Jewish Life March-April 1964 by Jewish Action

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Vol. XXXI, No. 4 / March-April 1964/Nisan-lyar 5724

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EDITORIALS

THE CHIEF RA B BIS...... . ................................ SEVEN STAR PERFORMANCE ............................ Saul B ernstein , Editor R euben E. Gross Rabbi S. J. Sharfman Libby K laperman Paul H. Baris Editorial Associates G abrielle Ribagk Editorial Assistant JEWISH LIFE is published bi monthly. Subscription two years $4.00, three years $5.50, four years $7.00. Foreign; Add 254 per year, Editorial and Publication Office: 84 Fifth Avenue N ew York 11, N . Y . ALgonquin 5-4100

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ARTICLES ON CO-EXISTENCE IN ISRAEL / » Joseph Goldschmidt.............. 8 SEVEN QUESTIONS, FOUR SONS, AND TWO ANSWERS / Shubert Spero............. 17 RESISTANCE / S. B. Unsdorfer ....................... 20 ENTERTAINING WORSHIP / Arnold Rothstein...... 27 JEWS IN SWEDEN / Fred Werbell .................... 36 YESHIVOTH IN POLAND IN THE INTER-WAR Y E A R S / Harry Rablnowlcz...... ..................... 53 FICTION

THE SAFE ONE / E. V. S ie g e l.......................... 32 POETRY

Published by U n io 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 V ice President

PLANE DESCENDING; SHIR CHODOSH / Mollie Kolatch............................................ 51 BOOK REVIEWS

A CLASSIC IS BORN / Solomon J. Sharfman...... 63 FOR THE “PERPLEXED” OF TODAY / Gersion Appel ............................................ 57 DEPARTMENTS

AMONG OUR CONTRIBUTORS............................ 2 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR................................. 71

Saul Bernstein, Administrator Second Class postage paid at New York, N . Y .

March-April, 1964

Ordained by.M esifta Torah Vodaath in Brooklyn RABBI SHUBERT SPERO has been spiritual leader of the Young Israel of Cleveland since 1950, and he is Secretary of the Orthodox Rabbinical Council there. Rabbi Spero graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Brooklyn College and received an M.A. degree from Western Reserve University where he is a lecturer in Philosophy. S B. UNSDORFER, the General Secretary of the Agudas Israel Organization of Great Britain, is also the Editor of the Jewish Tribune, an Agudist fortnightly newspaper m England, and of “Haderech,” the Anglo-Jewish children s magazine 'Uie author of the “Yellow S tar” which was published in Great Britain and the United States, Mr. Unsdorfer has contributed a number of articles to Jewish L ife . A “housewife-turned-author,” MRS* EUGENE SIEGEL launched her writing career m 1959 when she entered an adu education course at Huntington High School on Long lslana. After one year in the class, she sold her first article, and since then she has won the Golden Pen Playwriting contest ^ n s o re d bv the Jewish Theatre for Children, m Manhattan. Her play, “A Well in the Desert,” which will be produced later this year, deals with the problem of cultural understanding between Arabs and Jews in Israel. Born in Frankfurt on Main, DR. JOSEPH GOLDSCHMIDT attended the Samson Raphael Hirsch School, the Frankfurt Yeshivah headed by Rabbi S o lo m o n B r e u ^ of Education at London University. Since 1935 he has been a resident of Israel, where, after several years H U | of Mizrachi Schools, he has been a member of the Ministry’ of Education as Assistant Director General and m his present capacity as Director of Religious Education. RABBI HARRY RABINOWICZ is spiritual head of the Dollk Hill Synagogue in London. He is the author of A Guide to Hassidism ” “The Slave Who Saved The City,” g g || The Jewish Literary Treasures of England and America. His articles have appeared in both academic and popular journals on both sides of the Atlantic. DR. ARNOLD ROTHSTEIN brings to his bcild criticism of contemporary Chazonuth, “Entertaming Worship, the author ity of Ms experience in the field of Jewish .music as both teacher and composer. Formerly an Instructor in the Cantonal Training Institute of Yeshiva University and Lecturer at City College8 of New York and Queens College, he is presently Associate Professor of Education at Hofstra Umyershy. His published musical works include “The Village Fiddler, A Folk Cantata,” and “Music for the High Holy Days. FRED WERBELL, a native of the land^ whose J«-wish com munity he analyzes in “Jews in Sweden, | studied at Gymna sium of Stockholm, Carmel and Jews Colleges M B BHffiEg and London University. He is presently preparing for his B.A. and Rabbinic Semichah at Yeshiva University. Mr. WerbeU, W m wts a founder of the B’nei Akwa movement m Sweden has been active in youth work in England and Israel, as a recinient of the “Bridge in Britain” scholarship he spent a s— r doing social work at Boystown in Jerusalem. JEWISH LIFE

The C hief R abbis election, after a gap of several years, of an Ashkenazi THE Chief Rabbi of Israel, in the distinguished person of Rabbi Isser Yehudah Unterman, together with the re-election of Rabbi Itzhak Nissim as Sephardi Chief Rabbi, is welcome news. This long awaited development will contribute much to the Pesach rejoicing of Jews everywhere. In his former post as Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv-Jaffa, Rabbi Unterman demonstrated qualities of moral and practical leadership which won him universal respect and admiration. Rabbi Nissim, whose rare qualities of character have met extraordinary tests, has achieved highest public stature during his preceding term of office. Functioning side by side, the two form a pivot of spiritual strength. The moral influence of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel extends far beyond its formal Holy Land jurisdiction. While having a M entor of specific relationship to, and ecclesiastical function in, the State World of Israel, Jews in every land look to the Chief Rabbinate for Jew ry spiritual guidance and inspiration. There is every reason for hope and confidence that, with the help of the Ribbono Shel Olom, the two present incumbents will fulfill in high degree the poten tial of their high office, to the enhancement of Jewish life in Israel and throughout the world. May their accession be attended by Divine blessing.

Seven-Star P erform an ce T T NDERSTANDABLY, constituents of the seven non-orthodox U American organizations whose presidents jointly addressed that incredible “mesirah” missive to Prime Minister Levi Eshkol of Israel are stricken by shame and mortification at their leaders’ action. The missive—or perhaps the word should be missile— not only maligned orthodox Jewry and the State of Israel, it demanded free rein in Israel for the agencies of sh’mad, whose program of seducing children from impoverished immigrant homes is held forth as a rightful exercise of their “basic religious rights*” None should find satisfaction in the distress of the organizations’ constituents. Let us realize: not only they are put to shame. It is the shame of every Jew that such a thing could transpire, that Jews could fall so low. March-April, 1964

A development «such as this is not to be regarded as a mere, if monumental, faux pas. It discloses a veritable chasm of Jewish self-degradation and self-destruction, into whose slimy depths some would allure the entire House of Israel. The seven organizations in whose behalf Prime Minister Eshkol was thus addressed are the American Jewish Committee, the American Jewish Congress, B’nai B’rith, the Conservative United Synagogue of America and Rabbinical Assembly of Common America, and the Reform Central Conference of American Rabbis Urge and Union of American Hebrew Congregations. Although these agencies share much the same ideological climate, institutional rivalries have rarely before permitted their all banding together in a single purpose. In this instance, competitiveness gave way to the common urge to curb the rising strength of Orthodoxy, to common antipathy to real Judaism, and to common subservience to church interests. Taking the field together for the nonce, this seven-star array was moved to launch a salvo attacking “religious extremists”— the statement gingerly avoids saying “orthodox Jewry”—in be speaking the interests of the missionaries. Proclaiming their own devotion to religious freedom they charge: Israeli and American extremist religious groups . . . have suc ceeded in imposing on all Israeli citizens certain observances which impair the exercise of religious practices different from their own . . . even to the point of religious coercion. The total falsity of this charge is apparent to anyone at all acquainted with the Israel scene. But yet uglier calumny is made in the assertion that: Recently religious extremist groups in the United States have urged that even non-Jewish groups be curtailed in the exercise of their basic religious rights. The reference of course is designed to equate missionary forays on Jewish children with the rights granted under Israel’s conCalumny stitution to the established Christian communities in Israel. It is universally known that Israel has been most scrupulous in its observance of these rights, whose curtailment no group of ortho dox Jews has ever proposed. Proceeding to drive home their calumny, the seven presidents made dark references to the United Nations Draft Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Religious Intolerance and declared: We cannot allow the actions of one segment of American Jewry to convey the impression that the Jewish community is prepared to endorse positions directly contrary to the spirit of that declara tion . . . We abhor any attempt by governmental authority, whether in the United States, in Israel, or anywhere else in the world, to interfere with the expression of religion in any of its aspects. 4

JEWISH LIFE

As one reads these passages, not to speak of the full text of the statement, it seems unbelievable that spokesmen for any Jewish organizations, even of those which are heirs to the early Reformers of infamous memory, could lend themselves to the perpetration of such maleficience. Falsehood and distortion, canard and slander are combined in a nauseous brew that seems a distillation of Antisemitic hate-literature—with an added in gredient: mesirah. ITH the missive now boomeranging so sharply, ‘‘explana tions” have begun to come forth, and more Will un doubtedly follow, to the effect that the statement was “mis interpreted,” that its meaning was not what its words so implicitly say, and so forth. The organizations’ constituents may or may not be comforted by these labored excuses, but Jews at large will remain aroused, as rarely before, to the danger in the com munity’s midst. There is reason to believe that the seven non-orthodox presidents’ united foray was precipitated by the adamant refusal of orthodox Jewish forces to countenance Jewish par ticipation in the Ecumenical Council of the Roman Catholic Church. The interest of important church elements in using this occasion to relate the Jews to the program of Catholicism was eagerly reciprocated in various non-orthodox quarters. Indeed, a brisk competition arose for the inside-most position in nego tiations with the Vatican’s Secretariat for Christian Unity, headed by Cardinal Bea. This, significantly, was the Church arm desig nated to arrange Jewish involvement in the Eumenical Council. The jockeyings for the key role in this venture, and the attempts to “sell” Jewry on the “benefits” to be gained, formed a spectacle whose like our people has not seen since the days of Antiochus Epiphanes. The American Jewish Committee boasts, in its Com mittee Reporter of last February:

After the late Pope John XXIII, in 1959, called for the conven ing of an Ecumenical Council, the American Jewish Committee was invited by high Church officials to submit suggestions and findings based on scholarly studies in the area of ChristianJewish relations. The same article relates, with pride, the preparation of three documents for the Secretariat for the Promotion of Christian An Unity, which were “submitted at the invitation and with the en gag er couragement of Catholic authorities with whom Committee repService resentatives consulted on several occasions.” Among those named in the article as experts whom “the American Jewish Committee has collaborated with, or drawn upon,” at least one is a Jewish convert to Roman Catholicism. March-April, 1964

Events disclosed that the Jewish people would not permit itself to be delivered to the Vatican Council, and that the non-orthodox forces, notwithstanding their tremendous material resources, neither represented Jewry nor were in a position to dictate its course. The quid pro quo, retraction of the charge of Jewish “deicide,” which had been held forth as a prize worthy of any price, was accordingly not forthcoming. The fury of the frus trated rival sponsors was unspeakable, their animus towards the agencies of Orthodoxy beyond restraint. Frustration was piled on frustration when efforts to sever Israeli Jews from their loyalty to traditional Judaism proved futile. In the era of today, no movement purporting to be Jewish, especially if it represents itself as religiously Jewish, can have a firm base in Jewish life or representative status in Jewish H eterodox or non-Jewish eyes if it has no roots among Israeli Jewry. Imports Realizing this, American non-orthodox movements are eager to Refected secure a foothold in Israel. Israel’s Jews, howèver, of whatever attitude towards religion, have, one and all scorned heterodox “interpretations of Judaism,” no matter how carefully the “im ported from America” labels are concealed. All efforts to obtain public acceptance in Israel for Reform and Conservatism have been unavailing and equally fruitless have been efforts to compel Israel authorities to accord to their ministers ecclesiastical status as Rabbonim of the Jewish religion. Parallel obstacles have been encountered by secularist elements. The continued and growing attachment of Israel’s Jews to the faith of their fathers places secularist forces in a position which must ultimately be untenable. The ability of Israeli secularists to impose their ideology upon the pattern of Israeli life diminishes steadily, and the trends emerging at the core of the Jewish world are bound to have increasing impact in Diaspora lands, including the United States. UT of thh complex of frustrations was spawned the unholy alliance between the non-orthodox groups and the Chris O tian missionary forces. Unlike numerous other democratic states, such as Sweden, Israel has no laws prohibiting, or even restrict ing, the proselytization of children. This legal gap, with so many children from unsettled, confused, and poverty-stricken families of new immigrants standing out as a target, offered missionary circles a golden opportunity. The methods that have been used to ensnare children by thèse circles, as has previously been pointed out by this publication, have been utterly without scruple. Their shameful ravages aroused increasingly bitter protests in Israel and led to demands on all sides for enactment of legisla tion to prohibit such proselytization of helpless children. This provided occasion for non-orthodox spokesmen to prove their 6

JEWISH LIFE

mettle. They did—by springing to the aid, not of their fellowJews but of the Christian missionaries. We are thus confronted with a situation in which values are inverted and Jewish loyalties turned inside out. Religious free dom, in the language of the seven non-orthodox presidents, means not that observance of the Jewish religion shall be respected and facilitated in Israel, but that efforts to suppress this basic right and to undermine the Jewish spiritual heritage shall be subject to neither resistance nor challenge. The GovernValues in ment of Israel, in the eyes of the seven presidents, far from Reverse being duty-bound to adhere to policies conformable with respect for AJewish religious law and tradition in the public life of the Jewish State, is lending itself to “coercion” by doing so. Above all, the non-orthodox leaders maintain, religious freedom re quires, not that helpless children shall be protected against un scrupulous exploitation, but that the exploiters shall be protected against any means to restrict or counter their nefarious pursuit. Should Israel’s government fail to yield to their demands, it is implied, recourse can be made beyond the Jewish world. Mr. Eshkol is duly warned that their organizations “have played an active and significant role in the national and international pro motion of human rights,” r AR from succeeding in intimidating Jewry, the seven non orthodox presidents have garnered only obloquy and con tempt in Israel, America, and wherever else their message has been received. The one contribution with which their missive can be credited is its self-exposure. For once Jewry is enabled to see an ugly reality in our midst, stripped of its wrappings. Thus starkly revealed, the malady which the missive personified can be the more effectively recognized and dealt with.

March-April, 1964

On Co-existence in Israel By JOSEPH GOLDSCHMIDT Israeli attitudes on the role of religion in the Jewish State, as seen by a protagonist of religious Zionism.

T stands to reason that the old adage Kasheh lih’yoth yehudi (“It’s hard to be a Jew”) was coined in the Diaspora and for the Diaspora. For there, nearly everything runs counter to what a Jew needs in order to live in accordance with his convictions and his tradition. To demonstrate this you may start with the weather: The summer concluded, the Jew in Chutz Lo-oretz may have experienced a suc cession of rainy weeks, yet now he begins to pray for more rain (which, indeed, Rabbenu Asher, the “Rosh,” thought inappropriate); the joyous Sukkoth festival finds him shivering with cold and rain; the New Year of the Trees is celebrated when nature is clad in snow and ice; and so on around his inverted seasons. And from there to other areas: Much of the food, being non-kosher, is of no use to him; for like reasons, he cannot have a meal when hungry and away from home; many professions are barred to him because of the Sabbath; he cannot just walk into a shop and buy a suit or a coat, since they are likely to contain Shaatnez; he cannot be really social with most or many of the people with whom he works and lives. By way of contrast you would

have thought, then, that in Israel it is easy to be a Jew. And, indeed, it is, and you can reverse nearly every one of the items listed before when you have Israel in mind: you pray for rain when you are really longing for it; you enjoy a late summer (and an occasional Chamsin) in your sukkah; Tu Bish’vat comes with blooming trees standing in carpets of grass and flowers . . . and yet . . . When you come to the needs and functions of a modern society, and of a state with its problems and duties, and you want to run all these accord ing to Divine law, you may soon dis cover that the old saying is taking on new meanings in Israel, too, meanings that could hardly have arisen in the Diaspora, problems and difficulties with which the Jewish communities in the Golah were never confronted, and for which, therefore, they did not work out any solution. A NUMBER of these problems ± \ come immediately to mind: Maintaining power stations for the supply of electric current on Shabboth and holidays, without which domestic lighting and refrigeration, JEWISH LIFE

cold storage of food supplies, and emergency operation of hospitals and clinics are impossible; maintaining a police force and a standing army in readiness even on Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashonah (up to three days running, even in Israel, in some years); keeping in contact with the world through mail, wireless messages, and traffic during such days, at least for reasons of security . . . These may be called technical problems, but this does not mean that they are easy to solve in the way that is acceptable to religious Jews, when all non-Jewish labor is excluded. Of course, ithere were wars and problems of security and of supplies in the times of King David and of the Hasmoneans, but we cannot copy their solutions—inso far as we altogether know them-ilfor our situation to-day. In war you have to match the enemy’s resources with even better and more advanced re sources of your own, and nowadays this imposes demands which are not easily reconciled with the demands of our religious law. As for the problems that touch upon the private life of the citizen (e.g. the operation on Shabboth of urban and inter-urban buses), it is easier to demand and expect adjustment and sacrifice in order to meet the demands of religion. But few would suggest that the problems of the large urban communities could be solved by just “doing without” in all respects. T is not within our competence, nor is it our intention, to propose here solutions to any of the Questions al luded to. It is enough to assert our firm belief that since the Torah was meant for our time as well, it will be possible to live according to its laws today. But quite a different note is added to the discussion when we are

March-April, 1964

joined by participants who do not agree to our basic tenet, viz, that we are under an obligation to regulate both our private and our public lives according to the Torah. They may re fuse to accept restrictions imposed for the (religious) benefit of Israeli Jews collectively, and require that every thing be arranged to fit their own views. The problem of co-existence arises. Of course, for generations now there have been Jews who differed widely regarding adherence to Jewish law. Yet, the problem of co-existence in the acute form which it has as sumed recently in Israel could not have arisen in the Golah. The limita tion of the spheres of public life and responsibility, which has often been branded or lamented as one of the curses of our existence in exile, made such a development impossible. For, if you do not like the style of life or the degree of religious observance in a particular community, you just move on to another one or just stay away from it, as you may be disposed. In extreme cases you may have to organize a separate synagogue or burial ground, but you need have no concern about medical or postal serv ice, nor about the assistance afforded to every citizen by the police or by the law courts, and certainly in time of war you are well off or as badly off as everybody else. All this is different in Israel today, for you cannot have, as it were, a state within a state. When you live in its territory you form in many aspects a unit—social, economical, legal, geopolitical, etc. Even when a huge country like the U.S.A. is satis fied to be a federal state that grants each member state many rights, it must needs retain the supreme au9

thority in many fields for the central government. Thus, even in a federal state readiness for co-existence between all members is necessary. When the readiness to accept the rule of the majority breaks down, the whole

structure dissolves. For Israel, not only is such a federal structure, with territories settled only by religious Jews and others inhabited only by irreligious Jews, inconceivable—this would not solve anything at all.

