Jewish Life Jan-Feb 1968

T H E N E W D IS P E N S A T IO N O N H O M O S E X U A L IT Y J E W S A N D J E W I S H N E S S IN A R G E N T IN A T H E R E T U R N T O K ’F A B E T Z IO N JE W IS H LAW AND TH E TEM PLE M OUNT A N D T H E R E IS N O T H IN G N E W U N D E R T H E S U N

SHEVAT-ADAR 5728 JANUARY-FEBRUARY 1968

A N N U A L N A T IO N A L D IN N E R of the

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January-February 1968

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In these days of powder-keg headlines and flash news bulletins, the sparks that ignite the slow fuse of change are too often overlooked.

Yet to students of the history of civilization, it is these sparks that

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deserve the attention of mankind, and it is to one of these that RABBI DR. NORMAN LAMM (Rabbi of The Jewish Center in

8 New York City, Erna Michael professor of Jewish philosophy at our

Yeshiva University, and Chairman of the UOJCA Campus Com­ mission and of the National Advisory Board of Yavneh, the Na­ tional Religious Jewish Students Association) addresses

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himself.

. . . The smoke of the Six-Day War has not yet cleared, but it has sufficiently thinned to permit various observations— and inspirations.

CHAIM MAGENI, an oleh from Brooklyn who was once a shaliach

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to Bnei Akiva of Boston, writes of his current home and how it

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got that way; ARYEH NEWMAN, veteran reporter of the Israeli scene, describes one of the problems created by the outcome of

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unification. . . . Progress is as old as the world, and PHILIP I.

1

KIPUST, a New York high-school teacher of science for more than fifteen years, Principal of the General Studies Department of the

b

Kaminetzer Mesivta of Borough Park in Brooklyn, and Vice President

u

of the Association of Orthodox Jewish Teachers, reveals the origins of

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brethren in Russia and Israel, legitimate as it may be, is no reason

today’s “modern” living. . . . Attention to the welfare of our Jewish

o r

to overlook our brethren in other places. JACOB BELLER, frequent contributor to these pages, reports on one such significant community.

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JEW ISH LIFE

Vol. XXXV, No. 3 / Jan.-Feb. 1968 / Shevat-Adar 5728

THE EDITOR’S VIEW IN WORLD DIMENSION ............................ 9 S aul B e r n s t e in , Editor

ARTICLES R abbi S. J. S h a rfm an L ibby K laperm an P a u l H . B aris

Editorial Associates E lkana h S chwartz

Assistant Editor JEWISH LIFE is published bi-monthly. Subscription two years $4.50, three years $6.00, four years $7.50. Foreign: Add 40 cents per year.

Editorial and Publication Office: 84 Fifth Avenue New York 10011, N. Y. ALgonquin 5-4100 Published by U n i o n of O rthodox J e w is h C ongregations o f A merica J o seph K arasick

President H arold M . J acobs

Chairman of the Board B e n ja m in K o e n ig s b e r g , Nathan K. Gross, David Politi, Dr. Bernard Lander, Harold H. Boxer, Vice Presi­ d e n ts ; M o r r is L. G reen , Treasurer, Dr. A. Abba Walker, Secretary; Michael Kaufman, Financial Secretary.

Dr. Samson R. Weiss Executive Vice President

THE NEW DISPENSATION ON HOMOSEXUALITY/ Norman Lamm .....

11

THE RETURN TO K’FAR ETZION/Chaim Mageni.,..17 JEWISH LAW AND THE TEMPLE MOUNT/ Aryeh Newman ................................ 24 AND THERE IS NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN/ Philip J. Kipust ................................ 28 JEWS AND JEWISHNESS IN ARGENTINA/ Jacob Beller .................................... 43

BOOK REVIEWS RAVINE OF INFAMY/Ursula Lehmann 1 ............. 59 TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE/Bernard Merling ....... 63 ONE SIDE OF THE MIRROR/David S t e in ........

66

DEPARTMENTS CASES FROM THE RESPONSA LITERATURE/ David S. Shapiro ............................ . 56 AMONG OUR CONTRIBUTORS ................... 2 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR ........................ 4 Cover and drawings on pages 16 and 23

by Naama Kitov

Saul Bernstein, Administrator

Drawings on pages 42 and 55 by David Adler Second Class Postage paid at New York, N .Y . .t$/Éjfcopyright 1968 by U N IO N OF O RT H O D O X J E W IS H C O N G R E G A T IO N S OF A M E R IC A

January-February 1968

3

L e tte rs to th e E d ito r JEWS AND ANTI-POVERTY Brooklyn, New York.

Many organizations and community leaders who speak on behalf of the Jewish community have rallied behind the War on Poverty. However, none has publicly acknowledged that poverty exists within certain segments of the Jewish community. While they energet­ ically endorse government spending for new poverty programs, they are satisfied with the relative status quo of services that are currently available to the Jewish needy. Consequently, such leaders have not raised their influential voices to insure that those poor who happen to be Jewish are also given the opportunity to benefit from the poverty programs.

Rabbi Weinberger should be congratula­ ted for his pioneering efforts in speaking out on this subject. (JEWISH LIFE, September-October, 1967).

I agree that there are pockets of poverty within the Jewish community in New York City that need and deserve attention. Rabbi Weinberger sub­ mits that this neglect is partially due to three factors: a) the poverty indices used by the New York City Human Resources Administration; b) the organ­ izational structure of this agency; and c) the type of program it emphasizes.

These factors sound more convincing than is justified by the data which is presented. They are supported more by lomdus than by substance.

It is true that the indices used to determine poverty tend to favor certain groups. However, can one expect that the average person, let alone the govern­ 4

ment bureaucrats would infer from this observation that therefore poverty actu­ ally exists in other groups? Rabbi Wein­ berger’s argument would be more per­ suasive if he would outline appropriate indices for the Jewish community and substantiate the degree of their preva­ lence.

The distribution of funds through locally established “community corpora­ tions” is described as having a “tremen­ dous disadvantage” in that it “has dis­ sipated Jewish strength in relation to the program.” The validity of this conten­ tion is questionable.

The lower East-Side, Mid-West Side and the Bronx are cited as examples of Jewish disenfranchisement. Williamsburg and now Crown Heights can be cited as communities which have substantial rep­ resentation. Cannot one therefore argue that representation is related more to the degree of awareness, interest, and in­ volvement of the local Jewish commu­ nity than to the way the program is structured?

Secondly, the poverty program does not necessarily exclude funds from city­ wide organizations that wish to sponsor programs. The Urban League, the Puerto Rican Community Development Project and the United Neighborhood Houses are examples of such agencies. The Jewish community could do the same thing. I believe that the difficulty to do so may be more due to the nature and com­ plexity of the Jewish community than to the structure of the poverty program.

Rabbi Weinberger’s third point is that the Jewish community has ignored the poverty program because “the emphasis JEW ISH LIFE

has thus far been placed in the area of community action programs.” It is in­ correct to assume that “community ac­ tion” funds are exclusively for “sit-ins” and demonstrations. Such funds can also be used to develop new health and child­ care programs. The Headstart and Fam­ ily Day-Care programs are examples that come to mind.

I believe that if such “service” pro­ grams, which are needed by the Jewish community, would be submitted for com­ munity action funds, their chance for ap­ proval would be better than action pro­ grams which are simply geared to “arousing” the community.

The effect of including these factors in an analysis of the gap between the Jewish community and the War on Pov­ erty is to divert the reader’s attention from the basic factor to secondary con­ siderations. The neglect of the Jewish poor is due to the indifference of the Jewish community.

Only when the Jewish community and its leadership will assume the task of identifying the poor, finding out what they need and want, and then formulat­ ing comprehensive programs, supported with facts and figures, will there be a chance to affect a positive change for those who are in need.

J e r o m e B e rger , A.C.S.W. RABBI WEINBERGER REPLIES: I concur wholeheartedly with Mr. Berger in attributing the blame for the lack of Jewish involvement in the poverty program to the failure of Jewish leadership in this area. I em­ phasized this in my original piece. How­ ever, I refuse to ascribe the whole, or even the major part of blame on the Jewish community.

Mr. Berger’s contention that city-wide January-February 1968

programs are being funded displays an unawareness of current trends within the Council Against Poverty. The facts are that the Council is seeking to stop such funding and there is currently a serious battle being waged against the refunding, for the current year, of the Puerto Rican Development Corporation which he cor­ rectly cites as a needed city-wide pro­ gram. Only in very rare cases, where no locally-based program touches on a pro­ jected program, is there granted city-wide funds. The trend most certainly is towards complete control by local Com­ munity Corporations.

He also suggests that my argument that the emphasis on community action programs works against the Jewish com­ munity is exaggerated because they can “still develop new health and child-care programs” of which Headstart and Fam­ ily Day-Care Programs are examples.

Here I am somewhat puzzled by Mr. Berger’s unawareness of the facts. Head­ start and Day-Care Programs do not come out of community action funds but are rather “earmarked funds,” specific­ ally designated by Congressional action.

Local community action bodies and even OEO (Office of Economic Opportunity) have no discretion in the use of these funds. This is true also of Legal Services Programs, Neighborhood Youth Corps, VISTA, and other earmarked programs.

Even in the realm of earmarked funds where Jewish involvement has been the greatest, there has been a trend to funnel all funding through locally controlled Corporations and away from city-wide “umbrella” agencies. Thus Torah Umesorah, which had administered the Head­ start program in many yeshivoth through­ out the city, was almost denied refund­ ing. As one who had a great deal to do with its ultimate reinstatement as an “umbrella” agency, I can testify that it 5

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— What is the higher purpose and meaning of human sexuality?

— What is the Jewish answer to the “New Morality”?

— Why must a new word, “tsnius,” find its way into our vocabulary?

MANY YOUNG PEOPLE know how to behave “instinctively,”—or because parents have set a good “example.” But will they be able to defend these standards when they are challenged by the new professors of “situational ethics,” the “new morality” or the “hippie,” “beatnik,” or “playboy” crowd?

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TSNIUS / AN ESSENTIAL ELEMENT FOR KEDUSHAH

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JEW ISH LIFE

required a good deal of effort on my part to convince the Council Against Poverty that the Jewish situation was unique and required the able and effi­ cient service of Torah Umesorah. I might add that though I was successful (and regard this as the most noteworthy achievement of my service on the Coun­ cil Against Poverty), Torah Umesorah was still funded at a lower level than the previous year.

May I add that the Neighborhood Youth Corps program, which provides jobs to school drop-outs, has been the one most decisive area where Jews were involved. Here many yeshivoth were pro­ vided with the opportunity of providing job opportunities to kids who did not pursue their high school education.

Again the facts are illustrative. This year the city has taken the “slots” away from city-wide agencies and increased the slotquotas of the Community Corporations.

What have been the results? In one city­ wide agency where they lost some 90 slots, 80 Jewish enrollees were termin­ ated. In another where a cut of 100 was ordered, 77 Jewish enrollees from eight yeshivoth are being terminated and at this writing a battle is being waged towards preserving these slots. Of course, Jews can make use of community action funds. My point is, however, that the more crucial need of the Jewish com­ munity is in the area of manpower pro­ grams and job development. Here, we haven’t even begun to scratch the surface.

Mr. Berger challenges me to offer an alternative to the indices of poverty be­ ing used by the city. I offer a simple alternative that is unacceptable to the city only for one reason, namely, that it will place more people within the pov­ erty line and require more governmental

January-February 1968

expenditures. I fail to see why family income alone should not be the basis of poverty. A family without venereal dis­ ease, without juvenile delinquency, and without all the other social ills, that is earning less than $3,000 per annum for two, and $500 more for each dependent, should be regarded as being in poverty.

They should not be penalized because they haven’t the auxiliary liabilities of a broken home and the other unfortunate by-products. This is true of the Italian, Polish, Ukranian, Chinese poor as well as lehavdil the Jewish poor.

I am encouraged by the fact that, parti ly as a result of my article in JEWISH LIFE, and the nationwide coverage that the article received in the country’s press, the New York City Council Against Pov­ erty has charged its Program Committee with the task of conducting hearings in January, 1968 to develop new guidelines to define poverty. I concur in Mr. Berg4 er’s hope that the Jewish community, through its established leadership, will avail itself of this opportunity to make its needs known.

"VISIT TO RUSSIA" New Haven, Conn.

I want to congratulate Mr. Michael Kaufman on a most enlightening and absorbing article “Visit to Russia” in JEWISH LIFE (Nov./Dec. 1967).

He painted such a realistic picture of what our people are going through under the despicable communist regime, that parts of the article brought tears to my eyes.

I can only say that he deserves a great deal of credit for a fine piece of writing and I hope we readers can expect more articles of this kind.

B a r n e y D u b in

7

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JEW ISH LIFE

the EDITOR'S VIEW In World Dimension /C O N V E N IN G IN Jerusalem shortly after Chanukkah, the ^ first World Conference of Ashkenazi and Sephardi Syna­ gogues will be charged with the motif of re-dedication and re­ affirmation which the Festival of Lights bespeaks. This is the spirit for which the times thirst. In carrying it forward while setting forth Synagogue tasks in world dimension, the Jerusalem convocation will render a service of immeasurable import.

The World Conference of Ashkenazi and Sephardi Synagogues is one of those current manifestations of orthodox Jewry’s development that, in an earlier time, would have been in­ conceivable. And even today, in fact, some find such an undertaking hard to conceive. For almost any other of the New-found world’s faith communities, such an assemblage would be no Capacity novelty. But that the forces of the orthodox Synagogue should come together from the four corners of the earth in ordered assemblage—this is something beyond precedent. It is not simply the feat of physical organization that is found so un­ imagined, though few had thought that orthodox Jewry com­ manded such capacity. Rather, what appears so remarkable is the very notion that Synagogue forces across the world have achieved the degree of coherence and unity of purpose re­ quisite to their joining in deliberation of their common interests.

Orthodoxy’s image, through the past two centuries, has been one of structural if not ideological incoherence. Tradi­ tional Jews have been slow to grasp the idea of a comprehensive approach to common needs and goals. Individuality of effort, uncorrelated with even the most closely parallel effort, has been the hallmark of the Torah world. Subjectivity of view, addressing immediate tasks without taking stock of the sur­ rounding factors that have direct bearing on them, has been the prevailing characteristic. It is striking testimony to the creative strength of the Torah Jew that, so geared, he has nonetheless wrought extraordinary achievements. All that is vital and enduring in Jewish communal life today is the product of his endeavors. So evident is this phenomenon that some seem persuaded that achievement has been born of January-February i 968

9

precisely the absence of overall coordination. Hence, it would follow, the pattern must not be disturbed. The syllogism is illfounded.

What has been accomplished by traditional Jewry during these past few decades, great as it is, is but a minor part of what might have been, what should have been, and what now most insistently must be accomplished. The Torah world Price of has paid a catastrophic price for its structural chaos. So much Incoherence has been lost that ought not to have been lost—in the direc­ tion of Jewish affairs, in the form and content of communal life, not least of all, surely, in the minds and lives of masses of Jews. Nor may we ignore the fact that unless and until orthodox Jewry is rationally geared to deal with its circumstan­ ces, gains will be forfeited and it will remain exploited as a subject force.

ITHIN each of the leading countries of the Western world, inter-synagogue and inter-community organization has made marked headway during recent years. Within national boundaries, much has been done to repair past ravages. Need­ less to say, far more remains to be done, in each case. To the extent that, within these bounds, the orthodox Synagogue scene has been more rationally organized, to that extent have the foundations of the entire Torah world been strengthened.

But the needs and concerns of this Torah world are not divis­ ible. They cannot be compartmentalized within national bord­ ers, any more than they can be kept within the confines of each synagogue, within the walls of each yeshivah, or within the domains of each local community. In an age when one can circle the earth between Shachrith and Ma’ariv, the com­ munity in Indiana is next-door neighbor to the congregation in Iran, the school in Brisbane shares the fortunes of the school in Bratislava, the yeshivah in Gateshead is touched by what happens to the synagogue in Guatemala.

The thinking Jew, and certainly the Jew dedicated to Chezkath Torah, must direct his course in awareness of these realities. It says much for the character of synagogue leaderResponse to ship that the concept of a world convocation was envisioned, Vision found so ready a response in community after community and in land after land, and now, after years of planning and months of preparation, is to be fulfilled.

S. B.

W

10

JEW ISH LIFE

The New Dispensation On Homosexuality: A Jewish Reaction To A Developing Christian Attitude

by NORMAN LAMM

f | THE inuch heralded “sexual revolution” of our times has final­ ly infiltrated the very bastions of offical morality in our Western world.

A number of influential Christian churches, suddenly aware of their isolation in the face of the rapidly deteriorating moral level of the Chris­ tian world, have begun to reassess their codes of sexual conduct. As has happened so often in the history of the West, Christiamiy has begun to accommodate itself to Christendom, and the abyss that does and should keep morality apart from mores has shrunk ever more.

One of the most significant docu­ ments of this astounding development is “Sex and Morality,” the Report by the Working Party to the British Council of Churches, published in October, 1966. It is the harbinger of a new dispensation in sexual morality, and presages the most serious consequences for the future of our society. New thinking on the Christian view of sex and sex prac­ tices is also evident in pronounce­ ments and reports by Swedish and German churches.

January-February 1968

These developments are deserving of special treatment from a Jewish perspective. For the present, let us turn our attention to a recent meet­ ing of American churchmen that was widely reported in the press of this country. On November 28, 1967, ninety Episcopalian priests gathered in New York to discuss their church’s approach to homosexuality. Their conclusions were sensational but, alas, predictable.

A large majority of the priests, according to the New York Times reports, believed that homosexual acts should not be dismissed as wrong per se. Such acts “between two con­ senting adults should be judged by the same criterion as a heterosexual marriage—that is, whether it is in­ tended to foster a permanent relation of love,” or whether the two indivi­ duals are merely “using” each other.

A homosexual relationship “can be as fulfilling or as destructive as hete­ rosexual ones.” Of course, the dis­ claimer follows: this does not mean that such acts should be “encour­ aged. And so, the “Judaeo-Christian tradition,” which once had some minII

imal claim to validity in the area of sexual morality, now lies in utter shambles.

W 7 H A T is the Jewish view on ▼▼ homosexuality? A comprehen­ sive treatment is beyond the scope of this article, and I prefer a more mod­ est effort: an outline of a Jewish perspective on the subject.

Judaism condemns homosexual con­ duct as an abomination. The Torah legislates on it in the context of other sexual vices, such as adultery, incest, and bestiality. Mishkav Zachar* is prohibited in Leviticus 18:22— “Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind; it is an abom­ ination,”

versions which the term commonly denotes.) The second incident is re­ markably similar to the first, except that here we find Israelites as the offenders. This is the notorious case, recorded in Judges 19, of a group of Benjaminites in Gibeah who sought to commit an act of homosexual rape; the result was a disastrous civil war and the decimation of the tribe of Benjamin. In addition to these two explicit reports*, the Jewish tradition records that the Egyptian Potiphar acquired Joseph from the Ishmaelites for homosexual purposes (Sotah 13b, and Targum Yerushalmi to Genesis 39:1).

N Talmudic times we have very few case histories of mishkav I and capital punishment is ordained zachar. Josephus tells of such an in­ for both transgressors in Leviticus 20:13. The Halachah considers this commandment to apply universally, to Jews as well as non-Jews (Sanhed­ rin 57b-58a^Hilchos Melachim 9:5, 6 ).

We know of two homosexual in­ cidents in Scriptural history, both in­ volving violence. The first took place in that “sin city” of Biblical days, Sodom. The entire population—“both young and old, all the people from every quarter”—surrounded Lot’s house and demanded that he sur­ render to them his visitors “that we may know them” (Genesis 19:5).

The term “to know” is the Biblical idiom for carnal knowledge. (The word “sodomy” should therefore be used exclusively for homosexuality, and not for the wide variety of per* This accepted term for homosexual liason was not used in this sense in the Bible. Thus cf. Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13, where Mishkevei Ishah denotes homosexuality when applied to a male, and Numbers 31:17 and 35 where Mishkav Zachar denotes heterosexual inter­ course when applied to women.

12

cident about Alexander the son of Herod (“Wars of the Jews,” i, 24:7; and see too “Antiquities” xv, 2:6).

Lesbianism too was known (see Sifra to Leviticus 18:3) and included in the general commandment to refrain from the abominable practices of the Canaanites and Egyptians (Yevamoth 76a; Sabbath 65a; Hilchos Issurei Biah 21:8; Even Ha-Ezer 20:2). The Jerusalem Talmud (Sanhedrin 6:3, p. 28a) makes passing reference to two homosexuals who, apprehended by a Rabbi, threatened him if he would expose them. By and large, however, homosexuality was consi­ dered so rare that the Mishnah de­ cided against the opinion of Rabbi Yehudah who forbade bachelors * Some maintain that homosexuality as a part of a pagan cult flourished during the period of the Kings, and that the term Kadesh refers to this sacred sodomy; see Louis M. Epstein, “Sex Laws & Customs in Judaism,” p. 136. However, it is just as possible to in­ terpret the term as denoting a heterosexual male prostitute. See I Kings, 14:24, 15:12, 22:47, and II Kings 23:7.

