World Council of Synagogues
Proceedings of Eighth International Convention
JERUSALEM—TEL AVIV ISRAEL
June 22-25,1970 — 18-21 Sivan,5730 THE AMERICAN JEWISH COMMUTE! S31 a ustei n Library
Officers 1968-1970
President MORRIS SPEIZMAN, U.S.A. Vice Presidents JUDAH DAVID, India RABBI MARCUS MELCHIOR, Denmark OSCAR B. DAVIS, England JOSE MIRELMAN, Israel PHILIP GREENE, U.S.A. LEON MIRELMAN, Argentina
Secretary DR. JACOB B. SHAMMASH, U.S.A. Treasurer DAVID ZUCKER, U.S.A. Honorary President EMANUEL G. SCOBLIONKO, U.S.A. Directors-at-large W. ZEV BAIREY, Mexico ROBERTO MIRELMAN, Argentina GERRARD BERMAN, U.S.A. EMMANUEL E. MOSES, India CHAIM CHIELL, Israel RABBI MORTON H. NARROWE, Sweden RABBI ARMOND COHEN, U.S.A. MARCUS PEARLMAN, Brazil DAVID FREEMAN, Israel MARCOS PERELMAN, Peru DR. MIRIAM FREUND, U.S.A. HENRY N. RAPAPORT, U.S.A. JACK GLADSTONE, U.S.A. CHARLES ROSENGARTEN, U.S.A. BERT GODFREY, Canada MRS. SYD ROSSMAN, U.S.A. RABBI ISRAEL M. GOLDMAN, U.S.A. SAMUEL ROTHSTEIN, U.S.A. MRS. EVELYN HENKIND, U.S.A. LEON SCHIDLOW, Mexico DR. ALFRED HIRSCHBERG, Brazil ARTHUR J. SIGGNER, Canada FRITZ HOLLANDER, Sweden PROF. ERNST SIMON, Israel VICTOR HORWITZ, U.S.A. RABBI RALPH SIMON, U.S.A. VICTOR LEFF, U.S.A. JERRY SUSSMAN, U.S.A. ARTHUR J. LEVINE, U.S.A. DR. GIANFRANCO TEDESCHI, Italy DR. LOUIS LEVITSKY, U.S.A. ADOLFO WEIL, Argentina GEORGE MAISLEN, U.S.A. VICTOR ZAGER, U.S.A. RABBI BENT MELCHIOR, Denmark Director MORRIS LAUB Director of Special Projects and Convention Director MRS. ADELE K. GILEAD Director, Latin American Office RABBI MARSHALL T. MEYER Director, Israel Office RABBI MOSHE COHEN Officers 1970-1972
President MORRIS SPEIZMAN, U.S.A. Vice Presidents JUDAH DAVID, India RABBI BENT MELCHIOB, Denmark CHAIM CHIELL, Israel SAMUEL ROTHSTEIN, U.S.A. OSCAB B. DAVIS, England ADOLFO WEIL, Argentina
Secretary DR. JACOB B. SHAMMASH, U.S.A. Treasurer DAVID ZUCKER, U.S.A. Honorary President EMANUEL G. SCOBLIONKO, U.S.A. Honorary Vice President PHILIP GREENE, U.S.A. Directors-at-large W. ZEV BAIREY, Mexico DR. LOUIS LEVITSKY, U.S.A. GERRARD BERMAN, U.S.A. GEORGE MAISLEN, U.S.A. DR. LEON BERNSTEIN, Argentina EMMANUEL E. MOSES, India DR. DAVID BRAILOVSKY, Chile RABBI MORTON H. NARROWE, Sweden DAVID FREEMAN, Israel BARRY PAGE, Australia DR. MIRIAM FREUND, U.S.A. JUAN PLAUT, Venezuela JACK GLADSTONE, U.S.A. HENRY N. RAPAPORT, U.S.A. BERT GODFREY, Canada CHARLES ROSENGARTEN, U.S.A. RABBI ISRAEL GOLDMAN, U.S.A. ALFREDO ROSENZWEIG, Peru MRS. SYD ROSSMAN GOLDSTEIN LEON SCHIDLOW, Mexico YAACOV HAHAM, Israel ENRIQUE SCHOEN, Argentina MRS. EVELYN HENKIND, U.S.A. JACOBO SEQUEIRA, Brazil DR. ALFRED HIRSCHBERG, Brazil ARTHUR J. SIGGNER, Canada FRITZ HOLLANDER, Sweden PROFESSOR ERNST SIMON, Israel VICTOR HORWITZ, U.S.A. RABBI RALPH SIMON, U.S.A. MARTIN KAMEROW, U.S.A. JACOB STEIN, U.S.A. SEYMOUR L. KATZ, U.S.A. JERRY SUSSMAN, U.S.A. VICTOR LEFF, U.S.A. DR. GI AN FRANCO TEDESCHI, Italy RABBI S. GERSHON LEVI, U.S.A. ARTHUR TIEMANN, U.S.A. ARTHUR J. LEVINE, U.S.A. VICTOR ZAGER, U.S.A. Director MORRIS LAUB Director of Special Projects and Convention Director MRS. ADELE K. GILEAD Director, Latin American Office RABBI MARSHALL T. MEYER Director, Israel Office RABBI MOSHE COHEN Convention Committee Chairman VICTOR ZAGER
Nominations Committee Chairman GEORGE MAISLEN SEYMOUR L. KATZ CHARLES ROSENGARTEN ARTHUR J. LEVINE SAMUEL ROTHSTEIN EMMANUEL MOSES JOSHUA SELMAN HENRY N. RAPAPORT JACOB STEIN
Resolutions Committee Chairman JERRY WAGNER Co-chairman MARTIN KAMEROW CHAIM CHIELL BARRY PAGE JUDAH DAVID HAROLD ROSEN OSCAR B.DAVIS SAMUEL ROTHSTEIN DAVID FREEMAN DR. GIANFRANCO TEDESCHI
Convention Director MRS. ADELE K. GILEAD t
TABLE OF CONTENTS
OFFICERS 2 PROGRAM 6 GREETINGS, Chaim Chiell 10 Dr. Zerah Warhaftig 11 Elihu Speiser 12 PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS, Morris Speizman 13 PERSPECTIVES ON ISRAEL'S PROBLEMS, Prime Minister Golda Meir 15 REPORT FROM AUSTRALIA, Barry Page 19 REPORT FROM ITALY, Professor Gianfranco Tedeschi 20 REPORT FROM INDIA, Emmanuel E. Moses 21 REPORT FROM SWEDEN, Rabbi Morton H. Narrowe 22 PROBLEMS OF DIASPORA COMMUNITIES, Discussion 24 GREETINGS FROM THE UNITED SYNAGOGUE OF AMERICA, Jacob Stein .. 27 IS THERE A RELIGIOUS AWAKENING IN ISRAEL? Professor Ernst Simon 28 SAFEGUARDING ISRAEL'S JEWISH EXISTENCE, Dr. Pinhas Peli 30 A CALL FOR ACTION, Rabbi Pinhas Spector 32 YOUTH AND JUDAISM, Rabbi Bent Melchior 34 WORKING WITH OUR YOUTH, Georges Levitte 36 THE CHALLENGE OF LATIN AMERICAN YOUTH, Rabbi Marshall T. Meyer .. 37 REBELLION AND TRADITION, Colonel Mordecai Bar-On 39 PROBLEMS OF JEWISH YOUTH, Discussion 42 GREETINGS FROM THE NATIONAL WOMEN'S LEAGUE, Mrs. Sol Henkind. 44 TRIBUTE IN MEMORY OF RABBI MARCUS MELCHIOR, Dr. Bernard Segal... 45 CONSERVATIVE JUDAISM IN ISRAEL, Discussion 47 WHAT ARE THE SOURCES OF OUR STRENGTH? Dr. Bernard Mandelbaum ... 50 INSTALLATION OF OFFICERS, Rabbi Ralph Simon 52 INTRODUCTION OF CHAIM GRADE, Rabbi Saul Lieberman 53 A DIASPORA JEW IN ERETZ YISRAEL, Chaim Grade 53 RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT, Morris Laub 56 STATEMENT OF PRESIDENT ZALMAN SHAZAR 58 RESOLUTIONS 60
These pages contain a summary, in qualified chronological order, of the proceedings and excerpts from addresses delivered in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, Israel, June 22-25, 1970, 18-21 Sivan, 5730. Convention Program Monday, JUNE 22,1970
OPENING RELIGIOUS CEREMONY WESTERN WALL, JERUSALEM DEDICATION OF UNITED SYNAGOGUE OF AMERICA FOREST RESERVE
PLENARY SESSION Welcome: VICTOR ZAGER, Convention Chairman
Greetings:CHAI M CHIELL, President, Synagogue of Israel DR. ZERAH WARHAFTIG, Minister of Religious Affairs of Israel
Presidential Address: MORRIS SPEIZMAN, President, World Council of Synagogues
Perspectives on Israel's Problems: MRS. GOLDA MEIR, Prime Minister of Israel
RECEPTION American Student Center of The Jewish Theological Seminary of America
Tuesday, JUNE 23,1970
SHAHARIT SERVICE D'var Torah: RABBI ALFRED A. PHILIPP, Congregation Emeth V'Emunah, Jerusalem
MORNING SESSION Chairman: MORRIS SPEIZMAN Greetings:
ELIHU SPEISER, Deputy Mayor of Tel Aviv
International Reports Australia: BARRY PAGE, Melbourne Italy: PROFESSOR GIANFRANCO TEDESCHI, President, Jewish Community of Rome India: EMMANUEL E. MOSES, Bombay
Sweden:RABB I MORTON H. NARROWE, Stockholm r
WORKSHOPS AND COMMITTEE MEETINGS Youth: JULES GUTIN, Chairman RABBI PAUL FREEDMAN, Consultant
Resolutions: JERRY WAGNER, Chairman MARTIN KAMEROW, Co-Chairman MORRIS LAUB, Consultant
Nominations: GEORGE MAISLEN, Chairman RABBI BERNARD SEGAL, Consultant
Publications: DAVID ZUCKER, Chairman VICTOR ZAGER, Consultant
AFTERNOON SESSION Chairman: SAMUEL ROTHSTEIN, Past President, United Synagogue of America Greetings: JACOB STEIN, President, United Synagogue of America
Is There a Religious Awakening in Israel? PROFESSOR ERNST SIMON, Jerusalem Discussants: DR. PINHAS PELI, Jerusalem RABBI PINHAS SPECTOR, Ashkelon
RECEPTION Hosted by the Mayor of Tel Aviv
Wednesday, JUNE 24, !970
SHAHARIT SERVICE D'var Torah: RABBI PINHAS SPECTOR, Congregation Netzach Israel, Ashkelon
MORNING SESSION Chairman: OSCAR B. DAVIS, Vice-President United Synagogue of America
YOUTH AND JUDAISM Address: RABBI BENT MELCHIOR, Denmark
Working with our Youth: GEORGES LEVITTE, Director of Communauté, Paris
The Challenge of Latin America: RABBI MARSHALL T. MEYER, Director of Latin American Office, United Synagogue of America
Rebellion and Tradition: COLONEL MORDECAI BAR-ON, Director of Youth and Hehalutz Department, Jewish Agency, Jerusalem AFTERNOON SESSION Chairman: HENRY N. RAPAPORT, Honorary President, United Synagogue of America
Greetings: MRS. EVELYN HENKIND, President, National Women's League of the United Synagogue of America MR. ABRAHAM SILVER, National Federation of Jewish Men's Clubs, Inc.
Induction of Women's Groups of United Synagogue of Israel CONGREGATION NETZACH ISRAEL, Ashkelon MORIAH CONGREGATION, Haifa
Memorial Tribute to Rabbi Marcus Melchior: RABBI BERNARD SEGAL, Executive Director, United Synagogue of America
Committee Reports: PUBLICATIONS, NOMINATIONS, RESOLUTIONS
Sources of Jewish Strength: RABBI BERNARD MANDELBAUM, President,The Jewish Theological Seminary of America
RECEPTION ISRAEL GOVERNMENT TOURIST OFFICE
Thursday, JUNE 25, 1970
SHAHARIT SERVICE D'var Torah: RABBI CHARLES SIEGEL, Moriah Congregation, Haifa
MORNING SESSION Chairman: DAVID FREEMAN, Haifa Consultant: RABBI MOSHE COHEN, Ashkelon
The Unique Character of Conservative Judaism in Israel Discussants: CHAIM CHIELL, Jerusalem YAKOV HAHAM, Ashkelon MRS. ABRAHAM HURWITZ, Ashkelon DR. JOSEPH FELLNER, Natanya
Summation: RABBI CHARLES SIEGEL, Haifa \
AFTERNOON SESSION Chairman: CHARLES ROSENGARTEN, Past President, World Council of Synagogues
Installation of Officers: RABBI RALPH SIMON, Past President, Rabbinical Assembly
A Diaspora Jew in Eretz Yisrael Introduction: PROFESSOR SAUL LIEBERMAN, Rector, The Jewish Theological Seminary of America
Address: CHAIM GRADE
Retrospect and Prospect: MORRIS LAUB, Director, World Council of Synagogues
MEETING OF THE NEWLY ELECTED MEMBERS OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS Greetings Chaim Chiell
Oil behalf of the Israel United Synagogue I would like to extend a most hearty welcome to all of you. I congratulate the organizing committee for having chosen Yerushalayim ir hakodesh for this convention. I must particularly congratulate you upon coming to Yerushalayim hame'uhedet, a Jerusalem reunited since the convention of 1962. I would suggest that Jerusalem be chosen as the meeting place for all our deliberations in the future. In all of Israel there are fewer than 850 "congregations" as you have them in the United States, with fewer than a million and a half members. Nevertheless, I believe there is a strong potential in the country for a Conservative movement. Given the proper spiritual and material support, the movement will grow, for there is a real need for it. There are many people in Israel who feel that they do not belong to the Orthodox or the Reform camps. They prefer the middle way, the Conservative religious way of life, and we should encourage them to join us. We do not intend to take away members from the Orthodox groups which make up some fifteen percent of the population; we will be quite satisfied with some of the remaining eighty-five percent. I would suggest, as a theme of this convention, the triple use of the Hebrew letter yud. The first yud stands for yehudim, Jews. We should direct all our thoughts and efforts toward strengthening Jews wherever they are, especially in Israel. In this context, I would like you to remember that the Conservative movement in Israel needs material support from you. The second yud stands for yahadut, Judaism. We all know that physical existence alone will not secure the continued existence of the Jews. Ki lo al halehem levado yihye ha'adam—man does not live by bread alone. Jews cannot exist without a Jewish content in their lives, and this includes halakhah. Halakha is Jewish law, but it derives from the Hebrew root-word lalekhet—to go. Halakhah is not a stagnant or petrified thing; it is a moving, progressing law. In short, it is a living law, and it must meet the needs of a living state which has to function seven days a week, 365 days a year. All its activities must be performed by Jews; we have no room here for "shabbes goyim. " Now we come to the third yud which stands for Yisrael. Jews and Judaism by themselves will not ensure the continued existence of the Jewish people. Like all normal people, it needs a solid ground under its feet. Jews must come to Israel, for only then will they and we have a guaranteed existence. To me, there are two types of Jews: Jews living in Israel, and Jews on the way to Israel. These three elements, Jews, Judaism and Israel, are mutually strengthening and supporting, and are of equal standing and importance. Only the three of them together will ensure the secure existence of the Jewish people. Concentration during the forthcoming deliberations on these three salient points, putting forward the proper resolutions, and preparing to put them into action, will make this eighth convention a historic event in the annals of the World Council of Synagogues.
10 Greetings Dr. Zerah Warhaftig
Some years ago, it was my privilege to convey greetings to the founding convention of the World Council of Synagogues held in Jerusalem. I am glad to have another opportunity to welcome this international gathering of synagogue representatives. Between these two conventions, many important events have occurred. Historically speaking, we have taken a big leap forward. Our enemies threatened to drive us into the sea, but with the help of the Almighty, in merely six days we succeeded in overcoming the onslaught of numerically greater armies, and in moving the fighting frontiers farther away from our population centers. The most outstanding feature of this short war was the deliverance of the Old City of Jerusalem and our return to the Western Wall. The unification of Jerusalem has always been a symbol of the unity of our people. Ever since Jerusalem became the spiritual center of Israel, it has exclusively been ours as a capital. There have been foreign governments in the Holy Land, but Jerusalem was never their capital and center. Only for Israel is Jerusalem the divinely chosen site, and therefore the center of its strength and unity. In the words of the Psalms, "I rejoiced when they said to me, let us go to the House of the Lord, our feet now stand between your gates, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem upbuilded as a unified city." With reference to these last words, the Midrashexplains: The city that unifies all the Jews. Let us, for a moment, recall the great anxiety which we all experienced three years ago. We came to realize that the only solid support we could rely on throughout the world came from our Jewish brethren. If we were disappointed as far as the non-Jewish world was concerned, it was a unique experience to watch the consolidation of Jewish communities all over the world as they rallied to the support of Israel. At the moment that we were privileged to see the unification of Jerusalem, we also realized the unprecedented unification of World Jewry. As much as we are determined never again to disrupt the unification of Jerusalem, so are we determined to do our utmost to promote the unification and consolidation of Jewish communities throughout the world. The unity of the people of Israel is constituted by the one and unique Torah, the one and unique tradition. Anyone who wants to join us identifies himself with our belief and participates in our way of life. There is only one Torah that we can offer him—the Torah which we received at Sinai and preserved with our life, the Torah which even today justifies our claim to our land as part of God's promised covenant and the Jewish obligation. This unity is of utmost importance here in Israel. We realize that unity can be achieved only by mutual respect and consideration; each one has to restrict his individual demands for the sake of communal concern. Some equilibrium must be found between the interests of the individual and those of the nation. Rabbi Kook, of blessed memory, the first Chief Rabbi of Israel, said, "According to our sages, the first Temple was destroyed because of our committing three cardinal sins—idolatry, murder and perversion. Since the Temple was rebuilt seventy years later it appears that we obtained atonement for these sins. The second Temple was destroyed because of communal strife and hatred. The third Temple will be rebuilt by balancing this sin with unconditional love among Jews." Let us take this message from Jerusalem: our strength lies in Israel, and our strength derives from unity. Let us strengthen the bonds of unity to our God, to our sacred traditions, and to our beloved Israel.
11 Greetings Elihu Speiser
I am pleased to welcome you here on behalf of the Municipality of Tel-Aviv—Yafo. I imagine you are amazed at how different everyday life in Tel-Aviv and other Israeli cities is, compared to the headlines in the newspapers and to the events on the frontiers of Israel. You have read about the murder of Jewish children, about battles on the Suez Canal, about the intervention of the Russians, and now you are sitting quietly in the center of Tel-Aviv. Even if you travel through the country, I think you will feel nothing of the war situation in which we find ourselves. I think that this is due to the vocation of our people; we have never forgotten the humanistic and cultural destination of the Jewish people. During all the years that we have been in Israel, we have continually developed and encouraged creative life, both in cultural and economic fields. Only recently we celebrated the sixtieth .anniversary of Tel-Aviv. Sixty years in Israel is a long time. In this city, most of the cultural and economic life of Israel is centered. There are those who are not so satisfied with'this fact—but it is a fact. Some twenty-five percent of the manpower of Israel is found in Tel-Aviv. Some twenty-nine percent of the production of Israel is carried out in Tel-Aviv. And in cultural fields we play a still greater role. More than fifty percent of the creative people—painters, writers, musi- cians, etc.—reside in Tel-Aviv. We are proud that we continue to lead normal lives and to develop all these activities despite wartime conditions. So, once again, I welcome you here. Have successful working sessions, enjoy yourselves in your spare time, and do come back to Tel-Aviv and to Israel.
