Jewish Life July-Aug 1963

H A M M E R A N D S IC K L E O V E R N A Z A R E T H T H E R O E D E L H E IM S ID D U R G O L D P IE C E S • T R O P IC A L R E F U G E THE CHALLENGE O F COLLEGE R E V IE W S : P O R T R A IT O F A J E W 5* T H E C O N V E R S IO N O F C H A P L A IN C O H E N

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Vol. XXI, No. 5/July-August 1963/Av-Elul 5723

EDITORIALS THE NUCLEAR TEST BAN ....................

Saul B ernstein , Editor M. M orton R ubenstein Reuben E. Gross Rabbi S. J. Sharfman Libby K laperman Editorial Associates Lila Silver Editorial Assistant JEWISH LIFE is published bi­ monthly. Subscription two years $4.00, three years $5.50, four years $7.00, Supporter $10.00, Patron $25.00.

Editorial and Publication Office: 84 Fifth Avenue N ew York 11, N . Y. ALgonquin 5-4100 Published by U n ió n of O rthodox Jewish Congregations of A merica M oses I. Feuerstein President Benjamin Koenigsberg, Nathan K. Gross, Samuel L. Brennglass, Harold M. Jacobs, Herbert Ber­ man, Vice Presidents ; Rabbi Joseph Karasick, Treasurer; Harold H. Boxer, Secretary ; David Politi, Financial Secre­ tary.

Dr. Samson R. Weiss Executive Vice President Saul Bernstein, Administrator Second Class postage paid at N ew York, N . Y.

July-August, 1963

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NEW DIMENSIONS FOR ISRAELI LEADERSHIP ...........................................

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ARTICLES HAMMER AND SICKLE OVER NAZARETH / Plnchas E. Laplde ....................................

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THE ROEDELHEIM SID DU R/ Judith Grunfeld......

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THE CHALLENGE OF COLLEGE / Ralph Pelcovitz .. 18 GOLD PIECES / Moshe Dluznowsky ...............

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CAREERS IN VETERINARY SCIENCE i/ % Walter Duckat ..................................... .. 33 TROPICAL REFUGE/Jacob Beller ...............

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REVIEWS M EM M I’S M ALAISE/ JosephSungolowsky

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BENEFIT OF CLERGY / Philip Zimmerman ........ 49

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

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LIVING WATERS: Kavonah and Tefillah / ...........

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Emanuel Feldman LETTERS

Drawings by Ahron Gelles arid Norman Nodel

Copyright 1963 by UNION OF ORTHODOX JEWISH CONGREGATIONS

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The ring of authenticity MOSHE DLUZNOWSKY brings to his portrayal of life in the mellah and market-places of Casa­ blanca in “Gold Pieces” is a result of the years he spent in.

North African countries during and after World War II. He is the author of “The Wheel of Fortune,” a book of short stories, which won the Zvi Kessel award as well as several novels, short stories and dramas that have won literary acclaim.

RABBI RALPH PELCOVITZ, who is the Rav of the “White Shool” in Far Rockaway, N. Y., has served as president of the Rabbinical Alliance of America and as editor of its magazine, “Perspective.” Among his previous contributions to J e w i s h L i f e was the widely discussed “Wanted: An American Orthodox Image.”

Career possibilities for the observant Jew has been the subject of several J e w i s h L i f e articles provided by the Guidance expert, DR. WALTER DUCKAT. His previous contributions have treated of such occupations as commercial art, the phys­ ical and earth sciences and the social sciences. He is super­ visor of the Vocational Guidance Division of the Federation Employment and Guidance Service, and Vocational Consultant at Stern College for Women.

DR. JUDITH GRUNFELD has lived in England since 1933, coming there with her husband, Dr. (and now Dayan) Isidor Grunfeld from Germany. An educator, with Doctor of Philos­ ophy degree from Frankfurt University, she was a pioneer worker in the establishment of the Beth Jacob schools move­ ment in Poland. Together with Sara Schenierer, of sainted memory, the creator of this great movement, she established the first Beth Jacob Seminary, in Cracow.

A Canadian by birth, PINCHAS E. LAPIDE left his home at the age of sixteen to undergo training in England with Youth Aliyah. He is the author of “The Prophet of San Nicandro,” which has been published in six languages and was awarded a literary prize by the Jewish Book Guild of America. He is also the author of “The Pruning Hook,” which he wrote while on diplomatic service in Brazil.

The journalistic travels of JACOB BELLER have led him to Spain, Portugal, all Latin-American lands, and Canada, where he now resides. While he writes primarily for the Yiddish press, his articles have appeared also in various English-language publications.

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The N uclear T est Ban HE agreement reached by the governments of the United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union to ban nuclear testing on land and sea and in the upper atmosphere brings a muchneeded ray of hope to the sagging spirits of mankind. The treaty, with its limited scope and its setting of entangled inter­ national power play, falls a good deal short of the grand moral breakthrough for which men have been praying. But, it holds in check the specter of nuclear poisoning, implies realistic possibili­ ties of preventing atomic warfare, and points to an important change in relations between the great Powers. The nuclear test ban treaty may even be an indicator that perplexed modern man can cope with his problems.

All the issues which confront the world of today merge ulti­ mately into that one great question: Can man in fact master the forces unleashed in the Scientific Era? Ever since “the lights went out all over the world” in 1914, men have known that this The question must be resolved if civilization is to endure. It would Key be incorrect to say that the question has been ignored. Indeed, Question this is perhaps the most frequently discussed topic of our times, in all facets of society. But in the spheres of public affairs, eco­ nomic power, and international statesmanship—in short, in those domains wherein lies the power to translate need into action— the question has chronically been relegated to the outermost periphery of concern.

The nuclear test ban agreement has apparently been arrived at solely in the frame of reference of power politics. There is no indication that overall concepts of human welfare have fur­ nished its setting. Since the political desirability of today can be the political liability of tomorrow, the treaty rests on a fragile basis. It is buttressed, however, by the force of world opinion, which will cleave fast to the gain. The same force demands, with ever-increasing insistence, that our world be made secure, that its newly-magnified resources be harnessed to all men’s needs.

Increasingly, too, there arises the perception that even this more broadly conceived approach to human needs will not serve if it is formulated out of materialistic premises and objectives. It is

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precisely the materialist concept of life which has begotten the great dilemma of our time, and more and more is it realized that unless mankind reaches out to spiritual horizons, modern, civilization cannot endure.

HE future may show that public will, spanning oceans and continents, can determine that the nuclear agreement be the precursor to new terms of reference for the organs of inter­ national society. Well may we perceive that the secret of nuclear fission was given to man “that He might make thee know that man does not live by bread atone, but by everything that pro­ ceeds out of the mouth of the Lord does man live”

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New D im ensions For Israeli Leadership ITH a new president and a new prime minister, the State of Israel is entering on a new phase of its swift-paced de­ velopment. Products of the same environment and associations as their predecessors in office, the incumbencies of President Zalman Shazar and Prime Minister Levi Eshkol nonetheless mir­ ror the movement of both time and outlook. The heroic era of the young state has passed into history. The viable existence of Medinath Israel, surrounded though it still is by implacable ene­ mies, is a fact taken for granted by all. The sense of wonder at its being has been absorbed into the search for personal fulfill­ ment. Amidst continuing flux, a composite national character has begun to emerge. Taking stock of his own complexities, the Israeli of today is learning to live with himself. The challenge with which he is grappling is no longer simply the right to exist but the achievement of a purposefully Jewish life.

Although the government’s new leaders enter into office with­ out electoral change of mandate, it is to be expected that they will bring with them a fresh awareness of the needs of the time.

Much depends upon their ability to fathom the depths of these needs. To a far greater extent than in other democratic nations, Israel’s government shares in the shaping of the inner life of its people. Not only by the public policies they maintain but equally Interlocking by the philosophies of life they espouse, Israel’s governmental Responsi- authorities have intimate relation to the beliefs, ideas, and ideals bUities of Israelis at large. Political leadership is thus invested with large responsibilities in the area of moral leadership. Counterpart to this is the situation of Israel’s religious leadership, which, by the force of the same circumstances, must be concerned with, and

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JEWISH LIFE

have important influence upon, the domain of public affairs.

Not abstract theories but realities inherent in all aspects of Jew­ ish life dictate that in a Jewish state, in any Jewish society, there can be no rigid compartmentalization of the spiritual and social spheres.

'T 'H E measure of future success for Prime Minister Eshkol A and his colleagues will not be the degree of political astute­ ness they bring to bear but the manner in which they serve their broader leadership role. The meaning they find in Jewish being will be the crucial element in their every policy and program— whether they be aware of it or not, whether they so wish it or not. Will they find the true meaning—that which Jews have known since the beginning of our story? Or will they, like the preceding administration, remain bemused and befogged by a clutter of outworn dogmas?

It was the inability to reach beyond the horizons of secular nationalism and the apparatus of “modern thought” that so sadly diminished the stature of David Ben-Gurion in the years prior to his retirement from office. The epochal challenge to the creation of the State of Israel had called forth from him an unquestion­ able measure of greatness. He rose to the need of one of history’s great moments; throughout the period of the germination, the establishment, and the consolidation of Israel, his was a decisive contribution. But beyond this was the challenge of Israel’s char­ acter and purpose, and here Ben-Gurion remained imprisoned in his own limitations. The opportunity which was his lies now in the hands of his successor.

its short history, the State of Israel has fulfilled many of the placed upon it. Among those yet to be fulfilled, how­ Iever,Nhopes is the hope, yes the expectation, that from the Jewish state will flow leadership for K’lal Yisroel. By no means is this to be sought primarily from political sources. We look to Zion for Torah and the ultimate fount of Torah is the Beth Midrash, not the halls of politics. Yet subject to this, we look to Israel for Jewish pur­ vey to pose, Jewish vigor, Jewish ideas, an intrinsically Jewish apBlocked proach to the questions that face Jews as Jews and to those that Potential face all mankind. Because leadership on this level has not yet emerged, Jewish life everywhere, and not least of all in Israel itself, has been the poorer. Yet, for all the pervading atmosphere of constricted vision, one senses the continuing potential. More than one key may be required to unlock the potential. One of them, though, lies within the reach of Levi Eshkol. May he be inspired to grasp it.

July-August, 1963

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“Hammer and Sickle Over Nazareth”

By PINCHAS E. LAPIDE

¿ ¿ T DO not believe that all the JL quarter of a million Arabs in Israel are enemies of the State,” the then Prime Minister Ben Gurion said a few months ago during a heated Knesseth debate, “but I cannot close my eyes to the existence in Israel of mortal enemies of the State who gen­ erally wear the cloak of Communism.”

An hour later the Communist fac­ tion of five members came within four votes of toppling the Israel Gov­ ernment: its bill to abolish Military Government in border areas which the Cabinet had made into a vote of confidence was narrowly defeated by fifty-six votes to fifty.

What precisely is the Communist Party of Israel and how strong is it today? To find the answers, we must go back to its foundation, over forty years ago.

Communism in Palestine began in late 1919 in the form of the Work­ ers’ Socialist Party—generally re­ ferred to as M.P.S., from the initials of its designation in Hebrew. This party established itself as a splinter 6

group of Poaley Zion, the leftist Zion­ ist movement which was created dur­ ing the same year. However, since even early Soviet policy was already pronouncedly anti-Zionist, only a handful of ideologues managed the acrobatic act of balancing Jewish nationalism and anti-nationalistic Communism.

Some six months later, in 1920, the MPS had its solemn Foundation Ses­ sion—with forty-one delegates, sev­ eral of whom were convinced Yiddishists and refused to speak Hebrew during the general discussion. This dualism soon came to a head and at its third Congress in 1922, the party split into P.K.P., Party of Com­ munists in Palestine (the word ‘in’ is important!); and the K.P.P. the Com­ munist Party of Palestine. Whilst the former, which was in the majority, adopted a pro-Zionist platform fa­ voring “the creation of a strong Jew­ ish proletariat in Palestine and full scale immigration,” the latter re­ mained staunchly anti-Zionist in out­ look.

JEWISH LIFE

For over a year each faction did its level best to convince the other of the absurdity of its position—by fisti­ cuffs as well as by word of mouth— and both also tried their luck—with as little success—in attracting “the toiling Arab masses.”

T the first elections to the Execu­ tive Committee of the Histadruth —Israel’s General Labor Union—in 1923, the two extremist wings to­ gether only polled 428 out of a total of 6,200 votes. This convinced them of the folly of continued separation, and in the summer of 1923 they re­ united under a compromise platform, which promised “not to encourage Jewish immigration and pioneer work, but not to combat them either.”

The new formula, however, was apparently not good enough for Head­ quarters in Moscow. Only after volu­ minous correspondence between Pales­ tine and the Kremlin, as a result of which the party adopted in February 1924 a new platform which “saw in the Arab National movement the main agent in the war against British imperialism,” and undertook “to fight Zionism in all its forms,” was the P.K.P. recognized by the Comintern as representing Palestine.

This polarisation of its attitude caused a good deal of acrimony and internal rifts. A small group of the original founders was expelled and several hundred “sympathizers” and moderates left the party to join Jew­ ish Socialist groups. Over a hundred stalwarts went back to Russia.

But within the majority not all was harmony either: the party convention of July 1924 met under the shadow of the “Zionist deviation” of which several of the surviving leaders were still suspected. A personal letter from Karl Radek, chief of the Eastern sec­ tion of the Comintern, was read out

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to the assembly: “The success of the Party depends on its Territorialisa­ tion . . . to the extent that the Party will be able to break out of the Zion­ ist ghetto and become an Arab massparty, it will prosper . . . so far the party is only a nucleus of Jewish emigrants: in future it will have to be a party of Arab workers, to which well-integrated Jews, who speak Arabic, may also belong.”

This was the beginning of the party’s Arabisation, whose results, however, left much to be desired in Soviet Russian eyes. There were con­ tinuing reminders of its “Arab Mis­ sion” and in a secret directive from Moscow, dated March 21, 1929, the accusation that PKP is still “a Jew­ ish Ghetto party” is repeated with brutal frankness.

The Histadruth, which united all Zionist workers, soon drew its con­ clusions and on April 28, 1924, its Central Council resolved “that the PKP under its various cover-names has proved beyond any doubt that it is the enemy of the Hebrew nation and the working class in Palestine . . . Its lists shall not be accepted forthwith for any elections to our institutions.”

In 1925, when renewed hopes for the implementation of British manda­ tory authorities were dashed again— the Communist Party succeeded in attracting a considerable number of “despair votes;” in the elections of the Asefath Hanivcharim—the high­ est Jewish elective body permitted by the British Mandatory authorities— almost 10% of all votes were cast for PKP. It was a clear vote of antiBritish protest, born out of disappoint­ ment and bitterness, and it was the highest percentage the party has ever managed to obtain.

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with the “Arab masses,” PKP leaders tried to ally themselves with the ex­ treme right, the Arab feudal landlords and effendis, and in 1936, with the arch-enemy of Zionism himself, the Mufti Hadj-Amis El Husseini. In Arab assemblies they openly de­ nounced “the treacherous Balfour Declaration” as well as “petty-bour­ geois Zionism, the pawn of imperial­ ism”—to the visible delight of the Arab leaders, but apart from a few (broken) election pacts, there was little useful cooperation between the two extremes.

1929 brought bloody riots to Pales­ tine and in armed attacks by Arab bandits over sixty Jews were killed in ambush or seriously wounded. As relations between the Arab and Jew­ ish communities worsened, “a painful re-appraisal” took place within the PKP leadership which, in spite of Moscow’s demands, was still predomi­ nantly Jewish. In the face of Arab warfare, which grew more and more anti-Jewish—not just anti-Zionist—in character, a radical change in policy was indicated, and by December 1929 it became official. From now on, the party would work “for an Arab-Jewish understanding and a common fight against imperialism.” Disappointed with its useless overtures towards the Mufti, the Party also included “agra­ rian reform and a just distribution of all lands” in its revised program.

O increase the number of Arab leaders within the Party hierarchy, Moscow increased its “scholarships” to Palestinian Arabs. Three groups of apprentice-agitators left for Soviet Russia, in 1928, 1930, and 1931. Some of these only returned from Russia in 1934 when their co-option to the party’s Executive Committee resulted in the adoption of a stiffer anti-Zionist line.

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Intensified “Arabisation” efforts brought substantial losses in Jewish quarters: during the 1930 elections to the Asefath Hanivcharim only 700 out of 22,000 votes were cast for the “Proletarian List” as PKP, which was outlawed by the British authorities, then called itself.

From 1933 onwards German Jew­ ish immigration continued to rise progressively—a fact which earned Hitler, together with the German Zionist Movement, the violent hate of PKP. To read the editorials of PKP publications of 1935-1938 is to wonder if Hitler brought on Zionism in Germany, for they according to these organs, “colluded in fostering an artificial stream of pseudo-emigra­ tion.” Only by 1940, when Jewish rescue operations in Europe came to a virtual end, did PKP relent slightly “to create a demographic equilibrium between Jews and Arabs, some influx of Jewish workers ought to be per­ mitted.”

