Forum

FORUM The Vatican's Hebrew Manuscripts Should Be in Jerusalem Philip Miller writes ("Theirs or Ours? A Defense of the Vatican Collection of Hebrew Manuscripts," November 1988) that the Vatican...

...his goals are to work for religious pluralism and, yes, Jewish education of secular Israelis...
...Tracy Salkowitz Regional Director American Jewish Congress Washington, D.C When Our Values Tell Us We Should Criticize Israel Leonard Fein's article, "Why Jews Vote Their Values, Not Their Economic Interests" (October 1988), shines some light on the counter-productivity of American Jewish political conduct today...
...This is a system, in an ideal society, that should work...
...I only hope that Hershel Shanks resists the temptation to make MOMENT a personal statement each month...
...Israel itself is aware of these differences, and does not oppose all U.S...
...In addition, where flagrant patterns of discrimination are found to exist, even more stringent forms of affirmative action may be appropriate as temporary remedies...
...perhaps I had been suffering from too much of a good thing for too long...
...In 1239 Pope Gregory IX, who established the Inquisition, ordered the kings of France and Portugal to seize all Jewish books, especially the Talmud...
...How can we turn them down...
...Mind you, this is the period of papal history which Miller, Boyle and Singer describe with the romantic and peaceful designation "Renaissance humanism" . . . In his MOMENT article, Miller focuses on two collections: the Palatine Collection and Queen Christina's collection...
...Dear Suzanne, I read your article in MOMENT with a sense of personal connection to the message you were conveying...
...In recent years, five Arab states ranked among the world's top ten arms importing countries, with Iraq and Saudi Arabia in the top two slots...
...Will he lose his spirit in a wasted effort to realize the potential of Israel...
...Jewish values, as Fein points out, are our dreams for a better tomorrow, born out of a harsh past...
...Both the September and October issues offered well-written factual articles, instead of pointless and often circular American Jewish dialogue about Israel's future...
...where women raising children on welfare or on "women's wages" cannot afford basic necessities...
...I was raised in a Conservative Jewish home...
...will not sell F-15 jets to Libya or Syria...
...Theodore Ellenoff President, American Jewish Committee New York, New York ' . The Jury Returns The jury on the new MOMENT is no longer out...
...Is it in the interest of Jews to live in a severely classed society, where millions lack adequate health care (a shanda, truly, with all our American wealth...
...I explained that my allegiance was to the United States and that I felt no obligation to stand for the Yugoslavian national anthem or the Polish national anthem or for the anthem of any foreign country, least of all for one that didn't even exist...
...approached by the older man who thanked me for having saved his life...
...That so many Jews also want such a world, and also root this desire in their Jewishness, encourages me...
...I too raised my sons in passionate Judaism, to realize their responsibilities for the continuity of our people, to feel Israel as an integral part of their lives, to feel fortunate in their birthright, and to serve (and, yes, to challenge) within Jewish people-hood...
...Upon ascertaining that I was Jewish, he asked if I was coming to Rosh Hashanah services in three weeks...
...November 1988) has"the best of the argument, as I outline below...
...We must not assume, therefore, that the recent Jewish political swing to the right Fein documents represents solely a change in our interests, and not in our values...
...Secular Jews, like myself, do not have any "religious observance" taught or practiced in the home or secular school...
...All of this is especially true of the September and October 1988 issues...
...Seth Carus's "Missiles in the Middle East—Will They Upset the Military Balance...
...Kristol insists that affirmative action leads to ' 'the fractionating of American society . . . Such a society would violate traditional American ideas, and would surely be harmful to the American Jewish community...
...arms sales to Arab states...
...The Church, in an effort to stamp out Judaism as a whole, embarked, from the 13th century on, on a deliberate campaign to seize and destroy all Jewish books and thereby to deprive Jews of access to their religious literature...
...For this the king was sainted by Pope Boniface VIII...
...The theme dealt with the brotherhood of man and sweetness and forgiveness...
...Upon our return to our lines I was...
...He shoved me out into the night and told me that I was never to come back...
...Obviously he doesn't care...
...Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz Montpeher, Vermont AJCommittee President Supports Zakheim Against Dine One treats Tom Dine's observations ("Arms for the Arabs: Dov Zakheim is Wrong on Every Score," November 1988) with the utmost respect born out of his extensive experience in educating congressional personalities in the intricacies of arms sales...
...They have experienced the secular celebrations at home and the traditional observances at friends' homes...
...and six other major industrial powers aimed at controlling the export of missiles with ranges over 190 miles...
...A good example to follow would be the April 1987 accord between the U.S...
...MOMENT has become more of what it ought to be, more reflective of the diversity of concerns in the Jewish community and a light in previously dark corners ("Our Struggle with IBD" [September 1988] was superb), rather than a mirror of what we already know too well...
...But my real worry is that the Israel of our dedication is fast disappearing...
...Among the many letters she received in response, two are printed here, one from a friend and the other from someone who does not know her...
...My only complaint is petty...
...Cleaving to general assumptions, he avoids noticing the failure of liberalism in solving the problems of contemporary American society...
...I myself have seen a few leftover Hebrew manuscripts housed in the Royal Library in Central Stockholm, each marked—in a display of Swedish honesty—"War booty from Prague...
...The U.S...
...Singer, MOMENT came yesterday, as I enter the third week of my own son's aliyah...
...On the other hand, the manuscripts in the legitimate Jewish exhibition on the ground floor of the library show all the signs of wear and tear, including wine spots on a medieval Haggadah...
...Employers and recruiters can include life experience in their list of qualifications, not only quantifiable numbers and scores...
...As I read about Alex, your son, I was finally able to let go of the tears I have repressed for many weeks...
...The U.S...
...It took me a moment to realize that he was referring to "Hatikvah...
...A call had come over the radio net that a patrol was taking heavy fire and needed help...
...No doubt neither Miller nor the Vatican are aware of these origins of the manuscripts...
...where millions of lesbians and gays—indeed, any assertive woman or any sensitive man—risk discrimination and violence...
...I think Israel is one of our issues...
...provide internal training to allow for promotion from within...
...Is this the stronger Israel that our ' 'pro-Israel" PAC money has helped to achieve...
...it's not working so bad for the wealthy...
...These originated in the sacked Jewish community of Heidelberg (a fact admitted by Boyle, but denied by Miller...
...I showed up a bit early and sure enough, there were games, music, books and new kids to meet...
...Well, here it is 44 years later, rabbi, and I haven't ever been back...
...Your words helped me finally see this...
...He laughed and said that he had spent so much time with the Marines that he felt that he had to act like one...
...I told him that I was under the impression that by law all chaplains are non-combatants and asked why he was on a combat patrol and involved in a "shoot 'em up" with the opposing team...
...I stood up and walked away...
...Kristol finds strength in armies and weapons, and Fein would rather American Jews focused on our own issues...
...The answer is, I believe, that we will not know so soon...
...Will the bureaucracy and difficulty of getting anything done finally wilt his determination...
...After the memorial service for Alex, we sat and talked with Jay...
...Particularly abhorrent was the sentence contained in the last paragraph: "The child will associate the tepid, vapid religious observance of his or her [secular] upbringing with Judaism, and conclude that it is meaningless...
...discrimination...
...My next meeting with a rabbi was seven years later in Korea...
...In 1944, I was 13 years old and very lonely...
...The increased number of articles (from almost nothing in the past) on Jewish texts rather than constant sociological analysis of the American and Israeli Jewish scene's is refreshing...
...We could go on and on with names of ferocious persecutors of Jews and Judaism: Popes Leo XII, Pius VIII, Gregory XVI, Pius IX, all following in the footsteps of Paul IV...
...I couldn't help but notice the Thompson submachine gun he had placed against the lectern or the .45 automatic in his shoulder holster or the four hand grenades stuck in his belt...
...I told him that I was not...
...In contrast, I want my two children to know more about Judaism than the "tepid, vapid" experiences to which I was exposed in my parents' home...
...These statements are totally refuted by the tragic facts of history...
...After a long wrangle, the Vatican emerged as the victor, and the manuscripts went back to the Vatican Library...
...I'm a woman as well as a Jew...
...The tune was "Hatikvah," a melody I had heard a couple of times before but to which I had attached no special significance...
...should continue to take the lead in constructive arms transfer policies...
