.Pute137:C.on me-
-origin
of Yiddishized"Parve'
Scourge of the 'Mosrim' and Their Applicability to
the Anti-iv-40s
'laical/it- sit'
a (tiara6 a
Among.
:
By Philip
Rustiarqews .
.
Chronicler_ in ,Loacion Jewish Chronicle posed an interesting ques-
- Hadassah
_sah's -60thanniversa - stimUlatesreview of .104torical developments which led
tion about "That Word." He offered a prize for any one who could
give him the origin Of the word Parve. Here is how he posed it in to the formation of the women's Zionist organization,
The great philanthropic: health agency formed to relieve trachoma sand, eventually
LJC issue of Dec. 3:
"That indefatigable look out man of mine in Jerusalem quotes a to provide 'hospitalization for Palestinians — -Arabs as well, as Jews - ,-,:also- Avas-intended
by
its
organizer;
Henrietta Szold ; to be the women's arm of the
Hebrew newspaper columnist concerning efforts to pinpoint the exact
semantic origin of 'parve'—which means neither kosher nor trefa, Zionist movement. It served' as such for many years as a
but neutral.
affiliate of the American ZionisfFederation (asit was known under
"It is an East European term and not common to Oriental Jew- the leadership„of. Louis D. Brandeis, Julian M. Mack,* Stephen S.
ish communities. Even Ashkenazi kashrut experts in Israel had no Wise)," eveiftlionghTinatirof 'the women preferred being the philan
idea where the word came from, and when approached, Prof. Dov thropists rather-than' the ZiOnists.
Sadan, the authority on Yiddish at the Hebrew University. claimed
Henrietta Szold had been associated with the general Zionist
there were 30 interpretations, mostly irrelevant or unfounded. Does
any
reader know the correct answer? A clue is to read past movement as head of the education department, and one other
ablest
'assistants
was the then young Emanuel Neumann.-Miss Szold
numpers of the
especially Ask the Rabbi ! (A 'parve' ice-cream
cone is the prize !)"
was highly qualified to be the head of an educational department.
Yiddishists in Detroit, New York and Jerusalem were confronted She had ,\ prior to her Zionist activities, served as an editor of the
with the problem (sic!). It took a landsman of Chronicler to provide Jewish Publication Society and was the translator of many impor-
the answer. We asked our London correspondent, Josef Fraenkel, while tant classics from German into English. . Itenriettit :bold
we were in Jerusalem together, whether he had any knowledge of
Her' biographers emphasized that • she was a ZioniSt before Theodor Herzl appeared
the word's origin and he promptly replied: "Of course. It stems from on the scene:lier'first public address was on Zionism,
in '1895, before the National =Council
the Latin parvus, neutral.
Then the fun began. Our proofreader knows Latin and he stopped of Jewish Women, in Baltimore. When she went to Palestine to superviie Hadassali• ac-
here with the explanation that parvus means little. It became necessary tivities, she wrote from Jerusalem: "If not Zionism, then nothing." -
Out of Miss Szold's dreams emerged the realities of a great movement, which, under
to search for additional background material. We turned to one of our
ablest authorities, Dr. Jacob R. Marcus. director of the American Jewish the name Hadassah, became a true "healer of our pecifile." The Hadassah achievements,
Archives in Cincinnati and one of our leading historians. He thought first in Palestine, for the past 24 years in Israel, are marked by the expansion of hospital
parvus had meaning for our parve food term. But he sought additional and health stations, -vocational schools, and with the Hebrew University, the women are
information and he has just forwarded to us this note he received from _merged in the tasks of training medical and dental - experts in the colleges - of medicine
noted Talmudist Prof. Alexander Guttmann:
and dentistry.
Dear Jake:
Therefore, the 60th anniversary of Hadassah is an occasion for celebration 'by Jews
Re your note on the origin of parve.
My opinion is that parve comes from the Latin parvus everywhere because the movement renders such valuable services in the field of medicine
(parva) which means 'little' and also 'insignificant'. and health care.. And while observing this anniversary, due honors go to the Movement's
Halakhically, parve food is insignificant inasmuch as it founder, Henrietta Szold, and the many dedicated women Zionists who putsued her tasks
is not subject to restrictions and regulations as are milk with zeal and devotion.
