Yiddish allowed, and Jewish youth clubs
Soviet concessions to Jewish culture
What can be considered as an official Soviet concession to Yiddish and Jewish culture has just been announced from Moscow. For the first time since Stalin’s ban on Yiddish, the closing of Jewish “newspapers, and the arrest of Jewish writers 11 years ago, the Soviet authorities have published a single volume of Sholem Aleichem’s stories in Yiddish. The volume, consisting of some 200 pages, was published by the official Russian State Publishing House in Moscow. It is to be sold at three shillings a copy. The book appeared on the eve of the 100th anniversary celebration of Sholem Aleichem’s birth, which has been made a special occasion in the Soviet Union and in some satellite states. In Moscow, Jewish and non Jewish writers and actors read extracts from his work.
Professor Toynbee’s second thoughts
Professor Arnold Toynbee, author of the monumental and controversial Study of History. has revised some of his ideas about Jews and Judaism. In a statement for the symposium of the World Jewish Congress (British Section), held in London on Monday, under the title “Is there a Jewish future in the Diaspora?” the historian not only expressed his belief in Jewish survival but described it as desirable. He saw the spreading of “authentic Judaism” the ultimate solution for the relationship between the Jews and the rest of humanity. It will be remembered that in his Study of History Toynbee dismissed the Jews as a fossil of civilisation, depicted Judaism as a religion of aggressive intolerance and passed harsh judgement on the establishment of Israel and the treatment of the Arabs.
Baffled Jewish youth
The average Jewish youth club member knows little, and cares even less, about Judaism or the State of Israel. This was the view of a group of youth club workers attending a leadership training course organised by the Association for Jewish Youth. All the members of the discussion group, declared themselves baffled on how to bring Judaism into the clubs. Some even doubted whether it wasdesirable. They placed the blame for this stale of affairs on the home, the religion classes, the synagogue, and the club managers. As one speaker put it: “Some of our best members are non-Jews. If we tried to bring Orthodox Judaism into our club we would lose them — and at the same time a lot of Jewish members too!”