Prohibitions and admonitions won’t stem the tide of inter-marriages. Prof. Moshe Davis. founder and head of the Institute of Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University, declared here yesterday in an address to a special seminar session of the B’nai B’rith Board of Governors. Prof. Davis listed inter-marriage as one of the three major problems of contemporary Jewry. The others, he said, were the nature of Jewish leadership and the relationship between Israel and diaspora Jewry.
Prof. Davis said the increase in inter-marriage among Jews stemmed from the changing demography that has made Jews a Western people and the free society of the West that has led to a higher level of assimilation. He said the issue is not inter-marriage but the quality of contemporary Jewish family live with the stress on the family. According to Prof. Davis, Jewish family life can be maintained and perpetuated even in mixed families.
Regarding Jewish leadership, Prof. Davis noted that unlike modern systems of life, where research precedes decisions, Jewish communities usually adopt decisions based on instinct, nostalgia, vested interests and the commitments of the leaders. Only rarely are the decisions derived from the actual needs of the contemporary way of life of the Jewish masses, he said.
Israel’s film censorship board by majority vote today okayed the showing of Marlon Brando’s controversial film. "The Last Tango in Paris" for showing in Israel to persons over 18. Two members of the board had demanded that the film be banned because of its explicit sexual content and four others insisted that some cuts be made. But a 10-member majority voted to permit the film to be screened without cuts.
Mrs. Faye L. Schenk, past president of Hadassah, and now chairman of the Hadassah Medical Organization, reported that six Jewish women staged a two-day hunger strike outside the Central Post Office in Kishinev on March 7 in protest against the Moldavian Interior Ministry’s refusal to grant their families exit visas for Israel. Among the participants were: Raina S. Tsukerman and Rosalia Dorfman. At the conclusion of the fast the women sent appeals to the International Red Cross, the International Federation of Women and to Soviet President Nikolai V. Podgorny.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
