Purely Commentary
This year could gain the distinction of introducing a spirit of faith and
confidence if all factions in Jewry were to get together, work harmoniously
in the best interests of the entire people and agree on the basic needs.
We have had so much discussion about survival, about the indifference
of youth and the abandonment of faith by the teen-agers, that the past
decade could be labeled the period of panic and despair. The year 5727
should be welcomed in a spirit of abandoning fear, of re-introducing the
faith that has distinguished us through the ages:the sense of confidence
that Israel lives, that the Jewish spirit is indestructible and that what we
need is the re-fortification and re-entrenchment that is so vital to digni-
fied existence.
There is no doubt about existence as Jews and survival. Even if
we wanted to escape we couldn't. The world might not permit it. History
militates against it. And then there is that desire to live. Why, then, speak
of disintegration when the need is to reiterate the positive values of heri-
tage, people, faith, the glories of a spiritual life ahead!
There has been entirely too much of the negative in Jewish discus-
sions. The dialogues were based on despair. Fears have predominated, at
a time when there should be optimism and self-confidence.
It is true that many of our young evidence an indifference to matters
Jewish as soon as they enter the universities. There is no doubt that there
is need for a re-awakening. A way must be found to enroll our youth in
Jewish studies while pursuing their general studies, and to keep them in
the fold after they leave their homes. Yet, we must recognize that most
of our youth do return to us. The pity is that their return is via fund
raising, and it should be along paths of culture that should lead them to
ranks of an intellectual aristocracy. This is where the community steps
in, where parents must show the way, where the young should hold fast
to faith by way of example. And the examples have not been too invigor-
ating. Why expect more from the youth than is evidenced by the adults?
Welcoming 5727 in a Spirit of Faith
That Rejects Manifestations of Fear
It is vital that we recognize that fund raising is important and should
not be igndred.. But fund raising becomes ineffective when its objectives
are not fully known. This is where the priority of knowledge steps in to
encourage the double responsibility: to assist in philanthropy while giving
strength to the major educational aims of the community.
The recurring self-criticism that is now being heard endlessly at
Jewish gatherings is becoming rather amusing. Spokesman after spokes-
man is heard deploring a "bleak" attitude among Jews. The "bleak"
term has become popular as a way of describing Jewish life. But few
seem to have the courage to indicate that what is happening now is not
new, that the earlier generation of American Jews was not more
dedicated to Jewish traditions and to learning. If we could point to an
earlier generation of great culture we might today have had a
devote, a more learned Jewry. And this applies to the Jewries of rn
lands, since American Jews are not alone in the state of cultulal ZieL
cline. It is only in the sense that the reservoir upon which American
Jews depended for guidance, for teachers, for inspiration — the East
European Jewish source — had either dried up or was destroyed by
Nazism, that we have cause to deplore serious losses. By replacing
this depletion with cultural forces of our own making we will be able
to repair the damage.
As we welcome the year 5727, let the first steps be firm, with a feel-
ing of confidence that the People Israel is a thriving community, that we
have a legacy to respect and a heritage to pass on to future aenerations
and that we shall do it with dignity and with honor. If we hold fast to
such self-respect, the new year can, as it should, be a glorious one, herald-
ing triumph for a people's historic ideal.
Let this be the aim for 5727—and with such an aim we may well
assure one another with confidence that it will be a Happy Year.
'Hope Is My House' —1Devorah Wigoder's Impressive
Autobiographical Account of a 'Righteous Proselyte'
Geoffrey Wigoder is a well
known name in Jerusalem. He is
a writer, has been a radio broad-
caster, and his commentaries have
drawn wide attention.
His wife, Devorah Wigoder, has
become equally well known, and
she has been popular on the pub-
lic platform, having campaigned
for Israel Bonds, for the UJA, for
Hadassah. In her speeches in this
country and in Canada she had
told of her Christian background
and how she came out of convic-
tion to adopt the Jewish faith.
