President Zalman Shazar of Israel, addressed himself to Israelis and to Jews the world over in a Rosh Hashana message released today on the eve of the High Holy Days. He expressed gratification that “the year that just passed was a year without war” and regret that it has “at the same time been a year without peace.” He spoke of growing aliya both “from countries of affluence and countries of distress” and of “the pride and conscience” stirred by “the muffled outcry of the Jews of silence.” But the thrust of the holiday message, aimed at fellow Israelis, dealt with the growing seriousness of social and economic problems in the country.
“There has not always been a satisfactory solution for the housing needs resulting from inner immigration particularly in large families, and the resulting strain and tension have sometimes found distorted and unfamiliar ways of expression,” he said. “So, too, there has been no narrowing but rather widening in the economic gap between large numbers of the undernourished and the individuals who have grown too easily. ‘Give me neither poverty nor riches,’ said the wisest of men. We have been afflicted by both: by debasing poverty, mother of sins, and by deforming wealth that leads to corruption and lack of restraint. Against both of these we will have to struggle systematically, wisely, with a sense of communal responsibility,” Shazar said.
“In the year before us,” he went on, “let the challenge of great new efforts be directed not only to government and institutions but to each citizen among us. Absorption of immigration must not be the task only of those officially responsible for it: It is theirs first and foremost, but not their’s alone–each one of us must help with all his heart and strength. Economic retrenchment must be practiced not only by institutions and government but first and foremost by every household within the limits of its capacity. In our gratitude for being spared great sacrifice of life, let us not be slow to sacrifice waste and luxury. With dangers still threatening, let us continue to carry out the oblibations imperative in years of danger.”
Referring to Israel’s quest for a settlement of the Middle East conflict, Shazar said, “We are still in the very midst of our striving for peace. And it is still a unilateral striving, not matched by genuine movement forward on the other side. The nays of Khartoum have been reasserted at the recent meeting of the three allied Arab rulers. The threat of re-opened hostilities hangs over our heads, proclaimed and reproclaimed as it is by the president of Egypt. It makes vigilance on our part no less pressing than the gravest days.”
Shazar observed that “The year just past has been an unbroken demonstration of the unity of our scattered people. Jewish communities everywhere have been moved to rage and to a sense of identification with the captive, wretched remnant in Iraq, so brutally mistreated by that country’s rulers. The muffled outcry of the Jews silence has stirred the pride and conscience of their fellow Jews in far-off countries. The basic Jewish principle that ‘All Israel are responsible for each other’ has been expressed this year in the Zionist enrollment campaign and, more than that, has left its imprint indelibly upon all the life of world Jewry, which through its many agencies and avenues has reached unprecedented heights of philanthropic giving. This has been in many ways a year of summit in the moulding of our people’s unity.
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