The Hagada— New and Old Weizmann Proposal for Bombing of Birkenau
rea-
Recalled in Addenda to Hilberg's Paperbacked
-
of the Rah-
•
• •
Jews 5
on of Destruction of Eu
New Edition
By BEN GALLOB
owyrighl. 1967. JTA, Inc.)
sored Hagada for obvious
sons. Rabbi Israel Klavan, exec
lithe vice president
binical Council of America, the
rabbinic arm of the Union of
Orthodox Jewish Congregations,
I When "The Destruction of the
said that if a congregant asks a ,
European Jews" by Raul Hilberg
member rabbi for a recommenda-
first was issued• as a hard cover
tion, the policy is to recommend
That conflict of view, should
have touched the liagada is un-
derstandable, though that docu-
ment does not have quite the
status of sacred writ of the Jew-
ish Scriptures or the Prayerhook.
But the fact is that a new aspect
book from the press of Quadrangle !
the Kosher Israel Ha ga da. which Books (180 N. Wacker, Chicago), !
of the debate over the utility for
traditional
of
course
the
is
American Jews of the long-estab- •
it created a stir. Its revelations
version.
lished format of the Hagada does
caused debates over some of the
not fall neatly into the traditional- I
The d iscussi on of further issues reviewed by the author, and
1st versus modernist dichotomy.
changes in the Hagada has been there were many Jews who ques-
The most radical revision for revived by the occurrence of two tioned some of the facts, especially
American Jews of the accepted de- , thunderclap events in recent Jew- those relating to the resistance:
scription of the sufferings of the ish history—the restoration of Is-
Quadrangle Books have just re-
Israelites during the Egyptian rael and the slaughter of the 6,-
issued this .immense work as a
bondage and the flight for free- 000.000 European Jews in the Nazi
paperback, containing all of the
clan under the leadership of Moses holocaust. Both have obvious im-
contents of the earlier work, with
the Lawgiver is certainly that of plications for the Hagada. The Ex-
the Reconstructionist movement. odus from ancient Egypt and the few minor changes, but with a
new postscript which throws light
-
Exodus
from
the
death
camps
of
The Reconstructionist "New Haga
da" was developed in 1941 as a Europe have a clear parallel. Simi- on new documents that have be-
specific effort to apply to this ele- lady, the restoration of Israel has come available since the publica-
ment of the Jewish religious heri- translated into reality the dream tion of this revelatory work.
tage the conviction that an out- encapsuled in the phrase chanted
The new two-page postscript
look which violated the intellect- at each Seder—"next year in Jeru- deserves special attention. It
ual views of a Jewry was doomed salem." The warning that in every
shows the extent of the deporta-
generation, an Amalek has arisen
to rejection by that Jewry.
tion of Jews from Italy to death
The language in the "New
Hagada" describes the Exodus
experience in terms that are
determined to destroy the Jew re- camps, it gives new details about
ceived its most dreadful confirma- the uprising in the Sobibor death
tion in Jewish history at the hands
camp, new sources are drawn
more universalistic than Jewish. of the Nazis.
upon to describe the naval de-
The foreword to the "New Haga-
portations of Norway's Jews and
The question has been posed as
da" declares that the message '
the horrors in Hungary.
• 'e
whet her these two
of the Hagada is one of "power'
ents should be recorded in the
Dr. Hilb erg emphasizes that
and beauty" which needs never- events and, if so, in what way ?
I
there are "developments yet to be
tireless to be "transposed into a
The
gap—if
it
is.
liturgically
explored."
He points to the diffi-
into
the
key
of
modern
'
new key —
thought. 171 odern experiences speaking. a gap—has been filled ; culty to understand "how the Ger-
and modern idiom." and these to some extent by the creation and man bureaucracy started its work."
