Newspaper Page Text
Yac* Sts
TUI BOUIHIIN ISRAELITE
Friday, September 15, 1967
Between Hammer and Sickle
By BEN AMI
Excerpted from the book in
cooperation with the Jewish
Publication Society, Phila
delphia. Copies now avail
able from your favorite book
store or from the JPS at |6
a copy.
THE STORY OF SHECHTER
The fourth stick wielded against
the Jewish faith is directed at
“the barbaric ceremonials and
rituals of the reactionary Jewish
religion,” particularly circumcis
ion. The war waged against cir
cumcision is subtle and somewhat
complex. It does not call for a
flourish of feature articles and
news items in the papers, possi
bly because the subject touches
upon sex, which is not publicly
discussed in pseudo-Victorian So
viet society. Nevertheless, in the
atheistic booklets which attack
the Jewish religion, the
readers are informed about
circumcision and are told that it
is “rooted in the rites of savage
and primitive tribes.” But the
main battle against circumcision
is more indirect. The campaign is
waged not only against the ritual
itself but also against those who
carry it out.
This is the way it is done.
When a Jew, usually aged, is
oaught performing a circumcis
ion, he is asked: Comrade, is it
true that on such and such a
date, at this and that place, you
performed a surgical operation on
an eight-day-old Soviet citizen,
whose name is so-and-so? When
this is admitted, the interroga
tion continues: And where is
your surgical diploma? Where
did you study medicine? Who
licensed you to perform surgical
operations on people? If the cir-
cumci3er claims that this surgery
has been his occupation for dec
ades, they will tell him, in no
uncertain terms, that he is break
ing Soviet law and that if he is
oaught at it again, he will be ar
rested and convicted of a serious
crime.
At certain times, the govern
ment uses the matter of circum
cision as a spearpoint to strike
at the whole crumbling structure
of the Jewish religion. A typical
instance of this is what happen
ed to Shechter, the circumciser of
Chernovtsy.
In Chernovtsy (capital of Bu-
kovina, which was once part
of Rumania, and was annexed
after the war to the Soviet Uk
raine) there are today about
seventy thousand Jews, com
prising approximately half of the
city’s population. The Jewish
community of Chernovtsy was
once famous for its flourishing
religious and secular institutions,
but at the time of the Shechter
incident in 1959, only two small
synagogues remained; the others
had been closed by the Lvov
technique, the latest occurrence
Whatever The Occasion
OHEgiFTTttNTKY
(Fifth Installment)
having taken place in 1962.
A young Jewish oouple was
blessed with a male child. The
parents, like most local Jews, had
been reared in the Jewish tradi
tion and wanted their son to be
circumcised. (No one, of course
thought of making it the festive
occasion it traditionally is, a most
inadvisable idea.) They turned to
Shechter, one of those who
clandestinely performed such
ceremonies in the community. He
came and circumcised the baby.
Some days later, the mother was
frightened when the baby bled.
The father tried to locate Shech
ter, but he was not in town that
day, having gone somewhere else
to perform another circumcision.
The panicky parents called an
ambulance to take the child to a
clinic. He was treated by a
young Jewish doctor, who band
aged the wound and calmed the
parents. He said it was nothing
serious. They took the baby home
and the whole incident would
have been forgotten had it not
been for the non-Jewish ambul
ance driver, who reported the in
cident to the authorities.
The authorities decided to deal
seriously with the matter. They
arrested the father, and, through
him, found out about Shechter.
He did not deny having perform
ed the ceremony and was arrest
ed. Two months later, posters
were put up in the town inviting
the public to come to the Phil
harmonic Hall in Chernovtsy for
an “evening of Jewish culture”
connected with some atheistic ac
tivity. Few of those present were
able to guess what kind of “Jew
ish culture” they would witness.
The Jewish public, avid for any
thing having to do with Judaism,
hoped that, following the stereo
typed lecture on atheism, they
would be treated to some Yid
dish songs or a reading from
Sholem Aleichem.
Instead, there appeared on the
stage all those involved in the
Shechter incident. First, the
father told the audience that
under the influence of tradition
he had plaoed the baby in the
hands of the circumciser; that
after the barbaric ritual had been
performed under unspeakably
unsanitary conditions, the cut had
bled again; and that thanks to
the achievements of modern
medicine in the Soviet hospital,
the child’s life was saved. The
father told the audience that this
had cured him for good. He ap
preciated now what a mistake he
had made and said that he would
never repeat it. Then came the
Jewish doctor who told his ver
sion of the story. He explained
how dreadful the incident was
from a medical point of view,
how it negated the achievements
of Soviet science, and violated
the most elementary principles of
sanitation and hygiene. Then
Shechter, the “star of the show,”
appeared on the scene, a broken
man.
