PURELY COMMENTARY

Israel's Reversals Multiply Diaspora Obligations

PHILIP SLOMOVITZ

Editor Emeritus

Israel experiences numerous set-
backs. Economically and diplomatical-
ly there are numerous reversals in
policies and national aspirations. Even
ideologically the Jewish state faces
disputes.
Therefore the increasing criticisms
were to have been expected. There are
so many rebukes that one would im-
agine that errors, accountable in other
nations, are not creditable to Israel.
Even some Jewish critics, instead of
being helpful are destructive in their
advice giving.
Diaspora Jews must realize that
unless attacks on Israel are linked with
constructive criticism they will con-
tribute to disaster. This must be
avoided.
Diaspora Jewry is charged with a

serious duty to help. Therefore all the
obstacles must be treated with an aim
to correcting and improving.
There are some problems that may re-
main limited to Israel's internal
domestic policies. Nevertheless, even
such needs may need the involvement
of Jews in this country.
A headline over a current Jewish
Telegraphic Agency report from Israel
points to one such problem. "Israel
Faces a Brain Drain" is the report that
indicates the following: The Association
for the Study of Emigration shows that
224 of the country's senior scientists, all
holding doctorates and specializing in
hard sciences, left Israel last year. Most
of them went to the United States and
the remainder to Western Europe. Five
prominent scientists of the Weizmann
Institute left in May of this year, stating
it was because of the lack of proper
working conditions in the famous scien-
tific center.

Violinist Perlman:
Enthusiastic
Folklorist

Yitzhak Perlman earned his world
fame as a violinist. From the very
beginning of his great career, he was
the modest inheritor of a great
tradition. He always adhered to the
legacies that developed from a Jewish
pride.
That's how he was portrayed when he
gave interviews in his home. He was
always engaged in means of appearing
with his wife and children while he
gave emphasis to the ways he conducts
his home Jewishly, introducing his
children to the treasures of their faith
and history.
From his earliest years as a master of
his violin, when he appeared here as a
scholarship candidate with the Detroit
Music Study Club, it was evident that
the Israel-born artist had the pride of
his heritage.
Now he emerges in an added
admirable position. He is advancing the
art of Jewish folklore by producing
records of popular Jewish songs. In that
role he is popularizing folklore and is
making another noteworthy
contribution to Jewish cultural
classicism.
Many Jewish hymns and popular
songs, mainly in Yiddish, also in
Hebrew and Ladino, are threatened
with extinction unless great artists
include them in their repertoires.
Jewish operatic stars have done it. Now
records of them will help perpetuate
them. When a musical genius like
Yitzhak Perlman does it, the recorded
attain glory.
The story of Perlman's devotion to
Jewish folklore became known in an
interview in the Jewish Forward. Rabbi
Samuel Silver, who formerly had a
Reform pulpit in Connecticut and now
officiates in a Florida Reform temple, is
a lover of Yiddish who writes a column
with resumes of important stories from
Yiddish papers in Gabriel Cohen's Post
and Opinion. Silver picked up the
Perlman story from the Forward for a

2

FRIDAY, JULY 10, 1987

Also, data provided by the Israel
Ministry of Immigration and Absorp-
tion shows that 32,000 Israeli univer-
sity graduates are presently working in
the United States, including 8,000
engineers.
Such is the conflict between the
aspired Aliyah and the agonized
Yeridah. A writer in Israel gave a
noteworthy definition for translation of
the aliyah-yeridah terminology:

Classic Zionist lore tells of
pioneers, motivated by fierce
ideological values, who struggl-
ed against all odds to settle the
land and establish the State of
Israel. The supreme goal was to
create a Jewish state in the
Jewish homeland, to gather the
Jews from every corner of their
dispersion and to build a free,
Jewish society.
If Israel is perhaps the only

country in the world built upon
a foundation of ideology, it is
also the only country that at-
taches value judgments to inter-
national passage with the
Hebrew words used for im-
migration and emigration.

When a Jew moves to Israel, it
is described as an ascent. Aliyah
comes from la'alot, to go up.
Yeridah, on the other hand,
comes from laradet, to go down.
The value placed on each of
these migratory movements is
clear: moving to Israel
represents an ascent to
something better while leaving
the promised land entails a des-
cent to the world-at-large with
all of its shortcomings.
Now there is great need for such a
resurgence.

Continued on Page 38

about the way he hankered for
a fiddle when he was only
3%years old. He contracted
polio at the age of 4, but soon
thereafter was allowed to take
violin lessons and at 14 made his
TV debut on the Ed Sullivan
show.
The songs in the album are
Mein Yiddishe Mame, Oifn
Pripitchok, Raizele, Rozhinkes
Mit Mandlen, Oifn Veg Shatayt
a Boim, and A Dudele. In the
course of the program, Perlman
reaches for some Yiddish words
and learned that in Yiddish
"link" is "farbindung," that
"shadows" and "shawtns," are
"experience" is "derfarung."

Yitzhak Perlman

recent column. We have commended
him and Post and Opinion on other
occasions for the excellence of such a
column The following is his story about
Yitzhak Perlman as a Jewish folklorist
who is recording and popularizing
Yiddish and other traditionalized
folktunes:
Yiddish got another boost
recently when Yitzhak Perlman,
the violin virtuoso included a
cluster of Yiddish songs on an
album he did. To highlight the
event, Hannah Mlotek, who
conducts a column in the
Forward on arts and leisure,
interviewed Perlman (who
spoke a bit of Yiddish) on the
Forward's Manhattan radio
station, WEVD-FM.
In the interview, Mlotek
thanked Perlman for his one-
time participation in a radio
marathon to raise money for the
paper, and Perlman, in turn,
spoke glowingly about the value
of the Forward.
Perlman recalled that his
mother was an ardent Forward
reader. He also reminisced

Honoring Marceau,
Genius Of Artistry

When Marcel Marceau comes to the
Prairie House, Domino Farms, Ann Ar-
bor, guests at the dinner will have an
opportunity both to meet the world-
famous mime as well as to be introduc-
ed to the aims of the Marcel Marceau
World Center for Mimes, which is to be
the beneficiary of the interesting event.
It promises to be an unusually infor-
mative event because it will define the
art that made Marceau famous on a
worldwide scale.
Marceau is described as a genius. One
critic said about him: "In his summa-
tion of the ages of man called 'Youth,
Maturity, Old Age and Death; Mr.
Marceau has 'accomplished in less than
two minutes what most novelists can-
not do in volumes."
Marceau can justly be described as a
survivor from the Nazi terror. The En-
cyclopedia Judaica includes this
biographical note about him:
Marceau was born in
Strasbourg, the son of a butcher
who was executed by the Nazis
during World War II. Marceau
worked for the French
underground, helping Jewish

Marcel Marceau

children to cross the border in-
to Switzerland. In 1944, he
entered Charles Dullin's School
of Dramatic Art and two years
later joined the company of
Jean-Louis Barrault.
In 1947 he created his
character "Bip," a flour-faced
clown always in conflict with
the physical world. Thereafter
Marceau toured either as a solo
artist or with a small company,
his silent eloquence winning au-
diences in many parts of the
world.
Most of Marceau's programs
consisted of small sketches
featuring "Bip," but in 1951 he
created an extended drama, The
Overcoat, based on the novel by
Gogol. He also made a number
of films. Marceau described
mime as "the art of expressing
feelings by attitudes and not a
means of expressing words
through gestures:'

