Page 4 - the Canadian Jewish News. Friday. October i, 1971
issues on
The proposed merger between the Canadian Jewish Congress and the United Jewrish Welfare Fund has iiow become a matter of public discussion rather than a little publicized agenda item under discrete discussion by ^boards and comiriittees.
Public discussion is however, bound to be emotionally charged and on ,oc-casibn wi(de of the mark. If the community is to make a wise decision on the relationship of the two agencies and the future of Congress, we must first narrow the issues; we must separate fact frorti non-fact, reality from prejudice.
First of all, the issue is not one of "democracy". Opponents of the merger have, in all sincerity, suggested that merger with the Welfare Fund would disenfranchise the bulk of the community. However, the Toronto Community Council proposed by a negotiating committee of the two agencies as a keystone of the merger agreement would be democratically elected, widely representative and certainly every bit as responsive as the structure currently serving Congress.
Nor does the issue involve an internecine battle between Congress and UJWF leadership. Indeed, there are many prominent Congress leaders who favor the merger and believe that this is the only way in which that organization can be preserved and function effectively. Other Congress leaders disagree. Welfare Fund leaders are equally divided on the issue.
There is a touch of demogoguery in the claim that the issue is essentially one of the 'millionaires' versus the 'masses', or the 'intellectual aristocracy' versus the 'financiai aristocracy'. The dichotomy is a spurious one and does not reflect the reality of either Welfare Fund or Congress membership. There are millionaires and intellectuals in both camps. Indeed, when one examines the actual roster of names, one finds there are some wealthy intellectuals as well as some rather well-read wealthy serving both organizations, in fact, both organizations have sought to recruit as many bright, capable, educated people as possible regardless of their incomes.
Nor is the issue oneof 'personalities' or 'professional rivalry.'
The decision on the merger will be made by lay people representing both organizations, but obviously the professionals also have opinions. In both
organizations/ they must understandably maintain a low profile since it would not be appropriate for them to take an active part in the discussion^
However, In private conversation some Congress staff people have expressed themselves as favoring the proposal, while others have stated their firm opposition."
The community's exercise in judgment will not be helped.by claiming that, Congress represents the 'little man' while the Welfare Fund represents the 'establishment'. Nor is there an age division between the organizations, with Congress representing 'youth' and the 'future' while the UJWF represents the doddering over 40's. Unfortunately, attendance at meetings of both organizations hardly suggests a youth wave.
The claim that Congress is somehow more 'Jewish' is hardly worthy of exploration. Both organizations are composed of Jews, support Jewish purposes, serve Israel and support Jewish education.
Welfare Fund supporters understandably object tp being described (and In a sense, dismissed) as a 'mere fund raising organization.' They point to a long list of planning functions, services and agencies which are part of the Welfare Fund's program. In recent years, the UJWF has, with increasing frequency, moved into areas of service which Congress, because of its limited Ipudget, could not undertake. Finally, the marriage of a fund raising organization and a community council is not in itself objectionable. It may produce a nevy hybrid, much more vigorous than either of the parent organizations. ^
Now that the issues have been narrowed, the community must still ask itself the following questions:
- \. How can Congress best be pre-ser\fed in order to continue to provide the valuable community services it has historically performed?
2, How can duplication of function and the resulting waste of community funds best be avoided?
3. How can the community best avoid the frictions and disagreements that grow as the result of the jurisdictional disputes that occur on the boundaries of competing services?
These are the real issues. These are the matters to which the great community debate should be addressed.
Militancy
restraint
Soviet Prime Minister Kosygin will arrive in Ottawa or> October 18 for a brief visit to Canada. Throughout his stay, wherever he goes, the Kremlin leader will meet with "intense and concerted action" organized by the Action Committee for Soviet Jewry in order to impress on him the concern of Canada's Jews for their Soviet brethren.
Mass rallies, outdoor demonstrations, vigils, law seminars and marches will be held in Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal. The Action Committee is serving as the coordinating agency and all community groups are urged to lend it full cooperation.
Hopefully the demonstrations will be so massive that they will compel Mr. Kosygin to recognize that the fate of Soviet Jewry is a matter of world concern and cannot be relegated to the status of an Internal bureaucratic problem of the U.S.S.R.
The demonstrations that will greet the Russian leader should also underline the tremencious courage and self-sacrifice of those Soviet Jews who,-in announcing their desire to leave the Soviet Union andemmigrate to Israel have exposed themselves to discrimination and punishment by the Soviet government. The demonstrations should dramatize the miracle of the rebirth of Jewish identity in the UvS.S.R. after 50 years of harrass-mer\t and persecution; The demonstrations shou Id; i 11 u mi nate the spiritual strength of a minority group whici) created its own revival., and offered
its own challenge to the juggernaut administration which has crushed millions of its own people.
