Jewish Life Nov-Dec 1965 by Jewish Action

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Vol. XXXIII, No. 2 / Nov.-Dec. 1965 / Kislev-Teveth 5726

Je w is h

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EDITORIALS EYES TURN TO THE JEW .. ............................................

ARTICLES S aul B ernstein , Editor R abbi S. J. S harfman L ibby K laperman P aul H. B aris

Editorial Associates D vora M inder

Editorial Assistant JEWISH LIFE is published bi-monthly. Subscription two years $4.50, three years $6.00, four years $7.50. Foreign: Add 25 cents per year. Editorial and Publication Office: 84 Fifth Avenue New York 10011, N. Y. ALgonquin 5-4100 Published by U nion of O rthodox Jewish C ongregations of A merica M oses I. F euerstein

President B e n ja m in K o e n ig s b e r g , Nathan K. Gross, Harold M. Jacobs, Joseph Karasick, Harold H. Boxer, Vice Pres idents]; J o e l S c h n e ie r s o n , Treasurer; Herzl Rosensön, Secretary; David Politi, Fi nancial Secretary. Dr..Samson R. Weiss Executive Vice President Saul Bernstein, Administrator Second Class Postage paid at New York, N. Y.

/T H E JEWISH-GENTILE CONFRONTATION: A SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE / Jerry Hochbaum .

OUR TWO AMERICAN JEWRIES / Morris B e k rits k y ........................................................... 13 ENGLAND’S SYNAGOGUE DESECRATIONS / Slmcha B. U n sd o rfe r.................................

RUSSIA THROUGH A WOMAN’S EYES / Fay Hollander ................................................................ 26 I REMEMBER . . . / Della R. A d le r .......................

THE CHILD WORSHIPPERS: A PLEA FOR PARENTS INSTEAD OF PALS / Benjamin Blech . . 42

POETRY SONNET TO A SILENT STORY / Israel Kaminsky ....................................................

BOOK REVIEWS WHO IS A JEW? IN WRITTEN RECORD / Philip Z im m erm a n ..........................

WITH SINGER IN THE SHTETL / Mollle Kolatch . . . 51 ZONING LAWS AND RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS / Samuel A b ra h am s ......................................

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

November-December 1965

DR. JERRY HOCHBAUM, Assistant Professor of So ciology at Yeshiva University, is currently doing research under a Columbia University grant for advanced study in sociology. In his article on Jewish-Gentile relations, Dr. Hochbaum aptly subjects the sociological approach to Torah principles. RABBI MORRIS BEKRITSKY is the rabbi of Congrega tion Shaarey Tphiloh Eitz Chaim in Portland, Maine, and the founder of the Portland Hebrew Day School. Active in New England public affairs, he is a member of Maine’s Governor’s Committee on Children and Youth. S. B. UNSDORFER, born in Bratislava and educated at the Nitra and Pressburg Yeshivoth, is the author of “The Yellow Star,” a book relating his experiences in the con centration camps. He now resides in London where he is the General Secretary of the Agudas Israel Organization of Great Britain and editor of the Jewish Tribune.

among MRS. FAY HOLLANDER has accompanied her husband, Rabbi David Hollander, on his travels to Central America, our South Africa, Europe, Israel, and the Soviet Union, subject of her article in this issue. She has delivered numerous on her visit to Russia where she was reunited with contributors lectures two aunts she had not seen since childhood. Mrs. Hollander is active in several orthodox women’s organizations. ISRAEL KAMINSKY, a writer-teacher, has had his verse published in several Anglo-Jewish publications. His pre vious contributions to J e w i s h L i f e include “Shushan Night” (Jan.-Feb. 1964) and “The Word” (June 1962). MRS. DELLA R. ADLER, nearing her 90th birthday, be gan writing for publication at the age of 87; one of her articles was recently included in “Niagara Frontier,” pub lished by a Buffalo historical society. A resident of Buffalo for many years, Mrs. Adler offers flavorsome reminiscence on the early days of that city’s Jewish community. RABBI BENJAMIN BLECH is one of the growing band of rabbis with bent for literary expression. His writings have appeared in Coronet and Jewish periodicals. Rabbi Blech holds an M.A. degree from Columbia University and a B.A. in English from Yeshiva College. He serves as rabbi of the Young Israel of Oceaonside. 2

JEWISH LIFE

Eyes T urn to the Jew HE extent to which non-Jewish attention is currently focused on the Jews gives much food for thought. Something more than a momentary, idle vogue is indicated when books about Jews become a leading staple of the publishing industry, masscirculation magazines and more sophisticated journals alike vie for feature articles on the Jews, and TV and the newspapers follow a similar trend. The appeal of this material is apparently far beyond the size of the Jewish audience and, unlike previous years, does not rise from dramatic news events. What makes the development altogether distinctive is the interest in the Jew as a Jew. The non-Jewish world, it would seem, has discovered, or re discovered, the Jew. Obviously, this is not because of the The J e w numerical weight of the Jewish people; we are few, very few, D isco vered among the swelling multitudes of mankind. Nor, with all ac counting for social achievement, can it be attributed to Jewish influence in society; in the giant panorama of today, the Jew is an altogether minor figure in the world’s affairs. Is it, then, because the world, in this era of profound change, has sensed that the Jew, in himself, represents something of intrinsic and unique importance? Certain aspects of the recently concluded Ecumenical Council of the Roman Catholic Church, Vatican II, suggest that the above thought is not far-fetched. Throughout that massive, fouryear-long process of refashioning the church’s structure, restat ing and reapplying its teachings, and re-defining its relations with other components of world society, the question of the church’s attitude towards the Jewish people seemed to be at the very core of the deliberations. Whatever might have been the conscious motives for introducing the question, whatever the internal and external pressures that gave it impetus, the question became pivotal. In seeking to re-assay its attitude towards Jewry, the Roman Catholic Church found itself confronted with the need to probe its own innermost nature.

November-December 1965

In the story of our time, no chapter is more strange than this. After so many centuries of development, at a time when, despite the attrition of modern life, Roman Catholicism still commands U rge fo r the allegiance of several hundred million people throughout the Re-fcfen- world, at the time when this great force manifests anew its vast fW c a tio n strength, at just such a time does it feel impelled to re-identify itself before the gaze of a seemingly feeble Jewry, straining to recover from near-fatal wounds. ¡WAS the apparent, and courageous, objective of the Ecu I T menical Council to put forward the Roman Catholic Church as moral leader of present-day mankind. Somehow, despite the unparalleled effort of searching of heart and mind, of idea and method, what emerged, at least to Jewish eyes, was not what had been attempted* For all its attributes of greatness, bearing fruit in policy decisions of large moment and pronouncements of enduring consequence, the Council somehow seemed but to mirror modern man’s sense of deep bewilderment. For a long moment, straining to reach beyond bewilderment, Vatican II faced toward the Jew. And then . . . it faced away. The limits of the church’s self-searching became apparent when its supreme pontiff, Pope Paul VI, preaching a Lenten sermon last April, declared that when the founder of Christianity “spoke and presented himself, (the Jewish people) not only did not recognize him, but fought him, slandered and injured him; and in the end, killed him.” There followed, in due course, the final text of the Ecumenical Council’s statement on the Jews. The statement, as all now know, failed to relieve Roman Cathol icism of the centuries-long burden it shares with the rest of Christianity, the charge of deicide directed against the Jews. And, addressing itself to the operative aspect of this dark doc trine, the Council statement could but deplore “hatred, persecu tions, displays of anti-Semitism at any time by anyone.” Numerous highly placed Catholics, and leaders of other Chris tian denominations too, have publicly voiced sharp disappointM o tives ment at the phrasing of the Council’s statement on the Jews. There can be no doubt that very many share this feeling, js this reaction among the disappointed ones no more than good will seeking proper expression? Is it a manifestation of the urge to redeem Christendom of its sense of guilt for Jewish martyr dom? Or is there a still deeper motivation—one marked by emerging awareness of the Jew as personifying a value for which the whole world thirsts? 4

JEWISH LIFE

r r iH E Jewish “position on the Jews” is of course not govJL erned by the attitudes of our non-Jewish neighbors. The approach of the American Jewish Committee, an organization of affluent private individuals which unwarrantedly, and to no good purpose, intruded in the Ecumenical Council scene, has perhaps given some an opposite impression, of which they must be disabused. It is the Torah which has set forth, for all time, the determinants of Jewish life, and it is within the Torah frame of reference that our internal affairs and our external relations are to be governed. Within these terms can we properly view, and effectively respond to, yesterday’s onslaught on Jewish existence and today’s hesitant, confused, but deeply significant awakening to the meaning of the Jewish presence.

November-December 1965

The Jewish-Gentile Confrontation: A Sociological Perspective By JERRY H O C H B A U M N recent years there has been much hending Jewish-Gentile relationships. Tdesirability discussion and debate about the Indeed, these structured relationships of a dialogue between Jew between the groups shape and deter and Gentile. The controversy, almost wholly confined thus far to religious issues, has generated a great deal of heat but has shed little light on the reality of the Jewish-Gentile confron tation in our society. The writer be lieves that for a full comprehension of this vital question and its ramifica tions it is necessary to frame the issue in social terms. Only in this way can we establish the necessary background against which to deal with the delicate religious questions. Our purpose here will therefore be to sketch in broad strokes the sociological profile of Jew ish-Gentile relationships and then to briefly describe their implications. When we speak of Jewish-Gentile relationships, we are not referring to the personal relationships between in dividual Jews and non-Jews. The per spective here being sociological, we are concerned instead with the nature of the inter-action between the groups, the inter-relationship between the Jew ish community and non-Jewish so ciety. Because this level of analysis is more abstract, it is not frequently used even by the professional analyst. How ever, precisely because it is more ab stract it is most fruitful in compre-

mine the behavior of the individual Jew and non-Jew, as they relate to each other. UT it is not only the confronta tion but the context of the con frontation which should interest us. Jews have always dwelt among nonJews. The major part of Jewish his tory, our entire Goluth, has been spent in non-Jewish societies. What is dis tinctive, however, about the Jew living in the Western world, particularly the United States, is the different pro file of his society. Historically, Jews lived in rural, agricultural, traditional, closed societies. Ours, in contrast, is an urban, industrial, secular, relatively open, egalitarian society. This puts the Jew on a new footing in relationship with his non-Jewish neighbor and gen erates problems for the Jew not yet resolved, because they are unprece dented in the Jew’s historical experi ence both in terms of the challenges they present and the number of Jews they affect. Salo Baron has said that only in America in the last century has the problem of emancipation final ly caught up with the Jews. This be lated emancipation has, of course, en-

JEWISH LIFE

sive cliques and clubs, all the way to intermarriage, the most complete type of assimilation. It is therefore important to differen tiate between the different degrees of assimilation and acculturation. In thinking of assimilation it is useful to distinguish between secondary social relationships—the more formal, im personal associations such as exist in economic and civic activities—and primary social relationships, the more intimate and personal ties which char acterize informal social life and close friendships. A significant distinction can also be made in acculturation be tween the “extrinsic” culture—the manner of dress, expression, and gen eral external demeanor the society re quires—and “intrinsic” culture—the HE problem can be formulated hard-core mores and values upon which the society is based. even more precisely by utilizing Acculturation and assimilation are, some elementary but fundamental con cepts that sociologists use. One is “so of course, very closely interrelated. cial structure,” which refers to the Both may occur simultaneously but inter-action between individuals in so generally speaking, acculturation pre ciety, the enduring, permanent inter cedes assimilation. Once the minority relationships which are characteristic group assumes the cultural patterns of all societies. Another is “culture,” and traits of the surrounding environ which refers to the values and norms ment this facilitates their acceptance of the group, the ideas and ideals that socially by the dominant group. As serve as the group’s design for living. similation then proceeds in steps, from Both these concepts are applied secondary relations to more intense when the sociologist describes the re primary relations, culminating in inter lationships between the dominant and marriage and the extinction of the the minority groups in a society. “Ac minority group. Both processes are al culturation” is the process by which ways in operation and are best illus the minority group learns the culture trated in the history of some of the of the dominant group—its laws, older ethnic groups in American values, norms, folkways, and customs. society. To understand Jewish-Gentile rela “Assimilation” refers to the process by which the minority group becomes tionships, and those between any mi fused and amalgamated socially with nority and dominant group, it is neces the dominant group. This can range sary to understand the conditions under from acceptance as a neighbor and which acculturation and assimilation friend, to membership in their exclu- occur and the extent to which they oc-

tirely transformed the character of Jewish-Gentile relationships. Since the primary goal here is to describe the relatiohsMps emerging between Jew and n o n -Je ^ o u r values and preconceptions must not be al lowed to distort our perception of the social reality of our situation. Only after we have diagnosed sociologically the nature of Jewish-Gentile relation ships, analyzed the social forces that shape and mold them, projected the direction they appear to be taking, can we orthodox Jews discuss intelligently how to cope with the revolutionary changes modern society has wrought in Jewish-Gentile relationships, and perhaps, ultimately, re-fashion them in accordance with Halochah.

November-December 1965

cur. Because the case of the Jew, de spite its unique features, reflects the overall pattern of Americanization in our society, we shall briefly describe the process by which all religious and ethnic groups have become American ized in our society. CCORDING to Oscar Handlin, the noted American historian, immig A rants of all kinds, when coming to these shores, sought to re-establish the traditional way of life they knew in the Old World. In the ghettos in which they settled, they tried to create a separate social existence for them selves and maintain their national, re ligious, and ethnic unity in the face of the alien culture in which they were now enveloped. Religion and the

church, essential parts of their heritage, helped them achieve their solidarity. The second generation, however, did not see themselves as foreigners. They aspired to be Americans. They were no longer at home in the immigrant family or comfortable in the iminigrant culture. Yet they were not fully at home in America either. Many of these second generation Americans resolved their dilemma by forsaking the immigrant culture and its heritage, shedding its foreign ways—its lan guage, dress, and customs— and learn ing and accepting American culture. Those who rejected the immigrant cul tures extended the rejection to the immigrant religion as well. Among the second generation, there was therefore widespread alienation from the reli gious fold of their parents.

