LETTERS
LETTERS Der Moment To the Editor: The arrival of the beautiful and deliciously meaty premiere issue of MOMENT took me back some 55 years to Baranowicze, Poland. My mother would send me to...
...Israel is creating a country out of diverse and disparate cultural entities...
...The basic question, moreover, goes far beyond the debate on Israel...
...But a letter to the editor is hardly the vehicle for dealing with this broader question...
...The Jew ceased publication in March of 1826 after successfully curtailing further missionary activity...
...Indeed, they suppose they may learn from the other person and teach as well...
...others have reverted to house-organs for rabbinical and other organizations, devoted primarily to a printed version of hakafot for their members...
...Dworkin and I are both wrong...
...Within its pages serious people argue with one another—Robert Alter and Shlomo Avineri develop, in their slow and colloquial way, exactly the sort of discourse from which we derive life...
...And the Jewish community has been as guilty as the general community...
...May your English echo of Der Moment (the newest proof for t'chiyat hametim) have many decades of literarisher Bedeutung—vichtig, lichtig, und richtig...
...On many fronts, and in many ways...
...Dworkin...
...At the same time, however, one should be aware of the limitations of such assessments...
...however, it served as an initial venture in magazine publication...
...Resupplying the Egyptians and the Syrians does not necessarily mean that these regional powers would either call or allow Soviet active military intervention...
...The second comment concerns the shape of a future war in the Middle East...
...The strength of the new forum for Jewish public discourse will testify to the confidence and seriousness of the Jewish community...
...A study of the history of the Palestinian Arab movement (Palestine and Israel: The Lethal Dilemma, 1969, by Hisham Sharabi [the title itself contains a semantic-historic distortion]) shows the roots and the subsequent development of the movement to be religious and national, and only barely socialistic and political...
...The same observation should apply to a future war if and when it erupts...
...I certainly believe that one can be a good Jew and a political liberal—which, I suspect, is more than our liberals would concede to the Jew who happens to be a political conservative...
...I would like to suggest that "getting on with l i f e " is what Israel is now doing...
...and the latter's decision to implement an even-handed policy in this region...
...Dworkin has really named the problem herself: lack of power (and, coinincidentally, respect...
...on page 10 The Jewish Right problem (though, too, demonstrating her submission to her husband's commands), but that act did not do anyt h i n g to change the situation of women...
...Still, it left me feeling strangely uncomfortable...
...But—as I recollect— there was a Jewish periodical before the Occident...
...They are being debated among American Jews—in their living rooms, and increasingly in their meeting rooms...
...1847) and its first issue appeared in March, 1824 (5583...
...This talk haunts me in the same way as the recent example of linguistic whitewashing: " L e t ' s get Vietnam behind u s . " I have a daydream that if Israel and/or the P.L.O...
...I would get home loaded with a Heint, Hazefirah, Der Moment, and once a month the journals Leben (published in Vilna, all the others came from Warsaw) and Der Chodesh...
...The winners will be those who are able to minimize the effects of the initial surprise, and prevent total chaos as a result of further surprises...
...Niddah was singled out for special treatment long before the post-Talmudic age...
...It had its moment...
...Looking at the issue again from the Israeli side, Israel's traditional conception about the preferred offensive approach cannot be changed easily, especially as long as the present military leadership continues to occupy its positions...
...Rather, I question her assumption that consciousness, in itself, is enough...
...The probability of war is not a function only of national capabilities but of a combination of the state of the envir o n m e n t , the intentions and the capabilities at given points...
...derives its emotional direction from jihad-like sentiments, as do the other Arab nations whose leaders, like Sadat, threatened jihad as recently as March 23, 1975, in an address to Muslim scholars (italics mine) in Lagos, Nigeria...
...Moreover this lesson is important for the two sides involved in the conflict...
...It seems that the American Society for Meliorating the Condition of the Jews, chaired by a Jewish convert to Christianity, had made attempts at establishing a "Jewish-Christian" colony in Upstate New York...
...These conceptions and the structure and training of the Israeli army would probably result also in a mixed strategy rather than in a clear defensive posture...
...were to disappear tomorrow, the world would say, "Thank God, that's over with...
...I do not wish to argue that a raised consciousness is not essential for change...
...In this sense a symmetry may be created between Israel and the Arab States as well as between the superpowers...
...The law of niddah, as my article explains, first appears in the Pentateuch, which considerably antedates Christianity, not to speak of Islam...
...I have one criticism to make of it, and one tangential remark...
...There are no decisive indications that the Soviet Union's capability to intervene has been increased recently or that it could launch effective military operations that would alter the situation created by the regional participants' moves if and when war breaks out...
...MOMENT comes to us at precisely the right time, and Godspeed to the magazine and all who do its work...
...To balance the inevitable jeers which any such article is likely to produce, here is one loud, sustained cheer...
