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University of California • Berkeley

Regional Oral History Office University of California

The Bancroft Library Berkeley, California

Earl Raab

EXECUTIVE OF THE SAN FRANCISCO COMMUNITY RELATIONS COUNCIL, 1951-1987;
ADVOCATE OF MINORITY RIGHTS AND DEMOCRATIC PLURALISM

With an Introduction by
Douglas Kahn

Interviews Conducted by

Eleanor Glaser

in 1996

Since 1954 the Regional Oral History Office has been interviewing leading
participants in or well-placed witnesses to major events in the development of
Northern California, the West, and the Nation. Oral history is a method of
collecting historical information through tape-recorded interviews between a
narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-
informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the
historical record. The tape recording is transcribed, lightly edited for
continuity and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewee. The corrected
manuscript is indexed, bound with photographs and illustrative materials, and
placed in The Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley, and in
other research collections for scholarly use. Because it is primary material,
oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete
narrative of events. It is a spoken account, offered by the interviewee in
response to questioning, and as such it is reflective, partisan, deeply involved,
and irreplaceable.

************************************

All uses of this manuscript are covered by a legal agreement
between The Regents of the University of California and Earl Raab
dated June 5, 1996. The manuscript is thereby made available for
research purposes. All literary rights in the manuscript, including
the right to publish, are reserved to The Bancroft Library of the
University of California, Berkeley. No part of the manuscript may
be quoted for publication without the written permission of the
Director of The Bancroft Library of the University of California,
Berkeley.

Requests for permission to quote for publication should be
addressed to the Regional Oral History Office, 486 Library,
University of California, Berkeley 94720, and should include
identification of the specific passages to be quoted, anticipated
use of the passages, and identification of the user. The legal
agreement with Earl Raab requires that he be notified of the request
and allowed thirty days in which to respond.

It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows:

Earl Raab, "Executive of the San Francisco
Community Relations Council, 1951-1987;
Advocate of Minority Rights and Democratic
Pluralism," an oral history conducted in
1996 by Eleanor K. Glaser, Regional Oral
History Office, The Bancroft Library,
University of California, Berkeley, 1998.

Copy no.

Earl Raab.

Cataloguing information

RAAB, Earl (b. 1919) Jewish community leader

Executive of the San Francisco Community Relations Council. 1951-1987;
Advocate of Minority Rights and Democratic Pluralism, vi, 264 pp., 1998.

Early years, political activity, City College, NY; Army combat
intelligence; marriage, writing for Commentary; to San Francisco, 1951,
executive director Jewish Community Relations Council: issues of anti-
Semitism, neo-Nazi activities, Soviet Jewish emigration, church and state,
civil rights, black- Jewish relations; cooperation with Farm Workers Union,
San Francisco and California Mental Health associations, Bay Area Human
Relations Clearinghouse, Human Rights Commission, World Without War
Council, San Francisco Organizing Project, American Association for the
United Nations; discusses political environment of the sixties and
seventies, Israel, retirement involvement with Jewish studies. Appendices
include extensive examples of Raab's writings.

Introduction by Rabbi Douglas Kahn, executive director, Jewish
Community Relations Council.

Interviewed 1996 by Eleanor K. Glaser, Regional Oral History Office,
The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The Regional Oral History Office, on behalf of future researchers,
wishes to thank the following persons whose contributions made possible
this oral history of Earl Raab.

Edward and Cathryn Bransten

Sue Bransten

Jerome I. Braun

Judith Chapman

Jesse Feldman

Dr. Emanuel Friedman

Joyce & Stanley Friedman

Lawrence Goldberg
William & Frances Green

Peter Haas

Jewish Community Endowment /Louis Dessauer Trust

Ron Kaufman

Betty Leland

Madeleine Haas Russell

Donald Seiler

Rita R. Semel

Robert & Joan Sinton

TABLE OF CONTENTS- -Earl Raab

INTRODUCTION by Rabbi Douglas Kahn

INTERVIEW HISTORY

BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION vi

I EARLY YEARS, BORN APRIL 2, 1919, IN NEW YORK CITY 1
Family Migrations

Move with Mother to Brooklyn
Schooling

Boys High School, Brooklyn, 1933-1936

Religious Education in Roanoke, Virginia 5

City College, New York City, 1936-1940 6

Political Involvement 6

Ant i- Communism, anti-Nazism

II U.S. ARMY 11
Work in Baltimore, Maryland, before Being Drafted

Combat Intelligence and Officer's Training School 12

Panama, the Galapagos, and Kassie 14

III CIVILIAN LIFE 17
UC Berkeley

A Farm in Maine 17

IV MOVE TO SAN FRANCISCO, 1950 19
"There's No City Like San Francisco" 19

V JEWISH COMMUNITY RELATIONS COUNCIL 21
Associate Director, Original B'nai B'rith Survey Committee 21
Organization of Office 23
Anti-Semitism in San Francisco 24
Importance of Democratic Pluralism 26
Totalitarian Personality 26

VI WORK WITH COMMUNITY ORGANIZATIONS 30
Farm Workers Union 30
San Francisco and California Mental Health Associations 30
Anti-Poverty Program and Civil Rights Movement 31
Chairman, Bay Area Human Relations Clearinghouse, 1952-1962 32
Human Rights Commission, 1964 33
Fair Practices Committee 33
Affirmative Action 34
Black-Jewish Relations 37
World Without War Council 38
San Francisco Council on Religion, Race, and Social Concerns 39

Reverend Jim Jones 40

VII PERSONALITIES 42
Governor Pat Brown 42
Mayor George Christopher 43
Mayor John Shelley 43
Mayor Joseph Alioto 44
Jewish Community Relations Council Leaders 44
Mayor George Moscone 46
Mayor Dianne Feinstein 46

VIII STATE, LOCAL, AND NATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS 49
San Francisco Organizing Project 49
President, San Francisco Mental Health Association and Founding

President, California Mental Health Association 49

Vice President, American Association for the United Nations 52

U.S. Opposition to Genocide Pact 53

IX POLITICAL ENVIRONMENT IN THE SIXTIES AND SEVENTIES 54
The Right Wing and the New Left 54
American Civil Liberties Union 57

Nazis in San Francisco and Skokie, Illinois 57

X ORGANIZATION OF JEWISH COMMUNITY RELATIONS COUNCIL 60
Key Staff Members 60

Eugene Block 60

Rita Semel 61

Naomi Lauter 62

Rabbi Douglas Kahn 62

Committees and Projects 63

XI NATIONAL, REGIONAL, AND LOCAL RELATIONSHIPS 71
National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council 71
East Bay Jewish Community Relations Council 73
Koret Foundation 74

XII JEWISH COMMUNITY RELATIONS COUNCIL AND ANTI-SEMITISM 76
The Core of Its Program 76
Role of the Media 77
Other Defense Organizations 78
Types of Anti-Semitism 78
Violent Groups 81
Controlling Anti-Semitism 81
Senator Pete McCloskey 82

Dual Loyalty Issue 83

Favorable Attitudes Toward Jews 84

XIII ISRAEL 87
Identification with Israel 87

XIV CONSENSUS WITHIN THE JEWISH COMMUNITY 90
Divisive Issues 90
Changes in the Community Relations Agenda 92

XV MORE ON ISRAEL 96
Attitudes of American Jews 96
Effect of Incursion into Lebanon 98
American Foreign Policy 98
Arab Boycott 100
Emigration from Ethiopia and Syria 101

XVI AMERICAN ISRAEL PUBLIC AFFAIRS COMMITTEE 103
Northern California Chapter 103
American Presidents and Israel 104
Relationship with South Africa 105
The 1996 Election in Israel and the Peace Process 106

XVII COUNTERING NEO-NAZI ACTIVITIES 108
Rudolf Hess Bookstore

Survivors Committee 109

The Holocaust Memorial 110

Other Genocides 111

Isolating the Nazis 112

More on American Civil Liberties Union 114

XVIII CIVIL RIGHTS 115
Legislation 115
Bay Area Human Relations Clearinghouse 115

Fair Employment Practices Laws 115

Racial Integration 116

Proportional Representation 119

XIX BLACK- JEWISH RELATIONS 121
Andrew Young Affair 121
Anti-American Radicalism 122
Economic Competition 122
Pro-Arab Students at San Francisco State University 124

XX CHURCH-STATE ISSUES 126
Importance to Jews 126
Supreme Court Decisions 127
Equal Access 128
Government Aid to Religious Schools 129
Prayer in Schools 130
Creationism 131

XXI OTHER RELIGIOUS GROUPS 133
Muslims 133
National Council of Churches 134
Moonies 134

XXII SECTARIAN POLITICAL ACTIVITY 137
Civil Rights Period 137
Fundamentalists 137
Jewish Political Affiliation 139

XXIII SOVIET JEWRY 1A1
Early Activities in the 1950s 141
Soviet Jews Begin to Organize 142
Israel's Role 143
Project Yachad 145
Trip to Moscow, 1967 146
Jackson-Vanik Act: Government Action 148

XXIV IMMIGRATION ISSUES 150
Immigration to U.S. versus Israel 150
Syrian Jews 151
Liberalization of Immigration Laws 152
Illegal Immigration 153
English-Only Controversy 153

XXV PUBLIC SCHOOLS 157
Importance of Motivating Students 157
School Integration 159
Quality of Education 161
Education and Bigotry 162
Affirmative Action and Quotas 164
Holocaust Education Program 165
Religious Holidays 166
Conference at Van Leer Institute in Israel, 1987 167

XXVI JEWS, GOVERNMENT, AND POLITICAL PARTIES 170
Necessity for Democratic Pluralism 170
Concern Regarding Governmental Power 172
The Republican Party and Welfare Reform 174

XXVII JEWISH ATTITUDES REGARDING WAR AND PEACE 178
Vietnam War 178
Israel 180

XXVIII SAME -SEX MARRIAGE 181
Community's Attitude 181

XXIX AUTHORSHIP 182
Books Written and Edited 182
Articles 184

XXX MORE ON PROJECTS OF THE JEWISH COMMUNITY RELATIONS COUNCIL 189
Interagency Mass Media Project 189
Relations with Other Organizations 190

XXXI ACTIVITIES IN RETIREMENT YEARS 192
Retirement from the Jewish Community Relations Council 192
Director, Nathan Perlmutter Institute for Jewish Advocacy,

Brandeis University 193
Koret Institute for Policy Studies, Stanford University's

Jewish Studies Program 194

Writing 195

XXXII SUMMING UP 197

The Question of Minorities 197

Financial Pressures 198

Honors Received 198

How San Francisco Has Changed 200

TAPE GUIDE 203

APPENDIX

A Earl Raab, "There's No City Like San Francisco," from

Commentary. October 1950 205

B Earl Raab, "American Race Relations Today: Studies of

the Problems Beyond Desegregation," from The Yale Law

Journal. Vol. 72, no. 5, April 1963 215

C "The Fight Against Anti-Semitism: 1981," Jewish

Community Relations Council of San Francisco, Marin

and the Peninsula, January 1981 221

D Earl Raab, "The Second Agenda," Journal of Jewish

Communal Service. June 1984 228

E "S.F. educators explore Jewish identity program,"

Northern California Jewish Bulletin. December 11, 1987 234
F "Brandeis picks Raab to head Jewish relations institute,"

Northern California Jewish Bulletin. July 21, 1989 235

G "Essays in book confront tough issues facing U.S. Jewry,"

Northern California Jewish Bulletin. October 12, 1990 236
H Earl Raab, "Jews achieve because of drive, not high IQ

or genes," Jewish Bulletin. November 11, 1994 237

I Earl Raab, "Influence of Jewish Republicans can't be all

bad," Jewish Bulletin. November 18, 1994 238

J Earl Raab, "Jews should beware of affirmative action

backlash," Jewish Bulletin. December 16, 1994 239

K Earl Raab, "Minute of silence in public schools makes

Jews uneasy," Jewish Bulletin. January 6, 1995 240

L Earl Raab, '"Liberal" stands for liberty, compassion and

equality," Jewish Bulletin. March 17, 1995 241

M "Local authors Lipset, Raab probe future of U.S. Jewry,"

Jewish Bulletin. April 21, 1995 242

N Earl Raab, "Ultimate weapon of terrorists: fear,"

Jewish Bulletin. April 28, 1995 244

0 Earl Raab, "Distributing condoms in schools can weaken

families," Jewish Bulletin. June 2, 1995 245

P Earl Raab, "Conspiracy theorists still spreading lies

to target Jews," Jewish Bulletin. June 16, 1995 246

Q Earl Raab, "Public expression of religion OK--with

safeguards," Jewish Bulletin. July 28, 1995 247

R Earl Raab, "Jews shouldn't involve Congress in anti-
peace efforts," Jewish Bulletin. September 8, 1995 248
S Earl Raab, "Anti-Semitism is not primary threat of strong

Christian right," Jewish Bulletin. September 15, 1995 249
T Earl Raab, "Keep schools religion-neutral--but not

religion-free," Jewish Bulletin. October 27, 1995 250

U Earl Raab, "Reject Farrakhan while supporting black

aspirations," Jewish Bulletin. November 3, 1995 251

V Earl Raab, "Pat Buchanan's anti-Semitism: an American

tradition?", Jewish Bulletin. February 16, 1996 252

W "George Shultz at Koret event: Assad 'totally

murderous,'" Jewish Bulletin. April 26, 1996 253

X Earl Raab, "The fraying of America as superpower

threatens Israel," Jewish Bulletin. November 28, 1997 254

JEWISH COMMUNITY ORAL HISTORY SERIES LIST 255

INDEX 262

INTRODUCTION by Rabbi Douglas Kahn

He is known simply as the "Dean of Community Relations." Not just
in San Francisco, but throughout the country. Earl Raab has made a
permanent contribution to the lexicon of Jewish community relations.

His reputation as "the dean" is not only—or even primarily—
because of his longevity in the field. He served as executive director
of the Jewish Community Relations Council from 1951 to 1987 and
continues to be involved as a consultant. Rather the term stems from
his singular ability to cogently analyze the most complex issues facing
the Jewish community, to articulate the exceptional aspects of the
American Jewish experience, and to identify and implement necessary
remedies to safeguard the status of Jews here and abroad.

His intellectual qualities are legendary in our national
organization, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, formerly known as
the National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council. Every time
our national organization meets it is absolutely certain that at least
one major speech will make reference to one of Earl's ideas about "a
certain kind of America" which is good for Jews. Raabisms, I like to
call them.

And, his mediating qualities are legendary here at home. Earl is
a craf tsraan--of ideas, language, and viewpoints. He has the
extraordinary ability to listen to differing views, and, without pause,
to identify common ground from which to mold a united policy—on church/
state issues, anti-Semitism, Israel, civil rights, or any other issue
that has the potential to divide the community. Part of the secret to
his success is to get all sides to believe that he agrees with their
viewpoint without his ever misrepresenting his own views or compromising
his principles. Jewish liberals are confident that Earl is a like-
minded liberal. Jewish conservatives are equally convinced that Earl is
a kindred spirit. In fact, Earl, a veteran of the City College of New
York Jewish Trotskyite club (the anti-communist left), with Irving Howe
and Irving Kristol among the other luminaries, emerged as a very
independent -minded moderate.

Intellect and integrity are one-half of Earl's extraordinary
package. The other two main elements, in my opinion, are productivity
and local experiences.

Earl is an astonishingly prolific writer. In addition to his
highly acclaimed books, with which he frequently collaborated with
Seymour Martin Lipset, he has written hundreds of articles, and
thousands of background pieces which have influenced generations of
Jewish communal professionals and lay leaders. Watching Earl sit at his

beloved Underwood Noiseless--and now on the computer—is equivalent to
watching Picasso paint--both in quality and volume. Indeed, Earl's
ability to portray the political landscape for American Jews is second
to none .

Earl's inspiration comes from the local scene even while always
retaining a passion for America's role in foreign policy. Often sought
for national posts in the Jewish community that would have required a
move to New York, Earl instead relished the front lines and the day-to
day interaction between the Jewish community and other groups. The real
issues provided the fuel for his fertile mind.

San Francisco, with its reputation for tolerance and low incidence
of institutionalized anti-Semitism, has always been the perfect
laboratory for Earl to try out his ideas about American values and the
American Jewish experience. Particularly interested in black/ Jewish
relations, Earl is a pioneer in the area of civil rights and was one of
the founding directors of the Human Rights Commission in San Francisco.
Decades later, he still plays poker with the other veterans of the early
civil rights movement. No doubt, given his poker face, he always wins.

Earl established other institutions as well, including the first
Jewish statewide government affairs association in the country. He has
pioneered the use of opinion surveys to determine the attitudes of the
organized Jewish community on all the key issues of the day. His
intellect, integrity, and innovation helped attract outstanding lay
leaders to the JCRC--and top-quality professionals including Rita Semel
who spent decades working side-by-side Earl prior to succeeding him upon
his retirement.

For fifteen years 1 have had the good fortune and blessing to
learn from Earl and to call on Earl. Even though he almost never
remembers to return a book he borrowed, 1 cannot imagine a more
extraordinary mentor from whom to learn about Jewish community
relations. I look forward to many more years of learning from him.

He may still describe himself as a farmer- -fondly remembering his
and his wife Kassie's years on a farm in Maine. Or as a doting and
loving grandfather. Most of us know him best for his rare ability to
combine both vision and the ability to implement the vision, and for
sowing seeds for future generations to enjoy the benefits of his
extraordinary life and work.

Rabbi Douglas Kahn, Executive Director
Jewish Community Relations Council

December 1997
San Francisco

iii

INTERVIEW HISTORY--Earl Raab

In 1987, when Earl Raab retired as executive director of the
Jewish Community Relations Council of San Francisco, the Peninsula,
Marin and Sonoma Counties, he was honored at a community dinner, "...for
thirty-six years of outstanding service, not only to this Jewish
Community but to the national Jewish community and to San Francisco as
well." It was stated that he achieved national distinction for his
conceptual vision of community relations. After retiring, Mr. Raab's
expertise and national reputation led to his being selected head of
Brandeis University's Nathan Perlmutter Institute of Jewish Advocacy.

The author of numerous magazine and newspaper articles, Earl Raab
has also written and edited several books. With the publication in 1995
of his latest book, Jews and the New American Scene, written in
collaboration with Seymour Martin Lipset, it seemed timely and fitting
to undertake an oral history that would capture Mr. Raab's intimate
knowledge of the Bay Area Jewish community and document his community-
wide activities.

Phyllis Cook, executive director of the Jewish Community Endowment
Fund (who terms herself a member of the Earl Raab Fan Club), arranged
for the financial support for Mr. Raab's oral history. A list of donors
is found in the front of this volume.

Before moving to San Francisco in 1950, Earl Raab had been a
captain in the U.S. Army in World War II, then wrote articles while
trying his hand at farming in Maine. One of the magazines he wrote for
was Commentary, which commissioned Earl Raab to write an article about
Jewish life in San Francisco. This perceptive article, "There's No City
Like San Francisco," can be found in the appendix of this memoir.
Farming didn't work out for Earl but San Francisco did. He was hired by
Eugene Block to be his assistant director of the B'nai B'rith Survey
Committee, the forerunner of the San Francisco-based Jewish Community
Relations Council.

Mr. Raab soon made his mark in the greater community with his
concern for the rights and protection of minority groups, and he is
closely identified with the history of civil rights and affirmative
action in San Francisco. Earl Raab became active on innumerable
community boards; he was chairman of the Bay Area Human Rights
Clearinghouse that led the way to the Human Rights Commission, of which
he was a founding member. He was on the executive committee of the San
Francisco Conference on Religion, Race and Social Concerns, on the
executive committee of California Fair Employment Practices Commission,
and the founding president of the California Association for Mental
Health.

Before interviewing Earl Raab, many hours of research were spent
in the offices of the Jewish Community Relations Council, reading and
physically wrestling with the JCRC files going back more than thirty-
five years. Staff members Jenny Link, Lorri Marshall, and Galina
Svyatenko were very helpful in making space and Xerox material available
to me. 1 was even included in a birthday celebration for Lorri
Marshall. Desk space was tight at times because of various committees
meeting to plan for "Jerusalem in the Gardens," a community-wide
celebration of Israel's Independence Day. One afternoon Rabbi Douglas
Rahn, the current JCRC executive director, told me 1 was present at an
historical occasion because a fax was sent to Yassir Arafat to protest
bombings in Jerusalem and Ashkelon.

As part of my research I interviewed Rita Semel as well as Rabbi
Kahn, both successors to Earl Raab as JCRC executive directors. I also
interviewed Naomi Lauter, former associate director in charge of
education in the public schools. Her main assignment was teaching about
the Holocaust, emphasizing the protection afforded to citizens by
democratic institutions.

After organizing the vast amount of research material into subject
categories, Mr. Raab and I began our taping sessions in May 1996 and
concluded with the tenth interview in early August. Most taping
sessions were about an hour in length. Earl Raab has a fine sense of
recall but needed to be assured that he wasn't talking too much about
himself! He said he was accustomed to writing his thoughts, not
discussing them--"I don't enjoy speaking; I enjoy writing."

From our discussions, it is clear that democratic pluralism is the
rock bed of Earl Raab's philosophy, and he referred to that topic
several times during our sessions. At one time he expressed great
concern for education and democratic pluralism as protection for
American Jews, "...the strength of democratic pluralism is the heart of
American Jews' security. It had to apply to everybody, it couldn't

just to the Jews."

Mr. Raab also discussed the JCRC involvement with Soviet Jewry.
"But the one issue that I think bore my personal mark, more than any
others, and it wasn't important at the time, was the fact that the San
Francisco JCRC started activity on behalf of Soviet Jewry in the 1950s;
nobody else was doing it."

In recounting the role of the JCRC in the civil rights movement of
the sixties and seventies, Rita Semel stated, "Earl felt in our
participation, both as individuals and as representatives of the Jewish
community, it was very important in shaping the agendas of the Human
Rights Commission and other such entities to be mindful of the people we
represented so that their interests and concerns had a seat at the

table. He is very well known and very well respected in many quarters
of this town."

Rabbi Kahn commented about Mr. Raab's role as a mediator, "He has
an extraordinary ability to listen to both sides and to separate out
what is fundamentally important and find a way to get people to move
from positions they thought they would never move, to compromise and to
walk away feeling they have achieved a victory. It's a gift of
extraordinary proportions." Naomi Lauter remarked upon Earl Raab's
"tremendous vision and analytical abilities. He's brilliant. He really
has an exceptional clarity of thinking in terms of dissecting the most
complex issue."

At Earl Raab's request, Rabbi Kahn wrote the introduction to this
oral history, and we wish to thank him for that.

In the back of this volume is a list of Jewish Community Leaders
interviewed by the Regional Oral History Office, which was established
in 1954 to augment through tape-recorded memoirs the Library's materials
on the history of California and the West. Copies of all interviews are
available for research use in The Bancroft Library and in the UCLA
Department of Special Collections. The office is under the direction of
Willa K. Baum, Division Head, and the administrative direction of
Charles B. Faulhaber, James D. Hart Director of The Bancroft Library,
University of California, Berkeley.

Eleanor Glaser
Interviewer /Editor

Berkeley, California
March 1998

Regional Oral History Office
Room 486 The Bancroft Library

University of California
Berkeley, California 94720

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I EARLY YEARS, BORN APRIL 2, 1919, IN NEW YORK CITY

[Interview 1: May 9, 1996] II1

Family Migrations

Glaser: Mr. Raab, please tell me where and when you were born.

Raab: I was born in New York City, but as an infant my family moved—at
the beginning of a series of moves that we made. We moved to
Connecticut when I was an infant. After that, I spent a lot of
years in Virginia. This was, of course, the Depression, and my
father was involved in moving from one city to another as a kind
of troubleshooter for a chain of clothing stores. So during those
early years I went to schools in three different cities in the
same year. But a lot of that was in Connecticut for a few years.
I started school in Connecticut--f irst grade, that is. Then there
was Virginia- -Richmond, Roanoke, and Nor folk- -back and forth. And
in between, a couple more separate years in New York.

Glaser: What was the actual date of your birth?

Raab: April 2, 1919.

Glaser: Your father started moving around almost immediately after you
were born. That was rather early for the Depression.

Raab: I think the Connecticut move was a kind of standard move. We were
there for a number of years until I started to go to first grade.

After that — let's see, how old was I?
it was '26, something like that- -'27.
1930 that we begin to move a lot.

When I was seven or eight,
So I guess it was around

'II This symbol indicates that a tape or tape segment has begun or
ended. A guide to the tapes follows the transcript.

Glaser: As a troubleshooter, what did your father do?

Raab: He took over stores that were ailing and managed them, presumably
until they got better.

Glaser: Tell me your parents' names.

Raab: My father's name was Morris. My mother's name was Marguerite
Greene, with an e.

Glaser: Did you have any brothers or sisters?
Raab: No, none.

Glaser: You moved so much you wouldn't have had close family members with
you.

Raab: No, only one, my mother's brother. I was born when my mother was
eighteen. She married when she was seventeen. And so he was a
rather young uncle. He was younger than she was; so we had a
pretty close relationship, except that he was moving a lot during
that period, too. He went through the South selling Van Camp
baked beans. There was a lot of separation. There were times
when, after a while, my mother felt, she really did, that I should
be a little more stable. Let's see, in Roanoke, Virginia, I
started going to junior high school. Then we had to leave
Roanoke; and after that my father was pretty much separated from
us for large parts of the year. We'd see him on some weekends,
and I used to spend the summers with him in various places.

Glaser: Did you know your grandparents at all?

Raab: Didn't know them. They all died before I was of conscious age.

Glaser: I get the sense of a kind of vagabond experience.

Raab: It was kind of vagabond. I've sometimes wondered, but not too

heavily, what those experiences meant—going to a new school and a
new city over and over again. But I seemed to cope with it
somehow.

Glaser: That calls for a lot of resilience on your part and your mother's
as well.

Move with Mother to Brooklyn

Raab: Yes. At that one point, my mother decided that I really had to

stay for high school. I really had to stay in a stable situation.
So she and I moved to New York, we had been in Norfolk, Virginia.
Pretty soon she went to work. I forget the name of the place, but
it was a well-known women's wear place, and still during the
Depression. She worked late shifts. She used to work from, I
don't know, four or three to the evening. So I was pretty much on
my own during that whole high school period. I often think, when
people talk about — Shall I reminisce?

Glaser: Of course.

Raab: When people talk about diet, for example, I remember during all
those high school years when I was a teenager and presumably
forming the basis of my physical constitution, we didn't have a
kitchen. She and 1 lived in a couple of rooms without a kitchen.
Mostly in the morning 1 had a cup of coffee and a doughnut in the
drugstore before going to school. 1 had a sandwich for lunch. My
evening meals were, I felt, delightful (by myself) and usually
consisted of a hot dog, french fried potatoes, and a piece of
pastry. That lasted for about four years, or a little more than
three years, and it didn't seem to stunt my growth. So I'm not
sure that I'm good medical evidence for anything.

Glaser: But was this as lonely as it sounds?

Raab: I guess I did have a kind of resilience. She was a strong woman,
my mother. And I made friends, so that I'd get out of school and
I'd play ball in the streets and I read a lot.

Schooling

Boys High School, Brooklyn, 1933-1936

Glaser: Was this in Manhattan?

Raab: This was in Brooklyn. I went to Boys High in Brooklyn.

Glaser: Were there any teachers especially stimulating for you?

Raab: Not particularly, but I began to make some good friends in high
school. And then I went on to City College in Manhattan; my

mother moved us into Manhattan for that reason,
friends.

I had some close

Glaser: Did you have to work your way through school?
Raab: No, I didn't. But it was a free school, of course.
Glaser: Were things very tight, financially, for the family?

Raab: Yes, they were tight financially, but it was interesting, when 1
think about ghettos. I remember we lived in a real Brooklyn
ghetto for a long while when I was going to high school, in a
tenement building that must have dated back to the immigrant days.
I remember looking out the window and I could see there were no
playgrounds, except across the street there was a school with a
concrete playground.

There was a recognition on my part and on the part of all
others my age that we were going to get out. It was rather clear
that we were going to get out. We were somehow going to live
better lives, which I think distinguishes those ghettos from some
of the inner ghettos that we see today. It may have been because
it was a Jewish ghetto, and whether those values permeated or
what, that was our feeling: that we were going to get out. And of
course we did.

I think things were beginning to get better. I graduated
from high school in 1936, so that was the middle of the
Depression, and still we had those feelings that we were going to
excel in school and we're going to get out of this. There was a
sense that things were going to get better. I don't know where it
came from. But as I said, as I look back, which I don't too
often, it was my mother's own strength and confidence, and the
sense of the young people that I knew, that we were going to get
ahead. We were going to get an education and then whatever
happened, happened.

Glaser: Did you know where that feeling came from?

Raab: No. I think partly it was my mother, who felt that way and

exhibited great faith in me, but the other kids had it, too. It
was a classic immigrant sense that we were going to get our full
education, we were going to go to college, which our parents
didn't, and then things would open up for us.

Religious Education in Roanoke, Virginia

Glaser :
Raab:

Glaser:
Raab:

Glaser:
Raab:
Glaser:
Raab:

Glaser:

Raab:
Glaser:

Did you have any contact with religion in these growing-up years?

Didn't. We did in the South, but we left Roanoke. There were
apparently a lot of family debts, et cetera. My mother and father
had built up a very nice apartment in Roanoke with furniture and
so forth. All of a sudden the debts mounted, so that we had to
leave Roanoke without anything. We were members of a synagogue in
Roanoke.

I remember the first thing I ever wrote that was published
was in Roanoke, Virginia, when the rabbi asked me to enter a
contest for articles for Young Israel. I wrote an article that
they published, which I've never found again. I left just before
I was to be bar mitvah. My parents were not too religious,
particularly, and when we went to New York it was just too much
for us to join a synagogue and I never got bar mitvah.

I remember, also in Roanoke, for some reason I spoke from
the bimah once, I was about twelve, to complain about the number
of Jews who had Christmas trees. Now where I got that from I
don't know; but I know I got up there and made that speech.

Does this mean that you belonged to a Reform congregation?

A Reform congregation. The rabbi used to come over on Friday
nights and, with my family, play checkers on the checkered kitchen
floor.

On the floor!

Yes.

And on a Friday night.

On a Friday night. In Virginia, Reform was very Reform. In that
period, Reform was very Reform.

You mean there were no Friday night services, is that what your
statement says?

I think so. I think there were none.

I think that was a mark of southern Reform Judaism, to be as much
like the Christian community as possible.

Raab: And the fact that I made that speech, I don't remember quite the
motivation of it, meant that there were a lot of families which
had Christmas trees. I don't know, I'm not sure why that outraged
me so much.

City College, New York City, 1936-1940

Glaser :

Raab:

When you started to go to college,
do?

did you know what you wanted to

No. You know, despite what I say about the sense that we had that
we were going to get out, there was no real sense of where we were
going to go to. This was City College. These were relatively
poor Jews, mostly, at the college at the time. And we were a very
provincial group—very provincial group. You think about New York
as a place of sophistication. We were very provincial in the
sense that we had no idea—Even those of us who were excelling,
scholarship, et cetera, had no idea that there were opportunities.
We had no sense of all the opportunities, of going to graduate
school, for example, or even for the most part of entering the
professions.

The profession we tended to think of, perhaps, was teaching
in the public schools, which the Jews had taken up. That
eventuated many years later in the conflict in Brooklyn. The Jews
took over from the Catholics in the schools. I'm talking about
numerically took over teaching in the public schools. And then,
of course, there were the occasions when the blacks wanted to take
over from the Jews. That was the big black/ Jewish explosion in
Brooklyn in the sixties.

Political Involvement

Glaser: But I always think of New York college students as being very
sophisticated about political affairs.

Raab: We were very involved in political affairs, I'm not sure how

sophisticated. When I went to City College, which was the hub of
much of that political wind, my introduction to the college was a
strike my first day at the college, with the students demanding
that the president resign, striking and not going to class.

Glaser: What was the discontent about?

Ant i- Communism, anti-Nazism

Raab: I don't remember. Robinson, his name was. I became very
political in City College. 1 became, so many of us did, a
radical. The first attraction was towards the Communist party,
but almost immediately during the Spanish Civil War it became
clear to a lot of us that Bolshevism was not a desirable political
philosophy as we began to hear about the Communist party in Spain
executing anarchists and Trotskyites, not just fascists. So that
I became, at the time, what was known as a Troskyite, which
essentially didn't mean anything except an ant i- communist radical.

One of my close friends, and I had several, was Irving
Kristol. There was an alcove in City College which was the
Trotskyites' alcove. We made alliances with the Socialist party,
but it was all anti-Communist. This is what's known as an amusing
anecdote: one of our friends joined the Socialist Workers Party
and we didn't, Irving and I. But we used to hang around with this
group and our sentiments were towards this group.

The leader of the Socialist Workers Party, a man named
Cannon, who was a real proletarian type, once complained about us
that we didn't join. He referred to us as the "perry ferry,"
which was his pronunciation of periphery. And finally, when
Irving and I decided we might as well join—you needed party
names, you know this was all very secret stuff --so I became David
Perry and he became William Ferry, as in "perry ferry."

In that group in that alcove at City College, were a number
of other people, such as Irving Howe. He was the only one who
kept his party name. His name was Irving Horenstein, and he took
Irving Howe as his party name.

Glaser: Did everybody change their name?
Raab: Well, you took a party name.

Glaser: Explain that. What do you mean by party name? Did you have a

fear that people were looking for you or that you had to go under
ground?

Raab: Yes. This was the vision of going underground, forming cells, and
so forth. It was felt that the federal law enforcement people
would be after us, and we should have party names. It was all
quite exaggerated. As a matter of fact, what we did besides
arguing politics, which is the main thing we did, the main
activity in arguing politics and engaging in student politics was
anti-Stalinistm. But as the neo-Nazis, the Nazi Bund, began to

develop, then we did some action things. The Nazi Bund in those
days had the temerity, as you know, (this was what? '37, '38, '39)
to sell their newspapers on the streets of New York. And we used
to go out as cadres, take the papers away from them, with a few
little fisticuffs here and there, nothing serious.

The biggest thing then—Shall I keep talking like this?
Glaser: Oh, yes.

Raab: The biggest thing then was a mass rally. They had the ultimate

temerity, the Nazi Bund, of holding a mass rally in Madison Square
Garden, in the heart of the city of the Jews. Our group was at
the center with others, Socialist party and so forth, of planning
a counter-rally. It was interesting that the communists, the
Stalinists, didn't join us because characteristically they felt it
wasn't theirs, and they didn't want us to get all the credit for
this. But it turned out to be a monster thing.

I remember late in the afternoon when Irving, a couple of
friends, and I started walking down around Madison Square Garden.
It was kind of ghostly, and then people started to gather around
the side streets in the area. This is '39, I guess. Large masses
of people started to gather on the side streets. Every side
street was packed with counterdemonstrators! And the police
brought out what was then the largest contigent of horse police
that they had brought out at one time. They formed lines in front
of us on each end of the streets.

I remember there were a number of incidents, there were some
on the street where I was. There were some young Italian kids,
anti-fascists. They went around with great audacity, with little
bottles. I guess the kind of thing you used when people fainted,
you put it in front of their noses, or something or other.

Glaser: Ammonia?

Raab: Something like that. They'd go around and put this in the noses
of the horses. The police horses would rear and the police would
fall off. It was a mess there. Sometimes we found ourselves in
the surges that took place. Because, really, it was the largest
crowd that had ever gathered in New York. There were a half
million people in this counterdemonstration. We found ourselves
in the surges, as we were in front of the counterdemonstrators on
the wrong side of the horses. So we had to find our way back.

Glaser: How many Nazi demonstrators were there?

Raab: I think they pretty well filled up Madison Square Garden. Those
that had the lack of wisdom to try to pass through the crowds in
their uniforms were beaten up pretty badly. But the police had
formed some lanes for them, so they went in. And it was, I guess
in that sense, a successful counterdemonstration.

Glaser: In that period, did you know what was going on in Europe?

Raab: That's one question I ask myself more than others. Not clearly.
We knew about the Nuremberg Laws. There was no sense among us of
the Final Solution at all.

Glaser: That was a little early.

Raab: That was early. We were besotted with our political philosophy.
At its ultimate, the political philosophy said that Stalinism was
as bad as Nazism and that the imperialist governments of the world
were as bad as all of them. So that the necessity was to sweep
away the whole thing. I took the Oxford Oath, I remember, as a
lot of us did.

Glaser: What was that?

Raab: A huge number at City College. I guess Oxford, because it had

begun there. The Oxford Oath was a pacifist oath, which said we
will not support our government, the American government; we will
not fight. The slogans were: "Hell no, we won't go." That was
the time when the draft was obviously in the wings. It was a
youthful reaction, I suppose, and I wouldn't call it a
sophisticated reaction. We could quote Marx and Engels and talk
about Martov.

Glaser: Who was Martov?

Raab: One of the intellectuals of the worldwide movement. The Third
International was the Communist International. The Second
International was the Socialist, and the Trotskyites had their own
international, the Fourth International. I forget what happened
to the first. Second were the socialists; the third were the
communists; the fourth were Trotskyites. It didn't amount to
much.

As I was saying, we could go through all of this
intellectual stuff because we were concerned about the situation
in the country with poverty, which was deep, and our concern about
the blacks. But it wasn't very deep. And what was almost
startling was what happened immediately to most of us when the war
broke out. We immediately began to see that the hope of defeating
the Nazis and the hope of a more democratic world lay in America.

So the transformation that we went through was so quick that I
think it indicated how shallow our earlier affiliations had been.
We were protesters. We really didn't think that a revolution was
coming, I don't think. But we were protesters.

Glaser: But doesn't youth have to go through that period?
Raab: I guess so. In City College, of course, it was a beehive.
II

Raab: I was part of a small group which wrested the control of the City
College daily student newspaper away from the communists, the
Stalinists. We never talked about communists then; we talked
about Stalinists. We kept control of it for a long time.

II U.S. ARMY

Work in Baltimore. Maryland, before Being Drafted

Raab: I was in the army, after some experiences, and I went to officer's
school in Miami and graduated up in the first dozen of this large
class, because after all, I'd just come out of college so I knew
how to take tests.

Glaser: Give me a little background here. Was there a period of time
between your graduation and entering into the service?

Raab: Oh, a very short period. I had a low number; I knew that I was

going to be drafted. After 1 graduated, I left New York and went
down to Baltimore for about a year. I worked at various things.
1 worked on the docks for a while as what they called a dock
walloper, which meant that you did everything that they wanted you
to do, carrying things and--.

Glaser: Did you have to join a union for that?

Raab: There was a mockup every day, so that I was a day-by-day worker,
and I was not a member of the union. I was still in my political
period. I remember walking the lines of the steel workers'
organizing committee when they were organizing. But I worked on
the docks, and then was drafted there in Baltimore, finally.

Glaser: Did I read somewhere that you were a social worker in Baltimore?
Raab: That was one of the things I did in Baltimore.
Glaser: For which agency did you work?

Raab: This was the first social welfare agency. I forget what they

called it, but this agency initiated much of the early AFDC [Aid
for Families with Dependent Children], I guess, and other things.
I used to travel out to the outlying areas and some of the black

Glaser :

Raab:

areas and talk to the people, try to get them as much money as
possible. I took a civil service test and got the job. The place
was full of young women who had just graduated from social work
school, first graduates of a social work school of that kind. I
didn't have that degree. I felt that they were not sympathetic
enough to the poor people out there, so I used to do things which
weren't exactly by the rules in order to get more money to these
people. I was still in that mode.

I also was still working in the Trotskyite movement, though
not seriously. But I remember that one of my assignments was that
1 went night after night to the homes of black families in
Baltimore, I guess to persuade them to revolt against the
oppressive white regime of America. And they used to look at me
as though I were crazy.

I'm suprised that you didn't try to organize the other social
workers.

I just felt (I guess the term then was bourgeois) that they were
the ultimate expression of the bourgeoisie. In any case, that
ended when I was drafted, with almost a sense of relief. We all
realized what the situation was, almost all. There were some who
never did.

Combat Intelligence and Officer's Training School

Glaser: So you were shipped down to Florida?

Raab: I was drafted in Baltimore. I was sent to an infantry camp in

Georgia, Camp Wheeler, where I did my basic training. And at one
point after the real basic training—again on the basis of what
they used to call intelligence tests, which they gave everybody,
and again on which I did well because I was so recently from
school—they put me in combat intelligence.

I was supposed to find enemy troops; that's what combat
intelligence was. Except I never did learn how to read maps, so ]
couldn't find them. I found out what combat intelligence meant
really one day when an officer said to me, "If you can't find
them, you stand up and let them shoot at you so that our troops
know where they are."

A few of us who were in it graduated the day before Pearl
Harbor. We all shook hands; we were sure that we were not long
for this life as combat intelligence. And while we were waiting

for something further, a call came for me to bring in my rifle,
which is one of the nicest calls 1 ever got, I guess I felt at the
time. They were setting up these civilian groups to watch and
keep track of the movement of airplanes all across the country.

Glaser: Civil defense?

Raab: Civil defense spotters. We were supposed to train these spotters.
That's when they moved me to Tampa, Florida, where for a long
while I lived in a hotel with this other group. We went out every
morning in the countryside and told people, who knew as well as we
did, how to identify planes—because we didn't know very much
about it. You want another amusing anecdote?

Glaser: Yes.

Raab: We used to go out in groups of three or four, sometimes staying

overnight. One of duties was to make speeches to civilian groups,
Rotary Clubs, et cetera, at their luncheon meetings. At one of
the luncheon meetings there were three of us, and it was one
fellow's turn. Somebody got up and asked a question. We didn't
know the answer to most of the questions. One fellow got up and
asked the question, "If the plane you're trying to identify is
above the clouds, how do you identify it?" And this was a slick
fellow. He answered immediately, "In the course of fifteen
seconds the plane will go through three different air pockets and
you will be able to identify its direction," which didn't make any
sense at all. The second fellow and I sat next to each other. We
looked at each other, expecting to be lynched, but it was
accepted.

Anyway, it was after a while that I decided that this was no
way to fight a war and that eventually they were going to get wise
and I'd be back in infantry or whatever. And it was then that I
went to air corps officer's school in Miami.

Glaser: How did that come about? Did you put in for it or did they tap
you?

Raab: They were constantly asking. When I was first drafted, I remember
they used to say some of us should become infantry officers, and
we laughed at that. Our knowledge about war dated from the films
we'd seen about World War I, "All Quiet on the Western Front," et
cetera. So the idea of becoming an infantry officer didn't appeal
to us at that time.

Glaser: Trenches were not for you.

Raab: But they continually asked. And at this point I decided it was

time to get out of what I was doing, which was sitting in a hotel
in Tampa, some resort or some boarding house in western Florida,
drinking too much and not doing much of anything else. So that's
why I did it.

Glaser: And officer's training was in Miami Beach?

Raab: Three months. To go back to an early part of the story, it was

then, as I said, I graduated in the first ten or so of the class,
a large class. And the tradition had always been that the highest
twenty-five graduates would be sent to Washington for intelligence
work. They called me in an interview. In the interview, it
became clear that they did have a record of me. They said, "Now,
you were a president of the anti-war club at City College." And I
was. I said, "Yes." They said, "You were the president of the
philosophy club," which was taken over by the Trotskyites. I said
that 1 was. So I don't think they trusted me to work in
intelligence then.

Panama, the Galapagos, and Kassie

Raab: I became, essentially, an administrative officer in the air corps,
and was almost immediately sent to Panama.

Glaser: What did you do in Panama?

Raab: I was the adjutant. The commanding officer of every squadron was,
by necessity, a flying officer. The adjutant was the nonflying
officer who ran the squadron. That was me.

Glaser: So you were involved with administrative tasks and personnel
tasks?

Raab: Yes, that sort of thing. They sent us into the Galapagos, where I
spent a lot of time, where we were guarding, with my bomb
squadron- -B- 24s , whatever—guarding against Japanese invasion of
Panama .

Glaser: In the Galapagos Islands? You and the turtles?

Raab: Turtles and the iguanas.

Glaser: I didn't know we had a base there during the war.

Raab: Yes. We were there most of the time. I met my wife in Panama.

Glaser: What was she doing there?

Raab: She was a civilian working for the army air corps, in a
secretarial corps.

Glaser: What is your wife's name?

Raab: Rassie, with a R.

Glaser: I saw someplace her name listed as Ruth.

Raab: Her name is complicated in evolution. She was born Viola Ruth
Eichenstein, which is her father's name.

Glaser: Beckenstein?

Raab: Eichenstein. Her mother's name, however, was Raselman [spells].

She took that for brevity's sake. Her parents were divorced early
on. She started working in Philadelphia when she was a teenager.
She became known as Rassie, for Raselman. Some people still call
her Vi, some people call her Ruth, and I always called her Rassie.

Glaser: So you were married while you were in service?

Raab: But late, rather late. We met about 1943, maybe late 1943, in

Panama. I was in the Galapagos twice. In between they brought us
back to Panama for a while. We spent 'some time in the north of
Panama and then we were sent back to the Galapagos. The B-24s
patrolled the area constantly looking for Japanese submarines. At
one point we may have sunk one; we all got a battle star or
whatever they give. In any case, I used to travel very often on
those patrols. They would very nicely fly me into the base where
she was and drop me off and pick me up a day later. So we used to
go on dates which were quite expensive for Uncle Sam, I think.

Glaser: But other than that, it sounds as if you had very boring duty.
Raab: Yes, it was.

Galapagos was the epitome of army boredom, and people didn't
get off unless they were in a favored position like me. There
were troops that were there for over a year without getting off.
There was nothing there, absolutely nothing except the iguanas and
the turtles. We played poker, we drank, we did our patrols. A
USO troop came in once, you know with these young good-looking
girls. They came on the stage, some in fairly abbreviated show
business uniforms. One would expect, if one didn't think about
it, that they would be greeted wildly by the troops. Instead, the
troops became angry and really were almost out of control.

Glaser: Why angry?

Raab: They had been sequestered there so long, and all of sudden they
were almost teased by this exhibition.

Glaser: Which island of the Galapagos were you on?

Raab: I think it was Floriana, I'm not sure. I forget. It went close
to Floriana. It was a rock. We called it the rock and it was a
rock. There was no vegetation on the island, on the rock we were
on. It was rough flying in the patrols because this was the
equatorial front. We had to fly through it every time, and when I
went on my dates I was thinking how much I was putting myself in
harm's way because of this thing. They couldn't go too high. We
lost a couple of crews because of the weather.

