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 Dilling Exhibit A Begins |
OUR WORLD
Vol. 10, No. 11 Contents Nov. 1955
The Mail Box: Our readers write ............................... 6
Black Jews in Israel: Young Ethiopian Jew might prove
to be the modern
day Moses for some 100,000
Black Jews ............................... 27
Black Jews
in Israel
A young Ethiopian Jew might well prove the modern Moses to 100,000 black Jews
… his arm and head while praying. But he learned well. His counselor Rinna Buchwald from the Bronx, says, "I can do more with Elli and the other Ethiopians than with the other boys and girls. They are eager to learn and grateful for the opportunity."
"Experiment Ethiopia" at Kfar Batya Village will also prove whether or not 100,000 Ethiopian black Jews are ready for immigration and integration into Israel life. As a young country in the throes of growing pains Israel needs these skilled Ethiopian farmers to cultivate her wide, empty spaces in the Galilean Hills and the Negev. She looks to Eli and the eleven friends to return to their country after two years as Hebrew teachers and prepare their kinsmen for immigration to Israel. Like a modern Moses Eli and the others will lead their people out of the wilderness of poverty.
Eli is enjoying his two year study period at the Kfar Batya. He spends well ordered days of re-…
Dilling Exhibit B Begins |
B'NAI B'RITH MESSENGER
Friday, Octoeber 1, 1954
Converted To Judaism — These happy and smiling children the boys of whom have been circumcised and brought into the Abrahamic Covenant, are growing up as traditional Israelites. Studying Hebrew and adhering strictly to the laws of Kashruth, they are all ardent Zionists. Their parents belong to a world-wide movement known as United Israel World Union with headquarters at West Olive, Michigan, and Wilbur, West Virginia. More than 11,000 former American Christians are members. Not so long ago, David Ben Gurion sent them a letter in which he stated that he and his friends in government would welcome them with open arms should the decide to visit the Holy Land. The Feast of Tabernacles will see many of them living in booths built out-of-doors close to biblical altars which were dedicated with appropriate ceremonies some time ago. Among the leaders in the movement is a former Methodist minister and school principal, Rev. James H. Burkey. His four children, who pray daily in Hebrew, are seen in the above picture, two at the extreme left, and two at the right.
November 22, 1956
Marilyn Becomes A Jew
Film Magazine Credits Warmth of Jewish
Family Life With Converting Famous Actress
(From The Jewish Times of Brookline, Mass.)
New York — Warmth and love of Jewish family life won Marilyn Monroe over to Judaism. Marilyn found love, family unity and intellectual stimulation in the home of the parents of author Arthur Miller.
Marilyn, according to the Modern Screen magazine, asked Miller that "knowing who you are, being content … all comes back to being Jewish, doesn't it?"
It was Marilyn who requested that they be married by a rabbi, though at the time she didn't know that she would have to study Judaism and be converted before a rabbi could marry them. This she readily agreed to do, under the tutelage of Rabbi Robert Goldberg of New Haven.
"Is it of your own free will that you seek admittance into the Jewish fold?" the rabbi asked.
"Yes", Marilyn said.
"Do you renounce your former faith?"
She had had none so she renounced her lack of faith. "Yes".
"Do you pledge you loyalty to Judaism? Do you promise to cast in your lot with the people of Israel amid all circumstances?"
It is good, she remembered, to suffer — if you share with others … "Yes."
"Do you promise to lead a Jewish life?"
She thought of her new family, holding each other close in a bond of love. "Yes."
"Should you be blessed with children do you agree to rear your children according to the Jewish faith?"
Her children, who would forever know who they were, who would have an answer to their questions. "Oh, yes," she said.
The Rabbi smiled at her. "Repeat after me," he said, and together they spoke the ancient words of the convert.
"I do herewith declare in the presence of God and the witnesses here assembled that I … seek the fellowship of Israel.
"I believe that God is one Almighty, Allwise, Most Holy …
The Rabbi took her hand and gave her solemnly a name chosen from the Bible — a name which she keeps entirely to herself. "With this name as token you are now a member of the household of Israel and have assumed all its rights, privileges and responsibilities." His hand was on her head.
Dilling Exhibit C Begins |
At prayer. Members of the choir, wearing prayer shawls, await signal. Other Negro Jewish communities are set up in Philadelphia, Brooklyn, Pittsburgh, Chicago, and Youngstown, Ohio.
