Congress bulletin, 1 février 1965, Février

[" & Mr.H.Moscovici, Jewish Public Library, 4499 Esplanade Ave., Montreal, Que.wt i TIQUE NATIONALE 14 MAL 568 PUBLISHED BY CANADIAN JEWISH CONGRESS VOLUME 19: No.2 MONTREAL February, 1965 Comment: Congress and its Plenary Sessions, May 20-24 The Canadian Jewish Congress will convene in plenary assemblies and special sessions in Montreal, May 20-24, where its officers and committee chairmen will render accounts of their stewardship, where speakers will offer some challenging ideas from penetrating analyses and where delegates and observers will have the opportunity of making their own assessments and asking their own questions.It cannot too often be stated that in a community of the size of Canadian Jewry the need for a representative institution as the official conscience, the worrier, the debater, the deliberative body and the addressee of that community persists.Actually in the increasing complexity of our times the need is more exigent than ever before.To give strength and meaning the institution must not only be a democratic one but must also seem to be a democratic one.Constitutionally the Canadian Jewish Congress offers every single community in Canada, large or small, every form of organized life and to every individual over the age of eighteen years, the right and opportunity to elect the delegates to the plenary session and they in turn elect the officers and councils from which the executive committee is chosen to carry out the mandate given and the resolutions passed.But candour demands the admission that the democratic processes are far from satisfactory.The right and opportunity are there but an indifferent \u2014 or shall we complacently believe?\u2014 a satisfied, community fails to do its duty and exercise its rights with the result that it is left to election committees to substitute their judgments for those of the electorate.But at least there is the safety-valve in the election machinery whereby that part of Jewish life contained in organizational forms is represented and does elect delegates.This saves Congress from degenerating into a self-perpetuating and self-appointed committee.The one element of the community which would have a very important voice is, however, absent, i.e., the amorphous mass not active in disciplined organizational life who fail to take part in the voting for delegates.Even in Winnipeg, long the example of a public exercising a franchise, we find over the years thatreally only one element of the community \u2014 albeit an important and useful one \u2014 takes the time and effort to manifest an active interest.Moreover the younger people of the community really do not know very much about the purposes, ideals and programme of the Congress in Canadian life.Ask the average person either born after 1934 (or immigrated after the war for that matter) what is Congress and he will probably answer that it is that organization which you \u2018phone when someone makes a derogatory remark about Jews or hands out some hate propaganda (as though this is the be-all and end-all of Jewish interest!).It is therefore time, on the advent of the 14th Plenary Session of the Canadian Jewish Congress to repeat just what Congress is and strives to be as the surrogate of the entire community in the field of its operations.To do this we must first indicate what Congress IS NOT.Congress cannot be thought of as an organization to be placed alongside of others.It is sui generis.It fails in its purpose if it is regarded as an organization or association.It must be regarded as Canadian Jewry in corporate form if it is to mean anything at all.Itis responsible to the entire Jewish community of Canada and not to a paid-up membership.Moreover, it is not to be construed as coming within definitions so often examined whether it is functional or coordinative.If a task on behalf of Canadian Jewry must be undertaken and the execution of such task is functional then Congress in that area is functional.If the realization of Canadian Jewish hopes and aspirations calls for a centralized neutral coordinative action then Congress in that area is coordinative.It must not be handicapped by a priori definitions of activity.The role of Canadian Jewish Congress is to work in the interest of Canadian Jews and it is idle to determine if it operates coordinatively or functionally; it is important to determine only if it works well, in the interest of the majority and in areas where Canadian Jewry requires action and decision for the greatest good of the greatest number.What other philosophy dominates the Canadian Jewish Congress?Congress\u2019 main role for Canadian Jewry is to safeguard its interests and stimulate its growth and well being as a viable community determined to maintain Jewish values and traditions in the ethno-cultural pattern of Canadian life.To do so means to be partners in this heritage with organizations, clubs, associations dedicated to specific objectives.Thus Congress will want to strengthen existing agencies wherever they exist, and for example does so in education, community relations, youth work, adult education, immigration, welfare services and aid to Israel.It is, therefore, a major feature of the Congress program that it enjoys partnerships with functional agencies for the prosecution of such endeavours.The proposition is a simple one.All Jewish organizations are necessary to maintain Jewish continuity and preserve the life-force of the Jews as Jews.The grass roots activities are of the greatest consequence without which there is no community.The synagogues must flourish or there will be Jewishness without Judaism; the philanthropic and welfare agencies must prosper or there will be Jewishness without one of the cardinal traditions of Jewishness; the fraternal ones must be nurtured or large numbers of people will cease to be effectives in Jewish life; the Zionist organizations in all their complexity must be strengthened since this dimension of Jewish life in the minds and hearts of our generation and future ones needs special pleaders and committed advocates.All of this structure is not merely useful and enriching but is the veritable sine qua non of a Jewish life that has authenticity and integrity for our day and place and age.But along with all of this, working closely with all of this, and because of all of this, A Congress (or call it what you will) must be present to be the watchdog (continued on page 8) \u201cLet\u2019s Reason Together\u201d ~ Theme of Plenary Session The National Executive Committee of Canadian Jewish Congress at its January 31, 1965 meeting in Montreal approved in principle program and guide-lines for the forthcoming 14th Plenary Session.It was agreed that the Plenary Session scheduled to take place at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel, Montreal, on May 20-24, should be a working conference and be devoted to issues mainly relevant to Canadian conditions.Tentative program plans reveal that the theme of the conference, \u201cLet\u2019s Reason Together\u201d comprehends all aspects of program and delegates will be invited to participate fully in many of the sessions.All phases of Congress work will be reviewed including: religious welfare, youth, Jewish education, adult education, community services and leadership training; community relations, foreign affairs, UJRA and research and archives.One session will be devoted to \u201cThe Canadian Jewish Community as Part of World Jewry\u2019 and will reflect and discuss Jews in USSR; Canadian Jewry relationship to Israel; World Jewish Congress and Conference of Jewish Organizations; the import of the Ecumenical Council and Canadian Jewry\u2019s relations to other Jewish communities.An Oneg Shabbat is scheduled on the agenda at which time the subject under scrutiny will be Contemporary Aspects of the Spiritual and Cultural Life of the Jewish Communities of Canada.This broad subject will be divided into various presentations including Ethnic Concept of the Community; The Jewish Community as a Faith Community; Assimilation; Jewish Intellectuals; The Strengths and Weaknesses of our Jewish Educational System.\u2018 Another session will feature The Position of Canadian Jewry in a Rapidly Changing Society and papers will be delivered expounding the legal aspects of the changes and the position of minority groups.More detailed plans will be released upon finalization by the Arrangements Committee for the Plenary Session.Bronfman Calls For Action lo Safeguard Jewish Life The separate yet complementary existence of two Jewish worlds, the Diaspora and Israel, must be carefully nurtured to insure the continuity of Jewish life, Mr.Samuel Bronfman, chairman of the Board of Governors of Canadian Jewish Congress and vice president of the World Jewish Congress told a Los Angeles audience paying tribute to WJC leader, Mr.Ben Maltz.Analyzing recent Jewish history in a changing world, Mr.Bronfman pointed out that the Nazi massacre of 6,000,000 European Jews had reduced Jewry by a third and had deprived the remaining Jews from inheriting \u201cThe intellectual and cultural baggage of hundreds of thousands of European Jews which characterized our society from 1880 to 1938.\u201d Citing statistics, Mr.Bronfman said that there were about 13,000,000 Jews in the world today.He described the 3,000,000 behind the Iron Curtain as \u2018\u2018anonymous and impotent,\u201d leaving the more than 6,000,000 Jews in the Americas and the 2,125,000 Jews in Israel as the main sources of Jewish strength and inspiration.In a broad survey of *\u2018the Jews in an ever - changing world,\u201d Mr.Bronfman said that Jewry had to accept the concept that two important Jewish worlds exist.\u201cThere is,\u201d he said, *\u201c\u2018the numerically smaller one of Israel, a state with all the trappings of statehood which must decide for itself and the people inhabiting it the course it will take.Itis independent and will evolve its own culture and mores.Then there is the Diaspora countries made up of the giant U.S.Jewry down the scale numerically until you have communities of 50 or 60 people as in some West Indian countries.These Diaspora communities have accepted as 14th PLENARY SESSION-MAY 20-24 - MONTREAL their responsibility the worry of their own existence but also took a major part in assisting in obtaining the Jewish State as the responsibility of national Jewish aspiration and equally wish to be permitted to assist the state in achieving a dignified viability.\u201d Mr.Bronfman warned that there is no guarantee that \u201cleft to chance or wishful thinking either Diaspora Jewry of Israeli Jewry will survive.No people in the annals of history has ever survived without a conscious and activist desire to do so.\u201d The CJC Leader said that Diaspora Jewry was of the utmost concern to Israeli Jewry\u2014*\u2018without it Israel on its own may well be less than a success and could turn into just another Levantine State.\u201d Mr.Bronfman said Jewry\u2019s response to today\u2019s challenges must be threefold: \u201c1, We have obligations to ourselves in the countries of our strong loyalties and attachments.We respond as citizens to the generality of the citizen's obligations but we consciously want to build a strong Jewish community.\u2018\u201c2.We have further the obligation of assisting Israel in receiving the displaced and the homeless.We count it not merely an obligation but a privilege to help ensure the viability of Israel These are intertwining and inseparable duties.