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JEWISH WESTERN BULLETIN
Friday, September. 14, 1962
(TSVKHN UNZ ALEIN) By LAZAR
Flash—Vancouver got a scoop in the forthcoming presence of world renov/ned Hebrew educator, Aharon Rosenne, who might
be called "Mr. Ulnan" since he is a pioneer and expert in the
field , . . Vancouver wasn't o n Rosenne's brief Canadian schedule but a few quick long distance calls from Vancouver Ulpan Institute chairman, Sam Kaplan, soon changed the picture . . . This city is in for one of the biggest treats of the year, incidentally, if a projected open meeting for the community can be arranged with Rosenne co-ducting one of his spectacular model lessons that could make even Mosley go away, still virulent, perhaps, but in Hebrew . . .
On the local scene, we are in the midst ox Retarded Children's Week now, focusing on a universal human problem. Did you realize that three out of every 100 Vancouver children are mentally retarded, but it has been proven they can be helped. The Vancouver Association for Retarded Children is seeking funds to renovate a building
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CHOIR DIRECTOR
Choir director with knowledge of liturgical music required for city Hebrew school. Box No. "R", Jewish Bulletin.
HEBREW LESSONS
Private lessons available in your home by young Israeli teacher. For children or adults. Call Mr. Popper, MU 4-3502 bet. 9 a.m. and 12 noon.
HEBREW TEACHER
New Westminster Jewish community requires parttime services of qualified Hebrew teacher for Hebrew school. Address enquiries c/o Lou Zimmerman, 2675 Oak street, Vancouver.
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donated by the School Board as permanent quarters for their miracle work. In case you wanted to know, their address is Post Office Box 2131, Vancouver 3, B.C. . . We understand our community's Mesdames Harry Beckman and Theresa Kaufman are active in the association and salute thei r good work.
The community's Hebrew-speaking Circle, the Chug Ivri is rounding up for a new season and planning its opener on Sept. 20, 8:30 p.m. at the home of Mrs. J. Biely, 4277 West 12th, CA 4-6293 ... The Chug will be appointing a new Madrich (counsellor) and will also have on hand, as special guest, native son Dr. Max Langer, who is visiting in town after a year's stay in Israel.
Every Hebrew-speaking person in town is welcome as sunshine in February at Judith Biely's on the 20th ... The Chug will be happy to broaden its membership, and hopes to inaugurate a new program of greater membership participation this season.
¥ V
Here and there: Who's seen the New Centre building? It's "gorgeous" as a certain localite puts it so succinctly, and later this month, plans go ahead we understand for the first open house . . . But what Lazar's awaiting is to see the building come to life. Only what goes on inside is going to count in the long run . . . We know now what the N. stands for in Joseph N. Frank's name — according to Lou Lefohn's version, that is. Just ask around . .. Overheard someone speculating on how the Z.O.C. got such a terrific turnout for its convention and dinner at the Richmond Country Club last Saturday eve. The comment went this way, "Why everyone's taking the old slogan seriously, 'Follow John'." In this case they mean Secter not Diefenbaker, of course . . . Speaking of the Secters, their home happens to be a busy Zionist one with Jonathan being President of Western Region of Young Judaea, Dr. John being President of the Zionist Organization, and Mrs. Secter being Program Chairman of Hadassah. The phone calls are getting a little hectic at that house, and the Secters have requested that on evenings and weekends those finding it necessary to call the Secter household, call ony the number CA 4-1740 . . . Also overheard Bea Libby raving over the ultimate in fashions, and she was referring to the New Centre Fashion and Hair Style show upcoming this Wednesday.
Brandeis archaeologist solves two ancient langiiage
(Continued from Page 7)
pendently of the Hebrew. Instead an essentially Northwest Semitic culture underlies early Greek as well as early Hebrew civilization. His decipherments of both Minoan Linear A and Eteocretan will be published in the July 1962 Journal of Near Eastern Studies.
