Beginnings

By now, nearing the end of Volume 4,1 should be used to it. "It" in this case refers to the discrepancy between moment's calendar and the conventional calendar. I write these words erev Rosh...

...That is not self-preserving, not at all...
...The old slogans are stale, the old programs seem empty...
...But in Cambodia, millions—yes, millions—are starving...
...now it is flight and famine, and the suffering has spread...
...But though we close our eyes, the injustice remains...
...Oxfam, the British relief agency, is set to do the job...
...How can we help...
...The very first issue of moment, in May of 1975, included an editorial calling attention to "the unrelieved sorrow of Southeast Asia...
...Now our good friend has published a book of his poems, entitled Not a Piano Key...
...With your continuing help in spreading the word about moment, and in availing yourselves of our toll free number to order gift subscriptions for your friends, we can reach it...
...for you, Fall is under way...
...Summer still lingers...
...I commend the book to you...
...it can be ordered from the author at Lyndhurst H-3011, Deer-field Beach, Florida 33441—$3.50 for the book, and another $.50 for postage and handling...
...This month, when we celebrate our bounty...
...That is a sign of weakness, not strength...
...it's a rich holiday, and those of you who have not yet made it your own have delightful discoveries in store...
...Nearer home, we are still caught up in the aftermath of the Andrew Young affair...
...We have seen, correctly, that our preservation must be informed by a purpose, and that purpose is to help, actively and passionately, to make this world work better...
...But there is a pre-script to the article, if you will, that belongs more appropriately here than there...
...There is no time for feeling satisfied that we have finally begun to behave responsibly with regard to the boat people...
...I live in double time, and I know that later this week, when I am sitting in shul, I will be momentarily confused, wondering why we are celebrating the wrong holiday, a holiday which, according to moment time, fell during mid-August, when the September issue was put to bed...
...Jon Weiner's article on the boat people touches on a piece of the tragedy, perhaps the most dramatic piece...
...Then it was the war in Vietnam...
...And not only wrong...
...Happily, life is not all hazard...
...Here is another hazard: Some of you have received peculiar copies of moment in the past couple of months, copies with some pages repeated and others missing...
...So you can guess what's coming next: We've revised our goal upward...
...That is why, davka in the coming months, we will try to devote more space to issues of justice and decency in America...
...Our community has always stood for more than its own preservation...
...should be accompanied by a note indicating that the contribution is for Cambodian relief...
...I write these words erev Rosh Hashanah...
...For me...
...Oxfam assures us that 100 percent of such funds will be used for direct relief...
...That is an ambitious goal, but the last months prove that it is not unrealistic...
...dangerous...
...We are determined that this be the year moment moves to stability, and that means that for the next twelve months, we're aiming for a thousand new subscribers each month...
...It's a rich and relaxing time, an end to a season of holidays before the winter's drawing inward...
...Many of you have become familiar with Yaacov Luria's writing in the pages of this magazine, where his work appears frequently...
...The remedy lies here: If you drop us a line, we'll be happy to replace your garbled issue with a whole one...
...An SCLC delegation left yesterday to meet with Arafat, and there will surely be others in the weeks ahead...
...I wrote in this space several months back that we needed a minimum of 4,000 new subscribers between June 1 and December 31 of 1979...
...Checks made out to Oxfam America, Inc...
...Ah, the hazards of the publishing business...
...Justice remains the Jewish agenda, and to permit ourselves to be deflected from that agenda, whether because of the confusions of the decade or the insult of the moment, is to permit others to determine our agenda...
...As of this day (mid-September), with many weeks left until (secular) year's end, we have better than 3,000 new subscribers...
...Mo'adim I'simchah, chagim uzmanim I'sassonl (The traditional greeting for festivals, "Seasons of happiness, holidays of joy...
...Shorn of that purpose, we become a boring exercise in nostalgia...
...The fault—since (we trust) corrected—lay with a flaw in our printer's equipment...
...The least that can be said is that it would be as wrong for us to generalize from Jesse Jackson to all blacks as it would be for others to generalize from, say, Meir Kahane to all Jews...
...But we turn our backs on black America at our peril, whatever the provocation...
...It is sorely tempting to turn our backs on black America in anger and disgust...
...We are well ahead of schedule...
...They are gentle and winning poems, very much in the style of Luria's prose...
...These days, it is terribly difficult to know what the "right thing" is with regard to the advancement of social justice in America...
...it is self-defeating...
...May you enjoy each day of Sukkot hugely...
...no overhead will be deducted...
...you read them, at the earliest, erev Sukkot...
...It is so very tempting to shrug our shoulders and move on to other activities...
...I have some things to say about the matter in an article later in these pages...
...Oxfam's American office is at 302 Columbus Avenue, Boston, 02116.1 am certain that our own Sukkot celebration will be much enhanced if we have done this thing...
...there are still these millions, and what needs to be done for them must be done this very month...

Vol. 4 • October 1979 • No. 9


 
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