HREill

NUMBER 15 SPRING 1987 iniiilrfu-L- i3 irfu Contents The Stemberg Centre for Judaism, The Manor House, 80 East End Road, London N3 2SY Telephone: 01-346 2288 1 Editorial

MANI`IA is the Journal of the Sternberg Centre for Judaism at the Manor House 2 HerbertKuhner Waldheim'sAustria and of the Manor House Society.

4 LynneReidBanks Diaryofan lsraeliDrive MANNA is published quarterly.

6 DavidKossoff 'LateGreatpaul' Editor: Rabbi Tony Bayfield Deputy Editor: Rabbi Wllliam Wolff Art Editor: Charles Front Editorial Assistant: Elizabeth Sarah 8 Michael Freedland Howsam Goldwyntookthe bitter and the glitter

Editorial Board: Rabbi Colin Eimer, Rabbi Dr. Albert Friedlander, Dr. 10 LionelBIue lnklings Wendy Greengross, Reverend Dr. Isaac Levy; Rabbi Dr. Jonathan Magonet, Rabbi Dow Marmur, Rabbi Dr. John 10 RosemaryHartill Serving GodforBreakfast Rayner, Professor J.B. Segal, Isca Wit- tenber8. 12 JuneRose Barnardo'sJewish connection

Views expressed in articles in A4lcr##¢ do not necessarily reflect the view of the Editorial Board. 14 WendyGreengross Jewish Father Little Boy Lost

15 SuNewland Thepassion&ObstinacyofaHero Subscription rate: £6.50 p.a. (four issues) including postage anywhere in the U.K. Abroad: Europe £9.50; Israel, Asia, Americas, Australasia -£13.50. 16 AlomaHalter Amos oz`Mystoriesare nottypical- They just interest me'

19 Alexandrawright ForHeaven'ssake

20 Letters

21 Wi[liamwolff Lastword

`\fo:E:oi°fvnegr:e`££Lj£T£::usofw?]ruastnitifio:rat::

other graphic works by Charles Front at the Sternbeng Centre. EDITORIAL

SHOW PITY SHUN JUDGEMENT

HE JEWISH COMMUN- Alarmingly there are already homosexuals alike` to think very ity is clearly divided on signs that the homosexual com- seriously about how we use sexu- T the subject of homosexu- munity could quickly become ality and highlights the poten- ality. There are many, especially the equivalent of medieval lep- tially dire consequences of using within traditional circles, who ers - or Jews - blamed for the that sexuality selfishly or irres- affirm the legislation of the plague and victimised accord- ponsibly. Torah and insist that sodomy ingly. Such is the power of the Yet there will continue to be and, by extension, any form of drive to scapegoat. Anyone who people who fall victim. Some homosexuality, is an abomina- has ears to hear with must surely will be completely innocent; tion. There are others, including know that AIDS is a disease some will have misused their sex- the writer of this editorial, who which can be transmitted both uality. In either case they will believe that a person's sexual through homosexual and require support and compassion- orientation is a private matter heterosexual intercourse. In ate treatment. There are no and that the real concern of relig- Europe and the USA AIDS may, limits to the obligation of b!.k£# ion and morality should be how for the moment, be most preva- cfeo/I.in, caring for the sick. We a person uses their sexuality - lent amongst homosexuals but in will need to be a well-educated selflessly or selfishly, lovingly or Africa the heterosexual com- and informed community, not exploitatively, responsibly or munity is profoundly affected. turning away or recoiling out of irresponsibly. Just as the identifi- Moreover, the fact that a person misinformed prejudice. We will cation and punishment of the has contracted AIDS says need hospices. We will need stubborn and rebellious son or nothing whatsoever per se about synagogues to act as an extended the death penalty for adultery their morality nor even about family and a real community. We have been removed from the their sexual activity. Babies can must not allow the debate over operative area of Jewish law, so be born with AIDS; husbands or the morality of homosexuality to should the condemnation of wives can contract AIDS in the cloud this need~and this demand. behaviour which is of no-one's course of normal marital rela- There may be no lepers; no Jews concern but the adults them- tions. casting out Jews; no shunning selves. AIDS is already present in the out of fear or mistaken self-pro- The resurgence of discussion Jewish community in Britain. tection. We should urge of all a about homosexuality has been Jews have died and are dying of selfless, loving and responsible brought about by the emergence AIDS. The disease presents us attitude to sexuality. Equally we of AIDS. It is crucial that the with a great challenge. It chal- should urge of all compassion two issues do not get confused. lenges us, heterosexuals and and concern for the sick..

MANNA SPRING 1987 S mu.DH[IM'§ Aus"Ih WHERE NAZI PAST WEAVES IN AND OUT OF THE UGLY PRESENT Herbert Kuhner

The selecti,on Of Kurtwaldhei,in as ALustri,an president throws a world spotlight on the country which was Hitler's birthplace - and where his passions and prejudices still inflect an appreciable part Of the population. TJut is what makes modern day ALustria diJ:Jierent f rom West Germany. Here Herbert K]nhaer, an Austrian Jewish writer who went back from the USA to live invienna in 1963 describes the atmosphere in which ALustha today conducts its polidcs. he Socialists and the Con- Hitler when he embarked on an SS over him. The doctor in question servatives are the two major career in the Reich. He did not have had been responsible for the exter- T parties in Austria. There is to apply to regain it. It was handed mination of `mentally retarded' chil- also a mini-sized third force, the so- back to him on a silver platter along dren. After the war, he sat in court called Freedom Party. It was formed with a pension and other benefits. for four decades and decided who after the war to soak up those with a No Jewish emigr6 can boast of such was sane and who was not. Today he Nazi past. Many were swallowed up red carpet treatment with a cabinet lives in `honourable' retirement and by the Socialists and Conservatives, member on hand to do the welcom~ is still called upon to give his profes- who competed for the lion's share. in8. sional views on crime. In 1983 he The present-day Freedom Party is Bruno Kreisky, the long serving returned from a tour of Soviet composed of `liberals' and Chancellor who led the Socialists to psychiatric clinics bubbling with •nationalists'. The nationalist ele- enthusiasm. The Socialists take care power in 1970, is of Jewish birth. He of their own all right, even if they ment is dedicated to upholding the proved to be a good politician in the `purity. of the German language worst possible sense. Kreisky, the were previously IVofz.o#cz/ Socialist. and culture and owes allegiance to Jew, was the first post-war Chancel- Many former Nazis have become the German nation. There are some lor to bring former Nazis into his opponents of totalitarianism and thirty thousand bilingual Croations, cabinet. Kreisky may himself have advocates of democracy. In most twenty thousand bilingual Slove- been a victim of the Third Reich, cases their conversion just hap- nians and a hundred thousand but he was willing to let bygones be pened to coincide with the collapse Gczsfc!;'bcz.rG7., or foreign workers, in bygones. His motto was `If you're of the Third Reich. Indeed, every- Austria. Do these pose a threat to brown, hang around'. His theme thing has been done to integrate the language and culture of seven song waLs ` Brown is the Colour of my these converts into the fabric of pre- million? The largest pre-war minor- Tirue Love's Shirt' . sent-day society, thus enabling them ity, the Jews, has virtually ceased to During the 1975 election cam- to contribute their skills for the `public good'. exist due to Hitler. paign the Socialists were consider- In 1983 the Socialists formed a ing a coalition with the Freedom Winning the Jewish vote in coalition with the Freedom Party. In Party if they failed to maintain their Austria is of minor political impor- 1984, when Walter Reder, the last majority. That would have meant tance. The Jewish community has Nazi war criminal incarcerated in designating their leader Friedrich shrunk from 220,000 to 8,500. But Italy, was released, Friedhelm Peter as Kreisky's Vice Chancellor. the hard-core Nazi vote can easily Frischenschlager, Freedom Party When Simon Wiesenthal came up be estimated. Neo-Nazi Norbert Minister of Defence, flew to Graz with the embarrassing fact that Burger received 141,000 votes when to welcome the old soldier with a Peter's SS Unit had specialized in he ran for the Austrian presidency handshake and .G7-I:jss Gorr!' This extermination, a parliamentary in 1980. That was 3.2°/o of the total was a bone in the throat of some investigating committee was to be vote. Another distinguished Free- Socialists, but others gulped it down set up to investigate -Wiesenthal. dom Party member became Minis- without any trouble. The Conserva- Bruno Kreisky then took over the ter of Justice. He has been quoted tives raised a ruckus in parliament role of Nazi hunter and accused as saying he considers himself to be but smiled wanly when one of the Wiesenthal of having survived the a German Austrian and does not mayors presented Reder with a Holocaust by being a Gestapo feel bound to Austria as a nation, hunting lodge to while away his informer. In other words, open sea- and, furthermore, that he regrets twilight hours. The Catholic Church son was declared on him. the defeat of the armies of the Third got into the act by offering Reder Socialist gulpers aren't new at the Reich. room and board until the more game. When one of their members, Austrians have been accused of luxurious quarters were ready. a distinguished psychiatrist used as not wanting to face the past. But Incidentally, Reder gave up his an expert in the law courts, came during Kurt Waldheim's presidential Austrian citizenship in the thirties under fire for his Third Reich past, a campaign last year the past struck before Austria was annexed by protective umbrella was formed the present like a slap in the face.

MANNA SPBING 1987 The spectre was ugly indeed, and it ing for the youth vote, a naive stu- `Aryanised` from its Jewish owners caused many to show their true col- dent asked him why he hadn.t after the A/?Jc/7/I/ss. Kreisky did our. The language of politicians and joined the opposition. The Presi- indeed visit Reder in the Italian cas- columnists of the day was strangely dent-to-be replied that if he and tle where he was imprisoned and reminiscent of the slogans of yester- hundreds of thousands of Austrians used his influence to gain Reder.s day. Leaders of Jewish organisa- ahd gone into the opposition, they release. tions were referred to as `dishonour- all would have been killed. Perhaps the soft spot in Kreisky`s able individuals'; there was an `in- The point is, if there had been heart is partiall}' due to a situation ternational Jewish press' and a such a strong opposition , the FL.;/7/-c/- described in his `Memoirs`. He was `world-wide Jewish conspiracy'. wouldn't have been able to pull off arrested twice in the thirties. first by Waldheim suffered from amnesia his strategy. the Christian Socialists when they concerning certain aspects of his Way back in .71, when he first ran took over in 1934 and then by the military service during the war for the Austrian presidency, Wald- National Socialists wlien they took years. And lo-and-behold, Bruno heim had said: `1 deny the allega- over. According to Kreisky. the Kreisky took the occasion to lam- tions that I am a Nazi or even a treatment he received during the bast his former friend for his lapses Jew!. God forbid anyone for sus- first incarceration was rougher and in memory, which was like the pot pecting him of being a Jew! Bruno he struck up friendships with fellow calling the kettle brow'#. Kreisky has no such luck. He can't prisoners who happened to be People in glass houses shouldn't deny the latter. But he has said: Nazis. When Kreisky was impris- `The Jews are a lousy people', and throw stones, but that didn't prevent oned again, his former fellow pris- the Socialists from throwing stones he has done his best, as an indi- oners spoke for him, and he was at the man who had been head of vidual, to prove his assertion. released by their comrades and the big glass house in Manhattan, Actually Waldeim's background is allowed to emigrate to Sweden the United Nations headquarters. Czech, and in 1968, when the Rus- where he spent the war years. Delving into Waldheim's past by the sians invaded Czechoslovakia, he As for Haider, he denied that the Socialists backfired and created a proved his impartiality. As Conser- Freedom Party is heir to the Nazis. backlash that helped elect their vative Foreign Minister, he initialed His cynical reason: `If it were, it target. an order to close the Austrian would be in the majority'. Fi.iedrich Peter referred to his embassy to Czechs applying for After his election as party leader, stint in the SS as having done his visas. This order was fortunately a Haider supporter told Frau duty. Kurt Waldheim may not have ignored by Ambassador Rudolf Kir- Steger, the wife of the man he shared Peter's fervour in the thirties chschlager. Waldheim was quite an defeated, `Your husband deserves `initialer'. His initials appeared on and forties, but he too used the to be gassed'. Another member of clich6 about `duty'. wartime intelligence reports, but he the winning faction told the loser.s Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg was was totally unaware of deporta- wife, `If we'd elected Hitler instead the man who handed Hitler the keys tions. of Haider, your husband wc`uld be to the country in 1938. At a round At his first press conference, the taken out and shot.. table discussion in the seventies, he newly elected president was asked A Haider man was also overheard stated that had Austria fought, he whether emigr6s should be invited to say, `1 prefer a good dictatorship and his colleagues might not have to return since no such invitation to a bad democracy.. survived to tell the story. As nice as has been extended since 1945. To Haider set his sights on Austrian it was to have him around to chat show that his heart is in the right writers: `We will not allow Austria about it, perhaps it would have place, the President replied: `1 will to be affronted as it has been bv been preferable if there were look into the matter'. Let me get up some subsidized authors ... Th; another story to tell. on a soapbox to proclaim: `Fellow Freedom Party will not allow our In February 1984, Friedhelm Fris- emigr6s, if my experience can be beautiful homeland to be bes- chenschlager, then Freedom Party used as a gauge, you better stay mirched'. Haider's exoneration and Minister of Dc/c#cc, stated that it right where you are!' white-washing of the war generation would have been suicidal for At the Freedom Party Congress did indeed bear fruit. In the 1983 Austria to have fought in 1938. on September 13, 1986, the election the Freedom Party had `nationalist' element triumphed Lives would have been lost in a received 5% of the vote; in 1986 the senseless struggle. over the `liberal' element. Young party uiider Haider doubled the Weren't lives lost in a senseless Norbert Steger was replaced by number, leaving the giants war that began one year later - a younger J6rg Haider as Freedom weakened. war that lasted for five years? The Party leader. In 1984, at the height The Conservative attitude is best blood that had not been shed fight- of the Reder Affair, when expressed by Secretary-General ing against the Reich was shed fight- Friedhelm Frischenschlager was Michael Graff who stated that the ing for the Reich many times over. under pressure to resign for welcom- Socialists would find Haider accept- But it cannot be compared to the ing `the last Austrian prisoner of able if he placed a flower pot in blood shed by the Reich. That cost war' back to Austria, Haider came Mauthausen. Since Kreisky had 55'000'000 lives. to the Minister of Defence's taken Peter to Auschwitz, perhaps A man can't be condemned for defence. `I'd bet my fortune that if Graff could take Haider to Mauth- not being a dead hero, but he Bruno Kreisky were still Chancel- ausen. should be taken to task for making lor, he'd have personally welcomed The mockery of the millions mur- malicious and asinine statements. Reder'. A good part of the fortune dered is unlimited.I While Waldheim was campaign- here referred to consists of land

