Jewish Life April 1962

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T H E “IN D I A N J E W S ’* O F M E X IC O T H E S P A C E A G E C U L T O F “P R A C T IC A L IT Y T H E Y O U N G I N T R IA N G U L A ^ ! P E R S P E C T IV E T H E L A S T D A Y • W E L C O M E T H E C O M IN G H U M A N E SLA U G H TER IN N E W JE R S E Y A N G L O -JE W R Y I N O R B IT

NISAN, 5732 APRIL, 1962

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Vol. XXIX, No. 4/April, 1962/Nisan 5722

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EDITORIALS

Saul B ernstein , Editor M. M orton Rubenstein Reuben E. G ross Rabbi S. J. Sharfman Libby K laperman Editorial Associates Rik k i G ordon, 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 New York 11, N . Y. ALgonquin 5-4100 Published by U n io n of O rthodox Jewish Congregations of A merica M oses I. F euerstein 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

FOREVER, THE WONDER ...............................

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SOVIET JEWRY: THE D IL E M M A .......................

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AN INSPIRING EXAMPLE ...............................

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THE SECURITY COUNCIL DECISION .................

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ARTICLES ANGLO-JEWRY IN ORBIT/ S. B. U nsdorfe r........................................

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THE SPACE-AGE CULT OF “PRACTICALITY”/ Bernard W einberger..................................

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HUMANE SLAUGHTER IN NEW JERSEY/ Zalman Diskind ......................................... 19 THE “INDIAN JEWS”-OF MEXICO/ Victor Solomon ........................................ 38 THE YOUNG IN TRIANGULAR PERSPECTIVE/ Gershon Kranzler ..................................... 49

FICTION THE LAST DAY/ Ann Gasner ......

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WELCOME THE COMING/ Sylvia R. G o rd o n ...... ................................ 55

REVIEWS A GARBLED PORTRAIT/ Libby M. Klaperman .................................. 65

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

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HASHKOFAH: THE JEWISH CORE .................... 60 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR .............................

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Saul Bernstein, Administrator Drawings by Ahron Gelles

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

April, 1962

Copyright © 1962 by Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations

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among our contributors

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S. B. UNSDORFER, a previous contributor to J e w i s h L i f e , lives in London. He is on the editorial board of the recentlylaunched “Jewish Tribune” and is editor of the English youth magazine, “Haderech.” Mr. Unsdorfer is the author of “The Yellow Star”— a book on his experiences in the concentration camps; a dramatized version of the book is to be telecast by NBC, April 22. General Secretary of the Agudath Israel-of Britain, he was born in Bratislava and studied at the Nitra and Pressburg Yeshivoth.

DR. GERSHON KRANZLER is the author of several Jewish textbooks and of numerous articles, short stories, and poems.

Among his recent published works are “The Golden Shoes” —a volume of short stories, and “Williamsburg,”— a definitive sociological study of the unique orthodox community. Dr. Kranzler is principal of the Talmudical Academy of Baltimore and on the staff of Baltimore Junior College.

RABBI BERNARD WEINBERGER is the spiritual leader of the Young Israel of Brooklyn and teaches Talmud at the Yeshivah Rabbi Jacob Joseph. He is vice-president of the Council of Young Israel Rabbis and Director of Camp Mogen Avraham of the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies. A musmach of Mesivtah Torah Vodaath, Rabbi Weinberger received his B.A. from Brooklyn College and an M.A. from New York University.

MRS. SYLVIA R. GORDON has published stories, radio scripts, and magazine articles. Born in Israel as a sixth genera­ tion sabra, she was brought up and educated in America. Mrs. Gordon received her B.A. degree from Hunter College and is a perennial student at the New School. With her rabbi-husband and three yeshivah-educated children she resides in Manhattan.

This is her first contribution to J e w i s h L i f e .

DR. VICTOR SOLOMON’S articles on topics ranging from missionary activities to philosophy, to travels have appeared in J e w i s h L i f e and other periodicals. Rabbi of Congregation Ezrath Israel in Philadelphia, he received semichah at Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary. He obtained his B.A. from Yeshivah College, M.A. from Hunter College and a Doctorate in Sacred Theology from Temple University, Phila­ delphia. Dr. Solomon is now doing post-doctoral research on Medieval Hebrew Ethics at Dropsie College. He is director of the Jewish Forum of the Air, the only Jewish radio program in Philadelphia.

RABBI ZALMAN DISKIND, a practicing Jewish educator, is now preparing his doctoral dissertation at Dropsie College, Philadelphia. His article “Trends in Jewish Camping” appeared in the August 1961 issue of J e w i s h L i f e and he has also con­ tributed to “Jewish Education” and the “Journal of Educational Research.” A musmach of Mesivtah Rabbi Chaim Berlin, Rabbi Diskind resides in Camden, New Jersey.

MRS. ANNE GASNER, mother of a thirteen year-old son and twelve year-old daughter, both of whom attend yeshivoth in New York, decided three years ago to complete her education and enrolled in the City College of New York. Winner of the college’s Theodore Goodman Memorial Short Story Contest, she plans to receive a B.A. degree with a major in English and Sociology this spring. Mrs. Gasner was born in Berlin, Germany.

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F orever9 The W onder VEN in an epoch saturated with materialism, the wonder and glory of Pesach penetrates the recesses of man’s con­ sciousness. The clang of machinery, the reduction of all forms of activity to technological process, the permeation of all social interests with economic motivation or the satisfaction of sensual impulses— all this has blunted man’s sense of rhythm of the universe and of the Divine. Modern civilization has mounted barriers of sound and walls of steel and concrete, imprisoning men in the bonds of their own achievements. But each year the sequence of the seasons presses through barriers and walls; each year spring brings its song of life renewed; and each year Pesach comes and we re-live again the miracles of Yetziath Mitzrayim and we perceive again, through all the clamor and confusion, the wonder of life, the majestic order of the universe, the pur­ pose of Jewish being, the mighty Hand and the outstretched Arm.

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Everlastingly, we proclaim: “He brought us forth from slavery— from anguish to joy, from mourning to festival, from darkness to great light, from bondage to redemption. Let us therefore sing before Him a new song . . .” Yes, a song forever new.

S oviet Jew ry: The D ilem m a HIS Pesach, one-fourth of the world’s Jews, those of the Soviet Union, though partaking of an ample share of moror, will have no matzah. In that country, the baking of matzah has been banned. Not only are bakeries forbidden to bake matzah but so too are private individuals, except for their own personal use. Nor will Soviet authorities permit the import of the bread of freedom. For the three million Jews dwelling under the ham­ mer and sickle, Pesach can be observed, if at all, only under conditions reminiscent of the era of the Spanish Inquisition.

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The Soviet authorities have freely publicized this ukase, be­ yond as well as within the borders of the Soviet domain. Con­ currently, additional numbers of Jews are being rounded up for trial, imprisonment, and, in some cases execution on transparent charges, and this too is being publicized widely, in such manner April, 1962

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as to make clear the anti-Jewish objective. From this there be­ comes apparent—if any doubt on the question were possible— Deliberate not only the objective itself but the intent of the Soviet leaders Challenge to throw down the gauntlet to world public opinion. They are reiterating their intent to extirpate Judaism and Jewish life from the Soviet scene and flaunting their power, they defy the world to prevent them.

So once again we face a frightful dilemma, one not different in its essentials from that posed by the nightmare of Hitlerism.

On the one hand, any act of resistance would seem to further imperil the lives of those who are helpless in the hands of their oppressors, would give these oppressors excuse to proceed to further severities. On the other hand, restraint would be a signal to the persecutor that his malevolence can go unchecked—that he may proceed unhindered to his ultimate goal.

HE Eichmann trial has recalled to the world’s memory—all too apt to seek easy slumber—the horrors of yesterday; it has also driven home some hard-earned lessons. There can be no temporizing with the persecutor. He cannot be appeased, he cannot be coaxed, and his dark purpose feeds on, rather than is sated by his acts of evil. The most heart-breaking aspect of the martyrdom of yesterday is that multitudes of Jews went silently to their Kiddush Hashem. The cry of their silence reverCry of berates to this day, and will for ages to come. True, their silent Silence voice did not go unheeded; we must not do world Jewry the injustice of forgetting the vastness of the rescue effort that was made. But, in the hindsight of terrible experience, we know all too well that the effort, great though it was, was not great enough; valiant though it was, it was not valiant enough; and determined though it was, it was not determined enough.

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Soviet Jews today are enshrouded in silence. But their silence too cries aloud. And we of the free world—shall we too remain silent? Shall we remain frozen between two forbidding alterna­ tives? Surely our six million martyrs of but yesterday command us: SPEAK! ACT!; and let the voice and the deed be measured to the scale of the peril, in all its overwhelming reality.

An Inspiring Exam ple E are happy to pay tribute to St. Joseph’s Catholic Hos­ pital in Reading, Pa. as the first non-Jewish hospital in the country to establish a kosher kitchen. Thanks to the gener­ osity of a non-Jewish donor, who insists upon remaining anony-

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mous, this noble institution has installed complete Kosher facilities, milchig and fleishig, and not only for year-round use but for Pesach needs also. The kosher facilities will function under orthodox rabbinical supervision.

This is one of those acts of true brotherliness, going beyond the bounds of fraternal norms, which all too often remain ob­ scured amidst the events which are apt to be recorded in any Respect days’ news. The donor and those in charge of St. Joseph’s Hos­ for pital were moved solely by consideration for the religious prin­ Principle ciples and mental well-being of their Jewish patients. Since the Jewish population of Reading is not large, scarcely 3,500, the action is the more noteworthy.

Much as one might hope so, it would be unreasonable to expect other non-Jewish hospitals to be inspired to follow the example of St. Joseph’s. This is not by any means because of lesser good will towards their Jewish patients but because there stands before them an opposite example—that of the supposedly Jewish hospitals which are non-kosher. And these, as is well known and often remarked, include some outstanding institutions in major Jewish centers. But perhaps the better rather than the worse example will after all prevail, for was it not in fact nonJewish hospitals, in New York City and elsewhere, which pioneered the provision of pre-packaged kosher meals for Jewish patients? They had learned that the latter preferred to eat kosher meals in non-Jewish hospitals to t’refah meals in so-called Jewish hospitals.

The gracious undertaking of St. Joseph’s Hospital, which the Jews of Reading will find so welcome, may therefore bring ulti­ mate benefit to Jews distant from that community. It may even— who knows?—inspire some soul-searching among those respon­ Spur to sible for the policies of t’refah institutions conducted under the Corrective name and at the expense of the Jewish community. One would expect that an instinctive regard for—if not fidelity to—Jewish sanctities and self-respect would purge the Jewish community of the blot on its name and well-being; but failing that, perhaps the action of a Roman Catholic institution in a minor city will prompt, or shame, these policy-makers into fulfilling their longoverdue obligation.

The Security Council D ecision BSERVERS of the world scene can have little illusion as to the real motivation of the vote by the United Nations O Security Council condemning Israel for its March raid in retalia­ tion against Syrian agression. With the U.S.S.R. joining hands with the U.S. to achieve a 10-0 vote, it is apparent that the April, 1962

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underlying factor was not that of justice but rather political considerations. No one feels a need to court Israeli goodwill, but East and West alike are eagerly soliciting favorable relations with Syria and the other Arab states.

It was not too difficult for the rival Powers to find grounds for their action, since Israel made no secret of its armed incurLoaded sion into demilitarized territory. All that was necessary was Verdict simply to disregard Israel’s explanation of the circumstances that impelled this measure and to accept on its face value the Syrian version of the incident. With the aid of Maj. Gen. Carl C. vonHorn, Chief of Staff of the U.N. Truce Supervisory Or­ ganization, who reported inability to find the Syrian gun positions from which Israeli fishermen and police patrol boats on Lake Kinnereth had been repeatedly attacked, it was possible to do this with a straight face. Nobody even winked—in public.

Nobody, in fact, denied that the, attacks on Israeli fishermen, in Israeli territory, had taken place; it was simply that the U.N. official had found no evidence of the Syrian gun position—so there you are, an open and shut case. ^H E Security Council has rendered a loaded verdict which . nullifies its moral effect. Surely there can be no condona­ tion of armed forays by any nation. But if the initial instigator Price for of such a conflict is to be exculpated while the retaliator is Arab condemned, a premium rather than a penalty is placed on Favor aggression. There are forces at play in today’s strife-torn world which will not fail to profit by this lesson and these are not likely to be the forces of the Free World. It may well prove to be the case that the United States, in this instance as in others, has paid all too high a price for Arab favor.

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JEWISH LIFE

ANGLO-JEWRY IN ORBIT

By S. B. UNSDORFER

L ondon

“British Jewry, with its traditions of cohesive orderliness, with its fidelity to authentic Jewish belief, affords us invaluable lessons in community-wide religious organization. The throngs who listened with rapt attention to Chief Rabbi Brodie’s inspiring message were profoundly impressed by his call for organic integration among the forces of American Jewish Orthodoxy, by the contrast which his visit disclosed be­ tween the unified pattern of British communal life and that of the Ameri­ can Jewish scene. Such a nationally authoritative ecclesiastical institution as the Beth Din of the British Chief Rabbinate, the Boards of Shechitah in each major city, and the Board of Deputies with jurisdiction in broad areas of communal concern, set an ex­ ample of basic, responsible, and viable com m unity organization by which American Jews must not fail to profit.”

HE above is an extract from an editorial which appeared in J e w i s h L i f e in August 1956, on the occasion of the first visit to the United States of Chief Rabbi Israel Brodie. I have

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chosen this extract deliberately, be­ cause this very “cohesive orderliness” and “fidelity to authentic Jewish belief” for which Anglo-Jewry was then so warmly acclaimed, now seems to be in very considerable danger. And not only that. Even our “nationally authori­ tative ecclesiastical institution,” the London Beth Din, has become a target of attack and vilification— and nobody dare as yet forecast the final result of this rather unexpected battle for power within Anglo-Jewry.

Yes, something quite “un-English” has suddenly happened here. Out­ wardly, it all appears to be a very simple and certainly not unusual argu­ ment over the appointment of a new head to an important Anglo-Jewish institution. Simple and not unusual, because we Jews have never been able to accept a “new head” without first having a spirited communal quarrel about it. Indeed, how would our many synagogues, Battey Midrash, organiza­ tions, and societies have been brought into being, if we would all have been ready to offer our allegiance and loy­ alty to this or that rabbi, or this or that gabbai?

Here are the brief “outward” facts of the controversy: 7

EWS’ College, Britain’s 106-yearold R abbinical Sem inary— cu r­ rently enjoying an attendance of fortytwo full-tim e students—has always been the community’s proud show­ piece. It has never really been a muchadmired institution for would-be rabbis, but was always a popular name in the community, never very holy, but al­ ways revered. Its President, by consti­ tution, is the Chief Rabbi; its Chair­ man, by election, Sir Alan Mocatta, a High Court Judge, and its Principal . . . well, that is the subject of the present controversy.

Rabbi Dr. I. Epstein, having reached the retirement age of 65 three years ago, stayed on as its Principal for two more years and saw the College re­ housed in its brand-new ultra-modern building in the heart of London’s West End. Last year, the Chief Rabbi be­ came acting Principal and Rabbi Dr. H. Zimmels, himself within a few years of retiring age, was appointed Director of Studies. Why did Dr. Epstein actu­ ally retire? The answer is that official Anglo-Jewish leadership does not like its employees to stay in office after reaching retiring age. Unlike the yeshivoth, where the Rosh Hayeshivah grows in stature and popularity as his beard grows whiter, Jews’ College felt that, although Dr. Epstein was both willing and able to stay on, the time had come for him to enjoy his retire­ ment.

This is where Rabbi Dr. Louis Jacobs—the man around whom the entire controversy is centered—enters the scene. Dr. Jacobs, British born— always a trem endous advantage in Anglo-Jewry-1—was once a student of the Manchester and Gateshead Yeshivoth. A talmid chochom, he had the makings of a first-class orthodox rabbi even for any pre-war European “austritts gemeinde.” He was known to be

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a medakdik b’mitzvoth, and he made a very good impression on his congre­ gants at the Central Synagogue in his native Manchester. However, as the years passed, there were rumors that some of Dr. Jacobs’ articles on vari­ ous intricate Jewish issues had an “alien flavor,” rumors which at that time were confined almost exclusively to yeshivah and so-called “ultra-ortho­ dox” circles. They certainly did not deter official Anglo-Jewry from ap­ pointing Rabbi Jacobs to the spiritual leadership of the New West End Syna­ gogue in London. By the time of his arrival in London, Dr. Jacobs no longer enjoyed any confidence in the “ultra-orthodox” section of AngloJewry, and even circles not belonging to that section began to express sur­ prise at the implications found in many of his books and articles. And when Dr. Jacobs was invited to leave the New West End Synagogue and to accept an appointment as “tutor” to Jews’ College—an appointment alleged to have been connected with a promise of the Principalship of the College a year or so later—there was already quite a movement of “pro-Jacobs” and “anti-Jacobs” in the community.

T was in this atmosphere that the Council of Jews’ College met just three months ago to consider Rabbi Dr. Jacobs’ appointment as Principal.

After a heated debate, the Council acceded to Chief Rabbi Brodie’s wish to postpone a decision until after the Chief Rabbi’s return in May from his pastoral tour to Australia. One might feel inclined to think that the Chief Rabbi’s wish was a very reasonable one, and certainly gave no cause for all the commotion that followed. The fact, however, is that the campaign for Dr. Jacobs was waged, first and fore­ most, by the Jewish Chronicle and

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that, disappointed in its aim, the edi­ torial columns of that paper created the widespread impression that the Chief Rabbi had actually vetoed Rabbi

Chief Rabbi Israel Brodie.

Jacobs’ appointment because he was influenced by the “ultra-orthodox.” It was the general belief that* in the editor’s view, not merely the principalship of Jews’ College was at stake but also, and perhaps much more so, the eventual succession to the Chief Rab­ binate. . . .

That was the end of the count-down; up went the bomb, and the community was at war. Unfair! Discrimination!

Dictatorship!, cried the one side. Cor­ rect! .More power to his elbow!, echoed the others. The Chief Rabbi left for his tour, leaving the Council of Jews’ College hopelessly divided. Resigna­ tions were offered or threatened, state­ ments, counter-statements, refutations, atid withdrawals, involving the Beth Din, the United Synagogue, Council April.. 1962

members, individual rabbis, and lay leaders. In short, a full-scale communal machlokah was suddenly upon us.

So far the “outward” picture of the controversy. But surely this cannot possibly be the real cause of this heated and bitter dispute that threatens to blast into space everything that is holy and precious to the 300-year-old An­ glo-Je wish community? Such estab­ lishments as its Chief Rabbinate which, in the eyes of the true English Jew, has a ring of royalty around it; its Beth Din-—as sacred and untouchable as Magna Carta; and, indeed, the United Synagogue, Britain’s major and most powerful synagogal organization which provides most of the funds re­ quired by the Beth Din, the London Board of Jewish Religious Education . . . the future of these and other basic institutions of Anglo-Jewry now hangs in the balance under the shadows of internecine strife.

HE British are by nature and habit quiet, reserved, well-spoken, and extremely tolerant. They gave this modern nuclear world its first atomic reactors for peaceful uses and, at the same time, provided her with the first sit-down strikers against nuclear re­ armament. The British Jew, the native as well as the settler, has adopted this quiet and restrained way of living faster than any other British tradition.

Negotiate, postpone, discuss, adjourn, appoint committees, arbitrators, do any or all of these things by all means, but don’t for goodness sake—for Brit­ ish goodness sake—raise your voice in anger or lift your hand in temper.

You can find these traditional British qualities even in the most recentlyarrived, hot-headed, and paprika-fried Hungarian Jewish refugee.

Not a hundred Jews’ College principalships could ordinarily reduce the

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English Jew to the point of informing the non-Jewish press of Jewry’s in­ ternal problems and to tell the Times of London that Britain’s Chief Rabbi was under the “influence of foreign scholars!”— a ghastly accusation in any English ear. Yet these “unthinkable” steps were taken in this instance by proponents of Dr. Jacobs. Anyone who knows even a little bit of the character and constitution of official Anglo-Jewry must come to the conclu­ sion that the issue of Jews’ College and its need for a Principal has served as a mere camouflage, a smoke screen behind which a deeper and much more involved controversy is hidden—an all-out war within the community in which the winner takes all!

But why the war? A war for what?

