directors—par­ don me, morticians—have all but done away with traditional Jewish practice.

In the process, many basic Torah at­ titudes toward life and death are being destroyed and thousands of our people are falling under the sway of heathen concepts of worship of the dead.

The cemeteries still belong to the congregations. If every synagogue had 40

a true Chevra Kadisha, it would not be difficult to really control the ceme­ teries and therefore all the rites of interment. When people are, G-d for­ bid, bereaved, they are most suscep­ tible to spiritual influences. The Chevra Kadisha could open their hearts to the positive guidance of Torah, rather than leaving them exposed, as they are now, to the insidious pagan forces of the mortuary industry.

S FOR the school, cannot several synagogues together sponsor a joint school? Of course, in order to keep the congregation interested, the average synagogue member must be made to feel that it is still really “his” synagogue school. This can be done by giving the synagogue organizational benefits from the school. A junior con­ gregation in each partner synagogue will show off the advantages the con­ gregation derives from sponsoring the school. The sharing of personnel and plant is another way in which the relationship between synagogue and school can be cemented. Youth work and clubs offer other possibilities.

Effective public relations on this score are of paramount importance.

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T IS clear that the synagogue is the only institution which can reach the majority of American Jews. If it is to serve not only Jews but Judaism as well, it must use the resources which it alone can command to advance the cause of Torah in all its ramifications.

By serving as the hub for institutions fulfilling other vital Torah functions, and especially the school, both they and the synagogue can be strengthened immeasurably. We must therefore ad­ dress ourselves to the practical prob­ lems of the individual congregation, for it is now the guardian of the future of American Jewry.

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JEWISH LIFE

Schools and Children of Israel

By SAUL SIGELSCHIFFER

P r o b le m s

and

p ro g r e s s

of

Isra e l's

te a ch e rs

and

p u p ils , v ie w e d b y a n A m e r ic a n e d uca tor.

N AMERICAN educator will find startling similarities between the schools of Israel and those of the United States. He will also notice many differences, but on the whole he will find himself at home in the scholastic world of Israel.

As in the United States, education in Israel is compulsory, but only through the eight grades of elementary school, or until the age of fourteen.

For those from fourteen to seventeen years of age who have not completed the eighth grade, there are compulsory evening schools. High school educa­ tion, however, is neither compulsory nor free. Though full or partial schol­ arships are awarded to meritorius candidates, it is estimated that about 35 per cent of the children who can profit from a high school education are not receiving it.

The Israelis have virtually the same problems as we in the large cities of the United States, with economically depressed and culturally deprived groups. The newcomers from North Africa and the eastern countries, like our southern Negro and Puerto Rican

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groups, must be integrated and brought up to the educational and cultural level of the older inhabitants. Though Israel does not seem to be plagued with our problem of “why Johnny can’t read,” there are special classes for slow children and special schools for retarded children which parallel our own.

As for discipline, the Israelis have their troubles too, though it is of the petty kind, like constant chattering and restlessness, interrupting the les­ son by calling or shouting out of turn, inattention, and talking back to the teacher. It is unmixed with manifesta­ tions of delinquency, such as truancy, defiance of authority, stealing, obscen­ ity, and assault upon teacher or pupil, which we find in the urban schools of our country.

OT THAT Israel does not have a delinquency problem. It is only that it has not hit the schools. The reason appears to be that overt ex­ pressions of delinquent behavior are more common in the age groups above fourteen years. Since children

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above this age are not required to attend school in Israel, the high schools can be selective and reject un­ desirable pupils. The compulsory edu­ cation laws of our states, however, require children to attend school until the age of sixteen or seventeen, hence the presence of the problem in our junior and senior high schools. How­ ever, principals and teachers alike wanted to know how we handle dis­ cipline problems in the United States.

It was a favorite question, and they, like us, are continually looking for answers.

It is in the areas of pedagogy and methodology that the chief differences lie between American schools and those of Israel. Though the teacher­ training institutes strive to impart the most modern theories and practices, two situations hamper the Israeli teacher: physical facilities and teach­ ing materials.

Just as we find in this country, there is a shortage of schools and classrooms. In Israel the situation has been aggravated by the swelling of the population to more than double its size since the establishment of the state in 1948. Overcrowding in class­ rooms is therefore severe. Classes of fifty or more children are not un­ common, whereas in the United States we consider a class size of more than thirty as constituting overcrowding.

Under such conditions it is difficult for the Israeli teacher to apply the latest educational methods. The mod­ ern approach to education centers around the individual pupil. Mass education, in which the personality and needs of the individual student are lost or overlooked, became out­ moded more than a generation ago in this country with the advent of pro­ gressive theories. But the Israeli teach­ 42

er, who must face overcrowded classes, cannot concern himself with the individual child. He must rely on mass instruction.

To make matters worse, Israeli classrooms are not as large as those in American schools. They were orig­ inally meant for small numbers. Per­ haps because Israel is a small country, the architects as well as the popula­ tion in general have not been accus­ tomed to thinking in terms of great space. Even today, when new school building, like all building in Israel, is going on at a rapid rate, the size of rooms is not large enough. As a result, when an excessive number of seats must be crowded into them, there is little area left in which to move around. Modern education re­ quires generous space for pupil activi­ ties. In my talks with them, many Israeli teachers expressed the wish to be able to work under American con­ ditions with small groups.

VEN if there were enough schools and classrooms to house the stu­ dent population adequately, there would still be overcrowding. This stems from the teacher shortage.

Teacher shortages are a world-wide condition, again aggravated in Israel by the sudden population increase.

As regards teaching materials, text­ books, and children’s books, these are inferior when judged by American standards. The quality of paper is poor, undoubtedly because paper pro­ duction in Israel is in its infancy and the cost of importing it prohibitive.

Illustration, especially in color, is in­ adequate. Besides, Israel has not yet developed the writers, illustrators, and publishers with great experience, spe­ cializing in this field, to put out suit­ able texts and workbooks for use by

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schools. It will take considerable time before the beautiful books which are accepted as part of the American educational process will also be char­ acteristic of Israeli education. Perhaps when that time comes, school books will also be supplied to the children free. At present, pupils must buy their books and supplies.

Israeli schools are also handicapped by a dearth of mechanical teaching devices. American schools use a vari­ ety of machines such as projectors and record players, employing slides, film­ strips, movies, and special sound re­ cordings. Israel has few of these.

What are educational necessities in our schools are rare luxuries in Israel.

It is no wonder then that, in spite of a desire to approach American levels, Israeli schools lag behind in pedagogical techniques. There is no doubt, also, that these deficiencies are at the root of many of the discipline problems, minor though they may be, which the teacher faces in the class­ room. More attention to the individual pupil and greater emphasis on interest factors in learning would prevent dis­ cipline problems from arising.

It must not be concluded from this that teaching in Israel is of mediocre calibre. I have seen many instances of inspired teaching by gifted and competent teachers. The good teacher rises above conditions, where the aver­ age teacher is limited by them.

ESPITE adverse conditions, there is one level at which the quality of teaching is very high and which compares favorably with that in the United States: the primary grades.

