A SECULAR, PROGRESSIVE BIMONTHLY

$5 .0 0 • July-August, 2 0 0 3

“Rashkin s Little Falls Hotel, ”Mountaindale, NY, one of hundreds of resorts, hotels and bungalow colonies frequented by Jewish vacationers in the Catskills. Original postcard (published by A.S. Landis, Wurtsboro, N.Y.) courtesy o f Irwin Rosenthal.

Jewish Women Radicalism and Surviving in the Catskills Jewish Values Stalinism Ruth Lehrer Lawrence Bush Yankl Stillman

Human Nature A Mousehole and Leftwing Politics of Opportunity George Jochnowitz Editorial flanked by Kristol, Perle, and Pod- Names will be withheld from horetz, decided on a grand scale, with publication on request. JEWISH full support and underwriting by the CURRENTS reserves the right to edit letters to restrict their CIA, to make the USA dominant in length.— Ed. the world. This concept was brought to light in a well-researched book, The Cultural Cold War, by a docu- mentary British filmmaker named YIDDISH POETRY hope you’ll continue to include Yid- Saunders. After twenty-five years of sub- dish, in the original, in JEWISH CUR- We may well be in danger if we scribing to JEWISH CURRENTS as an RENTS. do not examine the historical begin- adult, and after having had it around Aaron paley nings and the ensuing dangers from the house since as long as I can re- Los Angeles, CA “leaders” who have a disdain for the member, I was thrilled to finally see other peoples and nations of this the magazine actually print some- world. thing written in Yiddish in the origi- THE WAR IN IRAQ LOUIS P. SCHWARTZ nal oysyes (Hebrew characters), in Your May-June editorial, “Chal- Great Neck, NY transliteration and in the translated lenging Bush, Challenging Our- • English (“Mameloshn,” May-June selves,” is the very first, to the best I am appalled and disgusted by issue). JEWISH CURRENTS has pub- of my knowledge, to put a historical your May-June editorial comparing lished innumerable texts over the perspective to this distressing war. America’s war against Saddam Hus- years translated into English with- You referred to the Project for a sein’s regime to the aggressions of out ever bothering to publish the New American Century of a few Nazi Germany and fascist Italy. The original version. As the founder of years back. I would suggest you go reverse is true: Saddam’s Ba’ath Yiddishkayt Los Angeles, I’m back much further to a period (1947- party quite explicitly copied fascist thrilled with your new policy and I 1990) when these very same people, and Stalinist models, and America and Britain once again stood nearly Vol. 57, No. 4 (619) alone against a totalitarian threat to humanity. The ongoing discovery of July-August, 2003 mass graves in Iraq and the horrify- ing testimony of Saddam’s torture E D IT O R : Lawrence Bush victims prove that those of us who supported this war did not, as Dr. EDITORIAL B o a r d : Morris U. Schappes (Emeritus), Joseph Dimow, Lyber Katz, Judith Rosenbaum, Yankl Stillman Mitchell Silver would have it (“Pad- fism and Jewish Values,” May-June ASSOCIATE EDITORS: Shaurain Farber, Henry Foner, Estelle Holt, Ira Karlick, Sid Resnick issue), “mistakenly identify a petty despot with limited power as a EDITORIAL A d v i s o r y C o u n c i l : David Adler, Isak Arbus, Paul Basch, Alvin Dorfman, Nettie Farber, Gordon Fellman, Eric A. Gordon, Hitler,” but correctly acted to stop a David A. Hacker, Arieh Lebowitz, Bennett Muraskin, Sheldon Ranz, tyrant with a proven record of geno- Eugene Resnick, Paul Robeson, Jr., Annette T. Rubinstein, Neil Salzman, cide from launching a second Shoah Rhea Seagull, Ralph Seliger, Paul G. Shane, Joel Shatzky, Ruth Singer, against Israel, the Kurds, and anyone Harold Sosnow else in his path. P o e t r y C o n s u l t a n t : Henry Jacobs As a lifelong Jewish leftist and MANAGEMENT COMMITTEE: Ira Karlick, Elaine Katz, Bernard Kransdorf, former contributor to JEWISH CUR- Ruth Ost, Fred Rosenthal RENTS, I am sickened by the hypo- JEWISH CURRENTS (ISSN #US-ISSN-0021-6399), July-August, 2003, Vol. 57, No. 4 (619). critical pacifism of much of today’s Published bimonthly by the Association for Promotion of Jewish Secularism, Inc., 22 E. 17th St., left, Jewish and gentile alike, which Suite 601, New York, NY 10003-1919. Phone: (212) 924-5740. Fax: (212) 414-2227. E-mail: Jewish.currents@ verizon. net. Website: www.jewishcurrents.org. Single copies $5. Subscription advises America and Israel to lay $30 a year in U.S. ($50 for two years), elsewhere, $35. Periodicals postage paid at New York, N.Y. Copyright © 2003 by Association for Promotion of Jewish Secularism, Inc. Counsel: Paul Shneyer, down their arms in the face of what 263 West End Avenue, Suite 1G, New York, NY 10023, (212) 595-7575. (Continued on p. 32) Contents

2 L e t t e r s f r o m O u r R e a d e r s

E d it o r ia l s a n d V ie w p o in t s 30 Around the World R e v ie w s 3 A Mousehole of Opportunity Lyber Katz 22 Human Nature and Leftwing Politics 5 Take Back America A r t ic l e s Martin Schwartz George Jochnowitz 8 Radicalism and Jewish Values on The Blank Slate Lawrence Bush C o l u m n s 26 The Abel Meeropol Centennial 6 It Happened in Israel 11 Presenting the Fifth Leonard Lehrman Mark Seal Moishe Katz Award 27 Jewish-Palestinian Conflict Abbott Gorin 13 Jewish Women Now on Stage Jewish Women in the Catskills 12 Jewish Secularism, Joseph Dimow Ruth Lehrer Then and Now Judith Seid P o e t r y 18 Our Secular Jewish Heritage Surviving Stalinism: 15 Survivors: A Memoir 17 Vinnitsa An Interview with Ralph Seliger Marina Rubin Vladimir Talmy 40 Malka at Ninety Yankl Stillman Joan Seliger Sidney 28 Inside the Jewish Community Joseph Dimow

Editorials

A Mousehole of mulated rubble of ten more years of violence, the Opportunity mousehole could be widened to a window again — if the American government succeeds in empowering the CENTRAL PROBLEM confronting the Road Map moderates on both sides of this grim struggle. to Peace is that peace has not been the destina- Ation sought by either the Israeli right or the Pal- To empower the new Palestinian prime minister, the estinian terrorist movements. For the former, the desired U.S. should articulate not only the eventual goal of a destination has historically been “Greater Israel,” to be Palestinian state, but its geography. Rabbi Michael advanced by subduing Palestinian resistance and taking Lemer noted this during Tikkun Community’s June 6th possession of as much West Bank land as Israeli settlers “Teach-In to Congress” in Washington, D.C.: Unless the can garrison. For the suicide bombers and their spon- Palestinians know “precisely what kind of a Palestinian sors, the desired destination has been “No Israel,” to be state you have in mind,” said Lemer, “and whether it is gained by terror, propaganda, and provocation that will, going to include virtually all of the West Bank and Gaza, they believe, ultimately destroy their hated enemy. as was promised in the Oslo Accord, or only 45% of the President George W. Bush nevertheless seems deter- West Bank, as Ariel Sharon has promised to his right- mined to follow up his invasion of Iraq with some trans- wing settler supporters, you cannot expect to end vio- formative Mideast diplomacy — including some unusual lence and provide moderates ... with the kind of vision pressuring of Israel’s government. The Road Map has they need to decrease support of the extremists. That is therefore led Ariel Sharon to talk to Mahmoud Abbas why we ... call on President Bush to make ... the last (whose own tenure as Palestinian prime minister is a step (negotiations on what this whole Road Map ends product of U.S. pressure) — and both of them have made up with) become ... the first step.” peace-oriented staements that have dismayed the extrem- Does this amount to “caving in to terrorism,” as the ists in their respective camps. While the “window of Israeli settler movement claims? No, because the Israeli- opportunity” for peace that Yitzhak Rabin proclaimed Palestinian conflict is not only about Israel defending in 1993 has been reduced to a mousehole by the accu­ itself against war and terrorism for fifty-three years. This

July-August, 2003 3 struggle is as much about the unfulfilled quest for Pales- ists should not be allowed to overwhelm negotiations. tinian statehood, which was legitimated by the U.N. par- It is time, in fact, also to isolate that core of Israeli tition plan of 1947 - a plan to which Israel agreed. That settlers, estimated at fewer than 20,000 (ten percent of quest has been deterred not only by Arab bellicosity and the settler population), who live in the West Bank and Palestinian terrorism, but also by thirty-six years of Is- Gaza for ideological reasons and are likely to resist the raeli military occupation and diplomatic stonewalling by dismantling of settlements, even with violence. For too successive Israeli governments while Jewish settlements long, this minority has managed to legitimate their sta- were built on Palestinian land. No matter how morally tus as occupiers by posing as defenders of a besieged detestable and politically self-defeating Palestinian ter- Israel; the U.S. should now press to reveal their hum- rorism has been, it has not altered the legitimacy of the bug. One model for this is Brit Tzedek v’Shalom’s “Call Palestinian people’s claim to nationhood. Fulfilling that to Bring the Settlers Home,” which urges that settlement claim means not “caving into terrorism” but satisfying monies be used for the resettlement of those who are the demands of tzedek, justice. willing to return to Israel proper.

Terrorism nevertheless remains an enormous challenge O f course, we are not so naive as to think that the pro- to any peace process, and Abbas clearly has neither the gressive proposals of the Tikkun Community or B’rit political support nor the military clout to stop it. Sharon, Tzedek v’Shalom will soon be adopted by the Bush Ad- with his assassination attacks on Hamas personnel, has ministration — especially not while rightwing Ameri- only fed terrorists’ popular support power among the can Jews and their Christian fundamentalist allies are Palestinian people, which makes Abbas’s task all the seeking to blockade even the mousehole that the Road more difficult. Indeed, Sharon has continually built up Map to Peace represents. Nor are we so insensitive to the clout of the terrorist movements by declaring, the awful suffering of the Israeli and Palestinian peoples throughout the past three years, that political progress as to think that moral reasoning will necessarily triumph must be preceded by the cessation of all Palestinian vio- over feelings of hatred, humiliation and vengefulness. lence. Why not, instead, isolate the bombers by remov- Still, the alternative to this mousehole of opportunity is ing their power to disrupt the political peace process — a hellhole of unending brutality that might indeed lead that is, by pursuing negotiations regardless of the vio- to the “No Israel” destination of the terrorist bombers’ lence and counter-violence? The same logic applies to dreams. The Road Map to Peace is thus a road map to the likely increase in outrages against Palestinians by survival for two peoples who are chained together and Jewish settlers over the next few months. The extrem­ must walk the road of peace, together. June 14th ■

Celebrate O ur Now just $24, a 20% discount! M a g a z i n e ’s R e n e w a l w ith a Gift Subscription to: N am e______Gift Subscription! A d d ress______C ity ______S ta te . Z ip Your gift message:______Payment methods: Check Mastercard Visa_ expiration / חחחחחחחחחחחחחחחח Your signature:______Name and address: ______

Make checks payable to Jewish Currents, and return form to 22 East 17th St., Suite 601, New York, NY 10003-1919.

4 JEWISH CURRENTS Viewpoints

for a comprehensive “counterat- Organizing to Take Back America tack/’ In particular, an economic policy of tax cuts leading to in- M a r t in S c h w a r t z creased deficits can only be seen as MARTIN SCHWARTZ isDirector of the Center for Socialpart ofand a Economic conservative strategy to Justice at the Workmen’s Circle/Arbeter Ring New York. force the shrinking of government to little more than national defense. nergize! Organize! Mobilize!” Fifteen hundred people chanted As I participated in the workshops ^־■Z Z this rallying cry led by Congressional Representative Jan Scha- and plenary sessions over the course xL;f kowsky (D-IL) at the opening session of the “Conference to Take of three days, I felt extremely ener- Back America,” held June 4th to 6th ______in Washington, DC. Gathering from all fifty states, progressives pumped In recent years, while perhaps not abandoning its progressive themselves up to counter the Bush commitments, the Jewish community is no longer participating administration’s economic and social as an important progressive coalition partner. policies and to pave the way for progressive candidates to win in the 2004 elections. Labor leaders such Democratic Party and is intended to gized to be with so many people as AFL-CIO President John Swee- counter the conservatizing influence who shared a common commitment ney, civil rights activists such as of the Democratic Leadership Con- to government concerned with People for the American Way’s Presi- ference. Speaker after speaker re- working-class needs. As I looked dent Ralph Neas, and grassroots or- peated the theme that “you can’t lead around, however, I wondered about ganizers such as President Maude from the center,” and it was clear to the minimal visibility of the orga- Hurd of ACORN all emphasized those who attended that the failure nized Jewish community at the how the Bush administration and the of the Democratic Party to retain Conference. At one time, Jewish or- Republican-controlled Congress will control of the Senate and gain seats ganizations were at the forefront of be vulnerable in 2004 because of in the House in 2002 stemmed from progressive advocacy in partnership their failed economic policies — as its lack of definition as a true oppo- with non-Jewish groups. In recent long as the Democratic Party does sition party. years, while perhaps not abandoning not flinch from a fight with the Re- its progressive commitments, the publicans, and as long as progres- I came to the Conference represent- Jewish community is no longer par- sive organizations organize to get ing the Workmen’s Circl ticipating as an important progres- the message to the American people. Ring (WC/AR) to network with other sive coalition partner. Yet the ideals groups concerned with reversing the of the progressive movement are, to The Conference was the brainchild conservative policies being imple- us, intrinsically Jewish ideals — of of Robert L. Borosage and Roger mented in Washington. Over the past the dignity of all humankind, fair op- Hickey, Co-Directors of The Cam- several years — and throughout our portunity for all, and the creation of paign for America’s Future and its history — the WC/AR has taken po- a shenere un besere velt (a more sister organization, The Institute for sitions on specific issues (advocat- beautiful and just world). America’s Future. Founded in the ing universal health care, supporting As I left the Conference with re- late 1990s, the Campaign is commit- working-class and union interests, newed commitment, I also realized ted to “reverse the conservative drift supporting public education, etc.). how much work there is to be done of our political debate” by develop- Since the 2000 election, however, we to organize and mobilize within our ing “strategy and issue campaigns to have grown increasingly alarmed by Jewish community and to partner forge a new American majority for the comprehensive conservative shift with our co-idealists to renew a pro- progressive reform.” Much of the in federal government policies, and gressive political agenda across the Campaign’s work is directed at the we have come to understand the need United States. ■

JULY-AUGUST, 2003 5 legitimately be called “occupied.” Sharon, through the use of one word, undermined this entire enterprise. Even IT HAPPENED after both the Justice and Foreign Ministries offered “clarifications,” Sharon continued to refer to the occu- .fffffjil pation as such.ו.0111^ IN ISRAEL In a poll released by Ma ’ariv following Sharon’s pre- sentations, sixty-two percent of the Israeli public sup- ported an end to Israel’s occupation of the territories. Mark A. Seal Shalev pointed out that large segments of the Israeli public, from the left and the center, have held that be- Word lief for many years — but then along comes Sharon־Sharon Uses the 0 giving his hekhsher [stamp of approval] so that Likud On consecutive days during the last week of May, voters can also declare “enough of the occupation” the Israeli Cabinet and then the Likud faction in the la keybush]. This slogan, scrawled on the walls of Jerusa- Knesset convened to discuss the Road Map. The tern- lem in the period immediately following the June, 1967 perature in Jerusalem peaked at 111°, thirty above aver- Six-Day War by members of the now extinct leftwing age, followed by a torrential rainstorm that made it dif- Matzpen party, has been transformed from a belief held ficult to get around town. The television and radio re- by the margin of the margins of Israeli society into a ports from correspondents standing outside the meet- powerful and compelling national consensus. ing places were almost impossible to understand, so loud This suggests that the vision of Tommy Lapid of the was the sound of the downpour pelting their umbrellas. Shinui Party of a secular coalition consisting of Likud, It never rains in Israel between Passover and Yom Kip- Labor and Shinui more accurately captures the new pur — never. The weather anomalies created a back- national consensus than the current rightwing and reli- ground for an equally extraordinary political anomaly. gious coalition government. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, in two emotional pre- sentations, repeatedly described Israel’s thirty-six-year Sharm-el-Sheik and Aqaba presence in the West Bank and Gaza as an “occupa- tion.” On at least five different occasions he used the The last thirty-two months have represented a period O-word. He went on to characterize the occupation as a of despair for most people in the region. Israelis and disaster for Israel’s economy and for the well-being of Palestinians have seen the quality of their day-to-day its citizens, and he declared that it is wrong for Israel to lives deteriorate to previously unimaginable depths. continue to rule over the Palestinian people. More than two thousand people have lost their lives Chemi Shalev, in his Friday column in Ma ’ariv on during this ongoing conflict, with tens of thousands May 30th, noted that, in this case, one word was worth a wounded. Both the Israeli and Palestinian economies thousand pictures. “When P.M. Ariel Sharon used the have imploded: no tourism, no foreign investment, and word ‘occupation,’ the earth moved,” he wrote [my seemingly no way out. translation— M.S.]. “The most significant argument of Most striking during this period has been the inabil- the last thirty-six years within Israeli society was re- ity of each side to hear the other’s narrative. With very solved in a second, by two syllables [key-bush, occupa- few exceptions, Israelis have become deaf and blind to tion in Hebrew]. He stunned the left, but dismantled Palestinian suffering, and vice versa. Revenge trumps and factionalized the right.” empathy. While compelling majorities within both so- The Israeli Foreign Ministry, especially under Likud cieties understand that the ultimate solution to the con- prime ministers, has waged a battle of excommunica- flict will be based on two states living side-by-side, there tion against the O-word for decades. International ex- exist similar majorities that also support policies of re- perts were recruited to locate and interpret documents taliation. Both sides have been reluctant to question the from both the British Mandate and Ottoman Empire wisdom of their leaders’ commitment to military reprisal periods to establish definitively that the territories never and acts of violence. actually belonged to anyone and therefore could not This backdrop makes all the more extraordinary the

