INFORMATION ISSUED by the Assoaahom of MWBH KBI/WS W Aeat BRITAH

Volume XXXI No. 9 September, 1976 INFORMATION ISSUED BY THE ASSOaAHOM OF MWBH KBI/WS W aEAT BRITAH tiobert TTeUsch Lazar Schon, Wiirzburg, 1905), a kind of sym posium of various, often conflicting views, a mirror of the intemal unrest and confusion in JEWISH LIFE IN A CHANGED WORLD the Jewish camp. Adolf Bohm, the foremost historian and ideological analyst of the early Reflections on the Eve of the Holy Days Zionist movement, considered this book so important that he devoted to it a whole chap As the New Year of the Jewish calendar to go into details because we were all witnesses ter of his great work.* Surveying with strict starts at the end of this month, there is an to this deplorable process. True, at the objectivity the opinions expounded here, Bbhm unusual time lag between the Holy Days and beginning of July the almost unbelievable calls this epoch "a time of criticism and intro ^ meditation occasioned by them. In the masterstroke of rescuing the hostages of the spection as none before". The book itself, pub I'apidly changing conditions of life and the hijacked plane at Entebbe has restored to lished more than 70 years ago, is now obsolete, feeling of imcertainty about the near future, Israel some of the former sympathies in the of course, and has become a rarity on the ^most every day makes us conscious of the West and admiration for her courage and market. But when I was invited by the Editor Permanent revolution which affects the whole military skill. It has, at the same time, to review a contemporary collection of essays *orld. Many things which seemed accepted and enormously boosted the morale at home though on the Jewish position, it occurred to me that êcure in the 19th century and after have it has also given rise to some exaggerated this may be an attempt to look at the situation êeome questionable; science foreshadows a self-confidence. in a similar way as did that legendary Stimme different structure of existence, traditional Fundamentally, the main problems remain der Wahrheit. Regrettably, it was nothing of ^'alues are challenged. No limit seems to be unsolved. Many things have developed differ the sort. The book, of enormous dimensions êt to the miracles of technology if missiles ently from what the original Zioniste dreamed and weight, with many plates and photographs, ^hot from the earth can hit Mars, millions of of, and also differently from what post-second- some of them brilliant, under the misleading Jjlîles away, and send back photographs which world-war-Jewry had expected, especially after and totally inappropriate title "Next Year in êny the surmise of life on that planet, there thc victory of 1967 which according to popular Jerusalem"** appears to be a piece of showing- by confirming the singularity of the human view established Israel as the leading power off rather than of contemplation. In its whole condition. It seems that the brave new world of the Middle East. The Yom Kippur War of make-up it is certainly not to everyone's taste. Sannot be measured by conventional concepts, 1973 and its political consequences again It is dominated by articles about American ''olitical relations, moral views, economic, brought a reversal. During the last year, the show-biz and success stories of Jews who came 5ôcial, ecological facts are in the melting pot. whole Middle East constellation has been in to the New World from the East European *^ven the climate seems to undergo funda- turmoil owing to the civil war in the Lebanon Shtetl penniless and achieved prominence in '•jental changes with the heatwave in Europe and the splits in the Arab camp, not to speak commerce (with astronomical incomes) and ^liaost surpassing the proverbial tropics, and of the obscure factors of Russia's sinister in such areas as movies and musicals. There autark populated colonies in space have intentions which can only be guessed at. The are also some mistakes. Yet, as the reader "•ecently been predicted by the BBC. No Jews, on the other hand, were disappointed is informed that the persons invited to con •Wonder that Jewish speculations on the advent by the decline of immigration and the increase tribute articles were not told about the rest ^ a new year do not stop at heresy either, in emigration, and by the economic and moral of the contents, it so happens that a number ônfronted with shattering experiences and crises within Israel herself. Large newly-built of serious contributions found their way into the erosion of time-honoured assumptions some quarters in the so-called development towns the book. To some of these I am going to jl^wish creed became problematical, and we remain vacant, and even in these towns—as confine my comments. They are pondering the f^ve not yet got over the shock of doubt some elsewhere in Jewish settlements—the Labour