STAGES O F A C C U L T U R A T IO N New forces and forms emerge in the third generation. They are Ameri cans and do not suffer the ambivalence and alienation of the generation that preceded them. They do, however, suf fer another problem, more subtle but equally acute. What kind of Ameri cans? How can they identify and locate themselves in a society emergent from diverse national and ethnic popula tions? Will Herberg, in his book “Protestant, Catholic, Jew,” maintains that because religion was the only thing a person was not expected to change in his acculturation to Ameri can society, religion becomes the dif ferentiating element for the third gen eration. They turn to religion to define their place in American society in a way that will sustain their Americanism and yet confirm the ties that bind them to their forebears. Thus, the context 8

of belonging and self-identification in American society becomes the religi ous community. American society as a melting pot-—eradicating all cultural differences and assimilating the di verse ethnic and religious populations —never materializes. Instead what emerges is a triple melting pot, three distinct communities, Protestant, Cath olic, and Jewish, in which Americans assume their social identity. Being a Protestant, Catholic, or Jew in Ameri can society becomes less a theological and more a social distinction. Within these religious communities one finds a fully developed network of organiza tions and informal social relationships that keep the individual within them throughout all the stages of his life cycle, from the cradle in the sectarian hospital to the sectarian grave. JEWISH LIFE

N spite of their structural differen increasing commitment to the group, Imunities tiation, the three religious com supporting “Jewishness” rather than are not divisive forces cul Judaism. In summary, what has evolv turally in our society. Each upholds the common code of our society, the ultimate values which integrate and unify us. The official religions support and sanction the American Way of Life, the common faith of all Ameri cans. Commitment to the religions of Americans becomes in reality commit ment to the American Religion. For the Jew this means he is social ly, but not culturally, segregated from the rest of American life, acculturated but not fully assimilated. From nine to five o’clock each day he inter-acts with Gentiles in his office or place of business and engages in numerous sec ondary relationships with them. After wards, however, the “five o’clock shadow” separates their worlds. The Jew retires to the Jewish neighborhood or his suburban home for his social life, intimate friendships, and family activities. The Jewish community thus remains structurally distinct in Ameri can society because the Jew remains within the confines of his group for his major primary social relationships. Religion, as was implied earlier, is the major vehicle supporting this eth nic cohesion and solidarity. Because religion provides a legitimate location and status for sub-groups within American society, Jews built and or ganized their communities around the synagogue. The synagogue thus be comes less a Beth Midrosh and Beth Tefillah and more a Beth K’neseth, the social nucleus of the group, a place of assembly for Brownies, Little Leagu ers, Inter-Collegiates, and GoldenAgers. As Glazer and Sklare have shown, the synagogue, whatever its sectarian label, becomes engaged in November-December 1965

ed in Jewish life in this country is a sodo-religious community, within which the Jew locates himself, and is located, socially. VEN with his religion as a dif E ferentiating element, the Jew, however, is increasingly amalgamated within the mainstream of American culture. Certainly he does maintain certain characteristic Jewish values, al though in a modified and sometimes distorted form, e.g. a passion for edu cation and social justice, a liberal so cial and political philosophy, a deep commitment to family and group. But these values are no longer rooted in his religion. More significantly, they do not suffice to differentiate the Jew ish group as a moral community. What does occur is that the Jewish socio-religious community refracts the national culture through the prism of its own cultural heritage and this unique blend becomes an AmericanJewish sub-culture. This pattern of structural segrega tion and normative fusion cuts across all of Jewish life, of course, in dif ferent degrees. As we move up the status hierarchy, from the lower-mid dle class to the lower-upper class, the higher ranking Jews have greater ac cess to American society and culture. The higher the social rank of the Jew, the more likely it is that Gentile society becomes his normative stan dard and the yardstick for his selfevaluation. In one study of a small Midwestern city, Jews were divided into two groups, “clubniks” and “lodgeniks.” Clubniks were the upperclass members of the Jewish country 9

club; lodgeniks the lower-middle class Jews who belonged to the less prestigous B’nai B’rith lodge. The clubniks were found to positively evaluate Gen tile associations and ways and this was reflected across the board in all their activities and attitudes—in their num ber of Gentile friends, membership in non-Jewish organizations, the practice of name—changing, Christmas observ ance and intermarriage in family. Through these socially high-ranking Jews, such attitudes and practices also percolated downward to the rest of the Jewish community. Acculturation has even penetrated deeply into our religious institutions, with variations, of course, between the orthodox, Conservative, and Reform groups. The Reform have, in fact, achieved the Protestantization of the ministry. The rabbi is no longer the traditional scholar-sage, but like his Protestant counterpart, a preacher, pastor, and priest. The Conservatives have re-shaped the synagogue into a middle-class American institution, as similating and incorporating middleclass standards and forms of worship. Even the orthodox are straining to catch up. Acculturation, if not com plete, is certainly substantial. HE picture we have described is not static; it is fluid and everchanging. In addition to his rapid ac culturation, the Jew has also been socially mobile, remarkably so. The Jew has succeeded, much more rapid ly than the other ethnic and religious groups in our society, in obtaining ex tensive education, attaining prestige in his professional endeavors, earning high income, and rising socially. As a result of his very rapid acculturation and social advancement, the social

distance between Jew and Gentile, so characteristic of Jewish history, begins to diminish. We are now invited to join their clubs, play poker and golf with them, break bread with them. This intensive social intermingling, these increasing primary relationships, begin to flow toward, and culminate in, intermarriage, the rate of which has increased significantly in the last decades. This rise in intermarriage in our society is not the result of personal aberration. Nor is it the desire to es cape persecution and the disability of being a Jew, for these disabilities are disappearing in our society. People who intermarry are also not status seekers. Intermarriage in the United States is occurring more and more on the college campus between students who claim they fell in love. Because this type of intermarriage reflects our growing acceptance in society and is the symbol sociologically of absorp tion, the final step in assimilation, we would be prudent when we speak of a Jewish-Gentile dialogue to assess whatever merits it may have within the social context in which it will be taking place. It is also very noteworthy that this pattern of creeping assimilation that has just been described is most pro nounced in the social circle with which Jews in this country are intimately related, the intellectual community. Earlier in this article we referred to American society as consisting of three communities, Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish. A fourth, smaller but signifi cant far beyond its size, should now be added: the intellectual community. A good many individuals in academic life and the professions are part of this separate society, organized rather JEWISH LIFE

loosely around a hazily defined intel lectual culture. This intellectual com munity is in many ways supra-ethnic and supra-religious, or, as Disraeli put it, “a blank page between the Old and New Testaments.” It attracts individu als from many religious and ethnic backgrounds, but most wear their reli gion lightly, if at all. Because religious differences are not so vital within the intellectual community* assimilatory pressures are more acute there. The intellectual takes his friends and his spouse wherever he finds them, pro vided, of course, they share his com mitment to ideas, music, literature, and art. As social relations between Jew and Gentile are more intense in

this neutral society—if we may call it that —- intermarriage among Jewish professionals and academicians far exceeds the national norm, running as high as 60% in one study. To summarize the sociological pic ture—historically, the Jewish and Gen tile communities were self-contained social systems existing side by side. In American society, their structured interrelationship resembles a heart. Structurally, the two communities are separate and discernible entities, like the auricles. Culturally, they have be gun to fuse—visualize the lower part of the heart. Indeed, as I have tried to show, the process of fusion cannot be localized. Socially, it remains al ways potentially malignant.

T O R A H GUIDELINES ALOCHAH—here we are switch ing from the sociological to the prescriptive level— always sought to maintain the social unity and nor mative integrity of KTal Yisroel. The Torah perceived certain types of social relationships as being pregnant with danger for the Jewish community. It attempted to eliminate or at least mini mize these dangers by directly or in directly minimizing social intercourse with the non-Jew. Halochah tried to prevent the cycle of social intercourse, cultural contamination, and intermar riage, and ultimately dissolution of the group, by removing the possibility of the first step ever maturing to a sub stantial degree. When Jews and Gentiles lived in self-contained communities, such re gulation was possible. Both Jews and non-Jews held stereotyped views of each other based on their religious systems and these guided their be-

November-December 1965

havior together. Halochah could thus define and control Jewish-Gentile re lationships. In these closed societies, the “we-they” dynamic was especially relevant, i.e., in-group solidarity gen erated a sense of differentness and apartness from the outer group. As a result, we can assume that the stan dard of conduct applying to the Jew’s relations with the non-Jews was dif ferent from that applying to his rela tions with fellow-Jews, even if Halochically unjustified. Jews also felt very deeply that the idolators were morally inferior to them, am hadom Vchamor. In America, we are dealing with a new type of Gentile, not a pagan or idolator or even a Christian of the medieval mold. Being Protestant or Catholic, and even Jewish, as I have tried to show, is a social as well as a theological classification. Furthermore, Gentiles in our society are our fellowcitizens, employers, neighbors, and II

even personal friends. For the third and fourth generation American Jew, they are no longer the alien camp. In this new social climate in which we function, we are forced to recognize their rights and our responsibilities to them. We are both committed to a set of democratic values, the American Creed, and it is these norms, rather than the older social stereotypes and religious definitions, that serve as guidelines for Jewish-Gentile associa tions. If Halochah sought to reduce social intercourse with Gentiles to prevent normative adulteration, in the Ameri can cfase acculturation has already taken place. Furthermore, the set of democratic values which Jews and Gentiles share set the stage for everincreasing association, more and more intimate in character, endangering, in turn, the existence of K’lal Yisroel. HIS is the basis of our dilemma T and the background against which the Halachic and ideological questions about Jewish-Gentile relationships must be viewed. On the one hand, there is no escaping the social reality of our open, democratic, egalitarian society. The Jew, integrated economi cally, politically, and culturally, cannot avoid close association with the nonJew. Yet these associations constantly pose the threat of an accelerated ac culturation and assimilation. The chal lenge facing us requires re-examina tion of Halochah in seeking guidelines for our association with Gentiles. But it is equally imperative that we devise social means to enable us to maintain our traditional community intact, normatively as well as socially. Until these conditions are met, un 12

til the sociological community we have described becomes fully restored as a religious one, the Jewish-Gentile dia logue is dangerous and the Talmudic injunction al hanizik Vharchik eth atzmo is applicable. Indeed, what appears to be more crucial at this time is a dialogue between the committed Jew and the non-committed Jew. The or thodox Jew must reach out not only to the Reform Jew but to the Reform democrat as well, whose entire ideolo gical commitment, quasi-religious in character, is misplaced in political life. Until we have created a more sound social and normative structure for Jewish communal life, we have one precedent to guide us in our associa tion with non-Jews. Abraham, the founder of our faith, also experienced the paradox of our situation (and in a way it is ironical how Jewish history has turned a full cycle). Said Abra ham to the people of Canaan, Ger Vtoshov onochi imochem—I am a stranger and a sojourner among you. On the one hand, Abraham argued that he was a full-fledged citizen en titled to the rights, privileges, and op portunities that all residents of Ca naan held. Yet Abraham also publicly announces to the people of Canaan that he is a ger, a stranger; Avrohom Ho’ivri, from the other side of the river, from another universe, with his own G-d and his own destiny. So with us. Our position should be gerim Vtoshovim anachnu imochem. Yes, we are citizens in this society, deeply involved in its welfare and the welfare of our fellow citizens. Rut we are also gerim, strangers, spiritually apart, committed to an historical faith revealed in another place and another time. What better guide could we have than Avrohom Ovinu? JEWISH LIFE

Our Two American Jewries By M O R R IS BEKRITSKY

TV TE are living in a time of great ▼T religious ambivalence. New def initions are being sought for ancient and heretofore accepted pieties. It is not atheism which we face today but the demand for relevance. The cry is “religion must be made meaningful and applicable.” A college instructor at a recent conference on intermar riage quoted one of his economic stu dents as asking, “What relevance does Judaism have to economic theory?” . . . what relevance indeed. In his two-thousand-year diaspora, the Jew has never “had it so good” as he does today in America. Anti semitism, seemingly at an all-time low, is more^sociological phenomenon than practical threat. The Jew in Dias pora has never felt so secure, so in tegrated and so financially affluent as he does in this country today. With this, he remains conscious of his Jew ishness, he wants his religion—but at no threat to his fiewly won social sta tus. Jewish religious life has flourished when rooted in a healthy social struc ture. A “healthy social structure” has been described as pyramidal. At one time such a Jewish pyramid existed. At the apex were those most distin guished in learning and piety (piety and learning went hand in hand). At the bottom of the pyramid were the November-Decem.ber 1965

humble folk, the ignorant but observ ant. In between were strata of grada tions. There was “T’hillim Yid,” the psalm-reciting Jew, who prayed de voutly but was unlearned. Above him was the Jew who could understand the fine dialectic of a reference drawn from a verse of the Bible, and who could and did attach himself to a group which learned Chumosh-andRashi or the Chayey Odom. Perhaps a rung higher was the Jew who would be part of a Chevrah Mishnayoth and above that the Jew who could be part of a Chevrah Shas—who studied Talmud. HIS gradation in Jewish life has T largely disappeared. There is no longer the pyramid. All but gone from our midst is the Jewishly lit erate middle class, our intellectual bourgeoisie. This has left a void in Jewish life which has produced two isolated communities between whom there is little or no communication and an entire lack of understanding. Previously, the lowest strata (not to be read as necessarily inferior) in the intellectual pyramid felt itself as part of a community whose natural hier archy was accepted as part of a so cial system. The lower strata felt an affinity with the strata immediately above, and through them a relation13

ship with the summit. Authority emanated downward and reverence upward. The disappearance of the inter mediate class has cut the line of au thority. Jews in the past had gov erned their religious life by the au thority represented in the responsa of their recognized great. Such authority exists in all fields of endeavor. Let us look for a moment at the field of medicine. There are great men in the medical world whose eminence is not due to the fact that they were elected to or chosen for any particular posi tion but simply because through their achievements and contributions they have won recognition as authorities in their respective branches of medi cal science. In Jewish life, we too have had a many-centuries-long series of great men who rose to positions of emi nence simply because of their schol arship, learning, and character. Such men of a previous generation were Rabbi Yitzchok Elchanon or the Gaon of Vilna. Jews recognized the eminence of their great men and guided themselves by their decisions. And today too we have men of eminence who are recognized as au thorities in the field of Halochah. But today if a rabbi refers a ques tion to a Godol B’yisroel and trans mits the answer back to his commu nity he may be greeted with, “Who is he, Rabbi?” This is not irreverence but a consequence of two groups liv ing in mutual isolation. The counter argument that the authorities disagree among themselves is specious, for so do medical, or legal, or scientific au thorities disagree among themselves. Their authoritative position, however, is not thereby compromised. 14

The people are confused and it is a confusion born not of indecision but rather of bewilderment, of wit nessing something entirely foreign and incomprehensible. The division of Jewry into two distinct communities because of the disappearance of the Torah-educated middle class is re sponsible for this confusion. The division between the communi ties transcends the denominational di vision of orthodox, Conservative, and Reform—terms which to some of the laity have as little meaning ideologi cally as do the designations “Demo crat” and “Republican” politically (except when a Goldwater steps into the scene). To many a Jew, the cate gories orthodox, Reform, and Con servative signify only a party affilia tion which does not affect his private life. Dual membership in temples and synagogues is not a rare phenomenon today—ideology notwithstanding. Nor is the rampant irreligiosity re sponsible for the lack of communi cation. Irreligiosity was not born in America. The religious communities of Europe had their apikorsim. The Haskalah movement of the 19th cen tury and the Jewish-Bundists of the early 20th century offered militant challenge to, and were condemned and fought by, observant Jewry. But fun damentally opposed as they were, the warring camps were intelligible to each other. They spoke the same lan guage. The feeling between the groups un doubtedly was quite tense and nota bly similar to the hostility which exists in Israel today between the re ligious and non-religious Jews. There too, we find two hostile, self-sufficient, mutually exclusive camps arrayed against each other—each viewing the other with distrust and contèmpt. JEWISH LIFE

In Israel the irreligious and the re ligious can go their separate ways in daily life. It is possible for the child of an irreligious home in Israel to grow up without ever seeing a tallith or pair of tephillin. The non-believer does not come to shool even on Yom Kippur. The religious Israeli, on his part, can follow his pattern of daily life in full self-sufficiency. But here in America it is different. Even the unobservant need some con tact with religion, be it ever so mini mal. It may be nothing more than the need to attend a synagogue on Rosh Hashonah and Yom Kippur or having one’s son become Bar Mitzvah. It may be clinging to some ves tige, the observing of Yahrtzeit or Kaddish or Yizkor, but there is a def inite religious need. And the observ ant Jew, in turn, must perforce re late to the non-observant as the latter enters the religious orbit and, still more, in the maintenance of commu nal institutions and the conduct of community affairs. C H A N G IN G DIRECTIONS

Educational Society was founded in 1848. The Hebrew Emigrant Society was founded in 1881 and later the Hebrew Immigrant Society. Cecil Roth in his Standard Jewish Encyclo pedia notes: “In the 19th century ‘Hebrew’ was occasionally used in preference to ‘Jew’ as implying great er dignity.” This is in itself a curious phenom enon since in the Bible the word “He brew” does not enjoy a similar de gree of dignity. In the Bible the word “Hebrew” (Ivri) is used only by or in dialogue with non-Jews, (Bereshith 39:14-17, Bereshith 41:12, Jo nah 1:10 [see Metzudoth ibid.\ et al.), a slave (Shemoth 21:2), or a wicked Jew (Shemoth 2:13). Today Jews seek no subterfuge. They are Jews and use the word with pridk-W e have a United Jewish Ap peal, an American Jewish Historical Society, Jewish Philanthropies, a Council of Jewish Women, and Israel is a Jewish State. Jews seek religious identification—but the rift is wide and often comes to a head in communal affairs.

