PURELY COMMENTARY

Rosh Hashanah 5750: Endless Commitments

PHILIP SLOMOVITZ

Editor Emeritus

T

aking stock of the yesterdays is a
common practice at the com-
mencement of a new year,
regardless of the celebrants who
welcome a new one. In the observance
of the coming days, there is the
repetitive "ring out the old, ring in the
new!' In the Jewish way, there is the
realization of "continuity!' Appended to
this is the unchanging and problematic
that we learn from our experiences and
we know our duties.
This is truly the way we approach
the new period on the calendar, with the
realization that learning the lessons of
life means commitments to the ever
multiplying Jewish duties as the
dedicated to peoplehood, to redemption
that is Israel, to the nation in which we
benefit glorified citizenship.
The duties to which we must adhere
include protection of the elderly, social
services for youth as well as the old,
raising the standards of education and
commitments to learning, and the
spiritual and cultural values without
which there is no vision.
Fighting the drug aberrations is
part of our duties. Opposition to every
semblance to racism is an American
obligation not to be shunned. There are
rising dangers in the religious and the
racial spheres; those who give rise to
them must be condemned and their

poisonous tactics deprived of the
slightest form of recognition.
It is in defense of Israel's sovereign-
ty that American Jews, on a par with
the Israelis, must have a dedication
that measures up to the highest com-
mitments. There is a lasting hope that
the non-Jewish world will be as suppor-
tive of Israel as the Jews themselves,
that the Israel-U.S. friendship that is
akin to a partnership, will never be
abandoned. The new obstruction that
has emerged, the evidence of a rising
negation to Jewish aspirations, is the
cause for major concern in the new year.
It is on this score that special public
relations programs must be introduced
on Israel's behalf.
It is in the inner Jewish circles that
this abberration has become especially
evidenced. Under every conceivable
guise, Jewish groups have been organiz-
ed as preachers of "peace!' And as the
shocking PBS television program about
the intifada revealed, Jewish rights are
being minimized by Jews themselves.
While there is the regrettable factor of
Jews hitherto divorced from participa-
tion in defensive roles in Israel's protec-
tion, the mere fact that Jews lend com-
fort to Arafat and the PLO lends
credence to anti-Israelism. For the
enemy it is a great weapon to be able
to say that "even Jews" support them
"against the Zionists!'

Therefore, the unfortunate need for
the Zionist community in the world to

ZBT's Roots In Isaiah

F

rom the national officers of Zeta
Beta Tau, the oldest of Jewish
college fraternities established in
this country, comes news that it has
abandoned hazing and introduced
initiations.
Almost traditionally, ZBT's
membership candidates were treated as
pledges and subjected to hazings mark-
ed by dangerous treatments that had
been a practice of nearly all fraternities.
ZBT chapters in this country and in-
Canada will no longer impose
humiliating hazing upon its pledges
who will now become members within
72 hours of their recruitment.
This decision leads to a considera-
tion of the history of Zeta Beta Tau and
its founder, Professor Richard James

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Vol. XCVI No. 5

2

September 29, 1989

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 1989

battle against misdirected, often ig-
norant, Jews, while struggling against
the enemies of and animosities toward
Israel.
A truly saddening condition in the
developing judgments of Israel in the
press and in diplomatic circles resulted
in the phrasing of the attitude "blame
Israel first mentality." While it arous-
ed resentment in some quarters, it con-
tinued as a reality in the attacks on
Israel.
The manner in which Jews treat the
issue and resort to self-criticism may
even be called tragic. In a throrough
study of such attitudes, conducted in
testing the media and the Jewish critics
and in important voumes released by
the Zionist Organization of America,
the extreme Jewish critics are judged as
"masochists." The term is applied in a
volume, Israel in Medialand, compil-
ed and edited by Eliahu Tal. The
masochist originator traced in the En-
cyclopedia Judaica follows:

Austrian Galicia was the set-
ting of many novels and stories
by the non-Jewish writer,
Leopold Ritter von Sacher-
Masoch. Sacher-Masoch, whose
later erotic works gave rise to
the term "masochism," was the
son of an Austrian police chief
in Lemberg (Lvov), and his ear-
ly impressions of Jewish life
there inspired his
Judgeneschichten
(1878).

