Letters
LETTERS Cuba To the Editor: Congratulations on the fascinating, magnificently illustrated article "The Jews of Cuba" (July/August 1978). However, one reference in the article...
...should they decide to embrace it more completely, I hope it will not reject them...
...Yes, it is sad that so few Jewish people are left but its important to emphasize that unlike Russia, the people are free to practice the traditions of their faith...
...Their sole possessions were now in three suitcases...
...To be sure, Rabbi Mirsky has provided insight into the dynamics of the woman in the rabbinate...
...Their material possessions were confiscated by the communist government, not because they were Jews, but because this was the policy of the regime towards all middle-class persons...
...They are being given the same secular and religious education as my son, and if one or both of them should also decide that their personal and communal needs can be met by becoming a rabbi, I would want them to be able to receive their training and serve our people in the tradition that is most natural, comfortable and intellectually honest for them...
...some Cuban Jews, together with other Cubans, desperately resorted to leaving the country in small boats to other Caribbean land...
...The comments on the Cuban economy were incorrect, revealing a lack of information of their political history...
...They are not likely to reject their tradition...
...In my opinion, no less than the credibility and continued viability of the Conservative Movement rests on the affirmative response of the Jewish Theological Seminary to this question...
...I also have two daughters...
...The Jews in Cuba have not yet (after 20 years) adjusted to the revolution by learning to adapt their faith and tradition to a less affluent lifestyle...
...Most were professionals or small businessmen and had very limited resources...
...My experience suggests—as if you didn't know—that MOMENT readers are beautiful...
...My impression is that there were very few opposed to the ordination of a woman and when periodicals solicited such views, there were none to be found in our class...
...What is perhaps most important and most telling is that without any prearrangement, upon her ascension to the pulpit of Wise Temple for ordination, our class rose in unified support of our classmate and that major event in Jewish history...
...I assumed the story would end with a moral where it would be explained that the phrase 'to jew someone' is repulsive and insulting to every Jew—or at least it should be...
...Why is the author surprised that sugar export doesn't solve the problem of rationing and shortages...
...Natalie Halbert Los Angeles, California...
...Jan Shulman Encino, California Peace now To the Editor: In reaction to your June issue may I thank Leonard Fein for publicly articulating his position in "The Mideast Impasse," (even though I take issue with his position) and for publishing the text of the letter which 36 Jewish American intellectuals signed and for the printed debate between Harold Schulweis —whose position I wholeheartedly support—and Robert Gordis, with whom I have disagreed publicly before on the same issue...
...The business could not function under Castro, nor were they willing to have their daughter indoctrinated in a communist regime...
...we have all been created in the image of God and we are full and equal partners in tikun olam, the perfecting of the world...
...If this is so, then, in accordance with Conservative Judaism's traditional procedure of reconciling halachah with life, how can we justify permitting women certain rights in Jewish life and not others...
...Whether it is stated as such or not, excluding women from the Conservative rabbinate is a manifestation of the ancient belief that women are, in some measure, inferior to men...
...The husband described how he and his wife had managed to escape from Europe during the Hitler period, and later establish himself in Cuba where he set up a small business...
...In those days, Castro had originally demonstrated no anti-Semitism or anti-Israel tendencies, but many who reestablished themselves in Cuba, after harrowing escapes from Nazi-dominated Europe, could not accept a communist regime...
...Preisand Prejudice To the Editor: Norman Mirsky's article "Preisand Prejudice" (June 1978) provided some very unique introspections on the place of women in Jewish life and particularly in the rabbinate...
...It is also sad that the Jews who appear in your pages are not happy in the socialist country, which I see as a Jewish ideal...
...Not enough people care to correct people who do use this term, but I feel embarrassed when I don't...
...There wasn't a holocaust, there weren't pogroms...
...There is, however, one area in which I think Dr...
...Yaacov Luria Bronx, New York Swim Club To the Editor: I just finished reading "The Baptist Swim Club" (June 1978) and feel let down and probably as disgusted as Kate did in the story when she first heard someone use the phrase "Don't worry...
...It is possible to keep a strong Jewish identity and practice without lots of money...
...In those synagogues where women have attained religious equality, there has been no diminishing of male participation, just as there has been no decrease in male applications to law or medical school because women are also acceptable candidates...