6 Jewish Currents statements made at Sharm-el-Sheik (Egypt) and Aqaba tion. A proposal is also being negotiated for an Israeli (Jordan). At Sharm-el-Sheik, the leaders of Egypt, Jor- withdrawal from northern Gaza, with the Palestinian ־dan, Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian Authority rejected Authority resuming control and working to stop terror terror and the recurring cycle of violence. Oded Grannot, ist operations there. Arab affairs analyst on Israel televi- sion’s Channel One, interpreted their The Israeli Foreign Ministry, especially under Likud prime statement as a denunciation of the ministers, has waged a battle of excommunication against the intifada by the three most important Arab heads of state. O-word for decades. Sharon, through the use of one word, At Aqaba, Palestinian Prime Min- undermined that entire enterprise. ister Mahmoud Abbas declared his commitment to end Jewish suffering and Sharon vowed While Israel announced that it reserved the right to to end the occupation and declared that it is wrong for eliminate what it described as “ticking Hamas bombs,” Israel to rule over 3.5 million Palestinians. Suddenly the government seems prepared to suspend targeted as- — and hopefully for more than just one meeting — sassinations as long as Hamas refrains from launching each side understood the other’s narrative. Israel re- suicide attacks into Israel. These concessions may be leased one hundred Palestinian prisoners and made a enough to allow Mahmoud Abbas to reach a tentative commitment to dismantle fifteen illegal settlements. The ceasefire with Hamas, which would increase his ered- Palestinian Authority began to share intelligence about ibility within Israel. Assuming that Israel continues to terrorism with Israel and channels of communication dismantle settlement outposts and ceases all targeted between security agencies were reopened. Abbas’s dis- killings, Abbas will have greater authority within the cussion with Hamas about a ceasefire continued. Palestinian polity as well, for having made a real differ- ence in the lives of his people. The Road Map Survives Its First Test The process known as the Road Map has hopefully survived its first real test. Israeli public opinion reflects On June 13th, leading Israeli pollster Mina Tzemach a society frustrated by the unending cycle of violence released her latest public opinion poll. At the end of a and prepared to make real concessions for peace. Will week that saw the cycle of Israeli-Palestinian violence the Israeli political leadership (referred to in Hebrew as escalate and intensify, sixty-seven percent of Israelis ha-dereg ha-medini) hear the message from the street expressed opposition to continuing the Israeli policy of and act in ways that can keep the process in motion? targeted assassinations and the same number expressed Will Mahmoud Abbas be successful in negotiating a belief that the occupation is harming Israel. ceasefire with Hamas? Will Yasser Arafat allow him to A majority continues to support the Road Map and succeed? On this, we have yet to hear from the Pales- express belief that within five years Israel will have tinian street. evacuated between sixty and seventy percent of the West Will the Bush Administration stay committed to the Bank. Road Map? Is the President prepared to commit per- Perhaps even more telling was the response to the sonally to an ongoing involvement? The importance of question, “Why was the assassination of [Hamas leader] this cannot be overstated. Abdel Aziz Rantisi attempted now?” Forty-three per- These are the crucial questions that will determine cent of Israelis replied that it was tried because an op- whether the Road Map will continue to shape the Is- portunity presented itself; forty percent said its purpose raeli-Palestinian journey for even the next few weeks. was to delay implementation of the Road Map; three If all are answered in the affirmative, then at the very percent gave both reasons. The Israeli public has ap- least the Road Map will have succeeded in disrupting parently lost faith in the purity of political motives and the cycle of violence and allowing the peoples of the military tactics used throughout the intifada. region to imagine an alternate reality. If this lasts for At the end of the same week of violence, American even a few weeks, it might create enough public good- and Egyptian envoys continued to work on negotiations will that even the most stubborn and obtuse political for a Hamas ceasefire and renewed security coopera­ leaders will feel compelled to nurture the process. ■

July-August, 2003 7 From the keynote address at the JEWISH CURRENTS . May 4th punishment, while the consumers capacity to hold corporations respon- Radicalism and Jewish Values sible through lawsuits is suppressed by so-called “tort reform.” “Radical” means the suspension of L a w r e n c e B u sh habeas corpus and the right to legal NCE UPON A tim e, the word “radical” evoked in my mind such fig- representation for U.S. citizens, and ures as Emma Goldman and Abbie Hoffman, Clara Lemlich and the denial of prisoner-of-war status O Allen Ginsberg. Simply by conjuring the names of a dozen land- for people seized in war. It means mark Jewish figures, you could federal imposition of the death pen- project an inspiring outline of radi- alty upon the states, federal overrule cal history in America: Ernestine of state drug laws, and federal im- Rose for women’s rights and aboli- poverishment of state budgets. It tionism, Rose Schneiderman and means appointments of right-wing Leon Davis for the rights of labor, activists to the judiciary, and hard- Andrew Goodman and Michael nosed mandatory sentencing im- Schwemer for civil rights, Saul Alin- posed on federal judges — while a sky for community organizing, and record two million souls languish in so on. Jews have been represented prison in our “Land of the Free.” in the ranks of leftwing political “Radical” means two wars in two leadership even more dispropor- years, while 2.4 million jobs disap- tionately than in the ranks of Nobel pear from the American landscape. Laureates, and the contributions “Radical” means utter disregard for have been no less awesome. international law and opinion. “Radi- Today, however, the word “radi- cal” means environmental policy in- cal” evokes for me a very different formed not by science but by greed. set of names: George W. Bush, Dick “Radical” means a Supreme Court Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, John that appoints presidents. Ashcroft, Karl Rove, Clarence Tho- mas, William Kristol, Paul Wolf- Now, I cannot tell you what America owitz, and numerous other radical would have looked like had the radi- rightwingers who are now in posi- Uncle Sam & Tante Emma (Lazarus) cals of the 1930s or ’60s somehow tions of extraordinary power. They Have Another Argument come to power because, in truth, we are using this power to strip away never came close. Judging from the government, strip away the restraint abolition of the inheritance tax, grim fruits of communism in the 20th of international law, strip away Con- which will establish an American century, a “Soviet America” would stitutional protections, strip away aristocracy in everything but name. have been repressive way beyond working-class gains, strip away “Radical” means efforts to ban or John Ashcroft’s fantasies; andjudg- whatever is left of equity in the tax marginalize abortion, to Christianize ing from the bitter sectarianism and system. They are shaking American public discourse, to hound public cultism that swallowed up much of society any which way they can to education with endless testing, the New Left, a Woodstock Nation see how many dollars will fall out. shrinking budgets and private school might not have been much better. Today, “radical” means “faith- vouchers. “Radical” means the ha- Despite the ash on all of our faces, based initiatives” that overturn decades rassment of immigrants, especially however, the struggles of the left of carefully constructed church-state from the Islamic world, and the pad- gave rise to extraordinarily important separation; it means efforts to priva- locking of Emma Lazarus’ “golden achievements that are definitive to tize Social Security and thereby pul- door.” American society today. These key verize the final pillar of the New “Radical” means corporate greed aspects of political, economic and Deal; it means tax cuts, including run amok, with neither restraint nor social democracy became the Ameri-

8 Jewish Currents can norm thanks to our agitation and individuals and in community, to from traveling down the long, ere- the capacity of the American people promote the greatest good for the ative highways of Jewish thought. As to recognize our moral force. greatest number and thereby endure a result, we pick up few passengers None of these achievements can upon this earth. Judaism is more than as a movement — because, while any longer be taken for granted. Each anything a discussion about finding many, many American Jews are un- is now in the gunsights of the Radi- an appropriate balance between the interested in theology, they are nev- cal Right, and many are already needs of the individual and the needs ertheless interested in exploring the wounded and staggering. As a result, of the community, and about estab- road of Judaism. Among the baby- the main political task of the left, to- lishing a way of life — particularly boom generation, in my experience, day, is not about change but about a way of economic life — that is both this is particularly so: They are in- preservation. We are now the conser- realistic and merciful. terested in rooting their opinions in vatives, the ones dedicated to con- Let’s speak, for example, of the Jewish values so that those opinions serving the rights, opportunities and economic philosophy expressed in become commitments. They are in- minimum concessions to equality Talmudic Judaism. It is a philosophy terested in the Jewish calendar and and equity that our struggles won. We are the conservatives, dedicated to preserving a sense of human com- We are now the conservatives. They are the radicals. This is a munity and human interdependence against the alienation and dehuman- major revolution in meaning with which we need to contend. ization caused especially by the vast gap between wealth and poverty. We are the conservatives within Jewish predicated on a socialistic percep- holidays, in Jewish philosophy and life as well, for it is we who are seek- tion, namely, that the private owner- spirituality. They are interested not ing to preserve Jewish commitments ship of property is essentially an il- only in Jewishness but in Judaism: a to social justice, equal opportunity, lusion, because, as Psalm 24 says, non-theistic reading of Judaism, of an end to racism, a peaceful and vi- “the Earth is the Lord’s, and all that the kind presented by this year’s sionary state of Israel, an idealistic it holds.” All of Judaism’s impres- Moishe Katz Award winner, Judith vision of a kinder, more beautiful sively progressive economic rules Seid, in her book, God-Optional Ju- world — commitments that are be- proceed from this principle: rules daism. ing eroded in the American Jewish about honest buying and selling, fair Why should we not weigh in with community. wages and fair treatment of labor, our own interpretations of this reli- We are now the conservatives. sharing the harvest with the poor, gious tradition? If Tevye the Dairy- They are the radicals. This is a ma- regaining land lost to debt after fifty man can do it, subversively and ex- jor revolution in meaning with which years, the obligatory nature of char- pressively, on every other page of we need to contend. ity, the dignity of all people, includ- Sholem Aleichem’s Tevye s Daugh- ing poor people — rules expressed ters, why should we be reticent? Why In this new role as “conservatives, ” in more than 100 of the 613 tradi- detour around the tradition rather I think we can and must find support tional laws of Judaism. These rules than driving directly through the in the values of the broad Jewish tra- often stand in sharp contrast to con- landscape with our horns honking? dition — including, I strongly be- temporary American capitalist val- Why leave our readers stranded on lieve, the Jewish religious tradition. ues. All of them are rooted in the for- the byroads of ignorance about any- Indeed, if conserving and preserving mulation that God owns it all. thing Jewish? are our immediate political tasks, I would like, for example, to see us ־Judaism offers us much support, be- Many, perhaps most, Jewish secu cause the religion is most fimdamen- larists would stumble over this theo- translate that basic Biblical concept tally not a set of other-worldly doc- logical notion and consider it irrel- that “the Earth is the Lord’s” into trines or worship routines but a cen- evant nonsense. We would therefore humanistic terms so that we can be- turies-old discussion about sustain- permit the word “God” to serve as gin to plumb the riches of Jewish ability: about how we should live, as an enormous roadblock that deters us economic philosophy. In fact, the

JULY-AUGUST, 2003 9 translation I seek was implicit in a economy would have to take into And untie the cords of the yoke piece in Jewish C urrents several account communal needs. To let the oppressed go free; years back, in which a Jewish engi- To break off every yoke. neer, Joseph Worth, an inventor in You might argue, of course, that a It is to share your bread with his nineties who had played a key socialist understanding about the col- the hungry role in building the airplane engine lective nature of wealth needs no re- And to take the wretched poor of the Spirit of St. Louis, Charles ligious justification, at least not since into your home; Lindbergh’s transatlantic plane, Karl Marx did his writing. But then I When you see the naked, to made the comment that “There are would call your attention to the fact clothe them, no real inventions. Not really. I don’t that a number of other economic And not to ignore your own kin. even like the word. There are only principles of Judaism (not to men- developments.” Developments, in- tion the evidence of history) stand in This passionate prophetic reading deed! In a society that wildly rewards direct challenge to Marxist ideas of forms part of the haftarah in syna- individual “genius” with billions of “economic man.” Marx, as I under- gogue on Yom Kippur. Of course, dollars, Worth’s pronouncement stand him, considered greed and self- few secularists, myself included, about the collective nature of tech- ishness to be distortions of human na- show up in synagogue on Yom Kip- nological progress was revolution- ture caused by exploitation and class pur. Unfortunately, just as few of us, ary! relations. Judaism, as I understand it, I would guess, make a point of read- Yet it dovetailed with pronounce- recognizes greed and the drive for ing from the Book of Isaiah, or of ments by other Jewish innovators. status to be basic qualities of human “untying the cords of the yoke” Albert Einstein, for example, whose nature that are critical engines of eco- through activism on that day. So legend portrays him as a kind of hid- nomic development. One rabbinic what claim have we on Isaiah’s den saint in a patent office, was nev- text says that “without the yetzer words? I note that Norman Pod- ertheless firm in his insistence that har a ” — the evil or lustful urge —horetz, a grandfather of the radical “in science ... the work of the indi- “a person would not build a house, right, now has a new book out about vidual is so bound up with that of take a partner, beget children, or en- the Prophets from his neoconser- scientific predecessors and contem- gage in commerce” {Genesis Rabbah vative point of view. We need to have poraries that it appears almost as an 9:7). So which is the more accurate, the sophistication and enough under- impersonal product of a generation.” more realistic view of human beings? standing of the prophetic tradition to Then there was a piece I discov- It’s a question worth exploring in our offer alternatives to his rightwing ered by Ben Cohen about his com- Jewish magazine. midrash. pany, Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream: “I Another secularly kosher value is always felt like we were holding the I know that there are many secular the Jewish sense of “Otherness” that business in trust for the community. Jewish values, formed in the course Sigmund Freud famously described After all, the community allows you of our struggle, our suffering and our in his letter to B’nai B’rith in 1926: to exist. People in the community survival, that we might invoke in sup- “Because I was a Jew I found my- buy your product. They provide the port of our politics without resorting self free from many prejudices which infrastructure; they provide all the to theology. There are even Biblical limited others in the use of their in- resources you use; they provide ev- passages that secularists already con- tellect, and being a Jew, I was pre- erything except the idea.” sider kosher. There is, for example, pared to enter into opposition and to These, then, were among the secu- Isaiah the prophet’s eloquent call for renounce agreement with the ‘com- lar Jewish sources for my translation social justice rather than mere piety: pact majority.’” of the religious idea that “the Earth Well, let’s think about this one. belongs to God” into “the Earth is Is this the fast I desire, Certainly, the centuries-long “Other- everyone’s” — a humanistic recog- A day for men to starve ness” of Jews as an oppressed mi- nition of the collective effort in- their bodies? nority has fueled our open-mind- volved in the generation of wealth. . . . No, this is the fast I desire: edness and our thirst for social jus- If we were to build an economy with To unlock the fetters of tice. However, in an American Jew- this as its underlying principle, that wickedness, ish environment marked by intermar­

10 Jewish Currents riage, affluence, political influence, phone, Leybl warned me: If you thousands of lives celebrated, thou- diminution of anti-Semitism, and make this magazine religious, I won’t sands of volunteer hours logged by other features of “mainstreaming,” give another penny. our heroic Editorial Board and Man- can we any longer rely on the status Let me assure you that I plan to agement Committee — and thou- of “Otherness” to inspire commit- come back to the Drabkins — and to sands of dreams of a more decent and ment to progressivism? The evidence all of you — for funding next year kind world. says otherwise: As Joe Dimow re- and the year after that. There’s a It is my great hope to extend an ported in the May-June issue of our world of difference between exam- appreciation of the sacred tradition magazine, there is an emerging gen- ining religion as a potential source of of this magazine to growing numbers eration gap in American Jewish life, values and becoming religious. I of readers — a task for which I have with Jews under the age of thirty-five would not ask anyone at this lun- the needed energy and creativity. listing to the right. Liberals and pro- cheon to say a brokhe before or after My great fear, however, is that I have gressives will not long be able to ar- our meal. I’m simply asking us not been hired to serve as undertaker, gue for the solidarity of the Jewish to exclude Jewish religious philoso- which would be a sad and frustrat- community based on its own op- phy from our sense of Jewish civili- ing task. pression and alienation. We must, zation. With your support, I will put that therefore, root our politics in other Meanwhile, I’m sure all secularists fear on the shelf and just follow the aspects of the Jewish experience, or will forgive me if I use the word “sa- doctor’s orders for a healthy dose of the Jewish base for those politics will ered” to describe the life and tradi- question marks to keep the “current” wither. tion of Jewish C urrents magazine. flowing in Jewish C urrents. May It is a sacredness wrought by thou- our thoughts find renewal, our Let me close by telling you about one sands and thousands of printed words dreams find revival, and our land of particular Jewish C urrents funder, in working-class accents, thousands the United States find its way back Leybl Drabkin, who with his wife, of lines of poetry, thousands of sen- to the road that Jewish Currents Edith, recently gave $1,000 to our tences of political analysis and fer- has helped to pave, the road of eco- new Development Fund. On the vor, thousands of dollars freely given, nomic justice and social progress.■

