Page 8-The Canadian Jewish News, Thursday, September 11,< 198^
M-T
Editorial
Attstriart prof .learned Hebrew in Nazi era
Ignorance
The staicniont niadc.by Prime .Minister Mvilroney on the.i^Cca-; sion of ihc arrival.on these shores of Tamil refugees has bc'en • welcomed by the Jewish eommunity. .
.:. The Prime Minister correctly alluded to the situation which had. t'orcedlhese Tamils to seek refuge in Canada.. He did not dwell much ■oh the way in which the refugecs;had: found their way t(VGinada>
Since the PrinlL^.Mihister^s statements a number of Caiiadians in newspapers and an radio talk shows have expressed sonie rather harsh criticisnr of the moral, stature ot' the Taniils suggesting that thei r ' "deceit' * 'dties not-make them suitable candidates for Cana-. dian citizenship. ,
The criticism betrays a basic ignorance of the nature of the refugee and the desperation which drives him to try every possible avenue of escape in i)rdcr;.to save'himself and his family- ■ ■. .
In an ideal w'orld everyone \v(iuld be able to t()ljow immigrution' rul.es and abide by all its clauses, subrscctions and exceptions:
In the real world of the Tamils, however, siich respect for the precise deiiiands of the law would have doomed them first to the violence that is endemic today in Sri Lanka and second, to the status of second class citizen which they must perforce endure in West Germany.
This observation should not be taken as a blanket.endorsement of illegal acts. They apply only to people who have no other choice but to seek a haven frpiii life ihfeatehing situations!
Meanwhile Canadians with compassion will understand whiit motivated the newly arrived Tamils to entrust their lives to a Ger-man sea captain who was willing to cast thcrti adrift on the frigid \.vatei;s.of the North Ailantic. :
Those same Canadians will now welcome the Tamils.and suppoi-l them in their efforts to rebuild shattered lives in a new land.
We note with interest the continued g-r.owth of a number of new-movements in modern Jewish life..
. The women's movement gains strength as'it asserts it.self in at least three.areas — ordinations worship and scholarship.
Three rabbinical seminaries are now permitting women to study for the rabbinate. The graduates of these institutions art beginning to niakc their mark o.n the Jewish conihiuntty.
Jewish woiitcn are also .coming together in their own services, and:as a result are beginning to develop some interesting fornij; of ritual practice.. .
.The otherarea in which Jewish women are having an important impact is in the. field of sch61arship.Jewi.sh women are bringing new insights into their analysis^ of traditional texts. ;
the Havurah movement, begun in the 1960s and 1970s among groups of disaffected Jewish youth continues also to attract a significant number of highly educated Jewish men and women who are looking for a form of Jewish self-expression which is less formal and rigid than that found in the cO^ synagogue.
Members of the Havurah fellowships encourage personal study of Jewish texts and' searching discussions of basic religious issues. It is nor surprising that they attract many adherents arid supporters.
. The.ihird group, perhaps the most controversial (>f all i^ Humanist Fellowship.
Begun barely a decade ago in Michigan, the Jewish Humanist group seekstdpi'omote an interpretation of Judaism which departs radically fi^om the basic Jewish belief in a God-cenfrcd universe-Rejecting this starting point, the Jewish Hurhanists seek to construct a Jewish vision of life independent of any kind of theological base.
. .The Jewish Humanist movement shares some things in common with- Yiddish secularists, but there are also; major differences..
The new movements in Jewish life give eividence of a Jewish community constantly striving for self-definition.
(Ninth, in (i Si'rics/iin.Auslfiii.)
SHELDON kiRSHNER
■.■.VIENNA:^.-.' ■. ;■•
The: images rcniain cry.stal clear, in. : Kurt Schubert's niind.ric will never ' forget them..
Schubert, founder and director of the University of A'ienna's Institute of Jewish Studies; remembers the Nazi shadow that fell oyer Austria: the pai-k benches in Viennese parks reserved for Arvans; the sight of Jews being forced to scrub streets; the spectacle of a proud, bemedaled Jew ill his VVorld War I military uniform made to strip to his underwear; the deportations of Jews, weighed down by baggage, in broad daylight.
In.the face of these ghastly violations against his fellow citizens. Schubert reacted in the only way he knew how; In 1941, when the world of Austrian Jewry, was crumhling fast, he identified with the persecuted Jew-s by .learning ■ Hebrew. .
"As a Catholic and an Austrian, it was necessary for me to fight against Nazism," he said the other morning in his book-lined office. "So I learned Hebrew."
The son•.of an anti:Na2i e\-nciwspaper. editor, who^ directed . a. building cdnipany during the. warl. Schubert applied himself lo classical and Talmudic Hebrew at a Christian seminary in this cit\: . Only later", after the war. .did Schubert learn i-nodern Hebrew, aS language he speaks, reads arid w rites with the easepf ah Israeh,::
.Schubert..- who ha.<; lectured widely in . Israeli universities, spent much of the war years in an ariti-a'ircraft unit in.. A'lerina.. An asthmatic, condition ex- . empted him from, serving in the Wchrmacht.
The war pas.scd uneventfully tor him. He says.he. knew Nazi Germanv would .be defeated after-the Afrika .Korps. lost the battle of. El .Maniein. Schubert's father did his bit to hasten the defeat by passing.onmiliian. information. tOAvhichhe was privy, to par-' tisans in Nazi-occupied Yugoslavia The Naizis arrested hirii in 1945. He was liberated by the Russians. .
