24 Friday, November 28, 1980
THE IITROli JEWISH NEWS
Argentine Anti-Communists
Lash Jews and Catholics
NEW YORK — Catholics
and Jews came under attack
at a recent anti-Communist
congress held in Buenos
Aires, it was revealed by the
Anti-Defamation League of
Bnai Brith.
According to Rabbi Mor-
ton M. Rosenthal, director
Ltin.American
of.
Affairs Depaiiment, "ele-
ments of fascism, neo-
Nazism and anti-Semitism
were manifest" among the
200 delegates to the Fourth
Congress of the Latin
American Anti-Communist
Confederation which met in
early September.
The confederation is an
affiliate of the World Anti-
Communist League which,
Rabbi Rosenthal said, has
been penetrated by activists
— financed by Saudi Ara-
bians — who have joined
forces with "diverse" ele-
ments of the international
ultra-right." These, he said,
are linked with Liberty
Lobby, the Washington-
based, ultra-right and
anti-Semitic organization
led by Willis A. Carto, and
to MSI, the principle neo-
fascist party in Italy.
Rabbi Rosenthal noted
that the Argentine news-
paper, La Prensa, report-
ing on the conference,
said that an accredited
delegate had told a Brazi-
.
Tian journalist, "the Jews
are responsible for Mar-
xist infiltration of the
continent . . . the moment
will soon come when we
will exterminate all of
them."
Rabbi Rosenthal said
passage of a resolution de-
nouncing Catholic clergy in
Latin America came as a
surprise to Argentine ob-
servers. The congress called
on Latin American .gov-
ernments to expel from
their territories "all Mar-
xist Jesuit, neo-colonizers."
The Jesuits were accused
of organizing rural guer-
rilla movements under the
pretext of evangelization,
Rabbi Rosenthal said. Dur-
ing the conference, Lt. Col.
Luis Canedo Reyes, an aide
to the chief of staff of the
Bolivian armed forces,
urged that the Archbishop
of La Paz, Jorge Manrique,
be expelled because of oppo-
sition to the military junta
which recently seized power
in Bolivia.
The Congress, ADL re-
ported, also criticized
President Carter for aiding
Marxism . through his
human rights policy and
hailed Argentina, Bolivia
and other Latin American
nations for their "courage-
ous stand" against Ameri-
can "intimidation."
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Women's Rights and Changing Society:
A Renewal of Social Justice in Judaism
By FRANCINE
KLAGSBRUN
(Editor's note: This ar-
ticle is based on Ms.
Klagsbrun's address to
the Anti-Defamation
League of Bnai Brith,
discussing her most re-
cent book, The Voices of
Wisdom: Jewish Ideals
and Ethics for Everyday
Living" published by .
Pantheon.)
There is an area in which
the ethic is not one of
social justice but rather of
discrimination and inequal-
ity — that of women's rights
in Judaism. The issue is
simply this. The Bible and
the Talmud, and later
Jewish writings, regard
women as subservient to
men, as mothers and daugh-
ters to be treated with kind-
ness and care, but not with
equality.
• Women are restricted in
their rights to give tes-
timony, to take part fully in
at least synagogue services,
to attain the full breadth of
Jewish scholarship that has
always been open to men.
The discriminations are not
unique within the contexts
of the times in which the
major documents- of
Judaism were compiled, but
what is difficult to under-
stand is why they still exist.
- Jewish law has always
been open and fluid, con-
taining within itself
mechanisms for change.
The rabbis of the Talmud,
using interpretaiton- and
exegesis, restricted and
changed laws of capital
punishment or laws of phys-
ical retaliation, and un-
doubtedly were moving in
the direction of liberalizing
laws relating to women.
They provided for a
written marriage con-
tract (Ketuba) that would
protect the rights of a
wife in the case of death
or divorce; they' estab-
lished broad and lenient
grounds upon which a
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movement as a whole has the real problems of di-
been both a force for con- vorced women and men in
structive change and a the Jewish community, on
disruptive element women who head families
within traditional family alone, on the needs of work-
living as we have known ing parents for day-care
programs for their small
it.
But it is blindness to pre- children.
tend that Jewish family life • Social justice me a ns
has been or in any way will acknowledging that
KLAGSBRUN
remain immune to the there is an alarming
woman could seek a di- changes that have swept all growth of alcoholism
vorce, although the ac- of society. It is blindness to among Jews, and
ng
tual bill of divorcement suppose that by officially something about _ . it
still had to come from the stressing only the tradi- means acknowledging
man; they abolished the tional values of women as that suicide rates, drugs
humiliating trial by mothers and homemakers, and alcohol among -
ordeal for a woman ac- Jewish women will in any Jewish teenagers are not
cused of adultery; and way curtail their activities far removed from the na-
they provided women in society at large — will tional rates — and doing
with broader rights and choose not to pursue something about it.
protection within the careers, not to explore op-
Social justice means pay-
context of existing laws tions that might preclude
marriage or limit the ing attention to the
of inheritance.
Many of these liberal ten- number of children they alienated, lonely and con-
fused individuals in our
dencies were closed off in rear.
Changes have occurred society, and reaching out to
later periods, however,
when Jews, crowded in throughout society, and in help.
ghettos and faced with con- family life generally, and in Social justice means over;
stant threats of anti- Jewish family life in par- coming psychological and
Semitism, pulled back ticular. But the way to cope historical fears and giving
within themselves. But with them. is not to run women the equality that is
even then, new laws during away or to try to turn back their right within the
the Middle Ages forbade the clock, but to use all the. Jewish tradition. Only
polygamy for men; new laws instruments of Jewish then, from positions of
forbade a man's divorcing a ethics, of Jewish social jus- strength and power, can
woman without her con- tice to meet the problems men and women, working
head on. together, get on with the
sent.
Social justice today business of confronting the
Why then has the cry for
change today been greeted means focusing — and not many pressing problems of
with so much emotionalism; just with lip service — on society.
so much bitter conflict? For
all the learned talk about
Halakha and scholarship,
the real issue is a deeply dis-
By HERZL SHUR
turbing psychological bar-
America is destined to become
rier to change in this area.
A great center of Jewish education
Along with the simple fear
From the Atlantic to the Pacific
of the different, fear of
Yes — throughout the entire nation.
breaking away from things
as they were, there is fear
Our opportunity is here
within the Jewish commu-
To supply the spark
nity —mainly among men,
Of Jewish learning
but among women also — of
To all Jews in the dark.
the effects of women's
equality on the family.
We are greater in number
There is an unspoken
Than we were in the days
feeling that if only we can
When Rome conquered Judea
hold out against the cries for
And set Jerusalem ablaze.
change, the issues will
somehow go away; if we do
We were scattered then
not legalize equality for
To the four corners of the earth
women
, Judaism, the
But the teachings of the Torah
Jewish family will somehow
Have proven their worth.
remain intact.
The fears are indeed
There always remained
real; family life has been
-- A substantial remnant
revolutionized in the past
That kept our tradition
decades; the women's
Alive and pre-eminent.
Jewish Educdtion
Bar-Ilan Moves Famous Mural
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a‘w abstw vftt.... ..-
A valuable wall painting from the home of the late Batya and David Kotlar in
Ramat Gan, has been successfully transferred to Bar-Ilan University after three
months of intensive effort. The mural, entitled "Ingathering of the Exiles to
Jerusalem," was executed by the renowned Israeli painter Marcel Janco in 1950-
52. The inscription on the 31/2-foot by 74 -foot mural reads, "When He will gather the
ire ir ire • a'. •:r exiles' 'unto the city' a
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569-2330 •• •