\u201c3.We have remaining obligations for the relief of Jewry where they are displaced and exist hopeless and forlorn.\u201d Describing recent activities of the WJC in safeguarding Jewish rights, Mr Bronf- man revealed that the original document submitted to the Ecumenical Council in the successful effort to achieve a decla- (Cont\u2019d on page 2) CONGRESS BULLETIN Plenary Session Appointments Nathan Gaisin Nathan Gaisin of Montreal, chairman, and Sheldon Kert of Toronto, associate- chairman, of the Congress 14th Plenary Session Arrangements Committee, announced that plans are now underway for the Congress triennial meeting scheduled to take place at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel, Montreal, May 20-24.At press time elected to serve on the Arrangements Committee are: Eastern Region: Nathan Gaisin; Leon Kronitz; Monroe Abbey, Q.C.; Mrs.Monroe Abbey; Samuel Harvey; Lavy M.Becker; E.E.Barkoff; Murray Spiegel; Mrs.M.Sager; D.Nadler; Prof, Perry Meyer; M.H.Myerson, Q.C.; Mrs.A.Raginsky; Monty Berger; Rabbi S.M.Zambrowsky; Mrs.N.Gaisin; Lyonne Heppner; Irwin Cotler; Saul Hayes, Q.C.; S.Unterberg; Samuel Lewin.Central Region: Mrs.B.Cooper; Sheldon Kert; Prof.Ben Lappin; Samuel J.Sable; H.Wayne Tanenbaum.Western Region: D.Levin, Q.C.; Dr.N.I.Corne; I.Green; N.Selchen (Winnipeg); M.Hector (Calgary); Hy.S.Baltzan (Edmonton): M.Malt (Regina); E.Bricker (Saskatoon).Pacific Region: Dr.8S.Lipson (Vancouver).Sheldon Kert Atlantic Provinces Section: Ben Med- juck (Fredericton).Elections Committee Eastern Region: E.E.Barkoff; S.I.Borod; Albert Eaton; Nathan Gaisin; Leon Kronitz; Nat Libman; Isaac Mandelbaum; Mrs.A.Raginsky; Maxwell A.Schwartz; Murray Spiegel; J.Sternthal; N.Wilchesky; A.H.J.Zaitlin, Q.C.Central Region: Bert Godirey; Hyman Kirshenbaum; Mrs.Abe Levine; Morley J.Paper; Jack Shindman; Israel Weinberg; Hart D.Wintrob (Toronto); Dr.Sydney Rose (Belleville); Edward Seltzer (Cha- tam); Harry Brown (Guelph); David Hoffman (Hamilton); Dr.H.M.Wilensky (London); Louis Schreibman (Orillia): Abe Gorbet (Owen Sound); Dr.S.J.Jessel (Timmins).Western Region: 1.Green; Sol Kanee; D.Levin, Q.C.; N.Selchen (Winnipeg); M.Hector (Calgary); Hy S.Baltzan (Edmonton); Victor Samuels (Regina); E.Bricker (Saskatoon).Pacific Region: M.1.Lerman; Sam Roth- stein (Vancouver).Further appointments will be published upon receipt.Bronfman (Cont'd from page 1) ration on anti-Semitism had been drafted by a WJC expert and transmitted on the initiative of WJC President, Dr.Nahum Goldmann, as Chairman of the Conference of Jewish Organizations.Mr.Bronfman told the Los Angeles Jewish leaders that the West German Parliament would again discuss the question of the Statute of Limitations with regard to the prosecution of war crimes in March.\"The German Parliament has set up an office to survey all the material concerning war criminals which has not yet been checked and to report to Par- lament by March 1,\u201d Mr.Bronfman added.Mr.Bronfman said he was sure that this activity would show that there is so much material still to be sifted in the two months till May, when the Statute of Limitations would begin to function, that there probably would be a proposal to prolong the statute for another ten years.\u201cI am very hopeful that this will be adopted, \u201cMr.Bronfman said.In conclusion, Mr.Bronfman said that \u201cfew experiences of the past will be of practical value in blue-printing a future.\u201d He called on Jews to \u2018\u2018remember the glories, profit by the mistakes and recognize the imperatives which face us for what they are.\u201d He cited these imperatives: \u201c1, There are two Jewish worlds\u2014one the State the other the Diaspora.\u201c2.The Diaspora will be with us a very long time, and for ourselves, our children and our children\u2019s children we must vouchsafe a good life within the context and meaning of Diaspora life, as full citizens of the lands in which we live.\u201c3.The Diaspora is as necessary to the well being of Israel as Israel is to the spiritual and moral welfare of Jews elsewhere.\u201c4, These two simultaneous freedoms as they have been called must be carefully nurtured if a continuing Jewish life is to persist.\u201c5, We can never think in terms of what is, but rather as a continuing effort to meet the challenges of environment, of changing values, of world revolution in thought.\u201c6.In this contest we must accept the proposition that Jews must live in sameness and difference simultaneously.We will no longer inherit the intellectual and cultural baggage of hundreds of thousands of European Jews which characterized our society from 1880 to 1938.Now we take our nourishment mostly from the economic, social and education opportunities of ourrespective societies.\u201d Published monthly except July and August by the Canadian Jewish Congress, 493 Sherbrooke Street West, Montreal, to report on the activities of Canadian Jewry and matters of interest to them.Authorized as second class mail by the Post Office Department, Ottawa, and for payment of postage in cash.Postage paid at Montreal.National President.National Executive Vice-President .Press Officer o.oo.aa na Jean Sadler cee Michael Garber, Q.C.Saul Hayes, Q.C.February, 1965 The Changing World of Jewish Youth by Julius Hayman* (Second in a series of articles) My young friends in high school and University do acknowledge the truth that Moses did, indeed, set the Jews, and through them all mankind, upon a revolutionary new path in man\u2019s eternal quest for God and truth \u2014 however they may define the word \u2018\u201cGod.\u2019\u2019 But this does not solve the problem, for they must recognize Judaism as more than the Jewish religion.Moses also moulded the Hebrew slaves and the mixed multitude he led out of Egypt into a people, a people destined to endure for thirty-five long centuries the fearful impact of war and persecution, and the tragedy these bring.The creation of this people was a complex, involved business.It required the development of a language and laws; of customs and traditions.In the course of their trek through history, Jews acquired sympathies, but they acquired prejudices and hatreds as well.They produced their heroes, their villains, their myths and their fables.They produced the greatest literary masterpiece the world has ever known, the Bible.The Bible is, of course, an account of a people\u2019s search for God, but it is also the history of a nation\u2019s origin, and its rise, and its fall.It is the world\u2019s most important folk epic.In any case, the Bible, and the Talmud, and the Zohar; the philosophical works of Maimonides and the poetry of Yehudah Halevy; the bitter-sweet stories of Sholom Aleichem and the flaming poetry of Chaim Nachman Bialik, these developed over the centuries and the millenia, a consciousness of Jewish peoplehood, of a Jewish civilization.The Jews of the world are not a nation.But whether we like it or not, they do constitute a single people.Whether we live in the gaily-lit cities of the Western Hemisphere, or in the dark, disease-infested mellahs of North Africa, or behind that Iron Curtain which separates the great Jewries of the East and the West, or in confident, dynamic Israel, there is a bond which brings us together, which binds us one to the other, not only on the basis of our religious beliefs, but because we share a common tradition, a common history, acommon civilization.The history of the Jews of ancient Israel,.the stirring saga of the Jewish cultural life of Babylon, the Golden Age of Spanish Jewry, the European ghettos of medieval Europe, the busy, bustling, thriving Jewish culture of the Polish shtetl, are all part of our Jewish civilizational baggage.We may have lost much of it along the way as we marched through time\u2014 but it will not be denied and is an in- controvertable fact of our existence.Can we make our past intelligible and acceptable to our Canadian Jewish youth?I believe we can.Can we make our tradition intelligible and acceptable to young Jewish men and women who have cut their intellectual eye teeth on the rationalist ideologies of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries?Can we justify to them the need for the survival of this age-old Jewish people?I believe we can.The stinging lash of the Egyptian whips, the blazing fires of the Inquisition, the crematoria of the modern Torque- madas, the Nazis, these did, to be sure, fashion out of the Jews a peculiar people.Now, I am not going to argue with those who believe that it was God\u2019s divine decree that the Jews should have survived these catastrophes as the instrument of His will and the bearers of His mission.But to those.who cannot accept this belief, I suggest that history, if not deity has, indeed, made us different from all other peoples.Out of persecution and pogrom came the Jewish capacity for understanding and sympathy, the Jewish love of mercy.Out of the Jewish preoccupation with the Bible and the Talmud, came that intellectualization of the Jew which has made him predominantly, and in the best sense, an \u2018\u2018egg-head.\u201d These by-products of the tragic journey of the Jews through history have enabled them to expand the ideals of Moses, and the * Mr.Hayman is editor of The Jewish Standard in which journal the above article originally appeared.patriarchs, and the prophets, and to present them to the world as their own major contribution to the development of morality in a sick and troubled world.The Jews have been fashioned, in the crucible of their agony, into a powerful force in the spiritual development of man.One of the reasons which have madeit so difficult for us to reach our Jewish youth is that this picture of the Jews as a fighting force for moral progress has been clouded over with a mass of inacceptable dogma.We are not going to be able to persuade our youth that the laws upon which kashrut are based are as important as the laws whichrequirea Jew to love his neighbours; we are not going to be able to convince our young men and women that the law which bids us to abstain from riding on the Sabbath is as important as the call of Isaiah that we \u2018seek justice, and relieve the oppressed, and judge the fatherless and plead for the widow.