12 Presidential Address Morris Speizman
A candle flickers in the breeze and the winds of our times are often very strong, but the flame has not been snuffed out, for around the candle of our heritage we have placed a hurricane glass to shield the precious flame. That shield is our love and adherence to the tradition, to the laws of Moses, to the instinctive desire of Jewish parents to rear their young bederekh emet—the true path. Now every family is different, and that is as it should be. In one household discipline is tempered by a greater degree of tolerance than in another. We might say that some of the households are mitnagdim, and others are hasidim. However, every household is a home in which family ties of love are the basic root-stock from which all else can grow. That love in the family of Conservative Judaism is best expressed in the Preamble to the Constitution of the United Synagogue of America. The words are chronologically only half a century old, but philosophically they reach back through the centuries:
to ascertain established loyalty to the Torah and its historical expositions, to further the observance of the Shabbat and the dietary laws; to preserve in the service the reference to Israel's past and the hopes of Israel's restoration, to maintain the traditional character of liturgy with Hebrew as the language of prayer, to foster Jewish religious life in the home, as expressed in traditional observances, to encourage the establishment of Jewish religious schools in the curriculum of which the study of the Hebrew language and literature shall be given a prominent place. And it shall be the aim of the United Synagogue, while not endorsing innovations introduced by any of its constituent bodies, to embrace all elements essentially loyal to tradition- al Judaism and in sympathy with the purposes outlined above.
My friends, we have been commanded to be a nation of priests—mamlekhet koha- nim—to the people of the world, and we Conservative Jews are in an instinctive and mysterious and wonderful way fulfilling this commandment. I am told that in the sixteenth century there were only about 800,000 Jews in the entire world. Today we are more than seventeen times that number, in spite of the most horrible holocaust in history. Am Yisrael hat. We have grown and prospered, I believe, because we have tried, each in his or her own measure, to exemplify the divine commands in our daily lives. One evidence of this devotion is our being here today in Jerusalem. The hundreds of dedicated men and women who have assembled for this convention of the World Council of Synagogues have placed their bodies and minds where their hearts have always been—in that land where the Jewish soul was nurtured and where it blossomed. I think it is proper for me at this time to review the accomplishments of the World Council of Synagogues since we last met here eight years ago. In 1964 we held our fifth convention in Mexico City, symbolizing the continuing growth of the Conservative movement in Latin America. The six years that followed have been witness to an extraordinary intensification of our work, especially in Argentina and Brazil. Thou- sands of young people flock to our synagogues, our schools and camps, while many more thousands of adults have been stimulated to read the great classics of Judaism, from Maimonides to Heschel, because of the wonderful translations into modern Spanish, sponsored by our Latin American office. Our sixth convention was held in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1966, and marked our first full-scale meeting in Europe after the intimate study conference of 1961. I think it is
13 noteworthy to remind our delegates that both the Jewish community of Geneva and the Chief Rabbi of the city graciously served as our hosts, despite many obstacles which were placed in their path. Our last convention, held in London in 1968, was another break-through for the World Council of Synagogues, because for the first time an official Conservative body was welcomed by an important synagogue in London, the New London Synagogue, and its distinguished spiritual leader, Rabbi Louis Jacobs. Now, after eight years, we are back in Jerusalem again, and I know that you already feel and see the tremendous difference between the last visit and this one. The difference lies in the Six-Day War and in the continuing war which has beset this country ever since. In 1962 we could not hold a ceremony such as we did this morning, because the Western Wall was barred to Jews. In 1962, we could not travel to many of our traditional historic sites. In 1962, aliyah was but a word in the vocabulary of Jewish organizations; today it is an increasingly important activity in these organizations. In the eight years between our two conventions in Israel, world-wide concern for our three million brothers in Russia has increased immeasurably, particularly in Israel, for this country has welcomed among its immigrants men, women and children from the Soviet Union who are living exemplars of the Jewish will to survive. There are differences evident in the relationship of the World Council of Synagogues to Israel since 1962. Eight years ago we were aware of a groping towards tradition among the population of Israel; now we are absolutely certain of this trend. Siah Lohamim, a book which has become a classic since its appearance a few years ago, recorded the words and thoughts of young Israeli soldiers who fought in the Six-Day War, and proved to all that the yearning for traditional Jewish values in Israel was becoming deeper and more widespread than ever before, even in sections of the population which hitherto had been regarded as anti-religious or, at best, as non-reli- gious. The best proof that this groping goes on lies in the development of the United Synagogue of Israel. It is a matter of great pride to report that four Conservative rabbis are now actively engaged either in pulpits or in direct activity for the United Synagogue of Israel. The World Council of Synagogues' ties with Israel are not exhausted by the work of the United Synagogue of Israel, for other branches of the Conservative movement have made thousands of young people more keenly aware of their intimate relationship with this land through pilgrimages, camps, and study programs in Israel. While we have made progress in Israel and elsewhere, we do see, unfortunately, an exacerbation of religious differences. We hope that the problems that have arisen in the religious sphere will be solved through an understanding that differing streams in Judaism are like the classic differences recorded in the Talmud between the School of Hillel and the School of Shammai. Each in its own way speaks the words of the living God. Different streams, seemingly divergent, all flow from the same source, the Torah, into the same sea, Israel. We are gathered here at a time when our brethren face the implacable hatred of their enemies. But we are united in a solidarity that comes from confidence in our own abilities, and faith in the everlasting guidance and love of our Maker. Our presence here serves to dramatize the unity of the World Council of Synagogues, the more than one thousand congregations identified with our movement, from Canada to India, from Argentina to Sweden, from Mexico to Australia. All of us are dedicated to the vital task of conserving Judaism and enriching our lives and the lives of those we touch. We come together at a time when festering sores of war and subversion are troubling humanity in practically every country, when credibility gaps between countries which result in wars are compounded by credibility gaps among the citizens and the genera- tions of each country. In spite of the evident proliferation of the forces of evil, we are gathered here with hope in our hearts, for we believe that our presence is symbolic of our support for all that is good, noble and progressive in the life of our people. By our presence here we assert our desire to take part in the ongoing process of rebuilding and strengthening Judaism, not only in Israel but throughout the world. With this goal, and with the love and help of God Almighty, we shall go forward, together, in the days and years to come. 14 Perspectives on Israel's Problems Prime Minister Golda Meir
I would like to take this opportunity to welcome you heartily to Jerusalem and to Israel, and to say how much we appreciate the fact that you are here. We have no doubt as to how you, in your various countries, feel about Israel. We recognize your attachment, your concern and readiness to be with us, your solidarity with us in hours of fear and sorrow as well as joy. I have no doubt that you, as well as all Jews throughout the world, share with us our most fundamental hope and aspiration—for real peace between Israel and its neigh- bors. I admit that I should like to share with you in an intimate manner our problems, our means of solving them, and the dangers that are facing Israel three years after we have won the war which threatened us with extinction, and which left us without peace. I would like to be able to tell you about world powers on whom we can depend, and about one of the two greatest powers in the world that has chosen to become a party to the war. But I am sure you will understand that even in an intimate group as we are today, I may not say all that I would like. Very often I wish, for many reasons, that I could be just a good, loyal, simple citizen of Israel. One of the reasons is that any citizen of Israel can get up and say, any time, anywhere, whatever he wants to say. But this privilege is not given to me at the present time. Yet it is necessary, I think, that we, the spokesmen of the Government of Israel, take this opportunity to discuss with you, with some limitations, our situation, our prob- lems, and why it is so important that you not only love Israel, but understand its problems, especially at this time. This war has been forced upon us, like all the wars that we have fought before. It is a mistake to say that up to 1967 we had peace in Israel. We had armistice agreements —but no peace; our borders were not quiet. There was always something happening from the other side of the borders—from Jordan, from Syria, or from Egypt. You remember the series of infiltrations by fedayeen—today they are called Fatah. When provocations reached a point where we could take it no longer and we reacted to those incidents, you will remember the dozens of times that the Security Council considered the problem, always dealing with our reprisal, not with why we found it necessary to react. We never had peace, but we never were in such real danger as we were between May 15 and June 5, 1967. What was it that made those days so ominous? Again we faced Arab armies massing against us, armies that were very well equipped by Soviet Russia. The danger was great because when we looked around the world, we found no one who could prevent the war. I must say there was not a doubt in our minds that if the war were forced upon us we would win it. We could not afford to lose! We are in an entirely different position from any other people in the world. No nation wants to lose a war, especially when it is not of its own making. No country wants to be overrun by a foreign power and put under foreign rule. But we remember our unique history. Only we Jews, after having lost a war, and after having a foreign power take over, were sent out of our country, dispersed, to wander about for centuries, strangers everywhere—not always welcome. This is a fate no other people had. Jews must have a long memory. There are things that we must never forget, not only because any people should know its history, but so that we may know how to act at the present time. When we recall the Holocaust of the 1940's, we should also remember that in addition to the millions who were destroyed, there were some few hundreds of Jews, in little boats, fleeing destruction, who found no doors open to them anywhere in the
15 world. Everybody had good reasons, I suppose, but they were not real. The only reality is that Jews found no place to go. This we should remember. We live among the peoples of the world; we want to have good relations with them all. We have never given up our hope that people are basically good. It is not out of bitterness and pessimism, but out of the necessity to see reality, that we must remember all that has happened to us. Therefore we dare to say that we will not lose, because we cannot lose. We did not want the war, because there is no victory that is not paid for. We have paid for all our victories with the dearest that we have, our sons and daughters. The Jewish relationship to human life is such that we don't want victories. We don't want wars. Maybe this is one of the most fundamental differences between us and our neighbors. Maybe this is one of the obstacles on the road to peace between our neighbors and us. I believe that an Egyptian mother and father sorrow as much when their son falls in battle as a Jewish mother and father. But we experience collective sorrow; all of us, the entire people, are one family. A soldier lost is the son of the entire people. If this relationship, by some miracle, should develop one day in Egypt, it would make peace with us. But there is a difference of attitude in the Arab countries. They teach war, a program of tears and blood, and use this as a means of enthusing the people. War is a way of life, an ideal to strive for. This is the most shocking element in the problem of the relationship between us and our neighbors. From the very day that the 1967 war was over, we were again fighting a war on our borders. And we are also fighting a battle in the world—for simple understanding. I am sure each of you, coming from different countries, has a story to tell concerning how terrible we are in public relations. I am prepared to accept that. We have never excelled in telling about ourselves; we were much better in creating and acting. And so we find ourselves in the difficult position, after having this war forced upon us, and after having paid the price for victory, of getting the world to understand that the only real thing we want is peace with our neighbors, and what is more, not a dictated peace. The accepted pattern is that one side wins, one side loses a war, and the winner dictates the peace terms, and asks the loser to sign on the dotted line. In 1967, however, after we won the war, we said, let us sit down together and negotiate a peace, a real peace. No preconditions, nobody must agree to anything beforehand. But, of course, we also refuse to have the loser dictate things that we must accept without any negotiations and without peace. One of the most shocking things that some of our real friends say to us, is, "Of course you had a bad experience in 1956. You were asked to withdraw, all kinds of guaranties were promised to you, nothing was kept, and you had another war in 1967. But you did have a few years of quiet on the Egyptian border. And maybe it will take another six, seven or eight years until the next war comes." To me, this is shocking. How can anybody dare ask us that? We, the old generation (in less than a year I will have lived fifty years in Israel), have not known a single year of real quiet and peace. We formed Haganah and our sons and daughters joined it at the age of twelve. Then there was the Second World War, then the struggle with the British, and then the War of Liberation. And now it is our grandchildren who are on the battlefront, on the Suez Canal, and on the Syrian and Jordanian borders. Now we must prepare the younger grandchildren that they will be next. Is this how we should live? Why is it considered an intransigence on the part of Israel to demand a simple thing—peace with its neighbors. This is what we ask for ourselves, after the bitter experience that we have had. People preach to us from high altars of morality: occupation by force is not permissible. One would think that one bright morning the Israel Government decided that it had done everything that could be done within the boundaries of Israel. There was no more desert, no more rocks, everything was finished; millions of Jews from the United States, Australia, Mexico and elsewhere were waiting to come in, and there was no room for them, so Israel had to expand! The world forgets that our only real crime is that when the life of our country, the physical existence of our people was in danger, we didn't wait in Tel Aviv and Beer Sheva until the enemy army marched in, but tried, and to our great good fortune succeeded, to carry the war into the enemy's territory. On June 10, 1967, the Security Council decided unanimously to declare a "cease fire" 16 with no conditions, no time limit. There was an attempt at that Security Council meeting to tag on something else—withdrawal to the pre-1967 lines—but it was not accepted. The Security Council called upon all the countries involved to abide by the unconditional cease-fire, and the countries committed themselves to this. But instead, Egypt carries on a war of attrition in preparation for the real thing, which will come. Yet nobody makes an attempt to force Egypt to abide by the cease-fire. And Egypt has a supplier of sophisticated hardware and personnel, so that a distant country that has nothing whatsoever to do in this war between the Arab countries and Israel becomes first a supplier, then a trainer, then an advisor, and now practically a participator—in a war that it has no reason to fight except one: pure imperialism. The best way for a thief to get away when he finds himself within a crowd and is in fear of being caught, is to shout: thief. And the fact that Moscow, more than any government in the world, calls all kinds of countries imperialistic, cannot hide the basic truth, that the imperialistic power in the world is the Soviet Union. Moscow keeps this war going because, for the first time in a long, long period in the history of Russia, it has access to the Middle East, to its waterways, to oil, to the possibility of entering not only the immediate countries, but also North Africa. Why should the Soviet Union care if other people die for it? So, since 1967, Russia has poured three and a half billion dollars worth of armaments into Egypt, Syria and Iraq—two-thirds of it going to Egypt. Some people are inspired by the wonderful picture that Arafat, the head of Fatah, draws for a future Israel: a democratic state where Jews and Moslems and Christians will all live together. I would suggest to him that in the name of Arab unity and brotherhood, he go to Saudi Arabia and preach his gospel there—asking them to permit Jews to visit the country, to allow Jewish soldiers in the American army to enter the various bases that the army has in Saudi Arabia. Is an explanation really required that a democracy of Arafat's kind would mean, at best, that some of us will be allowed to remain in Israel, and that those of us who are left will be, at best, a small fifth-rate Jewish minority in a state with an Arab majority? Is it for this that we have been here for so long? Was this the dream of the Jewish people in all the ages, the dream that we have never given up? Is it for this that our people lived and died for kiddush hashem? Is it for this that they remained true to their religion and to their tradition? Why did the Jewish people remain a people dispersed all over the world, and yet one people? Why did those who went to the gas chambers sing that they believed in the coming of the Messiah? It was out of the hope and the certainty that we would re-establish our sovereignty in our land. Shall we give all this up for the great privilege that, maybe, Arafat will allow us to live as a small minority in an Arab country? And Arafat is considered a moderate. Because there is Habash. Habash says that it is permissible to watch for a busload of children, and shoot at it and kill children, because they are Jewish children. We haven't heard language of this kind since Hitler. Evident- ly, everything is permissible in order to "liberate" a people that has fourteen countries, and that has lived for over twenty years as Jordanian citizens. I envy Egypt one thing—its supplier of arms. We have never asked any government in the world to send us one single soldier. It is our sons and daughters who are defending their country—and hating war. We didn't raise our children to kill. We raised them with ideals that all people can live together as brothers; but as long as there is a war, we will defend ourselves. But we must have the means with which to fight. My friends, Russia has introduced mass hardware and sophisticated missiles into Egypt as well as thousands of personnel. Russian planes with Russian pilots are in operational duty. We are asked, what will happen if the Russians come closer to the Canal Zone, will you take on a Russian pilot or will you run? To us, the question of running away is not a question of prestige; it is our very lives. We cannot give up our right to defend ourselves on the other side of the line from which the shelling comes. We cannot run. There is no alternative. I believe that peace is possible. It is not a luxury that Israel is asking for itself. Egypt may be more in need of peace than we are. We blame the Soviet Union: they made the war possible, and now they are preventing peace. But in the meantime we must be 17 strong in every way—both in arms and in spirit. It's not simple. We may be the only people who, in time of war, prints the picture of every boy who falls in battle in the newspapers. Some strangers ask, Doesn't this hurt your morale? They don't understand. This is one of the main elements in the high morale of our people. Nobody who falls in battle in the defense of Israel and its people is anonymous. He is a man with a name. I want to tell you that to open a paper in the morning and see those pictures is not simple. We go on only because we are convinced we can stand up before God and man with pure hearts. We also carry a terrible economic burden, and we cannot carry it alone. Jewish communities all over the world share it with us. This year we have called on our people in Israel to carry a bigger burden. You'll forgive me if we come to you and ask you to take on a bigger burden. The burden becomes light if you always remember what the alternative may be. How large a burden is a Jew prepared to carry if he knows that what he does is essential to the security of Israel? That consideration changes the weight of the figures. These, then, are our problems, this is our stand, and this is our plea for your understanding and for cooperation.
18 International Reports Report from Australia Barry Page
Some six months after the last convention of the Conseryative movement, held in London, the Conservative movement of Australia came into formal existence, and since then has sponsored two major activities. First we were visited by Rabbi Marvin Tokayer, of the Jewish community of Japan. This visit, sponsored by the World Council of Synagogues and Rabbi Tokayer, had a great impact on the two major Australian Jewish communities in Sidney and Melbourne. Mrs. Adele Gilead was particularly helpful in arranging this visit. The Conservative Jewish movement in Australia also conducted its first High Holyday services in conjunction with the minyan in Camber- well, which is one of the suburbs of Melbourne. I would like to thank Rabbi Bernard Segal and Mr. Victor Zager for their efforts in rushing to us, airfreight, fifty prayerbooks which were needed for the services. Last month we conducted a survey among the seven hundred Jewish families in Camberwell, and were very pleased to find that approximately one hundred families were interested in forming a Jewish communal center. A committee has been formed and we anticipate building a synagogue. Meanwhile, the Conservative movement which, I stress, is a body independent of this Camberwell Jewish Center, has been in close contact with the World Council of Synagogues. We have been pleased to find that one or two rabbis have expressed interest in coming to Australia, and it is indeed possible that one will become the spiritual leader of the Conservative movement in Australia at the end of this year. His coming, I believe, will encourage additional families to swell the ranks of the one hundred I referred to above. To sum up, we are now witnessing the birth of the first Conservative congregation in Australia. I would like to explain to you why we need a Conservative movement in Australia. There are about thirty-five thousand Jews in Melbourne and about thirty thousand in Sydney. In Melbourne there are twelve Orthodox and two Reform rabbis. One might jokingly term the Jewish community the "community with the hole in the middle," because we have two extremes with no middle, as far as Jewish thought is concerned. If one's outlook is "scholastic traditionalism," there is no vehicle for learning or practicing what one wishes to practice. I believe that if the Conservative movement shows an active interest and brings its philosophy to our country, it will win a following, particularly among the young people. In Australia, such things as biblical criticism, Jewish theology and Jewish philosophy in general, are literally tabu topics. We have superb schools, but unfortunately Judaism is not taught in this context. I also believe that a movement that stresses individual respect for authority, as distinct from hierarchal authority, would be greatly appreciated and is greatly needed in Australia. This again is a critical point relating to the younger generation who do not think in terms of communities, but for whom respect is initially or primarily a matter of individual conscience. We hope that the Conservative movement, in its philosophy, will fulfill the needs of the person living within his individual conscience, as well as within the communal conscience. Australia also needs a Jewish religious movement which is tolerant, for we have had enormous difficulties with intolerance and bigotry among our communities. I would hope that as our movement grows in Australia, it can preserve a tolerant outlook and respect all Jewish thinking.