BOTH SIDES UNPREPARED F we speak, by way of generaliza tion, of the religious and the ir religious sectors in Israel, we may say that neither of them was really pre pared to deal with the problem of co-existence, though for different rea sons. To the leading stratum of the non-religious sector the problem is a complete surprise. When this element left their homes in the Diaspora to settle in Israel twenty to forty years ago, they had been divested of tra ditional Jewish belief and meant to make a clean break with their re ligious past. Non-Jewish society, they had been outraged to find, did not want them and, unwilling to remain suspended between a world which re jected them and another which they rejected, they sought a new life of their own making. With Jewish life ravaged by the impact of rising new forces, they left behind them a chaotic situation, hoping to build a new Jew ish people in the ancestral homeland. Their conception was surely not that of fashioning a society geared to the Jewish heritage as treasured through the Jewish ages; to the contrary, they aspired to one akin to that of the Gentile world which had spurned them. The non-religious elements are hardly to be blamed for not having, at that time, a complete blueprint of that new society, but it is fairly cer tain that the need to come to terms,

in the new Israel, with a vigorous, numerically strong, and ideologically conscious religious element, which would be capable of comparison with them in every sphere of life—this was about the last thing they had taken into account. They knew, of course, that there was the “Old Yishuv” mostly in the “Four Cities” (Jeru salem, Hebron, Tiberias, and Safead). Nothing, they assumed, was to be feared from those small groups, which subsisted somehow on alms from the Diaspora. But the unexpected hap pened. There were religious chalutzim, then religious kibbutzim and settle ments; there was a religious workers’ organization; then came the hundreds of thousands of oriental Jews, many of whom were steadfast in their ad herence to the Torah; there came dozens of new yeshivoth, hundreds of Religious State Schools and secondary schools which prepared their pupils for full participation in the life of the state, as well as an efflorescence of the Chinuch Atzmoi Schools—these are facts you cannot ignore, you have to live with them—co-existence! OR the religious sector, things were different. Those who were latecomers to the Yishuv of modern settlement knew from the outset that they would be pitted against strong and determined forces, which would do as much as they could to keep

JEWISH LIFE

them down and remain in full con trol of the young community, with a view to giving it the direction most acceptable to them. That was long before statehood was in sight. And when the state suddenly became a reality, religious Jewry saw itself faced with problems that had never existed before, and for which, therefore, solu tions had to be worked out slowly and carefully. True, some progress

has been made by now, but the way through the dilemma is yet obscure, and meanwhile conflicts oyer day-today living together flare up, now here, now there, i | What is interesting to note is that the bulkn of religious Jewry in Israel today7is,!saddled with a war on two fronts, conventionally speaking, one to the left ,and one to the right. Each of ithese will need some explanation.

THE ROOTS HY is there such tension between the religious, public and the non religious? What occasion is there fpr a “League against Religious Coercion” to be founded? Do the religious make the non-observant Israelis lay Tephillin every day, or do they force them to live in a succah for seven days? This is of course not so. But it is true that the religious public, through the appropriate channels, demands the ful fillment of stipulated agreements on religious rights: it seeks to enforce complete stoppage of work in trade and industry on Shabboth; ihsists that post offices not be completely closed; that letters and cables not be delivered or collected on Shabboth; fights against the operation of railways and buses on Shabboth; guards the exclusive jurisdiction of the rabbinical courts in all matters of personal status; will not countenance a non-kosher kitchen on the S.S. Shalom; and demands kosher kitchens throughout the Israel defence army; and battles against infringement of the free choice by parents of re ligious schools for their children—to name just a few of the topics. To be quite explicit: religious Jewry in Israel is not satisfied with securing condi tions in which they themselves can

March-April, 1964

observe the laws of religion as it were, privately, at home—nay, they feel it the obligation of the Jewish State to shape the laws and by-laws of the country as closely fitting Jewish re ligious] I tenets and principles as possible/ The official and demonstrable recog nition of Jewish tenets is, in the view of the religious Israeli, the sine qua non for the Jewish State and the neces sary pre-condition for Jewish living and fulfillment in the Jewish State. But, obviously, this impinges upon the freedom of the individual. Now, this is quite generally the case with laws. Every law necessarily restricts the free dom of the individual with respect to the area to which it applies. The re strictions resulting from the laws alluded to are, however, resented, es pecially because the basic assumptions underlying those laws are being dis puted. We are quite willing, say the irreligious, to suffer restrictions at the hands of laws made for the safety of the country, for the betterment of its economy, etc. because we agree with those tendencies. But why should we suffer restrictions by laws made in the name: of Divine law, when we do not accept that law as binding upon us? 11

From this argument you come to such slogans as “religious coercion”; “Israel is a state of secular laws, not of Halochah”; “separation of state from re ligion”; to name just a few. And we can by no means be sure that every observant Jew in a “free country” like the United States will clearly under stand the basic issues, will recognize the unique categorical imperatives of the Jewish State, which necessarily differentiates it in this respect as in so many others from the United States or almost any other country. HE League against Religious Coer cion is by no means the only weapon in the fight of the anti-religi ous against the regulation of public life in accordance with Jewish tenets, nor is it the most important. The atti tude to the growth of Religious State Education often found in official quar ters is another, much more potent, expression. More ingenious is the prac tice among the non-religious of brand ing religious zeal as politics, which, as all politics (except their own) is selfish, materialistic, and insincere. And then there is the habit of ex pressing, on occasion, full understand ing and admiration for that quaint little group called “Neturey Karta,” who are so insignificant that you may freely praise them and hold them up as the only truly religious Jews in Israel, to the disparagement of the powerful religious masses. As a result, every conducted tour must include Meah She’arim, while visitors may be handed around for weeks up and down the country and never be shown a B’ney Akiva yeshivah, a religious kib butz or moshav, or Kiryath Zanz of the Klausenburger Rebbe,- etc. For, of course, lip service to the Neturey Karta does not cost anything, nor do these

few hundred people in their few streets of Jerusalem constitute a threat to the freedom of the non-religious to build a new Israel completely free of everything really Jewish. But the up surging power of the modern, religi ous national elements, who already have some 160,000 youngsters in the religious school system—that power must be curbed before it is too late. It is no use denying the seriousness of the question, which is emerging more and more clearly as the years draw on. Each side tries to strengthen its position now by this means, now by that. The desperate attempts to draw the left-wing Mapam party into government, viewed with open mis givings by the religious parties, mean nothing but trying to get rid of the latter and rule unrestricted in the spirit of the former. It may be that the atti tude of Diaspora Jewry to the public face of Israel will be an important factor in the course taken by any Israeli Government, whatever its composition. Let us turn now to the other front, that to the “right.” While bearing in mind that this is ground where “angels fear to tread,” I believe that some frank analysis of facts and motiva tions is called for. In undertaking such analysis, I am, of course, appraising the situation from my particular view point, and in broad outline, since not more than a few lines can be drawn in the space available here. I propose to distinguish between three attitudes that are found in those parts of Israel Jewry which are commonly called re ligious, and view their respective char acteristics and problems. Among these three, one is typified by the Neturey Karta. This group, which rejects any modification of To rah life as they conceive it, can perJEWISH LIFE

haps be characterized as messianicUtopian. They abjure any Jewish state in which the Torah law does not fully prevail as the definitive norm. Their attitude in application can be de scribed as “make believe” because in two essential points they seem not to face reality or admit the facts. The one is that they maintain that Torah life knows no change. If this were only claimed for the laws of the Torah, every right-thinking religious Jew would agree with them. But they make this claim with much force regarding Jewishly-observant society, regarding all its aspects— attire, dwelling, lan guage of speech, scope and content of education, etc. Their favorite slogan, borrowed from a different field, is Chodosh ossur min Hatorah (“Every thing new is forbidden by the Torah”). Let us forget how invalid this idea is on theoretical grounds, but let us only look into the books of history and into the vast and varied responsa literature to see the untenability of it. Even in their own stronghold, Meah She’arim, change is creeping in, as it must, in what goes on in the street, in what may be heard over the radio, and, no less, in the groupings of people. Thus, it was possible, for instance, to use last year against the Chinuch Atzmoi school system of Agudath Israel the same posters, with their violent ac cusations and dire warnings, which had served some thirty years before against Mizrachi schools . . . every thing is in motion, everything changes. For the very circles against which the wrath is directed todays were among the promoters of the original posters, that have now been brought out of the archives and refurbished. The other point in which there is make believe is the claim of non recognition of the “Zionist State.” March-April, 1964

Because Meah She’arim lives, of course, the life of the state. Take, for example, the matter of postal serv ices. They are fully made use of by Neturey Karta, although it involves not only the use of Governmentoperated post offices, of stamps bear ing the insignia of the state, and of postmen and all the other staff that run the business—but it also involves benefiting from the services of Jewish ships and of the El A1 airliners, whether or not those scrupulously observe the Shabboth. There is no need to go into more detail to prove the point. One is reminded of a child who is cross with his parents, and yet lives in their house and feeds oh what they prepare for him. But one cannot say that in the case of Neturey Karta there is child-like innocence at work. HE second attitude to be con sidered is much more realistic. It acts on experience acquired through hundreds of years of Jewish existence in foreign lands under non-Jewish rulers, and transfers this wisdom to Israel and acts accordingly in all the problems concerning Jewish existence here. It was part of that wisdom 4 o make the best use of the resources that were available, to keep apart from the governing authorities as much as possible, to avoid annoying those in power, and, when necessary, also to humor them by the outward show of deference, whatever the real feelings were. Also to be avoided was personal involvement in any of the real issues of “their society.” This may not seem, to some, a very attractive picture of what might be called the “Goluth” attitude, but one can find many justifications for it as dictated by dire necessity in the

Diaspora. One can well understand, too, the application of this attitude to internal Jewish life in the Diaspora, taking the form of spurning associa tion with assimilationist or secularist elements in communal organs, oppos ing ânÿ participation in Jewish move ments in which proponents of other attitudes were included, and project ing a field of endeavor for the upbuild ing of Jewish life independent of all other associations. The “Goluth” atti tude stands in a different light, how ever when practiced by a consider able sector of religious Jewry in Israel towards the State of Israel. Here, a program of constructive development is not only imperative if the ideology is to be sustained and to acquire a meaningful role, but such a program is necessarily and unavoidably inter related with that of the surrounding society. And here, likewise, participa tion in the generàl organs of Jewish life—which comprise the State itself —is unavoidable. But therein \ lies a contradiction between the policy de rived from Diaspora circumstances and the dictates of the Israel scene. In struggling with the contradiction, the bearers of the “Goluth” attitude (roughly corresponding with Agudath Israel circles) seem so far to rest on a policy of day-to-day improvisation, rather than arriving at a positive and definitive formulation of their role in relation to objective realities. This group is represented in the Knesseth, and it knows the value and price of its every vote; it does not join the

government, since all the good things that may be derived therefrom can be obtained also from without; it does not help to make the state give religious education, but extracts from the state by various means all the money neces sary to build up a party-controlled education; its teachers are no party to the professional efforts of their col leagues in the service of state schools to improve their salaries and status, but they are the first to publish the results f ^ f the negotiations of the National Union of Teachers (of which they are not members) and to present their bill for payment . . . and so on. Summing it up, it appears to be rather a cynical attitude, which is hard to reconcile with the principles espoused. It seems there is something more agreeable or more dignified in the attitude of Neturey Karta, unreal istic and “make believe” though it is. They maintain at least that since they deeply disagree with the State of Israel, they do not want to have any part of it. Their schools indeed refuse all grants, and their teachers and their children bear the brunt with fortitude. You may disagree with their ideas, but their efforts at protest demand respect. But the “Goluth” group lacks the strength of their professed con victions. They do not have a good word for the State—lest they be de nounced even more violently from their neighbours to the right—but they prosper on the trade they have with it. Can such an attitude toward the Jewish State be right?

“FIGHTING FAITH” .

“

•

. * ■ ; V '*■

r ; *n

t- ‘

E come to the third attitude, which we will call ‘‘lighting Faith.” Let it be said at once that this

W 14

is beset with great ideological difficul ties, which show up at many points of its winding way. For this is the attiJEWISH LIFE

tude that seeks a solution for a prob lem that, except in barest outline, has not been dealt with in our sources, and certainly not under the dictates of daily necessity—the one condition that produces viable answers to real problems. I wish to make this latter point a little clearer because it seems of ut most importance for our discussion. Let me quote a few lines from Rambam’s introduction, in his Mishnah commentary, to Seder Kodoshim, the order which deals with the offerings. There we read: I found it proper to speak of the different kinds of offerings before I be gin to explain this order. And what prompts me to do so, although all their main differences are fully explained in the written law, which leaves no room for new results or deductions, is the fact that the practice of the offerings has tong been lost, for our many sins. Few take an interest in this matter, little is ..known of it and remembered, and there is no real discussion of it (nowadays)— because there is no practice of these laws to keep up the acquaintance with the law, no questions arise, no investi gations are being carried on at all—so

that in this field the scholar is on a level with the ignorant man from the multi tude . . . For the same reason, while answers can be found to some of the most difficult questions regarding the laws of ritual observance, which have oc cupied the layman and rabbi alike at all times, to this day, you may be hard put to define the kind of liability of a car-owner in terms of Choshen Mishpot rulings. This should make it abundantly clear that, with the best of intentions, it is impossible in many instances to produce a clear-cut answer to the problems which arise in facing the prospect of running a modern state March-April, 1964

according to Torah law. In the present situation the virtue lies in the serious effort to find a solution. Those who deny the necessity of seeking such a resolution, and no less, those who stand aside, their arms akimbo, just to see what happens-—these are blame worthy. HAT is the meaning of “faith” in the description of this atti tude? Let us remember then, that there was a time when religious Zionism urged the masses in Central and East ern Europe to leave those countries and to settle in and rebuild Israel. This stand was taken with the support of very few leading Torah authorities, against the opposition of the majority of spiritual leaders and against the advice given by the Agudah move ment of those times. It needed great strength of faith then and a keen sense of responsibility, together with courage and vitality, to leave the fa miliar warmth of the age-old forms of traditional Jewish existence and start out on the road into the yet unknown, in quest of a glorious fu ture, of the fulfillment of the words of our Prophets—with G-d’s help and our honest labor. And one needs a great "deal of faith today to hold on in spite of problems, difficulties, and setbacks, and to be certain with all heart and mind that the events of this generation cannot be mere chance, cannot have come to pass in vain. It is a trial of our ability for faith: shall we let all that has transpired pass by, refusing to see any deeper meaning in it, refusing to listen to the voice of the events, refusing to take up the challenge? Shall we sit back, claiming that nothing has really happened, until a miraculous act of redemption throws the ripe fruit into

our lap? Faith will know to choose between these two paths. And the “fighting” results directly from the faith, for it just means planned and persistent activity to achieve the goal. This is a hard way. *

When you leave the well-trodden paths you are liable to err, and you offer yourself up for criticism. And yet, what merit and what virtue lie in the faultless caution of those who shirk the duties of their hour? *

with this side or that without weigh ing sufficiently the thought that what you promote today over there, in Israel, for them, the Israeli Jews, should include you, too, and tomor row may indeed apply to you. There fore, every decision taken or every opinion given today, anywhere in the Jewish world, on how to achieve our legitimate objectives in Israel, how to further the full redemption of our people, in the circumstances obtaining today and with the just means at our disposal-—every such step must be taken with the fullest responsibility and with the deepest conviction of its infinite religious significance.

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T would be wrong to read the above as if Israel were a religious chal lenge only to Jews living on its soil. The question as to which of the three attitudes described and analysed is the best to choose, or what further alter natives exist, is a burning one for every Jew the world over. And here the trends observable in the United States also require some comment. But this can not be done in the frame of this article. In Israel you sometimes get the feeling that the Jewish communi ties in the Diaspora take a somewhat detached view of the ideological and religious side of our problems. There is a readiness to express sympathies

Seven Questions, Four Sons, and Two Answers By SHUBERT SPERQ

E usually regard the Pesach Hagodah as composed of a series of quartets—the four questions, the comments of the four sons, the four cups of wine, etc. It would perhaps be more fruitful, however, to consider the Hagodah as presenting us with seven questions on the subject of Passover. Four of these questions are as signed to the youngest child present. The Hagodah itself is not concerned with the identity of the person asking them. The second set has three ques tions, each associated with a specific type of person— a wise son, a wicked son, a simple son, and a rejoinder to one who is too obtuse to ask. What is there in the type of ques tion involved which makes for anony mity as to the questioner proper in one case, and knowledge of the ques tioner’s identity essential in the other? The four questions of the “Ma Nishtanah” are posed within the frame work of Judaism. The questioner pre sumably stands within the system and has certain questions which require in answer only information in accord ance with the rules and regulations of the system. Thus, he wishes to know March-April, 1964

why on Pesach one may only eat Matzah, or why we eat Moror. As such, the questions are purely objec tive, so that the state of mind of the questioner or his personal identity are irrelevant. ONSIDER in comparison, how ever, the second set of questions: “What is this?” or “What is this serv ice to you?” These are questions which do not merely ask for information but require justification. These are ques tions which are critical of the system as a whole and are being posed by individuals who have evidently taken up a position outside of the system. These questions are subjective in the sense that they are holding up for critical examination the entire rela tionship between the questioner and the system. Consider, by way of illustration, two types of chess questions: (1) What moves can I make with a knight? (2) Shall I play chess today? The first question calls for an answer from within the rules of the game of chess. The second inquiry, which has put into question the entire enterprise,

calls for a much broader set of con siderations involving the basic values and the orientation and attitudes of the questioner. It is for this reason then that our Sages assigned each of these justifica tory questions to a particular “type.” For in handling and responding to these questions, the attitudes and value-frame of the questioner are most crucial. For it is necessary to find some point in this person’s world view at which a transition can be made from non-religious to religious lan guage. The wicked son is questioning the authority of Judaism, largely out of his “wicked” situation which is a de sire to throw off these limitations upon his freedom of action. This does not call for rational considerations. The Rosha must first be shocked out of his self-sufficiency, out of his sense of the adequacy of life, out of his insensi tivity to his awful predicament as a mortal being. The wise son seeks intellectual re spectability. He wishes an answer which will show the logic of faith to be coherent with the canons of belief followed in other areas of experience. NTERPRETATIONS of the specific answers to the four sons as found in the text of the Hagodah are to be found in the commentaries of Abarbanel and Malbim, and I do not wish to go into these specific replies here. It has often been pointed out that while one of the sons is called a Rosha—wicked, the contrary type— the Tzadik, or righteous one, is not mentioned. The top billing is given to the Chochom, the wise son. On the basis of our analysis, this is quite understandable. The only one who can be called Tzadik is one 18

whose second-order questions have been answered; who makes the com mitment, accepts the authority of the system, and is back to asking the first type of informational question. The Tzadik is one who no longer has a need to ask questions requiring justi fication of Judaism. All of the four sons enumerated by the Hagodah are “problem children” until the answer is given and accepted. The diagnosis which seems to be given to the first son is that he is intellectually curious. Hence, he is simply called a Chochom. What our Pesach Hagodah appears to be telling us is that within our Torah there is adequate and sufficient material with which to develop “an swers”—or better yet, “approaches”— to these problem children. For in truth, in this sense, we are today, all problem children. The open texture of our intellectual community makes it mandatory that every religious Jew be able to explicate the grounds upon which his commitment to Judaism is based and justify those grounds at least to himself. Such reflective selfawareness of our Judaism is so vitally necessary that even if one’s child is not yet bothered by this problem, “at pesach lo”—you must provide him with at least the ingredients from which such a justification of one’s be liefs can be fashioned. N broad terms, however, the Talmud already indicates the general ap proach to be used in justifying a commitment to Judaism. The fourth mishnah in the tenth perek of Pesachim states: “According to the mind set of the son, should his father teach him, beginning with a shameful aspect of our history and concluding with something praiseworthy.” In the Tal mud there is a dispute between Rav

JEWISH LIFE

and Sh’muel as to whether the shame ful-praiseworthy text is best served by the passage, “Slaves were we to Pharaoh in Egypt . . .” or “In the beginning, our ancestors were idol worshippers . . According to the Netziv, what is at issue in the dispute between Rav and Sh’muel is not a personal preference for Biblical texts but the question as to which consider ation can best fulfill the requirements of the Mishnah: “According to the mind-set of the son should his father teach him,” Which of these areas is the more appealing, the more allinclusive, the more adaptable to the varying needs of our problem sons? The text which begins with “Slaves were we to Pharaoh in Egypt” points to identification with our historic Jew ish past. The transition from the shameful condition to the praiseworthy condition; from slavery to nationhood under G-d, is precisely the origin of Jewish distinctiveness and Jewish char acter. Sh’muel maintains that the strongest appeal which we can make to someone who asks: “Why should I make a Torah commitment?” is on the basis of his sense of Jewish identification. We were born Jews. Whether we like it or not, this has in the past and will in the future continue to influence our fate and destiny. We must come to terms with the giveness of our situation and at tempt to make sense of it. Only a Torah commitment, only a Torah way of life can render intelligible our Jew ishness and make it a meaningful and fruitful part of our liVes. No matter

March-April, 1964

what element you value most in Jew ish life, its continued preservation is guaranteed only by a total Torah commitment. Rav, on the other hand, maintains that one must appeal to an even more basic element in developing grounds for loyalty to Judaism. Prior to render ing our Jewish experience intelligible, we must be able to make sense of our human condition. As a human being, with a few uncertain years ahead of us, confronting the anxieties of aliena tion and death, and the awful respon sibility of decisions which affect others as well as ourselves, our first step must be to know G-d, to become aware of Him as Mokom—as ground of all being, to realize what it is to have come close to His service. Hence, Rav elects that text which describes the passage from idolatry to the G-d— experience which must constitute the approach to justificatory questions about Judaism. HE process by which one affirms the total Torah commitment is not a completely cognitive one. It is pri marily a decision, a matter of volition. Of course, one does not decide with out reasons. However, all the reasons together do not add up to a proof in the conventional sense or to a con clusive demonstration. Hopes and fears and desires may and do legiti mately enter. In the last analysis, however, one decides to make the commitment or not to make the com mitment by a decision freely entered into and for which, therefore, we will be held morally responsible.

