V
Thie Canadian Jewish News, Friday, September 14, 1973 - Page 5
Opinion
When Pontypool
le
By J. B. SALSBERG
The most intriguing question of all about Pontypool is why our ancestors were attracted to it in the first place. If they longed for an East-European type summering place - a sort of Sho-lem Aleichem's "Boyberik" - in this new land of hope, why didn't they look elsewhere for a suitable site?
Let's face it: Pontypool is not located on a seashore; it doesn't front on a lake; it can't even boast of a river or creek in its territory!
Yes, it has two adjoining, rather shallow ponds on the bottom of its gently-sloping, saucer-like topography. Cynics say that the ponds are the basins for the rains and melting snow that trickle through the sandy soil to the bottom of the land saucer. Others swear to it that the ponds are fed by underground springs. But whatever their source they cannot be dignified as pools. They are so shallow that you couldn't drown anyone in them even if you tried. So what was the attraction?
I'm afraid that the answer lies hidden beyond the present reach of man. We know that four first, adventurous ancestors took their first step towards Pontypool because Moyshe Yookle bought a farm there and moved his family from Toronto to the disquieting quiet of Pontypool.
But why did our central hero, Reb Moyshe Yookle. settle there? The answer to this question is also veiled in the mist of unexplored history.
Now, Moyshe Yookle (Bernstein?) was, according to all accounts, an enterprising, good humoured man. My uncle Eliezer maintains that Moyshe Yookle (a good Jew. from Poland, as pronounciation of his given name-would indicate) was a "country peddlar," as distinct from the peddlars in the city. His work territory was around the Peterborough, Lindsay district and he often stopped overnight, with his horse and wagon, in Pontypool. Business was far from good and when he found a farm, with a substantial house and large bam that was available for a low price and small down payment he bought it and moved his family to it.
First, came ailing or just complaining wives of Moyshe Yookle s friends and landsleit. It was not a "summer hotel" that he established (who in Polish Shtetlech heard of such a thing?). People came for "fresh air" and they came because it was "country" and it was "heimish," totally without formality and, most importantly, it was like the "old country," The railroad provided two stops a day from Toronto and those who couldn't get a lift with someone who had a; "trockle" (small truck) could always rely on the late afternoon train on Friday to reach their wives and children at Moyshe. Yookle's
Pontypool recalled
long before the Sabbath.
Reservations? - Accommodations? -Cuisine? - Who ever heard of it and who cared? One just came and Moyshe Yookle's family received you and treated you just like one of their own. You were put up wherever they could and you were fed as you were always accustomed to. If there was no more room in the house you were bedded down in the barn. (Only a few short years ago an old gentleman smiled, became silent and allowed his mind to float in sweet reveries, after he related to me how he, a young man then, and his young wife spent a few nights in Moyshe Yookle's barn.)
Well, the trickle became a substantial flow. Competitors opened houses for summer boarders. Rooms were rented from natives. Enterprising men opened "summer hotels" in hurriedly constructed barrack-like long houses. The Jewish population grew rapidly and Pontypool became a shtetl.
A synagogue was established - only for the summer, of course. Jewish butchers and bakers from Toronto brought the traditional goodies. The two or three local merchants-natives, that is - added to their stock Jewish specialties and on warm Saturday evenings the one block "main drag" of Pontypool was filled with Jewish strollers, very much like Dizengoff St. in Tel Aviv is now. Only while Dizengoff aspires to look like a "little Paris" Pontypool, after the Havdalah, was happy to look like a shtetle - like the old country . .
Yes, as did their forefathers in the old country, the transplanted shtetl-menshen also gave a Jewish twist to their re-incarnation of a shtetl in the new world. Pontypool became lovingly known as •' Pontyple". , Those weekends were Pontypool s finest hours!
But alas ... As you will learn soon enough.
Decline in Western immigration to Israel
By GEOFFREY D. PAUL
JERUSALEM (JCNS)-
Jewish Agency officials have already decided that they know the reason foi- the downturn in immigration - the shortage of cheap, adequate accommodation. So the cry has gone upjrom Jerusalem: "Give them more housing, cheaper flats and a better selecttoh for families, lots of flats for single people. Housing, cheap housing - this is the answer."
Undoubtedly this would be the answer to one of Israel's most pressing domestic problems - the lackof decentaccommoda-tion for the 50,000 or so families still living in sub-standard housing conditions and the absence of any kind of accommodation for thousands of young couples wanting to marry but without the funds to put a roof over their heads.
It is not the an'swefr to the declining immigration from the West. It just begs the question, one not so much shied away from by the official leadership, but which it has never occurred to them to ask.
Simply put, the question is: WhydoJews in the Western dispersion prefer their lives there to settlement in Israel? And the answer, also simply put, is: If Israel is going to be just like_anywhere else, then anywhere else is much more comfortable.
To put housing before motive as a reason for immigration is to place a limping horse behind a tottering cart and to send both government and agency off on an orgy of subsidized house building which will benefit none but the already flourishing property speculators.
