The Spice Box
Gordon, Louis Finkelman, David
THE SPICE BOX A special responsibility Early last month, shortly before the European Security Conference In Madrid, Irwin Cotler, as legal counsel for Anatoly Shcharansky, and Avltal...
...As a citizen shall he be among you, this stranger who stays with you...
...But the anti-Semitism which has its roots to our own weaknesses and failings I do worry about I worry about the Jewish smart set in New York and the Jewish would-be smart set...
...battled...
...How did they get there...
...There is too much injustice to the world for any particular concern about summer hotels and college fraternities...
...Suddenly, after all the waiting, frantic activity...
...They were as Jet-lagged and as culture-shocked as is humanly possible...
...nightmares...
...Rabbi for rent At the Passover Seder in our home, my wife arranged for a woman to serve the dinner as well as do the dishes...
...This faculty for catching attention rather more easily than do other races is part of the heritage of Jews...
...There were more songs and a gymnastic act and for the finale, a group of children singing a Russian pop song...
...Barbara and Jerry are also active in informing adults to the community about Judaism They speak to church groups, serve on committees and even run for public office...
...I copied memorable recipes into our cookbook...
...A cookie in our Snkkie We have all learned so much from this experience...
...Everyone who attended was deeply moved, and we left glowing from the songs, the vodka and the message from our new friends...
...for my daughter, moving out of her bedroom and In with her brothers...
...we and there's no need to juggle the data or try to make it seem as if it was the Jews who elected him...
...We made a pretty picture—me in my blue jeans and "I Love New York" T-shirt and the Russian ladles In their rolled down stockings, gold teeth and babushkas, all of us singing "Olfn Prlpichuck," one of the few things we had in common...
...Delicious Russian food-Siberian kreplach, Russian chicken, potato Kiev, Leningrad sauerkraut, pirogen and a pastry called "Rosa's Twist"— was served family style with vodka to wash it down...
...They are, therefore, Inevitably conspicuous...
...They are willing to take great risks to find a better place for their children...
...Come on, guys...
...Carter did badly, far worse than any Democratic candidate...
...She was invited to join us at the table for the festival narration...
...Barbara was certain he would win...
...Doing it means constructing an educational program at home for their three children, having Kol Nldre and Yom Klppur services at home themselves and building a Sukkah (the first ever in Thompson...
...Cotler told the Canadian officials that Canada had a special responsibility to the "Shcharan-skys" in the Soviet Union, because the Canadian government was principally responsible for Including in the Helsinki Final Act the provisions regarding freedom of Immigration, reunification of families and freedom of Ideas...
...They undermine the natural liberalism of the American people, and cause these to ask themselves, if this is what liberty for the oppressed comes to to the end, what is the use of tolerance and the tradition of asylum...
...He didn't let go until the bag fell apart later that afternoon...
...A question on one of the forms set off a discussion of what this young family had been through: the boat trip...
...He fears that neglect of his community will "discourage some of us from undertaking the kinds of projects and historical studies which would put Into words our experiences so that we could share them with others," and he invites responses and inquiries to Box 746, Earlham College, Richmond, Indiana, 47374...
...Finally, they were coming...
...Although their life in Thompson is an interesting experience for the Enchins, they feel they are missing an important component of Jewish life...
...A number of people correctly identified the smiling man reading moment, and some others came up with good reasons for his smile, but no one combined an accurate identification with a sufficiently imaginative explanation of the smile to Impress our sober judges...
...they would share In the effort, so they would share in the mitzvah, and what they would learn would not soon be forgotten...
...Yet the children appear to be thriving...
...Louis Pinkelman Thompson, Manitoba, a small (14,500) nlckle mining town 450 miles north of Winnipeg, has one Jewish family...
...Two footnotes: As Steel observes, the editors of The American Hebrew were by no means upset with Llppmann's observations...
...Eventually, they would like to move back to a larger community in time for Adam to prepare for his Bar Mltzvah...