Resistance By S. B. UNSDORFER Could any of the Six Million imagine that Jews who were saved for the gas chamber ask: Why didn’t you defend yourself?

ITH the storm created by Han nah Arendt’s “Eichmann in Jeru salem” still raging, particularly in Europe whfcre the book has made its appearance only recently, we sud denly find ourselves in the midst of a different controversy—though on the same subject—namely that over Hochhuth’s play “The Deputy.” Per haps this is no mere coincidence. Perhaps it is a typical example of our times in that Hochhuth, the German Gentile, endeavours to blame the world, particularly the Church, for condoning the massacre of millions of Jews, whilst Arendt, the Germanborn Jewess, prefers to put the guilt on the victims themselves. It is impossible to describe the pain and distress caused to the concentra tion camp survivor by the work of such authors as Arendt, Bettelheim, and others who, without cause or reason, have made it their task to besmirch (and insult the memory of millions of our martyrs. I find it im possible to believe that these writers arrived at their conclusions in the course of a sincere and honest search for the truth. Those who seek the truth, those who really want to know what happened to our people under

the terror of the jackboot, can find it readily and plainly in the mouths of any of the thousands of survivors— the only authentic and reliable wit nesses to whom one can turn. No, I will not believe that such authors were looking for the truth. Rather, they seem to have aimed at arousing suffi cient “controversy” to hoist their works to the top of the bookstands. The memory of our martyrs was raped in the interest of “sales appeal.” That is why one must welcome wholeheartedly the appearance of K. Shabbetai’s “As Sheep to the Slaughter?”,* even though, on the outside, this thin booklet of only 63 pages seems a rather slender advocate against Miss Arendt’s fat volume of 270 pages. But, of course, whilst there is no limit to fiction, truth and honesty are obliged to observe the sanctity of every written word. HABBETAI quotes the words of Gideon Hausner quite frequently. In fact, the former Attorney General

* A S SHEEP TO THE SLAUGHTER?, by K. Shabbetai, W orld Federation o f the BergenBelsen Survivors Associations, N ew York, 1963. 64 pp. $1.00.

JEWISH LIFE

at the Eichmann trial has written a what caused Mr. Hausner to establish foreword to the book. But, I wonder the precedent of Jew asking Jew, whether it was not Mr. Hausner him “Why did you allow yourself to be self who, in a way, got the ball rolling killed?”, rather than Jew demanding which resulted in the present fashion of Gentile, “Why did you kill my of “investigating Jewry’s alleged own brother?” guilt” for the dreadful fate which be But now that the question has been fell them under Hitler. put, we may as well face it: “Why At the time of the Eichmann trial didn’t they resist?” I read the daily transcripts very dili Shabbetai goes to the core of the gently indeed, and I remember quite question when he says: clearly the day when I found the fol In the life of the Jews, strange and lowing report: puzzling things have come to pass. Who could imagine that events in Jew Dr. M. Bielski, a Tel Aviv magis ish history would leave room for ques trate, formerly an inmate at Plaschow tions or doubts needing clinching proof, concentration camp, was giving evi as if all that had been recorded of the dence at the trial, and related the terrible chapter of Hitler’s regime was tragic story of a 15-year old Jewish still not enough? The imagination of boy who was executed before the eyes the six million who went to their death, of some 20,000 prisoners on the A pell more or less with the cooperation of Platz because, “he hummed the tune other Europeans, was simple and naive. They went to the death chambers under of a Russian song.” Dr. Bielski de the delusion that somewhere another scribed to the Court the dismay and world exists, a world in which that horror of the prisoners as they mysterious creature, man* will feel watched in silence the murder of a guilty concerning the Jews, because of young child. the monstruous injustice perpetrated “But why didn’t they resist?” Mr. against them, and that this remorseful Hausner suddenly asked the witness. man will be filled with understanding “How was it that 20,000 prisoners and sorrow for the catastrophe that watching such a dreadful scene did occurred here on earth. Few of those millions could have imagined that this not try to overcome several hundred man, instead of feeling shame, so that SS guards even though they were he could scarcely lift his head and look armed?”, the Attorney General de a Jew in the face, instead of beating manded to know. his breast in remorse, would set him, I was shocked when I read that re the murdered Jew, on the witness stand port. “What is Mr. Hausner letting and cry accusingly, “Coward! Why himself into?”, I asked myself. Hav didn’t you defend yourself?” How much ing heard all the testimony given more inconceivable is it that any of earlier at the trial, how could the those six million could imagine such an accusation or question from the lips Attorney General still ask such a of Jews themselves, those Jews who question? Indeed, I wondered, what were saved from the gas chambers not kind of question was this for the by their own wisdom or courage but Chief Prosecutor? Surely that was a simply by the good luck of being far point which should have been taken away from the holocaust! up by Dr. Servatius, Eichmann’s de Yes, Shabbetai is right when he fense lawyer? speaks of the “strange and puzzling” To this day I fail to understand ways in the life of Jews. One would March-April, 1964

think that the overwhelming majority of Jews — and, indeed, non-Jews — would agree wholeheartedly with the sentiments expressed by him. But Arendt, Bettelheim and their friends prefer the more “controversial” an swers: “cowardice, weakness, Jewish selfishness and even outright collab oration with the Nazis”—that is their answer to the question, “Why didn’t they resist?” Professor Trevor-Roper, the British historian, is quoted by Shabbetai as having come forward with an even more exciting answer. He splits Jewry into two parts, describing the Euro pean type as the one who readily went as sheep to the slaughter and the Israeli type as the proud nationalist who fights heroically to defend his indi vidual and national rights. This idea may well appeal to some sections, but in reality it is based on pure ignorance. Over one-third of those who fought so heroically for Israel in 1948 were the very same men who offered themselves “as sheep to the slaughter” in 1942. Is it perhaps suggested that they have “learned their lesson,” and now know better? Even that is folly. Because todáy there are, alas, thousands of concentration camp survivors in many countries be hind the Iron Curtain who have had their lesson and yet undergo suffering and persecution for a second time without any attempt at resistance or what is now more fashionably called heroism. The real difference is simply this: In his combat with the Arabs the Jew was engaged in a war, a full-fledged battle between two nations with each side having its armor, its commanders, its prisoners, its objects of attack and points of retreat. If the Israeli proved to be courageous and more daring 22

than the Arab, it was largely because he knew Nasser’s plan to drive the defeated Jews into the ocean. HE great tragedy of our people under Hitler was that in the literal sense we were not at war with any body. We were not any army; we had no weapons, no definable objects to attack and no points of retreat. We were a scattered minority, a hated people, a nation persecuted and de moralized—prepared for eventual an nihilation without any means of resistance and defense. The very moment any author or student of history attempts to draw parallels and tries to compare the Jewish case with that of other persecuted minorities or nations at war, he is going completely off the track and must arrive at the wrong destination.

FEEL that Shabbetai, too, is guilty of overindulging in trying to com pare the absence of Jewish resistance with that of, for instance, the Czech village of Lidice; the over three mil lion Russian prisoners of war, most of whom died in the camps; or the five million non-Jewish inmates in German forced labor camps. I know that his intentions are good, but I doubt whether he manages to convince his readers by it. After all, the reader will say, these people fought before they were captured! That is why we must not try to make comparisons. Our tragedy just has no comparison! As a former Auschwitz inmate who, but for the Grace of G-d, would also have gone as sheep to the slaughter, may I ask but a simple question: When exactly should that much talked-about Jewish Revolution have started?

JEWISH LIFE

Before 1939?—when most of the world’s statesmen still thought that they would manage to come to terms with Hitler. After the outbreak of war?—when every country in Europe shut its borders and nobody had time to spare a thought for the Jews. In 1940?—when the jackboot was goose stepping from victory to victory and the Jews thought that perhaps the social and economic restrictions with which they were faced would satisfy German Antisemitism. Or should it have started in 1942?—a time when almost the whole of Europe was Hit ler’s, and his Jewish charges a de jected, frightened, and demoralized people. It is easy for the “armchair revolu tionaries” of the 1960’s to sit back and stage an uprising in which the pen is the hero and the paper the victim. As Shabbetai rightly points out: The Jews were completely unpre pared for the terrible catastrophe that befell them . . . No Jew was prepared for a calculated program of mass mur der which would continue for years! When the Nazis occupied a coun try, as they did my own native land, Czechoslovakia, they did not over night turn their guns against the Jews and push them into cattle-wagons for transportation to Auschwitz. The “Final Solution” was a top secret ex ercise conceived and executed with the utmost care like a major military operation. At first Jews were not allowed to visit certain cafes, restaurrants, the theater, or the cinema; later universities and the top professions were made out of bounds for the Jews; still later, Jewish shops were “arianised” and the city’s more fash ionable districts were cleared of their Jewish inhabitants. It took two years March-April, 1964

before the first Jew found himself interned, and only later, much later, in the spring of 1942, did the first transport of Jewish men and boys leave for a concentration camp in Poland—and even then nobody knew the word concentration camp; it was referred to as Arbeitslager, under the claim that while the German and Slo vakian men of military age were giv ing their lives in battle, the ablebodied Jews should at least help the war effort. By the time mass deportation of whole families was taking place we were a completely devastated and psychologically crippled people re sembling the normal human being only by appearance and dress. It was thanks to the ingenuity of the Nazis, who turned the murder of the de fenseless into a “national habit,” that we Jews were tamed and maimed until we became, to put it quite blunt ly, “oven ready.” F any Jewish revolt was needed, it was in Zurich, London, or New York, in the centers where the socalled leaders of World Jewry re ceived all the horrifying information about Auschwitz and the other camps and yet, to our deepest disappoint ment, remained silent and impotent, either because they did not believe us or because they did not believe in themselves. The double tragedy of the Jew under Hitler was not merely that he was exposed to the whims of every Gestapo officer or man in uniform. In the majority of cases the Jew had to guard himself against the entire citizenry in his neighborhood. The great misfortune of our people was that the Germans, Poles, Czechs, Magyars, Rumanians, and others—in-

eluding the ones that were personally persecuted by the Nazism—even they enjoyed the sight of the marching Jew! We Jews were beaten and ter rorized by our own non-Jewish campmates—the Poles, Germans, and Rus sians. And though we were in the same boat, we remained “the Jews” and even the gypsies were superior to us in status and life value* Indeed, even while still at home the Jew was in this respect not very much better off than in the camp. The Jew in hiding, in his bunker, or the one living on false documents, had to keep his eyes on the boy from next door, on the milkman, postman, de livery boys, dustman, caretaker, win dow cleaner—in fact, every single person who did not have a huge Yel low Star on his lapel was a potential enemy, a could-be informer who, by getting his Jew deported, might be able to pick up a cheap bedroom suite, an entire family’s wardrobe, for a hand ful of pennies. I know. I have seen Jewish homes, the belongings of dozens of my neighbors, pulled to bits by hordes of Slovakian villagers who came into the Judengasse after a Jewish transport had left for Ausch witz, to pick up bargains in an “auction” in the victims’ own flats. Less than twenty dollars could re move an entire outfit, not just the furniture, but a complete bedroom, together with suits and dresses, shoes, combs, mirrors, brushes, and every thing else that makes a home a home. Hannah Arendt has never seen this, nor have Bettelheim or Hilberg—nor even Gideon Hausner. If Bettelheim suggests that every Jew should have met his executioner with a gun in his haiid (forgetting conveniently to say where the gun should have come from) perhaps he 24

would also suggest when the shooting was to have started? Do you shoot the SS men who actually come to collect you and your family for deportation, or do you shoot the caretaker’s 12 year-old son who accidentally dropped his ball into your bunker and discovered a Jewish family? And if the shooting should have started only in Auschwitz, then perhaps we may know where this should have begun? Before “selec tion,” with mother still holding her nine-month-old baby in her arms; or does it start after the “selection,” when it would not have mattered in any case?

OT that there was no Jewish Re sistance. Shabbetai makes some very moving references to the heroes of the Warsaw Ghetto, in particular to the rabbis who refused to leave their flock in the encircled Ghetto even though they were offered a chance to escape. But, with all due respect and reverence to our unfor gettable Kedoshim of Warsaw, we must not neglect to pay equal tribute to the other numberless heroes of the Nazi era. Jewish men, women, and children showed acts of great and courageous resistance of which Arendt and her collaborators will never be capable. Thousands of Jewish families crossed closely guarded borders in the darkness of night. When they reached their new country of temporary safety they had to have papers, ration books, identity cards for every single mem ber of the family, a roof over their heads, and some money in their pockets. All this was provided for by their Jewish brethren in Hungary, Slovakia, Rumania, and elsewhere. What about the thousands of false passports, false naturalization certifiJEWISH LIFE

cates that were readily available in Jewish centers for anyone preparing to make a border crossing? What about the thousands of men who chiselled their way out of the cattlewagons whilst the train was rolling to Auschwitz at 60 m.p.h.? What about Jewish sabotage in German factories; inmates who risked their lives again and again by deliberately damaging machinery? What about the millions of young and old who indeed went heroically as sheep to the slaughter rather than throw themselves at the feet of the SS commanders pleading for mercy, for help, for life . . . If the 20,000 prisoners at Plaschow were to have thrown themselves at their guards when that fifteen-year-old sacred Jewish martyr was killed, they

March-April, 1964

may well have claimed a few SS vic tims. But they knew that within twenty-four hours countless others from their own ranks would have been mowed down by SS tanks and machine guns. Indeed, Dr. Bielski himself may never have lived to see Eichmann in the glass cage and to give evidence against him. HE people of Plaschow, like most other Jews under the Nazis, knew that the most important act of Jewish Resistance was Jewish Endurance. Today, the millions of Jewish mar tyrs massacred during the war are the eternal witnesses of German bestiality; but the thousands of our survivors are the living testimonies of Jewish Resistance.

iZeprinU

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THE JEWS A N D THE ECUMENICAL COUNCIL By Rabbi Norman Lamm THE ECUMENICAL COUNCIL: THEIR PROBLEMS A N D OURS By Dr. Justin Hofmann THE JEWISH ATTITUDE TOWARD FAMILY PLANNING By Dr. Moses Tendler CAN WE NEGLECT THE TALMUD TORAH? By Zalman Diskind WHAT DOES JEWISH YOUTH REALLY W A N T ? By Rabbi Pinchas Stolper PRAYER IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS* (Editorial)

JEWISH IDENTIFICATION A N D THE SUPREME COURT D EC ISIO N * By Reuben E. Gross CHURCH— STATE: REEVALUATION OR RA TIO N A LIZA TIO N ?* By Herbert Berman (*These are included in one pamphlet.)

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JEWISH LIFE

Entertaining Worship By ARNOLD ROTHSTEIN

VISITOR to New York City com mented to a friend that he made his way to the usual attractions with no difficulty, but when he tried to find a well-known place of wor ship, he. fiad considerable trouble in getting directions. His comment was: “New Yorkers don’t know as much about their places of worship as they do about their other places of enter tainment.” This apparent slip-of-thetongue provides ample food for re flection. Do we find in the synagogue worshipful entertainment or perhaps entertaining worship? Certainly, the musical fare and the treatment thereof play no small role in setting an atmosphere, be it proper or improper. And perhaps no indi vidual is more responsible for the creation of the atmosphere of the serv ice—that of worship or that of enter tainment, as the case may be—than the sh’liach tzibur, the “emissary of the congregation” who leads the con gregational worship. This officiant may be a lay member of the congre gation or a professional functionary, a chazon. The mode of chanting the prayers may be either that of the baal tefilah, the unassuming- prayer leader who uses an unadorned style

March-ApriJy 1964

closely keyed to the traditional nusach and niggunim of the congregation, or that of chazzanuth, in which a greater or lesser measure of musical art is brought into play by the chazon. The chazon of today is often called “can tor,” a term whose literal meaning, singer, is indicative of the role which has been assumed. In many synagogues today, one finds less of the baal tefilah and more of the cantor. Very often, the popular conception of the cantor is that, like a singer, he must impress his hearers in order to be considered “good.” Frequently, we hear that a cantor makes a “debut,” that he is “sensa tional” or “terrible” (in doing what, one might ask), that he helps people “enjoy” services, that he must produce “high endings’* (low pitched endings like v’chachalom youf are so rare), that he is a “public performer.” Thus, one gets the impression that we are, in truth, talking about entertaining worship; that we are, in truth, dealing here with an entertainer, who happens to use liturgical words to adorn his “tunes,” and not an officiant. Is it any wonder then, that exhibitionism is rife or that often the cheap and tawdry parade under the name of music for 21

worship? Unfortunately, the cantor (henceforth the singer) is a peacock intent on displaying his plumage, since that is precisely his function. Now, all too readily, the profes sional is the one who is the butt of criticism despite the fact that he may be buffeted about by the caprices of those whom he ostensibly leads. More over, it is less the purpose of this writer to castigate than it is to search out reasons for the usages (typified by the word “cantor” itself) which appear to represent a popular state of mind. F we look back to that historical period when, by social institution, the Jew was forced to live in a quar ter of the town walled off from the general populace, we can see that op portunities for culture, in its broader sense, were limited. In a social setting which, channeled and restricted as it was, produced a unique and rich cul ture in one sense, there was at the same time cultural starvation in terms of the development of the arts. In this situation, the baal tefilah quite naturally came to serve a double func tion—on the one hand, he was a leader in worship and on the other, an entertainer at social occasions. Moreover, with the distinction beyn kodesh Vchol not being nearly so pro nounced and sharply drawn in Jewish theological conceptions as it is in the non-Jewish conceptions, how then could one expect music, even in its doxological forms, to escape? Hence, profane and insipid tunes to “holy” texts were made holy by their associ ation. It is even so today. “There is no difference in music,” runs the theme, since there is no dif ference between the cantor as public “pray-er” and as public performer.