...However, / would be negligent had his unsupported claims about our class and its relationship to Rabbi Preisand remained uncontested...
...In the early 1960's HI AS helped rescue most of the 10,000 Cuban Jews who desperately wanted to leave that country...
...Nevertheless, I did suggest that the 36 prominent American Jewish intellectuals make aliyah and criticize Begin in Israel as other citizens have and are doing, but not while they are comfortably ensconced in affluent America...
...There are workplace organizations in schools, hospitals, farm communities, government, factories, etc...
...Rabbi Samuel K. Wohlgelernter Bromall, Pennsylvania Freelancing To the Editor: To help me decide whether to self-publish a book of verse, I wrote to several readers who had graciously written in response to "Peddling" (May 1978...
...The U.S.Cuba embargo is the main reason for the economic problem...
...The frequent midnight telephone calls from Havana to my Scarsdale telephone must well be inscribed in the archives of some Cuban and Washington agencies...
...In order to support, to keep in touch with the Jews in Cuba we must understand their country...
...It was as if he could face up to a second exile but this final crude indignity was just too much to bear...
...This belief is totally unacceptable today...
...LETTERS Cuba To the Editor: Congratulations on the fascinating, magnificently illustrated article "The Jews of Cuba" (July/August 1978...
...We can help with resources and encouragement so that the Cuban Jews may find a fulfilling life...
...We need to overcome the anticommunist propaganda that we have been taught and view Cuba with open minds...
...we shared the same problems and achievements...
...His impression that they did not "express any overt joy at seeing her fulfill her calling" and that she was treated "by her fellow students with an indifference bordering on diffidence" is a misrepresentation and misinterpretation...
...I shall not soon forget, as I was then Executive Director of HI AS, meeting a Cuban Jewish refugee family, a middle-aged couple and their teenage daughter, who were at the Miami reception center...
...I think it would be fair to remark that our class found "life with Sally" to be most normal, unexceptional...
...I have visited many different synagogues, I have spoken to countless concerned Conservative Jews, and I have seen the differences where women participate equally in the religious life of the synagogue and where they do not...
...What I know to be true is that women who do participate religiously in their synagogue bring added vitality to these institutions by reflecting a natural wholeness...
...During our years at the Hebrew Union College, the only negative expressions I recall came from some members of the faculty who may have been intellectually but not viscerally committed to her ordination...
...I considered their attitude "perverted" and perhaps I overstated my complaint...
...I have a son who will be entering the Jewish Theological Seminary's Rabbinical School in September of this year...
...James P. Rice Executive Vice President Jewish United Fund Chicago, Illinois To the Editor: As a Jewish woman who has visited Cuba a few times I do not share your perspective on either the country or the Jewish community there...
...Mirsky, who is both a friend and a teacher to me, is misinformed and that concerns the relationship between Rabbi Sally Preisand, and the members of her ordination class of 1972 (not 1973...
...Even religious standards need to have a certain logic, and the current position of telling a bright, educated Jewish girl that she can become a doctor or a senator or an astronaut, but not a Conservative rabbi, is not logical...
...It wasn't quite like that—the community didn't just up and leave...
...Long before that exodus terminated, most of the Jews had been able to resettle in the United States with the help of HIAS and the American Jewish communities...
...that when American Jews criticize Prime Minister Begin it is good, however when they criticize President Carter it is bad...
...And when Rabbi Preisand requested the class's support to bar news media coverage of our ordination, it was readily given...
...And although you state there are "no unions in Cuba" and the government is the only employer, that is not so...
...Exit permits were not handed out freely...
...Ruth Ticktin Washington, D.C...
...So, our class was outraged at several interviewing rabbis and congregations who though professing interest, were reticent at sending a woman out at night or in the rain to a cemetery...
...At the beginning, this was far from the case...
...The fact that some Southerners liked the "old system" was not a justification for retaining it...
...Let us welcome the opportunity to ordain more qualified Conservative rabbis and let us not lose some of our brightest and most caring young people...
...This has been eradicated, despite the fact that there were so many hardships...
...Thee is a positive, prideful and purposeful atmosphere where women are treated as complete Jews and an embarrassing, defensive attitude where they are not...
