Jewish Life January 1969

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C H A S S ID IS M

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O F P E R S O N A L , M O R A L IT Y

A F IS H

IN A W H IR L P O O L

R E B O R N : A B IR D ’S -E Y E

SHEVAT 5729 JANUARY 1969

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Vol. XXXVI, No. 2 / January 1969/Shevat 5729

rnk THE EDITOR’S VIEW

S aul B ernstein ', Editor P aul H . B aris L ibby K laperman D r . M arvin Schick R abbi S olomon J. Sharfman

Editorial Associates i

E lkanah S chwartz

Assistant Editor JEWISH LIFE is published bij-monthly. Subscription two years $5.00, three years $6.50, fdur years $8.00. Foreign: Add 40 cents per year.

ISRAEL GUARDS THE CROSSROADS ...............................

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TORAH COMMUNITY COHESION: NEARING A LONG-TIME G O A L ........................................................

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ARTICLES THE CURRENT STATE OF PERSONAL MORALITY/ Morris S m ith .............................................

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IN MEXICO/Jacob B e lle r ..................................................

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CHASSIDISM REBORN: A BIRD’S-EYE V IE W / H. Rabinowicz ..........................................................

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FICTION Editorial and Publication Office: 84 Fifth Avenue New York 10011, N. Y. (212) ALgonquin 5-4100

A FISH IN A WHIRLPOOL/Elkanah S ch w artz.............

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BOOK REVIEWS Published by U nion of Orthodox Jewish CONGREGATIONS OF AMERICA J oseph K arasick

THE K0RNBERG MISHNAYOTH/Moses D. Tendler....

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ATTITUDES ON RELIGIOUS C R IS IS / Joseph A. G ru n b la tt........................................................

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President H arold M. J acobs

Chairman of the Board Benjamin Koenigsberg, Nathan IQ Gross, David Politi, Dr. Bernard Lander, Harold H. Boxer, Lawrence A. Kobrin, Vice Presidents; Morris L. Gieen, Treasurer; Emanuel Nèustadter, Secretary; Julius Bejrman, Financial Secretary.

Dr. Samson R. Weiss Executive Vice President Sani Bernstein, Administrator Second Class Postage paid at New York, N. Y.

January 1969

DEPARTMENTS CASES FROM THE RESPONSA LITERATURE/ David S. Shapiro .............................................................

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FROM HERE AND T H E R E ...................................................

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

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Cover and drawing on page 48 by David Adler Drawing on page 61 by Naama Kitov ©Copyright 1969 by

UNION OF ORTHODOX JEWISH CONGREGATIONS OF AMERICA

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A letter by MORRIS SMITH published in J e w i s h L i f e some months ago brought an exchange of correspondence which resulted in his present article, “The Current State of Personal Morality.” He sifts the m evidence of social trends and legal attitudes in developing the view expressed in one of his letters that m • . the general law of western o civilization is based on the morality of western society . . . and we are witnessing the attempt not to eliminate morality as a basis for n now law, but to substitute the morality of the religion of the libertarian.”

An engineer by profession resident in Los Angeles, Mr. Smith is a stimulating and independent thinker as well as an informed student of the contemporary social fabric. A particular object of his concern is conditioning effect of Jewish thinking of modem secular ideas . . . our to“thewhich we are necessarily subjected when we enter the universal intellectual world.” . . . Mexico’s Jewish community sits this time for c a portrait by the seasoned, world-roaming pen of JACOB BELLER, whose travelogues-with-a-ta’ara have frequently appeared in these pages . . . Chassidism was born in the Eastern Europe of two cen­ 0 turies ago and matured to warm the lives of millions there, yet with the calamitous end of that great home of Jewish life the flame of that n unique component of the torch of Judaism was rekindled across the world. RABBI H. RABINOWICZ, himself a scion of a long-dis­ tinguished Chassidic family whose home is in London, brings us an r overall view of the re-establishment of centers of Chassidic life in various countries, under the leadership of charismatic figures . . .

1 ELKANAH SCHWARTZ, author of “A Fish in a Whirlpool” appear­ ing in this issue, is the Assistant Editor of J e w i s h L i f e and a member of the professional staff of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congrega­ tions of America. His first colection of short stories, “American Life: u Shtetl Style,” appeared two years ago and has attracted much favorable comment.

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NOTE: This issue of J e w i s h L i f e , dated January 1969, replaces the omitted November-December 1968 issue. The next issue will be dated February 1969. Thereafter the regular bi-monthly publication sched­ ule and dating will resume.

J E W IS H LIFE

the EDITOR'S VIEW Israel Guards the Crossroads TEADY and resolute as crisis rises to a new peak, Israel again proves its sterling qualities. Though the military posi­ tion of the young state is much better, strategically, than before the Six-Day War, Israel must cope now not only with the im­ placable hostility of massively rearmed Arab neighbors but with an ominous turn in the world power configuration. Steeled to peril, Israelis address themselves to the present situation with a determination reinforced rather than shaken by clear understand­ ing of its complex gravity. Well may Jews throughout the world be inspired by their spirit.

What underlies the state of affairs is indicated plainly by international attitudes in recent developments. Jewish protest apart, the official voice of not a single nation, religious body, or public force of any kind was heard in condemnation of the long series of murderous attacks by Arab terrorist gangs on Israeli citizens in their homes, streets, and marketplaces. Not a single such voice took exception to the boastful admission of the gov­ ernments of Israel’s Arab neighbors that they harbor, sponsor, and support the terrorists. Nor was any such voice heard in de­ nunciation of the attempted murder of the forty-three civilian passengers and crew of an Israel passenger airplane in a foreign Silence , airport—the murder of one of them being accomplished. And if and any doubt remained as to the meaning of this universal silence, then. . • • it was resolved by the chorus of official voices that rang out from north, south, east, and west in condemnation of the bloodless, meticulously executed Israeli reprisal action at the Beirut airport.

Subsequently, the on-second-thought comments appearing in media around the Free World gave evidence that public opin­ ion strongly repudiates the cynical stand on Israel’s reprisal voiced in official chancelleries and from such platforms as the United Nations Security Council and the Vatican. Clearly, there is a grass-roots awakening to the great issues at stake. The man in the street recognizes what those at the helm of public affairs would prefer that he disregard: Israel must act in self-defense; situated as she is, any line of action to repel the aggression poses problems; under the circumstances the Beirut action did a neces­ sary job. It did a job necessary not only to Israel’s own security.

The Beirut action countered an aggression-charged process whose dimensions go far beyond the area of Israel-Arab rela­ tions.

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n p H E reality confronting all is the mounting Soviet power flp drive. With the Western powers in disarray, an emboldened Russia reaches out to opportunities that beckon on all sides. Now the Kremlin bids East German vassals breathe Nazi fire, now Po­ land is called to heel and Hungary’s chains are rattled, now in­ vading troops subjugate Chechoslovakia; and the West stands transfixed by fear of what will befall next in Europe. With its western flank secured, Communist Russia presses forward to command of the Middle East, at whose crossroads stands Israel.

In th e Closing its grasp on the floundering Arab nations, the Soviet K re m lin ’s machine presses them on to a new attempt to destroy the object S ervice of their hate. Uneasily aware that in serving Russia’s imperialist ends they are falling into hopeless enslavement, Arab rulers find themselves locked in a web of their own making. To deflect from themselves the seething discontent of the Arab populace, they rekindle the flames of anti-Israel hate, but the more they feed these flames the tighter becomes the web. The only possibility of escape lies in coming to terms with Israel. Skillful Kremlin ma­ chinations block this exit.

In the meanwhile, the United States, racked with giant problems, stands hesitant, uncertain of its world course. Though the danger to the Free World and America’s own vital interests is inescapable, American policymakers shun a showdown with the Soviet Union. With the situation to such evident Soviet ad­ vantage, nations large and small across the world trim their sails accordingly. Such potential for a meaningful role as the United Nations may have retained vanishes as it becomes a mere playtoy in the Kremlin’s hands. De Gaulle, somewhat of a world power in himself, needs little prodding to fall into line. Offering fealty to Communist Russia as Petain before him did to Nazi Germany, he adds his domain to the circle of Israel’s enemies.

Whether the people of France will endure this shame remains to be seen.

Any ordinary nation of Israel’s size and—if there were such—-comparable circumstances would be shaken and cowed by so overpowering an array of forces as those with which she must contend. But Israel is no ordinary nation. It is—Israel.

N sober fact, then, Israel’s unshakable spirit is today the piv­ otal bulwark of world security. The entire vast sweep from the southern and eastern shores of the Mediterranean to South­ east Asia and the borders of China is all but open to Soviet conquest. Israel stands in the way. Were Israel, forfend, to be subjugated or destroyed, there can be no question that the Krem­ lin’s course of world empire could be checked only at the cost of world-shattering collision with the Western powers.

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Understandably eager to postpone the day of reckoning, the Western powers seek hope for an East-West accommodation, or at least for a breathing spell, in the current Soviet formula for an imposed settlement of the Arab-Israel conflict. It was to be expected that a proposal coming from this source would fore­ close a requirement basic to a real solution: direct, fully comIm p o sed mitted mutual agreement for peace between the Arab nations N an-Set - and Israel. Anything other than this, under whatever formula, tlem en t simply cloaks an evasion of the peace objective. Twenty years of continuous flouting of armistice agreements leave no illusion as to the consequences of a supposed settlement which is not in fact a definitive peace agreement between the parties immediately concerned.

Various other provisions of the Soviet formula are patently designed to imprison Israel in a hopelessly unternable situation, and in total it would restore and extend the conditions which led to the Six-Day War. But it does more than this. Offering Western leaders the same kind of bait that Hitler dangled at Munich, the Kremlin’s proposal frees the Soviet pathway in the Middle East and gives its status there accepted finality. What this must lead to needs hardly be spelt out.

SRAEL stands like a rock and her Arab neighbors writhe and strangle in the Soviet grasp. The fate of the world hangs on the question: Will thè Western world abandon Israel and the Arabs alike to the will of Communist Russia?

V ision Surely the answer must be: No. Surely the United States in o f particular cannot fail to bring to bear the leadership, resources, R eb irth and power at its command to bring Israelis and Arabs to the peace table, free the Arabs from Soviet thralldom, clear the way for a reborn Middle East armed in nation-to-nation comity with the strength of mutual freedom.

May history record that such will be the course of Ameri­ can leadership under the Administration of President Richard M. Nixon. And may Divine will ordain that Israel’s matchless spirit inspire in all people the resolve to stand and act for true freedom and true peace.

Bitter though are the antagonisms today, Israel’s neighbors must eventually see in the reborn Jewish State the key to their own rebirth. Without its life-generating currents, the entire Mid­ dle East expanse must struggle in vain against stagnation and subjection. Let policy capture the vision of ancient lands freed of foreign-fostered, self-destroying strife, bringing to this cradle of civilization a shared renascence in whose midst Jews and Arabs, alike sons of Abraham, can flourish and find fulfillment.

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Torah Community Cohesion: Nearing a Long-Time Goal r r iH E 70th Anniversary of the Union of Orthodox Jewish ConJL gregations of America, marked at its recent National Biennial Convention in Washington, »brought into fresh view the longsought goal of a cohesive Torah community. In its seven decades of endeavor, the Orthodox Union has pursued a program which is essentially an organic approach to this goal. The program, steadily widening in scope and force, has won increasing re­ sponse, as was much evident at the Convention. Though the full objective is still far from fulfillment, this unceasing endeavor has unquestionably been pivotal in the overall progress of the tra­ ditional community. Through the past twenty years especially, American orthodox Jewry has shown its capacity to meet the demands of the time. Dramatic advances in basic fields have nar­ rowed the bounds of individualistic chaos. If it cannot be said yet that American orthodox Jewish forces are marching in uni­ son, it can be said that they are gravitating toward a common direction* During the life-span of the Orthodox Union to date, many organizations have risen and disappeared on the American Jew­ ish scene. Those which remain from past days have persisted, by and large, through well developed organizational structure rather than continuing ideological viability. Few vestiges of their orig­ inal philosophies are to be found in their current programs. Far different is the case with the Orthodox Union. Through many S tayin g years, its organizational apparatus was woefully weak and its P ow er material resources have always been painfully limited. But it has espoused the same timeless creed throughout; the ideology and goals which UOJCA forwards today are identical with those to which it was originally dedicated, and remain meaningful now as then. In short, the enduring vitality of the Orthodox Union lies in the power of a cause rooted in the fundament of Jewish life.

Necessarily, the same factors have conditioned the develop­ ment of the Orthodox Union’s constituency, the orthodox Jew­ ish community as a whole. Inherent spiritual strength has proven so potent as to overcome epochal challenge even while suffering the ravages of internal chaos. This, through years when mortal threat to the Jewish spirit was joined to mortal attack on Jewish existence, and through the continuing convulsions of world change. Today, though peril remains omnipresent, we see a pulsating rebirth—among the very segment of the Jewish peo­ ple supposedly least capable of enduring the onslaught of mod­ em times, and in the New World which had been thought in-

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capable of nurturing a Torah life as well as in the homeland of the Torah people.

A STRANGE and wonderful phenomenon is this new flowerjfV ing of Torah life. To those not identified with it, it is an inexplicable puzzle. Everywhere, older and new religions alike are disintegrating. Under the patina of secular culture which overlays the entire human scene, religious faith is stifled, man’s spiritual urge withers. All succumb to the contemporary process, except the Torah Jew. If the civilization that has culminated in the era of automa­ tion offers challenges to the Jew, the Jew poses a challenge in turn. As the man of Torah, he presents a vision of life which invests it and the entire universe with Divine sanctity. Before C hallenge such a vision of life, the chromium-plated philosophies of the Versus newest era, in all their variations, are rendered as spurious, as C hallenge irrelevant, as the idolatries of old. Moreover, in weaving together the fabric of his own life in the very midst of a secularized, au­ tomated world, using its tools in service to his own values, the Torah Jew demonstrates that his vision of life is not an out-ofthis-world hypothesis but a practicable pattern of living. In pos­ ing his challenges to modem man, the Torah Jew offers him a viable alternative to the modern dilemma.

Not for a moment can we afford to underestimate the force of the inherent tension between the Torah world and the sur­ rounding world. Surely the latter will remain loathe to grasp the Torah-borne alternative, surely its own demands will press upon us harder and harder. Our response must be, can only be if we are to preserve on our path, to achieve the degree of cohesion which will assure the best application of resources of strength.

Failing this, the hard-won gains of the past years will suffer the fate of the achievements of a previous time. American orthodox Jewry has moved slowly and uncertainly toward the goal of the cohesive Torah community. Now we must go with assured stride the rest of the way.

January 1969

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The Current State of Personal Morality

By MORRIS SMITH

HE present century has witnessed and is continuing to witness dra­ matic transformations in many facets of life. Politics, technology, medicine, economics, and other disciplines are in an unceasing state of flux. Changes aré taking place in all parts of the world, in the most progressive and cultured and in the most retarded na­ tions. In some fields, the extent of the changes is determinable in quantita­ tive terms, such as amount and cost of products, human life span, size of cities, etc. However, in attempting to evaluate the level of personal moral­ ity, it is obvious that major alterations have occurred and are occurring, the magnitude of which the average per­ son has limited means of appraising.

As a people committed to a high level of general morality (applied herein in the sense of the general prac­ tice and science of right conduct) and ethics (wherewith we cover the nor-

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rnative relationships between individ­ uals concerned with matters other than personal morality) for ourselves and for others, we Jews have a transcend­ ental interest in the state of these qual­ ities among our own people and in the general community. We have been transposed in the recent past from a largely isolated social situation, which conditioned much of our thinking and actions, to an existence in an open so­ ciety; the effect of this change on our ways of life and on the directions in which our religious programs and ac­ tivities should be orientated is still a matter for serious deliberation.

A T this point it would be well to j t \ . consider why religious Jews should be interested in the level of morality in the general community, and to gauge the nature and the ex­ tent of our required interest. Prior to the present democratic period, our L |F |

forebears were by compulsion intro­ verted religiously and as a group. This attitude developed in some measure from our need to defend our spiritual and physical existence. In the modern free era, we mingle to a lesser or greater degree with the general com­ munity. Our children largely attend the public schools; there is Tittle that we can do to change this condition, since we lack the financial means to provide adequate facilities even if all Jewish children were to be made available for our guidance. This mingling af­ fects us, conditions us in varying de­ grees— all of us, even the most Jewishly committed and involved. The impact affects our commitment and our interpretation of our commitment; it colors, shades, and at times threat­ ens to overwhelm our understanding of Torah and of the Creator’s de­ mands on us. Especially in the field of personal morality, in which the cur­ rent era sees so many changed out­ looks, the impression on our thinking, if not on our actions, is great. With so many of our children going to public institutions of higher learning, the source of much of this new morality, even greater changes may be anticipat­ ed. The effect on non-religious Jews, who are our most pressing charge after our own, is obvious; however, the reaction on religious Jews in all areas may not be ignored, since other­ wise the end result of ourselves be­ coming contaminated is certain.

OR a second, equally pertinent reason, one might refer to various sayings of our Sages and of our Prophets. Rabbi Chanina said: “Pray for the welfare of the government, since for fear thereof men would swal­ low each other alive.” (Pirkey Ovoth

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3,2) Perhaps more appositely we might consider the words of Rabbi Akiva: “Beloved is man, for he was created in the image of G-d.” {ibid.

3,18) From the modem period, it would be well to note some recent re­ marks by Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik: We are summoned by G-d, who re­ vealed Himself at both the level of universal creation and that of the pri­ vate covenant, to undertake a double mission—the universal human and the exclusive confrontation. . . . We have always considered ourselves an in­ separable part of humanity and we were ever ready to accept the Divine challenge. . . . We stand with civilized society shoulder to shoulder over - against an order which defies us all. . . . We consider ourselves members of the universal community charged with the responsibility for promoting progress in all fields. . . .* Granted that our involvement with a somewhat antagonistic culture en­ dangers our own status, for the rea­ sons outlined above, we have no choice. Or rather, the perils of strict segregation are so great that we must thoughtfully undertake the determina­ tion of the extent to which we must work with the non-Jewish world for our mutual protection and benefit.