Glaser: And what year were you married?

Raab:

Nineteen forty-five.

Glaser;

Raab:

Glaser:

Raab:

III CIVILIAN LIFE

[Interview 2: May 23, 1996] II
UC Berkeley

When you got out of the service, did you have any difficulties in
adjusting to civilian life?

I don't think so. I'd been in for five years, and we'd just
gotten married. In New York we had just a nice period. We bought
tickets to every show on Broadway at the time, and there were some
very good ones. Then I decided to do some graduate work. Because
San Francisco seemed such an enticing place, we left and went to
Berkeley, where I did some graduate work at UC Berkeley.

Oh, I didn't know that!
writing assignment.

I thought that you came out on your

No, this was early. See, I was back here twice. In '46, we came
and I did some graduate work at Berkeley in English literature.
But all the time the thought was I was going to do some writing,
and we were interested in getting a farm.

Glaser: Why?

A Farm in Maine

Raab: Because it seemed romantic; it was part of post-army dreams, I

guess, good for relaxation. It seemed romantic and also I figured
it was a good way to do some writing. A good friend of mine, Hal
Lubin, went with the two of us. I did a year and a half at
Berkeley, I didn't push to a degree because we wanted to get
going. We went back east early in '48 and bought a dairy farm in
Maine, traveling around to find one. With two years of that, we
came back to San Francisco in 1950.

Glaser: But in between you were writing.

Raab: I was doing some writing. I started writing articles for
Commentary, which I haven't found yet.

Glaser: How did you make the connection with Commentary?

Raab: Irving Kristol, 1 think, was one of the editors, and 1 decided to
send some articles there. I wrote for various others: I wrote for
the New England Homestead rather regularly and some other
periodicals just to make some money, which we needed because there
wasn't enough money coming from the cows to sustain the farm. So
I paid the mortgage with my writing.

Glaser: Were you happy as a farmer?

Raab: Yes, but the winters were extremely severe for us. At the

beginning, we had twelve milking cows, Ayrshires- -beautiful cows.
Kassie and I were alone during the winters, Hal left. My image of
the winters was one day where it was something like close to
thirty degrees below zero, and what was coming out of the sky was
a sleet of almost pure ice. Our water came from a well and the
pump broke. Of course, cows have to have a lot of water. There
was a deep well in front of our house. I stood in front of that
deep well in the evening with a bucket and a little rope and
lowered the bucket down--I don't know, about seventy-five times--
to bring up water for the cows on the edge of the well, with all
of that slippery stuff while Kassie watched me anxiously from the
kitchen window. [chuckles]

Glaser: Aside from the winter hardship, wasn't there a sense of isolation?

Raab: My friends used to come from New York during the summer. They

helped me hay. We did everything in a kind of old-fashioned way.
I guess partly out of romanticism but partly out of poverty. We
had horses, we didn't have machines--! had a car, of course. So
we hayed with horses, and we did everything with horses, plowed
with horses.

IV MOVE TO SAN FRANCISCO, 1950

"There's No City Like San Francisco"

Raab:

Glaser:
Raab:

Glaser:

Raab:

Glaser:

Raab:

Friends came up, mostly from New York, helped and kept us company,
and it was enjoyable. My idea was, of course, that I would do my
main writing in the winter when there wasn't anything else to do.
But it turned out that there were a lot of other things to do.

Probably more than in the summer.

Well, as much, and more arduous. In any case, that was an
interesting two-year period. And then when we decided it was time
to leave, we figured that San Francisco was the place to go. So
we then came to San Francisco. That was in 1950.

I had thought you came to San Francisco because of the assignment
to do your article, "There's No City Like San Francisco."1

Well, I did. We were thinking about either San Francisco or New
Orleans, which we both liked. When we went to New York and
stopped in at the Commentary offices, they said that I should do
an article on San Francisco. So we came out here, partly
motivated by that but also by the fact that it was one of the
cities that we thought we wanted to live in. And it was, it
turned out to be.

And it turned out to be for quite a few years

And it turned out to be for quite a few years. How did you go
about making your contacts with people and with organizations for
that magazine article?

Obviously, the first person I saw, because somebody told me he was
the first person I should see, was Eugene Block, who was the
editor of the Jewish newspaper here and the director of the Jewish

'See appendix.

Community Relations Council fJCRC), which he'd just begun. He
gave me names. I talked to him first and he gave me the name of
Jesse Steinhart, who was the reigning power in the Jewish
community and in parts of the general community as well. He was
the man behind Governor Earl Warren, politically. Also Rabbi Saul
White, Rabbi Alvin Fine, and a couple of other people, I don't
recall who.

Glaser: How much time did you spend on your research?
Raab: I think two weeks, a dozen interviews, that's all.
Glaser: It's a very impressive article.

Raab: Well, 1 think that a review of a community can be more impressive
if you don't spend too much time in it because it gets confusing,
perhaps. Not so much San Francisco at that time. But I think in
general it's possible if you talk to the major people in the
various compartments, of the Jewish community in this case, you
get a good profile, which you can then work on without all of the
qualifications that would be made if you interviewed a thousand
people.

Glaser: You're more apt to be able to generalize?

Raab: Right. I think so. After all, articles are fairly short and

that's what they're about in a way—generalization. Although 1
think I had some qualifications in that article.

Glaser: Do you still feel that the Jewish community is moribund and the
leadership is entrenched?

Raab: No, no. First of all, I started, I think the article might

indicate that, with some respect for the leadership in a way, for
their character. It developed even more so. But it was during
and after 1967 that San Francisco joined the rest of the American
Jewish community, became more like it and is indistinguishable in
some ways in its basic profile. Partly the rest of the American
Jewish community became closer to San Francisco. Those changes
were fairly radical and can be described I think best when we get
into the questions about the treatment of Israel by this
community.

V JEWISH COMMUNITY RELATIONS COUNCIL

Associate Director. Original B'nai B'rith Survey Committee

Glaser: How did it come about that you joined the JCRC? At that time it
was the B'nai B'rith Survey Committee.

Raab: It was until about two years after I came. They changed the name.

Glaser: Why did they change? Because that means there was separation from
B'nai B'rith.

Raab: It was an attempt to become more communal, more inclusive, which a
community relations council should be. So it was thought best
not to be so identified with one organization because it was
supposed to be an organization of all the organizations in San
Francisco.

Glaser: Did Gene Block or did you institute that change?

Raab: We were both there at the time. I was the associate director

almost from the beginning, and Gene spent a good part of the time
editing the Bulletin. He worked for eighteen hours a day, so we
worked closely on most things. He was more involved in the
beginning with matters related to the internal Jewish community.
I became more involved with the general community.

Glaser: I have to back up and ask you how the job was offered to you. How
did it come about?

Raab: Out of the article, really. I came here in '50 and started a job
in January '51. I was given the Job before then, I just didn't
start until January '51. I had started writing magazine articles
of all kinds. That one, of course, early for Commentary. I did
trade magazines; I was the correspondent in Northern California
for the Coin Machine Review.

Glaser: The Coin Machine Review?

Raab: Yes. I was making a living. Rassie was working.

Glaser: What work did she do?

Raab: She was a secretary at the beginning almost at Coldwell Banker.

That's in the city. We lived on Jones Street, a cable car ran by
it at the time, and it was a very nice living experience.

I dropped Gene Block a note at some point and said that I
was writing and I was interested in Jewish affairs. If there was
any way to write occasional things for the Bulletin, I would be
glad to do so. He called me in and offered me the job. That's
the way it happened.

Glaser: At that point, did you find yourself surprised by your interest in

Jewish affairs? Because judging from your background, you were

not highly immersed in Jewish affairs. I mean, you're an ex-
Trotskyite.

Raab: Yes, but almost all ex-Trotskyites were Jews, so there was that
association. I did not have, if I can make the distinction, a
great interest in Judaism and certainly no real knowledge. I had
an interest in the Jews as an historical force. The experience of
the Holocaust probably, undoubtedly, which was even then just
emerging, really, in all of its dimensions, was one of the things
that propelled me, I'm sure. The main difference between the San
Francisco Jewish community and those in the rest of the country
really had to do with Israel, which I'm sure we'll get into.

But there was an interest, as there was in the rest of the
country, in strengthening democracy in this country, coming out of
the experiences of the 1930s for the Jews. I had a great interest
in that. When Gene asked me to take the job and in effect told me
this was one of my main assignments, I became interested. But I
became increasingly interested as the job went on.

I wasn't sure what the future would be with the career, so
to speak. Nobody thought of careers so much in those days. I can
remember with amusement now that I said to Gene, "Yes, I'll take
this job. But I want it understood that whatever time there is
that I'm not engaged in the office I'll be doing some writing."
And Gene said, "Fine." Now, he knew that right after a certain
period there wouldn't be any such time. But that was our
understanding at the beginning, which is kind of funny.

Organization of Office

Glaser :
Raab:

Glaser:
Raab:

Had he had an assistant before you came on the scene?

He had one short-lived assistant, and they had parted some time
before.

So it was really a one-man show until you showed up.

It was essentially a one-man show. Or, if Gene had been an
ordinary man, it would have been a half-man show because he was
doing the Bulletin. But of course, he put in a tremendous number
of hours.

How was it organized at that point?
Was there a board?

Were there subcommittees?

There was a board of representatives from organizations plus at-
large members and a few subcommittees, not too many at the time.

What changes did you make in the early years?

One of the things that I guess 1 instituted was outlying JCRC
committees--the South Peninsula, Marin, and North Peninsula.
Eventually one developed in Sonoma as well; that was much later.
Our involvement in the general community was generally my
responsibility.

What was the relationship to the Federation in those early years?

We were always, and the JCRC still is, an independent agency, so-
called. In the sense that most of the JCRCs, especially the
smaller ones but even a couple of the larger ones like in Los
Angeles, are committees of the Federation. The administrative
line ran from the Federation board down. The policy line ran from
the Federation board down for those that were committees of the
Federations. We were an independent agency which was wholly
funded by the Federation.

Did that happen as soon as it was separated from the B'nai B'rith?

Well, it happened before. You see, the B'nai B'rith--and this was
largely, I think, Jesse Steinhart's work prior to World War II.
That Survey Committee started, as some of the others did in '38,
'39, because of the press of Hitler and propaganda in this
country. It was set up as an independent agency. The Federation
gave it some money, and it stayed independent.

24
Anti-Semitism in San Francisco

Glaser: Did you get a sense from Gene Block how much anti-Semitism there
was at the time the Survey Committee was established? My
impression is there was not too much anti-Semitism compared to
back east.

Raab: Well, there are a couple of things. As I pointed out in that

article of mine, there was a difference in the sense that this was
the frontier, it really was, in 1849 when the Jews came. The Jews
came at the same time that other people came and were integrated
as a result. Being the frontier, and that being the fact, Jews
became prominent in civic life late in the nineteenth century,
early in San Francisco's history. In that sense, there was much
less of a tradition of anti-Semitism than there was in eastern
cities.

In addition to which, Jews did not come en masse to the
city. They came gradually, it was an evolutionary growth. So
there was no shock to the community at any point of eastern
European Jewish immigrants of the kind of experience they had in
the east. When I came, one of the differences was that there were
no neighborhoods which excluded Jews. There might have been a few
places, small places, I don't know, but basically there were none.
Which was not true of the large eastern cities up to that point
where there were neighborhoods, enclaves, and developments with
protocols that excluded Jews. In San Francisco that never
happened.

There was a pattern, I'm sure, of employment discrimination
against Jews that occurred in San Francisco. Just as I came, I
think it was in 1950, the State Department of Employment did a
survey asking employers, among other things, whether they would
hire Jews in white collar Jobs if they were qualified. And 25
percent of California's employers said they would not hire Jews
even if they were well-qualified. I'm sure that affected San
Francisco, the tradition in insurance and so forth.

The other thing is that the Jews started out in good
economic position generally in this community, a high level of
self -employment , professionals, lawyers, et cetera. So employment
discrimination did not became an oppressive factor, but I'm sure
it existed. In the period when this Survey Committee was set up,
there were Nazi sympathizers in the city, groups in the German
community, which was considerable. One of the jobs of the Survey
Committee in that period was keeping track of some of these.

Clearly, there was less anti-Semitism here. See, there had
been a Jewish mayor, even though he turned out to be a crook.

Glaser: Abe Ruef?

Raab: Yes. The Chamber of Commerce had elected one person (I forget
who) president of the Chamber of Commerce. These things didn't
happen much in the east in the cities of this size. Also, certain
other civic traditions indicated a low level of anti-Semitism. I
always point to the board of education. When I came, the
tradition—it was not written down anyplace, but it was adhered to
by mayors very closely—that on the seven-person board of
education, two were always Jews. These were appointed jobs at
that time. Two were always Protestants, two Catholics, two Jews,
and one from the Labor Council. And they never changed. The
police commission at the time that 1 came was a three-person
board: one Protestant, one Catholic, one Jew, and that was
invariable.

I remember when I felt things were changing. I knew, for
example, that the police commission would never be able to stay
with one Protestant, one Catholic, one Jew; the black population
would demand some representation. Some day the Latino population
would demand some. At some point (this was after I was a
director) I said to my friend and mentor, Sam Ladar, who was one
of the early chairmen of the JCRC, great person, member of the
police commission. I said to him, "I think it's time to push for
legislation that would make it a five-person board, because if it
stays as a three-person board one of these days there's not going
to be a Jew on it." And for understandable reasons. I mean there
are the pressures from minority groups in San Francisco. But
there was reluctance to do that.

Glaser: 1 always thought of this as being a strongly Catholic city.

Raab: Well, it was, especially in the sense that the government,

especially the civil service, the bureaucracy, and the politicians
were Irish and Catholic; sometimes Italian and Catholic but
largely Irish Catholic. The University of San Francisco is known
as the wellspring of political life and personages in San
Francisco. But again, there were a lot of Protestants and there
was also that general frontier sense of tolerance, which at that
point meant tolerance for Protestants and Jews as well as
Catholics.

Importance of Democratic Pluralism

Glaser: When you began your work here, what was your underlying
philosophy?

Raab: My underlying philosophy, and this related to my main interest in
Jewry, was that the important objective of forces like the JCRC
was to strengthen democratic pluralism.

Raab: Democratic pluralism was essential and important for the Jews and
their future, but also this was a mission of the Jews. It was an
important contribution of the Jews to the general society, this
concept of democratic pluralism, because the Jews had or should
have a special awareness of its importance. Of course, I came in
at a time when the leading agenda for the country, community, was
civil rights. And civil rights demonstrated this principle at the
time more than anything.

I was always disturbed in later years when there developed
some apparent problems between blacks and Jews, and there were
some Jews who used to say (this was in later years), "Look, we
were so helpful to them in civil rights, how can they treat us
this badly?" It was not altruistic. There were values involved,
and certainly Jewish values. But civil rights was good and
necessary for the Jews. It was clear that insofar as equality of
opportunity could be institutionalized, it would be
institutionalized for the Jews and everybody else as well as the
blacks. For example, though 25 percent of employers in 1950 in
the state of California said they wouldn't hire Jews no matter how
well-qualified for white collar jobs, that vanished from the face
of California after the civil rights period. Because the civil
rights laws applied to the Jews as much as, although not as
urgently, to the blacks.

Totalitarian Personality

Glaser: William Becker has written that you "expanded and developed the

thesis that there existed the totalitarian personality." How did
this analysis work out through your assignment?

Raab: I'm not sure. I talked about totalitarian personalities, but as I
became more involved in all of this I became more concerned with
totalitarian conditions in society, which I then felt could

develop totalitarian personalities. My basic thesis is about the
development of totalitarian societies and their bigotries. For
example, most people who joined the Nazi party (although this
flies in the face of a recent book with which I disagree) most of
the people in Germany did not support Hitler because of anti-
Semitism. They supported him for other reasons. But they went
along with his anti-Semitism because it didn't make any difference
to them. This is what we found over and over again, that these
are the vulnerable people, the people who are not violently anti-
Semitic.

In America, for example, maybe a third of the population,
and there is some documentation, essentially says, "Well, I don't
care whether he's anti-Semitic or he's not anti-Semitic as long as
he lowers taxes, fixes welfare." Or whatever they feel they need
politically. It's that large group which will join the
totalitarian movement and then accept its programs. And in that

sense they became totalitarian in their support,
believe or I think the documentation shows.

That's what I

In America, for example, there was one particular survey
which showed that the followers of Father Coughlin, the most anti-
Semitic personality leader in our history, the followers were, in
terms of numbers and percentages, scarcely more anti-Semitic than
those people that did not follow Coughlin. They were following
him for other reasons, and they accepted his anti-Semitism because
it didn't make any difference to them. The indifference of the
people is the biggest danger.

Glaser: Did it give them a sense of empowerment?

Raab: The anti-Semitism?

Glaser: Following somebody like Father Coughlin?

Raab: Following somebody like Coughlin certainly gave them a sense of
empowerment. As they got into it, they accepted the strength in
the idea that the Jews were at fault. They wouldn't necessarily
start with that idea; but if it was the party line, they were
willing to accept it and that strengthened their views.

The same thing happened in Louisiana recently. What's the
name of the--

Glaser: David Duke.

Raab: David Duke was a Ku Klux Klanner, an anti-Semite, and everybody

knew it. But when they interviewed the people who supported him,
most of them supported him because of his view about affirmative

action, too much federal government, et cetera, not because of his
prejudice. But they were indifferent to it; they were willing to
accept it.

Glaser: I was surprised he was defeated when he ran for office, because he
had a strong following.

Raab: Well, a couple things that save America, and that's to get back to
your earlier question. There are institutions in democratic
pluralism and there's a culture of democratic pluralism which is
important to constantly strengthen because they make a lot of
people afraid of extremism. We continually notice, even in the
current period, that when people are seemingly credibly charged
with extremism, a lot of Americans back away. They're afraid of
them because it's contrary to the general concept, however vague
it may be, of a country in which there is pluralism and democratic
pluralism.

This happens with respect to—you'll have to supply some
names —

Glaser: Do you mean with Gingrich's Congress?

Raab: Not with Gingrich so much. Partly with Gingrich they talk about
extremism; but especially with the guy that's way out there who
ran for president.

Glaser: Oh, Pat Buchanan.

Raab: With Pat Buchanan. The various interviews and surveys showed that
a lot of people who agreed with him on some of his points were
afraid of him because they said he was an extremist. And that was
a specific word that they used over and over again.

Glaser: But after the extremism he displayed at the 1992 Republican

Convention, I was surprised that he came back so strongly this
year.

Raab: He had a message, obviously, which a lot of people were interested
in. A lot of workers were interested in his message about keeping
jobs in America, for example. That struck strong. But they fell
away. His support was constant at a certain level. What was it?
Maybe even as high as 25 percent—this is among Republicans—but
never higher, because they were afraid.

The same thing happened to George Wallace. He had a lot of

ideas which Americans were interested in. And as a matter of

fact, a very large number of people in polls before the election

said they would vote for him, because he was a kind of protest

statement. But there weren't so many that voted for him because
they were afraid of him. If there's any word that resonated with
them, it was extremism. Political extremism is, in a way, the
opposite of democratic pluralism. This is what I felt the mission
was of the Jewish Community Relations enterprise, here and around
the country: to strengthen the institutions—which means the laws,
et cetera, and the culture, which also means laws and education--
of democratic pluralism. That was our mission, because extremism
was our big enemy.

VI WORK WITH COMMUNITY ORGANIZATIONS

Farm Workers Union

Glaser: I want to ask you about how in your early years you went about
making your contacts and relationships to organizations in the
general community. For instance, you worked with the Farm Workers
Union very early on. What other organizations did you work with?

Raab: The Farm Workers was, I guess, part JCRC and part just me. There
was an organization developed; it was called the Friends of the
Farm Workers. I became active in that. Bill Becker was involved
at that time. Bill Becker was the organizer of the farm workers
in those early years. He preceded Cesar Chavez. I became
involved in that. Of course, there were a lot of minority groups
involved in the farm workers at that time.

San Francisco and California Mental Health Associations

Raab: See, one of the functions, in a way, of a community relations
professional was to develop some relationships: a) with public
officials and b) with influentials in the community who were
influential in particular communities and/or with public
officials. So I became a member of the board of the Mental Health
Association, for example, in San Francisco. And then I was the
president of the California Association of Mental Health, partly
because I was interested and partly because these were
influentials that I was working with. But the main contacts
during that period were directly with public officials or the
civil rights movement.

Anti-Poverty Program and Civil Rights Movement

Glaser: You were a major drafter of San Francisco's first anti-poverty
program? That was really early on.

Raab: Yes.

Glaser: Was that an outgrowth of your work with the Farm Workers Union?

Raab: No. No, it wasn't. It was an outgrowth of my association with
Mayor [John] Shelley and my work in the civil rights movement.
The poverty program came on everybody suddenly. Jack Shelley, the
mayor, called me and said, "I don't know what this is all about,
what we have to do. Why don't you go to Washington and find out
what this is all about?" So he sent me to Washington and I found
out some things. Deadlines were pressing all over the place for
applications. A young black man, who I knew from the NAACP
(National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) and
who was close to the mayor, and I spent twenty-four hours in a
motel room downtown in San Francisco, drawing up the application
for the poverty program in San Francisco.

That's how it started; that's how we got our money, et
cetera. This was after my involvement in the civil rights
movement. And its an interest that I think relates to another
subject. One of the first things that happened when we sent this
application in was the establishment of an anti-poverty operation
in San Francisco, starting with an executive committee. I was
appointed to the executive committee and I immediately withdrew.
This was a point where the civil rights movement was turning into
the black revolution. There was strong feeling in the black
community. I knew at that particular point that they had to do it
alone. There were too many white people involved, and a little
edge of the fact that there were too many white Jews involved in
their business. So I thought that it was a healthy thing not to
do that job.

Glaser: I'm surprised at the timing of that because I thought that kind of
feeling came more in the eighties.

Raab: No, no. It was the late sixties and the early seventies. We
started with the legislative program for civil rights. Can we
talk about civil rights for a while?

Glaser: Sure.

Chairman, Bay Area Human Relations Clearinghouse, 1952-1962

Raab: And that started almost immediately after I joined the JCRC. I
set up something called the Bay Area Human Rights Clearinghouse.
Finally it was called the Bay Area Human Relations Clearinghouse.
We had our JCRC office on First Street, in a kind of barn. Barn
isn't the appropriate image, that goes back to my farm days. It
was a kind of loft situation, divided up, and there was a good-
sized meeting room without any windows, which I thought would be
an excellent idea, and not very decorative. But every week we
held a meeting of the Bay Area Human Relations Clearinghouse,
which is, in a sense, the first time that it was brought together
on such a regular basis.

I was the chairman of it. Black leaders--NAACP, black
church leaders and others, Willie Brown was a member at the
beginning. Some Latinos, not very many because their organization
hadn't developed yet. The Asian organizations hadn't developed
yet, but the Japanese American Citizens League was a member. And
some Protestant and Catholic clergymen and civil rights people.
And then we worked with the Council for Civic Unity [CCU] , which
was a membership organization, and developed an approach to
desegregation in the schools there, and actually evolved into a
political kind of thing. It was a forerunner. It was there that
the people and the ideas that formed the Human Rights Commission
in San Francisco.

The Council for Civic Unity was formed immediately after
World War II, an individual membership organization which was an
influential force against racial inequality and bigotry of any
kind. Gene Block was one of its founders, and it always worked
closely with the JCRC. Ed Howden, the director of the CCU, who
later became head of the State Fair Practices Commission, deserves
a special place in this city's history because of his role in
advancing equality and maintaining intergroup harmony. He told me
recently that about three quarters of the CCU membership had
probably been Jewish. Frank Quinn, another giant in this field,
followed Ed as head of the CCU.

Glaser: You fought for fair housing in that group.

Raab: Fair housing, yes. But fair employment was the first goal,

really, and the schools. In 1964, the Human Rights Commission was
established.

Glaser: I have the dates that you were chairman of the Bay Area Human
Relations Clearinghouse from 1952 to 1962.

Human Riehts Commission. 1964

Raab: Yes. And then what happened was that Mayor Shelley came in. At
some point after that things got very hot in the city, and there
was established an interim Human Rights Committee for the City and
County of San Francisco. I served as vice chairman of that. But
that was preliminary, and all the time that we had it it was this
interim committee that mediated both the hotel and auto row sit-
ins and so forth. During that period, we set up the law for the
Human Rights Commission, which I think started in 1964. And of
course at that point the need for the Bay Area Human Relations
Clearinghouse became somewhat obsolete because we had the
commission.

Glaser: Talk about the mediation that was necessary between the hotel
association and the civil rights group, because you had some
difficulty with the labor unions at that point. They felt that
they wanted to be part of it when you were mediating.

Fair Practices Committee

Raab: This was a period when the bridge between what is called civil

rights litigation period and the black revolution took place. You
know, this was the first city in the state that passed a fair
employment practices commission law. We passed in the city of San
Francisco a fair employment law that was engineered very much
through the Clearinghouse with the Council for Civic Unity.

Glaser: Daniel Koshland was very active in the Council for Civic Unity.
Raab: Yes. There were a lot of Jews involved. Colman--
Glaser: Jesse Colman?

Raab: Jesse Colman. He had been on the board of supervisors. This was
while we were getting the city fair employment thing passed. Then
he was appointed in a temporary position on the board again. He
was invaluable in his help in getting the fair employment law
passed in San Francisco.

There was a lot of opposition to it. It was such a new
thing. But we passed it, and it became the opening for passing a
state law. We had then set up the Human Rights Commission, and in
the place of the Bay Area Human Relations Clearinghouse we
established the California Fair Practices Committee which was the

one which worked for, and finally secured, fair employment law in
the state plus the fair housing law in the state. Bill Becker
became the full-time director of that.

Affirmative Action

Glaser: Did this lap over into the area of affirmative action?

Raab: Affirmative action, a most exasperating subject for me, was in our
consciousness from the beginning. Let me go back. You asked
about the labor unions. One of the things that happened is after
we passed the state law--we passed the city law, then we passed
the state law. Some people felt the battle was won. Two things
began to happen: one is that where there were no blacks in obvious
employment we or the NAACP went to a given employer and said, "Why
don't you hire? There's some qualified blacks out there." And
they'd say, "Well, we'd like to, but the unions won't let us
because they've got seniority," et cetera, et cetera. And then,
of course, we'd go to the unions and say, "Why don't you--?"
"Oh," they'd say, "we'd be glad to accommodate our situation, but
the employers won't let us."

The law was in the books but it didn't always work because
there were kinds of resistance that were difficult. So there
developed the idea for direct action. That's when the hotel stuff
started and the automobile row stuff started. And the department
store, too, was just starting. It was a lively period,
[chuckles] I was involved in some of that negotiation, automobile
row directly. We were getting to affirmative action. It became
clear when the law itself wasn't working that something more had
to be done to nudge the employers, to nudge the unions, et cetera,
to comply with the law in reality. And that we called affirmative
action from the beginning.

On automobile row, it was discovered that there were no
black mechanics all along automobile row. Now in that case it was
a matter of our knowledge that there were qualified black
mechanics in town. First of all because it was an occupation
which blacks enjoyed in the South, so there were mechanics here,
but they weren't being hired. Laws on the books but it wasn't
happening. Talk to the owners or managers on automobile row, and
they said, "Well, they're not coming; they're not applying." And
this was happening in other places.

Then the idea developed that there are black mechanics;
you've got to let them know that you're willing to hire them. You

haven't been willing over these years and therefore they're not
even applying. So what we required, and we wrote it into the law,
was that they advertise in black newspapers and put signs up which
said—you know, it became slowly the phrase--"Equal opportunity
employer." And if they advertised in black newspapers, then it
became clear. So that broke that logjam. We called that
affirmative action.

Glaser: Did you actually use that term?

Raab: We used the term, sure. When we sat down around a table, 1

remember this, to draw up the law which established the Human

Rights Commission, we talked about affirmative action. We talked

about these things that I'm saying. Advertising to let the
minority community know that those jobs were available. There was

the question of keeping records. It became important. These

things evolved into all kinds of monsters. But keeping records
became important.

Glaser: What kind of records?

Raab: Of minority hiring.

Glaser: You mean the employer had to keep the record?

Raab: Well, the employer had to. In the case of department stores,

there was no black face visible at any of the department stores.
If you went to the janitors' places, you might find some. But in
the store, as salesmen, as cashiers, no place on the floor was
there a black face.

Raab: One of the points was that there was, if you want to put it this
way, not much qualification needed to do most of those jobs. And
in terms of some blacks who were otherwise qualified but certainly
had less experience in that sort of thing than whites who were
looking for that kind of job, then we said, "What you really
should do, it's not brain surgery, is when these people come in,
give them some training, two week's training." We called that
affirmative action.

Glaser: Did you stand start up the Apprentice Opportunities Foundation at
that point?

Raab: Bill Becker mainly did that. We did that at the Human Rights
Commission, and Bill Becker was very involved in that. But an
apprenticeship is another example of what we'd think probably was
affirmative action.

Glaser:

Raab:

The other thing I wanted to mention was keeping records. In
other words, when black faces started popping up here and there in
the department stores, for example, there was a question of token
representation. You know, the employer would hire a black person
and say, "Look what we've done." It was a pretty lonely face. So
we said, "In compliance with the law, which requires the employer
to show (and I told you about the bouncing back and forth between
the employers and the unions) your good faith, why don't you keep
some record of how many are coming in. We'll see if it's really
going more slowly than it should. In which case you might need
more advertising in the black newspaper for example, or whatever."

Actually, there developed a system. In the department
stores we had people walking through and actually keeping track of
the numbers that appeared, with their approval. That we called
affirmative action. We didn't say, "You've got to hire sixteen
the next month." We just said, "You've got to go back and keep
some records so we'll know if any progress is made. And if not,
then maybe more affirmative action can be tried."

Early on in the Human Rights Commission, in the JCRC in its
policy positions, our position was, and the words were used from
1960, certainly '64 on, "We support affirmative action, we oppose
quotas." It was a standard form and we all understood what it
meant. It became blurred later on, which is another story.

Well, in 1973 you drafted a statement defining affirmative action.
In reference to quotas, you said: "Hiring and promoting quotas are
not to be used routinely but only when there has been a clear
refusal on the part of an employer to apply affirmative action
program in good faith. Quotas are not a program but at best a
strategy of last resort. They do not find people, prepare people,
or match people to job requirements or job requirements to job
needs. "

And that was the kind of statement that had been made years
earlier by the commission, by the JCRC. One of my favorite lines
was, "quotas stand in the way of affirmative action," because they
don't require any kind of special training where it's needed.
They don't require anything at all by way of remedial work, and
therefore they're not only not necessary, they're harmful.

See, what began to happen—the difference between the face
of this city now (and I say face) and the face of the city in the
1950s is astonishing. If you go into department stores, if you go
on automobile row, if you go in banks, where there were absolutely
no black faces visible, you now find them in vice presidencies in
banks and so forth.

In later years, as the federal government got into the act
and their bureaucratic requirements became heavy, many large
commercial organizations like banks and some of the larger
businesses said in effect to their personnel people, "Look, we
don't want any trouble. Just hire sixteen blacks. We don't have
to have any trouble. We'll meet it." And that's not the way
affirmative action is supposed to work. But it was an early
concept. It was built into the Human Rights Commission of San
Francisco in 1964.

Black-Jewish Relations

Glaser: I think there's been a problem in black- Jewish relations in
getting blacks to understand the Jewish point of view about
quotas. That since big colleges, for instance, had been closed to
Jews or only open on the basis of a quota, this is something that
we've felt very strongly about.

Raab: I wrote a piece in Commentary in 1970 on quotas. Just as kind of
an anecdote related to all of this, I was vice chairman of the
Human Rights Commission at the time, and we had some businessmen
as chairmen, which we thought was the worst idea. I was a vice
chairman and the nominating committee asked me to become the
chairman when some chairman went out. Again, I said no. In my
mind, it wouldn't be good for black- Jewish relationships for me to
become chairman. There was one black leader in particular who was
on the nominating committee who said, "I don't understand it. Why
don't you do it?" And I showed her my article on quotas, and also
the Commentary article I had written on the black revolution and
the Jewish question. And she said, "I understand that it probably
wouldn't be a good idea."

Glaser: The Intergroup Clearinghouse was formed by the Human Rights
Commission.

Raab: The Intergroup Clearinghouse was formed as a consequence of a
black- Jewish situation. At the time that this all occurred,
Andrew Young was the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. He
said something that Jews took exception to.

Glaser: He embraced Arafat, didn't he, or met with the PLO [Palestine
Liberation Organization]?

Raab: He met with the PLO. It was in connection with Israel, I think.
There was a big commotion about black- Jewish war. The media have
always loved the idea, in their own endearing way, of black-Jewish

rifts. Because the blacks and the Jews, at one time, were always
together, you know, and this seemed like a dramatic thing. There
was a lot of commotion about it in the media. The eastern
headquarters, of course, was all excited. As a result of that--
This was much later. Dianne [Feinstein] was mayor at this time.
What do you have there as a date?

Glaser: Nineteen seventy-nine.

Raab:

Glaser:
Raab:

Was she mayor then? It seems kind of
I thought she was mayor in the eighties.1

Nineteen seventy-nine
early.

Yes, I thought so too. As a result of this, today the Human
Relations Clearinghouse has gone out of existence. We felt that
it was important for blacks and Jews to get together and the other
minorities who had developed organizationally in the community to
have a place where they could discuss and perhaps forestall inter-
minority problems. That's when we went to the mayor and the
Intergroup Clearinghouse came out of the commission, but it was
set up separately as a kind of part commission, part independent,
part mayor's creation for that purpose.

World Without War Council

Glaser: Are you active in World Without War Council?

Raab: I was always active in that, and this was again one of those

things. It happens, you know, when professionals — directors of
JCRCs, for example --become involved out there in the community,
they're also going to be involved in some things in which they
have some special interest. That was the case with the Mental
Health Association. It has some purpose for them, professionally,
but they go one place rather than another out of their own
interests often.

During the seventies, late sixties, especially in the
seventies, a great deal of furor grew around the Vietnamese War
and after that about the Cold War. And it was a kind of furor
which some of us felt was not healthy to the community. Extremely
divisive and, let me put it in its grossest terms, willingness to

'Dianne Feinstein was mayor from 1978 to 1988.

accept totalitarian ideas, as in the case of parts of the New
Left.

There were many Jews during that period on the campus who
were engaged in radical politics in campus terms (this happened
after the "67 Israel war) who suddenly felt alienated from what
was happening in the New Left circles vis-a-vis Israel. The PLO
was picked up by segments of the New Left as a valid cause and
oppressed by Israel, which was the handmaiden of American
imperialism. This was the formulation which often came out. This
kind of thing, being on campuses where future leaders were being
developed, was kind of frightening and counter-indicated in terms
of our concern with democratic pluralism. There were political
philosophers of the New Left such as--

Glaser: Mario Savio?

Raab: Savio, yes. He was early on and there was no such problem with
him. It came later. I'm thinking of a professor of political
science named Marcuse. He was one of the mentors of the New Left
in California and elsewhere in the country, and he was delivering
an anti-democratic message. It was certainly anti-American:
"America is imperialist, and attached to that is the fact that
Israel is just part of this American plot and it is important," he
said, "to bring down everything before we developed any new
political system."

They didn't have much of an idea about what the new
political system was, but they knew that the old had to be
levelled to the ground. That's the kind of thing that was
happening on the campuses, a little bit elsewhere.

World Without War was an anti-war operation that was
thoughtful, that was not anti-American. I thought it was a very
healthy antidote to the extent that it would be effective to that
kind of sentiment, which is related to what I talked about before.
I thought it was a threat to the culture of democratic pluralism,
some of the things that were happening.

San Francisco Council on Religion, Race, and Social Concerns

Glaser: We haven't talked about the San Francisco Council on Religion,

Race, and Social Concerns. You were on the executive committee.
I think it started in 1963. What were its programs and how was it
organized?

Raab: At this point, the Bay Area Clearinghouse was fading out of

existence. This was organized to bring together the different
religious groups in the city on the same kinds of issues. Father
Eugene Boyle was very involved. The organizational membership, in
a way, was the Catholic Church--at least that part that Father
Boyle represented—the Protestant Council of Churches, and in
terms of the Jews, a combination of the Board of Rabbis and the
JCRC, because it was a clerical thing basically.

Anecdote: our first large meeting of this conference took
place at the University of San Francisco in a large hall. About a
thousand people came and they served lunch. As the sandwiches
were being brought out, it was discovered that there were ham
sandwiches there. And the Catholics, Father Boyle and his
friends, were horrified. They took all their ham sandwiches, took
them to the kitchen. [chuckles] It was an interesting kind of
episode.

Glaser: How did this, or did it, overlap with the Human Rights Commission?

Raab: Well, the Human Rights Commission was a formal city mechanism,
with subpoena powers, et cetera. And the Interfaith Council
existed at the same time, but it was a voluntary operation.

Glaser: I have a note that it took action on equal job opportunities in
church construction. Was that a big thing?

Raab: Well, I don't think it was such a big thing, but it was a big

thing for them to do. We turned to them for that kind of thing.

Reverend Jim Jones

Glaser: Jim Jones, of People's Temple, was a member of the council. Do
you want to talk about him?

Raab: Yes, he was a member. Almost any clergyman could be a member.
It's a sad subject. I knew Jim Jones, of course. He came into
the JCRC office on a couple of occasions, especially with a young
black whose name I don't recall. A young black maybe twenty,
twenty-one, maybe nineteen, who I knew in other civil rights
circles and was very fond of. This young man was a member of Jim
Jones's church, and he brought Jim Jones in a couple of times to
see me, to talk about various things. The young man was one who
died in the massacre. But Jim Jones was an embarrassment to a lot
of us because he had a church which seemed to be valid. We didn't

understand, although we were interested in cults in terms of the
Korean man--

Glaser: Reverend Moon?

Raab: In terms of Reverend Moon and Jews for Jesus, et cetera. We

really didn't understand the cultish aspects of Jim Jones's church
until it was too late. He was a part of us.

Glaser: Your group even defended him against attack by Supervisor [John]
Barbagelata.

Raab: I don't remember the details. I think that was one of the

occasions on which this young man brought him into my office. And
Barbagelata was generally thought of in our circles as anti-civil
rights. He was the reactionary member.

Glaser: He was a dinosaur?

Raab: Yes. So we may have very well have gotten, I'm sure we did,

involved in that for some reason. I don't remember the details.
But I say it was embarrassing, some of the things that we did
before we found out what he was.

VII PERSONALITIES

Governor Pat Brown

Glaser: In the years of the early sixties, Governor Pat Brown instituted a
lot of liberal reform actions. Did the JCRC have any input on
that? He had the Fair Employment Practices Act. He had a
Consumers Council that was part of the state office.

Raab: We had an input in a couple of ways. Now, the general idea was
not for the professionals to be the point person in all of these
things, but to have the professional get Jewish influentials who
were involved to do things, which they did. And there were plenty
of those with Brown. But in addition, Bill Becker became his
human rights person after the Fair Employment Act was passed.
They were Ed Howden and Bill Becker.

Glaser: Who was Ed Howden?

Raab:

Glaser:

Ed Howden was the director of the Council for Civic Unity and one
of the pioneers of civil rights in this city. He became the
director of the FEPC, the Fair Employment Practices Commission.
And Bill Becker came out of the staff of Governor Brown as his
human rights director. It was during that period that I also
became a consultant to Brown's social welfare board. So that that
plus all of the people who were close to him politically, there

was plenty of connection to Pat Brown,
connection to the mayor of this city.

as there's always been a

Want to talk about the different mayors and your relationship to
them?

Raab: Well, Shelley in particular. Of course, there was connection to
all of them, largely through lay people who were associated with
JCRC in one way or another. I never had the concept of the JCRC
as just a board which took policy, but there had to be layers of
influentials out there who related to the JCRC. Not necessarily

coming to the board meetings, which some of them wouldn't come
close to, but who had influence in one place or another and who
would become accustomed, we hoped, to consult with the JCRC on
matters that related to Jews.

Glaser: Why wouldn't some come close to the JCRC?

Mayor George Christopher

Raab: Well, let me start with Mayor [George] Christopher and Walter
Haas, Sr. Walter Haas, Sr., apart from being an important
influential with the Republican congressman, was an important
influential with Mayor Christopher. But Walter Haas, Sr., with
all of his responsibilities, et cetera, would not have had the
time and perhaps not the patience to sit through monthly board
meetings of the JCRC. And I felt that was fine. Walter Haas used
to call the JCRC constantly to talk about one issue or another.
We used to call him to talk about something that we knew either
the congressman or Mayor Christopher could do. Mayor Christopher
was helpful in some ways and so was the congressman.

Glaser: Which congressman was that, do you know?

Raab: Shipping line. Can we go another half hour and quit?

Glaser: Sure. No problem. Did you finish talking about those who were

influential but didn't want to come. And you wanted to talk more
about Shelley, I think.

Mayor John Shelley

Raab: Well, Shelley came on at a time when the whole civil rights thing
was breaking loose and a number of Jews who were close to the JCRC
were close to him, and I was in his office frequently. Anecdote?
We finally passed the Human Rights Commission law. I remember I
was in Shelley's office right after it was passed and he said,
"Well, you're going to be the director, right?" And I said, "No,
I don't want to be the director." He was startled by that. He
had assumed all the way through that because of my involvement in
pushing it, I would take the director's job. But I didn't. Bill
Becker was director for a while before he took on Governor Brown's
job. Frank Quinn was director.

Glaser: Who followed Christopher as mayor?

Raab: Shelley.

Glaser: Shelley followed Christopher?

Raab: Yes.

Glaser: And who followed Shelley?

Mayor Joseph Alioto

Raab: After Shelley, there was Alioto.
Glaser: Ah, yes. What was your relationship with him?
Raab: Very close.
II

Raab: We instituted the policy of approaching every new mayor as a
Jewish group, to talk to him about our problems and about
appointments. I think we started that with Alioto, but there were
people close to him like Howard Nemerovski so I saw him rather
often. And they all developed the habit of calling the JCRC when
there was some Jewish-related thing.

Jewish Community Relations Council Leaders

Raab: Shelley called me once when there was the matter of an appointment
on the board of education. A Jewish member was still appointed.
He suggested a name, which I won't mention because he's still
active in politics. At that point we were very interested in
Renny Colvin becoming that Jewish member. So Shelley called me
with that name, and I said Colvin is much closer to the Jewish
community, and it went to Colvin. It took the other fellow many
years to forgive me for that because he heard about it. And
Colvin, of course, was great.

You know, there's one thing I'd like to say. Sometimes I
say "I did this" and "I did that"; in terms of policy it was
always a matter of corroboration with the leadership. And I'd
like to talk about that JCRC leadership. What happened was the

one thing I did institute was an advisory board made up of all
past chairmen of the JCRC, which met monthly and was very
important. They were very important individually and as a group
in giving advice and helping to bring policy to the JCRC board.
Nothing they decide is constitutionally a position of the JCRC.
They are advisory but it's a very helpful body because they come
with their experience and so forth and offer advice, which is
usually good. They are a remarkable group of people. Renny
Colvin was the first one, Sam Ladar was one, Ed Bransten was one.
I'd like to list them all, you know, but I probably don't
remember. These were the early ones. Sam, as I say, was my
closest mentor. Sam, Renny, and I used to meet for lunch
constantly.

I'll think of all their names and bring this thing later.
But sometimes when I say "I," I mean "We," [chuckles] because
these kinds of policy things were discussed with them and with the
current officers. The current officers always sat on the advisory
committee that met once a month.

Another thing which we did and instituted was something
which I think I used to call the "X committee," which consisted of
people like Walter Haas and Dan Koshland--

Glaser: Does that mean external rather than being former when you say

'ex

Raab: Who?

Glaser: When you say "ex committee"?

Raab: Oh no. "X" was just "X" because we didn't know what to call it.
Because it was such an informal committee, it was not formal at
all.

Glaser: You started to tell me who was on it. It was Walter Haas--

Raab: And Dan Koshland, Dick Goldman. Those were the people who were
not able to come to monthly meetings of the JCRC, nor were
expected to, but were important people out there with important
connections and important ideas. I didn't meet with them monthly.
About every two or three months we'd have a luncheon and I'd raise
some problematic issues and ask their opinion of it. I think that
was important.

Mayor George Moscone

Glaser: Could you go back and finish up on the mayors, because after
Alioto came, Moscone-- What was his first name?

Raab: George.

Glaser: George, right. Did you have much of a relationship with him?

Raab: Yes, same thing: very close. People were very close — in this
case, a little more because he played poker sometimes with my
poker group.

Glaser: Can't get much closer than that!

Raab: He used to have little gatherings when he appointed somebody to a
commission or whatever. One day he told the group after he talked
about the person who was appointed, "Now, one last word, never
play poker with Earl Raab."

Mayor Dianne Feinstein

Raab: And then, of course, there was Dianne [Feinstein]. We were close
to her. I mean, we always went in when the mayors came in, asked
to give them a list of people. We weren't the only ones who did
that. We might talk about appointments and about our issues. And
she was always close. She was helpful on the Board of
Supervisors, as a matter of fact, when she was there.

Glaser: What help did you need with the Board of Supervisors?
Raab: How widely read is this?
Glaser: Widely.

Raab: [chuckles] I had an altercation with Dianne once, or the Jewish
community had. It was kind of interesting, it relates to style.
This was during the period when the Soviet Jewry issue was very
high on our agenda. There were only three places in this country
where there was an official Soviet presence: the embassy in
Washington, the U.K. presence in New York, and their consulate
here in San Francisco. There developed in the Soviet Union and in
the State Department of the United States a great desire to
establish an American consulate in Leningrad. And as part of that
and prior to that to have a sister city relationship between San

Francisco and Leningrad. There was a big push by the Soviets and
by the State Department for that sister city relationship.

We, meaning the community in the JCRC and Bay Area Council
on Soviet Jewry, which worked with us (they got their funds
through us from the Federation), we resisted it, for obvious
reasons. We said, "As long as there are Jews who are imprisoned
in Leningrad, as long as there are so many Jews who have a request
to leave Leningrad and are not allowed to, it would be improper
for there to be a sister city relationship." The State Department
and others asked the Board of Supervisors to pass a resolution to
establish a sister city relationship. We had a lot of votes, but
we had Dianne's leadership in resisting that.

