Purely Commentary
That Muddled Issue of Unity and Uniformity
Bernard G. Richards is not only one of our most charming person-
alities: he remains, in his late 80s, one of the ablest and wisest inter-
preters of Jewish needs and aspirations. He is especially well qualified
to define the needs for the centralization of Jewish communal activi-
ties—because he played important roles in the formation of the Ameri-
can Jewish Congress, he assisted in the setting up of the Kehillah
in New York and he was active in behalf of the ill-fated American
Jewish Conference.
His views gain new importance as a result of the statement that
was issued recently by the American Jewish Committee on "Central-
ism." The latter was aimed as a rebuttal of the charge made by Dr.
Nahum Goldmann that the AJCommittee is injecting itself in Latin
American affairs, that it is not cooperating in unified Jewish efforts.
To justify its position, the AJCommittee has made public several
statements from Latin American Jewish communities to indicate that
the Committee is welcomed by them and that its contributions are of
value to them.
Since then, there have been expressions against the intervention
of overseas groups in internal Jewish affairs in Latin American coun-
tries and a resolution to that effect is on the records of the World
Conference of Jewish Organizations.
But that is not the important factor in the new controversy involv-
ing the AJCommittee. The statement it issued declared that "no single
organization can presume to represent all the Jews of the U. S., let
alone the Jews of the world"; that "any organization which claims
such representation however composed and however democratic in
expressed intent, is deluding itself and misleading those to whom such
claims are addressed."
This is not as logical as it sounds. It is necessary to take into
account many Jewish responsibilities which arise from time to time
for an understanding of the value of unified action. There have been
times when different and differing Jewish delegations have gone to
American and other leaders to plead for just rights for Jewry and for
Israel. Often they pleaded in accord, but failure to act in unison
emphasized a lack of accord among us.
The AJCommittee's statement failed to clarify the issue. Unity
does not imply uniformity. If we have a centralized movement it does
not imply that any one group is deprived of the right to self-expression.
But in time of great need it assures the existence of a movement that
can speak for all of us.
But when representatives of major movements shun each other
and create an impression that vested interests are vital to their
existence, there is created bitterness and animosity as substitutes
for cooperation and unity.
B. G. Richards, writing on this subject of unified Jewish action,
in a recent article in the American Zionist, used as the title for his
recollections regarding the New York Kehillah "The Address of the
Jewish People." That's just the point: that in time of crisis there is
need for an address. The AJCommittee has not prevented the acquisi-
tion of such an address: in some measure the Conference of Presidents
serves that purpose. But it has remained aloof from such an over-all
effort. That's its failing.
Dr. Goldmann's 'Single People' Credo
In all fairness, the attitude of Dr. Nahum Goldmann should be
known in his direct application to the AJ Committee's position.
The stenographic report of Dr. Goldmann's criticism has just
reached us. In his speech at the meeting of the executive committee
of the World Jewish Congress in Strasbourg. France, he warned
"against inclinations and tendencies within American Jewry not to
participate in joint action with other Jewish communities, either
through the instrument of the World Jewish Congress or the World
Conference of Jewish Organizations. but to act on their own and
so to speak to set themselves up as protectors of other weaker Jewish
communities." He said "this tendency must be resisted," and he
continued:
"The American Jewish Committee which does important work
and, in most essential Jewish problems, has no real differences with
other Jewish organizations working in the field, and makes an im-
portant contribution to Israel and other Jewish causes, nevertheless
insists—for ideological reasons which are meaningless today—on
acting on its own, cooperating with other Jewish organizations only
in specific cases which represent an exception to their basic principle.
As a matter of fact, the whole activity of the American Jewish Com-
mittee is in contradiction with their theoretical basis. It denies the
unity of the Jewish people in action, and acts de facto as if it were
an international Jewish organization, dealing with Jewish problems
in various parts of the world, and even without observing the basic
principle of the World Jewish Congress, not to interfere in Jewish
questions in other countries without being asked by the representative
bodies of these communities—except for the cases, like in Nazi Ger-
many, where no such Jewish bodies exist—and without being guided
in what they do by the advice of the organized Jewish communities.
"There is a similar tendency on the part of other organizations
too, and, if this continues, it will increase chaos in Jewish life, bring
American Jewry into conflict with other Jewish communities and
create undesirable political problems in several non-American coun-
tries, making effective work very difficult. The time has come for the
American Jewish Committee — which has a record of important
achievements and is genuinely devoted to the welfare of the Jewish
people—to reconsider its ideology which has no meaning in the
20th Century, and no longer act as if it had a mandate from the
Jewish people, which it does not recognize, to do as it does, but to
recognize de facto and not only de jure the existence of a single
Jewish people, and cooperate with other Jewish organizations, both
within the U. S. and in the international field with regard to common
Jewish questions.
"The World Conference of Jewish Organizations, which repre-
sents an addition to the World Jewish Congress and comprises a
number of Jewish organizations unfortunately not yet represented
within the World Jewish Congress. has, after a period of purely
consultative procedures, abolished the role of unanimity, which may
open the way for joint activities."
