To the Editor:
I write this letter not in order to rebut or rebuke Milton Himmelfarb [“In the Community,” December 1960], but rather to express my sense of sad resignation to the human factor that makes it possible for someone as thoughtful, learned, and fair as he to so misinterpret a recent public announcement. . . . May I quote some statements from the article and indicate how I would explain the very same facts?
- “After the Conservative congregational association tabled a motion for affiliation with the World Zionist Organization last year, there was great eagerness to prove that the old Conservative loyalties were not really being betrayed.” It is true that the United Synagogue voted to table a resolution on affiliation with the World Zionist Organization, but it was the Rabbinical Assembly which adopted a resolution concerning an American Jewish Assembly. . . . A problem of competitive chaos exists in the American Jewish community. In September of 1959 Khrushchev was here, and I still shudder when I recall the shabby and humiliating way in which countless individuals and organizations competed to speak to him on behalf of the oppressed Jewish community in Russia. Several months later we were treated to another circus of press releases and public posturing . . . when some swastikas were smeared on synagogues in different parts of the world. . . . In the spring of 1960, I proposed in a letter to the President of the Synagogue Council of America that the Synagogue Council take the initiative to convene a democratic, representative, over-all American Jewish Assembly.
- “. . . and the Synagogue Council immediately agreed. . . .” Actually the original proposal was vetoed in the Synagogue Council by the Union of American Hebrew Congregations as premature, etc. Several months later the National Convention of the Rabbinical Assembly adopted the resolution . . ., and only then did the constitutent agencies of the Synagogue Council. . . with all kinds of reservations agree to appoint an exploratory committee to study this proposal.
- “Since the Synagogue Council can do nothing about such things as the kashrut scandals—or rather hillul ha-Shem, desecration—it accepts invitations for talking about unity.” No one is more painfully aware than the Rabbinical Assembly of shameful scandals often associated with the supervision and distribution of kosher food products. . . . [But] I doubt very much whether the Synagogue Council would be the ideal instrument to investigate and correct the situation since one of its constituents is usually accused of considerable guilt for this hillul ha-Shem, another constituent is completely indifferent to the whole problem of Kashrut, and a third group is suspected by both of not so very Kosher motives in the whole enterprise. . . .
- It would be improper for me to debate whether we have been generous or self-denying in relation to communal schools or not, but I am sure that the Conservative rabbinate and laity can boast of as many ardent advocates and supporters of community education as any other group.
[Finally] I had always thought that the question of a gored ox was of great interest primarily to the Halachist, and I had always thought that Mr. Himmelfarb was more interested in the Aggadic aspect of our tradition. . . .
Wolfe Kelman
The Rabbinical Assembly of America
New York City
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To the Editor:
The few paragraphs titled “The Commissioner and the Rabbis” makes me wonder whether Mr. Himmelfarb explored the background of the dispute. The Commissioner has a laudable ambition to head the F.B.I. if and when that job becomes vacant. The performance during the UN meeting was a performance in an unworthy operatic and undemocratic tradition, done with one eye on the bigwigs in Washington. . . . One Sunday, though the UN was not in session, there were several hundred police on hand. . . . But all the villains were away for the weekend in the country. . . . Commissioner Kennedy was bucking for publicity and a promotion, and Yom Kippur meant nothing to him. . . . But the implication of his action is more vital. Many Jews, even in New York, find it difficult to take the day off during the Holy Days. They are frequently penalized financially and always discouraged. If the government can do this in the guise of an emergency, why can’t others? . . .
L. M. Kahn
New York City
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To the Editor:
There can be little argument with the main point of Milton Himmelfarb’s comments on the intervention of Jewish organizations in the public school Bible reading cases [in Miami]. Of course nothing is gained by winning a court decision and thereby creating a set of more serious problems. . . . [But] to be completely realistic, is it reasonable to expect that in the classroom such scriptural reading occurs in a vacuum, unaffected by the religious background of the teacher? Can Mr. Himmelfarb believe that if the doors of the public school are opened to religious teaching of any kind, that there will not then be greater pressure for Christian teaching and Christian prayer? . . .
More important, however, is his implication that Jews should not oppose Bible reading in public schools because Jews believe in the Bible (Old Testament) and that we should let the non-believers look after themselves. Jews do not belong to the religious majority, and it is thus to their own advantage to uphold the rights of all to dissent. . . .
