Newspaper Page Text
Page Four
Friday, Jan. 5, 1M2
A Weekly Newspaper Loses
In the Rhythm of Time
Many readers must have been puzzled by the
fact that on the morning on which they received
last week’s issue of The Jewish News they were
deprived of news in our columns of the final word
on Adolf Eichmann’s fate from the three-judge
lower Israeli court. But they did find them in the
morning newspaper on the day our paper was de
livered.
The reason for it is, of course, obvious. This is
a weekly newspaper that goes into the mails on
Thursday evening, for Friday morning delivery,
and the sentence was not pronounced until Fri
day morning. That was Jerusalem time, allowing
the Free Press leeway to publish the latest cabled
reports on Friday morning.
Such are the disadvantages of a weekly news
paper. Only once was a confrere of ours taken
into consideration by a government in a matter
involving great international news. When the Bal
four Declaration was to be issued in October of
1917, the announcement was deferred for a week
to conform with the Nov. 2, 1917, publication date
of the London Jewish Chronicle. It was a great
tribute by the British Empire to the only Jewish
\\eekly periodical then published in English for
British Jewry.
Would that even the routine organizational ac
tivities of American Jewry could be timed ac
cordingly as a matter of respect to the most im
portant- of our people’s organs for the dissemina
tion of news and for the cementing of kinship
among the Jewries of the world—the community’s
English-Jewish newspaper! It’ll probably take time
for community leadership to recognize this obli
gation to the only instrument that keeps their
causes and movements alive—their weekly news
paper.
In the instance of the sentencing of Eichmann,
it was unavoidable that we should have been
“scooped.” A court does not wait for anyone: it
acts in appropriate time.
Yet, the nature of time lends itself to some
moralizing. The poet Delmore Schwartz once
wrote:
“Time is the school in which we learn,
Time is the fire in which we burn ”
But in Apocrypha II Baruch, in Jewish evalua
tion of time, we read:
“With the Most High account is not taken
of much time or of a few years. What did it
profit Adam that he lived 930 years, and
transgressed? Or wherein did Moses lose by
living only 120 years, and lit a lamp for the
nation of Israel?”
Therefore Simeon Frug, the Russian -Uebrew-
Yiddish poet (1860-1916) could state:
"A day passes creeping,
A year, as on wings,”
and the Psalmist (90:4) admonished us: “A thous
and years in Thy sight are but as yesterday when
it is past, and as a watch iij the night.”
—PHILIP SLOMOVITZ
The Detroit Jewish News
On Hostility to Jews
Opinion surveys are used to measure the rela
tion between anti-Semitib utterances and such
factors as education, economic status and age. For
many years the findings have shown, by and large,
that more old people than young ones and more
women than men voice hostility to Jews. They
also have shown that the more education people
have and, up to a certain point, the more money
they make, the less they express anti-Semitism.
When we examine these correlations, education
appears to be the common factor. Poorer people,
older people and women frequently are less edu
cated than richer people, younger people and men
But why this is so, why prejudice in our society
apparently decreases as education increases, is not
clear. This correlation has not always and every
where held true. Thus, in the Germany of the
Kaisers (1871-1918), according to most observers,
the more educated elements were the more anti-
Semitic. One possible explanation is that the more
education Americans have, the more contact they
have with the American creed, which cannot be
reconciled with racial or religious discrimination.
Does this mean that education has little or no
effect on anti-Semitic feelings, but merely teaches
people that it is improper to express them? Per
haps; but it is not easy to believe that large num
bers of people will go on saying one thing and
believing another for long. In the American en
vironment, education may have deeper effects
than some of us may think. Besides making peo
ple more cautious about speaking their minds to
strangers with questionnaires, it conceivably does
change some people's views about Jews . . .
“Science IBooks at Anti-Semitism,” from
American Jewish Committee Pamphlet
THE SOUTHERN ISRAELITE
The Southern Israelite
and THE SUNCOAST JEWISH NEWS
Published weekly by Southern Newspaper Enterprises, 390 Court-
land St, N.E^ Atlanta 3, Georgia, TR. 6-8249, TR. 6-8240. Second
cUas postage paid at Atlanta, Ga. Yearly subscription five dollars.
The Southern Israelite invites literary contributions and correspond
enee but is not to be considered as sharing the views expressed by
writers. DEADLINE is 5 P.M., FRIDAY i but material received earlier
will have a much better chance of publication.