MANNA SPBING 1987 what with policy changes, money flowing in one year, di.ying up next, settlers coming and going. Called in at combined snackbar and mini- supermarket for refreshments. Unable to resist humous with my coffee. Humous divine, sure sign that town is chiefly inhabited by North African families. Having taught in Israel. am always fascinated by latest pedagog- ical ti.ends. Headed for school. was soon deep in conversation with two young woman teachers. Both wor- ried to death about extremist views being expressed by their pupils. His- tory teacher had tried to impart idea of co-existence with Arabs, found OIL AN Lee quite excited about going to herself up against entrenched hostil- fJfl/.cJzf/ - off her routine beat as ity extended to /?c7. for daring to tourist guide - but hzid plans for bring subject up. Familiar ground to ISRAEL other stops en route. Began at me after last year's researches; refer- Ma`ale Ha'adtimim -.Red Heights` . red her to Van Leer Jerusalem A city created in heady days of Foundation which, in teeth of `re- DRIVE: Begin regime, when Arik Sharon ligious' objections, has developed riding high - and wide. Creating national education programme to facts on West Bank by fair means fight just such attitudes among and foul. My map, revised 1979. young of both communities. These didn't mention it, so it can`t be more teachers, desperate for guidance Lynne Reid Banks than six years old. ai`d structures for use in classroom Used to think cities grew organi- after lonely battles against pre- cally. To round a bend and see bar- judice, seemed relieved that `some- ERUSALEM. THURSDAY. ren hills crowned by fortress of ram- one is doing something about it'. Up at 7.30. At eight sharp, `my. Lee told me some government car arrived, driven by Shalom - parts, stepped to different heights. J all blazing white-gold in sun as if department or other promising/ young. dressed in spotless white whole place had thrust its way out threatening to re-establish Green shorts and shirt to set ofl` dark good of hilltops with primevil (sorry, - Line on next update of map. Pre-.67 looks and Sap/i¢rcJz.c chip on shoul- eval) force, stunning, and not just border hasn't appeared on any offi- der. Car windscreen embellished visually. In my, perhaps biased eyes, cial map, even Israeli Monopoly, with dangling selection of fluffy toys looked like ramparts erected against since Lz.k!!d came to power. No which impeded my rear-seat view wonder thousands of young Israelis Peace. for next two days. Broke it to him at Shalom shot round ring-road, think it's something to do with once that there was to be /7o /.¢cJz.o. windscreen toys bouncing, and agriculture. Which in a way it is. On He took this dread news surpris- headed into hinterland of `Samaria'. crossing it, countryside changes at ingly well. Next stop a contrast -small, already once. Consoling -whatever settlers Picked up guide in town. Lee shabby village called A4fl'cz/c do, they can't make their land bur- Berlman. ex-American, around my Ep/7/-c7!.;7z. This z.s on my old map so geon like Israel proper. age` also my cup of tea. Only thing I must have been founded quite soon Hardly recognised Galilee, my had requested fol. tour was a visit to after West Bank building prog- old manor. Re-afforestation gives new(ish) `Rudolph Steiner' kz.bb!f/z, ramme started after 1977 elections. positively pre-Crusader appearance f7fl7.dff/, in Galilee. Read about it Evidently been through mill since. to hills. Entire new road system and recently in /c';-£/s¢/c/77 Post; sounded many new settlements belie my very unusual. Kz.bbw/z, I thought, impression that last decade develop- hard enough graft without trying to ment money only spent on West combine it with anthroposophical Bank. Quite astonishing new look theories of cosmos, harmony bet- to whole area since my last visit. ween man and land, angelic higher Could now drive to Jerusalem in 2 beings etc. Higher kz.bbc/rz commit- hours from our old kJ.bbL!/z. Used to tees quite enough for me. On the take four. other hand, much attracted by idea Drove to top of pineclad hill to of natural materials in place of for- savour one of latest tourist attrac- mica and plastic, and possibility of tions; pianist and wife have built members surviving on meditation, wooden bungalow commanding lemon-grass tea and biodynamic amazing 360`` views, where visitors gardening instead of gossip and treated to coffee and impromptu petty strife. classical recital. In mid-Schubert`

4 MANNA SPBING 1987 Shalom walked out in disgust. Miles from famine and worse in the Sudan and fled to Acre for steak-in-pita. and miles without fi radio, and now by secret `Operation Moses., which `Did you actually car that muck?. he this! came to tragic premature halt fol- asked next d£`y. Next stop, Arab village of lowing criminally injudicious leak to Sweet young thing was, to my A4c'z./z.cz. Visited home of Latifa, Press. amazement, daiighter of old col- employed by f7isz¢cJr.// - .TUC' - American Rabbi Cohen in league of mine at A/.bb!!/z high department of employment, in her charge. Interesting man, modest, school. Another member, Gilad, case trying to find jobs for Arabs. hardly seemed sure why he had was son of our former kz.bb4f/z One of lsrael's biggest timehbombs been chosen for this difficult task. neighbours - ;!o/ best pleased. I is problem of many Arabs who, in Nothing like it before in all years of gather. at son`s conversion to recent years, have had higher edu- Israel's ingathering of orphaned or anthroposophy. Gilad described at cation in Israel or abroad, are now traumatised immigrant kids. Ori- length how Steiner's philosophy can qualified in a profession but can't gins of this exodus very vaguely be applied to k/.bbff/z life. No con- find work. Hardly in interests of accounted for - why did first lot tradictions, he claimed ... I got a bit future harmony to have trained leave families behind aiid set out lost over planting accoi-ding to engineers, teachers and dentists direct from their schools, seemingly phases of stars. zlnd Higher Beings. doing menial jobs. on mass impulse? How did they Outside. young members played Those in sciences worst off ; most know where to head for? flutes on lawn. No sign of petty jobs in gift of government depart- At all events, first ari-ivals. in strife, but not an awful lot of laughs ments or industries regarded as `sen- 1984, were unaccompanied teena- either. sitive`. Management just might con- gers. Rescued by air after horrend- Next morning we were shown gar- sider employing Arabs - especially ous journey on foot through North- den - loads of comfrey and other if leaned on by higher-ups in ern Africa featuring incidents of herbs, goats for manure, four com- interests of good public relations. capture, rape, beatings. imprison- post heaps in varying stages of But often workers - pupils of ments, escapes, death of comrades decay: very cyclical and organic, Ma'ale Ephraim et al. grown up? - from hunger ... Condition terrible` even rather romantic, but not neces- refuse to work under Arabs, who, many with diseases unknown or sarily profitable. Pity` they are `conquered' in Israel, many in they presume, are only seeking jobs determined to be self-supporting. in order to strew bombs around pre- trauma. Then to face radical cul- not cap-in-hand for subsidies like all mises at earliest opportunity. Under- ture-shock. All aspects of modern m`a.inline k i b b I,i{ z i in . standable in present volatile cli- life unknown to them, even Judaism Before leaving. allowed to meet mate, largely created by policies of which was all-important to them gc/ri/. Very young to be so sure of Lz.kL4d government, though record was, as practised in Israel. only half himself. Does not share in manual of hostile acts by Israeli Arabs, as familiar, having taken a different labour, but does most of the think- distinct from those in West Bank, and, some would say, not a better ing and nearly all the lecturing in incredibly low. Trouble is to get Jews path from their millenia-old oral the place. That is how they celeb- to differentiate between one Arab traditions. What a story .. . rate all festivals in f7czrdff/. With lec- and another - all are perceived as After Rabbi Cohen`s long account tures . . . dangerous. we went out into dusk ... some of With sense of relief I dropped in Interrupted slanging match bet- children, incredibly beautiful` on my old, non-Steiner A/.bbc/rz. ween Shalom and Latifa, who was walked with us, holding our hands, Two hours of unanthroposophical criticising fJz.sfczczrw/ for foot-drag- chatting in baby-Hebrew; others delights like meat. coffee. gossip ging in matter of jobs for Arabs, to withdrew, standing almost invisible and shrieks of laughter. No sign ask question. Why can difference in shadows beyond lamplight. We here of what I had already noted between facilities in Jewish sector - were shown copy of straw-built elsewhere. sudden surprising paid for by contributions from Jews synagogue, pictures of relatives, number of Israelis into vai-ious abroad -and much poorer facilities many of whom will never arrive, cults. They called it `seeking in Arab sector, not be equalised by examples of embroidery and hand- spiritual values. - everything from contributions from Ar¢bs abroad. crafts - but these already have a Gurjeyev [sic] to annual high-cost Latifa protested that Arab states museum air ... Traditionally in mystical boot-ups in Indian couldn't care less and that `all Pales- Ethiopia it was men who did the ashrams. Not to mention hash and tinians were poor'. I said a number I sewing, women the embroidery. casual sex and other keepers-of- knew were rolling in money, often Now boys want to learn `boys. reality-a`L--bay. Lot of depression as donated by PLO, as witness `stead- things' and refuse to make clothes, well . . ' fastness villas' on West Bank, each a so girls will not embroider. Rabbi Of course, it.s down to war~weari- princely palace. Latifa signalled to Cohen saw nothing sad in this. This ness and stress. I'd probably be right unseen daughter, who promptly is Israel. Such a mammoth adjust- round the bend by now if I'd stayed. appeared with plates of ice-cream, ment can't be achieved without cost. Still ... Upsetting. Can think of bet- cake covered with hundreds-and- By now 7.30. Drove on to fJ¢/-- ter ways to compete with all the thousands, and enormous chilled cJw/, arriving just as supper had religious fanaticism.. apples. Subject dropped. been cleared off beautiful solid pine Headed next for coast north of dining tables. But sweet young Lynne Reid Banks, (!i///7o/. ()/` //]c' L-ShapL`(I Acre, Bustan Hagalil, youth v.iHaLge thing in muslin appeared, welcomed F`oom and (I c[ii[ch oj` siibseqiien[ I)es[-`se[lers, with a difference: inhabitants are us, sat us down, and went to kitchen is marl-ieil lo an lsriieli sctilplol.. AIIh(jiigh ciil-- relt[ly I.esi(len[ in Eligland` she lived in lsl.{iel refugee children of the `Falashas', to heat up and serve delectable veg- for many years (111(I is passi()iialely (()I"ni[[e(I coal-black African Jews, rescued etarian feast. Shalom took one look I() its welfare.

