Jewish Post, Indianapolis, Marion County, 5 May 1972 — Page 10

The Jewish Post A net Ooinion Friday. May 5. 1972

High Prices Of Kosher Products We would be the last paper in the world to want to kick our advertisers in the teeth, and we certainly are making no accusations of any kind, but there is warranted an inquiry into the price of Passover products, if not that of kosher products as a whole. Our investigation into the prices of matzoh (P-O, March 31, April 7) provided two areas which warrant checking. One was that as against last year’s prices lor matzohs in New York, 5 lbs. for $1.99 in 1971, and the same quantity for $2.49 this year, there is a 20 per cent increase which certainly is excessive. The second is the cost of matzohs in areas away from New York and the eastern seaboard. Although the manufacturers told our reporter to expect slightly higher prices on the west coast due to shipping costs, what actually transpired was that sometimes the prices away from New York — especially if the community was large enough for competition to be a factor — were even cheaper. To get away from the Passover situation, anyone who has ever bought kosher frozen chicken knows that he is paying a high price. We are not saying that these prices are unjustified, but we are saying that someone should be looking into them and telling us that because of the needs of maintaining kashrut, the prices are

or are not excessive.

The EDITOR'S CHA/R

■v;

Rudolf Sonneborn

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We anticipate that the award of the S.Y. Agnon Gold Medal to Rudolf G. Sonneborn at the Hotel Americana Monday night will be one occasion in American Jewish history where whatever ancillary motivations there were to his selection, the honor bestowed on him can rightly be ascribed to only one of his many fine characteristics — his courage. It never was fun being a Zionist advocate in the days before Hitler, and if a Judge Louis D. Brandeis could brave the opposition of most of the Jewish community by his support of Zionism it was mostly because his reputation in Boston and later as a Supreme Court Justice put him beyond attack. Most of those who were Zionists were the amcha, the average Jew. They had little to lose. But Rudolf Sonneborn came from the blue-blooded upper crust of Baltimore Jewish life, and thus he was considered a renegade to his class by those who ridiculed Zionism as a soon to be forgotten aberration of Russian Jews who had come to the United States recently and were only a step above greenhorns.

IT DOESN’T BOTHER us a great deal, but we might politely suggest to Sen. Hubert Humphrey that in his campaigning he desist from accusing “international bankers” in criticising economic conditions. He used this terra in a speech in a small town in Southern Indiana, and he probably does not recall that Indiana was once a Ku Klux Klan stronghold. He should know, however, that in attacking Jews, whether it was Hitler, Gerald L.K. Smith, or Tom Watson, the means employed was to accuse them of dominating the world as international bankers. The term comes from the notorious “Elders of The Protocols of Zion,” and there are still anti-Semites and even preachers who spew hatred of Jews employing the spurious book as gospel. • THREE OR FOUR MONTHS ago - at least — we got a call at the Belmont Plaza Hotel where we usually stay when we’re working out of the New York office, from Rabbi Stanley Wagner. He was full of vim and vigor, and we remembered him from way back — when he was in Lexington, Ky. So while Charles Roth and I were palavering, Stanley came up and we heard him out. It was our pet idea for circuit-riding rabbis, and Stanley had outlined a full program, and was ready, willing and able to begin to implement it. How to begin? The first step would be to get the necessary funds to prime the pump, to get the program off the ground and to learn by trial and error while making use of the experience in the one circuit-riding program in existence in North Carolina. There were some differences as to details between Stanley and Charlie and me, but the broad general outlines were just what we had been plugging away here for lo these many years. Meanwhile we’re almost certain that rabbis in small communities have been circuit-riding rabbis without being called circuit-riding rabbis. One has been Rabbi Samuel Horowitz in Billings, Montana, who serves an area of hundreds of miles while ministering to his local flock. There are several approaches open, one of which would be to apply to the Institute for Jewish Living for the necessary funds to do the experimenting. Another would be to establish a national board of Jewish leaders who would provide the funds and the direction. But whatever the decision, it is clear that the time is ripe, the program is needed, and the director is available. We have urged the seminaries or the religious organizations to adopt this program — even B’nai B’rith, but to no avail. We’ve