Albert H. Neman
Cincinnati, Ohio
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To the Editor:
Milton Himmelfarb’s rhetorical question “. . . how sensible or fitting is it for Jews to attack Bible reading as equally unacceptable with prayers in the name of Jesus?” does not elicit the desired response in me. . . . It is hypocritical for Jews to object to a “. . . horrendous dramatization of the crucifixion” and at the same time condone other types of sectarian teachings in the public schools as long as they conform to Jewish theology. The only justified objection that Jews can raise is not that the presentation in the public school is Christian and consequently offending to Jewish students, but that the presentation is religion (regardless of what sectarian origin) and stands as a direct violation of the First Amendment to the Constitution.
Michael Hahn
University of California
Berkeley, California
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To the Editor:
Although I have enjoyed Milton Himmelfarb’s previous comments [April and August 1960], the December piece (and especially the final three items) reeks with arrogance. To paraphrase Job: will all wisdom die with Himmelfarb? Is the American Jewish Committee’s stand on community organization the only and final revelation? . . .
(Rabbi) Mordecai L. Brill
Greenburgh Hebrew Center
Dobbs Ferry, New York
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To the Editor:
Milton Himmelfarb’s comment on the Miami law suits betrays cowardice and ignorance, the former because it speaks for escape and acquiescence, the latter because it ignores the lesson of history that Jews flourish only when civil liberties flourish.
(Prof.) Harry Riya
Hillel Counselor, SOSC
Department of Philosophy
San Diego State College
San Diego, California
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Mr. Himmelfarb writes:
My friend Rabbi Kelman does not convince me this time, (a) The separation among the Conservative bodies is more formal than real (b) The “competitive chaos” in the Jewish community is perhaps less fearful than Rabbi Kelman imagines, but in any event his remedy is neither effective nor necessary. There is plenty of chaotic competition among the constituents of the unitary bodies that do exist, and plenty of orderly cooperation in the absence of such bodies. Rabbi Kelman was distressed by the Khrushchev affair in 1959—excessively, I think. A year later Nasser was here. With the same Jewish community organization, there were no scenes, no chaos. It was planned that way. (c) Rabbi Kelman’s behind-the-scenes chronology does not change the fact that the formal resolution of the Rabbinical Assembly was followed almost immediately by the formal assent of the Synagogue Council, (d) Rabbi Kelman agrees that the kashrut scandal—which I cited only for illustration—is indeed a desecration, but as much as says that the rabbis and congregations and their associations can do nothing about it. He is conceding my point—that they ignore what should be primary for them, because it is difficult and unpopular, while soothing themselves by agitation for what should be secondary, (e) Of course Conservative rabbis and laymen are not less devoted than others to community education. The point is that by their own principles they should be far more devoted—which is not to say that I am fully convinced of the superiority of communal over congregational schooling, (f) With all deference, I suggest that my Halachist friend is confusing the gored with the goring ox.
My enthusiasm for Commissioner Kennedy is this side of idolatry, but I am not impressed by an argument that since nothing happened while so many policemen were about, it was foolish to have them there; I am more inclined to believe that nothing happened precisely because there were so many of them about. Though I do not know enough to debate police administration with Mr. Kahn, I think it would be at least as appropriate to compare police service with military service as with employment.
Mr. Neman ably presents the point of view held by nearly all Jews and Jewish organizations. It is quite persuasive and it may be, practically if not theoretically, the only position really available to us. Yet I think it too legal. Our children are so constantly subject to the pressure of Christian and Christian-derived culture, high and especially low—think of the stores and TV in December—that keeping the classroom a little more or a little less antiseptic is not likely to make much difference.
Mr. Hahn’s letter is typical in being more militant. It smugly assumes that Jews are just about the only “Americans dedicated to constitutional law” and it is addicted to all-or-nothing thinking—condone Bible reading (“sectarian teachings”) and you have no right to object to some enormity. But that is provincial cant. In England the law prescribes far more religion in education than Bible reading, but English Jews would be able to protest at least as successfully as we an Oberammergau in the school.
I am the same now that I have displeased Rabbi Brill as when I pleased him. If he thinks I am a propagandist for the American Jewish Committee’s positions, he has an original notion of what they are.
Professor Riya’s letter could be used to support a thesis about the dissociation of personality and role in our world. (a) He is a teacher, and prefers invective to discourse. (b) He is a philosopher, and he is not hesitant to say glib, false, and repellent things: glib—let him talk to a convention of the American Philosophical Association about “the lesson of history”; false and repellent—what happened to the Jews of Germany and the rest of Europe must have been a mirage, because in Weimar Germany civil liberties flourished and Hitler’s civil liberties were guarded with tender scrupulousness; and when civil liberties flourish, Jews flourish. (c) He is a Jewish educator, of sorts, and he is troubled neither by his students’ ignorance of the Bible nor by the conviction of Jewish parents and children, community leaders, and church-state lawyers, that carols in school are tolerable or even pleasant but the Bible is awful.
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