Against whom? Well, Anglo-Jewry has changed. To the delight of one section and the obvious dismay of the other, the community has undergone a quiet but fairly thorough revolution over the past thirty years and emerged in dif­ ferent colors. To put it quite plainly, it has become more froom, more con­ scious of religion. Indeed, the phe­ nomena which occur with more and more frequency in individual Jewish households—where the Jewish Day School child demands that Mommy buy a new set of dishes and that Daddy leave his car in the garage on Shabboth—these same phenomena are re­ flected in the community as a whole.

The “Continental element,” the Euro­ pean Jews who settled here in preand post-war years, have made their mark on the community. The ever growing popularity of the Jewish Day Schools—schools that began with a mere ,handful of children, mostly of refugee parents, twenty to twenty-five years ago—now proudly display the harvest of their first hatch of young baale-battim who are willing and able 10

to make their contribution to AngloJewish communal life. The increasing number of yeshivoth and, what is more important, yeshivah-seeking youth; the many girls nurtured by the Beth Jacob Schools now establishing their own new Jewish homes; these, and many other similar factors, have charged Anglo-Jewish life with new currents and have vitalized the religious struc­ ture of our communal body.

ATESHEAD—a small, insignifi­ cant mining town in northern England which does not even manage to muster an eleven-man soccer foot­ ball team to join the bottom division of the English Football League—is a “name” in Anglo-Jewry today. The Gateshead Yeshivah, also housed in a brand-new ultra-modern new build­ ing, and enjoying an attendance of 140 students, has produced many of today’s rabbis serving various Kehilloth in Britain. “Gateshead” is today as well known in Britain as Ponevezh in Israel or such yeshivoth as Isaac Elchanan, Torah Vodaath, Chaim Berlin, in the United States. Its impact has been far greater than the size of its enrollment would indicate; “Gateshead” has con­ tributed much to the changed climate of Anglo-Jewry.

Furthermore, “refugee Orthodoxy” has by now lost its inferiority complex.

It is powerful in influence and com­ pletely lacking in respect for the ruling families in Anglo-Jewry. The strength of this element has given courage to the more determinedly orthodox forces within the United Synagogue, which too are more influential than their numbers supposedly warrant. As an instance of their influence, one can point to the fact that, for the first time in its long history, the United Syna­ gogue has decided to build a mikvah in London— a triumph of remarkable

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significance in view of the outlook and associations of some of its lay leaders.

The nominally orthodox Anglo-Jew of the type that predominated thirty years ago liked to see his rabbi with a clean-shaven face on the second day of Yom Tov, and he still wants it. He liked him to be a “good mixer” and a fine after-dinner entertainer. He cer­ tainly objects to his rabbi of 1962 writ­ ing in his synagogue magazine that he would refrain from addressing a Bar Mitzvah boy from the pulpit if the boy or his parents arrived in shool by car on Shabbath. Cheek! That’s intolerance! There have, in recent years, been ever-growing demands within the United Synagogue that those who are not Sabbath observers should not be allowed to hold office.

Such a stand was something quite un­ heard of in United Synagogue circles prior to twenty years ago. These, and dozens of similar voices, have made

life a little uncomfortable for the pre­ war-type orthodox Anglo-Jew. And now, the Jews’ College controversy has provided him with a unique—and per­ haps last—chance to come out in bat­ tle and fight for his position.

HE main conspirator and instigator in this “holy war” is, of course, the previously m entioned Jewish Chronicle. That over-rich, over-confi­ dent, and almighty organ of AngloJewry recently celebrated its 120th year of publication. Throughout its history, this paper had mirrored the religious orthodoxy of the Anglo-Jewish community, until a few years ago when a change of editorship brought a change of policy. Since this time, while capitalizing on the long accrual of prestige as “the Organ of British Jewry,” as its masthead proclaims, the paper’s editorial policy on Jewish re­ ligious questions has been indicative

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Matters have developed to such an of an intent to introduce into Britain the ideology of the Conservative move­ extent that he who defends the Chief ment. The policy has been applied with Rabbi autom atically attacks Dr. little scruple. While the new creed has Jacobs; an attack on Dr. Jacobs is an been propagated with the techniques attack on the Jewish Chronicle and to of the patent medicine industry, tra­ attack the Jewish Chronicle . . . well, ditional Judaism as such and the re­ that’s heresy of the gravest kind. ligious leaders of the community alike HE area of descent of Anglo-Jewry have been the objects of defamation from its present perilous orbit is and misrepresentation, on occasion to the point of outright slander. Week still in doubt. The struggle has become after week, such propaganda, more or less inhibited, because the grounds of less skillfully dissembled, has been restraint have become weakened. A injected into thousands of trusting generation or two ago, the orthodox Anglo-Jewish homes. But even the in Anglo-Jewry were afraid of driving most unsophisticated readers were the un-orthodox to Reform, and the shocked when the paper gave a front­ un-orthodox were afraid of driving page splash to a non-Jewish university the orthodox to proclaim their total professor’s statement that the Torah independence of official Anglo-Jewry.

Today there is some flow from the was full of myth.

Amongst the distinguished guests in­ United Synagogue to Reform, and a vited to the 120th Birthday Dinner substantial move of observant Jews was the Chief Rabbi. But the Chief from the United Synagogue to “inde­ Rabbi did not attend. Officially his pendent Orthodoxy” — although the absence was excused by pressure of latter like to retain a footing in the other commitments, but most people old camp as well. The difference is felt that his absence was an open that while the Reformers do not and demonstration of his protest against cannot influence the un-orthodox with­ the paper’s policy. The Jews’ College in the United Synagogue to fight but dispute came within weeks after that only to leave, independent Orthodoxy 120th Birthday and obviously the does induce the orthodox element in Jewish Chronicle editor could not re­ the United Synagogue to fight and to sist the temptation to at once square expand its influence.

Accordingly, the shape of official the account and move towards the capture of a key position. The editor Anglo-Jewry in the imminent future who, a year ago, refused to submit to will depend more and more on the a Din Torah before the Chief Rabbi, capacity of independent Orthodoxy to nevertheless claims the right to dictate project its image outwards and thereby to orthodox congregations how and by induce its strife-ridden satellite to land whom their future rabbis should be in an area of Torah and Yirath Shomayim. trained.

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JEWISH LIFE

The Space Age Cult of “ Practicality”

By BERNARD WEINBERGER In the aftermath of Sputnik has come a change of orientation . . . a new scale of worth in the social and educational spheres.

RDINARILY it is difficult to pin­ Communism had the edge over us in O point those events that later his­ this field of scientific knowledge. We torians will regard as turning points in found it difficult to wake up to the our lives. At times, however, events can be so shockingly important that we can at once sense that they are destined to be rated as crucial in the history textbooks of later years. Such an event was the launching of the first Sputnik by the Russians on that Octo­ ber day in 1959. It ushered in what we now call the Space Age. Despite the fact that we recognize this as a turning point in our history, I think that many of its indirect influences are not easily discernible and will first be docu­ mented by historians who will profit from the invaluable gift of hindsight.

This article will consider the import­ ance of this event on Jewish life, and more specifically on orthodox Jewish life, in this country.

Americans of all walks of life re­ acted with consternation to the news that Russia had beaten us to the punch in reaching out into space. Psycho­ logically it was a severe shock. We were not prepared to accept the idea that such an autocratic system as April, 1962

realization that a nation backward in its social, political, and economic de­ velopment could be more advanced than our society in a vital area of edu­ cation, as the Soviet Union’s space achievement indicated. But after the initial shock was over Americans re­ solved to do something about assuring our position in the realm of scientific knowledge. Immediately, the govern­ ment issued a call to revamp our educational system; to augment our scientific curricula, to emphasize math­ ematics, physics; and to offer scholar­ ships for those who show special skills in these areas. The effect on our edu­ cational institutions and high schools was revolutionary. With an elasticity of which few would have deemed it capable, the school system made a rapid shift to the scientific emphasis in obedience to the directives of the Eisenhower Administration.

N academic circles the debate is wax­ ing hot. Are we overemphasizing the Sciences at the expense of the Arts

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and Humanities? Which of the two disciplines is more important? Is it an either-or situation, or can we hope to achieve a synthesis that will accom­ modate both? Can we hold our own in a military struggle with the Com­ munists if we don’t accelerate and im­ prove our science teaching? Is the knowledge of Shakespeare important in our world?

These are some of the questions upon which the experts are expressing themselves on campuses throughout the country. Authorities such as C. P. Snow have accepted upon themselves the “mission” of traveling across the country to arouse us to our scientific illiteracy, and have cautioned us against the peril inherent in allowing the Russians to move ahead of us in science. On the other hand, “eggheads” of distinction are still clinging tena­ ciously to the classical tradition of “intellectualism” which gives priority to the humanities. A philosopher of repute, Brand Blanshard, recently summed up his thinking on the issue by distinguishing between two kinds of education. To the question of what kind of education is most useful in a hot or cold war, the answer, he readily concedes, must be science. But, to the question of what kind of education does most for the individual mind, the answer he insists must be: the humanities.

The debate brings to mind a well known Midrosh: The Rabbis relate that the angels were debating the ques­ tion whether Man ought to be created, and G-d interrupted the debate with the announcement that the discussion was academic since Man had already been created. In similar vein, I suggest that while the debate grows stronger, the people have already decided in favor of the predominance and pre­ 14

eminence of science over the humani­ ties. But why is this so significant and important a trend and how is it re­ lated to Jewish life?

A N inevitable result of this movejfV ment toward science is the new orientation which has emerged that now views education as training for something specific. Concomitant with the scientific emphasis is the render­ ing obsolete of the age-old dictum of education for its own sake. What has happened is that the philosophy of education has taken a complete aboutface. Education is no longer an end to itself, but a means to the greater end of military advantage or techno­ logical progress. Surely in terms of these ends, Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales,” or Milton’s “Paradise Lost” can contribute very little.

One of the tangibles of the “New Frontier” has been the roster of intel­ lectuals comprising President Ken­ nedy’s staff. Such names as Dean Rusk, Archibold Cox, i Arthur Schlesinger, McGeorge Bondy, Glenn Seaberg, John Galbraith evoke reverence from anyone familiar with academic circles.

When President Kennedy brought these men to the White House the move won the approval of people on both sides of the political front. It led James Reston of the New York Times to quip, “Kennedy has left nothing at Harvard except Radcliffe.” The Presi­ dent was lauded on all sides for seek­ ing out the “best brains” to guide our country’s destiny in the years ahead.

While it would be imprudent to re­ frain from joining the chorus of praise for this aspect of the “New Frontier,” I would, nonetheless, like to point out the dangers implicit in this noble gesture. What has happened is that the highest public distinction now for an intellectual of note is to join govJEWISH LIFE

ernment service. By giving up his “ivory tower” for the labyrinth of poli­ tics, the intellectual has further en­ hanced that perspective which looks upon education as the instrument of practicality.

The scholar no longer seeks to sat­ isfy the scrutinizing analysis of his campus colleagues but now looks to capture the attention of those in the higher echelons of government. The values hitherto attributed to a life spent on the campus are now ascribed to that dubious distinction of being part of the Washington Set. Long before the Space Age, and even before William James and after him John Dewey espoused Pragmatism as a philosophic discipline, American society gave the priority of values to practical worth. Almost everything was measured by its practical worth.

Almost everything, but not quite every­ thing. The one outstanding example was the philosophy of education. Here Americans were prepared to hallow even that which did not make evident its immediate practical value. With the new trend resulting from space ex­ ploration and the overwhelming em­ phasis on science, this has changed.

The present creed of American civili­ zation seems to be: “only that which has tangible practical value is worthy of human effort.”

OME benefits have accrued to Jews as a result of this trend. Because these benefits are so few let us point them out first. With the emphasis on science, there naturally followed eco­ nomic benefits for those engaged in these fields. Thus, orthodox Jewish students now in ever-increasing num­ bers are pursuing these fields and are finding ready employment at lucrative salaries. Because of the dearth in per­

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sonnel, companies which hitherto prac­ ticed an unannounced prejudice against Jews are now compelled to employ Jews if they have the needed skills.

One can even find bearded young yeshivah graduates in the research and development sections of such com­ panies as Remington Rand, Western Electric, Sylvania, Dynamic Corp. of America, to mention just a few. Tal­ ented yeshivah graduates are no longer confined to accountancy, law, organi­ zational work, and similar fields even if they are determined to live a Jewishly committed life, but can go on to seek high positions in both industry and government in scientific fields while enjoying unhindered opportunity for Shabboth and Yom Tov observance.

Many who would otherwise have en­ tered upon a career in the rabbinate have now found scientific fields more inviting.

Religion in general has responded to this pressure for demonstrating practical worth. One may even argue that it has profited from this trend.

This has resulted in the “Peace of Mind” and “Peace of Soul” emphasis in “selling” religion. Indeed, many who have not been satisfied by the psychiatrist have turned to religion and have found solace. However, the in­ fluence of the motif of practicality has only been felt on the periphery of organized religion. It has not substan­ tially influenced the realm of theology as such. The one area where I think this new trend has had the greatest impact—and to my mind a devastating one—is in the area of Torah Educa­ tion.

ITHIN the yeshivoth of elemen­ tary and high school levels, there has always been a latent tension be­ tween the Hebrew and General Studies divisions, as to which department shall

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have the dominant voice. Often deter­ mination of the question depends on the personalities of the principals o£ the respective departments. Happily, it can be said that with rare exceptions, in most schools the dominant and con­ trolling voice is still that which ema­ nates from the Hebrew department. It sets the tone in terms of the school calendar, extra-curricular activities, periods off for studying before exami­ nations, and similar decisions which tend to affect the character of the school environment. As a matter of fact, it is almost safe to generalize that the extent to which the Hebrew de­ partment controls the school atmos­ phere is the best barometer of the quality of the school. In those yeshivoth where heavy stress is laid on the amount of state scholarships achieved, or where the secular program of the student is controlled by the English department without consideration of his standing in the Hebrew division, the quality of Hebrew studies invari­ ably suffers.

In many of the smaller schools, such as most of the new day schools, this problem is obviated to a degree by having the same person as principal of both departments. This obviously helps to integrate both departments into a single cohesive unit. But even among the Mesivtoth, the schools of higher level, the evidence indicates that the Hebrew department is still the dominant voice, and most parents are guided in their choice of schools for their children by the quality of the Hebrew department rather than by the rating of the English department. The crucial point is that the yeshivah stu­ dent has been psychologically attuned to the attitude that for him, excelling in Hebrew studies should be his over­ riding concern. Status and recognition within the value system of the yeshi­ 16

vah are accorded to the student who excels in Talmud rather than the boy who gets straight “A’s” in English or Social Studies. It is this impetus from its own value system that has tradi­ tionally given the yeshivah the power of discipline over its students without recourse to grades, evaluations, and report cards. Some schools have found it necessary to demonstrate their recog­ nition of Hebrew studies by recording a student’s performance on his English record and incorporating it into his total high school average.

PUTNIK and its by-products have affected this markedly. Yeshivoth S have had to react to the near-obsession with science and math. Scholarships suddenly became of paramount impor­ tance. Students were offered special program inducements if they obtain an over-90 average. Homework is piledup on the yeshivah student to make it almost technically impossible for him, even if he were so moved, to study some extra Gemorah on his own during the evenings or over the week­ end. Reading assignments over the weekends make the reading of secular books on Shabboth hard to avoid.

Already overworked by the full-day, six-days-a-week, schedule, the yeshi­ vah student accepts this burden with­ out too much complaint since he is led to believe that the extra effort will mean greater rewards in his future career.

The changes in the curriculum of the yeshivah, however, are only sec­ ondary in importance to the more serious question of the mental attitude created for the student. Because the practical value he is destined to derive from his studies must be constantly kept before him if he is to carry this heavy load, the student tends to deJEW!SH LIFE

velop that mental attitude which measures everything in terms of prac­ tical worth. When he comes in the morning to his Jewish studies and is asked to delve deeply into a difficult portion of Talmud he finds it very hard to concentrate, for in his mind there lurks the perennial question: “of what value is all this discussion?” He finds it difficult to see any practical value in a Talmudic discussion that may go on for pages on some aca­ demic point, as for example, from which passage a certain law is derived.

The gifted teacher will demonstrate for the student how it is impossible to understand Jewish law unless you master the methodology of the Tal­ mud, its unique categories, reasoning, and tools of interpretation. But it is all so distant from immediate practical results that despite the teacher’s elo­ quence his efforts are of limited effect.

Parents have always resorted to thé proverbial “my son isn’t going to be a rabbi, anyway” whenever they had to rationalize their child’s ineptness in his studies, or to justify his transfer to a secular school. But never has this argu­ ment reached such proportions, even amongst parents who ascribe value to being a “Talmid Chochom.” “Why can not one be a devout Jew without studying Gemorah?” is now another popular argument used by student and parent alike. It matters little that we can show a direct correlation between knowledge and commitment, in an atmosphere where the yardstick is practical worth. Verily, there is no gainsaying the fact that knowledge of Torah does not assure one a better livelihood. the major yeshivoth IthanRONICALLY, are ordaining more rabbis today ever before. But this is not be­ cause more graduates are seeking to April, 1962

make the ministry their vocation. To the contrary, even those who haven’t the slightest intention ever to make vocational use of the ordination still insist on receiving Semichah. It has vital symbolic importance, for they see in the Semichah assurance that the years spent in the yeshivah have not been “wasted.” It represents some prac­ tical value derived from their yeshivah education. If nothing else, ordination offers at least a “diploma” they can look upon as a tangible result of their years of hard work.

Even amongst the scholars of Torah this trend towards the practical has made noticeable inroads. Here too a new priority of values is emerging.

Traditionally it was the Acadamecians, the Roshey Hayeshivah, who were the recognized Torah authorities despite the fact that they did not en­ gage in “practicing the rabbinate” and refrained from “P’sak Halochah.” The Chofetz Chaim was the outstanding leader of his generation before he wrote his monumental Mishnah Brurah and his fame transcends this work.

Obviously there were Torah authorities who were eminent too in the field of practical Halachic decisions, but this was not in itself what thrust them into positions of leadership but rather their undisputed greatness in all aspects of Torah. Today, the tendency is growing to hold forth as outstanding those Roshey Yeshivah or rabbis whose spe­ cialty is P ’sak. My point is, however, that our criterion for greatness today is being colored by the desire to trans­ late into practical and tangible terms the value of the “Gaon.” Undoubtedly, the all-important need for P’sak in the State of Israel is greatly responsible for this trend. Nonetheless, it has been enhanced by this tendency towards practicality.

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In recent years, there have emerged new Torah journals- —monthlies, quar­ terlies and annuals. And whereas in years gone by such journals were pri­ marily geared to scholarship and re­ search in the academic field of Torah, today the theme is almost always prac­ tical questions of Halochah. Here too the influence of Israel must not be overlooked, but neither can the influ­ ence of the trend I speak of. Curi­ ously, many people have come to regard the Halachic treatise not only as the more valuable but as the more difficult. In truth, however, the writing of an Halachic paper is more simple than the academic dissertation. In the latter a thorough familiarity with a wide variety of subjects and their sub­ tle distinctions are required. In the former, however, the writer isolates the problem at hand and confines him­ self to a particular subject in which he has mustered thorough information.

However, it really matters little which

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is more difficult, the important thing is that we recognize in what direction Torah scholarship is moving.

ORAH education by its very na­ ture is “impractical.” It offers little, or nothing to him who seeks a profit motive in it. Furthermore, the concept of practical value is antithetical to the essence of Torah. Though we may not be able to realize for ourselves the utopian ideal of “Torah Lishmah,” Torah for its own sake, we dare not permit ourselves to go to the other extreme of making out of Torah “a spade wherewith to dig.” Unless we can find the ways and means to imbue our students with the apprecia­ tion that Torah study is an obligation totally apart from its practical conse­ quences, we will never achieve the coveted aspiration: “This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth, but thou shall meditate therein day and night” (Joshua 1:8).

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JEWISH LIFE

Humane Slaughter in New Jersey

By ZALMAN DISKIND

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Revelations from the record of a typical state-wide battle for defense of Shechitah

HE DEVELOPMENT of the campaign for “humane slaughter” legislation in New Jersey forms a lurid and characteristic phase of a battle now being waged in practically every state of the country. The issue which is being fought is not only— and per­ haps not at all—that of animal welfare.

Rather, it is that of human welfare.

Religious rights, basic American prin­ ciples, and the future of American Jewry, are at stake. To see the New Jersey “case history” in its proper per­ spective, let us first review its national background.

