' FUN TIME! /
SEPTEMBEB 9, 1966
THE CANADIAN JEWISH REVIEW
A SEVEN-FOLD BLESSING FOR THOSE WHO GIVE HOPE
by loui$ broido, of new york, chairman of the joint distribution committee
The old woman has to t>e helped down the steps from the plane. Her face springs to life with a joyful smile but there arc tears in her eyes.
She tells a now-familiar story. It was nearly ten years ago that she applied for emigration from her Mastcm European country, and her hardships multiplied. Ten years she and her family waited and never gave up hope.
"Because we never forgot that there were Jews in America who still cared," she says, drying her tears.
It is written in the Talmud: "lie who gives money to the poor is blessed six-fold; but he who gives him morale is blessed sevenfold." The millions of dollars which American Jews have provided each year to the Joint Distribution Committee through the United Jewish Appeal have often spelled survival, life itself. This year, to more than 400,000 men, women, and children in thirty countries, they gave massive quantities of food and clothing and medicines; they gave old age homes and child care centers; they gave schools and synagogues.
But by their giving they earned not only a six-fold, but a seven fold blessing. For they also gave hope: "morale."
Year after year JDC sends a shipment of matzoh to Albania, a country more rigidly shut off from the Western world than any other, more so than even Communist China. We do not know under what conditions Jews live in Albania; wc do not even know if they have a synagogue or a rabbi or a Tahnud Torah. But we do know that there are Jews in Albania.
Once every year they break through the barrier of silence and ask for just one thing, matzoth. Last Passover JDC sent them 1,520 lbs.
Tin's past year American Jews distributed. 615,000 lbs. of matzoh through JDC. Whatever the channels through which the matzoh was sent, sometimes even labelled as "cookies", it enabled Jews who find observance difficult to be one with Jews to whom observance is free. Not just the 'bread of affliction," but the "bread of hope."
"Morale" takes a vast variety of shapes and forms. It does not have to weigh thousands of pounds; it may-weigh only a few* ounces. A few-months ago an unusual request reached Malbcn, the JDC welfare program for aged, ill, and handicapped newcomers to Israel.
The social worker's report read: "Female, aged 30, arrived from North Africa last year with a large family. She contracted typhoid as a child; as a result she was left completely bald. Her old wig is in rags. She suffers deep feelings of shame and inferiority. She feels like an outcast and cannot get herself to go to work. She needs a new wig badly but cannot afford it."
Malben officials certified the request. They issued a grant for the new-wig, under the heading: "Medical appliance."
Jonas Markow itz came to Israel from Eastern Europe with his wife four years ago. But he arrived with his spirits at low ebb. In the old country 60-year-old Jonas had worked in a brush factory, but a lingering kidney ailment forced him to stop work. What was there for him now? Charity? Jonas was a skilled accordionist, perhops he could give accordion lessons. But where could be get an accordion?
Shortly afterward, during an interview with a Malben social worker, Jonas told her timidly of his dream. To Jonas' surprise the social worker didn't agree that it was a dream. She found it a most practical solution, and recommended that Malbcn provide the instrument.
Today in Kfar Saba one of the flats has a sign oext to it: "Accordion Lessons." Jonas has almost more students than he can handle. In addition, his reputation has spread throughout the area, he now pla>s, for a modest fee, at weddings. Bar Mitrvahs, and other social gatherings. He still cannot work a full da>; he is still handicapped, but Jonas is a happy man.
But it is to the "morale" of the aged that Malbcn perhaps makes its greatest contribution. " F\er since our arrival in the country."' Dr. Mat Bi-shevsky says, "Malben has been hovering o>er us like a guardian an^cl." Dr. Bishevsky, now 72. ami his wife Sima both survived Na/i concentration camps. When they first arrived, Mal-
bcn installed them in one of its homes for the aged. "It was good," Dr. Bi-shevsky says. "We were kept busy in the library. But after a while my wife and 1 wanted a little place of our own again."
The Bishcvskys were among the first to qualify for an apartment in Kiriat Motzkin, near Haifa, under a project financed jointly by Malbcn and local and national authorities to help establish aged couples in small rent-and tax-free apartments. But Dr. Bi-shevsky wanted to be completely independent. Again he turned to Mal-l>en for help. He asked for enough capital to open a small lending-library which he could operate in his own flat. JDC-Malbcn's social worker liked the request. It was approved.
Dr. and Mrs. Bishevsky now spend the day in their lending library. At five o'clock, they used to go to a small cafe for a cup of coffee, but mOrc recently they have begun to go to the new club for the community's older people. They arc happy there. He says: "Mrs. Bishevsky and I have been married 48 years. Wc are of the old world. Here we arc with people like ourselves. The Israel sun is wonderful for our old bones, but the warmth of human friendship, that is sunshine for our souls."