Fewer Jews want to make their lives in Israel because the deeper Israel settles
into her own form of normality, the less the challenge to the individual Jew or Jewish family happily and comfortably established in their own Western communities.
There was once the land settlement challenge - but with agricultural over-produc-'tipn, the Negev handed over to industries which can better and more cheaply exploit it and the dwindling kibbutz becoming the evening_retreat of white-collar commute ers. tt»is challenge, too, has evaporated.
An attempt has been made to replace it with settlement in "the territories," but not all young Israelis stationed there by the army and with whom this writer has had many conversations are confident (either about the rightness of pioneering in territory which has never been annexed by the government of Israel or comforted by the "security" reasons adduced for what is happening by way of settlement.
Israelis ardent travellers despite taxes
By NECHEMIA MEYERS CJN Israel Correspondent
REHOVOT, ISRAEL-
While Black September terror has apparently dissuaded thousands of tourists from coming to Israel, it has not in any way diminished the ardent desire of Israelis to explore the great wide world.
Some 200,000 of them are expected to depart this year, from Lydda Ait-port alone, the majority flying El Al, with the rest distributing their patronage among the 17 other airlines that land here. Thousands more would be going abroad, were it not for the Israeli travel tax, the world's stiffest.
If. for instance, a person signs up for a group flight to Rome, he shells out $208) for his ticket and another $167 for taxes. This is not a problem for junketing government officials, who don't pay for their own tickets, or for businessmen, who charge them to the company account. But it is a very real problem for ordinary taxpayers, particularly since travel within Europe is more expensive than ever before.
Israelis wishing to participate in conferences or competitions have special difficulties as the organizers - loath to involve themselves in expensive and troublesome security arrangements -often try to keep the Israelis away. It is difficult to prove that an invitation has been withheld for fear of Arab terror; other excuses can always be found. At the recent Cannes Film Festival, for example, the absence of an invitation was explained by saying that (for the first time in years) no Israeli production was worthy of screening.
Sometimes the organizers have second thoughts only after their guests from Jerusalem have already arrfved, as happened earlier this year at the international table tennis championships is Sarajevo, Yugoslavia. Midway through the competitions; the Israeli players were unceremoniously rushed out of the country by Yugoslav of-
ficials, purportedly because of Arab threats.
The managers of last month's Euro-vision Song Contest reluctantly agreed to turn a Luxiembourg concert hallintoa virtual fortress so that blonde Tel Aviv songstress Elanit could represent Israel with a beautiful Hebrew song and, it turned out, win 4th prize. Despite Elanit's unexpected success, it was pointedly suggested to Israeli representatives that it would be just
as well if they skipped the next song con-"test.
Instead of being discouraged by such problems, Israelis are making every effort to keep the flag flying at international events. As Deputy Prime Minister and Education Minister Yigal Allon put it recently: "In the. past we would think twice before allocating money to send a delegation overseas; now we try to be represented everywhere."
Rabbi Ben Hollander
for example, on the West Bank.
On the other hand, a large proportion of Western immigrants have found not so much a challenge as satisfaction in Israel. These"are families of Orthodox background concerned to preserve their children from alien influences and to establish themselves In an environment conducive to observing the mitzvot. Given that Israel is a secular society and its masses increasingly restive because of the concessions they are forced to make to the observant, • this type of immigration may also undergo some reduction.
The last practical challenge thrown out by Israelis when all else is done is the need for Western Jews to come and help "change society," to prevent "Levantin-ism" and fight for maintenance of the democratic norms they know from their own societies.
But Israel is a society resistant to change. Those who came earlier have built small empires, surrounded by impregnable walls and hostile to new blood and new ideas. Major industries and institutions are headed by men who have done we^l enough by Israel in their day but are now out of touch with the latest in methodology and technology. They resent "intruders".
A way of life in which the Ashkenazim are the "good guys" and the Sephardim, particularly the North Africans, the "bad guys' has been imprinted on the national consciousness and challenges Western newcomers either to fight for the underdog's rights or to reject an elitist approach to fellow Jews and, thereforfe, to reject Israeli society.
Tourism initiative is weU-meaning gimmick
Dear Editor:
The discussion reported in your July 13 issue between the Israel consul-general in Tpronto and a group of Toronto rabbis about increasing tourism to Israel is a welcome initiative and I wish "the Toronto Plan" much success. However, "pilgrimages to Israel at least once every seven years" as a solution to Israel's tourism problem and "simchas being celebrated in Israel as another way to boost the tourist industry" tend to be little more than well-intentioned gimmicks unless they are part of a deeper educational and cultural interrelationship between the Diaspora Jew and Israel.
To go beyond the gimmick stage, perhaps the rabbis and the community, with the co-operation of the authorities in Israel, will turn to the large untapped potential that has been neglected by the organizations and travel companies sponsoring tourist trips, oii the one hand, and the activities of the state of Israel and Zionist agencies encouraging aliyah, on ttie other. For the youth sector, many different plans have been developed combining work, study, and travel of varying time lengths. But for adults and for family groups very little is available beyond the standard tours.