HEN, in May 1939, the British Government published its no­ torious “White Paper,” which ap­ peased the Arab majority by severely limiting Jewish immigration and rights of land purchase, an anomalous situation arose in Palestine: All Zion­ ist parties denounced “the Paper” as nothing but another ‘■Munich”—-a scarcely camouflaged attempt at paci­ fying England’s rear in view of the impending war with Germany by be­ friending the “strong,’' i.e. the Arabs, at the expense of the weak, i.e. the Jews. The Arab leaders, holding out for more concessions, withheld their satisfaction and the only entities speak­ ing out openly in favour of the new policy were the British Government itself—and the outlawed PKP. This anomaly prevailed consistent­ ly until 1945. Not so consistent was

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PKP policy in another field. August 1st, 1939 was declared by the party as “the day of war against war” when one of its posters .said: “International Fascism now stretches out its greedy fangs towards Palestine . . . No loyal son of our country can stand by idly . . . Neutrality is treason, neutrality means help for Fascism!”

Six weeks later, after the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact, a batch of new posters declared: “Every loyal patriot will remain neutral! Don’t listen to imperialist slogans of Defense and War!,” and for the next two years Nazism and Fascism ceased to be invectives in PKP literature. True to new direc­ tives, the party warned Jewish youth “not to join Churchill’s army which succors the enemies of the Soviet Union,” but, two weeks after Hitler’s invasion of Russia, PKP had to eat its own words again. “We shall join the front ranks of the fighters against Fascism!” said the slogans in 1941 which were hastily pasted on top of the outdated ones.

O effort was spared by PKP to translate the wave of popular sympathy for the heroes of Stalingrad into palpable political gains. “Friend­ ship League” clubs and “Proletarian Friends of Russia” sprang up in many Arab villages as well as in the Jewish areas. British Intelligence, however, was on the alert and, apart from in­ nocuous “manifestos” and petitions, little ever came of these front-organi­ zations.

There was only one serious at­ tempt to create a genuine Arab Com­ munist party. Early in 1944 a group of Arab intellectuals left PKP and founded “the League for National Liberation” with headquarters in Haifa. Its program of démocratisation

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and agrarian reform also included “equal rights for the Jewish citizens of Palestine.” This platform attracted several thousand Arab workers and artisans and by 1946 the League had the distinction of being the only real Arab party in Palestine; all others were merely pressure groups, headed by feudal latifundists or bandit-lead­ ers. However, the very moderation of the League was its undoing. By 1948, it was denounced as a “Zionist tool” by the Arab Higher Committee and ostracized. Its leaders fled to Lebanon in the mass exodus of Arab refugees of 1948 and those who re­ turned to Israel later were only too glad now to accept the help of their Jewish colleagues, which they had re­ fused in 1944. They were given a few key-posts Within the party, but the days of their struggle for Communist hegemony were over.

FTER 1944 the party gradually transformed itself from an illegal A underground movement into a lawabiding political organization. Its crowning rehabilitation came in the summer of 1947, with Gromyko’s famous declaration at the UN General Assembly “on the right of the Jewish people to a state of their own.” When, a few months later, Soviet Russia voted together with the United States, for the establishment of a Jewish state, its aura of respectability seemed complete and on May 14th, 1948, Premier David Ben Gurion, to demon­ strate complete Jewish solidarity, in­ vited Meir Wilner, the PKP Secretary General, to co-sign Israel’s Declara­ tion of Independence. We find an interesting side-light in the fact that this solidarity was almost broken by the Communists’ last-minute refusal to sign the parchment, since its final paragraph invoked the assistance of 9

“the G-d of Israel.” Only by altering the text to “the Rock of Israel” were all thirty-seven at last reconciled to appending their signatures.

Its physical presence at Israel’s political emancipation and, soon after­ wards, its change of name to MAKI —the initials of the Hebrew equiva­ lent of “Israel Communist Party”— enabled the party to turn a new leaf, as it were, and to fully utilize all political channels open to a recognized party in a parliamentary democracy.

Two sudden “volte-faces” have since cost Maki a good deal of support. One was the switch, in 1949, of the party’s line from outspoken opposition to the internationalisation of Jerusalem—a position shared by all Jewish parties —to overnight advocacy of interna­ tionalisation, in line with the Krem­ lin’s position. Again, in 1956, Israel’s Sinai operation was “a police action against bloodthirsty marauders and the Pharaoh on the Nile” on one day in Maki’s daily paper “The People’s Voice,” and “an imperialist collusion” forty-eight hours later.

Whilst the 1949 change of course cost Maki a lot of Jewish votes, the belated denunciation of the Sinai campaign disappointed a great num­ ber of Arab sympathizers.

O find out what kind of Israelis make up the core of Maki nowa­ days, I attended one of their recent public gatherings. This is what I wrote at the time: Somewhat frustrated, but unre­ pentant, three hundred delegates of the Israeli Communist Party met on May 30, 1961 at the Japhor Cinema in Tel Aviv for their 14th National Conven­ tion. As each delegate represents five active party members, one assumes that the party is made up of 1,500 persons. Some of them are seasoned veterans of the underground during the British Mandate, but there are a

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number of young men, who have risen in the party from the ranks of the Communist Youth Movement. To judge by their accents a few immi- . grants from the ranks from the Iron Curtain countries also joined Maki, but in general, the bulk of delegates are Arabs, old-timers, and newcomers from abroad; perhaps a quarter of those present are below thirty-five years of age.

It was apparent at this convention that generally, the party was on the wane. It had lost ground considerably in the Arab sector on the eve of the elections in 1959 and among the Jewish population, among which the majority of the active members were formerly recruited. Further indication that Maki has lost its grip over the past few years is to be seen in the fact that four branches have closed down and even in Lydda and Ramie, where activity was once brisk among the Arab populace, there was hardly a quorum for regional meetings which preceded the party’s 14th convention.

At these sparse gatherings the gen­ eral apathy of the rank and file was severely condemned by speakers from the Central Committee. Some speak­ ers at these closed meetings pointed out that first priority should be given to enhancing Maki’s prestige in Israel.

The party had consistently angered public opinion by siding with the enemies of the Jewish state. Thus, Maki was the only political party to justify the Czech arms deal with Nasser in 1955. Now that Nasser is no longer a sacred cow for the Soviets, some Israeli Communists have dared to criticize him—but mainly for his hunting down Egyptian Communists.

On thé other hand some more lucid minds pointed out that even the Com­ munists in Arab countries are fiercely nationalistic,—a fact which has never been mentioned in local Maki litera­ ture.

JEWISH LIFE

Nothing was heard of any internal difficulties at the official opening and closing sessions of the four-day con­ vention (only loyal party members and Eastern-block diplomats were in­ vited to the “business sessions” ).

There were speeches by Mr. Mikunis, the party secretary-general, and mem­ bers of the Central Committee as well as a well-rehearsed pageant with red banners and white torches.

The nearest admission of weakness was a call to help the struggling Com­ munist press— Kol Haam (“The Voice of the People”), the party’s Hebrew daily, was under constant threat of having to close down for lack of funds.

HE Maki party has gained a T reputation for being most con­ servatively “Stalinist.” In fact, the only concession to the Jewish voter was the omission of the clause, so conspicuous in the 1960 convention platform, about the right of the Arabs in Israel “to national self-determina­ tion and secession.” In 1961 the clause was changed to: “the just national rights of the people of Israel and the Arab Palestinian Nation.” It was rightly judged in Maki circles that on the subject of Israel’s integrity, all Jews, whatever their political opin­ ions, are united.

Maki has had its electoral ups and downs-during the last fourteen years; though its strength never exceeded five percent of all Knesseth seats, Maki obtained four seats in the First Knes­ seth (1949); five in the Second Knesseth (1951); six in the Third Knesseth (1955); three in the Fourth Knesseth (1959); but to everybody’s surprise went up again in the elec­ tions to the Fifth Knesseth, which took place on August 15th, 1961, a gain which gives Maki five seats in July-August, 1963

Israel’s parliament today.

The last two elections in particular indicated Maki’s dependence on Arab votes and how political developments outside Israel—in the Arab Middle East—can affect Communist strength within Jerusalem’s Knesseth: the Iraq Revolution, the Nasser-Kassem struggle, and Nasser’s outright repu­ diation of Communism caused a 50% decline in Communist votes in 1959.

Nasser’s renewed flirtation with the Soviet Union, the Kremlin’s weapon deliveries to Iraq and Syria, together with Moscow’s intensified broadcast­ ing program in Arabic (in the course of which a learned Mullah expounded the inherent compatibility between the teachings of the Koran and Karl Marx) —all these factors boosted the Com­ munist vote in the elections of 1961.

Maki in fact obtained this time more votes then ever before: a total of 42,111, out of which some 56% came from Arab voters who only constitute 11% of the Israeli electorate. How­ ever, even this gain only resulted in five Knesseth seats— against the rec­ ord of six which the party had held during the years 1955-9.

HIS small, though disquieting, upsurge in Maki’s electoral sup­ port is to be considered partly due to its tactical use of Russia’s incipient “thaw” towards Israel—of which all other parties are totally unaware—but mainly as a result of its success in reorganizing its main regional offices.

Foremost among these is its Na­ zareth branch. It is only at first sight a contradiction that Israel’s biggest Arab city—and its main Christian center—is also the chief source of strength for Israel’s small though vociferous Communist Party.

“Wasn’t Jesus the first Socialist?” said a young Nazarene lawyer, a local

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party leader, by way of explanation. ers who of course, applauded such “Now that the Jews have become magnificent acts of oral valor. And Israelis,” he continued, “they are the here lies the rub.

In spite of vigorous agitation within oppressors, and the overlord, and we are the downtrodden and perse­ the Jewish population centers, par­ cuted minority. Read it up in Toyn­ ticularly in the settlements of new immigrants where poverty and dis­ bee, he’s got all the facts!”

Mr. L. is a Christian, like the ma­ satisfaction proved fertile soil for jority of the members of the local social protest, the bulk of the Israel executive of the Communist Party, Communist Party’s rank arid file to­ and a graduate of the Hebrew Uni­ day are Arabs.

The “Arabisation” which PKB versity in Jerusalem. The new local party headquarters, a stone’s throw failed to achieve some thirty years from Mary’s Well and the new ago, Maki is now on the way of Church of Annunciation abuilding obtaining.

At least 60% of its members today now, is well furnished, loud-speakers are prominently suspended from the are Arabs, but four of its five Knesseth four walls and a pile of Arabic news­ members are Jews. To judge by angry papers is neatly stacked on a writing reports from Nazareth, its main source desk, next to a signboard which says: of strength, this misproportion is “Registration for membership.” It likely to be remedied soon, although looks very much like a prosperous the old guard of Mikunis and Wilnew is not likely to give up its leadership business office.

The fact is that Communism has without a struggle.

To avoid an open fight, the party been steadily gaining a foothold in Nazareth. The main reason is that of vigorously maintains its bi-national all the eleven political parties active character, from its politbureau down in Israel—including two purely Arab to the smallest provincial cell. For ones—it is the only one which can how long this dualism will stick to­ claim to be “untainted” by Zionism. gether, remains to be seen.

And that seems to be a growing at­ traction for Israeli Arabs who not USSIA’S attitude towards the only listen to the “Voice of the Arabs” Middle East has, of course, a broadcasts from Cairo, but have of good deal to do with Communist late also been able to see Nasser in successes in Israel. the flesh—on their TV screens.

The Soviet delegate at the U.N. voted for the Palestine Partition Reso­ T least on three occasions during lution on November 29, 1947 for the last year, excerpts from the Egyp­ subsequent establishment of a Jewish tian colonel’s speeches have been State in May 1948, and in 1949 for quoted by Arab members of Knesseth Israel’s admission to the U.N. On —there are six of them—during March 4, 1949 Mr. J. Malik of the sessions of the Israeli parliament and U.S.S.R. delegation was still able to nobody amongst Israeli journalists say to the U.N. General Assembly: thought it even worth a headline. “. . . Doubt has been cast upon the Oratory of this kind, as everybody in ability of the State of Israel to fulfill Jerusalem knows, is only aimed at its international obligations to the the Galilean constituents of the speak­ United Nations. The Security Council

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is well aware, however, that the Pro­ visional Government of the State is loyally complying with its obligations to the U.N. and particularly the de­ cision adopted by the Security Coun­ cil on the Palestine question.”

On the Arab refugee problem he stated: “. . . statements have also been made on the Arab refugee ques­ tion, but why should the State of Israel be blamed for the existence of that problem?”

And that was the sudden end of Soviet support for Israel. In 1950 the U.S.S.R. refused to join the Tripartite (U.S., U.K., France) Declaration guaranteeing the status quo of the armistice lines and against an arms race in the Middle East. The Soviet Union’s abstention, as was intended, made the new declaration look like a new Western Mandate over the Arab world—at least in Arab eyes.

Milestones in the relations between the two nations since then were the 1955 Czech-Russian-Egyptian arms deal, supplying Egypt with Ilyushin bombers, MIG fighters and modem Russian tanks against Egyptian cot­ ton; Marshall Bulganin’s ultimatum to Prime Minister Ben Gurion on November 5, 1956, “to put an end, before it is too late, to your military measures against Egypt.” In 1957, a hand grenade launched against the Soviet Embassy in Tel Aviv almost caused a rupture of diplomatic rela­ tions and the next two years saw the expulsion of three Israeli diplomats from Israel’s Moscow Embassy. In 1960 Khrushchev refused to receive or meet with Ben Gurion, who had publicly expressed his willingness to visit Russia.

Whilst Russia in 1961 continued to supply Iraq and Syria with modem armaments. “Zionist agents” among July-August, 1963

Russian Jewish leaders were arrested and put on trial in Moscow and Lenin­ grad; on the other hand Foreign Min­ ister Golda Meir failed to receive any reply to date to her plea for a “reunion of severed families,” some of whose members are still in Russia.

However, a dozen octogenarians or so, who personally appealed to Khrush­ chev for exit permits, were given leave to go to Israel in 1960-61.

NLY in 1962 were there minor signs of what Maki optimistically O calls a “thaw”—-(but only in their Hebrew daily, Kol Ha’am), Sovietish Heimland—the first post-World War II Yiddish periodical—began publi­ cation in Moscow. Its tenor is of course slavishly pro-Soviet and vio­ lently anti-Zionist, even more so than that of Pravda. Soviet scientists at­ tended two international congresses in Jerusalem, last year: one on Bible Studies and the other on Paramagnetic Resonance; whilst several Israeli schol­ ars were invited to attend interna­ tional meetings in Russia.

In spite of these minor improve­ ments, the general climate prevailing in Israel-Soviet relations rem ains essentially as arctic as before.

All this is almost tailor-made for the ambivalent needs of Israel’s Maki : the thaw—real or imagined—is good for the Jewish voters from Eastern Europe, still impressed by their per­ sonal experiences of Russian might; while Russia’s continued assistance to Nasser and her cold-shouldering of Israel’s advances make fine election slogans for the Arab youth of Naza­ reth and Galilee. Israel is one coun­ try in which the local Communists can hope for gains whichever way the Kremlin may jump next.

13

The Roedelheim Siddur

By JUDITH GRUNFELD

E were a motley crowd, some coming, some going, with habits of different countries and different languages. We were all Jewish and yet it was quite obvious that we be­ longed to different parts of the world.

It was on board ship, in the little room that served as a Synagogue, that I found this old Roedelheim Siddur.

It was softened by use, flexible to the touch and ready to open itself easily as if by habit. Who does not know the famous Roedelheim Siddur? It was first edited some 150 years ago by the great Jewish scholar Wolf Heidenheim and printed in the printing works established by him at Roedelheim near Frankfurt-am-Main. Ever since, this Roedelheim Siddur was to be found in almost every Jewish home in Western Europe.

The Roedelheim Siddur which I found on board ship had on the back of its last page an entry of a long list of names of some Jewish family; dates of births, wedding days, dates of Yahrtzeits—a long register written by the hand of someone who ap­ parently was firmly planted within the family.

As I glanced through the list of birthdates, it seemed as if the ink was

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bright, the handwriting firm and de­ termined like the budding out of youth, full of promise and gaiety. The wedding dates were of a maturer glow and more triumphant still. At the end there seemed to have been a lan­ guishing scratch of the pen—satisfied but with some sighs— and sealed with tears.

NOTICED that the same names reappeared in all the lists and it seemed to me that those who had passed on into the lofty Unknown of G-d’s Abode had re-entered this world in some minute shape and at­ tractive disguise; thus I saw their names again in the register of the new arrivals. After their names the two Hebrew letters or an ab­ breviation denoting “May he (or she) live” waved like flags proclaiming happy conquest and victory. There is the Yahrtzeit of Betty and Fanny and again the birth of Betty and Fanny; the Yahrtzeit of Simon and Joseph and the return to this world of Simon and Joseph. Sometimes another more adventurous name was added to it— a sprinkling of something more mod­ ern, inspired by the new trend of the times.

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I can see all these characteristics peeping out to me through the frame of their registration and entered so carefully and lovingly. I see them dressed in pink or blue in their cradles with sunbeams dancing around them.

I see them blossoming into life, skip­ ping into the alleys of youth amidst smiles, promises, and hopes; and then growing into maturity, mothers guard­ ing their flock midst the trials and tribulations of daily hallowed routine, illumined by tradition; youngsters and their fathers walking through life in unison, but sometimes also in tem­ porary rebellious contrast. Then the whole picture seems to fade into autumn colours. Soon, winter, with its withering, sets in—and then again the unmistakable signs of spring and redemption.

What a wonderful rotation of events is spread out before me in these col­ umns of family dates. There are the faint echoes of children’s feet running along happily, of children’s laughter, of wedding tunes—but also of sighs and intonations of T’hilim at the sick bed of beloved ones and afterwards.

