Jewish Currents magazine March-April 2008

$5.00 • March-April, 2008

A Progressive, Secular Bimonthly

The Magazine of The Workmen’s Circle/Arbeter Ring

Presidential Politics through Spiritual Eyes Arthur Waskow

Jewish Multiculturalism Judith Rosenbaum

The Case Against God Mitchell Silver

Bob Dylan as Family Man Marek Breiger

The Free Clinics of the Psychoanalytic Movement David James Fisher

Holocaust Memoirs —

Human Solidarity in Hell John Ranz

Stuchkoff’s Yiddish Thesaurus Yankl Stillman

Visiting the Abayudaya

Relatives

Peter Schweitzer

p Gr lus e P Ou etin ass r R gs ove ea fro r de m rs !

Robert Kaplan

Susan Gold

LETTERS Names will be withheld from publication on request. Jewish Currents reserves the right to edit letters to restrict their length.

Circling and Symbolism

Welfare Reform

I was bemused to see Rabbi Peter Schweitzer (“Secular Jewish Weddings,” January-February) perpetuating the notion that the bride circles the groom “to indicate her subservience to her husband.” Eh? A woman in a frothy dress slowly and repeatedly circling a man standing upright — khaveyrim, don’t we know a sexual metaphor when we see one? Modest shtetl Jews who practiced arranged marriage may not have felt comfortable saying so, but they had better instincts than we do for a perfectly frank and magically beautiful ritual.

Surely we didn’t win the sexual revolution only to misread (and discard!) such a striking tradition.

Catherine Madsen

Robert Cherry’s “Welfare Reform: The Untold Success Story” (JanuaryFebruary), about the effects of welfare reform on the poor, was a refreshing change. It was good to read an opinion from someone who could move past the usual anti-capitalist bias and be objective. Mr. Cherry is foremost interested in how the poor are living and not just about income inequality. I wish others on the left would raise the issues he has. Too many progressives judge capitalism on some abstract idea of societal perfection and not enough on its real world effects.

Leftists cannot be just ivy tower theorists.

They have to be realists also.

Steven Kalka East Rockaway, New York •

Amherst, Massachusetts

Vol. 62, No. 2 (647) March-April, 2008 www.jewishcurrents.org Editor: Lawrence Bush Editorial Board: Adrienne Cooper, Joseph Dimow, Henry Foner, Esther Leysorek Goodman, Milton Kant, Lyber Katz, Judith Rosenbaum, Yankl Stillman, Tamar Zinn, Barnett Zumoff Contributing Editor (from Israel): Amy Klein Editorial Advisory Council: Isak Arbus, Henrietta Backer, Paul Basch, Anne-Marie Brumm, Alvin Dorfman, Shaurain Farber, Gordon Fellman, Eric A. Gordon, Abbott Gorin, David A. Hacker, Estelle Holt, Carol Jochnowitz, Rokhl Kafrissen, Robert Kaplan, Michael Katz, Robert Kestenbaum, Arieh Lebowitz, Miriam Leberstein, Ira Mintz, Bennett Muraskin, Marie Parham, Peter Pepper, Sam Pepper, Sheldon Ranz, Eugene Resnick, Sid Resnick, Martin Schwartz, Rhea Seagull, Ralph Seliger, Paul G. Shane, Joel Shatzky, Ruth Singer, Harold Sosnow Webmaster: Arnie Berger Website Resources Editor: Ira Karlick Management committee: Stan Distenfeld, Nina Gordon, Ira Karlick, Elaine Katz, Bernard Kransdorf, Ruth Ost, Fred Rosenthal, Ian Dreiblatt

Cover: “Child with Soup Plate,” ink on paper, by Akiva Kenny Segan, www. holocaust-art.org.

JEWISH CURRENTS (ISSN #US-ISSN-0021-6399), March-April, 2008, Vol. 62, No. 2 (647).

Published bimonthly by The Workmen’s Circle/Arbeter Ring, 45 E. 33rd St., New York, NY 10016.

Phone: (212) 889-2523. Fax: (212) 532-7518. E-mail: jewishcurrents@circle.org. Website: www. jewishcurrents.org. Single copies $5. Subscription $30 a year in U.S.; elsewhere, $35. Periodicals postage paid at New York, N.Y. Copyright © 2008 by Jewish Currents.

Although Robert Cherry’s article seems well-researched and provides “facts” to back up his thesis, it is just not a reflection of reality for the millions of single mothers who have been forced off the welfare rolls.

Cherry falls back on one of the most common mistakes researchers make when trying to prove a point that they already believe to be true: assuming that because ‘B’ follows ‘A,’A causes B. This is known as the “spurious correlation.”

Cherry states that “welfare reform has lifted millions of families out of abject poverty . . .” But neither welfare nor welfare reform was designed to be an antipoverty program. (In every state, the annual welfare benefit is significantly below the federal poverty level.) The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1996 was designed to address the ‘problem’ of welfare costing the federal government too much money. The goal of the legislation was to reduce the welfare rolls. It succeeded at this. But since the reforms passed in 1996 did not begin to have a major impact until 2001, when recipients began reaching their five-year lifetime limit, we must look at poverty rates after 2001 to get a real assessment of the legislation’s impact on poverty. In fact, the rate of poverty in America rose almost every year between 2000 and 2006.

In 2000, the national rate of poverty stood at 11.3 percent; in 2004, 12.7 percent; in 2006, 12.3 percent, a full percentage point higher than 2000. That means three million more people living below the poverty level after welfare time limits kicked in than before.

Similarly, according to a 2004 study by the Urban Institute, after welfare reform, people leaving welfare were less likely to find employment than those leaving prior to reform, in spite of the growing economy. In 1999, 50 percent of those leaving welfare remained unemployed after one year; by 2002, this number had grown to 58 percent. The Urban Institute study further found a 55 percent poverty rate in the first year after leaving welfare with 50 to 75 percent of those leaving welfare remaining poor for two to three years and 42 percent remaining poor for Continued on page 84

Editorials

and

Viewpoints

Editorials

2 Letters 3 Blood on the Doorposts 5 “Don’t You Yet Realize that Egypt Is Being Destroyed?”

The Jewish Currents Bookshelf 7 81/2 Planets Lawrence Bush 8 MLK or LBJ? Arthur Waskow

Articles 14 The Free Clinics of the Psychoanalytic Movement David James Fisher 19 Human Solidarity in Hell John Ranz 24 Posters from the Vilna Ghetto Nikolai Borodulin 26 Relatives Susan Gold 45 Bob Dylan: Reconciliation and Atonement Marek Breiger 50 A Little Bit of Cultcha Esther Cohen

Columns 6 Follow-Up 11 The View from Israel The Russians Have Come! (Part 2) Amy Klein 40 Religion and Skepticism The Case Against God Mitchell Silver 48 Mameloshn Poems by Avrom Sutzkever Translated by Myra Mniewski 60 Our Secular Jewish Heritage The Yiddish Thesaurus and Nahum Stutchkoff Yankl Stillman 76 In Memoriam Bennett Muraskin 89 Around the World Visiting the Abayudaya Robert Kaplan 92 The Rootless Cosmopolitan “The Past Didn’t Go Anywhere” Rokhl Kafrissen

Blood on the Doorposts

H

has long been the central repository of wealth for the greatest number of Americans, with over 65 percent of families owning the places in which they live. While stock ownership has become quite widespread, too, thanks to pension funds, mutual funds, and other forms of savings that involve stock market investment, no stock portfolio ever paid a school tax, hired a plumber, planted a garden, or became a cornerstone of community life.

It is quite disturbing, therefore, for the current subprime (highinterest) mortgage crisis to be described almost exclusively from the perspective of corporate lenders and Wall Street. Years ago, when progressive groups like Coöp America and the Social Investment Forum were trying to shine a light on the predatory lending practices that were fueling the subprime boom and enriching such major financial institutions as Citigroup and Bank of America, they could hardly attract a reporter to their press conferences.

Subprime loans were multiplying from 80,000 in 1993 to nearly 800,000 five years later, and few people wanted to hear the warnings of activists like Irving Ackelsberg, an attorney at Community Legal Services of Philadelphia, who described predatory lending as “the housing equivalent of the crack epidemic.” ome ownership

Now those banks and investment houses that snatched up and packaged subprime mortgages are helping to drive the entire economy into recession — and both the FBI and the Securities and Exchange Commission are investigating the very hanky-panky that critics like Irving Ackelsberg were describing a decade ago.

Americans who are actually losing their homes, however, are still receiving scant attention. The FHA Secure program that President Bush inaugurated last August would bail out a maximum of three hundred thousand of an estimated two million or more endangered homeowner families. Project Lifeline, unveiled on February 12th

Reviews 63 The Jewish Rainbow Judith Rosenbaum on The Colors of Jews 67 Charles Reznikoff’s Testimonies Ian Dreiblatt on Holocaust

Poetry, Fiction 10 Afikomen Sheri Lindner

March-April, 2008

and

Art

21 The Coup de Grace Lawrence Fogel-Bublick

47 A Premonition Shirley Adelman

28 A Jewish Writer Repairs a Small German Car Ben-David Seligman 30 Victims and Survivors Lenny Emmanuel

69 Hitler’s Falcon Sherman Pearl 95 The Peacemaker Solomon Chigrinsky

Forshpayzn* A Gift

to the

Government

A 710-year-old copy of the Magna Carta was bought at auction for $21.3 million in December

by David M. Rubenstein, founder of the Carlyle Group and, according to Forbes, one of the 400 richest people in America. “When I heard that it was going to be on sale, I was surprised the government wasn’t buying it,” he remarked.

Rubenstein, a policy adviser to Jimmy Carter, has an office across from the National Archives in Washington, D.C. — to which he has donated the document, to remain on display where it has been since 1988. “Freedom doesn’t really have a price,” Rubenstein said.

—New York Times

Tevye

the

Rocket Scientist

The Sholem Aleichem Crater, 120 miles across, on the planet Mercury, was named about thirty years ago when it was first perceived by the Mariner 10 spacecraft. During a fly-by of the planet by the Messenger spacecraft in January of this year, the crater was photographed in sunlight for the first time. Sholem Aleichem is the largest crater in the Caloris basin, an area of impact craters that is larger than the state of Texas.

Craters on Mercury are named for deceased artists, musicians, painters, and writers by the International Astronomical Union (IAU), which oversees the official process of naming new craters and other new features discovered on bodies throughout the solar system.

—Astronomy

Hard Time The inauguration of DNA testing in 1989 has led to the release of more than 200 wrongfully convicted people who have spent a collective total of 2,500 years in prison. Yet prosecutors and judges in several states are routinely denying or ignoring inmate requests for DNA testing — and tens of thousands of DNA samples have gone missing.

—Equal Justice USA

Yad Vashem Website Seven million people from 214 countries visited the Yad Vashem website in 2007, including “a tremendous growth in the number of visitors from Muslim countries. at a 20% discount!

—Yad Vashem Magazine

* Appetizers

by the Treasury Department and the Department of Housing and Urban Development, expanded relief to allow seriously overdue homeowners (including prime borrowers) to suspend foreclosures for 30 days while working with lenders to establish more affordable loans. This, too, is a stingy response to an epidemic problem: The New York Times reported on the same day that nearly a quarter of all subprime mortgages are now delinquent or in foreclosure.

The burdens of federal government stinginess, warns Black Enterprise magazine, will be shouldered primarily by the Black and Hispanic communities. “Clear racial patterns have emerged,” writes D.A. Campbell (www.blackenterprise. com), “illustrating that both groups have been systematically targeted” for subprime and predatory lending. For example, Campbell continues, “According to Federal Reserve data, 55 percent of Blacks — compared to 17 percent of whites — received subprime loans to purchase or refinance homes in 2005, even if they qualified for lower rate loans.” Studies have shown that elderly minority people have been most vulnerable, as their lifelong acquaintance with racism made them doubtful about their prospects with mainstream lenders.

Free-market ideologues have nevertheless been pointing the finger at borrowers for not resisting the subprime temptation. After decades of being starved for credit by the redlining policies of mainstream banks, however — and with less than a third of Black retirees receiving income apart from Social Security and pensions, according to the Social Security Administration — it is no surprise that millions of minority families have seen home ownership, at any cost, as a step up, and that millions of others have accepted loans to turn their home equity into cash. In a society that equates patriotism with trips to the shopping mall and endlessly provokes consumerism through mass media, it seems hypocritical to blame working people of any race or ethnicity for their lack of thriftiness and financial foresight. Foresight should have been demanded, rather, of the experts. But as economic meltdowns from the Savings and Loans crisis to Enron’s bankruptcy to the current housing crisis have shown, when foresight and greed collide in the marketplace, greed always wins out — and we all pay the cost.

To be secure in one’s home is a fundamental part of American life — and a fundamental aspect of the Jewish observance of Passover, at which we recall the mythic marking of the Hebrew slaves’ doorposts so that the Angel of Death, would spare their lives while sweeping through Egypt on its killing mission.

This year, when we symbolically invite the poor and hungry to our seder table, we would do well to recall the two million additional American families whose homes may be lost to a different sort of Destroyer — and pledge our support to some of our fellow Jews who are doing something about the situation.

Chief among these is the Jewish Funds for Justice (JFSJ; www.jewishjustice. org), about whom we wrote briefly in our January-February editorial. For decades, JFSJ has been cultivating Jewish investment in community development banks, credit unions and loan funds through its Tzedec Partnership for Community Investing. These community development financial institutions (CDFIs) provide low-interest mortgages to the same ‘high-risk’ populations that mainstream banks have steered to the subprime market. By providing basic financial education and support to their borrowers, CDFIs have achieved stability that mainstream banks must envy: The two hundred and twenty-six members of the National Federation of Community Development Credit Unions, for example, have seen a rise in mortgage foreclosures of only 1.6 percent, compared to a 165 percent increase for commercial banks.

The secret, says Simon Greer, president of JFSJ, is “the long-term commitment Jewish Currents

The Forgotten Exodus

to economic mobility and community accountability” that CDFIs favor. For community-based institutions, such prudence comes naturally. For stiff-necked profiteers like Citigroup and Bank of America, prudence comes through regulation.

“Don’t You Yet Realize that Egypt Is Being Destroyed?”

T

here’s a woman

running to be president, yet she dares not speak into the mike about gender oppression or the leadership qualities that have emerged specifically from her experience as a feminist woman. There’s a biracial man running to be president, yet he dares not speak into the mike about how his experiences in a racist country may uniquely qualify him to lead that country. There’s a veteran war hero and prisoner-of-war running to be president, yet he says little about the savagery of war and the costs of post-traumatic stress disorder. All three are talking passionately about “change” — but what they are offering our country so far is more absolution than self-examination, more a message of “Let’s move on” than “Let’s repair.”

Unlike the biblical courtiers of the book of Exodus, who finally challenge Pharaoh —“Don’t you yet realize that Egypt is being destroyed?” (24: 7) — the candidates have not yet turned their focus upon the extensive damages that Pharaoh Bush has wreaked upon the body and soul of our country. So they barely discuss the war in Iraq and the concept of “preemptive war.” They have said little about the corporate feeding frenzy that Bush has indulged with tax breaks, regulatory laxity, elephantine military budgets, and anti-consumer legislation, to the point of near-bankruptcy; or about the need to restore a centrist balance to the Supreme Court, and a balance of powers to the government as a whole; or about the degradation of our Constitution through CIA “renditions,” torture, domestic surveillance, and so on. Mostly they tout their personal charisma or competence or experience, as though the election were a popularity contest.

Despite the candidates reticence, however, the voters, at least within the Democratic Party, seem to understand the auspicious character of this election and have been turning out in record numbers for the primary elections, including unprecedented numbers of young people and Black and Hispanic voters.

Let us hope the eventual nominees will respond to this expanding electorate by addressing the real issues facing our nation.

The Jewish Currents Bookshelf

R

eaders should note that we are offering for sale, with free shipping,

a few books by some of our regular writers, in ads scattered throughout this issue. Similar book offers will be made in future issues. These writers are all contributing their profits from sales through the magazine. We urge you to take advantage of their generosity.

As for your own generosity, we thank (so much!) those readers who have filled this double issue of Jewish Currents with Passover greetings — and we promise to strive for excellence in the name of our, and your, ideals.

Subscribe to Jewish Currents —just $30 for six issues.

Visit www.jewishcurrents.org.

March-April, 2008

Former Canadian Minister of Justice and Attorney General Irwin Cotler is calling for “rights of remembrance, truth, justice and redress” for “the 850,000 Jews displaced from Arab countries” following the creation of Israel sixty years ago. “[E]ach of the Arab countries and the League of Arab States,” Cotler argues, “must acknowledge their role and responsibility in the perpetration of human rights violations against their respective Jewish nationals,” violations that included “Nuremberg-like laws . . . that targeted . . . Jewish populations, and resulted in denationalization, forced expulsions, illegal sequestration of property, arbitrary arrest and detention, and the like.” Cotler believes that “the UIN Human Rights Council should address, for the first time, the issue of Jewish as well as Palestinian refugees,” and that the UN’s observance of November 29th as an “International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People” should be “transformed into an International Day of Solidarity for a Two-State Solution.”

—Congress Monthly

“Ascent” (Aliyah) Descends Jewish emigration to Israel in 2007 hit a twentyyear low of 19,700, a decline of 6 percent from the year before. Thirty percent came from the former Soviet Union, and 18 percent came from Ethiopia. North America provided 15 percent, and France 13 percent.

—National Jewish Post and Opinion

Vote-Shmote Fifty percent of NYU students recently said that they would “permanently forfeit” their vote for $1 million. . . . The number of Hispanic voters in the U.S. has more than doubled since 2000. . . .

One fourth of the U.S. population has lived only under presidents named Bush and Clinton.

—Harper’s

What’s He Done

for

Us Lately?

Former President Jimmy Carter, who oversaw the Camp David Peace agreement between Israel and Egypt, has been excluded from participating on the National Committee for Israel 60, organized by the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations to oversee U.S. celebrations of Israel’s 60th anniversary. Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush have been invited to serve as co-chairs, but not, Carter, author of the controversial Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.

—Forward

And 2 Percent

as

Martians

According to a recent Yediot Achronot poll, 40 percent of Israelis identify “first and foremost” as Jews, 13 percent as Israelis, and 45 percent as human beings. (It is unclear whether or not the poll included Israeli Arabs.)

—Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle

FOLLOW-UP

FOLLOW-UP

FOLLOW-UP

FOLLOW-UP

FOLLOW-UP

FOLLOW-UP

FOLLOW-UP David Rothenberg, writing in our November-December, 2007 issue about his experiences founding the Fortune Society, took note of the disproportionate imprisonment of African-Americans and Latinos, especially on drug charges, and identified two “new reasons” for the prison system to exist: to provide jobs in economically barren areas, and to diminish Black and Latino political power.”

In a Boston Review article reprinted in The Utne Reader (November-December, 2007), Glenn C. Loury reinforces Rothenberg’s analysis, noting that America’s incarceration rate (2.25 million people, or 714 per 100,000 residents) has produced “a corrections sector that employs more Americans than the combined workforces of General Motors, Ford, and Wal-Mart, the three largest corporate employers in the country.” Two-thirds of inmates are “property and drug offenders,” not violent criminals, Lowry notes, and they are “disproportionately drawn from the most disadvantaged parts of society.”

An interview with Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), was our cover story in September-October, 2007 (“War Criminals in the White House?”). In December, the Puffin Foundation, Ltd. and the Nation awarded Ratner the $100,000 Puffin/Nation Prize for Creative Citizenship, given to an individual who has challenged the status quo “through distinctive, courageous, imaginative, socially responsible work of significance.” CCR meanwhile has continued to press for habeas corpus rights for Guantanamo prisoners, arguing in December before the Supreme Court in what is widely expected to be a 5-4 decision, with Justice Anthony Kennedy serving as the swing vote.

Our September-October, 2007 editorial introduced readers to The Elders — a group of twelve elderly world citizens convened by Nelson Mandela on his 89th birthday (a thirteenth chair is held open for Aung San Suu Kyi, who lives under house arrest in Burma). The Elders now have a website at www.theelders.org at which people can become signatories to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted sixty years ago, and learn about the group’s activism. This includes a visit to Sudan last

October by Jimmy Carter, Desmond Tutu, Graça Machel, and Lakhdar Brahimi, who assessed the situation in Darfur, affirmed support of the fragile peace negotiated in Sudan in the two-year-old Comprehensive Peace Agreement, and issued recommendations that can be read at the website.

Cheryl Lynn Greenberg wrote about “Leftists and the Civil Rights Movement” in January-February, 2008, with particular focus on the role played by Black and Jewish communists and socialists in the decades before the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education desegregation decision.

Denzel Washington’s new film, The Great Debaters, set in the segregationalist South in 1935, backs up Greenberg’s interpretation of history. The film portrays Melvin B. Tolson (1898-1966), the debating team faculty advisor at Wiley College in East Texas, as engaged in the enormously risky task of organizing a biracial sharecroppers union. The Great Debaters does not make clear whether Tolson had radical political affiliations, but Gary Lenhart writes (in The American Poetry Review) that Tolson “had known Ralph Ellison since both were active sympathizers, if not members, of the Communist party” in the 1930s. Tolson’s own political writings reveal a blend of Christian radicalism, Melvin B. Tolson Black pride, and social progressivism that must have been powerfully inspiring to his students, several of whom became important civil rights activists — most notably, James Farmer, Jr., who at age 21 founded the Congress of Racial Equality. Ultimately, however, Tolson’s reputation was mainly literary, as a modernist poet best known for “Dark Symphony,” 1941, “Libretto for the Republic of Liberia” (1953, by which time he had been named the Poet Laureate of Liberia); and “A Gallery of Harlem Portraits,” 1965, published posthumously in 1979.

Our January-February, 2008 cited the Jewish Funds for Justice as one of “the rare exceptions to the rule of Jewish flight from involvement with the African-American community” and made note of JFJS’ catalyzing of over $30 million in Jewish investments in community development financial institutions (CDFIs). Writing in the Forward (January 2nd, 2008), JFJS president Simon Greer promoted CDFIs as “sub-prime lenders whose responsible lending practices are helping millions of working families weather the storm” of the sub-prime lending crisis. “These community-based institutions offer fair mortgages, educate low-income borrowers about debt, and work one-on-one with families to help them obtain the credit they need.”

Jewish Currents

Viewpoints Lawrence Bush

81/2 Planets

T

Marketplace, which follows All Things Considered on my NPR station and focuses mostly on the stock market, personal finance, corporate takeovers and such, amazed me this past November with a week-long series, “Consumed,” detailing the environmental costs of our consumer culture. The included some creative journalism, as reporter Tess Vigeland, for example, attempted to carry around with her all the trash she had generated for two weeks. What startled me most, however, was the online test it steered me to at the show’s website (http://sustainability.publicra- would need 81/2 planet Earths to universalize our lifestyle! Rural living, dio.org/consumerconsequences/).

“Consumer Consequences” prom- without the self-reliance and limited ised to show how many planets would horizons of a 19th- century farm, turns be required to produce the natural out to be highly unsustainable. resources needed to sustain all 6.6 billion human beings if everyone lived I had this on my conscience as I drove my lifestyle. I figured I’d ace the test: forty miles round-trip to my favorite My family lives in a rural setting, in a food store just before New Year’s Eve. small house; we conserve heating oil I had it on my conscience as I declined with an efficient wood-burning stove; to buy off-season melons from Guawe use compact fluorescent bulbs and temala and fish from Chile. Indeed, don’t leave them on when we’re not in “81/2 planets” now weighs on my mind the room; we recycle conscientiously; whenever I select clothes from the closet, unload the dishwasher, turn we don’t own a flat-screen HDTV. Still, the test noted, we do drink on the computer, or simply plotz with coffee and wine — products that my feet up on our cherrywood coffee have to be shipped long distances to table. Each time, I think: How did reach our table. And I do eat meat these possessions come to me? Who in restaurants, an environmentally was involved in their creation? At costly practice (the rest of my family what cost? In essence, my cozy little members are fishtarians). But worst house is no longer simply a personal by far, according to the test, we rely sanctuary, but a weigh station on the on cars to take us where we need to globalization highway. go, usually on solo trips that add up to about sixty thousand miles per year. Generally, I am used to off-loading And my wife flies four or five times responsibility for environmental salannually to get to her teaching jobs vation onto the scientific community, which will redeem us, I figure, through and conferences.

All in all, I learned, the human race innovations that allow us to transcend he radio show

Lawrence Bush is the editor of Jewish Currents.

March-April, 2008

the oil economy and make successful adjustments to global warming.

While technological fixes do not exactly add up to an Edenic scenario, I see no viable alternative path — not while China is building some hundred coal-fired power plants per year (with India and Brazil queuing up behind), the world population surges towards an estimated peak of nearly ten billion by 2075, and there remains a lack of international planning for our planet.

In optimistic moments, I figure that corporate decision-makers, who control many of the fruits of science, will eventually recognize the profitability of greening the planet. In pessimistic moments, I simply hunker down into selfishness and thank my stars that I live in the Northeastern United States, where the impact of environmental degradation is likely to be fairly benign. Either way, I don’t put much faith in individual lifestyle as an engine of change, because I don’t believe that the revolution in values needed to produce true environmental restraint will ever take place, let alone quickly enough to head off disaster. Besides, our ‘lifestyles’ have many social determinants: I don’t altogether choose to drive thousand of miles every year, but am forced to by the lack of efficient public transportation in my neck of the woods.

Still, Marketplace has tossed the ball of environmental responsibility squarely back into my lap. As Rabbi Tarfon puts it in Pirkey Avot: We are not obliged to complete the work, but neither are we free to evade it. The fact is that I could make my little house solar. I could, perhaps, convince my town to build some bike paths . . . my county to improve its bus service . . . and my people to be a “light unto the nations” by altering their personal and institutional consumption patterns.

That’s enough assignment to keep me from putting my feet up on the cherrywood coffee table ever again.

Rabbi Arthur Waskow

MLK or LBJ? Presidential Politics through Spiritual Eyes

I

mmediately after the New Hampshire primary in January, a contro-

Solomon Chigrinsky

versy flared up between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama about whether Martin Luther King, Jr. or Lyndon Baines Johnson was most responsible for passage of the Civil Rights Acts of the 1960s.

I was there, folks: working on Capitol Hill and then in the Institute for Policy Studies, a progressive research/ action center. And the answer is: Both MLK and LBJ were responsible — and, one might add with some exaggeration, neither. The “neither” part —even though I’m overstating it — is the most important. The people really responsible were, in the beginning, dozens, then hundreds, and finally thousands and hundreds of thousands of grassroots activists.

Dr. King gave an eloquent voice to those activists’ vigor, as he himself was transformed from an earnest young minister in Montgomery, Alabama into a prophetically eloquent teacher to a nation — transformed by the mothers and fathers and teenagers who boycotted Montgomery’s buses, invented ways to get to work and school, withstood beatings and murder. ‘Ordinary’ people, including King himself, taught each other to be extraordinary.

What about the more conventional politics of president and Congress in those days? In 1958, as a graduate student in Madison, Wisconsin, I did research and rang doorbells for a young lawyer, Robert W. Kastenmeier, who was expected to lose his

quixotic campaign for the House of Representatives. He won. So I went to Washington, partly to research my doctoral dissertation on the race riots of the long hot summer of 1919, and partly to work in his Congressional office as a legislative assistant.

My time there was refreshing and instructive. My boss was a pretty unconventional politician. When he gave public speeches, he kept his hands in his coat pockets lest people see they were trembling. He had gone into politics himself because in 1945, as a very young second lieutenant, he had seen Hiroshima just six weeks after its destruction, and had decided to commit his life to making sure that

Rabbi Arthur Waskow is the author of Down-to-Earth Judaism, editor of Torah of the Earth, and Trees, Earth, & Torah: A Tu B’Shvat Anthology, and co-author of The Tent of Abraham. He directsThe Shalom Center, www.shalomctr.org, which voices a new prophetic agenda in Jewish, multireligious, and American life. To receive the weekly on-line Shalom Report, click on — www.shalomctr.org/subscribe.

never happened again.

Alongside him in Congress that term were a few others like him, enough to cook up fresh ideas but no new laws.

Sam Rayburn, an ornery and hidebound Texan, was the House speaker.

LBJ, another ornery and hide-bound Texan, headed the Senate. They permitted a meaningless ‘civil rights’ law to be passed, but it changed no lives.

We broke a few spokes in the wheels of ambitious generals who wanted to make biological and chemical war legitimate, but we could not stop the arms race.

In 1960, John Kennedy was elected president. He brought a fresh sound and look, a sense of youth and possibility, to the presidency. His policies?

He campaigned about a ‘missile gap,’ alleging that the U.S. was way behind the USSR in nuclear weapons, which was a lie. He sent U.S. troops to VietJewish Currents

nam, the beginning of that appalling, lethal quagmire. He dithered as the sit-in movement erupted. And yet JFK mattered, because he symbolized a fresh new energy. He spoke of a new day, and he looked like a new day, though he did little to bring it.

The real new day was happening in the streets: election doorbell ringing; students defying the House Committee on UnAmerican Activities; sit-ins; Freedom Rides; thousands picketing drugstores all over America because their Southern branches were segregated; ministers, priests, and rabbis getting arrested for violating segregation laws; students demonstrating against the threat of nuclear holocaust and questioning the premises of the Cold War. While Kennedy lived, even this bubbling did not bring much new legislation. His Justice Department was peddling yet another barely incremental civil rights act. Only after his death, and after many, many more civil-rights actions, did President Johnson and Congress decide to move forward with a serious civil rights act, and even then it did not touch the official levers of power — the vote.

In 1964, LBJ, who had with trepidation finally allowed this strong civil rights act to pass, tried to squash the grassroots activists of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. He denied them seats at the Democratic convention and had the FBI wiretap their offices, as he and Kennedy had allowed the FBI to wiretap Dr. King.

Johnson lifted no finger to achieve voting rights for Southern Blacks until, in 1965, grassroots activists in Selma, Alabama lit a nonviolent match to turn the grassroots public into a prairie fire, aflame with commitment.

Every blade of grass became a Burning Bush, demanding voting rights.

Activists were beaten by the police. In Washington, members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating CommitMarch-April, 2008

tee (SNCC) began chanting all night outside the White House, demanding federal intervention. Finally, the President agreed to meet with them. He told them they were keeping him awake all night. One of them snippily answered, “Mr. President, our people are being killed in the South. I’m not concerned about your losing sleep.”

Faced with this grassroots prairie fire, LBJ went to Congress for a strong voting rights act, declared in his Texas twang, “We shall overcome,” and got the bill that became the basis for Black political power in our own genera-

change policy as energize grassroots people who would do the changing themselves — and then get out of their way, instead of repressing them.

The call for change must include — • Healing the earth from the corporate rape of our climate, which is causing unprecedented droughts and floods, starving the poor in many countries, and unleashing old diseases into far broader territories.

• Walking a whole new path with a U.S. “foreign” policy rooted in compassion, education, and generosity — not war and domination.

Faced with a grassroots prairie fire, LBJ got the bill that became the basis for Black political power in our own generation — and even began to think about addressing poverty across racial lines. tion. Under the pressure of all this grassroots energy, he even began to think about addressing poverty across racial lines.

Then he ruined it all with his obsessive commitment to invading and conquering Vietnam. The war put an end to any chance of a multiracial coalition to unite against poverty. First the grassroots activists, and then leaders such as Dr. King and Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, and ultimately millions more, went into the streets to end this cruel stupidity.

Why am I reciting all this? Because it seems to me the Congressional election of 2006, like that of 1958, signaled new energy at the grassroots.

The new Congress in 2007 (like the new Congress in 1959) accomplished little. It was a symptom of change, not its agent. The election of 2008 offers the same prospect as that of 1960: It could teach us once again that change is possible, it could strengthen those who are already grassroots activists, it could multiply their numbers. It could put in place a president who, like Kennedy, would not so much

• Going beyond the sterile debates over immigration. The issue must not be framed as though it were a purely “domestic” choice between building a reservoir of exploitable labor or building an armed, electrified fence.

