2 Friday, February 11, 1977

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

Purely Commentary

The Party Has No Peer:
Rabin Looks Like the Victor
TEL AVIV — The battle is on. The struggle for
power is in evidence in all party ranks. The demand for
"change" persists. But those demanding it are begin-
ning to lose faith in their hopes for success and the
wiseacres are becoming more cautious in their
prophecies.
The mere fact that the decisive date will not be on
election day in May but at the Labor Party convention
on Feb. 23 is evidence of what is certain to occur: the
dominant Labor Party will retain power, albeit with a
smaller margin of control. Will it be Shimon Peres or
Yitzhak Rabin?
In the knowledgeable ranks there is the admis-
sion, after all the namecalling and efforts to create a
strong opposition, that it will be Rabin again. Golda
Meir is expected to back him as strongly as when she
first swung influence in his behalf against Peres.
Minister of Justice Haim Zadok, who is also viewed as
one of the "king makers" in Israel, supports Rabin.
That settles it.
But there will be changes. The Labor Party, with
Mapam now in its corner, will surely form the next
government. But it is expected to lose 19 seats which
may go to Yigal Yadin's Movement for Change.
Menahem Begin may lose a few seats. The religious
bloc is believed to have a built-in clientele.
The anticipation is for a repeated rulership, but
the composition of the Cabinet and, of course, the
Knesset, will be different. Perhaps it will be more con-
troversial. The unity the Israelis hope for is not in
sight.
Saul Bellow Left His Mark
on the People of Israel
JERUSALEM — Saul Bellow left a lasting mark
on Israelis with his interest in all facets of their ac-
tivities, in his explorations of the new life in the reborn
Jewish state.

.

Speculation Rather Than Prediction on Israel's Tempestuous
Election Campaign . . . Rabin Foreseen as Victor in Heated
Contest . . . Saul Bellow and King David Hotel Barber

By Philip
Slomovitz

The evidence, of course, is in his "To Jerusalem
adores Hubert H. Humphrey. Signed photos of Hum-
and Back" (Viking Press), and the subtitle "A Personal
phrey hang on every wall. He has often cut Hum-
Account" emphasizes the intimacies that are evident
phrey's hair. He has received senatorial and vice
throughout the book.
presidential letters from Humphrey. I take the trou-
It is not surprising, therefore, that a visitor in
ble to go around and read them. They are rich in
Israel keeps hearing about the Bellow episodes that
congressional corn. Everything is big and open, con-
accompanied his tours in the land and his visits with
tratulatory, wonderful and frank.
people of all ranks.
"How do you like that?" says Ephraim. "!Un
He didn't even overlook the popular barber in the
hombre tan importante que me escribe and me ha dado
King David Hotel who has become a legend in his own
su retrato - a mi, un barbero sencillo!" The senator
time. Ephraim Mizrachi would rather be called a stu-
looks extremely healthy and so does his wife. They are
dent of Scriptures. He always quotes from the wisdom
holding hands and strolling, dressed in sportswear,
of the sages. He has a good audience: U.S. notables,
through the flowers.
members of the government and personalities of note
Feeble Mizrachi returns to his snipping. I wonder
from all parts of the globe having been treated to his
whether my ears will be safe when he unfolds his
scissors and brushes in his old-fashioned barber's
straight razor. But that is' merely peripheral. What
chair.
goes through my mind is that Humphrey is rea'
In the process of serving so many important
awfully clever politician. Thousands of influ. al
people from everywhere, Mizrachi's tools also touched
American Jews, big givers, stop at the King David.
Hubert Humphrey and the two had their many ex-
How ingenious of Humphrey to win the barber's heart
changes of views on world affairs. Ephraim treasures
and cover the walls of this shop with letters and
and keeps displaying the Humphrey letters and he
photographs.
was the Minnesota senator's most consistent suppor-
And perhaps Humphrey really lost his heart to
ter for the Presidency, Humphrey's ill luck being that
the old boy. Anyway, no harm has been done to Miz-
the King David barber doesn't have a U.S. vote.
rachi, sighing and doddering and Clipping behind me.
Saul Bellow couldn't miss Ephraim's chair at the
Humphrey is, indeed, a friend of Israel and could be
King David. Therefore he included him in his book.
counted on to be one even if he had become President.
Inter alia, Bellow was not so kind to Humphrey, who
So, our Jerusalem barber, who would rather be
undoubtedly deserves better at the hands of a fellow labeled Bible Scholar, has gained fame from the most
American, but Ephraim Mizrachi is in "To Jerusalem recent Nobel Prize Winner in Literature. But Ep-
and Back," with Bellow devoting the following to him: hraim remains the philosopher. When he expressed
pride in Bellow's selection of him for the quoted refer-
, The old barber at the King David Hotel, Ephraim ence, he turned to the Prophets, and from Jeremiah he
Mizrachi, a native of Jerusalem, asks me how old I am. culled the Jeremiad: "Maduah derekh reshayim
He then says, "I, too, am sixty." We are speaking matzliakh" — "Why do evil men prosper?"
Spanish — Ladino, rather. He is a charmer: his hands
So many and so varied are the fascinating ele-
shake a bit but he gives an excellent haircut. His blue ments in Israel's population that collectively they
eyes are small and overhung with wild white hairs.
form a cross section of humanity. And Ephraim Miz-
I speak to him about Hubert H. Humphrey, and a rachi, as one of the facets of that collective dynamism,
blue flame awakens again in those two embers. A sort rightfully gained recognition from the very observant
of senile strength and cheer straighten his body. He Saul Bellow.

