Letters
LETTERS Towards a Humane Society To the Editor: I agree with Peter Lovenheim, who writes in your January-February "Tav" ("Using Restraint") that Jewish practice with regard to kosher slaughter is...
...I thank God that I am able to share my grief with non-Jewish victims of the Holocaust...
...We must condemn the very idea of such a terrible choice and not give sanction to it by using it as an excuse to further punish the victims...
...The arguments used regarding the homosexual issues were weak...
...Thank God that these individuals will now become Jews who observe and do and learn...
...There were even some Jews who were able to hide or "pass" in the Gentile world...
...The ba'alei t'shuvah are not finding fulfillment in an anti-intellectual study of Torah as Cohen says, but are learning how to apply to their lives what the Torah teaches us...
...But that doesn't mean that we should dismiss the suffering of Poles and Russians who died in lesser millions—or Gypsies and homosexuals, who died by the thousands...
...Certainly many lesbians and homosexuals may have been able to hide their sexual identity from the Nazis...
...Jacob Neusner Providence, Rhode Island Understanding the Ultra-Orthodox To the Editor: I would like to comment on Dr...
...yeshivot hesder, a double plus...
...I am taken aback at the number of writers in your fine monthly who—however deservedly—criticize Israel and expect to make a dent in the status quo—while they themselves only "live" Israel vicariously through acquaintances who live there and through their periodic visits...
...I have corresponded or talked with a good sample, and they don't want to tackle the issue...
...She was not saying that Jewish women should avoid the feminist movement...
...Nobody is being forced to enter these mobiles...
...Indeed, the worst anti-Zionists (and in effect anti-Semites) that I have met in the feminist movement have been Jewish...
...I believe, with all my heart, that if Israel is to survive and to continue to prosper and to strengthen, she must become more representative of world Jewry...
...Still, it is the Israelis who live in the Middle East, fight there and die there...
...It seems to me that Ms...
...Meanwhile, I continue to attend my Conservative synagogue every Shab-bat and yom tov and I participate in its activities in the hope that we, too, can produce such commited Jews in the next generation...
...All letters should be typed, double-spaced, and sent to the moment Editorial Office, 462 Boylston Street, Suite 301, Boston, MA 02116...
...The people who enter do so out of curiosity or because of the pintele Yid in them...
...We have always maintained a kosher home where the Shabbat, the High Holy Days and the festivals are observed...
...Absolutely central to the latter, as I understand it, is the inestimable value of all members of the human species...
...Eilu v'eilu divrei Am chai—These and those are the works of a Living People...
...The responsa you analyze so glowingly in "The Latner Method" (moment, November 1982) come not only out of scholarship (B.A., M.A., Phi Beta Kappa) but more importantly out of deeply felt and understood life experiences...
...If Israel seems to lean in one direction or another on any issue—be it social, economic or foreign—it is a direct result of the democratic process there...
...Peace has to have "the greatest possible appeal," the Secretary says...
...The murder of six million Jews was an unparalleled tragedy...
...The Association of Reform Zionists of America (ARZA) was established specifically to remedy this problem...
...We are not the voyagers...
...Lubavitch is a plus...
...Hence, to keep our public display of grief over Holocaust victims exclusively Jewish strikes me as a policy that is incompatible with the very core of normative Judaism...
...It continues in these traditional neighborhoods, and not in the classrooms of Jewish studies on the university campuses...
...He attended this yeshivah in Israel after two years at an American university, to which he never returned...
...On the other hand, I also do not deprecate the thousands of "yeshivah leit" studying in the "right-wing," anti-Zionist, yeshivot...
...Congregation Wilmington, Delaware To the Editor: My husband and I are both attorneys...
...Max B. Heppner Takoma Park, Maryland On the State of the State To the Editor: For all of her problems and traumas, Israel remains a central source of Jewish strength, pride and stature throughout the world...
...I am completely confused by this turn of events...
...But the State of Israel will rightly continue to count on us in the crunch...
...And others want a public forum in which to accuse or be justified...
...Our apologies for the mix-up...
...We owe a debt to the society that grants us the exemption and ought to support the intent of the law to the extent that it does not violate our religious needs...
