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PAGE 20 THE SOUTHERN ISRAELITE October 3, 1986
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I Wishing you a
J Happy New Year
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—Asner—
Continued from page 19.
hand—both fights are different
parts of my soul.”
Asner has never been to Israel
he plans to go. but everywhere he
has traveled out of the country has
been for work, (most recently he’s
been to the Soviet Union and Swit
zerland). He has opinions about
Israel, however. He asks, “Just as
the old saying goes, what does it
profit a man if he gains the world
but loses his soul—what does it
profit Israel if she gains all the
arms in the world, and only ends
up achieving a denial to the Arabs
of their rights as a result? More
firepower for Israel doesn’t mean a
damn thing. Israel already receives
enough military aid that the coun
try might sink beneath the weight
of the arms.”
If his tone of voice sounds peeved
with Israel, he does not hide the
fact that he is upset that Israel
often plays a surrogate role for
Washington, D.C., in doing what
he considers reprehensible things
in Latin America—such as Israel’s
actions “in the shady little game
that keeps going on” with arms for
a repressive regime in El Salvador.
*7 didn't believe an American
could describe the Soviet situation
so accurately/”
— YAKOV GORODETSKY...
O ne of the three
major Soviet
activists let out of
Russia this year, Yakov
Gorodetsky also wrote
to author, Stan Rose, co
publisher of the
Southern Israelite:
< < ¥ want this book
1 to be widely
read in the USA
because sometimes
Americans don’t know
the issue. MEMO FROM
RUSSIA is right to the
point!”
Photos by Shirley Rose
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j
He is bothered by the pheno
menon of Kahanism, but he notes
that it was “the Mother Teresa of
Israel, Golda Meir, way back who
suggested that an Arab mother
Ed Asner
doesn’t grieve for her offspring as
does a Jewish mother, or words to
that effect.” (This quote is denied
by most Golda Meir scholars.)
He is bothered by the fact that
the logic of supporting only the
most militaristic of Israeli politi
cians produces a situation in which
Jewish political action committees
will support a candidate “be he a
pederast, a child molester or even
an anti-Semite” so long as he en
dorses more arms for Israel. About
such people, “I confess I feel a loa
thing. How can such people be
blood of my blood, seed of my
seed, to allow such a prejudiced,
biased blindness to develop?”
Asner concedes that significant
segments of Jews have become
conservative, but this has happened
to the society as a whole, he points
out. What has happened, however,
he thinks, is that those Jews who
have grown wealthy and conserva
tive have “outshadowed their co
religionists with money” in the
organized Jewish community. “I
think the last election showed that
the demise of Jewish liberalism at
the polls was decidedly premature.
The vote by Jews for the Demo
cratic nominee far exceeded what
was expected.”
His father was a Republican
because he was a businessman
Asner explains. The elder Asner
was also Orthodox, and Asner
explains that as long as he was liv
ing under his father’s roof, all he
was allowed was an Orthodox life
“That was the law.”
He never doubted once he left
home that he would probably not
keep the orthodoxy. He says that
his father almost expected this
would happen to his children when
they did leave home (and it did).
Still it was not going to happen
under his roof. And indeed, Asner
did stray from Judaism once he left
Kansas City.
For a while, he got totally side
tracked from Judaism—“I wem
from Kansas City to the University
of Chicago, dropped out after a
year-and-a-half, being enamored
of a non-Jewish girl, and having
succumbed to the theater.”
But later when he married his
wife Nancy, she had a “mild Reform
conversion.”
Asner is now separated from
Nancy, and he says he is sorry that
he insisted on her conversion. “I’m
sorry to say it was something that 1
needed, to free me. I regret now
that I couldn’t have offered mar
riage without conditions.”
His three children, however,
were reared as “mild Jews” because
he wanted his children to “receive
that connection with Judaism. As
a kid, I felt the occasional barbs of
anti-Semitism, and that made me
rush into Judaism with a passion
ate fervor, to both defend it and
myself.”
He pauses. He also notes that
“on the other hand, to regard other
groups as inferior, or unclean, to
forgive the expression, is not some
thing which at this stage of my life,
anyway, I would care to identify
with.”
Lionel Rolfe, editor of the nearly
century-old "B'nai B'rith Messen
ger" in Los Angeles, is also the
author of "The Menuhins: A Fam
ily Odyssey" and "Literary L.A.,"
both published by Panjandrum
Books of Los Angeles.
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Best Wishes for a
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