_ J e w i s h 4 0 c

C u r r e n t s JANUARY, 1970

THAT JEWISH DEFENSE LEAGUE

By ROBERT MARCUS

WRECKING THE POLISH JEWISH COMMUNITY

By YUDEL

Cartoon by Slidter, Liberation News Service

SONG MY ISOLATED, MR. NIXON? AN EDITORIAL Vol. 24, No. 1 (260) Jan., 1970

_ Jew ish EDITORIAL BOARD Louis Harap Contributing Editor Currents Sa m P ev zn er David P la tt M orris U. S c h a p p e s Editor

CONTENTS

S o n g M y I s o l a t e d , M r . N ix o n ? An Editorial 3 That Jewish Defense League Robert Marcus 4

W r e c k in g t h e Polish Jewish Community Yudel Korman 8

I t H a p p e n e d i n I s r a e l L. H. 12

J e w is h A c t iv is m in W a s h in g t o n , Nov. 13-15 Sam Pevzner 14

M id d l e E a st P a n e l in W a sh in g t o n , N ov. 15 Sid Resnick 15

O ur Position on the Middle East: A D iscussio n Tom Foley and Sid Resnick 16

T h e E d i t o r ’s D ia r y M. U. 5 . 20

T w o P o em s Leo Lieberman 24

Y ad V a s h e m Poem by Ann Bell Karlin 25

P a r en t s’ C orner Max Rosenfeld and Guest, Itche Goldberg 26 Inside the Jewish Community S. P. 30

Yevseyev Rides Again 32

The Form er N. Y. Teachers Union Rachel Levy 33

Agnew Stirs up the Lower Depths 36

Letters from Readers 38

Around the W orld M. U. S. 54

CHANGE OF ADDRESS J e w is h C u r r e n t s , January, 1970, Vol. 24, No. 1 (260). Published monthly except July and To be sure you do not miss an August when bi-monthly, by Jewish Currents, Inc., issue, your change of address must Room 601, 22 East 17 St., New York, N. Y. 10003, (212) WAtkins 4-3740. Single copies 40 be received by us no later than the cents. Subscriptions $4 a year in U.S. ($7 for two 10th of the month. Changes received years), elsewhere add $ 1 a year. Second class post• age paid at the post office in New York. Copyright after that will not take effect for 1970 by Jewish Currents, Inc. another month. SONG MY ISOLATED, MR. NIXON AN EDITORIAL

Dec. 9 sent the available evidence went for TN HIS prime-time televised news naught or little—until the growing conference yesterday, Pres. Rich- disgust of the American people and ־*־׳ ard M. Nixon blandly told us that the especially American youth with the atrocity in Song My was “certainly a war caused major attention to center massacre and under no circumstances on new revelations. was it justified” but that it was “an The wave of revulsion that swept the isolated incident” ! Isolated from what? country as the story of Song My and There may be no proclaimed policy of My Lai was unfolded is, however, in genocide, such as Hitler announced in danger of being sapped by the new World War II, but there has been the line that this is “an isolated incident.” practise of genocide. But the racism rampant in the ranks Isolated? On Feb. 3, 1968, one and in the officer corps, which regards month before the Song My massacre, the entire Vietnamese people with Clergy and Laymen Concerned About colonialist contempt that exudes in Vietnam issued a 421-page book In such terms as “gooks” and “slopes,” the Name of America, containing inevitably results in the innumerable copious documentation from published atrocities that have been committed. reports of what crimes against the The drive to end the war as a whole people of Vietnam were being com- must not be diverted into discussion mitted by U.S. troops, including of the pros and cons of military in- crimes against civilians. In the summa- vestigation versus civilian investigation tion of that report, 29 clergymen, in- or military tribunals. Justice to war eluding five rabbis, asked, among criminals will take its time of due other things, “What does a nation do process but the war itself must be to its soul when it trains its young men brought to a speedy end. That was the to engage in what becomes the indis- demand made Dec. 1 by the Jewish criminate slaughter of women, children, Cultural Clubs and Societies as it con- the aged and the defenseless, when it demned the Song My atrocity and teaches its soldiers to destroy crops called for “the complete withdrawal and thereby hasten the malnutrition of of all American troops as quickly as already feeble children? . . .” (see possible,” and it was repeated Dec. 3 our April, 1968 issue). by the Emma Lazarus Federation of In Dec., 1967, in Stockholm, the Jewish Women’s Clubs. Bertrand Russell International War The major Jewish organizations have Crimes Tribunal took some 600 pages been surprisingly slow to react to this of testimony about U.S. war crimes in issue. The Jewish War Veterans Dec. Vietnam— but the tribunal was laughed 3 stressed the difference (and there is off in the mass media as unofficial one) between the Nazi action and the and biassed. Massive attempts to pre- U.S. atrocities. All else is silence.

J a n u a r y , 1 9 7 0 3 THAT JEWISH DEFENSE LEAGUE The basis of its appeal to the fearful and frustrated

By ROBERT MARCUS

NE of the most controversial The JDL, in fact, has not received O groups ever to arise within the the support of a single Jewish organ- American Jewish community has been ization, with the exception of the the Jewish Defense League (JDL). United Zionists-Revisionists of Amer- Headed by Meir Kahane, an Orthodox ica, a small, right-wing group to rabbi from Queens who formerly was which Kahane has belonged for years on the editorial staff of, and wrote a and which is connected with Menahem regular column for, The Jewish Press, Beigin’s militantly expansionist Herut a reactionary weekly tabloid published party in Israel. Yet the JDL presently in Coney Island, the JDL has been boasts of more than 6,000 members, strongly criticized by numerous Jew- with chapters in nearly 20 cities across ish religious and secular organizations the nation. It has won considerable representing all political points of support among Jews in New York view. It has been attacked by the City, and its hysterical attacks on American Jewish Congress and the Mayor Lindsay during the 1969 elec- Jewish War Veterans alike, while the tion campaign, as well as its alarmist National Jewish Community Relations public statements on many issues, have Advisory Council describes its activ- given the JDL a measure of notoriety ities as “destructive of public order even greater than its numerical and contributory to divisiveness and strength would warrant. terror.” The B’nai Brith Anti-Defa- Exactly what does the Jewish De- mation League calls the JDL “a self- fense League stand for? Is it a vigi- appointed group of vigilantes whose lante group, as its opponents allege? protection the Jewish community does Or does it do a needed job of defend- not need or want.” ing Jews from a rising tide of anti- Even Albert Shanker, whose exploi- Semitism? Is the JDL racist or ex- tation of the real issue of anti-Semitism tremist? Or does it really fight against among black extremists and whose racism and extremism? Finally, if the shrill condemnations of the movement JDL is indeed a negative force in pub- for community control of the schools lie life, how can Jews combat its ef- did much to create the atmosphere in fects without appearing to be playing which the JDL made its appearance, into the hands of the anti-Semites? has denounced Kahane’s followers as These are some of the questions which advocates of “violent solutions” to are being asked within the American New York’s complicated racial prob- Jewish community, and to which this lem s. article will address itself.

4 J e w is h C u r r e n t s Kahane’s numerous articles in people’s minds and destroying law The Jewish Press emphasized two and order,” echoes a leaflet. In addi- themes which are constantly harped tion to 44protecting” American Jews upon in all of the JDL’s literature: from 44Black Nazis,” the Jewish De- the Black Threat and the Red Peril. fense League also proposes to protect The Black Threat, according to us from our own children, transformed Kahane, menaces the Jews with cold into Bolshevik bandits by the siren and hot pogroms. Behind every out- songs of SDS. burst of urban or campus violence, he explains, is the motive of anti-Semit- Most of the criticism of the JDL ism. Militant fighters for racial equal- has centered on its 44vigilante” tactics. icy are all 44Black Nazis” who are The standard complaint against the trying to 44control our cities and estab- JDL has been that it imitates the lish a Black Klanism.” methods of its supposed enemies. In a The demand for open admissions N. Y. Times advertisement Oct. 20, to city universities for black and 1969, Kahane sloughed this charge off brown students is seen by Kahane as as 44the product of fear” on the part a sinister plot to keep Jewish students of his opponents. Without actually out. On the other hand, the JDL has defending the JDL’s tactics, Kahane never questioned the admissions pol- — addressing the Jews of America as icies of some private colleges which 44my dear and beloved children”— con- discriminate against Jewish applicants tinued: 44Do not confuse the voices with the excuse that they want a more you hear with those of the common 44diversified” student body. While the people . . . it is the voice of bureau- JDL does occasionally denounce ex- cracy that is heard in the land. It is the treme right-wing organizations for voice of those who live in the com- preaching hatred against Jews, its fortable suburbs of the entrenched main efforts are directed toward blam- little bureaucratic generals. . . . Do ing anti-Semitism on black people in not listen to the soothing anesthesia general and black militants in parti- of the 4Establishment.’ They walk in cular. the paths of those whose timidity help- The Red Peril plays an almost ed to bury our brothers and sisters equally important role in the JDL’s less than 30 years ago.” Rejected by demonology. Kahane filled many a the leadership of nearly every Jewish weekly column in The Jewish Press organization in the country, the JDL with reports of tiny Trotskyite groups was now appealing to American Jews engaging in pathetic tirades against over the heads, as it were, of their ex- Israel and Zionism. What the JDL isting spokesmen. fears most about the left, however, Kahane’s presumptuous sermon is not any alleged threat to Jewish gives an indication of one of the ap- lives or property either here or in the peals of the JDL. Not only does this Middle East, but the fact that some demagogue play on both the legitimate left-wing organizations have made Jewish fears of anti-Semitism and the legitimate white backlash which־strong inroads among Jewish youth, not-so especially college students. affects many ethnic groups, but he also 44Our youth are serenaded by leftist poses as the champion of the working- extremists and revolutionaries,” wails class Jews against the upper-class the JDL’s manifesto. 44Revolutionary and middle-class suburbanites who leftist groups are capturing young have for many years run most major

J a n u a r y , 1 9 7 0 5 Jewish organizations in America. One Union for suppressing the Jewish reli- cannot help thinking of George Wal- gion; he offered no new information lace pretending to speak for the 44little about the problem, but instead used man” against the 44pointy-headed intel- the grievances of religious Jews in the lectuals” whom he seeks to associate in U.S.S.R. to justify America’s atrocious the popular mind with the ruling class. war in Vietnam. Similarly, when the Indeed, the JDL closely resembles American Jewish Congress engaged in other recent phenomena in American a protest campaign against South politics, such as the Wallace move- African racism, Kahane and other ment, the Conservative party and Jewish reactionaries denounced this Anthony Imperiale’s vigilantes and on the grounds that there was also their followers in Newark. All of these discrimination in the Soviet Union. groups play on the strong and growing The trouble is that the established discontent which is to be found among Jewish leadership’s attacks on the white working-class Americans— dis- JDL’s 44vigilante” tactics, while wel- content about the rising cost of living, come, avoid the main issue. Despite about the apparently endless Vietnam the paramilitary trappings, the JDL War, about inadequate schools and has actually engaged in relatively little other social services, and about or- violence. Most of its actions have in- ganized and unorganized crime and volved only peaceful demonstrations, violence. rallies or picket lines. Just once, in the But instead of attacking the causes widely-publicized Temple Emanu-El of these problems, right-wing organ- incident, did there seem to be a real izations attack the people who are try- possibility of bloodshed—but the ing—perhaps constructively, perhaps object of the JDL’s wrath, SNCC not—to solve them. Typically, they leader James Forman, never appeared blame black militant organizations for to press his demand for reparations. the ghetto violence which would never What harm, then, has the JDL actually have occurred if black people were done? really organized. They blame peace The answer lies not in the JDL’s demonstrators for prolonging the tactics, but in its political line. The Vietnam War. Their search is not for JDL’s real purpose is to move the answers, but for scapegoats. This is American Jewish community far to the the nature of the white backlash. right. Sincere people join it to fight against anti-Semitism. Once inside, Add to this the concern which they will, in the words of a previously- many Jews feel about anti-Semitism, quoted leaflet: 44Receive classified both in the United States and in some monthly briefings on events within the of the socialist countries, and the extremist world. Be invited to attend reactions which most American Jews regular closed meetings at which you have when they hear about Arab com- will be briefed on and discuss these mando attacks against Israel, and one problems with experts in the field. can understand why such a person as Participate, eventually, in concrete Kahane can build up a following in counter-measures. Receive invitations these times. However, once again, for your children to attend meetings Kahane has no solutions. In a dreadful where they will receive warning book which he co-authored in 1967 briefings on dangerous groups in their entitled The Jewish Stake in Vietnam, schools and areas.” Kahane will de- he roundly condemned the Soviet fend us from the 44extremists,” all

6 J e w is h C u r r e n t s right. But we have to leave it to him to define who is and who is not an ex- HANUKA IN PEACE ACTION tremist. And there, as they say, is At Duffy Square in Times Square the rub! Dec. 11 the Vietnam Moratorium Committee and the National Jewish What9 then, can alert Jews do to Organizing Project brought out 225 prevent the Jewish Defense League persons to a Hanuka Peace Action. from infecting Jewish public opinion Rabbi Fred Raskind and Burton with right-wing hysteria? The job is Weiss of the Jewish Peace Fellow- by no means a simple one. Even ship conducted the Hanuka Candle though Kahane was fired by the pub- Lighting Ceremony. Then the pro- lisher of The Jewish Press, Rabbi cession went to Town Hall for a Sholom Klass, in Oct., 1969, because Rally to End the War in Vietnam. of personal and political differences Speakers included Rabbi Yitzhok between the two men, it is possible Greenberg, Orthodox, Rabbi Alan that he will be able to start his own Miller, Reconstructionist, Rabbi weekly with the help of some wealthy Burt Segal, Reform, and Morris U. rightist supporters. As editor of his Schappes. own newspaper, he will be in an ad- vantageous position to push his speci- ous brand of Jewishness. statements of black leaders as of white First, we must redouble our efforts leaders. 111 particular, there is a major to bring about freedom and social task to be accomplished by correcting justice in the United States—to elimi- the enormous amount of misinforma- nate the causes of hatred and violence, tion about the Middle East which is and not just the symptoms of the circulating in left circles. disease. To combat “white backlash,” Third, and perhaps most difficult, white people must participate in the it must be made clear to all that Meir struggles for better housing and Kahane speaks for only a small minor- schools, fair and full employment and ity of the Jewish public. Pious plati- greater access to college education for tudes about the evils of “vigilante” all disadvantaged people, black and tactics and “extremism” will not do, white. The JDL must not be allowed since no one is handier with the pious to pretend that opposition to landlords platitudes than Rabbi Kahane. and other profiteers who exploit It would be well for the major Jew- the poor is motivated solely by anti- ish organizations, recognizing the Semitism. There is a vicious circle of fears and desires of the Jews, to lead injustice-racism-injustice from which them in more active struggle to end only the chauvinists of the JDL and the war in Vietnam, to implement pro- the anti-Semites benefit. It must be grams for black equality, to oppose the broken. reactionary thrust of the Nixons and Second, the few vociferous anti- Agnews. The JDL can best be fought Semites who have attempted to find by organizations which appeal to the a home on the left or in the black same sort of people— college students, liberation movement must be dis- high school youth and workers. In the credited. Racists of all varieties be- long run, it is fairly certain that the long on the right, not the left, of the American Jewish community has what political spectrum; and the same it takes to defeat this “enemy from standard must be used for judging the w ithin.”