From the nursery through the second grade I found the teachers, as con­ trasted with those in the upper grades, generally employing approved modern

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techniques. I suppose the explanation lies in the fact that it is impossible to be academic and bookish with young children. I found the primary teachers skillful in the arts of drama­ tization and story-telling, and in the use of games and creative play. Their rooms were colorful and attractive, reflecting the varied learning activities engaged in. I found the nursery and kindergarten teachers particularly in­ genious and inventive. They have fewer ready-made educational ma­ terials to work with than the Ameri­ can pre-school teachers* and they have learned to turn discarded materi­ als, such as hoops, barrels, wheels, parts of autos, and whatever comes to hand into attractive playthings.

Israel has an unusually large num­ ber of nurseries. Except for those in the few remaining maabaroth or refu­ gee camps, and those sponsored by philanthropic organizations, the nurs­ eries are privately owned. Wherever you go you see them. I have no sta­ tistics, but it seemed to me that there was a larger proportion of nurseries per population than in the United States. This phenomenon cannot be explained merely in terms of day care for children whose mothers work outside the home since, despite the difficult economic conditons, compar­ atively few women, according to sta­ tistics, are employed in industry. It is an instance of the care which Israelis lavish on their children, regarded as the nation’s most precious resource.

N MANY classes I saw a great deal of thumb-sucking. This symptom of insecurity was manifest even in the classes of older children. In one eighth grade class I saw four girls sucking their thumbs. I even saw one young lady in a teachers institute for physi-

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cal education sucking her thumb. This is a form of behavior which needs psychological study. Perhaps some day, when Israel has sufficient re­ sources and personnel, such a study will be made. In the meantime we can only venture an explanation. Is it because Israel reflects the terrible ex­ periences which such a large propor­ tion of its population has undergone in fleeing from oppression? Is it be­ cause of the subconscious tensions resulting from being surrounded by enemies and from the necessity of being constantly alert against them?

Does it stem from the tremendous, swiftly moving changes involved in transforming the nation into a unified, modern, industrial society, the impact of which is felt—whether subtly or strongly—by young and old? Or is it due to the shortcomings of the schools where the individual child is lost in the mass?

A few words more should be added about school buildings. Except for sections in cities like Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, where old and sometimes dilapidated buildings are in use, the school buildings going up in the new sections throughout Israel are bright and cheerful. They are usually con­ crete structures two stories high with the characteristic shaded porches of the country running down one or more sides, and with generous out­ door play space for physical education and games. There is no auditorium.

However, some schools have gymnasi­ ums, which can also serve as assembly rooms when occasion demands. Other­ wise assemblies are held out in the open, a procedure which is possible even during the winter when some days are sunny and mild. At Ramat Gan I saw several such assemblies, with the entire school body lined up 44

in the school yard at the start of the day to witness a program before their entrance into the classrooms.

The schools are built without heat­ ing systems, however, and during the winter rains, when the weather gets penetratingly cold, both teachers and children go through their lessons throughout the day bundled up in heavy sweaters and coats. The in­ cidence of colds is therefore high, and so is that of rheumatic fever. A letter written by two members of the Israel Rheumatic Society which ap­ peared in the Jerusalem Post last Feb­ ruary thanked the Jerusalem munici­ pality for responding to an appeal to provide kerosene stoves in the ele­ mentary schools, and expressed ap­ preciation to two fuel companies for supplying gifts of kerosene amounting to five thousand litres each. The letter also expressed the hope that there would not be “one single unheated classroom this winter,” and that this action would be “one step more to­ ward reducing the high incidence of rheumatic fever in Jerusalem.”

SIDE from this somber note, the Israeli school child seems happy with his lot. Though his is a six-day week as compared with the five-day week of his American counterpart, his hours allow him more time to play in the plentiful Israeli sun.

For all schools, both religious and non-religious, the day starts at 8 A.M. In the non-religious schools, it ends generally at 1:00; in the religious schools at two or three o’clock twice a week, depending on the grade. For the younger child, the day ends at twelve noon, while the older child may have to stay until four once a week for Chaklauth (agriculture), a required subject in the higher grades.

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Such a schedule is especially bene­ ficial in winter. While our children have only an hour or so of daylight left after school ends at three o’clock, the Israeli youngsters enjoy the bright outdoors afforded by the longer and warmer day of their climate. This advantage is reflected in their appear­ ance. They look like the handsomest and neatest children in the world. The girls especially, at least to my eyes, semed the prettiest. Most of them wear their hair long, usually in braids.

They do not wear lipstick or other make-up, as so many of our young teen-agers do who wish to hurry them­ selves into maturity. There is a whole­ some unsophistication about them which is refreshing. Yet they possess a poise and balance which bespeak a maturity proper for their years. Un­ spoiled, they play as children should, and have a childhood which they en­ joy, not one which they skip.

At this point mention should be made of inter-personal relationships.

There is very little of the “stuffed shirt” in Israel. Relationships in gen­ eral are very free and informal among all elements of the population. The Jew has little respect for rank as such. He is by nature or training an egalitarian. He defers to knowledge, ability, and personality, but has little respect for the outer trappings of posi­ tion or person. This is readily seen in the matter of dress. The chief sym­ bol of this attitude is Ben Gurion himself, who functions as prime min­ ister and appears in public without tie or jacket. It is true that the warm climate of Israel is not conducive to elaborate dress, but the general atti­ tude of the Israeli public is that there are more important things than clothes. .¿if!

The same is true of the schools.

APRIL, 1961

Relationships among principal, teach­ ers, and pupils are free of formality.

Teachers regard the principal and as­ sistant principal as teachers, which they really are, since they too are re­ quired to teach a certain number of hours per week. The difference in their salaries is not very great either.

To most teachers, also, dress is unimportant. Many come to school tieless or wearing a sweater. The fact that their salaries are low and that they cannot spend too much on cloth­ ing has probably little to do with their attitude. Their example, however, does not effect the children, who come to school dressed very neatly and clean.

Here is another example of how Israeli parents lavish attention on their offspring.

HE casual tone of the school is further reflected in the matter of smoking. Teachers and principal smoke openly on the school premises, even in the performance of duties involving children. Such a practice is frowned upon in the United States.

It is true that there is little danger from fire to the solid concrete school structures of Israel, in which no wood is used in walls or floors, a danger which is ever present in our own country. But our curriculum requires that pupils be taught the harmful effects of tobacco. In the light of re­ cent investigations which have re­ vealed the danger of lung cancer as a result of smoking, such health les­ sons are especially important. Since it is also essential that teachers do not violate the lessons they are sup­ posed to teach, we require those who must smoke to do so in the special teachers’ rooms prpvided for the pur­ pose out of sight pf the pupils.

Yet, in the Israeli schools, I have

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seen a principal address a pupil as­ sembly while smoking a cigarette. I have seen another principal Walk through the corridors and into class­ rooms smoking a pipe. One physical education teacher directed the games in the school yard while smoking his pipe. Other teachers from the first grade up, women as well as men, smoked in the corridors or while supervising the children’s recess.

One would think that with such ex­ amples constantly around them, Israeli children would take to smoking early.

But such is not the case. As in the matter of dress, the example of the teacher is lost on the child. I never saw a case of a child smoking any­ where in Israel, and I was constantly on the alert to find it. Thus, we have an interesting paradox: in the United States, where we try to shield children from the experience of smoking, we find teen-agers taking to the practice.

