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Friday, December 28, 1984
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
PURELY COMMENTARY
PHILIP SLOMOVITZ
Evil of gossip: Secretary Caspar Weinberger sets at rest t'shon Hara'
Go not up and
a
down as
talebearer among
thy people.
-771 l itj 7
— Leviticus 19:16
Talebearing, gossiping, causes more
than aggravation. It is in evidence where
there is jealousy, it gains venom where
there is suspicion, and it is abominable as
hatred. It evolves so often in politics that
there are even frequent slander.
Gossip has an interesting Hebraic
translation. It is L'shon Hara, meaning
the evil tongue."
There is an interesting definitive
comment on gossip by the eminent scholar
Dr. Philip Birnbaum in his A Book of
Jewish Concepts. This portion of i t invites
quotation:
We are told that he who covers
up a misdeed fosters friendship,
but he who gossips about it sepa-
rates friends. For lack of wood the
fire dies out; and when there is no
talebearer, strife subsides (Prove-
rbs 17:9, 26:20). "If you hear some-
thing said, let it die with you; have
courage, it will not make you
burst!" (Ben Sira 19:10). "Be not
like a fly, seeking sore spots; cover
up your neighbor's flaws, and re-
veal them not to the world"
(Orhoth Hayyim).
The term slander has been de-
fined as the utterance of dissemi-
nation of false statements or re-
ports concerning a person, or
malicious misrepresentation of his
actions, in order to defame or in-
jure him. In Jewish tradition, the
law in Leviticus 19:16 is under-
stood to forbid the peddling of gos-
sip, even if the report is true and
told without malice (Yad, Deoth
7:2).
The offense is much greater if
the report is circulated with
malicious intent to injure a man's
reputation or to expose him to con-
tempt or derision. According to the
rabbis, evil gossip kills three: the
man who tells it, the one who ac-
cepts it, the one about whom it is
told. Hence it is referred to as
rshana toliti (the triple tongue or
the talk about third persons).
According to Saul Lieberman,
the only correct explanation of the
expression l'shana toliti is the
three-forked, triple tongue of the
snake. The serpent's tongue gives
the impression that it is three-
forked.
Uncharitable comment on fel-
low men is classified, as a shade of
slander, or more literally, "dust of
evil speech" (Bava Bathra 165a).
The strongest terms are used in the
prohibition of slandering the dead
(Shulhan Arukh, Orah Hayyim
606.3).
Analysis of the subject as it relates to
some form of contemporary journalism
merits attention. It relates to a rumor
about the family background of Secretary
of Defense Caspar Weinberger. A serva-
tional story in the Jewish Times of To-
ronto, a copy of which this commentator
shared with the Secretary of Defense,
claimed that he descended from the
Maharal of Prague, the 15th Century as-
tronomer and rabbi who was the creator of
the Golem (Frankenstein) in the era when
the Czech Jews were confronted by serious
dangers in the Prague Ghetto. That article
was credited to the Hebrew newspaper
Maariv of Israel. Now this rumor reap-
pears in the current issue of the Jewish
Post and Opinion, where in the column
Caspar Weinberger: Denying the rumors of
Jewish kin.
entitled "Digest of the Yiddish Press,"
Rabbi Samuel Silver wrote:
Caspar Weinberger is not
Jewish, true, but his pedigree is.
His recent visit to Israel triggered
curiosity about his background
and David Zohar of the Israeli
newspaper, Maariv, discovered a
relative of his, Arnold Gordon, 83,
of Haifa, whose grandmother was
a sister of Cap's grandma. Gordon
told the reporter that both he and
the defense secretary are direct
descendants of a famous Talmudi-
cal authority, the Goan Yehudah
ben Bezalel, known as the Maharal
of Prague. In the Forward R.
Roshem opines that Caspar is not
aware of the significance of his
genealogy, but Caspar has a
brother, William, a wealthy owner
of a Las Vegas hotel, who main-
tains contact with Cousin Arnold
and who has entertained a number
of his Israeli relatives.
Secretary Weinberger did not ignore
the item when this commentator called it
to his attention. In his response to the in-
quiry about the verity of the story, he
wrote:
Dear Mr. Slomovitz:
Thank you for your Nov. 28 let-
ter, with which you sent a copy of
the article from the Jewish Times of
Toronto.