He told the people that he had
performed these barbaric rites
for decades, that this was his
livelihood and he could do no
other constructive work. How
ever, he did not appreciate until
this incident how vile his pro
fession had been. But now, after
it had all been explained to him,
he was convinced that the op
erations he had performed on
these babies were not only illicit
but also opposed to advanced
Soviet medicine. He promised the
assembled audience that he
would never again go back to this
occupation and he appealed to all
the young parents present not be
led astray by primitive religious
symbolism and not to place their
children in the polluted hands
of circumcisers.
Finally, to inject a bit of vari
ety into this “evening of Jewish
culture” the organizers introduc
ed a pair of “expatriates” from
Israel (the authorities hold In
readiness “local color teams” of
Israeli “expatriates” who speak
occasionally oiler the radio, tele
vision, or at lectures, to tell “the
whole truth abVit Israel”). They
related that tnty had lived a
year in Israel and recounted the
“facts of life” there. They talked
about the terrible heat, the deb
ilitating unemployment, the life
of fearful exploitation in the
kibbutz, the rule of reactionary
rabbis, about the country being
one vast armed camp, and so on.
This ended the “evening of Jew
ish culture.* One can imagine
how the hundreds of Jews felt
as they filed out of the hall.
But that was not enough. The
authorities felt that the wider
Jewish public as well as the non-
Jewish Bukovinian Ukrainians
with their centuries-old known
tradition of anti-Semitism, should
share equally in the benefits of
the “evening of Jewish culture.”
The full story of the Shechter
incident appeared in the Cher
novtsy Radian skaia Bukovina,
complete with pictures of the
father, the doctor and Shechter.
This is what happened in the
Chernovtsy community, where
the Jewish population has been
cut off from its traditional moor
ings only since the end of the
Second World War. But among
the Jew3 living in the heart of
the Soviet Union, who have been
divorced from their past for three
generations, there are very few
circumcisers left, and it is no
surprise that large numbers of
Jews there are not circumcised
at all.
Once a naked and lovely two-
year-old baby attached himself
to me at a beach on the Black
Sea. After a while his grandfa
ther came to take him away. He
apologized and asked if the child
was annoying me. Then his eyes
fell on a Hebrew paper lying
near me, and he was astounded.
He would not leave me until he
had heard as much as possible
about Israel. He played with the
baby on his knees; then with
tears in his eyes, he said: “Look
at my grandchild, a Jewish child.
He has not been circumcised.
What can we do; we have no
circumciser in our town and my
son does not want to risk going
to the big city to find a circum
ciser illegally.” He murmured
again and again: “My grandchild
is not circumcised.”
The measures taken to separate
the Jews from their traditional
ties also affect the rites which
mark a turning point in the life
of a Jew (bar mitzva, Jewish
marriage, and burial), and the
observance of Jewish festivals.
If circumcision is the most sig
nificant Jewish rite, the next is
the admission of the Jewish boy
to religious maturity when he
becomes a bar mitzva. Because
this rite, in which a boy is called
to the pulpit to recite the bless
ings over the Torah, is inextric
ably tied to the synagogue (un
like circumcision which can be
performed clandestinely), parents
wishing to celebrate their son’s
attainment to the status of bar
mitzva must take the risk of a
public performance in a syna
gogue. And, indeed, I never saw
a boy called to the reading of the
Law on my numerous visits to
the great synagogues of Moscow
and Leningrad. Yet these cities
contain hundreds of thousands of
Jews. No one except the Soviet
authorities would dare maintain
that there are not at least e few
hundred or a few dozen parents
out of these hundreds of thous
ands of Jews who do not wish,
with all their heart, to see their
thirteen-year-old boy called to
recite the blessings over the
Torah. The ceremony is not only
replete with religious significance
but it has a tremendous value in
terms of Jewish sentiment and
the sense of attachment to the
Jewish heritage. It is a fact,
though, that none of them dares
bring his son to the synagogue
for a bar mitzva celebration. The
reason for this is as simple as
it i3 clear; the synagogue is ac
cessible to everyone, including
informers of every kind. The
parents are justified in fearing
that the boy’s appearance in the
synagogue will be entered sooner
or later in his school record. This
record would state that he had
“taken part on this-and-this day
in a reactionary Jewish religious
ritual in the synagogue.”' This
would serve only to worsen his
already delicate status as a Jew
in the school. Why, the parents
ask themselves, should they
purposely handicap their son and
place additional obstacles in the
path of his progress and studies?
And so they heave a sigh and
give up the idea of celebrating
his bar mitzva.
The same is true in the case
of marriage. Religious marriage
is not recognized by Soviet law.
Only civil marriage is binding.
Nevertheless, there are quite a
few parents who would want
their children to be married by
a rabbi as well. But they are
deterred by a feeling that this
might hurt the young couple who
have just completed their educa
tion and are only beginning to
venture into Soviet life and so
ciety. Why damage their pros
pects? And so they give up the
idea of a ceremony. A little more
daring is evident, nevertheless,
where marriage is concerned,
and one sometimes sees a wed
ding performed by a rabbi. But
it is all done surreptitiously and
hurriedly; and the percentage of
Jews who have a Jewish wedding
ceremony is very small indeed.
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