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THE SOUTHBBN ISRAELITE
Friday, January 28, 1066
Youth in the Jewish Community
EDITOK’8 NOTE: Thia fa the first of a six-week series in which
outstanding Jewish college students and young adults will
describe their views about Jewish life in the United States. They
prepared papers for a symposium entitled, “Youth Looks at the
Jewish Community,” presented at the recent General Assembly
of the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds in
Montreal The first article fa by Neil Kominsky of Oceanside,
N.Y., a student at Harvard College.
by NEIL KOMINSKY
Discussions of the state of
Jewish youth have been very
much in vogue lately. This
reflects, I believe, a growing
concern on the part of the older
generation with the apparent
alienation from Judaism of a
sizable portion of today’s youth.
It should be understood that I
write from the point of view of a
college student who is committed
to Judaism to the extent of pre
paring for the rabbinate but who
is, nevertheless, a member of a
generation that is far from happy
with the Jewish milieu in which
it has grown up.
WELLSPRINGS OF
ALIENATION
One of the greatest problems
we face is the disastrous state of
Jewish education. Formal Jewish
education usually ends between
the ages of thirteen and fifteen.
The inevitable result is that
the intelligent college student,
whose intellectually competent
mind is accustomed to dealing
with philosophy and science at a
mature level, turns to look at his
religious ideas and discovers
how helplessly juvenile they are.
His education has not fitted his
religious concepts to grow with
the rest of him, no one has ever
told him that growth and flexi
bility are possible in the area of
religion. His religious vocabulary
does not include contemporary
Jewish philosophy, it seldom in
cludes any Jewish philosophy.
Instead, the college student
who can speak the language of
Plato, Dostoevsky and Einstein
finds his Jewish vocabulary made
up of boiled down Bible stories
and half-remembered justifica
tions for ritual practices.
There is no depth, no flexibil
ity, no relevance. Is it any
wonder that Jewish religious be
lief is laid aside with the other
toys of childhood?
Another major cause of the
alienation of Jewish youth is the
failure of our homes and insti
tutions to communicate the rel
evance of Jewish values.
In individual religious life,
proper observance of ritual too
often become the sole measure of
piety, excluding concern for one’s
responsibility to God and man.
At a time when Jewish values
are too often ignored in practice,
there is a certain polarizing ef
fect on Jewish youth. Idealistic
individuals often react with re
vulsion, rejecting all that is Jew
ish as vulgar and materialistic,
and involving themselves in
secular causes. We see many of
these alienated Jews in the fore
front of campus social service
activities: the civil rights move
ment, various peace groups, anti
poverty action groups, etc.
Another factor, of course, in
the alienation of Jewish youth
from the religion and the com
munity, is adolescent rebellion.
It is normal for the adolescent
to reject the values and ideas of
his parents at this stage of his
development as a means of as
serting his own individuality.
The picture, however, is not all
black. Judaism is far from desti
tute of support in the younger
generation. There remain factors
which draw the young American
Jew toward his religion, encour
aging him to confirm his identity
and commit his energies within
a Jewish framework. There are
many who have discovered the
depth and richness of Judaism
and who have sought higher edu
cation in Jewish subjects to
match their education in other
areas.
BETTER COMMUNICATION
There is much room, however,
for improvement in the com
munity’s approach to Jewish
youth. The gap between genera
tions causes real problems in
meaningful programming. Many
people at the planning level of
community organizations operate
on the information and assump
tions that held true twenty to
thirty years ago.
These people tend to envision
the major problem in Jewish
identity as that of people who
are “ashamed” to be Jewish, who
are actively fleeing their Jewish
identities. Recent studies have
shown that this is no longer the
case. Few of today’s Jews change
their names or hide behind a
facade of super-Americanization.
The problem today is with
people who are not afraid of
Judaism, but find it insignificant
and irrelevant. People who as
sume that this reaction is due to
the same old fear of anti-Semi
tism or a desire to escape, seri
ously misunderstand t o d a y’s
youth and fail to communicate
effectively with them.
Youth today is not a part of the
American Jewish community.
Generally speaking, the voice of
youth carries no weight there.
I suggest that youthful view
points may offer a perspective
which the community leader
would not otherwise gain, par
ticularly in planning programs
for youth.
A final, very serious problem
afflicts the Jewish community’s
approach to youth. This is the
failure of the community to
provide outlets for the energies
and ideals of Jewish young peo
ple. Values founded deep in the
Jewish tradition provide Jewish
youth with a highly developed
social conscience. The Jewish
community has been delinquent
in not offering to Jewish youth
the sort of service programs
which enable young people to
give of their time and their
talents. This means not only in an
occasional summer service pro-
THL SOUTHERN ISRAELITE
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NATIONAL EDITORIAL
cSQ I* j # >c 6 ,, 5 n
" MllltEMMiaJU
7 Aria Features
Jewish
Telegraphic
Agency
World Press
gram or a year in Israel, but in
week-to-week and mont h-to-
month spare time service right in
their own communities.