While I appreciate your inter-
est and your taking the time to
send this on to me, I must tell you
that the article is entirely wrong, as
was the original article inMaariv in
Israel from which it was taken. I
have never heard of Arnold Gor-
don; my mother's people came
from England and New England,
not Hungary; and I have no
brother named William, nor have I
ever had. Nor has anyone asked me
questions on these matters prior to
printing the article — a matter
which I must admit I find hard to
understand.
In any event, thank you again
for taking the time to call it to my
attention.
Therefore, the temptation to
popularize the obscenity of Leshon Hara.
The fact is that Mr. Weinberger has
never denied his Jewish background, the
Jewish paternity which nevertheless,
Halachically, makes him a Christian be-
cause his mother was a Christian.
Perhaps another possible defamation,
another possible falsehood in reporting
which could become a defamation of char-
acter, should be linked to this gossip col-
umn.
The Jewish Telegraph of Manchester,
England, published a shocking story
headed "Kahane's Romance Scandal,"
claiming that the Jewish Defense League
founder and leader, now a member of the
Israel Knesset, had an illicit affair with a
non-Jewish woman. The Manchester
newspaper thus front-paged:
Newspapers in the U.S.A. and
Israel have claimed that racist
rabbi, Meir Kahane, once had an
affair with a non-Jewish American
model who committed suicide after
a failed romance with another
man.
In 1971 the New York Times re-
ported that Kahane had been "pro-
foundly shaken" by the suicide in
1966 of Gloria Jean D'Argenio, also
known as Estelle Evans.
He attended her funeral and
sometimes placed roses on her
grave.
The episode has been resur-
rected by Kahane's enemies in Is-
rael and the U.S. who also claim
that he had an affair with her.
One
NYTimes
reporter,
Richard Severo, alleges that
Kahane, now a member of Israel's
Knessset, confessed to having an
affair with the girl and even pro-
posed marriage to her.
Severo said, "He made it very
clear to us that he had this double
life he was leading. By day he was a
rabbi and a Jewish political figure.
At night he roamed the streets
looking for young women to pick
up."
Soon after establishing the
Jewish Defense League in 1968,
Kahane funded a charitable trust
in the name of Estelle Evans.
He even solicited openly for
fund donations through adver-
tisements in League publications.
Kahane recently described the
girl as his "secretary" and con-
firmed he suicide. But he refused
to discuss the allegations about
their relationship, calling them
"scurrilous."
If a story about Weinberger appearing
in an Israeli and a Toronto newspaper can
also find space subsequently in the Post
and Opinion, then a scandalous bit about
Meir Kahane might invite wide circula- (-3
tion. Since he has called the tale "scurril- L_
ous," it should be judged as "gossip." There-
fore, the need to shout L'shon Hara.
Fascination in language treatment ... The legacies of Mendele and Peretz
Sholem Aleichem
Y.L. Peretz
The 100th anniversary of a story
which may have served as the genesis of
Yiddish literature, and a revival of interest
in one of the fathers of the Yiddish lan-
guage, provides fascination for linguists,
with an emphasis on the compulsion to re-
tain respect and admiration for Yiddish
and its literary gems.
English translation of 10 of the very
popular stories by I.L. Peretz, under the
title The Seven Good Years and Other
Stories (Jewish Publication Society) intro-
duced the recurring interest in this impor-
tant theme. It is a volume that lends great
significance to an author who has been
called one of the fathers of Yiddish litera-
ture — with Sholem Aleichem and Men-
dele Moher Sforim.
The second item is the 120th anniver-
sary of the publication of Mendele's Dos
Klayneh Mentshele. This item received
special attention in an essay in Jewish
Currents. Here are the facts provided in
this essay by Gerald Stillman:
Mendele Moher Sforim
"My specifications in my
passport read as follows: height —
medium, hair and eyebrows —
gray, eyes — brown, nose and
mouth — ordinary, a gray beard,
an unmarked face, no distinguish-
ing features. But this is completely
meaningless ... The whole idea is
— here is a description of my fea-
tures, and there, you still don't
know how I look!"
Continued on Page 25