\u2019\u2019 I want to propose that we declare to our youth that the moral and ethical laws of the Torah \u2014 our Book of the Law \u2014 are insistent demands upon us which we may notreject withoutrejecting the very foundations of our Judaism; that they are, indeed, the means through which we fulfil our mission in history.But the other laws, upon which so much stress is so often placed, these are, really, no more than the machinery, which has served to keep our Jewish people alive, at a certain stage in our history, and these laws, made by man, may be changed by man and can and should be replaced by new.commitments if these will help the Jewish people to survive.I believe that many concessions, many major concessions must be made by the Jewish religion in its ritual and dogma if Judaism is to persevere, as it has for so many centuries persevered.For the history of the Jews, in common with the history of all peoples, is a history of development and change.The moral and ethical demands that the Jewish religion makes upon us are fixed and immutable.The irrationality which enshrouds so much of this religion, however, makes it inacceptable to our youth.I believe that we can eliminate a great part of this irrationality and leave \u2018\u2018a gem of purest ray serene\u201d in our Judaism which will attract our youth to it.I have tried to place our Jewish youth in Canada in its Canadian setting.I have tried to place this Jewish youth within its religious framework and to indicate where I believe we have been found wanting.There is a third element in the life of our Canadian Jewish youth, in addition to its attitude towards Canada and its attitude towards religion which has a powerful impact upon it, and that is the emergence as an independent sovereignty of the State of Israel.The influence of Israel on Jewish life is evident everywhere we turn.Who can deny that it has given our Jewish youth a little more dignity, a little more self- assurance, a little more pride in themselves, a little more faith in their destiny?The colossal effort which united the Jews of the whole world in the desperate struggle to open the gates of Palestine for the hundreds of thousands of refugees who poured into that haven of hope, the heroic struggle of a handful of desperate men and women against the mandatory power and the combined might of five Arab armies sworn to drown them in the waters of the Mediterranean and the successful outcome of that historic struggle, as the enemy was set back on his heels and vanquished, reaffirmed our determination to live as Jews, strengthened our will to persevere, as Jews have for so many centuries persevered despite the medieval Inquisition and the modern gas chambers and crematoria of the Nazis.(to be continued) McGill University McGill University of Montreal announced the appointment of five new members to its Board of Governors including Mr.Samuel Bronfman, chairman of the Board of Governors of Canadian Jewish Congress and Mr.Bernard Morris Alexandor, Q.C.of Ottawa.\\E = Cae Meo \u2014 paper roue .TE a = A a TANT © 1 February, 1965 CONGRESS BULLETIN A Visit to the Barcelona Jewish Community by Jacob Beller ERESARENLILNERS .enableii VPURTS Near the Aribau Boulevard one of the most attractive sections of Barcelona, surrounded by parks in a side street with the characteristic names of Porvenir (hope) at number 24 is the five-storey building of the Barcelona synagogue.The front section is set off by a small park and two massive iron gates.There is not a single letter of Hebrew writing on the building\u2019s exterior.This is more than a synagogue; it is a kind of community centre with two places of worship: one for Sephardim and another on the third floor for Ashkenazim.In the Sephardic synagogue which has a women\u2019s gallery there are daily prayer services and if you happen to be in Barcelona on your Yahrzeit day you need not worry about not having a minyan.Not long ago in the synagogue club-rooms there took place a communal Passover Seder with kosher food, Carmel wine from Israel and Manischewitz\u2019 matzos from the USA.It was done for American tourists who were on a cruise.Finding themselves not far from the Spanish coast they wired ahead and asked that a seder be prepared.Upstairs in the Ashkenazic section services are only held on the Sabbath.The Sephardim now form the majority of the Barcelona Jews.Recently, a large number of Jews arrived from Morocco.As Sephardim they suffer no obstacles as they are regarded by the government as returning Spanish nationals.The Ashkenazim stem from the countries of Central and Eastern Europe who came to Spain at the time of the World Wars.Some came during World War I and remained; in the Second World War many fled to Spain from France as refugees.Of these most later moved to Israel, America or Latin America; a small number stayed on in Spain.The handsome building also has a youth club, a school for children, and a meeting hall on the American style.There is an office open every day and even a library.On a Friday night I attented the Sabbath services in the Sephardic house of worship downstairs.The rabbi who is religious head of the Barcelona community is named Moshe Itzhaki, he also acts as shochet.A native of Salonika he leads the services in the Sephardic manner of prayer with its nostalgic sentimental tunes and characteristic prayers, the same ones which among the Moroccan Jews were transmitted from one generation to the next for hundreds of years.In the galleries women were sitting in festive clothes wearing black silk shawls around their bronzed and olive- skinned faces.They prayed earnestly and sang the psalms and refrains with great zeal.The following morning I was the guest of the Ashkenazic synagogue on the third floor.Before the prayers we had a friendly chat and I learned that the men came from the familiar places: Galicia, Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia.Most of them had been there since World War III was told that there were plans to build a new synagogue for with the influx of Moroccans there was not little space in the present quarters.I also learned that it was thanks to the Claims Conference, which had contributed reparation money, that they had been able to set up a kehilla structure and apparatus.Visits to Israel On the second day when I stepped into the building I was taken by surprise.While still outside I could hear the chant of Israeli songs and when I stepped into the youth club I saw a large group of boys and girls, their bodies linked in a long chain dancing the Hora.At the moment they told me they were having a farewell event for a group of 18 young peopie who were going for a two-month visit to Israel.A month later there would be another such group of 20 persons travelling to Israel.The hall was decorated with Spanish and Israeli flags.A dance was being led by three Israeli madrichim (two men and one women, Zahava Kattin).From the walls looked down the portraits of Moses Montefiore, Chaim Weizmann, Itzhak ben-Zvi and David ben-Gurion.Familiar and traditonal Jewish dishes were served, prepared in the kitchen.It was told that Dr ) The interior of El Transitor Synagogue showing Hebrew inscription on wall.there is a camp for the children in a picturesque district only 25 kilometers from Barcelona where they go with their leaders in the summer months.In the lobby were announcements about the send-off events for the two Israel-bound groups along with other placards and notices reflecting the life of the Jews of Barcelona.Injustice How strange is the cycle of Jewish history! Since the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492, intellectual and liberal forces in that country have more than once publicly expressed remorse for the great injustice that was committed against the Jewish people in Spain.In the 17th century a liberalized experiment was broached at bringing Jews back to Spain.A synagogue was to be opened and they were to be allowed to carry on their religious life.The Inquisition, however, was still powerful enough to oppose it successfully and the proposal was nullified.In 1847 there appeared in Spain a four-volume work about the Jews.The author, Adolfo de Costa, described with warmth and sympathy the vital influence that the Jews had exerted on Spanish culture, art and literature.A second writer, Jose Amada de Los Rios, in his work \u2018Social and Religious History of the Jews in Spain and Portugal\u201d provided even more detail on this historic contribution.A few years after the appearance of these works, i.e.in 1854 the Germanrabbi Ludwig Philipsohn of Magdeburg \u2014 at a time when there was a change of regime in Spain, made a request of the Spanish courts that the ancient shame of the Expulsion be erased.He stated that \u2018we have no intention of demanding back the stolen properties of our forefathers or the temples whose domes still stand.Our aim is only to wipe out the blot and the disgrace of the horrible Expulsion.\u201d In the early 1930\u2019s under the liberal regime of the Republic the problem was put into greater clarity.Dr.Salvador Kibrick, a well-known Argentine-Jewish personality and an editor of the Spanish language Jewish periodical Mundo Israelita, had an interview with the President of Spain Alcala Zamora who used to boast of his Marrano ancestry and that his name \u2018Zamora\u2019 was the Hebrew word for branch.President Zamora assured Dr.Kibrick that Jews who were of Spanish ancestry would be free to return to Spain and resume Spanish citizenship.They only needed to apply to the Spanish consulates in their country of residence.Today with a different regime at the helm, Sephardic Jews from Morocco and other lands are able to make use of this privilege.Chairs of Hebrew exist in the Universities of Madrid and Barcelona.Special Institute In both cities there exists a special institute that is devoted to the study of the Jewish past in Spain.This institute called Arias Montana publishes a special periodical Sefarad, has a staff of scholars who study and research the archives of those Spanish communities which had concentrations of Jews.Each issue of Sefarad contains several hundred pages and often reports new discoveries on the origin and the destruction of Jewish life in Spain.In one of its recent issues the periodical produced a sensational document about the Jewish ships\u2019 crew of Christopher Columbus about which much has already been written in Spain.This document, however, is important because of the details it provides about the Jewish origin of the discoverer of America and because it took 30 years to be made public; and after being kept inaccessible by certain circles.In general, in recent years in Spain there has been a feverish and intensive search to seek out all the details of the country\u2019s Jewish past and of the Expulsion, to determine the role Jews played in Spain, their influence on the various areas of Spanish life such as culture, industry, finance and art.Every fragment of tombstone bearing a Hebrew inscription, any relic of a ruined synagogue, Stars of David that decorates Catholic churches, torn-up shreds of Torah scrolls found in the remotests corners of the country \u2014 all these are reproduced in the periodical or in various special volumes published by the institute.They appear in the original Hebrew with lengthy discourses and commentaries attached.The editors of the journal are recognized Spanish scholars and academics some of whom know Hebrew quite well.There is enough material in all parts of the country.Not longago onthe Island of Majorca a piece of parchment with a Haftorah was discovered dating back to the thirteenth century.The town council of Victoria, in the Basque province appealed to the Jews of a neighbouring town across the border in France to find room for the graves in the old Jewish cemetery which is blocking the expansion of the town being located in the very centre.The townsmen preferred not to simply desecrate the graves by plowing them up.In Barcelona I read on a stone, placed in the masonry of a house on the main street, a Hebrew text and its translation in Spanish as follows: \u201cThe holy Samuel Hasdarai, may his.spirit always be among the living.Year 692.\u201d Along with other remnants of the Jewish past I saw a tombstone which was found in a ruin upon which a house was built in 1920.A plaque in Spanish replaced it, telling the story.ORT Places 10,000th Apprentice In Paris Pictured above are two ORT apprentices.ORT conducts the world\u2019s largest voluntary vocational education and training program.ORT, the vocational training agency of the Jewish people, has recently placed its 10,000th apprentice in Paris.He is Sidney M., born 14 years ago in Tunis, who came to France in 1952 with his parents and seven brothers and sisters.This was announced by Mrs.Rita R.Krevit, of Orange, Connecticut, National Maintenance of ORT Training Chairman of Women\u2019s American ORT.She said that ORT\u2019s apprenticeship programs are aimed at \u2018\u201c\u2018imparting vital modern skills to broad masses of people in the shortest possible period of time.