What principal has not been faced with the problem of pupils smoking in front of the school building, or sur­ reptitiously in the school washrooms or corridors?

How can the paradox be explained?

As indicated previously, in Israel the child is a child. He does not expect the privileges or the prerogatives of an adult. In this country the child is impatient for adulthood, and apes the manners and habits of grownups. An­ other explanation may be the fact that in Israel the cost of living is high and incomes low. Israeli children thus have little money to spend on cigarettes, though this would not be a deterrent if they really wished to smoke.

It must not be thought from the foregoing that the next generation of Israelis will be non-smokers. When the boys and girls enter the army for compulsory service at the age of 46

eighteen, they begin to smoke. Smok­ ing and military service seem to go together. It is the rare individual who does not take to the habit. Israel is a nation of smokers; and from the looks of things it will continue to be so for a long time. The local cigarette indus­ try, which uses home-grown tobacco —an important agricultural product now—has more brands on the market, it seems, than are found here in the United States.

UT to return to the matter of re­ lationships. In some schools a note of formality creeps into the teacher-pupil relationship because chil­ dren are required to stand when the teacher enters the room. They also address the teacher with the respectful title of “Hamoreh” (“the teacher”), just as they address the principal as “Hamenahel” (“the principal”), in­ stead of employing the family name prefaced with Mr., Mrs., or Miss. But these tokens of respect lose their sig­ nificance if the teacher is inferior in personality or ability. In the latter case, disciplinary problems will arise.

Teacher and pupils will wrangle over an incident or a punishment, the les­ son will be disturbed by constant in­ terruptions, and a noisy undertone will prevail during the session— all indicating that the ¿teacher cannot control his class.

On the other hand, I have visited schools where children address their teachers and the principal by their first names and do not stand when they enter the room. Again, paradoxi­ cally, the tone seemed to be better in these schools, and the breaches of dis­ cipline fewer.

A surprising feature o f ‘the Israeli schools is that there are no truant officers. Who ever heard of a com-

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pulsory education system without truant officers? When I questioned various officials about this, they were surprised by my incredulity. They thought it inconceivable that any child would want to absent himself from school, or that his parents would not wish to send him, unless he were ill.

When I asked if any case had ever arisen of a new family moving into the neighborhood who had not regis­ tered their child and kept him at home, they answered that they had never heard of such a thing, and that it would be unlikely to happen be­ cause the neighbors would surely in­ form the school about it. In Israel, everyone is his neighbor’s keeper—a good Jewish custom—and every school is truly a neighborhood school.

NE OF the most significant ex­ periences I had was observing a demonstration lesson on how to teach the Shmoneh Esrey in the seventh grade class in a non-religious school. Before I comment further on this, mention should be made that the state supports religious as well as secu­ lar schools, with the latter preponder­ ating. A standard curriculum in which Tanach is compulsory is followed in both types of schools, with the re­ ligious schools adding Mishnah and Gemorah.

In the secular schools, religious implications are avoided in all subject areas including Tanach, while the opposite is true in the religious schools. For instance, I witnessed a lesson in a second grade class in a non-religious school in which the children learned the parts of various vegetables which are edible, such as the roots, the leaves, or the fruit. It was an excellent lesson in which science, health, arithmetic, reading,

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writing, and music were integrated and many intangible values inculcated.

Good pedagogy, indeed, except for one thing: the children were not taught the concept contained in the blessing over vegetables. The different blessings, thanking G-d for food, make distinctions as to the various types of fruits and vegetables and show a keen appreciation of how they grow. They are a testament to the agricultural background of our ancestors, and also have the practical value of reenforcing the knowledge which is imparted to children as science or nature study. In a religious school this same lesson would have been given its full re­ ligious value, and in addition the chil­ dren would have learned the facts and the distinctions among the types of vegetables more thoroughly. Also, from the point of view of modern education which stresses appreciation, they would have learned the wonder of G-d’s creativity.

But to come back to the point on which I started, what was the pur­ pose of bringing the Shmoneh Esrey into a secular class? The answer lies in a change of policy on the part of the educational authorities. So many instances have occurred in the past where Israelis, nurtured in irreligion, had been thrown into contact with other Jews and had demonstrated a shocking ignorance of their past and an inability to understand the ob­ servances and customs of those with whom they supposedly shared a com­ mon heritage, that a reappraisal of the goals of education became neces­ sary. Could Israel afford to raise a generation of strangers to the ancient traditions, who would be cut off from the vast body of Jewry? Evidently not.

Three years ago, therefore, the au­ thorities decided to adopt a policy of 47

developing todaah yehudith, or Jewish consciousness.

The purpose of this program is threefold: to teach modern Israel’s Connection with the past from a his­ torical point of view; to impart a knowledge and understanding of pres­ ent religious customs; and to strength­ en the bond with Jews outside of Israel.

HE Shmoneh Esrey lesson was part of the developing curriculum designed to effectuate this program. It was most interesting to watch. Since it was a demonstration, and formed part of the training program for teach­ ers, it was given after the close of the session, with twenty-one teachers, the principal and assistant principal, two supervisors from the Ministry of Edu­ cation, and myself present to view it.

An exceptionally capable teacher was chosen to teach the lesson.

He did a magnificent job. Most of the children came with siddurim, which they had obtained from home or borrowed. It was good to see the boys and the teacher, who were un­ accustomed to doing so, put on yarmulkas (or kipoth, as they are called in Israel). Through appropriate ques­ tioning and comment, the teacher brought out the significance and pur­ pose of prayer, and showed how these were carried out in the Shmoneh Esrey. Through constant reference to the siddur, he pointed out the struc­ ture of the prayer as a whole, and the meaning of the individual bene­ dictions. He also conveyed a sense of unity with the millions in Israel who say this prayer.

I came away with the feeling that such a lesson not only fulfilled the three purposes of the todaah yehudith program, but accomplished even more.

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The children were instilled with a re­ spect for prayer and for the religious Jew. They also received a foundation for faith, something to which they could turn in the future when they were perplexed by moral and ethical questions.

As an educator, however, I knew that the values of a lesson depend on the attitude—as well as the ability-— of the teacher. I was therefore anxious to note the comments and reactions of the teachers at the follow-up con­ ference after the lesson. It was sur­ prising how many of them were ignorant of and unsympathetic to the program in general, and to the ma­ terial of this specific lesson. They questioned the demonstrating teacher closely on why he said some of the things he did. Much of the discussion turned on whether the school was to teach religion and how far the in­ struction of the Todaah Yehudith program was to go. The key question was whether such a lesson should not be taught for information only, omitting the concepts involved. 1 was glad to see that the two supervisors who summed up at the end of the conference stressed the necessity of emphasizing the concepts and values inherent in lessons of this type if the Todaah Yehudith program were to be successful.