Reconstructionists Rabbis :horde - distribution of t h e memorial He states that through the courtesy
; prayer for the Six Million coin- of an East German ambassador,
cai Kaplan. Eugene Kohn and Ira
posed by the late Rufus Learsi, Prof. Stefan Heymann, a directive,
Erserrstein set out to do this more
than a quarter of a century ago. ; which he intended for incorpora- which "seems almost innocuous,"
tion into the seder. The idea was drafted by a Prussian interior min-
The Reconstructionist Founds-
tion handed the practical details taken up by the American Jewish istry expert. now becomes known.
to a Congress which created a seder He states in describing this direc-
of printing and advertising
ritual committee with the task of
the subject of which was
private publisher, Behrman House,
although the "New Hagada" can achieving that goal among Jewish named:
a
families. Through the medium of
he purchased also at the Recon-
"Part VI was en ti t I e d 'Jew
the Jewish press, as well as by
structionist office in Manhattan.
Behrman House reports it has sold distribution of thousands of copies I names' (Judnnamen). It was not
around 125.000 copies since the re- of the text. the prayer has now dishonorable, the directive stated,
the I become an established, though for a Jew to carry a Jewish name.
lationship began. Each year.
publishing firm prints about 5.000 liturgically-unendorsed part of the The regional offices were conse-
copies and they are all generally seder ritual. quently instructed not to gran t
The assumption that the Re- i name changes to persons who
sold by Passover.
constructionist movement would wished to conceal their Jewish
Another revision is that of the
be the first among the modern- origins. Neith er conversion to
Union of American Hebrew Con-
Christianity nor anti-Semitic 'cur-
ists to revise its Hagada to in-
gregations. the Reform congre-
ac-
corporate reference to these rents' were grounds for such
gational body. The Union Haga-
massive historical events turns tion. Only those applicants who
do was designed to fit the Re-
had 'offensive' Jewish names
out to be incorrect. The question
form philosophy that many an-
(such as Totenkopf or Nacht-
is under consideration, accord-
cient prayers are both too long
ing to Rabbi Eisenstein, but schweiss) might obtain relief in
and occasionally without real
sug-
the
same way as Germans who
meanwhile. the movement
meaning for American Jews. The
gents to Jewish families that were afflicted with o f f e n s i v e
Union Hagada goes beyond the
they undertake, on their own names of German origin. But the
approach of the general instruc.
initiative, to find and use ap- Jews would have to adopt a name
tions Incorporated in the tradi-',
similar to the one they wanted to
propriate supplementary mate-
tronal test by inclusion of one
drop (Issen or Schmal), or the
rial for their seders. The Recoil. ,
section which spells out the pre-
structionist movement may itself name of sonic relative or a fantasy
cise order of the service, as does
publish such material as a sup- name. They were not to be given a
the "New Hagada."
plement to the "New Hagada." name which was circulating in the
The Union Hagada is published
Similarly. the Reform movement general population."
by the UAHC and distributed to
Most revealing in this connec•
member congregations for sale to is considering a revision of the
tion is the authorship of the di-
congregants. According to Rabbi Union Hagada to take account of
rective. Dr. Hilberg states: "The
Sidney Regner, executive vice pres- the restoration of Israel and of
directive, which was marked 'not
ident of the Central Conference of the holocaust. Rabbi Regner said
for publication,' was written by
American Rabbis. the Reform rab- that the CCAR Committee on Lit-
Dr. Hans Globke, a man who
binical association, average sales urgy has such a- revision under
rose to high rank in the civil
in recent years have been 15,000 to consideration. The committee,
service during and after the Nazi
20.000 copies. The Union Hagada however, is pondering the issue
regime. It was issued on Dec. 23,
was first published in 1923 and as to whether references to specific
1932, five weeks BEFORE Adolf
has never been revised but changes contemporary events should be in-
Hitler became Chancellor of the
are under consideration now. eluded in a revised Union Haga-
German Reich." Thus new evi•
American Conservative Judaism da, as such, or whether some oth-
dence mounts against Globke.
has no officially-sponsored Haga- er approach should be considered
da. In 1964. a "Hagada for the to preserve the principle that
Another new item in the revised
School." by Rabbi Hyman Chan- sacred works should be projected paperback contains facts about the
over, wa:.; published by the United in terms of timelessless. In any
r a i l r o a d transports to the gas
Synagogue of America, the Con- case, a revision of the Hagada is
chambers. Dr. Hilberg writes that
servative congregational associa- viewed as a matter for much
thought and planning and a re-
tion. Dr. Morton Siegel, director
of the seder seem to be much
of the USA education department,1 vised Union Hagada is years away.
less urgent.
