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T n ■ SOl'THKRN ISRAELITE
Friday, Jaw 5, 1964
OPINION.
• • •
THE SOUTHERN ISRAELITE
end THK St’NCOAST JEWISH NEWS
I lie Jewish Teacher Shortage
Jewish education in the United States
must sometimes seem to be a constellation of
problems, some of them common to all forms
of child education, many unique to the Jew
ish field.
One that the Jewish eommunity shares
with the general society is a painful shortage
of teachers, qualified or unqualified. Despite
the considerable upgrading in recent years in
status, working conditions and salaries for all
types of teachers, the profession seems un
able to meet its teacher needs.
According to the National Council for
Jewish Education, there are currently some
13,000 teachers in Jewish educational institu
tions in this country. About 1,000 new teach
ers are needed each year for new openings
and for replacements. The teacher training
schools of the Jewish community graduate
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TW tnraettre tax it** literary contribution* and correspond
one* lot I* W cMutdcrrd u aharinf the view* expressed by
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Ad.Nph Rixcenberg, Editor and Publisher
N/gLYcu Sense, Jeanne Loeb, Joseph Redlieh
GcMf-ta Presn Association
NATIONAL IDITORIAL
^1 h^ c 6"3 N
Telegraphic
Agency
7 Arts Features
World Prea
Behind UN Scenes—By David Horowitz
each year some 200 new teachers. The Ex
change Visitors program sponsored by the
American Association for Jewish Education
and the Department of Education and Cul
ture of the Jewish Agency brings to these
shores about 200 teachers each year from
Israel. There is thus an annual shortage of
some 600 teachers, which of course is cumu
lative.
This weekend 500 educators are gripping
with this and related problems at the 38th
annual Conference of the National Council.
As Dr. Elazar Goelman, president of the
National Council sees it, this cumulative
shortage of teachers in elementary, secondary
and higher schools alike is a threat to the
very existence of Jewish education in this
country.
Precisely what the Jewish administrators
will be able to do about the problem is not
clear. Its causes are complex and solutions
difficult. At the very least, however it is to
be hoped that the spotlighting of the crip
pling lack of teachers at the Conference will
lead to some kind of mobilization of the vast
resources of the Jewish community to tackle
the shortage in an effective way.
The fact that general education faces an
almost identical problem with not much
more success can be of little comfort. The
shortage is a challenge to the Jewish com
munity which must find means of closing
this gap. The alternative may well be his
tory’s verdict that in this vital area, Ameri
can Jewry suffered a disastrous loss of vitali
ty for continued survival in modern America.
JEWISH NEWS, Springfield, Mass.
A Disappointing Pact
After yars of bargaining sessions, the long-
sought just completed agreement with the
European Common Market is distinctly dis
appointing to Israel. It fails to include con
cessions on oranges, eggs, tires or plywood-
four of Israel’s major export items. Although
it provides a limited range of tariff conces
sions on twenty-five minor industrial pro
ducts, the total effect will be hardly discern
ible in Israel’s trade balance.
Yet it would be wrong to judge the pact
wholly in economic terms. By profernng even
minor concessions to Israel, “Europe’s Big
Six” have made a gesture of sympathetic
friendship and provided a diplomatic rebuff
to the manifold pressures of the Arab League
which, collectively and through its individ
ual members, has warned that any agree
ment with Israel will be regarded as an un
friendly act. Nor is the door closed to further
negotiations. As Israel Foreign Minister Col-
da Meir pointed out, the agreement “is not
what we wanted nor what is due to us, hut
it is only a first agreement and there will
certainly be more.”
JEWISH ADVOCATE. Iwu*
Neo-Nazism
UNITED NATIONS (WUPi— The
official Information Bulletin of the
Gorman Federation Government of
April 28 carries an interesting story
about a visit mg group from Israel.
TTje article deals with a letter
wtiieh was sent to the West German
newspaper “Telegraf” by a member
of the group, Sylvia Yoacy—a kin
dergarten teacher who jubilantly
notes that she had observed “a
great change in Germany,” that
“there has been an obvious turn
ing away from the old concepts."
She further states that only a
few years ago. she would have re
ceived the suggestion that she visit
Germany—the nation “that destroy
ed my life—with indignation. ” But
“now the past is dead.”
The question immediately arises:
is the Nazi past really dead?
The current trials of Nazi crim
inals may sound like a cleansing.