T IS in our educational system that EWS no longer seek to run away the clash often becomes particu from their Jewishness as they did before the turn of the century. When larly evident and acute. With the America was being settled by Jews of shortage of teachers in our schools, Germanic extraction—before the tide the major yeshivoth have become in of immigration from Eastern Europe creasingly drawn upon as a resource —the word “Jew” was studiously for teacher recruitment. The yeshi avoided as something derogatory. The voth have produced young scholars of term 4‘Hebrew” was preferred. Thus varying degrees of ability but on the we find that in 1860 the United He whole highly zealous and devoutly brew Charities of New York was observant. Some of these young talformed, as a union of the Hebrew midey chachomim could hold their Benevolent Society and the German own with the finest of the Old World Hebrew Benevolent Society. The scholars. Such teachers, thrown into Young Men’s Hebrew Association the maelstrom of the unobservant and the Young Women’s Hebrew As Jewish Main Street—U.S.A., face the sociation were formed. The Hebrew problem of Kipling’s “East is East

November-December 1965

and West is West and never the twain shall meet.” The yawning chasm of difference is frightening and seem ingly unbridgeable. As one young teacher said to me, “I have never seen Jews who eat t’ref ah or work on Shabbos!” He was a product of a yeshivah and was brought up in one of the flourishing, closely guarded cen ters of Judaism which exists today in and around New York City. He had never seen how the other half lives and was downright flabbergasted to find that such existed. Such a division in Jewry is bound to produce conflict. There is no un derstanding between the learned eche lon and the great mass of Jewry who today are admittedly ignorant of the basic spiritual, ethical, and reli gious values upon which Judaism al ways has been predicated. If the two groups sought each to go its own dis tinctive way, disregarding each other as they do in Israel, the problem would be simpler. But the plain fact is that the two groups cannot go their separate ways. However wide the gap between them, their lives interlock. This is true not only communally but religiously.

hood and drive^ the right car. We must belong to the P.T.A. and per haps be a member of Kiwanis or of Rotary. These are matters of social status and among them is also that of belonging to a religious institution. This applies to Jew and non-Jew alike, but to the former there is an addi tional compulsion. The synagogue or temple has become the center of Jew ish social life. Together with this is the urge, even among the unobservant, to give their children some knowledge of their religion. Children must be given some Hebrew education—if only for Bar Mitzvah or ‘‘Confirmation” sake. And so it is that these two groups come into contact—and conflict. The conflict is often very sharp, whetted as it is by a disrupting contrast. It is a religious curioso, characteristic of the time in which we live. Nowhere does this come into sharper focus than it does in the Jewish day schools, to which many non-observant families send their children for a variety of reasons. own small, typical New Eng IcameNlandourto Jewish community the issue a head over the word “goy.”

ERE in America even the unob The children asked the teacher what H servant Jew must be associated, their attitude should be towards their however nominally, with some reli gious institution. This is part of the contemporary American pattern, par ticularly in the suburbias and the smaller cities. For a person to be “un churched” today in local communi ties, and to an increasing extent in the mass-population centers too, en tails a loss of status. There are cer tain things which we must do, be cause they are considered socially cor rect. We must belong to the right club and live in the right neighbor 16

non-Jewish friends, at Christmas time, vis-a-vis the exchange of Christmas greetings and gifts. The teacher, un thinkingly naive, said simply, “Do not play with goyim.” The reaction on the part of the parents was anathematic—both as regards the statement and particularly the use of the word “goy,” which the parents interpreted as a disparaging epithet. The word goy as used in the Bible means a nation—any nation—includ ing the Hebrew nation. The Torah JEWISH LIFE

often refers to the Jewish people as a goy (nation). For example the Bible speaks of the Jews as being a goy kodosh— a holy nation (Shemoth 19:6) or as a goy godol—-a great nation (Devorim 4:7,8) or “Who is as Israel thy people one nation (goy) in the world” (Samuel 11:7-23). Time and circumstances, however, have changed the meaning of the word goy so that it refers only to non-Jews. In that sense it has become synonymous with the word “gentile.” The word goy was never meant to be one of derogation. When one uses this term when speak ing Yiddish, it sounds quite natural. However, when one is speaking Eng lish and uses the word “goy” rather than “Gentile” or “Christian,” it be comes, to som e/ a term sinister. Parents may recall that their par ents or grandparents applied it to the muzhik or poyer they had known in the Old Country. He was not only, so cially, educationally, culturally, and hygienically inferior, but his pogromatic tendencies could constantly bear watching. Our non-Jewish neigh bor today is one of a different breed. Indeed the social juxtaposition of Jew and Gentile has been radically changed. We are no longer those who are looking down upon a rude peasant ry but more often we are those who are below (democracy notwithstand ing) looking enviously and longingly up to a social milieu we seek to share. MERICAN life is so constituted that Jews and non-Jews share A the same open society. We live to gether peaceably with our non-Jew ish neighbors and we want it that way. It is part of the democratic scene of which we are so proud and which we seek to encourage. However, teachers November-December 1965

who are engaged for “out of town”, schools are often drawn from inten sively Jewish communities in which the question of Jewish-Gentile rela tions is much less immediate than in the communities they are called upon to serve. For the teacher coming from his own guarded, entirely Jewish-centered milieu, the associating with non-Jews was unnecessary and not expected. The attitude was not due to any ill will but was a natural concomitant of his society. But with the great rift in our Jewish society, and with the utter lack of communication, how could the parents understand his world or he theirs? This instance of the inability of the groups to communicate almost wrecked our school. The clash was not the less real and painful because it was one of semantics. “Sin breeds sin,” says Pirkey Ovoth and, similarly, error breeds error, and misunderstanding breeds misunder standing. The same zealous teacher translating from the Bible taught the children regarding the Sabbath that “He who violates it shall die.” An overly sensitive child spent a hectic night tossing about on her pillow. She was afraid that her father who went to business on the Sabbath, would die. Again and understandably, there was violent parental reaction. It would not have taken too much sagacity on the part of the teacher to explain the con ditions under which the Biblical edict is given, that it was more of a moral warning than an actual pragmatic ap plication. Of all this the teacher was well aware but he brought with him the crusading zeal of his own milieu which was determined to bring all who strayed back into the fold. On the part of the teacher it was an error of judgment. But to the parents it was 17

an unforgivable breach of one’s privacy which smacked of bad man ners and ill breeding. Both were wrong. They simply spoke different languages. These may be regarded as isolated instances not bespeaking a national problem. But they stem from a widen ing community rift and a basic lack of mutual understanding. E M E R G IN G FORCES REAT changes are taking place vJF in our religious community. Ad mittedly, these as yet may be identi fiable only in sociological perspective, but the careful observer cannot fail to see that a metamorphosis is in the making which threatens to divide the House of Israel into two separate camps. At one time the prophets of gloom forecast that Judaism in America would presently disappear even if Jews did not. The resulting religious format, if any, would be a hybrid, unrecognizable by the standards of the ages and conditioned by American sociological forces. More recently we have been hearing of the “Vanishing Jew” which predicts a dire and dismal future for Jews and Judaism alike. To play the prophet is to play the fool, for history is irony, and partic ularly so the history of the Jew. The cleavage born of the disappearance of a Jewishly—literate middle class, to which the foregoing passages have pointed, would seem to sustain the prophecies of total disintegration. But there are other factors, of an alto gether different character, which must be considered. Fifty years ago, if one had pre dicted that there would be over three 18

hundred day schools in the United States, he would have been laughed at as a visionary and a dreamer. Nothing in the American scene seem ed to indicate a rise of intensity in Jewish learning or religiosity. Cer tainly if one had predicted fifty years ago that there would arise centers in the United States which would be as intensely Jewish as any European shtetl he too would have been laughed at as being a fool and a visionary. If anything, there seemed to be a de cline in religious intensity in this country rather than a growth. Yet we have seen both of these phenomena take place. Of course, some will as sert that neither is great enough to indicate a trend. They are as yet of more interest to the sociologist than to the statstician. But certainly these forces cannot be discounted. NOT predict that all of Jew ish America will become a Satmar Ior DO Squaretown. These are as yet iso lated communities and will probably remain so for a long time to come. But as such communities proliferate, the ideas which they generate are bound to penetrate Jewish life and make themselves felt* for Jews are hungry for substance in their religious life. There is an intense feeling on the part of many Jews that something is lacking in their religious life. Judaism, to very many, has be come devoid of meaning; but more and more Jews are discovering that the void is within themselves, not within their religion. Synagogues as well as temples have been transform ed into social clubs, but increasingly there is a search for the content and meaning of Jewish life. Who knows what the next fifty years will produce? JEWISH LIFE

r I ^HEjiiistory of the Jew has always JL been a-historic. He has within him unusual Vpowers of renewal. Accord ing to all the4a1vs of history, the Jew should have disappeared a long time ago. This is Professor Toynbee’s postulate. Any nation which loses its land and loses its language is bound to become extinct. The Jew has shown an unusual ability to live. He lost his land and his original language, Hebrew, ceased to be his vernacular. Yet he had the power within himself to create a spiritual environment of his own amidst widest dispersion, to unceasingly give voice to his spirit

November-December 1965

through century after century in that supposedly “dead” language, as well as to create new languages for him self—Yiddish and Ladino—right out of the fabric of Diaspora life. He also had the power within himself to come back and rebuild the ancient State of Israel. This is something which is historically without parallel or prece dent. Who knows what other great regenerative powers there exist with in us? Certainly there are forces in the Jewish world which can revolutionize the whole religious scene. It is too early to predict—but the forces bear watching.

England's Synagogue Desecrations by S IM C H A B. UNSDORFER On Tuesday, November 23rd, 1965, at the Central Criminal Court in London, more commonly known as the Old Bailey, a 39-year-old company director was sentenced to five years' imprisonment for attempted arson. He is Aubrey Desmond Cadogan, a welldoing senior executive in a Jewishowned chain of tailoring shops. He was charged with, and found guilty of, attempting to set fire to the Palmers Green & South Gate Synagogue, a London suburb, on July 9th. Cadogan, who pleaded not guilty and insisted that the stacks of antisemitic literature that were found in his home and in his care were planted there by his enemies, was told by Judge Mervyn Griffith-Jones on pass ing sentence: “I put out of my mind what undoubtedly appeared to be your political views. 1 deal with this case simply on the basis that you have com mitted the offence of which you have been convicted, coupled with the fact that in setting fire to the contents of that synagogue you must have had it in mind to burn down the synagogue as a whole. . . . It is conduct which, in a civilized state, simply cannot be tolerated.” It is felt that the Judge, in passing sentence, had in mind the severity of the case and the urgent need to pronounce a finding which will be both a pun ishment for the crime and a deterrent to other would-be criminals. Meanwhile investigations are still proceeding in regard to six other men accused of setting fire to synagogues in Clapton, and Ilford at about the same time. They are held in custody pending trial. British Jewry have paid a warm tribute to the police for their untiring efforts in arresting the culprits and bringing them to justice. H TH E night of November 9th, when - I New York was thrown into those mysterious long hours of darkness that caused headlines all over the world, was of some significance to London, too. Encouraged by the Defence Com mittee of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, synagogues throughout the metropolis observed a quiet allnight vigil, with volunteers watching their houses of worship either from an unlit window situated across the road, or from a car parked a few doors away. 20

Why? Because November 9th was the eve of the 27th anniversary of the “Crystal Night” when the skies of Nazi Germany were illuminated from the fire of hundreds of syna gogues that were put to the torch by antisemitic hordes throughout the Reich. There was fear that just as the people of Britain have never forgotten to mark Guy Fawkes night on No vember 5th, by lighting thousands of bonfires and exploding millions of miniature rockets in commemoration of the attempted “Gunpowder Plot” JEWISH LIFE

of 360 years ago designed to blow up the Houses of Parliament, so, in perverse emulation, a few British Nazis might be tempted to celebrate the events of only twenty-seven years ago by “having a go” at one or more of London’s many synagogues. OR many months now, Britain’s F synagogues have had to engage the services of volunteer watchmen to prevent the spread of attacks on our Houses of Prayer that have un fortunately been taking place for the past twelve months in various parts of the country. Indeed, it was exactly a year before, on the twenty-sixth anniversary of Crystal Night in 1964, that Fire Brigade apparatus came dashing after midnight to a house that was burning in Cazenove Road— the heart of the Jewishly populated Stamford Hill area. Thick black fog paralyzed traffic that night, and even the powerful special fog beams used by the London Fire Brigade were of little help. When the firemen finally reached their destination they found the Mesifta Talmudical College ablaze from cellar to roof, with boys perch ing on the window-sills screaming for help. It was morning before the blaze was under control, and it was the light of dawn that disclosed tragedy: A 15-year-old student, Wolff Katz, liv ing in his small room on the top floor, died in the flames. To this very day the cause of the fire has not been established with any real certainty. At the inquest that fol lowed, the presiding judge made some reference to paraffin-soaked dusters that were found in the rear of the house, allegedly used by the boys to clean their bicycles. Nobody, how ever, could explain what the few November-December 1965

dusters found in the courtyard could have had to do with a fire that broke out under the staircase, and apparently turned into a killer so quietly and so fast that not one of the students awoke before the entire building was in flames . . . And whilst, as I said, the cause of the tragedy had never been authen tically established, it was a fact that that fire occurred on Crystal Night and it is a fact that since then many of Britain’s synagogues have been attacked by night, in each case paraf fin or petrol-soaked materials being thrown through the letter-boxes and set alight. HEREAS in many cases passersby or neighbors have been able W to alert the Fire Brigade before any serious damage was caused, two prominent synagogues have been com pletely destroyed—one being the 60year-old Brondesbury Synagogue situ ated in Northwest London, and the other the more contemporary Greenbank Drive Synagogue in Liverpool which, tragically, was gutted for the second time at the hands of the de liberate arsonsists. So far six men have been caught by the special Arson Squad of Scot land Yard, and at least two of the attempted attacks are being placed on their charge sheet. It is interesting to observe that of the six, four are aged below 20, one is 23, and the eldest 27. But these, of course, are only three cases, whereas in a state ment in the House of Commons re cently the Home Secretary, Sir Frank Soskice, declared that up to August of this year he had received reports of “twelve incidents of arson or at tempted arson at Synagogues, and fifty-one cases of lesser offenses such 21

as slogan daubing and fly posting.” What is the reaction of the English man in general and the Jew in par ticular to all this? I believe one can say with absolute certainty that the overwhelming ma-

nessmen would realize that their pub lic actions and take-over bids affect not only the Stock Exchange mercury of the world of commerce but also the mercurial movements of the world of antisemitism. A little restraint would certainly be in order. On the other hand, there will be arguments that once you start conducting your affairs to suit your enemies you are sure to fail on both counts. R I T A I N ’ S JEWS themselves, B though of course somewhat alarmed at the situation—and which

Students salvage Seforim from the burnt-out Beth Hamidrosh of the Mesifta.

jority of the British view the rise of antisemitism in this country with dismay and abhorrence. The British, well accustomed to having the stranger in their midst, have accepted the tiny Jewish minority (only 450,000) as an integral and fairly im portant section of the community. Needless to say, the antisémite who reads about Jewish businessmen, about tycoons, industrialists, politi cians, and property magnates, manip ulates the figures to favor his own arguments by claiming “they are less than one percent of the total popu lation and yet see how many top positions they occupy!” Naturally there are those among us who would prefer if some of our successful busi 22

post-Hitlerian Jew would not be alarmed at the sight of a burnt-down synagogue?—nevertheless, feel con vinced that this is the action of a rather small group of people which need not be taken too seriously. That is why Jewish opinion in Britain was unanimous not to make too much fuss over and not to over-publicize these antisemitic occurrences. Instead, a Jewish delegation, without the accom paniment of press and publicity, paid calls on the Home Secretary and on the Deputy Commander of Scotland Yard, bringing home to the compe tent authorities the fears and anxieties prevalent in Anglo-Jewry. At the same time the Defence Com mittee of the Board of Deputies, in a confidential letter circulated to all synagogal bodies and Jewish organi zations, recommended the establish ment of small watch committees, which, in co-operation with Jewish youth groups or the local branches of the Association of Jewish ExServicemen— and the local police— would organize regular checks on local synagogues and communal buildings. There is, of course, little else that can be done. One cannot expect the police to station men around every JEWISH LIFE

synagogue nor can they be expected to catch every single culprit who drives up to a synagogue under the cover of darkness, flings an inflam mable object into the building, and drives off without even satisfying him-

troduction of a new Race Relations Bill. A year ago, in one of his first public speeches as the newly elected Prime Minister, Mr. Harold Wilson told a distinguished gathering of mu nicipal dignitaries, diplomats and for

