Page 4 - The Canadian Jewish News, Thursday, Ajml 22,1982
Editorial
M-T
A" independen'l Cnmrnuiliiy Newspaper serving as j fpram for diverse viewpoints.'
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•      VOL. XXII, NO. 52 (2,100) .
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Simon Wiesenthal was once asked by a former inmate of the Mathausen concentration camp why he, Wiesenthal, had dedicated his jife to pursuing Nazi war criminals.
Said his host: "Simon, if you had gone back to buildiiig houses, you'd be a millionaire. Why didn't you?" (Wiesenthal had been a successful builder in pre-war Bucasz. Poland).
"You're a religious man," replied Wiesenthal. "You believe in God and life after death. I also believe when we come to .the other world and meet the millions, of Jews who died in the camf)s and they ask us, 'What have you done?' there will be many ianswers.
"You will say: 'I became a jeweler.' Ahother will say: 'I: smuggled coffee and American cigarette's.' Another willsay: '1 built houses'.'"
"But 1 will say:'I didn't forgejt you.'" Simon Wiesenthal's haunting response to his host's question is a powerful reminder to the Jewish commuiiity as we commemorate Yom Hashoa — that imperfect mechanism through which each year the memory of the martyred millions is recalled.
The world >oii]d have us forget the Holocaast and we know why; It conjures up the hnage of a civilization gone mad [Nazi Germany] and a world which was indifferent to Jewish fate. Many survivors have testified that while they could tolerate the barbarism of thetr Nazi tormentors, they could not handle the complicity of the "neutrals'' — those who stood idly by while Jewish humanity was being ravished.
Yet in our yearly commemorative gesture we chose, not to focus on the guilty — retroactive indictments of governments and . nationsis a gratuitous exercise. People d6 not like to be reminded "about the seamy side of their heritage.
Our purpose is much more simple on Yom Hashoa. We seek to reconstruct the memory and contributions of those who went under the executioner's block. We cannot all express our commitment with the zeal that animates a Simon Wiesenthal; we can participate, however, in honoring the martyred millions by invokiiig the example of their lives.
The executioners, it is true, had the last deed. We, in turn, have the last words. We will not forget them.
A strange peacemaker
"1 can believe oiily six. impossible things befiare.breakfast," said one of the characters in Alice in Wonderland. ,
That character would be wonderfully at home in surveying the current spectacle at the United Nations; In a fictional vyork the scenario there would be described as wildly . improbablei
Ismat Kittani, the delegate from Iraq, is currently the president' of the General Assembly in that august bodiy on.East 41st, •New York City;
William Korey, of the B'nai B'rith, has made the astute observation that Iraq, a member nation of a society devoted to securing world peace, is currently at war with two nations.
Iraq is the only Arab nation which has refused to sign even an armistice agree: ment with Israel after participating in several wars against the Jewish state.
A year-andra-half ago Iraq launched a massive strike against Iran. Although we harbor-no great sympathy for the Khomeini regime, it appears to have been the victim of an. unprovoked aggression on the part-of Kittani's employer. Sadam Hussein, ruler of Iraq. (The Iraqis don't seem to be doing
•ery well in that war.)
"To select the Iraqi delegate as president of the General Assembly is like choosing Mussolini's representative to the League of Nations after fascist Italy's conquest of Ethiopia," observes Korey.
In. mitigation' some have pointed to Kittani's charni, intelligence and sophistication. Characteristically. Kittani has undercutthat praise by announcing boldly that, his appointment represents in impri-maturori the government of Iraq "and what It stands for in the international community."
As president of the General Assembly Kittani has already evidenced his bias and lackof impartiality by attending the aborted conference of Arab leaders in Morocco where the Fahd "peace" (read"pogrom") plan was to be discussed.
Iraq has been known to b^ developing a strategy for the ouster of Israel from the General Assembly. With their man in place at the helm of the world body, Iraq can now orchestrate the evil machinations necessary for that act of infamy.
This is not a prospect that the civilized world can live with. :
Diary ofa People
By DAVID BIRKAN
■■. Europe's foremost scholar of the 13th century. Rabbi Meirof Rothenbnrg, died on April 27, 1293. Since his kidnapping and imprisonment by the German emperor six years earlier, he had consistently refused to allow himself to be ransomed by . the community he had so brilliantly, served. • : : Meir was born.in Worms, Germany, in. 1215, into a family of scholars, important leaders in communities across western and central Europe. At the age of. 12, .Meir embarked upon a 20-year apprenticeship under the top talmudic authorities in Germany and France.
