Rosh Hashanah 5753 Lying Through Gold Teeth Pl6 Orality, Wrote Sigmund Freud, Is 'Conduct System
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AJR Information Volume XLVII No. 9 September 1992 £3 (to non-members) Don't miss . This Solemn Season Mea culpa p3 Talking it out p7 Rosh Hashanah 5753 Lying through gold teeth pl6 orality, wrote Sigmund Freud, is 'conduct system. Morality, on the other hand, aims for the designed to benefit society as a whole or its absolute, that which by definition is not entirely M members individually'. The same is, of course, achievable but which must still be taken and respected true of law. However, as between some legal theorists, as the measure of desirable human behaviour. there has long been in existence a basic difference of The major implications of this point of view are Gleams of opinion as to the precise relationship between morality that law making and enforcement are the prerogatives and law and their respective functions in the social of political power and official authority, while morals hope order. One school of thought holds that the tenets of are and remain a purely personal matter, subject only morality are one thing, rules of law another and that in to an individual's private conscience and concern. The ost-Cold War practice, in real life, law should not seek to enforce the law should not impose morality and neither should euphoria has moral values of the majority (or, indeed, any others). received conceptions of morality impose themselves Pnow given While both, so runs the argument, are indeed intended upon the law. way to deep to serve similar ends - the maintenance of an No such dichotomy exists in the religious and established and stable social order - they do not have philosophical traditions of Judaism. The Jewish faith worries about the much else in common. For law must of necessity rejects the separation of morality and legal rules, not state of the world. pursue pragmatic justice, that which is attainable least in order to ensure that the conduct of human Fortunately global given the imperfections of an unavoidably fallible affairs is governed by the law of God, not Man. Put gloom is relieved simply, sin is crime and crime is sin. In this respect, at by some gleams of any rate, there is no divergence based upon synagogue hope. After a affiliation: Jews of whatever colour of commitment to traditional concepts are at one on this point, no tentative break of matter how some outward forms of worship and the Arab-Israeli observance may differ from each other. logjam comes This year it is, perhaps, especially appropriate to news of the stress this aspect of what might be called the Jewish Vatican's mission to the world. For lately, it would seem, the impending prevailing social order has become disturbed enough recognition of the to call into doubt both legal rules and their efficacy and popularly conceived standards of morality. Once Jewish State. This again an increasingly turbulent world seems ready to Roman thaw after defy both divine law and its man-made counterpart. a fort)' years' We have, in recent months, not lacked examples of the freeze is more than wanton disregard of both by individuals and groups; a diplomatic and all too often the response of the rest of society has nicety. It points to been a reluctance to find fault with some, if not all, the perpetrators. Too often have we seen the 'unaccep an incremental table face' of power in public, and not so public, li.fe. change in the The liturgy of Rosh Hashanah, Day of Judgement, Church's attitude is punctuated by the blowing of the shofar. One towards Jew from hundred trumpet blasts remind Jews of their uncon hostility to - ditional commitment to the moral standards of an however grudging ancient legal code. Perhaps the shofar's strident tone will penetrate the walls of our synagogues and - acceptance. Long prayerhalls in order to proclaim that there are values may it Blowing the Shofar at the New Year. Illustration from Die Juden on which followers of all religions (and of none) continue! D in Deurschland. N.T. Gidal, 1988. should now be able to agree. D D.LM. AJR INFORMATION SEPTEMBER 1992 Hungarian compensation Profile We understand that there is the possibility of making a claim for compensation from At Guildford, too, he was a pioneer the Hungarian Government for those Anti-Revisionist directing his students' interest to the role of people. Of their relatives, who were unjustly art and language in propaganda. He also deprived of their life, freedom, property etc made them do analytical work on Nazi for political or religious reasons between documents — a project that led on to his 1939 and 1989. own personal involvement with anti-Revi We have been advised that applications sionist scholarship. must be submitted by midnight 2 November After five years of research, which 1992. involved the feat of gaining access to