The Mesifta Talmudica! College buildings— the morning after the fire.

self that his “bomb” is still alight. Education and legislation, it is be lieved, are the only effective ways of dealing with such criminals. The former, however, will never work with the type of antisémite who engages in this kind of gutter-level outrage against the Jew. The latter method, legislation, is also not the ideal an swer. As Lady Gaitskell, the British Delegate, told the U.N. Commission on Discrimination the other day: To curb racialism by legislation alone is “like cutting down a noxious weed above the ground and leaving the roots.” "VTEVERTHELESS, Britain has at11 tempted to strengthen the power of its police and judiciary by the in November-December 1965

eign envoys at the traditional Lord Mayor’s Banquet in the Guildhall: If we are going to speak with au thority abroad, we have a duty at home to show our deep loathing and to condemn by our deeds racial in tolerance, color prejudice and anti semitism wherever they may be found. The press, and especially the Jewish segment, welcomed Mr. Wilson’s speech which came at a time when Britain’s two fascist organizations, led respectively by the notorious Sir Os wald Mosley and his former pupil but now “independent” competitor, Colin Jordan, were holding regular, provo cative meetings which invariably re sulted in clashes between their fol lowers and enraged Jewish and Gentile onlookers. 23

But the new Race Bill, when given its first reading in Parliament in April this year, ran into considerable diffi culties and by the time its third and final reading was approved in Novem ber, it was reduced to a rather harm less document which very few of Britain’s fascist race-haters will fear. Here it must be emphasized that the real reason for the introduction of the bill was not to give added pro tection to Britain’s Jewish minority but to curb the ever-growing race troubles that developed following the mass immigration of many hundreds of thousands of colored workers and their families from newly independent Commonwealth countries, mainly the West Indies. Although this immigra tion has now been reduced very con siderably as a result of a recently enacted new Immigration Act, never theless Britain finds itself faced for the first time with a real racial prob lem. The rise of colored populace has led to considerable trouble, espe cially in areas where these new immi grants have settled in large numbers. It was this that caused the Govern ment to introduce the Race Relations Bill, in order to prevent outbreaks that would be similar in ugliness even if not in numbers to what has oc curred in many American states in recent years. Be that as it may, the word “anti semitism,” although mentioned by Prime Minister Harold Wilson in his above quoted speech, is not included in the new bill, nor is there any ref erence to “religious” discrimination. “A person shall be guilty of an offense/’ say sth e new bill, “if, with intent to stir up hatred against any section of the public in Great Britain distinguished by color, race, or ethnic or national origins, a) he publishes 24

or distributes written matter which is threatening, abusive or insulting; or b) he uses at any public place or at any public meeting words which are threatening, abusive, or insulting.” Conservative MPs were the most outspoken against the Race Relations Bill, and were responsible for the numerous and considerable amend ments that had to be inserted before it became law. They opposed it be cause they were afraid that legislation on this matter might, in the long run, interfere with Britain’s age-old and hallowed traditions of absolute free dom of speech. Sir Alec Douglas Home, former prime minister, de clared that “legislation on race and religion is likely to create more prob lems than it solves.” In this the Tories had the general support of the country’s leading news papers, such as The Observer, The Times, The Daily Telegraph, and The Guardian. Eventually the bill, when presented for its third reading, was watered down to such an extent that one leading Jewish communal per sonality described it a “lawyer’s para dise.” One of its main failings is, perhaps, that it concentrates only on public incitements and ignores com pletely the sorest spots of the problem, namely, discrimination in housing, commerce, and industry no less than that practiced in hotels, societies, or clubs. HERE does all this leave the British Jew at the approach of W the year 1966? I believe that above all the rise in antisemitism in Britain as well as like developments in Argentina, the United States, Sweden, and Denmark, and of course, Germany, have con firmed the fallacy, the utter baselessJEWISH LIFE

ness, of the sloganists who argued “it can’t happen here.” Nothing could have come as a greater surprise in this world of endless surprises than the fact that so soon after World War II, so soon after Auschwitz, the disease of Jew-hatred would show its ugly spots again, all over the world. Once upon a time one thought that the virus called antisemitism breeds only in countries under the strain of grave economic or political problems. At other times it was suggested that only totalitarian governments give rise to antisemitism. Today, to our utter shock and dismay, we find public and private acts of antisemitism both in the Communist countries of the East, and in the rich and contemporary lands of the West. We find it amongst the poor and the working class, no less than amongst the wealthy and the intellectuals in society. We find it today, eighteen years after the establishment of a Jewish State, the creation of which was to have magi

cally driven away all antisemitism and all persecution and Jewish oppres sion . . . The events that occurred in 1965 —and here the historic and all-reveal ing debates that took place at repeated sessions of the Vatican’s Ecumenical Council must not go unmentioned— must reconfirm in the heart of every believing Jew the truth and authen ticity of the words of our Sages of old that we are in Galuth and that our redemption lies not in the hands of men or nations nor in the sense of fairness or justice that one might expect in this enlightened and modern age. Instead we must re-kindle the time-hallowed and oft-tested spirit of bitochon, of unflinching belief in the coming of Moshiach who alone will bring with him our spiritual and physical redemption.

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Russia Through a Woman's Eyes By FAY HO LLA N D ER RETURNED recently from my tible compulsion to visit Russia and 1 first visit to Russia, although I personally meet my two surviving feel that this, in a sense, was my fourth aunts. visit. For three times I shared, by proxy, journeys to the U.S.S.R. made ND so it was—on March 15 at by my husband, Rabbi David B. Hol 4:30 P.M. we landed at the Mos lander. In 1956, as President of the cow airport. My first impression was Rabbinical Council of America, he rather good. We were awaited by an was head of the first delegation of rab English-speaking guide from Intourist, bis to visit our brethren since 1917 the government agency tending to all and subsequently he returned three the needs of the tourist. He escorted times more—this last time when I ac us to a waiting limousine which took companied him and thus paid my first us through beautiful streets and wide actual visit. It is this trip that I should boulevards, on the way to our hotel— like to share with you through these the Hotel National on Gorky Street opposite Red Square and the Kremlin. lines. It was just a year ago that we dis Our bags were not opened for inspec covered that two of my late mother’s tion. Our hotel suite was magnificent sisters had survived the war and were S lav ish ly furnished with rich, marble living in the Soviet Union. They were tables and heavy, brocaded draperies. the sole survivors of the family— The hotel personnel were as courteous parents, four sisters, and three brothers as could be and very eager to please. —that my mother left behind when Frankly, if we had come as typical she came to America with my father, American tourists everything would my sisters, and myself in 1930. When, have appeared fine. But . .. we had come to see our fellow after 1941, we no longer heard from our relatives in Russia, we took for Jews and we spent most of our time granted that they too were surely with them and here we saw how very among the six million of our people bitter their plight is. Just as soon as who perished during the war. With the we put our bags down, we went to the death of my parents, my sisters and I principal synagogue, the largest of just felt that now we had no one—no liv three which remain in Moscow. Many ing relative. of the people recognized my husband You can well imagine our excite and came over to give him “Sholom.” ment when we discovered that two of Others just stood and stared. When he our kin had survived. I felt an irresis introduced me, the staring became

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even more intense and the silence very thick. Rabbi Yehuda Leib Levin, spiritual head of Moscow Jewry, was not present and so we did not stay long but returned to the hotel to ar range for our visit to my aunts. Naturally, we were anxious to make this visit the very next morning but we were told by Intourist that this was not possible until Thursday. I had to notify my aunts but was not sure that they knew my married name and so when we asked Intourist to write the text of the telegram we requested that it be signed “Feigel fun Am erica” ROM the moment we were in Rus B sia I was beset by a sense of fear. Suddenly I was afraid— afraid of the Russians that my father had feared thirty and forty years ago. I was afraid that our hotel room might be wired. I was afraid and I was asking myself —was I right in coming? But we had come and so were determined to see as many of our people as we could, for in looking back I honestly feel that the very presence of a tourist gives a ray of hope to the people there— as minute as that hope might be. My fear followed me—without any real cause, I might add. As we walked along the streets we purposely spoke to each other in Yiddish in order to attract attention, and we did. An old man stopped—he was 80 years old, a retired heart specialist— and walked with us toward the shook When we asked him to come to shool the fol lowing evening for the reading of the Megillah he told us he had not been in a synagogue for fifty years. But he continued walking with us. I feared him—was he a spy? Were we right in carrying on a conversation with him? Time will tell, I said to myself. The November-December 1965

next night he was in shool and when he saw us he thanked us for telling him about the Megillah reading and said “Siz gut tzu zein tzuvishen Yidden.” Fearing to remain in the hotel suite alone, I accompanied my husband to the synagogue every morning. Dur ing the services I stood or sat in a corner and after a day or two became familiar with many of the faces. I was even able to detect the “informers” among the people and I was afraid of them. But then on the day of our leav ing when we came to the synagogue for the last time one of these “inform ers” sat down on the bench to talk to me. “Ihr fort heint . . . mit dem samaHot (airplane). . . azoi v e it. . . siz strashne . .. nu fort gezunt unzeit gezunt” Suddenly he was human, this man I had feared so. He was a fellow Jew and he was talking to me, not watch ing me. ABBI Levin was very hospitable and most cooperative. When we told him that we were anxious to visit one of the matzah bakeries we had been told about, he personally came with us to show us around. He took us about an hour’s drive out of town to a very foresaken shack and after we managed to climb through the mud and snow we entered a makeshift matzah bakery—obviously set up for temporary use. The baking process it self was very interesting and fascinat ing and despite the fact that everything was done by human hands the opera tion was very fast, systematic, and hygienic. We were permitted to take photos and Rabbi Levin himself wrapped several matzoth in a news paper and gave them to us. This we brought back home with us. Yes, the

Russian factory worker puts matzoth into oven for baking.

baking of the matzoth was a step in the right direction, for this was the first time in many years that it was so permitted but the pathetic part ap peared when we found out how diffi cult it was for the individual to re ceive his allotment. Each person was permitted to buy (if he had the money) two kilo or about 4% lbs. of flour. He would bring this flour to the syna gogue and register his name among the long, long list and then come back time and time again to see if his matzah was ready for him. One wom an told me in shool one morning that she had come every day for three weeks for her matzah with no success and “Who knows,” she said, “if I will have matzah for Yomtov.” As she was talking my mind quick ly went ahead a few weeks when I would be back home and, like every 28

baalebosta, prepare for Yomtov. But how different it is for the Russian housewife and I began to compare these two situations. One trip to the shopping district told me all that I had to know to thank G-d even more fervently for my blessings and to deepen my sympathy for those less fortunate than myself. As I mentioned before, we had arrived in mid-March when the snow was still deep and plen tiful and snow boots (which I did not have with me) were essential. We went to a store and I found a pair of very ordinary (probably $10 value) boots were priced at 73 rubles or about $75. ATURALLY, because of the res N trictions of Kashruth, our choice of food was limited and so—just for the sake of variety from the black JEWISH LIFE

Rabbi Hollander (I.) and Rabbi Levin (r.) watch as woman kneads dough.

bread and sardines which we had been living on—we ordered a fresh pine apple . . . price three rubles, more than $3.00. The price of an orange—if available at all—is more than a ruble; a staple food item such as eggs sell for more than a ruble a dozen. Oh, how spoiled we American housewives are— a phone call and everything is delivered to our doorstep. In Russia the peak hour for shopping is after 10 p.m. when the day’s labor in shop or factory and then at home is com pleted; what lines those poor, tired feet have to stand and wait in! One must think of these prices in relation to the average earnings of a head of a family, which is 100 rubles a month. When you do so compare you lose your appetite and you no longer want variety—you don’t yearn for an orange or any other item, for November-December 1965

your heart goes out in sympathy and you realize that while in a few days or weeks you will have these things readily available—you ask yourself “how many oranges and pineapples and snow boots can the Russian wom an afford to buy?” We asked someone in Russia (an American woman who was in a posi tion to know) why a blouse (costing $2.98 in the United States) should cost 28 rubles. Her answer was simple and direct. “The Russians make available only that which they think is import ant. A blouse is not important but a television set, with view to spreading propaganda and communication, is im portant and so the price of a television is only 80 rubles.” Compare this to 73 rubles for a pair of boots! When we wanted to give a needy individual financial help (in rubles, of 29

course) we were told: “No, don’t give us rubles—rubles we can give you.” For the moment this sounded good— the people have all the money they need. But then the explanation came: “The ruble has no value—we cannot buy anything with it, if for 50 rubles or 45 American dollars we can buy only one sweater and then of inferior quality.” We realized then that pack ages sent to our brothers and sisters in Russia are that much more valu able and valued. VV^E returned from the matzah TV bakery just in time to hear the reading of the Megillah and when we entered the shool were amazed to see at least 1,000 people present. We were escorted to the special section reserved for honored guests—my husband downstairs with the men and I up on the balcony with the women, and as I stood alone in this special reserved compartment I looked down at this mass of people when suddenly I no ticed all heads turn to the right as if controlled by a single switch. Several women then joined me in my special section and introduced themselves as the wives of the officials of the Israeli Embassy. Only then did I realize that the reaction of the men below was in response to the arrival of the officials of Israel who came to take their seats in the synagogue. Yes, the presence of this delegation from the Holy Land is to our brothers and sisters of the Soviet Union of an importance im possible to describe. Though, obvious ly, there is no direct contact with Zion —there is no Zionist organization, no propaganda, and certainly no Zionist literature—the love of Israel on the part of these people is such as can be found nowhere else. At every possible 30

opportunity a tourist is asked: “Have you been to our Land (Israel)?” “How does it look?” “It must be beautiful and built up and surely there is work for everyone.” We in America pride ourselves upon our love for Israel, but how inadequate one feels after such questions are put to you. With the permission of Rabbi Levin —which means with the consent of the government—we took down on our portable tape recorder the entire service that evening, Maariv and the reading of the Megillah. Needless to say, this and the message to Ameri can Jews which Rabbi Levin gave us (also on tape) prior to our leaving are prized possessions which I shall for ever cherish. r I THURSDAY arrived: it was Purim JL and also the day that we were to fly to another city to finally attain my goal—to see my aunts. The plane ride was full of tension. A thousand ques tions and thoughts went through my mind. Will my aunts come to the air port? Will they be afraid to speak to me? Will I have to be satisfied with a glance and a nod from a distance? Then the plane landed and our hearts sank. No one (other than the Intourist, representative) was waiting for us. Feeling very blue, we went with our guide to our hotel and made an ap pointment for her to take us in search of my aunts, to the address we had been given, almost resigning ourselves to the possibility of not being able to see them after all. But we didn’t have to keep this appointment, for my aunts arrived at our hotel in a very few minutes to look for us! What a re union . . . No, it cannot be put into words. After all these years— after fearing that all our relatives were JEWISH LIFE

dead, that even if there were survivors who would search for them—after all this, we were together, my mother’s two younger sisters and I were in each other’s arms—laughing and crying and very, very happy. When we calmed down a bit, they asked us to come to their home and we told them we were ready to do so only if they really wanted us to. We did not want to put them into any kind of an embarrassing or harmful situation—we wanted to do only that which was good for them. And so in a taxi we went to their “home”—one room, immaculate ly clean with kitchen and bathroom privileges shared by seven other fami lies. It was obvious that we were ex pected, for all the finery in their pos session was on a white-clothed table and all the goodies'Were prepared for us. In addition to the family, neighbors and friends came to see the guests from America. We were the objects of such envy that it was pathetic. They stared at us and finally one old man said: “Zei zeinen Americaner. Oy, Ich bin zei azoi mekane.” Had we spent an hour with my re latives, we might have taken away the impression that things are just the way they would have us believe, that con ditions are pretty fair and very little is lacking for a normal life. But we were with them all day and as the minutes ticked away we became more and more aware of all that is missing. A situation where closest relatives fear each other is far from normal. A situation where the cost of living compared to the average earnings makes even the necessities of life pro hibitive is far from normal. A situa tion where the young are taught in school to think precisely the way the November-December 1965

government wants them to think is far from normal. We could but ob serve and view and could say nothing in protest; and that too is not normal. Our leave-taking of my relatives was, needless to say, filled with emo tion. My aunts said to me: “Faigel, don’t cry— we have done enough cry ing.” My husband thanked them for giving us a real Purim. Little did they realize that we were “on to the act” they had displayed for us and were aware of their masquerade. This, the enforced masquerade, is what we meant by a “true Purim.” With a promise to return we boarded the plane that would once again separate us, but this time only in terms of miles; in heart and in spirit we would always be united. T V 7 E arrived back in Moscow amid VY much clamor and music, for the Soviet people were now celebrating the return of their latest cosmonauts from outer space. The city was really aglow. For me—my heart was broken and full of pain and that evening (Friday) when I lit my Shabboth can dles in the main Synagogue I uttered an extra prayer for my aunts. Rabbi Levin had invited us to spend Shabboth with him in a room adjacent to the shool. It was a traditional Sab bath table and the rabbi’s Kiddush, the atmosphere, and the zemiroth gave us very little time to pay atten tion to the sparse meal that was served. During the meal, Rabbi Levin intro duced us to the young man who was acting as the waiter. He told us that he was one of numerous converts to Judaism and that he and others had embraced our religion despite all ob stacles and difficulties. One does not have to be a philosopher to observe: 31

the Jewish people will never disappear, for we are G-d’s chosen people and no matter how persistent our enemies become, our Creator is even more per sistent. A S Shabboth came to an end we were secretively told that there w7ould soon be a wedding ceremony in the synagogue and we were asked to stay. Soon M’chutonim and M’chute-

mosphere was gay and our excitement grew when we were asked to partici pate in the actual procession. We, to gether with the parents, were the “unterferer.” Upon conclusion of the ceremony —amid kisses and hugs of joy and shrieks of Mazol Tov—the mother of the bride asked that we join them in the adjoining room for a Vchaim. With her invitation, she raised her

nistes began to arrive. A young, very good-looking couple— dressed much better and more stylishly than any oth ers present—were the bride and groom. Although not in a bridal gown, the bride was dressed in white and the groom appeared in a navy-blue busi ness suit. Very soon the guests began to mingle and introduce themselves to us. From all parts of Russia had they come to this Simchah—one from Minsk, one from Slutsk, others from Tiflis and many other cities. The at-

hands and eyes heavenward and said to me—in Yiddish, of course— “We are so grateful that the children con sented to a Jewish marriage ceremony and that they have given us their word that should they have a boy they would have him circumcized.” Together with about thirty other guests, we adjourned to a side room where the wedding reception would take place. A long table covered with a cloth had on it no more than twelve oranges (a very expensive fruit) and a

