I PURELY COMMENTARY 1"--

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Menachem Begin:
Courage, Erudition

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PHILIP SLOMOVITZ

Editor Emeritus

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38

FRIDAY, APRIL 3, 1992

lobal interest in one
of mankind's
distinguished per-
sonalities will continue in
the hesped for Menachem
Begin. The eulogy, with its
many emphases on aspira-
tions and achievements, will
always inspire recollections
of incidents in the life of the
genius.
Therefore, I add comments
about the man I had been
associated with for nearly
half a century.
As a matter of fact, my
association with Menachem
Begin was a continuity of re-
lationships with Vladimir
Ze'ev Jabotinsky, whose
leadership in Zionism and
world Judaism Mr. Begin
pursued.
The term hesped has spe-
cial application to
Menachem Begin. In his
Jewish Concepts, Dr. Philip
Birnbaum defines the term
by saying:
There is a talmudic
statement that from the
way a person is mourned
you may learn whether he
deserves future bliss.

The Begin achievements
were much more than the
military, the diplomatic, the
resistance to the enmities
toward Jewry, the battles in
a struggle to assure Jewish
freedoms and redemption. It
was a legacy addressed to
Jews never to abandon faith
in redemption and never to
be absent from that struggle
which led to the rebirth of
the State of Israel. It remains
a legacy.
While suffering from the
agonies of having lost his
parents as victims of the
Nazi barbarism and the
miseries that were inflicted
when he was arrested by the
Russians, he was tradi-
tionally and historically
rooted in his Jewish
loyalties.
In tribute to this great
leader, there must always be
the knowledge of the con-
tempt with which he treated
Jews as well as non-Jews
who gave comfort to our
enemies by subscribing to
their poisonous attitudes.
The hesped for Menachem
Begin must be a memorial
for this genius among the
"Redeemers of Zion." The
name Menachem Begin will
always be among the blessed
in our history.

Much Gratitude
In this era of festivities glorifying this paper's 50th an-
niversary, my family and I have much to be grateful for.
Our sincere appreciation to associate publisher Arthur
Horwitz and his associates, to the entire editorial staff
and to all the related departments for the honors accorded
me and for their many kindnesses.
Our sincere gratitude to the leaderships, local and na-
tional, for the deeply moving recognition of many years of
sharing in our people's destinies and in pledges for the
continuity in Jewish loyalties.

❑

A Headline
About Yiddish
A truly sensational
headline was used on March
5 over an article in the Wall
Street Journal. It was in
Yiddish, which made the
contents as fascinating as
the story. The author,
Stanley W. Angrist, wrote
about the disappearance of
the linotype.

warehouse floor here, "like
dinosaur bones;' reports
Mr. Lansky, it dawned on
him that Mr. Nash had
neither numbered them
nor did he have an
assembly drawing for the
machine. But when the
machinist arrived he ex-
plained to Mr. Lansky that
since he knew what the
machine was supposed to
do it was just a question of

TV 5"1213111 7 1111711" 11112E7 7

A dramatic tale with a
noteworthy cast of
characters develops in the
utilization of this headline.
The leading actor in the
drama is the man who engi-
neered the rescuing of the
last Yiddish linotype for pos-
terity —Aaron Lansky. He is
the creator of the National
Yiddish Book Center at
Amherst, Mass,, which may
be viewed as a movement
generated by his genius.
This sensational story
emerged when, in January
1991, Harold Ostroff, gen-
eral manager of the For-
ward, called Mr. Lansky to
tell him that the last of the
linotype machines was being
abandoned. That's when Mr.
Lansky proceeded to plan
the transfer.
As Mr. Angrist explains:

Maybe it was luck (or
Divine intervention), but
Mr. Lansky soon had the
assistance of the man
known as the best hot-
metal machinist in New
York City. In three days
Paul Nash broke down the
linotype into about 1,000
pieces while Mr. Lansky
and Mr. Zagorin trucked
them to Holyoke each
night.
While Mr. Nash was tak-
ing apart No. 23,211 the
other eight machines were
being destroyed .. .
After the parts for No.
23,211 were spread on the

putting it together to make
it do it. It took him only
three days to bring No.
23,211 to life again.

The story reads like a
novel. It is a marked tribute
to Mr. Lansky who, as a stu-
dent at McGill University,
began to think of advocating
the rescue of existing
Yiddish books.
The Journal article
recalls:
The story of this ancient
linotype tells a lot, in
miniature, about the Yid-
dish language and its
remarkable survival.
Yiddish was the mameh
loshen, or mother tongue,
to millions of Jews in
Eastern Europe for cen-
turies. It is a fusion of Ger-
man, Hebrew and Slavic
languages written in
Hebrew characters. Like
Hebrew, Yiddish reads
from right to left. Until
recently, the Yiddish
language was thought by
many to be in the process
of disappearing.
Machine No. 23,211 was
in continuous service from
the year it was built in
Brooklyn until 1991 at the
Forverts, the Jewish Daily
Forward, at one time the
largest Yiddish newspaper
in the world with a circula-
tion during World War I of
about 200,000.
Today, the machine has
found a new home in this

