58 Friday, November 18, 1983
Have the courage to face a
difficulty, lest it kick you
harder than you bargain
for.
—King Stanislaus
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THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
Reform Sisterhood Pioneer Looks at Past and Future
(Editor's note: Fifty
years ago Jane Evans
was named executive di-
rector of the National
Federation of Temple
Sisterhoods, which held
its biennial convention
last weekend in Houston.
Dr. Evans retired in 1976
but contributes as a
leader not only of the Re-
form movement but also
of the Jewish Braille In-
stitute of America of
which she is now
president. The following
interview appeared in
Reform Judaism maga-
zine.)
What was the Reform
JANE EVANS
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movement like when you
became executive direc-
tor of NFTS in 1933?
At that time, Reform
Judaism was still very uni-
versalist, as well as anti-
Zionist. We still placed
great emphasis on Judaism
as a religion rather than as
the religious experience of a
people.
Ethnicity, which is now
perhaps over emphasized,
was not in the early 1930s a
ruling concern in the Re-
form movement. But World
War II changed all that.
Your career with NFTS
began the year Hitler
took power in Germany.
How did you respond to
the rise of Nazism and
later to the war?
Because I am a religious
pacifist, the war presented
me with a great dilemma. I
do not believe that one
should lie down before evil.
But at the same time, I find
the non-pacifist position —I
must kill you in order to
change your opinion — a
terrible paradox. War and
the mass murder of civilians
do not solve problems.
Because I was a pacifist
when World War II broke
out, I offered my resignation
to NFTS to become the
executive vice president of
the National Peace Confer-
ence, an over-all agency of
major religious, labor and
other organizations whose
programs included concern
for international relations.
Were you able to help
Jewish victims of Nazism
in Europe?
During the Hitler period
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Date:
Monday,
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Time:
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NFTS gave money to help
the Hebrew Union College
bring over rabbinic stu-
dents from German
seminaries. We passed reso-
lutions urging the U.S. gov-
ernment to rescue refugees.
And I became the head of
the Commission on Dis-
placed Persons of the
American Jewish Confer-
ence, which, during the war,
was in touch with the un-
derground in Europe, trying
to rescue as many people as
possible and move them to
Palestine.
It was difficult to com-
prehend what was going on
in Europe. Some of the re-
luctance to believe the
worst I attribute to atti-
tudes held over from World
War I, when the Germans
were accused of great at-
rocities which later proved
to be propaganda.
We believed the horror
stories about the Nazi at-
rocities but we had great
difficulty getting the public
to accept the truth.
Did the war confirm
your pacifism?
Yes. I became one of the
three founders of the Jewish
Peace Fellowship, an organ-
ization of Jewish religious
pacifists, and I later became
the first woman to be
elected to the board of
NISBCO, the National
Interreligious Service
Board for Conscientious Ob-
jectors.
The JPF was formed be-
cause until then the Ameri-
can Jewish community had
tended to look with disdain
on Jews claiming conscien-
tious objection to war. In
fact, neither the Reform,
Conservative or Orthodox
rabbis had recognized the
right of a Jew to be a consci-
entious objector. We even-
tually succeeded in chang-
ing this.
Early in your tenure at
NFTS you established the
Jewish Braille Institute
as a separate organiza-
tion. Why?
In 1931, the National
Federation of Temple Sis-
terhoods organized the
Jewish Braille Institute of
America. During the insti-
tute's first seven or eight
years, its total budget was a
part of NFTS. I felt such an
arrangement was wrong. To
be solely under Reform au-
spices rendered the JBI in-
eligible for - much needed fi-
nancial support from other
agencies. So we oversaw its
independence. Today, I am
honored to be the president
of the institute.
What effect have the
women's liberation
movement and the rise in
female employment on
Jewish organizational
life?
Most people think that
women have always pro-
vided the great bulk of vol-
unteers in the United
States. But until recently,
the great service organiza-
tions of America — the
Lion's Club, Masons, Rot-
ary, etc. — were men's
organizations. As long as
women were at home taking
care of the children and the
household, many men felt
free to spend evenings as
volunteers.
With more women in-
volved in careers today,
men are playing a greater
role in nurturing children
and in sharing household
duties. Women, too, find
themselves with less time
for organizational work and
for the afternoon meetings
they used to attend. Due to
this change in volun-
teerism, sisterhoods must
build a greater flexibility
into their programming.
Were you always a
supporter of Zionism and
Israel?
I have been a Zionist all
my life, but I did not expect
to live to see the state of Is-
rael come into being. Before
the creation of the state of
Israel, I wrote a resolution,
subsequently passed at an
NFTS convention, that
NFTS would be neutral on
the question of Zionism — a
great step forward in those
days.
Zionism was always im-
portant to me as the cul-
tural rather than the politi-
cal center of the Jewish
people. Once the state was
established, I was very
eager to see NFTS build in
Israel. We were the first
branch of American Re-
form, other than the He-
brew Union College, to raise
a building in Israel, the
synagogue-library center at
Ben Shemen Children's and
Youth Village.
The youth movement and
NFTS, under my successor
Eleanor Schwartz, went on
to help build Kibutz Yahel,
the first Reform kibutz in
Israel.
What goals have you
set for yourself at this
stage of your life?
At the age of 75 my goal is
to be a very good president
of the Jewish Braille Insti-
tute of America. I am eager
to enlist sisterhood women
of all branches of Judaism
in the new challenge to pro-
vide services for the visu-
ally impaired, including the
creation of a Judaic library
of large-print books, as we
have already done in
Braille.
I was greatly honored at
having received an honor-
ary doctorate from the He-
brew Union College-Jewish
Institute of Religion, but I
would like to continue my
education. I am intrigued by
the field of sociology, where
there is a thesis to be writ-
ten on the gulf between the
leadership and laity of
Jewish organizations and
how to bridge it.
It is not easy to age. I sup-
pose my most personal goal
is to age with dignity, with
grace, and with gratitude to
God for both the defeats and
triumphs that have come to
me.
When anyone says he
wants to become a convert,
the rabbis should ask:
"Why? Do you not know the
Israelis are hounded and
persecuted?" If the answer
is "Yes, I know and want
only to be worthy," the rab-
bis should accept him.
— Talmud