In 1958, after three years of intense research by the House and Senate Ag­ ricultural Committees, and prolonged debate on the floors of both Houses, the United States Congress passed the Federal Humane Slaughter Act. Its passage had been opposed by many scientific experts, who viewed with scepticism the claims of superior hu­ maneness put forward by the bill’s sponsors for methods of slaughter ap-

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proved under the terms of the bill.

Opposed too were the representative agencies of the American Jewish com­ munity. Informed Jewish leaders saw in the agitation for the bill strong simi­ larity to a process which, in other countries, had led stage by stage to the banning of Shechitah. The sudden upsurge of “humane slaughter” agita­ tion in the United States, it was felt, was part of an international move whose goal, under the cloak of humane slaughter, was actually the interdicting of kosher slaughter.

Few of those who were swept along with the wave of high-pressure “hu­ mane slaughter” promotion had the slightest awareness of this motivation.

After all, what decent, liberal-minded person could fail to respond to the call for humaneness? And was not the Con­ gressional sponsor of the bill, Sen. Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota, an outstanding representative of American liberalism? Under the drumfire of “hu­ mane slaughter” propaganda, few could 19

take cognizance of evidence that the proposed “humane slaughter” methods were dubious at best—and of evidence that precisely similar beginnings, with precisely the same kind of liberalist support in its wake, had ultimately re­ vealed itself, in one enlightened country after another, in the garb and voice of Jew-hate.

And the few who did listen scouted the idea that such things could happen in America. The bill would be written, they guaranteed, with every provision for religious freedom. The humanita­ rian sponsors of the bill, they were certain, would themselves call for such provision; especially so, since an ex­ traordinary array of scientific author­ ities from all over the world had recorded their unanimous conclusion that Shechitah surely is at least as humane as any method of animal slaughter known or attempted—and in the opinion of several leading experts, the most humane method known to man.

IKELY these liberal-minded fig­ ures were quite uneasy at finding that the central parties in the “humaneslaughter” game were curiously unwill­ ing to agree that proper recognition be given to Shechitah; and that instead of rejoicing at the authoritative evidence of the superior humaneness of Shechi­ tah, they finally conceded its force with obvious sullenness. And even then, the humane-slaughterites besought an ex­ pedient to achieve their purpose while ostensibly agreeing to provision for Shechitah—namely, the banning of the method of handling used in American abbatoirs in preparing animals for kosher slaughter. It was promptly dem­ onstrated however, that this method of restraint is no more inhumane than any of the “approved” pre-slaughter methods — and less inhumane than

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most. So, with the anti-Shechitah ele­ ments retreating to safer ground, the Federal Act that was passed included Shechitah among the methods of ani­ mal slaughter approved as humane,* permitted the form of pre-slaughter handling preparatory to Shechitah, and also, through an amendment intro­ duced by Sen. Clifford Case of New Jersey, specifically exempted Shechitah from the terms of the bill.

The Humane Society of the United States, the central source of the “hu­ mane slaughter” campaign, though dis­ satisfied with the Federal bill, found it an entering wedge from which to mount an attack reaching to every state of the Union. Their objective now was to achieve through state legislation the full triumph of “Humane Slaugh­ ter.” The Federal bill applies only to packers selling meat to Federal agen­ cies. Through state legislation, every abbatoir in the country can become subject to “Humane Slaughter.” The Federal bill has multiple safeguards for religious rights, but through state legislation . . . the sky may well be the limit.

It should be noted that the agitation for “humane slaughter” does not origi­ nate from the old-established Societies for the Prevention of Cruelty to Ani­ mals. In some cases these societies have taken pains to dissociate them­ selves from the campaign, and in fact to indicate their disapproval. Rather, the campaign emanates from a com­ paratively recent proliferation of “Hu­ mane Societies,” one of whose central figures, Fred Myers, was the subject of a revealing article in the January, 1961 issue of Reader’s Digest. * This provision was introduced upon the in­ itiative o f Mr. Samuel L. Brennglass, vicepresident of the U nion of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America— E ditor

JEWISH LIFE

INCE the “humane slaughter” cam­ paign has moved to the state level, the struggle for defense of Shechitah has moved with it. A central factor among the defense forces is the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, whose policy has been to eschew publicity and maintain unity and teamwork on this vital issue among all elements of the Jewish com­ munity. The Union’s efforts, in con­ junction with those of its Rabbinic arm, the Rabbinical Council of America, have been channeled largely through the Joint Advisory Committee of the National Community Relations Advi­ sory Council and the Synagogue Coun­ cil of America, the collective agency in this problem for most of the leading national Jewish organizations and the local Jewish Community councils across the country.

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The “humane slaughter” forces, avoiding a direct showdown, have maintained the policy of ostensibly agreeing to provision for Shechitah while working to make Shechitah im­ practicable through the outlawing of the preparatory hoisting and shackling.

Hammering away at this point, they have given it an ugly image in the public mind. To meet this strategy, the Joint Advisory Committee has spon­ sored extensive scientific research to develop a restraining device which would make any further challenges on this issue untenable. While progress has been made in this direction, as yet no device has been perfected which is applicable to both large and small animals and meets the standards of both Jewish law and the United States Department of Agriculture. In the meanwhile, the “humane slaughter” forces are working at a feverish pitch to force through enactment of state laws before any acceptable new reApril, 1962

straining device is perfected and made available.

Thanks to the defense effort, the legislative threat to Shechitah has been beaten back in many states, including New York. Twelve states however, have passed humane slaughter laws.

These states are: Washington, Oregon, Minnesota, Wisconsin, California, Con­ necticut, Florida, Kansas, Maine, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire. Most of them have pat­ terned their legislation upon the Fed­ eral Humane Slaughter Law. ERE in New Jersey, the battle for Shechitah has been raging for three years in the legislative halls of the State House in Trenton. Two full scale public hearings, before two dif­ ferent committees of the legislature, have been held. The first was held on July 13, 1959, before the Assembly Committee on Agriculture, Conserva­ tion, and Economic Development, at Trenton. The second took place before the Assembly Committee on Institu­ tions, Public Health, and Welfare, on March 15, 1960, at the State House in Trenton. At both of these hearings, there appeared not only leaders of the fight on the state level, but also some of the same figures who fought the bill on the Federal level. Among the floor leaders of the fight against the New Jersey Humane Slaughter Bill were Rabbi Pinchas Teitz of Elizabeth; a leader of the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada; Rabbi Zev Segal of Newark, and Rabbi Paul Z. Levovitz of Lakewood, prominent figures of the Rab­ binical Council of America; Rabbi Emanuel Holzer, Coordinator of the Shechitah Research Program of the Joint Advisory Committee of NCRAC and SCA; and Jules Cohen, then Sec­ retary of the Joint Advisory Commit-

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tee. A1§q-cooperating in the floor ac? tivities were the professionals of ffae New Jersey chapter of American Jew­ ish Congress, the Anti-Defamation League, and the National Community Relations Advisory Council. On the; other side of the aisle were Fred Myers, Executive Director of the Hu­ mane Society of the United States; the Rt. Rev. Monsignor LeRoy E, McWilliams, President of the National Catholic Society for Animal Welfare; and the President and the Chairman of the New Jersey Branch of the Hu­ mane Society, both of whom describe themselves as being Jewish.

What makes the New Jersey Hu­ mane Slaughter Bill so dangerous is the fact that this bill would prohibit shackling and hoisting of the animal prior to Shechitah. This is effect could do away with Shechitah in New Jersey, which supplies the huge kosher meat needs of New York City and from which 50% of the entire kosher meat production in the United States origi­ nates. Rabbi Emanuel Holzer, who was a witness at the hearing, described the New Jersey measure as “the most vicious bill introduced anywhere so far, because no alternative method of preparation for slaughter is proposed.”

letter addressed to William F. Hyland, Speaker of the New Jersey Assembly, states: : . . . We believe ample time has been granted to the slaughterers of kosher, meat to discontinue the present bar^ barous method of preparing livestock for ritual slaughter.

If one were to judge by the seem­ ingly innocuous statements, one might almost think that these people are ac­ tually moved by the highest humani­ tarian motives. Let us however, look in át the Sixth Annual Convention of the Humane Society of the United States and listen to an address by Mr. Erlanger’s “fellow Jew” from New Jersey, Jacques V. Sichel, president of the New Jersey Branch of the Society.

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. . . We should introduce humane slaughter laws in all the other states without an exemption for . ritual slaughter . . . Such vehement protests create a solidarity of all factions of the Jewish community, including those no longer adhering to the strict food laws of the fundamentalist . . . oppo­ nents of this bill have been able to arouse suspicions and have made this legislation a political hot potato . . .

How is the American Humane move­ ment to finish its humane slaughter job? This is essentially an educational and public relations job . . . Legisla­ tors don’t know whether such legisla­ tion is favored—we have to convince them that humane slaughter laws have widespread public backing. You must mobilize your members and the mem­ bers of other humane organizations in your state, try to get support from the press on the editorial page, try to get help from the clergy, from the wom­ en’s clubs and from the service organi­ zations. You must explain to them all, in the simplest terms, the need for such legislation . . . Write letters to the editors, letters to your state senators and assemblymen, ask for letters to the governor and other political lead­ ers, and incidentally, as we are happy to discover, ask for contributions at the same time and you will be pleased with the results.

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JEWISH LIFE

T IS interesting to note some of the strategy and arguments of the pro­ ponents of “Humane Slaughter” in New Jersey. One of these, Milton Erlanger, is Chairman of the Human Slaughter Committee for the State of New Jersey. He describes himself as a Jew, a generous contributor to the United Jewish Appeal, and a member of New York’s Temple Emanuel. “The Jewish people,” he said “are making the biggest mistake. The opposition to the bill is sinful and based on self­ ish economic reasons of the orthodox group.” This same Mr. Erlanger, in a

HAT the “Humane? Slaughter” people are relentless in pursuit of their aims, is demonstrated by The following excerpt distributed to the assemblymen in Trenton.. The excerpt is from the Bulletin of the Humane Society of the United States, dated March 24, 1960: Housewives who do hot want to buy meat produced with cruelty should buy only pork products or other meat that is unquestionably slaughtered out­ side the metropolitan area and outside New Jersey. (In New Jersey nearly 100% of the entire slaughter of cattle and sheep is ritually killed with shackle and hoist and most of the meat goes to New York.) Talk to your meat seller and demand that he supply you, until New York and New Jersey en­ act humane slaughter laws, with meat that is not from ritually killed animals.

Under present conditions, kosher kill­ ing is virtually always accompanied by cruelty.

Despite these methods of attaining their end, the “Humane Slaughter” forces try to befuddle the issue by claiming that the whole issue is one of economics, not of religion. In their newsletter, the New Jersey Branch proclaims: “Your society believes that it is a crude attempt to confuse the uninformed, when the kosher meat in­ dustry injects religious issues into a purely economic controversy.” And Mr. Fred Myers, in his testimony in Trenton in 1960, told the legislators: “The argument that they give you is very simple . . . It is: kindness of the kind that this bill proposes would be more expensive than cruelty. No re­ ligion is implied in it; it’s economics.

And when Rabbi Teitz, whom I re­ spect—I respect as a man and as a fine intellect . . . He doesn’t want anything that will cost more money.”

And the aforementioned Mr. Sichel, in his summary statement before the legislators, proclaimed: “But I resent April, 1962

most of all that this whole discussion has entered religious grounds, because I am the President of the Society . v . a j^ I am Jewish too.”. Finally, a Mr. Harr^ H. Wehringer told the legisla­ tors at the 1959 hearing; . . . “The opposition here . has been mostly from the orthodox Rabbis, all of whom, in my opinion, have a financial interest in the continuation of kosher slaughtering . .

IS interesting to note the type of ItoTperson who seems to be attracted the cause of Humane Slaughter.

At the hearings one could obscure a goodly number of middle-aged or old­ er women, possibly without a spouse, members of various organizations such as the Animal Welfare Association of Camden County and the Associated Humane Workers, of Southern New Jersey. These women are the spark­ plugs behind the local drives and letter writing campaign to the editors of the various local newspapers. They are do­ ing a remarkably effective job in pre­ vailing upon New Jersey editors to print editorials supporting the New Jersey Humane Slaughter Bill. One of these fine, upright American women, who generally would fit our stereotype of a Daughter of the American Revo­ lution, is Mrs. Madaline Thompson, Secretary of the aforementioned Ani­ mal Welfare Association. She in­ formed the legislative committee that practically all the democratic coun­ tries of Europe have humane slaugh­ ter laws. The Communist-dominated countries were absent from the list.

“Can we allow our state to be allied with the countries that have no regard for human or animal sufferings?” Mrs. Thompson concluded with the follow­ ing invective: “We have listened to the virtues and advantages of Judaism.

There are thousands of us in New 23

Jersey who do not wish to be con­ verted to Judaism and the require­ ments to eat only kosher meats.”

One of the surprises of the hearings on March 15, 1960 was the testimony of Dr. Harold Smith, President of the New Jersey Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, against the bill, he testified that: “There has been no method developed more humane than the physical shackling and restrain­ ing of animals in preparation for slaughter.”

This was a great shock to the ad­ vocates of the Bill. The subsequent witnesses for the Bill set themselves to villifying Dr. Smith and to casting aspersions and innuendos concerning his future usefulness to the humane­ ness to animals movement. of the bin made strong attempts to dissociate themselves from the charge of anti­ semitism. Assemblyman Francis G. Werner, Democrat of Camden, who sponsored the two New Jersey Hu­ mane Slaughter Bills introduced thus far, opened his side of the testimony before the committee by stating: “One of the speakers that preceded me in­ dicated that perhaps this bill was pred­ icated on future infringement against the Jews. I resent this inference be­ cause I have nothing in mind, except to alleviate inhumane slaughter . . .”

Mr. Werner, upon being approached personally during the course of the hearing, commented. “J don’t think that the bill infringes religious rights.

There is no religious issue involved.

Your people are trying to pit Jew against gentile.”

Mr. Fred Myers, the Executive Director of the Humane Society of the U. S. started his testimony at the 1960 hearings, in this manner: dvocates

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. . . Shalom, peace to those . . . on the other side of this issue . . .

The bill before you . . couldn’t con­ ceivably under any interpretation inter­ fere with the practice of the Jewish religion. The bill is modeled very closely on the Federal legislation ... .

I hope that each one of you, as prac­ tical politicians, knows, that there is no such general and universal opposi­ tion among the Jews . . . on page 1430 of the Congressional Record of Febru­ ary 4, 1958, there appears a letter written by Dr. Leo Pfeifer of the American Jewish Congress . . . writ­ ten to Congressman M. R. Poage of Texas . . . who is the author of the bill which was enacted ultimately by Congress. Dr. Pfeifer wrote oificially at that time as spokesman for the Rab­ binical Assembly of America and the United Synagogue of America, which are Conservative organizations; the Central Conference of American Rabbis and Union of American He­ brew Congregations which are Reform organizations; and the American Jew­ ish Congress: m am authorized by the organizations listed above to inform you that these organizations and their membership have no opposition to H.R. 8308 . . .” which is the Federal bill that ultimately was enacted into law. . . .

Then, referring to the preceding speaker, Dr. Harold Smith, who had surprised everyone by testifying against the Humane Slaughter Bill, Mr. Myers exclaimed: “I can say to you that the President of the New Jersey S.P.C.A. just appeared before you and I can assert as a fact that he doesn’t repre­ sent anybody except himself.”

T SHOULD be clearly stated that in New Jersey, the opposition to “Humane Slaughter” legislation is pre­ sented as a united front by practically all Jewish organizations. All of these organizations subscribed to the formal statement opposing the bill. These groups were: The United Orthodox Rabbis of New Jersey; the American Jewish Committee; the American Jew­ ish Congress, New Jersey Region;

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JEWISH LIFE

Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, New Jersey Region; Kosher Products Consumers League; National Women’s League of the United Syna­ gogue of America, New Jersey Branches; the New Jersey Council of the Union of American Hebrew Con­ gregations; Rabbinical Assembly of America, New Jersey Region; Rabbin­ ical Council of New Jersey; Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America; United Synagogue of Amer­ ica, North Jersey Region; Federation of Jewish Charities of Atlantic City; the Jewish Community Council of Bayonne; the Bergen County Rabbini­ cal Council; the Jewish Welfare Coun­ cil of Bergen County; the Jewish Federation of Camden County; East­ ern Union County Jewish Council; Board of Rabbis of Essex County; the Jewish Community Council of Essex County; the Jewish Community Coun­ cil of Passaic; the Jewish Community Council of Paterson; The Jewish Com­ munity Council of Perth Amboy; the Jewish Community Council of Plainfield; the Jewish Federation of Tren­ ton (Community Relations Commit­ tee); Board of Rabbis of Central New Jersey and Delaware Valley.

It is probably this unanimity of opinion by all segments of the New Jersey Jewish community which has thus far prevented the passage of a New Jersey Humane Slaughter bill.

It is this unanimity which the opposi­ tion is trying to dissipate and which it is trying to destroy. The first two witnesses for the Jewish community, against Assembly bill No. 311 (Hu­ mane Slaughter of Livestock) on March 15, 1960, were spiritual leaders of congregations in Jersey City and Teaneck. The record of the proceed­ ings reports the ensuing exchange with Assemblyman La Morte of Newark: April, 1962

Assemblyman La Morte: I would like to ask Rabbi Samuel Berman— and you can appreciate I know very little about your religion, Rabbi—are you considered an Orthodox, Conservative, or a Reform?

Rabbi Berman: I am a Reform rabbi.

Assemblyman La Morte: May I ask the same question of Rabbi Judah Washer?

Rabbi Washer: I am a graduate of an orthodox institution, serving a Conserv­ ative community.

Assemblyman La Morte: Thank you.

The next witness, stated his testi­ mony thus: Madam Chairman, Members of the Committee: My name is Rabbi Harry B. Kellman of Camden, New Jersey, one of the constituents of Assemblyman Wer­ ner. Because of the question that was previously asked, may I allow myself the privilege of reminding the Committee to bear in mind that the representatives of the three great major divisions in Jewish life are here represented. You heard from a Reform rabbi; you heard from an orthodox rabbi; and I am a Conserv­ ative rabbi; and I represent the United Synagogue of America, one of the truly large segments in American Jewish life.

Rabbi Emanuel Holzer followed as a witness: My name is Rabbi Emanuel Holzer. I am, as introduced, the coordinator of the Shechitah Research Program of the Joint Advisory Committee . . . May I also, in case someone will ask the question, say I am an orthodox rabbi, ordained at an orthodox school and have basic familiar­ ity with this problem, with the particular topic, within the last years.

In response to a leading question by Assemblyman La Morte, Rabbi Holzer stated: At present there is no way, no manner, to determine pain or the percentage of pain. If someone has a fever, you take a temperature reading and you know what degree of fever the person has. If a person suffers either a heart attack or other things, we have electroencephalo25

grams, electrocardiograms, which can measure certain physical phenomena within the human body. We have no thermometer or barometer, to use a lay­ man’s term for pain . . . now, there has never been a real scientific study as to whether this is painful or not.

MOST eloquent and impressive Jewish spokesman was Rabbi Pinchas Teitz of Elizabeth. Here is his testimony:

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Madam Chairman and members of the Committee: My name is Pinchas M. Teitz. I am the rabbi of the orthodox Jewish community of Elizabeth. I am a member of the Presidium of the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada.

I would like at this time to analyze the bill before us and will attempt to explain in brief, clear language, why the Jewish community is opposed to A 311 .

If this bill is enacted today and if this bill should go into effect tomorrow, all the slaughter houses in New Jersey will be closed and they will not be able to reopen until new methods will be found on how to handle and prepare animals for slaughter.

Let me tell you first that this bill in its present language prohibits ritual slaughter in New Jersey, not directly, but indirect­ ly . . . For if an animal must be ren­ dered unconscious prior to slaughter, there can be no more ritual slaughter for the law says that the animal must be brought in a position to be slaughtered according to Jewish law and that animal must be conscious and in perfect health.

If shackling and hoisting, or, as Mr. Heine said before, lifting and bringing into position, are prohibited, there can­ not be any slaughtering whatsoever.

Rabbi Teitz’s voice then rose in eloquence: Madam Chairman and members of the Committee, before I go into further testi­ mony, I must express my amazement that it was necessary to convert this house into an arena whereby we have to fight and protect our religious rights. Mr. Wer26

ner, before drafting this bill, could have called in the Jewish representatives and discussed with them whether this will satisfy them or not. Why is it necessary to convert this house into a public arena?