Some years later Dianne, for a short period, became a
protagonist for a sister city relationship when she was mayor.
Relationships were getting better between the Soviet Union and the
United States. She had visited the Soviet Union for the first
time, and when she came back she indicated an interest in this.
There were still problems with Jews in Leningrad. She said it
would help us if we became a sister city, and we said that the
order should be the other way around. We resisted that, heavily
and with anger on both sides for a time. I wrote a piece in the
Bulletin, I remember, which she referred to as purple prose. It
may have been. [chuckles] There was a rather stormy session, me
and the Jewish delegation, in her office. And she finally dropped
it, but it was sort of a traumatic episode. The only kind of
problem we ever had with Dianne.

She was very helpful. Let me give you some examples of the
ways in which she was helpful. During the period of her
mayoralty, there were anti-Semitic episodes in San Francisco. I
guess some vandalism with swastikas on synagogues. But even more
than that, smoke bombs, pipe bombs in synagogues, around
synagogues. Nobody ever got hurt but it was scary. We went to
Dianne and said, "This has gotten to the point where there should
be some special law enforcement attention." One of the people
with whom JCRC always wanted to maintain a good relationship, a
special relationship, with was the chief of police, and we always
did, from Chief Cahill on. Still, when we went we found that
sometimes if something happened in one precinct and another
precinct didn't know about it, there was no kind of overall police
eye on the situation, which we felt might be important in order to
establish a pattern.

So we went to Dianne with this problem, and she called in
the chief and other police officials and said that there should be
one person assigned to the job of watching the whole thing.
Whenever an incident occurred and wherever an incident occurred,

the report of that should go to that one person and that person
should be in charge. It should be a person with some authority.

A mayor's word is law with police chiefs, that's a direct
authority. So they established such a situation with a person who
was very good and very helpful in that situation. He knew what
the situation was in the city because he did get reports now from
everywhere. But also it was a special assignment.

There was a neo-Nazi group around at that time, had maybe
eight people in it, but it was quite troublesome and he kept track
of that and helped solve a few situations. He was very close. So
that was something that Dianne did that was important; and we were
grateful to her.

VIII STATE, LOCAL, AND NATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
[Interview 3: May 29, 1996] II

San Francisco Organizing Project

Glaser:

Raab:
Glaser:

Raab:

Glaser:

Raab:

What was your involvement and/or the JCRC's involvement with the
San Francisco Organizing Project?

Mike Miller's project?

I don't have a person's name for that. All I know is that it was
an interreligious group, and it seemed to come from the San
Francisco Organized Training Center.

What I recall is a project which Mike Miller was running, which
had to do with organizing in mainly disadvantaged areas in the
Mission and elsewhere. The relationship, if that's the one, was
just a cooperative one. San Francisco Organizing--?

The San Francisco Organized Training Center developed into the San
Francisco Organizing Project. It brought together people from all
over the city to bring about quality education, decent and
affordable housing, safe neighborhoods, and civil and equal
rights. Does that sound familiar?

Well, I think it was Mike Miller's.
JCRC was not much involved.

I was a supporter, but the

President, San Francisco Mental Health Association and Founding
President, California Mental Health Association

Glaser: All right. Then I want to ask you about the California

Association for Mental Health. You were the founding president of
that.

Raab: Of the state. I was the president of the San Francisco Mental

Health Association and I was the founding president of the state
association.

Glaser: Right.

Raab: Aside from the fact that as I told you it was one of those
projects that I got involved in because there were a lot of
influential people involved and because it was a matter of special
interest to me, the most notable thing about being president of
the California Association for Mental Health was that we were the
liberal vanguard for helping to close down (Pat Brown was in that)
the state mental hospitals because of the conventional liberal
wisdom that these were Just warehouses where nothing therapeutic
was going on and that people would be better off if they were
treated in their community.

Therefore, the closing down of the state hospitals was
presumably in conjunction with a state legislation which helped
set up local mental health treatment centers. I'm afraid what we
discovered after years was that the local training centers were
not set up adequately enough. But in addition, it became a matter
of general wisdom that there were some people who belonged in
state institutions who were — it's a hard thing to say—essentially
untreatable. The relationship between the closing down of the
state mental hospitals and the rise of the homeless street
population has been noted, so that this comes under the category
of unintended consequences. We thought we were great liberal
pioneers at the time, but there may have been a miscalculation.

Glaser: Another thing occurring at the same time was that you were

instrumental in getting the communists out of the mental health
scene .

Raab: Well, that's a strong statement. Because I'm not sure-- What I

was involved with, bringing it down a level, was taking the mental
health association out of being a general do-good organization.
This was an interesting operation and related somewhat to my
thinking later in terms of Jewish community relations. When I
went on the board of the San Francisco Mental Health Association,
the board was made up of traditional politically liberal people.
There was a tendency of the association to take on all kinds of
projects, including peace in the world and so forth, with the
sense that war was bad for mental health, and therefore it was
proper for Mental Health Association to become involved in that.

I had a strong organizational feeling then, and I really
applied it to the community relations field as much as possible,
that an organization has a kind of mandate. When it exceeds its

mandate, it often does damage to itself. What I remember was
rather mischievously—this may have been after I became president,
I'm not sure—bringing to the board's attention statistics which
showed that mental illness drops during wartime, which presumably
it had and this was through World War II at least. Presumably it
does because there's more of a sense of community or whatever
during such periods.

Glaser: Support.

Raab: And therefore I suggested that if we were really interested in
mental health that we should support war in order to bring the
mental health illness rate down.

Glaser: [laughs]

Raab: This of course was facetious, but I was making a point. And the
Mental Health Association, when I was involved with it, became
more closely concerned with mental illness and not with all of the
social ills of the world. That's really what I was involved in,
I'm not sure what the exact political affiliations of the people
were.

Glaser: Did you ever have the feeling that, aside from agencies exceeding
their mandate, sometimes organizations and agencies exceed their
lifespan?

Raab: Yes. Yes, and it's an interesting question for the Jewish

organizational world. Incidentally, prior to that question, I've
had that strong feeling about Jewish community relations agencies.
I don't think they've yet exceeded their life, meaning-- See, one
of the things that's involved in what I've just said is that
boards of organizations sometimes tend just to reflect the
opinions of the people who happen to be on the board. And they're
willing to go anyplace with it.

Glaser: But isn't that normal?

Raab: But there has to be a discipline, I think, in most of these

organizations unless they're set up Just for that purpose. There
has to be a discipline for board members which says that their
opinions relate to those matters which are germane to that
organization; of course it's their opinion, and it should be
expressed. But when they try to turn the organization into a
vehicle for their opinions on everything in the world, then that
becomes very dangerous and destructive of an organization.

It was destructive to the Mental Health Association. This
is partly what I'm still involved in relationship with Brandeis

University and what I've been doing there. It's my feeling that,
when we get to it, Jewish community relations boards and agencies
have become unclear about their mandate, which is a whole big
subject.

Glaser: We'll discuss it later?
Raab: Yes.
Glaser: All right.

Aside from the California Association for Mental Health, you
were on the governor's advisory committee on mental health and a
board member of the National Association for Mental Health.

Raab: I may have been, but I didn't travel much so that I never stayed
on those national boards very long. My main activity in mental
health was on the local and state level.

Vice President, American Association for the United Nations

Glaser: What did you do as a board member of the American Association for
the United Nations?

Raab: This was again the double kind of involvement, one that was an

opening to many influentials in the community. The other aspect
is that the United Nations, presumably, was compatible with Jewish
community relations.

Glaser: In what sense?

Raab: In the sense that there was a lot of involvement in the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, for example, and the whole question
of democratization, if you will, of the world was part of the
early concerns of the United Nations. And this was part of the
concerns of Jewish community relations certainly in the fifties
and the sixties. The question of Soviet Jewry arose and how the
United Nations might treat that. And these were all matters of
concern, so I became a member of the board. I was interested in
the U.N. I became a member of the board. I was the vice
president of the San Francisco Association of the United Nations
as I recall, and I did a weekly radio program about UNESCO (United
Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization).

Glaser: On which station?

Raab: On the local NBC station. I did a lot of that and I did the first
live program that KQED ever did. As the vice president of the
United Nations, I was moderating something on the United Nations
or talking about it. And it was done in a belfry, in the attic of
the Mark Hopkins Hotel, with all kinds of crude lights and so
forth. But it was the first live program that they did.

U.S. Opposition to Genocide Pact

Glaser: You must have been disturbed that the United States didn't ratify
the Genocide Pact.

Raab: Yes. That was part of the international concern that the U.N.
interest touched on. The community relations field in general,
including our JCRC of course, pushed constantly for the United
States to ratify the Genocide Pact.

Glaser: Why wouldn't they?

Raab: There was a concern from quite right wing circles in the Senate
that this would somehow impinge on the sovereignty of the United
States in that as proposed if there was a violation of human
rights that might touch on the Genocide Pact in this country, it
could be brought directly to a world court and therefore bypass
American courts. It was a highly overcharged concern. Of course
we were not successful for many years.

Glaser: That issue of national sovereignty has been something that the

right wing in this country has talked about for a long, long time.

Raab: Yes. As a matter of fact, when I was doing this, when I was

involved with the AAUN and with this UNESCO program on radio that
I did, during that period there was a constant strong right wing
attack on the United Nations itself with slogans of "Get the U.S.
out of the U.N." and so forth.

Glaser: We hear that still today.

Raab: Yes, but muted. This was, I suppose, in the McCarthy period and
among the right wing groups following the McCarthy period. The
seventies wiped all of this kind of thing out of the serious voice
of the country. It really did.

Glaser: Why the seventies?

IX POLITICAL ENVIRONMENT IN THE SIXTIES AND SEVENTIES

The Right Wing and the New Left

Raab: Well, the late sixties and the early seventies. The Vietnam War,
the civil rights stuff, et cetera, came to a crescendo. And
that's when there was such a turn in the American temper that
affected community relations and a lot of other things. In a
sense, this was a period when people were on the streets, when the
issues of civil rights, anti-Vietnam War, women's rights all came
into the ascendancy. The right wing was pushed to the fringe.
They were louder than ever perhaps because they were being pushed
to the fringe, but they were pushed to the fringe.

Glaser: Yes, but you had a backlash. Because of the Vietnam War, people
became more isolationist in this country.

Raab: Oh, that was a concern. See, when I was involved in this period
(since we're talking about me), I was as I indicated anti-
Stalinist, anti-Communist as I came in. I was anti-right-wing
from the beginning, anti-political extremism, which I abhorred and
which was dangerous for the Jews. The opposite of democratic
pluralism is political extremism. And then there was the
phenomenon of the New Left, which grew up in the late sixties.
That New Left developed along with these new issues, which were
women's rights and civil rights and anti-Vietnam War, and it was
very difficult.

I would say I always considered myself a liberal, and I
would say that this was a very difficult period for liberals
because the communists were fading but the Soviet Union was still
the Soviet Union with, for example, huge slave camps which
included Jews and many others.

And then came the New Left, which associated itself in some
ways with some of the things that liberals approve, such as civil
rights, but which contained certain dangers of their own, to

democratic pluralism, to certain Jewish agenda items, including
Israel. That's why it was such a difficult period for liberals
who were beleaguered on all sides.

Glaser: When you talk about the New Left, are you talking about the things
that were happening on campuses?

Raab: Yes, that was the most dramatic stage, what was happening on the
campuses. And 1 remember, for example, that as usual the Jews,
who were the same as everyone else except more so, were at the
forefront of the New Left movement. In Berkeley, for example, the
SDS [Students for a Democratic Society] were very much in the
forefront. But many of the Jewish students who considered
themselves radical began to feel very uneasy as many of the New
Left organizations turned towards attacks on Israel. They
epitomized, perhaps, the difficulty that I talked about that the
liberals were in, especially during this period. It's part of
this problem, as I say, for liberals, which is a problem for Jews
in some ways .

In 1964 Mario Savio got up and made his maiden speech in
Berkeley, which reverberated around the country so much, in which
he talked about-- What was the term? Because the precursors of
the computers had cards.

Glaser: Oh, punch cards.

Raab: Punch cards. And he said, "Mutilate the cards" and "Stop the

machines," and so forth. He was talking about impersonality. It
reminded me of what I had read about in the 1920s, when a similar
thing happened in the colleges around the country. It was not a
period where students were worrying about how they were going to
make a living after they got out. That was not a consideration.
Economics was not a consideration.

But in the 1920s it was the same situation with a much
smaller population in the colleges. I guess along the lines of
"Man does not live by bread alone," there was a concern about the
culture and about the impersonality then, about the mechanization
of things and so forth, about some crushing of the individual by
the new industrial forces, et cetera. The movement of the
students and all that rebellion took place amongst a lot of
students in the 1920s and was cut off by the Depression and then
by the war. It came back in the early sixties. Again, not out of
economic concerns, because there weren't any economic concerns for
most students then.

In Mario Savio 's cry, it was pure "Let's return to
individuality, get rid of this big machine that's crushing all of
our spirits." That quickly turned to politics of course. Of

course in the sixties it quickly turned to questions of Vietnam
and quickly turned to civil rights, I think secondarily. And it
was radicalized in a different way. It took some of us a little
while to separate interests in Soviet Union from the New Left
because there were some old Marxists still there. These were old
Marxists, I don't mean in age.

Glaser: But in loyalty?

Raab: Loyalty, both towards the Soviet Union, there was still plenty of
that, and developing more in an organized way towards Communist
China. But with them there were these large groups of young
people who abhorred the Soviet empire and the Chinese empire
because these two were crushing operations. And these were the
New Left.

Marcuse may have been in San Diego at the time—he was a
political scientist faculty member. He was one of the people who,
certainly during the Savio period, was an icon for them. What he
was saying, and he wrote a lot about it, was "Let's bring
everything down, including what's in the Soviet Union and
communist China. They're not satisfactory. In this country let's
bring everything down before we decide exactly how we want to
rebuild again. Democracy is a farce. America is not a
democracy." This was Marcuse 's message which the New Left was
picking up.

This was difficult for the liberals and the Jewish liberals.
Difficult for two reasons for the sophisticated Jewish liberal, I
think. Marcuse's message was a disturbing message: "Bring down
democracy." We weren't ready for that after Hitler, the
sophisticated liberals. We had more faith in America than that,
the older liberals. Also, the turn against Israel, which the New
Left took because they took the Palestinians as a third world
group which needed support and was oppressed by Western
imperialism, including American imperialism. And Israel was an
arm of American imperialism. That was the point. And that made
great trouble for a lot of the Jewish liberals on campus. It made
Jews uncomfortable who considered themselves radical on campus.

In the community relations field I felt that this was
something that we had to pay attention to. And frankly, we had to
support the basic American concept of democracy. There was no
substitute as far as we could tell that anybody could come up with
that worked. We had to oppose political extremism; and Marcuse,
as far as I was concerned, came within the category of political
extremism. So that's why it was a difficult period.

Glaser:

Ame rican Civil Liberties Union

What was and what is the JCRC's relationship to the American Civil
Liberties Union?

Raab: It's been a little spotty. The JCRC and community relations field
in general, certainly, the Jews have been traditionally very
strong supporters of the ACLU because the concept of democracy,
which we understand is a concept which protects minorities as well
as expresses the will of the majority. The Bill of Rights, et
cetera, that's the heart of democracy for Jews, for liberals. And
the ACLU represented that. Things got a little dicey much later
on working with the ACLU. The Skokie incident epitomized that.

Nazis in San Francisco and Skokie, Illinois

Raab: We had a situation in San Francisco, in the seventies, eighties,
especially when there was a small band of Nazis, which I
mentioned, had formed here. When I say small, I mean no more than
eight people who were identified as belonging to an organization
although it's not clear what kind of sympathizers they had.
Policy questions arose.

One of the hazards is that I may repeat myself. They
appeared as a uniformed band of eight, ten. They went to the
Board of Education meetings as a unified band. They went to the
Board of Supervisors as a unified band. They went to Board of
Education meetings in order to protest integration. And the Board
of Education people came to JCRC and said, "What should we do?
Should we refuse to allow them entrance into our meetings?" And
the Board of Supervisors came to the JCRC and said, "What kind of
statutes can we pass? How about a statute which would outlaw the
wearing of Nazi uniforms?"

Raab: The survivors were beginning to organize at one point, with our
help in a way, which is a story about the JCRC which I suppose
should be told. I don't remember the year when--

Glaser: We'll go over that later, about the Holocaust and about the
survivors.

Raab: Okay. In any case, the question was what should we do about them?
There were serious discussions and heated discussions in JCRC

circles and in the Jewish community. We came up with a policy
recommendation to the Board of Education which said, "Go on about
your business and don't prevent them from coming, although you
have to keep them in control." To the Board of Supervisors, we
said no laws. Passing a law to outlaw Nazi uniforms is: a)
contrary to the American tradition and b) won't do any good
anyway. As a matter of fact, in the early rise of the Nazi party,
Prussia once outlawed Nazi uniforms. It didn't help. They wore
beer buttons in a certain pattern during that period so that
everybody knew they were Nazis. That didn't last very long.

Glaser: But surely the ACLU would not have opposed your recommendations?

Raab: No, the ACLU was with us on that. I think it was an important

step for the Jewish community to take in terms of its support of
the Bill of Rights. Even in terms of its sophisticated knowledge
about how you fight Nazism. But with respect to the ACLU, when
the Skokie situation arose we mostly found ourselves on the
opposite side from the ACLU.

There was a San Francisco episode, because this was still
during the period when this Nazi group existed here, and they were
asking for permission to demonstrate here, speak here, hold open
public meetings. Again, the JCRC took the position that if they
want to meet in front of City Hall, let them meet in front of City
Hall. We figured, incidentally, that our job was to educate.
When they held a meeting, we usually had a public meeting in the
community sponsored by us, the Jewish community, and all of its
allies: black speakers, Latino speakers, Christian speakers, et
cetera. We held a kind of counter-rally.

But in terms of them holding a meeting, we said, "Let them
do it, but it depends on where they want to hold it. Do they want
to hold it in front of City Hall? Fine. If they want to hold it
in front of a synagogue at a time when Jews are gathering, no.
That's not an exercise of free speech in our judgment; that's an
attempt to provoke." The police usually took our judgment on
these things.

The ACLU was not too happy about some of our positions then
or our position on Skokie. And a lot of us were not happy about
their position on Skokie, which in a sense was akin to our
position on allowing Nazis to meet outside the synagogue. In
Skokie they were planning to parade in a Jewish district.

Glaser: It was more than a Jewish district. It was inhabited by many
Holocaust survivors.

Raab: So the same thinking was involved. This was not an exercise in
free speech.

Glaser: It was very provocative.

Raab: So that's where we parted company with the ACLU.

X ORGANIZATION OF JEWISH COMMUNITY RELATIONS COUNCIL

Key Staff Members

Glaser: I want to have you talk now about the JCRC as an organization.
Would you discuss how it was organized, the personnel, the
functions of the JCRC. How it was organized in terms of projects,
committees, commissions, concerns of each, and how consensus was
reached.

Eugene Block

Raab: To begin with, the JCRC grew because of the nature of the problems
that developed. I became the director when Gene Block retired.
There were two of us. Gene was, I guess you could say, half time
because he spent half the time editing the Bulletin. But his half
time was kind of phenomenal: his half time was equal to somebody
else's full time. He was here at seven in the morning and he
worked through the night, with remarkable energy.

Gene was the first director, the director of the B'nai
B'rith Survey Committee, the predecessor of the JCRC, which was
founded in "38 or "39 because there were concerns about Nazi and
fascist influences in this area. He left his jobs; he had been an
editor of San Francisco newspapers for years. He was a remarkable
man in a number of ways, including the fact that as director he
did not have a heavy hand. I worked mostly outside the Jewish
community and he never looked over my shoulder, which is hard for
a director to do. I was the associate director for most of that
time.

When he retired in the early 1960s, I became the director.
Israel made a difference. To give you an indication of how the
JCRC grew, in 1967, which made a difference for American Jewish

consciousness about Israel all over the country and markedly in
San Francisco, we had an Arab propaganda committee but no Middle
East committee. There was an office in town which raised money
for AIPAC and held some events for AIPAC, which was at that time a
one person operation in Washington.

Rita Semel

Raab: Rita Semel, who had worked for the Jewish Bulletin, for Gene Block
as a matter of fact, as an assistant editor for some time, had her
own public relations office. One of her tasks was AIPAC. When we
began to incorporate that activity, Rita became involved on a
part-time basis with the JCRC in that capacity. Further than
that, we became involved in the civil rights movement. Rita took
on the administration of the Council on Religion and Race, and
Social Concerns, again from her office, as a part-time employee of
the JCRC. Eventually she became a full-time employee of the JCRC
involved in both interreligious and Israel-related activities.

I must tell this story about Rita, because it suggests the
remarkable impact she has had on this community. I think I've
mentioned that every time a mayor was elected we went in to see
the mayor. Among other things we offered a list of people that we
thought would be appropriate for various kinds of jobs,
appointments in his administration. Of course, we weren't the
only ones that did it. Our list was made up of Jews who were
connected to the Jewish community. The Archdiocese used to give a
similar list. One year, the Archdiocese put in this list for
recommended appointments and they were all Catholics except for
one, and that was Rita Semel.

Glaser: That's quite a testimonial to her.
Raab:

Glaser:

Yes. She was unusually effective and had been working closely
with the Catholics.

You talked about Rita; I think you want to talk about some other
people.

Naomi Lauter

Raab: Well, again, this grew like Topsy. Naomi Lauter came on first (if
you want years, we have to look them up)1 as a volunteer as the
JCRC became more involved in Israel. She was interested very much
in Israel. She'd been involved with AIPAC as the volunteer for a
quite a while before then. She was also heavily involved in the
schools, public schools — integration and so forth. And she came
to the JCRC as a volunteer and worked as a volunteer. Then she
started to become a part-time employee, highly underpaid for some
time, until she became a full-time employee of the JCRC. She was
working finally as a full-time staff member while Rita was a full-
time staff member.

Because there came an obvious need for it, we developed a
South Peninsula committee, a Marin committee, and a North
Peninsula committee. That required more staff; so that we ended
up with five professionals, plus the support staff. It was per
capita, for what it's worth, a much larger professional operation
than any in the country. It was a remarkable staff. At that one
time, Rita Semel was a full-time staff member and was capable of
running any JCRC in the country.

There was formed through NJCRAC [National Jewish Community
Relations Advisory Council] a national committee not of
professionals but JCRC directors. The first rule was that only
the directors would be involved in this. But I insisted, and the
logic was clear to everybody, that Rita had to be a member too
because of her status.

Rabbi Douglas Kahn

Raab: So at one time we had Rita Semel, Naomi Lauter, and then more
recently, Doug Kahn. Like Rita, Naomi could have run an
organization by herself, as indeed she did so well afterwards when
she became director of AIPAC. Doug Kahn now is nationally
acknowledged. He's one of the first people that NJCRAC calls when
it wants advice on something. We had all those people at one
time, plus a couple of others, so that it was really a remarkable
staff, each with exceptional talent. We took on also the media.

'Mrs. Lauter was interviewed for background material and stated she
came in as a volunteer in 1970 or '71 while still in school. Upon her
graduation in 1973, Earl Raab offered her a part-time job.

There was obviously an increasing need to do more media work. The
Board of Rabbis had hired Sydnee Guyer part-time. This task was
switched over to us and then Sydnee Guyer, another exceptional
talent, became part of our staff also.

Committees and Projects

Glaser: Tell me about the committees' structure.

Raab: We had a schools committee for most of this time. This was during
the period of integration when we were involved in the efforts to
integrate San Francisco schools in what you might call democratic
education in the schools and a little later in Holocaust education
in the schools.

We had a separate urban affairs committee, which was
involved in civil rights business. After 1967, we had a Middle
East committee, Israel-centered committee. These committees were
made up of JCRC board members and other people who were brought
in. We had a lot of special committees necessarily. At one point
we had a committee (this is interesting, I think) of Jewish school
administrators who were concerned about their jobs as a new era of
affirmative action came in. Also, we used to hold biannual
luncheons with school administrators in the various districts to
talk about church/state--

Glaser: We'll talk about that later.

Raab: --which is part of the schools committee and so forth. Renny

[Reynold] Colvin became involved with them as a legal counselor.
What is of interest about the administrators' committee, which was
useful to us in a general way, less useful to them in terms of
their specific interests, is that they disappeared. Jewish
administrators disappeared. There just were fewer of them,
probably because of the new affirmative action push. We used to
have meetings of Jewish administrators with a dozen of them at
least. And they were top administrators like George Karansky and
Izzy Pivnik, who were on the top level of the school
administration. They're gone. It's no longer easy to find a
Jewish administrator. So there were ad hoc committees like that.

Glaser: You had an ad hoc committee on foreign affairs to deal with
apartheid and dive--

Raab: Divestiture.

Glaser:

Raab:

[laughter] Divestiture. How effective was that?
had to come to some consensus.

I suppose you

Glaser:

Raab:

Glaser:

Raab:

Yes, and you know, during that period we had, for what it's worth,
a strong public position obviously opposed to apartheid. Trying
to organize in the community at that early time, we had difficulty
finding a lot of interest in the black community because it wasn't
at the top of their consciousness as early as it was on top of
ours, partly because of our foreign affairs experience. That
changed, of course. But there was a debate about how far one
should go about divestiture, for example. We had trouble with
that consensus, as I recall, because as they say there are
arguments on both sides.

I can recall that very active South African woman, Helen Suzman,
was opposed to divestiture, thinking that it would hit hard on the
black working class.

Yes, there was that. We supported general action. There was a
so-called Sullivan Principle that we supported that had to do with
American businesses in South Africa; that they should be involved
in breaking down apartheid in their own workforce and so forth,
which we pushed heavily for. On divestiture we had a problem. I
don't think we came to a clear position on that.

What was the difference between commissions, committees, and
projects?

Well, we called them commissions, the grander title, better it
seemed to everybody. We called our basic committees at one point
commissions, I'm not sure it's done anymore, like the schools
commission. They were ongoing commissions. And then there were
ad hoc committees. We even had one on Vietnam. Positions on some
of these issues touch on the question of consensus and what is
meant by consensus. The philosophy was that, unlike the Jewish
organizations in general, we were an organization of organizations
and we spoke for the community and that was our strength. When we
went to a legislator, state or federal or local, we could say this
is what the Jewish community thinks, the organized Jewish
community. We never attempted to speak for all the Jews, the
organized Jewish community thinks this or that.

In order to do that and be credible, we needed more than a
slight majority in the vote. And the debate is still going on.
They're having a meeting here next Monday to decide what a
consensus is. My interpretation of our consensus was about 70
percent. If more than a third of the organizational delegates had
a contrary position, you could not call it a consensus. And it
depended on how strong the opposition was, because this was a

matter of utility. We go to a congressman and say, "This is the
position of the Jewish community," and seven angry Jewish
delegates come into the same legislator the next day and say,
"This is our position," then you've lost some credibility.

One of the problems that developed in the Jewish community
was the increasing complexity of the issues and the increasing
difficulty of knowing when there was a consensus. In the early
days there was no problem. On civil rights there was no problem:
we got 70 percent and more in the JCRC. But more than that, there
was no opposition out there. My sense of it is that some Jews
didn't care much one way or another, in which case they didn't
interfere with consensus in the organized Jewish community.

The main problems of consensus that we had--I think there
was one on the divestiture that you talked about. And there was
the whole Vietnamese issue, clearly no consensus in the Jewish
community about what should be done. There was one too, for
example, that developed on the Israeli incursion of Lebanon when
they went up to Beirut.

Our general philosophy was that where there is no consensus
but where it is an issue that is within our mandate, then it is
necessary for us to do something, to conduct pro/con educational
programs.

Glaser: Among the board members?

Raab: And among the Jewish community in general. At the time of the

Lebanese incursion and the controversy about it, we had meetings
after meetings all over the community- -here, Marin, North and
South Peninsula. We presented panels with somewhat different
points of view. Where there is a referendum coming up, we
particularly felt that this was something that we need to educate
about, more than tell the Jews how they should vote. In any case,
where there was not a consensus and the issue was still within our
purview of concerns, we felt that we still had a function.

Glaser: You have a Latin project?

Raab: Well, there have been a lot of projects. The Latin project

relates to establishing relationships with Latino organizations
and influent ials . This was almost a part of the general area of
minority organizations in the city, because originally, as I said,
in the Bay Area Human Rights Clearinghouse we mainly had Jews,
blacks, the Japanese Americans Citizens League, and some Christian
ministers. Latinos were not well organized then. We normally did
not have to establish anything new during that period to establish
relationships with the leadership in the black community, it was

there. We did that regularly through the civil rights operations.
But Latino organizations began to spring up, and then we felt that
we should make some deliberate efforts to make contacts there.
The Asians have been the last really to organize in this way, the
Chinese are the last. The Japanese did it a long time ago.

Glaser: You had a labor project?
Raab: [sighs]
II

Raab: In connection with the strategy that a community relations

operation should be in touch with the influential leaders of the
community and organizations of the community in common concern,
organized labor was traditionally one of those in the Jewish
community. I may have to go back a bit. In terms of anti-Nazi
and anti-fascist activity, organized labor was there in our
support. In this community, I'm talking about California and
elsewhere, in terms of fighting for civil rights the labor
movement was an important part of that.

To work with us, you know, perhaps many years ago, before
the war et cetera, it was not so clear where all of organized
labor stood. But in our period organized labor has stood for
civil rights, has worked alongside the Jews for civil rights.
Furthermore, organized labor in general became an important force,
a pro-Israel force in American politics. So for all of those
reasons, we were interested in maintaining the connection with
labor. This way we were always close with the director of the
Labor Council and so forth.

The question continually arose when we talk about these
situations and coalitions and so forth, What's the quid pro quol
And it wasn't always easy for us to support every labor position.
One of the things that's happened to the Jewish populations in the
last couple of decades is that they've become increasingly less
interested in labor causes. When we asked the question on our
last survey here, couple of years ago, "Would America be better
off if labor was more organized?", we didn't get much of an
affirmative response from the Jewish community.

Glaser: Was that in San Francisco?

Raab: San Francisco. So we had trouble with the quid pro quo. We

became involved somewhat, mostly on the staff level or with one or
two lay people, in some labor disputes with the Jewish Home for
the Aged, for example. That's about it. But we had this project
and labor people did sit on it. It didn't meet regularly.

Glaser: You had a middle class project?

Raab: Did we?

Glaser: According to your files, yes.

Raab: That's a peculiar title. I need to find out some more about it.

Glaser: Okay. Community affairs commission?

Raab: I think that was the urban affairs commission.

Glaser: Okay. Jews To and From Arab Lands?

Raab: Well, of course you've got down there Soviet Jewry commission, I'm
sure, which became extremely important.

Glaser: We'll go into a whole discussion of JCRC and Soviet Jews.

Raab: There 've also been particular concerns, certainly about Syrian

Jews and Ethiopian Jews, those two classes of Jews in particular.
And this was the commission which essentially had those agenda
items in mind. The Syrian Jewish problem was always extremely
difficult to deal with; there was no leverage. The Ethiopian one,
there was leverage and really more activism on Ethiopian Jewry.

Glaser: You had a committee on religious affairs?

Raab: I don't know. That must have been for some ad hoc reason.

Glaser: A spinoff from the urban affairs committee was the social welfare
and public policy committee.

Raab: It was mainly for taking positions on state legislative issues,
for the Jewish Public Affairs Committee of California which we
helped set up.

Glaser: Okay. I'll just read these off and you can tell me about them.
Extremism and overt bigotry?

Raab: Well, that was a kind of ongoing operation which had to do with
following the formation of right wing groups, including the Nazi
group that I talked about. That's what that was about.

Glaser: You had a special program committee.

Raab: That must have been for some specific ad hoc reason.

Glaser: Legislative committee? That must have been a very active one. I
think you were a pioneer in that, were you not?

Raab: Starting with the civil rights business and the California Fair
Employment Practices Committee, which was the lobbying operation
in California for civil rights legislation in the state, we in San
Francisco were more often in touch with Sacramento than was Los
Angeles; probably because we were closer [chuckles] and partly
because of Bill Becker, who was the chairman of that committee and
who was in San Francisco as the regional director of the Jewish
Labor Committee, which operated very closely with the JCRC.

Other issues arose in the state legislature that were direct
Jewish concerns. Occasionally, just to give you an example, the
humane slaughter bill, would occasionally arise, a proposal for

humane --

Glaser: For kosher slaughter?

Raab: No, for humane slaughter, which in some cases jeopardized kosher
slaughter. So it was something that we had to watch; it almost
passed once when we were preoccupied with an Israeli crisis. And
again, for many years we used to handle it from San Francisco,
including going up there and through our state legislators, rather
than Los Angeles. Finally, there developed more and more bills,
some of them church-state bills. Bills like humane slaughter,
which we had to watch out for so that kosher slaughter wasn't made
illegal in the state. And secondly, positive things: about Jewish
teachers and Jewish holidays or Jewish children and Jewish
holidays. This sort of thing started to come up more and more so
that really from San Francisco--and this was initially
conversations between myself and Sanford Treguboff, who was then
the director of the Jewish Welfare Federation. We called together
a meeting with Los Angeles and began to set up the Jewish Public
Affairs Committee. It included, as it still does, all the
organized Jewish communities, San Diego, Los Angeles, Long Beach,
San Jose, San Francisco, East Bay.

The legislative committee that we established was a
committee to look over bills and to make recommendations to our
delegate or delegates to the meetings of JPAC [Jewish Political
Action Committee] which decided what should be done in the state.
That was the way decisions were made.

Glaser: I have, for your early committees, the energy and associational
freedom, and I don't think those were longstanding ones.

Raab: No. Energy was a one-situation kind of committee, energy having
to do with some relationship to the Middle East and the question
of--

Glaser: I think that grew out of the 1973 war in Israel with the tight--

Raab: The long gas lines and so forth.

Glaser: Right, right. And how best to conserve energy.

Raab: Right. Now, that was what it was about. It didn't get very far

except in terms of some education on conservation, but not much on
policy.

Glaser: What about associational freedom?

Raab: Associational freedom was an interesting one. If I can remember
the detail. I can remember who was involved. The general
question that arose was legislation that related to whether
private clubs could discriminate. And the question was raised,
What about associational freedom? There's a lot more involved in
that. If we support a law which says you can't form an Italian
club, and presumably they have to have a liquor license and that's
how the state got into it and would make it illegal for them to
have it. If you can't form an Italian club and keep out other
people because that's discriminatory, then the question is what
about a Jewish club? Suppose Jews want to get together? There
were some other deeper questions involved with that.

Glaser: Willie Mays was given membership to the Concordia Club. I don't
think he ever used it, and it's distasteful to call him a token
black, but that's actually what he was.

Raab: It was a strategy. There are arguments back and forth. Take the
Concordia Club, and especially with respect to women.

Glaser: But you had some problem with that too, didn't you?
Raab: On the Concordia Club?

Glaser: About women not being members, whether you were going to hold
meetings there.

Raab: Yes, as a matter of fact, and we stopped holding our meetings

there at some point. But in any case, on the one hand this is a
private club and people ought to be able to get together. On the
other hand, with respect to women for example, this is a place
where people meet on business. The exclusion of women has an
obvious affect on their ability to move economically. We talked

to a lot of people in the Concordia Club, and they moved a little
bit, reluctantly. But there was another aspect to this that had
to do with the Home for the Aged. The question was actually
raised by government bodies as to whether the Hebrew Home had to
be open to everybody.

Glaser: Because it was getting federal funds?

Raab: Yes. And the only federal funds that were involved were the

Medicare money. And this was seriously raised. It was one of
those things that we were involved with about that time. The JCRC
took some positions with respect to the Concordia Club, for
example; it was a necessity to open it up. With respect to clubs
in general, if there were no business operations going on, then
obviously governments should stay away. But if there is anything
that would touch on creating a discriminatory status, then we
pushed for action on that.

On the Hebrew Home, we took a strong position that older
Jews who want to be in a Jewish institution with Jewish practices,
which can only be done if most of them were Jews, that should be
permitted and Medicare was not a factor that could militate
against that. There was a piece of legislation up in the state,
there was a push from the federal bureaucracy against it in those
terms. We defeated both of them. This was something that was
going on nationally, so it wasn't just us. There were interesting
discussions .

1 think I'm running out.

XI NATIONAL, REGIONAL, AND LOCAL RELATIONSHIPS
[Interview 4: June 5, 1996] If

National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council

Glaser: Would you discuss the relationship between the JCRC and the
national body, the NCRAC?

Raab: When I came to JCRC, in 1951, there was a great controversy in
this community about whether it should join the newly formed
organization, at the time it was called the National Community
Relations Advisory Council, which was an attempt to bring
together, after the fragmentation of the 1930s in particular, all
the public policy agencies. And at that time the focus was on the
national agencies, but there was a handful, maybe not much more
than a dozen, local communities which had begun to form such
bodies in the late thirties and were supposed to join as well.

There was great controversy because there was some
resistance, and in this community particularly, because there was
some resistance to the idea of a kehilla that would dictate Jewish
opinions. The American Jewish Committee stayed out for quite a
while. I forget the year, it was in the fifties when it decided
to join, but initially it stayed out for that reason. And in this
community, which of course was, in terms of these national
agencies, rather dominated by the American Jewish Committee, there
was great controversy about joining.

I remember Jesse Steinhart, the great leader of the Jewish
community at that point, was opposed to the idea. Edward Bransten
was the great champion of joining NCRAC. Finally, it was
inevitable, in the fifties we joined NCRAC. It was understood
that NCRAC (now the National Jewish Community Relations Advisory
Council, we still call it NCRAC) as its name implied was an
advisory body. Of course the national agencies, especially the
major public policy agencies—Committee, Congress, and ADL--
insisted that it had no policy direction over Jewish

organizations. So it was advisory. It was a kind of
clearinghouse where groups came together, even then every year, to
try to decide on some policies which were advisory but which
represented that magical word in Jewish public policy life: a
consensus.

Today there are about a hundred and fifty local Jewish
communities that belong, either with independent community
relations councils or public policy committees of federations, and
about thirteen national agencies. The problem has been that it is
advisory. We send people every year to NCRAC. They put out a
policy manual every year which is the result of the deliberations
of the plenary on various issues, most of which this community and
most communities do not take action on because they seem to go in
recent years beyond the purview of community relations tradition.

Glaser: Does that mean that the national body has become a weaker body?

Raab:

Glaser:

Raab:
Glaser:

Raab:

The national body is a fairly weak body. It's not a national
agency, really; it's got to be thought of as a coordinating
council. And the national agencies that belong to it, especially
as I say the major public policy agencies, watch it very carefully
to keep it within certain limits. They don't want NCRAC to become
an operating agency. That's been the phrase:
operating agency but a coordinating agency

"It should not be an
In other words, not

do anything in its own name. This is not the case with local
CRCs; local CRCs are operating agencies.

It's a big controversy; it's still going on. And NCRAC has
gotten somewhat weaker with budgetary deficits and so forth, and
the insistence of the national agencies that it should not become
too operational.

At one time it must have been a lot stronger, because in the files
there is a letter that you wrote to Al Chernin saying that there
was not enough JCRC presence in the NCRAC process.

That's interesting. What year was that?

There was no date on the letter. And then you went on to write
that there's tension between the national agencies and the local
community relations councils.

I say it's interesting because the more things change, the more
they remain the same. This remains a tension underneath NCRAC.
And mainly local councils, JCRCs or CRCs, feel that NCRAC does not
represent them enough.

Now, for example, there is one change taking place because
NCRAC tried to take a move this year. National agencies always
had on the books a veto power over any policy recommendation.
That's all they are, policy recommendation from NCRAC. This year,
in what was considered a bold move, NCRAC among other things asked
that this veto be removed. It had a strategic committee which
determined that. And the national agencies acceded, because these
are after all just policy recommendations.

But the local councils do not feel that they are represented
enough in NCRAC vis-a-vis the national agencies, and they do not
feel that they have a national coordinating body themselves. It's
something which has to come to a head at some point. And the
federations, which mainly fund the local councils through the
national federation council, have to help bring it to a head.

The fact of the matter is that, and I speak with some bias,
the mass of American Jews are reflected more in these local
councils than they are in the national agencies. The national
agencies have been very important and useful bodies in American
life and continue to be with their research and resources, and so
forth. But the American Jewish Committee represents, offhand I
don't remember how many people but certainly thousands of Jews
around the country. The ADL, in terms of membership, represents a
certain number of thousands of Jews around the country. The
Congress represents a smaller group, actually. If you add up the
people who are represented by the CRCs, it's a massive number. So
there is that.

There's also the fact that life has changed in America, not
just recently but in the course of the last few decades, so that
there is more potential power, legislative for example, public
policy power, emanating from the communities, not just a matter of
what happens in Washington, D.C. The community councils are in
touch with people who become congressmen after they were members
of the local board of supervisors and follow them through and are
usually the closest contacts with these congressmen. With the
kind of populist mood that's overtaken the country, where there is
more power exerted out in the communities than there used to be-
not just for the Jews, but for everybody—then the importance of
the CRCs, I think, is underestimated just on that account.

East Bay Jewish Community Relations Council

Glaser: Tell me about the relationship the San Francisco JCRC had with the
East Bay JCRC.

Raab: [pause] There has never been in my time, although a couple of

times there has been proposed, a functional relationship between
the East Bay CRC and the San Francisco CRC. There is now, I
understand, an experimental new relationship. The East Bay JCRC 1
think it can be said without prejudice, is a weaker operation.
It's a tougher operation because those are large expanses out
there. You know the East Bay includes different regions that are
temperamentally more different than the regions in San Francisco.
You put together Berkeley and Piedmont and some of the others and
they're very disparate groups and large extensions of land. So
it's been difficult.

The East Bay Federation has not raised as much money. They
don't have as many Jews. The East Bay Federation has not raised
as much money and has not given the same support to CRC. And the
East Bay has generally been relatively weak. There 've been times
when in San Francisco we have provided the East Bay with materials
that we've produced—action alerts, for example. We've tried to
bring together the East Bay and San Jose at times with San
Francisco, on the staff level mostly. They've tried to coordinate
and help. There have been a couple of proposals for the CRC in
San Francisco to really administratively take over the East Bay
CRC. In the past they haven't worked out, for fiscal reasons
largely.

Glaser: But you were very active, when you were leading the San Francisco
JCRC, in working with the East Bay organization when the two
Berkeley propositions, E and J, came up.

Raab: It's been our position that a lot of the things that happen here

affect them in the East Bay. A lot of the things in the East Bay,
perhaps particularly Berkeley because it gathers so much publicity
in the mass media, our San Francisco mass media as well as East
Bay mass media, we have an investment in helping in those
situations. And we did help to draw together the East Bay and San
Francisco forces in order to defeat those referenda.

Koret Foundation

Glaser: I want to ask you about the relationship with the Koret

Foundation. In 1986 you were approached by the foundation to
submit a grant proposal for a research paper. You were to do the
research, be the interviewer, and write up a paper identifying the
needs best related to the Koret Foundation's interest in the Bay
Area Jewish community. I wonder what the outcome of that was, and

also if this, except for population numbers, wasn't the same area
of the demographic study done by the Federation?

Raab: Oh, that was much later. I talked to a number of people in that
project; and the conclusion, which was an obvious conclusion
supported by what I heard, was that Koret wasn't focused enough at
the time. There tended to be grants approved more whimsically on
the feelings of individual board members of Koret. It wasn't
clear to the board of Koret at the time what the real focus was,
and I thought that a sharper focus was necessary. I don't know if
there were any results from that report or not, it's filed
someplace. But it was something that happened in Koret
eventually. So it did take on more focus with respect to Israel,
with respect to Jewish continuity, et cetera.

When I was director, we never applied particularly at any
time for funds from Koret. But with its new focus it's been
possible for the San Francisco JCRC under Doug Kahn to apply for
funds to fund trips of public officials to Israel. There's been a
big relationship since.

Glaser: Was your study done before or after the fight between Mrs. Koret
and the board members of how the funds should be allocated?

Raab: Oh, that controversy was cooking at the time, but it extended
beyond my report.

Glaser: Well, did your report help to focus the board?
Raab: I don't know.

XII JEWISH COMMUNITY RELATIONS COUNCIL AND ANTI-SEMITISM

The Core of Its Program

Glaser: I want to ask you about anti-Semitism and its part in the JCRC
program.

Raab: The core of the JCRC is the area of policies which affect the

security and status of Jews, not beyond that. Civil rights falls
within that and a number of other things. But anti-Semitism, of
course, is at the center of it always, and a measure of the status
and security of Jews in a way, although we always look for
preventive programs and situations on a large scale. But anti-
Semitism is number one. In other words, if there was an incident
of anti-Semitism in San Francisco, this immediately was the top of
our agenda. Always.

Do you want to know something about the state of anti-
Semitism?

Glaser: The specific actions taken. For instance, there was literature

protesting the San Francisco Planning Commission's approval of the
Hebrew Academy's construction on 14th Avenue. You also had anti-
Semitic programs on radio station KSAM by Richard Gotten. How did
you handle things like this?

Raab: There have been incidents of the kind you mentioned. There have
been incidents of vandalism on synagogues, swastikas—usually
difficult if not impossible to trace. Usually it was estimated
that these were done by young people. There were a few serious
incidents, such as pipe bombs and so forth. There were the neo-
Nazis and there were programs on the air and in the media.

Role of the Media

Raab: There has been a switch since television. In the early days, that
is to say as early as when I got into the business, what prevailed
was a kind of strategy that had been pronounced by Feinberg of the
American Jewish Committee of "quarantine," what you do when you
try to keep a disease insulated. For instance, there was the
famous anti-Semite at the time, this was in the early fifties-
Gerald L. K. Smith. And when he came to town, the idea of the
Jewish agencies was to have the newspapers pay as little attention
to him as possible. The idea being that if he didn't get
publicity, he couldn't gather a crowd and he couldn't do any
damage or spread his ideas.

Well, you know that worked during that early period for a
number of reasons. The newspapers were open to that idea. We
developed and had relationships with the editors and so forth, and
they were partial to the idea. It was a period so soon after the
Holocaust that it was easily accepted. When television came, it
became impossible. There was so much competition for news. And
then of course gradually television news became television
entertainment; the two were indistinguishable. So that technique
was no longer possible. And the newspapers couldn't do it unless
television did it.

