10—Friday, March 28, 1969

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

Aleph Katz, Poet of Skill and Vision

Negev Subdivision, Reservoir to Be Named for Late Prime Minister Eshkol

JERUSALEM (JTA)

—

The Ca - w ;n tw known as the Eshkol sub- also will be perpetuated in a new

the local council will
binet approved Sunday a series of district, and
recommendations for memorializ- be called the Eshkol council. The
ing the late Prime Minister Levi Beit Netofa reservoir in Upper
Eshkol which were drawn up by - Galilee which stores Jordan River
a joint committee of cabinet mem water for irrigation of the Negev,
Agency.
bers and the Jewish
be renamed Lake Eshkol.
In accordance with the recom- will
The name of Israel's third
mendations, two-su istricts in the
Minister, who died Feb. 26, I
western Negev—Besor and Maon— Prime

his first poems he said almost pro-
By NATHAN ZIPRIN
This theme has long been haunt- phetically:
"When my bead turns grey
ing me.
and the eyes blind,
We were three in 1919 and all of
It will be good to sing of
us were fated to end our days with
bygone
days."
the JTA.
Aleph was destined to make a
What united us was a tie of deep
friendship and a touch of madness, niche for himself as a poet, a pur-
suit and dedication he did not
Preoccupation with letters.
abandon to the very last days,
Eliezer Left gave up the dream when blindness clouded his path
more than 25 years ago, when he but not his dream. To the very
went on to silent pastures.
end, the poem was his dream and
Aleph Katz persevered, and his challenge. I used the word chal-
reward was a taste of the literary lenge deliberately because, in his
pardes, whose treacherous pitfalls later years, Aleph strove not only
are always fatal to the untalented. to write but to get to the secret of
Now he, too, is of the past, and writing, to the source of artistic
the burden of recounting the tale creativity. Writing to him was not
of a vision shared rests on me as only fulfillment but a miracle.
I stand at the edge of the setting "The first word," he writes in
Cholem Aleichem, an ingenious
horizon.
All visions vanish, but this one title for a book of verse, "is the
has been hard to give up.
threshold to a miracle, the corri-
Our ancients said that wisdom dor to joy, the beginning of sad-
begins at 70. I haven't been 70 ness." The key to creativity, he
long enough to savor that privi- says elsewhere, is the magic of the
lege. Yet I am sage enough to word when it comes sudden and
know that mine now are the unexpected.
shirayim, the leftovers, the
Aleph's last published work was
crumbs.
"Die Emesse Chasseneh," which I
Aleph Katz, who for the better can be literally translated as the
part of 40 years was Yiddish true wedding or what a wedding.
editor of the Jewish Telegraphic Here too he often grapples with
Agency, began weaving his the poetic theme, not in an effort
dream in 1919. and it endured to estabilsh a formulation but a
until he closed his eyes 40 years
climate under which that art form
later.
can best thrive for the poet, for
He took his first literary step in himself.
1920. when both of us published
Aleph in one of his early books
and edited Zangen (Sheaves), a of poetry, Akerzeit (plowing time)
small literary magazine that at- said of death that it "stands at the '-
tracted attention in the literary bedside, counting out the last sec-
cafes of East Broadway, the most I onds of stillness."
colorful of boulevards on the old
That stillness is now his.
East Side. largely by its modesty

sawn **,

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DAYS

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, DETROIT
PILGRIMAGE
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forest to be planted by the Jewish
National Fund on the slopes of the
Jordan Valley, a new power sta-
tion of the Israel electric company
and a new quarter in Jerusalem.
There is already a cargo ship
named Eshkol in Israel's mer-
chant marine fleet.

or
Write

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. . . Learn How they Help Israel's Sur-
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OAK PARK, MICHIGAN 48232

and unpretentiousness.

In a foreword to the first issue,
Aleph wrote its aim was not rebel-
lion against the old, as was even

then fashionable amang the young.
but merely to afford young writers
an opportunity to publish their
works. More importantly. Aleph in
his first poems showed he had faith
in himself and in his "morrow"
even though, in his own words, it
was - yet to come." In another of

French Professors
Combat Arab Line

PARIS (JTA)—Pro-Israel forces
in France. in large measure non-
Jewish. are mobilizing further to
counteract anti-Israel and anti-
Semitic propaganda emerging
from the extreme left and from
traditional Gaullist sources.
This propaganda. more than the
ineffectual efforts of Arab students
and emissaries of the El Fatah
guerrillas, was believed to have
made an impression on the vast
majority of French university
teachers and students.

The France - Israel Alliance
movement, which has been pro-
moting a restoration of friend.
ship between the two countries,

has established a "university
section" for the purpose of fight-
ing "the recrudescence of anti-
Israel propaganda in the univer-

sities and the odious allegations

which try to besmirch Israel's
name." •

Some 40 professors, mostly de-
partment heads and the great ma-
jority of them non-Jews, have
formed a sponsoring committee.
Typical of the propaganda they
were fighting was an article in the
newspaper Le Monde Saturday by
Vincent Monteil, a militant Gaul-
list who defended the hangings of
Jews and others in Baghdad last
January for allegedly spying for
Israel. 'Tor us former resistance
fighters, a spy is not even worth
the rope with which he is bang-
ed." Monteil wrote. His remark

was published in the framework of
Le Monde's daily "Free Expres-
sion Tribune" and not as the view

of a member of the paper's staff.
The writer also said that Gen.
de Gaulle's famous remark about
Jews being an "elite people, self-
assured and domineering," was "a

gross understatement."

Some personal reflections
this Passover from one family
to another.

May we in all humility say this: The House of Streit has been
blessed with good fortune. Through the years, our ovens have been busy.
Trucks, trains and boats have carried our products to every corner of the
world, wherever there are Jews. Many are tile "daily" Kosher products
that bear our name.
But they are all secondary to the true purpose of our continued
existence . . . the observant and traditional baking of Passover matzos.
It is this continuity of obligation that has been handed down through our
generations, father to son, father to son. And this is what we learned
from our father, Aron Streit, of blessed memory . . . the mandate of
Kashruth, the unbowing fidelity to correctness, the traditional family
formula responsible for the traditional taste and quality of Streit's matzos.
This pricious heritage from our father we are proud to pass on
to our children, -even unto the youngest grandson who, on this coming
Passover, will ask the centuries-old question, "Ma nish-tanaw ...?"
How happily, proudly and thankfully will we answer him!

Jack and Irving Streit,
for the Streit Family

Streit's has everything Kosher for Passover!

MATZOS • EGG MATZOS
WHOLE WHEAT MATZOS
MATZO MEAL • MATZO FARFEL
GEFILTE FISH • CATSUP
BORSCHT • FRUIT SLICES
MACAROONS • PRESERVES
CAKE MIXES WITH BAKING PANS

11125

under rabbinical supervision Of

RABBI AARON SOLOVEICHIK
RABBI N. BIALIK

Ann Strait, Inc., 150RI
N.Y., N.Y. 10002

Agog I<Y H

