Hanukah In Our Time
Purely Commentary
ByPhilip
Slomo.vitz
Our Inheritance Beckons — To 'Plant 'Wisdom and Skill' In
Jewry's Ranks as a 'Medium of Transmission and Understanding'
These little DP children, saved from a devastated and blood-
soaked Old World by a modern miracle, gaze upon the candles
on the Menorah lighted at the shelter of HIAS, Hebrew Immi-
grant Aid Society, to demonstrate to them the significance of
Hanukah.
Between You and Me
By BORIS SMOLAR
(Copyright, 1951, Jewish Telegraphic Agency., Inc.)
Zionist Moods
The new attack by Premier David Ben-Gurion. of Israel on the
American Zionist leadership reprimanding them for not moving
to Israel is an indication of his mood , .. Obviously he still equates
the Zionists and non-Zionists in America on the theory that if
one is a Zionist he should settle in Israel . • . A mild tone towards
the non-Zionists in America was taken by the Jewish Agency in
Jerusalem in communications dealing with recent resolutions of
the American Jewish Committee ... Taking issue with the Amer-
ican Jewish Committtee request that Israel should not grant diplo-
matic recognition to the Jewish Agency, the latter points out that
no such recognition is sought . . It emphasizes that the status
asked for the Jewish Agency by the World Zionist movement is
not fundamentally different from that granted the Agency during
the Mandatory period by the British government and the League
of Nations . . . And it points out that there is actually nothing
new in the request that the status of the Jewish Agency as a
representative of the Jewish people in all matters relating to
Jewish enterprise in Israel should be recognized by the government
of Israel as it was recognized by the mandatory government ..
A much stronger tone is taken by the Agency with regard to the
AJC's declaration on Zionist educational activities in the United
States . . . This declaration is considered by the Agency as noth-
ing less than "a demand for the liquidation of the Zionist move-
ment" in the United States.
*
Jewish Claims
The question of whether Jewish groups should start negotia-
tions with Germany on reparations will soon become a major issue
in Jewish life . . . But it can be safely predicted that those in
favor of such negotiations will win over the opponents . . . The
question of whether Israel should cash in on its claims against
Germany was resolved positively last spring when the first claims
of the Jewish State were presented . . . At present, it is well
known that Germany is prepared to pay Jewish claims not because
she feels any pangs of conscience on the Jewish matter .
What Germany wants is that the Jews should not stand in the way
of her own plans . . . In other words, Germany wants to buy
Jewish non-aggression, as a step to gaining a place in world
politics . . . The German government is particularly afraid of
Jewish influence in America and also takes into consideration the
fact that • Israel has consistently taken an anti-German attitude
at the United Nations . . .Hence Chancellor Adenauer offered as a
token of goodwill special facilities for Israel to import machinery
from Germany . . . Several Israelis have already been sent to
Germany to arrange for such shipments . .. However, it is ex-
tremely doubtful whether Israel will send any diplomatic repre-
sentatives to Germany . . . The Israel government's near future
policy toward Germany will be: payments but no relations.
Z—THE JEWISH NEWS •
Friday, December 21, 1951
This is the 75th anniversary of a great book.
George Eliot's "Daniel Deronda" will remain
among the classics because it took up the cudgels
in behalf of a cause that was not even in evi-
dence• at the time. Theodor Herzl was not to
appear on the world scene as the creator of a
political movement Yo ,r
Israel's redemption as a '-
people until 20 years:,.
later. But this. Chris-''
tian woman with vision
—Marion • Evans Cross
(George Eliot)—was like
a prophetess. She fore-
saw a great need and
she developed a theme
for "another choosing of
Israel to be a nationali-
ty" with a power that
has been equalled only
by those who, irrigating
the soil with their blood,
61;
made the Holy Land
blossom as • the rose.
George Eliot
Even so passionate an anti-Zionist as Dr.
David Philipson wrote in "The Jew in English
Fiction" about "Daniel Deronda" that it is "a
novel which, for uniqueness of theme and treat-
ment is interesting, for thought and reasoning
is remarkable, for learning is striking."
Yes, for learning it is striking. And because
of this factor, we choose this occasion, when
we devote this issue to Education Month, to
speak of George Eliot and Daniel Deronda.