These are peaceful reassuring sounds, tunes, and melodies; and occasionally there glittered the tears of joy or sorrow in the eyes of G-d-fearing and trusting men and women.

ND then the thread of history suddenly snaps— a wide abyss opens before me—the European catas­ trophe is in front of us—hell seems to have broken loose—the holocaust has blotted out everything. It has beaten blood and life out of our veins, has shattered our souls and whipped our bodies, has lashed us through fire and despair and has left Israel’s body charred to fragments. It has de­ posited the bodies and ashes of our peoples’ martyrs into the gritty de­ bacle of a ruined world.

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Slowly, we, the survivors, emerge out of our numbness, stumble to our feet, looking out right and left in wonder and amazement. What a blind­ ing sight! Everything has gone— homestead, beloved ones, hearth and cradles, our language, our shell of habits, our security of position, our possessions, our titles—all our en­ vironment. We have been torn from our background, emptied of all our treasures. We are bare and forlorn— just a few of us with our own naked selves and a host of memories and an abundance of obligations. We arise from our blood with the old prophetic call sounding in our ears: “Live in thy blood—Live in thy blood”! Muti­ lated as we are, covered with tears and wounds all over, suspended in mid-air, we hang on for sheer life.

And we try to stumble back to our feet. Sheer life—it is that we are fight­ ing for.

ND here out of my reveries my eye falls again on the Roedelheim Siddur, the companion of my youth. The pages are the same, the pages which have gazed at me every day since my childhood, when I said my prayers that were like bridges on which I crossed from one side to the other and the Siddur formed the pil­ lars of that bridge. Every page a pillar for a thousand days that have floated by and on these pages there were the imprints of my father’s face and my mother’s voice—the scent of our wohnzimmer (living room) and the atmosphere of our shool in “daheim.”

Each page has its own particular mes­ sage of associations. The Adon Olom page still has the fragrance of the early childhood mornings, when fresh­ ly washed and combed by mother’s loving hand, I prepared to go to school. The Sh’ma Yisroel page still

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holds all the mystery of deep rever­ ence implanted in me at the most im­ pressionable age. Then that other page of the Roedelheim Siddur which con­ tains the Oz Yoshir, the Song of Deliverance, sung by our forefathers at the Red Sea. It came in much later in my life when I had advanced to a fuller programme and could vie with my brothers in the length and depth of devotion. That page has always been associated for me with the thrill caused by the elevating thought of G-d’s miracles wrought for our people in days gone by. And finally the Oleynu page, which held for me the satisfaction of a duty fulfilled. Dear old Roedelheim Siddur! With its wellknown cherished pages all engraved upon my mind, with the familiar words and the places of particular prayers, with the tunes of these pray­ ers so familiar and so reassuring.

When I open it here in this strange world into which I have been blown, it beckons and winks like a signpost on the road, assuring me that how­ ever strange the world may seem, it will yet lead to the right goal in the end.

And with these pages and their setting there go the tunes— our tunes, our homely neginoth. Do not think little of them. They may seem unim­ portant to you; but they have their own strength, their own guiding and redeeming power. They have been able, these tunes, to shake our numbed and forgetful selves back into life.

They have sent messages to our doubt­ ing souls, messages of jubilant trust in G-d, who has carried us before on thorny paths. These religious tunes and melodies have infused us with faith in our own strength. They have told me once more whose child I am, and whose blood runs in my veins. They have reminded me of the

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heritage entrusted to me and of the inner strength bequeathed to me.

HE Roedelheim Siddur speaks softly to me. I caress its pages as I handle it. I think of all the shools in Germany, in Bavaria and Unterfranken, and the many German Ke­ hiloth that once flourished and pro­ duced such deep devotion, such staunch bitochon, such unquestioning loyalty to tradition.

In these Kehiloth, our upright Jew­ ish men and pious women were trained and reared. Jewish religious life grew naturally in these urban and rural communities of Germany where the counters of the shop were as holy as the benches of the Beth Hamidrash, where nurseries proved to be educa­ tion centres over which our mothers watched devotedly and methodically, where zemiroth were sung in unfor­ gettable tunes at the family tables on Friday evening, rewarding the week’s labours and toil.

Nothing in the world can conjure back that beautiful Jewish life as well as the simple, beloved, memory-laden Roedelheim Siddur—the daily com­ panion of the German Jew and the symbol of his piety and trust in G-d.

It has been reprinted now and is used again in the synagogues of GermanJewish Kehiloth that have sprung up all over the world: in London and New York, in Johannesburg and Sydney, in Sao Paulo and in Jeru­ salem. And although the familiar title page of the Roedelheim Siddur now often shows places of printing works different from Frankfurt and Roedel­ heim, although the instructions accom­ panying the prayers in the Siddur are given in different languages, the message has remained the same. The Roedelheim Siddur has become a lasting memorial of German Jewish

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life and alas, also of the gerush ashkenaz. Everywhere in the world it is now waiting for the end of Goluth and the fulfilment of the age-old

July-August, 1963

prayer in its familiar pages, V’thechezenah eynenu b’shuvchah Vtzion b’rachamim—-“And let our eyes behold thy return in mercy to Zion.”

17

The Challenge of College

By RALPH PELCOVITZ

ESPONSE to challenge, or failure to so respond, is considered by some leading historians as the key to the rise and fall of civilizations and empires. In human society, as in the world of nature, one must respond to stimuli or atrophy. We cite this interesting theory for the purpose of underscoring the importance to each generation of recognizing its own pe­ culiar challenge and the vital need of responding thereto.

The age we live in, with its con­ stant violent changes and disruptions, presents numerous challenges to the intelligent, thoughtful Jew. There is one, however, of paramount impor­ tance to the traditional Jew, namely, the challenge of college. It presents itself on a number of stratas: to the student, his parents, his spiritual lead­ ers and teachers. This challenge ap­ pears first and manifests itself in the home, even prior to registration at a university; it is then forcefully felt on the campus and finally carries over to the Jewish community. There is a unique urgency to the problems pre­ sented by a college-trained generation.

We shall attempt here to analyze these problems in the hope of achieving a

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better understanding of them and of finding how best to cope with them. at colleges and universities is now at an all-time high and a College degree is rapidly becoming the norm rather than the exception among the middle-class and upper-class members of contemporary American society. Among Jews es­ pecially, who have always possessed a great love and respect for higher learning, as well as a keen concern with status and station in life, it is now rare to find a Jewish family fail­ ing to provide their sons or daughters with a college education.

With this increase of Jewish stu­ dents on the campus, we must come to grips with a number of problems which are now far more common than in the past, and which encom­ pass far larger numbers of our sons and daughters than heretofore. First and foremost there is, of course, the continuing problem of retaining the identity with, loyalty to, and interest in Judaism among young adults who in most instances are no longer sub­ ject to family authority or exposed

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to the guidance of their childhood rabbis and teachers.

The university student is caught up in an exciting environment. He is in a new world, one whose boundaries and associations are unfamiliar and whose values are bewilderingly dif­ ferent from those of his home sphere.

Here he makes new friendships and here he is confronted with invigorat­ ing and stimulating ideas, fresh opin­ ions, new avenues of thought and be­ lief. The student’s professors are challenging and they bring to him, with the authority of academic posi­ tion, teachings which clash with the naive conceptions of religion and the superficial elementary understanding of Judaism acquired in his childhood.

The conflict which arises between two forces, one the ordered systematized secular philosophies and the other his Jewish heritage and consciousness, usually ends with surrender to the superior predominant influences of the classroom and professor.

OT alone in the intellectual area is the student developing and N growing. He is also being granted adult freedom, with its attendent re­ sponsibilities and the opportunity of making his own decisions. The grave danger lies in the fact that it is not sufficient to be granted freedom of decision unless one is capable of mak­ ing the right decisions. The removal of restraint far too often becomes an invitation to license and it is at this period in the life of the young per­ son that he has a crucial need of guidance and direction. We must con­ sider that in the area of life’s values and standards, in the determination of an ethical and moral code, the young person has acquired but little knowledge upon which to base a reasonable, intelligent, or even fair July-August, 1963

choice. Since this choice will affect him for the balance of his life, it is sobering to realize such far-reaching attitudes are being made, in the case of our collegians, amidst intellectual and spiritual confusion.

As a Jew, the college student is often woefully ignorant of Jewish principles and practices, a stranger to Jewish philosophy, and innocent of any real understanding of Torah teaching and perspective. In spite of a lack of any real basis for the selection of truth in this area of choosing lasting values and accepting standards of human conduct, he makes his selection and establishes attitudes and opinions which are lasting. “The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken,” most aptly applies here. The tragedy lies in the fact that these decisions are as un­ certain as in selecting a brand of soap or toothpaste from a bewildering col­ lection of persuasive commercials. In our case, “equal time” is not even granted.

It is most disheartening that the battle for the mind and soul of the Jewish college student is so unequally balanced. On the one hand is the formidable array of faculty, fellow students, and the new world of ideas lining the library shelves. On the other, there is, if anything at all, but a Hill el House—with a director often of meager scholarship and conviction —or at best a budding chapter of Yavneh, the Jewish Religious Students Association. A bleak and foreboding picture indeed for the parent who is concerned for the continuing Jewish identity and loyalty of his son or daughter.

EALIZING these dangers and the unequal odds confronting the tra­ ditional Jew, it would be well for

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parents to change the common ques­ tion, “How to get into the college of your choice,” to the far more cogent and appropriate one, “How to get out of college with your Judaism un­ impaired and your Jewish training undiluted.” When parents attempt to determine what college is best for their son or daughter, it is imperative that they take into consideration not only the reputation, academic stand­ ing, and rating of the university, but also the more mundane yet vitally important question of what Jewish facilities, friends, and environment will be available for their progeny— if not on campus proper, then at least within the community where the uni­ versity is located. The local religious community, orthodox synagogue, and rabbi should be as important a decid­ ing factor in the choice of the college as the scholastic rating, the calibre of faculty, and the charm of the ivycovered walls of the university. Both parents and young people must be educated to understand how impor­ tant it is that when away from home, students be exposed to a certain de­ gree of Jewish spirit and living, there­ by insuring the retention of at least a residue of all that has been invested in them, Jewishly speaking, in their younger years.

We must realize, of course, that it is not within the capacity of individual parents and students to meet the com­ pelling need, in this comparatively neglected area, to bring an intensive program of Jewish living to the col­ lege campus. The teaching of Torah in depth, the creation of facilities for Jewish living, and the provision of personnel to guide the young Jewish man and woman on campus—these sore needs demand a fundamental ap­ proach. Only by a program of national scope, conceived and equipped in full 20

proportion to the problem, can there be developed a climate and environ­ ment where the student can experi­ ence a full Jewish life away fronj home. This objective belongs on the agenda of every national orthodox Jewish organization, for otherwise we are in danger of dissipating all that has been accomplished on the local level in our schools, synagogues, and homes.

T IS necessary that we also appre­ ciate and understand a number of facts which make the college campus picture of today far different from that of the recent past. We can recall the time when a spirit of sophisticated scepticism and a cynical attitude toward all religion prevailed unchal­ lenged on campus. We can well appre­ ciate how in that period an organiza­ tion such as Hillel could aim to assist the Jewish student in retaining a Jewish loyalty by offering him a mini­ mal Jewish environment interjected with an occasional superficial smatter­ ing of Jewish culture. Today, however, one finds a more favorable attitude pre­ vailing which, in at least one impor­ tant aspect, offers a more favorable basis for creative Jewish effort. There is a positive search for values amongst our university students, a seeking for roots and a willingness to examine, fairly and intelligently, ideologies and philosophies of faith which may show them the way in life beyond the academic halls.

To put it simply, religion is no longer the “superstition of the past” or the “opium of the masses,” to be rejected out of hand. There is to be found a certain sensitivity to the eter­ nal values which religion offers and a realization that our technological ad­ vance and progress has not solved the problems of the soul nor given man

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a blueprint for his life. It is important these former yeshivah students have that we capitalize upon and take ad­ been taught during their formative vantage of these more positive atti­ years. If we fail to do this, we shall tudes and this can be done only by forfeit the investment we have made revealing to our young people, on an in these young people during their intellectual level, the wisdom and early years, as well as having squan­ verity of Torah, showing how it speaks dered the reservoir of our future. It to man in every age and addresses has wisely been said that when one itself to every human condition. jumps for joy he should beware that AVNEH has made a good begin­ no one moves the ground from be­ ning in this area and it would do neath his feet. We must be vigilant well to strengthen the hands of this in insuring that as we jump for joy, promising student organization and observing the increase, thank G-d, of help expand its program of activity. day schools throughout the country, As one who has attempted to cooper­ that the ground not be cut out from ate with Yavneh in its splendid work, under us as these young people go the writer takes the liberty of com­ on to college. menting at this point on the Yavneh HE challenge of college is not re­ approach as it has manifested itself stricted to the student years alone. on a number of campuses. The perti­ Rather it extends far beyond the cam­ nent question is not whether Yavneh pus into the community. The entry has succeeded in retaining the intense of the college-trained layman on to loyalty of those already fully com­ the communal scene necessitates new mitted to the Torah way of life, but approaches on the part of synagogue rather whether they have been able and community leadership. to reach the less observant as well.

No longer is it the primary task of It would be worthwhile to explore the orthodox spiritual leadership, as it was possibility of expanding efforts, in years ago, to combat the bewilderment capturing the imagination and adher­ of the immigrant who, confused and ence of many who are on the pe­ insecure, came to the synagogue for riphery of Jewish living, before their security, comfort, and guidance. It attitudes are hardened and set. A will not be sufficient either to present fellow-student, through example and the simple, ancient teachings of faith sincere dedication, can persuade his which were accepted and unques­ friends to try Torah Judaism much tioned with purity of emunah. There more readily than many a rabbi or may not even be to the same degree parent. as formerly, a demand for courage Another new development offers and firmness in holding the line in the encouragement. More and more col­ face of strange and alien encroach­ lege students are coming to campus ments, threatening the sanctity of the with a yeshivah and Hebrew day synagogue. As distinguished from school background. This of itself these challenges, we are confronted necessitates and facilitates the elevation today, and will be even more so in of the standards, quality, and depth the future, with the honest, intelligent of Jewish activity at colleges and uni­ quest for authentic Judaism by peo­ versities. This three-dimensional ap­ ple who, though untutored in Yiddishproach must be undertaken to prevent keit, are well educated—in secular dissipation and erosion of all that terms—and intelligent individuals. We

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must therefore place this encounter on a higher intellectual and philosoph­ ical level. There will be a need for undoing and counteracting much that has been presented to the student by his teachers, who are so far removed from the viewpoint and attitude of Torah Judaism. There will be, let us hope, a demand for an elevation of standards and a higher level in all synagogue activities. This will include every aspect: sermons, lectures, edu­ cational programming, and perhaps even social activities. This challenge is a most welcome one.

Mediocrity has far too long been the mark of synagogues in far too many communities. There is develop­ ing now, as a result of the infusion of a college-trained generation, a de­ mand for excellence. This demand will in turn exact a high price. The price of excellence has always been discipline and sacrifice but it is well worth it, for the cost of mediocrity is a far greater one. The price will be authenticity, sincerity, and devotion on the part of synagogue leadership which must benefit all Torah-true in­ stitutions. The superficial and inane may well disappear as the call will come for true inspiration in place of insipid sermons and for authentic Torah study in lieu of innocuous lec­ tures and shallow guest speakers.

There will be a resurgence of clarifi­ cation rather than ceremony, study in place of symbol, and understanding rather than show. All this should re­ sult in commitment rather than shal­ low affiliation. The nourishment pro­ vided by Torah is not unlike that of food. Intravenous feeding is never satisfying, nor is intravenous Juda­ ism. The appetites of our young gen­ eration are quite healthy and we must offer them the food and drink of Judaism directly—by mouth.

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WORD of caution is appropri­ ate in our discussion of this new breed of congregants on the American Jewish scene. Although it is impera? five, as we have indicated, to utilize an intellectual approach in presenting the teachings of Torah to a universitytrained generation, there may be a tendency to over-intellectualize Juda­ ism. Doubtless, added sophistication, widened horizons, and greater aca­ demic training require a more pro­ found and intellectual approach. We must not, however, overlook the quali­ ties and virtues of Judaism which have never lost their appeal and may well serve as a magnetic example for young people who have a sensitive soul and an appreciative ear for the finer, more humane, qualities in life.

The warmth and friendship offered by the religious community and syna­ gogue can attract as many young peo­ ple as would a profound lecture or a well constructed sermon. By im­ planting in the hearts of our young generation, an appreciation for the spiritual inspiration offered by prayer and acts of loving kindness (Avodah and Gemilath Chasodim) which the parched soul of the young man or woman of today may well be seek­ ing, we will recapture many an indi­ vidual by bringing him a sense of identity with Judaism which the pure­ ly intellectual presentation may fail to do. Love and interest must come from the same source as discipline and authority.

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E may, by adhering to our guidelines of the past, joined with the tools and skills of the present, discomfit and irritate some, but I believe we will also be successful in instructing and inspiring many. This we know full well: unless we are suc-

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cessful in attracting the new genera­ tion of university-trained men and women into our circle then we shall have failed to insure the retention of recent gains. This indeed is the key challenge of our time. We in the or­ thodox community have the warmth, fervor, integrity, discipline, and faith,

July-August, 1963

but do we have the vehicle and means of bringing all this to a generation that is neither skeptical or cynical, but rather lost and bewildered? The answer to this question rests with us and history will record whether we have the vision and courage to rise to this challenge.