JEW ISH LIFE

to sleep together under one blanket for fear of homosexual involve­ ments. The Sages declare that the suspicion of homosexuality amongst Israelites is so remote that such a decree is unnecessary (Kiddushin 82a).

By the 16th century in Palestine, however, the situation had appreciably worsened, and Rabbi Joseph Karo found it necessary to invoke the pro­ hibition of Rabbi Yehudah (Shulchan Aruch, Even Ha-Ezer 24). A century later, in Poland, Rabbi Yoel Sirkes wrote that mishkav zachar was suf­ ficiently infrequent to suspend the prohibition, in accordance with the Sages of the Mishnah, except as a matter of special piety. Indeed, Rabbi Solomon Luria, a Polish contempo­ rary of Rabbi Joseph Karo, held that homosexuality was so very un­ usual amongst Jews in his part of the world that one who refrains from sleeping with another male under one blanket because of special piety is guilty of self-righteous pride or reli­ gious snobbism. (References, and additional source material, may be found in Otzar Ha-Posekim, vol. IX, pp. 236-238.)

TWTHAT is the meaning of toeyvah, W “abomination,” the term of op­ probrium by which the Torah charac­ terizes mishkav zachar? The Talmud records the interpretation of Bar Kapparah who, in a play on words, de­ fined toeyvah as toeh attah bah, “you are going astray because of it” (Nedarim 51a). The exact meaning of this passage is unclear, and we must appeal to other sources for elucida­ tion.

The Pesikta (Zutreta) explains the statement of Bar Kapparah as refer­ ring to the impossibility of such a January-February 1968

sexual act resulting in procreation.

One of the major functions (if not the major purpose) of sexuality is repro­ duction, and this reason for man’s sexual endowments is frustrated by mishkav zachar. Another interpreta­ tion is that of the Tosafoth and Rabbi Asher (in their commentaries to Nedarim 51a), which applies the goingastray or wandering to the homo­ sexual’s abandoning his wife. In other words, the abomination consists of the danger that a married man with homosexual tendencies will disrupt his family life in order to indulge his perversions. This is, incidentally, quite a serious issue which society will have to confront today in the light of the capitulation by so many Christian churches to the drive to legitimize homosexuality as “morally neutral.”

A third explanation is given by a modern scholar, Rabbi Baruch Halevi Epsztejn (in his “Torah Temimah” to Leviticus 18:22), who emphasizes the unnaturalness of the homosexual liason: “You are going astray from the foundations of the creation.”

Mishkav zachar defies the very struc­ ture of the anatomy of the sexes which quite obviously was designed for heterosexual relationships.

It may be, however, that the very variety of interpretations of toeyvah points to a far more fundamental meaning, namely, that an act charac­ terized as an “abomination” is prima facie disgusting and cannot be further reduced or explained. Certain acts are considered toeyvah by the Torah, and that is all there is to it. It is, as it were, a visceral reaction, an intuitive disqualification of the act, and we distort the Biblical judgment if we rationalize it. Toeyvah constitutes a category of objectionableness sui generis, it is a primary phenomenon 13

and is accepted as such by those for whom the Torah is more than a col­ lection of ancient cultural prejudices, no matter how enlightened.* o m o s e x u a l i t y , whether male

H

or female, is thus considered abominable, and can never be legi­ timized in the eyes of Judaism. This by no means implies that Jews who live by Judaism are lacking in com­ passion for the man or woman trap­ ped in this dreadful disease, suffer­ ing the loneliness, the humiliation, and the social ostracism to which such individuals are condemned by their unfortunate tendencies. Certainly the homosexual who genuinely desires to emerge from his situation ought to be helped by all the means at our disposal, whether of medicine or psychotherapy or counselling. But the eompassion and help extended by society should in no way diminish the judgment that mishkav zachar is repugnant.

An example of a sinful act that is treated with compassion by the Halachah which in practice considers it as pathological rather than rebellious is—suicide. Suicides, and attempted suicides, are technically sinners and certain consequences flow from this designation, such as relate to burial, mourning, and eulogies. Yet we usual­ ly treat the suicide as a sick individual and reserve the full harshness of the law for one who takes his own life purely for philosophic reasons—a rare case indeed. Similarly, despite the death penalty prescribed by the * This lends additional force to Rabbi David Z. Hoffman’s contention that toeyvah is used by the Torah to indicate the repulsiveness of a proscribed act no matter how much in vogue it may be amongst advanced and sophisticated civilizations; see his Sefer Vayikra, vol. II, p. 54.

14

Torah for mishkav zachar, one might make a case for treating homosexuals as sick rather than as evil. (To my knowledge, this has been done quietly and discreetly in the very few cases that have come to my attention.) Yet never has anyone dared to suggest that suicide be considered an accept­ able and legitimate alternative to pay­ ing taxes and braving the other anxieties of life. No sane person would sit by passively and watch another human being attempt suicide because he “understands” him, and because it has been decided that suicide is a “morally neutral” act. By the same token, we may treat the homosexual as a patient rather than as a criminal, and use our understanding not to condone but to cure him, if that is at all possible, or at least to help him sublimate his desires and use them in socially constructive ways.

But never can we submit to the cur­ rent campaign in this country and in Europe to declare homosexuality a matter of personal taste within the range of normality, a campaign led by homosexuals and a number of farout non-homosexual liberals who bring to mind Lionel Trilling’s state­ ment that “some people are so openminded that their brains fall out.”

ERSONALLY, I do not believe homosexuality between two con­ senting adults should be treated as a criminal offense in the United States. I say this more as a matter of consistency and expediency than as general outlook. Although there are instances of purely moral prohibi­ tions that are enforced by law in this country (polygamy is an exam­ ple), the nature of our society and its judicial philosophy is such that the courts do not generally wish to in-

B

JEW ISH LIFE

tervene where other individuals, and society, are not directly involved. The point can thus be made that as long as other sexual vices, such as adultery and incest, are not prosecuted in the courts, homosexuality should like­ wise be excluded from the criminal law. Besides, the nature of our pri­ sons is such that not only do they not help rehabilitate the homosexual, but usually worsen his condition.

Of course, * these considerations must be weighed against the very real fear that the removal of homosexual­ ity from the law books will lead to lifting the stigma from this practice in society in general. A law, even an unenforced law, has a certain moral force and pedagogical value. Even more pertinent is the fact that liberal­ ization of the law has now been anti­ cipated by the tragic development in Christianity advocating the removal of the taint of immorality as such from mishkav zachar.

EWS who retain their first loyalty to Judaism and Halachah, rather than to the newest canons of contem­ porary liberalism, must view this new tendency in Christianity with dismay and profound regret. To plead for compassion towards the homosexual and for bringing him remedial care, if not for his exclusion from the penal law, is something with which, as I have said, religious Jews may quite readily agree. But to declare homo­ sexual acts as “morally neutral” and at times as “a good thing” is scan­ dalous. I realize that some of the more liberal Christians will dismiss the Jewish view as “judgmental” and “Pharisaic,” but that seems to be the fate of any belief in moral or spiritual absolutes. It is the price one has to pay for refusing to succumb to a

J

January-February 1968

thorough-going relativism or “situa­ tional morality.”

What is most distressing in reading the reports in the press on the recent Episcopal conference (as well as earli­ er papers by Swedish and British Churches) is the readiness to condone and even approve (although not en­ courage) homosexuality on the basis of “genuine love,” “fulfilment,” and “happiness.” Here the exaggerated importance Christians have traditional­ ly accorded to the term “love,” and the hedonistic ethic of the contempo­ rary Western world, have joined to­ gether to kick away whatever is left of social and religious restraint in a progressively amoral society. To aver that a homosexual relationship should be judged by the same cri­ teria as a heterosexual one— “whether it is intended to foster a permanent relationship of love”—is to abandon the last claim of representing the “Judaeo-Christian tradition.” Are we not justified, to use a reductio ad absurdum, in using the same reason­ ing to sanction an adulterous rela­ tionship? Love, fulfillment, and hap­ piness can be attained in incestuous contacts too—and certainly in poly­ gamous relationships. Is there nothing at all left that is “sinful,” “unnatural,” or “immoral” if it is practiced “be­ tween two consenting adults?”

When religion begins to adapt its norms to current practice, it succeeds in becoming “popular religion,” of the kind the Bible fought against through all antiquity. It then surren­ ders its right to speak in the name of a higher calling. Moral law must apply even—especially!—in the face of popular neglect. Religion must teach society; it must hold up for it moral ideals for which to strive, ethical and spiritual norms the neg15

lect of which will give men a bad conscience. The direction some chur­ ches are taking today threatens to leave the majority religion in our country shorn of its ideals, its chal­ lenge, its role as conscience—and its courage. I fear that, in some measure, contemporary Christianity is revert­ ing to its pre-Judaic roots by institu­ tionalizing the sanction of popular immorality.

A S a Jew, I deeply regret this i x change in direction in Christian opinion on homosexuality and other moral issues. It is bound to accelerate the deterioration of what is left of the moral fabric of society, and will undoubtedly have its effect on nonChristian citizens as well. Traditional Judaism will now face even greater difficulties in its espousal and realiza­ tion of Torah values and ideals in the context of Western civilization.

16

Judaism began its career as the standard bearer of morality in a world which mocked it. When Judaism came upon the world scene, it took vigor­ ous exception to the mores of the then contemporary world, and it main­ tained this opposition even when what it considered abominable immorality was practiced by highly sophisticated Greeks and Romans, and not only by primitive Egyptians and Canaanites.

Its moral judgment is no less deter­ mined in our own age when one re­ straint after another is being scrapped by an increasingly permissive society, and when a great world religion shows signs of the resurrection in its midst of a long-repressed pagan past.

Apparently, Judaism is destined to carry on in the twentieth century in the same sense of isolation and, I pray, with the same sense of deter­ mination as it has in the past.

JEW ISH LIFE

The

R e tu rn to

K T a r E tz io n

By C H A IM MAGENI

ne

B

hundred

and

ten

DAYS after the liberation of formerly Jordanian-ruled portions of Eretz Yisroel, twenty-five youths arrived at the evacuated hill which formerly housed the central and lar­ gest settlement of Gush Etzion, K’far Etzion itself. More than nineteen years had passed since Jewish settle­ ment drew life from the historic hills of Hebron, a settlement which al­ though physically isolated, served as a center of spiritual and cultural activ­ ity, quite out of proportion to its size.

And now realization of the Mitzvah of ‘Redemption shall you give to the land” follows almost immediately on the heels of the miraculously victori­ ous fulfillment of “The Almighty gives you this good land to possess her ” If one can say that the re-settlement of Eretz Yisroel at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries was led by a red fHf, the resettlement following the reunification of Jerusalem is being led by a Sefer Torah.

Yet why should this forsaken hill, but a few months ago an army camp of the Arab Legion, be the cause of much pressure on the powers that January-February 1968

be for immediate resettlement? What attraction have these forty acres that without any previous government planning became the site of the first Jewish settlement in the recently liberated territories? In order to even partially understand this point which strikes deep in the heart of each of the young settlers, a few words of prologue and history are necessary.

The highway running southward from Jerusalem and transversing the ancient inheritance of the tribe of Yehudah, winds sluggishly over a range of hills which as far as Beth Lachem are called the Jerusalem Hills and further south, the Hebron Hills. This region is one of the high­ est in Eretz Yisroel. Here between Hebron, city of the Patriarchs, and Jerusalem, capital of the House of David and site of the Holy Temple, the people of Israel was cradled. In the times of the Patriarchs and of Joshua, of the Judges and the Kings, in the era of the Hashmonean and Bar Kochba rebellions and during the duration of Talmudic as well as Kabbalistic literary creation, this area occupied a central position in Jewish history and served as a source of 17

voth, resolved to establish there a settlement based upon fruit-growing which would also be developed as a vacation resort for the Jews of Jeru­ salem. Holtzman purchased the Mig­ dal Eder land as well as scattered plots from the neighboring Arab vil­ lages, and established a colonization company. He obtained the consent of the leading members of the Russian Church in Jerusalem for the lease of the neighboring monastery and, in 1935, a group of about forty Jewish workers was brought to the land and quartered in the former monastery.

The workers engaged in various land improvement works and laid out a large nursery of deciduous fruit trees.

In honor of the founder, the new settlement was named K’far Etzion.

(Both “holtz” in Yiddish and “etz” in Hebrew mean “wood”).

In 1936, however, the Arabs of Palestine lunched a new campaign of murder, arson, and robbery against the Jews. Isolated K’far Etzion was among the first to suffer. Seedlings and fruit trees were uprooted, and the laborers were subjected to intermit­ tent sniping. At the beginning of 1937 the decision was taken to evacuate the nascent village. The company was, consequently, soon involved in finan­ cial difficulties and was compelled to put the land up for sale.

The K’far Etzion land was then purchased by the Jewish National Fund, which sought to create in this region an area suitable for extensive Jewish settlement. After arranging a number of technical problems of pro­ perty transfer, the JNF approached a group of B’nei Akiva members (the youth arm of Hapoel Hamizrachi, the r r i H E area, however, did not re- religious labor movement) with the JL main desolated for long. Shmuel proposal that they occupy the land Holtzman, a citrus-grower of Recho- of K’far Etzion for permanent settle-

inspiration to many of our nation’s leaders and personalities.

Jewish settlement in the city of Hebron and its surroundings during the first third of the twentieth cen­ tury is in itself a long and sorrowful chapter in the history of our people.

Midway between Jerusalem and Heb­ ron there was a hill known as Daharel-Kadis (the Holy Mount). From the beginning of the century the hill it­ self had been the property of an Arab of the nearby village of Beth Umar, who had built a house there, but as a result of financial difficulties was forced to sell it. In 1928, the small estate was occupied by German Ben­ edictine monks. The Benedictines built a large, roomy house—which later came to be known as the Ger­ man Monastery—as well as various farm buildings, hewed out water cis­ terns, and planted trees. At about the same time the Zichron David com­ pany acquired land in the vicinity, and proceeded to lay foundations of a new settlement to which they gave the Biblical name of Migdal Eder.

(This company was established by a group of orthodox Jews of Jeru­ salem). The new village was to sub­ sist on fruit-growing and dairying.

The settlers constructed several wood­ en bungalows, a Beth Knesseth, and a mikveh, and settled ten families on the land.

The time, however, was not pro­ pitious. In the late summer of 1929, when riots broke out in various parts of the country, the neighboring Heb­ ron Jewish community was massacred.

Migdal Eder was then abandoned and later looted by Arab villagers.

18

JEW ISH LIFE

ment. The group, which had come from Poland, was called “K ’vutzath Avraham” in honor of Rav Avraham Yitzchok HaCohen Kook, the then Chief Rabbi of the Holy Land. In April 1943 an advance unit of thir­ teen settlers took possession of the land of K’far Etzion and set up their home in the evacuated German Monastery.

The history of the early days of settlement, as well as detailed diary accounts of the eventual seige of the area, are described in an excellent book by Dov Knoll, “Siege in the Hills of Hebron.” I would like, how­ ever, to point out that although K’far Etzion, as a religious kibbutz, existed only from April, 1943 until final sur­ render in May, 1948 after 245 Jewish defenders fell at the hands of the Arab marauders, its religious and cultural life served as a shining ex­ ample of the heights to which kibbutz life could lead. The inspiration of the human material as well as the clima­ tic attraction of the region resulted in the establishment in 1945 of Neve Ovadia, a rest resort exclusively for religious writers and scholars. This was a spacious building, the largest in the kibbutz, and it served from the day of its dedication as the reli­ gious and cultural center of K’far Etz­ ion and the other three settlements which rose in the area between 1945 and 1947.

In the autumn of 1947, just before the outbreak of the first phase of the Israel-Arab war, the Etzion Bloc oc­ cupied an area of nine square miles.

The total population of the four vil­ lages was four hundred and fifty per­ sons. On the eve of the Declaration of the Independence of the State of Israel, the remaining defenders of Etzion surrendered to the Arab LeJanuary-February 1968

gion, after ninety chaverim fell on the last day alone. The defenders of K’far Etzion had not lived to see the liberation of their people, the rise of the new Jewish State.

And now, almost twenty years after their parents stood in defense of the majestic settlement on the mount, twenty-five young people came to the graves of those who fell, to convey the message that “we are returning, we will renew and rebuild, we will once again draw the air for our lives from these same hills.” On Wednes­ day, the 22nd day of Ellul, 5727, this promise was fulfilled.

A LTHOUGH all of the new settlers are graduates of B’nei Akiva, the formation of the settlement “garin” took quite a different form from the normal process. In order for a pioneer settlement nucleus to suc­ ceed, it usually explores many ways to live and study together before ar­ riving at the final stage of settlement.

First they gather under the auspices of the youth movement. Then they deal jointly with the hardships and problems of communal life while serving in Nachal, the branch of the Israel Defense Forces which com­ bines military service with training for agricultural settlement. Only af­ ter a number of years of intensive social interaction is the group ready to join an existing kibbutz or estab­ lish a new border settlement. The resettlers of K’far Etzion have cut out most of these stages. They arrived and entered their new settlement, to renovate and rebuild its ruins with­ out benefit of common Nachal ex­ perience, and not having been educa­ ted in each other’s company over the years. Yet one factor was common to them, probably more decisive than 19

any common experience could be. scribes some of his feelings and ex­ They were simply born here, in K’far periences in his own words: Etzion, some of them orphaned as a From the time of our evacuation result of the Arab attack in 1947-48. from K’far Etzion until 1955, my And they hadn’t exactly arrived to mother and I lived in a kibbutz. My build a new settlement. They had father had fallen near Solomon’s returned home!

Pools, in the famous convoy in which ten members of Gush Etzion set­ Although on the average the re­ tlements fell by the hands of wild settlers of K’far Etzion were only a local Arabs, even before the final sur­ year or two old when they were render of the Gush. evacuated, no one needed to tell them I grew up and received most of my of the history of the place; no one education as a city slicker in almost needed to describe to them the geo­ every respect, since from 1955 on, graphic details of the region or the we lived in Tel Aviv. All of my significance of Jewish settlement in friends were typical city kids. And yet, I was somehow different from the area. Each of them is a walking them. A special spot in my heart encyclopedia, stock-full of informa­ was always reserved for Gush Etzion, tion on thé whole region and every­ its history, its brave defenders—our thing connected with it, every rock fathers—its earth and its beautiful and stone, every tree and slope. It is scenery. The size of this spot, the in­ as if they had never left nor lived tensity of my emotional involvement anywhere else, as if the twenty-year with the Gush, changed along with duration since their fathers, and in various evolving stages in my per­ some cases even their mothers were sonal development. Yet we all, all slaughtered by the Arabs was erased of the children of K’far Etzion, constantly thought about our home, from existence. This at least is the and even dreamed of one day being impression one gets. Yet in reality able to visit K’far Etzion, to see the years are not to be so erased. For place where our parents had lived. twenty years in the life of any adult More than that we dared not even is a long span; in the life of a 21-22 dream. Who could haveA imagined year old, it is a lifetime— a whole that the day would come when this world. territory would be returned to our hands, that we would be able to After the catastrophe of the siege ascend this mount, to return home! and destruction of Gush Etzion, the surviving chaverim and widows had Shimon goes on to relate: each gone his own way. Some moved Every year we would gather to­ to other kibbutzim. Others went to gether, adult survivors of the Gush’s the moshavim and cities. Their child­ settlements and we, the children. We ren grew up, each in his own frame­ came from all sorts of different settle­ work, each in his own group of neigh­ ments throughout the country, from borhood friends and his own school. city and town, village and kibbutz.

We were like one large orphaned Take, for example, Shimon. A family. Every year I felt an even twenty-one year old settler, he is the closer connection than the year be­ new Mukhtar—Mayor—of K’far fore to K’far Etzion, its past and its Etzion. In an interview with a repor­ future. Here the process was quite extraordinary. The passing years ter for an Israeli newspaper he de­ 20

JEW ISH LIFE

didn’t foster in us a feeling of dis­ There were three of us, children tance, of leaving the past behind and of K’far Etzion, in my platoon. Each planning a new future. Quite the op­ of us tried to hide his feelings troni posite. Every passing year seemed to the others. After that we were en­ bring me closer to the memories, gaged in battle, and there just wasn’t seemed to crystallize them. any time to talk to each other, to exchange impressions, thoughts.

