8 — THE BULLETIN ~ Thursday, February 12. 1981
KISHON C
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The deluge
By EPHRAIM KISHON
WE WERE on our way home from an intensive tour of the Far East, and had opted for a brief stopover in New York for some rest and recreative shopping. First things first, though, so after a quick shower we took off for the glittering avenues and sat down at some nice place to watch the scene over a glass of lemon tea.
The truth is that we feh rather gloomy. The nations of the world are
"Well," said my wife, "we aren't sure well be free yet. .
It was getting a bit much. I mean, why should 1 spend my last evenings abroad with a bunch of perfect strangers? All right, they were Israelis, but so what?
"Excuse me, habibir
That was the waiter, who was joining eight tables for us the way they do on Dizengoff sidewalks. It forced us into a tight squeeze here.
all very pleasant, very polite, some-   too. I now found myself face to face
times friendly, but they're foreigners to a man, and in time the little Israeli traveller starts to feel sort of lonesome. He feels he*d give anything for a familiar face, a jovial slap on the back habibi a proper mud-slinging session in plain Hebrew, never mind who with so long as it's an Israeli.
So there we sat with our tea and our gloom when the little woman's eyes lit up suddenly:
"No!" she whispered ecstatically. "Yes! It is! Avigdor Pickler!"
I nearly dropped off my chair. So help me, there, striding along the avenue towards us, was Avigdor in person. Talk of a small world. Who'd have thought I'd meet Avigdor Pickler in the middle of America?
Really, who would have thought it, when I hardly even know him. I believe we did meet once on some talk show or other, though I think we only exchanged nods even then. Pretty cool nods, if I remember rightly, because I cant say Avigdor is exactly, well. ..
But hen'' In the Diaspora?
I jumped up and threw my arms about him: "Shalom habibir
Hp exchanged hugs with the little woman too, and we made him sit down at our table. It turned out he was here for an 18-month rest before returning to his job back home. Just now he was on his way to a nearby Puerto Rican restaurant to meet this Israeli couple, Yael and her husband, who were awfully nice and knew some joints in New York.
"Listen."-! cried happUy, "4et's all of us go and whoop it up tonight, what say?"
AT THAT instant two big paws were placed over my eyes from behind. "Guess who?" said the fake falsetto above me in Hebrew. Well, who? As if anyone but Haimke would play such a childish trick.
"Haimke!"
I planted a g:^t kiss on his cheek, in plain view of the whole cafe, and
with a person called Sarig, who claimed to know me from Jaffa where, so he told me, he worked for
the Electric Corporation. Reading meters, as it turned out.
He was just back from a trip to the islands, he said —Java, Sumatra, Borneo, New Zealand, Canada. With the wife and kids. They'd got as far as Alaska, he said, where they'd
met lots of Israelis. Training sledge-dogs they were. A couple of them had married Eskimo girts and were homesick.
1 wasn't all that interested in his stories. Actually 1 wanted to talk to Haimke, but he had gone into a huddle with the Maccabi basketball team which had just come from England. They were having a Marks & Spencer's v. Macy's session.
The Maccabi boys told us they were going to see the sights with a few Embassy people and some visiting army brass. They'd love to take us along, they said, but they only had room for three more people in their cars, whereas there were 105 of us at the latest count.
"So," said Yael's whatsit, "so what are we doing tonight?"
DR. FINKELSTEIN suggested this new gay hangout, "He & He," but 40 of us had already been there, -including Michal and Avi. They, on the other hand, said why not take a stroll along 42nd and watch the* hookers.
Here our waiter came and said we should go to the Zoo. They had a parrot there who coukl say: "Shalom-habibi-shalom-how's-things?" A fast learner. Mrs. Spielman suggested we all go to see the Statue of Liberty, ha-ha.
"Not me!" someone in the crowd yelled. "Place is lousy with Israelis."
At this stage the little woman cocked an eyebrow at me and we both slipped from our chairs, and crept past Little Israel on our way to the door — where we almost fell into the arms of Felix Selig and some Ruthi or Rachel. Out in the street we quickly got rid of a kibbutznik who asked how things were, and popped round the first comer into a small sidestreet.
