Page Six
JEWISH WESTERN BULLETIN
Friday, February 13, 1970
Thursday, Februaiy 26, 197(V Htt^^^
. Guest Speaker: HENRI W. I^URIER, nephew of Sir Wilfred Laurier Other noted speakers and guests: Lt. Gov. J. P. Nicholson, Premier W. A. C. Bennett, Mayor T. Campbell, Rabbi W. Solomon, Archbishop J^ F. Carney.
Hosts—Confr. Italo-Cdnodese with Justice Angelo BraRca aided by Lion's Gate 6.B., Chinatown Lion's, Knights of Columbus. Catering: torna de Sorrento wi>h Entert^ ohd Dancing.
Limited tickets., coll: R. Brice 731-6443, S;Stanil6ff 266.7064, D. Jackson 266-6848
Jewish sroup mergins new-old life styles
By EDWARD B. FISKE The New York Times
SOMERVILLE, Mass.^The facade of the three-storey frame house at 113 College Avenue is an irregular pattern of large sections of dirty gray and freshly painted white.
"We all agreed to paint a square," Rabbi Arthur Green explained as he stood on the sidewalk outside, f'Only some people
hayen't gotten aroimd to their sectiohs-r-like me."
Such is the way work gets done at the Havurat Shalom, a year-old Jewish experimental community that shares many of the elements of a kibbutz, a seminary and a family nionastic conunu-nity. -
■ The ccMnmunity has 38 members/mostly married couples in their twenties. A few are rabbis. [ Most are graduate students taking
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courses at the' Havurat and Jn nearby univer^ties, including Harvard.
What brings them together is not a sympathy with the radical left r.and the youth and drug cul-turesi but a conviction that their own life styles must be grounded ill a sense of commiinity iand a sense of history. ^ L .
In this sense the cbnunimitjr is something of a Jewish counterpart tothe burgeoning "underground" churches and <)ther ex-periniental groups,
"Social activists come aikd go. The same with beatniks^ hippies, freaks and so oh,"; said James Sleeper, a 22-year-'old graduate student in education who joined the cdnununity following his graduation from Yale University last spring. -
"But Judaism has a historical dimension. It goes beyond glib Jiberalism. It opposes sbinething like the war in Vietnian on a deeper level than simply because it upsets society^">
He added, "This doesn't mean that we think Judaism< has-a monopoly on the religious quest. As ifews> we think our owii tradition is the vehicle we have going. But if God wears a skull cap^ he also wears a crUcifix^
THE NAME "HAVURAT»V was first lised in the second century B.C. to describe jgroups of pietists v/ho pledged to n^ stricter stan(^rds:>of ethic^ 'a ritual purity than the'^e^^ Jewish population. **H a v e r?' niean^ "friend!" or "comrade", "Shalom", means.**peace". '/r.'!:'.'W
Daily activities ri^^ courses taught members in fiield$ ranging: frbin Hebrew to Jewish festiv^s. and the psychology of r^iigioh.
Thriee bachelor iftembersHve in the cammunity headquarters, which wafi purchased this fall with the help of a $10,000 grant from the Dahforth Foundation. Most others live in apartments in jSomerville, a working-class suburb of Boston^ or. ac^acent Cambiidge, where the community spent its first year in rented facilities.
MEMDBERS MEET in small groups in each ^<rther*s h^ every Friday evening for ihfbr-mal discussions- and worship around the dinner table, piey also hold frequent business meetings, commimal meals, retreats ; and- lectures. Most keep kosher homes.'
Oh Saturday morninjgs, the community assenibles Ifor-I^ bath -services that maintaint^Jtiradi-tional structures and prayeri but differ radically in their liturgical trappings.
One recent Saturday,. for-instance, worshipers danced> with their eyes closed in the virtually bare white • dining room of the house while a tape reooirder played Dvorak's "NeDjr World Sjnmphony".
Later they sat oh Cushions scattered across the floor, while the Torah was read and prayers were chanted to melodies that included "We Shall Overcome^*.
"Our parents grew up with anti-Semitism, so they riever questioned their Jewish identity," said Michael D.Swirsky^ a 27-. year-old native of Chicago who is: teaching Hebrew and studying Yiddish, social ethics and Hasidism.
■*We have a sense of floating in a vacuum, and we're asking questions that our parents never had the need or time for."
MR. SiiEEPlBR SAID the ^a^ gbgue as it now existed>Wa^ i>art of, the problem rather than a place to find answers.
"It. is simply ah appendage ta liiiddle - class suburban culture thai arose out of the assimilation-ist needs of ar:preTri^ :ation,"''he declared. '*The young Jew.today has already seen the American dr^ffii come true,'and lie's sick "of it.""'
The me^ frequently cited . goal of thef^Yurat Shalom is ,a s^nse of coinmanity."Judaism always had a strong sense of: the home and the communal," saSd Mr. Swirsky» <nbut this got lost in the suburbs. A lot bl people are looking fto the ex-bilaiatii^ feeling - of being on the same wave length with a
group,
Rabbi Greeny a 28-year-old graduate of Jewish Theological Semina^, said that in this sense, the Haimrat
phenomenon and that it was rer lated to the "rediscovery of particularism'* that was most evident today in the upsurge of black QwareneK.' "r:
"We^ learning that doing one's thing can apply to groups as well as individuals,'^ he declared. 'The whole bugaboo of univer-salism that bugge<l our parents is really dead."
THE COMMUNITY IS OPERATING this year on a budget of "about $15,000" ahnost- aU "of which comes from the $500 that each family or member contributes. Rabbi Green said that efforts at outside fund-raising had been^ URsucc^sful thus far.
The experiment has provoked little reaction one way or another sunong major Jewish institutions. Members attributed this ^ to the fact that it had not 3ret competed with them for funds and to a general lack of understanding of what it was trying to
"Our radical friends understand us; our Jewish friends don't," said Martha Mendelson, 23, who with her husband, a medical student at New Tork ; University, visits .the commum|)r^ 'tr^il^iifly. 7 'r ^1
Rabbi Green said that the Havurat, which had only 10 mem^ bers last year; expects: nearly 100 applicants for next year. He aidd-ed, however, that it hught already be getthig too large and; that a moratorium on newmem* > bers might be declared. :
:The ultimate answer, he said, may be for present members to-leave Somerville and establish' similar communities elsewhere. A related group has already begun ^ to form in New York.
"In 10. years we hope there will be a Havurat existing, at least as a place to pray, in every major' city of Jewish itopulation in the-country," Rabbi Green said.
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Angliraii Archbishop of Jerusalem Jouds Israeli 'good core'
LONDON — Bitter disaj^int^ ment that the Christian church has failed hi the Middle East to ntake any stand for recdncilia-tioh and peacemaking was expressed by the Anglican Archbishop of Jerusalem, j>r. George Appleton, last month.
Addressuig a meeting of the World Congress of Faiths, he praised the Israelis for the good care they were taking of the Holy Places.
"I think they are behaving very properly and quite impartially in their desire that the Holy Places should be cared for and open to everybody. But, of course, when a nktidn is in chia;pgei in this situation it is inevitably-open to criticism if things go wrong and there was a tremenr^ dous outcry, undeserviSdi abou' the El Aksa Mosque fire.
"One thing that is clear to stu-| dents of the situation is the im-i mense emotion centred upohi Jerusalem by Jews, Moslems and! Christians." The Archbishop also] spoke of the aim of the Worlii Congress of Faiths to bring about understanding between all faiths in the world.
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