I could not help as I was sitting and listening to the testimony— it reminded me of 800 years ago when Jewish leaders in Spain were called for public debate and there was a time 821 years ago when the Jewish people were attacked as be­ ing inhumane because they practiced cir­ cumcision. And doctors of that age and many authorities stated that it is the most inhumane treatment of children.

We had to fight. We had to argue . . . and my friends, I would like to state that we are arguing about something that eventually we will all realize, that Shechitah is the most humane method useful for dressing animals.

Ladies and gentlemen, let’s not forget that the slaughter house is not a nursing home for animals. It is not a place for creation. They are brought there to be slaughtered . . . Schechitah which is the least painful to the animal . . . unless we find a method which does not cause as much pain to the animal as shackling and hoisting, we cannot force by law the community to give up its religious rites.

Assemblyman La Morte: Rabbi, may I ask you the same question: Inasmuch as the Jewish community feels that this is a definite infringement upon their reli­ gious rights, what can they offer in order to get around the Jewish religious rite?

Rabbi Teitz: May I say this: We are conducting our research. We are trying to find methods. But if we do not find any method, we believe we have a right to practice our religion without inter­ ference by the state in any way . . . I do not believe that any problem which touches upon religious problems should be discussed here . . . This is the fourth time that we as Jewish representatives have been here during the last two years.

Never before on any legislation did the Jewish people as a minority have to come and defend their basic rights . . . We believe that the Humane Society is moved by noble motives. If they would JEWISH LIFE

believe that we are equally moved by noble motivesj and what is more, by religious motives which are beyond our control, there would be no necessity for us sitting here today and spending time.

Assemblyman La Morte: . . . I may state this, Rabbi, that I think it borders on the line of a personal affront to the mem­ bers of this Committee to hear a welleducated and learned man like you— and I was very impressed with your presentation, I might tell you—to think that we are attempting to make this some type of arena . . . this is something that I personally have been offended by and I don’t hesitate to tell you. I realize that you did not do it intentionally . . .

T THE 1959 hearings, the same line of discussion developed.

Here is what it sounded like:

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Assemblyman Stolowski: The statement was made . . . that Assembly Bill 133 would be used as a weapon against Jewish people. Is that true?

Rabbi Teitz: Well, I do not want to touch on this.

Assemblyman Stolowski: Well, it is very important and I think it should be brought out.

Rabbi Teitz: I will say this: There is a great deal of concern on the part of the Jewish community who view this bill as preceding something that may come later on, because any student of Jewish history knows that throughout history Jewish suffering began with “humane slaughter­ ing.” As a matter of fact, when Hitler entered Poland, the same Poland where he established only a year later gas chambers to slaughter twenty million people, six million Jews, the very first order he issued was against Shechitah because it was “not humane” in his opin­ ion. So when you speak about humane slaughter, it reminds Jews of a very sad, a very sad history. Of course, we don’t believe that will ever come here . . . and we believe the humane societies here are well-meaning people. Of that I have no doubt. But there are people behind them who may utilize this: “Let’s get the April, 1962

foot in the door. Let’s first have in the statues of New Jersey, humane slaugh­ tering. Then we will have identification of what is slaughtered ritually, what is slaughtered otherwise.” It will start cam­ paigns and eventually a campaign may be started against Jewish slaughtering.

HE Jewish community of New Jersey has been successful thus far in warding off Humane Slaughter leg­ islation. Through the alertness of a united community, and under the cap­ able central coordination of Arnold Harris, Executive Secretary of the New Jersey Jewish Community Rela­ tions Council in Newark, both the 1959 and the 1960 sessions of the legislature failed to see the emer­ gence of a Humane Slaughter Bill.

(In 1961, which was an election year for Governor, the legislation was not introduced.) Although the emergence of the bill for house vote seemed imminent on several occasions, it is due to the unity and persistence that this was avoided. Try to imagine a somber legislative hall, teeming with rabbis, with yarmulke-covered heads and some bearded; they are all over the floor of the House, urging their respective assemblymen not to vote for the bill. This was the scene on Monday, May 23, 1960, the last ses­ sion of the State Legislature. The bill never appeared on The floor. Again, the threat to Shechitah was success­ fully repelled.

How much longer can the Jewish community forstall such legislation?

A new Humane Slaughter Bill, A-559, sponsored by Assemblyman Werner, has just been introduced to the 1962 Legislative session and has been re­ ferred to the Committee bn Agricul­ ture, Conservation and Economic Development. A memorandum from the Joint Advisory Committee of the Synagogue Council of America and

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the National Community Relations Advisory Council states that in 1962, the situation in the United States with regard to Shechitah will be more dan­ gerous and difficult than at anytime in the past. A significant new factor in the situation is the development by a Philadelphia meat packing plant, Cross Brothers, of a restraining device that has been declared Halachically acceptable and has been approved by the meat inspection division of the United States Department of Agricul­ ture. This device, however, is not applicable to smaller animals such as sheep and lambs and thus does not as yet offer a practicable alternative to the present method.

EANWHILE, the battle for She­ M chitah will go forward in all of the fifty states of the Union. What has transpired in New Jersey will most probably occur in many other states, with minor variations. We should be set for a long-drawn-out battle in de­ fense of one of our most hallowed religious practices. To be sure, there are various shades of conviction con­ cerning our strong stand against any

28

type of legislation concerning humane slaughter. On the one hand, there are the officials of our Community Rela­ tions agencies who are fearful of giv­ ing the impression to the gentile world that the Jewish community opposes any sort of humanitarian legislation.

On the other hand, there is the deep conviction of the religious community that any “humane slaughter” legisla­ tion is only a forerunner of an eventu­ al outlawing of Shechitah. Here in New Jersey, however, all the elements of the Jewish community were able to merge, and effectively repulse the de­ termined drive of the Humane Society of New Jersey to pass anti-Shechitah legislation. Whether this strategy will succeed in other states, as it has in New Jersey, may well depend on our ability to unite with other movements and forces in the Jewish community, which is what the politicians and “humane slaughter” agitators fear most. If the di­ verse elements of the Jewish commun­ ity in every state display as much good faith and cooperation as they have in New Jersey, then there is indeed hope that we will succeed in preserving Shechitah in the United States.

JEWISH LIFE

A S to ry

The Last Day

by ANNE GASNER

WISHED that the farewells were over and done with, because people are always sorrowful when say­ ing good-bye, and I was so happy and excited just then that I didn’t want anything sad to happen and spoil things.

I was walking through the ghostly rooms, lifting every now and then the handles of the small brown leather valises which were scattered about. It seemed to me that they stood there just waiting for someone to carry them off to a great adventure.

The belongings which we could take with us had already been crated and sent on ahead to the boat. I wondered if any of Mutti’s wedding china had been broken during the long railway journey from Berlin to Hamburg. That would be a shame, I thought, because Mutti had wrapped every dish so pains­ takingly in tissue paper before placing it inside the huge wooden box.

I sat down on the floor and carefully opened my valise. Everything was safe

I

April, 1962

and snug, my autograph album with the signatures of all my classmates, my box of monogrammed stationery— a parting gift from my favorite teacher, a small, exquisite doll wearing an ex­ otic gypsy costume, a necklace with a dainty gold locket, and all the other paraphernalia which I was able to cram inside the valise.

“You want to play hide and seek?’’

My little brother was peering over my shoulder.

I snapped my valise shut. I never let him see my treasures, and was annoyed now because he had sneaked up on me. “Go away, Arno. You’re bothering me,” I told him curtly.

“Who wants to see your junk any­ way?” He pouted. “I only came to ask if you want to play hide and seek.”

I was about to refuse and chase him away, but then I thought of a place I could hide where he’d never find me.

“All right,” I said, “you’re i t ” Arno placed his hands over his face and started counting. “One, two, three, four . . H i 29

I tiptoed out of the room and quick­ ly crawled into the empty kitchen closet. I could hear Amo’s footsteps as he walked through the apartment searching for me, and covered my mouth to stifle my giggles. Just as I had expected, he didn’t even bother to look in the kitchen.

LONG time passed, and the air in the closet was hot and stifling.

Amo must have given up, I thought, and climbed out slowly, stretching my arms and legs which had become stiff.

“Hanni, what are you doing there?”

I looked up, startled.

My mother was standing by the stove, rubbing its already shiny black surface with a cloth. Her small plump body moved about with nervous jerks as she vigorously rubbed the stove with both hands. Her usually neat darkbrown bun had escaped the hairpins, and now and then she abstractedly flicked back a strand of hair from her face.

I thought she would scold me, but instead she asked, “Do you think the stove is clean enough? I don’t want the next tenant to feel that we left the place all dirty.”

“It’s spotless, Mutti, “I said. “And besides, why should you care what the next tenant thinks?”

“But it’s very important not to give them the wrong impression. They know we are Jewish. We must be very careful to leave everything in perfect order.”

“I’d like to break all the things we’re not taking along.” I stamped my foot angrily. “I don’t want them to have anything of ours.”

My mother sighed. “We can’t take everything with us,” she said, and her already red-rimmed eyes filled with tears again.

I knew that she wasn’t thinking of

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furniture but about all the members of the family who were to stay behind.

And then I shuddered because I re­ membered that they would soon be here to say good-bye, and then there would be a lot of crying.

“O, there you are.” Arno peeked in from behind the kitchen door, “Where were you hiding?”

“You weren’t smart enough to find out, so now I won’t tell you,” I said smugly.

“Children, please don’t fight,” Mutti pleaded.

‘7'm not fighting,” I said selfrighteously.

“You are, too.” Arno stuck his tongue out.

“Go outside and play,” my mother said in a weary tone.

“All right,” I agreed quickly, anx­ ious to get away from the sadness.

“Don’t go far,” she cautioned as we bolted through the door.

The sun was hidden by thick grey clouds.

“Do you want to play in the park” Arno asked.

I shook my head. “It’s too far.”

The park was only two blocks away, but I knew that a classmate of mine, who had gone there the week before, had been knocked down and slapped by a group of girls from the Bund Deutscher Maedchen, RNO and I sat down on the front A step and, placing our elbows on our knees, we rested our cheeks in our hands.

“Are you glad we’re leaving?” Arno asked.

“And how! I’ve always wished I could take a trip on a boat.”

“But aren’t you sorry that we’re leaving all our friends and cousins?”

JEWISH LIFE

I thought about it for a moment.

“Maybe we’ll see them again very soon,” I replied finally.

I wish!” Arno said fervently.

“Well, let’s not think about that now.” I jumped up and peered through the window of our ground floor apart­ ment. I could see my mother dusting the furniture.

“Hanni, what do you suppose the new people will do about this?” Amo was pointing to a large black swastika which had been smeared on the wall right under our window.

For a moment I felt again the chok­ ing sensation of fright which I had experienced when I first saw that swas­ tika one morning on my way to school.

I had heard stories about Jewish fam­ ilies being taken to prisons and con­ centration camps, and the appearance of the swastika sent me into panic because I was convinced that this was a sign that we were to be next.

However, as time passed and noth­ ing dreadful occurred, the swastika no longer disturbed me, and I had by now completely forgotten about it.

“Well, it doesn’t concern us any more,” I said. “So who cares?”

I took a bobby pin from my hair and started to play hopscotch on the sidewalk.

“You’re out,” Arno called, “It’s my turn.”

I hadn’t intended to let him play, but I was afraid he’d complain to my mother, and what I wanted at all costs was to avoid being reproached. So I sat down on the steps and waited for him to miss.

“Look, Uncle Moshe is coming,” Arno said, pointing down the street.

I picked up the bobby pin and put it back in my hair. I swallowed hard.

The relatives were coming. Now it was starting.

April, 1962

HID around the corner until I was. certain that Uncle Moshe had entered the house, and then climbed up the front steps so I could look through the window. Arno stood be­ hind me, clutching my skirt.

“Can you see them?” he asked in a whisper.

“Yes. Be quiet so I can hear,” I ordered.

Uncle Moshe sat on the couch with his coat still on. He was taking off his black plush hat, simultaneously placing a large yarmulka on his head.

His tragic dark eyes stared into space, and he began stroking his long grey beard meditatively.

“So you are really going,” he said at last.

“Yes, it is the only thing to do.”

My father walked over and stood in front of him.

Papa was already dressed in his travelling clothes, his new herringbone patterned suit and brown leather shoes.

He looked thinner than ever before, and deep, dark grooves encircled his eyes.

Uncle Moshe was swaying back and forth, as if in prayer. “It is the wrong thing to do,” he said.

“How can you say that?” my father demanded heatedly. “Don’t you see what’s going on around you? Are you waiting to be beaten in the streets or killed in a concentration camp?”

“I have already been beaten,” Uncle Moshe said quietly. “I am still here.”

My father smashed his fist against the table. “You’re a fool.”

I could see my mother throw Papa a warning glance.

Papa took a deep breath. “Look Moshe,” he said, “you are my wife’s brother and I don’t want to fight with you, not for the world. Haven’t we always been friends?”

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“Yes, that is true.” Uncle Moshe smiled.

APA sat down next to him and continued in an urgent voice.

“Moshe, you have the papers to mi­ grate to Cuba. Take your family and go. Otherwise you’ll have the blood of your children on your hands.”

I thought of my cousins Rivka and Leah, and the baby David. I bit my lip.

“Cuba,” Uncle Moshe said, still smiling. “Is that a country or a wilder­ ness? Is there a shool, or a kosher butcher? I ask you, is that a place for a Jew?” “I don’t know,” Papa said, “I don’t know about Cuba. But I do know about Germany. This is no place for a Jew.” Uncle Moshe still smiled, but it was a sad smile now. “Here I know who I am,” he said. “Here I am Moshe, the shochet, and people trust me because they know that I do my job exactly as the law prescribes.” He shrugged his shoulders. “What will be in Cuba?

Who needs a shochet there? Who cares about kashruth there?”

Papa grabbed Uncle Moshe by the shoulders and shook him. “When you will be in a concentration camp, you won’t slaughter chickens there.”

“If I cannot live as a Jew, I’d rather die.” Uncle Moshe stood up straight and put his hat on, at the same time sliding the yarmulka off. “I hope it will be easier for you in America. I have heard that there are many Jews living in New York. Perhaps the danger of assimilation will not be so great.”

M y . mother was sobbing convul­ sively. “Moshe, Moshe, will I ever see you again?”

I could see Uncle Moshe walking over to her. He was wringing his hands.

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I wondered if he’d kiss her good-bye, athough I knew that he never touched another woman, not even to shake hands.

He stood in front of her, immobile.

“Don’t cry, sister,” he said. He sounde.d as though he were choking. “Don’t cry.”

He buttoned his coat and walked toward the door. Then he turned to look at my mother. “Don’t forget who your parents were,” he said and walked quickly out the door.

Arno hopped down the steps. “He’s going,” he said. “Let’s say good-bye.”

“You go. I don’t want to,” I told him.

He ran off, and as I hid behind a door I could see Uncle Moshe bend down while Arno threw his arms around him. Then Uncle Moshe kissed Arno on the forehead and, suddenly turning, walked with quick steps around the corner.

Arno stumbled as he ran back. I picked him up and dusted off his jacket.

“Uncle Moshe asked for you,” Arno reported. “He wanted to say good-bye to you.”

I took a deep breath. “I’m glad that’s over with,” I said. I felt as though a large pit was stuck in my throat.

GROUP of boys, dressed in uni­ forms of the Hitler Jugend, was A coming towards us. They were laugh­ ing loudly and poking each other in the ribs with their elbows.

“Come quickly, Arno, let’s hide.”

I pulled him inside the doorway. We stood, holding our breaths, until the noisy clatter of their heavy boots could no longer be heard.

“Let’s go out,” I said finally, “we don’t have to be afraid of them any more.” I put my thumb on my nose JEWISH LIFE

and waved my fingers in a gesture of defiance.

As we opened the door we could see Herr Berger crossing the street. He waved to us cheerily and we waved back. I had never seen Herr Berger in anything but a jovial mood. When he reached us I curtsied and Arno bowed. ; -“Please children, not so formal.”

Herr Berger laughed. “After all, aren’t we relatives?

I could feel my face redden. I knew that Herr Berger was a distant cousin of Papa’s, but we children had been forbidden to think of him as a rela­ tion because Herr Berger had married a gentile woman several years before, soon after which his elderly mother died of a broken heart. My mother and father once had a terrible argu­ ment about Herr Berger because Mutti felt that it was a disgrace to have him even come to the house. But Papa insisted that he would never refuse anyone the hospitality of his home and, though he never brought his wife, Herr Berger continued to pay us his monthly visit.

I was always happy when he came.

His jolliness was infectious and there was much joking and laughter when­ ever he was around.

ERR BERGER was a small man, almost as wide as he was tall, and his tremendous girth was accentu­ ated by the fact that it rested atop two tiny feet, invariably encased in pointed patent leather shoes. His brown eyes were round and large, and the thick-lensed spectacles he wore gave him a bug-eyed appearance, which made for a charming comical effect.

One thing we children always could count on—his pockets were stuffed with candy.

H

April, 1962

“Close your eyes and open your mouth,” Herr Berger said now.

I obeyed, and felt a large bonbon against my tongue.

Then he pushed my hand into his pocket, urging, “Help yourself.” I extracted a palm-full of goodies.

“Thank you.”

Herr Berger beamed, tapping his cheek with his forefinger. “Now what do I get in return?”

I knew what he meant and kissed his cheek lightly. I was always embar­ rassed when I did this, but I knew it was part of the ceremony and felt that I couldn’t let him down.

To my surprise I noticed that Herr Berger’s cheek was moist, and then I saw the tears in his eyes.

“I shall miss you children,” he said and, extracting a large white handker­ chief from his pocket, he wiped his face as he walked into the house.

LOOKED through the window again and saw Papa hanging Herr Berger’s coat on a hook in the closet.

“So you’re going,” Herr Berger began.

“Yes,” Papa answered, “tonight.”

“What did you do about your store?”

“I gave it up. What else could I do?”

■jit was a good-going business.”

‘Wes. But what was the use?”

Herr Berger sighed and leaned back against the chair. “I still think you’re foolish to run off like this,” he said.

“I have no choice. Things are get­ ting worse all the time.”

“You take alarm too easily,” Herr Berger maintained. “Things are quiet now. It’s safe. If you’d have a little more patience, you’d see that every­ thing will straighten itself out.”

My father did not reply. I had the feeling that he was thinking of Herr Berger’s gentile wife. Just last week I had heard Papa say, “Berger thinks

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they won’t bother him because he’s married to an Aryan. He’ll find out.”

“I have it on good authority that things will not continue as they are,” Herr Berger went on. “I have heard that the government will take over Jewish business firms, but the owners will be retained, at salaries of course, to run things. You may be sure that Hitler knows that nobody can run a business as well as a Jew.” Papa smiled. “Well, no one can deny that you’re an optimist.”

“It’s not a question of optimism.

You have to look at things realisti­ cally.”

“I have. That’s why we’re leaving tonight.”

“That’s too bad. Really too bad.”

Herr Berger rose. “I will miss you.”

Mutti had come into the room and she shook Herr Berger’s hand formally.

“Auf Wiedersehen,” Herr Berger said feelingly.

“Perhaps,” she replied, but I could see in her eyes that she never expected to see Herr Berger again. Then, with obvious effort, she added, “Give my regards to your wife.”

“Thank you very much, for every­ thing.” Herr Berger was mopping his face with his handkerchief again.

My father escorted him to the door and followed him out. We waved to Herr Berger as he slowly crossed the street.

APA stood, looking up and down the street, but he stared so hard that I doubted he could see anything.

“Papa.” Arno went over to him and threw his arms around his long legs.

“Papa, I’m afraid.”

My fath er stroked A rno’s hair gently. “There’s nothing to be afraid of, child,” he said.

“Will I get seasick?”

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“Of course not. You’ll see, you’ll enjoy the boatride.”

“Will there be many children on the boat?” I asked.

“Yes, very many.”

“Papa, my wristwatch is broken.

Are there any watchmakers in Amer­ ica?”

My father smiled absently. “Yes, I’m sure there must be some.” He ran his hand over his forehead. “Come children, let’s go inside for supper.”

Mutti had prepared swiss-cheese sandwiches and we all sat around the bare dining room table and ate them silently. The mood was so cheerless that I felt the bread stick in my throat.

“May we play the phonograph?*’ I asked.

Mutti looked at Papa and said, “Why not?” So I fetched it from the buffet, and put a record on while Arno cranked the handle.