T WAS evident, however, that the re-training of teachers presently serving in the schools would be slow and difficult, and that the best surety for the program lay in the training of the future teachers in the teachers in­ stitutes. Besides, it would never be clear to what extent religious ob­ servance would be allowed, or put an­ other way, to what extent it would be kept out. For instance, in the lower

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grades candles are lit on Friday with­ out a prayer. Some teachers do noth­ ing more than that, others have a Kabbolath Shabboth with the singing of secular and Sabbath songs, the plac­ ing of money in the Keren Kayemeth box, and the playing of games, for the purpose of imbuing some of the spirit and beauty of the Sabbath into the classroom. Suppose some teacher were to go further and say the prayer over the candles. Would that be permis­ sible?

My guess is that it would be. It is my conviction that it is impossible to keep religion out of the Israeli secular schools. I witnessed lessons in Tanach in which some teachers drew necessary religious implications and others did not. In the latter case, the lessons were unconvincing because vital questions went unanswered. Some day the children will seek the answers to these questions, in spite of the effort on the part of teachers to avoid them. The Tanach cannot be studied without emphasizing the dependence of the people of Israel on G-d and the need to worship Him. The Todaah Yehudith program is the first step in the recognition of this fact. With the progress of time it seems inevitable that many more steps will be taken.

APRIL, 1961

HAT summary impression can be offered of the Israeli school system? It is obviously impossible in a magazine article to do more than touch on a few phases. It would re­ quire years of study to fill in com­ pletely the lines and details of the educational picture. Yet a general perspective emerges which seems to be quite clear.

The Israeli school system is a good one. It suffers from the two deficien­ cies which trouble the United States and other parts of the world: a short­ age of teachers and of school build­ ings. In Israel’s case, the situation is aggravated by the phenomenal in­ crease of a refugee population since the founding of the state in 1948. It also must catch up on modern educa­ tional techniques and materials, and also on providing greater educational opportunities. But these deficiencies can and will be corrected in time, be­ cause both the teachers and their superiors generally are alert and de­ sirous of improving the system. Most important of all, the indications are that the Israel of the future will not be an irreligious state, because the educational system has learned that it cannot escape passing on the true heritage of the nation.

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Definitions T he authoritative code of Jew ish law is known as the Shulhan Aruch, the “P repared Table.” The names of its four cqmponent volumes are only remotely connected w ith th e ir contents, but they can serve to put into focus for us th e m ajor definitions o f Judaisfii as such. F o r while the question “W hat is Judaism ?” has not evoked as much b itte r controversy as has the related “w hat is a Jew ?” its impli­ cations are ju s t as far-reaching.

Yoreh Deah. Judaism is an intellectual discipline. I t teaches uS tru e deah, authentic knowledge about G-d and man— more about m an than about G-d, fo r the Torah is G-d’s view of man, not m an’s view of G-d. There are those who would confine religion to the realm of poetry, myth, and symbol, and divorce it from hard reality, knowledge, and the search fo r tru th . Judaism cannot abide such separation from deah.

Choshen M ishpot. Judaism is a divinely revealed system of righteous and ethical living. I t regulates the relations of men w ith th e ir fellow men on the basis of m ishpot or justice. Judaism is not ju s t an ethic, but neither is it merely a ritual. Its glory is in its fusion of both the duties tow ards G-d and the obligations to man in one whole.

E ven ha-Ezer. Judaism is a source of tranquility and per­ sonal and social happiness. While it m ust never be reduced to a “peace of m ind” cult, a spiritual tranquilizer, neverthe­ less it is a source of fa ith and confidence. “From whence shall come my help ?” asked the Psalm ist. And he answers, “my help (ezri) comes from the Lord, M aker of heaven and ea rth ” (Psalm s 121:1,2).

Orach C hayyim . Judaism is, above all, a way of life. Through the Halochah, every aspect of life becomes significant. Every action, no m atter how trivial, becomes an opportunity to sanctify the Name of G-d. As the way of life fo r Israel, it becomes a celebration of life itself. “And he shall live by it”— Torah enhances life and makes life w orth living. “It is a tre e of chayyim fo r them who hold it.”

N otice that no m ention has been made of the narrow defi­ nition of Judaism as a “religion,” nor th e broad and hence nearly m eaningless term “civilization.” Any single definition of Judaism m ust necessarily do violence to it by failing to convey its uniqueness and its fullness.

The best way to know w hat Judaism is, is not to define it a t all. The best way is to live it.

R abbi N orman L amm 50

JEWISH LIFE

On

theJewish Record

The Musical Legacy of the Baal Shem Tov

By ERIC OFFENBACHER

OT long ago Jews the world over nigunim via the recording medium.

N observed the 200th Yahrzeit of From the many outstanding releases the Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Chassidism. From the time of his death until this day a distinct style of neginah has come down to us in steady progression as the identifying hall­ mark of Chassidic music. The tradition continues and encompasses today all forms of religious experience. It rises to its characteristic emotional zenith in prayerful song as heard in the synagogue, at the Shabboth table, or at a wedding ceremony.

With the influx of many Chassidic rabbis and their “courts” from East­ ern Europe, America has witnessed an avalanche of this type of spirited Chassidic music, and the American yeshivah student as well as his elders has taken to it like a fish to fresh spring water. No wonder, therefore, that the charm and the originality of these melodies are being captured on records. And the zealots of each Chas­ sidic dynasty vie with one another to acquaint the Jewish public with their D R . ERIC O F FE N BA C H E R has been a devotee o f Jewish music for many years. H e regularly conducts this department.

APRIL, 1961

available today, On the Jewish Record has selected a series of four to be re­ viewed in subsequent issues of J e w ­ is h L i f e , two representing sequels to earlier releases while the other two are first recordings of Chassidic music.

Following is the initial review in the series.

H * * * JOY OF THE SABBATH, Chassidic Sabbath Melodies composed and sung

by Ben Zion Shenker. Chorus con­ ducted by Yelvel Pasternak; Musical Settings by Vladimir Heifetz. Pro­ duced by B.-H. Stambler. 12" LP (Monaural), Collectors Guild CGL 616. $4.98.

T SHOULD have been a pleasure to rate this, the latest edition in a number of recordings of Modzitzer nigunim (for the two previous discs, “Melave Malke Melodies” and “Sholosh R’golim,” see J e w i s h L i f e , Kislev 5717 and Av 5718) an unqualified success. Unfortunately it is not, al­ though for some listeners the good points may outweigh the objections.

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Like its predecessors the present record offers an abundance of intrigu­ ing and haunting music, this time com­ posed entirely by an American-born disciple of the famous rabbis of Modzitz, who literally sat at their feet.

He is not a professional musician but a businessman imbued with the glow­ ing fire of the genuine Chassidic baal menagen. Ben Zion Shenker, the com­ poser, reveals himself as considerably more talented than Mr. Shenker, the vocalist. His phrasings are often un­ duly broken up and his Hebrew accen­ tuation not altogether faultless. But to this reviewer the main shortcomings of the record appear to lie in two directions. An attempt has been made to crowd too much material on this disc (a selection from the Kedushah is surely out of place in a collection of Sabbath Zemiroth—and strangely reminiscent of another Mimkomcha by another Chassidic singer). Secondly, the choice of orchestral accompani­ ment more often than not detracts from rather than enhances the enjoy­ ment of Mr. Shenker’s compositions.