Non-Jews often looked upon us with suspicion and spoke of an
alleged "Jewish unity" as something to guard against. Actually, we
are as little united as any other peop12., but we need more coopera-
tion among ourselves because of many crises that arise. More often
than not, we all agree on the basic matters that affect us, but some
seek their own platforms. A centralized force could avert many em-
barrassments. This is the issue at hand in dealing with the AJ Corn-
Yom Kippur an Influencing
Force in Jewry . .. Muddled
Issue of Unity, Uniformity
By Philip
Slomovitz
mittee which, as Dr. Goldmann said, "does important work." In unity,
such important work becomes even more significant.
*
A Deserved Honor for BGR
Bernard G. Richards—affectionately referred to in Jewish leader-
ship ranks as BGR—is due for a deserved honor.
His rich collection of historic letters with American Jewish nota-
bles will soon form an archive, in his name, in one of the great Ameri-
can academic institutions.
This is good news, BGR deserves every honor that will be accorded
him, and the creation of such planned archives is an especially fitting
way of paying him the honors he deserves.
*
*
The Yom Kippur Fast and Jewish Nostalgia
Last week, 'Edmond Fleg's satire on Yom Kippur fasting by a Jew
who otherwise had rejected everything Jewish, was part of our Com-
mentary. Coincidentally, the current issue of Ramparts, the leading
Catholic liberal laymen's publication, presents a similar theme. One
of its contributing editors, the specialist on travel, Gerald M. Feigen,
describes a trip on "The Road to Jerusalem" on the eve of Yom
Kippur.
Driving from Caesaria, he became "worried about the tabu" of
the approach of Yom Kippur, but his passenger, a Jerusalemite,
assured him they would arrive on time before the fast day would set
in. "An American tourist who had not observed Yom Kippur for 40
years," he began to wonder why the approach of the atonement day
bothered him.
He continued to call it a "tabu," but he picked up two hitch-hiking
soldiers—"who wouldn't stop for a Jew on Yom Kippur Eve?"—and
he explains their attitude: "Neither of them were going to the syna-
gogue, but they were going to fast. They were against the orthodoxy;
most of their friends were not religious, but they still respected Yom
Kippur. It didn't imply that you were a true believer—merely that you
were a Jew in Israel."
But it isn't in Israel alone that there are such Jews: as in the
Edmond Fleg story, the Jew fasts out of respect for his father but
abandons all else in Judaism.
Yet, there is much more to the Feigen story. He reached Jerusa-
lem a bit late, there were no other cars in sight, the traffic light did
not work, he was surrounded by Jews on their way to the synagogue,
muttering imprecations, and one spat at him. He reached the home of
his host ‘v h o assured him that it was a genuine, national involvement,
this Yom Kippur. Even the unbelievers observed it, one way or anoth-
er, and often found reasons to fast. But even those who did not fast,
remained at home quietly involved.
There was a soul-searching, and Feigen's confessional proceeds
to express his sentiments as follows:
"Collecting my thoughts, I decided that my severe symptoms were
reactive to my childhood memories of Yom Kippur, the reputation of
the Mea Shearim, and the statements of so many Israelsi of the im-
portance of the tabu. But that wasn't all of it. My feelings were intensi-
fied. by some special quality generated by this land, its history and
people, and the history of the Jews everywhere. During the past few
days I had visited the ancient fortress at Acre, and saw the execution
chamber, where a number of Jewish fighters were hanged; I saw the
death cells, and the red suits worn by the condemned, lying freshly
laundered on the bare cots; I learned of the fantastic escape of a large
number of Irgun prisoners which came just too late to save the con-
demned. This was the beginning of the modern State of Israel.
"I also saw the Yad Vashem, the Memorial to the Jews who were
destroyed by the Nazis. It was an enormous square building, its walls
made of giant boulders selected from the Galilee. The roof was ?made
of thick, heavy concrete, sloping down to within a foot of the walls,
leaving a small space through which light filtered softly. Once past the
massive sculptured doors, I saw a vast, dark hall; a corridor ran around
a floor of blue and white tile, recessed about three feet. An eternal
flame burned in one corner, but what made the eyes mist over were
the names of the concentration camps spelled out in the tile—Dachau,
Maldenek, Auschwitz — a silent roll call that filled me with des-pair
and hope.
"And so sitting exhausted on my rocking chair, I realized that the
Israelis have cherished Yom Kippur as a total tradition — a day not so
much of atonement, as a tribute to the many times when civilization
perished, the Jews survived. It had become a day of silent thought, a
national intensity, polished into a gem-like tradition by universal
acceptance. The unbelievers seemed to acknowledge with a kind of
reverence that it was the believers, who in many lands over the cen-
turies, kept the Jewish race and ideal alive by continuing, year by
year, the orthodox services on Yom Kippur in the synagogues, undaunted
by persecution, segregation, and scorn. It was a day of the dead and
the living; and although the majority of the Children of Israel do not
follow any defined, theologic construct, they venerate this day holding
fast to its traditional lever, and adding a special quality of their own—
a memorial, observed with some kind of personal sacrifice. It was a
salute to the patriarchs, a gesture of feeling altogether non-intellectual,
which enabled them to accept the "tabu."