...The individuals who enter the Doors of Learning of these yeshivot do so because someone has reached out to them and has awakened a new spirit in them...
...In those ten years, I can recall only one incident that I would consider anti-Semitic...
...Furthermore, we have asked for and received an exemption to the Humane Slaughter Act for religious reasons...
...However, I will also continue to contribute funds to the ultra-Orthodox community since, to my despair, our future as a people may lie in that direction...
...Kibbutz Yahel is a plus...
...It is also important to remember that the ba'alei t'shuvah movement is one of free will...
...If the vast majority of Israelis now agree that the road to peace runs through Hebron, Bethlehem, Nablus and East Jerusalem, we wish them a safe journey...
...I even more deeply reject the idea that Jews should stoop to playing a numbers game with lives...
...It seems clear that those who are compelled to flaunt their irrationality in public will always be with us...
...A portion of it could come if another Anwar Sadat were to appear...
...So far, I see no evidence of this...
...As Rabbi Cohen well knows, a new edition of the classic code, the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch, or of the commentary of Rashba, will sell in the thousands in the various bookstores which sell the traditional Jewish sources...
...Discussing "pressure on the Israelis," the Secretary said, "We have felt that the pressure that would be applied is the most intense pressure of all— namely, the pressure that comes from the possibility of peace...
...Or it is to stick it out—as the hardy and tough majority has done for a century...
...It is true...
...Good intentions, promises, guarantees and especially private whisperings by Arab leaders will not do...
...Those who do may regard their problems as too trivial or "weibish"—for this their rabbi should take his head out of the Talmud...
...What follows...
...Where it says "Lenchner," read "Ronay," and vice versa...
...However, their lives are filled with commitment, involvement and a zest for Jewish living that I envy...
...I cannot understand why a nondenominational service could not have been permitted without "official" sanction and with the voluntary participation of any individuals of the Jewish community who wished to take part...
...It seems that at least one reader used the article to denigrate the feminist movement and its accomplishments...
...Our children attended an Orthodox Day School because our community lacked a Solomon Schechter School at the time...
...We attend services regularly at our Conservative synagogue...
...It seems to me we must focus only on the main point: long-term, secure peace for the State of Israel and its neighbors...
...For the record: I do not deprecate the Jewish studies courses on the campuses...
...Our children went to public high school but also attended the Conservative Hebrew High School and Camp Ramah...
...Camp Ramah is a plus...
...I am appalled by the anti-intellectualism of my observant son and his friends, by their deliberate separation from the rest of the Jewish community, by their fanatical concern with the minutiae of ritual and by their relegation of women to the kitchen and to the other side of the mechitzah (which the women joyfully accept...
...We have three children in their 20s...
...Maybe these people wanted to learn or inquire, but "were afraid to ask...
...When he does come home he politely manipulates us into the narrow type of ritualism and observance criticized by Chancellor Cohen...
...The choice is to turn away—the equivalent of yeridah on grounds of disillusion, an established and conventional mode of political expression in Israeli history...
...There is no choice...
...22:6...
...This in turn will filter down to the next generation...
...Gerson Cohen's interesting article in the December issue of moment ("The State of the Jews, 1982...
...Teach the child according to his way...
...I view every survivalist effort in Jewish life as a plus...
...LETTERS Towards a Humane Society To the Editor: I agree with Peter Lovenheim, who writes in your January-February "Tav" ("Using Restraint") that Jewish practice with regard to kosher slaughter is not in line with our traditional intent of treating animals humanely...
...We reserve the right to edit for publication...
...the Jewish Museum (when it is not mounting a MahYafis exhibition) is a plus...
...He comes to our home as little as possible...
...Eilu v'eilu divrei Elohim chayim (Gittin 6B)—"These and those are the words of the Living God...
...And I'd like readers to keep in mind that it would be odd if feminists were the only group of human beings in the Western world totally untainted by the ancient diseases of racism and anti-Semitism...
...In the end, the modern state of Israel, her achievements and her failures, is no more and no less than a reflection of her citizens...
...No one can expect Israel's lawmakers to view favorably certain issues concerned with Reform Judaism if there are no Reform Jews in Israel...
...and Canada make the move and become a part of Israel's life and culture...
...Finally, in regard to the members of the Moetzet G'dolei HaTorah, our Torah scholars: These Teachers of Israel should not be put in the same category as a political party...
...The Moetzet G'dolei HaTorah represents the highest degree of Torah scholarship...
...Once inside these walls, these individuals are free to leave, to see their families or communicate with them...
...in the December 1982 issue of moment...
...First they do—they affix a m'zzuzah to the door, they light Shabbat candles and they put on t'fillin...
...Let us continue to emphasize the special nature of Jewish suffering during the Holocaust—but let us do it without rejecting the right of other victims to mourn for their dead...
...Rabbi Leonard B. Gewirtz A.K.S.E...
...Only signed letters with a complete return address can be considered...
...I have been an active feminist for over ten years...
...I can understand the decision not to officially participate, as a Jewish community, in an ecumenical Holocaust ceremony...
...The Reform movement is a good example of "activism...
...Yes, I sometimes suffer from rabbinical criticism that seems to me as much chauvinistic as dogmatic...
...The reason for inaction, I believe, is that they don't like the most vocal critics of kosher slaughter and the methods they use to drive their message home...
...Helen S. Latner Brooklyn, New York Shultz Interview To the Editor: I read the interview with Secretary Shultz in your December issue in its entirety...
...But that does not alter the cruel choice facing any human being who must reject his or her identity— whether religious, political or sexual—or face death...
...The Conservative movement should only have the same success in producing such committed Jews...
...This has been a significant phenomenon since the establishment of these schools...
...I am not a syndicate, but a real person—a mamehfun kinder (four, to be exact), a writer, student, former teacher and—you guessed it—administrator...
...Robert Oakes Manchester, Missouri An Open Letter to Naomi Bluestone Naomi dear, though you may insist, like some Elizabethan versifier, that you do not want reality to intrude upon your vision of the ideal, I owe it to your readers and to you to let you know that Helen Latner lives...
...Judith B. Gutstein Skokie, Illinois To the Editor: The Jewish people's culture that lived on Delancey Street, Second Avenue and Pitkin Avenue has all but disappeared...
...I am afraid he's being too kind in his judgment...
...Nor must we forget that among the six million there were Jewish lesbians and homosexuals who died doubly condemned by Nazi brutality...
...Dov Rapaport Woodmere, New York Letters to the Editor moment welcomes letters from readers...
...And I spend many an hour, after I do a lecture, privately answering questions people are embarrassed to stand up and ask in public...
...constitute—so it seems to me—a repugnant assault not simply upon religious sensibility as such, but particularly upon that sensibility which ought to be indigenous to inherents of the Jewish faith...
...But, to do the rabbis justice, the reason I get so much mail is not that they are unresponsive or uncaring (though some are), but that most people do not have a rabbi, alas, in these alienated and unaffiliated days...
...He attends school at night and plans to return to Israel...
...But how shall we deal with the new facts of Ju-dea-Samaria/fhe West Bank...
...Shultz remains the gentleman, well-intentioned, well-mannered, polite and gracious, to the very end...
...How many copies of PhD theses in Jewish studies are being purchased and read by amchah—by the man-on-the street Jew...
...Our other children appear indifferent to religion, Jewish learning, ritual and attendance at synagogue services...
...This culture, as described and studied in the classic anthropological work, Life is With People (Mark Zborowski and Elizabeth Herzog, International Universities Press, 1952), is to be found today (outside of Israel) in Boro Park, Williamsburg, Flatbush and Forest Hills...
...Secondly, why do we "smile indulgently at the mechanized Jewish salvation armies called mitzvah mobiles...
...And talking about authentic Jewish culture: a visit to one of these "mocher seforirrT bookstores is like a visit to a Jewish museum, a Jewish library and a Jewish anthropological center, all combined...
...Most of all, it doesn't make shackling and hoisting of conscious animals a right thing to do...
...I would be happier to be rated somewhere up there with Barbara Walters or Bess Myerson—Jewish ladies with glamour, heart and brains...
...Correction The evocative photos accompanying Yossi Klein's "The State of our Dreams" (January-February) are the work of photographers Dan Lenchner and Judith Ronay...
...This includes making our home kosher for Pesach as well as building a sukkah for Sukkot...