MANNA SPFilNG 1987 `LflITE GREflFT RAIUL,

David Kossoff

very noisy and effective political because he was one of the best blues demonstration. I do not think that guitarists in the world. It is a good I:¥::tn::L::t{:d:ea:r¥cL::ad::;:tFna: they smoke very much. I think they and apt title, although, as said ear- way theological. Most people know have trouble dieting, but so does lier, it can be confusing to certain that I have a slight connection with everybody. I also think that I should theatregoers and readers. both the Old and New Testaments stop saying `they' and start saying The idea for the performance was `we' because, after all, I am Jewish and I would hate to think that there borne in late 1980. It had been in was a slight pulling back because it myself. my mind in a vague way during the was thought that Kossof was writing So we have a fairly long and reli- many hours of motoring in the tours an article £`bout the late great S¢z.;7/ able history of moderation in all of the one-man shows by which I P:1ul. things, which is splendid. One could earn my living. I did not rush. There Indeed not. The Paul of the title say that the unbeatable Israeli army was plenty of time to think, to jot is my late son. who died some ten and the incredible valour used by down notes in my mind. What was clear in my mind is that years ago fit 25, his life certainly ordinary people in the creation and shortened by his addiction to drugs. support of the State of Israel was an Paul's life and death should be in Son Paul of the title did not really exception to the moderation in all some way used as an explicit warn- things and that is also splendid. ing to others. After all,I was there prompte the idea of this article. The suggestion was made to me by the But let us get back to drugs and when it all happened. I knew every editor of this excellent magazine the Jewish community. My own con- detail of my dear son's rise and fall. that I should write an article on the nections with the Jewish community There was much about him in writ- subject of drugs -which he knew I have been over the years many and ten, recorded and videotaped form. could write from a highly personal varied. As a fund-raising speaker I He was a much-liked, much-inter- view point -with, he said, particu- have hectored them endlessly and viewed and quotable chap. He had lar emphasis upon `the Jewish point with most plentiful results. As an been a member of a top group in the of view' . entertainer, I have worked in front early 70's whose records had sold in I really have no idea what the of them many times. As an author millions. He was a remarkable per- Jewish point of view on drugs is. No and speaker, I have been in many former on stage with many fans doubt he meant how the drug scene Jewish homes and synagogue halls loyal to this day. affects Jews as against any other sec- for literary suppers and lunches. I Performance, not talk. That was tion of the community. Again, I find do not remember one occasion clear from the beginning. I have myself at a loss for I do not have any when I ever talked to them about been an actor for many years and a kind of statistics to show whether drugs. solo performer for at least half of Jews are more or less prone than When my subject is drugs, my that time, of carefully chosen, care- their neighbours to the use and audiences are usually school chil- fully written, always sJro7ig mate- abuse o±` drugs. I have an idea that dren. Here it would be best, I think, rial, using verse and mime and they are not. I grew up with the idea to sketch in the background that music. The great Danny Kaye once that Jews did not drink to excess, or leads me to presenting in the course said `Strong material; always. If you commit violent crime or create too of any year to thousands of school think they are going to love you much of a legal disturbance of any children a performance - not a lec- because you have a dimple, you will kind. Certainly their names €ire ture or a talk -about drugs. It is cal- last two minutes'. known in financial chicanery - and led `L¢fc G/.c#f Pcz#/'. The `late' in So the same ingredients would be indeed in insider trading -and they the title is because Paul is no longer used for L¢fe Grc¢r Pcz#/: careful are not unknown in the fields of alive and the `great' in the title is writing, verse, mime, and a lot of

MANNA SPF{lNG 1987 Paul's own marvellous music. I set- he died. should come and do the evening for tled down and began to put it So now the show had had its first its first try out in Glasgow, where together. night and the rewritings and the Paul had been so well known. This There is no fee. But I am a fund- reshapings could be done in ear- senior police officer was on the tele- raiser, trained by cold-eyed men, nest. I was booked to offer my one- phone the next morning and the who know that something given for man show in the Edinburgh Festival plans went ahead. A fine school nothing has little value. A fund was in 1981. I was to do a fortnight of my theatre would be used, with the created in my late son's name and three humour `evenings' and daily final rehearsal to sixth formers after donations are made to that fund by story tellings to children. I decided lunch and the first public perfor- any group, school or organisation to do Lczfc Greczf Pcz#/ for the last mance in the evening. A date was that presents the performance. The four days of the fortnight. It seemed set, by coincidence the fifth birth- fund has given away many a perfect chance, for to such festi- day of Paul's death in March 1981. thousands of pounds to a very wide vals go a great many young people. So let me finish. It may be that variety of causes. The fund has no It was given wide publicity and they the Jewish community is less prone expenses of any kind. It gives with- came in their hundreds. At the end to fall victim to the drug menace. It out deduction and with careful of the four performances I knew I may be that the Jewish child is less judgement. was ready to take it on the road. A likely to become attracted, or to I cannot say whether the per for- month later I offered it at the become a victim. It may be that the mance has a greater significance for Queen Elizabeth Hall on the South much-vaunted family strength of Jews. I cannot say whether what I Bank with the Inner London Educa- the Jews gives the members of their am trying to do is very successful. tion Authority most intei.ested and families greater resolution. I must My wife, who worries a bit about helpful. At that performance many say I take no great comfort from how tired I get occasionally on the of the audience had come from the `Paul' tours once said, `If one child these conjectures. A Jewish child is other end of the country by hitch- no less subject to temptation than in an audience says "No", then it is hiking. They were determined to be his fellows. He is as much affected worth going on with'. there because it was. about Paul. by peer pressure as the other chil- It was a remarkable day and the This is not fond father-talk. My son dren in his classroom or group. The second performance taught me a had something about him that Jewish teenager is no less madden- great deal. The show worked. The warmed and accepted people, both ing a creature. He or she is no less unexpected, unforeseen surprise of right'uns and wrong'uns, without likely to mix with the wrong people. the evening show happened about a criticism. And those people missed No, my fellows of the Jewish com- quarter of an hour before curtain- him. They missed the warmth. This munity, it seems to me that the up. I had peeped at the audience kind of acceptance is rare. My responsibility, as always, is with us, and noted that they were largely the father had it. I do not. the parents. We have to be endlessly middle-aged, grown-up persons I Lc/e Grcczf Pczw/ has had over 200 vigilant, like parents anywhere, usually draw. I became rather depre- performances in every conceivable everywhere. We must watch for ssed, because my ozfecr shows were kind of school and situation. From unexplained illogical changes of for ffoem. Then an old friend of the most priviledged and expensive behaviour, of appetite, of sleeping Paul's who was helping with the of private girls' schools to the rough- pattern, of ordinary good manners. music inserts came to tell me to look est East London comprehensives. It We must be watchful for slipping along the corridor outside the head- has been in some schools more than standards, for loss of personal master's office I was using as a dres- once. When it was first offered it hygiene, for secretiveness, for lying sing room. From it I could see the was to the fifteen year olds and up. and evasion, even, sadly, for dishon- entrance foyer. Young people. During that period it was also given esty. Dozens and dozens of them. In in all the major universities. Upon These are tough words. Such leather, in denim, with `Koss' T- the advice of a wise headmaster, I words can bring forth two different shirts and badges. They were seri- narrowed the focus to the fifteen to kinds of reaction. Some of you may ous, hurrying as to a Paul Kossoff eighteen year olds. Not long after say that most teenagers go through concert. Eventually they made up at that I thought it would be wise to least half the audience. They were phases very similar to those just have the fourteen year olds in. described. You are quite right. enrapt, involved, entirely caught These days many Heads are worried Others may say why is Kossoff try- - there is much to worry about - up, like the children so many of ing to be so clever? After all, his them had so recently been. After and ask that the thirteen year olds own son, and the product of expen- the show they stayed around. I should also be included. That, sadly sive schooling, who lived in a com- moved from group to group. And is what is going on today. fortable middle-class home, whose they spoke to me freely because I The thing that launched it was an parents were interested and took was not one of the enemy, the invitation to be a guest on the Par- trouble, became an addict and died adults, the grown ups. I was Paul's kinson Show. We talked about Paul in his twenties. What, you might father, and thus they felt comforta- honestly and deeply. I mentioned say, is Kossoff trying to be wise after ble with me as they had felt comfort- the evening I was preparing and its the event? Yes friends, sadly he is.I able with him. It is only right to say reason. It brought many letters, one that among them were one or two of which was from the head of the addicts. It is also right to say that drug unit of Strathclyde Police in David KossoFT is an ac[oi., broailcas[ei. (ind there was much love in them for my Glasgow - a sensitive and involved departed son. Remarkable, for letter. When I wrote back I asked, vril.er of. in[ernationa[ re|)li[e. In I.ecen[ years Pe has 4e.voted.mLlch of his tiine [o the -pi-ob- some of them had been twelve when almost light heartedly, whether I lems of di.ug abLise.

MANNA SPRING 1987 HOW SAM GOLDWYN TOOK THE BITTER AND THE GLITTER

Michael Freedland

looked for his kicks elsewhere. He But there much of the similarity one's archetype Hollywood found them in his movies. ends. Goldwyn wasn't like the other SAMmogul GOLDWYN - the big IS office,EVERY- the His background was like that of studio bosses. In fact, he wasn't chauffeured Rolls, the superb tailor- most other studio bosses: poor really a studio boss at all. He was an ing, the iron fist hiding in the velvet Jewish immigrant who starts out in independent producer in the days when that was a rare animal. He glove, the casting couch... Every- a totally different business and finds thing. in fact. except the cigar. He a world waiting for that big new decided he didn't like partners at a tried that once and was so sick he entertainment, the moving picture. time when they were cZc rz.geftJ. in

