NUMBER 7 SPRING 1985 RfiffiEN contents 2 Jeremy Milgrom Tear Gas, Flying F}ocks And Rabbi Meet ln Arab Village 566891016 Erie Moonman Zuaiter Was Lovely - And A Killer Lionel Blue lnklings - Kaddish For A Nun Julia Neuberger Mother Was An Atheist, Father Was A Jew Julia Pascal A Great Artist's Vision - Images Of Human Dignity Letters Ilya Kovar Must I Let This Baby Die? Geoffrey Spyer Why We Build Synagogues Which Lack Grace, Style, Beauty and Inspiration 192021 Larry Tabick Revolutionary Message From Hasidic Sage Our Man Front David Goldberg's Last Word Editor: Rabbi Tony Bayfield; Deputy Editor: Rabbi William Wolff. The cover picture of JeruT salem Jews at the Western Editorial Board: Rabbi Colin Wall 1896 (Underwoo`d & rna Eimer, Rabbi Dr. Albert Fried- -mi-I-u-I-I Underwood) is taken from lander, Rabbi David Goldberg, Dr. 0-- historian Martin Gilbert's Wendy Greengross, Rev. Dr. Isaac latest book Jerusalem, Rebirth The Sternberg Centre for Judaism, Levy, Rabbi Dr. Jonathan Of A City, just published by The Manor House, Magonet, Rabbi Dow Marmur, Chatto & Windus, The .80 East End Road, Rabbi Dr. John Rayner, Professor Hogarth Press. London N3 2SY .T 8. Segal, Dr. Alan Unterman, Telephone: 01-346 2288 Isca Wittenberg. MANNA is the Journal` of the Sternberg Centre for Judaism at the Subscription rate: £4.50 p.a. (four Manor House and of the Manor issues) including postage anywhere House Society. in the U.K. Abroad: Europe - £8.cO; Israel, Asia, Americas, MANNA is published quarterly. Australasia - £12.00. EDITORIAL One Body Or Tu)o - Let Members Have Final Say numbers will merge without In every other country pro- AGATHAherself is putCHRISTIE to shame trace into the secular back- gressive Jews a.re members of by some of the leaders of pro- ground of British society. the same movement. And Bri- gressive Jewry in Britain. The The progressive movement tain's progressive Jews are Queen of surprise never does provide them with an ac- surely no more quarrelsome, sprang a bigger one than the ceptable alternative, a com- no more "holier-than-thou" bolt from the blue loosed with munity where leaders and con- than those anywhere else. On dazzling skill by the executive gregants march largely in step, the contrary, the majority are of the Reform Synagogues. where they are not required to imbued with a wholesome After producing a report pay lip service to one doctrine dose of British tolerance. showing the total feasibility of while practising another. Nor are they frightened by a merger with the Union of But they have not come to the threatened defection of Liberal and Progressive Syna- us because we are divided. one or two congregations, gogues, they announced that Our division sows confusion however sad the prospect. A it was NOT feasible. in their minds. And its effect united movement will not be That was a triumph of on us is to sap our energies, to weakened by such a defection. speed and resolution. It had prevent our presenting a front Instead of 60 congregations, it little to do with the labours of sufficiently confident to act as will count 58 or 59. Instead of the joint working party that a magnet to those who need 40,000 members, it will have probed and prodded the pro- our guidance and our leader- 37,000-38,000, before surging ject for nearly a year. And it ship. ahead to much greater num- cannot be the last word on the That is why, in considering bers. subject. a merger between the two Because their future and the For infinitely more is at wings of the progressive future of all our fellow-Jews stake than the sending of con- movement, the time has now in Britain is at stake, our 6on- verts to the M.ikveh - which a come to switch the angle of vi- gregants ought now to be united progressive movement sion away from rabbis, offi- given the last word on unity. is more than likely to continue cers and lay leaders. And to Let them be polled in a ref- into an indefinite future. look at our 40,000 congre- erendum. Let them decide The whole future direction 8ants. whether they wish to remain of Anglo-Jewry hangs on the Mingle with a represen- as two divided fringe move- proposed merger. Its present tative sample from Liberal or ments. state is lamentable, with the Reform congregations, and Or let them declare that bulk of its religious leaders you will find that in their they wish to see closer and preaching one doctrine, and religious outlook aid their closer co-operation leading to the vast majority of their religious practice there is no the creation of one movement flock practising