ADAR 5729 I FEBRUARY 1969 VOLUME 5, NUMBER 8 THE FIFTY CEN;rs "Never Again ... " How to Tell the Cranks From the Young Turks The New "Morality": A Moral Fiction A Room For the Maid ... But Not For Mother How Jews React to Crisis Polluting Jewish Life "If Israel Lost the War" THE JEWISH QBSERVER In this issue ... "NEVER AGAIN ••• ", Moshe Sherer ......................................................... 3 How TO TELL THE CRANKS FROM THE YouNG TURKS, Leo Levi.................................................................. 6 AN EPILOG ..................................................................................................................... 9 How JEws REACT TO CRISIS, Emanuel Feldman ........................... 12 THE "NEW MORALITY": A MORAL FICTION, David Bleich...... 14 THE JEWISH OBSERVER is published monthly, except July and August, by the Agudath Israel of America, A ROOM FOR THE MAID , •• 5 Beekman Street, New York, New York 10038. Second class Bur NoT FOR MoTHER, Bernard Weinberger......... 19 postage paid at New York, N. Y. Subscription: $5.00 per year; Two years, $8.50; Three years, $12.00; outside of the United States, $6.00 SECOND LOOKS AT THE JEWISH SCENE per year. Single copy, fifty cents. Printed in the U.S.A. POLLUTING JEWISH LIFE ................................................... 22 RABBI YAAKOV JACOBS Editor "IF ISRAEL LOST THE WAR" ......................................................... 24 Editorial Board DR. ERNI:ST L. BODENHEI1'-1ER LETTERS TO THE EDITOR .................................................................................... 26 Cliainnan RABBI NATHAN BUI.1'.1AN RABBI JOSEPH ELIAS JosEPH FRIEDENSON RABBI MoSHE Snr,RER Advertising Manager BENTSION ZIMMERMAN THE JEWISH OBSERVER does not assume responsibility for the Kashrus of any product or service advertised in its pages. FEB. 1969 VoL. V, No. 8 ~@ Moshe Sherer "N ever A gain. ... " The following is the text of remarks delivered by Rabbi Afoshe Sherer, Executive President of Agudath Israel, at the Prime Minister's Conference of World Jewish Leaders. Present at the Conference held in Jerusalem from January 8 to I2, were heads of major Jewish organizations from twenty six countries, and the leading officials of the Israel government. We believe this to be a major statement of the position of Torah Jewry on some of the most crucial questions of the time. 0 THE ISRAELI PRESS HAS MADE MUCH of the fact that this is the first occasion in recent history that the Agndath Israel world movement has taken part in an international conference of this nature. LET' OUR POSITION be crystal-clear: when black clouds hover ominously above the Jewish People, Agndath Israel stands shoulder to shoulder with our Jewish brothers, in spite of the ideological abyss which normally keeps us apart. OF COURSE Agudath Israel from its very inception has been a voice of dissent in the world Jewish community-hardly a popular role. But Minister Abba Eban. in speaking of Israel's defense and diplomatic posture before the nations of the world, has unwittingly expressed an axiom of Agndist ideology: "It is much more important to be alive than to be popular." FOR THE PAST FIFTY YEARS. Agudath Israel has paid the price of unpopularity, for the sake of keeping the Jewish spirit alive. While we must-being true to our beliefs and true to the Jewish Peoplc--continue to speak in dissent, it is precisely because of the force of our commitment to the Jewish People that we always have, and always shall, respond to any call for united action against a threat to our physical survival. WHEN r ARRIVED at Lud Airport last Monday to attend this Conference, I was given the most meaningful token of welcome I have ever received-one I shall always cherish as a sign of the growth of Torah in our Land. It was a copy of an invitation to a Chanukas llabayis of a shul, which was taking place at that very moment in Ein Charod. The invitation opened with the words, "Bez.rat Hashe111," the traditional acknowledgement of our constant indebtedness to the Almighty, and as I read the text there flashed through my mind an address delivered twenty nine years ago by the distinguished Poniviezhor Rav, Rav Kahaneman. Speaking to an assemblage in Pctach Tikvah, the Rav said: My brothers-just 1vait: the day will ccn1e when lVe will have to engage people to write t'filin and to build a shul for the people of Ein Charod. The _Jewish ·observer-/ FebrUOry, -1969 3 LEFT-WING KIBBUTZNIKS JOINED BY ONE SHVL Who could have believed ten or twenty years ago that in Kibbutz Ein Charod a shul would be built . ... Three generations came to the shul when it was officially dedicated on Shabbos . ... Y ehuda Gur-Aryeh, one of the veterans of this leftist kibbutz officially opened the doors . ... The shul was filled, and many stood out­ side because they couldn't get in, or because they were still shy His words, twenty nine years ago, evoked laughter from the cynics and the skeptics: "Ein Charod ..? a shul in Ein Charod, the symbol of hard-bitten an ti-religionists?" TODAY the good people of Ein Charod have seen-as did an ancient king-the handwriting on the wall. They have heard the call that only a Jew can hear, that every Jew must hear, to return to those same sanctities of Jewish tradition they had for so many years rejected. And as the Jews of Ein Charod have turned onto the main road in their way hack, thousands of Jews the world over have traveled that road all the way, back to the well-springs of our People's eternal Faith. MRS. GOLDA MEIR, in addressing this Conference, chanted the refrain: Never Again. She catalogued a long list of disappointments and frustrations that the State of Israel has suffered from the United Nations collectively, and the nations of the world to which Israel had looked for support. And after each ease-history of frustration and disappointn1ent she called out, "Never again!" After hearing this tale of international deceit practiced against the Jewish people, we would do well to catalogue instances of Jewish self-deceit, and to resolve more firmly: "Never again!" NEVER AGAIN shall we ape the social philosophies of the same nations of the world who have demonstrated their cold and callous indifference to the spilling of Jewish blood. NEVER AGAIN shall we attempt to model a Jewish society on the values and welt­ anschauung of those who were ready to see our People cast into the sea. NEVER AGArN shall we place our trust in the false gods of Nationalism, Socialism, Liberalism, Humanism, and the broad spectrum of alien ideologies which period­ ically seduced Jews who misunderstood the hopes and aspirations of our People. NEVER AGAIN dare we present ourselves to the world as a people which has turned its back on its Law. We went to the nations, our T'nach clutched in our hands, and presented it to them as our deed to this Land, and our right to inhabit it to the end of days. How much stronger our case would be if we could tell the world that this same Law by which we claimed the Land, is truly the Law of the Land. 4 The Jewish Observer / February, 1969 about going into a shul. ... The new shul is for both sections of Ein Charod-they split in two as a result of a dispute some years ago . ... Since the split the older people from both sides had davened together in a barracks building . ... Now that a shul has been built, it was built for both sides, in the hope that when some day the rift between the two sections is resolved, they will be able to daven together in one shul. -FROM ISRAELI PRESS REPORTS And if we earnestly seek to undo the frightening pace of assimilation that has been so eloquently described at this Conference; if we wish to open new lines of com­ munication with our young people throughout the world, whether to keep them within our Peoplehood, or to encourage Aliyah, then: NEVER AGAIN dare we be content to offer gimmicks to our young people in place of authentic, classical Judaism-the only cohesive force our People has ever known. To paraphrase Minister Eban, if we want our youngsters to take ns seri­ ously and to tie themselves to our People and our Land, we cannot sell Jewishness and Peoplehood "like soap and cigarettes." We cannot hold and regain our youth by ladling out nostalgia and sentimentality, mixed with nebulous platitudes: their's is a hunger of the spirit, and we can only satisfy that hunger by offering to them the eternal verities of our Torah. And if we seek to effectively confront the problem of assimilation, then let the word go out from this Conference that: NEVER AGAIN shall we tamper with the definition of a Jew. Heaven forbid, that after 4,000 years of knowing who we are, through the darkness and the pain of Golus, there should come forth from Zion a new "Torah" and a new "Jew." Mrs. Meir told us that, "No Jew in the Uniljed States can say with; ce1tainty that his grandson will be a Jew." I do not challenge the fear expressed in this statement. But, should it be declared in the Land of Israel that a child born' of a non-Jewish mother can be a "Jew", then no Jew in Israel can be sure that his grandson will be a Jew. AS WE COME TO the Ne'ilah of this conference, let us recall the Ne'ilah with which we bring Yorn Kippur to a close, when we proclaim "L'shonah habah bi'Yerusha­ laim." For thousands of years we kept alive the hope expressed to return, because before we said, "L'shanah habah bi'Yerushalayim," we loudly affirmed: "Sh'ma Yisroel, Hashem Elokeinu, Hashem Echod," and with a fervor unique to that moment we called out seven times: Hashem Hu Ho'Elokim ..