Soviet Further inquiries are being made but, in the archives, he published Hitler and the Final meantime, members who may qualify can Solution (Oxford University Press, 1982) to apply for application forms to the Hungar refute David Irving's thesis that the Holo ian Embassy, 35 Eton Place, London SWl. caust was carried out behind the Fuehrer's Telephone number 071 235 4048 (a small back. The book attracted much attention fee may be charged for the application and excellent reviews — from, among form). D others. Professor Trevor-Roper — but even that has not as yet sufficed to demolish the Honoured by his peers Revisionist thesis totally. To procure further ammunition against Siegfried Lenz, one of the best known the Revisionists he has continued his contemporary German writers, will deliver researches into hitherto unavailable docu the laudatio at the award ceremony of the ments about Auschwitz in Soviet archives. Peace Prize of the German book trade to the When I interviewed him at his study Israeli author Amos Oz on 4 October at the (adorned with Diirer and Cranach engrav Paulskirche, Frankfurt. D ings) at the height of the Goebbels Diaries brouhaha he was firing off statements and Misplaced wreath contributions to publications as diverse as Mr Gerald Fleming. Photo: Newman. Nelson Mandela placed a wreath at the the Independent on Sunday and the Jewish shrine of Ayatollah Khomeini on a visit to Chronicle. Iran. Tehran Radio reported the ANC hen I first encountered the word Gerald Fleming is a man with a mission president as saying 'Khomeini's ideas in the Thirties Revisionist meant which, six years into retirement he pursues encouraged us during our struggle against Wrightwing Zionist. In the 1960s with the zest and volubility of someone half apartheid'. D Revisionist was an intra-Communist exple his age. I salute him as a doughty volunteer tive flung by the hawkish Mao at the in the unfortunately necessary engagement allegedly doveish Krushchev. with the slimy proponents of Revisionism. Since then its connotation has changed D R.G. drastically. Nowadays Revisionism denotes East-Germany a denial of the Holocaust and/or Hitler's share in it. The man who has probably done more than any other in Britain to combat and Berlin the Revisionists with the weapon of scholar We give immeaiate attention. ship is Gerald Fleming. COMPANIONS We process and buy properties/claims. Born in South West Germany in 1921, Gerald came to Taunton at the age of fifteen OF LONDON to attend school. Three years later his We pay cash. parents were able to leave Germany and his A specialist home care service father, a former Oberstudienrat, obtained a to assist the elderly, people We have proven track records and furnish language teaching post at Bradford Gram documentation. with disabilities, help during mar School. During the war Gerald worked and after illness, childcare as a precision engineer. Subsequently he and household needs. Write to: trained - inter alia at the Sorbonne - to Nagel & Partner For a service tailored to your individual needs Kjrfjrstendamm 182- I (X)0 Berlin 15 teach languages. His first appointment was by Companions who care - Please call Phone:030-882 56 31 at a large South London Comprehensive fax:030-881 39 16 where he experimented with the use of 071-483 0212 visual aids in the teaching of French gram 071-483 0213 mar. His pioneering work, which received support from the Ministry of Education, 110 Gloucester Avenue, served as a launching pad for an academic Primrose Hill, career that eventually took him to a reader London NWl 8JA ship in German at the University of Surrey. (Emp Agy) AJR INFORMATION SEPTEMBER 1992 its judicial component, of any lingering From the beginning his earnest demean Romancing the Stone vestige of antisemitism. (The vaunted objec our, the regularity of his attendances and his tivity of the 'law lords' in the matter can be exemplary punctuality were daunting. And ave gown, will travel' is not a inferred from Lord Shawcross's letter to although his command of the grammatical quote from a footlose trans- The Times citing a 'supposed' Commons intricacies of the German language was 'Hvesdte , but describes the attitude majority for the War Crimes Bill. In actual initially not much above average, this was of a growing number of dons with one foot fact the House of Commons voted 3 to 1 in admirably camouflaged by an impeccably in academe and the other in Fleet Street/ favour of the measure). clipped Teutonic enunciation. Wapping. Their forerunner was A J P One does not have to see roshes under Taylor, who saw no incongruity between every bed — as imputed to me by a respon Unsmiling and sinister his professed Socialism and working part- dent to the Questionnaire - to suspect that time for Lord Beaverbrook, the rightwing At first I hoped this 'mature' student, self- vestigial antisemitism surfaced in the Lords' press tycoon.