...and aggressively pursue minority applications and enrollment...
...Even while he was a cardinal, Pope Paul IV (who died in 1559) burned all Hebrew books seized from the Jews of Rome...
...After the peace treaty with Italy in 1797, Napoleon seized these manuscripts and took them as war booty to Paris...
...During centuries of persecution and cultural genocide, the Jews hung on to every manuscript they could...
...it reminded me of a passage from Sibelius' "Finlandia...
...where our cities become increasingly dangerous...
...Both were also enjoyable to read...
...But it is predicated on two fundamental notions: (1) that we live in a society without prejudice and bigotry and (2) that equal opportunities begin at birth...
...Tikkun olam, the Jewish tradition that attempts to "repair" a troubled world, does not mean that Jewish votes and funds are to support only what is good for Jews, but what is good for the United States, Israel and the world...
...Chanukah and Passover were the only other acknowledged holidays...
...They left me with a lump in my throat, but grateful nonetheless...
...One of the men I recognized as Mr...
...Clearly, the U.S...
...But if Kristol is too—let's be frank—selfish, Fein is too vague...
...where public education is shoddy and higher education has become less instead of more available...
...Of course he too knows the ' 'real Israel...
...Michael in particular I could see from an early age was to be destined for tikkun olam [the perfection or repair of the world] . . . and so he was, becoming a Conservative rabbi and then making aliyah to Hanaton, the new Conservative kibbutz...
...Dr Manfred R. Lehmann Manfred and Anne Lehmann Foundation New York, New York Jewish Observances Of Secular Jews Dennis Prager's piece ("Raising a Jewish Child in a Non-Jewish World," November 1988) was most insulting...
...Now that Leonard Fein is a regular contributor instead of editor, I find myself reading his less frequent and shorter pieces...
...No," the rabbi said, furious with me, "you remained seated, reading...
...The practice of seizing Hebrew books continued unabated by pope after pope, alongside the other sufferings they inflicted upon the Jews: introduction of the Yellow Star, the Inquisition, burnings at the stake, kidnapping of Jewish children, forced conversions and baptisms, curtailment of trade, expulsions, rigged disputations and censorship of Jewish writing...
...In this manner, my children are cognizant of the existence of different modes of Jewish observances...
...These, just for starters, and I haven't even mentioned the environment, reckless armament spending, a host of other pressing problems . . . Kristol's pretense of concern with these issues is transparent...
...With the heavy historic debt to the Jewish people that rests on the Vatican, the pope has here an opportunity to offer some degree of atonement for the many sufferings the Church has inflicted on our people, ranging from the earliest pogroms to the Vatican's silence or collaboration during tljte Holocaust...
...I noticed a couple of kids looking me over...
...But can he put up with the internecine warfare within the Jewish family, as deadly in its way as border terrorism...
...He identified himself as a Lieutenant Commander in the Navy and the rabbi for the First Marine Division...
...We are calling for the implementation of a system which balances the ultimate goal of a color-blind society with the current need for a more integrated society, a need or goal which will not be realized in our lifetime unless vigorous action is taken...
...Fein understands that "Jewish interests and Jewish ethics cannot be disentangled...
...This swing corresponds with a growing Jewish middle and upper class which directs PAC (Political Action Committee) money to pro-Israel politicians and special interest groups who' are single issue oriented...
...demand bias-free examinations...
...This is partly the result of virulent anti-communism, McCarthy's legacy re-embodied in Reagan and his ilk...
...He donned a tallis and began the service...
...Those Jews who, along with groups like the American Jewish Congress, support affirmative action oppose the routine use of quotas, which were used historically to keep Jews out...
...Certainly, American jets in Saudi Arabia that are kept at a distance from Israel are preferable to British weapons freely based anywhere in the country...
...Fran Eizenstat Washington, DC...
...And now gone...
...The old MOMENT had been presenting an unending procession of handwring-ing ruminations on Israel's perpetual crisis...
...Like most women, including most Jewish women, I am more vulnerable than men to the following things: violence, including sexual violence...
...The rabbi, calling upon his years of learning, sensitivity and tolerance, grabbed me by the arm and dragged me from the room...