Kurt Schiibert did not conceal his opposition to the Nazis' anti-Jewish: policies. He belonged to an anti-Nazi Catholic youth group where they v,ere discusised and denounced. Once; he astounded his superior officer by saying tha;t Jews were God's chosen people.
By 1942, he no longer had any doubt that the Nazis intended to exterminate the Jews on a systematic basis. '•But
1 didn't know; about the gas chaniber.s.. 1 had heard; about, inass shootings ot" Jews from soldiers back on-leave.":
Schubert believes that more than half of all Auslrians were aware of the atroicities, but. he does' not conitenin ■; ihem for haying; done so litile. or riothing. to help Jews in their houi- of distress. -The Nazis, he says;, dealt ruthlessly with .such people. .
Schubert himself could drily, watch helplesslyas the' Nazis riiethodic'ally carried.i)ut the FinaJ Solution, -But,'one. day. when: an- oppcirtunity. pre:;ented itself tor him to do good, he seized it.
In ah aii- raid shelter, he found a cache of 20,000 books that had been deposited there by peKsons uiiknown. The books, he discovered, were the property of a Jewish theological seminary. He saved them from destruction by delivering them to the University of Vienna's Institute of Oriental Studies. There, away from prying Nazi eyes, they were stored for the duration of the war.
Schubert, who joined the university teaching staff right after the war, handed the I iteraiy- treasure trove over to the Jewish coriimunity. Arid it, in turn, donated the books to the Hebrew University in 1949. . /
-Fifty kilometres east of V,ienna, in the province of Burgenlimd, Eiscnstadt Avas part of Hungary until the niap was^ : redrawn in .192 1 .■ Ri;cords show that • Jews settled 'in ; Eisensladr .in the inid-I6Lh century and that they exerted a considerable intluenccinjts cc(H-iomic arid cultural development.:
Samson Wcrthcimer;; a ;Hahsbu'rg court.Jew and chief rabbi, of Hungary, lived in one of the grandest houses in . Eisenstadt. and the' mIIselini. which is stillbeing renovated, is located in; his house.- ", , '.
. About 450 JeW's resided in Eiscnstadt when Germany annexed. Austria in 1938. ■ \1ost of them managed to emigrate,: mainly' to the' tJ.S. and Palestine, before the full effecf of the Hotocausr was felt. Eisenstadt's synagogue wis . set on Tire .and destroyed. Only three Jewish families returned to the town in the wake of the war..^; ■ ■ .■'.-.•■'
Thcmuseum, in.Eisen.stadt's lormer ghetto, is devoted to Austrian Jewry, and contains, paintings, photographs,' docunients, rriaps and ritual objects. ;
Open to the public from May 18 to Oct.. 26, the museum attracted 8,000 visitors last year, primarily school childi-eri, Schubert explained it is too
Kurt Schubert in Eisenstadt's Jewish Museum synagogue. [Sheldon Kirsh-ner photo]
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/By 1949, the year he visited Israel, for the first of what would be. riiany . visits, he was^ a. senior lecturer in ■ HebreW-.language-andJewtsh literature, Schubert went to Israel on a ship tilled with Jewish survivors of the Holocaust, and at the Hebrew University, he gave a guest lecture on his subjects of ex-pertise..,.
In Israel, he mingled with Jewish . refugees, listening to-horrific stories of how they survived the Holdcaust. One of the. refugees he met was his half-Jewish wife's relative, arid he taught her the rudimerits of Hebrew.before he^ left Israel.
Ursula, his wife, was never-in danger of being deported. But the Nazis prevented her. from enrolling at a universit);. Today, she teaches a course on the history of Jewish art at the In: .stitute of Jewish Studies.'
Schubert established the institute in 1966, the year he was elevated.to full professor. On staff are eight professors, who deliver more than 50 hours of lectures per week to some 200 students, 20 of whom concentrate in Judaic studies. He claims the institute is the largest of its kind in Europe.
He has written alxiut a dozen or so bwks on Jesus and the Jews, medieval; German Jewish history and, the Qumran. and they have been translated irito English, Italian^ Swedish and Portuguese. His articles have appeared in academic journals,, including Hebrew-; language quarterlies. . A few years ago, with the help of colleagues and the Austrian government, he set up Austria's only Jewish museum in the town of Eiscnstadt, close to the Jiungariah border.
. e.xpensive to heat the museUm during the cold .winter months.'. - ' '.
.Within, the museum there is a synagogue, and iris used when a min-. •yan can he mustered. . One of the permanent exhibition.s, entitled The Yellow Badge in Austria, is on ariti-.semitism. from medieval times to the Nazi era.
Since the end of the war,-Schubert has been in the forefrpnt of fighting anti-semitisrn in Austria.
He rew rote anti-Jewish passages of a passion play held every five years in a small town south of Vienna, but he points out he could not have done it without the support of the local bishop.
In 1945, he joined the conservative People's Party, of which Austrian President Kurt Waldheim is a member: He quit in 1949, when Nazi Party members were given the right to vote in national elections. Rejoining the party in 1955; he left yet again in 1969, after it offered a safe seat, to a man who had published anti-semitic propaganda; ,
For the past 16 years, Schubert has not belonged to any political party. He is. clearly disillusioned with politics. When the Kurt Waldheim affair broke, he began WTiting open letters against his presidential aspirations. .He doesn't think that Waldheim is a war criminal, ■ but he is certain that he knew "'diabolical crimes" were being com-tnitted by the army in which he served as a.ri intelligence officer.
Like millions of Austriaris who voted against VValdheim in the recent election, SchubcTT is ashamed that the former UN secretary-general is now Austria's head of state;