Friday, Ja nuary 3 1, 1964—THE DETROIT JEWISH NEW S-2 Purely Commentary Is American Jewry Too Complacent? ... Edwin Wolf's Serious Challenge . . . Solution in Mythical State Edwin Wolf II, the former president of the Jewish Publica- tion Society who now heads the National Foundation for Jewish Culture, is among the most disturbed in American Jewry over the complacency that seems to dominate Jewish life today. He has delivered a number of speeches in his home town of Phila- delphia and in other cities—including Detroit—and was a par- ticipant in the Dialogue that was conducted in Israel last year as an American Jewish Congress project. On an such occasions he indicated a sense of despair over assimilationist tendencies, the indifference to heritage by our youth and the minimaliza- tion of Jewish values. Last week he spoke at the annual meeting of the Chicago Jewish Federation and he warned of impending dangers. He made comparisons of conditions during the Nazi era with those today when there are no scare headlines. He portrayed the growth of Jewish community structure but admonished: "The Jews of the United States are disappearing, frighteningly, rapidly and inexorably. And as they disappear, so disappears the support you need for your Federation." In other words, while fund-raising has been a major factor in Jewish life—and a successful one—that, too, is in danger, be- cause "American Jewry has not been jolted from its complacency," warned Edwin Wolf II. He asserted: "We have more organizations .. . more children in religious schools . . . we are raising more money for hospitals, social agencies, community relations pro- grams, Israel . . we are the richest. most successful, best or- ganized, greatest Jewry in the world . . . The externals are so glittering, so reassuring. Our present is so self-satisfying and so comfortable. Our problem is that with all the growth and all the success Judaism has been diluted and what it means to be a Jew minimized. We are faced with the bland appeal of sub- urban conformity, the acceptance of something less than our traditional standards . . . we are taking the line of least re- sistance. We are quietly disappearing into the materialistic civil- ization of which we are a part. Because it has become easier in the United States to be a Jew, we are reacting perversely by aban- doning Jewishness, and abandoning at the same time those values which have made and have the potential of making great con- tributions to the world around us . . ." This is another way of asking—as so many of us have in the last few years—whether Jews, who can survive persecutions, also are able to emerge strong in freedom. Are we able to do that? And if we are beginning to disappear, what is the solu- tion for those of us who desire to survive as Jews? The ques- tion is a serious one for all who do, indeed, desire to survive as Jews. As we indicated . in our discussion of the issue dur-. ing Hanukah week, it is no problem at all for those who are unconcerned with Jewish survival. Let us see how Ed Wolf views the conditions into which the apparent decline has developed in American Jewish life. He took into consideration the assignment of communal leadership to the affluent, the plaque-giving fads, the craving for identification by some of our youth and their failure to attain it. He said, in his Chicago speech last week: "Organized Jewish life in America is far behind the Jewish intellectuals. far behind its own professionals. It is led by men who have been successful in business. Only a few of these men are cultured in a Jewish or a general way. They have not had time or inclination in their economic struggle to acquire the capacity to think deeply. They did not make the time as their grandfathers did to pursue learning. . . ". . . It has been a fortunate thing for American Jewry that, just as the Jewishly motivated energies of one group have died down another group, fresh from the vital sources of European Jewry, has taken its place. The forces which built our Jewish community have rarely been indigenous or self- engendered . . . . "The modern history of American Jewry dates only from World War II. Hitler and his atrocities and the petty fuhrers of Yorkville proved to be a concentric force which broke down, almost instantaneously, the slowly disintegrating barriers be- tween German and Eastern European Jew, between Reform Jew and Orthodox, between worker and owner. American Jews in the spell of a mass psychology rushed toward a manifestation of Jewish identity. . . . "Now, a new generation is growing up who knew not Joseph. Belsen and Auschwitz are names of sites in history. To the young men and women there is none of the stark im- mediacy of the horror we felt anymore than we shiver at the name of Cossack as did our fathers. Israel has become a matter of fact, something for which they have a vague responsibility, but which to them is no longer an ineffable miracle. They see the well-filled seats of Jewish organizational dinners, but they have no feeling of excitement. Even the ardent Zionists who gave up a portion of their mystique when they decided to remain Amer- icans and not be ingathered are now able to live with their ambivalence