19 The last problem of the Jewish community of Australia on which I would like to touch, is one which will not, I think, win me much popularity. This is the problem raised by the growth of Israel. Among Australian Jews, the growth of respect for Israel has unfortunately brought with it a diminishing of respect for values of the Jewish religion. There are many Jews in our country who see the State of Israel as a valid replacement for the full arena of Jewish thought. We must try and prove to Australian Jewry that there is a valid need for the religious aspect of Judaism in addition to the Zionist aspect of the Jewish religion. Our community in Australia is religiously at the crossroads. I hope the future will bring a growth of Conservative interest, and with it an emphasis on Jewish scholasti- cism, tolerance, and awareness of the individual in society. from Italy Professor Gianfranco Tedeschi
I am grateful that you have invited me for the second time to your convention. I can't officially say "our" convention because, by law, the Italian community belongs to the Orthodox movement, although in practice the Italian Jew, for the most part, is more reformed than the Reform. Personally, I follow the Conservative movement with sympathy. What I am going to say, however, does not concern the community in Rome nor this convention. It concerns politics. The life of the Jewish people can be considered at many levels—religious, cultural and political. My remarks today concern a very delicate political aspect of the Jewish people, the problem of a dialogue between the Jews of the Diaspora and the Govern- ment of Israel. I believe, as I'm sure you believe, that a Jew cannot be a complete Jew without identification with Israel, the Jewish state. In some respects, the policy of the Israel Government involves all the Jews of the world, and I wonder if now is the moment to create a special linking body between the Israel Government and the Jews of the Diaspora. We don't pretend interference in the policy of the Government of Israel. We can't say what the Israeli Government should do at Suez or on its borders, etc. But Israel must know what the Jews of the Diaspora think about its policies. To whom can we speak? Jewish agencies have nothing to do with the Government —thank God. We might speak with Israeli ambassadors to foreign governments, but often these ambassadors have no time and are not very interested in the problems of the Jewish communities of the countries in which they live. Italian Jews have often said, "Thank God the military of Israel is not on the same level as the diplomats; otherwise Israel would have lost the war." I believe that the moment has come for the Israel Government to talk with the Jews of the Diaspora. Israel demands our moral and financial support, and in this respect I think we can never give enough. But I fear the day will come when the gulf between the Jews of the Diaspora and the Israel Government will widen, unless there is a dialogue. Contacts between Diaspora Jews and Israel can be helpful in many areas. We Jews are idealistic and we believe that the Arab-Israel dialogue must begin one day. But before this political dialogue begins, I think that the Jews in the Diaspora can create a certain psychological preparation, a beginning dialogue on a cultural and religious level between Jews and Arabs living abroad. This would be the beginning of a pattern along which we hope, please God, one day the political dialogue between Israel and its neighbors will develop. In Italy, the Jewish community is beginning to discuss literature, Muslim and sometimes Jewish religion, poetry, etc., with a cultural attache to an Arab Embassy. I believe that if I can speak with another person, sit at a table and eat together with him, a climate of understanding can be created.
20 I am sure there will be opposition from various sources to a dialogue between the Jews of the Diaspora and the Israel Government. Assimilated Jews will say, we are Americans, or Italians, and they are Israelis; we help them with money. It is the way they tranquilize their own guilt feelings, because they don't want to participate fully in the life of Israel. The other opposition, I am sure, will come from extreme Zionists. Ben-Gurion, for instance, has said that if a Jew wants to express his own political viewpoint on Israel, he must come to Israel and express it there. It is true, but it is not realistic. Ben-Gurion has said that Israel's only strength lies in the Jewish people who must come and settle in Israel. If Israel numbered three or four million, the Arabs would never attack it. Well, this is very idealistic. I hope very many Jews will come to Israel, but in reality, Israel's help comes from outside, not only from the Jewish people but, for instance, from the United States. Jews of America have a great responsibility to influence their government to support Israel, because at this moment the United States provides the greatest political help to Israel, and through Israel to all Jewish people throughout the world. from India Emmanuel E. Moses
I bring the greetings of the Jewish community of India to all my brother and sister delegates. It is a great privilege to be here again. Ten years have passed since the United Synagogue of India associated itself with the World Council of Synagogues. The leaders of the World Council and of the United Synagogue of America have inspired us and rendered valuable services to the Jewish community of India, and to the Indian community in Israel. The United Synagogue of India has helped maintain organized religious life in the village and city congregations of India by providing them with prayerbooks, books on Jewish history, law and culture, taleisim, tefillin, and sifrei Torah. Prayerbooks, books on Jewish history and culture, sifrei Torah and taleisim were also given to the Bnei Israel synagogues in Israel. In the course of the last twelve years, 11,000 Bnei Israel from India have migrated to Israel and have settled in Kiryat Shmona, Lod, Kiryat Gat, Ofakim, Dimona, Beer Sheva, Kfar Yerucham, Ramie and Yavne. Special attention must be paid to those of our young people who have settled in Israel. We must see that they do not stray from the synagogue under the impact of new influences. In view of the large scale immigration of our people to Israel, we in India are faced with the problem of what to do with our synagogues and institutions. Representatives of all the synagogues met last month in Bombay, and considered three proposals. First, the small synagogue, particularly in the village, could be given as a gift to the local municipal council to be used as a school or library. Secondly, synagogues which find difficulty in obtaining a minyan could merge with larger synagogues in the vicinity. Thirdly, where it is not possible to merge with a nearby synagogue, the property could be disposed of and the funds used to assist emigrants to Israel. However, the Govern- ment of India does not allow funds to be transferred to any other part of the world. The Bnei Israel community has produced a number of Jewish scholars and national figures. Currently, there are two distinguished members of Bnei Israel in the Indian Army and the Indian Navy. Members of Bnei Israel have also been prominent in the legal, medical and teaching professions. We look forward to participating in the proceedings of this convention and deriving renewed inspiration for our work on behalf of our community.
21 from Sweden Rabbi Morton H. Narrowe
Two years ago I reported to this body about three significant changes then taking place on the Swedish-Jewish scene, and tried to place these developments in local and international context. While we are a numerically insignificant community in Scan- dinavia, my observations may be of value, for we are wrestling with problems produced by a very liberal and progressive capitalism, problems which may become applicable to the American scene in the future. Two years ago I spoke about how the Swedish government helps us in many of our Jewish activities, providing financial aid for social and youth work. I should like to add a few words now about the psychological effect of this symbiosis on Stockholm Jews. I will not speak for Scandinavia as a whole, but only for myself and my community. Some of Stockholm's Jews, including the leaders, in all honesty want nothing more than to remain unseen. Some of them have lived in Sweden a long time; we jokingly call them "Gustav's Eineklach." (Gustav was a king of the fifteenth or sixteenth century.) Others are among those who came to Sweden after the Nazi period, from the concentra- tion camps; this comprises about half our population. These people are generally middle-aged. The youth are much more open than their parents; they are prepared to stand openly, publicly, as Jews, as recent participants in the national Middle East debate have shown. About a month ago, we had a three-hour public debate on television on the problems of the Israelis and the Arabs. One of the participants stood up, supported the Israel position and openly said, "I'm a leading member of the Zionist movement in Sweden." Now the word "Zionist" has a very bad tone in our country; nevertheless some Jews have learned to stand up and say exactly what they are. These same adults tried for a long time to keep us from asking the state to reimburse us for the "relief time" religious education which the Jewish community has provided for over a hundred years. They were also against our asking the state or the city for help in building our new chapel at the cemetery and in maintaining the cemetery. Despite them, however, we approached the city and received half the funds needed for building the new structure, as well as more than half the money needed for annual maintenance of the cemetery. Other Jews were insistent in claiming that the state does not do enough for us and for other minorities in the country. One young Jewish Social Democrat, a survivor of the death camps, has become identified with a "minority rights" position (which is not too far from the old position that Dubnow held many years ago). Others have also taken a stand on the government's obligations to its minority groups. The newspapers have written quite a bit about the lot of the Laplanders in the far north of Sweden, and this has given many people a whole new outlook on the question of what a heretofore almost completely homogeneous country should do with the new minorities that are coming into their midst, as well as with the old minorities that already live there—like the Laplanders and the Jews. Most of us believe that our modus vivendi at this time should be to remain politically alert and keep the door open for communication and mutual cooperation with the Government. I believe that we should avoid making Jewish political requests at this time, when sizeable Catholic immigration is entering Sweden. Here is an example of what I mean. Several months ago, the President of the Jewish community and myself were asked to appear before a parliamentary committee study- ing the possible effects of the separation of church and state. We were kept for three hours, in a very congenial questioning atmosphere. They looked upon us Jews as a
22 successful minority and wanted to learn from us how they could assist other minorities now coming into the country. We had a feeling that the Government wanted to help us to remain a creative minority in the country. One member of Parliament said that he would appreciate an invitation to come to our community and investigate more deeply what we are doing and what can be transferred to the general Swedish governmental agencies. The religious school boards of the Stockholm and Gothenburg Jewish communities recently visited the Chairman of Religious Education of the National Swedish Board of Education. We expressed our concern about textbooks, particularly those written for secondary school level. Many of the authors have a very limited background in Judaism. Now, however, I have been able to meet with these authors, so that many of the previous mistakes, the cliches about the religion of love being Christianity, and the religion of revenge or of justice being Judaism, are gradually disappearing from the textbooks. The Chairman of Religious Education of the Swedish Board of Education also visited our all-day school, and spent an entire morning learning about the Jewish education system in Stockholm and in the rest of Sweden. I believe he will also be very helpful to us when we form what you might call a Jewish publication society of Sweden. We call it the Hillel Book Publishing Company. We have already produced a translation of children's stories into Swedish, and a very short book surveying the lives of great Jewish heroes and personalities after the biblical period. This is a long-range project that will take many years. We have to find a translator and funds, but we are moving in the right direction. I am certain that in the forthcoming years Jewish textbooks for children will be available in Swedish. I would like to express my thanks to the United Synagogue of America for granting permission to translate these books without cost. Briefly, this is the situation in Sweden right now. As an isolated Jewish community in a fairly socialized capitalistic country with no Jewish neighborhoods and little open discrimination, it is possible that we may be doomed to disappearance through assimilation. Our disappearance may also be assisted by a significant aliyahoi some of our best young leadership. And yet I can express a hesitant optimism about the future of Judaism in Stockholm. We have had, over the past three years, twelve to sixteen young people who have received training in Ramah camps in the United States. They are now back in our community camp outside Stockholm, where some nineteen young Jewish counselors and teachers are providing 130 youngsters with one month of Jewish education. One must remember that when I first came to Sweden five years ago, the overwhelm- ing majority of the counselors in the Jewish community camp were non-Jews. The Jewish teachers who were responsible for the educational program were constantly in conflict with the few other Jewish counselors as well as with the non-Jewish counse- lors. This year, for the first time, all of the counselors will also be teachers. There will no longer be a gap in the camp personnel. This has come about only with the aid of the National Ramah Commission which has accepted our youngsters at Ramah camps without payment. We pay the transportation to the United States, and they pick up all the other bills. This promises a tremendous change in the future of the Stockholm Jewish community. There are three new developments in Scandinavia, and these are taking place in Sweden as well as in Denmark, which is very unusual because although the two communities are relatively close in distance, our problems are usually quite different. First of all, both communities send a sizeable aliyah to Israel. Our best young people are going to Israel and we are very proud of this, but at the same time we are a little worried that our own community will remain impoverished. The second development concerns the arrival of Polish-Jewish immigrants in size- able numbers. Many of these Jews have had no contact with Judaism in the past; many of them are uncircumcised; many of them are married to non-Jews. Nevertheless, a surprising number of people attended a synagogue memorial service commemorating the uprising of the Warsaw ghetto, and expressed some sort of Jewish interest. 23 The third development concerns a project which will further unite Scandinavian Jewry, and may have importance for many of the smaller communities of western Europe. Chief Rabbi Melchior of Denmark and I, in conjunction with the lay leader of the Oslo community and a representative of the American Joint Distribution Commit- tee, are in the planning stages of founding a European Brandeis Institute. In early September, a seminar will be held outside of Stockholm, at which time representatives of our communities will discuss location, program, and leadership. But we cannot do this alone. We shall need assistance beyond that which the Joint can offer financially. We shall need an additional contribution by American Jewry, hopefully, by this very body. We must have teachers and instructors to address the youth and adults who will come to the Institute. Our funds do not cover salaries and travel allotments for instructors. We hope that those who will teach can be urged to travel between America, England and Israel by way of Copenhagen. This will, of course, keep the cost very low. But we will need help beyond this. I want to ask this organization which has done so much for Latin America and for Israel, to consider the needs of European Jewry. I turn to you to ask you to help us financially and, equally important, to help us contact teachers and scholars who can spend several weeks during the summer providing instruction at our Institute.
Discussion on Diaspora Communities Rabbi Bent Melchior (Denmark): The Jewish communities of Scandinavia have taken in great numbers of Polish-Jewish refugees—about 1500 in Sweden and the same number in Denmark. Speaking in general terms, these people have lived through twenty-five years of de-Judaization in a Communist country, with quite a proportion of them belonging to the Communist Party, serving in the Government, in the Army, in very high positions. I think it will take some time before they will return to Judaism. The communities of Scandinavia, which are having quite a struggle to Judaize them- selves, now have the additional task of Judaizing this group. The older people remember Judaism; they are children of Hasidic and other religious families from pre-war Poland. They still speak Yiddish, and you can approach them through the Yiddish language. Still, we are beginning to see Polish Jews who have not identified themselves with Judaism, now returning to their heritage. When the Jewish Center in Copenhagen has an evening for Polish refugees, with a program of music or some cultural topic, we have a small group attending. But if we have a speaker from Israel or a discussion on Jewish religion, we have an audience of hundreds. The Polish immigrants are very interested in finding themselves; and the difference between Poland and the Scandinavian countries is great enough so that it will be difficult for these people to integrate themselves as Swedes or Danes, unless they do so through Judaism—identifying themselves first as Jews, and then as Swedish Jews or Danish Jews. We have taken into the Jewish-Danish day school about fifty children who for the first time have seen an aleph. One of these children celebrated his bar mitzvah last Shabbat. Four couples have been married in the synagogue. These are just small gains that would not have been possible had these people remained in Poland. So there are prospects, but it is a long term job; it takes time to adjust from a dictatorship to a democratic country. I have been a refugee myself, and I know that even under the best of circumstances (and I think that the Scandinavian countries have given their newcomers very good material assistance), the name "refugee" makes you into someone far below even a second-grade person. We must see to it that we give our newcomers the feeling that they are first-grade citizens, that they are part of the community, and that they hve something to contribute to us. Then we will succeed; and we will succeed to the extent that a good number of the youngsters will, in due course, find their way to Israel. That
24 is not only my hope, but my conviction. Mr. Schleifstein (U.S.A.): What is the problem of intermarriage? Rabbi Narrowe: We have considerable intermarriage, but couples in which one partner is Jewish will very often send their children to Jewish schools and affiliate them in one way or another with the Jewish community. At one time intermarriage appeared to be destroying the Swedish Jewish community; now, I am not so certain. First of all, I think that it has decreased, and secondly, if you come to our all-day school, you will see that approximately twenty-five percent of the children come from homes in which one parent is not Jewish. The family, nevertheless, decides to remain Jewish. This is the antithesis of the situation fifteen years ago, and there is no doubt that Israel has played a significant role in making Jews proud to be Jews, and keeping them identified with the Jewish community and the Jewish people. Mrs. Midlen (U.S.A.): Are the rabbis planning to make it easier for children of mixed marriages to be bar mitzvah if a non-Jewish parent has not gone through a traditional conversion? Rabbi Melchior; The problem, of course, can apply only to mixed marriages where the mother is not Jewish, which already diminishes the problem. We in Scandinavia accept these children into our Jewish institutions. If we expect them at one point to become Jewish, we must give them the opportunity to have a Jewish education. At the age of bar mitzvah, we in Copenhagen have them converted in accordance with the traditional requirements—mikveh for both girls and boys, and britmilah for boys. Mr. Jules Gutin (U.S.A., President of ATID): In what way can we hope to solidify relations between the Jewish youth in your countries and the Jewish youth in the United States? Mr. Barry Page (Australia): The basis of the relationship is communication, and unfortunately, it might be a one-way relationship at first, in the sense that we would like ATID literature sent to us and to various other communities throughout the world. Possibly all we could do in the smaller communities would be to tell you about some of our unique philosophies. In Australia we would particularly like to know more about the concept of the Ramah camps which have a balanced approach to Judaism, stressing Zionism, religion, and other aspects of Jewish life. Dr. Gianfranco Tedeschi (Italy): I think it would be very important for students of the Jewish schools in Italy to meet Jewish students in the United States. Perhaps our children could be sent for short periods of time to the United States. This would also serve to introduce Conservative Judaism to Italy. Mr. Sam Rothstein (U.S.A.): Is it the policy of the Italian government to recognize only Orthodox Jewish congregations? If that is correct, what are the possibilities, if any, of creating a Conservative movement in Italy? Professor Tedeschi: The Italian law that rules the life of the Jewish community was promulgated by Mussolini in 1933. But we can survive, thanks to this law, because it allows the Jewish community to tax the Jewish people, and we would not want the law changed. Italian law does recognize the Orthodox movement in the sense that the Rabbinical Executive of the Union of Jewish Communities in Italy consists of Ortho- dox rabbis. All changes in the community must pass through that Executive. Yet the Jewish community in Italy is really Conservative in its practices. We have prayers translated into Italian; we have an organ and music in the synagogue; we interpret certain passages in certain ways. (I am sure that things will change as soon as the Chief Rabbi of Italy will make his own aliyah to Israel.) The problem in Italy is one of rabbis. For instance, in Rome we have 14,000 Jews with only one rabbi and five hazanim. The Yeshivah in Italy has only three students. Where will we find a rabbi five years from now? I think that if some pioneer rabbi would like to come to Italy, he would be welcome to open a new synagogue; but the trouble is where to find the money, because, as I told you, the money from the Jews goes to the Community, and the Community pays for synagogues. If there could be financial support from outside, however, I am sure the Conservative movement would attract many people. I would give all my support as President of the Community to help this movement, for I believe in it. 25 Mr. David Freeman (Israel): It has been said that religion down the ages has been used to comfort the troubled. I believe it should be used to trouble the comfortable. I say that because if you feel very comfortable about the reports you have heard about Jewish religious conditions around the world, I hope you will feel troubled about the situation in Israel itself. First of all, it is only right that I should pay tribute to the very great help, both material and spiritual, we have received both from the United Synagogue and the World Council of Synagogues during the years. Nevertheless, after twenty years, what do we have in Israel? One congregation in Jerusalem, one in Haifa, and one in Ashkelon. In the city of Tel-Aviv, for instance, there is no Conservative congregation. Since the Six-Day War, there has been a great urge toward religious consciousness and practice, but as far as I can tell, that urge and that need remain unfulfilled. Here is a great field of activity for the Conservative movement. There is also an enormous job to be done in providing religious training for Israeli children. I may also ask whether the Conservative movement is doing all it should to see that those who were members of Conservative congregations in the United States and who are now living in Israel are able to continue their religious practice here. Solomon Schechter once said, "You must leave a little to God." I must say, with great respect, that I think we have left more than a little to God as far as Israel is concerned. It is time we did something ourselves. I really believe that Israel deserves special consideration from the World Council of Synagogues, and I hope and pray that from this convention, a resolution will go out for a more intensive prdgram of Conservative activities in Israel. Mr. Barry Page: What exactly does the Conservative movement feel is the meaning of religious redemption in Israel? Is winning the Six-Day War and having a united Jerusalem, the end goal of Judaism? Is it everybody going to synagogue on Shabbat?If Conservative communities aboard do not get clarification of this question, they may associate Israel with militarism, with victories over the Arabs, and with other secular aspects of the State. This is causing great concern in Australia, and none of the religious movements, to my mind, have really clarified the aims of religion in Israel.
26 Greetings from the United Synagogue of America Jacob Stein
Shortly before my departure for Israel, I received a letter from Dr. Louis Finkelstein, Chancellor of The Jewish Theological Seminary of America, asking me, in his absence, to convey his greetings to this convention, his good wishes, and his sincere hope and prayer that peace will soon return to the land of Israel. The United Synagogue of America is pleased to have been a moving force in the creation of the World Council of Synagogues, and to have made possible its achieve- ments to date. Our million and a half members in 830 congregations in the United States and Canada express the sincere hope that through these conventions each of us will return to our home communities with a better understanding of the worldwide nature of Jewish life, and with answers to some of the perplexing questions of our times. We are gathered here today from many countries of the world, separated by thou- sands of miles and by differing political systems, but we are all drawn together today in Israel, in the spirit of kol Yisrael haverim. Our World Council President, Morris Speizman, spoke yesterday of the feeble flame of Judaism protected by the hurricane glass around it. This flame burns throughout the world, in each and every one of our synagogues, in the ner tamid. There is an interesting commentary on who is responsible for keeping this flame aglow. We read that Moses was commanded to tell the children of Israel to bring to the Temple pure olive oil to kindle the eternal light. The Rabbis note that this task of service to the Temple was not undertaken by Priests or Levites, but rather by all the children of Israel. It is significant that it is all Israel, dwelling throughout the world and gathered here today, who are charged with keeping alive the flame of Judaism. Soon we will each return to our own community. Let us resolve together to strengthen Jewish commitment to Torah, to the Jewish people, and to Israel. Let us carry back with us the message of Mrs. Meir, to tell our neighbors about Israel, and let each of our voices be as ten, communicating to all whom we can reach our deepening concerns over the security of Israel. May God grant us success in our endeavors, so that the flame of the ner tamid will burn ever more brightly, illuminating the entire world with the message of peace and justice, dignity and freedom, first echoed from Sinai, and more desperately needed than ever before by a confused and perplexed world.
