Newspapers / The Charlotte Jewish News … / Feb. 1, 1980, edition 1 / Page 2
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Pace 2—THE NEWS-February 1980 THE CHARLOTTE JEWISH NEWS Published monthly by: Charlotte Jewish Federation and Jewish Community Center Marvin Bienatock, Director Charlotte Hebrew Academy Rabbi Sanford Tucker, Director EdUora Ann Longman, Rita Mond Staff Rote Maaaachi, Mary Gordon, EateUe Hoffman, Muriel Levitt, Michael Shapiro, Marta Garelik and Fran Burg Cofiy deadUne the 8th of each month P.O. Box U220188 Charlotte, N.C. 28222 Young Translators Editorials Arab Petrodollars A growing infusion of Arab petrodollars into American univer sities is posing a threat to academic freedom and integrity, accor ding to a comprehensive report from ADL. It notes that more than a dozen schools have been offered large sums of money, in the form of gifts, grants and lucrative contracts, from Arab governments and o^er ^ab-oriented sources. While not all accepted, the experience of some which did, raises at the very least, serious questions concerning issues of curriculum control, power in student or faculty selection and possible discriminatory practices against Jews. Georgetown U., USC, Duke, NYU and Syracuse U. are among those which have accepted monies or contracts. Among schools which have not, or which withdrew from negotiations, are MIT, the University of Pennsylvania, and a “Midwest University Consor tium for International Activities”, made up of Michigan State U. and the Universities of Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota. The Consortium cancelled a contract with Saudi Arabia because a Jewish professor was refused entry there; a deal between MIT and the Saudis also collapsed over the issue of religious discrimination. The University of Pennsylvania accepted a $100,000 grant firom the Sultan of Oman to promote Arab and Islamic studies but tum^ down a lucrative proposal from Libya, which has supported inter national terrorists, for the development of a curriculum for teaching Middle Eastern history and culture in American secondary schools. Willingness to tap the Arabs’ growing petrodollar reserve is un derstandable at a time when so many universities are experiencing acute financial problems due to rising costs and dwindling support from foundations, government and alumni. The experience of USC is a dramatic example of ‘‘the potential erosion of academic integrity in American universities as the price of financial involvement with Arab oil potentates.” A former of ficial of the Saudi-controlled Arabian-American Oil Co. (Aramco) was appointed to the $1 million Saudi-endowed Faisal Chair one month after his name was suggested by a letter from the Saudi Finance Minister. It further said that future appointments would be chosen “by the University in consultation with the Saudi Minister of Higher Education.” USC then established a Middle East Center and a Foundation to raise money for it from large U.S. corporations, primarily those do ing business with Saudi Arabia. The plan included proposals to give the Center a voice in appointing USC faculty to courses on the Middle East “even outside the Center.” Following a furor on and off campus, and condemnation by a faculty senate resolution, the plan was modified to weaken the Center’s power. The Board of Trustees scrapped the entire contract with tiie Middle East Center and recommended setting up an alternate entity under full academic and financial control of the University. At Georgetown U. the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, es tablished in 1975 shortly after a $100,000 ^ant from the Sultan of Oman, has on its board the Foreign Ministers of Oman and the United Arab Emirates, a Deputy Prime Minister of Egypt, govern ment officials of Saudi Arabia, Libya, Jordan and Qatar, and former Senator J. William Fulbright, who has been a registered foreign agent for Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Instructors at the Center have included some of the leading Arab and pro-Arab scholar-propagandists, among them Clovis Maksoud, a former special envoy for the League of Arab States, and Hisham Sharabi, a personal friend of PLO leader Yasir Arafat. Georgetown accepted $200,000 from Saudi Arabia; $425,000 from Jordan; $50,000 each from Egypt and Qatar, and $3^,000 from the United Arab Emirates. These represent two-thirds of the Center’s funding and other funding from Mobil Oil, Texaco, Chase Manhat tan Bank, Citibank and the U.S. government. The University also accepted $750,000 from Libya for the endowment of the al-Mukhtar Chair of Arab Culture. TTie first incumbent to the Chair was Hisham Sharabi. The implications of Georgetown’s contracts are profoundly significant because the school graduates more U.S. foreign service officers than any other university in the country. Tlie May-June 1979 issue of Aramco World reported the follow ing gifts: an annually endowed Chair at Harvard from the govern ment of Kuwait, $25,000 from the Sultan of Oman for the appoint ment of a professor of Middle Eastern science at NYU and $200,000 to Duke University from Saudi Arabia for a program of Islamic and Arabian development studies. The Editors welcome oomments and reserve the right to edit. By Rabbi Sanford Tucker A major responsibility for any Jewish educational endeavor is to insure a warm relationship between young students and traditional Jewish texts — IN THE ORIGINAL HEBREW. Much of the Judaica program at the Hebrew Academy has this goal in mind. Through classes in Hebrew language, Prayer Book and Bi ble, the student is brought into intimate contact with the words and meaning of our classical texts. Through discussion of the content of these texts and through intensive study of the words, concepts, ideas and their meanings for us, the young stu dent creates a bridge of un derstanding that spans cen turies. This bridge permits a dialogue to take place between the student and the text. Out of this dialogue commitment to Jewish values and practices is bom. Recently members of the 4th and 5th grades at the Academy chose prayers for study and translation. That is, working with Uie original Hebrew text they strove to understand first the surface meaning of the words, and then to achieve an understanding of the concepts beneath the surface. One group chose Adon Olam and the other group chose Sim Shalom. The translations appear at end of ar ticle. These translations are a wonderful commentary to the industriousness and ability of these students. To them and to IHeNEHM ORDER. {Era OIS their younger “colleagues” who are studying in lower grades at the Academy we wish continued success in their studies. May you prosper from the work of your hands and minds now and in the future. Sim Shalom by Ari Tennenbaum Daniel Brenner and Daniel Fishman Put peace and goodness and blessing in the whole world with grace, loving kindness and com passion on us and on all of Israel, Your people. Bless us our Father all of us like one with the light of Your face because in the light of Your face was given to us, Lord our G-d, the Torah of life and love, justice and charity and blessing and loving kindness and life and peace. And it is good in Your eyes to bless Your people Israel at all times and all hours in peace. Adon Olam (The Master of the World) By Adina Dresner, Julia Dresner, Dalya Massachi and Nancy Polk The master of the world that ruled before all creation was created: All was made at His will. Therefore we will call His name King, And after the end, all by Himself, He will rule. And He was and He is and He will be in glory. And He is one and there is no other to compare Him Without beginning, without end, and to Him is the strength and the kingship. And He is my G-d and my savior lives, And my rock in time of distress, A And He is my flag and my safe ^ place. And the portion of my cup in the day that I will call. In His hand 1 will place my soul, In the time of sleep and waking up — and with my soul my body. Grd is with melwon’tbeafiraid. Jewish, Catholic Leaders Rigidly Observe Revered Sexist Tradition Editors* note: In .January’s issue of this paper Estelle Hoffman inter viewed Rabbi Rocklin on his views of women rabbis. This is an article which appeared in the January 8 issue of THE CHARLOTTE NEWS which we feel justifies reprint. By Colman McCarthy Washington In an ecumenical coincidence, Conservative Jews and Roman Catholics have united in a bond of religious backwardness: no women rabbis and no women priests. Catholicism’s sexism was restated by Pope John Paul II during his American visit, even though approved scholars had advised him that no sound theological or scriptural reasons existed for the barring of women fronti the priesthood. Judaism’s sexism was on view in New York recently when leaders of the conservative branch •— with two million members, it is the largest assembly of American Jewry — voted against a female rab binate. Here too, scholars who had found women at the altar to be theologically kosher were not heeded. Sexism within institutionaliz ed religion would remain a private issue for believers to work out among themselves, like members of a country club forming bylaws to keep out the unwashed. But discrimination against women in the contem porary secular psyche is ground ed in the traditions of Judaism and Christianity, and the defect is everyone’s to discuss. The anti-feminine thinking by which many women in America’s corporations, univer sities, government offices, fac tories and other vineyards are paid less than men for the same work can be traced both to the laws of ancient Israel and the writings of the early church fathers. In Exodus, laws are written by Jewish males for Jewish males: “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife.” Nothing is said about women coveting husbands. In Leviticus, the standards for hygiene are spelled out: “If a woman con ceives and bears a male child, then she shall be unclean for seven days.... But if she bears a female child, then she shall be unclean two weeks.” In the Talmudic code, only sons in herited property. Despite some heroines like Ruth, Esther or Sarah, the sacred texts of ancient Israel are masculine texts written to define or bolster the masculine view of life. Apologists argue that what appears to the modem mind as sexism must be understood in “the context of the times.” People lived differently back then, we are in structed. Except that they didn’t feel differently. What wounds the emotions of women today, wounded them then. In “Religion and Sexism,” a work of readable scholarship edited by Prof. Rosemary Ruether, Phyllis Bird writes that Israelite law was intended for “a society in which full membership is limited to males, in which only a male is judged a responsible person.” This system of locked-in masculinity wasn’t diluted when it filtered into Christiani ty. In many ways, early theologians like Augustine and Tertullian increas^ the an tagonism against women. Ter tullian defines the female nature by addressing it: “You are the Devil’s gateway. You are the unsealer of that forbidden tree.... You destroyed so easily God’s image of man. On account of your desert, that is death, even the Son of Grod had to die.” With so many centuries of sex ism working against them, women who wish to have the op- tion of the rabbinate or priesthood are currently being made to seem tough and pushy. When Sister Teresa Kane ex pressed her thought on women’s equality before the pope in Washington, her apparent audacity became the issue, not her arguments. Who does she think she is, it was asked, talk ing like that to the Holy Father? Only a person, one who loves God and wants to serve the church fully, was the answer. That became the frightening audacity.
The Charlotte Jewish News (Charlotte, N.C.)
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Feb. 1, 1980, edition 1
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