J a n u a r y , 1 970 7 Wrecking the Polish Jewish Community

The process as seen by a Polish socialist Jewish leader

By YUDEL KORMAN

CONCLUDED my previous article tion and weaken the activity in all the I with the question: what were the existing cultural positions. effects of the campaign of incitement However, this did not proceed so against “Zionism” in Poland in 1968? simply, so automatically as some may Of course, when 75 per cent of the imagine. The fact is, and this needs to leading activists (in the Jewish com- be stressed, that the leading activists munity) left the country or withdrew and the largest section of the Jewish from activity, when thousands of Jews population did not hastily or lightly felt compelled to leave Poland, it is decide to leave the country. obvious this would automatically af- For the record it must be noted that feet the entire social and cultural work for many months the Presidium of carried on among the Jewish popula- the Association made strenuous repre- sentations to have the campaign of in- Y u d el K orm an is more than an eye citement halted. The Presidium ad- witness to the recent anti-Semitic dressed letters to the leadership of the excesses in Poland. He served for many Communist Party, knocked at the years as a member of the Presidium doors of the leaders of the Party and of the Communal and Cultural Asso- of the government, attempted to ex- ciation of Jews in Poland and was a plain and to warn of the consequences. staff member of the Yiddish newspaper A section of the Presidium members in W arsaw, Folks-Shtimme. Before even took the obsequious step of pub- World War II Korman was an activist lishing in behalf of the entire Jewish in the French Communist movement. communal leadership a document Luring the Nazi occupation he parti- which will remain a stigma upon the cipaled in the Resistance movement until then bold and courageous Jew- until he was arrested by the Nazis and ish community in Poland. (This docu- deported to Auschwitz. After the war ment conceded Israel acted as an “ag- Korman left France and returned to gressor” in the June, 1967 War.) All Poland in order to participate in the this was to no avail. The campaign of building of the socialist society in his incitement persisted and even inten- homeland. He is now again living in sified. Paris, France. This article, the fourth The Polish public was flooded with in a series, appeared in the M orning the pamphlets of the Walichnowskis, Freiheit, Oct. 21, 1969. The transla- Krascickis and others. Everyday the tion from the Yiddish is by Sid Res- newspapers were filled with the most nick. outrageous libels against Jews gen­

8 J e w is h C u r r e n t s erally and the leaders of the Jewish As this procedure repeated itself institutions in particular. The radio other Jews became fearful. They be- and television, for example, would in- came frightened of their own shadows. form the listeners and viewers many They ceased coming to the club of the times a day that every Jew in Poland Association and began to avoid one had received $5,000 a year from the another. To attend Association func- American Jewish Joint Distribution tions meant to go to a suspected place Committee (and, of course, the Joint and could lead to the charge of being doesn’t hand out money for nothing a “spy,” “an agent of imperialism.” in return). In such an atmosphere, and despite The leaders of the Communal and the exertions of many leading people, Cultural Association of Jews in Poland, the sections of the Association began it was alleged, had for years conducted to languish. They slowly stopped every illegal trade by bringing into the coun- activity. To call meetings, to organize try, with the aid of the Joint for its lectures or reading circles or other own cooperatives, various raw mate- functions for which the Association rials (furs, plastics, etc.) and swind- was so famed before meant to invite led the customs’ office of many millions dangers and, above all, meant certain of zlotys. When the leadership of the failure since Jews were afraid to come Association and the editorial staff of to the Association, which was now the Folks-Shtimme sought to register viewed as a subversive, anti-govern- their denial of the disgraceful accusa- ment organization. tions and explain these matters truth- In these conditions a large number fully they were prohibited from doing of Jews and among them a major part so. of the membership of the Association In these conditions all the efforts felt compelled to leave the country. of the leadership of the Association May I here be permitted to pause to maintain and further develop its a moment and attempt to clarify the cultural and social functions came to words “they felt compelled to leave.” a dead end. It is obvious that for the most part The Jews became frightened of the this was a matter of moral compulsion. Association and its activists. In a num- You have people who devoted their ber of Party organizations in Warsaw entire lives to the revolutionary work- and in the provinces it was enough for er’s movement; some of them spent any hooligan to accuse a Jewish Party their best years in the pre-war Pilsud- member of being an active member of sky jails for Communist activity. Now the Association for the latter to be along comes a member of the Central labeled “an agent of imperialism.” Committee of the Polish United Work- Such a charge sufficed for the major- er’s Party (A. Werblan) and seeks to ity of those assembled to exclude this prove in a lengthy “theoretical” person from the Party. treatise that they, the Jews, ruined the In many cities various members of Communist Party of Poland and, in the Association were summoned to the general, there were too many Jews in security organs, where they were in- it. Then along comes the former chief vestigated for hours: what does he do of the anti-Semites in prewar Poland, in the Association, how did he happen Boleslaw Piasecki, and publicly ac- to belong to it, what is discussed there cuses these veteran revolutionary Jew- and did they really make a celebration ish worker activists of being spies, for Israel’s victory? agents and what not.

J a n u a r y , 1 9 7 0 9 Nor was this only a matter of speech further to intimidate the responsible and writing, only of “theoretical” con- leaders. cepts. All this was accompanied with Simultaneously with this an attack deeds. These vilified people were started on the Jewish schools. Th(' frequently and in a brutal manner course in Jewish history was pro- thrown out of the Party and their jobs, hibited. It was argued that the number spat upon and insulted on all sides. of Jewish children was small and class Is this not sufficient to force a person room space was lacking in Poland. who wishes to maintain his human Thus non-Jewish children must be al- dignity to depart? lowed to enter the Jewish schools. In this way, of course, the Jewish This attack was not directed only schools lost their distinctive character against persons, against leading activ- and became transformed into general ists and members of the Association; Polish schools. the attack also struck the Jewish cul- Let us examine the principal Yid- tural institutions. This proceeded ac- dish cultural institutions, such as the cording to a prearranged plan on all newspaper Folks-Shtimme, the literary fronts, on the political, cultural and monthly, Yiddishe Shrijten and the social life of the Jewish community publishing house, Yiddish Buch. It be- in Poland. gan with an edict against the Folks- How did it work out in practice? Shtim m e which required the editorial Let us examine the Association itself staff to submit to the censor a Polish and its 27 sections. The Association translation of the entire text of each was prohibited from engaging in any issue. For a newspaper which was pub- type of social welfare activity. The lished four times weekly this was phys- Jewish Old Age Home in Warsaw, ically impossible to accomplish. In ad- which was set up with funds provided dition, and this is most important, this by the Joint Distribution Committee, edict was a gross insult to the editorial was completely removed from the As- staff, to the Jewish public and to our sociation’s supervision. The occupa- Yiddish language. Such discrimination tional training courses conducted by against our Yiddish language was un- the ORT were liquidated. The Social known in semi-fascist Poland and not Assistance Commissions were dis- even in Tsarist Russia was it practiced. solved. The youth and children’s clubs Did they lack a Jewish censor in were closed down. The song and dance whom they had confidence. No! They ensembles were dissolved. In the sum- surely could have found more than mer of 1968 the Association was for- one. What was involved here was the bidden to organize summer camps for imposition of a humiliating discrimi- the Jewish children. For a period of nation against Yiddish, against the nine months the Presidium of the As- Jewish cultural workers and the edi- sociation was not allowed to convene tors. They thus sought to demonstrate a meeting of the leadership. to people who were Party members The Association’s budget was so for many years that not the least trust severely cut it really became impos- was placed in them any longer. sible to conduct any activity. As if ־all this was not enough, one Control This edict was then extended to in Commission after another was installed elude the magazine Yiddishe Shrijten in the Association’s headquarters at and the publishing house, Yiddish Nowogrodzki 5 in Warsaw so as Buch. Every poem, novel and short

10 J f.w tsh C u r r e n t s story, every book, even those of the old HANUKA WITH INDIANS classical Yiddish writers, had to be To the 400 Indians who have occu- presented to the censor in a Polish translation. pied Alcatraz Island in San Fran- cisco Bay since Nov. 20, members Naturally, these demands could not of the American Jewish Congress be met. Well, Yiddishe Shrijten was and Rabbi Roger Herst brought liquidated and the publishing house food and blankets Dec. 7 and a was liquidated. The type forms of a Menorah with which to celebrate few Yiddish books which were already Hanuka as a liberation festival with set up were broken down (among them the Indians. The Indians claim the two books commissioned by foreign Island, abandoned as a prison fort- writers and paid for with foreign ress in 1963, by the terms of a cen- money). The Folks-Shtimme, as is tury-old treaty with the United known, was changed into a weekly States, one of the innumerable paper with an anonymous editorial treaties with the Indians that have staff and is now almost completely been violated. divested of any Jewish content. The Jewish Historical Institute in It must unfortunately be stated that Warsaw was also not spared by the the culturally and socially organized vicious campaign of incitement, libels Jewish community in Poland has prac- and discrimination. The associates of tically been liquidated. That vibrant, the Institute, it was charged, had warm address, Nowogrodzki 5, is no falsified the history of the Warsaw more. It is true that the present Com- Ghetto Uprising of April, 1943 and munal and Cultural Association of had also transmitted dcuments to West Jews in Poland has been given a new Germany, particularly excerpts from office in a new building on Gzebowski Ringelblum’s diary. (According to Place, but this is no longer the Jewish the version of the “anti-Zionist” in- cultural address of before. The Asso- citement the Uprising in the Warsaw ciation has been emptied of everything Ghetto was made primarily by Poles which has any connection with pro- and not by Jews.) When the director gressive Jewish culture. of the Institute presented an official Those who wrecked and liquidated denial of the charges made against it the creative Jewish community in Po- to the newspapers, none of them would land need to maintain on paper the publish it. existence of the Association and of a Neither did this campaign of incite- supposed Yiddish weekly paper so ment avoid the Jewish State Theatre. they can claim, “It is untrue there is On a designated day many newspapers anti-Semitism in Poland. The proof of issued a financial reckoning of the this is in the Jewish organization and amount of money the government had the Yiddish institutions we maintain.” put up for every Jew who attended Why then are so many Jews, the the performances of the Jewish Thea- majority, leaving Poland? Their tre. Ida Kaminska and other artists answer is, “These are Zionists,” were described in an insulting man- “these are alien elements on the ner. In order further to intimidate Polish body.” them, they installed infamous Control Why did this happen? Did it all be- Commissions in both institutions, gin with the Six Day War? which in the course of many months These questions will receive separate virtually terrorized the staff workers. attention in the Feb. issue.

J anuary, 1970 11 Israel Election post-mortem . . . The shift toward the right that was revealed by the Oct. 23 elections and saw a failure of the Alignment to receive a majority in the Knesset was reinforced by the outcome of the municipal elections, which took place at the same time. Throughout the country the Alignment vote for local office ran well behind its Knesset vote, while the right-wing Gahal got many more votes in the local than in the national poll. The Alignment lost a number of local city council seats. In the largest city, Tel Aviv, it is likely that the Gahal mayoral candidate will be able to replace the Alignment mayor. The exception was Jerusalem, where Alignment Mayor Teddy Kollek won an absolute majority, with a surprisingly large vote from East Jerusalem’s Arabs, who turned out to vote in unexpectedly large numbers (9,889). The Arab vote in Jerusalem is seen as a blow to Al Fatah in the city. Another surprise was a drop in the vote for Rakah (Vilner-Toubi Communists) from 32 per cent of the Arab and Druse minorities vote in the Histadrut elections in Sept. to 28 per cent in the Knesset election. But the Druses gave Rakah three times more votes than in previous elections and in the national elections Rakah increased its vote by seven per cent over 1965. • Mapam leaders in the Alignment are strenuously objecting to the proposal supported by Prime Minister Golda Meir and Defense Min- ister Moshe Dayan that Gahal be accepted in the government coalition as full members, thus giving Gahal important cabinet posts. Mapam fears that Gahal will fight against territorial concessions when peace negotiations take place. • Israel began in Oct. to impose a new level of punishment against Arabs in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The new policy prompted much criticism in Israel. Whereas before only those Arabs who participated in or cooperated with the terrorists had their houses that ״,blown up, the military is now exacting 44collective punishment is, destroying houses in a neighborhood where terrorist acts occur because the Arabs of the area did not inform on or resist these acts. Another new measure is seizure of Arab property where such incidents occur. At the same time local Arabs are under greater pressure from guerrillas and some 40 to 50 murders of Arabs suspected of collabora- tion with the Israelis have taken place since the end of the war. The Israelis have also taken over several schools in occupied areas where strikes and demonstrations have occurred. . . . A group of young Jewish Israelis in mid-Oct. tried unsuccessfully to establish 44a Jewish

12 J e w is h C u r r e n t s presence” near Nablus on the West Bank. They were ordered off the ground by the West Bank’s military governor. • Israel had Sabbath TV Nov. 14 for the first time despite the attempt of Prime Minister Golda Meir to cancel the broadcasts in the interest of keeping the religious parties talking about joining the ruling coalition. The public body administering broadcasting voted 13 to 9 to override her order and to go on with the broadcast. A court order was obtained to authorize the broadcasting. However, the issue is not settled because a court fight is on to stop the broadcasting on the Sabbath. • Anniversaries . . . The Weizmann Institute of Science? which has a high international reputation, celebrated its 25th anniversary Nov. 20. The institute has a “brain drain” in reverse because it attracts more staff members than it loses. . . . The Henrietta Szold-Hadassah School of Nursing in Jerusalem gathered over 800 nursing graduates of all categories and ages in Oct. to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the founding of the school. . . . Israel’s only religious university, the Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan, celebrated its 15th birthday in Oct. The school has 4,500 students, 400 from abroad, a staff of 650, and offers 1,362 courses. • News briefs . . . Daris Fallah? a lawyer from the Western Galilee, became the first Druse judge in Israel when he took up his duties in Acre Oct. 23. He had also been Israel’s first Druse practising lawyer. . . . Israeli ophthalmologists, led by Prof. Isaac C. Michaelson of the Hebrew University, have been aiding in eye treatment in seven African countries (Liberia, Monrovia, Tanzania, Malawi, Ruwanda, Kenya and Ethiopia) by treating patients at home and training in- digenous professionals in Jerusalem to take over the services. Prof. Michaelson’s slogan is “To serve, to teach and to leave.” . . . Since June, 1967, IsSrael has admitted 8,000 Polish emigrants. . . . The joint Arab-Jewish cultural and social project of the Adult Education Center of the Hebrew University opened its third year in Oct. with a program expanded from teaching Arabs Hebrew and Jews Arabic to broader cultural and social work attended by about 300, half of them Arabs. • The Yemenite Folk Dance Group has extended its activities to put on a colorful play with dance, M y Sister, M y Bride, based on ceremonials of betrothal and marriage of North African and other Jewish communities. . . . The Israel Philharmonic Orchestra postponed its planned production of Richard Strauss’s “Till Eulenspiegel” after a protest that Strauss had worked with the Nazis. A public committee is reviewing the issue. It was pointed out that Strauss had quit his job when the Nazis forced him to withdraw an opera with a libretto by Stefan Zweig. L. H.

J a n u a r y , 1 9 7 0 1 3 JEWISH ACTIVISM IN WASHINGTON, NOV. 1315 By SAM PEVZNER

TTENDING the massive demonstration for peace in Vietnam Nov. A 13-15 as a representative of the Jewish Cultural Clubs and Societies and of J e w is h Cu r r en t s, I had an opportunity informally to corro- borate the headline in the Nov. 20 issue of the Chicago Jewish weekly Sentinel, “Largest Number of Jews Ever Participate in Demonstra- tions.” We know that thousands of Jewish students and older folk are participants in the general peace movement but an added signifi- cance of this demonstration was the fact that a large number of Jewish youth and adults acted and met as a specifically Jewish sector at the Washington Mobilization. First, an interesting sidelight: my wife and I took part in the March Against Death Thursday evening. While waiting in the huge, gaily- striped tents which served as the mobilization point on the west bank of the Potomac, from which the marchers crossed Memorial Bridge into Washington, I was greeted by many young people, who came up to read the large badge I wore with the legend, 66Sholem — Jewish Cul- tural Clubs and Societies—Peace.” Many expressed enthusiastic ap- probation on seeing the word Sholem (in Hebrew letters) and on the participation of an adult Jewish organization. I was promptly inter- viewed by two student radio stations and by the Student Film Group of Wesleyan University, who were making a film on the Mobilization. All of them were attracted by the fact that I represented a Jewish organization and publication. On Saturday, while I was standing together with a parade marshal for over an hour during the massive parade, countless people, seeing my badge, shouted “Shalom! Shalom /” Once a boy stopped to read the badge and then ran after his mother shouting, “Look, ma, a Jewish word!” As to organized Jewish expression at the Mobilization: one of the officially listed “Movement Center Programs” we attended was that of the National Jewish Organizing Project (P.O. Box 19162, Wash- ington, D.C. 20036), which included Sabbath Services Friday evening, followed by two large panel discussion groups on “Jewish Tradition — the War and the Draft” and “The Role of the Radical Jew,” attended by more than 600 young radicals. Participating in all activities of the Project were about 1,000 people, mostly youth. Much of the discussion revolved around the questions of how to win the Jewish community to more activity in the radical and peace movements. It was an exciting, no-holds-barred discussion, reflecting the various currents of the general youth and student movements, ranging from the activist left to religious-oriented young people of a more moderate bent. The heartening feature was the eagerness to par- ticipate in the peace and other social movements as Jewish youth, with an approach that flows out of the Prophetic tradition of Jewish life and religion. [See next page— Ed.\

1 4 J e w is h C u r r e n t s MIDDLE EAST PANEL IN WASHINGTON, NOV. 15 By SID RESNICK

HE Middle East Panel of the National Jewish Organizing Project T was held on Sat. evening, Nov. 15, on the lower floor of a church in Washington, D.C. The air in the large room was permeated with the odor of the tear gas as these young Jewish peace demonstrators car- ried in on their clothes and though the eyes smarted this did not lessen anyone’s zeal for polemical combat. The panel, one of several, attracted about 70 people and revealed that a sizable section of the Jewish youth which identifies itself with the anti-Vietnam war move- ment is also concerned with Israel’s struggle for existence while being quite aware of the faults of Israeli society. The panel was chaired by David Gelber, the earnest managing editor of Liberation magazine. Panel speakers were J. J. Goldberg, a young expert on Zionist history and the editor of a Canadian Jewish youth publication; Sid Resnick, representing J e w is h Cu r r e n t s ; and a young Israeli representing the Matspen, a very small, ultra-leftist Israeli organization. Gelber stressed the need for recognizing what he insisted was the new factor in Middle East politics, the organized Palestinian Arabs who regard all of Palestine as their homeland. He was harshly critical of the Israeli government’s inflexibility toward peace negotiations and its failure to reduce the Arab fear that Israel was “infinitely expansionist.” The discussion from the floor showed that most of the participants had various misgivings about the Israeli establishment, yet there was also a real concern for the need of resisting the Al Fatah viewpoint. Only one thought Israel’s existence was a mistake. Another young socialist felt Jewish radicals were too apologetic about Israel and cited the greater freedom of the left opposition there in contrast to the restrictions similar movements face in the Arab countries. A former Israeli asked why radicals could only be “analytical” where Israel is concerned rather than compassionate. The Al Fatah position was criticized mainly from the angle that its stated program denies the Jewish Israelis their right to self-deter- mination by demanding the end of independent statehood for Israel. The Matspen representative appeared to be most sympathetic to the Al Fatah position although even he conceded it does not approve his favored solution for Palestine— a bi-national state. None of the participants, aside from the J e w is h Cu r r en ts representative, placed much hope in the United Nation’s Security Council Resolution of Nov. 22, 1967. Also, many of these young Jew- ish radicals had either not heard of, or seldom read, this magazine and seemed unaware of the existence of an older Jewish left movement which shared their concern for peace in Vietnam and the Middle East. Tis situation presents a significant challenge to us.