Rabbi Hollander
"Temporary aliyah" or "partial aliya" - sabbaticals, summer or other vacation sojpursn, study programs, . work exchanges, have remained solely a matter for individual planning, often frustrated or
made needlessly complicated by the lack of a co-ordinating and advisory body in Israel geared to this neither-visitor, neither-settler type of individual. (The category of "temporary resident" is narrowly conceived in Israel as a preliminary stage to full aliyah and has not been developed as legitimate in its own right.)
One is struck by the relatively large incidence of Torontonians here in Israel in one capacity or another, and surely ima-- ginative community planning aimed at increasing such ties would find favorable re-/sponse. Programs in Israel such as intensive study seminars in Hebrew, Jewish -and Israeli subjects could be sponsored; aid in accommodations could be provided through such projects as low-cost cooperative family hostels, rental services, exchange programs for families, anii financial aid for families spending a year in Israel.
A community service to advise, encourage, and aid families makinga "study aliyah" - and to offer follow-up possibilities upon return - would go a long way towards realizing the potential of Israel as the cultural centre and inspiration of world Jewry.
Ben Hollinder, Jerusalem
Treatment without money is not ruled ouf
gives care m
style
Nom^^-iMraietUioim McC^Ubughge^ia liydy reactio at tne Village Qealtfi Centre, a faniOy practice unit in the Yorkrille area in Toronto^
By MIRIAM HERMAN
TORONTO-
You walk along Scollard Street and come to number 106, With its yellow-painted brick aind brown wood trim it looks just like the otherrenovatedtpwnhousestucked alongside the art galleries and boutiques that cdlpr the chic Yorkville area.
Only the small sign oil the front porch indicates that it is the Village Health Centre, a family j)ractice unit that dispenses .health care, service in a "noh-. factory'.', hohiey-atnnosphere style..
Th^ Village Health Centre is the brainchild .of Dr; Marvin Waxman, ai family practitioner.. After an internship at New Mount Siiiat Hospital; anadditldnal yearas resident in internal- hiedicine and six " inohths of travelling with wife Joain trying to decide where to go from there, he envisioned this professionatteaih set-up to meet the total needs (physical; emotional and socia:i) of the patient in a warm;; un- • . hurried setting. * :
Dr. Waxmah approached OHIP with his community health seWice concept and th6 gOrahea;d for tile centre in Miarch; 1972. OHIP provides the budget for doctors fees and overhead -that is nursing staff, receptionist, rent and such.
Dr. Waxman doubles as medical administrator and full-time physician; The^ centre is open Monday to Friday from 10^ a.m. to 6 p.m. with a 24 hour telephone service. Part-time hours are shared by Dr. Edward Beder, a family practitioner of 12 years' standing with a thriving practice of his own, aiid Dr. Bre^nda Kane, on staff of Women's College Hospital outpat-: lent department and at one time with the' [ Addiction Research Centre. The medical team is rounded out by a gynecologist who comes by.half a day weekly and phychiatrists who are available for consul-. tation. J- -;v,;'' :,,
The centre's emphasis is on the extended role of the nurse, there are two specially trained nurses on hand each day plus a public health nurse assigned to that area a half day weekly. The n'urseis see the patients first to assess their needs and attend to the routine well-baby, pre-natal, pre-school, pre-camp visits as well. This allows the doctors more time with their patients.
"Time is quality," says Dr. Beder. "Once we solve the medical problems, we can spend more timetryihgtp help them along in daily living habits."
By virtue of the location of the centre, much of the practice falls into the 17-25 age group. And the professional staff relate to these young people in an informa.1, ■first-name way. There are comfortably furnished rooms set aside for just talking
h
Dr. Marvin Waxnun, the man doctor doubles as medical adm
- "the kid needs someone totalkto" -and there is a sincere desire to help people cope with the problems oMiving.
About 30 patients are seen each day. There are referrals from other physicians, day^care centres, schools, drop-in centres and community information centres.
If the patients have,an OHIP number, they are not billed. If people are not covered by insurance and can afford to pay, they are expected to do so: Treatment without money is not ruled out..
The centre has its own OHIP number that covers those patients who fall into the "socially hazardous category." That is patients who are 21 years of age or under .who have what are termed socially hazardous problems - sexual problems, drug abuse, psychiatric problems - and are not insured on their own and cannot afford the fee. These 'patients must be residents of Ontario or landed immigrants.
OHIP does.not in any way infringe on the dodors'^iedical jurisdiction. Theonly responsibility is a monthly report of the patient load, signifying the number of patients seen and the diagnosis. The agreement with OHIP is on a yearly basis. • ■
:. Hbpefully, more staff can be added as the need is demonstrated. Dr. Waxman would like to see a.dentist and a social. worker included/
"We are op'i^ to expansion into other needy areas and we would like to get involved in the schools," he said. "Wehave a lot to dp and a long way to go."
Meanwhile^ the team-concept of family practice keeps these three young medics going.- (Incidentally, they are all former New Mount Sinai interns.) And through the Village Health Centre they are able to provide the kind of personalized health carie service that they feel is needed in our community.
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