Letters
LETTERS Armies of Life To the Editor: In your October 1981 issue of moment Magazine, I read with interest an article entitled "The Valley of Death, The Armies of Life," in particular the section...
...Copies Each Issue During Preceding 12 Months...
...1.500...
...of Copies Each Issue During Preceding 12 Months...
...D. Free Distribution by Mail, Carrier or Other Means: Average No...
...Jacobson writes left the Soviet Union in September, 1981...
...6. Publisher: Leonard Fein, 462 Boylston Street, Boston, Massachusetts 02116...
...36,199...
...5. Location of the Headquar-_ ters or General Business Offices of the Publisher: 462 Boylston Street...
...462 Boylston Street, Boston, Massachusetts 02116...
...Settlers are settlers...
...I) Sales Through Dealers and Carriers, Street Vendors and Counter Sales: Average No...
...Not since Theodore Roosevelt had an American President publicly denounced Russian treatment of Jews, as President Johnson did in 1964...
...By the definition of the UN, which at every turn, has sought to jeopardize Israel's existence...
...But I did not send it...
...Copies Each Issue During Preceding 12 Months...
...Someday, there'll be special processing, handling and marketing of kosher pet food...
...Calling them hooligans—a phrase worthy of Vanessa Redgrave and her cohorts in the PLO—shows a great lack of sensitivily and understanding and is a great offense to those sectors of the population, including my husband and me, who feel that the JDL is a vital and productive organization dedicated to defending both Jewish interests and Jewish lives...
...37,699...
...Massachusetts 02116...
...By the European community, which is now honeymooning with the PLO...
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...and his descendants having to beg for bread...
...I feel some Jews need to learn that a daughter loves, misses and reveres the same as a son...
...But I can't allow myself to become angry...
...Jacobson...
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...what is the result...
...There is a time for everything...
...Left over...
...When Professor Neusner now tells us that Reform Judaism should hold itself in readiness to supply the much needed guidance at the moment our hitherto misguided Israeli brethren come to their senses, he supports my position—in an even stronger language than I myself would use...
...It was too late to go anywhere else, and I moved to the last row...
...Copies Each Issue During Preceding 12 Months...
...I immediately wrote a strong and angry answer to each of her statements, even though I knew that a month would elapse before readers could read my response...
...As long ago as May 1959,1 had pointed out in a Commentary article ("The Limits of 'People-Centered' Judaism") that American Reform Judaism had been able to save itself from sectarianism and worse by discovering, in the nick of time, the "peoplehood" dimension of Judaism...
...The highest emigration was 51,320 in 1979...
...22,500...
...Title of Publication: MOMENT...
...In times of extreme behavior, act extremely...
...3. Frequency of issue: Monthly except January-February and July-August when bimonthly...
...I have no "guilty conscience" about my efforts for my fellow Jews...
...Dedicated to a long-term optimistic faith in man's perfectability and moral ¦progress, we evolved a noble system of ethical thought...
...This year I felt fortunate that it was going to be on Shabbat and I would not have to travel the 20 miles to the closest daily minyan...
...However, my main concern is with your unthinking slur on the Jewish Defense League...
...Jacobson, who prides herself on her "diplomatic skill," should also learn that her statements about her "close friend" help neither friendship, nor the solution of serious Jewish problems...
...And then, for the first time, I will not regret having elicited all this furr-or with one arf-hearted remark...
...Dina Adler Westlake Village, California Editor's note: The illegal squatters we had in mind were those in Shiloh and Eilon Moreh, or, for that matter, in Kadum back in the days of the Labor government, who were declared by the Israeli government itself and/or by Israel's Supreme Court to be in violation of Israeli law...
...While I didn't feel always welcomed, at least I was always "mildly tolerated...
...Jacobson wrote "there has never been any cessation on the part of Israel and world Jewry in their effort to help Russian Jews to leave the Soviet Union," nothing of public knowledge had been done to bring about emigration from the Soviet Union (except for a tiny trickle) until 1964...
