Our 56th Year
Since 1930 the only weekiy publication serving Jewry of the Pacific Northwest.
Publisher and Editor-in-Chief SASaUEL KAPLAN
Advertising l\^anager RONFREEDMAN
News Editor JACK SINGER
City Desk MARTHA BARKER
Thursday, ^arch 13,1936
Published every Thursday by Anglo-Jewish Publishers Ltd. 3268 Heather St., Vancouver. British Columbia V5Z 3K5 Subscription in Canada: $28.00 per year t
When the Good Book describes the generations, it delineates with careful detail, expounding meticulously at considerable length and with frequent repetition.
That's how important is the record of the generations in the story of the Jewish people. Our history is the actual record of the generations; it is the generations which made that history; Jewish history.has been handed down, from generation to generation.
Thus it was fitting that when a man here: had a dream, he dreamed about the generations succeeding each other and passing on the mantle of leader-shipw Because this man is alsowidely known as " M r. B'nai B'rith", that was the fitting rite of passage for his dreanri.
DorL'Dor-^ftom Generation^tOrGeneration —
was translated into reality one evening late last month when Alec Jackson, international vice-president of B'naiB'rith, signed into membership 12 young men from among descendants of stalwart B'nai B'rith families.
That nucleus of 12 is growing every day as young men enroll in B'nai B'rith.
Though Dor UDor was inaugurated in Lion's Gate Vancouver lodge, it is the kind of idea that will probably sweep District Fouris many lodges. And tomorrow? Who knows. North America and beyond.;
But it all started here with one man's dream: that the chain linking the generations is endless; that leadership is passed on Dor UDor.
Isn't that what the story of the Jews is all about? Dreams. And generations.
Thirty-seven years after President Harry Si Truman signed the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, the Senate of the United States finally ratified the convention by a vote of 83 to li.
The passage of the ratification vote was due mostly to the exertions of WillianiProxmirev a senator from Wisconsin, who has given 3,000 speeches since 1967 in an effort to persuade his colleagues that the Genocide Convention had to be endorsed.
Proxmire's victory was somewhat diminished by the inclusion in the vote of official reservations maintaining the right of the U nited States to assert the constitution of the country over the U.N. convention.
^Conservative elements in Americavwhili^ supportive of the principles enshrined in the.Genocide Convention, have always been skittish about endorsing any statute or regulation which might
suggest that ittakes precedence over the jurisdiction of American law.
In commenting on the passage of the ratification vote, Proxmire expressed the hope that the U.S. would invoke the Convention to stop acts of genocide wherever they appear in the world.
The Senator also said that he was old enough to remember the Holocaust and that it was the most vicious and hideous crime in the world.
: It is an encouraging development \yhen the United States, one of the last hold-outs on the issue, finally sees legitimacy in the U.N. Convention. It comes at a time, moreover, when Holocaust debunkers continue to spew their venomous doctrines denying the factuality of the Holocaust.
The American ratification is a welcome change; it now expresses formally what decent Americans have always felt — detestation of genocide.
Jhere have been almost constant demonstration lem against the building of a Mormon university campus adjacent to the Hebrew university on Mount Scopus, and one of the most telling placards carried by the demonstrators asked: "Isn't Utah Big Enough?"
Utah, the American home of the Mormons, is indeed a very largestate, but the question misses the pointat issue. Jerusalem has a grip oh the imagination, npt only of Jews, but of anyone familiar with the Bible. It is morethan a place, it is a concept, and it is as natural for an academic institution concerned with the fundamentals of existence to seek a foothold in Jerusaleni, as it is for American and British institutions concerned with art or archaeology to have schools in Rome and Athens. - '
Jews may have a unique relationship with Jerusalem, but ttiey cannot overlook its universal appeal, nor should they wish to, and the desire of the Mormons to build a university on Scopus, is a tribute to the universality of prophetic teaching. I only hope that the bbstacles they have had to face.
CiisisiBBeirmant isan author^ndjousliaUstWhbse satirical wit, piquant humor and forthright yiews have made him internationally recognized. A coluiirainist and writer for the Lomion Jemsh Chronicle, his byline has become in
and the calumnies aiid harassment to which they have been subjected, will not discourage others frbm following their example. It would be nice to see the hills which ring Jerusalem crowned with seats of learning of whatever persuasion.