Such courage demands a full response from all of us.\ln recent years
the adult community, although proud of the. concern and energy displayed by pur university youth on behalf of Soviet Jewry has also managed to evade its own obligation to participate. It is to be hpped that thousands of adults will join in the coming month's activities. It cannot be left to college students alone to express the community's concern.
External Affairs Minister Mitchell Sharp has asked for restraint on the part of the Jewish community. He has implied that Prime Minister Trudeau, during his visit to the Soviet Union in May, recognized that,a dignified appeal based on humanitarian principles is most effective in arousing a positive response in Russia's leaders. This supports the findings of Professor Alan Pollack of the University df Pittsburgh, an internationally recognized expert in the analysis of Kremlin be-heaviour, who explains that Soviet leaders see themselves and wanrto be recognized as men of deep humanitarian impulses. —
Finally, any evidence ^f competition between organizations to seize the publicity spotlight for themselves will serve only organizational purposes, not Soviet Jewry. Competitive displays of militancy vor a compulsion by the membejs'of one,group or another to proire that they love Jews more than arWone else will distort the nature of theVdemonstrations and endanger their success.
The lives of our brothers In the Soviet Union are at stake. Those lives >n\ustbe our first concern.'ln order not to add totheir danger our efforts rhust be organizecl. massive, meaningful -and disciplinecl. ,
An Israeli AiKForce Stratocruiser lies scattered across the dead sands of the Sinai desert after
being shot down by an Egyptian SAM 2 missile. Seven lives were lost in the tragedy, only one member of the crew escaping. -
war
m
by John Gellncr
Egyptian President Anwar Sadat has said repeatedly that he is not prepared to permit the present stalemate to continue beyond the end of this year. He will not allow the 1967 armistice lines to become de facto borders. Since Israel is not Mkely to budge unless there is an over-all settlement ensurihg its security, ariy change in the status quo would have to be brought about by force.
Assuming then that the Egyptian threats can be taken seriously, the question arises of where an attack can be mounted, and how.
The Egyptians do not appear to haye the capability for wide-ranging amphibious operations. The possibility of an assault across the Red Sea can be thus discounted absolutely, and one on the Mediterranean coast almost certainly; In the latter case there wduld not be - except for the 'Runiani'inlet'which' is easily defensible - suitable landing beaches until onecomes to El Arish, some 100 miles from the Canal and uncomfortably close to a numt)er of Israeli airfields. -
This leaves the Suez Canal front. Here, too, the choices an attacker has are limited. Between the Mediterranean and El Quantara there are great expanses of marshland on both sides of the canal. It would be difficult to mount an assault there. South of Ismailia the waterway widens considerably as it passes through a series of lakes. At its southernmost extremity it is also overlooked by high ground on the eastern bank, from which the defenders would have to be cleared first before a crossing in strength could be attempted.
It seems then that what the Israeli Command has principally to worry about is the stretch of about 20 miles between El Quantara and Ismailia. The value of the Canal as a military obstacle has been vastly exaggerated. There is little doubt that the Egyptians could force a crossing in a surprise attack and could establish a bridgehead on the east bank. They possess the full range of Soviet amphibious armored vehicles. Special units have been observed practicing river
crossings - and the Nile is a much more formidable anti-tank ditch than the canal. Egyptian (or Soviet, or Soviet-Egyptian) surface-to-air missiles could assure-at least temporary and local air superiority at the crossing point and over the bridgehead.
The problem for the Egyptian Command' would not be so much the immediate operations - getting across the canal - as the sustained operations that would have to follow. These would unfold outside the range of the missiles, in the Sinai desert, in conditions of virtually no cover. It is more than doubtful that, despite all the training they may have got from the Russians in these past four, years, the Egyptians would be capable of engaging the Israeli forces successfully in mobile warfare. Yet, unless the crossings were followed immediately by a determined offensive through the Sinai Peninsula, the bridgehead itself could not be held. This is the experience of ai'l crossings of water obstacles, of which there were many in the Second World War.
The Israelis can thus trust themselves to throw back an Egyptian attack, though not because, as so many people blithely assume, the Egyptian (and generally the Arab) armed forces are contemptible, but because any attempt to breach decisively the present armistice lines would be wrought with extraordinary difTicuUies. Where they stand now. the Israelis hold most of the tactical trumps.