23

Gold Pieces

By MOSHE DLUZNOWSKY

HAIM GAMAL, grocer and wine merchant, sat on the doorstep of his tiny establishment. An old, thread­ bare burnoose covered his spare body.

His silver-streaked hair was partly hidden by a round black cap. He wore torn sandals on his bare feet.

Before him was an open volume of Kabolah, its pages yellow with time and use, the letters so small the eye had to strain to read them. Chaim Gamal glanced at the book, but so lost was he in thought, so full of concern for the bad tidings from all parts of the world, he did not know what he was reading. Not that it was necessary for Chaim Gamal to give his undivided attention to the con­ tents of the book; he knew every line of it by heart. The forest which was the Kabolah, its signs and portents, was no mystery to him.

It was being said, he mused, that the world was about to end, that evil triumphed over the little bit of good which still was burning ever so weak­ ly, like one live coal in a mound of cinders. The war now sweeping the world would go on and on. This be­ ing so, the grocer thought, what pur­

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pose was there in being a merchant, waiting for someone to come buy a needle, a bottle of oil, a pair of sandals, or a bottle of wine in honpr of the Sabbath? Perhaps Messiah’s time was here, now, the world having reached the point of total guilt. One saw the signs clearly; the world was steeped in evil and Y’mey Hamoshiach must come.

Outside, in the crowded crooked, narrow street of the Casablancan mellah with its blind walls and crumbling dwellings, there was a tumult of voices. Swarms of Jews and Arabs passed by: men, women, children, camels, donkeys. The stamp of pov­ erty was on them. Many women, at­ tired in filthy old sheets, carried their little ones in straw baskets fastened to their backs. An Arab, dressed in tattered clothes, screamed wildly at a Jewish fruit peddler who stood in front of his mound of merchandise over which a swarm of flies presided.

A camel driver turned the corner, followed by his mud-spattered beast, loaded with goods between the humps.

From the opposite direction came three donkeys, preceded by their JEWISH LIFE

mentor. The beasts all stopped in the him to buy a new rope when he could narrow street, unable to pass, unwill­ make an old one do. ing to retreat, their drivers too in­ “But even nowadays there are peo­ different to interfere. Little boys, ple who become wealthy,” the ropescrawny, bedraggled,^carried camel- maker said, flinging both his hands skins filled with rain water on their in the air as though he were a juggler puny backs. Their shrill voices split catching balls. “There is a war going the air: “Water! Water! Two pots for on in the world, people are getting one coin!” An itinerant vendor carry­ killed while others acquire riches, ing a box filled with herbs, oils, gold and silver, and precious stones. charms, remedies, salves, castor oil, For most people the scale of fate perfumes, small nails, cried hoarsely: fluctuates, going up and down, but “Ladies! Do you want to be desirable for the fortunate ones—only up.” in the eyes of your husbands? Buy Chaim Gamal reflected on the oils and salves and perfumes! Beauty words of his neighbor, words that slid will shine in your faces!” A short so effortlessly from his lips. Gold, Arab leaning on a crutch, swallowed silver, precious stones! And here was flaming tongues; another, a cataract he, Chaim, dealing in groceries and on one eye, let a snake wind its coils wine more than three decades and around his middle while he coaxed not once in all this time did the chil­ sweet sounds out of his shepherd’s dren eat their fill. There were eight flute. Three Arab street musicians children at home, and not one of them with naked heads and bare feet, red owned a proper garment. What little pieces of coarse cloth covering their he put by, denying sustenance to the bodies were busy with their instru­ children while doing it, was not worth ments. One put the sticks to his drum, mentioning. And here was Yitzhak the second blew a horn and the third talking about gold and precious stones! picked the strings of a mandolin. A These were objects his eyes were yet blind Jew made a path for himself to behold. through the crowd with the aid of a “Gold and silver you say, Yitzhak,” cane, shouting: “Let pass a blind man Gamal observed. “It seems to me who is on the way to visit the graves Moshiach must come, judging by all of just and pious men! I am in need the evil loose in the world. There of salvation! appears no limit to it. Rumor has it that in far-off lands Jews are being AMAL’S neighbor, Yitzhak Ben- persecuted and killed. As for gold, in Gibor, the rope maker, entered our own country the laws forbid com­ the store. Both men were heavy of merce in that metal. They barely let heart. Inevitably talk led to the us live. One encounters difficulties poverty which was their lot. The dealing even with such items as a grocer recited his catalogue of woes: needle or a bottle of oil.” his profit was meager, people did not After the grocer had finished, buy wine, even in honor of the Sab­ Yitzhak Ben-Gibor resumed speak­ bath. The rope-maker complained ing, clapping his hands in emphasis. people failed to buy new rope to His words were strange and frightened harness donkeys and hang the wash. Chaim. “Hundreds of refugees have And when a desperate one decided reached our shores fleeing the evil to hang himself, one could not expect Amalek, where the devil and gehenna

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reign. The Jews in those lands are victims of all manner of deaths. But several hundred families managed to escape—the wealthy ones! Who suc­ ceeds in escaping a conflagration?

The one who makes a path for him­ self, who has a shield to protect him.

I’ve heard said that these people have come to our shores laden with gold and silver and precious stones pure and clear as the rays of the sun.

Evidently these Jews, our brothers, were able to rescue part of their wealth. In their homelands they were at one time powerful and wealthy.

They built great cities and enjoyed free entry into the palaces of the mighty. You can say this about luck: if, like water in the desert, it comes in time to save the life of a man dying of thirst . . .”

Chaim Gamal thought: the words of his neighbor were similar to his own notions of total evil. But it was one thing to reflect on these matters and quite another to express them.

How dare a Jew talk this way? Yitz­ hak’s words were comparable to those of the snake that tempted Eve. What did Yitzhak mean when he said the rich alone escaped? Fire and death treated all alike. Yitzhak’s tongue was soaked in bitterness and his heart was heavy with hostility. No wonder his wife, Tziporah, was struck down with blindness, his three sons had lung trouble, his daughter’s body was twisted. G-d had smitten the ropemaker with many plagues.

Chaim Gamal found it necessary to take exception to Yitzhak’s words: “Both your tongue and your mouth race far ahead of the thoughts in your head. As it is written: *Life and death are within the power of the tongue/ ” “Times have changed,” Yitzhak re­ torted. “We are confined here to a gehenna and do not see the storm 26

winds blowing outside. Why not admit it?”

“Your tongue indulges in malice, Yitzhak. I know for a fact that the refugees who came here are poor, their purses empty. They are in des­ perate need of help, a roof over their heads. It is our duty to share with these people the little we possess.”

HE rope-maker hurried off to work, for the hours of the day are swifter than the wind. Chaim Gamal remained alone with his thoughts, churning in his head, whirl­ ing, like kernels in a windmill. Per­ haps Yitzhak was right. Indeed the world must have reached the state of total iniquity, a precondition for Moshiach’s coming. Such being the case, why not yield to temptations, why not help stoke the fires of wick­ edness and increase the possibility of Moshiach’s coming sooner? After­ wards, one could live the good life, serene and pure. There would be food in the tureen, Yitzhak’s wife would regain her sight, his sons would be blessed with sound lungs. Conditions would improve all around, were it possible to hurry Moshiach’s coming.

His gaze fell upon the wall where he had hidden a small sum of money behind the brick. Couldn’t that money be converted to gold? Perhaps his eyes could behold the precious metal, gold, just once, before Moshiach’s arrival to North Africa, to Morocco.

Owning gold, after all, was the sym­ bol of supreme luck. The rope-maker’s words tempted him. Why not try it and help usher in Moshiach’s reign? * * *

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a sa bla n ca

was crowded with

C strangers . . . with people whose eyes were filled with terror. The ex­ pressions on their faces were ques­ tioning: although they had fled from JEWISH LIFE

the jaws of death, were they now safe? These were Jews from distant lands put to the torch by the Germans who ruled them. They were refugees fortunate to reach the shores of North Africa and the multi-colored city, Casablanca, where rich, airy, orna­ mented streets contrasted with the crowded, twisted, blind alleys of the mellah. Many of the refugees had left behind wealth, status, even renown.

In Casablanca all of them acquired one common expression, one face.

Strangers to each other as well as to the new surroundings, each was cut off from the past. All the yesterdays had been ground to dust by the wheels of tyranny.

Chaim Gamal met some of the refugees, those who came to his store to buy small quantities of food. The grocer treated them with compassion.

He was prepared to go to any length to relieve their suffering. He sold them food at prices lower than he paid.

He offered them his own miserable dwelling with its two hard benches, table, and fire-pot. As for himself and his household—they could sleep outside, under the sky. Chaim Gamal was pleased he was chosen by G-d to help ease the plight of others.

It was undoubtedly true, Chaim Gamal thought, that the world was a place of villainy and malevolence, one human consuming another. As for himself, he would not join the multi­ tude to spread evil. On the contrary, he must offer a helping hand to the persecuted, the needy.

And Chaim Gamal was filled with contrition for yielding earlier to cor­ rupting thoughts about evil.

MONG those who came to Chaim’s store to buy food was a young woman, Freidl Gipps. Hav­ ing lost her parents in the Hitler conflagration, she had fled alone,

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across Europe to Antwerp. France, Spain, Portugal, Gibraltar. Along with thousands of Jews and nonJews, she clawed her way past many gehenna-doors before reaching Casa­ blanca. Freidl Gipps was pretty and well-formed. Her face was oval, her skin olive in complexion. Neither her good looks nor her youthful manner seemed affected by the suffering she had endured. She lived in a tiny room in one of the crowded streets of the mellah. During daylight hours she sought out fellow-refugees who gath­ ered in restaurants and coffee-houses to exchange bits of news about “home,” news that reached them through devious channels.

One day, on the way to her room, Freidl stopped in Gamal’s little store.

“Good evening,” she said, smiling.

The girl’s smile always startled and surprised Chaim Gamal. She had lost her parents and was alone in a strange city, not knowing what tomorrow would bring. Tomorrow might see her and the others deported to the burn­ ing sands of the Sahara. And yet, de­ spite it all, she was able to smile. Chaim Gamal wondered how that was pos­ sible. He was tempted to question her but decided against it. It must be her youth, he decided, the fullness of her heart and the loftiness of her soul.

Every human being is endowed with the capacity for joy and happiness as well as sorrow. Freidl must surely possess the soul of purity, G-d having created man in joy, not tears.

During her flight across Europe, Freidl Gipps had met a young man.

She didn’t ask him who he was; it didn’t seem to matter as the world was coming to an end. He spoke to her of love, spun out promises with hope.

They met daily amidst strangers.

Casablanca was for them only a tem27

porary haven. Refugees who failed to depart on time, who lacked an official document, those who did not have a relative in America to redeem them, were deported to the Sahara desert to work on the building of the rail­ road. They rarely came back. People cast about desperately, searching for ways to avoid the Sahara.

Freidl knew this about the man: he was a refugee, like the others. He was young, possessed wit, and spoke with eloquence. Without his helping hand she would go hungry and lack a place to sleep. Here in Casablanca, on the doorstep of the new world, he was making plans for both of them.

He told her of important papers he’d acquired, signatures, passports, and visas. He took care of everything.

Only money was lacking. He asked her to help him. “You must help,” he pleaded with her. He confided in her that he possessed some gold, a small amount. “We can sell it and make a big profit.” Then, it seemed, their troubles would be over. * * * REIDL entered Chaim Gamal’s store with a jaunty air. It was several days after Yitzhak, the ropemaker, had let his tongue wag on the subject of gold and wealth. “I have good news for you,” she said. “You can earn some money while at the same time performing a mitzvah.”

“A mitzvah I won’t refuse,” the grocer replied. “As to earning money, I learned to be satisfied with what I make in the store.”

Freidl glanced cautiously around the place and lowering her voice, said: “I know you’re an honest man.

I know you can be trusted with— gold.”

Chaim Gamal blanched with terror at the words he heard. He recalled the discussion with the rope-maker

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dealing with gold, wealth. Now the girl was talking about the same thing.

Perhaps he was asleep, dreaming pleasant dreams. Or was it a night­ mare? He was being offered gold!

Perhaps this beautiful stranger was Lilith . . .

Freidl smiled. “I have a friend, you might call him my fiance,” she re­ vealed to the grocer. “We are both expecting important documents that will make it possible for us to leave for a distant land. Then we plan to marry. His name is Nachman Stein—” “May it be with mazal, my daughter! But you let fall a word that is fire in my brain. You mentioned gold.”

“Yes, that’s my reason for coming here to see you,” she said readily.

“My friend wants to pawn twenty gold pieces for money he needs imme­ diately. He needs it only for a short time. If you could provide the money, my friend would repay you handsome­ ly. In addition, you will have per­ formed a good deed.”

“What does he mean to do with the money?” Chaim inquired.

“He told me there’s a good business deal pending.”

Chaim Gamal was assailed by qualms. He was being tested. The Evil One must have a hand in this.

He was being tested and tempted to see if he would resist sinning. She’s a pretty one, he thought. Her eyes sparkled and smiled. Her hair was thick and their flame could singe the fingers of the male who ventured to stroke her. His own wife was ailing: she was thin, bent, and could barely start a fire in the pot. The veins in her hands were blue and stretched against the skin. Her body was skin and bones.

“This deal would be only for a short time,” Freidl interrupted his JEWISH LIFE

sinful thoughts. “You need have no fears. Here, I have the twenty gold pieces. You can give me the money this evening or tomorrow morning.”

ER voice was pleasant in his ears, filled with glad tidings, the sound H of flutes, silver bells, a mountain brook.

Conflicting thoughts hammered in his brain. He could meet her needs with the money he had been able to save over the years by pinching and denying himself and his family. Now, it appeared, luck was turning a smil­ ing countenance upon him. His sav­ ings could be put to profit. Why not try? But Chaim Gamal suspected a trap. Temptation was put in his way to test him.

Finally he said: “It is dangerous to hear such words spoken as you have uttered. I must not even think about it. I am not permitted to have gold. Besides, where will I get the money for the twenty gold pieces you offer me?”

“It is only for a few days,” she reassured him. “You will reap a profit and the gold pledges will be a feast for your eyes.”

“I will not take interest from poor refugees,” Chaim protested. “If your fiance can make a profit from this transaction, I will consider myself well compensated by performing a good deed. Now if he makes a large profit, you can give me a small amount above what I lend you.”

“You’re an honest man,” the girl urged. “You’re not yielding to tempta­ tion, nor are you being tested. One human being should help another.

G-d will reward you. Nor will you lose anything on the deal. My fiance might even make you a partner in the transaction.”

“Partner? G-d forbid!”

July-August, 1963

“Why not?”

“I don’t want it. What’s more, I’m not sure it will be possible for me to get all the money you want. You must give me until tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow morning.”

HE unwrapped the gold pieces.

The precious metal flashed before S the grocer’s eyes, dispelling the dark­ ness. Seldom did the sun penetrate the small, grimy windows of the store.

The street was narrow and the houses on both sides kept out the rays of the sun. But now the golden coins, each one a small sun, shone before Gamal’s eyes. He could gaze at them to his heart’s content.

Freidl counted out twenty gold pieces. He took the gold in his trem­ bling hands and held it. He promised to have the money for her early next morning, to borrow if necessary.

“You’ll have the amount you require,” he assured her.

At night Chaim Gamal could not sleep, tossing and turning on his bed.

Temptation was overpowering him; he could not refuse the girl’s request.

Chaim Gamal, lay on his bed, bound hand and foot in temptation’s coils.

He opened the store early in the morning. Freidl soon appeared and he gave her the money which he’d taken from behind the brick in the wall and borrowed from neighbors. ❖

*

*

HAIM GAMAL was filled with elation. His little dark, dank store was a repository of wealth. When alone in the store, or at night when members of the household were asleep, he took out the twenty gold pieces and gazed at them enraptured. The gold sparkled and warmed him and made his spirits soar, like a pleasant dream. Occasionally he was assailed

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by vague nagging thoughts that one day he would have to part with the gold. The girl would come with the money and ask for the gold. Un­ doubtedly she would return a larger sum than the one she borrowed.

Chaim Gamal planned to give all his profit to the poor refugees and to the impoverished of Casablanca. He fore­ saw no pleasure in keeping the profit: It was forbidden to hold on to profit.

Temptation had been put in his way, but he would resist it.

However, the few days that the gold was in Chaim Gamal’s possession wrought a change in him. His thoughts were a constant battleground between good and evil. Why spurn riches? He envisioned a fine dwelling that could be his, perhaps even another wife, young and pretty, on whom he could lean in his old age. On the other hand—supposing Freidl failed to come and claim the gold pieces? The treasure, in that case, would remain with him. He foresaw the price of gold rising, while money became cheaper. He would become wealthy.

Wealth brought with it more wealth, honor and expanded horizons of knowledge . . . But he knew that there was not a treasure in all the universe entrusted to a person forever. A man’s soul was the greatest of treasures— and this too was given for only a brief period. . .

NE day Chaim Gamal sat on the doorstep of his store, an open O book before him. His thoughts were far removed from the tiny letters on the yellow pages.

He felt sad about the news reach­ ing him of events beyond Morocco.

The world was on fire. Jewish lives were a cheap, expendable commodity; no helping hand reached out to them, not even from heaven. The gates of 30

compassion were locked, bolted.

Whom would Moshiach rescue?

Deep in thought, he did not see Freidl until she was close to him.