Our approach to the media was out of our concern for the
Bill of Rights. It started to become, "Look, we don't want to
stop people from speaking, although we don't think you should rush
after them to get them to speak. But if you have them speak, it's
important, we feel, that you have at least a larger ratio of
people who speak the opposite message who appear on your media."

There was one television station, I remember, at the time
when the neo-Nazi group was in town and we wanted to put on an
anti-Nazi program. The manager of the station sat in his office
and he said, "Look, if we put you on with an anti-Nazi message,
then we have to go to the Nazis to put on a message in order for
there to be a fair balance," which of course infuriated us. It
led to a campaign of education, not compulsion but a campaign of
education.

Most of the media did come to understand that this is not a
matter of equal treatment on the air. It's about that time that
we began to have annual gatherings, lunches, of the top media
people in the City: the managers of the TV and radio stations and
the press, and the program managers as well. And these gatherings
were always well-attended for the years that we held it. This was

one of our messages, of course, as well as a description of what
the JCRC and the other agencies did.

Other Defense Organizations

Glaser: When you say other agencies, you mean the defense agencies?

Raab: Yes. There is an old vaudeville joke, sort of a Jewish vaudeville
joke, about the three rug stores that were one next to the other.
One rug store on the left put up a sign saying, "These are the
cheapest rugs in town." And the other one on the right put up a
sign saying, "These are the best rugs in town." And the other one
in the middle just put up a sign saying "Main Entrance."

Glaser: [laughter]

Raab: And that was my concept of the JCRC, that we were a composite of
all of these, especially the agencies with offices here: the ADL,
the Committee, and Congress. For example, when we went to see a
congressman, as we did and still do, the delegation went once a
year to tell them our programs, or when we went to make a
complaint. For example, something happened in Japan, I think a
profusion of anti-Semitic literature, whatever it was. And it was
decided that there should be a delegation going to see the
Japanese Consulate General here. On those JCRC delegations we
always included people from the ADL and Committee and Congress,
because as far as we were concerned they were part of this
operation. By the same token, the understanding was that they
would not go by themselves to such people.

Types of Anti-Semitism

Glaser: There was a JCRC paper describing three types of anti-Semitism

(I'm sure that you wrote it) each of which was different, serious,
and called for different programs. One was covert acts, one was
anti-Semitic attitudes, and the third was organized anti-Semitic
movements. Your conclusion was that covert acts were on the
increase, attitudes were slightly down, and not an increase in
major anti-Semitic movements but they were more vehement. Would
you say that about this decade and at this time?

Raab: No more but more vehement?

Glaser: Yes.

Raab: Yes.

Glaser: As far as movements.

Raab: Yes, I think that before the middle of the 1960s, in other words

for about two decades after World War II, anti-Semitism was really
in the closet. It was not tolerated, it was not spoken openly, et
cetera, to any great extent. There were some small fringes who
continued publishing things. But it broke open; it broke out of
the closet in the sixties.

Interestingly enough, it broke out initially from the left,
to use that term loosely enough, in the sense that it broke out
from some of the militant black quarters in terms of the
controversy about black and Jewish teachers. There was some
terrible anti-Semitic poetry and other material being read over
the air, which we hadn't seen before since the war. Then, of
course, there was the stuff that came out vis-a-vis Israel and the
Arabs that had the tinge of anti-Semitism at times. That followed
the 1967 war, which among other things marked the real surge of
Palestinian nationalism. It was in the sixties that both of these
things happened in America, in the late sixties, and we began to
see this.

Eventually it came from right-wing sources itself. We did
something here that had to do with a dozen criteria for anti-
Semitism. This was annually put in the NCRAC annual plenary book
on anti-Semitism. One of the criterion of whether anti-Semitism
was serious is whether there is a strong reaction to it.

Raab: Did I mention to you (because we're getting to the point where I
might be saying things over and over) a recent example in
Cincinnati? Two years ago I was speaking there to a Jewish group.
The day before a paper in the suburb had published an editorial,
quite offensive, about how Clinton had appointed so many Jews;
easily interpreted as an anti-Semitic editorial. This was a small
suburban paper. The Jewish community was in great furor over
this.

I said when I spoke, and it was easy for me to say this
because I was leaving town the next day, that I prophesized within
twenty- four hours the archdiocese of the area, a strong one, would
publish a condemnation, and the Council of Protestant Churches in
this area would publish a strong condemnation of this. That the
major metropolitan newspapers would publish a strong condemnation,

and that the public officials would. And of course I left town,
but then I was told that this was exactly what happened.

Glaser: Why were you so sure of that?

Raab: Because this is the temper that has been set up, and I think it's
one of the accomplishments of the community relations field.
Whenever anything happened in San Francisco, for example, this is
one of the things that we wanted to insist on when we went to the
Council of Churches, the Catholic Archdiocese, the media people,
the public officials. We said, "This has to be responded to
immediately so that the public knows that this is something which
is condemned." This didn't happen overnight. In other words, we
couldn't stay away from these people for three hundred and sixty-
four days of the year, and on the three hundred and sixty-fifth go
to them and say, "You've got to do this." We'd been in contact
with them for a number of reasons. This was one of the businesses
of community relations over the years so that it just took a phone
call. Of course, at a certain point you didn't even need that
phone call; they'd call us and say, " What can we do? How should
we respond?" And that happened over and over again, whenever
there was anything like a serious anti-Semitic incident in this
city. You measure the strength of anti-Semitism against European
anti-Semitism and that didn't happen in Europe, that kind of total
reaction. It had to happen in this country, and it's been
happening, I think, partly the result of the community relations
activities.

At these NCRAC annual plenaries there were always great
discussions and controversy about what kind of statements should
be put in this about the evaluation of the state of anti-Semitism,
because there were people who understandably did not want to
minimize the extent of anti-Semitism. They didn't want to say
there's no anti-Semitism. There's never been no anti-Semitism.
They wanted to keep the concerns high; others felt that this was
outside of reality and shouldn't be done. My formulation was--and
this is, by the way, documented by the ADL, by law enforcement
agencies, and so forth—that throughout these last years (I'm
talking about the seventies, eighties, and nineties) there has
been no significant increase in the numbers of Americans who
belong to or support organized anti-Semitic or racist groups. But
over these years, those that are part of these groups and the
groups themselves have become more vehement. They've become more
violent as an expression perhaps of the license that's in the air
in the country.

Violent Groups

Glaser: But isn't there a growth of anti-Semitism and violence when you
look at the militia movement?

Raab: Well, the militia movement, as I understand it, is a very split

movement. Some of it is related to the racist groups and some of
it is not, really. If you want to take the membership of the
militia groups, you'd have to divide the groups into different
kinds of bodies, some which are and some which are not. The anti-
Semitic people do want to infect those groups; but they don't
start out as anti-Semitic groups at all, most of them.

You talk about the skinheads, you talk about the Aryan
Nations, you talk about those groups, and the ADL and the law
enforcement agencies are always going up and down a little bit
over the years. They're very minuscule and they have not
increased in membership although their programs have become more
open and more violent. If you want to measure anti-Semitism by
attitudes in the American population, there's a rather weak way to
do it in that there have been so many surveys of the American
population, by the ADL and by others. And all of these surveys
indicate that the expressions of anti-Semitism have continually
gone down since the sixties and continue to go down—the question
of whether the Jews have too much power and all of those old
Jewish stereotype questions. Critics of the surveys will say that
people are more sophisticated and know what they have to say. On
the other hand, that itself is an indication of something, because
one of the ways to reduce anti-Semitism is to keep it in the
closet .

Glaser: Or to make it nonacceptable.

Controlling Anti-Semitism

Raab: Nonacceptable. So that's that. We can never say--and this has
been one continuing discussion in the Jewish community relations
field, obviously, and in the community—it can never happen here.
We can never, after our experiences, be too dismissive of the
possibilities of anti-Semitism arising. But we have to be
concerned, I think, and this has been the brunt of what I have
thought about anti-Semitism: the way to go is to make the control
of anti-Semitism stronger and stronger. In other words, make it
so that culturally, legislatively, and otherwise, people are

Glaser :
Raab:

constrained from expressing anti-Semitism and are constrained from
finally becoming anti-Semitic.

There "ve been a lot of episodes in San Francisco that sort
of indicate this one way or the other. One of the early episodes,
early in terms of my career, was a refugee family from Germany, a
man and a woman, who were terrified by calls in the middle of the
night. Various kinds at three o'clock in the morning, four
o'clock in the morning. Finally they brought it to our attention,
brought to the police's attention. It was a difficult thing to
follow, obviously—teenage kinds of voices—and it went on for
several years. It was a nightmare.

Finally, the police found out who they were. They were a
handful of teenagers. The police brought them in and arrested
them. One of the things we wanted to do was to interview them.
What we found was that this group of young anti-Semites had not
been brought up in anti-Semitic families; they've not sat around
the table at night and heard anti- Jewish jokes and so forth. It
was a kind of fad of the time among the restless young people to
at some point pick up the phone, arbitrarily take a name out and
call them up, harass them a little bit, then call somebody else.
As a matter of fact, for the first year that they talked to this
terrified couple they did not strike an anti-Semitic note.

Why did they continue for so long?

First of all, because it was clear when they first called them
that these were good victims because they were terrified and
pleaded with them not to call. And they passed this around in the
City so that kids did it. About a year down the line it became
apparent that this was a Jewish couple, and that this increased
their terror a great deal. That's when they started making their
Jewish references. So anti-Semites are created. They're not just
born.

Senator Pete McCloskey

Glaser: You had your hands full with Pete McCloskey, although you started
off having a fairly good relationship with him, because you wrote
to him addressing him as Pete. And then all of a sudden (well, I
don't know whether it was all of a sudden) he changed so that he
was calling Begin a Hitler, spewing all kinds of anti-Semitic
things.

Raab: Pete McCloskey considered himself a maverick Republican. He was
anti-war, and a moderate Republican in the traditional sense. We
maintained relationships with all of the California congressmen in
the area, and they often turned to us, what do the Jews think of
this immigration proposal?, and so forth. We had good relations
with McCloskey. And then he did become related to Arab groups, in
Washington, D.C., particularly. And he began making these
dangerous statements about Israel like, "If the Jews insist on
trying to push their way in Washington on this issue, there's
going to be a great backlash of anti-Semitism in the country."
Now, that's more than a comment, that's a threat. That raises
serious implications.

I spent time talking to him, and more and more time arguing
with him. Although at one time, in the midst of my arguing with
him, he told a group of Jews that I was his chief advisor on the
subject. I may have been his advisor but he wasn't taking my
advice. [chuckles] And at the end of his congressional career
and after it was over, his ties to Arab groups and moneyed Arab
groups became clearer and clearer.

Dual Loyalty Issue

Glaser: I think one of the serious charges he brought up was the dual
loyalty issue.

Raab: Yes. It's an interesting thing, because the dual loyalty issue

was one that was at the heart of traditional anti-Semitism. It of
course raised a lot of fears in the Jewish community when Israel
became prominent. As a matter of fact, it was one of the
foundations of the American Council for Judaism here. They were
afraid that there would be charges of dual loyalty, and they spent
a lot of time planning the opposite. There were periods in the
seventies, maybe into the eighties, where the issue became quite
hot.

McCloskey raised it; some other congressman raised it too.
There was a congressman or senator from Maryland [Senator Charles
Mathias] who really was quite respectable and well-known, who
wrote an article in Foreign Affairs which attacked dual loyalty in
general, not Just the Jews but including the Jews on Israel. It's
an old thing, you know, that has been raised in this country for
many years. I wrote a couple of articles on it.

The interesting thing is that it's faded away. Dual loyalty
is such a basic piece of anti-Semitism, such a basic piece that

even before there was Israel the charge was dual loyalty. In
Russia, the charge was that Jews are not just Russian citizens;
they're part of a worldwide conspiracy to destroy the czar, et
cetera, et cetera. And that's dual loyalty. They're not real
loyal Russian citizens. In Germany the same thing was raised with
respect to communism, for example, that the Jews were turning the
czarist plot on its head. The Jews are not good German citizens;
they are more often part of a conspiracy of a worldwide communist
conspiracy so that their loyalties are elsewhere.

Dual loyalty, in one form or another, has always been the
heart of real modern anti-Semitism. When Israel came, it was an
open question of how much is this going to be raised. As you
indicate, with McCloskey and some others it was raised. Now it
seems to have died away. It has died away, doesn't mean it will
never reappear. But it's died away for this past decade, partly
because Israel has become such a favorite of the American people.

Favorable Attitudes Toward Jews

Raab: An interesting survey result is that if you ask--and the pollsters
have asked this almost every year for the last thirty years — if
you ask the American people different questions that are related
to this, "Do the Jews have as much loyalty to Israel as they have
to the United States?" a third of the American people will say
yes. Now, that kind of result used to scare the hell out of us.
But we find that most of those people are themselves so favorable
towards Israel that they don't see anything wrong with the Jews
having as much loyalty to Israel as the United States. Now if the
situation became severely different so that Israel and the U.S.
were at odds, then that might be different.

Glaser: What do you think accounts for this favorable attitude toward
Israel on the part of Americans?

Raab: Several factors. One is that for many years the strongest foreign
affairs idea that the American public had was anti-communist.
They were afraid of communist imperialism, not just in terms of
this country but around the world. Israel became seen after '67,
and was portrayed, as America's ally in keeping Soviet adventurism
from overcoming the Middle East. Of course it had something to do
with oil, too; but in American public opinion this was an
important item.

However, I think a couple other factors are overlooked
sometimes, and the main one is the place of the American Jew in

American life. I think integration, whatever problems it raises
internally for the Jews, it's had the effect of so many non- Jewish
Americans feeling friendly towards Jews and therefore towards
Israel. Again, come to the survey question which is asked over
and over again, "Are Israelis or Arabs more like us Americans?" A
cultural question. Nine out of ten Americans say Israelis are
more like us. So there's that cultural closeness. And I think
that's related also to the fact that they know the Jews of America
so well through television, if nothing else, through public
officials.

Glaser: It's interesting the number of Yiddish words that you will find in
the newspapers and on television.

Raab: Yes.

Glaser: But if Israel was so accepted because it was seen as a bulwark
against communism, what happens now that there isn't a Soviet
Union? It's a Russia that's in decline economically, politically,
and militarily.

Raab: It was something that concerned some of us in the field when the
Cold War was over, but I guess there 'd been that long period of
feeling close to Israel and that Israel was our ally. And then
the cultural factor just became extremely strong. They like us.
The Arabs are not like American Jews. You know, when you talk
about anti-Semitism, the other side of the coin is how Americans
feel about Jews positively. When you ask the questions it's
amazing, Americans are almost Judophiles. They have as much
respect for Jews, except for a small percentage, as they have for
Protestants or for Catholics. And it's a cultural thing; the Jews
are intertwined in this country.

You know one of the tests of anti-Semitism, I think one of
the strongest tests, is whether people are willing to vote for
Jews for public office. You notice the disproportion of Jews
there are in Congress who are identified Jews and who were elected
by constituencies that are over 90 percent non-Jewish.

In one of our surveys here in San Francisco, I asked the
question, kind of impishly I guess--this was a survey of
Federation members, would non- Jews resist voting for Jews for
Congress? And over a third of the answers said yes, which is
completely incomprehensible because at that time four out of five
of our congressmen were Jews. There was a time when there was
Lantos in Marin. There was a time when--

Glaser: Lantos wasn't in Marin. Lantos--

Raab: Lantos in the Peninsula. Barbara Boxer was in Marin. Mrs. Sala
Burton was a congressman from San Francisco. And at that time
Dianne was our mayor. But still, over a third of the Jews said
that non-Jews wouldn't vote for a Jew, which is interesting. And
this is an area in which 95 percent of the constituency is non-
Jewish and all these politicians were identified as Jews.

XIII ISRAEL

Identification with Israel

Glaser: I want to ask you about your intense interest in Israel, because
coming from your background one would not expect it. Did this
come about because of working with the JCRC?

Raab: It came about heavily through the years. I was not raised a

Zionist, and except for the Zionist socialist movement, the basic
socialist movement was kind of anti-Zionist because it was anti-
nationalist. But I lost all that by the time I left the army. I
became close to Israel, I guess, for a number of reasons. One was
the number of times I went and visited Israel, because Israel was
what followed the Holocaust. In other words, for national,
tribal, and political reasons rather than religious reasons.

I want to say something more. You know, before '67 there
was a great deal of apathy among American Jews about Israel. They
really took it for granted and except for a significant minority
of American Jews, for the most part they did not have religious or
even strong national feelings about Israel.

A brief description of what happened: I think one of the
reasons there was so much attraction was because a) they saw it as
a refuge for Jews after the Holocaust; and b) they saw it as a
kind of refuge and museum, if you will, for people who were like
their grandmothers and grandfathers. These were the Jews that
they knew and remembered. There was that cultural affinity that
they felt. They did not feel it as much for the Jews from Arab
and African countries who went to Israel. I think this is a
subject which needs a lot more examination, but it's in this
history of American Jewish and Israeli relationships, although I'm
sure some people would object. After this last election in
Israel, there was one professor who said that what happened in
this election is that Jerusalem defeated Tel Aviv. And Maarive.
the newspaper--

Raab:

Glaser :
Raab:

Glaser:

Raab:

Glaser:

Raab:

Glaser:

This was a matter, the newspaper said, of Middle Eastern values
conquering Western values.

Now this is a reflection of the past on my part, and I'm
Just applying this to the past because I think that the same thing
happened to American Jews. They had a sense that the Jews of
Israel were Western people like themselves with Western values
like themselves, and the Arabs were not. The Arabs were still
being, to some extent, portrayed in stereotypes with their
uniforms on and their scraggly beards, such as in Arafat's case,
and their terrorism and so forth. I'm not sure what the reaction
of Americans or American Jews is to the Eastern Jews of Israel.

Do you mean Sephardim?

The Sephardim. If Israel had been comprised almost entirely of
Sephardim during those years between '67 and now, the American
Jews would not have been so enthralled with Israel, and Americans
would not have been so enthralled with Israel. And that's not all
Jews, obviously. But that's a way of describing one of the
reasons, the strong cultural reason because of this sense of
cultural affinity, that Americans had a special sense and
relationship to Israel, and that American Jews themselves have a
special feeling towards Israel.

Well, it's amazing that that feeling didn't change when you had
those long lines of automobiles waiting to tank up after the '73
war when gasoline was rationed.

I remember that well, of course. The fear all over the country
among Jews was that the rationing lines would cause anti-Semitism.
And of course the pollsters were out immediately at the lines to
ask people who they blamed for that. And all over the country it
came out the same: they blamed the oil companies, they blamed the
Arabs, they even blamed the American government. But they did not

blame Israel and they did not at all blame the Jews,
way it came out. It's part of the same picture.

That's the

That's amazing. But I think that was not true of the feeling of
people in Europe.

Europe has always had different feelings about Israel and about
Jews.

But I mean especially after the '73 war and the oil embargo, they
were very bitter.

Raab: Oh, I think so and I think Israel would not exist today if it had
to depend on Europe rather than America for all those guns and
stuff.

Glaser: Israel did not get an awful lot from France. I remember DeGaulle
was in office when there was a shipment of materiel that was
actually paid for, arms and things, and he refused to let it go
out of the harbor.

Raab: After 1948, when they were really looking for rusty guns or

anything they could get, they got a lot from Czechoslovakia. At
first, they didn't get a lot from the United States, except mainly
what American Jews smuggled in.

XIV CONSENSUS WITHIN THE JEWISH COMMUNITY
[Interview 5: June 19, 1996] II

Divisive Issues

Glaser: Did you go back east for the NCRAC meeting?
Raab: No.

Glaser: Can you explain this article in the Jewish Community Bulletin1

about the difficulties between the religious groups and the CRCs?
I read it over three times and I don't understand how they can
issue a consensus without having it on their letterhead, in order
to appease the Orthodox Union.

Raab: Well, the basic issue was the question of veto, of the Orthodox

Union or the national organizations having a veto. NJCRAC wanted
to get rid of the veto as such by the national agencies because it
seemed to be slanted against the community organizations which
didn't have such veto. The JCRCs did not have such veto.
Although it hasn't come up very often really, but as a matter of
principle. However, this question of a caucus is an interesting
one, because I've been playing with the idea that even the JCRC
might have to do that on occasion. It was raised a little bit in
terms of CCRI [California Civil Rights Initiative] in the recent
wrangle at the JCRC, which was just settled the other night
apparently.

But you take the question of same-sex marriages, which might
come before the JCRC. Or maybe better the question of support or
opposition to vouchers by the state to religious schools, which
would mean financial support to religious schools. Catholics
would get most of it, but Jewish schools would get some of it.
There's a split in the JCRC, there would be no consensus.

'See appendix.

Although the majority would be opposed to vouchers, there would be
strong opposition to that position from the Orthodox and a lot of
others. In that case, the JCRC, in order not to be completely
absent from this debate, which is an important debate, might turn
itself into a clearinghouse where those groups who want to come
together and oppose it can do so easily, because they're all
together in the CRC. And those on the other side can come
together easily, and the JCRC can even provide some help for both.
So in both cases it would be a community caucus.

I'm not sure that it's a good idea to have it under the
letterhead of the CRC, and I'm not sure it would make much sense
to have under the letterhead of NJCRAC such a community caucus
which is not a consensus. But I think NCRAC should be involved in
it.

If it's under NCRAC letterhead, then it doesn't make much
sense, because if it's a community caucus, minus consensus, and
NCRAC is a consensus organization, then their letterhead shouldn't
be there at all.

Glaser: Well, evidently they conceded to this in order that the religious
bodies not walk out.

Raab: Yes. The idea of forming caucus within NJCRAC, or JCRC for that

matter, I think is one of the ways of the future because arguments
have become a more divisive environment in Jewish community on
policies than they were thirty years ago. So that's true. But I
still think the CRC and NJCRAC ought to be at the center of it to
help keep the community together.

Glaser: Why are things more violent in the Jewish community?

Raab: More divisive. I don't mean physically violent, rhetorically

violent. A question is being raised again of what is a consensus.
Consensus is not a number. You know we usually say 70 percent is
a consensus because the simple majority is not enough of a
consensus for a voluntary community. Let's take a hypothetical
situation. Seventy percent of the group is in favor of a policy,
30 percent oppose. If the 30 percent who opposed are rather
indifferent about the whole thing, then it's more clearly a
consensus than if 30 percent are vehemently opposed.

The idea of a consensus in terms of these public policy
organizations is that you can go to a legislator or a public
official or even the Jewish community and say credibly this is the
overwhelming feeling of the people. That's the whole purpose of a
consensus. And if 30 percent feel very strongly that there's a

different position which should be taken, you can't credibly go to
a legislator and say that.

There are several ways that ought to be done in the future.
One is that you go to a legislator and say look, 70 percent have
voted this way, 30 percent have voted another. That's not a happy
thing to do unless you have to do it, and it lets legislators off
the hook. Or you can just invoke the community caucus business.
See, the idea is to be able to present this kind of consensus and
to have an overwhelming consensus on a number of issues which will
be critical to the Jewish community. On Israel for example, on
support of Israel.

Glaser: What I got from this article is that NJCRAC was trying to
strengthen itself, other than abolishing the veto.

Raab: Well, NJCRAC wanted to, for example, hand out the money to the

national Jewish agencies. That was one of their original ideas,
but it's not an idea which worked. They dropped that a long time
ago.

Glaser: Where would the money come from?

Raab: From the federations to NJCRAC who would then hand out the money,
which would centralize everything, centralize a lot of power in
NJCRACs. But it didn't work for a lot of reasons. National
agencies wouldn't accept it, and the national agencies get more
money from their own fundraising than they do from the federations
anyway. So that didn't work. Another thing it would do, it would
strengthen the role of the CRC. If you weaken the role of the
national agencies, you strengthen the role of the CRCs in NJCRAC.
And that's something that the CRCs have been calling for.

Changes in the Community Relations Agenda

Raab: I'm writing the paper now, sending it initially for the Perlmutter
Institute at Brandeis. The working title is "The Graying of the
JCRCs," with the subtitle "The New Era in Jewish Public Affairs
Institutions." And by graying I mean that time has caught up with
a lot of the practices of the CRCs, and one of the reasons is that
there are stronger minorities in the Jewish community about
certain issues, such as vouchers for religious schools.

Thirty years ago, JCRCs and NJCRAC could take a position
that this is very bad for church-state separation. And while the
Union of Orthodox Congregations opposed that position, they were a

fairly weak group around the country. Not so much in New York
City but around the country. After all, no more than 10 percent
of the Jewish population belongs to Orthodox congregations in this
country.

Now it's not just Orthodox congregations. Now there are a
lot of other people in the Conservative movement, for example, and
elsewhere who feel that the answer to Jewish continuity is
strengthening Jewish religious schools. There are a lot more than
there were thirty years ago. So it's not so easy to take a
position and ignore the minority. And that's the kind of
situation that's happened.

The other thing that's happened is that the CRCs and NJCRAC
have tended to extend their agenda. You can follow this in NJCRAC
plenary statements, because that's when all the groups come
together. They've been having these annual plenary statements
since the early 1950s, so if you look at those annual statements
of policy (they call them program plans), then you can sort of
follow the changes in the Jewish public affairs or community
relations agenda.

Originally the talk was anti-Semitism, church-state
separation, fighting hate groups, liberalizing immigration laws.
And the agencies were very influential in all of those things.
And civil rights came in there because the Jews were very much
affected directly by civil rights laws and by the changing of the
American society concept, which did change, that everybody had to
be treated lawfully in an equal manner. Jews profited greatly
from the civil rights laws.

Then, and I don't remember the year, there was one year I
noted where the program plan changed. It was when President
Johnson was in and the War on Poverty began and the program plan
said in order to insure everything we've got to be involved in
issues of poverty.

Now there's a segue, and a logical one, because the impacted
poverty of a group like blacks, whose poverty was presumably
related to their oppression over the years and their absence of
civil rights over the years, was a matter of concern to Jewish
security and status. That argument could, I think, readily be
made, because when there is a such an impacted poverty in an
identifiable ethnic or racial group, then those things can develop
in society which threaten the security of Jews.

It was interesting that when this started, the year that
NJCRAC program plan said the Jewish agencies should get involved
in that, said it most strongly, was the year of the riots in Watts

Glaser:
Raab:

and so forth. And Jews, I could tell, were visibly disturbed by
those riots. It wasn't Just that some Jewish stores were
affected, which is no longer the case because those stores have
disappeared by this time. But it was that law and order was
seriously diminished, and Jews have an historical experience that
when law and order goes Jewish security is threatened. So you can
go that route easily, and I think for a large number of reasons
the Jews should have gone that route, particularly since the black
community and the Latino community were part of their coalition at
the time in many things.

However, it moved on from there, so that there began to
appear on JCRC and NJCRAC agendas items which didn't even relate
directly to the poverty or disadvantage of impacted racial and
ethnic groups. Our enemy is political extremism, we've known
that, that's what Hitler stood for, et cetera. And this impacted
poverty, et cetera, raised all of these issues of political
extremism that we saw. It was out of that disadvantage that anti-
Semitism in America came out of the closet in the black community.
And out of that has come a backlash which might affect law and
order.

But there was a further extension, which may not have been
so easily seen as legitimate in terms of the agenda. That was
when these agencies began to put on their agenda items like
poverty in general—and not just that of the welfare of the black
community. Also, capital punishment, even after the time when
capital punishment was just visited on minority groups in this
country. And the environment is another example. Now, the
environment is something which affects all of us and which all
people should be concerned with. But it's hard to put it within
the dimensions of Jewish security. Those issues have begun to be
raised.

This comes back to the point we were talking about. A lot
of Jews began to be disturbed about items appearing on the agenda
with which they did not agree and which seemed to them to exceed
the bounds of agencies which were set up to fight for Jewish
security.

Did you feel that on the local level or is this NJCRAC?

In a way, you feel it more on the local level than you do on the
national level, because on the national level it's usually
abstract. The people that come together for NJCRAC meetings are
the people who have been most active politically. On the local
level you have more of a sense of what there is in the grass
roots, in the sense of what's happening in the grass roots. This

gets so diluted by the time you get to NJCRAC that you don't have
that grassroots feel very much anymore on some of these issues.

There was a point when I stopped distributing NJCRAC annual
programs to everybody on the JCRC, for example, because much of it
seemed irrelevant to what were the concerns of the JCRC and did
exceed those bounds that we were talking about. So that's the
thing that's happened that has complicated the whole field of
Jewish community relations, especially what I call the consensus
sector of the Jewish community public affairs, at the core of
which is very much the JCRCs and NJCRAC.

XV MORE ON ISRAEL

Attitudes of American Jews

Raab: You know if you want to go further, there have been also some more
visible divisions on Israel than there were thirty years ago,
which is complicated in the same way.

Glaser: Thirty years ago would be the time of the "67 war.

Raab: Yes, and the '67 war was really when most American Jews became
engaged with Israel. Before that they took Israel for granted,
except for a smaller group. Of course there was no division in
Jewish communities-- '67 war was a great victory, Israel was
established, and so forth. Later, in the so-called Lebanese
incursion, there began to be visible cracks in the American Jewish
community as there was in Israel. The Intifadah took place.

What is the future of Israel and what's the best peace
policy for Israel and what is our concern, JCRCs, NJCRAC and the
special agencies that were established for Israel, such as AIPAC?
Properly speaking, our concern was not so much what should we say
to the Israeli government, because we had no leverage or position
to say anything to the Israeli government or Israeli activists,
because they could very well say to us, "You come over here and
become a citizen and engage in this discussion."

Glaser: They did, they did say that.

Raab: They did say that. But the question was what do we say to our
policy makers; that was something for us. And there was a rule
kind of established. This is a bit after '67, before the Lebanese
incursion, when there started to be questions raised. And there
was a kind of standard understanding that Jews would not publicly
criticize the State of Israel, because that would endanger,
presumably, the affinity that American policy makers had towards
Israel. More, it would threaten the legislation that was

favorable to Israel, the money that went every year. More money
started coming from the U.S. government than from the American
Jews.

So that was a kind of understanding and it started breaking
visibly during the Lebanese incursion from American Jews who were
concerned about what they considered Sharon's excesses in Lebanon.
But they pretty much stayed by the rules by and large. Write
letters to Israelis if you want to but don't rock the boat with
our public officials. And there is a kind of a little irony here.
American Jews have always been more partial numerically to the
Labor party for a lot of reasons, and they were not too partial
towards the Begin administration. Jewish supporters of Begin in
this country made strong points that there should not be from
American Jews public criticism of the Israeli government.

Commentary magazine began to fall into that mode, and
others, and Likud supporters. As I say, there were little cracks
that you could see after the Lebanese incursion. But when the
Labor government came back into power, the Jewish supporters of
Likud in this country, who had said that there should be no public
criticism of Israel, began to heavily criticize the Labor
government publicly, which I think finally smashed to smithereens
the question of American Jewish silence. We did not approve of
what Israel did. There is still though the problem of things
which everybody wants for Israel: support by America, which is
essential for Israel's security. All Jews want American support
for Israel, and these two Jewish groups in America began to become
partisan about what the American government should do to push
Israel one way or another. But there was an important consensus
again that had to remain, and that was if there was a crisis for
Israel everybody was to stand up together in support of Israel.
So the point is that I was talking about the split on the domestic
agenda front before; now there's more of a split on the Israeli
front.

It gets nasty sometimes. It got nasty just before the
election when an Israeli minister in the Peres government came to
talk to a Jewish group in New York and was physically attacked by
some Jews. So there is a nasty aspect to it. But there is, I
think, simmering underneath what wasn't simmering thirty years
ago.

Again it's a question of a majority position and minority
position and how do consensus agencies handle that kind of
problem. So that, in addition to the same kinds of divisions in
the domestic agenda, has created a new era of challenge for the
consensus sectors of the Jewish public affairs establishment.

Effect of Incursion into Lebanon

Glaser: Following the incursion into Lebanon, you had to have a public

relations effort here because of the negative feeling within the

community.

Raab: Yes, and again anticipating the kind of problems that would

develop and kinds of institutional problems that were developing.
We did without publicly criticizing the movement of the Israeli
armies up to Beirut, which was the arguable point. The initial
incursion was not so arguable but the movement of the troops to
Beirut was.

Glaser: Also there was the massacre at the camps.

Raab: And that massacre, yes of course, which Israel was indirectly

involved in. Without taking a position attacking Israel openly,
nevertheless we did not take a position supporting it. There were
a couple of options here. One of the options was to take a
position supporting or opposing. The other option was not to make
a statement on it. Which was, one must admit, an action of a
kind. After having supported almost everything the Israeli
government had done, publicly to remain silent on this was a
signal. The Israeli Consul General, whoever it was at the time
[Mordechai Artzielli], was quite aware of this and was unhappy
about the fact that we didn't issue a statement in support. But
we didn't issue a statement in opposition, although most of the
individuals sitting around on the JCRC table were individually
opposed to what happened.

The other option was to go out in the community and let all
of this be vented. We held meetings all over the area in the
various regions with speakers on a spectrum of opinion, supporting
and opposing, so that people could listen to it and talk about it.
I guess that was partly the beginning of my understanding of how
the public affairs field was going to have to change eventually.

American Foreign Policy it

Glaser: Why was it necessary to make a statement that it was appropriate
for the JCRC to express concern for the U.S. peace efforts in the
Middle East, since it does not take a partisan stance in regard to
a specific U.S. foreign policy?

Raab: As I understand your question, why did we take a position

supporting U.S. support of peace process in the Middle East
although not on other foreign affairs and matters.

Glaser: And you explained that it was appropriate to do so.

Raab: Well, there are two kinds of things there. One is that it was

appropriate to do so because first of all the mandate of CRC and
other such agencies, NJCRAC, we always took to be the security and
status of Jews in the United States and elsewhere. In fact this
was the beginning of the defense agencies in this country. The
national defense agencies were built not so much around security
of American Jews as around what was happening to Jews in Russia
and Romania and so forth—the American Jewish Committee and the
American Jewish Congress. But in our terms that's always the
definition of our concern, our mandate: security and status of
Jews in this country and elsewhere, which is why we became
involved heavily in the Soviet Jewry business. And we became
heavily involved in trying to persuade the American government to
shape its foreign policy towards Russia so that it would help
Soviet Jews. So we've been involved in foreign policy that was
within our mandate.

That is the minimal reason for American Jews to be concerned
with Israel. We did not state that our concern was a religious
concern with Israel and so forth, but that in effect the Israelis
as Jews would be threatened by another Holocaust if there was not
a) American support of Israel and b) support for the peace
process. So it was within that group--

Glaser: But then, Earl, you are saying that you do take a stance with
regard to specific U.S. foreign policy.

Raab: Oh yes. Well, I think we don't take enough positions on U.S.
foreign policy. I think it has to remain within the circle by
mandate, which is the security and status of Jews abroad. And for
that reason it's legitimate for us to be concerned about the
safety of Jews in Israel, as well as in the Soviet Union, as well
as for a period in Syria. I've often expressed a concern that
there are some aspects of the United States policy which affect
our concern about these things, which the American Jewish
community does not take a position which it might.

Glaser: For example?

Raab: For example the defense budget of the United States, let's say, in
general. A lot of American public policy people, non- Jewish, have
pointed out, sometimes with a little bit of ironic glee, that the
surveys show that American Jews by a large proportion want the

100

United States to supply to Israel the defense materials that
Israel needs in large number. And at the same time, a large
portion of American Jews feel that America's defense industry
should be cut back severely. That contradiction is something that
was noted, and I think it is a contradiction.

America has stood, at least in the past and I think for some
foreseeable future, between Israel and destruction. That was
clear in the '73 war when Israel needed arms so badly that it
stood in danger of being overwhelmed within forty hours if it
didn't get them. That's when Nixon made his emergency decision to
send them, and it saved Israel. So that a strong United States
and a strong United States foreign policy was important for the
peace of Israel, security of Israel. And therefore we should
have perhaps more often at least discussed those issues so that
American Jews could take into consideration when they were in
touch with their legislators, et cetera, the effect of some of
these policies on Israel. Does that touch your question?

Arab Boycott

Glaser: It does. I want to ask you about the Arab boycott of Israel, this
goes back quite a few years. What did the JCRC and NJCRAC do?
There must have been a very strong effort because that was
overthrown.

Raab: Yes, it was an effort. The CRCs were involved in terms of

legislation mostly, and the Congress did develop legislation
opposed to the Arab boycott and stood in the way of it. And this
CRCs was involved in talking to its congressmen on this issue.
This is one of those issues, though, on which there was a lot of
national action in terms of the corporations that were involved.
I don't remember that there were such corporations that this JCRC
could act on. What we did do was inform the Jewish community
about the corporations that were complying with the Arab boycott.

Glaser: Wasn't Bechtel one of those?

Raab: I'm not sure. You see, Bechtel was working closely with the

Arabs. Maybe I just need to be refreshed, but I don't remember
what kind of boycott Bechtel could have been involved in Israel.
Whether there were some things they could have done that they

101

Glaser :

didn't do, maybe so. And there was some talk with Bechtel, mainly
though about this kind of thing.

I remember where there were approaches to Bechtel,

stimulated by the CRC, on the question of Jews working for Bechtel
in Arab countries. That was where we were most heavily involved.
It was a tough issue, and this was the question of whether they
allowed Jews to work for them in their contracts. They had plenty
of Jews working for them. As a matter of fact, Bechtel was one of
the business organizations which hired more Soviet Jews than any
other business organization in town.

But this was a matter of working in the Arab lands and
hiring Jews to work in the Arab lands. That issue became very
murky and I don't think came to any clear point, although we put a
lot of pressure on. Because Saudi Arabia, for example, was able
to either allow visas to be issued for Americans to come over to
work or not allow visas to be issued. And if they wouldn't allow
visas to be issued for Jews to work over there, question was what
was the responsibility of Bechtel, who said they were willing to
hire them but that Saudi Arabia wouldn't let them in.

So I remember us being involved in that, and that was one of
the things that became a public issue. For example, it never came
to this with Bechtel, but some of the corporations, and this is
where civil rights laws were helpful to Jews--l think Amoco was
found guilty under American civil rights laws for not hiring Jews,
although they said their problem was the resistance of the Arabs.
So that's where we were involved.

Did you get involved at all in Israel's action regarding the Law
of Return and Who Is a Jew?

Raab: This is after my time. There was no question about that. See,

CRC felt this was not a matter of Israel's foreign policy. It was
a matter that related very much to American Jews, the relationship
between American Jews and Israel without any intervention of the
American public policy establishment. And they took a strong
position here, and the Federation itself took a strong position
here.

Emigration from Ethiopia and Syria

Glaser: You got quite heavily involved, by you I mean the JCRC, with the
issue of Ethiopian immigration. Was this true also for Syrian
Jews?

102

Raab: Yes. As I say, it fell within our mandate. We had a commission
on oppressed Jews abroad, which did engage particularly in the
activities with respect to Syria, not Soviet Jewry because they
had their own commission. But this was for Syria and very much
for Ethiopia. This again was a matter of pressing American
officials, American public policy people, to adopt public policy
which would be helpful and to put pressures from the American
government on Syria and on Ethiopia. There was some success with
respect to Syrian Jews, although it was very much under cover.

Glaser: I thought there had to be money paid for each of the Syrian Jews
to allow them to leave.

Raab: Yes, which was fine with us. I mean it was Just a matter of
allowing them to leave.

Glaser: It was bribery that was necessary.

Raab: Yes, for Syria. As far as I can tell, the American public policy
institutions or Israel or the American government have not been
able to do much with Syria. With Ethiopia, much more was done,
really, so that the Ethiopian Jews were allowed to leave. Israel,
of course, brought them in; but the American government provided
funds for the resettlement of Ethiopian Jews in Israel. That was
part of our agenda; it wasn't a very difficult part.

103

XVI AMERICAN ISRAEL PUBLIC AFFAIRS COMMITTEE

Northern California Chapter

Glaser: Tell me about the JCRC role in forming AlPAC's Northern California
chapter.

Raab: It had been a one-man American-Israel public affairs committee in
Washington for a while. What was his name? Of all names to
forget! He was a remarkable man and I'll think of him. But there
had been that one-man office early on, this was before "67. And
there had been an office in San Francisco to raise money for that
national office. That was Rita Semel who did that job. She was
an independent public relations person and she handled that
account. In the meantime, the Jewish community of San Francisco
had been known throughout the country as the heart of the anti-
Israel Jewish movement in the country—the American Council for
Judaism. The JCRC, until 1967 or thereabouts, did not have a
Middle East committee or an Israel committee. We had an Arab
propaganda committee.

This presumably was on grounds that we were not going to be
so much involved in American policy with respect to Israel. But
we were involved in protecting American Jews against attacks by
Arab organizations. It smacked of the American Council for
Judaism still and their influence in a way.

Glaser: What do you mean by that?
Raab: The dual loyalty business.
Glaser: Oh.

Raab: That was the heart of their argument, that we would weaken our
position as American citizens if we were supporting Israel so
vehemently. But of course that all broke up in '67 and in the
following years. Immediately, the night after the first

104

Glaser:
Raab:

announcement of the '67 war, JCRC was involved in gathering
together the rabbis, for one thing, and a few other people who
were involved. Out of that night grew the understanding that the
JCRC, as the public affairs' unified voice, had to be at the
center of anything that would happen with respect to Israel in
American public policy.

Two things happened: the JCRC established shortly thereafter
a Middle East committee rather than an Arab propaganda committee,
frankly concerned with the status of Israel. Also we established
at the time, as a kind of bridge so as not to shock everybody too
much, a Northern California chapter of the American Israel Public
Affairs Committee. Rita again operated as the part-time staff of
that, but the direction came from the CRC. Of course later that
went out of business, essentially as it was no longer needed.
First of all, as the Middle East committee of the JCRC became
fully operative. Secondly, of course, as AIPAC expanded widely in
Washington, then they established their own section in the West.

Was Morris Amitay the first national AIPAC director?

No, Morris Amitay was not the first one.
interim directors.

He was just one of the

I'm sure between the two of us we'll think of it.
(Si) Kenen.]

Yes, he was a wonderful man. I can see his face.

[It was I. L.

American Presidents and Israel

Glaser: What was your personal summation of the attitude of the various
American presidents toward Israel?

Raab: [pause] Well, in terms of the period of my involvement with the

business, I guess I came in when Eisenhower was president. Wasn't
he? Who was president in 1951?

Glaser: Eisenhower was a little later than that, wasn't he? No, Truman
came in in-- Oh, maybe so.

Raab: I don't remember Truman being president when I was there. Maybe
at the end. I was on a farm when Truman was president.

Glaser: Let's do it with Eisenhower.

105

Raab: Eisenhower- -that was the period when there was not much activity

by Jews speaking seriously with respect to Israel. And Eisenhower
was not a head over heels advocate for Israel as far as we could
Let me get my years straight. The '67 war, who was

see ,

president of the United States?
course, Lyndon Johnson.

[pause] [laughter] It was, of

Following the relationships of the presidents to Israel
after Eisenhower traces a dramatic change. Eisenhower had opposed
the Suez campaign of England and Israel, and succeeded in
reversing it. U.S. foreign policy was concerned with maintaining
relationships with the Arab countries, in order to keep access to
Arab oil, and to prevent Soviet adventurism in that area. Even
during J. F. Kennedy's administration, there was a stand-offish
relationship. In that period, the head of the Israeli Defense
Force was not allowed open access to the U.S. armed forces camps.

The 1967 war changed the U.S. stance somewhat. Israel began
to be seen as a major force to prevent that Soviet adventurism.
The Lyndon Johnson administration was notable for its friendship
for and support of Israel. Richard Nixon worried Jews when he
talked about reassessing the U.S. role, but he saved Israel by
quickly sending critical military materials to Israel when it
faced problems during the 1973 war. Carter had some explicit
sympathies for the Palestinians which also worried Jews for a
while. But in recent years, the United States and its presidents
have been clearly supportive of Israel.

Relationship with South Africa

Glaser: Talk about Israel's relationship with South Africa at the time
when apartheid was still in existence.

Raab: It was, you might say, a kind of touchy period for Jewish

community relations because we were, as you know, close companions
of the black community in that period. The fact of the matter was
that the community relations councils in this country had no
problem early on in publicly condemning apartheid in South Africa.
That was easy and that was done early. Incidentally, we wanted to
form some specific kinds of anti-apartheid coalitions. At that
point there was not a great deal of interest in the black
community on the subject of South Africa. That developed later.

The complications for us grew later, not on the question of
apartheid, which we always publicly opposed and asked our
legislators to oppose, but when questions of some specific

106

remedies came up, such as disinvestment. The question of whether
the University of California should disinvest itself from South
African stocks and bonds held by corporations which operated
there. I remember specifically the Sullivan Law, which was a
proposition that American corporations should increase the number
of South Africans they hired when they were down there and
generally act in a proper fashion, not have apartheid in their own
places. We supported that proposition.

Glaser: But didn't you have to act as apologists for Israel's relations
with South Africa?

Raab: Then there was Israel. We had some problems, which we didn't take
a position on, with certain remedies, but in general we were
strong opponents of apartheid. Israel's relationship with South
Africa, which was often very veiled—but clearly there was a
relationship with the South African government --was a kind of
embarrassment to us. And the only thing we could do was to point
out our opposition to apartheid in this country by American Jews.

Secondly, more quietly, we did tell the Israeli government
through the counsel general, et cetera, that this was an
embarrassment, not just to us but perhaps to their position in
America. This didn't cut much ice because, presumably, their
relationship to South Africa was an important relationship to
Israel. That was all we could do. On occasion we had to try to
fend off resolutions, even from the Board of Supervisors in the
city, which would attack Israel for this relationship. It wasn't
a happy period.

The 1996 Election in Israel and the Peace Process

Glaser: With Likud in power now, do you see any change in the relationship
between Israel and the United States?

Raab: You mean in the recent election?
Glaser: Right.

Raab: Well, I suppose that still has to be discovered. One of the

problems is, as I see it, nobody knows exactly what Netanyahu is
going to do because he hasn't been in power that much, or even in
public that much. And my interpretation, for what it's worth, is
that a majority of the Israelis are still very much interested in
peace because they know the consequences of not having it. They
are, by majority, still willing to trade some land for peace—by

107

majority. This leaves out the minority that doesn't want to give
up an inch and talks about a greater Israel. The majority are
willing to trade land, but want, apparently and obviously, a lot
more reassurances about their security if such a trade takes place
than they felt Peres was getting for them. They want things to
move more slowly for the same thing.