...Charlotte Jacobson's letter critical of me, and expressing "shock and dismay" that I "could possibly compare the Holocaust to the situation of Russian Jewry" that appeared in the November 1981 moment until after the issue had gone to press...
...Although Mrs...
...To understand the phrase correctly one must include the phrase that follows...
...1.934...
...However, each year since then has been an experience...
...The composers of the Haggadah were content to say "Dayenu" for modest benefits...
...If we would have had more men like him in 1945, we might have saved more innocent victims from the Holocaust...
...We could do no other...
...But, granting Professor Neusner's position, it would, of course, follow that Israelis should be America-centered, rather than that American Reform Jews should be Israel-centered...
...squatters are something else...
...I barely survived after the liberation...
...Whose legality are you so glibly alluding to when you disparage Jews who are returning to land that is as rightfully theirs by any definition as it is the possession of any other group...
...The only way to maintain a kosher kitchen with a pet is to purchase a second can opener for its food only...
...Good People, Bad Things To the Editor: A small footnote to the marvelous interview with Rabbi Harold Kushner (November 1981): A teacher of mine once taught that the phrase na'ar hayiti gam zakanti ("I was a child and I grew old, and I never saw a righteous person abandoned .. . ") is, by itself, usually misunderstood...
...Naomi Bluestone Great Neck, New York Blood and Self-preservation To the Editor: Leonard Fein ("Blood and Paint and Beirut," September 1981) plays the role of the "Tzaddik Harbey" disregarding Kohelet's counsel "not to be over-righteous...
...2) Mail Subscription: Average No...
...And the struggle did not end in Gotha because it then became the Russian zone...
...LETTERS Armies of Life To the Editor: In your October 1981 issue of moment Magazine, I read with interest an article entitled "The Valley of Death, The Armies of Life," in particular the section written by Mr...
...They were ultimately commended by everyone from the rabbi down to the chief of police...
...Yet, as Rabbi Kushner points out, we may still find meaning in the pain...
...No woman could have written such letters...
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...Finally, in desperation, they called the JDL who arrived promptly and who—for many days after the event—visibly patrolled outside the structure to make sure that nothing further was done...
...of Copies Printed: Average No...
...But since when is the enemy entitled to sleep undisturbed, or to plan in comfort his acts of terrorism...
...Copies Each Issue During Preceding 12 Months...
...An important case in point was . the recent desecration of a synagogue in our normally peaceful, affluent suburban community...
...to put it down in the basement next to the laundry sink where the pet's dishes are washed with their own soap, steel wool and towels...
...Copies Each Issue During Preceding 12 Months...
...It is not the content of your editorial that is so upsetting, but two phrases in this first paragraph, namely "hooligans of the Jewish Defense League" and "illegal squatters on the West Bank...
...all the presidents were that day received by the Secretary of State Dean Rusk, who expressed his agreement with us, and gave us assurances of specific actions—which were carried out...
...He returned shortly, to tell me that if I insisted on saying Kaddish to do so silently — that I was not to be heard...
...The ethical standard of restraint and passivity was a product of an era and a clime when bestiality a la German Nazi and terror a la PLO evaded the human mind...
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...E. Total Distribution: Average No...
...I believe that someday one of the large pet food corporations will recognize the kosher market and follow in the footsteps of my grandfather Morris Sussman...
...I have been shunted into corners, forced to sit in hallways, and when necessary, I have made my own phone calls to ensure a minyan...
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...When a dog dish becomes unuseable, for brief interludes, what loving owner can resist reaching for a real dish, and then what is the result...
...And the hooligans we had in mind were those JDLers who just last month took "credit" for bombing the Egyptian Tourist Office in New York and have, in the past, engaged in and boasted of similar activities...
...Unaccounted, Spoiled After Printing: Average No...
...Unfortunately, we often overlook injustices that are self-inflicted...
...To help achieve rescue of Jews has been one of the primary goals of my life, since I was an adolescent...
