Towards Jewish survival
It*s shocking to hear B.C. referred to as Sodom and Gemorrah. Yet that was the term used recently by an overseas visitor to describe how our Jewish community is regarded by some from afar because of oiir intermarriage rate of 50 percent.
We wrote on the subject.a month ago (JIVB June 5) quoting the statistic that half the Jews marrying here in any given year are marrying out: one partner is not Jewish aiid does not convert.
As well we underscored the fact that for hundreds of young Jewish adults this is a wilderness wherein there is a grave dearth of opportunities for them to meet on an ongoing basis. To tackle the crisis situation as it exists nowv we called for an active committee working through rabbis and the organized community; and recommended a Think-Tank to search for long-range approaches.
Inflammatory? Surely not. Just the facts and comnion sense.
The bottom line? Jewish survival and a future for the Jewish comrtiAhity her^.
Jewish Singles
Jewish Singles are stepping forward to ask for help in finding ways and means to meet and mingle socially.
We are also jfinding that many young Jewish adults are subscribing to r/te^{///eri>i or buying it at our outlets, £ftriving to become part of the commuur ity and to be in touch with Jewish life. In recent months we have added many such new subscribers.
Hence, in order to render some positive assistance, this newspaper is pleased to offera year's free subscription to Jewish Singles here who would like to read The Bulletin regularly in their own home. Our office will accept names by phone or mail for this offer.
Moreover, this newspaper will provide free publicity to announce and advertise events for Jewish Singles.
Gome; let us get together. Let each of us do whatever we can for our single adults.
Is Tutu anti-Semitic?
Dear Mr. Kaplan:
Is Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa an anti-Semite: A number of recent reports in American Jewish newspapers have focused on the controversy over an anti-Semitic speech which Tutu is alleged to have made in South Africa some time ago. Whether or not Tutu made those particular remarks may be debated, but there can be no denying the numerous other published accounts of anti-Jewish statements by the archbishop, including:
• His abusive speech at the Jewish Theological seminary in 1984, at which he accused American Jews of **exhibiting an arrogance — the arrogance of power because-Jews are a pow:er-ful lobby in this land and all kinds of people woo their support" (as reported in the JTA Daily Nem Bulletin. Hoy/. 29, 19^4).
« His defense of the Zionism-is-racism libel /Som/Zi African Zionist Record, July 26, 1985).
• His threat to "punish" South African Jews "if Israel con-tiniies dealing with South Africa" (as reported in the French journal Courrier AustralParlamentairinFebruary, 1987).
• His complaint about a "Jewish monopoly of the Holocaust" {Jerusalem Post, July 26, 1985).
Even the Jewish Community-Relations Gouncil of Hartford, ■ Connecticut has confirmedJhat Tutu's speechlhere in 1984 was anti-Semitic. -
Here is Israel, Tutii-s remarks have prompted Members of Knesset from three of the parties in the governing coalition — the Likud, the National Religious Party, and Agudat Yisrael — to detlia^d that Tutu be barred from visiting Israel until he pubHcly apologizes for his anti-Semitic^utterances. American Jews should likewise refuse to give Tutu an audience until he retracts his anti-Jewish slurs.
G.LUBOFF
Jcntsflldii ■.
Yet where is the sound ancLfury that will signify something constructive?
There are ripples of growing awareness. Scarcely a week passes but a Jewish Single writes to appeal for an end to being a socially deprived group. Private individuals continue to take the initiative to put together happenings where singles can relax and talk with other singles (see Be/we^wOwrje/v^j; page 12): And the Centre has been in touch, pondering what initiative they can take.
Moreover the problem is complex. Needs of differing age groups are varied. For example, we understand Young Leadership meets perhaps once a month for drinks. But this involves a group that is too young for many other singles. Likewise JASCOV (older) tries for regular outings.
But the fact remains that for the overwhelming majority of unattached Jewish adults, there is no place to go regularly to mingle with other single Jews. Estimates have been preferred that there are possibly more than SOO single Jewish adults in the : area who have no way to be in touch.
Many of these have come forward to say it is important to them to find friends and dates who are Jewish. They are unwilling to go another route.
It is painful to read a Los Angeles Jewish newspaper and seea Singles column which lists 14 differ^ ent events for singles (of varying ages). Or in The New York Times to read about "anxiety over bag* els" whereby a Jewish group called PUNCH (parents of unmarried children) has put heads together to help single progeny meet and date Jewish.