One of the survey results which always fascinated me and
which came up constantly, both in the surveys in the San Francisco
area which we did every couple of years, and in surveys generally
within national Jewish community which didn't happen that often.
We always asked two questions. One was, "Would you approve of the
Israeli government giving up some land for peace?" And the great
majority of American Jews in this area would say yes. The second
question was, "Do you trust the Palestinians to honor that peace?"
And the great majority would say no.

So the Israeli Jews were just ridden with that kind of inner
conflict. They wanted peace, they were willing to give up some
land for peace, but they didn't trust the Palestinians. And
apparently, eventually, not Arafat either. So I think that was
the meaning of the election as far as the peace process is
concerned. I think the parliamentary election indicated other
splits in Israel. But Netanyahu, along those lines, may still,
especially with America's encouragement, pursue certain kinds of
peace, with Jordan certainly and Egypt. There's no question about
trying to deepen that, but also with Palestinians. But he's not
willing to give as much as Peres was. And as far as Syria's
concerned, he's altogether cold about the idea of making
compromise on the Golan Heights.

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XVII COUNTERING NEO-NAZI ACTIVITIES
[Interview 6: June 25, 1996] *#

Rudolf Hess Bookstore

Glaser: I want to ask you this morning about the burning of the Rudolf
Hess Bookstore. You've mentioned it in passing, but could you
give me some details?

Raab: There were a number of times, or at least several times, in the
history of the JCRC when the emotions and actions of some group
out there spurred the JCRC. We weren't always in the front. We
had been, of course, interested in Holocaust education and had
been meeting with school people many times about instructing the
instructors and so forth about the Holocaust and putting it in the
school curriculum. And we had done what we did about the neo-
Nazis in town, which finally got rid of them. But the survivors
had not yet been heard from fully. The survivors did not feel
part of the organized Jewish community with what we did because we
hadn't really made them part of it in any formal way.

When the Rudolf Hess Bookstore opened up, a Nazi bookstore,
(this was when the neo-Nazis were still here) the anger was very
high. Our position was the usual measured position; that is to
say, we were looking for ways to close it down but not in ways
that would violate the First Amendment. The group of survivors
became enraged with the Nazi store and just went down there and
trashed it.

Glaser: The bookstore was really provocative since it was across the

street from a synagogue that most of the survivors belonged to.

Raab: Well, it was one of the things that we were working on in terms I
think we discussed before. The First Amendment does not cover
provocation, and we were trying to work on that theme with the
authorities. But closing down a bookstore is a tender business.

109

Glaser: Did you actually have contact with the proprietors of the
bookstore?

Raab: We had contacted the proprietors. They were unhappy but at the
moment they didn't know how to get out of it.

Glaser: No, no, 1 mean the neo-Nazis themselves, not the people who owned
the store property.

Raab: Contact with the neo-Nazis? No. We didn't have contact with the
neo-Nazis. We had contact with the police intelligence group,
which had contact with the neo-Nazis. We felt sure that we were
going to get them out one of those days, but the survivors didn't
want to wait. Their rage was understandable. They trashed the
store. And it was only after that we helped provide attorneys and
so forth for the survivors. Nothing happened to them. But it was
that stimulus which really made us more serious about finding a
way to institutionalize the survivors within the Jewish community.
To put it simply, we formed a survivors committee within the JCRC.

Glaser: I want to go back a little bit because there are some steps in
between. Something happened to the temple as a result of the
trashing, and then the store was burned. Is that right?

Raab: A burning of what store?

Glaser: The bookstore.

Raab: Well, that was the trashing that I'm talking about.

Glaser: I thought at first--

Raab: That's the burning, yes.

Glaser: I'm sorry I interrupted you.

Raab: No, that's all right.

Survivors Committee

Raab: We formed a survivors committee. Naomi Lauter staffed it; it was
a regular part of the JCRC. And they stated several purposes, one
of which was to establish a Holocaust memorial of some kind in San
Francisco. Another was to heighten the Holocaust education. They
became directly involved. You know, we'd been holding the regular
Yom Ha Shoa memorials each year in memory of the survivors. Large

110

Glaser:
Raab:

attendances. The survivors became directly involved in that. I
think those were the three kinds of priorities they expressed,
which everybody went to work on right away. As a result of the
survivors' emphasis on this, the memorial was established in San
Francisco.

The Palace of Legion of Honor.

Palace of Legion of Honor, right, and that was a direct result of
that chain of events. JCRC did it at the stimulation of the
survivors committee.

The Holocaust Memorial

Glaser: I understand that the memorial itself was controversial.

Raab: Well, first of all the architecture is kind of crucial. I don't
remember the name of the architect, a famous architect.

Glaser: George Segal.

Raab: George Segal. George Segal was controversial; his statuary was
controversial; the design was controversial. Of course that's
happened all over the country when memorials have been
established. What do you do? What's most expressive of that
ineffable situation? A lot of us and people who were "art-
qualified" if you will, thought this was good. Rhoda Goldman
became very involved in that effort.

There were various controversies. The artistic one or the
expressionist one was one that continued. The other was where it
was to be. As everyone knows, it was out in the open by the
Palace of the Legion of Honor. I remember Mayor Dianne Feinstein
objected to it being there. She said it would be constantly
vandalized. And some of us said to her, "You know, it's going to
be vandalized on occasion somewhat. We'll fix it. But it's not
going to be constantly vandalized." And it hasn't been. On
occasion something's happened and it's been fixed.

Glaser: But wasn't there also the controversy that it should be on the
East Coast? I assume it's because of greater population.

Raab: Well, but there were memorials all over. This was the San

Francisco Memorial. The East Coast had memorials, some of them
later than ours. Most eastern cities have had memorials for a
long time.

Ill

Glaser: And you wrote the words for the first dedication plaque.

Raab: Yes, that's right.

Glaser: Why is it that Rhoda Goldman got involved with this?

Raab: I don't know whether this was after her trip. She made a very

important trip for her, and this was when she went to Israel once
with a group. The group went to Dauchau, and she was extremely
moved by that. She became deeply involved in these matters ever
since. She was a great treasure for the Jewish community.

Other Genocides

Glaser: Can somebody speak of the Holocaust, using that term when talking
about what's happened in Rwanda, Cambodia, and other places?

Raab: Yes. As you know, the term Holocaust did not spring up in 1946.
You'll have difficulty finding the term referring to the Nazi
genocide until the 1960s. And as a matter of fact, this was
partly because the consciousness of the Holocaust had to grow.
Even after the war there was, I wouldn't say disbelief in any
revisionist sense, but really a failure to be able to comprehend
the enormity of it. So it wasn't really until the 1960s that
somehow our consciousness became forced to understand, because now
there were lots of things written, to understand what really had
happened. So these efforts were around that period. Then the
survivors committee and the survivors themselves did not have any
force in the community early on. The survivors committee
punctuated that.

Early on, in answer to your question, there was an
interesting kind of thing, as we may have talked about. There was
some friction starting in the 1960s, middle 1960s, between the
black community and the Jewish community based on several things.
Partly it came out of a certain kind of radicalism and a certain
kind of third world radicalism that grew on some of the campuses
among some black intellectuals. Partly it was the result of
direct competition as in the east when black teachers wanted to
replace Jewish teachers.

But the rhetoric grew. And one of the things that happened
on occasion was a kind of resistance by some of these people in
the black community to our claiming the Holocaust because they
said, "What about our Holocaust?" And indeed, I remember being
engaged in a couple of public discussions of that kind, which I

112

did not seek. The Middle Passage, which is the term describing
the voyages that were made with black captives in which so many of
them died, and the slave business in which so many of them died,
could be counted a Holocaust. We understood early that you can't
compare these kinds of human tragedies. You certainly can't
compare them numerically. You can't say, "Well, ours was worse
than yours because we had six million; you only had one million."
Impossible. And intolerable.

We always wanted to make the point that the Nazi Holocaust
was singular, that it had some special qualities. We said that
the black experience, the black genocide, also was singular and
had some special qualities. We never wanted to merge the two, so
we would say, "Well, we're not just against the Jewish Holocaust;
we're against everything that hurts mankind and they all are the
same." It couldn't be the same. It couldn't be the same because
that memory became part of the Jewish memory, indeed a religious
part of the Jewish memory, and could not just be fused with all
other injustices in the world. At the same, we couldn't make the
claim that the injustice was greater than anybody else had ever
encountered, just that it was different and singular, and that it
had to be remembered as a Jewish Holocaust. But not that it was
in any way superior to the black experience.

That lasted for a while. That resistance by some blacks to
that, because they felt that this American society was paying too
much attention to the Holocaust and the Jews and not enough to
theirs. They may well have been right. Not too much, but not
enough. So there was that for a while. Then it sort of
disappeared, that kind of controversy. But we have to continue to
remember that Rwanda and Cambodia, which you mentioned, that these
are tragedies that are not comparable, none of these are
comparable to anybody else's.

Isolating the Nazis

Glaser:

Raab:

Earlier you mentioned that you got rid of the neo-Nazis,
you do that?

How did

If you remember, we had a special police unit established to be
concerned with anti-Semitism in the City, a police unit primarily
of one fairly highly-placed policeman detective. He kept in touch
with them always and finally discovered the leader. We tried to
keep them isolated as much as possible in terms that were
discussed. They could hold a meeting but not in front of a
synagogue, et cetera. We had the question of order high in the

113

consciousness of the police so that they would be careful about
where they would allow them, where they would give them a permit,
and when they would give them a permit to speak, on grounds that
certain kinds of places and times would create police disorder.
That's a common category when you hand out permits, but they were
particularly conscious of our concerns.

The group was never larger than a dozen. When nothing much
happened some of them faded out. Finally our police contact found
that the leader of the Nazis had some kind of a record in his
past, and he was advised he would be in less trouble if he moved
elsewhere, which he did. This is not something the JCRC did, but
it's something that the police did, I guess out of a heightened

sensitivity,
they did it.

I'm not sure what our policy would have been, but

Glaser: But there was an incident in the seventies when the Nazi group
disrupted a school board meeting.

Raab: I think this was even before the police unit was set up. There
were a couple of incidents. There were some f irebombings, or
attempted firebombings which some of us thought might have been
neo-Nazi activity. And then there was the appearance of this
uniformed group. They disrupted a Board of Supervisors meeting
and they disrupted the school board meeting. This was around,
however, the specific question of school desegregation. That was
their express concern at the time. They'd come to meetings, six,
seven, however many, dressed in uniforms, sit together, get up and
make statements, and disrupt. I think the police unit must have
been in place because they used to watch them there and herd them
out whenever things got too hot.

But that was the time when the Board of Supervisors and the
school board came to the JCRC and asked whether we felt there was
some legislation that might help. And we said no.

Glaser: You issued a statement through the Human Relations Commission

defending anyone's right to speak out, even the Nazis. That must
have been controversial.

Raab: It was a hot discussion in the Jewish community when we were asked
whether we wanted the Board of Supervisors essentially to pass a
law prohibiting the wearing of the Nazi uniform publicly. It was
a hot discussion in a way, but it wasn't a hard decision because,
as we pointed out, there 'd been a recent case, which we used in
this discussion. In Chicago the Soviet Union had an art exhibit
of some kind, and it was at the early height of the Soviet-Jewish
endeavor. A number of Jewish teenagers came into the exhibit

wearing a uniform in a sense, wearing a t-shirt saying, "Let our
people go," et cetera. The Soviet authority complained to the
Chicago police, who threw the teenagers out. It went to court.
The court said, "You can't do that. Dress is a matter of freedom
of speech and you can't throw them out." So they were able to go
back and propagandize on behalf of the Soviet Jews.

We used that specifically as an indication of why it's
important for the Jews to maintain that constitutional principle.
That's the number-one argument that we made. Number-two argument
was that it never did any good anyway. In Prussia early on, Nazis
were prohibited from wearing Nazi insignia, and they just wore
beer bottle caps instead, and everybody knew who they were. It
wasn't the way to fight Nazis. Our way to fight Nazism was to
counter them educationally. We had a principle, I think it was a
ten-to-one principle: for every impact they make on the media, we
want to make ten impacts at the same time. And we did pretty
well.

More on American Civil Liberties Union

Glaser: The ACLU [American Civil Liberties Union], at the time of the

burning of the bookstore, said that the burning was nothing to be
proud of. What was the relationship between the JCRC and the
ACLU?

Raab: Oh, it was pretty close on most things but not agreement on

everything. We weren't--! say we--the JCRC was not proud of the
burning, but we understood the anger. I guess we also understood
that as an organized Jewish community we had not given enough
attention to the survivors, so that we wanted to remedy that. We
never legitimized the burning publicly.

Glaser: Sometimes the ACLU takes stands that are a little hard to along

with emotionally, even if you understand that they are sticking to
what they see as right.

Raab: Yes, and of course Skokie was one ACLU position that we all
opposed.

115

XVIII CIVIL RIGHTS

Legislation

Glaser: I want to ask you to talk about civil rights now. In the sixties,
a great deal of ferment was what was going on in the South. You
took a stand deploring any action that threatened dissent. How
much were you involved with what was going on in the South and the
fight for civil rights?

Raab: In the South we were involved only in talking to our legislators
about it. Some of our people went down there. But we were very
involved here — in the state. We were very involved in the
fifties. The legislative stuff started in the fifties, not the
sixties. San Francisco passed the first fair employment practices
law in the state, which made it easier to pass the state fair
employment practices law. And California passed one of the first
fair employment practices law in the country, which made it easier
for there to be momentum for the national civil rights laws. But
our efforts preceded the national efforts by some time.

Glaser: What was the JCRC involvement with that fair employment practices
and also with the fair housing act?

Bay Area Human Relations Clearinghouse

Fair Employment Practices Laws

Raab: That followed, yes. What happened, sort of sequentially, is that
organizationally the Bay Area Human Relations Clearinghouse was
established in the fifties--

116

Raab: --which brought together with the Jews for the first time, really,
organizationally, blacks, black ministers, NAACP, some lawyers-
including Willie Brown--and some Christian ministers; a little
later the Japanese particularly and a little later some Latinos.
But we were, I guess it's fair to say, part of the center of this
operation. The meetings and the fair employment followed from
this. The meetings were held in JCRC headquarters every week or
so, and I was the chairman of it. We were deeply involved in the
effort to get the fair employment practices law in San Francisco.
It came out of this grouping of people that had come together,
with us as part of the center, and it was an effort in which we
were completely engaged.

I remember that at one point the mayor appointed Jesse
Colman, and I think Christopher was still the mayor then. There
was a vacancy in the Board of Supervisors and there was
controversy about fair employment laws at that point. Jesse
Colman had once been a member of the Board of Supervisors. There
was suddenly a temporary vacancy and the mayor, partly at our
request, appointed Jesse Colman to take up that temporary vacancy.
Jesse was part of the JCRC and close to it. He was the person who
helped to make sure that the local fair employment practices law
was passed. So we were centrally involved. Out of that came the
state effort.

The Bay Area Clearinghouse, as far as this area was
concerned, segued into the Northern California part of something
which we set up, called the California Fair Practices Committee.
Bill Becker was the first and only director of that. The Jewish
Labor Committee, which had hired Bill Becker to work in this area
at our request, assigned him to be the director of the California
Fair Practices Committee. He was payrolled by them to head that
civil rights legislative effort, which we won, and then the fair
housing also. In all of those, the meetings were held mostly in
the JCRC headquarters and we were a central part of it.

Glaser: And then there was the attempt to overturn, with Prop. 14, the
Fair Housing Act.

Raab: Yes, and we were always deeply involved in that. I don't remember
their names; there were some Jewish real estate people who helped
us greatly.

Racial Integration

Glaser: What was the role of the JCRC with racial integration?

117

Raab:

Glaser :

Raab:

Glaser;

Raab:

Glaser:

Raab:

Glaser:

We were on public record and we were active in supporting school
desegregation or in promoting the fuller integration of the
schools.

But the civil rights committee of JCRC felt that that really
depended upon economic integration, didn't it? And that depended
on affirmative action.

The stimulus for supporting integration, as far as we were
concerned, was out of the understanding which then had developed
that the educational achievement of all children depended upon the
motivation and stimulation of their peers. So if there was a high
level of academic achievement in the school, it would affect
positively the students who attended it. This was particularly
pointed with respect to black children, many who had been denied
equal education wherever they came from. So that was our basis
for pushing integration. It had to do with raising educational
levels and therefore raising economic levels.

But wasn't it

You make that sound as if the focus was on schools,
also on adult lives?

Oh, yes, those aren't adult minds, but--
Not adult minds but adult lives.

We didn't think of that as integration so much as equal
opportunity. We really didn't. When you said integration those
days, I guess it was occasionally used in that context, but
generally speaking it meant school integration. When you talked
about blacks and others being employed, you talked about equal
opportunity. People generally felt, and there was a lot of
research about it, if there were blacks on a roughly equal level
in employment in the labor pool working out there, that this would
have a positive effect attitudes of whites. It would break down
stereotypes.

But that was a kind of after-comment. The thrust was for
equal opportunity because we felt that that was their right, that
was everybody's right, and that was the basis of the American
idea. The question of adult education was a little more
sophisticated, which wasn't at the heart of it, really. It was in
the schools.

I guess I used the wrong language because I was thinking of what
you call equal opportunity and I call integration, meaning that
the jobs were open so that there was the integration of job
opportunity. But along with this, the JCRC opposed preferential
hiring and quotas. I think you still do, don't you?

118

Raab: Always, from the beginning, yes. I remember I wrote a piece in
Commentary in 1970, on opposing quotas and indicating the reason
for opposing quotas, because they were just coming up then. We
never equated affirmative action with quotas. On the contrary, we
felt that quotas interfered with affirmative action. But that was
another era. We always opposed preferential hiring. Much of this
can be understood in the microcosm of the discussion about the
CCRI,1 which is currently up there in California.

Glaser: You mentioned that last week and it didn't occur to me what you
were talking about. Of course you're opposed to that ballot
measure.

Raab: But the reason illuminates everything, I think, because the
California Civil Rights Initiative says it's opposed to
preferential treatment. We know how the Jews feel, incidentally,
because we've surveyed them often enough in the country and here,
over and over. They're opposed to preferential treatment.
Preferential treatment is the opposite of equal opportunity and
therefore in contrast with the American idea. We're opposed to
preferential treatment in hiring, et cetera, but we're not opposed
to preferential treatment in providing children, especially those
who come from educationally deprived backgrounds, special
opportunities to catch up and therefore compete equally.

The reason we're opposed to preferential hiring is that it's
not equal competition; but we do believe that people should be
prepared to compete equally. Therefore, when there is a special
program-- Let's take one example. There's such a thing as black
English, which in the general marketplace is bad English. There
are a few people who have a little bit of pride in it as a
cultural thing, and I wouldn't want to interfere with that. But
kids who graduate from high school with only black English are not
going to be equipped to compete either in college or in the labor
market. There are programs now, inspired by and run by blacks
around the country, to take kids who are in school and let them
talk black English if they want to, but also let them know what
the proper English is that's being spoken out there in the
marketplace.

It's affirmative action in the sense that it's directed
specially at black kids, it's preferential treatment. While we're
opposed to preferential treatment that interferes with equal
competition and equal opportunity, we're not opposed to special
treatment which helps people prepare themselves to compete

'CCRI, the California Civil Rights Initiative, Proposition 209, was
approved by the voters in 1996.

119

Glaser :

Raab:

equally. And that's what's so devilish about the CCRI, by the
way. It says preferential treatment, and of course we're against
it in a certain way. In another way we're not, and we're afraid
although the authors say that we should not be. They say they're
not against the kind of thing like black English that I talked
about. The language is such that it is against it and could be
used against it. So that's why there's been a contention in the
Jewish community about CCRI.

It's very confusing to the general population,
clear what the real intent is.

It doesn't make

That's right. It's very bad. It's bad as referenda often are,
because they're not the result of legislative negotiation. It's
the result of somebody fixing some language in the backroom.

Proportional Representation

Glaser: Why was the JCRC opposed to proportional representation?

Raab: Proportional representation--it all depends where you apply it.
Let me give you three examples. If you're talking about
proportional representation in the workplace, that's quotas. That
means that you say, "Well, we've got to have 10 percent blacks, et
cetera, et cetera." That's proportional representation in the
workplace; it's quotas. And we're against it because it's opposed
to equal opportunity and the American idea.

If you're talking about proportional representation, there
are places where it makes some sense, but only a few. If you're
talking about proportional representation on the Human Rights
Commission, that makes sense, because the Human Rights Commission
is there to be sensitive to various groups and should have some
people from those groups on the commission. So there are places
where proportional representation makes sense, special places, but
not in the marketplace.

I remember I was at a NCRAC convention in San Diego at the
time of the McGovern Democratic convention, where they adopted
some rules for proportional representation. When that was
announced from the stage, I felt a shiver go through the Jewish
audience. Because proportional representation on a political
level is a quota situation again. It means you say to each group:
one, you've got so many people; and two, it freezes Jews out of
the political process for one thing.

120

Glaser: I always thought that was helpful to minority groups.

Raab: Well, I don't think so. Again, talking about equal opportunity is
helpful. Proportional representation is a form of quotas. It all
depends which minority groups you're talking about. For the Jews,
whose involvement in, let's say, the Democratic convention was
always at least 10, 15 percent of the delegates, if you provide
for proportional representation it could go to 2 percent, 2.5
percent. So there was that.

Proportional representation is complex. Proportional
representation on a political level is, I think, dangerous to the
democratic process because the heart of the democratic process
politically is negotiation and compromise. When you start
establishing political factions instead of an integrated political
group, then you've got troubles of the kind that they had and have
had in Europe. Suppose in America you had a situation like Europe
so there's proportional representation, which means that each
party, depending on how many votes it gets, will get that number
of seats in the Parliament. That's one of the meanings of
proportional representation.

What would that mean in America? That would mean not just a
quota system. It would mean that there would be a black faction,
not Democratic party or Republican party, after the fact or before
the fact. But you'd have a black faction, you'd have a Latino
faction, you'd have a Jewish faction. There would be less of an
ability to negotiate their differences if they were already in the
Parliament on the basis of that. So that the Jews would have 2.5
percent, instead of what they have now, incidentally which is
about 15 percent, I think, in the Congress of the United States.

121

XIX BLACK- JEWISH RELATIONS

Andrew Young Affair

Glaser:

Raab:

Glaser:

Raab:

Glaser:
Raab:

Glaser;

Let's talk about black- Jewish relations and about the Andrew Young
affair when he was a United States ambassador to the United
Nations. I think the problem was that he met with a PLO
representative when they were not recognized.

I'd mentioned this, as I've mentioned almost everything so far in
our discussions. The media love it when there seems to be a
black- Jewish war, especially during those days, because we seemed
to be partners, as we were during the civil rights days,
certainly. But the Andrew Young controversy, when he met with the
PLO he was the U.N. ambassador for the United States. There were
objections from the Jewish community, obviously. It flowered all
over the press as a big black-Jewish war.

But no Jewish group came out and condemned him for that .
nobody called for his resignation.

I mean

1 don't remember them calling for his resignation, but there was
criticism from Jewish groups. There was. And this was advertised
as a black- Jewish war because the black press said that the Jews
want blacks to do everything that they want them to do. In this
city, that was when we first asked the mayor to establish what we
called an Intergroup Clearinghouse. Clearinghouse always has been
favorite term of mine.

Why?

It has a nice sound of people getting together and not forcing
each other to do things.

It has a sound to me of finality. You clear it and there it goes,
[laughs]

122

Raab: Well, that's true. I hadn't thought of that. That's a kind of
financial approach.

We got together with black groups in the city. I remember
we sat around and said, "You know, there's all these thoughts
about Andrew Young. Are we about to have a war?" And nobody knew
what anybody was talking about. That whole issue was a national
issue and hadn't touched our relationships, didn't touch our
relationships in the city.

Anti-American Radicalism

Raab: We felt the impacts in the 1960s, when there was this controversy
in Brooklyn with schoolteachers. When the third world stuff was
rising on the campuses and the radicalism of the campuses was not
necessarily pro-Soviet but was anti-American. The new politics
was anti-American. And it was felt in those quarters that Israel
was the handmaiden of American imperialism, et cetera, and they
were the friends of the Arabs, which drove some Jewish radicals in
the campuses out of these radical groups.

We began to feel some black- Jewish tensions around that
time. That was in the sixties. Part of that was the development
of some radical black groups--SNCC [Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee] --and they impacted us here because there
was a very strong presence in this area, out of Berkeley and
Oakland, extending to San Francisco. They put out a magazine, a
newspaper, which strongly followed the third world line about
Israel being an evil part of the "American Empire," sympathetic to
the PLO and attacking the Jews. It was clearly anti-Semitic.
That was all happening in the sixties. That was during the same
period.

Economic Competition

Glaser: But you wrote a paper for NCRAC stating that even prior to the

Andrew Young affair the problems between Jews and the black middle
class was they felt they were kept back (they being the blacks)
from advancement by the Jews.

Raab: I think the main thing that was felt by the Jews were the radical
presentations that came from groups like the Black Panthers. Part
of that was inspired by some black radical intellectuals on the
campuses, as much of all of this came out of the campuses.

123

However, in the real world there was a competition for a while
that was very apparent, or seemed to be, to black middle class
people, to professionals, of competition between blacks and Jews
on a very basic economic level. More blacks — this happened a
little later—were going to college; more blacks were becoming
professionals and competing for the same kinds of jobs that Jews
were competing for.

In a way, it was a replication of what had happened in the
Bedford-Stuyvesant area in Brooklyn at the beginning of all of
this when there was direct economic competition between Jewish
teachers and black teachers. Now there was some competition
between the black middle class and the Jewish middle class, which
shored up some bad feelings among the black middle class. But
that faded for some reason eventually, probably because there was
plenty of opportunity. That's always been the key to economic
competition among groups; it's whether there's a broadening
economic situation or not. And actually much more competition in
recent years has been noted in the civil service, for example,
where some of that earlier competition between blacks and Jews was
noted. Now, that is much more noted between Latinos and blacks,
direct competition, sometimes heated competition, which both
groups express.

The economic reasons for black hostility has diminished over
the years. In the first Watts riot, there were obviously those
situations in which Jews moved out of neighborhoods into which
blacks came. There were, therefore, Jewish storeowners and Jewish
landlords, and there were feelings there. But by the 1970s, the
Jews had gotten out; they were no longer landlords, they no longer
had stores there. Economic competition had gone in areas like
civil service, and so forth, because there was now lots of
opportunity for blacks.

As a matter of fact, this took on a little bit of the early
Jewish concern about affirmative action, that in these
professional jobs Jews were not getting their due. It happened in
San Francisco. At one point in San Francisco history while I was
here, to make it somewhat modern, there was quite a number of
Jewish administrators. We used to hold meetings with a group of
Jewish school administrators. I started holding them fairly often
and for various reasons, in terms of central office, principals,
so forth. There were at least a dozen, fifteen, twenty at times.

Gradually they began to diminish in number; and it wasn't
because there were no longer Jews in that area, although that may
have been one of the reasons. One of the things that happened
with this group is that they started coming to us and saying,
"We're not getting jobs. Minorities are getting jobs for quota

124

reasons, and we're not getting promoted." And it happened. In
the school department, certainly it happened. Reynold Colvin
became the attorney for this group of administrators to try to
halt some of that. Eventually, if you tried to hold a meeting
with Jewish administrators in public schools today, instead of
there being twenty, I don't know what there might be, but
certainly not more than three or four.

Pro-Arab Students at San Francisco State University
(Interview 7: July 17, 1996] II

Glaser: Would you comment on the anti-Semitism and the pro-Arab sentiments
that you see at the San Francisco State campus, and the incident
with the Malcolm X mural?

Raab: San Francisco State is one of those places which has a large

contingent of students from Arab countries who came here to study.
Berkeley, of course, had a good percentage. That's a phenomenon
which you have to sort of single out. These are Arab students
with Arab nationalist feelings, and they can easily ally
themselves with what might be called the more radical elements on
the campus. But they're not replicated in the communities
anyplace, so it's really a campus-specific phenomenon, and it's
very disturbing for the Jewish students on the campus.

It's disturbing for the community when it ends up on the
front pages of the newspapers, as it did in the case of San
Francisco State. But the Jewish students are in a kind of
embattled position. I guess the situation is that the Arab
students, where there are a lot of them on a campus, are very
passionate. They draw enough of the generally radical students,
anti-American students, et cetera to make an apparent alliance;
and the Jewish students, there are not very many allies for them.
It's a peculiar situation, so they sort of stand alone.

Glaser: Why is the situation so much worse at San Francisco State than at
UC Berkeley?

Raab: I really suspect that in terms of percentages there are more Arab
students at San Francisco State. There always have been, and
there is a tradition on the San Francisco State campus.

Glaser: How do you assess black- Jewish relations today as compared to past
years?

125

Raab: I would say they're not as good as they were in the 1960s, and

they're better than they were in the 1970s and eighties. There's
not much excitement about them. They were good up until about the
middle of the 1960s, when the so-called black revolution took
place. There were some black groups that particularly engaged in
anti-Semitism. And then it depended upon where you were. In this
area, there was such a group in the East Bay, in Berkeley and
Oakland, which was very disturbing.

The Jewish relationships in the communities have always been
good, generally; that is to say relationships with black
ministers. It's always been good and it remains good. So that
sometimes when there's a big blowup, a person who sits in the JCRC
office doesn't quite understand why people are talking about a war
between the blacks and the Jews because they're engaged weekly
with black leadership and black ministers in common projects. In
other words, the media overblows it sometimes and it's very
disturbing.

Glaser: Is the Farrakhan issue going to blow away?

Raab: No, I suspect that as long as Farrakhan is in existence or whoever
follows him, I suspect it will not go away because Farrakhan is an
anti-Semite. The interesting thing there, of course, is that the
traditional relationship between the blacks and the Jews — and you
use those terms as though there are huge masses of blacks and huge
masses of Jews skipping down the street together or fighting each
other—the relationships has always been between leaderships. And
the black leadership with whom the Jewish leadership has always
been engaged are essentially black ministers and some black
lawyers related to the NAACP and civil rights.

The black ministers have continued to be a kind of stable
base of black life and important in black life, and relationships
have been good with them. I would specify black Christian
ministers. It's been an interesting phenomenon that the black
ministers really have trouble with Farrakhan. Sometimes they have
trouble opposing him; after all, he's after their membership, he's
after their Christianity.

126

XX CHURCH-STATE ISSUES

Importance to Jews

Glaser: That leads into my next topic of church-state issues, which I

gather has always been very prominent on the JCRC agenda. Would
you talk about that please?

Raab: Perhaps the single thing which distinguishes freedom for the Jews
in America has been their equal status in terms of their ability
to practice religion. I think it's been central. You know,
there's a famous statement by George Washington—although he got
it from Jewish sources initially—that in effect he's against the
term "tolerance." And he was talking about Jews because he wrote
this letter to a Jewish congregation in Newport that the Jews have
an equal right, and therefore it's not a matter of tolerating them
at all. He excoriated the word tolerance. That's been the prime
basis of Jewish equal status in this country. It goes back a long
way.

To stay with the JCRC era, fifty years ago, forty years ago,
there was still very strong resistance to anything which might
breech what was called, and what is still called, church-state
separation. As a matter of fact, in the early days (just to draw
a distinction between the temper forty years ago and the temper
today, which has changed) forty years ago Jewish agencies such as
the JCRC were not only opposed to any kind of Christmas
celebrations in the schools, they were opposed to any kind of
Hanukkah celebrations in the schools. They felt that it had to be
kept in one piece.

It's changed because somewhere during that period two things
changed, I think. Jews became a little more secure about their
position as a religious group in the country. Secondly, as the
drive for a more intensified religious identity became stronger in
the Jewish community, they wanted to express themselves. Jewish
parents, if they were going to have something related to Christmas

127

in the schools, they wanted to have something related to Hanukkah,
whose status is a little made up as we know. But they wanted to
do that because they wanted Jewish pride for their children. So
it wasn't the case forty-five years ago.

Supreme Court Decisions

Raab: That's been modified on both counts, I think: the intensity of

Jewish identity, the search for Jewish identity; and secondly, a
sense of more assurance. The sense of more assurance comes partly
from, compared to fifty years ago, Supreme Court decisions which
have said over and over again that you can't ChristianiEe the
country, to put it roughly. The Supreme Court took the position
that you can't have spoken prayers in the schools. This was a
cornerstone decision by the Supreme Court during this period.
They said that in effect because it's impossible to have spoken
prayers in the schools and not have them be sectarian prayers.

When you talk about putting the Ten Commandments up on the
board, we're talking about the school context. Much of the
church-state conflict and development took place in the public
school venue. They said, "Ten Commandments, certainly that's
nonsectarian enough." But it isn't, because the Jewish Ten
Commandments is different than the Christian Ten Commandments.
And the Catholic prayers, of course, differ from Protestant
prayers. As a matter of fact, the Protestants in the early days
were often some of the most protective of church-state separation
because they were afraid of Catholic domination.

So what has developed, as these court cases have continually
said that you cannot put a sectarian religion in a place of public
prominence or influence, is the development of the idea that
there's a difference between separation of church and state and
separation between religion and state. That's happened more
recently.

Maybe the holiday celebrations in the schools are an
example. The courts have tended to say, and the Jewish sentiment
has tended to move in this direction, that you cannot have Just
Christian-related celebrations in the schools. If you're going to
have religious-season-connected celebrations in the schools, that
has to be for all religions. The same thing happened in terms of
the public square with respect to having even Christmas trees,
even a cross perhaps, in Union Square.

128

The courts have tended to say, because that situation has
risen around the country, you can't have this sort of thing in the
public square for one religious season but you can have them if
you have them for all religious seasons. And this is the
distinction that has come up that Jews have not quite dealt with
because it's difficult for them. But as I say, there was a time
when they were opposed to any kind of religion-related seasonal
expression because they felt that even if it was a Jewish
religious expression, it was a foot in the door for others. It's
evolved so that many Jews, and more Jewish agencies, now accept
the idea that you can separate church and state in the sense that
no one church can dominate, but you shouldn't try to separate
religion and state in the sense that as long as it's a
multilateral expression of some kind, it's okay.

Equal Access

Glaser: What is the issue of equal access?
Raab: In the schools?
Glaser: Yes.

Raab: Well, there again, as this pressure developed—and this pressure
developed certainly from some Christian sources—that there be
more possibility of religious expression in the schools, it was
buttressed by some Jewish acceptance of this ideas as long as it
was multilateral and not unilateral. The Congress passed specific
laws which said that religious expression is part of freedom of
speech and therefore the schools have to allow it, in essence.
Just as the courts once ruled that if people want to pass out
Bibles that's part of freedom of speech too. They said that if
there are groups of students who want to have religious exercises
during the day on school premises—not in the classroom, but on
school premises— that's okay as long as it's open to all the
religions. That's equal access.

Jews were afraid of it. Again, they're still caught in this
bind a little bit as to how they feel about this multilateral
expression of religion and at what point it becomes dangerous.
But a lot of Jews are interested in the ability of Jewish students
to get together in the schools.

129

Government Aid to Religious Schools

Glaser: How did the JCRC stand on government aid to religious schools?

Raab: With all of these changes that I've talked about, there are

certain staples that have remained standard on this church-state
menu. One of them, as far as the JCRC is concerned and as far as
the Jewish public at large is concerned, is opposition to state
aid to religious schools. It became breached a little bit at a
point, and again the same tension arose, when there was a question
of whether free lunches which the government was providing should
be also allowed to religious schools. Essentially, the Jews
withdrew their opposition to that.

But of course the main tension that's gone on in the Jewish
community, which was always heavily opposed to religious schools,
was because aid to religious schools essentially meant aid to
Catholic schools. Most of the tax money would go to Catholic
schools, and there was a feeling that this was a real genuine
church-state issue. But that also has become more complicated in
some Jewish minds because of the growth of more intense Jewish
identity and higher interest in Jewish religious schools.

Glaser: Orthodox Jewry has always opposed that stand of separation of
church and state, hasn't it?

Raab: It's not easy to discern in San Francisco, where there may be 2 to
3 percent Orthodox, but in New York City of course it's different.
Nationwide, it's 10 percent. It can be reflected in the yearly
positions of NCRAC, where they have opportunities for dissent from
positions taken. I think most of the dissents over the years
(there haven't been too many) have been by the Union of Orthodox
Congregations about church-state issues, about aid to religious
schools.

I would point out, because of what I've been talking about,
in this case especially the growth of the Jewish identity
strength, it's been more than the Orthodox who have become a
little more interested in aid to religious schools. After all,
the schools that we have around San Francisco are mostly not
Orthodox schools. And most of the families who send their
children there are not Orthodox families.

130

Prayer in Schools

Raab: So that there's been that dissent. It's a good measure, the
dissents of the Union of Orthodox Congregations. They've
dissented on that score, and they've dissented perhaps on a couple
of others, but also on the question of silent prayer in the
schools, which is another example of the ambiguity within the
Jewish community. As I said, forty years ago the JCRCs were
against anything that seemed to smack of church-state
permissibility. One of the positions they've always maintained is
they're against silent prayers in the schools. Now, when you talk
to the Jewish lawyers in the national agencies, they will agree
that there's nothing in the Constitution that prevents silent
meditation, silent prayers in the schools. But they're afraid
that it's a foot in the door.

Glaser: Wasn't there a court decision on silent prayer that it was against
the First Amendment?

Raab: I don't remember that specifically. You don't mean the Supreme
Court?

Glaser:
Raab:

Glaser;
Raab:

Yes.

Maybe. I don't remember that,
decisions against--

There were certainly Supreme Court

I think it was in the case concerning action in Alabama.1

I don't remember that specifically and I don't remember that
silent prayers as such have been ruled out. Congress has
certainly fooled around long enough with trying to pass a law
saying it's okay. The Supreme Court has generally ruled out
sectarian prayer and in certain situations (that may be one of
them you refer to) to other kinds of prayer which tend to be
sectarian.

You know, what does silent prayer mean? It depends on, and
this is what the court decisions have been about, it depends on
the surrounding circumstances; you know, what the teacher says.
But if it's a matter of silent meditation and the teacher's
saying, "Look, this is a time when you can think anything you want

'This court case, launched in 1995, was decided by the Eleventh U.S.
Circuit Court of Appeals in May, 1997. The court found that a moment of
silence is not an illegal attempt to bring prayer into public schools.

131

quietly to yourselves, including religious thoughts if you want to
have them."

See, there's always been a tension between the two phrases
in the First Amendment: separation of church and state and freedom
of religion. There's a tension there always, and this is one of
the points of tension. If a young person wants to sit in a room
and pray to himself, silent prayer, and you say he can't, it
strikes many as an interference with freedom of religion. It
doesn't establish a religion of any kind unless the teacher makes
some unfortunate comments to open it up. But that's been one of
the changes. There's more and more sentiment in Jewish agency
life that perhaps silent prayer isn't too bad, and there's some
movement in the Jewish community.

President Clinton made a speech last year in which he said
that the Constitution (I don't quote him exactly) does not mean
that the public schools are a religion-free zone. It made some
Jews uncomfortable. But then the President said he drew that
specific wording from an interfaith document, which had just been
published with the support of NCRAC and the American Jewish
Congress, as a matter of fact.

This gets back to the central question, the central shifting
in Jewish thought about church- state separation. More and more
people are thinking that it means preventing any church from
getting a specific foothold or favoritism from government. But it
does not mean that either the schools or the public parks have to
be religion-free. That's still the argument that's going on today
within Jewish circles. You've seen a gradual change in it over
the past forty years.

Creationism

Glaser: Have the JCRCs ever gotten involved with the evolution versus
creationism issue, or is that too parochial?

Raab: No. It hasn't happened in the San Francisco Board of Education,
that argument, that debate. But where it happened in Sacramento
we got involved. There were attempts in Sacramento in the State
Legislature either to get rid of the theory of evolution in the
school systems or to insist on creationism. We, the JCRC, have
gotten involved. Creationism is one of those things like prayer,
or perhaps even the Ten Commandments, where one version of
creationism is different from another version of creationism. So
the question is, is it going to be the Christian version, the

132

Protestant version, the Catholic version, or the Jewish version.
And that's why Jewish agencies have been concerned about the
attempt to implant creationism in the place of evolution.

133

XXI OTHER RELIGIOUS GROUPS

Muslims

Glaser: In our discussion this morning you've talked about various sects
of Christians and of Jews. There's no mention on your part of
Muslims. Shouldn't that be coming into the fore?

Raab: People say so. Population statistics suggest that there is now a
sizeable number of Muslims in the country. In the beginning--
we're talking about a forty-year period in any case, fifty year
period—at the beginning at that period the word Muslim could not
be heard. You talk about interfaith groups, interfaith
cooperation, you're talking about Christian-Jewish statements made
by politicians and by the leaders of these interfaith groups.
There were a couple of them in the City; particularly, for
example, the Conference on Religion and Race was made up
specifically of Catholics, Protestants, and Jews. When we had
appointments to certain positions where there were a few religions
that were supposed to be represented, it was Christians,
Catholics, Protestants, and Jews.

I guess, again as part of that period which emerged in the
nineteen sixties, not so much out of the growth of any strength of
Muslim religions but out of Arab nationalism and out of the great
impulse starting in the late nineteen sixties to have everybody
represented—the diversity theme which we still see in American
life- -that the Muslims began to be mentioned. So that on
interfaith in Mid East today, you're very likely to find a Muslim.
But this has been one of the changes in the last forty years. One
of the problems for the Jews, of course, has been the development
of the black Muslim movement, which they identify with the Nation
of Islam.

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National Council of Churches

Glaser: What was the relationship with the National Council of the
Churches?

Raab: National Council of Churches in that period, and again we're

talking about the watershed period in the last fifty years which
began in the late 1960s, after 1965. At the point when that
watershed occurred and radicalized a number of groups with respect
to Israel and the Arab-Israeli conflict, and this happened on the
campuses and it happened in certain specific religious circles.

Raab: The National Council of Churches, this Protestant body, began to
issue more and more and specific criticisms of Israel vis-a-vis
the Arabs. Some of this, incidentally, was related to certain
bodies in the Protestant world which were engaged still in
specific missions through the Arab world and therefore had this
kind of involvement with the Arab world. And of course, this was
partly the politics of the Catholic Church. As far as the Vatican
was concerned, they also had a stake in the Arab world and in
essentially missionary activities in the Arab world.

You've got to remember that much of the Arab population in
the San Francisco area, unlike Detroit perhaps, was Christian.
They came from Ramallah and from areas in the Palestinian world
which were Christian. This reflected, obviously, some missionary
efforts on the part of certain Christian sects. They had an
investment; so that there were often adversary statements made out
of the Council of Churches with respect to Jews that bothered
Jews.

Moonies

Glaser: Would you talk about the period when the Moonies were very strong
in San Francisco? Not Just in San Francisco, in the whole Bay
Area.

Raab: Sometimes, one gets the feeling that the items, which become let's
say front page items for the Jewish Bulletin or for the JCRC, Just
happen to get there because they've emerged as a media phenomenon.
Which doesn't mean that there's nothing behind them, but it does
mean that they don't necessarily reflect certain kinds of reality.
The Moonies were of great concern to the Jews at one point. Yet

135

I'm not convinced that at the time they were so concerned there
were more missionary activities by these groups than there are
today.

Glaser: Which missionary groups?

Raab: Well, the Jews for Jesus and certain other groups, as well as the
Moonies which are still operating. The image that comes to my
mind is the story of the guru of one big movement in the Eastern
religion who came to this country, he said, specifically to find
out why so many and even the majority of his followers were Jewish
in origin. Jews have always been disproportionate in these
groups. In the Moonies they were disproportionate.

There's the old saying, the Jews are like everybody else
only more so. And they're more so partly because they're a middle
class, lingual, visible group on the campuses. On the Berkeley
campus, when everything broke in the sixties and counts were made
there was a highly disproportionate number of Jews involved in
those radical groups. There are a highly disproportionate number
of Jews in San Francisco involved in the gay groups that have come
out of the closet. The Jews are disproportionate in that sense,
in that they're middle class, they're educated, they come out, and
they're seeking.

This was true of these missionary groups as well: the Jews
for Jesus of course, the Moonies, and the Eastern religions as
well. People aren't so much worried about them, I guess because
the Moonies seemed so clearly a mind-washing group. Even though
they were a mind-washing group, nevertheless they drew a
disproportionate number of Jews because they were attractive to a
disproportionate number of Jewish kids who were looking for
something more, something different.

Anyway, at one point the Moonies were at a certain height, I
guess, in this area. And it was around the same area where Jews
were being radicalized, young Jews and so forth, when things were
changing. The educated edge of the middle class youth were
looking elsewhere and constantly seeking. A number of them were
picked up by the Moonies. I don't know what the nature of the
threat was; it was never clear to me. I never felt, a lot of us
never felt, that the Moonies, Jews for Jesus, or any of the other
groups, including Hare Krishna (of which there were
disproportionate number of Jews) that any of these groups were
going to really make any inroads in Jewish population.

The concern was always with the individual Jewish soul, and
the individual Jewish soul that's lost is lost. That's
unfortunate, but in large terms it wasn't that large, it was just

136

dramatic. And, as I say, any time one Jews is subverted
religiously it's an affront. JCRC set up a special committee and
there were a couple of people who were experts, a psychologist in
Berkeley and somebody else who we kept in touch with. But there
wasn't anything we could do.

We weren't about to do any reverse brainwashing, that kind
of capture. And the word was the way the Jewish community can
fight the Moonies, and so forth, is by strengthening its own
Jewish education, and so forth. Concern about it died, although I
suspect that the numbers aren't all that different. Partly
because perhaps some of these groups became a little less popular,
although the Moonies still have a huge organization, and because
other things occupied our minds. Some Jews are lost, how many are
regained I don't know, but it's never been a huge figure.

Christians in this country, since before the Civil War and
throughout the nineteenth century, had huge efforts at converting
the Jews. Huge efforts. And it was offensive, as it is today.
But they never converted very many Jews.

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XXII SECTARIAN POLITICAL ACTIVITY

Civil Rights Period

Glaser: Within this decade, it seems to me, churches have become, and

maybe just some specific churches, much more politically active.
Is that your sense also?

Raab: Yes. We make the division between the mainstream churches and the
fundamentalist churches. Both became more active in America a
number of years ago around social gospel. In the civil rights
period, when we of the Jewish community were so involved in civil
rights. When we had these weekly meetings, for example, of people
and of an organization which led the civil rights fight in this
city early on, around the table were some black leaders, JCRC
leaders, and some religious leaders. In that sense, they became
politically very active, more so than they had been before. Civil
rights turned on their activity, as it did in a sense Jewish
activity.