27 Is There a Religious Awakening in Israel? Professor Ernst Simon
Religious awakening is different from revivalism, though both terms are often confused. Revivalism is caused by emotional pressure exerted under the conditions of a mass meeting. In our days, it is produced by an orator, often assisted by pop music, by choirs which use monotonous refrains in order to hammer into the captive audience a few suggestive slogans never to be forgotten. After such preparation, a thundering call leads to some individuals hesitatingly coming up and professing at least their minor sins, hopefully still hiding their major ones. These pioneers of conversion have been carefully pre-selected and excellently prepared for their role in the play. If they play their part well, many more naive followers will emerge from the mass audience and join the growing crowds aseembling on the rostrum. They are acting out a contagious emotional role in which the great majority does not actively participate. However, it does immensely enjoy the spectacle and becomes more and more prepared to pay for it time and again. Revivalism is pseudo-religious application of a more general phenomenon of mass culture, known since the time of imperial Rome. It is based on effective techniques which may be bought on Madison Avenue, or at similar places. It strips its joyful victims of their most distinctive character traits, reducing them to the lowest common denominator. Revivalist actions may begin harmlessly, by clapping hands in the rhythm of folk songs or military marches, but they may very well, or very badly, end in harmful deeds, where nobody is guilty because a common guilt has been divided among countless participants. Psychologically speaking, these revivalist experiences show a distinct similarity to dream life. They are mostly involuntary and partly subconscious, dominated by strong emotions and only barely controlled by rational criticism. Now religious awakening is just the other way around, beginning with the individual, working within him, and possibly ending in a real communion. To quote the very first sentence of the Shulhan Arukh, the cobwebs of collective dreaming are shaken off by the individual who rises early in the morning, like a lion, for the service of the Lord. Moses ascended Mount Sinai alone, and there spent a long, lonely vigil of forty days and nights without eating, drinking or sleeping. During his absence, the unruly masses made Aaron build for them the golden calf, as a visible substitute either for their temporarily invisible leader, or for the eternally invisible God. Israel's dance around the calf was a peak of revivalism, exercised at the very hour when Moses underwent his second religious awakening after first experiencing God at the burning bush. Moses, descending from Sinai with God's tablets in his hand, heard the wild, inarticulate cries of the crowd below, and then discerned their idol, the calf. Thereupon he smashed the tablets, made and written by God's own hand. Was that not a mortal sin? Not at all. According to the Talmud, God is said to have blessed Moses with the words, "Your vigor may become even greater because you broke the tablets." What does this mean? That the man of faith, listening and alert to God's words, is bound to keep the visible symbols of faith in their purity and integrity. Had the tablets not been broken, they themselves could have served the revivalism of a people who worshipped a self-made calf as if it were their God. By smashing the physical symbol, Moses saved their spirit for his generation and for those that followed. Only now, after having defined and illustrated our terms—revivalism and religious awakening—have we hopefully arrived at a common ground, solid enough for us to build upon it a universe of discourse. We may still disagree, and I suppose we will, but we do know now on what to disagree while trying to answer our question, "Is there a religious awakening in Israel?" After the Six-Day War, there were signs of revivalism as well as of genuine awakening 28 in Israel. Sometimes both were blended together, making it difficult to discern between the components—but we shall try. Miracles ... after the victory I was asked by many friends, "What do you say now?" My standard answer was, "Only if I did not believe in God, I would speak of miracles as all of you do." General Rabin, the victor of the Six-Day War, also said, "I do not believe in miracles." As far as I know, he was almost the only public figure to say that publicly, and I honor him very much in my heart for this outspokenness in such an important and central matter. Why did he say it? While he didn't discuss it, I think his position was more moral than religious, yet unwittingly he fulfilled a religious commandment. He did not express God's Name in vain. Not believing in Him, he did not wish to use or misuse His sacred Name. My dilemma was of another kind, more religious than moral. My feeling was that if the victory was a positive miracle of God's doing, then Auschwitz was a negative deed of His. For this decision I, for one, am not yet ready. I doubt whether you are. I think that intellectuals today have a certain blindness towards symbols. We are too critical, too rational, too intellectual. But I believe that symbols have a legitimate function to fulfill, in visualizing a genuine experience so that it can be renewed and experienced again. But I must warn that besides this positive quality, there is a great danger that the symbol may take the very place of the experience or of the command- ment itself. Then, for example, the yarmulke becomes more important than God. Now the yarmulkemay be a top value, but it is certainly not a basic value. A currently relevant example of a symbol assuming greater importance than the word of God concerns the city of Hebron where the graves of the Patriarchs are to be found. I believe that today Hebron is a negative symbol. Insistence on holding Hebron sets up a false hierarchy of values, for I believe that colonizing Hebron stands in the way of searching for peace. Now let me say something about indications of real religious awakening in Israel. I see it particularly in the youth of the kibbutzim—and not specifically in the religious kibbutzim. There is, unfortunately, an unholy alliance in our country between religious orthodoxy and national chauvinism, which may have very deep roots. We have not heard from any Orthodox rabbi a single word of ethical admonition against the moral dangers which every war, our own war included, brings with it. This rabbinical role was fulfilled by General Rabin, the professed atheist. It speaks of a deep, gnawing crisis in the religious establishment when its major task in educating and leading the people is left to laymen and to professed atheists. In the kibbutzim there has been an awakening, a self-searching. Members of kibbutzim who returned from the war are asking themselves: How did we uphold the values by which we were educated in the kibbutz? How did we withstand the moral dangers? And at the same time they are expressing sharp criticism against their parents and teachers who brought them up without any deep knowledge of their Jewish heritage. You will be interested to hear that in the Student Center of The Jewish Theological Seminary, in Jerusalem, our courses this year are being attended not only by future American rabbis, but also by members of religious and non-religious kibbutzim. The Jewish Theological Seminary made the very wise decision to have some selected members of non-religious kibbutzim dwell in our institution during the academic year and join in our seminars. I must tell you that, from my teaching experiences in these seminars, these "secular" kibbutzniks are not less open to a religious encounter with the sources of our faith than their fellow students who will.be rabbis. In this respect, I must mention a book we have read in one of the seminars. It is called The Lonely Man of Faith, and the author is Rabbi Dov Soloveitchik, one of the most important rabbis in all of America today. The lonely man of faith is the man of the religious awakening. He is not the man of the market place, but he is bound by his faith to go into the market place, to endanger his faith from time to time, and to win it back from the seductions of the market place. He stands alone on his own Sinai, and wins his faith back in a daily struggle. This struggle is important for us as Conservative Jews. I have very often pondered what our special task is, as Conservative Jews, believing in God, trying to fulfill the 29 mitzvot, and having an open mind and heart to the burning problems of these young people, of these times, of this country, of this world, of this twentieth century. I think we should exert a certain pressure on the development of the halakhah. At no time in Jewish history did halakhah change without pressure. The Rabbis conceded to change when powerful communal pressure demanded it. Had I sufficient time, I could very well build up my statement by a series of historical proofs. Now, we must help to build up, together with others, a pressure on the Rabbinate which may be strong enough to change what has to be changed, so that what can be kept will be kept. I would say a last word. We should not hold on to things just in order to save them. I may follow rules because I am a well-disciplined, old soldier in the army. But there are many others who are younger and less disciplined. We should think about which part of our heritage saves ourselves and our youth. If we can save Israel as a Jewish state, from within, we may be making a contribution to saving this world.
Safeguarding Israel's Jewish Existence Dr. Pinhas Peli
Friends, tourism, as you know, is one of our main industries and we are glad to welcome you all here as tourists. I am afraid, however, that some of you may leave the country with the idea that Israel is the Hilton Hotel, the kotel, a meeting with the Prime Minister, and all the beautiful things that have been prepared for you. But to us who live here, Israel is more than what a tourists' eyes see. We must try to understand Israel as those who live within it see it. The fact that you are here at a conference like this proves that you are interested in the area of synagogue life, of religious life. In Israel, to my regret, this is a very painful area. It may not be enjoyable to hear of these things; indeed it may be painful. But the proof of real love for Israel is one's willingness to participate not only in the joys of the country, but also in its pains. The proof of love is if you know what hurts someone. Well, we in Israel have things in the area of religion which hurt, and we want to share some of this pain with you. I think that, as is often the case in Israel, the Bible is sometimes more typical than the evening newspaper, and I would like to sum up the religious situation in Israel in some verses from the Bible. Amos prophesied: "Behold, the days come, sayeth the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land. Not the famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord. And they shall wander from sea to sea and from the North even to the East. They shall run to and fro to seek the word of God, and shall not find it." Whether we define that which has happened in Israel since the Six-Day War as a religious awakening or religious revivalism, it is a fact that non-religious Jews in Israel are now engaged in a search for their Jewish roots. They are searching for more meaningful Jewish identification and inevitably they are coming to seek for their religious Jewish roots. The examples are many; in the army, in the kibbutzim, wherever you go, there are young people saying that during the last three years something has happened to their attitude to Judaism, their attitude to Jews, their attitude to the God of Israel. I can give you several examples from my own experience. A student at The Jewish Theological Seminary Student Center in Jerusalem, a member of a non-religious kibbutz, an officer in the reserves, who is also an author of two popular novels, told me in the course of a conversation, "You know, I have never seen a prayer book in my life." Later he confessed that he had taken off a year from his family and his kibbutz for one purpose—to find a prayerbook, to find Jewish content, to find out what Jewish religion is all about. Example number two. I have been giving a course in "Jewish values" in a settlement
30 called Nahal Kaliya, situated at the Dead Sea. The settlement was established by the Israel Army in order to defend the eastern border of the country, and it is manned by a group of young people, a Nahal group, who live there as part of their army service. At the first lecture I said, "Don't become religious. I don't come to convert, I'm not a missionary, but at least let's know what a prayer book is." When the jeep in which I was brought back to Jerusalem reached my home, two soldiers came up after me, carrying a big wooden crate. I asked, "What is this?" They said, "We have no money, but this is the payment for your lecture." And there were eggplants in the box, that they had raised after rinsing the salt out of the land seven times. Those eggplants were worth thousands to me. They were concrete testimony to what I feel goes on among the youth. Example number three. I visited a kibbutz in the hills of Jerusalem, where they had a Shabbat devoted to Hasidism. After a number of lecturers and a singer, one of the kibbutz members stood up and said, "I used to study Talmud in my youth, and after the Six-Day War I decided that I would like to study Talmud again. I wrote to Heichal Shlomo (the center of the Chief Rabbinate in Israel), asking them for a gemara. That was two and a half years ago. I sent them a reminder, but I never got a reply." I'm telling you this as an example of the attitude of religious groups'in Israel. A last example. Several years ago, a prominent rabbi in Israel visited a non-religious kibbutz near Beer Sheva to give a talk about religion. I was among the group that accompanied him, and as we drove into the kibbutz, two rows of children dressed in white waited for the rabbi and his entourage at the entrance, and welcomed us with the singing of "Heveinu shalom aleichem."We were escorted to the dining room where a large number of kibbutz members were assembled. The rabbi was seated up front and a few minutes later a girl of about sixteen brought over a plate with fruit. (They knew the rabbi would not eat anything cooked in that kibbutz, so they offered him fresh fruit.) The rabbi turned to the girl and asked, "Do you believe in God?" The girl was taken aback and said, "I don't know." Then the rabbi said, "If you don't believe in God, you will burn in hell." The girl said, "Why does the rabbi curse me?" And the well-known rabbi replied, "You have a choice. If you believe in God, you will not burn in hell." This is an example of the way in which the Israeli rabbinate meets the search for religion when it occurs. As Amos prophesied, "They will seek the word of God, and they will not find it." But let us face facts. The Conservative movement has done much less than the Orthodox or Reform movements when it comes to answering the surge of seeking for new meaning, for a new identification with religion. Except for the three or four synagogues that are doing wonderful work, in Ashkelon, Haifa, and Jerusalem, this great movement in American Jewish life is invisible in Israel. It has not responded to this great search that is taking place in Israel. Nor is this only an Israeli problem. I believe it is a problem which concerns us all, wherever we live. For Israel is the center of the Jewish people, and if we feel that it is our task, wherever we are, to keep Israel alive, it is no less important for us as synagogue Jews to make sure that Israel is alive not just as a state, but as a Jewish state. The religious problem in Israel is a problem of human rights. How is Israel helping her youth find a type of Judaism with which they can identify? I regret to say that they find it almost impossible to identify with the type of rabbinate that we have in this country. It is the task of the Conservative movement, of any religious movement that comes from abroad, to create an alternative in the area of religion, to expose the Israelis to Judaism, not to impose it upon them. If you would come and share with us the experience of literature, of religious thinking, of great teachers, that you have ac- cumulated over the past forty years while we were busy fighting for the country here, this would be the greatest contribution that you could make to Israel in an area which is second only to its security—that is, the Jewish existence of the state of Israel. If we are interested in seeing our grandchildren in Long Island or in Pennsylvania living as Jews forty or fifty or sixty years from now, it is vital that Israel should have a meaningful religious content. 31 We need a change of thinking as far as religion in Israel is concerned. I know that some people are afraid of criticizing Israel, but as an Israeli I can express criticism, as long as it is motivated by positive attempts to improve the situation. We must change our thinking about priorities. Certainly, the security of Israel is the most important problem, because if there will be no Jews, there will be no religious Jews among them. First let us be alive, and then let us thank God. But what is second and third and fourth on the list of priorities? Among people who are concerned about the future of religion, it sometimes seems that religion in Israel is always at the end and not at the top of the list. We have to change our priorities. You see how American Jews participate in many areas of life in Israel. American Jews have built and supported hospitals, convention halls, all kinds of institutions in Israel, but I have not seen any synagogues or religious centers built in Israel by Jews in America. This is something we can do in changing the scale of priorities when it comes to Israel. Criticizing is one thing, but providing a positive outlet for this criticism is really what is needed. Perhaps this convention can serve as a step forward to a more complete understanding of Israel and to the translation of our criticism and our feelings into more concrete action.
A Call for Action Rabbi Pinhas Spector
Four years ago, Professor Simon taught a course to a group of students at the Student Center of The Jewish Theological Seminary in Jerusalem. His erudition, wit and, above all else, his deep concern for his students, affected the entire class. In my case, it encouraged me to make aliyah, to come to Israel. I am truly thankful for the opportunity to continue to learn from this great man. I wish to address myself to one major aspect of Professor Simon's presentation: that faith must not be a matter of contagion, that it must depend upon a deep personal decision and commitment. Perhaps nowhere more than in Israel is such a statement true. For the Israeli, faith, almost of necessity, demands a decision. Let me give you some examples. Let us take an average wage earner who has been in Israel for a long time. He has been saying kiddush at home every Friday night for twenty years or more. His wife has been lighting the Shabbat candles. Until very recently, if you asked this man what he would call himself, he would answer, "I am a secular Jew." There is good reason for such an answer, because until recently, until the founding of the few Conservative synagogues in Israel, he had no institutional framework in which to express the religious aspects of his Judaism. Many such Israelis are now joining our synagogues because in them they find a program that gives direction to their children, and religious services conducted with a certain degree of dignity and honor. But let us talk about someone for whom it is more difficult to make a decision regarding religion—the professional, the judge, doctor, lawyer. How does he make the decision to come to a Conservative synagogue? He looks around him in Ashkelon and sees seventy-five synagogues in a city of 40,000 Jews. But there is only one practicing rabbi in those seventy-five synagogues—the Conservative rabbi. The Conservative rabbi works with the members of his community, and that is why the professional comes to the Conservative synagogue. A third group finds it even more difficult to make a decision to come to a Conserva- tive synagogue—the youth who has to fight social pressure. I would like to describe one such young person to you today. He decided, with some of his friends, to come to the synagogue for a very simple reason—to join the USY group and attend the summer camp. He had no high-flown ideas of saving the Jewry of Israel and the world, but
32 when he came to synagogue—and he had to come because of our prerequisite to join our Friday night discussion group—he became involved with issues that he didn't hear about in his high school. As Dr. Peli mentioned, the siddur was a closed book to him. Now, suddenly, he realized that the siddur was thebook for world Jewry! And he wants contact with world Jewry, because he has been taught that Israel needs aliyah, and he wants to know how to encourage people to come to his land. So this student, bright, sensitive, has found his way to the synagogue, not once or twice, but on many Friday evenings. In the words of Yehuda Halevi, "Israel is the heart of the world." Here in Israel is the deep personal decision for every Jew. Here is our reawakening. As Jews committed to the development of Judaism, we are Israel. We, therefore, have the duty to speak out boldly. Both Professor Simon and Dr. Peli mentioned that fact. The former said that we must provide pressure to change halakhah, and the latter argued that we have not done enough. I too must add something to this line of thought. Paradoxically, a Jew prays in a minyan because this is the atmosphere conducive to individual prayer. He joins a larger group in order to express his own individual commitments. By establishing at least a minyan of synagogue centers, we could create an atmosphere in Israel more conducive to this personal reawakening. The seeds of such a religious awakening already exist. They are just waiting for a vehicle to bring them to fruition. Given the present religious-political configuration, which depresses and discourages the Israeli, synagogues will not create themselves without the help of the World Council. Let me add an example of what this religious-political configuration is. I was asked by a social worker who is a member of our congregation to volunteer some time to teach a bar mitzvah class in a school for the disadvantaged. After almost six months of what was for me a very rewarding experience, we sent out invitations to a bar mitzvah ceremony. The invitation mentioned that all those participating in this event would also share a community meal of thanksgiving, make kiddush and bless shehehianu on this auspicious occasion. The ceremony would provide these disadvantaged children with a unique opportunity for public praise. But the Mayor of Ashkelon, under the influence of political pressure from the Orthodox wing, informed the social worker that he was withdrawing financial aid from the program and could not appear at the ceremony as long as Rabbi Spector, a Conservative rabbi, also appeared on the program. And that is why I say that given the present political-religious configuration, synagogues will not create themselves without your help. By the way, the ceremony teas held, the children sang and recited, the blessing was made, and the principal of the school stood up and publicly denounced the activities of certain individuals who decided not to come. Israelis will be with us, but we must be bolder. We must move boldly in the political, the economic, and the educational spheres. Religious awareness is awakening in Israel, and we must provide the frame- work for its expression. The Talmud says, "The Holy One, blessed be He, gave to Israel three wonderful gifts: modesty, rahmanut (loving kindness), and the doing of good deeds." I must sadly report to you that we have tried the tactic of being quiet, unassuming, modest, and it doesn't work. I must say that I no longer have rahmanut for that segment of religious Jewry which perverts the Judaism we are trying to foster. We are going to have to begin doing good deeds. Come, join together with us, and God will bless the fruits of our labors.
