FO..11.0011•1■11i.■04•111
r.
.41111■0111 11*04 ■ 041=1.0 ■ 11. ■ Oif.....=.11.1 ■ 04M1.14•111..11.1•0011•011.111 ■ 0411M04 ■ 01
,
t.
Boris Smolar's
'Between You
. . and Me'
JEWS IN NORWAY: The smallest Jewish community in Scandi-
navia is in Norway ... Altogether there are about 1,000 Jews in Norway,
of whom 400 reside in Oslo, the capital of the country . . . There is a
small synagogue in Oslo, and another one in Trondheim, the second
city where Jews maintain an organized community . . There is no
rabbi in the country, and when Marcus Lewin, the top Jewish com-
munity leader in Norway, died recently in Oslo, a rabbi had to come
all the way from Denmark to conduct the funeral services .. . There
is also no shohet, since kosher slaughtering is forbidden in Norway
on the ground that the shehita method is inhumane . . . The Jews in
Norway do not suffer much from the prohibition of shehita, since very
few of them observe kashrut . . . For those who insist on kosher meat,
the community in Oslo maintains a deep freezer with kosher meat
brought in from Denmark . . . The meat is sold only on Thursdays
and on the days before Jewish holidays . • . Matzo is not being baked
in Norway because the community is too small to maintain a matzo
bakery; however the Jewish community imports its matzo from
abroad . . . The community maintains a cantor for the synagogue,
which is closed on weekdays but open on Saturdays . .. But even on
Saturday one can hardly find a dozen Jews at the synagogue services.
However, on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the synagogue is over-
crowded . . . The community in Oslo is usually bringing a rabbi from
abroad for the High Holy Days, and pays him a very high sum for
his two weeks' stay and for his services . . . The Jews have no prayer
book of their own, but they import their prayer books from Denmark
because the Danish language is very similar to the Norwegian . . .
They also order prayer books from England, because almost every
Jew in Norway reads and speaks English, which is a compulsory
language in the Norwegian schools.
*
*
PROBLEM OF SURVIVAL: As in the other Scandinavian coun-
tries, Jews in Norway suffer of no anti-Semitism . . . The Norwegian
people make no distinction between Jew and non-Jew in public as
well as in private life . . . This encourages mixed marriage between
Jews and non-Jews . . . In a country where the Jewish population is
so small, intermarriage puts a question mark on the entire future of the
Jewish community . . . The intermarriage problem comes especially to
the forefront now because, until a few years ago. Norway did not have
any Jewish youths . . . The Nazis, when they invaded Norway, de-
ported more than 700 Jews to annihilation camps, and only 17 of them
returned alive to Norway after the liberation of the country . . .
Among the perished were the rabbi, Jewish community leaders and
their families, as well as the Jewish youth . . To restore Jewish life
in the country. the Norwegian government invited after the war, for
permanent settlement and citizenship, some 700 Jewish DPs liberated
from Nazi camps . . .These Jewish refugees, all fully absorbed in
the general life of the country, have merged with the survived several
hundred Norwegian Jews, most of whom had fled to Sweden during
the Nazi occupation of Norway, and returned to their homes after
the war . . . Children were then born in the Jewish families and have
grown up now to become a problem of intermarriage . . . This prob-
lem is difficult to deal with, since the Jewish youngsters don't feel
any difference between Jew and non-Jew in school, in play, in street
and in general life . . . They get very little Jewish education because
there are practically no Jewish teachers in the community .. . Some
of the religious Jews who were admitted to Norway after the war,
left the country because they wanted to bring up their children in
lands where there is a fuller Jewish life . . . This made the outlook
for a stronger Jewish community even weaker than it was before . .
One of the top Jewish community leaders in Oslo summed it up for me
by saying: "I am seeing to it that my son should feel that he is Jewish,
but whether this will prevent him from marrying a non-Jewish girl
is a big question mark."
COMMUNAL ACTIVITIES: Small as the number of Jews is in
Norway, one can find them in all fields of the country's life . . . There
are among them people in business, employees in various firms, teach-
ers in state schools, physicians and lawyers, but they are not noticed
as Jews . . . They are Norwegians . . . The small community is per-
mitted by the government to impose a special Jewish tax on anyone
who wants to consider himself a Jew, and the income from this tax
goes for maintaining a communal center and for religious purposes
... To commemorate the names of the Jewish victims deported to their
death by the Nazis, the government erected a Jewish War Memorial
with the names of all perished Jews engraved on it . . . At the unveil-
ing ceremony, the king and all members of the Cabinet were present,
signifying their sympathy with the Jewish community . . Unlike in
the other Scandinavian countries, there is no Jewish home for aged
in Norway, because there are no Jewish aged interested in such an
institution . . . The economic situation of the Jews is normal, and only
four aged Jews require community assistance . . . They are being
taken care of by the community in a private way . . . The community
is also helping to raise funds for Israeli purposes among its members,
and some Jewish families are sending their children for the summer
to Israel to live in Kibbutzim but to return to their homes in Norway.
Joint American-British Publication Venture
to Fight Hate, Anti-Semite Movements
The British publication, "Wiener
Library Bulletin," devoted to
world-wide scrutiny of hate move-
ments and anti-Semitism, will be-
come a joint British-American
venture with the appearance of its
next issue at the end of October.