In reality they only confirm the oft-
repeated charge during these past
eighteen post-war years that Ger
man officialdom in both the Fed
eral and provincial governments
was honey-combed with criminal
Nazis. The German government, in
the same official Bulletins, kept on
denying it under Chancellor Aden
auer.
It is true, of course, that his suc
cessor, Chancellor Erhard, has
taken a somewhat different stand.
Recently he warned that he will not
countenance any official discovered
to have been connected with Nazi
crimes. While this may sound grand,
it has many limitations. Most of
these officials happen to be in State
governments where the Born author
ities have no jurisdiction. Also, much
of this change comes strangely at
a time when the Federal Republic
is bidding for more power in NATO,
many of whose members appear
sceptical of a real change in the
German heart
The most serious symptom of the
fingering infection came with the
escape from prison of the convicted
war-criminal Hans Walter Zech-
Nenntwieh, a former SS Lietenant
who has found a safe sanctuary in
Cairo
if we are not careful we shall be
tefiip'od to tx- diverted to Nasser
as Die maun villain in this melo
drama The Ca:ro government may
find it good poht.es to bulid up an
ant j-Israeli German community in
the tradition of the Mufti But the
were and fountain head is Germany
and can never be anything else.
to go into the German kindergar
tens and find—in the innocent faces
of the babes — that “the past is
“dead.” Miss Yoacy wrote for her
self and not for her entire group
Perhaps other members will have
other impressions. At any rate, they
didn’t find it necessary to shower
the Germans with emotional bless
ings of forgiveness.
But Miss Yoacy is only one of many
Jews who have in recent years been
enticed into visiting the Republic
and to witness the divine spectacle
of “redemption.” Rabbis and schol
ars from the United States are now
making this tree an almost must
“hegira” to this sudden “paradise,"
and always with the full public re
lations machinery of the Government
on their heels to enlarge on their
skimpy compliments.
We have no doubt that what they
see is something different from that
which they or their relatives saw
in Auschwitz. But if they saw the
very gates of paradise itself it would
all be quite irrelevant. The common
sense question we must ask our
selves is: can a people so steepel
in the most gruesome crimes in his
tory be expected to affect so sudden
a change? Where is their contrition
—in their demand for nuclear pow
er? In an effective house-cleaning?
In their bid for a military partner
ship which our Defense Secretary
McNamara is now rushing to Bonn
to effect, so that they will have a
great influence in the counsels of our
foreign policy, which they already
have too much 9
It is high time that world Jewry
—at least our own—develop a policy
on thus question so that free-lance
individuals won't run off as "pre
fabricated witnesses" and become
the advertised spokesmen of the en
tire world Jewish community.
Poles LTrge Extension
Of 20-Year Limit to
Prosecution of Nazis
WARSAW (WUP>- Some of Po
land’s outstanding scientists, writers
and authors have called upon their
counterparts in other countries to
campaign for an extension of the
20-year limit Germany and other
European states have set for the
legal prosecution of Nazi war crim
inals. May 8, 1965, will be the 20-
That Dav In May
Ten years is a long time—but not as long
as 3,200 years. Therein lies a comparison. On
May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court handed
down its historic school desegregation deci
sion—and the American social environment
will never be the same again. On Sivan C,
1230 BCE (circa), the Ten Commandments
were handed down at Mt. Sinai. We’ve just
finished celebrating Shavuoth—birth of the
world’s moral law. We know how long it is
taking the world to live up to the Command
ments. We hope that school desgregation pro
gress will continue with “all deliberate
speed,” but we have a visceral feeling that
no traffic cop will be needed to slow down
any breakneck pace. The long view is neces
sary to keep up courage for the long pull
ahead.
JEWISH CHRONICLE, Pittsburgh
It L» true, <4 oxirse, that one
escape does not make a movement
in Parliament — far from being a
lone incident, has all the earmarks
of a well-organized underground
underground move m e n t Zech-
But this particular escape—accord
ing to many questions being raised
in underground movement Zech
Nenntwieh himself admitted that he
owed his freedom to collusion with
other officers One Deputy asked
how the SS man could have secured
a passport that carried him all the
way to Cairo via Switzerland—a ser
ious suggestion of collusion through
consular and diplomatic offices
The Gestapo hero may bo the prod
tut of an Underground, but this
secret Nazi operation was so brazen
as to have carried him out of the
' 'rv in a pri -ate plane — well
“over-ground," we might say.