33 Youth and Judaism Rabbi Bent Melchior
We must admit that as the years pass by, our ability to understand the language of the younger generation is diminishing. We must acknowledge, too, that youth is used to being worshipped. But I think it would be good if, from time to time, we would not praise youth, because we should not make them too conceited. With all the importance that we should assign to the young generation, we should also understand that youth is really an entrance hall to our own generation, to what we would say is actual life. Let us, therefore, retain pride in what we are ourselves. I have read the last three or four reports from the conventions of the World Council of Synagogues, and have noted a number of remarks about youth. Somehow, the reports have been very similar. At every convention there has been talk of a crisis between the generations and a revolution among youth. This seems to be a difficult subject that renews itself every day and has no general answers. Yet we must try to come up with some practical suggestions. I would like to quote the editorial remarks of Rabbi Mordecai Waxman in the Spring 1970 issue of Conservative Judaism: "Jewish life in America, which for the last quarter of a century has been concerned with the problem of creating an organizational structure, now seems desperately engaged in a search for meaning." I believe that this is the right approach, an approach which youngsters understand. If the Orthodox are somehow concentrating on a certain doxology, the youngsters couldn't care less. We have our name to contend against when we call ourselves the Conservative movement, because the youngsters don't want anything conservative. They want revolution, and Judaism is revolutionary. If you will allow me a personal remark, I believe that I, in the ritual sense, am an Orthodox Jew. The Orthodox Establishment might protest, but I believe that the major difference between the Orthodox and the Conservative movements is not a question of saying prayers in one language or another, but of human approach. And this is why I feel very comfortable in these surroundings; because the desire to solve human problems is much more clear and outspoken within the Conservative movement. This, I believe, is what we should stress to our young people. They are interested in meaning, in content, not in organizational structure or in a label on a bottle. In this respect we should regard ourselves as being inside the bottle. We inside cannot see what the label says outside, but we want our young people inside this bottle with us. I know that organization is necessary, but when we do "missionary" work among the young generation, we should forget the fact that we represent this or that movement; we should not worry about who will get the credit—as long as we achieve what we want. The Conservative movement should not be satisfied with the revolutions already created, because they are already "conservative." We must be prepared for new revolutions, new initiatives and developments. It is essential to have a much stronger contact with the young generation, to listen to and understand the language they speak. Without that, we will not be able to speak a language which they will understand. I think that everybody sitting here is a member of the Establishment. So I suggest that at future conferences or conventions we invite young people to speak to us, and with us. They must be with us at the point where decisions are made and solutions are found. The problem of a common language with youth extends to the area of Jewish history. Whether we like it or not, we must recognize that when we speak about the Holocaust, it makes a completely different impression on the young generation than it does on those of us who lived during those years. Apparently we do not present this problem to the
34 young generation in a language they understand. And we must find this common language. It has been suggested that we initiate changes in our religious services to make them relevant—for example, to play musical instruments. How do we know that that is more relevant to our youngsters? How do we know they want this change? Did we ask them? And as soon as a change has been introduced, it becomes habitual. One must have a very open mind to do the same thing every day, every week, and still regard it as something new and relevant. Perhaps we should stress the idea that one must prepare himself for prayer. A service is not just something that is served to you, but something that needs preparation. All our religious symbols are very nice, but if they do not lead us to see the Invisible, then they have no meaning. The conflict within our approach to our youth is like the conflict between the hasidim and the mitnagdim. It is a battle that every one of us fights within himself. What are our priorities? Is it a question of how many pages our children have learned? Their vocabulary in the Hebrew language? How much they know of Jewish history? Or is it a question of giving them a spirit, creating an interest and a joy in Judaism? The hasidim want the joy, the atmosphere; the mitnagdim opt for so many pages of Talmud. The answer lies somewhere in the middle, and it is a question of inclination, on which side of the middle you are standing. Certainly we must take advantage of the lovely Jewish ceremonies that create atmosphere. Jewish tradition kept Friday night sacred for parents and children to sit together and talk together. It is important that we have this regular conversation between the generations. The Chancellor of Bar-Ilan University, when questioned about youth in revolt, commented, "A university student is indeed a student with a brain, but he also has a heart. He quests for knowledge, but he also thirsts for inspiration. To be sure, he must receive instruction, but what he needs most is guidance and direction. Textbooks are essential, but a moral context is indispensable." I would concur. Providing knowledge without the right context is incomplete instruction. During the last year I have been experimenting with what I call bimkom (substitute) Hebrew classes. Children who do not attend Hebrew classes more than once a week (and even if they are on the roll once a week we know that they attend once every second week), are no longer welcome in our Hebrew classes. But we do not want to put them out in the dark, so we have offered them a series of weekend courses, where they leave home for a campsite. We meet on a Friday afternoon and spend Shabbat together. We live Judaism together, and through the living we learn Judaism. On Sunday we have a number of hours set aside for teaching and lectures. The experience is a complete revelation for these children, for most of them come from non-religious homes where they do not see Shabbat observed. They would have been in school and not in shul on Shabbat morning. The children suddenly find joy in Judaism; it is not only something that comes and disturbs their lives when they want to play football with their friends. Rather, it adds something to their lives. I cannot accommodate the number of children who want to join the program which runs for a minimum of ten weekends. Obviously, ten weekends gives very little, far from enough. But it gives the youth the interest to continue with Jewish studies. Without that interest we lose the battle. Albert Einstein said that education is what is left when one has forgotten all that one has learned at school. We in the Jewish world have to provide an education in which we can afford to forget some of the details, and nevertheless feel that we have achieved something. The young generation must feel that we have offered something that is worth fighting and suffering for. Unless we do that, we will be the losers.
35 Working with Our Youth Georges Levitte
I am struck by the fact that the discussion on youth is, after all, a discussion among adults. I had supposed, when I saw the title of this session, that "Youth and Judaism" would be a dialogue between youth asking questions and Judaism—meaning this distinguished assembly—providing answers. I wonder if, consciously or unconscious- ly, the organizers of this convention have not understood that there is no youth problem; that there is only an adult problem. And I wonder whether we could not, in• just a few minutes, try to understand our adult problem, which we try to transfer to the youth. What is an adult? An adult, for me, is the wise guy who knows all the answers, but who forgets that there are real questions. And, if he does not know the questions, he is probably wrong about his answers. I wonder if the gap between the generations is not a gap which we created. I wonder, too, if it is not very sound that this gap exists. We do not have to have a guilt complex about the younger generation; but we should have some sympathy towards them, and try to understand what they are really asking. Then we may wonder if we really have the right answers for their questions, which are far deeper than those our generation posed when we were younger. We are all worried by the New Left. But let us look carefully at this phenomenon. (I will speak from my experience in Western Europe.) First of all, the New Left makes a lot of noise, but it is small in numbers. Second, can we imagine what will become of Jewish New Left youngsters in ten years time? Some of them will enter more or less Leftist politics, so they will enter a kind of Establishment. Some of them—and I feel terribly sorry for them—will be disappointed by the fact that the world has not changed. And I feel pretty sure that, in all the countries, they will be the best members of our Jewish communities, for they will preserve in their minds and in their hearts the desire to change society. Because of this revolutionary need, they will be the real builders of our future communities. But, as I said, they are only a small minority. Why are we so worried about the New Left? Why don't we speak about far greater numbers of youngsters who have exactly the same striving for change, and who translate it in a very positive Jewish way? In the Jewish communities of France, Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, Italy, there are far more who made aliyah in the last two years, than all the Jewish New Leftists. That is a positive development. Why don't we speak about them? In France, we organize regional forums attended by hundreds of Jewish youth. Why do we never speak about them? Some years ago we opened "university" courses in Judaica in Paris. This year four hundred fifty students came regularly to these courses. We must ask ourselves what is to be done in order not to lose this positive youth. Frequently, a community finds a good madrich, gives him good training in Jewish studies—and immediately puts him inside the Establishment. From that moment he is lost to the youth which turns its back to the Establishment because of the latter's spiritual void. Why should this void exist? Because our Establishment is the result of recent Jewish history, and not of Jewish tradition, or Jewish knowledge, or Jewish emotions. For the last decades, we have tried to assimilate our communities and organizations into the communities and organizations of the Western Christian world. We took a living Jewish community, based on contact between man and man, between all men and God, and made it into an organization. It was necessary; it was the price of entering into the free world. It was needed for raising funds, for building synagogues, etc. But now the tool, the organization, has become the goal. Why should youth be concerned about this?
36 Rabbi Melchior spoke of the need for knowledge and proper surroundings. Let us start with the latter. Proper surroundings are not just well-built synagogues; proper surroundings are a good relationship between the members of the congregation. We must ask: What is a community? What does it mean in this post-war, post-creation-of- Israel era of Jewish history? What is the raison d'etre of a religious community or of a brotherhood among Jews? What kind of human society are we setting as an example to the world and to our children? As we don't know the answers to these questions, whatever we may say, I wonder if we should not encourage our youngsters to create their own communities, beginning with small inter-personal relationships and growing little by little. These communities cannot be based only on the desire to change the world. Nor can they be based (as ours have been) on souvenirs of the old world or on souvenirs of the Holocaust. They must be built on deep Jewish knowledge. The top priority for every congregation throughout the world is to provide a thorough Jewish education to our youth. One problem is that our communities try to transmit Judaism as they know it. That is not what youth is looking for. Youth is seeking to create its own Judaism; and its own Judaism, curiously enough, may be both more Orthodox and more modern than ours. Our youngsters are seeking to acquire sufficient knowledge to enable them to create the future. For this I am very thankful to them, and I believe that we must help them. And here I think the Conservative movement may play a definite and important role, for our movement has the best thinkers and the best teachers in the Diaspora.
The Challenge of Latin American Youth Rabbi Marshall T. Meyer
I represent a part of the world that is very far removed from the realities of the Near East, and very far removed indeed from the United States, although geographically it is much closer. I think it is also very different from the realities of Western Europe. On the Latin American continent of some 220 million people, the realities of a revolution- ary society are distinctly different from much of what we have heard in previous talks. And yet, we live in the same world, at the end of the twentieth century, and we too face the problem of Jewish youth's search for self-identity. Now this search is a form of healthy neurosis that can be extremely creative at university age, but it becomes rather a chronic ailment when adults begin to ask who they are. It is important to bear in mind that the search for self-identity and meaning is not only a Jewish problem. Our Christian neighbors are facing exactly the same problem. In Latin America there are about two hundred million Roman Catholics, and I don't think there is a church or a synagogue that is more troubled today than the Catholic Church. The Third World worker-priests in my part of the world are challenging the very foundations of the Roman Catholic Church. The youth problems of that church are perhaps more deeply rooted than our own. Just as we are constantly talking about how to bring youth into the synagogue, the Christians are talking about how to bring them back to the Christian heritage. Everybody, evidently, is searching for identity at the end of the twentieth century. Urbanized, technologically over-developed society has creat- ed a mass of alienated human beings. Israel, of course, is different. Israel is young; class distinctions have not been stratified. Israelis are trying to defend their land; they want to live, they want to find peace. In Latin America there is an additional problem. Youth in my part of the world has gone much farther Left than elsewhere. I can't call it a New Left; it is just plain Left, with nothing very new about it. The Left includes the vast majority of Jewish youth in
37 Latin America, the most gifted, the most sensitive, the most intelligent, the most aware group of young people—and there are thousands upon thousands upon thousands of them. The synagogue-centered youth and the Zionist-centered youth reprèsent a .very small percentage of our young people. The people who influence Jewish youth throughout the South American continent are Leftist sympathizers or Leftist activists. To Jewish youth, Judaism, whether the synagogue, Zionist organizations, or Israel, simply repre- sents the Establishment. I'd like to tell you what kind of questions are asked by young Latin American Jews between 18 and 30. They normally ask one basic question, especially those who are slightly interested in the Jewish Establishment: Do you really mean what you say in the synagogue? Now that is a good question. Do we really mean what we do and say in the synagogue, or is it just a form of living together, feeling cozy, hamishkeit, and trying to make sure our sons and daughters marry Jews? Our youth want to know what kind of a God we believe in. This is a deadly serious question. We speak of new prayers; we speak of playing instruments in the synagogues; we speak of creative liturgy. I think our young people are asking: Can one really pray, and what is prayer? This question goes beyond the meaning of the words, beyond the cadence of the liturgy. What is prayer as a human spiritual endeavor? Is it meaningful at the end of our century? In the words of Abraham Joshua Heschel, "The meaning of all meanings—this is theology, recapturing the ultimate questions to which religion is the answer." If we have the answers, and are not sensitive to the questions, then we are out of touch with the reality of the problem. These young people pose devastating questions about Jewish ethics and morals. They say: Are we really more ethical and moral because we go to the synagogue? In Latin America they want to know if it is more important to build a synagogue than to clear out the slum areas. They want to know if they have a right to have a swimming pool or summer camp, when there are thousands of children who are dying of malnutrition. They want to know the ethics and morals involved in Jewish life. They want to know—and I have heard them ask pointedly—whether the Jew who identifies with the synagogue or with other Jewish organizations is really more honest in business. Does he pay his income tax honestly? Does he carefully limit himself to a legitimate margin of profit? Are we more honest in our personal relationships with our wives, our children, our friends, our colleagues, as a result of our participation in the synagogue or Zionist organization? They want to know whether we have proved that God is a force of reality in our lives. Are we more alive, more sensitive, more generous (and not only with money), more capable of loving, and of loving better and more wisely, because we are Jews? This is not a sermon. These are the real questions that young, sensitive, intelligent, alienated, estranged Jews in my part of the world are asking of the Jewish Establish- ment. And unfortunately, they do not see affirmative answers. It's not important what they hear; it is far more important that they see who we are, what we do, and how we live. Youth also says that the modern world is a product of three thousand years of Judaism, and two thousand years of Christianity, and some fourteen hundred years of Islam. And they are not satisfied with the world they have received; so they go Left, very Left indeed. Now, what is it in the Left that attracts them? Certainly not a technical commitment to dialectical materialism. They are tremendously attracted to the ethical categories of social justice, which seeks to do away with differences betwen the filthy rich and the filthy poor. This, in Latin America, is a very real problem. To what do we want our youth to return? Do we want them to come back to mouthing prayers in synagogues, or do we want to bring them back to spiritual awakening? How many of us are engaged in a real spiritual enterprise that is imaginative and exciting? Or are we a holding company for investments of the past centuries? How is it conceivable that the synagogue shall remain silent vis-a-vis the problems that are throttling society? Where is the condemning and the committed voice that should come out of the 38 synagogue? Our young people are asking questions, but all they hear is silence, or a decorous "Adon Olam"sung by many people who have not thought about the meaning of Adon Olam—Lord of all the world. We are Conservative Jews because we understand that there is something worth conserving, and I think that we make a little too light of the tremendous value of our tradition. I don't think it is fragile; I think it can withstand all of our questioning. We have to explore our Jewish heritage, and with the courage of our convictions we must have the flexibility to enter into real dialogue, as dangerous as it may be. We must begin to ask ourselves some of the questions that our young people are asking: What have we done with the knowledge we have? How is our understanding, our sensitivity, our honesty, expressed? How is the individual able to find a sense of meaning for all the sacrifices and struggle and suffering of life? In short, the problems of the Left must be the problems of religion. That which attracts the sensitive youngster to the Left are the religious bases of social problems. Obviously, we must not convert our religious tradition into a pattern of political activism alone. But we must begin to act, and we must not lose the elements of universalism in the Jewish ethic that have permitted us to survive the odds of history. It is important in Israel, and throughout the Diaspora, to sit down and talk with our young people. But we cannot talk unless we are prepared to listen. I think it is not by accident that the Shema begins with the word "hear." We must hear and we must listen if we are to enter into a creative dialogue with our young people. Only after shema, "hear and listen," can we move on to ve'ahavta, "and you shall love." Only when we learn to listen and to love, will we be able to work together with our beautiful, inquiring, sensitive, errant, but passionately exciting youth.
Rebellion and Tradition Colonel Mordecai Bar-On
A well-known Hasidic tale relates that once there was a rabbi who knew a prayer and used to go out to a certain forest, gather wood, make a fire, and chant his prayer to a certain melody. His son forgot the place in the forest and the fire, but he remembered the prayer and the melody. His grandson forgot the place in the forest, the fire, and the prayer, but he still remembered the melody. There is a group of young Israeli actors who stage a Hasidic program which begins with this famous story. But they add a line of their own: "Now, what about us? Not only did we forget the place in the forest and the fire; not only did we forget the prayer and the melody; we forgot that there ever was a prayer." This is, of course, an exaggeration, but it does provide some idea of our own Israeli predicament. First, however, I would like to say a few words about the general predicament of Judaism everywhere in the world. There are at least four elements that have been vital to Judaism over the generations and that stand opposed to youth's values and ways of doing things nowadays. The first has to do with the fact that Judaism has always been, in the deepest sense, a historic phenomenon. Take away history, take away the development of the Jewish people since ancient times, and you take away the heart of Judaism. Many of our writings begin with a recitation of the chain of tradition of handing over the Torah. Pirkei Avot begins with "Moses gave the Torah to Joshua, Joshua to the Judges, the Judges to the Prophets, the Prophets to the Men of the Great Synagogue. ..." Even the role of Eretz Yisrael in two thousand years of Diaspora Jewish tradition, Jewish life, culture and religion, is based on the fact that you connect everything that you do—even though you may live in a little shtetl in Rumania, in Poland, or somewhere in Yemen—with the memories of the time when the Jewish people lived in Eretz Yisrael. It is the vision that always looks backwards into the
39 depths of history that has been essential in Judaism. A second element in Judaism is the fact that intellectualism is basic to it. One can mention movements in Jewish history, such as Hasidism, which try to penetrate more deeply into the emotional area, but basically Judaism always has had to pass through the filter of the human mind. Other nations are different. A French farmer somewhere in a little village in France, speaking about French culture, basically thinks of a good wine and the varieties of cheeses that he eats, the landscape, his surroundings. We have been deprived of this geographic reference in most periods of our history. What we took with us from place to place, from one environment to another, had to be carried—in our hearts and, primarily, in our minds. It was the spoken word and the written word which conveyed from one generation to another the essence of Judaism. Thus, intellectualism is essential to it. Thirdly, I think that authority was always essential in Judaism. At the Passover seder we recite: "And thou shalt say to your son." The whole atmosphere of the seder is highly paternalistic; it is the small child who gets up and asks the questions, and the father who gives the answers. This is just one example of the atmosphere which permeates Judaism, in which the tradition is handed over from the older to the younger. The stereotyped picture of the Jew, throughout history, has been an elderly man with a long beard, not a young, rebellious youth. The fourth element which is essential in Judaism is the conservation of its tradition. Basically, Judaism had to maintain the old ways, had to be conservative in its development, not only in the Diaspora but also before the dispersion. These four elements stand diametrically opposed to everything that youth today is interested in, and everything that motivates youth today. Rabbi Melchior spoke about revolution; Judaism was revolutionary once, when Abraham broke the false gods of his father. There have been periods of revolution in Judaism since then, but basically Judaism is traditional. Today's youth is deeply disillusioned with the world in which it lives, and does not want to look to the past, to tradition. Latin America, perhaps, is undergoing the greatest fermentation, and it may be the only continent in which "revolution" has any real meaning; the revolution in the other continents really amounts to frustration. And this fermentation speaks directly to youth. But youth has no monopoly on wisdom, on emotions, or even on morality. Youth has only one very important monopoly—the monopoly on the future. They look to the future because the present looks ugly to them, and they interpret that ugly present as something that was born out of ties to the past. Increasingly, youth is turning away from intellectual attitudes; anti-intellectualism is rampant in American universities and elsewhere in the world. We feel it, too, among Jewish youth, when youngsters reject our attempts to force Judaism into their minds, into their awareness, by intellectual means. The negation of any authority is very essential for youth today. The trouble that we have with our youth is not a matter of the mistake made by one generation or another. It is nobody's fault. We are confronting a basic crisis, a confrontation between the essentials of Judaism and the essentials of the life of youngsters today. Georges Levitte spoke about the role of questions and answers—but the trouble is that the youth of today does not have the answer for the Jewish problem; nor do we have a Jewish answer to the questions that the Leftist youth of Latin America asks. Foi some years, it seemed to the Jewish youth of Latin America that the Cuban revolution had provided an answer to the questions that tortured them. But the answer, in Jewish terms, meant the liquidation of the Jewish community in Cuba—not because Castro was an anti-Semite, but because the answers to the questions that interest the youth in Latin America today are irrelevant to the question of the Jewish existence in that continent. It is a tragic conflict that Marshall Meyer has described to us, not only a conflict between youth and Judaism, but within the youth themselves if they still care about their Jewishness. For to join the Left in Latin America essentially means to join the forces which, if they can, will undermine the existence of the Jewish communities in Latin America. 40 It is very tragic, because the youngsters are right, from the human point of view. One need only spend a quarter of an hour in Rio de Janeiro, to see, on the one side, Copa Capana with its beautiful homes, and only two hundred yards away the favelas, the hunger and the poverty—to understand that the young Jew who joins the Left in Latin America does the right thing from the point of view of humanity. Unfortunately, he does the wrong thing from the point of view of Judaism. And there is no way that I can see in which we can connect the two views. The trouble with eighty percent of the youngsters who are not in the synagogues, in the halutz groups, or in any organized Jewish affiliation is that they no longer ask any Jewish question at all. They can ask humanistic questions, but they are unaware of the needs of the Jewish people, because they have lost the possibility to grasp the complexity, the richness, the paradoxes, the difficulties, and the beauty of Judaism. The question of belief in God is a very difficult one, not only belief in a metaphysical entity or philosophical construction, but in a God who is responsible for our lives and to whom we are responsible. A young man who was born after World War II, after the Holocaust, who knows a world of rationalism, of scientific approach, and of cynicism, finds it very difficult to find his way back to belief in the Jewish God. In the Diaspora I found attempts made by young Jews and also by the Establishment, to speak in terms of an abstract God who is common to all human beings, a God who is the God of the Jews and the Negroes and the Latin Americans and the Christians and the Buddhists. This is not the Jewish God; the Jewish God was never abstract. The Jewish God was always the God of Jewish history; it was always Elohei Avraham, Elohei Yitzhak ve'Elohei Yaakov. Philosophically, of course, we have always conceived that it is the same God for all human beings. But emotionally, God has always been connected specifically with the knowledge of Jewish history. Therefore, from the Jewish point of view, the attempts to search for theology in the abstract are futile. Another attempt is made to construe Judaism in ethical terms. This is an element of Judaism of which we are justly proud. Now ethics in the abstract may be important from the human point of view, and may be relevant to us from that point of view, but traditionally ethics were particularly Jewish. If we strip off the particular connections of Jewish ethics to our history and to the rich cultural associations of Judaism, we are left with something that any Christian can also construe. Basically, the abstract elements of Jewish ethics are no different from, nor would I even say better than, the best ethics of other religions. The Jewish concept of God and of ethics makes it much more difficult for us to attract youth which thinks in terms of general theology and of general ethics, because they are devoid of the associations which turned these general concepts into Jewish ethics and Jewish theology. Perhaps, however, somewhere beneath the surface of the alienated young Jew, there is still a connection to Judaism which he cannot negate, unless he cuts himself off completely from Judaism. As long as he carries the label "Jew," somewhere along the line he has to ask himself the question of what this label means to him; and he has to struggle with its meaning. The question is whether the Jewish Establishment can cope with this question when it arises. In Israel we have questions that are similar, but still quite different. Zionism developed out of the negation of Diaspora, the negation of exile. The negation of exile really amounted to negation of that kind of Judaism which developed in exile, in the shtetls of Eastern Europe. A famous Israeli writer, Haim Hazaz, wrote a story in 1930, in which he says, "Zionism begins where Judaism died." This is an exaggeration, but some seventy years ago there was something to it. There was always a religious element in Zionism, but the vast majority of Zionists left religion. Once in Palestine they tried to forget that two thousand years had intervened since the first Jewish settlement in the land. It was a unique phenomenon. No nation of the world omits a drop of its history, and we tried to forget two thousand years of it! Nevertheless, in the little finger of every Israeli today, there is, I dare say, more 41 Jewish content than in the whole of most Jewish youngsters in the Diaspora. Israeli youngsters have an intimate approach to the language and to the land; they have an awareness of living in a Jewish state. We live on streets which carry the names of Ba'al Shem Tov and Rambam. The cultural fibre of being an Israeli includes in it, in a selective way though, many—but not enough— elements of what we call Judaism. It does lack one essential element, and this is religious awareness; and it lacks a certain understanding of what being a Jew means in the aggregate. What are the possible solutions? First of all, when we talk about Jewish education in the Diaspora, we normally think in terms of Jewish schools, and there is a very worthy attempt to create more and more day schools in place of Sunday schools. But one has to understand that unless we attack the whole spectrum of Jewish life, no one change in part of this life can create more than a minimal difference. We speak a lot about the Jewish family. I was not educated in a religious home, but in recent years I have introduced elements of religious observance into my own family life. While I cannot claim to be a shomer mitzvot in the sense that I do not keep all the mitzvot, I characterize myself as a hovev mitzvot; I enjoy mitzvot—and I think this is a step forward. I know you can transform your own family. It is not a great effort, and once ypu begin, you will find that the first to enjoy mitzvotaie your children. There are three crucial turning points in human life. One is the age of sixteen, when a child starts to search for his own identity, think for himself, and rebel against authority which is portrayed in his eyes by his parents and his teachers. The others are eighteen and twenty-two, when he begins and ends university. These three stages in human development are utterly neglected by the Jewish Establishment around the world, including here in Israel. Even the young Jew who grew up in a Jewish family background and went to a Jewish day school is overwhelmed by the pseudo-universal- istic moods of universities once he reaches that age. Perhaps five years ago we were all deterred and angered by the youth rebellion phenomenon, but now I think that most of us understand that youth cannot involve itself but through rebellion. Unfortunately, we understand this—but don't take real notice of it. The point is not whether we tolerate rebellion, but whether we understand it. And I differ with what was said here previously: We do not need a dialogue—we need a confrontation. Dialogue is something paternalistic, something where you say, "Alright, you speak and I'll speak, and we'll listen to each other." That is not enough for youth today. Youth wants a confrontation, not for the sake of destroying the other side, but in order to fight it out to a result. Finally, although I did not want to make a Zionist speech here, I must emphasize that I believe that aliyah to Eretz Yisrael, and pre- aliyah programs for a year or a few years of studies, are essential for the continuity of Judaism in the Diaspora. If the smaller communities in the Diaspora have a constant flow of members to Israel, back and forth—and preferably also a surplus leaving the communities to Eretz Yisrael, the link will enrich the continuity of Jewish content in the Diaspora communities, and provide meaning for the minds and hearts of Jewish youth throughout the world.