In Paris, in 1240; he witnessed the disputation.between his teachers, Samuel ben Solomon of Falaise and Jehielof Paris, ■ and.the apostate Nicholas Donin; He was there two years later.when the Talmud-was publicly burned; his elegy remains part of the.AshkenazTisha B'Av service;.
Rabbi Meir returned to Germany and settled in Rothenbiirg, at age^2. His halachlc^udgments and abOity to settle disputes in clears nneqidvocal terms soon gave him a wide reputation. Stndentfi from commonitles across Germany flocked to study under him. His settlement of a tax dispute between the commtmities of Moravia and Bohemia clinched his position 88 the greatest scholar of his generation, v
Fornearly 50 years, Rabbi Meir was the supreme court of appeal for the Jews of Germany,. Austria, haly and France, the most vhal communities at that time outside of Spain.
Rabbi Meir's numerous responsa — collected, copied and studied for genera-tiohs -T- greatly.; influenced _codifiers of Jewish law, and helped staiidardize legal procedure and civil law.
His students helped spread his views and~ Judgments across Europe. Through his
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most illustrious student, Asher ben Jehiel, and the latter's son, Jacob, author of the Arbah Turim, Rabbi Meir's judgments liecame incorporated hi the Shulchan Aruch, code of Jewish law. Moses Isserles incorporated many of Rabbi Meir's opinions when he adapted the Shulchan Aruch for Ashkenazim, in the 16th century.
Rabbi Meir's personal conduct and habits were minutely recorded by devoted students and discussed across Europe as exemplary of the highest halachic behavior.
In his responsa dealing: with public law and community government, Rabbi Meir emphasized human freedom, government by consent, limitation of the power of the majority, and the inalienable rights of the individual.^ These principles from Torah were to be adopted in later, generations by various municipal and state governments as the essence of democracy.
In 1286, the new emperor of Germany, Rudolf I of Hapsburg, sought to impose a heavy monarch's tax on the community in addition to the one being collected by the dukes. He declared the-J«ws servi camerae — servitors of the treasury.
Rabbi Meir led community objections. Thousands left the country. Rabbi Meir himself was about to embark for the Holy Land when he was recognized by an apostate. He was arrested by Rudolf. for attempting to deprive the crown of funds. Rabbi Meir was held for ransom, Rudolf being certain that his popularity and esteem would yield him an enormous sum.
But Meir refused to be ransomed and thns to set a dangerous precedent for communities across Eorope. He died In prison. ^—:—:• ■■
His bodyr.was l>ought from the authorities 14 yeurs later by Alexander Whnpfen of Frankfort years after Rudolf himself had died/ — and buried in jhis bhlhplace, '^orms. . ■ . ■ . I.--. , \, ,
appears after 34 years;
By SHELDON KIRSHNER
The Black Book, suppressed on the express orders of Stalin, has been published in New York. 34 years after it should have appeared..
A collection of diaries, private letters and eyewitneiss accounts which provide "hre-futable documentation" of the skughter of 1.5 million Soviet Jews by the Nazis during World War II, the Black Book was published hi its original Russian by Yad Vashem in Jerusalem two years ago. But it was not until last month that an edition was printed ui English.
. The English version is sponsored by the Centre for Studies on the Holocaust of the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, The Holocaust Library, the book's publisher, and Schocken Books, its distributor.
At a reception marking its ptiblication, writer Elie Wiesel described The Black Book as a faithful rendering of "the depth, . tears arid courage of the Jewish people" as contrasted with the brutality and indifference of the killers and those who leit them kill. 'V
"The book shows the machinery of Nazi logic and their lack of logic — the killers' killing, the open death pits and the houses •of people who shut their doors to the Jews trying to escape."
Benjamin Levitch, a noted Jewish physicist who was.permitted to emigrate from the Soviet Union recently after many years of denial by the authorities, said The'. Black Book explains why Soviet Jews did not attempt to flee from the advancing German armies. "In the beginning, it was impossible. The Jews were not aware that danger threatened'them as Jews. Those who remembered Germans from; World War 1 could not imagine that they had turned into monsters." .
