•
vie SIFTIN4 kticEss
THE JEWISH NEWS
20, 1951
Incorporating the Detroit Jewish Chronicle commencing with issue of July
sistome
Member American Association of English-Jewish Newspapers, Michigan Press Association, National
Editorial
Association
Published
every Friday by The Jewish News Publishing Co., 17100 West Seven Mile Road, Detroit 35.
Mich.. VE 8-9364. Subscription c5 a year Foreign 86.
Entered as second class matter Aug. 6. 1942 at Post Offic,.. Detroit. Mieh under act of Congress of March
187
PHILIP SLOMOVITZ
Edit, r and Publisher
SIDNEY SHMARAK
CARMI M. SLOMOVITZ
Advertising Manager
Circulation Manager
7411pos
CLUBS .
FRANK SIMONS
City Editor
Sabbath Scriptural Selections
of Tammuz, 5719, the following Scriptural selections
This Sabbath, the twenty-sixth day
will be read in our synagogues:
Pentateuchal portion, Matot-blase, Num 30:2-36:13. Prophetical portion, Jer. 2:4-28; 3:4.
Licht Ilenshen, Friday, July 31. 7:34 p.m.
Page Four
VOL. XXXV. No. 22
July 31, 1959
The World Jewish Congress Plenary Assembly
.
Representatives of most of the Jewish From the very inception of the World
communities throughout the world will Jewish Congress, Jewish communities in
convene, for ten days, in the Swedish all of the Latin American countries, in s
Parliament Building, in. Stockholm, to European centers, in the United State
review major issues affecting the Jewish and Canada and in Africa and Asia par-
people everywhere and to draft blue- ticipated in its programs.
While American Jewish leaders will
prints for World Jewish Congress actions
in matters involving the security of play a major role in the World Jewish
Congress Plenary Assembly, it is not to
Jewish communities.
be overlooked that the most distinguished
The Plenary Assembly of the World leaders of British, French, Canadian and
Jewish Congress, to be held Aug. 2 to 12, many other Jewries will be among the
is of major significance at this time. The active participants in the ten-day sessions
world Jewish leaders have undertaken to Spokesmen for many governments and
review the cultural aspects of Jewish corn- for United Nations commissions will ap-
munal life, the relationship between Israel pear on the assembly's programs and
and the Jewish people in the Diaspora, their participation will signalize a recog-
questions involving Jewish immigration nition of the importance of the issues to
and a score of other issues which face us be discussed and the solutions to be
constantly in efforts to relieve want. to arrived at.
The WJC Plenary Assembly has the
advance Jewish education and to strength-
endorsements of the overwhelming ma-
en the position of Medinat Israel.
The World Jewish Congress assembly jority, of Jewish communities. It has
must be viewed as a major undertaking earned the blessings of all Jews in the
to assure unified efforts by Jewish com- vital issues it will tackle and in the task
munities in establishing such coordinated of arriving at major decisions in matters
programming as will assure cooperation affecting Jewish communities through-
on cultural levels by Jewries everywhere. out the world.
Normally there are three types of con-
verts from one religion to another. First
there is the intellectual, the man who desires
a religious faith, and on the basis of study,
chooses one. The second type which, tin-
fortunately, is snore frequent, is based on
opportunism. This has occurred very fre-
quently among Jews. The problem of being
a Jew was always difficult because it meant
being a member of a minority group. And
therefore, some Jews gave up their religious
faith in order to achieve security for them-
selves and their families. This kind of con-
version is a one-way street. There are very
few non-Jews who become Jewish for oppor-
tunistic reasons. The third and perhaps most
frequent cause or conversion is to facilitate
marriage. Here there exists a two-way road.
There are at least as many Catholics and
Protestants who convert to Judaism as there
are Jews who convert to Catholicism and
Protestantism for purposes of marriage.
How valid are these conversions? Un-
questionably, a number of these are based
on expediency without any real intent of
conversion at all. Nevertheless, what some-
times happens is interesting. Converts some-
times become enamoured of their new faith
simply because of the relationship which
exists between them and the persons for
whose sake the conversion were made. In
such cases converts are frequently more
deeply attached to their new faith than those
who are born into it.
Think for a moment of the problem which
confronts a Rabbi. Here is a young woman
who says that she would very much like to
be a convert to Judaism. She's intellectually
alert, highly educated, and possesses an in-
tegrity which cannot be questioned. On the
other hand, he is confronted by a young
Jewish woman who feels no loyalty to the
faith into which • she was born. She was
brought up in a home utterly devoid of Jew-
ish tradition. When these two women appear
before the Rabbi, each wishing to be married
to a Jewish young man, should he insist on a
course of training for the former and per-
form the ceremony for the latter without
further consideration?
i
•
Dr. A. W. Binder, professor of liturgical music at Hebrew
Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, has made an important
contribution to synagogue musicology with his latest book,
"Biblical Chants," published by Philo-
sophical Library (15. E. 40th, N.Y. 16).
