Newspaper Page Text
THE SOUTHEKN ISRAELITE
Friday, Sapt. 22, 1967
• - »- ?»««■■
Pag* Twaiva
—— : -.i » m «■■■*» • «’
Raskin Volume on High Holy
Day Prayers Is Published
BEHIND U. N. SCENES
by DAVID HOROWITZ
Saul Raskin, the eminent artist
wh6se works on the Hagada, the
prayer book and numerous relig
ious subjects are treasured in
Jewish homes throughout the
land, produced a book in 1966.
The late Mr. Raskin’s theme was
the traditional Holy Day prayers
—“Ovinu Malkenu” — “Our Fa
ther, Our King.” (Mr. Raskin
died before last Yom Kippur, a
week after this book was pub
lished)
An unusual story, of tribute to
the artist and to his works, and
as an indication of the affection
ate regard in which he is held by
his admirers, is connected with
the publication of the most im
pressive “Ovinu Malkenu," which
is expected to come off the press
next week. It is a story that has
its locale in Flint, Michigan.
For the past year or two, a
Flint attorney who takes a deep
interest in Jewish art and lit
erature, B. Morris Pelavin, had
been visiting with Raskin at his
studio, in New York. He made
several purchases and learned in
the course of the conversations
with the artist that he had com
pleted a new work. But Raskin
no longer had the means of pub
lishing his creative art. Previ
ously he had done the work him
self and then enrolled the large
following his art had earned. Pel
avin had the book published.
Overwhelmed by the affection
of his admirers, Raskin wrote:
“it all happened around Hanuka
when we praise the Lord for the
miracles He performed for our
forefathers, and also is perform
ing in our time. I have the feel
ing that a miracle also happened
to me, by sending to me a man
from Flint ... To me he is like
Elijah the Prophet, assuming the
name of the person Pelavin,
blessed be his name!”
The large-sized book is in the
style of the Pirke Aboth, the
Hagada, Song of Songs, and the
other Raskin works.
A c c ompanying the Hebrew
text are several Yiddish affirma
tions of faith.
Raskin writes in his introduc
tion: “The Tehillim (Psalms), the
Siddur, the Rosh Hashana and
Yom Kippur Mahzor, are the
three books of prayer by the
Jewish people. These books do
not stand completely apart from
each other. The Tehillim enters
the Siddur with a great number
of its Psalms and the Siddur oc
cupies considerable space in the
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LADIES’ and MEN’S HATS
Mahzor. In fact, the three books
of prayer make one great book
by which our people in ell their
dispersions approach their Father
in Heaven. This book of prayer,
more than anything else, unites
all Jews.
“The prayer Ovinu Malkenu is
one of the oldest and the dear-
sidered to be the prayer of Rabbi
est to a Jewish heart. It is con-
Akiba in his fasting days. In a
Siddur dating from the 9th Cen
tury, there were only 25 verses
in Ovinu Malkenu, but during
the long chain of disasters, bloody
persecutions and plagues, the
number of invocations has in
creased to 44.
“For many years, in the days
of Rosh Hashana and Yom Kip
pur, I lived through together
with my people, the deep emo
tion of that great prayer. Look
ing at their faces, hands, bent
figures weeping in their tallithim,
I thought how good it would be
to make a book just of this prayer
with its 44 invocations a draw
ing for each verse opposite the
page with the invocation.
“When I was approaching the
age of 86, I suddenly realized
that time is against me, that I
must not hesitate any longer. ‘Do
it now,’ I said to myself. So
with a prayer to my Father and
King to grant me strength, clarity
of vision and wisdom of heart,
as He did to the biblical artist
Bezalel, I started the book and
completed it after two years of
intense work.”
Interview
With Jew
In Bratsk
NEW YORK (JTA)—A Jew in
Bratsk, a small town in the Sov
iet Union, told a Look magazine
correspondent that he was not
teaching his children anything
about Jewish customs or tradi
tions beoause “I don’t know them
myself.” In reply to a question
as to what Yom Kippur is, he
told Leonard Gross, European
editor of Look, “I never heard of
it’’
Fred Yusfin explained that “it
means nothing special to me to be
a Jew. I don’t feel Jewish. I feel
Russian. There may be people
who want to have Jewish culture
but it has been no part of my
life.”
The interview was part of a
series of articles in a special issue
of Look on “Russia today.” Yus
fin said he was “very proud”
when he learned that a man of
high standing was a Jew and that
it was “pleasing” to him that the
Jewish culture was “one of the
most highly developed. I suppose
I would be enriched by acquain
tance with the Jewish culture
but I just don’t do anything about
it.”
He said he could not under
stand Soviet Jews who wanted to
emigrate to Israel “but if they
want to, I think we should let
them go.” He said he knew about
the “reputation” abroad of the
Soviet Union about Jews but that
this was “entirely incorrect.” He
insisted that being Jewish did not
bar Russians from advancement
and that he personally felt
"nothing at all in the way of anti-
Semitism.”