\u201d Sidney, she said, is one of an \u201cORT family\u201d his brother, Richard, was placed in a leather and suede factory under an apprentice contract by ORT and is still employed there.His sister, Elizabeth 16, is an ORT apprentice in the manufacture of sportswear.ORT has stepped up its operations in France recently because of the influx of more than 120,000 Jews from North Africa into the country.ORT-France is the largest of the European ORT networks and as a single operation is second only to ORT-Israel.ORT, the world\u2019s largest voluntary vocational education and training program, operates 600 installations in 22 lands and has taught modern skills to more than a million Jews since it began in 1880.ORT, is a major beneficiary of the United Jewish Relief Agencies of Canadian Jewish Congress.In addition to the regular UJRA subvention to ORT, Canadian Jewish Congress made a special allocation of $25,000 per annum for five years, for the construction of the ORT School in Jerusalem, in cooperation with Canadian Women\u2019s Federation and Women\u2019s ORT.In 1964, Canadian Jewish Congress decided to make a further $25,000 per annum for five years allocation for the extension of the Jerusalem School again in cooperation with Canadian Women\u2019s ORT Federation and Women\u2019s ORT.Edmonton Congress associated itself with a communal tribute paid in Edmonton to Mrs.Jacob Baltzan by the Edmonton Talmud Torah on occasion of her 90th birthday.Mrs.Baltzan came to Edmonton in 1911 from Lipton, Sask., and has beenresiding there ever since, taking an active part in communal welfare. Storm the Gates of Jericho by Rabbi Abraham L.Feinberg McClelland and Stewart, 1964 reviewed by Albert Vorspan* Most books by rabbis consist of a potpourri of warmed-over sermons.This genre has reached such a mountainous proportion that important book-review- ing publications often dismiss such clerical volumes in advance.However, this book by Rabbi Abraham Feinberg, who had a long and colorful career as spiritual leader of Holy Blossom Congregation in Toronto, is a refreshing departure from the genre.Basically, this volume is an intensely personal autobiography.But what distinguishes this from the typical rabbinic book is precisely what has distinguished Rabbi Feinberg\u2019s rabbinic career.Abe Feinberg refused to content himself with the pulpit \u2018word\u2019 and, instead, plunged into the thickets of battle against war, religious bigotry, racial injustice, anti- Semitism and other social evils.His was a social action ministry par excellence.He was never satisfied \u2014 and is not in this book \u2014 to string together the soothing cliches of rabbinic comforting.Even now, in the ripeness of retirement from the active ministry, Dr.Feinberg is deeply committed to the battle against hatemongers in Canada who have done him the honor of making him a prime Canadian target of calumny and vilification.Few rabbis \u2014 or men of any other calling, for that matter \u2014 have lived such varied and picturesque lives.If Hollywood made a movie of a rabbi with so dramatic a background, nobody would believe it.Who ever heard of a rabbi, born to immigrant parents who left the mudpath village of Grinkishok, Lithuania, raised like a yiddische Huck Finn in a pious home in an impoverished town on the banks of the Ohio River, where he saved pennies from his pre-dawn newspaper route, entering into the Reform rabbinate, then abandoning therabbinate in mid-career to become a radio singing star, later resuming his rabbinical career and becoming, in the fullness of manhood, one of his country\u2019s most eloquent voices for social justice?Everything is in the script \u2014 intense family love, the raw edges of adjustment by an immigrant Jewish family into a dreary Mid-western town, the culture conflicts between the immigrant parents and their Americanized children, the battles between good and evil, the struggles of personal conscience, the glow of love and marriage, the traumas of self-doubt, the loneliness of serious illness, and the triumphs of a courageous and irrepressible spirit.And not only is the whole script, schmaltz and all, authentic \u2014 the truth is that it would actually make a whale of a motion picture.There is a wise Jewish saying: \u2018gam zu I\u2019tovah\u201d (\u201c\u2018even this is for the good\u201d).Rabbi Feinberg has had evidence of this wisdom.Confined to a hospital bed for a corneal transplant, with both eyes bandaged, and under the stern injunction to maintain complete immobility, Dr.Feinberg turned the ordeal into opportunity by recording this introspective journey into his own life.With a memory which must border on total recall, drawing on the nostalgic table-talk he heard from his parents a half-century ago, the author recreates the life of the shtetle of Grink- ishok, Lithuania, which he clearly regards as his \u201cspiritual home\u201d, although he himself was born in Warren, Ohio.This is an imaginative tour de force.So acute is his description of Grinkishok \u2014 with its colors, its noises, its communal bustle, even its smells (\u2018the saline scent of herring\u201d) \u2014 that this reviewer realized only upon a second reading that the author had not really lived in the shtetl himself.What must have been a failing as a rabbi \u2014 his tendency to self-doubt \u2014 is precisely what makes him mostappealing as a man and as an author.He was not completely certain of himself as a rabbi at any time.Was his \u201cprophetic pugnacity\u2019\u2019 doing any good for his congregants?Was it only a hunger for justice which * Mr.Vorspan is Director of the Commission on Social Action of Reform Judaism, New York City.CONGRESS BULLETIN Rabbi Abraham Feinberg caused him to hurl the Hebrew prophets \u2018\u2018at the rich, the arrogant, the oppressive?\u2019\u2019 Did his reluctance for a pastoral ministry represent a disservice to his flock?How could he utter words of comfort to the bereaved when he himself became almost inarticulate in the face of deep sorrow?When a tragic \u2018basket case\u2019 soldier was shipped home, why was the rabbi dogged by an accusing inner voice saying: \u201cYou speak of God, of God, of God.?\u201d Such Hamlet-like self-questioning by the rabbi does not commend itself to the contemporary synagogue.The trouble is that the congregants themselves are so full of doubts and conflicts that they like their rabbi to be the oak-strong surrogate of a Jewish faith they no longer possess.They want their rabbi to be smooth and confident, thus compensating for their own confusion of belief.The kind of inner torment, which was reflected by Rabbi Feinberg\u2019s entire career, actually induced him to abandon his rabbinic career to become a matinee idol crooner.But the very same penchant for self-doubt also brought him to throw away his radio career just as he was achieving fame and fortune and to return to the pulpit.Such \u201cto be or not to be\u201d peregrinations are great in Shakespeare but mighty unsettling to a Jewish congregation.We want the rabbi to be the North Star, not a shooting meteor.It was in the fight for social justice that Rabbi Feinberg\u2019s career was most authentic and most remarkable.There he was haunted by no doubts.No enemy was too formidable.He went after the church itself for perpetuating the evil charge of deicide against the Jews, thus feeding the flames of anti-Semitism with which Hitler consumed much of the world.He denounced the intrusions of Christian religious practices into public education.Racial arrogance, in the U.S.and in Canada, evoked the lash of both his tongue and pen.And the nuclear arms race, to which Canada has now lent itself, has roused Abe Feinberg to become one of Canada\u2019s fiercest and most passionate advocates of disarmament and world peace.In these \u2014 and many similar fights \u2014 Feinberg characteristically went beyond pulpit pronouncement to concrete political stands and personal involvement in controversial movements.All this is vividly detailed in quick-flowing and readable prose.He has, indeed, stormed the gates of Jericho, and while the walls have not yet come tumbling down, all men of good will \u2014 Jewish and non-Jewish \u2014 owe him a debt of gratitude.This warm, human and compassionate book increases the measure of our debt.Few readers will agree with everything in this volume, but no reader will fail to admire the spirit and courage which animate both the book and the man.Argentina Mr.Michael Garber, Q.C., president of Canadian Jewish Congress, and Mr.Lavy M.Becker, chairman of the National Foreign Affairs Committee, in a telegram addressed to the Argentinian Ambassador in Ottawa, expressed appreciation to the Government of Argentina for its vigilance leading to the discovery of a Nazi plot in Buenos Aires and conveyed anxiety of the Jewish community over continued activities of terrorists anti-Jewish groups in Argentina.The telegram expressed the hope that the Argentinian Government will do its utmost to eradicate such manifestations.GOD'S KALEIDOSCOPE by Steve Smith No.8 in the McGill Poetry Series.Ed.by Louis Dudek.$1.00 reviewed by Brian Robinson* It was more than a fine gesture on behalf of a fine young man for Louis Dudek to devote a volume in the McGill Poetry Series to Steve Smith, to whom cancer cost a leg in 1963 and then his life in the fall of lastyear.Itwas, is, a tribute to poetry, for we may say without a trace of sentimental eulogy that he has been the best poet to develop at McGill so far in the 1960\u2019s.A view of life that is both comprehensive and subtle is given expression in language that is intensely poetic.The fact that he was a Jewish religious poet would make such a feat seemalmost unthinkable, religion being almost without exception treated by our younger poets as something merely ludicrous.Yet perhaps Smith\u2019s religious temperament was the key to his success, given the cultural atmosphere of the present moment.Up to the recent past, Judaism and Christianity provided a sane framework for the experiencing of life.If it had not been sane, i.e.in keeping with human psychology, they simply could not have made their appeal to generation after generation.In giving a balanced view of man, as composed of body and spirit, as being both individual and gregarious, they also gave access to a greater diversity of experience than could a narrower view.Even up to the end of World War II, the religious concept of man was powerful in literature.We see this is so even if we compare writers like James Joyce and Virginia Woolf, who rejected religion, with present-day ones like James Baldwin and John Updike.With them man has lost all stature.As the writer no longer imbibes the religious concept of man along with the generalatmosphere of the time, he is desperately in need of personal religion if he is to see the human being as endowed with some greatness, with some scope for the more ineffable forms of experience.Thus Steve Smith may well have been saved in just this way.To be sure, if the religious view of life provides a means of sanity, it does not guarantee someone is going to be a good poet.The trouble with religious poets usually is that they don\u2019t just use religion as a framework for experience but as a substitute for it and their poetizing consists of mouthing pious cliches.Steve Smith\u2019s world and rhythm are alive, contemporary, his images rich and abundant, being personal while they are universal, indeed so often of Biblical origin.His superiority to other student poets is most dramatically seen in his poems about young love, where he has avoided the usual extremes of young lust or young sentimentality, but treated women for what they are, a mysterious amalgam of flesh and spirit.That religion is not opposed to sex is seen in the first statement made about it, they shall be one flesh, which is still the sexiest one.