Du, du liegst mir im Herzen, du, du, liegst mir im Sinn -— — .” The record scratched here and there as the sentimental melody floated through the room. We looked down into our laps and continued to eat in silence. The turntable spun around more slowly and came to a grinding halt before the record was finished. Arno put his forefinger on the disk and forcefully pushed it around. The music con­ tinued, slow and eery, until at last it was all over. “ I ’m glad the phonograph is broken,” I said. I had bitterly cried when Mutti told me we couldn’t take it along because the new tenant, who had bought our furniture for a paltry sum, had insisted that the phonograph be included in the deal.

“I think somebody’s knocking,” my mother said, running to open the door.

I hadn’t heard anything, but sure enough, Mutti returned in a minute and JEWISH LIFE

wth her was our former nurse, Frau Katz.

HE old woman’s hand shook as she extended it to greet my father.

“I hope I’m not disturbing you,” she said shyly.

“Oh no. We’re so glad you came.”

Mutti made Frau Katz sit down and took the chair next to her.

It seemed to me that Frau Katz had shrivelled since I last saw her. Indeed, the criss-cross of wrinkles on her face and neck gave the impression that something inside her was melting away and pulling the skin with it. Even her grey eyes seemed smaller, and her tiny fingers reminded me of a Lilliput.

Frau Katz had been an old lady when she worked for us, and I figured that by now she must be really ancient.

“How the children have grown,” she said, “I could hardly recognize them.”

Arno and I smiled self-consciously.

“And you, my dear, how are you?” she asked, turning to my mother.

Mutti’s eyes immediately filled with tears and she took a handkerchief from her pocket.

5“Yes, it’s hard leaving,” Frau Katz said. “It’s very hard.”

My mother nodded. She was crying now. “If only our family and friends could come — — .”

“I know, I know,” Frau Katz took Mutti’s hand between hers, “but it can never be. Some things just can never be. Look at me, for instance. How could I ever leave?” She wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. “I’m an old woman. Who would take me? And even if I could get the visa, I wouldn’t go.” She shook her head slowly. “No, I wouldn’t go. How can I leave here?

This is my Heimat. I am used to it.”

She shook her head again. “I am too old to find a new place. I cannot change my ways.”

T

April, 1962

Arno and I stared at her.

“Go out, children,” Papa ordered.

We rose obediently.

“I don’t like it when children listen to adult conversation,’* we heard him say as we went to the door.

T was getting dark. I shivered a little but didn’t want to go back for my sweater. It had been a balmy spring with pleasant warm days. The evenings were cool, though.

Arno and I played hopscotch until it was too dark to see the metal bobby pin on the pavement.

Then we sat down on the steps, hugging our arms to keep warm, and waited for our parents ta call us.

“Look over there,” Arno called. “I see a crowd. Something must have happened.” He pointed in the direc­ tion of the park. “Let’s go see,” he suggested.

“But what if Mutti calls?”

We’ll come right back. It’ll only take a minute.”

I hesitated. But the large crowd seemed to promise safety. I took his hand and we both ran down the street.

Quite a throng had collected by now.

Arno and I gently pushed our way through. I saw a familiar face. “What happened?” , I asked breathlessly.

“There are some old people locked in the park. The gate closes at five, and they were locked inside.”

I squirmed forward slowly, still clutching Arno’s hand. Because he was smaller he was able to creep in before me.

“There they are,” he said.

“Where?”

“Don’t you see them?”

And now I did. They were an old couple, obviously man and wife. They stood, side by side, gazing wordlessly at the crowd on the other side of the fence.

I

35

They were almost the same height and looked curiously alike. Each had a long and slightly hooked nose, sunk­ en cheeks, and thin parched-looking lips. Even if the man had not had a beard, and the woman what was obvi­ ously a sheitel on her head, they would still have been easily recognized as Jews.

I felt my stomach churn as it always did when I was frightened. “Will some­ body let them out?” I whispered.

“Who knows?”

“The police were called.”

“They’re fools not to have been more careful.”

ANY people in the crowd were M talking all at once. It was a mixed group, Jew and gentile, but they were united now by their common in­ terest in the two old people locked behind the gate.

I could see the benches inside the park, and even the white painted let­ ters on them were plainly visible, “Juden verboten.” I knew that only two benches in the park had been allotted to Jews, and these were hidden away in a corner. The old couple must have been sitting on one of them as they were locked inside the park.

“If I were they, I’d hide and not come out until morning,” someone said.

“They would find them,” another put in. “I once heard how they go searching for people. With torches and dogs.”

I had a vision of the two old people running, running, hiding behind bushes and trees. And behind them, relent­ lessly following, were men with torches in hand and hundreds of howling, barking dogs.

I bit my lip very hard until I tasted blood.

“Why don’t they climb over the 36

gate?” Arno asked.

“They can’t. They don’t know how,” I told him.

“Why don’t they try?”

“Maybe they’re afraid.”

“We could help them.”

“It’s no use,” I said hopelessly. “We could help them on the outside, but inside they’d have to climb by them­ selves.”

Arno started to cry.

“Don’t,” I said harshly. “You’ll make them feel bad.”

He hiccuped a few times and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.

I pressed close to the gate until I was directly in front of the old people.

They simply stood there, unmoving, their eyes focused straight ahead. Their arms hung stiffly by their sides.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

Their heads did not turn. They con­ tinued to look straight ahead.

My stomach churned violently now.

I put my foot on top of the metal bars of the fence and raised myself a little higher.

I could look right into their eyes.

There was nothing in them — no thought of the future, no fear, no anger, no plea for pity—nothing.

“Arno, let’s go home quickly, I’m going to be sick.” I pulled his hand and we ran together. I vomited into the gutter, retching only once. And then we ran home.

“I was just going to call you,” Papa said. “Get your things. We’re leaving now.”

Without a word we put on our coats and took up our small valises. Mutti was sobbing and Papa took her hand tenderly.

When I passed through the door, I lifted my hand to kiss the mezuzah.

But the spot was already bare.

My father hustled us into the taxi JEWISH LIFE

which had been summoned. “To the Bahnhof,” he ordered.

The taxi started with a lurch and we fell back in our seats.

“Children, kneel down on the floor,” my father whispered. “It is better that we do not look like a whole family travelling. We don’t want to arouse suspicion.”

Obediently we slid off our seats. I took a last look out the window, at the dimmed-out lights of the city, and then rested my head on top of my valise.

April, 1962

A tear slid down my cheek, to be followed by another. Soon they came unchecked, and I did not try to stem the flow.

I felt Arno’s face beside me. His eyes appeared moist and he was snivel­ ling. “Hanni,” he asked, “Why did those people get locked inside the park?”

My throat was closed. I couldn’t talk or breathe or swallow.

“But why, Hanni?”

Words came finally, choked and tight. "Don't ask me.” My shoulders shook. “I don’t know,” I lied.

37

The “ Indian Jews” of Mexico

By VICTOR SOLOMON

In search of the truth about the long-lost descendants of Mexican Maranosf a trail is followed . . . to strange discoveries.

“ . . . A nd the man asked him, say­ ing: W hat seekest thou?9 And he said: 7 seek my brethren. . . / ” (Bereshith 18:16,17) IKE Joseph I went in search of my L I brethren in the summer of 1960.

I crossed a continent, forded rivers, and passed through cultures and civili­ zations in my quest for the “Indian Jews” of Mexico. My store of infor­ mation concerning these mysterious people was meager; but not my desire to find out more about them. Who are these people, I wondered, who, tucked away in the heart of Mexico, claim kinship with me?

First, I turned to the available Jew­ ish books of reference. One of the finest encyclopedias has no mention of “Indian Jews” in Mexico. (It was published over half a century ago when the world was as yet oblivious to their existence). The others made inci­ dental references to them in a manner which cast more shadow than light on the subject. I was to discover at a later 38

date and more than 3,500 miles from home that the “Indian Jews” are them­ selves uncertain about their origins.

Only one thing they claim, and that with persuasive sincerity: “We are Jews!” One is at a loss to find ulterior motives. The “Indian Jews” stand to gain nothing but minority status and exposure to hostility on the part of primitive Indian neighbors. But they insist that they are Jews; they will not surrender that claim.

I wish to assure the reader before continuing my narrative, that it is not the purpose of this article to prove the Jewishness of the “Indian Jews” of Mexico. Indeed, I wish to call atten­ tion to the ubiquitous quotation marks attached to the words “Indian Jews.”

Their purpose is to mitigate the defini­ tive character of the term. Much more research is needed before permitting the luxury of authoritative definition.

All we hope to accomplish is a modest parting of the mysterious veil surround­ ing these people, to permit us a glimpse into the modern enigma which twenJEWISH LIFE

tieth century scholarship has failed to solve.

At the same time, I wish to caution the reader to beware of a breed of “experts” on this theme, who, on the basis of a lengthier or briefer encount­ er with “Indian Jews,” dismiss their claims with a wave of the hand and an air of self-righteous indignation bordering on hysteria. One indignant “student of Mexican Jewish history” has repeatedly tried to disqualify both the “Indian Jews” and me. His impli­ cations directed at my person and mo­ tives were stimulated by a hyperbolic news item penned by an enthusiastic journalist. Unhappily, he is not alone in his “scholarly” wrath.

AND NOW to our adventure. Early -TX in the spring of 1960, my mind had been set to find the “Indian Jews” of Mexico. I spent several weeks studying Spanish intensively. Y read every bit of literature available on Mexico, the Jewish community of Mexico, and the “Indian Jews.” When I boarded the train at the North Phila­ delphia station, a kosher grocery crammed into four large valises, I was ready to relax for seventy-two hours of restful travel.

It was indeed relaxing during the first two days, as the iron monster hurtled through one state after another.

But when we crossed the Rio Grande River into Nueva Laredo it was like passing into a new world. And the deeper we penetrated into the remain­ ing 850 miles of Mexican landscape separating us from the country’s his­ toric capital, the more it dawned on me that this southern neighbor with which we share a continent differs from the U.S.A. to an amazing degree.

From the moment I boarded the Mexi­ can train I transferred to the second class coaches where I could mingle April, 1962

with the swarthy, impoverished, un­ kempt, but warm-hearted Indian na­ tives of the land. I felt it was as good a time as any to get acquainted with the people in whose midst I expected to find the object of my search.

I do not wish to burden the reader with an account of the Jewish com­ munity of Mexico concentrated in Mexico City, numbering over 25,000 souls. Mexican Jewry could furnish enough material to fill an entire book.

Instead, we shall get right to the point: The “Indian Jews” or Judíos Mexi­ canos, as they prefer to be called; and so I shall henceforth endeavor to call them.

I was chagrined to learn that they are not a numerous folk. Their own recent census accounts for only 250 souls, with perhaps a few thousand more scattered throughout the length and breadth of the land.

Sr. Baltazar Laureano Ramirez, a lawyer by profession, is the acknowl­ edged leader of the “Indian Jews” in Mexico City. Now, this metropolis has the distinction of being the oldest city in the Western Hemisphere and next to the biggest—second only to New York City. It is a city of marked con­ trasts, anachronisms, and anomalies.

Standing on one of the main thorough­ fares in the heart of the local version of Times Square, one can see with the sweep of an eye a majestic volcano, lines of statuary, towering skyscrapers, and miserable hovels which would shock even a shack dweller in Missis­ sippi. In the midst of a teeming popu­ lation of 4,500,000 lives the Jewish community of 25,000 dwelling in the better section of the city.

UCKED away in one of the ugli­ est slums—in a dirty dead-end street with the euphonious name Calle

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39

de Caruso—is the “Indian Synagogue” over which Sr. Ramirez presides. Most of the congregants reside in the vicinity of their house of worship. The squalor, the filth, the odoriferous atmosphere challenge the senses of the most impas­ sive visitors.

I was grateful to Sr. Ramirez for his generosity with his time. We spent long hours discussing his origins and many of the details about his congre­ gation in the Calle de Caruso. One of our meetings took place in the home of Dr. and Mrs. Paul Nathan, Chi­ cagoans with a keen interest in the Judios Mexicanos, who, together with their charming children, have made their home in Mexico City. Inciden­ tally, the intensive Jewish atmosphere and traditional hospitality of that home represent an unforgettable part of my Mexican adventures.

Sr. Ramirez traced his descent from the Maranos, the crypto-Jews of Spain and Portugal who had come with Hernando Cortes and the Conquistadores in the early part of the sixteenth century. Hounded by the Inquisition in the Old World, many Maranos hoped to find refuge beyond the seas in the territories of Nueva Espagnola.

Their hopes were initially fulfilled.

One Marano, Luis de Carvajal, suc­ ceeded in carving out a small empire of his own in what is now the estado of Nueva Leons.* Many Maranos, we are told, gathered in the protective shadow of his powerful influence hop­ ing to find permanent asylum from their tormentors.

Their hopes were tragically short­ lived. The Inquisition invaded Mexico * It has been suggested that Carvajal chose the name .Nueva Leone (N ew L ion) out of respect for the Jewish symbol o f the Lion. This was the closest he could come to self-identification without foolishly throwing his life away. W hile passing though Carvajal’s capital, Monterrey, I wondered whether that name (with the phonetic resemblance to the Hebrew A r y eh —L ion) was not chosen for the same reason.

40

before long; and with it came the auto-da-fe, the rack, and the dungeon.

Even the mighty House of Carvajal could not long resist the heavy hand of the Inquisitor. The official records of the Inquisition, available in the National Archives in Mexico City, are replete with facts and figures relating to the agonizing fate of the Maranos, or “Judaizers” as these records occa­ sionally refer to them. They are ex­ tremely lavish in their treatment of the cruel persecution and judicial mas­ sacre which form one of the blackest pages in the annals of Mexican history.

The most horrible tortures were in­ vented and leisurely perfected to crush the stoutest spirits.

ISTORIANS relate that the Inqui­ sition was a huge “success;” not H one Marano remained after the 4,000 cases described in the official Inquisi­ torial records came to a close. This bitter conclusion they derive from the fact that these efficient records, whose authors were never timid with words or niggardly, about expense of effort, abruptly lapse into silence on the sub­ ject of the Maranos, suddenly turning their attention to the “Indian Heresies.”

As far as the Maranos are "concerned, a lugubrious silence enveloped them towards the end of the seventeenth century—a silence which remained un­ broken until the dawn of the twentieth century! This leaves a mysterious hiatus of over 200 years; more than two cen­ turies (an exceedingly long period by American standards) unaccounted for, with no documentary evidence to con­ tradict the assumption that the Inqui­ sition had indeed succeeded in totally exterminating or reconverting the last of the Mexican Maranos.

But, says Sr. Ramirez, the historians have presumptuously jumped to con­ clusions. True, the Inquisitors were JEWISH LIFE

exceedingly thorough in their nefarious work. However, can we deny that a few Maranos could have managed to escape into the hills and valleys of the interior, and there found asylum among another group of victims of the Inquisition—the Indians who served as the very next victims to feed the tor­ ture chambers and fiery autos-da-fe of the Inquisition?

"Judíos M exicanos" children in front of V enta P rieta S y n ag o g u e.

The ravages of time and clime con­ spired with racial intermixture to erase the special physiological, cultural, and linguistic characteristics of the fugi­ tives. The Maranos became assimilated to the Mestizos—the mixed SpanishIndian race predominating in Mexico today. Many were entirely lost via intermarriage. But for many others, their Faith, consisting of a few treas­ ured memories, a stubborn mono­ theistic belief and an unextinguishable pride in their noble ancestry, remained impervious to all the vicissitudes of a April, 1962

cruel history. Some even succeeded in bequeathing to children and grand­ children this strange faith, albeit a faded memory and a few mysterious symbols.

NE major question became an ob­ O session with me: Why is there no documentary evidence? How is it pos­ sible that not one of the Maranos had taken along a Chumosh, a Siddur, a Machzor, a letter, or any other docu­ ment to pass on to his offspring, to­ gether with the knowledge that they were of the Seed of Abraham? Yet, who can blame these twice and thrice persecuted folk for abandoning their books and papers as they raced against time to slip through the bloody clutches of the Inquisition? Let us bear in mind that the Maranos of Mexico did not comprise a genuine “Jewish Com­ munity.” In all likelihood they had already found it wise to abandon all incriminating evidence of Jewishness before they had reached the shores of Mexico. They had already tasted the bitter cup of desolating persecution in Spain. This was not their first en­ counter with the merciless persecutor.

As I took leave of Sr. Ramirez I could not help but feel a strong incli­ nation to accept a goodly portion of his story. I have devoted so much space to his argument because I find it to contain more than a kernel of truth. However, I must hasten to add that as far as the identity of Sr. Rami­ rez himself is concerned, there are too many questions that need to be an­ swered; especially the matter of his erstwhile relationship with the Eglesia de Dios, a Christian sect not unknown in many parts of the United States, the Mexican branch of which is Sab­ batarian and whose membership claim to be the “real” Jews.

41

Sr. Ramirez did leave a number of interesting leads which, if pursued, could possibly yield up the solution to his part of the riddle. However, my belief that Ramirez was not the key to the mystery, compounded by the fact that time was running out, caused me to turn my attention in another direc­ tion.* HE following is taken from my Mexican journal: . . . My interest now turns to Venta Prieta, an Indian village in the State of Hidalgo, about fifty miles from Mexico City. It nestles near the bluish foothills of the Sierra Madre Orientales, in the Valle de Mexico, a valley plateau with an eleva­ tion of about 8,000 feet. . . .

Outwardly, Venta Prieta looks like a thousand other Indian villages in the vicinity. . . . There are the usual wide, uhpaved streets, adobe houses, domesicated -animals running about, dark-faced youngsters, barefoot and in tattered rags, playing near luxurious fountains, and the pervading stench that goes with life in M ;xico. But Venta Prieta seems different to me, because I know it is the home of the largest group of “Jewish Indians.”. . .

Walking down the dusty main street of the village I see an intelligent looking girl of about twenty, better dressed than most, working under the hot sun of Mexican high-noon. After a moment’s hesitation, I call out, “Shalom!” “Shalom,” she re­ plies. Mustering my rusty Spanish, I engage her in conversation.; “Are you Jewish?” I ask.

“Si.” “How many Jews live in this village?”

“About eighty.”

“Do you have a synagogue?”

“Si.”

T

* I was frequently sidetracked in my search for the Judios M exicanos by members o f the Eglesia de D íqs who represented themselves as Jews. One such villager in San Julia embraced me as a fellow Jew. The Christian N ew Testa­ ment on his table led me to believe that one o f us was certainly mistaken.

42

“May I see the synagogue?”

“Si.” . . . . . . A group of enthusiastic but curious Indians gather round about me—news sure travels fast here. These are teenagers . . . Jewish boys and girls. . . . They, are pleased to hear that I am of their faith and a “Rabin” to boot. I have an idea! . . . I show them the fringes of my Talith Kotton . . . they shout with alacrity: “Tzitzith, Tzitzith”! . . . Right here on a hot and dusty street of a primitive Indian village in the heart of Mexico, I realize that Judaism is indeed a religion with strings attached, and that the slender strands of the ancient Fringes can serve as the most persuasive passport to the hearts of people anywhere in the world. . . . My new friends lead me to their neat little powder-blue synagogue of which they seem to be very proud. Re­ spectfully, they show me the Ark con­ taining several Sifrey Torah, a large Zionist flag, a Jewish National Fund col­ lection box prominently displayed, a Bimah (which the girls refuse to ascend).

Raqel, daughter of the chief, tells me that men and women do not sit inter­ mingled during worship service. They insist that they are orthodox Jews. . . . I return again and again to these mysteri­ ous people to study their ways, record their stories on miles of tape, visit their homes, synagogue, cemeteries, and gen­ tile neighbors. . . . I am back in Venta Prieta. . . . The synagogue windows are decorated with strands of black crepe paper. This, I am told, has remained from the Tisha B’Av decorations. . . . The teen­ agers recite the Sh’rna and a long list of blessings for my tape recorder. Their teacher, Joel Salazar, one of their own, has taught them what little Hebrew they know. But he is getting on in years and is beginning to find the rough trip from Mexico City increasingly difficult. I . . All of the teenagers are patriotic about their Judaism to the point of chauvinism. They love what they know of it, and manifest a burning desire to learn more. . . . Sev­ eral boys voice a strong interest in study­ ing for the Rabbinate (perhaps at Yeshiva University, Si? . >. ) and then they JEWISH LIFE

R abbi Solom on a n d Judíos M exicanos te e n a g e rs.

wish to return to educate their people in the pathways of our Faith. (Several of these young men volunteered for service in the Israeli Army during the War of Independence in 1948. They were refused.

