Letters
LETTERS Letter to a Zionist Friend To the Editor: Arthur Hertzberg's "Letter to an Arab Friend" (March 1978) could have been addressed to many a Jewish friend living in the United States. It...
...It failed to take into consideration the fallacious reasoning behind the ideology of American Zionism...
...Three children under the age of six call me "mommy" and my Bass shoes are supposedly orthopedic...
...Many Zionist leaders in America have little faith in Jews, either here in Israel or in the States...
...This may not be the best way of imparting Jewish learning...
...Now is the time for Mr...
...Can Medoff entertain ridding the U.S...
...American Zionists, however, are obligated to get off the fence...
...Finally, he tells us, "I insisted that the book closet be unlocked and checked...
...Tamara Ende Greensboro, North Carolina To the Editor: I was particularly pleased with the article on Hadassah (March, 1978...
...The press has already reported two fatalities in Israel caused by zealous pietists— one in Jerusalem and one in B'nai Brak...
...1 "problem minority" with the offer of a cash bonus for a one way trip to Africa...
...Indeed, the time has come for those of us in America who disagree with Mr...
...We thank Arie Eliav for giving us the courage to finally make our views known, and we hope that the thousands of Jews who agree with us will do likewise for the love of Israel...
...Though he had no status in the existing Ulpan organized by the Jewish Agency, he somehow managed to persuade its director to allow him to give lectures, and, as he says it...
...Teller in the final statements of his letter-report...
...Teller...
...But that was not what he did, and the Agency officials of that Ulpan, whatever their faults, showed remarkable forbearance and/or foolishness...
...It's as tangible and as practical as that shopping bag...
...He does not, and we doubt that he even speaks for the Jewish organizations his "conference" claims to represent...
...An American aliyah cannot come from the uninitiated but from Jewish friends like Rabbi Hertzberg and other Zionist leaders...
...Talk about womanpower...
...Carol Kur's article about Hadassah (March, 1978) illustrated that which I had already concluded myself only four short years ago when another young woman under the age of thirty-five invited me to a local Hadassah meeting...
...The inheritance is ours to preserve...
...American Zionists do not make aliyah precisely because American Zionism failed historically to see aliyah to...
...Only it's much, much stronger...
...The inadequacy of the Hebrew school education generally received by those who do attend is sadly familiar...
...Does this sound far-fetched...
...It's quite possible that the curriculum was faulty...
...Ruth Finstein Highland Park, New Jersey To the Editor: So now we have had a book burning in Israel, in Kiryat Shmonah...
...Begin to speak out and align ourselves with those Israelis who take a more moderate position...
...No, it was not a "strange adventure," as the editors of moment dubbed it, that befell Mr...
...In either case it treats human beings in the manner of inanimate figures on a chessboard and his approach smacks of a similar solution for unwanted population groups conceived some 40 years previously (need it be mentioned where...
...Why stop at the sin...
...Shlomo Katz New York, New York...
...The Hadassah image shattered, I could find no reason not to be part of the Hadassah experience...
...Even fewer will spend time in Israel or become involved in Jewish activities on campus to any significant extent...
...A very bright kid, obviously...
...March, 1978), I must express my resentment of his use of highhanded characterizations of both the Americans in the ulpan and the residents of Kiryat Shmonah...
...Teller's kind of Judaism but precisely because there may be too much of that brand, and, as his actions prove, it is becoming increasingly and cynically aggressive and arrogant...
...As concerned, committed, and active workers for many Jewish causes, particularly those which concern Israel, these last six months have been a very trying time for us...
...Teller has no more use for them than for any other "sterile, atheist, universalists...
...take care of the sinner as well...
...This is the time, before it is too late, for devoted Jews to openly confront Mr...
...of its No...
...And, of course, Kiryat Shmonah sits in the midst of a veritable nest of "non-religious" kibbutzim...
...Begin and his supporters fail to realize is that even if Sadat had not made the trip to the States, even if millions were not being spent by the Arabs to sway public opinion, Israel's inflexibility and more recently her overreaction during the incursion into Lebanon are the main factors contributing to Israel's loss of support...
...The recent poll taken by the New York Times and CBS is frightening when you consider how support for Israel diminishes each month...
...There are many paths to Jewish identity and expression and I wish Paul had been more tolerant of our individual choices...
...We found it extremely difficult to understand why Israelis could openly criticize their government by petition and even picketing, while here in America Jews are expected to blindly follow and support Mr...
