A Magazine for All Themes

A “think” periodical is not likely to garner mass circulation, but it certainly engenders controversy. That is why editing the Zionist quarterly “Forum” is no easy task, according to editor Zvi Yaron, who immigrated to Israel from Britain in 1950. But Yaron, a member of Kibbutz Lavi in lower Galilee, goes at it with gusto and is performing an important service in the realm of ideas.

“Forum” deals, by definition, with “The Jewish People, Zionism and Israel,” a very broad area that allows a wide spectrum of viewpoints. The magazine is a continuation of “Dispersion and Unity.” a periodical that appeared for many years, though not on a regular basis. “Forum” will appear regularly. Its first two editions were out on schedule and the third, the winter edition, will be ready shortly, if the budget and the printing plant allow.

A sampling of the contents of “Forum” is an indication of its lively nature. The first edition featured an article by Dr. Gary Schiff, professor of Jewish Studies and Political Science at City College, City University, New York. The subject was American Jews and Israel, Schiff claimed that there is an explicit avowal of the centrality of Israel in the mainstream of organized American-Jewish life. But there is also a small, variegated but articulate opposition. Schiff also reported a decline in the reliance on fund-raising and the growth of political strategies to serve Israel’s interests.

Yaron told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that the professor’s article drew different reactions in the U.S. While the social scientists said his examination of the political relationships between American Jewry and Israel was “excellent,” the politicians felt Schiff had not done sufficient justice to the role they play.

ARTICLES ENGENDER CONTROVERSY

The same edition contained two opposing viewpoints on the delicate issue of the Palestinians. The writers were Dr. Yaacov Goldstein of Haifa University’s department of “Land of Israel” studies, and Dr. Mordechai Nissan, a rerearch fellow on Middle East affairs at the Hebrew University’s Truman Center. Both addressed themselves to the problem of what degree moral questions affect Israeli policy toward the Palestinians. The debate on the subject continued in the second edition where writer Misha Louvish expressed his views.

Prof. Melvin Urofsky, head of the history department at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, triggered a controversy over aliya from America. In an article in the second edition of “Forum” he said the slow rate of immigration from the U.S. could be explained by Israel’s failure to offer “the lure of greater opportunity that is the motivating force of any immigration.” Not unpredictably, three American olim took issue with Urofsky.

Moshe Kohn, formerly of New York who is a member of the Jerusalem Post staff, argued that in the history of the Jewish people it was always the minority that led the way. Ephraim Tabory, of Bar Ilan University, claimed that idealism still plays a role in Israeli society. And Michael Graetz, rabbi of the Conservative congregation in Omer, near Beersheba, who came to Israel in 1967, accused Urofsky of failing to discern the great spiritual renewal in Israel “because he doesn’t live here.”

The latest edition of “Forum” contains an article by sociologist Janet O’Dea who describes the Gush Emunim as a religious rather than political phenomenon. That view will be challenged in the next edition by novelist and essayist Shulamit Har Even who sees the Gush as a political movement that emerged from the Yom Kippur War.

Yaron brings the credentials of a scholar to his job. He is the author of a book on the philosophy of the late Rabbi Kook, published last year by the World Zionist Organization’s Torah Education Department. He also wrote the study of religion in Israel that appeared in the 1976 American Jewish Yearbook published by the American Jewish Committee and the Jewish Publication Society of America.