Letters

...Schwartz's relationship with JFK dated back to the late 1940s when Kennedy was a member of the House of Representatives and sought Schwartz's advice on refugee and migration matters...

...To the Editor: The grocery-store ad for "Fresh, Tender rabbi, 69i/lb...

...I turned to John Jacob's article, hoping to hear a black man tell me that it was possible for blacks and Jews to reach out to each other...

...Rabbi Zimmerman then discusses the charge that "patrilineal descent" will create an "irreconcilable division in the unity of the Jewish people...

...Moreover, unlike Rabbi Zimmerman, who wrote his article pro domo, defending the CCAR position, I tried to see that position within the total Jewish situation...

...I don't happen to share it, but Mr...

...Roosevelt...

...Really...

...Is he saying it's unfair that criminals strike most often in their own neighborhoods...

...We must beware of the potential for irresponsibility from the segment of Judaism that says, in effect, "Let's do whatever we want because Moshe Feinstein (and now, we learn, the Orthodox community in Toronto) will reject us anyway...

...He is unquestionably correct in insisting that it represents a major break with the halachah, now at least 1,800 years old, and universally observed by Jews the world over, and that it is likely to drive a major wedge in the Jewish community...

...However, he goes on to say he believes this to be consistent with what most Jews believe...

...Zimmerman has given us a straw rabbi...

...What does Mr...

...I did not say that I would possibly find them depressing...

...This editorial revision had not been cleared with me before, and I submit that more is involved here than a minor stylistic change...

...All letters should be typed, double-spaced, and sent to the moment Editorial Office, 462 Boylston Street, Suite 301, Boston, MA 02116...

...Wilhelm at the Emet Ve'emunah congregation, which he conducted in the same spirit, he retained the authorization originally granted his predecessor...

...in the June Spice Box does not refer to rabbis or to kohlrabi, but to a vegetable known as "broccoli rabbi" (brok eli ra b...

...Regarding Israel, he feels "that Israel's present government is tragically missing the chance to conclude a lasting peace, that instead of reaping a harvest of opportunities for peace and security, it is sowing the seeds for continued conflict...

...Starting with the least important item, there's the matter of his cloudy rhetoric...

...The Ambassador also tried unsuccessfully, according to Schwartz, to persuade Chamberlain to intervene with Hitler on behalf of the Jews, at President Roosevelt's personal request...

...Subsequently, in September 1960, Schwartz arranged for her to meet JFK in Hyde Park as the Democratic presidential nominee, when she agreed to take part in the campaign...

...Roosevelt to back Kennedy for the vice-presidential nomination at the Chicago convention...

...Schwartz became an official of the Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees immediately after his military service, and subsequently of the International Refugee Organization and its successor agency, the Intergovernmental Committee for European Migration...

...However, no matter how high their standard of adherence to halachah...

...He, like his successor, was a Conservative rabbi...

...I am surprised that your uninformed readers took umbrage to a shortened spelling of the vegetable's name, since it is really quite well known on the East Coast and to Italian-Americans...

...Because of his loyalty to tradition, Rabbi Wilhelm was authorized to perform marriages by the late Chief Rabbi ?. I. Kook, whose deep piety went hand in hand with a profound tolerance and love for all Israel...

...What is he talking about here—Wednesday night wrestling...

...A few years ago, when my late husband and I signed our lease to our HUD-operated apartment, we were not prepared for the bitter anti-black attitudes that some of the Jews tried, unsuccessfully, to hide...

...Wilhelm was born in 1900 and educated in Germany...

...Especially when the Holocaust fires burned, I was sure that this horror would, at last, open the minds and hearts of Jews toward a universal understanding of black problems...

...After all...

...All boys, of course...

...Only time will tell...

...Perhaps it is...

...Roosevelt about aiding German Jewish students...

...Phillip succeeded Dr...

...Helen Jay Cincinnati, Ohio To the Editor: What a disappointment...

...As a Conservative rabbi, I fear that the patrilineal decision will create a schism among the Jewish people...

...Harry M. Mahn Wantagh, New York Letters to the Editor moment welcomes letters from readers...

...In 1965 he was fired from his State Department post, as part of the price exacted by Senator James Eastland and other McCarthyites for their agreement to support the 1965 immigration legislation (which finally eliminated the notorious National Origins Quota System and made special provisions for refugees...

