}
I
YOM‘KIPiUR
1966
One of the less praiseworthy customs peculiar to British Jews is
‘their almost universal practice of adding to their New year greeténgs
It is of course meant kindly, and
the words "and well over the fast".
perhaps one should not be too fastidioug; but'to me this phrase has
‘
always seemed to carry an unfortunate overtone, namely that the Day of
Atonement is an ordeal to be endured, so that, when it is over, we breathe
a sigh cf relief and forget all about it.
'
I hope that we shall got forget all about it tonight, for that would
‘
defegt its whole purpose, which is hot to instil into us a hanger for
food} but to instil into us a hunger for righteousness.
And therefore
our very first act when wé retunn to our hgmes should be, not to eat a
meal, but to perform a’Mitzvah.
‘
Ag a matter of fact, there is an old custom very much in that spirit.
Immediately after the conclusion of the Day of Atonement, ana before
doing anything else, pious Jews used to make a start with the building
of the Sukkah, so that the perfonnance of this Mitzvah would be their
first act of the new year.
;
’
gut the building of the Sukkah, howeher important, is only a ritual
act, and it would beimore in keeping wgth our understanding of Judaism
if we wgre to.choose, as 223 first act; thg performance of an ethical
Mitah,
an act of kindness and compassion, of generésity and helpfulness,
on behalf of those in need.
As.a matter of facy, just yhat has been our L.J.S. practice for many
But this year, I hope, we shall take it even more seriously than
in the past. For one thing, I suggest that we should sign our cheques
years.
LEO BM:t
u ‘Q
gOLLEGE
My
...
2 _
and seal our envelopes even before we sit down to our meals.
That
would be a really meaningful fulfilment of the principle which I have‘
been talking.about(§nd a significant adapation of an
afiijint custojg‘
For another, I hope that this year We shall a}; do it; 1e% no—one wUL
exclude himself’or henself;[let us all reélise that, without such an
act of Tzedakah, our observance of the Day of Atonement is incomplete
and insufficient;]
‘
And then there is to be another difference which I mugt explain to
you. In the pagt our appeal has always hgd one object or at the most
two.
ibis ygar, and I hope in the ffifure, we shall make a threefold
effort, corresponding to the three areas in which, I belfieve, our
responsibility lies.
We have an obligation, wbioh We have always recognised and Which we
shall continue t9 recognise, to help the geedy members of our own AngloJewish‘ community, to look after those who, becauseyoi’ some physical
handicap or in consequence of any other misfortune, requiré Special
care and assistance. We have in this respect a fine record which mfist
b? maintained.
7
7
But our responsibility extends further.
It includes also our fellow:
Jews in other lands.
As a people scattered all over the worlq, it has
always been neCessary for us, necessary for our very SuiVal, to ifisist
that the more secure and propperous of our communities have an obligation
to help those which are less secure and less pr0§perous, and especially
those which are under any threat of discrimifiation or persecution.
Surely
this is a lgssgn which our history should haVe taught us wellb Ehink,
for example, how many of our martyrs would be alive today if this principle
had been heeded more generously between 1933 and 1939!
But even there our responsibility does not end.
We are not only Jews;
we are also human beings; and what is more, our Judaian itselflJEEnjoins us
anéJexhorts us to be helpful and compassionate to Jewa and Gentiles a;ike
— in the words of the Talmud, to feed their poor, to visit their sick,
to bury their dead, and to comfort their mourners (cf. Montefiore and
Loewe's Rabbinic Anthology, p. 424).
As Hillel saga, "If I am only for
It is our clear duty, as Jews, to help those in
myself, what am I?"
distress, not only our fellow—Jews, but our fellow—countrymen and our
fellow human hangs, regardless of religion or race.
So these are the three areas of our responsibility.
All are essential.
All are important.
If we were to neglect any one of them, we should be
doing less than our duty.
Under the first heading we are invited this year to give urgently
needed help to the Residential Centre for Jewish Deaf Children 2H
Watt
later moved to N§§§§§gf§§gl,
It
wwwmfi
to Néghfiiagaie
XXXXKXKEH} which was founded almost exacily a hundred years ago.
began in Whitechapel,
then
bane, and finally to its present site in Tottenham. Its history is a
remarkable one. Already in the last century it was one of the pioneering
institutions of its kind, achieving a major break-through in the care and
education of the deaf when it introduced the so—called oral system, teach—
ing the deaf to liPTread and to speak instead of relying only on signs
it is not only a hostel for deaf children
and finger spelling.
qay
who need to be resident, but also a day centre which provides a multitude
of recrea§ional and educational activities, including Jewish religious
education, for Jewish deaf children of school age who live in their
own homes.
i”?
