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Temple Mount Excavations End

Anti-Semitism in Literature

By Ben Gallob

(Copyright 1977, JTA, Inc.)
Only a handful of work- inspections of the dig con-
A Jewish teacher of
ers are still turning earth ducted on two separate oc-
English at Houston Uni-
at the site, and they are casions.
versity has asserted that
expected to end. their
Raymond Lemaire,
while it may not be prac-
labors soon. Eventually
who
conducted the inves-
tical or ethical to censor
the site will be opened to
tigations for UNESCO, or ban such anti-Semitic
tourists who will be able, wrote:
"Criticisms
classics as Shakespeare's
because of the careful
"Merchant of Venice,"
stratification the ar- leveled at the methods
teachers in public schools
cheologists sought in used in the excavations
are groundless. The ex-
and colleges should be re-
their excavation, to look cavations
are being car- quired to recognize the
at the different historical ried out by
a perfectly
anti-Semitism in such
eras. No date for opening
the area to the public has well-qualified team of ex, classics and use them to
perts who are extremely
teach their students
been set.
"what anti-Semitism is
The excavation, which attentive."
all about."
cost about $2.3 million,
Menahem Magen, an
E. L. Dachslager, in of-
much of it from founda- archeologist, pointed on a
fering his criticism, de-
tion and private dona- recent tour to the exca-
clared that "the image of
tions, caused a furor vated Herodian stones
the Jew as cunning,
within the United Na- that undergird the Old
crafty, constrined by
tions Educational, Scien- City's famous wall.
cupiditas and hatred for
tific and Cultural Organi-
zation a few years ago
The huge blocks of Christians," is, "for the
and resulted in its being stone — one of them _ most part; the Jew found
in the pages of some of the
banned from a number of weighing 100 tons — are
world's great — and occa-
UNESCO activities. •
engineering marvels.
sionally not so great
The dispute stemmed Heaps of them still lie on
art and literature."
from Arab objections that an ancient unearthed
Discussing the issue in
the Israeli dig would un- street, blunt reminders,
a recent issue of "Sh'ma,"
dermine the foundations Magen said, of the razing
Dachslager asserted that
of Moslem shrines on the of the Second Temple by
"such images have
Temple Mount, particu- the Romans in 70 A.D.
greatly contributed to the
larly the Al Aksa Mosque after the Jewish revolt.
long-standing idea of the
and the Dome of the Rock
Jew as an undesirable
— two of the most sacred The dig has also pro-
element in our society."
Moslem structures. No duced evidence of the
He added that "in view of
damage to the buildings protracted occupation by
the risk inherent for
has been evidenced. the Roman 10th Legion,
world Jewry" in teaching
It was also charged that which was garrisoned in
archeologists under Is Jerusalem for about 200 such plays as The Mer-
chant of Venice to
raeli supervision were in years.
"thousands of public
such haste to get to the
Rethains of eighth- schools and college stu-
remains from the Second
Temple period that they century Arabic palaces dents" year after year,
had given short shrift to have been excavated and there was "at least an ar-
unearthing materials from show that they used gument" for barring
such obvious examples
later Arab and Christian many of the stones that
eras in Jerusalem's long were part of the original of anti-Semitism" from
history. But these charges Temple Mount wall de- the curricula of the
schools and colleges. -
were refuted by UNESCO stroyed by the Romans.
He said that if the
Jewish
community does
JDC Launches
not wish to, or is not able
to, prohibit such works,
Medical Program
the issue becomes how
NEW YORK — The they should be taught.
RAMAT G N — A applied by society in vari-
major grant of $775,000, ous stages of its evolution. American Jewish Joint "The most obvious re-
the largest awarded by The late Chief Justice Earl Distribution Committee quirement," he asserted,
the National Endowment Warren is known to have (JDC) has inaugurated a "is that the teacher should