`Misinterpreted Ideologist of Cultural Zionism'

.
IF i Clinger
Ahad HaAm: Zionist Rationalst,
to Tradition
i

By ELIAHU BEN-YAACOV

World Zionist Organization

As could have befallen
any other father of his
generation, Isaiah
Ginsburg, the pious Hasid
of Skvire, happened to
have a rebellious son.
Knowing neither
games nor friends, the de-
licate and taciturn young
man immersed himself in
Halakha, the law of
Judaism. It was as
though he were aveng-
ing himself through
knowledge, that catalyst
of deep Jewish resent-
ment.
Married off at less than
16 years of age, the bril-
liant talmudist became a
rabbinic consultant and
counsellor in Skvire and
the environs of Kiev.
His father would never
have imagined that his
only son was mastering
Hebrew and furtively
studying Maimonides, the
Judeu-Spanish philoso-
pher who revered the
supremacy of reason.
During the second half
of the 19th Century,
perhaps as an offshoot of
the democratic revolu-
tion of 1848, the literary
and cultural E n-
glightenment (Haskala)
movement began to suc-
cessfully disseminate its
ideology of humanist
rationalsim.
The lower-middle and
working classes, in Rus-
sia's smaller towns and
suburban villages, pre-
ferred to remain faithful
to their own cultural
tradition.
But the opulent Jews,
eager to scale the walls of
the "spiritual ghetto"
(and the economic one),
sought or pretended to

soak up the wineskins of
the "universal culture" of
the Christian West, while
divesting themselves of
the trappings of their
guilt-ridden Judaism.
Asher Ginsburg lived in
Skvire until the age of 30,
opting modestly for intel-
lectual ostracism. When he
reached Odessa, to try his
luck in commerce, Theo-
dor Herzl was in Vienna
writing mediocre theater
pieces.
To Odessa, the met-
ropolis of literary salons,
he brought a knowledge
of history, philosophy and
positivist sociology, as
well as a religious agnos-
ticism, a keen practical
approach to the Jewish
question — and disen-
chantment with the En-
lightenment.
Asher Ginsburg, who
was compared to Ghandi
and Mazzini by his disci-
ple, Chaim Weizmann,
lashed out mercilessly
against what he called
"the spiritual enslave-
ment of the 'emancipated'
Western Jews".
In 1881, the frail lights
of the Enlightenment
were smashed to pieces
by a series of pogroms and
the Czar's new anti-
Jewish legislation which
led a few years later to
the massacre at Kishinev,
at a time when the first
copies of The Protocols of
the Elders of Zion 'ap-
peared in the streets of
Russia.
Paris, the center of
European civilization,
echoed with the sounds of
the Dreyfus trial. Theo-
dor Herzl was already
going from one capital to
another in an attempt to