"Daniel Deronda," of which we think mainly
as a Zionist novel, which pronounced the idea
of a reborn Israel, is more than that. It is a
strong plea for Jewish cultural rebirth, for a
strengthening of the ideals of the Prophets. We
were wont to think of it as a Zionist novel be--
cause Mordecai, its patriarchal character, reply-
ing to the comment by the de-Judaized Deron-
da—"As long as there is . a remnant of national
consciousness, I suppose nobody will deny that
there may be a new stirring of memories and
hopes which. may inspire arduous action"—
made the famous declaration in Eliot's book:
"Amen. What is needed is the leaven—
what is needed is the seed of fire. The heri-
tage of Israel is beating in the pulses of mil-
lions; it lives in their veins as a power with-
out understanding, like the morning exulta-
tion of herds; it is the inborn half of memory,
moving as in a dream among writings on the
walls, which it sees dimly but cannot divide
into speech. Let the torch of visible communi-
ty be lit! Let the reason of Israel disctose
itself in a great outward deed, and let there
be another great migration, another choosing
of Israel to be a nationality whose members
may still stretch to the end of the earth, even
as the sons of England and Germany, whom
enterprise carries afar, but who still have a na-
tional opinion. Will any say 'It cannot be'?
Baruch Spinoza had not a faithful Jewish
heart, though he had sucked the life of his
intellect at the breasts of Jewish tradition.
He laid bare his father's nakedness and said,
`They who scorn him have the higher wisdom.'
Yet Baruch Spinoza confessed, he saw - not
why Israel should not again be a chosen na-
tion. Who says that the history and literature
of our race are dead? Are they not as living
as the history and literature of Greece. and
Rome, which have inspired revolutions, en-
kindled the thought of Europe, and made the
unrighteous powers tremble? These were an
inheritance dug from the tomb. Ours is an
inheritance that has never ceased to quiver in
millions of human frames."
Here is the whole story of our probleni and
our need, of the challenge and the solution. We
are now in the midst of a new era. The shackled
hands and minds are freed and our cultural
aspirations are not handicapped by persecution.
The dispersed have begun to share the dignity of
independent human beings. We are free to
"plant wisdom and skill." Are we destined to
find solution more difficult because we are free
and untrammeled, because we are the first gen-
eration in twenty centuries to be blessed with
the right to be our natural selves?
George Eliot's Mordecai explained fully and
..well the values of Judaism. Would that George
Eliot had foreseen the realization of her dream
for Israel's national choosing and also the emer-
gence of the new problem — the difficulty of
causing free men to crave for the values which
are esteemed when they are difficult to attain.
' We are today in just such a position: Israel's
liberation has been attained. With freedom hag
come a new disdain for some of the things ear-
lier held sacred. We had believed that with the
rise of Israel there would come a craving for
a knowledge of Hebrew, for adVancement of
Jewish learning. Regretfully, we must assert that
This, alone, is a powerful appeal for the
this has not happened. We have a minimized
lighting of the torch of Jewish learning. But the
rather than a maximalized Jewish education-
Christian George Eliot's hero Mordecai said
al program. We make concessions and we are
more, in providing the appropriate words for an
like Lilly rather than like Mordecai.
Education Month of our day. One of the girls
But the people that has shown ability to
in the Deronda book (Lilly) inspired a re-evalu-
cling to its heritage with its teeth when the
ation of Jewish ideals when she said: "Whatever
hand was hacked off is not weak. We are mere-
the Jews contributed at one time, they are a ly in a period of transition. The great inheri-
standstill people. They are the type of obstinate
tance beckons to us. The "living warmth" of
adherence to the superannuated. They may
"beloved memories" calls to us for a renewal of
faith. In a sense, this is the idea of Education
show good abilities when they take up liberal
Month. It offers a re-illumination of great facts.
ideas, but as a- race they have no development
It seeks to "plant the wisdom and skill of our
in them." And to this Mordecai replied:
race so that it may be, as of old, a medium of
"That is false! Let their history be known
transmission and understanding." Working to-
and examined; let the seed be sifted, let its
gether for this goal, we can rise to new heights
beginning be traced to the weed of the wilder-
as a people that knows how to value a sacred
ness—the more glorious will be the energy that
heritage and how to accept Prophetic teachings
transformed it. Where else is there a nation
with dignity.
