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Correspondence

Sep. 19, 1972

Letter to Japanese Convert Planning to Intermarry (1972)

Combating Assimilation
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Exchange with Dr. Bavli about Japanese Convert Who Wants to Intermarry (1972)

Dear Rabbi Lamm, Hello. About two weeks ago I returned from a trip to Japan, and by [redacted] request I am now writing you an account of the current situation. She had wanted to write you in the last three months, but she has been afraid of your reaction, or perhaps I should rather say [illegible] to face your reaction, and so she didn't write. During the first year after her return to Japan she observed all the מצות she had observed previously, but after about a year her will-power was no longer strong enough, and her observnce of certain מצות began to [illegible].
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Exchange with R. Yitz Greenberg about Drafting Statement on Intermarriage for CCAR (1972)

Dear Yitz, First of all, let me wish your family and you a Kosher Pesach together with our hope that all the good wishes and expectations of the Haggadah will be fulfilled for all Jews soon. Then, as I am preparing for another meeting of the Mixed Marriage Committee, let me thank you and your colleagues once again for that most stimulating and enriching session in New York, which left a deep impression on all of us. The Committee has asked me to request of you, if at all possible, to ask two or three of you to write brief statements which we might include in a packet of material to be sent to the members of the Central Conference before our Annual Meeting in June. I would need this material not later than April 20. Please let me know whether I can count on something from you and one or two others. Lotte joins me in sending your family and you our best wishes. Shalom, Herman E. Schaalman, Rabbi
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Letter from Myron Kaufmann about Meyer Levin's Book, "The Obsession" (1974)

Dear Rabbi Lamm, I want to commend to you Meyer Levin's new book, The Obsession. Statements have been made on this subject at length in the Israeli media. In the United States, however, book reviews are uniformly assimilationist in attitude. In recent years, their nut-down control has become increasingly all-inclusive. Their put-down of works having positive Jewish content is regular and not governed by objective literary value. Discussion of the facts, even if only to Jewish community, is a necessity. The facts that are brought to light are of a very nasty iceberg, and this book is a superb beginning and the first to throw any light on it.You’ll realize when you’ve read the book why I should like to send you further corroboration.I’ve wondered for years why the “best” Jewish literary works, according to critics, are always those that have a derisive attitude toward Judaism. They even wonder why even Tevye had to be given an optimistic twist—the final scene of Fiddler on the Roof, in which marriage to a goy supposedly heralds a new era of understanding.The chancellor of the Conservative Seminary, in a speech by the new chancellor last year, gave high praise to all the very authors who are striving to consign Judaism to limbo. I can only assume that he did this out of deference, in the assumption that the critical community is non-political.I am afraid that the Jewish community itself acquires a greater level of sophistication when it learns that many of today’s critical cliques do in fact stem from a Marxist phalanx. How many of today’s reviewers know that Irving Howe is a former member of the Communist Party, and that his attitude toward Jewish books stems from that allegiance?One can be sophisticated without being cynical or destructive—and that we ourselves have a mission to uphold Jewish values. Otherwise, even the most respectable literary criticism, if pulled down, will deprive our people of their cultural continuity.Warmest regards,Myron I. Kaufmann
Combating Assimilation