Polnische Gehtto-geschichten
(1886), and Juedisches Leben in
Word and Bild (1890). His ob-
vious sympathy for the East
European Jew's tenacious
adherence to his religion and
culture subjected him to con-
siderable abuse. The works of
Kompert, Franzos, and Sacher-
Masoch enjoyed quite a vogue
as exotic literature, but it was
not until Georg Hermann wrote
the novels Jettchen Gebert
(1906) and its sequel, Henriette
Jacoby (1909), that cultured Ger-
many Jewry received adequate
treatment in German fiction.
Because of the application of
masochism in which Jews themselves
render harm to their fellow Jews, the
meaning of the word is imporatnt. Ran-
dom House Dictionary defines
masochism: "Gratification gained from
pain, deprivation, etc., inflicted or im-
posed on oneself either as a result of
one's own actions or the actions of
others, especially the tendency to seek
this form of gratification!'

We used to call it simply self-hatred.
Masoch defined it with great simplici-
ty. Now, Wliahu Tal, in Israel in
Medialand, treats us to the following:
Masochism is a Jewish word,
being named for the Austrian
novelist, Leopold Sacher-
Continued on Page 42

Without Hazing

Horatio Gottheil of Columbia
University.
While first ZBT chapter began to
function at City College of New York,
it was introduced as a fraternity reali-
ty at Columbia University, where Got-
theil was a noted Orientalist and pro-
fessor of Semitic languages.
A fascinating story is revealed,
thanks to the notable Jewish leadership
and idealistic commitments of the
fraternity's founder. Gottheil started it
under the Hebrew title "Tzion
b'mishpat tipodeh," the phrase from the
virst chapter of Isaiah which means
"Zion shall be redeemed with justice."
The initials ZBT symbolized an
idealism. It was part of an inerasable
historic vision of a thoroughly dedicated
Jewish scholar and a leader in this na-
tion's academia. He went to the Prophet
Isaiah for a title in the fraternity he
organized. His selection of "Zion shall
be redeemed with justice" also was part
of the Jewish goal in which he assum-
ed leadership. He was the first president
of the American Zionist Federation
which, under Stephen S. Wise and
Louis D. Brandeis and the many
distinguished personalities who follow-
ed, functions as the Zionist Organiza-
tion of America. He held that post from
1898-1904 and was succeeded in the
presidency by another eminent per-
sonality, the world-famous op-
thamologist, Dr. Harry Friedenwald,
who was the second ZOA president from
1904-1918.

I should not be begrudged the
recollection of the privilege of having
shared Zionist activism in the company
of these two great pioneers in our
movement.
There is an encyclopedic record to be
recalled about ZBT founder Richard
Gottheil. The ZBT Gottheil Medal had
been awarded to the most distinguish-
ed in the world. The scholarship he in-
spired and his devotion to Zionism and
Jewish learning fill volumes.
For the many lovers of biographical
literature there are real thrills and a
volume of information about academia
in a single page about Gottheil in the
Universal Jewish Encyclopedia. It is
eminently worth reading.
Another suggestion: Zionist groups
everywhere, including the Detroit
Zionist Organization, will honor a most
eminent pioneer in the movement by
devoting programs to his life and con-
tributions. There is much historically
valuable in recalling them.
ZBT alumni — those pledged to the
fraternity in their college days must be
numerous — will do well to recall the
man whose idea for the movement led
them into this, the first Jewish college
fraternity.
Incidentally, ZBT, founded under a
Zionist banner, never provided Zionist
activism. On the contrary, there were
many in their ranks who were an-
tagonistic to the cause. If there are in
their graduate ranks adherents to the
fraternal founder, it will be interesting

Richard Gottheil

to hear them speak out in self-defense
and as an honor to Richard Gottheil.
Memories of important occurrences
are revived in varying ways. The
recollections develop from abandon-
ment of the hazing by a Jewish frater-
nity. That's how the ugliness of tortur-
ing of college freshmen is replaced by
honors for the dignity in an idealistical-
ly inspired cause. 0