PURELY COMMENTARY
PHILIP SLOMOVITZ
The Faith That Dominates Every Moment Of Our Lives
We live in Faith.
With Faith we survive and rise above the terrors and indignities that often
threaten, very often strike and injure.
Faith is not limited to the Holy Days, to the Yamim Neraim. It is the dominant
factor in our very existence and dominates every moment of our lives.
How else could we have lived with the inquisition, Crusades, Holocaust, pog-
roms?
It is because of the Faith that lends power to all Mankind and is not limited to
ourselves selfishly. This is the basic ideal of our lives — that the Faith that sustains
us is applicable to the entire world — that when we embrace the hopes, the aspira-
tions embodied in Faith, it is the hope applicable for the universe.
That which occurred only a few weeks ago in Istanbul renewed the Faith, al-
though it was also a challenge. As in the concentration and death camps established
by Nazism, it might have introduced doubt. It is apparent that it did not and will
not. The synagogue in Istanbul is filling up again. It is the defiance of a dedication
to a human spirit that embraces mankind. It is a realization that when brutality
threatens a synagogue it also endangers a church; that the inhumanities aimed at
Jews are really the collective inhumanity of Man to Man.
Therefore the defiance of the cruelties is a pledge that all mankind is to be
n 8 :
saved from the accumulated tyrannies.
That's the lesson of Faith as it emerged from Istanbul, as it rose to great heights
during the horrors of the Holocaust, the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Czarist pog-
roms. From these accumulated horrors emerged the message to Mankind; that Faith
must triumph, that the victims' message is a warning to those who would undermine
it, that the human spirit will triumph.
Universality is the theme, the Jewish spiritual message. A definition is provided
for it by the eminent rabbinic scholar, Rabbi Philip Birnbaum, in this annotation to
the Yom Kippur prayers in the mahzor he edited for the Day of Atonement:
Both Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur deal with man on the plane
of universality. It is not so much as the citizen of a community, but as a
child of God that man faces his Creator on these days.
In essence it is the Emunah — Faith — that was chanted by those who
were pursued by the beastliness of the depraved Germans in the concentra-
tion camps. Pursued by the terrors of Nazism they nevertheless sang with as-
sertiveness the Ani Maamin b'Emunah Shleimah — I believe in perfect faith: in
the ultimate triumph of human justice.
This is the message of Faith to Jewry and to Mankind, in our message of cheer
on the New Year 5747.
Soviet Jews Reveal Their Ridicule Of Their Official Oppressors
There is no way better to express
one's attitude toward oppressors than by
means of puns, jokes or a cynical laugh.
Are Russian Jews afraid of laughing
at the "enemy next door" and the police,
who can invade a Jewish home with a
false message, with a knock at the door
past midnight?
The Jewish "emotional outlet," re-
sponse to the pressures and tensions in
their existence under oppressive meas-
ures, have emboldened "black humor"
that is a feature of life in every Com-
munist country. This is an explanatory
note from the American Jewish Commit-
tee's accompanying collection of anec-
dotes entitled "On a Lighter Note?
Soviet Jewish Humor."
The selection of jokes was amassed
by David A. Harris, deputy director of
the international relations department of
the AJCommittee, and Izrail Rabinovich,
professor of Russian language at Mon-
terey Institute of Foreign Languages. It
commenced a decade ago. It is apparent
that the assembled items really are mak-
ing the rounds in Russia.
Fully to appreciate the AJCommit-
tee's gift to the sense of humor and the
lighter-vein anecdote needed for a relief
from the tensions that confront Russian
Jews, it is worth referring to Abraham
A. Brill, the American psychiatrist, who
thus quotes Sigmund Freud's Basic Writ-
ings: "Only relatively civilized people
have a sense of humor." That sense of
humor is represented in the following
selections from the David A. Harris and
Izrail Rabinovich collection made avail-
able by the AJCommittee:
Shortly after Abram left Kiev for a
business trip to Eastern Europe, his
friend back home received a telegram
from Poland: GREETINGS FROM
FREE WARSAW, ABRAM. A few days
later a second telegram, this one from
Czechoslovakia, arrived: GREETINGS
FROM FREE PRAGUE, ABRAM. Sev-
eral more days passed before a third tele-
gram, from Hungary, came: GREET-
INGS FROM FREE BUDAPEST, AB-
RAM. Then followed a long period of si-
lence before the friend in Kiev received a
telegram from Israel: GREETINGS
FROM JERUSALEM, FREE ABRAM.
Gorbachev received a present of very
expensive material for a suit from a
foreign leader. He went to all the best
tailors in Moscow to have the suit made,
but at each he met with the same re-
2
Friday, October 3, 1986
sponse — there simply wasn't enough
material to make a two-piece suit. Fi-
nally, having exhausted all the tailors in
Moscow, Gorbachev went to Odessa. For-
tunately, he ran into Khaimovich, an old
tailor, who agreed to make the suit. In a
few days' time, Gorbachev returned to
Khaimovich's shop and found that not
only had a two-piece suit been prepared
but also a vest and even a cap from the
same material.
"Comrade Khaimovich, how is it
possible that you managed to make the
suit, a vest and cap from the material I
gave you when all the tailors in Moscow
insisted that there wasn't even enough
material to make a two-piece suit?"