A We Call
to the Jews of America
re-affirm our faith in the. value of the Bibli-
cal Command: "Let not this Book of the Torah Depart
out of Thy Mouth but Thou Shalt Meditate Therein
Day and Night . . For then only . shalt Thou make
Thy Way ProsperoUs and then only shalt Thou have
good success." (Joshua 1:8).
We reiterate our devotion to the rabbinic injunc-
tion: "Set aside a fixed period of time for the study
of the Torah." (Ethics of the Fathers 1:15).
We want to rediscover the Jewish tradition in
which learning is .coextensive with all of life.
We know that only as we concentrate on the edu-
cation of this generation in addition to providing for
the education of our children who represent the next
generation, can we ever develop an informed Jewish
leadership and a great body of intelligent, conscien-
tious, and conscious Jewry in this land.
We recognize that only as we permit the mind to
add to its store of JeWish knowledge and to grow in
of whom it niay be as truly said that their
religions and law and moral life mingled at
the stream of blood in the heart and made
one growth—where else - a . people who kept
and enlarged their spiritual store at the very
time when they were hunted with a hatred as
fierce as the forest-fires that chase the wild
beast from his covert? There is a fable of the
Roman, that swimming to save his life he held
the roll of his writings between his teeth and
saved them from the waters. But how much
more than that is true of our race? They
struggled to keep their place among the na-
tions- like heroes—yea, when the hand was
hacked off, they clung with the teeth; but
when the plough and the harrow had passed
over the last visible signs of their national
covenant, and the fruitfulness of their land
was stifled with the blood of the sowers and
planters, they said, 'The spirit is alive, let us
make it a lasting habitation—lasting because
movable—so that it may be carried from gen-
eration to generation, and our sons unborn
may be rich in the things that have been,
and possess a hope built on an unchangeable
foundation.' They said it and they wrought
it, though often breathing with scant life, as
in a coffin, or as lying wounded amid a heap
of slain . . He absorbed knowledge, he dif-
fused it . . But the dispersion was wide, the
yoke of oppression. was a spiked torture as
well as a load; the exile was forced afar
among brutish people, where the conscious-
ness of his race was no clearer to him than
the light of the. sun to Our fathers in the Ro-
man persecution, who had their hiding-place
in a cave, and knew not that it was day save
by the dimmer burning of their candles. What
wonder that multitudes of our people are ig-
norant, narrow, superstitious? . . . Looking to-
wards a land and a polity, our dispersed people
in all the ends of the earth may share the
dignity of a national life which has a voice
among the peoples of the East and the West
—which will plant the wisdom and skill of our
race so that it may be, as of old, a medium
of transmission and understanding. Let that
come to pass, and the living warmth will
spread to the weak extremeties of Israel, and
superstition will vanish, not in the lawless-
ness of the renegade, but in the illumination
of great facts which widen feeling, and make
all knowledge alive as the young offspring of
beloved memories."
By DR. ISRAEL M. GOLDMAN
Director, National Academy for Adult Jewish Education
Jewish maturity can we ever- have the full joy in
agogues a vital center for the dissemination of our
our Jewishness which will make us exclaim; "Happy
Torah.
are we! How goodly is our portion, and how pleasant
We likewise call -upon the Jewish men and wom-
is our lot, and how beautiful our heritage!"
en
of America to become once again the Am Hasefer
We want to bring to life in each of our congrega-
—The People of the Book—and to engage in regular
tions the practice of learning so that each synagogue
shall again become a Beth Hamidrash.
activities for the mastery of Jewish knowledge.
We know, that only as men and women continually
We call upon each congregation to establish
master the moral and ethical principles of their own
Board of Jewish Education for Adults which shall
religious heritage, do they make the maximum con-
parallel the existing Boards of Education which are
tribution to the glory of our country.
responsible for the Jewish education of the youth. We
We realize that only an intellectually vigorous and
a morally vigilant citizenry can keep our democracy further call upon each congregation to supply such
free and strong.
Board with the necessary financial subventions in or-
It becomes our solemn duty therefore as American
der to make of each congregation not only a House
Jews . to dedicate ourselves to programs of lifelong of Worship, but also a House of Study. In going from
Jewish learning and to make of the adult Jewish edu-
the House of Worship to the House of Study they will
cation movement one which shall enthuse our hearts
be going, as our Sages put . it, "From strength te
and kindle our minds and make every one of our syn- strength,"
.