• S— —

From the Jewish. Currents Luncheon. May 4th Presenting the Fifth Moishe Katz Award and Jewish values, we can look with A b b o t t G o r in pride at countless gatherings of progressive Jews to fight for workers’ O m a t t e r how one defines the Jewish experience, a key compo- rights, civil rights and women’s rights. nent of Jewish living is to gather together with other people and If we are to educate a new genera- N engage in common projects as Jews. To the Orthodox, the paradigm tion of Jewish radicals to have a say of community activity is the ingath------in how the Jewish community func- ering for the acceptance of the Cov- Judith Seid gave Our kids WOrdS tions, it is absolutely imperative that enant at Mt. Sinai. For many others, they be given words and thoughts with which to arm themselves the paradigm is a meeting to protect with which to convince more main- an embattled and often impoverished and make their religious peers stream Jews that Jewish radicals are group of isolated Jews. And on a day think and ponder, not outsiders or marginal, but have when we are discussing radicalism ------traditions and practices that enable them to stand toe to toe on common ABBOTT G orin teaches history and Hebrew at the Jewish Cultural School ground with their observant broth- and Society in West Orange, NJ and is a regular contributor to our maga- ers and sisters. It is for this reason zine. that we have a new generation of

JULY-AUGUST, 2003 11 secular Jews who refrain from the pa- that she gave them something with Arbor Jewish Cultural Society, the triarchal and theological utterance, which to arm themselves and, in a de- founder of the Baltimore Jewish Cul- “barukh atah AdonaF (“blessed are liciously subversive manner, make tural Chavurah, a leader of the Con- you, our Lord”) but instead say the their religious peers think and ponder. gress of Secular Jewish Organiza- following to announce who they are: It was a treat last year when Judy tions, the author of We Rejoice in Our (

J u d it h S e id

N Jewish Life, we’re often told that we’re not as good as our ances- fused to leave until fistfights broke tors. Those who came before are always honored over those who are out between the Zionists and the I living now. This is certainly true of the religious world, but it’s also Bundists. true in the secularist world. We talk longingly of the days — only sixty Look around you now, and see how or seventy years ago — when secu- far we’ve come. Sitting at this lun- lar Jewish organizations represented cheon are Zionists and non-Zionists over half of American Jews. From and probably anti-Zionists. There are the perspective of our busy but easy Hebraists and Yiddishists and lives, we speak with awe of immi- Englishists. There are those engaged grant workers who, after a ten- or in progressive political action and twelve-hour work day, would attend those who prefer community service. lectures and meetings in the eve- There are Socialists and Democrats nings. We wish for the vibrant cul- and Democratic Socialists and just tural life of several daily Yiddish plain lefties. Fifty years ago, we papers, Yiddish authors and poets liv- would never have sat down all to- ing in our buildings, publishing and gether. Today, we do. lecturing all over North America. I We Jews aren’t a declining people. look back to the time when there We secularists aren’t a declining were a half-dozen or more kinder- movement. We have a great past, and shuln and a mittleshul in the Los if we work together, we can build an Angeles area, and we would get to- even better future. As one of our gether for a huge concert every great secularist Yiddish poets, Avrom year. was named, was active in the self- Reisen, wrote: We secularists do have a great and defense movement during the po- active past. But in some ways — not groms of 1903-06. His The Genera- And though the time of love and all, but some — we’re better now. In tion that Lost Its Fear tells the story peace may be far away, particular, our secularist past is full of those heroes. But it also tells how Sooner or later, that time will of the curse of the left: factionalism. Zionists hijacked Bundist self-de- come — it’s no dream. Moishe Katz, for whom this award fense organizing meetings and re- Un zol vi vayt nokh zayn di tsayt fun libe un fun sholem JUDITH Seid is a third-generation Jewish secularist who received this year s dokh kumen vet, tsi fri, tsi shpet Moishe Katz Award from JEWISH CURRENTS. di tsayt — es iz kayn kholem. ■

12 JEWISH CURRENTS a forest-rimmed clearing in Woodboume, each with a large, screened-in porch. It was women and children only, those weekdays in the summer Catskills — ex- cept for my grandfather, afflicted with polio and con- fined to his armchair on the porch. Only during a week- long vacation stay were husbands and fathers to be seen midweek on our campus. ESTELLE HOLT I suspect it was not only the luft that brought the wont- en to the mountains. They appeared to enjoy their brief Jewish Women escape from traditional housewife roles. They read, had in the Catskills intimate discussions, skinny-dipped in the Neversink River, and played cards. Rarely had I seen my mother R u th L eh r er laugh before, or with free time on her hands. Meals were simple: vegetarian dishes like noodles with UMMER IN THE CATSKILLS, circa 1 9 3 5 . In a cheese and bowls of huckleberries with sour cream. crowded bus, a hired hack, or Uncle Benny’s new Mothers and children went berry-picking most days and S DeSoto, my family escaped from our hot apart- took long walks on country roads into the nearby vil- Sment in the Bronx to the healing luft (air) of “Thelages to shop. Sometimes we even dared to hitch- Mountains.” We trekked up Old Route 17, stopping hike. when any of us kids became carsick, or for lunch at Yet my warmest memories center around preparing the Red Apple Rest. For over 7 0 years, small shtetl- for the weekend: cleaning the bungalow, helping my like villages in Sullivan and Ulster Counties such as mother shell peas and chop onions, washing my hair Monticello, Loch Sheldrake, Ellenville and Liberty and putting on my best clothes. It was Friday, and the were summer homes to Jewish vacationers. Daddies were coming up from the city, bearing bialys, Mama first sampled a kokhaleyn (an “Ameridish,” challah and an assortment of tchotchkes. The aroma of i.e., American Yiddish word for a rooming house with mandel bread and blueberry pies baking in the oven communal cooking facilities) in Fleischmanns, high filled the air. The early 1940s were much the same, over­ in the mountains, where she shared a huge kitchen with more than a dozen other women. “It wasn’t easy, each of us scrambling for a gas burner or a place at the sink,” she repeated over the years, “but the luft was better up there. It was during the Great Depression, and inex- pensive, maybe $ 2 5 or $ 5 0 for the whole summer. Af- ter that, I found a small hotel in South Fallsburg, the same money for a two-week stay. We dressed up every night, our meals were served to us, it was luxury. But I wanted to get out of the city for the whole summer, so we ended up in a bungalow colony.” Our small family, along with aunts, uncles and doz- ens of cousins, spent eight glorious summers in one- and two-bedroom white clapboard bungalows, set on

RUTH L ehrer is a coordinator with Sullivan Countyk y o t y j i m ! ' -.....ייי..... ,a■ ״'.Community College Elderhostel. A retired New York •J ~r ~ j V" ״? City elementary school teacher, she has had personal 1 mmm1 essays published in the New York Times, Hadassah, Sign found by April Silver and Neil Cohen Newsday, and numerous other publications. in a Los Angeles flea market.

JULY-AUGUST, 2003 13 shadowed by the absence of our male cousins gone off to war — and the emerging news about family left be- The Catskills After September 11"• hind in Russia and Poland slowly entering our con- sciousness. o HORTT.Y AFTER 9-11, thirty people attend- I never saw the elegant, resort side of the Catskills ^ ^ i n g an Elderhostel at Kutcher’s Country — the Nevele, the Concord, Grossingers, Kutshers, k-^Club on Kiamesha Lake heard Esterita Brown’s, with their indoor-outdoor swimming pools, (Cissie) Blumberg, former owner of the Green golf courses, tennis courts, ice-skating rinks, and night- Acres Hotel and author of Remember the Cat- clubs — until after I was married in 1948. For our hon- skills, tell about a soon-to-be-built performing arts eymoon, or a week’s vacation or a weekend getaway, center in Bethel on the site of the historic 1969 Woodstock Festival. The site will be the summer home of the New York Philharmonic (just as It was women and children only, those Tanglewood is summer home to the Boston Sym- weekdays in the summer Catskills. Women phony Orchestra), and will include an open-air pavilion, indoor theater, school for the perform- seemed to enjoy their brief escape from ing arts, marketplace, conference center and inn. traditional housewife roles. It is scheduled to open in 2004. “The Catskills are coming back, but not in the same form,” we’d pull out the dressy clothes that we wore at our Blumberg declared. friends’ weddings and head up to a Catskill hotel. In The economic impact of the 9-11 attacks has the ’50s and ’60s, when our children were growing up, also prompted Governor George Pataki, after we introduced them to our vacation destination. Around years of lobbying by area proponents, to promise the same time, a triple whammy — airconditioning, to approve casino gambling for the Catskills. women going back to work, and cheap air fares — be- (Kutshers’ projected Mohawk Indian casino is one gan to have an impact on the Catskills. We and many of of the three planned casino sites.) Although the our friends and relatives abandoned the mountains. By State Assembly has not yet passed legislation le- the time my children were teenagers, they went off to galizing casino gambling, it seems poised to do summer camp in the Berkshires and we flew off to Eu- so. A Montieeilo realtor has told me that she,s rope for sightseeing vacations. already bombarded with investors. The last re- maining bungalow colonies and commercial prop- Thriving villages became ghosts of their former selves, erties are disappearing from her inventory. depressed and depressing. In its heydey, the area was —Ruth Lehrer blanketed by six hundred hotels. Today, they number fewer than twenty. By the 1990s, most had succumbed to lightning fires, bankruptcy and the real-estate mar- can be seen strolling the hot country roads with their ket. A few still stand as empty shells awaiting redevel- children. I imagine them enjoying their midweek sum- opment. mer break, much as my mother did, with husbands and More than five hundred bungalow colonies existed fathers back in the city. ® in the 1950s and ’60s. Now about two hundred remain, some converted to co-ops. Seniors from Florida come Two Jewish couples are walking down the street, the men out for the summer, and some bungalows are occupied by front, the women a few steps behind. Lou says to Henry, “You’ve singles seeking less expensive alternatives to the got to go to the restaurant we went to yesterday. Great food, Hamptons or Fire Island. Most have been bought by great prices, wonderful service . . . ” Brooklyn’s haredi (ultra-Orthodox) communities; the “What’s the name of the place?” Henry asks. Lou claps his forehead. “Uh, let’s see . .. a flower.. , red... town of Woodboume, my old stomping grounds, has smells great. . . ” particularly been revitalized by their presence during “A rose? Are you talking about a rose?” the summer and early autumn season. During the week, “That’s it! ’’ Lou turns to the women. “ Rose, what was the name Hasidie women in long sleeves and opaque stockings of that restaurant we went to yesterday?”

14 Jewish Currents Survivors: A Memoir occupied eastern Poland — and his resistance to educational authorities R a l p h S e l ig e r concerning the 17th century Ukrai- nian Cossack leader Bogdan Chmel- ARELY ONE FOOT TALL, Rocky craned his neck a long way up to gaze nitsky. The Party line was to portray at you. He was a twelve-pound Maltese pooch, white except for red- Chmelnitsky as a proto-revolution- B dish brown paws with pink skin beneath, two big dark eyes, and a ary people’s hero, but Chaim taught handsomely protruding pinkish and black speckled snout. People often smiled broadly and remarked how It was the thick upper side of her arm she had cut, she explained, adorable he was as he pranced by. not the exposed veins of the underside. “How could they see this But I was not his first owner. The as suicide? I just wanted attention.” story of how we came together linked us to one of the greatest crimes in recorded history. unveiling of Chaim’s gravestone, the suppressed fact that Chmelnitsky On a spring day in 1997, my cousin eight years earlier. He was among my was also responsible for the slaugh- Binia phoned out of the blue and parents’ closest friends, but the rela- ter of tens of thousands of Jews. pleaded in her jagged, Polish-ac- tionship was periodically interrupted When the Nazis invaded the So- cented whine: “My Mashinka’s in the by some petty dispute, usually be- viet Union in the summer of 1941, hospital — St. Luke’s. Please take cause Binia imagined some affront Chaim and his father mistakenly de- me.” Binia is the octogenarian wid- or other. She was always difficult cided that there was little difference ow of my late father’s first cousin, company: ill-educated, opinionated, between the Nazis and the retreating Chaim. That made Marsha, their only vain and increasingly hard of hear- Soviets, so they stayed put. Chaim child, my second cousin. Baffled at ing. (I recall her refrain, asserting later fled to the forest, where he lived first, I soon understood that Binia rather than questioning, “Aren’t I as part of a small band of Jews who was now mentally incapable of ne- right, aren’t I smart?”) Their daugh- survived by their wits in a relatively gotiating the way from her place on ter would never socialize with us; inaccessible, swampy area. He 104th Street and West End Avenue Marsha would be cloistered in their learned that his father took poison in to the hospital, one and a half avenue apartment, said to be studying. Al- the cattle car en route to a death blocks east and nine blocks north. though secular, they proudly sent her camp. Chaim’s mother and sister also I escorted her daily for about a to Ramaz, a prestigious Orthodox perished. He rarely spoke of these week until Marsha got out of inten- day school, until she rebelled and things. sive care, and then for another few switched to a public school. I always liked Chaim (“Charlie” to days until she was discharged. In re- his employees at the two laundro- turn, Binia treated me to a light meal, I know nothing of Binia’s experi- mats that he owned and operated usually at Tom’s on Broadway — the ences during World War II but that with Binia). He was mild-mannered luncheonette whose facade was regu- she came from Poland and met and enjoyed discussing current larly featured on Seinfeld. Binia had Chaim after the war. He was from events in his unsophisticated way. been vague about what had almost the same Galician shtetl as my par- He loved sensationalist television killed her daughter, but I learned ents (whose tale as refugees and im- talk shows. I remember Chaim teas- from the hospital staff that Marsha migrants I related in “Genocidal Jeal- ing me gently about the political had taken an overdose of prescrip- ousy,” Jewish C urrents, April, weakness of the leftwing Zionist tion sedatives. It wasn’t entirely clear 2000). I remember him speaking of movement with which I am involved. that this was a suicide attempt (she his time in Soviet territory as a school In 1988, he suddenly came down with denied it), but it probably was. teacher — during the period of the a blinding headache, and succumbed We hadn’t been in touch since the Hitler-Stalin pact, when the USSR to a brain tumor within weeks.

