The Canadian English-Jewish Weekly
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GAHDOIVAIE. CJOBBBC. OCTOBER 30. 19S9
Bee-Gurion Is Bent OB Vote Reform
If Prime Minister David Ben-Gu-rion has his way, the Parliamentary election set for November 3 will be the last of Its kind. Mr. Ben-Gurion does not wish to abolish elections but seeks to rid Israel of proportional representation which he blames for many of the country's political ills. He wants to replace the present system, under which the voter casts his ballot for a party list and not for individual candidates, with direct, constituency voting.
The  Premier  is. attempting to
not exactly a bread-and-butter matter for the average voter, into one of the burning issues of the campaign, says the New York Herald Tribune. In a country which has many parties and has never given a single party more than 40 per cent of the voter Mr. Ben-Gurion has demanded an absolute majority for his Mapai Labor party as a necessary prelude to electoral reform.
The veteran -politician has prom--ised or warned � depending on your viewpoint � that, if Mapai wins a majority in the next Knesset (Parliament), the Knesset would be called into session for one and only one purpose � to divide the country into parliamentary districts (constituencies) and to provide for direct election of Knesset members, one for each district. Having done th&7~tfie Knesset would immediately be dissolved and a new election would be held in the new way.
Most of the country's other established parties, ever suspicious of Mapai aa Israel's largest party, oppose the abolition of proportional representation. They talk of the gkries of pure democracy, of tfce MeeTler political ttversHv to reOe* t*e �owd*r�ble divefsKy of aa inwrfffrmat eooatry, of the threat of "Mapai dictatorship."
The Ben-Gurion argument goes like this: proportional representation inevitably results in a multiplicity of parties. There were twelve parties represented in the last Knesset, and twenty-six lists of candidates are competing for places in the next Knesset This multitude of parties, in turn, means instability in government lengthy negotiations to set up a coalition and delicate, frequent negotiations to keep it going, says the New York Herald Tribune. The present system, Mr. Ben Gur-ion says, encourages demagogues dissension and confusion.
A "free and democratic state." the Premier contends, needs only two parties � a majority party and a second large party which can provide an alternative to the party in power. A two-party system "educates the public to the need for political compromise?1 rather than "rigid and dogmatic. factionalism."
The small, liberal Progressive party, though it has been a faithful coalition partner of Mapai ' through most of Israel's history, has taken the lead in fighting Mr. Ben-Gurion on this issue and charges that what Mapai "really wants is permanent, sole control . . . the introduction of an electoral system that will turn a minority into a majority."
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Orthodox Head Deabts Hebrew Can Link Jews Of U. S.
And Israel
The head of the largest Jewish Orthodox rabbinic group in the U. S. asserted at a conference, , that the study of the Hebrew language "is not enough" to link American Jews and Israeli Jews. Rabbi Emanuel Rackman, president of the Rabbinical Council of America, said that any close cultural and religious ties between both must be based "on the historical teachings, values, and con--cepte-found-in the Bible and TaU
Romania Arrests Jews Ftr "Zionist Activity"
The American Jewish Congress appealed to the Rumanian govern-meat to release more than a score of Jewish community leaders and rabbis arrested in recent months for so-called "Zionist activity." Ira Guilden, chairman of the organization's commission on international affairs, said reports reaching the AJCongress told of the separation of mothers from small children, the imprisonment of the aged and ailing, and other cases of personal hardship revolting from police action.
Ihfi&fi__arrested    since
RENOWNED ART CRIT1� WAS ;AUTHENTICATOR OF ALMOST ALL COLLECTIONS IN U.S., WORKED UNTIL 90
Bernard Berenson, pioneer expert on Italian Renaissance paint-. Ing, who died in his villa. I Taiti, at Settingnano in the hills overlooking Florence, had celebrated bis ninety-fourth birthday June ^26.
Mr. iBerenson's death was a blow .to the City of Florence, which he /had singled out for his residence, xAwhich had a  deep  affection  for 'him, and which made him an honorary  cltisen   in   1949,  says  the xNew York Times. Count Lorento ^Salasar,     Government     commissioner administering the muniei-
mud."
The Council's twenty-third annual conference had five hundred Orthodox rabbis attending the meeting, says the New York Times. The Council has a membership of 750 serving more than 1,000,000 Orthodox congregants.
