Purely Commentary

An Anti-Semitic Religious Journal, the Church and Its

Responsibilities, a Jewish Professor's Blunt Action

Canadian Jewry has experienced an occurrence that revives con-
cern over interfaith relationships, adds new factors to the study of
anti Semitic trends and provides new challenges on approaches to
such issues.

United Church of Canada publishes a inzgazine • United Church
Observer. Its editor. Dr. A. C. Forrest, not only expressed anti-Semitic
thoughts. but he gave a platform to Rev. John Booth, whose article
from Gerald L. K. Smith's anti-Semitic Cross and the Flag was
reprinted in the United Church magazine. Insult thus was added to
injury, and there was no doubt in the minds of most Jews in Canada
and of many Christians that the church authorities had condoned
anti Semitism.

In the course of the debates over the sad situation that was thus
created, the United Church theological seminary, St. Andrew's College.
Saskatoon, offered an honorary doctorate to the eminent Jewish
Fcholar, Dr Emil Fackenheim, who is professor in the department of
philosophy at the University of Toronto.

What was the man selected for honors to do' He is a fearless
spokesman against anti-Semitism. Ile is one of the outstanding author-
ities on all phases of the Holocaust. The very offer from a theological
school whose sponsors are blamed for having permitted publication of
anti Semitic articles aroused revulsion in Jewish ranks.

He was in a dilemma. There was criticism, anger, resentment.
Fortunately. Dr. Fackenheim rejected the claim that it would be
"scandalous" for him to accept the honor. It gave him an opportunity
to speak his mind, to express his views, to expose anti-Semitism, to
chide Christians for their guilt, to present the Jewish view on a
vital issue that seems endlessly to recur.
It was a long speech of acceptance, and the Toronto Globe and
Mail gave it a full page of space—deservedly. It was a great speech.
It covered a lot of ground. It traced anti-
Semitic incidents (Father Coughlin's, Ger-
ald L. K. Smith's, others) in relation to
the current sinful act of United Church's
Rev. Forrest. He dealt with the right of
Jews to Israel and to national sovereignty.

Do Jews have any rights at all in the
minds of Christians who bend backwards
now to give comfort to Israel's enemies?
This is one of the major issues tackled by
Prof. Fackenheim, and we turn to his con-
cluding remarks, from his magnificent ad-
dress at the St. Andrew's College for quo-
tation of a courageous statement that
should be shared with as many as can be
reached in an appeal for justice. Dr. Fack-
enheim said:

Anti-Jewish, mostly unconsci-
ous ideology, or what Jules Isaac
has called the "teaching of con-
tempt" for the Jewish people,
has accompanied Christian the-
ology throughout its history, and
rare has been the Christian the-
ologian wholly uncontaminated
by it. What is more, despite
Auschwitz and possibly even on
account of it, anti-Jewish Chris.
tian ideology survives directly
and indirectly to this day.

It survives indirectly in such
secular offspring as Communist
and Liberal ideology: the first
when it claims that, of all peo-
ple, the Jews alone are a non-
people; the second when it di-
vides us into nice •universal-
istic• Jews consenting to group-
suicide and nasty "particularis-
tic" Jews who deserve that
epithet when they show the
slightest concern for their own
people.

Christian ideology survives di-
rectly as well. The holocaust,
alas, has not made an end to it.
The ideology has merely changed
its vocabulary.

I ask: why are there Chris-
tians who are rightly concerned
about Arab refugees from Pales-
tine, but wrongly unconcerned
about Jewish refugees from
Arab countries? I find no answer
except in an ancient legend of
Christendom, the legend of the
wandering Jew--a legend which
implies that whereas other dis-
possessed peoples deserve re-
compense. Jews, and Jews alone.
must always be landless, and
landless people be rightless.

Why have some Christian
leaders shown no concern about
Moslem control of the Chris-
tian holy places, but became
shocked and affronted by Is-
raeli control? I have no answer
except an Ideology of a "new
Israel" which requires that the

2 — Friday, July 14, 1972

Dr. Fackenheim

"old" Israel be dead.

Dr. Forrest put it most clear-
ly, albeit presumably uncon-
sciously, when he asserted that,
after the Six-Day War, some
Christian clergymen mourned
the "loss" (sic!) of the holy
places which had passed from
Moslem to Jewish control. It
seems that Christian ideology
ended its crusades against Mos-
lems in the Middle Ages, but
that its crusade against my peo-
ple still goes on.

