Jewish Post, Indianapolis, Marion County, 31 March 1967 — Page 8

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ne EDITOR'S CHAIR

Sabbath In Our Centers

In each case where the question of the opening of the Jewish Community Center on the Sabbath has become a controversial issue, the procedure followed is precisely identical, regardless of the community involved. A committee is appointed to allow the heat of controversy to subside. The committee finally reports and recommends a cultural program that will be conducted concomitant with full athletic provisions, excepting of course competitive sports. The good intentions here are evident. Yet a question inevitably presents itself. Why was it necessary to wait until the majority of the community wanted the Center open for its athletic facilities to launch a Sabbath cultural program? One is tempted to challenge the rabbinate on this score, but this would be faulty reasoning. The rabbinate did not embark on a Sabbath afternoon cultural program because they envisioned no possibility of success. The obvious conclusion is that we will have to wait until conditions of life have changed before we can expect a Sabbath cultural program to have much chance to do more than start with some perhaps artificial enthusiasm but finally stutter to a halt. The fact that swimming and other facilities would compete with the cultural program would seem to be a detriment to hopes for an ongoing cultural program. All this is logic. And empiricism may show us that we are wrong. But even if the logic were to be upheld by events, a start for returning the Sabbath to its pristine elements must be made. Obviously without such a start nothing can be expected.

Kimche And The Chronicle The Jewish Chronicle of London which should be the first to uphold freedom of the press in view of Its current encounter with the Orthodox leadership in Great Britain deserves to be challenged for its treatment, both news wise and editorially, on the Kimche incident. It should be clear to any journalist that Kimche was not at fault. Kimche is in fact almost a genius when it comes to editing, but he has another trait almost as valuable as competence, and that is courage. The Zionist Federation may have owned The Jewish Observer and Middle East Review. That means there is no question as to the legality of its discharge of Mr. Kimche and censorship. But this is an evasion of the issue.

Our folder marked “editorials” is full of items we’ve written in the past but which for various reasons have never seen the light of day in print. We’re throwing in a few this week, but you’ll detect easily enough that they are dated. But they do have something to say. so we thought we’d use them in this catch all for this week’s “chair.” THE REBELLION of American women against high food prices which led to the spontaneous picketing of food chains recently caused us to wonder why it is that American Jewish worsen have not risen up and taken into their own hands the abuses in Jewish society which have vexed them these many years. When the American Jewish woman has had her fill of the excesses that accompany the bar mitzvah, as also the weddings in catering establishments, and the excesses that accompany the Jewish funeral, she will rise up in her wrath and cry out, “stop.” At that time, and with no more motivation than disgust at wliat we call some aspects of Jewish life, these extravagances and travesties will end. Right then and there. We recall faintly having published and perhaps even editorialized of just such a move by Jewish women in some community — was it in Canada? — in which the Jewish women had become aroused enough to demand some sanity in Jewish observances which involved stupendous outlays of monies. We wonder what ever happened to that crusade? WHAT DO YOU THINK will be the practice in the Jewish community twenty years from now when the present Jewish college generation will be calling the shots. Is it conceivable that these young people will accept the meaninglessness of Jewish activities, the divisiveness, the excesses, the emphasis on the wrong goals, the lack of democracy, and the failures of institutions? The answer is self • evident. This is why we have so much faith in our young people, and in a flourishing diaspora Jewish life in America. Given the basics of true Jewish living, (they will not be satisfied with anything less) these standard-bearers of the future will fashion a way of life that will at once be both Jewish and American, and will restore to pristine glory the values that Jewish tradition has preserved for those willing and honest enough to resist the conditions that surrounded them.

