Jewish Post, Indianapolis, Marion County, 5 September 1958 — Page 12

V

The National Jewish POST and OPINION

Friday, September 5.

HERSATZ' RABBIS ' CHARLES ANGOFF had some challenging accusa'tions to make against the rabbinate (NJP, Aug. 22). The noted Jewish author said that the demand for the reappraisal of the rabbinate “is mounting.” And added that the “returned intellectuals are offended by the ersatz rabbis among their spiritual leaders.” WE HOPE THAT no rabbi will take it out on The POST and OPINION because we can’t believe that all rabbis are perfect. Not only the intellectuals are beginning to ask for a more strict moral code and more scholarship from the rabbis, though. The demand can be heard on all sides. BUT THERE is a caution to be made here. The rabbis can hardly escape their environment, and the Jewish environment in which the rabbi is enveloped today is hardly one of which anyone can be proud. It serves little purpose to list some of the activities of various rabbis. Their congregants are most to blame because they accept them with their pecadillos, which range from cardplaying to pinching the women and worse. THE GREATEST offense of any Jew is to be guilty of making a sweeping generalization. We must think of the thousands of consecrated rabbis who with tears in their hearts seek to make a dent in the low morality of our times, which Rabbi Ira Eisenstein took out after recently (NJP, Aug. 22). THEN OF COURSE, we must think in terms of ourselves. If we want more devoted rabbis then we must shun the evils of our society, and provide the moral climate which will lift the Jewish community back to the old plane it normally occupied as a group of citizenry whose standards were always higher than those of the general community. IS THIS REALLY DIVISIVE? Although the Ohio Valley Zionist Region voted only last week (NJP, Aug. 15, 22) in a fully-democratic procedure, where each side had all the opportunity it wished to present its case, to oppose a third term for Dr. Emanuel Neumann, the charge is already being made that the action is divisive. i THIS IS THE old claptrap of the party in power. If you oppose anything they seek to do, no matter how arbitrary,, they accuse you of trying to impede progress, of making trouble, of being against virtue or anything else that occurs to them in their attempt to shut up_Jhe opposition. DEMOCRACY differs from authoritarianism or dictatorship in that it calls for courage and the willingness to buck the dominant group. The ZOA has long been one of the most democratic fjroups within the Jewish community, and we hope that it never loses that attribute. NOW THE WAY to throw the accusation back at those who would change the constitutional provision against a third term in order to continue Dr. Neumann in office, is for a few other districts to follow the lead of the Ohio Valley Zionist District. Of one thing we are certain. No matter what the views are of the camp followers of Dr. Neumann, and regardless of what tactics they pursue, Dr. Neumann will not permit his name to be placed in nomination, if he believes that a sizeable segment of the ZOA membership feels that a third term, which can mean a sixth term, and a tenth term, is not in the best interests of the organization. NEED THESE BIOGRAPHIES FROM SOUTH Africa we learn that Leo W. Schwarz, one of the most successful American Jewish authors, is writing a full-bodied biography of Prof. Harry Wolfson, the famous Harvard U. Jewish scholar. We have long held the view that this type of writing is sorely needed in the Jewish community. What Jews need today is more morale-building, although they need it less today than they did a few decades ago. BIOGRAPHIES of great American Jews would serve the end of imparting the feeling that Hebraic mortar played a great role in the building of the American community. We hope that Leo Schwarz’s book will meet with great success in the Jewish community and begin a trend which will find many similar volumes coming off the press in the next few years.

The NATIONAL JEWISH POST Combined With OPINION GABRIEL COHEN, Editor and Publisher Published every Friday by The National Jewish POST. Inc., 546 S. Meridian, Indianapolis 0. Indiana, in 5 Editions.

NATIONAL EDITION: 110 w. 40th St.—New York 18. N. Y.~LO 4-2597 CHARLES ROTEL Executive Editor Z’EV KRONISH, Associate Editor EARLE D. MARKS. Executive Director FRANK GROSS, Circulation Manager SAM SHULMAN. Advertising Director BERNARD WALDER State Editions Editor ARNOLD ROSENZWEIG. News Editor

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 1958

The IDITOrS CHAIR ° * -

WHILE OVER in Israel they seek to find a solution to the specific designation of who is a Jew, in the U. S', we face a similar decision, but everyone makes his own rules. Would you consider Percy Straus Jr., who has changed his name (NJP, Aug. 29) to Selden, Jewish? We’re sure that he’d be classified as such under Orthodox law, which states that the child of a Jewish mother automatically is Jewish. WHAT ABOUT Hyman Rickover. He doesn’t deny his Jewishness. Yet when a POST and OPINION reporter sought to ask him questions about his Jewish affiliations and attitudes, he said this was a personal matter which didn’t concern anyone else. Then what about Bernard Baruch? He’s held up as the greatest living American Jew. He’s of course proud of his progenitors, but his daughters were reared as Episcopalians. SO EVEN the Jewish press, which in one way or another must decide by whom it reports on, who is Jewish, is continually faced with questions which are the same as those Israel presently is seeking to answer. On thing is certain. THE STANDARD in the U. S. of who is a Jew is set, generally accepted, and no one questions it. Anyone who says he is Jewish is considered a Jew. THEN THERE are the several Jewish intellectuals who, when the Who’s Who in World Jewry was being compiled, threatened to file suit if they were included. The rabbinate here, and we think this is true even of Reform, still uses the halahic or Orthodox criterion when it comes to a case of identifying who is Jewish for legal or