And those who live in the homes for the aged? In Malbcn's Frieda Schiff Warburg home almost everyone works. A nursing sister, 70, sterilizes medical supplies in the dispensary; an 80-ycar-old doctor still makes his rounds, including emergency night visits; there is one blacksmith of 92. A-pharmacist who has just celebrated his 90th birthday keeps up with the latest developments in drugs. "Stopping work would just about kill him," says the administrator of the home.
It may seem strange, but JDC-Malbcn's homes and institutions also give a sense of security even to those who refuse to go into them. A few months ago a family of three arrived from North Africa. Sixty-five-year-old Israel had been crippled by polio as a child. Marco, two years younger, has been partially paralyzed for 45 years. And their sister, Rachel j is also partially paralyzed. But they did not want to go into a nursing home. They wanted an apartment of their own.
Their determination won out. Through Ma'anak, a fund supported jointly by the Israel Ministry of Welfare, the municipalities, the Jewish Agency and JDC, they got a two-bedroom, ground-floor apartment, rent-and-tax-frec, in Tel Aviv. The flat was furnished, it has railings around the walls, there are no steps to climb. They get housekeeping services, regular medical care, and financial aid. Periodically a Malben medical team, doctor, nurse, and physiotherapist � calls on them.
"This is how wc hoped to live in our new homeland," says Marco, who acts as family spokesman, "we are well satisfied." The others nod agreement. Marco knows that as soon as any of the three become bedridden and too much of a burden for the others there will always be a bed available in one of Malbcn's nursing homes. "I hope wc won't have to turn to it ever," he says quietly, "but it does give us an added feeling of security."
Sometimes it is the aged and handicapped who need the security of an institution; sometimes it is the very >oung. Anita was born in Morocco in 1944. She lost her parents when she was ten. Her father died and her mother suffered a mental breakdown shortly afterward. Fortunately for Anita, she found refuge in the Murdoch Bengio Home, the only Jewish orphanage in Morocco, one of the institutions which JDC long supported in Morocco.
When Anita arrived at the Home Bengio she was a frightened, confused, little girl. But at the home there were pleasant surroundings, and the warmth of playmates and guardians. The orphanage became home to her. She did well at school. She was given encouragement and understanding by her house rmenk. Inc JDC social worker became her very special friend. Thanks to the high standards maintained by the Alliance Israelite Univcrscllc and ORT (both also subsidized by JDO, Anita received a good primarv education, then enrolled in an ORT secretarial course in Casjblanca.
At the end of the two-year course
ORT and Home Bengio found Anita' a job in a bank in Marrakesh. There she met David, who was completing his apprenticeship as a tailor. He was tall and good-looking. They fell in love. A few days after Anita's 20th birthday she and David were married. For a girl who grew up in an institution, a home of her own has a special meaning. Now Anita has found happiness, but first she had to find hope.
For North African-Jews in Paris, happiness often seems like someone else's dream, not theirs. Because of the influx in recent years from Algeria, families arc often crowded six to a room, in dingy hotels and in un-hcatcd tenements that face on dark courtyards. There washing is strung across the windows. Children sleep three, four, five to a bed; many sleep on the floor. Because the rooms are so crowded the children spend as much of their lives as they can in the street. It is in Montmartrc � just below the Church of the Sacre Coeur, a Paris tourists never see. In recent years this section has been given a nickname, it is often called the "cas-bah." It might have been transplanted from Algeria. It has an all-pervading atmosphere of hopelessness. Youngsters drift easily into juvenile delinquency. "Who cares what happens to us anyway?"
^ There was a Jewish Center in Moritmartre. It was opened in 1945 but by last year it was as run-down and overcrowded as the home of the children. It was poorly lit and badly heated; the paint was peeling. Talmud Torah classes on Thursday and Sunday could accommodate only 200 children. Go take at look at it today, the next time you arc in Paris, the Merkaz de Montmartrc at 12 Rue des Sanies.
Four organizations joined to turn the dreary, drafty, inadequate center into a cheerful, convfortablc haven for the deprived youngsters: JDC, the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, the Fonds Social Juif Unifie (the central fund-raising organization in France), and the Central British Fund for Jew ish Relief and Rehabilitation.
Not only will it be possible to enlarge the Talmud Torah classes now, but on weekdays the neighborhood children will be able to come to the Center and do their homework in a peace and quiet unattainable in. their own overcrowded homes. A varied program of youth activities is being planned. Certainly the .Merkaz will not solve all of the problems of the refugees. It will not find jobs or decent housing for the families (though there arc other JDC-supportcd organizations in Paris which are helping to do just that). But the Merkaz may help the youngsters to find a childhood that might have been lost, and a hope that might have been abandoned.
