THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS — Friday, August 15, 1958-2
Purely Commentary
Still Searching for an Answer: 'Who Is a Jew?'
The question raised in Israel, "who is a Jew?", still is
begging for an answer. Aggravated by the settlement in Israel
of several thousand former Christians who are married to Jews,
and by the differences of opinion between the religious bloc and
the majority in the present Israel government, the "what is a
Jew?" query remains a controversial subject.
An exchange of correspondence between Israel's Prime
Minister David Ben-Gurion and a girl in a kibbutz throws
some light on the discussion.
The young girl posed her problem in a letter to the Premier,
stating this case:
"I am a daughter of a mixed marriage. My mother is not
Jewish and doesn't believe in religion. According to the rab-
binical laws governing the State, I am not considered a Jewess.
According to rabbinical law I cannot, for instance, marry a
Jew or be entitled to burial in a Jewish cemetery.
"About a month ago, I received my call-up papers to the
Army and will gladly fulfil my duty. But there is a contradic-
tion here. On one side I am required to fulfil my duties to
the State, on the other side the law of the State restricts me.
"I see in this contradiction a matter which opposes the
basic principles of our democracy and therefore ask you to
answer me and help me to understand this problem and to
explain the contradiction."
That there is "a lot of truth but some exaggeration" in her
claims was indicated in the following reply sent to the girl in
the kibbutz by Ben-Gurion:
"I have read your letter with great pain. I understand
your feelings and there is a lot of truth in your words, but
also some exaggeration.
"The rabbis do not yet rule Israel, and I am sure they
will never rule it. In the eyes of all of us, you are a Jewish
girl like all our other daughters. But, the law of marriage is
at the moment tied to the laws of religion—there were most
important reasons for this—but I am afraid you cannot marry
according to your will.
"You need not worry about burial. You are considered
as a daughter of Israel, no less than any other of our daughters;
and I shall gladly attend your wedding, if you will invite me in
time. There is a contradiction, no doubt, between the issues
you raise. Our public lives and our private lives are not com-
pletely free of contradiction, but we shall overcome them and
do not alow your feelings to be swayed by these temporary
and formal contradictions and do not aggravate yourself
unduly."
Prime Minister Ben-Gurion's assurance that the rabbis "will
never rule" Israel is an assurance to those who are concerned
lest the Jewish State should become a theocracy. The religious
bloc was always a small minority in Israel, and it was at all
times inconceivable that Israel should become a theocracy. The
claim of such a possibility was merely a weapon in the hands
of Israel's enemies.
Ben-Gurion's reply to the young girl remains a bit in-
compete. It is not enough to say that she will be assured of
burial or that the head of the State would gladly attend her
wedding. Other vital issues are involved in what had become a
serious controversy in Israel.
Basically the Israel Cabinet was correct in saying that all
who acknowledge their Jewishness must be accepted as Jews.
How else coud Israel's officials act? After all, they can not
impose religious affiliation on any one. There are many irreli-
gious people among those whose Jewishness is unquestioned for
generations, and even the religious bloc would not and could
not take away from them the designation "Jew."
The problem has become aggravated by the fact that some
Christian newcomers to Israel who are married to Jews have
insisted upon forming their own churches in Israel, thereby
creating religious problems in otherwise thoroughly Jewish set-
tlements. Such attitudes, resulting from the refusal of some new
settlers to abandon the faith into which they were born, can,
as they do, create grave issues.
We are confident, however, that Ben-Gurion is right in
saying that "our public lives and our private lives are not com-
pletely free of contradiction, but we shall overcome them . . ."
*
*
*
Disappearance of Challenge from Anti-Semitism:
Is It a Danger to the Jewish People's Existence?
In his presidential address to the Executive Committee of
the World Jewish Congress, in Geneva, Switzerland, Dr. Nahum
Goldmann made several very challenging statements. He said,
for instance, that in the past Jewry was concerned with two
problems, "fighting anti-Semitism and dealing with Jewish
poverty." Today, he said, the problems facing us are:
"1. The consolidation of Israel which will be the main
task of its second decade;
"2. The return of East European Jewry into the fold
of Jewish life;
"3. The creation of methods to secure Jewish conscious-
ness and our life as a people."