We must understand the nature of the general community with which we are now in close contact and with whose over-all welfare we must be concerned, both because the religious Jew requires an environment with a high level of general morality and for our own spiritual development. In pursuing this understanding, there are two other components of society which should be recognized and the charac* “A Treasury of Tradition,” p. 66 et seg.

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ter of which should be apprehended— the judiciary and the courts, and the

Enlightened, the secularly oriented freethinkers.

BASIC ATTITUDES HE Torah and the Talmud have fostered, through halachic precepts and Haggadie literature, a most whole­ some and practical outlook towards sexual relationships. Normal union within the marital fold is enjoined on man as necessary and desirable. The life of the celibate is deplored. One could expatiate at length concerning the healthy attitude with which Jewish law and Jewish practice regard the re­ lationship between man and wife, an approach which has nurtured and maintained the Jewish family, and has led to the development of standards of personal morality to a level not ex­ ceeded by any other people. On the other hand the horror of deviant sex­ ual behavior is often expressed in Jew­ ish writings; this abhorrence is reflect­ ed in the laws concerning capital punishment. Of the thirty-six laws for which capital punishment was decreed, one-half, eighteen, were for illicit sex­ ual practices. (Mishneh Torah, Book of Judges) Regardless of whether these punishments were ever imposed, their statement makes clear with what sternness Judaism condemned sinful sexual actions. In the long period since the basic statutes were affirmed, vari­ ous specific laws have been enacted from time to time to promote premar­ ital chastity and general behavior pat­ terns which, taking into account the cultures current at the given period, sought to maintain high moral stand­ ards.

During the more recent past, works

by Jewish authors on religious themes

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have constantly stressed the high level of Jewish ethical maxims. Likewise, there is reference, with somewhat less­ er frequency, to the wholesome nonascetic nature of Jewish moral prin­ ciples and practices. One senses, however, that most of these writers, especially the non-orthodox, are eager to emphasize the non-puritanical na­ ture of Jewish law and conduct, seek­ ing somewhat to minimize the strict Jewish attitudes towards the forbidden sexual activities. A review of many of the books on Judaism written during the past twenty years in the English language indicates limited considera­ tion of the pivotal place personal mor­ ality has held (and holds) in Jewish religious thinking, and evidences a tendency to disregard its strength and validity. Reaffirmation in modern terms with specific application to current ac­ tivities is in order.

In this article I shall discuss pri­ marily the current situation in the United States, with some reference to other nations of Western civilization.

In all aspects of this subject, the lack of clear, authoritative information is apparent; furthermore unstated biases color most of the analyses and in­ terpretations. Press items are likely to be sensational rather than factual.

Supposedly definitive reports (such as the well-known Kinsey report and others written by social scientists) are usually apologias for the current cli­ mate of opinion or are aimed to mod­ ify that opinion. Reviewing and cull­ ing the same information, we may J E W IS H LIFE

therefore draw conclusions somewhat different from those reached by secu­ larly inclined writers.

among college students. Young women in the large cities are becoming an urgent problem in that they are more inclined to develop aggressive attitudes in sex relations. In general, individuals with deeply religious backgrounds (Jewish, Catholic, and Protestant) are the least involved in these activities— yet even they are not entirely spared.

The results of current immoral con­ duct described above underlines the downward trend among youngsters; a common reaction among social scien­ tists and many of the general com­ munity is evidence of another equally unhappy inclination. To a major ex­ tent, the accepted remedy for the sit­ uation consists of such measures as the development of effective cures for venereal diseases, manufacture and better dissemination of contraceptive devices, more sympathetic acceptance of illegitimate children, etc. The em­ phasis on these efforts serves to dull the sensibilities and to breed increased indifference to the activities which are the source of the problem.

ITH respect to chastity and pre­ marital relations, there are sev­ eral indications of the wide spread of promiscuity. The figures on venereal diseases provide a clear demonstra­ tion concerning the scope and timing of the trend. Authorities in the early 1950’s thought that they had practical­ ly eliminated gonorrhea. The subse­ quent increase in this social disease was noted as early as 1962. Reports in 1966, 1967, and 1968 * indicate an an­ nual increase of from twenty to thirty percent. The problem is further com­ pounded by the difficulty encountered in finding a cure for the venereal dis­ eases. The greatest increase in venereal diseases is found among teenagers, with significant impact in even the 10-14 year group.

Another phenomenon is the increase in the number of unwed mothers. The number of illegitimate births occurring annually has almost tripled since 1940 (“Morality in America,” by J. Robert Moskin, 1966), with forty percent be­ ing girls in their teens. (“Social Break­ down,” by Nathan Goldman, 1967) It is estimated by several sociologists, based on comparison of wedding date with date of birth of child, that a large pro­ portion of teen-age brides are pregnant at the time of marriage (one source states twenty percent). Heretofore, it was not uncommon for young men to discuss sexual prowess; now it is be­ coming more common for young women to do so too. This behavior has been observed most markedly

N another related area, the situation is somewhat anomolous in compar­ ison with the previously noted condi­ tions. Half a century ago, society’s consideration of prostitution was dom­ inated to a large extent by the com­ mercial and sexual aspects.* Brothels were permitted to exist with relatively little interference, flagrantly, in segre­ gated sections of most American cities.

Shortly prior to World War I, govern­ mental officials were compelled by public demand to cease open tolera­ tion of prostitution; the resultant po­ licing activities led to more careful

* Los Angeles Times, January 30, 1966; ibid., January 23, 1967; Wall Street Journal, June 18, 1968.

* “Problems of American Society—Values in Conflict,” by John F. Cuber, Wm. F. Kenkel, Robt. A. Harper, 1964.

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concealment rather than to complete closing of the brothels. During World War II Federal government interven­ tion caused the almost complete disap­ pearance of prostitution as an open, large scale operation. At the present time all states without exception have laws forbidding the practice of prosti­ tution. (“Sex and the Law,” by Morris Ploscowe, 1951) The effective imple­ mentation of these laws in the larger cities of this country has resulted es­ sentially in the elimination of brothels in those areas; smaller cities have been less successful in ridding themselves of commercial prostitution.

With respect to homosexuality, the general community is largely united in condemning the practice of this per­ version. All states but one have laws which, in varying degrees, define ho­ mosexual acts between men as crim­ inal offenses. (Wall Street Journal, July 17, 1968) Several occupations, such as teaching, bar the homosexual.

The United States military does not tolerate homosexuals in its ranks, and they are not accepted for most Fed­ eral positions. Whereas most psychia­ trists consider the homosexual as an unusual rather than a deviant type, there is now a school of psychiatry which believes that homosexuality can be cured and that it is therefore un­ wise to consider tolerance of its ex­ istence. For the same reason perhaps that Jewish law makes no note of les­ bianism, the laws here have not been applied to women in most states. How­ ever, during the past twenty years, there has arisen a small but growing movement in this country, largely among the Enlightened, to accept socalled private homosexuality. More than forty regional and national groups have been formed to improve 12

the homosexual’s status, legal and otherwise, in society, and to limit the laws proscribing sodomy. Even some church groups have espoused this viewpoint. As might be expected, the larger cities are the most active field for this effort. One state, Illinois, has eliminated its law against sodomy, in 1961. Efforts to do likewise in New York have failed. Groups devoted to the interests of homosexuals have been formed on several college campuses.

Nevertheless the expansion of toler­ ance for unnatural vice in the general community has been limited; Ameri­ can horror of sodomy and pederasty is profound. We do find, however, a sense of uncertainty by the average per­ son in countering the new thinking; the lack of forceful intellectual oppo­ sition to this facet of the new ideas is obvious.

There is little that need be said con­ cerning incest, since it is universally abhorred, essentially as an instinctive reaction. All states, in their legal codes, include lists of forbidden mar­ riages, which include the incestual re­ lationships.

N the foregoing, the social deterio­ ration to which reference has been made is not necessarily based on the development of a new ideology by the general community. The alterations in cultural practices have not as yet been accompanied in all cases by concur­ rent changes in personal philosophy.

Our society, for example, also encom­ passes elements such as commercial forces which, from self interest, have tended to ignore their traditional standards, as they do other facets of social and religious concern which conflict with their material advance-

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ment. Another element which sup­ ports deviationist behavior is the hedonists, with whose insensate blind­ ness Jews have always contended, both within and without our fold. Primarily individuals lacking a societal and spir­ itual sense of responsibility, the hedon­ ist concentration on pleasure pollutes the moral climate—through advertis­ ing, the press, the screen, and numer­

ous commercial products. This im­ morality for material gain and pleas­ ure is not new to us; it constitutes a normal element in our general society, but in the past, society has been bet­ ter able to restrain it. In this genera­ tion, the current strength of the vul­ garizing efforts is magnified by the ide­ ological support provided by the en­ lightened segment of the community.

THE INSTITUTION OF LAW r j i H E law and the courts which serve here to this natural law. (“Legal The­ JL it in normal, stable times reflect ory,” by W. Friedman, 1967) This largely the opinions and the general opinion, with sundry modifications and morality of the populace which is re­ interpretations, was accepted by the sponsible for their existence. That such Romans and the Christians, to the lat­ is in fact the rightful basis of law and ter of whom it was considered divine jurisprudence is supported, on secular­ law. The original Enlightenment of ist grounds, by most jurists and legal the seventeenth century adopted the practitioners. Thus Morris Ploscowe, natural law on a rationalist basis, with an adherent of the pragmatic school the thesis that man’s reason is of such of jurisprudence (see below), ex­ profundity as to permit him to deter­ pressed his concern in 1951 anent the mine through logic alone the basic ab­ many judges who are embarrassed in solute rules by which the universe pro­ the handling of crimes involving “ir­ ceeds—the freethinker’s version of the regular” sexual practices; yet Ploscowe religious natural law. Reliance on ex­ himself waxes eloquent in denouncing perience or metaphysics was deprecat­ what to him are practices objection­ ed in large measure; reasoning was able from a traditional moral view­ held to be adequate.

The theory of natural law, together point.

The modern idea of a moral basis with the doctrine of separation of for the law has its antecedents in the powers, forms the philosophical basis original Jewish statutes, which were of the American form of government; based on both spiritual and general it provides the philosophical back­ moral foundations, and the theses of ground for the Declaration of Inde­ Plato and Aristotle concerning “nat­ pendence and influenced the interpre­ ural law.” In both cases, although tation of social clauses of the Bill of there are radical differences in several Rights, especially the due-process important elements, the general opin­ clause. The strength which natural law ion holds that the world is governed has retained in American jurisprud­ by transcendental laws which consti­ ence is due in considerable measure to tute an ordered and orderly unity; the similarity in terminology and view­ man-made laws and practices must ad- points to the theological principles of

January 1969

13

Puritan thought which had been cur­ rent in this country since Colonial times. The Puritans had rejected the English common law insofar as it had involved separate religious and secular courts, and had established here a monolithic law based in large measure on their standards of general morality.

This code of jurisprudence reflected the following characteristics of the Puritans: ( “A History of Western Morals,” by Crane Brinton, 1959) 1. Adherence to the moral code of the Hebrew Scriptures in its es­ sentials 2. Belief in the moral value of work 3. Acceptance of man’s insignifi­ cance vis-a-vis his Creator 4. Feeling that the individual has a soul which can and should con­ trol the demands of his body 5. Devout respect for the Penta­ teuch 6. Surprisingly practical 7. An intellectual bent, with high regard for education.

N the nineteenth century, direct ad­ herence to natural law waned; it was replaced by the empiricist school of jurisprudence, in which experience was substituted for belief in a natural order. The philosophy of the empir­ icist school has been succinctly stated

by Oliver Wendell Holmes, one of its most celebrated adherents, over eighty years ago:

I

The life of the law has not been logic; it has been experience. The felt necessities of the time, the prevalent moral and political theories, intuitions of public policy, avowed or uncon­ scious, even the prejudices which judges share with their fellow men, have had a good deal more to do

14

than the syllogism in determining the rules by which men should be gov­ erned.* During this century, with the re­ surgence of the Enlightenment, the pragmatic or relativistic school of jurisprudence has evolved, fathered by the philosophies of William James and John Dewey, and elaborated by Roscoe Pound. In principle it shuns the natural law of the theologians and the rationalists; it envisages a sociolog­ ical jurisprudence resting on experi­ ence and requiring constant change to adjust to sociological requirements. In essence it proposes that the law be considered as a social institution to satisfy human wants—the claims and demands and expectations involved in the existence of a civilized society.

However, whether philosophically em­ piricist or pragmatic, legal practices in this country have retained much of the natural law which was imbedded in the Constitution and in many legal statutes, precedents, and practices in­ herited from the Puritan era.

In this century, the pragmatic school has leaned heavily on develop­ ments in the fields of sociology and the other social sciences. The Supreme Court, other of the higher federal courts, and the legal faculties of cur higher educational institutions have been leaders in this bent. Through this mode of procedure, the courts have undertaken judicial lawmaking, large­ ly in the interest of social innovation based on Enlightened thinking in areas in which it is felt that the legislatures and the people are negligent or dila­ tory. Because of the greater publicity obtained by the higher courts and le­ gal faculties, the impression is created * “The Common Law,” by Oliver Wendell Holmes, 1881.

J E W IS H LIFE

of overwhelming acceptance of prag­ matic principles. However, our federal and state laws reflect the influence ol natural law, empiricist thinking, and puritanical concepts (my emphasis on these three elements should not be in­ terpreted as a denigration of the over­ whelming impact of the development of our industrial society, and the ef­ fects of economic pressures on juris­ prudence); many of our legislators and judges are adherents of the ideol­ ogies underlying these approaches.

Deliberately or instinctively, they are responsive to public opinion, which does not permit the law to precede it unduly, and controls both the legisla­ ture and the courts.

That the legal practitioners and the higher courts are divided has been ob­ vious for some time. The American Bar Association is strongly conserva­ tive, and there have been several re­ cent instances in which it has indicat­ ed its disapproval of the Supreme Court’s sociological jurisprudence. In 1959 the annual meeting of the ABA approved a report critical of the effect of the Supreme Court on matters in­ volving national security. (“The Su­ preme Court,” Edited by Leon I. Salo­ mon, 1961, p. 119) In 1958 the Con­ ference of (State) Chief Justices criti­ cized the Court’s basic legal concepts and philosophy. (Ibid., p. 128) The current efforts in California by liber­ tarians to prevent removal of appoint­ ment of judges from the political proc­ ess reflects, among other factors, the realization that judges nominated by the bar would tend to be traditional and conservative in their attitudes. The above examples and others noted are primarily in the political and economic fields with which many of us are not sympathetic; however, these conserva-

January 1969

tive views apply also in the fields of religion and personal morality. The bar tends to dispute the sociological jurists, most of whom have been aca­ demic rather than practicing lawyers.

The more common viewpoint of the lawyers and the jurists who come from their ranks is expressed in the words of Sir Owen Dixon, Chief Justice of the Australian High Court: “It is not (the lawyers’) business to contribute to the constructive activities of the community, but to keep the founda­ tions and the framework steady.” (“Law in Society,” by Geoffrey Sawyer, 1965, p. 18) The advocacy of social jurisprudence by the higher judiciary has resulted currently in serious ero­ sion of the confidence of the general community and of the bar in court rul­ ings, especially of the federal courts of appeal and the Supreme Court. r p H E nature of the laws in this JL country and the manner in which they are implemented are indicative to a degree of the moral quality of the country. All states have laws barring brothels; all but one forbid homosex­ ual activities. Some states have laws concerning lesbianism. Only five states do not have laws which impose crim­ inal sanctions for adultery, while ten states do not have laws applying to fornication. With respect to brothels, the past twenty years have witnessed a major housecleaning. Arrests for ho­ mosexual activities are not uncommon, although it is to be presumed that, on the basis of the estimated number of cases, the effect serves largely to dem­ onstrate society’s disapproval rather than to police strictly. The true atti­ tude towards fornication and adultery is not well-defined. In most states the laws appear to be obsolescent, reflect-

15

ing the apathy prevalent in the com­ occurred because of complaints of munity, the confusion and uncertainty neighbors. arising because of the existence of con­ These examples are evidence of the flicting values. In this respect, a recent decided difference in attitude and con­ article in the Wall Street Journal (July duct between small and large centers 5, 1968) is illuminating, in that it re­ of population. From the latest census ports a nationwide reinvigoration of figures (1962), cities of 100,000 or the sex laws, with most of the arrests more account for about 38% of the taking place in small towns. To quote population; the remaining 62 percent the Journal, New York has had two live in cities of less than 100,000 popu­ adultery and no fornication prosecu­ lation. These statistics cannot be pre­ tions in the past fifty years. On the sumed to provide a definitive indication other hand, the small city of Sheboy­ of the public division of thinking on gan, Wisconsin, had 84 cases in 1967 morality; they constitute a basis for alone. The police chief of Sheboygan questioning the generally accepted feel­ is quoted as saying that most arrests ing of over-all communal malaise.

AND FROM ANOTHER C O R N E R ____ F the viewpoints and ideologies of the general community, both lay people and many of the legal element, are inclined to be traditional but con­ fused and beset with uncertainty, the postures taken by the Enlightened, the libertarian segment of the population, is far more articulate, even though a careful study might indicate significant variations and numerous sects. In es­ sence, the principles of the Enlight­ ened have developed into a form of religion, as given by the modem dic­ tionary definition: a cause, principle, system of tenets held with ardor, de­ votion, conscientiousness, and faith; a value held to be of supreme impor­ tance. We note here the primary be­ liefs of this faith at the present time which have bearing on its morality.

Since they are the concepts of a noninstitutionalized creed, they are not uni­ formly accepted or appreciated by freethinkers. Nevertheless they may be considered as the basic elements of the cult.