Harlem, the world's largest Negro community, also boasts the chief aggregation of Negro Jews in the United States. Of the more than 3,000 adherents, some 800 are members of the central congregation headed by Chief Rabbi Wentworth Matthew. A native of West Africa, Rabbi Matthew came to New York in 1927 and founded the Commandment Keepers Congregation. They claim descent from Solomon.
Leader of the Harlem flock. Rabbi Matthew in pulpit holds torah during services.
CIRCUMCISED 2,000 ARABS
The Rev. M. R. Sassoon Ezekiel, a young
Sefardi mohel now in London, has circumcised 2,000 Arabs, mostly children but also some men over the
age of 21. He holds the licence of the Health Department of the Israeli Government to circumcise
Arab adults and children living in Israel.
School is an important part of life at Kfar Bayta Village. Teachers and rabbi are the only adults
In less solemn mood, Allahlin or Eli proves to be just as much at home among chickens.
Dilling Exhibit D Begins |
Deputy Minister of Religious Affairs Says
Jap Converts Can't Migrate Till More Known
HAIFA — We don't know enough yet about the Japanese converts to Judaism to decide about such questions as their mass migration to Israel, to be financed by the Jewish Agency, Israel's deputy minister of relitious affairs, Dr. Zerah Wahrhaftig told The National Jewish POST in answer to questions.
Mitsoutsi, asked Biram, former district commissioner of Jerusalem, to facilitate his migration to Israel under the law of return, according to which every Jew has the automatic right to be transported to Israel at the Jewish Agency's expense (provided he cannot bear the cost himself) and to be eligible for Israel citizenship as soon as he arrives in Israel.
IT IS no secret that the rabbinate and religious ministry both favor the Japanese converts' migration to Israel, if only because they are sure that the religious converts will vote for the religious party ticket on election day, but the rabbinate now has its hands full trying to fight Reform Judaism in Israel, and cannot stop to consider, at the moment, the immigration of the Japanese converts.
In the meantime, Dr. Wahrhaftig said the alleged 7,000 Japanese converts must first be shown to exist.
10,000 in Japan Seeking Judaism
HARTFORD (JTA)—As many as 10,000 Japanese are seeking conversion to Judaism, Rabbi A. J. Feldman, spiritual leader of Beth Israel Temple here reported this week on his return from a 10-week tour. Torah Convocations in the Far East. Rabbi Feldman made the tour on behalf of the National Jewish Welfare Board's Commission on Jewish, Chapalaincy, of which he is executive chairman.
Explaining the new trend among Japanese, Rabbi Feldman, stated he found that the war had "knocked out the spiritual props" which previously been sufficient for many Japanese whom Shintoism taught that their country was invincible. As a result, many of them are turning to Judaism, bolstered to a great extent by the fact that American Jews, especially chaplains of the Americas armed services, had offered many kindnesses to the Japanese
A great many Japanese, Rabbi Feldman reported, are learning Hebrew, and many are practicing Jewish rites. Jewish chaplains and rabbis, however, are "going slow" on accepting the would-be converts, he noted
The Story of a Japanese Ger
(Exclusive in B'nai B'rith Messenger)
The iron determination of a young Japanese, Hiroshi Ankomoti, to become a Jew and migrate to Israel caused quite a commotion in official Israel circles.
The Japanese youth is a graduate of the University of Japan, a student of religion. He arrived at his decision only after a careful and comprehensive study of the old Testament. The Israel Embassy as well as the American Chaplain speak highly of his sincerity and uprightness.
Hiroshi Ankomoti got in with the Jewish Chaplain stationed in Tokyo and began to take Hebrew lessons. He must know the Bible in its original. He also began to attend the regular sabbath services together with the Jewish soldiers serving in Japan.
IN CONFORMITY with the Jewish Chaplain first explained to Hiroshi the hardship of the Jewish race in the world and what difficulties awaited him if he should decide to cast his lot with Israel. But to no avail. He was determined to become a Jew. "I hope some day to study Judaism in its birthland, in Israel, and I hop to God that my desire will be granted,": he replied to the Chaplain.
Noting his determination to be a Jew and a Zionist, the Chaplain introduced Hiroshi to officials in the Israel Embassy. There they again discouraged him, but he adamantly maintained that he was hot a thoughtless enthusiast: "I thought my decision out and all its ramification and I stand by my decision," he declared.