"Comrade Gorbachev, it's only in
Moscow that you're a big man. Here in
Odessa you aren't so big!"
A Russian, a Ukrainian and a Jew
were called to Communist Party head-
quarters. "Comrades, you are aware that
you may soon be called to give up your
lives for your beloved motherland and
for the father of our country, Mikhail
Sergeevich Gorbachev. Should this be so,
do you have any last wishes?"
The Russian and Ukrainian remain
silent. "I do," said the Jew. "Just a small
wish. Couldn't I be left as an orphan in-
stead?"
Three prison inmates began talking.
"What are you here for?" asked one
inmate of another. "They put me in for
beating up some old Jew named
Khaimovich." "And why are your here?"
asked the second of the first.
"For having defended some old Jew
named Khaimovich in a fight."
"And what were you arrested for?"
the third inmate was asked. "For being
Khaimovich."
Khaimovich is at Moscow's airport
going through customs on his way to Is-
rael. "You," barked the customs offical to
Khaimovich, "why are you taking this
picture of Comrade Gorbachev with you
if you are emigrating?" "Oh that. That's
in case I get homesick for the Soviet
Union. All I have to do is look at the pic-
ture and I'll be cured of the homesick-
ness."
"What's your name, little boy?" "Ab-
ram."
"So young and already a Jew!"
Rabinovich was summoned to OVIR
after submitting an application to emi-
grate. "Rabinovich, how could you possi-
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
bly want to go to a country like Israel?
Do you realize that the sun is so strong
in the summer that you won't be able to
stand it? And in the winter it does noth-
ing but rain. The climate is just awful."
The lecture continued in the same
manner for several more minutes during
which Rabinovich did nothing but lean
from one side to the other while mutter-
ing "yes," no "yes," "no" ...
"Excuse me, Rabinovich, but can you
please explain to me why you are acting
in this strange manner?" "Sure," came
the answer. "I was only trying to decide
on the basis of what you were saying
whether or not it would be worthwhile
taking my umbrella with me."
Rabinovich was called to OVIR to
discuss his application to emigrate to Is-
rael. "Isn't everything good for you here,
Rabinovich? Don't you have all that you
need?," asked the OVIR official.
"Well," began Rabinovich, "the fact
of the matter is that I have two reasons
for wanting to emigrate. The first is be-
cause of my neighbor who comes home
stone-drunk every night and starts curs-
ing the Jews. He always says that as
soon as the Communists are overthrown
he and his Russian friends will go out
and hang all the Jews."
"But, Rabinovich, you know that we
Communists will never be overthrown."
"And that," said Rabinovich, "Is my
second reason."
Abramovich was summoned to OVIR.
"Why Abramovich? Why do you want to
leave us, to leave the land that nurtured
you?" Abramovich remained silent.
"Don't you have a job?" "I do." "And
don't you have a place to live and cheap
rent?" "I do."
"And free medical care?" "That, too."
"And schooling for your children?" "Uh-
huh."
"Then why could you possibly want
to leave, you dirty Jew?" "Now you've
reminded me, Comrade. That's the rea-
son."
A Jewish wife in the Soviet Union is
not a luxury but a means of international
transport.
There are two groups of Jews in the
Soviet Union: the brave ... those who
leave the country; and the very brave .
those who don't!
Brezhnev and Kosygin met to discuss
the Jewish question in the Soviet Union.
"Kosygin, how many Jews do we
have here?" "About 2 1/2 million, I
think." "And if we opened the borders to
let out the troublemakers among them,
how many do you think would leave?"
"Probably no less than five million?"
Khaimovich was called to the OVIR
office. "Khaimovich, I want to know why
you have decided to leave the country,"
asked the OVIR official. "No, no, you've
got it all wrong. I don't want to leave; my
wife does."
"So divorce and let her emigrate by
herself." "Yes, but ... it's not quite that
simple. It's not only my wife who wants
to leave but also her mother." "What's
the problem? Let those bloody Zionists go.
We don't need them here, do we
Khaimovich?"
"Yes, well ... but then there is also
my wife's brother's family and then there
are my wife's in-laws and their other
children."
"So, they'll go and you and I will re-
main to build Communism." "But there's
a problem." "What?"
"They can't leave without me. I'm the
only Jew among them."
"Khaim, what would you do if the
borders were opened tomorrow?" "I'd
jump into the nearest tree."
"But why?" "So as not to be run over
by the stampede."
A delegation of American indus-
trialists visiting the USSR asked to see a
factory. The Soviet hosts selected a suita-
ble factory and arranged with the factory
manager for the committee to visit the
next week. The factory manager set
about getting everything in perfect order,
but, suddenly, to his horror, he realized
that he had not a single Jewish employee
in the plant. How would he respond if the
Americans asked to meet a Jew? After
all, the Americans were always going on
about the Jews in Russia and how they
are being discriminated against. So the
manager hurriedly called a handful of
employees into his office and told them
that they would be issued with new
passports for the next couple of weeks
wherein would be written "Jewish" as
their nationality. This way, even though
none of the employees looked particularly
Jewish, they could all show their
passports to any of the Americans who
might question whether these Soviets
were, in fact, Jews.
The delegation came and inspected
Continued on Page 22