24 Friday, November 3, 1978
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
Passion Play, Anti-Semitism
Topic of W. German Meeting
We Make Our Own-Glasses-
rwel...4r HEADQUARTERS FOR
- „...0.1 LATEST DOMESTIC AND
IMPORTED FRAME FASHIONS
• PRESCRIPTIONS FOR GLASSES
ACCURATELY FILLED
• DESIGNER FRAMES
• Immediate Repair
• Reasonably Priced
ROSEN OPTICAL SERVICE
13720 W. 9 MILE nr. COOLIDGE
LI 7-5068
OAK PARK, MICH.
Sat. 'til 5
Mon.-Fri. 9:30-6
Closed Wednesday
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. —
A Catholic academic in-
stitution in Bavaria, West
Germany, will sponsor a
symposium of Catholic and
Jewish scholars in Munich
on the relationship of the
Oberammergau Passion
Play to the development of
anti-Semitism in Germany
and in Christian culture.
The symposium, which
will be held Nov. 19, will be
sponsored by the Catholic
Academy of Bavaria in
cooperation with the
Harry Kenworthy,
Community Relations Manager,
Ann Arbor, offers you this
telephone tip:
"How can you
tell if the person at your door
is really a Michigan Bell
Employee?"
As you may have noticed, our employees do not wear uniforms. They
dress in the way they think, is most appropriate to get their jobs done.
While this permits them to look like the individuals they are, it really
doesn't help you identify them as Bell employees. But, there is a way.
Every Michigan Bell employee is required to carry a Michigan Bell
identification card giving his or her name, photograph, and signature.
For your protection, be sure to see this card
before you admit them into your home. They'll
be happy to show it to you.
•
Michigan Bell Employees
people who enjoy serving people.
Michigan Bell
American Jewish Commit-
tee's Interreligious Affairs
Department.
Announcement of the
symposium was made by
Detroiter Miles Jaffe,
chairman of the AJC's
Interreligious Affairs
Commission, at the annual
meeting of the AJC's Na-
tional Executive Council.
The AJC. has long been
concerned with the effect
of the Oberammergau
Passion Play, and deriva-
tive Passion Plays given
in other parts of the
world, on Jewish-
Christian-relationships,
Jaffe explained. Last
July, Rabbi Marc H.
Tanenbaum, AJC's na-
tional director of inter-
religious affairs, and
William S. Trosten, AJC
director of develop/tient,
met with Dr. Franz Hen-
rich, president of the
Catholic Academy of
Bavaria, on the
Oberammergau Passion
Play issue. At that time,
the AJC leaders
suggested that a dialogue
among Catholic and
Jewish scholars on the
historical and theological
issues represented in the
Passion Play could prove
helpful, and the Academy
subsequently decided to
sponsor a symposium on
the subject.
Rabbi Tanenbaum will
present one of the major
papers at the symposium.
He has also been invited to
speak in the village of
Oberammergau following
the symposium On the reli-
gious and historical factors
that have contributed to
anti-Semitism in Germany.
Integrity.
Professional Skills.
Hard Work.
(and some saichel,
too.)
Franklin Village
•
Bingham Farms
•
Southfield
•
Beverly Hills
•
Lathrup Village
•
Jessica
cooper
for 46th District Judge
paid for and authorized by Citizens To Elect Jessica Cooper District Judge
15651 W. 14 Mile Rd., Birmingham, Michigan 48009
Boris Smolar's
`
Between You
. . and Me'
Editor-in-Chief
Emeritus, JTA
(Copyright 1978, JTA, Inc.)
. TRIUMPH OF YIDDISH: The recognition accorded to
Yiddish by awarding the 1978 Nobel Prize for Literature to
the prominent Yiddish author Isaac Bashevis Singer opens
a new turn for intensification of interest in Yiddish.