Instead, we need to see the Americas as a household to be cared for in all its parts.

• Using the Justice Department to unearth corruption and war crimes, not as a waterboard to torture and drown the Constitution.

Ultimately, it is grassroots activism that will move these visions forward: • Grassroots activists must challenge the Environmental Protection Agency’s attacks on the earth it is supposed to protect, multiply efforts by the states to overcome federal obeisance to Big Oil and Big Auto, insist that cities switch their auto fleets to hybrid and electric cars, and leaflet Amtrak passengers to demand the shift of subsidies from highways to public transport.

• As an alternative to military boot camps where frightened and hopeless young people are trained to be ready to kill and die, grassroots ac-

tivists must agitate for decent jobs in ‘green’ industries that diminish global scorching, and for community-run centers where song and dance, study and sports can replace drugs and desperation.

• In the prisons that now house more than two million inmates, most of them convicted of nonviolent crimes and a large plurality of them AfricanAmerican, chaplains must not just soothe anger with a fake god of sweet nothings, but encourage prisoners to teach each other the crafts they will need outside; teach them songs of freedom and justice; help them abandon the hate-filled ethnic gangs and to shape shared nonviolent protest against the prison system.

• And yes, grassroots activists must work for the presidential and Congressional and local candidates who work for transformation — who go into politics as deeply committed to end the firestorms that have destroyed Detroit and Baltimore and Baghdad as Robert Kastenmeier was to prevent new Hiroshimas.

Inspiration is not enough. Strategy and tactics matter. I commend to you

a recent handbook of nonviolent change, Love in Action, written and published by Richard K. Taylor, a veteran grassroots activist. The book was originally written for Catholics seeking profound reforms of their church, but much of it is useful to spiritually motivated activists of any flavor.

The other book on activism I recommend is an anthology of articles on Jewish social action, Righteous Indignation, edited by Rabbi Or Rose, Jo Ellen Green Kaiser, and Margie Klein, and published by Jewish Lights. Its fascinating array includes essays on the theory of justice and Judaism and articles on specific issues like ecoJudaism, stem cell research, immigration, feminism, Israeli-Palestinian peace, and more.

There is one important gap in this book. While it wonderfully explores the worlds of the marginalized and disempowered, it says very little about the powerful. There is some discussion of oil companies and health management organizations, and one essay that talks about the “pharaoh of globalization.” Yet the Torah’s story of Exodus, carefully read, could teach us a lot about unaccountable top-down power,

exemplified by the pharaoh — while the Talmud, created in a time when the Jews, like much of the world, lived under Roman rule, similarly has a lot to teach about Caesar. Considering the last seven years of American history, this is Torah we need to learn.

Why do I speak about looking at politics through “spiritual” eyes? Obviously, civil rights leaders and anti-war activists such as Martin Luther King, Charles Sherrod, Malcolm X, and Bob Edgar drew on explicit religious traditions, while others, such as Bob Moses, and Carol Cohen McEldowney of SDS, did not. Still others, such as Charlotte Bunch Weeks, began her activism in a religious tradition, and moved into using secular language, while I began with secular language and moved into religious covenant.

Regardless — to me, when people risk beatings and prison, their jobs and their lives, not to kill but to love, as they seek to transform a country addicted to violence and greed, their work is rooted in the Spirit, in the interbreathing of all life — whether they use the language of God or not.

Sheri Lindner

Afikomen Seated at the piano I rummage through books, long neglected, of old favorites.

From between the pages of Chopin’s nocturnes slips a satin-wrapped piece of matzoh.

I do not know from which year this matzoh hails: which year it was that children grown or grown-ups lost the penchant for the search; which seder it was that we completed incomplete,

this broken half left, like a lost, forgotten tribe, unransomed, as we left the table with chocolate in our mouths instead of the taste of this one particular matzoh.

Stale as it is, I cannot throw it away before placing a small corner of it on my tongue and letting it slowly dissolve.

Sheri Lindner is a poet, essayist and psychologist who helps elementary school teachers address learning, behavioral and emotional issues with their students.

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Jewish Currents

Hamas and Gaza The Israeli Perspective, in the Streets and Suites

The

View from Israel

amas is not

Lieutenant Colonel (retired) Dani Reshef of IDF intelligence, who served mostly in southern Lebanon during his decade of service, sees the issue not as one of optimism versus pessimism, but pragmatism. Reshef, who writes regular position papers on the security situation, seems to represent a ‘realist’ strain of analysis that is growing in influence. He doesn’t believe Hamas is about to lose popularity in Gaza, he told me, because they provide the only welfare services available to people. Most of Hamas’ money goes to health, education and welfare, not terror, Reshef says. They run all the orphanages, and every person who walks through the door of their health clinics gets treated. Hamas police control the streets and don’t take protection money. While March-April, 2008

Fatah leaders live in villas with guards, Hamas leaders live with the people (when they are not underground, as they are at this writing, with the Israeli army targeting them for assassination). While Fatah’s image is one of overwhelming corruption, Hamas is the first force to create a stable government and order in Gaza. Hamas’ popularity, Reshef told me, also rests upon the appeal of jihad. To give Islamic grounding to one’s politics has enormous appeal in the Arab world today.

Hanan Ashrawi, the well-known Palestinian legislator of the party, “The Third Way,” and a former Fatah activist, disagrees with Reshef’s perspective. In a recent meeting with a delegation from Brit Tzedek V’Shalom, she suggested that Hamas is losing popularity due to its killing of opposition leaders and its fundamentalist Islamic ideology.

Reshef puts this into context, however, noting that since the beginning of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, 30,000 Palestinians have been killed — half at the hands of other Palestinians. The greatest cause of the Palestinians’ plight,

he says, has been their internal strife. Anarchy, violence and power-struggle reign in the streets. So if Hamas comes in and establishes order, no one is bothered if it kills a few opposition leaders to do so.

The Israeli/Palestinian conflict, he notes, is just a drop in the ocean compared to the violence of other Middle Eastern conflicts (including one hundred and sixty thousand Palestinians killed in the Lebanese civil war, which erupted in 1975, and thirty thousand in Jordan in Black September of

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www.gea.de/detail/688011

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losing popularity despite Israel’s intense pressuring of the Gaza Strip, so what do we do now? Taxi drivers are usually considered a reliable source for ‘average’ Israeli opinion, but I decided consult a woman for a change — and I have met only one female taxi driver during my ten years in Israel. So I asked the women of my basketball hug (club) what they think of the current security situation. They are a diverse group, Ashkenazi and Mizrakhi, singles, mothers, single mothers, social workers, lawyers, civil engineers, police officers and salespeople, 29-50. If, as is often said, the difference between left and right in Israel is the difference between being an optimist and a pessimist, then the right wing has taken over my basketball club during the past six months.

One woman quoted Interior Minister Meir Shitreet saying on the radio: “Our problem is that we have been speaking to them in English when we need to be speaking to them in ‘Arabic.’ The only language they understand is force.”

Shitreet actually advocated leveling a Gazan neighborhood from which Qassam rockets are being fired as an example to the rest of the strip. Others spoke of the burden being carried by Sderot and the other Israelis living within rocket firing range from Gaza. She quoted a Sderot resident who said, “People just don’t get it. The problem of the Qassam rockets falling is not a problem of the residents of Sderot; it is everyone’s problem. If I move out of the city, does it all of a sudden stop being my problem?”

A general feeling on the Israeli street seems to be one of despair over the lack of real leaders here. We are both envious of, and finding solace in, the exciting American Democratic primary race between Obama and Clinton, who are seen as strong, good leaders.

Rabbi Amy Klein

1970) — but it is the only conflict in which one side refuses to recognize the other’s the right to exist. He recites to me a well-known script: Israel is the only democratic state and the only one that is not Muslim or Arab. The Palestinians hate us, he says, because we came from the outside and are politically and culturally different.

Dani Reshef is not a right-winger but a security expert who is searching for realistic solutions to the reality in which he lives. His current views are unilateralist: If Israel wants to be a Jewish and democratic state, he says, it needs to be so through its own actions. Regional integration is not currently in the realm of possibility, and the matter of whether Israel has a Palestinian dialogue partner is irrel-

http://pub.tv2.no/nettavisen/verden/article462428.ece

The Supreme Court held that Israel is no longer an occupier in Gaza, hence international laws governing armed conflict, not occupation, now apply.

evant; Israel needs to act out of its own concerns, and if that means unilaterally, as with the pullout from Gaza, so be it. This view is given credence by recent polls showing that the majority of Palestinians have turned against a two-state solution. If Mahmoud Abbas signs a peace agreement, Reshef says, the terrorists won’t accept it. To defuse the conflict with Hamas, therefore, he believes that Israel must relinquish its remaining control over Gaza’s borders, airspace, and waterfront. Until Israel does so, it maintains humanitarian responsibility for Gaza’s inhabitants. (I should add that, given the years of occupation, Israel will continue to have responsibility to assist in the development of Gaza for some time.)

It is unclear whether Israel’s recent cut-off of Gaza’s fuel and electricity was truly based on the misapprehension that

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Hamas would lose popularity if living conditions became miserable, or was instituted in order to be able to say “we tried” before launching a massive Israeli ground offensive in an attempt to bring quiet to Sderot and the surrounding area. Either way, the siege of Gaza is illegal and immoral, says attorney Noam Segel of Gisha (“Access”), which led the failed effort to challenge its legality before the Israeli Supreme Court. Gisha argued that international law forbids the collective punishment of innocent civilians.

Disingenuously or not, the Israeli government argued that the cut-off would pressure the Gazans to reject Hamas.

Ultimately, the Court held that Israel is no longer an occupier in Gaza, hence international laws governing armed conflict, not occupation, now apply. Israel can withhold fuel and electricity to deny these products to terrorists, the Court concluded, as long as doing so does not create a humanitarian crisis.

The ineffectiveness of the government’s policy only compounds its immorality. In fact, Hamas scored big with the recent blackout of Gaza, and Israel played right into its hands. It may be true that Hamas turned off the lights when it still had reserves, and that some of the hospital scenes were staged for the media — yet Noam Segel presented the Supreme Court with figures showing the situation to be very serious indeed. Gaza needs two hundred and forty megawatts of electricity for its hospitals, power plants and sewage plants. In addition, the water system is dependent upon electrical pumps that drive water up to rooftop containers.

Israel supplies one hundred and twenty megawatts, Egypt seventeen and Gaza itself fifty-seven. This left Gaza short even before Israel’s cutbacks.

At the height of the shortage, hospitals were forced to send patients home and close all but emergency services.

Their back-up generators collapsed. Today, with power shut off for hours daily, individuals lose the ability to power medical equipment and heat their homes. Doctors don’t have enough gas to get to work and people are living on fewer calories per day than required for minimum health.

It certainly is a humanitarian crisis — and unnecessary.

Dani Reshef maintains that it would be better to open Gaza’s borders even at the risk of increasing arms smuggling. It would have the short-term effect of once again making Gaza Egypt’s problem — and the long-term effect, I would add, of strengthening economic and personal ties between Gazans and Israelis, particularly if some Palestinians were permitted again to work in Israel. This would be Jewish Currents

The Workmen’s Circle / Arbeter Ring invites you to join us for our 75th Jubilee Cultural Seder honoring CHANA MLOTEK and ISAIAH SHEFFER.

75 Jubilee th

The Workmen’s Circle/ Arbeter Ring

Cultural Seder

Sunday, April 13, 4:00 PM

at Congregation Rodeph Sholom (7 West 83rd Street at Central Park West) With a joyous, educational cultural hagode, participation by our shule youth, delicious, family-style dining, and a warm, welcoming atmosphere.

Presented under the artistic direction of Zalmen Mlotek and Adrienne Cooper.

The Workmen’s Circle / Arbeter Ring: Commnuity, Yiddish Culture, Social Justice

far more effective than the current policy of cut-off.

In short, Reshef says, Ehud Olmert’s strategy for Gaza is completely wrong, namely: no to securing Sderot from missile attack, no to dialoguing with Hamas, and no to a massive ground assault in Gaza. Reshef believes, in fact, that Israel needs to do all three: to secure Sderot for its residents both physically and educationally, to negotiate a tahdiya (calming) with Hamas, and to be willing to launch a massive ground strike if that is what is necessary, despite the potential for casualties and the risk that it will only help in the short run. (On February 17th a plan was announced to defend Sderot and the surrounding area by adding a safe room to the eight thousand homes that currently lack one, at an expenditure of 350 million shekelim until 2009.)

Israel’s problem, he says, is that we have been putting all our eggs in the basket of the ‘peace process,’ which means that we can’t talk to Hamas because we conditioned the peace process with Abbas on not recognizing them, and we can’t launch a major military action because Abbas will pull out of the talks. Instead, Reshef says, Israel should have a temporary goal of ‘managing’ the conflict, as it has effectively done with Syria for years.

I spoke with friends last week who live in Migvan, an urban kibbutz in Sderot, after a Qassam rocket had gone through the living room window of their neighbor’s home, with which they share a common wall. My friend was at home with his two young children at the time of the attack.

When the “color red” warning was sounded, they went into their mamad (safe room). When they came out, smoke was everywhere. Clearly, their neighbors were saved by their own mamad. Not very many Sderot residents have these rooms, however.

March-April, 2008

For more information, please contact Dana Schneider at (212) 889-6800 ext 271 or schneider@circle.org.

The psychological effect of the Qassam rocket barrage is tremendously destabilizing. There is a lot of panic and fear. Kids don’t go out to play in playgrounds. Last week’s combination of the Qassam in the house next door and the serious wounding of two brothers, ages 8 and 19, during a two-day barrage of some forty rockets, brought tensions to an intolerable level. Several thousand Sderot residents have left town. However, my friends, like most others in Sderot, feel an obligation to their community to stay.

In the end, the situation here is constantly changing, except for what seems to be a knack for incompetent decision making. Current rhetoric is pointing toward a massive military ground action in Gaza to stop the Qassam rockets. It could easily start before this article goes to print. Olmert and Defense Minister Ehud Barak are both hesitant, however, given the risks and the failures of the second Lebanon War — and they should be.

While the war in Lebanon succeeded in pushing back Hezbollah from the border, it revealed two major problems that are also inherent in the Gaza situation. First, Israeli intelligence failed to uncover the Hamas plan to topple the wall at the Rafiah border crossing — just as it had failed to predict the extent of Hezbollah arms. Second, and perhaps more important in both situations, there is no enemy in the traditional sense but terrorists operating out of densely populated urban areas. Israel can never win that war and Hamas knows it. If Israel launches a massive ground strike, Hamas will win the battle for popularity among Palestinians and in the international arena, as heroic victors in the David versus Goliath story — and Abbas will be forced to support them. It is time that Israel stop playing according to Hamas rules. In this case, the moral high ground is also the most effective strategy.

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David James Fisher

The Free Clinics of the Psychoanalytic Movement

D

between the world wars, a network of free psychoanalytic clinics in Vienna, Berlin, Budapest, Zaghreb, Moscow, Frankfurt, Trieste, and Paris came to embody the heart and soul of the international psychoanalytic movement. These clinics (described in Elizabeth Ann Danto’s excellent 2005 study, Freud’s Free Clinics: Psychoanalysis & Social Justice, 1918-1938), did not represent a “left opposition” within psychoanalysis as much as it represented the social democratic mainstream; even apolitical figures in the analytic movement gravitated to social democratic ideas and aspirations in this fertile period.

The establishment of the free clinics was part of a broader attempt by the second generation of analysts (those born around 1900) to democratize Wilhelm Reich medicine and society.

Analysts in Central Europe were sexually as were men. Children had politicized by World War I and radi- to be protected within the family calized by the outbreak of social framework, the child’s right to a safe revolutions in Hungary and Germany environment being one of the more for a brief moment in 1919, by the revolutionary positions articulated by communal experiments of Socialist- Julius Tandler and the Austrian Social Zionist kibbutzim, and above all, by Democrats. One of their slogans beauthe social and sexual experimentation tifully captures the ethic: “He who catalyzed by the Russian Revolution. builds palaces for children tears down Many of these analysts embraced an the walls of prisons.” egalitarian community spirit. They viewed healthy sexuality as good for Accepting a definition of human bethe community and good for workers. ings as social creatures, and believing Healthy sexuality generally fused in the social responsibility of psychowith a pro-family orientation and with analysts to the wider community, these some movement toward gender equal- analysts designed the free clinics to ity: Women were to be as emancipated provide mental health services to poor uring the decades

David James Fisher, Ph.D (djamesfisher@aol.com) is a practicing psychoanalyst and a European cultural historian and cultural critic. His third book, Bettelheim: Living and Dying, will be published by Rodopi in 2008. He is a senior faculty member at the New Center for Psychoanalysis and a training and supervising analyst at the Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis, both in Los Angeles. This article is adapted from a longer essay that appeared in Psychoanalysis and History.

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individuals who would not ordinarily have access to psychoanalysis. The free clinics, as Danto emphasizes, were flexible, experimental, and less hierarchical and bureaucratic than contemporary American analytic institutes. Indeed, a rupture occurred after World War II, when the émigrés from Central Europe found themselves in significantly different cultural and political contexts in both England and America. In the U.S., in addition to the dominance of medical orthodoxy and severe opposition to lay analysis (that is, psychoanalysis conducted by non-medical personnel), there was a conservative climate of Cold War thinking, which made it seem un-American to combine a radical social-work perspective, a committed European sensibility, and provision of mental health care to poor people.

At the free clinics in the 1920s and ’30s, the atmosphere was relaxed, and demonstrable warmth existed between analyst and analysand. Reading rooms filled with analytic literature were open to both. Because candidates (analyst trainees) were themselves offered free or low-fee analysis and often received free supervision and referrals from their supervisors, an excellent esprit de corps existed. In creating a climate of mutual collaboration and a shared feeling of participating in an unusual adventure, psychoanalysts in the free clinics united around a common social and therapeutic cause. Of course, private bickering and rivalries nevertheless developed, particularly around “transference” themes — for example, of vying for the admiration of Freud and other senior members of the psychoanalytic community.

Still, the free clinics cannot be dismissed as utopian. They linked creativity and experimentation with practicality. They had strong popular appeal as well as intellectual appeal. People in trouble flocked to them seeking help.

Jewish Currents

The local press wrote favorably about them. Artists and intellectuals were impressed by their outreach.

Not surprisingly, lay analysis was encouraged at the free clinics, though it ran into considerable opposition from conservative psychiatric associations, which periodically attempted to shut down the clinics. Central European psychiatry (as opposed to psychoanalysis) in the interwar years tended to be reactionary, nationalist, Catholic, anti-Jewish, and profoundly opposed to the penetration and diffusion of analytic ideas and practices. Many psychiatric practices were brutal, including the treatment of patients with electric shock to the point of death or suicide, the placing of patients in isolation cells and straitjackets, and the use of other disciplinary measures.

At the free clinics, clinical experimentation was broadly supported, including child observation and child analysis. Melanie Klein, for example, who prior to 1920 had undertaken her first child analysis with her own children in Budapest, furthered many of her techniques at the Berlin free clinic. There were also efforts to develop forms of marriage and couples counseling and crisis intervention, using analytic principles. Psychoanalytic research was based on the gathering and organizing of clinical data. The rigorous psychoanalytic training of candidates by veteran analysts, as well as the scientific growth of the clinical discipline, were buttressed through this research. Psychoanalytic technique was safeguarded and preserved, including the reaffirmation of patient privacy and confidentiality.

Trust between analyst and analysand was emphasized.

The free clinics sponsored the treatment of severe mental disorders, including borderline and psychotic illness, which greatly broadened the scope and practice of psychoanalysis March-April, 2008

beyond neurotic disorders. In Berlin, Vienna, and Budapest, debates were held about attempts to standardize technique, which might justify the curriculum of analytic institutes but also risked the imposition of dogma and rigidity. Some, like Sándor Ferenczi, urged analysts to be spontaneous, warm, alive, and engaged with their patients, to operate in a relaxed and elastic manner based on a case-bycase assessment of specific patient needs, with special emphasis placed on those who had been traumatized.

To maintain a position of advocacy for the patient, the analysts at the free clinics designed a patient-centered approach. An integral characteristic of the free clinic movement was the volunteerism of the analysts and their willingness to provide financial sup-

their higher-paying patients in private practice. Critics of psychoanalysis have often commented upon the apparent elitism and exclusionary class biases of analytic practice; the history of the free clinics documents a vast social experiment attempting to universalize analytic treatment.

Freud had carefully outlined his position on fees for analysis in “On Beginning the Treatment” (1913).

There he advised analysts to be candid and unashamed about their fee for services, not to retreat into prudishness, inconsistency, or hypocrisy regarding payment. Analysts needed money for their self-preservation. Psychoanalysis was not a philanthropic activity. Analysts were urged to value their time, to bill on a consistent monthly basis,

An integral characteristic of the free clinic movement was the volunteerism of the analysts and their willingness to provide financial support for these clinics. Freud himself donated money. port for these clinics. Freud himself donated money collected for his seventieth birthday in 1926, and at other times, to the free clinics. In Berlin, analysts were expected to contribute four percent of their total income to support the clinic.

Candidates were asked to work at the clinics for two years without remuneration. In return for their sacrifice, they received broad exposure to the varieties of psychopathology, and opportunities for analytic supervision from experienced analysts, often free of charge. They learned developmental perspectives from Anna Freud, August Aichhorn, Willi Hoffer, Siegfried Bernfeld and other analysts who were pioneering methods of working analytically with children. The ethos was to respect their clinic patients and to practice with the highest degree of professionalism and seriousness toward them, just as they would toward

and to function in their own specialty as if they were surgeons, rendering a unique and highly skilled service.

Money, Freud argued, had to be addressed in the psychoanalytic context with the same spirit of honesty as sexuality. Patients, he said, did not always find that treatment was enhanced if a low fee is asked for and granted.

Freud anticipated that analysts accepting low fees would resent their patients and possibly feel exploited by them. Through his own experiments with treating patients for free, he concluded that gratuitous treatment increased a patient’s resistances, that it exacerbated Oedipal dynamics, and intensified ambivalence about seeking and receiving help. Moreover, eliminating the fee might remove the relationship too far from the real world, where a patient might lack incentives to terminate the treatment.

Yet even Freud in his 1913 paper

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Reich, Freud and the Politics of Psychoanalysis

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1920s, Wilhelm Reich saw sexual freedom as an issue that was both political and personal. As he developed his own brand of socially-oriented psychoanalysis, he began to challenge existing political, medical, and academic traditions. He also developed a critique of psychoanalysis from within the movement. As the author of Character Analysis (1933) and The Function of the Orgasm (1927), Reich functioned as an articulate, at times abrasive, advocate of sexual revolution. He equated health with untrammeled sexual expression, endorsing genitality, orgasmic potency, and free consensual sexual expression so long as it did no harm to others. Reich posed trenchant questions about monogamy, about the dulling and routinized aspects of married life, about the process of desexualization that he heard about from his patients and informants. uring the

Babs Elderbee

Reich was part of the left opposition within Austrian Social Democracy in the 1920s.

In 1930 he moved to Berlin and joined the German Communist Party. This outraged and frightened many psychoanalysts. Soon Reich began to tie sexual repression to the political apathy of the masses and their tendency to accommodate to the status quo. He expressed an early, penetrating understanding of the irrational roots underlying the mass appeal and dangers of Hitlerian fascism. He would synthesize these perspectives in his book, The Mass Psychology of Fascism (1933), a book of astonishing insight into the collective psychological power of international fascism and virulent anti-Semitism.

Reich advocated the rights of children and mothers, supporting legalized abortions, contraception, and adolescent sexuality. He blended forms of counseling with radical social work perspectives, propaganda, and sexual education. He came to emphasize prevention over individual treatment modalities. Reich also understood the economic dependence of women as feeding the multiple aspects of misery on the everyday level, sexual, social, educational, and vocational.

Reich’s rhetoric about sexual expressiveness for all, including the young, the unmarried, and women, upset qualified his opposition to free treatment by saying that he had achieved “excellent results” with certain deserving people, that free treatment had been no obstacle to the desired outcome of restored health, efficiency, and improved earning capacity. Regarding his own practice of treating patients, Freud apparently operated with a Robin Hood model: taking from the rich (charging high fees) and giving to the poor (charging moderate fees or seeing them for free). He gave money to people in need, and whether or not they were or had been patients

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was not of particular concern to him in this respect; his financial generosity was legendary and consistent over several decades. He also pointed out in his self-analysis that his generosity had its roots in the poverty of his own early childhood.

At the free clinics, continuous case conferences were created by Wilhelm Reich, a figure who has been demonized and pathologized in certain histories. Psychologizing critics tend to trivialize Reich’s politics and dismiss his fertile ideas, underestimating his

seminal contributions to the early psychoanalytic movement, yet Reich was highly respected in Vienna in the 1920s. He conducted some of the earliest investigations into the defensive maneuvers of the ego, developing his own form of ego psychology. He was considered a crackerjack clinician with an uncanny feel for unconscious dynamics. His students regarded him as a terrific teacher. Reich hoped that case presentations would engender heated clinical debates. He also had the courage to discuss treatment failures and to present his own clinical Jewish Currents

both his constituencies, the organized political left and institutional psychoanalysis. Many analysts, after all, remained tied to Victorian attitudes and bourgeois life styles. Reich stirred up a hornet’s nest with his searching critique of sexual monogamy and his assault on bourgeois respectability, the sanctity of the family, and conventional sexual morality. As a spokesperson for the leading edge of psychoanalysis and Marxism in this period, Reich raised the specter of both social and sexual revolution. He became too much for everyone, and was expelled from the Communist International in 1933 for being too Freudian and from the International Psychoanalytic Association in 1934 for being too Marxist.

In Civilization and Its Discontents (1930), Sigmund Freud took sharp issue with all utopian viewpoints and offered a searing attack on sexual and social revolution — in short, on Reich and the Freudian left. The text emerged from Freud’s growing awareness of the rise of fascist mass movements, including those of a particularly virulent anti-Semitic variety, and was informed by the massacres and mass horrors of the First World War. Freud wrote eloquently of the lethal potentialities of modern science and technology — even raising the possibility of world destruction — and expressed his increasing pessimism about the inherent aggressiveness of human beings.

Reich considered the text a frontal attack on him. In arguing that civilization made individuals miserable, Freud conceived of no possibility of overcoming the frustrations and restrictions of modern civilization other than through sublimation, that is, the rechanneling of powerful instinctual urges into cultural, scientific, and artistic activities. Deeply pessimistic about the individual’s conflict with society, Freud posited that sexuality would be severely impaired and happiness diminished by modern civilization.

As for Communism, Freud disagreed with the assumption that private ownership of property was at the root of what corrupted man’s nature. Socialist conceptions of human nature were built on a naïve belief in the essential goodness of man, he believed. Freud asserted that human aggression existed before capitalist economic systems were formed, that violence and hostility were built into human nature, embedded in our own psyches, and that modern civilization’s task was to contain the outbreak of cruelty and aggressiveness.

Psychoanalysis, for Freud, was not compatible with Marxism; he was skeptical about the possible mediations between the two clashing world views and explanatory models.

Moreover, Freud had deep reservations about aligning psychoanalysis to either a political party or a political philosophy. To safeguard its legitimacy and credibility as a scientific method with therapeutic concerns, Freud insisted that psychoanalysis remain above political parties and that analysts remain suspicious of totalizing world views.

—David James Fisher

work, not fearing the vulnerability that often accompanies such presentations; Reich assumed analysts could learn more about the analytic process by studying errors and blind spots than by exploring successful case histories.

The clinical case presentation still persists as an essential part of the teaching methodology at contemporary analytic institutes.

At the Frankfurt clinic, analysts established a potent connection to the Institute for Social Research, thus initiating dialogue between clinical and theoretical psychoanalysis and March-April, 2008

the brilliant critical theorists of the Frankfurt School. This alliance, lasting only a few years in Europe before being relocated to Columbia University, proved to be highly generative in terms of the quality and quantity of work by this exceptional coterie of intellectuals, which included Erich Fromm, Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Walter Benjamin, and Herbert Marcuse. Figures like Ernst Simmel, Otto Fenichel, and Fromm especially understood the possibilities of cross fertilization of many disciplines in the human and social sciences that

might result if this alliance could be forged.

Karl Marx had condensed the core humanism of his philosophy into one sentence: “From each according to his capacities, to each according to his needs.” The free clinic movement updated that doctrine by advocating help for the poor, indigent, underprivileged, unemployed, underemployed, and marginalized, and stating that specific diagnosis and the particular needs of the individual mattered most, not the individual’s ability to pay for the services. This shifted the model

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formerly based on the principles of an individual medical entrepreneur to one based on service and responsibility to the community.

Building a conceptual and practical bridge between Freud and Marx was Reich’s major project. Charismatic, a gifted orator, with a deep sense of humanity, he attempted to link the practices and theories of both.

Freud’s main focus in the period between the wars was less on clinical or therapeutic outcomes than on saving the “cause” of the psychoanalytic movement by popularizing psychoanalytic ideas and practices in the world. After the victory of the Nazis in Central Europe, Freud hoped to preserve psychoanalysis as a viable entity in exile.

In Berlin after the Nazi takeover in early 1933, Ernst Simmel, a Jew and a prominent Socialist, was arrested and forced to flee for his life to Switzerland. Martin Grotjahn’s own four-month analysis with Simmel came to a harrowing conclusion that year when during a session a friend alerted Simmel by telephone that the Gestapo would be sweeping his neighborhood, arresting psychoanalysts. Grotjahn had to help his analyst escape by pushing him out a window to a backyard route.

Other leftwing analysts were threatened, harassed, and jailed by the authoritarian and racist politics of the Nazi government. The Berlin psychoanalytic community was rapidly “Aryanized” and Jews, homosexuals, and Marxists were expelled. As the process of Nazification accelerated from 1933 to 1935, the Nazi slogans for psychoanalysis as “Jewish-Marxist filth” became transformed into institutional practice. Filth had to be cleansed. Renaming it the Göring Institute, the Nazis purged the Berlin Society of all Jewish practitioners of psychoanalysis, leaving the institute under the direction of Felix Boehm and Carl Muller-Braunschweig, both of whom subscribed to the fascist ideology and would sign their letters with “Heil Hitler!” Freud’s books were prohibited and subsequently burned.

Carl Gustav Jung lent the prestige of his name, in addition to furnishing a spiritual-ideological framework, to the Göring Institute in his role as director of the German Medical Society for Psychotherapy in these years.

Similarly, after the Nazi takeover of Austria in March, 1938, the Vienna Society for Psychoanalysis expelled a hundred “non-Aryan members,” leaving behind only two gentiles from its original coterie. Carl MullerBraunschweig presided over the dis-

mantling and ultimate “Aryanization” of psychoanalysis in Vienna. His actions effectively destroyed the Vienna Ambulatorium, abruptly concluding its history of the free clinics at the same time.

The free clinics were exported in a considerably limited way to England and America. Only Chicago, under the influence of Franz Alexander, and Topeka, Kansas, under the influence of the Menningers, were open to the European perspective, became enclaves of progressivism, and established free outpatient clinics. Clearly the existing American tradition of medical hegemony, conservatism, and individual, professional, entrepreneurial activity would trump, or coöpt, the leftwing practices and spirit of the free clinics.

The story of the free clinics is nevertheless one of hope, outreach, prevention, and the self-confidence of the psychoanalytic movement, despite the presence in the period between the wars of serious opposition and political impediments. In contemplating this movement, we help ourselves to imagine ways to strengthen and vitalize psychoanalysis in contemporary urban centers, where many social problems persist, and where analysts sometimes fail to engender any strategies for positive solutions.

Newly available from Jewish Currents Waiting for God: The Spiritual Explorations of a Reluctant Atheist by Lawrence Bush “Bush writes about non-belief with an empathy for believers missing from the works of the New Atheists. . . . It’s interesting — or perhaps inevitable —that the most probing voices in the current religious debate belong to atheists. . . . Bush, the atheist, suggests how the debate can become dialogue.”