Besides, if one prays from the heart, that is all that is necessary. Now, this “heart” argument meets with staunch opposition when it comes to the dis charge of Jewish duty; attitudes are rejected in favor of concrete deeds. Would we not do well to demand more deeds from the heart-oriented Jew who is an officiant at a prayer service? Here, many of our brethren are surprisingly liberal; their punctili ousness does not extend to the need for perfection in art forms. Here, there is a yawning chasm between piety and music. This imperviousness to art and this hermetically-sealed classificatory system does account, in part, for the stagnation of the Jewish musical mes sage. Some have held that the message of Judaism is better carried via parable than by naked truth. Indeed, the homely midrosh seems to exemplify this concept. Leaving the literary artform and proceeding to the aural, would the vehicle of a well-constructed musical vessel not enhance the mes sage of Judaism? It is the contention of this writer that the answer of the Jewish folk has been unfortunate: where art comes in the door, religion flies out the window. What are the results? AVING long ago separated art from worship and the conception of prayer, it is little wonder that our people’s aesthetic comprehension as regards religious music remained so restricted except, of course, in cases where the environment around the Jew offered particular stimulus in this direction. Paradoxically enough, try as the Jew did to resist the inroads of the environment, it has made its influence felt, perhaps because wor ship and musical art were not consid ered marriageable. But since musical

JEWISH LIFE

art did not develop organically as an integral and legitimate expression of worship, ofttimes the shells and husks of music made their appearance as sudden grafts onto the main body. Through the erection of an antago nism—music versus prayer, singing as opposed to davening—the impulse to musical expression found vent in an accretion of theatrical art. Revolution ary change was possible because evolu tionary development was precluded. (Incidentally, the Chassidic move ment can hardly be called a serious attempt at removing the dichotomy between art and worship, being more properly a folk expression.) Let us refer to some specifics. N general, as one surveys the land scape of the Jewish service as pre sented by a singer there is disclosed, musically speaking, a lack of a con ceptual framework, except in rare cases. These cases are found in such a “prosaic” service as the weekday prayers and possibly sections of the festival prayers. (Here “foreign” ac cretions attached themselves less read ily.) But who considers a weekday service “chazonish?” Precisely! Chazonish—theatrical and/or entertaining gyrations—came in the back door be cause the front door was barricaded against art. Furthermore, one finds that in a traditional cantorial selection, within the several elements of a service, there is no overall concept for the entire selection!—something which captures the mood and total meaning. Instead, there is a concentration on individual words which are detached from the context as a whole. These words are often displayed store-window-style via musical somersaults and pyrotechnics which serve as documentation for the

March-April, 1964

singer’s title, or perhaps his gown and bib. The religious troubadour will play with these words speciously to demon strate his knowledge of Hebrew phrases. This acrobatic juggling of sounds may be observed when con gregants expect their singer to shout: v’tigar b’soton or raash godol This is called interpreting the meaning. Actu ally, it is puerile at worst and pedantic at best. Sometimes, the vocalist will pull phrases out of sentences as found in the popular ballad: y ’hi rotzon milfonecha, rotzon y yhi or ki hu Vvado poel g’vuroth, ose chadoshoth, baal milchomoth, ki hu Vvado. This is called oisteitchen verier, but it is none theless literalistic nonsense from an aesthetic standpoint, and it is all the more pernicious because of its osten tation—designed to impress people and not to commune with the Creator. Certainly, worshippers recognize some blatant dissembling and do react nega tively to such literalisms as oznayim lohem Vlo yishmou where the singer actually acts out the meaning. Here, intuitively, the worshipper grasps the fact that an art-form is symbolic, that there is a distinction between literal description and representation. How ever, in the aforementioned cases, literalisms are agreeably tolerated. But whence did all this arise? GOOD example of fragmentary and detached emphasis on in dividual words (as well as an illustra tion of a lack of thematic develop ment) is the cantillatory system used in chanting the Torah, the Haftoroth, and the Megilloth. Beginning, middle, and end are musically not discernible; only individual words which begin and end a passage are identifiable. Cantillation just seems to go nowhere except in a circle, occasional oma-

mentation decorating its musical land tic sense as alluded to above, the re scape. However, and one must note sult most probably would be sounds the distinction well, cantillation is not appropriate to the typical contract as prayer but didactic message and in drawn up by a verbose lawyer. In struction, where such an approach is deed, it is the greatness of the tune itself which preserves the words and justifiable. At the same time, it is perhaps not the reverse. For once, the Jewish interesting to observe that in cantilla folk did not erect the dichotomy of tion, literalistic interpretations, musi worship versus music. This is music cally speaking, are not usually made. and it is at once worship. For, one For example, the prophetic phrase, has but to detach the words entirely lo b’chccyil v ’lo b’koach ki im b’ruchi and the musical sounds would still be permits no flexing of vocal muscles. worship to a Jew. Indeed, it is prob The mehupach pashta zokef koton able that most recognize Kol Nidrey sound the same in this context as they as their most treasured and hallowed would over less glittering words. In composition. And it is a composition keeping with an oriental conception precisely because it has superb struc of reading (that is, chanting) public tural potential. Here, it can truly be proclamations and exhortations, this said that there is little musical evi is entirely proper. However, to use dence of what is commonly called such a conception as a basis for a perush hamiloth (the literalisms) and musical composition in the art sense much provision for concentration on is to abort creativity. And, historically, the theme and message of the prayer. this is precisely what happened. Given And with what results! Unity is evi the fragmentary and detached empha dent. Thematic development is pos sis on individual words from the can- sible. A leitmotif bearing an impor tillations as a model, when it came to tant message emerges; the message it thematic development of the music self is enhanced. But where else in for prayer, the singers could do naught prayer services is this true? The but gyrate and wiggle on a series of goulash now prevalent will give way tones. However, a musical composi only before an artistic conception that tion in the thematically creative sense is pristine in its efforts—an artistic is not synonymous with mere roccoco. conception that would call for the Hence, occurs what I have called the musical counterpart of Isaiah, not the stagnation of the Jewish musical mes bumbling efforts of our inept “per sage. Let us look further to a musical formers.” work closely identified with the Jew. N truth, we Jews are said to be still awaiting our Bach. To those who The melodies to the Kol Nidrey text, though growing out of the folk are familiar with it, it is evident that idiom, are amenable to artistic devel Bach’s music is the pure distillate of opment. The tunes, crystallized around a great religious exaltation produced the eighteenth century, show such in the crucible of a burning faith. We musical structures as theme, variation, need Jewish musicians with similar sequence, modulation, and coda. If consecration. And we need them one were to look at the words, how trained in philosophy of aesthetics, ever, and to attempt oisteitchen of and in Hebrew, and in liturgy, and in the legalistic formulas in the literalis- music, and in so many other areas in

JEWISH LIFE

which they are presently deficient. Perhaps more than any other require ment, we need chazonim who have been taught to eschew their assumed roles as performers. On their part, “professional” zealots have to over come certain benighted prejudices to the effect that science and musical art are antagonistic to Jewish teaching. The thinking which creates the dichot omy of music versus daverting (which, as observable in the Kol Nidrey, is just the opposite from the truth) must be uprooted if any organic and nat ural musical development for the liturgy is to take place. The titan Bach wrote on the manu

March-April, 1964

scripts of the greatest music the West ern world possesses—“to the glory of G-d alone.” Unfortunately, the wor ship of so many of our singers is for the glory of self. While there is some justification in the sense that this role has been, in part, imposed from with out, it has nevertheless led directly to our Augeian stables; these will not be cleansed so long as we have singers who address eloquent prayers to audi ences. Perhaps we would not have to wait for Elijah, as has often been sug gested, if we can convince people to address themselves to their tasks. As a beginning, maybe we can look for more baaley tefilah and fewer cantors.

A. Story

The Safe One By E. V. SIEGEL

VER since I can remember, my mother’s favorite place has been in front of the living room window. Sounds cozy? Smells of Friday night challahs and sweet little ladies watch ing for their children to hurry home through the dusk for the Sabbath? My mother isn’t that kind of a mother. When we lived in the suburbs, she had a contour chair upholstered with the results of early experiments in foam rubber. It must have been the manufacturer’s first production model because it was an uncomfortable as my Aunt Edith’s French Provincial overstuffed furniture, only more mod ern. By the time Aunt Edith caught on and moved into a split-level colo nial mansion, in Colonial Harbors Subdivision, we were already back in the city, and my mother was installed in front of a hermetically sealed plate glass window in an air conditioned apartment with terrace and contour rugs instead of wall to wall. We are a progressive family. Anyway, I tried to keep all these things in mind before I approached her in regard to the trip. I knew I had to go this summer. Next summer might be too late. I might never get to see and feel the things I just knew I had to see. She probably wouldn’t

mind if I wanted to hitch a ride on a jet to Alaska, or work in one of father’s competitor’s offices for the summer, but I had a feeling she would hit the ceiling, hard, if I told her what I was up to this time. So, there she was, reclining on a Japanese carved teak creation, her hair like spun gos samer. It really looked like spun gossamer. She goes only to the best hairdressers who use imported bleaches, or something. And she was reading. I was hoping it wouldn’t be Dylan Thomas. If it was, she’d prob ably be afraid I’d end up an alcoholic on this trip and say “no” without hearing me. For a wild moment, I considered putting the trip off and going some other year, when I could pay for it myself. It’s a terrible handicap to have a well-to-do father and an under standing mother. It makes self-expres sion practically impossible. But then I remembered what had happened to my sister Sharon when she matured. From a swell horseback rider she turned into a bleached blonde who got married almost immediately. To one of my father’s lawyer’s junior partners, yet. A slob who hasn’t ever been near a horse and works out at Gyp Clancy’s to get rid of his paunch. JEWISH LIFE

Anyway, I wanted to get the trip in before that happened to me. W \ T E S , Dear,” my mother said X without lifting her head. She prides herself on her maternal in tuition J ‘‘Don’t scuff your shoes. Col lege women don’t do that.” So go talk to a woman like that! Before I could open my mouth, she had put diapers back on me. I pulled down my sweater, wonder ing if that was a Freudian defense against her maternal intuition. < “Mother, I’m going to Berlin,” I said. I noticed she was reading Ezra Pound. My mother is also broad minded. “That’s nice, dear,” she answered. “What other cities do you want to take in?” “I am not taking a tour of Europe, mother. I am going to Berlin.” I hoped I was getting through to her. She made believe she hadn’t heard. “Do you want to spend your junior year abroad?” she asked, sounding like the guidance counselor in high school. “No, mother, I want to go to Ber lin, now, this summer.” “Why?” ¡Lqggfi Apparently I had gotten through to her. When she can’t make believe she doesn’t hear you, she turns on you. “I want to know if it’s really there,” “Are you crazy?” Mother folded her batiste handkerchief in two and put it carefully in between the pages of Ezra’s Cantos. “No, I just want to go, now, before it’s not there any more.” v “Darling, you don’t think the State Department would let the Russians take over Berlin, do you?” “I’m not talking about the State Department, mother? I’m talking about March-April, 1964

Berlin. Grandpa’s Berlin. Father’s Berlin.” Mother doesn’t like to be reminded that father’s family did not worship in the old synagogue in Rhode Island. She whipped the batiste handker chief out of Ezra and started to dab at the eyeshadow around her blue, blue eyes. When I was little, I wanted eyes like hers so badly, it hurt. “Don’t say it, mother,” I begged. “Say what?” “What did you do to deserve a daughter like me.” “Well, you must admit, it is a little odd. How did my little honor student turn into . . ...” . . an oddball?” I raked my hand through my hair because I knew it would annoy her. “I’m tired of getting nothing but scholarships. I want to live.” I should have known that was the wrong tack to take. “How verrrrry Hemingway,” she purred. “I shall have both your grand father and your father talk to you.” FTER Friday night dinner, which is always a major production, I got my talking-to. I wasn’t worried about either Grandfather or Father. My father thinks Ezra Pound is noth ing but an Antisemite with an in creased output of wordage and my grandfather was a socialist in Germany before Hitler got there. The men in my family are realists. “So, why do you want to go to Berlin?” Grandfather asked the min ute my mother had left us with a discreet smile. When he rams his hands in his pants pockets and sticks out his chin, I can almost believe that he carried a pail full of revolvers through a Nazi rally once. He becomes less convincing when he shakes his

head until his yarmulka slides away from his bald spot and hangs on to a tuft of hair in the back. “I want to meet Rote Lotte,” I said. “What makes you think she is still alive?” Grandfather’s voice was rough. On Yom Kippur, he identifies each of the ten martyrs with ten friends who didn’t make it to the United States on time. “If she isn’t, I want to see the place where you and she carried the re volvers,” I said, sounding like a tenyear old even to myself. When Grandfather took his hands out of his pockets, I noticed the little wrinkled hillocks on his knuckles. His nails were shiny and pink, young-look ing on such old hands. My father took over. “Offhand, I would say that’s an unusual request to make,” he re marked in his best let’s-give-the-customer-what-he-wants voice. “Now, if you were a boy . . “. . . but I’m not a boy,” I inter rupted him as I had interrupted my mother. “I am a person. A female per son who wants to know where she belongs.” My father started to breath heavily. “You know perfectly well where you belong. You belong here. In the United States. You were born here.” “Then why did you go back to Ber lin when you were stationed in Ger many after the war? Did all officers in the army feel they had to go to Berlin?” I was sorry, almost, that I had asked. He turned pale and sat down. “I suppose I wanted to make sure.” Grandfather looked at him then and there was a bridge between them that excluded me. The look and the feeling it opened inside of me were 34

old acquaintances. I’ve had it since the first time we had a Jewish Fresh Air Child, back in the suburbs. He was more Jewish, I thought, because the bananas and sour cream were de licious to him, and nauseous to me. It was there when I was Bath Mitzvah because I just knew it was wrong for me to stand in the bimah, no matter what mother said about being a pio neer. And it became strong as any thing when I met with stiff young Israelis who looked as though they couldn’t breath in our sorority house. That’s why I really had to go to Berlin. Because maybe there I could be. I mean, maybe there it would be important to talk to people, maybe there I could be more than a nice girl with high grades and naturally curly hair. Berlin seemed like the na tural place to go. Where grandfather and his father and his father had lived. HEN grandfather sighed the kind of a sigh grandfathers have sighed since the time of Moses. His sigh embraced my father. “Oihch! Mein Sohn . . . it’s hard to believe, still, after seeing it and tasting it in your mouth, that the country that gave you birth and nurtured you, can sink so low. And did you want to see the shool where you were Bar Mitzvah? Or did you want to see the street corner where they stoned your mother?” The bridge that bound their eyes together grew a substructure of suffer ing completely unaccessible to me. “No,” my father said. “I wanted to see the place where you and Rote Lotte forgot that you were a Jew and she a Christian.”^ “Why? So you could prove to your self a Jew can live and not be guilty?”

JEWISH LIFE

Outside of their common compart say. It s Sharon. She is going to have ment, their special, Jewish compart a baby.” ment, my heart began to scream. I was The two male faces turned away the safe one. The American one. The from me. one that had no right to their bond “A baby.” Grandfather clutched his or their suffering. heart. “A great grandchild! How you Then, they gently let go of each found out on a Friday night?” other and turned back to me. Oh, papa,” mother was annoyed. If you want to go to Israel, may They came over to tell us, naturally. be,” my grandfather said to me. “And They just found out.” And then to me. work in a kibbutz for awhile . . .” “You won’t be able to go to Europe I wanted to detest his smile. this summer, darling. Your sister will “I needn’t prove to anyone I’m need you.” Jewish,” I answered, aware of the lie But my father was right there with in my voice. me. “Then why do you want so much “Oh, I don’t know. A baby is great. to suffer? Is there no other way?” A new little one. Maybe one who will Now he and I were locked into the want to hel£ dig tunnels under walls tight hold of our emotions. My anger in Berlin, like' his aunt, or one who beat against ¿he coldness in his face will go to Israel.” until I sobbed. ^ “Never mind all that.” My mother Father interfered. wasn’t having any of her grandchil Nu, nu, Liebchen,” he crooned. dren sent off anywhere. Born or un Isn’t it enough that whole generations born, she was going to see to their were offered up as martyrs? You safety. should laugh and be merry . . . this My grandfather was praying, his is your home. What do you want? A body moving slightly in the way he trip to Europe? So, you’ll have, you’ll hardly ever permitted us to see. have. Business is not so good, but “No,” he said. “Not to dig tunnels, you’ll go on student rates. We’ll not to wail at the wall, but to praise manage.” Him. And maybe he should turn into an artist, a writer, a scholar, now that EFORE I could reiterate my plea this family has had its politicians and for a separate trip to Berlin, my businessmen and lawyers.” mother burst into the room. Under I cuddled up close to my father and her exquisite hair, her face wore the reached into the pocket of his heather expression of an ecstatic doll. Her tweed jacket to feel for the pieces of little body tried to hold itself stiff halvah he used to keep there when against some tremendous surge of I was little. That way I could hug him feeling. The batiste handkerchief was without anyone noticing and admit doing duty as ball and tear soaker at defeat only to him. the same time. I had never noticed I wondered if among my mother before how fragile she was. Beside her and my sister, and all the rest of hermetically sealed picture window, them, I would ever get a chance to she had always held the stance and hold the baby and make him feel like the power of a giantess. a link in a chain instead of a little “It’s sister,” she finally managed to metal ring enclosing nothing.

March-April, 1964

Jews in Sweden By FRED WERBELL

Can a small Jewish community, distant from the centers of Jewish life, meet the challenge to Jewish continuity? This survey of Swedish Jewry explores its development in the light of this question.

