Jews on Right: 'Young Americans for Freedom'
One urged action against
Arab terrorism. This was op-
posed by about 30 per cent
of the delegates present
after hearing a demand that
Israel be condemned too.
The other recommended
all countries grant their citi-
zens "the right to leave"
which seemed to be a right-
wing way of supporting Dem-
ocratic Sen. Jackson's ideas
without identifying him with
it.
Robert Feinberg, originally
from Shamokin, Pa., and a
University of - Pennsylvania
law graduate, said he was
"frustrated" by the emigra-
tion resolution. He thought
the New York delegation
should have brought in a
stronger, more explicit one.
Joel Cassman, 18, of
Omaha, a Brown freshman
and an ardent Zionist who
said he intends to live in
Israel, was a member of the
platform committee a n d
drafted the terrorism resolu-
tion.
He, David Grossack, a Revi-
sionist from Brandeis, and
Thomas Morton, a sophomore
at Ohio's Miami U., organiz-
ed a demonstration at the
Sudanese - Embassy in pro-
test against the slowness in
bringing to trial the Arab
terrorists who killed two
American diplomats in Khar-
toum.
Grossack posted, on the
outside of the door of his
hotel room, an Israeli flag
with a legend urging support
for Israel. In scanning litera-
ture available to delegates,
he spotted some that seemed
to him anti-Semitic. When
he showed them to Don Rae,
Grossack said, "Rae told me
to tear them up. He said
`We don't tolerate that kind
34 Friday, Sept. 28, 1973
THE DETROIT JEWISH' NEWS of stuff. YAF has thrown out
anti-Semites before.' "
Nevertheless, several of the
STARTING OCT. 3
youngsters wondered w h y
such literature reeking of far
right-wing expression made
its way into YAF's conven-
Teen- Adult — Beginning/Advanced
tion.
BY JOSEPH POLAKOFF
JTA White House
Correspondent
WASHINGTON — Jewishness
evidenced itself in uneven
patterns at the seventh na-
tional convention in 13 years
of the Young Americans for
Freedom, the right wing of
the country's student politi-
cians.
Numerically, Jewish rep-
resentation was surprisingly
high, given the notion that
nearly all Jews are liberals.
In terms of visible activity,
Jewish youngsters turned in
some good performances on
issues that -personally con-
cerned them. Organizational-
ly, Jewish leadership seem-
ed to have both lost - and
gained ground. Among the
rank and file, enthusiasm for
Jewish issues dropped notic-
eably, although officialdom
for the most part continued
its backing.
Of the approximately 1,000
delegates at the four-day
weekend at the Sheraton Park
Hotel here, perhaps 60 were
Jewish — about 6 per cent.
Dislike of President Nixon
was openly manifested at the
YAF convention not because
of Watergate, although that
was mentioned by some, but
mainly because his approa-
ches toward detente with
Moscow and Peking alleged.
ly weakened America inter-
nationally and his economic
programs took on liberal
philosophy.
Within YAF's organization-
al structure, Jews have little
strength and less than at the
Houston convention two
years ago. National treasurer
Frank Donatelli of Pitts-
burgh, a Duquesne law stu-
dent, said that none of
YAF's new directorate of 25
members is Jewish. Two had
been on it previously.
YAF has 550 chapters with
58,000 members, which con-
tinues to make it the coun-
try's largest student organi-
zation. In noting this, Dona-
telli pointed out that "one
of our better chapters is in
the Yeshiva University in
New York City." Steve Gold-
stein, its chairman, is in
Israel for a year.
With YAF strongly sup-
portive of religious obser-
vance, the convention pro-
gram listed Jewish services
for Friday night in the con-
vention hotel. About a fourth
of the Jewish delegates par-
ticipated, under the direc-
tion of Rabbi Seymour Sie-
gel, the Jewish Theological
Seminary professor and head
of the Jewish Rights Council
in New York, who pronounc-
ed the invocation at Presi-
dent Nixon's second inaugu-
ral.
Earlier on Friday, Rabbi
Siegel and a convention del-
egate, Michael Kogan of New
York, editor of "Ideas" mag-
azine, went to the White
House as members of the
Ad Hoc Committee for Fair-
ness to the Presidency to ex-
press confidence in President
Nixon. Rabbi Siegel explain-
ed the committee wes found-
ed as a result of Watergate
by Rabbi Baruch Korff of
Taunton, Mass., and is 30 per
cent Jewish.
In the convention proceed-
ings, the platform committee
limited itself to 15 resolu-
tions. Two supporting Jew-
ish causes were adopted in
voice votes.
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I
By ABRAHAM J. HESCHEL
In "The Earth Is the Lord's"
There is a Divine earnest-
ness about our life. This is
our dignity. To be invested
with dignity means to repre-
sent something more than
oneself. The gravest sin for
a Jew is to forget what he
represents.
