The Jewish Genera
This year's General Assembly of the
Council of Jewish Federations
) attracted large crowds and major
figures to Chicago, from Shimon Peres
to George Bush
Continued from Page 1
is Jewish and cares about being
Jewish, a place where all kinds of
things can happen and usually do.
Like the lettuce incident. It
happened at a luncheon meeting
that featured as its main course a
plate with some cold cuts and a lot
of lettuce. So much lettuce that most
people weren't able to finish what
they were given. And so when it
came time to clean up, the waiter
found himself carrying off large
amounts of the stuff. No big deal or-
dinarily, but this was the GA.
And so, no sooner was the wai-
ter about to open the kitchen door
then a female voice from the middle
of the room boomed, "Shame on
you." Of course, she didn't stop
there. She went on to explain that
the reason she was saying that was
because lettuce is high in Vitamin E
and Vitamin E is necessary for re-
production and reproduction means
Jewish children and Jewish children
mean the future of the Jewish
people.
The future of the Jewish people
is something talked about a lot at a
GA, usually without trying to con-
nect it to food. (Not that food isn't a
big part of the GA and not that
there aren't those who wrestle with
questions like why the reception for
those from one community served
only potato chips and popcorn while
another's had gefilte fish.)
It is that future and the present
that leads to it, for which those who
are leaders in their communities,
large and small, get together for four
days each year. Get together to try
and figure out what to do to make
Jewish life better, now and later.
And getting all these committed
people together in one place and at
one time can lead to making some-
thing extraordinary out of things
that are ordinary.
Example: It was Thursday
night, after one of the plenaries, the
only sessions that all 3,300 dele-
gates, guests and hangers-on attend.
I, and all that other mass of Jewish
humanity, got up out of our seats
and headed down a long corridor to
the escalators that would take us to
the lobby which would allow us to
scatter to our respective hotel rooms.
Of course, it takes a little while
to accomplish .that with all those
people heading in the same direc-
tion. As we moved ever so slowly
along our path, a man next to me
turned and in pained seriousness
said, "There's something wrong
about this. There's just something
wrong about Jews moving slowly to-
gether in a line. I don't like the feel-
ing."
Another example: a Shabbat
lunch that, unlike others offered, is
billed as unprogrammed and un-
structured. Which means, in theory
at least, that we would all just come
in, do our thing, eat our cold cuts
and leave. That was the theory. The
reality was that a couple of people at
one of the tables began singing a
Shabbat song. Which led the people
at other tables to join in until
everyone in the room was singing
together. We all ended up dancing.
Together.
It was intimate, friendly; warm
and somehow very Jewish.
And all of that was just the in-
formal part of things. The formal
Shimon Peres made .an impassioned plea for Soviet Jewry.
topics like Jewish education, inter-
marriage, assimilation, the Middle
East, Soviet Jewry and on and on,
six and seven going on at any given
time. And at all of them, experts
give their views and those in the
audience give theirs, all leading to
exchanges and interchanges and
maybe even changes. And all of it,
hopefully, giving all of them some-
thing useful to walk away with and
take home.
For four days and four nights it
goes on, day blurring into night,
Wednesday blurring into Thursday
into Friday. And at the end, what
you're left with are some answers
and a lot of feelings.
Feelings that what they say
about Jewish diversity is true, some-
thing you saw every few feet as you
were stopped by someone handing
out a leaflet telling you about his
organization and his cause. And the
feeling that what they say about
Jewish unity is also true, as you saw
delegates who had come from Detroit
and New York, Philadelphia and Los
Angeles, Toronto and Pittsburgh,
Steubenville and Altoona, Lafayette
and Atlanta, Leonminister, Corpus
Christi and Danbury, New Bradford
and Utica — all for the - same reason,
all with the same goals and hopes.
Feelings, on display, in the
open, for the taking. And because
they are, somehow the GA is not just
another convention, not just another
bunch of speeches, not just an excuse
for staying in a fancy hotel in a new
city.
Somehow, what goes on keeps
going on, does make a difference,
even after it's over. If not in Jewish
life, at least in each Jew's life.
At first, I didn't believe that.
But then I sat down to eat lunch.
And ate every piece of lettuce I could
find.
George Bush: U.S.-Israel
Allied "For Survival"
George Bush:
U.S. ties to Israel are strong.
part of a GA is made up of meetings
and workshops and seminars and
gatherings and plenaries and
demonstrations with titles like
"Jews on the Move" and "Integrating
the Growing Number of Singles in
Jewish Life" and "Engaging the
Women of the '80s in the Jewish
Communal Enterprise,". _and on
T
o understand Israel, Vice
President George Bush told
the General Assembly, you
have to look at the faces of
its children.
Bush did just that when he visited
Israel last summer. What he saw, he
said, were "the faces of the children
pictured at Yad Vashem. Faces which
had seen what no child should ever
see."
He saw, too, "children laughing and
playing in the streets with no sadness
in their faces. I was struck by the
tremendous contrast of the agony of
yesterday and the spirit of today.
That is the story of the history of
Israel."
And, he said, it is the story also of
U.S7Israeli relations. "We were with
Israel at the beginning, after the
Holocaust, a beginning just like our
own in 1776. Today, the U.S. and
Israel are united in a long alliance to
insure the continuation of Israel. An
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