and not feel guilty. "This is a different breed of American Jew which is growing up in our land. He is educated. You saw to that. He has intellect- ual standards. His college gave them to him. He is uneasy, restless, dissatisfied, brilliant, seeking and alterating between pessimism and hopefulness. He is not willing to accept the emotional pulls which motivated his parents because his emotions have not been touched. He is inclined to look down upon the chase after wealth, success and power, because the world of the immediate past which had those goals seems to him so shaky and imperfect. In what he was taught, in what he reads he senses the import- ance of conviction and of belief. Yet, as he looks about in Jewish life, he sees superficiality and conformity . . . "Parents insist that their children receive what is loosely called a 'Jewish education,' but while the boy is expected to study for Hebrew school or Sunday school, father watches the television. The twist of Jewish life has become a matter of doing what I say, not what I do. The youth of today are too smart to be taken in. . . . "A psychiatrist told me that a significant number of his young Jewish patients want to be Jewish and do not know how, how, that is, within the framework of their educational and social background. They have rejected the matter-of-fact, attendance Vitality of American Jewry ... Confusion on Survival Methods By Philip a„,, wornovitz at Hadassah meetings, money-raising, committee-work activities of their parents. They want to know why. "It is not enough to tell them that helping those in need of help is good. This has become, in one form or another, good Americanism. They can point out with justice that the Negro needs more help today than the Jew. Having experienced little or no overt anti-Semitism, they cannot feel clannish for self- protective reasons. Stimulated in their thinking by intellectuals under whom they have studied or whose works they have read, they have become anti-establishment, anti-organization. They are not willing to go down a road because it is pointed out to them; they want to know why, and why that particular road." It is in the latter three paragraphs that Ed Wolf espe- cially touches upon the motivating factors that cause our troubles and leads us to a consideration of the challenges hurled at us. It is the lack of understanding by TV-intoxicated parents. It is the inability of the elders to explain Jewish values to the youth. It is the emphasis on fund-raising without evaluating the values that are to be enhanced by the funds raised. (If there were a better understanding of the objectives for which we are constantly campaigning to raise large sums of money, appeals for funds would, in themselves become easier). It is a major failure — and the large Jewish organizations are pri- marily guilty in having proved unable to pass on an under- standing of Jewish legacies by their followers —in our having proven incapable also of training our youth, which is unfa- miliar with anti-Semitism, to face the issue in the event it should arise anew, as it inevitably must on occasions. No one has a right to pose questions unless he can either offer an answer or inspire one. Does Ed Wolf have a solution to the great problem, which he has presented somewhat des- pairingly? In his Chicago address he said that he had a "personal" answer, "one paradoxically simple and complicated," and he offered it as follows: "If a Jew knows enough about the history, the religious principles, the traditions and the civilizing contributions of Jews he will consider it a privilege to be one. There are too many born Jews, too many I-wish-I-wasn't Jews, and too few convinced Jews. I am now not speaking about religion, but about a his- torical culture based on religion, about a culture which gave monotheism to the world, a people which in prophetic times spoke of the universal brotherhood of man, a minority which survived without nationhood because of a belief that the mil- lenium would come. "We are proud that our health and welfare agencies set standards of operation towards which others emulate. We are proud that in social fields we have pioneering agencies. Yet, we are hesitant to attribute this to our background or to cultivate that background. We Jews have had a folk experience of several millenia, learning how to survive with dignity. This is a lesson which the world needs, and by drawing upon our past and combining that with our successful present we may be able to help others. . "The questing young generation could well find answers to questions if they • only knew what it was to be a Jew, not nega- tively, but positively. The world respects us for our scholarship, our ethics, our contributions to civilization, and, strangely enough, for our Jewishness. It does not respect us for our wealth, our political power or our worldly success. "If we are to attract the ,loyalty of our successors in Jewish communal life, we must point out values, not just as milk-and- water doing-good, but as part of their blood, brain, bone and spirit. We must encourage the scholar. We must promote Jewish culture. The emphasis will have to shift from the popular. We must create an atmosphere