But the people here have no rancor in their hearts. They love Israel and suspect that the Israel Embassy advised against it for fear of antagonizing the Mexican authorities who might interpret this as a missionary activity among the Indians.. . . . . . I visit their new cemetery with its beautiful tombstones. . . . I am told that I am the first outsider to see their old cemetery, located about five miles from Venta Prieta near the Indian Village of Tlapacoya. There is only one tombstone with a Star of David. Most of the other tombs round about are in poor repair.

The grave with the Mogen Dovid con­ tains the bodies of twenty people, I am told, buried in layers. The last one buried in that grave was the father of Sr. Enrique Tellez, President of the group.

He died in 1908, before the Indians could have had any contact with the European Jews whose first pioneers were just begin­ ning to enter the country. Some day, when the bodies buried in that grave are moved to the new cemetery, evidence April, 1962

may be found which will revolutionize our information about these people. They promise to notify me before they reinter the bodies in the new cemetery. . . .

Here is a curious Judaic custom prac­ ticed by the Catholic Indians. I see stones and pebbles on the Catholic tombstones, left by visiting kin. Could they have picked this up from their Jewish neigh­ bors in years gone by?. . . . . . . As we pass Tlapacoya I am shown a distant hill. “This is called El Judio Sr. Tellez points out, (El Judio means “The Jew”). I request that we stop to check with a group of Indian teenagers playing in the dusty village square. They are gentile Indians and have never seen a Jew. They cannot even describe a Jew except in the familiar relationship to their saviour, taught by the priest. “What is a “Judio”'? I ask. They only grin, flashing their big white teeth. But when I point to the distant hill they yell “El Judio”— “El Judio!” “Why?” I ask. No one knows.

(I learn from an ancient Indian living in the shadow of El Judio that according to local legend which came to him in his youth, the hill was given the name over 300 years ago after a number of Jews were burned there at the stake) . . .

43

Eureka! I have discovered a Jewish hill in the wilds of Mexico! . . . ” HAT, then, can one make of this odd conspiracy of facts? Within W a radius of five miles I found a village with Indians who professed orthodox Judaism, an old cemetery with a pecu­ liarly Jewish custom observed by Ro­ man Catholics, a hill called The Jew and a folk legend among the unso­ phisticated natives which ascribes that name to the fact that Jews were burned on or near the hill in the days of the Inquisition.

pressed his contempt for the reaction­ ary Roman Catholic Church by pro­ hibiting the erection of new church buildings without his personal permis­ sion. A group of villagers from Venta Prieta, wishing to build a church on a suitable piece of village ground, ignored the President’s decree, and applied for permission to the Governor of the Estado of Hidalgo. They felt more con­ fident of a positive response from the latter, who was more favorably dis­ posed to the Church. Permission was (illegally) granted and the task of con­ struction was about to commence.

"El Ju d io /' the Hill n e a r T lap aco y a.

This constitutes a strange coinci­ dence of circumstances which still defies explanation; but not stranger than the account of the original dis­ covery of the Judios Mexicanos by the “white”* “Jews of Mexico City. Here in brief and shorn of pedantic details is the story I was able to reconstruct from a wide variety of sources. There were enough disinterested eyewitnesses to render it acceptable as authentic!

Close to forty years ago, a new, revolutionary Mexican President ex* These are the Jews who came to M exico in the early part o f the twentieth century from Europe and A sia M inor, comprising the bulk of Mexican Jewry today.

44

Now, as has been indicated before, Venta Prieta is a tiny, insignificant Indian village in the Valle de Mexico, the “valley” of Mexico, nestling against a beautiful background of finely sculp­ tured blue hills belonging to the Sierra Madre Orientales range. There is noth­ ing special about Venta Prieta to distinguish it from the scores of other Indian villages in the area. Most of the people in Mexico City whom I questioned—Jews and gentiles—had nothing to say about the place.

However, thirty-five years ago Venta Prieta was in the headlines of the Mexican press. Astonished readers, JEWISH LIFE

who probably saw the name in print for the first time in their lives, learned of a small-scale war raging in that not too distant village. There were fist fights, beatings, and all the elements of internecine conflict which divided the villagers into two distinct camps.

And this is what especially interested the European Jews of Mexico City, most of whom were recent immigrants to a land which they believed to be Judenrein: one of the two warring Indian parties identified themselves as “Jews,” who refused to permit the other group to build a sectarian church on public property. Since many of the inhabitants of Venta Prieta are “Jews,” they argued, let the parcel of land be used for the construction of an insti­ tution designed to serve the interests of all—a school.

What was the outcome? Today there is no church in Venta Prieta. The Roman Catholic Mestizos must jour­ ney to nearby Pachuca for religious services. The Judios Mexicanos are proud of their neat little synagogue, recently built to replace the old adobe synagogue ruined by the rampaging Pachuca River. And . . . oh yes . . . that piece of public property around which a terrible battle was raging in the beginning of our story: on it stands the finest structure in the village— a beautiful school building, graced by the inevitable water fountain indige­ nous to public places in Mexico.

JOURNEYED to Pachua in search of a Jew. A special kind of Jew. A gentleman with a wealth of informa­ tion about the origins of my Indian friends. Pachuca, a city with a popu­ lation of 250,000, is the metropolis of Hidalgo. Three Jewish families remain with memories of the “good old days” when there were enough men for a Minyon. The younger people have

I

April, 1962

found the educational, economic, and cultural enticements of Mexico City too attractive to resist.

The modest home of Sr. and Sra. H. Factor is permeated with warmth and an atmosphere of Jewish hospitality.

I found in it the dignified beauty of Yiddishkeit which one could expect to find in Pachuca only in the home of a Litvak. The Factors were among the first to discover the Judios Mexi­ canos in Venta Prieta. Eagerly they poured forth their story into the micro­ phone of my small, battery-powered taperecorder, to vindicate the claims of the “Indian Jews.”

Before proceeding with a brief ac­ count of their testimony I feel con­ strained to pause for a moment and assure the reader that Sr. and Sra. Factor impressed me as sincere and upright people. Need I add that they stand to gain nothing from falsification or fabrication?

Now their story. . . .

HE youthful Factors came to this unlikely place half a century ago.

They were in search of a livelihood.

The young couple eventually settled as animal feed suppliers, selling grain and fodder to the Indians in the neigh­ boring villages. One day, an impov­ erished customer begged to settle a hopeless account by leaving a litter of suckling pigs in lieu of cash. Before he could protest, the poor native was gone, and Sr. Factor found himself the embarrassed master of an unwanted pig-sty. Despite every effort, he could not find a customer for the pigs—and Sra. Factor served notice that the “abominations” must go! Soon, En­ rique Tellez, a young Indian from the nearby village of Venta Prieta, came to purchase feed for his cattle. Factor offered him the porcine treasure at a nominal cost. Tellez was not interested.

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45

“Take them as my gift to a good customer,” pleaded Factor. Tellez re­ fused. “Why?” asked the exasperated Factor. “Because my religion forbids the use of pork,” was the rejoinder.

“Should you offer me money as an incentive to accept the pigs, I would feel constrained to refuse.” “What is your religion?” asked the intrigued Sr. Factor. The young swarthy man from the Indian village must have resented the personal probings of Factor’s in­ quisition; but he answered: “I, Sr. Factor, am a Jew!” . . . “So am I!” was all the astonished Factor could muster, as the tall faircomplexioned Jew from Lithuania and the stocky swarthy “Indian Jew” from Venta Prieta shook hands in the city of Pachuca, Estado Hidalgo, Mexico. . . .

The date . . . circa 1910 .. . (The exact date was ascertained by means of the usual formula— six years before A was born, two years after B was born, etc., with the two Factors good-naturedly arguing about the particulars to my complete satisfaction).

Enrique Tellez took them to his vil­ lage and they found in it a community of Indians who professed the Jewish faith. “I was convinced” said Sr. Factor, “that they were Jews”. . . Sra. Factor nodded.

He continued: “What do the schol­ ars know! They come here for a few weeks and then disappear. They ad­ minister psychological tests. Who ever heard of determining a person’s Juda­ ism by means of a psychological test?

These simple folk enjoy no special privileges because of their avowed Jewishness. On the contrary, we have seen them suffer for it . . . fight for it.

Isolated among ignorant natives, what could they hope to gain as Jews? And from whom could they have borrowed their Jewish beliefs and observances in those early days when the European 46

Jews were only beginning to trickle into the country? Yes, the mystery is baffling; but I believe that they repre­ sent a Shearith Hapleytah, a remnant of an earlier Mexican Jewry which many of us have too readily given up for lost. . . .” Thus, the testimony of two of the few remaining eyewitnesses to the discovery of the Judios Mexi­ canos.

UCH “Indian Jews” are to be found in many parts of Mexico. Small groups, in places one or two families —rarely in large congregations—re­ side in Toluca, Guadalajara, Monter­ rey, and half a dozen other cities and towns. There may be others in interior sections hitherto unexplored by white men.

I learned of the existence of an un­ discovered group in Apam. A Jewish “soft-drinks” salesman passing through Apam more than a quarter-century ago stopped ip a food store to transact business. Above the counter, he saw a tablet with the Ten Commandments.

The salesman wished to rescue the re­ ligious object from possible desecra­ tion. He offered to purchase it. The proprietress, an elderly dowager, re­ fused to sell—for religious reasons.

“What is your religion?”, he asked.

“I am a Jew!” was her reply.

Shades of Tellez!

“But,” argued the confused sales­ man. “I am also a Jew!” “Perhaps we are both Jews,” was her wondering reply. She invited him to inspect her collection of religious objects in the humble apartment behind the store.

There was a Sefer Torah, prayer books, and a large variety of other books and sacred items. She explained that her ancestors were secret Jews who had fled from Spain.

The salesman was satisfied to leave the Tablets of the Law in friendly and

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JEWISH LIFE

Sr. E nrique Tellez a n d d au g h ters.

reverent hands. He took his leave and was soon to be found on the highways and byways of Mexico, selling soft drinks to Indians accepting civilization and coca-cola in one big gulp. Since he was not a student of history or anthropology, he consigned this bizarre episode to the limbo of pleasant mem­ ories and spoke of it only on rare occasions calling for special tales of adventure. Who was this salesman?

Why, Sr. Factor, of course!

N conclusion, permit me to reassure the scholarly skeptic—though it Imight disappoint the enthusiastic lay­ man—that I do not consider the riddle of the Judios Mexicanos solved by

April, 1962

virtue of this brief account. The prob­ lem remains painfully real; most of the poignant questions are yet to be answered; the mystery is still unsolved.

All I hope to do with this article is stimulate the reader to examine the claims of a far-off group of colorful people who say that we and they are brothers.

The optimist in me even dares to hope that those scholars who have already committed themselves in this matter will have the courage to reex­ amine their conclusions in the light of the foregoing facts. If the Judios Mexi­ canos are indeed our brethren—the truth of which is known at this time only to our Creator—our refusal to accept them would constitute an epic injustice.

The case is by no means closed.

Even a noted anthropologist who spent several months of intensive research in their midst and failed to substanti­ ate their claims concludes his study with the words: “ . . . What is it that makes them such fervent, eager, and enthusiastic Jews.”* A scholar may be justified in con­ cluding his study on a note of bemused uncertainty. But Jews to whom Torah is a burning passion and a vital reality B -w ho believe in the doctrine of Kol Harrikayem Nefesh Achath . . . in the crucial significance of even one Jewish soul—dare not rest until the curtain is raised to reveal the truth, and bring the baffling case of the Judios Mexicanos to a close. * Raphael Pattai, Menorah Journal, Winter 1950, p. 67. (Italics m ine);

47

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JEWISH LIFE

The Young In Triangular Perspective

By GERSHON KRANZLER

The rights and responsibilities of youth: Do we expect too much or too little from our young people? How shall we prepare them for purposeful living . . . ?

HE role of the child in the pattern of a society is perhaps the most characteristic criterion of its cultural structure. It means a great deal whether the young are merely tools in the hands of and for the interest of the grown­ ups, or whether they are placed on a pedestal. A society that considers child­ hood a nuisance to be suffered through, and treats children like little men or women, and dresses them accordingly —such a society is bound to be rigid, uncreative, and little concerned for the future. On the other hand, if youth is merely honored for its youth’s sake, then Bernard Shaw was right in re­ gretting that youth is wasted on the young. Modern-day society takes pride in having become child-centered, in the wake of the intellectual revolution that started largely with Rousseau and reached its peak in the first half of this century; but the pendulum is now swinging back, much too far and too fast for our good.

Where do we stand as Jews? What

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is our position and attitude as adults towards our children, and as children towards our elders? Even the most per­ functory perusal of our basic sources will indicate that Judaism places the child into the very hub of our structure as a national community.

The family is the basic unit of most Jewish experiences and practices. One need but think of Friday nighty the Seder, Chanukah, Purim, and numer­ ous other important phases of our tra­ ditional Jewish life, that are geared almost exclusively to the understand­ ing and the impressing of the young.

Torah phrases like: “And you shall tell your son,” “That your generations shall know,” “When your son shall ask,” and hundreds of others like them show the major concern of our Torah for the molding of the child’s mind and for his role as a main object of our religion and its practices. When we therefore look at the place of the child and of youth in our Torah society, we must say with Rabbi Samson Raphael 49

Hirsch that the child is not there to serve his parents, but that the parents must consider their task to serve the child.

and sacred, entrusted to the hands of his parents to be cared for as the veh­ icle of our faith and its perpetuation in the future. He is the “M’odecha,” the highest good which we are to dedicate with all-encompassing love to G-d, as we say thrice daily in the first para­ graph of Sh’ma Yisroel. It is there­ fore followed by the “V’shinantom L ’vonecha”— “And you shall teach them diligently to your children.” For in the child the parent sees the reali­ zation of his own limited, unfulfilled ego, the means of overcoming even the limitations of his mortality. And only through education to Torah can we repay, or rather return, this trust of a divine soul into our hands.

HIS, however, by no means implies that ours is strictly a child-centered society, in the customary sense of con­ temporary terminology. To think so would disregard an essential aspect of our concept of life. Because, as Franz Rosensweig has pointed out, unlike the secular world around us the ortho­ dox Jew never sees himself in a one­ dimensional relation to any aspect or phase of his universe. Ours is a tri­ angular perspective, in which G-d, as the Creator and Provider, adds the ex­ tra dimension. In our context this means that we do not have a one-sided EEN in this light, the Jewish child child-parent or parent-child relation­ stands truly on a high pedestal, ship, but a G-d-parent-child triangle. yet not as the pampered, omnipotent As our Sages said: There are three tyrant to whose whim and will all, partners to man; father, mother, and and especially his doting parents, must the Lord. bow. Just as parents must see their Consequently the child is not the child as the essential link in the tri­ exclusive property of his parents, to angle of man and G-d, so the child deal with as they please, nor may the must conceive of himself as the Divine child see himself as bound and obli­ gift to his parents, and them as the gated only to his father and mother. partners of G-d in his procreation. This The first and foremost obligation of perspective is indicated in the fact that both parents and child is towards the the commandment of honoring father Creator of All and His will. We only and mother is part of the Mitzvoth have to think of the familiar interpre­ “between man and G-d” which are the tation of “Ach eth shabthothai tish- first of the Two Tablets of the Ten moru”— “And you shall keep my Sab­ Commandments, and from it the child baths”—which follows the command will understand all the laws which of honoring father and mother, to real­ regulate his respect and fear of father ize the full implication of this two- and mother. Obviously there is little dimensional or triangular relationship. room in such a Torah view for “Dad,” Only if the demands of the parents the “Old Man,” and for “Mom,” the are related to the will of G-d is the “Old Girl,” to whom one pays respect child duty-bound to obedience. Other­ on Mother’s and Father’s Day, but wise the child has the greater obliga­ whom one otherwise views as too oldtion towards G-d and his Mitzvoth. fashioned to understand the world and This two-dimensional perspective the ways of the young of today. further implies that the child is a On the basis of this Torah concept divine gift to man, something precious of the child-parent relationship, we

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can understand the absolute respect for and leadership of our elders, not because they are older, as we know from the familiar interpretation of Mip’ney seyvah tokum—“You shall rise before the hoary”—Ziknah, age, implies to us “Chochmah,” greater wisdom, deeper understanding, wider experience, and above all more Torah, the transmitters of our knowledge of the will and the ways of G-d. Rather than idolize youth for youth’s sake, as did the Greeks and the admirers of their cult of beauty throughout history, we revere the elders (again as the part­ ners in the triangle of man and G-d) as the leaders in the order which the Creator has established in His universe to tie the past, and the present to the future.

II HIS theoretical basis must serve as the frame of reference in which we discuss the rights and responsibili­ ties of our youth. It stands in contrast to the Hollywood and Madison Ave­ nue perspective which idolizes the heroes of the muscle and makeup, of sex and success, and perversion and immorality.

Inner beauty, not prettiness, the strength of morality, self-control, above all the higher values of greater learn­ ing, constant intellectual growth, and maturity—these are the goals of our traditional heritage to which our boys and girls must aspire above all else.

This does not mean that our young­ sters must bury themselves in constant drudgery of work and more work.

Physical well-being and growth and mental health are primary needs of children, which according to the Torah supersede all other commands. We al­ so believe in good, clean fun. Our Sages say: “Young man, rejoice in your youth,” which, even taken on a

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simple level, means that the physical and emotional growth and maturing of youngsters demand more relaxa­ tion, more leisure, and less strain than the adult world with its constant drain of work and worry. But, obviously, this does not refer to the largely empty, unrestrained, and often prematurely sex-directed or thrill-searching activi­ ties of our younger generation of the junior and senior high school set who try to outdo their elders in sensuality and frenzied relaxation. More actual exercise, sports, not of the TV and professional ballpark variety, camping, hiking, and similar healthful, clean joys that develop the body and refresh the mind, are a Mitzvah, not just fun, as long as they remain means towards the greater ends, not ends in them­ selves. They must supplement, not substitute, or rather complement, not constitute the prerogatives of youthful enjoyment.

HE primary rights and responsi­ bilities of our youth are training and education, which to us, as tradi­ tional Jews, means learning, the study of Torah in rising and growing cycles, synchronized and geared to the grow­ ing level of understanding and intel­ lectual needs of the child and adoles­ cent. The yeshivah type of education, the day school which gives the Jewish boy and girl the integrated total edu­ cation, the harmonious synthesis of Torah and Derech Eretz, offers the ideal answer to that most important issue, the rights of the child and the responsibility of the parent.

Beyond the realm of Torah Chinuch, of general education, preparation for a life profession, and training for a life of genuine religious observance, there is another realm, which has a great deal of meaning for youth in general, and for our youth in par­ ticular.

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Modern-day educators and pseudo­ educators alike espouse the half-truth that it is unfair to burden children and adolescents with the problems of our grownup world; that children must be sheltered from the ugliness, the woes and worries that beset the adult from morning till night, in his struggle for individual and collective survival and success. In this respect Jewish parents, perhaps even more than others, pam­ per their young and try to spare them the hardships and involvements of their own or their immigrant parents’ youth. Generally, their middle class and upper class economic situation en­ ables them to afford their children this luxury, with consequences that are not always healthy and fruitful, although they mean a better education and more leisure. The statistics of juvenile de­ linquency among the better classes offer vivid illustrations and documen­ tation for this unfortunate effect of our more fortunate situation. Now, we do not have to agree with the Old World critics who complain of the lack of seriousness among American young­ sters, and who claim that intellectually, outside of formal education, our adolescents and growing young men and women are overgrown children, who close their eyes to the issues, prob­ lems and concerns of their immediate and wider environment. Yet there can be little doubt that American Jewish youth is largely characterized by lack of involvement and of personal inter­ est in, and concern for, the general and Jewish community on a local, national and international level.

SYCHOLOGICALLY, education­ ally, and socially it is not only sound, but highly commendable to in­ volve youngsters in issues, problems, the socio-political movements of our world. It is one of the weaknesses of

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our free, democratic system that we do not adequately accentuate the im­ portance of this involvement of our boys and girls. It is to our detriment that we are satisfied with teaching them the rules and formalities of the democratic process, that we make them wave the flag and sport the slogans that make up the standards and intellectual vocabulary of the rank and file. Youngsters want to and must be genuinely inspired. They must develop ideas and ideals, outside the realm of classroom and textbook and test cul­ ture. They should have other personal concerns than parties, dates, girl and boy friends, the latest model cars or even the pre-vocational tinkering with space age technology—the newest fad, which divert attention, or perhaps even counteracts genuinely humane educa­ tion, creative thinking, and social in­ volvement.