1. Man is a creature of logic who

I

is capable of solving all of his problems by reason alone. This thesis eliminates the need for the Supreme Being.

2. Man is basically “good.” “Evil” stems from his environment or from pathological conditions.

Corollaries of this belief are that all immoral actions are the consequences of disease and that man should not be held respons­ ible for his sins.

3. Man, through his scientific pur­ suits, is or can become om­ niscient. Progress is therefore in­ evitable, a further rationale for ignoring or denying the Creator.

4. The pursuit of happiness and the attainment of comfort are primary goals of the individual, to which he has a natural “right.”

5. Man’s greatest good is achieved through an ever-continuing Pro­ gress—a dynamic state in which change is honored almost for its own sake.

16

J E W IS H LIFE

6. Self restraint is injurious to the well-being of the individual, leading to neuroses.

It is not my intention to consider here all of the characteristics of the En­ lightened. It cannot be denied that this faith, like other religions, has virtues and values which should be acknowl­ edged and praised. The sole purpose in their presentation here is to note their impact on personal morality.

N the past half century and more, the libertarian apotheosis of man has contributed to the development of many dogmas in the field of personal morality, including the Freudian con­ cepts of sexual behavior and John Dewey’s relativistic concept of morals.

During the past several decades a most determined attack on traditional mor­ ality has ben mounted by the propon­ ents of the Enlightenment. Because of their stature in the intellectual com­ munity (definitely not to be equated to the Enlightened), their ideas obtain wide acceptance from adherents of other faiths who would logically be expected to question the new doctrines insofar as they constitute violations of the ideologies of the older religions.

The uncritical belief in the basic goodness and rights of the individual has resulted in emphasis on the pre­ rogatives of the individual as opposed to responsibility to the community.

From the thesis that restraints on man’s conduct should be imposed only where immediate definite harm will otherwise occur (at least in the field of morality) has developed the con­ cept of private practices as against public conduct, thus evading a frontal attack on the standards of the com­ munity. Indeed there is a large articu­ late section of the Enlightened for

I

January 1969

whom sex and love are equated, and are paramount as man’s greatest val­ ues. The contemporary aspect of the obsession with the physical aspects of loving has been fostered and com­ pounded by the libertarian devotion to freedom of expression and its sexual manifestations.

The past two decades have also witnessed determined efforts by the Enlightened to eradicate the gen­ eral abhorrence for homosexuality.

The specific terms of the libertarian approach are represented by the code proposed by the American Law Insti­ tute, an organization of authorities in jurisprudence including judges and lawyers, but reflecting largely the fac­ ulties of legal institutions. The Law Institute code recommended in May 1955 (“Life, Death, and the Law,” by Norman St. John-Steras, 1961, p. 219) that relations of a sexual nature be­ tween consenting adults should no longer be subjected to law, provided that they take place in private. Its rea­ sons for coming to this decision are similar to those of the English Wolfenden Committee in 1957: (1) the lack of harm to the general community; (2) the unenforceability of the penal law; (3) the opportunities created for blackmail; (4) the unsuitability of im­ prisonment for offenders; (5) the un­ due interference in personal affairs; and (6) the strain placed by the law on limited police resources. Space limita­ tions prevent detailed analysis here, although from a Jewish and a general logical point of view I consider the reasons shallow and deceptive. To date the actions of the Illinois legislature and the efforts in New York to im­ plement corresponding action may be considered as offshoots of the Law In­ stitute proposal.

17

In one area, that of commercialized prostitution, the viewpoints of the tra­ ditionalists and of the Enlightened have been analogous. The noticeable reduction in brothels has resulted in large measure from this agreement, even though the reasons have differing foundations.

HE views of the Enlightened, the educated articulate minority, play a prominent part in the interpretation of the law and in the cultivation and spread of new ideas. They constitute a vehement minority which, in oppos­ ing or supporting moral ideas, are more effective than a majority which is oftentimes impassive and uncertain of its principles. It is therefore diffi­ cult to assess the extent to which the libertarian concepts have been ab­ sorbed by the general community.

In the field of education, primarily in institutions of higher learning, their viewpoints have taken deep root; ef­ fects in the secondary schools, and even in the elementary schools, can not be ignored. The social sciences since the 1930’s have come to accept Enlightened doctrines increasingly; students are therefore subjected to par­ tisan moral canons at a period in their lives when they are most susceptible.

The principles are captivating and per­ suasive; the neutral, objective guise un­ der which they are presented promotes their ready acceptance.

Whereas as little as thirty years ago traditional moral arid ethical concepts were still quite common in sociolog­ ical texts (for example, “Social Organi­ zation,” by Chas. H. Cooley, 1909), rationalist thinking is standard at pres­ ent. Teachers were urged during the ’30’s to fashion the curriculum and the procedure of the school in such a man­

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18

ner as to definitely and positively in­ fluence the social attitudes, ideals, and behavior of the coming generation. (“The Story of the Law,” by Rene A. Wormser, 1962, p. 462y Today we are observing the results of the grad­ ual development and implementation of this policy. In teaching the practice of challenging all values, the educa­ tional system has tended to undermine our traditional morals and the influ­ ence of the home.

The specific role which the school should have with respect to the main­ tenance of moral codes has also been questioned and debated, inconclusive­ ly. At present one can validly question the opinion supported in 1948 by the National Educational Association (“Church, State and Freedom,” by Leo Pfeifer, p. 299) that the public-school emphasis on spiritual and moral val­ ues, integrated with school instruction, is sufficient for the student’s life, thus supporting the secular advocacy of minimizing the need for religious guid­ ance in these areas. n l ig h t e n m e n t

principles of

morality have in recent years had E a pronounced effect on decisions of the

Supreme Court. As an activist court, the moral trend has been most notice­ able in its actions concerning porno­ graphic material. Through its insist­ ence that freedom of expression out­ weighs practically all other considera­ tions and is to be limited only where the content of the material would con­ stitute a “clear and present danger,” the Court has given sanction for the spread of written and visual material which mocks and weakens the moral standards and has sought to create a social atmosphere in which the moral principles are little more than customs.

J E W IS H LIFE

However, traditional legal concepts which have been handed down to the courts constitute an inhibiting force on many of the jurists, an influence which has retarded the encroachment of libertarian principles. The trend to­ wards greater permissiveness which the Supreme Court’s proclivities has promoted has increased during the past two decades. In the 1950’s sev­ eral implementing decisions to inhibit state and city censorship of movies were required to establish the Su­ preme Court’s relative downgrading of moral principles, since the lower courts for an extended period persisted in adhering to traditional moral views.

During the past ten years, as the ef­ fects of the Supreme Court’s opinions have become more clear, there have been formed several organizations whose purpose it has been to combat the flow of pornographic material. The effectiveness of their efforts is not ob­ vious; we who live in the larger urban areas are more likely to note the downtrend than the results of the counteroffensive.

One of the theses of the Enlightened postulates the denial of the right of the general public to impose its moral requirements in the “private” domain.

This concept, suggested above in the fifth item of the American Law Insti­ tute reasons for restricting laws con­ cerning homosexuality, is based on the premise that there are actions of a strictly private nature which do not harm the general community, and that it is feasible to have both private and public morality of widely different na­ tures. In the past it has been common­ ly accepted that there is no private area of morality in which the com­ munity lacks the right to become in­ volved, and that the law should and

January 1969

must concern itself with the mainte­ nance of community morality. With­ out common ideas on general morals and ethics, a society can not endure.

There must be a basic agreement of what is good and what is evil. By its very definition evil is that element against which the good man must fight, towards which he must be in­ tolerant, from which he must shrink in disgust and horror. Several cul­ tures which differ markedly in their ideas concerning the general moral foundations of their society can not exist together in peace and harmony.

This then has been and still is in many places the public viewpoint, ar­ rived at either instinctively or rational­ ly, a set of standards which in the past has always stemmed from religion, but which currently has endeavored with difficulty to find a secular base.

There are innumerable private atti­ tudes which originate both from the mind of man and from his desires. It is essential that an equilibrium be es­ tablished between the need for indi­ vidual freedom and development, and the need for high public moral stand­ ards to maintain the integrity of the community. The idea of accepted pri­ vate morals, in the sense of conduct which neither affects nor concerns the outside world, is anomolous, since in­ dulgence in them affects all those close to the indulger and through them oth­ ers in the community. Society cannot ignore the morality of the individual; it is robust only insofar as there is ade­ quate coherence in the societal be­ havior. More specifically, promiscuity —not to speak of homosexuality and other sexual perversions—strikes at marriage and the family which are the foundation of society. Carried to its limit, of course, if enough people re-

19

linquish the traditional morality, so­ ciety would disintegrate. The likeli­ hood of this occurrence may be slight; the evil is of such potential that so­ ciety must protect itself. A more sub­ tle and yet more likely effect is the impact of “private” disdain on the morality of the public. The life of the community requires the practice of personal morality of a high order, which in turn necessitates strong, in­ stinctive belief by the individual mem­ bers. Private immorality can exist only where the community accepts and is indifferent to such practices. (“The En­ forcement of Morals,” by Patrick Devlin, 1965) O protect and preserve itself, soci­ T ety cannot restrict its right in the­ ory to infringe on the private domain, although it must constantly avoid the dangers inherent in imposing controls

on the individual. In Jewish thinking, individual rights have always been prized most highly; nevertheless they are not permitted to undermine the community’s existence and beliefs.

One notes, for example, the limitations on private actions in a matter involv­ ing personal morality in the case of the conduct of Pinchas in slaying the Israelite and his Midianite mistress.

(Bamidbar 25,8) The basic thesis in­ volves the right of the community, through its leadership in the person of Pinchas, to invade the private domain, deep within the tent of Zimri, to take firm steps to eliminate a situation which, if left uncorrected, would have permitted the spread of the diseases of immorality. In the modern idiom, the Torah denies the right of the pri­ vate domain to breed immorality, just as it refuses to permit the sanctuary to serve as a shield for the murderer.

A PROBLEM OF MANKIND OMPARISON of the American moved its limitations and actually C scene with that in the rest of the glorified the sexual bond between men. world demonstrates significant differ­ Oriental countries and South America ences^ differences which were much greater years ago, to the point that we were labelled as Puritans (in the derog­ atory sense popularized by the Enlight­ ened). With respect to homosexuality, the abhorrence common in this country is not so deeply felt universally. The majority of European countries do not impose criminal sanctions against ped­ erasts except in exceptional cases. Eng­ land, with the approval of the Church of England, has recently lifted its legal ban where the activity is carried on privately. Only Germany and Austria maintain full legal barriers, with Nor­ way retaining unenforced laws. Dur­ ing the Hitlerian period, Germany re20

do little to limit this abomination. Ho­ mosexual practices were common in the pre-war Japanese army. (“Contem­ porary Social Problems,” by R. K. Merton and R. A. Nisbett, 1967) For the less flagrant sexual prac­ tices, the barriers in other countries are even less strict. No European country has laws punishing adultery or fornication. Prostitution until relative­ ly recently was a recognized occupa­ tion in many countries, licensed and regulated. It was only in 1958, when Italy abolished licensed prostitution, that the custom ended in continental Europe. Throughout much of the Ori­ ent prostitution is still taken for grantJ E W IS H LIFE

ed. However, in the Moslem world, prostitution is strictly forbidden for Moslem women; it is regarded with as great horror and abhorrence as it is by religious Jews. The attack on pros­ titution has been initiated in Oriental countries with the spread of the En­ lightened viewpoint. Japan in the past fifteen years has witnessed its first laws restricting harlotry. India has undertak­ en efforts for more than twenty years to control the practice. Internationally the United Nations has developed a convention for the suppression of brothels and their supporters.

N considering European conditions, it is true that prostitution as a com­ mercial institution becomes outmoded in nations which have a large Enlight­ ened influence. However this effect is largely (we might even say entirely) offset by the increase in individual sex­ ual license which has accompanied the expansion in personal liberties. Thus in the Scandinavian countries there has been exceptional deterioration in moral principles. The situation in these nations may be understood from the following quotations from a report presented in 1964 by a group of more than one hundred Swedish doctors and medical teachers to the Swedish gov­ ernment. In the report, noted in the American press (Los Angeles Times, March 1, 1964), the signatories ex­ pressed concern over sexual hysteria in the young and asserted that “since it appears to be a product of modern education, it is now the business of the schools to correct it.” It stated that the advanced pedagogues who now rule Swedish education have bombarded school children with sexual instruction for which their immaturity ill fits them, and the result has been an un-

I

January 1969

natural over-sexualization of the rising generation. In their adolescent way the young have confounded instruc­ tion in method with encouragement to practice. The doctors expressed con­ cern with respect to the high rates of venereal disease (in 1964 Sweden had the civilized world’s highest rate for new cases of gonorrhea, and Denmark the highest number for syphilis).

The report referred to above was vigorously attacked for its puritanical tone by the Swedish libertarians—the critics, the press, university professors, and the principal educators. It would appear that the report accomplished little; a later report made in 1968 to the World Council of Churches indi­ cates that premarital sex relations has become an accepted custom in Swe­ den. (Los Angeles Times, July 1968) In 1967 Denmark removed all censor­ ship and withdrew from the Geneva Convention on Obscene Literature (Los Angeles Times, June 2, 1968)— the logical consequence of its Enlight­ ened faith solemnly recommended by “expert” psychologists who agreed that obscene material did not adverse­ ly affect the reading public.

ECAUSE of the scope of the ma­ terial which has been covered in this article, the discussion has neces­ sarily been cursory on several matters.

Hopefully, however, it provides a com­ pilation of information and thoughts which may serve as a limited means for evaluating the moral climate in this country and for developing the basis for further considerations. There is little question that we are facing significant deterioration of the moral standards under which our nation has grown, aiid that this change is most seriously affecting the conduct and

B

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character of both young and old, es­ Although the higher courts, especially pecially the former. This condition is the Supreme Court, lean definitely to­ especially true in large urban areas, wards the theories of the Enlightened, where the inclinations of the press, the there is much foot-dragging and grum­ screen, television, and radio are more bling at the state and lower levels. Our likely to stress freedom rather than populace and many of our judiciary is mature understanding. In the general largely conservative which, to para­ community, the contamination is ap­ phrase a remark by Professor H. L. A. parent not only in changed behavior Hart, accepts the principle that there patterns; it is more marked in the in­ is a presumption that common and difference and lack of reaction to im­ long established principles and insti­ moral activities (an apathy, incidental­ tutions are likely to have merits not ly, which carries over into the ethical apparent to rational philosophers and area, in which we find a similar weak­ not amenable to modern scientific anal­ ening of the sense of responsibility), ysis. In the general community one and vacillation in adhering to princi­ notes at times signs of the strength of ples. Our public educational system, the moral posture on which this na­ which is deeply permeated with the tion has been founded, an attitude, spirit of Enlightenment and promotes however, which is debilitated because the idea of the need for change per se, of the lack of articulate, intellectual is increasingly losing its capacity to leadership, and which finds it difficult provide satisfactory moral foundations to withstand the irreverent, mocking, for the young. The activism of the savagely antagonistic and intolerant at­ higher judiciary has in many instances titude of the new religion of secular­ likewise impaired our true spiritual ism, a religion which does not have a and social needs. high regard for either G-d or personal However, it is most important to morality, and which is now acquiring realize that we live in a country whose a more authoritarian attitude even in foundations, spiritual and legal, in­ the democracies, as it finds its progress clude a large measure of puritanical retarded hy traditional feelings and be­ morality which is embodied in codes liefs. Where the Enlightenment has which have been reflected in the laws, succeeded, one can readily note its poorly implemented though they may character, whether it is in authoritar­ be, and in the standards of the com­ ian Russia or libertarian Sweden— munity and the courts to a greater ex­ both morality and faith in the Creator tent than in any other nation of the are the primary victims. world. We observe that the sentiment of mature individuals is anomolous; it the religious Jew, the situation has been noted even by “objective neu­ is fraught with both peril and po­ tral” observers that there exists a gen­ tentialities. We, whose ancestors of a eral anxiety about sexual behavior few generations ago escaped largely which is not congruous with professed from centuries-old hateful oppression viewpoints. Verbal reactions and re­ in foreign lands, here associate with marks concerning what should be done and are welcomed by a liberal group­ oftentimes differ markedly from philo­ ing which has aided us in our struggle sophical concepts and actual conduct. for freedom and affluence against reac22

J E W IS H LIFE

tionary elements in this nation which have little understanding and appreci­ ation for our spiritual needs and de­ sires— as little as has the freethinker.

The libertarian accepts those humani­ tarian concepts which are a basic ele­ ment of our Mitzvoth and our beliefs.

However, he has a major objection to certain aspects of our faith—the Jew­ ish commitment to G-d and morality.

With these he does not compromise, as we cannot.

Our faith and morality are not sub­ jects to be debated—-they may only be explained. We cannot accept concepts of private morality which undermine public morality. We cannot entrust our youth to the present crop of social scientists, since they represent a dif­ ferent faith whose teachings under­ mine our spiritual existence. We must demand public institutions (schools, courts, etc.) in consonance with our religious needs, since the present insti­ tutions are devoted too often to pro­ moting secular religion. For these pur­ poses we must undertake a greater in­ volvement in the affairs of the general community, in cooperation with and support of those elements with whom our needs are in agreement, to pro­ mote our common welfare.

• How can we maintain the alli­ ance with the libertarian influ­ ence which has befriended Jews since their coming to this coun­ try and which has espoused eth­ ical ideals, and yet support the more conservative groups of the general community in maintain­ ing faith in G-d and His moral requirements?

• Can we permit public schools to fashion moral law based on modern Enlightened concepts?

If not, what can we do to intro­ duce those factors of the Jewish religious point of view which are acceptable to the major part of the general community? How are we to contend most effec­ tively with “objective,” “neu­ tral,” secular education?

• Do we accept denial of any cen­ sorship as a basic principle? If so, why? And if not, how do we develop a valid countervailing viewpoint and obtain suitable understanding of its purpose?