RALPH S eliger, a member of our Editorial Advisory Council, is secretary I had missed Chaim's funeral and of the board of Meretz USA and editor of its publication, Israel Horizons. was tempted to volunteer to lead the

July-August, 2003 15 unveiling service at graveside, as I apartment and move back with her went to her apartment to feed Rocky had done for my father (it’s simple, mother, whose own decline and dif- and, when confronted by an irate really, and I own a copy of the man- ficult personality further under- neighbor about the dog’s frequent ual for Conservative rabbis). Wheth- mined Marsha’s health. barking, took him in for a few days er out of insecurity or laziness, I did Marsha was broken, physically as until Marsha was released. not volunteer, and a rabbi was hired. well as mentally and emotionally. The unveiling took place on a She had become obese, visibly rigid She called on occasion, usually warm day in June and I dressed up and slow. Only her brilliant blue eyes claiming to need cash, which she bor- for the first time in my cream-white remained of the beauty that was hers rowed with elaborate promises to re- summer suit and the dressy straw hat as a child. She had lost faith in her pay that never came true. She never that made me look Orthodox. We em- ability and all ambition to work explained why she ran out of money barked together in a funeral limo, again. She smoked heavily, bickered so early in the month when she had a Binia, Marsha, Brenda (an African- with her mother, saw her psychiatrist substantial Social Security Disabil- American, Marsha’s only close friend and took her medication and some ity income. since nursing school), and I. At Binia’s other substances (as I discovered She expressed a desire to get out insistence, we took the very entrance from bills from a hospital drug re- into the world, but was very fearful. to the immense Long Island cem- hab program). I now understood that when she etery that the rabbi had warned us to I again briefly broke off contact hadn’t socialized with me or my par- avoid. A handful of relatives waited with Binia when I realized that she ents, she had been not only studying with him, and he complained bitterly thought of me as her (i.e., Binia’s) but also manifesting social phobia. about our tardiness. My conscience boyfriend! I had grown suspicious She told me she wanted to do twinged for not having rendered this when she continued to invite me “something Jewish” and seemed de- rented rabbi unnecessary. without asking Marsha to join us, and lighted at my suggestion that we go Marsha looked good in a sort my perception was confirmed by a to Congregation B’nai Jeshurun of way. I remember being disap- phone conversation between my some Friday night to attend its very pointed when Binia dismissed me at mother and Binia (“I’m still a beau- vibrant and popular erev shabbos their building entryway as Marsha tiful woman, why shouldn’t Ralph service. Between my schedule and and Brenda trooped upstairs for cof- like me?”), and by an abashed Mar- her fears, we never made it happen. fee and a nosh. sha, once we resumed contact a I also offered to take her to my sis- couple of months later. ter’s family seder in Connecticut, and Once she was widowed, my mother Binia’s mental malady was soon when that proved too daunting for came to spend most of the year in made worse by physical decline. Af- her, I wangled a seder invitation from her Florida condo, and once Chaim ter being hospitalized, she was about a close friend in the neighborhood — was gone, we both avoided Binia’s to be discharged, with a 12-hour to no avail, as her phobia trumped company. I would studiously evade home attendant and her daughter in her desire. her notice as I occasionally spied her charge at night, when suddenly Mar- Impatient with Marsha and wary strolling, a picture of forlorn self- sha herself called me from Roosevelt of being used, I stopped calling. Re- absorption, on Broadway. Hospital’s psychiatric unit. Marsha turning to work after a July weekend, After Marsha’s discharge, how- had used a razor on her arm and then I found a voice mail from a physi- ever, I remained involved and gradu- expressed consternation that they had cian at Roosevelt Hospital, reporting ally learned the dimensions of the ca- hospitalized her under a suicide that Marsha had ingested some tastrophe left of both of their lives. watch. It was the thick upper side of methadone and was comatose and A year or two before, Marsha had re- her arm she had cut, she explained, brain dead. It was about a year since signed (or been dismissed) from her not the exposed veins of the under- I had first escorted Binia to St. job as a hospital nurse-administrator. side. “How could they see this as Luke’s. Marsha was 45. She then failed to find work in the suicide? I just wanted attention.” With some investigation, I pieced nursing profession in which she had Binia never returned home, but together the last days of her life. She practiced successfully for twenty was moved to a nearby nursing had had a boyfriend during that time, years. This forced her to abandon her home. In reponse to Marsha’s plea, I who stayed with her in that decay­

16 Jewish Currents ing, disheveled apartment. Visiting and standing vigil over the body) her mother at St. Luke’s, she’d been were required by the burial society Vinnitsa II apparently high on something and administrator, but first we had to M a r in a R u b in loudly complained about some as- figure out who was taking responsi- pect of her mother’s care. Some bility for the body and who would II Crow’s feet in rags hours later, she was taken to Roose- pay burial expenses. When no one of- 1|| measuring velt’s emergency room by the boy- fered, Binia’s financial guardian de- HI sunflower seeds friend, who disappeared. cided that it was appropriate to pay |j by the glass A friend of mine thoughtfully vol- from her estate. unteered to accompany me to the II Rom in gold coins apartment to gather up the dog. The I have read and re-read Helen Ep- II selling friend, who is very tall, would ride stein’s now classic study, Children of I■ lollipops shotgun for me in case we encoun- the Holocaust: Conversations with II and Czech bubble gum tered the boyfriend. Sons and Daughters (1979). What II at the Bus Terminal ill Rocky, Marsha’s pride and joy, especially resonates for me are the Balloons, used to hate me. He was very terri- images of parental overprotection II red ribbons torial and barked ferociously at visi- and children too guilt-laden to assert II and carnations tors, but was shy and fearful toward their independence. There is pressure II floating people outside his domain. When I’d for them to compensate for their par- in the river visit, his loud, incessant barking ents’ pain with “successful” lives, as I! a^ er would unhinge me; I’d run him into veritable nakhes machines. 11 the Great Socialist a comer and even scared him into Epstein notes that overprotective Revolution Parades losing bowel control a couple of parents may induce phobias in their times. But upon moving to my children by communicating in pow- II My grandmother, home that day, he bonded with me erful ways that the world is danger- a widow quickly. For nearly five years, he ous. I have already mentioned Mar- walking rarely left my side. sha’s social phobia. My own took the II across bridge Zamostansky While I was rescuing him, a worn- form of severe anxiety about eating II to meet an phoned to ask whether Marsha in social situations, which hindered II my grandfather and Derrick wanted to get together my ability to socialize and go out on a widower to socialize over the weekend, as they my own. In retrospect, I know that in 1945 had the week before. My tone grew this was a kind of “performance anxi- harsh as I informed her of Marsha’s ety” and reflected my deep emotional '11 Marina Rubin grew up in Vin- fate and tried to find out more about need to be “perfect” for my parents’ nitsa, Ukraine. She came to the this Derrick person. They all knew sake. It was not until my late thirties U.S. in 1989. Her poetry has ap- one another from “the program,” she that I overcame this disorder. 'II peared in numerous literary jour- said, but she claimed ignorance of 111 nals, and she is the author of a new other details. Her voice betrayed the By the spring of 2000, my mother Il collection, Ode to Hotels. emotional flatness one might asso- was no longer able to live on her own ciate with a history of drug use. I in Florida. I took her in and, with the urged the building’s super to change help of a day program for older had been residing. the locks and told him to expect a people with memory impairments, Binia unexpectedly passed away in call from the social service organi- hoped to sustain her. We experienced her sleep a few days before my zation that had been legally awarded a bad hot spell early in May, and she mother was admitted. My mother ex- financial guardianship of Binia. suddenly dehydrated. It’s astonishing pired a few months later, on the first Marsha had no funeral. A relative how quickly this problem sets in for day of Rosh Hashana. donated a plot, fortuitously near older people. She was hospitalized Rocky lived until the spring of this Chaim’s on Long Island. Some tra- and later moved into rehab at the year as the sole survivor of that un- ditional Jewish practices (washing same nursing facility where Binia fortunate little family. •

JULY-AUGUST, 2003 17 the U.S. Communist Party, he joined the staff of the Morgn Freiheit, its Yiddish daily. In 1934, he emigrated OUR SECULAR to the Soviet Union for good, with his wife and their ten-year-old son Vladimir. Talmy became an editor of propaganda-literature in English, published by the For- JEWISH HERITAGE eign Language Publishing House in Moscow. He was not involved with Jewish journalism, but in 1941 he did become active in the JAFC. Talmy’s son, Vladimir, was himself sentenced to a Yankl Stillman labor camp following World War II. Now 79, he has been living in the U.S. since 1980 and works as a Surviving Stalinism freelance translator in Washington. I interviewed him by e-mail. Some of the questions I asked refer to an An Interview with Vladimir Talmy article by Lisa Keys in the August 9th, 2002 Forward. I obtained much of the information about his father, he m onth of A ugust is a tragic one in Jewish Leon Talmy from the Leksikon fun der Nayer Yidisher history. It coincides with the Jewish month of Literatur {TheBiographical Dictionary of Modern Yid- Ab (or Ov in Ashkenazi Hebrew and Yiddish). dish Literature). TThe ninth day, Tisha b ,Ab (Tishe b ,Ov), falls on Au-The overall picture offered by Vladimir is that the gust 7th this year. It marks the destruction of the first USSR was neither an idealistic nor an ideological soci- temple in 586 BCE by the Babylonians, the second ety. The KGB persecutors, for example, didn’t care temple in 70 CE by the Romans, and the destruction of whether their assignments were unjust or cruel — they the rebelling Jewish armies led by Bar Kokhba in 135 just carried them out. Therein lay much of the corrup- CE — again by the Romans. tion of Soviet society. In modem times, a particularly tragic date for Jews • is August 12th, 1952 which JEWISH CURRENTS “tradi- J ewish Currents: Tell me about your parents and tionally” commemorates each year. On that day, thir- what kind of work they did. Did they speak Yiddish at teen Jewish cultural leaders, academicians, Commu- home, either here or in the Soviet Union? nist Party activists and bureaucrats were executed by the Soviets (out of fifteen accused, one of whom died V ladim ir Talm y: My father Leon Talmy’s given before sentencing). Their crime? - they were all mem- name was Lazar. [The original family name was Tal- bers of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee (JAFC), one mynovitsky - Y.S.] The last time he used that name, as of several such committees organized in 1941 “to cul- far as I know, was when he graduated from high school tivate Western support for the Soviet war effort,” ac- in Sioux City, Iowa, back in 1915. I don’t know what cording to Joshua Rubenstein in the Forward (August he did until he traveled to Russia shortly after the 1917 9th, 2002 — see Lyber Katz’s review in August, 2002 Revolution. There, in Kiev, he met my mother, whom of Rubenstein’s book, Stalin s Secret Pogrom.) he took back to the States in 1920. Around that time, he One of the fifteen was Leon Talmy. Bom in Sosno- joined the Communist Party here and worked as a jour- wiec in Poland in 1893, Talmy received a traditional nalist for the Morgn Freiheit, together with Moishe Katz kheyder and government education and later joined the and Paul Novick. My parents never spoke Yiddish at Socialist-Zionist Party. He emigrated with his parents home, and I don’t know a word except for khokem to the U.S. in 1912. They settled in Iowa, but then belayla which my father said meant “someone who is moved to New York. In 1916, Leon became secretary clever at night.” [While that is the literal translation, in of the territorialist publication Undzer Vort (Our Word). actual usage it means “an idiot” - Y.S.] After the February, 1917 revolution, he returned to J.C.: When you and your parents arrived in the Soviet Russia, worked on Yiddish periodicals there and came Union in 1934, were they interested in having you at- back to the US in 1920. Here he edited the monthly tend a Yiddish shule there? Oyfboy (Constmction), organ of the Russian-Jewish So- ciety to help Victims of Pogroms. An early member of V.T.: My parents, being non-religious, secular and com­

Jewish Currents munist, had no interest in my attending a shule, either V.T.: I did not encounter any meaningful personal or in the U.S. (where I started out in public school) or in institutional anti-Semitism during my life in the Soviet the Soviet Union, where I attended an “Anglo-Ameri- Union until I applied to leave for good, in 1978. Even can” school until 7th grade (it was closed during the then, the problem I faced was one of “loyalty” — how 1937 purges) and then went on to a Russian school. come I, a Party member, wanted to give up my mem- J.C.: What was your father’s job? bership and leave the USSR permanently. (I had joined the Party in October, 1947, having been a “candidate V.T.: My father worked as a Russian-English transla- tor at the Foreign Language Publishing House in Mos- cow. He was not involved in Yiddish journalism even “One of the main reasons for my arrest and for when there was a Yiddish newspaper in Moscow, al- thousands of others, Jews and non-Jews though he may have sent some items to the Freiheit. alike, was that the KGB, like every other J.C.: You were 17 when the Germans attacked the Soviet institution, had to report doing its duty USSR in 1941. Did you serve in the Red Army? and fulfilling its plans.” V.T.: I served from June, 1942 (when I was 18) until December, 1947, when I was arrested. I was enrolled member” for a year and expecting to be a career of- in an army-engineers officer school until November, ficer. If you wanted to advance in the army, Party mem- 1943, when I graduated as a junior lieutenant. I was bership was a virtual requirement.) assigned to frontline duty as commander of a sapper As far as I know, there never was any institutional platoon on the Soviet Union’s western front (opposite anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union in the sense of “by the towns of Orsha and Vitebsk in what is now decree.” On the other hand, in some agencies and insti- Belarus). There, in February, 1944, I stepped on an tutions there were restrictions in the hiring of Jews, anti-personnel land mine and spent the next four whether generally or by percentage. Again, as far as I months in a military hospital, mostly in Moscow. Af- know, such restrictions were never written down or in ter being discharged from the hospital in June or July, any way recorded, which is probably why I have never 1944, and still being with a limp, I was enrolled in the seen any printed document actually confirming “decreed Military Foreign Languages Institute (since I knew anti-Semitism” in the Soviet Union. This is not to say English). In August, 1945, without having graduated that anti-Semitism did not exist, being pretty much in- from that institute, I was assigned as translator/inter- grained in the Russian psyche. It was obviously applied preter to the Soviet Military Administration in Berlin. in the 1940s and ’50s. However, it never affected me in There, I was translator/interpreter on the Soviet side any significant way, up to and including my arrest. Af- of the Economic Directorate of the Allied Control ter all, my co-defendant Lev Shevtsov was one hun- Council for Germany. dred percent ethnic Russian. J.C.: Did you attend a civilian university in the Soviet J.C.: Can you mention a few examples of agencies and Union later? institutions that restricted the hiring of Jews? Also, you V.T.: I graduated from the Moscow Institute of For- say that anti-Semitism is pretty ingrained in the Rus- eign Languages, with a major in teaching English, sian psyche. Did you experience it as jokes or wise- though I have never taught English and worked most cracks about Jews, as curses and name-calling, or worse? of my life as a Russian-English/English-Russian trans- V.T.: Unwritten restrictions existed in various forms in lator and interpreter. Actually, since I already knew various agencies and often depended on who was run- English, I enrolled (after I returned from prison camp ning the agency at any particular time. Such restrictions in 1955) only because it would have looked odd for increased gradually over the years, especially after the my employers to have a staff translator without any end of the war in 1945. I would guess that the restric- higher education. tions were most prevalent in the KGB, the MVD, some J.C.: Did you encounter anti-Semitism in school, in branches of the military, and higher government ech- the army, at work? If yes, what was its nature? Was it elons, although there were some Jews even up there. personal or was it institutional, i.e., by decree? Regarding my own experience, I can’t say I was ever JULY-AUGUST, 2003 19 discriminated against on the job. I may have been called have to serve the same term no matter what. Similar zhid [“kike” —Y.S.] a few times on the street. Regard- charges were leveled against anyone they wanted, and ing jokes, they were generally regarded as just that — you didn’t have to be foreign-born or Jewish for that. jokes — by most people, Jews included. Actually, it After all, the total number of people arrested, and who was Maxim Gorky, I think, who once commented that were executed or died in the gulag, greatly exceeded Jews were more prone to tell Jewish jokes than anyone the total number of Jews who lived in the Soviet Union. else. J.C.: Could you describe how you were interrogated? J.C.: When you were demobilized, what kind of work Was there physical or psychological intimidation? Was did you do? there a trial, civilian or military? Did the interrogator V.T.: I wasn’t demobilized - 1 was arrested. or the judge appear to be convinced of your “guilt”? J.C.: According to Lisa Keys’ report, you were ar- V.T.: During the first month in jail, interrogations were rested in 1947, at age 23, because you were foreign conducted daily, or rather nightly, from about eleven bom. Were other foreign-bom veterans arrested also? p.m. to four a.m.. Then I would be taken back to my Did you suspect it might be because you were Jewish? cell, where I was all alone for that first month. Get-up time was six a.m., and you were not allowed to lie down V.T.: When I was arrested in 1947, I suspected that on the bunk until ten p.m. Sleep deprivation, of course, having been bom in New York did play a role, although had a basic mental-psychological-physical impact. I was my co-defendant Shevtsov was bom in backwoods not subjected to any physical torture or such things. Russia, so that probably wasn’t the main reason. The trial was by military tribunal — three colonels Shevtsov was arrested in Berlin on the same day I was, —and closed to the public. I have no idea whether they December 5th, 1947, although I didn’t leam about it or my interrogator were convinced of my guilt, though until later. He was a lieutenant-colonel and my imme- I suspect they were not and didn’t care. What the law- diate superior. I know nothing about any other foreign- and-order system needed was to apprehend, charge, try bom veterans or even if there were any. In my opinion, and sentence as many people as possible to demonstrate one of the main reasons for my arrest and for thou- to the authorities that the KGB personnel were work- sands of others, Jews and non-Jews alike, was that the ing hard and doing their job. KGB, like every other Soviet institution, had to report doing its duty and fulfilling its “plans.” In other words, J.C.: Can you describe your treatment in the labor if the KGB weren’t arresting anyone they wouldn’t be camp? You were there from 1948 to 1955, a period dur- doing their job. After all, the KGB had to have a rea- ing which Stalin died (1953) and Jewish cultural fig- son for its existence. ures were arrested and executed. Was there a differ- My interrogator, Major Barminov, for example, had ence in the way they treated Jews in the camp before to demonstrate to his superiors that he was capable of and after Stalin died? making his defendant talk and “confess his crimes,” V.T.: My sentence was twenty-five years. Other veter- otherwise he would be rated as an incompetent inter- ans were sentenced, both similarly and differently, to rogator — and so on, up the ladder. terms ranging from three to twenty-five years in labor J.C.: You were accused of spreading anti-Soviet pro- camp, on charges from being AWOL (absent without paganda. Did they offer any proof? official leave) to high treason. A serviceman in Ger- many having sex with a German woman could be V.T.: I was accused of being an American spy, of high charged with high treason and sentenced accordingly treason (“betraying the Motherland,” in their jargon), (and he didn’t have to be a Jew). I was treated in camp of spreading anti-Soviet propaganda, of divulging state like everyone else — no worse and no better. There secrets. There was no proof of any of this, except for were several other Jews in my camp, and they too were what the KGB interrogator was able to wheedle out of treated like everyone else, both before and after the ar- me in one way or another (I told him a few political rest and execution of the members of the JAFC — an jokes to provide him with data) or concoct on his own event not announced in the camp. and have me sign — which I did, knowing that I would