WEDEN is a country of vast dis tances—the length from north to south is no less than 1,980 miles, while the greatest width is 310 miles. It takes about thirty-five hours in a highly modem electric train to travel from the southern-most point to north ern Lappland, which stretches far be yond the Arctic Circle. Only three European countries are larger than Sweden, while, with her population of seven million, Sweden is one of the most sparsely populated countries in Europe. One can travel for hours through the northern half of the coun try with its wealth of forest and iron ore without seeing a sign of civiliza tion. Sweden is, however, highly indus trialized, and there are probably few countries in the world where an American would feel more at home. The standards of living being similar, the average American Jew would find that the necessities and comforts of life so important to him are also con-

sidered essential by the ordinary Swedish Jew. The great differences would, however, also be evident at first sight—the American Jew being part of the greatest conglomeration of Jews today, while Sweden has pro portionately one of the smallest Jew ish populations in the world, 13,000 out of a total population of seven million. In the Scandinavian countries as a whole there are 23,000 Jews, with Denmark and Sweden sharing the overwhelming majority. Finland and Norway have an estimated Jewish population of merely 1,500 each. This scarcity in numbers and the vast dis tance from any Jewish center of sig nificance have created problems of a specific character. Bearing in mind, however, the particular conditions prevalent in Scandinavia which, to a great extent, have influenced the de velopment and organization of the Jew ish communities, I venture to consider Scandinavian Jewry a miniature of a far larger concentration of Jews, deJEWISH LIFE

picting the same problems and condi tions, certainly in a smaller scale, but perhaps also more poignantly. HE first Jew permitted to settle in Sweden in modern times was Aaron Isaac, who came from Germany in 1774. Finding the Swedish authori ties tolerant in religious matters, he de clared that he needed a “minyon” to practice his religion, and was accord ingly granted permission to bring in his family and some friends. Thus, from 1775 on there was a regular minyon in a private house in Stock holm, and only a few years later a Jewish community arose in Gothen burg as well. The nearly two centuries of Swedish Jewish history have been quiet and harmonious, in contrast to the history of the Jews in Central and Eastern Europe. The story of Swedish Jewry, however, has not been without sur prises. The possibilities of so many individual Swedish Jews being able to play an outstanding role not only in Sweden’s economic life, but also in her intellectual and cultural life, was not envisaged either by Swede or Jew during the first few generations. And when Swedish Jewry as a whole seemed, after civil emancipation, on its way to soulless routine and assimila tion, lacking contact with the great missions and problems of the Jewish people,!' the situation unexpectedly changed so that Swedish Jewry too was made a part of the living body of the great Jewish community. The fact that Sweden has not taken part in any war for over a hundred and fifty years, and its resulting policy of neutrality, has made this country a haven of refuge for Jews to this very day. The mass migration of Jews to the New World also had its reper-

March-April, 1964

cussions in Sweden; some Jews on their way to America from Russia and Poland came off the main streams of migration and; so to speak, found themselves in Scandinavia, where they settled. They and their descendants today make up about half of the Jew ish population. Later, when Hitler came to power, some three thousand Jews from Germany and Austria settled in Sweden. After World War II the Bernadotte Relief Committee distributed ¡passports to Jews left in the liberated concentration camps, and 15,000 camel to Sweden, where they received medical care jand other treat ment and training necessary for their rehabilitation. 12,000 of these refugees eventually left Sweden again for the United States, Israel, and Canada with the help of Swedish-Jewish relief or ganizations. It is of interest that 85% of the refugees were women between the ages of seventeen and thirty. Sweden’s neutrality during World War II was also of great benefit for the Jews in the neighboring Scan dinavian countries. During 1942, seven hundred Jews came from Nor way, the remnants of the Jewish com munity, most of which was destroyed in the Nazi extermination camps. Well known are the courageous acts performed by many a Dane during the “little Dunkirk” in October, 1943, when 8,000 Danish Jews—practically the entire Jewish populace of Den mark—were ferried to safety in Swedea almost overnight. When the Gestapo came to the Jewish homes at night, every single one was empty, for the Danes were hiding Jews in hospitals as patients and transporting them in ambulances to the docks. Using all kinds of devices, the com passionate and determined Danes hid them in small fishing boats to slip 37

them across to Sweden. Almost all of these Scandinavian residents returned to their homes when the war ended. The most recent additions to the Swedish Jewish community were those Jews from Poland who received permis

sion to rejoin their families in Sweden, and the refugees from the Hungarian revolution in 1956. Through these different humanitarian acts, Sweden has certainly shown an example to the world, of which it can be truly proud.

THE SOCIAL BACKGROUND HE opportunities for social mo bility in Sweden are in certain re spects quite unlimited. Many Jews who have lived for generations in Sweden and feel completely assimi lated and integrated within Swedish society have risen high on the social scale. (It may be of some interest to note that there are few aristocratic families in Sweden into which Jews— of wealthy families—have not inter married.) There are few restrictions in social mobility upon the committed, identified Jew, and few Jews today consequently tend to feel that com plete assimilation is necessary to at tain prominence. These circumstances have provided opportunity for valuable contributions by Jews in many fields of material and intellectual progress. In propor tion to the comparatively small num ber of Jews in Sweden, their con tributions are remarkably numerous and some are highly important. One of Sweden’s greatest poets was Oscar Levertin (1862-1904). Though a sceptic, he used subjects from the Jewish religion—in, for instance, “An Old Jewish Song;” in his philosophical poem, “Ahesueros” he dreamed of a state of harmony between Jews and Christians. Levertin was also the out standing literary historian and critic of his time. An important contem porary figure is Ragnar Josephson (born 1891). He grew up in an as

similated environment, but his “Jewish Poems” bear witness to his feelings for his Jewish heritage. Originally a lyric poet, Josephson is also known as a profound art historian, and was head of the most important theatre in Sweden, the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm. Among quite a few Swedish Jews who have distinguished themselves as painters was Ernst Josephson (18511906). He was the leader of the group of artists who, in about the year 1885 brought about a renaissance of Swed ish painting inspired by contemporary French art. Also a pioneer of modern art was Isaac Grünewald (18891946), who came from an orthodox East European background. Many consider him the best and most inter esting painter of modem Sweden. He preferred almost orientally glowing colors and is famous for his many still-lifes. Willy Gordon, the son of an orthodox cantor, belongs to the new generation of sculptors. He has, for example, made a memorial to the victims of Nazism. It has often been said that the history of Swedish litera ture has been written by Jews, and indeed the “Illustrated History of Swedish Literature” by Karl Warburg (1882-1918) and Henrik Schuck (1855-1947) is the standard work in Sweden. Eli F. Hecksher’s (born 1879) great work “Swedish Economic History” is generally considered the JEWISH LIFE

most important contribution during the present century to Swedish his torical research. He is regarded as one of the most outstanding econ omists of our day. LTHOUGH the Jews tend to vote for the liberal parties, their polit ical influence is almost non-existent, despite Jewish ownership of the two largest newspapers in Scandinavia. Their influence is also insignificant in the economic field, although Jews were the founders of some of the leading chain-stores in Sweden (in cluding the famous NK store, one of the main attractions of Stockholm, as many a visitor has admiringly de clared). As everywhere in the Western world, Jews are heavily represented in the garment business. Occupationally, Swedish Jewry can be said to follow the trend among Jews in the Western world, the pre ponderance being in the fields of com merce and services. As among Jews everywhere, a large percentage are self-employed. The picture is, how ever, different among the younger generation, which has enjoyed a natural access to higher Swedish edu cation without any discrimination whatsoever. The number of young professionals — medical men, engi neers, and lawyers—is therefore pro portionately very high, even among the relatively recent settlers. Industrial workers among the Jews are conse quently rare, except among those who came after 1945. However, even this group is showing proof of the middle class tendency of the Jew, by using their restitution money from the Claims Conference to establish their own businesses. Most of these Jews have settled in the provinces. Thus they have reinvigorated Jewish life

I *

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there; but the migration has also caused marked differences in social class and outlook between the new comers and earlier Jewish settlers. These differences sometimes lead to unfortunate overt clashes, and con stitute at times a threat to the very existence of these small communal organizations. LL restrictions on the civil rights of the Jews were removed in 1870. Political or legal Antisemitism is therefore non-existent. Other types of discrimination against the Jews are without importance in Sweden, except for social prejudice. However, overt Antisemitism, though rare, is by no means non-existent. A more permanent and serious type of hostility is the great amount of Antisemitic literature that is published in Sweden, some for domestic, but most for foreign consumption. While these publications and propaganda materials may not influence the Swed ish public at large to any great extent, there are those who take them seri ously; These enterprises get substan tial financial backing, and though most of the money comes from abroad, a fairly large amount must be raised in Sweden. The different world wide Antisemitic organizations have taken advantage of the liberal press laws in Sweden. Both Gothenburg and Malmo now have reputations as leading centers for Antisemitic mate rial. Although this work is well known and done openly, there is little the Swedish government can do under present laws except express indigna tion that this occurs on Swedish soil. A survey was undertaken in the spring of 1958 on the extent of racial prejudice in Sweden. The results as regards attitudes towards the Jews are

of interest.. Fully 20% of those inter viewed stated that they wdUld have objections working with a Jew; 34% still held to the stereotyped notion that one will be cheated if doing busi ness with a Jew. There was a marked difference in attitudes between those who lived in the large cities (where, after all, the Jews are to bé found) and those who lived in small towns or rural areas. Of the urban group only 8%. : were opposed to*. working with a Jew. There is also less prejudice in the younger age groups: of those under 35, 20% held that one would be cheated if doing business with a Jew. These figures are not especially dis turbing when compared with attitudes in other countries. However, it is im portant to keep in mind that, although outright Antisemitism may be at a minimum in Sweden, the attitudes of the people as far as social contact is concerned are still marked by preju dice. These figures should also be compared to the statements of the Jewish Community of Stockholm that, “Antisemitism is wholly non-existent politically and very insignificant so cially.” The whole conception of the role of the Jew in Swedish society, as conceived by the more assimilated Swedish Jews, pictures the Jew as fully accepted by the general popula tion. The above-listed figures as to the extent of social prejudice, can be interpreted in various ways; however they can hardly be called “insignifi cant.”1:;.: ' jg HE proportion of men to women seems to be more even within the Jewish community than among the Swedish population at large. Conse quently the marriage rate (among Jews) exceeds the country’s general

T 40

rate. In common with other western Jewish communities, Swedish Jewry does not fully reproduce itself. This has resulted in a proportionately high age level for the community as a whole, affected also b y assimilation and withdrawal from the community by some of the younger generation. It is generally estimated, however, that the post-1945 settlers will raise the birthrate. Sweden’s acclaimed position as an outstanding forerunner in the field of social welfare, and the traditionally Jewish attitude on social assistance and charity, have influenced the Swed ish Jewish communities toward a preponderance of activities in these fields. Serving as centers for social and cultural work could truly be termed the characteristic features of the “unified” communities. The guid ing principle for social assistance policy is that the needy individual should first turn to the state and local authorities for help, with assistance from the Jewish community only be ing a supplement to this. A very large part of Sweden’s bud get is dedicated to social improve ments, today’s efforts being directed towards erasing the old concept of poor relief and replacing it by social insurance, particularly designed to facilitate the bringing up of families. Despite, however, the liberal and generous policy of the Swedish au thorities, the Jewish community work in this field is not only the most im portant but also the most costly of all facets of communal endeavor. Because so ¿many of the so-called “1945-rescued” will never be able to work again, ¡or are severely limited in their abilities, and through the recent resettlement of the Polish and Hungarian refugees, the social budget JEWISH LIFE

is heavily inflated. Since most of these latter Jews were brought in on guar antees that they would not become a public burden, the central Community must assume financial responsibility for them, although many of them have by now gained a foothold in Swedish society to a satisfying extent. It is most distressing, however, to note that today, long years after their liberation from the Nazi concentra tion camps, there are still to be found refugees scattered all over Sweden in

various Inatoriums suffering from the incurabl ^ diseases caused by the concentratic o, camps. The . ewish Community of Stock holm ha f both an Old Age Home and a newlj ‘erected Home for Chronic Invalids " but following the general trend in ¡Sweden, it seeks to maintain the old people in their own homes as long as tpossible, and therefore arrangeme its are made to help the old people j s/ith their domestic require ments. J *

COMMUNITY ORGANIZATION HROUGH the post-World War II influx of eastern European Jews, Swedish Jewry was brought face to face with the real position of Jews in its most outrageous form. Many who had lost interest in Jewish matters and hardly felt Jewish any longer suddenly became conscious of their Jewish obli gations. The immigrants from eastern Europe dominated the new communi ties and soon played an important role in the older ones as well. They pointed out the failure of the outlook of the so-called Liberal Jews, who demanded the complete assimilation and integra tion of the Jews within Swedish society. (Supporters of this outlook have even argued against specifically Jewish sport clubs, advocating that Jewish youth should mix freely in the non-Jewish organizations—even meet ing their Jewish friends within these!) This attitude was, however, completely unacceptable for the ( more recent settlers, whose Jewish Commitment is far more intense. Th^y accordingly have emphasized the national and re ligious element, pointing out the fail ure of assimilationism and calling for a united Jewish struggle,for the preser-

March-April, 1964

vation of the Jewish people. This trend towards greater Jewish identification has had many practical consequences in regard to the policy of the community. The “Mosaiska Forsamlingen” (the Jewish Com munity) in Stockholm, representing 7,000 Jews, is by far the largest one in Sweden. Other important com munities are those in Gothenburg, Malmo, and Boras. The central Com munity in Stockholm is modelled on the old German concept of an “Einheits Gemeinde,” a unified community embracing all religious as well as secular trends within Jewry, which is still the model for most Jewish com munities on the European continent. The Community is democratically organized, and run by a Board of Deputies: consisting of twenty-five members," each one elected for a four year period. Of the three parties com peting foi the positions on the Board, the one^representing the Liberal, as similated!! tradition of the native-born Jew hasiconstantly been in power up to two Jgars ago, when the influence of the more recent immigrants began to be fe ll This brought a coalition of B

the other two parties in power, repre senting a more committed approach to Jewish values, whether religious or Zionist-oriented. NTIL 1952, Swedish citizens paid a “religious tax” as part of their yearly government income tax. Since it was compulsory to be affiliated with a religious community, a person could only leave the Jewish Community by officially joining the State Church or another minority church. This tax, which constituted a fixed percentage of the individual’s taxable income, provided a large part of the Com munity’s income. There was therefore much concern after the war, when a government commission started in vestigations which led to the Dissenters Law of 1952. If “freedom of reli gious affiliation” were introduced, only moral persuasion could be counted upon to maintain the ranks of the Jewish Community, and many there fore feared that such a law would result in a large withdrawal. This fear, however, proved to be unfounded. The resultant withdrawals were not substantial, and were more than offset by the affiliation of those Jews who were not Swedish citizens, and who, through the Community being trans formed into a voluntary association, could now join. As there exists no national organi zation embracing all the Jews in Sweden, the Stockholm Community, as the largest and most powerful in the country, represents Swedish Jewry in dealings with international organi zations. In contrast to the position of the synagogue in America, it must be clearly understood that the Jewish Community in Stockholm is not only a religious association. While all its members adhere to the Jewish faith, 42

and the community and its spiritual leaders minister to the religious needs of the members, the Community deals with all aspects of Jewish life, and undertakes all activities which con cern the Jewish population generally in Sweden. Thus it is naturally the center for all social and cultural work affecting Swedish Jewry. Considering this, it may not be surprising to learn that the Community keeps a salaried staff of: about 100, including rabbis, cantors, teachers, executives, social workers, clerks, and secretaries, which is substantial for a community of per haps 2,000 families. TOCKHOLM’S Central Synagogue is located next to the Jewish Com munity Building (which is not to be confused with the Center) in the very heart 6f Stockholm. This beautiful structure* built in continental Euro pean style, was inaugurated in 1870, and has seating facilities for over 900 people. The Service is a somewhat shortened Ashkenazic rite, accom panied by organ music and a mixed choir, but—no doubt surprisingly to Americans—men and women sit sepa rately. The Central Synagogue repre sents the Liberal trend found on the European continent, and would cor respond most closely, in many re spects, to the American Conservative movement. There are also two smaller orthodox synagogues, that can barely support one rabbi to serve the more traditional elements who are, however, members also of the central Community. One of these synagogues, Adas Jeshurun, has quite a unique history. It is the only synagogue in the world rescued from Nazi Germany. During the in famous “Crystal Night” in November, 1938, when most synagogues in Ger-

JEWISH LIFE

many were savagely destroyed, the Heinrichbarth Strasse Synagogue in Hamburg was miraculously overlooked by the Nazi horde, as it was part of an apartment building. Somehow the rabbi of the community, the late Rabbi Joseph Carlebach, wangled permis sion to dismantle the shool and ship it out of the country, and he offered it to neutral Stockholm, where it arrived in 1939. The German workers loading it had damaged the dismantled syna gogue as much as possible and smeared it with swastikas. It was restored, how

ever, and today it stands in the very heart of Stockholm and is in constant use. It is probably no mere coincidence that the spiritual leader of this very congregation in Stockholm, the late Rabbi A. I. Jacobson, came to play such an important role later on in the lives of the so-called “ 1945-rescued.” He will always be remembered by thousands of these and many others for his devoted and unceasing efforts to help them, as far as it was humanly possible, to rebuild their shattered lives.

EDUCATION VERSUS ASSIMILATION PART from the High Holy Days, the synagogues are poorly at tended. Probably not more than two hundred people attend services at one or more times each week at the three synagogues—twice as many of them at the orthodox shools as at the liberal “temple.” I would estimate generously that there are perhaps one hundred traditional families that fully observe Shabboth and Kashruth, but a con siderably larger proportion of Stock holm’s 2,000 Jewish families maintain Kosher homes. A grave threat to the very existence of traditional Judaism lies in the fact that its adherents within the com munity have no institute of their own for religious instruction, but send their children to the unsatisfactory com munal Religious School, except for those who attend the Hillel Day School during their first six school years. The refugees who came from east ern Europe speak Yiddish, and their children, born in Sweden, often learn it. Those who came from Germany in recent years still speak German,

March-April, 1964

but far less of their children master it. Since there is a great scarcity of material on Jewish subjects in the Swedish language, the fact that most of the younger generation know only Swedish tends to further their separa tion from things Jewish. A great number of social clubs exist within the Jewish community. How ever, in most of these, the cultural programs with Jewish content are not substantial, although efforts are being made to raise their caliber and num ber. All the various institutions are aware of the great danger that faces the Swedish Jewish community. How ever, the reaction to the danger in many instances leaves much to be de sired. It is inevitable, in general, that the younger generation should have fewer ties and less contact with Jewish life. This lessening of ties naturally leads to marriage outside the Jewish faith. The rate of intermarriage in all Scan dinavia is among the highest in the world. The rate in Sweden, though no exact figures are available, is approxi mately 40%. 43

MONG the more assimilated, na and cultural commitments both for A tive-born Jews there is rarely a himself and his children. On the other pretence of observing the various laws and traditions of Judaism. Even in many families that make an earnest attempt at observance, the environ ment makes it exceedingly difficult for the parents to transfer their values in such a manner that they will be mean ingful to their children. The compara tive isolation from centers of Jewish life today has also brought about that in some families, the traditions are observed with such irregularity, and at times in so illogical a manner, that there is a serious question as to what effect this will have even on the younger generation in these families There is no doubt, however, that a decisive trend towards a greater appre ciation of the commitment of tradi tional Jewish values has taken place during the last ten years. The older generation may often have revolted against what they considered a “nar row” outlook; but among the young people, who never experienced any significant Jewish life in their homes, many are now searching for the Jewish identity their parents were unable to provide them with. They are striving to make their Jewishness meaningful. Powerful manifestations of this ten dency, besides those previously men tioned, are the revival of existing youth movements and the creation of new ones, notably the dynamic B’nei Akiva. The marked changes in composition and outlook of Sweden’s Jewish popu lace have both influenced the intensity of the cultural activities sponsored by the central Community and have led to the emergence of varied organiza tions outside the communal structure. The native-born Jew is, generally speaking, content with limited religious 44

hand, the more recent settlers, coming from the great Jewish centers of old in Eastern Europe, have quite different demands and interests. Although their savage experiences may have weakened their religious feelings, their strong Jewish identification is still there. In some cases this has produced a para doxical situation: Having on several occasions visited groups of these recent settlers in somewhat remote provincial towns, it has been quite a distressing experience for this writer to find that, while their children command a Yid dish which today can only be heard from youth of the same age in a “Williamsburg” environment, at the same time they barely know what Yom Kippur is!