MANNA SPRING 1987 show business just as they were in then on. There was, for instance, into the film business and. with law firms and in dress manufactur- the time he was shown a sundial. Cecil 8. DeMille and Jesse L. `How does that work?' he inno- ers. Lasky, discover Hollywood. They More significantly, however, was Gently asked Mrs. Jean Negulesco, made the first film to be shot there, what he set out to do. He wasn't wife of the eminent director. `Well', 77zc Sqc"w A4¢;7. It was the first beyond remaking an entire film if he she explained patiently, `as the Goldwyn picture, a breed that didn't think it matched his definition world moves around the sun, so the would one day encompass 77]c Bcsf of quality. Not for Samuel Goldwyn light changes and by the different Years of Our Lives. WLi{hering the ethos of so much of Hollywood. shadows you can tell the time of fJcz.gfofs - which he called `Wither- Sam Warmer - who said that mes- day'. ing Heights' - the Danny Kaye pic- `Well, well', said Sam, .what will sages should be left to Western tures like Wo#czcr A4c!# and 777c Scc- Union - proclaimed about his pro- they think of next?' What they could ref Life of Walter Mi[[y, GLiys and duct: `1 don't want 'em good, I want never think of was another Sam Dolls aLnd Porgy and Bess. 'em Tuesday'. Goldwyn would Goldwyn. He was as unique as the Yet why did Goldwyn and so never have said that. He wanted turns of phrase that came from that many others in the business fail to 'em very good - and Wednesday high-pitched voice of his - a voice accept the leadership in American would have done, if there were no that never lost its traces of accent Jewry that could so easily have been alternative. from his days in Warsaw, where his theirs? The reason is probably as But like so many of the other pic- faLther wa,s a. Tlalmud Chacham a.nd simple as the propaganda would ture moguls. He was less willing to his mother a money lender. Where have made it. They went into the display his Jewishness than he was she got the money to lend is another film business principally because it his films. Which may be surprising matter. Her /w/f77?e"scfe husband cer- was a new industry and one that for those who only remember the tainly never brought any into the made them accepted and, indeed, choicest sayings since Mrs. Malap- seemingly poverty-stricken house, respected figures in America. For rop - or what he did to his own and she eaked out her living by writ- them, it really was the Golden Land name. The boy born Shmuel ing letters for neighbours who had - and their intention was to show Gelbfisz became the victim of an family and friends in the Go/cJc#c their appreciation by becoming American immigration official with M edina , Amer.ica . more American than any other a sense of humour -when it came to Sam's son, Samuel Goldwyn Jnr - American. When Goldwyn's near- writing down the boy's name, he cal- which shows just how far from tradi- /¢7zdsmcz# Irving Berlin - ne Israel led him Goldfish. tional Judaism the movie man had Baline, born 99 years ago in Siberia Years later, when he merged his moved - told me that at first Sam - wrote `God Bless America', he company with two brothers named encouraged the spreading of really was doing just that. Selwyn, he decided to change the Goldwynism and was even pleased Yet Sam. like the others, faced his name yet again -which Oscar Wilde when his publicity men started to share of anti-Semitism. When he may have sensed was not just un for- invent them - `It's spreading like needed money, the big corporations tunate but downright greedy. But as wildflowers' or `quick as a were unwilling to break their was- Judge Learned Hand - another flashlight'. But before long he pish habits and back the Boy from choice nomenclature if ever there became so embarrassed he asked Warsaw. And there were exceptions. were one - decided, `a self-made them to cease. But you could no When Hitler came to power, it was man may prefer a self-made name'. more silence the Goldwynisms than Goldwyn who established an organi- As indeed he did. Once when he sation to bring people from the Ger- you`Don't' could hishe movies. asked one of those objected to being seated behind a man picture industry to work in glass panel at the Ziegfeld Follies, partners from whom he was always Hollywood, men who `because of he was told: `Behind glass is the breaking away, `try coming back to their Jewish heritage are being dep- right place for a Goldfish'. me on bended elbows'. And yes, he rived of a livelihood and an outlet But then he was never an ordi- did declare that a verbal contract for their talent'. He was an nary Goldfish. So merging with a wasn't worth the paper it was writ- organiser of a meeting called to sup- man - two men might have been ten on. And he was determined port the setting up of a Jewish considered even better - named never to put his head into a moose. Brigade in the British Army. When Selwyn gave him the perfect oppor- But, as he also said, `we've all pas- Israel was established, he `encour- tunity to amalgamate not only their sed a lot of water since then'. aged' his writers and executives to companies, but also their names. According to Sam Jnr., his give generously - by telling them He thought about that for some father's problem was that his brain how much they were to give. time. Goldfish-Selwyn? No, that worked faster than his mouth. But It was all part of his life. A life, in didn't sound right. How about Sel- what a brain that was! A brain that which he said, `you have to be pre- gold - or Goldsel? Neither actually told him he could make a fortune pared to take the bitter with the ran off the tip of anyone's tongue. not as the glove cutter he became sour'.I There were just two other choices when he first went to America, but and one of them would have made the best glove salesman in the coun- him sound Selfish. That wasn't the try. In his 20's, he was making image he was creating for himself at $15,000 a week. The scale of that Michael Freedland, prod[/cc'7' a/](/ p/.c'sc/7/cr o/ all. So Goldwyn was what he sort of money, taking into account the BBC Radio London twice-weekly prog- became and Hollywood was to bub- nearly 80 years of inflation, is rqmmc You Don't Have to be Jewish, I.5` /Ac ble with Goldwynisms and the cz[!/AOJ. o/ So Let`s Hear the Applause - the almost unfathomable. story c)f the Jewish Entertainer, p[/b//.s/zfcJ b}7 behaviour that went with them from So was perhaps his decision to go Vallen[ine-Mi[chell.

MANNA SPPING 1987 very clear to me - it should have been clearer to me earlier, but wasn't, because all religious groups suffer from ghetto vision - that everybody experiences the same sensations of love, grace, and SERVING GOD domestic revelation, though they FOR BREAKFAST package them in different ter- minologies. A Sikh, a Christian, or a Jew can communicate their per- sonal religion even if they find their Rosemary Hartill PASSING THE formal religion more difficult. This means that you have to be very hon- `Something Understood' est about your beliefs, and not lay KIPPER TEST claim to more certainty than you Gerald Priestland 'VE LEARNED A LOT FROM Andr6 Deutsch, London 1986 possess. Over-certainty may sound Radio Religion, and I'm grate- fine on a platform, but it doesn't 287pp. £12.95 I ful I was given the opportunity. convince a cook who is crashing into Formal religion has its limita- her plate of kippers in the kitchen. tions. In a pulpit, you are dressed in That's a tough test! a special way. Your feet are on the Your morning talk comes in the level of your congregation's middle of a cascade of news. I don't foreheads; cosy conversation is not think you need add your mite to the possible when you are literally millions of observations already speaking down to your listeners. being made. It's much better if you `Church-bells beyond the stars There is pious music in the can provide its complement and background so you speak special point out what does not change heard, the soul's blood, thoughts and you use a special `in' amid the bewildering changes. The land of spices; something under- language to convey them. None of Whatever the scenery, there is stood, . this is wrong because you are stating always the choice between what is special things about a special Being. mean and what is generous, what is the title of this book comes But the problem is their relevance calculating and what is unselfish, SOMFTIINGfro.in lines UNDERSTOOD,by the seventeenth- to the reality of ordinary people. between the real milk of human century Anglican divine, George Radio religion isn't like that. Your kindness and the canned variety. Herbert. But it's not so much the `congregation' are covered in shav- Radio Religion has also helped story of one man's spiritual journey ing soap or cold .cream when your me start from where people are and -though that does eventually partly little talk on God, goodness and not where they should be. It is no emerge - as a lively, entertaining eternity reaches them. They are not use talking about The Jew, or The account of what it's like to have sitting bolt upright in pews, but Christian or even Men, or Women. been a BBC correspondent for straddled on a bed or in a bath. It is Such abstractions cut no ice when thirty years or so. The job itself car- no use putting on the religious tasting your first cup of tea. You ried both extraordinary privileges `style' in such a situation, it is too have to talk in real terms about real and responsibilities. It took the intimate. You have to switch into people, including yourself, and author round the world, satisfied his another gear, and forget a lot of the what they really want and really taste for adventure and entertain- good advice you were given in worry about. ment, but also showed him extremes seminaries, because it was meant There is always the danger in of violence, selfishness and corrup- for a totally different situation. Your religion of trying so hard to see tion in human nature, whose intimacy has to match that of your God, that you see your own reflec- demons had eventually to be listeners. tion instead, and never notice other allayed on a psychiatrist's couch. I have also had to learn that the people. Radio religion is a wonder- Though God was not mentioned by radio congregation is ecumenical. It ful antidote and I'm grateful! . the analyst, Gerry gradually consists of people from all faiths became aware of His presence, and and none, and every shade in bet- joined the Society of Friends. ween. There are no shared dogmatic Shortly afterwards, he became assumptions, or common traditions religious affairs correspondent to or memories. Many of them are the BBC. When he announced this highly suspicious of religion and new role to his newsroom col- doubtful if it is true or good. Much leagues, some treated him as if he of your faith cannot pass through had a sex-change operation. such a frontier, and the part that can Rabbi Lionel Blue z.5 co;ivcHor o/ fAc Bcffr The autobiography begins with do so, needs a sophisticated but sim- Din of the Reform Synagogues of Great Bri- an account of his family pie language to carry it. tain. His Monday morning broadcasts on background. This slightly slow open- But if religious dogma cannot Radio Four's `Thoughl for the Day' have ing is enlightened by the delightful made him a household name. Among his break through, I believe religious books czrc To Heaven with Scribes and qualities of his eccentric uncle Jock experience can - and this is the key Pharisees cJ#d Backdoor to Heaven. Bolts who had schemes to invent a flying to Radio Religion. It has become from the Blue was published in 1986. bicycle, and was devoted to watch-

MANNA SPFllNG 1987 10 ing television with the sound off . ral beliefs of the Christian faith in assess. The head of religious broad- After that, the author slips into the humble role of the searching pil- casting at the BBC, Dr. Colin Mor- cruising speed. He learned about grim. ris, once wrote that listeners make hard work at his prep school to It was about this time that I began the final decision about whether or which - an only child - he was to work as his assistant for two and not a programme is really religious. exiled at the age of eight. It was run a half days a week, covering news If they experience such things as by a huge Churchillian bear of a conferences and other events that wonder, awe, a sense of otherness, man, who snarled and bullied his he no longer had time to attend. inspiration, contrition, deep peace, captives into scholarships, and a But the truth was that he no longer or if they undergo a radical change severe matron called Miss Ash, who had much inclination to attend of mind or heart, then the prog- had to be placated at all costs like these events. As he became more ramme qualifies as genuinely religi- some terrifying, incomprehensive drawn to God and the discovery of ous. female deity. At Charterhouse, he the experience of faith, the attrac- One of the constant problems of became the school atheist. William tions of news gathering faded. religious broadcasting, not often Rees Mogg, later editor of 7lfec Moreover, after a career reporting enough discussed, is what do to if in rz.777es, was a near contemporary. on Vietnam, and the historic days of reflecting the worship, thought and The author says that Rees Mogg Martin Luther King and other such action of the principal religious trad- was never young. One day when GP events, many of the run-of-the-mill itions, we may still not be making `religious' programmes in the sense was in the wood, playing at dam- ecclesiastical news conferences held ming streams, Rees Mogg joined in, little charm for him. To begin with, Colin Morris describes. A boring only to divert the stream and offer he filed numerous delightfully writH morning service may be a true GP a water supply for a shilling for ten stories about ecclesiastical reflection of the state of the religi- ten minutes. goings on. But it was a period when ous tradition in that local church, After New College, Oxford, the BBC newsroom was going but does it necessarily help to bring where Isaiah Berlin, `leapt across through a stage of being rather listeners closer to God? What are whole pages of his argument in an superior about religious stories, and we really trying to do? effort to keep up with himself', not as much was carried on the air One of the greatest pleasures to Gerry joined the BBC. He found as he would have liked. The fact me in religious broadcasting in the the news output pompous and that today, BBC news and current last few years has been the stimulus soporific. He was once told by an affairs programmes are more than to creative religious thought pro- editor that there was no harm in willing, even eager, to run a wide vided by Jewish contributors. When being dull. That appalled him then, variety of religious news, is partly at I first started to work for the depart- as it appals him now. least thanks to Gerry, who through ment about ten years ago, I At twenty-six he was sent off to his work outside news programmes remember attending an uncomforta- India, the youngest BBC correspon- made news editors realise that mat- ble meeting in which a delegation of dent ever. His wife was not allowed ters of faith can be fascinating, and representatives of Judaism to join him for months. that there is a huge audience wait- explained to a panel of BBC pro- Soon we are told delicious tales of ing. Of course, a number of other ducers why they felt so badly under- lands of spice, remote mountain factors contributed - not least the represented in the output. So much realms and young adventure. election in 1978 of a Pope from has changed in ten years. Indeed Later Gerry was sent to behind the Iron Curtain, who then one former editor of a quality news- Washington, the Middle East, and established a completely different paper unexpectedly told me a few back to London; to television and style of papacy, and travelled months ago that he thought it was `marvellous' how Jewish broadcas- the disastrous opening of BBC2 around the world to share his under- when, owing to a technical break- standing of God. Dr. Runcie, too, ters are now absolutely an accepted down, he found himself ad-libbing has taken a much more strongly and natural part of mainstream for an eternity. international line to his primacy as broadcasting. That's due to the Then it was back to America for Archbishop of Canterbury than his talents of communicators like the what he regarded as `the best corres- predecessors. There has been the Chief Rabbi, and Rabbis Cyril Har- pondent's job in the world'. He growing involvement of the church ris, Julia Neuberger, Lionel Blue, found race riots, Martin Luther in political issues, as in South Hugo Gryn and others. Whereas King and the violent traumas of Viet- Africa, the resurgence of Islam, and once we had complaints if Jews nam. a developing interest among the broadcast `Thought for the Day' But it was his work as the BBC's general public in other religions, and so on, now complaints tend to religious affairs correspondent that not least in Judaism. But when concentrate on broadcasts by Mus- brought him most firmly into the Gerry Priestland was elected second lims. public eye. As a foreign correspon- only to Prince Charles in the Today Some black Christians and follow- dent, he had received only a hand- programme's Man of the Year com- ers of other religions still complain ful of letters from listeners in twenty petition, and more popular than the that we invite them on programmes years. Now his postbag arrived bulg- Pope, it was a useful reminder to my mostly to talk about problems ing - first in response to his five- staff who had prematurely been associated with racism, rather than minute talks on Saturday mornings tempted to assign religion, like as natural contributors to religious at 7.45 on Radio 4, called `Yours God, to the death bed. life. But I hope things are getting Faithfully', and then reacting to his Of course, how much influence better. .

fine series `Priestland's Progress' , in religious broadcasting has on the Ttosemiiry H8IrtiTl is the religioiAs affairs cor- which he explored the majestic cent- nation at large is impossible to respondent of BBC Radio.