Adolph Rosenberg, Editor and Publisher
fiustav Oppenheimer, Sylvia Kletzky,
Kathleen Nease, Jeanne Loeb, Ruth Kahn
JOURNALISTIC AFFILIATIONS
NATIONAL editorial
cjgy l 4S W't N
*MJIIU!«WVLU.t
AMERICAN JEWISH PRESS ASSN
JEWISH TELEGRAPHIC AGENCY
SEVEN ARTS FEATURES
GEORGIA PRESS ASSOCIATION
It Is The Real Thing!
By SAUL E. WHITE
Rabbi, Cong. Beth Sholom, San Franciso, Calif.
We have been increasingly concerned by reports of a rising tide
of repressive and discriminatory practices against the Jews of the
SovieJ/Union. We were loathe to brand it as anti-Semitism.
^ Various explanations have been offered as to why a govern
ment which in its basic ideology condemns anti-Semitism and its
early years made its practice a crime against the State—should in
the days of Stalin and now Khrushcj*ev—traffic with it and at times
openly support it.
It has been suggested that when Mrs. Golda Meir, the first
Ambassador of Israel to the Soviet Union—attended High Holiday
services at the Moscow Synagogue, thousands of Jews gathered to
get a glimpse of her and manifested a keen interest in the State of
Israel. Soviet leaders who in their doctrinate approach towards their
national and religious minorities, believed that the revolutionary
time table called for the liquidations of Jewish group life through
complete assimilation, were rudely awakened to the fact that Jews
were not behaving according to the Marx-Lenin doctrine and con
tinued to harbor feelings of sympathy and interest for fellow ^ews
and especially Israel.
In vain were the liquidation of Jewish schools, seminaries, news
papers—the exile and murder of hundreds of Jewish journalists,
poets, novelists, historians—Jews still were concerned with the per
petuation of some group existence both in the Soviet Union and
the world^at large. In the various trials that took place during the
last days of Stalin, Jewish leaders were first accused of the crime
of cosmopolitanism and finally Jewish doctors jf a conspiracy to
destroy the State—by killing its leaders. The “Doctors Plot” should
have served as a clue to the fact that Stalin and the leaders of the
Soviet Union were embracing on a program of classical anti-Semit
ism.
Khrushchev, who embarked on new methods towards socialism,
disassociated himself from so much of that brutality and evil of the
Stalin regime, but he remained loyal to the Communist doctrine
that Jews as a cultural or religious group in the Soviet Union must
disappear.
We were permitted a glimpse as to what happened to hundreds’
of. Jewish intellectuals behind the Iron Curtain—they were liqui
dated. To all requests from the outside world that Jews be per
mitted some cultural life of their own, the answer, was given that
they do not wish for a literature, a theatre, fiewspapers or school
since they have become completely Russianized. That this was not
true was dramatically manifested in the recent census, conducted by
the government, when 500,000 Jews went on record as using Yiddish
as their language at home.
A minor concession was recently granted permitting the ap
pearance of a Yiddish monthly but limited in circulation, and most
ly for export. The latest reports of the arrest and conviction of Jew
ish leaders from Leningrad, Georgia and other communities on the
charge of currency manipulation and in the manner it was reported,
forces us to conclude that the Soviet leaders are using all the clap
trap of vicious anti-Semitism to discredit and demoralize its Jewish
citizenry. Anti-Semitism has always thriven on a mystique—that
Jews harbor a conspiracy to destroy the Christian world and society
at large, and do so by manipulating the sinews of government, the
press, the currency, the arts, etc.
The reports from the Soviet Union indicate the use of all of the
weird symbols of classical anti-Semitism. A Jewish leader, 52 years
old, accused of currency manipulation hints that he cannot write
his name to the statement of indictment because it is a special day
for him (the Sabbath). The money he was to send out from the
‘country is discovered in a Torah book, or a Talmud. There you have
it hair-raising stuff—spine tingling frightfulness.
’ I say nonsense. It is inconceivable that a Jew in the Soviet
Union forty odd years after the Communist revolution, and faced
wi'li the death penalty should make an issue of writing his name
on the Sabbath. In a country where Hebrew books are almost ex
tinct he should conveniently hide his crime in a Torah or Talmud.
Besides, how relevant is all this to the so-called crime of currency
smuggling. But if the government wants to embrace anti-Semitism
as a policy, the Sabbath and the Torah are necessary ingredients,
m any indictment of wrong doing by a Jew. Anti-Semitism in its
classical, ugly, destructive and murderous form has made its ap
pearance in Russia and with the blessing of its government leaders.
It is the real thing!