20 JEWISH CURRENTS J.C.: Where was your camp? What kind of labor did then he, too, had been posthumously exonerated. you do? Were you in a section with veterans, or was it a mixed population? Was the food adequate? Were J.C.: How did you find out that your father had been books available? In brief, how did it compare to arrested, since you were arrested before he was? Were Solzhenitsyn’s “Ivan Denisovitch” — better of worse? you able to send and receive personal mail? Was there any “special treatment” of you as a Jew? V.T.: My labor camp was located in southwest Sibe- ria, almost on the border with Mongolia, about fifteen V.T.: While in camp I was able to send and receive miles from a mining town and railway station called mail as well as food parcels. I was also visited twice by Temirtau, south of the city of Novo Kuznetsk. This was my mother. The first time was just after the arrest of a lumber camp, so the labor was cutting down trees my father who was supposed to come to visit me. My and stacking timber. Work lasted eight or nine hours a mother told me he didn’t come because he had suf- day, six days a week. Initially our camp consisted al- fered a stroke. I thought that was the case until the end most entirely of veterans, because our trainload of about of 1952, when he was executed and my mother was a thousand prisoners, with sentences ranging from three exiled to Siberia — because she was the wife of my to twenty-five years, arrived straight from Torgau, Ger- father. Afterwards, I received a letter from one of my many, where we had all assembled from different parts aunts describing what had actually happened. Three or of the Soviet zone of Germany. [I suspect that these four months later, Stalin died and things began gradu- veterans were arrested because they had been stationed ally to change. My mother was released shortly after- in the “West” and had therefore been exposed to “cor- wards, in mid-1953, even before the exoneration of the rupting” influences. — K.S', j The food was initially pretty JAFC. lousy, but gradually became adequate. Books were J.C.: You were in your late teens during the war. Did available. There was a so-called “cultural-educational you know that your father was active in the Jewish Anti- center” and we even had a band for certain occasions. I Fascist Committee? eventually learned to play the trombone. So I would say we were about the same level as Ivan Den-isovitch. V.T.: My father was never really active in JAFC, work- ing as he did in Soviet Inffomation Bureau. Some of J.C.: Was there a post-Stalin review of your sentence? his friends were active, like Shakhno Epshteyn, who Were you exonerated? died before the others were arrested. V.T.: While in camp, I wrote sixteen appeals for re- J.C.: Did the USSR make any attempt to compensate view of my sentence and received fifteen responses say- you or your mother for the anguish caused you? ing that I had been charged and tried justly. Changes began after Stalin’s death in 1953. In 1955, in response V.T.: The only compensation received for all that hap- to my sixteenth appeal, my sentence was reduced to pened was restoration of full legal rights and status, time spent in the camp, i.e..to sevenwith and provision a half years, of rental quarters in Moscow, one room which freed me from the camp but left me with a crimi- for my mother which she shared in an apartment with nal record. When I got home, I wrote two new appeals another family — the fairly common “communal apart- in rapid succession, and on the second appeal I was ment” system all over the Soviet Union. When I got completely exonerated. All my rights were restored, and out of camp, I was also provided with a room of my I was given two months discharge pay and one year of own in such a “communal apartment.” monthly payments as a discharged veteran. J.C.: Was your release in 1955 associated with the ex- J.C.: After your exoneration, was there any kind of oneration of the JAFC victims or was the timing coin- apology and any reparations by the government? cidental?

V.T.: There was an apology of sorts. My medals were A. My release was associated solely with the death of returned, I was reinstated in the Communist Party, and Stalin and the review of virtually all political and mili- I got a job as a translator at the Soviet Information Bu- tary cases that followed it. It was in no way associated reau where my father had worked until his arrest. By with the JAFC. ■

July-August, 2003 21 ‘sports.’ ” In all cultures, furthermore, there is division of labor between men and women, “even in a culture where everyone had been committed REVIEWS to stamping it out, the Israeli kib- butz.” Cultures nevertheless change and evolve. Pinker notes that “slavery, punishment by mutilation . . . infan- Human Nature and Leftwing Politics ticide as a form of birth control, and the legal ownership of women has G e o r g e J o c h n o w it z vanished from large parts of the world.” Cultures, in fact, change The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature, by Steven Pinker. Viking, New York, 2002, 509 + xvi pages, $27.95. more rapidly than living organisms do. The point is simply that humans teven Pinker defines “the a major role in who we are and are genetically programmed to pro- Blank Slate” early in his book that “differences in intelligence, sci- duce evolving cultures, rather than as “the idea that the human entific genius, sexual orientation, and solely being the product of their cul- Smind has no inherent structure andimpulsive violence are not entirely tures. “Culture,” Pinker writes, “. . . can be inscribed at will by society or learned.” is not some miasma that seeps into ourselves.” He begins his last chap- Genes determine the fact that we people through their skin. Culture ter by saying that the Blank Slate was have cultures: “Bands, clans, tribes, relies on neural circuitry that accom- “an attractive vision,” as it promised and other social groups are central to plishes the feat we call learning.” a perfectable world inhabited by lov- human existence and have been so ing, sharing and peaceful souls. But for as long as we have been a spe- Long before Pinker began writing as Pinker’s book makes very clear, cies,” Pinker writes. What is geneti- about the Blank Slate, his fellow fac- the Blank Slate was a false vision of cally linked, he continues, is not spe- ulty member at MIT, Noam Chom- human beings, and those committed cific cultural traits but the human pro- sky, professor of linguistics, wrote a most to it tried to make the false real pensity to live in groups, form soci- courageous and extremely important by introducing totalitarianism into eties, and build on the experiences review of B. F. Skinner's book, Ver- the world. Echoing Hannah Arendt, of those societies. And just as some bal Behavior Skinner, a behaviorist Pinker reminds us that “Nazism and people are more intelligent than oth- and therefore a believer in the Blank Marxism shared a desire to reshape ers, “some cultures are more success- Slate, argued in his book that lan- humanity.” (We must add, however, ful than others”— yet all are alike in guage was learned through rewards that when it came to the Jews, the a number of ways. For example, and punishments, positive and nega- Nazis did not believe in the Blank Pinker writes, with some mischief, tive reinforcement. Skinner’s behav- Slate; they did not believe Jews could “in all cultures, [people] take plea- iorism was but one example of the be reshaped but had to be killed.) sure in thinking about killings, if we wide acceptance of the Blank Slate Pinker is a professor of cognitive are to judge by the popularity of theory. Chomsky’s review appeared science at the Massachusetts Insti- murder mysteries, crime dramas, spy in the journal Language in 1959, tute of Technology. He has written thrillers, Shakespearean tragedies, when Chomsky was merely 30 and books about language, the mind and biblical stories, hero myths, and epic not especially famous. It demolished the ability to leam. His approach is poems.... People also enjoy watch- Skinner’s theory and foreshadowed Darwinian; he argues that genes play ing the stylized combat we call Chomsky’s career as a proponent of the view that language is innate. G eorge Jochnow itz is professor emeritus of linguistics at the College of Pinker acknowledges Chomsky's Staten Island, CUNY, with a specialty in the dialects of the Jews of Italy and influence in his writing about lan- southern France. guage and the mind. Chomsky, he

22 Jewish Currents reminds us, “has been the most vo- differences in IQ scores. Pinker a few months. IQ-shmlQ: There cal defender of an innate cognitive points out that “IQ testing was wel- should be no such thing as a low- endowment.” Yet Pinker is a liberal, corned by the British left as the ulti- prestige profession. Of course, this while Chomsky is a leftist. Pinker mate subverter of a caste society egalitarian desire may itself defy feels that leftists, like rightists, may ruled by inbred upper-class twits,” some hierarchical aspect of human engage in destructive behavior be- and goes on to say, “If social justice nature. The kibbutz tried to introduce cause they reject science in favor of consists of seeing to the well-being the idea that all work is equally re- dogma: “The belief on the left is that of the worst off, then recognizing spectable. It failed. For years, Israel human nature can be changed at will, genetic differences calls for an active employed Arab workers, and now and the belief on the right is that redistribution of wealth. Indeed, employs guest workers from Thai- morality rests on God’s endowing us though Hermstein was a conservative land and elsewhere to do the jobs that with an immaterial soul.” The two and Murray a right-leaning libertar- a Jewish mother wouldn't like her nevertheless share many ideas con- ian and communitarian, they were not children to do. Still, the democrati- ceming genetics and evolution.

Pinker also writes about two related Now that we have learned a great deal about DNA and the effect views of human nature: the “Noble Savage,” the belief that culture itself, of genes on behavior, we have less reason than ever to deny in its more advanced forms, corrupts human nature. However, a number of Pinker’s assertions about human beings from their innate no- human nature remain controversial and debatable. bility, and the “Ghost in the Ma- chine,” the idea that the body and soul are separate entities. The writer opposed to simple redistributive mea- zation of job status can at least be en- most associated with the “Noble Sav- sures such as a negative income tax couraged through non-coercive eco- age” concept is Jean-Jacques Rous- for the lowest wage earners, who play nomic measures (for example, liv- seau (1712-1778), who lived long by the rules but still can't scrape by.” ing wage legislation) and education. before Skinner and antedated Karl It is nice to know that Pinker be- Marx. The “Ghost in the Machine” lieves in the well-being of the worst Feminists, says Pinker, believe in is linked by Pinker to the writings of off, but does he really believe that dif- the Blank Slate. Indeed, Bella Abzug Rene Descartes (1596-1650), who ferences in wealth are the result of denied the existence of differences antedated Rousseau by more than a genetic differences? What about the between men and women and said century. role of inherited money and inherited that gender equality meant equal All three theories are facets of the privilege in helping children of numbers of men and women in ev- same misunderstanding of humanity, wealth to maintain and expand their ery field: “Fifty-fifty —absolutely.” says Pinker, and have been around wealth? Pinker, needless to say, disagrees. so long that people should have The whole idea of IQ testing masks But just as differences in IQ should known they were false. Now that we a much greater problem, which is the not interfere with efforts to end in- have learned a great deal about DNA lack of respect for all occupations as equality, he writes, we should recog- and the effect of genes on behavior, necessary and requiring special nize that there is “no incompatibility we have less reason than ever to deny skills.Opponents of IQ testing seem between the principles of feminism human nature. However, a number of to have accepted the idea that every- and the possibility that men and Pinker’s assertions about human na- body can and should be a lawyer or women are not identical.” ture remain controversial and debat- some other type of professional. It I was delighted by the chapter of able. would be more realistic to democra- the book entitled “The Arts.” I, for tize popular perceptions of some jobs one, have always felt that the West- He defends, for example, Richard as “low-status.” The 9/11 terrorist at- em music composed between 1600 Hermstein and Charles Murray, au- tacks produced such a change in per- and 1900 is the best music in the thors of the extremely controversial ception, as firefighters and police of- world, appreciated by people of any book, The Bell Curve, about racial ficers were especially appreciated for and every background who have a

JULY-AUGUST, 2003 23 to listenBen— to it. When I go to — -־ nmmchance ׳׳ Two Jews, Three Views m1111- Other perspectives on Steven Pinker’s The Blank Slate: concerts, however, I often have to lis- ten to a 20th-century or even 21st- From The Skeptical Inquirer, May-June, 2003: century work. Critics and program- “One can think that there is a human nature — the Non-Blank Slate — mers think they have to teach the au- without thinking that science now knows what it is — the Full Slate. . . . dience to love modem music. Agnosticism about the Full Slate is all the more advisable at present be- Pinker blames the idea of the Blank cause so much of the relevant science is immature. . . . Slate for his — and my — problem “It is curious, therefore, that after making a powerful case for the Non- with such music: “Modernism and Blank Slate, Pinker devotes nearly half of the book to quite specific (and postmodernism cling to a theory of controversial) positive claims about altruism, morality, violence, gender perception that was rejected long ago: roles, rape, art, and much else. In these sections, we are assured of the that the sense organs present the brain naturalness of numerous traits, including sexual orientation, women’s de- with a tableau of colors and sounds sire to be with children, men’s tolerance for danger and risk, the taste for and that everything else in percep- risky sexual liaisons and infidelity, representational realism in art, and so tual experience is a learned social on. This is . . . a substantive account of our nature that goes well beyond construction.” The scheduling of the basic supposition of a universal evolved psychology.” works in the name of “educating the —Austin Dacey public” is indeed an example of Blank-Slate thinking. So is the sup- From The Observer, September 15th, 2002: pression of certain kinds of music, “. . . Stalin didn’t inflict his misery because he believed in the Blank as, for instance, when I was in col- Slate; he did it because he was a tyrant who merely grabbed the first doc- lege (1954-58) and the college radio trine that came his way, just as Hitler misappropriated the ideas of Dar- station banned rock and roll. win. . . “We do need to understand our complex, innate natures. . . . However, I would like to venture a theory for we need that awareness not to give free rein to our innate propensities, but which I have no concrete evidence: to allow us to leam how best to control their worst excesses.” that the richest and most productive —Robin McKie cultures are those where there is little corporal punishment. In a community From the Los Angeles Times, September 29th, 2002 ' in which parents regularly beat the “If the theory of the blank slate is no longer tenable, must democratic hell out of their children, poverty is theory collapse with it? ... Part of Pinker’s mission is to repeat that there the rule — to say nothing of violence. is no inescapable correlation between facts and human value systems, good Pinker, however, believes that chil- or bad. . . . Darwin’s theory of natural selection was, in important ways, dren are more influenced by their irrefutably right. Yet its perversion, so-called social Darwinism, did not peers than by their parents. His views follow logically from it. Natural selection... is not a warrant for genocide on raising children are his most ex- . . . Pinker presents an unanswerable case for accepting that man can be, treme: “All those differences among as he is, both wired and free. Genes do not determine how we use our parents and homes have no predict- minds, only the kinds of minds we have.” — Frederic Raphael able effects on the personalities of From the Guardian, September 21st, 2002 their children. Not to put too fine a point on it, but much of the advice “The trouble begins when [Pinker] starts to tell us how to understand from parenting experts is flap- [human] nature, now that we can believe in it again. . . . He sees his fa- doodle.” Parents matter little, he be- vored doctrines as science ... He offers them as the only proven theories, lieves, because the effect of the genes contrasted with primitive, disorganized ‘intuition’ which is all anybody is more powerful than that of the en- has used until now. . . . But cognitive science and evolutionary psychol- vironment. ogy are not physical sciences that could make this sort of claim. Though “Childrearing,” he continues, “is they use data from more detailed sciences, they are themselves part of above all an ethical responsibility. It social science — particular interpretive schemes . . . ” —Mary Midgley is not OK for parents to beat, humili-

24 Jewish Currents ate, deprive, or neglect their children, ment in The German Ideology, Marx what has not been done before and because those are awful things for a proclaimed, “In communist society communicate these innovations to big strong person to do to a small . . . where nobody has an exclusive posterity. Human language must be helpless one.” This doesn’t go far area of activity and each can train designed to produce sentences that enough: Pinker writes as if he had not himself in any branch he wishes, so- have never been said before, which heard of traumatic familial experi- ciety regulates the general produc- can happen because languages have ences and their destructiveness. tion, making it possible for me to do processes to augment the lexicon and 66Do you sound like your parents, one thing today and another tomor- the grammar — i. e., because they are or like the people you grew up with?” row, to hunt in the morning, fish in designed to change. he asks. Most of us sound like the the afternoon, breed cattle in the In an earlier book, The Language kids we grew up with, especially if evening, criticize after dinner, just as Instinct, Pinker states that human be- our parents were immigrants, as mine I like, without ever becoming a ings are programmed to learn to were. In equally telling ways, how- hunter, a fisherman, a herdsman, or speak. He tells us that The Language ever, I was like my parents and not a critic.” I read this as a denial of the Instinct was deeply influenced by my peers: I shared my parents’ leftist fact that human beings differ in their Chomsky, who asserted that “chil- politics and my parents’ commitment talents and capacities and as a rejec- dren must be innately equipped with to Zionism. During the election of tion of the fact that we are all unique a plan common to the grammars of 1948, most of my friends thought I individuals. all languages, a Universal Grammar.” was weird for supporting the candi- To my mind, the world needs a new That is why children can leam, and dacy of Henry Wallace. type of socialism that rejects the leam perfectly, something as vast and I didn’t leam to oppose Marxism Blank Slate and celebrates human complicated as a language. Chom- until I lived in China, in 1984 and in variety, including variety in political sky convinced linguists all over the 1989. Only then did I realize how thinking. Nevertheless, while I reject world that we are designed to leam a Communism leads to starvation, as Marx’s analysis, I preserve my par- language — but then he apparently happened during the forced collec- ents’ values, their concern for human went further: According to an article tivization of the peasants in the USSR welfare and their pride in being Jew- by John Searle in the February 28th, and is happening in North Korea to- ish. Parents have values, often reli- 2 0 0 2 New York Review of Books, day. Indeed, the worst famines of the gious or political, which they pass on Chomsky believes that “concepts 20th century took place in commu- to their children. Genes and peers expressed by words like 6carburetor’ nist countries; the most costly fam- matter, but so do parents. and 6bureaucrat’ must be innately ine that ever took place anywhere known by every child, and that leam- happened in Chairman Mao's China As a professor emeritus of linguis- ing the meanings of the words is just between 1959 and 1961, when 35 tics, I was disappointed that Pinker a matter of applying labels to con- million people died, during which nowhere links cultural development cepts the child already has.” China continued to export grain (see to linguistic change. Pinker fails to challenge this non- Jonathan Spence, The Search for If the capacity to develop culture developmental view. He asks the im- Modern China). This catastrophe re- is part of the genetic heritage of hu- portant question, 66Why aren't babies suited from the calculated policies of man beings, and if these cultures are bom talking?” and conjectures that a Marxist regime: Chairman Mao going to change and perhaps even the answer has to do with brain size forced all Chinese people to turn in improve, human language skills must and other developmental factors. I all their iron products to make steel be designed to change. New cultures, would have hoped for him also to in their 66backyard furnaces,” and the inventions and knowledge all require point out that linguistic change and farmers ended up with no tools. new words. In fact, linguistic devel- the capacity to keep up with it Marxism has consistently rejected opment is a prerequisite for human through learning are prerequisites for human individuality and sought co- survival. Without fangs, claws, armor human development. Bees, for ex- ercively to change human nature. No or the ability to run very fast, we have ample, can tell other bees how far political philosophy has ever been survived because it is in our nature from the hive, at what angle from the more closely linked to the idea of the to invent and use tools, develop spe- sun, and at what angle from the Blank Slate. In a well-known state­ cialized skills and divide labor, do ground they must go to find flowers

JULY-AUGUST, 2003 25 in bloom. As far as we know, bees I sincerely hope Pinker will explore The Blank Slate is “an attractive vi- are bom hard-wired with this lan- the link between linguistic change sion,” as Pinker says, but “it is not guage. Therefore, their language and cultural development in one of true.” Believing that human nature can’t evolve to include new concepts his future books. can be created anew has led to the — such as telling their fellow bees gulag and the Inquisition. There have that the source of nectar is on a bal- To build a just society, to the extent been many brutish regimes in history, cony on the fourth floor. (The angle that it can be built, we must be hon- but ideology combined with brutish- from the ground may be insufficient est about human nature yet commit- ness leads to an extreme level of hor- information for finding flowers on a ted to satisfying human needs wheth- ror. Pinker has done us all a service building constructed by humans.) er or not people have equal talents. by reminding us of these facts. ®

The Abel Meeropol Centennial “the best song of the century,” inspired L e o n a r d L e h r m a n David Margolick’s acclaimed book Strange Fruit and Joel Katz’s 2002 NEVER KNEW Abel Meeropol (1903-1986), but his works, mostly writ- award-winning documentary film of ten under the pen-name Lewis Allan, have been a part of my con- the same name. sciousness longer than I can remember. He had been a librettist of my 1teacher and mentor, Elie Siegmeister All three o f these experts were pres- (1909-1991). Yet the scope of Meer- ent at the Abel Meeropol Centennial opol’s work only became clear to me Celebration at Queens College Feb- when I attended a December, 1986 ruary 23rd, 2003, which I organized memorial to him in Ardsley, New under the auspices of the Friends of York. A reading there of his poem, the Queens College Library and the .inspired me to set it Aaron Copland School of Music ״,Conscience“ to music. Fifteen years later, that set- Also present were Abel’s two chil- ting won the first composition com- dren, Michael and Robert (the or- petition of the Brookhaven Arts phaned sons of Ethel and Julius Council and was performed by or- Rosenberg) and their families, along chestra and chorus at the Bald Hill with Aaron Katz, Henry Foner, and Amphitheatre in Farmingville, Long other members of the National Com- Island. mittee to Reopen the Rosenberg The People s Songbook, which ap- Case. Copies ofMeeropol's 1969 col- peared in 1948, includes his 1939 anti- lection of poems, The Eye of the Abel Meeropol, circa 1945. lynching classic, “Strange Fruit.” Of- Boston University Library Storm, were offered in exchange for ten misattributed to its most famous contributions to the Rosenberg Fund interpreter, Billie Holiday, the poem on or after November 13th, 1938 (as for Children. Hundreds more of his first appeared, as “Bitter Fruit,” in the has been documented by Nancy poems, songs, and libretti are housed January, 1937 issue of New York Teach- Kovaleff Baker). The result, which in Boston University’s Special Col- er. Meeropol began setting it to music Time, on December 31st, 1999, called lections. Included in the program, per- Leonard Lehrman is Director of the Metropolitan Philharmonic Chorus formed by four soloists and the Met- and the Oceanside Chorale, Laureate Conductor of the Jewish Music The- ropolitan Phiharmonic Chorus, were ater of Berlin, and Co-Founder of the Elie Siegmeister Society. His works, three ofMeeropol’s own songs, in my including ten operas, have been heard throughout North America, Europe, arrangements, and his collaborations Australia, and Israel (Website: www.artists-in-residence.com/-ljle). with Herbert Haufrecht (whose three

26 JEWISH CURRENTS children were also present), Earl delbaum and this writer, respectively. together from recollections and cor- Robinson (“The House I Live In” — Siegmeister was represented by six respondence in the archives, which the best of their numerous efforts) songs, four of them world premieres, includes a heartrending plea for rec- and Kurt Weill (the anti-Hitler song and excerpts from his first opera, onciliation that Siegmeister wrote “Inventory”). There were also ex- which was also Meeropol’s first li- Meeropol in 1975. cerpts from operas that Meeropol bretto, Darlin ’ Corie. Shortly after With the cooperation and encour- wrote with Robert Kurka, Lehman the work’s 1954 premiere, Sieg- agement of Michael and Robert Engel, Elie Siegmeister, and Martin meister and Meeropol began collabo- Meeropol, I set to music Abel’s very Kalmanoff, who was also present. rating on a one-act opera based on first draft of the Chekhov opera, The earliest Meeropol writings Chekhov’s play The Boor. It went which he called The Wooing. It cli- represented, dating from the 1920s, through eight drafts, but the project maxed the centennial event, which were the poems “Renunciation” and fell apart when the FBI began harass- was recorded and has been released “Sonnet to [his wife] Anne,” set to ing Meeropol and the Rosenberg on CD by Original Cast Recordings music for the occasion by Joel Man- sons. The details can only be pieced on OC 6055. ■

Jewish-Palestinian Conflict On Stage

J o s e p h D im o w

IXTEEN WOUNDED is a dramatic new play that had its world premiere at New Haven’s Long Wharf Theater in February. Judging by the s audience reaction when I saw it, the play will be heading for New York and regional theaters soon. Don’t miss it. Mahmude is ordered to par- The play opens on a Jerusalem street, where we meet Mahmude ticipate in an attack on an (played by Omar Metwally) and his Amsterdam synagogue. Will uncle. Mahmude is being sent to he or won’t he? Amsterdam, where he plans to hide from the Israeli secret police — why, we will find out later. mude is contacted by his uncle and caught in the contradictions of our In Amsterdam, he meets Hans, an ordered to participate in an attack on times. elderly Jewish baker (played by Mar- an Amsterdam synagogue. If he does, In addition to Landau and tin Landau, the well-known film ac- the Israelis will sooner or later get Metwally, three more actors round tor, in a rare stage appearance). With- him; if he doesn’t, the Palestinians out the cast. After each performance, out knowing much about him, Hans who ordered the action will get him. the theater arranged a discussion offers Mahmude a job as an appren- Will he or won’t he? The title of the period for audience and cast. I at- tice, and much of the action and dia- play comes from a report on the tended two such sessions, in which logue revolves around their develop- bombing. the most common reaction seemed ing relationship as they leam to see to be a feeling that the Israelis and each other as both an enemy and a The playwright, Eliam Kraiem, is a Palestinians are caught in a cycle of friend. In this love/hate relationship Jew in Amsterdam who took several violence and revenge from which they exchange accusations and de- years to write the play, his first. For they cannot find a way to break out. nials, both political and personal, fill- a young man still in his twenties, he Sadly, the same can be said about a ing the scenes with dramatic tension. displays enormous sensitivity to the number of other conflicts around the The climax comes when Mah- emotions of his characters, who are world.

JULY-AUGUST, 2003 27 ing for letters, faxes and e-mails to Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell in support of the Road Map. ₪ T H E JEWISH The largest Jewish lobbying organization, the Ameri- S can Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) has so far refrained from taking a direct stance on the Road M com hunity Map but called on the new Palestinian prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas (aka Abu Mazen), to be a “partner for peace” and “confront the terrorists.” AIPAC presi- JOSEPH DlMOW dent Amy Friedkin and executive director Howard Kohr also signed a letter to Bush that drew attention to the Road Map’s endorsement by top Jewish communal First Steps on the Road Map to Peace leaders and supported the President’s commitment to Cautious optimism seemed a reasonable response to the Road Map and its goal of two states. The letter was the beginning fits and starts of Israeli and Palestinian circulated in Congress. Also signing were David Har- response to the Road Map to Peace. On May 25th, un- ris, executive director of the American Jewish Com- der pressure from the Bush administration, the Israeli mittee, Edgar Bronfman, and some forty others. Cabinet accepted the Road Map “with reservations” by On May 14th the Israel Policy Forum (IPF), which a twelve to seven vote, with four abstentions. The Pal- counts among its members several of the fourteen pre- estinian Authority had accepted the plan, as offered, a viously mentioned philanthropists, described the Road month earlier. In late May and early June, a wave of Map as “under high tide” and warned that inaction be- Palestinian terror bombings against Jews and Israeli cause of the resurgence in suicide bombings would only assassination attacks against Palestinians put great stress allow the tide to “keep rising.” IPF also organized a on the nascent peace process, but at this writing, the letter from one hundred Democratic donors and activ- Bush administration has stuck with its plan. ists urging the party’s nine presidential contenders to American Jewish reaction has varied. In April, four- back the Road Map. teen well-known Jewish philanthropists — some of them current or past heads of major Jewish organiza- What about opponents? With the Sharon government tions — signed a letter urging Congressional leaders to reluctant to oppose the Road Map openly and disrupt support the Road Map to provide “Israel with a distinct its close ties to the Bush administration, Sharon sup- opportunity to escape the bloody status quo” of the past porters were largely holding their fire, but with emo- three years. Signatories included Edgar Bronfman, tions boiling. The chairman of the Conference of Presi- president of the World Jewish Congress, Stanley dents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Chesley (OH), Lester Crown (IL), Irwin Field (CA), Mortimer Zuckerman, called the plan a “road map to Alex Grass (PA), Mimi Haas (CA), Arlene Kaufman nowhere” in his column in U.S. News and World Re- (MD), Marvin Lender (CT), Judith Stem Peck (NY), port, which he owns. Malcolm Hoenlein, executive Karen Shapira (PA), Alan Solomont (MA), Joel Tau- director of the Conference, was calmer, but called for ber (MI), Peggy Tishman (NY) and Larry Zicklin (NY). the Palestinians to “stop terrorism before Israel moves In a joint ad in the Forward April 25th, four groups forward.” on the progressive wing of the Zionist movement (La- Blunt as usual in his open opposition was Morton bor Zionist Alliance, Meretz USA, Habonim Dror and Klein, president of the Zionist Organization of America. Hashomer Hatzair) praised the Road Map as an “im- Klein fumed that the map would “lead to the creation portant” and “pivotal” step in “moving towards a per- of a Palestinian Arab terrorist state” and said he planned manent and just peace for both parties.” In May, Ameri- to mount a protest rally in cooperation with the Chris- cans for Peace Now (APN) ran a Forward ad stating tian Coalition. In another of its regular ads promoting that the map “can help Israelis and Palestinians return a rightwing perspective on Israel, FLAME (Facts and to the path of coexistence.” APN and Brit Tzedek Logic about the Middle East) said the Road Map is a v’Shalom, the Jewish Alliance for Peace and Justice, “suicide pact” for Israel and that “there will be no two- sent urgent e-mail alerts to members and contacts call­ state solution.”

28 Jewish Currents Among the religious movements, Rabbi Eric Yoffie, Tikkun magazine, held a National Teach-In to Congress president of the Union of American Hebrew Congre- June ls,-4'hin Washington, D.C. Speakers included Con- gations (Reform), spoke out in strong support of the gressional Representatives Dennis Kucinich and Bar- Road Map. The Orthodox Union, unwilling to differ bara Lee, and activists, writers and intellectuals includ- with Bush, has not spoken out in opposition but is ex- ing Deepak Chopra, Susannah Heschel, Rabbi Michael pected to do so; one Orthodox leader, Mandell Ganch- Lemer and Cornel West. row of the Religious Zionists of America, noted that “One reason the Peace Movement has not been more supporters of the Road Map are “not Bush’s friends” effective,” Tikkun said in a pre-conference statement, and expressed hope that activists of the Christian Right “is that it has not taken seriously the legitimate fears of would persuade the President to oppose the creation Americans after 9/11, or the legitimate fears of Israelis of a Palestinian state. in light of acts of violence against Israeli civilians. Be- cause it has not come up with a vision of security that A Call to Bring the Settlers Home could speak to these fears, the Peace Movement has been unable to counter the Right’s seemingly self-evi- Implementation of the Road Map would require a dent solution that the path to peace is to wipe out the freeze on any further Israeli settlement activity in the bad people (e.g., Saddam Hussein or Hamas or Islamic Occupied Territories and the dismantling of at least Jihad). The Tikkun Community Conference and Teach- some of the existing settlements. While opposition to In to Congress is the place [for] developing that alter- this is fierce among religious hardliners in Israel and native peace-oriented vision . . .The first [task] is to the U.S., accomplishing the goal may not be as diffi- support the Road Map against attacks from the AIPAC cult as some think. Polls done by Peace Now in Israel and self-described ‘pro-Israel’ forces. The second show that as many as seventy-seven percent of all set- [task]is to show the deficiencies of the Road Map and tiers would be willing to move back to Israel proper if build support for specific outcomes that will be endorsed compensated. from the start in the U.S.” With that in mind, Brit Tzedek v”Shalom, the Jew- ish Alliance for Peace and Justice (BTvS), has launched Rabbi Sherwin Wine Retires a “Call to Bring the Settlers Home to Israel” (see their ad on p. 39), a petition drive that calls on the U.S. to At the end of June, Rabbi Sherwin Wine, the founder “urge the Israeli government to reverse its . . . finan- of the Society for Humanistic Judaism (SHJ), retired cial inducements” to settlers and “redirect those funds” from the Birmingham Temple in Farmington Hills, to compensate those willing to return. The campaign Michigan that he founded in 1963. “Wine, 75,” wrote urges bringing the settlers home “for the sake of Israel’s Marsha Low in the June 11th Detroit Free Press, “ . . . security” and quotes David Ben-Gurion arguing for has been labeled eccentric, iconoclastic, rebellious, in- Israel’s “morality.” tellectual and courageous. He’s built a movement that The campaign was launched with an op-ed piece by began with eight metro Detroit families into a world- Marcia Freedman, BTvS president, in the May 2nd For- wide one with an estimated 40,000 members. And after ward and in other papers. Ads seeking signatures on four decades at the epicenter of controversy, he’s set to the petition and contributions for building the campaign step beyond the spotlight.” Wine will be succeeded by were published in the Forward, the Nation, the Con- Rabbi Tamara Kolton, 34, who in 1999 became the first necticut Jewish Ledger and several other periodicals. person ordained as rabbi by the SHJ. These ads carried endorsements by an impressive list The SHJ, which publishes Humanistic Judaism, dif- of rabbis, academics, writers and community leaders. fers from many other secular Jewish organizations in On May 13th, the campaign was written up by the Jew- its model of synagogue-based communities with rab- ish Telegraphic Agency. binic leadership. There are thirty-two affiliated congre- gations as well as organizational arms in Canada and Tikkun Community’s Mideast Teach-In Israel. The International Institute for Secular Humanis- tic Judaism is the movement’s intellectual and educa- The Tikkun Community, an organizing project of tional arm and has offices in Detroit and in Israel. ■