...The American Zionist leadership has failed to give itself the feeling of security that there will be others to take their place...
...I'm under thirty-five...
...Appelbaum added a few highly approving introductory notes to this letter and sent it on to moment...
...Your printed words will help shatter the stereotyped "Hadassah lady...
...To the Editor: As one of the Sherut La'Amniks to whom Paul Appelbaum referred in his article "Bible Anyone...
...Their enthusiasm, their intellectual vitality, their foresight and their energy perpetuated the Hadassah concept...
...But the more they gave in to Mr...
...Let the UJA, a non-Zionist positive Jewish organization, worry about fund raising and let the so-called "committed" Zionists make aliyah to ensure that UJA money is being used properly...
...If American Zionists will not take their ridiculously ambivalent position more seriously and create a movement of mass aliyah Arthur Hertzberg's letter asking for understanding from our Arab neighbors will make as much sense as trying to "cup a corpse...
...Attempts to effect another "population exchange" could eventually subject the perpetrators of such action to the same consideration as was deservedly given Messrs...
...And in March moment published the account of the book-burning under a highly misleading title, "The Strange Adventure of H. Teller" without in any way dissociating itself editorially from the gruesome tale...
...Teller jeers at the "gaudy bar mitz-vahs" in the U.S.—in Kiryat Shmonah, in the name of Torah study, he prepared the boys for their bar mitzvahs with a book-burning rite of puberty...
...With true missionary zeal, Mr...
...They have created an obligation that equates Zionism with philanthropy...
...I've a master's degree from Syracuse University...
...And in the Ulpan's closet, to his horror, he discovered 25 "missionary" bibles, unused and gathering dust...
...But in view of the facts, one would like to cry out: Who is to restrain our own breed of would-be Torquemadas...
...But if burning books in Munich leads to crematoria in Auschwitz, and burning books in Moscow leads to Gulag, then burning books—no matter what books—in Kiryat Shmonah is also not an innocent pastime for a yeshiva student, especially one obsessed with the notion that he has some direct Commission from the Ribbono she Olam to enforce His will...
...There are many reasons, no doubt...
...Just imagine what Mr...
...We feel we have eveiy right to criticize, respectfully, just as we did to our own government during Vietnam...
...Our family has recently undertaken a very large moral and financial commitment to Israel—the construction of a gymnasium at the ORT School of Engineering in Jerusalem—in memory of our son...
...But when regular academic departments offer courses on Jewish topics, they attract large enrollments...
...But the Moment /4 small departments of Jewish studies or the lone professor of Judaica in the history department offer thousands of Jewish students the one type of Jewish education of which they are at all likely to take advantage...
...label me dedicated...
...How could we let Kiryat Shmonah happen...
...Yes, we care and are deeply concerned about where the Begin government is leading Israel...
...It will represent a vast sum of money and we want it to serve Israeli youth and stand as a living memorial to our son, but under peaceful skies...
...The password is Hadassah...
...I can certainly appreciate his detailing of the uncooperative madrichim and the bureaucratic bungling in relationship to his friend's attempt to start Torah studies class for the ulpan students, but such obstruction is endemic to all aspects of Israeli life...
...Now it is quite possible, even likely, that the Ulpan was not well run...
...To imply that the madrichim were deliberately attempting to deprive us of our Jewish heritage is not only unfair, but smacks of paranoia...
...Lobbying for Israel is the obligation of the Jewish community at large, especially the non-Zionist part of the community who believe that Israel and Bavel can live side by side...
...I cannot vouch for the Jewish Agency, but I found much to admire in those "illiterates" and their "cultural" attachment to Judaism gave me a fresh and meaningful outlook on my own identity...
...He understood Mr...
...In fact, a group of Lubavitchers spent an entire Shabbat with us, and though they made no "converts," they were received in an open and interested manner...
...What Mr...
...Eliav is right...
...Moshe Abu-Tor Jerusalem, Israel Jewish Studies To the Editor: Professor Neusner's article (March 1978), in which he suggests that the Jewish community establish priorities in funding university Jewish studies programs according to their ability to produce significant scholarly works, fails to properly assess our communal needs and responsibilities...
...Thank you Ms...
...But while the overwhelming majority of Jewish youth attend college, their Jewish involvement on campus is usually slight...
...And if Mr...
...This is where the American Zionists have failed most dismally...