In this city, the Protestant churches and Catholic churches
had a strong civil rights movement. There were special groups
that were set up, Catholic civil rights groups, that became part
of our effort then. The Jews had no concern regarding this
activity on behalf of civil rights. These were the same groups
that had opposed Nazism and had joined with Jews in opposing
Nazism. Jews had no concern with that kind of political activity.

Fundamentalists

Raab: Jewish concern with Christian political activity came later on

when the fundamentalists became politically active. Partly there
was good reason for it. When we talk about fundamentalists we
mean fundamentalists in an evangelical movement. The definition

138

of an evangelical movement, which is true of so many of the
fundamentalist movements, is that it wants to evangelize, it wants
to convert people. And there is a special interest in converting
Jews because, as we know, this was something that was clear in the
Christian conversionary efforts on the Jews in the nineteenth
century. Early on there was a period when Jews and Jewish
agencies were (I'm generalizing here, of course) happy enough with
fundamentalist activity because much of the fundamentalist
activity related to supporting Israel. It's part of the
conversionary doctrine that the Messiah won't come until the Jews
are converted and Israel is converted. The idea being that the
Jews go back to Israel and become Christians and then the Messiah
would come.

Glaser: And then there was that minister's statement that God does not
hear Jewish prayers.

Raab: It's interesting because at the same time that Jews were pleased
that the fundamentalists were supporting Israel for those reasons
and anti-Communist reasons as well when Russia was supporting
Arabs, a majority of Jews were always uneasy with fundamentalists
because they felt that this was a major seat of anti-Semitism.
Even the conversionary attempts were an aspect of anti-Semitism.
And it's true that some of the fundamentalist leaders have made
statements that clearly indicate that the Jews have to convert in
order to get to heaven. This was always part of that Christian
doctrine.

Pope John, the great changer of Catholic philosophy, and
this happened again in that euphoric period in the 1960s and so
forth, broke Catholic tradition more heavily than any one before
in these terms by actually issuing a proclamation that Judaism was
legitimate on its own. It was not a transition, it was legitimate
on its own. And this was a new concept in formal Catholic and
much Christian theology. That's the struggle, and it's still the
struggle, to get from the Christian community the concept that
Judaism is legitimate, not just a transition to Christianity and
therefore incomplete until it makes that transition.

There is one other aspect to this in terms of the
fundamentalists. If it's not clear that those people who call
themselves fundamentalists, the born-again Christians, are more
anti-Semitic than other Americans, it was clearly true at one time
and it related to the factor of education. I'm talking now about
surveys and statistics and so forth. At one time, and I'm talking
about even early in this fifty year period that we're surveying,
the fundamentalists and the activist fundamentalists were heavily
located in the South. Statistically they were at lower
educational levels than others, and anti-Semitism always

139

correlated very directly with educational levels. The less
education, the more anti-Semitism in attitudinal surveys. So that
if you put those two together, you find that fundamentalists were
more anti-Semitic.

It's not so clear that's true any more, perhaps because
there are fewer and fewer less educated fundamentalists. But it
was always related to education. But the Jews always felt that
the fundamentalists were anti-Semitic, which may have been, as I
say, more true once than it is now because of educational levels.
Still, I think that Jews feel less and less a threat out there in
America.

I think the main source of threat that many of them feel are
the newly politicized fundamentalist movements because of the
statements of some of the leaders, whether there's more anti-
Semitism down below or not among the fundamentalists today.

When [Pat] Buchanan, who is in essence a Catholic
fundamentalist, when Buchanan got up at the Republican Convention
and said that, in effect, there is a religious war in this
country, he scared the hell out of the Jews. A religious war to
them, spoken by a Christian, means that they're going to be the
fodder for a religious war. As you indicated, there are other
religious leaders who've gotten up and made statements that scared
the Jews. This is of continuing difficulty.

Even the abortion issue touches the Jews, I think. Not just
because of their liberal ideas about abortion, although that's a
factor, and the more liberal ideas of Judaism about abortion,
depending on which denomination you belong to. But because
Buchanan, to name him again, and Reed of the Christian Coalition,
et cetera, when they talk about abortion they're talking about
passing laws which will impose upon the population restrictions
directly based on sectarian religious belief. And this is what
scares the Jews. I think this scares the Jews more than anything.

Jewish Political Affiliation

Raab: Jews have become more conservative on a lot of issues. They are
still more liberal than any other part of the white population.
But they've become more conservative, or at least their
conservativism shows more on issues like welfare for example, on
crime and punishment. They're very strong on the death penalty,
for example, and so forth.

140

Where was I?
Glaser: How Jews are more liberal but getting more conservative.

Raab: They're more conservative. But the one thing that unites even the
conservative Jews is a concern about Christian fundamentalism.
Jews are more conservative than many of us like to think. Jews
continue to vote for the Democratic party by an 80 percent margin.
But it's my feeling, and there's evidence, that one of the reasons
why they're so close to the Democratic party is because they're so
estranged from the Republican party. There are some feelings
about budget, about economic policy, in which a good 40 percent of
the Jews could subscribe. But the Republican party has not seemed
hospitable to the Jews, and the winds of sectarianism constantly
blow from the Republican party.

Glaser: Well, Pat Buchanan's speech was certainly a wake-up call.

Raab: That was the kind of thing that really turned the Jews off. You
know, it was in the San Francisco Convention when Jesse Jackson
made a speech and I was in a large Jewish audience, it so
happened. You could sense that people got a little rigid because
of the Christian fundamentalist nature of his remarks at that
time. That's what scares Jews. Jews are not subject to
employment discrimination very seriously in this country at this
point, or housing discrimination. Nor is there any largeish
group, although all of them are fringes, who proclaim that they're
after the Jews. But the main thing which still scares them, it
comes back to the church-state issue, I guess, is the idea that
there is going to be religious oppression or exclusion and any
remarks which move in that direction.

XXIII SOVIET JEWRY

Early Activities in the 1950s

Glaser: The JCRC became involved with the Soviet Jewry matter very early
on. It became the mailing address for the Bay Area Council for
Soviet Jewry. Number one, why did the JCRC get involved? And
what were the different areas of activity between the JCRC and the
Bay Area Council?

Raab: Historically, you have to start a little earlier, although it
becomes personalized. My influence on JCRC policy was always
ancillary, related to the policy-making board of the JCRC or the
extent to which I could influence the policy-making board. But
the one issue that I think bore my personal mark more than any
others, and it wasn't important at the time, was the fact that the
San Francisco JCRC started activity on behalf of Soviet Jewry in
the 1950s. We held rallies in Union Square on behalf of Soviet
Jews in 1950; nobody else was doing it.

Glaser: That's very early.

Raab: That's very early. And we did radio programs on Soviet Jewry in
the 1950s and so forth. That was just partly out of my political
history because I knew about the oppression of the Jews and of the
Soviet Union. And I was so opposed to the Soviet Union in
general, to the oppressive Communist regime in Russia. I knew
they'd slaughtered Jewish poets and writers so that I pushed that.
But it was not important. It was not important because there was
no opportunity, there was no chance that anything we could do
would influence the Soviet Union in the 1950s. Stalin was still
riding high in the early 1950s and there was no way we could touch
them. There wasn't even an organized Jewry in the Soviet Union.

Soviet Jews Begin to Organize

Raab: That early activity is a kind of historical oddity. It was only
when the 1967 War took place, when Israel became a strong entity,
a dramatic entity-- First of all, it was after Stalin died in the
late 1950s, but that didn't change policy with respect to Soviet
immigration so much. Soviet Jews began to organize. If you want
to talk about the influence on that whole issue, you've got to
start with the Soviet Jews because they organized themselves,
protested themselves, heroically. Without that base, nothing more
would have been done.

It's an interesting episode in Jewish history and the
history of community relations even. When suddenly the Soviet
Jews broke out heavily in protest, and the Soviet Union after
Stalin's death seemed to be less Iron Curtain-ish, a little less
Iron Curtain-ish than it had been with him in charge, it was only
then, despite what we'd done in the 1950s here, that the serious
idea of a Soviet Jewry movement in this country developed. And
then there was a controversy, a real big controversy in the
American Jewish community and the community relations community.
What should our slogan be for Soviet Jews? To be rough about it:
a) is the slogan "Let them practice religion freely" or b) "Let
them go"? That was a debate within our circles in American Jewish
life.

There was also a concern in some establishment quarters, and
by establishment I mean the federations, NCRAC, national agencies.
There was some concern about putting Soviet Jews at risk. Do we
name people who want to get out of the Soviet Union or would that
put them at risk? And then there was the philosophical question:
do we say Jews, certainly those who want to, should stay in the
Soviet Union and be allowed to have freedom? Or do we say they
all should leave? Those were the stark alternatives. A movement
grew up, an alternative movement within American Jewish life,
which was antagonistic to the apparent hesitation and
ramifications of this debate.

Raab: We're going to engage in direct action to free the Jews and do

whatever we have to do that so that they can go to Israel. That's
the whole purpose. None of this nonsense about freedom for the
Jews as a major kind of slogan. One of the leaders of that
national alternative movement was a San Franciscan, Hal Light, who
established the Bay Area Council for Soviet Jewry. I don't know
when it got its name, but he became part of the council, whatever

143

Glaser :
Raab:

it was, the national body of the groups that were coming up around
the country like the Bay Area Council for Soviet Jewry.

The establishment was furious at this alternative movement
for a couple of reasons. One, because every establishment is
furious when an alternative movement arises; and secondly, because
they had these more conservative concerns. You know, "We've got
to talk a little more with the Soviet Jews to find out what they
want to do, and do we really want to say that all Jews should
leave," and so forth.

What establishment group are you talking about?

I'm talking about NCRAC and all the agencies in NCRAC. In San
Francisco, because of our early interest in the Soviet Jewry
situation, we were more sympathetic to the Bay Area Council than
the national groups wanted us to be.

Israel's Role

Raab: Israel played a tremendous role in the whole Soviet Jewry

business, and part of it was a behind-the-scenes role, a hidden
role. There developed a tension between this alternative movement
and the State of Israel on this subject. That tension related to
the feeling of the alternative movement — alternative movements
tend to be a little paranoid for obvious reasons, sometimes for
good reasons. It tended to feel that the State of Israel had a
double agenda with the Soviet Union: a) to get the Jews out.
Israel certainly wanted the Jews out and into Israel. But b) they
had a political interest in terms of their relationship to the
Soviet Union and the Soviet Union's relationship to the Arab
countries and so forth. So they wanted to handle this situation
themselves and in their own way.

Partly this was true. Israel had a natural double agenda in
terms of their relationships with the Soviet Union. But the
alternative movement put the most sinister kind of glow on this
natural double agenda. The national agencies were, of course,
close to the State of Israel, and its particular apparatus, big
apparatus, related to the Soviet Union and Soviet Jewry. It was a
Massad operation very heavily. So there was great antagonism
between Israel and the alternative movement which attacked Israel
directly sometimes, and between our national agencies and the
alternative movement.

144

Here, we were more sympathetic, as I said, because of our
historic position and feeling about the Soviet Union and the
plight of the Soviet Jews. It was not without friction because it
was an alternative movement even here, and alternative movements
are interested in separating themselves from the establishment and
moving ahead on their own. But we became closer here than any
other chapter of this alternative establishment elsewhere in the
country. And we were subject to much castigation by the national
agencies and by the Israeli government on that score. They were
furious at us.

As I say, we had some of our troubles, just bureaucratic
troubles, but we sent out the first request for Bay Area Council
membership. A large mailing in the city was sent out through the
JCRC. Then when the question of financing the Bay Area Council
came up to the Federation, we supported that, although the funds
came through the JCRC to the Bay Area Council. But it was never a
matter of us deciding whether we should give it to them or not.
We were the channel and we spoke on behalf of their budget. After
the initial period of bureaucratic friction between us, we became
very close. And the closer we became, the more angry at us became
the national agencies and the Israeli government.

The National Conference on Soviet Jewry was set up by the
establishment, and the friction between them and the Union of
Councils for Soviet Jewry always continued. It was interesting
because the basis for the development of this alternative movement
was legitimate. The establishment was dragging its heels a bit,
and yet-- You know, there's an old saying, "Revolutionaries
should be free to establish the revolution and then they should be
shot . "

Glaser: [laughter]

Raab: Because sometimes revolutionaries aren't the best people to

conduct the ongoing affairs. In any case, that continued to last
for a long while. And after that, incidentally, we did things
together. When there were demonstrations in front of the Soviet
Consulate, it was the JCRC and the Bay Area Councils and so forth.

Glaser: Were you as involved as the Bay Area Council was in having people
write to Soviet dissidents in order to establish lines of
communication?

Raab: The programmatic front was not clearly defined between us and the
Bay Area Council. We tried to do things together, and there were
some things which we did as they did because they were just
different audiences. We got synagogues to adopt certain Jews in
the Soviet Union, the bar mitvahs which were done in the name of

145

somebody in the Soviet Union. We had people call, write letters
to the Soviet Union. That was a continual effort on our part and
the Bay Area Council. It became amicable, we just had different
fields. We could widen the circles in which these things were
done.

Glaser: Is the name of the national group that you mentioned but couldn't
remember the American Conference on Soviet Jewry?

Raab: No, the Conference on Soviet Jewry was the establishment group.

This was called the Council of-- Doug Kahn, incidentally, I first
knew him when he was a student and a Soviet Jewry activist and he
came back years later. But he would know what that council's name
was exactly. [Union of Councils for Soviet Jewry]

We succeeded. You see, one of the lines that we tried to
establish was that the JCRC, by staying in connection with the Bay
Area Council, would engage in the kind of political activity for
which it was best suited in terms of having all of the
organizations in the Jewish community together. For example, when
there was a question of whether Leningrad should be made a sister
city of San Francisco, and I've talked about that in connection
with Dianne Feinstein, this was basically a JCRC function. Some
of the demonstrations were basically Bay Area Council functions
although we cooperated with them. Hal Light was an important man
in Jewish life finally.

Project Yachad

[Interview 8: July 24, 1996] if

Glaser: In one of our earlier interviews, you mentioned Hugim. Would you
explain that please. And was Soviet Jewry its primary focus?

Raab: Well, they're not related I don't think. The way that Hugim came
up in our history, I think, was that some years ago, when we were
pursuing what I always thought was one of the chief functions of
an agency like this, which was to raise the level of informed
consciousness about issues in the Jewish community. We held
Hugim, which means discussion groups, all around the city. We had
leadership people in the Peninsula and Marin and San Francisco
meeting for maybe four or more sessions, a couple hours apiece or
two or three hours, and discussing the issues. It was really a
very fruitful enterprise; people remembered it for many years.

Glaser: Would you talk about Project Yachad?

146

Raab: Which was that?

Glaser: It's a one-to-one relationship with a Soviet Jewish person or
family.

Raab: Yes. Now this was something that we certainly shared with the Bay
Area Council for Soviet Jewry. I'm not sure whether they came up
with it first, but in any case, the idea was for two purposes:
one, to dramatize the problem in this country and in our
community. Secondly, to help raise the morale and give evidence
of support to Soviet Jews, which was a constant function that
everybody thought was necessary throughout the Soviet Jewry
movement. There was, in different ways, always an attempt to
establish a one-to-one relationship.

After things eased up a little bit but not altogether, there
was a constant effort to make trips to the Soviet Union and take
Jews from this area to go over there to personally meet some
embattled Soviet Jews and in some cases to establish a permanent
relationship with them. In other cases there was just a
correspondence-kind of relationship between specific Jews in this
area and specific Jews in the Soviet Union. In some cases, as you
know, there were bar mitzvah ceremonies which were shared between
here and the Soviet Union, always with a double purpose in mind.

Trip to Moscow, 1967

Glaser: Did you ever go to the Soviet Union?
Raab: I went there early. I was there in 1967.
Glaser: Was this an official visit or as a tourist?

Raab: No, this was an official visit, but the Soviets were not supposed
to know that it was official. Several of us went. It was an
early visit in these terms. We went to Israel first and we loaded
up with Israeli mementos to give to Soviet Jews. The Soviet Jewry
movement in the Soviet Union, in Russia, was still very minimal,
so it was not, as happened later on in later years, that everybody
had long lists of Soviet Jews that they knew were trying to get
out. But here there were only a few.

We went to the Soviet Union and we wished to exhibit our
little, obvious Israeli, mementos. As a matter of fact, we
carried E1-A1 handbags in the hopes the Jews might notice us.

147

used to go up to people. We'd speak Yiddish loudly in order to
attract attention and so forth. We did collect some names.

Glaser: Did you have any feeling of apprehension when you entered the
country?

Raab: This was a bad period. As you remember, I knew that they had my
name in the Soviet Union because of my anti-Communist activities
in this country. And this was one of their stiff periods, they
just arrested an American, put him in jail as a matter of fact.
We knew it was a tough period.

It was impossible during those years to buy an English-
language newspaper or to find any kind of outside non-Communist
newspaper of any kind. So when we went to the embassy, we saw a
copy of the Herald-Tribune and wanted to take it with us. The
embassy people told us flatly that we should be careful, and when
we were through with it we should tear it up and flush it down the
toilet because they were looking for reasons to arrest people.
There was that kind of apprehension. This was January, there
weren't very many tourists in Russia. We knew very well that they
knew who we were and we had to dodge them, in effect. We knew
that the travel guide-- What's the name? I've forgotten the
name.

Glaser: Intourist?

Raab: Yes. That he was a KGB agent who was very good in English and a
student of American literature. We dodged him. We weren't
supposed to go anyplace without them when we got on buses. We got
some addresses. It was an interesting trip.

Glaser: Did you have a feeling of your room being bugged?

Raab: We were placed in one of the old grand but crumbling hotels in

Moscow and we knew our rooms were bugged. There was no question
about that. The embassy told us that.

It was interesting. At one point there was very little
Yiddish activity permitted, but in 1967--this was before the war
in the Middle East--things were a little creakily opened. We
found a kind of vaudeville show coming to town, a musical revue
which was in Yiddish. My wife went with me, we went to see it.
It was interesting because as we came in, it was a small hall,
maybe five hundred people, they were of course all Jews, and they
recognized us right away. I mean they recognized us as American
Jews right away, greeted us and grabbed for our hands and so
forth. It was interesting.

My wife is much more of an expert in Yiddish than I am, so
she understood the whole thing. There was one song in this revue
which said, in effect, in Yiddish, how's a person supposed to make
a living? And that was the song that brought down the house,
because, you know, for the Jews in the Soviet Union it was often
difficult to make a living, especially those with middle class
backgrounds. We went to the synagogue in Moscow and were greeted
and told to tell the people in America what the situation was. It
was a dramatic visit.

Jackson-Vanik Act: Government Action

Glaser: What was the JCRC's position on the Jackson-Vanik Act?

Raab: We were very much in favor of the Jackson-Vanik Act, whose purpose
was to hold back certain economic benefits from the Soviet Union
until they liberalized their immigration policy. The president
was to be the the judge, of that. It was a pretty strong battle
because it's the same battle that's occurred over and over again,
as in the case of South Africa for example. Whether this sort of
thing helps or hurts, we all felt that this could only help.

Glaser: But wasn't the JCRC against the secondary boycott of stores
carrying Soviet goods?

Raab: There's always been a historic opposition by the organized Jewish
community to secondary boycotts for the reason that it's always so
often historically been a weapon against Jews. And we just
thought it was a bad example. I don't think a secondary boycott
against stores was part of the Jackson-Vanik Bill.

Glaser: No. I don't mean that.

Raab: So the question of putting pressure on a foreign government was on
a different level than secondary boycotts in the community, which
we felt could boomerang.

Glaser: Was there any backlash because of the federal government providing
funds for settling Soviet Jews or the refusenlks in this country?

Raab: There was I might say surprisingly little backlash. I don't know
whether the body of American Jews recognizes the extent to which
the American government has contributed to the settlement of Jews
from the Soviet Union, which they did also for the settlement of
the Ethiopian Jews in Israel. They gave Israel money for settling
the Soviet Jews, and, of course, they provided money for Soviet

149

Jews who came in as refugees to this country. That was not
singularly a Jewish operation. The federal government generally
had funds for helping to settle political and religious refugees,
so this was part of it, although the Soviet Jews really took a
large part of these funds.

In terms of the backlash that you talk about, there was none
from the general American public, really, that could be noticed.
There was some kind of backlash from other groups, eventually,
which felt that perhaps the Jews were getting favorable treatment
over the Vietnamese in terms of even higher amounts of grants.

150

XXIV IMMIGRATION ISSUES

Immigration to U.S. versus Israel

Glaser: Would you discuss the controversy of helping refuseniks come to
the United States rather than going to Israel?

Raab: Well, you remember that there was an original controversy over
strategy as to whether the political slogan should be "Let them
go" or the political slogan should be "Let them be free." And
that one was fast settled in terms of "Let them go" for a lot of
reasons. First of all, it was working, and secondly, there was no
indication that they would be let free and left alone to pursue
their Judaism freely.

The other controversy is the one that you mentioned, the
strategic controversy. It was a very strenuous one because the
American official establishment Jewry movement was very closely
allied to the Israeli government, both in terms of ideology and
sometimes in funds on the national level. The Israeli policy was
that Jews from the Soviet Union should come to Israel. The battle
was still on, if I can refer to it in those militaristic terms,
between the alternative Soviet Jewry movement and the
establishment Soviet Jewry movement.

The alternative Soviet Jewry movement was dedicated to the
idea of letting them go wherever they could go and wherever they
wanted to go, including America. This became, perhaps, the chief
focus of controversy between Israel and the American establishment
on the one hand and the Soviet Jewry movement on the other.
Again, the San Francisco JCRC, because of its past history, was a
little more sympathetic to the position of the alternative Soviet
Jewry movement than many of the Jewish groups.

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Syrian Jews

Glaser: What did the JCRC do in relation to Syrian Jews who wanted to

leave the country? That was equally difficult, if not more so.

Raab: Oh, it was more so. In a way it reminded one of the activities of
the San Francisco JCRC in the 1950s on behalf of Soviet Jews. It
didn't make a dent because there was no possibility; the way you
did it, finally, was by way of the American government putting
pressure on another government. Our role was to get the American
government to put that pressure on. That's how it was done. In
the early days, of course, there was no way to put pressure on
Stalin. For most of this period that we're talking about, there
was no way to put pressure on the Syrian government, which was a
beneficiary of the Soviet government. It was very frustrating
from that point of view. There was very little leverage that the
American government had on Syria, so that it was a very
frustrating operation.

Every now and then, as a result of some kind international
development, you got a few Syrian Jews out. But we tried to keep
the pressure on in any case and keep it on the agenda of the
American government. When the Soviet Jews started to come out in
any number, the Soviet Union was not adverse to it being known
that they were coming out; obviously, that was one of the things
they wanted to do. The pressure had been put on them and they
wanted to remove any possible penalties of having a restrictive
emigration policy.

Glaser: Did you say Soviet Union?

Raab: Soviet Union. So they were willing to let it be known. But the
Syrian government never wanted it to be known when they were
allowing Jews out because that would not have stood them well in
certain Arab countries. Even when some Syrian Jews came out, and
they did on occasion here and there, it was on a very hush-hush
basis.

Glaser: I think in some cases they had to go a very roundabout route to
get out of the country. And then eventually wasn't there money
that had to be paid per person to get them out?

Raab: That was one of the operations. But you see, all of those things
remain very murky because Syria didn't want it known. Therefore,
the world Jewish community couldn't let it be known either.

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Glaser: Was there any involvement with Iranian Jews? I think the JCRC had
to help some Iranian students here in the Bay Area.

Raab: I don't, at this point, remember a movement on behalf of the Jews
in Iran who were here.

Liberalization of Immigration Laws

Glaser: What is the JCRC position with regard to immigration? Of course
it's in the forefront now; I don't know if it was also when you
were the head of the JCRC.

Raab: Immigration was always, and must remain, at the top of the agenda
for community relations. [pause]

Early on, starting in the 1950s, the Jewish community and
this JCRC became very involved in liberalization of America's
immigration laws. There was no question about the need to get
involved because of the tragic restriction of Jewish refugees from
entering this country in the 1930s. There was also the fact that
the national origins quota system established in the 1920s was
certainly racist, and essentially cut off Jewish immigration and
emigration from southern Europe, eastern Europe to this country.
That was still part of the law of the country.

So there were immigration revisions (I think they were in
the 1950s) which the Jewish community was very much in the
vanguard of. Much of it was in the vanguard of the civil rights
movement, later joined by some of the same kinds of people. Not
the black community so much, they hadn't come out then. But the
Japanese were very much interested in part of that movement.

The liberal quarters of the Protestant and Catholic churches
were with us, so that we used to gather often in the JCRC for the
pressures from this area. Much as we would gather for civil
rights in order to push that kind of liberalization with our
representatives and senators. And soon we succeeded. The first
kind of success that I saw after I came into the field was the
ability of the Jewish community to join with others to influence
policymakers.

Glaser: But in the recent years, it's become such a political issue and
racist issue, even more so than the period you're talking about.

Raab: Well, of course then there were two things to get rid of: the

national origins quota system, to raise the ceiling somewhat on

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immigration in general, and very much to liberalize the political
refugee system. In very recent years, the emphasis has been, and
California has been at the vanguard of this, on illegal
immigration. Although I think some people would like to see it,
so far there's been very little attack on the political refugee
system. The idea still stands that when political refugees want
to come to this country that's something we have to do as a very
center of American meaning.

Illegal Immigration

Raab: But illegal immigration has come under severe attack; it's grown
heavily. We're talking about mainly now from Mexico. There's
very little that we've been able to do to stop it physically, and
if you add up figures it is costly. The Jewish community has had
some strain on its consciousness about this issue. The famous
referendum in California a couple of years ago did restrict
initially the ability of illegal immigrants to get public health
services, and even more notably of children of illegal immigrants,
themselves illegal immigrants, from getting free public education.
The Jewish community voted heavily against this measure; more
heavily, 1 might say, in northern California than in southern
California, where the split was something like sixty-forty.

There has been that kind of strain. There are Jews,
apparently a good number of them, who feel that in a time of
economic tightness there has to be some kind of restraint or some
kind of hindrance to unrestrained illegal immigration. It has
slipped over a little bit to legal immigration. As you can see,
as we speak here today, the proposed welfare bill, for example,
would deny a lot of benefits to legal immigrants. I think that
the Jewish community would be far from its historic experience in
this country if it did not feel that it wanted to safeguard legal
immigration, refugee immigration, to the fullest extent, even
though there are some differences of opinion within the Jewish
community.

English-Only Controversy

Glaser: What is your personal feeling about the English-only issue?

Raab: You really get a split opinion from a lot of people about this. I
think it's important and good for the various ethnic groups that

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live in this country to have a sustaining relationship to their
language — Spanish, Jewish, indeed. But integration has been
important to this country. It's part of its central meaning and
its central ability to hold together. As we can see, it's the
first country of its kind in the world that has attempted to bring
people together in the same way. In Europe, you can see
Yugoslavia, you can see so many places where ethnic differences
which are exacerbated by language differences means constant
warfare, constant conflict. English is important to a universal
understanding and skill.

Raab: That universal skill is important in America for two reasons: one
is to hold the country together, and secondly to enable immigrant
groups to become successful in this country and integrated in this
country. It's such an obvious point. It's not going to happen to
the immigrant children unless they're proficient in English, and
it can't happen. So that when you say, "How do I feel about
English-only?", English first is perhaps a better term for me, and
it should be the goal of the schools to make English first,
although it should also be a goal of the schools to help young
people retain whatever cultural language they may have. That's
the first and main obligation of the family and that ethnic
community. The first obligation of the schools is the teaching of
English.

Controversies have developed around school programs,
questions whether immigrant children should be taught in English
or in the language which they speak at home. There 've been two
kinds of answers. One is to encourage them to speak their
original language throughout their school career, which I think
does interfere with the English first function of the schools to
the detriment of the children and to the advantage only of those
people in any particular ethnic community that have an
institutional investment in such a public school program.

On the other hand, English as a second language is a program
which the schools should pursue. In other words, for immigrant
children who come in and who are only adept at their home
language, they should be drawn into the English language through
their own language so that it would be easier for them to adapt.
Jews sometimes have a little difficulty with this concept because
of the historical, not personal but historical, recollection now
of how the Jews came over to this country in the latter part of
the nineteenth century, early part of the twentieth, and flooded
into the schools without a knowledge of English and came out of
the schools with a great knowledge of English.

155

We're going to talk about the public schools and all, which
Is a big item on the Jewish community relations agenda.

Glaser: That's our next item.

Raab: It's a segue. I remember my growing up, part where I was in

Virginia where was no ghetto, part of it was in New York where I
for a few years lived in a Jewish ghetto, in Brownsville in an old
tenement building. The kind that they had built for immigrants
and which had aged considerably. It was across the street from a
school, everything was cement, there were no trees, and the kids
would play in the schoolyard. This was a Jewish neighborhood,
this was a Jewish ghetto. I've already talked about this period.

We were all very poor, but among those at least in my
circles we knew that we were going to get out of the ghetto. We
knew that we had the American dream established. We were going to
work hard, we were going to be smart, we were going to get out of
the ghetto. Therefore, we were in a sense not ground down by this
ghetto circumstance, which was worse in certain physical ways than
most of the ghettoes that you can find today.

But we have different cultural groups involved today. Some
of them have no sense that many of the children are going to be
able to get out of the ghetto as we did, because of different
cultural expectations, because of different historical
backgrounds. We were pushed to education because our families
pushed us to education. In some groups that's not the case.

In America today, for example, it's obvious. You can see
the Chinese immigrants are hopeful, and we were hopeful because
some Jews were making it. We could see that it could be done.
For a long time it was difficult for some immigrant groups in
America. When you talk about the blacks, you can't exactly talk
about an immigrant group. But the groups that were in the
position of having to emerge, there were no role models out there.

Today, for example, the Chinese have role models. The
Chinese have family pushing them to education, the Chinese have
expectations, and the Chinese are doing extremely well. It's been
somewhat disconcerting to some groups like African Americans that
these new immigrant groups come to this country poverty-stricken,
the South Vietnamese for example, and succeed swiftly in the
schools and in life in general, in the economic life, more so than
older groups like the African Americans.

One of the interesting kinds of demonstrations of this is
what we call the Latin American community in this country, which
is actually not a single community but a number of communities.

156

As you compare the Cubans, who are Latin Americans, in this
country with the Mexican Americans in this country, statistically
speaking the Cubans are like the Chinese: highly educated, very
successful. The Mexican Americans not so. The Puerto Ricans not
so, because again of cultural backgrounds, expectations and so
forth. Of course, many of the Cubans in this country were middle
class and had the cultural background, expectations, education,
and so forth.

Glaser: What bothered me about this English-only business is that it
seemed to be so discriminatory, so racist.

Raab: Well, you know the interesting thing is that the polls show that
the majority of Latin Americans in this country (we're talking
about the schools) are especially interested in a program of
English first. Because they know very well, as with the Chinese,
that that's the way their kids are going to grow in this country.

Glaser: But I'm talking about the California proposition, I think it was
S.I. Hayakawa who was in the forefront of this, of making this an
actual policy.

Raab: If you talk about English only in an absolute sense, I can't

imagine it's something that the Jewish community could support.
There have been accommodations made for immigrants, the older
immigrants especially, who can't speak English. They can take
certain tests in their own language. When they are in trouble in
the courts, there are interpreters there for them and so forth.
English only in any absolute sense would make those things
impossible, and that's not going to happen in this country. It's
ridiculous. There are still too many people with immigrant
backgrounds who remember grandparents who couldn't speak when they
came over, so it's not going to happen. But in terms of English
first in the schools, I think that has support in the immigrant
groups as well as in the mainstream.

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XXV PUBLIC SCHOOLS

Importance of Motivating Students

Glaser: Well, let's talk about the JCRC and the schools, because as you

say that was one of the more prominent positions and agendas that
you had.

Raab: There's a little twist there too because what we've always

supported in the Jewish community are common public schools, with
the image of schools that bring diverse people together so that
they can become educated together, as well as the first thing
being free public schools so that they can go to school free.
Incidentally, a kind of affirmative action of a basic sort, which
this society has always provided. [pause] Where was I?

Glaser: This country has always provided the free public school.

Raab: Oh, but the common public school, that's what I wanted to comment
on, because it's also possible to remember that most Jews who came
to this country went to segregated schools. There were schools
mainly of Jews in New York.

Glaser: Because of the residential pattern?

Raab: Because of the residential pattern in New York City, there were
mostly Jews. So that we've got to acknowledge that when we talk
about the need for integration. I've talked about it so often I'm
not sure whether we've talked about it or not. There was a time
when the public schools' Job was to provide education for
motivated children. And the children who went to public school
then (we're talking about high schools now, which was the
important educational element) the students who went to and
completed high school in those days around the turn of the last
century were motivated children. They wanted to learn, so all the
schools had to do was give them the equipment with which to learn
and help them learn. The size of the schools and the size of the

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classes, the primitive condition of the books, et cetera didn't
make much difference, if any at all.

The schools since World War II essentially have had their
function changed for them. No longer are they just to provide
education for motivated children, but presumably they've been
handed the function of motivating children. And this has been the
failure of the public schools. They never had to do that before
and they still haven't learned how to do that except for here and
there. Still the schools do best where motivated children go.

There have been two big studies on what makes school
successful for children in this country. One was around the time
of the integration struggle out of Johns Hopkins University, and
one was recently reported in a book, neither whose title nor
author I recall without some struggle. But they did a study of
twenty-five thousand children and their educational success or
failure. It replicates what was found in the earlier study very
strongly, that everything depends on the family—not the class
size, not the physical plant in the schools.

Both of these are statistical studies and don't mean that it
made a difference for children here and there. But in statistical
terms it was the family and the family motivation, the family
background, the family culture and push which makes the difference
between a successful student and an unsuccessful student. So the
point is again that in the early days the families were pushing,
either out of their culture or out of their expectations, and the
schools were able to handle that. Today where the families are
not there pushing, the schools don't know how to handle it for the
most part.

There was in Israel a little bit of experience of this when
the Jews who had been living in Arab lands came, the so-called
Sephardim. Their educational levels were low for reasons we
talked about, because of their cultural background. The Israeli
authorities were very anxious, never could do it fully. They
thought maybe the kibbutzim could help but also boarding schools.
In other terms, taking some of these children out of their home
and putting them in a situation of greater motivation and
expectation.

We haven't gotten very far on that, it doesn't seem to work
in our milieu. When Gingrich suggested that—what did he call
them? He didn't call them boarding schools, he called them
orphanages, which was unfortunate. Didn't he?

Glaser: I don't recall that.

159

Raab: Well, he said one of the things we have to do is take children out
of their homes when those homes are not providing nourishment and
put them in boarding schools. Except he added a less favorable
term than boarding school. A friend of mine who was one of the
black leaders in the community and has been for many years a civil
rights activist, has said that one of the projects he'd like most
to see is taking hundreds of black kids out of their homes for a
number of years and putting them in better situations. But that
conflicts with other American values that are difficult to breech.
The fact is that the schools have these kinds of problems which
they didn't have one hundred years ago, or even seventy- five,
sixty years ago.

School Integration

Glaser: Has integration helped at all? Has busing helped?

Raab: See, the concept of integration developed first out of an obvious
fact that black children in the South and in many places in the
North were getting an inferior education. Inferior from any point
of view—teachers who were not equipped, resources that were not
there. So that one of was goals of integration was to repair that
very primitive situation. But it soon developed into a more
sophisticated theory that the only way to raise these levels of
motivation and cultural expectation of black children, because of
their background, was to mix them with peer groups which had
higher expectations and more motivation. That was the theory and
essentially it's a good theory. The two studies I talk about are
things that indicate that's one of the things that can be helpful.
Not as much as the family background but next to family
background.

So it was a principle that had to be established and also a
practical question. The principle continued to be important. In
practice it helped I'm sure, but it became more difficult because
in some cases—not more difficult than it had been but less
felicitous than expected. Because in high schools, for example,
where there were mixed groups there developed a tendency for self-
segregation. And this was self-segregation not just imposed by
whites but also adopted by blacks as a measure of psychic
protection if nothing else. But of course, even so they were
going to better schools. So there's that mixed picture of
integration. It had to happen because of the principle of it; it
had to happen.

160

Glaser: But I think in the San Francisco area the busing led to some

flight to the suburbs or flight to private schools on the part of
white middle class parents.

Raab: Yes, there was some of that. I'm not clear how widespread that

was among Jews. There was some flight from the city- -"Flight," if
you want to use the term. Movement from the city to other areas
by Jews for the same reasons that there always has been; a
movement from cities to suburban areas as people, individuals and
groups become more affluent. So that happened even before
integration of the public school. I think the integration of
public schools undoubtedly accelerated that.

We've done, as you know, a number of surveys over the years
in this area to find out what's on the minds of people out there.
We usually ask about public school matters. As recently as a
couple of years ago, the overwhelming majority of Jews say that
they want to send their children to the public schools. They want
to send their children to public schools rather than private
schools or private parochial schools. It's as high as 85, 90
percent. Eighty-five perhaps, because it's been sliced down a bit
over the years. The apparent deterioration of public school
education in San Francisco, in the inner cities everywhere, has
frightened Jews because their highest order is of need and
expectation that their children have a good education.

As a matter of fact, among Americans in general, and in the
North especially, there's never been a pulling away of any
significant form since World War II. There's never been any
serious pulling-away from middle-class blacks. That's been true
of the schools as well. But the middle-class blacks have
educational motivation, and it's estimated that one third of
blacks are now counted among the middle class in this country.
They've become educated in postwar years and succeeded.

This isn't what bothers Jews any more than blacks in their
suburban schools would bother them. But it's the image of ghetto
blacks with their low educational achievement and expectation
which bothers a lot of Jews and other whites, with some added
sense and concern if there are problems of safety. My children
went to public school in San Francisco and got a great education.
This was some years ago.

Glaser: Would that be true today?

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Quality of Education

Raab: There are schools where they can do that today. There's one other
aspect to this that the JCRC got involved in actually, our concern
with the quality of the schools, not just in San Francisco but in
the Peninsula and in Marin. In the 1960s and early 1970s we were
concerned about the deteriotation of the quality of education in
all of the schools, not just the inner-city schhols. Besides
involving ourselves with school boards and so forth, I remember we
held one major kind of conference in San Francisco that the JCRC
sponsored and I have to check the year. [flips paper] I have to
check names too unless you can help me. The man who became the--

Glaser: Is that Fred Hechinger?

Raab: No, Fred Hechinger did come to a conference.

Glaser: Yes, you said--

Raab: From the New York Times?

Glaser: There was a conference on social indifference and prejudice in the
schools. But you're talking about a different kind.

Raab: Yes, I think it was a different one. Who is the state

superintendent of schools, Jewish, who left because of some
problem [Bill Honig) . At this conference, he was still principal
of a school in Marin I think. He was there. I remember the major
speaker (I'm going to create another problem in a minute) was a
Catholic sociologist priest--

Glaser: Andrew Greeley?

Raab: Andrew Greeley. It was an interfaith conference, in essence,

about the quality of the public schools and we did some research
beforehand. For example, the JCRC did some research to find out
what the quality was in certain rough ways.

[tape interruption]
Glaser: I'm sorry, I interrupted you.

Raab: No. I'm glad you did. Oh yes, we were doing some research about
quality. And we specifically, in one case, wanted to find out
what they were teaching in American history at that time. Always
there has been a provision in the state code, I think it is, the
Educational Code, that all high school students have to take a
course in American history. So just to see what the academic

162

level was, we were finding out what they were doing on that in the
schools in this area. We found that they were doing very little.

The most outrageous case was a school in the Peninsula (it
might have been in Marin) where the students in American history
took trips around the city finding historic places in the city.
That was their American history over the course of the year that
they took it. It was dismal, because during that period--

Raab: --the level of education was deteriorating in schools. And in
universities as a matter of fact, but that wasn't so much our
province, at least in San Francisco. We pushed for higher quality
education, this was one of our concerns. I remember the JCRC had
committees which met, we always had a public school committee, and
every now and then they reassessed their position. At one of
those reassessments during that period it was made clear by the
committee, and then by the JCRC, that there had been a time when
Jews had a great stake in the public schools because that was
their entry into the American system. Therefore, we had a certain
historical debt to the public schools, which we had a
responsibility to uphold.

Education and Bigotry

Raab: But there was now more than that. We no longer had the need for
the public schools in the same way in order to enter the American
mainstream. The affirmative action program for us had been
completed, but the public school was still of importance to
American Jewish security and status in this country. The
historical experience of Jews has been (and then this takes a fast
footnote as soon as I say it) that the more educated the
citizenry, the less bigoted the citizenry.

The fast footnote is that this is a statistical finding of
huge proportion. But when you find an educated person who is
bigoted, they're usually more dangerous than an uneducated person
who's bigoted, because they're in a leadership position. However,
when you look at anti-Semitism using modern techniques, opinion
measurements and so forth, the one constant correlation is between
education and lower levels of anti-Semitic attitudes. You can do
it. It's been done a thousand times, and a thousand times it
comes out that way, not just slight differences but huge
differences statistically.

163

I remember I was involved with the Survey Research Center at
Berkeley. We did a massive research job, and one of the books
that I did with Marty [Seymour Martin Lipset] came out of that.
We found that not only was there a tremendous correlation between
education and low levels of anti-Semitism, not Just between years
of education and levels of anti-Semitism, but between quality of
education and levels of anti-Semitism in terms of being able to
identify certain literary books and so forth. So that the
education is important even further than that.

Why is it important in terms of education? It's not Just
that education teaches people to like Jews, because it doesn't do
that. It doesn't work that way. We're talking statistically
here. Education when it works gives people the historical insight
and an understanding of what their society needs in order for it
to succeed and for them to succeed, and to understand the American
society and what its basis is. That's what education does.

Just as the Jewish community relations field in general came
early after World War II to the understanding that the security
and status of American Jews depended not so much on whether people
liked Jews or didn't like Jews but on whether there were certain
constraints against bigotry they had been taught or learned,
whether they like certain groups or not. That was the crucial
thing. In other words, the constraints of democratic pluralism,
the nature of a democratic pluralistic society, that was the
protection of the American Jew. Therefore, education, which as it
does when it's quality education, furthers an understanding of and
a commitment to the nature of democratic pluralism and the
American society as a protector of democratic pluralism. That is
the education which is important to the Jews, whether the Jews .
needed to enter the mainstream themselves, which they don't
anymore, or not. In short, that was our stake in the public
schools. We were involved in that period in trying to raise
levels of quality of education.

When Bill Honig, who was part of that particular conference
which Greeley keynoted, moved into higher spheres and became state
superintendent of schools shortly thereafter (an elected position
in California), he was a proponent of quality education. I don't
want to draw any direct relationship between his tenets and
involvement in our conference and his positions. I think he
always had that position.

But something was returning to the schools. When we held
that conference, we and a lot of other people, the teachers and
parents who came to conference, found that quality education was
deteriorating and there was a backlash against that deterioration.
We were a part of that political backlash against the

164

deterioration so that quality levels returned more to the schools
than the situation which existed in that period.

This is something--it 's a kind of sophisticated idea—which
the Jewish community has accepted with some increasing problems
that relate to church-state. It was for these reasons, for
example, that the Jewish community as a whole and Jewish community
relations has always opposed government aid to religious schools,
because of its consequent weakening of the public schools, which
we thought was so important for a democratic society and at least
for the safety and security of Jews, therefore.

Affirmative Action and Quotas

Glaser: Would you discuss the Bakke and the DeFumis cases?

Raab: [pause] I guess, you know, in a way the segue into that is the

importance of the educational system and the ability for everybody
to be able to access the educational system. Now we're talking
about the university level, but it relates also to the aftermath
or a new period in civil rights. Have we discussed affirmative
action?

Glaser: Yes.

Raab: There are two places where affirmative action has seemed

particularly outrageous to Jews. One is in the universities. As
a matter of fact, I would say that's the main place that Jews have
been bothered by affirmative action. I'm talking about excesses
in affirmative action, I'm talking about quotas and preferential
treatment. The fact of the matter is that quotas and preferential
treatment have not seriously affected Jews in the employment
field, in the business field, in the professional field. It has
seemed to have affect them somewhat in the educational fields,
which is so important to the Jews.

Glaser: But not seriously, surely?

Raab: Well, it has in individual cases. When you're looking for

outrageous examples, you'll find them in the university field.
Well, this has to do with Bakke, for example, who was not Jewish,
but a person who was more qualified by the usual standards than
some of the people who were finally accepted. You could find
Jewish families who could cite the examples of where their
particular child was qualified by tests and previous academic
record more than some who were accepted. This happened. You

165

could always find dozens of such cases at the height of the
situation. I can't imagine that there was any individual Jew who
suffered long for this. In other words, if they didn't get in one
school they got in another. But there were cases where this
happened to them. Particularly bothersome were law schools and
medical schools, and that's why there was interest in the Bakke
case.

Rennie [Reynold] Colvin was then chairman of the JCRC and
Reynold Colvin became the attorney. The Bakke case came out with
an interesting formulation in which it outlawed quotas. In
effect, it said (it said all kinds of things), in this case
because the Supreme Court case is always pretty narrow, you could
not place a person or accept a person into a professional school
just because of his race or her race. However, it did say that
race can be a factor in your evaluation of whether to bring a
student in or not. So in a sense, because it ruled out the
possibility that the decision could be made on race alone, it was
considered a success to those who were opposed to quotas.
Nevertheless, it left open a possibility that it could be used as
one factor.

DeFumis I don't remember that clearly. I have to look it

up .

Glaser: That was in Oregon or Washington, and I think he was a Jewish
student. By the time it came to court--

Raab: --it was moot.
Glaser: Right.

Raab: Well, we've discussed affirmative action, so we don't have to go
over that.

Holocaust Education Program
[Interview 9: July 31, 1996] If

Glaser: Would you talk about the pioneering anti-Nazi program that was

started in the schools? I think Naomi Lauter was the person who
did that for the JCRC.