...If a color-blind society is in fact our ultimate goal, it is our challenge to find creative and aggressive alternatives to the unthinking perpetuation of invidious racial and sexual discrimination...
...Joan M. Kurtz East Setauket, New York continued on next page In the October 1988 MOMENT, Executive Editor Suzanne Singer shared her thoughts on the first anniversary of the death of her 25-year-old son Alex, an officer in the IDF, who was killed in a terrorist ambush while on patrol in Lebanon ("Jewish Choices," October 1988, p. 4...
...Upon his defeat in 1815, the Vatican claimed them back, but by then Heidelberg raised a counterclaim, supported by the Prussian government, on the grounds that they originated in Heidelberg...
...I was with the First Marine Division and we were involved in bitter combat...
...The world I want, shaped by the lessons of my Jewish parents, includes both survival and justice, joy and equity, pride and compassion...
...Janice Gaines Stamford, Connecticut Why We Need Affirmative Action Irving Kristol's response to Leonard Fein's recent article in MOMENT ("Why Jews Vote Their Values, Not Their Economic Interests," October 1988) once again questions the advisability of affirmative action...
...Yashar koach...
...The Vatican's Hebrew manuscripts displayed on the third floor of the New York Public Library are written on shining, white parchment, in "mint condition...
...interests obviates the need for discussion...
...That's not a hell of a lot of cheek-turning or forgiveness...
...Michael A. Singer, also writing in the exhibit catalog, the Vatican was motivated by "Renaissance humanism", in collecting the manuscripts for the "service and honor of learned men who were dedicated to letters," and because of "reverence for the Hebrew language as one of the languages of divine revelation...
...American society is already fraction-alized...
...Under his successor, Pope Pius V (died 1572), Hebrew books were burned in Bologna and Florence...
...But serious debate is equally unnecessary when considering most sales to Egypt...
...We are not only witnessing a Palestinian problem, but we are experiencing a Jewish problem...
...The Middle East arms race is approaching the point of no return...
...My children will not feel that their Jewish upbringing was "meaningless...
...I explained that I didn't know that "Hatikvah" was a national anthem since there wasn't a country (in 1944) named Israel for which it could be a national anthem...
...Cherry, who with his wife ran the Wednesday night sessions...
...Now I can just give our questioners copies of your article, because you have expressed so beautifully what we think and say...
...Dear Mrs...
...Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coalition, for example, has presented progressive Jews with one of the great heartbreaks of our time...
...Having been a subscriber almost from the beginning, I had found myself putting aside issues of the magazine in recent years "to be read at a more convenient time," which never came...
...And that if we give up and do not send our sons— and ourselves—we will bring on the very defeat we fear...
...The newer editorship has brought to print a new cadre of authors with fresh, unexpected perspectives which I had found missing in the old MOMENT in its last few years...
...Unlike you, I do not have to worry immediately about the army, though I know Michael feels guilty not going in right away...
...The aim was to prove to the Christian world that Judaism, after the death of Jesus, was condemned to be, forever, an arid, unproductive and "widowed" religion...
...However, looking toward the future, I think that Dov Zakheim ("Arms for the Arabs: Should the U.S...
...King Louis IX of France was zealous in carrying out this order and in 1244 publicly burned 24 cartloads of Hebrew manuscripts, mainly copies of the Talmud...
...Any Jew found owning a Hebrew book was severely punished...
...I became absorbed in a book and barely took notice when some music began playing...
...His homily was, even though we are in combat, we should turn the other cheek and love our enemy...
...Such a precious gift to the world, your son...
...Unfortunately, no one else besides the United States seems willing to attach conditions to its arms sales to the Arab states...
...I was part of a group that responded and upon our arrival I became aware of an older man who was under attack by several Chinese who were about to overrun him...
...A push for international restriction on arms to the Middle East, together with a sophisticated, individualized approach to proposed arms transfers, should be the hallmark of a sensible U.S...
...So we must believe that Alex and Daniel and Benjy [Alex's brothers in Israel] and my Michael are still the hope for tikkun olam and that the Jewish people is indeed enriched by their existence...
...V. Rivers of Tucson, Arizona (Forum, September 1988, p. 6) that, "It doesn't take much seichel to be a rabbi," has brought to the surface some memories of my own that I thought I had long forgotten...
