Page 8 - The Canadian Jewish News, Thursday, January 20, 1983
World-National
M-T
Notes on a 12-day sojourn
By
J.B.SALSBERG
This is written on the afternoon of Jan. 13, 1983.1 have just returned^ from another planet and I wish to share with you, my esteemed readers, the astonishing discoveries I made during my 12-day sojourn there.
But.asthey say in Yiddish, "chapt nisht," which may be translated to mean: let's not run ahead of ourselves. After all, it isn't every day that or anyone else for that matter, picks himself up and flies to another planet.
So how come that I did take the trip ■ and took it deliberately and even eagerly? A detour, a sort of prelude to the dramatic experience itself would seem to be necessary. So, have patience, listen attentively and you ^yill understand why I departed from here to there.
I began to suspect some months ago that something irregular was happening inside of me. But my timetable, my previously assumed public and social obligations and my resolution to settle at least some of the pressing major Jewish and global problems before being diverted from my course by petty personal matters caused me to postpone further the long neglected visit to my physician. After all, the physician will
J. B. Salsberg
wait, but will the world with its explosive issues
FinaUy, during a breather in the broad areas of human concern^ I renewednmy acqiiaintance >vith my personal physician]. He in turn, arranged a~rendezyous with a specialisit. The specialist in turn, without qualm and, with my unquestioning apjprOyai, fixed a date for what 1 called a: ''bit of slicing and splicing" in Mount Sinai hospital. Even my room and personal services were properily booked in advance.
After Ileft the doctor's office and began busying myself with a myriad of personal and communal loose ends that every responsible person must attend to prior to engaging himself in a slicing and splicing exercise, I began to marvel at the cultural revolution that had taken place in the Jewish community of Toronto during my lifetime. A hospital? An operation? That was once culturally taboo in our midst. And now, one accepts it, one co-operates willingly and one behaves as if it were but a natural and normal thing for a person to do. How else?
But only 70 years ago our mothers fought like lionesses to safeguard themselves and their children from exposure to hospitals!
One can, of course, understand the social and cultural barriers that stood between them and the hospitals in the new world. Most of our early-in-the-century parents came from small East European shtetlech where there were no hospitals and where one did exist, our traditional parents distrusted them as they would enemy territory.
That negative "attitude was strengthened by the total strangeness of language and the non-Jewish composition of the medical and supporting staffs in the new world.
The fact that the early Canadian Jewish ' physicians were denied access to the hospitals in our city only added to the distrust. [Some people think, with good reason, that the determination to found a ''Jewish hospital^' in Toronto was motivated largely by the revolting anti-Jewish policies of the non-Jewish physicians and the administrations of practically aU hosr pitals.] ■
Be that as it may, the fact was that even such a bright and open-minded person as my mother was also adamant against utilizing the existing hospitals for her family. My mother gave birth to all her children at home with the aid of the competent Mrs. Clause, a very popular Jewish midwife in Toronto.
I remember well being awakened by my father on a number of occasions just before daybreak with the instructions to "run to Mrs. Clause's homeon Beverley Street," to wake her and request that she come to our home at once.
On one occasion I threw pebbles at her upstairs window to wake her. Soon, a window opened and Mr. Clause; a short gentlieman with an unusually long beard, first cast his beard to the breeze and then followed with his face to was what was wrong. (We, the youngsters, called him Santa Claus.) When informed of the urgency he retrieved his head to reappear a moment later with the advice that his wife would be at our house without delay and
that we should prepare a lot of hot water in the meantime. The whole exercise worked; beautifully.
I remember also when one of my sisters came down with the then dreaded scariet fever. The young and, later, very famous Dr. A. I. Willinsky was bur family doctor. He came on a motorcycle, diagnosed the illness and ordered that the child be taken to the hospital atonce as was required by law, since her illness was dangerously contagious.
No, said my mother, she will never send her child to a hospital.
In that case, said the doctor, he will be obliged to quarantine the house.
In that case, replied my mother defiantly, I will tear down the quarantine noticeT
The doctor did what he had to do and my mother did what she felt a Jewish mother mustdo. Within a few days, of course, I too came down with scarlet fever! ,\
But that's the way we did things once upon a time. And here I am now literally co-operating with all and sundry to enter a hospital and let what has to be done, be done.
However, after entering the hospital I quickly realized that I reached a world that is amazingly different from the one I came from. For all intents and purposes it was a different planet... one that was governed by rules and values that are diametrically contrary to the laws and values that we have now on mother earth.
(My experiences and findings will, I hope^ surprise and please you as they did me. Join me on a flight to that other planet . . .)
Arabs are blastedfor s
[ContM; from page 1] to the state department.
"The U.S. is not amenable to or helpful for normalization of Lebanese-Israeli relationsj^^ Berman said after the meeting. "We felt very
strongly it should be on the agenda. The Lebanese government wants it oh the agenda.
Regarding the Reagan West Bank initiative, Berman noted that Arabs who had visited
Sefer Torah
Washington since September — Arab League members and Jordaii^s King Hussein ~- "were not prepared to come to the peace tdble,*^ and "they threw the Reagan plan into the gutter."
Berman said Hussein "does only talking*' while "Israel is prepared; to go to the table without
preconditions whatever.*'
In Jerusalem, Begin's press secretary, Uri Porat denied that accord on : the Lebanon-Israel agenda had been hastened by a threat that Begin would not be invited to the White House unless substantial progress was made in the peace talks.
[Cont'd, from page 1]
to the Jerusalem synagogue.
Aside from its emotional value, this Sefer Torah, written on doeskin, was worth a great deal of money; Nevertheless, the Beth Ora executive and governing board waited no longer and unanimously agreed that its rightful place was in Jerusalem.
In December Stein-berg, vice-president Manny Dalfen, trustee Gus Bauer, Sinyor, and the Sefer Torah, (perched on its own seat compliments of Swissair), flew to Israel.
The ceremony — held appropriately during Ghanukah — began in the military section of Mount Herzl Cemetery, where Beit-Tzuri and Hakim were reinterred following the signing of the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel. Eulogies were given by the three Chief Rabbis and the kaddish was recited by Hakim's brother.sThe._ memorial prayer/ was sung by the Army' Choir and Chief Cantor. Arie Braun, and wreaths were laid at the graves.
The ceremony then continued at the former Jersualem Central Prison in the Russian con>-
pound used during the British mandate and today preserved as a museum called the Hall of Heroism. There, Steinberg co-signed with the leaders of the Ahdut Yisrael Synagogue a "fraternal covenant" between the two congregations.
Dancing and singing then broke out in the courtyard of the old prison. Steinberg esti -mates the number of people in attendance must have been close to 1,000. From there the participants marched to the Ahdut Yisrael Synagogue .
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Porat confirmed, however, that no final date had yet been set for the visit, which was tentatively planned for mid-February.
Jordan's King Hussein is scheduled to make another trip to, Washington later this month.
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