Andrew Silow-Carroll, editor, New Jersey Jewish News “Seldom has ‘waiting’ been so dynamic, fascinating and insightful. . . . a ‘must read’ for all people sensitive to the spiritual and intellectual dilemmas thrust upon us by modernity.”

Dr. Joseph Chuman, Ethical Culture Society of Bergen County

$16.95, postpaid, from www.jewishcurrents.org or call (212) 889-2523.

The author is donating profits to support the magazine.

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Jewish Currents

John Ranz

by the Nazis to torture and terrorize other prisoners. They were great sadists and often beat prisoners to death.

When speaking to us they used the same insults as the S.S. — “you JewSurvival in Buchenwald, Guided by Political Prisoners ish warmongers, you Jewish swine.”

These with the red triangle, howevhen we arrived in Buchenwald, I expected a horde of kapos to swoop down on us screaming and swinging with their clubs — the er, were political prisoners, opponents usual reception. Instead, prisoners approached us and helped us or resisters of Nazism. to get off the train. Instead We were placed into the of hearing the usual, “Fast, “small camp,” consisting of fast, you dogs, you shit,” we a group of twelve barracks were spoken to like human that were separated from the beings. This was a world I main camp and surrounded had known but forgotten. by barbed wire. The barracks These prisoners even ashad no windows. A triple sured us that the camp had a layer of wooden platforms, hospital and medical faciliwhich served as beds, lined ties for the sick. This was so the walls from one end to unbelievable that I thought the other. There was very it was another trick. When little or no straw on these some inmates who could platforms. Prisoners were barely walk were picked out dying on them. Into these to go to the camp infirmary, barracks the Nazis pushed I thought they were being about fifteen hundred prisonselected for death. I could ers. Sanitary conditions were hardly believe it when I saw awful. Water was available them later, alive. only occasionally from the The prisoners who greethalf-inch pipes outside. One ed us wore better-quality had to stand in a long line striped uniforms and looked to wash or get a little water healthier than we. I thought to drink. they must be kapos or other Looking out the gate from insidet Buchenwald, towards the adminWe were given showers, camp officials very close to istration building. The sign on the gate says “Jedem Das Seine,” had our heads shaved, and the S.S. They wore a red tri- “To Each His Own.” From www.scrapbookpages.com/Buchenwald/ received clean uniforms. angle and spoke unaccented JedemDasSeine.html.

Our old uniforms had deteGerman. The only German riorated into rags. Some of prisoners I had ever met in the camps ers, the S.S. gave these criminals high the very sick prisoners, who perhaps had worn a green triangle, indicating positions of authority and privilege. could have been helped, refused to that they were professional criminals. They were better dressed and better go to the infirmary, fearing that it was In camps with mostly Jewish prison- fed than the rest of us. They were used really a liquidation area.

Human Solidarity in Hell

W

John Ranz was a prisoner in several concentration camps, and came to the U.S. in 1950. In 1979 he established Holocaust Survivors USA/The Generation After, and currently serves as its executive director. He has lectured in high schools and universities on the roots and causes of the Holocaust and has published articles in journals.

He has been honored by the NewYork State Legislature and the New York Society of Clinical Psychologists for his dedication to human rights. This piece is adapted from his recently published memoir, Inhumanity: Death March to Buchenwald and The Last Jews of Bendzin, available for purchase online at www.authorhouse.com, www.amazon.com, or by emailing shranz@optonline.net.

January-February, 2008

On the second day, the old-timers told us that the food was divided equally and that stealing another prisoner’s bread would be severely punished by the prisoner leadership. Soon old-timers from the main camp appeared and asked us to point out the brutal kapos and guards from Blechhamer [a labor camp for Jews, known as Auschwitz

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IV, from which the writer had just been transferred –Ed.], or from the march to Buchenwald, who had mistreated prisoners. They also wanted to know which officials stole food from prisoners. Some of these kapos were taken away, and from what we heard, the prisoner underground was investigating them. Some of the most brutal ones never returned to the barracks. We were told they had paid for their crimes.

I soon had the impression that a

curious to see what the main camp was like. It housed the permanent prisoners of Buchenwald and seemed to me to be cleaner and more orderly than the small camp. Some of the barracks in the main camp were even cement block structures.

On one of these trips to carry the soup kettles, I became acquainted with the senior block elder of the German political prisoners. His name was Walter Sonntag, and he seemed to be a very serious person. He told me that

I soon got the impression that a secret prisoner organization was a moving force within this camp, and that this organization had representatives of various nationalities, even Jews. secret prisoner organization was a moving force within this camp, and that this organization had representatives of various nationalities, even Jews. The deputy senior block elder of block 66, the children’s block, was Gustav Schiller, a Polish Jew and a communist. We liked and respected him. Many of the complaints about brutal behavior that had occurred in the other camps went to him. His block contained over one thousand prisoners, mostly Jewish youngsters from Poland, Hungary, Romania, and other countries. He was in charge of the distribution of food, and he kept it as equal as possible. This was a far cry from what we had known in other camps. This was not the case, however, in all the barracks. In those chaotic conditions, many injustices were committed, probably because the underground could not assert its power completely.

The warm meals and daily bread rations helped me to recover a little strength. I even volunteered with another dozen prisoners from my block to bring the soup kettles from the kitchen. I did this for two reasons.

First, the porters received an additional portion of soup, and secondly, I was

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his block was #49, which was at the end of the permanent camp and close to the small camp. The next time we met, he told me that he came from Saarbrucken, an industrial city near the French-German border.

We started talking politics, and it came out in the discussion that I had been an active socialist like my father, a well-known Socialist-Zionist leader in the city of Alexandrov, near Lodz, Poland’s largest industrial city. He had also been one of the early organizers of the resistance to the pogroms of 1936-37, which had been inspired and sanctioned by the semi-fascist Polish government. He had a reputation as a daring, courageous man.

I remember my father coming home once with a bloodied face and torn clothing. He had been riding home in the train from Lodz, he told us, in a car with two drunken Poles who were pulling the beards and earlocks of Hasidic Jewish men. This was not an unusual event in those days; Jewhating Poles often amused themselves in this way. Although the Hasidim outnumbered the Poles in the railcar as well as in Alexandrov, they usually did not fight back but tried to evade the

thugs by walking away. Such had been their mentality for centuries. However, this railcar was closed, and there was nowhere to run.

My father, because of his modern attire, was not molested, but he could not stand to witness the abuse and told the Poles to stop. They gave him a look of contempt and continued to amuse themselves. My father struck one of the Poles with his hand. They were astounded that a Jew had dared to hit them, and they turned on him.

My father was a muscular, well-developed man and defended himself ably. The two surprised Poles pulled the emergency brake, and when the train stopped they ran out screaming, “Jews are attacking Christians!” They called out to Poles in the other railcars to help them. Many Poles joined them, and soon my father was being severely beaten. Not a single Hasid came to his aid. They all disappeared.

During 1937-38, the racist, semifascist Polish government, encouraged by Nazi actions in Germany, had organized pogroms against the Jews in several cities. This followed measures taken by the Polish government to destroy the Jewish community economically. Jews began to organize self-defense units in many cities. The need for defense was particularly apparent after the pogrom in the city of Pczytyk, where thousands of peasants from the surrounding areas came to rob, plunder, and murder the Jewish community. Official government circles openly encouraged this pogrom.

The Jewish community leaders who represented both the Zionist and nonZionist political parties elected my father to head the defense organization of Alexandrov, where his family had lived for hundreds of years. This bleak development was soon overshadowed by the Nazi invasion.

After a while, Walter asked me if I would like to transfer from my block Jewish Currents

in the small camp to his block in the permanent camp. Naturally I agreed, since the living conditions in the permanent camp were much better.

In the small camps, transports were being formed to leave for satellite camps of Buchenwald. At the same time, new transports were arriving from the east, far beyond the capacity of the small camp. People were dying daily. The danger of typhoid was real despite the best efforts of the camp underground.

Walter transferred me to his barracks, block #49. Based in this block, I hoped to be part of the work details who went outside the camp. Prisoners from the small camp were not being sent to work outside Buchenwald, since they were considered “temporary.” I thought that being part of the work details might protect me from being sent on a transport out of Buchenwald, which I wanted very much to avoid.

My new living quarters consisted of a large, two-story cement building. To transfer someone there from the small camp wasn’t easy, and Walter must have pulled some strings in the camp office, where the underground had strong influence. Since no monetary considerations existed, the only justification could have been my identification as a socialist and the value these people placed on that.

In block #49 I learned how the highly secret prisoner organization operated, under the noses of the S.S., to influence the inner life of the camp.

It maintained a high moral standard of relations between prisoners of various nationalities. To me this was fantastic.

I admired it and would have joined immediately, if asked, even with the personal risk it involved. These prisoners were the most conscious and principled enemies of Nazism. They understood what they struggled for and why they could never give up.

In Weimar [a city near the Buchenwald camp —Ed.], my work detail March-April, 2008

Lawrence Fogel-Bublick

The Coup de Grace After Primo Levi’s If Not Now, When?

Somewhere in the forest of pages The partisans lie in wait; They have intercepted a Nazi bulletin And captured a soldier.

And before he reveals the information Before I turn the page To where he is shot in the back of the head I feel the unmistakable lust for his death To pull the trigger myself — And when the deed is done, The blood staining the snow, I look away, down at my trembling hands, And feel ashamed.

Lawrence Fogel-Bublick teaches reading in Silver Spring, Maryland and was editor of The Barbaric Yawp at the University of Michigan, where he won two Hopwood Awards.

cleaned up the rubbish of bombed-out houses and dug under the ruins to find bodies. I felt fortunate because being outside the camp was a daily lift for me. I could see the civilian population, the stores, their life and the streets — things I hadn’t seen in a long time. Although we were strictly forbidden to look and were constantly under the watchful eye of the guard, we managed to see.

We were awakened at 5 A.M. and received eight ounces of bread. This had to last till 7 P.M., when we returned to the camp and got some soup. How to live on this food allotment, how to divide it up — this was the question that plagued our conversations daily.

We each had different theories, looking for solutions that didn’t exist. We were all so hungry, and this portion of bread was not enough to sustain

life. The problem was how to make it last till evening. Those prisoners who were able to divide the bread into two or three portions showed the strongest will power. They ate the first piece in the morning, put the rest back into their pocket, removed the carefully wrapped bread a few hours later for lunch, and again at 4 P.M. Such strong-willed people were very rare among us. The rest of us vowed each morning to follow this regimen, but couldn’t. Hunger won out over our resolve.

I too vowed that I would follow the regimen. It was the only rational way to survive, I told myself. At 5 A.M., when I received the bread, I broke off a piece and spread the margarine over it. I promised myself not to touch the rest until lunchtime. We stood at the large central square where we were counted, and waited to depart.

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We were waiting for over an hour. It was cold and the bread in my pocket teased me. That square of margarine had been so good; those few bites had only served to stimulate my hunger. A struggle took place within me. Finally,

Some of the prisoners started to eat. I stood and stared. Then I tore my eyes away and resumed my work. Again I vowed not to do tomorrow what I had done today. I argued with myself, trying to convince my ‘decision maker.’

Day after day, the struggle of my stomach against my willpower continued — over the piece of bread in my pocket. unable to stand it any longer, I reached into my pocket, took out the bread and broke off half with a vengeance.

I cleaned my mouth with my tongue sucking up every little piece so that nothing remained. Immediately after, I was angry with myself. Why had I done it? That piece was meant to be eaten at lunch. I had lost this round to my biggest enemy, hunger.

Another fifteen minutes passed.

Every minute I touched my pocket to check if the bread hadn’t been stolen.

The constant touching of the bread and the recurring hunger wouldn’t leave me alone. Again I struggled within myself, to eat or not? I stopped touching it and felt proud of myself. Suddenly I saw a Russian prisoner passionately biting into his entire portion. He really enjoyed it and finished it in a minute.

My resolve of a moment ago vanished. I couldn’t stand it. I ripped apart the last piece with my teeth and held the last piece in my mouth as long as possible. Finally there was no more. At 6 A.M., we hadn’t yet started out for work and my bread for the entire day was already gone.

At 9 A.M. our detail was working at removing bricks and cement slabs from buildings and piling them into trucks.

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Wouldn’t it have been better if I, too, had something to eat now, even only a bite, instead of going hungry all day long? I could only hope to find a piece of bread or potato among the ruins, as I sometimes had in the past.

At lunchtime, with my last strength, I raised the sledgehammer. It was so hard. I was so weak and tired. My anger at myself flared up again. Why had I eaten the entire portion this morning? Why hadn’t I resisted? I still had to work another six hours.

It was already dark and I was barely

The Buchenwald crematorium today.

able to lift the shovel. We all looked at the nearby church clock, moving so slowly. If only it would move a little faster. Tomorrow, I promised myself, I will not eat the entire portion in the morning. I will resist temptation and my enemy, hunger.

The next morning, the same struggle

repeated itself, and again it was hunger who won, not I. At lunchtime, I again vowed not to give in. Day after day, the struggle of my stomach against my willpower continued — over the piece of bread in my pocket.

Buchenwald had not always been under the influence of a political underground. For years, vicious German criminal prisoners had ruled the camp, which had at first been for Germans only. The criminal prisoners brutalized the political prisoners and sent many of them to their death. Their behavior pleased the S.S. officials. The criminals viewed the political prisoners as fools and called them traitors to the Fatherland, Bolsheviks, etc. They beat Jews to death at the slightest provocation. It is an amazing story of human courage how the German antifascists, socialists, and communists wrested the power from the criminal element to administer the inner life of the camp.

The struggle to obtain the top job of senior camp elder was a desperate struggle for life and death that often required deadly methods to overcome the ruthlessness of the criminals. What helped the political prisoners was that the criminals were unreliable and easily corrupted.

The political prisoners impressed me as the first group of Germans, since the Nazis had come to power, whom I had seen treating Jews as human beings. In the ghetto and various camps in which I had been a prisoner, I had thought there were no decent Germans left.

During the forced march from Blechhamer to Buchenwald, whenever I was lucky enough to receive food from peasants, I had never let them know Jewish Currents

that I was Jewish. I spoke fluent German and pretended to be a Catholic Pole or Dutchman. I usually covered the Jewish star on my chest with a long scarf. Twice farmers had chased me out when they noticed the Jewish star. For a Jew, they could not find the compassion to offer a piece of bread.

In block #49, a different atmosphere prevailed. Antisocial, egotistic behavior was not tolerated. Even the criminal prisoners in that block were kept in check. They knew if they ratted to the S.S. they might end up dead.

In Weimar, as we removed the debris from bombed-out buildings, carted it away, and searched for dead bodies, the kapo of the work detail, a political prisoner, never beat anyone.

He apportioned the work according to each prisoner’s ability. We had the greatest respect for and confidence in him. We always brought to his attention anything unusual we found digging in the ruins. As soon as he was able to obtain food, he divided it as fairly as possible among us. Only after liberation did I discover that this work detail was part of the underground.

Walter, the senior block elder, was in his late forties or early fifties. We became friendlier after I was transferred to his block, and he told me the story of how the politicals had succeeded in gaining power over the criminals — and how some of his best friends had lost their lives in the struggle. At one point, after the administration of the inner camp had shifted to the politicals, the S.S. had been able to infiltrate them with a spy, and the entire political camp leadership was summoned to the gate and executed.

Among those executed were editors of newspapers, members of the pre-Hitler German parliament, and leaders of the socialist and communist parties.

It took time before a new leadership evolved and resumed the struggle against the criminals in the camp March-April, 2008

administration. They succeeded and in 1944 the camp administration was again in the hands of the red triangles.

Whenever Walter related these events to me he always looked around to make sure his deputy block elder, who wore a green triangle, was not around. He was a young man in his early twenties with a distinct Viennese accent. Even at this time in 1945, some criminal prisoners still held high positions, but in block #49 Walter was the boss.

Walter had a small office near the main entrance door. This enabled him to do his clerical work and keep an eye on whoever entered or left the block.

One day as I approached Walter’s office, I overheard a conversation about me between him and his criminal deputy. The deputy asked in an angry voice why I had been transferred from the small block into this block. He must have noticed that Walter often spoke to me, and this made him angry. When Walter explained that he liked me because I was the type of person who fit into this block, alluding to the political nature of our relationship, the deputy burst out, “And you believe him? He is lying. They (Jews) are all lying.”

The deputy was clearly a Jew-hater, as were most of the green triangles.

Walter steered the conversation into a different direction. I realized then how careful I had to be to watch out for this criminal. Although he was not the boss of the block, he could nevertheless do me great harm.

I stayed in this block almost until the end of the war, during the most critical days of my struggle for survival, except for the last five or six days, when no Jew could remain in the block. As for Walter, he never disappointed me. He remained true to his humanity and his antifascist principles. He could easily have put me on a transport list to another camp and have avoided bad blood with the deputy. Later, in the crucial last days before the Nazi collapse, Jews were ordered to leave the camp. Senior block elders were to execute the order to remove Jews from their blocks, but Walter did not betray me.

Had it been up to the green triangles, not a single Jew would have survived. They hated us no less than the Nazis and enthusiastically did their dirty work. They had nothing against Nazism and its ideas and often expressed admiration for Hitler.

From time to time I went to visit the small camp. Many of those who had survived the death march from Blechhamer to Buchenwald were sent to other camps. Most of the children and teenagers were sent to block #66 and some to blocks in the large camp.

Those who were weak and couldn’t move were transferred to block #61, the block of the incurables. There, I was told, they were given lethal injections by an S.S. guard. The senior block elders made the selections. They did it rather than let the S.S. do it. Otherwise many more prisoners would have been selected as incurable.

SEEKING past Workmen’s Circle Chorus members to join in singing at the 75th anniversary (Third) Cultural Seder of The Workmen’s Circle/Arbeter Ring, this year honoring the “Sherlock Holmes” of Yiddish music, archivist and author Chana Mlotek. and Symphony Space founder, actor, and playwright Isaiah Sheffer. Be a part of this historic event, April 13th in New York City. For information about rehearsals, contact Zalmen Mlotek, zmlotek@folksbiene.org or phone (212) 213-2120.

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Nikolai Borodulin

Posters from the Vilna Ghetto

T

Vilna Ghetto was established by the Nazis in early September, 1941 and consisted of two isolated parts, with thirty thousand and ten thousand imprisoned Jews, respectively. The ghetto was liquidated on September 23 rd, 1943. In spite of horrible living conditions, not to mention regular mass killings, the locked-up Jews of the Vilna Ghetto demonstrated an unbelievable spiritual, moral and cultural resistance, the will to live ‘normal’ lives under unbearable circumstances. Among countless cultural endeavors, they provided full-fledged education to ghetto children; operated a ghetto theater, library, music school, orphanage, and polytechnical school; organized a symphony orchestra, an Association of Writers and Artists, sports competitions, a ghetto political club, a medical lecture series (Folksgezunt, “People’s Health”), Yiddish and Hebrew chorales, and more.

Many of these activities are reflected in the two hundred and forty-one handdrawn posters, created in the ghetto from 1942 to 1943, now stored at the Lithuanian Central State Archives and the State Vilna Gaon Jewish Museum.

In 2006, these posters were collected into a book, Vilna Ghetto Posters, edited by Jevgenija Biber, Rocha Konstantin, and Judita Rizina. he

Poster 49, at the right, includes the emblem of the youth club (top middle) — a stylized rendition of the words cuke ybduh (yugnt klub) forming the six-cornered Star of David. The top left says: “ghetto theater, January 8, 1943, starts at 20 o’c[lock],” and the top right says “cultural department, school section.” Almost in the middle

of the poster, the sign says: “first public performance.” The program listed on the bottom of the poster includes: • Lyalkes (Puppets), an opera for children, directed by Paye Wapner (1921-?), who also worked in the

Nikolai Borodulin is the assistant director of the Center for Cultural Jewish Life at The Workmen’s Circle and a Yiddish teacher and activist. He was born and raised in Birobidzhan and came to the U.S. in 1992.

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Vilina Ghetto library, sang in the ghetto choir and was a member of der fareynikte partizaner-organizatsye ­— The United Partisans Organization (FPO). The opera was created as a children’s musical game at the Vladimir Medem Sanatorium for children in Miedzeszyn, near Warsaw. It was a gift to students of secular Yiddish schools and thousands of children Jewish Currents

treated at the Sanatorium. The text of the opera was written by Motel Gilinski (?-1944), the music by Yankl Trumpyanski (1907-1944). Both were ghetto prisoners, and both perished during the Holocaust.

Interestingly enough, the second entry of the program is a choral recitation in Hebrew. Moreover, the title of the recitation is striking: “Revolt.” The director of this performance was the legendary Abba Kovner (19171988), the leader of the Hashomer Hatzair (“The Young Guard”) underground movement, a founder of FPO, and in later years a famous poet and writer.

The third part of the program is a four-act adaptation of a well-known story by Sholem Aleichem, “Dos farkishefte shnayderl” (author’s original, Der farkishefter shnayder) — “The Enchanted Tailor,” directed by Elye Pilnik (1912-1943), who joined the partisans in the forest and perished in August, 1943.

Poster 46, to the right, from December 13th, 1942, invites ghetto inhabitants to participate in the celebration of one

hundred thousand books loaned by the ghetto library. In little more than a year, from October, 1941 to December, 1942, the imprisoned people of the Vilna Ghetto read 100,000 books! The poster also announces that this commemoration will be complemented by the performance of the Ghetto Theater actors.

Poster 50, to the left, from January 11th, 1943, announces a “popular medical talk evening from the series: People’s Health.” It was held at the Ghetto Theater and included discussion by medical doctors about “Blood pressure and sclerosis,” “It’s forbidden to rub your eyes with your hands!” “What are women’s menses?” “Skin care,” “Reading hygiene,” and “Horsemeat, saccharine, margarine.” The poster concludes with this: “The next evening will be dedicated to the memory of Doctor Tsemakh Shabad — founder of ‘folksgezunt’.” Dr. Shabad (1864-1935) was a chair of the Vilna Jewish Community Council, a founder and chief editor of the folksgezunt (“People’s Health”) journal, and a Yiddish cultural activist, as well as a physician.

These posters are both silent and shouting witnesses of moral and cultural response to inhuman murderers.

March-April, 2008

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Susan Gold

Relatives 1. Cousin Dina

Babs Elderbee

O

ur extended family lived in shtetls all over Galicia, in Jewish com-

munities that prospered. We had relatives who owned cloth-weaving workshops. A distant uncle in Zhitomir owned a small factory that produced leather belts sold as far away as Moscow. Uncle Asher in Rovno actually purchased machines to produce suede jackets. When the machine was brought in, the whole town ran to look into the window as the mechanical apparatus went through its revolutions.

Gradually, he bought more machinery, and then an entire building. He employed forty young women, enough to acquire the honor of being called an ‘industrialist’ in Rovno.

But divisions between rich and poor relatives were stark and disturbing.

Poorer relatives were rarely mentioned, unless they were able to afford tive harvest of a field or orchard on passage and emigrate to America, to speculation, then collected the crop make it in the goldene medine, the at the end of the summer. The local golden land, and alter their life in a gentry and peasants also came to this grand way. America was the dream of group for loans, and when they were needy relatives. Our family in shtetls less than punctual in repaying, the waited for letters and read them ea- cartel forced them to pay in wheat gerly. Letters of hardship, uncertainty or other products. Another cousin in and striving in the new country were Rovno made money in horse trading, discounted; those that chronicled a common and venerable Jewish ocinstant success, all that was good and cupation. The horses were sold mostly fabulous in America, were discussed to peasants, often on the strength of promissory notes. The cousin prayed in mythical fashion.

Those who stayed and prospered in that the farmer would have good Poland developed fairly substantial crops, or that the horse wouldn’t die enterprises. We heard stories about a before the notes were redeemed.

Close to Zloczow was Brody, where distant cousin in Lublin who founded a kind of futures market in large my cousin Dina lived with her famagricultural properties with the local ily. It was a town of ten thousand gentry and peasants. He organized a inhabitants before the war, over half Jewish cartel that bought the prospec- of them Jewish. Dina’s family visited

Susan Gold was born in Poland and was educated at Brandeis and Columbia Universities. She worked as an executive in a multinational firm in Moscow both before and after the collapse of the Soviet Union. She is the author of a memoir, “The Eyes Are the Same,” about a hidden child in Poland during the Holocaust.

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us often in Zloczow. Her father, Beryl, a short, sturdily built, energetic man, was helping to construct a third synagogue in Brody known as the ‘Noble Synagogue.’ Dina’s mother would entertain us with funny stories of the charitable Jewish institution she had helped establish, the Society for the Aid of Poor Fiancées. Beryl diverted us with stories about his poultry farm on the outskirts of Brody, his journeys to sell fowl, and the secrets of poultry farming. “Healthy geese must have outstretched necks; and the fatter they are, the more money you can make on them.” He shipped his geese to Warsaw and as far as Germany, and often traveled to the capital, where his connections enabled him to get favorable gradings for his livestock.

His daughter Dina was my favorite cousin, six years older, always beautifully dressed, worldly and sophisticated, and just the right age to teach me the ropes.

When the Germans established the ghetto in Brody, her older brother fled east, while she and her parents lived in one room with three other families.

During the first aktion, they hid in a cellar with twenty others, where the Gestapo and the Ukrainian police found them and barked orders to come out and join the others in the town square. A few thousand Jews were already assembled there. They were marched to a railroad station and waiting cattle cars. As orders were given to enter the cars, she was terrified of being separated from her parents and clung closely for safety and protection. Fear and desolation gripped her.

She climbed under her mother’s dress and ripped at her skin to stay close.

Only when the heavy doors were slammed and sealed, and the train journey began, was she able to let go of her mother’s bleeding chest.

The train was going to Majdanek.

About eighty men, women and chilJewish Currents

dren were pushed into each car on that beautiful sunny day in May, with birds singing and spring flowers in bloom. There was no place to sit; people stood almost on top of each other like caged animals. The stench and the heat were unbearable. While some muttered the Sh’ma or tried to sing “Ani Ma’amim,” children were crying. Many older people were sick, and a few died in Dina’s car.

Dina’s father was determined that she would escape. He and his friends were able to bend the bar in the small cattle-car window, and her mother

begged her to squeeze through and jump. Her mother’s bewildered eyes were filled with love and tears as she pleaded, “You must jump. You must survive and tell what happened to us!”

Dina clung to her parents with all her might, but they kept kissing her, and her father urged her to jump. The night was black and the wind whistled in her ears as they lifted her to the window.

For a moment she was very frightened and managed to pull her head back into the car. “Then I tried again,” she said matter-of-factly, many years later.

“And I was out. I think they couldn’t

stand to witness my dying,” she told me softly.

As she jumped, she heard bullets.

Wounded, she fell unconscious onto the tracks. Dawn was breaking when she awoke to find that only she and two other men had made it out of that train, which transported three thousand Jews from Brody to Majdanek.

Sixty years later, when I visited her in her garden in Montclair, New Jersey, Dina truly believed that her parents were the guardian angels over her, saying, “You must live, you must tell!”

of Zlozcow. At twenty, she was a beautiful woman with a movie-star face, wavy black hair, sable eyes, high cheekbones, a well-modeled chin, and a strikingly good figure.

She was fantastically desirable and dazzled many eligible suitors. Those who danced well were her favorites.

When they came to call, she would have them wind up the gramophone and then be tested on her specialities: the slow waltz and the tango.

I most remember her long, dark hair, the color of polished chestnuts, her heart-shaped lips thickly covered with shiny, cherry-red lipstick, and her jasmine-scented perfume. Nuna lived in a never-ending circle of culture, trivia, and romance until Zloczow became Judenrein.

She was taken away to Buchenwald, organized many atrocities against the where she worked in a women’s bri- Jews. When he wasn’t murdering, gade and survived because an SS of- von Braun liked to wear his civilian ficer used her as his personal servant. clothes and a little green hat with a She cleaned for him, pressed his uni- feather. He was afraid of being poiforms, polished his boots, ironed his soned and relied only on Nuna. When shirts, cooked, and did whatever work someone else did the cooking, she had was needed to stay alive. The officer to taste it first. came from an aristocratic family and When Germany’s defeat was immihad some royal connections. Nuna nent, he was shipped out without her. went everywhere with him. For two Nuna was packed with many others years, she traveled with him to many into cars without food or water and sent different camps. on a journey that ended at the death His name was von Braun, and he camp of Stutthof. When they unloaded

the cattle cars, she was able to see the smoke from the crematoria chimneys and smell the stench of burning flesh.

They separated the women and took them by train to Landsberg, a camp near Munich — she thinks it was July, 1944 — where she spotted a group of younger boys and hallucinated that she’d heard the voice of her brother Manek, whom she hadn’t seen since his bar mitsve in 1941. She thought she heard him whispering, “Nuna, Nuechka, if one day we are freed, you must search for me and I will search for you.” She sensed that Manek was nearby and asked in Polish, “Perhaps there is someone here from Zloczow?”

But van Braun was gone, and the new commandant said that he would shoot anyone who spoke. The women were ordered to march on. She tells me that she was never certain whether she actually heard him or imagined it, but she lost him again.

2. Cousin Nuna

N

una was the coquette

March-April, 2008

A year later, in April, 1945, when the American forces were approaching Munich, the Germans evacuated the camps again. Nuna was among some five hundred starving women in rags, escorted by SS guards with dogs, who trudged through the forest on a death

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Ben-David Seligman

A Jewish Writer Repairs a Small German Car Exhaust gas entered the passenger vents through a curved meal part that resembled a swan (half the size of a swan, but swan-like in shape, and except for the fact that it swelled at the belly, it also resembled a snake) it hung from beneath the old car’s engine and was covered with scratches and scrapes, but in any event what matters is that when the part failed my friends and I breathed what the curved metal swan let escape.

One pipe slides flush into another pipe (to form a seal that a clamp holds still) but vibrations cause grinding at the surface of meeting, and the softer pipe will be ground down.

That’s how the pipe at the head of the gray metal swan wore away, wore away, releasing a monoxide spray, very light, no instant harm, into the air intended to keep the small car’s cabin warm.

I unbolted the part and replaced it.

I scraped it clean and kept it in the corner of the cellar for a year or so.

And you read, sometimes, the poets trying to glorify the act of dying as a casting off of shackles, or gaining ease, but I do what I can so that I won’t join them.

I do not want to leave.

Ben-David Seligman has had poems published in Columbia Perspectives, Surgam, Yugntruf, Midstream, The Anthology of Magazine Verse, Kerem, and The South Mountain Anthology. He lives with his wife and two boys in New Jersey, where he is an assistant city attorney. His poems can be viewed at spiralbridge.org/people.asp.

march to Dachau, some hundred kilometers away.

Hundreds died en route, over-

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come by hunger, cold and disease.

The sturdy brown boots given her by von Braun helped her to sur-

vive. She was able to keep walking and thought of nothing but Manek and her gnawing hunger. She tells me that when one is very hungry, it is not the stomach that hurts but the throat — there is no worse pain in the world — and that it turns a person into an animal.

Telling me the story in America, in her comfortable suburban home in Cleveland, she is still frozen with fear. Overwrought, she takes a deep breath and exhales a sigh. “So much for a person to endure. I had to tell you about this. I have not told it to anyone before.

“That night, the heavens opened with a dreadful rain. Thunder and lightning lit up the entire forest. There was chaos in the woods. The dogs sounded like wolves. Their howls mixed with wind and thunder and approaching artillery fire. The Germans knew that the Americans were near.

After a while, they grabbed their barking dogs and ran away.

“We spent the most fearful night. We lay in a ditch in the forest and prayed, clasping each other for life. Suddenly, a terrifying flash of lightning, and we see tanks with men. The Germans must be returning with tanks and machine guns to kill us, we thought. ‘We will die here!’ my neighbor wailed. Another shouted, ‘No, no, these are not Germans. I think I hear English!’

“The artillery fire stopped, and we couldn’t hear the howling dogs any more.