• Is immoral behavior to be con­ sidered a disease—entirely or in part? If yes, who is to decide— the Enlightened psychiatrist?

r p o pursue the courses suggested A above requires the joint applica­ tion of Torah learning and currently developed knowledge to modern prob­ lems. Some of the questions which warrant deep study in evolving courses of action for the future are presented for the reader’s consideration: • How are we to contend with the thesis which places human in­ terests on one side, and the Cre­ ator and His moral demands on the other?

My purpose in preparing this arti­ cle has been not to submit specific concrete proposals but with the hope of stimulating the thinking of more capable and learned minds. It seems hardly a fortuitous circumstance that so many of us were permitted to es­ cape to this land. Our presence here has contributed to one miracle, the birth and continued existence of the State of Israel. It is not unlikely that there may be additional purposes for which we can thank Providence that we have been permitted to come here.

January 1969

23

In Mexico

By JACOB BELLER

EXICO’S present-day Jewish com­ es based on the work of informers and munity had its beginnings but in some cases of confessions and par­ M a few decades ago, having no link with dons. Many were trapped by inform­ the shadowed story of the Jews who preceded them in that land long ago.

That original chapter of MexicanJewish history starts, as is well known, with the Spanish Conquest. One of the men in the expedition of Cortez was the secret Jew Hernando Alonso. Be­ cause of the persecution waged by the Spanish Inquisition, many Anusim emigrated to the lands of the New World in the hope that it would be easier for them to practice Judaism there. But the Inquisition pursued them relentlessly. Inquisitorial tri­ bunals were established in Mexico City, Lima, and later in Cartagena, with commissars in the adjoining prov­ inces. Yet through several generations, isolated individuals and families per­ sisted in their secret lives as Jews in the face of terrible danger. Mexican ar­ chives are full of orders, protocols, and verdicts of the tortures and trials of the accused, of accusations and charg-

24

ers in that tragic period; again and again were martyrs burnt alive at the stake for their loyalty to Judaism in Mexico’s colonial era. The Inquisition eventually achieved its ghastly pur­ pose, and for a long period no traces of Jewish life was to be found in Mexico.

Not until 1862 do we again hear anything about Jews in Mexico. This was a report appearing in the Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums that there were 100 Jews in Mexico, main­ ly agents for Danish, Belgian, and French firms. Subsequently, however, these appear to have been submerged in the surrounding population and ab­ sorbed by it. Twenty years later the Austrian Chief Rabbi Jellinek pub­ lished a letter in the London Jewish Chronicle about a proposal for Jew­ ish migration to Mexico. Whatever be­ came of this is not known. Nor did a similar proposal, made to President J E W IS H LIFE

Porfirio Diaz by John W. DeKay, the president of the Mexico-Peking Com­ pany, bear fruit.

T the beginning of the twentieth century Jewish families, some of them Sephardim from Turkey and Syria, others Ashkenazim from Russia, settled in Mexico. As with Jewish set­ tlers in all the other countries of the New World they started as pack ped­ dlers, knocking at doors and offering various goods. Soon they began to be concerned about Jewishness: a minyon would gather in a private home for prayers, finding common bond despite the differences of background and of language. Presently a group of the Syrian Jews bought a piece of land from a Spanish cemetery and conse­ crated it as a Jewish burial ground.

In 1910-1912, Francisco Madera gave permission to the Jews who stemmed from Damascus to build a synagogue.

This is the Monte Sinai synagogue which still stands and is in use.

During the first World War a num­ ber of North American Jews came to Mexico, some as agents of U. S. firms.

Among them were men with organiza­ tional and communal experience who founded a Young Men’s Hebrew As­ sociation on the model of the Ameri­ can synagogue center, i.e., a place not only for worship but which embraces numerous other communal and social activities. In the years 1921-22 when the United States started to restrict its immigration, many Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe came to Mexico in the hope of finding easier admission to the States. They were soon per­ suaded, however, that it was possible to settle in Mexico just as well. De­ spite the difficulties experienced in be-

»

January 1969

coming established, they soon begail to organize a communal and cultural structure. In the usual manner they es­ tablished a synagogue (in 1922) with the appropriate name of Nid’Jei Is­ rael (The “Castaways” of Israel). In the same year, the secularists amongst the Jews founded the I. L. Peretz Cul­ tural Association.

With the rise of Hitler, there came to Mexico Jews from Czechoslovakia and Hungary who might be assumed to comprise the “third migration.”

This lasted until Mexico effectively shut its gates to those who were so desperately seeking to escape the Nazi traps and who finally arrived exhaust­ ed at Mexican ports to find the doors barred.

A T the present time there are J \ . 30,000 Jews in Mexico. The for­ mer peddlers, or as they are called in Mexico, aboneros, are today factory owners, financiers, or importers. Their rise came about in stages. The first stage was the pack on the back; the second was the puestos, a kind of open-air shop in the marketplace. Be­ cause of pressure from non-Jewish merchants who saw a threat in the puestos, these were abolished, where­ upon the Jewish merchants opened up workshops. These eventually grew and expanded to large-scale factories. Now Mexicans who sell at the market are provided with their merchandise by these Jewish manufacturers.

The rise of Mexico’s economy owes much to the vitality, experience, and energy which its Jewish populace con­ tributed. The closeness to the U.S.A. was also of some importance in this respect, for Jews were able to establish contact with American world com-

25

merce. Today Jews play an important committee that coordinates Jewish role in many of the country’s indus­ schooling. The schools in the Ashke­ tries, including textiles, knitwear,, nazic sector receive 30% of their furniture manufacture, chemicals, the budget from the community; the film industry, and various facets of im­ teachers seminary is fully maintained port and export. by the community. There is a hali for The days in the poor, harrow streets meetings and entertainment, a museum and dark and dingy lodgings where of European Jewry, a religious depart­ Mexico’s Jews dwelt as newcomers are ment which is devoted to all questions over. Now they are located in the spa­ of religious life, a department for wel­ cious, airy, and comfortable parts of fare assistance which also provides aid the city such as Hipódromo, Polanco, for yeshivoth abroad in order to avoid and Chapultepec (where Emperor the influx of itinerant collectors, a cul­ Maximilian once dwelt). They have tural department, and many other de­ erected commodious buildings which partments and programs which cen­ are the very last word in architecture. tralize and unify Jewish life in Mexico.

Hudson B. Strud, the author of “Time­ The other communal groupings less Mexico,” told me during a visit have also expanded their programs. there that American real estate com­ Some have their own synagogues, panies confided in him that Jews are some their own rabbis. The Ashkenaz­ the best customers for the ultra-mod­ ic Kehillah of Nid’Jei Israel, itself the em houses in the aristocratic districts. major communal unit, is joined with the other communal groupings in the HE growth and improvement in Jewish Central Committee—the roof the economic status of Mexico’s organization of the Mexican Jewish Jews has given them the opportunity community. of building their cultural and com­ The Mexican community takes munity life on a broad and generous pride in its sports center for Jewish scale. In the capital, Mexico City, youth called the Centro Deportivo Is­ there are seven well organized com­ raelita with a membership of 14,000. munities, and two provincial centers, This is an institution in the North Monterey and Guadaljara, also have American style which communal plan­ organized Kehilloth. The Nid’Jei Is­ ners have transplanted to Latin Amer­ rael, once so tiny, has become a mod­ ican soil. In addition to athletic and em community with a departmental­ cultural programs it has another im­ ized apparatus embracing an entire portant function—it erases the differ­ range of activities and program. Now ences between children of Ashkenazim known officially as the Ashkenazic Ke- and Sephardim, between Jews of Ger­ hillah Nid’Jei Israel, it recently opened man, Hungarian, Turkish, and Syrian its new headquarters, a splendid new origin. This experiment has succeeded building at 70 Acapulco Street, so Well that in the last few years sim­ equipped and provided with the ulti­ ilar youth centers have been established mate in conveniences and facilities. in several other Latin American coun­ Each activity has its respective section. tries, including Chile, Peru, Venezuela, There is an education section with a and Colombia.

T

26

J E W IS H LIFE

EXIC© CITY has one of the best organized Jewish education­ al systems in Latin America. Its Jew­ ish schools are “integral” schools— what we call all-day schools. They begin at kindergarten level and reach as far as high school preparatory for university. Those who complete the latter can be admitted to the National University. The schools are of vari­ ous types: the secular Yiddishist I. L. Peretz School and another of similar type, the Hebraist Tarbuth school, a religious school, Yavneh, and even a yeshivah. According to statistics, 80% of Jewish children attend these schools. This is riot only the highest proportion in all of Latin America but exceeds by far the figures for the United States and Canada.

The Mexican community counts it­ self fortunate in the first Jewish immi­ grants. A number of idealists of vari­ ous ideologies came in the early stream of immigration. They brought with them a commitment and sense of goal, they built the community and dedicated themselves to transplanting the Jewishness they knew to the soil of Mexico. Much has been achieved since the time when the first Jewish teacher, Meyer Berger, travelled to the nearest U.S.A. cities to seek aid to establish a Jewish school in Mexico and when Jewish organizations in the States helped maintain the school.

Today Mexican Jews do not have to seek aid abroad. They maintain their own schools quite generously, erecting and supporting excellent buildings with the most up-to-date equipment and use the very latest educational tech­ niques.

Here we must quote the folk say­ ing: “If things are so good, why are

M

January 1969

they so bad?” And things are bad with Mexico’s Jewish youth for, despite all the efforts, the results are negative.

After forty years of Yiddishist and Hebraist Jewish schools, the youth with few exceptions speak very little Yiddish or Hebrew, is remote from Jewish interests, and the situation gets worse with time. rr iH IS is not only a Mexican pheA nomenon but a problem Latin American Jewry in general is wrestling with. The Mexican Jewish community grew in height but it has not grown in depth. On the surface all looks well but the legacy has not yet been hand­ ed over to the younger generation and a community without a youth faces hopeless prospects. . . . Many of the former idealists and champions are no longer alive, others have remained ob­ durate and stiff-necked, unwilling to understand that times have changed and unwilling to cope with the day-byday changes that compel one to talk to the youth in its own vernacular, are unwilling to recognize that Yid­ dish without Jewishness has no basis for existence, that secularist Yiddishism is bankrupt everywhere, that es­ pecially in Catholic countries Yiddish alone cannot divert the current of as­ similation—and most of all, the en­ vironment must be accounted for and adjusted to.

When the visitor to Mexico and other such communities is shown such magnificent buildings and statistics, he is at first astonished but when the scene is studied a little more closely the facts are seen differently. I know quite well that Mexican Jews and Jews of other countries in Latin America are very sensitive to criticism (this

27

they have acquired from their non- if their actions promote assimilation Jewish neighbors) so I will cite the we can do without their help.” “Our words of a Mexican Jewish writer, the *task,” he wrote, “is to clear the weeds late Salomon Kahan, one of the vet­ out of our own Jewish garden.” One erans of Yiddish letters in Mexico and of the Jewish Agency sh’lichim gave a pioneer builder of the Mexican com­ him a characteristic reply: “Simply be­ munity. Writing of Mexican Jewry’s cause the invitation is not in the Yid­ problems iin his book “Mexikaner Re- dish language, is this a reason to ig­ flexn” in 1954, he stressed the dangers nore a conference of Jewish youth? implicit in the rapid estrangement of Must Zionist training be scuttled only the youth that are the products of the because the youth must be reached community’s schools: “Their absence via Spanish? Are you aware,” he asked from local community life creates a the editor, “that the largest part of the serious problem for our education and younger people who had years of our future. The former pupils of our schooling in the Yiddish schools do schools are never seen at any of our not even use the language at home undertakings. On the third anniversary with their parents?” of the Uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto, Salomon Kahan, addressing himself not even a few pupils of the high to parents in the aforementioned 1‘Mex­ school were to be seen.” ikaner Reflexn,n further said: “Even Eliahu Chinich, one of the veterans though your children may attend the of Jewish education in Mexico, sum­ Yiddish school, they get no stimula­ marizing the results of Jewish educa­ tion to use the language in their own tion in Mexico in an article in Ha- home and listening to their parents door, came to the conclusion that painfully straining to speak a fractured between kindergarten and the univer­ Spanish, in time they acquire a disdain sity preparatory class, the knowledge for Yiddish as something inferior. acquired on Jewish culture and his­ Their Jewish studies become a me­ tory is painfully limited. “It does not chanical rote with no connection to even reach the level of the ability to the inner expression of their life.” read a Hebrew or Yiddish book,” he This proves that the fault for the writes. This after forty years of Jew­ youths’ indifference to Yiddish is not ish education in Mexico. theirs alone . . . nor is It confined to Some years ago, the editor of the Mexico. People who have risen in Shtimme commented in that paper their shtetl often develop a complex that among the notices received in the about Yiddish—the language seems to office was a news release written in remind them of the poverty and the Spanish, announcing a youth confer­ mudstrewn street they would rather ence, which was to deal with problems forget about. This kind of “shmenof education. Such a release, the edi­ drickism,” often prevalent in people tor stated, he would not publish, on who would rather use a faulty Spanish principle, it being written in Spanish than any Yiddish, it is needless to say, rather than Yiddish. The conference sets up a wall between parent and was arranged by Israeli shTichim “and child.

28 J E W IS H LIFE

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Copy of letter sent in 1925 by the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America to the newly established Nid’Jei Israel Congregation in Mexico City, to­ gether with a donation of $200 for the Congregation’s Hebrew School.

January 1969

29

Hi

EAR in mind that this happened more than twenty years ago. The youth of that time were the earliest of the second Jewish generation in Mex­ ico. Today they are grown and have become engineers, doctors; architects, and mathematicians and are in other professions but without any Jewish spiritual or cultural baggage and look with disdain on their parents. In fact, the tragedy goes further and deeper.

Menahem Gelehrter, an emissary of the Jewish Agency, writes in his book “Yahaduth B'Yabesheth M ’Soereth” (Jews in a Restless Land) that during a campaign visit he made three years ago to Monterey—a small Jewish community of 120 families—he found that his first contributor’s daughter was intermarried and the second had himself married out. In the third home he visited he found the mother sick— her daughter had just married a nonJewish butcher.

The younger generation of Jewish professionals, though fully Mexicanized, have not succeeded in integrat­ ing themselves into the surrounding environment, just as in the other Latin American countries. They are not at ease with the lower levels of the Mex­ ican population and the upper levels will not accept them. Devoid of the fortifying strength of positive Jewish identification and values and detached from the ranks of Mexican society, they are suspended in a limbo.

The same militant editor who years ago refused to publish a report of a Zionist youth conference only because it was not written in Yiddish has re­ cently voiced in his column in the Shtimme the plaint that MexicanJewish youth does not want to be­ come involved in Jewish communal

B

30

life. “ ‘Come,’ we tell them,” he writes, u isotd you will take over the leader­ ship’—but with small exceptions they do not come. We have erected struc­ tures, established schools and institùtions of all kinds, and nothing moves them.”

How can he now expect them to come when years ago he and others resisted them with a wilful blindness, ignoring completely circumstances and the fact that even then the majority of the youth was not at home with Yid­ dish; instead of approaching them in their language and bringing them clos­ er to Jewish interests, he fought them on the basis of Yiddish or nothing.

Surely, Jewish content in Spanish is better than no Jewish content whatso­ ever?

VEN then, when the struggle for E Yiddish was going on, there were Jewish writers who were far-sighted enough to foresee the inevitable real­ ity, men whom no one would suspect of not being close and attached to Yiddish. In his “Mexikaner Reflexn” Kahan pointed out that “there is among our youth a minority element which experiences a cultural and in­ tellectual hunger, a youth one meets at symposiums, at concerts, at the bet­ ter-type of Mexican theatre. Insofar as our Jewish organizations have suc­ ceeded in interesting these young peo­ ple in Jewish matters, they are inter­ ested in hearing about Jewish authors and artists, but on the condition that these talks be given in Spanish.” The same author expressed his satisfaction with the “first swallows of spring”— two books of religious Jewish content which appeared in Spanish : the Passover Haggadah, and thé Book of J E W IS H LIFE

Esther, published for children by the Mexican Mlzrachi.

In September 1967, K. Landau wrote in his column in “La Voz Is­ raelita de M é x i c o “Our education system was admired all over the Jew­ ish world including Israel. For years we invested sweat, blood, and millions of dollars in it. Now it is going from bad to worse. Yiddish is deteriorating in such a degree that it is impossible to stamp it.”

However belatedly, the oncoming danger has been perceived and deter­ mined critics, pointing to the unpalat­ able truths, are making headway against complacent Pollyanas who prefer to cover up the bitter facts and would rather not deal with the realities.

There is still time to save the third generation by a new approach which does not concentrate on language alone. The fact that recently pressure has come from various quarters for a revision and reassessment of Jewish education proves that new paths are being sought.

A recent occurrence gives indication of this. A former leader of the Hashomer Hatzair, and former director of the Tarbuth School, a writer who had been a teacher for many years, has come out with the demand that Jew­ ish studies commence with group prayer; in the kindergarten class, “in­ stead of dealing with the Yiddish words for a flower or a dry Hebrew, the children should begin with ‘Mah Tovu Qholecha Yaacov.’ ” recent years Mexico has been the IofNantisemitic publication and distribution center books, which proceeds without hindrance under the country’s free press laws. Nazi and Nazi-in­ spired literature are among these pub-

January 1969

lications. They are exported through­ out Latin America and sold in some cities in the United States. Several have become best-sellers in Central American countries, appearing in as many as eighteen editions, most of them published by Editorial Jus, a Catholic publishing company.

I counted around twenty such antiSemitic books, among them Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” and others bearing such titles as: “Israel Manda” (Israel Rules), “I Was a Friend of Hitler,” “Was Germany Guilty?,” “The Great Conspiracy,” etc., all replete with the ugliest villification of Jews on the model of the Julius Streicher of evil memory.