And yet, many times during this past year JDC has had to examine and re-examine each of its programs, to ask: "Is there anything wc can eliminate without hurting- people?" For at the beginning of 1965 JDC lost one-quarter of its income, the S7,000,000 that had been supplied by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany. Cuts had to be made, people were hurt. There are aged men and women who need Malbcn care, but for whom there is no bed space. There arc men and women who need food packages and are not getting them.
As wc take stock, it is clear: unless the American Jewish Community fills the gap in the d.i>s ahead, more people will be hurt.
The response of American Jews will determine not only whether wc can continue to supply lifesaving aid: millions of pounds of food, clothing to children in Morocco and Inn. medical care and old a^c homes and child care centers, but also a wis. an accordion, an apartment with railings arcund the walls. They will give help which can be weighed and touched and tested and felt; but they will also give help for which there are no weights and measures: hope. "Morale." And for this they will merit a sevenfold blessing.
One Man In Rabat Makes Life Better For His Fellow Jews
In Morocco, as in the U.S.A., one man can make a community. All he needs is unlimited devotion, enthusiasm, persistence, and, in Motocco, a little help from the Joint Distribution Committee. Fully a third of the 70,000 Jews in Morocco benefit from welfare services that JDC supports with .funds from the United Jewish Appeal.
In Rabat, Morocco's sprawling Westernized capital city, the man is Llie Benattar, a successful businessman in his middle 40's who channels a good part of his abounding energy into making life better for his fellow-Jews. For the community's 4,500 Jews, many of whom still live in the teeming slums of the "mellah" (ghetto), Mr. Benattar is "Mr. Rabat."
He is a member of the Community Committee; president of the Soupe Populaire (community canteen) which daily feeds sixty aged and destitute Jews; president of the Aide Scolaire which runs a feeding program for five hundred children; many from poverty-stricken families; and h� initiated and is chairman of the Relodgement Program for the aged. He often supervises personally the monthly distribution of family food parcels to some four hundred people and, at Passover, the special distribution of matzoh, wine, and money. The parcels consist of U.S. Food for Peace, flour, oil, cereals, and powdered milk, which JDC augments with sardines, and sugar; (also soap) so that families on the community's welfare roll can have a more adequate diet. , .
The relodgement program has not only stimulated the community to rehouse thirty elderly Jews, the neediest of the needy, but also to find funds to support them. Since there is a waiting list of another thirty old people, he Iras organized a committee to care for them and has asked JDC to help renovate a building to house them, augment the funds the community has been allocating for the care of its aged, and give technical assistance so standards may be improved.
Only $3,000 is needed to remodel the building and one can feed and clothe an old person in Rabat for $12.50 a month/Despite cuts in JDC's world-wide budget necessitated by the loss of some $7,000,000 in German reparations income, it has. promised to try to find the money.
T0R0I1T0 BIRTHS
Born, to Mr. and Mrs. J. M. Tanenbaum (nee Toby Hochman), 4 Dewbourne Avenue, on July 23, at the Toronto General Hospital, a son, Robert David; brother of Michael, aged ten years; Alan, seven and one-half; Martin, five; and Susan, three; grandson of Mr. and Mrs. Max Tanenbaum, 424 Rosemary Road; and of Mrs. Jenny Hochman, 2525 Bathurst Street, and the late Murray Hochman. Godparents are Mr. and Mrs. Mervvn Rosenzveig, 329 Walmer Road.
Born, to Mr. and Mrs. Gary Le-vine (nee Arlene Goodman), 1550 Lawrence Avenue West, on August 27, at the Xew Mount Sinai Hospital, a daughter, Helene Sondra; granddaughter of Mr. and Mrs. Jack Goodman, 47 Brucewood Crescent; and of Mr. and Mrs. Zimc-1 Irvine. 140 Chaplin Crescent: great-grandaughter of Mrs. Annie Bain, 515 Chaplin Crescent; Mrs. Gussi Goodman, 30 Saranac Boulevard; and of Mrs. Annie Mar.-�hak, 111 I^atimer Avenue.
Born, to Dr. ar.d Mrs S. Irving Young (nee Pauline Mason), 7 Fifeshire Road South, on July 21, p.t the Branson Hospital, a son, Shawn Jonathan; brother of Steven, aged four years; and Suzanne, aged two and one-half years; grandson of Mr. and Mrs. I.ouis Mason, 5S Covington Road; and of Mr. ar.d Mr?. Joseph Young. 4439 Bathurst Street. Godparents are Mr. and Mrs. Saul
Einstoss, 170 Ava Road. Sidney Brown, 81 Fifeshire Road, held the baby during the ceremony.