Discussion on Problems of Jewish Youth Rabbi Joseph Kelman (Canada): What are the main probings of the young Israeli regarding religious beliefs and commitments? Colonel Bar-On: The trouble with Israelis is that they are unaware of what they really are in their minds and hearts. For example: A young Israeli paratrooper who was born in a Leftist, non-religious kibbutz, who for twenty years was educated to believe that he was a non-believer (or, rather, was not educated to understand what belief is), describes the moment in which he reached the Western Wall as one of the first to get there during the Six-Day War. He vividly tells of running through the streets like a lunatic and the fanatic urge to reach the Wall as soon as possible. Then he gets there and feels a
42 tremendously overwhelming emotion. Everybody, as you know, cried and reached out to touch the Wall. The young kibbutznik goes on to describe his emotion and speaks about Yehuda Halevi, about the mourners for Zion, and of other things he had learned regarding the significance of the kotel in Jewish history. Then, at the very last line of this beautiful description, he says: "It was not a religious experience; it was a historic experience." That's funny, because I don't know of many other descriptions of such a deeply religious experience. William James could use it as a beautiful description of the famous "sleep of faith." It was a religious experience that this young man felt, but for twenty years he had been taught in an active way to feel that he was non-believing. This story briefly describes the problem that we confront in Israel. The polarization between dati'im and non-dati'im means that either you are an Orthodox believer, or you are a non-believer. There is nothing in between. There are the beginnings of a more sophisticated approach to religion among Israelis in the universities, kibbutzim, and other circles and I think that there is a future possibility of a diversification of Jewish rituals and approaches; this will make available to a larger group of Israelis the understanding and awareness of what religion is. In short, the content of Judaism is part of Israeli life; what is missing is the integration of this content into an awareness of what being a Jew means. Jules Cutin (International President of Atid): The answer to the problem of Jewish youth lies in the home. The home will not provide an answer for the radicals who have already rejected Judaism; but it is the answer for the future. You are all too concerned with those who are already lost, and seem unconcerned about those who are already committed or who can be committed. I also think we should stop drawing lines between radicals and those who have faith in Judaism. I am a radical; I disagree with almost everything that is being done by the American Jewish Establishment. But I must tell you that, at the same time, I have a great deal of faith in my Judaism. In some cases, radical Jewish students are forming better Jewish communities than those which exist today, for we are willing to make changes. Some of us are willing to work within the Establishment, to change that Establishment. And we too, in many cases, are being ignored. I have one word of caution: The students who are committed and are interested in Judaism, the youth who want to work and change things, are constantly discouraged. In the end it may be we who are lost to Judaism, and not those to whom so much attention is given that committed, young Jews—the best people who can reach alienated students and help strengthen the Jewish community—are ignored. Morrie Jacobs (U.S.A.): The feeling among youth today is that questions of the Establishment vs. the anti-Establishment take precedence over all other questions. What can we do to dissolve this feeling and get people back to more primary identifications, as Jews, Catholics or Protestants, as Reform, Orthodox or Conser- vative—rather than as anti-Establishment or Establishment? Georges Levitte (France): We must understand that the problem is partly historical. For us, the Establishment was a necessity, to preserve Judaism and to build Israel. For us, the Holocaust is still a shock, the creation of Israel a miracle. The new generation does not see these events in the same way. For them the problem is not how to remain a Jew, but how to build a new Judaism in the Diaspora and in Israel. We must understand that something absolutely new is growing among Jewish youth. Their reasons for being Jewish and for building and creating a new Judaism are not the same as ours; but I say that this is good. Let us not be impatient; the new Judaism will not be built in one generation. We are at the beginning of a completely new era, and for this era we have to prepare youth by giving them knowledge and roots in their past, so that they may define for themselves and their children new content and values for Diaspora Judaism. Otherwise the Diaspora will disappear, and this will be a great loss for the state of Israel.
43 Greetings from the National Women's League Mrs. Sol Henkind
I greet you on behalf of the 200,000 women of the Conservative movement. A high percentage of these women are actively engaged in such demanding occupations as teaching, nursing, library work, law, and business, and yet they are willing to take on the equally demanding role of volunteer administration of our international religious and educational program. The heart of our program is a coordinated educational effort which combines projects in adult education, Jewish family living, bookshops, libraries and publications, cere- monial and gift shops, and programming for our women's meetings. A very important aspect of our concern is social action. National Women's League members are responsi- ble citizens of their communities and of the world; we keep them informed and alert them to action on significant national and international issues. We participate, for example, in the Conference on Soviet Jewry, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, and we have our own accredited non-governmental observer at the United Nations. We were the first women's organization to hold a convention in Israel, in 1965, and our activities on behalf of Israel have, of course, been intensified in the recent critical time. Aliyah is part of our program. An important aspect of our work, and one which has become international, is our service to the blind. Books brailled in Hebrew by our women have gone to thirty-one countries, including Japan and several new African nations. Many copies of the first Braille Mahzer, financed by us, are presently used at Malben installations in Israel, and elsewhere. Through our ties to the women's service division of the National Jewish Welfare Board, we work with army hospitals in the United States, providing Sabbath and holiday materials to servicemen all over the world. We offer guidance to the Jewish women's groups associated with army installations around the globe. Our ties to the Conservative movement are strong and continuing. This is the twentieth-eighth year of our efforts on behalf of the Jewish Theological Seminary through our Torah Fund and Residence Hall project. If I seem to have sketched in these very broad strokes a program which encompasses the totality of Jewish living, it is precisely because this is the scope of our work. This is a truly historic moment in the annals of our organization, for I now have the privilege of introducing representatives of the two newest affiliates of the National Women's League: the women's groups associated with the Conservative congregation Netzach Israel in Ashkelon, and the Conservative congregation Moriah in Haifa. We know that our relationship will be mutually beneficial. With the fine leadership we continue to attract, we have the courage to believe, in the words of the prayer book, that our faith, like that of our forebears, will continue to be strong, our devotion to the Torah unfaltering, our love for Zion constant, and our concern for Israel and humanity unceasing.
44 Memorial Tribute for Rabbi Marcus Melchior Rabbi Bernard Segal
It is altogether appropriate that we should take time out at this convention to pay our affectionate tribute to the memory of our dearly beloved and revered friend and co-worker, Rabbi Marcus Melchior, zecher tzadik livracha, who departed this life on December 24, 1969, and was brought to kever yisrael exactly six months ago today. Marcus Melchior was one of the most illustrious rabbis of our generation. He was ordained in the Hildesheimer Seminary in Berlin in 1921 after he earned his Ph.D. at Koenigsberg University, and he served for twenty-two years with great distinction as the Chief Rabbi of Denmark. But his influence extended far beyond his own communi- ty or the geographic limits of his country. Jews throughout the world looked up to Chief Rabbi Melchior with great admiration as a man of profound learning, great wisdom, deep piety and unsurpassed courage, and non-Jews as well as Jews were enthralled by his brilliant oratory. In Denmark it was generally agreed that next to the Royal Theater, the best Danish was spoken in the Copenhagen Synagogue, and throughout the European continent, Rabbi Melchior was always in great demand as a lecturer. Rabbi Melchior was an eighth generation Dane, and the post of Chief Rabbi of Denmark was held by his ancestors, off and on, going back as far as 1760. One of his most recent predecessors in the post was his father-in-law, Rabbi Max Schorenstein. Rabbi Melchior was an active leader of the World Council of Synagogues practically since the beginning of the organization. He attended nearly all of our conventions, and delivered major addresses at our conventions in Paris (1961), Jerusalem (1962), Geneva (1966), and London (1968). At the time of his passing he was one of our vice-presidents. All of us in the World Council were, of course, very proud to have the benefit of Rabbi Melchior's warm friendship and wise leadership, although we were always painfully aware of the tremendous price which he had to pay for his association with us in the abuse which was heaped upon him by certain elements of the Jewish community. But Rabbi Melchior was not one to be intimidated. At our Jerusalem convention in 1962, he shared with us some of his anguish over the tremendous pressures which were being brought to bear upon him by certain rabbis in Europe in order to keep him from coming to our convention. Some of these rabbis went so far as to threaten that they would have nothing to do with him if he continued to identify himself with the Conservative movement. "I recognize the problems which I am going to face when I return," Rabbi Melchior told us, and then he hastened to assure us, "It is I alone who will decide with whom I will associate myself." Rabbi Melchior did not hesitate to challenge even a warrior such as Ben-Gurion. In 1962, when Ben-Gurion visited Denmark as guest of the Danish Government, he took the occasion to make a public plea for Jews everywhere—including Danish Jews—to emigrate to Israel because, in the words of Ben-Gurion, Jews cannot expect to maintain their existence outside of Israel. To be sure, Rabbi Melchior was a devoted Zionist and an eloquent champion of the state of Israel. He frequently referred to himself as the "unofficial and unsalaried Israeli Ambassador to Denmark." Nevertheless, he felt strongly that Danish Jewry belongs in Denmark and he created quite a stir in the Jewish world when the press reported on this clash with Ben-Gurion. Rabbi Melchior took great pride in the fact that in 1948, during the Israeli war of liberation, two of his children enlisted in the Israeli Army. His son Bent, who was
45 recently elected as the new Chief Rabbi of Denmark, fought in the Army as a private, and his daughter, Hilda, served as a nurse in the medical corps. Rabbi Melchior was also very proud that three other children, David, Pinchas and Bruria, settled in Israel. Rabbi Melchior lived a rich and fruitful life, and he never ceased in his gratitude to God for the many blessings which came to him. Chief of these was his beloved wife, Meta, who was his childhood sweetheart and who, over the years, presided over the Melchior home with rare graciousness and charm. Rabbi Melchior derived particular joy from the fact that Bent chose to follow his father's example and entered the rabbinate as his sacred calling, and most especially that he was privileged to live to see Bent appointed as his assistant in the pulpit. "It was a great day," Rabbi Melchior wrote in his memoirs, "when in November, 1963, Bent was installed in his office at an unforgettable ceremony in the Copenhagen Synagogue. It was a great day for the community, for Bent, for his father—and perhaps most of all for his wonderful mother, a rabbi's daughter, a rabbi's wife, and now also a rabbi's mother." "During the years which have passed since then," Rabbi Melchior continued, "the young rabbi has grown with his responsibilities. The succession in the community seems to be secured. The way things are, there are few Jewish communities in the world which find themselves in such fortunate circumstances, indeed in such happy circum- stances as does the Jewish community in Copenhagen." Rabbi Melchior's parsing is an irreparable loss to Denmark and to Jews throughout the world. The World Council of Synagogues too feels the painful void of his absence. The teaching of truth was in his mouth, And no evil was heard from his lips. In peace and righteousness he walked with God, And many he returned from sin. The Unique Character of Conservative Judaism in Israel (Discussion)
Chaim Chiell (Jerusalem): At first glance one might say that the Conservative move- ment could never have gained a foothold in Jerusalem. Take into consideration the make-up of the people: Jews from Mea Shearim and other extreme Orthodox groups; Hasidic rebbes and their flocks; militant and aggressive Yeshiva students. However, a change came about in the late thirties, when a stream of immigration arrived from Central Europe, especially from Germany. At this time, a very active rabbi of the Liberal community, the late Rabbi Wilhelm, formerly of Sweden, arrived together with a handful of Jews of the same conviction. This group of people set up a synagogue which, in the course of time, increased to over two hundred families. Unfortunately, for various reasons, the second-generation of this Western European immigration did not remain with the synagogue. This, of course, reflects the general problem of youth and the synagogue which we all recognize. Now, as this source of members for our community is drying up, we are looking toward other sources; and we will surely find them in the new olim from the Anglo-Saxon countries. We are also trying to attract sabras—government officials, university staff, and free professionals. These people will be receptive to Conservative Judaism, I am sure, if properly approached with vigorous efforts. Yakov Haham (Ashkelon): The late Rabbi Xook was once asked why he remained silent regarding the secularism of those who were building the land. He replied, "Who was permitted to enter the Holy of Holies of the Temple? Only the High Priest, and he only on Yom Kippur, and then only after completing certain rituals. A priest who did not fulfill these requirements would die. Yet, when the Temple was being built, simple workmen who knew nothing about rituals and observances, wandered about it freely." The pioneers who came to build the land had left behind them the rituals and practices of the ghettos. On the other hand, the Orthodox elements who came to Israel froze these practices and did not adapt them to new times and circumstances, so that even if the secularists wanted to return to religious practices, they found no framework suitable to modern life. This was our predicament until Rabbi Moshe Cohen came to Ashkelon and the Conservative congregation was founded there, based upon the concepts of accepting all groups of the community, men and women, into the synagogue on an equal basis, and of providing a broad cultural-religious program under one roof. This development has provided a framework for a modern religion which can be palatable to Israelis. Mrs. Abe Hurwitz (Ashkelon): I was brought up in an Orthodox atmosphere in South Africa, and on arrival in Israel, nineteen years ago, like very many Anglo-Saxons, I looked for a suitable synagogue where I could attend services. Somehow I just couldn't find my place. There were about sixty synagogues in Ashkelon, but it was absolutely impossible for me to attend any of them. I had a son who was preparing for a Bar Mitzvah; I had no alternative but to send him to the Orthodox synagogue. He was taught in the customary manner, and as a result he was bored and very seldom attended services. Soon after, Rabbi Cohen arrived in Ashkelon and gathered the nucleus for the Conservative Synagogue. The concept was completely new to me, but I was impressed by the desire to incorporate all ethnic backgrounds into a common service and by the quiet and respectful manner of praying. My elder son, already fourteen, started coming to the services and became an integral part of the group. The younger boy started studying for his Bar Mitzvah at the age of twelve; he thoroughly enjoyed his lessons and the group meetings which followed. He
47 conducted his Bar Mitzvah service magnificently and was praised by members of my family, including rabbis, who came to Israel for this occasion. The warm and natural family-prayer atmosphere is something that should be stressed in Israel; that this feature is attractive, is evident in the number of adults who are continually registering as members, as their children draw them into synagogue activities. I have personally found that Israelis who were completely removed from religious activities have found a place in our midst. I must add that we have been holding services in a very cramped clubroom, but we hope that within the next year or two all our friends from abroad will be able to visit us in our permanent home. We have developed excellent social programs incorporating all our members. We have adult education meetings, a fortnightly newspaper, lectures, musical evenings, and tours; large groups participate in all these activities. It was the Conservative Synagogue that sponsored the first function for new immigrants—a Purim party—in the sixteen years of my residency in Ashkelon. Our Independence Day outings were an innovation in Ashkelon. We arranged for families to have picnics in different forests, and we found that we had hundreds who were interested. Last Yom Atzma'ut, about sixty cars drove to Nitzanim, a Youth Aliya center near Ashkelon. There the Nitzanim high school children were our synagogue's guests for the day. As I walked into the synagogue services last Friday evening, I noticed in the congregation a Yemenite judge, a Tunisian electrician, an Iraqi bank manager—all Israelis and all deeply moved at finding their place within the framework of our synagogue. This is the uniqueness of our movement which we are trying to bring to the notice of all Israel. Perhaps with additional publicity this can be achieved. We ask the World Council of Synagogues to help us in this respect. In conclusion, I must stress that without the devotion, personality and teaching programs of Rabbis Spector and Cohen, I don't believe we could have reached the stage at which we are today. They are highly admired by members of many groups, even by the Orthodox community, and I want to say, on behalf of all the members of the Conservative Synagogue in Ashkelon, that it has been an absolute pleasure to have been associated with them. Dr. Joseph Fellner (Natanya): I will try to give you my impressions of the religious situation in Natanya which I have explored since I arrived there six months ago. Natanya is a city of 80,000, among whom are 160 families from the United States and Canada. In talking to these so-called "Anglo-Saxons" and to young Israelis, I have found an entire range of attitudes—from categorically negative reactions, to complete indifference, to receptivity to the inspirational influence of religious circles. We have heard from Dr. Peli that youth in Israel is in search of religion; I have been asking myself whether this is a representative trend among Israeli youth, or whether it is a limited phenomenon. Colonel Bar-On said that Israeli youth basically stands for a negation of exile, which implies that anything that has been developed in the Golah, including forms of Judaism, whether Orthodox, Conservative or Reform, has no place here and cannot be transplanted into Israel. I ask myself, therefore, whether we should not tread with care when we start founding a new congregation, a new form of religious community, on Israeli soil. These are questions which I would like to have clarified during this discussion. What does Israeli youth expect of us? We are told that youngsters study Tanach in the secular schools not for its spiritual content, but simply as a historical document. I wonder: How does the teacher handle the material when every verse in Tanach is permeated by the concept of God as a creative force for everything that exists, and as a motivating force for every ethical and moral commandment? As we study these questions in depth, we might find a guide as to what Conservative Judaism can do in and for Israel. I believe that there is a place for Conservative Judaism in Natanya, but I would not like to see Israelis saying, "Now you have opened another branch of an American or a Canadian congregation, and we are not going to stand for it." Rabbi Charles Siegel: If you ask me why Conservative Jews are not joining our ranks in larger numbers, I must answer that in part it is due to the fact that we do not have the synagogues; and we cannot build them because the local municipalities hamper our efforts. Our every effort is tied up with political considerations. Those of us who live in Israel know the problems of a coalition government. We do not wish to weaken our government or endanger our security. Nonetheless, we are aware of the private convictions of many of Israel's leaders. Often they welcome our public statements regarding religious alternatives, to offset the pressures they are under from other groups. There is much we can do in our own quiet way. Some people are very much afraid to interfere in the sovereignty of Israel. But let me say that the World Council of Synagogues should not be misled into inaction in certain areas for fear of being charged with interfering. That charge may be raised, but we must distinguish between interfering in the affairs of the state of Israel, and expressing our concern for the quality of Jewish life in Eretz Israel. It may be wrong to interfere in local politics, but not in the quality of the life that Jews live here, which affects Jews throughout the world. I would suggest that the World Council leaders work very closely in this respect with the people in Israel who are very intimately aware of the situation. Are we an import from other countries? This is not true. The Conservative Congrega- tion in Haifa was founded in 1955 without rabbinic leadership, by a group of people living in Israel who were looking for a religious alternative. The rabbi in Ashkelon came to settle there, and only then was a community formed. We are a young body in Israel, and we do not know what ultimate forms our work will take. To be sure, we will remain loyal to the basic principles of the Conservative movement, but the external forms may be different, because Israel is different from other countries of the world. Indeed, forms may be different from community to community, for the situation in Ashkelon is not the situation in Haifa, or in Jerusalem. In some communities, educational efforts may precede a synagogue building. Morris Laub asked what we can do to bring more Jews to the synagogue. This is not a fair question because (should I say this in public?) if we look at synagogues throughout the world, we do not see doors being broken down by eager participants anywhere. Let us evaluate the success of our congregations not in terms of the numbers who come to pray, but by looking at the total program we offer. When we talk about helping and supporting the Conservative movement in Israel, we are not asking only for money. This morning we spoke of some of the theological and philosophical problems of living in Israel. There are many programs which our movement could offer to Israel. Perhaps we should develop a program of shnat sherut, a year of service in Israel on the part of rabbis and Jewish scholars. I appreciate the fact that this morning a rabbi at the convention volunteered his services ... but I must mention that we have a program for rabbis to visit and lecture in kibbutzim in Israel, and I will not declare publicly how many rabbis, of those who are here on sabbatical, have accepted that invitation.... We have spoken about materials that are being translated, and we appreciate this. But I think that Conservative leaders in Israel should be consulted about setting up priorities regarding the types of materials that are most urgently needed in translation. Our movement has been giving seed money to a number of congregation; perhaps we should re-evalute the use of that money. We can help a congregation get started for a period of two or three years, by providing a typewriter, a telephone, a mimeograph machine, money for programs. Then at the end of the initial period we should ask: Has it been successful? Has the community been reached? Have people come to the public lecture series? To the study groups? At that point we can make an evaluation regarding further funding. But at the present time, when we have small projects that have no funds for publicity, obviously very few people know what we are doing. We are living at a crucial moment in the history of the Jewish people;.we are living at a historic moment in the life of Eretz Israel. As a movement we stress the historical development of Judaism, we build upon the past. Let us remember that the patterns of Jewish living we create for ourselves now, especially that pattern in Israel, will soon become the past for generations to come. Let us lay down a strong foundation upon which they may build. What Are the Sources of Our Strength? Dr. Bernard Mandelbaum