True enough, the renditions are sin­ cere and are presented in the sweet vein characteristic of the Modzitzer idiom. But direct comparison of, for example, Ush’avtem Mayim or Yism’chu with similar numbers from earlier records clearly indicates a lack of the invigorating spontaneity so greatly admired in the simpler set­ tings. Here we cannot escape the feel­ ing that gimmicks, especially in the percussion section, have been employed to achieve a desired effect. Even the “Gut voch” exclaimed at the end of Hamavdil sounds so much more con­ trived than the identical ending of the original “Melave Malke” disc. And Heaven have mercy on the uninspired arranger who conceived the steady 52

cymbal beat as a background through­ out Tsur Mishelo, the jazz band flourishes at the end of almost every number, and the triumphant finale with which Eshes Chayil is concluded.

One wonders if the proverbial “Wom­ an of Valor” is not just that, a heroine carried aloft to victory on someone’s shoulders. The strophic type of com­ position used here as well as in Mizmor L ’Dovid is ill-advised.

OTH texts (no zemiroth in the strict understanding of the term) belong to the most elated that Biblical poetry has to offer. Both represent outpourings of great depth but of con­ stantly varying mood. Therefore it seems logical that a repeating melodic theme, appropriate though it is in singing regular zemiroth, should have been avoided. One can only do justice to the lyrical variations in phrasing by a musical setting which reflects that variety of colors and which is composed in consonance with the con­ trasted shadings in the text. The opportunity to penetrate appears to have been missed. Furthermore, a closer examination of Mr. Shenker’s work uncovers a certain lack of origi­ nality coupled with a similarity of intonation. In many selections a single meditative mood prevails in a steady succession of slow and somber songs.

This leaves an impression of sameness which in turn is not inducive to sus­ taining interest up to the end. Yet it cannot be denied that a goodly num­ ber of pieces on the record do gain upon repeated hearings. The chorus and some of the solo instruments fall short of precision in their accompani­ ments, an often-encountered phenome­ non which usually indicates insufficient rehearsal time.

But there are positive sides to the

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JEWISH LIFE

ledger, and the disc contains also enough fine material to recommend it. One of the highlights is the beau­ tifully plaintive B’ne Hecholo, paint­ ing a melancholic mood during the waning hours of the Sabbath. Here the musical background is discreet and “in tune.” Another outstanding piece of immediate appeal is the typi­ cally lively and rhythmic Nigun whose words of a Shir Hama’aloth subse­ quently fitted to it ought perhaps to have been omitted. Yism'chu and Ush’avtem Mayim are lusty melodic compositions; M’nuchah V’simchah typifies a relaxed “rocking chair” at­ mosphere; and Me’en Olom Habo reaches inspired moments in its vision of the World to Come.

INALLY, one can have nothing but praise for the production team of B.-H. Stambler (Mr. and Mrs.). They have spared no effort to present to the Jewish public an attractively designed jacket cover with copious notes and historical source material, in addition to an enclosed leaflet which contains the complete Hebrew texts and English translations of all the 14 selections on the record. Congratulations to the Collectors Guild for its consistent in­ telligence in producing and marketing recordings of Jewish interest. These may well serve as an example to larger companies much richer but much less considerate of the record buyer.

F

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53

B aak

Be Jerusalem Under Siege

By I. HALEVY-LEVIN

THE FAITHFUL CITY, By Dov Joseph. Simon and Schuster, $5.95.

T IS an unwritten law of public affairs in Israel, and particularly of anything pertaining to security, that the less the people know the better. What better illustration is there than the par shah, the “security mishap” of six years ago, which toppled Ben Gurion’s coalition admin­ istration. Everybody who takes any interest whatever in what is going on in the country knows what the mis­ hap was, who was involved, and what brought it back to the headlines. But the censor will allow nothing to be printed but the vaguest references, although foreign newspapers have al­ ready published pretty accurate ac­ counts. If there is any criticism at all to make of Dr. Dov Joseph’s highly readable and — particularly for the Jerusalemite who remembers the rig­ ors of the siege—often thrilling ac­ count of his term of office, first as chairman of the Jerusalem Emergency Committee and then as Military Gov-

I

I. H A L E V Y -L E V IN is the Israel correspondent for J ew ish L ife whose incisive articles on the Israeli scene are familiar to all its readers.

54

ernor, it is that, by his own admission, he has carefully sifted his material, and given us what is by all accounts innocuous—and of little value to the historian. Dr. Joseph has few criti­ cisms to make, in itself strange, for he is a forthright man, known to speak his mind without fear or favor.

Reading between the lines, and not only between the lines, it is obvious that he feels that had a timely and resolute attempt been made, had there been a little more cooperation between the civil authority (that is, himself) and the military commander, Aluf David Shaltiel, the Old City need not have fallen, and even if it had, might have been recaptured. It is only on this point that his strictures take on a sharper tone. Why the Old City fell is a question that still causes much heart-searching, almost thirteen years after the event, to this day. It was, Dr. Joseph reminds us, the subject of a Commission of Enquiry, which after a few desultory sessions quietly faded away.

HE Old City, of course, was—and is—of little military or even eco­ nomic importance. For Abdullah it seemed a cheap prize, which he needed

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for reasons of both propaganda and prestige, and in order to give sub­ stance to his claim upon the west bank of the Jordan. His British-officered Legion, augmented by thousands of Arab guerillas, swarming in and around the walled City, by far out­ numbered the small Jewish garrison, hampered by a civilian population that could make little contribution to the defense of the Jewish Quarter. The notion that capture of the Old City would greatly have facilitated the occupation of the area west of the Jordan controlled today by the Hashemites, is mistaken. The Arab position in Western Palestine hinges largely upon Latrun and Ramallah and it was the inability of the Jewish troops to take the former, the major military failure of the war, that decided the fate of this sector and of much future history.

Dr. Joseph declares that the success­ ful defense of Jerusalem determined the course of the war. This is a large claim to make. But strangely enough he denies that the tragic defense of K far Etzion played a similar role in the salvation of Jerusalem. General Yigael Yadin holds an opposite view.

“The Arab Legion and the British also realized that if the Etzion Bloc was not captured by May 15 it would con­ stitute a major obstacle on their road to Jerusalem,” he says.* General Yigal Allon, at that time commanding officer of the Palmach, is even more specific. “The Etzion Bloc was one of the most important fronts of the War of Liberation,” he writes.** “Its stand was hopeless and bloody, but essential. Its orders, like those given to Jewish soldiers and settlers in other * “Siege in the Hebron H ills,” D ov Editor, page 371. ** Ibid, page 379. .

APRIL, 1961

Knohl,

sectors of the front, were to hold out at all costs. The men and women of the Bloc fell not only in defense of their settlements and homes ; they died to save Jerusalem. In the Hebron Hills they fought the battle of Jeru­ salem and played a far more decisive role than if they had fought within the city itself.”

The second and major attack of the Legion on the Etzion Bloc, involving the use of British heavy armor and artillery, concluded on May 13, just one day before the Mandatory admin­ istration left the City. All available evidence indicates that the delay caused by the battle and the need to regroup after the heavy losses suf­ fered by the Legion was decisive. In a determined and singularly success­ ful drive the Haganah forces occupied the strongly fortified security zones and most of the Arab suburbs, emerg­ ing with control of 95 per cent of the total area of Jerusalem.