'Deafnegs, as I am sure you realise,
handicaps.
its
one of the worst of all
But it is also a handicap which can be, to a remarkable
extent, overcome by the use of modern facilities and techniques.
its wonderful effort to do
juvst
In
that, the Residential Centzje for Jewish
Deaf Children has accumulated a crippling overdraft of £216,000.
Need
I say more?
Under the second heading, we and all the other congregations of our
movement, gre being asked this year to.make a major effort on behalf of
the J.P.A.,, the Joint Palestine Appeal.
I am quite sure, long overdue.
It will be the first time, but
For what does the J .P.A. do?
It takes
Jewish families from countries - especially East European, North African
and Middle‘Eastern countries - where their security and vvellfbei‘ng are
threatened; where they suffer- from‘disggised
ozf
undisguised discrimination;
where they live in ffear of persecution; where their freedom of self—
ex_pre_ssion as Jewa,
individually
where the possibility to
{and
collectively, is denied or curtailed;
emigratereiighé—eneug‘h-én-semmes, may
at any moment become an impossibility; where, in short, there is no future
for Jewish life -,it takes thgse families and ships them to Israel, where
they usually arrive destituté, laden with nothing but memories of
an-Wagéfiy, and there‘assists them
to build up a new life, a
ljrfe
to find housing and employmen't; gnd
of freedom and hoye.
In other
xfirdm
it conducts a rescue operation on an enormous scale.
Just how vast an ufidertaking it is you will realise whenVI remind ygu
that since 1948 nearly’twg million Jews have gone to Israel, an average
of almost 100,0009er year,
'and that'ttge
absorption, on the part of
the’ J..P.fi.,
cpst of transportation and
is estimated at £600 per person.
a 5
.-
And that is only one-third of the cost.
by the State of Israel itsélf.
The other two-thirds are borne
Surely, whatever our views may be about
Zionism, we must marvel at, and be profoundly thankfu1_to, the State of
Israel which has consistently, since its establishment, maintained an
open doordpolicy, welcoming any Jew from any country, no matter how
destitute, no matter how unskilled, no mattegigéck in body or mind -
welcomed them and, as I said, shouldered the greater part of the enormous
burden of economic absorption and social integration.
u
Surely it is right that the Jewish communities of the Diaspora,
especially the more prosperous ones, should share this responsibility.
And that is what the J.P.A. is for.
Last year it raised two million
This year its target is three million. Surely
we, the Liberal Jewish secyion of the commumity, must do our share, and
Pognds in England alone.
.
a worthy share. We must not let it be said that we care less than others:
This, then, is not an appeal for Israel.
It is an appeal for our
fellow-Jews of many lands, those of them who suffer the age—old Jewish
tragedy of homelessness but who today have a country which is willing
and eager to give them a home - a home and a future.
Finally we ask your support for the Lady Hoare Thalidomide Appeal.
Do you remember the tragedy which occurred about four years ago when,
within a relatively short period, about 900 children were barn in this
country wiyhout arms or legs, many of them also deficient in eyesight
or hearing, as a result - at least this was found to be the cause in
many or the cases — of a drug called thalidomide which the mothers had
taken on doctor's orders during pregnancy? It was a disaster so horrifying
that many of us must cogfess to our shame that, after reading tge shocking
headlines in the papers, we soon shut the memory of it out of our minds.
T 6 ‘
Fortunately not all of us did so;
In
July 1962 Lady Hoare, then Lady
1
Mayoress of London, launched a National Appeal as a result of which what
3
can only be described as miracles have been and are bbing perférmed by
doctors, technicians and social workers in a number of research establish—é
‘
ments an@ other institufiions up and @0wn the country. It seems hardly
credible, but many of theée children, now four years old, are beginning
to walk and to feed themselves and to learn what other children learn
and to lead something at least faintly resembling a normal life, thanks
to artificial limbs of the most astounding ingenuity and thakks to the
'
most devoted Welfare Work; and What is more, the advances which are being
made, and the experience which is being gained, are proVing and will
prove of enormous benefit, not only to the victims of thg thalidomide
tragedy, but to thousands of other peeple, young and old, who are
similarly handicgpped; But it is all extremely costly work, as you
can well imagine, and many hundreds of thousands of Pounds aré needed
to continue it and to accelerate it and t9 extend it.
I need hardly
add that @here nevér was a_weythien_cau£§1—er a more pdgnant $333 for
rachmanut, compassion.
These then are the three causes which we are asked this year to
support. ¥ou may earmark your contribution for one of them only, if
you prefen, or you can let us Know how you wish it to be gppprtioned.
Otherwise it will be equally disflibuted between all three, and I hope
that that is what most of you would wish.
And finally, if‘you wonder how much you should give, there is a
very simple answer. Please don’t give more than you can afford...amd
Then you wil; have concluded the Penitential
SeaSon as it should be concluded, and, What is more, you will have begun
the New Year as it should be begun.
please don't give less.