44 Friday, November 22, 1985 THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS MOBILE TELEPHONE GLENAYRE GL2020 GET REAMS • Call The Jewish News ALL SPECIAL FEATURES INCLUDED CONTACT DIANE AT (313) 851 - 6655 354-6060 THE EINSTEIN LUNCHEON FORUM presents HON. ZVI BROSH, who will discuss: ISRAEL - THE CHALLENGE OF PEACE & ECONOMIC STABILITY Monday, December 2, 1985 12:00 Noon Hamilton Place, Southfield FOR RESERVATIONS PHONE 569-1515 Auspices: Zionist Organization of America and Zionist Cultural Center JEWELRY APPRAISALS Very Reasonable Prices Call For An Appointment 5T411 rillatitC ■ FINE JEWELERS Established 1919 SEM/DIAMOND SPECIAUST AWARDED CERTIFICATE BY GIA IN GRADING AND EVALUATION 30400 Telegraph Road Suite 134 Birmingham, Mi. 48010 (313) 642-5575 Mon.-Sat. 10:00-5:00 Thurs. 10:00-8:30 BORENSTEIN'S The Chanukah Store r r r Beautiful 9" wide Buy One Large Fillabte MENORAH DRE1DEL Available in many styles 59c-89c and receive a mesh bag of SHOPPING LIST • • • • • • • • • • • CHOCOLATE CHANUKAH GELT for I C Reg. $8.95 SPECIAL $499 good with coupon only limit 2 Menorahs Decorations Children's Books Records and Tapes Games Toys Wrapping Paper Greeting Cards Stickers Jewelry Gift Items good with coupon only limit 10 L THE JEW IN AMERICAN SPORTS Your choice of JUMBO ROLL GIFT WRAP 65 square feet or 4 PACK PAPER BASEBALL STARS Reg. $12.95 with different designs 40 sq. feet Reg. $16.95 Reg. $3.50 SPECIAL $895 SPECIAL $1295 SPECIAL $1 9 9 good with coupon only Limit 3 JEWISH Revised Edition good with coupon only limit 2 L L 25242 Greenfield • Oak Park • Cracow Incident Typifies American Jewish Rift BY IRVING GREENBERG Special to The Jewish News Consul General of Israel, Chicago At COMMENT good with coupon only limit 2 L 967-3920 One of the saddest moments of recent Jewish communal life oc- curred last month in Cracow. Rabbi Emily Korzenick rose to greet Eric Strom on the occasion of his bar mitzvah — the first bar mitzvah in a decimated and aging Jewish community of Cracow in 30 years. As she strode onto the Bimah, one Rabbi Nachum Elbaum, who had come from America purpor- tedly to represent Orthodox interests, pulled her tallis off — to prevent what he considered a desecration of that holy place. The bar mitvah's grandfather , gave her another tallis and she began to speak. "But ladies can-, not speak in the synagogue," Rabbi Elbaum repeated. Rabbi Korzenick completed her hom- ily, nonetheless. The saddest part of this inci- dent was not the shame of such a spectacle on the front page of the New York Times. Nor was it Rabbi Elbaum's pathetic inabil- ity to offer a credible rationale for his objections. The truth is that the symbolism and inspira- tion of a bar mitzvah in Cracow — 40 years after the Holocaust — transcends the embarrass- ment. The saddest revelation of the incident is the extent to which the Orthodox and the rest of the Jewish community now live in two worlds which lack both an elementary basis of common speech and some mechanism of reconciling con- flicting visions of reality. A month before the bar mitzvah, the story of the forth- coming ceremony appeared in the Anglo-Jewish press and fi- nally was picked up in right- wing Orthodox Circles. For their part, these Orthodox understood only one thing. The great synagogue of the Rema (Rabbi Moses Isserles, 1525-1572) was to have a bar mitzvah led by a non-Orthodox woman rabbi. The thought that a non- Orthodox rabbi, and a woman at that, -would lead the service struck them as a travesty. For them, there was no sense of the joy of the bar mitzvah, there was only a sense of desecration. Still less, was there any em- pathy for the ethical propriety and gain in dignity which the average non-Orthodox Jew per- ceives in a woman rabbi's role. There was only outrage at this aggressive incursion by Jews, lacking in learning and obser- vance, into a synagogue which had followed Orthodox practice for centuries. A strong protest was put out in the name of Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, Dean of the Orthodox decisors in America. The Cracow Jews are for the most part not Orthodox; they follow that practice mostly out of respect for their past tradi- Irving Greenberg is president of CLAL, the National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership. tion. They do receive help and their cemeteries have been kept up with the help of Orthodox groups such as Agudath Israel. Once the protest was made, they did not wish to offend any group. For their part, the Americans were eager to avoid a public confrontation. They felt bad that the Orthodox felt bad, but they weren't going to re- pudiate a woman rabbi for being either non-Orthodox or a woman. In consultation, the idea of switching the bar mitzvah to the normally closed Tempel Synagogue was worked out. The switch did not mollify the Orthodox. There is no mechanism for dialogue, for dis- cussing religious differences be- tween Orthodox and non- In the entire incident, not a single leading Orthodox rabbi disowned Rabbi Elbaun's embarrassing outburst and confrontational intervention. Orthodox Jews, particularly none at the level of rabbis and theologians. At the end, the right pres- sured the leadership of the Rab- binical Council of America (modern Orthodox) to speak out. Were there serious alliances or contact between the groups, the RCA might have suggested, pri- vately, letting the shift of loca- tion serve as a solution to avoid public controversy. Or, it might have privately expressed some understanding of the differing perceptions of Orthodox and non-Orthodox Jews and suggested that for the sake of peace, Rabbi Korzenick with- draw. In the absence of any restrain- ing alliances, the RCA instead elected to go with the right-wing and issued a public blast stating that for a Reform or Conserva- tive rabbi to officiate at the Remu Synagogue, "would be a betrayal of Jewish history." This brought an angry counterblast from Rabbi Alexander Shapiro, head of the Rabbinical Assembly (Conservative). Shapiro has been trying to create bridges be- tween the groups but such a total denial of rabbinic dignity to the non-Orthodox evoked his strongest condemnation — which further clouds chances for dialogue. Rabbi Korzenick and the Strom family came seeking as peaceful a ceremony as possible. They brought a male survivor capable of leading an Orthodox service to officiate. Then it was