She greeted him and Chaim Gamal,* startled by her presence, said: “Your coming here is always a blessing.’’

She entered the store, followed by Chaim Gamal, his knees trembling.

Anxiously he waited for her to speak, expecting the worst. But her gay voice was calm, sounding in his ears like the singing of a flute. “I’ve come to ask you for fifteen of the gold pieces,” she said. “My finance found a customer who is paying him a good price for the gold. I will return in an hour with your money. Then you will give me the remaining five gold pieces.”

Chaim Gamal felt hot and cold.

His brain began pounding: “I’ll have to part with the treasure, all is lost.”

Treasure . . . happiness . . . these were birds in swift flight.

“But why can’t I keep the gold for the money I gave you?” he asked. “If I did not give you enough money, I’ll pawn or sell all I have in my store and pay you—” Freidl seized him by the arm and cried: “No, you can’t do that. We’re getting a good price for the gold.

Besides, we couldn’t sell it to you anyway, the law of the land forbids it.” | Chaim Gamal went to the place where he had hidden the gold. With cold fingers the grocer counted out fifteen pieces of sunshine. He gave Freidl the treasure and wished her success. She left and Chaim Gamal hid the five remaining pieces of gold.

He was certain now that his pleasant dream of owning gold, riches, of tak­ ing another wife, perhaps even Nemi, the skinner’s young daughter who was as pretty as the refugee, all these were JEWISH LIFE

at an end. The money he’d saved over a span of many years was of little worth. He would hide it again behind the brick in the wall. The commission he planned to donate to his unfor­ tunate brothers, the refugees.

E sat down and waited. The hour had long passed but Freidl did not return as she’d promised. A dread­ ful fear seized hold of him. For the first time Chaim Gamal asked him­ self: who is the girl? He had not even written down her name properly. He had entrusted to her all the money he possessed in addition to what he bor­ rowed from several neighbors. His savings all these years were pennies he’d put by, one at a time, denying his wife the medication she required, denying the youngsters a hot meal and himself a new cloak.

He sat on the doorstep and waited many hours. She did not come. It wasn’t possible, he thought, his brain in turmoil, for one person to destroy another in so quiet a fashion. De­ spondent, he sat mourning his loss.

Only one thought calmed and con­ soled him: the time of total evil was upon them and therefore Moshiach was due any hour* Finally, towards evening, she came.

Her eyes were filled with terror. “He’s gone!” she cried. “He took the gold pieces from me and promised to give me money for them, double the amount we borrowed from you. He took the gold and told me to wait.

I waited, hour after hour. He did not come back. I’m sure now he’s gone, probably on the ship that left Casa­ blanca this morning.” She began to sob. “He’s not my fiance, Chaim Gamal. I deceived you. You can strike me if you wish. You can call the police. I lied to you!”

He ceased listening to her cries.

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His head ached as though an iron band were pressing on it. His eyes were befogged. His knees turned to water. Here, then, was the punish­ ment for his desire to own gold. G-d had sent Lilith to him in the guise of a Jewish refugee girl. He had sought to perform a mitzvah and at the same time reap the reward of riches. But it was not possible to achieve both.

Chaim Gamal became an old man overnight. He feared to touch the five gold pieces still in his possession.

He felt that a curse was upon him. * * * HAIM GAMAL sold out what little remained in the store to pay his creditors. Now he waited for Moshiach’s coming to succor him from his misery. He gave Freidl Gipps no thought until one day she appeared in the store. Her voice was halting, repentant: “I want to repay all I took from you. I have been deceived, Chaim Gamal, and humiliated. I’m going to stay in Morocco, work and repay you.”

Chaim Gamal gazed at her with compassion. “She’s not guilty,” he thought. He, Chaim Gamal, was the guilty one. He had yearned for gold, riches, a young wife. To tempt and test him, the Evil One had sent an emissary, offering him all these things he desired. Tested, he was found want­ ing. Now he must accept responsibility for his act and suffer punishment.

It struck Chaim Gamal suddenly that he was a miserable pauper. His children would never taste a hot meal, nor his wife benefit from medication.

And they might as wpll forget about buying a new coal pot.

“You are not guilty,” he said to the girl. “The guilt is all mine. I am the one who should be punished.”

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“No, Chaim Gamal,” the girl pro­ tested, “you’re honesty itself. I’m the one who committed the crime. I will repay you every last cent.”

But Chaim Gamal would not hear of it. “I carry the sole responsibility.

I shall abide by the Creator’s verdict and accept the blame!”

She left the store, puzzled by the grocer’s strange words.

VERY one of the refugees had a tie that bound him with some distant land, a relative or friend.

Freidl too succeeded in locating an overseas relative and finally received important documents making possible her departure for America. But she did not make use of the papers. In­ stead she sought work eagerly, taking whatever job came along. The threat of being deported to the Sahara hung over her constantly. But she continued working, bringing all she earned to Chaim Gamal’s store. The grocer argued with her, unwilling to accept the money. But Freidl stubbornly in­ sisted on repaying all she owed him.

The danger of the girl being sent to the Sahara became daily more pressing. One day she brought the last of her belongings, several dresses, and offered them to the grocer. “This is all I own,” she said, “take it. If I survive, I’ll send you the rest—until all is repaid.”

Terrified, as though bitten by a poisonous $nake, Chaim Gamal began gesticulating wildly. “Such sacrifices I do not want! Take back these things, your clothes, and go. Leave Morocco while there is still time, before you’re

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sent to the desert. Those documents from America . . . use them!”

She listened without hearing, then turned and left the store.

And now Chaim Gamal knew with­ out any doubt that Moshiach would not come until the world became totally evil or completely pure. A middle ground was not possible. He saw clearly that the world was still far removed from total evil. True, evil and sin were everywhere. But Freidl Gipps was clear evidence that goodness and purity had not been completely vanquished. Freidl, he knew, sacrificed her happiness, scorned a bright future in order to save her soul. She performed menial tasks, and now was prepared to go volun­ tarily to a place where only trial and misery awaited her—all because she was determined to repay a debt. While Freidl’s act did not outweigh the evil abroad in the world, it did keep the scales from tipping completely. This being the case, Moshiach was not yet due to come.

E sat on the doorstep of his store, waiting for someone to appear H and ask for castor oil, needle and thread, or a bottle of wine to honor the Sabbath. He castigated himself for being a sinner filled with guilt. Not only had he sinned, lusting for riches, gold and women, but he had been responsible for the torture and suffer­ ing of a Jewish soul. Great had been his weakness before temptation. Would that G-d might grant him the strength to rise to the spiritual height Which the refugee girl had achieved. . .

JEWISH LIFE

Careers in Veterinary Medicine

By WALTER DUCKAT

SMALL, but fast-growing and highly useful health profession is veterinary medicine. There are only about 20,000 practicing “vets” in the United States. Yet, despite their paucity in numbers, they render im­ portant service in safeguarding the health of animals as well as humans.

Their research has also helped to increase the production of cattle and poultry. Recently, they have been studying the effect of radioactive fall­ out and biological warfare on animal and plant life. There are also other activities in which veterinarians con­ tribute to both human and animal welfare.

While it is relatively new among the health professions, there are refer­ ences to animal physicians in the Code of Hammurabi, written more than 4,000 years ago. This code in­ cludes fees to be charged for teach­ ing animals and prescribes penalties for malpractice. The ancient Vedic writings of India also reveal the ex­ istence of veterinary hospitals.

Various Greek and Roman writers such as Hippocrates, Aristotle, and Vegetius wrote on the diseases of ani­ mals and principles of hygiene. There was little progress in this field from

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the time of the ancient Greeks until about 1740, when a school of veteri­ nary medicine was opened in France.

Enormous progress was made during the last half of the 19th century and subsequently when the profession benefited from advances in medicine and other branches of science.

EWISH interest and solicitude for the welfare of animals also goes back to ancient times. The rabbis re­ garded “Tzar Baaley Chayim,” rough­ ly translated as the prevention of cruelty to animals, as a Biblical in­ junction. There are a number of Bibli­ cal laws indicating unusual concern for animals and birds. The ox, for example, was not to be muzzled while threshing so as to be free to eat corn.

It was forbidden to pair an ox and a donkey, presumably because the burden might be too heavy for the weaker animal. The mother and her young were not to be slaughtered on the same day. Animals were to be allowed to rest on the Sabbath. Jew­ ish regard for animal life led to the prohibition of hunting as a sport.

Many non-Jewish scientists have ac­ knowledged that the laws of Shechitah are humane. The Talmud declares,

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“Before beginning his own meal, the Jew should feed his animals.” Tradi­ tion declares Moses and David were selected as leaders of Israel because, as shepherds, they had displayed kind­ ness to animals.

In modern times, Jewish interest in animals has continued. Some Jews have gained distinction in veterinary medicine. Professor P. Levine of Cor­ nell is nationally known. Both he and Dr. S. Goldhaft have made important contributions affecting poultry. Dr. Frank Blum is an outstanding pathol­ ogist and Dr. Adolph Eichhorn was a leading government official who was formerly head of the American Veterinarian Medical Association.

“cover” for him on Shabboth and Yom Tov. Moreover, he may choose to work in other phases of veterinary medicine. He may decide to teach at a school of Veterinary Medicine. If so, it is desirable that he possess an M.A. or Ph.D. degree. He may also work for Federal or state govern­ mental agencies. He may enlist in the Armed Forces, where he would be commissioned as a first lieutenant. He may also engage in research for a commercial or non-profit making agency. Research veterinarians work for pharmaceutical and animal food companies directing the production of baceterins, vaccines, serums, and anti-toxins.

The Shomer Shabboth may prefer to work for the Federal or a state government. Here his duties might in­ clude testing cows for tuberculosis and other diseases in order to prevent diseased meat and dairy products. He would also probably inoculate animals to prevent diseases, as well as study the outbreak of epidemics to prevent their spread. Other “vets” specialize in inspecting poultry and animals de­ signed for human consumption before, during, and after slaughter. “Vets” also supervise sanitary conditions gov­ erning the handling, storing, and shipping of meats and meat products.

Some veterinarians advise on breed­ ing, animal hygiene, feeding, etc.

HE Jewish applicant who seeks admission to one of the eighteen approved schools in the United States or the additional two in Canada en­ counters a number of difficulties, not necessarily because of his religion.

Most of the schools are state institu­ tions and consequently give prefer­ ence to residents of their state. Sec­ ond, the schools prefer students from farm areas who have lived on farms or worked with animals because the need for “vets” is greatest in farm areas. Since most Jews come from urban communities, they are handi­ capped on both counts. Yet, qualified Jewish students are accepted even from urban areas.

The Shomer Shabboth who elects HOSE “vets” who plan to enter this field will probably encounter a the field of public health, college number of severe obstacles. Most teaching, or research should obtain schools have classes or field work on beside their D.V.M. (Doctor of Ve­ Shabboth. Although he may surmount terinary Medicine) an M.A. or pre­ this obstacle, he may suffer some ferably a Ph.D. degree. economic loss in private practice The veterinarian who desires to because Saturday is one of the busiest become a general practitioner could days for the private practitioner. choose between rural and urban prac­ If he is self-employed, he may hire tice. If he chooses the former, he another non-Jewish veterinarian to would deal mainly with large animals

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JEWISH LIFE

such as cows, horses, steers, etc. His duties would include regular physical examinations of the animals and dis­ ease testing. He would also advise owners on the best sanitary measures to pursue. He would offer tips on feedingoand breeding. He would vac­ cinate various animals, poultry, and dogs. He would treat various animals which have been injured or which have difficulty in delivering their young.

The rural veterinarian, along with others, employs antibiotics or other medicines as well as surgery, which is performed under anesthesia. He works very hard and is on call seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day. He usually treats his “patients” on the farm rather than in his hospital. Some vets work part-time for the Bureau of Animal Industry of the U. S. De­ partment of Agriculture or for state agencies. Others work part-time for local meat packing plants.

Most Jewish veterinarians prefer city practice. This is generally less rigorous than rural practices. Also it offers greater opportunity for Jewish communal life and professional asso­ ciation. Income too is usually substan­ tially higher in urban practice.

The city vet usually devotes most of his time to the care of pets, which requires an especially built animal hospital. He may provide medical care and perform hysterectomies and other operations and treatments. Other serv­ ices the veterinarian renders are such highly profitable activities as board­ ing and hair cutting.

More than two-thirds of all prac­ ticing veterinarians are in private practice. Adequate capital is needed for quarters, equipment, and to sus­ tain the young vet while he builds his practice. The amount necessary deJuly-August, 1963

pends on the location and how wellappointed is the office established.

As in medicine and other fields, some vets specialize. The greatest number of specialists are found in pet practice, usually dogs, cats, and birds.

There is also the poultry specialist who treats the ailments of farm fowl, such as turkeys, geese, chickens and ducks. The veterinary pathologist studies the changes in the tissues and organs of diseased animals to deter­ mine the nature of their diseases.

HE income of the veterinarian depends on the nature of his prac­ tice and employment. If he is em­ ployed by another vet, his salary will start at about $125.00 a week, may work up to about $200 a week after several years. Recent graduates may enter full-time positions in the Federal government at about $7,000 a year.

Those who open their own office usually meet their expenses the first year and can supplement their income by working part time for govern­ mental agencies. Some vets who prac­ tice in wealthy communities are known to earn up to $50,000 a year.

Income of $25,000 a year and more is common.

It is desirable that those who plan to follow this career possess good health, dexterity in handling instru­ ments, emotional balance, aboveaverage intelligence, good powers of observation, a business sense, and, of course, a love of animals.

In high school, the future vet should take courses in physical and natural sciences, mathematics, and Latin. He is expected to have com­ pleted at least two years of college (many candidates apply for admission after completing three or more years of college). His undergraduate studies should include courses in chemistry

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35

and other sciences. His chances of admission will improve if he possesses a minimum scholastic average of B, although applicants with lower aver­ ages may be accepted.

There are several hundred women veterinarians who constitute less than five percent of all practitioners. They usually limit their practice to pets.

Some work for zoos and other or­ ganizations. Many veterinary schools are reluctant to admit women. Those, however, who are accepted can readily earn a good income and gain accept­ ance.

The course at the College of Veterinary Medicine lasts four years.

Most schools offer such courses as anatomy, embryology, histology, pathology, bacteriology, immunology, medicine, physiology, biochemistry, surgery, parasitology, pharmacology, materia medica, food hygiene, and diseases of the reproductive system.

About twenty-five to thirty percent of the student’s time is spent in various clinical sessions to acquire practical experience.

Each of the eighteen schools in the United States is associated with a state university or a college. The ex­ act requirements for admission differ somewhat in different schools and interested persons should write to the schools of their choice.

To practice this profession, a license is necessary. To obtain this, applicants are usually expected to graduate from an approved veterinary school and to pass a State Board examination. Sev­ eral states demand practical experi­ ence under the tutelage of a licensed veterinarian. Some states grant li­ censes to those who have passed an examination in another state.

V 36

ETERINARY medicine offers those who love animals consid­

erable satisfaction in ministering to them. One pleasure is in witnessing how, after a major operation, a horse or a dog, etc., gets to its feet as soon as it emerges from anesthesia. It walks about, eats and drinks heartily and soon engages in its usual activities with no untoward effect.

Veterinarians also take pride in the important role they play in protecting the health of animal and human life.

Most vets earn incomes which com­ pare favorably with that of other pro­ fessional groups. The demand for vets will continue to be strong for an indefinite period because of the need to replace annual retirements from the field and the increasing number of animals needed to feed our grow­ ing population. Another important factor is the growth of suburbs, which has increased the need for vets to serve the pets which more families own in suburbia. These and other de­ velopments will spur the growth of this profession.

Yet, as in all fields, there are also disadvantages. Some veterinarians feel that the profession does not enjoy the prestige of the physician. Most selfemployed vets work long hours. One study revealed that the average work week reported was more than fifty hours. More than one-half of the vets studied work more than sixty hours.

The veterinarian also faces some health hazards, although he is trained to guard against this.

Those who are qualified and inter­ ested, however, will be influenced by the attractive features. Those inter­ ested in information regarding this vocation may write to The American Veterinary Medical Association, 600 S. Michigan Avenue, Chicago 5, Illinois or The Agricultural Research Service, U.S. Department of Agricul­ ture, Washington 25, D.C. JEWISH LIFE

Tropical Refuge

By JACOB BELLER

HE British air line from Port of Visa inspection is a rather perfunc­ T Spain, the capital of Trinidad, tory affair, since you are not coming brings you in an hour’s flight to Bar­ to stay. As a tourist you need only bados, one of the most beautiful and picturesque islands of the Caribbean shores. The difference can be felt while the passenger is still in flight.

On all the flights over Latin America hitherto—which have been by a U.S. air line—the traveller is aware of the characteristic American speed and efficiency. Even high up in the air, where people normally become more informal and relaxed, you can still feel the American super-speed. Even the stewardess’s smile, which she grants you from time to time, is in haste; it appears for a moment and vanishes just as quickly.

Here on the British air line the over-done luxury and comfort is lack­ ing, but one does get the feel of a tradition. There isn’t the hurry and bustle; you have time to have a chat with your neighbor. The stewardess’s smile seems to last longer even though she may appear less frequently.

The airplane lands at the airport of Bridgetown, the capital of Bar­ bados. The airport, encircled by palm trees, makes a pleasant impression.

