58 Friday, November 18, 1983 Have the courage to face a difficulty, lest it kick you harder than you bargain for. —King Stanislaus ANSONIA'S CURRENT DESIGNER SHOES & HANDBAGS AT DISCOUNT PRICES MEW ORLEANS MALL 5 1 ORCHARD MALL Greenfield at 10 Mile Orchard Lake at M le Sfid. . 557.3111 W. Mfd. • M-S 10-6, Sun. 12- M-S 10-6, Th. Id 8:30 • ,%1‘, _1,04S7 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 Pre-Inventory SALE Storewide Savings Throughout November 4 ) . COME IN NOW! * Stock Reductions * * Closeout * * Damaged * * Supplies and Furniture * While quantities last MODERN OFFICE, INC. 31535 Southfield Rd. between 13 & 14 roads 642-5600 HOURS: Monday - Friday 8-5 Saturday 10-2 VISA • MasterCard • American Express • Cash 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 Join Us for a Unique Presentation. An Anthropologist Looks at Aging. Sponsored by: American Jewish Committee, Greater Detroit Chapter of Hadassah and Midrasha, College of Jewish Studies the SURVIVING STRATEGIES Dr. Barbara Myerhoff, Professor of Anthropology Deportment Chair at University of Southern California Author of "Number Our Days", also an Academy Award Winning Documentary Film and "Changing Images of the American Family" Open to the Public at No Charge Where: Midrasha College of Jewish Studies 21550 West 12 Mile Road Southfield, Mich. 48076 352-7117 / 354-1050 Date: Monday, November 28, 1983 Time: 8:00 p.m. 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