The Mexican Jewish community be­ came confronted not long ago with another form of antisemitism—the sudden appearance of defamatory slo­ gans and swastika drawings on more than thirty gravestones in a Jewish cemetery in Tacubaya, outside Mexi­ co City. Although buildings in the city have been similarly defaced in the past, this was the first time that a cem­ etery was thus desecrated. A few weeks later, the Beth El Synagogue in Mexico City was smeared with swas­ tikas and antisemitic slogans. Ac­ counts of the vandalism, published in the press and broadcast on radio and television, evoked wide indignation.

Demands were voiced for a police in­ vestigation, official condemnation of the vandalism, and punishment of the perpetrators.

Following a meeting of leaders of the Comité Central Israelita and rep­ resentatives of Jewish defense organi­ zations with Mayor Alfonso Corona del Rosa, the Mexico City press pub­ lished a statement by the Mayor de­ claring that Mexico upholds human

31

rights and justice and will not permit any acts against any group in its so­ ciety. The Mayor also arinounced a police investigation of the entire de­ velopment.

The Union National Sinarguista, whose half-million members are not recognized by the government as a po­ litical party, and its brother organiza­ tion, the Partido de Acción Nacional, whose delegates in the Mexican Con­ gress are in the opposition, are regard­ ed as sympathetic to the neo-Nazi ele­ ments. Also, conservative Catholic Church elements and the Arab League disseminate anti-Jewish propaganda, as also a neo-Fascist student organiza­ tion, “Muro,” whose members repeats edly paint anti-Jewish slogans on the walls of National University buildings.

The attitude of these groups is by no means shared by the Mexican public as a whole. The government itself is liberal and does not discriminate against any race or religion. The Mexican President Ordaz Diaz recent­ ly awarded the country’s highest or­ der, the “Aztec Eagle,” to Mr. Eliahu Sourasky, a prominent leader of the Jewish Community in Mexico, in rec­ ognition for his contribution to Mexi­ can culture and education.

A T the time of the Six-Day War, the entire Mexican press was very sympathetic to Israel. Subse­ quently there appeared a book entitled “E l C o n flic to d e l M e d io O rie n te V isto P o r M e x ic a n o s ” (The Conflict in the

Middje East Seen by Mexicans”), con­ taining articles of news coverage on the war by correspondents of the most important Mexican newspapers. And in a manifesto published in such lead­

32

ing dailies as E x c e ls io r , N o v e d a d e s , E l D ia , E l U n iv e rsa l, L a P re n sa , and E l S o l d e M e x ic o , more than two hun­ dred intellectuals—writers, composers, lawyers, architects, artists, painters, etc.—expressed their sympathy with Israel.

To demonstrate the Jewish con­ tribution to Spanish culture and to create closer contact betwen Sephar­ dim and Ashkenazim in Latin Ameri­ can Jewish communities, various Mex­ ican Jewish organizations have jointly sponsored, in recent months, an ex­ hibition portraying the Sephardic Jew­ ish Heritage.

The exhibition showed illustrations of the J u d e ria s in many Spanish cities, former synagogues—still bearing He­ brew inscriptions—now such famed churches as Toledo’s “E l T ra n sito ” and “S a n ta M a r ia d e la B l a n c a and dis­ played rare volumes, studies of Span­ ish Jewish scholars in all fields of Spanish culture, art, science, and liter­ ature, and many other features of in­ terest.

The first exhibition was held in the Museo Pedagogico Nacional, the sec­ ond in the Institute Mexicano del Seguro Social, both in Mexico City.

High-ranking government officials and prominent artists, poets, and scientists participated. The exhibition was also shown in Guadalajara and is to take place in the Ashkenazic Kehilla Nid’Jei Israel and later in Panama, Venezuela, and other countries where Sephardic Jewish communities exist. It has at­ tracted wide interest and has contrib­ uted significantly to public apprecia­ tion of the history and role of the Jews in Spanish-speaking lands.

JEWISH LIFE

A Story

A Fish in a Whirlpool

By ELKANAH SCHWARTZ WV^HEN Abraham Seralnick spent ▼T the first Shabboth with only his wife and no relatives or guests, he felt himself entering a new and smiling world. The ecstatic world of the mar­ riage process was beginning to fade away, barely three weeks after the wed­ ding. It was like a case of the bends: from the announcement of the engage­ ment with its concommitant round of lechayims and kisses, through the hec­ tic headsplitting of deciding whom to invite and whom to leave out and where to sit those coming, and finally the last-minute frustrations of appor­ tioning the honors at the ceremony, he was now an unnoticed remnant gone through the pressing machine of the caterers and his new landlord, an­ other nameless object washed ashore by a restless sea onto the beach of humanity.

True, he still had some unfinished business from the wedding ritual: “Thank you” cards to address and mail out, endless haggling with the photographers, and his wife quietly ex­ changing a few pointless gifts. But the spotlights were now gone; the empty schnapps glasses washed and ready for the next happy couple; here and there an acquaintance who was not invit­ ed extended his Mazal Tov while Abraham made lame attempts at apologizing for not having invited the other; but by and large he was just

January 1969

“that new fellow from the next block” to tjie many friendly and inquisitive neighbors to whose “sanctuary” he was now welcome. The first week after the wedding had, naturally, been spent in a round of Shevah B’rochoth par­ ties, catered in their various homes by relatives of his, relatives of his wife’s, friends of his, and friends of his wife’s.

(The two swore off salami for at least a year after that week.) When he re­ turned to his new routine, spending the mornings at the Kollel and the afternoons as a part-time accountant for a hardware firm, the adjustment came relatively easy, for he had long planned it. However, he was denied spending at least the second Shabboth of his new status in his own home be­ cause his mother-in-law had not yet completely weaned herself from her baby. Considering the quality of her cholent, it was a compensation. But the Sholom Aleichem that third Shab­ both, in the sanctity of his own threeand-a-half room apartment (by the count of his landlord, who was obvi­ ously an optimist who had failed math), and in competition with the TV sounds which came floating through the walls from the neighbor’s apartment, was Abraham’s ecstasy: his wife sang like a lark, and since she would not sing in his presence be­ fore the marriage, the song now was twice as sweet.

33

E was now part of the scene, graduated with honors from the floating clan of single youths, his im­ maculate new tallith his badge of recognition in the fraternity of mar­ ried men. He felt as if he had cut the second umbilical cord of his young life, only now there was no one to bother nursing him through his infan­ cy. And as a newborn babe experi­ ences a momentous traumatic ex­ perience when he is cast from the warm darkness of his mother’s womb into the cold light of the world, so did Abraham Seralniek shake with trepi­ dation as he stepped uncertainly from the happy-go-lucky life of boyhood in­ to the unsteady confusion of family life.

He was a boy from Washington Heights who had married a girl from Far Rockaway. Wishing to remain dis­ tant and equidistant from both sets of parents, while keeping up with the Cohens, they had shopped far and wide along the Western banks of Queens County, through the uncharted wilderness of the Graduate Ghetto: Flushing, Kew Gardens Hills, Forest Hills, and other warehouses of paperthin apartments on all sides of Queens Boulevard. They settled on a place nobody approved of, but since only two weeks remained before the wed­ ding, they trusted to fate: Abraham was driving, turned around to say something to his fiancee, and made a wrong turn off the Long Island Ex­ pressway. In front of them was a new building, whose landlord was giving away television sets to lure tenants who would save him from bankrupt­ cy. Unfortunately for Abraham, he found a parking space, and went in to sign a lease. In the three years they subsequently lived there, he never

H

34

found a parking space closer than three blocks away, and only after twenty minutes of looking for it.

When they moved in with their salami hangovers, they had only one piece of furniture they hadn’t bor­ rowed: a Princess telephone. The new Mrs. Seralniek wasted no time in es­ tablishing squatters rights over it.

Abraham waited for the landlord to send a TV mechanic to connect the set he got as a bonus. However, a few weeks later the landlord went bankrupt anyway, and Abraham called in some­ one himself. The bill he received was his initiation into the Honorary Fra­ ternity of Fellows Who Believe Prices and Fees Are Outrageous, However, true to his fraternity, he paid them.

His initiation was well under way.

HILE still unburdened and unat­ tached, Abraham had heard much of the overly social behavior in the suburbs. His present locale was a crossbreed: people in Williamsburg in­ sisted he was living in a suburb, while a business colleague from Amityville insisted Abraham was very much sub­ merged in urban life. It did not take long for Mr. and Mrs, Seralniek to be overcome by the schizophrenic character of their community: they suffered the ills of urban and subur­ ban life alike, while enjoying the pleas­ ures of neither. It was this superficial code of sociability, fed by the atmos­ phere of community conformism, that proved to be the deceptive corrosive element in the depersonalizing of Abraham and his wife. The impact was certainly not immediate, otherwise remaining judgment would have prompted his immediate migration.

But his naïve move into the glitter that was not gold proved to be his

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JEWISH LIFE

undoing. The social machine moved slowly but deliberately, ever smiling and ever gnawing at his emotional in­ nards, molding him into the uniform pattern, propelled into uniform pur­ pose when joining with his similarly processed neighbors in the rituals of committee meetings, parlor meetings, breakfasts, Melavah Malkahs, PTA meetings, raffles, doorprizes, and the multitudinous paraphernalia of the Graduate Ghetto. He soon learned how to smile the right way, how to say “Good morning” to the right peo­ ple and ignore the others, and to see and be seen by the proper people. It wasn’t that Abraham was à snob of any sort. He was just not the type to fight a system, but enjoyed the womb­ like comfort, snug and insulated, of emulating the patterns of community conformity.

OR Abraham’s fifth wedding anni­ versary, his wife’s younger sister and her husband, living not far from where the Seralnicks were now locat­ ed, planned a little house party for a few younger relatives and some close friends of the honorées. Abraham once again suffered from the discom­ fort of selecting from among his many friends, acquaintances, and associates the few who would have the privilege of turning down an invitation (“Previ­ ous commitment”). Just for fun, he fumbled through the recesses of the bottom drawer of his desk for the list of guests who had attended his wed­ ding, and his wife, just for fun, dust­ ed off the wedding album. After put­ ting their two children to bed for the fourth time, they sat down, weary but merry, to compare notes.

The souvenirs brought tears, fears, smiles, and smirks. Some of the wed-

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January 1969

ding guests were no longer on this world. Some had since met with mis­ fortunes. Others looked as cute today as they did then, if not more. Still others caused the question: “How come we invited him in the first place?”

Looking at the album, Abraham teased his wife about the half-dozen pictures of her alone, first standing this way, then that, once with flowers, an­ other pose without, before his face appeared in the series for the first time. She teased him back about how nervous he appeared while marching down the aisle. But chuckles aside, they looked over the crowd. Where are they all now?

“They are all well, thank you, most of them anyway, but out of touch.

Whose fault is it? Theirs, obviously.

Didn’t we invite this couple to visit?

They did come, once, to bring the wedding present, but that’s about the last we’ve seen of them. Come to think of it, we did bump into them at the Greenfeld Bar-Mitzvah last year. He does business with them. But that’s all.

We didn’t extend an invitation, nor did they. It’s hard to imagine we’d have anything much in common any­ more. Of course, if tomorrow we’d have to move to some small town, and they’d be the only other religious cou­ ple there our age, we’d take to each other like a fish to water. But here and now. . . .

“Then there’s what’s-his-name over there. Look at him dancing. He was pretty good, come to think of it. Then he got married about a year later, and didn’t even invite us to the chuppah.

In that case, we wouldn’t even think of getting in touch with him now, al­ though at that time, there was no question about inviting him.

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“Hey, there’s Nechie. Remember her? You know whom she married?

Remember that fellow from Mil­ waukee, who used to work in Schiller’s photography studio? A friend of hers was getting married and went in one day to get some prices. Nechie was with her. He saw her and somehow got her number and called her up.

And you know what the joke is?

Nechie’s friend wound up taking an­ other photographer. Now I think they’re back in Milwaukee, and we haven’t seen each other in years. And at the time, Nechie was such a close friend.

“You know, that’s funny. We’re not really angry at anybody. There’s no reason to. And five years ago these people were so much part of our lives. Take them out of the picture then, and we’d think we were losing a good slice of our lives. It seems we just drifted apart. Maybe it’s a good idea to have a little get-together. But what’s the use: what purpose would it serve?

And who has the time to bother?”

T wasn’t that the Seralnicks had no friends now. Heavens, no, not by any means. If anything, they had too many. They never budged, together or separately, any place but business, without friends. Going to shool was with friends. Attending a Gemorah shiur once a week (for him) and a Tanach class once a week (for her), bowling once a week (for him) and mah jongg once a week (for her) was with friends, only with friends. Taking a bungalow for the summer (and be­ fore the children, trips to Cape Cbd and Nova Scotia by car) was with friends. Even now, a night on the town, shopping for new furniture, or being host or hostess for a meeting,

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was with friends. Of course, not with the same friends.

There were friends of all sizes, shapes, and styles of behavior. They never came labeled: one had to brand them accordingly. There were certain families to spend the summer with, but not for running a package party with. The couple that was the greatest for a night in the Village was not even supposed to know when die Seralnicks were having a few friends over just to socialize. Neighbors came and went, and those that stayed never held onto the same temperament too long. It was a rainbow of many colors reflect­ ed in a mirror that never held still. At times it appeared beautiful; at other times, horribly dizzying.

Abraham even recalled that first Friday night, before his wife had become so tired and distraught from the unprepared-for burdens of homemaking, housewifery, and moth­ erhood that her voice was no longer as sweet as it once so blessedly had been. He had left for shod for his first visit there, knowing of no one before­ hand but confident that of all the Jew­ ish faces he would find a few familiar ones. He was right.

O ONE lives in a vacuum. Jewish life is the greatest protector against someone becoming a hermit by default. Abraham used to hear “eman­ cipated” Jews criticize his yeshivah friends for submerging themselves within the confines of the Gemorah to the exclusion of all else in the world.

Nonsense, he felt. Everyone came from a family, everyone attended synagogue, everyone had gone to a day school whose graduates were now distributed throughout the grid of worldly living, everyone had neigh-

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JEWISH LIFE

bors. It was almost impossible for Abraham or any of his friends to show up any place and not find a fa­ miliar hand to shake and say hello to.

True, not all of these hands were so welcome or looked forward to, but they were there, nevertheless. It is im­ possible, he thought, for anyone to make a really complete list of every­ body he knows and who knows him; no matter how thorough it could ever become, there would always come one person, unexpectedly, whose appear­ ance would prompt the question: “How could I have ever forgotten him?”

So when Abraham Seralnick, mar­ ried three weeks and now a settler in an up-and-coming Jewish quarter of Queens, had first walked into the prin­ cipal local synagogue he immediately spotted three familiar faces: “Lefty” Zucker, the best firstbaseman any punchball team ever had; Harold Singer, whose parents owned a grocery in the West Bronx where Abraham’s parents used to buy when they lived in that section; and Mendel Steinberg, with whom he had taken a “pollie sy” class three years earlier at City down­ town night. Then, when he finished Sh’moneh Esrey, another hand at­ tached to a smile stood next to his stomach, hand and smile belonging to Arty Schechter, twice Abraham’s age, whose wife was a niece through mar­ riage to an uncle of Abraham’s. Arty pointed a finger toward the ceiling in the time-honored way of saying: “Give me a minute to daven.” Abra­ ham did, and already some of the other men in the synagogue were look­ ing at him as if to say: “Who’s this fellow that everybody seems to know?” A minute later, a gentleman who appeared to have lost a bout in

January 1969

an attempt at looking distinguished came over to Abraham and said, with a smile: “Just moved in? Glad to have you. Make yourself at home.”

After services, Abraham went to greet the Rabbi, whose cordial welcome was merged with a quick glance of ap­ praisal.

Walking out, “Lefty” (“Look, do me a favor, my wife doesn’t like that name, so call me Herb, like a good fellow?”) told Abraham that he at­ tends this synagogue only on Friday nights because it’s close by, but that in the morning and afternoon he goes to Rabbi Fingerhut’s shtibel about five blocks distant. Herb, it turned out, left yeshivah before finishing the eighth grade, but the girl he married came from a frum family and so he now attended the shtibel. “You’ll like the crowd there,” he said, as if to im­ ply that if Abraham would go to the large synagogue, he would be labeled “queer” by all who’d get to know him.

“Bring your wife too, Abe. There’ll be one or two others. Most stay home because of infants. On Yom Tov, when they take out the carriages, there isn’t enough room for them all, and the noise is terrific. But on Shabboth it’s okay, even with all the kids run­ ning around.” r | tHE next morning, Abraham A wrapped his tallith around him and put his coat over it. With his wife at his side, they traced Herb’s direc­ tions and found Rabbi Fingerhut’s shtibel. Before they left for home, it appeared Rabbi Fingerhut found them too. “Why are you taking your tal­ lith home?” he asked. Abraham took it off, and resolved to take it home that evening, under the pretext that he would be away the following week.