*
*
*
and meat—foods.
Fondly,
An Old Tradition of Passover Relief . . . Mo'os Hitim Still Applicable in Our Time
Alex
Is it possible that in our affluent society there is an element that urgently needs
We had our fun and now have many claimants to the
relief, that there are people who depend upon public funds for necessities to enable them
parve ice cream cones.
•
•
•
to observe the Passover properly, traditionally?
,
The Pressure of Russian Anti - Zionist Propaganda
An endless number of special features and news releases from
the USSR's Novosti Press Agency aims to prove that Russian Jews are
horrified by "propaganda" to compel emigration of Jews from the
Soviet Union. Many 01 the stories contain-the-names and
the protesting groups who insist that they are local Russians and that
the "Zionist" aims—as they use the term in quotation marks in the
hope of injecting horror at the mere mention of it in the hearts of the
readers of these stoles—are misleading, disrupting, reactionary, dis-
honest; append any insulting term and it'll fit into the Communist
vocabulary applied to Zionism and Israel.
All of the statements could have been validly endorsed—just as
it has been true that "chief rabbis" in Russia and Moslem countries
had spoken out against Jews who demanded what they believed to be
a necessity: just rights for the persecuted in those countries. There are
always the officially recognized spokesmen, just as there are some who
disagree with the trend to secure justice for Jews in Russia and in
Moslem lands.
Those who seek exit visas from Russia to go to Israel are not
necessarily anti-Soviet. Some have inherited affections for the Com-
munist idea. But they have the preferred love for a heritage they
refuse to abandon. They make their demands on grounds established
by international law—that a person has a right to settle wherever he
pleases. For the Russian Jews there is, fortunately, a redeemed Israel
that is ready to welccrne them.
The Jews who serve as tools for the Russian propaganda machine
in issuing anti-Israel and anti-Zionist propaganda are a sad lot-Tliex.
are a pathetic element that is compelled by government and circum-
stances to speak out against liberty-seeking - people who object to
suppression of cultural rights. The emigrants concede that they are
not oppressed economically, but they seek Jewish involvement, they
wish to learn Hebrew the normal way, not in secrecy as most do.
There is no doubt that there was a handful of Russian Jews—they
could have been counted on the fingers of both hands—who were disil-
lusioned with Israel and wanted to go back to Russia. That's a normal
right. There are people who are dissatisfied with the United States,
and they go to Australia. But they are not the rule: they are the excep-
tion and they can not be used as proof to negate the Israel appeal.
The pity is that there is rancor rather than cooperation in solving
a serious problem. In an amicable fashion, Russia could accept the
inevitable and permit the emigration of those desiring to leave. But
under such amicability the Communist regime could also remove restric-
tions within Russia on Jewish religious and cultural rights. Apparently
adherence to restrictive regulations has become a necessity for the
Kremlin in dealing with all religious groups on an atheistic basis. Since
the Jews of Russia also have the added voice of the American Jewish
protesters, the compulsion to remain oppressive has become all the
more adamant. Therefore the unending battle in defense of Jewish
rights in Russia and the justice of the cause of the tens—perhaps
hundreds—of thousands who clamor for visas to go to Israel.
Are There 'Mosrim' Among Moscow Jews?
There are more such families than appears on the surface in a community-like ours.
Not so long ago, a study made by the Jewish Family and Children's Service, supple-
mented by the Mo'os Hitim_gommitteerindicated that a large number of Detroiters are in a
iieg-RPVerty- state-and - are dependent on some help from the community.
This is especially true at Passover time. We are obligated, if we are sincere in our
Hagada reading that "kol dihfin ye-se ve'yehol," all who are hungry should come and
eat, to provide the necessities for the less affluent, for those who are unable to secure all, the
food, all the matzot, the wine, for the Passover seder.
With so few days remaining before Passover, it is urgent that the Mo'os appeal
should receive a generous response.
New 'Let My People Go' Hagada
NEW YORK—Stating that since and you *all live unharmed and
its first printing in 1543, the unscathed.' "
Passover Hagada has been pub- Traditional protests seem not to
lished in no fewer than 2,713 have had any appreciable effect
editions, a New York publishing on the Kremlin, Bikel suggests.
house issued the 2,714th—and "These activities range from the
possibly most radical—version of irrational,. _boorish and violent
this Hebrew Passover classic.