question: where does the average non-religious, times expressed in the formula "Judaism after force consists primarily of Arabs. This demon or in any case non-orthodox, Jew stand today? •'Auschwitz." strates the interdependence of the two In which respect are his relations to being ., ^n the 30 years which have passed since peoples, but it is inconsistent with the original Jewish relevant at a time when the confidence J'le second world war, after the gruesome Zionist idea theoretically proclaimed until that Zionism would definitely "solve" the Jfuth about the Holocaust had become known, this day. Jewish problem, is cmmbling away? ôe establishment of the State of Israel A critical analysis of the situation after the appeared to many Jews and non-Jews as a sort All this provides stuff for thought in Israel, experiences of the past decades, when the bulk * compensation for the unspeakable evil. but also for Zionists in the Diaspora and of Eastem European Jewry for whose sake p\'er a short hesitation, Israel was now accep- beyond the Zionist camp. Three times the and in whose spirit Zionism was conceived hope for mass immigration was foiled: in 1920, almost a hundred years ago.t has tragically i?.** by the formerly anti-Zionist majority of in 1948, and in 1967. Something must be j^spora Jewry as the central fact of all- disappeared, was recently given by professor wrong in the calculations. For the first time, J. L. Talmon of the Hebrew University, ewish existence towards which the endeavours official leaders of Zionist organisations, for ^ the next period would have to be directed. Jerusalem, in an enlightening essay called merly unconditional yes-men, have bûn to "Reflections of an Historian in Israel".J He ^ enormous, unprecedented effort was made think for themselves and are demanding a y Diaspora Jewry to help the emerging state comes to the conclusion that on prevailing say in Israel's political decisions and a re evidence "the most history-ridden and history- ûtically and financially. Yet, while Ben- examination of ideology. urion's proclamation of "retum home" and obsessed people finds itself torn between J "Kibbutz Galuyoth" (In-gathering of the A Time for Re-appraisal * "The Internal Problems of the Movement" in : Adolf Xiles) was not vocally challenged, it remained Bohm, Ole Zionistische Bewegung bis zum Ende des ersten êad letter. Mass immigration did not take When facts which have been overlooked or Weltkrieges, Zweite Auflage, Berlin 1935. pp. 291-306. ** Jews in the Twentieth Century, edited by Douglas lâce, although the obstacles erected by the ignored become evident, or old assumptions are Villiers. Harrap, London, 1976, 352 pp. and many pictures. ntish Mandatory regime were removed shattered, there come a moment for moral £12-50. t On these beginnings see the recent instructive book gether with the regime itself. At the same and intellectual stock-taking. In the Zionist by David Vital, "The Origins of Zionism", London 1975, J^^> Palestine became a region of war or movement, such a moment of perplexity arose Oxford University Press. It shows convincingly that the fathers of Zionist ideology were motivated solely by the gêntial war and of terror and, as has often after Herzls death in 1904, when his political conditions In the Russian Pale and orientated on the J en pointed out, the only country where attempts had been frustrated. At that time elements of Jewish civilisation developed there. Neither other Jewish groups, such as the Jews in Arab and African *s were in physical peril. Moreover, the a collection of essays wi-itten by the most countries who today form the majority of Israel's Jewish '"adoxical situation arose that Israel in prominent Zionist and non-Zionist Jevdsh population, nor the conditions of Palestine with Its Arab thinkers was published in German, then still inhabitants, played a role In this thinking. ^Z^^ forfeited the sympathies of a large t Encounter, London, May, 1976, pp. 82-90. l94fi °^ *^^ world, enjoyed after her birth in the lingua franca of world Jewry. It was ^8, and still more in 1967. It is unnecessary entitled Die Stimme der Wahrheit (edited by Continued on page 2, coluinn 1 Page 2 AJR INFORMATION September 1976 with its racial (volkisch) ideology increasingly in his contribution. He concludes his great On the Eve of the Holy Days stigmatised the Jew as an alien, different from essay on the "Meta-Rabbis" [of the Diaspora! Continued from page 1 the bulk of citizens. This attitude was sus —one of the most impressive in this book solipsistic self-apotheosis, which comes from tained by the development in the 19th and by stating (p. 76): an idolisation of history, and self-rejection 20th centuries of the idea of an exclusively "Of that of which one cannot speak one which is the result of a denial of the past".

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