HE Community attempts to ¡pro vide some type of Jewish education both in Stockholm and the provinces, as well as arranging various religious and cultural programs for the adults. It also allocates grants to the different organizations, both youth and adult, for their activities in Stockholm and the provinces. It is clear, however, that the religious and cultural pro gram sponsored by the “unified” com munities is a minimal one. Obviously, it is difficult to maintain an intensive synagogue and cultural life in a situa tion where a small number of Jews are widely dispersed throughout a vast area. However, it is also clear that in such circumstances it is of the utmost importance that as strong a religious and cultural life as possible be main tained, for this constitutes the very key to Jewish continuity. In this sphere, above all others, great danger exists for Swedish Jewry, and it is in fighting this peril that the organizations out-

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V 1

side the communal structure are of significance, and perhaps share a greater responsibility than their limited resources enable them effectively to cope with. The great majority of responsible Jews in Sweden have become aware of the importance of this aspect. Many recent accomplishments, which would have been inconceivable before World War II, have resulted. The most im portant direct contribution in fighting assimilation is no doubt the two sum mer camps run by the central Com munity, which have become important instruments in promoting Jewish com mitment in the younger generations. Camp Glamsta has a permanent, welldeveloped camp-site in the beautiful Stockholm archipelago, with facilities for approximately 250 youngsters», aged 9-18. About seven years ago a radical change in the outlook of the camp took place, and it then began to emphasize Jewish values and tradi tions. As a complement to the inade quate afternoon Religious School in town, compulsory Jewish education is now provided, in addition to the nor mal sports and recreational programs of a summer camp. The other camp takes the form of an intensive seminar held for three weeks each summer. The participants are children, aged 9-14, from the smaller Jewish com munities that have minimal possibili ties of providing Jewish education during the course of the year. Elemen tary Jewish subjects are taught in a conducive orthodox environment, in addition to sports, arts and crafts, and other features. For the great majority of youngsters who participate in these camps, they provide their only intimate contact with Jewish values and customs. It is significant that although the official March-April, 1964

outlook of the “unified” communities and of the majority of individual Jews is in a religious sense “liberal,” all seminars and camps are run on ortho dox principles in regard to the observ ance of both Kashruth and the Sab bath. This clearly indicates the wide spread recognition that it is only through the practice of these that Jew ish continuity can in the long run be assured. T is in the sphere of religious edu cation, the religious orientation and commitment passed on to the younger generation; that the fiercest contro versy within Swedish Jewry for a long time has arisen, and has brought about a change in leadership in communal matters. The Stockholm Community main tains a Religious School with more than six hundred pupils, who attend for two hours a week in the afternoon. Since a student can only be excused from religious instruction in the public school system if he is registered in the Religious School, most pupils at tend throughout their school years. So in the case of students graduating high school, this means up to the age of nineteen. With so few hours of classes a week, however, the curric ulum must of necessity be rather limited. Jewish history and a super ficial understanding and appreciation of Jewish thought and customs com prise the core of the curriculum; most pupils are incapable of even reading Hebrew when graduating. The Reli gious School is influenced by the “Liberal Forum” trend in Jewish edu cation, stressing a minimal education necessary for Jewish continuity as a completely integrated part of Swedish society. Many Jews who came to Sweden

more recently wanted a more mean eral occasions been praised by the ingful and deeply committed, a more National School Board, which led to religious and pro-Zionist education for the Swedish Parliament granting it a their children. This trend brought state subsidy for the first time this about the foundation of the organiza spring. It can be compared to an ele tion, “Chinuch” by individuals active mentary yeshivah day school. An or in the orthodox synagogues and the thodox teacher is brought from Israel Zionist movements. Chinuch has as to provide a direct and vital link be its major project the operation of the tween the students and the State of Hillel Day School, founded in 1955 Israel. Jewish and secular subjects are after extensive and fierce discussion. taught, in meaningful synthesis, in a The leadership of the central Com traditional atmosphere, the importance munity, represented by the Liberal of which cannot be over-emphasized. Forum outlook, was utterly opposed The two existing trends clash fre to the private Jewish day school con quently, as they represent two basically cept, so contrary to their whole phil different outlooks within the Com osophy and outlook. Any attempt to munity. This was evident in the last set up a private Jewish day school, election to the Board of Deputies two according to this outlook, would only years ago, when the major issue be lead to the creation of a Ghetto at tween the parties was based on these mosphere, isolating the children and conflicting views. An urgently needed preventing them from mixing freely Community Center was to be built, with non-Jewish peers and therefore and as the Community cannot afford causing them greater difficulties in to maintain both a center building and integrating in society at large, How a separate one for the Hillel School, ever, for many parents, especially the the two coalition parties representing “refugees,” the need to provide their the Chinuch standpoint demanded that children with an adequate Jewish edu both projects be housed in the same cation took priority and was the over building. The majority Liberal Forum riding consideration. Besides, many party fiercely opposed this. Preceded argued that the children would any by heated political campaigns, the way not be isolated, and their greater coalition parties succeeded, for the knowledge and identification with first time in Swedish Jewish history Judaism would strengthen, their self- and to the surprise of all, in acquiring assurance and thus prove to be of a majority in the elections. The coali significant help in their integration, tion parties are now in charge of com instead of a stumbling block. A special munal affairs. The outcome of the grant from the Claims Conference and elections this fall, keenly awaited, will a fund drive within the Community determine whether this was an isolated raised the initial capital necessary to event or whether it points to a new start the school. trend caused by the emergence of a new generation of young, more JewHE Hillel School has grown con ish-minded voters. siderably, with some 150 pupils Last fall this controversial Com today. It covers the first six grades of munity Center was inaugurated, and the regular public school, and its secu assumed from the very beginning the lar scholastic standards have on sev key position in Stockholm’s Jewish 46

JEWISH LIFE

life that many had envisaged. The title of its dedication brochure, “A Dream Becomes Reality,” was certainly no exaggeration to most Jews in Stockholm. It contains ample facilities for both youth and adult activities, very much on the pattern of American Jew-

ish community centers or synagogue centers (although a swimming pool was considered a bit too ostentatious), The various youth groups, especially, have initiated, with great enthusiasm, extensive programs focusing around the Center.

IMPACT OF ZIONISM NOTHER important function of the Center stems from the fact thaf in Sweden, as in most European countries and in contrast to the United States, the synagogue has not assumed a major social function. Religion and church life exercise little influence in Swedish society at large, owing to many factors, and this has certainly affected the attitude of the average Swedish Jew towards his religion too, in addition to the general decline in religious commitment. There is no social pressure attached to church life, and one is socially fully accepted in Swedish society without belonging to a church or synagogue. The impor tance of the Jewish Center in instilling Jewish consciousness and commitment among both young and old is there fore obvious. With the central Com munity dominated by the assimilationist Liberals, organizations important in shaping the Jewish future and fight ing assimilation developed outside the communal structure. It is little exag geration to state that the development of Jewish life in Sweden, even its very survival in the future, depends to a considerable extent on these organi zations. ^ The Zionist Federation constitutes today the backbone of these forces. Until World War II the Zionist move ment wielded little influence among the Jews in Sweden. From what has

March-April, 1964

been said before, it will be apparent why Zionism would arouse little re sponse among the assimilationistminded Swedish Jews. While there were some Zionists in Sweden, espe cially among orthodox religious youth, Zionism as such had little influence in the community prior to World War II. However, the cataclysmic events of this period, with the destruction of one-third of the Jewish people in the Nazi extermination camps and the re birth of the State of Israel, could not but influence and decisively change the attitude of the Jews in Sweden as in every part of the world. There was a great concern about the question of Jewish survival; and in many instances a thorough re-evaluation of the ques tion of one’s moral and physical at tachment to the Jewish people. HE Zionist movement stood at the forefront throughout the decisive years following World War II. Its ranks expanded considerably in Sweden as in every country, and for the first time, the movement assumed a major role in the life of Swedish Jewry. The new refugee groups, themselves hav ing experienced the horrors of Hitler’s Jewish program, revitalized the Zionist movement just as, in many ways, they revitalized the Jewish communities in Sweden. After the creation of the State of Israel, the Jews in Sweden joined

ranks to support it. Thus today, most of the native-born Swedish Jews take part in, and contribute to, many of the fund raising and cultural programs which the Zionist Federation organ izes for Israel. Therefore, despite its limited membership, in its support for Israel the movement represents most of the Jews in Sweden. The Zionist Federation now has more than 2,000 members affiliated through various organizations, politi cal parties, and individual members. As in America, the largest single or ganization (and within the whole com munity too) is WIZO (Women’s International Zionist Organization), the European equivalent of Hadassah. It has more than a thousand members organized in branches throughout the country. The only Zionist youth move ment in Sweden, or for that matter in all Scandinavia, is B’nei Akiva. Most of the active members of the Zionist Federation must be classified as middle-aged or older. Thus the Swedish Zionist Federation shares the major membership problem facing Jewish organizations all over the world—how to attract the younger elements, especially those about to establish their homes and families. Because of their basic difference in outlook, the Zionist Federation is often looked upon as a counterweight and opponent to the Jewish Com munity of Stockholm. This is apparent, for example, from the above-cited con troversy in educational policy. It is significant that the radical change in communal leadership, brought about by the last election, placed the then president of the Zionist Federation, Mr. Fritz Hollander, as president of the Jewish Community of Stockholm. In promoting youth activities, how ever, the Community and the Zionist 48

Federation often cooperate. Their combined assistance is certainly of Paramount importance for the various youth movements throughout Sweden. As the adult organizations provided little leadership and inspiration for the younger generations, the young gradually came to realize that they would have to find the leadership and impetus among themselves. Two dif ferent approaches in strengthening Jewish identification among youth in Scandinavia came to the fore. SJUF (Scandinavian Jewish Youth Federation) is the roof-organization for all youth groups and organizations in Scandinavia, and is the most active force as far as general Jewish youth is concerned. It focuses on strengthen ing Jewish identification among its members as a weapon against assimi lation, expecially through intermar riage. It provides the initiative and leadership for many major projects. In recent years SJUF has become more active in the educational aspects of the various youth organizations. SJUF conducts several ^camps for youths between ages 14-17, and also holds a popular annual camp and con vention for young people over eight een, which every year takes place in a different Scandinavian country. Apart from the cultural and educa tional aspects, the main importance of this camp lies in its bringing together Jewish youth from Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Finland, giving them the rare occasions to meet j ;' and thus, among other important benefits, pre venting many intermarriages. In something of a contrast to the SJUF approach, I would denote the aims of another organization as more constructive in building up a mean ingful Jewish future in Scandinavia. This is B’nei Akiva, the religious JEWISH LIFE

Zionist youth movement, whose im pact is more strongly felt every day, even outside its immediate member ship. The main importance of B’nei Akiva of course lies in the fact that it furnishes its members with a Torah ideology, with a clear, positive ap proach to Jewish values and tradition. In serving this function, B’nei Akiva in Scandinavia has assumed a major role. Further, B’nei Akiva represents a highly successful attempt, by a small number of orthodox youth, to organize and influence a far greater number of young people from non-observant homes towards not merely the accept ance but the positive affirmation of the Torah outlook. I could relate several examples of youth, sixteen to eighteen years old, who come from homes with minimal Jewish content, and today strictly observe Shabboth and Kashruth, with others refusing to eat at home so long as their parents would not make their homes Kosher. Today this very trend is developing in pro vincial towns where no orthodox households exist at all. HE appropriate question is, of course, how this radical change has come about. What is it that has brought about the rise of ten B’nei Akiva branches all over Scandinavia with more than five hundred members, from a modest start among a handful of orthodox youth in Copenhagen and Stockholm? These youngsters have in-

HE history of the Swedish-Jewish community is not an unhappy one. The community is well organized and

March-April, 1964

fluenced the establishment of branches not only within their own vicinity, but also in Norway and Finland. The movement as a whole exerts its most profound influence through several camps and seminars that are held all year round, as well as in the sum mer. The value of these highly popu lar conclaves cannot be over-empha sized. They provide for the majority of the youngsters some of the rare occasions when they come into con tact with traditional, living Torah Judaism. The inspiring observance of Shabboth at camp is especially known to have been of lasting influence, re sulting, in numerous cases, in revolu tionizing the participants’ Jewish out look. Special services are often organized and directed by B’nei Akiva, and these too are very popular and attract many outside its folds. For many of the youth these services constitute the only occasions when they will participate in any kind of formal religious wor ship. The spell which B’nei Akiva holds is probably due to several reasons, of which we have already considered a few. In our opinion, it must be seen in relation to the Swedish way of life in general. The striking influence B’nei Akiva exerts in a society so little conducive to its ideals and aims lies in the challenge it presents in just such an environment. It provides definite, as well as deviating, ideals in a society largely lacking character istic aims and purposes. * * it functions well. No one can question that generous work has been done by the community through their various 49

organizations and institutions both for their fellow Jews and for Israel. Indeed one is constantly amazed by the amount of money raised, and the time and effort devoted by Jews, often outwardly assimilated, for various Jewish needs, and by the exceptional care they provide for fellow Jews in time of need. The key question that must be raised is: given the present circum stances, will a Jewish community such as this be able to continue to exist?

If there is to be a future for the Jews, as Jews, in Sweden, are the steps and efforts that now have begun suffi cient? Can a meaningful Jewish life be offered to the younger generations through the means that we have de scribed? Can the change of community leadership, already partly effected, sufficiently revitalize Jewish life in Sweden? The answers to these ques tions certainly hold the key to Jewish continuity in Sweden.

JEWISH LIFE

Two Poems By MOLLIE KOLATCH

Shir Chodosh T’fillah wafts over the New-mown grass, Touches the tree-tops And hovers, like a fresh-cut blessing, Over the ambered fields. Young voices rise In a paean of praise And fringed gentian, calendula And anemone Bow flowered heads In bright collage before the Lord While

The triumvirate that ruled The old Cherokee Glower in the gathering gloom As they foresee An end to myth Of man and sun and thunderbird. Thus the first Shabboth descends At summer camp And voices clarion clear Exult before the Lord, And sing a new song.

Plane Descending The plane tips its wing in greeting to the earth; I see cryptic script jagged white against the light of sky; reading the message in taut lines thus we are downward thrust; no deciphered code from G-d only the chalk white road, and sod cutting across wide green spaces leading to men’s hopes, and other places. March-April, 1964

JEWISH LIFE

Yeshivoth In Poland In The Inter-War Years By H. RABINOWICZ

HE three-and-a-half million Jews of inter-war Poland lived in closeknit communities. Although there were no specific ghettos, the Jews invariably clustered together, building their frag ile defences against menacing neigh bors. In general, they were determined not to purchase civic equality at the price of assimilation, and an over whelming majority upheld traditional Judaism with wholehearted devotion. It was in a sense a period of religious renaissance. It marked a re-emphasis on Torah and the re-emergence of a Shulchon Oruch Jew for whom the Torah was all-enbracing and allsufficient. It was “hard to be a Jew,” in postWorld War I Poland, but it was equally “good to be a Jew.” In an age of systematic persecution and licensed discrimination, the Jew managed miraculously to retain a spiritual joie de vivre. Only in religion in Divine service, in acts of faith, in communion with His Creator, did he find refuge and release and the strength with which to face two deathly dec ades. Torah learning found renewed strength, and that focal institution,

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the yeshivah, recovered steadily from the shattering blows suffered during the upheavals of the World War I period. In the inter-war years Poland was the home of great yeshivoth, usually situated in small towns whose re nown spread far and wide. What Yavneh was to the Holy Land and Sura to Babylon, so was Mir to the Diaspora. The renowned Academy of Mir, established in 1817 by Rabbi Samuel Tiktinski (d. 1833), was the foremost Torah college in new Poland. Among its 500 students in the 1930’s were thirty from the United States, forty from Germany, and eighteen from England, as well as young men from Lithuania, Latvia, Belgium, Hungrary, and Switzerland. Under the guidance of Rabbi Yerucham Levovitz and Rabbi Eliezer Yehuda Finkel, students were instructed in Musar (moral theology) as well as Talmudic and rabbinic studies. Another famed Torah center, the Kamieniec Yeshi vah, had a somewhat different em phasis. There, the entire day (from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. and from 4 p.m. to 10:30 p.m.) was dedicated to the 53

study of the Talmud, and only half an hour was devoted to Musar. HREE hundred students attended the yeshivah at Radun, hometown of Rabbi Israel Meir HaKohen (18381933), known throughout the Jewish universe as the “Chofetz Chayim.” This title was based on Verse 13 of Psalm 34: “He who desires life . . . keep thy tongue from evil and thy lips from speaking guile.” Refusing to make the Torah “a crown where with to aggrandize himself,” the Chofetz Chayim declined rabbinical positions. “He who hates gifts shall live,” was one of his favorite sayings. He originally earned his living as a teacher in Minsk and at Washilishok. In 1869 he established the yeshivah “Chofetz Chayim” at Radun, where he began to exert tremendous influence over his students. Yet he called him self a “simple Jew” and led a simple life, declining all honors and all honoraria. He opened a grocery store as a means of livelihood, whereupon all the Jews of the town became his customers. When the modest Rabbi realized that the other shopkeepers were suffering as a result of this pref erence, he shut up shop and began to travel up and down the country selling his books. The Chofetz Chayim became revered as the greatest Gaon of his time. Certainly he could bring new clarity to obscured and enmeshed areas of halachic disputation, but he could also clarify the commonplace problems of the man in the street. His manual Machaney YIsrael (Camp of Israel), published in 1881, was spe cifically designed for Jewish soldiers. Nidchey Yisrael (Dispersal of Israel), published in 1893, was written to help Eastern European immigrants to ad just themselves to the New World.

