Jewish Post, Indianapolis, Marion County, 22 July 1960 — Page 4

The National Jewish POST and OPINION

Friday, July 22, i960

Antisemitism Blamed for Teacher Firing CHICAGO (P-O) — Several teachers who have left Crane Junior college here have charged that anti-Semitism was the major cause of their dismissals. THE TEACHERS reported having constant difficulties with the dean, James F. Groark. They also charged that they were then blacklisted. They were offered jobs in other Chicago junior colleges only to learn later that the offers were withdrawn, according to the teachers. MRS. SHIRLEY Blumenthal said cnat she was asked to resign when Groark “told her” she was unhappy at Crane. ‘T was not unhappy,” said Mrs. Blumenthal. Richard Lerner blamed his firfcig on “a personality clash” beIween himself and the dean. LERNER SAID he found it "highly coincidental” that of the Jour teachers who are leaving, three are Jewish. In addition, Lerner said, two other Jewish teachers were transferred to oth-

Non-Jews in Israel Are Easy Pickings For Conversion to Judaism AAovement

JERUSALEM (P-O) — While the existence of the State of Israel has not exactly unleashed an avalanche of proselytes to Judaism, it has changed somewhat the atmosphere surrounding conversion. There is in Israel of all places a World Union for the Propagation of Judaism. Its most publicized convert is 63-year-old Professor Abraham Kotsuji, tutor in Hebrew to the brother of the Japanese Emperor, who a few months back made a special pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Here in the Holy City, Professor Kotsuji was officially received into the Jewish faith with all the traditional initiation rites of circumcision and immersion. Although Kotsuji’s conversion to Judaism Was heavily publicized, usually the work of the World Union for the Propagation of Judaism is carried on unobtrusively, helping the many hundreds of men, women and chil-

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er schools last autumn and another was fired. Only one Jewish teacher remains on the 40-member faculty, said Lerner. In reply to the allegations of anti-Semitism, Groark said: “Tve neard that charge before. Td like to have them prove it. It’s just a lot of viciousness.” Groark said that dismissals and transfers are “standard operating procedure.” He added that teachers are hired for a year and “if they ‘don’t fit in,’ we don’t recommend that they come back next year.”

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dren who yearly “beg” admittance to the Jewish faith. ITS 3,000 members include several prominent rabbis, doctors, university professors and even Israel’s President Ben-Zvi, Aryeh Newman reports in the London Jewish Chronicle. The Union maintains advisory services to ease the path of the would-be convert in his dealings with the official Israel religious authorties and sometimes the alert Israel security services. For becoming a Jew, now that the State of Israel is in being, automatically gives a person citizenship of Israel under the Law of the Return. TIEERE ARE no statistics regarding the exact motivations governing conversion to Judaism, but it is quite possible that the existence of a Jewish State is an important impetus in a decision to convert, Newman states. There are in Israel thousands of Christian wives of Jewish immigrants who wish to convert to Judaism. Their children go to Jewish schools. Indeed, their conversion gave rise to the “Who-is-a-Jew” controversy, or rather the demand to register their children as Jews without the traditional conversion rituals. The Israeli rabbinate has been repeatedly attacked for its cautious approach, Newman reports in his London Jewish Chronicle article. The Israeli rabbinate demands a six month’s probation period for prospective converts to Judaism. In this period, religious authorities carefully examine the background and motives of each candidate. Even so, the Israeli Rabbinate is much more lenient towards prospective conversion candidates than rabbis in the diaspora. THE SOUTH African rabbinate recently protested what it called the “undue facility” with which Israeli rabbinic courts accept proselytes. The South African rabbis maintained that persons who had been turned away by diaspora rabbis were proceeding to Israel, where they were accepted. In actual fact there is good religious precedent for the Israeli rabbinate’s attitude, Newman declared. “Beloved is the Land of Israel in that it trains or prepares proselytes,” states the Talmud. By the same token, there is good reason for the stricter attitude adopted in the diaspora,

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where the bogy of intermarriage and assimilation is a real one, Newman states. FROM TIME immemorial, many would-be converts to Judaism have come to Israel to complete their conversion. This applies with even greater force today. In a totally Jewish environment in Israel they find it easier to live their new life. Slowly but surely, at the rate of. several hundred converts a year come to Israel and are absorbed into the flow of Israeli life. They even serve in .the Is-

rael Army.

The Israeli Rabbinate freely accepts those who apply for conversion because their spouse is Jewish provided they undergo the period of probation and verse themselves in the practices of Orthodox Judaism. But the general problem of conversion in Israel is made very delicate and difficult by the spiritual crisis and divisions in the Jewish population itself, New-

man reports.

The sabra tends to regard the genuine proselyte with wonderment bordering on derision. The sabra has been educated as a “free individual, a national Jew, to whom all the religious rites are just so much history,” Newman states. The inevitable question comes up: Why demand religious practices from those wanting to become Jews when the born Jew does not bother

about them?

Conversion to Judaism on a greater scale than has been known in modern times, will continue to be a regular phenomenon in Israel, Newman writes. The writer comments that per-

haps the age-old attitude of Ju. daism is the wisest to adopt on the conversion question. That is, love and consideration for the genuine convert to Judaism accompanied by caution and reasonable probationary procedures before his sincere willingness to accept the responsibilities and implications of his decision is

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