TAMUZ-AV, 5732 /JUNE, 1972 VOLUME VIII, NUMBER 6 THE FIFTY CENTS TISHA B'AV TEARS Weep for the Destruction Weep for the Redemption The Orthodox Jew as a Social Activist • Jewish Graphic Art -A Review Article • Second Looks / , ! ;er .. THE JEWISH QBSERVER in this issue ... WE CAN No LONGER REMAIN SILENT, Shlomo Wolbe 3 THE ORTHODOX JEW AS A SOCIAL ACTIVIST, Y aakov Landynski ................................ 5 WHEN THE PENNY VANISHES FROM THE PURSE, A vrolunn C'hailn Feuer ........................................ 9 THE WALL, a poem by Moshe Sokol ....................... 13 TISHA B'Av TEARS, adapted from an essay by Horav Eliyahu Eliezer Dess/er '?''lT ............ 14 JEWISH GRAPHIC ART: A REVIEW ARTICLE ..................... 16 A WORLD AT Twn.IGHT (Lionel S. Reiss) Tun y FILMUS-Selected Drawings POLISH JEws: A Pictorial Record hy Roman Vishniac THE HASIDIM: Lubavitch-Chabad (a film) OF A TIME GONE BY, Chaninah Katz ................................................. 18 SECOND LOOKS AT THE JE\VISH SCENE UNDER THE UMBRELLA-A Deluge of Deception 25 JEWISH CHRISTIANITY: Davka, Not Davka and 27 THE JEWISH OBSERVER is published Davka Not ....................................................... ................... monthly, except July and Aug~t, by the Agudath Israel of America, LETTERS TO THE EDITOR .................................................................................... 29 5 Beekman Street, New York, New York 10038. Second class ART WORK: Cover: Detail from a graphic by Siegmund Forst postage paid at New York, N. Y. Page 14: Shmuel Knopfler Subscription: $5.00 per year; Two years, $8.50; Three years, $12.00; outside of the United States, $6.00 ;per year. Single copy, fifty cents. SPECIAL OFFER! Printed in the U.S.A. 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Rabbi Shlomo· Wolbe, mashgiach of the Yeshfra Be'er Yaakov inisrae~ looks . beyond ihe surfact in examining the plight of the Russian oleh. Flis 1Jerdict: ·We Can No Longer Remain Silent ··w·.· . E CAN NO LONGER REMAIN SILENT in face OI The State continues to depei1d upon immigration for •. the wholesale. de-Judaizing of the Georgian population growth, and the religious element is the immigrants. Knesset Member Shlomo Lo­ principal source for such immigration. Aliya and ab­ rlncz's motion of no-confidence (see Jewish Observer sorption, then, must be based on two principles: March '72) dramatically called attention to this shame­ Religious immigrants-yes; but under no circumstances ful activity, and while as a result Agudath Israel reaped may the nation's majority be religious: This in sum­ angry rebuttals from all side, including the Prime mary is the ideological imperative for the de-Judaizing Minister, the anger in no way refuted Rabbi Lorincz's of the approximately l l/z million Jews who have charges. Indeed, the government machinery is still ef­ already come, and of those that are yet to come. ficiently carrying out its strategy: bringing immigrants Thus the rough treatment of the Georgian imnii- .. under the sole direction of appointees of the Ministry grants, of the children of Youth Aliya from observant of Absorption and scattering them across the country­ homes, of all religious immigrants, is not simply the side without regard for their individual needs-all ac­ caprice of a handful of calloused, irreligious o:fficials­ cording to the old rule of divide et impera-and then as a naive observer might assume. For secularism is confusing the situation by issuing angry denials. .·the very foundation of the State and it is a goal unto This is what had happened to the immigrants from itself. The spiritual fathers of Zionism and the State are Morocco and Yemen, to Yaldei Teheran, and to the Gordon, Mapu, Smolenskin, and Brenner. They called children of the Youth Aliya. These painful facts are for the severence of the People from Torah and all known. Rather than review them once more, ]et us emunah; they were consumed by blind hatred for instead pinpoint the ideology behind this policy. Even halacha and rabbinical authority, and they trampled without an exact statistic on the number of children these sacred principles to the ground. At first glance the Youth Aliya had brought, and how many families it might seem that secular Zionism opposed this immigrated to this country, one can say without a ideol-Ogy ... but never did modern-day Zionists disas­ doubt that no less than one-and-a-half million souls sociate themselves from the calumny with which these came-mostly from Arab Lands. Nearly all the en)igrcs free thinkers besmeared us. The poison they injected from the Islamic countries had been raised in homes into the veins of their disciples is still bubbling in the where keeping Torah and Mitzvos was taken for blood of those shaping the State today. They saw the granted. very purpose of the State as the fashioning of a new .