...Now we can settle down to being the world a g a i n . " The world also daydreams about what it thinks the world is like and imagines that problems are shortterm thorns...
...Former member, Ezrat Nashim To the Editor: Harold Schulweis writes that, in the 1966 Commentary symposium (The State of Jewish Belief), "Professor Petuchowski flatly declares that Judaism 'opposes preferential treatment, even if the recipient of such preferential treatment is one of the underprivileged.' " 1 am not quite sure what Schulweis means by " f l a t l y . " In the article from which he purports to quote I specifically cited Exodus 23:6 [You shall not subvert the rights of your needy in their disputes] and 23:9 [You shall not oppress a stranger, for you know the feelings of the stranger, having yourselves been strangers in the land of Egypt] to indicate that "Judaism is certainly against discriminatory treatment of any section of the population, where such discrimination is inimical to the enjoyment of equal r i g h t s . " I also cited Exodus 23:3 [nor shall you show deference to a poor man in his dispute] in support of the statement which Schulweis attributes to me...
...For that kind of activity, consciousness is clearly necessary...
...We've solved that problem...
...That is exactly what happened in the wake of the Percy uproar...
...After all, questions about strategy and tactics are being debated every day in Israel...
...The continual talk of peace in the Middle East, as one hears it in the daily news, sounds like nothing so much as waiting for the curtain to rise on a play that we can applaud...
...This is, of course, one of the most hotly debated issues in recent strategic analysis concerning conventional warfare...
...Partially, I disagree with her claim that "Jewish women came late to feminism...
...The project failed in that its total recruitment included only two Jewish families, who departed shortly after experiencing dreadful conditions...
...America (North and South) and Canada fought or subdued Indians for centuries...
...What I did say was that originally niddah (menstrual impurity) was not a way of singling women out for special persecution but a way of including them in a major religious ritual: the cycle of turn ah and taharah through which individuals acted out their own death and regeneration...
...should take account of this...
...The manner in which they conducted the crossing of the Suez Canal and their operations during the initial stages of the war tend to support this view...
...Or, in Ms...
...During its duration it served as a vital platform for the minute Jewish community of that time to oppose the missionary zeal of some of its Christian countrymen...
...It is not something that begins after a treaty is signed or a battle is concluded...
...Among my assignments for Prof...
...England fought border wars with the Scots and wars with invading Danes, Goths, Normans, etc...
...At the same time he comments that " t h e spontaneous reactions of large numbers of Jews on matters such as t h i s , except as they deal in ugly invective—as many do—are signs of a lively community...
...And power derives from organization...
...Indeed The Jew had neither the longevity nor spirit of the Occident...
...G. Sheffer Jerusalem, Israel Jewish Women To the Editor: In her otherwise excellent article, " A Song for Women in Five Quest i o n s , " Susan Dworkin attributes to me a particularly wacky anachronism...
...I fear that Israel shares something of this view when it talks of a "last w a r " in terms of getting nastiness behind it so that one can get on with life...
...This is not the spirit out of which a secular democracy grows, and any relationship which Israel does establish with the P.L.O...
...The third question is that of the capability and intentions of the superpowers to intervene during actual combat in the Middle East...
...One morning mother, of blessed memory, said: " R e m e m b e r (Elie Wiesel's reverberating imperative), be sure he also gives you the Almanach t o d a y ." On its 10th Anniversary, in 1921, Der Moment published its "Almanach Von A Vichtiger Literarisher Bedeutung...
...My own misuse of the term was pointed out to me by a former editor of genesis 2, Michael Swirsky, in response to an article I wrote on the fictitious nature of the secular democratic aspirations of the Palestinian Arabs (genesis 2, March, 1975...
...Martha Ackelsberg Lecturer on Government, Smith College, Northampton, Mass...
...History suggests that such countries achieve stability slowly but, judging from our examples, successfully from the point of view of threat to their existence...
...My mother would send me to one of the booths in the " m a r k " to pick up our papers...
...There have b e e n , " I wrote, "some con/, on page 6 Letters—continued unjustified and needlessly shrill reactions to statements that have indeed been disturbing, reflecting ignorance or naivety or 'seducibility.' They need quick, convincing rebuttals...
...People of strength and confidence do not fear disagreement or disagreeable opinions...
...Jick's course in American Jewish History at Brandeis University, I had occasion to research the first Jewish magazine in the United States...
...Since I myself incline towards conservatism in politics, I am often amused to have my Jewish bona fides called into question by those who not only do not share my politics but also reject the belief in the Personal God of Judaism and in Revelation...
...Unfortunately, in the Jewish community as elsewhere, those who have power take seriously those who do not only when forced to do so...
...The society's literary organ was Israel's Advocate: or, the Restoration of the Jews contemplated and urged...
...They do not warrant angry, accusatory, or threatening rejoinders...
