Jewish Post, Indianapolis, Marion County, 24 February 1961 — Page 9

Friday, February 24, 1961

The National Jewish POST and OPINION

Day Schools to Seek Aid From State, Rabbi Warns

HOW DOES DEMOCRACY AFFECT JEWS' INTEREST IN ZIONISM?

NEW YORK (P-O) — The matter of church-state separation and Jewish community support of the all-day school, was brought into interesting focus by Orthodox Rabbi Emanuel Rackman, former president of the Rabbinical Council of America and the New York Board of Rabbis. Rabbi Rackman warned that the “inexplicable reluctance of American Jewish federations and welfare funds to provide communal funds for Jewish day schools would compel supporters of such schools to seek aid \from public funds.” He asserted that the Jewish federations “cannot on the one hand presume to speak for the entire Jewish community in opposition to state aid to parochial schools and at the same time refuse to channel to their own parochial schools the aid that is so desperately needed.” IN THE FEB. 3 issue of the Jewish POST and OPINION, the New York Board of Rabbis expressed itself as “unalterably opposed to any kind of state aid to religious institutions.” Rabbi Rackman voiced his warning at the 13th annual convention of the National Association of Hebrew Day School ParentTeachers Associations in the Park Inn Hotel at Far Rockaway. The Jewish Day School in the United States, Rackman said, has established a record of achievement fully meriting assistance from Jewish communal funds. Dr. William Brickman, in the forefront of the battle for seeking state aid to Jewish schools, once again made his bid at the PTA convention. INDICATIONS are that Dr. Brickman’s view is gaining ground in the Orthodox circles as shown by the position of Rabbi Rackman and others at the convention. Certainly, he has brought many around to the point of view that the issue proves to be an effective whip over Jewish federations which have hitherto been covering less than 25 per cent of day school budgets. Another indication of the success of Dr. Brickman’s campaign was a statement issued at a recent board meeting by Rabbinical Council president Rabbi Charles Weinberg who called for a revaluation of their position vis-a-vis the Rockefeller Bill that calls for state aid to schools with religious affiliations. Dr. Brickman urged the American Jewish community to drop its strong support for the “dubious doctrine” of separation of church and state in respect to public funds for religious schools and to make a concerted campaign for such aid for Jewish Day Schools. Dr. Brickman, professor of Educational History and Comparative Education at New York Univerity, said that the majority opinion in the country today seemed to be that payment of any funds from a public source to a denominational institution "was a violation of the traditional principle of separation of church and state. ‘PHE EDUCATOR insisted how ever that there never has been a separation of church and state Sn the United States, especially education. There are numerous examples throughout U. S. history of federal and state fi-

nancial aid to denominational schools and colleges, he declared. “At the present time,” he asserted, “there are numerous religious schools which are enjoying the benefits of loans for improving instruction in science, mathematics and languages under the National Defense Education Act of 1958. He said that the American public school was in fact “a nonsectarian Christian institution” and that the American people had been paying “huge sums from the public treasury for public schools that are actually religious in s p i r i t.” Compulsory school attendance often means compulsory participation in religious ceremonies in public schools, he declared. “FOR TOO long,” he asserted, “the American Jewish community has been one-sidedly devoted to the dubious doctrine of separationism. It is high time In the light of the cold realities of a long record of cooperation by the government and religion in educational affairs to take a new look at the situation.” Such a new look, he added, should include study of the record of the 268 Orthodox-oriented Jewish Day Schools in the United States which “have more than proven themselves with signal service to the nation and Judaism.” Basic justice requires that the public offer aid for public service and without any more control than the state is already exercising over relig'ious schools without the payment of funds, he- said. He urged that all Jewish groups should make “ a concerted campaign for public aid” to Jewish schools and he argued that “a beginning toward federal support of education in schools under religious auspices might be made through the passing of a modified National Defense Act. A new law should include provision for the forgiveness of the loans made to such schools.” “If the religious schools can contribute toward the national defense, they should not be expected to be the only ones to pay for the privilege,” he told the delegates. “The parochial schools, which are recognized by the federal and state governments as fulfilling the compulsory attendance laws, should not be regarded as institutions with second class civic status.”

LONDON (P-O)—Israel should associate herself with the undeveloped countries of Africa and Asia rather than with the “sophisticated diplomacies” of the West, according to Mrs. Barbara Castle, M.P., speaking at the annual dinner and ball of the Pioneer Women of Great Britain, here last week. Mrs. Castle is quoted in the London Jewish Chronicle as saying that Israel should “live down” the accusation often leveled against her, that she is merely an outpost of Western ciyilization in the Middle East. *T see Israel becoming more and more an integrated part of the Middle East,” she said, “and identifying herself still further with the hopes and aspirations

By CHARLES ROTH Nahum Goldmann ducked aa issue at his press conference last week when asked whether increased democracy in a country had anything to do with that country’s Jews remaining more stand-offish to his bid to join the World Zionist Organization. During his report on the Congress, Goldmann glowingly reported the participation of the entire Latin American Jewish Community. Also, he indicated that he was not overly disappointed with the turnout of only two organizations from the United States that had sent observers. When asked whether the heavy participation of Jews from Latin America at the Congress couldn't be due to those Jews feeling themselves outside general community life and failing to see a bright future for the Jewish community there, he dismissed it bysaying that the Jews in Latin America were more Zionist while the Jews in the United States were more isolationist. THIS ISN’T so and Goldmann knows it! Traveling to the Congress I had the occasion to sit with some Argentine Jewish leaders aboard El A1 from Paris to Lydda. I sat next to a Mr. Finkelstein who is head of the Achdut Avodah and behind Mr. Kamenzian, who is head of the Association of Jewish Communities in Argentina. Speaking to them in Yiddish I received a first hand report of the kind of lively Jewish life known in New York forty years ago. Mr. Kamenzian was born in Buenos Aires and speaks Yiddish and Hebrew as well as Spanish. You can imagine my surprise when I was told by both these men that they didn’t see any future for the Jews in Argentina. WHEN I pressed for an answer all I could get was a shrug of the shoulders and uplifted palms. I did, however, receive some kind of hint from my earlier conversations with Mr. Finkelstein. I had asked whether there was any active part taken in the general labor movement of Argentina by his own movement (just left of Ben Gurion’s Mapai) or by the Hashomer Hatzair (extreme left Zionist group). He indicated that there was none. Perhaps some on a personal level. NOW THESE groups are made