Remarking: “Temples? Rabbis?
Matzos? Prayer books?” he said
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ROOFING CO.
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UNITED NATIONS (WUP) —
Ilf all that Yugoslavia’s President
Tito was able to get out of the
Arabs is the three-point program
he is now selling the world, he
might just as well have saved
himself the trouble and the ef
fort. As far as Israel is concern
ed, the maximum Arab offer :s
not even a minimum for Jeru
salem.
It should be said for Tito—a
leading spirit in the so-called
non-aligned world—that he made
a valiant effort to bring the Arab
participants in their self-imposed
war to a sense of reality and a
recognition of stubborn facts.
Having put all his prestige and
charm behind his personal tour
of the three Arab capitals—Cario
Damascus and Baghdad — his
score-card of accomplishment
turned out to be a zero in Syria
and a half-hearted and uncer
tain nod in Iraq.
In Algeria, where he did not
go, the echo to his proposals re
sounded with a ringing denunci
ation of any Arab state that
would even yield an inch. Only
Nasser and Hussein tried to meet
his crusade for moderation — if
such a term can be used for his
proposals — and it is from this
limited but decisive two-some
that he was able to extract the
three-point “peace” program
which is being circulated to the
Big Powers, to Secretary-General
U Thant and now, by special em
issary, to certain Latin-American
states.
The precise proposals have not
yet been made officially public,
but it is understood that they
comprise: (1) Complete Israeli
withdrawal from the occupied
territories; (2) the demilitariza
tion of these areas—East Sinai,
the strategic Golan hills in Syria
and, possibly, Jerusalem and the
West Bank, all under the watch
ful eye of a new, revitalized and
expanded UN Emergency Force,
and (3) recognition of all the
borders prior to the outbreak of
the Six-Day War, permanently
guaranteed by the Big Four Pow
ers in the Security Council, the
permanency of which guarantee
would be underwritten by the
entire fifteen-member Council.
introduction of such facilities was
"artificial. New values are being
accepted by all the modem
Jews.”
He rejected the contention that
Soviet Jews were denied the
right “to learn their own lang
uage,” presumably meaning Yid
dish, “but that if it were true I
would be very much opposed. I
don’t want Jews oppressed in any
way.” He added that “if people
want to pray, it’s up to them.’
The article noted that there
were about 80 houses of worship
in Bratsk before the Russian
Revolution and that “there are
none today.’
In addition to this, it i3 under
stood that the Arabs will be
prepared to yield to Israel a cor
ridor to the Old City of Jerusalem
for access to the Wailing Wall:
free, unfettered passage of Israeli
ships through the Straits of Tiran
and passage of Israeli oargoes
through the Suez Canal presum
ably in other then Israeli ships.
Some provisions would * cover the
rights of the refugees.
Implied in these offers is the
Arab abandonment of a state of
belligerency toward Israel. How
ever, Israel points out that this
is far from an outright recogni
tion of her sovereignty and there
fore a long way from a real
peace.
As for a new UNEF, Israel
cannot understand how even a
UN guarantee would inhibit the
Arabs from pushing such a token
force out if and when they re
arm just as they had done on the
eve of the recent war. In short,
when put under the magnifying
lense, the new formula, in Is
rael’s eyes, is just another, per
haps slightly improved version of
the 1948 truce with all its basic
weaknesses.
Equally important to Israel,
and to her economy, is what is
omitted from the Tito offer —
what constitutes a major provis-
sion in President Johnson’s five-
point formula: the curbing of the
arms race. If the Arabs reserve
the right to rearm, then they will
be doing so for one reason only:
against the day when they will
be ready tc attack Israel in some
future moment of revenge and
retribution.
Accordingly, it is almost cer
tain that Israel will reject the
Tito plan. Perhaps the most po
tent argument in defense of Is
rael’s adamant stand is the fact
that the Arabs themselves are
not accepting it—not even the
parties directly involved in the
war.
This is the general alignment
of peace-feelers at the present
stage when the overall situation
is still too fluid to harden posi
tions. The precise decisions, and
certainly the full Implications of
the Khartoum Conference of
Arab leaders are not yet clear.
These will become clearer in the
weeks ahead by which time the
22nd regular session of the UN
General Assembly will swing
into action and take over where
the special emergency session
left off.
In the minds of most states
men here, the whole issue is far
from attaining a climax; it is
only on the verge of a beginning
in which multiple verbal battles
will be fought for “peace.” In
this fluid picture, there is only
one seming certainty, at pres
ent at least—there will be no
battles fought in war. The UN
has attained--true, only as a min
imum— a stabilized cease-fire on
all fronts, and for this the world
owes some accolade to the World
Organization
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