Unassuming, unassertive, this un crowned leader of Polish Jewry chose to live in a remote hamlet, absorbed in his studies, but when religious Jewry turned to him for guidance, he readily responded. The Chofetz Chayim himself de livered two weekly lectures on Friday night and on Saturday night, which were the highlights of the academic life of the Radun Yeshivah. Himself a Kohen, the Chofetz Chayim de plored the neglect of the study of Kodoshim, the fifth order of the Mishnah, dealing with the minutiae of shechitah, the sacrifices, and the Tem ple rites. In Radun careful attention was given to these neglected subjects, and other yeshivoth followed suit. The Lomza Yeshivah, established in 1863 by Rabbi Eliezer Shulwitz, a disciple of Rabbi Israel Salanter, developed different characteristics. Although of Mithnagdic tradition, it welcomed stu-r dents from Chassidic backgrounds. They were even encouraged to wear their long kapottes and their curled peyoth. HE yeshivah at Slutz, headed by Rabbi Issar Zalman Meltzer, was the home of two hundred and sixty students. In response to an urgent appeal from the Slutzker Rav, Rabbi Jacob Ridbaz (1845-1913), Rabbi Nathan Zvi Finkel of the Slobodka Yeshivah sent fourteen distinguished students to re-establish a yeshivah in Slutzk, naming these forerunners Yad Hachazokah (an allusion to the fourteen-section work of Maimonides, Yad Hachazokah; numerically Yad equals fourteen. After World War I this yeshivah was again re-established in Kleck, under the leadership of Rabbi Aaron Kotler. Rabbi Elchanan Wassermann (1875-

JEWISH LIFE

1941), was the principal of the yeshivah at Baranowicze near the Russian frontier. When the voice of the Torah was suppressed throughout the Soviet Union, Baranowicze be came a haven for students escaping the Yevsektzia, the Jewish branch of the Communist Party. A disciple of Rabbi Eliezer Gordon of Telz and Shimon Shkopp, Wassermann excelled both as, an instructor and as an organ izer. His yeshivah was divided into six grades with thirty students in each division. In addition to the celebrated yeshivoth at Bialystok, Vilna, Brest-Litovsk, Otwock, Pinsk, Rowne, Slonim, and Grodno, a Chassidic academy, flour ished at Swirtojerska 18 in Warsaw. This was the Mesivta established in 1919 under Rabbi Meir Don Plotzki, Rav of Ostrowicz. Chassidic youth, reluctant to travel to far-off institu tions, converged upon this local center

of scholarship. No candidate was ad mitted under the age of thirteen and no one was accepted unless he was able to master unaided one page of Talmud and Tosaphoth (Talmudic commentaries compiled in the 12th and 13th centuries). During the first year, the student studied 245 pages of the Talmud. This was progressively increased, so that the number of dappim studied rose to 305, 345, 404, and 430 in the second, third, fourth, and fifth years respectively. In all, a student mastered 1,735 pages of the Talmud in the course of his studies. Unlike other yeshivoth, which all con centrated on Talmudical studies, the Mesivta devoted two hours each day to Polish, mathematics, and history, a “revolutionary” departure which did not go unchallenged. It was violently condemned as “heretic” by Rabbi Chayim Eliezer Shapira of Muncasz.

ACHIEVEMENT OF RABBI SHAPIRA COLORFUL personality of the inter-war Polish Jewish scene was Rabbi Meir Shapira (1887-1834). Born near Czerrowitz, Bukovina, at the age of nine he was known as the Ilui of Shatz. An outstanding student, young Meir knew by heart the formi dable Yoreh Deah (the code dealing with dietary laws), together with its massive commentaries. In 1910 Meir Shapira became rabbi of Gline, then of Sanok (1920) and later of Piotrkow (1924-30). He was an excellent educator and devoted most of his attention to young people. He was an innovator, too, and among his most noted innovations was the “Daf Yomi” (daily page) which he

March-April, 1964

proposed at the K ’nesiyah Gedolah of the Agudath Israel movement in Elul, 5683 (1923). This was a simple scheme of amazingly vast, in fact, uni versal scope. It called for the study each day by each Jew of one page of the Talmud, so that in seven years the entire Babylonian Talmud would be covered in a cycle of studies which would bind the scattered Jewries of the world in spiritual bonds. The Daf Yomi idea caught the imagination of both scholar and layman, and it was inaugurated on Rosh Hashonah, 5685 (1924). On that day the Rabbi of Ger told his followers: “I am now going to study each day a page of the Tal mud,” and many followed his ex55

ample. The first Siyyum (“completion of the entire Talmud” ) took place on the 15th of Shevat, 5691 (1931). Rabbi Shapira’s second great achievement was the establishment of the Yeshivath Ghachmei Lublin. At that time yeshivah students in Poland and Lithuania lived a spartan life. Few yeshivoth had dormitories or even kitchens. Spiritual food was dished out in great abundance but little provision was made for physical welfare. To keep threadbare body and soul together, a student often ate “Days,” which meant that each day he would be a “guest” in a different home, often a humilating experience. Many had difficulty finding lodgings. In Warsaw it was not uncommon for yeshivah students to serve as night watchmen in shops and factories. “We should be grateful for the existence of thieves,” jested Rabbi Shapira iron ically. “Were it not for the need of watchmen where would yeshivah stu dents find accommodation?” Shapira grieved at the sufferings of those dili gent, unworldly young men. “Nowadays, yeshivah students should not live in shacks and eat like beggars,” declared Rabbi Meir Shapira. “I will build a palace for them.” At Lublin, one-time seat of the Council of the Four Lands and home of Rabbi Shelomo ben Yechiel Luria, the Maharshal, Shapira erected his “pal ace.” The concept was fiercely criti cized. “Wasteful” and “premature” were terms used by the Rabbi of Titkin, voicing opinions which many critics shared. Yet the dynamic Rabbi Shapira brushed aside the opposition and overcame every obstacle. The foundation stone of the new yeshivah was laid on Lag B’Omer 18 Iyyar, 5684 (1924), in the presence of 50,000 persons, among them the rabbis 56

of Ger and Czortkow. It was con secrated on the 28th Sivan, 5690 (1930). On the entrance was inscribed this verse from Psalms: “Come ye, children, hearken unto me: I will teach you the fear of the Lord.” The Lubliner Yeshivah was one of the finest pre-war buildings in Poland, six stories high with 120 rooms, a huge auditorium, fine lecture halls, a library of some 40,000 books, and even a model of the Holy Temple, designed by Henoch Weintrip, to aid the students in their studies of Kodoshim. Every student seeking admission was required to know by heart two hundred pages of the Talmud. Among the concessions granted by the author ities to Yeshivath Chachmey Lublin students was that of buying railway tickets at half-price like university students. When Rabbi Shapira died at the age of 46, such men as Rabbis Sholom Eiger, Joseph Königsberg, Moses of Boyan, and Zevi Frumer maintained the high level of scholar ship set by the founder., N interesting development was the Navardiker trend. Its pro ponents were devotees of “practical Kabbalah,” the mystical interpreta tion of Judaism which stressed asceti cism, self-denial, suffering. The move ment originated at Narvadok, Minsk, Russia, where a yeshivah had been established in 1896 by Rabbi Joseph Hurwitz (b. 1830). In 1915, in re sponse to a call from Baranowicze, Hurwitz sent his son-in-law, Abraham Jaffe, with several handpicked dis ciples to create a new Torah center in Poland. The venture was successful. At Navardok every student was re quested not only to “learn” but also to “teach.” He was expected to turn Torah pioneer for three months a

JEWISH LIFE

year, spreading the lore throughout the land. These “missionaries” set up over one hundred new Torah centers during the inter-war years. At a con ference of Narvadiker Yeshivoth graduates held on Shevat 15-21, 5693 (1933), it was decided that a regular course of Musar should be introduced into the yeshivah curriculum. A quar terly journal Or ha-Musar (“The Light of Mus&r”) was launched and sixteen issues appeared. Whilst these yeshivoth enriched the intellectual life of Polish Jewry, they were a severe strain on the commu nity’s exhausted finances. But bene factors came to the rescue. Yeshivah principals became fund-raisers, peri odically touring Western Europe and the United States. The Meshulach (“messenger”) became a familiar sight. A particularly notable bene factor of the yeshivoth was the great scientist Waldemar H. Haffkine (1860-1930) who, working at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, discovered a serum against cholera and bubonic plague. In 1893 he was invited by the

British Government to direct the Bombay Plague Research Institute. He bequeathed an annual subsidy of £.2750 sterling (the income from a £45,225 deposited in the Banque Cantonale Vandoise in Lausanne) for yeshivoth in Eastern Europe—Poland, Galicia, Lithuania, Rumania, and Hungary. This fund was administered by the Hilsverein der Deutschen Juden (German Jews’ Aid Society) and during the period 1931-1938 £6835 was allocated to Polish yeshivoth. HILE the yeshivoth in Con gress, Poland, and Galicia were under the wings of the Chorev move ment, those of the Eastern provinces were linked by the Vaad Hayeshivoth. This was established at a three-day conference in Vilna in Tamuz, 2-5, 5685 (1925) with the participation of the Chofetz Chayim. Particularly active in the Vaad were Rabbis Cha yim Ozer Grodzenski and Joseph Shurb of Vilna (1897-1943).

CHASIDIC YESHIVOTH DEVELOP TRANGELY enough, Poland, home of Torah was not at first the home of great yeshivoth. During the 19th century Mithnagdic Lithuania had the monopoly and the “voice of the Torah went out from Mir and the word of the Lord from Slabodka.” Chassidic bachurim studied in the Battey Midrosh of their rebbes. The trend to wards Chassidic yeshivoth developed in the inter-war years when the rebbes began to establish their own religious academies and the young followers

March-April, 1964

were spared the difficult choice be tween inadequate study in the home atmosphere of the shtiebel and thor ough Talmudic grounding in the alien setting of a Lithuanian or Mithnagdic yeshivah such as Mir, Baranowicze, Radun, Ponovez. During his residence in Otwock (1927-1939) Rabbi Joseph Isaac Shneierson of Lubavitch founded a number of Tomochey Temimim (“Supporters of Perfection”) yeshi voth. Rabbi Menachem Mendel Alter 57

Kalisz of Pabanice (near Lodz) es tablished a Yeshivath Darchey Noam (“Ways of Pleasantness”). Equally successful was Rabbi Sholem Henoch Rabinowicz (b. 1882) of Radomsko, son of Rabbi Ezekiel, author of Knesseth Y ’chezkel (“Gathering of Ezekiel”). His yeshivah Kether Torah (“Crown of the Torah”) opened thirty-six branches in Poland and Galicia. In Cracow there were more Radomsker shtieblach than Gerer shtieblach. Though many rabbis followed the Radomsker, he regarded himself as a Chosid of Czortkow. The Rabbi of Radomsk was a man of sub stance who owned a glass factory as well as houses in Sosnowiec, Berlin, and Warsaw. He had one of the finest libraries in Poland and was the author of Tifereth SKlomo (“Glory of Solomon”), homilies on the Chumosh and Festivals. The Radomsker’s sonin-law, Moses David ha-Kohen Rabi nowicz (b. 1900) was the author of Zivchey Kohen (“Sacrifices of a Priest”). Under his guidance the yeshivoth of Radomsk achieved high standards of learning, particularly in the famous Kether Torah colleges at Lodz, Sosnowiec, Bendin, Radomsk, Kielce, Katowice, Piotrkowfpp and Czestochowa. The Rabbi himself sup plied half the budget of the yeshivoth and the rest was subscribed by his Chassidim. No provision for the con ferring of Rabbinic Semichah was made, for the emphasis was on study for the sake of study and not for cer tification. Talmud and Tosaphoth (critical and explanatory notes on the Talmud by French and German scholars) were the main subjects of this concentrated curriculum. Under the influence of the Chofetz Chayim much time was devoted to the study of Kodoshim. Students and teachers 58

were not necessarily Radomsker Chassidim. In Sosnowiec the principal of the Radomsk Yeshivah was Joseph Lask, a Chosid of Ger. Together with his son-in-law, the Radomsker was slain on 18 Av, 5702 and was buried in the sepulchre of the Rabbi of Novominsk in Warsaw. *

H* *

HE yeshivoth struggled for sur vival and so did the students. The financial plight of the average yeshi vah student was pitiful. Rabbi Meir’s Boraitha, written in the second cen tury of the common era, related to the situation with an almost uncanny accuracy: “This is the way that is becoming for the study of the Torah: a morsel of bread with salt thou must eat, and water by measure thou must drink; thou must sleep on the ground and live a life of trouble while thou toilest in the Torah.” Food hardly figured in the schedule. Students ate according to a unique rotation system whereby generous householders would invite them to share the family meal on a certain specified day. Many of them could not afford to pay for lodgings. Despite hunger and hardship, the voice of the Torah was heard by day and by night. Bialik describes it well: Oy Omar Rabba Tonu Rabbanon Thus Rabba speaks, and thus our teachers taught, (Backwards and forward swaying he repeats,) With ceaseless singsong the undying words, The dawn, the garden, the enchanted fields, Are gone, are vanished like a driven cloud, And earth and all her fullness are forgotten.

JEWISH LIFE

So the yeshivoth tended the flicker ing but inextinguishable flames of Torah and the torch was handed from father to son in a tradition as old and undying as the Jewish people itself. The Jews of inter-war years were surrounded by a wall of hatred. They were hounded and harried. Yet

March-April. 1964

within the “four ells” of the Torah, its students, young and old, found refuge and release. A golden world this was, where morality and ethics prevailed. Only in the flowered mead ows of learning did they find peace and pleasantness.

for an unequalled experience in Torah living— w e invite teen agers to attend an exciting and unforgettable convention w eekend at the eleventh annual

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at the Pine View Hotel, Fallsburg, New York AN EXCITING RELIGIOUS, SOCIAL AND EDUCATIONAL EXPERI ENCE FOR SELECT TEENAGERS. AN OPPORTUNITY TO MAKE NEW FRIENDS. THE PROGRAM INCLUDES TORAH SEMINARS, WORKSHOPS AND DISCUSSIONS, NCSY BUSINESS AND ELEC TIONS, ISRAELI SINGING AND DANCING, TALENT SHOW, PROMI NENT GUESTS, YOUTH SERVICES, SOCIAL AND RECREATIONAL ACTIVITIES, OUTSTANDING INSTRUMENTALISTS AND ENTER TAINMENT, AWARDS, CONTESTS, SWIMMING, LEADERSHIP AND SKILL SESSIONS. THE FEE INCLUDES ALL EVENTS, TOP ® HOTEL FACILITIES, MEALS, GRATUITIES, AND MATERIALS. FOR APPLICATIONS AND ADDITIONAL INFORMATION WRITE NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF SYNAGOGUE YOUTH EIGHTY-FOUR FIFTH AVENUE NEW YORK 11, NEW YORK

JEWISH LIFE

March-April, 1964

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JEWISH LIFE

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A Classic Is Born By SOLOMON J. SHARFMAN ETHICS FROM SINAI, by Irving M. Bunim, Philip Feldheim, Inc., New York, 1964. 384 pp. $6.50. HE condition of Jewish learning and observance in a given period and culture can be judged from the number and kind of books on Judaism which that period or culture produces. In those times and places in which Jewishness is sickly, the books that are published resemble monuments to the past. They are usually histories, biographies, descriptions of customs and ceremonies, and translations of a few classics. When Jewish scholar ship and tradition are vigorous and healthy, the classics in Hebrew, and commentaries, responsa, and creative expositions of all elements of Judaism are published in Hebrew and in the vernacular. In the earlier periods of Jewish culture in America, books on Judaism were of the firs£ variety. Evidence of the transformation that has over taken the American Jewish community is the fact that books on Jewish sub jects are becoming “best sellers,” at

Rabbi Solomon J. Sharfman has served as spiritual leader of the Young Israel of Flatbush for the past twenty-three years. A former Presi dent of the Rabbinical Council of America, he is an Editorial Associate of JEWISH LIFE. Rabbi Sharfman is also a member of the Bar of the State of New York. March-April, 1964

least in the Jewish book stores; and new editions of the Hebrew classics, as well as excellent works on tradi tion, in the English language, are appearing with increasing frequency. In the recent past, even the books that were written on traditional themes employed ideas, idioms, and concepts that were borrowed from foreign rather than from Jewish sources. There are now beginning to appear English language books that are fresh, creative, and inspiring to the modern Jew, just because they speak with the voice of Sinai. A prime example of the new trend is “Ethics From Sinai,” by Irving M. Bunim. “Ethics from Sinai” illustrates what «Judaism has always maintained, that the best explanation of the Torah is the Torah itself and the most effec tive way to teach it is to let it speak for itself. The Torah was given to all generations and in the languages of all men. In this book, it speaks to us in English, to the laborer and the tradesman, to the learned and the un learned, to the pious, sinners, and penitents alike. The language is force ful and simple and easy to grasp. It could have been more refined and polished and grammatically accurate, but then, perhaps the book would have lost some of the earthiness with which 63

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it speaks to the American Jew. The book has humor and pathos, sympathy and righteous indignation; it consoles and chastises, admonishes, and en courages. “Ethics From Sinai” will become an American Jewish classic. In form, the present publication is a commentary on Pirkey Ovoth (literally, Chapters of the Fathers, but popularly known as Ethics of the Fathers), which is one of the small tractates contained in the fourth division of the Babylonian Talmud. Pirkey Ovoth consists of five chapters of mishnah, plus—in order to facili tate the weekly reading between Pesach and Shovuoth—an additional chapter consisting of Boraitoth. Pir key Ovoth is the only tractate of the Talmud devoted entirely to spiritual and ethical teachings. It is so beloved that it is the only one included in the Prayer Books and is studied in most Jewish Communities on each Shabboth between Pesach and Rosh Hashonah. Hundreds of commentaries have been written on it and its individual mishnayoth are popular texts which are quoted by preachers and laymen alike. In this first volume of “Ethics from Sinai” only the first three chapters of Pirkey Ovoth are covered, but what a mine of information the book contains ! For over forty years, Mr. Bunim has been lecturing on Pirkey Ovoth in Young Israel branches and at con ventions of thej National Council of Young Israel. His lectures are in variably the highlight of the program and he can discuss a single text— keeping his audience enthralled—for hours on end. To limit the comments and compress them into the space of one volume must have taken a great effort in itself; but the material is so well chosen and edifying that the March-April, 1964

author must have labored for years to produce this book. Even chance remarks that might lead the unwary and uninitiated astray have been painstakingly avoided. For example, in discussing the Oral tradition, Mr. Bunim writes, “Secondly, it was feared that if the Oral Torah were put in writing, in time people would come to think of it as part of the Written Torah and treat it as such. This would produce a serious distortion since the two are entirely different in char acter; they must be treated quite dif ferently within the norms of Juda ism.” An additional word or phrase might have led to misconceptions, as they have when others have made the same point more boldly, but with fa r less regard for the consequences. The book is full to overflowing with illustrations, parables, anecdotes, and aphorisms of the wise; but the sources are given in copious notes at the bottom of each page and everything is rooted in the Torah and its sages. Mr. Bunim is well acquainted with modern life, its problems and tempta tions and he has the great ability to transmute a traditional teaching into a trenchant lesson for moderns. For example, in his discussion of the four teenth, mishnah of Chapter 1 of P ir key Ovoth, he explains a difficult text and in a few words makes it appli cable to modern life. The Talmudic commentators are perplexed by the fact that the great, modest sage Hillel would voice so seemingly immodest a sentiment as in this tex t: “During the rejoicing of the ‘drawing of water’ on the Festival of Sukkoth, Hillel would declare, ‘If I am here everyone is here.’ ” Mr. Bunim explains as follows: Let us consider the analogy of a person’s attitude toward an election. 65

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You may feel that your vote is un important and ineffectual; it could hardly matter to the final outcome. Yet if every “I” felt and did the same thing, there would be no elec tion at all. Similarly, many people shirk responsibility, saying “What matter if I do not join or do not attend? The affair, or the organiza tion, will go on without me!” Per haps this is so, but if everyone said that and stayed home, there would be no organization. A person must always judge his choice of action by asking himself whether it would be good were everyone to do the same. This is how Hillel’s words are to be understood: If every per son would say, “I am here,” then indeed “everyone would be present.” If each person individually will per fect himself, the aggregate will take care of itself.