...He has given us the courage to "come out of the closet" and speak out against the current policies of the Begin government...
...These non-Zionists are obligated to see Israel survive politically if their aspirations of creating a Bavel in America are to be taken seriously...
...Israel as a Zionist ideal...
...We say this as American Jews who have always, by words and deeds, put our hearts and money where our mouth is...
...It either belies his youthful exuberance (which will be tempered by a few hard lessons in the school of life) or epitomizes the quintessence of chauvinism...
...One of the reasons Hadassah remains the "in" group is that the quality of national leadership is superb...
...Another is its ability to Change to the needs of the current day without losing its reason for being...
...They have not created a feeling of trust that can be tested in the crucible of everyday life...
...Is there any better proof to the veracity of a policy of aliyah than the mass aliyah of all the committed American Zionists...
...They have not sensed the disillusionment that has struck many Israelis as ingredients of the past Zionist experiments deteriorate...
...They have no obligation to leave their homeland "voluntarily" or otherwise, or to pledge allegiance to the theoretical Land of Israel as a condition for remaining in the occupied territories...
...Kur for a long overdue but well-deserved article on the Hadassah organization...
...Teller's insolent and mounting demands, the more overbearing his zeal and appetites became...
...American Zionists have failed in being the real friends of Israel...
...The possibilities are tantalizing...
...Call me involved...
...But it is not a wild surmise that a good many of them return not because there is not enough of Mr...
...You caught the essence of this organization...
...They had both the "old" and "new" testaments, though they seem to have been ordinary Protestant bibles...
...Teller's outrage would be if some secularist or "leftist'0 wormed his way into the Mir Yeshiva and demanded to inspect its book closet...
...Teller would not tolerate...
...Ferne and Bernard Kron Chicago, Illinois Carter, Israel and the Jews To the Editor: In regard to Randy Medoffs letter (March, 1978), my reaction to his solution to the "Arab problem" is one of pure amazement...
...What are we going to do to stop it...
...Without my Alexander's shopping bag, you will most likely forego me in a crowd...
...And by supporting them the Jewish community can insure some Jewish education for many young people who would otherwise have none...
...Mrs...
...Enrichment and "free-university" courses given by the Hillel Society, and not for academic credit, attract only a small percentage of students...
...How often will the leaders of American Zionism fail to realize that the State of Israel is in dire danger, not because of the lack of love by its Arab "friends," but rather because of the abnormal relationship it has with its American Zionist friends...
...Although not a group of altruistic saints, having his alter ego Hanoch refer to us as "confused kids" can hardly be justified as a reasonable description of a very varied collection of more than fifty individuals...
...Should Israel seek its salvation from the ex-druggies who discover a baal-teshuva yeshiva in Jerusalem on their way to the Ganges...
...Rosenberg, Frank, Seyss-Inquart, etc...
...Begin with our point of view...
...But, please, do not overlook my commitment to the "Hadassah Way...
...Only some immediate bending and compromise on the part of the Begin government, not rhetoric, but tangible concessions, at least in terms of the settlements, will reverse the downward trend of support for Israel...
...They surely have been the friends of various brands of Israeli politics but have they really wished to join their fellow Jews living in Israel...
...Further, we are upset by Rabbi Schindler, who has no right to claim that he speaks for all of American Jewry...
...Anyone familiar with the Jewish Agency and its bureaucratic asininities can well imagine that...
...The lack of free and open discussion and democratic procedure at the Conference of Presidents is appalling...
...Thank you for expressing this thought...
...To prevent the recurrence of such policies, euphemistically known as "resettlement," the Geneva Convention of August 12, 1949 was enacted, of which Israel was a signatory...
...But just why do they return...
...This Mr...
...The boys now had been given a lesson in Torah culture...
...rather it is a tale of a vigilante rampage of book burning—doubly intolerable because he involved children in it...
...And as far as Judaism to which an American college graduate can relate, Kiryat Shmonah is a vacuum...
...We have forced ourselves to remain silent in order not to undermine Israel within the American Jewish and secular communities...
...Where can the endangered Israeli Jewish community look for real security and understanding if not from its committed American Zionists...
...Begin to change, or for Israel to change its government, regardless of what President Carter or the State Department wants...
...The matronly image does not bother me anymore, for I have had the pleasure of meeting scores of senior citizens who were once under thirty-five as well...
