1 PURELY COMMENTARY
From Chanukah to Chanukah
vironment that demonstrates
living Judaism.
PHILIP SLOMOVITZ
Editor Emeritus
It is COJEO's hope that The
Year of the Jewish Educator will
bring about renewed respect for
the teaching profession and a
revitalized partnership between
parents and teachers, rabbis
and teachers, lay leaders and
teachers, for we are all respon-
sible for the Jewish community.
T
he Year of the Jewish Educator"
is the newest cultural festival
proclaimed as an observance
from the Chanukah just observed to the
Chanukah to come toward the end of
1988.
Dr. Alvin I. Schiff, who presides over
the Conference of Jewish Educator
Organizations, who proclaimed the in-
auguration of the event, issued a call to
Jewish schools, synagogues and com-
munity organizations to join in the
dedicated event "to acknowledge the
vital roles that Jewish teachers, ad-
ministrators and supporing personnel
play in ensuring the continuity of the
Jewish community." In his appeal for
cooperative action, Dr. Schiff called at-
tention to the changing times and con-
ditions in the home as well as in the
school. His statement, which is both a
warning of impending threats to the
Jewish cultural obligations as well as
the urgency of acting upon it, states:
In former years, parents
were expected to teach their
children the fundamentals of
Jewish living. They were the
role models and the teachers of
the very young. By the time a
Saluting Teachers
Alvin I. Schiff
child entered school at the age
of five or six, he or she already
had a sense of what it meant to
be a Jew.
Today, many Jewish parents
have delegated to teachers the
responsibility for inculcating a
sense of Jewishness in their
children. For many youngsters,
there is no longer a home en-
We deal with many needs in Jewish
life and they are multiple in the
challenges that confront us. A major du-
ty is to assure the availability of the
most qualified teachers for our children.
Without them the entire educational
structure can collapse. In his proclama-
tion of "The Year of the Jewish
Educator," Dr. Schiff recalled the
tribute to the teacher by the eminent
Jewish philosopher, Abraham Joshua
Heschel, who demanded respect for
the Jewish teacher stating:
In our teachings there is no
higher distinction than that of
being a teacher. We do not
celebrate kinds and heroes. We
celebrate teachers. The teacher
is the essential pillar of Jewish
living — past, present and
future. Judaism is teacher-
centered, and according to its
tradition, God himself teaches.
In Jewish tradition the teacher is
the crown prince of our people in the
cultural sphere. He is major in leader-
ship that must assure undertanding
and knowledgeability of everything
that compiles history for the Jewish
communities worldwide.
Without denigrating anyone in par-
ticular, it is conceded that
knowledgeability is becoming more
limited with time. It may be due in
largest measure to the shortcomings in
our school systems. The reparation, as
an assurance that young and old will be
properly informed, depends on the
quality of teaching. Therefore the
obligation to assure enrollment in our
ranks of the best trained and most
qualified.
These are not idle chats about
another celebration. They are demands
for respect for the duty to our children
and the destiny of the Jewish people.
Dignity and nobility magnify the
role of teachers.
Enrollment of the most qualified for
these tasks is the major communal
duty.
Hopefully, "The Year of the Jewish
Educator will assure attainment and
retention of these aims.
Unmatched Literary Tireasure: 100 Yiddish Authors
orld literature is replete in Sholom Rabinovich (Sholom Aleichem),
anthological collections with and Sholom Jacob Abramovich
the prominent authors of the (Mendele Mosher Seforim) were the
century and past generations. Few acknowleged grandfathers of the school
match the impressive results of Joseph of modern Yidish literature. The three
Leftwich (1892-1983), whose creative pioneers lived from the 19th to the 20th
works gave him a role of esteemed Century and authored in our time as
leadership in the last half-century. His well, and their essays also are includ-
Great Yiddish Writers of the Twentieth ed in this volume by Leftwich.