These annual gatherings took place After the battle, we spoke. It on the memorial day for the fallen turned out that in any attempt not defenders of Gush Etzion, and we to show our innermost feelings, we would go to the military cemetery failed miserably. Each of the three on Mount Herzl, where our fathers of us saw the others in their moment are buried, to say Kaddish. From of great emotional striving. For we there we would travel to M’vo’oth all knew, beyond a shadow of a Betar, from where there is a direct doubt, that if we would come out line of vision to the Gush. From of this war alive, we would go to there we couldn’t see K’far Etzion resettle our K’far Etzion and nothing itself, but we could clearly make would stand in our way. out the famous “Lone Tree” which This feeling was so deep and allstands in the center of the Bloc. This encompassing that in the days after tree, which to most people is nothing the battle we could speak of nothing more than an average tree, served else. We kicked around various plans, for us as a symbol of our dreams of how we foresaw our lives in re­ and our love. We would stand for built K’far Etzion, of what Work we hours and hours looking at it, and would do and what a beautiful society we never were bored by the sight. we would build. And actually, we On the day we arrived here as haven’t yet stopped. We were released children returning to their fathers, from the army, and immediately be­ I walked to the tree and looked at gan fighting for our right to return it from close up, remembering all home, pressuring everybody in the those years when I could only see it government, Jewish Agency, and mili­ from afar. I broke out into tears, tary, and here we are. feeling as if I was able to fulfill a great promise I pledged to my father Last Yom Ha’Atzmauth a spirit of which I never had the chance to prophecy enwrapped Yehoshua Alt­ whisper into his ears while he was man, one of three sons of Ya’akov still alive, to return to this place!

Altman V'T, the last area commander Shimon’s father V'T, Shalom Karniel, of K’far Etzion, who had died at his was one of the veterans of K’far Etz­ post. Yehoshua said to a group of ion, and one of the major personali­ chaverim, children of the Gush: “We ties of the religious kibbutz move­ must begin practical preparations for ment. To this very day, his name resettlement. Within the next year we and works are uttered in great rever­ are returning to our home and re­ ence and respect. His young son fur­ settling K’far Etzion.” ther explains: Shimon points out that though that was the dream of them all, when he We were on our way to the Shechem road when the transistor blas­ actually heard the words he simply ted the news of the liberation of the didn’t believe they would come true.

Gush. I am not capable of describ­ “Even now,” he continues, “I find it ing my feelings at that moment. I hard to grasp the fact that we are won’t even make an attempt to do so. actually here.

January-February 1968

21

“One of my favourite hobbies when I was young was to look through my mother’s albums of hundreds of pic­ tures taken during the five years of K’far Etzion’s existence. I would al­ ways run to my mother and ask her to explain what I saw in each of the snapshots. I got to know each of them by heart, and when I arrived once again in K’far Etzion I managed to identify spots in the local scenery ac­ cording to the photographs. I still get quite emotional when I stumble across a spot familiar to me from those pictures, and I go looking for such places.”

Shimon himself is already known to many of the Arab villagers in the region as “Mukhtar Samuoun.” His responsibilities include relations with local Arabs and seeing to it that no tourists, visitors, or workers swipe tomatoes or grapes from their fields and looks out for the villagers’ ter­ ritorial rights. However, it is very difficult for him to fulfill this task.

“It is impossible for me to free my­ self from the thought,” says Shimon, “that among the thousands of Arabs in the region are the murderers of my father. When I meet them, and they are so obviously over-friendly and over-courteous, even by Arab standards, I can’t help but feel: may­ be it is a guilty conscience which causes them to act this way. Maybe they realize that I am— actually all of us are— sons of a man whom they murdered in cold-blooded hatred.

How do I relate to them? On the one hand they are neighbors with whose presence we will have to live for at least the next couple of decades. On the other hand, how can I forget their murderous deeds? And how can I forget that by the hands of these

22

barbaric Arab villagers, my father was killed?”

Another settler, Yossi Ron, will also never forget. He alone, among all the children of the whole Gush, witnessed the slaughter of both his father and mother, before even reach­ ing his first birthday. A widow, one of the veteran settlers of K’far Etzion whose husband fell in the battles, had adopted Yossi. She raised him with much love, and taught him to love K’far Etzion and to consider it his home. “At the age of six or seven I already knew that she was not my mother, but she was all of my life, and in all respects she was my moth­ er. I don’t remember my real mother as I was too young when she and my father were killed. When I was nine years old we had our first summer camp, a joint project for all the children of the Gush. In this form the personal connection and feeling was strengthened. It became absolutely obvious to me that I would return to this place, in order to sanc­ tify the memory of my parents, and to establish here my old-new home.”

Yossi has completed three years of study at the Technion in electro­ nic engineering. He plans to return to the Technion for another year. There is a number of other chaverim who have completed studies at the Tech­ nion and universities, and an addi­ tional number of chaverim still have a year or more to study. All of them hope to put their acquired know­ ledge to use for the benefit of the kibbutz. At this stage most of the chaverim are working at building the necessary basic buildings, living quar­ ters, dining room and kitchen, and synagogue. It is hoped that this work will be finished before the heavy JEW ISH LIFE

rains begin which in the Hebron Hills region fall every year.

Plans for the future include three educational institutions in addition to agricultural and industrial projects.

A youth hostel, to be operated by members of the kibbutz, will be opened within a couple of months.

A religious field school, the first of its kind in Israel, will offer two-week courses in the geography, topography, and history of the region as well as in various subjects of Judaica. A more long-range plan is for a yeshivah with adjacent institute for publica­ tion of pamphlets to aid in the study of specific topics in Talmud and Halochah. These plans and more are foreseen for Kibbutz K’far Etzion.

However, all of the chaverim look forward to the emerging as a large Jewish center, including other forms of settlement as well, which will re­ sult in extensive Jewish population at Gush Etzion. Chaverim such as Yossi can be extremely useful in development of small industrial plants. However, business will come to the area, hopefully, only as the overall Jewish settlement of the area grows.

January-February 1968

Meanwhile, a pipeline already pumps water from a Tzahal camp water tower on the next hill to the east and electricity is supplied by a generator on wheels. Cultural and religious life surrounds the very tem­ porary chadar ochel established in a bungalow erected by the Arab Le­ gion who had occupied K’far Etzion during the last fifteen years. Shiurim in Halochah, Nach, Mishnah and Gemarah are all held daily as well as chugim in literature, singing, danc­ ing and the inevitable kibbutz activ­ ity— aseiphoth chaverim—filling the hours after work in the cool evenings of K’far Etzion.

As the first stages of the rebirth of K’far Etzion pass into the dayto-day routine of running a settle­ ment, the chaverim are developing a social unit in which they will live together communally, developing a thriving religious community that will hopefully bring many more in its wake.

♦rm5?# ‘rm t x k Yna Blessed is He Who replaces the landmark of a widow.

23

Jewish Low and the Temple M ount

By ARYEH NEWMAN

OR the first time in millenia the held a Minchah service in one cor­ Jewish people control the holi­ ner of the compound after immersing F est site in their religion—the Temple themselves in a mikveh and remov­ and its precincts. The heroism of Isra­ el’s army has, by the grace of G-d, restored to us a birthright dating from the days when Abraham sacri­ ficed his only son Isaac on the Mount of Moriah—-the mountain des­ tined to be G-d’s holiest place on earth. Successive Pagan, Christian, and Moslem desecration has now given way to Jewish sovereignty arid supervision. Yet, one will find in the synagogues of Israel notices of warn­ ing to worshippers to beware of en­ tering the Temple Mount on pain qf violating “a most strict and heinous religious prohibition.”

Similarly, warnings have been placed at the ap­ proaches to the area itself by the Israel Chief Rabbinate and Ministry of Religious Affairs.

In spite of this, the Temple Mount is thronged with Jewish visitors, though the orthodox since the publica­ tion of the prohibition have, as a rule, scrupulously refrained from entering. The exception is the Chief Chaplain of Israel’s armed forces, Rabbi Shlomo Goren, and a band of his devotees who demonstratively 24

ing their shoes. Participators in a second service were warned by police that they were committing a tres­ pass, and were liable to prosecution for violating Moslem holy places.

Ironically, the curious can come and go as they wish, while the pious are forbidden by both the religious and secular authorities.

What are the religious issues in­ volved? To ascertain these we must go back to the Torah, both written and oral, and refer also to the deci­ sions and discussions of later rab­ binic authorities on the subject.

The concept of the sanctity of space received its archetypal expres­ sion in the deployment of the Beney Yisroel during their trek through the wilderness. They were divided into three camps, one within the other, in ever-increasing degrees of holiness.

The central and most holy was that of the Divine Presence ( “machaneh shechinah”) where the Tabernacle stood, to which all unclean persons were denied access. Next came the camp of the Levites from which only persons suffering from a temporary JEW ISH LIFE

physical defilement (e.g., amenstruant woman or man with a discharge) were banished, and the third was the camp of Israel from which only the leper was forbidden. . . that they defile not their camp, in the midst whereof I dwell” (Bamidbar 5, 3) runs the Divine prohibition. In ad­ dition, those unclean through con­ tact with a corpse incurred the pen­ alty of kareth, excision, if they en­ tered the camp of the Shechinah: “He hath defiled the tabernacle of the Lord, that soul shall be cut off from Israel.” (ibid 19, 13) * The Temple precincts correspond­ ed to the camp of the Divine Pres­ ence, the Temple Mount surrounding it to the camp of the Levites and the city of Jerusalem within the walls to the camp of Israel. The varying sanctity of these areas was reflected in the different religious precepts ap­ plying to them. The holier the place, the stricter the rules. These areas are carefully delineated for us in the Mishnah of Middoth (I, 8). A grille was erected around the Temple pre­ cincts and notices posted, in Greek and Latin, warning Gentiles in par­ ticular from entering. One of these inscriptions is still in existence today.

So much for the position during the time the Temple stood. But for the last 1,900 years the Temple has been destroyed. Do the same restrictions apply to the site of the Temple and the Temple Mount or not? This has been a matter of dispute among religious authorities from the days of the Talmud onwards. The general­ ly accepted view has been that of Rabbi Mosheh ben Maimon, our * For further details see Maimonides, The Commandments, Vol. II (Negative Command­ ments) nos. 77 and 78, Soncino Press, trans­ lated by Charles B. Chavel.

January-February 1968

greatest codifier. In his Temple laws (7, 7) Rambam writes as follows: Though the Temple is destroyed on account of our sins, we are still obliged to revere it Just as our an­ cestors did when it was standing.

One should not enter farther than the place where it is permitted, nor sit down in the forecourt, not con­ duct oneself disrespectfully in the direction of the eastern gate (op­ posite the Holy of Holies), in ac­ cordance with the text (Vayikra 26, 2): ‘My Sabbaths keep and my Sanctuary revere’—just as the keeping of Shabboth never lapses, so the revering of the Sanctuary; though it is in ruins, the site remains sacred.

UCH a ruling undoubtedly con­ S siderably complicates the ques­ tion of access today to the Temple site dnd its surroundings. First, all lews today are regarded as unclean from corpse defilement (temey meth), a condition that can only be removed by the application of the ashes of the red heifer in accordance with the ritual laid down in Vayikra 19. We are all therefore automatical­ ly precluded from entering the Tem­ ple precincts themselves—an area of some 10,000 square meters. Admit­ tedly the larger area of the Temple Mount is ritually accessible to all who purify themselves of their phys­ ical defilements by immersion in a— mikveh and remove their shoes.

But the question is: Do we know where these areas are today?

The present open space on which stand two mosques, the famous Dome of the Rock reputed to straddle the Holy of Holies in the north-west, and El Aksa at the southern end, bounded on the west by the Kothel Maaravi, is nearly three times the area of the original Har Habayith.

25

At least one rabbinical authority of the last century refrained from touch­ ing the Kothel Maaravi and only ap­ proached it after immersion in a mikveh and removing his shoes, for fear it was part of the actual Temple itself. But this view has been general­ ly discredited. Some rabbinical authorities regard it as feasible to determine the ritual topography of the Temple Mount, among them the famous Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Kalischer, who, in his time, called for the réin­ troduction of the sacrifices. He said: “Since we have the Kothel Maaravi we can, with the aid of the Mishnah of Middoth, the Talmud, and Rambam, use it as a landmark for cal­ culating the exact position of the Temple forecourt and altar.” Chief Chaplain Goren has made a detailed study of the problem and himself conducted the measurements. As a result of these he maintains that the boundaries of the Har Habayith, to which no doubts are applied, are known, and therefore there is no reason why services should not be held on those parts, provided the worshippers conduct themselves rev­ erently. remove their shoes, and im­ merse themselves in a mikveh before­ hand. Chief Rabbi Nissim believes that further investigation by a team of scholars is necessary before final decisions are made. The religious authorities feel it is safer in the mean­ time to prohibit all access.

UT this is not the whole story.

We cannot regard this presenta­ tion of the problem as complete without mentioning two further as­ pects: 1) the diametrically opposed opinions of those religious authorities who maintain that with the destruc­ tion of the Temple, all ritual restric-

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26

tions lapsed; and 2) the historical data indicating that Jews for centu­ ries made pilgrimages to the Har Habayith and actually worshipped in their own synagogues there. The lead­ ing proponent of the minority religi­ ous opinion is none other than the redoubtable Ra’abad (1120-1198) who takes issue with Maimonides on the spot: “Rambam speaks for him­ self and I have no idea where he gets it from . . . the principle that Ezra’s sanctification (the restoration of Jewish life in the Second Temple) was for all time applied only to Eretz Israel, as a whole, and not to Jeru­ salem and the Temple, since Ezra knew that the Temple and Jerusalem were destined to be transformed and hallowed with an everlasting sancti­ fication by the Glory of the Lord forever. So has been revealed to me —the Lord takes into His confidence those that fear Him. Therefore, he that enters the site today incurs no punishment.” To this ruling of Ra’­ abad another great rabbinic authority and commentator, Menahem Hameiri (1249-1315), adds that “the general usage,, we have heard. is tp enter the site.” (Shavuoth^lr6aXSome Jewish Bi^eriankHrave carefully sifted all the data from Christian, Moslem and Jewish sources bearing on the Har Habayith. They have come to the conclusion that from the time the Caliph Omar ruled Jerusalem (640 C.E.) till the Crusaders expelled the Jews and destroyed the synagogues and mosques or turned them into Churches in the 11th century, a period of four hundred years, Jews worshipped in a synagogue built by them on the Temple Mount.

It seems that it was this synagogue which Maimonides himself visited in 1166. In his famous letter on his JEW ISH LIFE

visit to the Holy Land, he writes: benefit of the Ra’abad’s rulings and “On the fourth Marcheshvan we left the public usage of olden times. The on our pilgrimage up to Jerusalem in meticulous will in any case refrain peril of our lives. 1 entered the great from involving themselves in any pos­ and holy . house and prayed therein sible contravention of religious law. on Thursday the sixth of Marchesh­ But we should not make the mis­ van. . . . I vowed these days to remain take of exaggerating the dimensions forevermore as dates of feasting and of this problem. As the rabbinical rejoicing . . . just as I was granted leaders of Israel of all shades of opin­ to pray therein in its desolation so ion are continually emphasising with may I and all Israel see it during its all the forcefulness and passion at consolation.” Maimonides, presum­ their disposal, more important than ably, in accordance with his own any scholarly discussion and research ruling did not enter further than per­ or any pilgrimage in or near the mitted. The edifice most probably places most sacred to Judaism is the stood on a site which was outside the individual and collective implementaforbidden boundaries. Jews were re­ \ tion of the cardinal precept of returngarded for centuries as the recognised ling to settle the homeland. Chief custodians of the Temple Mount, Rabbi Nissim pointed out at a con­ looked after the mosques built thereon ference dealing with the subject of and preserved the traditions regarding this article that the blessing of the the exact siting of the sacred places ingathering of thé exiles came before such as the altar and Holy of Holies. the rebuilding of the Temple. He It was only religious intolerance which, questioned the very orthodoxy of the not long after Maimonides’ visit, Jew who continued to live his life out­ finally deprived them of their privil­ side Eretz Yisroel today. Other faiths eges and removed all traces of Jewish have shrines, sites of pilgrimages and custody of the Mount and worship worship in our homeland. To us, there. The Talmud also contains every clod of earth in Israel is holy. several examples of the Sages meeting Our holiest place—the Temple Mount, on the Har Habayith. that same eminence on which Abra­ ham was ready to sacrifice his only N the light of all this it is quite son—is but the symbol of total com­ obvious that the last word has mitment to Judaism throughout the not been said on the problem. Yehuda ages. Mount Moriah has been sacro­ Elitzur, professor of Bible at Bar Ilan sanct to Judaism since then. But it would revert to being but a disem­ University, has criticised the publica­ bodied though sacred symbol, if the tion of notices forbidding access and Jewish people failed to give it flesh branding thereby the thousands who and blood, by consummating the pro­ visit the Temple Mount as trans­ cess of ingathering that started and gressors. Give them, he says, the gathered momentum in our lifetime.

I

Jdhuary-February 1968

27

A n d There Is Nothing New Under the Sun Supported by Scientific Research

By PHILIP J. KIPUST

“That which hath been is that which shall be, And that which hath been done is that which shall be done; And there is nothing new under the su n ” Koheleth 1.9 LTHOUGH written almost three thousand years ago by King Solomon, the broad, sweeping state­ ment “and there is nothing new under the sun” has more scientific attesta­ tion nowadays than it had then. Con­ tinued scientific investigation, inven­ tions and discoveries unwittingly seem to support and substantiate this hypo­ thesis. In fact it may very well be­ come an accepted scientific principle of the future.

One may properly ask, even skep­ tically, how such an assertion could be made today, in an age that has seen atomic bombs, radar, air condi­ tioners, and jets, even if it were true 3,000 years ago. However, the more we delve into the subject the more convinced we become that, in prin­

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28

ciple, probably every invention and discovery that man has introduced for his comfort and advancement has already existed in nature since man first set foot on this earth. With all due respect to the value and import­ ance of these scientific accomplish­ ments, and the ingenuity of those re­ sponsible for their development, we must recognize them, however, as mere imitations or applications of the principles we find in nature.

So many examples may be offered to substantiate this claim that only a cursory, descriptive review of the evi­ dence will be attempted here. More detailed and technical explanations of the mechanisms involved would neces­ sitate a full volume study, and are quite readily available in scientific and popular literature.

JEW ISH LIFE

THE HUMAN EYÉ OST readers are familiar with simultaneously to view objects they the fact that a camera operates are operating on the same principles M on the same principles as the human

as three-dimensional movies; and the eye and that the telephone was devel­ rods and cones in the eyes that pick oped by Bell to imitate the mechan­ up the images focused on the retina isms of the human ear. However, the are the forerunners of TV viewing— magnificent human eye is the proto­ and in their own compatible color type not only of the camera but of a system. As in TV, the images or pic­ dozen other modern inventions. tures picked up by the eye must be The same principles that operate in converted and transmitted through the movie camera and projector—a the optic nerve to the brain where rapid series of still shots that blend they are decoded or reconverted back together when viewed—enable the to images. The eyelids, working in eyes to see “motion pictures.” The conjunction with the tear glands to eye also has its own “zoom lens” for clean and lubricate the eyeballs may adjusting to different distances, “elec­ in principle be compared to the wind­ tric eye” apparatus which enables the shield wipers and automatic washers on today’s automobiles. The lens in iris to expand or contract for proper the eye is a convex or magnifying lens adjustment of light, and remarkable -—the necessary component for the system for viewing objects in differ­ operation of telescopes, microscopes, ent colors. When both eyes are used and binoculars.

SO U ND

O O U N D , or more correctly sound pitch are produced by the vibrations waves, is produced by the vibra­ of the vocal cords and the resonance tions of objects. In the fiddle, sound is determined by the shape of the is produced by the vibration of the mouth and nose cavities and the way strings, in the clarinet by the vibra­ the tongue, lips, teeth, and vocal cords tion of the reed, in the flute by the are used. We can also produce sounds vibration of air, and in the drum by by vibrating our lips—clarinet; birds the vibration of the skin. The pitch and insects can produce sounds by of the sound is determined by the vibrating the air with their wings— speed of these vibrations and the qual­ flute; and cicadas vibrate drumhead ity of the sound or resonance by the membranes on their abdomens—drum. size, shape, and kind of material sur­ When our two ears pick up sound rounding and supporting the vibrating waves simultaneously we make use object. of the same principles operating in The principles operating in the vari­ stereophonic sound. Ultrasonic waves, ous musical instruments are well rep­ inaudible to us, but used by bats, in­ resented in nature. In man, as in the sects and other animals are now be­ fiddle, the sound waves of varying ing uséd by man in sonar equipment.