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...Despite the lip service that many other Jewish individuals and groups have given to disassociating themselves from the JDL it is—fortunately or unfortunately—true that very often in a time of crisis they are the only ones who come through...
...We must do the same now for those oppressed Jews in the Soviet Union...
...Bombing from the air or shelling from the land is not necessarily intended to soften the will of the enemy...
...For if present-day Israeli Judaism is all that Professor Neusner describes it would be, then, when the hoped for kairos arrives for Reform Judaism to assume its Ezra-role, Reform Judaism would be totally unable to play that role, if, in the meantime, it has patterned itself according to the Torah currently going forth from Zion, and according to the directives reaching it at the present time from Jerusalem...
...It is clearly a philosophical issue, which breaks down, as all such issues must, over divisional lines of sex and sex roles...
...Yet, despite this event and others like it in nearby areas, many Jews still feel compelled to "condemn" the JDL and disassociate themselves from it, prefering to pretend that platitudes and fund raising will do for Jews what they have failed to do in the past...
...I will deal with the latter first because it is easier for me and simply ask you who these "illegal squatters" are and by whose definition is their residence on the West Bank illegal...
...the "bread" in such meaning insures that no one needs to remain devastated and hungry...
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...I was fortunate that our Conservative congregation had a daily minyan both morning and afternoon and that the first years, which are so painful, I was welcomed with comfort and warmth...
...Leo Laufer Dallas, Texas To the Editor: I did not learn of Mrs...
...I shook my head that that was unacceptable...
...It was, therefore, not my intention, in my moment article, to suggest that Reform Judaism now lose interest in what is going on in the State of Israel, the Jewish population of which constitutes a considerable, though not the major part of the Jewish people today...
...Again, we had to look for shelter in the west and go deeper into West Germany...
...I didn't attack you, Lew," she replied, "I only attacked your article...
...The obvious work of some organized group, this defacing left not one wall untouched, not only with swastikas and nazi slogans but also misspellings of Auschwitz and other "in" terminology...
...Rabbi Cary Kozberg Roanoke, Virginia Women (Not) Saying Kaddish To the Editor: It was with a deep cameraderie that I read Deborah Lipstadt's article, "And Deborah Makes Ten" (November 1981...
...I asked her whether, with all her speech-making, she had forgotten how to read—because I had never equated, or even compared, the Holocaust to the situation of Russian Jewry...
...To my great surprise, when I attended the luncheon in the State Department of the Liberators' Conference of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council on Tuesday, October 27 (just prior to the military panel in which I was to participate along with Russian, Polish, American and other generals and high ranking officials), who should sit down beside me but Mrs...
...Thus, what the entire verse says is one of the points Rabbi Kushner makes: although righteous people suffer due to their living in an imperfect world, their children will not necessarily inherit their suffering, because suffering occurs randomly...
...I am, I must admit, somewhat less concerned than Professor Neusner seems to be with either refuting or with validating the stereotypes that our Orthodox brethren, or some of them, choose to substitute for an objective knowledge of what Reform Judaism is all about...
...In conclusion, I would like to share with readers my own fantasies about this pet food issue...
...Slurs and insults against the Jewish Defense League and the Jewish settlers on the West Bank have no place in a publication that purports to speak to and for an American-Jewish readership...
...Boston...
...A PLO enemy who conceives of a covenant dedicated to annihilate, to expel, to dismantle is not softened by bombs from land or air...
...Also, the animal should not be permitted to lick any owner for six hours after eating...
...Jakob J. Petuchowski Cincinnati, Ohio Kosher (Kvetching) Kats To the Editor: When I wrote my article on milchig and fleishchig cats and dogs (moment, June 1981), I had little reason to believe that my careless conclusion about the availability and feasibility of kosher pet food would elicit such per-pef-ual pilpulization over the issue of scrip-tual injunctions...
...But as Kohelet reminds us, Et la'kol...
...There, some of the Jewish officers and soldiers helped me on my road to survival...
...Lewis Weinstein...