"It was an enriching, if frightening, experience for me; in some
way the dialogue I had with myself, validated its character. It helped
me delineate my knowledge of Jewish history, and my sense of loss at
being a noncontributor, except of my own personal integrity. The day
was still ominous to me, but now in a more understandable way. The
psychologic pain left, and I was able to meditate peacefully."
Kiev Will Honor
Memory of Jewish
Babi Yar Victims
WASHINGTON (JTA)—The So-
viet Embassy made known receipt
of official information that the
City Soviet of Kiev has decided to
erect a monument to Jews and
other victims of Nazi mass murders
at Babi Yar, on the outskirts of
the Ukrainian capital.
Information sent by the official
Novosti Press Agency said that
Mikhail Burka, chairman of the
Kiev City Soviet, made the an-
nouncement to a Novosti corres-
pondent. He was quoted as stating:
"It is known that, at the time of
World War II, the German Fascist
invaders shot in Babi Yar tens of
thousands of Soviet citizens, Jews,
Ukrainians, Russians, men, women,
old folks, and children. The monu-
ment to the victims of Fascism
will be erected on the spot of the
mass slaughter. It will remind fu-
ture generations not only of the
horrors of war but of the savage
ferocity and bestial deeds of Ger-
man Fascists."
The monument will be erected
next year. A competition has
been authorized for the the most
suitable and graceful design.
The memorial will stand at the
entrance to the park which is
being laid out in the elevated
section of Babi Yar, on the spot
of the mass shooting.
For a number of years, heavy
criticism has been voiced through-
out the Western world against the
unwillingness of Soviet authorities
to mark the Babi Yar site suitably.
In most instances, Soviet denuncia-
tions of German atrocities during
World War II have avoided men-
tioning that Jews were among Hit-
ler's principal civilian victims.
Novosti is a feature service under
government control in Moscow,
catering only to the foreign press.
Its dispatches are not published in
the Soviet Union.
* * *
Letter Upbraiding Nikita
Reaches British Press
LONDON (JTA)—A sardonic
and impassioned analysis of the re-
emergence of anti-Semitism in the
Soviet Union during the Khrush-
chev regime, believed to have been
written by a Jewish Communist
Party member who was a victim
of Stalin's persecution of Jews, has
reached the West after being cir-
culated among Soviet Jews clan-
destinely for about two years.
A report on the document by
Emanuel Litvinoff, the British Jew-
ish writer, appeared in the Guar-
dian. It is an anonymous letter to
former Soviet Premier Nikita
Khrushchev after his denunciation
of the Soviet poet Yevgeni Yevtu-
shenko for the latter's famous
poem on Babi Yar, the ravine
where, in 1941, the Nazis slaugh-
tered hundreds of thousands
Jewish men, women and childre,,,__,/
The poem denounced anti-Semitism
in the Soviet Union and described
the martyrdom of the Jews under
the Nazis. The letter to Khrush-
chev denounced Soviet anti-Semi-
tism outright.
* * *
Costa Rican Intellectuals
Appeal to USSR for Jews
SAN JOSE, Costa Rica (JTA)—
An appeal signed by 51 of the lead-
ing intellectuals in this country
was sent to the authorities of the
Soviet Union, urging sharply
that the USSR stop its discrimi-
nation against Russian Jewry who
are denied full rights in the educa-
tional, cultural and reliigous fields.
The appeal was adopted at a
meeting here at which data
a b u o t anti-Jewish persecutions
were documented by Costa Rican
writers and educators. The meet-
ing took note of the fact that the
recent Latin American congress of
members of Parliament had adopt-
ed a similar resolution, calling for
an end to anti-Jewish discrimina-
tion in the USSR.
It is not because we are soon to approach Yom Kippur that we
offer this soul-searching declaration as a basis for self-analysis by
others who may have drifted from Jewish loyalties but who still
adhere to a heritage they are unaware of, a legacy they cherish sub-
consciously.
What we have inherited is spiritual. It is historic. But for those
who think in terms of "tabus" it often emerges as much more than
that. It is something we do not escape. It is part of a continuing
tradition which provides us with the pride of belonging, with a sense
of the historic that is inerasable from our inner selves.
Yet, to so many it has become a "tabu," when, in reality, it is a
legacy that constantly reminds us of the Jew's adherence to the highest
principles of social justice, to his realization that he continues to play
a vital role as the teacher who carries with him, wherever he may,
the Decalogue and also the sense of duty to transmit to a cruel world
the credo of the Jew: a credo of justice and humanitarism.
Somehow, one feels upon reading Feigen's account of his Yom
Kippur in Israel, as it was published in Ramparts, that he was re-
lieved: he rediscovered himself. The Jew who has not broken with his
faith and with his traditions always has the advantage of being better
prepared to meet all eventualities and to defy dangers. The spiritually THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
2—Friday, September 3, 1965
faithful Jew is always the happier and more secure.
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