I flattened myself against the wall and peeped out.
"Now!" I hissed. "Home!"
And we ran straight for Tel Aviv. Which is lousy with Americans.
Translated by Miriam Arad. By arrangement with "Ma'ariv."
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BY RABBI MEIR GOTTESMAN
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PARSHAT TETZAVEH
La*Yehudim hayetah orah v'simcka v*sasson ve'kikar... With the Jews was light and joy and gladness and honor ...
It was a custom in Europe to appoint the local wit as "purim-rabbi" — to serve one day a year. One shtetl had its regular rabbi who. unfortunately, had no great reputation for scholarship. On Purim. the "Purim-rav" came to demand his "office".
The rabbi looked him up and down. "Tell me, do you think you know enough to be a rabbi?"
"Of course, I do," the wit answered. "If I didn't know enough they would appoint me rabbi all year long ..." (Fun Unzer Alter Oitzer)
But how can you be a rabbi if you have a tallis made out of milquetoast — a rabbi has to have a butter-heart and a steel spine. Imagine... when Aaron, the High Priest, dressed up, he had to wear a gold headband that read ... Kodesh LaTiashem... Holy Unto the L-rd.
Why? But G-d whispered... "it's to serve as atonement (or azusmeizaeh ^ those who have too much arrogance and chutzpah. But still... it's weird — why should the headband have the words Holy Uiito the L-rd? What was it, a commercial?
Ah, but it teaches — sometimes it's a mitzvah to have chutzpah . . . especially for a rabbi — when it comes to doing G-d*s will. There is a time to wait upon committees and consensus — but wiiicn the very foundations of Yiddishkeit are. toppling, then you have to consult the Shulchan Aruch, and not worry about popularity . .. (Chasam Sofer)
But you can't hola your head high if you hold your hand out—you have to rejy on no one, except the Ribono Shel Olam. G-d is the only chief a rabbi can recognize. Imagine.. .the Almighty commanded: "tell the Yiddlech to bring olive oil to light my sanctuary." Moses scratched his yarmulke. "G-d has the sun to light the world — what does He mess with a little oil?"
But G-d shook His head. "The only way there can ever be any light in My sanctuary, any Torah, any survival, is when there are Jews who are willing to get by with a little olive oil and bread for supper. But independent from the whims of others, so they don't compromise my Yiddishkeit." (Hamaggid)
Shabbat Shalom.
DR. ARNOLD AGES WRITES;
New perspective on the well scrutinized Dreyfus affair
Significant New Book Reviewed by Dr. Ages, Professor of Romance Languages and Literature, Unlvenity of Waterloo.
IT HAS been almost a hundred years since the Dreyfus affair and the bibliographical repertoire surrounding it contains more than 10,000 individual items in every western language.
For this reason it was with some trepidation that I approached Robert Hoffman's new book on the subject if only to see whether this Albany, New York professor had uncovered anything new about a
namely, how was it possible for highly educated, intelligent^ even honorable men, to have participated in the indecent lynching actior. against Dreyfus? THE ANSWERS  the author
ways. To achieve the fruits of intelligence. anti-Dreyfusard men of letters depended on heightened aesthetic sensitivity, intuition and the inspired insight that was not discovered through deliberate.
provides are challenging and may be   conscious logical process."
* they could think what they pleased,   well known subject.
Hang it all, this here was my best friend almost!
"What's new, habibii'' I shouted. "How's things?"
I drew another chair over and introduced  Haimke to Avigdor
He did.
Not necessarily in the realm of fact; there is too much documentation available for anyone to unearth entirely new material. What Hoffman has done is review the case
Pickler and that couple of his, Yael from a different perspective. He has
and her husband. Haimke was fresh scrutinized it not so much from the
from hoihe and knew all the latest legal angle but from the psycholo-
Ehrlich jokes. He was going to do a gical one.
coast-to-coast with his wife and In so doing he has painted a
another couple, Michal and Avi, complex portrait of a nation so
who were both on their way here too, deeply divided by a trial that the case
so why didnt we all have a night on itself became almost a secondary
the town together. issue.