“ _ ‘ ■ ■ ■ ■ i i marital purposes. In other words, Reform rabbis too follow the rule that a child of a Jewish mother is automatically Jewish. G WE’LL SOON BE getting back to a minimum size of 16 pages weekly, which will gi ve us the opportunity of printing features which, during the summer, had to be dropped. These features are “With the Rabbis," “The News Hopper’’ and “Names in the News.” WE THINK these columns rounded out The POST and OPINION, gave us an opportunity to mention many people and activities which didn’t warrant separate news stories of their own. The editorial staff has concentrated some of its thoughts on the rabbi’s column. FOR ONE THING, there are the cantors, and the synagogue directors and the federation and community directors, all of whom with a great deal of validity feel that their activities, promotions, etc., should also be reported in The POST and OPINION. There is one limit we intend to impose on the “With the Rabbis” column. We will print only special honors, new pulpits, etc., not society events. In the past we’ve noted when rabbis were married, or their sons or daughters were married, or became bar or bat mitzva. Now we will report when a rabbi celebrates a significant anniversary in the pulpit, or is named to head some important body, etc. LATER ON WE may provide a column for news about the other categories of important functionaries in the Jewish community, as we grow in pages and space therefore permits.

Kl TAVO:

The Well-Spring of Jewish Charity

By RABBI JACOB J. WEINSTEIN KAM Temple, Chicago A member of Jehovah’s Witnesses came to my door some years ago and very humbly requested the privilege of sharing his testimony of the true faith with me. He explained that he was an uneducated man and that therefore he preferred to play the recorded statement of the revered founder of his sect. He placed a portable recorder on my living room table, spun the platter on its rounds, then quietly sat down to observe the effect of the saving words upon

me.

WHEN THE record came to its appointed end, he carefully placed it in its folder,

and thanked me for my courtesy. He hoped that he might have stirred a desire in me for further information, which could be gained from various pamphlets he had with him. He further explained that he was an apprentice carpenter and devoted his off days

to the work of witnessing.

“My father,” he said, “was a well-to-do Indiana farmer who was, however, poor in the things of the spirit. I am a wandering carpenter whom the Lord Jehovah has blessed

with great riches.”

I THINK OF this humble servant every

Weinstein

HOLIDAYS and FESTIVALS Holidays Begin Sundown of Previous Day Rosh Hashana September 15-16 Yom Kippur September 24 First Day of Snkkot... .September 29 Second Day of Sukkot. .September &0 Hoi Hamoed Sukkot October 1-4 Hoshana Rabba October 5 Shemini Atzeret October 6 Simhat Tora October 7

time I read the first portion of this week’s sidra. Here, too, is a simple, yet profound, confession of gratitude and piety: “I profess this day unto the Lord thy God, that I am come into the land which the Lord swore unto our fathers to give us ... A wandering Aramean was my father, and he went down into Egypt and sojourned there, few in number; and he became a nation, mighty and populous." It is this abiding knowledge of our humble origins which, if it does not lead the modern Jew to piety, does lead him to charity. IN EVERY JEW, no matter how long he has been accustomed to wealth, there is the hovering presence of the Aramean. Recently a very philanthropic Jew in a California community was called upon by the officers of the United Crusade campaign of his community to explain to them by what devices the Jews were cajoled to give so much more liberally to every charity and especially to their own. He told of the tragic persecution of the Jew, the desperate need of the Jews abroad, the splendid organization of the Jewish chanties, etc., etc. But when he had listed ah these apparent reasons, he still felt that he had not told the whole story.

“IN THE PRIVACY of my heart,” he confessed, “I knew that the three generations o my family’s prosperity was as nothing to the many generations of poverty and wandering that had preceded them. I am not much o a temple-goer and I haven’t read too inUC , of our history, but I have read enough an seen enough to know that those who are on top today may be at the bottom tomorrow^ My giving, in a way, is a kind of enlighten

self-insurance.”

The Jew, it seems, never rises so

high

in affluence and power but that he does n® hear the echo of the sojourner’s staff on tn^ rocky road and the whisper of a mighty con fession: “A wandering Aramean was father.” Would that he might rise high en0U ^ to 'recognize also that Power to whom 1 Aramean brought the first fruits of his souOr shall we rather say: Dayenu—It is enouS , that he gives unto his fellow man. God acknowledge these gifts as though made un

Him.