The Conservative Hagada for
said that while many families use
To American Jews, it would
it, this Hagada was designed schools does include a reference
specificially for classroom use. to the tragedy of European Jewry. seem, the living reality of Israel is
All of the organizations have acknowledged regularly in a vari-
Some passages in the traditional
participated in the distribution ety of activities on Israel's behalf.
version have been abbreviated in
of the Learsi seder ritual. It is sound Jewish tradition, on
the textbook version and there are
may eventually be the other hand, to create instru-
Whatever
new translations of some passages.
done by the modernists about ments to assure that the martyrs
The goal was to make the Hagada
Hagada revision to include the of Jewish history will not be for-
story intelligible to children but
two great events, it appears that gotten. That tradition appears to
the "principal thrust" of the tra-
a very large number of Ameri- have made the annual recall of the
ditional version has been retained,
can Jewish families do annually monstrous annihilation of 6,000,-
according to Dr. Siegel. The initial
recall the memory of the Six Mil- 000 men, women and children an
printing was 10,000 copies and
lion at their seders. Pressures, integral—if still not liturgically-
there has since been a similar sec-
if any. toward inclusion of a sanctioned—aspect of the observ-
ond printing.
reference to the rebirth of Is- ance of Passover in 20th Cen
Orthodox Judaism in this coun-
rael in the American observance tury American Jewish practice.
try has no organizatianally-spon-
the Jewish Historical Commission
of Warsaw discovered a bill pre-
sented on May 19, 1942, "by a
railway man in Lodz to the Gestapo
in that city, for payment of 32,429
Reicjsmark and 35 Pfennige at the
ticket window of the railroad sta-
tion. following the dispatch of
10,993 Jews in 12 'special trains '
(abgefertigten Juden-Sonderzuege)
to the vicinity of the nearby killing
center of Kulmhof. For the 155
guards the railway demanded 868
Reichsmark round-trip fare."
Dr. Hilberg points out especially
that "in their letters and memoirs
the allied leaders appear to have
omitted the Jews more often than
they mentioned them." But he has
secured a copy of an especially im-
portant document from the Weiz-
mann Institute, dealing with the
deportations of Hungarian Jews in
1944. Two requests were sent to
Britain's Foreign Secretary An-
thony Eden by Dr. Chaim Weiz-
mann requesting that gassing in-
stallations and railway lines at
Birkenau, next to the Auschwitz
extermination camp, should be
bombed. Several hundred thousand
Jews were being killed at Birkenau
at the time. Dr. Weizmann's July
1944 letter was answered by Rich-
ard Law on Sept. 1, 1944. Dr. Hil-
berg publishes the complete text
of Law's reply which reads:
"You will remember that on
the 6th of July you discussed
with the Foreign Secretary the
camp at Birkenau in Upper Sil-
esia, and the atrocities that were
being committed there by Ger-
mans against Hungarian and
other Jews. You enquired
whether any steps could be
taken to put a stop to, or even
to mitigate, these massacres, and
you suggested t h at something
might be achieved by bombing
the camps, and also, if it was
possible, the railway lines lead-
ing to them.
"As he promised, Mr. Eden
immediately put the proposal to
the Secretary of State for Air.
The matter received the most
careful consideration of the Air
Staff, but I am sorry to have to
tell you that, in view of the great
technical difficulties involved, we
have no option but to refrain
from pursuing the proposal in
present circumstances.
"I realize that this decision
will prove a disappointment to
you, but you may feel fully as-
sured that the matter was most
thoroughly investigated."
With the addenda, containing all
the valuable information that was
gathered for this book, Dr. Hil-
berg's "The Destruction of the
European Jews" remains one of
the most important historical rec-
ords of the holocaust. Like the or-
iginal it appears in two columns
per page. The close to 800 pages
are packed full of data, and the
author has served history well with
his informative chronicle of a
tragic era.
HEBREW SELF-TAUGHT
BY
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Reading material in vocalized Easy Hebrew, and also material for
advanced students may be obtained through your local Hebrew
Organization or by writing to: Brit lerit Olamit, P.O.B. 7111,
Jerusalem, Israel,
Published by Brit 'writ OlLanaill
32—Friday, April 28, 1967
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS