P«0«4 - THE NEWS - Dec«mb«r, 1M1
WORLD BEAT
edited by Marta Garelik
Jews of Switzerland
(JTA) — Like Switzerland
itself, for centuries a tradi
tionally neutral haven while
wars periodically ravaged the
rest of Europe, no basic changes
have taken place in the peaceful
life of the Swiss Jewish com
munity; nor has it grown much.
One hundred years ago there
were 20,000 Jews in
Switzerland. Today there are
24,500.
They live mainly in the five
major cities. They keep a low
profile. Most are engaged in
business. They stay away from
«public life.
But some of the concerns
shared by, Jews in many other
parts of the world are beginning
to intrude here. These include
new manifestations of anti-
Semitism, a somewhat am
biguous attitude toward Israel
by the Swiss government, and
the rising wave of intermar
riage. This year mixed mar
riages accounted for 55.7 per
cent of all marriages entered in
to by Jews.
The signs of anti-Semitism
follow a pattern familiar in
neighboring countries: desecra
tion of Jewish cemeteries; a
swastika painted in an elevator
in building housing the Israeli
Consulate in Zurich; an Israeli
dentist assaulted and wounded
in Geneva.
Public Service for Convicts
Saves
Millions for Treasury
(Jerusalem Post) — A two-
year-old law permitting the
court to sentence persons con
victed of certain crimes to do
public service instead of sending
them to prison has saved the
Treasury many millions of
shekels. Since the law was
enacted in October 1979, more
than 200 persons have done
various stints for health, educa
tion and welfare agencies as
gardeners, handymen, tutors
for school-age children, atten
dants for chronically ill and ag
ed persons, and the like —
depending on the gravity of
their offenses and their par
ticular aptitudes.
AJC Condemns
The Evangelical Right
(JTA) — The American
Jewish Congress has issued a
sti'ong condemnation of the
evangelical right for, using
religion as an instrument of
political coercion and has pledg
ed to oppose the movement on
many of its domestic policies
and practices.
“We are mindful,” the
resolution states, “that leaders
and spokesmen for the
evangelical right defend and
support the State of Israel. We
acknowledge this support, but
this consideration is irrelevant
to our assessment of their
domestic programs. The
damage done by their efforts to
curtail domestic freedom is not
made less by their views on
Israel.”
Rabbis Halt Prawns Scheme
HAIFA (Jerusalem Post) —
The Chief Rabbinate’s kashrut
iivision has announced that
•‘with the aid of heaven” it had
Drevented a scheme to use cooi
ng ponds at the country’s
seaside power stations for the
breeding of prawns and shrimp.
The crustaceans are not
kosher, and the rabbinate had
sought the ban because it believ
ed they might be sold within the
country and not, as had been
proposed, strictly exported.
The rabbinate apparently ob
tained the ban by convincing
the Energy Ministry to issue
orders to government-
controlled Electric Corporation
forbidding it from allowing its
cooling basins to be used for the
breeding of non-kosher fish.
The Jerusalem Post has learned
that the rabbinate lately has
been acting tough with the Elec
tric Corporation, resulting for
example, in a ban on the
unloading of coal on the Sab
bath at the new Hadera power
station, which means tens of
thousands of dollars in extra
costs weekly.
The rabbinate has also impos
ed strict enforcement of the
Saturday work rule in power-
grid repairs, which is causing
great inconvenience and losses
to industry. In the past, the rab
binate closed its eyes to essential
maintenance work on the grid in
industrial areas on Saturdays.
Now, however, the corporation
is forced to do the work only on
weekends, resulting in costly
work stoppages in factories.
Fish-breeders have criticized
the ban on use of the power sta
tion ponds, noting that fresh
water prawns are being bred for
export in the country’s inland
fish-ponds on an increasing
scale.
They also - noted that
thousands of kilos of shrimp are
smuggled into Israel by Egyp
tian fishermen working the
Sinai coast. These shrimp are
sold exclusively to Jewish
buyers, mainly restaurants, and
the Fisherman’s Union for
months has been calling on the
authorities to stop this illegal
flow of shrimp in the local
market.
Saudi Arabia Has World's
Highest Per Capita
Spending for Defense
Israel Is Second
(JTA) — Israel’s per capita
defense expenditures rose
sharply this year and remain by
far the highest in the world ex
cept for oil-rich Saudi Arabia.
The sum spent for defense in
1981 was $1,835 for every man,
woman and child in the Jewish
State, up from $1,333 in 1980.
The Saudis spent $2,664 per
capita. The U.S. in contrast,
will spend only $759 and Britain
$512 for each of their citizens.
Saudi Arabia’s 1981 defense
spending of $27 billion is bigger
than that of any country in
Western Europe except Britain.
Its increase alone since last year
amounted to about $7 billion,
equal to Israel’s entire 1981
defense spending.
Queen Dedicates Memorial
to Rotterdam Jews
(JTA) — A memorial
sculpture for the 10,000 Rotter
dam Jews deported to Nazi
death camps during World War
II was unveiled by Queen
Beatrix of The Netherlands in
the garden of the Rotterdam ci
ty hall. The artist is Louky
Metz, a woman of Jev^ish
origin, who was commissioned
to do the sculpture 15 years ago
by a group of non-Jewish
citizens of Rotterdam.