(and therefore unproductive) to
Titled "Let My People Go: A the soft-pedaling and velvet glove
Hagada," this new edition features approach' (equally unproductive)."
the complete and traditional He- More positive means are required,
brew and English text, but instead he suggests,. and this book may be
Updated to 1972
have remained as relevant today
as when they were first set down,
I attempted to create illustrations
as relevant as the text—a text
that asserts 'in every generation
each Jew must regard himself as
though he personally were de-
livered from Egypt' "
The new Hagada has been en-
dorsed by National Conference on
Soviet Jewry, American Jewish
Congress, - .VA T, - theut-'Sffident
Struggle for Soviet Jewry, and
As Dr. Podwal sees it, there is others.
a compelling need to make the
The original art created for
Hagada continually meaningful to "Let My People Go" Hagada is
the contemporary Jew. He states: exhibited at Brentano's Gallery in
"Since the words of the Hagada Manhasset, Long Island, N.Y.
1:Wieling the bondage in and one of -than.
flight from Egypt in the 13th
Century BCE, the book's graphics
updates the exodus to the Soviet
Union in the year 1972.
Explains the artist, a 26-year-
old New York doctor named Mark
Podwal: "The reader is advised to
substitute Aleksei Kosygin and
Leonid Breshnev for Pharaohs
Ramses II and Mernephta."
(From the files of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Inc.)
Dr. Podwal, a resident phy-
40 Years Ago •This Week: 1932
sician at Brooklyn's Kings County
The Jews of Germany breathed more freely following the announce-
Hospital, is already well-known ment of the election results, which make the reelection of President
for his scathing political posters Paul von Hindenburg a virtual certainty on the second ballot on. April
and cartoons in- the underground 10 . . . The vote polled by Hitler was far beneath the expectations of
and New Left press. Last year, his followers.
Darien House, Inc.—the same
Benjamin N. Cardozo was sworn in as a U.S. Supreme Court
firm bringing out this new Hagada Justice.
—published a collection of Pod-
A storage house near Vienna was found to be a 600-year-old
wal's political art titled "The De- synagogue.
cline and Fall of the American
- 10 Years Ago This Week: 1962
Empire."
Premier Ben-Gurion said the danger of war had "greatly receded"
The new 128-page Hagada has
just been published in both hard- in live years, but that there was "no guarantee that the present quiet
will continue."
cover and soft-cover form.
United Hiss Service urged an increase in the annual U.S. im-
Folksinger and actor Theodore
Bikel, in an introduction to this new migration quota from 156,000 to 250,000, plus other revisions "to
Hagada, points out that the book reflect American democratic concepts concerning the dignity and
is actually a weapon in the world- worth of the individual."
West German President Heinrich Luebke expressed "gratitude" to
wide Jewish community's cold war
with the Politburo over the Krem- Israel for its "defense against all totalitarian danger." Both he and
Chancellor
Konrad Adenauer pledged to help "redeem the wrong done
lin's persecution of Soviet Jews.
What makes this program more against the Jews."
Sen. Kenneth Keating (R., N.Y.) asked the government• to ban
insidious than others in the past, aid to
Egypt until she "comes together at the conference table instead
Bikel notes, is that '"this oppres-
sion centers not on the body but of spewing forth threats and propaganda."
There is nothing more contemptible in Jewish terminology than
the term "moser"—informer. When a Jew informs libelously on his
people—for example, there have been converts who lied about the
Talmud—he is considered the worst of criminals.
A report from Moscow by New York Times correspondent Hedrick
Smith states that 14 Kiev Jews issued a statement accusing the lead-
ers of their synagogue of having collaborated witb the Soviet police
in anti-Jewish measures. The synagogue leaders are charged with
having forced older men in the congregation to sign anti-Israel decla-
rations.
There were other charges which would well justify the charge of
"megrim" against collaborators with the KGB. Doesn't this partially
explain why there is an inevitable minority that differs with Jews
who seek haven in Israel and demand exit visas from the USSR? the lout 'Give up your Jewish soul
,
This Week in Jewish History
2-friday, Mardi
10, 1172
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS