--------------- ·- ••••••••••••••••••••••••5-DIGIT 02906 241 1/31/89 ** 34 R.I. JEWISH HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION Inside: Local News, pages 2-3 136 SESSIONS ST. PROVIDENCE, RI 02906 Opinion, page 4 Around Town, page 8 l I I THE ONLY ENGLISH-JEWISH WEEKLY IN R.I. AND SOUTHEAST MASS. VOLUME LXXV, NUMBER 44 THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 29 1988 35t PER COPY N~ Y. School Children Rhode Island's Newest Get Lesson In Bigotry ''Pioneer'' by William Sapbire pit for worship in the center. The Moreover, the students, all of distinctive mildew stench of fire whom volunteered after their NEW YORK (JTA) - A group damage was all pervasive. teachers explained the nature of of New York's public school pupils, More than a dozen of the visitors the trip, were of roughly the same reflecting this city's broad ethnic were teenagers from three high · age as the suspected perpetrators. mix, stood on the charred floor­ schools in the district - Midwood, Last Sunday, a 12-year-old and a boards of a burned-out shul in Edward R. Murrow and Franklin 15-year-old were arrested and con­ Brooklyn last Thursday morning Delano Roosevelt. fessed to the arson and destruction. to learn a lesson about bigotry. About twice that number were Because they are juveniles, their "Bigotry, hate, the words are ab­ sixth graders from P.S. 99, a neigh­ identities have been· withheld. stractions. Here you see the pain borhood elementary school within They were released in custody of and ugliness bigotry can cause," walking distance of Sharai Torah. their parents pending an appear­ the youngsters were told by Abra­ They were brought together with ance in Family Court. ham Foxman, national director of the consent of the New York City But Dionne Boissiere, an articu­ the Anti-Defamation League of Board of Education, and the per­ late 16-year-old from Midwood B'nai B'rith. sonal blessings of school Chancel­ High, found it hard to believe that He spoke in the fire-gutted inte­ lor Richard Green, to view a disas­ the two could have planned and rior of Orthodox Congil!gation ter that sent shock waves through carried out the destruction. Rabbinical Institute Sharar!Torah the city. "Where did it come from? All of in the Midwood section o'f'Brook­ The unusual trip, barely two that hatred?" the black teenager lyn, the target of arson, desecration weeks into the new school year, asked, in a conversation with a re­ and vandalism in the early hours of was proposed by the ADL. porter. Saturday, Sept. 17. All of these youngsters were Boissiere, who is president of her His audience was solemn and at­ aware of the outrage perpetrated in junior class, is convinced there was tentive under the bright lights of their borough. Foxman and Carol adult instruction. television camera crews. Lister, AOL's New York regional The sheer ferocity of the crime They stood in a rough circle director who escorted them, be­ has led others to suspect as much. The pattern on this handsome work by fiber artist Anne amid the charred debris of lieve that seeing the havoc would The intruders systell!lltically Dansicker is often used in talit bags she designs and makes. For scorche~ woodwork and water­ have a greater impact - and be wrecked the sanctuary and stud;,, more on this versatile talent, including her creative contribution logged furnishings in what had remembered longer - than fleet­ rooms, and spray painted to the Sholom Chapter of Pioneer Women, see page 8. Photo by been a classroom, with a small pul- ing images on a TV newscast. (Continued on page 15) Dorothea Snyder, =========Aliya And Success by Simon Griver and Y osef Organization of America. The the siege of Jerusalem took hold: whatever happens. This is now my identified with the feelings she Ben Shlomo Hakohen events she writes about are all the critical lack of water, food, fuel etc. HOME." expressed in her letters. Many of (Part I of 2) more exciting because of her On January 19, 1948 she wrote: A year later she returned to the youngsters had sent copies of Zipporah Porath: History infectious enthusiasm. Here is her "Jerusalem's face was sad today. It America to wind up her affairs, but the book to their parents in the In Letters description of the morning of isn't easy to accept the fact of was unable to return immediately hope that it could explain why they (WZPS) It was a twist of fate November 30, 1947 as Jerusalem death and even harder when you to Israel because she was seconded felt it was important to be in Israel. rather than intent that led to the went wild with joy following the know personally many of those by the Foreign Ministry to be the I have no doubt that it succeeded in publication of Letters from United Nations resolution to who died. But thirty-live