Letters
LETTERS On the Jewish Agency To the Editor: In the April issue of moment, Dr. Eliezer Jaffe calls on diaspora leaders to think beyond the Jewish Agency, to find new (and ostensibly...
...I will trust that the statistics he cites are accurate...
...Perhaps there are some people who imagine a society permanently based on quotas...
...Jaffe against jettisonning the whole arrangement...
...Meyer Waxman...
...It may be that each endorses a different view of how the Jewish community ought to respond to specific remedies established by our courts, but the differences as expressed in moment's pages are very, very subtle—at best...
...I don't think that right, and I don't believe that's where Jewish organizations ought to be on this vexing issue...
...The response of our class...
...The notion of tying the performance of groups within the society, or of the society as a whole, to arbitrary mathematical formulas (e.g., there are 14 percent blacks in city X, therefore X discriminates unless 14 percent of the policemen, the teachers, the neurosurgeons, the cab drivers, etc., are black) is absurd...
...For those of us who are studying Yiddish, or who already know trie language well, the Yiddish text itself is what we really enjoy seeing in publications such as moment...
...This group of six musicians (serious ones, with the same type of inspiration as the KCB) has revived the art of klezmer music not only for residents of California, but as far east as those impressive metropolises—Chicago and New York...
...It violates the rights of a group to develop its own meaningful subculture within the larger whole, a subculture that will necessarily create different emphases, ambitions and so forth, from the general average...
...Thank you for continuing to share with us the finest of our Yiddish tradition...
...Emanuel Friedman Burlingame, California [Editor'sNote: We also received, in response to Rozovsky's article, a letter about Eclectricity, an Indiana-based group that has been playing Jewish music to audiences across the U.S...
...We reserve the right to edit for publication...
...It's hard to argue that so large a discrepancy is the result of cultural preferences...
...And that means aggressive affirmative action, at the very least...
...Ruth M. Bovarnick Mercer Island, Washington Love of Yiddishkeit To the Editor: The May issue of moment held many treasures, and I choose to comment on only one of them, the poems...
...I especially appreciate the fact that you included the text in Yiddish, along with the translation...
...Eliezer Jaffe calls on diaspora leaders to think beyond the Jewish Agency, to find new (and ostensibly non-politicized) mechanisms for funnel ing our money to Israel...
...Isn't there, perhaps, some good in the set-up...
...On the other side of the country, Berkeley has produced The Klezmorim...
...Given these obstacles, the Agency seems to accomplish only a fraction of what such an immense organization might achieve...
...Anyhow, I have long shared his uneasiness about the Jewish Agency, sensing in it an unwieldy monster, subject to political pressure from the outside and bureaucratic atrophy from the inside...
...Rabiner's article, which will appear in our October issue...
...To get us all, black and white, beyond that condition, we cannot deny ourselves the occasional and intelligent imposition of numeric targets—or, to put the matter bluntly, quotas...
...Rabbi Oscar Z. Fasman Lincolnwood, Illinois Affirmative Action To the Editor: moment is to be commended for its good intentions in presenting a discussion of affirmative action, quotas and so forth ("Dialogue: Assessing Affirmative Action," June 1982...
...Couldn't it simply be revised and revamped...
...Editors' Note The Melvin Urofsky article on The BrandeislFrankfurter Connection ("Mountains and Molehills: Setting the Brandeis-Frankfurter Connection Straight," moment, June 1983) has provoked considerable controversy, with respect not only to its judgments but also to the facts on which it is based...
...Why, in short, should blacks be required to distribute themselves throughout the economy in the ways in which whites have chosen to distribute themselves...
...Instead, it is virtually certain that the discrepancy is the consequence either of continuing discrimination, or of the cumulative disabilities, historical and current, with which blacks are afflicted—or both...
...But that is not the current point of the remedies...
...Thus, Reuven would lean forward to read a verse while Shimon sat back, then Reuven drew back and Shimon came forward to get a look at the text...
...Sheila Feinstein Miami, Florida And Still More Shuckles To the Editor: In connection with the discussion of "shuckling" during prayers (The Spice Box, April...
...The answer is really quite simple...
...Ike Azose is the gentleman who owned the former Maimon's Kosher Foods...
...Rabiner to provide a first-hand account of the publication of the book and her role in it...
...In particular, that section of the article dealing with the role of Ms...
...The editors of moment, not only for the sake of fairness but also in order to enable moment's readers to arrive at their own judgments on the basis of factually accurate information, have invited Ms...
...Generally, what one sees in American magazines of interest to Jewish people is only translations of Yiddish poetry...
...Only signed letters with a complete return address can be considered...
...Letters, May and June), perhaps readers would be interested in a theory presented to our Jewish history class at the Hebrew Theological College almost 60 years ago by Prof...
...Still, I would caution Dr...
...The piece left me in tears...
...The Boston case on which the Dershowitz discussion is based is instructive in that even in the face of a court order that went beyond affirmative action, that mandated specific quotas, after nine full years of a "maximal" remedy, the police force included 11.7 percent blacks, while the city's black population was 30 percent of the whole...
...I am sure this just gives you further proof of the flexibility and adaptability of the Seattle Jewish community...
...This alternating movement led to "shuckling...
...If there are such, I have never encountered them...
...The Sholom Aleichem story, "Creature" (translated by Joan Bernick), was one of the best I've ever read...
...The Dershowitzes (both) argue from high-minded principle, but the continued application of that principle at this incomplete stage of the struggle for a fair society would force us to continue the fight without adequate weapons...
...Arlene Schuster Bellevue, Washington To the Editor: I am not accustomed to writing letters to the editor, but, after closing the May moment, I find that I must...
...Chuckling...
...Short-term, something must be done to repair the meanness of the American past...
...Susan Rabiner, editor of The BrandeislFrankfurter Connection, appears to have been based on mistaken information...
...We encourage readers who may, in one way or another, rely on the Urofsky article not to quote from it and to reserve their conclusions until they have read Ms...
...Why start over, when we already have solid foundations in our present Jewish Agency...
...I cannot argue the facts and figures with Dr...
...manuscripts of the Siddur were not numerous enough for every worshiper to have his own...
...Joshua Kaplan Chicago, Illinois Letters to the Editor moment welcomes letters from readers...
...and Canada for the past three years.] Jewish Eating, Chinese-Style To the Editor: Thank you to Howard Husock for his tongue (and tofu)-in-cheek look at Jews and Chinese food (moment, May...
...Arnold Orenstine Brooklyn, New York Alive and Well and Living in Seattle To the Editor: Re "Seattle Slew" in the April Spice Box: You close the paragraph with a question—"Ikeazose...
...Azose, in addition, is employed by the Boeing Company and is the cantor of one of the two Sephardic congregations in Seattle, Ezra Bessaroth Congregation...
...I'd just like to add a word of recognition for those of us who frequent Chinese restaurants—not, as Husock says, because they give us the opportunity to eat hidden ham—but precisely because they usually offer more non-meat (and, therefore, more kosher) alternatives than many non-ethnic, standard American fare restaurants...
...Before the age of printing...
...they had to be shared...
...But, alas, its good intentions are not realized in the somewhat jumbled discussion between the Dershowitz brothers...
...Isaac Wolf New York, New York Musical Notes To the Editor: I would like to add to a reference made in Peter Rozovsky's excellent article (April 1983) about Hankus Netsky and the Klezmer Conservatory Band...
...All letters should be typed, double-spaced, and sent to the moment Editorial Office, 462 Boylston Street, Suite 301, Boston, MA 02116...
Vol. 8 • July 1984 • No. 7
