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stagnated to the point where it lagged 60 years behind England whose model it purported to follow.43 Parroting Altshuler, he proposed that the only solution was to abandon
sophisticated treatises on Judaism and return to promoting Torah and mitzvah observance.44 Aronson’s challenge went unanswered but the battle over Hebrew instruction appears to have elucidated the differences between the accommodators’ broad and Zionist outlook, which saw language and culture as important components of wholesome Judaism, and the traditionalists’ narrower perspective that viewed Judaism as primarily focused on the observance of Jewish law, with Hebrew relegated, at best, to second place. In the years to follow, the latter approach would be strengthened with the arrival of a new crop of rabbis, less sympathetic to the modern state of Israel and more willing to openly challenge the accommodators, as shall be detailed in the next chapter.
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country where young Jews at that time would follow and participate in sporting activities with “religious devotion,” the Chief Rabbi’s admission of being a sports enthusiast must surely have been welcomed.50 From the perspective of Orthodox Jewish law, problems arose when it came to observing or participating in sports activities that were played on the
Sabbath. Already in 1945, shortly after Rabinowitz’s arrival, Dr. Harry Abt, a rabbinic colleague who shared the Chief Rabbi’s accommodating view on modernity, ruled that the residents of Johannesburg’s Jewish boarding school for rural students, Herber House, would be permitted to play sports on the Sabbath “although it was not with the strictest compliance of the religious requirements.”51 Nine years later, in 1954, a discussion on this point, deliberated in a much broader forum, placed the fissures between Rabinowitz and his
traditionalist colleagues in sharp relief . Moreover, it exposed the latter camp’s antagonism to the view espoused by the Chief Rabbi, viz.¸ that to the extent that Judaism could meet the needs of the modern world without conflicting with Jewish Law or Halacha, a concerted effort should be made to exercise flexibility.
In February 1954 Mizrachi’s president, Michel Kossowsky was greatly distressed by the decision of the visiting Israel national soccer team to schedule some of its matches in South Africa on Saturday. It perturbed him that this would cause thousands of Jews to violate the Sabbath. Almost “singlehandedly” he led a campaign against what he considered a
desecration of G-d’s name.52 Amidst the controversy, the Chief Rabbi was asked for his opinion. Setting aside the problems caused by attending the matches, Rabinowitz dealt with the question of playing sport on Shabbat and responded that Israel’s first Chief Rabbi, Abraham I Kook had permitted it. This prompted the Mizrachi affiliate, HaPoel HaMizrachi, to produce a cable from Chief Rabbi Herzog declaring Rabinowitz wrong and stating that when Herzog’s predecessor, Kook, had received a question from Australia about playing
50 Shapiro, The Streets of Doornfontein 94-95; see also Saks, Yeshiva College, 10 where he mentions the great distances youngsters would walk in the 1950s in order to enjoy use of the sports fields.
51 Stuart Buxbaum, “Herber House: A Hostel for Jewish Children (Part 1),” Jewish Affairs, Rosh Hashanah 2019: 55. The dilemma of weighing social commitments with Sabbath observance has been ongoing until today, see Ari Shishler “South African Jewry’s Shabbos/Rugby dilemma,” Times of Israel, October, 2019, https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/south-african-jewrys-shabbos-rugby-dilemma/, accessed on 23 November 2021.
For a discussion of similar tensions in the United States context, see Jeffrey Gurock, “Hakoah Vienna’s U.S.A.
Tour, 1926 and American Jewish Pride and Priorities.” Studies in Contemporary Jewry, 23 (2008): 70-86;
Gurock, Judaism’s Encounter with American Sports, (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005)
52 H.S. Liebgott, “He was the Conscience of the Community,” South African Jewish Observer, April 1964, 3. As a Mizrachi stalwart it is interesting that Liebgott in recalling the events of ten years earlier made an oblique and uncomplimentary reference to the Chief Rabbi by stating that “the community and even some rabbis accepted [the Israeli team tour] with equanimity”.
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football on the Sabbath he had expressly forbidden it.53 Approached by the editor of the S. A.
Jewish Times for clarification, Rabinowitz devoted an entire article to the matter. After confessing he may have misquoted Kook, he provided a Halachic exposition proving that ball games are permitted on the Sabbath. Explaining that in the case before him he was aware of the “wholesale desecration of the Sabbath involved in mass traveling to see the match,” he nevertheless thought it was important specifically now to clarify that there was no
prohibition on playing sports on the Sabbath. He believed one had to “move with the times”
and reject the strict interpretations of Jewish law formulated in Eastern Europe. One had also to acknowledge the “importance our generation places on sport… and the demand for a more congenial spirit of Sabbath observance …in sunny South Africa,” and to prefer religious authorities who permitted playing sport.54 This attitude was lauded by the weekly.
Congratulating Rabinowitz for displaying “no little courage to urge change where change is necessary,” it begged those opposed not to slate the rabbi’s views “mercilessly.”55 In issuing this decision and in explicitly distancing himself from the tradition that had prevailed in Eastern Europe, the Chief Rabbi was broadcasting his opinion that where Jewish law
permitted it, changes should be made, and the lenient view should be preferred. Presumably, it was this philosophy that generally guided his thinking and therefore all his activities and statements should be viewed through its prism, even those preceding this ruling. Hapoel HaMizrachi’s response and that of the traditionalists is not recorded, but it is doubtful that the challengers of the initial permit were swayed by Rabinowitz’s article. Ideologically, as we have seen and as we shall see later, the Kossowsky family’s veneration of the East European Jewish heritage stood in stark contrast to the Chief Rabbi’s condemnation of its “puritanism”
and “severity.”56 More than anything else this issue is emblematic of the differences between the accommodators and the traditionalists and explains the continuing diverging paths of these two streams.
53 Mazabow, To Reach for the Moon, 247
54 Louis Rabinowitz, SAJT, 26 February, 1954.
55 Editorial, SAJT, 5 March, 1954. This incident garnered international attention and was reported in the secular and Reform oriented American Jewish press, see “S.A. Rabbis Split On Sabbath Play,” The American Jewish
World, 12 March, 1954, 3,
http://www.jpress.nli.org.il/Olive/APA/NLI_heb/?action=search&text=rabbi%20rabinowitz#panel=document and “S. African Chief Rabbi O.K.’s Football on Sabbath”, The Sentinel, 11 March, 1954.
http://www.jpress.nli.org.il/Olive/APA/NLI_heb/?action=search&text=rabbi%20rabinowitz#panel=document.
56 See Leon Feldberg’s remarks in the editorial, SAJT, 5 March, 1954. The fact that Feldberg, a graduate of Lithuanian yeshivas, who had since acculturated to the Johannesburg scene, warned that the Rabinowitz’s views would be slated suggests he was aware of the gulf between the accommodators and the traditionalists.
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