...When do we say Continued on page 12 STATEMENT OF OWNERSHIP, MANAGEMENT AND . CIRCULATION (Act of August 12, 1970: Section 3685, Title 39, United States Code) I. Date of Filing: September 28...
...It was right before Torah reading when the rabbi approached me...
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...I note, with no amazement, that your Letters column, has been pet-purred with davening by males, and males only, over whether or not non-kosher pet food is permitted in Jewish households, as long as the humans don't actually get on all fours and eat it...
...After the warmest of greetings by her to her "old and dear friend Lew," I asked how she could sit with someone like me who was in her opinion "treif"—if not a leper at least a pariah—as she wrote in moment...
...Cheri Kessner Irvine, California Reform Judaism and Israel To the Editor: Professor Jacob Neusner's comments (in "letters," moment, November 1981) on my article, "Short Memories" (moment, October 1981), are very welcome— particularly because they parallel, in part, some of my own thinking...
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...You are so concerned with fine principles of law when you chastise Charlotte Jacobson's position that it is indeed surprising that you so cavalierly toss off this phrase without a second thought...
...I still remember when Generals Eisenhower and Patton visited the camp of Ohrdruf after the liberation...
...Jacobson...
...1981.2...
...Although women are not obligated to say Kaddish, I never considered it a choice...
...The owners, recognizing my contribution to this financial bonanza, will offer me ten percent of the net, and all the pet food I can eat...
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...I was stunned when instead he told me very politely, "We do not allow women to recite Kaddish here...
...Indeed, when a person suffers, there need not be a paucity of spiritual nourishment...
...Jacobson should learn to read more understanding...
...F. Copies Not Distributed: (I) Office Use...
...Throughout all the headlines and all the hand-wringing the JDL was fully present, cooperated willingly with the local police and served as articulate and visible spokesmen for local Jewry...
...I certify that the statements made by me are correct and complete...
...I could go to the local minyan where we have davened since moving here...
...B. Paid Circulation...
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...He maintained a bakery on the Lower East Side with a special factory and ovens used only for Passover, and opened once a year for that purpose...
...7. Owner: Jewish Educational Ventures...
...The enemy must know that he is pursued, and is unsafe even in the surroundings of a civilian shield...
...Stingingly, he chastizes Israel for its bombing of Beirut as "a stupid mistake," "a miscalculation...
...I have had no word, oral or written, from Mrs...
...I was left speechless...
...C. Total Paid Circulation: Average No...
...As a mother with young children, I usually check my calendar a month in advance to see which day of the week the yahrzeit will be observed so that babysitters and nursing schedules can be arranged...
...The role that Professor Neusner assigns to Reform Judaism is, needless to say, one of far greater significance and nobility, and I have no wish to quarrel with it...
...I thought he was going to ask me my father's name for El Molei Rachamim...
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...We often, as Jews, feel the injustices of the world...
...He does nothing less than cast American Reform Judaism in the role of the biblical Ezra, a Diaspora Jew who came from Babylon to reconstruct Judaean religion at a time when the native Judaeans themselves were not quite up to that task...
...I have been a member of both Conservative and Orthodox congregations worshipping in a traditional atmosphere...
...The Jewish Federation Council did nothing (in fact, when I called what was supposed to be their "hot line" for matters of this sort, I found it disconnected...
...When a cat dish is rinsed in the sink, and small pieces of ugly brown proteinaceous material swirl down the drain (since what self-respecting feline eats its own food when there are table scraps to be schnorred daily...
...890 (2) Return From News Agents: Average No...
...Yesterday's standard left us a destroyed people in 1945...
...I will write you immediately and point out what you said," was her reply...
...An ethical standard, newly evolved since '45, has dawned on our people...
...Kitties given milk should also be required to wait the requisite time before going lap lap lap with their little pink tongues...
...Would that we had chosen that standard in the thirties and forties, our six million martyrs would have had a chance to live out their lives...