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But Chaim Perlstein, who once was ty program. Take charity, for exam­ Abraham’s counsellor in camp and ple. who was a gabbai in the shtibel now, 5 Charity is a well-estiablished Jewish took the Seralnicks home for Kiddush tradition. Abraham’s parents were (“Rifkie, remember I once told you comfortable, neither wealthy nor wellabout that kid Avraymele Seralnick to-do, and in remembrance and appre­ who used to give me trouble every ciation of the times when they were time it came for him to write a letter worse off, liked to share their sub­ home? Get out the Chivas Regal, and stance with legitimate causes. Abra­ for his wife the Cherry Heering”) and ham’s in-laws, a little better off, were counselled his guests : “Look, nobody much involved in the stupor of Far likes davening there. Just wait till the Rockaway’s social life. Abraham Rebbetzin gets hold of you, you’ll hadn’t liked it, and assured himself know just what I mean. There’s no he would be innocent of it. He was place else, at least no place you’ll en­ wrong. joy. There’s another shtibel the other He was of the feeling that charity side of the avenue, Rabbi Berlinger, a should be given for its own sake, and real nice fellow. It’s just his crowd is that the giver should choose from not our type at all. It’s a shame. If among the interminable list those caus­ only he and Rabbi Fingerhut would es he chose to support. That day change places, we’d all be happy. Over never came. Not that the Seralnicks there you’d run out before davening is didn’t give. The fact is, they gave well over. Once a year he makes a Mela- and even above their ratio. It’s just vah Malkah and a lot of us go over they never chose. It wasn’t a week to give him a show. Otherwise there’s after coming to the Fingerhut hide­ the big shool. You might try it once away that he received a pair of thea­ or twice. Any way you slice it, you’ll ter tickets in the mail for a benefit for be right back here with the rest of us. a children’s home in Israel. It was not We’ve all made the rounds, like an anonymous letter: Mendel Stein­ Noah’s dove, hoping things might berg’s wife was benefit chairlady and she felt that anybody who took a “polchange, but they never do, except may­ ly sy” course with her husband and be get worse. That’s the price you got­ now lived nearby would be interested ta pay. Forget it. You’ll get used to it. in going. Abraham showed the tickets Well, to the new couple: lechayim.” to his wife. It was for a good play.

That evening, Abraham left his tallith The money was for charity. And be­ sides, could they say “no”? in Rabbi Fingerhut’s shtibel.

Before they attended the play, they HAT was only the beginning. were squeezed into an installation Now, as Abraham and his wife Melavah Malkah for the benefit of a looked back at five years of The Life, local yeshivah. Nobody they knew was they could trace the slow but steady being installed, but since it was for a onslaught of depersonalization. No one local Torah institution, they went. It had room for an opinion. Everything turned out that the lady being installed was a question of how and how much as Recording Secretary of the PTA one joined in the approved communi­ was an aunt of a schoolmate of Abra-

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JEWISH LIFE

ham’s wife. She took the Seralnicks* address, and that was just one chapter that was still being written—on checks.

they were above reproach. (That, the Seralnicks reasoned, was why they were so loaded.) Proportionately, though, the Seralnicks had them all stacked.

And now that their children were ap­ HEY tried to take stock. Five proaching school age, the burdens years — and how many raffles, ba­ would be multiplied. First, tuition, it­ zaars, luncheons, breakfasts, telephone self a monster. Then the annual tax. campaigns, mail campaigns, guests of Add to that the extras like the free honor, victims of honor, and chair­ lunches that cost money, the free bus manships were strewn along the cal­ service that cost money, the free text­ endar of those years? It all cost mon­ books that cost money. Then the PTA ey, all for legitimate, worthwhile caus­ luncheons, PTA Melavah Malkahs, es. But how wasteful, the sheer, PTA package party, PTA bazaar, PTA inexcusable, unadulterated waste of Chinese auction, PTA raffle ($10 per time, money, and energy. The rituals ticket, only 500 printed; prize: roundof the testimonial: it was a grown-up trip to Israel for two) and the appeals game of “tag, you’re it.” The guest of in the shtibel, where they had to set honor had to attract as many friends an example. and relatives as possible. Each paid for There was enough wealth within the the plate or the appeal, and the total community to adequately support all indicated the notch on the social ther­ the causes respectably, but, somehow, mometer that the “dedicated, devoted the beggar complex had captured public servant and humanitarian” was everybody. The schnorrer of Eastern accorded. The catch was that this Europe was too beloved a folk figure servant really was one: in the long run to become extinct in affluent America. he wound up paying for the whole Metamorphosed, he functioned in a shebang himself, because everytime new way. At every affair, someone one of his guests turned out to be a (the kapparah, selected at a last-min­ guest of honor someplace else, this one ute, boisterous meeting) would get up had to reciprocate. Could he say and, dressed in an expensive suit (it “no”? If everybody would donate to wouldn’t be nice to appear on the dais his favorite charity just the expenses in a plain suit) and well-fed (the food that would be incurred by a testimo­ thrown out from any such affair would nial party, the charity would be much feed half of India), appeal to the im­ richer, more money and less head­ prisoned guests to double their pledg­ ache. But it didn’t work that way: es. It was a farce, an act straight out egoes grew lavishly and had to be of Sholom Aleichem. And the pledges pampered. What better to use as a rag were never doubled. The sponsoring than a respectable charity? charity was lucky if the pledges were Abraham agreed with his wife that ever paid. they didn’t like it. They realized their HE Seralnicks never had to plan weakness: they never learned to say anything. Everything was planned “no.” The only ones, it seemed, who could say “no” and get away with it for them. They had entered the scene were those who were so “loaded” that as a new, dreamy-eyed couple, and

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were now veteran troupers, resigned with the rest to going through the so­ cial motions, hoping that every now and then some spark from somewhere would come and ignite their treadmill existence. Every now and then they tried to figure it out: was it the com­ munity’s fault, extending itself to the "point of smothering any smolders of individualism, or was it their own fault, for lacking the guts to stick it out the way they had intended to?

Abraham had to go no farther than his own living room to witness the slow but steady disintegration of his personality. He had wanted a sukkah, plain and simple. His wife said they just had to have one as nice as the one the neighbor had the year be­ fore. He would have been satisfied with a Shabboth in Lakewood for a mid-winter break. However, a whole group from the neighborhood was go­ ing to Florida for a ten-day jaunt, and the Seralnicks had no legitimate ex­ cuse for staying out. They tagged along, and even now bore a grudge against the couple that had pushed the idea, and who wound up at the last minute staying home because their in­ fant had gotten slightly ill. It turned out to have been Miami’s rainingest week of the season. Abraham thought the shaytel his wife got for their wed­ ding could last a while longer. But when three “girls” from her ladies’ group got new shaytlech within two weeks’ time, she didn’t have to say anything: her request and his approv­ al were communicated non-verbally.

In addition, he would have been just as comfortable on a sofa that wasn’t French Provincial, but his wife was afraid of iez^ath nashim gossip.

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S single people, each had had his own place in the sun. That was all gone now, dreams for a rainy after­ noon between phone calls. It once ap­ peared that they had a special purpose in living, that they would cut a path in the world that would bear their im­ print, that would cause their children to be proud to call their own. Now where was it? What was it? Who were they? Another couple, another dona­ tion, another Jew to minyon. Should they leave, there’ll be another couple, a little more or a little less dreamyeyed, becoming the new donation, the new Jew at a minyon that would get along just as well without them. Where was the kollel boy, the college girl of five years ago? Did just anybody be­ come a kollel boy? It took persever­ ance, guts, courage, nerve, gumption, and plain luck. He had made it. He had helped elevate the cause of To­ rah study just a wee bit. And now— swallowed up among the masses. His connection now with his former kol­ lel? Three letters a year from them, asking for money. He responded once a year. The community? It was only as far as his nose, for he hadn’t quite recovered from the shock of learning that the passport to community lead­ ership was not a fair amount of knowledge but a larger sum of money; or claim to it, which he did not possess.

He couldn’t help but think, hope­ fully, that somewhere it was better, or at least it would be better in the fu­ ture. And perhaps—who can tell?— his hope was well founded.

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JEWISH LIFE

Chassidism Reborn: A Bird's-Eye View

By H. RABINOWICZ

UT of the ashes, phoenix-like, a new Chassidic world has arisen.

In long silken kapotes and streaming side-curls, survivors of the world that was destroyed now add their un­ quenchable spiritual fervor to Jew­ ish community life in London, in New York, and in Jerusalem. Proudly they identify themselves as Chassidim of Ger, Belz, Bobov, Lubavitch, Satmar, Novominsk, and other landmarks of another time, and these euphonious names linger lovingly upon the lips.

These are the contemporary Defend­ ers of the Faith who have replanted the traditions of their fathers in lands of Freedom.

After having endured untold vicis­ situdes, those of the leaders and fol­ lowers of Eastern Europe’s multiple Chassidic fraternities who had sur­ vived the Holocaust found each other anew. There can be no doubt that a key factor in this phenomenon is the character and personal magnetism of various of the spiritual leaders of the Chassidic groups. The story of each

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January 1969

of these is each a chapter in the great epic of Chassidism’s rebirth. To por­ tray the unfolding of this epic is far beyond the scope of this article; rather we shall offer an outline view of some leading personalities of today’s reborn Chassidic world, in the hope that this will bring into perspective one of the most remarkable phenomena of mod­ ern Jewish history.

ISRAEL IXTY members of the family of the Gerer Rebbe, Rabbi Abraham Mordechai Alter, perished in Nazi Eu­ rope. His son-in law Isaac Meir Alter was shot before the Rebbe’s eyes. To­ gether with his son Israel and his sonin-law Isaac Meir Lewin (Chairman of the Agudath Israel Executive), the Rebbe left Warsaw in 1940 and reached Italy a few days before that country entered the war. The Chas­ sidim of Ger urged their leader to set­ tle in the United States. “I am unable to start a new exile,” he replied. So

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Rechov Geulah, in Jerusalem, saw the revival of some of the glory that was Ger. The Rebbe died on Shovuoth 5708/1948 and Dr. Isaac Herzog, then Chief Rabbi of the Holy Land, ¡pro­ claimed in fitting eulogy: “On Shovu­ oth the Torah was given and on Shovuoth the Torah was taken away.”

Today his son Israel (b. 1897), the present Gerer Rebbe, has the greatest following of all the Chassidic leaders.

He has expanded the Yeshivath Sefath Emeth in Jerusalem and is now building a new Yeshivah Chiddushey Harim in the north of Tel Aviv under the leadership of Rabbi Gedaliah Hertz.

Comparatively few Chassidic rebbeyim live in Jerusalem. The Holy City, paradoxically enough, has never been the home of many Chassidic leaders. Among the few who do live there today is the Sochachever Rebbe, Chanoch Heinoch Bornstein, who ar­ rived in 1923 and set up a number of shtiblech. Rabbi J. Cahana of Spinke in Hungary (b. 1910) heads the Ye­ shivah Imre Yoseph (“Words of Jo­ seph”). In his small Beth Hamidrosh in Rechov Yoseph ben Matisyohu, Rabbi Yechiel Yehoshuah Rabinowicz (b. 1895) carries on the tradi­ tions of Bialah and Przysuchah. After living in Siedlice until the outbreak of the war, he miraculously eluded the Nazis and fled to Siberia. After long and arduous wanderings, he finally ar­ rived in the Holy Land in 1947. After a b rn f stay in Tel-Aviv, he settled in Jerusalem. A devout and unworldly man, Rabbi Yechiel is known as a “miracle worker” and a “great servant of the Lord.” He has reprinted a num­ ber of Chassidic works of his grand­ father Yitzhok Yaakov of Bialah and established a yeshivah in Bnei Brak.

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A HAD HA-AM 63, Tel Aviv, was i V tlie residence of Rabbi Aaron Rokeach (1886-1957) of Belz. For three perilous years the Belzer Rebbe had lived precariously in Nazi Europe, moving from Przemysl to Vishnitz, to Cracow, and to Budapest. He even changed his name, first to Aaron Sin­ ger, then to Twersky, to confuse the Germans who pursued him so relent­ lessly. After a brief stay in Hungary, he settled in Tel Aviv with his brother, rabbi of Bilgoray, and his gabbay David Shapira. From Antwerp, from Manchester, from New York and from Lugano, Chassidim would travel to see him. The Rebbe divided his time between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, where he spent the summer months.

On one occasion, when the Jordanians complained to the U. N. Armistice Commission about heavy military traf­ fic on Israeli territory, it was discov­ ered that the alleged military convoy consisted of an escort of 234 civilian vehicles filled with Chassidim of the Rabbi of Belz accompanying their leader to Jerusalem.

During the Sinai Campaign of 1956, the Belzer Rebbe fasted for three days in a marathon prayer for an Israeli victory. He died in 5717/1957, and after an interregnum of nine years was succeeded by his brother’s son Beril (b. 1948). The youthful Rebbe’s marriage in 1966 to Sarah, daughter of Rabbi Mosheh Hager of Kiryath Vishnitz was the most publicized and picturesque Jewish wedding of the year, attended by thousands of Chas­ sidim from all over the world. The Rebbe made his home in Jerusalem where there is a great modern yeshi­ vah with many students. His former residence in Tel Aviv has been con­ verted to a yeshivah.

JEWISH LIFE

Among the many Chassidic figures in Tel Aviv are Rabbi Mosheh Yechiel Halevy Epstein of Ozarow (b. 1890), the author of a monumental opus in ten volumes known as Esh Dath (“The Fiery Law”); Rabbi M. Biderman of Levov (b. 1888); Rabbi J. Halperin of Waslovy, Rumania; Rabbi S. Taub of Modzitz; Rabbi A. Landau of Strikov; Rabbi J. Friedmann of Bohush; Rabbi J. Friedman of Husyatin; Rabbi A. J. Weinberg of Slonym (b. 1898); and Rabbi Mordechai Sholom Yoseph of Sadegorah.

Bnei Brak, citadel of learning and site of many yeshivoth, has attracted such prominent Chassidic rabbis as Chayim Mordechai Ronenbaum (b.

1904) of Nadvorna, Avrohom Eiger of Lublin (b. 1916), and Yehudah Mosheh Dancyger of Alexander (b.

1898).

OTABLE among the Chassidic settlements is K’far Chabad, five miles from Tel Aviv, established in 1949 by the Lubavitcher Rebbe in New York, Yoseph Yitzchok Schneersohn, as a haven for the survivors of the death camps. Lubavitch has a long his­ tory of active affiliation with the Land of Israel. In 1823 Rabbi Dov Baer es­ tablished a colony in Chevron. In 1840 Rabbi Menachem Mendel, the Tzemach Tzeddek, sent over 15,000 rubles and founded synagogues in Jerusalem, Safed, Tiberias, and organ­ ized the Chalukah (collections for the support of the poor in the Holy Land) for the Chabad community. His son, Shneur Zalman, kept in close touch with Menachem Mendel Ussishkin, the Zionist leader who in 1882 found­ ed the Bilu (the first modern Zionist pioneering movement) and who ardent­ ly supported Aliyah to the Holy Land.

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K’far Chabad is a complete, selfsufficient townlet, where the Chassidim-turned-farmers breed livestock and poultry. There is a Talmud Torah, a yeshivah, a printing and agricultural school, and a carpentry workshop. In the winter of 1956, five students were murdered in the K’far by Arab terror­ ists, and a special memorial institute called Yad Chamishah (Memorial for the Five) was set up in their honor.

Kiryath Vishnitz (near Bnei Brak) is the 130-dunam settlement estab­ lished by Rumanian Rabbi Chayim Meir Hager. It has a diamond polish­ ing plant, industrial workshops, streamlined commercial bakeries, and a Yeshivah Beth Yisroel U’damesek Eliezer under the guidance of Mosheh Yehoshuah Hager. There are also a high school Kollel Avrohom, a girls’ school, Beth Sholom old age home, and the Kiryah’s annual budget is 900,000 Israeli pounds. Rabbi Chayim Meir’s brother, Rabbi Baruch Hager (b. 1890), created a Chassidic milieu in Haifa (Hadar Hakarmel) where in Ramath Vishnitz he built a Kollel Avreychim (Academy for Advanced Tal­ mudists), and a children’s home.

A N interesting and relatively recent development is the Chassidic Ali­ yah from the United States. One of the leaders of this Exodus from the New World was Yekuthiel Yehudah, son of T’svi Halberstamm (b. 1904), the rabbi of Klausenburg, whose wife and eleven children were murdered by the Nazis. He founded Shikun Kiryath T’sanz near Natanya, mainly for set­ tlers from the United States. Founded in 1959 on a 109-dunam plot, it now has a population of over two thou­ sand. “I only survived the Holocaust,” explains the builder-rabbi, “in order

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that I might help rebuild the Land of Israel.” Kiryath Tsanz, too, has its own fine yeshivah, school for girls, a kindergarten, and a diamond factory.

The Rabbi of Bobov, Ben-T’sion Halberstamm, was killed in Lvov in 1941. His son, Rabbi Shelomoh Hal­ berstamm, found refuge in the United States. In December, 1959, he found­ ed the townlet of Bobov near Bat Yam in Israel and also established Yeshivah Bnei T’sion near Jerusalem.

In March, 1963, Rabbi Chananiah Yom-Tov Lippe Teitelbaum of Sasov (1906-1964), a descendant of Rabbi Mosheh Teitelbaum, author of the To­ rah commentary Yismach Yisroel and founder of Chassidism in Hungary, set up near Ramat Gan a settlement called Kiryath Yismach Yisroel (“Let Israel Rejoice”).

The passionate love of the Chas­ sidim for the Holy Land is today be­ ing translated into practical terms.

While the largest gathering of Chas­ sidim is to be found in the United States, Israel today has well over fifty thousand, and the number keeps grow­ ing. Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Bnei Brak are the contemporary counterparts of Ger, Alexander, and Belz. In no other country are there so many prolific writers on the history of Chassidism as in the Holy Land, and literally hun­ dreds of volumes have been brought out in the last decade.

Now that the re-established Jewish State is a miraculous fait accompli, many Chassidim are among its sup­ porters, working, as well as praying for, its welfare and security.

UNITED STATES i8 8 i to 1925 , over 2 ,500,000 Jews emigrated to the U.S.A., the overwhelming number of Eastern Eu-

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ropean origin: 1,190,590 from Russia, 281,150 from Austria-Hungary, and 95,534 from Rumania. After thef First World War, Chassidic rabbis began to settle in the United States. Among them was Rabbi Yehudah Aryeh Perlow (1887-1961), who arrived in New York in 1925. A brother of the Novominsker Rebbe, Alter Yisroel, Rabbi Yehudah Aryeh was the author of Kol Leyv Aryeh (“The Voice of a Heart of a Lion”), published in 1939, and Kol Yehudah (“The Voice of Judah”).

His residence in South Ninth Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn became one of the first outposts of Chassidism.