As was pointed out, the story behind The Black Book's publication is neariy as bizarre as some of this harrowhig tales in it.
Ina.reirent issue of Midstream, S, L. Shneiderman describes the genesis of The Black Book.
In 1943, following a huge counter-offensive by the Soviet army, the prominent Jewish journalist, Ilya Ehtenburg., proposed to the leaders of the Jewish.Anti-Fascist Committee that they publish three
separate books about Jews iii what the Russians call the Great Patriotic War. . The first one would bear the; title of The Black Book and . would focus oh the Holocaiist. The second volume. The Red Book, would be an account of the heroism of Jews on the; battle front. The third.book, the Yellow Book, would be about Jewish partisans.  V .
Ehrenburg enlisted the aidof a number of well known writers, Jewish and non-Jewish, and the project got under way in earnest.
By 1948, the year the Jewish Antl-Fasclst Committee was dissolved, The Black Book was at the printer's^But it was not to see the light of day. The printed pages were burned, and the type was melt^ down.
What happened?
• At the start of the war, Stalin recognized that Ehrenburg's jproject, meshed as it was with his call for vengeance against the crimes of the Nazis, could be a. powerful propaganda weapon in building the morale of the. Red Army.
"In 1944, however, as soon as the defeated Germjan army began to retreat... and the Red Army was advancing toward Beriin, Stalin suddenly ordained that it was wrong to call for revenge," says Shneiderman, "This new line was intended to win the confidence of the beaten German people in preparation for the establishment of a Soviet satellite in East Germany after Hitler's defeat."
Joseph Stalin
. • The ciancellation of publication was also a function of Stalin's crusade against the natidnal reawakening taking place among Soviet Jews:
Ehrenbiirg and his colleagues were not totally surprised by Stalin's Yolterface. As early as 1946, copies of Thie Black Book were sent to the U.S., Rotnania and Palestine. Excerpts were published in various publications, but the book hi its entirety did not make It into print. The Palestinian branch of the League for CiUtural Relations with the Soviet Union, for example, was unwilling to
publish it for fear of incurring the wrath of
• .Moscow,
In 1965, Shjomo Cirulnikov, a fprmei: leader of the League for Cultural Relations , with, the Soviet Union, turned over-the manuscript of the Black. Book—to Yad Vashem. Yet it was not published, partly on the grounds that it. contained very little that was riewf partly because the IsraeH foreign ministry was cool to the idea, and partiy because there was a feeling in some circles"; that Ehrenburg had testified against Yiddish writers who'liad been execiited by Stalin in 1952. (Shneiderman believes that this "libel", was deliberately disseminated bySovietintelligence). ^ ■
In the 1970s, witti the arrival of thousands upon thousiands of Soviet Jewish inunir grants to Israel, the situation cliaiiged; Hie Jews from Rusisia were shocked and dismayed that The Black Book was gathering dust at Yad Vashem.
A campalgb was launched in the press and radio to publish The Black JSook. Chaike Grossman, a member of the Knesset who had survived tiie Holocaiist, personally urged the minister of education to appoint a commission to investigate why Its poblica-tion was being blocked.
Theirtactics worked, and The Black Book . was finally published.
In his Midstream article, Shneiderman makes nomentipnof The Red Book and The Yellow Book, but one caii safely presume that these manuscripts were not completed, given Stalin's attitude.
West Poliit, the U-S. military academy bi Newburgh, N.Y., recenfly honored (me of Its graduated on the 35th anniversaiy of his death. Col. David "Mickey" Marcos, Who became the first general in Israel's army since biblical times, ^Vas recaUed by firiends and admirers at a memorial service hield «t tiie Old Cadet Chapel.
At 1924gradbf West Point, Marcus is the only. American soldier interred there who fell while fighting under a foreign flag.
After leaving West Point, Marcus attended law school at Columbia University. Completing his degree, he entered the practice of law. During World War Tl, he rejoined the army, seeing action on many fronts.
Marcus went to Palestine at the request' of the Jewish Agency aind the Haganidi, both of which sought professional Jewish soldiers who couldl help the Yishuv in the conflict with the ArpJis. Before he was killed, in a tragic accident, Marcus was ; placed in command of the Jerusalem district as a brigadler-geiierail'
Hitier's propaganda ministry often scath: ingly referred to Frainklin Delano Roosevelt's Jewish antecedents after the. U.S. declared war on;Germany and Joined tlie baittie to eradicate National Socialism from German soil. ;
. The blasts were either ignored or dismissed by the White House. But now word comes that FDR may have had a Jewish great-grandmother.