\u2018In Your Garden, I Wait\u201d is the poem which most conspicuously deals with sex.His treatment of Jewish religious tradition shows respect, even awe, as something larger than himself which is part of his being \u2014 this being yet another dimension which has all but vanished from the present-day wirter.His view is even so personal, realistic, as in \u201cWilderness,\u201d where his ancestors appear as people Memories Of Montreal Midnight They were jazz nights those nights and all the traffic played horn while the whole town swung in E minor.They were picasso nights those nights and all the trees did mad dances while the whole town moaned into big black midnight.And also they were light nights those nights and all the neon winked and roared while the whole town burped its beer.But mostly those nights were my nights and inside still sways sweet melancholy to their rhythm.February, 1965 October In Jerusalem - Waiting For Rain Monotony poured from the heavens as from an opened dam and the sun grinned relentlessly like a tyrant at the people.Monotony spread through the streets like snake water from a broken jug and the streets gave back the sun its mind as a puddle a face.Monotony caught the people like spilt water rolls the dirt as the people became a part of what had begun with the sun.And finally monotony was sucked in by the night like a child his drink and monotony filled the hollow until the night could not longer hold the day and the dam burst.and then I remember listening to the woman's voice of the wind and tomorrow was rain.whose \u2018souls grew gnarled and like the bush,\u201d never really wanting anything but their \u2018\u2018bitter lot\u201d as long as they could blame it on God.So when he took a girl\u2019s hand, \u2018I squeezed too hard.\u2019\u201d\u2019 Here again, too, love is sensed as involving the whole personality.In \u201cHome\u201d this common word comes to be fraught with unusual meaning, when as a Zionist it signifies Israel to him, even though he is travelling there for the first time and with only the \u201c\u2018light baggage\u2019 of dreams.The modern city, in this case Montreal, is spared the usual fate of cities in present- day poems, where the condemnation is so uninhibited you would think the city fathers had forgot to put in streets and only religious balance points to the works of man, like man himself, as being a mixture of good and evil; and in \u201cHome\u201d he is leaving an \u2018\u2018ugly-lovely\u201d city, while in \u201cSpiritus Animus\u2019 he asks us to \u2018take the neon with the stars/and not mind the dust.\u201d Then there are times a religious person gets so excited about the works of man, they seem just great.In \u2018Memories of a Montreal Midnight\u201d the poet is in a Scott Fitzgerald mood, excited and nostalgic, about those jazz nights when \u2018\u2018all the traffic played horn, and the traffic town swung in E minor.\u201d Of course, the poems written in the aura of illness and impending death, which come at the end of the book, would grip us even if they did not quite come off as poetry.As it is, the poetry is authentic as never and it shows how great a meaning poetry had for him, working hand in hand with religion, how to die.The title poem comes at the end and here his personal lot of decay is expressed by \u2018\u2018the brown of Job\u2019s dunghill,\u201d contrasted dramatically with God\u2019s \u201ckaleidoscope,\u201d the ever-changing world seen through the eyes of God.All the richness of its variety is good and his death is good.Steve Smith appears as utterly committed to the existence of God and to belief in his goodness in these poems, and yet had doubted greatly and even when he embraced religion did so as a postulate.He once wrote: \u201cThe highest life is the one which represents the creation of meaning from the essential meaninglessness of the universe.\u201d In being essentially a convert, he was like almost every religious writer of importance in the twentieth century.Today doubt is so fashionable that it is treated as an end in itself, as though life were a matter merely for endless speculation.He used doubt as it should be used, as a means to reaching intense, personal conviction.The substance of life and poetry is not doubt, but conviction, commitment.*Published by permission of the Montreal Star.Canadian Conference on Arts Recently a meeting was held of the Canadian Conference on the Arts dealing with cultural program with particular reference to the observance of the Centennial of the Canadian Confederation.One of the invitees of the Canadian Conference on the Arts was the Secretary of the Cercle Juif.Among those who attended were Hom Maurice Lamontagne, Hon.Guy Fregault; Mr.Jean Martineau, president of the Canada Council; Mr.Alphonse Ouimet, president of CBC.+ is gi ol del eld rl om del ai al {hey sl ge an fi de aed ho for de fl of de an oe fem 1 der oi Bed Sey FE pit ele | could = ju wt gt 1 a ga February, 1965 CONGRESS BULLETIN Medicine Among Arab Minorities in Israel by Seymour Mishkin, McGill, Med.IV The Arab minorities comprise about 10% of Israel\u2019s population.They are divided as follows: Moslem Arabs (about 180,000), Christian Arabs (about 50,000), the Druze (about 25,000) and the Moslem Bedouins (about 22,000).These people can be collectively called the Arab minorities of Israel and form a relatively homogeneous and colourful segment of the population.Generally speaking the Arab people enjoy the same medical services that are available to the rest of the population; they are also eligible for sick fund insurance.However, in order to solve special problems and meet special needs, a number of services and institutions are maintained for these groups by the Ministry of Health.One of these special services concerns the semi-nomadic Bedouin tribes in the area south of Beer Sheba who number about 22,000.These tribes have relied for centuries on dervishes and witch doctors, but in recent years have come to recognize and appreciate the methods of modern medicine.The author visited the Central Bedouin Clinic in Beer Sheba a number of times.This very popular clinic employs a permanent staff of 2 doctors, 2 male Bedouin nurses and 2 female Jewish nurses.There are also 4 small clinics in the desert which must be reached by jeep, as there are no roads to these areas.The medical service tothe Bedouins is provided by these clinics.Severe or special cases are transferred to the Béer Sheba General Hospital, the medical centre for the Negev.The author was very impressed with the brand of general medical practice to the Bedouin, especially with the work of one doctor who had been treating these people for the last 10 years.This doctor had taken a personal interest in the Bedouin people and culture.He not only spoke Arabic fluently but was able to communicate with his patients and win their confidence.The medical treatment of these people must be guided by many factors, the doctor must be aware of the medical customs and superstitions of the Bedouins and of their great fear of being sent to a hospital.Furthermore he must take into account that once a Bedouin mounts his camel and returns to his tent in the desert he may not retwn to clinic for weeks or months.Thus the doctor may elect to prescribe a potent opiate preparation to stop the diarrhea of gastroenteritis rather than the more usual milder regimen.This difficulty in case follow-up results similar to those observed among the Jews of oriental origin, e.g., the wearing of amulets, fear of the \u2018evil eye,\u201d the self-infliction of burns, etc.Their metaphorical description of symptoms is just as bewildering at times.The primitive Bedouin insists that the doctor apply his stethoscope to any painful spot, otherwise the examination is incomplete.When no physical illness can be associated with the painful area, the patient is often placated with local injections in the overlying skin.Placebos are also commonly used.A fatalistic approach to disease is also evident.One particular \u2018house call\u2019 in the middle of the desert, was made to an old man who lay in his tent moribund form severe bronchiectasis.His son had come to fetch the doctor, not to seek medical treatment, but rather a document which would enable him to collect money from the government in return for the care for his father at home.The general impression obtained was that the Bedouins are slowly accepting modern medicine.Recently, a large percentage were immunized against smallpox by a tent-to-tent campaign.Increasing number of mothers are giving birth in hospital (already about 15%), an important advance.This will eventually lower the infant mortality rate now estimated at 48 deaths per 1,000 live births.Birth certification is still incomplete among the Bedouins.The monetary bonus of 120 Israeli pounds (about $40) given for each hospital birth is improving the situation.Death certificate are as yet almost non-existent among these people.The medical services to the remainder of the Arab population closely resembles that for Jews, but is less well developed.This situation is in part due to the fact that the Jewish population had even before the British Mandate, set up Kupat Holim or the Worker\u2019s Health Insurance organization, now the largest medical institution in Israel.Further, the large concentration of Jews in Tel Aviv before the state was established, lent itself to the organization of medical services.The Arab population was and still is mainly scattered in rural areas.At present, most of the preventive and curative services for the Arabs are organized by the Ministry of Health, in existence for only 16 years.As yet few Arabs are members of Kupat Holim; in order to observe these medical services the author visited the \u201cTriangle Area\u2019 a progressive agricultural region, as well as predominantly Arab towns of Nazareth and Acre.A Bedouin girl is pictured above helping to round up livestock.Medical treatment of these people must be guided by many factors.A doctor must take info account that once a Bedouin mounts his camel and refurns to his tent in the desert he may not return fo clinic for weeks or months.in the progression of certain diseases to advanced stages.This is especially true for tuberculosis which has a higher incidence among the Bedouins, who also have a special susceptibility to this disease.In 1956, the estimated death rate among this group from tbc was 7.3 per 100,000.The rate among veteran Jews at this time was 2.3.The traditional medical practices of the Bedouin, as well as the Druze and other Arabs, are very The \u2018triangle area\u2019 with a population of about 100,000 Arabs is bounded