Raab: Naomi Lauter was very much involved, the person on the staff who
did most of the school things when she was here. We provided
materials; we used to hold luncheons for school administrators and

166

tell them about the materials. When we had the in-service
training—the teachers took off some time to do some training—we
had some sessions with them on the anti-Nazi material. 1 did a
pamphlet for the ADL called "The Anatomy of Nazism," which was
essentially done in order to bring to the high school students the
nature of Nazism. Our concept was that to teach about Nazism was
not just to teach about the Holocaust, although that became
important itself, but to teach about the kinds of conditions which
subvert democratic pluralism and lead to Nazi-like activities. So
there was that emphasis.

After Naomi left Doug [Kahn] was part of the staff, he was
involved in helping to set up. And that was in conjunction,
incidentally, with the Holocaust Center of Northern California.
We had a committee, a special Holocaust education committee, not
just with our people but also with some people from out in the
community and from other religious groups. 1 know Yori Wada was a
member of the committee and the minister in Marin who has been so
prominent in these matters, Doug Huneke. I'm pretty sure the
Endowment Fund of the Federation helped support it. One of the
things that Doug did, for several summers he had special sessions
at the University of California of in-service training for
teachers on the subject of Nazism and the Holocaust.

Religious Holidays

Glaser: You got a law passed by the state legislature that students

wouldn't be penalized for missing school on religious holidays.

Raab: The church-state issue has mainly been a schools-related issue for
us and for the state legislature. It was one of those apparent
contradictions or quandaries that the Jewish community got into
because we did not want the State of California to be directly
involved in saying which Jewish holidays or any other religious
holidays were legitimate and which weren't. That we felt was an
invasion of the church-state separation and none of their
business, in effect. However, we also wanted to make sure, since
this is a culturally Christian society, that Jewish children and
teachers both had some opportunity to exercise their religious
expression on religious holidays without punishment. So that was
an interesting kind of strategy with respect to the state
legislature, both with respect to the students and the teachers.

With respect to the students, for example, the law was
established, both expressly and by the statement of legislative
intent, that no children would be penalized because of taking off

167

time on their major religious holidays. The law as it was written
indicated that meant that teachers should on those occasions be
sensitive and alert to that and if necessary provide makeup on
examinations.

With the teachers, it was even a little more complicated.
That was a separate kind of strategic operation because, again, we
didn't want the State of California to decide which religious
holidays were legitimate enough for teachers to take off. So
instead what we did was have a law passed which extended days of
personal leave without penalty. The legislative intent, which is
expressed as an exclusive matter in the material that goes with a
law, indicated that this was meant to cover major religious
holidays.

Glaser: Was there a financial aspect to that also since each school
district gets paid so much per student's daily attendance?

Raab: I don't remember. As a matter of fact, I don't remember exactly
how that was worked out. On the one hand, we felt that as far as
the teachers were concerned it might well be a burden which Jews
had to carry because it was their religion. So they didn't
necessarily have to be paid; they just had to be able to get off
and take the days off. This was an interesting point of
discussion; and in our circles it was decided that at times, for
the sake of their religion, Jews would have to take that burden.
I just don't remember what happened with respect to the students
though, because that was an important point, I know. 1 have to
look it up.

Conference at Van Leer Institute in Israel, 1987

Glaser: Let me ask you about the conference in 1987 at the Van Leer

Institute. There were discussions with your Israeli counterparts
on strengthening democratic pluralism and a Jewish identity. What
was the outcome of that?

Raab: It was an experiment. We took some Jewish teachers from this area
(I think it was about ten days) to the Van Leer Institute in
Israel. It had a double purpose. One was really very basic and
perhaps a little bit on the side of community relations. We were
thinking that our main mandate with respect to Israel has been for
American political and public support for Israel. However, a
concern developed that young American Jews, and this is a broad
generalization, were becoming often less tied emotionally to the
State of Israel. The thought was that one of the best ways to

168

combat that, and it was a concern which was genuinely felt within
the Federation but also a community relations concern because,
after all, the fate of the American Jews and the fate of Israel
were closely bound together.

The thought was to combat this apparent loosening of
emotional ties. It was not a loosening of support for Israel
politically but a loosening of emotional ties to Israel because
cultural differences and so forth. One of the best things to do
was to have American Jews who were in a parallel position with
Israelis meet together. This was one of the aspects of that.
There have been some other efforts along those lines, this was one
of the first. The ideas was for American Jewish educators to
meet with Israeli educators. And that in itself was good and
successful. The other aspect of course was to examine, partly for
the sake of the American Jewish educators and partly for the sake
of the Israeli educators, the differences in the intergroup
relations problems in Israel and in the United States. In Israel,
part of it was still at that time intergroup relations between
Ashkenazim and Sephardim, underlined by the much lower educational
achievement of the children of the Sephardim.

But the main thrust was relationships between Israeli Arabs
and Israeli Jews. It was interesting because the cultural
differences between the two societies became very clear in the
sense that: in America we were talking about integration. In
Israel there was no possibility of talking about integration and
nobody wanted it, neither the Jews nor the Arabs.

Glaser: Neither the Ashkenazim nor the Sephardim.

Raab: But at least the Ashkenazim and the Sephardim all were cemented
together by a common history and by a common primary language-
Hebrew, ideally. But the Arabs in their schools wanted to study
their history, that's proper. They wanted to have as their
primary language Arabic. It was something that I think at the
time was called contiguous pluralism, rather than integrated
pluralism. That is to say equal rights. I guess it had some
relationship to the negative term in America of separate but
equal. But that was the culture of the Middle East, from the time
of the Turks certainly and before that. The cultures existed side
by side and there was no ideal of integration as there was in
America.

Glaser: Was there a program that developed out of this conference?

Raab: There was a program the Van Leer Institute carried on with respect
to Israeli teachers, yes.

169

Glaser: Did you and the other teachers bring back a program to the United
States?

Raab: Not particularly. Some of the Jewish teachers came back feeling
closer to Israel than when they left, and that was one of the
ideas. The other was some educational stuff. They spoke to
groups when they came back to spread a greater understanding of
the differences between Israel and the United States on that
educational level. A lot of American Jews didn't understand that,
They thought maybe a solution for the whole thing was American
integration and it just wasn't.

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XXVI JEWS, GOVERNMENTS, AND POLITICAL PARTIES

Necessity for Democratic Pluralism

Glaser: The democratic society seems to be an overarching concern for the
program of the JCRC, preserving and furthering democracy in the
United States. Please expand on the statement regarding national
level issues, "Political freedom and the strength of democratic
life is the major core of consensual concern of the Jewish
community. "

Raab: In a community relations sense, yes. This statement, in one

language or another, has been the basis of the community relations
field for fifty years. It wasn't before. There was a time in
Western society when Jewish organizations in Germany and in the
United States felt that the way to eliminate anti-Semitism was to
educate the non-Jews and develop goodwill among them to get rid of
the false myths and negative attitudes. There was a central
German Jewish organization--! guess you might call it a community
relations organization. They were all called defense groups then.
The German Jewish operation started in the twenties and said,
"This is what we've got to do; we've got to let the Germans know
that we're as good citizens as they are," et cetera, et cetera.

And in America among the defense groups there was a tendency
towards the same kind of thought. They were doing things that
were necessary to do in any case, such as mute the stereotypes and
vaudeville jokes, all that sort of thing. The Ant i- Defamation
League, which was the major organization doing this in the United
States in the 1930s, said at the beginning of one of its major
programs that this was the idea: to change the attitudes of
American non-Jews, to understand the Jews better, and to get rid
of the false stereotypes.

The problem was while it had to be done it didn't really
work. That kind of pristine educational approach never worked.
Anti-Semitism, because of political situations, grew rather than

171

diminished in America at the same time that they were spending
more and more money on these programs. Into World War II, in the
early 1940s, the surveys showed that anti-Semitism had increased
and increased and increased in this country because of political
situations. It didn't mask discontents, et cetera, et cetera, and
it was really at a high point. At the end of the period we were
spending less money on that kind of defense operation. As a
result of that failure—and it obviously failed in Europe—and as
a result of World War II itself, there was a kind of messianic-
like renewal of faith in American democracy because of the defeat
of the Nazis, and it was in those terms that we fought the war.

There was, since the late 1940s, a deliberate reversal of
community relations philosophy. We've said that the strength of
democratic pluralism is the heart of American Jewish security, and
that's been the basis of this operation ever since. It was
fortuitous historical situations. The civil rights era was an era
in which this specific philosophy of Jewish community relations
came to the fore. We were at the vanguard of civil rights, at
least in the legislative phases.

Let me put it this way so as not to be offensive: we weren't
in it just because of altruism with respect to the black
population; we were in it also at least— and for many people, many
Jews most heavily— because it was clear that civil rights laws
were good for the Jews, directly good for the Jews as well as
indirectly. And that was part of this whole concept of democratic
pluralism. It had to apply to everybody; it couldn't just apply
to the Jews. That philosophy developed and the civil rights
period strengthened it.

Glaser: You wrote an article in 1980 entitled "Jews Adrift," about Jews in
the Democratic party adrift because alienated from the Democratic
party. I'll quote: "The atomic mass society is an inherently
anti-pluralistic society. The new politics associated with the
Democratic party have been creating elements of such a mass
political society." In 1980, that would have been when Carter was
president. What was going on that created new elements?

Raab: Well, I think it was an accumulation. I don't think it was just
Carter. And it goes back maybe as far as (George) McGovern when
some Jews began to feel worried on two counts. They were worried
about McGovern1 s attitude towards Israel. But in addition to
that, I guess my reference is to this understanding: mass
societies, it's a peculiar term, governmental monopolies on life,
have always been bad for Jews.

Glaser: Now what do you mean by governmental monopolies?

Raab:

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Talking about Nazism and talking about communism. When Lenin came
to power, he--

Glaser: Oh, that's a code word for totalitarianism?

Raab: Yes. There are code phrases. When you take democratic pluralism
and turn it on its head, it could be totalitarianism; more often
it's political extremism. And when Lenin came to power, he did
two things: he outlawed anti-Semitism and he also outlawed all
Jewish organizations.

Throughout Jewish history, when you go back to the various
statements by the rabbis early on, there is an ambiguous attitude
towards government which has a community relations aspect. One
aspect is one we of course know about, that generally speaking we
support existing societies. This has always been a Jewish way;
the rabbis made it clear. And that was because during certain
historical periods Jews were saved by benevolent kings and so
forth. And anarchy during the Middle Ages, for example, was the
worst thing that could happen to Jews. Masses, impelled by this
priest or that demagogue, without any controlling authority to
arrest them for any reason, were dangerous to Jews. To put it
another way, the rule of law was always important for Jews in
those terms. When there wasn't any, the Jews suffered. When it
was weak, the Jews suffered. And we say it in our prayers, in our
services now, that we bow to the existing government; in America
or in any place if it's reasonable to bow to an existing
government .

Concern Regarding Governmental Power

Raab: On the other hand, and you used the term totalitarianism but it
could be something slightly less than that. When a government
wants to get rid of all intermediary groups, as Lenin did, it's
because powerful governments don't want any intermediary groups
interfering with them. They want to relate directly between
themselves and the individual.

This was said as far back by revolutionaries like Jean
Jacques Rousseau in the French Revolution, that the relationship
must be directly between the government and the individual. Well,
that of course is impossible for Jews to live with. Jews are a
community. I don't want to get too far into this, but there
always has been and should be, I think, a concern with a too-
powerful government .

173

I don't remember the article, but it may have been reflected
in that kind of piece, a concern with an all-powerful American
government. Let me give you a couple of examples, or one example.
There was one point when one of the issues we dealt with was
Jewish homes for the aged and whether they should be all Jewish.
There were government departments who said at certain points that
they can't tolerate that. Homes for the aged get government
money, certainly in terms of Social Security and other government
money, therefore they have to be open to everybody.

This is dangerous to the kind of-- You know, we talk about
integration, which is an overall ideal, but there are points of
segregation that the Jews need, points of community. When the
government starts to interfere with that in terms of a
governmental necessity, then one become a little wary of that kind
of power.

Glaser: But you have that same sort of thing when any Jewish organization
takes funds from the Bay Area Crusade. For instance, a Jewish
community center has to be open to everybody as long as it takes
that money.

Raab: I think it's true. I think the difference is that there's the

difference between a voluntary operation like the Crusade and the
governmental operation which operates by laws with real power.
There have been some that feel that Jewish agencies have depended
too much, partly on the Crusade but also on welfare funds. Do you
know that there are Jewish agencies half of whose budget comes
from the federal or state government? The Jews don't realize it,
but it's a tremendous amount. There's some feeling that that
compromises the integrity of the Jewish institutions. It's too
dependent.

Glaser: Well, given the financial situation, I think that's going to take
care of itself, with the cutbacks on the part of the government.

Raab: That will take care of itself and the Jewish agencies will either
have to reduce budgets or raise more money in the Jewish
community. One or the other, there's no question.

Glaser: I think they're hurting right now; at least in the East Bay that's
true.

Raab: Well, they're hurting everywhere.

174

The Republican Party and Welfare Reform

Glaser: You wrote a Bulletin article in 1944. The title was "The

Influence of Jewish Republicans Can't Be All Bad." Do you feel
that? Do you really feel that given what has happened in Congress
to what I think you would call it the safety net, and with what's
happening with the attempt to reform welfare, basically hitting
out at the children who need the help?

Raab: Let me put it starkly. There's a tendency for Jewish agencies to
be directly tied to the Democratic party. This is a recent
concern that I've had. When you come to voting in the booth, 80,
85 percent of the Jews still vote the Democratic party. Although
many more of them say they're independent rather than Democratic
party members. But when you start getting to certain kinds of
social issues, you find that there are large numbers of Jews who
have opinions about social issues which are not Democratic party
line opinions.

Glaser: Do you want to give me an example?

Raab: Welfare is an example. You know, you talk about these issues of
what to do about the welfare situation. Take the question of the
current welfare proposal, which I heard on the radio this morning
Clinton is going to sign. It includes some features which are
extremely unfortunate like the legal immigrants. Let's take two
common items here. One is a proposition that at the end of five
years of welfare nobody should be on welfare. Of course there are
exceptions and there are 20 percent exceptions, but that's a basic
principle. The other basic principle that's up now is that if
they don't work then after two years they're off of welfare,
right? It also has some exceptions, but that's the basic rule,
which apparently is going to be passed.

As many as 40 percent of the Jews agree with that. The
liberal Democrats don't. Jews are still going to vote for
Democrats because they're afraid of the Republicans, partly
because of the whole Christian fundamentalism. But one-third to
40 percent agree with those propositions because those
propositions go to issues which are hard for-- There's something
that I've been calling-- This obviously needs to be edited.

Glaser: [laughs]

Raab: There's an old kind of joke in Jewish community relations circles.
People get up and say, "Is this a Jewish issue?" You know, "Why

175

is this a Jewish issue?" And there are a lot of issues which are
I think are clearly Jewish issues, including the impacted poverty
of the black population. Values aside, they are important in
terms of democratic pluralism and the future of the society and
therefore the future of the Jews.

It's a Jewish issue but there is something which I've been
calling a Jewish remedy. And a Jewish remedy is a proposal to
remedy within that issue on the basis of Jewish expertise, Jewish
experience, Jewish values. Now there are some issues, and these
welfare issues are partly that, where there's no Jewish
experience, no Jewish expertise, and not even Jewish values which
tell you that one remedy is better than another.

Surveys have indicated, not only among the Jews, but among
the general population, that people do not want to get rid of the
welfare system. The bulk of Americans don't want to do that, and
a large bulk of American Jews don't want to do that. However,
they want a system which works better because all they've seen is
failure.

During some periods like the seventies, sixties, when
increasingly large amounts of money were being spent on welfare
programs, the situation for many of the blacks was getting worse
in the ghettos. Some escaped but the situation was getting worse,
not better. So they're looking for ways to improve the situation
rather than to eliminate it. And the question of how is not just
a Jewish issue. It's not just a question of a clear Jewish
remedy. You're moving into areas of economics which not even the
economists understand. What was the original question that
elicited all of this?

Glaser: About "The Influence of Jewish Republicans Can't Be All Bad."

Raab: Oh. I don't know what I had in mind there. This might be from
the Bulletin?

Glaser: Yes.

Raab: Sometimes I just find it worthwhile to break up Jewish cliches.

Glaser: I thought that perhaps it was, in a roundabout way, a defense of
your friend Irving Kristol, the neo-conservative.

Raab: I don't have to defend Irving. I don't agree with Irving in a lot
of things. [Pause] No. There must have been something very
specific. But one thing is clear. Look, the Americans are moving
in a different direction, and now I think the Democrats are going

176

to come back, et cetera, et cetera.

themselves in many ways.

And the Republicans ruined

But the country is moving in a somewhat different direction,
not just the Republicans but many Democrats, in terms of trying to
find better solutions for things, trying to break up the ghettos
in ways that have not been successful. Other ways have not been
successful, so in that sense raising some of the questions has
been good for the Republicans to do or for some of the Democrats
to do. And I think we've got to look at it that way. Irving
Kristol aside, 1 know enough Republicans to know that they're not
all evil people. Not just in terms of who I know but the massive
surveys that have been taken of the American people show that most
of the desire to change some of these welfare things are not out
of mean-spiritedness as much as out of a real sense of frustration
that they have not worked.

Glaser: As a social scientist yourself, how do you feel about giving the
welfare funds to the states to disperse rather than the federal
government?

Raab: Well, there is such a thing as being too abstract about this,

because on the abstract level giving it to the states rather than
everything through the federal government might serve the Jewish
wariness of the too powerful government. That's on the abstract
level. In other words, it might be more democratic the other way.
In the civil rights period, I felt strongly that the only way it
could be done was through the federal government because of the
different sets of attitudes among the different states. It had to
be done. And I think that certain welfare operations have to be
done that way. I'm glad that the food stamps are coming back to a
federal guideline.

Glaser: But I worry about the poor in Mississippi, for instance.

Raab: Well, yes, and I'm not sure how it's coming out. But I feel that
turning it back is one thing; turning it back without any
guidelines could be a disaster. But if there are some national
guidelines and you say, "Look, you administer it." They're giving
waivers now, presumably, for all kinds of different state
government operations and experiments.

Glaser: What do you mean by waivers? What kind of waivers?

Raab: I don't know whether it's Michigan, it may be one. They had a
workfare thing, you have to work. And the federal government
said, "Okay, try it. Do it." So it's happening all over.

Glaser: Oh, I see. I didn't understand what you meant by that.

177

Raab: As far as the Jews are concerned-- See, I'm not sure that the
Jewish agencies as such know what the best thing to do about
welfare is. They know and they should know and the Jewish
community should know, that whatever experiments take place, we've
got to make sure that the children don't suffer. But the
solutions in order to make sure that the children don't suffer,
because they're suffering now and they've been suffering for a
while, is not clearly within the province of Jewish agency,
knowledge, experience, or expertise. The value is there, you
can't suffer. But what the solution is, obviously we're at a
point where we have to experiment a bit.

Let me say one other thing. One of my concerns is, and this
is community relations concerns, community concern: it's important
for there to be a Jewish community. Our operations in public
policy have been important, whether it was the way we helped
change the immigration laws, involved in civil rights, to a lot of
other things including the question of Jewish teachers and Jewish
students. This depended upon there being a strong Jewish
community as unified as possible. Jewish organizations can
espouse anything they want, but when umbrella communal Jewish
organizations start espousing programs and solutions with which
four out of ten Jews disagree, that's not going to end up with
anything but fragmentation unless we address it.

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XXVII JEWISH ATTITUDES REGARDING WAR AND PEACE

Vietnam War

Glaser: I want to ask you about the Jewish attitude toward anti-war and

peace efforts. You were a member of the World Without War Council
so I'm sure this was very important to you, especially during the
Vietnam War but also with what was going on in Israel at that
time. In the 1980s you wrote that: "Judaism has an intrinsic
mission to inspire the passion for peace among Jews and to inspire
active involvement of Jews in a variety of peace efforts."

Raab: Yes, I think it's true. I think it's true. Incidentally,

relating to our past discussions, we have a mandate to inspire
activism in all kinds of domestic issues as well. It doesn't mean
you have to settle on one, but we have to inspire Jewish activism.
The central thing with respect to war and peace, and Israel was an
interesting thing. Jews in this country have tended to be
pacifist.

There was one survey I loved, a national survey of Jews,
where one of the questions was, "Do you think that the defense
expenditures of the American government should be reduced
drastically?" A large majority of Jews said yes. Another
question, same people, "Do you think that the American government
should more strongly support the military efforts and military
supplies for Israel?" And the answer of the overwhelming majority
was yes. That sort of thing has driven people in Washington, non-
Jews, wild when it happened. Israel changed it somewhat. That
was the beginning of its change.

World Without War is not a pacifist organization, it's a
peace organization. That means that like the Catholic Church or
the Jewish tradition—and Jewish tradition is strong in this—it
recognizes the need for force as a background for peace. Very
often, not always, but very often. This has been, of course, the
center of much discussion in the country and of much discussion in

179

the Jewish community. Again, different circumstances. You know,
there's Isaiah's quote that (and I won't get it right, I should)
that we have to turn our swords into pruning hooks.

Glaser: Ploughshares.

Raab: And then there's another prophet, Amos, I'm not sure, who said

that we have to turn our ploughshares into swords. There's both
in the Jewish tradition. It depends on the circumstances. If the
Jews are about to be swallowed up by opposing forces, they have to
turn their ploughshares into swords. If there's a possibility of
peace and there should be no imperialist desires on the part of
the Jews, then you turn your weapons into ploughshares. There
hasn't been time yet in Israel to do the latter.

The Vietnam War was very difficult for Jews. It was very
difficult for Americans. I don't know if it was more difficult
for Jews in a general sense, but in that context, the American
people were very much afraid of the Soviet Empire and so forth.
The Jews have always been very concerned, not always but the
majority, with the Soviet Empire, its persecution of Jews among
other things, and its general state of oppression. So there was
this tendency to want to support the Vietnam War, which was
advertised as part of that. It obviously came out that Russia
wasn't so clearly part of that. There was China involved and
Russia, and they were in antagonistic positions with each other
and so forth. Also it was completely mismanaged. There was the
statement I liked by Eugene McCarthy that the Vietnam War became
immoral at the point where it became clear that we couldn't win
it.

Glaser: That's very cynical.

Raab: It's cynical, yes, but it's also an indication that we were

entering a new period; there was no way to fight the kind of war
we fought in World War II . I think we could have won the Vietnam
War by dropping bombs all over the place, but it was impossible to
do it on the international scene. It was too dangerous to do it
on the international scene, so we fought a losing war. And we
couldn't drop the bombs obviously. That became a new period in
American involvement in world affairs where we had the hold back
because some of the alternatives were intolerable. The Vietnam
War was a difficult one on those two accounts.

In the JCRC, all we could do was open up the discussion.
The JCRC as such never took a position on the Vietnam War per se,
but there were discussions. There were background policies issued
and so forth, but not a position as such because the Jewish

180

community was as confused as the American community was on that
war.

Israel

Raab: On Israel, there's been a division in the Jewish community of

interest with some pacifist sentiments, a minority sentiment that
just related to Palestinian rights, which is another matter. But
what took over, essentially, was an understanding that the
Israelis bred, that only by an application or an appearance of
force can peace ever be reached. This is kind of opposed to the
idea that you can negotiate everything. And the Israelis,
apparently most of them, learned that you can't negotiate with
people who want to get rid of Israel altogether, which was the
case once.

My wife and I were in Jerusalem the day that [Anwar] Sadat
came to Jerusalem, and an exciting day and night that was. He
came because it had become clear, as a result of certain things
that happened, that a) Israel was not going to be defeated
militarily, and b) the United States was not going to abandon
Israel. Because of that, the existence of force, of strength,
peace was possible with Egypt.

I think that kind of thought has become dominant in the
American Jewish community, and it's still part of the debate and
dialogue in Israel. It was clear that [Yitzak] Rabin believed in
force and believed in the necessity of peace through strength, if
you want to use a slogan. The Israelis were interested in
following his peace and believed in his peace through strength.
They didn't believe in [Shimon] Peres 's peace through strength;
they didn't think that the strength part of that formulation was
strong enough for Peres. So they went where they've gone.

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XXVIII SAME-SEX MARRIAGE

Community's Attitude

Glaser: What is your personal attitude about legislation regarding

domestic partnerships and same-sex marriages—since we're talking
politics.

Raab: Well, it's got to be paired with what I think about what the JCRC
should do for community relations, because personally I have no
objection to same-sex alliances. If they call them marriages,
fine. This doesn't bother me. I think it would be very peculiar
for a total organized Jewish community, umbrella groups like the
JCRC, to come out in favor of same-sex marriages at the same time
that their major congregations and their major religious
denominations won't do it and don't approve of it. Obviously,
this is not a matter of consensus in the Jewish community. I have
no trouble with it, but I think the organized Jewish community
might.

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XXIX AUTHORSHIP

Books Written and Edited

Glaser: I want to have you talk about the books you have written. I think
your first one was in 1962, American Race Relations Today: Studies
of the Problems Beyond Desegregation.

Raab: I think my first one was a book I did called Social Problems.
Glaser: That was--
Raab: Was that later?

Glaser: I think that was two years later—Major Social Problems written
with Gertrude Selznick.

Raab: Originally, yes. Yes, the Race Relations book, I edited that. It
had a collection of different pieces, including one of mine, I
think. But any way, I was the editor of that American Race
Relations .

Glaser: How did the whole authorship business come about?

Raab: I'm not sure. I'll tell you one thing that's clear is that I was
very interested in working for the JCRC and, as I indicated to
you, became increasingly interested in Jewish affairs per se. I
also had to make more money, and one of the ways I had of making
more money was to sign contracts to write books or edit books. So
that was a motivation. I'm not sure exactly how it came about. I
knew some people in New York in various publishing areas. This
was Doubleday, I think.

Glaser: You've had a long relationship writing things together with

Seyumour Martin Lipset. I don't have the year for it, but one is
The Politics of Unreason.

183

Raab: That was a big one. It was an analysis of extremism, particularly
right-wing extremism from 1790 to 1970. The first edition was
done by-- Who did the first edition? Some major publisher
[Harper-Row]. They did another edition and another edition, and
the last edition was done by the University of Chicago Press. And
it was a combination of a huge national survey of the American
people done in conjunction with the ADL which commissioned it. I
worked through the research center in Berkeley to find out a lot
about how people felt about extremism and the history of it. It
was an analysis of the data surveyed plus a history of extremism
in America. I've been thinking about the need to bring it up to
date today.

Glaser: Then in 1990, it wasn't what you wrote but what was written for
you. It was a Festschrift, American Pluralism and the Jewish
Community. Professor Lipset edited that.

Raab: He put that together, yes. After Race Relations (it sounds like
the songwriters who say, "And then I wrote") After American Race
Relations I did American Religious Relations for Doubleday.
Again, another collection I edited.

Glaser: Your latest, also with Professor Lipset, is Jews and the New

American Scene. You might talk about the contradictions that you
write about.

Raab: Well, my original title for the book was The American Tribal
Dilemma: In the Case of the Jews. Harvard University Press
thought that it would confuse people because they would think that
it was about American Indians. So they changed the title,
unfortunately, I think. The tribal dilemma is what the book is
essentially, partly about. At its core it has to do with the kind
of qualitatively different freedom which the Jews have been able
to enjoy in America related to the democratic pluralism that we've
talked about. And at the same time the down side of that, which
is the absence of oppression. Parallel with the absence of
oppression is the integration. That is to say, if you're working
with non-Jews and you go to school with non-Jews, you marry non-
Jews. The book used the data from the 1990 National Jewish
Population Study, which showed that over 50 percent of Jews were
intermarried.

Raab: The Jews had both this apparent paradise and at the same time the
threat of dissolution. One way to put the conclusion is that
there are two streams in the American Jewish community on this
score. There is a body of Jews, and of young Jews, who are
seeking to intensify their Jewish identity in ways that we hadn't

184

seen for many decades. At the same time a somewhat larger body of
Jews are drifting away. So that we're not really talking about
the dissolution of the American Jewish community because that
increasing push to identity is there. There will be a core of
Jews who are more knowledgeable than the Jews have tended to be,
but it will be a smaller group.

Articles

Glaser: Among the articles that you've written, there's one in 1986, a
seventeen page article entitled, "American Blacks and Israel,"
published by the Institute of Jewish Affairs in London. Why would
an institute in London be interested in this topic?

Raab: I was in London for a conference then. That institute is

interested in the state of Jews throughout the world. So they put
out books on the state of Jews throughout the world. They were
intrigued, perhaps over intrigued, by the apparent conflicts
between blacks and Jews in this country. One piece that I wrote
that got a lot of attention was one in Commentary in 1970, I
guess, called "The Black Revolution and the Jewish Question."
That was one that rather early on raised some of the problems
between the Jews and the blacks in this country. As I've told
you, at that point I was on the Human Rights Commission. I was
vice chairman of the Human Rights Commission and they asked me to
be the chairman. And the head of the committee who asked me was a
black lady from San Francisco. I said I don't think I should be,
some complications might arise. I showed her this piece and she
agreed with me [laughs],

Glaser: What was the sense of the piece?

Raab: The sense of the piece was that there were rising among black

leadership some demagogues who were using some of the same kind of
formulae that classic anti-Semitic demagogues have used in the
past. They hadn't captured the black population yet, but unless
something were done about improving the condition of the black
population, they were liable to.

Glaser: This sounds like an article you wrote entitled "The Real Farrakhan
Factor," where you talked about the poisoned good inflicting the
rest.

Raab: I remember that piece because I wrote it specifically, and I think
of it at times now, because of a specific kind of formulation that
kept rising that said Farrakhan, Andrew Young, and other black

185

leaders-- Jesse Jackson has said it on occasion about Farrakhan:
"He has said some bad things but after all he does some good
things." And that always bothered me, more than bothered me.
That I consider the poisoned good.

I was teaching at San Francisco State College once and there
was a Nazi propaganda film that was being shown in town as a kind
of exhibit. I asked the students whether they had seen it and one
girl said she had. I said, "What did you gather from it?" This
was a [Leni] Riefenstahl film. And she said, "Well, what I got
from it was that we have to watch out for propaganda. Hitler did
a lot of good for his people: he gave them dignity and improved
their economy." That was a long time ago. It destroyed me on the
spot then. That's the poisoned good and we're still talking about
it. We still talk about Farrakhan in terms of that, that he does
these good things. But it's impossible to combine that kind of
good with that kind of bad and end up with anything but bad.

Glaser: You wrote a sixteen-page article, "Religion and Politics: Real and
Phantom Concerns." In it you say, "I think Jews constantly live
in the way of harm. Jews are especially vulnerable to failures in
modern society." The article suggests that the evangelical right
is nothing to worry about, that they have little effect on
political and economic issues. I think you must have changed your
attitude about that.

Raab: I have been writing about that off and on for a long time,
including a piece in Commentary in one of the elections.

[Interview 10: August 6, 1996] I*

Glaser: The last time we met, I referred to an article you wrote and asked
you about whether you still believe that we have nothing to fear
from the evangelical right.

Raab: Yes. I'd like to divide that question into two parts, American

Jews, Jews in general, American Jews in particular, have the image
that evangelical Christians, fundamentalists (there's some
difference between fundamentalists and evangelicals) but that
fundamentalist Christians are more anti-Semitic than other
Americans. There's no survey that shows that today. The single
greatest correlation between population characteristic and anti-
Semitism is of course educational level. It's a statistical
thing, and it's very striking. There was a time when
fundamentalist Christians could be found much more statistically
in the undereducated, and therefore anti-Semitism was higher. But
it's hard to find now.

186

Glaser:

Raab:

Glaser:

Raab:

Glaser:

In the last comprehensive survey of the American population
done for the ADL, the 1990, which is a thorough national survey,
indicated that fundamentalist Christians were no more anti-Semitic
than others. However, there are spokesmen of the fundamentalist
movement who are clearly anti-Semitic, who are dangerous on other
grounds, and there is a legitimate concern by Jews about those
people. And as I've suggested to you, the apparent Republican
love affair with such spokesmen (I'm talking about [Pat] Buchanan,
but not just Buchanan) the Republican party association with these
people has kept even conservative Jews from becoming Republicans.
That's the main thing. So there is good reason to be concerned
about Buchanan. Well, of course he's clearly engaged in anti-
Semitic statements and sentiments as even [William] Buckley has
suggested. Buckley has suggested that Buchanan has been anti-
Semitic and has castigated him for that.

But even those who are not explicitly anti-Semitic are of
concern to the Jews when they are ardently evangelistic. That is
to say when they feel that only Christians can go to heaven and
everybody else goes to hell, as some heads of the Baptist
organizations have said in the past and who believe that the
American state should therefore be a reflection of Christian
thought along those lines. Those people are dangerous to Jewish
security even if they don't say anything which is specifically
anti-Semitic.

Just a technical point: as a Catholic, is Pat Buchanan considered
an evangelical?

No, he's not an evangelical, he's a fundamentalist however. The
fundamentalist is one who at least employs a kind of literalist
interpretation of the Bible and applies it. The evangelical is a
person who feels that everybody has to be converted to
Christianity. And while there are many who are both, there are
some who are just fundamentalist and not evangelical.

Another article I want to ask you about: this was in the February
1983 issue of Midstream. "Anti-Semitism in the 1980s." You said,
among other things, "...the need to understand that anti-Semitism
is a commodity, useful to those out of control or disaffected and
a form of intimidation to inhibit Jewish political action." Would
you explain your use of the word commodity there?

Well, it's a device, it's a commodity in the sense that it's a
product which is created and used by some demagogues in order to
further their own purposes. I think that's what I meant.

That makes sense if you think of it as a product, which is what a
commodity means, right?

187

Raab: Yes.

Glaser: Part of that article stated the need to effectively interpret
Israel's importance for America.

Raab: Yes.

Glaser: You wrote: "The most important protection for American Jewry is

the integrity of the constitutional law." And I think that you've
talked about this many times. On June 27, 1984, you presented a
paper, "The Second Agenda," at the annual meeting of the
Conference of Jewish Communal Service in Los Angeles. You
discussed the need for a Jewish identity to be better integrated
with American identity. Part of this is the American-Israeli
relationship. Would you expand on that?

Raab: What year was that?

Glaser: Nineteen eighty-four.

Raab: It's hard to go back twelve years.

Glaser: Want to scrub that?

Raab: No, there's something-- This is a question of American identity
and Jewish identity. I think I've mentioned the book that I did
with [Seymour Martin] Lipset last year has a lot in it about that.
American Jews do not want to return for the most part, and are not
going to return, to a segregated situation in this country. They
want to be integrated into the economy, in much social life, in
the political life, and so forth. In that sense, they want to--
and this is the test always, this is a constant test. It was the
test of San Francisco Jews, it's the test of American Jews, which
is how we can deal with the question of identity.

God knows we're not talking about dual loyalty, because that
has all sorts of conspiratorial things involved. But we are
talking about dual identity, and the ability of the Jews to
balance their Jewish identity with their American identity is
central to their continuity. One of the ways that they do that is
by recognizing the congruence between American values and Jewish
public affairs values. But that balance is essential. Other
ethnic groups have lost that balance and they've lost their ethnic
identity. The Jews have an advantage because the Jewish identity,
I must say, has a stronger potential than strictly national or
ethnic identity because of its religious component.

Glaser: I believe we've talked about that.

188

I want to ask you about the columns you have been doing for
the Jewish Community Bulletin. That's been going on for a long
time, and I noticed that they were syndicated starting in 1979.
Are they still syndicated?

Raab: Oh, they're sent out and picked up by various Jewish papers, yes.

Glaser: When did you start the columns?

Raab: 1 think the columns are probably thirty-five, forty years old.

Glaser: How did that get started?

Raab: I always felt that it was an important mechanism for educating
about community relations issues, and so I started writing them
and the Bulletin published them. They are about seven hundred,
seven hundred fifty words, so that they're always less subtle than
they might be. I consider this an educational role. And just as
I can walk into one audience and not say something that conflicts
with something I would say to another audience, nevertheless, the
emphasis is different because I think in judging one audience that
they would be more interested in or more stimulated or need one
kind of emphasis. Another audience needs another kind of
emphasis. And the columns often work that way, depending on what
was going on in the minds of the Jewish community I was pushing
one way or another. And very often, therefore, the columns did
not represent my total point of view. But that's the hazard of
seven hundred and fifty word columns.

Glaser: Does writing come easy to you?

Raab: Writing is easy, yes, I enjoy it. I don't enjoy speaking, I enjoy
writing.

Glaser: [laughs] You've made that clear. I hope this hasn't been too
much of a burden.

Raab: I've enjoyed it, largely because of you.

189

XXX MORE ON PROJECTS OF THE JEWISH COMMUNITY RELATIONS COUNCIL

Interagency Mass Media Project

Glaser: Two more questions I have about the JCRC structure. In the 1980s
there was an interagency mass media project composed of the
Federation, the Board of Rabbis, and the JCRC to meet the special
needs of these three sectors. It was a pilot project. Did it
continue and did it achieve what it wanted to?

Raab: It has really continued. The JCRC itself has always been involved
in maintaining communication with the leaders and people in the
media, interpreting and so forth. That's part of the ongoing JCRC
job. The idea here was doing special half -hour programs of
various kinds. And that was what the project was about, not
general interpretation but putting on specific programs. From the
time of the creation it was a joint project, but it was
administered here and operated by the JCRC. We had a special
person, Sydnee Guyer, who was the staff person in charge. We've
put on several programs on mainstream stations, although often on
Sunday morning.

Glaser: These were radio programs?

Raab: These were radio and TV programs. When I came to the JCRC, one of
the questions Gene Block asked me is, "Have you ever done any
radio work?" And I, just out of the army, said, "Of course."
That was a weekly KSFO program which was being done at the time.
We've done a lot of that. I remember there was one that I did, a
thirteen-week program on civil rights, civil liberties, and
communism, which I did interviewing thirteen different political
or labor figures, whatever. So we've always done that sort of
thing.

The point of these were special projects. The point of this
was especially to do television and to do some ongoing series
about Jewish life. That's why the Board of Rabbis and the

190

Federation were involved as well as the JCRC. They did programs,
Sydnee did programs on KRON, at times on KPIX, a series of
programs on Jewish life and public affairs problems as well.

Relations with Other Organizations

Glaser: I want to ask you about some of the JCRC coalitions: a black-
Jewish clergy association, a Latino project, a social-urban
affairs project, labor project, San Francisco organizing project.
Would you talk about these? I don't think we've covered them in
the past.

Raab: Well, one of the ongoing functions of the JCRC is to establish
some ongoing relationships with other organized groups in the
community. Not dialogues, I've never been big on dialogues which
just discuss things in general, but associations around specific
common goals. It was obvious in the civil rights period when we
had common goals with the black community and the incipient Latino
community, the Protestant clergy and the Catholic clergy.

One of the basic functions of the JCRC was to keep those
relationships ongoing because when you need that relationship you
don't develop it overnight; it's something that's the result of
years of preparation. In terms of emergencies, there was an
emergency, which I mentioned with respect to Israel, that within
twenty-four hours we were able to bring together the heads of
every group in San Francisco--labor, public officials, and the
ethnic and racial groups. When that neo-Nazi group lifted its
head, we were able within twenty- four hours to put on counter
programs which included the Protestant leadership, Catholic
leadership, ethnic leadership, labor, and so forth. Those are the
coalitions which we talk about, and they need to be nurtured
constantly. They just can't be developed over a subject in
twenty- four hours.

Glaser: You had a middle-class project. What was that all about?

Raab: There was an ad hoc committee concerned with certain proposals for
middle-class housing. But later, and continuing into the present,
there have been JCC efforts to deepen relationships with other
groups, beyond the professionals, in other words develop these
relationships with Jewish leadership and black leadership, for
example, and Latino leadership. The most effective way to do that
was to establish relationships with middle-class blacks, middle-
class Latinos and so forth. The idea being that these were rising

191

groups within these other ethnic groups, and they were groups with
which the Jewish middle class could easily associate and identify.

192

XXXI ACTIVITIES IN RETIREMENT YEARS

Retirement from the Jewish Community Relations Council

Glaser: Why did you retire in 1987? It seems to me you could have gone on
doing what you were doing for a long, long time.

Raab: I had my own instincts on this, but Sam Ladar, who was my mentor
in Jewish life, said don't wait too long. Because if there are
things you want to do after you retire, you don't want to be too
old when you retire so that you don't have any chance to do
everything you want to do. I thought that was good advice.

Glaser: Tell me about your retirement dinner, the community-wide
retirement dinner in September of that year.

Raab: It was kind of an overwhelming experience. I knew that people
wanted to do something. I would feel easier if there was a
roomful of fifty people who knew me best and so forth. But it
expanded and there were, 1 don't know, over four hundred people
there, I guess. It was very nice. There's not much to say about
it except that I enjoyed it very much and it was an expression
from a lot of people that I appreciated.

Glaser: Your friend Irving Kristol came out from New York and told tales
of your youth.

Raab: Yes, that was Rita's idea. He came out and told a few tales.
That was fun.

Glaser: That must have been very, very satisfying.

Raab: Yes.

Glaser: But after retirement, you stayed on as a special consultant.

Raab: Yes, what was it? For four years, I think.

193

Glaser: You were an official consultant for two-fifths of the time or so.
Raab: Yes. 1 don't know what that was. It was--

Glaser: You served as a consultant on the issue of affirmative action, to
help devise policy and prepare a background piece on its history.

Raab: Yes. And as I told you, first Rita became the director for two

years and then Doug Kahn took over. Rita knew very well and Doug
knew, I told them, that anything I could do I would do. The
consultantship was a way to give me a little bit of money for four
years as a kind of bridge, 1 guess, because I would have done it
anyway. But then the Brandeis thing came along.

Glaser: How did that come along? How did that happen?

Director. Nathan Perlmutter Institute for Jewish Advocacy,
Brandeis University

Raab: I got a call from the head of the program at Brandeis that trains
professionals, from Bernard Reisman there, whom I had never met.
He said that they wanted to set up an institute in the name of
[Nathan] Perlmutter to train Jewish community relations
professionals and he wanted to offer me the job. He said that the
idea was to come out and join the faculty and be a regular member
of the Brandeis faculty. I said no. I liked Boston all right,
but I didn't want to move away from San Francisco permanently at
this point in my life, given the fact that I had all my
grandchildren around here. So I said no.

Mentioning my grandchildren reminds me that because we have
been so properly preoccupied with my professional career, I have
made no personal note of the role of my family in that career.
I've been around so long that I naturally received some offers
over the years to go to New York to work for one of the national
agencies. These were always pretty good jobs, but I never budged,
largely because my family and I were so pleased to be here.

My wife, Rassie, aside from all her other attributes, was a
great support in my work, most dramatically during the earlier
years when I was putting in so many hours, both for the JCRC and
for other work I had to undertake to supplement my salary. Our
children, Earl Benjamin and Elizabeth Jenny, were also a great
support and found ways to spend time with me.

194

They were happy in public school here, and then there have
been my grandchildren: Louis, Morris, Devorah, Miriam, and
Marguerite, who have been going to school in San Francisco
suburbs. Kassie and I could never envision being a continent away
from them—and I could never have done whatever I did without
them.

Reisman called me back again and said, "Well, is there
anything we can work out?" And I said, "The only thing we can
work out is perhaps for a few years to get the program started."
I said four years, finally. To get the program started, I would
come out for a few months each year. So he said okay, let's do
that. And that's how he made me the director of this new outfit.

We were able to do it because since I was only coming out
part-time there was a young member of the faculty who helped me,
who filled in when I wasn't there. Of course it turned out to be
a little more than four years, but for those years I went back
every fall, Kassie and I did. 1 taught in the fall semester, and
of course became especially interested in using the institute to
affect the field in general, not just new people coming in but the
community relations field which I felt needed some new directions.

Glaser: You were able to do all this in just several months a year?

Raab: Well, no. I taught several months a year and then the other
things including a textbook I wrote for the class and other
materials which were distributed around the community relations
field. That I did at home with my computer and my fax machine.
The fellow [Larry Sternberg] who was filling in when I wasn't
there and who eventually took over, we were in touch every week by
phone .

Glaser: Are you now taking part in Gary Tobin's Institute for Community
and Religion?

Koret Institute for Policy Studies. Stanford University's Jewish
Studies Program

Raab: Oh, he's designated me a fellow of that operation but I haven't
done anything actively, really, with Tobin's outfit. There is
something new that I've become involved in. The Jewish Studies
Program at Stanford under Steven Zipperstein, which has become one
of the strongest Jewish Studies programs in the country, has just
set up an institute for policy studies called the Koret Institute
because they got some money from Koret to do it. They established

195

six fellows who would be actively involved in this, and they asked
me to be one of those. I just got notice of it this week. So for
a couple of years I'll be working with him at Stanford. And of
course I still have things I do from Brandeis.

Glaser: What will your function be with Zipperstein?

Raab: They're going to hold three conferences a year and I'll be writing
a paper for at least one of them. I will be involved more
actively in between in helping to establish the nature of the
institute.

Glaser: They have a strong faculty down there.

Raab: Very strong faculty. Aside from Zipperstein, Arnie [Arnold]

Eisen, I think, is the strongest mind in Jewish studies west of
the Rockies.

Glaser: I've heard both of those men speak and they're very impressive.

Raab: And Arnie has written some very good stuff. So that will keep me
occupied for a little longer, I guess.

Glaser: And more writing coming up.

Writing

Raab: And more writing, yes. I'm doing something for Brandeis now which
is a culmination of my thoughts about what has to happen in the
community relations field, so I'm working on that now.

Glaser: Is this going to be part of the curriculum or is this going to be
a separate book altogether?

Raab: It won't be a book. It will be a good-sized pamphlet, I guess,
which will be used for the students. But from my point of view,
even more significantly, it will have some distribution in the
field generally among professionals to start with and among lay
people as well.

Raab: The working title is "The Graying of the JCRCs," and it's a call

for a fifty-year checkup. Actually, my career in this field began
shortly after or has paralleled the change in the community
relations field fifty years ago. What we're talking about is

196

right after World War II. Before that the understanding had been
in Jewish defense agencies and operations that we had to change
the minds of people so that they felt better about the Jews. And
in this modern period, starting about fifty years ago, we
developed what I have referred to, the understanding that it's the
external political and cultural situation which will guarantee the
security of Jews more than how people think about it.

In other words, there's a mountain of research that shows
how people feel about Jews, whether people like Jews or not, is a
product of the kind of political society we're in in the first
place. It doesn't create that society; it's a product of that
society. So that's how things changed, and it's time for another
kind of change, and that's what I'm working on now.