Mayor Teddy Kollek has been criticized for allowing the Mormons such a prime site, but one cannot run up a university in any odd corner, and in any case, even if it had been hidden away among the slums of Katamon, the protests against it would have continued unabated because of the widespread belief that it will engage in missionary activity.
Now it iniist be said that the Mormons are active proselytiz-ers, and they would not have achieved their present size and importance without a readiness to knock on doors and spread
their teachings. Biit they know why Jews regard missionaries with particular abhorence and they have solemnly promised that there would be no missionary activity.
But that isn't all. They haye also undertaken not to admit Jewish students to their courses at all: No such undertaking should have been soughtvand none should have been given. One ckriiibt claim to build a university on grounds of academic freedom, and then go on to exclude students on non-academic grounds. Israelis haye an insatiable inteilectual curiosity, and although they are^ not short of universities themsel^ if another is to open on their doorstep they will wish tomake use of it and 1 woiitd like to see anyone try and stop them.
The people leading the campaign against the Mormon university would also closedown the Hebrew uhiyersity if they had their^ay, or, indeedv any othei" seat briearning^ not conforni to their narrb\y teachings. They are substantially the same people who have led demonstrations against the excavations jiear the Temple Mount and who have succeeded in making archaeology a semi-clandestind^^^
in this particular campaign they ^c^^ on wider support because Vhecry of missionaries engages Jewish emotions more readily than the cry of bonesv but it is based either on ignorance, orwilhil distortion, prbbth, for
factSv but are ready tb exploit thecm of those who don't.
I hav6 heard that same cry agaihstchurchnien who have deyoted their lives to service to Israel and the Jewish people, and m'ijch as there are ahti-Semites whb claim they are. only anti-Zibiiists, there ar^.bigots who claini they are only working against missionaries ^when they are iii fact hostile to the very presence of churchmeh and church institutions in the Jewish stale.
. A nian secure in his convictions can face alternative ideas with equaniniity and broaden his knowledge withoutlmpairing his beliefs. But the s^lf-proclaimed defenders of bur faith know what they know and are afraid of what they don't, and seem to feel that Judaism is so frail a creed, and Jews so fickle a race, that they must be shielded against external influence.
This is a fight not only for religious tolerance, but also academic freedom, for if they should succeed in preventing the Mormon university from rising on Mount Scopus, I am not sure for how long the Hebrew university will remain safe in its place. jc\s
By ARNOLD AGES
Recently in New York City by Rabbi Haskell Lookstein, newly elected president of the New York Board of .Rabbis, speaking to the 1,000-memberorganizatipn deplored the "extremism, that manifests itself on botH sides."
This phenomenon, Lookstein said, "threatens to isolate Jew from Jew, and to rend the fabric of Jewish peoplehood so that we will no longer be one people."
• Notingthat many of hiscolieagues in the Orthodox rabbinate refuse to have any dealings with Conservative and Reform colleagues; he said: "We of the Orthodox movement have no monopoly on granting or withholding legitimacy.''
Arnold Ages is a professor of Romance languages and literature at the University of Waterloo and a regular contributor to The Bulletin.
Lookstein, the rabbi ot Congregation Kehiilath Jeshrun in Manhattan's upper east side, is also author of a recent book Were We Our Brother's Keeper? (Hartmore), study of Jewish press responses to the Holocaust.
The rabbi's concern about the growing polarization of the Jewish community stems no doubt, in part, frojrn his analysis of the way in which the fragmentation of American Jewry during the Holocaust contributed to the inertia of that community during the Second World War.
In his speech Rabbi Lookstein urged members of all Jewish religious streams to lower the stridency of their rhetoric while emphasizing the things which unite rather than divide. He also urged Orthodox rabbis "to extend the hand of friendship and love to Conservative and Reform rabbisand not be afraid to sit down with them in order to find acceptable solutions for our_ prbblems."
Lookstein invited Conservative and Reform leaders to examine compromises which would include a retreat from the patrileneal descent question; and a readiness to explore a conversion method which would satisfy all parties and an agreement, which would enforce the need for a get in :*il divorces.
Recognizing that these changes would entail difficult coni-promises on the partr of Reform and Conservative groups. Rabbi Lookstein said that the compromises were better than the present climate of hatred. "The antidote to unnecessary hatred," he said, "must be unconditional love. This must be the passion of the middle ground among our Jewish people." ^
A wonderful statement.
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