If this ails the world at large, we Jews can even less afford to permit our boys and girls the luxury of dis­ interest in higher and more urgent problems than concern their own little, egoistic interests and needs. We must interest them from early youth on in greater causes, that inspire them, that stimulate them to deeper and broader thinking than the limited realms of their school work. They must learn to assume actual responsibility as work­ ers for causes, as group leaders, and eventually as the men and women who have the knowhow of years of experi­ ence in dealing with problems of or­ ganization and administration, which are so important in our world. Future leaders must be nursed and nurtured.

They do not spring up suddenly. If we want our youngsters to be able to take their place in the active direction of our communal, national and uni­ versal affairs, they must be trained early. This kind of social training JEWISH LIFE

might at first seem like play-acting, silly and superfluous; yet it develops social responsibility, the ability to think issues through and draw conse­ quences, to discuss ideologies, to fight and sacrifice for them, and the ability to defend them on any level.

OME of the saddest experiences of our American troops, especially in Korea, and in other realms of clash with the thoroughly indoctrinated Communist world and its agents, stemmed from the fact that our young men were not trained to think through issues, to discuss ideologies beyond the veneer of slogans, which make up the intellectual gear of even a considerable segment of our college youth. School learning is limited and haunted by sub­ ject matter, especially now when the spectre of the Russian gains has brought the revamping of the entire process of our formerly leisurely edu­ cational pattern. We cannot afford to wait with the ideological training until the young adult begins to think of his professional preparation, with its corol­ laries of monetary considerations, the desire to get married, and similar social pressures that loom up so soon after young people have left the shelter of their carefree high school life.

I do not plead the cause for any special movement or organization. Yet if we want to produce young men and women who can take the strain of life without the help of tranquilizers, nar­ cotics, and the psychoanalyst’s couch, or the divorce mill, if we want to look to a future that is brightened by the prospect of ideologically sound com­ munity leaders, we must organize our boys and girls in a manner that is enjoyable, as well as disciplined, with­ out being regimented. We treasure so much our individualism, our personal freedoms, yet we produce masses of

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followers, who not only dress alike, listen to the same programs, and fol­ low the same fads, but who think alike, because they have not learnt to think for themselves. Even our uni­ versities, which are usually the hotbeds of new, creative, and healthy intellec­ tual revolutions, have done little to raise our youth beyond the faddist and slogan level.

American society at large needs young men and women who have learnt to give up fun and free time for causes, who have spent hours and days and nights discussing and thinking through issues; who have higher in­ terests than TV, dating, and baseball or football. Arthur Miller, in “Death of a Salesman,” has given us a strong caricature of the good boy scout who is a ballfield hero and who becomes a dismal failure despite all his social suc­ cesses. We need well-trained idealists, with definite opinions and ideas, even more than space engineers and astro­ nauts, to fight the totalitarian world succesfully.

E need these young idealists, nurtured in the ranks of our movements, even more in the Jewish community. We need them for the sake of serving our national, religious, and cultural causes. They must be the future leaders in our congregations, in our organizations and movements, rather than the pompous or rich, who frequently occupy presidencies and chairmanships, if we want to avoid the serious consequences that must follow from the combination of in­ ternal and external dangers that press upon us, Where can one find greater causes than those the Jewish scene offers, to inspire and to mature young­ sters? Where can one find better means of sharpening one’s intellectual teeth than in the ideologies that struggle for

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power in Israel, so long as we are sin­ cere and not satisfied with folk danc­ ing and slogan shouting, or fund rais­ ing?

Let us not, however, accuse all of our youth of being either bookworms who study day and night for exams, scholarships, and jobs, or of being playboys and playgirls who spend all their time on TV, spectator-sports, dating, and purely social functions.

There is a refreshing trend among our youth towards a deeper and broader outlook, towards discarding the false isms and searching for truth. It is our responsibility as parents, teachers, and leaders to broaden and strengthen this trend. Upon us falls the duty and

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opportunity to create a conscious and conscientious youth that wants to know, that learns Torah and searches for its truth, and that is willing to as­ sume responsibilities from early youth on, above and beyond selfish needs and interests.

A better Torah Chinuch, a more sincere and effective humanist, as well as technical, general education, and personal involvement in the greater causes of our people are the essential means of meeting the overwhelming problems which today, more than ever before, confront our young men and women as they step out into the adult world.

JEWISH LIFE

A S to ry

Welcome the Coming

By SYLVIA R. GORDON

On Shabboth father himself served Y father was not only a righteous M man, he was a tzadik, a saint. the orach. “Have some more,” he He sought “mitzvos” with the patience would urge gently, heaping the guest’s and persistence of a prospector seek­ ing nuggets—regardless of where it led him.

Well, let me tell you a little tale of a little mitzvah my father performed which nearly led him to poverty.

Father loved “orchim.” (An orach is a guest, often a stray mendicant.

Schnorrer. Leidigeir. Arum-man.) And do not our Sages say that to roof and feed an orach on the Sabbath is a mul­ tiple mitzvah—which rescues one from a similar fate and more so from death itself? And is it not written that hos­ pitality to wayfarers is greater than welcoming the Divine presence? Well —every good Jew knows what he ought to do. So every Shabboth—windy, sun­ ny, seasonal—father insured himself with an orach.

Where he unearthed these downat-the-heels, Prince-Alberted, scuffed specimen of Jewish society, was a mystery to mamma. The little men came in greater supply than demand.

Father rejoiced with his orchim and mamma, a true woman of valor, said, “If he’s content, I’m content.”

April, 1962

plate with boiled chicken, tzimmes, and vegetables.

“Thank you. It’s delicious. Tam gan eden hat e s ” And with the taste of paradise on his guest’s tongue, father would discourse on choice bits of Talmudical lore while the orach ate what he fancied and enjoyed in reality the Sabbath of his fantasy.

Mamma, accustomed to her hus­ band’s hospitality, prepared more fish, extra “goldene” soup and mounds of tzimmes soaked in honey. “It’s always good there should be plenty,” she would say, “just in case.”

HEN one Friday, no orach ap­ peared.

The sun was setting; the horizon darkening; and the imminent approach of the Shabboth was unmistakable.

Father, a big man with a full un­ trimmed brown beard, donned his good Sabbath hat, smiled ruefully, took my brother by the hand and left for shool.

Could it be? No orach for Shab­ both?

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In my spirited eight-year-old self, a smog-like sadness settled. This would be the first Shabboth without an orach.

It was bewilderingly incomplete; like pronouncing a benediction with G-d’s name omitted.

“G-d helped us,” father beamed.

Brother pushed the extra chair to the table with such gusto that the dishes rattled with disapproval. I sped into the kitchen to fetch more silver­ ware and father happily clapped his I went quietly into the dining-room. hands in rhythm singing “Sholom After setting the four places at table, Aleichem.”

I stared with fascination at the empty Call me Ezra.” Right from the place near father’s right, where the start this guest was a good fellow. He guest s setting should rightfully be; Was everyone’s friend. believing that if I stared hard enough,' Ezra! my brother and I sang out I could scare up a living breathing with a shout. human.

Uncle Ezra,” mamma corrected us.

“Don’t worry, precious one,” mam­ Exchanging surreptitious glances of ma smiled. “Father will yet find some­ mirth, my brother and I were brim­ one . . .” ming full and overflowing with giggles He did. and laughter like little buckets in the I remember well my first look at rain. Our guest? He laughed with us. this orach when I rushed to open the A regular fellow. door for father on his return from We paid rapt attention to “Uncle” shool; for he was as different from our Ezra, who was talkative and lively. usual orchim as flame is from smoke. The Shabboth songs at table shim­ mered m the warmth of his deep, fine Whatever followed I remember well. voice; for he quickly learned and cap­ It may be because I had heard the incident told and retold and in the tell­ tured our familiar melodies.

‘Now learn mine,” he urged us; and ing my reminiscences were revived so that the details and descriptions be­ as he sang, the Hebrew words rang came for me my very own. Neverthe­ truthfully and as if they belonged with less, the memory of it remains with m e as did the seven seasons of famine i ine amner our with the Egyptians.

A guest ate slowly but spoke quickly 'T 1 H E guest walked into the hall unhaltingly, a stream running over A proudly. There was no hesitation age-smoothed pebbles. My brother and in his steps as he followed father di­ 1 sat mesmerized. The stories he knew! rectly mto the dining room. I couldn’t With a word and a grin and a nod of help noticing with a child’s innate his head, he brought to life the fasci­ snobbishness how new his suit looked nating world of the famous and in­ and how smooth-shaven were his famous. Casually, with friendly fond­ cheeks. WTien he met mamma, his ness, Ezra spoke of rabbis whom my long look into her eyes and his slow father knew, telling bits of gossip in a surrender of her hand caused me a style that would have given credit to moment of inward fidgeting; but when the best Broadway columnist. He he repeated the gesture with me I talked and we listened. With many a gay wink he even included us young­ giggled with delight. sters mto his charmed circle.

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“This lovely lassie,” he said, his eyes ing and not shatter the silence. Down soft on me, “how prettily she sings.” the hall I went, soundlessly. A young “She’s in the Hebrew school choir,” Robin Hood. my brother offered.

At the dining room door I stopped.

“And you, you must be the smartest Except for the crystal fruit bowl and in your class.” father’s gigantic Gemorrah, the table “Next to the smartest,” he answered. lay cleared. Father who customarily Our orach laughed. “Precious chil­ never recognized the end of a day dren you have,” he told mamma. until he had relearned a page of Tal­ “What tired ones,” she said. “They mud, sat weary and heavy-lidded in are flushed and sleepy. It’s way past his chair. their bedtime.”

Ezra’s voice appeared alone. Warm “Not yet, mamma,’’ we begged, re­ and persuasive, the melody of his words luctant to relinquish the adult impor­ struck soft notes of excitement in the hushed room. My parents listened with tance bestowed upon us.

“Immediately following bentschen,” tired boredom, as to an indifferent per­ father said, “you will ask to be ex­ former; too polite to interrupt.

Mamma saw me first. She rose, cused.” Regretfully, he added. “We’ll leave the learning for after lunch to­ looked down at me and took my morrow.” I knew that my father’s hand. “What is it child?” she asked. mood had changed. Discussing Torah “Come, I’ll take you back to bed.” at the Friday night table was dear to Faint shadows were under her eyes. his heart and our guest’s workaday Our guest’s dark eyes glittered with talk had caused a veil of disappointed alertness. “Even the little one wants quiet to settle upon him. to hear more stories.” He chuckled.

“Sister is sleeping in my room to­ “Well, I’ve a thousand and one to tell. night ’cause you’re sleeping in hers,” A thousand and one!” my brother Eliezer announced.

Mamma returned me to bed. Her “But no jumping from one bed to gentle hands tucked the quilt about the other,” mamma ordered. “You me and safe unhampered sleep im­ mediately swathed me in velvet. must go to sleep at once.” ❖ * * My brother’s room was carpeted under the night darkness and its fa­ miliar furniture stood—cherished land­ 66? I i HE orach is gone!”

A These words uttered in marks—into which we bumped. father’s stricken voice snatched from LEEP fell upon our tired young me the blanket of sleep, setting in bodies with the swift suddenness motion a bubble of fear deep down of a command. Once during the night within me. It grew. It grew and broke!

I awoke with a start of premonition as — awakening me with a stinging slap. if I had been aroused suddenly by a “Gone! What are you saying?” shout. mamma’s voice, puzzled, unbelieving.

The kitchen clock chimed. I did not “W ithout a word. The bed—he count the chimes. didn’t even sleep in it!”

My heart felt fragile as a fledgling.

Mamma got out of bed. “It can’t I sneaked out of bed. I shivered, hop­ be,” she insisted. “Look through the ing that my teeth would stop chatter- house.”

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“I looked. He’s gone.!’ ,.f had already seen the broken lock and “On the porch.” Mamma was open­ the open desk drawer where the money ing doors and leaving them open. had been hidden.

Father stopped her. He took both Father put his arm protectingly her hands. “Listen to me,” he said, and around her. “Hapach nishbor v’anathere lay a whisper of wonder in his chnu nimlotnu.” He quoted the He­ voice. “He had asked me to awaken brew. “We and our children are saved, him.” Father laughed. “He wished to thank G-d. It was lucky he took only go to shool with me.” that.”

Mamma was riot listening. I could As if on signal, I loosened a flood tell. She had the enchanted, far-away of tears. My whole world had in the look of not being there. past swift few minutes contracted to “My leichter!*’ she suddenly re­ about the size and value of a pepper­ membered, dashing towards the dining corn and I knew my vulnerability to room. The ornate antique candelabra, harm. which had belonged to my grand­ Mamma hugged me close to her mother, was treasured by mamma heart; tender, reassuring, she seemed more than any queen’s crown jewels. to push against the invisible walls of “They were stolen!” she cried out, my fear-filled little world, causing it seeing space on the buffet where their to expand, letting the morning sun flood its darkness with bright, clear, splendor had been.

“He tired us out. That’s what he warm light.

“Cry not, my child. Father is right. wanted. So’s we wouldn’t hear him.”

Thank G-d what was taken can be Mamma stood pale and trembling. replaced. You and Eliezer are safe and “I knocked . . . there was no answer and untouched.” . . . I went into the front room . . . the we are all unharmed ❖ ❖ * window, it was wide open. I don’t think he even went into the bedroom!”

I sensed fury gathering in mamma, 46*T |O N ’T tell that we were robbed,” and saw its reflection brilliant in the JL r father cautioned us that same flash of her eyes. But suddenly she was morning, “It would only spoil it for just a woman. “I’m fainting,” her other orchim.” favorite expression came to her assist­ Do you think that my father learned ance. his lesson—and closed the door of his “Sit down, my dear,” father coaxed. home to orchim, mendicants, way­ Mamma’s humor could not be con­ farers and such? Not a chance. tained, “Is there yet more?”

His path lay before him smooth “Er hat unz ernes beganvedt . . . he and unwrinkled as the unslept bed really robbed us!” that Shabboth morn, in my room. He Now I thought mamma would faint knew the real meaning of what had after all. Father and mamma stared at occurred, confidently accepting it as a each other as adagio partners will stare test of his faith; and to friends who before going into the dance. cautioned him, he would answer, “Why Mamma spoke first. “He - took - the - should all honest orchim suffer be­ re n t-m o n ey -” she whispered. And cause of the dishonesty of one?” then. “Did he?” Father nodded. He And he would smile.

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JEWISH LIFE

For an unequalled experience in* Jewish Living your teenager is invited to attend an exciting and unforget­ table Torah weekend at the ninth annual.. .

National Convention & Torah Pilgrimage of the

National Conference of Synagogue Youth of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America

Thursday, June 21 thru Sunday, June 24, 1962 in New York City and the Pine View Hotel, Fallsburg, N. Y. $42.50 includes all events— hotel lodging . . . meals . . . gratuities . . . kits . . . etc.

• An exciting religious, social, educational and organizational experience for select teenagers.

• An opportunity to make new friends.

• Torah Seminars and Workshops.

• Israeli Singing and Dancing.

• Prominent guests; Convention business.

• Youth services; Fascinating discussions.

• Social and Recreational activities.

• Boat Tour around New York City.

• Outstanding Instrumentalists and Entertainment.

• Awards and Contests.

• Election of National N C S Y Officers.

• T o p ® Hotel Facilities— Swimming, etc.

• Leadership and Skill Sessions.

For applications and inform ation w rite: N ational Conference of Synagogue Y outh, 84 F ifth A venue, N ew York 11, N. Y.

NOTE: -

LEADERS7 T R A IN IN G SE M IN A R H Participants in the N C SY

National Convention are invited to spend an additional day, following the Convention program, on June 24th & 25th at the National Leaders1 Training Seminar — CO ST — $17.50 additional.

April, 1962

59

Miatshkofah The Jewish Core

By SAMSON R. WEISS ‘7 am asleep but my heart is awake (Shir Hashirim 2:2) Spake the Knesset Yisroel before the Holy One, blessed be He: Master of the worlds, 1 am asleep in regard to Mitzvoth, yet my heart is awake to deeds of kindness; I am asleep in regard to Tzedokah, yet my heart is awake to Perform it; 1 am asleep in regard to the sacrifices, yet my heart is awake for Kriath bn ma and the prayer; I am asleep in regard to the Holy Temple yet my heart is awake to the Houses of Prayer and the Houses of Study; / am asleep in regard to the end of days, yet my heart is awake to the redemption; and even if my heart is asleep in regard to the redemption, yet the heart of the Holy One, blessed be He, is awake to redeem me.

Said Rabbi Chiya bar Aba; Where do we find that the Holy One, blessed be He, is called the Heart of Israel? For it is written <(Strength of my heart and my portion is the Almighty forever.” (Thilim 73:26) (Midrash Shir Hashirim 5, 2)

EWISH history moves between the keeping with the principle of Midah two poles of Hester Ponim and K ’neged Midah—measure for measure Haorath Ponim. Hester Ponim, in its—by creating our own opportunities literal meaning “the hiding of the amidst a world hostile to our aspira­ Face,” denotes the apparent removal tions and insensitive to our visions. of Divine protection and blessing from While Haorath Ponim is closeness to the K’lal Yisroel. Goluth or foreign and awareness of the Divine Presence, dominion in the Holy Land, not being Hester Ponim is, so to speak, removal masters of our own destiny, persecu­ from this Presence. Distanced from us, tion and suffering—these are the con­ He apparently can be forgotten. sequences of G-d’s turning His Face Slaves imitate their masters. They from us. Freedom and absolute auton­ worship their master’s gods. They ac­ omy, the abundance of material bless­ cept their social patterns and share ings in the Land of our Promise, peace their ambitions. Thus, in the slavery and serenity enabling us to live in the of Egypt our forefathers but for a few exemplary, G-d-reflecting sanctity of exceptions assimilated to their sur­ Jewish nationhood—they are Haorath roundings. No more than a fifth re­ Ponim, the indications of the Al­ mained indomitable enough in spirit, mighty’s shining countenance. in spite of such enslavement, to merit The national sin of not utilizing the redemption. There was left within them opportunities of the Haorath Ponim a hidden resilience, an untouched core, for their spiritual purpose has caused from which rejuvenation could blossom our exiles. In exile, the outer condi­ forth and grow. Not even the angels, tions are the obstacles which we must as our Sages tell us, could detect this overcome to cling to our faith and its core. Only the Almighty in His wisdom Mitzvoth. Having misused the oppor­ beheld it behind the facade of slavish tunity proffered, we must atone, in imitation and beyond the ugly layers

J

60

JEWISH LIFE

of the idolatrous pattern. This germ and seed of an inner freedom and nobility was to burst forth into the most astonishing national transforma­ tion ever recorded in human history.

N every exile, bereft of the im­ mediacy of the Divine Presence, the Goluth symptoms reoccur. They vary in intensity and in their outer manifestation. They are identical in that they present the aspect of a people bent on submerging its identity and seeking to obliterate all differences from their surroundings.

Still, never again did we lose such numbers. Though many are lost and disappear, escaping beyond the periph­ ery of our peoplehood, from Sinai on the vast majority have always retained their Jewish identity. Sometimes it is only by the most tenuous links that they remain connected with K’lal Yisroel and its history and destiny. Their own torturous rationalizations in which they engage to answer the riddle of this identity, can hardly explain this miracle of Jewish perpetuity. In lan­ guage and idiom, in garb and conduct, in food and drink, in political per­ suasion and activity, they seem to blend completely with the non-Jews of their surroundings. Their Jewishness seems to be asleep. They do not per­ form the Mitzvoth. They have lost that priceless and sublime Jewish practice of Tzedokah which is as removed from charity as is a mother’s smile from the sneer of a prison warden. They have forgotten the sacrifice and no longer dream of the Temple restored. They are unaware of Israel’s final destiny and feel no need for redemption.

But in spite of this comatose stupor, there lives and persists in them, often inarticulate and buried under the many envelopes and crusts of their contem­ porary civilization and its lusts and

I

April, 1962

vices, an awareness. This is the aware­ ness of the living G-d, an awareness which can be called upon and re­ awakened. Even within the slavish imitation, the differences resulting from this awareness becomes discernible.

Jewish charity is still different. The return to the synagogue is not a sub­ stitute for, lehavdil, the country club.

The pronounced Jewish interest in all humane causes — statistically well-es­ tablished—is the residue of the Jewish vision of universal redemption. The Jewish people is still identified by its faith, however some may dilute and distort it. G-d has remained the wak­ ing heart of the Jewish people.