...Jacob Neusner Professor of Religious Studies Brown University To the Editor: I have read with much interest Leonard Fein's article dealing with reactions to Senator Percy earlier this year...
...Ely E. Pilchik Short Hills, N.J...
...Without power —or access to it, or ways of changing who exercises it, how, and to what e n d s — c o n s c i o u s n e s s alone leads only to frustration...
...That aside, however, my major discomfort stems from Ms...
...The road to peace in the Middle East has not been so smooth and sure that we should not welcome tough questions and the voicing of new ideas...
...That, of course, is not an argument for rejecting niddah and mikveh, but it is an argument for taking a long, skeptical look at those rabbinically added days of impurity...
...Rabbi Meir may have helped her to resolve her cont...
...the sort of image dear to western socialist philosophies: that of a beleaguered people struggling for national liberation and the "decent" society based on Marxist principles...
...Swirsky rightly notes that by calling the Palestinian Arabs "Palestinians" and by withholding this characterization from Israelis, we fall victim to Palestinian Arab propaganda and give sanction to the viewpoint that the Palestinian Arabs have a prior claim on the total territory previously known as Palestine, and that Israel is an encroachment on their territory, and, moreover, cloaks the fact that Palestinian Arabs are now living within a part of the territory historically known as Palestine...
...this mixed strategy created the most damaging situation for the Israelis during that war...
...To the Editor: Three issues raised by Drew Middleton in his assessment of the Middle Eastern powers' military capabilities deserve some comments...
...Strict new customs limited physical contact and social interaction with the niddah, and a newly created category, the Purity of the Family (taharat hamishpachah), made turn'ah a special condition afflicting only women...
...Enemies will die hard...
...It was called The Jew...
...on page l e c t i o n s , " prepared by Professor Leon Jick on " T h e First Jewish Periodical in America...
...Hyman Bookbinder Washington Representative American Jewish Committee The Real Threats To the Editor: Stephen Cohen's article, " T he Real Threat of the P . L . O . , " is to be complimented in every way...
...On that, I am in total agreement with Ms...
...Its editor was Solomon Henry Jackson (d...
...The ugly invective is not a sign of life, though we are a lively community, but a sign of fear, nervousness, narrow-mindedness, and a constricted spirit...
...Dworkin's emphasis on consciousness as the critical factor in promoting change within the Jewish community...
...In a recent issue of my Washington Letter, I urged a differentiation between "erosion of support," which understandably should concern friends of Israel, and frank discussions of alternative strategies for Middle East peace, which we should welcome...
...I have, however, argued that Judaism does not commit us to the liberal position...
...Nevertheless, the shape of the last war was not determined, as I see it, solely by the initial surprise...
...Prof...
...Women thus became the only visibly impure people in a world where impurity was no longer experienced as a normal human condition...
...Of course, no particular organization is essential...
...The cost of such an intervention may be conceived as too high by these states particularly in view of their recent behavior towards the U.S...
...Surprises cannot be avoided...
...Differences on such questions as quotas or the Jackson amendment have evoked insults and insinuations and epithets unworthy of Jewish tolerance and scholarship and thoughtfulness...
...But what sort of a spirit prevails among us, when, as Fein observes, many of the letters received by Percy were full of ugly invective...
...Hence there are good chances that even the next war would be conducted by the regional actors alone...
...This leadership, it should be remembered, was raised and trained in accordance with that doctrine...
...on piifie S strategy had to be implemented...
...They are being debated in the Ford Administration...
...During the post-Talmudic period since the destruction of the Temple, the laws of turn'ah applying to men were no longer in force...
...Which leads me to my tangential comment, and this concerns Israel's ideas vis-a-vis peace...
...In any case, the first comment concerns Middleton's argument that the introduction of new generations of weapons into the Middle Eastern battlefield may alter the balance in favor of defense over offense...
...On Jewish issues—and the State of Israel surely is a Jewish issue—Israeli Jews enjoy greater latitude of expression and a wider range of freedom of speech than do American Jews...
...Cohen's point about "perpetual war" is pertinent here and asks for a reassessment of reality...
...No mean feat, as we all know...
...LETTERS Der Moment To the Editor: The arrival of the beautiful and deliciously meaty premiere issue of MOMENT took me back some 55 years to Baranowicze, Poland...
...Peace is granted to few nations, and of these even fewer have been in the formative stages of their existence...
...These innovations appeared as alien to me as niddah itself appeared to Ms...
...Jick told me so...
...Rachel Adler Minneapolis, Minn...
...Dworkin's words: " . . . i t is the feeling, the product of consciousness raising . . . that poses the greatest threat to the Jewish establishment and constitutes the great power of Jewish feminism...
...Magazines which, in the 1960's, gave a platform to the analysis and debate of Jewish public issues have fallen on evil days...