I go on to cite: "To be a Jew
today means to be determined
that "that most monstrous
crime in history' (Gabriel Mar-
cel) shall never occur again.
This is also the determination
of genuine Christian faith." It is
easy to say that there must be
no second holocaust. Indeed, it
can be cheap and many are say-
ing it. But you and I both know
what incredible moral and reli-
gious courage is required for a
genuine commitment to that pro-
position and how naive it would
be to expect a genuine commit-
ment wherever the words are
uttered.

Church Publication Bias...Can-
adian Interfaith Challenge . .
Fackenheim's Courageous Act

"We didn't know!" But it was
known. "It was militarily not
feasible!" Perhaps not, though
we know now that a factory was
in fact bombed, less than 10
miles front Auschwitz.

Yet just as it would have
been a moral victory for the
United States to have dropped
the first atom bomb as a demon
stration into the ocean, even if it
had failed in its purpose of end
ing the war, so it would have
been a moral victory for the
whole civilized world, had some-
one attempted, successfully or
not, to bomb the Auschwitz rail-
roads. Had there been an Is-
rael at the time, armed with 10
rickety planes, they would have
done it—or perished in the at-
tempt. And the whole world
would today be less dark.

This is why today no Jew
can be determined that there
shall be no second holocaust
without a firm commitment to
the autonomy and integrity of
the state of Israel. To be sure,
the right which I claim for my
people I cannot deny the Pales-
tinians—the right to a state of
their own, However, while the
two rights are at present in
tragic conflict, one right does
not cancel the other. (The real-
ization of both is our present dif-

By Philip
Slomovitz

Life Begins at 18,
Kibutz Youth Say-
but Not in Practice

ficult task). Moreover, merely
to call the Jewish state into ques-
tion is implicitly to condone the
TEL AVIV r JTA —A majority-
continuation of the unholy com- of kibutz youth feel that age 18
bination of anti-Jewish ideology the correct time to begin having
with Jewish powerlessness, the sexual relations.
most murderous result of which
This attitude was revealed
a
w as the holocaust.
survey of the three main kibut7.
You tell me that the deter- organizations, Artzi, Meuhad and l‘
mination that there shall be no Ikhud, conducted by the Oranni:
second holocaust is part of Chris- Kibutz Research Center in Tivon

tian. as well as Jewish faith. I
do not doubt it and though I
a sast, as set unchartered
territory for Christian faith in
that commitment, it is, of course,
your task, not mine, to explore
it.

Michael Nathan of the researcl.
center, reporting at the Intern:, I
ticnal Symposium on Sex Educa-
tion, said that 60 per cent of the
11th and 12th grade boys and 7o
per cent of the 11th and 12th grad:,
girls favored that age.

Let me make but a single ob-
servation. There is a good deal
of talk these days about the
right of Christians to criticize
Israeli policies. Some of it is
innocent nonsense. Some of it is
far from innocent. Of course
Christians have the right to crit-
icize Israeli policies. On occa-
sion they may even have the
duty. But in view of centuries
of anti-Jewish Christian ideology,
every criticism of Israel is sus-
pect unless it is accompanied
by the passionate determination
that the Jewish state shall live.

However, Dr. Moshe Lancet
head of the Kaplan Hospital's
department of obstetrics, told the
symposium that "when it comes
to sex, Israeli high school. stir
dents do a lot of talking, but I

No Christia; can stand by the
Jewish survivors of the holocaust
and wish the death of Jerusalem.

There are several aspects of this entire incident that are of great
importance. In the first place, it revives concern over vigilance. It
is good that many in Canada have spoken sharply about the Rev.
Forrest and his anti-Semitic approaches. The gentleman has been
defended by some who say he is not anti-Semitic, that he is misled
and such balderdash. If he is not anti-Semitic, why did he go to
G. L. K. Smith for material? And even if be just blundered, he
earned rebuke and he got it.

Then there is the matter of the Fackenheim experience. It is
good that he earned the platform to present the facts regarding a
situation that involves the entire Christian community. There has been
entirely too extensive an effort to downgrade Jews, Israel, Jews'
right to national independence, All peoples have a right to their
homeland, not the Jew in the minds of such misguided (let's be kind
to them with this minimal criticism) people. Dr. Fackenheim met on
equal ground with a seminary whose sponsors did not curb bigotry.
That's all to the good. Let us learn the lessons offered in the Cana-
dian experience.

very little else."

Lancet based his remark or. a
survey he conducted jointly wits
Sophie Kay-Venaki of Tel Aviv Uni-
versity's psychology departmer.
and Dr. Baruch •odan of the
Sheba Medical Center.

Their study found that of the 229
high school students surveyed, only
19.4 per cent of the boys and 12 7
per cent of the -girls had had sexu-
al intercourse.

