Purely Commentary
A Timely Word About 'the Left' From
an Israeli Socialist . . . ORT's Historic
Role . . . Vast Expanse of Yeshiva U.
By Philip
Slomoyitz
The Troublesome Left . . . An Israeli Socialist's Plea for Justice
The "Left" naturally troubles us. It has been a source of aggravation on many scores. It has bothered
Much has been written about ORT, yet the story, in the light of the us regarding our interest in a strongly liberalized society and especially in relation to Israel. Jewish leftists
movement's accomptishmerits in the past decades, is never totally have ignored the fact that Russia has clamped down on its Jewish citizens who expressed a desire to be
The 90th ORT Anniversary . . . Vastness
of Its Program . . . Interesting Historical Data
related.
The name of the movement, known in English as Organization for
Rehabilitation Through Training, is a contraction from the name it
originally acquired in Russia: Obtschestwo rasprostranenija truda. It
served many Jews, in many lands, and its great accomplishments in
the past two decades have been the establishment of vast vocational
training centers in Israel and rehabilitation that was provided for
oppressed Jews in Eastern European countries, in Moslem lands and in
areas like Austria and France which were transfer centers for Jews
escaping persecution and awaiting asylum in Isdel as well as in the
United States and in Latin America.
A short while ago the 1,000,000th ORT student registered in one of
movement's installations. Because most of the ORT records prior to
1945 were destroyed during the years of Holocaustian horrors, the figure
of ORT enrollments of 500,000 up to that year are necessarily estimated,
but if anything they are understated and not exaggerated. Surely, since
that year the available figures of another $500,000 is not overstated
because it is based on actual facts of services that were rendered in
many lands.
To the ORT centers that functioned in Russia, Poland, Shanghai,
Havana and many Arab areas were added those now producing skilled
workers in Paris, in several cities in Israel, in Latin America.
ORT has such a rich history that on the occasion of its 90th anni-
versary, now being observed, it is especially interesting-creating when
reviewing some of the events that marked enrollment of support for the
movement among all classes of Jews. Thus, this photograph recaptures
an interesting scene, in London, in 1930, when, at arilORT dinner, there
were gathered some of the world's most eminent personalities, includ-
ing the following in this photo from the left:
Albert Einstein, H. G. Wells, George Bernard Shaw and the then
Chief Rabbi Joseph Hertz.
That is how worldwide interest was created in a great movement.
Similar interest attaches to programs for vocational training that are
patterned after ORT throughout the world. The president of ORT, the
eminent scholar and Jewish leader Prof. William Haber, contributes
immensely towards the uninterrupted progress of this movement whose
90th anniversary is occasion for congratulations to those who make its
achievements possible and for a pledge from world Jewry for continued
support so that its progressive efforts should not be interrupted.
•
•
•
A Jordanian Pleads Against Terrorism
A few days ago, the Miami Herald published this letter, which was
signed by Jamil Fayez:
I am a Jordanian exchange student studying civil engineering
here in the United States.
After much thought and pain on my part, I have come to the
realization that until my Arab brothers and Israel sit together and
work out their problems, there will never be peace in the Middle
East.
With the refugee problem, we Arabs could take a lesson from
Israel as they help their own. I have seen with my own eyes the
refugee camps outside of Amman and Salt. They are a disgrace to
every Arab—we should not allow our people to suffer.
The royalties from oil revenue should not be used to purchase
guns and dynamite which are used to destroy civilian airplanes,
ticket offices and farm settlements, but instead to provide housing
and proper sanitation for the refugees.
In two years I shall return to my home in Salt, Jordan, not with
the idea of doing battle with Israel, but with poverty and ignorance.
It is a lone voice, but it does show that occasionally an Arab will
speak out for sanity and against the terror that has engulfed his country
and its neighbors. Jamil Fayez recognizes the validity of the hope that
the efforts of nations should be to uplift standards rather than continue
to invest in armaments. A few more Jamils and we may see a joining
of Mid East forces for peace.
•
•
•
Yeshiva University's Multiple Services
Our editorial commendation of Yeshiva University's services, in
our issue of April 3, took note of the background of a great American
institution of higher learning in its status as a theological seminary.
It is more than noteworthy that the university has expanded into so
vast a field of teaching and research that it embraces nearly every
facet of the humanities, the sciences, the historical as well as the
religious and the sociological.
Yeshiva College, the Erna Michael College of Hebraic Studies,
the James Striar School of General Jewish Studies, a cantonal train-
ing institute and the graduate and professional schools are supple-
mented by special departments for wcmen—the Stern College and the
Teachers Institute for Women.