...I might add that it's a statement I've heard bigots use to perface statements slandering blacks...

...He says, "Blacks are most likely to be victims of crime, while at the same time, they are more likely than others to be arrested and to be given harsh sentences...

...and I tried to do so from an objective point of view— without letting my personal value judgments interfere...

...I recall the shock I experienced in those prehistoric days when I was a young teacher in Boston, when I learned that it was unthinkable for a Negro teacher to be given a classroom in the main building "with the rest of us...

...Few of Rabbi Zimmerman's patrilineal Jews will ever seek out Moshe Feinstein as the officiant at their wedding ceremony...

...The two institutions represent the fountainheads of Conservative Judaism in Europe and America...

...LETTERS On Jewish Descent To the Editor: I read with considerable sympathy Professor Jakob Petuchowski's critique (Toward Sectarianism," September 1983) of the CCAR decision making patrilineal dissent a legally acceptable criterion for Jewish status...

...And, if we went back to those ancient days in Egypt, we even shared the Negroes' wretched state of slavery...

...History might well validate the reverse...

...I object...

...This particular vegetable looks a lot like broccoli, only it has long stems and a small flower on the head, and is quite bitter...

...The article further raised the question about Reform Judaism's religious strength to "go it alone" as a sect, and it ended on a note of "wait and see" as far as the reactions of Reform Jews beyond the American continent are concerned...

...But to demonstrate patrilineal descent via Joseph (ignoring the clear-cut case of the ma-trilineal descent of Abraham's sons, by the way) and to invoke conversion via Ruth (ignoring two millennia of normative tradition on the subject) smacks of dabbling in Karaism...

...This is not to say that Conservative rabbis are right and Reform rabbis are wrong...

...This included helping to establish the policy of using millions of dollars of proceeds from the sale of heirless property of Nazi victims to aid survivors, through JDC and the Jewish Agency...

...Outraged by Hitler's persecution of the Jews, the Ambassador sought permission of the State Department to speak out publicly against Hitler's barbarism at Albert Hall in London...

...I might or I might not do so...

...Imagine, then, my surprise when, instead of what I had written, the article that appeared in moment concluded, on page 36, with the following sentence: "This, and more, will be interesting—and, I fear, quite depressing—to watch...

...But I do say that Rabbi Zimmerman misleads us when he attacks Moshe Feinstein—who won't have contact with "patrilineals," but toally ignores 1,100 Conservative rabbis—who will...

...We reserve the right to edit for publication...

...Schwartz's book also reveals a little-known and surprising aspect of Joseph P. Kennedy's role during his ambassadorship to Great Britain: "Contrary to uninformed opinion, Ambassador Kennedy strongly condemned the German government for its persecution of Jews and other nonconformists, and very actively and willingly supported President Roosevelt and the IGCR (Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees) in seeking avenues to assist refugees from Germany and German-occupied areas in Europe...

...Further on, Mr...

...All too few members of the American Jewish community are aware of the key role Schwartz played in aiding Jewish and other refugees from the end of World War II to 1965...

...When Dr...

...J. Arancio Rockville Center, New York Blacks and Jews To the Editor: The thoughtful article by John Jacob ("Revitalizing the Black-Jewish Alliance") in the July-August issue of moment lifted the spirits of this aging transplant from Boston...

...He seems to be suggesting that the situation is unfair...

...Jacob says, "And, I would urge the Jewish community to understand [black sympathy for the Palestinians] as a natural proclivity for the underdog...

...Robert Gordis New York, New York To the Editor: The manuscript of my article, "Toward Sectarianism," concluded with the following two sentences: "It will be interesting to watch...

...Petuchowski writes, "There was a time when two German Liberal rabbis, the late Dr...

...Please set the record straight...

...Jakob J. Petuchowski Cincinnati, Ohio To the Editor: Rabbi Sheldon Zimmerman ("Raising the Standard," September) is illusory in two of his major points supporting patrilineal descent as a definition of Jewishness...

...James P. Rice Chicago, Illinois The Produce Dept...

...I write only to set the record straight on two matters of detail...

...Kurt Wilhelm and the late Dr...