MANNA SPFilNG 1987 in `N 0 PART OF THE COM- Revivalist wave sweeping Ulster bands of rough East End boys and munity looks after its waif and the South. Like his mother and girls marching the streets with ban- and stray children and elder brothers, Tom Barnardo was ners, singing hymns. A brilliant pub- destitute young women more or converted to become a born-again licist and do-it-yourself philan- gives aid more promptly and wisely Christian, ardent and aggressive in thropist, he founded Reading and than the Jews' declared Thomas his new-found faith. In his youthful School Rooms, a Girls Sewing John Barnardo, philanthropist and diary he asks for mercy for his Class, a Shoe Black Brigade, a founder of the Orphan Homes, father's `terrible' spiritual condition. Penny Savings Bank. All his speaking at a fund-raising dinner at Now the young man, an apprentice activities were underpinned by his the Mansion House in July 1905. in the wine trade, devoted all his missionary work, his ardent crusade Two months later he died, aged 60, free time to teaching in ragged to save souls. There were many utterly worn out by his astonishing schools, preaching and studying clergy ministering to the poor in campaign to save the chidren of the religious texts. Although a conven- East London at the time, but none slums. In the course of his life he tional churchgoer, his father dis- with Barnardo's flair. He wrote pro- had established a Hospital for poor liked his son's religiosity and when lifically throughout his career, sup- children in the East End of London Tom Barnardo decided to join a porting himself partly by his jour- and over 50 Homes for neglected party of missionaries bound for nalism, stories in the Christian press children throughout the country. China his father refused to support of the urchins of the East End, and From his name, Jewish historians his activities. partly by his pioneering use of infer that Barnardo was of Sc/czrdz. In the Spring of 1866, Tom Bar- photography.`before' and `after' He sold photographs packets toof origin on his paternal side. His nardo, not yet 21, came to Stepney father's occupation, furrier, and for preparatory studies before his supporters, ran an increasingly suc- birth-place, Hamburg, lend cre- voyage. Within a few weeks, the cessful employment agency for poor dence to the argument. Indeed his Inland Mission to China had left youths and appealed throughout his son-in-law, W. Somerset Maugham, without him. Tom Barnardo was life for building funds. wrote of Barnardo's German Jewish advised to study medicine at the His success and his very personal origins. He himself never acknow- London Hospital and come to style soon made enemies as well as ledged the connection and there is China when he had completed his winning supporters. He ran his char- evidence to suggest that his widow course. Privately his elders hoped ity without a committee or treasurer he would develop a little more and within five years had raised ::yTFhtBt:r::::::`ht[£eJewa;nsth£.S:;:sst~ humility and wisdom before under- over £15,000 for his cause, a consid- evangelical Protestant was also taking missionary work. erable sum in those days. That was partly of Roman Catholic origin on In the East End of London, in 1873, three years after he had his maternal side. That, too, was among the children sleeping rough opened his first Home for Boys in suppressed until the 1950s, presum- he found his life's work. He soon Stepney Causeway. ably to uphold the reputation of the became known as a gifted teacher Caught up by the urgency and Protestant saint. and preacher, impatient of author- excitement of the work, Barnardo Thomas John Barnardo was born ity. In Dublin he had joined the neglected his medical studies. in Dublin in 1845, the year of the Plymouth Brethren and therefore Nevertheless he styled himself `Dr. potato famine. He was brought up needed no formal theological train- Barnardo' until enemies envious of in the Church of Ireland and in his ing. He advertised free teas and his growing success, challenged his teens was caught up in the classes for children and soon had right to the title and the validity of

12 MANNA SPRING 1987 his work. To stop the rumours he awakened that sympathy and indig- Homes. The Homes also secretly qualified as a surgeon at the nation in this country which are demanded, reported the A4czz./, `that University of Edinburgh. Comba- quite characteristic of an all members of the family should be tive by nature and generous with the enlightened and philanthropic total abstainers, that no beer should truth, he was constantly embroiled people ... What has ocurred since be allowed in the kitchen, that fam- in litigation, yet campaigns against last May has been worthy of the ily worship should be observed in him merely served to make his worst ages of heathen barbarism; the morning and evening'. name known. Once Barnardo but it is hardly credible that the Rus- The same day Barnardo replied agreed to appoint a committee, sian authorities at headquarters to the charge, declaring himself Lord Cairns, the Lord Chancellor, have any sympathy with the greatly pained by the gratuitous became a President of `Dr. Bar- atrocities committed ... In the attack: `We have several girls at pre- nardo's Homes' and other leading meantime, what will be the effect of sent in Jewish households near Bow Evangelicals supported his cause. that extended exodus which Road, E.' he stated. The girls he From 1877 onwards he published threatens to take place and what sent to Jewish households were day and edited a magazine `Night and impression will be made on the servants, who returned to the Day.. Although intended as a Jewish mind by that Christian sym- institutions to sleep. `Our Village Home -in Ilford -is record of Christian philanthropy, he pathy which has contributed its tens used it to beg for funds to meet the of thousands of pounds for the suf- a Christian Institution, carried out Homes' permanent debts and to ferers . . . we know that the Lord has on Christian lines" he commented publish his own, very personal, made some gracious promises con- not unreasonably: `Is it to be won- reflections. His treatment of Jewish cerning His ancient people which dered at therefore that in sending affairs was sympathetic and know- are still un fulfilled. Is it not signific- out a girl we should prefer to send ledgeable. ant that a Hebrew journal published her to a professedly Christian In 1878,2 for example, he lent his in Jerusalem is proposing that the household ... we should not expect columns to a clergyman, the exiles should go thither and form Jewish girls to prefer service in Reverend George C. Lorrimer. Mr. colonies in palestine?'3 Christian Homes.. Lorrimer preached a little sermon Barnardo, it would seem, was From the early years until the in print entitled `A lesson in Christ- hinting at the conversion of the 1970s the Barnardo Homes were ian Charity', although the style Jews as well as writing with compas- run on strictly evangelical Protes- seems remarkably like Barnardo's sion of their plight. That very year tant lines. Barnardo himself made own. On a dank, foggy night, a 14 he himself had joined the ranks of an arrangement with the Jewish year old lad who had run away to the Christian rescue organisations Board of Guardians. now the sea and jumped ship was looking for sending children to Canada. By the Jewish Welfare Board, to transfer shelter in Wapping Old Stairs. The turn of the century he had helped any Jewish `waifs' who came to seek boy peered into a shop window and over 10,000 boys and girls to emig- refuge in his Homes to their care. saw an elderly Jew who beckoned rate to the New World. The fate of Internal records reveal that very few him in and sat him down by the fire. the young colonists is quite another Jewish children ever grew up in Dr. The shopkeeper's face bore `the story, but the fact remains that Barnardo's Homes. They would, of mark of Hebrew ancestry upon its Barnai.do helped to ease the terrible course, have been brought up as feature and yet there was an appear- overcrowding in the East End of Protestants if no Jewish home could ance of reserve, as though the soul London at a time when the Jewish be found. it covered was on its guard against refugees from Russia were desper- Barnardo was a controversial enemies'. Had he not, asked the ately needing homes. figure. His great achievement lay in Jew, looked for help from Christ- In private life Barnardo seemed focussing the glare of publicity on ians? `Are you a Jew?' the boy to have no particular love for Jews. the appalling conditions of neg- asked, startled. `Yes my child' came On a visit to Canada to oversee his lected children in the nineteenth the reply, `but to you I will be what Canadian operation in 1890 he century and helping to involve the is far better -a man. In suffering I recorded in his diary that he had nation in their welfare. recognise no distinctions of race or met a Jewish Rabbi on board ship, Although the Charity retains its creed and rejoice that my religion, the Reverend 8. Elzas and his Christian identity, today they are no the holy mother of yours, has taught wife.4 `1 think I may say he is the longer a missionary organisation me to provide a portion for the very least desirable of all our fellow- and they care for handicapped and stranger'. For a few days the Jew passengers. I hate applying the deprived children of all creeds.. housed and fed the lad until he was word "cad" to anybody but I don't 1. Bc!r#o/.cZo by Gillian Wagner, reunited with his family. The shop- think in my life I ever met a man p.2. Weidenfeld & Nicholson, keeper would take no compensa- who more worthily deserved it . . .' London,1979. tion. He merely asked that the boy His dislike may have been limited 2,. Night and Day. Fedrua.ry 1. should think kindly of the `Children to that particular individual. Cer- 1878. of Abraham'. The boy in question tainly Barnardo was careful to pro- 3. Ibid,1882. was the author of the story. tect himself and his Homes from 4. Bczr;7czndo by Gillian Wagner, In that same magazine in 1882, in any charge of anti-Semitism. An p.240. his Editor's Workshop column, Bar- article in the Dczz./y A4czz./ on the lst June Ftose ls a writer an{l joiimalisl who lives nardo commented on the plight of of December 1897, accused the in London. Her books inc[Lide The Perfect the Jews in the Russian Empire: Homes of prejudice, since they Gentleman cr/ZCZ Elizabeth Fry. For the Sake `The persecution of the Jews by refused to allow their girls to work of the Childrer\, a stiidy of Di-. Btirnardo, v`lill Russian subjects in Poland has in either Jewish or Roman Catholic be published ln Decembel. by Ho(I(ler and Sloiigh[on, London.