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single bottle of vodka. The bride’s mother spread the newspaper in the center of the table apart and thus had a doily for the cake which it covered. No, there was no band, no orchestra, but the singing led by the shammosh, Reb Yisroel Noach and the music in the eyes of the M’chutonim made for the gayest spirit ever. One old lady— partly paralyzed—used her stick to keep time with the singing and though she was not related to either the bride or the groom, she was thoroughly part of the simchah. Watching her, I thought of the well known scene in “The Dybbuk” where all the poor come to rejoice in the wedding of the town’s wealthy merchant. This old woman—minus teeth, her head wrapped in a heavy woolen shawl, one side of her body paralyzed, her face shining with joy—this woman tapping her wooden cane rythmically on the floor was just such a character. For a serious moment Rabbi Levin spoke to the couple about the impor tance of peace between the two of them as an assurance of peace in the world. This venerable figure, who un doubtedly carries so much on his mind, became a personal friend and guide to these two young people and led the rest of us in wishing them naches, and a life of joy, happiness, and peace. URING a subsequent visit to the synagogue which found me in D my usual corner, a lady I hadn’t seen before approached me. What was my name and where was I from?, she asked. When I told her I came from America, her reaction was one of hys terics. She began to cry out, first com plimenting me and then telling me how very bad life is in Russia. “They November-December 1965

are an ugly people—they allow no freedom here—one cannot come and go as you do,” she cried among other things. I tried to quiet her but could not. She was obviously deranged men tally and only one of the “informers” in the synagogue was able to stop her. I felt at this point that I dare not come to the shool anymore. I felt that any consequences that this wom an would suffer, due to her outburst, was attributable, even if not directly, to my presence, and I resolved not to come to the synagogtie again. However, on the morning of our leaving for home, my husband ex plained to me that he felt that I must come to the synagogue iri order to say the proper goodbyes. And so we found ourselves surrounded by many of the people whom we had come in contact with during our stay. They all wished us well and blessed us for coming to see them. One man who managed to speak to us privately pleaded with us to help him leave the country. “Get me out and save me . . . not so much for my sake as for the sake of my eight-year-old daughter . . . now she is still mine. In a few years she will surely be influenced by her surround ings and she will become theirs f .. help me please!” What could we do for h i m . . . ? This is the mood which accompanied us when we took leave of the synagogue and returned to our hotel to get ready to board our plane to Helsinki a few hours hence. 1 3 UT before we packed we found " waiting for us, at the hotel, two tickets to the parade in Red Square honoring the Soviet cosnionauts. This was a surprise, for we had been told by Intourist that tickets to this func tion were not available to foreign 33

visitors. Why then these much coveted tickets? On the preceding afternoon my hus band had met with two officials of the Ministry of Cults and asked for cer tain concessions from them concern ing the rights of Jews in the Soviet Union, namely: the reopening of the Yeshivah in Moscow; the printing of a new edition of the Siddur; the avail ability of separate grounds on the cemetery to allow for proper Jewish burial; the manufacture of an ade quate supply of taleithim; the erection of a suitable monument at Babi Yar; permission to reunite families sepa rated through the years.

spondent, lonely faces of the Jews in the synagogue. In the midst of the parade we had to leave for the airport where, once again, just as upon arrival, our bags were not even opened for inspection; it seemed so simple a matter to be leaving. At the foot of the plane stood a policeman with the stewardess, and the passport of each passenger was carefully examined and the photo closely compared to the actual face. I realized then what precautions are taken that no one leaves this country unless he is supposed to: this to me is the Iron Curtain.

INALLY we were seated on the After a lengthy session and a pro plane and when we were off the mise to carry out these requests, the ground my emotions let loose and I talk became of a social nature and at cried hysterically. . . not only because this point my husband asked for the I was going back to the United States tickets. The answer was that it was (and I certainly was profoundly grate late but that an effort would be made. ful for this) but because I was leaving And apparently that effort was success my people behind and there was noth ful for we have those tickets made ing that I could do for them. Their out for us— and imprinted with our blessings were ringing in my ears. names in Russian. While I sat in Red They who had nothing were blessing Square and watched the tens of thou me—an American who had everything. sands of Russians parade, amidst all I felt so inadequate and yet so very the splendor and color of this huge blessedft-and I prayed and pray that celebration my eyes saw on each body the day be not too far away when that passed only the sad, dreary, de they, too, will be blessed.

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Sonnet to a Silent Story By ISRAEL K A M IN S K Y

Nicanor and his men advanced with trumpets and battle songs. And Judah and his men met the enemy with entreaties and prayers . . . fighting with their hands and praying to G-d with their hearts . . „ — Second book of Maccabbees And now the lights of holiness behold— These flames that upward stream as though they pine For G-d, yet draw thee nigh within their fold And tell, like maiden mute whose bright eyes shine With silent words, a radiant tale of passion: Of ancient monarch’s slay-thy-soul command, Of soul yet warmer glowing midst the ashen Grandeur of Greek gods astride our land; Yea, here shineth quietly that war By silent faith declared, by Heaven won— Yea, here streameth forth the march of yore That did the boastful song of battle shun And flowed with holy hymn for sound of glory; Gaze on, O Jew!— this silence is thy story!

November-December 1965

I Remember... Nearing her 90th birthday, a Buffalo woman offers glimpses of the community's early days.

By DELLA R. ADLER

HOUGHTS come to me of my was needed to marry off a daughter, young days and the families I used a special meeting was called and T to know, most of them members of therewith the horse or dowry was pro the then young Clinton Street Shool, vided by contributors, each as he Congregation Beth Jacob. could give. In the case of the horse, This shool was the brain-child of this was also a sort of mutual insur my grandfather, Jacob H. Mayerberg, ance as none knew whether his horse who needed a place to worship in his might be the next to fall. own righteous, traditional way. He This seems like true charity and needed to be abetted by his own type was practiced wholeheartedly by this and wanted no hindrance,''either to group of men who had so little yet his traditionalism or in the worship could always spare a little. minhag. So, aided by his son-inGrandfather Mayerberg and my law, Louis W. Rubenstein, ambitious father, Louis W. Rubenstein, were ly enough, they built, nearly a hun great friends and did things together, dred years ago, the shool which including the building of the shool flourished and became well known and holding up the righteous pillars in later years as a bulwark of tradi to keep a traditionally orthodox con tional orthodoxy. gregation in the way of upright LitThe Clinton Street Shool was a visher misnogdim. goal for meshulochim, chazonim, an outstanding maggid now and then, DO not remember all of the orig and altogether a charity target. Here inal members so I must write only the pleas for yeshivoth, orphan asy of those I do remember. lums, aged homes, Jerusalem charities, Perhaps the most affluent one was and so on were heeded and supported Joseph (Yossel) Saperston who was to the best ability of the members, a “joiner,” of both shools and organi none of whom had much of worldly zations, and a flitterer—here awhile, goods. If misfortune befell, such as there awhile. Wherever his interests the loss of a peddler's horse—which centered at a given time, there he was was indeed a calamity—or a dowry a prominent member, had a say-so

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and a following. He had come to Buffalo before the other members and was well established in a fine home with his wife, Shamie, and their large family. There was Sholem Cohn, who later became father’s partner in business. At that early time, he plodded through the world, driving his old white horse till midnight as his day began at noon, scrupulously saving every spare penny until he became quite a wealthy man. He was honorable to a degree, a re ligious man but dour—I think I never saw him smile. Not a colorful man, but he did well enough to help run the shool. Then there was Harris' Cohen—a quiet, unobtrusive, fine little man whose ayes and nays were also val uable. He, who died tragically at an early age, lived with his wife, Rachel, a block away from the shool and raised a large family of well-doing people. One son, Dr. J. Y. Cohen, is a prominent physician here, the late Frank L., a road builder, and a daugh ter j Etta, a high school English teacher. Schmerl Brumberg, the brother-inlaw of Harris Cohen, was an indi vidualist and something of a non-con formist in theory if not in practice, but evidently did not succeed in shak ing the roots of the shool. It stayed steadfast despite Schmerl. He, too, was a scrupulously honest man. The story was that, when Schmerl’s day went well, the family ate and when it didn’t, they subsisted. He and his very good but subservient wife, Maryasha, raised a fine family, three of whom were physicians of repute. Levine, the oil man, as he was call ed, peddled kerosene oil from a truck and I remember him well—a fine November-December 1965

thoughtful man, he often stopped at our house for a cup of coffee on the day he delivered the oil to fill our five or six lamps. The chore of filling these lamps, polishing the glass globes till they shone, wiping off the surplus smelly oil, was a burdensome job that, in itself, would make me remember Levine, the oil man. But I liked him for himself. He inspired me with his honesty, integrity, and faith. r I ^HEN there was Uncle David A Shepsel Gottlieb who really had the attributes of a successful man and never, never was. He was a short, squat man with a nice face and hu morous, twinkling eyes, had a fine Hebrew background, was a well known lay chazon as he possessed a beautiful voice, also had a repertoire of songs which no one could sing as he did. I still remember him. I also remember his daily pilgrimage to our house from shool and the daily schnapps he and my father took from a brown crockery jug which stood be hind the pantry door. No fancy labeled bottles, those days—when the jug was empty, the liquor delivery man filled it. There was also one S. Cohen, known as Schmuley der Yoven, a man of firm convictions which he made no attempt to conceal. Far from polished but a good and honorable man, he ran a peddler’s supply store and there congregated the baalebattim to pro and con for what they wanted and what they didn’t want. His wife, Fagie, was a character, no match for witty and outgoing Sclimuel. One of their descendants is a brilliant lawyer. I must not leave out Israel Friedlander. He had ideas on every subject 37

—some good, some not so good but all expressed in a loud, booming, con vincing voice, A natural orator was Israel and on each and every occa sion, he aired his talent. He and his wife, Hadassah, lived a turbulent life. They had a large family, one of whom is a college professor. I believe none married and the Israel Friedlander dynasty is ended. Later, there was one member who owned a horse by the name of Chaim. Chaim was a knowledgeable animal— on Choi Hamoed Pesach, Chaim trot ted smartly by the saloons which his owner regularly, if unsteadily, patron ized on week-days. At these times, Chaim came to a full stop of his own accord. This gentleman wasn’t the only one who had a weakness for the bottle. There was Abram Salinski, the Jew ish town drunkard, whose poor wife, Mindel, a wonderfully good soul, spent most of her time trying to sober him up as unobstrusively as possible. Not a word of complaint, but we all knew it. They raised a large family in dire but immaculate poverty. The chil dren all went to work at an early age, had no schooling, nevertheless all of them possessed an elegance of bear ing, a surprisingly fine diction, and a dignity all their own. In the category of inebriates, I can not leave out a third one, Chaikel, the carpenter. He really was superior in mind and wit, also in his chosen field. A humorist and philosopher, a sort of Jewish Will Rogers, yet he often had to be dragged out of one saloon after another. He did many a little job to the exacting specifications of my mother—from a just-so rolling pin to a folding table to set by the then tiny sink to aid in dishwashing. This table 38

had two fitted boards, one for milchig dishes and one for fleishig—it was a real convenience. Later Chaikel was the architect and builder of our home on North Divi sion Street which had to be remodeled after father’s untimely death and mother had to pull the reins tight. ND now comes Uncle Saul Rubenstein, who lived to be very old ■ and was so well known on William Street after the influx of the 90’s and later. There was scarcely a family who escaped the Old World’s tyranny who did not feel the sympathetic, philan thropic touch of Saul Rubenstein and his son, Emil H., who so ably car ried on. Emil it was who had the proper contacts so the people here would be assured that their scrapedup, hard-earned money would reach father, mother, wife and so on, in American dollars of full value. Then there was their schifskarten business, which they conducted on the install ment plan—so much down and there after, weekly payments to speed the bringing over of relatives from the hell that was theirs. This was philan thropy of a high and unusual order and I pay tribute to the memory of Uncle Saul and I honor my cousin Emil for his untiring zeal. In his later years, this fine old man’s philanthropy took the turn of selling tickets for charity—it mattered not what kind of charity, as long as it was a ticket and needed to be sold, he was there to do it. He had his “customers,” traveled many miles to reach them, was always warmly wel comed, had his hearing and the tickets were sold. The Rosa Coplon Home was one of his pets—he did very much for it and his efforts were ap preciated and are remembered. JEWISH LIFE

My son, in his book “From Ararat to Suburbia,” wrote of Uncle Saul’s being an earthy man and he was— he loved the outdoors, the growing of things, animals, especially horses. He once shocked his wife almost uncon scious by bringing a fowl into the living room. He smiled much, loved a game of cards, talked with everyone and everyone talked with him—he was a character and a well beloved one. *

f | ^HESE were the early men of the A Clinton Street Shool. It served its purpose well for many years until the changing of the neighborhood closed

its doors and caused its abandonment. The building finally was purchased by the city and demolished to make room for a public playground. A worthy offshoot of Congregation Beth Jacob is the Elmwood Avenue Congregation Beth Abraham, which has a nice little building maintained in fine shape by a few dedicated men under the devoted, unselfish leader ship of Joseph A. Sapowitch, once president of the National Bureau of Jewish Education. Unswervingly faithful to Jewish tenets in the tradition of Beth Jacob, Beth Abraham today is the only orthodox synagogue on the East or West Sides of Buffalo. May it ever prosper!