...if anything, it simply took Jewish women a while to apply the feminist critique to Jewish life...
...Moshe Waldoks Director, B'nai B'rith Hillel Foundation, Tufts University _ Medford, Ma s s...
...This being so, Israel must try not to harass herself with judgments on her military performance or to be a moral prey to the fluctuations of victory and defeat...
...But what dies before us through the rigid proscription of books, ideas, people whom we do not find in accord with our taste...
...but it seems to me that some organization is...
...it is not a feeling that can be e x p e r i e n c e d i n d i v i d u a l l y . Nor, I might add, is it a feeling one can act on (effectively) in isolation...
...After all, the "feeling . . . of being together" was and is provided only through organization...
...R a t h e r , it would appear, Ms...
...On Fein on Percy To the Editor: Leonard Fein's article on Senator Percy quite properly focuses not upon the reaction of Jews to Percy's several statements on the State of Israel, but upon the "psychological response, the effect of the episode on our morale...
...Roberta Kalechofsky Marblehead, Mass...
...Adler says the niddah taboo arose because of the influence of Christian, Essene, and Islamic asceticism...
...My criticism concerns his use of the word "Palestinian" in place of "Palestinian Arab...
...I am inclined to think American Jewry reveals not vital signs, but symptoms of morbidity, in incidents such as this...
...What indeed, if not the life of the mind and spirit which we are meant to live...
...Indubitably, The Jew was a major cause of Israel's Advocate's folding in February 1826...
...MOMENT itself is a sign of vitality and life...
...also for centuries before she became what we take for granted she now is: the United Kingdom...
...That is so...
...Jakob J. Petuchowski Hebrew Union College Cincinnati, Ohio Recollections To the Editor: Reading the first issue of MOMENT I was particularly drawn to "Recolcont...
...I know...
...Niddah survived because the prohibition against intercourse with a niddah applies whether there is a Temple or not...
...Being a Defence of Judaism against all Adversaries and Particularly against the insidious attacks of "Israel's Advocate...
...Some have become trivial and precious...
...but it is certainly not sufficient...
...Although there is, and probably can be, no consensus among analysts about this question until, to put it cynically, this hypothesis is tested on the battlefield, it seems that many believe that future conventional wars would be fought as combinations of offense and defense...
...Her role in the world and her sense of herself are hardly defined primarily in these terms...
...Ezrat Nashim was refused permission, by the convention chairman, to address the Rabbinical Assembly convention in 1972, and told to try again the following year—if the women were still " i n t e r e s t e d . " It was only when a group of women presented themselves at the convention —complete with pamphlets, statements, and press coverage—that the leadership relented.] The simplest, most direct way of forcing one group to take another seriously is to organize and exert pressure...
...That, I think, is why (for example) the story of the woman who spits in Rabbi Meir's eye—though intriguing—does not really lead us anywhere...
...No American should feel he cannot or should not be part of that debate...
...The crucial issue is therefore whether and which side has reorganized and redesigned its command in a manner which would enable it to react rapidly enough when the other side's strategies and tactics become evident on the battlefield...
...I am troubled by an intolerance, an incivility, and arrogance that has characterized so much of public debate in recent years...
...1 have never argued that Judaism commits us to the conservative position in politics...
...It is the only form of turn'ah to which the Talmudic sages added extra days of impurity, and I suspect that they were influenced less by foreign asceticism than by homegrown Jewish asceticism supported by home-grown Jewish sexism...
...It was determined, at least on the Egyptian front, by the ability of the Israelis to reorient themselves in view of an entirely new situation in which a new com...
...But there is something to be learned about ourselves from the reaction to which Leonard Fein makes reference, and it is not solely that we are a lively community...
...The arrogation of the term ' ' Palestinian" by the Palestinian Arabs conjoined with the phrase, "the secular democratic s t a t e , " gives the P.L.O...
...I think now that Ms...
...There is no greater disservice the Jewish community could do to the cause of a secure Israel than to change the debate in this country from the merits of Israel's cause to the right of an American to raise questions or to the tactics of the Jewish lobby...
...They welcome the opportunity for free and open debate...
...The P.L.O...
...Surprise cannot be totally prevented...
...C e r t a i n features of this mixed strategy were already demonstrated by the Egyptians during the October 1973 War...
...To the Editor: Susan Dworkin's article provides a useful summary of the history and concerns of Jewish feminism...
...An organization might stir the waters, a raised consciousness can change the tide...
...Dworkin (and the t h e o r i s t s / a c t i v i s t s of the feminist movement, the civil rights movement, the labor movement, the zionist movement...
...What is required here is (a) that women be respected ( i . e . , that we and our concerns be taken seriously), and (b) that laws, practices, and d e c i s i o n - m a k i n g patterns be changed—to reflect equal rights and status...
Vol. 1 • June 1975 • No. 2
