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PAGE 4 THE SOUTHERN ISRAELITE May 2, I9$0
The Southern Israelite
The Weekly Newspaper For Southern Jewry
Our 56th Year
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Vkdd Goldjar
t drtor and Pubusher
Faith PowWl
AsMvlar* Ltitfor
Linda Lincoln
Adverttsmq Dreoloc
Mark Nicholas
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Cheers for volunteers
We overlooked something that might have been more timely
in last week's paper—but it's never too late.
April 20-26 was National Volunteer Week and while we tend
to get a chuckle or two out of some designated “weeks”—Pickle
Week for instance—volunteer work is not a laughing matter.
Our community has been singularly blessed through the years
with an exceptional corps of volunteer workers in various
organizations, agencies and institutions. Without them, the
community could not function.
Regrettably, recent changes in lifestyles seem to be making
inroads in the amount of time individuals have to provide non-
paid services. Yet, many former volunteers, particularly women
entering the job market after many years as homemakers, have
drawn on their skills as volunteers to propel them into the
business world. So voluntarism is a two-way street. Everybody
benefits.
Cheers to all of you who devote part of your time and abilities
to others.
mean
Vida Goldgar
'Here she comes...’
When the Miss America Pageant people were
looking for a replacement for Bert Parks, they
overlooked another Atlanta man They should have
given Sidney Clein a crack at the job. 1 don't know if
he can sing, but he has M C experience.
Sidney was master of ceremonies at the annual
Ms Jewish Home contest a couple of weeks ago and
did a fine job.
This is the fourth time I’ve been one of the judges
to select the Jewish Home's representative to the state
wide Ms. Nursing Home competition. And let me tell
you, it is never an easy decision.
This year was no exception. Each of the
contestants was a potential winner and any of them
would have done credit to their fellow residents in the
state-wide contest. But there can only be one winner
and the judges, after heavy deliberation, chose Ruth
Kushner. Adele Zelenko was runner up.
The other contestants were Fannie Cohen, Leah
Cohen, Gertrude Garber, Sara King, Ann Rosser,
Rose Siegel and Helen Spector. Those of you who
visit or volunteer at the home know how tough it was
to choose from these lovely, dignified ladies.
Each of the contestants, beautifully gowned and
corsaged, was escorted past the judges to the stage as
the Celebrity Orchestra played appropriate music.
Each answered a question from Master of Ceremonies
Clein, then waited, some nervously—others calmly,
for the decision.
Perhaps more excited than Ruth Kushner, when
her name was announced, were her children and
grandchildren. Proud? You bet. And they should be.
Ruth is a remarkable woman.
At 18, she came to America from Poland and
found work as a machine operator in New York City.
Eleven years later— it is 50 years ago now—Ruth
began to lose her eyesight from glaucoma, a fearful
prospect for a young woman of 29. Less was known in
those days and in 1932 she was sent to Germany to
seek treatment there. Traveling by boat, alone, Ruth
faced another risk in Germany. With Hitler gaining
power, it was not uncommon to hear, through her
hospital window, the anti-Jewish shouts of Nazi
youths. From Germany she went to a sanitarium for
the blind in Switzerland, where hope was raisedthat
her sight might be saved.
19M Ms. Jewish Home—Ruth Kushner
It was not. A year after returning to the United
States,—it was 1934—Ruth Kushner was completely
blind. Blind but undaunted. A home teacher from the
blind services taught Ruth to sew, cook, shop and take
care of her young son, Martin. But that wasn't all The
courageous young woman asked her teacher to help
her again work on the sewing machine so she could be
financially responsible for herself and her son.
For the next 20 years, Ruth traveled by subway with
a guide to work at the Bureau of Social Services for
the Blind.
She is still, at 79, doing needlework and crafts, and
received recognition from Atlanta B’nai B’rith
Women for the blankets she crochets for its Operation
Stork project. Her work received a second place merit
award at the 1972 Southeastern Fair, and she has been
called on by other nursing home facilities to help train
staff in working with the handicapped.
Never one to dwell on her problems, Ruth
Kushner wants others to know that in spite of any
hardship, life can continue to be as wonderful as one
makes it.
That is an outlook that many of us might copy
when we tend to let problems get us down.
It strikes me that the Ms. Jewish Home crown that
was placed oo Ruth Kushner's head has a lot more
dignity and meaning than one for a bathing suit-clad
teenager in Atlantic City.
Sartre—champion of Jews
by Edwin Eytan
PARIS (JTA)—Jean-Paul
Sartre, the French philosopher
who dominated the Western
intellectual world for several
decades, died here recently at the
ageof74 A humanist,a liberaland
a political activist, he had always
been keenly interested in
Judaism and fought some of the
battles in favor of persecuted Jews.
In recent years, however, and
especially since his trip to Israel on
the eve of the Six-Day War, he also
backed Palestinian demands for
self-determination.
There were three people at his
bedside when he died: his
companion Simone de Beauvoir,
his adopted daughter Ariel te
Elkhayam, and a close friend and
favorite biographer, Liliane
Slegal The fact that two out of
three, his daughter and Ms. Siegal,
are Jews is symbolic of his lifelong
preoccupation —some say
obsession —with the Jewish
problem. Sartre was a Protestant.
Drafted into the French army in
1940 as a private, he spent several
years as a POW in Germany. He
eventually escaped with forged
papers and joined the French
resistance movement. While in the
POW cadtp, he spent his time
reading the works of German
philosophers but also managed to
obtain a first-hand knowledge of
Nazism and its methods.
Shortly after the war, in 1946, he
published “Thoughts on the
Jewish Problem" which he later
summed up by quoting the black
American writer Richard Wright
who said “There is no black
problem in the States. There is a
white one." According to Sartre,
the same applied to Jews. It was
not they who were a problem but
those who were against them. In
his book, Sartre went one step
further claiming that a Jew is
someone considered as such by
anti-Semites.
Sartre’s interest with everything
concerning Jews continued. In
most of his books or plays, the
Jewish theme was somewhere
present even if only hinted at. By
the late 1950s, his interest spread to
Israel. He backed Israel to the hilt
and even after his visit to Israel in
early 1967 he supported Israel’s
pre-emptive strike. “Each country
has the right to defend itself in the
way it thinks best suitable," he
told friends at the time.
He denounced Soviet anti-
Semitism in spite of his leftist
leanings. Throughout the years
both Sartre and de Beauvoir were
active in all campaigns on behalf of
persecuted Jews whether in the
Soviet Union, Syria or Ethiopia. A
few years ago, while already half
blind and plagued by various
serious diseases, he was still always
ready to personally demonstrate
in favor of human and Jewish
rights wherever they might be in
danger.
Simultaneously, and some say
paradoxically, Sartre drew nearer
to the Palestinian Cause. A special
400-page issue of his review,
“Modern Times," devoted to the
Israeli-Arab conflict, presented a
bright image of Israel but also
pleaded for Palestinian rights. In
recent years, while avoiding public
statements on this subject—with
de Beauvoir squarely backing
Israel—he privately told friends
and admirers that Israel should
recognize Palestinian rights to self-
determination.
During these last few years,
Sartre regularly met with Arab
intellectuals but also kept in
contact with many Jews and many
Zionists.