...And a Bill Aron photograph, suitable for framing, to the clever winner...
...Citing the CBS/New York Times estimate of 45 percent for Carter and 39 percent for Reagan—not, incidentally, a statistically insignificant difference—the analysis Marriage is Reader Jim Rosen writes "In response to your letter regarding the renewal of my subscription to moment, rest assured continues, "With a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percent, the actual results may well have been Carter 41.5 percent and Reagan 4S.5 percent...
...Colombia, si...
...Reagan did well among the Jews, bad for the that I find your magazine enjoyable and stimulating...
...And we're relieved that the question was not "moments Reagan...
...THE SPICE BOX A special responsibility Early last month, shortly before the European Security Conference In Madrid, Irwin Cotler, as legal counsel for Anatoly Shcharansky, and Avltal Shcharansky, the Soviet-Jewish dissident's wife, met with Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, External Affairs Minister Mark Mac-Gulgan and seven members of Trudeau's cabinet to urge the Canadian government to "take a strong stand at Madrid and hold the Soviet Union to account for its violation of the Helsinki Final Act...
...Well, they chose Thompson out of sheer economic needs: as an urban planner Jerry found It difficult to sustain his private consulting firm to Toronto and the move to Thompson gave him the opportunity to work for the provincial government as senior district planner for municipal affairs...
...I sipped a cup of Chinese tea, although I usually go to shul without eating anything...
...Ho cooked elegant, magnificent meals...
...When we first decided to take in this family, we did so remembering the Torah injunction: "If a stranger stays with you in your land, you shall do him no wrong...
...on which we take the Fifth...
...This would be to the good...
...It happens that the Jews, for good or evil, have no court or country-house tradition of high living, and little of the physical grace that Just barely makes that mode of life tolerable...
...There was no way to ask, not even a common sign language...
...Moment...
...The Near East Report, usually a reliable and useful weekly, reports (November 14) that "Reagan...
...They love their children...
...In their polite and gentle way our guests sought ways to reciprocate...
...Who is this man...
...One was in the April 14,19SS edition of The American Hebrew, the full text of which was sent to us by Rabbi Arthur Chlel of New Haven...
...Herewith, some choice excerpts "The fundamental fact in the situation is that the Jews are fairly distinct to their physical appearance and In the spelling of their names from the run of the American people...
...Reagan did well, as well or a touch better than any Republican presidential candidate in modern times...
...The planning, which began in December, was an experience in itself, with Flint Jews and Russian Jews bridging the language gap and the culture gap to plan the menu, arrange the entertainment and finally organlze the event The morning of the affair typified the camaraderie...
...y& and Samara-3) have called Thompson home...
...We are grateful to New York magazine for the unsolicited publicity they gave us on their cover of October S7, 1980, and presume that Mr...
...For that reason the rich and vulgar and pretentious Jews of our big American cities are perhaps the greatest misfortune that has ever befallen the .Jewish people...
...In fact, they were due to arrive in two days, Friday erev Shab-bat...
...Rabbi David Gordon circulation do find moment of such high quality that we have subscribed for another three years...
...Fellcks Kate received a standing ovation for his clarinet solo...
...It is a fact which ought to enter into the consciousness of every Jew to the determination of his conduct to life...
...However, the differences between Carter and Reagan in all of these polls were statistically insignificant...
...Before she left Toronto, Barbara gave a sermon on "The Challenge of Being a Jewish Parent" Now, she confesses, she realizes that she had no Idea how challenging it could be...
...Which is true enough...
...and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers In the land of Egypt...
...It goes on to explain: "The exit polls at first reading appear to One more try, everybody...
...When the advertisement came to my notice—as Wayne State Hlllel director I see a lot of synagogue bulletins—I signed up...
...Later in the week a translator helped with filling out government forms...