...And may I publicly thank Mr...
...Let us not wait until the issue is a mute one and we can only succumb to its inevitability...
...If there was trade with the U.S., Cuba would not have to spend so much money importing materials from great distances...
...I am surprised that it didn't end in this manner, surprised that the husband in the story (who was Jewish) swallowed and assumed that the person who uttered those words didn't mean any harm...
...I think that many negative opinions (including my own) were abated during that first year when students found themselves with a "person" who was as devoted to Judaism as they were and who differed only in sex...
...When the Supreme Court ruled in the Brown case that discrimination on the basis of color was immoral and illegal, it did so in spite of the fact that segregation was a time-honored and functioning custom in much of the South...
...One California reader, S.L., wrote: "I think I'll be happy and proud to be your first customer...
...Not all women wish to assume the responsibility of performing specific mitzvot, nor do they all wish to engage in the required study...
...Clearly, our society has determined that women shall have equal rights with men...
...HIAS established offices throughout that area, and sent representatives to Cuba to try to arrange various methods of departure...
...Prior to the revolution, there was poverty, disease, starvation...
...No amount of emotional attachment to the status quo can justify frustrating the untapped potential of fifty percent of our people, or the insensitivity to the modern psyche or to the moral nature of this issue...
...The community just upped and left...
...I am pleased that he has chosen to both fulfill himself and to serve the Jewish people by becoming a Conservative rabbi...
...In general, I found the author's conclusions to have several salient points...
...So far, that has been Conservative Judaism...
...Subsequently, as the flood of refugees of all faiths continued, and unofficial agreement was reached between the Cuban authorities and the United States whereby Pan-American planes were permitted to shuttle between the two countries, bringing over hundreds of thousands of refugees...
...Let not the Conservative Movement then, deny what is morally just and patently inevitable...
...I'm going ahead with the book...
...So we have a committee—the Commission for the Study of the Ordination of Women as Rabbis has been established for the very purpose of reexamining our tradition in the light of the exigencies of our society...
...Since America had broken diplomatic relations with Cuba, it was necessary to call on colleagues from various parts of the world to undertake these delicate missions to Cuba...
...But then, neither do all men...
...In fact, when the New York Times frontpaged the letter and printed a supporting editorial entitled, "Begin and His Critics" after having criticized at length American Jewish criticism of President Carter in a Sunday editorial entitled, I believe, "Carter and the Jews," I penned a highly critical letter to the editor of that paper in which I accused that newspaper of hypocrisy, e.g...
...Folded inside his letter were three one dollar bills...
...These organizations decide on raises, hours, vacation benefits, retirement and handle all suggestions and complaints...
...He described how the Cuban customs authorities took away many of their possessions, finally including his watch...
...As a matter of fact, it has become increasingly difficult to maintain the double standard of encouraging women to study and become proficient in Jewish rituals and texts while trying to justify their unequal status...
...A representative from each place joins in area, city, county and finally government organization for participatory decision-making...
...Another implication of the article needs to be clarified: that the escape from Cuba to the United States was relatively easy...
...Publish away and damn the detractors...
...I'm no Jew...
...I hope more people are aware of the problem than appear to be...
...The recognition that male and female have been created differently no longer includes the notion of superior and inferior...
...I'll give it to you...
...for knocking the timidity out of me...
...Rabbi James L. Kessler Galveston, Texas To the Editor: Including "Preisand Prejudice" by Norman Mirsky (June 1978) reflects just how important the issue of ordaining women as rabbis is...
...However, one reference in the article requires comment because it may lead to a somewhat misleading impression: "After all, the overwhelming majority of the Cuban Jews left at the same time that 600,000 Cubans were leaving...
...Up to that point he had maintained a calm stoicism, but as he related the loss of the watch, he burst into tears...
...Since 1975,1 have served first as Torah Fund Vice President and then as President of the Pacific Southwest Branch of Women's League for Conservative Judaism...
...The replies were encouraging...
...To misinterpret acceptance as indifference is a mistake...
...I wanted to know if they were likely to buy a copy of such a book for three dollars...
...Cuba is not such a poor country when compared to most Latin American countries (instead of constantly comparing every place to the United States...
Vol. 3 • September 1978 • No. 9