July-August,1963

state how much foreign currency you have with you—and the more the better. You are given a form to fill out stating the amount you expect to spend and on leaving you are, of course, free to keep the unused bal­ ance. Barbados was in the sterling bloc when I was there and was care­ ful not to permit the export of funds.

OU take your first walk in the Y island and you learn very quickly why the island is a paradise for American tourists, even for tourists from Latin American countries like Venezuela, Colombia, Guatemala, and Curacao which have a favorable rate of exchange. They can live comfort­ ably on very little, even in the best hotels.

Most of the hotels are so con­ structed that all the rooms lead into balconies overlooking the ocean from which there blow mild breezes night and day. This gives the visitor the feeling of sleeping in a ship far out at sea. He can clearly hear the beat of the waves and the refreshing smell 37

of the invigorating and healthy sea air. It is not surprising that the Bar­ bados poet Alcester MacMillan has sung of the island’s romantic climate.

The perpetually blue nights of the island go well with the gay and care­ free nature of its inhabitants, who dress in brightly-colored garb and who greet all strangers with a hearty “Good morning, sah!”

This remarkable island has been a British possession since its official dis­ covery in 1627. There is some infor­ mation, however, pointing to an earlier discovery. In 1536, when the Portuguese were seeking new terri­ tories, their navigator Pedro Campos landed in Barbados on his way to Brazil. The island is sometimes called “little England” or “the sanitorium of the West Indies,” both for its mild, healthy climate and for its pure water, a rarity in the isles of the Caribbean.

Water may be taken there quite safely in its undistilled form; it will be free of the various disease-laden malaria germs so prevalent in these areas.

This, of course, accounts for the island’s dense population. More than seventy percent of its soil is cultivated and of this, half is devoted to sugar.

The sugar plantations have attracted wineries and rum distilleries. In an area of 166 square miles the popula­ tion is seventy percent Negro, seven percent white, and the remainder of mixed race.

ND what about Jews in this reA . mote but beautiful island? On my first walk through its streets I closely scrutinized all comers, taking pains to read all shop signs. I looked into the faces of the passersby. But to no avail. Back in Surinam I had been told to expect about thirty-five Jewish families here. A Surinam Jew had even given me the address of a 38

brother here. But today is a holiday, the shops are all shut and I can’t make any enquiries. My curiosity is impatient and I can hardly wait for the morning.

On the main square at the terminal for the busses and taxis there are guides soliciting, offering to take you to the most beautiful and most inter­ esting sections of the city. “Do you want to see the seacoast? It’s called Bathsheba and from a point on the beach you can see the whole island,” I am assured by a Negro guide wear­ ing a broad straw hat and white and checked trousers. “Or would you pre­ fer the cathedral—the oldest in all the Caribbean islands,” or trying again, as he sees I have not yet re­ acted: “the historical museum that all the tourists go to” he grins at me with his sparkling white teeth.

“No,” I reply, “none of these in­ terest me as yet.”

“What then does interest you?” he says looking at me curiously.

“Do you know what Hebrews are?

Jews?”

He thinks for a while and then grins again showing me two rows of gleaming teeth.

“Yes sah, I know.”

“Can you show me where one lives?”

“Come with me.”

A few moments later we were standing in front of a neatly-built house surrounded by a garden. My guide pulled a bell and a woman appeared. The guide introduced me to her as a “landsman.” She greeted me with a familiar “Gutn Ovent.”

“A Gut Yor,” I replied in the tradi­ tional way.

Then followed the inevitable ques­ tion that a Jew always asks when he meets other Jews abroad: “Where are you from?”, followed by an invitaJEWISH LIFE

tion to come in. I paid the guide and noted how well he had guided me, bringing me to the very house that served as synagogue and meetingplace for the thirty-five families on the island. Early that evening I was the guest of these families who came together to hear some news of the Jewish world.

HEY were all refugees from East European countries who had man­ aged to escape Hitler’s grasp before the annihilation process started and who found their way to this island.

They had started with the character­ istic Jewish trade, peculiar to this part of the Hemisphere—peddling with a pack, and selling on credit. As is generally the case, the moment they felt the soil under their feet they thought of a house of worship and set up a synagogue. . As they walked through the streets with their peddler’s packs—they told me . . . they would come across various traces of a long-forgotten Jewish past.

In one place they would see an old Oron Kodesh, in another a large syna­ gogue platform and pulpit and even certain sacred objects used in the Jewish ritual. The first Rosh Hashonah they worshipped as a minyon.

When the islanders saw them wrapped in their taleithim some came running in with shreds and tatters of old taleithim which had belonged to their grandfathers. One even boasted that he remembered his grandfather lead­ ing the davenning.

It is a peculiar coincidence that the businesses currently owned by Jews are all located on the same street which once was the Joodenstraat— the “Jewish street.” It is now called Swanstraat and on it is the former synagogue and the historic graveyard of the Jewish community of three

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July-August, 1963

centuries ago. This cemetery was the subject of a complicated dispute last­ ing many years, between the Spanish and Portugese Synagogue of London and the purchaser of the property.

A new set of complications arose when the property went over to a second purchaser who did not carry out the agreed provisions that the cemetery be kept in good order and not be violated, and that it revert to the possession of a Jewish community should such a community some day be re-established there.

HIS remote island has a re­ markable Jewish past, going back T to the year 1655 when Oliver Crom­ well gave permission to two Jewish physicians, David Raphael Mercado and his son, the leaders of the Jewish community of Recife, to settle and practice their profession there. A year later, the Portuguese recaptured the city but according to the historian Schomburgk, Jews were mentioned as living in Barbados as early as 1626.

The synagogue records reveal that the oldest tombstone was placed in 1660.

It was that of Aaron de Mercado.

Medicine was a Jewish profession in Portugal at that time. Even the physicians at the royal court were Marranos. It was on their behalf that King Manuel passed an ordinance in 1497 (at the beginning of the per­ secutions in that country) permitting those doctors not knowing Latin to make use of Hebrew medical books.

In the New World too, many of the Marranos were medical men and ex­ erted a great influence on the medical history of Brazil. In his work “The History of Medicine in Brazil,” the Brazilian historian Licurgo Santos Filho writes that the physicians, sur­ geons, and pharmacists whom the Portugese crown contracted for Brazil 39

in the sixteenth century were all “New Christians,” i.e. Marranos.

It is understandable therefore, that the first official pioneers of Jewry in Barbados were doctors. In the years 1649-1652 David Raphael de Mer­ cado was one of the leaders of Recife’s kehillah. After them came other groups of Jews who brought from Brazil the cultivation of sugar planta­ tions, an industry which brought pros­ perity to the island. In 1657 the island’s Jews sent two emissaries to Amsterdam who brought back two Sifrey Torah, a Shulchon, and vari­ ous liturgical items. The second com­ munity, that of Speightstown, also sent an emissary who brought a Sefer Torah. The Bridgetown congregation was called Nid’he Israel and the Speightstown congregation was named Semach David. The first leader of the community was Abraham Gab ay Isidore, a native of Spain, whence his parents had fled to London where he was circumcized. Later he studied in Amsterdam. The founder of the Speightstown community was Joseph Jeshurun Mendes. He was also known as Diaz and is mentioned by Cecil Roth in his book “The Marranos” as having been one of the leaders of the Jews of Recife.

the prayers recited at this occasion.

From about this time on the Jew­ ish community steadily declined in numbers. This was partly due to the hurricanes that damaged the coffee plantations and in part to the emanci­ pation of the slaves who worked in the Jewish-owned plantations. Many of the Jewish families left for Eng­ land, where they maintained business relations with Barbados. Because of local competition, however, they did not maintain this contact very long and some left for the United States.

In 1869 the Jewish communal leaders made out a testament setting up the cemetery and all the other communal possessions as a trust, decreeing that as long as a single Jew remained on the island, the burial grounds and the house of worship should be re­ tained for Jewish use. Should no Jews remain any longer, the two institu­ tions were to go over to the hands of the Bevis Marks Spanish and Por­ tuguese synagogue in London.

In 1848 there remained in Barbados only seventy Jewish families. Inter­ marriage and assimilation due to dis­ tance from larger communities had taken their toll. Of these seventy only thirty-eight families were enrolled in the Jewish community.

I

N 1833, because of severe hurri­ cane damage, the synagogue was rebuilt and was at the same time en­ larged and improved. According to the records of that day there was a sympathetic response to this from the non-Jewish populace; the Jews were then a significant element in the gen­ eral community. The dedication cere­ mony was attended by all segments of the population including the high­ est government officials and other notables. The journals of the day which have been preserved mention

Y the beginning of this century the number of Jewish families had declined to twenty. Anticipating the demise of the community by its constant diminution and fearing the eventual loss of the synagogue ceme­ tery and other institutions, the com­ munity leadership took further steps to prevent this property falling into the hands of strangers. They made legal arrangements to ensure that for the next hundred years, as long as there was one Jew living in Barbados, he would have a place to pray and a

40

JEWISH LIFE

B

burial plot.

By 1905 the trustees who had signed the declaration were no longer among the living. Only two Jews re­ mained on the island, the brothers Joshua and Edmund Baeza, both prominent merchants. Joshua died and Edmund Baeza remained as the island’s sole surviving Jew. Realizing that the time had come to give thought to the communal institutions, he wrote to the Bevis Marks syna­ gogue outlining the situation and ask­ ing for power to proceed, which he received.

On March 27th, 1928 Baeza sold the community possessions to Henry Graham Yearwood, a Bridgetown solicitor, for the sum of £600. The contract stipulated that the burial ground should be maintained, its grounds, fence, and gate be kept in good order, and that it not be used for any other purpose. The right was reserved to investigate if necessary to see that these conditions were being observed.

The purchaser had the idea of sell­ ing or contributing the synagogue to the government as a national museum.

He proposed to the Bevis Marks con­ gregation that the broken tombstones be discarded and the others be cut to a uniform size in order to restore some appearance of order to the burial grounds. The Spanish and Portuguese Congregation rejected this proposal on grounds of religious law and Mr. Baeza was asked to seek another pur­ chaser who would bind himself to their terms. Because of the strictures of the Londoners, Baeza sold only the synagogue, the former home of the rabbi, and the surrounding land for the same sum of £600. The cemetery, however, remained unsold and in the possession of the Bevis Marks synagogue in London. A sum July-August, 1963

of money was extended to Baeza to repair this cemetery. An enquiry from the London synagogue brought the answer that some tombstones had been cut down in size and that the grounds and graves were in sad need of repair and maintenance.

N

OTHING has come yet of the plan to sell or give the synagogue to the government as a national monu­ ment. In 1934 Barbados’ last Jew died, closely followed by the solicitor who had purchased the properties. The synagogue and other possessions were taken over by a second purchaser, a Mr. S. C. Hutchinson, also a Bridge­ town solicitor. A public auction was held of the furniture and sacred ob­ jects and a large part of the massive furniture came into the hands of antique dealers in the U.S.A. Smaller items were taken up by the islanders.

The new proprietor, Mr. Hutchinson, gave little heed to the clauses of the contract with the London Spanish and Portuguese synagogue and he cut a road through the cemetery for the first buyer, got rid of the old tomb­ stones, and built a garage on the spot.

It was more than a coincidence that one of the newcomers, Moishe Altman—whose body I am told now lies buried in the same cemetery— passed by this burial ground at the very time the new owner was shovel­ ling aside the broken fragments of stone. Negotiations were going on then between the trustees of the Spanish-Portuguese synagogue in London and the recently arrived Jewish refu­ gees in Barbados who had found out that, according to the contract, the cemetery now reverted to them.

Moishe Altman is reported to have reprimanded the garage-builder, say­ ing: “You haven’t G-d in your heart.

You are desecrating the graves of the 41

dead—and this is a great sin.” The answer came: “This is my property.

I’ve bought it and I can do as I wish on it.”

A little while later, so I was told, Mr. Hutchinson fell sick, the doctors could not diagnose his ailment, and he died. The story is that he left a will which returned the cemetery to the Jews. His wife maintained that his death was due to his having dese­ crated the graveyard.

The Spanish and Portuguese Con­ gregation of London, in the meantime, was negotiating with the new Jewish community of Barbados. A sum of money was determined upon for re­ pair and restoration; a committee was formed which included a representa­ tive of the Museum Historical Society.

A statute was enacted upon the initia­ tive of this committee giving the cemetery the status of an historical and religious site which must not be violated. The London congregation wanted some assurance from the Jews then living in Barbados that they would be there permanently, for if they were the synagogue too would revert to them. However, since many of them only considered the island as a place of transit and eventually planned to move to a larger com­ munity, this plan was not fulfilled.

The synagogue is now the office of the Barbados Turf Club.

T is interesting to find that it is the non-Jewish member of the com­ mittee representing the Museum His­ torical Society of Barbados who has recorded the history of the historic Jewish cemetery of the island—the oldest in the Western Hemisphere. It was E. M. Shilstone, a Barbados bar­ rister, who started the work, as he tells in his book “Jewish Monumental Inscriptions.” Even as a little boy, it appears, the cemetery aroused his in­

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42

terest. The daughter of the syna­ gogue’s last baal koreh (Torah reader) used to satisfy his curiosity with accounts of its history and would take him for walks to look at the curious writing on the stones. The Torah reader’s name, incidentally, was Daniels. There are descendants of that name still on the island today but they have no relationship to Jews or Judaism.

For eight years Mr. Shilstone’s office was located opposite the en­ trance to the synagogue and he would often look at the ceremonies the Jews conducted there. More and more his interest was caught up by the strange inscriptions on the ancient headstones and he began to copy them down. He found the Portuguese, Spanish, and English words and phrases not difficult to transcribe or understand and he began to publish these in a quarterly issued by the historical museum. With great effort Mr. Shilstone dusted off the old stones and started to copy the Hebrew inscriptions, which were totally unreadable to him. In 1938 he went to the United States and met Mr. Edward Coleman, librarian of the Jewish Historical Society, to whom he showed his copies of the Hebrew inscriptions. Both Mr. Cole­ man and Rabbi David de Sola Pool of the Spanish and Portuguese Syna­ gogue of New York encouraged him to proceed with the task. Mr. Shil­ stone set out to acquire some knowl­ edge of Hebrew to better familiarize himself with the inscriptions. He con­ tinued his efforts diligently. Mr. Cole­ man visited Barbados twice and showed enthusiasm for Mr. Shilstone’s findings. He gathered and published almost 400 inscriptions taken from this burial ground. His book is an ex­ cellent record of the Jewish past of this Caribbean island.

JEWISH LIFE

V ^T H E N I visited Barbados I went W to see the Jewish cemetery. The inscription over the entrance, now re­ paired and legible, reads (in Hebrew) as follows: Hayilodim Vmaveth v’hamethim Vhahayoth (The born are destined for death, the dead for resurrection).

The partly destroyed stones, now repaired, have fairly legible epitaphs, inscriptions which reflect the charac­ ter of the community of this island.

Those no longer readable can be traced in the book of E. M. Shilstone in which all the data and wording has been carefully and patiently regis­ tered. Explanations of missing orna­ ments and decorative symbols are given and the inscriptions with miss­ ing words and passages obliterated through wear and erosion are pro­ vided with the supplementary letters, words, and phrases.

The two most important monu­ ments are those of the pioneers of the two local communities of Bridgetown and Speightstown. That of David Raphael de Mercado is dated 1685.

Its text is in three languages—Eng­ lish, Spanish and Hebrew. The English and Hebrew texts read, verbatim, as follows: Here lyeth ye body of David Raphael de Mercado Merchant who departed This world ye 14th of August 1685 nvpK f n f f i nt&w igm ns nso m p n Kin ^k s i m n ay ^ i m 0 % <Tn w b j

The inscription reads: Here is buried the Body of Mr. LEWIS DIAZ who was be­ loved and Respected by all men in his time he died on the 27 of December A 1699 Being 83 years of age (Joseph Jeshurun Mendes— Lewis Diaz was his alias) There are a number of interesting epitaphs on the stones which repay some study because of their style— in some cases a very flowery ornate Hebrew and in some cases whole passages of poetry: A noted figure of his time whose remains lie interred in the Barbados cemetery was Rabbi Raphael Haim Isaac Carigal, who once served as rabbi in Curasao and later became rabbi of the Kehilla Nid’he Israel in Barbados, and passed away very young. His epitaph reads: Here lyeth the remains of the Learned & Rev. Rabbi Raphael Haim Isaac Carigal Worthy Pastor of the Synagogue N. I. who departed this life on the 19 of May 1777 Age 48 Years.

pimn Wm mnn mnp n^n ¡ £ | p f f P n’ryan -pnjn p H p is m iD i nn"K ^ n a p pnip

wk Ky*>D*n:m:i 7ktb” 'rm

r a ta o

¡ p i §|h t ^k unm6?or* a"** n"D p

mm Dnsn -nx 5k ItySB -M ' “JT | | p j g p*HXK1 m IK

rwyn pny tkdi

*

*h j >qy t b u d nr>j The second monument is that of Joseph Jeshurun Mendes, also known as Luiz Diaz, who died in 1690 at the age of 83 and who was a founder of the synagogue in Speightstown.

July-August, 1963

*

*

HE thirty-five Jewish families of present-day Barbados are the suc­ cessors of their forerunners of long ago.