HOSE who by upbringing or by their own conscious return live

by Torah and Mitzvoth will, therefore, never agree that a Jew is cut off from the people of the Torah by his non­ performance of the Mitzvoth. Precisely the opposite is true. While we consider Torah and Mitzvoth obligatory upon every son and daughter of our people, we also proclaim to all of them that their ties to G-d and His chosen nation are not torn asunder by the omission and neglect of the Divine precepts. We reject the new so-called rationales of the Jewish identity, but in doing so we reject only the sin and not the sinner.

The sinner is a Jew. His heart is still awake. He is our task. His sleep is our failure.

In forty-nine days, the Jewish way led the indescribable distance from Egypt’s slavery to Sinai’s freedom, from paganistic defilement to the ac­ knowledgement of the One G-d and the acceptance of His Torah. Every year anew, we recount these days of Jewish rebirth. In the midst of Hester Ponim, the Jewish heart is still awake and its longing for the Haorath Ponim will never cease.

T

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JEWISH LIFE

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April, 1962

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JEWISH LIFE

Book Bevienv

A Garbled Portrait

By LIBBY M. KLAPERMAN

THE CROSSING POINT, By Gerda Charles. New York, Alfred A Knopf, 1961.

HE FINISHED creative product —the novel, the poem, the short story—is almost always a vehicle for the artist’s emotional and intellectual expression. While The Crossing Point has no particular brilliance of charac­ terization or plot, it is most inter:sting as a telling and revealing statement of the author’s prejudices and miscon­ ceptions.

The plot involves the quest of Leo Norberg, a middle-aged “Orthodox” Rabbi (Miss Charles calls him “Ortho­ dox,” not I) who is ministering to a Jewish community in England which is purportedly typical of the AngloJewish congregational scene. He is an

T

LIBBY M. K LA PE R M A N is the author o f many stories for Jewish children, and co-author with her husband, Rabbi Gilbert Klaperman, o f works on Jewish history. She also serves as educa­ tional director o f W om an’s Banch of UOJCA.

April, 1962

M.A., Ph.D., and “Orthodox” Rabbi whose love of dancing has earned him the sobriquet “the waltzing Rabbi,” who wants desperately to get married but is repelled by the stolid middle class “nice girls and chopped liver.”

He wants, he says, “lobster and champagnef’ This “almost fifty, fat, grey­ haired and heavy-faced” rabbi is pur­ ported to be educated and/or learned, and proposes to a young girl whose only spark of intelligence is revealed when she rejects him. As far as this “Orthodox” rabbi’s thoughts on the Law is concerned, he declares it is bet­ ter to have “less stringency and so less hypocrisy.” We assume it is this belief that moves him to accept a non-kosher biscuit with the charming non-sequitur, “that’s all right. I’m broad-minded.”

Unfortunately, however, there is noth­ ing right in the character of Leo Nor­ berg. In the literary sense he is not credible, in the spiritual sense he ex­ hibits no values or large truths. He 65

To All " . . . get y o u forth from among th y people, both ye and the children of Israel.” (E x. t. 31) T h u s was Pharaoh f orced to plead w ith M oses,!>after the T e nth Plague was visited upon the E gypti

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66

JEWISH LIFE

has neither dimension nor beauty. As a rabbi he is a hypocrite and a fraud.

As a human being he is absurd.

Leo Norberg’s role seems to show us through various aspects of Jewish com­ munity life, rather that of a tourist guide than that of a rabbi which the author seems to deride and mock. We see the Women’s Guild in operation, the marriage broker at work, the con­ vention of rabbis where each is more crass than the other, the Jewish so­ ciety charity drive, the Jewish resort, the synagogue board squabble over the cantor’s choice of melodies, etc., etc.

ONTRARY to what the livid book jacket proclaims, the chief pro­ tagonist is not the Rabbi, but rather the father of a family of four daugh­ ters, one of whom, Sara, is interested in Leo. Boruch Gabriel, the patriarch, is pictured as a “typical Orthodox Jewish father,” narrow-minded, rigid, selfish and bigoted (sic). He drives one daughter, Essie, to marrying a nonJew, another, Fagy to leaving home, and then hangs himself, like an alba­ tross, around the neck of the third daughter, Sara. The first time we meet Boruch, we are told he is “the bane of every lecturer in London.” His knowl­ edge of the Talmud is caricatured as an excuse to trap the speaker in the accuracy of his quotations. He has a “thin, fanatical face.” He is an “un­ just, tyrannical, left-over Mr. B arrett” who has a vile and vicious temper, and whose phone bill is fattened by his role of informer to Beth Din. Mr. Gabriel’s learning on the Sabbath is a focal point for Essie’s rejection of all that is Jewish. And finally, Boruch Gabriel is the obstacle which stands between Leo Norberg and Sara.

Here we have two so-called Ortho­ dox men, Leo Norberg and Boruch

C

April, 1962

Gabriel, neither of whom the author cares for very much. They both give unwholesome, negative, and distorted pictures of Orthodoxy. But it is by far sister Essie who most clearly reveals the author’s confused position vis-a-vis Judaism and Jewishness. Essie’s re­ jection of her father takes expression in a physical dislike of the Sabbath. It makes her nauseous and ill. The Sab­ bath, Miss Charles tries to reassure us, is the time when “in the mythology of Jewish life in the Diaspora, a peculiar sweetness and reverence attaches it­ self. . . . To observe the Sabbath is to fall into the harmonious rhythm of the universe.” But, for Essie, the rhythm of the universe is discord, a physical pain, and an unbearable bur­ den which relates to her supercilious attitude towards the Jew. N ONE memorable Sabbath, we have ten pages of a discussion be­ tween Sara and Essie in which the mediocrity of tbe Jew, his lack of cul­ ture, his bourgeois values, his love of status and his all-around smallness are decried by Essie (in a sophomoric attack as developed by the author.) But alas, Essie, who is drawn to the non-Jewish world, finds herself not nearly as at home with the “goyim” as she would like or expect to be. Their values are different from hers; she is astounded, for example, that they do not live as well as she does, that chicken for them is a delicacy. Essie Gabriel has a “frus­ trating sense of displacement” with these non-Jews; there is an “increas­ ing discomfort and a widening diverg­ ence between herself and the others.”

A coincidental discussion on so simple a subject as landlords makes Essie cringe. This, Miss Charles explains, is quite natural, “The Jews are the natural rentiers of society. They are suppliers rather than consumers.”

67

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JEWISH LIFE

(These dicta about Jews are strewn liberally throughout the novel; e.g.

“Nature holds a subtle terror for the bourgeois Jew of the Diaspora. Even in park-tamed city meadow she is too wide and lonely for them. They dare not tru st themselves to her, dare not trust themselves to retain their iden­ tity away from the crowded street.”

Miss Charles’ Jews are “loudly banal, clinging, thankful for the safety of each other in the alien English grass.”) But the final paradox in Essie’s fate comes when she elects to marry a coarse, psychopathic liar, a non-Jew who certainly has neither the sensitivity nor the aspirations to “cul­ ture” that Essie claims to have. Is Miss Charles telling us that even this is preferable to the stranglehold of Jews and Judaism?

ASSUME the author takes her title from a speech that Leo Norberg makes to Sophie. In .it he extols the glories of Judaism. “All other faiths are in some way biased; they are off-centre, weighted too much to one side or the other. But in Judaism we have the exact and central heart.

It is the great nub, the crossing point between the world and G-d. Only we possess this wise and tender balance, this joyous realism, this marvelous sense in the use of life.”

If the Judaism Miss Charles de­ scribes is the crossing point between the world and G-d, then alack and alas! Miss Charles may love Judaism but she is Jewishly ill-informed and ill-attuned and she writes in the mood of one who punishes the object of her unhappy love.

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April, 1962

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70

JEWISH LIFE

Letters to the Editor FEDERATIONS AND THE DAY SCHOOLS Cleveland, Ohio With reference to the article “Fed­ erations and the Day Schools” by Reuben Gross which appeared in the February issue of J e w i s h L i f e . . . . I feel that both sides of this issue should be presented.

As president of the Hebrew Aca­ demy of Cleveland I have been involved in this issue for the last fourteen years, as the school has been receiving a substantial subsidy from the Jewish Community Federation of Cleveland for that period of time. Our experi­ ence, as well as that of the subsidized Day Schools throughout the country, has been that the Federation has granted us full autonomy and has never in any way exercised control over our practices.

Our autonomy is guaranteed in our constitution, which provides complete control over the curriculum and reli(giou^s practices by the Vaad Hachinuch. The Vaad Hachinuch is com­ prised of the Roshey Yeshivah and the orthodox rabbinate. Moreover, as a result of communal support, the He­ brew Academy has not only been able to provide genuine, Torah-true Jewish education to many more youngsters than would have been the case with­ out this aid, but the prestige and in­ fluence of the school has changed the April, 1962

total religious profile of the Cleveland community. This is manifested in the growth of the orthodox synagogues and the practices of Kosher dinners and Sabbath closing by our Federa­ tion. The guarantee of autonomy exists not only for the school but also for the other orthodox institutions; such as the orthodox afternoon school, the orthodox Home for the Aged, etc.

In our many day-in and day-out dealings with the Federation officials and its lay leadership, we have not found any effort to change, subvert, or influence our strictly religious goals and standards; nor has the budget become an instrument of pressure.

The fact is that Day Schools in small communities are tu rn in g towards Federation support and aid, and the only way we can assure their continued autonomy is by having a national orthodox organization, such as Torah Umesorah, provide the neces­ sary safeguards in dealings with the Federations. These can be in the form of constitutional guarantees which should be adopted by all Day Schools, and the issuing of a national state­ ment of policies and conditions under which Day Schools would affiliate with Federations.

I agree that we must have guaran­ tees, but we should not “cut off our noses to spite our faces” by ignoring the benefits that can be derived from 71

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JEWISH LIFE

a cordial relationship with the Fed­ eration. Financial support will permit efficient operation, high scholastic standards, and the potential for a greater period of growth—physically as well as spiritually.

We must remember that Ortho­ doxy now speaks from a position of strength, as it has during the past decade made great strides and repre­ sents a strong faction in the^ com­ munity. We must develop self-confi­ dence in our cause and provide statesmanship and leadership from within our ranks to champion the cause of Torah Chinuch.

Irving I. Stone Mr. Gross Replies :

Mr. Stone ignores completely the positive side of my article, which points up the fact that Orthodoxy has a “winner” in the Day School move­ ment; if properly cultivated, this will put the key to American Jewish life where it belongs—in the hands of Torah-true Jews. He is content with a situation which, ideally, would give him only a truce with secularists and others who are opposed to Torah, as we see it.

Mr. Stone addresses himself merely to that part of my article which points out that acceptance of Feder­ ation funds must lead to the ultimate transfer of control to heterodox Jews.

His points seem to be th a t: (a) [He has] “not found any effort to change, subvert or influence our strictly religious goals and stand­ ards.” (b) That such efforts, if made, could be thwarted by “constitutional guarantees . . . and the issuing of a national statement of policies and conditions under which Day Schools would affiliate with Federations.”

April, 1962

To reply to Mr. Stone by reassert­ ing my opinion would result in noth­ ing more than a battle of opinions.

Facts, and facts alone, can determine this issue. It so happens that we have two cases precisely in point on each of the opinions asserted by Mr. Stone.

Mr. Stone’s assertion that “we have found no effort to change, subvert, or influence our strictly religious goals and standards” is not quite candid, in view of the following facts: In August 1955 the Jewish Educa­ tion Committee of the Cleveland Fed­ eration rendered a report which resulted from a survey of their com­ munity by the American Association for Jewish Education, described by their committee as “an expert agency outside the community with its pre­ sumed greater objectivity than by any local group or individual” (i.e. the Telshe Roshey Yeshivoth).

These surveyors recommended: j “2. CURRICULUM—It is recom­ mended that the curriculum of the Hebrew Academy be enriched by the inclusion of Jewish music and the Jewish arts, and that more emphasis be placed on teaching history and Jewish literature. Moreover, laws, customs, and ceremonies, and Jewish values and ideals should be studied in the wider context of Jewish cul­ tural and institutional development rather than as an exercise in memori­ zation of commandments, sayings, and m itzvoth” (my italics) “3. BOARD OF DIRECTORS—As a communal school, the Hebrew Acad­ emy should be directed by a Board and an Educational Committee that would reflect the wider organization and ideological composition of the Cleveland Jewish Community.” (my italics) 73

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JEWISH LIFE

The Committee went along with was “pirated.” The word “orthodox” these recommendations to the extent was stricken from the constitution of recommending “intensive and spe­ and the pareve word “traditional” was cialized work in such enrichment sub­ substituted. The need for approval by jects as music and art. . . .” It further the Vaad Hachinuch was blithely ig­ recommended that “The Board of nored. Torah Umesorah intervened Directors (instead of the Vaad Hachi- and reached an agreement that “tradi­ nuch appointed by the deans of the tional” should be defined as “in accord­ Telshe Yeshivah) should be the final ance with the Historic Code of Jewish authority on such matters as the en­ Law,” but that, too, was ignored. The gagement or disengagement of the president of a national organization (“non-denominational”) went through Principal or Director . . .” (my italics) the motions of sending a telegram of The report further states: protest, but his national committee­ “FEDERATION SUPPORT OF men in that community was the prime ACADEMY B- The committee then force in jamming through the amended turned to the following question pro­ constitution. posed by the Board of Trustees of Although Mr. Stone has attacked Federation, ‘What should be the extent of Federation responsibility for the the less significant part of my argu­ Hebrew Academy in the event of fu r­ ment, I submit that facts taken from Mr. Stone’s own backyard completely ther growth of the school ?’

“A study of the background of Fed­ demolish his position.

What I find most disturbing is Mr. eration concern that gave rise to this question revealed that the Academy Stone’s overall attitude of inferiority had been accepted for community sub­ in the fact of Federation leadership. vention with the understanding that Why does he use Federation language the school would not reach a point in in describing Orthodoxy as a “segment enrollment where it would significantly of the Jewish community?” Here we threaten the commitment of the Jew­ have the leader of the most vibrant ish community to public school educa­ Jewish institution in Cleveland, a tion. In addition, the subsequent rapid highly successful businessman, vocal, growth of the Academy also raised able, and extremely competent—a questions as to whether it might ex­ donor of $100,000 per annum to Fed­ pand to the point where Federation eration, proud of the fact that he could not effectively support it.” (my gets back for the Hebrew Academy $92,000! With wealth, dignity, brains, italics) a record of solid achievement—and Since all of this related to the Torah—on our side, why must we go Cleveland Academy of which Mr. Stone hat in hand to the non-orthodox to is president, I cannot see how he per­ give us back our own money for sists in saying that he has “not found Torah? Have they a monopoly on fund any effort to change, subvert or in­ raising know-how? fluence our strictly religious goals and How much better it would be if standards.”

Now for the question of “guaran­ such men as Mr. Stone would lend tees.” It so happens that within the their splendid abilities for the really last month a Day School with all the constructive job of creating a National guarantees suggested by Mr. Stone Torah Fund.

April, 1962

75

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JEWISH LIFE

THE AMERICAN RABBI TODAY

Brooklyn, New York I was fascinated by some of Rabbi Theodore L. Adams’ disclosures in his article “The American Rabbi To­ day” in J ewish Life of February, 1962. I have no doubts that his find­ ings are documented according to cur­ rently established sociological research procedures and was not troubled, therefore, by his failure to cite the surveys conducted. I appreciate that it would be beyond the scope of a magazine piece to give these details.

I must share with you, however, what disturbed me and diminished from full comprehension of his article.

What does Rabbi Adams mean by the term orthodox rabbi? Is it simply one who graduated from and was ordained by a leading orthodox Yeshivah, ir­ respective of whether he serves an orthodox synagogue or not? Or is he referring only to those who minister to orthodox synagogues?

Certainly, I do not suggest that these distinctions be made in terms of whether there are mixed pews, etc.

But, I think that a very broad criteria could be established to give more meaning to his findings. Surely, one can use affiliation with the Orthodox Union in contradistinction to mem­ bership in the United Synagogue as pertinent and extremely relevant cri­ teria.

For example, when Rabbi Adams writes: “This discovery that the or­ thodox rabbi’s salary levels are about as good as those of the Reform and Conservative groups is one of the sig­ nificant findings of this author,”— would it be safe to assume that this should be qualified to refer only to those orthodox rabbis serving Conser­ vative-affiliated synagogues. I think the serious reader would almost in­ April, 1962

stinctively ponder this question, which the article fails to report on.

I look forward to reading Rabbi Adams’ full findings when they are published which I hope will be soon.

Rabbi Bernard Weinberger Rabbi A dams Replies :

The two points that Rabbi Wein­ berger raises are valid. If my article had been written for a learned jour­ nal, I would then have cited the sur­ veys on which my article was based and would even have reprinted the tables. However, in this article, I did not wish to be too technical. The second point, I feel, is also well taken in that I should have indicated what, for the purposes of the article, were my terms of reference for the data on the orthodox Rabbi. The criterion used in my survey was membership in the Rabbinical Council of America. Simi­ larly, for the Reform and Conser­ vative groups the c rite ria were membership in the Central Confer­ ence of American Rabbis or the Rab­ binical Assembly of America. It may be of interest to note that none of my orthodox respondents’ synagogues held membership in non-orthodox bodies such as the United Synagogue of America.

It may therefore be argued that my findings are subject to challenge, since they exclude members of the Agudath Harrabonim or the Igud Harrabonim or, for that matter, the Hitachduth Harrabonim. I feel, however, that since I was speaking of the working Rabbi, meaning one who is actually engaged in synagogue and community leadership primarily, the Rabbinical Council membership is a fair sample.

Of those rabbis in the Agudath H ar­ rabonim and the Igud Harrabonim who are in the practising Rabbinate, 77

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JEWISH LIFE

T the majority also held membership in the Rabbinical Council of America.

The small percentage which does not is too small to affect the total result.

As far as the Hitachduth Harrabonim is concerned, I am sure it will be agreed that there is probably not one who can be called a practicing rabbi within the frame of reference which I had defined.

I agree that it would be necessary to see the total work in order to ap­ preciate the real significance of the Study.

KASHRUTH OUTSIDE THE HOME

Louisville, Ky. I am of the firm conviction that a foremost problem in contemporary Jewish life is the dearth of Kashruth observance outside of the home. This more than anything else threatens to wreck the fence around our Torah.

If so many who observe Kashruth in their homes think nothing of par­ taking of non-kosher food outside their respective homes, then we must admit that there is something woe­ fully wrong with the structure of our present-day religious life.

Common knowledge teaches that transgressions are contagious, they spiral. One generation takes up where the other has left off and much to our disenchantment with even greater intensity. Is it any wonder therefore, that on our American scene nowadays we are confronted with Jews who are Jews in name only.

The observance of Kashruth outside the home is not keeping pace with the growth of our wonderful Day School and Yeshivah movement. It pales into insignificance when compared to the excellent achievement of the ® pro­ gram or with the conscientious efforts April, 1962

by our orthodox leadership in other areas of endeavor.

If, as it has been proven in many communities, there are not enough people who are interested in pa­ tronizing kosher restaurants, hence those who ventured to open such an establishment were doomed to failure from the very outset, then the answer is not in the restaurants but in a different type of eating facility.

Along these lines, I have an idea which I would like to submit for your reader’s approval. . . .

My plan is especially directed to­ ward encouraging our young people to observe Kashruth outside their re­ spective homes. It provides a facility where they can go for a snack alone or with their dates.

I would like to see established throughout the countryside, a com­ bination hamburger - juice drink - bar eating facility which would be modern and appealing to the eye. . . . The de­ sign of these establishments should be unique and should bear a trade-name, obviously associated with Kashruth per se. . . . All such concerns would be under orthodox rabbinical super­ vision, closing on Shabboth and Yom Tov. Obviously a drive-in arrangement would be best. The success of such a venture would be contingent on a concerted advertising campaign. To prove effective, it would have to be underwritten by a national agency. . . . or a new organization should be founded to further such a venture. . . . A chain of kosher-eating estab­ lishments dotting the countryside would undoubtedly prove to be one of the foremost contributions that could be made towards the strengthening of Jewish observance for generations to come.

Mrs. Sam Harris 79

WM

A N N O U N C EM EN T

B ienn ial N a tio n a l Convention OF THE

U nion o f Orthodox Jewish Congregations o f A m erica will be held AT THE

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Wednesday, November 24 — Sunday, November 25,1962 Cheshvan 24 to Cheshvan 28, 5723 PLEASE RESERVE THESE DATES

80

JEWISH LIFE

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