JEWISH
CALENDAR
•PIJRIM
•YOM KIPPUR
Wednesday. March 20, 1962
Tuesday, Oct 8, 1962
•PASSOVER
•SUKKOT
Thursday. April 19, 1962
\ Saturday, Oct 13, 1962
•SHAVUOT
•SIMHAT TORAH
Friday, June 8, 1962
Sunday, Oct 21, 1962
•ROSH HASHONAH
•Holiday begins
Saturday, Sept 29, 1962
preceding evenings
Mordecai Kaplan Asks: Escaping
Judaism—Sin or Neurosis?
From Intermountain Jewish News,
Denver, Colo.
In The Reconstructionist magazine which he
founded, Dr. Mordecai M Kaplan examines the
question of the loss of the Jewish consciousness
among today’s Jews He equates sin with neu
rosis, in that the definition of both is “that hu
man experience which results from mans failure
to live up to what makes for his maximum self-
fulfillment;” and he proposes that Yom Kippur
tie thought of as a day to help us get rid of neu
rosis. Our unconscious wish to escape from Juda
ism, and the ties and responsibilities that it en
tails, robs us, he says, of happiness and peace of
mind.
Depersonalized As Jews
Dr. Kaplan feels that the danger of becoming
depersonalized as Jews is altogether too imminent
A gradual loss of Jewish consciousness has .been
noted even in Israel; and the Government, through
its Ministry of Education, is trying to check this
through the teaching of subject matter that deals
with specific religious practices of Jewish life
The founder of the Reconstructionist movement
warns, however, that Jewish consciousness is not
merely the knowledge and practice of certain
rituals. It is “active awareness of the ancient prin
ciple ’All Jews are responsible for one another’
(share the same fate);” and “that common fate
begets the moral duty to maintain a sense of con
tinuity with the past of the Jewish people and an
active co-operation among all Jews.” For our Jew
ish consciousness, or conscience, to function open
ly and healthily, we need mental therapy com
prising confession and catharis, the latter through
re-education and transformation.
Suggest Confession
The Jewish Theological Seminary professor
writes that our confession should acknowledge
that (1) we are ignorant of our tradition;
(2) Our tradition needs to be made relevant to
our current moral and spiritual needs;
(3) Ceremonies and membership in Jewish
organizations are not the equivalent of life-long
Jewish study and activity;
(4) We condone the self-alienation of Jews in
the upper brackets of wealth and political power,
and m literary, artistic, and scientific achieve
ment
(5) Our social and philanthropic service con
tains little of value from the standpoint of Jewish
creative survival;
(6) We combat anti-Semitism not only because^
it interferes with the freedom to live as Jews,™
but also, if not mainly, because it interferes with
the freedom to pass off as Gentiles;
(7) Our interest in the State of Israel is more as
a refuge for thousands of homeless Jews than as
a means of reconstituting the Jewish people;
(8) We associate whatever Israel achieves in the
way of a better life with non-Jewish ethical and
social idealism, and whatever is a source of strife
and scandal with religious zeal.
(9) In America our Congregationalism stands
in the way of organic Jewish community life,
leads to decisive policies and interests, and defeats
the purpose of fostering Jewish consciousness.
Need Re-education
The re-education calls for repudiating individual
ism and accepting Jewish collective consciousn-
ness. This means a return to Jewish tradition, with
its authoritarianism and uniform way of life-
something against which the present-day Jew's
conscious rebels, in a struggle with the unconscious.
To resolve this conflict and rid himself of his
neurosis, the modern Jew must re-educate him
self in his understanding of the Jewish tradition
and threby experience its continuity and the unity
of the Jewish people.
Such re-education inquiries more than the
token type of adult Jewish education so common
m America today. Its success will be determined
by the extent to which a tranformation of the
Jew's character and entire personality will have
been achieved, one of the visible effects of which
should be an active concern m eliminating all
those manifestations of Jewish life that are a mat
ter for confession and regret.
No. 1 Social Problem
The Family Service Association of America re
vealed that family breakdown was not “America’s
No. 1 social problem.” The Association lists these
results of present stresses: 1. A tripling of the rate
of illegitimacy in the last two decades. 2. A delin
quency rate tripled since 1940. 3. A divorce rate
of one in four new marriages, and 4. An annual ad
mission rate to mental hospitals of more than 200,-
000 persons. “Behind these statistics are not only
individuals but whole groups of people — families
which are blighted. And these social ills are but
a small part of the syndrome that constitutes the
over-all, debilitating disease we call family break
down,” Family Service ^Highlights — the Associa
tion's official journal — observed.
The New York Times