The boys in the shvitz drink lechayim to Qmada^s neidy patriated constitution
By J. B. SALSBERG
So we have, at long last, our own Canadian constitution. It was duly presented by Her Majesty to the democratically elected representatives of the Canadian people and we are, in a formal sort of way, on our own.
Not that we were under the thumb of Great Britain for the past 50 years. Indeed, we were quite free to do what we wanted. If the British North Amenca Act, the law that . established our "Dominion from sea to sea,!' was not patriated before, it was not because of . Britain's reluctance to accommodate us, but because we couldn't agree among ourselves how to complete the task of writing our own, a Canadian-made constitution. Even now, it was done without unanimity but with much regret from Quebec and the Native Peoples.
But here It is and we are aU mighty glad that what had to be done, sooner or later, was finally done.
However, while almost all Jews welcome our new constitution and its ^ "enshrined" CharterofRights, my uncle Eliezer and his bosom friends are wondering whether there~wasn't a Jewish angle to the whole patriatio^thing.
As you know, the Thursday>night shvitz buddies,came to life again after the Florida galut. It took the group t\y6
Thursday evening sessions for an evaluation of the Florida meshugas. They failed to reach a consensus and left the issue open for further consideration, "at a later date." ' On the third Thursday uncle Eliezer's , best friend, Mendle, placed the new Canadian constitution on the agenda, after the time-honored shvitz, lechayim and repast.
VHas the new constitution and its Charter of Rights any special meaning for Canadian Jews?" Mendle asked of his friends. Sam, who is third in line of importance in the group, thought that it's a far-fetched question and reminds him of the "elephant and the Jewish question" type of Jewish reasoning. . Others thought that the; human' rights provisions are sufficient protection against discrlmhiatory practices. The Shvitz sanhedrin finally agreed to ask me to write alMut it and to clarify matters, especially "from a Jewish angle."
At my tea-and-lemon session with uncle Eliezer-and Mendle [offered, of course, much wisdom, insight and fore- < sight. But, to reduce my thoughts to the dimension of a column, 1 would say, as I did to my visitors at great length, that a constitution is an important document but it isn't ai) iron-clad guarantee of the rights of people.
When young I was taught that in the Messianic age all evil will: have been eUminated, all people will be brothers and justice will prevail for all. In such a civilization who will need a constitution or a Bill of Rights?
But since, in our sinful age, no siich absolute, universal conditions of equality do or can exist, then the struggle for an enlightened constitution may be even more important thanthe constitution itself. In other words, . attainment of equality is an ongoing challenge that, must never be lost sight of.
Moses, as we all know, gave our
founding, fathers a most liberal and ; human"Chatter of; Rights," the 10 commandments. They were further explained, elaborated and extended by subsequent generations of scholars and leaders.......:
But what happened?
They remained largely unobserved and unenforced. (I refer you to the Jewish Prophets and, more especially, to Isaiah and Amos for the most dramatic evidence of our forefathers' failure to act . according to their Mosaic code of ethics and righteousness.)
Or, to descend to the most malodorous level of modem constitutionalism, to the Soviet constitution, there we witness a constitution that bears no relation to the realities of Soviet life.The notorious "Stalin constitution" was* heralded as the most advanced document in man's struggle for equality and liberty. It took Khruschev to tear off the mask of that constitution and to reveal the ugly face of Stalin's lawlessness and murderous oppressioif. :
• The moral ofthe lesson is crystal clear. The fiery and passionate discussions that preceded the adoption of the^^final j draft of Canada's new constitution was, in itself, an enormous contribution to the age-old striving of Canadiatis for fairness, for equality and for justice.'^ut the struggle is not-completed.
The rights of our Native Peoples, the cultural and educational requirements of our national and religious minorities demand important revisions and additions to our constitution and Bill of
^Rights. ■ Canadians dedicated to the achievement of the highest concepts of
: rights and freedoms have their work cut out for them.
As for Jews, heaven help as if we forget for one moment that eternal vigUance is the price of freedom. ;  But ... there is plenty of cause for cheering the patriation of our constitu-
■■ tion, so let us raise our cups and say lechayim.