...We comply, of course, because otherwise he would not come home at all...
...Furthermore, they all want to live in Israel...
...Then, later, they will learn the whys...
...I served as Coordinator of Milwaukee-NOWand am currently employed on the staff of a coalition of Milwaukee feminist groups...
...In the present case, we must hope we err...
...This value is a function of our all having been created in the image of the Supremely Good Individual...
...They cannot afford deadly illusions...
...This, of course, can only be done if concerned, responsible Jews from the U.S...
...How could Judaism tolerate anything less of me...
...I'd also like to comment on Judea Miller's "Exclusive Rites...
...The result today is that one son works for a ba'al t'shuvah yeshivah...
...Unfortunately, the credits for the pictures on page 39 were reversed...
...They are not hidden, kidnapped or brainwashed, as we know happens with the Moonies and Hare Krishna...
...You have ranked me higher than a pantheon of real WASP goddesses...
...I find "light unto the nations" in that decision...
...He suggests that the patent cruelty connected with shackling and hoisting during kosher slaughter comes about through oversight, not ignorance...
...The citizen of Israel is the one whose criticism can make an impact...
...I am also a grandmother and a stepmother who has known widowhood and the joy of a second marriage...
...Pogrebin was making the point that it is hurtful that there should be any anti-Semitism in a movement with such lofty ideals...
...When our views do not prevail, our task remains to press them when we are proven right, and to modify them when we turn out to be wrong...
...It's past time for us Jews to address the cruelty inherent in kosher killing as practiced in plants that shackle and hoist...
...As a Jew, then, I very much regret what I consider to be the morally injudicious decision of the Rochester Board of Rabbis...
...Jewish leaders in the rabbinate and in the legal profession are quite aware of the problem...
...Is there really a "new chapter in the Jewish KulturkampP" Is it really young people who "reject their secularist parents of Scarsdale or Shaker Heights" or is it the parents who have rejected their children and not felt the obligation to give a spiritual understanding of our heritage...
...I agree that criticism of kosher slaughter has been an "acceptable" way of expressing anti-Semitism, but that doesn't make all critics anti-Semites...
...There are also members of Flat Earth societies, etc...
...We read books on Jewish subjects and attend events of Jewish cultural interest...
...It is gratifying to be appreciated and understood by a perceptive, knowledgeable writer, comparisons notwithstanding...
...These young people of Shaker Heights and Scarsdale want more than homes equipped with every technological convenience and so they search elsewhere...
...What you also do not know is that my column now appears in Washington and Denver, as well as New York, and that I write a personal response to every letter...
...Name withheld upon request Discriminating Views To the Editor: I am dismayed by some of the letters written in reaction to Letty Cottin Pogrebin's article on anti-Semitism in the feminist movement (July-August 1982...
...Sue Deutsch Milwaukee, Wisconsin To the Editor: The events related in Judea Miller's "Exclusive Rites...
...Prov...
...Mrs...
...To be honest, when we see the Secretary engaged in the futile, hopeless and senseless "West Bank Project," it is hard to determine how much of his activity is fueled by naivete and how much by Bechtel...
...After all, we are part of the society that passed and follows this law...
...Further, why demur from a public sharing of grief just because there are those who contend that the Holocaust never occurred (an argument made— or perhaps just alluded to—by Rabbi Miller...
...Otherwise, the process, so eagerly hoped for by most, will come in future generations, not in ours...
...Ilan Halperin Chicago and Jerusalem To the Editor: The bad news is bad indeed...
...What is this, if not a source for Jewish strength...
...They alone know the elements surrounding them and so, they act accordingly...
...I have encountered much ignorance about Zionism and its importance to Jewish women, but I am afraid that one reason for that ignorance has been the misinformation given Gentile feminists by certain of their Jewish cohorts...
...We must remember that the individuals who enter the yeshivot are searching for a new dimension to their lives, for which the materialism of the technological age has not provided the answer, satisfation or peace of mind...
...They will have their defectors, and many of them will find their way, as Talmud professors, to YU, Bar-Han, JTS and similar schools of higher Jewish learning...
...The only relationship that I can see to them is that I, like Billie Jean King, have knee problems...
Vol. 8 • March 1983 • No. 3