“Soldiers saw us and ran towards us, thinking that we were strange animals, a kind they’d never seen before.

When they discovered unarmed, filthy women, wet and in rags, they were also fearful and bewildered, and realized we were abandoned Jews.”

Nuna told me that when she first saw the soldiers, froth came to her lips, as if she were an epileptic. When one soldier wiped her mouth and beJewish Currents

gan speaking to her in Yiddish, she went into a state of hysteria, a state of ecstasy.

“Shush, zay ruhig! Hob nisht moire.

Ikh bin a Yid. Don’t be afraid. I am a Jew.” She told me how she was cared for by this American soldier, and how he

took her to an army hospital and then to Cleveland, where they married and raised a family.

Her face and lips are still beautiful, but her short hair is dyed an inky black.

Her sable eyes are now covered with opaque dark glasses, partly because of typhus, which permanently dam-

aged her left eye after she contracted it in one of the camps, and partly as a means of concealing the pain of never finding Manek. Arthritis makes it difficult to move around as we joke about her dancing the tango in Zlozcow. Her full lips try to smile, but soon she falls completely silent.

I never met my Warsaw relatives. They were important doctors, jurists and academicians, too cosmopolitan and assimilated to bother with their small-town relatives in the shtetls.

Between the burning of the Warsaw Ghetto in 1943 and the uprising in 1944, this Warsaw family was wiped out, with the exception of one child, Anya, who miraculously survived. My parents often talked about her. She became a physician like her father, married a Pole, and was still living in Warsaw. “How can she live among those anti-Semites? Hatred for Jews is in their mother’s milk,” my mother repeated, getting more and more upset each time an acquaintance visiting Warsaw brought regards and gifts from Anya. courtyard, lilac bushes were heavy with blooms, filling the air with a parI met Anya sixty years later on her ticular fragrance that always reminds own turf. Our encounter, and the ce- me of my mother and our old house. menting of a friendship, was one of Anya lived in the apartment alone. She the highlights of my visit to Poland. was divorced, with married children, Anya exuded warmth and hospitality, and she worked as a pediatrician in a and insisted that I stay with her in her hospital nearby. beautiful apartment near Lazienki After two days of sightseeing, good Park. The place was pre-war Warsaw: eating in restaurants, and museums large, with airy windows, very high and concert-going, we spent the last ceilings, parquet floors, and neoclas- evening at home, finally comfortable sical moldings. It provided the proper enough with each other to talk about setting for the paintings, comfortable our survival and our lost childhoods. furniture, and a grand piano. The Anya immediately began speaking library was filled with professional about her father. He was a pediatribooks, Polish literature, paintings, cian working in the Jewish Children’s diplomas, and citations. Prominent Hospital on Sienna Street in Warsaw. among these were many swimming His hospital, the only one remaining awards for competitions in Poland in the ghetto, was later converted to a and Europe. general hospital.

Outside a window facing the garden As hospitals were liquidated, the

Nazis set fire to buildings, and those patients too ill to flee were shot in their beds. Doctors, nurses, and the few remaining staff lived where they could.

The children’s ward comprised three small rooms swamped with sick and dying children, where it was routine to have two or three to one pediatric bed. Anya’s family shared two small rooms near the hospital with five other people.

Anya continued her father’s story with astounding precision, speaking about his experiences in his voice, but also in her own, both as a doctor and as his child. “He was consumed with rage. The practice of medicine was both superhuman and cruel. Sick children were first targets for deportation, and there is nothing worse for a physician than helplessness. Initially, there were the ‘normally ill.’ Later, grotesquely bloated little bodies, swollen from hunger, to which skinny arms and legs had been attached like sticks to a badly made puppet. Sometimes they managed to save the children with glucose and vitamin C. There were still a few grams of margarine, some watered-down milk. Outside, more starved, ragged paupers begging for a crust of bread; in the hospital, more and more flea-ridden, lice-infested, fungus-diseased children. More and more tuberculosis, more children emaciated from hunger, swollen from starvation, with the eyes of adults. Sad, cavernous living eyes stared, while powerless and subdued children’s

3. Anya Zyska

A

s a child,

March-April, 2008

29

Lenny Emmanuel

from “Victims and Survivors” 1 Franz, a man of many faces, arrogant braggart, arrogant kapo, who wore the most cynical smile, twisted downward to cover his generous heart, strutting his health, power, connections in style, cruel German criminal, governing the Jewish lot, marching before the S.S. on Lager Strasse, vile, a maniac swinging clubs around, stirring the pot, heating Jewish stew, yelling “You pack of swine!”

No one dared to run, for surely he would be shot.

But assuring the S.S. he was ill, out of his mind, storeroom kapo, who stole crates of Marmalade, meat, sweets for starving women across the line, was finally caught and taken to the sick blockade, yet survived to Vienna for all the favors he made.

2 Elias, built like a tank, was known to be a crank, entertainer, singing, dancing, the hissing snake as he worked, prayed, carrying wood and brick.

Only five feet, a dwarf who worked like a giant, bestial, rugged as stone, cold as ice over rocks, mad phantom, grinning to torture, a head of iron battered like a ram’s, with fiery eyes, thick brow curling up, making him into that raging maniac, expounding oratories, rivaling the circus master, spellbinding his audience, his imaginary princes, princesses, king of chaos, fool to angels, Jewish Brethren as S.S. stood for Saints, Saviors, a priest stroking strings, as if he played the Aeolian harp to imaginary Auschwitz, beyond horror, the dark.

3 Even S.S. officers stopped to admire Elias’s work, while he was thinking through those next heists, how he, great magician, would rob their pockets and minds, stealing their wine, private treasures night after night, mornings after with pockets full, bulging with chocolates, cigarettes and toiletries, luxuries of every kind from the S.S. officers’ dens, as if he had drunk the primordial vial, happiness, creating his own eternal bliss, those magic hands beyond the real, the master thief of utter delight as if the air he breathed were his love’s sublime, and when they searched him, they could only find where Elias had been, his innocent, empty hands, knowing he had stolen their wine, hearts, minds.

4 Henri knew four languages and keen strategies, the master communicator, thinking as he spoke, able to sway even S.S. officers with his self-pity, their weaknesses beyond the ashes and smoke, asking about Hans’ only son serving at the front, showing Otto his scars, fingers that they broke, always ready to show his wounds from his bunk, always a step ahead, the eternal hairy caterpillar who never failed to find the ganglion for an exit, one of the few who knew how to turn predicator to protector, German kapo, the Auschwitz cooks, German ‘politicals’, ‘informers’, or Ka-Be doctors who would change his illnesses to fit their books, wine, water, fish and bread caught on his hooks.

hands lay motionless on coverlets.

There was less and less he could do to save lives.

“He was becoming the bestower of quiet death, and he died with every child that couldn’t be saved.

He couldn’t keep track of days. As if in a drugged stupor, he continued to maintain case notes, and walked, exhausted, among the children right up to the end, examining them and writing case histories, faced with the terrible choice: ‘This patient will live,

30

all those will die.’ The injured continued to pour in, and he was forced to choose because he himself was one of the chosen.”

Anya explained that her father had a so-called ‘ticket to life.’ Just as the doctors and Jewish police were ordered to make selections for ‘resettlement of patients,’ the chief medical director was ordered to ‘choose’ his medical staff. Ten percent stayed, ninety percent were ‘relocated’ to the East. The Germans distributed a cer-

tain number of inviolate passes, and he had been awarded a ‘ticket to life.’

When, in the summer of 1942, her father’s last children were taken to the Umschlagplatz (loading place) for Treblinka, the hospital on Sienna Street was shuttered. His own ‘ticket to life’ became worthless, and life itself was no longer tenable. Maddened and desperate but professionally calm, he made plans for his small family to die. Curfew time was 9 p.m., so the threesome had to walk very quickly Jewish Currents

5 See Alfred L there, alone, hungry, wasting away.

He had been an engineer, had somehow gained privileges for cleaning filthy Polish workers’ pots, yielding him one full half ladle of soup every day, a notable honor, like numbers for a name, tops of the watery soups, yet never once complained, washing his hands again and again, almost clean, each day, washing away the stains, in old clothes, giving his portions of breads and soups for gain, the prominence of wearing a clean, pressed suit, a shave to reveal his indomitable will and tenacity known to kill, self-will run riot, the grim silences beyond his own darkness in his clean, only shirt, washing, drying nights to face their brutal insults.

6 Not even once was Alfred rude or discourteous, even to S.S. officers, never boasted of his nobility, moan, groan with self-consumption, or self pity.

He saw other skies, the horizons of other times, through memory, desire, sorrow, triumph again and again, as Auschwitz was just an ugly name.

No doubt to Blockaltester he was utterly insane, though to kapo and Albeitsdienst he was useful, making him a specialist, an analyst of styrenes, German wheels thank God would never be used, working down, Alfred L. rose above the shame, pain, suffering, walking proudly in wooden shoes, walking beyond fear to the other side to shower, marching to no man’s drum and no man’s tower.

Notes to the sequence, “Victims and Survivors”: 1. “Franz, a man of many faces . . .”

Though not explicitly clear in the poem, Franz (Marmalade he was affectionately called) survived because of the various favors he did for the powerful kapos and returned to his native Vienna to become a successful and prosperous restaurateur.

2. “Elias, built like a tank . . .”

“Brethren” with a capital relates to historical German pietism.

4. “Henri knew four languages . . .”

Ka-Be’s were Auschwitz doctors who often favored certain prisoners, often endangering their own lives.

6. “Not even once was Alfred rude . . .”

Blockaltesters were coordinators of prison huts. Kapos more often than not had been criminals in civilian life. The Albeitsdienst was a special office for assigning work details. Styrene was the intended substitute for rubber.

Lenny Emmanuel, who has appeared in leading literary and scientific journals in England, Australia, Canada, India, and the U.S., became contributing and managing editor of The New Laurel Review in 1998. He has had recent or has forthcoming poems in Agenda, IMAGO, Parnassus, BOGG, and other publications. The second edition of The Icecream Lady (Ramparts and Indiana University, 1997) and his second collection, Blue Rain, with poems, essays, INNERviews, and photography will be published in the Fall of 2008.

and quietly to the Vistula River. They walked resolutely to the Poniatowski Bridge, the closest span. Sometimes her father carried Anya piggyback, occasionally hopping and making neighing sounds. Her mother was deliriously frightened and quiet.

Free will, fear of Treblinka, and a self-destructive compulsion pushed him forward. He explained to them March-April, 2008

that because he was a competitive swimmer, he would have to find another way for himself. When they reached the railing, he threw Anya and his wife into the water. He did not look back but ran towards the part of town that followed the railroad tracks south. Just at the place where the line began to curve away from the willow trees and into the open fields, he lay

down on the tracks in front of the Krakow Night Express, which always ran on time.

“Railways always meant a great deal to him,” Anya said. She still had the model railroad and trains he brought home to their ghetto apartment as a gift to her. His office was littered with books about the history Continued on page 69

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Boston Workmen’s Circle is proud to be part of the Jewish Currents Mishpokhe We are a vibrant secular progressive community featuring A Besere Velt Community Chorus Children’s Shule Secular Holiday Observances Yiddish and Adult Education Classes Political Action Committees Cultural Programming

Boston Workmen’s Circle 1762 Beacon Street Brookline, MA 02146 617-566-6281 www.workmenscircleboston.org

Now available: A Besere Velt CD $18 + shipping To order: email: mary@workmenscircleboston.org

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Jewish Currents

The National Executive Board of The Workmen’s Circle/Arbeter Ring proudly greets the readers of Jewish Currents — our members and our independent subscribers, all.

May this Peysakh season be a time of renewal for our friends, families, organization and extended community.

Henrietta Backer Richard Bock Joanne Borts Andrew Braun Donald Budnick Syd Bykofsky Elaine Cohen Martin Cohen Matthew Didner Eli Dugan Mike Felsen Eugene Glaberman Ira Halfond Ed Harris Jack Jacobs Ruth Judkowitz Milton Kant Lyber Katz Dan Klein Martin Krupnick Michael Krupnick Rena Leikind Abigail Mandel Susan Milamed Mark Mlotek Allan Newman Marie Parham Seena Parker Milton Pincus Rosalyn Pincus Marc Rauch Len Rodberg Eric Roth Robert Schwartz Diana Scott Mitchell Silver Seena Stein Jeff Warschauer Tamar Zinn Barnett Zumoff Peter Pepper, President

Robert Kaplan, Vice President

March arch-A -April pril, 2008 2008 M

Maddy Braun, Treasurer

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PEYSAKH GRUS (GREETINGS) Philadelphia District Workmen’s Circle/Arbeter Ring

Chair/Treasurer: Milton Kant Vice-Chair/Secretary: Fraida Arbeter Trustees: Milton Shapiro, Rosalind Shapiro, Millicent Kant

Philadelphia Branches 186E & 513

The Jewish Children’s Folkshul www.folkshul.org

Philadelphia Secular Jewish Organization pgshane@andromeda.rutgers.edu

South Jersey Branch

1095

Secular Jews of South Jersey klezma@comcast.net

Shir Shalom www.shirshalom-phila.org

Sholem Aleichem Club sholemaleichemclub.org Workmen’s Circle/Arbeter Ring Philadelphia District www/circle.org

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Jewish Currents

SUMMER AT CIRCLE LODGE 2008 music

film

language

food

history

literature

The Workmen’s Circle/Arbeter Ring invites you to CIRCLE LODGE on Sylvan Lake in Hopewell Junction, NY. Offering top-notch athletic facilities, delicious family-style meals, comfortable heated/AC rooms, a wide range of services and amenities, and the finest in Jewish programming.

July 4-6

music

July 8-11

food/history

Our opening weekend features acclaimed singer, songwriter, and folklorist Laura Wetzler, whom Pete Seeger calls “one of the very best,” in concert and lecturing on international Jewish music.

Teresa Tova our new artist-inresidence/ program coordinator will be your guide to a marvelous weekend or an entire summer at Circle Lodge. Tova is an internationally acclaimed singer, actor, and playwright, and an outstanding community builder.

She will shape the Circle Lodge experience for each guest, guiding you through myriad options for an exciting season.

Don’t miss Tova’s weekly Jazz Under the Stars events.

Request our entertainment calendar for special music, film and theater evenings.

Jewish Cooking/ Cooking Jewish.

Learn the history of the bagel, the deep fried joy of falafel, the secrets of gefilte fish from experts and celebrity guest cooks. Sign up early for hands-on cooking sessions (space limited). If the kitchen is not your territory, there will be lectures, films, tastings.

July 11-13 politics/culture A Jewish Currents Weekend

Lawrence Bush, editor of Jewish Currents Magazine, will host a weekend of political discussion and Jewish cultural exploration.

Editorial Board members and frequent writers for the magazine will lead workshops on a variety of contemporary issues. Participatory creative experiences in dance and music will enrich this riveting weekend.

July 13-18

Yiddish

July 18-20

comedy

July 27 – August 1 theatre

Yiddish Theatre Fantasy Camp.

Spend a week with the The National Yiddish Theater - Folksbiene’s brilliant Artistic Director Zalmen Mlotek and Associate Artistic Director Motl Didner. Have you dreamed of being a star of the Yiddish stage? Curious to get a backstage peek? This workshop puts you on stage performing songs and scenes from classic plays and comedy routines. Don’t speak Yiddish?

Not to worry, English translations provided.

Backstage stories of the Yiddish theatre, today’s innovators, and kids in Yiddish theatre.

August 1-3

film/history

August 4-8

history/Yiddish

August 8-10

literature

August 11-15

comedy/Yiddish

August

film

Ben Nelson, professor and celebrated lecturer, will unravel the dramatic and informative narrative of Jewish history, horror and hope through historical analysis and film criticism. You won’t want to miss“Munich Times Three“ – The Munich Pact of 1939, The Munich Massacre of 1972, and the Steven Spielberg's 2006 film “Munich”. (See the Spielberg movie in advance or watch it at Circle Lodge in advance of the lecture.)

McGill university Professor Eugene Orenstein will spin Spend a week in Yiddishland with master instructors tales of two fascinating centennials: Hear the dramatic Nikolai Borodulin, Chava Lapin, and story of the Tshernovits Conference, which debated Peysakh Fischman. Immerse yourself in mameloshn. Yiddish as the Jewish national language, and celebrate Learners and speakers are welcome at all levels. the 100th yortsayt of Avrum Goldfaden, brilliant developer of Yiddish musical theatre.

Award-winning film columnist, author, and Columbia University professor of Yiddish Studies Jeremy Dauber will train his wit and wisdom on three great American Jewish comics: Woody Allen, Mel Brooks, and Sid Caesar.

July 21-25 women's arts

Yiddish diva Adrienne Cooper, jazz great Marilyn Lerner and stellar guests present concerts, workshops, and films on Jewish women’s lives, including the premier of a new multimedia concert, “Every Mother’s Son: Songs of War and Peacemaking”.

For more information and rates, please call (845) 221-2771 or visit www.circle.org

Ben Nelson, professor and critic, returns to discuss “Fathers and Daughters: Generational Conflict in Three American Jewish Novels.” Anzia Yezierska’s immigrant classic “Bread Givers”, Myla Goldberg’s best-selling “Bee Season”, and Philip Roth’s “American Pastoral.”

(Participants should read these books in advance.)

Spend a week with Michael Wex, acclaimed author of the runaway best sellers “Born to Kvetch” and “Just Say Nu”, as he serves up his erudite, hilarious, passionate view of Yiddish language and culture.

Author and pioneering Jewish film curator Eric Goldman will screen and discuss his all-time favorite Jewish films.

March-April, 2008 2008

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Voice of Cultural Jews The Congress of Secular Jewish Organizations sends greetings on the peysakh celebration of liberation to its 25 affiliated communities and Sunday schools in the United States, Canada and England.

CSJO extends these greetings to all the members of The Workmen’s Circle/Arbeter Ring with whom it shares the vision of struggle for a sheynere, besere velt — a better, more beautiful world — of peace and social justice.

Join us at the Annual CSJO Conference, May 23-26, 2008, at the AR/WC Circle Lodge, Sylvan Lake, Hopewell Junction, NY, USA. For more information: (866) 874-8608 • www.csjo.org

The Toronto Workmen’s Circle, which this year is celebrating its 100th anniversary, extends Passover greetings to all who cherish and seek a world of justice and peace. May the vision we share soon be realized!

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Jewish Currents

March arch-A -April pril, 2008 2008 M

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We’re Branch 1907 — the Jewish Currents Branch of The Workmen’s Circle — inviting YOU to join us!

Member Benefits • Gatherings • Free Mail Art, Books & CDs Contact lawrencebush@earthlink.net or call (212) 889-2523 Irving Adler, Vermont Janet M. Bell, New York Carolyn & Daniel Berger, Pennsylvania Phyllis Berk, New York Joanne Borts, New York Blanche Breslow, New York J.G. & Miklos Breuer, Massachusetts Jacqueline Bush, New York Lawrence Bush & Susan Griss, New York Isidore Century, New York Robert & Rochelle Cherry, New York Rosalind Dann, New York Lionel & Edith Davis, Minnesota Jeffrey Dekro, Pennsylvania Joe & Lillian Dimow, Connecticut Stan Distenfeld, New York Al & Rochelle Dorfman, New York Sherry Farber, New York Samuel & Maia Goldberger, Connecticut Nina Gordon, New York Sarah Mina Gordon, New York Susan Gregory, New York Doris & Seymour Griss, New York Daniel Guenzburger, New York Sam & Leticia Hardin, California Jack Holtzman & Pam Silberman, North Carolina Deborah Jacobowitz & Donald Mewedeff, North Carolina Lynn Jacobs, Pennsylvania Stretch & Judy Jacobs, New York Rokhl Kafrissen, New York Melinda & Maurice Kaplan, New York Lyber & Elaine Katz, New York

Joni Kletter & Doug Schneider, New York Leonard Merrill Kurz, New York Stephen & Miriam Leberstein, New York Kathie Lester, California Tamara Lew, New York Sheri Lindner, New York Ruth O’Brien, Florida Ruth Ost, New York Daniel Panger, California Roslyn Bresnick Perry, New York Jack Nusan Porter, Massachusetts Gretchen Primack, New York Steven Raber & Lynn Rosenthal, New York Sheldon & Corinne Ranz, New York George Rogoff, New York Irwin Rosenthal, New York Ann & Jon Shinefeld, Pennsylvania Bruce Solomon & Sue Swartz, Indiana Eugene Solon, Arizona Si Spiegel & Jo Ann Bastis, New York Betty Spivak & James Daigler, Kentucky Ann Sprayregen & Stanley Sperber, New York Joshua Stillman, New York Yankl & Mira Stillman, New Jersey Esther Surovell, New York Barry Swan, New York Max Weintraub, New York Marsha & Sol Wiener, Washington Jesse Wilks, New York Tamar Zinn & Harry Wilks, New York Celia & Herbert Wollman, New York Herbert Zola, New York

Zoln di shtromn flisn shtark un tif!

(May the Currents run strong and deep!)

Workmen’s Circle of Northern California

Maurice Savin Branch 1054

Fishl Kutner, Chairmensh Diana Scott, Vice Chairmensh

NORTHERN CALIFORNIA BAY AREA JEWISH CURRENTS DISCUSSION GROUP Please contact Esther Sabin 510-521-6764 38 38

Jewish Currents urrents

We Congratulate JEWISH CURRENTS on the consistent excellence of your publication

Best Wishes

The Herschel Seidman WC Branch 1052

Beverly Freierman, Financial Secretary Brooklyn, New York

The Southern Region is alive and well.

GREETINGS from

The JACK ZUKERMAN Workmen’s Circle

The spirit of Arbeter Ring for a sheynere un besere velt thrives on!

Branch 1001 New York, New York

Delray Beach, Florida GREETINGS from the members of

Al Weinstein, Chairman

Workmen’s Circle Branch 1075 Milton Pincus, Chairman

Workmen’s Circle Branch 1002

Henrietta Backer

Nassau County, New York

New York, New York

New York, New York

March arch-A -April pril, 2008 2008 M

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Lawrence Bush

RELIGION AND SKEPTICISM Guest Column by Mitchell Silver

The Case Against God The Sea of Faith Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore Lay like the fold of a bright girdle furl’d But now I only hear Its melancholy long, withdrawing roar, Retreating . . .

—from Matthew Arnold’s “Dover Beach” (1851)

W

ell, the tide has turned.

The “Sea of Faith” is roaring back to shore, threatening a tsunami. Or so it seems to the authors of a spate of recent books intended not merely to build levees to hold off the rushing waters of religion, but to repel their power and speed their evaporation with the heat of atheist polemics.

That these “new atheist” authors have to fight this fight at all comes as something of an historical surprise. The retreat of religion has been, at least from an elite Eurocentric perspective, a trend for four hundred years, and no reversal was expected. By the mid-19th century, when Matthew Arnold heard only faith’s melancholy withdrawal, God looked to be a terminal case, and by century’s end, Nietschze had memorably issued the death certificate.

As Mark Lilla tells the story in The Stillborn God, the deity’s demise began when ‘He’ was replaced by social rationality as the basis of legitimate political authority. In the 16th and 17th centuries, much blood and treasure were lost in the contest to decide which God would be sovereign.

In response to the havoc, Thomas Hobbes made the decisive, radical breakthrough in political theory by asserting that political legitimacy can be based on meeting human needs. Government is grounded in its worldly effectiveness, with no heavenly mandate required for legitimate political authority.

Mitchell Silver, author of A Plausible God: Secular Reflections on Liberal Jewish Theology (2006), teaches philosophy at the University of Massachusetts in Boston. A National Executive Board member of the Workmen’s Circle, he is the educational director of the Boston Workmen’s Circle’s shule.

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Reviewed in this essay: The Stillborn God: Religion, Politics, and the Modern West by Mark Lilla (Knopf, 2007, 352 pages).

God Is Not Great:How Religion Poisons Everything,

by Christopher Hitchens (Twelve Books, 2007, 307 pages).

Letter to a Christian Nation, by Sam Harris (Knopf, 2006, 96 pages).

God, the Failed Hypothesis: How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist, by Victor Stenger (Promethus Books, 2007, 287 pages).

The God Delusion, by Richard Dawkins (Houghton Mifflin, 2006, 416 pages).

Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon, by Daniel C. Dennett (Penguin, 2007, 464 pages).

Waiting for God: The Spiritual Explorations of a Reluctant Atheist, by Lawrence Bush (Ben Yehuda Press, 2008, 190 pages).

God Is the Good We Do: A Theology of Theopraxis,

by Michael Benedikt (Bottino Books, 2007, 304 pages).

Simultaneous with the Lord’s dismissal from a role in running politics was a shrinking role for God in running the natural world. Enlightenment science uncovered a natural world of mechanical cause and effect, pulled not in accordance with God’s far-seeing will but by matter and energy, which are blind and have no wills. Charles Darwin’s achievement seemed the last nail in the coffin for theism.

Before Darwin, life’s exquisitely functional complexity strongly suggested a designing mind as its fabricator. Darwin replaced The Mind with the marvelous but mindless ‘designing’ power, over the eons, of natural selection.

Already by the late 18th century, astronomer and mathematician Pierre-Simon Laplace “had no need of this [God] hypothesis,” and the U.S. Constitution spoke of “We the People,” not God, as the foundation of the state. Politically and epistemologically, God was marginalized. Scientists and statesmen were all going godless.

As God pined away, with little sympathy and even a ‘good riddance’ attitude from some intellectuals, another section of the intelligentsia fretted over God’s demise.

Jewish Currents

They thought religious belief brought something valuable to our social and emotional lives. While they neither could nor wanted to revive the traditional concept of God, which fomented civil strife and impeded science, they sought a refurbished God concept, one that managed to inspire morality, stimulate creativity, stay despair, and provide solace, yet without being culturally specific, irrationally demanding, or empirically meddling (except, perhaps in the initial set-up). Lilla traces the career of this refurbished God and judges that it hardly ever came to significant life — hence the “stillborn” God. Whether or not that refurbished God really did die at its nativity is a question we shall return to later; but the one thing today’s new atheists hold in common with traditional believers is the opinion that this refurbished God — the God of sophisticated, liberal theologians (Bonhoeffer, Tillich, Kaplan) and abstruse philosophers (Spinoza, Hegel, Whitehead) — doesn’t deserve to live. ‘He’ is not God enough. According to Christopher Hitchens’ God Is Not Great, for example, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a founding member of the anti-Nazi Confessing Church, believes only in a “nebulous humanism.” Hitchens has no beef with this humanism, apart from its being mislabeled ‘God.’ In The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins, as he usually does, puts the new atheists’ case most clearly: “[I]f the word God is not to become completely useless, it should be used in the way people have generally understood it: to denote a supernatural creator that is ‘appropriate for us to worship.’ ” Sam Harris similarly begins his book, Letter to a Christian Nation, in solidarity with traditional Christians’ rejection of modern, liberal theology. Harris assures Christians that he, unlike liberal theologians, takes Christian belief in God to mean what most Christians think it means: that Jesus really did perform miracles, really was resurrected, really will return. Real Christians, Harris says, don’t take these as symbolic or metaphorical propositions, and neither will he. Harris respects their beliefs too much to misinterpret them as tropes — he just thinks, along with Dawkins and Hitchens, that these beliefs, honestly and straightforwardly interpreted, are false and pernicious. It is these beliefs in the traditional God that the new atheists want to put in the docket (although they also charge liberal theology as an accessory).

The urgency of their indictment is fueled by the sense that old-time religion, assumed to be withering away by the European bourgeoisie and their spiritual fellow travelers, is now virulently vibrant. We had thought, say the new atheists, that our Enlightenment forebears, the old atheists, had triumphed in the decisive struggle against oppressive superstition. But Hindu fanaticism, messianic settler JudaMarch-April, 2008

ism, New Age mysticism, and most especially, reactionary, murderous Islamic jihadiism and reactionary, moralistic American Christian fundamentalism, have convinced the new atheists that the battle for rationality and humanism still rages, is as important as ever, and may well be lost.

Aux armes!

Here, in sum, is the new atheists’ anti-God brief: Belief in God, as traditionally conceived, lies somewhere between very probably false and manifestly absurd. In addition to being untrue, it is a pernicious belief that has caused horrific suffering and continues to cause serious harm. Whatever good has been motivated by theistic belief would likely have occurred without it, and no future good is dependent upon it. More sophisticated, liberal conceptions of God may be innocuous in and of themselves, but they are devoid of much content and useless. Moreover, they provide cover and respectability to the noxious beliefs of traditional theism.

The new atheist case is powerful, and all of its advocates under review make it with good writing and more or less venomous humor. These are often angry, as well as rollickingly funny, indictments. Sam Harris reads like hard-hitting journalism — concise, occasionally unfair, but always pointed and punchy.

Hitchens, more often unfair, is also more literary, digressive, and wrathful in his delectable skewering of religious absurdities and abominations. The most thorough, wellwrought presentation of the prosecution, however, witty and pointed but not at the expense of the argument, is Dawkins’ The God Delusion, which is the best comprehensive survey for the general reader of the current case against theism.

Dawkins walks the reader through the venerable philosophical arguments meant to prove God’s existence, and their equally venerable refutations. The cosmological argument — that we need God to get things going — is shown to be question-begging. The ontological argument — that God, correctly understood, must be conceived of as existing — is shown to be either outright fallacious or, if it proves something, that something is not necessarily anything God-like. The ever-popular ‘argument from design’ — the claim that the world is too delicately, beautifully, purposeembodyingly wrought to have emerged by accident — is

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dismantled by Dawkins, as an evolutionary biologist, who is as impressed with the beauty and fabulously ingenious workings of the natural world as the most pious believer, but is also capable of explaining it without resort to God. At least for the biological world, he explains, we already possess a non-mysterious explanation of apparent design: natural selection. It is an explanation confirmed by the empirical evidence and compelling on purely logical grounds.

In a world of limited resources and of reproducers (even the simplest life forms, barely more than molecules) who make highly reliable but not always exact copies of themselves, one’s kind has got to be relatively good at reproducing to stick around. To be a good reproducer, you’ve got to be good at getting food, good at avoiding becoming food, and good at the reproductive process itself. If you don’t make the grade in one of these areas because you don’t have the requisite skills or the competition is too fierce, your descendants are no-shows. ‘Fit’ with the environment determines who’s best suited for reproductive success. Some variations in the copies being made will fit the conditions at hand better than others, and the reproducers possessing these variations will reproduce most successfully. Keep repeating the game and the surviving types become incredibly well suited. No God, but lots of ‘design.’ Biology doesn’t need God. Nor does any other science. Science, however, has become too prestigious to be denied, so apologists for theism have resorted to one of two strategies. One liberal religious strategy is to claim that all scientific discoveries, actual or potential, are simply irrelevant to religion — that God is not about what science is about. A second argues that scientific findings are compatible with God’s existence or even confirm it. While all of the new atheists deny that science and religion make friendly bedfellows, it is Victor Stenger, in God, The Failed Hypothesis, who makes the most sustained and general case that science actually disproves traditional theism.

Stenger, a physicist at the University of Colorado, argues that any scientific hypothesis positing an entity’s existence is tested by looking for evidence of its existence.

God’s existence, given how ‘He’ is described in world scriptures and by traditional theists as good, caring, powerful, wise, influential, miracle-making, the world’s creator, etc., should leave lots of scientifically discoverable

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traces. Yet there is no reliable evidence of miracles, no inexplicable calibration of natural laws, no perfection of natural design, no natural justice. Science — and not for want of trying — has simply not found any such effects.

Stenger argues convincingly that science not only does perfectly well without supposing God but actually takes us a long way towards refuting divine existence. The “God hypothesis” of traditional theism has been scientifically falsified, and the liberal God, who is unfalsifiable because it doesn’t do anything, is of no interest to Stenger — because it doesn’t do anything.

At this juncture we might ask, “Who cares?” Why are the new atheists in such high dudgeon over the persistence of rationally baseless beliefs?