Certainly we're not L. A. or New York, which have the two largest Jewish populations on the continent. But does that mean we don't care enough to expend our considerable energy and talents constructively to help our young people? That we can't f orm some^ thing like PUNCH here? That our young adults don't deserve one or two weekly chances for meeting and mingling?
In the past our community has risen splendidly to meet challenges of one kind or another. We are still made of the same stern stuff, and will succeed on behalf of our iiew generations. If we will it.,.
Or are we just going to wait for the inevitable day when our intermarriage rate soars to 60 percent? And then 70 percent?
Is it not time to say — enough! Is it not time to act decisively for the sake of Jewish survival?
Scholar to become president of Everyman open university
RAMAT AVIV, Israel —
Dr. Nehemia Levtzion, prominent scholar in the field of African and Islamic studies, will become President of Everyman's University — Israers.Open University — on October 1.
Dr. Levtzion, elected by the U n i ve r s i t y' s G o v e r n i nj Council at its Spring meeting, has taught at Hebrew University of Jerusalem since 1966, and is the Bamberger and Fuld Professor of the History of the Muslim Peoples.
He formerly served as Dean
of Hebrew University's Faculty of Humanities and Chairman of the Department of African Studies.
Everyman's University is an open learning institution whose home study method allows students to pursue a higher education without interfering with military and vocational obligations or family responsibilities.
Authorized by the Israel Council for Higher Education to confer academic degrees, the University has an enroN Iment of 12,000 and offers 200 courses.
^Mians ean join Tiddisb worid pup
Letters represent the writer's personal opuiion and do not necessarily reflect thS^ newspaper's editorial outlook. Right of reply is open to rect^y inaccuracies and offer comment. Mail to: JWB, 32M HeMher Street^ Vancouver. B.C. V5Z 3K5.
MONTREAL — Yiddish-aficionados can^—become members of the Jsrael-based World Council for Yiddish^ through a one-time- membership fee.
Memberships from Canada will be processed by Canadian Jewish Congress national committee on Yiddish, and all money will be forwarded to Israel. .
To jfliin the tens of thousands of people throughout
the world who love Yiddish and Yiddish culture, a five-dollar cheque made payable to CJC-Yiddish Committee should be sent with your name and address to the attention of: National Committee on Yiddish, Canadian Jewish Congress, 1590 avenue Dqc-teur Penfield, Montreal, Quebec H3G 1C5.
Members will receive a membership card and will be placed on the Council's mailing list.
Media hijacks 20th anniversary of 1967
ByE.ROZENMAN
The past month has featured a spate of news articles and television programs ostensibly marking the 20th anniversary of the Six-Day War. Ostensibly, because most of them did not focus on the war itself, or on the great changes in Israel since^ -Neither did they highlight the world-wide strengthening of Jewish identity triggered by the war nor even the transformations it brought to Middle East regional politics.
Instead, series in the Los Angeles Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, Washington Post, coverage in Time magazine and shows on public broa(|casting stations used the anniversary to talk about — what else? — Israeli control of the territories gained in 1967 and the fate of the Palestinian Arabs on the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
They demonstrate, unconsciously, how deeply Arab and particularly PLO rhetoric has shaped any discussion of Middle East events.
Eric Rozenman is editor of Netir East Report. He was previously its assistant editor and a Congressional press aide and journalist.
That Israel's choice 20 years ago was between victory or destruction, not between winning or losing, blurs in the focus on Palestinian Arabs resisting occupation.
so does the fact that, in the war's aftermath, it was the,Arab states which unanimously rejected Israel's invitation to consider a compromise trade of land for peace. So too does the fact that the Arabs prepared to go to war 20 years ago against an Israel which ^rV/no/control Judea and Samaria, Gaza, the Sinai or the Golan.
"The Palestinian question," not Arab-Moslem denial of Jewish nationalism and its rightful place in the Middle East, becomes the core of the conflict. Only an Israeli transfer of the territories—to whom is never made clear — can settle the long, bitter conflict. Such is the import of much of the recent coverage.
Nowhere was this clearer than on the Public Broadcasting System's Fro«r/iMe, which broadcast on Ofra Bikel production, "Israel: The Price of Victory."
This hour-long documentary portrayed an Israel people mainly by ultra-Orthodox Jewish chauvinists and their rational but powerless secular leftist critics. Between these opposing two-dimensional camps Bikel marched her other stereotypes: a few unemployed Sephardic Jews, befuddled and apolitical Israeli "man-in-the-street" types and vulnerable Arabs,
MEDIA-Page 8
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