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5423972_8_1_0523.xml
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5423972_8_1_0523.xml
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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<?oxygen RNGSchema="../schema/flps0.2.rnc" type="compact"?>
<TEI xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0">
<teiHeader>
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<title>
<bibl><title>Daily Jewish Courier</title>,
<date when="1923-03-07">Mar. 7, 1923</date>.
<title level="a">A Helpless Community</title><title level="a" type="sub">(Editorial in English)</title></bibl>
</title>
</titleStmt>
<publicationStmt>
<publisher>The Newberry Library</publisher>
<pubPlace>Chicago, Illinois</pubPlace>
<address>
<addrLine>60 West Walton</addrLine>
<addrLine>Chicago, IL 60610</addrLine>
<addrLine>USA</addrLine>
<addrLine>http://www.newberry.org</addrLine>
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<idno>5423972_8_1_0523</idno>
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<notesStmt>
<note>Transcribed from digital images contributed to the Internet
Archive by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.</note>
</notesStmt>
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<bibl><title>Chicago Foreign Language Press Survey</title>, <date>1936-1941</date>,
<sponsor>Works Projects Administration</sponsor>,
<sponsor>Chicago Public Library Omnibus Project</sponsor></bibl>
<bibl>
<title>Chicago Foreign Language Press Survey [microform]</title>
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<sponsor>Internet Archive</sponsor>
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<catRef target="#grp-jewish"/>
<catRef target="#grp-jewish #code-III.A"/>
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<front>
<pb facs="5423972_8_1_0523.jpg" n="1"/>
<div type="group">
<list>
<item>JEWISH</item>
</list>
</div>
<div type="codes">
<list>
<item>III A</item>
<item>III C</item>
<item>I B 4</item>
<item>IV</item>
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<div type="citation">
<bibl><title>Daily Jewish Courier</title>,
<date when="1923-03-07">Mar. 7, 1923</date>.
<title level="a">A HELPLESS COMMUNITY</title><title level="a" type="sub">(Editorial in English)</title></bibl>
</div>
</front>
<body>
<p>A community is helpless when it has no control over the actions of the individual, and since the Orthodox Jewish community of Chicago has no control over the Jewish individual even in matters affecting the fundamental laws of the Jewish religion, it is helpless, and as such cannot do anything that is constructive in nature.</p>
<p>There are in Chicago some twenty-five rabbis, and some of them are men of great learning and great piety. There is one Orthodox rabbi in Chicago, Rabbi J. L. Gordon, who is one of the greatest rabbinic authorities living and therefore a man of international reputation in the Jewish world. There is in addition a Council of Presidents of the Orthodox Synagogues, headed by the leaders of the largest congregations, and there is also a Va-ad Hakashruth in existence to supervise the Jewish ritual life. All these three forces <pb facs="5423972_8_1_0524.jpg" n="2"/>together cannot prevent one frivolous individual from defying the Jewish law or the rabbinate, or the community at large. The situation is more tragic when one takes into consideration that the individual in question is not a peddler, workingman, or a small businessman, but a functionary of Jewish religious law, a shohet.</p>
<p>The Chicago rabbinate, after a careful investigation and inquiry, has found out that this man is not fit to be a shohet because he is not a religious Jew, because he knows nothing about Shehitah [laws governing slaughter of fowl in accordance with Jewish ritual]. They have told him privately and then publicly that he must not be a Shohet, they have proclaimed his Shehitah, Trefa, and they have announced it in the Jewish press as well as in the synagogues, but the man is still on the job, as if nothing has happened, and continues to defy the community and to defy the rabbis whose business it is to look after just such things.</p>
<p>He is not the only sinner of his kind in the community. There are a few more <pb facs="5423972_8_1_0525.jpg" n="3"/>like him. Their cases are the same as his. They have been told privately and publicly to give up the Shehitah, but they defy the rabbinate and they defy the community.</p>
<p>Now it is not a question of the behavior of one or two individuals. One will find in each and every community men and women who would not abide by the law and who would just do as they please to the moral, religious, or political detriment of the community of which they are members. But while each and every community has the power to deal with such individuals, and as a rule deals with them as they deserve, the Orthodox Jewish community in Chicago, although known all over the world for its conservativeness and piety, is helpless to enforce its law and its control upon a few privileged individuals because it is helpless.</p>
<p>The Chicago Orthodox Jewish community is helpless not because it has no authoritative and able spokesman and not because it is too poor financially, but because it is not organized. If it were organized, no individual, no <pb facs="5423972_8_1_0526.jpg" n="4"/>matter how powerful or how frivolous, would dare to defy it. A well-organized community can always bring pressure to bear on the individual with a view to bringing him under its control. An unorganized community can do nothing of the sort, and it is exposed to humiliation and degradation. We would like to find out whether the thinking Orthodox Jews in Chicago have not come to the conclusion that the time is ripe to organize a regular Jewish community. Or do they believe that Chicago Orthodox Jewry can continue to exist and to flourish with such a state of affairs as prevails at present? We do not believe that Chicago Jewry will develop to be a powerful factor in American Jewish life and in Jewish life in general as long as it is not organized properly. At present we may be able to establish one or another institution, one or another organization, to remedy certain evils or to meet certain needs, but we are not able to do real productive work as a body corporate because we are lacking in an organized community.</p>
<p>In a city like New York, where there are more than a million and a half Jews, the establishment of a regular Jewish community will prove to be a Herculean <pb facs="5423972_8_1_0527.jpg" n="5"/>task, but in Chicago it should not be at all difficult [to] organize all the Jewish forces in one community so that the body corporate will be always in control of the actions of the individuals, at least as far as they may effect general Jewish life, and unless such a community will be established, Chicago Jewry will not make any real headway and will not progress. Is there a valid reason why the Jewish community in Chicago should not be established?</p>
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