BASIS OF FIND Prof. Gordon's 1957 find was based mainly on 3500-year-old inscriptions an Italian expedition unearthed at Hagia Triada, Crete, between 1902 and 1912. It provoked criticism from some scholars, who held that since the inscriptions had no sMitence structure, the Semitic vocabulary migiht be loanwords in some non - Semitic lan;guage. Prof. Gordon concedes his critics their point. His earlier work, he says was based on what he calls "the laundry lists of antiquity" —economic and administrative tablets consisting of mere lists of single words, with no sentences. The best source of Minoan sentence structure is a group of 18 stone cult objects from at least seven different points in eastern and central Crete, with dedications dating from before 1500 B.C. inscribed on them. In 1957 Prof. Gordon was unable to decipher these ingpriptions fronx. the reproductions in books then available.
In 1961, however, a new edition of the Minoan texts, written by W. C. Brice and published in England, supplied better photographs and clearer ink copies of these inscriptions than any previously published. Studying these copies. Prof. Gordon discovered that Brice had detected all four signs of a word of which no one previously had been able to identify more than two signs. That one word was the key to the puzzle on which he had been working since the end of the second World' War. He immediately recognized it as "qi-re-ya-tu," a Northwest Semitic word for city. The text turned out to contain a familiar Northwest Semitic formula dedicating the object <a libation table) to a god for the welfare of the city.
Other Minoan texts jrielded other Northwest Semitic words. A large jar from Knossos was labeled "yain" (wine). Several Minoan dedications opened with forms of the Phoenician words "tana" (to set up as a votive
ten in Greek letters) Dr. Grordon regards as adequate demonstration of the Semitic roots of Minoan civilization, and as ample
corroboration of his long-held theory of the common Semitic denominator underlying Greek and Hebrew cultures.
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Personal attention paid to ALL ORDERS
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Mendelsohn ____ 3 3 0 4
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HONOR ROLL
Betty Mendelsohn 561 (261); Eileen Cristall 539 (198); Fran Cohen 537 (187); Mary Gofsky 500 (192); Etta LeFohn (235); and Betty Naimark (209).
offering or "yatan" (to ^ve). Further clues fell Into place, ajid the professor was certain his discovery was valid.
Decipherment of Linear A led Prof. Gordon to the solution of the second linguistic mystery— one that has baffled scholars for more than 80 years. Since the 1880's, four stones from Crete, inscribed with Greek letters but in "Eteocretan," the mysterious pre-Greek language of the island, have been found. Scholars have agreed that these texts, written between the 6th and the 4th centuries B.C., are in a later form of the Minoan language, whatever that language might be. Applying his new discovery that the Minoan language was Phoenician, Prof. Gordon within a few days succeeded in translating whole phrases of Eteocretan, up to nine words in length.
The appearance of the word "mit" (Phoenician for "died") in three of the Eteocretan stones from Praises indicated that the tablets were tombstones. One text, requesting the passerby to treat the, grave with respect, is addressed to "me u mar krk o kles w'es (whoever he may be, lord of a city or any man whatsoever). The fourth Eteocretan text, from the Cretan town of Psychro, can be translated completely: "There are no treasures buried in the tomb which I have established."
SEMITIC ROOTS His discover^' that Eteocretan, the language of the Minoans, is Northwest Semitic (though writ-
For further documentation he lets the ancients speak for themselves, turning to the plain meaning of both classical and Biblical texts. He cites Homer's statement that the mother of King Minos was Europa, a Phoenician princess, and notes Herodotus' repeated mentions that the Phoenicians were active in the Minoan world. He also recalls early Greek tradition which has the Phoenician Cad mus founding Thebes and introducing Phoenician script to Greece.