MANNA SPRING 1987 13 JE:WISH LATHE:R - LITTLE: BOY IIOST

Wendy Greengross

LL TIHS TALK OF JEVISH feel that a pervading sense of guilt is and unilateral nuclear disarmament mothers. Ih/hat about Jewish a small price to pay for all the other and who gets married, whatever his A fathers? They certainly comforts. After all, hotels have to age, in the middle of his adolescent don't feel they've never had it so be paid for, and did they think they rebellion, still anxious to overturn good. were living in a hotel? all the cherished beliefs and aspira- Jewish fathers used to have There were sometimes problems tions of his misguided Jewish Jewish wives, Jewish mothers, in weighing the conflicting claims of mother. Jewish sisters and Jewish daughters mother and wife, but what was a However, most men nowadays to look after them. Nowadays they man expected to do when his don't think of getting married until are lucky if they do not come home mother's apple pie or strudel really they're ready to settle down and to an empty house, expected to was better than the poor substitute start a family, and at that stage what wash up the breakfast things and his wife produced? they want is to be nurtured, coddled start cooking the supper for when Previous generations would and indulged. Although they say their Jewish so-called wives come excuse shortcomings in a wife's culi- they are looking for wives, what home. nary technique by remembering they are really hoping for is an amal- How did it all happen? Was it a that she waLs a. Litvak or aL Pollak, a.s gam of the best bits of cook, nurse silent revolution that men didn't the case may be. When I was young and secretary with a good sprinkling bother to fight because they didn't I believed that every family had to of Jewish mother thrown in, crea- believe that it could ever come have one of each. I never in my tures who will always be ready to about, or did it creep in like some admittedly limited experience, meet their every need, and who can sort of dry rot, silent and unsus- heard of a family that had married only expect to have their needs met, pected, until the comfortable world in. when they conform to the husband's of Jewish men fell in? Perhaps it was based on sound image of what a wife's needs ought Can there be a real Jewish father/ common sense. Criticising a wife's to be. husband/son who actually enjoys ge/z./fc /I.sfe not because she herself Marriage breakdown is possibly a the new look? I say father/husband/ was a poor cook, but because she slightly more recent phenomenon son advisedly, because the wonder- had unfortunate foreign antece- among Jews than among some other ful thing about being one of the old- dents, seems to be an excellent way groups. Perhaps it relates to the fashioned breed was that once you of having your apple pie and eating relatively more recent emancipation were registered as a bona-fide reci- it. Whoever capitalised on the dif- of the Jewish woman. Perhaps it is pient, you were automatically on ferences between Pollaks a.nd Lit- due to Jewish women beginning to the receiving end of benefits for the vczks was a very wise marriage coun- be valued for qualities other than rest of your life. The women's roles sellor and probably a sfeczdcfec# as homemaking. Perhaps some women were imperceptibly blurred, so that well. have just made up their minds that the Jewish wife took over some of It is difficult for a man brought up they've had enough of the old way the duties of the Jewish mother, from the cradle to believe that of life, and decided to do something while the Jewish daughter filled in women like to serve, slaving over a about it. But whatever the cause, it on the tasks that the other two hot gas stove is the usual expres- may take a whole generation for couldn't or wouldn't do. sion, to suddenly find this and every men to forget the stereotpye of the Jewish sons used to have a won- other cherished belief turned on its Jewish mother who seemed to want derful time. A mother to cook their head. And I sometimes wonder how to do nothing other than serve, and food, iron their shirts, clean their any man not only comes to terms come to terms with the reality that rooms, worry about their careers, with the new Jewish woman, but both men and women have integ- criticise their girl friends and often `#ocfe' seems to enjoy his new rity, and that the hope of both men develop their perception of guilt. status. and women is that their real needs `Ah', you might say, `Then it The concept of equality for be met within marriage. I wasn't all so good'. But that's where women is attractive for the liberal Dr. Wendy Greengross j.s cz cZoc/or, co!t/ts.a//or, minded Jewish man who despises you are wrong, because on the former `agony aunt' on The Sun and Radio whole it was good. There is a price racism, ageism and sexism and Foitr's lf You Think You've Got Problems to pay for everything and most sons espouses free speech, animal rights slot, and author of the recent pamph[e[, Jewish and Homosexual.

14 MANNA SPBING 1987 atrald The Journey Home doesrit content. quite do it justice. Not in content; I It is a pity because it is an impor- was admittedly much moved almost tant story and this book, more to tears several times realising how perhaps thELn Hero of Our Time. much inner strength and faith this revealed much that was disturbing man has, and his oft repeated utter- to me. One of those elements was ances during his internment that `his Shcharansky himself. There's no body might be imprisoned but his doubt that the man is a hero, an mind would always remain free' example to Soviet Jewry and all made a profound impi.ession on me. people fighting for human rights the My argument is with the style of the world over. But, and it is a big but, book, or rather the lack of it. I sup- at times his `indomitable will' verges pose that's inevitable when not one on intransigence. Such was his but five people get together to write refusal to sign a request for his anything, let alone a tale that release on the grounds of ill health. weaves a complicated mixture of Such a statement, the result of true love, politics, history, facts and many months of hard work and hearsay. negotiations, would have offered a Hero of Our Time moved me face saving compromise to every- even more, even though the style is body. But Shcharansky was con- less emotional throughout. The pas- vinced that the Soviets would dis- sions and frustrations suffered by tort even a bald one line letter such Shcharansky and all those drawn as this and therefore opted to con- into the struggle come through with tinue his imprisonment. His feelings astonishing force in this much big- about this `no compromise. policy, ger work. The facts are stark and are expanded upon and I expect Anatoly & Avital Shcharansky: horrifying, an indictment of a most people will accept his argu- The Journey Home by the regime that is systematically deny- ments. Right triumphed over might Jerusalem Post. ing tens of thousands of people their in the end, so perhaps my feelings Harcourt. New York 1986 basic human rights. The history is of discomfort stem from the know- $15.95 equally grim, an account of the ledge that I would not have had the Shcharansky: Hero of Our Time by struggle of those people to achieve strength of character and unfailing Martin Gilbert their rights. The politics are not so determination. Macmillan, London. 1986, pp 480. clear. There is much discussion in I suppose it was inevitable that a £14.95 the Jcrwscz/cm Posf book of the pros certain element of patriotic fervour and cons of allying the fight for the should also creep into the /cr#scz/em IKE MOST JEWS, I RE- release of Soviet Jews with the Pos/ book, inevitable too that Avi- joiced at the news of the wider human rights issue, while tal's story should play so large a L release of Anatoly Martin Gilbert manages to avoid part. That is, after all, the `human' Shcharansky, probably the `highest any hint of partisanship by simply element most journalists, myself profile' refusenik of recent years. I relating the facts, coolly and logi- included, are exhorted to look for. had followed his trials and tribula- cally. But for this particular story, I prefer tions in the media and the journalist And these are the main differ- the more objective but by no means in me recognised the newsworthi- ences between the two books: the less passionate, historian's view. ness and human interest of his and way in which the politics are treated Martin Gilbert.s book was also Avital's struggle. So I wasn't sur- and the tone the authors have helped by the inclusion of many let- prised when not one but two books taLken.1n The Long Journey Home ters written by, to and about of their story landed on my desk. the politics, the facts and dates, Anatoly, making the whole thing The first book, A#czfo/y ¢#d Avz./#/ times of arrests and demonstra- even more poignant when set Shcharansky: The Journey Home is tions, the developing love between against the stark progression of written by a team of journalists Avital and Anatoly, her release from facts. from the /crwf#/€m Pos/ and the sec- the USSR and developing religious The story needed telling. Both ond, Shcharansky, Hero of Our commitment are mixed together in books pose many questions, lay Tz.me by Jewish historian Martin a chronologically dizzying fashion, bare unpardonable situations and Gilbert. with dates and names appearing and celebrate the courage and determi- The difference between a book re-appearing almost haphazardly. nation of not just two special written by a team and one written Although Martin Gilbert's use of people, but also many many more. by a scholar is just that, the latter is names and dates is just as extensive Some of those people have man- scholarly while the former is frankly in Hero of Our Time, his construc- aged to escape from the Soviet a bit of a mess! tion of the story is more logical and Union but thousands more are still The story of Natan, as he's now his prose less hysterical. What struggling. And these thousands known, and his indomitable wife comes through is a greater sense of don't all have an Avital knocking on Avital, is indeed an extraordinary growing urgency. the White House door for them.I one and their courage, love and It is a great pity that the way in Su Newlz\nd is a freelance joLi}.nalis[ and spirit merit all the praise that has which The Long Journey Home wa.s broadcaster. She is a member of the Sou[hga[e been heaped on them. But I'm written interfered so much with the Soviet Jewry Group.

MANNA SPBING 1987 15 `MY STORIES ARE NOT TYPICAL -THEY JuST INTEREST ME'

Aloma Halter

ONDONERS WHO ARE who better to explain what is going of the castrating and mating of amused by visitors from on in Israel, from the inside. Who horses. Or, in `Strange Fire', Yair's L abroad who expect to grope better to take as one's guide on a prospective mother-in-law, Lily, their way from Baker Street Station journey spanning more than half compels the young man to accom- to Madame Tussaud's in one of the the years of Israel's existence, and pany her on a long night walk... dense Victorian fogs that Sherlock covering, too, so many aspects of its with dire consequences. Oz is in his Holmes made legendary, may them- life? element with chillingly evocative selves arrive in Israel expecting the This approach to Oz's work is not descriptions of Jerusalem streets. country to somehow resemble, on a without its pitfalls. His early work and the jackals, owls and other - large scale, a story by Amos Oz. was characterised by its breathtak- more human - night-birds and pre- Ask anyone to mention an Israeli ing intensity. In the two collections dators that emerge from the dark- author, and the name will most of short stories - Wfecrc ffec /czck¢/s ness. When Oz focuses on night, he likely be that of Oz. His voice, in Howl (T96S) aLnd The Hill of Evil concentrates on the darker side of translation - and he's without a Col/#sc/ (1975) -one watches with human nature: the intense passions, doubt the most widely translated great admiration as the author irrational and primal emotions that Israeli novelist around today, with keeps the tightest control on the are released by the darkness. One is books of his available even in Fin- reins. The sense of menace that he reminded of Turgenev by this prose nish, Catalan, Japanese and Norwe- conjures up is almost abstract, rely- of poetic intensity. His descriptions gian - translates present-day Israeli ing as much on what is left unsaid as of loneliness, isolation,loss, longing reality in terms that the world out- on what is described. There are and anguish are superb. The tendrils side can read. And not only because hints at incestuous family relation- of these emotions reach out beyond of the readability of his books, but ships, stories hinging on disclosure the people they describe, beyond also because of what he is and what or seduction. In the title story, the wildlife to the land itself: `Our `Where the Jackals Howl', the he represents. In his own person he lands betray us in the night. Now encompasses so many of the popu- account of a young jackal caught in they are no longer familiar and sub- lar myths about Israel: the sczbr¢, a trap outside the kz.bbw/z is paral- missive, criss-crossed with irrigation the farmer, the soldier, the k!.b- leled by the trap that Matityahu pipes and dirt tracks. Now our fields b#/z#z.A, the liberal socialist, the Damkov, the horse-breeder, sets for have gone over to the enemey's child from Jerusalem... And young and pretty Galila, after he camp. They send out to us waves of because of all this, one could argue, has mesmerized her with his stories alien scents. At night we see them