As we pick up any morning newspaper in Israel, we see the pictures of the young martyrs of our people on the front page. As we reflect on our experiences in the world today, we are overwhelmed by a sense of frustration and misunderstanding. With an inevitable sense of anguish we ask the classic question: Me'ayin Yavo ezri? From whence will help come? In seeking to suggest the sources of an answer, I give full recognition to the complete validity of what our precious state of Israel is doing now in its defense. Its posture at all times, if only its Arab neighbors would listen, reflects the words of the Psalmist: "I want only peace; but when they speak, they speak only of war." Now the genuineness with which we speak of peace at this moment of history is a reflection of the history of a people that always was an ohev shalom and a rodef shalom, a people that always wanted peace, not only for itself but for the nations of the world. And it is in this same tradition that we must begin to seek the source of strength to face all that surrounds us. We must seek to understand, as Jews, and particularly as a Conservative movement, the Jewish genius for creative survival—despite the odds, despite the enemy. What do our teachers and our sages say to us at this moment of trial in our history? An initial insight into the Jewish tradition's capacity for giving us the strength that we need is a classic rabbinic idea, but it comes from a man who never pretended to be a rabbi. This answer comes from Mr. David Ben-Gurion, statesman, philosopher, and in many ways the father of Israel. It developed during a special news interview with Mr. Edward Newman of NBC. At one point Mr. Newman said: "Mr. Ben-Gurion, we've seen a picture of little Israel, two and a half million people surrounded by one hundred million enemies, far from a friendly supportive world, with Russia ever more actively involved against it. Do you think you'll make it?" And this is the answer that Ben-Gurion gave to Mr. Newman: "It is nothing new for us to be surrounded by enemies, to be misunderstood. It has been true for more than 2000 years. The Greeks in overwhelming numbers surrounded us; they could not understand the strange people who worshiped one God. They defeated us at first, but the ethics and the morality of that little Jewish people and its one God survived and influenced the entire world. "And, Mr. Newman, have you heard of what the Romans did to us? We were an enigma to them too. One of their historians wrote a book in which he said, 'These strange Jews—they waste one-seventh of their life by resting on the Sabbath.' Well, Rome fell, but the Jewish people lived on and taught their Sabbath to the world." And then Mr. Ben-Gurion added, "Mr. Newman, do you know where Babylonia is? Babylonia—that's Iraq today. Tell me, did you ever meet an Iraqi who speaks Babyloni- an, or an Egyptian who speaks Egyptian? But you can come to my little Israel where we speak the same Hebrew language, alive for some 3000 years or more, that was spoken during the days of Babylonia and during the days of Egypt." The strength of our people and its creative survival, according to Mr. Ben-Gurion, lies in one God, the Sabbath, and the continuity of learning in the Hebrew language. His answer is an almost exact parallel to the teaching of one of the sages quoted in Pirkei Avot, who said that the world is based on three things—on Torah, on learning and the Hebrew language in its continuity; on avoda, on worship of the one God; and on gemilut hasadim, which is implicit in the Sabbath. Here is the very foundation of Judaism, the secret of the continuing saga of creative Jewish survival, the survival of the Jewish people in the past and of the state of Israel in our own day.
50 For us it is particularly significant that this program for survival has had its philosophical development in modern times, in the teaching of Solomon Schechter, the father of American Conservative Judaism. Schechter appreciated the urgency of acquir- ing the land of Israel and giving reality to the Jewish state. But these practical issues did not distract him from the important question which was ever at the core of his concern. As a philosopher of Zion, Schechter always asked himself, Of what does Zion dream? What is added to the world with the establishment of Zion? What are Zion's prayers for the whole world, not only for its own people? Schechter was aware that it is not possible to isolate an area of peace in a world that is in turmoil. Genuine security is not possible for Jews in a Jewish state or society which is shaky at its very foundations. For Schechter, Zion re-established would be a vital force for awakening Jewish conscious- ness, and it would have a world-wide mission to stir the conscience of mankind. Schechter would have agreed with the words attributed to a contemporary political Zionist who said: "The Balfour Declaration is not our Torah. The Torah is our Balfour Declaration in terms of our claim and our meaning and our purpose and our strength in Israel at this time in our history." It is this view of Zion that is a vital force in awakening Jewish consciousness. It is in this context that we of the Diaspora, here on the holy soil of Eretz Yisrael, must consider the challenge facing us in the Diaspora. Our young men in Israel today, from the shores of Suez to the heights of the Golan, are boundless sources of strength and faith for our young people everywhere. In the United States and Canada we see evidence of this inspiration in the youngsters of our USY, ATID and LTF groups; there are no more devoted children of Zion and Judaism. But too many of our young people-—not the wild radical extremists, but the good young people—are tormented about injustice in world events. Yet they are almost completely untouched by the world's injustice to a land and a tradition, our land and our tradition, that is the very source of the justice that they seek for others. As we return to the Diaspora and our home communities, we must seek ways to reach the great mass of our thinking college youth, and bring them back to a vision of Zion and Judaism, for Zion's sake, for America's sake, and for the world's sake. We must not lose these young people; they must be brought to see the eternal values of our great tradition in Schechter's terms, not only as a source of Israel's redemption but as a source of the world's redemption. In commenting on the beginning of the Book of Numbers, where we begin to take a census of the people of Israel, the Rabbis note that in the Book of Josiah, the Prophetic reading for that particular portion, the first verse begins: "The number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea which cannot be measured or numbered." The Rabbis were puzzled by this. After all, one thing to which Jews do no not pretend is great numbers. What do we mean by comparing the children of Israel to the sand of the sea? The Rabbis suggest two possibilities. On the one hand, sand or earth can be trampled upon, and indeed we lived through periods of history where the nations of the world have trampled upon us. But that shall never be again. This is what the very existence of the state of Israel says to our own people and to the world. But there is another function of sand or of earth; if there is no earth, then human existence cannot continue. Out of the earth comes life itself. Thus, if there is no Israel, the world cannot survive, for it is written: "The nations of the world will be blessed because of your children." The fact is that the soil of Judaism is the very basis for everything vital and real and important in the life of man in a free society. If Israel does not exist, the world cannot exist. This realization must be reinforced in the hearts and minds of those of our people who live in Israel, who feel and experience the Jewish tradition every day, whether they are conscious of it or not. This realization must be strengthened in the education and intensification of Jewish life in the Diaspora, which is not only a bridge to our people in Israel, but the essence of our oneness with them. The fruitful soil of the Jewish spirit will continue to nurture those values which are an indispensable ingredient for the life of our own people as well as for all the peoples of the world. "For out of Zion will come forth the Law, and the word of God from Jerusalem."
51 Installation ofOfficers Rabbi Ralph Simon
In the first verse of last week's Torah reading, Rashi quotes a rabbinic comment that throws tremendous light on the work and value of this World Council of Synagogues. You will remember that the portion began with a description of how Aaron the High Priest was instructed to kindle the menorah lights. The ancient Rabbis asked: Why does this chapter dealing with the kindling of the lamp follow immediately after the story of how the princes of the tribes brought valuable vessels and expensive gifts to the sanctuary? The Rabbis comment that Aaron was very worried when he saw the valuable contributions of the princes, for he, a poor priest, could not afford to bring gifts that were as beautiful and attracted as much attention. Then God said to him: "Aaron, don't worry. What you do is more important than what they do, for you are the one who kindles and trims the lamps in the sanctuary." Now this is an interesting idea. The High Priest thought that perhaps he and his work were not important. He didn't have a big budget; he didn't have a large organization. But God told him that the amount of money and publicity and glamour that goes with a job does not determine the value of the job. The important thing is to bring light and to trim the lamps so that they will burn brightly in the sanctuary. The World Council of Synagogues, in terms of international organizations, is a small group. We do not have the tremendous budgets of other organizations that have achieved renown in the world. Nevertheless, we must never have the feeling that the World Council occupies an inferior position. On the contrary, the World Council is that agency which steps into the international arena wherever Jews are found, and does things: it kindles and trims the lamps that burn in the life of the Jewish people. This is what we need today in a most desperate manner. In so many countries of the world, the lights have gone out; they no longer burn. We need people who will stimulate the practice of Judaism, restore the synagogue, bring inspiration to the young and indicate to them that there is still a Jewish tradition that is relevant to their problems. The World Council of Synagogues comes with the message of Judaism, with the message of tradition that takes account of modern circumstances and the problems of today. The unique contribution of the Conservative movement is that it is not static, but revolutionary; it contains in it a process that makes the message of Judaism relevant to the modern world. And I would add that there is one aspect of the Conservative movement that is relevant for the people of Israel. I live here part of the year, and I am exceedingly conscious of the need we can fill in Israel. We have no quarrel with those who seek to function within the Orthodox synagogue. But we are tremendously concerned with those who have abandoned the synagogue, with those who have said: "The synagogue doesn't speak to us, and has no message for us," and with those who have completely written off Judaism as a religion relevant to their lives. In this area, I believe we have a tremendous contribution to make. We will make it by creating synagogues and by coming here to live, by setting an example of what it means to have a synagogue that combines tradition with modern life, that reacts to the modern world in such a way that it can graft the ancient message on the modern problem. This, we believe, is one of the missing ingredients in Israel's life. Thus, we feel that we have much to do and say and contribute. To the Officers of the World Council, I would therefore say: As I install you into your respective offices, a tremendous challenge awaits you in kindling the lights and in trimming the lamps. We have much to do in the world. Even though this Council operates on what I would What you do is much more ־.consider a minimal budget, I say to you as the Midrash says important than what they do, with their large budgets and their publicity, because you are the lamp-lighters, you are the ones who hold the torch of learning and inspiration for our youth, and for all people who are interested in the preservation of Judaism.
52 Introduction ofChaim Grade Professor Saul Lieberman
I do not pretend to be a literary critic, but I do pretend to be a great reader, so I will present Mr. Grade to you as I, a reader, see him. Mr. Grade began his literary career as a poet, and has written a great deal of poetry. I have read only a part of his poetry, for a very simple reason. When you begin to read his poetry, you become so excited sometimes that your heart comes to a standstill. So I have stopped reading poetry! On the other hand, I have read almost all his prose works. Here again, I can only talk as a reader. The American Academy for Jewish Research, which is not a wealthy institution, gave Grade an award of $6,000, the largest grant given to a Yiddish writer. This Academy, according to its statutes, cannot give awards to writers of belles lettres, but they found that Grade's books have immense historical value. He writes about the past—not the far-removed past, but about the past that many of us still remember. When you begin to read Grade's works, it is hard to stop. You feel that you are reading a masterpiece of genius. At the same time, it is so true and correct; it is a genuine picture of life in Eastern Europe. He describes almost all the layers of Jewish society: the underworld, the people's struggles, their relationship to the clergy—the importance of the rabbis, the people's complaints against and at the same time their reverence toward the rabbis. Unfortunately, only people who know Yiddish well can appreciate the flavor of his language and through it savor the period of which he writes. While I do not pretend to be a prophet, I venture to predict that there will be a time when people will study Yiddish only for the purpose of reading Chaim Grade's works.
A Diaspora Jew in Eretz Yisrael Chaim Grade
Every time I come to Israel, and afterwards when I summarize everything that I have seen and experienced here, I recall the story of the two men, friends from childhood, who vowed that if their wives would bear a girl and a boy, the children would become bride and groom. And so it happened. Each child was brought up in a religious home and neither knew the other, but each fantasized about the other. The girl dreamed about her future husband in accordance with her character and desires, and imagined him in the likeness of the young men she had seen from a distance—the curly sidelocks of one, the beautiful dreamy eyes of another, the lofty rabbinic brow of a third, the pale modest smile of a fourth. All of these characteristics she formed into an ideal image of her future husband. In a similar vein did the young man fantasize about his bride. Finally, they met under the canopy. How did they like each other? The first impression surely must have contained elements of alienation and fear. Bride and groom could not really look like the images of their imagination. But, after they had lived together for a while, the pair began to find in each other true beauty in appearance, heart, character and virtues—although neither ever achieved quite the idealized vision of the imagination. Finally, as husband and wife became ever closer and more intimate, each found in the other virtues and beauty which they had dreamed about all the years before their meeting.
53 I too experience these three degrees of relationship every time I come to Israel. With the images of the Bible and the melodies of the heder engraved in heart and mind, I have wandered through the Negev and searched for the shadows of ancient Israel. But instead I found immigrants from behind the Iron Curtain, from the Russian steppes and the Siberian taiga; on the sere soil of the Negev where one can still see the ruined fortresses of the age-old conquerors, beads of sweat and sometimes tears drop from the recently returning Polish Jews. In the Judean desert I stood listening for the heartrend- ing prayer of David son of Jesse, a Psalm of David when he was in the desert of Judea—but I heard instead the painful sighs of those whose bodies are still pierced with the barbed wire of the death camps and who ease their pain by dipping their limbs in the salt water of the green Dead Sea. Thus did the pains of absorption and the problems of settlement mask the Bible for me. The reality of the state of Israel covered the romance of Eretz Yisrael. Then I began to note the beauty of the new reality, the thriving settlements, the asphalt roads, the planted forests, the population that grows and will continue to grow with the help of God. One wanders through the Negev.... Where are the wells of which the Psalmist sings—"like springs in the Negev"? In the distant horizon, where the glowing sky drops, stands the acacia with its broad, flat crown. How sad it looks with its broken limbs, compared to the verdure of Lithuania. Suddenly you see grass in the wilderness, green patches, and this is no mirage, no fata morgana. You have arrived in Ein Zahav, in Guphit, in Yad Fatah, in Eilat; you have come to settled land. Then you understand that the verse "like springs in the Negev" is not a dream. You simply have to dig up the hidden wells. What joy to see the gardens with tomatoes, onions, cucumbers; the fields sown with oats; the vineyards, the date trees, the roads bordered with gladioli. The soil in Israel looks as though nothing can grow in it. You say to yourself, if anything were to grow here it would be a miracle. But a miracle does occur. And an even greater miracle takes place, for after the roots of the tree sink into the stony soil, the swamp or sand, the tree looks as if it had grown here forever. As if it had never been uprooted. As if it were part of a continuing, natural process.... In Israel one is enveloped by the naturalness of life renewed, as if one had merely removed the debris, brushed away the dust, driven away the shadows and released imprisoned powers. Together with the tensions of living in a land where the army stands watch on the borders and fights the Arab enemy that is outfitted and aided by Gog of the land of the Magog, there exists simultaneously the joy of a lost treasure that has been found again. Only after I saw the new real power and beauty of Eretz Yisrael was the old glory of the Bible revealed to me, not in the least diminished. No commentary and no explanation can give so much understanding to the Bible as one receives from the landscape, the hot wind, the soil of Israel. With the revival of the Hebrew language and the revivification of the desert, the Bible has been resurrected. All the resting places of the Jews during their wanderings in the desert, which we have enumerated year after year in the Torah reading, have now been unearthed from 3,000 years of dust, and are life-bearing. When you hear of new settlements with ancient biblical names, you stand breathless, and a wonderful emotion overpowers you—as if you have seen the lighted window of the little home in which you were born and passed your childhood. ..."1 am a stranger in the land." A stranger was I, and I have remained a stranger in the various world cities in which I have lived. But there is one corner on the earth where I am forever at home. No matter where I may be, all I need to do is close my eyes and I am in Safed again, where every day is Rosh Hashanah, where every hour radiates with the light of an entire century. Through every ruin one can peer into another secret world. When I pass through the tree-lined alleys of Safed I imagine that through the branches the olam haemet, the next world, is looking at me. In the remains of an old olive tree I hear the rustle of the ancient holy Safed soul. He who still has eyes that see, can discern on the hills of Safed the Tanaim, the sages of the Mishnah, walking about in their white garments. ...The Gemara relates a wonderful legend about Miriam's well which rolled along 54 and followed the Israelites in the wilderness and then sank into Lake Kinneret. This beautiful legend was in later holy books woven into a tale which related how every Saturday night Miriam's well rolls through underground channels and flows into the wells of Jewish towns and villages. Therefore, say the holy books, Jewish women are wont to draw water on Saturday night in the hope that they will do so at the exact moment when Miriam's well flows through the well in their courtyard, and thus draw up blessings for the whole week. Miriam's well no longer rolls through the villages of Poland, Lithuania and Galicia. No longer are there Jewish women to draw water every Saturday night. I am also far from sure that Miriam's well flows through the East River and the Hudson, nor do I know whether New York Jewish women even want to draw water from it. Every New York housewife has faucets at home, so what need has she for Miriam's well? Only from a Safed hillside can one still see Miriam's well bubbling and flowing in the pure depths of the Kinneret. ...Now I come to the end, back to the tale of the couple who met for the first time under the wedding canopy. I recall how my destined homeland seemed somewhat strange to me at first, because her worn appearance did not match my dream, and how I later discovered in her the beauty of a woman of virtue, aromatic of olives and wine. I have also discovered in Israel the beauty of the Bible. She still has the long black tresses of the Song of Songs, and the two Sabbath candles still radiate light from her eyes. This miracle, that the people and the homeland should remain the same after so many generations, could happen only because the match between them was made in heaven, because the pact is eternal and divine. It is a pact that has lasted through smoke and flame, from our father Abraham and the Covenant, for thousands of years and through all the wanderings to and from Eretz Yisrael, to the Galut and back again. This is the sacred pact of "and I have betrothed thee forever."
