PURELY COMMENTARY Dr. Gordis And Waldheim Continued from Page 2 and background have always observed. However, when Mr. Waldheim visited the Mosque of Omar he dutifully-and properly- removed his shoes at the en- trance in accordance with Muslim practice. Can impartiali- ty and even-handedness go any further? Dr. Robert Gordis Editor of Judaism Professor of Bible and the Philosophies of Religion Jewish Theological Seminaries This is evidence of two factors. One is the additional accusation against Waldheim and the increased proof of his guilt. The other is a reminder of the failure of a leading newspaper to give credence to an accusation against a bigot who held a leading position on the international scene. The NYTimes needs a reminder of it. What Dr. Gordis had written several years ago must serve as part of the documentary condemnations of a man who holds the presidency of a leading European nation. An Additional Condemnation Of Waldheim-Pope Meeting It should be noted here that the recognition Pope John Paul II gave to Kurt Waldheim will not be sanctioned by reasonable people. In his column in the NYTimes Sunday, Aug. 2, which he entitled "On My Mind: The Pope and Waldheim: Time Enough to Think," Few Jews will ever complete- ly forget what they take as a deliberate insult at worst or hard-skinned blunder at best. But American Jews and Catholics involved agree that everybody would benefit if the Pope allowed himself to recoup, either before or during his trip to the U.S. in September. Popes do not often apologize, but a word of regret from John Paul II would soothe millions of Jewish hearts. But to the Jews devoting themselves to trying to repair the damage the Pope caused, absolutely nothing is more im- portant than their third goal — to prevent the trivialization of the reality of the slaughter of the Jews, the Holocaust. Jews fight the attempts of modern Nazis to pretend that the Holocaust never took place or really was not that bad. But they fear far more, and never can accept, what they see as disturbingly insensitive minimalization by Christian men of respect At the Majdanek concentra- tion camp, the Pope mentioned 14 nationalities murdered there, but not Jews, for whom the ovens were built. And the Vatican should have known that the decision to receive and then actually praise Mr. Waldheim would be seen by Irving Howe Barth, Totie Fields and Joan Rivers have the chutzpa, the nerve, to be unkosher comediennes. Rather than be- ing unchained domestics who are pro- perly clean, they have transformed themselves into unkosher `vilde chayes' (wild beasts) leaping over the boun- daries of Jewish respectability. Yet they have not alienated audiences with their breaches of decency. Rather than offend sensibility, their big mouths have created a memorable tumult and their innovative `shmutz' (filth) has left an in- delible mark:' Irving Howe, already widely ac- claimed for his commentaries on Yid- dish literary creativity, with frequent emphasis on Sholem Aleichem, adds immensely to the subject with his essay "The Nature of Jewish Laughter." It is a reminder of the gems in Olsvarger's Roise Pomerantzen and Sholem Aleichem. He, too, confronts vulgariza- tions. He condemns the dialect joke. In his essay he asserts: roll your eyes and throw yourself around and generally be aggressive: There is another reason for the shortage of Jewish comediennes. Not only do they have to be 'kooky' and 'aggressive, they have to be unkosher, violating the most sanctioned ritual performed by the Jewish women. Sophie Tucker, Belle Though there was a Yiddish cultural movement of some pro- portions in America during the early part of the century, it has recently been restricted to an in- creasingly narrow circle. What has percolated into American life is a sad substitute — the Jewish Humor Continued from Page 2 reality. Though they are often gasping for air in their under- water existence, they somehow manage to survive, for humor is their life preserver. While the positive notes abound in Jewish Wry, the negatives are challeng- ed and assailed. Prof. Cohen has an essay, an addendum to her introduction, entitled "The Unkosher Comediennes." Like other writers in her edited book, she calls names. Lenny Brice and Woody Allen merit interesting analysis of their works and emerge importantly in the world of entertainment. (Wry in a universal sense: Random House Dictionary explains: Wry — Devious in course or purpose — Bitter- ly or disdainfully ironic or amusing.) In dealing with the comediennes Prof. Cohen was adamant in her criticism. She is adamant in her ex- posure of the "unkosher" elements. Her comments are on the shortage of Jewish comediennes. She declares: "When asked why female comics are in such short supply, Carol Burnett replied: 'It's because you have to be kooky to be funny/kooku. You have to _ 30 FRIDAY, AUG. 14, 1987 and by the historic Vatican Councils and encyclicals, that it seems long ago, another world. But it was within the lifetime of every adult American Jew or Catholic. former editor and now columnist A.M. Rosenthal wrote: It is more than five weeks since Pope John Paul II received the President of Austria; time enough. Time enough for Jews to ab- sorb the sense of utter shock that the Pope not only received Kurt Waldheim but praised and honored him and said not one word about the past — Mr. Waldheim's past as an officer in a man-hunting Nazi army unit, the lies he told to cover up his record, his status on Allied lists as a prosecutable war criminal, his determined unrepentance. And, most painful to Jews, not a word about what the Pope must have known was in every Jewish mind that day — the Holocaust. Time enough for Roman Catholics to absorb either their own shock or their annoyance at the Jews for making a fuss again, depending on how they see life, history and religion. And time enough for Jews and Roman Catholics who do understand the depth of harm to start repairing what was damaged that day in Vatican Ci- ty — bridges built-over decades between people of both faiths. The first shared goal is to make sure that the evil days do not return — the days when Jews feared American Catholics as anti-Semites and when so many young Catholics were taught that Jews were Christ- killers. So much good work has been done since then, by American Catholic clergymen Jews and haters of Jews as a diminishment of the Holocaust. Why this desperate Jewish embracing of the memory of the day of the Beast? Jews really do not like to suffer by recalling horror, but they cannot give up this one. Never again — that is an enormous part of the reason, but not all of it. Millions of non-Jews were murdered, may their names be remembered. But the Nazis singled out the Jews for total ex- termination — the Holocaust. To forget or minimize that is to forgive the hideous racial par- ticularity of the Holocaust. Forgiveness is not ours to give. They knew what they did. So Jews feel there is a moral need for Christians as well as Jews to remember. The Rev. Richard P. McBrien, chairman of the department of theology at Notre Dame, wrote that Jews were • making the moral argu- ment again in terms Catholics should understand, symbolism and memory. Waldheim and the visit to the Pope as a symbol of denial and evasion and as an of- fense against humanity's collec- tive need to remember. Catholicism, he went on, is a religion of symbolism and also of memory. "At the Last Summer, Jesus asked His disciples to 'do this in memory of Me.' To forget is to betray the faith:' The Austrian embassy in the U.S. will surely show these indictments to Kurt Waldheim. The Pope must be made aware of them. dialect joke, often vicious and always cheap; the Broadway clowns who can only vulgarize Jewish humor; and the super- cilious dialect writers for "sophisticated" magazines who exploit Jewish humor but fancy it proper to hold their noses while doing so. These vulgarizations have less genuine connection with Jewish humor than did, say, Will Rogers, with the American folk humor of Mark Twain. But in the pages of Royte Pomerantsen and the stories of Sholom Aleichem, one may see the true and splendid expression of both a folk and its greatest artist in humor which mocks pomp and wealth, which shatters preten- sion and which upholds the poor and the suffering. Therefore Jewish Wry is not only a most welcome story of the humor of the Jew by Prof. Cohen and her associates. It also serves an important purpose. It assails vulgarization and encourages adherence to the highly cultural tradi- tions which make Jewish humor an ac- ceptable and commendable quality of those who inspire it and the people who relish it.