J a n u a r y , 1970 15 OUR POSITION ON THE MIDDLE EAST A discussion By TOM FOLEY an SID RESMCK noticed in your Oct. issue that a To believe otherwise is to fall into the 1 reference was made to my article, trap of chauvinism, pure and simple. “Israel’s War,” which appeared in the Only a chauvinist could believe that latest issue of the New World; Review. King Feisal of Saudi Arabia and the In the “Dialogue on Israel” between Arab oil workers his police torture Morris Davis and Sid Resnick, Resnick and kill are all alike, are all “the characterizes my article as an “utterly enemy.” Only a chauvinist could biased defense of the Arab nationalist equate King Hussein and the Arab p osition.” Legion with the down-trodden Arab People who read the article can peasants of Jordan and Palestine. judge for themselves whether or not I am happy to see that, within Israel, I am an Arab nationalist. However, powerful forces are emerging which I strongly object to the approach Res- do not take the chauvinistic approach nick has taken in his attempt to reply and are fighting the militarism and an- to Morris Davis. It is an approach nexationism of their own ruling class. that fails to distinguish between Arabs The Communist Party of Israel led by and apparently considers all Arabs as Meir Vilner and Tawfiq Toubi has being alike, as “one reactionary mass.” won the respect and admiration of all Resnick drags in Kurdistan and the Arab progressives for its part in this southern Sudan in trying to answer struggle. This kind of development Davis. But clearly the Arab peasants points the way to a real solution. The of Palestine have nothing to do with “chauvinist solution” shows us a bleak, what goes on in these two areas. Also, hopeless future of one war after they had not the slightest relationship another. J e w is h Cu rren ts is doing its to the slave trade, which is mentioned readers a real disservice by giving its elsewhere in your Oct. issue. In fact, readers no hope and by systematically the resurrection of the slave trade in defaming the Arabs. It is time it de- modern times is due to the oil wealth cided which side it is on in the Mid- of the U.S. imperialist-backed regime East Conflict. in Saudi Arabia, and is not at all re- T o m F o l e y lated to Arab workers and peasants. New Y ork, Oct. 23 If we fail to distinguish between those Arabs and Israelis who are fight- Sid Resnick Comments: ing imperialism and those who have sold out to it, then we can never hope It is gratifying to learn that Mr. to attain the least understanding of Foley concedes there are Israelis “who the basic realities of the Middle East are fighting imperialism.” In his 12 conflict. page article in the New World Re- The Middle East conflict is not a view one would never suspect such national one, between all Arabs on Israelis existed. one side and all Israelis on the other. Our difference with Mr. Foley does

1 6 J e w is h C u r r e n t s not hinge on whether or not we “dis- “Not everyone who struggles against tinguish” those Arabs who are fight- the [Israel] occupation is right. If the ing imperialism. Our concern is that struggle is not for the liberation of the most of the anti-imperialist Arab occupied territories, but also for the forces have not shed their own chauv- liberation of the Middle East from the inist, anti-Jewish and anti-Israel pre- State of Israel, we resolutely oppose judices nor their determination to such a struggle” (Morgen Freiheit, liquidate the State of Israel. In addi- Aug. 17, 1969). tion, hardly anyone in the interna- We hope Mr. Foley will favorably tional left is urging them to knock it consider Vilner’s opinion rather than off. sing the praises of Al Fatah. Mr. Foley may deny his article is a defense of the Arab nationalist posi- How deeply venomous and racist tion, yet on every conceivable issue this Arab chauvinism has become is that’s where he winds up. He even evident from the behaviour of Arab follows the Arab nationalist practice anti-imperialist delegates at interna- of lauding the guerrilla-terrorist move- tional left-wing conferences where a ments operating against Israel and more responsible attitude might be never indicates their leaders include expected. We once assumed that anti- reactionary extremists and other ad- imperialists and left-wingers are also venturers, a criticism the Jordanian internationalists who would not bar Communists made over a year ago and anyone on the basis of his national which we cited. origin. Yet we have seen on all too What is more alarming is Mr. many occasions how Arab delegates Foley’s absolute failure to mention, let have obstinately insisted on the ex- alone condemn, the basic premise of elusion of all Israelis from such gather- these terror movements, which is their ings. The Arabs frequently make the openly proclaimed goal to liquidate exclusion of the Israelis the condition or “remove Israel as a state.” This for their own presence. In this way irrational demand may even lead to a the Arab nationalists demonstrate be- massacre of the greater part of the fore the international left their fixation Israeli people, who will of course de- that Israel is not a legitimate nation fend their State to the death. This de- and that all its citizens be boycotted mand goes far beyond the settling of everywhere. scores with leaders one disapproves. This extreme nationalist attitude was By his failure or refusal to indicate displayed anew at the Congress of the and condemn this danger, Mr. Foley Italian Communist Party last year, to has defaulted on his own internation- which delegates from various Arab alist duty. movements were invited, along with a Though he is a writer for the Daily delegation from the Vilner-Toubi W orld on Middle East affairs, Mr. wing of the Israel Communist move- Foley has failed to draw any conclu- ment. On this occasion half the Arab sions from the criticism made of these delegates left the Italian Congress in Arab terrorist forces by Meir Vilner, protest at the seating of the Israelis. the Israeli Communist leader of whom Those Arabs who stayed nevertheless Mr. Foley presumably does approve. walked out of the Congress session Though we have basic disagreements when the Israeli delegate rose to speak with Vilner, it is most significant that and thus did not hear him express his even he found it necessary to state: boundless solidarity with them! Is this

J a n u a r y , 1 9 7 0 1 7 proletarian internationalism or its Communist Party headed by Sneh and desecration? Mikunis, part company with Mr. Foley Mr. Foley maintains the Vilner- on the very point he calls ‘4nonsensical” Toubi Communists of Israel won the in his NWR article. They all believe respect and admiration of 44all Arab Israel fought a war of defense in June, progressives.” Their behavior cited 1967 which was imposed on it by the above and elsewhere indicates this is chauvinist minded war hawks on the still a pipedream. Arab side. On this they are quite firm. Of course, most of the Arab libera- Mr. Foley asks which side J e w i s h tion movement is engaged in an anti- C u r r e n t s is on in the Middle East imperialist struggle and deserves conflict. It is on the same side it was support when it is directed at imper- on in 1948 when Israel fought off the ialism and not at Israel’s existence. Arab aggressors and had the complete It is odd for anyone to argue at this support of the Soviet Union and the late date that the hatred of the Arab other Socialist states. Unlike the Al nationalists for Israel as such and for Fatah and the other Arab chauvinist Jews as Jews is not a factor to be movements, J e w i s h C u r r e n t s has al- reckoned with in this situation. Arab ways subscribed to the watchword, anti-Israel chauvinism is the banner “Israel is here to stay.” Its view thus which rallies the most diverse types of conflicts with that of the Palestine ter- Arab nationalists, feudal princes, ex- rorists and the other Arab chauvinists fascists as well as more politically ad- who aim to “remove Israel as a state.” vanced people. The line-up of the Arab We hope the international left will in nations in the June, 1967 War showed time be convinced of the absolute that despite other differences in the irrationality of the Arab chauvinist Arab camp these were subsidiary to the viewpoint and its incompatibility with chauvinism directed at Israel. the right of existence of Israel. As it happens, the position of Mr. Foley lectures us needlessly J e w i s h C u r r e n t s and most Jewish on the evils of King Feisal of Saudi left-wing organizations (but not of Arabia. We remember well how the Mr. Foley apparently), coincides with same King Feisal and King Hussein the Soviet Union’s position of 1947-48, and the Iraqi dictator Aref, the mass which acknowledged the historic ties murderer of the Kurds and Commu- of the Jewish people (not merely the nists, gladly joined with the Socialist Zionists), to Palestine and recognized Nasser to prepare for a war on Israel their “aspiration” for a “state of their in May and June, 1967. The same own” in Palestine. If Mr. Foley wishes Feisal has been sustaining Nasser this original Soviet position to be re- financially ever since and is a big con- vised let him state so frankly and not tributor to the Al Fatah. accuse others of being 44Jewish nation- J e w i s h C u r r e n t s has reported ap- alists” for adhering to it today. provingly for a long time that 44within Readers of this magazine know it Israel powerful forces are emerging does not see a 44bleak, hopeless future” which do not take this chauvinistic for the Mid-East as Mr. Foley charges. approach and are fighting the militar- It supports the United Nation’s Sec- ism and annexationism of their own urity Council Resolution of Nov. 22, ruling class.” Yet these splendid 1967 as the most sound and realistic Israelis, including Prof. Talmon, Amos basis for achieving Arab-Israel peace. Oz, Amos Kenan, as well as the Israeli It h as criticized the Israeli government o ו l o J e w is h C u r r e n t s IDA KAMINSKA AND THE VOICE OF AMERICA HEN LEONARD LYONS in the N. Y. Post late in Oct. reported W that Ida Kaminska had given an interview to the Voice of America, inquiries led her husband, Meir Melman, to issue the follow- ing statement, which was published in the Morning Freiheit Nov. 5: “As far back as two years ago, with the approval of the Polish gov- ernment, Ida Kaminska gave an interview to Voice of America. In that broadcast she described the work of the Yiddish State Theater in Warsaw. In the recent interview with Voice of America, Ida Kaminska spoke exclusively about her theater work and plans in the USA. She described the great difficulties she faces here, including the unsuitability of the auditorium in which her company is performing, and the con- tinual worry about making the company financially secure. To the question, how this compares with the work of the artist in Poland, Ida Kaminska underlined that in Poland the artist is economically and materially secure. He is free to concern himself only with creative and artistic problems. At the same time, Ida Kaminska expressed the hope that the American Jewish community would come to the aid of the new-born theater and create for it a secure base for its continued existence.” When this statement was printed, two of the three Yiddish dailies, the Forward and the Day-Jewish Journal, carried viciously unfair articles by their play reviewers aimed at undermining the new and struggling Kaminska Repertory Theater. Indifferent to the questions that perturbed many progressives about Madame Kaminska’s having ap- peared at all on the Voice of America, these play reviewers berated her for what they called her downgrading of the American scene and the Yiddish theater here, and announced righteously that she therefore no longer had any right to appeal to the American Jewish community for support. Nevertheless, the Kaminska Theater will appear Jan. 18 with the premiere of a comedy with music, Dem Yehupitzers Tochter (Daughter of the Man from Yehupitz). We wish them success. for not supporting this Resolution with Assembly Nov. 6 contradicts the aims more vigor and has denounced the an- and his supposed endorsement of this nexationist aims of Dayan and Beigin. Resolution, which calls for a peaceful, At the same time Mr. Foley ought to political settlement of the Mid-East recognize that the Arab terror move- conflict. ments and such Arab governments as Both Arab and Jewish chauvinists Syria, Iraq, Algeria, Sudan and Libya anticipate the failure of the Security have officially rejected this Resolution, Council Resolution. Both need to be a fact which he 44failed” to mention in opposed and exposed for the danger- his treatise. At present it is hard to say ous adventurers they are. Jewish left- there are any Arab governments that wingers and Jewish Currents will really endorse this Resolution at all. not be found wanting in carrying this Certainly the recent sabre-rattling important fight for peace in the Mid- speech of Nasser before his National East to the Jewish community.

J a n u a r y , 1 9 7 0 1 9 - # T h e —------e «1 « ך ן ן | ך------—•— — JDLLL U U i ...... —

.־־׳ ״ ־־ j i .. D i a r y • (RadkaL QjuviiJv *IJojuih Sp&akL O u t The National Jewish Organizing Project (P.O. Box 19162, Washington, D. C. 20036), initiated last year at a conference called by Jews for Urban Justice, has adopted a challenging 64Statement of Principles” and very responsible and mature 66Guidelines for Action.” Of Judaism, the Statement declares, 66the spirit of its commitment to a life of positive action based on ethical principles can operate as a stimulus for creative participation in today’s socio-political struggles. . . . A comparison of the principles of Jewish social ethics with the practice of American society leads inevitably to the same critical conclusion: the American political and economic systems provide neither justice, nor equality nor a sense of community.” Of Jewish 66collaborators” with this system, the NJOP says: 66We do not see them as our enemies, but we do believe that they must stop col- laborating. Jewish businessmen must not buy grapes from farmers who exploit their hired laborers; Jewish organizations must not lend money to banks that oppress black people; Jewish political leaders must not serve the military industrial complex.” Of alliances they say: 66. . . our real allies are those who stand along with us, all of us strangers in our own land. . . . We must speak to our people about the attempts to pit Jews and other Americans against each other in self-destructive battles.” Unclear is the meaning of 66We are interested neither in the melting pot, nor in a false pluralism . . .” for a true pluralism is not defined. Response, A Contemporary Jewish Review (48 pages, 50 cents per copy from Apt. 3C, 160 W. 106 St., N. Y. 10025) edited by student religious radicals on Eastern campuses (see our comment in our Sept., 1968 issue), continues its serious, searching criticism of the Jewish religious establishment. The latest issue, Fall, 1969, has three articles on 66What’s Wrong with ur Seminaries,” Conservative, Orthodox and Reform, and a perceptive discussion of how Yiddish writers like Lamed Shapiro and H. Leivick wrote about the Holocaust, by David C. Roskies, literary editor of Yugntruf, the Yiddish youth quarterly. Other valuable articles were Richard Navara’s 66Judaism on the Campus—Why It Fails” and Alan Mintz’s 66Jewish Students and the War: A Strategy” in the Fall, 1968 issue and Howard Sticklor’s 66Education and Self-Deception” in the Spring, 1969 number. Since we first called attention to the Jewish Liberation Project (150 5th Ave., Rm. 700, N. Y. 10011) in our April, 1969 issue, the group has begun to issue the Jewish Liberation Journal ($3 for 12 numbers), now a four-page tabloid. The Sept. issue featured an 66Open Letter to