What would have to worry the Israelis greatly would be the very fact that an assault was attempted. Assuming that the Egyptians will abide by their treaty with the Soviet Union, including the all-important consultation clause - and there is not the slighted reason to believe that they will -not -such an attack would mean that Moscow had fully committed itself to help the Arabs to achieve what they demand, by violence if necessary. This would be very serious. It could make any fourth round of the Middle East war qiiite a different proposition - in the short term, but especially in its wider implications - from the three earlier rounds.
John Gellncr is editor of the Canadian Defence Quarterly.
Haldchd on Intercourse
1. If tvvd unmarried Jewish people have sexual intercourse, does this make them married in the eyes of the rabbis? If a child is born is it illegitimate?
RESPONSE:
Contrary to what seems to be generally assumed, if two unmarried Jewish people have sexual intercourse this does not make them married in the eyes of the rabbis. The common misunderstanding is probably based on a false view of what the Mishna (Kid-dushin 1, 1} means when it rules tftat intercourse effects a marriage. The Mishna means, in fact, that this is only so if the act is performed by both parties with the clear intention of effecting by it a valid marriage. It is analogous to the other method of effecting a marriage (recorded in the s&me Mishna) the delivery of an object of value (nowadays, a ring) to t/ie bride. Unless this is given expressly for the purpose of effecting a marriage it obviously has no validity. (Incidentally, the famous Babylonian teacher, Rab, is said to have administered a flogging to people who used the method of inter-courx to effect a marriage, Kiddushin 12b, and the method has totally disappeared from Jewish life.)
Another Mishna (Gittin 8.9) mles that if a man divorced his wife and she then lodged with him in an inn, a xcond divorce would be required be/cause it can be assumed that rather than have illicit intercourse they would make it licit by cohabiting in order to effect a marriage. But here, too. there is the assumption of explicit intention.
It is ridiculous to suggest that an act of fornication would itself constitute a valid mafriage. Indee/d. many contemporary authorities rule that even a civil marriage is invalid in Jewish law on the grounds that while the couple do live together as man and wi^ there has been no explicit intention to con-summate the marriage as kiddushin (marriage in Jewish law).
As for your second question, a child born out of wedlock is not illegitimate ip Jewish law. In reality, there is no such concept as illegitimacy of a child irt Jewish law. The mamzer (with all the anguish this can cause as we have recently witnessed) may not marry a non-mamzer but otherwise he is the legitimate child of his natural father (Mishna, Yevamot 2, 5). A mamzer is defined (Mishna, Kiddushin 3, 12) as the issue of an adulterous or incestuous union so that a child born out of wedlock, where this does not apply, is not a mamzer.
So the answer to both your questiorK is. No.
2. Must the Sabbath candles' be placed on •the dinner table on Friday night?
RESPONSE: -
It is certainly customary to place the candles on the festive table, but it is not necessary. As the candlesticks are rhuktza (may not be touched or moved) on. the Sabbath it would, in fact, be preferable to place them on a separate table or sideboard in the dining room to obviate the temptation of moving them to clear the table.
Criticizes fellow rabbi calling for open religious society'
Dear Editor: .■ i
Rabbi Emanuel Forman(YihyehTov: Sept. 17) may have more to tell us about contemporary Hebrew than aboutthe state of religion in Israel today.
Rabbi Forman is right in asserting that Is-, rael's religious problems cannot be solved by importing Western forms of religious life. The simple reason for this is that, notwith-
leHers to the editor
standing outward appearancest: which-^con-fuse structures with institutions, theseforms ar^ no more successful in thair lands, than
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is the ^present day religious structure in . Israel. (A sirtall Israeli "shtecbl" may contain more religious commitment than one or several million-dollar congregations. .
Rabbi .Forman could not be more in error : in suggesting that the terms."religious" and "non-religious" are "rendered somewhat meaningless in the Israeli context.*' On Ihe "contrary, they arc that much more pronounced. If Jews in Israel can abandon (he foith. certainly Jews in the West are justified in doing so. ir Jews in Israel seek total assimilation within secular Western culture, certainly the Jew in the West .is justified in doing so. Our acknowledged obsession with Israel reflects the certain awareness that the total spiritual destiny of our people_(and there is no other ultimate goal worth bothering about) is being worked out in Israel.
Rabbi Forman's call for "an open religious society possessing sensitivities which cut across denoniinatioral lines" is a very curious statement. j(n view of the bilure (though not apparent) of our Western forms of religion, would he - as he would have to logically - espouse the same^solution in our society? In such a case, his constituents, and colleagues^ would recognize hothing less than his resignation from the orthodox fold.
Rabbi Abraham D. Othen