"Yes. Terrific!" The controversy engendered by
We felt great. It's true that that the affaire Dreyfus rocked the
Pickler was becoming a bit ^rrop. I French republic to the core of its
could never really stand the fellow— being because it tested the raison
him and those dumb friends of his, d'etre of the state.
Yael and whatsit. Oh, well. It is easy, in • chronicling the
Luckily, Avi appeared just then, miscarriage of justice which resulted crossing the avenue with roly-poly in Dreyfus's court martial, to indict Michal in tow, as well as another the reactionary coalition which three acquaintances from home — a made the hapless Captain Dreyfus painter couple and a Dr. Finkel- the lightning-rod of its fervent anti-stein whom they'd met bang on a Semitism. That is a path well-trod in zebra crossing, did you ever. a hundred different accounts of the
"How's things?" they     asked case,
breathlessly. "What are you people Hoffman has avoided this trap by
doing tonight?" exploring   a   different question.
summarized briefly by saying that two factors contributed _ to the tragedy. First, some of the most eloquent French men of letters were in the anti-Dreyfusard faction and
MORE THAN A TRIAL: THE STRUGGLE OVER CAPTAIN DREYFUS By Robert L*. Hoffnian Free Press 247 pages; $14.95
their imprimatur influenced millions of others.
Second, many of those who fought against the Dreyfus coalition believed that their adversaries (most of whom were socialists) were out to destroy the French nation by Subverting its most honored institution, the army.
Hoffman's analysis is, of course, more sophisticated than what this brief summaiy suggests. In his treatise, for example, the author devotes considerable space to showing how the rhetorical art in France played a role in the affaire and the way in which otherwise intelligent men were able to dismiss concrete proofs (about Dreyfus's innocence) by invoking higher, "mystical" truths about the value of a nation over any of its individual members.
"On the struggle's two sides." writes the author, "intelligence simply functioned in quite differem
I HAVE ONE demurrer about Hoffman's well argued book. Although the author delves more than adequately into the matrix of
anti-Semitism in which the Dreyfus affair grew (there is an excellent section on Drumont's anti-Semitic newspaper. La France juive and its role in the case) he tends to depreciate it as a factor by focusing in somewhat too narrowly, for my tastes, on the rationale behind the anti-Dreyfusard coalition.
The paroxysm of hatred which convulsed France during the affair undoubtedly derived from a series of political, social and national factors which Hoffman has expertly an4I)^ecl. But at dead centre was that non-filterable virus, anti-SemitisniL
ANNOUNGE IHBIE CONTEST FOR ADULTS
NEW YORK - The World Zionist Organization has announced that the upcoming fifth International Bible Contest for Adults will focus on society, morality and international brotherhood as considered in the texts of the Pentateuch, the Early and Late Prophets, the Book of Ruth and the Psalms.
North American Jewish participants will be joined by Jews in some 25 countries in Europe, Asia. Africa and North and South America. A national committee of Biblical scholars will oversee the contest, which is open to men and women, students, teachers, clergy and laymen, from the age of 18 and older.
It will be held in three stages: a regional contest; a national contest to take place in New York; and an international contest for the finalists in Jerusalem in JuJy. 1981. The contest will be conducted in Hebrew for those fluent in the language and in English for the others.
Prize for the winners of the national contest is a paid round-trip from New York to Israel, including
land arrangements.
Persons interested in participating in the contest are being asked to contact: Dr. Moshe ^ A vital. International Bible Contest for Adults. Department of Education and Culture-WZO. 515 Park Avenue. New York. N.Y. 10022.
NEW BOOK FOR JEWISH TEENS
NEW YORK - The Department of Youth Activities of United Synagogue of America has announced publication of their newest source-book B'tzelem Elohim — In G-d's Image.
The book was written by Bernard Novick, with Rabbi Herschel Matt serving as textual advisor.
The book, which is designed for teenage!^, deals with making Jewish decisions about the body. Some of the topics covered are sexuality, general appearance and dress, external substances siich as smoking, drinking, drugs, and language pror fanity.
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