THE HERITAGE OF TWO NATIONS
A Popular Program
Many see the March trip as a Jewish success story.
While the cultural climates of their times were decades and hemispheres
apart, Eliezer Ben-Yehuda and Edna Ferber shared achievements as
writers and expositors for their times and places. He, as a lexicographer
and philologist, almost single-handedly revived and refreshed an ancient
language which became the living tongue of Israel-to-be. She, as a novelist
and playwright, insightfully captured the sweep and diversity of American
life in the Twenties and Thirties, and ranks high among the twentieth
century's most popular and enduring women writers.
ELIEZER BEN-YEHUDA
Jewish success story, a proven tool for
he March or the Living is a
increasing the Jewish identification
highly visible and popular
ant
cnrnmirment of its young partici-
institution in which 40,000
pants,
and consequently, a comforting
Jewish teenagers from
reassurance
to parents and community
around the world have participated
leaders
who
fear that their grandchil-
since it started 10 years ago.
dren
will
not
be Jewish.
The program takes high school stu-
Israeli
Knesset
member, Avraham
dents, accompanied by Jewish educa-
Hirchson,
and
an
American
Holocaust
tors, Holocaust survivors, and commu-
survivor,
Dr.
Shmuel
Rosenman,
nity leaders, to Poland for a week that
developed the March to ensure that
includes visits to the Nazi death camps
the stories of aging eye-witnesses
and the destroyed Jewish communities
would
live on and to provide a
in Cracow, Warsaw and Lublin. On
response
to the increase of Holocaust
Yom Hashoah, Holocaust
revisionism.
Its primary purpose was
Remembrance Day, participants retrace
not
to
bolster
participants' Jewish
the steps of the "March of Death" as
involvement
or
practice, Kedem says.
they walk together from Auschwitz to
But
American
Jews like Susan
the nearby Birkenau
death camp.
The group then
flies to. Israel and
commemorates Yom
Hazikaron, a day of
remembrance for
fallen Israeli sol-
diers, and Yom
Hdatzmaitt, Israeli
Independence Day,
in the Jewish State.
According to
Yosef Kedem, execu-
tive vice president of
the International
March of the Living,
A lecture at the Warsaw Jewish cemetery.
while the first March
only attracted 1,500
students, mostly from
Rachlin, coordinator of New York-area
Israel, 8,000 participated in the most
March of the Living, have additional
recent trip, which took place from April
goals
for the trip. It "helps develop
19 to May 3, 1998; 2,500 of these were
leaders
of the Jewish community [by]
from the United States and Canada.
strengthening
their Jewish identity
The program is so o ,,,ersubscribed that
and
making]
them
conscious of their
in some communities less than one-
responsibilirv."
she
explained.
third of those who appiy are admitted.
according to at least one expert,
Current Israeli Prime Minister
the
March
is achieving those goals.
Benyamin Neranyahu and Nob::
A
1993
study commissioned by
Peace Prize winner L'it Wiese: ,....nn-
the
March
of the Living and con-
ber among the many prominem
ducted
by
City
College of New York
Jewish leaders who have assumed hon-
Professor
William
Helmreich, found
orary positions in leading memorial
that
alumni
of
the
March do return
ceremonies in Poland on Yom
more
interested
in
Judaism
and
Hashoah.
more
likely
to
identify
Jewishly.
The enthusiasm of marchers has
According to the study, one third of
spawned international and regional
respondents reported becoming
reunions and alumni who eagerly pro-
more active in their synagogues after
Liaim, as did one 1998 New York par-
the
March; 88 percent of that third
ticipant, that the rrip helped her "see
credited
the March with having
the light. -
infinenced
that decision. P.
Many view the March as a true
(1858-1922) b. Luzhky, Lithuania Father of
Modern Hebrew He embarked on a passionate
crusade stimulated by a vision: "It was as if the
heavens had suddenly opened, and a clear,
incandescent light flashed before my eyes, and a
mighty inner voice sounded in my ears--the
renascence of Israel on its ancestral soil." The
I
Zionist also foresaw that redeeming a Jewish f
homeland meant restoring the people's historic language. Hebrew was the
bond that would reconnect Jewish settlers to their country and traditions.
Abandoning medical studies while living in Paris, Ben-Yehuda
relocated to Jaffa in 1881. With his wife and son in agreement, he set up
the first domestic household in Palestine that exclusively spoke in Hebrew,
an inflexible rule that applied even to visitors. He was resolute in an
almost solitary campaign for the language's widespread acceptance, a battle
fought with copious writings, lectures, teachings and by personal example.
It was understandable why the Jewish orthodoxy of Jerusalem grew
suspicious of his advocacy. Ben-Yehuda had rejected the restricted use of
Hebrew as a religious tongue and proposed its universal adoption as a
national secular language for education, literature and science. Undaunted
by the opposition, the grammarian compiled his epochal Thesaurus (1910)
which greatly increased the number of Hebrew words and expressions for
modern use--a much expanded vocabulary which endures today.
As 'a matter of historical record, Hebrew is the only classic tongue
of the ancient world which has been reawakened in much of its earliest
form. And its impact on Israel's cultural development owes largely to this
one zealous pioneer with an almost sacred cause.
EDNA FERBER
(1887-1968) b. Kalamazoo, MI Novelist/Play-
wright "The historian will find no better picture
of America in the first decades of this century
than Edna Ferber has drawn." This observation
by the respected historian, William Allen White,
explains why Ferber was a chronicler of her age
whose colorful and panoramic pictures of middle-
class Midwesterners won huge audiences. The
landscape of our nation and the interior lives of its people inspired the 1924
Pulitzer Prize-winning So Big which sold a then astounding 300,000 copies
and was twice filmed.
Ferber began her professional career as a newspaper reporter, and
turned to fiction out of a great love and respect for the American
experience. In her youth, the immensely productive story teller wrote more
than one thousand words a day, 350 days a year. Her numerous novels and
short stories most often dealt in accurate detail with the lives and
adventures of women, and with people tied to the land whose traditions
were in conflict with dynamic social, cultural and economic trends.
Among her many best-sellers were Ciiiimaron (1930), Saratoga
Trunk (1941), Giant (1952) and Ice Palace (1959) which were made into
motion pictures. Illuminating these and other works were a keen eye for a
story, a wholesome regard for the color and harmony of words and a
precise ability at portraiture. Although not considered "profound," many
of her titles have been favored widely by young readers and remain on the
required reading lists of schools.
Ferber's eight plays include such Broadway hits as The Royal
Family (1927), Dinner at Eight (1932) and Stage Door (1936), written in
collaboration with George S. Kaufman. She is probably best remembered
for Show Boat (1926), an all-time stage classic in its musical genre.
-Saul Stadtmauer
Visit many more notable Jews at our website: www.dorledororg
COMMISSION FOR THE DISSEMINATION OF JEWISH HISTORY
Walter & Lea Field, Founders;Sponsors
Irwin S. Field, Chairperson
Harriet F. Siden, Chanperson
12/18
1998
Detroit Jewish News
11