GREATLY MOVED by Hiroshi's sincerity, the Jewish Chaplain sent a personal letter to Israel's Minister of Religion and Welfare, Moses Shapiro, and asked him to do something for the Japanese Ger Zedek. As a result, an appeal was made to the Foreign Ministry to facilitate the "homecoming" of the new son of Israel and to aid him in his further study of Judaism in a religious school in the Holy Land.
Hiroshi got his wish!
Chief Rabbi I. Herzog gave his approval to receive the young Ger from Japan under the "Wings of the Shechina according to the faith of Moses and Israel."
Today, Hiroshi Ankomoti, an Israel citizen and a good Jew, is the happiest man in the world!
The above is the story of only one among tens of thousands of Japanese men and women who look forward to joining the ranks of Israel.
CHINA, a republic in eastern Asia. The Jewish population 0f China, including Manchukuo (now a Japanese puppet state), was estimated at 36,000 in 1940.
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Chinese Jewish father and son. Reproduced by courtesy of the Union of American Hebrew Congregation. |
Opinions as to the date of the first permanent Jewish settlements in China differ. One belief is that Jewish settlers arrived from Persia during the reign 0f Emperor Ming-Ti 0f the Han Dynasty some time between 58 and 75 C.E. N. M. Adler, in his Chinese Jews (Oxford 1900), adduced the existence of a Jewish colony in 34 C.E. Graetz holds that large numbers of Jews arrived in 231 C.E. as a result 0f persecution in Persia. Professor Chavennes believes that another colony was established between 960 and 1126 by Jews from India. Elkan Adler held that Jews from Bokhara came to China via Persia in the 16th cent.
1. The Original Community. Because the Chinese Jews possessed fragments of Zechariah and Malachi among their archives and knew several Talmudic rites, it has been suggested that they came from from Chaldea. But their ignorance 0f Babylonian punctuation suggests a pre-Talmudic period of emigration, or possibly a Palestinian origin.
Perhaps the earliest reliable information is contained in the reports of Ibn Zeyd al Hassan, a 9th cent. Arabian traveler, who mentions Jews as one of the sects massacred at Khanfu. By the 8th cent. C.E. Jews were sufficiently numerous for the emperor to have appointed a special officer to supervise them. Marco Polo, who visited China at the end of the 13th cent., testified to the important role of the Jews in Cathay, as did Ibn Batuta, Arabian envoy to the Mongol court. Annals of the Mongol dynasty for 1329 and 1354 mention Dju-Hudu (Yehudim?) in connection with the reinforcement of a tax on dissenters and as being called to Peking together
The Jews of Kai-fung-foo were indistinguishable in appearance from the local inhabitants 0f China. Not only did they wear Chinese dress but they had in the course of ages acquired Chinese features, including the yellowness of complexion and the so-called "slant eyes". They spoke Chinese observed Chinese ways. Their only mark 0f distinction was their practice 0f removing the sinew and their separate house of worship with its sacred books—no reason for a real class distinction in tolerant China.
Dilling Exhibit E Begins |
"Prophet of San Nicandro," Story of Italian Converts
One of the most remarkable stories of all time was recorded indelibly in Jewish history, 10 years ago, when an entire group of Italians embraced Judaism and settled in Israel. Their act was the result of a conviction in the justice of spiritual teachings of the Old Testament. Their …
The remarkable story of this remarkable group of people is told by the man who chanced to
meet them before the end of World War II—Phinn E. Lapide—whose book, "The Prophet of San
Nicandro," is one of the most fascinating stories on record. The book, properly subtitled "A Modern
Adventure in the Discovery of Faith" (published by Beechhurst Press 11 36th St., NY16), is divided
into two parts. "The Vision," which tells the early history of the group's discovery and acceptance
of the new faith, and "The Way to Canaan," their settlement in Israel where they now function among
the wholesome Jewish settlements.