January-February 1968

29

COMMUNICATIONS i^ k U R modern communications systerns, in addition to the tele­ phone, are likewise immitators of natural phenomena. “Radar” sys­ tems, which depend upon sending and receiving radio waves, and “sonar” systems which send and receive sound waves, are quite prevalent in nature.

Whales have echo-sounding systems which become scrambled or useless when their heads rise out of the water. The whale emits a wide variety of sounds, including ultra-sonic clicks which he apparently uses in the same way seamen use sonic “pings” to locate fish and determine depths.

These sounds, scientists believe* en­ able the whale to avoid collisions, maintain orderly formations, navig­ ate, and find prey. Scientists suggest that whales use these sounds also to communicate with each other over vast distances.

Bats can maneuver about in the dark as efficiently as a bird can in

broad daylight by using an accurate system of sonar. In flight a bat’s mouth is open as it utters a continu­ ous rhythm of sounds, pitched in a key too high for the human ear to hear. These sound waves are then thrown back to the bats, who are supersensitive to sound waves, by the surrounding objects. In addition each bat can apparently recognize its own sounds and doesn’t confuse them with sounds of its neighbors. Many years of bat research has led to transistor­ ized sonar devices to help blind peo­ ple find their way around.

Experiments by biologists in recent years have proven that certain butter­ flies and moths, especially those fly­ ing by night, send out what are ap­ parently radio waves, “radar,” which other creatures of the same species are able to pick up, even at a long distance. The projections on their heads constitute the receiving appar­ atus and are aptly named “antennae.”

SIMPLE MACHINES AND HAND TOOLS In order to help him with his work man has developed the following six simple machines, in various forms: the lever—crowbar, nutcracker, and shovel; the pulley—block and tackle, window chain, and clothes line; the wheel and axle—-doorknob, steering wheel, and screwdriver; the inclined plane—ramp, stairway, and slide; the wedge—prow of boat, chisel and needle; and the screw—nut and bolt, propeller of airplane, and drill bit.

These six simple machines are further reduced to the three basics—the wheel and axle, lever and inclined plane— since the screws and wedges are actually modified inclined planes 30

and the pulley is really a modified lever. All of our complex machines such as the typewriter, auto transmis­ sion, and clock, afe made up of these simple machines in various combina­ tions and variations. The principles of these simple machines are also found in nature.

The muscles in the arm and hand when lifting things work on the same principles as the pulley and lever of a crane. The snapdragon flower has a built-in insect trap, which works on the principle of a swinging lever and shuts as soon as an insect touches the mechanism. The stinging needles of insects and incisor teeth of animals JEW ISH LIFE

are wedges. A mountain road or the slope of a hill is an inclined plane.

When the hand and wrist turn a knob or screwdriver it is functioning like a wheel and axle.

In addition, numerous simple hand tools, which are actually extensions of our hands and usually variations of these simple machines, are pro­ fusely represented in nature. The pliers and tweezers imitate the grasping thumb and forefinger of man and other primates. The hammer is an extension of the pounding fist or foot and the hammer and anvil are represented by the bones found in the middle ear bearing the same names. The incisor teeth operate as chisels and scissors, the molars are the forerunners of the grindstone and the rough surfaced tongue acts like a roller in helping to break down the food. The carpenter’s level works on the same principle as the semicircular canals in our middle ears which en­ able us to sense and maintain balance in three directions at the same time.

The female jewel wasp uses the tube at the tip of her tail for drilling through the hard pupa case of a fly in order to suck the larva’s blood or to deposit her eggs. The tailor birds of India and China build their nest by “stitching” two hanging leaves to­ gether on three sides with bits of fiber and filling the resulting pouch. There are some ants that can “sew” leaves

tojgether by using their own cocoons as needle and thread. When the seeds of a poppy become dry the cap lifts and the seeds are sprinkled out as we might sprinkle salt from a salt shaker.

Poisonous snakes eject poison into the wound with a mechanism much like a hypodermic syringe. The skunk’s mechanism for secreting its offensive liquid through the glands in back of its body operates like a spray gun.

The ichneumon fly has two minute needles, like tiny saws, which are at­ tached to the hind end of its body.

It works these needle saws up and down very fast and cuts through wood in order to make room to deposit its eggs. The gill rakers on fish act like rakes or strainers in preventing food and other particles from reaching the filaments of the gills. A clam can use its foot to dig like a shovel.

Honeybees working on flowers in gar­ dens pack pollen into “baskets” on their hind legs and carry it to the hive. Snails are plant eaters with no teeth, but have instead rough tongues which rasp at leaf and stalk. The fly secretes a small amount of viscid liquid, like glue, in the membraneous pads of its feet which “glue” it to the ceiling; and spring tails are so called because of the presence of a “springing” mechanism in these animals.

EN G IN EER IN G , C O N ST R U C T IO N , A N D

IN DU STRY

ANY modern principles of en­ beavers. Temporary living bridges M gineering, construction and in­ used to cross streams are built by dustry are also readily discernible in nature.

Dams, built by man to hold back river waters, are also constructed by January-February 1968

ants. The suspension bridge, a mar­ velous engineering feat, was accom­ plished earlier by nature in the body design of four-footed vertebrate ani-

31

mals, in which, the curved backbone supports all the suspended organs.

The keystone principle, used in the construction of arches, is also found in our pelvis and backbone design for sturdier support. The rigging of a ship is similar to the spine and muscle network in our body.

Man has yet to build a pump as durable and as efficient as the human heart or a filter system comparable to the kidney. The heart, weighing about one-quarter of a pound, pumps blood continuously, day and night, throughout one’s life; while the kid­ ney is very selective in the chemicals it takes out and returns to the blood as it continues its constant filtering action. The heart also contains two different kinds of one-way valves, one flap-like valve and the other cup-like; whereas many mollusks, such as the clamp, contain hinged valves.

Hinges, important gadgets in mod­ ern construction, are being improved so that hopefully they might function as well as the joint “hinges” in our elbows, fingers, wrists, knees, and ankles, permitting easy simultaneous movement in two or three directions.

Perhaps the ball-and-socket-type joint, with ball bearings, might some day function as smoothly as its fore­ runner joint in our hip and shoulder bone sockets.

The principle of air pressure gad­ gets—such as aerosol cans, tires, pneumatic tools, medicine droppers, and sipping straws—which play such an important role in modern-day life, is also widely distributed in nature.

Compressed air is used by our body to cough, sneeze, and exhale and by the squirting cucumber and touch-menot to eject seeds several feet into the air. Reduced air pressure enables us to inhale, and operates in the suc32

tion cups found on the feet of the octopus. It is also used in the mouth part or proboscis of a butterfly to draw up the nectar at the base of a flower by sucking, as inpa sipper.

Butterflies and moths coil up the proboscis, like a watch spring, when it’s not in use. In the clam there are two siphons which extend into the water. One siphons water into the clam and one is used for excreting water. The water spider builds a webbed, thimble-shaped nest under­ water, filled with air and open on the bottom, very much like a man-made diving bell.

The new clothing fasteners, in which the materials themselves inter­ lock without benefit of buttons or snaps, are imitations of the same prin­ ciples (microscopic hooks) which cause barbs and stickers of the cocklebur and burdock seeds to stick to our clothing and to the fur of passing animals.

Engineers have discovered that hol­ low steel tubes can support a weight almost as great as solid steel pillars of the same diameter. Our hollow bones, constructed on this same prin­ ciple, give us a framework which is at once light and enormously strong.

The flexible pipe used to connect our gas stoves and as BX electric cables works on the same principle that per­ mits our backbones to be flexible while it gives rigid support.

The principle of overlapping shin­ gles used for rainproof siding and roof construction, is also used in the overlapping scales of fish. The tech­ nique of brick and stone construc­ tion of houses is similar in principle to the small building blocks or cells —of which all living things are con­ structed.

JEW ISH LIFE

A volcano on the earth is like the safety valve on a pressure cooker.

When it erupts it allows the great pressures that build up inside the earth to escape and thus prevent much greater destruction. Volcanoes use their steam pressure to heave rocks and cinders into the air and over the nearby land.

Prairie dogs are considered to be

remarkable “excavators” and “master engineers.” They carry out elaborate digging operations and build intricate systems of vertical shafts and hori­ zontal burrows and tunnels which are grouped together in large colonies.

Locomotion in the starfish depends upon a kind of hydraulic-pressure sys­ tem which causes the elastic tube feet of the starfish to be extended.

A IR TRAVEL A N D N A V IG A T IO N

AN invented new ways of mov­ flight with rapid wing beats. It can M ing farther and faster than his pause in mid-air, suspended like a own limited muscle power could take him. His greatest travel triumphs oc­ curred in his attempts at flight and at imitation of the principles function­ ing so smoothly in birds and insects.

Birds have very light skeletons, wings, and feathers and a streamlined body to enable them to fly. The feathered tail of a bird serves for balancing, braking, steering, and lift. Airplanes are designed with similar features.

The gliders, more frequently used in the past, operate on the same prin­ ciples used by flying squirrels, pre­ historic gliding reptiles, and the soar­ ing albatross.

Jet propulsion, a boon to rapid air flight, is developed to a high degree of efficiency in squids and octopuses.

In the squid, water is collected and squeezed out through a funnel with great force, thus propeling the squid in the opposite direction. The funnel may be turned by muscles, thereby controlling the direction of its spurts, while a pair of horizontally placed fins are used for balancing, steering, and slow sustained cruising.

Larks have such skillful flight con­ trol that they can remain suspended in air in one spot for several seconds.

The kestrel bird combines gliding January-February 1968

lark. These and the hummingbird are nature’s “helicopters.”

In order to lift greater weight, air­ planes need either more powerful en­ gines or a larger wing expansion.

Bees,j likewise, make up for their com­ paratively small wings and large body by moving their wings at a very high speed, thereby making themselves swift and enduring fliers.

We are still amazed at the accurate navigational accomplishments observ­ ed in birds and insects during sea­ sonal migrations and general travel.

Although their methods are not fully understood some theories would com­ pare their systems of navigation to man’s use of star maps or the earth’s magnetic waves, as in a compass.

Bees are accomplished navigators, using the sun as a means of finding or giving directions and forming accur­ ate estimates of distances. They com­ municate the direction and distance of a flower patch to other bees by using complicated dances, a system which might be compared to our semaphore signals.

The maple tree and others produce seeds which bear wing-like structures and which whirl like propellers as the seeds fly. This wing action enables 33

the seeds to be scattered a consider­ able distance from the tree. The seeds of the milkweed, thistle, and dande­ lion plants have silky structures,

which are shaped and function like parachutes. The seeds are thus dis­ persed by floating in the air for con­ siderable distances.

SE A TRAVEL

UR great progress in sea travel also depends upon many im­ portant principles widespread in na­ ture.

The seeds of the coconut are car­ ried by ocean currents for consider­ able distances. They are encased in the strong but light and hollow coco­ nut which floats on the water like a ship.

Many single-celled water creatures propel themselves by means of nu­ merous tiny swimming whips or cilia.

Their rhythmic beating of the water reminds us of the teams of oars which served the Viking ships of old. Roti­ fers, microscopic water animals, have at the front of their bodies a rotating band surrounded with very fine hairs — a “wheel”—which sets up currents

B

to draw food particles towards the rotifer’s stomach. The “wheel” also serves as a steering and propelling apparatus during swimming. The fins of fish sometimes serve as “oars,” when the fish is swimming slowly, serve as a “keel” to keep the fish upright, aid in steering, help in main­ taining balance when the fish is rest­ ing and aid in moving backwards.

The submarine depends upon the ballast tank which causes it to sub­ merge when filled with water and to rise when emptied. We have a long way to go in developing a system that works as efficiently and smoothly as the air bladder in the fish. Work­ ing on the same principle as the bal­ last tank, the air bladder enables the fish to submerge and rise smoothly and rapidly at will.

IN D O O R W E A T H E R C O N T R O L

MPORTANT ADVANCES have been made by man in controlling the indoor weather, to help keep him­ self warm in the winter and cool in the summer. The principles used, however, have existed in nature be­ fore man discovered them.

In hot weather we still appreciate nature’s own cool breeze or the shade of a tree. In the absence of a breeze, bees will cool their beehives by rapid wing movements, imitating the action of fans. Insulating materials are also used in nature to slow down the transfer of heat. In our bodies, for example, layers of fat are used to help insulate the body against the 34

weather.

Warm-blooded animals maintain their body temperatures by the heat given off during the oxidation of fuels, even as a furnace warms our home. The most ingenious method of all, however, is used by our body to keep itself cool. When the body is overheated the evaporating perspira­ tion cools the skin. That is why we feel so chilled when our body is all wet and we are standing in a breeze.

The important principle operating here— evaporation is a cooling process —is the underlying principle by which refrigerators, freezers and air condi­ tioners operate.

JEW ISH LIFE

CO M PU TERS, ELECTRICITY, A N D M A G N E T IS M

HE AGE of cybernetics is rapidly approaching; “electric brains” and computer programings are automating and speeding up many of our jobs.

This advancement in computer en­ gineering is giving science a slight understanding of the operation of the human brain. Continued research and understanding of the mechanism of the human brain will help science take giant steps in the development of more efficient computers.

Crayfish have a remarkable biolog­ ical “computer” that automatically turns itselt on to warn of any possi­ ble danger. In this handy warning system, recently discovered by Dr. Wiersma of the California Institute of Technology, the biological com­ puter can calculate the speed and direction of any object moving in front of it. It does so by intercepting electrical signals sent along the cray­ fish’s optic pathways to the brain.

In each cell of our body DNA molecules carry the code for the millions of items of information needed to make up our hereditary traits and also the instructions for our development and body functions. The coded information stored on these molecules may, in principle, be simi­ lar to the code cards used in com­ puter machines.

Electricity, which makes our in­ dividual world go around, also makes our world of nature go around. Ben­ jamin Franklin discovered the abun­ dant source of electricity in lightning and Volta discovered the electric po­ tential in animal tissues, the principle he used in developing the voltaic cell.

Our bodies and those of other verte­ brates use electricity for sending im-

»

January-February 1968

pulses along nerve pathways, an ac­ tivity so vital for all behavior.

The electric eel as well as other fish can produce electricity, some as much as 500 volts in one shock.

Scientists are finding out that the laws and principles of electricity that apply to these eels are the same as those of electricity generated by ma­ chines. According to C. W. Coates of the New York Aquarium and Dr. Robert T. Cox of New York Univer­ sity, the electrical organs are modified muscular tissue composed of cells and arranged in parallel columns. The columns are insulated from each other by means of nonconducting tissue but are connected in parallel series by means of conducting nerves in the eel’s spinal column. These columns of cells act as batteries, stor­ ing up the accumulating electricity until the eel wishes to discharge it.

Fluorescence, used in flourescent lighting, on road sign reflectors, and watch dials, is also used in nature by fireflies and some fish. In southeast Asia, thousands of individual fireflies, on thousands of leaves, flash their lights on and off in unison for hours at a time nightly for weeks or months.

This phenomenon was recently re­ ported by Dr. John Buch, biologist at the National Institute of Health, Bethesda, Md., who pointed out that the males use this synchronous flashing to attract females.

The magnet, a fundamental part and basic principle in the operation of the electric motor, generator, elec­ tric bell, telegraph key, and numerous other items, is also a naturally occurr­ ing rock in the earth called the lodestone. In fact the entire earth may be one huge magnet.

35

Regarding more recent advance­ ments, it is interesting to note that a living “solar battery” was discovered in certain shallow bays along the Texas coast. This was in the form of a mat of algae, containing a mixture of species, which could generate a potential of about a half volt between the upper and lower surfaces. It was suggested that the voltage generated pumps ions through the mat electrolytically, to provide the upper photosynthesing cells with nitrates and phosphates.

Even fuel cells, latest area of elec­ trical exploration, have been found to take place in nature. The newest fuel cell is the biocell, which makes use of bacteria and other simple life to convert the chemicals into electricity.

Some crystals, when put under pres­ sure, become electrically charged.

This principle, called the piezoelectric effect, underlies the use of crystals in many electronic devices such as elec­ tronic musical instruments, oscillators, and phonograph cartridges. Dr. Mor­ ris Shamos of New York University and Dr. Leroy S. Lavine of Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, N.Y., have recently demonstrated that the piezoelectric effect may similarly be found in human tissues which would help explain how our sensa­ tions of touch and hearing begin and how our bones are directed in growth.

Scientists also indicate that the earth’s outer atmosphere acts like a giant “ laser,” trapping and amplify­ ing radiation, then releasing it in huge bursts.

W A R A N D DEFENSE

I

interlock, making escape impossible.

The principles used here are similar to those used by hunters in building snares and rat traps.

The sundew flowers are made up of many fine glandular^ hairs which secrete a gum-like liquid. Any small insect which ventures onto these hairs is caught just as certainly as if it had landed on a man-made fly paper.

First the sticky liquid holds it fast, then the hairs close up and digest it.

The tropical pitcher plant employs a trap which works in the same way as the pitfalls that were dug by early men to catch wild animals. It con­ tains a brightly colored pitcher-shaped structure with an open lid surrounded by honey glands. The insect that goes here in search of honey can get no foothold on the slippery surface of the vase and falls to the bottom which is full of digestive fluids.

36

JEW ISH LIFE

N the world of life, from the small­ est microscopic animal to man, there is a constant battle amongst liv­ ing things in the struggle for survival.

Not only man but all living things have developed techniques and me­ chanisms for hunting enemies or prey and for self-defense. The techniques developed by man resemble those found in nature.

Many plants have developed vari­ ous ingenious traps to catch insects, some of which bear a striking resem­ blance to the animal traps used by man. In the venus fly-trap plant the top part of each leaf is arranged in two halves, like a half-open book, with a number of sharp spikes around the open edges. Near the center are three very fine sensitive hairs which, when touched by an insect, cause the two halves of the leaf to snap to­ gether. The spikes around the edges

The spider’s web is a remarkable engineering feat used to trap insects.

When the insect is entangled in |he web the spider bitesx and paralyzes it and then binds it securely in a case of threads spun around the victim.

The tentacles of collenterates such as the jellyfish and Portuguese Man O’War include batteries of sting cells which they use to paralyze their vic­ tims. One of these, the freshwater hydra, seldom as much as a half-inch long, possesses eight magnificent ten­ tacles. With these prehensile organs —organs adapted to grasping and seizing—the hydra is an accomplished hunter. Its fast-moving, twining ten­ tacles can play the part of a lasso.

Their tips, sharply pointed, can pierce the fine shells of fresh water crustacians just as a harpoon pierces the skin and blubber of a whale. The deadly tentacles can then act as poi­ soned darts by releasing poison to paralyze their prey.

Even insecticide sprays are found in nature. Dr. Thomas Eisner reports that certain scorpions called “vinegaroons” produce a spray, when dis­ turbed, much like we do when using commercial insecticide sprays. How­ ever, says Dr. Eisner, the scorpions have an advantage over man in that their accurate aim eliminates waste.

This might be called “insect chemical warfare.” Other animals, such as skunks, shrews, and certain insects,

use a closely related defense system, somewhat like our tear gas approach, driving enemies away with the offen­ sive odors they give off.

The octopus, on the other hand, emits a colored liquid which acts as a “smokescreen” for self-defense, while many marine worms collect their prey in a mucus trap.

The African crested porcupine, largest porcupine on earth, has a mass of quills that are real weapons. The needle-pointed spines are mixed with much longer and more slender flexi­ ble spines, or guards, which protect the sharp points of the quills when they are not in use. Although the porcupine can not shoot its quills, a common misconception, it uses them as effective weapons nonetheless. The porcupine will rattle its quills as a warning signal. If this doesn’t deter its enemy, the porcupine will turn its back, erect its sharp rapier-like quills, and charge backwards with its multi­ tude of sturdy spikes, sometimes bringing death to its enemies. The quills usually have barbs near the tip that open after they have penetrated the flesh of the enemy, making them extremely difficult to remove.

Even the ultimate weapons that man has developed, the atomic and hydrogen bombs, have preceded man in nature. These atomic explosions oc­ cur regularly on the sun and are the basis for the sun’s heat and light.

PROTECTIVE C O L O R A T IO N A N D C A M O U F L A G E

The chameleon’s ability to blend in the defensive tech­ IandNCLUDED niques that man has developed with its background has become pro­ used in times of war are the verbial. It changes not only its shade principles of camouflage, counter­ shading, and mimicry. These tech­ niques also imitate phenomena found in nature.

January-February 1968

of color but also the color itself, to blend with and resemble its back­ ground. The coloring on many fish illustrate the technique of counter37

shading, another means of camouflage.