20 J e w is h C u r r e n t s the Black Panther Party,” reacting sharply to Eldridge Cleaver’s anti- Israel statements in Algeria. The Oct. number opens with an article by Dr. Judah J. Shapiro, “The Philistine Philanthropists, The Power and Shame of Jewish Federations,” and also has a critique of Al Fatah. The weakness of the JLP is that has no program of activity for its left-socialist-Zionist following. Another left-Zionist organ is The Flame, published by the Jewish Stu- dent Union of City College (see our April, 1969 issue). The Nov., 1969 number is an eight-page tabloid. Surprising is an article by Zwi Lowenthal virtually endorsing the right-wing Jewish Defense League. The remainder is devoted to Israel. Arthur J. Goldberg’s address on the UN Security Council Resolution of Nov. 22, 1967, made at the March meeting of the American Jewish Committee, is useful. Also interesting is an article, 46Soviet Involvement in the Mid East,” by Prof. Henry Pachter of the City College, which includes such sound advice as: 66The survival of Israel may depend on its ability to redefine its position as a Middle Eastern State. . . . No Israeli foreign minister can plan a viable policy without considering Soviet interests in the Middle East.” • (he QhAanlL Oahkkg (ptwqJuwu November 8 The reputation of Yaffa Yarkoni attracted us to cover this affair spon- sored by the Greater New York Histadrut Council, at the new and elegant Alice Tully Hall. To replace a film on Israel by Alan King, which was unavailable, we were given the Israeli Folk Singer Benny Berman, who turned out to be a good guitarist and an engaging enter- tainer, despite one misdemeanor if not high crime that we’ll advert to in a moment. Then came the accomplished pianist Amiram Rigai, in a program of classical 66pops” that was interesting especially for his selections from Gottschalk. Yaffa Yarkoni, despite all her self-drama- tization and an accompanying three-man combo of bull-fiddle, piano and Middle Eastern drums, proved very disappointing and did not hold us long. Perhaps our annoyance, even disgust, with one of Ber- man’s stand-up comic effects hastened our exit. What Berman did was to pull a wise-crack I had heard from anti-Semites and anti-Israelis but did not expect from him: referring to the June, 1967 war, he gagged: 66we proved we are a peace-loving people. We took a piece of Syria, a piece of Jordan, a piece of Egypt . . .” ! Next day I wrote to Sol Stein, executive director of the Histadrut here: 66May I suggest you apprise Mr. Berman of the fact that such utterances are one of the reasons for the current draining away of pro-Israel public sentiment . . .” The reply came from the Histadrut Director of Public Relations: 66The joke you refer to is actually an old one that has appeared in print and has been passed around for what it is—a play on words. We certainly hope that this will not give en- couragement to our enemies.” Well, apparently the Histadrut mis- judges not only the enemies of Israel but its friends too, who might not think it’s funny to support annexationists in Israel by such half-

J a n u a r y , 1 9 7 0 21 witticisms. Fortunately, we may report there were some boos (not ours) amid the volley of chauvinistic audience applause. Learning that Benny Berman was performing at LI Avram in Green- wich Village, I wrote to him there, making my objection directly. His reply was more responsive but still missed the point. After expressing his gratitude for my observation, he described the deep desire for peace of the Israeli people and added that “everybody knows that all Israel asks is real peace. I feel, however, that I should not, and I will not, use this joke when I work among people that aren’t Jewish and may not understand the real situation.” My suggestion would be that he drop the gag altogether, for even Jews are not helped to “under- stand the real situation” when they hear such sentiments expressed and laughingly applauded . . . JhsL lOomsm T (Jommunlh^ November 11 Was the guest speaker at this Bronx group’s annual luncheon for the benefit of the Reuben Brainin Clinic in Israel, with about 100 attend- ing at the Empire Hotel. With Esther Pliskin as MC, I spoke on cur- rent distortions of the UN Security Council Resolution that are com- ing from both sides, the pro-Arab and pro-Israel, and thus hindering the struggle for peace. A program of songs by the soprano Ingrid Rypinski was impressive.

ע . W jjJmioAiavrL fiction^ II71019 Some 30 of us from our Peace Committee at Jefferson Towers met in our lobby at 7:15 P.M. and walked in candle-lit single file to 96th St. and Broadway, where the 15 of our cooperators who were going to Washington were to join others to embark. Some hundreds turned out. We fanned out, walking south to 90th St. and lined up for a curb- side vigil. At a signal, we crossed over to the parkway in the middle of Broadway and planted our little American flags in the hard soil. We resumed our solemn candle-flickering vigil until the moving sound of taps was heard at about 8:30 P.M. A downpour of rain scattered us homeward, as the busses rolled off for the main Washington action.

foiiilooAlug fo u n d a tio n ^ Chvahddu November 16 Little did I realize in Jan. (see March, 1969 issue) that winning the Zhitlovsky Award carried with it not only Aaron Goodelman’s beauti- ful sculpted plaque but also an addition to my social security by guar- anteeing us both one Sunday dinner as a guest of the Foundation— for life! It was a pleasure to be at a table wih fellow-laureates William Gropper, Paul Novick and Maurice Rauch—and their wives. This year the awards went to Horace M. Kallen, originator of the concept of 64cultural pluralism” way back in 1915, and to the Soviet Yiddish writer, Z. Vendrof, the oldest living Yiddish writer (born, 1879). The latter’s acceptance address had not yet been received, but Dr. Kallen

J e w is h C u r r e n t s was present in all his venerable 87 years and delivered an extern- poraneous hut well-rounded address 011 secular Jewish education (which we shall publish).

• fit fonqMjqMwtv Wl&kk 9 a / i o q L November 21 After the Sabbath Services at this temple in Hamden, Conn., which its courageous rabbi, Robert E. Goldbuig, has turned into a center of up-to-date thinking and social action, I lectured to about 75 members and visiters on 44The Jewish Question and the Left—Old and New,” and produced some heated and vital discussion. • On, (poswiA, oft. (pJwt&At an d, CbdPwhoqiAtdu Was much annoyed by poetry anthologist Selden Rodman’s review of Walter Lowenfels’ collection of 108 American Poems of Protest, The Writing on the Wall (Doubleday, 1969, $4.95) in the N. Y. Times Book Review Nov. 9, 1969. I agree with Rodman that the first poem, mistakenly placed first cr even included, is more cliched rhetoric than poetry. But for Rodman to say that in the corrplete works of Countee Cullen, Claude McKay and Langston Hughes he could not find one poem worthy of his anthology is arrogant and patronizing. In Lowen- fels’ collection, Cullen’s 44Incident” and Hughes’s 44Let America Be America Again” are worthy of any anthology. And for Rodman to call Allen Ginsberg’s 44Pentagon Exorcism” 44first rate” and to ignore Yuri Suhl’s 44The Permanent Delegate” is to exhibit standards of taste and selection that pass my comprehension. To include LeRoi Jones’s 44There Must Be a Lone Ranger!!!” while condescending to Cullen, McKay and Cullen is thoroughly to confound standards. • Saaali&JLSB wIoaa, fonpui, November 29 The Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation of America and the Socialist Scholars Conference pooled resources to stage an all-day panel discus- sion on 44Agencies of Social Change: Towards a Revolutionary Strategy,” with Dr. Ernest Mandel, Belgian Marxist-Trotskyist, Andre Gorz, editor of Les Temps Modernes in Paris, James O’Connor of San Jose State College, Art Fox, rank-and-filer of Local 600, UAW, Paul Sweezy of Monthly Review, Stanley Aionowitz of The Guardian and Steve Zeluck, president, New Rochelle, N. Y. Federation of Teachers. (The absence of black and women speakers was conspicuous and was noted.) There was a healthy emphasis on the working class as a prime agency) of social change but no discussion of the indispensable need for alliances with the black and ethnic groups and with middle class elements. Mandel was prevented from entering the USA by action of the Justice Department despite approval by the State Department. ־The exclusion was condemned by the A. Y. Times, N. Y. Post, News week, Morning Freiheit and the American Committee for Protection of the Foreign Born. His taped speech was read. M. U. S.

J a n u a r y , 1 9 7 0 2 3 TWO POEMS

By LEO LIEBERMAN

DAVID

ER eyes glowed with a half-lit fire H And golden circlets glistened through a haze; About her neck the saffron veil Melted in her skin and David’s gaze Could scarce contain the grace, The noble movement as her body bent Low, the simple smile upon her face. Within those eyes there rose a gleam That had the promise that hers were special charms. Bathsheba turned and David followed, sighing soft, 44Tomorrow’s time enough for writing psalms.”

EVE

4 4]l/fY son, my son.” The words half-said froze And lumpish turned to brine ־■-*■J And trickled down. Her eyes brimmed with tears Not fully formed. And nails tore red lines.

How will he live in alien lands beyond the sun With brutish tribes who know him not, Exiled from home, from fields that felt his step? What fierce gods will watch him now? What be his lot?

His image cradled soft within her breast, And painful thoughts, like arrows, sharply flew. The words reformed and unaware emerged, 44Oh Cain, my son, my son.” Eve wept anew.

Dr. Leo Lieberman, Projessor of English at the Bronx Community College, appearing in our pages for the first time, has several profes- sional publications to his credit.

2 4 J e w is h C u r r e n t s Y A D V A S H E M By ANN BELL KARLIN

AVE you been at Yad Vashem? Belzec H Have you walked through its Drancy doors with beating and anxious Livo w-J ano wska heart into its cool and hallowed Ravensbrueck shrine? and then, there are others, better known, like Come and see, come men everywhere, Dachau come and see the names of the Auschwitz death camps of six million inlaid Treblinka on its floor. Have you been at Yad Vashem? Have you been at Yad Vashem? Come see the Eternal Light burning. If not, then do not talk in vain Does it burn only in memoriam or is of petty emotion and human it fueled also by the fires of hope? frailties for here is the confrontation. Here life and death meet in an agonized If only in memoriam, then lay down embrace. your past, forgotten promises silently, like a wreath, Read the names, names that if you did but if for you the light burns with a not know sound almost pretty, like, new hope too then light a new fire in your heart to carry away wherever you A n n B e l l K a r l in went to Israel in the may go. summer of 1969 for the first time to visit a married son and a daughter. Let it light your way forever and say This is her first published poem. I remember Yad Vashem.

REJECT SUPPORT OF NIXON ON VIETNAM BY TORCZYNER AND GOLD A MEIR ITHOUT naming Jacques Torczyner and Israel Premier Go Ida W Meir, whose statements endorsing Nixon’s Vietnam policy (see our Dec. issue, pages 3 and 33) have aroused widespread protest among American Jews and Zionists, the president of the Synagogue Council of America, coordinating body for Orthodox, Conservative and Reform Judaisism, declared Dec. 7 that it was 64politically and morally represensible” to suggest that U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam would be harmful to Israel. Rabbi Solomon J. Sharfman at the Syna- gogue Council annual dinner condemned 66public statements that Jews who are critical of the Administration’s policy in Vietnam are doing a disservice to Israel.” He argued that 66An insistence that Vietnam and Israel cannot and should not be linked is a posture that best serves the interests of both our nation and of the State of Israel.”

J a n u a r y , 1970 2 5 ׳ p a M r d t A ) Q o h n & h By MAX ROSENFELD THE SERVICE BUREAU FOR JEWISH EDUCATION

By ITCHE GOLDBERG

HE service Bureau for Jewish Edu- to American soil. As time went on T cation is a voluntary committee and the American Jewish community ־of teachers, parents and grandparents, became more diversified, the institu which coordinates the educational tions of education changed, became work of close to 60 secular, i.e. non- more differentiated, reflecting the religious, Jewish afternoon and Sun- ideologies of specific segments of the day schools all over the country, more American Jewish community. than 30 of them in the Greater New However, despite this divergence, York area. The Service Bureau pre- there was an underlying unifying pur- pares the curriculum for these schools, pose to all systems of Jewish educa- trains teachers and publishes text- tion; they all rejected national nega- books in history, literature and the tion and were concerned with con- Yiddish language. tinuity and survival, determined to American Jewish education is as old carry on and transmit to coming gen- as the Jewish settlement in the United erations sets of national and cultural States. No sooner did a group of im- Jewish values. migrants settle in a community than Preservation of a national image they organized a school for their chil- thus became the overall aim of Amer- dren. Early Jewish education was ican Jewish education. primarily, if not exlusively, religious. But American Jewish education is The immigrant transplanted the old a case of unity and diversity. The country heder (or Talmud Torah) diversity of Jewish education manifests with its curriculum and methodology itself in the process of selectivity of national, historical and cultural values Itche Goldberg is the director of the and the interpretation of these values. Service Bureau for Jewish Education Thus, the religious Jew will seek out and editor of the monthly Yiddishe and give precedence to religious con- Kultur. He has compiled an anthology cepts. He sees religion as the unifying of Yiddish drama, Unzer Dramaturgic. force in Jewish life, as the condition He last appeared in our pages in J an. 9 for his people’s continuity. The secular 1967, with an article on Mirele Efros. Jew will strive to highlight and give The present article is the text of a ra- expression to a set of national and dio broadcast on the New York FM cultural values which stress the hu- station WBAI, Oct. 8, 1969. manist, the universal concepts de­

26 J e w is h C u r r e n t s veloped by the Jewish people from the appropriates those values which are days of the Bible to the present. essential for its own self-image and Both, the religious and the secular pattern of the future. Even more: Jew, will generally go back to the within the generations, each group of same source, to the same common the Jewish people interprets and stakes treasure of traditions and heritage. out its own claim for the values it con- They will celebrate most of the same siders essential for the continuity of holidays or read the same chapter of the people. the Prophets, yet each will enunciate As I have indicated, there is a spe- a different set of values, interpreted cial national expression, a mode of and applied differently to present-day Jewishness, a way of being a Jew life. The holiday Hanuka may be seen known as secularism, which lies out- as a divine miracle by some, or as a side the pale of Jewish religion. It link in man’s continuing struggle for offers an alternative link between the freedom, by another group. Yet both individual and his people, a sense of had gone back to the same event and identity and relationship. used essentially the same sources de- Without this secular alternative picting that event. large segments of modern Jews who, for reasons of ideology, philosophy or Secular Jewish education9 as we conscience, cannot accept the tenets see it in the schools I represent, is of Jewish religion as a way of Jewish predicated upon the idea of a plural- life, would have become atrophied istic Jewish community, composed of from the life of their people—past, diverse elements, each seeking its own present and future. Secularism, which national expression. Again, a case of was decisive in molding modern Jew- unity and diversity. For there is no ish history and helped keep us in step one way of being a Jew. Any attempt with the rhythm of the social forces to foist a conformist or uniform pat- of the peoples amongst whom we tern of Jewishness upon any given lived, offers them a way of national group would be inimical to our peo- identification. pie’s continuity and progress. How does one know what to select? This concept applies not only to the By applying the following criterion: present life but also, as indicated be- all values which express the Jewish fore, to our past and to the heritage people’s striving through the genera- handed down from the past. The text- tions for social justice, peace, brother- books in Jewish history published by hood and freedom are acceptable to my committee would therefore be dif- us. ferent from textbooks published by All values which synthesize human- any religious Jewish school, from ism and Jewishness and can be made Orthodox to Reform, selected dif- relevant to new generations are ac- ferently, explained and highlighted dif- ceptable to us. Ours is a fluid concept ferently. of Jewish education. It continuously This selectivity of historic values is renews itself within the context of not an arbitrary process, for the past continuity, seeing contemporary prob- flowing into the present must be lems in historic depth, changing, but sifted and understood, else it may be- retaining roots. We believe that our come a burden. Each generation inter- Jewish traditions flow into man’s prets the common memories of a peo- greater tradition. Our heritage of free- pie differently, claims for itself and dom—-retaining its own national color