...Teller had his own private little auto-da-fe in Kiryat Shmonah where, according to his testimony, "the level of education and culture is far below the Israeli average," but "the standard of crime and violence correspondingly exceeds the norm...
...He refers to the curriculum of the Ulpan...
...Perhaps they inherently know that they could never take upon themselves the burdens of living in Israel...
...Teller had tried to expose publicly the shortcomings of the Ulpan and to demand their rectification, no one could quarrel with him...
...Should Israel expect assimilated American Jews to keenly understand that this is the generation that has witnessed the first Jewish State in 2,000 years...
...Diana K. Appelbaum Cambridge, Massachusetts Eliav supporters To the Editor: Thank you for bringing us the meaningful interview with Arie Eliav (March 1978...
...Paul, or rather Paul in the voice of his friend Hanoch, characterizes the Oriental Jews of Kiryat Shmonah as follows: "Unfortunately, their religious feelings, more cultural than transcendental to begin with, in most cases have long since evaporated...
...I was in business...
...And kibbutzim have hay stacks, and wooden structures, and libraries, and boys "all have matches...
...The American Jewish community has been told to wage an intensive PR campaign in behalf of Israel to counteract the Arab lobby and the visit of President Sadat...
...Elsewhere Mr...
...B. R. Seifert The Hadassah Way To the Editor: The Hadassah image is certainly not me...
...We must now say so publicly, before American support and that of the Congress erodes any further...
...He described it with great glee and boastful self-satisfaction, as if he were some latter day Pinchas ben Elazar, in a letter to his friend Paul Appelbaum...
...It takes a certain kind of chutzpah or talent to do so...
...For reasons diametrically opposite to his own, one feels like joining Mr...
...I don't think so...
...What made them "missionary...
...Advances in Jewish historical scholarship are important, but the need to provide some Jewish education to large numbers of Jewish youth is, given the state of the American Jewish community, a more compelling need...
...Teller discovered an opportunity to spread "Judaism"—his kind, that is...
...Charles J. Weiner Atlanta, Georgia Bible Anyone...
...American Zionist leaders especially overemphasize the impact they have in testimonial dinners at the Waldorf-Astoria, or in their lobbying efforts on Capitol Hill...
...By accentuating the positive you have given Hadassah its proper place in the sunshine of American Jewish activities...
...Hadassah has linked me up with women and men of all ages from all parts of the world...
...The little Moroccan boy sticks in the mind...
...Begin's policies...
...They are either in Bavel or Israel...
...Who, having lived or visited in Israel, is not familiar with the continuous assault of ultra-pious, self-appointed defenders of the faith that ranges from verbal insults and molestation to invasion of privacy...
...For many of these students, Introduction to the Bible 1001A or Modern Jewish History 3402B, taken out of curiosity one semester, may constitute a significant portion or even the entire extent of their Jewish education...
...Can Israel depend on the caskets of American Zionists coming to be buried in the hills of Jerusalem...
...Well, Mr...
...Teller says...
...that it is better for their 18-year-old sons and daughters to receive the best of higher education while the Israelis go to the army...
...My new job: President of the Greensboro Chapter of Hadassah...
...The student satisfies a craving to know something about his heritage and gets academic credit for his efforts, an incentive which many seem to need...
...Already more than 90% of American olim return to the States, beaten and frustrated after a few years in Israel," Mr...
...Fifty American college graduates deposited in the midst of a town of illiterate Iraquis and Moroccans...
...A gentleman named Hanoch Teller, a yeshiva student, organized and supervised it, with the aid of a group of boys "none over thirteen although they all had matches...
...Teller at a wink, that if burning books that "infiltrate our Torah from outside" is a praiseworthy deed, then taking care of the infiltrators ("poking out their eyes," in his colorful words) is a logical consequence...
...These leaders should be handing out meals on the charter planes that will bring the American Zionists to Israel in the manner of the Yemenites 30 years ago...
...I know there is a large percentage of American Jews who, like us, devote the better part of their lives to Jewish causes, who contribute to UJA, who continue to invest in Israel through the bond program, but who are adamant about the current policies of the Begin government...
...Well, now Mr...
...Too many Jewish youth receive no Jewish education at all...
...No matter how clever or theoretically effective, the intimidating aspect of making over a million Arabs "an offer they can't refuse" is clearly against international law...
...What on earth can the Jewish Agency Moment /6 have been thinking of...
Vol. 3 • May 1978 • No. 6