...Could anybody seriously think that even one manuscript would be given or sold to Italian noblemen or Belgian bankers, to be "donated" to the Vatican—as the Vatican and the Reform Jewish promoters of this exhibit now claim...
...In our practicing Secular Jewish family, my children learn at both their secular Hebrew school and at home the humanistic, secular version of the holidays and traditions as well as the traditional interpretation...
...We are as grown up as we're going to get, standing at the abyss of the late 20th century, calling not only for different strategies but different worlds...
...should continue to initiate multilateral agreements that will curb this massive buildup...
...Sefer kaHi-nuch, anil th-century law book, tells us that owning sacred books is the 613th mitzvah...
...He said clearly and unemotionally that if he were to die defending Israel we should not be sad—that he would be doing what he believed in and would be fulfilled, as he believed Alex to be...
...I no longer open each issue expecting to find some new reason for guilt at every turn...
...Ultimately we must be courageous enough to criticize Israel's policies toward the Palestinian people, even if it means not supporting the conventional pro-Israel lobby...
...Arthur J Weisberger Bronx, New York...
...You saw me standing...
...We are often asked how we feel about his desire to go to Israel...
...The term "secular" itself means not sacred or religious...
...This was the extent of my "religious observance...
...The so-called "Sweden Flag," presented to the Jews after the war as a token of gratitude, can still be seen in the ancient synagogue ["Altneuschul"] in Prague...
...Are Israeliyordim [emigrants] telling us cynically but truthfully what is happening to the dream you gave your sons and I gave mine...
...But partly radicalism has smeared its own name by encompassing sectarianism, anti-intellectualism and hyper-intellectualism, as well as a frightening dose of anti-Semitism...
...According to the research of A. Berliner, one of the greatest authorities on the subject, re-published in 1968 by the Institute of Hebrew Manuscripts of the Government of Israel, the collection contains 288 manuscripts (not 700, as stated by Miller...
...Roger Grande Boston, Massachusetts Eschewing Both Fein and Kristol, She Calls for Radical Solutions Into the somewhat lopsided debate between Leonard Fein and Irving Kristol ("Why Jews Vote Their Values, Not Their Economic Interests," October 1988), I'd like to introduce a perspective so obvious it's embarrassing that neither of them mentioned it...
...The obvious clash with U.S...
...At a time when "liberal" is a term of denunciation, "radical" is practically unspeakable...
...And their choice...
...In both format and content the new product is vastly superior to the old...
...It has posed one of the great challenges: to confront the anti-Semitism that has at times poisoned the presidential campaign, and to confront the racism that has at times poisoned our own community...
...Sell Arms to Friendly Arab States...
...While some report that the Reagan years have been extremely supportive of Israel, we have watched Israel's democracy crumble under curfews, unwarranted jailings and many deaths on both sides...
...That question, which has nagged me for weeks, has now been answered, thanks to your courage...
...What we need, in return, is to notice that Israel is not Brooklyn in the desert, that Israeli concerns and culture are different from ours, but not more significant or more Jewish...
...Our Jewish tradition of pluralism and democracy must extend beyond the borders of the United States...
...where millions of dollars are spent on welfare hotels and almost nothing on creating decent affordable housing...
...As my children grow, they will use this knowledge to decide the manner in which they wish to practice their Judaism...
...The point is that these problems require bold, imaginative, radical solutions...
...He informed me that under Jewish Law, since I had saved his life, I was now responsible for him and that in order to make him happy I had to attend the services...
...And yes, did Alex die because vain generals are making foolish decisions...
...My family attended services only on the High Holy Days...
...Rabbi Douglas D Weber Elyria, Ohio How Rabbis Turned Him Off The comment from Mrs...
...Like most women, I support affirmative action, not only because it's right (moral) and sensible (helps bring about the diversified just society I want to live in) but also because it serves women, half the people and half the Jews...
...In between these two extremes are many shades of gray...
...and Abraham's Rabinovich's "The Boats of October— How a Missile Battle with Syria Changed Naval Warfare" are a well of information not readily available elsewhere...
...These manuscripts belong in the National Library in Jerusalem, the eternal Jewish capital, again a thriving center of Jewish scholarship and religious observance...