J a n u a r y , 1 9 7 0 2 7 and melody—flows into man’s overall Yes, it is a different kind of Jewish heritage of freedom. education. History and tradition be- Through this selectivity of values come a living social and cultural ex- from our heritage the concept “Jew” perience for the child. The values of will have for our children not a reli- freedom and social justice, honored by gious but a humanistic meaning. The the Jewish people through the ages, are child will see his people as a unique brought to the child on his own level. phenomenon among others who are The heroic struggle of his people, from just as unique. He will see his people the Maccabean revolt to the uprising as different from others but equal in the Warsaw Ghetto and Israel’s war with them, just as others are different for freedom and independence, become from his but fully and equally as im- meaningful and relevant to the child. portant. Our purpose is to help the His bonds with his people are strength- child accept others while he expects ened while the striving for equality to be accepted for what he is. and brotherhood of all peoples be- Ours is a positive Jewishness rooted comes a basic element of his outlook in the past and concerned with na- on life. tional survival. We reject national This fusion is the focal point of our facelessness and self-negation as much education, especially at a time when as we eschew chauvinism and a sense so many young Jews are running away of superiority. We see the brotherhood from their Jewishness, ignorant of its of man as a union of equal, creative, long tradition of social consciousness. self-respecting nations and peoples. To these young people the struggle We consider the terms “Jewish” and for civil rights and peace and their “humanist” as complementing each Jewishness seem to be mutually ex- other. To us one is unthinkable with- elusive. Dr. James A. Jones, the Ne- out the other. We can accept only a gro Director of Research of HARYOU- wholesome fusion of the nationally Act, once said, that black civil rights positive and the international. workers would often wonder and ask Although different from most ex- him: “These Jewish kids, they know pressions of Jewish education, even union history, they know Negro his- from many secularists, who fail to tory, but when I ask them about Jew- stress the values of humanism and ish history, I draw a blank. What’s equality, our mode of Jewishness is their game?” not sectarian. It reflects the thinking Dr. Jones described these youngs- of a large segment of the American- ters as suffering from “inner turmoil.” Jewish community and has been filling “Turmoil” indeed, plus alienation and the needs for identity of generations self-effacement. of American-born Jews. They see in it the embodiment of a progressvie na- To help us understand the specific tional expression, their right to be dif- character of our education, its deep ferent, an affirmation of their Jewish- national roots, I should like to quote ness fused with their humanist and from Erich Fromm’s introduction to even internationalist thinking, in a his book Ye Shall Be As Gods: “A world in transition. It predicates its split between opposing trends is going position on cultural democracy, reject- through the whole history of Judaism ing the melting pot theory or the from the destruction of the temple to Anglo-Saxon supremacy concept as the destruction of the traditional Jew- the pattern of American life. ish centers by Hitler. This split is that

2 8 J e w is h C u r r e n t s between nationalism and universalism, conservatism and radicalism, fanatic- KILLING OF BLACK ism and tolerance.” PANTHERS SCORED We align ourselves with the trend HE police killing of two Black of universalism, radicalism and toler- T Panthers Dec. 4 in Chicago in ance as they were expressed in Jewish a pre-dawn raid set off nation-wide history for thousands of years. They protests by black and white who, help us reach our concept of the one- no matter what their views of Black ness of the human race in which each Panther rhetoric and tactics, reject national component must be important, the police invasion of their civil each have its own sense of dignity, liberties and civil rights. Dec. 15 uniqueness and continuity. None can Arthur Goldberg and Roy Wilkins be denied or swallowed up by a announced formation of a commis- stronger neighbor. sion of 16 Negroes and 10 whites to conduct a “searching inquiry” The subjects through which these into police attacks on the Black values are given to the child are: his- Panthers that have led to the death tory—from the very beginning to the of 12 Panthers since Jan., 1968. present; Jewish literature, with The Commission of Inquiry into primary stress on Yiddish literature; the Black Panthers and Law En- the Yiddish language, in which the forcement Officials includes Philip traditions of humanism found their E. Hoffman, president, American best expression within the last cen- Jewish Committee, Rabbi Arthur J. turies; the origin and development of Lelyveld, president, American Jewish holidays; Jewish lore; the life Jewish Congress, Dean Louis of Jews the world over—in Israel and Poliak of Yale Law School and in other lands; the American Jewish Jack Greenberg, director-counsel, community, with special stress on the NAACP Legal Defense and Edu- affinity of the Jewish and the Negro cational Fund. people. There is a secular Jewish school, supervised by the Service Bureau of English-Yiddish. Jewish Education, in many neighbor- I should like to conclude with an hoods in the five boroughs of New analogous story which might dramat- York, in Westchester, in New Jersey ically capsulate the meaning of our and in other states. For more informa- education: tion and for literature, please contact A group of black youngsters painted the Service Bureau for Jewish Educa- a mural in a Newark High School, the iton, Room 1023, 1133 Broadway, topic: The Negro in the United States. ”.They called it “The wall of Respect ־N.Y. 10010, or telephone (212) 243 1304. When asked how he felt while paint- You may also order from us some ing, one black student summed it up: of the books we published: in history “I got a sense of respect while work- — Our People in Olden Days, one vol- ing on it.” ume, for ages 9-11; Our People thru He meant, of course, self-respect, the Middle Ages: two volumes, for and respect for his race. It is a similar ages 11-13; in literature: Yiddish protective wall of respect, personal Stories for Young People, for ages and national, which we are trying to 11-13; and our recently published erect in our schools for a generation Student’s Dictionary— Yiddish-English, of Amer ican-Jewish children.

J a n u a r y , 1 9 7 0 2 9 WISH ■rCOMMUNITY Reform Leader vs Nixon • On Black Liberation: Rabbi Eis- endrath called for a 64Jewish man- Rabbi Maurice N. Eisendrath, pres- ifesto” to provide massive aid for the ident of the Union of American Negroes in the same way as Jewish aid Hebrew Congregations, in his report is provided for Israel. to the organization’s biennial conven- He told the Union’s 50th General tion Oct. 26 in Miami Beach, accused Assembly that he did not recommend the Nixon administration of attempt- 66the payment of reparations to any ing to placate 66public opinion and cool self-appointed fly-by-night association, dissent” by withdrawing troops from but I do condemn the Pontius Pilate- Vietnam in 66agonizingly small install- like washing of our Jewish hands for ments.” He said, 66Let there be no de- every splotch of blood shed by Black lusions. Our youth will not and should Americans since those enchained slaves not be silent so long as the obscenity were brought to our shores. Call it of Vietnam drags on with its unconsci- reparations or simple justice, but some onable toll of weekly deaths.” form of restitution we do owe to those Young people in the United States for whose blood and enslavement in will not be 66hoodwinked by the menial jobs and incarceration in stink- sleight-of-hand timing of off-again-on- ing, fetid, rat-infested slums we are again bombing halts, token withdrawals indebted for our own prosperity and and diminution of draft calls syn- for the rich, ripe fruitage of this af- chronized to college reopenings,” he fluent society.” said, adding that 66they know too well • Albert V or span, director of the the name of this game is death.” Commission on Social Action of Rabbi Eisendrath called on his or- UAHC, in his report accused Ameri- ganization’s 700 affiliated Reform con- can Jewish organizations of failing to gregations 66to demand an immediate respond with effective programs to stand-still cease-fire” in Vietnam. He alleviate 66the pain of the black com- stated that the war would not end until munity.” He said 66American Jews are Americans 66recognize that our com- more disturbed by peace and order mitment in Vietnam is for peace and than by justice denied.” independence, not to a particular clique of corrupt and tyrannical gen- Vets Blast Light Sentence erals.” Rabbi Eisendrath linked the war Bernard B. Direnfeld, National to social problems in the United States Commander of the Jewish War Vet- and called for a 66major reordering erans, Oct. 22 sharply criticized the of national priorities so that the larger light sentence of 12 years imposed by share of our colossal national produc- a West Berlin court for the crime of tion and our staggering burden of tax- mass murder on a former aide to ation will be allocated to life rather Adolph Eichmann, Fritz Woehrn, found than to death.” guilty of 66having abetted in the war­

30 J e w is h C u r r e n t s time murder of Jews in at least five brought suit on the ground that his cases with an indeterminate number religious faith prohibited him from of victims.” Direnfeld added that 66a entering a Christian church. single episode in court with so light On Racism in Classrooms: The con- a sentence so clearly inconsistent with stitutional right of free speech does the severity of the crime raises serious not grant license for racial slurs in concerns about possible lingering Nazi the classroom, AJCongress declared sympathy that damages the good ef- Nov. 12 in testimony supporting a fects of the NPD defeat.” New York Board of Education resolu- Mr. Direnfeld also called for U.S. tion on the rights and responsibilities ratification of the UN Genocide Con- of students. The Congress statement vention this year. declared 64The guarantee of free speech rests on the proposition that a dem- AJCongress Doings ocratic society flourishes and truth Church and State Separation: emerges out of the robust interchange George Soli, chairman of AJCongress’ of competing ideas. In balancing social Commission on Law and Social Action, values, however, this rationale loses praised the opinion issued Nov. 3 by force when applied to racial epithets or Massachusetts State Attorney General expressions of racial, religious or Robert H. Quinn prohibiting 66vol- ethnic bigotry in a school environment. untary” school prayers in that state. 64Such material strikes with par- The opinion held that a 66voluntary” ticular harshness at the developing school prayer program in the village egos of young members of the malig- of Leyden was 66unconstitutional un- ned group. In the school situation, the der the First Amendment . . .” advantages of total license are clearly Mr. Soil noted that voluntary prayer outweighted by the damage done to was 66just as damaging to the principle the process of education and to im- of church-state separation as compul- pressionable young minds.” sory prayer and, for the child, may The Oberammergau Passion Play: be worse. Voluntary prayer leaves the AJCongress called Nov. 11 upon child with the full responsibility for Catholic authorities in Germany to the decision as to whether to violate reverse a decision by officials of the his conscience or expose himself to 1970 Oberammergau Passion Play the penalties of non-conformity. No rej ecting an alternative to the pageant’s child of any faith should be placed in 66notoriously anti-Semitic text.” that position.” Dr. Joachim Prinz, chairman of the Voting in Churches: The AJCongress Congress’ Commission on Interna- believes that voting in churches is un- tional Affairs, sent a cable to Julius constitutional and will seek to end the Cardinal Doepfner, Archbishop of practice across the country. In Oct. Munich, asking the prelate to 66use the N.Y.C. Board of Elections ruled every resource” of his office 66to insure that any person who objected to cast- that the 1970 play will be free of the ing his ballot in a church could vote scandalous anti-Semitism that has dis- by absentee ballot or in an alternate figured these performances in the polling place. The board acted after past.” Dr. Prinz discounted a sub- AJCongress had filed a “friend-of-the- sequent press report that the Mayor of court” brief in the U.S. Circuit Court Oberammergau had stated a revised, of Appeals in support of an Orthodox non-anti-Semitic text was to be used. Jewish engineer, Morris Berman, who S. P.

J a n u a r y , 1 9 7 0 3 1 YEVSEYEV RIDES AGAIN N our Dec., 1967 issue in 64The Editor’s Diary,” attention was called I to the 44primitive, vituperative anti-Zionism” in an article by Y. Yevseyev in the Moscow mass-circulation (15,000,000) youth daily, KomsomolsJmya Pravda Oct. 4, 1967. After scoring some obvious falsifications, Morris U. Schappes concluded, 44. . . as Yevseyev con- tinues his diatribe his anti-Zionism turns into veritable anti-Semitism, in which the Zionists are presented as a world conspiracy that 4serves as a motor force in the world policies of imperialism and its struggle for world domination.’ To Yevseyev all Jewish periodicals in all languages are 4Zionist,’ the historically and practically non-Zionist B’nai B’rith and American Jewish Committee are 4Zionist,’ 70 per cent of U.S. lawyers and 69 per cent of U.S. physicists are 4Zionists’ and Zionists control the U.S. mass media and publishing! This is frenzy —not historical science.” Yevseyev has recently returned to his anti-Semitic brand of 44anti- Zionism.” Again in Komsomolskaya Pravda Oct. 17, 1969, in an article entitled 44The Spider’s Web of the Billionaires,” Yevseyev flaunts his anti-Semitism when he describes the April 4, 1968 conference of Jew- ish business leaders from abroad in Jerusalem as 44. . . the international conference of the Shylocks of the whole world . . .” He even figures out somehow that the total capital of the 44300 millionaires” gathered in Jerusalem 44exceeds the national budget of any capitalist land, in- eluding the United States”—from which we assume that the Soviet Young Communist reading Komsomolskaya Pravda is to infer that the main enemy of world mankind is this Jewish aggregation of 44Shylocks of the whole world” . . . Typically, too, Yevseyev lists as Zionist organs not only the N . Y. Times (owned by notoriously non- Zionist and anti-Zionist Jews) but the left-wing anti-Zionist daily Morning Freiheit! But Yevseyev writes not only for internal mass consumption but for export, in International Affairs, published in Moscow in Russian, English and French editions. In the Oct., 1969 issue, his article, 44Zionist Capital—Israel’s Mainstay,” exudes anti-Semitism from the title on (since when is capital described in ideological or political adjectives?). Among his devices is the naming of some 50 Jewish financiers and inserting among them 44the spy-general James Clay” as if Clay were a Jew and as if the Jewish financiers constitute a world conspiracy of some kind. Yevseyev has a long section on the Rothschilds as if they were the main financial power in the world today (how anti- Semites traditionally use the Rothschilds for their purposes was ex- posed in France in the left-wing Paris monthly Droit et Liberte in an article by Jean Bouvier reprinted in our March, 1962 issue). And Yevseyev ends by listing as 44Zionist” not only the Morning Freiheit but the Toronto Canadian Jewish Outlook, the left-wing monthly pub- lished by the Vochenblatt, a weekly edited by veteran left-wing leaders. Obviously Yevseyev’s anti-Semitic writings contradict classic socialist principles and ideals.

32 J e w is h C u r r e n t s B OOK r e v i e w s ! i&sm m t& iam xtti ••35•

THE FORMER N. Y» TEACHERS UNION

By RACHEL LEVY The New York City Teachers Union 64So we do not ask the question that 1916-1964, by Celia Lewis Zitron. may solve our problemsn as educators: Humanities Press, N.Y., 1969, 288 How do children (rich or poor) learn? pages, indexed, $6.50. What should we teach them? Toward what ends? In what setting? Are N the June 28, 1968 issue of the teachers no more than assemblyline I Center Forum (published by the workers turning out a massproduced Center for Urban Education), a New product, the American Citizen, to York City elementary school teacher, someone else’s specifications, in a fac- Mrs. Gloria Channon, addressed an tory designed and run by accountants agonizing query to her colleagues: to meet a mass market’s needs; so 44The Union was born of teachers’ many soldiers and doctors and lawyers discontent with our profession. And and mechanics and plumbers, so many it was all too easy, given the condi- social workers and social-workers’ tions of our work, to focus on bureauc- clients ? racy, class size, salaries, and benefits, 44The Union must ask whom we as the root of our discontent and the serve and why. Is the community really cause of our failures. the enemy? Is the community really 44But as each new contract brings more concerned with the pursuit of us temporary (and expensive) relief power than it is for the lives of our from these conditions, we discover that children? our problems are no closer to solution. . . . We find it hard to admit that we 44And is the U nion?” have been asking the wrong questions. I do not mean to suggest that fighting Celia Zitron’s book is a history of for teachers as workers is wrong. But the pioneer teachers’ union organiza- we have not at the same time been tion in New York and its struggles to fighting for teachers as educators. For defend teachers’ rights both as workers all our lip service to ideals, we do not and educators. From its inception the really see ourselves as crucial to the founders of the union saw it as 44an fate of our children and our society. important part of a great social move- ment” (p. 15). The growth was slow Rachel Levy has discussed the and painful both because of the wide- N. Y. C. school strikes in our issues of spread idea that belonging to a union Dec., 1968 and May and Oct., 1969. was unprofessional and the attacks on

J a n u a r y , 1 9 7 0 33 the New York Local 5 for its opposi- actions best suited to create a school tion to the militarization of the schools system second to none . . (p. 52). during World War I. It was not until the late 1930’s that The major part of the book de- the teachers began to join the union tails the union’s contributions in four on a mass scale. This took place after areas of educational problems that are an internal struggle that led to the still largely unresolved today: quality formation of the split-off Teachers’ education for all children, failure to Guild and the election of Charles J. educate large numbers of black and Hendley as president of Local 5. 111 Puerto Rican children (a majority of the midst of fighting to protect the the New York City school population teachers and the educational system today), persistent underfinancing of from the effects of the depression the the school system, and academic and union was also involved deeply in the political freedom. While the immediate struggle against fascism and especially concrete issues around which today’s in support of the embattled Loyalist battles for good education are waged government in Spain. may differ from those in which the The anti-communist hysteria and Teachers Union participated, the un- the stresses produced by the Nazi- derlying problems are still the same. Soviet Non-Aggression Pact of 1939 It was in 1937 that Irving Adler led to the expulsion of the union from wrote in The N. Y. Teacher on the its parent body, the American Federa- high school problem: 44The critical tion of Teachers, and its subsequent problem we now face was precipitated affiliation with the CIO State County by the entry of a working class popula- and Municipal Workers. tion into middle class institutions not The 1940-41 period was the low7 designed to meet working class needs. point in union membership. In the . . . In such schools a diluted curri- more favorable climate of anti-fascist culum imparts neither culture nor pre- unity during World War II, the union paration for work” (p. 68). Analyz- built up its ranks to a peak of 7,000. ing the high school problem, the union The onset of the Cold War and the recommended the establishment of McCarthy era hit hard at the schools comprehensive high schools. It was and even harder at the progressive-led not until 1963 that this proposal re- Teachers Union, so that by 1963 it ceived the support of the Public Edu- had only 200 members. cation Association and thereafter be- After the newly formed United Fed- came the official policy of the Board eration of Teachers won the absolute of Education. In 1970 we are still a majority of votes in a collective bar- long way from this goal although the gaining election and signed the first Board has just granted one of the key contract with the Board of Education, demands of the high school student the executive board of the union rec- movement, the abolition of the dis- ommended its dissolution. After a criminatory three-track sy~ em and the long, emotionally charged discussion, dead end general diploma. the Nov., 1963 membership meeting The 36-page section on 44Minorities voted to disband the Teachers Union, in New York City Schools” tells of urging its members to join the UFT the union’s trail blazing efforts to in order to 44. . . loyally and actively secure decern education for Negro participate in the formulation and children beginning with the 1930’s. If support of policies, programs and the union’s approach to this question

