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THI SOUTHBtN ISRABJTC
As We Were Saying
By ROBERT I SKGAL
{A Severn Aft* Feature)
Near the end of June, welfare
hi mm tt American
and revolutionary ideas to reduce
dependency.
In the June-November time
van, the nation ha* been and
continues shaken like a sapling
in a tornado by race riots and
other serious rumblings in soma
40 communities. Many observers
maintain that these disturbances
erupt only from inferior school
ing, inadequate and unsanitary
housing, and joblessness. The
more sophisticated realize that a
sore-hearted discontent with this
nation’s treatment of its depend
ent poor is also greatly to be
reckoned with by those who want
honestly and sincerely to see the
end of riots and a cure for seeth
ing discontent
The President’s Advisory Coun
cil on Public Welfare is author
ity for the statement that today
some 8,000,000 Americans are de
pendent on "a precariously low
level of assistance” while an ad
ditional 26,000,000 are living
below the income level which the
government defines as constitut
ing poverty within American
standards. However, approxi
mately 50% of all Americans are
under 19 years of age or are 65
and over—peaking up where the
rolls of neglected and dependent
children swell and the needs of
the aging are manifest.
Of course, there are cheaters
and chiselers ‘‘on relief.” There
are malingerers in every sector of
uprootedness and war and pov
erty and abandonment. To those
who now downgrade govern
ment efforts to care for
innocent victims of this tech
nological age, we might best
recall a statement made in 1949
by the late Senator Robert A.
Taft: “I believe that the Amer
ican people feel that with the
high production of which we are
now capable, then is enough
left over to prevent extreme
hardship and maintain a mini-
subsis-
to
we must
our
patchwork welfare system, so
obviously inadequate and awk
wardly adrift in an American
ocean of productivity, power,
wealth, and luxury. Indeed, Sen
ator Robert F. Kennedy has gone
so far as to say that unless there
is a virtual revolution in our ef
forts to help the poor “the
results could be the ripping asun
der of the already thin fabric of
American life."
A depression Congress, in 1935,
brought forth the mbdem Social
Welfare Act. In a turbulent third
of a century that has ensued,
whites by the hundreds Of thou
sands have left our cities; and
southern Negroes in greet num
bers, displaced by mechanical
advances, have moved north, con
tributing to the rise of Black
Ghettos. In the course of this
transition, the gap between those
“on relief’ and those riding the
escalator of wartime prosperity
has widened painfully. Nearly
700,000 are on dependency rolls
in New York City; one in every
25 people in thriving Massachu
setts are receiving public assis
tance. And the need to re-exam
ine, reorder and modernize our
aid programs grows sharper
hourly. ,
In the days ahead, our Con
gressmen who blithely kill rat-
control bills with wisecracks and
heartless disregard will be serv
ing their country far better if
they abandon sophomoric ways
and help shape and advance a
welfare program. They can find
OFF the RECORD
By NATHAb Z1PR1N
(A Seven Arts Feature)
THE TUNE IS THE SAME
A quartet of New York metro
politan area youths, three of
whom are sons of prominent rab
bis, have cut a record album
combining traditional religious
music end a modem idiom that
has captured the imagination of
their contemporaries.
The young minstrels, three of
whom are Yeshiva University
students, linked up more than
four months ago to form a group
commited to interesting other
young people in traditional music.
Calling themselves “The Rab
bis’ Sons,” they’ve done just that
by applying a contemporary folk
beat to Hassidic melodies. Their
album, appropriately titled “The
Rabbis’ Sons’’ is their first, but
they are already known to many
young people through their per
formance, even though they don’t
twitch, moan or gasp in the style
of the modems.
“The Rabbis’ Sons” use two
guitars supported by a bass fid
dle to establish a unique style
which at times is augmented by
flute, organ and violin to under-
The Mandelbaum Gat* had stood since 1948 as a recognized
—if artificial—barrier between the Israeli and the Jordanian
sections of Jerusalem.
score specific textural changes in
mood. Hassidic music, Slavic in
origin and more recently marked
by an Israeli influence, is invar
iably set to Biblical texts such
as prayers and psalms. The quar
tet also sings American and in
ternational folk songs.
This nugget is culled from a
memorandum on my desk from
Yeshiva University not only be
cause I am ever-reedy to mention
the good name of an institution
to which I owe most of what I
am—the Isaac El chan an Yeshiva
— but because it illustrates the
dramatic changes in the climate
of higher Jewish education since
the days more than fifty years
ago when a small red-brick two-
story building on Henry Street on
the lower East Side of New York
housed a group of no more than
thirty students who were com
pletely oblivious to what was
going on in the world as they
stood bent over talmudic tomes
on lecterns in chanting and in
cencentration.
Had any one at the time dared
predict that the yeshiva within
our lifetime would burgeon into
one of the leading educational in
stitutions in the United States
and spill over into a student en
rollment counted by the thous
ands, he would have been justly
called either an eccenttrie, a fool,
a dubious prophet or a seer with
doubtful vision.
The student body at the yeshiva
then was not unmindful of the
role it was playing and destined
to play in the preservation of the
time. The yeshiva students when
they went on to pulpit and com
munity service, it was hoped,
would serve as a bulwark until
another wave of immigration has
brought new masmidim, new ilti-
yim, new learners. But what if
America should ever close her
doors to immigration or if the
climate in Europe should become
more benign for the Jewish en
claves? Who would then build
our houses of worship, our schools
and fill our pulpits?
A half century of waiting has
But this is a theme for another
column.