SIX SILVER SPOONS ALWAYS loved this little story of I do know he peddled through New 1 faith and hope. Perhaps you will York State in deep, drifted snow and icy winds and finally reached Buffalo like it too: Grandfather Mayerberg came to this country in 1867, from a small place in Lithuania called Volkovisk. His original mission was a business one and he expected to return. Des tiny decided otherwise. He had heard that the U.S.A., espe cially New York City, was perishing from need of Seforim, for books of Torah learning. So the idea was to come here with a stock of books, sell them at a good profit, and return. Poor Grandfather. On the way over, every book, together with all else he possessed, was stolen, so he arrived in Castle Garden destitute. So Grandfather Mayerberg did what he was totally unequipped for 3-physically and by nature—he “ped dled.” What with, I do not know, but November-December 1965

and settled down as a melamed. The late Willard Saperston was one of his talmidim. He thus eked out a pathetic living in bleak, dreary surroundings and there Grandmother and their four children found him when they arrived in this country some three years later. Grandma’s comment on first seeing him was, “Yankov Hirsch, what hap pened to you? In three years you have become an old man.” (He was then forty-seven years old.) Grandmother was not one to just sit and do nothing. Her first effort was to find respectable living quarters. To pay the rent, she sold her most valuable possession, six silver spoons. The day came when there was no money to pay another month’s rent and Yankov Hirsch and Hennie as39

sumed a “Lord will provide” attitude; and the Lord, Blessed be He, did pro vide. Came a knock on their door, one fine day. A man of friendly mien stood there and asked: did they have one large or two small rooms to rent six men who peddled in the country and came home just for Shabbos. There were five married men whose wives awaited the necessary “schiffskarten” to come to America and one twenty-one-year-old unmarried young ster who was by way of being petted by the older men. Each Thursday, one of the six came home to cook for the Sabbath. The other five would

come home on Friday. The Mayerbergs could rent them rooms, and did, and this providentially solved the rent problem for them, until they could scramble to their feet. The single man, Louis Rubenstein, married the eldest daughter of the Mayerbergs, Chayeh, and they were my parents. This all happened in the very long ago. Both the Mayerbergs and my parents prospered in a very modest way, and thereafter needed no crutch. Today, I am the last living one of the Louis Rubenstein Family and the memory of the “Six Silver Spoons” still lingers.

A FA M ILY A N E C D O TE ATHER was born in Kalet, Suwalki Guberna, Lithuania. In youthful exuberance, he had boasted to a peasant working on Grandfather’s land that he would not serve in the Czar’s army. No, not he.

He was going to America as soon as he was old enough to make the jour ney, to a country where all men are free and, moreover, the streets are said to be paved with gold. He was then sixteen years old—a gentle, sen-

JEWISH LIFE

sitive lad who had been sent to a nearby larger Jewish community for further T or ah learning. In the Russia of Czar Alexander II, informing was a lucrative and much encouraged business, so inform the “muzhik” did. Therefore, the gen darmes, or whatever the Russian se cret police were then called, came in a hurry in the small hours of the morning to arrest this dangerous boy. Their hearts were evidently not en tirely made of stone for they listened to Grandma’s pleas and agreed to wait until daybreak to take him to jail. When we heard Father tell of his ten weeks in prison, the story wrung our childish hearts. There apparently was no trial; he was just put to doing the hardest and most degrading jobs. Father was physically unable to take this and became so ill that he was of no use to the Czar or anyone else. The fact, plus three hundred nice, fat rubles, got him a release by a doctor’s decree and he was sent home to die. But die he did not. Under Grand mother’s tender, loving care, he soon became well and strong. Then indeed, he fled across the “grenetz” to Ger many and made his way eventually to

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Metz, France, where he knew of the existence of an uncle. This relative did not seem to want any part of him or perhaps a boyish pride accounts for his finding himself on the streets of Metz, hopeless and penniless. Some kindly soul helped him buy a glazier’s kit and taught him a skill, then very much in demand by householders. In any case, he ma% aged to get by and earned enough money to pay for his fare across the Atlantic. Somewhere on the way, he must have lived in England, for I well remember his decided British accent, albeit his use of the vernacular was far from perfect. In all probability, the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War speeded his resolution to leave the Old World for he landed in Amer ica in 1870 shortly after the begin ning of that war. The only relic of his French days was a French-translated Machzor. Where it is today, I do not know but I surely wish that I did. My father, Louis W. Rubenstein (1849-1898) often told this poignant little story to his children and always ended with “It is all over now, let us be grateful and happy that we are in our own, wonderful country.”

The Child Worshippers: A Plea for Parents Instead of Pals By B E N JA M IN BLECH

A SOCIOLOGIST was recently ask-lj L ed to sum up the American Dream. He said quite simply and pro foundly, the ideal of every man and woman in the United States today is to live long— and to die young. Epigrammatically, he pointed out in but a few words what from a Biblical point of view marks a major failing of our times—the contemporary creed that has transformed old age into a period that is only to be pitied, and youth into an idol that is to be pampered and copied. The first time the Torah ever speaks of old age, it is in connection with our forefather Abraham. The verse is the opening sentence of Chapter 24 in the Book of B’reshith: “And Ab raham had become old and advanced in days, and G-d had blessed Abraham in everything.” How beautifully does the Bible indicate its attitude to aging by this seemingly strange juxtaposi tion. When do we consider our Pat riarch most supremely content, when is the very first time we find him de scribed as a man who might evaluate his fortune in life as being fully favored by G-d? Not in the vigor of youth, nor in the prime of manhood;

not upon his becoming husband or father, nor upon his acquiring posses sions without number; for then there was yet one vital gift that was denied him without which he could not con sider his life complete. “And Abra ham had become old and advanced in days”— this was the final and most gracious blessing of a benevolent G-d who saves the best for the last. I know it is hard for the present generation to understand this kind of perspective. Our cultural orientation does not permit .us to appreciate this truth. It prepares us to view age not as a blessed ideal but as a dreaded ordeal. But the Bible consistently makes it clear that our attitude is wrong—that youth is not to be envied and imitated but to be edified and in structed; and age is not to be scoffed at or scorned, but to be revered and respected. HAT does our society think of the old? Lin Yutang, in his book “The Importance of Living,” gives us a penetrating insight into our approach by means of comparison. He writes:

I have found no differences that are absolute between Eastern and Western life except for the attitude toward age.

JEWISH LIFE

In China, the first question a person asks the other on an official call is: ‘What is your glorious age?’ If he replies apologetically that he is 23 or 28, the other generally comforts him by saying that he still has a glorious future, and that one day he may be come old. Enthusiasm grows in pro portion as the gentleman is able to report a higher and higher age, and if he is anywhere over 50, the enquirer drops his voice in humility and re spect. People actually look forward to the celebration of their 51st birth day:

How different from the American point of view that has made million aires out of people who cater to the current preoccupation with youth. “Think young,” “live modern,” “join the lively set”—so go the Madison Avenue slogans of our time. Look at the ads we constantly see before us. Does one ever see a picture of an old man or woman advising us to pur chase a particular product on the basis of the wisdom of their years? The Bible says: “Ask thy father and he will declare unto thee, thine elders and they will tell thee.” But the perceptive admen of our day know how much the times have changed. Convince an adult that a product appeals to the young, says a noted public relations expert, and you have sold him. Doc tor Bruno Bettelheim, analyzing the adolescent’s changing role in our eco nomy, points out that not only has the teenager of today become an ex tremely important spender in his own right, but, in a curious kind of rever sal, he has become the pied piper of our society who sets the styles and the trends for adults to follow. He is not only a buyer whom the merchants want to woo for his own sake; he is also the child that shall lead his elders November-Decenrrber 1965

to new forms of »speeding. “Ask thy child and he wilî declare unto thee, thine teenagers and they will tell thee” —this is the Biblically transformed motto of our age that has well been called a youth-wofthipping society. OT too many years ago,* it was N still possible to*see people take pride in the signs of**their maturity. Gray hair was distinguished, glasses were often purposely put on to look older, and there was a*, recognized truth in the proverb of Solomon that “The hoary head is a crowj^of glory.” Today the fountain of youth dictates the fads of every “girl” .oyer 50, who goes out with her friends in ludicrous imitation of the styles appropriate to a different generation, and of every man past his prime who reveals a great psychological truth when he in sists he is going out with the “boys.” All the crazes of teenagers have today been accepted by adults, in envious admiration. There is a great deal of irony in the telling remark of à 16year-old boy who recently wailed: “First they took our electric trains. Now they’ve taken our dances, our hairdos, our singers, our clothes, our tight pants, and our TV programs. Pretty soon we won’t have anything to call our own. Is nothing sacred any more?” Youth cannot even rebel by being different, because the adults so quickly copy their way of life. The title of a recent book by Martha Lear speaks volumes as a capsule descrip tion of our modern day mores: “The Child Worshippers” is the name of her excellent study of the parents of our times. And what is the result of this child worshipping philosophy? Listen to the title of yet another book written by 43

Grace and Fred Hechinger, the educa tion editors of the New York Times: “Teen Age Tyranny/’ A shocking por trait of today’s adolescent society, it should be required reading for every American. Warn the authors:

passage, the Talmud tells us that never before our first Patriarch did anyone truly grow old, and Abraham prayed for the gift of age from G-d so that people “might tell the difference be tween him and Isaac.” Many com mentators have already asked the ob American civilization tends to stand in such awe of its teenage segment vious question: How can we possibly that it is in ^danger of becoming a say that before Abraham no one be Teenage society with permanently came old? Do we not read that in teenage standards of thought, culture, the wicked city of Sodom, when the and goals. #As a result, American so angels came to the house of Lot to ciety is growing down rather than warn him of the impending doom: growing up. This is a creeping disease, “Before they lay down, the men of not unlike hardening of the arteries. the city, the men of Sodom, compassed It is a softening of adulthood. It leads to immature goals in music, art, and the house round, ‘from the young to literature. It forces newspapers, televi the old?’ ” Evidently there were peo sion producers, and movie makers to ple before our forefather who were translate the adult English usage into advanced in years. But simple longev the limited vocabulary of the teen- ity is not the secret of that which culture. It opens up vast opportunities Abraham introduced to this world. for commercial exploitation and there Note carefully the sequence of words by sets off a chain reaction which constantly strengthens teenage tyran describing the actions of the Sodo mites. “They compassed the house ny. round from the young to the old/€ A psychiatrist sums it up well when What point is the Bible making ever he says: “Today we have a society in so profoundly? The Torah is describ America that tends towards infantilism ing for us in but a minimum number — a society that has a compulsive de of words the social condition that was sire to go back to the simple existence primarily responsible for the moral of childhood, and stands in reverent decline of Sodomite culture. From the awe of the immature standards of young to the old—not from the old youth.” No wonder that Nicholas to the young—this was the source of Murray Butler said the inscription that the city’s depravity. In Sodom there could appropriately be placed on every was not a council of elders, as we are American’s tombstone is, “Died at 18, to find amongst the Jewish people buried at 60”— or whatever chrono later in the Bible, who on the basis of logical age marked the passing of the their maturity formulate official policy; perpetually retarded adult of our for Sodom, much like our age, was a times. child-centered society, where the whims of the young were deferred to /C O M PA R E all this to the Biblical and followed by their elders. Abraham prayed for age so that peo ideal: V’Avrohom Zoken: Abra ham, say the Sage^, was the first to ple might be able “to tell the difference introduce the concept of age to this between him and Isaac”—not simply world. In a wonderfully metaphoric because they may have looked alike 44

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but because in those days no differ ence of worth was accorded to those who were advanced in years. As the Midrosh so aptly puts it, a man might come with a religious question to pose to Abraham and then just as readily ask it of Isaac, for until then there was no recognition of the superiority of father over son. In cultures ac customed to worshipping the sword, the physically more agile and ablebodied young were held in highest esteem. With the coming of Abraham, who was to preach the supremacy of the book over the sword, a new philo sophy of worth was to be taught in this world. Age is not a curse that deprives man of the strength of his body; it is a blessing that brings to man the fulfillment of the deepest potentials of his mind and his soul. HE late Sir Winston Churchill summed up the difference be tween youth and age very succinctly: “The young sow wild oats, the old grow sage.” And depending on the fruit we most desire rests the verdict of our admiration. Nowadays, as a wit said recently, the average person respects old age only when it is bot tled. In Jewish tradition it is precisely when we lift a cup of wine or other beverage that possesses the gift of im proving with age, that we indicate its parallelism to life by saying Vchayim Hytor life too shares this very same gift. L ’chayim, to life, is the toast of our people that expresses the prayer that man be blessed with age whose fruits are as valued as those of the vine. “And Abraham had become old and advanced in years, and G-d had blessed Abraham in everything”—this is the Biblical ideal that preaches the

November-December 1965

virtue of age which demands honor and obedience. “The men of Sodom compassed the house round from the young to the old”—this is the childcentered ideal that speaks for adult abdication of authority and parental permissiveness. The men of Sodom imitated their children; Abraham in structed his son. The young and old of Sodom were “pals” who paid no tribute to age; Abraham was a parent who demanded respect, and gave di rection and guidance to the child G-d entrusted in his care. ND this is perhaps the most per S tinent aspect implicit in our »so ciety’s disdain for the aged in favor of the Sodomite ideal. A congregant of mine once asked me a very interest ing question. Something in the Bible struck him as being most peculiar: G-d tells us in His holy Scriptures what the correct parent-child relation ship should be. In the Ten Command ments we are given the ideal: “Honor thy Father and thy Mother.’’ In Vayikra we are again told that every man should fear his mother and father. Honor—fear, implying reverence and respect, yet one word that we should expect seems strangely missing! Why, I was asked, doesn’t the Bible ever speak of love as the most important word to describe the feeling a child ought to have towards his parents? Wouldn’t the Fifth Commandment read much more beautifully if it sought to inculcate as the highest ideal a love kind of relationship? I realized the answer most forceful ly when I was witness to a scene that is probably all too comrqon. There was a young girl—she couldn’t have been more than twelve. Her mother was explaining to her that she didn’t 45

think it right for her to be out alone until all hours. There was an argu ment—the usual words—“but every body’s doing it—please mother—be a sport”— and then in a flash came the climactic finale— “oh, mother, I don’t like you!” It was as if she had suddenly said the magic words that could change a forceful mother into a whimpering fool. “Oh, darling, please don’t say that—of course you like me— all right dear, do what you want—just remember, mother’s your friend.” And then I recalled the time I once heard a visiting professor from Europe deliver a lecture at Columbia University about the major difference between child rearing on the Continent and in the United States. In Europe, he said, parents bring up children; in America children bring up parents. And probing a little further he ana lyzed the basic reason behind this dis tinction: In the traditional European relationship parents want to be re spected; in youth-worshipping Amer ica, above all they want to be liked. And when the greatest goal a parent aspires to is to be liked by his child, then the keys to controlling the entire tenor of the relationship are no longer in his hands. To seek respect as the Bible re requires, rather than liking, means the readiness to say no to a child when his wishes exceed the bounds of sani ty or reason. It means recognizing that as a parent you will sometimes not be liked in the immediate present because you must stifle a harmful whim in the interest of a healthy future. It means you must be prepared to make deci sions not like the Sodomites from the young to the old, but like Abraham from the more mature to the child. Above all, it implies that you must be 46

—forgive what is almost a heresy to day—not a pal, but a parent, a guide and a teacher who exerts influence and authority. The rationalization given for paren tal abdication of responsibiilty has become all too familiar. How often does one hear a parent declare: “I don’t want to give my child a religious education, I don’t want to expose him to a set of spiritual values—I want to be very liberal and let him make up his mind for himself when he grows up.” Mind you, these are the very same people you see puttering around on their lawns constantly, on their hands and knees every weekend in their gardens, struggling with all their might to uproot the pernicious weeds they detest. But why, I ask, don’t you let the lawn make up its own mind what it wants to be? Why don’t you let it decide for itself if it wants to be filled with crabgrass? It was George Bernard Shaw who was once asked what he thought of the kind of progressive education where the child was left completely alone to his whims and fancies, to decide for himself whatever he wished to do. Shaw took the questioner out to his beautiful garden. He showed him his exquisite roses, the flowers he lovingly tended. “These,” he said, “I water constantly and raise in ac cord with the best of my knowledge.” And then, leading his friend to an other section that was left untended and filled with weeds and thorns, “These,” he said, “I permit to grow up as they choose.” ‘VTES, parents must assert themselves l and direct the spiritual growth of their children. Perhaps it may sound strange in our permissive society to JEWISH LIFE

express the point of view that adults should actually interfere in the lives of their youngsters to advise them on what is good and what is right and what is proper ethical conduct. Maybe it will strike many as peculiar to hear that we should be concerned with the kinds of friends our children have, the activities they engage in, the books and magazines that they read. And, most dreadful of all, it might come as a terrifying experience for a great many parents to learn to say “no” to their children and incur the possibility of being told that they are not liked. But perhaps—just perhaps—there will

be those who realize the Biblical truth that the greatest goal parents must aspire to is not just to be liked as pals, but to be honored and respected as parents, who from the mature per spective of age strive to guide the destinies of their loved ones for good and for blessing. Perhaps, just perhaps, our youth-worshipping society will re place teen-age tyranny and adult ab dication with proper parental supervi sion and discipline in the long-overdue recognition of the Biblical truth that “Amongst the ancient is wisdom and in length of days understanding.”