resolve "the Jewish prob-
lem".
Even before choosing
the pseudonym Ahad
Ha'Am ("one of the
people") to sign hundreds
of articles and essays
which he invariably
wrote in Hebrew, Asher
Ginsburg understood the
Jewish national question
more deeply than Theo-
dor Herzl.
Herzl was, after all,
someone who had "re-
turned" to Judaism, as a
reaction against the as-
similationist Enlighten-
ment.
Ahad Ha'Arn, intensely
steeped in Jewish culture,
understood that "the
Jewish problem" could
not be reduced to a mat-
ter of persecutions or
other anti-Jewish
phobias. This gave rise to
his later polemics with
the so-called Herzlian or
Politcal Zionism.
It would never have oc-
curred to Ahad Ha'Am, the
misinterpreted ideologist
of cultural Zionism, to
propose a Uganda,
Madagascar or Argentine
plan to "solve the Jewish
problem", which is, after
all, a chapter in the larger
national question of the
Jewish people.
Even though the physi-
cal salvation of the pei'se 1
cuted and oppressed Jews
of Eastern Europe was
urgent, it was no less ur-
gent to redeem the
`emancipated' of other
communities from their
servitude.
As Robert Alter main-
tains, Ahad Ha'Am
feared that the web of
Jewish national unity
was disintegrating irret-
rievably in the vortex of

the modern era.
Hence, he viewed Israel
as a "spiritual center", an
ancestral home, to re-
plenish a diaspora which
in modern parlance, was
being rapidly colonized
by other cultures.
The state envisaged by
Ahad Ha'Am was not an
end in itself, that is simply
a modern and political
state, but rather the ex-
pression of an indepen-
dence which would derive
its inspiration from the
prophets of Israel.
It would not be a haven
for persecuted Jews, but
rather the center of
Judaism. For Ahad
Ha'Am, Jewish cultural
creativity could develop
only in Israel.
In this respect, he dif-
fered from the historian,
Simon Dubnow, who ad-
vanced the theory of
Jewish cultural
nationalism in the Dias-
pora.
Asher
Ginsburg
dreamed of the "national
self-education" of the
Diaspora, which, illumi-
nated by the light
emanating from the
"spiritual center", would
at long last reach Zion.
Ahad Ha'Am died in Tel
Aviv on Jan. 2, 1927. The
dramatic events of World
War II and the Nazi
Holocaust, which he was
spared witnessing, re-
futed some of his ideas,
which had been resisted by
Herzlian Zionism and by
other sectors of the Jewish
people.
Nevertheless,
his
global view of the na-
tional question and his
conception of the Jewish
state as not simply a state

composed of Jews, as well
as his accurate and tren-
chant analysis of Jewish
life in the Diaspora
(which he predicted
would be long-lasting) are
today more contempor-
ary and vital than in his
own polemic days.
Herzl was the incredi-
ble political dynamo who

AHAD HaAM

brought about Israeli in-
dependence 50 years
after the publication of
"The Jewish State," but
who, to a certain extent,
burned himself out.
Ahad Ha'Am, by con-
trast, is more relevant
today than in that bygone
era when the very physi-
cal existence of the
Jewish masses was called
into question.
In any event, the empty-
ing of Jewish communities
in the Diaspora as well as
the persistence of the
Diaspora, only serve to
justify Ahad Ha'am's
fears.
Disillusioned.,
the
Skvire rebel abandoned
his intellectual activities
as head of "Ha-Shiloakh,"
the most brilliant and
serious publication of its
time, and became an

employee of the Wis-
sotzky Tea Company in
London (Wissotzky gave
financial backing to
"Ha-Shiloakh").
He immigrated to Is-
rael in 1921, settling in
what today is Tel Aviv.
Until his aliya, Ahad
Ha'Am had succeeded
in
_
railing against those
w
who
had falsified his no-
compromise Zionism,
which was slower and
perchance more lacklus-
ter than the dynamic
Zionism of Herzl's adhe-
rents.
Nevertheless, there
was no escaping his
venom for those theoriz-
,ers Of religious refor-
mism, for whom "Zion is
everywhere", nor for
those who invented. the
doctrine of "the mission
of the Jews", who must
continue in a state of dis-
persion in order to carry
their message to the rest
of the peoples.
Ahad Ha'Am did not
spare those who claimed to
"regnerate anti-Semites",
by adopting the infp -
practice of being apo :c
and disseminating "among
the ignorant" the current
co-called "universal val-
ues of Judaism".
Ahad Ha'Am never
held any official posts
within the , political
Zionist Movement, in
whose ranks were many
who sought to refute his
positions.
His sons took the name
Ginosar and his family
life was not the drama
one might have suspected
in Skvire.
His remains are inter-
red next to those of his
great opponent, Max
Nordau.