...Reader Alberto Kadoch writes to complain that the map of world Jewry in Chalm Potok's Wanderings, though it provides population estimates for the Jews of Peru (5200), Finland (1300) and Portugal (600), includes no figure for Colombia— which has 11,000 Jews...
...Reagan will choose to answer the question in the affirmative...
...Reagan...
...My wife and I would offer temporary housing when the family arrived...
...On the contrary: "Your point of view to emphasizing the fact that the Jew lays himself open to prejudice by the mere fact that he is conspicuous strikes up not only as admirably presented but valid...
...We gathered in the synagogue kitchen at 9 a.m...
...We enjoyed the fine kosher Chinese cuisine...
...Twenty-five words or less, please...
...Difficult, challenging and "different" Says Barbara: "We made a conscious decision when we moved to Thompson that our children should not lack Jewish education and Jewish life...
...For further explanation of this Act see moment, October 1980...
...Need an urban planner anybody...
...I have learned from watching the wonderfully patient and nurturing way they deal with their children...
...It Is too big a fact to complain about or to ignore...
...But after the table was set, only the three-year old ate...
...Shabbat breakfast was rather strange...
...His parents sat at the table quietly...
...Try again...
...that was breakfast, that was familiar...
...They do their homework, insist that they wear kip-pot for lessons and teach what they learn to their non-Jewish classmates (they brought friends home for "a cookie to our Sukkle...
...How curious...
...Maxine Kroniek Fitting the facts Among the sillier postelection activity, there is an apparent effort in some quarters to rush headlong to the winning side...
...Moving my daughter, borrowing the essentials: a crib, chopsticks (mil-chig and flelshig chopsticks...
...Steel, p. 193) But lest we feel overly righteous to condemning the self-hatred here manifest, it should be noted that no one— to the best of our knowledge—ever called Lippmann on his utter silence regarding the Nazi treatment of the Jews...
...Remember Walter Lippmann Ronald Steel's smashing biography of Walter Lippmann (W^t^L^r^nann and the American Century, AtianUc-Llttie, Brown, 1980) devotes considerable attention to Llppmann's Jewlshness —or lack thereof...
...From Russia with love Last May 18 seventy-flve Russian Jews said thank you to their new neighbors In Flint, Michigan...
...Because the Jew is conspicuous, he is under all the greater obligation not to practice the vices of our civilization...
...shopping at the Oriental food store, putting colored tape on each kitchen utensil to mark it— yellow, Is pareve, brown is flelshig...
...That is the real problem of the Jew to America...
...MacGuigan, the head of the Canadian delegation to Madrid, told Avltal Shcharansky that she had his personal commitment and that of "my government to do whatever we can to release your husband from prison...
...What was wrong...
...Mazal tov, and thanks...
...Leviticus 19:34...
...It follows that the vices of civilization stand out to the Jews as under a magnlfytog glass...
...But" (phew...
...Our government required such sponsorship to let these people Into the country...
...Carter to a draw among Jewish voters...
...the boat breaking in a storm...
...I worry about upper Broadway on a Sunday afternoon where everything that Is feverish and unventllated in the congestion of a city rises up as a warning that you cannot build up a decent civilization among people who, when they are at last, after centuries of denial, free to go to the land and cleanse their bodies, now huddle together to a steam-heated slum...
...The main way they found was cooking for both families...
...Nearly everyone in the Russian community helped in some way, either by cooking, serving, cleaning up or performing In the show...
...Because Winnipeg, the closet Jewish center, is an eight hour car ride away, we have had to do it all ourselves...
...The Ho family came Friday, just as we finished dinner, a handsome young couple with two small boys, having flown directly from their camp in Hong Kong to Michigan...
...The backdrop for the show, Illustrating the theme of the evening, showed a bridge spanning both ends of a rainbow and the slogan, "Gateway to Our Rainbow of Life...
...I waste no time myself worrying about the injustices of anti-Semitism...
...to do the last minute preparations...