for the Humanities considered the Responsa a long-range program to be able to recognize' that
(NEH) during the past fertile source of legal wis- help Israel overcome a an .anti-Semitic text is
shortage of medical social
year, will help an Israeli dom and -precedent.
workers in northern Is- anti-Semitic."
university to expand con-
The second responsibil-
The grant, which
siderably its project for amounts to IL 7 million is rael, it was reported by ity of the teacher,
computerizing Jewish one of the largest ever ob- Ralph I. Goldman, execu- Dachslager declared, "is
tivevice President of the to come to terms with the
law.
tained for research by an JDC. •
The grant from the U.S. Israeli university.
anti-Semitism, rather
The JDC will provide IL than
government-supported
evade it. To say, for
4 million ($450,000) over a example, that Chaucer,
NEH in Washington was
period of five years to the Marlowe, Shakespeare,
awarded recently to HUC Starts Grad
Haifa University School the - anonymous authors
Bar-Ilan, Israel's only Judaica Program
of Social Work for de- of medieval religious
religious-oriented uni-
veloping the program and drama, Charles Dickens,
NEW
YORK
(JTA)
—
A
versity, which several
years ago began the pro- rapid increase in the for the establishment of Frank Norris, T. S. - Eliot,
ject of computerizing the number of Jewish and social service depart- Ezra Pound, et al, were
major part of the Re- Christian candidates for ments in two Haifa hospi- not really antagonistic to
sponsa literature. This a doctorate in Jewish tals, Rambam and Jews but were simply fol-
comprises more than studies has led to estab- Rothschild.
lowing the beliefs of their
250,000 questions and lishment of a graduate
times, merely expressing
school
at
the
Cincinnati
Egyptian Attorney
answers on subjects of
the conventional views of
J ewish law (Halakha) ex- campus of the Hebrew Asks Equal Rights
`their day,' is not only to
changed between 5,000 Union College-Jewish In-
evade the question of
stitute
of
Religion,
the
TUNIS (ZINS) — teaching what anti-
rabbinical authbrities
Reform
institution,
ac-
Left-wing Egytpian at-
over a period of 1,500
Semitism is all about but,
cording to Dr. Alfred torney Shehata Haroun
years.
even more, to evade his-
Shehata, who is Jewish,
To date; the Bar-Ilan Gottschalk, president.
tory itself."
Enrollment rose from a was reported by an Egyp-
Responsa project has
He also criticized the
half
dozen
students
an-
tian newspaper as calling fact
'led close to 18,000.
c
that anti-Semitism in
q
ions and answers, nually in the 1950s and 20 on the Sadat government literature "is often by-
to
25
in
the
early
1970s
to
appoint
a
Jew
to
con ained in 74 volumes
pasSed as irrelevant, a
of the Responsa. The and has more than dou- Egypt's People's Assem- side issue, 'not a pressing
bled
to
the
present
en-
bly and requesting equal
grant will now enable the
matte•,' as one critic has
university to reach a total rollment of nearly 60 can- rights for Jews.
written about an anti-
didates,
he
reported.
Shehata
demanded
of 200 to 300 volumes or
Semitic poem by T. S.
that
names
of
Jews
be
some 50,000 questions
French
Trade
removed from lists of Eliot."
and answers within the
Dachslager declared
next three years. JERUSALEM (ZINS) people prevented from
Among the aims of the — Israel achieved trade leaving the country ex- that "an even less profes-
NEH in assisting the Bar- parity with France last cept by special permit. He sional, if not less ethical,
Ilan project is to help the year by exporting $125 called on the government approach to teaching
American legal profession million in goods and ser- to restore Egyptian na- anti-Semitism in litera-
ture is to justify it as sim-
by providing new legal in- vices to the French. Is- tionality to Jews deprived
ply a literary device, a
sights and precedents and rael doubled its exports to of it and to grant citizen-
to learn how a system and France in the last three ship to stateless Jews "if wayward but uninten-
they are worthy of it."
tional transgression
philosophy of law has been years.