Darker pigments1 on the dorsal side of the body tone down the bright light that strikes the fish from above.

As a result the upper side blends with the lighter side, giving the body a uniform appearance when viewed from the side.

The walking stick, an insect, close-

ly resembles a twig; and the cater­ pillar blends into the colors of the bark or stem. On the other hand one butterfly carries the same body color­ ing as the wasp in order to fool its enemies. Here the mimicking is done to frighten its enemies rather than to hide itself.

M IS C E L L A N E O U S

HERE are numerous other prin­ ciples and products that man has “invented”—after nature.

Many of our medicines, chemicals, and other products are either derived from plants, animals, or other natural elements or are the result of an at­ tempt to duplicate the naturally oc­ curring ones. This is true of vitamins, antibiotics, vaccines, alcohol, sponges, glue, vinegar, rubber, ivory, silk, and pearls, to mention but a few. Wasps are probably the original paper mak­ ers of the world. The concrete we make duplicates the natural \ rocess in which sedementary rock formation takes place. The drawn out threads of a spider’s web illustrate the prin­ ciple of extruded steel and are much stronger than steel. The jaw oil of the porpoise has lubricating proper­ ties so unique that synthetic chemistry has not yet been up to duplicating these unique properties. In recent studies of life in the Antarctic, fish were found to have certain chemical substances in their blood which, sci­ entists think, act as “antifreeze” and keep their body fluids from freezing.

Diatoms, minute sea plants, consist of a two part silica-coated wall, that fit into one another like a pill-box and its lid. To move about, these fan­ tastic little plants set up a flow of

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38

granular protoplasm along a groove around their outer surface. Passing out of the “lid” through a narrow crack, the protoplasm flows around the organism and re-enters by another opening opposite the first, working like the rotation of the caterpillar tracks of a tank.

“Polarized light” is observed in na­ ture when sunlight is reflected in a certain way as evidenced by the light of the sky. Raindrops act like prisms, thereby producing rainbows. We tell time by the sun but the most accurate clocks depend upon the natural move­ ment of atoms.

Distillation and condensation, the principles used in making hard liquor and distilled water, occur in nature when water evaporates from the oceans and later turns into rain, snow, and ice.

Bacteria called autotrophs are be­ ing used to “refine” copper wastes and convert them into useful copper sulphate ore in Australia. The bac­ teria live, much like plants, by pro­ cessing inorganic materials.

A new hypothesis has been formu­ lated by Dr. Phillip S. Callahan to explain how the female moths can attract their mates over distances of a mile or more in the dark. He sug­ gests that males follow the infrared JEW ISH LIFE

radiation that the female’s warm body gives off and that the compound eyes of certain moths can react to infra­ red radiation. Perhaps this principle is the forerunner of that used in our infrared cameras and binoculars.

There is a “desalination plant” in­

side the albatross. This bird has a special nasal construction which en­ ables it to consume salt water, change it into fresh water and discharge the excess salt from special glands in the form of a highly saline solution that constantly drips from its bill.

S O M E G E N E R A L THEO RIES O F S C IE N C E

OME of the general theories and laws of science also support the hypothesis that there is nothing new under the sun.

In the late 18th century, Lavoisier formulated the Law of the Conserva­ tion of Matter in which he proved that matter can be neither created nor destroyed but can be changed from one form to another. Scientists in the next century proved in the Law of the Conservation of Energy that en­ ergy likewise can be neither created nor destroyed. In 1905 Prof. Einstein unified these two laws into the Law of Conservation of Matter and En­ ergy which states that the sum total of the matter and energy of the uni­ verse can be neither increased nor decreased but matter can be converted into energy and visa versa. This, one of the most fundamental natural laws, was further validated by the atomic explosions, and indicates to us that the same quantity of matter and en­ ergy existed in Solomon’s time as

S

ours: there has been no change.

The earth’s surface is constantly being changed by the forces of ero­ sion (destructive) and deposition (constructive). Geologists indicate that there is a kind of balance be­ tween these wearing-down and build­ ing-up forces in the world which helps maintain a balanced or uniform sur­ face of the earth over long periods of time.

The amount of water, oxygen, nit­ rogen* etc., in the world remains con­ stant because of the cycles in nature.

In the water cycle, for example, water evaporates from oceans, rivers, and lakes and is also given off during oxidation—fires, decay, and breath­ ing—of plants and animals. This water condenses and returns as rain or snow only to be consumed by liv­ ing things or evaporated again into the continuing cycle. Thus the amount of water in the world remains the same and is used over and over again.

AR T A N D SO C IET Y

RT is man’s attempt to express himself and to duplicate the beauty of nature. The artist hopes to capture the beauty of a face, tree, flower, or horizon. The beauty of the various geometric forms and designs

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January-February 1968

found in crystals of ice, snow, and chemicals still fascinates the scientist gazing at this hidden world through his microscope. It is most probable that nature contains every design con­ ceived of or drawn by man.

39

Not only are the principles under­ lying I scientific research, invention and technology found in our natural world, but even our social systems are imitations of principles inherent in the world of nature. Since a de­ tailed survey would be too volumin­ ous and unnecessary, a few brief ex­ amples will suffice.

Many animals live together in groups or family units, gathering food, resting and fighting together as a unit. |P baboons several families unite to form & single small herd under the cbmmand of an old male baboon.

The conduct of the herd seems to be regulated by various laws and cus­ toms. Sometimes the leader assumes the role of dictator.

The amazing society of the ants is more socialistic in form. The ants live and work together industriously and very cooperatively in an integrated

and regulated way. They even “herd” smaller creatures, aphids or “ant cows,” into pasture and “milk” them for a useful liquid food, much as man herds and milks cattle. The fungus ant has regular underground “gar­ dens” of a certain species of fungus that are tended by specialized work­ ers who act as “farmers.”

The “royal” ruling class is found amongst bees, with the queen bee re­ ceiving the pomp, protection, and honor reminiscent of human royalty.

Cooperative systems for protecting the social group are also prevalent in nature. Penguins which live together in groups often post lookouts to watch for approaching danger. Herr­ ing living in shoals go even further.

When one herring is seized or bitten the victim’s skin secretes a material which warns all the rest in the shoal to flee in panic. Thus the victim helps to protect the rest of the community.

C O U R T SH IP A N D M A R R IA G E

as it may seem to us, even our courtship and marriage institutions are not original.

Courtship in animals takes many in­ teresting, sometimes complex forms, but again similar to many forms ob­ served in man.

In most cases the male tries to woo the female by impressing her with his colors, sounds, or athletic feats.

Sometimes he engages his competitor in battle to death for his mate.

The young of many animals, and some adults tod, have periods of play.

Usually the games of play are forms of practice or training for hunting, fighting, climbing and other skills necessary for adult life. If we obis c o n c e r t in g

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serve our children at play we notice them doing very much the same.

Most birds are monogamous in marriage, as are many other animals, keeping only one wife. Wrens and warblers, however, and many other animals, are polygamous.

Rank in the family also varies with the species of animal. The male is often, but not always, dominant over the females. Thus in chickens, monk­ eys, and apes the male is dominant, whereas in the chamoes and kiang the female dominates. In baboons, if there is limited food available, the father takes it all. The female ba­ boons, as is true in some primitive human societies, are secured by the JEW ISH LIFE

males as would be any material ob­ jects or chattels. In that way some­ times weaker males get none and are compelled to live sterile bachelor lives. On the other hand, in the case of deer the social system is matri­ archal, the stag never the leader.

In monkeys there are the bullies and the bullied. When food is put into a cage at the zoo the dominant individual secures it all. If some of the others obtain some food inadver­ tently, they must give it up. More­ over, the pecking system of hens re­ minds us of the caste system found in some human societies. In this so­ cial order a hen is pecked at by those above her and pecks at those below her.

Pecking orders also occur among fish, turtles, and mammals and are socially useful in that they establish order within the society and reduce fighting.

Many animals are driven by in­ stinct to possess territory and defend it against any invaders or tresspassers.

According to Robert Ardrey, this is the basic drive of man as well.

Various arrangements of coopera­ tion and mutual help exist between different species of animals. Termites could not digest the wood they eat and would die if they didn’t have proto­ zoa living in their digestive system and digesting the wood for them. The protozoa in turn are provided with food and shelter by the termite. Nu­ merous examples of such and other

forms of cooperative relationships are widespread in nature.

Other examples of familiar aspects of social living found in nature in­ clude the saving for the proverbial “rainy day” as seen in the squirrel and other animals; the persistent and * industrious workers as portrayed by the ants; hitchhiking as performed by the wingless bee louse that hitchhikes from beehive to beehive on the body of the bee; and the marching in long columns and bivouacking as is ob­ served in the driver ants.

The principles of division of labor and specialization, important features of the industrial revolution, are prac­ ticed in many societies as well as in the human body. In termites, for ex­ ample, this specialization has given rise to four very different-looking termites, the queen, the king, the soldier, and the worker. In the hu­ man body the different tissues in our body are specialized in structure and function to perform different jobs— division of labor.

The life processes going on con­ tinuously within our bodies use the most efficient production methods, with the blood functioning as a trans­ portation system and the nervous sys­ tem more complex and more efficient than the best telephone network.

A few of the thousands of singlecelled creatures which make up the volvox colony have a small luminous red point, and these cells act as pilots directing the movement of the colony in the water.

C O N C L U S IO N

N B’reshith we find that, after the creation of the world, G-d said to Adam and Eve “Be fruitful and mul-

I

January-February 1968

tiply and fill the earth and subdue it . . Some of our Rabbis point out that the words “subdue it” imply 41

conquering the' world intellectually by understanding it and making it work for us. This idea fits in well with our “hypothesis that all the principles for human progress are built into the universe, and we have but to locate and understand them. It also lends ad­ ditional support to the Talmudical reference that everything in the world was created for a purpose. Even things we may consider without pur­ pose or benefit may have hidden within them some important prin­ ciple for human advancement.

More than that, such a working hypothesis may open new avenues for future thinking and research by motivating scientists into more pur­ poseful attempts to study and imitate natural phenomena.

42

Albert Einstein very aptly describ­ ed the long journey science must still make in order to fully understand our natural world when he said: “Science has placed over the infinite portrait of the world a piece of trac­ ing paper in order to copy, with its poor instruments, a few of the por­ trait’s lines. It has succeeded in cap­ turing only a few close approxima­ tions of some of the strokes.” As more strokes are captured perhaps additional light will be shed in sup­ port of our hypothesis.

In the meantime, perhaps a little more serious and thoughtful consid­ eration should be given before we attempt to answer the oft-repeated question, “So what’s new?”

JEW ISH LIFE

Jews and Jewishness in Argentina

By JACOB BELLER

NE CAN best appreciate the changes which have taken place in a country one has lived in only in returning after an absence of years.

Since I first landed in Argentina as a young immigrant many years ago, I visited the country six times in all.

Each time I entered by a different route: the first time on a ship from New York; the next time in an auto­ mobile through the Cordilleras of Chile; the third time by airplane from Bolivia via Salto; another time it was from Brazil over Paso los Libros, and once by air from New York. Each time the changes were clearly visible.

On my first return Percnism was in its honeymoon period. Juan Domingo Peron was seated firmly in the saddle, the land was swimming in an artifi­ cially inflated prosperity. Everywhere could be heard the deafening shouts: “Viva Peron! Viva Evita! Viva Peron”— a magic incantation that shut off any embarrassing enquiry about the questionable or the dubious. For instance, at the customs half your baggage might suddenly vanish from under the hands of the inspector and

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you could not redeem the rest of your belongings without giving mortido (i.e., the “bite” ) to the official who openly demanded it. No sooner had you dealt with one when a second offi­ cial appeared with a similar demand.

And then at the Villa Longo, the gov­ ernment depot, the locks of your bag­ gage are broken open and the officials make free with your property—your complaint before the higher officials is met with a “Viva Peron,” implicitly suggesting it is better to keep quiet and write off your losses and that it would be healthier to make fewer complaints.

Like conditions obtained during my next visit to Argentina, but when I came for a fourth time busts of the dictator were no longer to be seen everywhere. Peronism was rapidly coasting downhill. The workers whom Peron had accustomed to an easy life were in a state of utter demoraliza­ tion. The campesinos whom he had brought from the outlying areas of the pampas and settled in city hotels to solidify his support, had to be evicted from the hotels with water-hoses. The 43

country was suffering from a food shortage— a country which so long had been the supply center of meat and the wheat granary for so many lands.

Agriculture was in ruins and industry in collapse. Many industrialists had simply handed over the keys of their factories to the government, being unable to maintain the constant in­ crease in wages in the face of dimin­ ishing producton.

By the fifth time I came to Argen­ tina, Juan Domingo Peron was in exile. The deep wounds caused by his regime were now apparent: unlit, broken-up streets; faded, unpainted buildings; boarded up shop-windows.

Buenos Aires, which was known as the Paris of Latin America, had lost all its charm. Florida, its famous boulevard, looked as if it had been struck by an earthquake.

F R O M C R U D E B E G IN N IN G S

A RGENTINA is the most advanced

and energy which enriched the coun­ country in Latin America. Its try and contributed to its wealth. capital Buenos Aires is for the world traveler a cross between Paris and A RGENTINA’S half million Jews New York—plus a blend of Spanish today comprises one of the chivalry and Italian romance. Dis­ world’s larger Jewish communities covered in 1516 by Juan Diaz de Solis, after the United States and Israel.

Argentina, together with what is now Officially this community started in Bolivia, Paraguay and Uruguay, be­ 1860 with the solemnization on No­ came the Vice-regency of Rio de la vember 11 of that year of the coun-f Plata under the Spanish administra­ try s first Jewish wedding. However, tion. When Napoleon invaded Spain, there is a record of two Jews eight reverberations of the French and years earlier: one of them named American Revolutions induced the Luis Brie who fought in the Argen­ Argentine people to a war for inde­ tine army against the dictator Rosas pendence which started in 1807 and and for his heroism was rewarded ended in 1816 with a proclamation with a captaincy. In 1862 the first of independence from Spain. The Jewish congregation was established, Argentine national hero, General Jose the Libertad Synagogue which bears de San Martin, was the liberator riot the name to this day. Its founders only of Argentina but also of Chile were mainly West European Jews and Peru. from Alsace-Lorraine. There have More than 90% of Argentina’s also remained historical vestiges in population is of the white race. Years Argentina of the lost Marranos who ago when mass immigration to Argen­ fled from the Portuguese Inquisition. tina began, the country had the same Buenos Aires was a free port and the problem as the U.S.A.—to absorb and fugitive crypto-Jews sought refuge integrate the newcomers over its vast there, especially after Portugal recon­ stretches of land. Each immigrant did quered Brazil, where the refugees had his part and contributed his share, built up prosperous communities in bringing from his native land his tra­ Pernambuco, Bahia, and other centers. ditions, his religion, his industriousness In 1654, the same year in which the 44

JEW ISH LIFE

first group of Jews came to New Am­ sterdam, eight ships with “Portu­ guese” passengers came to Buenos Aires and despite the official refusal to admit them, they found ways and means of entering the country.

In his book “Historia de Buenos Aires” the historian Romulo Zabalo writes that in 1601 the influx of “Por­ tuguese” into Argentina was so great that it was proposed to set up an In­ quisition tribunal in Buenos Aires to include the neighboring areas of Chile and Paraguay. Another Argentine chronicler Ruiz Guinazu writes in his book “Inquisition in America” that in 1636 the immigration of “Judios” (he calls them directly by their name— Jews) to the shores of La Plata was so great that the city fathers of Buenos Aires, in alarm, applied to the viceroy at Lima asking that a tribunal of the Inquisition be established in Argentina. The Argentine Jewish his­ torian Boleslav Levin and the Chilean historian Jose Medina Torribio have shown from documents, proclama­ tions, and other records that in the seventeenth century an Inquisition commission existed in Argentina and the surrounding provinces. Arrests took place of persons suspected of secretly adhering to Judaism and they were transferred to the Inquisi­ tional Court in Lima.

The noted historian Don Lucas Ayagarry referred to several eminent Israelites of Spanish origin who play­ ed a role in the beginnings of Argen­ tina’s independence, adding that numerous leaders of that same race held various political posts during the agitated period. Another historian, J. M. Ramos Mejilla, credits the cryptoJews as pioneers of the Argentine Revolution.

January-February 1968

Y V 7H A T the beginnings of Jewish vV life in Argentina looked like is described by Mordecai Alperson, the veteran of that country’s Jewish col­ onization, in his book “Thirty Years of Jewish Colonization in Argentina” : On a muddy street in a narrow, dark little room stood an Oron Kodesh with a little pulpit and four benches on which there lay a dozen prayerbooks. . . . Henry Joseph, the con­ gregation’s first spiritual leader . . . himself took a Protestant woman as his wife in a church and in turn married his daughters off to Christian bridegrooms also, of course, in a church.

In 1893 Henry Joseph, together with another German Jew, also inter­ married, organized a Gesellschaft fuer Beerdigung (burial society). The cere­ mony of its founding took place on the premises of an organization called Poaley Tzedek, a sign that an organ­ ized Jewish workingmen’s group was already in existence. This burial so­ ciety originally was nothing more than its name indicated but later became known as the Chevra Kadisha and under the influence of the East Euro­ pean Jews, who were by then the majority, it became the Chevra Kadi­ sha Ashkenazith from which devel­ oped the present central Kehillah or community organization.

The urban dwellers at that time described themselves by their coun­ tries of origin, as Rusos, Polacos, Alemanos (Germans.)

In 1910, five years after the abor­ tive Russian Revolution of 1905, came an influx of revolutionaryminded immigrants to whom religion had no meaning and who fought Jew­ ish religion as the contemporary rad­ icals did in New York with Yom Kippur balls and anti-religious dem45

onstrations and concentrated their efforts on* the Yiddish language without Yiddishkeit. The colonist element on the farms had brought traditional Jew­ ishness with them from their small towns in eastern Europe; many of the farm colonies had synagogues and even some religious functionaries. The Jewish Colonization Association schools had a curriculum of teaching the traditional practices and cere­ monies called cursos religiosos. Look­ ing to the future they saw that in a Roman Catholic country a mere lan­ guage devoid of Jewish content would be insufficient to maintain Jewish continuity. But the colonies had no influence on the metropolis. On the contrary, the metropolis overcame the colonies and fought the “Jews in the top hats” who were accused of plan­ ning to raise a generation of fanatics, and the teachers were influenced to avoid the religious subjects whenever possible.

■W ^HEN I returned for a sixth visit ▼▼ after an absence of many years, I found the face of Argentine Jewry quite changed. The Jews had estab­ lished themselves quite solidly eco­ nomically. The former peddlers who had trudged from door to door with a pack on their back, themselves clothed no differently from their cus­ tomers, now owned their own fac­ tories, large or small, and were in­ tegrated into the Argentine economy.

Thanks to their vitality, energy and connections abroad they had built up important industries, especially during the two World War periods in both of which Argentina was neutral. They dealt with its products and natural resources; Jews built up the furniture and leather industries; weavers from Lodz and Bialystock built factories 46

arid developed a great textile industry.

Néar Buenos Aires there is an entire town of factories of former Bialystock weavers named Villa Lynch.

In place of the one-time small and primitive G’milath Chasodim (free loan) offices, consisting of a desk and a few worn benches where the immi­ grant peddlers used to get a loan of a few pesos to buy their stock of merchandise, there have now emerged large Jewish banks housed in stately structures and carrying on transac­ tions in, millions of pesos. The old Chevra Kadisha whose sole function was to bury the dead has become a centralized Kehillah with a manysided apparatus and extensive staff embracing diverse aspects of Jewish life, including education, culture, and philanthropy. Its budget has risen to millions of pesos annually, including a program of assisting in the construc­ tion of schools and covering half the budget of the affiliated schools. The Kehillah building houses many insti­ tutions including the DAIA (the rep­ resentative agency of Argentinian Jewry), the Bureau of Education (Vaad Hachinuch), YIVO, a library, museum, and a religious department.

HE economic rise of the Argen­ tine Jewish community made it possible to establish and endow cul­ tural institutions on a fairly lavish level and many fine modern structures were erected. The visitor is quite im­ pressed at first glance but when he examines things a little more closely he sees that the growth lies only in the height of the buildings and has little depth. Even on my first return visit years ago the decline in Jewish education was visible. The second and third generations with very small ex­ ceptions no longer spoke Yiddish. The

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JEW ISH LIFE

Bureau of Jewish Éducation listed the proportion of children receiving a Jewish education as between 20 and 25 percent and the situation was de­ teriorating from year to year. Bear in mind that all such schools there are afternoon schools and that the vacations last four months. On the average the Jewish child gets an hour per day of Jewish studies. There is a mechanical concentration on the Yiddish language— a language quite

unfamiliar to the child either from his home or his environment* which is devoid of any kind of traditional Jewishness. When —.e realizes that be­ yond these pupils 80% of all Jewish children there get no Jewish schooling at all, one cannot help asking: in a country with an over-all Roman Cath­ olic background, is an hour per day of mechanical Yiddish instruction enough to keep this community from complete and utter assimilation?