The Author, a native Canadian who became an Israeli, left his home at the age of 15 despite his parents' objections, trained in England with Youth Aliyah, was guided by the late Henrietta Szold who made a lasting impression on him and worked in the field of the Palestine Jewish colonies. He perfected his knowledge of Hebrew and Arabic, stood watch against Arab raiders, later joined the Jewish Brigade and fought in Africa with Wavell's
Brothers Under |
| In the little Italian village of San Nicandro, 36 men, women, and children who have embraced the Jewish faith, are waiting for the day they can leave for Palestine. the were converted by a wounded veteran of World War I, Donato Manduzio, himself a non-Jew, who had become convinced that the Jews were God's chosen people. Manduzio died in 1948, but his work is being carried on in San Nicandro by his widow. |
THUS, FORTUNATELY, the man who comes on their track was an Israeli who was able to guide them, to direct their destiny.
The story Lapide tells is thrilling from the beginning to end. He traces Manduzio's background as a ruffian in his youth. When the future "prophet" of his group returns from the first war crippled.
Their discovery by Lapide, after the Israeli Sergeant Carmi of Kibutz Kinneret, Israel, passed them by thinking that the waving of the flag with a Shield of David may have been a trick, was the beginning of fast-moving events. The mass conversion, the wholesale circumcisions-marked an unusual event in all history.
Raphaele Cantoni, who was the first Jew to make official contact with the group, postponed a trip to America "to attend the ceremony of conversion." Dr. Ascarelli was to be the Mohel. The arm Chaplain commented: There has been nothing like it (a mass conversion) since the Khusaro tribe became Jews in the eighth century.
"I had single cases once or twice," said Dr Ascarelli, "but never more than two at a time."
Together with Lapide, "the Chaplain, Cantoni, and Dr. Ascarelli were all present." And the
great miracle became an historical fact on the historic day in 1944.
Then came another miracle: A camp was to have been established for survivors from Nazi-ism. There were no supplies. But without advance knowledge the new Jews had gathered enough supplies to make that possible.
And then came another great development: volunteers from the ranks of the new Jews for defense of the new state of Israel.
The five volunteers selected their own location for the group's settlement: Ras el Ahmar in Galilee. They sent for the entire group and while the San Nicandro Christians offered them freedom from taxes to remain there, they refused: they were called home to Israel.
Keeps faith. This is the widow of Donato Manduzio, founder of a Zionist group in Italy. Since her husband died she is revered as religious leader of converts
Dilling Exhibit F Begins |
BENI ISRAEL (BENE ISRAEL), also called the "Brown Jews," a group of Jews residing mainly in or near Bombay, but also at Rangoon, Calcutta and Malabar, India; in 1940. out of the approximately 24,…
Up to 1934 certain sections of the Jews in India refused to admit the Beni Israel into the Jewish communities which they controlled. In Bombay and Calcutta such restrictions were removed about 1915, but the Jewish authorities at Rangoon, and particularly the trustees of the Musmeah Yeshua Synagogue, stubbornly refused to grant equal rights to the Beni Israel in religious and communal affairs, declaring that as the Beni Israel did not observe all of the Orthodox Jewish customs (in particular those of Levirate marriage and the ritual bath) they were not entitled to call themselves Jews. The result was a two years' legal battle in the courts of Rangoon, which ended in a victory for the Beni Israel. One of the synagogues in Rangoon, Beth El, admitted the Beni Israel after having received an opinion from Haham Moses Gaster that the latter were to be granted full religious rights. Musmeah Yeshua was more recalcitrant, and it was only after further legal pronouncements on the part of the court, backed by expert testimony from Gaster and from Benzion Uziel, chief rabbi of the Sephardic Jews of Palestine, that the last remnants of discrimination against the Beni Israel were swept away.
The vernacular of the Beni-Israel is Mahrati; that of the Cochin Jews, Malayalam. The Jews from Bagdad, Syria, and southern Arabia use Arabic; and there are Jews from Persia who speak Persian.
THE UNIVERSAL JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA: COCHIN … mixture of Jewish and Dravidian features. It must be noted, however, that some historians are of the opinion that the Black Jews are not the descendants of the Jewish colonists, but of native groups that have adopted Judaism. In any case, the Black Jews can trace their settlement in Cochin further back than the White Jews. Thus, the earliest tombstone of a white Jew is only 200 years back; the earliest tombstone of a Black Jew goes Back 600 years. This is further corroborated by the stories of travelers to Cochin. Benjamin of Tudela (12th cent.) reported the presence of about 100 Jews of black color in the state, and Marco polo (13th cent.) and Vasco da Gama (1948) give similar testimony.…
In the 20th cent. there are no essential differences in the religious practices of the White and the Black Jews. Both groups observe the same customs and observe the same Sephardic ritual; they are deeply religious and speak the same vernacular, the Malayalam, which is one of the Dravidian group of languages. However, there is a considerable social gap between them and the White Jews continue to regard the Black Jews as an inferior less pure caste, and refuse to contract marriages with them, nor do they dine with them at the same table. The two groups each worship in their own synagogues.