Theism, they contend, is an anti-human ideology. It has a shameful history and poses a continuing threat. This part of the indictment is long, colorful and vivid: the genocidal, vengeful Yahweh, the cruel biblical punishments for minor transgressions, the misogynist Pauline letters, the body- and sex-hating doctrines, the Augustinian self-loathing — just this small sampling from the Western canon attests to the morally repugnant nature of religious thought. It isn’t just thought, however, but deeds that appall the new atheists: Aztecs offering still-beating human hearts, Christians burning still-living humans, Muslims putting infidels to the sword, Hindus throwing widows on the pyre. The new atheists see religion as a source of endless wars and massacres. These rivers of blood are accompanied by the deep hatred for other creeds that religion instills. They grant that humans may be inclined to clannishness and demonizing outsiders, and that the hatreds and wars motivated by religion might have found other rationales. Yet they are convinced that without religion, we would have been spared much suffering.

But is that so? Daniel Dennett, the eminent philosopher of mind and leading intellectual advocate of materialist, scientifically grounded philosophy, is clearly in sympathy with the new atheists. However, his Breaking the Spell has a subtle and importantly different focus. Dennett doesn’t want to prove there is no God, or that the traditional Godconcept is a morally defective ideal, or that religion is harmful — all of which he no doubt strongly suspects. Rather, he wants us to study religion and religious belief using all of the rational, scientific tools at our disposal. What causes religion, how does it function, who does it serve, and what are its personal and social consequences?

Breaking the Spell usefully outlines current knowledge on these matters and interestingly speculates on other possible answers, but primarily Dennett wants more data and better theories based on all of our human sciences, Jewish Currents

the biological as well as the social. The goal of his book is to dismantle the barriers to such a research program. He is less concerned with breaking the ‘spell’ of theism than with breaking the “taboo against a forthright, scientific, no-holds-barred investigation of religion as one natural phenomenon among many.”

Dennett acknowledges the risk that religious belief may turn out to be a good thing after all, while being undermined by our investigations of its nature. That is the implicit fear of those who, Dennett says, “believe in belief.” However, looking at the contemporary world, he sees a greater danger in our continuing blind faith in the benignity of blind faith.

Lawrence Bush’s Waiting for God is a Dennettian inquiry in the form of a personal memoir. Bush seeks to understand the appeal of religion and ‘spirituality’ to those baby-boomers who had been immersed in what earlier commentators called “the counter-culture,” and whom Bush terms “Woodstockers.” The lives of his friends, comrades, family, and especially of Bush himself, constitute his primary raw data. He follows their spiritual journey, speculating on motives, social dynamics, political currents, and historical forces to explain his and their religious twists and turns. Although Bush’s reflections are well-informed by the relevant scholarship, the book’s greatest strengths are his literary sensibility and strong personal sympathy for both the appeal of religion and the value of hard-nosed skeptical rationality.

The pull of religion, at least as far as Bush himself is concerned, comes not from the traditional God that the new atheists attack; he is almost as impatient as Dawkins with that God, and believes that it is rarely that God who vies for the devotions of Woodstockers. Instead, it is the God that Mark Lilla thought stillborn that Bush finds attractive: the God that the new atheists mock as atheism-that-dare-notspeak-its-name, the God they dismiss as weak tea whose main function is to provide drinking with the respectability that allows fundamentalists to get drunk on stronger stuff — the less definable, more human-friendly but less human-like, more immanent God of liberal, sophisticated religion. Bush is entranced by its siren song and inspired by its possibilities. However, in the end, at least on a personal level, he buys the new atheists’ case. He wouldn’t put it as harshly as Hitchens, his moral judgment of religion is more mixed than Dawkins’, his feelings more nuanced than Harris’ — but Bush agrees that there is no God. Michael Benedikt is a theologian who is attempting to come to Lawrence Bush’s spiritual rescue with a God acceptable to a rationalist. Continuing the tradition that Lilla finds moribund, Benedikt promises a God that will feed March-April, 2008

the spirit without offending the mind. In God Is the Good We Do, he offers a theism that concedes all of the scientific and logical claims of the new atheists, but challenges the meaning and moral they put on the facts. The new atheists treat God as a mistaken idea that, at best, may have had some use for mankind but no longer does. Benedikt, by contrast, views God as an evolving idea, best interpreted as humanity’s attempt to discover and describe what is of ultimate value, what makes life worthwhile, what should guide our actions, what we should serve.

Benedikt thinks it unsurprising that primitive theology was, well, primitive; the God idea was misshapen by local prejudices, distorted by fears, corrupted by greed, deformed by vanity. It reflected our ignorance. However, our moral and intellectual growth has provided an increasingly adequate concept of God, and we now should arrive at the notion forthrightly declared in his title, God Is the Good We Do, nothing more, nothing less. Where we do no good, there is no God. Whenever we do good, there is God. God is not us, or in our good deeds, or the inspirer

Benedikt views God as an evolving idea, best interpreted as humanity’s attempt to discover and describe what is of ultimate value, what makes life worthwhile, what should guide our actions, what we should serve. of our good deeds — God and our good deeds are one and the same. “Whether or not God exists,” Benedikt writes, “is entirely up to us.”

Benedikt knows full well that that is not what the overwhelming majority of people mean or have meant when they speak of God. Yet he argues that there is great overlap between his God-as-Good-Deeds and the theism of the world’s religious traditions — indeed, that his theism is born from their better parts. Most significantly, his God acts in important ways like the God of tradition. Good deeds inspire us, humanize us, and our survival depends on them; they are unconditionally good, accessible, and of enormous power; we can access them when we want, they are most praiseworthy, they are beautiful.

Benedikt makes a comprehensive case for his theology,

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which he calls theopraxy. He does so with deep learning, intellectual honesty, and humane wisdom, and his may be about the best God a full commitment to rationality will allow. It’s not nothing, but is it enough? I think not, for Benedikt’s God-as-good-deeds is all inspiration and no consolation. In an odd way, he shares a problem with the new atheists who are cavalier in their dismissal of those needs to which religion ministers.

Are you afraid of annihilation, bereft at the death of a child, anguished by unjustified, massive suffering, terrified by your vulnerability to blind, uncaring chance? Well, say the atheists, buck up — those are the facts, do the best you can, be an adult, stiff upper lip and all that.

Of course it makes a certain sense that we ought not fool ourselves, that we should face reality squarely, the better to effectively enact whatever good we can. Benedikt wants to call that enactment ‘God,’ the new atheists want to call it ‘doing good.’ Either way, it’s no sweet Jesus. As a remedy for the absence of a powerful, caring, benevolent protector, “do the good you can” — even if it is the only treatment that has any material therapeutic value at all — is so overmatched by the disease, the human condition and all of the evils that flesh is heir to, that I hesitate to rail against the metaphysical snake-oil industry.

Placebos have their place. Most people would rather feel good than be rational — or perhaps it may, indeed, be

highly rational to keep God, the loving parent, the mother of all placebos, ensconced in heaven.

Even if one has, as Philip Roth once said of himself, “no taste for delusion,” and agrees with Richard Dawkins that God is a delusion, and a harmful one at that (although this judgment involves ungrounded speculation that I doubt any Dennettian-inspired research can ground), there is still a part of the new atheists’ brief against religion that is troubling: What do they want? If it is to persuade the religious that they are deluded and would be better off without delusion, the mocking tone and disdain that some of these writers show for the needs religion meets and the joys it provides are ill-suited for the task. If it is to persuade their fellow atheists, like myself, to do public battle for their ideology, then their project is reactionary, for a cornerstone of political liberalism is public religious toleration.

Yes, I believe atheism is the correct ‘religious’ view, but I learned from Locke that fighting for the truth in religion leads to bloody and oppressive politics. There is a fight we must have with jihadists, settler messianic Jews, the Christian right and other religious fundamentalists — but it is not with their notions of God, flawed as those might be; it is with the idea that their theologies should have any political power.

Newly available from Jewish Currents A Plausible God: Secular Reflections on Liberal Jewish Theology

by Mitchell Silver “Silver devotes much of his book to assessing whether belief in God enhances one’s personal health and moral life. . . . An intellectually challenging exploration.”

Reconstructionism Today “Mitchell Silver gives atheism a good name because he does not use the old Godwith-a-white-beard as his straw man . . . His is the mature and confident atheism of a man who very fully understands the alternative.”

Jewish Currents

$22, postpaid, from www.jewishcurrents.org or call (212) 889-2523.

The author is donating profits to support the magazine.

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Jewish Currents

Marek Breiger

Bob Dylan: Reconciliation and Atonement

RY A R PO M E T CON

CULTCHA

Dylan as a Family Man in “Chronicles” “ . . . I had gone back to the town of my early years in a way I could never have imagined — to see my father laid to rest. Now there would be no way to say what I was never capable of saying before.”

—Bob Dylan, Chronicles

Marci Pepper

B

ob Dylan, as he has so often told us, was not of the baby-boom gen-

eration. Born in 1941, he was part of an American generation of the 1950s. His ‘older brothers’ were James Dean and Buddy Holly; his youngest ‘uncles’ were Jack Kerouac and Lenny Bruce. His actual friends included Ramblin’ Jack Elliot and Dave Van Ronk, and his voracious reading, his desire to perfect his craft, and even and especially his politics are reactions to the world he grew up in during and after World War II. “Masters of War,” Dylan has said, relates to Eisenhower’s speech about the military-industrial complex. “With God on Our Side” has a strong stanza about the Holocaust and real anger about American forgiveness of the Germans after “six million they fried.”

Likewise, songs like “Only a Pawn in Their Game” and “Hattie Carroll” were condemnations of American in terms of expressing his love for his apartheid by a writer who had seen family — his mother and father, his racial segregation first-hand. grandmothers and grandfathers, his Dylan’s reaction to his Jewishness cousins, his aunts and uncles. also is a product of that time, a time of anti-Semitism, when many Jewish Reading and rereading Chronicles, I performers, though proud of being was reminded of an older member of Jewish, tried to hide their roots. In that 1950s generation, Philip Roth and his 2004 memoir, Chronicles (Vol. his homages to his own father in Pat1), though he is still reticent about rimony and The Plot Against America. his feelings about being born and Like Roth, Dylan has come to a very raised as a Jew, Dylan is not reticent Jewish conclusion found in the Bible: Marek Breiger’s poems and literary and personal essays have appeared in five anthologies, most recently the PEN Oakland anthology, Oakland Out Loud. He is at work on a book dealing with Jewish-American writers entitled From the Tenements to the Suburbs, which will include this essay.

March-April, 2008

that fame, glory, riches are as nothing if one has not led a moral life.

Chronicles does not follow exact chronological time but begins and ends with Dylan’s earliest days in New York City. The book highlights the years of 1967 and 1968, as well as events from Dylan’s childhood.

Included are descriptions of his comeback, which began in the late 1980’s.

Overall, the memoir is an emotional response to Dylan’s family and friends, and to the trends that shaped the nation, including the idealism of the early 1960s and the nihilism that hijacked that idealism. Moving back and forth in time and offering vivid descriptions of Woody Guthrie, Joan Baez, Van Ronk, Odetta and others, Dylan writes of his discovery, through both rock ’n’ roll and traditional music, of the ‘underground’ America of the 1950s, and his recovery in the late 1980s as a powerful songwriter —in part as a result of his collaboration with producer Daniel Lanois and bothmen’s shared love of American roots music.

The music Dylan would create in New Orleans — with Lanois’ help — would be a real antidote to the cultural shallowness that defined the Reagan-Bush era.

One of Dylan’s strongest descriptions is that of his own father. If Dylan’s spiritual father was Woody Guthrie, Abraham (Abram) Zimmerman was also a guide and a role model. Dylan writes: Though we lived in Hibbing, my father from time to time would load us into an old Buick Roadmaster and we’d ride to

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Duluth for the weekend. My father was from Duluth, born and raised there.

That’s where his friends still were. One of five brothers, he’d worked all his life, even as a kid. When he was sixteen, he’d seen a car smash into a telephone pole and burst into flames. He jumped off his bicycle, reached in and pulled the driver out, smothering the driver’s body with his own — risking his life to save someone he didn’t even know. Eventually he took accounting classes for Standard Oil of Indiana when I was born. Polio, which left him with a pronounced limp, had forced him out of Duluth — he lost his job and that’s how we got to the Iron Range where my mother’s family was from.

The Zimmerman family was closeknit. Dylan’s maternal grandmother lived in his parents’ home in Hibbing.

Dylan pays homage to her also as his “confidant” and greatest supporter.

Likewise, his father’s mother, originally from Turkey, a woman who lost a leg to illness, is sketched with great respect. Perhaps, one intuits, Dylan’s ability to empathize with all kinds of people came out of his own family circle. Yet Dylan’s honesty about his break with his father and his father’s world is also made painfully real. Reflecting upon his return to Hibbing for his father’s funeral, Dylan writes:

Marci Pepper

In the short time I was there, it all came back to me, all the flim flam, the older order of things, the Simple Simons — but something else did too — that my father was the best man in the world and probably worth a hundred of me, but he didn’t understand me. The town he lived in and the town I lived in were not the same. All that aside, we had more in common now than ever — I too was a father three times over — there was a lot that I wanted to share, to tell him . . .

On October 3rd, 1967, Woody Guthrie died at 55; on May 29th, 1968, Abram Zimmerman died at 56. For a span of nearly two years, Dylan performed only once, at the Woody Guthrie Memorial Concert in early January, 1968, following the release

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of John Wesley Harding on December 27th, 1967. During that time, he was also working with The Band on the magnificent songs released in 1975 as The Basement Tapes. These songs were ‘bootlegged’ as early as 1969 and sold as part of the album called The Great White Wonder.

Dylan’s songs of that period were more than a response to the tumult of 1968; they were also deep reactions to the twin deaths of his biological and spiritual fathers. Those deaths, and Dylan’s own brush with mortality in a 1966 motorcycle accident, had brought the poet to an attitude that differed both from the radical students and from the angry right wing — each of whom were resorting to deadly violence. Dylan’s songs in 1968 rejected violent and revolutionary solutions.

They were, instead, about the need for atonement and reconciliation. Dylan was not interested in demonizing the generation of his parents.

In one of the greatest songs from that era, “Tears of Rage,” he writes from the point of view of a father who is losing his daughter to a set of circumstances he cannot reverse but can only plead against. A daughter is not only leaving home; she is rejecting her parents’ love. “We carried you in our arms/ On Independence Day” the father sings and then continues: “And now you’d throw us all aside/ And put us on our way.”

In a departure from songs like “Subterranean Homesick Blues” and even “The Times They Are A-Changin’,” Dylan in 1968 wrote as a father wanting to protect his children — and as a son who has lost his father. He understands now the pain of a broken family. In “Tears of Rage,” the father begs the daughter to return home: “We’re so alone/And life is brief.” These words spoke to and about millions of young people and their parents in the late 1960s and early 70s. Dylan’s song

does not point fingers at the parents or daughter but recognizes what so few of his fellow artists realized at the time: the tragedy of families being torn apart, and the humanity of both parents and children beyond any political definitions. Politics was less important to Dylan than the emotions of human beings.

At the Woody Guthrie Memorial concert, Dylan performed some of Guthrie’s patriotic songs, not as a finger in the eye of the New Left, but with the sincere belief that ‘Uncle Sam’ could and would represent what Dylan still describes in Chronicles as “the country of equality and liberty.”

Fatherhood and the loss of his own father had brought Dylan to a different place from many of his contemporaries. “Even [with] the horrifying news items of the day, the gunning down of the Kennedys, King, Malcolm X . . . I didn’t see them as leaders being shot down but rather as fathers whose families had been left wounded.” He

adds: “Outside of my family, nothing held any real interest for me.”

The evidence of his songs, however, is to the contrary. “All Along the Watchtower” with its opening, “There must be some way out of here” seems clearly to be about Vietnam. Another song, “Dear Landlord,” is not only about the poet’s relationship with God but shows an awareness of human fragility and of the need for mutual respect between the generations and Jewish Currents

the races: “If you don’t underestimate me,” Dylan sings, “I won’t underestimate you.”

In 1980, twenty-seven Novembers ago, I went to the Warfield Theatre in San Francisco to hear Dylan. Reagan had just been elected as president.

Dylan, through his conversion to Christianity, had outraged many of his remaining fans. The hippie movement had left disaster in its wake; just a few years earlier, when I lived in a neighborhood bordering the Haight, I had seen nothing but the lost and the drug-addicted. Yet Dylan, despite his many complications, embodied a hope that we were still too young to discard. I was 29 in 1980; I wanted neither to give up nor to believe in an illusory youth culture, but to continue the good that my parents and grandparents had bestowed upon me.

Dylan, too, was a reminder of the best of our past. He represented that part of the counter-culture that used art to cope with tragedy and loss, to sustain hope, to remember the past and build the future.

The date was November 21st. The next day would be the seventeenth anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s assassination. Dylan played his Christian songs and a long, long encore set of old pieces — “Girl From the North Country,” “Blowin’ in The Wind” and “She Belongs to Me,” and “One Too Many Mornings” — in a softer gentler style. He opened the concert, however, at the piano, with gospel backing, singing Dion’s “Abraham, Martin and John” — and he had phrased the words eloquently, perhaps expressing what his mother had told him about JFK, as relayed in Chronicles: “ My mother said that eighteen thousand people had turned out to see him at the Veteran’s Memorial Building and that people were hanging from the rafters and others were in the street, that Kennedy was a ray of light and March-April, 2008

had understood completely the area of the country he was in. He gave a heroic speech, my mom said, and brought people a lot of hope . . .”

Much the same can be said of Bob Dylan himself, in all of his incarnations: Jewish and Christian, folk artist and rock ’n’ roller, protest singer and singer of love songs. He has continued and expanded Woody Guthrie’s great legacy, a legacy that Bruce Springsteen and others would not have been able to sustain without Dylan’s brilliant example.

I don’t believe that Dylan has betrayed the Judaism with which he grew up. Following his bornagain Christian phase (1978 to the early 1980s), he was briefly identified with Chabad Judaism but ultimately told Newsweek (1997): “I find the religiosity and philosophy in the music.

I don’t find it anywhere else. . . . I don’t adhere to rabbis, preachers, evangelists, all of that.

I’ve learned more from the songs than I’ve learned from any of this kind of entity. . . . I believe the songs.” Dylan’s performance of “Go Down Moses” in Israel with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers is solid evidence that Dylan understands the connections between his own feeling as a Jewish American artist and the folk songs and spirituals with which he first identified — songs that link the Jewish and Black experience. Indeed, many of Dylan’s own songs, including “Father of Night,” “I Shall Be Released,” “Forever Young,” and “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door,” would not be out of place in Gates of Repentence or other Jewish prayerbooks.

His Jewishness is apparent to me in his basic quest for morality, in his ability to judge not only others but

Shirley Adelman

A Premonition She looked the other way, as we drove past the hospital.

“My parents,” she said in Yiddish, “they should rest in peace, died at home.” Billy and Cholly stood by their bed until the last minute.

Many times my mother remembered her parents’ last breaths, taken in the comfort of familiar touches.

Before she died among strangers, in the hospital she turned from in fear, she cried to be taken home.

“She could die from the trip,” my brother Billy said. Less than twenty minutes, maybe twenty-five, counting the front steps and the staircase, to the second floor. She would have felt like she was moving toward heaven.

Shirley Adelman teaches at the Community College of Philadelphia and has published poetry and fiction in journals in the U.S., Canada and South Africa.

himself, and in the search for dignity and atonement that is the signature of his art. In Chronicles, Abraham Zimmerman emerges as a figure as heroic as Woody Guthrie, and Dylan’s own Jewish family are described without a hint of estrangement.

Osip Mandelstam once said that Judaism is like a bit of perfume that permeates an entire house. That bit of ‘perfume’ has been evident from the beginning in Dylan’s attitude and in his best songs, which portray a desire for justice, compassion, and unselfish love, as well as a belief in a God of justice and mercy.

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ct Of all the stars due north of here, the one that landed in a tear will stay.

There will always be a drop of wine left over in its jug.

Who will stay? God will stay. Isn’t that enough?

Who will remain, what will remain?

A primeval seed will sprout again A fiddle-rose honoring herself will live.

Seven blades of grass will know what’s hers to give.

Who will remain, what will remain? A wind will stay, the blindness of the blind man who has gone away, a string of foam, the sign of the sea, a little cloud entangled in a tree.

A POEM FROM MY DIARY

Myra Mniewski is a poet and translator. She was born in Lodz, Poland in 1953 to survivors of the Shoah. She grew up and was educated in New York and has traveled extensively as an ESL teacher. Myra recently returned to her linguistic roots. Her work has appeared in Bloom, Bridges, Afn Shvel, Forverts and Yugntruf.

Avrom Sutzkever is the greatest living poet in Yiddish, and one of the great poets in any language in the last century. He was born in the small town of Smargon, a suburb of Vilna, in 1913, and published his first book, entitled Lider, in 1936. It was immediately recognized that his worldview and his approach to image, sound, and rhythm were unique. His poetry is full of love of nature and love of beauty, and often deals with the mystery of creation and the secrets of the cosmos. The two poems in this Mameloshn section beautifully exemplify those qualities. Sutzkever emigrated to Israel in 1947. He was, for many years, the editor of Di Goldene Keyt, which was for decades the leading Yiddish literary publication in the world.

Mer fun ale shtern azh fun tsofn biz aher, blaybn vet der shtern vos er falt in same trer.

Shtendik vet a tropn vayn oykh blaybn in zayn krug.

Ver vet blaybn? Got vet blaybn. Iz dir nit genug?

Ver vet blaybn, vos vet blaybn? Blaybn vet a traf, breyshesdik aroystsugrozn vider zayn bashaf.

Blaybn vet a fidlroyz l’kovid zikh aleyn.

Zibn grozn fun di grozn veln zi farshteyn.

Ver vet blaybn, vos vet blaybn? Blaybn vet a vint, blaybn vet di blindkeyt funem blindn vos farshvindt, blaybn vet a simen funem yam: a shnirl shoym, blaybn vet a volkndl fartshepet af a boym.

A LID FUN TOGBUKH

Translated from the Yiddish by Myra Mniewski

Two Poems

by Avrom Sutzkever

MAMELOSHN

Barnett Zumoff

Geven iz es nit mer vi a papirl, vos kh’hob frier in boydemshtibl ongekormet tsertlekh mit vorkndike verter.

Un vayl mir iz geven a shod mit dem zikh tsu tsesheydn, un oykh derfar vayl kh’hob es nit getroyt mayn royter kats, s’papirl hob ikh mitgenumen oyf a freyd-bagegenish in droysn, vu es platsn shvartse shpiglen fun di shotns.

It was nothing more than a scrap of paper that I had earlier in my garret fed gently with cooing words, and because I didn’t want to part with it and because I didn’t trust my red cat with it, I took it with me on a date Outside, where shadows make dark mirrors shatter.

In my pocket, they stirred my memory.

The tenderness of the young Mozart, of a Stradivarius?

The tenderness of a rose jealously guarded by its thorn?

But today when I lost, or someone stole, my world out of my pocket, They again got drunk on tenderness, My fingertips.

And my fingertips can swear: they had never felt such tenderness anywhere before, Even after removing a little spring cloud veiling the heart of my beloved.

Zey hobn in der keshene barirt haynt mayn zikorn.

Di tsartkeyt funem yungn Mozart, fun a Stradivarius?

Di tsartkeyt fun a royz, bashitst mit eyferzukht fun dorn?

Nor haynt, ven kh’ob farloyrn, tsi s’hot ver aroysgeganvet, fun keshene mayn velt— zey zenen vider gevorn shiker fun a tsartkeyt, mayne fingershpitsn.

Un mayne fingershpitsn konen shvern: aza min tsartkeyt hobn zey in ergets nit gefilt, afile nokhn opdekn a frilingdikn volkndl fun harts fun der gelibter.

Nor mayne fingershpitsn zenen demolt gevorn shiker fun der tsartkeyt. Andersh nit: gefangen in keshene bay mir iz di neshome fun der velt.

…un eyn mol in a vinternakht, ven kh’hob di kalte finger arayngeton in keshene fun peltsl, derfilt hobn di fingershpitsn lebedike zayd— a tsartinke gan-eydn-toyb in toybnshlak fun keshene.

…and once on a winter’s night, when I slipped my cold fingers into the pocket of my sheepskin, My fingertips felt living silk— a delicate Dove-of-Paradise in the dovecote of my pocket.

But my fingertips then grew drunk with tenderness. It was nothing less than the soul of the world captured in my pocket.

FINGERSHPITSN

FINGERTIPS

Esther Cohen

A Little Bit of Cultcha A Book, a Movie, a TV Show

J

Currents readers, an eclectic, intelligent, open-minded group (or so it seems, being one myself) might be interested in three DON’T MISS THIS cultural possibilities: an unforgettable book, an unusual movie, a surprising TV series.

Junot Diaz is kind of a Dominican Philip Roth. He defines his culture from the perspective of an obsessive observer, a writer who truly understands what he sees. He is sexy and political, revelatory and politically incorrect, deeply funny, equally sad.

His first novel, Drown, published a few years ago, was one of those books that prompt reviewers to announce: Here’s a writer to watch. His new novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (Riverhead Books) is just what we were watching for. I held my breath while I was reading, that’s how A scene from Caramel. good it is.

Diaz himself is a Washington Heights real and brutal history — of Trujillo, salon an American woman opened: Dominican. He knows the history of of race and religion, and of so many The Beauty Academy of Kabul, also a his people — every evil dictator, every forms of oppression on this ravaged, charming and original film. My first weakness in his culture. He also knows colonialized, beautiful tourist island short story, written in seventh grade about life from the mysterious place of — are the counterpoint to Diaz’s un- and lost forever now, was about Jewartfulness. The story he tells is about a usual story of the unhappy Oscar, who ish women in a beauty parlor in New sexless, overweight nerd named Oscar tries hard to live a life apart from his Haven, Connecticut, describing their who lives in the middle of a culture that reality, and whose imagination takes lives to Helen, the Italian hairdresser pulsates, gyrates, walks through the him somewhere wondrous. (I don’t who was their confessor, friend, and patient advisor.) What Caramel makes streets, any streets, constantly looking say this too often: Read this book.) beautifully clear is how these Lebafor something they don’t yet have. Osnese women, all incredibly appealing The film Caramel, by Nadine Labaki, car writes books. He wants them to be his version of J.R.R. Tolkien. He writes is another Don’t Miss. Made in Beirut, and beautiful in a few different ways books the way he breathes: all the time. shot in Arabic and French with Eng- — straight, gay, Christian, Muslim, lish subtitles, Caramel tells the story young and not so young — all struggle But his books don’t save him.

His story is set against the tormented of five modern-day Lebanese women hard to lead what they envision as ‘a and impossible history of the Domini- whose lives center around a downtown normal life’ — and what a challenge can Republic, a history of dictatorship, beauty shop that one of them owns. (A normality really is.

Like the Diaz book, Caramel is a corruption, greed, religion. Here too, few years ago, a documentary film was shown about Afghan women, whose sensual exercise. The women are full sex plays a starring role.

Dense, difficult footnotes about the heads are often covered, and the hair of the richness of life, and so, in spite of everything, is Beirut, a ravaged city Esther Cohen, who annually writes our round-up of fiction in November-December, that went from being called the Paris is the author of the novels Book Doctor and No Charge for Looking., She directs the (or at least, the Geneva) of the Middle Bread and Roses Cultural Project of 1199/SEIU. East to war-torn rubble. But like the

50

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Jewish Currents

Dominicans in the Diaz book — people who suffered Trujillo and endless corruption — these Lebanese women have some kind of deep human will to survive, to love and be loved, and even, to make the world a little better.

The women are shot in an absolutely sympathetic, warm, human way. They are entirely alive, and their friendship for one another is the movie’s central theme. In Lebanon, people know how important friendship is in life. The film shows, in charming ways, just what friendship looks like.

And then there’s In Treatment, an HBO television show based on an Israeli book by Yael Hedaya, which was adapted into the most successful television show in Israel, ever. Some statistics show that over three-quarters of the Israeli population watched the show every day for nine weeks. The concept is to watch close-up the claustrophobic unravelings that happen between psychotherapist and patient, five days a week, half an hour a day, with the same patient every Monday night at 9:30, a different same patient every Tuesday night at 9:30, and so on until Friday, when the shrink (played in the American version by Gabriel

Byrne) goes to his own doctor, played

by Diane Wiest. Can she help him?

Where does power lie? Will he allow himself to be helped? Does he want to exorcise his deep anger or just hold on? What happens with the sexual tension that often emerges between two people alone together? While the show suffers from some clichés, and some characters aren’t as well-drawn as others, if you’re a novel-reading type, voyeuristic enough to find this sort of exploration infinitely interesting, In Treatment is a Don’t Miss, too.

(A personal J ewish C urrents aside: one of the most interesting conversations I ever had with Moe Foner, a lifelong Currents reader and union activist par excellence, was about Freud and therapy. Moe explained, more than once, that political thinking as he understood it did not include personal analysis. He’d never read Freud, wasn’t sure about all the emphasis on self. I am another generation, so I argued that the more we understand ourselves, the more effective we become. Today, twenty years after my Moe converstions, I’m older myself, and less sure — although I still go to therapy.)

In Treatment is worth watching just

International Institute for Secular Humanistic Judaism Adult Education Seminar

Rediscovering Our Radical Roots Presenter: Hershl Hartman Hosted by Queens Community for Cultural Judaism and Workmen’s Circle Center for Jewish Cultural Life May 17-18, 2008 10-1 and 2-5, both days At The Workmen’s Circle 45 East 33rd Street , NYC Registration fee: $100 for members of QCCJ and WC/AR, $125 for all others For more information or to register: Telephone 718-380-5362 Email QueensCCJ@aol.com for its innovative unadorned format: it’s a terrific idea. Second, if you are inclined to want to know why we act the way we do, there’s some insight here — maybe even, Jewish insight.

Newly available from Jewish Currents Book Doctor — A Novel by Esther Cohen “Esther Cohen has a fantastic ability to find the humor in every situation, and . . . has the reader turning pages to discover what’s next. . . . Book Doctor is a rare treat. It’s intriguing and highly original — I have never read a book like it . . .”

—Curled Up With a Good Book (www.curledup.com) “A dryly humorous and tenderly observed tale, rich with insight into writer’s block and its related maladies, love and life block.”

—Chronogram “What makes this book so special is its scope — small and intimate. . . . The prose is made luminous by tiny glittering specks . . . and there’s nothing spurious about the author’s wit and warmth.”

—Jewish Currents

$23, postpaid, from www.jewishcurrents.org or call (212) 889-2523.

The author is donating profits to support the magazine.

March-April, 2008

51

Lomir arbetn tsuzamen far a besere velt!

GREETINGS!

In memory of my beloved comrade

Tamar Zinn and Harry Wilks

Paul Bert McGowan

New York, New York

February, 1937 – April, 2007

Uniquely insightful teacher and therapist,

Seena Parker New York, New York

Greetings from George and Abigail Mandel New Rochelle, New York

brilliant polymath, tireless marcher against war and bigotry, doting parent and grandparent.

He believed in music, children, poetry, and learning,

In Honor of

SAMUEL ISAAC HUGHES son of

Collective Punishment

SUSAN and JOSHUA FORREST

Is Not the Answer

MIM and SY KERSHNER

grandson of

in fighting injustice, in caring for friends.

Funny, warm and kind, He taught me so much and so well.

and

RIMA SOKOLOFF and STAN TURKEL

Alvin and Rochelle Dorfman Freeport, New York

on his Secular Bar Mitzvah on “Jewish Life & Resistance Under the Roman Empire”

“. . . Say what you like as you trudge along The world won’t turn without a song.”

Philadelphia Folkshul December 16th, 2007 MAZELTOV!

Judee Rosenbaum

Rima Sokoloff Flushing, New York

Brooklyn, New York

52 52

JJewish ewishCCurrents urrents

We mourn our dear friend and comrade Paul B. McGowan who has been sorely missed since April 18, 2007.