B ooh R eview s W ho is a Jew? In W ritten Record By P H IL IP Z IM M E R M A N

JEWISH IDENTITY, Modern Responsa and Opinions, on the Registration of Children Of Mixed Marriages. David Ben Gurion’s Query to Leaders of World Jewry. A Documentary Compilation by Baruch Litvin, edited by Sidney B. Hoenig. Philipp Feldheim, Inc., New York 1965, 420 pp. $6.75. ARE is the self-educated man who, overcoming all obstacles, enters into the world of Jewish life and scholarship and succeeds in making a positive con tribution. Such a person is Baruch Lit vin, who is mainly responsible for the recognition of Torah law in the courts of this land. His compilation, “The Sanc tity of the Synagogue” (1959), remains the basic tract on this vital topic. En gaged in carpentry as his trade, Mr. Litvin turned his nights to days and persevered in the study of the Torah in all its as pects to come forth as a tribune of the Jewish people. For a personality of like motivations and achievements, one must go back to David Levi (1742-1801), an English hatter and printer, who carried on a literary battle with Tom Paine to defend the Jewish people and its heritage.

PHILIP ZIMMERMAN, writer, scientist and rabbi, is the Chief Chemist for a pharmaceuti cals firm. He received semichah from the Rabbi Isaac Elchanon Theological Seminary and is the author of many published articles and an abridgement of George Eliot’s Daniel Deronda.

In Mr. Litvin’s latest effort, “Jewish Identity,” we have in a certain sense a continuation of “Sanctity”—-yet a book much different from its predecessor. In the present volume, Mr. Litvin has pre sented to the English-reading public for the first time a record of the great debate over “Who is a Jew?” in which David Ben Gurion, then Prime Minister of Isra el, dispatched a letter to the “Chochmey Yisroel” through the world on the issue of the registration of the children of mixed marriages (1958). No book has ever been made of these answers, and our author set for himself the difficult t^sks of gath ering the material, obtaining permission from the respondents, having the letters translated and the translations approved, and finally of having the records pub lished. All of these tasks he accomplished in a scholarly way, with the aid of his co-workers. HE great question which “Identity” raises is the propriety of presenting together the crystalline clarity of the great masters of Halochah along with the “opinions” of those almost complete ly severed from Halachic thought and practice. There seem to be several pos sible answers to this question. Firstly, several of the responsa themselves con tain open condemnations of the inclusion of those outside the camp of Torah. How

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stirring are the words of Chief Rabbi Gurion released the answers in this mime R. A. Toaff of Rome: “Permit me, your ographed form, one must praise the high Excellency, first of all to protest against ethical sense of the compiler for respect a scandalous state of affairs, well-nigh ing the wishes of those who did not want unprecedented in Jewish history. It is the their words included in this volume, since fact that the inquiry regarding a funda in a certain sense they would seem to mental problem of Jewish law is ad be part of the public domain. dressed to persons lacking the slightest competence to render legal decisions, in N addition to the answers to the Israeli dividuals deemed ‘Jewish Sages’ by your Prime Minister’s letter, background Excellency, among whom are included material of differing value is presented, even desecrators of the Sabbath.” (p. 79) including a warm portrait of Mr. Litvin’s Secondly, the overwhelming consensus of work by the editor, Dr. Sidney Hoenig. the answers support the Halachic posi The final section of the book, “Who Is tion in its broad outlines, whatever the a Jew?” is an essay by the erudite Jew alignment of the authors. This is a great ish historian Professor Solomon Zeitlin, vindication of the traditional stand and who incidentally was not among the for supports the compiler’s major effort, ty-five scholars contacted by Ben Gurion. which is to fight against assimilation and While its major conclusion is that Halo intermarriage. Finally, it was essential chah should govern the regulation of to make available for the historical rec Jewish identity, one wonders if this essay ords of future generations the complete was not more suited for the Jewish story of this unusual event in Jewish Quarterly Review, where it first ap history. To mention only those who have peared, than for a volume of this type. gone to the Academy on High, it is no One pauses at such a statement as: “Un small matter to have preserved authentic fortunately the religious leaders in Israel responsa, some of them in their Hebrew have the psychology and mentality which originals as well, from Rabbi Aaron developed among them in the ghettos of Kotler, Chief Rabbi Herzog, Rabbi Poland, Lithuania and Roumania.” (p. Chaim Heller, and Rabbi Maimon, all of 388) To judge from the religious leaders blessed memory. of Israel included in the official section In the interest of the historical record, of the present book, one finds no such one notes that while we are told on page “ghetto mentality”—but indeed a broad 6 that two of those answering the Prime vision such as has characterized the Minister’s letter did not give permission Sages of Israel in every generation. Let to have their answers included, we are anyone read the statement of the vener not told who these two were. One of able Rabbi of Ponevez (p. 22), or that them, it appears from page 216 of the of the prolific scholar Rabbi Zevin (p. text is Prof. Isaiah Berlin of Oxford, 28), and see if he can find a trace of whose answer was apparently not con “ghetto mentality.” When one reads fur sistent with the Halochah. The other was ther that “the religionists, who are a the American jurist Simon Rifkind, minority of the population, want to en whose letter declining to express an force the religious rites of Eastern Europe opinion is found in the mimeographed on the young generation of the land,” Israel Government Press Office release one is perplexed. Which religious rites on this topic. Inasmuch as Mr. Ben does the professor have in mind? The

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Sabbath? One is relieved to find that Professor Zeitlin does tell us (p. 386): “Only religious leaders may interpret and amend the Halochah.” Perhaps had he the opportunity to read Mr. Litvin’s book before writing his article (it dates from 1959), he would have seen that the au thorized religious leaders of Israel are men worthy of the greatest respect and confidence. FTER reading the last section of the book, one turns back to the responsa themselves and finds immense wisdom in the thoughts of the leaders of the Torah world. Particularly outstand ing are the words of the late dean of the yeshivah world, Rabbi Aaron Kotler z”l (both in the original and the transla tion): “It is clear that a Jew is only a person who is a Jew according to the Torah-Law. Who is a Jew according to Torah-law is clearly defined in the Halo chah. A nd it is Halochah which estab lishes reality. So has it been since Israel became a Nation. This cannot be changed by any individual or communal body, just as reality itself cannot be changed. Any such attempt is complete falsifica tion and a denial of the very form and

essence of our Nation.” (p. 104) An other masterpiece is the essay by Rabbi Y. Y. Weinberg, of the Yeshiva in Montreux: “Ours is not a religious sect, nor are we a political party in the usually accepted term. We are a religious unity , the greatest and noblest of all. We are a people unique and single in our contribu tion to the morality and spirituality of the world . . . ” (p. 95) And how true are these words, taken from the answer of the Rabbi of Lubavitch: “. . . it is pre cisely in Eretz Israel that there exists the danger that a new generation will grow up, a new type bearing the name of Israel but completely divorced from the past of our people and its eternal and essential values; and, moreover, hostile to it in its world outlook, culture, and the content of its daily life; hostile—in spite of the fact that it will speak Hebrew, dwell in the land of the Patriarchs and wax enthusiastic over the Bible.” (p. 113) But these are but a few of the riches in store for the readers of “Jewish Identity.” Lovers of contemporary (and eternal) Jewish history are in debt to Mr. Baruch Litvin for his victorious struggle in bringing out this volume. His long nights of study have been rewarded by the light of day.

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W ith Singer in the Shtetl By M O LLIE K O LA TC H SHORT FRIDAY. Isaac Bashevis Singer. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 1964, 243 pp. $4.95. N a remarkable collection of stories entitled “Short Friday,” Isaac Bashevis Singer demonstrates again the wide range of his literary virtuosity and the unique qualities that mark his style. Looming as a phenomenon on the literary scene, Singer personifies a number of contradic tions: he is a Yiddish writer who has won eminence largely through the transla tions of his works into the English lan guage; he writes of a milieu steeped in the authentic “maximal” Jewish tradi tion, yet he communicates beyond the parochial into the realm of the universal. Singer is lionized as a “modernist” al though he constructs his stories upon a sharply defined moral point of view. The unending struggle between good and evil pérvades his stories, but it is man alone who is the final arbiter. Ultimately re sponsible for his action, man is never viewed with scientific detachment as a pawn of his environmental and social condition. Far from the modern school of behaviorists, Singer’s characters lust and covet, are possessed by their passions and fall prey to their human weaknesses. Isaac Bashevis Singer is first and fore most a master craftsman whose luminous gifts of language, imagery, and character insight remain undiminished in transla-

MRS. MOLLIE KOLATCH is vice-president of the Women’s Branch of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America and editor of its newsletter. She resides in Long Beach, N.Y., where her husband is a rabbi.

November-December 1965

tion. His stories, rooted in the rich soil of the East European Shtetl, do not yield the nostalgic bitter-sweet harvest of Sholem Aleichem or the intellectual probing of Peretz. Isaac Bashevis Singer is a contemporary who left Warsaw in 1935, as Hitler was ascending to power in Ger many. A dark, brooding cloud hovers over his Shtetl. Evil is palpable and allencompassing. How can his characters of mere flesh and blood soar above the temptations that lay hidden, waiting to ensnare their every step? His is not a canvas of Chagall-lyricism, but a pano rama peopled by demons, imps, devils, spirits, menacing shadows, incantations, and superstitious rites, and over all, the dark mystery of the human condition. n p H E author knows his Shtetl well. A Its mores, religious regulations, cycle of holidays and Sabbaths are as natural to his characters as the air they breathe. They are thoroughly Jewish, and the osmotic process of environment gives shape and form to their thoughts and activities. Mr. Singer, too, is attached to this environment with an umbilical cord that nourishes his creative effort. Two stories in the book which are in the New World setting, “Alone,” and “A Wedding In Brownsville,” demonstrate the author’s creative dependence upon his Shtetl-roots. “Alone,” a first-person narrative whose locale is Miami Beach, sounds strangely hollow. The protagonist, caught in a sudden Florida storm, finds shelter in a lonely dilapidated hotel pre sided over by a Cuban hunchback. The

author tries to evoke the half-demon, half-human quality of this deformed woman agâinst a background of flashing lightening and desolate solitude. But it is a one-dimensional effort, more a ré pertoriai description, and the total effect collapses like a papier mache. In contrast is the protagonist of “A Wedding In Brownsville”— a Jewish doc tor nostalgically drawn to his Old World ties. We meet him as he prepares for a trip to Brownsville to attend a wedding hosted by a lantzman from the Senciminer Society. The character of Dr. Mar golin and that of his German-born Christian wife, Gretl, are drawn with sharp clarity. By the time Dr. Margolin embarks, alone, upon his fateful trip to Brownsville from the Upper West Side of Manhattan, we know him intimately. The author’s peculiar ability to fuse the dimensions of reality and unreality into a fluid harmony are especially ef fective in this story. What accident does the. doctor witness? Who is the victim lying ominously on the stretcher? A few ipoments before, reflecting on the inscru tability of G-d, Dr. Margolin had peered from the warm cocoon of his taxicab on the cold night of swirling snow. “His destination was a wedding. Wasn’t the world, like this taxi, plunging away some where into the unknown toward a cos mic destination? Maybe a cosmic Browns ville, a cosmic wedding?” When he ar rives at the wedding, crowded and noisy with Senciminers, a supernatural air of mystery pervades the merry-making. Who is the distinguished guest for whom the wedding is delayed; how is it possible for his childhood sweetheart, Raizel, rumored to have been shot by the Nazis, to suddenly materialize in the wedding throng? “She looked neither young nor old—the grace of Sencimin adorned her.” For whom is the wedding canopy wait

ing? A flood of remembrance brings the past into focus. He is shaken with re membered happiness and desire. The nar rative hovers between reality and hallu cination, and the story comes off with stunning impact. HE machinations of the Evil One raging for possession of the heart of man is at the core of many of Singer’s stories. That “one transgression begets another” is abundantly demonstrated as devils and demons, with an intelligence and character of their own, tempt their human prey. As one knowledgeable de mon puts it: “Experience has taught that of all the snares we use, there are three that work unfailingly—lust, pride, and avarice. No one can evade all three.” In “Zeitlus the Pope,” Satan observes: “In ancient times there always lived a few men in every generation whom I, the Evil One, could not corrupt in the usual manner. It was impossible to tempt them to murder, lechery, robbery. I could not even get them to cease studying the Law. In one way only could the inner pas sions of these righteous souls be reached: through their vanity.” And the story pro ceeds to develop the ensnarement of one such “righteous soul.” It is interesting that the victim is an intellectual genius with a greater capacity for absorbing knowledge than displaying human kind ness. It is the vanity of intellect that be comes his Achilles heel. The short story “Blood” throws a spotlight on the black heart of man. Mr. Singer dissects the essence of evil in an interacting relationship between a butcher and his mistress as they descend into the pit of deception, adultery, lust, and pas sion. The reader views a horrifying spec trum of human debasement as the two lose their humanity and are transformed into the werewolf and she-devil. Evil,

JEWISH LIFE

however, is not always delineated with such shocking clarity. Often it assumes supernatural form: an aberrant power of one human over another, as in “The Fast”; or in diabolic behavior, as in “Big and Little”; often it is self-punishing as in “Taibele and Her Demon”; or assumes an O. Henry irony, as in “Under the Knife.” The interest of the creative writer in the “evil inclination” lodging in man’s heart is not new in literary history. Do stoevski was attracted to this ambivalence in man’s nature, and his works greatly influenced the young Isaac Singer. The uncomplicated “good” person, when he does appear in a Singer story, is usually in contrast to the corruption surrounding him. In “I Place My Re liance On No Man,” the Rabbi of Yampol, harassed by malicious slander and small meannesses, makes the startling de cision to leave his rabbinic post, not for another community as he had previously planned, but to become a lowly fruitpicker in the employ of his most humble congregant. ERHAPS the insulated life of the Shtetl creates an excellent stage up on which to enact the eternal conflict be tween good and evil. The Talmud-steeped Jews, imbibing the dictums of the Sages, were all too familiar with the “good inclination” and the “evil inclination.” Where there is no awareness of a choice, there can be no drama of conflict. As the engaging demon in post-World War II Poland expressed it in “The Last Demon” : “All guilty is worse for us than All Innocent. It has reached a point where people want to sin beyond their capacities. They martyr themselves for the mo$t trivial of sins. If that’s the way it is, what are we needed for?!’