of undeveloped countries, for which she has already done a great deal. “It is through this work that she will find her true strength and that her real backing will come to her if tension should break out in the Middle East.” Mrs. Castle said it was to be regretted that Israel had counteracted much of her valuable work on behalf of the African nations by her support of France’s nuclear tests in the Sahara. She pointed out that France had ultimately decided to abandon the tests and that it was a pity Israel had not had the courage to gamble on that eventuality. Mrs. Castle envisioned Israel’s "real role in the world” as the

up of men in middle age or past that. There is little likelihood that they themselves would go to Israel (several thousand a year do migrate to Israel). Yet, their activity as a leftist group is unrelated to the general aspirations of the working elements in the country. This tells the story of the kind of isolation experienced by the Jews of that country. Nahum Goldmann knows very well that as Jews become integrated in democratic society their relationship to other Jews becomes more philanthropic than prior commitments of national solidarity. Goldmann has been making statements long enough about assimilation being the greatest danger to Jewish survival and is no doubt more aware of this problem than most of us. Nevertheless, like most of us, he veers away from tackling a fundamental question: Why Jewish survival? LET ME PUT the question in a more palatable manner. Car. we or can we not do anything about Jewish survival? It seems that if we would spend more time probing this question the Jewish community would become more aware of the things they could realistically do to further this goal. Oscar Handlin says quite candidly, in a recent article in the London Jewish Chronicle, that we Jews in the United States are

By LILLIAN LEVY Washington Bureau Chief WASHINGTON, Feb. 5—Being an Israeli no longer is considered something above and apart from being a Jew by most of Israel's young intellectuals, Moshe Shamir, prize-winning Israeli novelist, told the P-O. Here for a three month lecture tour sponsored jointly by the B’nai B 'r i t h Hillel Foundations and the United Jewish Appeal, Mr. Shamir will speak to facul- Shamir ty and student groups in colleges and universities throughout the United States about current thought, opinion and culture in his country. He is particularly conscious of the fact that there is a serious gap in understanding and fellowship between American Jews and Israelis of college-level. The sense of superiority in the past and recently has been reflected by the preference of some Israeli visitors and students in the U. S. to associate with American gentiles rather than Jews.

provision of moral leadership for other groups including the British Labor Party which might well draw the strength to make its own political Negev more fertile from the example set by Israel. Stressing the urgency of con ciliation between Israel and hex Arab neighbors, Mrs. Castle said that Israel would not flourish by triumphing over her enemies but only by turning them into friends.

being transformed by a process over which we have little control — which reminds me of a parable I sometimes tell when I occasionally lecture. There was once a farmer, who, when a flock of wild ducKS landed on his lake, fed them, housed them, and put up a sign Duck Farm. To all who came by, he looked and acted like a successful duck farmer. He alone knew that he could no moi’e know where the ducks came from than he could know when they would leave. JBut as long as they stayed, he remained a duck farmer. Besides, who knows? Even if these ducks left, perhaps the winds or natural circumstances that brought them would bring another flock before anybody realized it. MOST OF modern Jewish leadership today are akin to this kind of duck fai'mer. Hordes of Jews, streaming first from the ghettos to the slums in the lands of opportunity; from the slums to the better neighborhoods and finally to the golden ghettos of suburbia. As they land on the different ponds of organized Jewish life there always seems to be a leader, who gives them a label, puts up a sign and calls them his own as if his ideology and point of view was that which produced them and can also sustain them. Who’re we kidding?

“We feel more at home with the gentiles and have more in common with them than the Jews we meet here,” some of these Israelis explained. The problems of Jews on the American scene are of little interest to these Israelis unless they are related to Israel. “There is a growing feeling among intellectuals that Israel’s destiny cannot be fulfilled without a higher sense of belonging to the great Jewish people, their history and their traditions,” Mr. Shamir said. “But I would be less than honest if I did not say that for me being a Jew and living in Israel is the best and luckiest experience.” A Sabra, Mr. Shamir won the Bialik prize in 1955 for his novel “King of Flesh and Blood,” since translated into English, Spanish and Dutch. The 40-year-old writer serves on the central committee of the Union of Hebrew Writers and teaches drama at Tel Aviv University besides writing a weekly column for an Israeli newspaper. “The writing and cultural development in Israel will be meaningless unless it reaches all the Jews of the world and so must the writing of Jews abroad in the diaspora be transmitted^ and understood by Israelis,” Mr. Shamir said. To advance these ends, he has backed and supported a movement, now the official project of the Writers Union to which he belongs, to translate contemporary novels and plays. This work is supported by government funds. His talks in the U. S. will be given at meetings designed to further the Hillel Foundations and campaigns in behalf of the 1961 UJA drive.

Urges Israel to Drop 'West' For Bid With Afro-Asians

Sees Serious Gap Between Israelis and U.S. Jews