boys is executive secretary of Israel's doing so. J erusalem 1947-1948 by Zipporah partition Palestine into Jewish heartbreaking, all young Consul General in New York, Tending The Goats For Porath. She had been sorting · and Arab states: "I dodged wonderful people. The thirty-live Arthur Lourie. At a rece~ion for Israel's Children through the personal items of her motorcycles, wagons, cars and Hagana fighters, mostly university Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett According to legend, the Jewish late mother during a visit to trucks which were racing madly up students, were sent to relieve the she met her husband-to-be, Joseph people were given a land where America, when she came across a and down King George V Street, Gush Etzion kibbutzim and were Porath, .Jsrael's assistant military goats and sheep would graze under batch of letters she had written to missing each other miraculously, massacred by the Arabs as \ he attache at the Washington the fig trees. The milk flowing her parents while a student on a their running boards and British stood by without Embassy. At their wedding in the from the animals would mix with one-year scholarship program at headlights overflowing with layer intervening." Washington Embassy, Colonel the fruit honey dripping from the the- Hebrew University during the upon layer of elated, happy people. Through the letters we follow Chaim Herzog, now president of trees - fulfilling God's promise of year that Israel won its I pushed my way past the crying, the dramatic and tragic events of Israel, was their best man. "a land of milk and honey." independence. kissing, tumultuous crowd and the Israel's birth. Joining the ranks of . The Poraths returned to Israel Today, in modern Israeli "I realized as I read the letters," exultant shouts of 'mazal tov' and the Hagana, Porath served a~ a in 1952 malling their home in the supermarkets, one can find a she recalls, "that if my came back to the quiet of my room medic and nurse throughout the Tel Aviv suburb of Zahalah where variety of yoghurts and cheeses grandchildren were to ask me what ... to try to share with you this siege of Jerusalem and later as a their two sons were born and made from the milk of goats and it was like during that momentous never-to-be-forgotten night." soldier during the War of raised. sheep - a reminder of the ancient year, I could not have described Porath recollects that it was at · Independence. The events of the Forty years later Zipporah legend. They are especially events and feelings as well as they this point that the object of her time are vividly and accurately Porath may have lost her youth popular among the Jews from are presented in the letters." letter writing took on a new described through the eyes of a but . not her sanguine, energetic North African and Asian countries Nevertheless, the notion of dimension. "Initially I saw myself woman, who though young has a outlook. She remains optimistic where cow's milk was not readily making the letters into a book had as a vanguard spying out the land mature sense of destiny and an about ·-Israel's future despite the available and alternatives had to still not occurred to Porath. It was for my Zionist family," she says. invaluable ability to philosophize country's present problems. be found. Yet, until recently, only later, when she was typing the "My letters were part of my her way through death and "Israelis have always been good at pasteurized. goats' milk was letters onto her newly acquired obligation to share the experience destruction. coping with problems," she says. unavailable in Israel, until Gilad computer as part of an exercise to with them. But after the UN vote "Believe it or not it was an "We know how to make things Freund, a young American Jewish master her word processor, that on November 29th, the chatty exciting and wonderful period," happen. You need faith and immigrant, started the country's her experience as an editor and style of the letters changed. I remembers Porath. "We didn't perseverance to live here and you first goats' milk industry. publications production consul- became acutely conscious that I expect to survive yet our morale cannot afford to be daunted by According to Freund, 34, much of tant told her that the letters could was Jiving through a time of was marvellous. We had an problems." She has mellowed in the demand for pasteurized goats' form a fascinating book. incredible significance and the overwhelming feeling of some matters. Her letters preach milk comes from parents whose The letters were published letters became something of a responsibility and sense that our aliya and show impatience with children have an allergy to cow's recently by the Association of historical record." every action counted.