The two problems of old have practically been solved, he
stated, and, with the deline in anti-Semitism, serious consideration
must be given to the third of the three new tasks confronting
us. On this score, Dr. Goldmann's address included the following:
"The disappearance of the external danger to our survival,
of anti-Semitism in its classic meaning, has had most beneficial
consequences for the political and material situation of the
Jewish communities, but a very negative effect on our internal
life. The great challenge of our existence which has brought
forward grat defensive and constructive forces in our people
no longer exist, or has been reduced to very insignificant
forms compared with previous periods. The disappearance of
challenges is aways a danger to peoples and communities,
especially to a people like ours which, for centuries, has been
educated to react to threats, to overcome dangers. Our people
knows how to behave heroically in bad times, but has not yet
learned to live creatively in good times. The disappearance
of the brutal form of anti-Semitism and the poitical and
economic well-being of most Jewish communities has initiated
a system of anonymous disintegration and assimilation which
has endangered the basis of our existence in the Diaspora.
If this is not evident today on the surface of Jewish life, it
•
•
Search for Definition of
Term 'Jew' . . . Anti- ,„
Slomovitz
Semitism and Survival.
By Philip Rabbi Adler Speaks
is primarily because our generation still lives under the
tremendous impact of two great psychological experiences, the
Nazi period with the extermination of a third of our people,
and the heroic fight resulting in the emergence of the State
of Israel. Both these overwhelming experiences have revived
and revitalized the Jewish consciousness of millions of Jews.
The Nazi experience has created deep feelings of guilt and re-
sponsibility, the Israel experience deep emotions of pride and
happiness to be a Jew. These experiences however determining
the psychological structure of our adult generation are losing
their impact even for us, but certainly for the young genera-
tion for whom the Nazi tragedy will be only a historical memory
and the existence of the State of Israel an obvious matter of
fact. The more the impact of these two revolutionary experi-
ences of our generation will disappear, the less barriers will
remain to Jewish survival. For those who see through the noisy
and often misleading surface of Jewish life and are aware of
those depths where destinies of people are bing determined, it
represents the central problem of our existence today which
has to be solved if our survival should be secure."
By inviting a new approach to this issue and to new methods
to solve this problem, Dr. Goldmann admits that he does not
have an immediate solution.
The problem has been clearly defined on several occasions.
It is becoming more evident as an issue in Jewish life in the
indifference that is being displayed to Jews and. to Jewry in
many quarters. The claim of a religious resurgence in Jewry
is mostly superifical, and it is not too late to view the problem
of Jewish surival now.
Dr. Goldmann's statement must be clearly understood: it
was not intended to say that under anti-Semitism we flourish,
but without it we perish. On the contrary, what the world
Jewish leader had in view is the problem that challenges all of
us: what can we do to strengthen Jewish loyalties, to vitalize
the ideals inherent in our heritage, to reaffirm our adherence
to the basic Jewish principles which, to this very day, are the
foundation-stones of humanitarianism, and thereby to assure the
survival of Jewry?
Our people's best minds already are dealing with this 'issue.
Dr. Goldrnann's evaluation of the problem surely will inspire
even -more serious concern with it.
Prof. Fox Speaks
at Bar-Ilan Fete
Here on Aug. 24
Phillip Stollma n, national
chairman of the American Com-
mittee for Bar :Ilan University,
announced this week that a
complete analysis of the accom-
plishments of Bar-Ilan Univer-
sity, in Ramat Gan, Israel, will
be given by
Prof. Marvin
Fox, of Ohio
State Univer-
sity, at the re-
ception for
,Detroiters who
,:irecently vis-
ited the uni-
versity.
The Bar-Ilan
gathering here
will be held at
the summer
home of the
Stollman Fam-
ily on Sunday,
Aug. 24.
Dr. Fox
Prof. Fox,
author of scores of scholarly
articles on Jewish and general
subjects in many national maga-
zines, earned his B. A. and M. A.
degrees at Northern University
and received his Ph. D. at the
University of Chicago. His Jew-
ish studies were at the Hebrew
Theological College of Chicago.
Before assuming his philoso-
phy professorship at Ohio State
University in 1948, he was in
the department of philosophy of
Northwestern University for two
years. In 1955 he was visiting
professor of philosophy at the
Graduate School of the Hebrew
Theological College in Chicago.
He is a regular faculty mem-
ber of the Bnai Brith Institutes
of Judaism and lectures widely
on Jewish subjects.
Dr. Fox is considered one
of the country's leading inter-
preters of Orthodox Judaism.
He is a member of the boards
of the Union of Orthodox Con-
gregations, Mizrachi and Ameri-
can Association for Jewish Edu-
cation and is national consultant
of the National Association of
Hebrew Daily School PTAs.