November-December 1965

F¥1H E influence of the Kabbolah, which A Mr. Singer studied assiduously in his youth, colors many of his stories. In “Three Tales” of fantastic happenings, we are told through one of the characters: “Sometimes a soul is sent down from Heaven which has to fulfill its mission in a hurry. Why are some babies born who live only one day? Every soul descends to earth to correct some error. It’s the same with souls as with manuscripts; there may be few or many errors. Every thing that’s wrong on this earth has to be corrected. The world of evil is the world of correction. This is the answer to all questions.” Singer uses the symbolism of demons and spirits, superstitious rites and Jewish custom, much as the poet creates a lan guage of symbolism and imagery of his own. They serve to compress his stories and to add many dimensions of meaning. “Short Friday,” from which the book takes its title, is such a story. Here the warm beauty of the Sabbath and its trans cendental significance is used as the lever. The story revolves around a simpleminded^ rather incompetent tailor and his competent, faithful spouse. Shoshe, who is childless, pours the full measure of her love and devotion upon her wellintentioned but bungling husband. Goodnatured and amiable, Shmul-Leibele basks under the warm sun of her love. It was to the Sabbath, especially the long winter Sabbath Eve with its creature comforts of food, warmth, and satiety, that the couple looked forward with hap py anticipation. The Sabbath of our story occurs on the shortest Friday of the year. Events that follow blur from reality into fantasy. Sleep leads to a weird dream: Shmul-Leibele imagines that he has passed away. The Burial Society brethren come by and pick him up and

he, dreamlike, witnesses his own burial. Startled, he awakes and at the same moment Shoshe also awakes. When he relates his dream she murmurs: “Woe is me. I had the very same dream.” The couple suddenly are aware that they are in a state of physical paralysis. Imperceptibly the nightmare becomes the reality. Spatial dimensions vanish as death is fused with life, and the reader is left to project his own imagination into this cataclysmal tale. The Sabbath, a foretaste of the world to come, has in fact become the “Olom Habah.” Juxtaposed against the life forces of food, procreation, and love, comes death, unwanted but passive ly accepted. The innocence and naive faith of the couple mitigates their sur render to their own physical destruction. Typically Singer, each layer of the story reveals yet another nuance of meaning. N his short stories, the world of the Shtetl which Mr. Singer knows best, becomes a microcosm of the greater world. He draws upon its inhabitants for negative as well as positive depic tions of character. The manner of their confrontation with life is unpredictable but always interesting. To the reader, there is a disturbed sense of viewing this life through a contorted lens where fa miliar images undergo a strange transfor mation. The classic Jewish faith in the essential goodness of man, and “bitochon” in the ultimate goodness of G-d

are notably absent, and with it, the char acteristic Jewish optimism that asserts it self “in spite of everything.” In this somber-hued vision, evil, which is all-encom passing is finally all-consuming. The Polish hamlets of Bulgaray, Frampol, Zamosc, where so many of his sto ries are cast, were familiar to the adole scent Singer who spent several years in their midst while living with his grand father. This reviewer recalls these vil lages as they were in the early Thirties. Physically unchanged for hundreds of years, they bore no visible sign of pro gress; no electricity illuminated them; no telephone or radio informed them; no modern vehicles passed through them. Modernity had by-passed these places and they remained within a magic circle fringed by dark, foreboding forests, en tered into through primitive dirt roads traversed by horse and wagon. Isolated, the Shtetl was vulnerable to the hostility of man and nature. As a consequence, the Shtetl reached inward to develop a richly variegated life of the mind and spirit. To an impressionable youngster with an inventive imagination, the landscape was fertile with possibility. The form of literature Mr. Singer creates from it implies a vision of life that is anguished, paradoxical, and finally unsolvable. Mr. Singer views his Shtetl through darkened eyes and modern man may well recognize himself in the image that emerges.

JEWISH LIFE

Zoning Laws and Religious Institutions By SAMUEL A B R A H A M S PUBLIC REGULATION OF THE RE LIGIOUS USE OF LAND. By James E. Curry. The Michie Company, Charlottes ville, Virginia. 429 pp. HE utilization of zoning laws to deny religious institutions access to select residential areas is a problem plaguing Jews as well as Christians in this era of mass erection of all types of religious centers. The recent efforts of residents of Syosset, New York, and Miami Beach, Florida to bar a synagogue catering facili ty and a convent from these respective communities, indicate how wide-ranging is the problem. Lawyer James E. Curry of Washington, D. C., a skilled practi tioner in the field of zoning in relation to religion, has written the first full-length volume on the varied ramifications in volved in the attempt of churches and synagogues to expand their facilities in accordance with the phenomenal growth of the population in the suburbs and elsewhere. Curry analyzes a hundred cases in ar riving at his conclusions about basic legal principles in this hotly contested and emotionally-charged arena of church-state jurisprudence. This study is a most ex haustive dissection of all the minutiae of the theme found in the labyrinthine path ways of the law, but it is developed in a meter and idiom which is comprehen sible and meaningful to the layman. The

SAMUEL ABRAHAMS is a lawyer by profes sion and the author of numerous articles on religion ftnd the law. He is currently writing a volume on law of marriage and divorce in New York.

November-December 1965

book serves a most useful function in focusing major emphases on the doctrinal diversities and disparities which have characterized judicial decisions in this area since such early determinations as the Omaha, Nebraska Presbyterian case in 1922. Eight public purposes are cited as be ing invariably invoked by courts to as sess the validity and constitutionality of zoning ordinances vis-a-vis synagogues and churches: 1) morality; 2) health; 3) safety; 4) convenience; 5) comfort; 6) prosperity; 7) peace and quiet; and 8) general welfare. The author rightfully states that some of these abstract guide lines of the police power tend to overlap in the formulation of judicial concepts. Curry finds that the desire to mitigate the hazards of automobile congestion and traffic obstruction loom paramount in the framework of the public purpose declara tions. URRY is fully aware that zoning rules are frequently manipulated by bigoted municipal governing agencies and councils to prevent the entry of so-called alien cultural influences like Jewish day schools and community centers and Cath olic seminaries; Protestant institutions, however, have also suffered from the barbs of religious bigotry and discrimina tion in this area, the author shows. In a chapter on “suspicions of prejudice” he outlines several findings which may be drawn from a careful scrutiny of the reported cases: 1) differences in treat ment of two denominations under simi lar conditions as to location, propinquity

to private residences, etc.; 2) procedural barriers and hardships for religious ap plicants; 3) a sudden change in zoning regulations and requirements when un wanted religious projects file applications for approval; 4) the employment of harsh language at hearings and meet ings; 5) the dearth of a rational basis for a particular adjudication in a syna gogue-church matter; and 6) the tendency for religious petitioners to be truculent and unreasonable in their quest for a favorable ruling from local officials. The writer of this book makes copious allusions to and evalutions of such syna gogue causes celebres as the Sands Point and Lawrence, New York, South Euclid, Ohio, Miami Beach, Florida, and Creve Coeur, Missouri cases of recent vintage. This reviewer does find some question able aspects in this generally thorough and pioneering work. Curry is too repeti tious in trying to derive some hidden theory of meaning from every judicial contretemps in this area. He also seems to think that absolute anti-exclusion opin ions of the courts are fallacious, unwar

ranted, and damaging to the best interests of the inhabitants of the community as a whole. While structural and safety require ments should be fully complied with by all prospective religious units, be they school, house of worship, residence or parsonage, or community center, there is no justifiable reason for excluding churches and synagogues because un friendly neighbors may be silently dis turbed by such phenomena as noise, traf fic bottlenecks, and the concentration of congregants on special occasions like weddings. The New York Court of Ap peals in the Brighton (Rochester) case repudiated all these so-called inconveni ences as hurdles to religious construction, in full recognition of the fundamental American precept of religious liberty and freedom from the restraint of omnipotent authority and biased private groups. Law has served as a most wholesome ally in the struggle to overcome such hindrances to the forces of religion throughout the United States. This text gives the picture in ample proportions.

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¡setters to th e E d ito r ROLE O F O R T H O D O X Y Pittsburgh, Penna. I have just read the Tishri-Cheshvan issue of Jewish L ife . A s one who has always enjoyed a very close relationship with the organized orthodox Jewish com munity, I was delighted to read this copy. Let me tell you of the two things which indicate to me a coming of age of the orthodox community as represented by this issue. First of all I had heard Rabbi Bernard A. Poupko’s statement on the mission to Soviet Jewry and now I have had a chance to read it, and I believe this was a candid and open expression of the concern of an orthodox rabbi, not as an orthodox rabbi, but as a member of the total Jewish people. I want to pay particular compliment to Rabbi Joseph Karasick for his ap praisal of the World Jewish Congress meeting. As the Director of the Jewish Community Relations Council,' I have had to try to evaluate from many points of view the impact of that meeting in Strasbourg. In reading Rabbi Karasick’s article I find a new vitality, a new ex pression of unity, and I compliment him. It is my own feeling that in a free and open society which America has pio neered in, and which even the rigid Cath olic community has begun to recognize as a true value, the role of the orthodox Jewish community is to participate and represent even among those who dissent, the highest values of that tradition. It must do it without calumny and with digNovember-December 1965

nity. But always with a spirit of K’lal Yisroel. One cannot enforce an Orthodox position in a free and open society. Such an attitude can only repel people who have full choice. Let me once again compliment you and the two writers for this indication to me that American Orthodoxy fully intends to play its role in the total world scene as part and parcel of the commu nity of Israel and the solutions to the problems of that community. A1 Mell man Executive Director, Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Pittsburgh

NEEDED: A W EEKLY FO RUM Washington, D. C. We are aware that there is a vigorous (and, G-d willing, not just temporary) rejuvenation of Torah-true approach among the new generation, a turning to genuine tradition and observance. Many of those newly willing to listen to the voice of Orthodoxy—though often hesi tatingly—can do so only to the extent that our Judaism is brought to them in English-language media. But sermons, lectures, books, pamphlets, great as their values are, do not suffice. There is a vital need for regularly published organs ide ologically based on Torah-true sources and their interpretations. Today we have Jewish L ife and I must say that, without agreeing with each and every author’s views, the editorship deserves high praise 57

ABRAHAM CARMEL Will Address Adult Education groups This Season on the Following Subjects: 1. FOUR POPES AND THE JEWS 2. FOUR FAITHS AND JUDAISM 3. CONVERTING JEWS TO JUDAISM 4. SO STRANGE MY PATH For details please consult —

J.W.B. LECTURE BUREAU 145 East 32 Street, New York 10016 Phone: LE 2-4949

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for what this magazine offers. In addi Editor’s Comment: tion, there are now some valuable month We certainly agree that the undertak lies and bi-monthlies, each providing or ing which Prof. Darmstadter urges would thodox and not-so-orthodox readers with meet a major need of the American Jew viewpoints not just “orthodox” but ex ish community. Regretfully, we can but pressing its own aspect of the one specific give the writer the answer which he an ideology. Others again are primitive and ticipates and rejects in advance. The often sensational, self-righteous and, at launching of an effective weekly periodi least to this writer, disgusting, a mixture cal of good calibre is an undertaking of of ridiculous items which, one thinks, are far greater proportions, in financial terms more for the reader who likes superficial and in other regards, than is generally nonsense or for the simple Am-Haaretz. known. Yet, viewing the phenomenal We all know that within the pluralistic developments of the past two decades, American society Orthodoxy in itself with the launching and successful fulfill forms a strange, “pluralistic” conglomera ment of one after another of great Torah tion of any number of groups and splin projects once thought beyond the scope ter-groups. Still, it is a necessity to offer of dreams, we can be hopeful that in due to the orthodox of every shade (and course, B’ezrath Hashem, this objective others too) a new weekly forum, of too will be achieved. popular appeal but well edited, from which all kinds of information will be JL FOR UK spread: news and issues of the day, “hu man interest” items, ideological treat London, England ments, serious and lighter-vein topics. I am a subscriber to Jewish L ife and If Jewish L ife could sponsor a weekly of this type, with all the features that are am tremendously impressed with its required to attract and serve readers so worth. At present there is no publication that it becomes an every-week part of in the United Kingdom which remotely their lives, this would be a major step in resembles it. The result is that thè voice the strengthening of Orthodoxy and in of authentic Judaism is almost silent, and the spreading of the Torah message attacks . . . remain unanswered. I am thinking of taking a full page among those who are hungry and thirsty. I realize how great are the financial, advertisement (in a local publication) . . . organizational, and ideological barriers in which the existence of Jewish L ife which must be overcome if such a dream would be prominently displayed . . . and is to be translated into a reality. I am shall do all I can to assist distribution aware of the many other problems with here of your excellent magazine. Cyril M. Ahelson which orthodox Jewry has to deal in our days. And I have no doubt too that many others have urged this need upon your G E N IZ A H DISCOVERER attention. But to simply sigh and say that the need exists but there is no present Cleveland Heights, Ohio way to solve it would only lead to the I am a senior at the Telshe High School melancholy answer: Elah hakol y’he (Hebrew AcademyifYavne) of Cleve munach ad sheyovo Eliyohu . . . land. In our class in Hebrew literature, Prof. Karl D. Darmstadter we were discussing the Cairo Genizah November-December 1965

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when Rabbi Philip Zimmerman’s review of “Giants of Faith, Great American Rabbis,” by A. J. Goldman, appeared in the Tishri-Cheshvan issue of Jewish L ife . We were very much interested in Rabbi Zimmerman’s statement that Rabbi Solomon Aaron Wertheimer preceded Dr. Solomon Schechter in working on the Genizah project. Could you tell us of any sources other than Rabbi Shurin’s volume which might throw further light on this commonly accepted fallacy? Chana Porath Rabbi Zimmerman R eplies :

2. After Rabbi Solomon Aaron Wer theimer transcribed his discoveries he sold the original fragments so that he could have the money to publish further works of this type. The reference for this is found in the “Catalogue of the Hebrew Manuscripts in the Bodleian Lib rary,” Vol. II, by A. Neubauer and A. E. Cowley, Oxford, 1906. Of the Geniza findings, Cowley writes in the Preface, “A considerable number also were brought from Jerusalem, where they were in the possession of a certain Rabbi Wer theimer, but there is no doubt that they ultimately came from the same Genizah.” In checking the dates, one finds that the library purchased Genizah items from Rabbi Wertheimer as early as 1892, while Dr. Schechter himself was not acquainted with the find until 1896. Over a dozen of the Library’s acquisitions from Rabbi, Wertheimer are listed in this Catalogue, starting on page xii., and as noted they date from 1892.

I am happy to supply the following information concerning the precedence of the noted scholar, Rabbi Solomon Aaron Wertheimer, in the Genizah of Cairo: 1. In 1950 the Mossad Rav Kook pub lished the volume Batei Midrashot (Vol. I), edited by Rabbi Abraham Joseph Wertheimer, a grandson of the discoverer of the Genizah. This book contains “twenty-five midrashim published for the H U N T IN G first time from manuscripts discovered in the Genizoth of Jerusalem and Egypt” Brooklyn, N. Y. which were first put out by Rabbi S. A. Mr. Loewy writes in his article, “The Wertheimer starting in the year 1892. In Vulgarization of the American Jewish the introduction to this volume, the elder Community,” (May/June 1965) that Rabbi Wertheimer is quoted as follows: “apart from Halachic considerations “. . . I was the first who revealed to the such as tza’ar ba’aley chayim (causing of treasures of the darkness in the secrets suffering to animals), such a detestable of the old Genizah in Egypt, and I was pastime was just unthinkable to be of the first to publish from those pages interest to a Jew.” I certainly agree with midrashim of Chazal and responsa of the him when he says, “Es passt sich nit far early Geonim and peyotnim, and through a Yid” to go hunting for pleasure. How my hands this Genizah was revealed to ever, the Halachic consideration men the world, and different scholars came tioned, i.e., tza’ar ba’aley chayim , is not after me ‘and they despoiled Egypt’ of applicable in a case of hunting where the manuscripts of the Genizah and the animal is shot, such as in deer hunt brought many of them to light and gained ing, which was the type of hunting men for themselves a name in the world, and tioned in the article. Other forms of no one remembers the ‘poor man who pleasure hunting which cause the animal delivered the city.’ ” to suffer when it is trapped prior to beNovember-December 1965

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ing killed would probably be considered tza’ar ba’aley chayim.

I refer those interested to the Responsa of Rabbi Yechezkel Landau, N oda Bihudah, Tiny ana, Yoreh Deah, 10, who states that tza’ar ba’aley chayim is ap plicable only when the animal is caused misery while being kept alive, while the killing of animals or any creature is ex cluded from this category. The N oda Bihudah_ does feel, as well as Mr. Loewy and myself, that no son of Abra ham should have a hand in such doings, and he therefore forbids pleasure hunt ing, in addition to other reasons (e.g., putting one’s life in danger), because it is achzoriuth— brutality. While deer hunt ing, therefore, may be brutality, it clearly does not fall into the Halachic category of tza’ar ba’aley chayim. Rabbi David Shluker

W O R D O F PRAISE Brighton, Massachusetts I assure you that I am delighted to renew my subscription. You run a mag nificent magazine, you edit it with ex cellent taste and fine appreciation of the eternal values of our people and of our faith. You will be pleased to learn that my teacher, the philosopher Professor Harry A. Wolfson of Harvard, has on several occasions praised your magazine to me. Rabbi Joseph S. Shubow Temple Bnai Moshe

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