gone farther than urging the religious organizations — our rabbincal groups, the seminaries, etc. — because we’ve charged them with derelection of duty. So let’s see if we can’t stimulate some discussion, now that Rabbi Wagner is available. We’d think of going to the two laymen who have done the most in the religious field in the United States — Phil Lown, whom we know well, and Samuel Melton whom we don’t know at all — for their financial support, but the chances are that like everyone else they not only have committed themselves elsewhere but probably are over-committed. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t other* like Phil or Mr. Melton who reading this “chair” might not see in the program a great mitzvah for the American Jewish community and therefore be impelled to participate. We’d be happy -to include them, and not only those who have great means, but those who would have a contribution to make by their thinking and their involvement. • A THOUGHT EXPRESSED both by Myron Schoen in his column (P-O, April 14) and indicated also in Rabbi David Polish’s address at Founder’s Day exercises at Hebrew Union College — Jewish Institute of Religion (P-O, March 31) seemed to indicate that those who are revising prayer services believe that this alone will rescue the synagogue. It well could be that such have been expressions from some quarters of those who support changes, but if so, this is erroneous. The changing prayer services is traditional in Judaism. Otherwise we would still be using a prayer book which our ancestors usee when the first service was conducted outside of the temple. Even if our temples were filled to overflowing, our prayers would need revision and additions. The more so because changes have become more rapid in our society. In fact, the time to make changes is not when the synagogues are empty, but when they are full. Because we failed to do this, and create other shifts in Jewish outlook, the synagogue of today suffers. Another point in connection with Mr. Schoen’s same column. He must be aware that the synagogue of tradition was prayer in the square, with worshippers facing one another and the Torah read from a raised platform in the center. The Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue in New York is a prime example of this structural style. It must have been at least 20 years ago when Rabbi Samuel Cooper of Charleston, W. Va., in building his new edifice saw to it that the bimah was in the center, and seating was on all four sides.

At the Americana, the elite of American Jewish leadership will be present, yet Mr. Sonneborn needs no nudge from us to look back to the day not too long ago when a Zionist affair was boycotted by leading Jews, and the readers of the Yiddish press made up most of the audience. The American Friends of the Hebrew University are making the award, and regardless of whom they select in the future, they can hardly duplicate a man as deserving as Mr. Sonneborn. Whatever contributions others may make to Jewish life in the future, a pioneering stage can take place only once, and although new efforts will be required from many individuals in days to come, they can hardly equal those of the builders and the founders.

trfJewish Post «</ Opinion

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The Rabbi Goes To See The First Of His Two Movies A Year

By RABBI MAURICE DAVIS . On a good year I get to see two movies, maybe three. Last

week I went to see my first one for 1972, and it was — you guessed it - “The Godfather.” They say it is the most phenomenal money raiser in Hollywood his-

tory. I did not even try to see it in New Y.ork, where hundreds wait for hours on end. Instead we drove to Connecticut, which is the pattern for people in Westchester. I had read the book, and I was prepared — I thought — for what would follow. And for those who had not read the book, there were the newspapers. The gangland killings which had erupted in New York seemed to have been taken from the pages of “The Godfather. The story of Joe Colombo, of “Crazy Joe” Gallo, and of all the rest of the Mafiosa had been on every front page

m the land.

I KEPT REMEMBERING how Rabbi Meir Kahane had joined Colombo at a golf course in Westchester to announce their joint endeavors and common cause. The Mafia and a kind of “Kosher Nostra” joining hands! Of course, that was in the days when one did not dare to call the Mafia, Mafia. The legend had it that the Mafia did not exist. And the Mafia was there to protest any violation of the legend. Anyway, I went to see “The Godfather,” and the word ‘'Mafia” did not appear. It did not have to. It would be like taking the word “Jewish” out of “Fiddler on the Roof.” I found the movie totally engrossing. One shuddered at the power of evil yet the power was there to be admired — as power always is. IN FACT, THERE was a hidden theme running through the movie which I had sensed in the book without being able to identify it. Now it was there, and I could see it. The theme was royalty. Forget for a moment that these were American gangsters. Think instead of the royalty that was

Europe. Think of the kings o* England, France, Italy, Germany, Spain. Nothing that the Godfather did had not been done by the throne. Both had royal counsellors. Both were ruthless and determined to rule. Both had a vast — at times amused — contempt for the ordinary man. Both deni a n d e d unswerving loyalty* Both had unlimited power, and both knew how to wear the crown, and pl iy the role. AND AMERICA, with its never more than half-hidden admiration of royalty, had now the opportunity to look behind the scene. You could gasp at the limitless power of people who seemed so intensely human. They loved and laughed and wept. They danced at weddings, played with babies, and loved their children. They also were ruthless murderers, who made their own rules, and determined their own. destiny. Nobody stood in their way, and nobody else mattered. More forcefully than any speech or sermon, I saw theugly ruthlessness of royalty, the coldness and the cruelty of (Continued on Next Page)

Davis