E ST R A N G EM E N T O F Y O U T H

n p H E way back to Jewish tradition JL which has been found in North American Jewish life, the creation of a distinctive nusach America, a way of Jewish living which establishes con­ tact with the younger generation in its own language, simply did not exist _ in Argentina until recently.

There was no Jewish literature or Judaica in the Spanish language. A movement in this direction began only a few years after the establish­ ment of the State of Israel. Jewish writers of the second Argentine gen­ eration began to write in Spanish on Jewish themes but they are being op­ posed by the secularists whose main goal and substance is—Yiddish. Dur­ ing one of my visits there when a the­ atrical group performed a play in Spanish on Jewish subject-matter, it was totally ignored by the Yiddish press of Buenos Aires.

The Bureau of Jewish Education sent around a questionnaire among the pupils in the schools which gives a clear idea of the position of Yid­ dish in Argentina. To the question “what language is used at home?”

90% replied “Spanish.” To the ques­ tion “do you receive a Yiddish newsJanuary-February 1968

paper at home?”, the answers were negative; the same applied to Yiddish books. This, however, does not pre­ vent the panegyrics to the Argentine community from all comers of our little Yiddishist world proclaiming that Argentina is the stronghold of Yiddish and Yiddishists.

The concentration on language at the expense of Jewishness in the pro­ gram of the Jewish secular schools has served to bring Argentine Jewry face to face with a serious problem for its future existence—the estrangement of its youth from Jewish life and Jewish interests. The fact is that immigration ceased some years ago and there are no new reserves of Yiddish-speaking immigrants arriving in the country.

Yiddish has struck no deep roots and has had no influence on the genera­ tions born in Argentina. Proof of this is the negligible result the Yiddish school system has to show. Over a fifty-year period it has failed to in­ culcate any love or reverence for Jew­ ish values. These schools have even failed to transmit the language to the mouths of the younger generation.

Even the insignificant number who do speak Yiddish do so in a mechanical 47

manner with no flavor, as if they Buenos Aires, a city of a quarter were rehearsed by a stage director. million Jews, has no more than five A secular Jewish writer at an edu­ or six rabbis and these are all import­ cational conference some time ago ed from abroad. The second and called for a re-evaluation of Jewish third-sized Jewish communities of secular education. He proposed a Rosario and Cordoba have no rabbis change that would place more empha­ at all. In the provinces the situation sis on Jewish tradition. A second is virtually disastrous. writer, Leon Hideckel, a veteran of I stopped at a town on my way to Jewish education in Argentina, com­ Paraguay and spent a few days there mented on an enquiry in the same to get a picture of the Argentine provf paper on the Jewish teachers bom in ince and its Jewish life. The town is Argentina, as follows: “They know noted throughout Argentina for its neither Hebrew nor Yiddish and are Yiddish school which has existed for utterly lacking in Jewish tradition.” many years. Here are my observa­ tions: HAT about Jewishness in Argen­ Almost all the Jews who are first tina? During my visit in 1952 the Yiddishe Zeitung carried a sym­ generation immigrants speak Yiddish. posium on the state of Judaism. Rabbi As in the other towns Jewish tradi­ David Schuchman, then of the Shom- tion plays a very insignificant role. As rei Shabbos congregation, stated that it happened a few Jews insisted on Judaism in Argentina was in a piti­ having kosher food so the community ful state: family purity, circumcision. brought in a shochet, himself a grand­ Kashruth, Sabbath observance were son of Moseville’s first rabbi. After I disappearing from the scene; f refah was received in the community hall I was curious to meet the shochet and foods were served in synagogues on looked him up. The street he lived on festive occasions. Some years ago I was resembled the Villa Miseria of Buenos present at a luncheon tendered by a Aires in its bleak, unkempt, povertyyouth group called Hebraica for the stricken appearance. In a hovel on a poet I. I. Schwartz—who complained side street lived the shochet, his wife, at being served ham sandwiches after and his children who were pale, sad­ reciting his Yiddish verses. eyed, and dressed in tatters. The Let us see what an Argentine writer shochet, dressed in old, well-worn has to say about it. In the jubilee issue clothes greeted me with delight and of the Argentine Yiddishe Zeitung, took me to see the synagogue. It was M. Okrutny writes: “What our annexed to the community building I enemies did not succeed in destroying had left and was quite depressing in over so long a period, we are our­ appearance—torn, yellow prayerbooks selves destroying. The number of which bore the grime of years of dis­ mixed marriages is rising. . . .” “We use lay strewn on the seats. To my often pinch our cheeks to bring color question as to how many Jews were to them,” he writes, “in trusting that consumers of kosher meat the shochet others will believe that all is well, we replied: “I’d rather you did not ask.” are committing an even graver sin It was time for the Minchah prayer than in deceiving ourselves into be­ and the shochet turned to the East to lieving that all is well.” recite it. As he stood there by himself

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JEW ISH LIFE

silently reciting the Sh’moneh Esrey, he looked to me like the reincarnation of a lost soul which had gone astray long ago. I thought of the contrast be­ tween the community hall where Yid­ dish was “being spoken” and the for­ lorn little prayer-house where the last flame of Jewish tradition was fading fast. There are 250 Jewish families in the town among whom are 70 mixed couples.

T A recent symposium on the theme of Jewish identity in which 30 Jewish intellectuals partic­ ipated, among them sociologists, uni­ versity professors, and psychologists from Argentina and the nearby coun­ tries of Uruguay and Chile, the seri­ ous peril to the growing Jewish gen­ eration w as made quite clear. Señorita Sara Strasberg, a sociologist, stated that the lack of positive Jewish iden­ tification was a result of the Jewish education given in these countries.

The new generation cannot adjust to the pattern of its predecessor and this was the fault of the older generation whose ideas have acted as a stum­ bling-block in the way of the new generation.

The current condition of Jewish education in Argentina was described in general terms by educator Profes­ sor Olga Winters as follows: 15% of Argentinian Jewish children attend Jewish schools; of these only 3% reach the primary schools. Sociologist Dr. Eduardo Rogowski stressed that the community was simply in a state of self-delusion when it constantly praises its institutions as being the best organized in the world while leaving the individual pupil complete­ ly devoid of content. The younger generation has failed to receive the proper substance and concepts. This

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January-February 1968

younger generation is seeking its Jew­ ish identity and in doing so is looking for a new form of such identity.

Those who carry on the battle for secular Jewishness or Yiddishism choose to be oblivious to the fact that the mere mechanical instruction of Yiddish—the few phrases which the child at best retains when he leaves such a school—cannot preserve the rising generation from assimilation in a preponderantly Roman Catholic country. The little the child has learn­ ed is soon forgotten and he does not possess the knowledge he needs to draw pride and satisfaction from his identity. The champions of secular Yiddishism refuse to face the fact that it has long been a bankrupt ide­ ology. No doubt there are among them some who are truly pained by its state and who are genuine in their intentions, but can the course of his­ tory be changed? Why not draw the necessary conclusion? No matter what the price for the emphasis on a lan­ guage and the violation of Jewish tra­ dition, the stubborn attitude still pre­ vails and there is no desire to find a common language with the youth. The following incident points this up: An antisemitic deputy in the Argen­ tine Congress attacked another dep­ uty named Saporznik for being a Jew. Saporznik’s “courageous” reply was that he had nothing to do with Jews.

It was only through this incident that it came to light that there were five Jewish deputies in the Congress. Di Presse, a local Jewish daily, published an editorial pointing out that in the U.S. Congress there were twelve Jew­ ish Congressmen and that there were even Jewish Senators who vigilantly defended Jewish interests and the good name and honor of Jewry and 49

who were proud of their, Jewish iden­ tity. Saporznik happened to be a Russian-Jewish name quite familiar to me from my early days in Argentina.

Either this ' man’s father or grand­ father stood at the helm of Jewish life in Buenos Aires but when a commu­

nity neglects Jewish tradition and in­ sists on a Jewish language without Jewish content, even the language is not transmitted to the coming gener­ ation and this generation grows up a stranger to its own people and its own history.

Y ID D ISH IST SELF-DELUSION

HE serious problem was raised at language which even their parents no a session of the Council of Com­ longer command.

T munities which was held in Resisten­ cia in the Argentine province. In a basic analysis of Argentine Jewish life, the delegate Dr. Gregorio Makowski stressed that the whole method of community work must be altered to fit the pattern of the new generation in Argentina. He pointed out that the majority of the younger generation are people who have acquired a higher education. Many are professionals and academic persons. The same ap­ proaches and techniques in commu­ nity life cannot be applied to them as were applied to their parents.

“The Jewish schools”—he stressed —“are of vital significance for our ap­ proach. I am not an opponent of Yid­ dish. I know the language and I am a regular reader of the Yiddish press.

Nevertheless, I believe that teaching Yiddish in the schools is nothing more than a waste of time. We teach the children history, literature, and other subjects via Yiddish and most lessons are lost, for the pupils do not follow what is being said. Wouldn’t it be wiser to teach all the subjects in Spanish? Even Sholem Aleichem would be more understandable to the children if given in Spanish rather than submit them to confusion in a language totally strange to them, a 50

“The enormous efforts made by the school supporters to maintain a Yid­ dish school is all for the goal of hav­ ing the grandparents enjoy a little song recited by the child, no word of which the child himself understands since it is merely repeated mechan­ ically. Our children should receive Jewish knowledge in the language they speak and understand.”

After a visit he made to Buenos Aires, Dr. Nahum Goldmann com­ plained that many of the Jewish youth have become involved in circles where they reflect little credit on the Jewish community. Not long ago the DAIA carried out a questionnaire on Jewish youth which showed they were estranged from Jewish life. Of the 90,000 Jewish young people, 34,000 are enrolled in Jewish youth groups and of these only 8,000 are active in Jewish life. This means that as many as 82,000—more than 90%— are not interested in Jewish life and 46,000 —more than 62%—are destined for assimilation. Among university stu­ dents the situation is much worse. It is estimated that there are 70,000 Jewish students at the universities and of these only eight percent are connected with Jewish organizations. A large number are associated with Castroite groups.

JEW ISH LIFE

broadcast to all and sundry the mes­ sage that Argentina is the most Yiddishized community in the world. . And when Argentine Yiddish writ­ ers themselves visit North America they do the contrary. In spite of the pitiful results achieved in their own country they picture the United States as a barren wasteland. A director of an Argentine Yiddish school (who himself, incidentally, did not have his son circumcised) on his return from New York forecast an early demise of the North American Jewish com­ munity. “The Jewish schools,” he said, “are located in old, neglected, and shabby buildings, sometimes in basements, in contrast to our splendid modern structures.” By “Jewish schools,” he, of course, means the Yiddishist secular schools. Yeshiva University, the scores of other major yeshivoth and seminaries, and the whole network of yeshivoth and dayschools throughout the country—these to him are apparently not “Jewish schools.”

A second category of proponents of Yiddish is the diminished following of the socialist Bund. In contrast to its important role in pre-war Poland, the communal role of this element is a very minor one so the battle for Yiddish is the last card it can play.

Their situation impels the Bundists to strike out at the Zionists on the ground that they have undertaken to “destroy Yiddish.” The Bundists set rw iH E situation, however, does not up a hue and cry that the emissaries JL foreclose those writers who visit from Israel—the sh’lichim—are driv­ Argentina from being received in their ing Yiddish out of the Jewish schools lectures by an “inside” group of 500 of Argentina,r Brazil, and other Latin listeners—though there are virtually American countries where Yiddish nope but gray heads among these. they say, flourished. The alarm was, They do not see or do not wish to. of course, taken up in Yiddishist cir­ see the other side of the coin and cles and exploited in a most melo­ coming back to North America they dramatic fashion—the Zionists, it was

HE official Jewish community of Buenos Aires (the Kehillah) has in recent years expended more than 160 million pesos on Jewish education —more than one-third of its budget.

Despite these costly efforts the results shown are quite sad. At a dialogue conducted by the DAIA with Jewish students who are themselves actively involved in Jewish life, one young man condemned those Jews who fled the Castro regime for their hostility to the new social order. A second de­ nounced Israel because of its associa­ tion with “reactionary foreign pow­ ers.” A third demanded the accept­ ance of mixed marriages.

At a press conference in New York, the vice-president of the DAIA, Dr. Gregorio Faigon, attempted to explain away the presence of Jewish students in the leftist Castroite organizations by saying that at the Argentine uni­ versities the undergraduates are or­ ganized in the two extremes of right and left. Since the Jewish students cannot and will not go along with the rightist reactionaries they had no choice but to join the leftist group­ ings. None of these facts have per­ suaded the champions of Yiddish, for, as a colleague from Buenos Aires put it in a letter to me, “they are ready to scuttle everything only to protect their declining world. They do not want to seek any other ways or means of rescuing Jewishness.”

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51

alleged, have undertaken* to destroy the tongue spoken by the six million martyrs. The Yiddishist propaganda machine seems to have acquired the methods of ' the American publicity technique, and the apparatus swung into action. Despite the obvious de­ cline of the language, stories are told of one success after another. If things are not as well as they should be in the Argentine “stronghold” it is the fault of the Zionists. All would be well if it were not for the meddling of the Israeli sh’lichim.

for many years were the mainstay of Yiddish, spoke Spanish exclusively at a convention they recently held which I attended.

It is a fact that with the murderous annihilation of European Jewry the sources of immigration to the newer countries have dried up. In some coun­ tries Jewish immigration has been vir­ tually prohibited. The older genera­ tion of immigrants is leaving the scene and the younger generation which does not know Yiddish is taking over the leadership. Whatever be the rea­ sons for this, it is a fact which must HAT is the truth? Did the Is­ be reckoned with. Certainly it would raeli representative drive Yid­ have been better if Jewish life were dish out of the Jewish schools of La­ carried on in our own folk-vernacu­ tin America? Forty years ago when lar but the course of history cannot I was a teacher in the Jewish schools be altered. What is necessary in Ar­ of Argentina and Brazil my pupils, gentina as elsewhere is to arm the except those born in the farm colo­ youth with Jewish knowledge and tra­ nies, spoke Yiddish only with diffi­ dition in their own languages.

D l Presse of June 18, 1966, draws culty. When I returned four decades later my former pupils were already a constrast between the attitude to fathers, in some cases grandfathers— Yiddish in Argentina and North how do we expect their children and America: “Whereas in North America grandchildren to be speaking Yid­ even those not familiar with dish? In view of the deplorable state Yiddish have a respect for the lan­ of Jewish education and the danger guage and many English translations of assimilation confronting these com­ from the Yiddish writers appear in munities, an attempt is being made this climate of respect, in Argentina to encourage experimentation with this does not exist. There the ignor­ Hebrew. Whether the Israeli teachers ance of Yiddish on the part of the and sh’lichim will succeed in bringing youth is accompanied by a snobbish Hebrew into these content-less schools and cynical attitude to the language is a question still unanswered. It is and antipathy to its cultural treas­ likely that they will at least be able ures.” to salvage a certain percentage from Berl Frumer, general secretary of total assimilation. It cannot be said the cultural department of the Histhat anyone drove Yiddish out of tadruth, wrote after a visit to Argen­ these schools; after more than fifty tina that the younger Jewish genera­ years of Yiddishist-secularist educa­ tion there is not only Spanish in tion it would be difficult to bring to­ speech—it is Spanish in thought and gether two dozen Jewish young peo­ mentality. The number of mixed ple who can speak Yiddish. Even the marriages is growing; the youth has sons of the Jewish farm colonists who no interest in Jewish life. Should the

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JEW ISH LIFE

more accurately put, are enrolled in various youth centers. Of these in turn only 3,000 are truly active in a positive and conscious way.

After such a sad summation it is not surprising that the Buenos Aires Kehillah has finally acknowledged that the youth must be approached in HE PROBLEM of Argentina’s its own language. At the end of the Jewish youth has been effectively cultural season the cultural director expressed by someone of their ranks, had this to say: “We will teach Jew­ a young man named A. Guverstein. ish history and martyrology in Span­ Writing in the youth journal Yugnt- ish,” For this purpose the Kehillah has appointed a commission to study ruf (Number 6), he states: this new approach to the youth and Unfortunately in North America a to create a publishing house to pro­ false impression has prevailed about duce books of Jewish content in Span­ our community in general and about ish. This decision should have been its cultural life in particular. The common belief is that our country is made years ago; if it had, the image a highly cultural one—a blossoming of the community today would be garden, as it were. The facts present quite different. quite a different picture: our cultural It is not surprising that this deci­ life is in a state of decline. The Yid­ sion created a stir among the de­ dish newspapers with their accounts fenders of Yiddish whose private in­ of impressive activity are totally un­ reliable. Not only are they written terests are deemed more vital than without objectivity but every trivial the risk of losing an entire genera­ event is built up “larger than life tion. Soon the usual hue and cry went size” . . . certainly the reality of the up that Jewish life is not possible situation does not justify any without the Jewish language. The Ke­ hillah replied: “If we intend to come optimism. to our youth with Jewish content, He divides the youth into three Jewish life, and Jewish national and classifications. The first category is religious values, we must do it in the quite apathetic not only to the Yid­ language they speak. We have no dish langauge but to anything related right to scuttle our ship and abandon to Judaism or Jewishness. Many of it to the sea of assimilation.” these have been drawn into leftist Dr. Leon Dujowne, an eminent ranks, and nothing Jewish is of any concern to them. The second catego­ scholar and writer, editor of Mundo ry does have some notion of Jewish­ Israelita, and a leading figure in Ar­ ness but has little interest in the Yid­ gentine Jewry’s cultural life who him­ dish language or culture. The third self cherished Yiddish, gave the cham­ category is nationally conscious and pions of Yiddish a clear and un­ is centered around the Zionist move­ equivocal response: ment. However, it is pitifully small.

No one is attempting to deny the great and historical importance of Argentina’s Jewish youth is estimated Yiddish down through the centuries. at 100,000, of whom 20,000 belong But it is a fact that the Jewish peoto various organized groupings, or

process be accelerated in the future, assimilation could be a much more immediate threat than anywhere else for there is not available any religious or traditional force such as the syna­ gogues provide in North America to stem the tide.

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53

pie existed and flourished for genera­ tions and created great and significant work long before there was a Yiddish language. There were great Jewish scholars and spiritual giants who did not know the language. . . . Today the same thing is happening to Yid­ dish that has happened in the past to the Jewish vernaculars which arose at various points in history and whose products after a long time remained as part of our cultural heritage.

Dr. Dujowne pointed to the rise of

Jewish culture in our own day in lan­ guages other than Yiddish: the He­ brew renaissance in Israel, the Jewish writings in French, and in America in English. He cites from an article

by Jules Brunschwig in the organ of the Alliance Israelite Universelle which says that there is no publish­ ing firm in France which is not in­ terested in publishing books of Jew­ ish interest. The same certainly ap­ plies in North America.

PROSPECTS FO R THE FUTURE

OWEVER, one cannot yet con­ writer describing a visit he had made H clude that Argentine Jewry has to New York in an article in Di Presse missed the bus in traditional Jewish­

entitled “Let’s not Carry it to Absurd­ ness and that all is lost. Some sober- ity” described his experiences in Neyy minded spokesmen of the community, York on Pesach. “Is Jewish life in though themselves non-religious Jews, North America as barren and desti­ have seen the handwriting on the tute as they wish to make us believe?” wall, have sensed the danger they are he asks. “With our loyalty and attach­ facing and realize that something ment to our mama-loshen and its cul­ must be done to avert a complete di­ tural values we are doing a great in­ saster. During a visit he made to New justice by measuring the state of Jew­ York the head of the Buenos Aires ishness in terms of the state of the Kehillah, Zvi Fainguersh, himself a Yiddish language exclusively,” he Labor Zionist leader, said with regret writes. in speaking to the press: “Jewish re­ ligious life in Argentina is quite back­ WO positive developments have ward. Kashruth is in a bad state. Bue­ recently come to the fore in Ar­ nos Aires, a city of 350,000 Jews, has gentine Jewish life, developments as­ no kosher restaurant.” (During one of sisted by Israel and America. The my visits there the B’nai B’rith, the initiative came from the most recent “top-hat Jews” as they are called, stream of immigration, of religious opened a kosher dining room.) He Jews, and with assistance from abroad appealed to the Jews of the United where the cry of concern had been States and Israel to give some thought heard, a campaign against Jewish ig­ to it, before it was too late. norance was begun. The movement A secular-minded Jewish writer in came from two directions; both saw the Buenos Aires Yiddishe Zeitung the peril which threatened the com­ called for a reassessment in secular munity and both saw no merit in the Jewish education. The program, he obstinate struggle for Yiddish sans said, should be altered with emphasis Yiddishkeit. on Jewish tradition. A second Yiddish The first impulse stems from a

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small group of orthodox Jews. In re­ cent years the Mizrachi and the Agudath Israel have begun to function.