At dinner with my friends we (wiser now)

eat long and well

We marvel at the day’s events — amazed

at what we hadn’t seen

Reliving old battles we (acknowledging chaos)

laugh at our yet strongly held beliefs

and mourn the fallen

But proud, too, of changes made and good fights fought At dinner with my friends, I (wiser now)

still taste the salt.

Alice & Fred Kogan

— Paul B. McGowan

Ricky & Alan McGowan

Judee Rosenbaum

Essie & Lenny Potash

Sheila Slater

March-April, 2008 2008

53 53

In lichtikn undenk fun tatteh-zayde

IRVING (YITZHAK) ROSENBAUM With love always, we will try to stay true to your passions: Music, art, literature, Justice, equality, labor, And above all, Yiddish

In Honor of My Parents

We would like to extend our wishes for the continued recovery of

ABE and RIFKE ZAWOLKOW I.W.O. Shule Drei in Chicago

“Dein gezang in meine bayner . . .”

Judee Rosenbaum Jacob Chris Mirer

Henry Foner and our appreciation of

In memory of

DR. MARK FLAPAN

his lifelong commitment

chicwolk@webtv.net

Chic Wolk Los Angeles, California

to the advancement of labor and the support of progressive causes Passover Greetings to All

Helene Flapan

In Memory of

Coconut Creek, Florida

The Freeman Family

Barry, Lorna, Daniel and Jessica Wallenstein New York, New York

In loving memory of

THOMAS SOKOLOFF May 10, 1898 – March 17, 1968 Conductor of the American Mandolin Symphony Orchestra and

ANNA SOKOLOFF

MEYER and SANDRA HARBUS

Dear Henry Foner, Gee whiz, don’t ya wanna return to our Ed Board meetings?

In memory of

BESSIE and DAVID POLONSKY

April 21, 1898 – March 18, 1998 Lifetime ILGWU Garment Worker You both were inspirations for your mishpokhe!

We miss all the verses and puns

Nu? Get well, already!

who worked for a world of Justice, Equality and Peace and MARTIN ROSEN who will always be in our hearts

Rima Sokoloff & Stanley Turkel

The Editorial Board

Renee Rosen New York, New York

that you shpritz, not to mention your insights and greetings.

54 54

Jewish Currents urrents

Greetings from

All Good Wishes

Syd Bykofsky

from

“So we can talk about mistakes if you like, but I’d rather talk

David Goodman and

about what we learned from our

In Memory of

Esther Leysorek Goodman

disillusionment, but I’d rather talk

JEANETTE BYKOFSKY

Brooklyn, New York

mistakes. And we can talk about about the beauty of our ideas, y’see. We can talk about failures, but I’d rather talk about a heritage, a legacy to the younger generation.”

For a year of progress

—from Lawrence Bush’s novel,

Greetings

toward

BESSIE

Peace and Economic Justice

from

around the world

Stretch and Judy Jacobs Joel, Judy, Ben, Betty and Sophia Shatzky

Pat and Ed Moser Roosevelt, New Jersey

Croton-on-Hudson, New York

Brooklyn, New York

The Kinderland Shule

Camp Kinderland

for children ages 4-13

Peace, Justice, and the Time of Their Lives!

Are you searching for a progressive, secular Jewish community for your child? Enroll in the Kinderland Shule! Our Shule is a Jewish secular education program that inspires children to embrace their cultural identity.

• We teach history, literature, arts, music, Yiddish, social justice and activism.

• We commemorate holidays as a community that includes interfaith and interracial families.

• We celebrate Jewish culture in the context of other people’s struggles.

• Thirteen-year-olds celebrate graduation as a rite of passage to adulthood.

The Kinderland Shule meets Wednesdays after school in Cobble Hill.

For more information, call Alice at (718) 643-0771, or e-mail info@kinderland.org.

What’s in a Camp Kinderland summer?

Sports, arts and crafts, social justice, swimming, boating, human rights, trips, drama, peace, low ropes, music, diversity, nature, construction, cookouts, Yiddishkayt and multi-cultural programs, friendships, fun!

Boys and Girls 8 – 16 Three, four and seven week sessions.

Partial scholarships available Introductory discounts for eligible campers ages 9 - 11

Contact Camp Kinderland at 718-643-0771 info@kinderland.org. www.campkinderland.org

March arch-A -April pril, 2008 2008 M

55 55

In loving memory of

DUDLE BERNSTEIN February 11th, 1928 — March 12th, 2003

He filled our lives with his gentle manner, his love, his music and his laughter.

He is sadly missed by his family and friends.

Shirley Jeffrey, Sandy, Sarah Lauren, Meira Tina, Arthur, Channa, Eric Howard, Beth, Jamie, Carrie

Continue your effort —

THE BLESSED HUMAN RACE Essays on Reconsideration

by George Jochnowitz “George Jochnowitz’s essays on politics, art, religion and human nature are original, thought-provoking, and a pleasure to read.”

—Steven Pinker

You’re doing a great job!

Bill Friedman

Hamilton Books A member of the Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. www.univpress.com

Pompton Plains, New Jersey

56 56

ewishCCurrents urrents JJewish

MAZL TOV

Fay and Monie Itzkowitz on the occasion of your

60th Wedding Anniversary Year Lifelong lovers of yiddishkayt, secular Jewish education,

Camp Kinderland,

and,

most importantly,

each other.

We love you!

Randi and Brandyn Itzkowitz Steven, Erica, Kate and Zachary Itzkowitz Marcia, Neil, Elliya and Zury Cutler

March arch-A -April pril, 2008 2008 M

57 57

In Loving Memory of

HELEN CAPLAN

Peysekh Greetings GREETINGS!

APPLEBAUM Beloved wife, mother and grandmother

to

Max Applebaum, Janet, Alan

The Workmen’s

Wanda and Greg Frederick

Circle Family Millicent and Milt

Marie Parham and

Kant

Morton Tankus

Cherry Hill, New Jersey

New York, New York

Rebecca Wong Seattle, Washington

Greetings from

Joel Schechter and Diana Scott San Francisco, California

SHELLY B. in CA

PHYLLIS G in NC

Carol Jochnowitz Shalom Debbie R. in PA

New York, New York

The Workmen’s Circle shules send warm peysekh greetings to Jewish Currents readers and the entire secular Jewish community.

Our shules are a dynamic, parent-led, cultural alternative in Jewish education, and create an inclusive, creative, progressive community that reaches from coast to coast.

For more detailed materials, information on shules in these or other areas, or to arrange a visit, please call us at (212) 889-6800 or visit us online at www.circle.org 58 58

There are currently shules in regions including metropolitan New York, Boston, Ohio, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles.

Jewish ewish C Currents urrents

A Zisn Seder

All Career Coaching Needs

Shalom for the earth, working with our Green Menorah Covenant.

to Y’All

Individual Sessions and Workshops

Shalom for the Abrahamic communities, in the U.S. and the whole Middle East.

from Richmond, Virginia Abbie Fields, MD and Ted Sandler

Resumés, Job Search Techniques, Interviewing and Negotiating Skills, Letters and Telephone Presentation Performance Coaching — Asking for a Raise or a Promotion, Preparing for a Performance Evaluation, New Employee Assimilation Full Assessment Package to Help Career Changers Identify New Goals Raising Profile/ Developing Career Resiliency SEIDBET Associates Bettina Seidman, President

Ruth W. Willner Monterey Park, California

212.260.2026 SEIDBET@aol.cokm

Shalom for human rights, undoing what made the Justice Department itself into a giant waterboard to drown the Constitution.

The Shalom Center, office@shalomctr.org, 6711 Lincoln Drive, Philadelphia PA 19119, www.shalomctr.org

Doris and Seymour Griss New York, New York

Happy Passover from JFREJ! Join us Sunday, April 13 SEDER IN THE STREETS — a justice-filled Passover celebration dedicated to JFREJ’s Shalom Bayit: Justice for Domestic Workers Campaign For more details and to rsvp please visit our website www.jfrej.org JFREJ engages Jews to pursue and win racial and economic justice in partnership with Jewish and allied people of color, low-income and immigrant communities in New York City.

M arch-A -A-Fpril pril 2008 JM anuary arch ebruary , 2008 , 2008

59 59

Yankl Stillman

Our Secular Jewish Heritage

The Yiddish Thesaurus and Nahum Stutchkoff

Y

iddish, as is well known,

has a thousand-year history as the spoken language of Ashkenazi Jews in Europe. Of the seventeen million Jews in the world before the Holocaust, over fifteen million were Ashkenazim, originating from a territory that ranged from the Rhine in the west to the Dnieper and beyond in the east — an area larger than France and Germany combined. Max Weinreich estimated (in “Prehistory and Early History of Yiddish,” quoted by Emanuel Goldsmith in Architects of Yiddishism, 1976) that there were some eleven million Yiddish speakers living in 1939. Yiddish, writes Goldstein, “is unique among Diaspora tongues in having been spoken by a larger number of Jews and for a longer period than any of the others.” Furthermore, because of the large number of Hebrew words it incorporated, Yiddish contributed in no small measure to the revival of Hebrew as a spoken language.

The first decade of the 20th century brought unrest to the multinational states of Austria-Hungary and Russia, particularly after the Russian defeat in the Russo-Japanese War of 1905. Minority populations “were asserting themselves and stressing the values of their own national languages and cultures,” writes Goldsmith. The achievements of Yiddish “are similar to those of Finnish, Estonian, Latvian, Ukrainian, Flemish . . . and a number of (other) little-known . . . languages [that] developed vigorous and diversified poetry and prose in the 19th and 20th centuries largely as a result of modern nationalism.”

In 1907, Nathan Birnbaum of Czernovitz (Tshernovits) visited Chaim Zhitlovsky in New York. Zhitlovsky, who had great influence among Russian and American Jews, was enthusiastic about Birnbaum’s idea of calling for a conference on Yiddish. In the home of writer David Pinski, Zhitlovsky drafted an invitation to the First Yiddish Language Conference in Czernowitz on August 30th, 1908 — just 100 years ago. Czernowitz, in Bukovina (Romania

60

today), was chosen as the locale because it lay close to the Yiddish-speaking centers in Romania and Russia (where the conference could not be held because of government constraints). Yiddish writers and other important Jewish public figures attended. The city itself, “where diverse nationalities and diverse languages live together,” as I.L. Peretz phrased it, was polyglot and altogether appropriate as a venue for such a conference, particularly because of its large plurality of Jews. It was even referred to as the Yerushalayim d’Bukovina. (Jerusalem of Bukovina).

In the third session of the Czernowitz Conference, I.L. Peretz submitted a set of a dozen missions (listed by Goldsmith in the aforementioned reference) for the organization that was meant to be launched there. One of these was for the organization to serve as an “authority in questions of Yiddish orthography, grammar and other language questions.” Another was “the translation into Yiddish of all the cultural and artistic treasures of the Jewish past and especially of the Bible.”

These two missions required the preparation of dictionaries that could help translation between Yiddish and the languages of countries where Jews had lived and been creative. For example, the first modern Yiddish-German, German-Yiddish dictionary had been compiled in 1867

by Yeshue Mordkhe Lifshitz, the first modern Yiddish lexicographer. In 1869, Lifshitz also compiled the first Russian-Yiddish dictionary, and in 1876 the first YiddishRussian one. Especially after the founding of YIVO in 1926, Lifshitz was followed by a galaxy of Yiddish lexicographers, linguists and philologists, including Mordkhe Schaechter, who died only recently.

In 1950, YIVO (the acronym for the Yiddish words for “Jewish Scientific Institute”) published der oytser fun der yidisher shprakh (“The Thesaurus of the Yiddish Language”).

This tome consists of 933 + LVI pages and contains over 150,000 words, phrases, expressions, proverbs, etc. — an astounding number, even when compared to the estimated 500,000-plus words of English, the “richest” world lanNahum Stutchkoff guage. The Thesaurus was compiled by Nahum Stutchkoff (1893-1965) over a fifteen-year period of intense work, and was edited by Jewish Currents

the well-known philologist Max Weinreich (1894-1969), himself a founder of YIVO. It is interesting to note that Stutchkoff’s Yiddish thesaurus was published almost a century after Peter Mark Roget published his well-known English thesaurus in 1852.

Stutchkoff’s thesaurus was published only five years after the end of World War II and the destruction it brought to European Jewry and Yiddish language and culture.

Weinreich’s introduction pays tribute to the collective will to live of the Jewish people and to Nahum Stutchkoff, who wanted to devote time and energy to gathering together the scattered treasures of Yiddish. Weinreich expresses pleasure at being able to participate in Stutchkoff’s venture and to bring to it the vital support of YIVO. He acclaims the thesaurus as unquestionably the greatest ahievement of Yiddish lexicography since Yeshue Mordkhe Lifshitz’s work in the 1860s. Indeed, Stutchkoff’s thesaurus may possibly be the greatest lexicographical undertaking by an individual anywhere.

Many people who want to investigate how much Yiddish they know may start out with curses. By turning to the alphabetical index at the back of the thesaurus and looking up sheltn (to curse), they are directed to word #559, sheltung (a curse). For this word alone, there are six full pages of nouns, verbs, and phrases. At the end of the entry, it is suggested that word #557, umeydlkayt (impoliteness), is another place to look, as is word #567, shlekhthartsikayt (malevolence).

How does Yiddish fare with technical subjects? Look up, say, geometriye (geometry). The Index will send you to word #54, which has the heading matematik and is followed by eight pages of nouns, adjectives, etc.! Or go to fizik (physics) in the index and you will be directed to word #104, kraft (power), and the two-and-a-half pages that follow.

The general arrangement of the oytser (which also means “treasure”) is similar to Roget’s Thesaurus. If you want a synonym for a word, you look the word up in the alphabetical index, which identifies a class of words that can conceivably serve as synonyms. If the words in the class do not satisfy the particular nuance you are seeking, there are additional classes suggested at the end of the one you were working with. There are 630 classes in the oytser, starting with zayn (to be) and ending with gebet-hoyz (a non-Jewish prayer house).

of Yiddish literature and the press; b) the language of all branches of science; c) the language of biblical scholars and Jewish tradition in general . . . including Torah expressions . . . the proverbs that our fathers and grandfathers used in their Hebrew-Aramaic original; d) dialects and localisms — words from daily speech that were used in limited sections of the territory in which Yiddish was spoken . . .” In addition, Weinreich notes: e) various jargons — of klezmer, butchers, even thieves’ language as well as other trade jargons; f) archaisms — words and expressions formerly used, but now used infrequently; g) phraseology — idiomatic expressions, comparisons, witty sayings — in short, all those elements that give a language color and vivid character; and finally h) proverbs.

Symbols identify whether the word is not recommended for general use, or is vulgar, or is not accepted, or is archaic.

Abbreviations sometimes indicate whether a word comes from a dialect, a particular location, from American, Soviet (Russian), or Israeli usage, etc. In no way did Stutchkoff believe that he had exhausted the treasures of Yiddish.

There were thousands of words and expressions still to be collected.

How did Stutchkoff acquire such an inventory of words and espressions? The book lists a bibliography of one hundred and forty-one references, almost all in Yiddish.

In his introduction to this thesaurus, Dr. Weinreich calls it the “first great inventory of that well-established estate known as Yiddish.” Stutchkoff, the honest appraiser, made a note of every item he found in the estate, so that his thesaurus contains, in Weinreich’s words,: “a) the language March-April, 2008

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“Starting with classic writers Mendele Mokher Sforim, Sholem Aleichem, I.L. Peretz and ending with the literary masters of today,” Weinreich wrote, “. . . the author pored over the most important works in the old and new Yiddish literature, and that is where he obtained the bulk

On WEVD, Stutchkoff had a weekly program for over twenty years, beginning in 1932 with a children’s series, feter nokhem’s sho (Uncle Nahum’s Show). of his material for the oytser.” Another source states that he collected his information on 3x5 index cards and stuffed them in his pockets. His children used to walk after him and pick up the ones that fell out.

Eventually, his 1950 thesaurus paved the way for another project, “The Great Jewish Dictionary of the Yiddish Language,” for which he gathered material and sketched out the plan of organization. Unfortunately, Stutchkoff did not remain involved with this project, but instead began work on a thesaurus of the Hebrew language, heykhel haloshon heyvrit (“The Temple of the Hebrew Language”).

Nahum (Nokhem) Stutchkoff was born in 1893 in Brok, near Lomza (Lomzhe in Yiddish) in Russian Poland. He got a traditional kheyder education and then studied in yeshivas in Lomzhe and Warsaw, where his family moved in 1900.

He began a course of self-education on the sly, and got involved with theatrical groups and translation of plays into Yiddish. Eventually he joined Abba Kompaneyets’ acting troupe and traveled to towns and cities in Poland and Russia. Around 1912, Stutchkoff was drafted into the Russian army.

From 1917 to 1921, he worked with the Kharkov Yiddish theater, undzer vinkl (“Our Corner”) and translated and prepared dramatic works by Voltaire, Moliere and Benevento for the stage. Shortly thereafter, he became the director of the Vitebsk Yiddish Government Theater. Here he translated Moliere’s The Miser.

In 1923, he came to the United States and continued his life as an actor. By 1926, he was secretary of the Yiddish Playwrights’ League. Meanwhile he began to create plays, many of which were performed or read on the radio, particularly the Forverts’s station WEVD. Stutchkoff had a weekly program for over twenty years, beginning in 1932 with a children’s series feter nokhem’s sho (“Uncle Nahum’s Hour”). This was followed by an adult series, vi di mame flegt zogn (“How Mother Used to Say It”), a language program that resulted, in part, from Stutchkoff’s publication in 1931 of a three hundred and thirty-page

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Yiddish Rhyming Dictionary that earned him a reputation as a lexicographer.

On Sundays at noon, he ran a radio series, bay tate-mames tish (“At the Family Table”), with titles that included, “The Two Brides,” “The Holdup in the Mountains,” “Forget Me Not,” “The Three Bridegrooms,” “The Argentinian Father or For a Father’s Sins,” “In Red Russia,” “When the Rebbe Wants,” and “Marriage License.” Some may sound soapy but, according to the Yiddish Radio Project (www.yiddishradioproject.org), Stutchkoff’s dramas and characters dealt with real-life issues that faced the Jewish immigrant community: alienation of the younger generation from the older, intermarriage, racism within the Jewish community, conflicts between secular and religious Jews, etc. According to the Yiddish Radio Project, Stutchkoff’s wife and children would find him weeping at his desk over the fate of his characters. His response: “Who will cry for them if I don’t?”

Another Stutchkoff radio series was tsores bay laytn (“People’s Troubles”), on which he raised money for the Brooklyn Jewish Hospital for Chronic Diseases. When he himself became ill, according to Zilberzweig’s Lexicon of the Yiddish Theater, the hospital “opened its doors to him . . . affording him a comfortable resting place until his death” in 1965.

In addition to the references cited within the article, information for this article was gleaned from Yankef Birnboym’s entry for Stutchkoff in The Lexicon of the New Yiddish Literature (in Yiddish).

In loving memory of

DORIS MICHELSON LOEWI who passed away on January 25th, 2008

Lifelong believer in peace and justice

Beloved mother, mother-in-law, grandmother, sister, and aunt

Jewish Currents

Judith Rosenbaum

The Jewish Rainbow An Exploration of Jewish Multiculturalism

BOOK REVIEWS

a student in the Flatbush/Park Slope Kindershule wrote in his graduation paper, “Jews of the World,” “There are Jews in India, Ethiopia and China. There are Jews in the Sahara Desert, Jews in isolated Reviewed in this essay: mountains and there are even caveThe Colors of Jews: Racial Politics and Radical Diasporism, by Melanie dwelling Jews. And this is only a small Kaye/Kantrowitz, 2007, Indiana University Press, 296 pages. list out of many more Jewish cultures, peoples, and places that have been lost to the world of mainstream Jews.” the dots to provide both political and does she give compelling voices and In the early 1980s, many American social context and significance to the faces to the issues she raises, but she Jews made similar discoveries. In reality of Jewish diversity — and to also explains why we should care and 1984, Black Jews in Ethiopia (pejo- demonstrate its relevance to Jewish what we should do with that caring. ratively called Falasha) were airlifted activism.

Her book serves as a call to action as to Israel. Two years later, the Jewish Museum in New York presented the exhibit, “Jews of India.” Photographers Nathan Cummings and Leonard Freed, to name two of many, brought us images of Jews around the world — all looking different.

In 1990, stories surfaced about Jews in New Mexico who are apparently descendants of the conversos of Spain and Portugal. In 1996, the New York Times published a story about a Black Jewish synagogue in Brooklyn, and in 1999 about the African Lemba, whose DNA marks them as direct descendants of the priesthood (kohanim). Jewish Currents itself has published many articles and stories by and about Jews around the world With clarity, intelligence and sen- she profiles several Jewish organiza(see, for example, Robert Kaplan’s sitivity, Kaye/Kantrowitz engages tions with missions to secure social piece on the Abayudayu of Uganda several issues of pressing importance: justice, with a specific emphasis on in this issue). identity, racism, exceptionalism, ex- social justice for the poor and for These ethnological stories have clusion, stereotyping and activism. people of color. been perceived as relevant primarily The personal testimonies she has gathHer provocative opening salvo, “Are to those with an interest in cultural ered would alone make the book a fas- Jews white?” illustrates the strength of studies. However, in her engross- cinating read, and Kaye/Kantrowitz’s her approach. The chapter is the most ing new book, The Colors of Jews, insights shed light in places where we theoretically dense, yet the question Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz connects were unaware of darkness. Not only seems innocent and simple: Since we know that there are Black Jews, Judith Rosenbaum, active on our Editorial Board, is co-director of the Kinderland Chinese Jews, etc., we reply, “No, Kindershul in Brooklyn and a veteran staff member at Camp Kinderland. of course not.” But Kaye/Kantrowitz

March-April, 2008

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Robert Kaplan

E

ight years ago,

is concerned with causes, contexts, images, identities, and their role in struggle. Before she can proceed to her topic — Jews of many colors ­— she must explicate the role played by race and class in Jewish identity. She traces the history of racial and religious categorization of Jews and what functions these shifting definitions have

those parameters. Her wide-ranging sources include Edward Said, William P. Jones, Daniel and Jonathan Boyarin, Cornel West, Dana Tatagi, Peter Kwong, and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Kaye/Kantrowitz weighs scholar Nancy Ordover’s statement that “by leaving Europe, Ashkenazi Jews

Why try to make common cause with organizations or individuals whose ideals and goals are markedly different from yours, simply because they are Jewish like you? served throughout modern history.

The chapter does this in a masterfully scholarly fashion, with footnotes that richly develop the text.

She begins with testimonies. “People have suggested that if I have experienced racism, I am of color,” suggests Julie Iny, an Iraqi-Indian/ Russian American Jew. “But what if I have experienced racism in Israel and white privilege in the United States?”

James Baldwin is here, too: “No one was white before he/she came to America.” Later, Kaye/Kantrowitz quotes Frederick Douglass: “The Jews, who are to be found in all countries, never intermarrying, are white in Europe, brown in Asia, and black in Africa.”

As she explores the concept of race, and the shifting status of Jews within that concept, she travels from medieval Spain to pre- and post-World War Europe. She gathers material from Sander Gilman’s The Jew’s Body and George Mosse’s Toward the Final Solution: A History of European Racism (mentioning, in her footnote, his explanation of the “Jewish nose” stereotype, which arose from anthropometric studies of the eugenics movement of the 19th and 20th centuries). She wrestles with anti-Black racism in the U.S., as well as with anti-Asian, anti-Latino and anti-Arab racism, before situating Jews within

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‘changed’ our ‘race,’ even as our skin pigment remained the same.”

She evaluates Karen Brodkin’s argument (in How Jews Became White Folks) that “EuroJews” in the U.S. participated along with other white ethnics in what Brodkin calls a “massive affirmative action program for Euro-origin men” in “the three great paths of upward mobility: education, jobs, and mortgages.” In Brodkin’s argument, Kaye/Kantrowitz observes, “class whitens; white Jews move up and racialization drops away.”

This chapter serves as introduction to one of the book’s two main concerns: who is a Jew, and why is there any confusion about it? Kaye/Kantrowitz introduces readers to Jews of different colors and backgrounds, challenging the Ashkenazi sense that all ‘real’ Jews are white, speak Yiddish and come from Eastern Europe.

Jordan Elgrably, a Moroccan American, says: “My father and my uncles come from Morocco and lived in France. In 1947-48 they went to do their bit for the development of the Jewish state and they all had stories of being discriminated against, getting called shvartze.” As he grew up in Los Angeles, “my Jewish culture was always Ashkenazi. The writers I admired were Hannah Arendt and Franz Kafka . . . Bellows and Mal-

amud . . . But no one took the time to introduce me to Edmond Jabes or Elias Canetti.”

“My father’s family had left Baghdad for Israel in 1951,” says Lital Levy. “In moving to Israel they suffered a fall in socioeconomic status and dignity so severe that a majority of women and some of the men . . . suffered chronic depression.”

“I was raised in a family of eight Orthodox Black Jews,” recalls Yavilah McCoy, whose African-American grandparents had converted to Judaism. “. . . I was reared in the yeshiva system from age 4 to 17 and my growth into my own Jewish identity has been about appreciating the various entry points that there can be for ‘Jewish’ identity and noticing, through the model of my grandparents, that being ‘Jewish’ does not always begin with a ceremony or the trappings of a recognizable Jewish exterior, but on the inside in the choices people make regarding how they will live their lives. . . . I will always be thankful to my grandparents . . . for showing me by example what ‘Jewish’ looks like on the inside.”

This issue of who is a Jew is further addressed in chapter two, through the poignant and pointed personal testimonies of a number of Black Jews. Rebecca Walker, the daughter of novelist Alice Walker, tells about being confronted by a drunken Jewish student at Yale who asks, “Are you really Jewish? . . . How can that be possible?” “Am I possible?” Walker asks herself.

Beejhy Barhany, a young Ethiopian woman who grew up in Israel, tells of looking for an apartment in Boro Park. “First they spoke to my [white] Israeli friend and the apartment was available. As soon as they saw me, the apartment was no longer available. I think some of the Jewish communities need to open themselves to different Jewish Currents

Jews. They need to understand that Judaism is not only European, Judaism has different dimensions and different colors.”

Navonah, a pseudonymous interviewee, echoes Kaye/Kantrowitz’s earlier thesis: “[T]he term ‘Black Jews’ doesn’t work for me either because it seems to assert that Jewish people are ‘normally’ white.” She concludes, almost as if channeling Kaye/Kantrowitz, “Once we recognize Judaism as multicultural, we could start building alliances. . . . And if Jews of color and white Jews were working together to fight racism, this would change the way racism was fought.”

As fascinating as these testimonies are, the main thrust of this chapter is about Black-Jewish relations and the misconceptions and myths attendant thereon, rather than about issues of Jewish identity. Recalling the history of the so-called ‘special relationship,’ when Blacks and Jews worked together in the labor and civil rights movements, Kaye/Kantrowitz also acknowledges the many issues that have separated both peoples. She places a large share of blame for the inflation of this separation on “how the media can massage African AmericanJewish antagonism into The Truth.”

Her main argument is that, contrary to popular conception, “On every social justice issue, one continues to find a predictably high level of participation

by African Americans and Jews.”

Kaye/Kantrowitz’s points are significant and well-made, and anti-racism is her concern throughout — yet much of this chapter seems to be something of a digression from her book’s major focii.

The second main strand of The Colors of Jews is Jewish activism for social justice, with a particular emphasis on fighting racism and engaging with economic issues. In shaping her analysis, she highlights “progressive March-April, 2008

Jews who have mobilized Jewish organizing around racial and economic justice” and “groups focused specifically on Jewish diversity.” Her signature use of interviews and stories enlivens her accounts of each group’s ideals, activities, and problems.

The organizations she focuses on ground their practice in Jewish tradition, history, culture. According to Kaye/Kantrowitz, “the framework . . . goes something like this: Jewish history teaches us to welcome the stranger, reminds us of the dangers of racial hatred, and instructs us to pursue justice.” One of the oldest organizations she portrays, Chicago’s Jewish Council on Urban Affairs (JCUA), is involved with grassroots community groups on issues of “housing, jobs, living wage, police brutality, or schools.”

JCUA seriously seeks to “educate and mobilize the Jewish community,” primarily through working with synagogue youth. St. Louis’ Jews United for Justice (JUJ), St. Paul’s Jewish Community Action, and New York’s Jews for Racial and Economic Justice (JFREJ) are similarly involved, though each addresses somewhat different audiences.

Some have faced problems when their calls for justice have run counter to Jewish business interests — as when JUJ confronted union-busting and unfair practices in a Jewish nursing home, or when JFREJ mounted protests against the Jewish Theological Seminary’s honoring of Newt Gingrich. Nevertheless, they have persevered, often, through their strong outreach efforts, winning new supporters and adherents.

One problem confounds Kaye/Kantrowitz: She is puzzled that most of the Jewish organizations active in forming interracial coalitions are not active in or sensitive to the need for creating and supporting Jewish diversity/multiculturalism within their

own organizations. “As I originally conceived of this book,” she writes, “I had imagined drawing links between acknowledging the ethnic and racial diversity of Jews and doing stronger, more effective anti-racist work, more connected with communities of color, in part through our bi- and multi-racial constituencies. This seemed to me a no-brainer.” Speaking of several of the groups, however, she notes that “Jewish diversity is not a secret, but is not seen as broadly relevant. As Linda Holtzman of JUJ said, ‘We focus on issues. . . .We haven’t really talked about [involving Jews of color] because it’s been such a small number.”

As Kaye/Kantrowitz develops her argument, I begin to wonder: Why try to form a “truly inclusive Jewish community” at all? Why try to make common cause with organizations or individuals whose ideals and goals are markedly different from yours, simply because they are Jewish like you? Esther Kaplan of JFREJ, for instance, points out that while the group’s politics “don’t match” the conservative bent of a group like Sephardic House, that doesn’t stop JFREJ from partnering with it and other organizations to publicize the activities of Mizrahi, Sephardi, Ethiopian and biracial Jews. Such work does not, however, translate into an ability to make alliances with every non-Ashkenazi group, any more than with every Ashkenazi group.

Kaye/Kantrowitz suggests that reaching out to Jews of different colors would improve the ability of Jewish progressives to form coalitions with other people of color, but her logic troubles me, as it suggests that the reason for pursuing our own diversity is to make us more palatable to groups of color.

In discussing innovative groups that focus “specifically on Jewish diversity,” Kaye/Kantrowitz provides us with their vibrant voices and some

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responses to her own concerns. There are interviews with, or in-depth, detailed statements by, leaders of seven Jewish organizations that “share a commitment to widen the Jewish landscape to include not only their own communities and other Jews of color, but also other excluded groups.”

They strive, according to Yavilah McCoy of the synagogue-based resource organization for Black Jews, Ayecha, “to bring together the full experience of diversity as it exists in the Jewish community, not just around color — around age, gender, class, sexual orientation.”

Some of the groups are involved in anti-racism activities; some, like Rabbi Capers C. Funnye Jr. of Beth Shalom B’nai Zaken Ethiopian Hebrew Congregation in Chicago, in creating “a house where all are welcome” and in interfaith activities. All are involved in promoting the diverse cultures of Jews. One interesting difference between these seven groups and the four community organizations like JFREJ and JCUA are that they all “acknowledge the Arab/MuslimJewish relation as crucial and some take positions against the Israeli Occupation” — a topic that other activist groups do not engage, for fear of fracturing their own organizations. As Jordan Elgrably points out, Mizrakhi Jews “have a different relation to the Middle East, one that’s more organic and historical.”

Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb, who does monthly Sephardic services, also cofounded the Jewish-Muslim Peace Walk “to build a national movement of Muslims and Jews committed to the work of bearing witness to the Wall of Separation, and creating spiritual bridges of understanding between Muslims and Jews.” She testifies to the “heat you’re gonna get” from the Jewish community when you take on controversial issues.