In the professional and graduate departments Yeshiva University
has gained high ratings in research, in mathematics, in the Einstein
College of Medicine, the Belfer and Ferkauf graduate schools. The
Rabbi Isaac Elhanan Theological Seminary trains Orthodox rabbis;
the Wurzweiler School of Social Work fills a great community need;
and the Harry Fischel and Bernard Revel Graduate Schools have gained
wide recognition. There are 8,000 students in the university which
offers 13 degrees.
This is a record of commendable accomplishments, and the Detroit
Friends of Yeshiva University have cause to be proud of assistance
How much hope is there in gaining the support that is so urgently needed in Israel's defense from
liberal and radical sources? How can the state that is in such great danger enroll the interest of the churches
as a protection against the threat to destroy Israel?
Dangers have mounted. Egypt has used children as a ruse to destroy the Israel image of decency. The
new approach is akin to the experience Israelis had shortly after the June 1967 war when several soldiers
stopped to assist an Arab woman who was nursing herchild and was complaining of hunger. She was shield-
ing Arab terrorists who, when the Israelis put down their guns, were mowed down: a woman with an
infant was the front for murders. In this type of war it is necessary for Israel to have all the support
obtainable for defense, and if protection can be regained from radical and religious elements the impend-
ing dangers will be lessened.
•
• •
•
S •
•
Russian 'Strashunok' . . . Faith That Defies the Threats
What could have been new in the threat of USSR
press attache George Suhothov, uttered in Amman,
Jordan, last Sunday, when he said: "The Soviet
Union supports the creation of a democratic state
in Palestine. Soviet policy supports any struggle
aimed at overthrowing any racist state based on
religious fanaticism, such as the state of Golda
Meir."
A press attache is free at any time to utter any
Strashunok—the Russian for threat—in behalf of
the Kremlin. All one need do is search for truth
in Pravda and news in Izvestia.
Yet Suhothov did frighten some people. There
was a measure of panic in some quarters, and it is
these who need to be reminded of what had taken
place at the United Nations in May and June of
1967, when spokesmen for the USSR on a high diplo-
matic level did not hesitate to resort to vituperation,
venom, distortion of truth.
Hussein and Nasser had just concluded a pact
to seek escape from guilt by blaming the results of
a six-day conflict upon the United States. The
record was publicized, the facts were known. But
Russia took a stand for destruction of an existing
state which her representatives at the UN helped
establish in 1948. Now they assert what had been
suspected: all they wanted then was to get Britain
out of the Holy Land. Now they'd like to destroy
the Land of Israel because it is administered by
the People of Israel !
What the present occupants of the Kremlin for-
get is that their predecessors in sponsoring Russian
anti-Semitism failed to accomplish under the guise
of Czarism can not be attained under the title of
Communism.
Czarist Russian rulers had three regulations to
seal Russian Jewry's fate: one third was to be
exterminated, one third was to be converted to the
Russian church, and another third was to be forced
to emigrate. It is true that in the course of the
half century since these stipulations were enunci-
ated there was a Hitler who did the job for the
Russian Black Hundreds. But there isn't a Hitler
who can deny or defy the eternity of Israel. Is it
possible that the Soviet rulers do not realize it?
Of greater importance is the necessity to remind
those who become frightened by ugly utterances like
those that were heard in Amman early this week
that the eternity of Israel is more persevering.
Fear not !
•
•
*
The Domestic Obligations Can't Wait for International Panaceas
•
•
-
Israel's needs and the urgency of solving the problem of expatriated Jews from Russia and the
Moslem countries often brings demands for an end to brick-and-mortar domestic Judaism and the com-
plete dedication of all our efforts to the tasks of protecting and building
Israel.
While the duty of building
Israel comes first, abandonment of duties to the needs at home would
be disastrous. In our communal tasks it is important that Israel be given priority, that education
should come first on the domestic scene and that there
should be no denial to other duties.
Thus, the construction of a synagogue, the erection of a new Temple Beth El sanctuary, the
assurance of proper housing for a day school like Hillel are MUSTS for a community like ours.
a general
a strong American Jewry will assure strength for Israel. Therefore, local
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS duties As
must
never be rule,
shirked.
they have enrolled from Detroit Jewry in support of this outstanding
university.
2—Friday, April 24, 1970
reunited with their families in Israel. It has destroyed the Yiddish theater, has set up obstacles for those
desiring to study Hebrew because they branded it the language of Zionists and has euphemistically re-
sorted to Zionism as an opprobrium in order to avoid being called anti-Semitic. Yet there are leftists who
condemn us for an interest in those who need our help.
