VOLUME 5 NO. 2 FEBRUARY 2005 fiiu] journal ^^mm <^^^^^^^ ^ Association of Jewish Refugees Bridging the Bosphorus Readers who attended Austrian schools patriarchal Arab societies as typical of the before the Anschluss will not have been Muslim world as a whole. surprised that Chancellor Schussel was Since a closer integration with Europe is one of the EU leaders most vehemently bound to raise living standards in Turkey opposed to Turkish membership of the other Muslim countries would feel organisation. Austria's national myth casts challenged to 'do better'. However, the Vienna in the role of a fortress of most important lesson they would derive Christianity which the Turks besieged in from the Turkish example is that a state can both 1529 and 1683. retain its Islamic religious identity while The protracted warfare between the adopting Western values. Cross and the Crescent left its mark in the Schiissel, Chirac and Schroder are not Austrian racial memory. In folk speech totally wrong when they point to the risk 'cacophony' is called a Heidenldrm (noise posed to the cohesion of Europe by the made by heathens) and the expletive accession of close to 100 million poor The Bosphorus Strait KruzitUrken has religious roots (not unlike non-Christian non-Europeans. However, 'blimey') relating to the Crusades in this and the state, and introduced Western on balance this is a risk worth taking. instance. reforms into relations between the sexes, The world can only become a better place What the Austrian myth about having the dress code and the alphabet. if the number of democracies in it been a bulwark of European civilisation Since his death in 1938 Westernising increases, and eventually neutralises the against a heathen onslaught leaves out of trends have continued in Turkey, but there influence of the dictatorships and account is that, at the time, the Turkish have also been counter-currents of Islamic theocracies. After the end of the Second Sultans were far more tolerant of non- revivalism, especially in the countryside. World War a few West European countries Muslims than the Habsburg emperors The country has also been debilitated by took a gamble on a closer union with were of non-Catholics. Under the Double the Ankara government's policy of Germany - yesterday's enemy - and the Eagle Protestants suffered wholesale pressuring the large Kurdish minority into gamble paid off. Sixty years on from the expulsion and, except for a handful of assimilation. liberation of Auschwitz and the destruction government contractors, Jews eked out a This, plus Turkey's relative economic of Dresden, Germany is one of the most miserable existence. (Interestingly, when backwardness and poverty exacerbated by stable democracies. Jews expelled from Spain eventually a soaring birth rate, has prompted Elsewhere, the pendulum has swung in reached Vienna, their congregation was scepticism among some EU member states the opposite direction. Russia under Putin called the Turkentempd - due to the fact about the desirability of Turkish is less free than it was in Yeltsin's day - that their first country of asylum had been membership. Those who favour Turkey's though ongoing developments in Ukraine Turkey.) admission take a more global - not to say may yet provide a corrective to that Not that Austria remained totally geopolitical - perspective. retrograde tendency. The prospects for untouched by the Enlightenment. Mozart They see Kemal Ataturk's Westernising democracy in most Third World countries wrote a Turkish march and peopled II reforms as a foundation on which a more are anything but favourable. Seraglio with humanly believable ambitious transformation of far wider Given this backdrop, the locking of characters. Gradually religion declined as a application could be based. Turkey could Turkey into the European system would be driving force in interstate relations, and become the first Islamic country which of a huge building block in the construction of was replaced by nationalism. The its own volition adopted the full panoply of a democratic edifice bridging Europe and nationalism of the Balkan peoples, Serbs, Western instructions: parliamentary Asia. It is a risky enterprise - but who would Greeks and Bulgarians undermined democracy, an independent judiciary, press gainsay its potential for future good? The Turkish power in Europe and, during the freedom and human rights. It has already game is certainly worth the candle. Turkey Great War, the Arab revolt produced a moved significantly Westwards in one is no longer the country of corruption and corresponding effect in Asia. particular direction: relations between the brutality conveyed in the film Midnight The shock of defeat was the beginning of sexes. Turkey, like Indonesia and Pakistan, Express (if it ever was); it is a state the recovery for the country long derided has had women at the very head of embarked on the boulder-strewn path to as the 'sick man of Europe'. Kemal Pasha government, demonstrating that it is a democracy and deserves