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The Canadian Jewish News, Thursday, January 13, 1983 - Page 5
World-National
By
RABBI MOSES J. BURAK
Question: In our religion^^o we believe in the^mnipotenee of God? Does it not say, in First Sijnuel 2:6, ^he Lord killeth and makethalive."
While The Canadian--Jewish News, in its report of a lecture by Rabbi Harold S. Kushner, makes clear that Kushner stated that he does not believe in an all powerful God, such an opinion is far removed from the historic views of the lieaders of Jewish thought.
Does Rabbi Kush-ner's siddur have Yigdal in it? Does his congregation sing the
Rabbi Barak
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words of Yigdal? In that prayer we have these lines: "A fit reward on virtue he bestows; Unscathed may none his teachings disobey." Does he sing Adon '01am? Here are some of its lines: "He is my God, my living hope In troubled hour, my rock, my aid, My banner, refuge, and portion true.''
Thus, the author of When Bad Things Happen To Good People has no use for Yigdal or Adon'01am.
His views are a denial of the Bible.
In the Torah, Sodom is destroyed, but Lot, Abraham's nephew is saved from destruction. Abraham is childless, and Sarah is barren, but, in the end Sarah has a child at age 90.
Jews are enslaved in Egypt for hundreds of years. How did a mass of slaves attain their freedom if not by Divine intervention? In Egypt there was no Lincoln to lead the North against the South to free the slaves. There was only a Moses, slow of speech. But, with the Almighty to work miracles, to send plagues, to split the Red Sea, the Jewish slaves were freed and went on to victory over the 31 kings who ruled in Canaan.
Kushner came to ask his question: "I had upheld my half of the bargain, with God. Why hadn't He upheld His with me?"
One feels for the man whose tragic loss has brought him to an even greater loss. King David tells us, in Pslam 120:1: "In my distress I called unto the Lord. And He ansitvered me." Pslam 121:1-2 reads: "I will lift up mhie eyes unto the mountains: From whence cometh my help? My help cometh from the Lord, Who made heaven and earth." Psalm 16:8, reads: "J have set the Lord always before me; Surely He is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. Therefore my heart is glad.''
Kushnef's views are a denial of the teachings of the Talmud. In Tractate Shabbas, 13a-b, we are told of the tragedy of a young scholar's death. His widow was inconsolable, and ■ 'took his tefillen and carried them about in synagogues and schoolhouses and complained to them: 'It is written in the Torah (Deuter-nomy 30:20), for that is thy life, and the length ofthy days: my husband who studied the Bible and the Mishnah and served scholars much, why did he die at half his time?' And no one could answer her."
Then Elijah the Prophet took it upon himself to find the answer. He visited her house and she told him the tragic story.' 'Then Elijah said to her: 'My daughter! how was he to thee in thy days of menstruation?' 'God forbid!' she rejoined, 'he did not touch me even with his little finger.' 'And how was he to thee in the days of thy white garments?"He ate with me, drank with me, and slept with me in bodily contact, and it did not occur to him to do other.'
Then Elijah said to her: 'Blessed be the omnipresent for slaying him, that He did not condone on account of the Torah.' "
No one has upheld his half of the bargain ii with God.
Was editor of Zionist paper
He left his mark on a generation
By
W. E. LACHS
Sometimes a man is destined leave his mark on an entire gener-. ation by means of a single action.
That's the way it was with Robert Weltsch^ Zionist journalist and chainpion of Jewish values, who died in Jerusalem recently at the age of 92.
As editor from 1920 until 4938 of the Berlin Juedische Rundschau, the bi-weekly newspaper of German's Zionists, he will always be remembered for the editorialhe wrote in 1933.
Carried under the banner headline, "Wear it with pride, the yellow patch," it had a profound effect on the
morale of German Jews. It became a slogan that restored the feeling of communal identity and pride to Jews numbed by the outrage" of April-1 that year.
That was the infamous Day of Boycott, when Nazi storm . troopers picketed Jewish shops and enterprises throughout' Germany, after daubing walls and windows with crude drawings of the Star of David on a yellow background — the color traditionally signaling quarantine due *to an outbreak of an infectious disease.
Until that day, the Juedische Rundschau' had reflected the views of the relatively sniall faction committed to the Zionist cause.
From then onwards, virtually every Jew in
Germany identified with it, and turned to its columns for succor and guidance in a time of increasing difficulty. '
Born in Prague in 1890, when that city was still part of the Austro-Hungarian empire, the, young Weltsch — in contrast with the majority of local Jewry who sided with the German-speaking minority against the Czechs — chose to identify with the ideal Of Jewish national renewal.
He learned Hebrew and, in 1908, while studying law, joined the Bar Kochba Zionist Students' Union. His Zionism was imbued with a spirit of enlightenment and compromise, perhaps a relic of that era which came to an end with the outbreak of the World War I.
