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The Canadian Jewish News, Thursday, September 14, 1989-Page 7
DIARY
of a People
By
DAVID BIRKAN
September signals the start of the school year for students around the world. In Judaism, compulsory education for childrien was initiated by Jerusalem's Kohen Gadol (high priest) Joshua Ben Gamla nearly 2,000 years ago. .
Ben Gamla's appointment, in the turbulent years that preceded the destruction of the Second Temple, was not auspicious. His wife Martha, one of Jerusalem's wealthiest women, secured his^posi-^ tion in the year 63 by bribing Judean King Agrip-pa n. When his appointment was announced, street fighting broke out between Ben Gamla's supporters and those of his predecessor Joshua Ben Dam-na. Expected to burgeon were: heightened factionalism, cori^iption, elitism, attempted suppression of the popular rabbi-teachers known as peruj/j/m (Pharisees), and the privileges of the ci-. ty's powerful landed, aristocracy^ Ben Gamla's deeds came as a surprise to all.
Ben Gamla quickly mmed a free hand to expanding on and implementing the educational reforms urged a century earlier by Shimeon Ben Shetach. The latter had been the powerful Pharisee chief justice who helped make the ruleof his sister Queen Shlomzion HaMalka abrief golden age in Second Temple tjmes. In Ben Shetach's day, the priestly aristocracy opposed the dissemination of Torah literacy among the common people, declaring that knowledge should be, as in other religions, the property solely of the priesthood. Ben Shetach opposed priestly domination of education. Education for the young, long in decline in Jerusalem despite - the-perushim's outreach effoils, was almost nil in the countryside, where civil war raged and where peasant farmers were hard pressed to meet the demands of their absentee landowners and of the Roman tax collectors.
With the authority of the state, Ben Gamla d^reed that teachers be placed in every city and town in the country— hundreds of communi-. ties — and that their salaries be subsidized, in total if necessary, by the Saiihedrin (Supreme court). Gamla quickly implemented his decree with funding froni the Temple treasury and from the annualvand voluntary contributiohs^ sent to the Temple from Diaspora Jews in Spain, Rome, and North Africa, all the way to India, all under his aegis. He did not hesitate to put his own private fortune at education's disp<^.
Ben Gamla's concern extended to the smallest and niost isolated communities, where physical barriers prevented young children from going to or receiving teachers. Bridges or at the very least boards were placed across brooks to facilitate passage. This detail became a memorial tohisaccorh-plishmerits and awareness of every impediment.. Gamla in Aramaic means a, small bridge.
Ben Gamla was killed trying to stop a troop of Idumeah supporters of the Zealots from entering Jerusalem. It was a bare two years after he took pfTice. Speculation on possible accomplishments had he lived longer is balanced by the fact that the education system he instituted in the nick of time survived the catastrophes that Were to break over the Holy Land for nearly a century. It has helped ensure Judaism's survival to this day..-Xliej£nis^lem-Ialmud says about Ben Gamla: "Were it not for him, the Torah would have been forgotten in Israel."
In the West, elementary education first became free and compulsory in Massachussets in 1647; in France in 1833; in pre-unification Germany in the early 1800s; in Britairi, and in Canada, in the late 1800s. ■
INPARSHAL WORDS: ba'are
? The Torah has many words echoed in English. In this weers p /?a are means to
clarify or reveal, and suggests bare and bard, as well as barege and barathea.
The Concise Oxford Dictionary takes bare back through Old English baer. Old High German bar. Old Norse /?er/-, to the hypothetical asterisked Ger-:' manic and Indo-European roots */;azaz and *bhosos.
A bard basically makes things, clear: events of , historical and racial interest, andof love. Bard is traced to the hypothetical Old Celtic *bdrdds:
Ba'are also rings through in the Frencffcierivetf word barege, aclear silky gauze niade from wool. This material is named after Bareges in southwest _ France, where it was first produced. Did the.place give the cloth the name, or did the cloth give the place jthe name? ' : •
Another fine woollen doth is barathea. The COD ascribes the word to an ''unknown ori-; gin:" The dictionary does not connect barathea o with barege,'two words listed on the dictionary's same page.
BONN (JTA) -
Chancellor Helmut Kohl has cited the cordial relations betwee.'i Bonn and Jerusalem as a modelfor reconciliation, and pledged to work forunderstanding and cooperation with former enemies and victims of Germany's past. -
Kohl, leader of the ruling Christian Democratic Union addressed a packed special session of the Bundestag that marked the 50th
anniversary of the .start of the Second Worid War which began with the German invasion of Poland on Sept. 1, 1939,
The ambassadors of Israel, Poland and other countries that suffered from the Nazi regime were present.
Earlier, West Gerinari Defehce Minister Gerhard Stoltenberg issued a directive to German troops describing how the war was launched and the mis-
ery and suffering it inflicted on so many people, eventually including the Germans themselves.
Stoltenberg stressed that it was the duty of every German soldier to study the events of the war and draw conclusions from Germany's past.