A Family of Beni Israelites of Bombay
THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA [1905], p. 581,
The Jews of India comprise both Whites and Blacks: …
The ruin of the Jewish fief, after its existence for a thousand years, was brought about by strife between the White and the Black Jews. One tradition states that there arose dissensions between the brothers of the ruler's household, and one of them sought the aid of a powerful raja, who drove out the Jews or enslaved them. Neither Zain al-Din nor Moens (the latter was the Dutch governor of Cochin from 1771 to 1782) mentions this fraternal struggle. Whichever story is correct, it seems that Joseph Azar, the seventy-second and last feudal ruler, fled with a few faithful followers to Nabo and thence to Cochin. Their flourishing city, which, according to Alexander Hamilton's account had contained 80, 000 families, was ruined, and the survivors went to Cochin. Even to-day the site of Cranganore is avoided by the Jews. Joan Hugo von Lindschotten, a Dutchman, visited Cochin at th end of the seventeenth century. He says: "In Cochin he Jews have fine stone houses; they are first rate merchants, and are advisers to the king. They possess a synagogue."
In 1662 the Portuguese killed many of the Cochin Jews on account of the sympathy with the Dutch which they had shown when the Dutch ineffectually attacked the city. The following year Cochin was taken by the Dutch, and the Jews received religious liberty. In 1685 the Dutch Jews sent a commission from Amsterdam to investigate the condition of th Jews of Cochin. The report appeared in 1697 unde the tithe "Notisias dos Judeos de Cochim Mandadas por Mosseh Pereyra de Paiva." In 1795 the English became possessors of Cochin. For further particulars of the Cochin Jews and for an account of th Beni-Israel, see BENI-ISRAEL; Cochin.
Benjamin of Tudela's itinerary contains one o the earliest descriptions of the Black Jews of India. According to him, about 1,000 families lived "in the hand of pepper, cinnamon, and ginger." He describes them as honest people who follow the Tea Commandments and the Mosaic code, who read the Prophets, and are good Talmudists and strict observers. Benjamin made his journey between the years 1160 and 1174. Many merchant, sailors, and travelers must have visited India. The Jew Gaspar de las Indias became admiral to Sabayo, the Moorish ruler of Goa, in the fifteenth century. More than one Jew sailed with the flotillas of the Portuguese. Hucefe was the most intimate friend 0f Alfonso l'Albuquerque. A recent traveler was Rabbi David di-Bet Hillel of Safed, whose travels were published in English at Madras in 1832. The new settlers in Bombay were very hospitably received by the Beni-Israel.
An early settler was David Sassoon of Bagdad. Compelled to flee from his native place on account of persecution, he sought refuge in Bombay under British rule. Beginning with little capital, he built up a world-wide business, and almost held the monopoly of the opium trade with China. About fifty years ago nearly all the Jews of Bombay were dependent upon the for their livelihood; but their position now is considerably improved, and they are a body of great commercial importance …
The Sassoon family and others regularly distribute aid to the Jewish poor of the city and Jacob Elias David Sasson has bestowed the sum of 75,000 rupees for the erection of a building, the income of which is to be used exclusively in the aid of the poor Jews. The Beni-Israel poor are totally excluded from any share in these charites.
Dilling Exhibit G Begins |
VOICE [Jewish Voice of Califormia] Friday, Sept. 25,
DR. CAMILLE
HONIG
Literary Editor
Man, Book and Art
ISRAEL BETWEENEAST AND WEST
The Jewish Publication Society of America, under the able editorship of the eminent historian Dr. Solomon Grayzel, has in the past published books which were a great contribution to Jewish scholarship and cu1ture, but recently the J.P.S. has started to publish books by original Jewish scientists whose field of inquiry was shamefully neglected.