...In a great, overwhelming, overcrowded two day conference (with Pravda, Isvetzia and other Russian and foreign journalists present) a conference held over the objections of some of Mrs...
...8. Known Bondholders, Mortgages, or Other Security Holders Owning or Holding 1% or More of Total Amount of Bonds, Mortgages, or Other Securities: none...
...I have observed my father's yahrzeit in New York, Connecticut, Virginia and California...
...4. Location of Known Office of Publication: 462 Boylston Street, Boston, Suffolk County...
...Lewis H. Weinstein Boston, Massachusetts To the Editor: Although I have been distressed in the past by a few positions you have taken in your editorials (the one taking Israel to task for retaliations in Beirut comes most easily to mind), I have never felt anything approaching the sense of outrage that I experienced while reading the first paragraph of your November editorial criticizing Charlotte Jacobson...
...Extent and Nature of Circulation...
...Especially with ratweilers, weir-maraners, and doberman-pin-schers...
...In the arena of psychological warfare, this is a substantial plus...
...Despite previous mumblings to the contrary and despite previous efforts to disassociate themselves from the posture and actions of the JDL, the synagogue "elders" found, in fact, that no one else from the organized Jewish community was prepared to help in any way...
...A. Total No...
...He would be very glad to say it for me...
...Managing Editor: Carol Kur, 462 Boylston Street, Boston, Massachusetts 02116...
...In New York, it was easy...
...There is no point in becoming angry with one who apparently does not know or want to know the facts...
...G. Total: Average No...
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...And Mrs...
...Weinstein's comments brought back painful memories to me as I was one of those that he liberated in the horror camps of Gotha and Ohrdruf in 1945.1 was almost one of the victims...
...And still later that same day, President Lyndon Johnson told a committee of seven of us, for whom I acted as spokesman, that he would immediately issue a statement denouncing recent Soviet violations, the lack of emigration, the so-called "economic trials" of Jews, following which most defendants were executed, the vitriolic Ukrainian official anti-semitic Kuczko book Judaism Without Embellishment and other issues, and that he would call in the Soviet Ambassador immediately...
...and for rubber gloves to be used when the above services are performed...
...I am much more concerned with having a Reform Judaism that would be able to play the role Professor Neusner has assigned to it, and which, in its own way, does not ape the "retrograde and ignorant interpretation of Judaism" in the State of Israel (Neusner s wordsl), which, in Professor Neusner's scheme of things, it is one day destined to replace...
...what is the result...
...No owner should ever eat out of the pet's food container...
...Look at it this way...
...Suffolk County, Massachusetts 02116...
...When a can opener sinks its teeth into non-kosher pet food, then impregnates the morning orange juice with it (since who washes can openers daily...
...Jacobson's past and present associates, a unanimous resolution was adopted by all of organized American Jewry...
...Rather did I venture to suggest that today's State of Israel was in no position to offer spiritual and religious direction to world Jewry today, and that, consequently, an Israel-centered American Reform Judaism would be an aberration...
...I do not fly off the handle, and accuse Soviet Jews of "illegal acts...
...The 1964 conference resulted in the emigration of the hundreds of thousands of Soviet Jews, more than 260,000 through 1980, or over 650 times the number of 405 that Mrs...
...I would like to commend people like Lewis Weinstein who had the courage then to voice his opinion and also for his stand on Soviet Jewry, which he holds now...
...Leonard Fein, Publisher...
...I, on the other hand, have always felt that the Israelis were quite capable of producing their own non-Orthodox Judaism, should they ever really feel the need for such an alternative, and that, while financial help from American Reform Judaism was indeed welcome, Reform Judaism as an American export item was not necessarily high on the list of Jewish priorities...
...I was fortunate enough to start working for the 134th Anti-Aircraft Division of the American Army in Gotha...
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...The Kuczko book was withdrawn, the "economic trials" ceased (at least for a long time) and many other events favorable to Soviet Jews followed...
...Perhaps before taking a speed-reading course, Mrs...
Vol. 1 • December 1981 • No. 7