by the 3 Arab villages of Qualansuwa, Taiyiba and Tira and encloses a total of 18 settlements.The author stayed at the central hospital at Tira where he attended a number of clinics and also accompanied the public health nurses on many home visits.Each family was registered at the hospital where a complete medical file was kept.Full preventive and cura- Nomadic Bedouin tribes are only slowly recognizing and appreciating the methods of modern medicine.In Israel they tend fo concentrate in the area south of Beer Sheba and number approximately 22,000.tive coverage was provided.The preventive service was mainly in the form of Mothér and Child clinics as is true of the rest of the country.The general health of the population especially of the children appeared to be very good.The existing medical problems resembled those for Jewish immigrants from underdeveloped countries.However, some special problems were noted.In contrast to Jewish women, not all Arab women give birth in hospital.An intensive educational program as well as a monetary bonus for a hospital birth, has improved the situation.The \u2018triangle area\u2019 has shown the best results where only 4% of women give birth at home.In many areas of the Galilee the opposite is the case.The Arab \u2018bone setter,\u201d now outlawed, who sets fractures in casts of flour and egg, creates certain difficulties.As a rule his treatment succeeds, but when complications set in, he is unable to deal with them.In clinic a child was seen who is now crippled for life after a sever osteomyelitis complicated a compound fracture of the tibia treated by such a bone setter.Other problems include ringworm of the scalp which still affects 25% of the children in this area, even after a thorough eradication program was carried out by the Ministry of Health.The incidence in other Arab areas is much higher.Trachoma is also endemic among these people and new cases are quickly diagnosed and treated.Psychiatric problems among the Arabs is an untouched area, largely because of communication difficulties.The living conditions of the Arabs in this area were quite satisfactory.Their way of life was essentially the same as it has been for generations except for the acquisition of some modern appliances and other conveniences by a limited number of people.While some houses were simply furnished and clean, others of more modern design with fancy furniture, radios and T.V.sets, might lack bathroom facilities.Families were generally large with an average of six members in each.Next, the town of Nazareth was visited where the population of 22,000 Arabs, most of them Christian, is served medically by three mission hospitals and the Ministry of Health which runs a number of clinics.The author stayed at the Edinburgh Mission Hospital, a rather unique institution.This hospital, situated high on a mountain top just outside the old town of Nazareth, has treated only Arab patients for the last 100 years.The hospital, recognized by the Ministry of Health, functioned independently and was staff by foreign doctors and Arab nurses, who had been specially trained.The entire staff is fluent in Arabic, an important prerequisite for the proper treatment of the Arab sick.The facilities of this hospital were most adequate.The types of diseases found here were no different from those treated in other hospitals visited.However, the emergency unit was kept unusually busy mending the wounds, acquired by the Arabs during their many family feuds and street fights.It was surprising to learn that although Arab nurses represent a progressive segment of their people, they are difficult to enlist for training.Oriental custom dictates that girls are not to receive formal school education.In conservative circles it is felt that only \u2018bad girls\u2019 become nurses.At present most Arab nurses are recruited from Christian families, generally more progressive.The Acre medical district, in Israel\u2019s north, serves a total population of 150,000.The 80,000 Arabs of this area are cared for by about 11 doctors and 25 nurses.There are 14 health clinics and 22 mother and child units for the Arabs, which are run by the Ministry of Health.Kupat Holim provides a limited curative service to the Arabs as well.The medical problems of this area resembled those of the aforementioned Arab regions.The Acre district contains a large Druze population.The Druze are closely related to the Moslem Arabs but are set apart by a secret religion which they practice.They number about 25,000 in Israel and are also found in Syria and Lebanon.At present their relations with the Arabs are not good, as they have pledged their loyalty to the State of Israel, and are the only Arabs accepted for army duty.Thus while in this area a Druze village, was visisted.The rather isolated village of Kisra, located in the northern mountainous region of Israel has no outside electricity, no water supply and noincome tax, and is reached with difficulty by a jeep along donkey and camel trails.The 800 Druze who live here, live as they have for centuries.Modern civilization has penetrated in the form of a primary school, a ministry of health clinic, and a few transistor radios.Of the 40 Arab villages in the Acre district, only 4 are as inaccessible as Kisra.This situation can result in medical difficulties.Last winter, Kisra suffered a severe epidemic of measles which killed 15 children.The Israeli Parliament was very disturbed by this unfortunate incident and new legislation was quickly enacted to correct the situation.Proper roads to these areas are now being constructed and the medical services have been expanded.The Druze share many of the medical superstitions of the other Arabs.They have a special fear of the hospital and object vehemently to the idea of post mortem examination.Druze women refuse to have their reproductive organs examined by a male doctor, and as a result very few come to the hospital to give birth (less than 10%).Also diseases of the female genitalia, especially the neoplasmas, are not detected until late.The Druze pratice a secret religion which influences their reaction to disease.It is likely that they believe in the instant reincarnation of the soul and thus react very passively to death.The first doctors who entered Kisra after the measles epidemic mentioned, were shocked by the placidity of the mothers whose children had just died.(Cont'd on page 8) CONGRESS BULLETIN February, 1965 Canadian Jewish Congress National Standing Committee Report Lavy M.Becker Chairman, Foreign Affairs FOREIGN AFFAIRS Historical Recall Canadian Jewish Congress was founded in 1919 in order to deal with foreign affairs and not so much because of domestic matters.This is confirmed by the early demise of the Congress after the Jewish interest in international peace settlements seemed to have been determined.The Jewish community had then to express itself after the horrible experiences of World War I on the particular problems facing Jewish communities in what became independent states pursuant to the Wilsonian self-determination doctrine.This leads, of course, to the very famous Minorities Treaties sanctioned in the Versailles Conference and the subsequent treaties including St.Germain-en-Laye.The Canadian Jewish Congress agreed to certain resolutions and asked members of an American Delegation to Paris to represent them at the Versailles Conference.In addition, the early days of Congress were notable for the interest in the Balfour Declaration and the need for creating a homeland and to determine to support the Jewish Agency.Thus the earliest days of Congress were completely devoted to what might be called the international concerns of Canadian Jewry.The Congress ceased to function for a number of years and was not revitalized until 1934 and on this occasion it was a blend of local and international matters which: inspired its reorganization.At this time the propaganda mill of Nazi Germany was grinding out its anti-Semitic pamphlets.Fritz Wiedman, though known officially as Consul-General of Germany in San Francisco, was in fact the officer in charge of Nazi propaganda in America and his contacts in Canada included Adrien Arcand.To meet this challenge of Germany\u2019s attack against world Jewry the Canadian Jewish Congress was re-established in 1934.7\u201d ; \u2018 Thus it was that international affairs inspired the organization and reorganization of the Canadian Jewish Congress.Main Areas of Congress Activity in International Affairs, 1939-45 During the war years, 1939-1945, there was very little opportunity to do more than support the war effort but one exception of action in international Jewish causes was through the instrument of relief and immigration.This was done by the United Jewish Refugee and Relief Agencies in conjunction mostly, but not wholly, with the JDC and through the Canadian Jewish Congress Refugee Committee which brought in and settled farmers and others.In 1942 and 1943 the Canadian Jewish Congress became closely allied to the aims and objects of the World Jewish Congress which had an important Institute for Jewish Affairs which was carefully studying and doing research on all of the issues that all agreed would undoubtedly have to be part of the peace settlements.Congress was represented at the World Jewish Congress Conferences at Baltimore and Atlantic City when the main lines of what the communities would have to concern themselves with was outlined.It was at this time that the news first broke of the Nazi death machines and the evidences were now coming to light as to what was happening to the Jewish communities within \u2018Festung Europa.\u201d In 1944 attempts were made to deal with the political aspects of a post-war period and the Congress made representations to the Canadian Government asking that at Dumbarton Oaks the Jewish position be thoroughly examined with particular reference to the position of a post-war Palestine.I think it also should be told that the Canadian Jewish Congress made one of the most important contributions which had far-reaching consequences when, in 1944, on the occasion of the UNRRA Conference at which the Chairman was Mr.Pearson and the Director of UNRRA, the late Senator Lehmann, it was necessary to change the Constitution of UNRRA so as to enable the Jews who were technically enemy aliens (Hungarians, Germans, Roumanians, Austrians) be given the aid and support of UNRRA which was lifesaving for them for some years.The Canadian Jewish Congress was elected by the various Jewish organizations which were in Montreal at the time to make the plea and special permission was given to its director to address the full committee.As a result of the basic justice of the plea made, the Constitution of UNRRA was changed so as to permit Jews to be considered as victims rather than aliens.Post-War Action In 1945 at San Francisco, before the defeat of Germany, the United Nations was in the process of establishment.The Canadian Jewish Community through the Canadian Jewish Congress took a most important part in the major areas of concern to Jewry.The goals were a United Nations Charter which would respect human rights and fundamental freedom and made it one of the major parts of the United Nations Charter and the responsibility of saving Palestine from being thrown into a trusteeship which would have meant an end to its potential as a homeland either by way of an independent state or a British Commonwealth nation.The Canadian Jewish Congress