in which young men and women can find both satisfaction and security. From our past people may learn how the divinity which lies in man can rise above war, hate, prejudice, gold, power, nationalism and greed to attain the capabilities which technologically man has and which morally and spiritually he lacks. It must come from that rich, vicarious experience which knowledge of the past brings, mixed in the crucible of the world as it exists. Its indivisible foundations are knowledge and faith. These we must bring back to the centrality of Jewish life. To survive American Jewry must attain them." So far so good —but this is not enough. As long as our youth "want to know why," we must find the "how," the approach to a solution, the method of answering their despair- ing questions—we must find the means wherewith to solve our quandaries. What Ed Wolf offered has been and is being spoken at every campaign meeting at which we hear appeals for Jewish education linked with those for Israel and the civic- protective movements. Only the Orthodox, who do not shun the religious issue, as Ed Wolf certainly did—(note the quotation from his speech wherein he said: "I am not now speaking about religion, but about a historical culture based on religion" —and that's begging the issue). But neither did the Orthodox, while they are firm and are more consistent, find and offer a solution. Their youth, too, are vanishing. Their sons and daugh- ters also abandon us the moment they reach the universities. What, then is the solution? If it were easy, Mr. Wolf would have had it. But in all its difficulties one factor seems to be overlooked: anything approaching an answer must begin with the parents much more than with the teachers; it must start in the home. It was not so long ago that non-Jews boasted for us that Jewish family life was so beautiful, so sacred. What has hap- pened to that sancity, with which was linked respect for our heritage, a deep interest by parents in their children and their studies, a deVotion that remains incomparable in all ranks? We have begun to worry over the rapid rise in intermarriage. Why aren't we equally as concerned over the rise in divorces among Jews? Are we as agitated by the all-too-frequent reports of an increasing rate of delinquency among young Jews? How are we to account for all these un-Jewish factors In Jewish life? How easy it is to speak about Jewish education and to decry the father's inability to remove the glue that keeps him linked to the television set—or the over-emphasis on the cocktails and the card games by women—when it is so vital that the sanctity of the home should be restored. This ought to be accomplishable among the young married Jews who should be appealed to for a resactification of their homes. Can the synagogue accomplish it? If not the rabbis, who can do it If it has been proven that sermonizing is valid in the Egyptian Pilot Folded His Tent Capt. Hahmoud Hilmi Abbas Hilmi, 26, U.A.R. air force pilot sits quietly at an undis- closed site in Israel as report- ers ask him about his defec- tion and request for political asylum. He flew his Czech- built Yak II training plane to an Israeli airstrip with two Egyptian jet fighters in hot pursuit. Jail Ex-Sudan Major as a Spy for Israel LONDON (JTA)—A Suda- nese military court has sen- tenced a former major, Abbas Gamal Eldin, to nine years in prison on charges of spying for Israel, it was reported here from Khartum. The defendant was found guilty of serving as a link be- tween spy rings in Cairo and Asmara, Eritrea which gathered information about Egypt and passed it on to Israel. struggle for survival, will the theological seminaries concede that new approaches are needed to reach the hearts and minds of our people? In a UN - sponsored volume published two years ago to eval- uate social conditions among numerous groups, it was pointed out that Jewry's survival is ascribable to kashrut and to the observance of the Sabbath, in addition to other factors. The Zionist influences certainly con- tributed to the group loyalties. Is it asking too much that there should be a return to these basic principles in Judaism? Those who are not interested in Jewish survival may laugh at such suggestions—but appeals for survival are not addressed to the totally indifferent who have determined to abandon us entirely. Edwin Wolf and others like him render a service when they raise the issue. They must also find solutions. If the rabbis and their ineffective sermons are at fault, if our schools do not in- fluence the children sufficient- ly, if greater efforts must be made to assure better teaching personnel for our schools — let there be coordinated thinking and planning. Solutions won't come through despair. They must be attained by means of confidence and hope that our youth is not total- ly lost, that American Jews are not "disappearing, frightening- ly, rapidly and inexorably." The feeling must be with the Psalm- ist that "lo amut ki ekhyeh"— "I shall not die but live." In a spirit of faith, those who strive for survivalism must succeed.. Let us act pragmatically in search for a solution of a prob- lem which does exist but which must not be viewed as an ap- proaching death.