"Hope Is My House," her auto-
biographical account of her search
for a faith, how she came to Juda-
ism, her conversion and her mar-
riage to Wigoder, has been pub-
lished by Prentice-Hall, Inc., of
Englewood Cliffs, N.J. It is a well-
told story about a Catholic family,
the devotion which led one brother
to priesthood, a sister to become
a nun, but which nevertheless left
Jane Frances MacDwyer in a state
of uncertainty, leading her to a
search that finally brought her to
the Jewish Theological Seminary,
where she met her future husband
while she was seeking for a guide
to lead her to Judaism.
At her conversion, she took
dish Theater On the nit of the was the result of a deep convic-
UN partition decision for a Jew- tion. When she and her husband
ish State, and she heard Maurice were about to get married, after
Schwartz move his audience to their arrival in Israel in their
tears with panegyrics for Zionism. determination to become estab-
A Jewish companion who wanted lished there—as they did—her Jew-
to escape left the theater but she ishness was questioned. Chief
remained and retained the memory Rabbi Herzog then received a cable
of the occasion.
from Prof. Saul Lieberman of the
Mrs. Wigoder's story is not Jewish Theological Seminary, as-
limited to a personal discussion serting that she was "a righteous
of her craving for an acceptable proselyte." That settled it. Her
spiritual status. It includes an status was recognized at once.
account of events in Israel and
There is an Irish element in the
in world Jewry and is a continua- story. The MacDwyers were Irish.
tion of her search for a religious Geoffrey Wigoder's family stemmed
atmosphere. The Wigoders' eld- from Ireland. Chief Rabbi Herzog
er son's Bar Mitzvah leads them had been Chief Rabbi of Ireland.
to the synagogue, but there is a These details are part of an Irish-
lack of total satisfaction and American-Israeli story that flavors
they begin to pray at home, and Mrs. Wigoder's autobiography.
now they are dividing their in- "Hope Is My House" is an impres-
terests between the Reform He- sive work that makes delightful
brew Union College service in reading, it is revealing in its ac-
Jerusalem and the "Mevarshei count of a search for a faith and
Derekh — Seekers of a Path" the finding of a great consolation
movement that was instituted by in Judaism and is part also of the
a Conservative rabbi.
life in Israel with which the Wigo-
There is no doubt that Mrs. ders have become strongly linked.
Wigoder's acquisition of Judaism
—P. S.
.
Hias Service Brings Refugees to U.S.
the name Devorah Emmet Jaffe.
The late Dr. Milton Steinberg, to
whom she had turned first in
search for guidance and who
directed her to the Seminary,
and suggested a rabbinic student
to guide her in her studies that
were to lead her to her conver-
sion, had suggested that she take
the name Ruth. She decided on
Devorah because she "was the
first woman mentioned in the
Bible for something more sign-
ificant than being impregnated
at an advanced age, like Sarah";
inserted the Emmett because it
was the second name of her
beloved brother who had passed
on and because it was the name
of the great Irish hero and stood
as well for the Hebrew word
truth; and the Jaffe was for the
meaning of the word in Hebrew,
"beautiful."
Her Catholic, her Irish back-
grounds play important roles in
her life story. She did not have
any serious controversies with her
family, although they did not, of
course, approve of her conversion.
She remained on friendly terms
with them. But she rejected Cath-
olicism and found great beauty
in Judaism. She had even gone to
a small synagogue in Greenwich
Village before turning to Rabbi
Steinberg to whom she paid great
tribute in her autobiography.
Before her decision to become
a Jewess, she had gone to the Yid-
By Philip
Slomovitz
Tribute to Hadassah
in Wigoder Autobiography
In her impressive autobiography, "Hope Is My House," (Prentice-
Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N. J.), in which she describes her conversion
to Judaism, her marriages to Geoffrey Wigoder and her life in Israel,
Devorah Wigoder pays tribute to the efficiency of the Hadassah medi-
cal program in Israel. She writes:
"On the 21st day of November, 1954, our son Meir Joel was born.
