Friday, Ocotber 31, 1969-33
' THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
Detroiter's Analysis of 'Jews, Intermarriage ,
A Review by DR. LEON FRAM
The most elaborate scientific
study of the problem of intermar-
riage yet attempted, the recently
published "Jews and Intermar-
riage," is the work of a Detroiter,
now living in Chicago. He is Louis
A. Berman, associate professor of
psychology at the University of
Illinois at Chicago Circle, Chicago,
assigned to the - student Campus
counselling service. Thomas Yose-
loff published his book.
It was his activity as counselor
to college youth that stimulated
him to undertake this definitive
study of a problem that comes up
frequently at counseling sessions
with the youth of today.
Dr. Berman was born in De-
troit, the youngest of a family of
eight, most of whom are still liv-
ing here. He is married to the
niece of Rachel Tulman, who is
the widow of Cantor Robert S.
Tolman, of blessed memory, the
first cantor of Temple Israel of
Detroit. This reviewer officiated
at the marriage. Louis Berman
and his wife, Irene, are the par-
ents of two brilliant children,
Daniel and Ginger. Dr. Berman
therefore approaches the subject
of intermarriage from the secure
position of one who knows from
experience that endogamous mar-
riage is beautiful and productive
of beautiful children.
* *
It appears that it was indeed
his own happy personal situation
that alerted Dr. Berman to a re-
markable phenomenon in the field
of sociology, namely, that all the ,
behavioral scientists and all the '
professional counselors of college
youth are virtually unanimous in
their conviction that in America
intermarriage among the young
people of the various religious,
nationality and ethnic groups of
our population is normal, and
should indeed be encouraged. They
regard it as the destiny of America
to be the scene of an inter-
mingling of peoples. Their atti-
tude is reminiscent of Israel Zang- ,
will's melting pot theory of Amer-
ica. as expressed in his Broadway
hit play of a generation ago, "The
Melting Pot." This play pictured
the American people - as engaged
in a vast "chemical experiment."
The raw human material that was
immigrating into America from
all the corners of the earth was
here to be melted together to give
birth to a new human species, the
glorious "American Man." Whether
or not they have consciously
adopted the melting pot theory,
the sociologists do proceed from
the premise that America is pri-
marily an urban and mobile so-
ciety.
Intermarriage is mobility, and
therefore normal for Americans.
It never occurred to any of these
counselors to act on the principle
that America is also a pluralistic
society, that there might be genu-
ine value in group preservation in
America, that there might there-
fore be wisdom in discouraging
intermarriage rather than promot-
ing it as the typical American
trend.
• • •
So far from accepting pluralism
as the norm for American life, the
behaviorists a n d counselors at
American Universities, so Dr. Ber-
man found, were shocked at the
vigorous resistance that Jewish
families mustered to the marriage
of a son or daughter to a non-
Jewish partner. To them the im-
pulsive resistance of the average
Jewish family to intermarriage by
their children appeared bigoted,
fanatic, tribal, primitive — any-
thing but normal. One of the basic
conclusions of Dr. Berman's study
of the subject is to call upon the
sociological faculty of our uni-
versities to re-evaluate their cur-
rent attitude toward intermarriage
as necessarily a desideratum.
The result of his own researches
and of his own experience as a
member of a large Jewish family
is that Jewish parents resist inter-
marriage not alone for religious
reasons—some of the most obsti-
nate resistance comes from
families who are unaffiliated with
any congregation, and even from
atheists—but primarily out of a
profound sentiment for the. in-
tegrity of the extended Jewish
family—the mishpocho. This He-
brew word, mishpocho, has vir-
tually become a word of the
English language because non-
Jews, as well as Jews, have be-
come familiar with this striking
phenomenon of Jewish life, name-
ly, that the Jew's sense of family
solidarity operates beyond the
limits of the nuclear family—par-
sots of children—but extends to
uncles, aunts, cousins and in-laws.
The marriage of a child to a
non-Jew brings a "stranger" into
this large family group which is
characterized by a common life-
style which may be difficult ver-
bally to define, but which is never-
theless a powerful reality. This
"intruder" from the non-Jewish
world could disturb this life-style
which the family cherishes and
which it has every right to wish
to preserve. In view of the fact
that the melting pot theory has
become obsolete, and that the out-
standing feature of current Ameri-
can life is pluralism rather than
uniformity, Dr. Berman may in-
Finch, Moynihan
to Address CJFWF
Boston Assembly
BOSTON—Robert H. Finch, U.S.
secretary of health, education and
welfare, and Daniel P. Moynihan,
assistant to the President on urban
affairs and executive secretary
of the National Council on Urban
Affairs, will deliver major ad-
dresses at the 38th general assem-
bly of the Council of Jewish Fed-
erations and Welfare Funds, .here
Nov. 12-16.
The general assembly will also
mark the 75th anniversary of the
Jewish federation movement in
America. First established in Bos-
ton in 1895, the federation move-
ment has since grown to 223, serv-
Finch
deed succeed in convincing his
sociological colleagues that it is I
the normal and relevant thing to
encourage the various groups in
American life, including the Jew-
ish group, to practice endogamy,
that is for the youth to find mar-
riage partners within the group.