In it he explains the cantillations and
offers a complete set of musical lessons
on the application of the traditional
trope.
Unfortunately, the greatest problem that
An outstanding authority on Jewish
Rabbis find in the life of one who converts
music, Dr. Binder explains that he has
to Judaism is the person for whom the con-
developed "a series of comprehensible
version took place. You would think that if a
charts and practical methods whereby
man asked someone to give up her faith for
I could make the study of cantillation
his sake, that he must have valued his faith
a pleasurable musical study, easily un-
enough to demand such a sacrifice. We must
derstood by musical and non-musical
not ask more of the people we love than we
students, professional or non - profes-
are willing to give. Frequently a young
sional." In "Biblical Chants" he has
woman who has become a Jewess, begins
with great enthusiasm to practice her newly incorporated the complete method he
discovered faith. But unfortunately, the re- has developed, so that his book serves
as an excellent textbook for cantors
ligious indifference of her husband makes
and for others who desire to master
this impossible . . .
. . Is religious conversion possible? The the tropes.
Dr. Binder
Dr. Binder explains how the teach-
answer to that queston is, "Yes, it certainly
ing
of
cantillations
was
revised
in
the
Reform
congregations.
is." But respect for Judaism on the part of
converts would be greater if self-respect on He writes:
the part of Jews, for whose sake these con-
"In former days it was customary for. every Jew to read
versions are made, would be greater.
the Biblical portion of the week in private on the Sabbath,
As time goes on, the problem of inter- before hearing it read in public at the synagogue. This he did
of cantillation.
marriage and the issues revolving around with special chanting motifs, called tropes
was felt for
the proprieties of conversions are certain as well as he knew how. Several decades ago, it
a while that cantillation of the Torah was about to become a
to become more pronounced. For the
to the rabbinical students at.
art, so I began teaching it
rabbis, these questions are serious, and lost
Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in 1922,
they create many difficulties for them. who in turn taught it to their Bar Mitzvah students. This was
In the main, however. the self-respect of the first effort to bring back the beauty of the Torah cantilla-
Jews themselves, as Rabbi Cohn has in- lion into the Reform synagogue, whence it was banished about
dicated, is of major importance. To 150 years ago. Later on, Jewish parochial schools began to
attain and to retain it requires a long teach it systematically, as a required course. For it preserved
one of the aesthetically inspiring aspects of Biblical study."
range program of education.
"Biblical Chants" is, indeed, a most valuable and most de-
scriptive work of synagogue music.
The explanatory chapter is most illuminating. Dr. Binder
In the United States during World War states:
"The style of Biblical chant is half-musical and half-
II on a mission for Palestinean Jewry,
Chief Rabbi Isaac Halevi Herzog was declamatory, the reader always being mindful of the meaning
about to return home when he was ad- of the text and welding it to the tropes. However, the musical
vised—by none other than Great Britain's element in the reading clearly predominates.
"The rhythm of the Biblical chant is of the irregular or
Ambassador Lord Halifax — to remain
a symmetrical brand. To place it behind rigidly spaced bar-lines
here.
its ancient and authentic character. Biblical
Gen. Rommel was knocking on the is to imprison
not influenced by any musical metric character of
is
chant
gates of the Holy Land; to return then the tropes, but rather by -the accentuation ingrained in the
was to risk his life. "We have no prophecy text which determines its musical flow.
for the destruction of the third Temple.
"The early church fathers were, and musical authorities
You may be sure that the enemy will not up to our time are, of the opinion that the Greek Orthodox
enter the gates of Jerusalem," was Rabbi chant and the Catholic Gregorian chant were derived from the
temple and synagogue melodies of ancient Palestine. Musical
Herzog's reply.
Rabbi Herzog's knowledge of Torah history illustrates to us that early art music derived largely
and Talmud, his gentle, good humor— from the music of the church.
"We can therefore conclude from these two historical
even his Irish brogue transferred from
his former post as Chief Rabbi of Ireland facts that ancient Biblical chant served at least as one of the
—were well known. That he was an in- basic pillars of the art of music as we know it in our day."
The text itself presents the tropes, for all the Biblical
spiration to Jews all over the world for
and scrolls, with musical notes. There are also comparative
his quiet courage in the face of danger books
charts of the six systems of Ashkenazic cantillation and the
causes his passing to be mourned in all various
trope charts for Haftoroth and other Biblical readings.
Religious Conversions and Jewish Self-Respect
An increase in intermarriage between
Jews and non-Jews has raised the ques-
tion also of conversions, which often ac-
company intermarriages, but which are
not always the results of convictions as
to religious preferences.
Rabbi Judah Cohn recently posed the
question: "Is Religious Conversion Pos-
sible?", and he developed the thesis as
follows:
•
Dr. Binder s Biblica l Chants
Explains Synagogue Melodies
The Death of a Rabbi
communities of all nations.