We are God's stake in
human history. We are the
dawn and the dusk, the chal-
lenge and the test. How
strange to be a Jew and to
go astray on God's perilous
errands. We have been of-
fered as a pattern of worship
and as a prey for scorn, but
there is more still in our
destiny. We carry the gold
of God in our souls to forge
the gate of the kingdom. The
time for the kingdom may
be far off, but the task is
plain: to retain our share in
God in spite of peril and con-
tempt. There is a war to
wage against the vulgar,
against the glorification of
the absurd, a war that is in-
cessant, universal. Loyal to
the presence of the ultimate
in the common, we may be
able to make it clear that
man is more than man, that
in doing the finite he may
perceive the infinite.
Men, like peaches and
pears, grow sweet a little
while/before they begin to
decay. — Oliver Wendell
Holmes.
Only Shadow of Bolivia Jewry Remains
Editor's note: Stephen Levene,
managing editor of the Reporter,
published by the Jewish Federa-
tion of Broome County, N.Y., was
recently in Bolivia. Upon his re•
turn, he submitted this special
report to the Jewish Telegraphic
Agency.)
By STEPHEN LEVENE
(Copyright 1973, JTA, Inc.)
LA PAZ, Bolivia—The hall-
ways of the Circulo Israelita
in La Paz, Bolivia, are mostly
dark and silent now. The
small club rooms in the spa-
cious four-story building are
usually empty, except for a
few hours during the week
when a handful of youngsters
or adults gather for a game
of ping pong or bridge.
The Jewish Center in Bo-
livia's capital city, located
just two blocks from the
bustling Prado, today serves
as more of a reminder of
what used to be, rather than
what is, the state of affairs
of Jews in this rugged Latin
American nation.
"Perhaps, at most, there
are 200 or 300 families in the
whole country now," esti-
mated Chaskiel Silber, the
part-time director of the Cir-
culo Israelita. "Since the
1950s, thousands of Jews have
left for the U.S., Israel and
Brazil or Argentina."
The rise and fall of Bo-
livia's Jewish population is
an intriguing story with the
most exciting chapters during
the 1930s, when the Hitler era
cast a dark shadow across
Eastern Europe. Jews look-
ing for escape routes and
new homes found that for
some money — and a pio-
neer's spirit — Bolivia would
w-e lcome them. The land-
locked Andean republic,
known best for its tin mines
and high altitude, at least
could provide an access to
other countries in the West-
ern Hemisphere once the war
was over.
By the early 1950s, there
were close to 10,000 Jews in
LaPaz, with a few thousand
more in Cochabamba, Oruro,
Sucre and Potosi. Jewish tra-
ditions and organized activ-
ities flourished — the CI was
erected in 1955—and the new
immigrants had become lead-
ing businessmen in the larger
cities. But all that is only a
memory now.
"There is certainly no
future here for our children,"
lamented the small, dark-
haired Silber. As he spoke, a
few middle-aged adults filed
in the Circulo Israelita's tiny
dining room for a late sup-
per, followed by cards or
television.
"This building is only open
on Wednesday and Sunday
nights," he added. "There
just aren't people around tA
use it any more."
Silber himself talks about
moving to Israel "in a year
or two."
There is a rabbi, 65-year-
old Chaskiel Levin, also liv-
ing in 'La Paz. He leads the
Saturday morning services in
the CI's small shul, chanting
Sabbath prayers for the 20 or
Ranks in Suffering
If there are ranks in suffer-
ing, Israel takes precedence
of all the nations; if the
duration of sorrows and the
patience with which they are
borne ennoble, the Jews can
challenge the aristocracy of
every land; if a literature is
called rich in the possession
of a few classic tragedies —
what shall we say to a Na-
tional Tragedy lasting for
fifteen hundred years, in
which the poets and the ac-
tors were also the heroes?
— Leopold Zunz, in "Syna-
gogale Poesie."
so regular worshipers. Cocha-
bamba, Bolivia's second larg-
est city, also has a synagogue
serving the families who re-
main in that pleasant tourist
area.
In La Paz, some young stu-
dents still attend a school
established by the Jewish
community several years
ago. "But now," Silber said,
"it has mostly a non-Jewish
enrollment.'
Over the years, the pre-
dominantly Catholic country
proved to be a haven for
Jews in another important
sense. Werner Goldman, a
salesman, who was Bolivia's
delegate to the 21st Zionist
Congress, explained: "There's
been no anti-Semitism here.
Bolivians are a warm people
who do not distinguish be-
tween Jew and non-Jew."
Part of that friendliness
could be due to a cordial
relationship that has devel-
oped between the Bolivian
government and Israel. Agri-
cultural missions from the
Jewish state have worked
closely with Indian farmers
on the wind-swept altiplano
and in the lush tropics, con-
tributing the kind of assist-
an c e an underdeveloped
country can appreciate, with-
out strings attached.
"Bolivian newspapers are
always carrying stories about
Israel," Goldman said. "And
the few Jews left here have
a special sentimental attach-
ment to their homeland"
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