JULY-AUGUST, 2003 29 Two Long Island butchers recently challenged New York State’s kosher laws by objecting to their reliance F f f f lM AROUND on Orthodox standards, as opposed to the standards of other branches of Judaism. Finding for the plaintiffs, the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that THE WORLD the law, which was passed in 1915, improperly in- volved government in religious matters. On February 24th, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an ap- Lyber Katz peal of this decision — in effect confirming the un- constitutionality of New York’s kosher laws ( ATHOME and State, April, 2002). “According to the U.S. Department of Labor/9 re- ported Rachel Pomerance in the Baltimore Jewish Under the headline, “Strikers Invoke Passover in Times April 18th, “more than two million jobs were Kosher Eatery Action,” the Forward April 18th reported lost in the last two years. That amounts to a greater a labor action against the Box Tree, a high-end Man- job loss than any experienced during the recession of hattan steak house. The new owner, Moshe Lax, has rid himself o f. . . unionized workers,” wrote Nacha“ ־the early 1990s, when not much more than one mil lion jobs were ever cut.” Jewish social service agen- Cattan, “who had been working there for more than a cies are therefore “finding themselves inundated with decade under the previous ownership.” Representa- tives of the Jewish Labor Committee, the Workmen’s ־new demands, from requests for psychological coun seling to assistance for basic needs.” Many of the Circle, Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, United newly unemployed are highly skilled workers from Hebrew Trades and Congregation B’nai Jeshurun high-tech and service industries, and the agencies “are joined the picket line of some 70 mostly black and facing a double challenge — serving a larger, higher Hispanic members of Local 100 of the Hotel and Res- -taurant Employees Union. “At times” the event “re ־skilled clientele at the same time that government fund ing has been slashed.” (Jews are among the clientele, sembled a model seder more than a picket line,” Cattan but the Jewish agencies, which receive some federal noted. “Many traded shouts of se puede! — the funding, serve all communities.) In Los Angeles, for Cesar Chavez-inspired mantra meaning ‘Yes we can! ’ example, Jewish Vocational Services expects a cut of — and ‘Dayenu, ’ the Passover seder refrain loosely $750,000 from its $5.5 million budget. Pomerance translated as ‘Enough.’” Rabbi Michael Feinberg, ex- noted that the toll of unemployment is more than fi- ecutive director of the Greater New York Labor-Reli- nancial: “Career counselors note the emotional insta- gion Coalition, told the crowd that the “story of Pass- bility and depression that accompanies joblessness.” over is rich with imagery and meaning for Jews and for all of us involved in organized labor,” and led in The New York-based Jewish Outreach Institute (JOI) the reading of a specially prepared Haggada that in- reported in April that of all U.S. marriages involving eluded “classic seder songs such as ‘Once We Were a Jew, fifty-seven to sixty-six percent are intermar- Slaves,’ as well as a twist on a famous tune, ‘Let My riages. According to an April 28th Jewish Telegraphic People Work.’” Agency (JTA) report, Jewish leaders are sharply di- vided in their reaction to this trend. Rabbi Kerry During early May there was a rash o f fires set at re- Olitzky, JOI executive director, said: “Interfaith mar- ligious institutions in Southern California, including riage is not the end of Jewish continuity — not raising the Iranian Synagogue, Da’at Torah Educational Cen- Jewish children is. . . . The challenge is not necessar- ter and Valley Beth Shalom in the Los Angeles area. ily in the rate, the challenge is in the response.” Un- Most people initially assumed that these attacks were fortunately, the Union of American Hebrew Congrega- hate- or terrorism-related, but, as Tom Tugend of JTA tions (Reform), which pioneered outreach-to-inter- reported on May 11th, the arrested suspect is Farshid marrieds programs twenty-five years ago, responded Tehrani, a mentally disturbed Iranian Jew who came to budgetary pressures by cutting them early this year. to the U.S. sixteen years ago. “The fears engendered

30 JEWISH CURRENTS by the arson attacks,” Tugend wrote, “motivated con- May 7th: A former senior secret police official, she wrote, gregations and people of all faiths to come closer revealed that he had hidden a seventh-century Talmud through meetings and gestures of support.” in the basement of his headquarters. An American “Mo- bile Exploitation Team” (MET) was informed, but since ABROAD their mission is “hunting for proof of unconventional weap- Spain: The Spanish Catholic establishment, in an at- ons in Iraq, not saving cultural and religious treasures,” tempt to combat “rampant secularization and plum- they hesitated to investigate. The MET commander finally meting levels of church attendance,” is pushing for the decided that “the historic Talmud was too valuable to canonization of Queen Isabella, according to an April leave behind,” Miller continued, so the squad arrived 27th JTA report by Jerome Socolovsky. “The Catholic at the bombed-out building and found a flooded base- Queen will be canonized,” said Archbishop Braulio ment room from which they retrieved bundles of Jew- Rodriguez at an April 22nd gathering of Latin Ameri- ish books, but no seventh-century Talmud. They did can ambassadors in Madrid. “Isabella is an ideal can- find a map of Israel marked with assumed locations of didate for sainthood because she is a good example SCUD missile hits during the 1991 Gulf War, and “a for Spanish Catholics today” and because she “was perfect mock-up of the Knesset . . . as well as mock- instrumental in spreading the Christian faith through- ups of downtown Jerusalem and official Israeli build- out Latin America and . . . advocated ideals, such as ings in very fine detail. They also collected a satellite the abolition of slavery, that today would qualify as picture of Dimona, Israel’s nuclear complex, and a fe- human rights.” Socolovsky noted that Rodriguez male mannequin dressed in an Israeli Air Force uni- failed to mention that “Isabella’s policies were noth- form, standing in front of a list of Israeli officers’ ranks ing less than genocidal, leading to the destruction of and insignia.” (See Russ Baker’s challenging of Judith indigenous cultures in Latin America and the expul- Miller’s reliability as a war reporter in the June 23rd sion of Jews from the Iberian Peninsula.” (Socolovsky edition of The Nation.) himself failed to mention the expulsion of all Mos- lems from Spain, for which Isabella was also respon- Russia: The decision by a Russian court to allow use sible.) The queen also helped establish “the Inquisi- of “a controversial school textbook [ Fundamen- tion, which condemned heretics and ‘ Judaizers’ to tor- tals of Orthodox Culture]that Jewish and human rights ture or death in the infamous auto-da-fe, or burning at groups say contains anti-Semitic passages” stirred de- the stake.” A proposal for Isabella’s beatification, the bate in the Jewish community about the introduction of reporter noted, was first made in the 1950s “during the religion in Russian public schools. As reported by Lev church-supported dictatorship of General Francisco Krichevsky in JTA March 30th, “the textbook, which Franco.” About the current effort, the Spanish newspaper was recommended for use by a joint panel of experts El Mundo commented that the “worldwide Jewish from the Ministry of Education and the Russian Ortho- lobby, which apparently has much influence in the dox Church, argues that Jesus died because the Jews Vatican, doesn’t look favorably” on Isabella’s beatifi- were obsessed with ‘earthly well-being and power over cation — a “widely held view” in Spain about the Jews, other peoples’ rather than spiritual values.” Sad to say, according to Socolovsky. both of Russia’s chief rabbis ignored the anti-Semitic history of the Orthodox Church and welcomed the court Iraq: The uncontrolled looting following the U.S. oc- ruling. Rabbi Berel Lazar stated, “To me, there is no cupation of Baghdad was widely reported in the press, doubt that a religious component in education is needed but there was almost no coverage of acts of bravery in to fill a vacuum of ideology left after Communism.” resisting lawlessness. The Forverts April 16th men- Peter Shelish, a Jewish member of Russia’s parliament, tioned that Muslim neighbors of the Jewish Commu- held a more enlightened view: “To teach religion at pub- nity Center had chased away several looters intent on lie schools is destructive for society. The question is breaking into the center, and a number of young Iraqi not even about how Jews and other minorities are treated men had protected the Jewish quarter, including a syna- within the framework of such a course. There is a dan- gogue, from mob attacks.... Judith Miller, N. Y. Times ger that such a step would change the secular nature of Baghdad correspondent, reported a bizarre story on our schools.”

JULY-AUGUST, 2003 31 Letters sions of thanks by others. ate Resnick’s trenchant analysis as AL WALLACH well as the guts of JEWISH CUR- (Continued from page 2) Walnut Creek, CA R E N T S’ editors for printing the con- Christopher Hitchens rightly calls troversial, contrarian account. “Islamo-Fascism.” Are two genera- Carol Jochnowitz replies: STEPHEN G. BLOOM tions enough to wipe out the memory Iowa City, 10 I am prouder than I can say to ac- • of what the Abraham Lincoln Bri- cept Al Wallach’s gift, the more so gades and the partisans actually because the “hard work” for which When it comes to French anti- stood for? Perhaps you consider he wishes to recompense me was Semitism, Sid Resnick prefers to fo- Woody Guthrie a militarist for me- never less than one of my greatest cus on the empty half of the glass morializing American sailors in the joys. And, needless to say, I am instead of the part thaf s full. I rely song “Reuben James,” or the Jewish thrilled that he should want to inspire heavily, although not exclusively, Brigade to have been imperialist others to thank me similarly. May I upon the New York Times. since it fought for Britain. You be- suggest that if anyone is so minded, Resnick notes that violent attacks tray the memory of the great and they do so by making a gift to the on Jews in France are basically from noble Jewish left, from the Bund to Development Fund in my name? the Arab immigrant community and the kibbutzim, by pretending that lib- Knowing that the future of JEWISH not from ethnic French people. They erty and justice can be won without C U R R EN TS had been made a little bit are also not fomented by government a fight. more secure would be money in the agitators, as in a pogrom, nor do they M a r t i n J. G id r o n bank to me. rise to the deadly and genocidal level Salisbury, MD confronted by Jews during World War II. The Editorial Board Replies: G e r d a L e r n e r What is reported by the Times, Our editorials about the U.S. war Esther Holt wrote a fine review of however, is a trivialization of and in- against Saddam Hussein have ac- Gerda Lemer’s autobiography (“An difference to incidents against knowledged the obviously murder- Activist Scholar Examines Her French Jews that apparently does not ous nature of the Iraqi dictator, but Life,” March-April issue), but she disturb Resnick. There is the ex- Mr. Gidron’s fear of a “second left out a bit of information that ample of a child who, upon reveal- Shoah” seems overblown when com- should be of great interest to your ing his Jewishness in connection pared to assessments offered even by readers. In 1954, Lemer wrote the with a relevant lesson in class, is sud- U.S. hawks before the invasion, and text for a revue, Bread and Roses denly subjected to weeks of physi- to the weak Iraqi military capabili- Too, sponsored by the Emma Lazams cal and verbal abuse by previously ties revealed by the war itself. We do Federation, celebrating 300 years of friendly Muslim classmates. When not believe that “liberty and justice Jewish life in America. the parents request action by the can be won without a fight,” but nei- BENNETT MURASKIN school against the attackers, they are ther do we believe that liberty and Parsippany, NJ advised to seek another school for justice (or homeland security) can be their child. won through a Pax Americana of pre- During a massive anti-war rally F r e n c h A n t i -S e m it i s m emptive military actions and weak- recently, two participating young- ened international cooperation. I want to congratulate and thank sters from the socialist-Zionist you for publishing Sid Resnick’s Hashomer Hatzair youth movement trail-blazing article, “Anti-Semitism were beaten by fellow marchers. C a r o l ’s R e t i r e m e n t in France: Facts and Exaggerations,” This prompted Aurelie Fillippett, a Enclosed is a $25 check made out in the May-June issue. It’s easy to spokesperson for the Paris branch of for and to Carol Jochnowitz for her blame the French for everything the French Green Party, to write a hard work for “some twenty-five these days, but it takes the soul and letter to the left-wing daily Libera- years” to help maintain JEWISH skill of a dedicated journalist to get tion suggesting that the left condemn C U R R E N T S . I hope it will start a to the bottom of an opportunistic anti-Semites in its ranks. Fillippett, stream of similar material expres­ disinformation campaign. I appreci­ not herself a Jew, also had the temer­

32 Jewish Currents ity in her letter to state that Zionism community in France continues to essentially means supporting the be active and prosperous”? right of Israel to exist and that “we, There is not as much hypocrisy in In Memory of the left, are all pro-Palestinian Zion- European attitudes towards Israel as Our Brothers ists.” The London Jewish Chronicle Seliger claims. Some of us remem- reports that she has been subject to ber when the same Western European HENRY STEINBERG ridicule, threats and abuse from fel- countries in which strong anti-Shar- (1912-1979) low Greens and others due to this on sentiment exists today were once public declaration for tolerance. most supportive of Israel. Successive and Resnick might read Shalom Lap- Israeli governments, by brutally pin’s article in the left-wing Ameri- quashing the Palestinian struggle for NORMAN BROWN can journal, Dissent (“Israel and the independence and by expanding (1912-1983) New Anti-Semitism,” Spring 2003). Jewish settlements inside Palestinian Lappin reveals the disparity and hy- territory, completely destroyed this who dedicated their lives pocrisy in European attitudes that ob- formerly friendly attitude. sessively condemn Israel for its real to building a better world but relatively small-scale transgres- for all humankind. sions while having tolerated more PACIFISM than 200,000 civilian deaths from In his comprehensive essay on ethnic cleansing operations in the “Pacifism and Secular Values” (“Our Balkans — with much of the left op- Secular Jewish Heritage,” May-June Sam and Sophie Brown posing belated U.S.-led actions to issue), Mitchell Silver discusses end the conflict— and largely ignore Camarillo, CA pacifism and just versus unjust wars 90-100,000 deaths (mostly of inno- and finds very few examples of the cents) in Chechnya. just kind. Of the war against Hitler, Contrary to what Sid contends, in- he writes that it was “probably a good cidents of anti-Semitism in France In Memoriam fight,” and of the Warsaw Ghetto and other parts of Europe are signifi- Uprising, he says it “certainly was” MATHILDE cant in number and on the rise. just. My question is, what reserva- Ralph Seliger GORDON tions does the author have that pre- New York, NY vent him from fully categorizing the (July 1,1907—March 25, 2003) war against the Nazi regime just, and Sid Resnick replies: why has he no problem with the Life Subscriber That some Jewish children were Ghetto Uprising when it was so in- Widow of long-time harassed or beaten by Arab school- extricably linked to the former? Is Editorial Board member mates is indeed painful, but should there any doubt as to who created the Max Gordon this be considered representative of conditions that caused desperate Jewish life in France today? people to fight back? (Full disclo- Mother of David Gordon, Is it not more significant that anti- sure: I lost my whole family in the Nicholas Gordon and Semitism is at its lowest point within Warsaw Ghetto.) Patricia Lamanna. the ethnic French population, that the Surprisingly, Dr. Silver completely Marriage Counselor and French government opposes anti- ignores the Spanish Civil War, Associate Professor Semitism and promises a better job viewed by many historians as a pre- of Education at protecting Jews from Muslim im- lude to World War II, as a probable migrant extremists, or that the example of a just war. at Pace University American Jewish Congress mission Finally, a general observation: Dr. Her love and her enthusiasm to France last year, despite its aware- Silver’s article discusses war in terms for life will be sorely missed ness of some police failures to pro- of moral values. Unfortunately, most tect Jews, declared that “the Jewish wars are fought for political and eco- JULY-AUGUST, 2003 33 nomic reasons. When bullets begin Soviet, Japanese, German and other fighting and whether some of their to fly, moral values tend to fall by civilians were killed, there were mili- murderers would die with them. the wayside. tary casualties in the millions, The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising is the his- ISAK ARBUS nuclear weapons were developed and torical example that prevents me New York, NY used, and countless other horrors fol- from embracing absolute pacifism. lowed in its wake. Would worse have happened had the allies not fought Mitchell Silver replies: SCIENCE AND ECOLOGY Hitler in 1939? I think so. That’s why Isak Arbus raises points that I sus- I say it was “probably” a good fight. Thank you for “Nuclear Power and pect bothered many readers of my But I’m not certain. Maybe without Humanist Values” (“Religion and article. I want to emphasize that, as I the cover of war the Nazis’ murder- Skepticism,” May-June issue). As an do think that WW II was “probably” ous plans toward Jews would have old engineer and a columnist on pro- a good fight, I don’t want to be in- had slower implementation, and in- fessional ethics for an engineering terpreted as condemning it, but only ternal politics would have over- society publication, I find it impor- as questioning it. I should not, how- thrown the regime before millions tant to differentiate between the roles ever, be taken as even questioning were killed. Maybe without war, of science and technology, although the goodness of the cause devoted to Hitler would have settled for killing the boundary between the search for the overthrow of Hitler and fascism. hundreds of thousands of Jews and knowledge and its application may I’ve not the slightest doubt of the jus- expelling the rest to Siberia. These be fuzzy at times. Not only their roles tice of that cause, only of the justice would have been great horrors, but differ, but also their susceptibility to of the means to pursue it. not as great as what actually hap- societal control. The direction of Those doubts are grounded in the pened. The events of WW II were so technology is heavily dependent on stark facts —WWII was fought, and bad that plausible better scenarios are tax incentives, patent law, direct sub- here is what happened: 6,000,000 at least imaginable. And remember, sidies, etc. Nuclear power, for in- Jews were murdered, the cultural I’m only questioning warring against stance, would be a dead duck with- homeland of Ashkenazic Jewry was Hitler, not organized resistance out the Price Anderson Act [which destroyed, tens of millions of Polish, aimed at his overthrow. limits liability for accidents — Ed.]. In the Spanish Civil War, again By contrast, a great deal of science there is no question of the justice of has always been done by individu- In Memory of the Republican cause. But what were als or small groups with minimal re- DAVE KIRSHBAUM the actual results of the fighting? sources. Galileo had a few lenses, (November, 1917— April, 2003) Thirty years of fascist rule in Spain Pasteur had a microscope, Einstein which only ended with Franco’s had his imagination. The difference He worked all his life for death, not to mention the boost the has to be kept in mind if we want to human rights, social justice war gave fascism in Germany. How influence the future. and peace. can one not question the justice and We can’t put the genie back into His legacy of struggle wisdom of fighting the Spanish Civil the bottle. Not only is the knowledge for human betterment War, a war that nothing good came here to stay, but so are some of the still goes on. of, nothing beyond the pride taken consequences, e.g., the current world Our heartfelt sympathy in standing up to evil? (And that’s a population. Ironically, technology’s to his family. good that can be achieved by less most severe impact on the balance bloody means.) of nature has been due to modem Leita and Sam Beck My certainty regarding the War- medicine and sanitation. If we want Sophie Fischer saw Ghetto Uprising is based on my to opt for “deep ecology,” we might Esther Furash inability to imagine how not fight- start by eliminating the disinfection Ruth Pinkson ing, at that point, could have made of drinking water. By banning that Tom, Ilsa and Briane Pinkson for a better outcome. The Warsaw evil chlorine, we could reenact the Edith and Leon Malkin Jews were doomed. The only ques- epidemic of the 14th Century and tions were whether they would die have the population down to a num-

34 Jewish Currents We mourn In loving memory M azel Tov of our dear friend the untimely death of JUDITH SEID our loving and devoted KATHLEEN (KITTY) WINSOR on receiving husband, father, (February 28,1927—March 4, 2003) the Fourth Annual father-in-law and She was a wonderful, loyal, Moishe Katz Award grandfather generous friend, LLOYD M. STEMPEL avid environmentalist, We honor you for (July 9, 1934—April 25, 2003) peace and civil rights activist, your many publications advocate of progressive on Secular Judaism Jewish causes. A special person and your Her commitment and actions who will always have lifelong commitment will always inspire us. a special place to secular Jewish education We will always remember her. in our hearts.