delegation was well placed to deal with these matters since Mr.McKenzie King, the Canadian Prime Minister, enjoyed a particularly close relationship with the British, American and French negotiators and several members of the Canadian team were very close friends of a number of the Congress delegation.Though everybody takes credit for the success at San Francisco there is no doubt that without the joint efforts of all who were present nothing could have been accomplished; no one delegate was of any more importance than any other but it can be accurately stated that the assignment of duties at San Francisco included some very powerful responsibilities of the Canadian Jewish Congress, particularly and strangely in connection with the Chinese delegation which was one of the Big Five.Present Agenda 1.CJC is a founding member of the Claims Conference for Germany and Austria and has attended all of its meetings ever since The Hague Conference when the protocols were agreed to.The Canadian Jewish Congress in Canada is responsible for the operation of the United Restitution Office and manages its staff; to date over $32,000,000 has been received by Canadian claimants as a result of the processing of their claims through the URO.2.It has been a member of the Conference of Jewish Organizations since its inception.3.Itis an affiliate of the World Jewish Congress.4.It has enjoyed very close relationships with individual organizations in the pursuit of its obligations in international matters, e.g.with the American Jewish Committee and the B\u2019nai B'rith as well as the Board of Deputies of British Jews.PLENARY SESSION Canadian Jewish Congress National Committee Report CONSTITUTION The Constitution of the Canadian Jewish Congress attempts to create a democratic institution as an instrument to give affect to the will of the Canadian Jewish people.Since the \u2018\u201c\u2018community\u2019\u201d is a voluntary concept there are no sanctions.In this framework Congress works from base to apex.The base is the election of delegates to the triennial conferences.Delegates can be elected by the entire community since the Constitution states: See By Law #1 - The delegates pass \u2018legislation\u2019 by way of resolutions which are mandatory for the National Council to implement.The National Council expresses its decisions in between its annual meetings through the National Executive Committee (the apex) which meets every two months and on call.For emergency matters an Inner Executive comprising the Officers of Congress and the chairmen of the eight Standing Committee: UJRA,; Community Relations; Research & Archives; Education; Youth; Community Services; Religious Welfare; Foreign Affairs; assumes responsibility.Objects - a) To develop the highest standards of citizenship in the Jews of Canada by encouraging, carrying on and participating in activities of a national.patriotic, cultural and humanitarian nature; in the furtherance of the best interests of the country and of the Jewish people; b) To act in matters affecting the status, rights and welfare of Canadian Jewry; c) To investigate the causes of anti-Semitism and to devise means of abating its influences throughout the world generally and in Canada in particular; and to promote the growth of a spirit of toleration, understanding, and goodwill between all ethnic elements in Canada, and particularly between non-Jewish and Jewish citizens; d) To study problems affecting the foregoing objects; and to conduct researches and encourage studies thereon, and publish periodicals, pamphlets and other literature and information on the work of Canadian Jewish Congres in the furtherance of its objects; Sidney J.Midanik Chairman, Constitution -e) To carry on-and assist in efforts for the improvement of the social and economic and cultural conditions of Jewry, and the mitigation of their sufferings throughout the world and to cooperate with other agencies in rendering assistance and helping to rehabilitate Jewish immigrants and refugees; f) To raise funds, to collect and receive monies and property, by contributions, subscriptions, gifts, legacies and grants for the objects of Canadian Jewish Congress or for any special purpose it may determine or as may be directed by donors, consistent with its aforesaid objects; g) To purchase, own and deal with property, real and personal, moveable and immoveable to the amount of $1,000,000.00 as required for the purposes and operations of the Canadian Jewish Congress; h) To succeed and take over all the rights, obligations and property held and enjoyed by the Canadian Jewish Congress, the Canadian Jewish Committee for Refugees and the United Jewish Relief Agencies, unincorporated bodies heretofor having had their chief office in the City of Montreal.Membership 1.Every Jew, eighteen years of age or over, male or female, residing in Canada, who makes a monetary contribution in furtherance of the aims and objectives of the Canadian Jewish Congress shall be a member of the Congress and qualified to vote in the election of delegates to the National Convention.Excluded shall be persons who are members of an organization which is itself, in the discretion of the National Executive, in opposition to the aims and objectives of the Congress.Education in Quebec \u2018A province-wide Conference was held recently in Quebec City convened by the Minister of Education, discussing the \u201cOperation 55\u201d which includes the formation of regional boards to advise on High School education.Mr.Ben Beutel, chairman of the Education Committee, has been a member of the delegation named by the Protestant School Board of Greater Montreal, which cothprised five members of the Advisory Committee recently set up by the Protestant School Board in connection with \u2018Operation 55.\u201d PR Meetings Mr.Marvin Gelber, M.P.addressed a meeting of the Don Mills, Ontario, B'nai B\u2019rith Lodge on the subject of hate literature.Mr.Montague Raisman addressed a group of the B\u2019nai B\u2019rith Youth Organization in Toronto on the work of the Joint Community Relations Committee.Quebec Canadian Jewish Congress extended congratulations to Archbishop Maurice Roy of Quebec, who has recently been created a Cardinal.5.It operates a Joint Committee with the United Zionist Council on matters affecting the Middle East.These associations have enabled it to share experiences as well as to profit by pooling of facts.It is impossible forany organization alone to deal with such matters as international anti-Semitism, such things as the boycott of Israeli goods and services.In the pursuit of its objectives it has had to deal with Government on many levels, but most particularly of course with the Department of External Affairs and with the Canadian representatives and delegates to a host of international organizations, mainly the United Nations and its agencies.We have been flattered in being told that our representations at the United Nations in recent years at the time of the Debate on Arab Refugees and Israel were crucial to the success of the Israeli position.Our present concerns are, of course, the concerns of most representative Jewish organizations the world over, and they are: 1.The attempt to bring to the attention of the world and obtain the intervention of our Government in solving the problems of the Jews in the USSR; 2.The recognition that the Ecumenical Council may be of great historic significance and that we must endeavour to obtain the full support of the Canadian bishops attending.The next steps are to be taken in September, 1965.3.In the United Nations Council the anti-discriminatory and religious tolerance convenants must be espoused by the Canadian delegates at the United Nations; 4.We must be alert to the possibilities of an international erypto-fascist and neo- nazi conspiracy.oS dl February, 1965 CONGRESS BULLETIN _ 07 2 \u2014_ men ee 0 \u2014_\u2014 - re es \u2014_\u2014\u2014 \u2014\u2014\u2014 - ) Themes from the Old Testament is a statement of struggle.Saul Field, a Canadian artist and printmaker residing in Toronto, has interpreted the timeless stories of the Old Testament with such force that each print becomes a play.However, unlike a play his prints may be touched and the fingers demand this satisfaction.Mr.Field has created this need for contact by making his plates of an i original material which he calls Compotina, instead of zinc or copper which are vin commonly employed in intaglio relief printing.With this material, the artist is able to build shapes and impressions for Compotina is a malleable substance.Thus the prints are composed of clearly defined mounds and crevices which the hand must explore.; Although the artist studied with Nicholas Hornyansky and Guillermo Silva, i Stanislovsky\u2019s philosophy has profoundly influenced his work.As the director must A understand and employ all words which are essential to his interpretation of a play, ig, so Mr.Field seeks to understand and employ all tools of colour composition and ly material to give meaning to the theme.iy | A feeling of life is generated by the colour and texture of the prints which are a sympathetic to the stories they represent.\u2018\u2018Jezebel\u201d is placed before a menacing a black.\u2018Exodus\u2019 has become a print of orange and red terrain \u2014 \u201cAnd Moses a stretched out his hand over the sea; and the Lord caused the sea to go back.\u201d ma\u2018 Themes from the Old Testament has been printed by hand on Rives paper which Bir is handmade in France, in a limited edition of 150 copies.Sponsors for the portfolio 8 te ; include: the National Library of Canada; Ecole des Beaux Arts, Montreal; Bibliotheque Ry | de Ville de Montreal; Galerie Dresdnere, Toronto and Montreal; Toronto Public ve EXODUS \u2014 \"This theme is at oncearchaeologicaland sensory.| used hot colours Library; University of Toronto; York University; Massey College and institutions in to fo a hieve the presence of man, without depicting him in the episode.| worked New Orleans, Boston, Glendale, California.Some of the proof prints are a part of | for a geological cross section of the land mass below the sea, and impressed >, >.\u2019 i my pocket comb to scrape ridges insculpturedrelief and copper screen for other the Vincent Price collection.levels and planes.\u201d Maureen O'Donnell re 2 cutlines are written by the artist \u2014 Ed.AT ig il 1 1g Wet a rehes ale te of omic | bout pie rs, ms | 0.wl ons and fir lr adh.THE WOMAN NAMED RAHAB \u2014 \u201cThe harlot who le served Joshua's spies.This print is also an intaglio i, and collage.The collage portion is an actual hardened vote piece of cheese cloth | use as a plate for the scarlet cloth in the window.The rest of the plate, of course - ol is compotina.| impressed crinkled silver foil to à achieve wall textures.The nude is horizontal in the jvès | position of her vocation, in sensuous ochres and ?pinks.URIAH \u2014 \u201cThis is in the Greek tragedy concept \u2014 Man\u2019s Fate.The Hittite encased in a womb, and David's \u2014 gaze directed to it, contemplatively, whilst the sensual immediacy of the nude Bathsheba is almost unnoticed.\u201d 0: i ul ae i: Ve int ji iit a - iy i fs nd if pd J£ d à TAMAR \u2014 This print is not only an infaglio, it is also a collage.To create this print | made a compotina plate to have Tamar's head in yellows and the space ib behind in transparencies of light blues and pale reddish pinks.For the veil below the eyes | used an actual piece of my wife's mantilla.wo i ¥ | JEZEBEL \u2014 \u201cThe wall here is the chief prop.This time to recreate the moment of the Prophet Naboth's b execution.