CAN API AN J*WfSH*IVl*W
16, 1924
Apparently oblivious to the irony of such an act the American rabbis, in their recent convention, adopted a code of ethics governing the relationship between rabbi and rabbi and between rabbi and congregation. A copy of this amazing document has been received in the office of the Review and since it deserves the wridest publicity and at least a chapter in any history of American Jewry, the provisions of the code are given herein:
A rabbi should not enter into competition with other rabbis for a vacant pulpit and should refuse to negotiate for a pulpit until the congregation has disposed of the candidacy of the rabbi invited before him. Under no circumstances should a rabbi allow himself to be reconsidered by a congregation after they have once reached a decision about him and other rabbis have been negotiated writh. No rabbi should apply for a pulpit or negotiate with a �congregation without communicating with the incumbent. No rabbi should criticize a colleague by name from his pulpit. No rabbi should officiate within another congregation without the consent of the rabbi thereof except when that rabbi is absent from the city.
The code goes on to say that no congregation should engage a rabbi on the trial sermon plan only but should appoint a committee to visit a rabbi in his home city or seek to know his character and ability by correspondence. If the rabbi is not re-elected he should be given a reasonable time notice. No matter what the inducement to leave, the rabbi should fulfill his agreement with the congregation unless the condition is unbearable; or break it by mutual agreement. The rabbi should give the congregation sufficient time notice and should assist the congregation to secure a worthy successor. The congregation should not stand in the way of the advancement of the rabbi. The rabbi should not consummate arrangements to accept a new pulpit without informing the board of his congregation. When there is an attempt by the congregation summarily to dismiss its rabbi the arbitration committee of the Central Conference can be invoked immediately, the congregation having the same privilege.
The above is taken verbatim, for the most part, from what should be a famous code. It has nothing to do with the relationship between bricklayers and their employers or betwreen housemaids and their mistresses; it concerns the church-going Reform Jews of America and their spiritual leaders, so-called. Most of its provisions are based simply on common decency and yet there seems to be so little of that in this weary world that rabbis in solemn conclave assembled must write it all down in a code of ethics. Those-present were teachers of ethics, repositories of spirituality, men with a calling, something more than a profession and hardly a business. And yet the last item in the code of ethics governing their behaviour reads: "Xo rabbi should exploit the call of one or more congregations by capitalizing such a call for an increase in salary."
Can you beat it ?
* * *
From the Israelite Press of Winnipeg, H. E. Wilder, owner and publisher:
"The bedroom sheet parading under the name of 'Jewish Review,' which the Toronto Jews tolerate for the sake of some of their ^woman-folk who crave to see their name in print, brazenly assumes the role of censor and in one of its last issues indulges in some *sar-casms at our expense.
"This is the second or third time that 'The Bedroom Sheet' directs its fumes Westward and�significantly�the malodorous vaporings, though months apart, appear in each case, immediately following a visit of their agent through the West, and his unsuccessful attempts to inflict the sheet on our people here. That the *pre-sumptious editor of 'The Jewish Review1 should find relief from disappointment by an attack on us. is perhaps understandable; but to pose as an arbiter or critic of Anglo-Jewish publications indicates not even a sense of the ridiculous.
"Let us hasten to admit, however, that if we were in search of an instructor to teach us how best to obtain the most out of advertising, we should most likely engage the services of the manager of the 'Jewish Review.' For. after all, what can one possibly learn from 'f.f.c.1 who was reared in the frigid atmosphere of the most self-destructive brand of Reform Judaism in America?
"It is in keeping with Just that brand of Judaism to hide bareness of contents under a pretentious cloak, which is the reason why
You would not knowingly throw a twenty-dollar bill in the farnace!
But even without realizing it, this is what you are doing if you buy your fuel as you need it during the winter months.
Your saving by buying now will run from $20 to $30. Would it not be worth while to withdraw from your savings account to take advantage of this offer?
Think it over, and telephone MAIN 4103
The Standard Fuel Co.
79 King Street East
HERTZEL ROTENBERG, B.A.
ANNOUNCE* THAT HE HAS COMMENCED THE PRACTICE OF LAW, TOOETHElt WITH
HENRY S. ROSENBERG, B.A.
AND THEY HAVE MOVED TO THEIR HEW OfFiCE* IN
509 FEDERAL BUILDING
85 RICHMOND ST. WEST TELEPHONE ADELAIDE 4504
the
the editor of the 'Jewish Review' prevailed upon the only two Reform rabbis we boast of in Canada to provide a cover for the utterly barren sheet.
"Or perhaps we go a bit too far in assuming that even this brand of Reform Judaism affects a decorous exterior for purely material purposes. Where then did the 'Bedroom Sheet' get its idea for this most deceitful of all cunning devices for goading the people~; Where, indeed, if not from those perennial circus side-shows that se: up in front of their tent a glaringly lighted platform, upon whir1, two smartly dressed, highly groomed performers, the only one- they possess, do a few stunts, thereby tempting the unsuspecting passer-by to buy a ticket to go in, only to find, inside, a *nat.-eatsc exhibition of frivolous nonsense.
"Nevertheless, 'f.f.c.' has the impudence to say that 'out undeveloped west there seems to be more of the wide open spaces to fill in the papers' more thanNwhere, 'f.f.c.'? Our i. section is confined (unfortunately) to barely 3-4 columns of an ary newspaper page, and these are mainly taken up with a sun of the most important news items of the week, of general interest, and our own brief comment thereon; whereas the T Jewish Review' fills as much as twenty-four whole pages with n but a sickening, endless catalogue of names. Evidently it merely a beam 'f.f.c.' has in the eye, but a whole crumbling n house, cellar and all."
*New words.
This offering should be entitled : "Literature Among the 1- rviv or A Little Yiddish Prairie Flower Growing Wilder Every Hour
f.f.c.
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