As part of the events marking the day, a ceremony was held at the Jewish cemetery in West Berlin that was well at-
tn
hopes to open embassy next January
(CJN News Services)
DUBLIN -
Israel's new ambassador to Ireland, Yoav Biran, presented his credentials to President Patrick Hillery here Sept. 5, mindful of the fact that the Irish Republic may play a crucial role in Middle East diplomacy in the coming year.
Israel has been handicapped by not having a resident ambassador in Ireland. Biran, who is also ambassador to Britain, works out of the Israeli Embassy in London. Ireland's embassv in
Arab-Israeli conflict.
The Irish foreign minister is already one of the E.C.'s "troika" of ministers assigned to deal with that issue.
Irish policy has leaned heavily toward the Palestinians. The RepubUc has long advocated a Palestinian state.
The Palestine Libera-
tion Oganization maintains an office in Dublin, which has been behind anti-Israel propaganda.
Biran, meanwhile, is having talks with Irish politicians and attending the usual round of dinners and receptions, one of them given in his honor by the 2,000-strong Jewish community of Dublin.
tended by prominent poli-ticiaas, including Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble.
Heinz Galinski, chairman of West Germany's Central Council of Jews, warned against signs of resurgent anti-Semitism.
He said he was appalled by the electoral successes of the. extreme right-wing Republican Party, which "adopted elements of the Nazi ideology."
Plans to- stage an antiwar poem by Bertolt Brecht at another. commemoration, at the German war cemetei7 in Bitburg, were overturned by a court in Trier. """"
The performance was to have been part of an observance of the 50th anniversary of the start of the Second Worid War.
The Bitburg municipality asked the court for a restraining order on grounds that the dramatization would offend relatives of soldiers bu-
Helmut Kohl
Tied at Bitburg.
Those soldiers include members of the Waffen SS, the Nazis' elite fighting corps whose members -took-a blood oath of allegiance to Hitler.
There were worldwide experssions of outrage in
1985 when President Reagan, escorted by Kohl, placed a wreath at the Bitburg cemetery.
Brecht's poem, "Legend of a Dead Soldier,'' was to have been read and acted out at the site.
Greece handles Irish matters in Israel. " ;
Apart from Luxembourg , Ireland is the only member of the European Conlmunity whose Israeli ambassador has dual accreditation.
As Biran arrived, Israeli officials, in London announced that the Irish government has approved in principle Israel's perennial demand for permission to open an embassy in Dublin, according to the Jerusalem Post. "It is no longer a question of whether we can open an embassy, but when," said the officials.
Ideally, Israel would like to have a representative office operating in Dublin by next January, when Ireland takes over the presidency of the European Community for a six-month term. This will put
Ireland in a position' to guide EC. policy in the
Extradition
LA PLATA, ARGENTINA -
An Argentine court recently ordered alleged Nazi war criminal Josef Schwammberger extradited to West Germany to face charges involving the deaths of at least 5,000 Jews, Renter news agency reported.
The Austrian-born Schwammberger, a former SS officer suspected of killing Jews in labor camps during the Second World War, escaped from prison in Austria in 1947 and arrived in Argentina in 1949.
Before his arrest in December 1987, The Simon Wiesenthal Centre for Holocaust Studies placed Schwammberger on a list of the 10 most wanted Nazi war criminals.
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ave you ever been closed?
We all have, for better or worse. The problem is that too many "closes" mark the end of arelationship r&ther than the beginning.
My deals are different. Because I don't really close deals: I open them.
Can a non-closer like me sell cars?
You bet lean! In fact, I've sold enough of them to earn the title of Grand Salesmaster I'm among the top five car salespeople in Canada, among the top three in cars financed.
If this sounds like an ego triprforgive me. But you don't last 18 years in this business - and 11 at Addison - by not cars.
Okay, so I do close a few deals. But every time I close one, I open the door to a long and fruitful relationship. I've been told my heart is an open book, and that's how I see my deals. ~
And just what does an "open book" deal mean?
It means I'm going to give you the low^T possible price in order to movie the car.
Arnold Perik
It means you're going to hear from me after the sale - whether you expect to or not.
It means I'm not going to begrudge you my time. Because I don't want you for just one car. I want you for your next cai; and the car after that, and for your children's cars.
Your grandchildren's cars? How about a rocket-powered Caddy,
2020 Vinfflorp*?
I'm not a fancy person. I don't look like I belong in GQ. In fact, you might mistake me for a mechanic. And I'd take that as a compliment - because I'm going to sweat over
your deal the same way he sweats over your engine.
I'm not looking for "scores." I want to make the sale and make you happy - so I can watch you drive off into the sunset while the "scorers" are still stuck in the gate.
So, when it comes to money, I speak your language. Chances are I also speak your language in the linguistic sense: English, Yiddish, Hebrew, Russian, Polish, and a few others. Whatever the language, my deals always sound sweet.
But talk is cheap. Anyone can talk a good sale and good service. Tm xxHnmitting to both right here and novt^ in writing.
Remember this pledge. Clip it out and save it. Or bring it in it to me. Remind'me that Arnokl Penk says he'll give you a Cadillac of a deal -and Cadillac service -on any GM product.
PONTIAC • BUICK • CADILUC.832 BAY STREET, (AT COLLEGE) TORONTO %4-32U