[Dr. Camille Honig]
Such a book is "Israel Between East and West" by that outstanding an anthropologist, folklorist and ethnologist Dr. Raphael Patai. Dr. Patai holds two doctorates from the University of Budapest (1933) and from the University of Jerusalem (1938). After years in Israel where he was director of research of the Palestine Institute of Folklore and Ethnology, he came to this country, lectured at various universities, acted as consultant on the Middle East for the Department of Social Affairs of the United Nations, and is at present Professor of Middle Eastern Anthropology at Dropsie College and Visiting Lecturer at Princeton University.
His publications in English and in Hebrew (he was editor of the Jerusalem anthropological journal "Edoth") particularly his two volume study in comparative religion: "Man and Earth in Hebrew Custom, Belief and Legend" and "The Science of Man: an Introduction to Anthropology" (Jerusalem, 1947, two volumes) made him an outstanding authority on the Jewish Middle East, the cradle of our and Western civilization.
Dr. Patai's present volume "Israel Between East and West" is a study in human relations in more senses than one. The book is as timely as it is important for anyone who wants to understand one of the most important problems of the State of Israel.
If you studied Jewish types and communities in five continents, as this writer had the opportunity of doing, you would have realized that it is sheer nonsense, and very dangerous nonsense, as well as unscientific to a speak about a Jewish race.
And Dr. Patei continues: "Oriental Jews have approximated the physical type of their gentile neighbors in a more narrowly locolized sense. Persian Jews look like Persians. Yemenite Jews look like Yemenite Arabs. Bokharan Jews like Bokharan Tajiks and other Turkestan peoples. This means that, whenever in these gentile groups the Alpine and Iranian Plateau elements with their broad-headed and heavier types predominate, the same physical type is found to characterize also the Jews; on the other hand where the Mediteranean type is the more usual one, the same is usual also among the Jews, the Yemenite Jews being the best example of the latter", and he concludes: "The impression is thus gained that the Jews do not belong to a single homogeneous racial a group".
The broad division of the Jewish people in three main groups, the Ashkenazim, Sephardim and Oriental Jews in Israel and the cultural and economic problems the latter constitute in Israel is the main subject of Dr. Patai's well documented and extreme interesting book.
| Friday, Autust 10, 1956 | THE NATIONAL JEWISH POST |
Question is Whether Jews Members of One Race
Reform Rabbi Quotes Bible Against Scientists
NEW YORK (NJP)—The findings of two Israel scientists that Jews art members of an ancient Mediterranean people of common ancestry was disputed by a Reform rabbi, who quoted the Bible as his authority.
[SILVER]
The scientists, Dr. Leo Sachs of the Wetzmann Institute, and Dr. M. Bat Mirtam of the Israeli Institute for Biological Research, told to the International Congress of Human Genetics in Copenhagen, Denmark, that, they used extensive examination of fingerprints to reach their conclusion.
Jews had common genetic factors not found in non-Jews, according to the New York Times.
Rabbi Samuel Silver, editor of American Judaism and director of information of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, told the paper it was of little consequence what Jews were. What matters, he asserted, is what they have accomplished.
"Racial characteristics are seconadry to moral and spiritual values which are acquired through education and religious heritage. The notion that all Jews are racially alike is contrary to accounts m the Bible which tell of intermingling of Jews with many other strains."
[MARCUS]
Dr. Jacob R. Marcus, of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Cincinnati, also questioned the findings.
"When the Jews come on the stage of history, that is to say when we have actual historical evidence about Jews, somewhere about 1500 B.C., they were already a mixed group of the same racial stock of the people who lived in the eastern Mediterranean world. We don't know when if ever they were a so-called pure group. They were not a race but part of the racial group that lived in the eastern Mediterranean world far back in history."
SHAMIR: DISCRIMINATION RIFE AGAINST COLORED JEWS
By LEO HEIMAN
National Jewish POST Correspondent
HAIFA—Racial discrimination with Jew discriminating against Jew because of the color of his skin is widespread in Israel. This is the opnion of Moshe Shamir, Israel's most popular young author and playwrite.
Writing in Rimmon, Israel's illustrated weekly, Shamir rejects the claim that there is no discrimination in Israel because legislation prohibits it and the government is doing all it can to wipe out the evil.
IN SPITE of all efforts aimed at eradicating discrimination, the fact remains that the darker an Israeli's skin, the lower his social and economic status, says Shamir.
Shamir also takes up the contention of those who claim that discrimination will disappear within a few generations.