HERE IS already quite a litera­ ture on the defense and fall of the Old City’s Jewish Quarter. Here Dr. Joseph’s account is highly im­ portant for the new angle from which he describes the events. All hope of holding the Old City was lost at a comparatively early stage — towards the end of March—when Avraham Halperin, the commander of the gar­ rison and to all intents and purposes Military Governor of the Old City (although he never used such a title) was expelled from the Quarter by the British with the connivance, at the very least, of Mordecai Weingarten, British-appointed mukhtar (headman) of the Jewish Quarter. A teacher by profession and today head of the Re­ ligious Section of Youth Aliyah, Hal­ perin is a rare personality. Tall and

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Rashi is distinguished by his simplicity and directness. He wrote in a clear, simple Hebrew so that even very young students might have no difficulty in understanding his message. Into his commentary, which sur­ passed the efforts of numerous Bible interpreters, he put many of the most beautiful midrashic stories and ethical maxims, so as to make it an in­ spiring textbook in the good Jewish life.

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JEWISH LIFE

ascetic in appearance, he is deeply religious, with anything but a military temperament. Dr. Joseph speaks in the highest terms of his personal courage —after being expelled from the Old City he fought on other Jerusalem fronts—his capacity for command, and his flair for civil administration. His successor (or rather successors), lack­ ing these qualities, failed to inspire the confidence not only of the soldiers and civilians but also of their super­ iors, with tragic results.

“The Faithful City” is a factual tale and Dr. Joseph does not delve deeper into the inexplicable fact that notwith­ standing the gulf between the civilian population and the soldiers, the former should have supported the garrison as they did, and indeed had been prepared to endure those months of bitter fight­ ing and cruel siege. The menfolk—and it must be borne in mind that an ex­ cessively large proportion of the two thousand inhabitants were women and children—consisted mainly of the aged, the infirm, yeshivah students, rabbis, and mystics. For many of them, indeed, holding fast to their faith in Messianic redemption in G-d’s appointed time, the very idea of the secular state the Jews were fighting for was anathema.

Bloodshed they abhorred, and having little confidence in Jewish arms, the prospect of another Hebron or Kfar Etzion massacre must have been very real for them. There was very little sympathy between themselves and the fighters, and the constant sight of trousered women among the latter must have signified the negative as­ pect of the remote possibility of a Jewish victory. Above all, in Weingarten they had a willing spokesman for their own evacuation, and indeed almost down to their last day in the City the British did not desist from APRIL, 1961

their blandishments. Yet* in effect they accepted the Haganah argument that they must stay, that their presence strengthened the Jewish claim to the City. The task of surrender was thrust upon them, but they took it, as Dr. Joseph testifies, when the military command had disintegrated, when re­ peated promises of reinforcement and relief had remained unfulfilled, when the commanding officer of the Jeru­ salem Area had refused even to speak to Pincus, upon whom circumstances had thrust leadership of the forty un­ wounded but completely exhausted fighting men who were left of the garrison.

R. JOSEPH insists that had he been told of the gravity of the situation he would have made a per­ sonal appeal to Ben Gurion, which might have produced that last ounce of effort needed to turn the scales.

(Implicit, of course, is the question: Why was not the civil and military authority combined throughout the siege?) But this is pure conjecture.

Ben Gurion, we know, has always lent a more attentive ear to his military subordinates than to his civilian col­ leagues. And in any case where was that last ounce of effort to come from?

The Harel Brigade of the Palmach had achieved the impossible by forc­ ing a passage through the Zion Gate into the Old Quarter. But the Palmach were shock troops, desperately needed on every front, and at the critical moment that they were posted else­ where the Old City was sealed off again.

Here, indeed, we have the answer to that question which gives us no rest to this day: Why was the Old City not held? Because it could not be held! The Yishuv was fighting on

D

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JEWISH LIFE

a front that extended well over five hundred miles, with powerful pockets of resistance within its midst. The Jewish troops were ill-trained, ill­ armed, and outnumbered. They had virtually nothing with which to de­ fend themselves against armor and artillery. For six months the British

A

had been trying to soften them for the final Arab onslaught. Lines of communication stretched literally from Dan to Beersheba. Jewish strategy was to hold every position as long as it was humanly possible. It was not humanly possible to hold the pulver­ ized Jewish Quarter.

New Hebrew-English Edition o f the Talmud

By SAMSON R. WEISS

TRACTATE BERAKOTH, HebrewEnglish Edition of the Babylonian Talmud. The Soncino Press, London.

135 folio pages. $9.00. n n H E Soncino Press, famous for its JL beautiful publications of the clas­ sics of our sacred literature and the translations of the Talmud, the Mid­ rash, and the Zohar, has now em­ barked upon a new venture: an edition of the Babylonian Talmud in which the original text faces the correspond­ ing English translation, page by page.

To the best knowledge of this re­ viewer, only two previous editions of the Talmud had translations appear­ ing on the same page with the Heb­ rew text—one in French and the other one in the German language. In none of these editions, though, was the text really what we consider to be “the D R . SAM SO N R. W EISS, noted educator and thinker, is executive vice-president o f the U nion o f Orthodox Jewish Congregations o f America.

APRIL, 1961

Talmud,” namely the text with Rashi and Tosafoth, without which the Tal­ mud itself remains unintelligible to the average student. This traditional Talmud page was never before pub­ lished with a parallel-page translation as now produced by The Soncino Press.

The Hebrew text is based on the authentic “Vilna Shass.” The transla­ tion, including the footnotes, are taken from the famous Soncino Taimud pub­ lished in 1935. From the same trans­ lation is also taken the Foreword by the late Chief Rabbi Dr. J. H. Hertz and several introductory chapters by the Editor, Dr. Isidore Epstein, the Dean of Jews’ College in London.

The beauty of the printing and the quality of paper and binding reflect the high Soncino standards. The edi­ tion will, therefore, be appreciated by every Jewish book lover. The true value, though, of this publication is to be found in the fact that for the first time the Talmud is being made 59

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JEWISH LIFE

truly accessible to the neophyte. The student, for instance, who wants to prepare himself for, or to review, the Talmud lecture he is attending or who wants to join on his own the “Daf Yomi” program, the daily study of two Talmudic pages, does not have to work any longer with a separate vol­ ume of translation or with cumber­ some dictionaries, but finds before him an excellently organized Sefer in which the paragraphing of the trans­ lation corresponds to the Talmud punctuation, the colons which sub­ divide the Talmud text.

This edition will also be of great help to teachers of the Talmud de­ livering their lectures in the English language. Even one who has a com­ plete grasp of the Talmudic meaning will find it sometimes very difficult to give a precise and literary transla­ tion of the Talmudic phrase and idiom.

The Soncino translation excels in this respect*

HE upsurge of the day school movement in the English-speaking countries has brought about a return to Talmudic studies by many fathers whose sons are “learning Gemorah.”