Some Leftists are seeing the light of day, but there are too many in the blind alleys who refuse to rec-
ognize the justice of libertarian causes.
We must, therefore, seek the tolerant, the truth-loving, in defense of an effort to defend the defenseless
in the USSR and in the Middle East.
In one of Detroit's very interesting periodicals—News and Letters (subtitled on the masthead "The Root
of Mankind Is Man"), edited by people who call themselves Marxist Humanist, who know the Russian
background better, perhaps, than any other element in Detroit, there appeared an article under the heading
"Israel left probes solution to Mid East crisis," written by a man who signs it N. S., with an explanation
from the editors that the author, an Israeli socialist, was commenting on an earlier News and Letters
article that was entitled "World Power Plans of U.S. and Russia Keep Middle East Crisis at Boiling Point."
N. S. wrote as follows:
Arab terrorist movements, and the various neo-
YOUR CONCLUSION that "the only solution to
Nazis and plain anti-Semites the world over, expose
the curent planned madness in the Middle East is
most strikingly the true nature of these movements
for the masses to take matters out of the hands of
and add fuel to the fires of our own hawks and chau-
the Big Powers, to take their own destinies in their
coun-
vinists.
own hands and set matters right in their own
• • •
tries . . ." is, no doubt, the basic and far-reaching
THE ANTI-ANNEXATIONIST critics of the pres-
solution to the present tragedy.
and
paradoxical
as
it
may
ent
Israeli
government,
both outside of most of the
However, strange
government parties and even inside some of them,
sound, those forces and groups in Israel — who
plus
of
the
territories
held
present-
a
considerable
body
of intellectuals and univer-
oppose the annexation
sity profesors and lecturers, are organized within the
ly by Israel; who support the right for self-determ-
Movement of Peace and Security.
ination of the Palestinian Arah.s; who seek a just
The ideologists of this movement see a grave
solution for the Arab refugees now; who condemn
danger in the continuation of the present situation,
the policy of regional punishment in the territories;
not only that it might lead to further escalation of
and who reject the unflexible, rigid official formula
the military situation and eventually to full-scale
of the Israeli government—view -favorably the Amer
war. They also see the danger in the creation of a
lean proposals expounded by Secretary of State
Rogers, as a possible basis for a peace arrangement
state and psychology of siege, resulting in an attitude
of "the whole world is against us," intolerance to
between Israel and the Arab states.
• • •
internal dissenting views and opinions, and the
THE DECLARATIONS of Fatah and other terror- strengthening and growth of religious mythical chau-
ist movements, hailed by the New Left, Trotskyists
vinism and militarization of Israeli society, resulting
and Stalinists, concerning the de-Zionization of Israel
from our occupational rule over more than a million
and her replacement by a multi-national, multi-reli-
Arabs. All this may result in endangering gravely
gious, secular Palestine, where Arabs and Jews,
the democratic structure of the state and the social-
Moslems and Christians will live in peace and har- ist-collectivist values sand institutions created by the
mony, is just another way of destroying the state of
Israeli labor movement.
• • •
Israel and depriving the Jews of national independ-
ence. The fact that Yasser Arafat, the head of Fatah,
IN SPITE of the outward move to the right in
stems from the arch-reactionary Moslem Brother-
Israel, contrary to the hawkish pronouncements and
hood; that all Arab states, reactionary and "revolu-
sometime actions of certain ministers, I believe in
tionary" alike, inscribed in their official constitutions
the inherent, strong and genuine strivings for peace
the Moslem religion as the official state religion; that
permeating the majority of Israelis. The forces of
various Arab rulers are conducting a course of anni-
peace and socialism in Israel will continue their un-
hilation against the numerous ethnic and religious
flinching struggle, hoping that eventually they will
minorities (Kurds in Iraq, Copts in Egypt, Black
find similar voices and forces from beyond the blood-
Africans in South Sudan—black American militants,
stained borders.
please note!--etc.), all these facts instill a well-
The tasks of socialists the world over is, without
founded fear in the hearts and minds of the Israelis
relinquishing their rightful criticism of official
as to what awaits them in the proposed "de-Zionized Israeli policy, to stand by the unquestionable right of
secular, multi-national and multi-religious Pales-
Israel to exist and to influence genuine Arab social.
tine."
ists in this direction, so that the Israeli and Arab
Furthermore, the unholy alliance between the masses can start on a new road.