Hippo ruling shows Vatican and Beth Din parallels...
Fish flesh
l It appears that a delighted audience at the recent staff dinner of a Roman Catholic publishing firm heard one of their Archbishops, in an after-dinner speech, state that he had managed to secure a Vatican ruling on the hippopotamus; For ecclesiastical purposes, he said, the hippopotamus could be regarded as a fish, since it spends most of its time in the water and both conceives and begets its young in the water. The practical advantages of this decision for natives of Central Africa who might have the good fortune to catch a hippo on Thursday afternoon are obvious; they are no longer compelled (continues my friend), in obedience to ecclesiastical discipline, to refrain from indulging in “a good dish of hippopotamus steak” on a Friday! My friend —- naive man that he is — artlessly concludes with observations on parallels between a Vatican and a Beth Din.
Jewish Vatican City suggested
l A suggestion for the establishment in Jerusalem of a Jewish “Vatican City” which might be called Kerem Yavne, was made by Bro. Daniel Schonfeld, when he gave the presidential address after the installation of the officers of the B’nai B’rith First Lodge of England at a ceremony held at Woburn House, London, on Sunday. Bro. Schonfeld, who made it dear that he.was expressing a personal view, declared that Israel could and should make a contribution towards preserving Jewish life in the Galut by the creation by statute of an autonomous Spiritual centre within the city of Jerusalem.
Play characterisations altered
l Two plays being performed in Holland have been altered in the interest of the Jewish community. In Sheridan’s The School for Scandal, Moses, the usurer, is depicted as a non-Jew. The director has explained that it might be inadvisable, in a country where only so recently the Jews had endured so much suffering, to arouse even the suspicion of anti-Jewish bias...In The Troublemakers by the USA playwright, George Bellak, which condemns discrimination against a family of Roman Catholic Irish immigrants, the family is portrayed as German-Jewish refugees. The director has stated that he thought the problem would become much clearer to his audiences when it dealt with a subject they knew something about. The alteration has been sharply criticised, especially in the local Catholic press.