It is quite useless for Miss Yoacy
year deadline.
In an open letter published in one
of the leading newspapers here, the
Polish intellectuals urged their coun
terparts everywhere to start a global
battle against any general “act of
tolerance" for Nazis accused of war
crimes.
JEWISH CALENDAR
•ROSH HASHONAH
Monday, Sept. 7
Tuesday, Sept 8
•YOM KIPPUR
Wednesday, Sept. 16
•SUCCOTH
Monday, Sept. 21
Tuesday, Sept 22
SIMHAT TORAH
Tuesday, Sept. 29
•HOLIDAY BEGINS
Sundown Previous Day
COMMENT...
Vision of Self-Renewal
In an intriguing article, “Judaism’s Fu
ture in America: Its Worries, Its Hopes,”
the National Observer, published by Dow
Jones and Company, the writer sounds
ominous fear on the part of Jewish leader
ship that the “melting pot will destroy Jew
ish identity.”
Assimilation and inter-marriage—current
ly the favorite theme for pulpit and lecture
platform by rabbis and lay leaders—creates
a communicative subject for general discus
sion. The spokesmen who are quoted in the
evaluation of Judaism’s reported diminish
ing stature as a religious community, voice
personal opinions, of course; withal, posi
tion and authority, give to what they say
the quality of experience and fact.
Evading the issue, perhaps, a significant
comment by Rabbi Maurice Eisendrath ap
pears in the treatise. “Jewish life in this
country,” says the president of the Union of
American Hebrew Congregations, “cannot
survive the jungle of organizational compe
tition for credit and publicity, the jockeying
for power, the babel of voices drowning each
other out, and the inexcusable waste of
needed resources in arrant duplication of
programs.”
The eminent rabbi—heard, now and then,
as the voice of Judaism—pinpoints the major
trouble in Jewish life. Leadership, whether
vested in a Board of Presidents or in indi
viduals holding stubbornly to their “freedom
of opinion and speech, must concern itself—
primarily—with the structure of their com
mon faith and the recreation of the Mosaic
spirit in their way of living.
We indulge in what may be termed
“optimistic pessimism” . . . sensing the re
jection of long-accepted values as foreign to
a constantly-evolving—and changing—social
pattern. We rejoice, on the other hand, as
we observe the eagerness of youth—to learn
and preserve as treasured gift that which is
prized as heritage and links the modern
world to the prophets and sages who chal
lenged man to speak the truth—and feel it
—in his heart.
In sound analysis—the concept of Juda
ism has conquered all the tragic visitations
of the ages . . . and ever blossomed anew.
We should not blur the vision of self-renewal
—today or in the seemingly uncertain to
morrows.
Jacques Back, Editor Jewish Observer, Nashville
Talmudic Treasures
COLLECTED AND TRANSLATED BY
JACOB L. FRIEND
One who does not marry before the age
of twenty icill spend the rest of his life
either in sin or in contemplating committing
sin.
Whoever is not well-versed in Scripture
and Mishnah is considered uncivilized, and
is disqualified as a witness. He who eats in
the street is likewise disqualified.
Discreet silence is a sign of distinguished
birth.
Bad habits come to those whose occupa
tions put them in contact with women—such
as: goldsmith,s dyers, pressers, and cleaners
of women’s garments, hand-mill cleaners,
peddlers, weavers, barbers, launderers, phle-
botomists (those who practice bleeding),
masseurs and tanners.
It is forbidden to raise a dangerous dog
or keep a defective ladder.
Thorns and broken glass should not be
thrown away indiscriminately, but should be
buried at least three spans below the surafee
of the ground.
Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa was as modest
as he was pious and gifted. When events
turned out the way he had predicted, he at
tributed this to faith alone, insisting, ‘‘I am
neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet."
One should not raise a dog unless it is
kept on a chain, but it is permitted in a
frontier town if the animal is chained dur
ing the daytime and left unchained only at
night.
Stealing a single Perutah (about half a
cent) is just as shameful as any other theft.
The adequacy of a contribution depends
on the standard of living. Rabbina, who was
a treasurer of charity, once accepted golden
rings and chains from the women of Mechu-
za. When reminded that there is a law which
states that charity collectors may accept only
small donations from women without their
husbands’ knowledge, he replied: ‘‘For the
people of Mechuza, this is considered a small
donation.’’