N the concluding paragraph to his “Mesillath Yeshorim,” Moses Chayim Luzzatto writes as follows: “It is evident that every man has to be led and guided according to the calling which he pursues, or the business in which he is engaged. The method of attaining piety that is appropriate for one whose calling is the study of the Torah is not applicable to the manual laborer, and neither method is fitting for one who is engaged in business. Each man must be shown the way which is appropriate to his occupa tion. Not that there are different kinds of piety, since piety is alike for all— but as there are different kinds of men, the means of attaining it are bound to vary. . < .” In “Ethics From Sinai,” Irving Bunim has helped make Torah ethics applicable and under standable to people in all walks of life in our generation.

For th e “Perplexed” of Today By GERSION APPEL THE GUIDE OP THE PERPLEXED by Moses Maimonides. Translated with an Introduction and Notes by Shlomo Pines, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1963. 658 pp. $15.00. EWISH history is richly studded with great, intellectual figures. Yet, since the time of the Talmud, none has achieved the stature of Moses Maimonides—Rabbi Mosheh ben

Dr. Gersion Appel, who is Rabbi of the Kew Gardens Synagogue, Adath Yeshurun, is the author of “Sefer Haneyar, A Code of Jewish Law. He holds doctorates from Harvard and the_ Bernard Revel Graduate School of Yeshiva University. Dr. Appel also lectures on Jewish literature and philosophy and has contributed many articles to scholarly publications. March-April, 1964

Maimon (Rambam). Acknowledged by Jews and non-Jews alike, his fame as philosopher, jurist, and religious guide has endured for over seven and a-half centuries. Of Maimonides, the physician-phi losopher, an Arab poet once sang: Galen’s a rt heals only the body, But Abu-Imram’s (Maimonides) the body and the soul. He could heal with his wisdom the sickness of ignorance. Maimonides has always been a popu lar subject of study. On the occasion of the 750th anniversary of his death, the Mosad Harav Kook in Israel made a collection of the works on Maimon67

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ides in all languages. The total num ber was well over three thousand. It is therefore not surprising, but rather most gratifying, that Maimonides’ major philosophic work, “The Guide of the Perplexed,” has now appeared in a new, authoritative English trans lation. The standard English transla tion of the Guide has hitherto been the one made some eighty years ago by M. Friedlander of Jews’ College in England. Written originally in Arabic, the Guide was first translated into He brew, under the title Moreh Nevuchim, by Samuel Ibn Tibbon in the author’s lifetime. As to Ibn Tibbon’s exem plary qualifications for the exacting task, we have Maimonides’ own esti mation in a letter which he wrote to the scholars of Lunel. Ibn Tibbon had, moreover, the author’s guidance on many difficult passages. The present new English translation is the work of Shlomo Pines, professor of General and Jewish Philosophy at the He brew University in Jerusalem. It is based on the Arabic text established by S. Munk and edited with variant readings by I. Joel. Dr. Pines has undertaken the task of rendering Maimonides’ Guide into an English translation that is accu rate and faithful, while at the same time sensitive to the ebb and flow of the original. The result is a work of fine scholarship and a valuable aid to a better understanding of the Guide. That this was a difficult and demanding task will be readily appre ciated when one reads Maimonides’ own Introduction to the Guide. In it he explicitly warns against the dan gers attendant upon a study of phi losophy, and he informs us that his whole method of exposition, his veiled language and contrived obscurity, March-April, 1964

are intended to discourage those who are not thoroughly conversant with philosophy from delving into these subjects. The translator has faithfully endeavored to retain the subtlety of expression and the deliberate am biguity that Maimonides intended. What the new translation may thus occasionally lack in felicity of style, it gains in precision and often in con veying a truer meaning. The book, which is handsomely printed and bound, is enhanced by scholarly and comprehensive Intro ductions. Shlomo Pines presents a study of Maimonides’ sources. He notes the paucity of references in the work to Jewish philosophic texts, with the exception of two references to the speculative opinions of the Gaonim. The volume opens with an instructive essay, “How to Begin to Study the Guide of the Perplexed,” by Leo Strauss, professor of Political Science in the University of Chicago. Dr. Strauss observes that Maimon ides was a Jew first and philosopher second. This observation is manifestly true, despite the fact that for Mai monides, as for all of medieval phil osophy which sought to reconcile faith and reason, Aristotle was the oracle of reason. On the crucial issue of crea tion, Maimonides breaks with Aris totle and rejects his thesis on the origin of the universe because it con flicts with our belief in G-d’s creation of the world ex nihilo, which is a foundation of our religion. Maimon ides starts with acceptance of the Torah and fundamental Jewish be liefs. Dr. Strauss further notes that the Guide is primarily a Jewish book written for Jews. This is equally true, notwithstanding the fact that it had a considerable impact upon medieval thought, both Jewish and non-Jewish. 69

However, if one looks to “The Guide of the Perplexed” for a satisfying philosophy to meet the needs of our times, he should be cognizant of the fact that Maimonides was primarily concerned with the “perplexed” of his own day and fashioned his philosophy within the frame of an Aristotelian— Ptolemaic world structure that is long since antiquated. Indeed, Créscas found it a handy medium through which to demolish Aristotelianism on its own philosophic ground and thus clear the way for a new and modern conception of the universe. Neverthe less, Maimonides does afford us in the Guide a definitive exposition of Jew ish beliefs and doctrines, and his trenchant views on questions of a philosophical nature have universal as well as Jewish significance. Of these matters he treats logically and authoritatively, often with a forth rightness that is as daring as it is refreshing. For the Biblical scholar there is also a wealth of Biblical exegesis, penetrating insights, and illuminating interpretations of diffi cult passages in Scripture. - •

Rabbinic tradition appears to have adopted a duality of judgment regard ing Maimonides. While Rambam, the halachic authority, author of the Mishneh Torah, has been held in great reverence and has received universal acceptance, Maimonides the philoso pher, author of the Guide of the Per plexed, has for the most part, follow ing an initial period of opposition, been met with polite silence, the feel ing being that in the Guide Maimon ides raises many more perplexing questions than he answers, and ven tures into areas that were best left unexplored. Yet, paradoxically, the secret of Maimonides’ hold on the Jewish mind throughout the centuries lies not only in his incomparable halachic genius, but in the unity of spirit that encompasses his works, from the Mishnah Torah to “The Guide of the Perplexed.” Maimonides, the philosopher, who ^grappled with problems of reason and faith, and Rambam, the man of Halochah, are complementary facets of a towering Jewish figure who has dominated Jewish life and thought from his day to the present. LAKE

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Letters to the Editor “AUTHENTIC” SOURCE Staten Island, N. Y. In the May-June 1963 issue of J ew ish L ife you published three articles by Rabbis Swift and Klaperman and myself, on the new Jewish Publication Society translation of the Torah. Although the three articles agreed on the inadequacy of the trans lation, there were distinct attitudes of condemnation, my own being the severest. One reader took me to task for the harshness of my personal attack upon the translators. In fact, your own en titlement of Rabbi Swift's essay as a “Balanced View” suggested that my own approach was a little weighted on one side. I recently taped a lecture broadcast by Radio WRVR by Professor Harry Orlinsky, the editor-in-chief of this new translation I quote here an ex cerpt, the contents of which should definitively settle the question of his competence to make a Jewish transla tion of the Torah. Asked about St. Jerome as one of his sources of information, he said: Now we have more information about the Hebrew Bible in St. Jerpme's works than from all other works of antiquity. If we depended for our knowledge of the Bible on March-April, 1964

Jewish literature, the Talmud, we would know very little. Almost all our information, I'd say about 70 or 80% of our authentic informa tion on the state of the Bible, all kinds of things about the Bible, from the first four centuries or so A.D. (sic), about 70 or 80% of that information derives from St. Jerome. Is any further comment necessary?! R euben E. Gross

FEDERAL AID TO PRIVATE SCHOOLS Hempstead, L. I. The orthodox day school movement, sincei its inception, has had two educa tional purposes. First, that of educat ing the offspring of Torah-observant parents who desired that their chil dren receive an education in accord ance with “v'shinantem l'vonechah.” Second, and not less important, to ap proach our less observant brethren through their children and thereby attempt to bring them back to our priceless heritage. Those of us who graduated from day schools fifteen to twenty years ago may recall instances where 80-90% of our classmates came from homes where Shabboth was a stranger and many from homes where chazir was no stranger. Today we 71

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proudly point at those who came from such backgrounds and were trans formed by the day school. Many were able to influence their parents and siblings to change also. It is surely no exaggeration to say that many of our present roshey yeshivoth, day school teachers, “froom baaley batim” etc. show the effectiveness of the day school movement in this respect. Recently, many orthodox groups have decided to endorse federal aid to private schools in the hope that this will relieve the crushing burden on day school parents. Intuitively, I count myself as a supporter of this move, but feel that there are some issues involved th at require further thought. One such issue is the effect such subsidy would have on the two financial mainstays of Jewish educa tion: the philanthropist and the par ent. Would they keep on contributing in the same measure; or would they feel that, “now it’s the government’s job and we can relax”? In short, would there really be a significant improve ment in day school finances or merely a transferring of the burden. Another issue is the impetus such legislation would give to the forma tion of other private schools, either without religious orientation or geared to the Reform and Conservative here sies. The significance of this is that today non-observant parents, who for any one of a number of reasons don’t wish to send their children to public schools, have very little choice, but to send them to yeshivoth ketanoth where the process outlined above can thereby begin. With the opening of more private schools, spurred by fed eral subsidy, their choice would be broadened; and the number of chil dren from irreligious homes attending day schools will drop. Professor Milton March-April, 1964

Friedman of the University of Chi cago, America’s most prominent right wing, or as he prefers, “liberal” econ omist, in his book, “Capitalism and Freedom” (p. 90-91) has argued that state aid to education would, because of the increased freedom of choice, weaken parochial schools rather than strengthen them. Friedman is in favor of such weakening. Are we? In other words, the decision to support federal aid is essentially a decision to concen trate on the first purpose mentioned above to the neglect of the second. It is a selfish decision to ease the burden on religious parents while abandoning the children of other parents. This may be a proper decision, but we should be aware of the consequences before making it. M ordecai E. L ando

Instructor in Economics Hofstra University

RABBINICAL DELEGATION VISIT New York, N. Y. In Rabbi Rothkoff’s article “The 1924 Rabbinical Delegation. Visit,” he makes mention of the Central Com mittee for the Relief of Jews Suffer ing Through the War. I should like to add a few facts which may be of interest. , The initial meeting for organizing this Committee was held on Oct. 1, 1914 in the home of my father, the late Rabbi Philipp Klein. The leading spirit, the man who conceived the need for such an organization, was the late Mr. Morris Engelman, a member of the Congregation Ohab Zedek, of which my father was the rabbi. This first meeting resulted in a sub sequent one three days later, at which time the Central Committee for the Relief etc. was more formally organ ized. A detailed account of the Ameri73

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can Jewish war relief efforts from 1914-18 is to be found in a book compiled by Mr. Engelman, and one of the many photographs in it de picts a gathering on Oct. 1, 1918, the fourth anniversary of the first meet ing, and which shows in my father’s study the same seven men who had spearheaded the organization — the Rev. Dr. Bernard Drachman, Mr. Morris Engelman, the Rev. Dr. Moses Hyamson, the Rev. Dr. Philipp Klein, Dr. H. Pereira Mendes, Mr. Albert Lucas, Rabbi M. S. Margolies. I recall the visits of many impor tant personages to our home during these and later years, but most vivid is the imposing figure of the late Chief Rabbi Kook for whom I had the honor of opening the front door one afternoon and ushering into my father’s study. E lizabeth K lein I saacs

ON ISRAEL’S EXPLODING “KULTURKAMPF” New York, N. Y. Many times I get the feeling that American orthodox Judaism does not know how to relate to the State of Israel. On the one hand, Orthodoxy cannot but recognize the great im portance of Eretz Yisroel to Judaism and the strong obligations which the Torah places on the individual which lead him to feel that Aliyah is a must. Yet, on the other hand, American pa triotism prevents the orthodox Jews of America from speaking out loud in favor of this step. American ortho dox Jews are, therefore, obliged to develop ties, contribute money, buy bonds, create projects, and pay hom age to Israel, a silent competitor with America for being a homeland. In short, orthodox Jews in America face March-April, 1964

a serious dilemma: The Torah re quires Eretz Yisroel to be an integral part of the religious life of every Jew while Americanism opposes this, the United States recognizing only one allegiance. Often I have come to feel that some how a rationale has been invented that is intended to deliver us from this dilemma. However, never, until I read your editorial, “Israel’s Ex ploding Kulturkampf,” was I able to feel it so concretely. Only now, having read those remarks, do I feel that I can, to some extent, verbalize just what the solution has been for ortho dox Jews in America. Said briefly, it follows this simple reasoning: A. Eretz Yisroel is important to or thodox Jews as a place where they can more adequately fulfill the mitzvoth of the Torah: for this reason it is known as Eretz Hakodesh. B. The situation in Eretz Yisroel to day is one where the individual who would like to fulfill the mitzvoth is unable to do so without fear of grave difficulties. C. Since it is the Torah that we are primarily concerned with, and Eretz Yisroel presents a situation which endangers the Torah, it is best that we avoid consideration of Eretz Yis roel as a homeland for religious Jews who are not forced to leave their homes and who can practice their beliefs as they please, where they are. To be sure, this is not at all what the editorial said. Basically, the editor wrote only of the difficulty that re ligious factions in Israel are facing from encounters with their non observant and anti-religious brothers. He points out that, as religious groups gain strength and become a more im portant factor in the entire picture 75

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of Israeli life, so do the irreligious ligious life will be available to their become more belligerent in their rela children. It shows that one Jew has tionship with them * . . to the extent great concern about the next—that th at they will “resort to brute force.” the religious are not willing to sit Though this, by no means, presents idly by and see the loss of religious the argument which I have stated as and non-religious Jewish souls. Where being the rationale of American in the world, other than in Israel, do Jewry, there is a subtle undertone we see the religious Jews as a group which follows throughout the editorial. straining to prevent the ones to whom I don’t question the validity of the it makes no difference, from having facts presented. I only object to the only civil marriages or worse yet, way in which they are presented and civil divorces. Only in Israel do the the implications th at they make. True, religious approach the non-religious no mention is made of Aliyah, nor is a and apply pressures that “coerce” word mentioned about America and its them into leading a large part of relationship to Israel. What is made their lives “al pi halochah.” How though, is a gigantic slur on the re often does one religious Jew in Amer ligious situation in the State of Israel. ica dedicate himself to influencing his What has been brought to our atten non-observant neighbor into becoming tion is not a conflict which the Ameri religious 5 Yet statistics clearly indicate that can orthodox Jew faces in relating to Israel, but a conflict which the ortho more orthodox children are being lost dox Jew faces in Israel. The inference to the religious way of life in America is subconscious, but the idea takes than in Israel. Though more and more hold. What has been said has been day-schools are being built, they are stated in a whisper but there are still insufficient to provide for all the many who hear. During the early days needs of the orthodox Jews in Amer of “modern” Zionism’s awakening ica. Worst of all, once two generations the excuse was: “the Moshiach hasn’t of American Jews stay away from come yet.” Today I fear that in Orthodoxy, the situation approaches America this excuse would have no the point of no return with regard to meaning even for religious Jews. And bringing the third generation back to so the attack of the religious against observance. American Jews should Israel takes a different form. The ap know the meaning of the word assimi proach is one of attacking Israel on lation well, but they prefer to ignore religious grounds by showing only the this problem. And what about assimi bad, the incomplete, the conflict which lation in Israel? It seems to exist only does exist while completely ignoring for the Goyim. A Jew in Israel may the positive aspects of religious life not be orthodox, he may even hate re ligion, but he still knows that he is a there. And just what is the positive side Jew and as long as that knowledge of this whole issue? . . . The very fact lives on, the possibility always exists that this conflict arises shows that that he or his children may some day religious life in Israel has great and return to the religious way of living. I would not expect American Jews deep meaning. From it we see that the Jews are quite aware of and con to flock to Israel. In a sense, Ortho cerned about just what kind of a re- doxy in America is only now coming March-Apni, 1964

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JEWISH LIFE

Israel and a “gigantic slu r” on Israel’s religious situation to an edi torial keyed to the point th a t “the development of religious life in the Yishuv has taken on greatest scope. F a r from being the underlying premise of the editorial, the letter’s A-B-C points are absurdly, and in the case of the last one offensively, incom patible with its tex t and tenor. Is it Mr. Mescheloff’s contention th a t un less comment on an issue in Israel is couched in Chamber of Commerce term s, it is anti-Israel? F a r from posing the problem in the dichotomous Israel-America terms ascribed, the editorial, presented it as “the crucial question faced by Israel and Jews everywhere.” And the ad mission th a t the editorial “points out th at, as religious groups gain strength and become a more im portant factor in the entire picture of Israeli life . . . ” (a notable dilution, by the way, of the actual phrasing) cannot be reconciled with the charge of “attack ing Israel . . . by showing only the bad . . . ” In stating the “positive side” (“The E fraim M escheloff very fact,” etc.), Mr. Mescheloff is ac National Directory B fnei Akiva of tually paraphrasing our own: “It is North America in fact this very effloresence of reli gious life,” etc. T h e E ditor R e p l ie s : As regards the charge th a t J ew ish In the effort to probe subconscious L ife has “widened the gap of mis depths, Mr. Mescheloff has read into understanding” in order to “strength the editorial invisible and unw ar en American Judaism ” a t the expense ranted meanings and implications, of unity, we believe, to the contrary, and has drawn from them construc th a t in viewing the Kulturkam pf in tions lacking the slightest foundations Israel from the religious standpoint, in the editorial. To confuse m atters without parroting the anti-orthodox furth er, the letter states: “To be sure, propaganda with which American this is not a t all w hat the editorial Jew ry has been deluged through the press, a contribution has been made said.” P utting aside the long-evident a tti to tru e r understanding. W ithout this, tude of this magazine tow ard Israel, American Jews cannot effectively it is surely preposterous to attribute grasp and implement their relation a “subtle undertone” of attack on ship to Israel.

into its own. Today’s leaders could not be expected to abandon all th a t for which they have been preparing them selves. However, a t the same time, it is not wrong to expect a certain re spect fo r the injunction “lo tithgod’du” (Deut. 14:1) which in Gemora Yevomoth (14a) is explained as meaning “don’t divide yourselves into quarrel ing groups.” Americans are being fed a very tainted picture of the religious situation in Israel. There is, without a doubt, no place in the world today where religious life has in daily prac tice greater meaning th a t it does in Israel. When conflict arises there, it is a sign not only of difficulties but of progress in the field of Torah-true Judaism. In presenting only the one side of the issue, J e w ish L ife has widened the gap of misunderstanding th a t exists between Jews in America and in Israel. We cannot afford, even subconsciously, to allow ourselves to try to strengthen American Judaism a t the expense of the unity and m utual understanding th a t the Torah wishes to exist among our people.

March-April, 1964

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JEWISH LIFE

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