The present volume will enable them to keep abreast of the learing of their children and join with them in a “Shabbos Shiur,” thus re-instituting an age-hallowed Jewish observance, the sacred home study which once was part and parcel of our family life. Of course in this respect the full value of this new edition will be reached only when the complete Shass Bavli has been published in this form. The Soncino Press may well consider the advisability of publishing first, in this necessarily long process, those trac­ tates studied most in our yeshivoth, such as Baba Kama, Baba Metziah, Nedarim, Kedushin, etc* Jewish learning will be greatly pro­ moted by the present volume and each succeeding tractate.

T

Jews In English Fiction

By WARD MOORE FROM SHYLOCK TO SVENGALI; Jewish Stereotypes in English Fic­ tion, by Edgar Rosenberg. Stanford University Press, 388 pp., $6.50.

HIS able study owes a debt, says its author, to the work bf Montagu Modder which was discussed at some length by this reviewer in J e w i s h

T

W A R D M OORE is a novelist and critic whose works have appeared in five languages in ten countries, and who has contributed extensively to general and Anglo-Jewish publications.

APRIL, 1961

L i f e (August 1960). But where Modder was encyclopaedic, diffuse, turgid, undiscriminating, and aiming for in­ clusiveness; Mr. Rosenberg is selec­ tive, pointed, clear, judicious, and con­ cerned with exploration rather than stockpiling. He is a critic ; Modder was a literary chronicler.

Although he has not used the terms, perhaps it is possible to say that Mr. Rosenberg deals in thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. He traces the origin of the prototypical Jew-villain and, with-

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JEWISH LIFE

villain, were willing to grant him some human qualities* Feudalism had been a rigid society dominated—at least in theory—by the Church. There was ho place in it for the Jew. With the growth of a money rather than a land economy there was room—very little of it, but still room —for the Jew. Finally, Protestantism made it pos­ sible to examine the Jew as an indivi­ dual rather than as a deicide, sorcer­ er, and child of the devil. Once the individual was examined, no matter how cursorily, the notion of a totally unredeemed and irredeemable people was shaken.

So it followed that from the anti­ thesis implicit in Shylock, there came into being the deliberately created character of the saintly Jew. Now it was not simply due to the fact that creators of the saintly Jew were minor writers (Maria EdgeWprth, sQupfxberland and so on) while Marlowe and Dickens were men of first rank which made the villainous stereotype superior. Novelists gener­ ally lose perspective when they write of good people; their characters do not sweat but perspire, their faces arp set in a perpetually benignant smile which rapidly becomes inhuman.

There is however an apparent way Y Shakespeare’s time and increas­ ingly afterward it was hard not out and this the novelists, led by Scott, to question in some »slight degree-—or eagerly took. If the Jew had to be even unconsciously—the rigid outlook fundamentally .either villain or saint, for the parish which had been domi­ the Jew’s daughter might be exempt nant since Rome fell. Men learned from this compulsion. As Jessica she Greek as well as the jargon which might be a fool but contemporary passed for Latin in the Middle Ages; playgoers did not see her as a wicked they investigated philosophy and as­ fool. When we come to Scott’s Rebecca tronomy. Some of the scholars, the. we are dealing with a paragon, but a translators, the commentators, were paragon with a dual nature—some­ Jews. Men, especially men like Shakes­ thing not yet permitted the male Jew. peare, without questioning the central Rebecca is a noble creature, flawed in hypothesis th at a Jew had., to J!xe..a Christian eyes—at least in Scott’s day

out ever laboring the point, demon­ strates the inevitability of his creation and convincingness in a Christian and feudal (later feudal-minded) society.

Given the uncritical acceptance of the Christian gospels from Herod to the populace of Jerusalem, thé Jew of Malta could have taken no other form fifteen hundred years later. And Shylock is only a refinement by a master’s hand of Marlowe’s character.

But that refinement included en­ dowing the Je^y of Venice with life, and consequently a complexity which the Jew of Malta never attained. And since he is alive and complex, Shylock could never be a perfect stereotype.

Whether Shakespeare actively sym­ pathized with him is a question which will never be settled, but he made it possible for the reader to sympathize.

Thus the first hint of antithesis came from the humanity if not the humanism of Shakespeare. This was a concomitant of the Renaissance and the diffusion of learning after the fall of Constantinople, of the decay of feudalism and the rise of the cities, and the spread of Protestantism with its restoration to favor of the “Old” Testament and its emphasis on indivi­ dual conscience.

B

APRIL, 1961

63

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64

R E F E R R A L

B U R E A U

JEWISH LIFE

—by her refusal to give up Judaism, and in romantic eyes by her failure to put Ivanhoe above her heritage.

One of Mr. Rosenberg’s shrewdest comments is th at the only way Scott could have written himself out of his dilemma would have been to have brought Ivanhoe to the Synagogue rather than speculate on Rebecca’s going to the Church. But Scott was writing retrospectively of 12th Cen­ tury England where such conversions were unthinkable. And even though in his own lifetime, Lord George Gor­ don was converted to Judaism, he was universally regarded as mad.

HE; THIRD strand in Mr. Rosen­ berg’s critique (and here I must admit he has not carried at least one reader all the way with him) is the Christian synthesis, the myth of the Wandering Jew. It seems to me that Mr. Rosenberg, by adducing Du Maurier’s Svengali as the endproduct of the Wandering Jew legend, has stultified himself. True, he has stayed within Modder’s chronology and kept behind the 20th Century. Equally true, he has produced a stereotype as two-dimen­ sional as they come. But his synthesis has not reconciled Fagin and Riah—

T

fa r far from it. Svengali is not the Wandering Jew whom time and suffer­ ing has cleansed; he is just a greasy lithograph whose colors have faded from overprinting.

It would almost seem that our au­ thor is the prisoner of his own theme.

He dismisses Joyce and Leopold Bloom with incredible lightness on the ground that Bloom does not impress him as Jewish. And this from the critic who accepts the rishus of Daniel Deronda.

Of course he would have wound him­ self into a situation from which there was no escape save main strength and awkwardness if he had substituted Bloom for Svengali. For Bloom is the wandering Jew. His repentance is not for denial of the Christian savior but for facile acceptance; his dreadful punishment is the loss of his son. He has no Kaddish. Rosenberg could not resolve this situation without breaking out of the limits he had set himself.

But one wishes he had anyway.

From Shy lock to Svengali is not simply a valuable reference work. It ranks pretty close to the best of Ed­ mund Wilson as creative criticism, but even more than this, its felicity of style and its sharp penetration marks it as a book to keep and reread.

The Religious Foundations o f Internationalism

By MANUEL LADERMAN A STUDY IN INTERNATIONAL R ELATIO NS THROUGH THE AGES, By Norman Bentwich. Bloch Publishing Co.

RABBI M A N U E L L A D E R M A N is the spiritual leader o f Congregation Hebrew Educational A lli­ ance, Denver, Colorado.

APRIL, 1961

N 1932 Norman Bentwich was ap­ pointed to the chair of Weizmann Professor of the International Law of Peace at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. His first public appear­ ance consisted of a series of lectures about the attitudes of the major re­ ligions of the world to international-

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In order to make intelligible the full meaning of the prayers, Dr. Birnbaum carefully divided the Hebrew téxt into sentences and clauses by the use of modern punctuation marks.