...Together with the late George L. Warren, Refugee Advisor of the State Department, Schwartz played an indispensable role in obtaining massive American and international aid for the relief and rehabilitation programs of JDC and the Jewish Agency...

...Or I might not have made up my mind as yet about the whole thing, since, after all, the results are not yet in...

...Rabbis Wilhelm and Phillip, like their Conservative colleagues in Israel at present, would never receive a similar authorization from the Holy Alliance of religious politicians and fanatics who constitute the Orthodox establishment in Israel today...

...Of course, all modern Jews quote the sources selectively...

...The solution...

...This only served to strengthen this young Jewish teacher's attempt to build some kind of a Negro-Jewish bridge...

...Jacob suggest...

...Incorrigible optimist, I kept believing...

...I have heard similar statements from people who say they have nothing against Jews, but could understand this, that, or some other anti-Semitic attitude...

...I imagine that food stores must limit the number of letters on their produce signs for space reasons, therefore, the rabbi...

...Only signed letters with a complete return address can be considered...

...It is the Talmud, and the 2,000-year history of subsequent halachah, that have moderated for us most biblical excesses...

...and Mrs...

...Schwartz currently practices international law and is special counsel to intergovernmental migration agencies...

...While I, and most blacks, do not share that viewpoint, we understand it...

...My article was written from the perspective of someone who had made a study of Jewish sectarian formations in the past, and who was now speculating on the extent to which recent Reform decisions affecting "personal status" either do or do not fit into that pattern...

...I know nothing about Mr...

...We wondered why they moved here, since they knew that management could not discriminate...

...Due Credit To the Editor: In Lawrence Fuchs's article, "JFK and The Jews" (June), it was gratify^ ing to see the reference to President Kennedy's appointment of Abba P. Schwartz—among those with "the best minds on any given subject" sought by the late President—as head of the Bureau of Security and Consular Affairs in the State Department...

...Hundreds will one day seek out Conservative rabbis...

...Stephen Listfield Associate Rabbi, Adas Israel Synagogue Washington, D.C...

...Jacob, but if he is representative of today's black leadership, then there is less hope for blacks and Jews to understand each other than I had thought...

...It was my privilege to work with Abba Schwartz as the Joint Distribution Committee liaison representative to international refugee agencies in Geneva from 1948-1954, and as Executive Director of HIAS from 1955 to 1966...

...The congregation he led in Jerusalem, Emet Ve'emunah, can be described as a right-wing or center Conservative congregation...

...That is his opinion...

...But, I'havdil, the Bible also supports polygamy, capital punishment for rebellious teenagers and the massacre of all the inhabitants of an idolatrous Jewish city...

...As Schwartz records in his book, The Open Society (William Morrow & Co., 1968), it was he who first introduced Eleanor Roosevelt to JFK in 1956, when Schwartz tried "unsuccessfully to persuade Mrs...

...To whom has he been talking...

...I was convinced that smart folks (like my own Yehudim) would surely see the similarity between our own years of European torment and the brutal way the Negroes had been kicked around right here in "God's country...

...Rabbi Zimmerman buttresses his argument by noting that the Bible, in certain cases, accords Jewish status patrilineally...

...He refutes that charge, claiming that Rabbi Moshe Feinstein rejects all Reform rabbis anyway...

...To be sure, the antics of the establishment are a source of embarrassment to all ethically sensitive Jews, Orthodox and non-Orthodox, believers and secularists alike, but the establishment rules and the others remain silent...

...Schwartz's own concern for refugees had begun in 1938, when as a Harvard law student, he had written to Pres...

...Should we cut down on black arrests...

...But the State Department denied his request...

...And as matters now stand, almost all Conservative rabbis will not—cannot— accept these people as Jews...

...As a student of Judaism, I find those reactions, whatever they might be, interesting...

...Aharon Phillip, were authorized to solemnize marriages in Jerusalem" (italics his...

...Who appointed him a spokesman for Jews...

...Should more whites be arrested...

...This developed into a continuing and close relationship with Mrs...

...He continued his studies and was ordained at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York in 1925...

...Jacob is entitled to have it...

...he studied for the rabbinate at the Jewish Theological Seminary in Breslau...

...Both these distinguished rabbis were good friends of mine...

...Mrs...

...occupied a room in a portable building across the yard...

...Instead, I feel someone has thrown cold water on me...