to be helped along abolished the Sultanate, separated religion misconception to see the exceptionally the way. AJR JOURNAL FEBRUARY 2005 A tale of Emotional farewell as Day Centre Jewish Delilahs Richard Grunberger organiser Sylvia Matus retires I was only moderately surprised at the Sylvia Matus, organiser of AJR's Paul news (Jewish Chronicle, 10 December) Balint Day Centre, retired at the end that Kimberley Quinn is Jewish. My of January after 29 years service to blase attitude does not stem from a theAJR. suspicion that many Jewish women are At a crowded, emotional farewell femmes fatales, but rather from pride lunch, AJR Chairman Andrew in the fact that their allure can bring down governments - or, at least, home Kaufman paid tribute to 'the secretaries. tremendous efforts made by Sylvia It was ever thus! If you don't believe on behalf of the AJR. We will miss her me, a reading of the Megittah Esther at energy, enthusiasm and commitment the upcoming festival of Purim should - as will our members, who regard cure your scepticism. her as the embodiment of the Day A crowned monarch who, within Centre.' He described Sylvia as having living memory, fell under the sway of a administered 'tender loving care' to Passing the baton: Sylvia Matus, right, with her successor, Susie Kaufman Jewish charmer was Carol of Romania. members. Her successor, Susie He made Madame Lupescu his mistress Kaufman, who has worked so closely takeaway and meals-on-wheels. at the same time as his subjects grew with Sylvia for 18 years, perhaps even In addition, Sylvia initiated increasingly antisemitic. Small wonder more tearful than Sylvia herself, weekends away for AJR members. In that he lost his crown in 1940. spoke of her colleague's 'labour of response to the success of this During the previous decade Austria's love'. Bertha Leverton expressed scheme, week-long holidays now Catholic Chancellor Schuschnigg, deep gratitude on behalf of take place twice a year in resorts such widowed in a Nazi-engineered car Kindertransport members. as Bournemouth and Eastbourne. accident, paid court to the half-Jewish sculptress Anna Mahler - only to be Sylvia joined the AJR in 1976 as a Sylvia cultivated a family turned down by the great composer's volunteer, later becoming an atmosphere at the Day Centre. daughter assistant in the home help Members, volunteers and staff - all A more bizarre story involved the department finding paid helpers for were part of her extended family. She second most powerful man in 1940s members. When the Day Centre never failed to put her own interests Russia, Premier Vyacheslav Molotov, opened in 1987, Sylvia, with her firmly behind those of others. and his Jewish wife Polina, Commissar gentle and sympathetic approach to Sylvia's immediate plans are clear. of the Perfumery Industry. Polina people, seemed the obvious choice to She and her husband Howard are greeted the newly appointed Israeli lead it. going on a South American cruise, ambassador to Moscow, Golda Meir, in Sylvia held overall responsibility for following which she is planning to Yiddish - a transgression that earned the daily running of the Day Centre, begin a course at the University ofthe her six years in the Gulag. However, including the entertainment Third Age. To say Sylvia will be after Stalin's death, the Molotovs were re-united again, and lived happily programme and, with Susie as missed by her family at the Day ever after Catering Manager, the production of Centre she has done so much to over 20,000 kosher meals a year for A romance across the Judeo- shape, seems trite. Christian divide which almost provoked members at the Centre as well as Howard Spier a constitutional crisis was, of course, President Clinton's dalliance with the AJR Heads of Department White House intern Monica Lewinsky. Gordon Greenfield Finance JACKMAN • Carol Rossen Administration and Personnel This is a show that will run and run. IVIarcia Goodman Social Services In a year or two the spotlight will SILVERMAN IVIichael Newman Media and switch to France, where the Young COMMERCIAL PROPERTY CONSULTANTS Public Relations Pretender Sarkozy stands poised to AJR Journal snatch the crown from the grizzled Richard Grunberger Editor-in-Chief head of President Chirac. And who do Howard Spier Editorial and Production you think is Madame Sarkozy - a Jewess 26 Conduit Street, London WIR 9TA Andrea Goodmaker of course! Telephone: 020 7409 0771 Fax: 020 7493 8017 Secretarial/Advertisements AJR JOURNAL FEBRUARY 2005 Ukraine, a Jewish heartland NEWTONS Richard Grunberger Leading Hampstead Solicitors advise on The current focus on Ukraine in the violinists Jasha Haifetz, Misha Property, Wills, Family Trusts newspaper headlines ought to jog our Elman and David and Igor Oistrakh, but and Charitable Trusts memory. This country, wedged between there was also the 'Constructivist' French and German spoken Poland and Russia - its very name means painter El Lisitsky and the writer Home visits arranged borderland - has long been a habitat of Isaac Babel.