In view of the fact that the
Jewish population of America is
in the neighborhood of 5.000,000
people, scattered all over the con-
tinent, the discouragement of in-
termarriage is hardly likely to re-
sult in inbreeding. The more like-
ly result would be a healthy crea-
tive Jewish community contribut-
ing richly to American culture.
When Dr. Berman ascribes to
the mishpocho, the ex t ended
family, this Jewish resistance to
the intermarriage of its youth, he
speaks the language of his scien-
tific psychological discipline. This
reviewer, being more a rabbi than
a social scientist, can indulge a
hunch that overleaps the scientific
vocabularly. It is that the mich.
poeho, which resists intermar-
riage, is fundamentally the mouth-
piece of the entire Jewish com-
munity, indeed the entire. Jewish
people and the Jewish faith and
culture and civilization—in brief,
the Jew. The Jew who has sur-
vived all these centuries, wants
to continue to live. The will to
survive is basic to the Jew. It is
at the same time the instinct and
the dogma of the Jewish people.
It is obvious that any intermar-
riage which results in the loss to
the Jewish people of a single
Jewish family is from the view-
point of the Jewish will to survive
a serious loss. Therefore, it is in-
' stinctively resisted. It is resisted
not alone by the family, but by
the very Jewish youth who find
themselves attracted by a non-
Jewish sex opposite. This is why
such youth seek counseling service.
vice.
The devoted mishpocho is one
of the instrumentalities of the
,Jewish will to survive. It should
be added that the book, because
it deals thoroughly with its sub-
ject, is a thick volume of some
600 pages, and on virtually every
page little numerals appear to re-
fer to the footnotes in the back.
No one interested in the subject
should be deterred by this formid-
able aspect of the book. It is
fascinating reading. Dr. Berman
writes in a lucid and charming
style. The pages are full of
anecdote, sparking wit and dis-
arming humor. Even the foot-
notes are beguiling. Dr. Berman
has succeeded in achieving a para-
dox—he has written a scientific
work which scholars will study
and at the same time an absorb-
ing story which "he who runs may
read."
Moynihan
ing over 800 communities contain-
ing 95 per cent of the Jewish popu-
lation in the U.S. and Canada. It is I
also regarded as the forerunner' '
of the Community Chest and
United Fund movement, which;
started 20 years later and which'
has spread to over 2,200 cities.
I
I `Your Own Fault,' Swiss
'Told on Blueprint Loss
ZURICH (ZINS) — The Swiss
government would be wise to make
little ado over the reported theft
by Israeli agents of secret working
plans for the fabrication of French
Mirage III jets, counsels the lead-
ing Swiss journal Weltwoche.
The Swiss government could pro-
test only against Israel's secret
service, which is said to have ac-
, quired the plans for $200,000. But
since it is the accepted task of a
secret agency to conduct espion-
lage, the protests ought more ap-
propriately to be turned against
, the Swiss secret services that were
ineffective in preventing the coup,
said Weltwoche.
Yugoslav Jewry Marks Federation's 50th Year
BELGRADE (JTA)—The leaders national groups in the country.
of Yugoslav Jewry played host The visitors from abroad repre-
recently to representatives of sented Jewish communities from
overseas Jewish communities and 18 cities in 13 countries, including
organizations at celebrations mark- Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland,
ing the 50th anniversary of the England and the United States.
Federation of Jewish Communi-
I -**********************1*
-Ir
ties of Yugoslavia.
-Ir
About 800 persons attended a ill
public meeting presided over by 1,̀
the federation's president, Dr. *
Lavoslav Kadelburg. The Belgrade l i,
and Zagreb Jewish choirs per- 4,
formed, as did several Yugosla-
*BIG BAND OR SMALL COMBOS
vian Jewish artists.
vian
The vice president of Yugo- 1:1 r •
4,
r4 3-8982 UN 3-5730!
Miso Pavichevich, ad- 4. ...
slavia,
*******
*1
dressed the local Jewish leaders 4-*************
*
and their overseas guests, speak-
ing of Jewish losses during the
Nazi era and the contributions of
Yugoslav Jews to the partisan re-
sistance movements of World War
II. Dr. Kadelburg noted in his
response that Yugoslavian Jews
enjoyed full equality with all other
a l G ordon
MUSIC
LUCTION
HAROLD M. FREED, an associ-
ate of the Detroit area AUSTIN
A. KANTER GENERAL AGEN-
CY, National Life Insurance Co.
of Vermont, participated recently
in a school on advanced business
planning in Montpelier, Vt.
ylika 3.atpu
Photographers
For Restoration
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Canadian Prof Urges
Probe of Arab's Charge
TORONTO (JTA) — A Jewish
professor at York University has
urged the Ontario Human Rights
Commission to open a full in-
vestigation into charges brought
by a Lebanese-born instructor that
he was denied a position at the
university only because he is an
Arab and a Marxist.
Dr. Harold Kaplan, chairman of
York's political science depart-
ment, was one of the targets of
charges by George Haggar that
he was discriminated against by
"Zionists" and others.
Haggar, who was formerly em-
ployed by York and several other
Canadian colleges. is an active
propagandist for the Arab cause.
He claimed that when he applied
for a position at York he was in-
formed that the university could
not have on its faculty anyone who
would be in conflict with the Jew-
ish community.
Dr. Kaplan maintained that Hag_
gar was not denied a job on racial
or political grounds. He said that
over 30 professors had applied last
year for the three posts available
in his department.
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