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The Jewish Western Bulletin
Published Everr Thuraday by THE VAN-COUVBR JEWISH ADMINISTBATIVE OOUlTCrL 2676 Oak Street, Bay. 4210 - - Vancouver, B.C.
■ EDITOR: DAVID ROME BUTJ.TTTEJ COMMITTEE: CHAIRMAN: J. W. HERMAN
Phil Lesser, Mrs. J. Biely, N. G. Levin, Rabbi Samuel Cass aud
D. B. Wodllnger
Send all news items to the Community Centre. For advertising rates, Phone Community Centre Secretary, Bayvlew 4210
Vancouver, B.C., Thursday, August 16, ],&34
EDITORIAL
COMMUNAL IMPERIALISM
A very important function of our eommunal life has been entirely ignored.
Whatever we may or may not be doing for our community here, we are certainly doing almos't nothing for the smaller and lees finely developed neighboring communities.
So, for example, Victoria has been left to her fate by us. And the fate is none too pleasing. Though the Jewish population in Victoria is small, the community is perhaps no smaller than that of Estevan, Hirsch or Petaluma, Cal., each of which is well-known in Jewish life throughout the continent for achievement and morale.
It is the duty of Vancouver's organizations to encourage Victoria Jews to found similar organizations in Victoria, to see to it that they function properly, that they are nourished spiritually andi mentally.
In short, Vancouver should do what Winnipeg and Montreal do for us, New York for Winnipeg and Montreal, and Tel Aviv and ^y^arsaw for New York.
But why stop at Victoria? There is also Nanaimo. And some Seattleites tell us that various institutions in that Sound City could well do Wih som'c' encouragement from anywhere, even Vancouver.
It is no reflection on the members of any community that they need) aid from la'r^er and older groups. And Vancouver would benefit largely from an extension of its activities by the broadening of its field and the administrative experience.
SING A SONG
It may well' be accepted as a criterion for sincerity and success of an idea or a movement that the working one will produce popular songs.
Judaism has in the past and, in parts, in the present shown that this is true.
It is needless to go back to the Biblical diays of the Temple song, to the "On the Rivers of the Babylon," to the Golden Age of Poetry, to the days of ritual singing, to the chassidie movement and its nigunim.. In our own day the sources of song are in the creative spheres of Zionism and in the Synagogue.
The popular song is one of the greatest and most pleasant popularisers of ideas and emotions.
If you wish to enjoy your Jewish life, to transmit it to your children, or to test it, if you wish to enrich your life, and to add to it the joys of true Jewish history and spirit—sing a Jewish song, teach it to your children, live Jewish music.
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"We Aim to Please"
Belgian Jews
All the way from Belgium there comes to our office a bulletin from the committee to combat Hitlerism. The committee Is known as the Com-ite d'Action Economique (the committee for economic action), and its main activity is the propagation of boycott material. The committee's activities might well serve as a model for similar Jewish committees elsewhere, and it is noteworthy that the Canadian Jewish Congress is in close contact with the Belgian anti-Hit-lierltes.
The Bulletin contains:
Information on German movies playing in Belgium; with details of movies and theatres.
Information that will enable boy-cotters to prevent their transatlantic mail from being sent by German boats.
Detailed information on German firms operating in Belgium under
Belgian guise. Deitails unpublished elsewhere on
the activities of the German Nazis
such as the murders in concentration
camps, etc.
A report of an inciting anti-Jewish speech by a German high oflfioial before a meeting of 100,000 young men in which the Jew is described as an enemy of world humanity, an enemy of labour, and the instigator of class \var. He called on the youth of Germany to hate Jews, not to patronize them, or to make use of their services. "Our feeling of the essentials of humanity makes us treat the Jew as an enemy. When we do this we are in the company of Christ who said that Satan was the father of Judaism, we are in the company of all grfiat men of the world, especially those of Germany, we are in the spirit of the Christian churches, both the Catholic and of the Protestant."
Interviews with prominent men, such as Baron Maurice de Rothschild, on the effect of the boycott.
Quotations from Belgian newspapers on the anti-German boycott.
Reports on the boycott activities in Belgium, where the diamond cutting industry is aiding in the movement as it helps local industry. Two diamond dealers who sent their stones to Germany to' be cut have been deported to Poland, as aliens. Incidentally, they were Jews!
Reports on the effectiveness of the boycott.
A quotation from a Swiss newspaper on the deterioration of the quality of German merchandise.
Reports of boycott activities in South Africa where a Jewish clothing dealer who had refused at first to join the boycott movement was forced to join, to pay $1500 amends, and put up a bond of $5000 as a pledge of good faith; England where both Jewish and Gentile leaders have expressed their faith in the boycott as i means of combatting Hitlerism; the U.S., Italy, Switzerland.
Reports of antisemitic activities in Belgium.