In emphasizing that the Hebrew language cannot be the primary force in linking American and Israeli Jews, Rabbi Rackman differed sharply from views expressed recently by Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion of Israel and Philip M. Klutznick, former president of Bnai Brith.' At the recent Bnai Brith conference in Jerusalem, both underscored the importance of the Hebrew language as a link between Israel and the Jews the world over..                      ... ' _
Rabbi Rackman maintained that relation* between American and Israeli Jews would be strengthened considerably if the Israeli Government "gave more recognition to its' outstanding religious heritage and placed greater stress on its Talmadlc and Biblical backgrounds as the foundation stoats m shaping the jiascent sjate,"
At the saute time, thV re^iou* leader srapTHilisflTiit "there is no lawful disciihiinatktfr against any Israeli inhabitant because of his viewpoint, opinion, or creed." "Israel's Orthodox rabbinate", Rabbi Harkroan said, "does not control or dominate the religions practices of Israel's population." srael's religious leaders, hfi went
March of this year, Mr. Guilden said, were persons first seized during the period from 1949-1958 who were released in 1954-56 under a general amnesty or upon completing their sentences. Many of these men and women have now been arrested again in Bucharest as well as in the cities of Vaslui, Tulcea. Ora-sul, Stalin, Galati, Moinesti, and Constanta, he reported.
The recent arrests included those of two sisters, Magda and Elisa-beta Herxl, relatives of Theodor Herzl, the founder of Zionism. The American Jewish Congress spokesman said Magda Hertl was sentenced to ten years imprisonment for allegedly transmitting literature from the Israel legation in Bucharest No formal charges have been filed against Elizabeth - Herzl, who lUUT been an employee of the Israel legation and who is still being held. Mr. �uildea cited the case of Efraim Singer, a writer for the local newspaper in the city of Cluj, who was sentenced to twenty years' imprisonment for "attempting to smuggle forbidden material abroad." The "for* bidden material,'* Mr. Goilden said, consisted, of _ a number
ality of Florence,
the-
the art dealer, lasted thirty years, says the New York Times. Mr. Be-renson served him as an adviser on Italian paintings. Judgment in disputed art cases often hinged on Mr. Berenson's expert testimony.
The influence of the frail, white-bearded scholar on art authorities of the world was almost legendary. Chief curators of the greatest art collections of the world traveled to Florence to stroll with him in his garden and exchange ideas with him and learn from him.
and to train his eye to recognire styles and techniques of the masters.
He studied at Oxford, Paris, and Berlin before going to Italy where he elected to live for the rest of his life. He demonstrated his determination to get ahead and his ingenuity in pursuit of this aim by the use he made of the time spent studying in the famous art galleries of Florence, says the New York Times. He supplemented his small yearly allowance by competing with regular gallery guides at discount
ye, was among-
irst to reach I Taiti after the famous art critic and historian's death.
The funeral service was held in the hilltop Church of San Mar-tino of Mensola, a short distance form the villa where Mr. Beren-son, the pioneer authority on Italian Renaissance art died.
The Vatican disclosed that the frail, white-bearded critic, who was Jewish by birth and who was converted to Roman Catholicism, had received "a special benediction" from Pope John XXIII to comfort him in his last moments.
Mr. Berenson's body was carried from his villa to the church in a procession that might well have made the subject for one of the paintings he loved so dearly. Four peasants acted as honorary -pallbearers. They were preceded /by five priests, one bearing aloft a crucifix, a group of children carrying red and white flowers, and nine Federal policemen in full drew.
Then followed a group of Italian nobility and civil officials. United States Vice Consul Joseph Cunningham and French Consul Jean Charvit wexe among those in the
on, "only desire that the legal order of the state shall conform with historic Jewish Jurisprudence."
"They wish " he continued, "to substantiate Hebraic systems of laws for the currently existing British, French, snd Turkish forms and legalisms. No one is denied the right in Israel to publish the most heretical views and to propagate such views in governmental media of communication."
Rabbi Rackman criticized those American Jews who, he said, "are resorting to slogan thinking about the problems of religious freedom in Israel," says the New York Times, "Those distorted versions-of the status of constitutional freedom in Israel," he said, "are responsible for the humiliation of American Jews snd declination of loyalty to the structure and faith of Judsjsm."