Ethel Seid Daisy, Franklin and Jesse Klein A fighter for peace Teibl Barach Martha Kransdorf and a former camper Moses Gates and her many friends and worker at an Rivka Gates extraordinary place Debby Seid called Wo-Chi-Ca. Shoshana Seid-Green I. J. MORRIS inc. Ilan Seid-Green Jewish Funeral Directors David Gates Marion Jenn Ruben 1-800-624-8282 M ichael and Sheryl Micah Gates Brooklyn Queens Manhattan Tom Green Andrew and Katherine Nassau Suffolk Westchester Ya ,el Seid-Green Talia Florida Ruthy Seid Sasha FDIC Insured Pre-Need Plan ber that could be adequately fed while social science departments are without agricultural chemicals or living on crumbs. New technologies L u n c h e o n C o c k t a il s genetic engineering! can lead to a lot of grief if we don’t D in n e r s The real problem we face right put equal effort into anticipating and now is that we’re revving up our sci- preparing for their social impacts. entific/technological engine while GILBERT BENDIX our humanistic engine is barely Kensington, CA idling. Syngenta, the Swiss agricul- tural firm, is currently pumping $25 STEAK HOUSE A greenhorn sitting in a park on shabbos million into just one science depart- spots another Jew reading a Yiddish news- < J 25 M a in S t r e e t ment of the University of California paper and puffing on a big cigar. “America R o s l y n , L o n g I s l a n d 11576 at Berkeley, and I’m sure this behav- ganetr cries the greenhorn. “Here, even the (516) 621-0055 ior is repeated at universities all over, goyim read Yiddish!”

JULY-AUGUST, 2003 35 In loving memory of HONOROLL for those who have given $25 or more to JEWISH CURRENTS HERB KATZEN Through May 22, 2003 (June 13,1920 - March 16, 2003) Ruth Resnick Johnson, Hamden, CT Judith Seid/David Gates, Towson, MD ($30) ($90) Herb exemplified the best Joe Tolciss, Forest Hills, NY ($30) Charles Bayor, New York ($35) Marion/Lloyd Stempel, Baltimore, MD Dr. Emanuel S./Shirley Goldsmith of the human spirit. Naomi Resnick Schwartz, Providence, RI ($100) “in honor of Lawrence Bush” ($50) Doris/Seymour Griss, Jamaica, NY As a student at City College Benjamin Wainfeld, M.D., New York, ($50) of New York, he fought the NY ($100) Sylvia Oshypko, New York Rapp-Coudert Committee’s Herb Hammer, Los Angeles, CA Emily/Harold Sosnow, Hamden, CT Milton/Estelle Bogad, Arcadia, CA ($40) attacks on civil liberties. Miriam Rosenstein, Maplewood, NJ Muriel Goldring, Brooklyn, NY ($50) Frances/Peter Marcuse, Waterbury, CT “in memory of hero, Ben Goldring” In 1947, Herb supported efforts to ($50) Pauline Lyons, Ccfrona, NY ($35) establish the state of Israel, Lotti Tobler-Berenson, Judith Rosenbaum, Brooklyn, NY ($50) Croton-on-Hudson, NY Bennett/Ellen Muraskin, Morris Plains, but later came to regret the Frances/Robert Kleiner, Elkins Park, PA NJ ($36) violation of Palestinian Rickie Roth, Pittsburgh, PA Jacki Steiner, Norwalk, CT human rights. June Brumer, Oakland, CA ($50) Melinda/Maurice Kaplan, Bronx, NY Si Spiegel, Briarcliff Manor, NY ($100) Nettie/Sherry Farber, Bronx, NY ($50) In the 1950s, although a victim of Victor Chechanover, Petaluma, CA Martha Harris, Roslyn Heights, NY George Rubman, New York ($40) ($35) McCarthyism himself, he fought Ann/Bob Grogg, Winchester, VA ($150) Arlene/Sid Resnick, Hamden, CT ($50) against the victimization of others, “in memory of A. Bernard Magil” Elaine/Lyber Katz, Bronx, NY ($100) Terry/Sam Sadin, New Hyde Park, NY Susannah R. Juni, New York, NY including the Rosenbergs. “in memory of Abe Magil” ($200) Stefi Kirschner, Livingston, NJ ($100) Wayne Roberts, New York, NY ($35) Throughout his life, Milton A. Drexler, Stamford, CT Richard Sussman/Ellyn Rabinowitz, Herb participated in every struggle Sherry Schnall, Los Angeles, CA ($100) Nyack, NY ($36) for peace and justice. Timothy F. Harding, Santa Barbara, CA Gert/Harold Hirschlag, Fort Lee, NJ ($50) ($50) Herbert Zola, New York, NY ($250) Eve Jochnowitz, New York, NY ($50) We love and miss you. Lynne M. Nelson, Deerfield Beach, FL Renata Singer, New York, NY ($100) Herbert Ostroff, Bala Cynwyd, PA Prudence Spodek, Champaign, IL ($36) Wilfred Lumer, Greenwich, CT ($100) “in memory of Yetta Farber” Doris, Beth, Joanne, Jack/Mattie Rudinow, Santa Rosa, CA Anna and Elias Pachter, Camarillo, CA Barry and John Rabbi Mordechai Liebling, Philadelphia, “in memory of Yetta Farber” PA ($36) “in honor of Larry Bush Sally Jo Weisberg, Seattle, WA becoming editor” “in memory of Yetta Farber” Helga K. Bilik, Cabin John, MD ($100) Sylvia/Joseph Morrison, Camarillo, CA The Management Committee Alfred Knobler, New York, NY ($65) “in memory of Yetta Farber” Irene Steinberg, West Orange, NJ J. Shane Plummer, Philadelphia, PA and Staff wish “in memory of ‘Dudle’ David ($100) Bernstein” Mariane Kulick, Delray Beach, FL a complete recovery Rubin/Frances Weinstein, Delray Beach, Marion/Lloyd Stempel, Baltimore, MD FL ($60) “in embrace of our dear “in memory of Yetta Farber” to dear friend and choral director, Alfred Knobler, New York, NY ($130) Dudle Bernstein” Ida/Sol Kirsch, Great Neck, NY ($45) JACK BILANDER, Anne Foner, New York, NY Dr. S.J. Yellin, Menlo Park, CA ($30) artist extraordinaire, Edith Ball Waddell, Arlington, VA Alan S. Glassman, Lancaster, PA “in memory of Abe Magil” ($100)“in memory of his cousin, who has, over the years, Emma Ruchames, Long Beach, CA Eileen Hops Moore” William Hough, Falls Church, VA ($50) Judith Smith, Cambridge, MA ($26) contributed a treasure trove “in memory of Yetta Farber” (Incomplete; to be continued) Blanche Bogdanoff, Los Angeles, CA of drawings, etchings and more ($50) Ed/Pat Moser, Roosevelt, NJ ($35) to J ewish Currents for :Date Totals־to־Lillie Pope, Brooklyn, NY Year M/M Harold Goldberg, our annual raffle Monroe Township, NJ Contributions $ 27,032 and other purposes. M/M David Balk, New York, NY ($36) New Subs 152

36 Jewish Currents For GEORGE HOLT on your 80th Birthday Congratulations and admiration for a terrific !

From wife, Estelle Children, Lenore and Michael Grandchildren, Sean, Aaron and Amy Great Grandson, Cooper In-laws, Sid and Arlene Nieces and Nephews and Grandnieces and Grandnephews, Naomi and Stanley, Rebecca, Ezra and Ben; Ruth and Roger, Gabe, Ahna, David and Eugene

HILDA SCHMELTZER In Loving Memory PARGAMENT (January 23,1913 - April 5, 2003) of YETTA FARBER A Yiddishist (1912—2003) A fighter for the underdog A very witty woman She was a devoted follower

of J e w is h C u r r e n t s She was a warm, caring and nurturing soul who gave openly to those close to her. She was a much loved wife, mother, grandmother and great-grandmother She was a great friend and mother who will be missed.

Frances and Paul The Farber and Families

We support and grieve with our dear friend FRAN PARGAMENT on the loss of her mother and friend

HILDA PARGAMENT

Dr. Joshua and Susan Fried Poughkeepsie, New York

JULY-AUGUST, 2003 37 J e w is h C u r r e n t s B e q u e s t s t o J e w is h C u r r e n t s .. T h a n k s o u r n e w l if e subscribers !

INCE THE BEGINNING OF 2003, we have re- ceived new Life Subscriptions (at $300 each), T from the following readers: growth. Esther Cohen and Peter Odabashian From the Estate of JUDITH BADNER New York, New York we received $14,000 on January 3rd. Michael Darcy and Lenore Holt-Darcy Ms. Bader was a resident of California. Chicago, Illinois Miriam Gittelson, Flushing, New York From the Estate of ESTELLE TAMBAK Margaret Goodman and Jack Nachamkin we received $10,000 on March 17th. Glen Mills, Pennsylvania Ms. Tambak, a Life Subscriber, “in honor of Paul and Ana Shane” was a resident of New York. Nicholas Gordon, Fort Lee, New Jersey Seymour and Pearl Graiver, Bayside, New York We urge our readers to remember JEWISH CUR- Dr. Lynne Ivy Portnoy,Voorheesville, New York r e n t s in their estate planning. Call our counsel, Paul Pete and Toshi Seeger, Beacon, New York Shneyer, at (212) 595-7575 for more information. In addition, the following readers have sent in $100

contributions to update their Life Subscriptions to F r o m T h e P u f f in F o u n d a t io n , LTD . . . the current $300 rate: Jack G. Levine, North Hollywood, California we received a $ 1,000 grant on May 8th Sid and Arlene Resnick, Hamden, Connecticut to help sponsor our new “Mameloshn” Edith and Lionel B. Davis feature of Yiddish poetry, which pre- Minneapolis, Minnesota miered in our May-June issue and will Si Spiegel, Briarcliff Manor, New York appear in the centerfold three times a year. We thank Puffin and its founders, We thank these activist-readers for their strong Perry and Gladys Rosenstein, for their showings of support and wish them happy and continued strong solidarity with our healthy reading — biz 120! magazine.

O u r D e v e l o p m e n t F u n d . . . J e w ish C u r r e n t s C ongratulates is paying for direct-mail subscription appeals for our Fditorial Advisory Council members Jewish C urrents that have already boosted our growth rate by 200%. We are seeking to rent mail- and long-time contributors ing lists of active Jewish schools, fraternal organi- ANNETTE T. RUBINSTEIN zations, reading circles, political organizations and and other likely sources for potential new readers (no list is too small to be of use to us). We are also HENRY FONER seeking special contributions to the Development for receiving the Fund to sustain and expand this important out- Marshall T. Meyer Risk-Taker Award reach work. The Development Fund is fueling our from Jews for Racial and Economic Jus- future! Please invest in it. Contact our editor, Lawrence Bush, at (845) 626-2427, babush@ tice ulster.net. on June 4th in New York City.

38 JEWISH CURRENTS a C A L L T O BRING t h e SETTL RS H O M E t o ISRAEL We are American Jews who care deeply about Israel and who are filled with sorrow by the continuous cycle of violence and death in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. We call upon the United States government to embrace an initiative which can break through the present stalemate, create a new opening for a negotiated settlement, safeguard the lives of Israeli settlers and remove a major obstacle to peace. ^

Partial List o f Signers Martha Acklesberg We call upon the United States government: Rachel Adler Eric Alterman To urge the Israeli Government to reverse its longstanding financial Ed Asner Evelyn Tor ton Beck inducements to Israeli settlers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and Jessica Benjamin David Biale Theodore Bikel instead to redirect those funds to settlers who are now willing to Ghana Bloch Heather Booth return to Israel proper; Rabbi Herbert Bronstein Cherie Brown Jo provide generous foreign assistance and to solicit contributions Michael Chabon Blanche W. Cook from the European Union, other major industrial democracies and Barbara Dobkin Ariel Dorfman the United Nations for this massive relocation effort, irrespective of Rabbi Joseph Ehrenkranz Rabbi Sue Levi Elwell Marcia Freedman whether the Israeli government is ready participate. Sanford Gallanter Nan Fink Gefen Ronnie Gilbert Todd Gitlin FOR THE SAKE OF ISRAEL’S SECURITY, Sally Gottesman Rabbi Ben-Zion Gold BRING THE SETTLERS HOME. Vivian Gornick Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb FOR THE SAKE OF ISRAEL’S ECONOMY, Marilyn Hacker Rabbi Arthur Hertzberg BRING THE SETTLERS HOME. Susannah Heschel Arnold Hiatt Adam Hochschild PROVIDING SUITABLE COMPENSATION OPENS UP Stanley Hoffmann THE POSSIBILITY FO R MANY SETTLERS TO Paula flyman Herbert C. Kelman VOLUNTARILY RETURN TO ISRAEL PROPER. Alice Kessler-Harris Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum Irena Klepfisz * Tony Kushner Rabbi Michael Lerner You can help to bring the settlers home to Israel. Rabbi Mordechai Liebling You can help move Israel one step closer to peace. Robert Jay Lifton Ian S. LusYick Rabbi Paul MenitofF SIGN THE CALL AND SHARE IT WITH OTHERS IN YOUR COMMUNITY. The Hon. Abner Mikva Newton & Jo Minow Go to http://bringthemhome.btvshalom.org/ Franco Modigliani Arthur Obermeyer or fill out the coupon below. Grace Paley Eli Pariser' Marge Piercy Judith Plaskow Yes. I want to add my name to the Call to Bring the Settlers Home _ You may NOT use my name publicly. Letty Cottin Pogrebin Katha Pollit Signature:______Printed Name:_ Hilary Putnam _ Zip Code_ Rabbi Steven Carr Reuben Address:______Douglas Rushkoff _ Email Address_ ב ר י ת . ______:AlixfCates Shulman Telephone Rabbi Amy Small I want to promote this Call with a contribution. Make checks payable to "BritTzedek v'Shalom". E311 Art Spiegelman Gloria Steinem Charge my Master Card Visa American Express a total of $______Studs Terkel Rabbi David A.Teutsch Card Number______Expiration Date_ Rabbi Burton LVisotzky Albert Vorspan Na: 1 Card BRIT Michael Walzer Credit card donations may be faxed to (773) 583-5772 or mail this coupon to: TZEDEK Rabbi Arthur Waskow V'SHALOM Ed ward Witten BritTzedek v'Shalom/Jewish Alliance for Justice and Peace Rabbi Arthur Jacob Wolf PO Box 180175, Chicago, IL 60618-0175 The closest I could come was to thumb Malka at Ninety a photo album with pictures you stole back from the rats: your wedding — my grandfather For Malka Seliger in rabbi’s robes, my father his brother’s best man in a stove-pipe hat, my grandmother and aunts J o a n S e l ig e r S id n e y in high-necked dresses, veiled hats covering their shaytls. In Yiddish, your name means queen. Too hard to go to the beauty parlor, Late Sunday afternoons, you’d bribe me you have let your crown go with your fox-head stoles to behave, letting me from gold to silver. More regal find them in your bedroom drawer. We’d pretend in its natural state, the first time your evergreen bedspread was the forest since 1945 when, after twenty months, where they stalked and bit each other. After, you’d pile you emerged gray from the bunker. my plate with rugelakh, or thumb-print Until you and Uncle Munio emigrated cookies filled with strawberry jam, powdered and moved in across the street, sugar sprinkled on top. my parents refused to speak Polish. You ’re Jews, not Poles Today I sit in your living room of twenty-five the government told them. years, on the twelfth floor, Miami Beach. I hated those rough gutteral How many years since you touched sounds I couldn’t understand. your oven or stove? From your recipe came this honey I wanted, like you, to belong cake I baked, whiskey-laced, thick with walnuts. to both worlds: Flatbush Your Jamaican caretaker brews tea, needs ,׳where Coney Island and the Brooklyn Dodgers to be told: Its polite to serve the cake were a nickel’s subway ride away, not (irude. ” Laila’s name means night. and the shtetl where Zisl, the street musician, Starosc nie radosc, at the elevator door played his violin in front of your steps. you whisper: Old age is no pleasure.

Joan S elig er Sidney has taught literature and creative writing at the University of Connecticut-Storrs, where she is writer-in-residence at the Center for Judaic Studies and Contemporary Jewish Life. In 2003, CavanKerry Press will publish Body of Diminishing Motion, a book of poetry and memoir.

(C u r r e n t s 22 East 17th Street, Suite 601 New York, NY 10003-1919