Americans Aided Bialik
S. Koldovsky, who represented American Jews in Moscow in 1920, tells in an article in a European newspaper how Bialik approached him at that time for financial aid to transport the group of Jewish scholars and intellectuals from Odessa to Palestine. According to the agreement between S. Koldovsky and the Soviet government, he was not supposed to extend aid to anyone without the permission of the soviet .regime, but in this instance he gave Bialik $3,000 not in accordance with the agreement. This small amount of money enabled Bialik and his friends to leave Russia, and the influence of the group in the making of the new Palestine as in-culcable. Fourteen years after the event there is still hardly a prominent leader in Palestine who was not included in that group. What Palestine would be now if Bialik had failed in obtaining either the permission or the money it is impossible to Imagine.
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RABBI WISE
Bad Taste
One Man vs. Hitler
Benjamin de Casseres is not well known to the general public, though we cannot guess why. He has written much—books, essays, articles, even movie reviews! And everything he has written eontains an unmistakeable de Casseres punch that has gained him the recognition of some of the greatest minds of today.
Nevertheless he has not caught on. The nearest to success he ever got was with his last book on Spinoza, whose direct descendant ne claims to be!
De Casseres is not a good Jew. He is too honest a man to hesitate about admitting his Jewishness, but we cannot remember him ever affiliating with any Jewish organization or participating in any national Jewish plan. But at the present he is making up for this. He is engaged in single combat with Hitler,
He is writing letters advocating the German boycott. He watches who patronises Deutschland merchandise, travelling on German liners, etc. And When he learns their names he communicates with them—and generally obtains satisfactory results.
Leon Motzkin was one of the greatest Zionists in history, an active worker for Jews the world everywhere, especially in the protection of their political ■r'lghts. He was known as the Jewish Foreign office. His diplomatic duties took him on frequent travels, and he did aot have citizenship in any country for he did not live long enough in any one place to acquire citizenship.
When he" died the whole Jewish world mourned, Zionists and non-Zioriists alike. His body was brought to Palestine for burial. In the occasion the whole Jewish Palestine was moved. But the Revisionist t'Hayarden" did not share the general feeling.
"Motzkin spent all his life outside Palestine. Whether he was forced to do so or not is unimportant. This does not interest us. Why do they send us Motzkin's body,, if the living Motzkin was distant from us? . . . I am ready to admit that Motzkin was •of use to Zionism, to the Jewish people, when he was outside Palestine. But who wants his body? Have we already brought all the living here that we are transporting the dead!"
It is told of Rabbi Salman of Ladl, that right after his marriage he had free board with his parents-in-law, according to custom. But his solitary meditations and strange ecstatic prayers, were an offense to them and they put him down for a fool, his great learning notwithstanding. They urged their daughter to demand divorce of him, but in vain—so they made his life miserable, stinting his maintenance. They refused him candles and he had to study at moonlight. In winter nights they let him freeze. And so they kept on tormenting him until he reached his twentieth year. Then he took to the road and journeyed to the great Maggid of Meseritsch,
When, in later years, Rabbi Salman's fame began to spread, his mother-in-law repented of her ill-usage and she begged him, with tears in her eyes, to return to her house and to abide there—promising, with many protestations, that she would serve him hand and foot there.and be hospitable to his Chassidim. Rabbi Salman would not consent, and when she did not cease with her entreaties, he said: "Look you, who can be better off than the child in the mother's v/omb? It careth not for food or drink and knows the whole Torah. But when the babe is born, an angel touches its lips and it forgets its learning. Yet no one, if such a thing could be, would return to the mother's womb. Why not? Because babes, once born, soon outgrow the measure of their erstwhile habitation."
In 1905 Rabbi Wise was not as famous as he is in 1934, He was younger. He was a rabbi in a distant Pacific city, Portland, Nevertheless the Temple Emmanuel, richest temple in the world, extended an invitation to" the young man,
A group sat discussing terms. Money, etc., was soon arranged.
"I want one more principle established. I want a free pulpit,"
"What do you mean?"
"I'll tell you what I miean. If one of you is connected with a corporation which, in my eyes. Is not conscientious in its treatment of the public or is guilty of swindlery or of exploitation—I want to be free to say so from this pulpit,"
In the group there sat the Guggen-helms, the Schiffs, Marshalls, etc, A thunder clap could not have caused the consternation that this proposal brought about.
Silence. Eyes passing the buck.
Marshall took it. "I am sorry, Rabbi Wise,'not in Temple Emmanuel."
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The Baalshem once asked his disciple Meir: "Meirl, do you mind that Sabbath when you began to learn the Five Books—with your parents' home full of guests and you standing on the table delivering your speech?"
Quoth the Rabbi: "I mind me well. Midway of my speech, my mother came and lifted me from the table. My father spoke his displeasure, but the mother pointed to the door, where a man stood in the short fur coat of
a peasant, transfixing me with his steady gaze. They all understood then that she was afeared of the evil eye. While she was still. pointing, the man disappeared."
"It was I," said the Baalshem, "In such hours a look can throw a great deal of light Into a soul—but the fear of man builds walls barring out the light,"
Another time he exhorted the Divinity as follows: "Lord of the World, the people of Israel are the teflllin of Thy head. When a Jew drops his teflllin, he lifts them up with loving care, cleanses them from every spot, and then, with a kiss, raiakes amends for the lowering. Lord of the World, Thy teflllin are fallen to the ground!"
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