3 4 J e w is h C u r r e n t s had been adopted by the Board of achieve a reversal of national priorities Education and the white community, from immoral wars and armaments at the school crisis of 1968-69 and the home to the improvement of education resultant polarization of New York and the solution of social problems. City would not have occurred. Union The recital of the union record in committees worked closely with parent the fights for the teachers’ academic and community groups in Harlem and and political freedom is the longest Bedford-Stuyvesant to obtain new section of the book. The recurring schools, to secure teaching materials methods of witchhunting repression truthfully presenting Negro life, to seem to be the standard means used by increase the employment of Negro the power structure to suppress demo- teachers. cratic opposition in times of crisis. The annual Negro History Week The union had to fight for its life in the supplements to the New York Teachers face of the onslaught of the Lusk Com- Neivs received country and worldwide mittee in the post World War I days, acclaim. The union demonstrated its the Coudert Committee in the early deep understanding of the pluralistic 1940’s, and the Feinberg Law of the nature of U.S. society by supplements McCarthyite Cold War days. Each on Puerto Ricans and on the 44Jewish period of persecution claimed its share Tercentenary” in 1954, 44400 Years of of victims, among whom were Morris Italian-American History” in 1955, U. Schappes and many of the best and 44Pan-American Week” in 1956. teachers of the city school system, As a result of a union initiative, the whose loss is still keenly felt today. Board of Education organized in 1944 The resistance by the union and its a course in intercultural education. members played a major role in the This course was dropped in 1947 as defeat of McCarthyism. While not all a result of pressure from reactionary problems in this field have been solved groups. and the danger of neo-McCarthyism is ever present, we have come a long way The chapters on the union’s strug- from 1916, when Superintendent of gle for adequate financing seem par- Schools William H. Maxwell saw ab- ticularly relevant this year, when the solutely no conditions under which a interim N.Y.C. Board of Education teacher may be justified in complaining took the unprecedented step of refus- of his superior (p. 161). ing to accept the budget cuts mandated by the city and the state. Mrs. Zitron The book is a valuable addition to correctly points out (p. 121) that the history of labor organizations. As 44money does not by itself guarantee a such it should be read especially by good school system.” However, the teachers and parents seeking answers New York City public school system on how to build unity between teachers has never had the kind of financial demanding security and the community support without which no good system frustrated by the unresponsiveness of is possible even under far sighted and the educational bureaucracy. enlightened leadership and even where While the book excels in its factual- problems are far less complex. ness and documentation, it is unfortu- Today, when it takes a difficult nate that the presentation in parts lacks struggle to achieve a standstill budget, color and tends to become dry. This only a militant unity of parents, teach- could have been alleviated by more ers and forward-looking groups can material on the role of such outstand-

J a n u a r y , 1970 85 AGNEW STIRS VP THE LOWER DEPTHS N HIS by now notorious TV address Nov. 13 from Des Moines, Iowa I at the Mid-West Regional Republican Committee, Vice-President Spiro T. Agnew used the classical demagogic technique of appealing to the little man’s justified suspicions about people at the top of one medium in order to divert their attention from the political power elite dominating the country. Whatever is wrong with TV—and there is much that is wrong—is not going to be set right by the Agnews. His attack on TV commentators also appealed to other deep-seated preju- dices of the little man, against, for instance, “an urbane and assured presence,” against “the geographical and intellectual confines of Washington, D. C. and New York City. . . .” As the Manhattan Tribune, a weekly published by William F. Haddad and Roy Innis, wrote edito- rially Nov. 22, “Many see a revival of fascism and others sense an aroma of anti-Semitism in his attacks on the New York media barons.” James Reston, in the N. Y. Times Nov. 28, in a column, “The Voices of the Silent Majority,” noted that Agnew’s “appeal against the 4Eastern’ snobs has . . . revived the always latent anti-New York feelings in the country, and this in turn has produced some ugly anti-Negro and anti- Semitic, and anti-Communist reactions. . . .” Then, as 44typical of the extreme comments from the right,” Reston quoted a letter that came to the Times from 44a reader in Texas” : 44You are the clique that are polarizing the country. . . . Regards to the rest of the Jewish business- לל.men Next day in the Times Anthony Lewis, writing from London on 44Facing the Dark Reality,” returned to Reston’s theme thus: 44Europeans know the danger of trying to govern a country by dividing and fright- ening its people. Those were the tactics of the right in the Dreyfus case . . . those were the tactics of the Nazis. . . .” Nettled, the right-wing intellectual William F. Buckley Jr., in his column in the N. Y. Post Dec. 4, scolded Reston for calling attention to the anti-Semitism in this Agnew-cracked backlash and concluded 44that to ventilate such a thing is, in fact, to induce anti-Semitism”■—so that Jews and their defenders are now to be blamed as the cause of their own persecution! This is only part of the evidence that indicates that right-wing reaction is preparing to step up its use of anti-Semitism as part of its backlash against the peace movement and the black people’s activism. The right-wing tactics of repression have to be oiled by the right-wing propaganda, which includes racism and anti-Semitism. The escalating movement to bring a speedy end to the war in Vietnam, therefore, needs to be alert to the covert and overt anti-Semitism that is being slyly encouraged by such veiled sign language as was used by the Vice-President himself. ing union leaders as Rose Russell, to the issues which caused deep cleav- Abraham Lederman and Charles J. ages within the union ranks would be Hendley. A more analytical approach helpful as a lesson for the future.

3 6 J e w is h C u r r e n t s IN MEMORIAM We mourn the death of our co-worker and friend SAMUEL CHEIFETZ (ל Nov. 21969-ל July 151893) Executive Secretary of the Jewish Cultural Clubs of Chicago, founder, leader and teacher in the Jewish Folk Shule, active fighter for peace and brotherhood.

We shall cherish his memory and will continue to work for the ideals which guided his life—for progress, Jewish culture and progressive traditions, for a better life for all.

City Committee Jewish Cultural Clubs of Chicago ZOLMAN EMYANITOFF, President MAX FRIEND, Secretary

Leo Berman Cultural Club Zolman and Julia Emyanitoff Anne Magedovitz, President Joe and Charlotte Rosen Cardozo Jewish Cultural Club Sol and Sarah Horwitz Harry and Minnie Chelnick Harry Chelnick, President Lazar Karlin Century-Sherman Cultural Club Pauline Joffee Phil Fox, President Lillian Mailer Nuger Cultural and Social Club Harry and Cel Farmilant Victor Rosen, Program Chairman George and Bella Landman I. L. Peretz Cultural Club Leo and Clara Wale Sam Gwint, Chairman Jack and Ruth Altman Rogers Park Cultural Club Sarah Panitsky Lazar Karlin, President Sylvia Schwartz Solow-Blechman Cultural Club Morris and Dena Osran Aron Malinsky, President Anne Magdewitz

Greetings to JEWISH CURRENTS Good luck in your important work of clarification and leadership.

J a n u a r y , 1 9 7 0 3 7 Opinions expressed in letters are not necessarily those of the maga- zine. Letters will not be published unless accompanied by the name and address of the writer. Names will be withheld from publication on request.—Ed.

Kichko in Poland? the character of his informer— to dis- believe the information.” I understand that during the ques- This is not a satisfactory answer. tion-and-answer period of a talk Gus Meantime we have ascertained that Hall gave when he returned from the the Warsaw weekly, Pravo y Zycie Conference of World Communist Par- (Law and Life), organ of the Polish ties—with a stop-over in Poland—the lawyers’ association, in its issue of question came up concerning the al- Dec. 1, 1968, carried a long article on leged Polish translation and publica- page 6 on Kichko’s new book, Judaism tion of the infamous Kichko’s Jews and Zionism, which is also shot through Without Embellishment, as reported in with anti-Semitism, published in the your May issue. Hall replied that he Ukraine last year in 60,000 copies. The had spoken about it with a Polish Warsaw lawyers’ periodical highly rec- official, who told him that whatever is ommends Kichko’s work.—Ed.\ published in Poland crosses his desk, and that he had never seen such a On Polish Jews book. What is the source of your informa- Your article on Poland (Oct. issue) tion? was tremendous! B. D. Certainly it gave us an understand- New York, July 28 ing of the tragic situation there that [The report appeared in the London we haven’t read anywhere else! Jewish Chronicle, March 21, 1969. Thanks! When we received the inquiry from I enclose a three-year renewal. B. D. we wrote to the Jewish Chronicle Barbara N estor Aug. 1, asking for the source of its Los Angeles, Oct. 22 information. After delays caused by vacation schedules, we received a reply ZOA and New Left dated Oct. 23 from the Foreign Editor of the Jewish Chronicle 44Our East Enclosed is a contribution. I recently European Affairs expert tells me that renewed for three years. Have you his information came from a most noted the pamphlet being distributed trustworthy Polish-Jewish refugee and by the Zionist Organization Of Amer- that, given the atmosphere in Poland at ica called 44Zionism and the New Left” ? the time, he had no reason—knowing They are distributing it on the cam­

3 8 J e w is h C u r r e n t s puses of the nation. I find it somewhat, pardon the expression, counterpro- GREETINGS FROM ductive. I applaud your independent stand in TALNER CHMELNICKER the cases of anti-Semitic and/or un- CULTURE and AID SOCIETY justly anti-Israeli positions by the socialist countries. New York I r w i n H. R o s e n t h a l Ellenville, N. Y., Nov. 6 [Mr. Rosenthal is quite right in con- GREETINGS FROM eluding that the ZOA pamphlet, 44Israel, Zamoscher I. L. Peretz Society Zionism and the New Left,” would be M. SELN IC K , Pres. 44counterproductive” among students, D. G A N S, Sec. especially if they are involved in the movements for peace or for black New York equality. The author, Rabbi Dr. Rich- ard L. Rubenstein, formerly Hillel GREETINGS director at the University of Pitts- I. G U K O W S K Y I. YED burgh, has delivered himself of a I. ROSENBLATT diatribe against anti-Semitic trends in L. STO LLER M A N socialist thinkers from Charles Fourier I. WALLMAN J. KASTELMAN (1772-1837) to the young French New York radical Bendit-Cohn. Rubenstein lumps Old Left and New Left and is blind or indifferent to significant differences within both the Old Left and New Left. Thus, speaking of the June, 1967 War, he remarks, 44One of the surpris- ing developments was that both IN MEMORY OF Freiheit and Jewish Currents refused to be swept along by the anti-Israel Our Beloved Parents spirit.” He could have been surprised only because he was ignorant of the fact that since 1948 both periodicals MARY and the entire Jewish left had con- tinually and consistently raised the and slogan, 44Israel is here to stay!” A vastly more intelligent and con- structive paper on the same subject ABRAHAM was delivered by the Socialist-Zionist leader Avraham Schenker to the Gov- erning Council of the World Jewish P h ilip 5 Jack, Moe Council and published in Israel Hori- and Henry Foner zons in March, 1969. Although Schen- ker too ignores the organized Jewish New York left in this country and abroad, he at least recognizes that 44lines of commu- Have you renewed your sub?

J a n u a r y , 1 9 7 0 3 9 I n M e m o r y

of

ARTHUR OSMAN ) 969 -7ו 0 9 ו ( ו 9 0 -7ו 969 )

ORGANIZER OF “65” FIGHTER AGAINST FASCISM - RACISM - ANTI-SEMITISM

for PEACE - CIVIL RIGHTS UNITY OF ALL LABOR

M yron Neisloss

40 J e w is h C u r r e n t s nication” are needed to the New Left to challenge the confusions on the GREETINGS

Middle East prevalent in its ranks. for a W orld at Peace Schenker declares that the New Left is a result of the failure of liberalism TEDDI and HARRY SCHW ARTZ and the weakness of the Old Left in New York facing certain major issues. He knows that “It is erroneous to categorize the entire New Left as an anti-Israel ele- ment or as open to anti-Semitic think- GREETINGS FROM ing•” After criticizing weaknesses in the Jewish community that alienate the Arbe Originals, Inc. young Jews, he avers: 44What is clear is that an affirmative involvement with Israel and Judaism does not preclude 498 Seventh Avenue identification with the attitudes, actions and thinking of the New Left. Nor does N. Y. 10018 the reverse, a deep involvement with New Left actions, as indicated in the previously-mentioned comment about draft resistance in American univer- Greetings to our members sities, preclude an affirmative attitude to Israel and Jewish concerns. . . . I and to the Jewish People am convinced that the New Left, with for a World at Peace. all its confusions and negations, is the forerunner of profound changes in Brownsville and East New York our society. Either we shall learn how to communicate with the New Left and Benevolent Society seek to find channels to their Jewish elements or we shall lose an important I. TEMPLEHOFF, Sec. part of the prospective sources of lead- ership in Jewish life.” Brooklyn Schenker’s words apply not only to Socialist-Zionists but also to progres- sive and radical non-Zionists, who dis- agree with the basic principles of Notice to Former Member m Zionism and rally to the defense of of the Cemetery Department Israel’s right to exist.—Ed.] In case of death in the family, please bring with you the deed of the grave plot pur- Differs and Renews chased from the Cemetery Department. For information regarding burial in N.Y.C. Forgive delay in forwarding pay- CALL COLLECT 212-342-1273. ment for the magazine. Enclosed is check for $10 for a three-year renewal. I. J. Morris, Inc. Though I may differ with several of 9701 CHURCH AVE., BROOKLYN your editorials during the past two Tel.: DI 2-1273 years, still the magazine is a must. And In Hempstead L. I., Tel. is IV 6-2500 today, with the turmoil nationally as Services arranged at all N.Y.C. chapels.

