BEGINNINGS

BEGINNING In November of last year, at the time the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds convened its annual General Assembly, American Jews were very close to panic. General Brown had...

...General Brown had just relieved himself of his sociological bombshell, UNESCO had spat its perversity, and the UN was about to genuflect in front of Arafat...
...Our last issue, which appeared one month ago...
...He had brought them diverse reading matter, including several copies of this magazine...
...It is a year later...
...Fear not...
...If, as many of us have come to believe, this is a new time, perhaps even a new era, in the American Jewish experience, then it is necessarily a time to question the assumptions which have guided our institutions until now...
...On which note, we wish our readers a pleasant Thanksgiving, a Happy Chanukah, and (just to be safe, given the U. S. Postal Service) best wishes for any other holidays that may crop up between now and the time MOMENT is delivered...
...The hotel lobby, like the steps of the local shul, is a place to see and be seen, to effect reunion with those who come but once a year...
...The GA is more fun than most conventions, and, so long as one does not expect too much of it as a business meeting, it can be quite interesting as well...
...Some are suits and seriousness, prematurely balabatish in demeanor...
...we get relatively few letters to the editor, and wonder why our articles neither offend nor please so much as to cause people to want to write about them...
...we get, finally, a heavy volume of gift subscriptions...
...we received a spectacular response to the questionnaires we printed a couple of months back (for which our thanks...
...The students did not know, back then, that their demonstration was an enormous compliment to the delegates, who had never had reason to take their deliberations so seriously, who had really not supposed that the business in which they were engaged was worth demonstrating about...
...General Brown has, we presume, decided to restrict his public comments to the areas of his acknowledged expertise, and as for Arafat, he no longer commands the excitement he did...
...We receive many letters of general congratulation (we love them, but won't print them, preferring to treat them as private communications...
...F. * Readers will notice that this month's issue of moment is dated December, and may wonder what happened to November...
...was dated October...
...It will, therefore, be able to deal more creatively with the conventional, yet pressing, agenda of Jewish communal business which is its primary concern...
...Insult was heaped upon insult, and the sense of impending injury was almost palpable...
...which will this year attract some 3,000 delegates from across the country, the GA has become the most auspicious happening in the annual calendar of the organized Jewish community...
...The structural problems — a shift in the world economy, Arab ascendency, Third World confusion — these remain, and, in some ways, have become more troublesome...
...And if it is still, as well, an example of problem areas — of elitism, of the inflated relevance of money, of the strains between lay people and professionals — it is all too well-intentioned to get very angry about...
...The "regulars" see each other at quarterly meetings of the CJFWF Board, at other and overlapping conventions, on missions to Israel...
...The GA is, in effect, a microcosm of Jewish life, and of the change that has taken place over the past decade — the greater emphasis on Jewish content, the growing central-ity of Federation, the search for connection between the sacred and the secular, the increased participation of young people and of women, the emergence of a national community...
...As to the General Assembly of the CJFWF...
...The GA may not make history, but it has connected with Jewish life in important ways, and that is the precondition for making a difference...
...So this year's General Assembly of the CJFWF — barring sudden reversal — will be free of the awful foreboding that attended the last...
...The adjustment in cover date was made to meet the requirements of newsstands, and does not affect the length of subscriptions, which still run either one year (10 issues) or two (20 issues...
...But that burdensome sense that it was open season on the Jews and the Jewish State is much relieved...
...Last week, we had a letter which informed us that a friend of ours had recently returned from the Soviet Union, where he had met with a number of Jewish dissidents...
...And he reports that MOMENT was his most welcome gift, because the Russians had heard of it but had not yet seen a copy...
...Witness, for example, the role of students and young people at the GA since 1969, the year in which the young demonstrated against "the establishment...
...we haven't lost a month of the calendar, nor you of your subscription...
...Meanwhile, back at the office, we make our own modest kind of history...
...The students also did not know that the GA is most like a bowl of jello...
...Israel's emergency continues, but there is sufficient breathing space just now to permit serious debate of some of the accumulated items we have had neither heart nor head to discuss these past several years...
...Its delegates are, in effect, the most glamorous congregation we have, a jet-set elite that comes together for its annual three days of High Holiday services, complete with rabbis, directors, scholars, fashions, worship — and, now and again, a decision to be made...
...The problem is that the idols they find are, on the whole, benign...
...Our readers are part of an extended family, and such modest contribution as we can make to the sense of connection among the several branches of that family matters greatly to us...
...Tn general, our mail is a source of joy — and of puzzlement...
...The demonstration was an assertion that the GA mattered, that Important Decisions were expected of it, and one has the sense these days, as the students have become oh so quiet, that the delegates look back on 1969 nostalgically, wishing someone would force an issue or two again...
...In that connection, we present in this issue a proposal for the restructuring of Jewish education in America (Arthur Hertzberg), a new perspective on the relationship between Jewish federations and Jewish hospitals (Cecil Sheps), a plea for better understanding of the role the Synagogue can, and should, play in Jewish life (Samuel Dresner), and a demand for greater accountability by Jewish agencies and organizations (Jacob Neusner...
...Others wear the uniform of rebellion, something of an affectation by now, and wander about rather aimlessly in search of an idol to smash...
...UNESCO has had a harder time of it this past year than Israel, and it has now taken the first step toward undoing its offense of a year ago...
...These, as well as the many gift subscriptions we receive for children away at college, are especially welcome as they indicate an understanding of the bridge-building function we think we can serve...
...Of these last, the ones that please the most are the two-subscription gifts, where one is designated for the giver's children, the other for his parents...
...Give it a thwack, and it shakes, ripples and rolls — and then returns to its original amorphous shape...
...Students still come to the GA...
...the idols bentsh after meals, and celebrate the Shabbat, and speak out for Jewish education...

Vol. 1 • December 1975 • No. 5


 
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