WHAT WE WANTED to tell you about Mosho Kohn, our former managing editor, now one of the top men on The Jerusalem Post, was not so much about Moshe as about his eldest son, Michael, and what we will relate happened not while we were in Israel but a month or two before we got there. It was Michael’s bar mitzvah, and Moshe, so filled with revulsion for meretricious ness and artificiality, arranged Mike’s bar mitzvah on a week - day, and where of all places, but on Mt. Zion. All visitors to Israel walk to the top of the Mt. to see King David’s tomb, and make the pilgrimage to this holy spot of Jewish history. Mike’s schoolmates were invited, and it was theirs and Mike’s celebration. Of course, the relatives and parents were thrilled, but this was a genuine religious experience, with none of the added extravagances which have drowned the religious aspects of the occasion in a round of revelry in America. • WHILE YOU READ on this page last week our view that the ecumenical movement will grow despite the ban by the ultra Orthodox on dialogues, there are some areas of Jewish practice which should be preempted only for Jews. For instance we object to ecumenic ism when a rabbi is being invested with his pulpit, or when a synagogue or temple is being dedicated. To us this recalls the era of not so long ago when no Jewish affair was a success unless the principal speaker was a non-Jew. It is in the same class as our national Jewish organizations requiring a letter from the President before they can open a national Jewish convention. We imagine it will be some time before rabbis will be invited to play principal roles either when a church is being dedicated or a member of Use clergy welcomed into a new pulpit. And this is as it should be. • IN OUR ISSUE of March 17, we printed a striking photo of a new altar of the East German Lutheran Church built near the Buchcnwald Concentration camp. We came across this photograph in The Lutheran Forum, and received permission from Editor Glenn C. Stone to reprint it. However we failed to give them the normal courtesy notice, identifying where the picture had come from, and we hasten to do this now.

Some Caveats On Bishops Guide For Dialogues

Mr. Kimche had won his independence and freedom from censorship in the only way it can be won — over a period of time during which he established his right to criticize. Everyone recognized Mr. Kimche for what he was, and the Zionist leadership that sacked him, if they did not recognize it, deserve what they got — world criticism. But it is worse for the Jewish Chronicle, which incidentally is our favorite Jewish paper, not to have gained this insight, and thus have led themselves into a sterile position in which they claim for themselves independence but would deny it to others.

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By RABBI MAURICE DAVIS I see by the papers that ecumenism is rampant in the land, especially now between the Catholics and the Jews. An entire mood was initiated by the late Pope John, and carried on by Pope Paul. I doubt, however, that Davis these men created the mood. It seems that the mood was there, and they were the ones who first recognized it, and spurred it forward. Recently the National Conference of Catholic Bishops moved to structure this via their Bishops’ Committee for Ecumenical and Religious Affairs. They even devised guidelines to be followed by the Bishops and the priests throughout the land. Those guidelines spoke of cooperation in the area of research, the establishment of Catholic-Jewish dialogues on all levels of comprehension, and even the development of prayers to be used in common with Jews. They urged the frank repudiation of anti-Semitism, and stated that the Crucifixion should be presented in such a

way “As not to implicate all Jews of Jesus’ time or of today in a collective guilt for the crime.” These guidelines have been hailed by Catholic and Jewish leaders alike as enormous steps forward, and I agree. I should like, however, to add a caveat or two along the way. First of all, the idea of not blaming all the Jews of Jesus’ time, nor all the Jews of today for the death of Jesus, somehow fails to choke me up with great emotion. The entire concept of guilt itself in this regard implies a concept of history that must be vigorously confronted. Secondly, the matter of the prayers. While I am confident that prayers can be devised that would not affront the spiritual sensibilities of either group, I doubt that prayers can be devised that would meet the spiritual sensibilities of both groups. Before we get too excited about watering down, perhaps we had better re-examine our goals. My goal is to create a sensitive and compassionate awareness of the differences, in Older better to understand each other. This, I think, is not exactly what has been stated in the guidelines or in the reaction to them. My third and final warning is directed to Jews. It is not the

Catholics alone who have lived with animosity. So, too, have we. Ours was perhaps founded in the realities of history, but if those realities no longer exist, then our attitudes also must change. If we cannot inherit guilt, can we still inherit martyrdom? I have held dialogues with clergy and laymen alike, with Catholics and Protestant alike, long before the word ’dialogue* was yet in vogue. I knew something of the soul-searching that must be undertaken if we are to move forward at this rather critical junction in our history.

Labor Minister Allan To Visit Soviet Union JERUSALEM — Although the announcement stated that he will not go in bis official capacity. Minister of Labor Yigal Allon will be the first Israeli minister to visit the Soviet Union. He plan* to head the Israeli delegation to the International Conference oa Social Security in Leningrad in May. While in Russia, Minister Allon, who was Israel’s Chief of Staff, plans to visit Moscow and Odessa and a number of other cities.