There are scores of aspects that
Century (Jason Aronson, Publisher) in-
cludes nearly 100 writers in an elevate the Leftwich edited and
850-page volume of the collected works translated essays into a work of im-
of the Yiddishists of the century. The mense importance. Biographical notes
selection of these essays and the are included as an appendix to the more
translation of them lend eminence to than 100 essays. In the seven pages
Joseh Leftwich. A native of Holland, allotted for this purpose, the reader is
where he was born in 1892, he was a introduced to the Yiddish writers of the
master of many languages. From the century. It is in itself an enlightenment
time he settled in England he had of the dynaminism of devotion to Yid-
many roles in journalism and as an dish, and it is also an indication of the
author. He was the Jewish Telegraphic deep interest in the historic
Agency editor in London until 1936 and developments in Jewish life.
his many books published since then in-
There is significance in the titles of
clude What Will Happen to the Jews: many of the essays in his volume.
Yiddish Language and Literature and Zalman Shazar, who was elevated to the
The Tragedy of Anti-Semitism.
presidency of Israel, succeeding Chaim
As translator he was accomplished Weizmann and Itzhak Ben-Zvi, wrote
as author, and his current work proves on the subject "The Vision of Redemp-
it. lb be so accomplished he was the tion and the Eretz Israel Idea in
master, in addition to English, of Hassidism."
Hebrew as well as Yiddish.
Jacob Gatstein wrote on the sub-
In Great Yiddish Writers of the jects "Yeats," "Agnon and Nelly Sachs"
Twentieth Century he has included the and "On Literary Criticism."
essays of some of the most eminent per-
Chaim Grade is represented with
sonalities of our time. The late Presi-
dent Zalman Shazar of Israel is an essay "Sanctuary in Ruins," a deep-
ly moving excerpt from "Mein Mame's
noteworthy among them.
Included are eminent poets Shabbosim."
Nahum Sokolow, who held the office
Avraham Sutzkever an Itzik Manger.
Leftwich took into consideration the of president of the World Zionist
acknowledgement that I.L. Peretz, Organization, wrote on "Hebrew
W
2
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 25, 1987
Literature and Jewish Literary
Societies."
Vladimir Jabotinsky is represented
with an essay on "Leaders."
These titles and their eminent
authors are mentioned here at random
to indicate the extent of the topics
covered in Leftwiches' selections. They
are immense in scope. They cover all of
the Jewish experiences of the long era.
Leftwich, in his introduction, sum-
marizes the topical treasures in his
volume.
The battles that existed between
Hebrew and Yiddish are recalled. Em-
phasis is always on the merging in-
terests an devotions to both and on the
fact that most of the eminent writers,
although they introduced Yiddish,
never gave up their devotion to Hebrew.
There is great significance in the
foreword by Dr. Robert M. Seltzer, pro-
fessor of history at Hunter College and
the Graduate Center of the City
University of New York. Prof. Seltzer
contends that:
"Great Yiddish Writers of the Twen-
tieth Century is a testimonial to the
three generations of Jewish intellec-
tuals dedicated to the creation of a
secular Jewish humanism through the
medium of the Yiddish language."
Dr. Seltzer, like Leftwich, pursues
an analytical study of the authors and
their themes in the book under
discussion.
The status of Yiddish is discussed
by prof. Seltzer. His foreword is a testing
of the vitality of Yiddish and the future
confronting it. The secularism inherent
in many aspects of Yiddishism is of
special interest in the Seltzer introduc-
tory essay. In his analysis of Yiddish Dr.
Seltzer asserts:
Leftwich had opened with
the intimitable voice of Peretz.
He ends with the inimitable
voice of Shalom Aleichem. Ex-
plaining that he will write a
"biographical novel" about
himself entitled From the Fair,
Sholem Aleichem observes that
life is like a fair. And why not?
A carpenter once said: "A man
is like a carpenter. A carpenter
lives and lives, and then he dies;
and the same with a man." But
why from the fair? Because hav-
ing returned from the fair where
he spent his life, Shalom
Aleichem will tell us "in bits and
pieces. . . what happened to
him, and the people he met, and
what he saw and did in his fifty
years on earth:' Needed now is
a coda to the conglomerate of
subjects and writers that con-
stitutes the more than half-
century of Yiddishkeit excerp-
ted in Great Yiddish Writers of
the Twentieth Century — a Yid-
dishkeit that will probably
never appear again except in the
pages of books such as these.
As the reader will discover, I
have singled out only some of
the many topics included in the
anthology. There are two addi-
tional themes that call for com-
ment. The first is the future of
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