JERUSALEM — A
major nine-year-old ar-
cheological excavation on
the periphery of the an-
cient wall of Jerusalem's
Old City near the historic
Temple Mount is coming
to a close after yielding
tightly compacted layers
of civilization touching on
ancient Jews, Romans,
Byzantine Christians,
Moslem Arabs, Crusaders
and Turks, the New York
Times reports.
Over the years Jewish
and Arab laborers, aided
by hundreds of volun-
teers from all over the
world, have excavated
near the southern and
wefern portions of the
ty's wall.
iLey have unearthed
ancient streets and
houses, huge Herodian
blocks of stone going back
2,000 years that look as
new as if a 20th Century
stonecutter had just, put
his finishing touches on
them, and enormous
quantities of pottery,
stoneware, coins, frag-
ments of glass and bits of
bone.
The excavation; under
the supervision of Prof.
Benjamin Mazar, former
president of the Hebrew
University of Jerusalem,
is ending not so much be-
cause it can no longer yield
up the past but because
there iS__such a wealth of
objects and material al-
ready tucked away in
warehouses that await
study, analysis and scho-
larly publications on their
meaning and importance.

Bar-Ilan Receives Grant
to Computerize Responsa

"

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•■•■•

JWB Education
Plan Instituted

committed in the service
NEW YORK — To help
of artistic : necessity."
He insisted that "the the growing numbers of
whole question of the Jewish children on U.S.
morality, not to mention military installations re-
artistry, of an author who ceive a proper Jewish
creates racial or ethnic education without inter-
stereotypes is largely ig- ruption, the Commission
nored by teachers of lit- on Jewish Chaplaincy of
erature" in public schools the National Jewish Wel-
and colleges. - fare Board, in coopera-
tion with the Armed
Dachslager cited the
Forces Chaplains Board,
comment by the American
has issued a Unified.
poet, Charles Olson, about Jewish Religious Educa-
Ezra Pound: "No man can
tion Curriculum.
attack a race ‘and remain
The major advantage of
useful to anyone as an ar-
a unified religious educa-
tist." Dachslager asked:
tion curriculum for the
"How many teachers of lit- Jewish school on a
erature" are "able, or will- tary base is that it pro-
ing, to consider seriously" motes the continuity of
Olson's declaration?
the children's Jewish
education, as military
He said that if Olson's
personnel are .often
judgment was correct,
transferred from one
declaring he believed it duty station to another in
was, then teachers of lit-
the U.S. or overseas.
erature are "hypocrites,
The 127-page unified
propagandists for the
curriculum is sutable for
`humanizing' effect of instruction in all three
literary study" when
branches of Judaism —
they know the effect of Orthodox, Conservative
literary anti-Semitism
and Reform. It provides
"has proved to be de-
core curricula for chil-
humanizing.
dren of various ages, lists
basic Jewish books and
He declared that anti- of
discussion
materials,
Semitism is not culti- characteristics
of Chil-.
vated only "in the pulpit, dren in the elementary
the country club, the grades and intermediate
board room, the reactio-
nary fears of left- or grades as well as adoles-
right-wing political cents, curriculum con-
groups." He said it is cul- tent, suggestions for or-
tivated as much, "if not ganizifig classes, prepar-
more," in the classroom ing lessons and handling
problems, spe-
and in some of the texts discipline
cific aids and techniques.
used to teach literature.
A comprehensive bib-
He warned that if what liography covering
is said or taught in the Jewish Social Studies; the
classroom, or in such Hebrew Language; Edu-
textbooks "is not at the cational Resources; Liv-
very least recognized, ing Jewishly; Liturgy-
evaluated and judged for Prayer; Jewish Sources;
what it is, then the Philosophy; Jewish Life
chances are good that the Cycles,_. Jewish Art; and
students will continue to Autio-Visual and Written
receive an image of the References is a highlight
Jew which should have of the Curriculum, which
been long ago erased from is complete with a price
their minds." list.

Brandeis. U. Given Grant
to Expand Judaic Studies

WALTHAM, Mass. —
Brandeis University's
Near Eastern and Judaic
Studies Departthent
(NEJS) has been awarded
a $250,000 grant by the
National Endowment for
the Humanities.
will
funds
The
strengthen specific areas
of Judaic studies at
Brandeis and develop a
program of active rela-
tionships with the gen-
eral humanities. The
grant covers a three-year
period.
"Brandeis' NEJS offers
the largest and most
comprehensive program
of its kind in American
higher education," said
department Chairman
Marvin Fox, thePhilip W.
Lown Professor of Jewish
Philosophy.
"Now, with this grant,
we will have resources for
new faculty in the fields of
talmudic literature and
Hellenistic Judaism, add-
ing important new dimen-
sions to the existing strong
offerings," he continued.
The National Endow-
ment for the Humanities
grant will underwrite de-
velopment of new courses
to be taught jointly by

Judaic studies faculty
and their counteriarts in
the departments of
Classics, History and Phi-
losophy and History of
Ideas. Each course will be
designed to bring to-
gether scholars from the
humanities and from
parallel areas of Judaic
studies.

Israeli Average
Monthly Income

JERUSALEM — The
"Families Expenditure
Survey" conducted by the
Central Bureau of Statis-
tics and recently made
public shows that the av-
erage gross family in-
come last year was
IL4,088 ($454) per month.
Of this, IL756 was paid
in taxes and National In-
surance fees, and IL75 to
others, leaving an aver-
age net income of IL3,250
($361) per family.
, In its analysis of con-
sumption, the survey
finds that. the share of
food in the total expendi-
ture is 30.5 per cent.
The survey also notes a
decline in the expendi-
ture on education and
culture from 13 to 10 per
cent.