The prolonged delay between
completion, of the work and its
dedication arose because
originally it was to have been
placed on the outer wall of the
Rotterdam synagogue. It was,
in fact, unveiled there but Or
thodox members of the Jewish
community objected because
the sculpture depicted human
bodies — the Patriarchs
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob —
and the statue was removed.
Metz instituted legal pro
ceedings which, after many
years, ended in an agreement to
locate the sculpture at a
“neutral” site. Representatives
of the Orthodox as well'as the
Liberal Jewish community at
tended the unveiling.
Knock-out Blow to El Al
(Jerusalem Post) — The
public’s reaction of shock at the
government’s decision — taken
under the pressure of four ultra-
Orthodox Knesset riiembers out
of 120 — to shut down El Al on
Sabbaths and festivals was
muted originally. At the time no
one believed that such a knock
out blow would be delivered to
Israel’s national airline by the
country’s own elected ad
ministration.
El Al is slowly emerging,
after a tremendous effort of
reorganization, from the slump
in its finances caused by
OPEC’s crippling hike in
petroleum prices and the
breakup of the lATA price
cartel. It would have gone
bankrupt had it« not been
rescued by Treasury aid. But it
did start to recover, from a
deficit of almost S 100m. in 1979
to $50m. last year and an ex
pected $30m. this year.
Wages were cut and a quarter
of the personnel retired, in the
hope that the company could be
brought to pay its way. What
the Israel Airline Pilots Associa
tion did not foresee is that all its
sacrifices may conceivably have
been in vain. The loss of income
is predicted at $50m. on top of
existing deficits. El Al’s staff
advocate closing the airfield
down altogether during the Sab
bath, so that foreign airlines
cannot take away their
customers.
My Family Went To
Two Synagogues
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By Saul Brenner
In the 1940’s and early 1950’s
I grew up in the West Bronx.
The West Bronx in those days
was an area of second settle
ment for thousands of New
York Jews. Most of the Jews
were middle class, for the
poorer Jews , lived in the East
Bronx. The Blacks and the
Puerto Ricans had not yet mov
ed to the West Bronx. Most of
the non-Jews in the area were of
Italian or Irish background.
There were numerous
synagogues in the West Bronx
including at least one Conser
vative and one Reform
synagogue. My father went to
two Orthodox shuls. Why did
we go to two of them? The main
reason is that my father could
not make up his mind which of
the two he preferred."
One of the two was the Con
course Center of Israel, the
richest and most impressive
synagogue in the Bronx. The
synagogue building was large,
somewhat bigger than Temple
Israel. It was located on the
Grand Concourse, the Fifth
Avenue of the Bronx, a wide
street with expensive apartment
houses. The congregation hired
the best people they could get.
Its cantor was the world
renowned Benzion Kapov-
Kagen, whose voice can still be
heard on many records. He was
accompanied by a professional
choir of good male voices, in
cluding one singer who was a
regular night club performer.
When the cantor and the choir.
sang, the auditorium of the
synagogue was filled with peo
ple, many of whom, did not
come to daven, but rather to
listen to the music. Many of the
tunes sung by the choir are still
in my memory forty years later.
There were two rabbis in the
Concourse Center during the
period my family attended. One
was Max Drob, a dignified
older man who graduated from
the Jewish Theological
Seminary in 1911 and spoke
English without a trace of a
Yiddish or even a New York ac
cent. When he retired he was
replaced by a Rabbi Berman, a
graduate of the Hebrew Univer
sity in Jerusalem, who was a
powerful speaker and an able
teacher. My first class in
gemorah was taught by this
man. The synagogue also had
an impressive gabbi, who read
the Torah and on holidays wore
a top hat. The* gabbi seemed to
be in charge of everything and
was to be seen everywhere,
while the rabbi and the cantor
appeared to be only occasional
actors. Not all the people who
attended this synagogue were
orthodox and we used to hear
stories of congregation officers
who drove their cars on the Sab
bath and parked a block away
from the synagogue.
Though my father enjoyed
the niusic and the formality of
the Concourse Center, he was
attracted to a very different
kind of shill as well. This was a
Young Israel, which was located
about a mile and a half from
our home. My father was one of
the early members of the Young
Israel movement in Brooklyn
and felt some loyalty to it. This
Young Israel shul was on the
top floor of a store front of one
of the main commercial streets
in the West Bronx.'It neither
had a professional cantor nor a
professional gabbi. At times it
did not even have a rabbi.
Members of the congregation
would peirform these jobs.
Often the cantor and the Torah
reader were teenage boys.
Teenage boys even delivered
sermons^ of ten to fifteen,
minutes,' comp'osed "by'
themselves, of course. I
remember giving a talk to the
congregation informing them
.that God’s command to
Abraham to go to the Promised
Land was not only directed to
him but that the congregants
should also settle in Israel. This
was the congregation where 1
celebrated my Bar Mitzvah. My
^ father knew everyone in the shul
and they were all Orthodox. No
fancy officer parked his car a
block away to attend this
synagogue.
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