J a n u a r y , 1 970 4 1 well as on the world scale, who does agree on all issues? In Loving Memory of Bea Stadler North Hollywood, Cal., Nov. 7

SOL STAR Thank You Three

Bessie The enclosed $50 was received as a fee by Elsie Levitan, Max Rosenfeld and Sherman Labovitz for their pres- Brooklyn entation of a program on Isaac Babel at a meeting of the Sholem Aleichem Club, Philadelphia. They asked that the money be sent to Jewish Cur- GREETINGS TO r e n t s as a donation. M a r t i n G. K a t z JEWISH CURRENTS Philadelphia, Nov. 8 Fiqhter for Peace Criticism and Social Justice Your leading article in the Nov., 1969 issue, “For the Security of the State of Israel!” was a weaseling Linden Club Emma Lazarus (sorry to say) statement of Israel’s BROOKLYN security, coming as it unfortunately did, at the time of Nasser’s 64river of blood” speech. You can’t continue to straddle. Take a position! You’re for Israel and Jews, JEWISH CURRENTS or you’re for the Soviets and their new EXCLUSIVE SPECIAL FEATURES, ARTICLES FROM ABROAD, friends. Straddling makes you sound NEWS OF AMERICAN. false to the 44good guys,” while the ISRAEL, WORLD JEWRY 44bad guys” won’t have you, because 1 Year • $4.00 you’re not all bad or bad enough. 2 Years • $7.00 Another word: the last line of Daniel 3 Years • $10.00 For students, I year • $3.00 N. Stone’s very touching poem should ... O, Jerusalem, may־Outside USA, add $1 per year be completed—44 my right hand lose its cunning. . . .” JEWISH CURRENTS 22 E. 17 St., Suite 601 Murray Smolar New York, N. Y. 10003 Tomkins Cove, N. Y., Nov. 10 -Re-reading the Statement of the Pro] ״Enclosed find $______in check, money order or cash. Send 1-2-3 Year Sub to: gressive Jewish leadership, adopted Sept. 29, 1969, we find a clear position: N am e______full support for the full text of the UN School, if Student ...... Security Council Resolution of Nov. 22, 1967 as the main key and guideline Address______to peace in the Middle East. The State- ment clearly opposes all those who dis- City______Zone______State___ tort the Resolution in one direction or

42 J e w is h C u r r e n t s another: both those who call for with- drawal without recognition and with- out secure and recognized borders for MAY THERE BE PEACE Israel, and those annexationists who THE ENDLERS call for recognition without withdrawal to mutually agreed upon and negoti- Flushing, N. Y. ated borders. In Mr. Smolar’s idiom, the “good guys” are those who fully support the UN Resolution and the GREETINGS “bad guys” are those who oppose it outright, or distort it, or ignore it— to all our •friends and thus help neither Israel nor the and Peace on Earth. cause of peace in the Middle East MOLLIE and LEWIS FOX — Ed.] Peekskill, N. Y. Students’ Open Letter

To: William Kunstler, Lee Weiner, Jerry Rubin, Bobby Seale, Tom Hay- SHALOM! den, John Froines, David Dellinger, Rennie Davis, Abbie Hoffman: PEACE! We, the Jewish Student Movement, deplore the manner in which the Chicago “Conspiracy” Trial is being SAM UROW conducted; it is our contention that the conduct of this trial is not consistent New York with the constitutionally guaranteed rights of each defendant to equality before the law. Furthermore, we strongly protest the infringement of the defendants’ right to freedom of speech which is inherent in the law. We regard these infringe- ments as prejudicial to their constitu- tionally guaranteed rights. GREETINGS This statement does not imply that we support in any way, however, either the ideology, tactics, or cause of the from defendants. Jewish Student Movement HAROLD Northwestern University Jack Porter, representative Evanston, III., Nov. 12 LEYENTHAL

Read More Carefully New York

When I read the cancellation letter of Sol Londe, M.D. (Nov., 1969 issue), I thought he may be a little hasty. But then I read your column, “It Happened

J a n u a r y , 1970 4 3 in Israel,” where you say: “Yiddish is daily, Letze Naies (Latest News) and very much alive in Israel today. The several Yiddish weeklies . . . radio Union of Yiddish Authors has a mem- programs in Yiddish . . . six Yiddish bership of about 130; more Yiddish plays were running at one time in books are now published in Israel than Israel,” signed L. H. in the U.S.; there is a popular Yiddish Where did he get that information? Unless he sucked it out of his finger (which one) . . . Not one item above Greetings from that is true. Just a few days ago I WEST FARMS read in the Morning Freiheit from the BENEVOLENT SOCIETY editor of the Yiddish Letzte Naies that he cries that the Yiddish language and Bronx press is in “groise tzures” [great trouble] and he has to struggle to print the paper once or twice a week. (I’m

Greetings and Best Wishes to sorry I lost that Morning Freiheit of that day.) Now it is more clear to me JEWISH CURRENTS why Dr. Sol Londe cancelled your mag- Peretz Orodzisker Society azine. Yes, our progressive Jews were bitten by the national chauvinistic bug Bronx and we lost our stable mind of pro- gressiveness. Miami Beach, Nov. 12 M. G. [We too read the Morning Freiheit but we read it more intensively than Mr. PEACE IN VIETNAM M. G. The item in our Nov. column AND IN THE MIDDLE EAST! by Louis Harap is based on the story in the Morning Freiheit English Sec- POWER TO THE PEOPLE! tion of Sept. 7, 1969. The facts given by Dr. Harap are accurate. We may add here the figures cited in the same A. B. M. Nov. issue (p. 20), that more books were published in Israel this past year New York than in any other country in the world, and that was true the year before too, the figures being 65 in 1968/69 and 67 in 1967/68. The facts given by Dr. Harap do not, of course, mean that Yiddish is not under pressure by dog- matic Hebraists in Israel, but it is, as A FRIEND OF Dr. Harap reported, “very much alive.” We should think M. G. would rejoice JEWISH CURRENTS in that fact. (See also Max Rosenfeld, Greetings “Yiddish in Israel,” in our Jan., 1968 issue.) But Mr. M. G.’s letter raises another Brooklyn issue: the crude and vulgar manner in which he assails Dr. Harap, one of the outstanding progressive English-Jew-

4 4 J e w is h C u r r e n t s ish writers in our country. M. G., if he had information that rebutted or sup- plemented Dr. Harap’s report, could GREETINGS TO have written his “correction” in a friendly and fraternal fashion. But no, JEWISH CURRENTS M. G. has another style, one of con- tempt and insult: “unless he [Dr. from Harap] sucked it out of his finger. . . .” Our writers do not suck facts out of I. L. PERETZ Cultural Club their fingers, as our readers well know —unless their minds are being warped by hostility and distortions that have nothing to do with facts. In Astoria, L. I. short, we think Mr. M. G. owes an apology to Dr. Harap, to the magazine and its readers. We are ready to pub- lish such an apology.—Ed.] Greetings to the Editorial Board Thanks from Laurelton and the Jewish People. Thank you very much for your Our wishes are for Peace donation of 150 back issues, reprints in Israel and all over the World. and posters for our Jewish Book Month affair. We truly appreciate your kind- Nachman Meisel Reading Circle ness and we are most grateful to you. Mrs. Aaron M ayerhoff Nina Goldstein Wyrob, Pres. Fund-raising Chairman Betty Dabner, Sec. Young Israel of Laurelton Laurelton, N. Y ., Nov. 13 Miami Beach [We also granted similar requests for materials to be distributed at Jewish Book Month affairs received from Young Israel of Fifth Ave. (at 16th A PICTORIAL HISTORY OF St.), the River dale Temple in the Bronx, the Central Nassau THE JEW S IN AMERICA Y. M. & Y. W. H. A. of Franklin b y Morris U. S c h a p p e s Square, N. Y. and the Jewish Students’ Organization of Pace College. In the revised and enlarged edition, foreword last named, on Nov. 24, our Sam by the Rev. Dr. David De Sola Pool. Pevzner had a debate with Meir Postpaid in U.S.A. — $7.50 Kahane, head of the Jewish Defense W ith a one-year sub ($4) League.—Ed.] to JE W IS H C U RREN TS — $10.00 • • • A Hebrew Teacher’s Call ALSO AVAILABLE: REPRINT OF NEW CHAPTER, FULLY ILLUSTRATED, 24 Some of us are becoming progres- PAGES, LARGE SIZE, PAPERBACK, $1 sively more frustrated and impatient Send check, cash or money order to: with our so-called Jewish “leaders” JEW ISH CURRENTS, Dept. P, 22 E. 17 St., Room 601, New York, N. Y. 10003 who have made Jewish education the

J a n u a r y , 1970 45 WANTED Greetings to the Jewish People Jewish Currents needs the follow- ing back issues. If you have any, and Best Wishes to all. we shall be grateful to you for MANIA HORWITZ sending them to us: Dec., 1953 Miami Beach Feb., June, Oct., 1954 Mar., Apr., May, June, July, 1959 In memory of my unforgettable husband Feb., Sept., Oct., 1960 ERWIN STANDER Feb., Sept., 1962 a life-long fighter for a world Jan., Mar., May, July-Aug., 1963 of Justice and genuine Peace. July-Aug., 1964, Feb., 1965 Laike Stander and Family June, 1967 Miami Beach

FOR BEQUESTS TO W e greet our Members and dear friends PEARL GREENBLATT & LOUIS GASSMAN JEWISH CURRENTS and wish them many happy healthy years in your will: The following form together in their new life. is suggested for those who wish to The Erwin Stander Reading Circle include a bequest to the magazine Miami Beach in their wills: I give and bequeath to Jewish Currents, Inc., a stock corporation of the State of New York, or its Greetings to the Jewish People successors, the sum of $______and Best Wishes for a Peaceful World. for its general purposes. ROSE and ABE LEEDS Our attorney will be glad to con- Miami Beach suit with anyone wanting to make such a bequest. Greetings to the Jewish People For Peace all over the world. ESTHER BUCHMAN Miami Beach

GREETINGS Greetings to the Editorial Board and the Jewish People Progress ־ For Peace - Unity from MIAMI JEWISH CURRENTS COMMITTEE A A R O N BERG, Pres. THE TCHETS WILLIAM TATELBAUM, Sec. GUSSIE LYNN-LEIBOWITZ HELEN BERG MANIA POLL Bayside, N. Y. ANNA TATELBAUM MARIAN LERNER SOPHIA DAVIS BELLA LEVIN

4 6 J e w is h C u r r e n t s step-child of the Jewish community. We will not rest until the needs of the Greetings Jewish community, especially in the area of education, becomes the number WALTER • MURRAY one priority for our National Jewish JULIUS • PAUL Organizations and Welfare Funds. New York Spearheading this Movement is the Jewish Liberation Project located at 150 5th Ave., N. Y. 10011. Many re- ligious students as well as Hebrew teachers and rabbis are actively sup- Greetings porting the demands of the Jewish Liberation Project: 1. Direct subsidies to Jewish schools — so that no child is turned away for MAX and JEANETTE lack of funds. LASSEN 2. Scholarships to youth and adults who want to follow courses in Jewish studies. 3. The establishment of a central free New York circulating Jewish Public Library in the city of New York. 1. A T.V. and radio program which will serve the cultural, educational and spiritual needs of the Jewish commu- nity—especially its youth. To Murray and Leah and the 5. The establishment of a Jewish Art Furgatch Family Theatre. I sincerely hope that your journal We mourn with you will want to inform your readers about the premature death an important movement which is de- of your beloved veloping in the New York Jewish com- munity. LILLY FURGATCH Yaakov Gladstone Hebrew Teacher, Jewish Center, Know no grief any more! of Jackson Heights, N. Y. Anna and Nisson Oct. 17 Rose and Irving [We support all the five points given Anna and Paul as the program of the Jewish Libera- Frieda and Philip tion Project. We trust the group will Etta and Eva urge that Jewish communal funds also Marion and Dovie be given to the progressive Jewish sec- Bella and Jean ular schools, and that the JLP will Shirley and Rachelle support the Ida Kaminska Yiddish Jeanette and Max Repertory Theater by bringing youth audiences to it. New York It should also be noted that Nov. 16, at the meeting in Boston of the an-

J anuary, 1970 47 nual General Assembly of the Council GREETINGS TO of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds this matter of funding Jewish Israel and the Jewish People education was vigorously presented by H A V E and BEN BENEWITZ a couple of hundred college students from the New York and Boston areas Miami Beach and met with a favorable response— Ed.] Israel’s Position WE GREET THE This modest contribution (of $25) to your monthly as an expression of EDITORIAL BOARD high esteem your magazine is held.

and extend Best Wishes for Greetings from a friend,

Peace and Brotherhood to all for a World of Peace. peoples in the world. SOL ANISFELD Miami Beach HOLTMAN-EDELSHTADT READING CIRCLE GREETINGS TO THE Miami Beach EDITORIAL BOARD

and the Jewish People for Peace GREETINGS to the Jewish People and Progress For Peace in Isreal and all over the world. Haver Paver Reading Circle Israel Linkin Reading Circle MR. and MRS. A. PESCOW A N N A and LO U IS STO N E MR. and MRS. SILVER H ILD A and M O R R IS S O C O L O W MR. and MRS. MALTZER C LA R A and H A R R Y G LA Z ER MR. and MRS. BEN BEN EW IT Z A N N IE RYYS MR. and MRS. SA PO LSKY El DA KATZ MR. SABAT AIDA BONCHUCK MR. and MRS. BARENSTEIN ESTHER LINKIN MR. CROTMAN FANNY KESSLER SADIE CLAITE PAULINE GILMAN BESSIE and ABE BARSKY LEN A G O LU B C LA R IC E and M O ISH E PIN C H EFSK Y M A X JA R C O SARAH WEINfTRAUB M R. and MRS. KATZM AN

Miami Beach Miami Beach

4 8 J e w is h C u r r e n t s Your evaluation of Israel’s position in SUB DRIVE HONOR ROLL the Middle Eastern muddle is valuable Mrs. Luba Perlin, Los Angeles 12 and very educational. There are Chaim Singer, New York 11 abroad so many conflicting versions I. E. Ronch, Los Angeles 11 Julius Cohen, New York 11 among leftist groups. Samuel Kaufman, New York 9 Lakeland Friendship Circle Lester Mazzocchi, Brooklyn 7 Per A. Cohen Myron Neisloss, Long Island 6 PeekskiU, N. Y., Oct. 25 Ben Slater, Long Island 6 Saul Miller, Miami Beach 6 Dr. Abraham Glenn, Brooklyn 5 Thomas Seligman, New York 5 Ben Drucker, Brooklyn 4 SINGERS: ATTENTION Hadassah Grossfield, Brooklyn 4 Ernie Rymer, Long Island 4 HE Jewish People’s Philhar- Dr. Nathan Hurvitz, Los Angeles 4 monic Chorus and its conduc- Minna Agins, Hollywood 4 ׳T Joe Rapoport, Cotati, Calif. 4 tor, Maurice Rauch, invite you to Rose Hyman, Hillside, N.J. 3 join the chorus now so that you participate in its concert at Philhar- WE REPORT 1-Dec. 17 monic Hall Feb. 7, 1970. A unique Fund Drive New Subs 260׳ and exciting program is being pre- Greater New York $19,748.24 Los Angeles, Calif., 4,528.75 164 pared and should be a rewarding Miami, Fla. 3,615.16 29 experience for lovers of Jewish Petaluma & music and culture. It is not neces- Upper Calif. 1,148.00 22 sary to posses an unusual voice or Chicago & 111. 673.75 17 Phila. & Penna. 360.00 7 knowledge of music or of Yiddish Upstate New York 240.00 13 in order to join and enjoy the ac- Connecticut 232.00 13 iivities of the chorus. For informa- New Jersey 221.95 5 tion about rehearsals, call or write Wash. D.C.-Md. 152.25 6 Canada 136.44 7 the Jewish Music Alliance, 1 Union Puerto Rico 116.00 3 Sq. W., N. Y. 10003, WA 4-8311. Michigan 97.00 2 Cleveland & Ohio 59.00 5 The work of the Jewish Music Massachusetts 51.00 13 Alliance throughout the country Arizona 41.00 8 was discussed by Joe Walkowitz of Wisconsin 60.00 the Peterson Chorus on WBAI-FM Indiana 26.00 2 Rhode Island 13.00 2 Nov. 12. Copies of his talk are ob- Missouri 11.00 tainable from the JMA. Minnesota 15.00 1 Virginia 7.00 1 Colorado 7.00 1 Arkansas 1 Start the New Year Right: Nebraska 1.00 Give a sub; get a sub! Argentina 1 $31,553.54 584

G R EET IN G S in the spirit of the pro- O U R G O A L S ־ ־ - ־ gressive tradition of the Jewish Fund Drive $30,000 ־ - people in the struggle for Peace, Received to date $31,553 Brotherhood and Equal Rights. New Subs 1,000 ־ Erwin Stander Reading Circle New Subs to date 584 Miami Beach Send your contributions to the Fund.

J a n u a r y , 1970 4 9 G R E ET IN G S to the Jewish People At this time, when light and clarity are so urgent, we greet our children, grand- for their struggle for children, great-grand-children and family Peace and Justice. and friends all over, for health and PEACE. AARON and HELEN BERG GUSSIE and SAM LEIBOWITZ Miami Beach Miami Beach

GREETINGS GREETINGS in a peaceful world to my children and to the Jewish people grandchildren,, in memory of For a Peaceful World. my dear husband. ANNA and WILLIAM TATELBAUM MARIAN LERNER Miami Beach Miami Beach

CORRECTION GREETINGS FROM Dec., 1969 issue, p. 18, col. 2: Transfer the last two lines of the first paragraph to become the end Peretz-Malikoff Reading Circle of the second paragraph. Transfer the last three lines of the present A L BELL second paragraph to become the JULIUS BARENBAUM end of the first paragraph. The last three lines in the column should SH. C H A ET be moved up and inserted before TILLIE FURESH the last two lines of the final para- graph. ESTHER GABOW

ANNA GOLDBERG CH. BER GURWITCH GREETINGS MORRIS LINDER to the Jewish People ESTHER WORTHEIM for Unity, Peace and Progress

Miami Beach Moishe Katz Reading Circle

FANNIE BLUM M O RRIS and D O RA D O LO W IT Z We mourn the ROSE and BEN PO D O LSKY premature death of MR. and MRS. SA M G O LD BER G NATHAN EDELSON MR. and MRS. KLEIN FR A N C IS and PH ILIP BECKER and condole with SAM and ROSE H ARPER his bereaved ANNA MR. and MRS. JA F F E E

Etta, Marion, Eva, Anna, Bella Miami Beach

50 J e w is h C u r r e n t s To all my friends and family GREETINGS AND BEST WISHES to all our friends for a our sincerest wishes for a healthy and happy New Year joyful, peaceful year. HARRY and LILLIAN SWERDLOFF LOUIS and MANYA POLL Elsinore, Calif.