Bashevis Singer, whose works have translated in many
languages, including Japanese, writes in Yiddish only, al-
though he has mastered the English language sufficiently
well to write his work in English. All his writings are first
published in the Jewish Daily Forward, the largest Yiddish
newspaper in the world, on the staff of which he has been
since he came to the U.S. more than 40 years ago. He is the
first Yiddish writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Some years ago a suggestion was made in influential
non-Jewish circles to place the name of Sholem Asch, the
noted Yiddish novelist, on the list of candidates for the
Nobel Prize for Literature. This the Swedish Academy of
Arts refused to consider, not because it doubted Asch's
literary talent — he too has been translated in many lan-
guages — but because of a tradition not to award the Nobel
Prize for Literature to authors of nations who have no land
of their own. With Bashevis Singer this tradition was
broken. Without the latter's knowledge, the Yiddish PEN
Club in New York — through its. chairman S.L.
Schneiderman, himself a well-known Yiddish writer —
suggested to the International PEN club — the world
organization of novelists, poets and essayists — that it take
a hand in the situation. As a result, Bashevis Singer was
surprised to learn that he had been voted the recipient of
the Nobel Prize, which will be presented to him on Dec. 10.
It is no coincidence that Saul Bellow, the prominent
American author — who himself won the Nobel Prize for
Literature last year — was the one to "discover" Bashevis
Singer and to bring his talent out to the world by translat-
ing from Yiddish into English one of his short stories,
"Gimpel the Fool: way back in 1952. Since then Bashevis
Singer's popularity in the literary world grew higher and
higher.
YIDDISH IN THE U.S.: Yiddish is now being taught in
about 40 colleges and universities in this country.
The interest of American-born Jews in Yiddish — espe-
cially among the educated youth — received a boost with
the successful play "Fiddler on the Roof," based on Sholom
Aleichem's works. Greater interest will certainly be stimu-
lated in Yiddish by the Nobel award to Bashevis Singer.
Growing interest in Yiddish language and literature
among American Jews with higher general education is
best reflected in YIVO's "Max Weinreich Center for Ad-
vanced Jewish Studies" from which the graduates receive
diplomas. Some of them are now holding positions as pro-
fessors of Yiddish subjects.
Among the 50,000 Jewish professors in American col-
leges and universities, there is a group of professors who
display a special interest in Yiddish. The group, known as
"Association for Jewish Studies," devotes part of its annual
and regional conferences to Yiddish. Its executive includes
professors from Harvard, Columbia, Yale, Princeton, _
UCLA and other well-known universities. Queens College
in New York, which has thousands of Jewish students,
published a -very impressive quarterly journal "Yiddish"
devoted to the Yiddish language and literature.
Those who claim that Yiddish is a dying language will be
interested to "discover" that the last U.S. census, taken in
1970, brought out the fact that nearly 750,000 Jewish resi-
dents of New York State alone consider Yiddish to be their
mother tongue. This total includes 543,000 New York City
residents, of whom 354,000 are American-born.
YIDDISH AND ARAMAIC: For the pessimists over
the fate of Yiddish it is worth pointing out here that Yid
dish is still a strongly living language even in Israel. Or-
thodox Jews consider Yiddish as their language at home
and in the street. Hebrew to them is "loshn Koidesh" — a
"holy language" to be used only in prayers and on holidays.
In Mea Shearim, the very Orthodox section of Jerusalem,
you can hear Yiddish spoken fluently in business and in the
streets by fourth-generation Jews born in Israel.
Those in America who are inclined to say "Kadish" after
Yiddish may not know that the Kadish we say now for the
dead is not in Hebrew but in Aramaic — a kind of "Yiddish"
which Jews used for many generations — more than 1,000
years — in Babylonia, and other Middle East lands, includ-
ing ancient Palestine.
Aramaic is still alive today not only in studying the
Talmud. It is also a part of major traditional prayers.
Kadish is not the only prayer recited in Aramaic; even Kol
Nidre, the holiest Yom Kippur prayer, is in Aramaic. The
Haggada opens with an invitation to the Seder in Aramaic
("Ho Lachmo Anyo") and concludes with "Chad Gadya," a
jolly Jewish song in Aramaic. Marriage certificates
(ketubot) are still written by rabbis today not in Hebrew
but in Aramaic. So are divorces. The language left its mark
in Jewish continuity no matter where Jews live.