Born, to Mr. and Mrs. Paul Wise (nee Lorraine Reingold), 630 Vesta Drive, on August 25, at the Toronto General Hospital, a daughter, Corinne Lisa; granddaughter of Mr. and Mrs. S. Reingold, 619 Vesta Drive; and of Mr. and Mrs. H. Wise, of Brantford, Ontario; great-granddaughter of Mrs. Rebecca Balfour, of Toronto.
son of Mrs. Lena Lipton, of Sydney. Godparents are Mr. and Mrs. Archie Green, of North Sydney.
R. C. PROFESSORS IN BUENOS AIRES
Born, to Mr. and Mrs. Phillip Bregman (nee Beverley Ladov-sky), 21 Raeburn Avenue, on August 20, at the New Mount Sinai Hospital, a son, Lome David; brother of Allan Michael, aged two and one-half years; grandson of Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Ladovsky, 104 Elm Ridge Drive; and of Mr. and Mrs. I. Bregman, 2100 Bathurst Street; great-grandson of Mrs. Sarah Ladovsky, 2603 Bathurst Street; and of ' Mrs. Celia Schwartz, 2550 Bathurst Street. Godparents are Mr. and Mrs. J. W'alman, 743 Briar Hill Avenue, unele and aunt. Samuel Ladovsky, grandfather, held the baby during the ceremony. �
Born, to Mr. and Mrs. David Gold (nee Esther Eisenstat), 65 Westgate Boulevard, on August 11, at the New Mount Sinai Hospital, a son, Doron Jonathan; brother of Ari, aged six years; and of Jordan, three; grandson of Mr. and Mrs. J. Eisenstat, 42 Brightwood Street; and of Mrs. Hanna Gold, 273 Wychwood Avenue, and the late Laib Gold. Godparents are Mr. and Mrs. J. Eisenstat, grandparents. Arthur Suss-man, 34 Carscadden Drive, cousin, held the baby during the ceremony. *
(Con Hinted from Page Ojie)
never had much in Argentina away."
Many United States businessmen have expressed fears over the growing economic nationalism in Latin America.
The reason fpr this concern is explained by figures cited by United States businessmen in a recent interview. Their total direct investment in Argentina is $900-million, about the same as that in Mexico. "Put another way, it is about what we lost in Cuba after Castro took over," a North American banker observed.
In addition to direct investment in plants and commercial ventures which is about ten per cent of overall United States direct investment in Latin America, says the New York Times. Washington and private lenders have roughly $l-bil-lion in loans outstanding in Argentina.
Born, to Dr. and Mrs. J. Stein (nee Natalie Lipton), 968 Avenue Road, on August 17, at the New Mount Sinai Hospital, a son, Andrew Michael; grandson of Mr. and Mrs. S. Stein, 120 Fairholme Avenue; and of Arthur Lipton, of Sydney, Nova Scotia; great-grand-
Plan Now for a Fall & Winter Holiday
CATSKILL
rtservatlons mo'd.
CONCOftO, �tOMftWRI. kutshfts, NTVELI, la uk els, muckman. uowfci, tamarack, rauiohr fines
fmr jtot**, frock i
rose paul i.
681-6006
patronize review advertisers
RESORTS �NEW YORK
it
MAURICE GAMOFF,
the "Sage of Cantorial IAturgy}
will conduct the High Holy Day Services at
He will be assisted by Samuel Sterner and a choir of 18 beautiful voices. As in past years, Meyer Pesin, editor of the Jersey City (N. X) Jewish Standard, will deliver the sermons.
GROSSINGER. NEW YORK
�AREA CODE 914; 292 5000 OR YOUR TRAVEL AGENT
Montreal Representative DOROTHY SAILER - - 482-8219
(ofxn seven doyi o week)
resorts - florida
consult your travel agent for advice!
resorts � new tor*
ma5��ia<h
Plaza
constant tammtcal
supervision
1 summtl a
special iow tatis
tOti kuoh hott oats
s�rr<�! ��
an tm'<+*m1 cawtot
� tsmvf now
fall 1uooft plan
$$.50*
ate �� rs 0�c 1 15 �* l�or*i.
ml** khiqats)
i� i*m* ri im wit* pt-rmU
foau ro _*"
m �1 17rk st., miami ieacx
ro*o�rr& ofr-ia. �i-mis
�cad: jf
)
365 DAYS OF FUN I
� 9 h�l� print* oiuin frrff Cmrm
� itfek Pmi, m*�!r1i cfck.
� latotr let s4�ti*f H'mk. �
� lafew m>�i�*r� t*h � trt* pufrm
� \*H+r a�rt*�tic ft�vtt�� lm�*
� tin* !���*, trip sw�t�h � tmfc
� �tw 1000 s*�t jfito CHk A
� ttf�ft�.��<�t � mr* c*<*t*w It
� id m 4-wttk r�*ti
15 it a itt wom-mt that pfopu
nu nont, nu noni �*�*t . . .
HDM0WACK
off* au tlai
LOOOi
tfllNO MIX, N.T. T*U 914 - 447.
53