Jewish Post, Indianapolis, Marion County, 31 March 1972 — Page 28

Friday, March 31, 1972

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^Organized Chaos iC- Although at the time the organized Jewish com- | munity brought in Prof. Robert Maclver to study the |I competition, waste and duplication, there was an •a ongoing war between our national Jewish organizations, §. conditions are hardly better today — although more

> sophisticated.

cL The theory behind Prof. Maclver’s goal was to

p bring order out of chaos.

But today, we have both the chaos and the National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council, which was to be the instrument through which coordination was to be effected. And no one complains, but unified consideration of vexing problems facing the Jewish

community just doesn’t exist.

As a result, we have pronouncements from almost every possible source whenever a determination of

policy is needed.

It is organized chaos. It is time that some attention be paid to spokesmanship for the Jewish community. This does not mean censorship, but it does mean some earnest consideration before everybody rushes out with a statement. The Forest Hills low-income housing project revealed for all to see just how important it can be for some kind of authoritative prounouncement by the Jewish community from responsible sources. The Negro-Jewish confrontation which is erupting on all fronts is another area where intelligent direction from a responsible Jewish source is required. And in the future there will be other issues, just as explosive, or more so, that need the attention of the best minds, in a unified way, of the Jewish com-

munity.

It is possible that the NJCRAC needs revising so that it can act in cases such as these being discussed. But just to let the chaos continue is hardly a decision, and that is exactly what has been decided, to accept organized chaos. What Conservatism And Reform May Have In Common The session on experimental services at the convention of the Conservative rabbis was an indication that innovation is not restricted to Reform. If there was any theme at this one session, it was relevance, and the fact that this was part of the agenda piost certainly would be pleasing to our young people. At the same convention, Rabbi David Polish, president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, the counterpart of the Rabbinical Assembly, sought avenues for joint cooperation between the two movements, but there was little new in his suggestions, and hardly anything practical. The thought must be clear then to those reading this editorial, that there is one practical area where [Reform and Conservative rabbis can almost unite, and that is in innovative matters introduced into services to make them more responsive to the needs and feelings of the worshippers. The thought may be less acceptable in the following observation, and that is that the unity of outlook as between rabbis of Reform and Conservative persuasion can be discerned more in terms of a g e than by any other yardstick. The young Conservative rabbis and the young Reform rabbis may have more in common despite the nomenclature Reform and Conservative than is true of members of the same groupings. Since the future lies here, it is quite possible that it is more realistic to look for cooperative enterprises by the young rabbis than perhaps for the official bodies of which they are members.

The EDITOR'S CHAIR

It must be clear that whatever representations have been made thus far in connection with Mr. Nixon’s making a frontal presentation to the Kremlin leaders on the discrimination against Russian Jews, have been unsuccessful. Those who have seen Mr. Nixon have left without any commitment. This could mean that Mr. Nixon is waiting to detect how the U.S. Jewish community really feels before making up his mind. It also could be that Mr. Nixon learned the lesson that Ben-Gurion learned early and that is that the national Jewish organizations and their leaders really do not speak for any constituency, but only for their paper organizations. When local Jewish communities stay away in droves from activities protesting the plight of Russian Jews, Mr. Nixon knows this through his advisors and then easily dismisses the importunations of those top Jews who approach him. The million signatures being sought on petitions should help in this direction, but petitions unfortunately are also a means of copping out, and only when the Jewish community puts bodies on the line, will bur President be impressed. We have put in a request to accompany the press entourage to Moscow. Hopefully, even though many newspapers and press agencies will be seeking to join the press corps, it would seem that in view of the Jewish and Israeli situation, as far as Russia is concerned, the editor of The P-0 will be chosen to go. If so, we’d suggest to Mr. Nixon that he accompany us to Sabbath services at the Moscow synagogue. This one simple act would electrify the Jewish world, and indicate forcefully and dramatically that Russian Jewry is not alone in its fight to secure full freedom to practice its religion even in a Communist state. Mr. Nixon’s introduction of weekly Sunday religious services, even Jewish ones, at the White House is testimony to his religious convictions. How could he express these more emphatically than by attending a service of a beleaguered group who are being strangled when it comes to possibilities of observing their rituals and mitzvot.

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THE PAT ON THE wrist that those who violate New York state’s laws against selling non-kosher food as kosher is certainly no deterrent. Seymour Ross, president of Utopia Delicatessen, Inc., whose place of business is at 19-15 Utopia Parkway, Whitestone, N.Y. pleaded guilty to such - a charge before the Queens Criminal Court, and was fined $250.