Obituaries
Mrs. Becky Freidman
Mrs. Becky Freidman of Bruns
wick, Ga., died September 20.
Funeral services were held
September 21 in Savannah with
interment in Bonaventure Cem
etery.
Mrs. Freidman, formerly of
Reidsville, Ga., had lived in
Brunswick for the past 20 years.
Survivors include four sons,
Hyman, Julius and Sam Freid
man, all of Brunswick, and Jacob
Freidman of Savannah; one
daughter, Mrs. Irving Kraft of
Atlanta; ten grandchildren, one
great-grandchild; one sister, Mrs.
Sol Marcus of New York, and
several nieces and nephews.
In the Six-Day War.
made real again by
their cue in the recommendations
of the President’s Advisory Coun
cil on Public Welfare. Among the
proposals: (1) that adequate fi
nancial aid and social services be'
available to all who need them as
a matter of right; (2) that a floor
of required individual or family
income be established for each
state in terms of the cost of a
modest but adequate family bud
get for families of various sizes
and circumstances as established
by objective methods of budget
costing; (3) that need be taken
as the sole measure of entitle
ment to aid; (4) that eligibility
determination be made in a way
calculated to protect the dignity,
privacy and constitutional rights
of those assisted; (5) that new
emphasis be given to protective
and social services for children
in vulnerable situations; (6) that
a number of specified social serv
ices (such as those for assisting
the aged, mothers with special
problems, etc.) be provided;
(7) that the legal righto Of those
needing assistance be zealously
protected; (8) that the pool of
professional social workers be
enlarged.
With regard to Welfare, Presi
dent Johnson has said: “Having
the power, we have the duty.”
This calls for no commentary;
only performance.
V Friday, Oct. 20, 1967
Israel is Warned
Of Racial Problems
LONDON (JTA)— Israel was
warned here recently that as a
consequence of her lightning vic
tory over the Arab states last
June, sh* will face in the future
“all the problems of a multi
racial society in which the mi
nority group is potentially hostile
and sustained by powerful sup
porters beyond the fronter.”
The warning was contained in
a special report by the Institute
for Strategic Studies, to be pub
lished, which asserts that while
Israel’s military victory eliminat
ed many points in dispute over
the past twenty years, Israel will
never again be the almost hom
ogeneous 3tate that its Zionist
founders envisioned.
Whatever settlement is made on
the west bank, the report says,
Arabs are likely in the future
to make up at least a quarter
of Israel’s population. If the Arab
states learned anything from their
defeat “it should be the folly of
challenging Israel to the kind of
war which only fully developed
societies can effectively fight,”
the report states and warns that
terrorism and sabotage will In
crease.
Announces *No Evidence’ Mrs. Kennedy Invited
WASHINGTON (JTA) — The
State Department has announced
it had “no evidence” that Arab
embassies had improperly pro
vided propaganda material to
the Student Non-Violent Coordi
nating Committee, the militant
Negro civil rights organization
which attacked Zionism in a
newsletter lest August, accusing
Jews of committing atrocities
against the Arabs.
NEW YORK (JTA) — Israel’s
Foreign Minister Abba Eban has
invited Mrs. John F. Kennedy,
“widow of the late President, to
visit Israel at her “earliest op
portunity.” The invitation was
extended at Mrs. Kennedy’s home
in New York when Mr. and Mrs.
Eban were guests of honor at a
private dinner “for about six or
eight.”
Furman Resigns Post
NEW YORK (JTA)—John Fur
man, president of PEC Israel Ec
onomic Corp., of New York, has
resigned effective March SI,
1968, it was announced by Jos
eph Meyerhoff, PEC’s chairman.
Mr. Furman will take up per
manent residence in Israel. Prior
to joining PEC, he was comp
troller-general and secretary of
the Zim Israel Navigation Co.,
Ltd., and later chief executive of
the Israel-American Industrial
Development Bank.
Award Book Prize
BERLIN (JTA)—Joseph Wulf,
German-Jewish historian of the
holocaust, has been awarded the
“Plaque of the Lion of Saint
Marks,” one of the prizes of the
Venice Biennale. He was cited
specifically for his book, “Thea
ter and Film in the Third Reich.”
Mr. Wulf is Berlin correspond
ent for the Jewish Telegraphic
Agency.
ATLANTA
, SYMPHONY
ORCHESTRA
ROBERT SHAW
SERIES B
Chamber Series
at Theatre Atlanta
6 Monday evenings at 830 p.m.
A unique opportunity to enjoy performances
by k,ey Atlanta Symphony personnel in
small ensembles combined with chorus
and ballet under the direction of Mr. Shaw.
NOV. 6/DEC. 4/JAN. 8 & 29/FEB. 26/MARCH 18
Huy season tickets Jor the /test seats at the best
price: Adults $IH, $15 & $12. Sutdents $6. Singles
$4, t i, $2; students $1.
For the best seat* et the best prices order today.
Charge Symphony tickets to your J. P. Allen, Davi
son’s, Rich’s or Sears account at the Atlanta Sym
phony Box Office. Phone S2S-29S6.
Enter my order as follows (use ballpoint pen)
Series
No. of Tickets
Adults Students
Price
Area
Total
B
1 j
Enclose stamped, self -addressed envelop I with order.
Name .
Street _
City & State . Zip .
Indicate method of payment: Check enclosed. Charge to
my J. P. Allen. Davison, Rich’s, _ Sears
account. (If Rich's or Sears give #_ . _).
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