Calling himself a twofold traditionalist, biblical and classical Prof. Gordon interprets scriptural statements as literally as he does c^sslcal 'writings in recon.structing the Semitic origins of Greek culture. In I Maccabees 12: 19-23, Arius, the King of Sparta, reminds Ohias, the high priest of the Jews, that the Spartans and Jews are kinsmen, since both.are descended from Abraham. (The Greeks called themselves "Danaoi" understood to be the descendants of Danaos or Dan, the great-grandson of Abraham. Thus it was possible for ancient Greeks and Hebrews to regard each other as kinsmen.) The Biblical Philistines, who came from the Aegean often have Semitic names (like Abimelech) and never require interpreters for communicating with the Hebrews. Prof. Gordon points out that when Samson, a Semite of the tribe of Dan, was dating Delilah, a Philistine, they were able to speak each other's language.
As traders, Prof. Gordon ex-plaint, the Phoenicians found it natural and profitable to colonize Crete and the other island's and mainland coasts all over the East Mediterranean. But their power was destined to be broken by Greek newcomers. In the 15th century B.C. Greek invaders wrested Knossos from the Minoans, and, though they continued to use the Phoenician syllabic script, they used it for writing Greek instead of the former Northwest Semitic language. Though dwindling Minoan enclaves- survived into classical Greek times to leave
them by the same name (Hebrew "bomo," Greek "bomos"). Both people revered sacred
mountains on which god(s) were though to dwell. Minos received the law from Zeus by r(?yela-tion on a sacred mountainj as Moses got The Law from. God on Sinai. And Minos was seconded by the master-craftsman Daedalus, as Moses was seconded by Bezalel, to whom Exodus 31:3 refers as endowed with "the spirit of God."
Reiterating the major import of his work. Prof. Gordon says: "It is safe to predict that quite soon the Heroic Ages of Greece and Israel will no longer be studied in isolation from each other, but as parallel structures springing from a common foun< dation."
us a few "Eteocretan" inscriptions, the Greeks and other Indo-Europeans displaced the Semites in the Aegean Crete Cyprus and Asia Minor. Turning again to the scriptures. Prof. Gordon states that this historic fact may well be what Genesis 9:27 expresses as Noah's prediction that Japheth (the traditional ancestor of the Greeks and other Indo - Europeans) "shall dwell in the tents of Shem."
Their common cultural heritage. Prof. Gordon contends, is the only possible explanation for numerous parallels in the earliest Greek and Hebrew texts. In many ways, he points out, the Greeks and Hebrews of the second millennium resemble one another more than either group resembles its descendants of later eras. To demonstrate this point he states that though Hebrew prophets and Greek philosophers could only condemn human sacrifice as barbarous, yet in the heroic age both Jephthah, the Semite, and Agamemnon, the Greek, sacrificed daughters for the success of their expeditions.
Citing further parallels, Prof. Gordon points out that both Homeric and Mosaic ritual slaughter calls for slitting the animal's throat and letting the blood run out. Hebrews and Greeks not only sacrificed on mountain altars, but called
A native of Philadelphia, Prof. Gk)rdon received his B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Pennsylvania. An authority on the Ugaritic tablets that have reyoltatioziized the study of Hebrew civilization, he is also well known for his contributions to a wide variety of Near Eastern Studies. Before coming to Brandeis, he was a professor of Assyriology and Egyptology at Dropsie College in Philadelphia. He has also taught at the University of Pennsylvania, Johns Hopkins and Smith College.
He served in the U.S. Army from 1942-46, and has been a colonel in the U.S. Air Force Reserve since 1961. Prior to his army career, he was a member of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University, 1939-40 and 1941-42,
His books and articles, which number approximately 200, have been published in the United States, Canada, England, Israel, Iran> Turkey, Czechg? Slovakia, Italy, Spaiii, France, Grermany, Belgium and Switzerland. Harper and Brothers will soon publish his book "Before the Bible: The Common Background of Greek and Hebrew Civilizations." The fourth edition of his "Ugaritic Textbook is in press in Rome.
As an archaeologist, he participated in many explorations and excavations in the Near East, including the royal tombs of Ur. He was called to Egypt o decipher the Tell el-Amarna tablets excavated In 1933-34, and took part in many other surveys and excavations in Sgypt, Sinai, Jordan, Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran and Turkey. In 1957, 1958 and 1961 he conducted h^ own explorations in Crete and Israel.
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