Miami Beach

G REETIN G S to Greetings JEWISH CURRENTS, RO SE BLUM to the Jewish People BEATRICE RICH all over the world HANNAH and ALTER for Peace and Unity FRIEDA and IS A A C W IN E R M A N DAVID BERGELSON-LYNN RIVKE and FRA N K C O FFEE READING CIRCLE JA C O B and RO SE LEN IK STELLA PASINOFF MARTIN and C ELIA D U C H A N EIDA and M IS H A BO G A A R D JA C K and S O N IA N EW M A N ETHEL and H A R R Y O SSEP LILLIAN WEISSBERG A N N and M O R R IS K O M IN SK Y GERTRUDE CANTOR ALICE TACKER TANIA NITZBERG EVA and G E O R G E LEH M A N BELLA LOTKER-LEVIN TILLIE TANKIN M ARY ENTE BERTHA and SA M SID EM A N REBECCA SHOPNICK ROSE ROSHELL ROSE LIPSHITZ ROSE COOPER M IA M I BEA C H EVA and ABE EA G LE ESTHER and A A R O N W IN D S O R YETTA RUBINSTEIN GREETINGS JE N N IE and M O R R IS KATZ fo the Jewish People for Peace R E G IN A and FRED M O RD EN RO SE and JA C O B LILEN T H A L BELLA ZEITZ ESTHER and SHEI FEIN OLGA ZELNICK ISA GOLDBERG JENNIE HALPERN ANNA and SAM RATI NOFF M A M IE AXEL G O LD IE and M A X LEVY GERTE DERSCHOWITZ G ER TRU D E and BEN EDLIN ROSE A LIC E and JA C K T H O M A S ANNA KESLER M R. and M RS. EH R EN BER G LENA CAPALOFF IDA and LOUIS HAYMAN ANNA SAMLER BELLA COLTON PEARL AXLER A N N A and JA C O B SILVER MANYA GOLDEN MRS. H. WEINTRAUB GERTRUDE SCHPRUGMAN Collected by H ELEN W O L F S O N DORA REIDER A N N A W O H L Elsinore, Calif. MIAMI BEACH JOSEPH ROTH, Los Angeles

J a n u a r y , 1970 51 Our best wishes for a speedy GREETINGS AND BEST WISHES recovery• to our beloved Chairman, to all our friends and the THELMA BRENNER W e look forward to your return. EDITORIAL BOARD L.A, Jewish Currents Committee Hollywood YKUF Club

In Fond Memory of a Dear Friend

GREETINGS MORRIS BROWDA

GEORGE and SYLVIA KATZ Los Angeles Petaluma, Calif.

Peace! Greetings to the Editorial Board of

Warmest Greetings JEWISH CURRENTS David and Bella Dvorin to the Los Angeles Los Angeles

Jewish Currents Committee In memory of my BELOVED RIVKE on her I Oth yorzeit CHICAGO CULTURE died, Dec. 18 and WELFARE CLUB AARON KERTMAN Los Angeles

Los Angeles Greetings to JEWISH CURRENTS and its Editor MORRIS U. SCHAPPES The Elsinore Jewish Women’s JOSEPH and IDA SHACHNOW Los Angeles Reading Club held a successful party In Loving Memory sponsored by of my husband SAM ABRAMSON Bessie Abramson YETTA RUBINSTEIN Los Angeles and ZENA GOLDSMITH In Memory Of Tillie and Sam Malakoff who dedicated their lives so we greet sJEWISH CURRENTS to Peace and Social Justice The Family Bertha Sideman, Pres. Miami Beach Washington, D.C.

52 J e w is h C u r r e n t s NEW ISRAELI CABINET Reserve the Date Premier Golda Meir Dec. 15 pre- sented a new cabinet of 24 ministers SUNDAY, MAY 17, 1970 (two more than previously) in 1:00 P.M. which the expansionists of the right- for our Annual Dinner wing Gahal Party have six instead of two portfolios. Her own Labor at the Party has 12 posts, the National HOTEL COMMODORE Religious Party three, the left-wing New York Mapam two, the Liberals (right- wing) one. The Ministry of Trans- Them e: portation has gone to Major Gen. Jewish and Black Workers Ezer Weizman, Israel’s second- ranking officer, and a notorious Speakers to be announced: “hawk” (Gahal). The coalition com- Prominent Jewish trade-unionist mands 102 votes of the 120 in the Prominent Black trade-unionist Knesset. The government was ap- proved by a vote of 90 to 10 with 4 abstentions and 16 not voting. Best Wishes for the New Year to Shimon Peres, former deputy Min- Jane and George Brooks, L.A. ister of Defense and a close ally Shirley and Dave Brooks, L.A. of Defense Minister Moshe Dayan, Shirley and Abe Brooks, got a Portfolio controlling eco- Eugene, Ore. nomic development in occupied Esther and Henry Lesser, L.A. territories. JEANETTE D. RUBIN, L.A.

YOU DON’T HAVE TO KNOW YIDDISH TO READ THE “MORNING FREIHEIT” The MORNING FREIHEIT is the oldest daily progressive paper in ־the United States. For almost half a century it has presented the pro gressive viewpoint in the Jewish community. It is an independent newspaper which fights racism, encourages the growing peace senti- ־ment in the Jewish community, and fights for Israel’s rights and exist ence at the same time as it opposes Jewish chauvinism and Israeli expansionists. The MORNING FREIHEIT contains a weekly two-page English section for the non-Yiddish reader. All progressive-thinking people, particularly those who work in the Jewish community or are concerned with Jewish problems and cultural life, will find these pages vitally important and interesting. A subscription to the weekend edition of the MORNING FREIHEIT costs $8 a year. The two-page English supplement only may be obtained at $3 a year. For information or sample copies write to: MORNING FREIHEIT English Section, Box J 35 E. 12 St., New York, N. Y. 10003

J a n u a r y , 1 970 53 A T HOM E mental breakdown and “psychiatric” dis- charge. Nov. 20 the Jewish War Veterans Anti-Semitica: • . . 24 Republican and asked for an investigation by the Marine four Democratic Congressmen and Senators Corps Commandant. . . . Nov. 3 the walls in 1968 received $38,500 in campaign con- of Congregation B’nai Jacob of Llatbush, tributions from the “neo-Lascist” Liberty New York, were painted with a swastika Lobby, headed by Willis A. Carto, an anti- and the slogan “Kill the Jews.” Semitic, anti-Negro Hitler-admirer, accord- ing to an article by Joseph Trento and Establishment of a non-violent draft Joseph Spear in the Nov., 1969 T r u e —F o r sanctuary at the Hillel House of the Uni- T o d a y ’s M a n (circulation 2,450,000). The versity of Pennsylvania was called for Oct. Congressmen and the sums received are 28 by a vote of the Hillel Student Council named. Carto, fired by the John Birch So- of 4 to 3 with one abstention and two ciety as an anti-Semite, publishes anti- absentees. A referendum of Jewish students Semitic periodicals and operates the Noon- Nov. 19 gave 311 votes in favor of the tide Press in Sausalito, Calif., which issues sanctuary and 218 against. Oct. 14 a uni- anti-Semitic books. Trento and Spear call versity-wide referendum to establish such a the Liberty Lobby “a powerful group of sanctuary in one of the college halls was Hitler disciples . . . masking itself as a defeated by 2,764 to 1,873. Sandy Colh, respectable conservative movement . . .” president of the Hillel Student Council, Carto has written that “Hitler’s defeat was stated that the proposed sanctuary would be the defeat of Europe. And America,” and non-sectarian and not restricted to Jewish that the war was caused by “the interna- draft resisters and AWOL soldiers. Rabbi tional Jews.” He distributed $90,000 to con- Samuel J. Berkowitz, the Hillel Director, gressional candidates in 1968. . . . The said the final decision will be made by Hillel veteran anti-Semite Gerald L. K. Smith, Foundation officials in mid-Dec. who has been promoting an anti-Semitic “Passion Play” and a seven-story-high The Vietnam Moratorium Nov. 13-15 statue of Jesus near Eureka Springs, Ark., produced unprecedentedly large actions got a boost for his racist hate propaganda throughout the country, with Jewish partici- when the Commerce and Transportation De- pation very notable (see pages 19-20 within). partment allocated $182,000 in federal funds Sun., Nov. 16 the National Jewish Organ- to build a road to facilitate access to this izing Project staged its final action, a “Christ of the Ozarks” and the “Passion picket-line that encircled the White House Play” (Jack Anderson, N . Y . Post, Nov. 25, six times, with Rabbi A. Bruce Goldman 1969).... Newton Miller, who in 1967 blowing a shofar (in the biblical story, the led an anti-Semitic campaign to defeat an walls of Jericho came down when the seventh expanded school budget (see our April, shofar was blown). The Moratorium actions 1967 issue), was elected Mayor of Wayne, were endorsed by the American Jewish Con- N. J. (population 45,000, including 2,500 gress, the Central Conference of American Jews) as an Independent with 7,000 votes, Rabbis (Reform), the Emma Lazarus Fed- against the Republican Raymond Tumenelo, eration of Jewish Women’s Clubs, the Jew- 5,000 votes and the Democrat Walter Hoff- ish Cultural Clubs and Societies, the Jewish man with 5,416 votes. . . . In mid-Nov., Rep. Peace Fellowship, the Labor Zionists of Mario Biaggi of N. Y. charged that anti- America, with only the Union of Orthodox Semitism was practised against Jewish re- Rabbis using the occasion to endorse Nixon’s cruits at the Parris Island, S. C. Marine Vietnam policy. . . . In Vietnam, Capt. Alan Recruiting Center and that one Jewish re- J. Goldstein, a dentist, collected 125 sig- cruit was called “Jew boy” and “bagel” natures of officers and soldiers to a statement and had a Star of David painted on his expressing support for the Moratorium forehead by drill instructors, leading to his action.

5 4 J e w is h C u r r e n t s ABROAD USSR: In Moscow in Nov. there ap- peared a Yiddish volume of the writings of West Berlin: Al Fatah desecrated memo- Der Nistor (Pinye Kaganovich, 1884-1952), rials for victims of Nazism Nov. 9, the an- martyred Yiddish novelist, entitled Vider- niversary of Crystal Night in 1938, when vuks (Rebirth). The edition was 8,000 the Nazis carried out a nation-wide pogrom, copies. . . . In Oct. in Moscow there ap- burning synagogues, killing Jews and peared a volume of selections in Yiddish plundering Jewish property. Among the by Elia Gordon, In Aigene Kantn (In Your painted slogans on the memorials were “Al Own Regions), in 7,000 copies, Gordon (b. Fatah” and “Shalom.” . . . Nov. 10 an unex- 1907) is a member of the Executive Com- ploded bomb was found in the Jewish Com- mittee of the Moscow Writers’ Union. . . . munity Center. Nov. 11 police arrested Hel- Nov. 7 Soviet State Prizes were awarded to muth Caspari, 24, a student; Willi Far- 22 Jews (in 1967 the total was 32), one kasofskyn, 22, an artist; and Heinrich Jan- in science, 22 in technology, one in film. sen, 21, a salesman, reportedly members of . . . In Moscow in Nov. the Pravda Publish- a left group supporting the Popular Front ing House issued a collection of 12 anti- for the Liberation of Palestine. The three Zionist articles containing anti-Semitic had also distributed anti-Israel and anti- materials by Yuri Ivanov, “Whom Do They Semitic leaflets. Serve?” The printing was 100,500 copies in a six-kopeck pocket library edition. Ivanov’s Rome: The Ferrara Synagogue and anti-Semitism was noted in our June and memorials to Jewish victims of Nazism were Oct., 1969 issues, pages 47. . . . Rabbi chalked in Nov. with slogans praising Al Yehuda Leib Levin of Moscow headed a Fatah, equating the Star of David with the delegation that visited Budapest Oct. 16-18 swastika and “Death to Israel, long live to mark the 25th anniversary of Nazi perse- Mao.” cution of Hungarian Jewry. The delegation included Mihail Mihailovich Simionovich, Chile: In Santiago (Jewish population, president of the Moscow Jewish Community 32,000) a bomb exploded Nov. 18 outside *nd its secretary, Froim Grigorievich Kap- the synagogue, blasting windows and doors lan. Rabbi Levin gave a sermon to the con- and damaging an adjoining Jewish club. gregation Saturday morning. . . . For the An unexploded bomb was found in the 25th anniversary of the end of World War Jewish cemetery. II, in the Uzbek SSR there appeared a volume, Stars of Samarkand, about Uzbek The 6th Congress of the International war heroes, including three Jews. In Irkutsk, Federation of Resistance Fighters, held in Siberia, a similar book, Heroes of the So- Venice Nov. 14-16 had 300 representatives viet Union—Our Own People, includes two from 54 organizations from 21 countries in Jews. . . . From Tbilisi, Kutaisi, Kulashi Europe and Israel. Albert Yudin, represent- and Poti in Soviet Georgia, 18 Jewish heads ing the “Union” (progressive federation of of families addressed an appeal to the Com- French Jews), after reporting on Jewish mission on Human Rights of the United participation in the French resistance, turned Nations Aug. 6, 1969 “to help us leave for to an account of the anti-Semitic wave in Israel.” Since UN offices in the USSR, Poland. As a result the resolution adopted headed by Soviet citizens, accept no such by the Congress contained a condemnation appeals and the offices have therefore been of anti-Semitism. Another section reaffirmed closed, this letter was sent to the Premier the Congress statement of Dec. 5, 1967 of Israel for transmission to the UN, and calling for full implementation of the UN appears, with full names and exact addresses Security Council Resolution on the Middle of the signatories as United Nations General East of Nov. 22, 1967 in its entirety. Assembly Document A/7762, Nov. 13, 1969. The letter praises the Leninist policy on France: Late in Oct. in Jewish resi- the national question, adding: “There have dential areas in Paris pro-Fatah and anti- not been Jewish pogroms, pales or quotas Israel slogans were painted and the home in the country for a long, long time. Jews of Baron Elie de Rothschild was similarly can walk the streets without fear for their daubed. . . . Oct. 11 a 287-page study by lives; they can live where they wish, hold Belgian scholars was released reporting that any position, even as high as the post of French-language Roman Catholic textbooks minister . . .” Not racial nor religious dis- used in France, Belgium, Canada and crimination makes them want to emigrate Switzerland contained materials hostile to but “. . . our prayers are with Israel . . . Jews and Judaism. it needs our hands. . . M.U.S.

J anuary , 1970 5 5 YOU ARE INVITED ★ 16TH ANNUAL ★

to the annual CONCERT JEWISH CURRENTS of the WORKING CONFERENCE OF JEWISH CULTURAL CLUBS READERS AND SUPPORTERS AND SOCIETIES Saturday, Feb. 14, 1970 9:30 A.M. to 5 P.M. Sat., Feb. 7, 1970 at 2:00 P.M. HUDSON GUILD PHILHARMONIC HALL 441 W. 26 St., N.Y. Lincoln Center (west of 9th Ave.) Broadway & 65 St., N.Y.C. Program ★ Chairman: Mrs. Rose Raynes, executive director, "THE GOLDEN PEACOCK" Emma Lazarus Federation Registration: 9:30 A.M. (In Yiddish—The Life and Morning Session: 10 A.M. Work of Itzik Manger) Sam Pevzner, Book by ITCHE GOLDBERG Editorial Board, Jewish Currents “Our Role in 1969; Musical Dir.—MAURICE RAUCH Our Perspective in 1970.” with the Discussion on proposals Adoption of proposals as discussed. Jewish People’s Morris U. Schappes, Philharmonic Chorus “Closing Remarks” Conductor—Maurice Rauch At the piano—Eugene Kusmiak Lunch Intermission Narrators & Soloists: Afternoon session: 2 P.M. Panel Discussion: MINNA BERN— BONUS “The Jewish Youth Scene: Main Issues and Problems.” Kathy Meyerhoff, Radical Jewish ★ Union at Columbia University Tickets: $3.50, $3.00, $2.50 Eugene Orenstein, editor of Available at Yugntruf, Yiddish youth monthly Robert Saks, director, Jewish Cultural Clubs Jewish Cultural Foundation, N.Y.U. Mike Tabor, chairman, Jews for and Societies Urban Justice, Washington, D.C. Moderator: Morris U. Schappes 1133 Broadway, N.Y. 10010 Questions and discussion Telephone: (212) OR 5-8854