Rabbi Susan Talve of St. Louis’

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Central Reform Synagogue notes, “One reason to do this dismantling racism work, we have kids of color growing up here . . . Once they hit middle school they knew they had to choose between being Black and being Jewish, and they couldn’t choose not to be Black so they stopped being Jewish in their own hearts.”

Lewis Gordon of Philadelphia’s Center for Afro-Jewish Studies, who is Black, Jewish, and Jamaican, reports that in his childhood, “the only other people I knew who were Jews were either dark-skinned brown or beige — in other words, all people of color. So there was this whole world of Judaism I knew about . . . that was in no way reflected by the presentation of Judaism in Judaic studies. . . . When I was teaching at Brown it became clear to me that there was a large lower-middle-class Black Jewish community as well, that’s under the radar because of the class construction of Jews in the U.S. Russian Jews, too,” he adds, “are excluded in this way,” which is certainly an ironic twist to Ashkenazi Jews of Eastern European background.

These kinds of testimonies give Kaye/Kantrowitz cause for some optimism. Reflecting hopefully on a “Jews of Color Speak Out” event that brought together such diverse groups to bear witness, she observes that “considering the two clusters of organizations, one grouping active against racism, but uncertain about how to give priority — or why — to Jewish racial and ethnic diversity; the other grouping with expertise on this very point; it makes sense to envision partnerships” — and she notes that several efforts in that direction have already begun.

To solve the problems of inclusion and anti-racist activism, Kaye/Kantrowitz has proposed an ideology, Diasporism, which refutes all the implications of a longed-for homecoming attached to

the word ‘diaspora’ and all its implications of Jewish exceptionalism.

Diasporism, she writes in her preface, “embraces diaspora, offers a place we might join with others who value this history of dispersion; others who stand in opposition to nationalism and the nation state.” It is “a deliberate counter to Zionism. Zionism/Jewish nationalism is one choice Jews make, but not the only choice. It’s time someone named . . . the choice most Jews are making in practice.”

As she explains in her final chapter, Diasporism celebrates dispersion, and says “we make home where we are.”

She connects Diasporism to “the . . .

Bund’s principle of doikayt — hereness — the right to be, and to fight for justice, wherever we are. Doikayt means Jews enter coalitions wherever we are, across lines that might divide us, to work together for universal equality and justice.” Her Diasporism also models itself on the culture of the Ottoman Empire, which, she writes, “envisioned a loose, brilliantly diverse confederation.” In her eyes, it is Diasporism that creates Jewish solidarity with immigrants, with the oppressed, with workers, our commitment to struggle for human rights and civil liberties. And it is this solidarity that keeps us both human and Jewish.

While this is a necessary culmination of much of the thought that has gone before, Kaye/Kantrowitz feels it necessary further to explore the connections between diasporism and antiSemitism, Zionism, and the Holocaust — connections that perhaps merit a new book. Although all these explorations are interesting, and are made engrossing by personal testimonies, I would have preferred that the author take more time to unify the strands and strengthen her message, which is, perhaps, most clearly stated in her concluding quotation, from Martin Buber’s Tales of the Hasidim: “Someone goes to the rebbe to find Jewish Currents

out how do you know when night has ended? And the rebbe says, you can tell night has ended when you see that the person standing next to you is your sister or brother.”

Kaye/Kantrowitz mentions several reasons for writing The Colors of Jews, first and foremost to overturn assumptions “that Judaism is only religion; that secular Judaism is a contradiction in terms; that real Jews are born Jewish,” and that “calling (all) Jews ‘white’ explains anything,” any more than “calling (all) Jews ‘people

of color’ explains anything.” Other assumptions she seeks to overturn deal with the relations between Jews and African-Americans, Jews and Arabs, and Jews and tribulation. She has long been involved in anti-racist activism, however, and that informs her second set of reasons for writing: She wants to “strengthen the identity and practice of Jewish anti-racism” and to promote among widely diverse Jews “a celebration . . . of Jewish multiculturalism.” She sees this multiculturalism as “an enormous asset when it comes to combating racism

and anti-Semitism and to building social justice coalitions.”

This, it seems to me, is her main purpose: to impress upon the reader the need to seek, welcome and build Jewish multiculturalism. Several speakers in the books seem to echo the statement of that shule student I mentioned in my opening — that “many more Jewish cultures, peoples, and places . . . have been lost to the world of mainstream Jews” — and Kaye/ Kantrowitz seems determined to reverse that loss, and thereby strengthen our ability to end racism.

Ian Dreiblatt

Charles Reznikoff’s Testimonies

A

familiar, thrilling set of problems and questions confronts me ev-

ery time I encounter the poet Charles Reznikoff (1894-1976). Of rare distinction in its formal demands —and formal achievements —his verse is intricate, tiny in its gestures, Reviewed in this essay: and often almost impossibly moving.

Holocaust, by Charles Reznikoff, Considered one of the leaders of the pages.

“Objectivist” school of poetics (along with Louis Zukofsky, George Oppen, and Carl Rakosi), between 1918 and 1975 Reznikoff published more than twenty volumes of prose and verse, often at his own expense. Black Sparrow Press’s appealing new edition of his last major book, Holocaust, provides an excellent opportunity to revisit the tricky terrain he lays out.

The first thing one can’t help noticing about Holocaust is, of course, its horrific brutality: babies torn apart “as one would tear a rag,” heaps of bodies tumbling out of rail cars “bloated, reddened and bluish,/ eyes protruding from sockets,/ clothes soaked with sweat and excitement,” a landscape

overly lush with unimaginable violence. Trained as a lawyer, Reznikoff quarried material for the poems

Ian Dreiblatt works as communications consultant for The Workmen’s Circle. He is a writer, musician, and translator from the Russian, Amharic, and Latin, and runs the AlulA reading series at the Bowery Poetry Club. His translation of Tolstoy’s “The Death of Ivan Ilyich” has just been published by Melville House Press.

March-April, 2008

2007, Black Sparrow Press, 94

from the stenographic records of the Nuremberg and Eichmann trials (a practice he employed in making other poems, as well), and the text of Holocaust consists of a series of first-person testimonies, wrought into verse, of what befell the Jews of Europe under Hitler. The work is astoundingly unsentimental; Reznikoff accepts fact, object, and language, allowing them to work according to their own tendencies, never once resorting to paraphrase — and so the language is charged with the numinous force of unblinking witness:: A woman came with her little daughter and S.S. men were there one morning and took the child away: a mother was forbidden to keep her child with her.

Later, the woman found out that her

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child had been thrown into the fire in which the dead were being burnt, and that night threw herself against the electrified barbed-wire fence around the camp.

The sound of this passage replicates somewhat the shock of the deaths (the lax, front vowels of woman, daughter, morning, and then suddenly and repeatedly the tense, wide sound of child, echoing until it is transformed into fire and, ultimately, barbed-wire), but the events of the story aren’t treated, for all their ghastliness, as an excuse for hysteria or sentiment; the passage, to borrow a word Reznikoff applied to some of his own work elsewhere, is straight recitativo, with not an arioso breath about it. Like the ingredients in a recipe for bread, Reznikoff’s anecdotes are discrete and necessary, and are permitted to respond freely to each other within the space of the text. Witness is borne; nothing is asked.

Elsewhere Reznikoff writes: In this camp —and in others also — they had an orchestra of Jews

who had to play every morning and evening and whenever Jews were taken to be shot.

In one such camp, the orchestra had all of sixty men.

The rhythm is, again, rich with emphasis (with its chiastic formula nesting the two occurrences of Jews within the repetition of camp, and with morning and evening at the center, an axis —it’s heartbreaking — and then the emergence, suddenly, of sixty men, like fabric from a wheel), but the story is set radically apart from any rubric of interpretation.

Reznikoff does not need to evince anything in response to the stories he collects because he tells them with such formal competence and prosodic integrity that they can be received, and responded to, as wholly integral contents in combinatorial, serial arrangement. He is thus, like Zukofsky, a poet profoundly of texts, and texts’ unsentimental sufficiencies; and, like Claude Lanzmann, the creator of Shoah, a kind of oral historian, a great assembler of, and advocate for, voices

of personal experience.

For Reznikoff, this is surely a project of liberation, a shaking free of history from the voices that usually approve or sanitize it. By refusing the comfort of a coherent narrative “I” that assimilates details into a determined emotional response, Holocaust establishes a deeply interrogative textual democracy. Unmoored from mechanisms of comprehensibilization, each line is a plebiscite, resisting or conjoining with what comes before or after, unburdened by horror of the will to shatter glass. I feel called on, when I read it, not to act — what could I do? — but to bear witness, to hear and respond intimately to each stupefying thing sung in the music of plain speech. There’s a tension there, too, between the wild freedom with which elements within the text relate to one another and the savage restraint with which Reznikoff tells every part of each of his stories. It’s that contradiction that lies at the political heart of Holocaust: a struggle between responsibility and impotence, between will and the impossible.

Newly available from Jewish Currents From the Coffee House of Jewish Dreamers

by Isidore Century “Isidore Century is a wonderful poet. He writes of traveling to Coney Island; visiting Israel and returning there to the land of Yiddish in which he grew up; his father, who escaped from Poland and made his way illegally to the U.S., where he became an official in the Painter’s Union; and about his own reluctant and penetrating faith, ‘I keep running from a God/in whom I do not believe/hoping he catches me.’ . . . His poems are brief stories: they’re funny, deeply observed, without pretension, written with a knowingness and rhythm of things old and new. ” —The Jewish Week

$14.95, postpaid, from www.jewishcurrents.org or call (212) 8892523. The author is donating profits to support the magazine.

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Jewish Currents

Relatives Continued from page 31 of railroads, models of locomotives, paintings of trains trundling on tracks through green hills and over bridges.

A sign above his desk read, “Life Is a Train, Get Aboard.” The logistics of railways became an obsession to him as he first planned escape routes from Warsaw. Often, when he returned from the hospital, he reminisced about trains and vacations from his past life, very slowly and with much pleasure, as if attempting his self-liberation.

He told stories about childhood summer holidays on the Baltic, watching from the shore as trains sped across the mainland. He talked about white clouds of steam in the blue air, and passengers waving from the windows, and the reflections in the water. “He was headed for death, and he ended up on the railways,” she said, eulogizing her father.

He could not have known that as he was approaching the bridge with his family, a small boat used for hauling sand was nearing it as well. In it sat a father with two sons, coming home from a business expedition. Since it was difficult to feed one’s family with sand deliveries, he and his sons were smuggling cheap cigarettes. They were rowing quickly to get home before curfew. As they passed the bridge, they heard an unusually heavy object fall into the water and saw a child’s head. The boys undressed, jumped, and quickly lifted a little girl into the boat. Frightened, shivering and with blue lips, she was only able to speak the word, ‘Mama,’ as she pointed to another head bobbing in the water.

The father extended the oar to Anya’s mother, but instead of grabbing it, she pushed it away and submerged her head. “Are you crazy?’ the man shouted. “Boys, hold onto her!”

It’s difficult to save a person who is trying to drown. Two pairs of strong March-April, 2008

Sherman Pearl

Hitler’s Falcon He circled, his outstretched black wings barely ruffling that azure Bavarian sky, at peace with itself a decade after the war. From those heights over the Alpine beauty of Hitler’s summer retreat his predator’s eye scoured the ground for game left over from the old days, for anything tempting that hides in the undergrowth. All these years later I still see his shadow against the clouds, darkening them like lingering smoke from the camps.

He circled, majestic as a Valkyrie sailing Wagnerian seas.

He circled, free to fly off but held in orbit by invisible chains. When the falconer called he swooped down toward me from the Aryan heavens as though I were the prey. With shrieks of triumph and flurries of feathered bravado he settled on the falconer’s glove, leather as worn and wounded as the old man’s face. His eyes never wavered; they feasted on me; his wings wanted to rise again; his talons shifted and tightened on the falconer’s hand.

His master soothed him with scraps of red meat, then hooded the cutlass head just as he must have when he was Hitler’s falconer and the blood of victims ran through these mountains.

You may pet him, the falconer told me as the blinded bird grew calm, done with the hunt for now; and I touched the body where Hitler’s hand once stroked.

Mein schatzi, the falconer cooed, mein liebschen . . .

Sherman Pearl is co-founder of the L.A. Poetry Festival and author of four poetry collections, most recently The Poem in Time of War. His awards include the 2002 Writers Union Poetry Prize and the 2007 Anderbo Prize for Poetry.

hands finally grabbed her by the neck and pulled her on board.

Struggling, trembling, blue, hysterical, she shouted, “Why did you save us? We are Jews!”

“We don’t care — you can be Hitler’s aunt! Every seaman has a responsibility to save a drowning person.

That is our honor and our mandate.”

“But my husband! My husband!” she cried.

The boatman, disturbed, scrutinized the waves. “We don’t see him! Did he also jump?”

“No, no, he’s already dead.”

The two boys shivered in the boat as the captain rowed. Mother and child trembled and clung to each other, whimpering like fretful animals. As the tide and the oars brought them closer to shore, they heard the distant whistle of the Krakow Express.

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In the spirit of Jewish Currents In memory of a Marxist and Leninist, (guided by Das Capital in understanding economic cycles of world capitalism)

SHAKHNE EPSHTEIN 1883-1945

Educational, and Organizational Director, Jewish-Yiddish Labor Bund - 1904 Editorial Board Member, New York, Forverts - 1910 Editor, New York, Gleiheit Founding Editor, Moscow, Emes - 1919 Founding Editor, New York, Freiheit - 1922 Comintern representative to U.S. Workers-Communist Parties - 1920-1928 Foreign correspondent (Alexandr B. Shachno Epshteyn) for TASS - 1930-1941 Organizing Secretary of (secular) Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, Moscow - 1942-1945 Silenced by bloody Djugashvili-Stalin

In tribute from son

Arnold

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Jewish Currents urrents

In Loving Memory of

DOROTHY EPSTEIN June 18, 1913 — May 25, 2006

Her fight for a better world is our inspiration.

Dorothy’s Memoir, A Song of Social Significance: Memoirs of An Activist was published posthumously by Ben Yehuda Press.

Read it and be inspired.

Buy it from: Ben Yehuda Press — www.BenYehudaPress.com (201-833-5145); Amnesty International—www.amnestyusa.org (click on “Join Us” and then on “Shop at Amazon.com”); and at Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com.

Robert Jacobson and Marilyn Gelber

March arch-A -April pril, 2008 2008 M

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ALFRED KNOBLER March 4, 1915— November 21, 2007

We honor his memory by carrying on the ideas and beliefs that were the mainstay of his life.

The Knobler family

As a former news reporter I have only this to say: Jewish Currents is superlative In each and every way!

Its text is well written Its positions are clear . . .

This publication gets better With every passing year!

As a JC life subscriber You can tell I hold it dear!

I wouldn’t want anything To make it disappear . . .

The Powell family

Despite all its good features I’ve one complaint, you know The editor’s name (Mr. Bush) Definitely has to go!!!

In Honor of

Sincerely, Alice Fisher

BESS and MARTY KATZ

Santa Monica, California

The family name, Babushkin, way back in ’29 was changed to Bush ‘cause anti-Semitism then was in its prime.

Who knew that “Bush” would someday foul the air in Washington, DC? Or that the world, dear Alice, would hold my name against me?

Despite your love of Jewish Currents, I must take you to task — It ain’t the editor who needs the boot but that Presidential Ass! Sincerely, Lawrence Babushkin Accord, New York

With love and appreciation Bob Bob Rosenfeld Plainfield, Vermont

Signed by the Author Mark the Music: The Life and Work of Marc Blitzstein, $50 Ballad of an American: The Autobiography of Earl Robinson, $20 Both books, $65 Send your check to Eric A. Gordon 9514 National Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90034

Greetings from Barnett and Selma Zumoff

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Jewish Currents

In Loving Memory of ESTHER and PINKUS

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SHEFFER

Brooklyn, New York

IRVING SHULMAN JONATHAN HARRIS In loving memory of

Our “Vegvayzers”

ANITA and EARL BAUMWELL

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We mourn the loss of

TO ABSENT FRIENDS

We miss your love and laughter Jed, Gail, Ivan, Leah Boston, Massachusetts

MURIEL GOLDRING (1918-2007) Tireless in her struggle against injustice, Fighter for working people and civil liberties and Loving widow of Benjamin Goldring (1912-2000), Veteran of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade

PARGAMENT

Greetings

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GLORIA and BARNET

Positive Ties Developing

Always with us

LEVINE

Between

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Woodside, New York

In Honor of the

AR/WC and CSJO

The Shane Family, Paul, Ana and Joanne Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

from

As the children and grandchildren of people who worked for social justice and the preservation of Jewish culture, and as parents and grandparents of those who are doing so today — we salute Jewish Currents and all families for whom these goals are just as important.

Elaine and Lyber Katz Bronx, New York

March arch-A -April pril, 2008 2008 M

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In honor of

MADDY and PHIL BRAUN

FAY and SAM PEVZNER

AND FAMILY

who never stopped

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Fani Jacobson

fighting for a better world.

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GREETINGS FOR PEYSAKH !!

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wishes Jewish Currents

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and all its readers —

David G. Stahl, DMD Manchester, New Hampshire

also all our friends — A GUT PEYSEKH!

In Memory of Murray Brown Sylvia Brown, Valley Village,California

WITH PEACE

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IN THE WORLD & SOCIAL JUSTICE

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FOR ALL PEOPLES !!

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Shaker Heights, Ohio Jewish Currents urrents

We Mourn Our Loss

Arlene Resnick

Arlene K. Resnick

We grieve the passing

May 1927—December 2007

of a valiant woman whose goodness and devotion

Beloved Wife of Sid Resnick Mother of Naomi, Ruth and Eugene Grandmother of Rebecca, Ezra, Ben Schwartz

will always be a cherished memory

and Gabe, Ahna, David Johnson

Arlene lives on in our hearts • Sid Resnick Hamden, Connecticut Naomi and Stanley Schwartz Providence, Rhode Island

Estelle and George Holt (sister-brother-in-law) Lenore and Michael Darcy (niece and nephew) Sean and Aaron Darcy (grand-nephews and their families)

Ruth and Roger Johnson Hamden, Connecticut Eugene V. Resnick Brooklyn, New York

Arlene Resnick May 30th, 1927 — December 10th, 2007 A vibrant and cheerful friend to many, Arlene was an active trade unionist and a supporter of Jewish Currents and other progressive causes.

We extend our condolences to Sid Resnick, her children and grandchildren, and her extended family.

Joe and Lillian Dimow Debbie Elkin Alice Ellner Peter Ellner Lillian Kaplan

March-April, 2008

Betsy Lerman-Zucker Dan Lerman Hilary Lerman Frances and Peter Marcuse Lillian and Irving Rosenthal

From the Estate of

Annette T. Rubinstein April 12, 1910—June 20, 2007

Jewish Currents has received a bequest of $5,000.

Annette was an important writer for our magazine for decades, and the perennial hostess for our Editorial Advisory Council.

We are honored to be among the many important publications and organizations that she valued.

All honor to her memory.

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Bennett Muraskin

In Memoriam Israel Kugler June 13th, 1917-October 1st, 2007 Two-term president of The Workmen’s Circle/Arbeter Ring (WC/AR) from 1980-’84, and an activist in the organization for more than half a century, Israel Kugler grew up in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, the child of East European immigrants. His father, a house painter, and his mother, a garment worker, were both secular progressive Jews who gravitated to the socialist WC/AR. Enrolled in the organization’s shules from age five, Kugler graduated from its mitlshul. In his informative and colorful memoir, “A Life in the Workmen’s Circle,” which appeared in the October, 1991 issue of the quarterly Labor’s Heritage, Kugler tells how he temporarily enrolled in a Talmud Torah, succumbing to peer pressure, only to be driven out by the teacher during his first lesson for asking a question about the prayer over bread that the teacher considered impudent. On a more serious note, Kugler’s memoir recalls that he and other shule students attended a WC/AR memorial to Eugene V. Debs upon his death in 1926 — and how he and his fellow Kinder Ring campers gathered to mourn the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti in 1927, “before a flagpole with a black raincoat fluttering at half-staff.”

In 1934, Kugler entered City College. By this time, his mother had become the primary breadwinner, after his father had suffered a heart attack. Shortly after Kugler graduated from CCNY in 1938, his father had another heart attack and collapsed in a jail cell, having being arrested for picketing a landlord who refused to use union labor. He died in the hospital, and the autopsy revealed that he suffered from blood poisoning, then the painter’s occupational disease. According to Kugler, “This traumatic event greatly solidified my attachment to the cause of organized labor.”

Kugler married Helen Barkan in 1941. In a sixty-six year marriage, they had two sons, Daniel and Phillip, and two grandchildren. During World War II, Kugler served in the Navy in the Pacific. Stationed in Shanghai, China after the Japanese surrender, he met Jewish refugees from Poland who had spent the war years there in a prison camp. With the help of the Jewish Labor Committee, most of them were resettled in the U.S. and Canada.

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After the war, Kugler earned a Ph.D from New York University and became a professor of social science at New York City Community College (today the New York City College of Technology). There he began his exceptional career as a labor leader in the higher education sector. He started by organizing a chapter of the New York Teacher’s Guild on his campus, and was later elected as vice-president for the Guild’s college division. (The Guild was the anti-communist alternative to the New York Teachers Union, which was nearly destroyed in the early 1950s when many of its members were blacklisted and the Board of Education withdrew recognition. The Guild cooperated in this repression.)

In 1960, the Guild merged with the United Federation of Teachers, whose overwhelming majority consisted of public school teachers. In 1963, the American Federation of Teachers created a separate higher-education local, the United Federation of College Teachers (UFCT), with Kugler as its first president. Under his leadership, the faculty of the Fashion Institute of Technology became the first in New York to organize and win collective bargaining rights, followed by the faculties of Nassau Community College and Westchester Community College. In 1965, the UFCT launched the first faculty strike in U.S. history against a four-year college, St. John’s University in Queens. The strike leaders were Israel Kugler and a St. John’s philosophy professor, Father Peter O’Reilly.

The strike began in response to the non-reappointment and dismissals of thirty-one faculty members, without any due process, in retaliation for their organizing activity and their demands for greater academic freedom.

Picket signs read “The Truth Shall Set You Free — Not Fired.” Faced with an intransigent management, the strike dragged on for one and a half years. Although the UFCT did not win union recognition, another union reaped the benefits and collective bargaining rights were secured for St. John’s faculty. The strike garnered favorable publicity for the UFCT and led to organizing victories at other colleges and universities. Kugler played a major role in these struggles, including the recognition of the AFT as the bargaining agent for the faculty throughout the SUNY system.

In 1972, Kugler helped effectuate a merger between the UFCT and its rival, the Legislative Conference of City University, forming the Professional Staff Congress, which today represents more than twenty thousand teachers and staff throughout the CUNY system.

Kugler was also active in the civil rights movement. In the mid-1950s, as an AFT delegate, he urged its leadership to suspend the charters of locals in the South that Jewish Currents

would not allow Black teachers to become members. In 1963, he participated in the historic March on Washington, and brought his son, Philip, along, who followed in his father’s footsteps by becoming the organizing director for the AFT. Kugler was “a persistent fighter in every place he was,” said Robert Kaplan, former WC/AR president and director, to the Forward. “He always wanted to make sure that we stepped forward for labor, for the ordinary person.”

Victor Rabinowitz July 2nd, 1911-November 16th, 2007 Among the most outstanding attorneys for the left, Victor Rabinowitz throughout his sixty-year career defended a virtual Who’s Who of radicals and other targets of government repression, including Paul Robeson, Dashiell Hammett, Alger Hiss, Benjamin Spock, Daniel Ellsberg, Philip Berrigan and many others. The only reason he and his law partner Leonard Boudin did not defend Julius and Ethel Rosenberg is that they were too busy defending another accused spy. Spanning eras of radicalism, they represented both leftist labor unions in the late 1940s and the Black Panther Party in the early 1970s.

Rabinowitz and Boudin also represented leftist governments under U.S. attack, in particular Castro’s Cuba in the early 1960s and Allende’s Chile in 1971 against lawsuits that challenging their nationalizations of American businesses. The Cuba case was won in 1964, but before the Chile case could be heard, Allende was murdered in a U.S.-backed military coup in 1973.

Rabinowitz was born in Brooklyn, the son of an immigrant from Lithuania who became a socialist as well as a successful business man. His grandfather wrote for the Yiddish anarchist press and knew Emma Goldman.

Rabinowitz received his law degree from the University of Michigan and began practicing law in 1938, working for Louis Boudin, a prominent socialist labor lawyer.

In 1944, Rabinowitz started his own firm, and three years later he was joined by Louis’ nephew, Leonard. Rabinowitz was a founding member of the National Lawyers Guild and served as its president from 1967 to 1971, attracting a new generation of radical lawyers, including minorities and women.

He joined the Communist Party during World War II and remained a member until the early 1960s, during its years of decline due to government repression and the stain of Stalinism. Rabinowitz ran for Congress from Brooklyn on the American Labor Party line in 1947. The FBI had him under surveillance from the early 1950s to March-April, 2008

the late 1960s. During the McCarthy years, Rabinowitz and his firm represented over two hundred labor leaders, teachers, professors, librarians, civil servants and others accused of being communists, who were subjected to loyalty investigations and Congressional subpoenas that often led to job loss and sometimes to prison sentences.

Under the anti-labor Taft-Hartley Act, union leaders who did not take non-communist oaths could not serve, and the unions they led could lose their collective bargaining rights. Rabinowitz defended their cause, arguing that the oath was an unconstitutional abridgment of freedom of speech. The Supreme Court rejected his claim in 1950, facilitating the decimation of unions with communist affiliations. Over a decade later, in 1963, his work in another Supreme Court case weakened the authority of the notorious House Un-American Activities Committee.

During the 1960s, the Rabinowitz-Boudin firm represented hundreds of draft resisters, anti-Vietnam war and civil rights activists. When his own daughter was convicted of perjury in connection with her work in Georgia with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in 1963, Rabinowitz not only exonerated her but used the opportunity to convince the U.S. Court of Appeals to invalidate the system for selecting jurors in the South because it excluded nearly all Blacks. They also took the case of Kathy Boudin, Leonard’s daughter, a member of the Weather Underground who participated in a robbery of an armored truck in 1981 in which a guard was shot and killed. She pleaded guilty in 1984 and served a long prison sentence before being released in 2003. (Leonard Boudin died in 1989.)

Commenting on his own career, Rabinowitz said, “I have always adhered to a few basic rules. I would not represent a landlord against a tenant; I would not represent a drug dealer (something Boudin decided to do to bring in money for the firm); I would not represent an employer against a union; I would not represent a fascist or rightwing institution.” He charged little for his legal services, yet the quality of his representation was unsurpassed.

Rabinowitz considered his role in the National Lawyers Guild to be his most significant accomplishment, because it has endured as a progressive organization and a bulwark against political repression. He entitled his 1996 memoir, Unrepentant Leftist.

He is survived by four children and two grandchildren.

One of them, Michael Rabinowitz, the political director of the union UNITE HERE, paid the following tribute to his grandfather: “What he passed on to me is that it’s not enough to believe the right rhetoric — you have to get your hands dirty. Victor was my moral and political compass, and that is something that will never die.”

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Letters

Drawings by Louis Bunin

Continued from page 2 five years after leaving the rolls.

The most comprehensive study of the impact of welfare reform is an ongoing longitudinal study by the Family Welfare Research and Training Group at the University of Maryland School of Social Work, titled “Life After Welfare.”

This annual study looks at employment, poverty and other indicators of welfare leavers throughout the state of Maryland. The most recent study, published in October 2007, found that “the vast majority of welfare leavers use welfare as a temporary or episodic safety net, exiting after one year or less of continuous receipt.” This is not inconsistent with statistics gathered prior to welfare reform showing that 50 percent of recipients left within two years on their own, and more than three-quarters left within five years, using welfare for exactly what it was deigned to be — a safety net to help families get through difficult economic times. This begs the question: Why fix something that was successfully doing what it was designed to do?

The “Life After Welfare” study also found that approximately 50 percent of welfare leavers obtain jobs that earn an average of $12,000 in the first year, rising to an average of $24,000 in the tenth year after leaving welfare. As a result,

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these workers, mostly single mothers and their families, are maintained in poverty, in spite of the fact that they are playing by the rules. The study also found that “the industries that typically hire welfare recipients generally do not provide the most employment stability.”

Another study by the Federal Department of Health and Human Services of welfare leavers in Wisconsin found that their income was lower the year after leaving welfare than prior to leaving welfare. The same study also found that approximately 20 percent of welfare leavers in Wisconsin are “disconnected,” meaning they are not working, are not connected to spouses who are working and are without any public cash assistance. It would be hard to argue that these people are better off, yet Cherry ignores the facts to make his point. He states that “over 40 percent of those whose first job paid less than $6 per hour had a wage increase of at least 50 percent.”

That increase comes out to a total annual salary of $18,700, still well below the federal poverty level. Cherry also notes, as proof of success, that “for welfareto-work participants in Washington, the average hourly rate from $7.50 to $8.91 two years later.” What is most striking about these figures is that families were able to survive for two years on such low incomes!

Cherry concludes with a convoluted discussion of community college success rates. As an example, he uses the Adults and Continuing Education Program at LaGuardia Community College in New York, but fails to mention that this is neither a credit-earning nor a degreegranting program. This fact does not stop him from touting the program as an antidote for the high dropout rate of underprepared students entering the nation’s community colleges. The question this begs is: Are all under-prepared students former welfare recipients? — and if not (which they are not), what is the point that is being made here?

I am perhaps most baffled by his ending statement: “by learning from policies initiated by welfare reform and applying them more broadly, we can help millions of working mothers and their families

have more successful lives.” The reality is that if we applied these lessons more broadly, we would be dooming many more single mothers and their children to lives of grinding poverty, low wage work and futures without hope.

Irwin Nesoff, DSW Kean University Union, New Jersey • Reading the “Welfare Reform” exchange, I saw that the ideological shifts of recent years have caught up with Professor Robert Cherry. Thirty years of Democrats and Republicans undoing the New Deal did more than weaken most protections and benefits for working people and the poor. It also shifted the thinking of many social critics who were at least somewhat concerned with ‘social justice.’ Like Cherry, they stopped criticizing capitalism and focused instead on criticizing bad kinds of capitalism in favor of better kinds (higher wages rather than lower wages, workfare rather than welfare, etc.).

How ironic that U.S. capitalism should just now slide into yet another periodic recession, dragging the world capitalist economy with it, as many millions of Americans, employed and unemployed, once again face severe economic stress.

How comforting for the receivers of the latest Wall Street bonuses to know that folks like Professor Cherry limit their criticism to the promotion of programs that exchange the degradation of welfare for the opportunity to be exploited in the low-wage jobs that make those bonuses possible.

An historical parallel can make the point most simply. Movements against slavery in 19th-century America split into two wings: those who demanded better conditions for the slaves (more food, fewer beatings) and those who demanded an end to slavery. Of course, the latter supported better conditions, but they argued that those conditions could not and would not be secure unless and until slavery itself was abolished. Today the same logic applies. Benefits for welfare recipients and for workers have never been and will never be secure unless and until the workers themselves own and Jewish Currents

operate enterprises. In short, capitalism was and remains the problem.

Richard D. Wolff New York, New York • Contrary to the headline of Robert Cherry’s article, the elimination of a child’s right to welfare benefits is not an “untold story.” Capitalist economists, including some who describe themselves as liberals, have trumpeted the supposed success of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunities Reconciliation Act of 1996 for the past twelve years. Yet contrary to their claims, neither Blacks, nor Latinos, nor immigrants, nor the poor in general need to be “saved from themselves” or taught how to survive.

They all have centuries of experience surviving despite the theft of the fruits of their labor by the rich and powerful — who are, in general, white, native born and speak English as their first language.

Welfare reform couched in the terms of “saving the poor from themselves” is merely one more act in a process that has gone on since the 1830s. Aid to the poor limits the number of people forced to work for starvation wages and capitalists therefore don’t like it. At times like the Great Depression or in the midst of the civil rights movement, the rulers are forced to yield. When those time periods end, they do all they can to undo the gains made by the poor.