Religious educational institutions have been established such as the Rabbi Kook Yeshivah, Beth Jacob Schools for girls, Hechal Ha-Torah, Yavneh, and the Machon L’limudei Hayehaduth, an institution for the inculca­ tions of Jewish thought. It is charac­ teristic that an institution whose ob­ ject it is to produce religious teach­ ers was founded by the “silk-hat Jews” as the Yiddishists disdainfully called the Temple.

On the initiative of the former Chief Rabbi Yaakov Fink, now in Is­ rael, a yeshivah was established a few years ago for the purpose of training religious leaders for these communi­

January-February 1968

ties. I was in Buenos Aires at the time and attended the Kehillah meeting at which the yeshivah was dealt with.

Characteristically, the representative of the Achduth Avodah in the Kehil­ lah—a leader of the Sholom Aleichem school—opposed the giving of any as­ sistance to the yeshivah by the Kehil­ lah; to do so, he argued, would re­ store the bal-takse (community tax) of Mendele Mocher S’forim’s day.

Six Argentina-born young men have already graduated from that yeshivah.

Thereafter they went to Israel for further study and were ordained as rabbis. Now all six serve as spiritual leaders in Argentinian Jewish commu­ nities. They are the signpost to the better future of Argentinian Jewry.

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¿ K M t t6 e

By DAVID S. SHAPIRO

The Tragic Purim-Play (from the Responsa of Rabbi Solomon ben Adreth, Vol. Ill, no. 389; quoted briefly in Beth Joseph to Tur Choshen Mishpot, 163) r p H E Jewish community of Provence (Southern France) had, up to the i middle of the thirteenth century, enjoyed comparative peace and prosperity. Jews were deeply involved in the cultural currents that permeated the general community of Southern France and maintained social and cultural contacts with their non-Jewish neighbors. The general friendship that prevailed in this tolerant society, nevertheless, did not prevent antiJewish feelings from manifesting themselves, especially on the part of the Christian clergy, who were to a great degree themselves subjected to attacks on the part of various schismatics and sectarians. Actually Christianity was battling for its existence during this period due to the rise of the Albigensian and Waldensian heresies. Its security was achieved only as a result of the Albigensian Crusade. It appears that after the victory achieved in Southern France in the early decades of the thirteenth century, under the leadership of the fanatical Pope Innocent III, the relationship between Jews and Christians in Southern France deteriorated. The case which was brought to the great Spanish rabbi, Solomon ben Adreth (1235-1310), illustrates some of the vicissitudes Jewish communities had to undergo.

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JEW ISH LIFE

The problem revolved around a home which was in close proximity to the palace of the bishop. The latter was very unhappy about the presence of Jewish neighbors in his vicinity, and he did everything within his power to make life uncomfortable for them, but failed to dispossess them. He nevertheless constantly sought some pretext to carry out his evil design. The opportunity presented itself one Purim. It was customary among Jews to present a play on Purim (known among German Jews as the “Purim-shpier’) which usually was a burlesque or parody of the Purim story in which Haman and his followers of subsequent eras were the butts of rough humor. One Purim two members of the Jewish community came to the house of Reuben and Simeon (the fictitious names of the neighbors of the bishop) and there presented their Purim parody. The house, we might conjecture, was rather spacious and it was possible for a large group of people to attend the spectacle. Gentile neighbors, it seems, were apprised of what was going to takeplace and the word spread rapidly that the Christian faith was being mocked. The bishop spurred on the hoodlums of the Christian community to enter: the home of his neighbors and wreak havoc on it. From the windows of the house they poured a shower of stones and missiles on the passersby, some being injured and others killed. Moreover, the bishop held the Jewish community responsible for the damage caused to the victims since Jews were responsible for permitting the “mockery” of the Christian faith take place. In the Jewish community itself there was a difference of opinion.

Some maintained that Reuben and Simeon who lived in the house close to the bishop’s palace were responsible for all the trouble since they insisted on remaining in the house contrary to the wishes of the bishop. The rabbi of Marseilles, Rabbi Jonathan (not to be identified with the famous R. Jonathan of Lunel) maintained that Reuben and Simeon could not be blamed, since the trouble did not result from the fact that they lived in the house, but rather because of the parody put on by Levi and Judah (the fictitious names of the participants in the Purim play). The question was sent to Rabbi Solomon ben Adreth in Barcelona for a solution.

ABBI SOLOMON answered that it is self-evident that Reuben and Simeon were in no way to be regarded as blameworthy. A person is accountable when his property causes damage (such as his livestock, implements placed in a way as obstacles, etc.). Here the house of Reuben and Simeon had not caused any damage and could not be held liable. The wealth of learning displayed by Rabbi Jonathan to prove that Reuben and Simeon are not liable is totally superfluous. In all the instances he cites from the Talmudic sources the defendant obviously did something which rendered him culpable (such as sending live coals or stones with an imbecile or minor, or inciting a dog to do damage). In the case at hand we cannot even begin to think of such liability. One has no right, of course, to cause damage even indirectly, but in this case the house of Reuben and Simeon cannot be implicated in the violence which resulted from vandals entering the house and throwing rocks at passersby.

Moreover, Rabbi Solomon maintains, even the actors who are more

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directly involved cannot be held responsible. Firstly, they did nothing reprehensible according to the law. The charges of the bishop do not make them guilty. Being subjected to his accusations is to be regarded as an unavoidable accident for which they cannot be held responsible. Moreover, even had they done something reprehensible for which they could be held answerable, once the community was penalized and made restitution, the actors would not be required to pay anything back to the community. Even a robber who appropriated real-estate that was subsequently confiscated by the government is held liable only if he informed government officials about it, not otherwise (Bova Kamma 116b), and according to the Jerusalem Talmud, this is an extraordinary punishment meted out to the robber. Ac­ cording to the Jerusalem Talmud (Bova Kamma X, 6), one is not liable if he is indirectly responsible for someone undergoing a loss because of him, except in the case of taxes, e.g., if one laid out taxes for his neighbor.

Even where one is compelled to lay out taxes for someone else (who may be indigent; see Shittah Mekubetzeth to Bova Kamma 133b), once the year has passed, and the tax-farmer has turned in the sum to the government, he is not held liable for his neighbor. n p H E R E was also an additional problem in Marseilles. Some individuals i refused to participate in the public payment of damages, claiming that the decision of the community to pay the indemnity was made without their consent. Rabbi Jonathan thought they should be compelled to pay because members of a community are equal partners in all expenses. Rabbi Solomon, however, rejects this argument. He maintains that as long as there was no official assent on the part of the community, mediated by the authority of its recognized leaders, on a basis of equality, the community can­ not claim a share from every individual. Tribute imposed by an unauthorized person in an emergency does not obligate the entire community. If the bill has already been footed, no individual can be forced to participate, unless the leaders were empowered by the community to tax all citizens alike whenever an emergency arises. Had the bishop imposed the indemnity on Reuben and Simeon they would have had to pay it. They could not have expected others to share it with them even where there was a prior agreement that obliga­ tions be shared, because of their specific responsibility in this instance. Like­ wise when the community has made restitution, individuals may not be taxed for contributions. Only duly authorized representatives of the com­ munity or any legally authorized person, such as a king or a Resh-Galutah (Exilarch), have the legal right to levy tribute on all members of a community.

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JEW ISH LIFE

B ooh R eview s Ravine of Infamy

By URSULA LEHMANN BABI YAR: A Documentary Novel, by Anatoly Kuznetsov; New York; Dial Press, 1967, 391 pp. plus notes, $5.95.

•>*nyr° MONUMENT stands over 1 1 Babi Yar” said Yevgeny Yevtu­ shenko in 1961, and with those words himself created one. Standing with him as he looked over the ravine was his friend Anatoly Kuznetsov, who had brought him there and told him how the sounds of the machine gun fire in the gully had permeated the air of Kiev during Kuznetsov’s youth.

Several days later Yevtushenko wrote his now famous poem for which, how­ ever, he was severely criticized in the Soviet Union. Since this criticism was mainly concerned with Yevtushenko’s emphasis, Kuznetov decided to tell of not “only (the) first few days when the Germans were shooting the Jewish pop­ ulation of Kiev. But altogether there were 778 days “that followed, with Gypsies, then Ukrainians, then Russians and anyone else who merited the Nazi brand of “special attention” caught in the terrible net. Eventually, even the members of an all-star Ukrainian soccer team which had willfully persisted in winning against the German teams found themselves in the Babi Yar Ravine. Yet, Mrs. Lehmann (nee Sitzman) hails originally from Detroit and Wayne S"a4e University. Now in Washington Heights in New York City and mother of three children, she is a staff writer for OLOMEINU.

January-February 1968

despite his taking pains to include these other nationalities with the same im­ partiality with which Babi Yar no doubt accepted all their bodies, Kuznetsov still manages, albeit cautiously, having ad­ mittedly learned from Yevtushenko’s ex­ perience, to let the reader feel that Babi Yar was a great Jewish tragedy, although also a great national one.

The result of his efforts, “Babi Yar,” a “documentary novel” as the author has called it, is a book quite different from other literature on the various infamous death camps. To begin with, it is indeed a documentary, but one seen through the eyes of a twelve-year-old unawak­ ened boy. With the aid of clippings and documents which he had started collect­ ing in his Babi Yar notebook when he was 14, and additional official documents supplemented by his own recollections and those of surviving friends, Kuznetsov has written a powerful story of a boy, himself, growing up amidst ununderstandable horror.

ITHOUT using statistics extensively (the Germans’ own meticulouslyW kept bookkeeping lists 33,771 Jews shot in the first forty-eight hours of the roundup alone!) he is able to describe the massive scope of the German an­ nihilations. He does this both by recount­ ing the stories of escapees (one of whom is now an actress in the Kiev theater) and by describing his personal, twelveyear-old reactions to these tales. He com 59

tinuously emphasizes that he “adds no­ thing” and, in a manner reminiscent ot Tolstoy, occasionally interrupts his nar­ rative by speaking directly to the reader.

With this device he creates a certain immediacy for his book; he interjects his own adult personality, and gives the story a conversational style that induces the reader to go on and on, as in an absorbing conversation with an admired friend.

By reading on we find our hero’s eyes gradually opening to his world. He learns to ask for the latest German rul­ ings, a matter of life and death, he learns to sell nuts in the market, to burn his books but find others, to make horses into sausages, to run and hide and to be in­ conspicuous. But most of all he learns about people. In this, Kuznetsov’s ed­ ucation, the reader takes part, living with him through the two years of German occupation with a sense of mounting horror created by a seeming crescendo toward a mindless, sadistic anarchy amidst the ever-present, legalistic rules and laws of the invader. With the climax of the establishment of a prisoner-work­ ers’ camp in Babi Yar for the purpose of building and utilizing crematory ovens for the exhumed bodies, with the expert delineation of “Topaide” who remem­ bers exactly where every single group of bodies was buried two years before and directs the digging, the reader’s revul­ sion and desolation is complete.

After this, with precision timing Kuz­ netsov envelops the reader in a welcome feeling of “nothingness” as Kiev is evac­ uated and all is empty and relatively, mercifully, quiet.

NE of the most shocking statements Kuznetsov has made, after publica­ O tion of the book, is that “not a single Nazi has been tried or punished speci­ fically for Babi Yar.” It is this fact, in 60

large measure, that evidently prompted Kuznetsov to unearth his old boyhood notebook and publish its message. He says he “could no longer sleep” until he “recorded the whole story just the way it happened without making up a single line . . . [using] real people . . . [with] their own names.”

How can it be that none were ever punished? Soviet Communists certainly have no love for Nazis, but where Babi Yar is concerned ambivalent feelings enter the picture. It would seem that the Soviets’ hatred of the Nazis is not great enough to overshadow their feel­ ings concerning Jews. Until now, as Leo Gruliow points out in his introduction to Babi Yar, the Soviets “had suppressed or played down the fact that the Nazis singled out the Jews as victims. . . . It is as if, say, the Polish public had never been told about . . . Auschwitz. Indeed . . . Auschwitz . . . and Buchenwald . . . became far better known to the Soviet people than the Babi Yar on their own soil.” In fact, tourists who did know about it and wished permission to visit the ravine were often denied permission by the authorities. One can­ not help but wonder, in view of this at­ titude, whether by their silence the Soviets are not immeasurably adding to the success of the Nazis’ deed. If silence is ever taken to mean assent, then the Russians have shouted a resounding “Yes” to the Babi Yar atrocities in these years since the end of World War II. The fact that this “yes” was almost as loud during the war cannot escape us either.

In Kuznetsov’s Babi Yar, however, though treated in an understated way, the Jewish nature of the tragedy emerges.

Without being explicit, sometimes by his very omissions, Kuznetsov writes a book that is just as important a “Jewish Statement” as Yevtushenko’s poem.

JEW ISH LIFE

When Kuznetsov, for example, writes of the workers’ camp established in the second year, “the quickest to die were the Jews and half-Jews from the Jews’ hut,” and then describes the abominable life of Ukrainians in the other huts, one cannot help but wonder how much worse things could possibly be than those describing the Ukrainian huts.

Most critics consider Kuznetsov’s work an anti-war novel. This it undoubtedly is. However, they do not realize, as com­ mitted Jewish readers must, that it is much more than that. Babi Yar is a profound statement about antisemitism; German active antisemitism in what it relates and Soviet passive antisemitism in what it omits. For this reason, if no other, although it is “not a book for timid souls,” every effort must be made to read it nonetheless. The critics also seem to overlook a certain obvious poli­ tical conclusion, towards which a Jewish reader is perhaps more perceptive. The author did not explicitly point it out either, for which he may be forgiven considering the country in which he lives, but it is certainly tantalizing to speculate on whether or not he is aware of some­ thing so implicit to his tale. This “over­ looked theme” is Soviet apathy, and it could be a political bombshell. As Kuznetsov tells it (could he possibly be unaware of this?) there seems to have been not a single effort by the residents of Kiev to help the Jews. Although there was an active underground movement that did considerable damage to the Ger­ mans, its objectives seemingly did not include aiding the Jews. And although toward the end Russian bombers tried to bomb the barbed wire that surrounded the camp, by that time few, if any, Jews were left alive there. (This attempt to free the inmates in this fashion is of course also an indictment of the Western Powers who, as we read in recently pubJanuary-February 1968

lished documents, never saw fit to bomb the camps in spite of frequent pleas to this effect.) Evidently the Russians did not think it hampered their war efforts at that stage to try to free their own. Per­ haps had the Ukrainians firmly protested at the very outset of the exterminations they might have slowed things up and in the end saved many of their own people. Recognition of this fact seems to have come albeit belatedly, and Kuz­ netsov hints at it when he quotes a gallows humor jingle that “Jews kaput, Gypsies too, and then Ukrainians and then come you.”

HE cause of this apathy is twofold, and here lies the danger to Kuz­ T netsov had he been more explicit. One facet of the apathy was of course un­ iversal, if seldom stated, anti-Jewish feel­ ing. Kuznetsov mentions his “half-Jew­ ish” friend Shurka Matsa and tells how it was only in later years that he realized the nickname “Matsa” given Shurka by the neighborhood was a reference to the word Matzah. This type of naming does not seem like a particularly healthy situation although Kuznetsov, of course, makes no such comment. The other facet is perhaps still more explosive. This reviewer does not know of any democra­ tic country where people gave the Jew­ ish population as little help as is depic­ ted in this story of Kiev. Perhaps not every country could be a Denmark or Sweden but the people of Belgium, Hol­ land, France, and even the Polish under­ ground made at least some rudimentary efforts to help their beleaguered Jews.

Is it then a comment on the totalitarian aspect of Stalinist Russia that its people were so immune to round-ups and po­ litical reprisal that they were not im­ mediately horrified enough at the Nazis’ doings? The Nazis were greeted in the Ukraine with the traditional guests’ wel61

come of bread and salt and although the still exists, in a great variety of ways Communists were, to be sure, anti-Nazi and forms, and because the problems of for political reasons, nowhere does Kuz­ Babi Yar, of Auschwitz, still hang like netsov indicate that the taking of Jewish a sinister cloud over mankind today.” lives is inconsistent with their ideology.

This populace, already immune to Com­ N the work itself, Kuznetsov writes munism’s excesses, were evidently blasé that these are “. . . things that about the fate of the Jews. It seems happened just yesterday . . . when people to this reviewer that without actually were exactly as they are today.” But stating it, Kuznetsov does try to show one must wonder, are people in fact that when humanity acquiesces to the exactly the same today? Is it not pos­ degradation of any part of the whole, sible that these events have left their eventually the rest of the whole becomes mark on us to make us just a bit worse degraded. Kuznetsov seems to ask several than we were before? Did perhaps this times some version of the question, holocaust immunize us to the violence “How could the Germans, or any people prevalent throughout our society today? in this century, have done this?” but Did the Germans not accomplish some­ does not phrase the obvious corollary, thing after all? The actress Dina M. “How could we have let them?”

Pronicheva was, even as she was being That this question does not occur rounded up, unable to imagine that the to him (as it has lately to so many Germans were shooting people. She Western writers) is a comment on the thought, “In the first place there were country and atmosphere in which he too many of them . . .’’ Such mass lives. Kuznetsov is not afraid to del­ shooting would not be beyond our com­ ineate a character who is anti-Commun- prehension today! The Nazis have left ist, such as. his grandfather, yet he does their mark on all of us, Jew and nonnot draw this obvious conclusion of Jew alike.

Soviet apathy to the Jewish fate. One As Kuznetsov tells, the gruesome can hope that this conclusion did not events left the participants stunned and occur to him due to his political beliefs, numb with unbelieving shock. Because because the other possibility is even more of his masterful story-telling, the reader harrowing, i.e., that he does realize too is horrified, but through the eyes this flaw in Soviet behavior but is more of the characters, with 1941 expecta­ afraid to write something against anti­ tions and standards. Would our twelvesemitism than against the politics of the year-old boys today (G-d forbid) really regime. If this last possibility is the be so horrified? Miserable, yes, hungry, true one it would indeed be a sad com­ afraid, hurtful, yes. But horrified? Un­ mentary on the fate of our brethren in believing? the Soviet Union today.

For this reason alone each of us For these reasons, plus a more univer­ should read this account so that, by sal one, “Babi Yar” is a book that should reading it and feeling with its charac­ be read. As Anatoly Kuznetsov him­ ters, we may recapture for a fleeting self commented after publication, “least moment some of the innocence of the of all was it my intention to produce common man or boy of 1941. This in­ merely a historical work, the book I set nocence which we too once had, the out to write had to belong to the pre­ Nazis have, perhaps forever, taken from sent. It had to do so because Fascism us.

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JEW ISH LIFE

Too Good To Be True

By BERNARD MERLING and we get to know them, their respec­ tive fathers, the unique relationships between each father and his son—and the ideological worlds that shaped all HAIM POTOK has written a beauti­ of them. Reuven and his father, repre­ ful story. Set in the Williamsburg senting the “rational” approach to ortho­ neighborhood of Brooklyn in the early dox practice and scholarship, are por­ 1940’s, it is the story of two boys who trayed sympathetically. Rabbi Saunders, have grown up within a few blocks of on the other hand, representing the each other—but in two different worlds. “mystic” and the “fanatic,” comes off One, Reuven Malter, is the son of a less well, particularly his method of maskil-ish misnaged-ish scholar, while bringing up Danny “in silence”—which the other, Danny Saunders, is the bril­ borders on downright cruelty. Danny liant, restless son of a Chassidic rebbe. himself, the one “chosen” to inherit his The dynamics of the story revolve father’s spiritual mantle of leading his around the growth of their friendship Chassidic flock, is tormented between —a friendship conceived in a moment his destined role and his own groping of hatred, born in a pang of remorse, towards forbidden fields of secular nurtured in sympathy, and finally flower­ knowledge.

Symbolically speaking, the age-old ing in understanding. battle between “tradition” and “en­ As the author would have it, the Chassidim regard the “merely” orthodox lightenment,” between the mystic versus as apikorsim, atheists, and not only look the rational, between the “fanatic-re­ down upon them but also hate them with ligious” and the “modern-religious,” is a fierce enthusiasm. In such an atmos­ refought before our eyes—and, in Pophere, even a seemingly innocuous base­ tok’s view, the latter always wins, for ball game between the two boys’ yeshi- in that way lies progress.