The reorganized publication, a
quarterly, will be sponsored by the
Wiener Library of London and the
American Anti-Defamation League
of Bnai Brith.
The desecration of Jewish
cemeteries and memorials in Ger-
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
30—Friday, October 22, 1965
many, the outrages committed
against synagogues in England, the
sudden eruption of the Ku Klux
Klan in England, the rise of self-
s t y l e d Fascist movements in
Sweden and a flourishing anti-
Semitism in some countries of
South American are part of an
international extremist tendency
that "warrants new and undivided
attention," the sponsors of the
bulletin believe.
The Bulletin will consider such
American questions as the recent
rise of the Radical Right. An article
on the John Birch Society will ap-
pear in the coming issue.
Danny Raskin's
LISTENING
ROCHELLE AND DICK Gray
installed a new burglar alarm sys-
tem throughout the house . . .
They returned home from a re-
scent trip, forgot the alarm was
on and it went off waking the en-
tire neighborhood . . . However, at
least there was one happy neigh-
bor the following morning when it
happened again . . . His alarm
clock didn't go off but thanks to
Rochelle and Dick, he made it to
work on time !
* *
AVA GOLDBERG, 15 - year - old
daughter of Fritzi and Ben Gold-
berg, returned from a trip to Israel
as the United Synagogue Youth
delegate from Adas Shalom. . . .
The group went to study the coun-
try and the people . • . Ava's awe
was profound but she was mostly
impressed by the reconstruction of
Roman areas such as Caesarea and
Acre, uncovered cities which were
built in Roman times and buried
under the sands of centuries while
new civilizations were formed upon
them . .. During the trip, a little
Hassidic boy walked up to another
member of the group, David Krohn
from Shaarey Zedek, and asked in
Hebrew, "Do you speak English?"
*
*
AARON KATZ and Ray Sharwell
didn't have to look twice to
recognize each other . . . even
though they were boyhood friends
42 years ago in Cleveland, and
neither had seen each other for
almost 20 years . . . Aaron is now
a Detroiter and Ray was here on
business from Dalton, Georgia,
where he now resides.
* * *
DURING RECENT tag day by
New Life Chapter of American
Medical Center at Denver, Presi-
dent Tillie Parzen was standing
with a cannister into which two
little Negro shoe shine boys put
donations while saying, "If we help
your hospital, God will help us."
*
CREDIT THIS STORY to "Jew-
ish Wit and Wisdom," edited by
Jacob Richman . . . Artur Rubin-
stein, the pianist, and Michael
Rubinstein, the banker, once lived
in Paris on the same block . . .
Frequently letters and telegrams
addressed to one were delivered to
the other . . . One day Michael
came to Artur with a batch of tele-
grams . . . "These are for you," he
said. 'Please come with me and tell
my wife that Louise of Vienna, Illsa
of Prague, Margaret of Budapest,
etc., are your friends, not mine . .
Artur opened his desk and pro-
duced a batch of telegrams that be-
longed to Michael . . . "I'll be glad
to help you," he said "if you'll do
this for me. Tell my wife that the
five million lire in the Bank of
Rome and the two million pounds
in the Bank of England are your
money, not mine."
The appointment of ISRAEL
EMIOT, one of the foremost con-
temporary Yiddish authors, as Au-
thor in Residence of the Jewish
Young Men's and Women's As-
sociation was announced by Sam
Sorin, executive director, who said
that the impetus for this associa-
tion came through the develop-
ment of a Cultural Blueprint
designed to enrich the content of
Jewish living in Rochester, N. Y.
The JYM and WA is the first Jewish
Community Center affiliated with
the National Jewish Welfare Board
to establish the post of an Author
in Residence.
The CARIBE MOTEL
PROVIDES YOUR
OUT-OF-TOWN GUESTS
WITH . . .
CONVENIENT LOCATION
Woodward near 7 Mle Rd.
Minutes away from everything
LUXURIOUS ROOMS
• Phones • Air Conditioning
• Complete Kitchens
• Wall-to-Wall Carpeting
COMPLETE
ACCOMMODATIONS
AT NO EXTRA COST
• TV and Radio • Parking
• Continental Breakfast
PRONE
TO 8-2662
Moderate
Rates
Start at
$8.00
19630
Woodward
Near 7 Mile Road
Do electric dryers really cost less to buy?
Do you really get no-charge service?
Do kids like ice cream?
The answer, of course, is a rousing YES! Model for model, electric
dryers cost from $20 to $40 less than gas dryers. And every electric
dryer is backed by Edison's No-Charge repair service. No charge for
any electrical parts. No charge for labor. Edison is the only utility
company in this area that offers no-charge repair service.
Can you get this kind of worry-free assurance with a gas dryer?
Sure—with a manufacturer's repair service policy. But it will cost you
up to $120 over the first five years of operation alone!
One thing more. Edison's No-Charge repair service applies even if
you don't buy your dryer from Edison — so long as the dryer is electric
and you get your electricity from Edison. And if you buy now from a
participating dealer, the low price you pay includes the cost of wiring,
if any's needed. So when you add it up, an electric dryer can save
you up to $160 in just a few years. That can
keep the kids in ice cream a good loner time.
EDISON
.•
•