Rabbi Rackman^ the leader of Congregation Shssjray Tefila, Far Rockaway, Queens, called for the establishment of * world-wide union of religious Jews "to foster a greater degree of cohesion and strength for Orthodox Judaism."
poems  Mr.   Staffer  had  witto. which had already been approved for publication in the local news-paper, and which he mailed to his brother in Israel.
Mr. Guilden told of the arrest last April in Galati of Lupu snd Rosa Sames, a young couple who had been part of a group of Jew-
youth*   training fnr  farm   lifo
in Israel more than ten years before such activity had been outlawed in Rumania. When they Were arrested Mr. and Mrs. Sames were forced to leave their two children at home unattended. Mrs. Sames, who was in the final months of pregnancy, has since had a still-born infant in a prison hospital. The fate of Mr. Sames and the two small children remains unknown.
Among those released'from prison in 1954-55 and arrested again in recent months, according to the AJCongress official, were Dr. Leo Fried, of Timisoara, former secretary of the Zionist Organization of Transylvania, who is suffering from tuberculosis; and Lajos Gar-dos, Stefan Krausz, Magda Wess-
(Continued on Page Sixteen)
one er the most efficient scents for the sale-of a painting that an owner could obtain. Mr. Berenson had acted as adviser or authenti-cator on almost every significant art collection gathered in the United States in his time. He had a monumental library of 40,000 which ho�bequeathed to
Harvard University, to assist him in his work. He also wrote more than a score of his own on the exacting science of art criticism.
An association between Mr. Berenson and the late Lord Dnveen,
Mr. Berensbh was"'cfidltcd^w "discovering" one and perhaps two unknown Renaissance painters, whom he called Alunno di Dominico and Amico di San-dro. The first later was identified ss as Bartolomeo di Giovanni, but .Amico remained undocumented.
Mr. Berenson's famous method of identifying works of art was simple. He defined it in 1967 in a conversation with Francis Henry Taylor, late director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and at that time director of the Worcester Museum of Art.
"Identity of characteristics indicates identity of origin," Mr. Berenson said. "What distinguishes one artist from another is the characteristics he does not share with others. ... To isolate the characteristics of an artist, we take all his works of undoubted-authenticity, and we proceed to discover those traits that invariably recur in them, but not in the works of other masters."
Born in Lithuania in 1866, Mr. Berenson was brought to the U.S. by his parents at the age of ten years. He attended Boston Latin School attd was a struggling student _�X J�l s t_o n _ University when hfc.cwu* urtav th~e patronage of tCrs.'-ySkrf (ALrdner. She sent Urn te Hjilf art and in turn sought his aslisqracfc in assembling her famous $3,000,000 art collection.
It was the patronage of the Boetonian that sent him on his way toward what he termed in later life__"a trou^^g�mp r��pn-
By 1900, when he returned to Oxford to marry Mary Logan Whitall Smith Costelloe, sister of the essayist. Logan Pearsall Smith, he had* written four small books on Italian paintings, had been recognised as an expert art authenticator and had enough money to buy a villa near Florence.
He took his bride, a Philadelphia Quaker and friend of Walt Whitman^ to I Taiti, which was to become a center for art scholars, philosophers and famous friends of the critic. The forty-room eighteenth century mansion was restored by Mr. Berenson, complete with an Italian formal garden. He described it as "spacious and comfortable, yet with a touch of old Italian severity."
Rooms of the graceful old mansion reflected the critic's eye and taste. He furnished them fastidiously with antiques of the Tuscan Renaissance and decorated them with paintings, sculptures and ornaments of that period. Edith Wharton often visited Mr. Berenson at his Tills and based a novelette on him. Another of his famous walking companions was Parcel-Proust, whosV "Remembrance of Things Past" reflects Mr. BetensnsrV theories on art
tat ion as an expert." Following his graduation in 1887 from Harvard, where he and George San-tayana were students of William James and Charles Eliot Norton, he hurried immediately to Europe to study the great art of the past
Although weU-establfeme* as an art critic by 1900, Mr. Berenson was little known to the general public until he emerged after World War II as a philosopher, scholar, and humanist in a trilogy of more or less autobiographical woriw, "Sketch for a Self-Por-
trait," "Aesthetics and  History", and "Rumor and Reflection."
The books had been written during the war, while Mr. Berenson, because of his Jewish origin, had
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