Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

Page 16 The Southern Israelite $ 89 is the net price of this New FulhAutomatic Westinghouse Electric Range $5 down, $3.50 a month Featuring lower prices and important improvements, our Spring Sale of Westinghouse Electric Ranges stands out as the most noteworthy offer we have ever been able to make to our customers! New beauty and new speed with the new Quick - Cook units are combined in this fa mous Westinghouse Full-Au tomatic Electric Range. The special sale price of the Mo lei C-43 (illustrated above) is $109. With an allowance of $20.00 for your old cook- stove, its net cost to you is $89! Select your Electric Range before this sale ends on April 25th! Georgia POWER HsjR COMEANY A CITIZEN WHEREVER WE SERVE Reform Judaism and IF'hat It Means A friend, who is a nominal member of the Synagogue, recently asked me why the Rabbis of the Reform Synagogs cannot come to terms with the ortho dox community. He referred to a num ber of sermons in which certain Re form Rabbis expressed their approval of nationalistic Zionist policies. My reply was that in twenty-five years, I had not heard of any Reform Rabbis attacking or criticizing the beliefs or practices of our orthodox brethren. These things had ceased to be contro versial issues for a generation or long er ; some Reform Congregations had re-adopted customs and rituals which an older generation had discarded, and and some conservative and orthodox congregations had introduced such Re form innovations as the organ, and family pews, late Friday evening Serv ices, and even one Sunday morning Service. Zionism, however, if it be spiritually interpreted, was essentially an economic and political policy, which found adherents and antagonists among both factions. When occasionally con troversy occured, it had been by ob servation that it arose from an attack on Reform. Recently, these attacks have issued, not from the orthodox ranks, but from that section of Jewry which, for want of a better term, has been called the Intellegenzia. The latest of these is from the Edi tor of the Menorah Journal. In the October number of that Journal, which has never been friendly to the Re form Movement, we find an article, "Chaos or Creation”, in which the Edi tor attempts to prove that the theory of Reform has been mainly instru mental in the breakdown or chaos of our Jewish communal life. Let it be noted at the outset that the article is no vulgar "attack”, in the journalistic sense of the word. With considerable urbanity, a show of fairness and sym pathy, the author traces the Jewish debacle to the influence of what mod ern Jewish writers like to call Reform “Ideology". What, indeed, the author lacks in historical knowledge and logi cal power, he compensates by his tol erance and warm-heartedness, as wit ness the following quotations: "The adherents of Reform are infinitely bet ter than their theories. Their theories may be Govish but their hearts are Jewish". And again: "I believe that it would be difficult to find men of higher character, of more genuine piety and public spirit, of broader-handed generosity, than count less ‘German Jews’ of the older, and happily, still living generations in America." One ought, of course, to be grateful for these eulogies, but I can’t suppress a queasy recollection of speeches to Jewish audiences by Christian politicians that ended with the immortal phrase, "some of my best friends are Jews.” Timeo Danaos et dona forentos. All these fair-seeming phrases lead to what was intended as a devastating critique of Reform Judaism as a tanschauung. The argument may be summarized as follows: Social and religious forces in the Jewish com munity have reached an impasse Philanthropy, Zionism and Reform Judaism have failed in solving their respective problems. The main cause goes back to "Jewish Emancipation in Western Europe, that is, to the 1-rcnch Revolution and Napoleon, and to the German constitution of 1848.” Con sequently, "a breach was made in the yvorld-community of Israel which was the basic fact of Jewish history ever since the Dispersion." "Reform”, con tends the author, "did not arise out of an inner evolution of Judaism itself, but was formulated in answer to pres sure from without.” "Reform was an attempt to pour the rich old Jewish wine into a narrow Christian bottle." "Reform was a movement of assimila tion in the sense that it adopted the notions of Christian Reformation as regards State and Church." “Essenti- ally, therefore, in Religion itself, also, the Reform Jew assimilated to the Christian by accepting his theory of religion as but one interest in life, instead of religion’s interpenetration and governance of the whole of life, as in the Jewish tradition.” As a consequence of this assimilation, Jewish temples are empty, Rabbis have become ministers, and the laity (Re form, of course) found a compensatory outlet in philanthropy. "The budgets of our Federation of Jewish Charities mount, while Jewish education starves and Jewish learning and culture gasp for life." The solution of these pro blems is reserved for another article by the author, but one can infer that since the dominant cause is the theory of Reform Judaism, that we are Jews only by religion (sic), the remedy is for Reform to repudiate that vicious doctrine to embrace the “historical con ception of Judaism", to believe in the ideals of Zionism, and to foster He brew Education. The article contains a good bit ot pointed and valuable criticism. I ^ n< * myself in hearty accord with the author when he points out that “criticism of Jewish leaders—have been regarded as a kind of lese majeste, precisely as in any dictatorial regime." “Boards Charities and Relief Committees nave long considered themselves immune from criticism of their acts." “Ami now even discussion of larger principle?- an ideals of Jewish life was to be sti 1L d on the surface at least—by the so- ed union of Zionists and non-Zior We should welcome vigorous, tempered criticisms, both of ' and movements, as necessary co ^ tives. We welcome also his strong pR intenser application to the pro ?>