16 MANNA SPRING 1987 bristling in a miasma of threat and such a life. It's one of the few kinds demise of the old pioneering spirit hostility and returning to their of existence in Israel where it's pos- in the country, and the loss of those former state, as they were before we sible to lead a comparatively tran- ideals that promoted austerity and came to this place'. quil, undisturbed way of life. Daily self-denial, what he represents is At the age of 14, in the mid-5()s, chores -shopping, cooking, laundry discredited by the thrust of the Oz had run away from his father's - are taken care of communally. novel. His place as the secretary home in Jerusalem to join a /(!.b- Entertainment is brought to the k!.b- and guiding mentor of the A/.bb££/z is bLffz, but when he started writing b£//z. There are no distances to taken by a man called Srulik, who is seriously, in his late teens and early travel to work or to school, no bills more understanding and accommo- twenties, what emerged first were to pay at the end of the month. In a dates rules to people rather than not his immediate, fresh impres- country with an alarming rate of imposing on people the strain of liv- sions of k/.bbz//z life. Instead, the inflation, this last factor alone ing up to principles. There is a tales were centred on the strong guarantees much tranquility! So movement, in this book, away from impact and experiences that grow- much for the positive side. hardliners, and towards compas- ing up in Jerusalem in the '40s and On the other side of the scales sion. Oz seems to imply that what '50s had had on him. In addition to one has to place the lack of indi- the kz.bb£!/z loses in hard-and-fast the short stories from his first tw'o vidual privacy, the meddling of the ideology, it gains in a growing ability collections, Oz's first novel - A4y community in the individual's life. to adapt to the needs of its indi- A4z.c/?crc'/ (1967) - used Jerusalem and a tendency towards the levelling vidual members. more than just as a backdrop for the of resources and talents. Ambition When I put it to Oz, in a recent action: the essence of the then- and achievement can be threaten- interview, that despite characters divided city was central to the mood ing, they can be seen as competitive like Srulik, the overall picture that and plot of this novel. and promoting anti-social traits. emerges of k!.bbft/z life is pessimis- From short stories that saw the To compare an average kz.bbwrz tic, he emphatically denied this: .If kz.bb4£fz as a starting point, one today and a kz.bbz4fz in the mid-50s you regard the k/.bbL!/z as the ulti- gradually sees. in Oz's work from would be to mark notable changes mate redemptive revolution, then the mid-6()s onwards, that the in the standard of living and in the all my novels suggest that it is a themes come to be dominated by ideologies governing the inhabit- failure.. . but why this pessimism? If the idea of the kz.bb£//z. And by now ants' way of thinking. Most kz.bow/- the same struggle - over jobs, it has come to be synonymous: as zz.in now have the children sleep at power, marriage - had taken place Ben-Gurion is to the IVcgcv, so is home, in extra rooms built onto in a little village in France or Italy, it Amos Oz to the kJ.bbi£/z. But last their parents' houses, and not in the might well have led to violence and year, in 1986, the Oz family left Kz.b- former children's dorms. This sharply bloodshed... But.here, on the kz.b- bu[z HLilda` Amos.s home since shifts the educational emphasis b!I/z, the difficulties are peaceably 1957, and moved to the desert, to from the peer-group or community resolved. So you could look upon it the dry climate of A/'/!cJ, in the hope back to that of the nuclear family. as a tremendously optimistic novel' . that this would have a beneficial Nowadays there is a rota for higher The themes that link A Pc;'/cc/ effect on the asthma of their education and for holidays abroad; Peace w.ith Elsewhere Perhaps or youngest child, Daniel. rules concerning the ownership of ro££cfo ffec Wcz/e7.. enlarge upon ear- Within these twenty years are property for those joining a kz.bbzt/z lier preoccupations. Oz's work can Oz's major novels to date: from abroad or outside are much be seen as a chronicle that records Elsewhere Perha|)s (\966)` rl7ouch laxer. Contrary to pioneering ideals, the subtle changes which have taken the Water. Touch the Wind (+9]5). members often eat in their indi- place over the past two decades. He and then` in 1985, before the move, vidual homes, and there are all has shown how, over the years, the A Perfect Peace. kinds of new, `bourgeois' trappings: focus of moral contest and strife has There have been, of course, other television sets, videos, private tele- shifted from the obvious problems Israeli writers who have described phones. of a small community battling the kz.bbiffz, exposing the tensions In A Pe7./ec/ Pcacc' Oz's character against an external, hostile environ- and conflic`ts of life in a closed, self- Yolek now sees this as an expression ment. This then changes to the contained community. But the very of blatant materialism, and as a sign focus on a group of people who, quality of Oz's writing, and later his that the moral decay and degenera- once the outside danger is at a dis- attainment of international repute, tion of the nation as a whole has set tance, have to resolve the conflicts have kept the literary eyes of the it: `In vain, the whole arduous within their own group. Finally, Oz world watching closely, following attempt to rebuild Jewish life on a has come to concentrate most on the development in this unique new foundation; in vain, the the individual's quest for identity human experiment in democratic pioneers' tents and co-op restaur- and meaning: the struggles that go communism. What George Eliot's ants; in vain. the creed of physical on inside his own psyche - as he Adz.dcJ/cmcz7.cfe did for the English vil- labour and life in the sun... All now lives in a society which is no lage, Oz has achieved for the kz.b- these ex-pioneers who had longer manifestly repressive or out- butz . scrimped, saved and borrowed to wardly censorious. Most people are aware of the gen- build homes. in each of them a liv- The `k/.bbw/z period' of Oz.s writ- eral principles of kj.bb4£/z life: young ing room, in each living room a ing may now be at an end. His latest people who have stayed or worked glass-panelled cabinet; in each novct .\s KLifsa Shahora or Black as volunteers on a kJ.bbL!fz will know glass-panelled cabinet, a fancy din- Bow is just out in Hebrew. It's a from their own experience the ner service for twelve'. novel based on an exchange of let- advantages and disadvantages of If Yolek regrets and mourns the ters, a love-hate relationship Colllimie(I ()n nexl p(Ige

MANNA SPFHNG 1987 17 through correspondence between a the mood of the nation. I'm a story- T IS EXTRAORDINARYTHAT woman and her ex-husband. How~ teller, telling the story not because the repositories of Judaism's ever, since the English translation of it's typical, but because it interests I most hallowed achievements, B/czck BojL' is still in progress, it me. Hence my zeal to stress that not are capable also of breeding a would seem inappropriate to discuss every Israeli novel is about Israel. poisonous stench of dissension and `We accept it with novels from all it here. controversy. Our common literary The question which is inescapable over the world, but refuse to allow history, represented by the Bible at this point is this: Do readers curi- Israeli novelists this freedom. Take and all subsequent interpretation of ous about Israel take his output Wuthering Heights by Bronte.. you its texts, communicates to us a cul- about the kz.bbwfz as a way of telling wouldn't for a moment think that mination of human achievement us about the country in general - this was an expose of Eligiar,d 3t th^ charged with inspiration. Whether bearing in mind that there are many time... Or take Jane Austen for we are reading those texts for the other ways to live in Israel... example... she chose to portray first time or the fortieth time, we ;7tosfeczvz.in, villages, cities... relig- aspects of English life in great can be overwhelmed by their ious kr.bbzfrzJ.in, to name but a few. detail, but there were whole areas immediacy of both content and And that anyway, the kz.bb#/z way she was either oblivious to, oi. didn't style, or captured by the humanity of life represents only 3°/o of the want to touch upon: life in the that has spoken to generation after population of the country. If one urban centres, the beginnings of the generation. At the same time, a really wants to learn about /srczc/ industrial revolution. No one read- people united by its past is bereft of from Oz, then the place to look is ing Jane Austen would assume for a communal unity in the present. For #of in his fiction at all but in his fre- moment that they were being those very texts which emerged quent articles in the national daily offered a total picture of 19th cen- from a shared history seein to have press of the country, particularly in tury England. . . Why don't we apply generated a rift of massive dimen- his essays in the left-wing daily the same criteria to Israeli novels?' sions in our own community. We Davar. Oz may wish to see the same claim the same descent, yet our Oz's work immediately preceed- criteria applied to Israeli novels, but comprehension of the history of our ing A Pc;-/t?cf Pccrcc was a collection this is clearly an unrealistic desire. people as it is told through the of documentary essays and person- The spotlight of world attention has pages of Jewish literature, is by no ality cameos spanning the political been focused upon the country from stretch of the imagination uniform. spectrum of the country: /# f/?c its very inception, in a way that has Of course, it is not the literature Lcz#c7 o//srcze/, (1983). It caught the not allowed it to grope alone that has changed. Our interpreta- mood of the nation as few books of through its own confusions and tion of those words is subject to recent years have done: a work of uncertainties. A Per/ecJ Pcczcc change. brilliant reportage and editing, typifies this predicament. It is Interpretation has always lain at which conveyed the intensity and expected to represent something the very heart of Judaism. Whether bitterness of divergent stances in larger than a story about a k!.bb#fz, it is Llosea's interpretation of the the land: Jew and Arab, religious and it is somehow assumed to refer wilderness years or Amir Gilboa's and secular, liberal and fanatic. If it to all of Israel's present problems reading of the Akcczczfe, Jews have tended to come down rather hard and concerns, even though this may been united in their compulsion to on Judaism in general and on have been far from Oz's intention. extract from Jewish texts a message Jewish religious extremists in par- When Amos Oz writes about for their own times. The process of ticular, it must be remembered that people living on a kz.bb#fz, the story interpretation is a subjective one, #o reportage can claim total objec- is inevitably read by the majority of determined by time and context, by tivity. his readers as an allegory about opinion and comprehension and by TaLken aLs a. whole,1n the Land of Israel itself. Even when he deliber- the conditions of an individual's /s;'czc/ was generally regarded as a ately sets his events in the mid-60s upbringing and education. Given collection of essays offering a pierc- and not the mid-80s, the events are the differing conditions, it is almost ing insight into the problems of the nonetheless interpreted as contem- inevitable that controversy will exist nation today. I asked Oz whether porary comment. However, to be a in the community, as though discord the book which followed this - A mainstream , modern Israeli is a necessary part of the fabric of Pt?r/ccf Pcacc -could be an attempt, novelist, and to choose to write not our community, in the same that in fiction, at an imaginative synthesis of the present, is, in itself, a com- music must work its way through of the molten factors from J% f/tc ment about the present; implying if disharmony in order to achieve Land of Israel? Agivlr\ the ainswer not outright pessimism, then at the order and resolution by the end. was an emphatic denial: `My ideas very least a definite nostalgia for the That startling assumption is not and opinions are very well known. I past, for the time when events an original one. The mz.sfe;tczz.c trac- contribute to Dczvczr, and write other might still have taken a different tate At;of lists five rabbinic pairs, articles and letters to the national course. . inheritors of the tradition, ending press, so there's really no need to With the exception of `BlaLck Box' all with the most famous, Hillel and excavate my novels to find out what the works by Amos Oz mentioned in Shammai, whose schools were I think,. the article are available in Er3glish renowned for their acute controver- When pressed on this issue of translation, rriost as Flamingo paper- sies. Yet how astute is the interpre- whether Oz co.nsiders himself at all l)acks. -Ed. tation which Rabbi Judah Loew of a `mirror` of the nation, he elabo- Prague, known as the A4czfecrrcz/, Alomai H2.+tor lives in Israel. She is a writer, rated: .I don't think my job is ascribes to their very existence. For poet and Assis{anl Edilor of AI.lot, a review of sociological. I'm not here to capture arts and letters in Israel. the purpose of his argument, it is

18 MANNA SPPllNG 1987 I.iT`73?Dp I.i* .iDix 7?I .nFD i7?p .Dtryi. 7t7,i ni.i?I-n* ]]ix E]it¥ ||ill: Z]i7¥ ]]iR .7lF8ity HITin? 'JIPTP,

Hinel and Shammai received tradition fro.in those who came before. Hillel says, Be a disciple of Aaron, loving peace and pursuing peace, loving His crcaturcs and drawing them close to the Torah.

FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE

Alexandra Wright

not the differences of opinion that is not yet ready to accept comple- The Adz.sfe#czA quotes a saying by are important, but the very nature tion. For the A4czfeczrcz/, controversy Hillel: `Be of the disciples of Aaron, of controversy that reflects a dislo- is not so much necessary as a pre- loving peace, loving mankind and cated universe. condition to redemption, as a bringing them nearer to the Torah'. `This fifth pair of teachers metaphysical reflection of the con- (At;of 1:12). And the A4czfe¢ro/ com- came to instruct us about a tradictory forces existent in the pletes his commentary by adding: very great principle: world. `That is why the A4z.sA#ofe says that namely that this world is What is implied in this interpreta- one should make every effort in the well-suited to controversy, tion of a phrase which tells us sin- world to pursue peace between one more than anything else. ply that Hillel and Shammai both person and another, so that For has not our world a pre- received the tradition from their whenever polarisation or disagree- disposition towards polari- predecessors, is the existence of a ment exist, a person will possess the sation and fragmentation, tension that is universal. It is not capacity to reconcile differences in a and thus, intellectual con~ that one element is correct or controversy'. troversy is compatible with authentic, the other false or worth- Orthodox or progressive, Jew or its nature? This compatabil- less, it is that communal disunity Arab, right or left, reactionary or ity is well illustrated, when mirrors an essential dislocation in radical, male or female - all have one sees that the very day the order of creation. equal responsibility in the universal that creation was com- That kind of theology may sound task of accepting different interpre- pleted, controversy came pessimistic, but it can also be help- tations, of acknowledging each into existence forever from ful when again and again the prog- other's existence, and the value of Cain and Abel. From this ressive movements find themselves that existence. Reconciliation is not you will understand why locked in combat with the orthodox uniformity, it is rather an altruistic controversy is compatible leadership. There should be a wil- gesture of acknowledgement that with this world, which itself lingness to tolerate controversy, to someone else matters to you as is torn apart by fragmenta- see variations in interpretation as much as you matter to yourself. I tion and differences of being creative and dynamic expre- opinion'. ssions of Jewish life. They can be Rabbi Alexandra Wright was. cdw(.#/cc! ci/ E.I.€- Creation only possesses the valued for their own sake, simply [er University where she I.Cad English and Mediaeval Arts. She trained as a rabbi a[ Leo potential for perfection, it is not yet because any interpretation of Torah whole. And controversy represents, Baeck College until 1986 and is now Associate seeks a pathway to God, but con- Rabbi a[ the Liberal Jewish Synagogue, Lon- in Messianic terms, a universe that troversy also has another goal. (Ion.