Throughout the history of capitalism, the main job of economists has been to justify the continued existence of the system as the challenges of workers and intellectuals exposed both its irrationality and blindness to the well-being of the vast majority of humanity. Since there is no longer a nominal socialist system that at least forces capitalist ruling classes to strive to create marginally better conditions for workers, these folks can simply revel in resurgent capitalism run amok.

It does not help to have Lawrence Bush’s cheery description of how hippies were able to exploit a system designed for the desperately poor during the 1970s.

The vast majority of the poor simply do not have the skills (either educational or social) to lift themselves out of poverty the way that voluntarily and temporarily poor, March-April, 2008

white, middle-class youth could.

Let me focus on one organization that Cherry cites to justify his thesis regarding how the poor have been helped by Clinton’s tough love. The Community Service Society of New York (CSSNY) runs large volunteer programs that compete with publicly funded welfare programs, and development projects that compete with the poor for funding. Nevertheless, CSSNY reported that for the bottom quartile of New Yorkers, real income fell by more than 12 percent between 1999 and 2002, and then dropped further in the following three years. (See “Poverty in New York City, 2005: More Families Working, More Working Families Poor,” by Mark Levitan at www.cssny.orgpdf).

CSSNY also found that the poverty rate for working families increased by almost half between 1999 and 2005, and for single mothers in New York by 20 percent between 2000 and 2005. Interestingly, this occurred at the same time that there was a dramatic drop in the unemployment rate.

As jobs became more plentiful, poverty data worsened — because poor people are placed in the job market in order to bring down wages for those with whom they must compete. Thus between 2000 and 2006, wage rates at the bottom of the wage ladder fell by 3.2 percent, according to Mark Levitan, senior policy analyst at CSSNY. The predictions made about the negative ramifications of simply pushing more and more low-income women into the workforce have come true. Young minority youth, aged 16-24, saw an almost 10 percent drop in employment during the same time that jobs were increasing.

Levitan also notes “a recent decline in employment and increase in poverty among single-mother families” — that is, those driven from the welfare rolls when their five years of eligibility ended.

Of course, the overall unemployment rate does not include those unemployed people who have legitimately concluded that they cannot find work. According to the Federal Bureau of Labor statistics, the overall labor participation rate is lower today than it was when Clinton signed the Welfare Reform Act. Again, this contradicts the proposition that

people are on welfare because they don’t want to work. The truth is that this country does not produce enough jobs to keep everyone employed even during ‘good’ times and even at poverty wages. The net effect of welfare reform was to give jobs that formerly belonged to poor men to poor single mothers.

Cherry makes much of the supposed income supports available to former welfare recipients. The Urban Institute found only 25 percent of them receive the package he describes. According to the Urban Institute, “One in five former welfare recipients lacked cash welfare or disability benefits, a job, or a working spouse in 2002. These are the people the system can no longer track, as they no longer receive any assistance.”

Contrary to Cherry’s claims, the Welfare Reform of 1996 did not expand eligibility for food stamps. It eliminated the eligibility of most legal immigrants for food stamps. It placed a limit on receiving food stamp of three out of thirty-six months for able-bodied adults without dependents who are not working at least twenty hours a week or participating in a work program.

It reduced the maximum allotments and froze the standard deduction, the vehicle limit, and the minimum benefit. It revised the provisions for disqualification. These changes are part of the reason the number of people receiving food stamps declined so dramatically following passage of the so-called Welfare Reform Act. Cherry also makes much of higher education federal funding for poor families.

Yet according to the College Board, “The increase in grant dollars between 1996-97 and 2006-07 covered an average of about a third of the increase in private college tuition and fees and half of the increase

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in average public four-year college tuition and fees” (www.collegeboard.com).

Furthermore, the bulk of the increase in federal aid was packaged as tax deductions. The poor do not generally benefit when the government “assists” people through tax deductions. In recent years, the total given in Pell grants has decreased in absolute terms on an annual basis, while the part of a student’s bills covered by the Pell Grants has declined by almost half since the late 1980s. In the past decade, government-subsidized Stafford Loans have also declined by almost half as a proportion of the total student loans available, as students are pushed to apply for unsubsidized private loans requiring ever-higher interest payments.

Cherry relies on dubious ‘evidence’ designed to convince folks that the poor, and in particular the Black poor, were simply out of control and had to be reigned in by repressive legislation like the so-called welfare reforms. He says that “In 1989, 77 percent of New Yorkers arrested tested positive for cocaine.” He fails to describe the repressive police tactics that targeted minority youth in the so-called ‘drug wars.’ The high proportion of those arrested testing positive for cocaine derived precisely from the fact that they were arrested for using cocaine — while white drug use was either ignored or ‘punished’ by alternatives like ‘pre-trial intervention programs,’ designed to avoid giving those folks police records. It has been reported extensively that while Blacks consume drugs in roughly equal or slightly lower proportions than whites, they are arrested for drug possession at rates about five times those of whites and incarcerated at between five and ten times the rate of whites.

To claim, as Cherry does, that “the work ethic demonstrated by people leaving welfare was an important tool for undermining many racist stereotypes” is the worst form of racist ‘blaming the victim.’

Likewise, his claim that racist stereotypes have been eliminated in 2008 is a cruel joke addressed to the continued victims of white racism.

The supposed success of welfare reform was due to the coincidence of a

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rapidly rising economy for a few years in the late 1990s, caused by cheap credit and a bloated and expanding military budget.

It was an anomaly in capitalist history that was followed immediately by a reversal that has now put us at the precipice of a major depression — with the safety net that existed for sixty years no longer being in a position to rescue those whose incomes are in free fall.

Cherry needs to decide what side of the fence he’s on. And Jewish Currents needs to reclaim its position as a defender of the poor rather than adding its voice to the cacophony of anti-worker diatribes routinely produced by the capitalist press.

Bob Cartwright Wallington, New Jersey

Robert Cherry replies: Irwin Nesoff claims that the effects of welfare reform were felt only after the five-year time limit were reached in 2001. Virtually every study finds that the dramatic drop in the welfare rolls between 1996 and 2001 was a response to the work requirements initiated, and the vast majority of those leaving welfare found jobs that dramatically increased the economic welfare of millions of families. The share of children in singlemother households who were poor — the most relevant group to look at — fell from a rate of more than 50 percent in the early 1990s to below 40 percent by 2001.

The increase in the poverty rates for this population was smaller in the most recent period of economic stagnation than in the

pre-reform period.

Nesoff writes: “The ‘Life After Welfare’ study found that approximately 50 percent of welfare leavers obtained jobs that earned an average of $12,000 during the first year . . .” This was the average for all welfare leavers. Together with food stamps and the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), it yields substantially more than people received on welfare. It is true that one-half of leavers remained poor, but this is less than the 90 percent poverty rate for those on welfare. More important, the official poverty measure excludes the EITC, which nationally is almost $5,000 for a single mother with income of $12,000 and two children, and even higher in states like New York that have their own EITC programs. Once the EITC is included, poverty rates are more than halved.

The claims that Nesoff makes about pre-reform welfare serving as “a temporary or episodic safety net” are typical of studies that look at the period 1970-’89.

Those that focus solely on the decade prior to reform find a dramatic increase in welfare dependency.

His reference to the size of the “disconnected” population is misleading, since it ignores the substantial numbers that move out of state and/or onto the Social Security income program, as well as those who are employed in the underground economy. More detailed studies, like those quoted in “Life After Welfare,” place the figure at closer to 10 percent; and if consumption studies are a guide, the number of disconnected families who

Jewish Currents

have experienced a decline in their living standards is much smaller.

I think Steven Kalka’s letter and my original rejoinder to Lawrence Bush’s comments amply respond to Rick Wolff’s complaint that by embracing non-revolutionary reforms I am aiding the capitalist enslavers of today’s working class. To claim that I abandoned social justice concerns because I no longer believe the struggle against capitalism is central to improving the lives of working people is really to attack most of those who struggle for change — though it is a useful rationale for academic Marxists who wish to stay above the fray.

Let me respond to a number of Bob Cartwright’s criticisms. First, I agree that the period of economic stagnation between 2001 and 2004 had a harmful effect on workers but, most relevant to welfare reform, the share of children in single mother households nationally who were poor only increased slightly and less than it did during the previous economic slowdown, 1990-1992. That is, the maintenance of employment for this group was greater in the most recent period, insulating these families somewhat from falling into poverty. Thus, New York City was not typical of the national picture.

Second, the Urban League study indicates that at some point during 2002 those leaving welfare had difficulty, but the national data I cited above reflects the fact that many of these mothers had sufficient income over the entire year to avoid falling into poverty.

Third, Cartwright is quite correct that immediately after welfare legislation, the enrollment rate for food stamps fell dramatically due to restrictions on immigrants and indifference on the part of welfare offices to explaining the new procedures to people leaving welfare. In subsequent years, Clinton helped enact legislation to reverse the changes to immigrants and the Department of Agriculture undertook an aggressive campaign to increase food stamp participation so that by 2003 take-up rates among the poor were as high as they had been in the period prior to welfare legislation.

Fourth, my discussion of educational March-April, 2008

enhancements was focused on welfareto-work policies, not general national policies. Indeed, I agree with Cartwright that federal and state governments should enhance access to higher education for those who have not been on welfare. This is one of the ways I want to see welfareto-work policies universalized.

Fifth, I am not blaming the crack-cocaine epidemic on poor Black and Latino communities but simply indicating how they were victimized by it and how this translated into unfortunate behavior that had damaging effects: a fatalistic set of beliefs that welfare legislation responded to. While racism is certainly present, the structural factors — loss of manufacturing jobs and the crack cocaine epidemic — created the problems faced by those poor Blacks and Latinos who reached their teen years in the 1980s.

Finally, the boom in the 1990s, during a period when military budgets were a dramatically smaller proportion of national income than in the 1980s, may not be such an anomaly. I am hopeful that with a Democratic victory this year we will again have policies that can aid the working class.

Leftists, Civil Rights, and Heschel Cheryl Lynn Greenberg (“Leftists and the Civil Rights Movement,” JanuaryFebruary) claims that the left was always ahead of the liberals on progressive issues like civil rights, unionism and free speech. Not always. During World War Two, the Communist Party leadership, in the interests of “national unity” against the Axis powers, opposed A. Philip Randolph’s call for a March on Washington to end discrimination in defense industries and to demand integration of the armed services. The CP adamantly defended the no-strike pledge, wage restraints and piece work and condemned the many strikes that broke out as treasonous, favoring legislation to conscript strikers to the military. When race riots broke out in New York, Detroit and Los Angeles, targeting Blacks and Mexicans, the CP leadership favored police repression. Worst of all, the CP leadership had no objection to one of the most shameful

acts committed by the US government — the detention of 120,000 Japanese Americans from 1942 to 1945. And when the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on Japan, the CP leadership cheered. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, the CP leadership justly condemned the Smith Act when it was used to lock up them up, but when the government used it in 1940 to lock up the Trotskyist SWP leadership, the CP was elated.

Yankl Stillman (“Our Secular Jewish Heritage,” January-February) praises Abraham Joshua Heschel’s visionary role in the civil rights, anti-Vietnam war and pro-Soviet Jewry movements, but says nothing about his stand on the Arab-Israeli conflict. I did some checking and discovered that Heschel took the conventional Zionist line on the ArabIsraeli conflict — blaming the Arabs 100 percent. Perhaps this is not surprising, but it certainly is worthy of mention in assessing Heschel’s legacy.

I might add that his daughter Susannah is an active supporter of Brit Tzedek and a co-chair of Tikkun, two progressive Jewish organizations that recognize and respect Palestinian rights.

Bennett Muraskin Parsippany, New Jersey • While I am quite in accord with the general analysis that Professor Greenberg lays out in her piece, the details, particularly the dates, are devilish. She states: “By 1943 . . . the lack of progress in race relations . . . brought Nazi-like mob violence to American shores . . .”

How exactly does “lack of progress” translate into attacks on Blacks and Hispanics by white racists in Los Angeles and Detroit? Having served in WWII and as a civil rights attorney in Mississippi in 1965, I recall those attacks as related to zoot suits and to Black migration to Northern defense factories; the whites responsible were probably protesting what little progress there had been.

On A. Philip Randolph’s proposed 1941 March on Washington, that was not yet wartime for the U.S., though the discrimination and segregation was clear. By not specifying the date, Greenberg gives a wartime flavor to the events. Randolph

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also gave trouble to FDR in 1943, which she conflates awkwardly with 1941. She then scants the difference among Communists and sympathizers between August 23, 1939 and June 22, 1941.

The German attack on the USSR changed the Communist perspective overnight from that of an imperialist war to that of anti-fascist united front. The fervor for strikes and marches against discrimination was drained in favor of victory over the Axis at all costs, thus barring any labor activity which might hinder the war effort. Discrimination and segregation were set aside as concerns

by Communists and everybody else.

Even the hint of a strike was opposed as virtual treason, no matter how flagrant the employer activity.

Harold Ticktin Cleveland, Ohio

Cheryl Lynn Greenberg responds: Both Bennett Muraskin and Harold

Ticktin are quite right that the Communist Party’s commitment to Black civil rights collapsed at the time of the Nazi-Soviet pact. That is one reason (not the only one, of course) the NAACP and other Black civil rights agencies refused to work with the CP after the war. I did not discuss this because my lecture focused on contributions the left made to civil rights, not the (many) times the left, or part of the left, fell short. In my book on which my lecture was based, Troubling the Waters, I explore the issue with the detail that Ticktin and Muraskin are right to demand.

Please allow me to correct a few minor points that Harold Ticktin raised. The U.S. may not have been technically at war in 1941, but we were certainly on a war footing, with Lend-Lease, military con-

tracts with industry, and the like, and A. Philip Randolph played on precisely that point when calling for his March on Washington. (And Ticktin is quite right — Randolph angered the White House in 1941, but by 1943 things had worsened so much that he was considered persona non grata by many in the State Department.) And while there was certainly plenty of white violence in 1943, as during W.W. I, the year also saw aggressive, even violent Black responses to racism, including resistance to segregation at southern Army bases by northern recruits, and Harlem’s riot of 1943. Finally, to Bennett Muraskin: To its everlasting shame, with a few local exceptions, the organized African-American community registered no more opposition to Japanese-American internment than did the CP (nor did the organized national Jewish community, for that matter). Just goes to show no one’s hands, in the end, are completely clean.

BROOKLYN ROCKWERKS Sculptures and fountains using granite rocks recovered from construction sites in New York City.

Adam Distenfeld • 129 Noll Street • Brooklyn, NY 11206, U.S.A. 1.718.628.5993 • adistenfeld@earthlink.net • www.brooklynrockwerks.com

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Jewish Currents

Lyber Katz Guest Column by Robert Kaplan

Visiting the Abayudaya The Jews of Uganda

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ast year, at The Workmen’s Circle’s Circle Lodge

Robert Kaplan

in Hopewell Junction, New York, my wife Marcia and I were attending one of the many “Jewish Cultural Experience” programs that we attend all summer long. The presenter was Laura Wetzler, a great folksinger and musical historian who was talking (and singing) about four Jewish divas: Fanny Brice, Sophie Tucker, Barbra Streisand and Bette Midler. It was a great program — and it has nothing to do with the rest of this story.

Laura also mentioned that she is involved with Kulanu, an organization that runs projects to help the Jews of Uganda. The Jews of Uganda? Who ever heard of them? She noted that each winter she leads a small mission to Uganda to meet and help the Abayudaya community, as the Jews of Uganda are known. It immediately attracted us, both as an altruistic activity and a trip with a little excitement. We signed up with Laura to join her group. We would leave just before New Year’s and fly to London and then Kampala, Uganda’s capital. (Unfortunately, the week before we left I had a motorcycle accident, so I was on crutches for the trip; but that’s another story.

It actually helped a little since British Airways bumped us up to Business Class.)

AROUND THE WORLD us around the country in a somewhat ramshackle van.

Much of Uganda is beautiful. The Nile River starts in the country and is a source of electric power for much of Eastern Africa, yet most villages (including those where most of the Abayudaya live) have no electricity, running water or sanitation. The population is twenty-eight million, in an area twice that of Pennsylvania. The life expectancy is 50, mostly as a consequence of malaria and AIDS. English is the official language, but the native language, Luganda, is the principal tongue of the Bugandan (Ugandan) population.

The population is, of course, black; just about every white person we met was a missionary of some sort — which, I guess, included us.

Until 1961, Uganda was a British ‘protectorate.’ In the early 1900s, a Bugandan warrior-chieftan, Semei Kakungulu, who had been converted to Christianity, was recruited to bring the fertile lands around Lake Victoria under British influence. After doing this, he was Our first sight in Ensnubbed by the British tebbe, the Kampala and ultimately fled to a airport, was the Air mountainous region in France plane that was the eastern part of the hijacked by Palestincountry. Kakungulu The “Ladies Auxiliary” at Namanyonyi. ian terrorists in 1974. The was an intensely spiritual mostly Israeli passengers aboard were held hostage with person, and after first becoming a Christian and then a Malthe support of Idi Amin, until their bold rescue by an Israeli achite (a sect that combined Christian and Jewish beliefs), squad. The plane still sits just off the field. he declared himself Jewish, circumcised himself and his We met Laura, an American Jewish couple named Lil sons, and founded Kibina Kya Bayudaya Absesiga Katonda and Gil Zinn, and Richard, our Ugandan guide, who took — the Community of Jews who Trust in the Lord.

After Kakungulu’s death, part of his group, the AbaRobert Kaplan is a former executive director and current yudaya, became devout Jews. They separated themselves from the Christians and began passing Jewish traditions vice-president of The Workmen’s Circle/Arbeter Ring.

March-April, 2008

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from generation to generation, despite the outlawing of Using a prayerbook donated by a Conservative synagogue their rituals and the destruction of their synagogues by Idi in Marblehead, Massachusetts, and substituting for the Amin. (Prior to Amin, the community numbered about rabbi who was studying in Los Angeles, Araon, the prin6,000. Today there are only 600. This is only one example cipal of the elementary school, conducted the service in of the devastation he wrought on the entire country.) Poorly Hebrew, English and Luganda. Although I am a secular linked to the outside world, the Abayudaya did not establish Jew and rarely attend organized services, I am familiar relationships with any other Jewish communities until the enough with the prayers and songs to feel, when I closed 1960s and ’70s, when elders of the community urged the my eyes, as if I were at a suburban American temple. Then Abayudaya to reach out to Israel. the songs would switch to Luganda, with an African beat, In the early 1990s, Matthew Meyer, a student at Brown and the service would become unique and especially beauUniversity who was studying in Kenya, returned to the U.S. tiful. Members of the congregation had written much of with photographs and tapes of the Abayudaya engaged in the music, notably Aaron’s brother J.J., who later invited Jewish rituals. With the support of Kulanu, which is dedi- us to his house and played some of his songs for us on an cated to working with Jewish communities worldwide, the old guitar. I left him with two Workmen’s Circle CDs of Abayudaya established contact with the Jewish communi- Yiddish songs, since he was one of the few people who had ties of the U.S., Great Britain and Israel. Brown University electricity and a CD player. J.J. is a businessman who has Hillel sponsored the construction of a synagogue in Mbale, organized a cooperative to produce organic coffee. the town closest to the Abayudaya villages, and today, any We also visited two more of the five Abayudaya Jew who comes synagogues. Six within two hunhundred Jews, dred miles of the five synagogues place will usually — that’s about par visit the synafor the course! It gogue, especially is not because of for shabes. At personality clashvarious times on es, however, but our trip, our van because of the picked up an Isfifty-mile radius raeli doctor workin which the Abaing in the Makere yudaya live.

Hospital, a British The commudoctor, an Amerinity was especan NGO intern cially proud of its and a hospital adschools, though ministrator workthese are quite ing for the Amerispartan. The elcan Jewish World ementary school, The Moses Synagogue on Nabugoye Hill.

Service, as well as Hadassah (no relaloads of Abayudaya traveling to town after shabes. An- tionship with the organization of that name), consisted of other American woman comes there regularly to teach the five empty classrooms. Textbooks were shared. Many of teenagers about responsible sex to prevent AIDS. the children, regardless of age, boarded there in a dormitory with two to a bed. (The daily trip was too far and, moreover, We spent a little over two weeks in Uganda, of which a the children who boarded were fed decent meals.) Although week and a half were spent with the Abayudaya, who do we visited during a school break, dozens of kids marched not live in a compact community but are spread out among around with us. Many were not Jewish; we were told that Christians and Moslems in many little villages. We first only one-third of the Hadassah students are. arrived on a Friday and went to the largest synagogue on The high school followed the British system, with “ONabugoya Hill. People walked, some for several miles, levels” and “A-levels.” We spoke with many youngsters to the shabes service, which was attended by about forty who wanted to go to college. They need to pass the “Aadults and thirty children level” to do that. Some of them were in their late twenties, The service was both strange and exceedingly familiar. still working on it.

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Jewish Currents

The high school had very limited resources. A student’s notebook from a biology class was filled with the teacher’s notes, with diagrams and text, as a substitute for missing textbooks. There was only one science laboratory for all science studies, with a half-dozen pieces of equipment — no computers, no microscopes. Happily, we had carried two microscopes to Kenya, donated by a woman in Rochester. We gave these to a young man, Samson, who was studying to be a medical technician and was already the principal medical person in the community, running a small clinic where he dispensed medicines and medical advice and services. (Interestingly enough, while we were in Kampala, I went to a clinic to have stitches from my accident removed. There were no sterile instruments or bandages. Instead, everything was put into a sterilizer: scissor, knife, gloves, bandages, etc. When I asked the doctor what the charge was, he said “Nothing, I didn’t give you anything.”)

Isaac, another member of the Abayudaya community, served as their engineer. With the support of Kulanu, he had designed and built a well at the Hadassah school which pumped water to the school and to a shower. On the day we left, they turned on the well and provided water for the first shower ever seen in the community. The well is provided by the Jewish community, but it will be available to all.

At the community connected to the synagogue at Namanyonyi, we met the “Ladies Auxiliary.” As in many places, it is often Ugandan women who have the most drive to enhance family life. Laura has been working to help them learn how to preserve foods, communicate in English, and acquire other useful skills. Most Ugandan families have a subsistence existence, producing just enough to live on. When they can store produce, they can plan ahead and not be devastated by changes in the weather or other conditions.

Over the course of our trip, I tried to answer a question that kept bugging me. Here we were meeting these wonderful people who lived mostly without electricity, without running water, without sanitation, without medical services — and yet they had what I would call middle-class aspirations. The Abayudaya wanted education for their children, they wanted a comfortable family life, they wanted to run businesses instead of simply working jobs. Did they acquire values on their own, or from contacts with outsiders like us? My sense is that the desire exists in everyone, but that the ability to fulfill it was greatly enhanced by contact with the outside Jewish community.

Some Americans therefore suggest that there should not be any effort to influence the Abayudaya according to our values, lest we destroy their way of life. Yet commuMarch-April, 2008

The first shower.

nication has now opened so many windows: Most of the young Ugandans we met had cell phones, used the Internet, watched television, and were fully aware of what life is like in other places. They would like to have what they see —and it is good to help them achieve it.

Here’s a Jewish Currents Shout-Out to our FABULOUS proofreader, CAROL JOCHNOWITZ, our BRILLIANT website resources editor, IRA KARLICK, and our ASTOUNDING office manager, the about-to-retire and about-to-be-missed ESTHER SUROVELL THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!

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Rokhl Kafrissen The

Rootless Cosmopolitan “The Past Didn’t Go Anywhere” April Rosenblum’s Progressive Broadside on Leftwing Anti-Semitism

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ness. It’s another thing to absorb evidence not just of our government’s surveillance, but its harassment, frame-ups and, when all else fails, murder of those deemed politically subversive. Learning about the dastardly depths of J. Edgar Hoover’s perversion of our government’s instruments of justice was extremely sobering for me. At the Black Panther Film Festival I learned how our government’s institutions can be used to perpetrate one man’s vendettas lawlessly, and almost without check. Hoover’s COINTELPRO (counterintelligence program) infiltrated agents into radical (and even not radical) groups. These agents brought disinformation and chaos to the groups they stalked. They turned members and allies against each other with astounding effectiveness and instigated much of the criminal activity that the government claimed it was trying to curb.

before my current incarna- COINTELPRO was on my mind that day at the film festition as the Rootless Cosmopolitan — capitalist val, many years ago. As I left the theater of the Schomburg corporate lawyer by day, socialist by night and Library, where I had just seen The Murder of Fred Hampon the weekends — I was a lowly administrative assistant, ton, a man put a flyer in my hand about “Sin and Zionism.” making coffee for smart people in a newly opened fel- Another guy, a few feet away, was giving out pamphlets lowship program headquartered in the New York Public about how today’s Jews are only “fake” Hebrews.

The flyers in themselves were upsetting, but even worse Library at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street. While the work was dispiriting, boring, menial and poorly paid, it did offer me was Kathleen Cleaver’s reaction when I asked that these the chance to meet a wide range of intellectual rock stars.

In the first year of the program, Kathleen Cleaver was one of the fellows. Cleaver, the widow of Eldridge Cleaver, a founder of the Black Panthers, had reinvented herself at Yale Law School and, at the time I knew her, was a professor at Cardozo School of Law (soon to be my law school.) It was through Kathleen that I had the opportunity to volunteer at the first-ever Black Panthers Film Festival.

The movies I saw at that festival, especially Red Squad and The Murder of Fred Hampton, truly rocked my world. I’d known something about FBI surveillance; you can’t grow up Jewish and left and not absorb something about FBI surveillance. In fact, when I was a badass little kid in high school, convinced that those men in trenchcoats were surveilling our little antiColombian coffee protests outside Waldbaum’s, I periodically threatened to file a Freedom of Information Act request to see my folder, which I was sure was thick with reports on my semi-competent leadership of our high school Amnesty International chapter.

It’s one thing to entertain romantic, self-indulgent notions about one’s surveillance-worthiAll illustrations are from April Rosenblum’s “The Past Didn’t Go Anywhere”

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any moons ago,

Jewish Currents

hateful and misguided people be removed. Her response was clear: “Get over it.” Not only did she not do anything about the flyers; she didn’t feel that anti-Semitism was important enough to question or fight — not when there were ‘real’ struggles to be fought.

Hadn’t we all just sat through hours of films about disinformation and COINTELPRO? Was I the only one who understood that this junk anti-Zionist (and anti-Semitic) literature — the kind you’ll find at many lefty or anarchist bookstores — was disinformation, pure and simple? Zionism and the Jews hadn’t caused the problems faced by the African-American community! Jews hadn’t murdered Fred Hampton in his bed! Jews, as always, were being used as the scapegoat, the screen behind which the real enemy gets to hide. As long as that kind of literature has a presence in leftist communities, and is tolerated by leftist leaders, there will always be seeds of discord between Black and Jewish activists — just as J. Edgar would have wanted.

at it most of her life. She was raised radical, the child of political activists who were also secular, Yiddish-identified Jews. Her family was one of the only white families who chose not to flee West Philadelphia as the neighborhood was integrating. Soon April’s school district was nearly all-Black, and when it was eventually desegregated she found herself, for the first time, in school among other Jewish kids. The experience was not a happy one for a working-class girl from the ghetto who didn’t go to Hebrew school. In a 2002 essay, she wrote of her alienation from the welloff Jews of the suburbs: “Over time, I realized I was with ‘my people,’ there on my own block. Looking around at my neighborhood, a poor, and working-class Black community, it was clear that even in America — . . . the land of opportunity for so many Jews in my grandparents’ generation — inequality continued to press people down . . . I had often thought my outrage at worldly injustice resulted from being Jewish. Now that I realized injustice was ongoing, I felt bound to any people hurt by those in power.”

When she began doing solidarity work among Muslims, Arabs and Jews, April came face to face with anti-Semitism on the left and the left’s lack of analysis about this persistent phenomenon. In 2005, she took a year to research what would become The Past Didn’t Go Anywhere, a pamphlet that is so smart, so comprehensive, so earnest and generous, that it’s already become both a quick reference work for me, as well as a frequent ‘gift’ to other activists and political folks. Just like April herself, the pamphlet seeks to educate, in a way that is never strident or offensive.

All of which is an overly long introduction to the important, nakhes-shepping news that my friend April Rosenblum was named in December as one of the “Forward 50” ­ — Jews to watch out for, as selected annually by the editors of the Forward! — for her timely, important, deliciously retro, thirty-two-page pamphlet, The Past Didn’t Go Anywhere: Making Resistance to Antisemitism Part of All Our Movements. The pamphlet, which can be downloaded and printed for free at www.pinteleyid.com/past/, attacks the problem I just illustrated: that anti-Semitism is alive and well and eating away at the viability of the left.

Though only 27, April was born to activism and has been

Visually and substantively, The Past Didn’t Go Anywhere evokes grassroots educational efforts such as the feminist masterpiece, Our Bodies Ourselves. It’s full of sidebars, glossaries, and cut-and -paste graphics that lend it an air of the handmade. It also carefully includes representations of all kinds of Jews, so that the pamphlet projects a vision of inclusion and respect. This smiling happy rainbow of Jews (and non-Jews) is balanced out by photos that seek the humanization of Palestinians who have suffered under Israeli occupation: for example, of a Palestinian journalist, Nasser Ishtaya, holding his infant daughter, who died because her ambulance was delayed at an Israeli roadblock.

March-April, 2008

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→

Such images play both upon and against our expectations. What does it mean to see a disturbing photo, like the one of Ishtaya holding his dead daughter, near a photo of Ilan Halimi, the French Jew who was brutally tortured to death by a Muslim gang? The effect is that the pamphlet

becomes an anti-polemic. April wants us to feel the shock and horror these images inspire, and then think about what lies beyond our visceral reactions. One of the major themes of her pamphlet is the building of empathy and coalitions.

This means being able to acknowledge the horror inflicted upon Palestinians while being able to acknowledge the complexities of life in Israel and the choices faced by Israelis as well as the continuing anti-Semitism felt by Jews around the world.

The pamphlet gives progressive Jewish activists a way to talk about anti-Semitism today. It’s easy to say that Jews are no longer persecuted, she notes — if one buys into the idea that all American Jews are well off and secure. But not all American Jews are well off or secure, and more importantly, not all Jews are American.

Many of the photos in the pamphlet are from Argentina, where April went during her year of research, to find out more about contemporary anti-Semitism. Her exploration of the reality and brutality of contemporary anti-Semitism gives the lie to the idea that Jews are free from persecution and protected by power. April also analyzes the many ways Jews have traditionally been used by those in power to misdirect the anger of the exploited. She documents how the ancient tropes and conventions born of these complex relationships survive today. To fight the use of these tropes,

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we have to know where they come from and how they’ve been used before.

Her pictures capture real-life anti-Semitism in America: the anti-war signs that link Palestine, Iraq and neocons; the anti-war graffiti with a devil in a swastika armband below the words, ‘No War for Israel.’ Such versions of anti-Semitism, if unchallenged, drive a wedge between Jewish and non-Jewish activists and drive Jewish activists away from inportant social justice work because they are scared or fed up. April links the historical purpose of the tsarist “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” — to strike at the growing revolutionary movement by breeding suspicion of Jewish revolutionaries — with our government’s COINTELPRO. As April says, the past didn’t go anywhere. Jews still have to fight a twopronged battle, against injustice and against disinformation and prejudice planted by the enemies of social change.

Today this means having a thorough grasp on the uses and abuses of anti-Zionism, which April covers quite well.

She even includes a chart that compares neutral criticisms

of Israeli policy to unintentionally anti-Semitic reiterations by activists — and, further, to intentionally anti-Semitic versions of the same statements.

Jewish liberation, April clearly knows, is tied up with the liberation of our neighbors. For people on the left to lose each other as allies, whether due to fear, prejudice, or disinformation, is to stack the decks against progress.

Jewish Currents

The Peacemaker

Solomon Chigrinsky

“When I say I’m optimistic we can get a deal done, I mean what I’m saying.”

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