Let us provide our youth with
opportunities to serve under
Jewish organizational sponsor
ship in settlement houses, hos
pitals, homes for the aged, and
children’s institutions. Let us use
our qualified youth as auxiliaries
JEWISH
CALENDAR
HAMISHAH
ASSAR BISHEVAT
(Jewish Arbor Day)
February 5, Saturday
FAST OF ESTHER
March 3, Thursday
•PURIM
March 6, Sunday
PASSOVER
First Day,
April 5, Tuesday
Eighth Day,
April 12, Tuesday
LAG B’OMER
May 8, Sunday
•SHAVUOT
May 25-26, Wednesday
and Thursday
FAST OF TUMMUZ
July 5, Tuesday
TISHAH B’AV
July 26, Tuesday
•ROSH HASHONAH
September 15-16,
Thursday and Friday
•YOM KIPPUR
September 24. Saturday
•HOLIDAY BEGINS
SUNDOWN PREVIOUS DAY
in our beleaguered educational
institutions.
We must make clear to our
young people that Judaism is no
museum piece, that values lead
to actions. There is no level of
our community organizations and
institutions at which we will not
find young volunteers ready,
willing and able to contribute of
themselves for the benefit of the
community. Youth is not afraid
to roll up its sleeves and get its
hands dirty in a good cause.
In the field of education, I
believe our Jewish communities
can perform a great service by
sponsoring programs of mature
intellectual content which do not
talk down to their audiences, but
provide honest statements of in
telligent Jewish positions which
will be challenging to Jewish
youth.
By providing a clear-cut, in
telligent collection of values and
beliefs to our young people and
by placing this within the con
text of a Jewish community
which provides outlets for these
values in opportunities for direct,
meaningful service, we can bring
home the relevance of the Jew
ish religion to today’s youth.
The complete set of 12 una
bridged symposium work in g
papers '‘Youth Looks at the Jew
ish Community,” can be obtain
ed for $2.00 from the Council of
Jewish Federations and Welfare
Funds, 729 Seventh Avenue,
New York, N. Y. 10019.
— Augusta News —
Mr. and Mrs. Jerry Bogo and
son Louis Michael of Chattanoo
ga are visiting Mr. Bogo’s par
ents, Mr. and Mrs. Max Bogo and
family.
* • • •
Mrs. Sara Vretsky of New York
City is visiting her daughter and
son-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. Gerald
Daniel and children.
* * • •
Dr. and Mrs. Sherman Master
of Richmond, Va., announce the
birth of a son. Mrs. Master is the
former Shirley Shapiro, the
daughter of Mrs. M. J. Arenstein
and the granddaughter of Mrs.
Louis Shapiro.
» • • •
The Augusta chapters of AZA
and BBG will hold their Sweet
heart-Beau Dance on Febhiary 2.
Miss Susan Bolgla will be hos
tess at a party preceding the
dance.
Mrs. Max Goodrich of Tampa
is visiting her sister, Mrs. Louis
Shapiro.
* • • •
Henry Cohen and Barry Stein
berg were named associate editors
ol the National Council of Syn
agogue Youth Southeast region
newspaper.
• • • •
Augusta Chapter of Hadassah
will hold its donor dinner at 7:30
p. m., Sunday, Feb. 27, at Adas
Yeshuran Syna g o g u e . Mrs.
Charles Weiner of Atlanta, past
regional president and member
of the national Hadassah Board
will be the guest speaker.
• • • •
The Walton Way Temple Sister
hood met recently to hear Rabbi
Sanford Seltzer, director of the
Southeastern Council of the
UAHC, discuss a film of the
UAHC Camp Institute at Cleve
land, Ga.
TALMUDIC TREASURES
Collected and Translated
By JACOB L. FRIEND
(Talmudic Medicine—continued)
Medicine has been an integral and very
important part of Judaism. But as in the case
with so many other sciences known to them,
medical subjects in the Talmud are treated of
or alluded to only where they elucidated a
point in Jewish Law. During those remote
times when the very life, health and destiny
of the inhabitants of the rest of the world
were under the spell and influence of witch
craft, magicians and all kinds of abominable
beliefs and superstitions, Jews were com
manded (Exodus XXII, 17): “You shall not let
a sorceror live.”
In Talmud Jerushalmi vol. Kidushin IV,
we find the following: “They said in the name
of Raw. “It is prohibited to live in a town
which has no physician” and in the Babylonian
Talmud tractate Baba Kama 85a, b, on the
biblical passage: “And he shall cause him to
be completely healed” (Exodus XXI, 19), it is
interpreted to mean “that the physician has
divine permission to heal” and furthermore
“he shall pay the physician’s fee.” And on the
same page appears the viewpoint, highly-
popular to-day: “A physician who charges
nothing is worth nothing”. . . (How about
Medicare?)
Detailed description of the various parts
of the body are given in the Talmud, especially
in the tractate Chulin, which deals with the
fitness of animals for food. Here it is indeed
interesting to note the comment of Rabbi
Chisdai, that the internal muscle in the loin in
all Kosher animals “that chew the cud and
and have cloven hoofs,” has two accessory
muscles whose respective fibres run long
itudinally and transversely, while that of pro
hibited (non-Kosher) animals does not have
these extra muscles.
My father, of blessed memory, who was a
Shochet U-Vodek (ritual slaughterer and
examiner) in the Old Country, once had told
me, that a Jewish Shochet U-Vodek, worthy of
his salt, knows more of the minutest anatom
ical parts of an animal and their diseases,
than any veterinary surgeon. Furthermore,
there are instances where a veterinary sur
geon will pass an animal for human consump
tion where the schochet will declare it as
terefa and not fit for the Jewish table.
(To be continued)
Adolph Rosenberg, Editor and Publisher
Kathleen Nease, Jeanne Loeb, Joseph Redlich
Vida Goldgar, Harry Rose, Betty Meyer, Kathy Wood
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