They are, subject to permanent resi­ dence, heirs in right to the communal property of a kehillah that existed in

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quiet isolation for centuries, and heirs also to the spirit and traditions of this kehillah. Those who established the original Barbados community es­ caped, against all odds, from ruthless persecution, and those who formed the present-day community likewise escaped providentially from fiendish oppression. The rise of the first Jew­

44

ish community on this distant island has in it an aspect of the miraculous, and so too, does that of the later com­ munity. A community was born, it endured, then slowly disappeared . . . only to be re-born. Here, surely, lies profound meaning, a message unmis­ takable from a by-path in Jewish history.

JEWISH LIFE

Kavonah and Tefillah

By EMANUEL FELDMAN E live in a time in which more and more of our people are making serious efforts to return to the basics of Judaism. The increase in synagogue membership and activity is but a surface manifestation of this return. Beneath the surface we are beginning to see stirrings which indicate that the so-called religious revival might be more than skin-deep. Fuller observance of the Mitzvoths, deeper awareness of Jewish responsibilities, honest personal commitment to the Torah way of life—these are the deeper aspects of the return to Torah which is now in its first stages in this country.

The returning Jew normally makes his first contact with Judaism through the synagogue and its worship. It is therefore precisely here— in the manner of worship and prayer—where it is necessary to restate cer­ tain fundamentals which can transform mere recitation into a majestic experience and ordinary words into real contact with the Almighty.

Our tradition tells us that kavonah is the sine qua non of prayer.

When one prays without kavonah, we are told, one is mouthing dry words and stale formulas. Kavonah has several connotations. Its original mean­ ing is derived from the Hebrew root meaning “to direct a straight line.”

When one prays with kavonah, one is consciously directing his thoughts and words,, To mean what one is doing, to be conscious and aware of it, not to do it automatically, habitually, perfunctorily, but with intention: this is kavonah.

W

UT, one might ask, intention to do what? Consciousness of what?

Certainly there is more involved than the proper pronunciation of B words. Our law requires that prayers should involve consciousness of, and intention to, G-d, a direction of the heart and of the mind to the Creator.

Can one express kavonah externally? It is possible. Our sacred writ­ ings are rich with examples of various physical expressions of kavonah.

Singing, raising of the hands, falling to the ground, falling on one’s face all of these are found in the Bible as various physical manifestations of an inwardness and an intention and a consciousness of G-d during prayer.

Thus it is that King David proclaims in the Psalm, (35:10): “All my bones shall say, Lord, who is like unto Thee.”

July-August, 1963

45

Basically and fundamentally, however, kavonah is an inward matter.

It is interesting to note what the Shulchon Oruch, which is frequently re­ ferred to by the uninformed as a cold, dry legal code, has to say about this, based on the Mishnah and on Maimonides: A person should pause one hour before he prays in order to direct his heart to the Creator . . . He should pray only with fear and humility, and not with levity and idle talk; not with anger but with joy . . . (Shulchon Oruch, Orach Chaim, 93:1,2) He who prays should direct his heart towards the meaning of the words he utters and he should consider it as if the presence of G-d is before him; and he should cast aside all bothersome thoughts so that his thoughts and intentions are pure for praying . . . (ibid,, 98:1) This is why, incidentally, it is a custom among some of our people to recite, before each separate service or Mitzvah, the phrase, “Hineni muchon umezumon— l am hereby prepared to fulfill the commandment of the Torah.”

T becomes obvious, then, that prayer is an art. It has to be learned with rigorous discipline and hard work, with consistency and constancy, with faith and hope. We cannot pray properly by an occasional visit to the synagogue or by a perfunctory opening of the Siddur. It demands concen­ tration, intensity, and practice. It demands kavonah. It demands the heart.

As the Talmud puts it (Taanith 2a): “The service of the heart: this refers to prayer.” This is kavonah: it makes of lip service, heart service. It takes dead words and revives them. It takes our own dead souls and resurrects them. For as it is written in T’hillim (Psalm 115:17), “The dead cannot praise the Lord.” For the dead cannot have kavonah.

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JEWISH LIFE

Book Bevietv Memmi’s Malaise

By JOSEPH SUNGOLOWSKY PORTRAIT OF A JEW by Albert Memmi. The Orion Press, New York, N. Y., 1962. 326 pp. $4.95.

HE tragic holocaust that befell the Jewish people in the last World War has been the subject of a number of French essays and novels reflecting the attitude to the Jewish problem of their Jewish and non-Jewish authors.

The French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre was among the early ones to have been shocked by the tragedy, and at the close of the war he published his famous “Anti-Semite and Jew” in which he analyzed the “Jewish ques­ tion” in the light of his existential philosophy. In 1948, the historian Jules Isaac undertook a fundamental correction of Anti-Semitism by demon­ strating in his “Jesus and Israel” that the Jews were not at all guilty of the charge th at has plagued them for centuries. Roger Ikor’s reaction in his novel “The Sons of Avrom” (Putnam, 1958) is simply the espousal of assimi­ lation. Recently, we have witnessed

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MR. JOSEPH SUNGOLOWSKY is Asst. Pro­ fessor of French at Vassar College and was previously French Instructor at Yale, where he received his Ph.D. He obtained S’michah from Yeshiva University after graduating Lycée de Nice, France.

July-August, 1963

the mystical and emotional outcry of André Schwartz-Bart’s “The Last of the Just.” Albert Memmi’s recent book “Portrait of a Jew” (The Orion Press, 1962), a product of the same trend, is an essay describing the situation of the Jew in the world of today.

Memmi’s central idea is that of a “Jewish condition” as an image of the human condition in general. This last theme, best illustrated in “Man’s Fate” by the French writer André Malraux, is current in the world literature that became popular in the post-war period, and Memmi is merely inscribing the Jewish aspect in this general trend of thought. This is why Memmi speaks of “the misfortune of being a Jew.” This idea also underlies his two pre­ vious novels, (<The Pillar of Salt” and “Strangers.” The first is semi-autobiographical and it portrays a hero whose formula in life is to escape the suffocating atmosphere of the Jewish ghetto of Tunis by immersing himself completely in French culture. The sec­ ond is a story of a mixed marriage that ends in failure because of the intrinsic reluctance of the Jewish hus­ band to relinquish his past. This idea is perhaps the most significant in Memmi, who states in the preface of 47

“Portrait of a Jew” that he does not deny his Jewishness while maintaining that it is a “malaise.”

HUS, for Memmi it is a misfortune to be a Jew. Jewish holidays only commemorate a tragic event. If Jews rejoice on Pesach, Chanukah, or Purim it is because they have escaped some kind of threat, and their opti­ mism on those occasions is only one of despair. No m atter how liberal a coun­ try may be, Anti-Semitism is always latent in it, and the drunkard who shouts “Death to the Jews” is only reflecting the opinion of the passer-by who mocks him. Like Joseph K., the hero of Kafka’s “Trial,” the Jew is under a perpetual and mysterious ac­ cusation. He is negatively treated by others, and authors of world literature such as Shakespeare, Moliere, Vol­ taire, and Scott have stressed the greed and wickedness of the Jew, thereby singling him out from other characters of their works.

Jewish “malaise” is further rein­ forced by the figure of the mythical Jew that can hardly be eradicated from the non-Jewish mind. It is gen­ erally accepted that there is a classi­ cal Jewish type, while the variety of Jewish types makes the idea of the biological Jew a highly abstract one.

Jewishness is also decried by its sup­ posedly superior economic aspect. Yet, it has been shown that in ancient time the Phoenicians were as capable businessmen as the Jews. Later, if the Jew practiced money-lending it was because he was not allowed to engage in any other form of trade. And now­ adays there are very few Jews who have access to the big international banks of Wall Street. The Jew also constitutes a figure of shadow. He is isolated by his religion and over­ whelmed by Christianity according to

T

48

which he must regulate himself since it controls the life of the country he lives in. He is unable to share its his­ tory, which does not represent his past. Because of his Jewish name he cannot integrate fully in city life. It is difficult for him to join a political party because no one really defends his interests, and if a Jew acts politi­ cally he will make sure that he does so as a citizen of the country rather than as a Jew. In short, Memmi states that the “Jew has been oppressed for so long that he no longer believes in his right to live among others.”

M

EMMI does not wish to remain on this negative note. He also considers the positive aspects of Jew­ ishness which he calls “the Heritage.”

Although, according to Memmi, this stems from the community of risks, it explains the fact that Jews always seek each other out and help each other. But above all, it is the Jewish religious life that constitutes the most perennial heritage. Memmi rightly ob­ serves that there is no real Jewish atheism or anticlericalism because an attack on Jewish religious life would mean an attempt to undermine the Jewish social body as a whole.

Let us note that the originality of Memmi’s ideas is somewhat question­ able, since we find many of them in Sartre’s above-mentioned work. In fact Memmi’s book is dedicated to Sartre and he states in the preface that Sartre’s book contains “more in­ tuitions and truth than one could find in tons of publications.” Indeed, Sartre has already said that there was a Jewish “situation,” that the Jew was negatively treated by others, that there was no real Jewish type and no real Jewish atheist. Yet, Memmi con­ tends that it was necessary to under­ take once again an analysis of the JEWISH LIFE

Jewish situation from a “Jewish” standpoint, and the touch he has added is undoubtedly the morbid feeling that pervades the book. Even when he con­ siders the positive aspect of Jewish­ ness, it is difficult for Memmi to break away from the pessimistic view which makes up three-fourths of this essay.

And it is a morbid pessimism that has led Memmi to some ridiculous exag­ gerations, such as when he says that Jewish newspapers are sent in the mail with wide bands so as to conceal the Jewish title.

One cannot deny the fact th at there is a “Jewish condition” and many of Memmi’S iobservations with respect to that idea are correct. The “absurdity” of Jewish history*, with its alternat­ ing periods of glory and darkness, would certainly testify to it. Yet the * This point was made by Rabbi J. B. Soloveitchik at a shiur given to the Rabbinic Alumni Association of Yeshiva University.

Jew has always refused to be discour­ aged by the notion of Hastorath Ponim and has never allowed himself to sink into a morbidity such as Memmi’s.

The latter’s sickness would surely be cured if he lived in Israel. One cannot explain why such a solution, among others, is totally overlooked in the book, all the more since it is also dedicated to the author’s former friends “who today are halutzim.”

Memmi’s essay appears very much a modern parody of the Tochecha. But he has failed to find an equivalent for the sequel to it that consists in the following promise of G-d to His peo­ ple : And yet for all that, when they be in the land of their enemies, I will not cast them away, neither will I loathe them, to consume them, and to make void my covenant with them, for I am the Eternal their G-d, It is such a promise that has led the Jewish people through the darkest periods of its his­ tory.

Benefit of Clergy

By PHILIP ZIMMERMAN THE CONVERSION OF CHAPLAIN COHEN by Herbert Tarr. Bernard Geis Assoc., New York, N. Y., 1963.

341 pp. $4.95.

RECENT symposium in Israel decried the lack of religious au­ thors of fiction, with the exception of the great, and enigmatic, S. J. Agnon.

A quite ^similar situation exists in the English-speaking countries. Former

A

RABBI PIlILIP ZIMMERMAN who served as a U.S. Army Chaplain in Korea is the author of numerous articles on Jewish literary topics.

July-August,; 1963

Air Force Chaplain Herbert T arr’s first novel, “Thé Conversion of Chap­ lain Cohen,” makes one sense this lack even more deeply; “Conversion” might be viewed as yet another first novel based on military service. However, we are forced to judge the ideology and theology of the book, inasmuch as the publishers, among others, feel that we are dealing with “a positive con­ tribution to Judaism in America.”

Let it be stated at the outset that Tarr is a competent craftsman, skill49

fully handling the tools of modern fic­ tion: flash-back, stream-of-conscious­ ness, and symbolic gesture. The author has a first-rate ability to tell a story.

However, despite these endowments, “Conversion” is marred by a contrived plot and a tendency to over-simplify major problems. One feels that these two will stand T arr in good stead in his new career as a Hollywood film writer.

David Cohen is presented as a young, left-wing-Conservative or right-wingReform clergyman who half-heartedly enters the Air Force as a chaplain.

Cohen, who has a phobia of flying, is planted in various situations (Anti­ semitism, militarism, inter-faith rela­ tions, integration problems), designed to show us the author’s views. In most of these situations Chaplain Cohen reacts true to the form which Tarr wishes us to believe has been im­ pressed on him by an early love of Prophetic Judaism. However, a deeper reading shows that David is a semishlemiel, who reacts with the conven­ tional gestures of a dogmatic liberal.

Whether in insulting the high-handed wife of the base commander (for which he is exiled to Goose Bay), in violating Air Force rules about polit­ ical speeches, or in almost assaulting a fellow chaplain he feels is insulting him at a mock funeral, David can usually be counted on for formalized behavior and compulsive, if ineffective, protest. This tendency is least in evi­ dence in the two strongest parts of the book; the description of life in chaplaincy school and the well-done picture of Goose Bay (both of which, we are told, were based on personal experiences).

M

UCH deeper are the faults and flaws of the book when judged

50

against classical Jewish sources. Cohen is a “rabbi” to whom the concept of Kedushah seems foreign. There is a scarcity of Jewish personnel at the bases at which he is stationed, and he is almost never called upon for religious functions. In his own personal life, the meaningful practice of a mitzvah is almost never seen. In spite of some early quotations of well-known rab­ binic sayings, Cohen’s behavior be­ comes more and more alienated from authentic Jewish values. This aliena­ tion is seen mainly in the novel’s approach to the reality of sin, the ultimate validity of religion, and the question of universal versus particu­ lar ethics.

The reality of sin is ridiculed in the novel in the person of the half-crazed Chaplain Clifford Fowler, who is fi­ nally ousted from the service for try­ ing to convert the Buddhist priests of Japan to his faith! An author has a right to create such a caricature. But against Fowler, and his views, there is no valid voice speaking for the balanced sense of sin which is found in all authentic Jewish thought.

Fowler seems designed to represent T arr’s last word on the question of sin, and this word is that sin is out­ dated. But this is a view which is being abandoned by the latest findings in the field of the human psyche. A rational sense of sin now has the hechsher of prominent psychologists.

Indeed, one does not have to read much of the Prophets, whom David is supposed to be emulating, to feel the reality of a sense of sin. As much as the author has tried to stack the cards against him, the non-Jewish Fowler comes out with more likeness to the prophetic mold than does the hero.

The ultimate validity of religion seems strangely limited by David, JEWISH LIFE

when he agrees that religion cannot “save us” if another war breaks out (p. 317). But this ability to save is a basic premise of valid Jewish thought; it is a watered-down religion which abandons its faith in terror of atomic war.

N all Jewish thought, there always remains a tension between universalist and particularist elements. Many isolated universalistic utterances can be culled from Prophetic, Rabbinic, and Chasidic literature—but just as many strongly particularistic sayings.

Not so with Chaplain Cohen, who feels that although one cannot start as a “universalist,” nevertheless, “his par­ ticularities should not limit him for­ ever (p. 315). But it is just those “particularities,” which have been or­ dained by Divine Law, which do “limit” us forever. There are four ells of Halochah; no more—but skyward this domain is limitless. No one who de­

I

July-August, 1963

stroys this polarity between the par­ ticular and the universal deserves to be classified as a Jewish thinker. Even the title of this novel is a case in point. Certain words, through no fault of their own, have taken on overtones which cause them to be used with great care, if at all, by those loyal to Jewish values. Such a word is catholic (Solo­ mon Schechter’s “catholic Israel” has not even caught on too well with the Conservative clergy). Another word of this type is “conversion.” The latest “conversion” of a rabbinic figure oc­ curred under a dark cloud in a large Italian city.

Chaplain Cohen cannot be judged as a valid example of the Jewish chap­ laincy, most of whose members strove to preserve Jewish identity. Rather than having graduated from the par­ ticular to the universal, he has been assimilated from the timeless tradition of his people to the mass culture which surrounds him.

51

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JEWISH LIFE

Letters to the Editor THE ANTI-CRITICAL INTELLECTUAL Long Beach, New York Rabbi David Shapiro’s excellent re­ view of Kaufmann’s “The Religion of Israel” stands in need of correction in regard to one point. It is an overstate­ ment to declare th at “By the early decades of the twentieth century, no self-respecting intellectual . . . dared question the validity . . . of the socalled science of Biblical criticism . . .

By “intellectual” we will assume that Dr. Shapiro is not considering Torahcommitted scholars, such as those he himself mentions in his review. How­ ever, this still leaves us with a con­ siderable .group of “critics of the critics.” To name a few: Harold Wiener, author of “Essays in Pentateuchal Criticism” ; Emil Reich, who wrote “The Failure of the ‘Higher Criticism’ of the Bible” in 1905; Pro­ fessor M. D. Cassuto whose volume “The Documentary Hypothesis” con­ tains devastating attacks on the criti­ cal structure; and finally A.S. Yahudah who produced “The Language of the Pentateuch in its Relation to the Egyptian.” These scholars all started from scientific assumptions, and all rejected violently the critical position, after detailed studies of its weaknesses. One who believes in Torath Mosheh is in no need of added “scientific*’ support. However, the ex­ istence of such a body of independent July-August, 1963

anti-critical scholars takes the wind out of the assumption of the non­ believers that all research leads to denial.

Rabbi P hilip Zimmerman

Rabbi S hapiro replies:

I appreciate the comments of Rabbi Zimmerman. In the phrase quoted from my article, there should have been quotation marks around the word “intellectuals.”