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JEWISH LIFE

ism and to peace. Those lectures have been supplemented, in this book, by an epilogue written twenty-five years later, in 191p, bringing up to date some of the developments which have come with the Hitler period, the sec­ ond World War, and the creation of the United Nations.

When Dr. Bentwich first began his lectures in Jerusalem he was heckled by the Revisionists who felt that there was no room for talk about interna­ tional peace so long as the national home of the Jewish people had not yet been converted into a Jewish state.

Since then some of the sanguine hopes that were held in the early ’thirties about the League of Nations and the World Court have been dashed. Man­ kind seems to have made very little progress towards greater understand­ ing, international brotherhood, and permanent peace. Nevertheless there is much room in our thinking for the bases of peaceful ideals and world citizenship. In Jewish tradition we have an expression, hilchatha li’meshicha, meaning that some things are studied even though they have no immediate practical application. Cer­ tainly this area fits that category.

EGINNING:iC^ith a discourse on “Jerusalem 'the City of Peace,” which all too often has been the center of mankind’s many wars, Bentwich proceeds to discuss the place of the international idea among the pagan religions of antiquity. At certain peri­ ods Egyptian theology promoted a sense of world peace. When Egyptian military policy was more belligérant, the Egyptian priesthood was less con­ cerned with peaceful fellowship. Simi­ larly in Greek times there were the warlike period of Homer and the more peaceful vistas of Hesiod. “Socrates

B

APRIL, 1961

calls himself a Cosmopolitan,” and Zeno spoke of “all men as our fellow citizens.” Particularly the Stoics em­ phasized the larger world view. He quotes a hymn addressed to G-d as “The Father of All.” In Judaism, Bentwich points out, there was a constant sense of man­ kind, highlighted by the Prophets who thought of themselves as “Prophets of the Nations” and who uttered pro­ phecies which were addressed to all the peoples of thé ancient world, in addition to what they had to say to Israel. “Political thought may be said to have originated with the Hebrew Prophets, who were the first to rebuke Kings to their faces and to set forth the spiritual aims of politics and to preach righteousness and mercy as against power and ambition,” is a stàtèment he cites from Zimmern. He notes that Judaism included a strong patriotic sense with a feeling for man­ kind and world fellowship. Very often religion and patriotism have been op­ ponents and contraries. In Judaism they were united as one.

From the Torah’s rules about how one approaches an enemy in war, the precautions urged in the book of Devorim about sanitation in the mili­ tary camp, not destroying fruit trees, and the commentaries on these mitzvoth in Maimonides and Nachmanides, many Christian scholars like the clas­ sical writer on internationalism, Hugo Grotius in 1624, and John Selden in 1640, wrote their major works. To them the law of nature was the law as set down in the Jewish Torah.

From it derived many corollaries about how states and nations should deal with one another in peace and in war.

Bentwich concludes his section on Judaism with the very apt comment, 67

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JEWISH LIFE

“The Jew was the first European,” thus highlighting the significant place which the Jewish dispersion had in the development of a sense of inter­ nationalism.

Dealing with Christianity, he notes the contrast between the early pacifist approach of the church, when it was a minority and itself persecuted, and the warlike attitude which it assumed from the time of Constantine when it became identical with Roman power.

He quotes the English historian Lecky who said, “It is doubtful whether, with the exception of Islam, any agency has been so fruitful of war as the Chris­ tian creed.”

The Crusades were only one in­ stance of the bellicose nature of the Christian church. However, there were always scholars in the church, espe­ cially after the Protestant Reforma­ tion, who sought to develop a more peaceful society. The Catholic Thomas More in “Utopia,” the Protestant Gentilis, and Erasmus were the Chris­ tian spokesmen for a peaceable society.

Peace” he based it on ethics rather than on religion, but expressed the conviction that “improving relations between the States and the peoples depended ultimately upon the moral progress of the individuals who com­ posed the communities; and in that moral revolution religion must play a part.” The great Italian revolution­ ary Mazzini, referring often to Jew­ ish sources, spoke of “nationality as a sacred thing and a religious idea.” To our atomic-war-minded society it will come as a great shock to read the words that Victor Hugo wrote in 1849 when he prophesied that a day would come “when a cannon-ball would be exhibited in a public museum just as instruments of torture are now, and people will be amazed that such things could be.”

The ultimate irony of course came in 1914, when a conference of churches dedicated to peace was meeting in Constance at the very time that the first World War broke out, and in the same year Andrew Carnegie founded the Church Peace Union.

TARTING from 1648 in the Treaty HE BOOK deals with Islam and of Westphalia, a new motif en­ S tered into the relations of nations. Tits contribution to international­

Secularism rather than religion be­ came the basis upon which treaties were written and a more stable so­ ciety insured. As one historian wrote, “Religion had to go to schools with her rival reason; till the Rationalist movement had shaken the persecutor's sword from the hand of faith.” Men like Hobbes in his “Leviathan” and Voltaire helped to signal the dawn of understanding which was culminated by the American and French revo­ lutions. The author rightly says, “The Jews have been a barometer of history.”

When Kant wrote his “Perpetual APRIL, 1961

ism. Islam has always had the ad­ vantage of its Christian counterpart in that racial prejudice has always been unknown. Unfortunately the pacific nature of this religion was soon transformed into a warlike motivation of Jihad, which made this a religion that brought more bloodshed than any other. There were times, however, when Islam tended to be peaceful, and when Jewish communities felt more secure under Islamic rule than they did among Christians.

In the F ar East, the author deals with the religions of Hinduism and Buddhism, both of which have always 69

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JEWISH LIFE

been very tolerant with reference to divergences from their creeds and practices. Buddha said, “Great is a successful General, but he who has conquered self is the greater victor,” which brings to mind the apposite statement in Pirkey Ovoth. In China Lao-Tse in the sixth century before the Common E ra and Confucius a hundred years later were the great religious revolutionaries who brought men into a feeling for their fellow men everywhere. Their modern dis­ ciples, Sun Yat Sen and Ghandi, were imbued with the idea that “religion is wedded to patriotism and is in sym­ pathy with the nation’s struggle for freedom and its whole political life.”

ENTWIOH parts company from those who believe in world feder­ B alism. He echoes the feeling of Israel Zangwill th at “internationalism must be rooted in nationalism.”

The League of Nations and its effort to regularize the relations of peoples failed. We hope that the United Nations will be one agency to lead in that direction. The author notes that while the United Nations has passed a Universal Declaration

le jp s h lif e

of Human Rights, no covenant to im­ plement that declaration has been ap­ proved either by the United States or

by Russia.

He cites a statement by Lord Her­ bert Samuel, the^ first High Commis­ sioner of Palestine, and today the president of the World Congress of Faiths, who said: “To urge all the faiths to use their vast influence over the peoples of the world, not to insist upon their differences and dwell upon rivalries and antagonisms, but to pro­ mote a parallel advance along their several paths towards a common goal.

That course is second to none in its urgency or in ultimate value to the welfare of mankind.”

Very properly Dr. Bentwich closes his book with the hope that our old Jewish ethical maxim, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,” shall be expanded into the world arena for inclusion of all mankind as neighbors.

This is a book which in source ma­ terial and quotable items is a desir­ able addition to the literature of man­ kind’s concern about the future. It is well that it has been republished now for a second look.

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