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By
JOEPOLAKOFF
WASHINGTON —
The cremated remains of Norman David Mayer, a World War U naval veteran, have been interred in the vault at Arli rig to n National Cemetery over the objection of U.S. army secretary John Marsh.
Mayer was the controversial figure who was shot and killed by U;S. park police last mbnth after he laid siege to the Washington Monument for 10 hours. He threatened to explode 1,000 pounds of dynamite at the monument's base, declaring he was attempting to draw public attention to his stance against possible nuclear warfare.
Interment of the 66-year-old veteran from Miami Beach was conducted at Arlington Cemetery at the request of his elder brother, Aubrey. The Pentagon stipulated that the burial would be "without honors, service or attendance."
The Pentagon also reported that the permanent seal on the niche in the columbarium containing the urn with his ^shes will bear the standard Veteran Administration marble
plaque bearing his name, his military identity and the Star of David.
Religious symbols are placed at the request of the deceased's family. "There are thousands of religious symbols of all kindsat Arlington, "said army spokesman Lieut.-Col. Jamie Walton. The army has jurisdiction over the cemetery.
In a statement frontpaged here, Army Secretary Marsh said burial at the cemetery ^Hs not only a privilege but an honor."
He said the army "further feels that those who participate m acts inconsistent with such honor should not be accorded the privilege." However, he said, the army "has no choice under existing regulations
but to accede to the family's request."
Aubrey Mayer, a retired warrant officer, who served as a U.S. anhy regular for 20 years, told The CJN that his brother was * *a non-practicing Jew who had early Jewii^h training.'' He stressed that **the fact that Norman was Jewish doesn't enter into it.
Robert Weltsch in his days as war correspondent
This drew him, inevitably, to Dr. Chaim Weiz-mann, of whom he became an ardent supporter. During his tenure in Berlin, right up to the eve of World War II, Weltsch represented German Zionists at various Zionist Congresses.
Like Weizmann, he took the view that Jews needed to seek a dialogue with their Arab neighbors. However, in the wake of the Holocaust and the Arab attempt to strangle the emerging state at birth, such sentiments were considered unrealistic. Consequently, and in a way like Weizmann, Weltsch found himself pushed off centre stage.
Arriving in Tel Aviv in 1938, Weltsch joined the editorial staff of Ha-'arefz, to this day -the foremost independent Hebrew daily. On its behalf, he covered the Nuremberg war crimes trials.
Thereafter, he became its London resident correspondent , a post he held until the middle 1960s.
Weltsch was transparently unhappy with much of what characterizes life in Israel. By means of regular articles reporting on British and Germiui poUticiEil and social post-war development, he contrived to project a sensitive and m e a su r e d c o u n t e r-weight to what he felt were undue stridency and a lack of sense of proportion manifested by an Israel with which he found it difBciilt to identify, but which he continued to love.
In turn, l!^ was held dear, and Ustened to with great respect for what even his strongest critics recognized instinctively to be the small voice of reason and conscience.
: Charles Greenspan, a suryiyor of Nazi concentration camps, who once hired Norman Mayer as a maintenance man at his Miami Beach hotel, said:"Mayer was a peaceful man. All he wanted to do was to save the world."
But a leader of the Jewish community here said: "terror is terror and terror cannot be condoned. The terror intent was there.-'
(established 40 years) Lake William, Barss Comer, Lunenberg, N.S.
Information and Reunion
Sun., Jan. 16, 2 p.m. Zionist Centre
788 Mai-lee Ave. Audio-Visual Presentation
Presented by Sheldon Cohen, Ben Prossin,
Director Camp Kadimah,
^ Committee Chm.
Owned and operated by
Atlantic Jewish Council "Young Judean Youth Camp" Toronto Repr.esentative Camp Kadimah Dr. Melvin Brown Halifax (416)783-0136 (902)422-7491 ;
New name for NazS
WASfflNGTON —
: The National Socialist White People's Party, originally.known as the American Nazi Party, is changing its name to'the "New Order" and moving its headquarlt^s to an unnamed location in the Midwest from Arlington, Va., across the Potomac River from
'Washington.
Martin Kerr, of the party's national organization, said the headquarters will be re-established within 18 months. He said it has not had local support, blaming ihe predominance of federal employees in the Washington area. "These are not people
looking to join revolutionary organizations,' ■ he was quoted as saying.
The party was founded in 1959 in Arlington by George Lincoln Rockwell, a former naval officer and" advertising artist. He was shot to death eight yeai-s later by a former party mem-/ber in Arlington. ^
A wholly-bvmed subsidiaiy W^]
.63rd Floo^ 1 Flist Cfliiad^
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