· type of Israelite disassociated from emunah in the .. .. If these 1lh mi11ion had not suffered systematic written and oral Torah. In a State with such an aim, brainwashing when they immigrated, they would have there is no place for a population majority that lives remained true to Torah and Mitzvos and an over­ in accordance with halacha-and its purpose would whelming majority of the country would still be main­ ordain the de-Judaizing of immigrants. · taining that loyalty today. Even if subsequently the government would have succeeded in coercing the It would be of great value to educate our yeshiva immigrants to join secular parties, the majority of youth as to the spiritual roots of the State, and while I observant Jews would have endowed the State with would never advocate bringing Zionist literature­ a religious character- and this the State is not prepared which is blatantly atheistic- into our schools, we have or willing to accept. before us a Jiving text-book in the series of scandals, beginning with Youth AJiyah through the current Georgian episode. By studying this, our yeshiva stu­ This essay originally appeared in Hebrew in tire London dents would begin to understand the decisive conflict JEWISH TRJ8UNE. now involving Torah-loyal Jewry. The Jewish Observer / June, 1972 A Day of Reckoning problem will worsen as the influx of observant Jews from the affluent countries grows. N A FEW LINES we have summarized the principle lying behind the absorption policies of the State. We thus have before us an aliya of Torah-loyal I It should be added that not only is this principle technicians on the one hand, and an aliya of simple but anti-religious, it is also immoral. Those responsible­ precious brethren from Soviet Georgia on the other from the Minister to the lowest official-should realize hand-and with what shall we greet them? The in­ that this is the kind of transgression that Heavenly evitable answer is: we must found another five cities justice does not forgive. like Bnei Brak, another ten settlements like Komemiyus and Yesodos, and build Orthodox industry which would In our ]"orah it i.<;J written: "He that steals a nian employ observant technicians and laborers. and sells him shall be put to death." He who turns a The land is wide, the Negev is large and there is man over to a secular settlement both steals him and room for planning and investment. There are among sells him. us honest businessmen of vision, energy, and deter­ Our teachers and Sages say further, "He that causes mination-people with unblemished integrity. Let them one to sin is worse than one who kills him" ( Bamidbar join us and establish an Orthodox office of industry Rabbah 25: I), and he who subverts Jews, ordinary and construction. And let us concentrate our resources Jews, and influences them to desecrate the Shabbos. -within the country and beyond--on this plan. The and to \veaken in their prayers, their customs and the difficulties that we will face will not be few, but with upbringing of their children-he is worse than their the help of the L-rd of the Land, we shall surmount murderer. Our hearts are consumed with inexpressible them. anguish for each and every one of our brethren who has been estranged from our Torah by cunning and A Constructive Program might-not to speak of the attempts at the wholesale E HAVE WITNESSED amazing success in every estrange1nent of complete tribes. W Orthodox building effort-beginning with the Let them also take note: we know that the arrival blessed project of the late Vizhnitzer Rebbe of Moshiach is not far off. On that day, all who arc ?"lT, who was the first to build a complete shikun, to guilty of such subversion will attempt to deny their Sanz and Mattersdorf in Jerusalem, and above all in actions, for they themselves will not understand how the establishment of greater Bnei Brak. they dared commit such terrible crimes. Concerning It is now our duty to plan building programs around them, Yishayahu prophesied a most inglorious end: industrial plants owned by observant Jews.