Today the dynasty of Novominsk is represented by Rabbi Nachum Mordechai Perlow. A dedicated scholar and an active member of Agudath Is­ rael, Rabbi Nachum leads a life of study and service to his devoted Chas­ sidim in the honored tradition of his great father Rabbi Alter Yisroel Shi­ mon of Novominsk.

Another early arrival was Rabbi Yehoshuah Heshel Rabinowicz (18601938), the Rebbe of Monastrysheh, one of the founders in 1928 of the Union of Grand Rabbis of the U.S.A. and Canada.

When the Chassidic sun set in East­ ern Europe, it rose again in the New World. With the influx of refugees from Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Rumania, and with the survivors of the concentration camps, a small piece of Chassidic life was transplanted to New York. More than four thousand Chassidic families transformed the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn into a stronghold of Chassidism. One of the foremost leaders is Rabbi Yoel Teitelbaum of Satu-Mare (Satmar), Hungary. Bom in 1885, Rabbi Yoel JEWISH LIFE

succeeded his father Chananiah YomTov Lipmann, author of Baal Kedushath Yom-Tov (“Sanctity of the Fes­ tival”), in 1905. Together with his family, Rabbi Yoel was deported to Bergen-Belsen in 1944, and he was saved from the very jaws of death by Dr. Kastner’s special intervention with Himmler. After a brief stay in Switzer­ land, he settled in New York in 1946.

The Satmar community (Kahal Yetav Leyv De’Satmar) is independent and cofripletely self-sufficient, a cohe­ sively knit unit. It maintains a weekly newspaper Der Yid (the Jew) and is­ sues periodicals, leaflets, and circulars.

It has its own welfare organizations, Mikvaoth, Chevrah Kadishah, and Bikkur Cholim. It operates its own butch­ er shops, and a bakery where hand­ made Matzoth are prepared. Its complex of educational institutions in­ cludes a kindergarten, yeshivah, mesivtah, Talmudical college, and a Beth Rachel School for girls. In all, the Kehillah of Satmar is responsible for the education of over 4,000 children, of whom 2,200 attend the schools in Wil­ liamsburg.

The Rebbe of Satmar, spiritual head of the Neturey Kartah (a group in Jerusalem, led by Rabbi Abraham Blau, who do not in effect recognize the State of Israel), is building a town­ ship in the Holy Land, Kiryath Yoel in Bnei Brak. Motivated by a passion­ ate commitment to their concept of Jewish life, Chassidim of Satmar have on occasion committed acts that most other Jews deplore, such as demon­ strations in front of the White House in Washington to protest against the alleged “methodical oppression and ex­ termination of religion in Israel.”

January 1969

OST of New York’s Chassidim still live in Brooklyn’s Williams­ M burg section. Today this locality is undergoing radical population changes and as a result there has been a con­ siderable migration to Borough Park— another Brooklyn neighborhood—and also to suburban areas, entailing some interesting experimentation in Chassidic living. In 1963, a group of Vishnitzer Chassidim moved to Monsey in Rockland County, about forty miles from Times Square, to set up a com­ munity there. Similarly, New Square was established in Spring Valley, an­ other village in that county, by Rabbi Yaakov Yoseph Twersky of Squir, near Kiev. The Rebbe passed away earlier this year. On 130 acres, Chas­ sidim of Squir have built a self-con­ tained townlet where they live a contemporary yet completely Torahoriented existence.

Whilst Satmar and Squir deliberate­ ly live in virtual isolation, Lubavitch has developed a comparatively cosmic orientation. Rabbi Yoseph Yitzchok Schneersohn, sixth Rebbe of Lubavitch, arrived in New York in 5700/ 1940. With passionate intensity he de­ voted the last decade of his life to es­ tablishing a framework for Jewish religious education in the New World.

He founded, in New York, the Cen­ tral Yeshivah Tomchei Tmimim schools, with a number of branches throughout the United States and Can­ ada. He established a body Machneh Yisroel to strengthen Orthodoxy in the U.S.A. and the world, and Merkos L’Inyoney Chinuch, as a central organ­ ization for Jewish education (estab­ lished in 1947). He established girls’ schools, Beth Sorah and Beth Rivkah, in Canada, the Holy Land, France, and Morocco, as well as a Kehoth

45

Publication Society which publishes handbooks in English, French, Rus­ sian, Spanish, Yiddish, and Hebrew on Chabad philosophy, and a vast assort­ ment of material ranging from ele­ mentary guidebooks on religion. After the war, Rabbi Yoseph Yitzchok es­ tablished Ezrath Pleytim Vesidurom for the relief and rehabilitation of ref­ ugees, with an office in Paris under Rabbi Benjamin Gorodetzki. To thou­ sands of persons physically and spiritu­ ally displaced, the Rebbe brought ma­ terial assistance and a message of hope.

The present Rebbe of Lubavitch, Menachem Mendel Schneersohn (b.

1902), son-in-law and cousin of Rabbi Yoseph Yitzchok, attended the Uni­ versities of Moscow and Berlin and studied electrical engineering at the Sorbonne. “Uforatzto” (“And thou shalt spread”—Bereshith 28,14), the key­ note of a melody popular with the Chassidim of Lubavitch, is also the motto of the present Rebbe. He has extended the already far-reaching and manifold activities of the movement and has, to give one instance, accom­ plished noteworthy work in North Africa. Now Chabad brings the teach­ ings of Chassidism to the Sephardim of Casablanca, Marrakesh, Sefrou, and Meknes. A network of sixty-seven Oholey Yoseph Yitzchok Lubavitch institutions, evening classes, Beth Sorah and Beth Rivkah girls’ schools and a teachers’ seminary have been estab­ lished to provide for more than four thousand pupils throughout the world.

Disciples of Lubavitch have organ­ ized a “Peace Corps,” an evangelical group of young students who bring Judaism home to Jews in many farflung places at home and abroad. A to­

46

tal of 35,000 chilren are enrolled in the Lubavitch schools in the United States, North Africa, Argentine, Den­ mark, Brazil, Italy, and Canada. Rabbi Shemariah Gourary, brother-in-law of the Rebbe, is the director of the United Lubavitch Yeshivoth with fif­ teen branches throughout the U.S.A., where 16,000 youngsters receive a To­ rah education.

From 770 Eastern Parkway, Brook­ lyn, the Rebbe directs his far-reaching spiritual empire. He receives visitors on Sundays and Thursdays starting at 8 P.M., continuing into the morning hours. At such private interviews he meets over three thousand people a year. He spends fifteen to sixteen hours each day supervising the activities of Chabad.

A NOTHER celebrated Brooklyn J \ . rebbe is Rabbi Yisroel Spira, a descendant of Rabbi Elimelech of Dinov, author of the famous work Bney Yissachar (“Children of Issachar” ). Rabbi Spira, known as the Bluzhever Rebbe, miraculously sur­ vived the Holocaust. His life and the lives of two hundred other camp in­ mates were saved by the eleventh-hour arrival of the American liberation forces headed by a tank driven by a young Jewish soldier, Pinchas Kohn of Pittsburgh. Also with headquarters in the Borough Park section of Brook­ lyn is Rabbi Shelomoh Halberstamm (b. 1908) of Bobov. With his Yeshivah Bney T’zion as a center, his commun­ ity of families numbers into thousands of souls.

Until just recently a prominent part in New York Chassidic life was played

by Rabbi Avrohom Yehoshuah Heschel, the Rebbe of Kopychintsy (1888-

JEWISH LIFE

1967), an active member of Agudath Israel and strong supporter of the Chinuch Atzmai educational network in Israel. The Rebbe visited the Holy Land ten times. “To love a great Talmid Chocham is easy,” he once re­ marked, “but to love the little man, the one who is even difficult at times, is true Ahavath Yisroel (love of Is­ rael).”

Among the many Chassidic dynas­ ties flourishing in New York today are Boyan (Rabbi Mordechai Shelomo Friedmann), Talner (Rabbi Avrohom Twersky), Amshinov (Rabbi Yerachmiel Yehudah Meir), and Kozienice (Rabbi Israel Eliezer Hopstein, 19001966). In the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn, a group of Bratzlaver Chas­ sidim carries on their “Dead Rebbe’s” traditions. Groups of Stoliner-Karliner Chassidim also flourish. There are also Chassidic rabbis in Chicago, in Phila­ delphia, and in other American cities.

Ten percent of the yeshivoth in the New World are Chassidic.

In Montreal, Canada, there is a mesiftah founded by the Rebbe of Klausenburg and under the direction of Rabbi Sh’muel Unsdorfer (a former Rosh Yeshivah in England), as well as yeshivoth under auspices of Lubavitch and Satmar.

ENGLAND the 1920’s, a number of Chassidic IyehNrebbes came to London. Rabbi ArLeib Twersky of Turisk, son of Mordechai Zusyah, rabbi of Jassy, Rumania, arrived in 1923 and opened a Beth Hamidrosh in 22 Sidney Square, E. l, which he later transferred to 111 Cazenove Road. Rabbi Chanoch Heinoch Dov Rubin of Sasov arrived in 1924 but died five years

January 1969

later. Rabbi Sholom Moskovitz of Shatz (1878-1958) established his “Court” in 67 Chicksand Street. Rabbi Yisroel Aryeh Margulies (1885-1957) of Przemysl arrived in 1927 and estab­ lished Kehilath Yisroel at 45 Umberston Street in the East End of London.

He later moved to Cricklewood in North West London and was one of the founders of the North West Lon­ don Jewish Day Schools. Rabbi Yehu­ dah Szen-feld (1892-1967) of Kielce established his Beth Hamidrosh Kol Yaakov at 17 Fenton Street and then at Coders Green. A gentle and kindly sage, he devoted his efforts to foster­ ing Taharath Hamishpochah (Jewish family purity). Both the rebbes of Turisk and Kielce eventually settled in the Holy Land.

Outstanding among the Chassidic pioneers in London was Rabbi Nothon Duvid Rabinowicz (1900-1947) of Biala. Nothon Duvid was bom in Ozarow in 1899. The “Ethical Will,” writ­ ten during Rabbi Rabinowicz’ short illness before his death, reflects Chassidism at its loftiest and most inspir­ ing.

There are small groups of Chassidim in the Northwest suburbs of London, in Cricklewood under Rabbi B. Finkelstein and in Golders Green under Rab­ bi E. Halpern, Rabbi Berish Hagar (d.

1968), and Rabbi Simchah Rubin of Sasov. The largest concentration of Chassidim is to be found in North London. In the Stamford Hill area, centering around Cazenove Road, Chassidim number over five thousand.

There are many shtiblech such as the Belzer, Bob over^ Gerer, and a number of yeshivoth. Most of the Chassidic synagogues are affiliated with the Un­ ion of Orthodox Hebrew Congrega-

47

tions established in 1928 by Rabbi Victor Schonfeld (18801930) and ex­ tended by his son Rabbi Solomon Schonfeld (b. 1912). Today,’ Chassi­ dim and Mithnagdim have transcended their one-time rivalries and cooperate harmoniously in the widespread activi­ ties of the Union in areas of, for in­ stance, Schechitah, Rabbinate, Mikvaoth, Chevrah Kadishah, and Kashruth. The Chassidim operate their own educational network, the Yesodey Hatorah schools (established in Octo­ ber 1942 by W. Schiff, Getzel Berger, and P. Landau), the Mesivta Talmudical College, and a Beth Jacob Sem­ inary for girls.

Not till 1959 did Lubavitch arrive in London, but already its influence is felt. A synagogue center has been built (at a cost of 120,000 dollars) in Stam­ ford Hill, and primary and grammar schools have been established by dy­ namic young emissaries of Rabbi Schneersohn. Thus Lubavitch helps to fill the vacuum left by the departure to Israel of such men as the Trisker Rebbe, who settled in Bnei Brak.

There are also small Chassidic groups in Manchester. The Kehal Chassidim Synagogue was founded in 1902 in Red Bank, Manchester. A Nusach Ari shtibel was established in Glasgow by Simon Felstein and in 1914 it was known as Beth Jacob

48

Synagogue. In 1938 it amalgamated with the Poaley Tzedek Synagogue.

Their spiritual leaders were S. D. Morgenstem, J. D. Luria (d. 1957), and J. D. Siroka. There were a number of Chassidim in Leeds. The Chassidishe Synagogue was established in 1897, as in Liverpool where there was also a Nusach Ari synagogue.

HASSIDISM brought new hope and new happiness to hundred^ of thousands of people in dark days of Jewish history two centuries ago. It brushed away the cobwebs and revital­ ized the Jewish spirit. Today, at a time when traditional values are declining, the interest in Chassidism, judging by the volumes on this subject that are continuously leaving the printing presses in the U.S.A. and Israel, seems to be increasing. The Chassidic anthol­ ogies haveu barely touched upon the massive treasure store of folk tales, legends, aphorisms, and legends. The teachings of Chassidism are timeless, vibrant, relevant. Our super-sophisti­ cated, over-organized society may re­ call with nostalgia the soaring ecstasy of Chassidism and the radiance that illuminated the Jewish world for two centuries. And, recalling this, they may well realize that Chassidism has a meaning and a message for the present and the future.

JEWISH LIFE

^ <zàeo ¿tow, 3 *eéfcoma )

By DAVID S. SHAPIRO

A Mitzvah Performed for Gain (From Responsa of Rabbi Shelomoh Ibn Adret—Rashba— 1,472)

EWISH LAW does not permit the acceptance of compensation for the per­ formance of a Mitzvah. One may not receive a fee for teaching Torah or healing the sick. (Nedarim 37a; Bechoroth 29a) That teachers and physicians are paid for their services is justified by the fact that they are thereby deprived of the opportunity of earning a livelihood by other means and hence are en­ titled to be paid for their time if not for their service (see Yore Deah 336,2). While there has been strong disapproval on the part of a number of great sages, and most vehemently by Rambam, of the practice of receiving remuneration for teaching Torah (see Maimonides’ Commentary to Ovoth 4,5; Mishneh Torah, Talmud Torah III, 10; also Keseph Mishneh, ibid.), the practice of providing stipends for teachers and students has been accepted in Jewry as normal, for numerous reasons (see Tossafoth Yom Tov to Becho­ roth IV, 6).

Nevertheless, Jews throughout the ages have sought out opportunities of performing the Divine commandments in the face of financial losses. The per­ formance of the Mitzvah afforded a gratification that could not be evaluated in monetary terms. Individuals who were capable of performing highly special­ ized religious services were delighted whenever an occasion to carry them out presented itself. The Mitzvah of Milah (circumcision), which requires great skill and training, was one of the Mitzvoth which provided an opportunity for specialists to fulfill for the sake of the Mitzvah without expecting a fee.

In the day of the great rabbinic sage, Rabbi Shelomoh ben Avrohom ibn

i

January 1969

49

Adret of Barcelona (1250-1327), a problem arose in a Spanish Jewish com­ munity concerning the right of a mohel to demand a fee for his work.

CERTAIN mohel who year after year had performed his services gratis, for some unknown reason decided no longer to perform the Mitzvah un­ less the father of the child would pay him a specified amount. Where the parents were in the position to pay the mohel there could be no problem. Al­ though the mohel might not have done right in changing his life-long practice, nevertheless he was technically justified in asking for a fee to compensate for his time and trouble. However, what is to be done in the case where the father cannot afford to pay? Here we have two alternatives. Either the community must ask the father to do everything within his power to pay the mohel, even if it meant to go begging, or the courts must compel the mohel, in this case, to perform his service gratis. There are instances where an individual in order to perform a Mitzvah is required to forfeit everything and even to go from house to house to obtain the funds necessary for the performance of the Mitz­ vah. (See Pesachim 112a; Shulchon Oruch Orach Chaim 472,13;671,1) Would that ruling apply in our case?

The question which was forwarded to Rabbi Shelomoh ibn Adret evoked a very indignant reply. The behavior of the mohel, he declared, was inexcusa­ ble, and leads us to question whether he is truly of the seed of Abraham (see Betzah 32b). In all the provinces of Spain even the poorest mohel would seek the opportunity of performing the Mitzvah of Milah gratis, and would do everything within his power to obtain the privilege of performing this Mitzvah, whereas this mohel who is the only one in his city refuses to perform the Mitz­ vah unless he has succeeded in making a beggar out of the father. This is a man who rejects the privilege of performing Mitzvoth, and he should be strong­ ly reprimanded. Moreover, he is actually suffering the equivalent of a financial loss, because every berochah recited by the mohel has a monetary value which exceeds that which he would receive for his service (see Chullin 87a).

From the standpoint of Jewish law, in case the father cannot afford to pay for the mohel, he is considered as though absent and hence the obligation to perform the circumcision now devolves on the court or the community as is stated in the Code of Maimonides (Mishneh Torah, Milah I, on the basis of Kiddushin 29a). The community therefore has the power to coerce the mohel to perform circumcisions for indigent people without remuneration.

The decision of Rabbi Shelomoh implies that in the case of the Mitzvah of Milah the father need not be reduced to beggary to perform it (see Bova Kamma 99), particularly where the courts can exercise their authority to com­ pelí the mohel to fulfill his religious duty.

»

50

JEWISH LIFE

CHANICHEI YESHIVOS AND THE COMMUNITY D ear Sir, I am sure th at all supporters of genuine orthodoxy who were privi­ leged to see your last issue (25th Oct.) will have read w ith enthusiasm your detailed account of the first Siyum Hashass of the Chanichei Hayeshivos, attended by so m any prom inent R abbonim and Roshei Yeshivos as well as so m any past and present yeshiva students.

However, w hen one carefully studies the messages passed on to the students, past and present, I hum bly subm it th at one of three “lam eds“ quoted by the C hairm an is being overlooked—Laasos! T h e younger generation are being urged to rem ain aloof, in a purely and wholly T o ra h “sevivah.” From this it surely follows th at he is no t advised to jo in a recognised “K ehillah“ other th an one composed of his own past and present colleagues. May I ask, in all hum ility, how are the really orthodox Kehillos to continue if young m arried m en with yeshiva background are not going to jo in them, and where will our leaders of the next generation come from.