He points out that white newcomers show little discrimination when they first arrive. They treat their colored brethren, who now number half the Jewish population, as equals. It is only after they become veterans of the country that they adopt the universal attitude towards colored Jews.
IT IS THE sabra (born in Israel) white children who refuse to sit together with colored kids at school and discrimination is strongest among the second and third generation Israelis, Shamir contends. The longer one is in Israel, he wrote, the more one is inclined to treat the colored Jews with contempt.
Shamir asserted that special schools had to be established for colored children in the immigrant slums where most of the colored Jews live because the white mothers in the neighboring streets refused to sent their children to the same schools.
RABBI SETS OPEN HOUSE
Dilling Exhibit H Begins |
Mexican Indian Jews
Devout members of faith
live in villages near Mexico City
Members of congregation begin gatheringon Sabbath in front of synagogue in Vents Prieta, one of several small Jewish communities near Mexico City.
Since THE TIME of Cortez' conquest of Mexico some 400 years ago, in that predominantly Roman Catholic country there have been small communities of Indians who devoutly practice the Jewish religion. Little is known of their origin except that their ancestors were Spanish colonists who clung to Judaism through great persecution. The Indian Jews' long memories of their tribulations and their lack of contact with any but their own people have made them hostile to strangers. Silence, then a slammed door is the usual answer to questions.
The village of Nonoalco, near Mexico City, is less averse than the others to tell of its religious life. Rabbi Licenciado Ramirez, the only one in the community who knows Hebrew, sings the traditional hymns in the synagogue at services. The congregation observes Jewish law-sons are circumcised, only 'Kosher food is eaten and the Sabbath and all other traditional holidays are ritually celebrated.
Rabbi Salazar reads to the congregation in Spanish. Although it hasn't always been so, today these Indians marry only within their own Jewish communities.
SUNDAY NEWS, OCTOBER 6, 1963
In Mexico City, faces of Jewish residents are invariably European in type, This Nonoalco Jewess' face is Indian.
SUNDAY NEWS, OCTOBER 6, 1963
Dilling Exhibit I Begins |
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WHO SAYS SOCIALISM IS JEWISH? …value, great. However, even in the industrial world, had there been malice in his heart towards his fellow-men, the freedom of association which such life necessitates would have been impossible. It can not be without its meaning that the Jew has played a leading role in the great modern industrial movements which have an ethical basis. Socialism was originated by Jews; and today Jews play a leading role in its spread and interpretation. And under the leadership of a Jew trades unionism has been brought to its highest point of efficiency and been given an increasing ethical bearing. The Jew has thrown himself into the vortex of modern life with a most commendable zeal, and has contributed in most generous manner his very best to the realization of the ideals of the nation of which he has become a citizen. | |
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THIS is one of a series of pamphlets published by the Union of American Hebrew Congregations. These essays are designed to convey information on the Jewish religion and Jewish history, and are intended for general distribution They are prepared by the Commission on Information about Judaism appointed jointly by the Central Conference of American Rabbis. * |
Dilling Exhibit I Begins |
INFORMATION ABOUT JUDAISM
MERCHANTS BUILDING, CINCINNATI 2, OHIO
JEWISH CONTRIBUTIONS
TO CIVILIZATION
AN ESTIMATE
BY
JOSEPH JACOBS
Philadelphia
The Jewish Publication Society of America
5706-1945
JEWISH CONTRIBUTIONS TO CIVILIZATION
…probably rest on his connection with Bismarck at the formative period of his career, when the future chancellor was also a member of the Kreuzzeitung party.
Disraeli's career and influence is far better known and need not be further adverted to in this place. The fact that both were converts has little significance from our present point of view, since many of the Jewish leaders on the Liberal side had also adopted Christianity. It is more pertinent to remark that one cannot trace their conservatism to their Judaism, since there was everything in the Jewish position of their time to range Jews on the Liberal side. Stahl and Disraeli are, therefore, to be regarded merely as examples of Jewish ability. There is nothing specifically Jewish in their influence, unless we regard the socialistic strain in Disraeli's conception of "Young England" as a part of the Jewish sympathy with the "under-dog," which can be attributed to their own experiences and to the traditions of the prophets.
Certainly we find a strong Jewish participation
throughout the socialistic movement which, from its inception up to the present day, has been largely
dominated by Jewish influence. Modern …
306