Information regarding the
event at the Stollman summer
home may be secured by call-
ing Mizrachi's executive direc-
tor, Zvi Tomkiewicz, at the
Mizrachi office.
at BB Institute
in North Carolina
WILDACRES, N. C. (AJP)
—Rabbi Morris Adler, of De-
troit's Cong. Shaarey Zedek,
was one of three principal
speakers at the 11th annual
Bnai Brith Institute, held here
in the heart of the Blue Ridge
Mountains.
The Institute, held from
Aug. 3 to 7, also heard from
prominent writer Charles Ang-
off and noted Biblical scholar,
Dr. Harry M. Orlinsky.
Rabbi Adler told the gather-
ing of Southern Jews that
Judaism was an organism
grown out of human experi-
ence—an organism that had
gone through various stages
and processes of development.
Tradition, Rabbi Adler de-
clared cannot be inaugurated.
It evolves.
On the question of whether
Jews are a nation, a race or
a religion, Rabbi Adler em-
phasized that there "is no his-
tory of Jews without religion;
no religion without Jews."
Judaism constitutes a
"unique organism;" religion
and the people are associated,
he said. The synagogue, at its
inception, he added, was Zion-
ist. There was the hope of
the return to the land, to the
Temple and to God.
Hosts at the Wildacres In-
stitute are Mr. and Mrs. I. D.
Blumenthal, who have made the
facilities available to all faiths.
114110 N711111■011111■0■114i11.■ Oelsoi ■ OMIN•0411111•0.11111111.11•11143.01 ■ 11 ■
0.01•60. ■
Boris Smolar's
`Between You
... and Me'
(Copyright, 1958,
Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Inc.)
Community Issues
Jewish leaders in cities outside of New York are beginning
a campaign against their national leaders in New York . . . They
claim that New Yorkers are "monopolizing" the top places in
the leadership of national organizations . . . Especially in the
national leadership of the American Zionist movement .
Mortimer May, a non-New Yorker and a former president of
the Zionist Organization of America, is leading this campaign
. . . He claims that more than 80 percent of the ZOA national
leadership is composed of New Yorkers, at a time when the
membership is only 30 percent New Yorkers . . . The situation
is not very different in other American Zionist groups nor in
the composition of the Presidents Club, he asserts. . . He does not
consider New York Jewry sufficiently representative to occupy
the place it is given in the leadership of national Jewish organ-
izations . . . He claims that on a per capita basis the Jews of
New York contribute less to Jewish causes than Jews outside of
New York . . . He also figures that only 15 percent of New
York Jewry is affiliated with a synagogue . . . Mr. May may be
right as to the composition of top leadership in the Zionist
movement, but the same cannot be said about the composition
of top leadership in other national Jewish organizations . .
The American Jewish Congress broke with the tradition of
having a New Yorker as its president by electing this year
Rabbi Joachim Prince of Newark as president . . . For years
the American Jewish Committee had as its president Jacob
Blaustein who resides in Baltimore . . . The Council of Jewish
Federations and Welfare Funds had as its presidents Jewish
leaders from Miami, Indianapolis and other cities . . . Its present
president. Herbert Abeles. is not a New Yorker .. . The same
is true of the United Jewish Appeal whose general chairman,
Morris W. Bernstein, is not a New Yorker . . . Bnai Brith's
national president is Philip Klutznick, a resident of a Chicago
suburb . . . This is also the case with the National Jewish
Welfare Board, the National Community Relations Advisory
Council and other national Jewish bodies.
Alaska Echoes
Alaska, the newly admitted 49th state of the United States,
may not have a single synagogue, but it has many Eskimos who
claim Jewish ancestry . . . Although American Jews first began
settling in Alaska in 1897, the first Jewish settlers there were
Russian Jews who arrived in the 1830s, when the territory was
still a part of Czarist Russia . .. Some of these Russian Jews,
mostly fishermen, married Alaskans, and this explains why
there are today in Alaska residents who are of mixed Jewish-
Eskimo marriages . . . Jews in Alaska, although very few in
number, have displayed an active interest during the last 20
years in Jewish affairs . . . Some have even sent contributions to
the Joint Distribution Committee . . . It is interesting to note
that no less than 31 other states in the U.S. also had no synagogue
when they were admitted to the Union . . . This we discovered in
browsing through the "Jewish Tourists Guide to the United
Stataes" by Bernard Postal and Lionel Koppman, published by
the Jewish Publication Society . . . It did not take long for a
synagogue to be established soon after each of these 31 states
joined the Union . . . The 17 states whose first synagogues pre-
dated statehood are: Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, Kan-
sas, Montana, New Mexico, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, Penn-
sylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Utah, Washington, West
Virginia and Wisconsin.