May I refer to your issue of last year, 8th Septem ber ’67, when you gave a rep o rt of a message given by the famous Gaon, R eb Yecheskl Lowenstein, “the renow ned Mashgiach R uchni of Ponevez Yeshiva.“ T h e learned G aon gave this address after last year’s six-day war, to the Bne Yeshiva. I quote the concluding words of his message, taken from your own report: “H e called for greater unity to support the com­ m unity and n o t be the odd-man-out, to become p a rt of the ‘R ial’ and thus strengthen the general com m unity.“ By all means let these young m en have th eir own shiurim and let them keep w ithin their own circles in their social life, b u t for prayer surely they could be amongst those “who dedicate synagogues for worship“—they should unite in

January 1969

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JEWISH LIFE

prayer with the larger kehillos, and by their very presence and conduct would provide an example and inspiration for those “Baalei Batim” who have not had the opportunity of a yeshiva education.

S. G o l d b e r g , President, Stam ford H ill Beth Hamedrash.

— fro m L etters to th e E d ito r in th e Jew ish T ribu n e o f L ondon

B u t the greatest “conventional lie” of our tim e is the U nited N a­ tions Organisation. T h is organisation, which was founded after the defeat of H itler in the Second W orld W ar and was supposed to be the guardian of universal peace all over the world, has deteriorated to such an extent thatx instead of keeping the peace, UNO has caused trouble and bloodshed everywhere. She betrayed the sacred trust placed in her, and we can w ithout hesitation state that the forum of UNO is the place where we hear the biggest lies, which have made this organisation the laughing stock of all thinking people.

W e know these facts from bitter experience. UNO sent an interna­ tional force to separate Israel and Egypt. W hen Nasser was preparing war against Israel, he dem anded that the U NO forces be w ithdrawn.

U T h a n t, the Secretary-General of U N O , imm ediately com plied w ith his dem and, and so paved the way for war.

For 19 years Jordan did not keep the armistice agreement w ith Israel and did not let the Jews visit the H oly Places in Jerusalem, and, moreover, desecrated and destroyed the holiest Jewish shrines in Jeru­ salem. UNO kept quiet and did not find it necessary to call on Jordan —not to violate the armistice agreement. UNO kept quiet w hen the Jordanians attacked and killed many innocent Jewish victims.

Only now, when Israel has united the old and new cities of Jeru­ salem and has given free access to the followers of all faiths, did UNO raise its voice in protest against Israel.

W e m ust rem em ber that UNO is not a court of justice, and that her resolutions and decisions are prom pted by the egoistic policies of great and small nations, who vote accordingly.

H ence U N O , as an international organisation for keeping peace, has become the “conventional lie” of our generation.

— from, an article “ C on ven tion al L ies,” b y J . B a tn itz k y , in th e F ederation Chronicle o f Johannesburg«

January 1969

53

JEWISH LIFE b6gan publication in 1 9 4 6 ....

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JEWISH LIFE

W hat led to this docum entation T h e Six Days W ar in Ju n e 1967 dom inated for weeks all the world's big newspapers and also commentaries and reports on radio and tele­ vision. From the hundreds of newspapers cuttings and docum ents from East Bloc countries at our disposal there emerged the picture of a proA rab and an anti-Israel cam paign—in accordance w ith the policy of the com m unist governments. T h is cam paign was characterized by aggres­ sion, wrongful accusation, and unlim ited exaggeration. B ut a b latan t difference in the term inology employed by voices from the G D R [East Germany] and those from other East Bloc states was im m ediately appar­ ent. T h e expressions, terms, and ideological categories of thought em­ ployed in the G D R did not seem to be of com m unist origin. T hey were im m ediately m uch m ore strongly rem iniscent of the “Völkischer Beobach­ ter," the “Stürm er,“ and the “Schwarze Korps.“ A t the same tim e a com­ parison w ith the present way of w riting in the “Deutsche N a tio n al-u n d Soldaten-Zeitung” seemed absolutely necessary. T h e style turned out to be extrem ely close to th at employed in the G D R press.

So it was obviously necessary to investigate this double affinity, to look in to the degree of ideological, professional, and personal rela­ tionship involved by way of precise research and analyses. . .

T h e outcom e exceeded all expectations—or fears. T h e list included here contains 39 persons, who belonged to the Nazi Party and h ad in ­ fluential posts during the Nazi era, b u t who today have at least the same influence in the press, the radio, and propaganda organs of the GDR. Am ong them are form er Party members, SS-men, SA-leaders, con­ fidants of the Gestapo, members of propaganda organs, contributors to the Nazi radio, the “Völkischer Beobachter“ and the “Schwarze Korps,“ officials in the M inistry of Propaganda, members of the “SS H ead Office for Race and Settlem ent,“ and members of the notorious “Legion Con­ dor.“ T oday they bear decorations of the GDR, often occupy the po­ sition of deputy editor-in-chief (who is not so m uch encum bered with appearing at public functions), and form their own Nazi clique in some papers, such as in the editorial offices of “Neues D eutschland“ and “Deutsche Aussenpolitik.“ -—from, C6N ational S ocialist E lem en ts in th e P ress an d P ropagan da O rgans o f th e G erm an D em ocratic R e p u b ­ lic," b y S im on W iesen th al.

January 1969

55

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JEWISH LIFE

A WORLD WITHOUT A CONSCIENCE T h e only basic difference betiveen the present position of Jews in Arab countries and that which prevailed in Europe during the Second W orld W ar seems to be one of num bers rather than the in­ tensity of atrocities com m itted. Under the N azi regime m illions were being done to death whereas under the Nasser regime “only thousandsf* are being annihilated.

R eliable reports em anating from Cairo refer to large num bers of Jews who have been transported to camps and have been held there for over a year. One camp called “Thaura” where 250 Jews aged 18-60 are held in a special “political wing,” is being controlled by w hat is called the general security police (read Gestapo) and Egyptian Govern­ m ent sources state that they intend to hold the prisoners u n til Israel evacuates the territories she occupied last year.

Relatives of the prisoners who have been deprived Of their bread­ w inners are allowed to see them once in a m onth or six weeks. From each visit they return shaken and appalled at the conditions under which their kin are being held captive. Several prisoners have already com m itted suicide and others have made repeated attem pts to do so.

N um erous prisoners have lost their m ental balance and at least two of them are now held in a special w ing for m ental patients in the camp.

Jews are being murdered and driven to insanity w hilst the U nited N ations are paying lip service to the cause of peace and whilst the world is exhorted to “celebrate” H um an R ights Year.

— fro m an E d ito ria l in th e Jew ish T ribu n e o f London*

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For Reservations Phone: (305)531-0061 On the Oceanfront • 37th to 38th St., Miami Beach, Fla, January 1969

57

Reprints

Now Available

Our readers will appreciate knowing that reprints are now available of the following articles and editorials from previous issues of JEWISH LIFE. W HA T DOES JEWISH YOUTH REALLY WANT?

by Rabbi Pinchas Stolper JEWS AND THE W AR ON POVERTY

by Rabbi Bernard Weinberger THE CAMPUS PROBLEM AND JEWISH EDUCATION

by Shnayer Z. Leiman VISIT TO RUSSIA

by Michael Kaufman BLACK AND JEW: RE-APPRAISING THE EMERGING RELATIONSHIP

by Dr. Jerry Hochbaum JUDAISM AND ART

by Michael Kaufman MIXED PEWS

by Rabbi Morris Max These reprinfs may be used to much advantage by study and discussion groups, as well as for distribution for public information purposes to people in your local areas.

All reprints are 15 cents per copy; 10 cents per copy when 25 or more are ordered. Use order form below.

Prepaid orders only, please

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58

J E W IS H LIFE

B ooh R eview s The Kornberg M ishnayoth

By MOSES D. TENDLER THE MISHNAH, punctuated and vocal­ ized with commentary Koheleth Jacob,

by Rabbi Jakob Kornberg; London: Valentine, Mitchell; 1968, 1166 pp.

NEW edition of the Mishnah is not usually a noteworthy event in the Torah world. Unlike the Talmud, pagina­ tion has never been formalized, thus per­ mitting the free rein in both format and organization found in the many editions still available at book stores. Nor is there any lack of commentaries, in Eng­ lish, Yiddish, French, and German, as well as Hebrew. But the Kornberg Mish­ nayoth is indeed a notworthy event.

The entire six orders of the Mish­ nayoth, with the text punctuated and vocalized, are contained in a volume that measures 5 inches by 3 inches by one inch. Each Mishnah is commented upon in succinct, masterfully terse footnotes.

The printing is quite sharp with adequate space between lines.

The Mishnah is the repository of the Oral Law, the unique covenant between A

x jL

R abbi D r . T endler is Professor of Biology at Yeshiva College, Rosh Yeshivah in the Smichah Program of the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theolog­ ical Seminary, and Rav of the Community Syn­ agogue of Monsey, New York.

January 1969

Israel and Hashem. Without it we for­ feit our uniqueness as an Am Segulah, a nation selected by G-d from among the nations of the world. Yet, too many have failed to recognize this central role of Mishnah study. This edition says, “Keep me by your side when at home, when you travel on the road, when you pre­ pare to retire, and upon awakening.” (D’vorim 6,7) Without the Mishnah, the Talmud is a closed book, even to those who study Talmud. Those fortunate enough to spend their days within Hashem’s four cubits—the Yeshivah enclave—can best attest to the validity of the above state­ ment. We once again are experiencing the neglect of Mishnah recorded in the Tal­ mud. (Bova Metzia 33b) Rabbi Judah, the Prince, the compiler of the Mishnah, had lauded the study of Talmud (Gemorah) because accurate understanding of G-d’s instruction to man comes only from intensive Talmud study. “The stu­ dents therefore neglected the Mishnah and devoted themselves to the Gemorah.

Rebbe therefore announced: ‘Always pursue the Mishnah more than the Ge­ morah’ [lest the fundamentals are forgot­ ten in pursuit of intellectual intricacies of Gemorah].”

59

FOR YOURSELF AND YOUR FRIENDS A PRECIOUS GIFT two years for only $5.00 (twelve issues) JEWISH LIFE, 84 FIFTH AVENUE NEW YORK, N.Y. 10011 Send gift subscription, with gift card, to: Name ................................................................................................................

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Without Mishnah, Gemorah mastery is almost impossible. The axioms of To­ rah study must precede analytical study.

Unless one can claim “a full belly” of Torah facts, his attempt at intellectual mastery of Gemorah concepts must fail.

Students in American yeshivoth are ham­ pered by their “rawness,” their naivete, their unsophisticated Torah mentality.

Despite great intellectual ability and in­ tegrity, and their assiduous study habits, the progress of the best of our yeshivah students on the road to Torah mastery is painfully slow. The intuitive feel for the ‘‘right sounding” alternative interpre­ tation of the Gemorah and its commen­ taries is a result of familiarity with the techniques and conclusions of our Sages.

Yet the college-aged yeshivah student may have familiarity with only three or four of 'the sixty-three tractates of the Tal­ mud if he pursued the usual program of study offered in the better yeshivoth of America. How can he fully utilize his matured faculties in the study of Ge­

January 1969

morah when he lacks the axioms, the yardsticks, by which to evaluate the truth or falsehood of his independent thought processes?

The Komberg Mishnayoth is an ideal­ ly suited review text for a yeshivah Mishnah study program as well as for the world-wide Mishnah Yomith (daily Mishnah study) campaign now gathering momentum. Those who studied the Mish­ nah previously will find the commentary of Rav Komberg, of blessed memory, most helpful. It is too terse for initial study except by the most gifted. But it can aid the young student, studying the Mishnah with the traditional commen­ taries, because of its punctuation, vocali­ zation, and commentary. With increasing proficiency, this text can convert from a “cratch” to a refresher course to be studied for the “length of our days” un­ til the coming of the Messiah will ease our bondage to recalcitrant Natural Law and enable us to make Torah our pri­ mary occupation.

61

Reprints

Now Available

Our readers will appreciate knowing that reprints are now available of the following articles and editorials from previous issues of JEWISH LIFE. THE JEWISH ATTITUDE TOWARD FAMILY PLANNING

By Dr. Moses Tendler THE DIVORCE PROBLEM

By Rabbi Melech Schachter THE VOICE OF TORAH IN THE BATTLE OF IDEAS

By Rabbi Norman Lamm CAN WE NEGLECT THE TALMUD TORAH?

By Rabbi Zalman Diskind JUDAISM AND FREE ENQUIRY

By Rabbi Nachum L. Rabinovitch THE PROBLEM OF CONVERSION TODAY

By Rabbi Melech Schachter NATURE— CREATION OR EVOLUTION?

By Robert Perlman JEW AND JEW, JEW AND NON-JEW

By Rabbi Aaron Soloveichik These reprints may be used to much advantage by study and discussion groups, as well as for distribution for public information purposes to people in your local areas.

All reprints are 15 cents per copy; 10 cents per copy when 25 or more are ordered. Use order form below.

Prepaid orders only, please

JEWISH LIFE, 84 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10011 Please send ........... copies of . ; ........................................................ ..................................... send ........... copies of ..................................................................................................

NAME: ............................................................................................................................................

ADDRESS: ..................................................................... .................................................................

CITY: ..................... STATE:............. ZIP CODE: . . .. . . .C H E C K E N C L O S E D ^ ...

62

J E W IS H LIFE

Attitudes on Religious Crisis

By JOSEPH A. GRUNBLATT

RADICAL THEOLOGY: Phase Two, Essays on the Current Debate, Edited

by C. W. Christian and Glenn R. Wittig; Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co., 1967, 213 pp.; $4.95.

NEVER TRUST A GOD OVER 30, Ed­ ited by Albert H. Friedlander; New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1967, 212 pp.; $5.95.

HE two books reviewed here speak out of a different context and from essentially different starting points. The former addresses itself to Theology as it is debated within the Christian Church and the latter with the student on cam­ pus and how the representatives of in­ stitutionalized religion can or cannot re­ late to him. Yet the two books have something in common: they both reveal the intense religious and spiritual crisis of our time, and they both contain a “Jewish” chapter portraying how the Jew views or is affected by the respective problems.

The spiritual crisis can be epitomized in the phrase “Modem Man’s Loss of the Awareness of the Transcendant.” To­ tal preoccupation with science and the concrete world of here and now, his mas-

■

R abbi G runblatt is Rav of the Queens Jewish

Center in Forest Hills, New York.

January 1969

tery of nature and the overwhelming rela­ tivism created by the many competitors for transcendental truth, have brought man back where he started from in the days of Abraham. There is one crucial difference, though. Modern man claims to possess a moral maturity he did not have then. In fact, man audaciously sug­ gests that his morality and ethics are more authentic and efficacious than those offered by the institutions of transcend­ entalism. This becomes a particularly painful problem when dealing with the student on campus.

The “Jewish article” in “Radical The­ ology” is the well known essay on the subject by Rabbi Norman Lamm, pub­ lished earlier in J e w is h L i f e . In reading his excellent article next to the others, one becomes more convinced than ever (that he or rather we do not really be­ long there. It is strictly a Christian de­ bate in spite of a few Jewish theological mavericks. Christianity never came to terms fully with the paradox of G-d’s transcendance and immanence, how G-d can be totally other yet be present in this world. The trinity provided a structural solution. Now that the awareness of the transcendental is gone, let us declare the father (who took care of that depart­ ment) dead and long live the son! All writers in this critical review are keenly

63

aware that with radical theology Chris­ tianity is hard put to explain an even greater miracle than in the past. It was difficult enough to explain a human son without a human father; it is even more difficult to explain a divine son without a heavenly father! What is also quite evident amongst all the writers is a grow­ ing awareness of something that we Jews have always known—that what is, is not necessarily good and certainly not neces­ sarily normative and that, therefore, transcendance can very well justify itself in spite of us and our contemporary civ­ ilization. Neither need the traditional Jew be so profoundly disturbed by the emergence of the secular city and its worthy concerns as has been the case with orthodox Christianity since the 19th Century. After all it was our prophets who were the great visionaries of the transcendental, who gave Us “maaseh merkavah,” and the same prophets were also the greatest fighters for social justice. f 1 1 HE second book under review and JL its message are of much more seri­ ous concern to us. “Never Trust a God Over 30” was written by the various re­ ligious counselors at Columbia Univer­ sity but is quite relevant to the campus scene all over the country. We experi­ ence a moment of pride when Dr. Friedlander speaks of the orthodox Jewish student on campus who is easily recog­ nizable as well as respected for his con­ viction and his overt Jewish behavior.

But this is of course only a hard-core minority. Even amongst students of or­ thodox background, there are many who feel deeply challenged and who are strug­ gling with the intellectual and social

64

forces on campus inimical to religious, P le v e n “Jewish” life.

The “Campus,” whatever individual beliefs and preference of students may be, shares in the utter disdain for the establishment and its accomplishments, a burning desire for “relevancy,’* and a profound faith in human responsibility and personal envolvement. Particularly keen is an article by Lyman T. Lundeen which points to the moral strength but amorphous nature of student idealism.

All counselors are agreed on the special needs of campus ministry such as infor­ mality and the psychological preparedness to face pluralism, indifference, and fre­ quent hostility. The religious guide mustbe able to show how religion can fill in areas left blank by academic learning.

But first and foremost the religious coun­ selor must be with the student. To quote Dr. Friedlander: “The Rabbi who is in­ volved, who cares, who enters the stu­ dent’s life with full concern, who refuses to be the policeman for the parents but becomes thei genuine spokesman of stu­ dent needs, ultimately fulfills his religious function.”

A number of good essays have ap­ peared more recently in a variety of publications by such experts on the sub­ ject as Dr. Norman Frimer and Rabbi Irving Greenberg and others who deal very proficiently with this subject from a Jewish perspective. The problem is enormous and there are no simple solu­ tions even for us orthodox Jews. Just to throw in some food for thought in clos­ ing, we should re-examine what we do in our yeshivah, elementary ¿id high schools before we send our children off to the campus.

JEWISH LIFE

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