D avid S. S hapiro

NEW TRANSLATION Brooklyn, N. Y. In his article on the New Transla­ tion of the Torah, Reuben E. Gross scoffs at the scholarship exhibited in translating “Reed Sea.” After all, he says, the name “Red Sea” is merely a corrupted form of “Reed Sea,” the let­ ter “e” having been dropped acciden­ tally somewhere along the way. This is brilliant conjecture on the part of Mr. Gross and I would be tempted to believe it, were it not for the fact that both the Septuagint and the Vulgate also translate “Red Sea.” Some be­ lieve it refers to the reflection of the sun striking the mountains of Edom, which appears red upon the face of the 53

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JEWISH LIFE

waters. Whatever the reason may be, the name Red Sea is not to be cast off by means of unscholarly guesswork.

“Anyone acquainted with the Bible in almost any language other than Eng­ lish” would never offer the explana­ tion given by Mr. Gross.

Another passage pointed out by the author is Sh’moth 22:12. The transla­ tion’s “he shall bring the torn animal as evidence” is to the author, “a clear rejection of the Masoretic text.” I sug­ gest th at Mr. Gross see the Targum Yerushalmi, the Ibn Ezra, the Rashbarn, the Sforno, the Mechilta, and Bova Kama 10a. All these sources ex­ plain that the dead animal (or a part of it) is to be brought as proof. As for the Septuagint’s patach, see Tar­ gum Yonathan ben Uziel and Bova Kama 9b. The only reading I have found no proof for is Mr. Gross’ “ed hat'refah,” meaning “witnesses of the tearing.” Even those opinions which agree with the author’s explanation, such as Rashi, take “of the tearing” to be understood. To read ed hat’refali, negates elementary Hebrew grammar, which calls for a pause after ed be­ cause of the esnachto under that word.

I am not writing this letter merely to point out the errors of the author, for no one is infallible. However both examples cited above are attempts to disprove the scholarship of the work.

This effort is wholly unnecessary to bolster Mr. Gross’ main argument— the secular approach of the work and its implications.

This point, well taken, seems reason enough to invalidate the translation.

Is the scholarship of the translation automatically inferior because of the secularist approach? Even if Mr. Gross’ criticism’s were correct, they add nothing to his main contentions.

On the contrary, an attack on all angles because of dissatisfaction with July-August, 1963

one aspect is an emotional attack which detracts from the rationality of the author’s main point, which is secu­ larism.

Likewise, the name-calling at the end of the article does little to enhance the sincerity of the author, since the article was intended as a criticism of the translation, not of the translators.

By using the terms talmid chochom and am ha'aretz, Mr. Gross implies that the translators have all stepped from the Beth HaMedrash into the realm of Bible translation. Mr. Gross seems to have expected a traditional translation and his tone is often one of disappointment. I expected no such thing. Dr. Orlinsky did not accord tra ­ ditional commentaries any special re­ gard over non-Jewish sources, and verification for translating the first phrase in B’reshith came as much from Babylonian myths as it did from Rashi. Self-admittedly the translation is no Yeshivah textbook nor even a suitable companion to the Chumosh in the religious home—and this is its very fault.

I saac B oaz Gottlieb

Mr. Gross replies:

Mr. Gottlieb seems to protest that I have over-killed the New Translation and in so doing have permitted the fall-out to rain on the translators.

To his question: “Is the scholarship of the translation automatically in­ ferior because of the secular ap­ proach?,” my answer is a very definite, “Yes.” Secularism is the very anti­ thesis of Torah. It denies Creation.

It denies Har Sinai. It denies Proph­ ecy. The first step in acquiring Torah is “Yirath Hashem.” There are a num­ ber of other steps in acquiring Torah which secularist scholars are incapable 55

of taking. A mere scholar, no m atter how deep and penetrating he studies, cannot be a Talmid Chochom. He lacks a requisite dimension. Just as a line one mile long has less area than a single square inch, so does the greatest secularist scholar fail to measure up to the nearest tyro of true Torah learning in breadth of understanding.

Perhaps, if the editor of J ewish Life had not excised one sentence from my controversial last paragraph, my intentions might have been clearer.

The original manuscript said: Fifty years ago the modern Misyavnim began their assault on the outer precincts of our holiness—the Azarah—when they took over the recreational, defense and communal relations operations of Jewish Life.

A quarter-century or so ago the in­ vasion of the Kodoshim itself began in full force. Synagogues were taken over and mechitzoth broken down.

This Asorah B’Teveth marks the first break in the Kodshey Kodoshim where the Luchoth themselves are kept. Therein lies the true signifi­ cance of the New Translation.

Although Mr. Gottlieb informs me that “the article was intended as a criticism of the translation, not of the translators,” I tru st that most readers will accept my word as to my own inten­ tions. If anyone doubts the effective­ ness of the miasma that these trans­ lators and their like have spread, we need go no further than Mr. Gottlieb’s letter. Although Mr. Gottlieb appears to be a ben-Torah, he assumes that what is true in the Beth HaMedrash or in the Yeshivah need not have validity when one steps outside where the “scholars” reign; that the Ye­ shivah text book is true only inside the Yeshivah; th at I am completely off-base in expecting that a Jewish translation should be Jewish; and that companions to the Chumosh need be suitable only for religious homes. ApJuly-August, 1963

parently he is willing to turn over the entire non-Yeshivah world to the in­ tellectual leadership of these people.

I am not prepared to abandon the great masses of Jews who stand Halachically as a “Tinok shenishbah beyn ha’akum” to the secularists and the quasi-secularists. I believe that Torah-true Judaism is valid outside as well as inside the Yeshivah walls. Its hegemony must be established wher­ ever and whenever Jews assemble. The leadership of Talmidey Chachomim instead of scholars must be re-estab­ lished in all areas of communal life,— in education, in distribution of public funds and in worship. For us there can be only one truth—the truth of Torah—and not schizophrenic stand­ ards: one for inside and another for putside the Beth HaMedrash. My enmity is more towards the prophets of Baal than the idols of Baal.

Another of my critics, writing in a Yiddish daily, after reviewing some of Professor Orlinsky’s writings in Hadoar, and after quoting my last para­ graph said:— Perhaps if some will consider Gross as an alarmist with great fantasies, he will find that his claims are supported by none other than the editor of the New Translation himself.

My suggestion that the name Red Sea may be derived from Reed Sea, though shared by such a competent scholar as Professor Hoenig, is prop­ erly questioned by Mr. Gottlieb, who points out that the name “Red Sea” goes back to Classical times. There have been many unsound guesses as to the origin of the name, Red Sea. Mr. Gottlieb may have joined the club of bad guessers together with me by his suggestion about the reddish reflection of the mountains of Edom, because 57

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JEWISH LIFE

that name was used in ancient times to not reject. The New Translation re­ describe the waters stretching as fa r jects it. as the Indian Ocean. Furthermore, the Reuben E. Gross water looked rather blue to me when I saw it. And the Edomite mountains were not particularly red. Most diffi­ SOVIET JEWRY cult is the fact that the Edomite mountains are too fa r to the north to New York, N. Y, be seen as reflections in the Red Sea. I recently had the occasion to read An oft-repeated conjecture (connecting your March-April issue and was Reed and Red Sea) is that it contains struck by your editorial on the prob­ a red-algae. But calling me “another” lem of Russian Jewry. Since I am will not rehabilitate the reputation of presently working toward a Ph.D. in the secretary of the committee who Russian history, I thought my com­ demonstrated his ignorance of Hebrew ments might be of interest. I found by boasting of the courage of the your article commendable in that it translator in substituting “Reed Sea” wisely linked Soviet Antisemitic mani­ for what they described as “Tradi­ festations to the Cold War situation. tionally, but incorrectly, ‘Red Sea\” I found it regrettable that you chose Someone should have asked him, ere to reiterate the trite comparison with now, what tradition he refers to. Mr. Nazi Germany. We must thank G-d Gottlieb has pointed out that the that Soviet Antisemitism is not simi­ Septuagint and Vulgate rendered Yam lar to Nazi in extent. It is not similar Suf as Red Sea. This is continued in in origin either.

Christian Bibles, but I pointed out, After the Revolution of 1917, the “That the Yam Suf is a Reed Sea has Russian government scrupulously always been common knowledge among avoided carrying on the Czarist tradi­ Jews.” To which tradition does the tion of strictures specifically directed New Translation belong? against the Jews. There were, to be Mr. Gottlieb is also correct in point­ sure, measures against religion gen­ ing out th at there is an ethnachto erally. There was, further, much popu­ under the word “ed” in Shemoth 22:12. lar prejudice against Jews, a Czarist The written word “hat’refah” belongs heritage, but it was given no official to the next clause. However, the word sanction for almost thirty years. “hat’refah” is understood at that During the Second World War, point. It is because of this ethnachto Great Russian chauvinism proved very that “ed” must be read as a noun “ed” useful indeed. Communism had earlier and not as a preposition, “ad.” Yona- been purged of its international ele­ than ben Uziel adopts both the Ma- ments, and now overt chauvinism came soretic and Septuagint reading, as is to be the order of the day. The two explained by the Pirush Yonathan. high priests of the cult—Comrades However, as originally pointed out, Stalin and Ilya Ehrenburg—were not “he shall bring it as evidence” is not Great Russians, which should not al­ the same as “to bring witnesses” nor together surprise us. When victory “to bring him to the torn animal.” was finally won, this sort of nation­ The commentators cited by Mr. Gott­ alism was—and is—used to justify the lieb add to the Masoretic text. They do existence of the satellites.

July-August, 1963

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JEWISH LIFE

At the w ar’s end, also, the task of rebuilding the devastated land pre­ sented itself and the task of building socialism remained. In the popular imagination, generally, the destruction of the wealth of Europe by the Ger­ mans was blamed on the Jews. It was felt, however wrongly, that the Nazi attack, surprising as it was, had been directed against Russia’s Jewish popu­ lation.

The Politburo is not the sort of organ that responds to popular pres­ sure: it knows, however, how to use it. Better that the war be blamed on the Jews than on Stalin’s errors! At the same time, the Iron Curtain was being dropped: rebuilding Russia would be simplified if discontent caused by comparison with the West was min­ imized. This development coincided rather neatly with the creation of a scapegoat. Hence, in 1946, Stalin’s henchman Zhdanov attacked in the same Jewish individuals, cosmopoli­ tanism and artistic innovation. The tried and true old Russia was to be preferred, and that included pogroms.

That Zhdanov died under mysterious circumstances in no way helped mat­ ters, and, as is well known, Stalin was preparing a purge of Jewish intel­ lectuals and the doctors presumed re­ sponsible, at the time of his stroke.

The present situation in Russia is a result of the factors described above.

Antisemitism is linked with opposition to cosmopolitanism in the arts, and with the combination of chauvinism and inferiority complex which has gov­ erned Russia since the end of the war.

This meets with the approval, not only of the officials who retain their loyalty to Stalinist ideas—and they are legion —but also of the majority of the Russian people. They fear the West, and fearing it, they fear also those July-August, 1963

whose loyalty to the triumph of Slav­ dom is suspect. Not too surprisingly, it is the opponents of Antisemitism who are also in the forefront of the drive for greater accommodation—cul­ tural and political—to the west.

On the one hand, there is Yevgeny Yevtushchenko—and on the other are those he calls the “Black Hundreds.”

The liberals have allies in the govern­ ment, but objective conditions appear to favor those who toe a hard line in these areas—the Stalin-era relics.

What we can do is work to cut the base in reality out from under Soviet chauvinism. When it is neither useful or even reasonable, then Soviet offi­ cials will no longer operate against Jews—and intellectuals and support­ ers of Western ways. Greater contact will help end the animosity against the West. Also, we must exert pres­ sure in our democratic government— as Yevtushchenko and his readers can­ not—in order to reduce Cold War tensions. Our government must be made to act for a gradual end to the Cold War, and this will bring the Russian liberals to power. The Cold War in Russia is a part of the cause of Antisemitism there: let us end the Cold War. Let us not take the exist­ ence of Soviet Antisemitism as an ex­ cuse for heightened bellicosity on our part: that can only lead to disaster for Russian Jewry.

V ivian Oppenheim

► The above letter is all too illustra­ tive of the attitude against which the editorial (“Soviet Jews and Soviet Disclaimers”) was in part directed.

Continuing developments have given added rather than lessened force to the point stressed therein that “it would be a fatal mistake to view the problem of Soviet Antisemitism as 61

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LIGHT: We furnish you with 30 ft. water­ proof wire— s o c k e tplug and plastic re­ flecto r, w ired and mounted on a wooden strip 2" x 2" which you place across the top of Sukkah.

PROTECTION: A g a i n s t wi n d and storm. We furnish you with two heavy cords 12 ft. each, slides and Hy pegs to fasten Sukkah to ground or wall.

SIZE: Seven and one quarter feet long by Five and one half feet wide by Seven and one quarter feet high. Will accom­ modate up to 10 persons.

FRAME and FITTINGS: Made of an alloy of alu­ minum and magnesium, three-quarter inch diam­ eter pipe which will not rust or corrode. No tools necessary with our pat­ ented fittings to assemble or dismantle, other than one small wrench which we furnish.

WALLS: Made of yel­ low DURA-HUE DUCK. Weight 10 oz. per square yard. Mildew Resistant and Water Repellent.

PACKING: We pack and ship entire Sukkah in heavy corru­ gated carton which is 7 and a half feet long by 8 inches square and this carton is used for stor­ ing your Sukkah.

ONLY

$102 F.O.B. N .Y .

Check With Order

ASSEMBLING: With each pur­ chase we furnish you with a very d etailed assem b ly in stru ctio n sheet, which makes it very simple to put the Sukkah together in about 30 minutes.

Sukkah on display at 33 West 42nd Street, N.Y.C. Room 642

COMMUNITY SIZE SUKKAH . . . accommodating up to 24 persons, 14% ft. long — 10 ft. wide — 7% ft. h ig h ............ $ 2 1 2 .0 0 F.O.B., N.Y.

S’CHACH We will also supply you with 80 bamboo sticks 1% inches in diameter by 6 feet long to cover entire Sukkah.

ADDITIONAL........ $18.00

COMMUNITY SIZE ALL OTHER FEATURES AS ABOVE. ADDITIONAL FOR S'CHACH, $36.00

62

Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America 84 Fifth Avenue New York HRN. Y. A Gentlemen: □ Please ship me one Packaged Sukkah designed by the Spero Foundation. Check for the amount of $102 is enclosed. □ £ fjso want 80 bamboo sticks, which w ill cover entire Sukkah, and I am enclosing an additional $18.00.

Nam e..................................................................................

Address...................... ..................... ...............................

..........

City and State............................................................................

JEWISH LIFE

insoluble pending an end to the Cold War.” A part from questions as to how Cold W ar abatement may actually affect the relative roles of Soviet “chauvinists” and “liberals” and the merits of only one-sided pressure to end the Cold War, a policy of silent immobility in the face of moves to destroy Soviet Jewry could surely but contribute to their extinction, G-d forbid. For the Jews of the Free World to await in silence such time as “it is neither useful or even rea­ sonable” for Soviet authorities to “operate against Jews” would mark the perpetration of criminal policy as immune to check and thereby assure its continuance.

E ditor

M ORE KOLELIM

Newport, R. I. Allow me to amend for some omis­ sions in my article “The Kolel: Amer­ ican Phase” (May/June 1963). In addition to the kolelim described in the article, some other institutes of similar kind should not be left unmen­ tioned.

The Chofetz Chaim Kolel in Man­ hattan, often called “Kolel Kodoshim,” was founded ten years ago and is headed by Rabbi Mendel Zaks, son-inlaw of the sainted Chofetz Chaim, z.l.

This kolel concentrates on Seder Ko­ doshim, in furtherance of the Chofetz Chaim’s view th at the Messianic era is drawing near and that therefore this branch of Talmud—which, because it has lacked practical application since the destruction of the Temple, has been much neglected by scholars— should now receive intensive study.

Yeshiva University too sponsors a kolel at which its best students con­ centrate on Torah study exclusively.

TIis kolel is headed by Rabbi LichtenJuly-August, 1963

stein and its scholars attend the shiurim of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik. Established two years ago, it holds great promise for growth and development.

Yeshivath Rabbenu Yisroel Meir Hakohen of Forest Hills, N. Y., spon­ sors the Ner David Kolel, headed by Rabbi Henoch Liebowitz. Moving to its present location from Williamsburgh ten years ago, this kolel, to­ gether with the parent institution, has demonstrated its high calibre.

The continuing growth of the Kolel movement is further illustrated by the establishment this year, of the Satmarer Kolel, Yetev Lev, in Williamsburgh and the recent beginning of the Squerer Kolel in Squaretowh, Rock­ land County, N. Y. While each kolel has its unique character, the collective contribution of these institutes to the cause of Yiddishkeit and Torah scholarship in America cannot be overemphasized.

Rabbi Mendel Rokeach

HOT-AS-FIRE

TU LKO FFS SNOW-WHITE & BEET-RED

H O R SERAD ISH Hotter and thicker because it’s made cold by our “chillmill” process. Sold nationally.

Tulkoff’s Co.. Baltimore 2, Md.

(U )^0ëy . '

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K a sh ru th ¡f

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63

Order now for yourself — your friends — your congregation THE UOJCA POCKET CALENDAR-DIARY FOR 1963-64/5724 Combines a wealth of Jewish information of every day usefulness. Contains the Jewish and secular calendars, a full daily diary section, explanations of the holidays, candle-lighting times, weekly Torah and Haftorah read­ ings, Yahrtzeit date record, Tefillath Haderech, Jewish populations of the major cities of the United States and Canada, information on the program of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America.

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64

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