The Canadian Jewish News, Friday, April 18, 1975 - Page 3
Nationai News
Flap over Larry Zolfs remark
toss
protest to magazine
St Catharines was the recipient of the 1974 Keren Hayesod Community Award. Displaying it are (from left): Murtay Fish, vice-president; Kelly Granek, campaign chairman, and Archie Katzman, co-chairman. (UIA)
Top gifts event laimchesl^^ United Israel Appeal cpapaign
JSt. CATHABINES —
Community leaders of St. Catharines and several from Welland and Port Colbome. met for Sunday brunch at the Big Wheel Restaurant in St. Catharines on April 6. Ben Newman was the host. The top gifts event was the kickoff forthe 1975 United Israel Appeal campaign for medium-sized communities in Ontario.
Leo Marcus. UIA director, made a special trip from Montreal to give the
meeting an up-to-date re-. port on political and economic conditions in Israel. Campaign chainnan Kelly Granek and Co-Chairman Archie Katzman report the substantial commitments were made by all who attended and that it included a good representation of young men.
Those who came from regions outside St. Catharines promised to take the message of Israel's needs back to their respective communities.
Granek, Katzman and vice-president Murray Fish, accepted the 1974 Keren Hayesod Community Award for for outstanding efforts during the Yom Kippur War and for the 1974 campaign.
i'he award. Granek said, "has spurred this community to an even greater effort in 1975. We have set a goal of 20% above what was raised last year and we anticipate the greatest UIA campaign in our history."
The St. Catharines leadership is now busy canvassing the 170 Jewish families in the area and is endeavoring to. involve new young business and professional men in the campaign. Archie Katzman is one of the new young breed to become actively committed to UIA.
The UIA women's division of Niagara encompasses all the communities in the region and conducts its own combined fund-raising campaign.
TORONTO-
Emil Tennenbaum. manager of the nursing home division of Sharon Construction, which owns and operates Lincoln Place Nursing Home, last week refused to comment on reports that Extendicare Ltd. is willing to buy Lincoln Place and main-
tain kashruth within existing provincial guidelines.
The operators of Lincoln Place told Ontario Deputy Health Minister Stan Martin six months ago that they were unable to maintain kashruth unless they could raise rates by $2.75 per patient per day. In subsequent meetings with Martin at Queen's Park, their request was rejected.
Several weeks ago. Tennenbaum wrote a letter to Canadian Jewish Con-
gress' Central Region Chairman. Milton Harris, in which he broached the question of community support of kashruth.
Earlier. Harold L. Liyer- j gant, the top-ranking officer of Extendicare. which owns 21 nursing homes throughout Canada, told The Canadian Jewish News that his company was willing to purchase Lincoln Place from the present owners if a mutually satisfying price
could be found. Liyergant stressed his firm was ready and able to maintain kashruth at current price levels.
Asked .abo\it Li^er- ^ gant"s offer, teiinehbaum replied,"No comment." Asked to answer a question concerning the letter he wrote to Harris, Tennenbaum said. "No comment." Asked to state whether he plans to talk about the entire matter, he: said. "No comment."
^Stephanie Bmsaell
MONTREAL —
Shock and siirprise were the reactions of well-known television personality Larry Zolf when he learned of a telegram sent by Canadian Jewish Congress to Weekend Maga« zine protesting a cover story about the CBC celebrity in the April 5, 1975 issue.
The interview, conducted over a four-day period atid written by fi^Iance journalist James Quig of Richmond, Quebec, contained a Zolf quip which CJC termed an "obscene utterance."
'■I'm not saying Nazis are bad guys as individuals, mind you, but in a group they can . mean sudden death. Of course we shouldii't knock the whole SS because of a few bad apples...", was the statement which the telegram further deemed "an obscenity and calculated to cause ang:uish and suffering."
Zolf, who has been twice praised by CJC for his CBC documentaiy on early Canadian immigration policies and for his short film on the Panovs, felt that the remark was misinterpreted and taken "too literally.''
Well-known for his biting and abrasive wit. Zolf explained that the quote is an "old joke" which originally appeared in a Toronto satiric revue called Spring Thaw and was uttered by a character playing a Nazi war criminal . The revue was authored by Ray Jessel, presently a writer for the Smothers Brothers.