another - or perceptible difference between within the foreseeable future. nothing. them. Those who meet in the A movement standing in the This ever-widening gulf, British branch of the World mainstream , confidently this total disregard for one Union of Progressive Jewish leading Anglo-Jewry into the another by leaders and led, Youth do so without friction 21st century. can produce only one out- or conflict. Those who work come, the decimation of and study together at Leo Anglo-Jewry. Through b.ore- Baeck College do so in unity dom and indifference, vast and amity. Manna Spring 1985- The Fateful Day When Meir Kahane Went On The March Tear Gas, Flying Rocks And Rabbi Meet ln Arab Village thodox Jews' substitute name for Urn El-Fahm during a luu be- By Jeremy God. IFIRSTtween HEARDthe endless THE succession NAME of A month later I finally found the assaults on the rocky hills of the Milgrom road to Urn El-Fahm. I was putting Southern Carmel during basic t.rain- together a group of `spiritually ing as an infantry soldier. Those minded' Jews and Arabs for a week- houses on the horizon belonged to The weekly reading was long conference and people kept `that village'. And although our A4isApafz.in and, walking down pointing me towards Hashem guns fired on barren slopes away to through the Sfewk, past the glorious Mehamid. Between Hadera and the North West, the hostility of my Church of the Annunciation to the Afula I found the turnoff to his comrades' glances towards it during rally, made me feel the absence of a village and kept asking every few squad training way back in October Devar rortzfe very poignantly - hundred yards where Hashem lived. 1971 left ominous associations with something that would resolve the Everyone knew him and pointed me Urn El-Fahm in my mind over the tension between: `You shall not towards the end of the village past dozen years. wrong nor oppress a ger (stranger) almost past the little houses - the Last winter I went back to that for you were strangers in the land of ones I saw on the horizon in 1971? landscape. Once again I was in Egypt (Ex.22.20)' and `1 will deliver I began wondering whether I was uniform. I was called to reserve duty the inhabitants of the land into your as frightened of getting lost in Urn (miluim) for a week of field power and you will drive them out El-Fahm as some of the children on manoeuvres which ended too late on before you G]x.23.3l)'. the road were at the sight of a beard- a winter's short Friday to make it I was churned up internally but ed kippah-wearing Jew. back to Jerusalem for Shabbat. also uplifted by the turnout at the Hashem recessed the emergency But I remembered there was a ral- rally - twice as many Jews and Council meeting which I had chan- ly called for the following day in Arabs, coming from near and far, ced upon in his house on a Friday NaLzareth to protest against the rise as Nazareth's largest hall would afternoon in his Moslem village, of a Jewish group called MeNA contain. I asked the person in the and spent forty-five minutes getting whose purpose was to make the chair whether I could give a `Rab- both of us excited about the project neighbouring town of (Upper) binic blessing'. When the rally was I was organising. But, alas, if he NaLzareth -Illit `4rffb-re!.H '. over the crowd broke up into small missed even a single Council In response to MeNA, a Commit- huddles of priests, kadis, liberals, meeting his coalition would col- tee Against Racism was formed. socialists, communists, atheists, lapse... Jews and Arabs of all political per- religious Jews, Christians and `But next time for sure!' suasions were invited from all over Moslems, all enthusiastically bridg- `Next time' was July 31st -just a the country to meet at the Nazareth ipg the many gaps and creating week after the National Elections in Diana Theatre. I had not plarmed to friendships. I was met with a warm which the racism that had produced attend, but it looked like Pro- embrace by an energetic young man MeNA had grown into a national vidence, helped by my uniform who had been sitting at the other movement with enough support to which facilitated hitching a ride, end of the stage, Hashem Mehamid, put `Rabbi!' Meir Kahane into the was directing my steps to spend the head of the local council of Urn Knesset. Kahane's newly established Shabbat at a friend's house in El-Fahm. A circle had closed. legitimacy and the Parliamentary Naureth. `Hashem' incidentally, is the or- immunity he would enjoy augured Manna Spring 1985 badly for the future.