...During all the years from 1933-45, when Lippmann was universally acknowledged as the leading American commentator on International affairs, his only reference to the condition of Europe's Jews came in two columns where he discussed the problem of "surplus population" In Europe, proposing that excess people should be shipped to Africa-Steel notes that on only two occasions did Lippmann refer In his public writings to his own Jewish background...
...When they rush about to super-automobiles, bejeweled and furred and painted and overbar-bered, when they build themselves French chateaux and Italian palazzl, they stir up the latent hatred against crude wealth to the hands of shallow people...
...Trudeau assured them that "Shcharansky's name will remain on every agenda for discussion that we have with the Soviet Union on human rights matters...
...Then, for entertainment, Galena Gure-vlch opened the show, singing In Russian and English...
...The four hundred people who attended (we had to stop the waiting list at 165) feasted on Russian food, vodka and entertainment...
...At that breakfast the three-year-old held on to a bag of Chinese noodles from the kosher butcher shop...
...I look forward to the day when their English is good enough to tell us what it felt like to them...
...When she left, she remarked to my wife, "How wonderful of you to rent a Rabbi for the evening...
...give Carter a slight plurality...
...This is especially apparent in the fathers, who handle their children with the same natural ease one expects women to...
...As is my custom, I wore a white gown and a Rabbinic cap throughout the evening...
...When we spoke to Barbara, Jerry was in the midst of an election for School Trustee...
...One of the pamphlets had warned us...
...the men on the boat crying when they thought that the boat would sink and they would be able to swim to shore but they would never see their children again...
...Ho home on the range Last winter, when stories of the "boat people" filled the newspapers, Congregation B'nai Moshe advertised In Its bulletin for volunteers to Join a support group to sponsor a family of Indo-Chinese refugees...
...I guess they were authentic Chinese noodles...
...The Anderson difference, of course...
...They are the real fountain of anti-Semitism...
...We explained our decision to our children It would mean some sacrifice on their part: for my sons, giving up the playroom...
...And, to the end, this experience brought back what my mother used to tell us: "No matter how different cultures are, most people, simple people, are everywhere the same...
...Since January 1,1980, Barbara and Jerry Enchln and their three children (Adam-10, Joshua...
...I'll skip the dull part of the story...
...conditions In the refugee camp...
...Thus, while the Jews are not sharper traders than the Greeks or the Scotch, and while there are not among Jews more blatantly vulgar rich than among other stocks, sharp trading and blatant'vulgarity are more conspicuous to the Jew because he himself is more conspicuous...
...They want things to be better for their children...
...Siu Phan's pride in her husband, who helped beach the broken boat...
...They can to one minute unmake more respect and decent human kindliness than Einstein and Brandeis and Mack and Paul Warburg can build up to ayear...
...Nobody gave the slightest indication that my drink had been noticed, but casually, politely, everyone was eating...
...I recently married a fellow subscriber and though we both enjoy your magazine, one copy per family is quite enough...
...What a night it was...
...That sip of tea gave everyone permission to eat...
...Anyway, they were helpful to Ming...
...It is exactly as true as that the actual results may well have been Carter 48.5 percent and Reagan 35.5 percent...
...The Canadian officials left for Madrid armed with legal memoranda on Shcharansky, Ida Nudel and Yosef Mendelevich for whom Cotler also acts as legal counsel...
...Working closely with the Flint Jewish Community Council, they created a memorable evening called "From Russia With Love...
...In effect," said Cotler, "we told Shcharansky, Ida Nudel and others like them, 'exercise your rights, we will protect you.' So they exercised their rights and now they find themselves in prison...
...Suddenly my wife remembered...
...How does this Jewlshly active family find life to cold CaiJAdian hinterland...
...and that hatred diffuses itself...
...Siu Phan looked so worried, trying to quiet her crying three-year-old son...
...running out of food and water...
...She was relieved when my wife opened a big bowl of cold rice...
Vol. 6 • December 1980 • No. 1