MANNA SPRING 1987 19 enquiring disposition might well and one is forced to look outside the feel more at home among the prog- movement. ressives. Good luck to them, and we This is one side of the problem. must do all we can to assist them, On the other is the fact that there too. There might also be a variety of was not the demand. Yet I had grades between these extremes, and thought it a truism that progressive the larger the number of groups to Jews were educated Jews, who serve them the better. Far from knew the sources to know where `LETTHE PEOPLE CHOOSE' being a weakness I would regard they were going from and what they this as a source of strength. It means were choosing or rejecting. that our Jewish `customers' have a How does one attract people to much larger selection, and will be this sort of learning, when they Sir' less likely to shop elsewhere. often see it as `difficult. or .irrelev- UCH HAS BEEN As for the threat of `blacklists for ant'? It is evident that if teaching is written in the /ewz.sfe marriage applicants' etc., let those not available, no one will be M CfercJ#z.c/c and elsewhere who draw up such lists bear the con- attracted to it, and those who are about the need for unity in the sequences of their actions. The interested will look elsewhere. Jewish community, coupled with the progressives will not bar their chil- Surely it is vital for our movement threat of the creation of a `blacklist' dren from marrying orthodox; the that we offer opportunities, and of marriage applicants who are of progressives will not bar orthodox that we address the problem of mak~ questionable Jewish status, dividing converts; the progressives will not ing serious study seem less of a the community into two isolated prevent orthodox Jews from being frightening and more of an exciting camps. Suggestions have been made called up in a progressive prospect. as to the areas of common ground synagogue. If the orthodox carry and for joint efforts. After 40 years out these restrictive threats then the (Dr.) Margaret Jacobi of service to the Jewish community mass of the Jewish community, as in London N.2 in this country and overseas, and the United States, will know where with experience in both camps, 1- they can receive redress. would like to share a few thoughts on these subjects. Rabbi Bernard Hooker It seems to resolve itself into an North London Progressive REFORM ISRAEL APPEAL orthodox appeal for the progres- Synagogue, London N16. sives to conform to fJcz/czcfez.c regula- Sir, tions for Jewish status and conver- sion, which means accepting the WISH TO ASSOCIATE authority of the orthodox Bczfez. Dz.# CREATING OPPORTUNITIES myself with Roy Stroud's in such matters. At the same time I letter in your last issue. There the progressive appeal is for a more should, however, be no need to start Sir, varied interpretation of these regu- our own appeal, as the World lations, with the public being given RECENTLY ENROLLED FOR Organisation for Progressive the option to choose under whose a class in the Extramural Depart- Judaism, Israel Movement, is our authority they will stand. I suggest I ment of Leo Baeck College hop- central organisation and is doing that these two appeals are funda- ing to do some study of post-Bibli- just this work. mentally contradictory and can cal texts. The class was cancelled Raymond Goldman, referring to never be reconciled! due to lack of demand. the State of Israel, speaks of a `heal~ To expect the orthodox to grant Three years ago, when I first thy mind in a healthy body'. Unfor- `religious tolerance' to the progres- enrolled in the Extramural Depart- tunately, so far, `mens sane in cor- sives is to ask them to cease to be ment, it was possible to study both pore sane non est'. orthodox, and to expect the progres- Biblical and post-Biblical texts. sives to submit to orthodox author- A4z.a/7#¢, then A4z.d7`asfe and Hebrew Ernest D. Bello ity is to ask them to cease to be at an advanced level. Now there is London progressive. only one text course, Bible, and What is the solution? None, if basic Hebrew - apparently because you are looking for uniformity. But the College cannot afford to sub- if you believe that ultimately `Truth sidise classes. SINGLE PARENT will prevail' then the solution is the I know the financial position of the College is dire, but last summer good old democratic maxim, `let the Sir' people choose!' By offering the a course on Judaism and Jewish public a variety of choices Psychotherapy attracted nearly 100 HE NO. 14 ISSUE OF we should be able to ensure that no people each week. Is it not possible your magazine arrived today one slips through the net. Those of a to use some of the money collected T and for once I glean a ray of conservative and faith-dependant then to subsidise some advanced hope shining through. Most impor- disposition might well be attracted courses? As far as I know there is tantly there was Sam Brier's article to the orthodox camp. Good luck to nowhere within the progressive on Single Parents being brought thein, and we must do all we can to movement where one can do the back within the community. I say assist them. Those of a radical sort of study on offer, say, at Yakar, importantly, because for about ten

20 MANNA SPFHNG 1987 years I was a member of this Single I did? Apart from the wonderful gopd values then I would try other Parent group who felt most defi- practical help of my rabbi all faces methods based on the Ten Com- nitely that I had been ejected from were turned away and the desola- mandments. Decent good ideas and the `average Jewish family' circle. tion was complete. The hypocrisy of commonsense from all religions The spiritual and compassionate those around me who attended both would prevail. Without sounding side of our faith which I had always orthodox and reform synagogues smug, and now my daughters have understood to be implicit in the each High Holyday over those years grown to womanhood, I think I Code of Ethics from the rabbis of made me angry and then I felt sad- accomplished what I set out to do past years was certainly lacking in ness for them. and I am extremely proud of them the community and it threw my own Those years alone with my grow- both. values into a temporary state of dis- ing daughters convinced me that I array. Was I wrong in my feelings, should `go it alone'. If I was going to Cynthia Godfrey was I the only person to feel the way have daughters of worth with basic London N.2

That emotional chasm put found the services, when she did go, beyond our reach the sensible hand~ without much meaning. Maybe ling of Perdz.fro#, the play born of after her youngest son's bczr77?z.fzvczfe anti-Jewish passion and prejudice she might . . . and crammed with invention mas- To pull these tens of thousands of querading as truth. The outrage drifters into reform and liberal ll#4o`J'' caused by this malevolent concoc- synagogues which restore relevance tion about Hungarian Jews destined to their edbing Judaism - that's the Willizimwoll`t` for the gas chambers was brought aim we should pursue every waking home to its presenters at the Royal minute of the day and night. Court Theatre and led to its with- drawal before performance. thousands out there still If that pressure had not been BECAUSEwant to see TENS it, the Anne OF applied, my guess is that the play Frank Exhibition is heading back to would have been killed and buried VERY TIME I SEE THAT London later this year. Certainly it by non-Jewish critics on the first Jack and Rose Cohen, to- will help to narrow the emotional night. And the world would have E gether with Harold heard no more of it. As it is, the gap between Jews and non-Jews on (Hymie?) and Renee Levy are the gas chambers, but I fear it will left's agony column, also known as delighted to announce the engage- still remain unbridgeable. the Gzj¢rdz.cz# newspaper's letter ment of their children, I am filled I was at the opening of the Exhib- page, continues months after the with nostalgia for the novel I shall event to give space to this tale of ition on one of its northern stops `censorship and suppression'. And never have time to write. and came away mangled. The Frank Why are some families thrilled, family snap of Anne in the South the play is going down in theatrical others delighted and a cool minority Amsterdam swimming pool started history and Hampstead mythology merely pleased? And what passion- it. That was the same Swimming as the play which Jewish pressure ate feud lies behind the mention of pool where my sister, brother and I got banned. this bube' or omission of that learned to swim - I remember sum- When others would have done grandpa? And what lethal mer mornings when I got there at the job for us more neatly, that is a minefields face parents who have seven to practice my backstroke. pity. The more so because it puts a divorced and remarried? The shot of the home where the haze of side issues around the hor- So why cannot modern Jewish Franks lived also showed the house ror of the death camps. families do as those who put their where my grandfather died two glad tidings in the good old Dczz.Jy nights before he was due to go back Te/egrapfe and content themselves to Hitler's Berlin. On the streets with `the engagement is announced' where she played I used to play, and or `the marriage will take place'? from the names on a group photo of ULIA NEUBERGER FLEW Archeologists tell me that's the Anne and her friends, I gather for in to record a TV programme way it used to be done in the JC as the first time `that her parents' on human rights and I gate- well in prehistoric times. J The reason lies in a bold re- friends were also my parents' crashed a studio breakfast to-kiss friends. her hallo. interpretation of the fifth command- runderstood one other thing that As a time killer before the ment of which the great Rashi could rainy Thursday night as I came away cameras were ready to roll, I heard never have dreamt. Quite simply we have replaced from the Exhibition: there must a programme assistant ask one of `Thou shalt honour' with `They shall remain perpetual misunderstanding the supporting cast whether she was between those who went through a member of my congregation. She kvell' . . the death camps, whose parents and mumbled something about rivalry WiENunn W:oNfl is rabbi of the Newcastle grandparents perished. in the gas and competition, and then came out Reform Synagogue. He previously se:rved as chambers, those who by the grace with it. an assistant to Rabbi Hugo Gryn at the West of God narrowly escaped them, and She was a member of an orthodox London Synagogue, and was a Fleet Street journalist before training at Leo Baeck Col- those to whom it is all mere history. sfez4J, but did what she liked, and 'cge.

MANNA SPRING 1987 21 The Manor House rna jiit-- rfu i- Society The Manor Hc]use Society is an ambitious cultural venture. Its aim is to bring a wide range of Jewish cultural and intellectual events of a high level within easy reach of a large audience. Regular activities include concerts, debates, exhibitions, drama, seminars and lectures. Membership of the Society gives easy access to the many amenities of the Manor House Centre for`Judaism, the largest Jewish centre in Europe. These facilities include a bookshop, library, coffee-shop, extensive grounds and tennis courts. Membership also brings advance information about events, priority booking and ticket' discounts and .automatic subscription to Manna. Membership can be on either an individual or family basis. Subscriptions are modest: Single membership £12.50 per annum Family membership £19.00 per annum Senior citizen/stud.ent single I 9.50 per annum Seniorcitizen-family £12.50 perannum Existing siJbscribers to Mama may deduct the unexpired portion of their subscription from the Manor House Society subscription.

FORTHCOMING EVENTS Sunday 26th April 8.00 p.in. SYMPOSIUM : AIDS -A MATTER FOFI CONCERN with Revd. Martin Hazell, Simon Lee, Lorraine Sherr and F}abbi Julia Neuberger Sunday loth May -Tuesday 2nd June CHARLES FRONT-RETFIOSPECTIVE EXHIBITION - Graphics, illustrations and paintings Sundays: 11 a.in.-1.00p.in. 3.00p.in.-5.00p.in. Mondays -Thursdays: 11.00 a.in. -4.00 p.in. Wednesday evenings: 7.30 p.in. -9.30 p.in. CLOSED ALL DAY BANK HOLIDAY MONDAY MAY 25TH Sunday l7th May 3.30 p.in. CHESS ``SIMUL" with JONATHAN SPEELMAN Sunday 7th June -Tht[rsday 9th July JERUSALEM -WATER COLOURS BY JUDY BEFIMANT Mondays -Thursdays: 10.00 a.in. -5.00 p.in. Sunday7th June 5.00-8.00 p.in. BAFINET ISFIAEL WEEK -GRAND OPENING Exhibitions of singing and dancing; food SYMPOSIUM: lsRAEL -THE NEXTTHIRTY-NINE YEARS with Clive Sinclair, Sir Michael Hadow, Lynne Reid Banks, Geoffrey Paul

Sunday 121:h July 9.30a.in. MANOFI HOUSE SOCIETYVISITTO JEWISH LINCOLN with David Jacobs Lunchtime Recil:als -New Series 1.15 p.in. Wednesdays 6th and 20th May,10th and 24th June, 8th July

Printed by: FREEDMAN BROS. (PRINTERS) LTD., St. Albans Lane, London, N.W. I I. 01-458 3220