Philip Slomovitz, the former editor of The Detroit Jewish News, has brought but a book of columns and letters where this ihformation.erherges.
Forty-five years ago, Rabbi Stephen Wise wrote Slomovitz a letter about the matter. He told him that Eleanor Roosevelt had confided to his wife that one Esther Levy was FDR's great-grandmother.
The Ropsevelts were apparently not delighted by this bit of arcania. According to Rabbi Wise, FDR's mother got angry when the subject was broached. "Yoii know that this is not so," he quotedheras saying. "Why do you say it?"
The rabbi also told Slomovitz that Mrs. Roosevelt, the first lady, asked Mrs, Wise not to discuss thefamily secret. "It isbestto let the matter die down.'' ■
Slomovitz waited 45 years to tell the world about Esther Levy because Rabbi Wise had marked his letter "strictly private and confidential."
Gregor Von Rezzori
Gregor Von Rezzori, a typical product of an Austro-Hungarian aristocratic family, has written what may be one of the moist cogent explanations of the phenomenon of anti-semitism.
Memoirs Of An Anti-Semite [The ViUng Press, $13.95] Is, as the title suggests, a recalling of yoath and adulthood in Central Europe, a botl>ed of anti-semitism. It is a novel in five stories, but one can't resist the thought that it Is reaDy antobiographical.
Bom in Bukovina in 1914, Rezzori studied at the University of Vienna and for a time lived in Bucharest, Romania. Lateh he resided in Germany.
Like most Central Europeans, his loyalties were put to a severe test following the creation df new nations in the wake of World War I. He was partly Italian, but he felt like a German. He lived in Romania, but longed for the day when the German-speaking people of Europe would unite under the banner of a greater Germany.
Inevitably, Rezzori was raised to despise Jews, who formed a significant portion of the population in Bukovina. In Memoirs Of An. Anti-Semite, his xenopliobic, racist sentiments are pretty well evident.
Bat this is no shnple-minded anti -Semitic tract. In stories such as Youth, Lowtnger's RoomhigHouse, and Troth, llezzori offers a penetrating anatomy of anti-«emltism. They are weD-crafted and ironic pieces, and . a. reader. Is occasionaDy hard-pressed to decide whether Rezzori really means everything he says.
; The sense of puzzlement is compounded by the fact that a good many of Rezzori's" friends and lovers were Jews,- whom he. genuinely liked or loved; and by the fact that he had a certain contempt, nourished by class differences, for the Nazis.
"One related to Jews in-the same way as an Englishman to foreigners: one assumed that they, could not act like usj" he • observes. "If they did so nevertheless, it made them look suspicious. It seemed artificial. It was unsuitable. Like the Englishman confronted with a foreigner behaving in an assiduously British manner, we saw the so-called assimilated. Jews as aping us."
Rezzori's father, a man who remained in Romania because the hunting was so good, taught him to dislike Jews. ."It was an ancient, traditional and deep-rooted hatred," he writes," which he did not need to explain; any motivation, no matter how absurd, woiddJustify it.
"Of coarse, nobody seriously believed that the Jews wanted to rule the w<Mid.... Those were fairy tales that yoa told to a chambermaid when she said she coaldnU stand It here anymore and would mach rather go and: worit for a Jewish family, where, she would be Iietter treated and better paid.
"Then, of coprse, you casually-reminded her that the Jews had, after all, crucified our ~ . Savior. Butour kindof people, the educated kind, did not require such heavy arguments to look upon Jews as second-class people; We just didn't like them, or at least liked them less than other fellow human beings. This was as natural as liking cats less than dogsorbedbugs less than bees...." . Rezzori, who says he spoke a good Yiddish, had no use for commerce, although he was forced into it at one point. "... anything connected with selling in a store was below social acceptance," he remarks. "This was a privilege of the Jews, and no one cared to dispute their right — at least, no one with any self-respect."
If a Christian gentieman had to engage in wholesaling or retailing, he sold wine, pipes or hunting equipment, Rezzori notes.
Memoirs Of An Anti-Semite dissects ahtirsemitism from the pouit of view of an intelligent, wry insider who can't take his parents' mores all that seriously.Rezzori is no Judeophile. Centuries of hatred have rubbed off on him.-But he is a discerning, amusing observer of a phenomenon which continues to afflict manldnd. -'^