A third survey, conducted by Dr.
Zeev Segal of the Haifa munici-
pality's social welfare department,
revealed that Israeli high school
students showed considerable ma-
turity in their thinking about mar-
riage and family planning. how-
ever romantic and unrealistic they
may be about "love."

Segal told the symposium that
his survey of Haifa youth showed
students believed in "going
steady" with several partners be-
fore choosing a mate and were
against "rushing into marriage."

The surveys showed that the stu-
dents considered 20 or 21 the ideal
age for women to marry and 24 or
25 the ideal age for men to marry.

Diaspora-Israel Partnership Emphasized
by Goldmann; $10.8 Billion in Reparations
Paid by Germany to End of'71, Parley Told

GENEVA (JTA) — Dr. Nahum
Goldmann, president of the World
Jewish Congress, made a strong
plea for a partnership of equality
between Diaspora Jewry and
Israel.
"The dispersion of today is the
third in Jewish history and as a
whole, the Jewish people has spent
more time in the Diaspora than it
has on its own state." Dr. Gold-
Mann said in an address at the
closing session of the conference
of the World Union for Progressive
Judaism here.
"The negation of the Diaspora.
the attempt to forget it or to deni-
grate it as an anomaly, is defense.
less and distorts the character of
Jewish existence in the past and in
the present • " he said. "It is essen-
tial to find a constructive relation-
ship between Israel and the Dia-
spora. Dr. Goldmann added.
He said the solution would have
to be based on the principles of
full solidarity and responsibility
of both parts of the Jewish people
for one another and for the peo-
ple as a whole.

What does a Jew do today
when he is determined that there
shall be no second holocaust —
other than hope, pray and fight,
as he did during the first? Let
me take you back for a moment
into the dark past. When the
trains were running to Ausch-
witz . . . carrying 10,000 vic-
tims to their death every single
day, why, despite urgent ap-
peals, was no attempt made by
the mighty Allies to bomb the
"The diaspora wilt have to re-
railways? Not by the Russian air spect Israel as a sovereign state
force. Not by the U.S. air force. and Israel must respect the auton-
Not by the RAF. Not by the omy of the golah: while both will
RCAF.
have the right and the duty to ad-
We have asked this question vise one another and to discuss
for a number of years. A satis- common problems, they will have
factory answer has yet to come. to leave the decisions to each of
the two parts," Dr. Goldmann said.
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
Dr. Maurice Eisendrath was elec-

ted president of the World Union
for Progressive Judaism. Rabbi
Richard Hirsch is the new execu-
tive director of the organization
that plans to move its headquarters
to Jerusalem.
At the annual meeting of the Con-
ference on Jewish Material Claims
Against Germany, of which Dr.
Goldmann is chairman, he reviewed
the Claims Conference's activities
over the past 20 years.
According to a report by Dr.
Ernst Katzenstein, German ex-
perts estimate that West Ger-
many has paid nearly S10,800,000-
000 in reparations to Jewish vic-
tims of Nazism up to Dec. 31,
1971. Total reparations payments
will amount to $13,100,000,000 by
Dec. 31, 1975 and could reach
520,000.000,000 by the year 2000 if
annuities still to be paid out are
included.

German industrial enterprises con-
cerning- repayment of indemnifica-
tion to World War II forced labor-
ers.
(The Nazi regime had put thou-
sands of Jews and other nationals
into forced labor at German plants.
Tuvia Friedmann. chairman of the
documentation center, said. He said
that some 100,000 Israelis who were
forced laborers in German plants
during the war are entitled to in-
demnification for their work.
( Efforts to obtain a sum of money
from German manufacturers were
made in the past, according to
Friedmann, but for the time being
notning has been received.)
The Memorial Foundation for
Jewish Culture allocated $1,931.-
369 for Jewish cultural projects
in 13 countries and elected of-
ficers and a new executive com-
mittee at the closing session of its
annual board of trustees meeting
here.

Dr. Goldmann said both major
West German political parties, the
Christian Democrats and Social
Recipients of the monies to
Democrats, were equally deter- allocated during 1972-73 are ia
mined that the reparations agree- France, Belgium. Holland, Hun-
ment he honored M letter and gary,
Italy,
Romania,
Britain.
spirit. He said negotiations were Yugoslavia, Brazil, Chile. Israel.
still going on regarding several Canada and the United States.
pending issues. "I hope the repara-
Dr. Goldmann, elected president
tions era is closed in the way it of the foundation, said he would
started; it is In the interests of appoint two committees of experts
Germany that it should be so," Dr. to study possible improvements in
Goldmann said. procedures and to explore new di-
(The Israel Documentation Cen- rections with respect to allocation
ter in Haifa called on Dr. Gold- policies.
mann earlier to take action with
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