| chose black and white for the wall, the texture is from farlion, the Baal head is engraved on the ® hardened compotina plate.The Jezebel head is brown.\u201d ge ; ; YES VI3YTUDIND Convenced by the CONGRESS BULLETIN SECOND TEACHERS\u2019 CONFERENCE , 9 TEACHERS mms CONFERENCE Sponsored the | 5 CANADA JEWISH OWGRESS | Tw A scene at the Second Annual Teachers\u2019 Conference recently held in Monireal.The recommendations of the Parent Commission for changes in the educational set-up in Quebec were praised as \u2018\u2018an attempt at a leap into the 21st century\u201d at the Second Annual Teachers\u2019 Conference sponsored recently in Montreal by the Council of Jewish Educational Institutions of the Canadian Jewish Congress, which brought together close to 400 teachers serving 18 Jewish educational institutions in Montreal.Some of these schools offer integrated programs of secular and Jewish studies and some provide Jewish education after school hours for children attending Protestant schools.The Conference was addressed on \u201cThe Proposed Educational Reforms in Quebec and their Implications for Jewish Education\u201d by Mr.Shloime Wiseman, prineci- pal of Jewish People\u2019s Schools in Montreal, who noted that \u201cpublished reports have already assured the public that the Private and Independent schools will continue to have their rightful place in the scheme of the over-all educational system.\u201d He anticipated, however, that Jewish Day Schools will have to make \u201csome adjustments.\u201d He suggested that the elementary schools expand to include Grade 8 and thus have a complete Junior High School and he also envisaged the establishment of \u2018one communal Jewish High School for all types of Jewish Schools, at least those that do not have High Schools of their own.\u201d The two-day Conference worked out recommendations for revisions in the curriculum for the teaching of Jewish History and of the Bible in Jewish schools and called for an intensive in-training program for teaching French and for the application of the new Cuisinaire Method of teaching Maths.The Conference also projected the establishment of an Audio-Visual Centre for Jewish schools in Canada under the aegis of the Canadian Jewish Congress.A special tribute was paid at the conference to Mr.M.I.Mendelsohn, principal of the Adath Israel School, on completion of 50 years in education.\u201cThe conference was another indication of the complete unanimity of the Jewish community of Montreal on the importance of Jewish education for the survival of Jews as a group in an active and vital form within the environment of a powerful, attractive and highly developed majority culture.The strong convictions expressed at the Conference as to the possible methods of achieving these goals speak for the vitality of the Jewish community and of its firm desire to be fully integrated into the social, economic and political life of the country, while as a group striving to retain its religious and cultural identity,\u2019 said Dr.Samuel Lewin, associate education director of Canadian Jewish Congress, in summing up the proceedings at the concluding dinner.A special guest at the conference was Prof.Sidney Pleskin of New York and those who led various sessions included Rabbi M.Lewittes; Messrs.S.Lerner, S.Dunsky, Rabbi Y.Grossman, N.Wil- chesky, J.Leibovitch, Miss Sylvia Marks- field, Mrs.A.Moss, Dr.John Richmond, Mr.L.Kronitz, Rabbi L.Kramer, Mr.S.Meldung, Mrs.S.Lubitsch, Mrs.C.P.Foster, Mrs.J.N.Levine, Mrs.H.Yale, Mr.J.Zipper, Rabbi D.Rogoff.The number of Jewish immigrants who came to Canada in 1964 was 3,113 as compared to 2,180 in 1963.By country of citizenship, immigrants from Israel numbered 929 (the number was 746 in 1963).By country of last permanent residence, those from Israel numbered 871 (688 in 1963).During 1964 immigrants totalled 112,606 compared to 93,151 the previous year \u2014 an increase of 21%.Immigrants from Britain numbered 29,279 followed by those from Italy - 19,927; United States - 12,565; Germany - 5,992; Portugal - 5,309; France - 4,542.Immigration from France has been increasing gradually and in the last four years the intake from that country has almost doubled.Comment {Cont'd from page 1) Tribute to SirWinston At the Congress National Executive meeting held in Montreal on January 31, 1965, a tribute was paid to the memory of Sir Winston Churchill and the following resolution was authorized to be formally inscribed in the records of Canadian Jewish Congress with copies to be transmitted to Lady Churchill and to the Government of the United Kingdom: \u201cThe entire civilized world is in debt to Winston Churchill and there is universal mourning on the death of this colossal figure of our times.While he will be forever remembered as the symbol of the fight of the democracies in the period of World War II his career was so varied that he was truly the man of this century.The first world figure to recognize the evils of Nazism and the scourge of Fascism while other statesmen were compromising the issues, he remained the implacable foe of Hitler and Mussolini.The Jewish world has its own special reason to express its deep condolences and profound sympathy.His loyalty to the Balfour Declaration endeared him to the world Jewish community and his unswerving faith of the justice of the creation of a Jewish homeland made him the foremost non-Jewish leader in Zionism.As Churchill himself said at Mount Scopus in 1921: \u2018My heart has throbbed with Zionism for many years.\u2019 \u201cThe Canadian Jewish Congress records for its permanent archives its tribute to the life and memory of this unique civilized historian, author, soldier and statesman recognizing that the world was infinitely the richer for his career.\u201d N Arabs (continued from page 5) The Druze, like other Arabs, is slowly accepting modern medicine.His acceptance is mainly impeded by traditional beliefs and practices.However, as with the other groups, some Druze are very progressive and have accepted modern medicine completely.From this short account, one can appreciate how important it is to understand the Arab people and their ways in order to provide suitable medical services, Although many doctors and nurses have made a special effort to understand their patients, others have not.This shortcoming is noticeable in the large urban hospitals which serve both Jews and Arabs.In these places very few of the doctors and nurses speak Arabic.This lack of communication often makes the Arab\u2019s stay in hospital a fearful and bewildering experience.It is fair to conclude that the health of the Israeli Arab is as good or better than anywhere else in the Arab world.For example, the overall infant mortality among Arabs in 1961 was 41.59 deaths per 1000 live births, among the lowest in the Arab world.Furthermore certain diseases like trachoma, malaria, tuberculosis, etc.which are prevalent in the Arab countries, have a much lower in- February, 1965 Henry Blatt Chairs Montreal 1965 Joint Campaign Henry Blatt Henry Blatt, a member of the National Executive Committee of Canadian Jewish Congress, has been appointed general chairman of the 1965 Montreal Joint Campaign for Combined Jewish Appeal and United Israel Appeal.Mr.Blatt has been very active in Jewish community affairs for many years and in 1964 was elected as Charter President of the new Canadian Grand District No.22 of B\u2019nai Brith.He is a past president of Mount Royal Lodge, the oldest B\u2019nai B'rith Lodge in Montreal.Canadian Jewish Congress and B\u2019nai B\u2019rith have worked closely together on matters of common concern since 1938 when the Joint Community Relations Committee of Canadian Jewish Congress and B\u2019nai B\u2019rith was formed.The, purpose of the committee is to safeguard the status, rights and welfare of the Canadian Jewish community, to combat anti-Semitism and to promote understanding and goodwill among all ethnic and religious groups.Mr.Blatt is a member of the board of trustees of the Federation of Jewish Community Services, a board member of Maimonides Hospital and Home for the Aged and a board member of the YM-YWHA of Montreal.cidience in Israel.The Arab still has some way to go to attain the sophisticated medical status of the veteran Israeli.The country is very conscious of the problems of its Arab population and is actively engaged in the improvement of the situation.Mr.Mishkin collected the material for \"the foregoing article during an eleven- week visit to Israel in the summer of 1964 as a Smith, Kline and French Foreign Fellow.of Jewish interests, the conscience of the community in matters affecting Jewry as a unity, the voice of Canadian Jewry in official statements, demands and submissions on a wide variety of matters at home and abroad, and the partner of all groups whose aims and object it is to make of Canadian Jewishness a meaningful way of life dedicated to its loyalty to Canada and to the perpetuation of tested Jewish traditions and value within this framework.The 14th assembly takes on especial significance because of the present malaise in diaspora Jewish life and in Canada itself.There is the Quebec transformations important to Canadians in general with some special aspects of concern to the Jewish citizenry.There is the problem of the exact place in the Canadian nation (or is it fwo nations?or worse, yet only a geographical expression?) of the non-French, non-Anglo-Saxons demanding an alert and vigilant Congress for our interests and self-protection.There is the haunting fear of world forces in dissarray and the possible resurgence of neo-Nazism or, at if not that, militant anti-Semitism.There are the problems of communities, in extremis, (Cuba, Morocco, Tunisia) where our help is urgently required.There are our obligations to give strength to COJO (Council of World Jewish Organizations) to meet its variety of problems looming large.On a happier note, we must participate to stimulate the new World Council of Education and the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture (which will be the successor organization of the Conference of Jewish Material Claims Against Germany) of which Congress is a charter member.There are all of these and to specify them is immediately to recognize that at the Plenary Sessions there will be many more topics engaging the delegates.The 14th Plenary Sessions from May 20 to May 24 are of the utmost importance to every Jew in Canada whether he knows it or not, is interested or not, elects delegates or not.It is necessary to project these sessions with their debates and programmes and resultant resolutions as the most significant event in Canadian Jewish life.y da, à a a + Are v \\ 3 A 4 a Pw Ra f \u2014_ % ; \u2014 I)?th + rg &° À LE ISRAEL.little Adina, a bright and lively youngster, one of eight children in an immigrant family recently arrived from North Africa, will learn to talk easily.The teacher is a native Israeli girl who was trained in the United States.Sponsoring the program for pre-school age deaf children is Micha, a voluntary agency which receives finanacial and technical support from MALBEN, the welfare program for aged, ill and handicapped immigrants in Israel maintained by the Joint Distribution Committee which is a major beneficiary of the United Jewish Relief Agencies of Canadian Jewish Congress."]