The wide differential between kosher and non-kosher foods makes the temptation great to foist trefe foods on an unsuspecting Jewish public. It has bred not only a group of delicatessen owners who buy the non-kosher meats from jobbers off a transient truck, but evidently has led to connivance not only of these jobbers but also of abattoirs, who must be aware of the unethical practice. It would seem that greater penalties, including jail terms, are warranted, and if the present laws do not so provide, changes should be made. THE QUESTION OF CHRISTMAS advertising in Jewish papers has never to our knowledge been discussed in the Jewish press, although it must be factual that many of the Jewish papers have policies in this area. That the college students at the University of Texas would speak out so bluntly against The Jewish Post of Dallas-Ft. Worth is par for the course. They aren’t required to be euphemistic, and our young Jewish people, G-d bless them, see no reason to be evasive or tentative. They say what they think. The question however is broader, and it not only should not be confined to criticism of one paper, for others are just as guilty, and it should not also be confined only to Christmas advertising. ' For a long time this paper rejected advertising from any but strictly kosher restaurants. Even now, it does not permit restaurant advertising of intrinsic non-kosher foods. This, of course, is a weak, half-way measure, but it seems to us preferable to the ad in a large Jewish weekly in the Northeast showing a lobster so large that it stares you in the face when you turn the page. The rub comes when you think in terms of the Florida resorts. In the past five years, a number of the finer hotels have become kosher, but up until then, only the Sterling was on the same level as the top hotels and at the same time strictly kosher. We have over the years carried advertising from these non-kosher hotels, so our rule against ads even from some of the large Chicago delicatessen manufacturer’s whose strict kashrut many challenged was in the nature of an inconsistency. We would suggest that the Jewish Press Association might well set up some guidelines. These need not be sanctions, but could provide some rules that over a period of time more and more of the papers would observe.

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Passover's Strength Is In The Direction It Points

ficJewish Post ^ Opinion

i

101 Fifth Aye., New York, N. Y. 10003 989-6262 GABRIEL COHEN, Editor and Publisher CHARLES ROTH, Executive Editor FRANK CROSS, Circulation Manager SAM SHULMAN, Advertising Director Subscription price $10.00 per year Single copies 25c; Back issues over 3 months old 50c All editorial correspondence should be addressed to the Indianapolis Office, 611 North Park Ave. 46204 Chicago Jewish Post and Opimon 72 E. 11th St. f Chicago, IU. 60605 HArrison 7-2086 — Indiana Jewish Post and Opinion, 611 N. Park, Indianapolis 46204, Ind. MEIrose 4-1307 — Kentucky Jewish Post and Opinion 2004 GrinStead Drive, Louisville 40204, Ky., 459-1914 — Missouri Jewish Post and Opinion 8235 Olive Blvd. St. Louis 63132, JMo. WYdown 3-2842 — Israel Office Gabriel Roos Manager Gileadi Rd. Beit Roos, Talpioth Jerusalem Telephone 97519,

By RABBI MAURICE DAVIS The best of all months, because it contains the best of

-a 11 holidays. By far the best of all festivals wending its way through all the non - pages of p r e -history. There is no ritual, no fest i v a 1, nor

Davis feast, nor fast that is older than Pesach. Long before Temples. Long before Canaan. Yes, long before Egypt the predecessors of our people were observing the predecessor of Pesach. For Pesach is spring fever, and there is nothing older than spring. WE SHAPED it to tell the story that it tells, but it was springtime that set the stage. No man is a pessimist in spring. Nature itself conspires to free the heart. Things grow again, and bloom again, and blossom

CITRUS FOR JAPAN

JERUSALEM - As the result of an agreement with Japanese officials, Israel will shortly be exporting grapefruit and'lemons

to this newest market

again, and the overcoat of winter is gratefully laid aside. What happens to nature happens to man. If we tell the story of escape into freedom, an end to slavery, are we not telling the same story of man? Escape from the bitterness of slavery — or winter — into the freedom — and warmth — of life. No wonder our people chose the springtime to tell their greatest story. There is not one equinox, buo two. And they could have chosen the one in the fall. They are both the same. And yet there is a difference as well.

THE DAYS MAY be identical, but one is heading toward winter, and one is heading toward summer. A difference in direction, and maybe that is another crucial part of the story. Not where you are standing, but where you are heading. And when you are heading toward freedom, maybe you have to choose the spring. It’s going in the right direction. Rabbi Maurice Davis can be reached at 252 Soundview Ave., White Plains, 10606.

Church Classes

Israel Investment Judaism

Club Has Profit ROSLYN HEIGHTS — The meteoric rise recently in the Israeli stock market has netted the Sinai Investment Club of Roslyn a fat 30 per cent increase in the value of its portfolio. The 23 members of Temple Sinai here who formed the club put up $6,900 under a program which calls for $50 to be invested by each member every two months.

SOUTHFIELD, Mich. — Sessions for clergy in temples and synagogues are annual events, but the Franklin Community Chwpch has gone one better and arranged a series of study sessions on Judaism for its members and the community at large. Rabbis of the community, a cantor and a layman are participating in the weekly Sunday morning classes. They are Rabbis Ernst Conrad and Israel Halpern, Cantor Irving Friedman, and Robert Cohen.