...When the music stopped, two older men approached me and asked my name...
...If our values tell us that Israel is doing something wrong, then it is in our best interest to speak out against Israel...
...Fein's "vision of the prophets" has nowhere been offered more hopefully than in the Jackson campaign, perhaps a beginning to reconstruct a radical tradition with cornerstones of compassion and common sense...
...I had heard that the Jewish Center in Tucson had a young people's night on Wednesday...
...King Gustaf sacked the Jewish quarter of Prague and took back to Stockholm as war booty a number of Hebrew manuscripts...
...These are the Israelis who work for peace, civil rights, civil liberties, democracy, feminism, everything we care about (except Jewish identity: that's our issue) and they need our support...
...policy on weapons sales to the Arab countries...
...Finally, I want to say that I am tired of voices like Kristol's telling me, and even mild Leonard Fein, to grow up...
...Sadly, we must admit that neither is true...
...This sometimes comes through in another magazine he edits, Biblical Archaeology Review...
...Thanks for sharing your thoughts...
...Indeed, the Reagan Administration has called for a color-blind society, one that promotes and appoints employees on the basis of qualifications alone, providing an equal opportunity for everyone...
...According to Dr...
...Forty-six men attended the Rosh Hashanah services, which were held about 300 yards behind our lines...
...They were evidently hardly ever used before they were wrested from their owners...
...I have not forgotten Israel...
...Father Leonard E. Boyle, O.P., wrote it this way in the exhibit catalog: "At root, it was simply an application of the humanist ideal that every man of culture should be 'trium linguarum gnarus,' that is, that he should be conversant with the three languages of Latin, Greek and Hebrew...
...The Jews were among the defenders of the city...
...unemployment...
...The rabbi drove up in his jeep and set up a portable lectern...
...By contrast, the "Two Views" on "A Palestinian State: Thinking the Unthinkable" in the September issue were neither endless nor self-flagellating, as was MOMENT'S past penchant...
...And as he tries to sort out his future, we try to guide him and think through in our own minds what would be best...
...As you know, Jay [Fran and Stuart Eizen-stat's son] is wrestling with whether to go to college next year or go to the Israeli army...
...He will receive training and serve in the reserves...
...What is good for the Jews...
...And the unspoken question which you had the courage to face: ' 'Do you regret the decisions you made...
...Such anti-proliferation action can be expanded, with an eye towards bringing the USSR and China into the process...
...It was some of these which his daughter and successor, Queen Christina, known for her unstable character, took with her to Rome after her conversion to Catholicism...
...poverty...
...Arms sales, however, are no substitute for intelligent diplomacy and concerted international cooperation...
...My heart is full of aching for you...
...As to Queen Christina's collection: Swedish King Gustaf II Adolf, a colorful personality who was the Protestant leader in the 30 Years' War (died 1632), captured Prague from the Catholic forces...
...where one-third of all girl children are sexually abused by the age of 18...
...Of course, neither Napoleon, the Vatican nor Heidelberg had a legitimate claim of title to them...
...and—as in the Fein-Kristol debate— invisibility...
...This, however, does not mean that Judaism is not practiced...
...Only the Jews could make such a claim, but by then they had long ago been tortured and massacred...
...No, no," the rabbi said, "not that, OUR national anthem...
...But," I said, "I did stand for our national anthem...
...I explained that I had in fact stood up on the first note, faced the flag and placed my hand on my heart...
...When the national anthem was played I stood up and faced the flag...
...Progressive Israelis seek our help, ask us to challenge voices like Kristol's who claim to speak for American Jewry...
...A Defense of the Vatican Collection of Hebrew Manuscripts," November 1988) that the Vatican acquired its Hebrew manuscripts because "Renaissance humanists valued Hebrew as one of the tongues of classical antiquity" and because "the knowledge of Hebrew was a sign of culture...
...I engaged the Chinese and managed to kill a number of them, causing the rest to break off and flee...
...He is top old at 30...
...He truly is brilliant...
...The other gentleman introduced himself as a rabbi and demanded to know why I had remained seated during the playing of "our national anthem...
...We remember tomorrow...

Vol. 14 • January 1989 • No. 1


 
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