"It is a facetious and bitter line." Zolf told The Canadian Jewish News during a telephone interview firom his Toronto home. "It is mocking, a take-off on the same kind of statement made to Jews J^and about Jews, turn it around and it becomes the classic anti-Semitic remark. Jews are O.K. as individuals, but as a group they ruin the neighborhood."
Zolf said he was " struck by the irony" of the line and "was trying to prick Anglo-Saxon minds"
Rabbi Eckstiein
Eckstein
OTTAWA —
Dr. Simon L. Eckstein rabbi of Congregation Beth Shalom, has been chosen chainnan of the Ottawa Jewish community's newly formed committee on providing non-institutional care for the ageing.
Members of the committee presdn? areas of expertise m fields of medicine, psychiatry, nursing care, social work, diet, housing, family and retirement counselling.
Rabbi Eckstein declared that, "the objective of the committee is to assist the ageing in miaintaining self-esteem by living in their own homes and to postpone as long as possible admittance to city and private tnstitutiona] care.
"Our goal is not so modi involvement in the aged but rather the oft neglected age level group of 6S-80. We hope to enridi their lives and enable them to function as in^kqpendentiy as possible oinside of institutional frameworks NwMch at best are regretably still impersonal."
Larry Zolf
when he used it.
"We seem to go after people like myself, rather than after the hypocrites," he continued. "I don't want to be tainted by this kind of thing, especially by the spokesmen of my own community. ,
"It'scrazy. Obviously. I feel very strongly about the Nazis, I lost most of my family because of the SS. The Western Guard does not consider me one of their own."
A first-generation Canadian. Zolf grew up in Winnipeg where his father was' 'a Jewish teacher in a Jewish school." He relates that most of his family who stayed behind in Europe was killed*' during the Holocaust.
Deploring the fact that too many people try to forget Worid War II and to let "bygones be bygones," Zolf maintains that this kind of "black humor" can be used as a "weapon" to remind people of those times and of their own continuing prejudices.
"lam not an assimilated Jew." maintains Zolf. "1 am very conscious of my Jewishness and proud of it." .
Active in many Jewish community endeavors. Zolf added that the remark was just as facetious as saying that "being Jewish cost me the lead in the Bells of St. Mary." also quoted in the article.
Zolf said that he was "not happy" with the cover of Weekend Maga-
zhie which featured a large caricature of the comedian and his Semitic nose.
The CJC telegram of April 7 was signed by Sydney M. Harris, president; Aba Beer, chainnan —^ National Holocaust Committee, and Alan Rose, national (executive director; and was addressed to Sheena Patterson, editor of the magazine. Patterson was unavailable
for comment on the Congress message.
The Zolf statement, the telegram emphasized "defiles the memoiy of those who perished at the hands of the SS. The SS were responsible; for the murder of six million Jews and the shooting of Canadian piisoners of war in cold blood, in addition to unspeakable crimes against, humanity which defy description.
"The publication of?the article has hurt and saddened the Jewish commu-nify and reflects on the editorial judgment of those responsible. The Zolf statement is an insult to all those who fought the Nazis and made the supreme sacrifice in the cause of freedom. The slaughter of innocents does not lend itiself to the glorification of their miir-derers."
Leader Rwka Hurwkh, 70, dies
JERUSALEM —
Rivka Hurwich, 70. well known in Canadian Zionist circles, died of a heart attack here recently. A long-time leader in the Canadian Jewish community, she iand her husband. Dr. Samuel Hurwich. a pediatrician, went on ali-yah on 1%2.
Born in Korostin in the Ukraine, she came to Toronto with her family in 1909. A graduate social worker, she was one of the founding members of Canadian Pioneer Wom-
en, serving as its first reasurer and recording secretary.
Mrs. Hurwich was co-chairman, along with Mrs. Lil Levy, of the Women's Division of State of Israel Bonds in 1958 and was named a Woman of Valor through her sale of SIOO.OOO in Bonds.
During a visit to Toronto in 1968. Hurwich's were • honored by the Labor Zionist Movement of Cain-ada and Pioneer Women at a tribute dinner given in
co-operation with Israel Bonds.
In Jerusalem, Mrs. Hurwich headed up a rehabilitation centre and also formed a Pioneer Women's Qub there. She and her husband ran the Canadian desk for the United Israel appeal.
She is survived by her husband, and daughter Ethel of Jerusalem, a son, Martin and sisters Bertha Williams and Dr. Rose Bronstein Lasowsky. of Toronto, and five grandchildren.