"I saw discrimination in Hadassah Hospital; but it was in favor of
the less privileged immigrant population, who were awed by the mas-
sive medical arm reaching out to help them. Newcomers were initiated
into modern medicine by a superior corps of sympathetic nurses and
doctors whose approach to them very much resembled a loving parent's
devotion to a child.
"Hadassah's operation has often been criticized for those short-
comings involving superficial niceties such as changing the water in
flower vases, or getting the telephone messages left by patients' rela-
tives and friends. Women have argued that 50 post-delivery patients
in one room rules out rest for each and all of them. This, of course,
has been changed since the opening of Hadassah's Medical Center
outside of Jerusalem.
"However, in matters strictly medical, particularly in the fields
of gynecology and child care, Hadassah's performance is superlative.
It has not only maintained a lead in the country's medical progress
on a professional level, it has also served as an open workshop for
good public health practice&
"Changing behavior patterns among immigrants from underpriv-
ileged areas is written off by some sociologists as a process too slow
to be of any immediate importance. Yet the maternity ward patients
I met in Hadassah Hospital seemed to offer evidence to the contrary.
More than 72 per cent of them were registered for pre-natal
care, and after previous births they had faithfully brought their off-
spring to one of Hadassah's child-care stations, if not every month,
at least seven times during the child's first year. The speed: with which
they grasped the lifesaving importance of pre-natal and post-natal
care astonished me. They and their husbands might have been too lazy
to pay attention to their own general health, but they were energetic
about caring for the health of their children. The most obvious evi-
dence of their new approach to medical care could be judged by the
number of hospital deliveries; this factor was not decisive in the wil-
lingness to deliver the baby in a hospital. They were genuinely. inF-
ested in the best things for their children."
The Page One Picart illustrdtion
Two flights carrying 66 United Hias Service-assisted refugees
from Eastern Europe, North Africa and the Middle East and Cuba
arrive at Kennedy Airport. The newcomers will be resettled in cities
from coast to coast, including Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, Denver,
Detroit, Hackensack, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, Trenton
and Washington, D.C. This year, more than 9,000 Jewish men,
women and children from countries of oppression and persecution
will be aided by United Hias to establish new lives in the United
States, Canada, France, Brazil and Australia.
Our Front Page illustration shows the blowing of the Shofar on
Rosh Hashanah in the Sephardic Synagogue in Amsterdam. It is one
of the famous Picart Engravings, believed to have been made in 1728.
The engraver was Bernard Picart, the famous French designer
who was born in Paris, June 11, 1673, and died. in Amsterdam May 8,
1733. He came from a Protestant family. His teachers were his
father, Etienne Picart, Le Brun and Jouvenet.
. Bernard Picart displayed mastery of his art as a youth. In 1710
he settled. in Amsterdam where he supplied engravings to booksellers
and printers. It is believed that about 1,300 of his book plates still
are in existence.
His works were cm many subjects, and a large number of them
were on Biblical .topics. His Jewish topics, incorporated in "Cere-
monies des Juifs," was the first volume of "Ceremonies et Coutumes
Religieuses de Tons les Peuples du Monde" which was published in
11 volumes. His creations were among the first to illustrate Jewish
ceremonial observances. His Jewish illustrations appeared in the
following order in the first edition:
1. Interior of the Portuguese Synagogue at Amsterdam; 2.
With Phylacteries and Prayer Shawl; 3. Arba Kanfot, shofar, MeZ'u.,ti,
Lulab; 4. Birkat Kohanim in Portuguese Synagogue at The Hague;
5. Elevation of Torah; 6. Sounding of Shofar, (our Page One Photo);
7. Yom. Kippur Service; 8. Search for Leaven Before Passover; 9.
Pesah Meal; 10. and 11. Sukkot - inSynagogue and in the Ho-me; 12.
Simhat Tora; 13. Escorting Bridegroom of the Law Home; 14. Cir-
cumcision Implements, Tom, Mantle and Crowns; 15. Circumcision;
16. Redeeming First-Born; 17. Portuguese Jewish Marriage; 18. German
Jewish Wedding; 19. and 20. Circuit Round Coffin and Interment.
2 Friday, September 16, 1966
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THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
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