55 Retrospect and Prospect Morris Laub
My first task is to express sincere thanks to our President, Morris Speizman, the Convention Chairman, Victor Zager, and Rabbi Bernard Segal, for their truly devoted and committed work. I must also thank my colleague, Mrs. Adele Gilead, our secretary Estelle Jaffa, our Director in Israel, Rabbi Moshe Cohen, and his wife, Mrs. Yocheved Cohen, for their work and tremendous help in organizing this convention. I want to remind you that we began the convention at Bi1?vanei HaOoma in Jerusalem, where we were greeted by our newly elected Vice-President and the President of the United Synagogue of Israel, Chaim Chiell. He suggested that the slogan of the convention should be three "yuds"—yehudim, yahadut and yisrael. Translating this into English, three "J's"—Jews, Judaism, and the Jewish State. Let me touch very briefly on these. Insofar as Jews are concerned, I want to report that present at this convention are Jews from India, Australia, England, France, Italy, Sweden, Denmark, Argentina, Canada, the United States, and Israel. In spirit with us were Jews from Poland and the Soviet Union. Moving to the second yud, yahadut, or from Jews to Judaism, you will recall some of the problems that were raised by various speakers. The first was the problem of the alienation of youth. Rabbi Marshall Meyer pointed out that the New Left in Latin America is seventy-five percent Jewish, all of them intelligent, bright, questing, probing youth, asking questions that deserved to be asked and that have to be answered. Colonel Bar-On made a distinction between Judaism and humanism, between the humanistic approach and the Judaistic approach. This is not the time to enter into a philosophical discussion with him, but I reject this distinction, and I do so personally. Judaism and humanism are fused together; if we make this distinction, we will lose not only the young New Leftists, we will also lose the old Liberals. I am glad that our young ATID International President, Mr. Jules Gutin, took exception to this remark. A second point that was considered was the problem of Jews in a prosperous society, namely—to quote Rabbi Narrowe—in a liberal and progressive capitalism. Colonel Bar-On also pointed out that even in societies that are not anti-Semitic, but are nevertheless socialist, special problems arise for Jews; he mentioned Cuba specifi- cally. I want to add Rumania and Hungary to this framework, and once again, I reject the distinction. Judaism is eternal in all societies; it is the task of Judaism to find the key to live in all societies, provided such possibilities are available. We spoke about Soviet Jews and passed a resolution that will reach every Soviet Embassy in the countries that you come from. That resolution will also reach the Soviet authorities, and most of all, that resolution is going to reach Soviet Jews. I bring the subject of Soviet Jewry up under the heading "from Jews to Judaism," because we have heard how Jews in the Soviet Union have suddenly, miraculously, found their way back to Judaism. A similar phenomenon has occurred in Polish Jewry, where completely alienated Jews came to Denmark and Sweden, and through the efforts of these communities and their wonderful spiritual leaders, are being slowly brought back to Judaism. Moving to the third yud, yisrael, or from Judaism to the Jewish state, we heard of the search, the questing for religion, especially as it has been expressed in the three years since the Six-Day War. The search goes on in the kibbutzim, in the cities, and among youth. I want to remind you of a wonderful phrase of Professor Simon, who pointed out that the yarmulke may be a top value, but it is not necessarily a basic value. Israeli youth has to understand that difference. Professor Simon also pointed out that halakhah
56 is not static, that it is a way, that one walks with halakhah, that when you walk you don't stand still, and that halakhah has changed on occasion. We spoke a good deal about Conservative Judaism in Israel, of the organizational, philosophic, and educational problems. We passed an innovative two-part resolution on Israel—with respect to recognition of Conservative Judaism. I hope that the authorities understand the spirit in which we passed it. I recommend to all of you to read the editorial in today's Hatsofeh, which reflects a step towards us on the part of the organ of the Religious Party. We also heard about the tasks facing us with respect to the transformation of the average Israeli's view of the "religious" person. It was good to hear from a foremost religious spokesman, Dr. Pinhas Peli of Panim El Panim, who brought home to us the search for authentic Judaism among the young and not so young in Israel, and the role that our movement can play in helping define by word and deed, namely through literature and action, what Judaism can mean to the searcher and prober. Finally, speaking of the Jewish state, we had the honor and privilege of hearing one of the most important policy statements of the Israeli Government in recent years, from the Prime Minister herself. This policy statement was published and broadcast throughout the world and, you will excuse the little pat on the back for ourselves, wherever it was published and broadcast, it was announced that the statement was made at the opening session of the World Council of Synagogues. I wish to add just one more remark. Chaim Grade and other speakers alluded to the magic of Israel, the ambiance, the peculiar atmosphere in Israel. There is tension here, but it is not the kind of tension we know in the cities from which we come. There is wisdom and joy in the very air here. Now the tasks facing us are the tasks facing you—namely, to turn alienation to friendship, to convert static Judaism to a vital, dynamic force, to answer the questions that Rabbi Meyer detailed. These answers can come only by a transformation of oneself. And finally, we have the task of maintaining and deepening our bonds with Israel, her land and her people. At the close of Yom Kippur, we pray that God open for us the gates of His compassion. And now, at the close of this convention, we pray that the gates of compassion and blessing and peace be opened for Israel and for all of mankind. Shalom.
57 Statement of President Shazar (On Friday, June 26, 1970, President Shazar received a small number of distinguished Conservative leaders headed by Charles Rosengarten, founder and first president of the World Council of Synagogues, and chatted with them for two hours. The following is a summary of his remarks.)
The Eighth Biennial Convention of the World Council of Synagogues has heard many distinguished addresses, not least that of Israel's Prime Minister. Yet I would say that, above all, you must have felt that you were addressed by the land itself. We have biblical authority for the great dialogue between Zion and those faithful to it all over the world. The Psalmist says: "Pray for the peace of Jerusalem; they shall have peace of spirit that love thee" (122:4). In other words, those outside Jerusalem who are devoted to it, who love it, will be rewarded by the gift of tranquility, liberating them from the perplexities of life in the troubled world. You are, I am happy to note, beginning to work in new parts of the world, and you can no longer be called exclusively American. Originally you were indeed so, stemming from Dr. Schechter's Jewish Theological Seminary, that institution graced by such remarkable scholars as Drs. Finkelstein, Lieberman and Heschel. The congregations you are now helping to establish throughout the world will serve to fill, at least in part, the spiritual vacuum in small communities dependent upon teachers and rabbis from the outside. In a sense, when the Jewish Agency began to send Israeli teachers to serve for a number of years in Hebrew schools abroad,• the road was being paved for your activities. I must at this point say that I am truly pleased to meet here as Chief Rabbi of Denmark the son of my late distinguished friend, Rabbi Marcus Melchior. I hope that in the spirit of his father he will be able to meet the complex challenges of Jewish life in Denmark today. When you tell me that the increased aliyah from the West makes your movement here all the more necessary, I understand it very well. And I want to remind you that the Government of Israel is solemnly committed to ensuring freedom of religious expres- sion—from traditional Hasidism all the way to Reform. That is our guiding principle, although, to be sure, one must expect that within the Israeli community there will be differences of opinion on practical details. This has been your second conference in Israel, and I trust that there will be many more, so that Zion may be firmly rooted within the very center of your being. You remember the passage in the Gemara which tells us how a Jew should pray if he is lost in a desert and wandering about without compass or calendar. He should, in praying, turn to Jerusalem. But if he cannot tell in which direction Jerusalem lies, says the Gemara, he should direct his heart to Jerusalem. That is the great secret of Jewish spiritual life: the love of Jerusalem which can ease the hardships of every desert, every confusion and perplexity, through which Jews wander in their Diaspora existence. The strength of the spirit, we know, does not depend on numbers. It is not because Jews are many, the Lord says, that He has chosen them as His people. But numbers like yours, plus spiritual strength, can be of the utmost importance in the international political balance today. It is clear, certainly, how much Israel's future depends on the strength of American Jewry. It is my heartfelt sentiment that it is a good thing for you to have been here in these days of struggle and sacrifice, to sense at first hand Israel's need for reinforcement, for allies such as yourselves. The Portion of the Week tells us of the strong people and fortified cities which the twelve "spies," the representatives of the tribes of Israel, found in Canaan; of the majority who were thereby intimidated, and of the two, Joshua and Caleb, who urged the people to "go up at once and possess it." It was Joshua and Caleb who decided the
58 fate of the Jewish people for all the centuries to come, and in this recurring pattern of struggle for the land, we must see them as symbols and guides for us. Each group under its own flag—as the biblical description has it—must enter this struggle, but all the groups must be united as one, for it is the total future that is at stake. When the children of Israel came to Mount Sinai to receive the Law, their encampment at the mountain is described with a singular verb form, not with a plural verb. This is significant, for in the greatest moment of its experience—whether of crisis or of joy—there is only one Israel. To that Israel, may you, with your strength and dedication, make a truly great contribution.
59 Resolutions (Note: All resolutions were passed unanimously.)
Resolution on Jewish Minorities in Arab Countries We express our anguish and indignation over the desperate situation of Jewish minorities in most Arab countries, particularly in Iraq, Syria and Egypt. Many Jews are languishing in prisons under harsh medieval conditions, with no prior trials or even the presentment of formal charges; many more suffer from direct economic discrimination and physical harassment. Regrettably, the United Nations has failed to take any steps to ameliorate the hardships visited upon these Jews or even to investigate their plight. In accordance with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we urge all fair- minded governments and international private agencies to join us in demanding that these Arab governments halt the persecution of their Jewish minorities and permit them to leave for countries of their choice.
Resolution on Peace in the Middle East Since our last convention, the threats to the security of Israel have become more ominous. The constant violence on its borders continues unabated, as the harassment and murderous incidents of Arab terrorists have become directed not only against military targets, but indiscriminately against peaceful settlements, civilian transporta- tion and even school buses. Certainly, those Arab governments which permit these para-military gangs to operate from their territories must be held accountable for this campaign of senseless terror. Even more ominous is the accelerated involvement of the Soviet Union in the affairs of the Middle East. In addition to supplying enormous amounts of sophisticated weaponry to its client Arab nations, it has continued to sponsor the most extreme and intransigent factions among them. Even more, by committing elements of its military forces in operational missions in this area, it has shifted the balance of power and encouraged the likelihood of another full scale war breaking out. We condemn the military activities of the Soviet Union which serve only to prolong the increasing violence in the Middle East. We support the furnishing to Israel of all necessary armaments, particularly aircraft, which is needed to deter aggression against it. We support the United Nations resolution which calls for an unqualified cease fire on all fronts, and we support Israel in its insistence on direct negotiations for peace, a peace which Israel devoutly desires and which her neighbors desperately need, because true peace is only possible when Israel is recognized as an eduring nation by its neighbors.
Resolution on Israel and World Jewry The World Council of Synagogues extends its warmest greetings to the State of Israel on its twenty-second anniversary, and reaffirms the solidarity of world Jewry with the people of Israel. We recognize that in order to insure Israel's survival, those of us living outside of Israel have a special responsibility to foster a greater climate of understanding,
60 awareness and commitment among our communities toward the serious problems facing Israel. We recognize the importance of a full and frank exchange of ideas and opinions between individuals and groups in Israel and Jews elsewhere in order to increase mutual understanding and respect. To this end we must intensify our efforts to provide meaningful Jewish education and cultural participation for our children and adults alike, in order that Jews familiar with their tradition, current problems, and the history of Israel can serve as effective spokesmen for the cause of Israel. We should intensify our efforts to encourage aliyah and to bring larger numbers of students and potential immigrants to Israel. We will encourage our non-Jewish neigh- bors to visit Israel in order to directly experience the vibrant and democratic spirit of Israel. We will support all those activities which will maintain the strong bonds between Israel and world Jewry, recognizing that in the years ahead these bonds will serve to insure the survival and nurture the growth of Jewish communities everywhere.
Resolution on Conservative Judaism in Israel
I
We salute the progress being made by those synagogues which are members of the United Synagogue of Israel and affiliated with the World Council of Synagogues, even as we express our understanding of their special difficulties of status and finances. This convention recognizes that the World Council of Synagogues must continue to support and alleviate the special financial burdens of these synagogues in Israel. We shall continue to support the present congregations and encourage the establishment of new congregations in important areas such as Tel Aviv. To insure the attainment of such objectives and their implementation, we recommend that the United Synagogue of Israel appoint a committee to cooperate with the World Council of Synagogues on appropriate programs and budget.
II
As Conservative Judaism continues to gain acceptance and affiliation by Israelis and by increasing numbers of immigrants and students, the question of full recognition for the Conservative Movement in general and of Conservative rabbis in particular, becomes more urgent. We therefore call upon the authorities to grant full recognition and right of action in all spheres of religious life to Conservative rabbis.
Resolution on Soviet Jewry The continued discrimination against our brothers in the Soviet Union makes it necessary once again for us to speak out in sharp protest. Since our last convention, we have followed with increasing concern the attacks of the Soviet Union on Israel which have reached the point where the divisive line between anti-Israel and anti-Jewish propaganda is so fine and faint that it is hardly noticeable. We have been startled to see the notorious Trofim Kotchko, whose anti-Semitic book, Judaism Without Embellish- ment, while not withdrawn, was condemnèd by the Idealogical Committee of the Party after world-wide condemnation, come to the fore again with another equally anti- Semitic volume, Judaism and Zionism, in which he says that "Judaism is a criminal religion which laid the foundation for all the evils of latter-day Zionism." We were shocked to hear that Boris Kochubiyevsky, a Kiev engineer, was sentenced to three years in prison because he declared that the tens of thousands of Jewish dead at Babi Yar were not identified by the Soviet authorities as Jews. This statement was regarded as "bourgeois nationalist-Zionist propaganda" by the court which sentenced him. We note with saddened hearts that the appeal of the eighteen Georgian families for exit visas has still not been answered by the Soviet authorities. We call upon men of
61 goodwill throughout the world to raise their voices in protest against the cruel injustice of this deprivation. The continuing discrimination finds eloquent voice in an open letter written by a Moscow family—Udia Klaizmer, Benedikt Borukhovich, and Boris Shlein—on June 25, 1969 to the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the U.S.S.R., Mr. A. N. Kosygin, excerpts of which appear below. It is notable that despite this increase of anti-Semitism, there has been a miraculous surge of identification on the part of many Russian Jews who show courage by publicly expressing their newly found affirmation. We call upon the synagogues and synagogue bodies associated in the World Council of Synagogues to continue their vigorous protests in the spirit of this open letter. We express our solidarity with our brothers and sisters in the Soviet Union and assure them that not only do we hear their outcry, but that we shall do everything within our power that the world heed their outcry as well.
"Our family was educated in the tradition of Jewish culture but in the present conditions of Soviet reality our children are denied the possibility of learning their own language, as well as the great cultural heritage and all the spiritual values of our people, because unlike other peoples living in the U.S.S.R. the Jewish people is subjected to cruel discrimination. There exist in the U.S.S.R. neither Jewish schools nor any other Jewish institutions of learning nor theatres, since the bloody repressions of 1948-53; there exist no periodical Jewish publica- tions except one lone magazine. "Absolutely everything connected with the achievement of the Jewish people's philosophers and men of culture, science and art, everything connected with the heroism of the Jewish people and the sufferings it experienced—everything Jewish, in short, is silenced. "We feel ourselves to be Jews emotionally and spiritually, bound up with our Jewish State of Israel. As free men who have committed no crimes, in full consonance with the Constitution of the U.S.S.R. as well as with the basic principles of the Convention on the Liquidation of all forms of Racial Discrimi- nation, and in accordance with the statement you made at a press conference in Paris in November (actually December—Translator) 1966, we have the full right of emigrating to Israel."
Resolution in Conformity with Requirements of Letter of Conditional Determination of Exempt Status of the Internal Revenue Service of the United States The World Council of Synagogues, in convention assembled, hereby resolves that in the event of the dissolution of the World Council of Synagogues any assets will be donated to previously organized synagogues, seminaries, or other institutions affiliated with Conservative Judiasm, and directs the incoming administration to take the necessary steps to incorporate the intent of this resolution in the by-laws of the World Council of Synagogues.
Resolution on Past Actions of the Board The World Council of Synagogues, in convention assembled, expresses its heartfelt thanks to the outgoing administration for a difficult task performed well and with devotion. We fully approve and ratify their actions, one and all, between July 1968 and June 1970, in furthering the work of our organization, and hereby go on record that the cause of Judaism has been served by them faithfully and with distinction.
Resolution of Thanks to Israel Hosts The World Council of Synagogues, in convention assembled, declares its heartfelt
62 thanks to the government of Israel, the people of Israel, and to the United Synagogue of Israel, the World Council of Synagogues' affiliate in Israel, for their generous hospital- ity and fraternal cooperation given warm-heartedly and in full measure. The spirit of our Israeli hosts exemplified once again the Talmudic maxim that the very land makes one wiser. We depart wiser than we came because of our renewed ties with our associates and friends in Israel as a whole and with the United Synagogue of Israel in particular.
Resolution on Jewish Youth We believe that most young Jews, already committed to the principles of a just and ethical society, can be brought into more intimate contact with Jewish tradition. Along with improved educational programs and techniques, we call for special programs and efforts directed to the greater involvement of Jewish youth in our synagogues and decision making processes. We recognize that support is needed for the many meaningful activities of Jewish youth groups, and to aid young people to increase their contacts with the youth of different countries. Our Movement welcomes the participation of young Jews in all areas of our concern and work; only with their involvement can we build a future in which fruitful Jewish survival can be assured.
Resolution on the Latin American Section (Moved by Charles Rosengarten, and seconded by Harry Solomon.) The World Council of Synagogues, in convention assembled, once again takes pride in greeting its Latin American Section, which continues to flourish under the unflag- ging zeal and inspiring leadership of Rabbi Marshall T. Meyer and dedicated and devoted laymen. Their commitment to Judaism as a living force in contemporary times has been exemplary and has helped turn thousands of youth and their elders from the tide of assimilation to a joyous affirmation of the tradition of our fathers.
Resolution on Scandinavia The World Council of Synagogues, in convention assembled, expresses its apprécia- tion for the remarkable work being done by our spiritual leaders and their devoted lay colleagues in Denmark and Sweden. It takes special note of the plans for the establish- ment of an adult and youth institute in Scandinavia and pledges its support for this educational endeavor.
Resolution of Thanks to Mr. Morris Laub and Mrs. Adele Gilead The World Council of Synagogues, in convention assembled, expresses its thanks to its Director, Mr. Morris Laub, and to its Convention Director, Mrs. Adele K. Gilead, and their staff, for their unceasing and untiring efforts in preparation for and implementa- tion of the detailed arrangements of this convention.
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