It makes a beautiful story—and a voth is just another battle in the “holy war” waged by the believers against the highly successful novel. Everything is infidels. Under the circumstances, the there—exotic atmosphere, conflict, love (platonic), and at least a partial pro­ eruption of Danny’s explosive violence mise of eventual resolution. And Mr. against Reuven is a logical extension of Potok knows his craft. He writes simply, his life pattern. unobtrusively, resisting the temptation Then remorse sets in. Danny is truly to overembellish. He knows his charac­ sorry for what he had done and the ters and his milieu; it is obvious that the two boys get to know each other— author grew up in Williamsburg among just such people. In short, both the author and his work contain the in­ R abbi M erling appeared most recently in these columns in September-October 1967. He gredients that make for a fine piece of is a musmach of Mesivta Torah Vodaath and literature. a graduate of City College of New York.

THE CHOSEN, by Chaim Potok; New York: Simon and Schuster, 1967, 284 pp., $4.95.

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T would seem ungracious, therefore, and Rabbi Saunders. That particular to quibble. But quibble I must, for corner of Jewish communal living is, the sake of truth. on the whole, neither as ideal as Potok The very factors which make “The draws the Malters, nor as fanatic and Chosen” a fine book contribute to what­ cruel as he portrays Rabbi Saunders. ever shortcomings it has. In other words, The Chassidim there are not the blind it is too good—a novel—to be true. faceless followers that Potok attributes I think it was Coleridge who once said to Rabbi Saunders’ shtibel, nor are young that if anyone faithfully recorded the Chassidic boys as conflicted between life of even the simplest person, that Talmudic farhers and Freud as is Danny, record would result in a fascinating “the chosen.’’ novel. Well, Coleridge is a minuscule The Williamsburg that we know, that minority among writers (and a pretty we grew up in (also in the early 1940’s), dull one, too) and is dead wrong. True, was peopled by all sorts—including the if the diarist of his hypothetical simple­ confused and ignorant irreligious Jews ton were a skillful writer, he could that fill the pages of so many other select enough of interest, of significance, contemporary popular novels, but who of drama to make a good book. But do not appear in Potok’s pages at all. selection is the key. Without selection And among the Chassidic Jews, most of the result would not only be intermin­ them were (and still are) simple, G-dably long but also insufferably boring. fearing people, raising and loving their The function of the artist, of the writer, children, speaking to their children, oc­ is to highlight and dramatize in order cupied and pre-occupied with plying to project his own unique insights and their trades, with matters of this world perspectives on what appears to others as much as of the next. Yes, there are to be mundane and ordinary. also such as Potok describes—rebbeNot so the sociologist, or the writer worshippers, immersed in convoluted pilof travel books. Where the intent is to pulistic exercises, oblivious to the world define or describe—not to entertain or around them. But they are not all that to create “art”—the more factual de­ way—and this “The Chosen” does not tail the better. The broader the canvas, make clear. the more populated it is with every sort If I have not yet made myself clear of character, every kind of description, (1 too may be a poor writer), let me the more minutiae—the more success­ state it bluntly: I think that the Chas­ fully has it achieved its goal. sidic community comes off a little worse In this context, therefore, if we eval­ than second best in Potok’s novel—-and uate “The Chosen” as a picture of ortho­ I think this is unfair to one of the dox Jewish life in Williamsburg, it does most vital and vibrant forces in Jewish not hold a candle to, for example, Dr. life today. Whether or not we fully agree Gershon Kranzler’s monumental soci­ with them, or care to adapt their modes ological study of the same community. and manners for ourselves, we must Potok’s characters are too few, too dram­ respect them and even admire them for atically different, too unusual to give us their uncompromising and self-sacrificing a true portrait of this phenomenon in loyalty to Torah traditions, which in fact American Jewish life. Most people in serves as a constant example to all of Williamsburg are neither like Reuven us. It is no great secret that Orthodoxy Malter and his father nor like Danny in America today would not be what it

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J E W IS H LIFE

“Fiddler” pokes gentle fun at old-fa­ shioned Tevye; in Singer’s works, too, the Torah-Jew is hardly the hero. Only in the few works of Agnon which have H, YES, you say, but Potok is managed to appear in English is true writing a novel, not a sociological Yiddishkeit portrayed authentically and study or travelogue of Williamsburg. As approvingly, and I doubt that these are a novelist he has every right to dramatize best-sellers. (And, of course, this dis­ and exaggerate, to select and spotlight cussion does not include the titles put those elements which make for a good out by the small special-interest “Jew­ ish” publishers, who have limited pro­ novel. True . . . but only partially so.

“Jewish” literature—about and by motional funds, limited distribution, and j eWs—seems to be quite fashionable to­ cannot pay their authors what the “big day, and has found not only acceptance boys” can.)

In a way, it is hardly surprising. The but also popularity among the major publishers and the general reading pub­ writers mentioned above draw upon their lic. Indeed, there seems to be an in­ own experiences in the creation of their satiable curiosity on the part of non- work. They reflect the environment that Jews about things Jewish—people, tradi­ gave birth to them. This is how little tions, ways of life, beliefs. It is almost they know about Judaism, this is how as if there were a need for a trusted they feel about it, this is how they see guide-book—in a popular literary form it, because this is the way most of Amer­ —through the by-ways of Judaism. Why ican Jewish society is! Herman Wouk, this should he so, I have not yet been who does have the literary skill as well as the positive attitude that could pro­ able to fathom—but it is so.

To the observant Jew, the picture of duce a popular novel with a favorable Jews and Judaism portrayed in the bulk view of orthodox Jewish life, has for of this “Jewish” literature is a painful some reason never attempted it. one, to say the least. Traditional Judaism All the more pity, then, that Potok is never presented correctly, authentical­ did not write it. He obviously wrote ly. It is usually something to rebel “The Chosen” with a broad general against, to break “free” from. The crises in the heroes’ lives stem from their audience in mind; he found a major desire to—and inability to—“live down” publisher to accept it and promote it. It their Jewishness, to be accepted for is a time when there is an eager public themselves, not to be burdened with what for this kind of work. Why could not has become to them a meaningless and this have been the novel that depicts untrue label. The orthodox Jew is never the beauty and the glory that we know drawn sympathetically; the real beauty is inherent in a life totally committed of the Torah way of life—as we know it to Jewish Torah and tradition—as is the -r-never shines through. Go down the Chassidic life of Williamsburg? He has line—Bellows, Malamud, Roth, Gordon, the talent, he has the background, he has Gold, and all the others. And let us the understanding. Perhaps he, too, has overlook for the moment the gratuitous become “alienated,” is no longer quite vulgarity that besmirches most of their that committed, and therefore doesn’t pages. Orthodoxy has a bad press! Even see it that way anymore.

is were it not for the infusion of Chassidic fervor that came to these shores with the immigration of the 1940’s.

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ILL anyone ever write the “per­ do this. His way of life, so inextricably W fect” papular novel on orthodox intertwined with his religion, is too holy, Jewish life? Perhaps; it remains to be seen. But I am beginning to doubt it.

My reasoning is simple. Paradoxically, a “good” novelist must not only be deeply immersed in the world he writes about, he must also be able to achieve a certain detachment from it, to step back, as it were, the better to view it from a distance. Unlike the polemicist and the sermonizer, the novelist must, from his detached perspective, not only express his world but also manipulate it. He must be able to play with it, to exaggerate, to winnow and sift the var­ ious elements within it. A committed orthodox Jew cannot bring himself to

too sacrosanct, for him to play with.

He is so totally involved, his orthodox Yiddishkeit means so much to him, that to manipulate it for the sake of creating a successful, popular work of art borders on the sacrilegious. Possibly, some day a literary master of Agnon’s calibre, writing in English, will come along and be able to resolve the paradox, to create the “grand” novel that presents the “oldfashioned” traditionalists in a favorable light.

Chaim Potok has written a very good novel. I only wish that, from an ortho­ dox point of view, it had been a better one.

One Side of the Mirror

By DAVID STEIN P O R T A L TO A M E R I C A : THE LOWER EAST SIDE 1870-1925, edited

by Allon Schoener; New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1967, 256 pp., $12.95.

HE spectacular advance of Jews from the position of European outcasts to positions of leadership in American politics, art, science, and in­ tellectual life is surely worthy of an intensive sociological study. How can we account for the dramatic advance of this despised people, driven from the

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M r . S t e in is fondly remembered for his “East

Side Chronicle” which appeared in the January February 1966 issue of JEWISH LIFE.

66

degrading persecutions of Eastern Eu­ rope, to the topmost pinnacle of accep­ tance in American society? Is it heredi­ tary superiority? Is it the discipline of tradition that influences a determina­ tion to surmount insurmountable ob­ stacles on the road toward achievement?

Or is it simply American liberty which provides a fertile soil in which such phenomenal growth automatically and inevitably affects all races and creeds?

Mr. Schoener had an ideal opportunity to explore this phenomenon, to describe and explain it. He succeeded only partial­ ly. He certainly has focused attention upon that area in this land of opportun­ ity which can provide the answers.

J E W IS H LIFE

As a native East Sider who has re­ Originally the 148 photographs in the book appeared as an exhibition arranged mained there for half a century, I

by Allon Schoener and presented at the found myself scanning the photographs Jewish Museum in New York. After with a magnifying glass trying to iden­ apparent painstaking research and selec­ tify some of the faces and places which tion, several articles from newspapers are inadequately captioned. I found my­ and periodicals of forty to seventy years self nostalgically reliving my childhood ago were added to the collection by Mr. and reevaluating many recollections with Schoener and put into book form. To a more mature, more objective frame justify the price tag of $12.95 the work of mind. Never before did I think of should be rightfully referred to as an my home town as having been so im­ album—an artistic album. And not even poverished, filthy, wicked and dangerous that is likely to sufficiently loosen the as it is depicted in these artistic pages. purse strings of a full-blooded East Yet, it is all so familiar.

One cannot quarrel with Allon Schoe­ Sider to pay the retail price. He’ll prob­ ner, the writer. In the three pages of ably get it wholesale.

In the novel format of the reading introduction which he allotted himself matter the printers achieved the effect he has superlative praise for the Jewish of old newsprint by printing in 9 point gateway to America. But he has given type (10 point is most common), double away the rest of the book to writers and columns, on cream colored paper. The photographers who saw the people of blue ink and ample spacing enhance the the ghetto as “curiosities and social prob­ appearance and readability well enough lems.” They did not understand its role to justify the quaint treatment. The as the “cradle of orthodox Judaism in elongated serifs of the oversize initials America” and their intent seems to have also add to the suggestion of something been to mock and wreck the cradle, out of the past and give an artistic flour­ not to rock and respect it.

As an editor, it seems that Mr. Schoe­ ish to every page. ner confined himself to compiling an OR ONE who is not a native of the assortment of clippings, mainly from the scene, Mr. Schoener has succeeded New York Times, New York Post and remarkably in capturing the flavor, the New York Tribune, publishing them drama, the problems and achievements verbatim. Some of these colorful word of the Lower East Side of Manhattan. pictures perpetuate some ugly material To me, however, it is too obvious that that would best be forgotten. Such “her­ he has not lived there—not before 1925. itages” of American Jews we can do He presents a partial picture, focused without. What useful purpose is served primarily upon the conditions of the by reprinting so antisemitic a diatribe working class, the long hours in the as appeared originally in the New York sweatshops, the congested homes, filthy Times of July 30, 1893? Under the streets, and complicated family difficul­ title “East Side Vendors” (page 57) we find: “Yet, in spite of the fact that the ties.

As a professional art historian, Mr. cheese was a reeking mass of rottenness Schoener probably had good reason for and alive with worms, the long-whisk­ the arrangement of the photographs. ered descendants of Abraham, Isaac, To me they seemed much too tiny to Jacob and Judah on the East Side would put their fingers in it and then suck them be properly appreciated.

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J E W IS H LIFE

with great and evident relish. . . . One of their greatest faults is that they have an utter disregard for law. . . . It is impossible for a Christian to live there because he will be driven out, either by blows or the dirt and stench.”

My recollection of such street ven­ dors is quite different. I recall, especial­ ly, a scene a feW hours before night­ fall on Fridays, when the shoppers for Shabbos suddenly disappeared. A fever­ ish rush ensued among the peddlers to “close shop.” One helped the other cover his wares with oilcloth or cheesecloth which they nailed to the sides of the carts. A long procession of pushcarts then flowed to the “stable” at 87 Ridge Street which quickly swallowed them up.

Every peddler proceeded with a news­ paper package of fresh underwear under his arm to the mikveh at 89 Ridge Street and emerged thoroughly washed and transformed from a street vendor to a king. With a majestic gesture he then placed a foot upon the shoe-shine box of a child laborer as a final act of liberation from weekday slavery. I ob­ served all this every week from the first floor fire-escape of 91 Ridge Street.

I met many of these emancipated monarchs a half hour later strolling to the “shtibel” with high silk “tzilenders” perched royally upon their proud heads.

There wasn’t a trace of dirt or stench or hostility upon them.

Forward’s philosophy, in general, seems to dominate.

The Yiddish theater is described in flattering terms. Soical workers are pre­ sented as virtual saints. The Socialist May Day Parade of 1897 is described in glowing detail. Sweatshops, strikes, child labor, the struggle of the masses to achieve a measure of social justice— all, all amply portrayed.

There was, however, another point of view-—that of the immigrant who looked upon the Forward as “treyf” and as the arch-enemy of genuine Judaism. That point of view is not fairly represented.

The Jew of the East Side, as I have known him, was more immersed in his religion than one would surmise from the few items on that subject. The selection “Religious Life” from the New York Tribune of August 16, 1903 un­ wittingly attests to the lack of a more authoritative presentation. In an excep­ tionally well-written interview with Dr. David Blaustein, head of the Educational Alliance, he is quoted: “The religion which we teach at the Educational Alliance, a religion without superstition or bigotry, is simply regar­ ded by the people about us as no religion at all. Our school is free, but the people will not send their boys to it. They prefer to pay $5 a month to send them to the rabbinical schools. There are 279 such schools flourishing on the Lower East Side.”

Amazing how seventy years later the HE BOOK begins with a chapter “Edgies” haven’t changed much. To this from “The Rise of David Levin- very day the Educational Alliance is sky” by Abraham Cahan, long-time edi­ being directed by “Reform Jews who live tor of the Jewish Daily Forward, and uptown,” who do not realize that only the ends with a series of typical examples orthodox represent the religious life of of “Bintel Brief”—-letters to the editor the Jewish East Side.

In “A School for Hebrew,” taken from of the Daily Forward—which supposedly “provide one of the most sensitive and the Tribune of November 12, 1899, the vivid records of adaptation from the Machzikey Talmud Torah is favorably immigrant point of view.” The Yiddish depicted. But the 279 “rabbinical

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J E W IS H LIFE

schools” remain no more than a number.

The army of private teachers who daily visited so many homes is not mentioned.

The birth of the yeshivah movement which germinated in those years is com­ pletely ignored.

OME of the quoted writers were aware that they were reporting on “a strictly Orthodox neighborhood” (page 133). In “Jew Babes at the Lib­ rary” we read the questions asked of the gentile librarians by Jewish children: |||Dast you write on the Sabbath? Dast you tear paper? Dast you hold money?”

But that same article is ruined with a malicious obvious exaggeration: “Every boy of twelve or fourteen who stopped to read the notice (of a churchman’s death) deliberately spat upon it in the coolest and most matter-of-fact manner.”

Of special interest is the article “Kill­ ing for Kosher Meat.” It is particularly informative and describes a slaughter­ house and the process of Shechitah. The merits of kosher meat are presented in a manner that whets the appetite and reads like a commercial against eating any other kind. , One of the clippings attempts to de­ scribe the colorful Tashlich procession to the East River on Rosh Hashanah 1905. The article erroneously refers to it as “Tishre” and explains: “Many of them carry with them crumbs with which to feed the fishes, and they throw these out in token of the unloading of their sins into the water.”

What can you expect from a goy?

Even the little children of orthodox Jewish parents knew that only “amherotzim” threw crumbs to the fish at Tash­ lich. They, and I among them, knew that the ritual is to remind us of Abraham and Isaac, and the Israelites at the Exodus, who did not allow a stream or a raging sea to thwart them in their

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January-February 1968

resolve to fulfil the will of the Almighty.

We looked with awe upon the “rebbes” and their hosts of chasidim, bedecked in shtreimels and kapotahs, cutting a path through the throngs at the docks to come within sight of the water. I re­ member how the barges were tied along­ side each other to the pier at the East River and Houston Street. One rebbe decided that not enough of the water was visible between the coal barges. He issued a ruling that it was permissible to go onto the barges to say Tashlich.

His chasidim followed him and many children after them, some jumping across a dangerous gap as the waves raised and lowered the barges. The rebbe chanted the first sentence of the prayer and the chasidim repeated in unison. The bobbing barges created the impression of shaking along with the worshippers. There was no doubt in our childish minds that we had been tho­ roughly cleansed of sins thereafter, but it took more than a prayer to cleanse our hands and clothing from the jet black dust of the coal barges.

NE cannot help but make compari­ sons between the Jewish immigrant of seventy years ago and the non-Jewish masses flowing to the East Side to­ day. The material conditions are, in many instances, quite similar. By today’s standards there still is poverty, exploita­ tion, filth, corruption, and congestion.

Can we expect from them the same fantastic development which our people have undergone? The answer does ap­ pear in and between the lines of “Portal to America.”

In sharp contrast with conditions in today’s public schools is the item “The Largest Public School in the World” (Tribune 1906, page 129) which de­ scribes the discipline among five thou­ sand children assembled in the school

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yard: “They could not hear each other.

Then, of a sudden, a gong sounded and the hubbub was hushed.” The principal tells a visitor in one of the classrooms: “A small-sized republic. . . . You see how well they can govern themselves.”

What? No classroom jungles? Was it mere coincidence that this predominantly Jewish school was so well run?

Today’s immigrants might learn the secret of our success from “Love of Learning” (Tribune 1898, page 126), which tells of “cases . . . where boys who had been denied school advantages committed suicide.” No one recommends that much love of learning today. But

for

SYNAGOGUES

therein lies the difference between us.

The same article states: “It is by no means unusual for a boy of nine years to be able to recite the Talmud from memory. The rapidity with which these children acquire knowledge is a constant source of surprise when they enter pub­ lic school.” Uh huh! The good old Talmud . . .

The Lower East Side was and is more than “a place where you lived until you could afford to go out of town.” Its religion was the central feature. Its posi­ tive aspects, its joys, glories and achieve­ ments, have not yet been properly documented.

Gold's HORSERADISH

AwMÛUt'S inoit

ALBERT WOOD & FIVE SONS.« PORT WASHINGTON LI* NEW YORK

YO U NG ISRAEL of Staten Island invites you to locate in a dynamic new orthodox community, near new Young Israel and yeshivah.

HAVE YOU M OVED? Send us your new address

72

For information call:

and your old address

Herbert Mascot 273-8423

clipped from your J ewish L ife envelope.

J E W IS H LIFE

Gefilte fish like mother used to make.

M&thsrii

Mother's hitef ish -Cj ^fellowPiiS

For the holidays, for any days, serve what Mother’s knows best.

Gefilte Fish. (Traditional OldFashioned, Whitefish and Yellow Pike, or all Whitefish.)

Only the freshest fish. Just the right amount of spices. Slowsimmered to bring out the delicate flavor. Now in jars with easy-open, twist off-twist on caps.

Or cans.

And remember Mother’s Mar­ garine. And BorSeht. And Schav.

And Matzo Ballig All Pareve and Kosher.

Only if your mother made great gefilte fish.

For low sodium diets— be sure to get M other’s new un suited Gefilte Fish!

T h g jç o u n tr y ’s m o st p o p u la r Vegetarian B e a n s- strictly p o s h e r , strictly p a r eve.

It’s new! T h e w id e m o u th size o f H e in z K e tc h u p ! It ha s th e (C oh th e label!

WsöxfK,

T a lk in g a b o u t K ash ru th *** The © seal of approval of the . UNION OF ORTHODOX JEWISH . CONGREGATIONS OF AMERICA is on

H einz K etchup in ilie ta ll bottle —three d iffe ren t s ize s 12 h a s 2 th e O f co u rse!

all these Heinz Varieties.

H einz Chili Sauce!

T a n g y a n d rich !

A n o t h e r (y) V a r ie ty .

Six Kosher H einz Soups—F ive are M ilc h ig —T o m a to , T o m a to w ith R i e e f C r e a m ' -■ o f M u s h r o o m , C r e a m o f C elery, C r e a m o f P e a O n e p d rev e so u p —V e g e td r ia n Vegetable;.. -