ROLEX

New England town, which
until recently wasn't
known as a center for Yid-
dish. Improbably, here it
sits on the fourth floor of a
rehabilitated warehouse in
a decaying neighborhood
— still spitting out lines of
Yiddish type every day,
just as thousands of lino-
types used to do all over
the world in dozens and
dozens of languages.

Now for our community's
privilege to meet the man
who completed the task.
Aaron Lansky will be the
guest of the Detroit Jewish
community at a lecture in
the Morris and Sarah
Friedman Lecture Series on
Yiddish Langauge and Cul-
ture 2 p.m. April 12 at the
United Hebrew Schools
building.
It will be this community's
opportunity to salute the vi-
sion and realized dream of
Aaron Lansky as the creator
of the movement that helps
the preservation of Yiddish
literary classics.

Harry Orlinsky
Bible Scholar
Dr. Harry Orlinsky, who
gained world fame in Bible
scholarship, will always be
included among the most
eminent in religious litera-
ture. The description of
"great" will always be ap-
pended in describing this
teacher, author and
translator who died on Mar-
ch 21 at the age of 84. Due to
space limitation, this tribute
must be limited to local
recollections.
Our fellow citizens aided
immensely in supporting Dr.
Orlinsky and his associates
when they were engaged in
the Jewish Publication
Society's project of revising
the Bible translation. An
important reference to him
appears in the
autobiographical Simons
Says by Leonard N. Simons
who recalled the following:

About ten years ago
(1970) I was on the Jewish
Publication Society board.
The Society needed money
to finance a new Bible
translation. I was asked to
prepare a campaign to
raise Detroit's fair share.
My plan worked and was
duplicated around the
country. The chairman of
the Translation Committee
of seven biblical scholars
was my friend, Dr. Harry
Orlinsky of the Hebrew
Union College, one of the
greatest Bible scholars
alive.
Orlinsky and I kept in
contact with each other

because we both knew
there was going to be more
fund-raising after the
Torah portion was com-
pleted. Harry sent me
galley proofs of the new
translation as it went
along. The first page he
sent me showed that the
scholars had changed the
very first line of the Bible
— universally known as "In
the beginning God created
the heaven and the earth."
I was shocked. To change
this best known sentence
in our Bible was sacri-
legious to me. I immediate-
ly wrote to Orlinsky and
pleaded with them not to
change it. We correspond-
ed all year. I coaxed — I
argued — I tried my best
powers of persuasion .. .
all to no avail.
Imagine my surprise
when I received the finish-
ed copy of the new Torah
book. They did change the
first line. It now reads, "In
the beginning when God
began to create the heaven
and the earth." But they
put a small notation after
the word "create." And at
the bottom of the page they
put, "or, In the beginning
God created the heaven
and the earth."
One other recollection is of
special interest. Dr. Orlin-
sky became enthused over
educational advocacies by
Walter L. Field when Dr.
Orlinsky wrote a foreward to
A People's Epic:
It is heartening when a
Jewish layman devotes
himself to learning all
about the history of the
Jewish people, about their
social, religious, literary,
and political heroes and
leaders and their manifold
contributions both to
Judaism and to humanity
at large. It is even more en-
couraging when this same
layman takes the trouble —
nay, he delights! — to pre-
sent a survey of Jewry's
long, varied, and stimu-
lating career in a form that
will attract and capture
Jewish youth — and those
who refuse to grow old.
Walter L. Field has done
precisely this. He has
divided up Jewish history
into seven main epochs,
and each epoch into its
main sub-divisions. To
each subdivision he has
devoted exactly twenty-one
lines, consisting of seven
stanzas of three lines each,
each stanza given a rhyme
of its own, so that anyone,
if only he is young in years
or in heart, may enjoy lear-
ning or reviewing the
Highlights of Jewish
History in Verse. ❑

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THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

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