197

XXXII SUMMING UP

The Question of Minorities

Glaser;

Raab:

Glaser:

Raab:

Glaser:

Raab:

This leads to another question I wanted to ask you. In the
summing up I think it will fit in here. One of your major
concerns has been with protection of the rights of minorities,
you see this specifically in a democratic society having this
need.

and

Yes, and in the context of the JCRC I kind of put it this way: as
an individual person, I've always been interested in everybody's
rights and the rights of minorities. I was involved in that from
college on. But in terms of the JCRC, I think it's important for
the context to be that the JCRC is mainly concerned with the self-
protection of the Jews, and the self -protection of the Jews
depends upon the strength of rights in general for minority
groups. Therefore, our interest as a JCRC is a very practical
interest.

But what is your concept of the relationship between a majority
and a minority in America?

[sighs]

Somebody has termed it a majoritarian democracy.

Well, of course it's not. The thing about America that is
exceptional—that 's the term that's used which means that there's
no place else that's been like it, from at least the ideas at the
inception. You look at the first ten amendments, they haven't to
do with the majority, they have to do with minorities, with
protecting minority rights. The concept in America is that in
general majority rules, but only to the point where it does not
oppress minority rights. And that's a difficult thing to
maintain. But I think we've done it, that's the importance of our
Constitution.

198

Financial Pressures

Glaser: You've mentioned in passing the lectureships that you had at UC
Berkeley and San Francisco State. Would you tell me more about
that?

Raab: Some of the things 1 did in the early years related partly to the
need for me to make more money than 1 was making at the JCRC in
order to support my family. So when I taught at San Francisco
State years ago, I was teaching in the language arts department.
Outside of relationships established generally, I suppose, it
didn't bear much relationship to the JCRC. It bore a lot of
relationship to my paycheck.

There was time when (this was one of those junctures) I was
the chief consultant to the California State Social Welfare Board
at one point for several years when Pat Brown was the governor.
In that role I wrote something on the pattern of poverty in
California which was rather widely used and distributed at the
time. And this helped me establish some relationships with
Sacramento and so forth, but it was also something that helped my
family live. There were a few years there where it was pretty
hectic. I was working easily eighty hours a week. I don't know
how it broke down, but at some point sixty hours may have been
JCRC and twenty hours were on some of these other things that I
was doing.

When I lectured at the University of California, it was the
School of Social Work. It was as a result of my work as the chief
consultant for the state social welfare board. And then sometimes
when I needed money I would sign a contract for a book to get an
advance and then hope to write the book.

Glaser: Well, these were all very prestigious things that you were doing.
Raab: Well, they were things I needed to do.

Honors Received

Glaser: I'd like you to mention the honors that you've received. And if
you need some help, I'll recite them for you. In 1969, you
received the San Francisco Foundation Award for "consistent and
outstanding courage in contributing to the improvement of human
relations. "

199

Raab: That, you know, it was very nice. I think also it provided a five
hundred dollar reward. But I'm not sure why I got it instead of
somebody else.

Glaser: I think there's something different here that refers to
outstanding courage.

Raab: Again, I'm not sure that-- I've wondered at times about it. It
didn't take much courage in San Francisco.

Glaser: Would it have taken more courage elsewhere?

Raab: Oh, I suppose in Mississippi it would have taken more courage.

Glaser: [laughs] We're kind of going far afield.

Raab: It's just that I was very active. There were some of those awards

that I felt a little fraudulent about because in some cases, I got

them for doing things that I was supposed to be doing anyway for
the JCRC.

Glaser: Well, in 1970 you received Gunnar Myrdal Award for a major

contribution to the study of man. I think that was the result of
a book you wrote.

Raab: That was the book with Lipset, Politics of Unreason in the History
of Extremism in America Since 1790, an ambitious book that was
used in the universities a great deal.

Glaser: And then in 1977, the Smolar Award for Excellence in Journalism.

Raab: That presumably was for one or more of the columns I wrote for the
Jewish Bulletin.

Glaser: Are there some that I've missed?

Raab: Oh, there are maybe a couple and then there are end of life
awards.

Glaser: Would you explain that please? It doesn't sound very optimistic.
[ laughs ]

Raab: No, and I had this feeling about them, the so-called lifetime

awards, awards for lifetime activity. NCRAC gave me one a couple
of years ago and then the Koret Foundation, as you know, gave me
one last year, both of them for lifetime achievements. Well,
getting an award for a lifetime achievement seems to be sending a
signal that says goodbye Charlie.

200

Glaser: [laughs] That's why you call it end of life?
Raab: Yes, some awards I got because of longevity.
Glaser: Oh, 1 think you're being too modest.

Raab: Well, but that's the way it works also. I attribute some of my

longevity to the pacific quality of smoking cigars, which brought
me through many years. When I retired I said, because I had
figured it out, that I had at luncheon meetings, especially
luncheon meetings for the JCRC, I had eaten enough tuna fish
sandwiches to cover a football field. I figured that out
mathematically. But also as I attended all of these many
conferences (and I don't know what would happen today where I
couldn't do it), throughout all those years the image that people
had of me for many of these conferences was striding up and down
at the back of the hall smoking a cigar. I don't think you can
survive that many conferences unless you have something like that
to divert you and to keep your nerves in order.

Glaser: The tuna fish sandwiches for lunch, were they the equivalent of
the rubber chicken dinners?

Raab: That's right, that's right.

How San Francisco Has Changed

Glaser: Would you reflect on the changes you've seen in the San Francisco
community?

Raab: In one way it's extremely startling if you were here in 1950 and

come back suddenly at the end of the century. It's a short enough
period. The intensity of Jewish life, it's a split picture. It's
got to be explained this way because it's the same for America.

One way I've been putting it, in order to repeat myself, is
that if you want to make this comparison between 1950 and the year
2000, the Jewish community of San Francisco has become much more
like the national Jewish community in some ways. And in some ways
the national Jewish community has become more like San Francisco's
Jewish community in the sense that the intensity of Jewish life
has increased tremendously in this city in terms of facilities for
Jewish education, Jewish studies programs in the area which did
not exist before, and general feelings. Even the ability to put
up a menorah in a public square. That's a sign of Jewish
identity.

201

Jewish clubs in high schools, which were established in San
Francisco when there were students in San Francisco high schools.
Jewish students were wearing their Mogen David as they walked
around the school. That sort of thing was impossible fifty years
ago. And you have to move out into the suburbs outside of San
Francisco to see much of this because so many of the Jewish
teenagers live outside of San Francisco now. And you see
confirmation classes going to Israel every year. Large numbers.
Israel was taken for granted, somewhat, by American Jewry, but
certainly by San Francisco Jewry fifty years ago.

So all those things have happened and we've come closer to
what the temper of the national Jewish community is than we did
fifty years ago. We were this way in San Francisco--! say we
although I was a newcomer- -we were this way in San Francisco
because of a high rate of integration in San Francisco. The rest
of the country became more like San Francisco in the sense that
the Jews became considerably more integrated in economic life,
political life, etcetera, which they were here.

Fifty years ago here, both the police commission and the
board of education were appointed boards, and it was a strict
formula that there were as many Jews as Protestants. There were a
specific number of Jews, Protestants, and Catholics on each, as
many Jews as there were Protestants and Catholics. A reflection
of the idea that there were three major religions in the country
and they were equally divided in terms of potency. Of course, the
population was quite different. That didn't happen elsewhere in
the country. So the rest of the country became more like San
Francisco that way.

All of that has got to be qualified by the fact, which is
true nationally and true in San Francisco as well, that this
increased intensity of Jewish identity does not affect all of the
Jews in the city. There are two streams of Jews: there are Jews
who are seeking an intensity of their Jewish identity, incredibly
more so than they did fifty years ago. At the same time there's
another stream which is continuing to move away from Jewish
identity. So it's a kind of race between the two streams, but I
think it's clear what will eventuate. At least in the early part
of the next millennium there will be fewer Jews, but they'll be a
strong central core of Jews. And what happens after that will
happen. I never liked the term "Jewish continuity" because
somehow it carried the indication that there might be a
discontinuity, that somehow Jews would cease to exist. That won't
happen. But there will be smaller numbers.

Glaser: Well, I think we've come to the end. Is there anything that you
would like to add, things that I've not covered with you.

202

Raab: I don't think so. If I look at what you write and if I have any
thoughts, I'll let you know. Is that all right?

Transcribed by Lisa Vasquez
Final Typed by Shannon Page

203
TAPE GUIDE--Earl Raab

Interview 1: May 9, 1996

Tape 1, Side A 1

Tape 1, Side B 10

Interview 2: May 23, 1996

Tape 2, Side A 17

Tape 2, Side B 26

Tape 3, Side A 35

Tape 3, Side B 44

Interview 3: May 29, 1996

Tape 4, Side A 49

Tape 4, Side B

Tape 5, Side A 66

Tape 5, Side B not recorded

Interview 4: June 5, 1996

Tape 6, Side A 71

Tape 6, Side B 79

Tape 7, Side A 88

Tape 7, Side B not recorded

Interview 5: June 19, 1996

Tape 8, Side A 90

Tape 8, Side B 98

Interview 6: June 25, 1996

Tape 9, Side A 108

Tape 9, Side B 115

Interview 7: July 17, 1996

Tape 10, Side A 124

Tape 10, Side B 134

Tape 11, Side A 142

Tape 11, Side B not recorded

Interview 8: July 24, 1996

Tape 12, Side A 145

Tape 12, Side B 154

Tape 13, Side A 162

Tape 13, Side B not recorded

204

Interview 9: July 31, 1996

Tape 14, Side A 165

Tape U, Side B 174

Tape 15, Side A 183

Tape 15, Side B not recorded

Interview 10: August 6, 1996
Tape 16, Side A
Tape 16, Side B 195

APPENDIX

A Earl Raab, "There's No City Like San Francisco," from

Commentary. October 1950 205

B Earl Raab, "American Race Relations Today: Studies of
the Problems Beyond Desegregation," from The Yale Law
Journal. Vol. 72, no. 5, April 1963 215

C "The Fight Against Anti-Semitism: 1981," Jewish

Community Relations Council of San Francisco, Marin

and the Peninsula, January 1981 221

D Earl Raab, "The Second Agenda," Journal of Jewish

Communal Service. June 1984 228

E "S.F. educators explore Jewish identity program,"

Northern California Jewish Bulletin. December 11, 1987 234

F "Brandeis picks Raab to head Jewish relations institute,"

Northern California Jewish Bulletin. July 21, 1989 235

G "Essays in book confront tough issues facing U.S. Jewry,"

Northern California Jewish Bulletin. October 12, 1990 236

H Earl Raab, "Jews achieve because of drive, not high 1Q

or genes," Jewish Bulletin. November 11, 1994 237

I Earl Raab, "Influence of Jewish Republicans can't be all

bad," Jewish Bulletin. November 18, 1994 238

J Earl Raab, "Jews should beware of affirmative action

backlash," Jewish Bulletin. December 16, 1994 239

K Earl Raab, "Minute of silence in public schools makes

Jews uneasy," Jewish Bulletin. January 6, 1995 240

L Earl Raab, "'Liberal' stands for liberty, compassion and

equality," Jewish Bulletin. March 17, 1995 241

M "Local authors Lipset, Raab probe future of U.S. Jewry,"

Jewish Bulletin. April 21, 1995 242

N Earl Raab, "Ultimate weapon of terrorists: fear,"

Jewish Bulletin. April 28, 1995 244

0 Earl Raab, "Distributing condoms in schools can weaken

families," Jewish Bulletin. June 2, 1995 245

P Earl Raab, "Conspiracy theorists still spreading lies

to target Jews," Jewish Bulletin. June 16, 1995 246

Q Earl Raab, "Public expression of religion OK--with

safeguards," Jewish Bulletin. July 28, 1995 247

R Earl Raab, "Jews shouldn't involve Congress in anti-
peace efforts," Jewish Bulletin. September 8, 1995 248

S Earl Raab, "Anti-Semitism is not primary threat of strong

Christian right," Jewish Bulletin. September 15, 1995 249

T Earl Raab, "Keep schools religion-neutral--but not

religion-free," Jewish Bulletin. October 27, 1995 250

U Earl Raab, "Reject Farrakhan while supporting black

aspirations," Jewish Bulletin. November 3, 1995 251

V Earl Raab, "Pat Buchanan's anti-Semitism: an American

tradition?", Jewish Bulletin. February 16, 1996 252

W "George Shultz at Koret event: Assad 'totally

murderous,'" Jewish Bulletin. April 26, 1996 253

X Earl Raab, "The fraying of America as superpower

threatens Israel," Jewish Bulletin. November 28, 1997 254

2C5

APPENDIX A !

Commentary , October 1950

inj^

FROM THE AMERICAN SCENE

JTJTJTJTJTJTJTJTJ-LTLT

"THERE'S NO CITY LIKE SAN FRANCISCO'

Profile of a Jewish Community
EARL RAAB

~\ HERE is no city like San Fran
cisco," the Jews of the Golden
Gate say with some conviction.
But they say it in two different ways. Some
say it happily, with an expansive smile. Oth
ers say it drily, and sadly shake their heads.
As is usually the case in such matters, both
are probably right.

The almost universal experience of any
visitor to San Francisco is nostalgia-at-first-
sight. This is normally the kind of reaction
reserved for small villages tucked away on
some by-road in a fanning country with an
ancient pitcher pump in the square, an am
bling populace of about five hundred, an
atmosphere of more or less live-witted seren
ity—and a single national origin and cultural
heredity. San Francisco's population is three
quarters of a million. It is the commercial
and banking center of the West. It is a poly
glot dry that has been heavily infiltrated by
a dozen nationalities. Withal, there is no mis
taking its village air of friendly order and
homogeneity.

There is the pitcher pump, deliberately, in
the form of the rheumatic old cable cars.
There is the serenity, in good measure: side-
When EAKJL RAAB found that he would have to
leave his Maine farm and become an urban
dweller once again, be Deeded litde time to
reflect before deciding that of all the cities he
knew, San Francisco was the one in which be
wanted to live. In 'this article— one of COM-
MBNTAKY'S series of portraits of American Jew
ish communities— Mr. Raab reports on the
quality and nature of Jewish life in the Golden
Gate city. Mi. Raab wrote "In Promised
Dixieland" in the May 1948 COMMENTARY
and "Report from the Farm" in the December
1949 issue.

369

walks that are wide and fit the people loosely;
greens and flower banks, and little flower
vends on every third comer, streets that dip
and bob like a merry carnival coaster, and a
population that rushes only when it has some
place to go.

Of course San Francisco considers itself a
sophisticated and gaily Savored town ("Bag
dad on the Bay"), but there are few physical
evidences of upstart vulgariry and self-con
scious bohemianism such as mark many mod
em American metropolises. Thomas Mann
(in concert with others) has called San Fran
cisco the most continental city in the country.

San Francisco is a genteel city. San Fran
cisco is a poised city. San Francisco knows
where it's been and where it's going.

Confronted with it, what East-wear)- mor
tal can resist nostalgia?

And what Jew will not sigh just a little
longer than the rest?

'"T'KERE are fifty-five thousand Jews in San
X Francisco, and not even the historic traces
of a ghetto. There is a Jewish community
that has been called, with reason, the wealth
iest, per capita, in the country. There is at
the same time a startling poverty of ana-
Semitic tradition. San Francisco, for cities of
its size, is the nation's "white spot" of anti-
Jewish prejudice.

In near-top-level social and country dubs
there is Jewish membership and even charter
membership. Gentlemen's agreements are
quite uncommon in its quality residential sec-
dons, old or new. In filling public and quasi-
public posts, there seems to be no trace of a
policy of exclusion or "quota" or even dis
criminatory hesitation. At times Jewish cit
izens have concurrently held the presidencies

206

370

COMMENTARY

of the Chamber of Commerce, the Commu
nity Chest, the Board of Education, Art, Fire,
and Harbor Commissions, and many other
appointive and elective posts; it is a situation
that cannot be duplicated in any other city
with a 6 per cent Jewish concentration.

Of course, "anti-Semitism" is not a word
without meaning in San Francisco. The Jew
ish Survey and B'nai B'rith Community Com
mittee handles anti-defamation matters, and
across its desk every day the usual reports pass
in light but steady flow. An employment
agency whose cards are marked parentheti
cally "No J's," or "Blonds only." Private co
operative housing ventures that won't include
Jews. A sidewalk altercation where someone
rums out to be not only a "damned — " but a
"damned Jewish — ."

Under the impact of Hitler, a Nazi Bund
was formed in the city, and a "Friends of
Germany." In the large Italian population
there u as a backwash of admiration for Mus
solini's Fascism. While these organizations
have disappeared without even an under
ground trace, the people that joined them, it
must be assumed, are still around. So are up
wards of a hundred thousand newcomers
from the Midwest and the South who came
to the city to work and live during the last
war. '

There is, then, a steady incidence of em
ployment discrimination and of petty ugli
nesses, but they are relatively infrequent and
xvithout pervasive quality; a pattern more of
scattered anti-Semitism than of any policies,
regulations, or encased habit. Professional
anti-Semitism has never been a paving prop
osition in San Francisco. Efforts in that i-
rection have always been short-lived. The
tip-off is that the latrine-wall type of anti-
Semitic literature that has turned up in San
Francisco has been date-lined Chicago and
Los Angeles, and mailed in.

So far as the city and its institutions are
concerned, the Jew is a first-class citizen. It
may well be that he can live in San Francisco
with a greater degree of personal dignity than
in any other large city in the country.

>T»HE attractive face of San Francisco, and
JL the attractive status of the Jewish coro-
.muniry within it, have common causes. The
histories of the dry and of its Jewish commu
nity have developed together along a shared
course.

In 1848, of course, San Francisco was a
mule-stop. When gold was cried and the
West exploded, and San Francisco became
the center of new wealth and of wealth-seek
ers, Jews were there with the first wave. They
were, in the main, immigrants from Ger
many, although there were many from Eng
land, France, and Alsace-Lorraine. The sec
ond surge of Jewish pioneers in the early jo's
contained some East Europeans. They came
the hard ways, the only ways, across the haz
ardous continent or over the Isthmus. During
the High Holy Days of 1849, sen-ices were
held in a tent on the old Embarcadero near
the waterfront.

While the mass of the forty-niners went
scrabbling into the hills for gold, there were
surer fortunes to be made in the city. One
Jewish immigrant landed with his baggage in
'49 and immediately invested a hundred dol
lars in stationery, which he sold in front of a
hotel at 500 per cent profit. After a short in
terlude of playing a piano in a honky-tonk
for an ounce of gold and a "grab" (literally a
handful) of silver, he bought a store and be
gan buying up trunks from gold speculators
anxious to get into the hills. Selling these
again, he made five or six thousands in seven
or eight weeks. Soon, dozens of boxlike little
stores were set up by his fellow Jews along
the sprawling streets, heaped xvith hard-to-get
clothing and merchandise shipped by friends
and relatives in the East.

Other Jews played a part in the creation of
the financial institutions on which San Fran
cisco's economy was to rest They turned
banker, money broker, exchange dealer.
Names like Davidson, Priest, Dyer, Glazier,
and Wormser were identified with the giant
financial transactions that became necessary
with Europe and with the East. The Lon
don, Paris, and American bank was founded
by the Lazards. The Seligmans helped create
the Anglo-American bank. The directorates
of a half-dozen other mushrooming banks
bore Jewish names. Jews became leading
realty brokers, founders of engineering enter
prises, and manipulators of the grain ex
change. They were in on the ground floor of
a speculative venture that swelled to fantastic
and permanent proportions, and they made
fantastic and permanent fortunes in the proc
ess. They also helped construct the basic
economy of the new community of San Fran
cisco. One of the differences between a

U •_.

207

THERE'S NO CITY LIKE SAN FRANCISCO"

371

*Shylock" and a "financial genius" is, after
alJ, the size of his enterprise.

Further than that, some of these Jewish
immigrants had brought with them uncom
mon strains of culture and education and
qualities of leadership, and many of them
plunged immediately into civic life. Samuel
Marx was made United States Appraiser of
the Port of San Francisco in 1851 and Joseph
Shannon was County Treasurer in the same
year. In 1652, Elkan Heydenfeldt and Isaac
Cardozo were members of the state legisla
ture, and Heydenfeldt was also Chief Justice
of the state Supreme Court from 1852 to
1857-

The San Francisco Herald in 1851 struck
the note of respect that was to be character
istic in generations to follow: "1 he Israelites
constitute a numerous and intelligent class
of our citizens and conduct themselves with
great propriety and decorum. They are in
dustrious and enterprising and make worthy
members of our community."

From the beginning, the Jews were con
spicuous for their sense of community. The
first two welfare organizations in San Fran
cisco were set up by Jews. In 1850 the Eu
reka Benevolent Society was organized to
help the needy, and it still exists as the Jew
ish Family Service. As the little clothing
stands turned into large department stores,
and the money counters into financial em
pires, the Jews— feeling an understandable
kinship with the dry— began to make large
financial contributions to the general com
munity life.

This tradition, as well as the tradition of
cine participation, has persisted until today.
A startling number of the pools, parks, libra
ries, museums, and halls that are available to
the public at large, bear familiar Jewish
names, aside from the many institutions that
are administered under Jewish agency aus
pices but arc non-sectarian in character (such
as the very new and splendiferous Maimoni-
des Hospital for chronic ailments, which
serves a specific community need). Even the
more private support of the cultural institu
tions of the dry by the lews has been too
frequent to escape public attention— the
music critic of the Chronicle recently re
ported that he had been informed that about
40 per cent of the deficit of the San Francisco
symphony orchestra is written off by three
Jewish families.

THE fact is that the Jews in San Francisco
have never been cast in the role of "in
truder." This was historically impossible.
There was no aristocracy in California in
1849. There was only a rag-tail gang of
money-hungry pioneers, of heterogeneous
origins, welded together into a "frontier
brotherhood" community. As the "first fam
ilies" became incrusted, they became incrust-
ed necessarily in amalgam with the "first
families" of the Jewish community.

The Jews aside, San Francisco has main
tained a degree of tolerance for minority
groups that has not obtained in other cities
along the coast (Notoriously: Los Angeles.)
One is prompted to speculate on the reasons
for this, not only partially to explain the rela
tionship between San Frandsco and its Jew
ish community, but also to explain something
of the nature of the Jewish community itself.

San Francisco boomed in 1849 and it has
not had a really serious boom since. It was
built on California gold and Nevada silver,
and settled down as a financial and commer
cial center. It has never changed its basic
character. The recent great industrial erup
tions in the West— with their accompanying
invasion s of "barbarian hordes" from the East
and t! Midwest and the South, and their
extensions of eastern power and influence—
which have boomed and burst does like Los
Angeles and Oakland, in the main by-passed
San Frandsco, and were reflected only in its
increased prosperity as a financial center. In
deed, San Frandsco is physically not capable
of much expansion along industrial or pop
ulation lines. It is a compact city, bounded
on three sides by water, and on the other by
a number of small communities jealous of
their identity. It has been estimated that,
just by virtue of physical limitations, San
Francisco's top population would be around
a million. As a matter of fact, the artificial
surge in population which San Franrisco ex
perienced as a result of wartime activity has
in large part already been dissipated. (At the
end of the recent census, policemen and fire
men were dispatched by frantic city officials
to ring doorbells in an attempt to find untal-
lied citizens and bring the census figure
somewhere near the special 1945 figure. But.
alas, almost a hundred thousand estimated
people had flown the coop.

San Francisco is thus a middle class, white-
collar dry. (It has the highest average per-

208

372

COMMENTARY

centage of office-building occupancy and the
greatest telephone density in the country.)
It is also a city whose top social and economic
layers have remained fairly well preserved.
As a result it has a conservative cast, with ac
companying overtones of unhlurred tradition
and general noblesse oblige, (To be sure, it
has also had a rather violent labor history—
notably the general strike of 1934. But since
San Francisco is not, like Detroit, a dry of in
dustries with a large industrial working class.
its labor history has had surprisingly hide ef
fect upon the "tone" of living.)

All this has worked, of course, to preserve
undisturbed the sums of the Jew in the com
munity. It has also worked to preserve the
internal structure and character of the Jewish
community itself. The Jewish population has
increased, along with the general population,
not by spectacular leaps, but by normal accre
tion. And the Jews attracted to San Fran
cisco have generally been those who would
not tend to disrupt the community's basic
character. There have never been in San
Francisco, for instance, the job opportunities
that would encourage a mass influx of East
ern Europeans of the first generation. CThe
garment industry is small-sized with about
an 8 per cent concentration of Jewish work
ers. There is no other Jewish "proletariat"
to speak of.)

are many who claim, however, that
1 the favorable position of the Jew in San
Francisco is not just a derivative of the his
tory and nature of the city, but also of the
"historical position" and "astute leadership"
of the old Jewish families who have main
tained their identity and influence over sev
eral generations. This claim certainly has
some truth. On the other hand, it is also true
that out of this "historical position" and
"astute leadership" by the older Jewish fam
ilies there has developed a deep-rooted set of
conflicts and a Jewish community on the
verge of schism.

This schism is not so notable for its actual
violence or disruptive effect, or for the num
ber of people involved, as it is for its sympto
matic quality and its implications for Amer
ican Jewry in general. The history of the
conflict is not just a petty scrap for power
(which it sometimes has all the earmarks of
being), or a local fight for "Semocracy," or
an ideological dispute on this or that specific;

but it seems ultimately a reflection of sharp
differences in approaching the fundamental
problems of Jewish identity in America.

It is only recently that San Francisco has
seen the dramatic enactment of t\\\* conflict
But there have long been people who felt
privately or semi-privately that the Jewish
community was "moribund," that Jewish life
as such was "marginal," that the organs of
Jewish expression in the city were muffled
and misdirected, that Jewish community or
ganizations were not representative, that
leadership needed changing.

When these critics talk about the "leader
ship," they know exactly whom they mean:
certain members of the old and influential
families who have firmly held their rein on
community organizational life, and partic
ularly on such agencies as the Survey Com
mittee which long served as the de facto pub
lic relations body for the Jewish community.
But when they talk about "autocracy," they
ate not always clear as to exactly why, if the
dissidents were in large number, no remedial
action was ever effectively attempted. The
explanations run variously that: the leader
ship was entrenched; the leadership had the
money and the facilities; the atmosphere was
"such as to smother" any creative activity; the
body of the community was mired in a long
tradition of uninterest in Jewish matters;
they themselves had developed no effective
leadership. Always, however, for a full ex
planation, it seemed necessary to add a mys
terious ingredient, sometimes referred to as
the San Francisco "x" factor. (Someone pos
tulated that if a half dozen Jews of similar
background, Jewish intensity, and ideology,
were settled three in Los Angeles and three
in San Francisco, they would be found to be
very different groups in outlook and activity
after five yean.)

The fact is that it took nothing less than
the catalysts of Hitler and the State of Israel
to bring the latent elements to a boil.

IN 1943, when the extraordinary horrors of
Nazi genocide in Eastern Europe reached
a publicity peak, mass meetings were con
ducted everywhere in this country. In San
Francisco, preliminary deliberations stretched
over two months. A modest conference was
at first suggested and it became clear that the
"traditional leadership" as such was reluctant
to sponsor a mass political meeting of an ob-

209

THERE'S NO CITY LIKE SAN FRANCISCO"

373

trusively Jewish nature that had no prec
edent in the city's history. A provisional
committee was formed and a call was sent
out for representatives. A reported fifty-three
organizations responded. A prominent sec
tion of the traditional leadership, including
the Survey Committee, refused to partic
ipate, personally or organizationally. On June
'?• '943- at ^e Civic Auditorium, more than
ten thousand people packed the hall to hear
Thomas Mann, Eddie Cantor, and others.

Shortly afterwards, two prominent Rus
sian Jews, Solomon Michoels and Itzik Fef-
fer (the latter has since been "liquidated"),
were sent to this country by the Soviet Un
ion, then OUT "staunch ally," to "bind up the
American Jews into one anti-fascist bloc in
common with the Russian Jews." They were
received by public dignitaries and by Jewish
communiiios at large meetings throughout
die nation. Again, and with the .Soviet stig
ma lending them added conviction, the "tra
ditional leadership" declined to lend support
to a mass San Trancisco reception. Under
the same sponsorship as the previous meet
ing, the Civic Auditorium wa? again filled to
capacity on August 31, this time for the two
Russians.

The impact of these successes, and the
emergence of some earnest young men of
leadership caliber, led to a round of discus
sions and conferences on the possibility of
reconstituting organizarion.il life in the com
munity. A United Council xvas formed by
the "new coalition" of organisations to pro
vide some channel fo: "representative com
munity expression." This left th; commu
nity in deep breach. A number of dismayed
individuals immediately pressed for a com
promise between the nvo camps. Several of
the United Council groups were thrown into
turmoil and there ensued a brief period of
labyrinthine political activity out of which
the United Council emerged an abortion.
One of their larger groups had seceded; con
ciliation was the apparent order of the day,
the United Council was ditched, and the
compromise Association of Jewish Organiza
tions (AJO) was formed, in full convention,
to include all the elements of the community.

But, lo and legerdemain, when the smoke
cleared, the AJO was revealed as an organ of
traditional policy and of traditional leader
ship, and the cries of "aristocracy" and "no
representation" were undiminished in vigor.

There is a lot of political over-the-fencing
about if and why and how .the AJO is "un
democratic by constitution and intent." (Ex
ample: Should the Welfare Fund have rep
resentation, as it now does, for every one
hundred twenty-five members, giving it a
balance of power, although there is no voting
constituency and the delegates are appointed
"from the top"; if not, what about the people
who would not otherwise be represented and,
"Where would you get a hall big enough to
hold a vote of the Fund membership any
way?")

And there is some question of how the
"opposition," claiming to represent the "pop
ular" sentiment, having been a coalition of
fifty-three separate groups, and having pulled
in audiences of ten thousand people at the
occasion of their mass meetings, could not
exercise enough control in open convention
to scotch the "undemocratic" provisions of
the AJO in the first place. Answers of "sin
ister influence," "inequality of leadership,"
discouragement at the demise of the United
Council, probably must be supplemented by
some consideration of the San Francisco "x"
factor.

But the central fact was that against the
first major attempt to unseat them, the Old
Cuard firmly maintained their role ss the
community leadership.

TN 1948 a picket line wa? set up in front of
1 the British consulate to protest the British
refusal to allow refugees to debark in Pales
tine. The Survey Committee promptly dis
patched a letter of apology to the consulate,
disavowing tr.L- demonstration. A represent
ative of the irate picketers wrote a letter to
the public press, disavowing the apology.

In the fall of 1949, several "Where Do
You Stand" and "You Arc Not in Exile"
anti-Zionist advertisements were paid for by
the American Council for Judaism and were
run in the press. The Survey Committee tried
to dissuade the Council from this step, offer
ing to publish, in lieu of the ads, a brief state
ment of policy under the name of the Su-vcy
Committee. The Council, however, fc'. '"..it
their ads should run, which they did. .he
Survey Committee published its own state
ment, anyway, "in the interests of Jewish
public relations in San Francisco." This
statement embodied an attack on Ben Gurion
and the late Daniel Frisch for remarks that

V..

210

374

COMMENT ARY

they had made concerning the responsibilities
of American Jews to Israel.

This incident again brought to a boil those
people who felt that the Survey Committee
was: (i) in effect, acting as the public voice
for the entire community, (2) in this ca
pacity misrepresenting the community to it
self and to the world at large. (The Survey
Committee calls itself "the duly organized
and recognized agency for public relations in
the community.")

Out of this latest occurrence, delegates
from forty-odd organizations in the commu
nity elected a working committee of about a
dozen to discuss again the problem of com
munity organizational life. This committee
is currently functioning, although not in
what might be called a violently activist at
mosphere. (Remember the *Y* factor.) Re
cently, in support of its claim of being neutral
in ideological questions, the Survey Commit
tee made a balancing statement about the dis
ruptive character or the Council ads, but this
has not had any visible ameliorative effects.

•^ H THATEVER the various merits or demerits
Y / of the contending parties in the present
situation, partisan polemic should not be al
lowed to obscure the Jewish concern of the
Old Guard. The leadership, as such, has an
earnest sense of its patrician responsibilities
to the Jewish community, in which it has
great pride. It wears with firm dignity the
mantle of authority that has been handed
dov.-n and feels that, as against "outsiders" and
"newcomers," it understands the traditions
and peculiar necessities of the local scene.

To say, as many do, that its component
members are fearful of anti-Semitism, is to
say merely that they are Jews. To say that
out of this fearfulness they would not be
averse to a xvithering away of the Jewish
community as such, is simply untrue: they
have spent too much time, money, and sin
cerity on the preservation of that community.
To say that they subscribe to the "craven"
theory that "Jews out of sight are Jews out of
mind" is untenable: they have not followed
the logic of that pattern. The Bemsteins re
ported of the Richmond Jews (COMMEN
TARY. December 1949) that "they hardly
ever ran for public office, and frowned on
other Jews who did. They just didn't think
a Jew should put himself forward." In San
Francisco they do run for office, and they do

put themselves forward prominently as cit
izens of the city.

"The leadership," one of its spokesmen
says (and rather piqued about having to say
it), "has never acted out of fear or truckling.
Quite on the contrary, it has always shown
particular courage of conviction in following
a line of thought. . . ." That line of thought
is really a kind of political philosophy for
special groups in an American community:
they should not unnecessarily duplicate civic
functions, nor intrude on the community
with their internal problems, nor, for their
own sake, engage in public relations activities
which will unnecessarily offend the general
community.

Of course, die leadership's definition of
"good pubb'c relations" has always been shad
ed by their general political complexion,
which is naturally conservative and often
strongly Republican. "Mass meetings and
mass pressure," they insist, "can serve no use
ful function in San Francisco, and can only
militate against the group that uses them."

The leadership points to its successful
technique in handling anti-Semitic incidents
as a blueprint for proper publ'c relations be
havior: "Once we have the fact-;, we contact
the offender in man-to-man fashion— the
American way. We explain the danger of
prejudice, the unfairness of indicting a whole
group, the hnrm it can do to a free American
society."

Several years ago a local radio station was
broadcasting the program of a well-known
anti-Semite. There was a movement afoot to
prevail on all the Jewish clients of die station
to cancel their advertising. The Survey Com
mittee quelled this movement, and instead
called on the proprietor of the radio station
who, after discussion, canceled the contract.

"I'm canceling this program," die station
owner said, "because you came to me in a
decent way and presented a decent argu
ment. Had you moved in by threatening my
business, J'd have fought you all the way."

When a bus driver used offensive lan
guage, die Committee called quietly on die
personnel manager; when the temples were
smeared with Columbian slogans, and die
culprit's membership in a local church was
traced by a private detective, they approached
die priest; when a real estate concern acted
out a discriminatory policy, they met with die
owners in conferences lasting more than a

211

THERE'S NO CITY LIKE SAN FRANCISCO"

375

year before convincing them, in all logic, of
the error of their way.

There can be no question but that this
kind of diplomatic approach to anti-Semitism
in-the-fact lias worked effectively to date in
San Francisco.

JT s FOR the internal life of the Jewish com-
/7L muniry, the leadership thinks of it large
ly in institutional terms and is proud of its ac
complishments. Certainly, in the general, there
is no look of impoverishment. The orphans'
home, equipped with cottages and "mothers,"
is a showpiece, generously endowed. The
residence home for Jewish working girls
is complete with all the extra-curricular
facilities that might be desired. There is a
home for the aged that is described as a
"veritable hotel." The Community Center is
huge, thriving, anJ unstinting!}- equipped.

Critics (some of \vhom grew up in the
East) certainly have no quarrel with these
activities so far as they go— but they don't
tliink they po far enough. They feel that the
leadership (and community thinhing) has
been too exclusively concerned with consid
erations of » public relation: policy, on the
one hand, and of a welfare community en
die other. They feel that there has been too
much 'local Jewish community" in the think
ing and not enough Judaism. They feel thru
the leadership has dispatched its responsibil
ities as far a.< it's seen ihcm, but that i: has ?.
minima! concept of a Jewish co,i:nurity life.
Finally, in.iny of ilicm believe tha: this
minimal concept, no mat;cr how sumptu
ously attended, will inevitably lead to the
self-annihilation of the Jewish community.

These critics point to the disparity between
the tremendous sums that are generally spent
on philanthropic projects and the almost neg
ligible amounts that arc allotted to such proj
ects as Jewish education. They also deplore
the paucity of activity directed towards un
derlining the historical mission of Judaism
and the historico-mysocal tics that bind Jew
ry to Jewry everywhere.

What they are in fact pointing up ?.nd ob
jecting to and being frightcricJ by, is the
apparent trend of a large (and the particular
ly "San Franciscan") section of the commu
nity, and its leadership, to slip away from the
traditional moorings of Jewish life, to loosen
its Jewish roots, and in the process eventually
to blur and devitalize Judaism itself.

This kind of trend, insofar as it is a by
product of Americanization, has its evidences
all over the country, but nowhere else does it
involve such a large portion of the Jewish
population or have such a dominating influ-
ence. Nowhere has it had such a fertile field
to develop in its "laboratory" form. Nowhere
has it kept such clearly defined lines or been
less obscured by "recent generation" leaven
ing. Indeed, such leavening has served, more
than anything else in recent years, to point up
"the trend."

IN DEFINING the various segments of the
Jewish community, the synagogues serve
as the most convenient and the most accurate
(though always approximate) focuses. Tem
ples Emanu-El and Shcrith Israel have the
largest congregations in the city, a combined
total of about twenty-five hundred members.
They arc the Reform temples, and both had
their origins in the pioneer year of 1849.
(There is some disagreement about which
was first.)

In these congregations all the lay leaders
and the famed "leadership" of the commu
nity arc found (when they can be found in
any congregation). Temple Emanu-El has
the preponderant number of first-family and
wealthy-family names in the community. Its
social character has remained more stnMc,
having acquired less of the foreign (to Srn
Francisco) element, and fewer of the "nou-
veaux." Symptomatically, almost all of the
local members of the American Council for
Judaism arc affiliated with Emanu-El, almost
none with Sherith Israel. One rabbi has said:
"Just as America will be the last citadel of
capitalism, so Temple Emanu-El will be the
last citadel of the kind of thing tha; Isaac M.
Wise and Elka Cohen and Voorsangcr stood
for."

In general, the diminution of ceremonial
intensity in religious life that has character
ized the Jew (and the Christian) in Amer
ica, is particularly noticeable in San Fran
cisco. And there has been a general (not of
ficial) stretching of the Reform philosophy
at its most radical points. Some of the city's
religious leaders feel that many of those who
have maintained their affiliations with the
temple could very well be happy in a church
of different proportions. A church that would
be named, say, the American Mosaic (or
Monotheistic) church where people who

ill

376

COMMENTARY

believed in Moses' One God could convene
to make their simple devotions, renew their
faith in the moral tone of life, and where
their children could attend Sunday school.

"Sunday school" is, indeed, a problem.
Parents who have lived apart from any for
mal religious affiliation all their adult life
(and, of course, in San Francisco, in a "mix
ed" neighborhood) arc suddenly faced with
growing children who desire to attend die
neighborhood Sunday school (Baptist or
whatever) along with the other children.
Parents are continually approaching their
rabbi with this problem, and even where
long traveling distances are involved, are
anxious to have their children receive a
Jewish Sunday school education. An inter
est in the drama of religion inevitably cap
tures some of the children, and there is the
recurrent spectacle of children demanding
of flabbergasted parents that candles be lit
on Friday night.

Culturally, this segment of the population
has lost its basic contact with the historical
language and literature of Judaism. Hebrew-
education is barely existent. And the Euro
pean accent is, of course, completely gone.
One of the more prominent members of the
community tells this story: At a private affair
he was attending in Los Angeles, a number
of men around the table burn into strange
sjng. "What in the world arc they singing?"
he asked. He was astonished to hear that
they were singing Yiddish songs. That sort
of thing, he said (by way of describing the
temper of the city) could never have hap
pened in San Francisco, or at least in that
large part with which he was acquainted. It
says a great deal that shortly after the Amer
ican Council for Judaism was formed in
1943, fourteen bundled of its twenty -five
hundred national members were San Fran
ciscans. (The local membership has dwin
dled since.)

The rate of intermarriage is probably great
er in San Francisco than any place else in the
country. This is an inevitable result of the
relative freedom of social movement One
old-timer named, offhand, children of five
rabbis who have intermarried in the past. It
is only necessary to read the social pages of
the press over the months to get a compara
tive index. However, it is widely believed
that intermarriage has passed its peak, and
that the rate will not appreciably increase.

'T'KE really significant fact about all these
JL various aspects of Jewish life in San Fran
cisco is by and large the naturalness and mat-
ler-of-factness of their development. They
arc not marked by evidences of self-hatred,
Jewish anti-Semitism, fear, hysteria, or other
minority neuroses. This is emphasized rath
er than confuted by the few cases of individ
uals in the community who follow the more
obvious and self-betraying pattern of over-
vehement and over-emotional "150 per cent
Americanism." It is the normal temper of
San Francisco's old-line Jews, however devi
ant their behavior from old Jewish patterns,
to accept their Jewishness, their deviations,
and their Americanism as matters of course,
without conscious design, without a special
sense of urgency, without schizoid complica
tions. This is underlined by the way they go
about their business, by the way they go
about engaging in civic affairs, by the way
they conduct their social affairs, by the way
they talk about their Jewishness. However
it may be elsewhere, and whatever its im
plications for Judaism, it is necessary to rec
ognize that in San Francisco, by and large,
the features of the Jewish community arc
those of an adjusted Jewry, not of a mal
adjusted Jewry full of jitters and tensions.
To in.iny, this "adjustment" threatens much
that lies near to the heart of traditional Juda
ism. And there is a real problem here— the
problem of beot integrating the old into the
new. Perhaps San Francisco decs not repre
sent the idcjl integration. But who, in the
gla5S houses of other American Jewish com
munities, will cost die first stone?

And it is worth remembering that so far as
it concerns the majority of San Francisco's
older Jewish families, die most remarkable
fact of San Francisco is not die vanishing
(or shrinking) Jew, but on the contrary, die
insistent Jew— die Jew who insists on being
a San Francisco Jew despite the historical
distance (and geographical distance) from
his ethnic origins, the diorough American
ization, die complete lack of ghettoization,
the social mobility, the freedom of wealth,
the mutations in religious thought, and die
relative isolation and absence of pressures.

There are a few sensational pioneer family
names diat have lost their Jewish identity
entirely, but diey are not significant either in
number or in die indication of any perma
nent trend. The pattern has been radier diat

• <

-t

213

THERE'S NO CITY LIKE SAN FRANCISCO"

parents, no mattej how amorphous their own
religious conceptions, or how distant their
connections, have invariably sent their chil
dren to a Jewish Sunday school, helping
them to obtain a sense, however vi.jue, of
their Jewish heritage. Families that are inter
married have, much moie often than not,
continued their active identification with and
participation in the Jewish community. Even
those who have defoliated, formally or
effectively, from religious congregations, or
are strictly "High Holiday men," insist vehe
mently on their Jewis>h identity and engage
in the active leadership of the Jewish com-
Biuiiity.

This nav seen strange in an area where
the sentiment is strong that "Jews are mem
bers of z religion and nothing more." But one
man saiu: "Of course I'm a Jew. I'm a Jew
by religion. Is a Jew r.o: religious l*rcausr lie
doesn't go tc temple even1 Friday night?"
There is sn ovcixvii:!iiiing emphasis on ih?
riliical tc.xture, which ir.cn like this feel is
unique to, and inlieicr.t in, i'i: Jewish re
ligion: racl:r.im:-'s or r dcrj>fcl: (not jurt
formal or ideological) compassion for frllw
men. This, nlon£ wirh 2 jx-rsoncl d.-vr>tir>n to
Oi«c God, they feel, K tiic eswmv of the
Jewish religion, and they know tl.ry are Jews
becnucr they fee! i: ant! live by it and believe
in it. It is on thi* level thr: thc\ evpi.lin
cmoronal ger.ctosilici and philanthropies
and the libcia! activities so often out of char
acter \vith a politiraL'y conservative rust.

It is not gOiCrcliy accepted in the:e quj:-
tcrs that Judaism is "rc'ip'on, plus . . .'' as i;
has sometimes been defined, that the Amer
ican Jew has more of a historical identity as
Jew than as A'.r.ericzn. Yet on the occasion of
Israel's figlit for independence and its con
stitution as a r.ntion, many of San Francisco's
anti-Zionists \vere profc-.'noJy affected, and
the tone of toe whole community shifted per
ceptibly. "What happened there," one of the
old stalwarts of the American Council for
Judaism s.iid, "must affect the feelings of
Jcvs everywhere."

Other Jews were stirred by roois they
never thought the, had. As a matter rf f?rt
there has been recently in the "integrated
circles" an intensification of religir.us life, as
there has been in the rest of the country.
This has been reflected in temple attendance
and activity. And of thr recently installed
rabbi at Temple Emnnu-El, one of the Con

377

servative-Orthodoz rabbis in town said: "He
is, if anything, a more intense Jew than I

am.

npHE religious structure of the Jewish com-
i muniry has in the past reflected the Amer
icanized tendencies of the leadership of the
older families, and the Reform temples are
the most important. But there are also two
fair-sized Conservative congregations in town
—one of which can still understand an ad
dress in Yiddish-and a scattering of Ortho
doxy. Influenced by the same histories! cir
cumstances as the older settlers, but on a
smaller scale, there people generally consider
themselves integrated civic-ally and socially
into San Francisco. There is little evidence
of intermarriage in their ranks, but there is a
tendency for them, with the accumulation of
time of residence, position, and influence, to
move over to Slicrith Israel, th: next sttp on
the WdeT to Eir.anu-El. And some of those
who maintain their afliliation elsewhere Ii3ve
lil;cd to y.-no their children to temple Sunday
school sc that , as one rabbi said, "litt!c Sarah
mipht grow up with and catch the eye of
somt little San Francisco scion."

There is, community-wide, a relatively
smjll synagogue attendance and— compared
with other lai<;c cities— a relatively light pre-
occup.iiion with Jewish aflairs at larg;. (Al
though, again in pattern, die Welfare Fund
in San Francisco has had the rej.-'.i:2ticn of
having a higher percentage of contributors in
relation to the population than any city but
Boston. In recent -.ears, however, a nu:n»>er
of the more wealthy donors have withheld
their contributions because they felt that too
much of it was £oing to Israel. Last year the
local president of the Fund estimated that a
quarter of a million dollars had been lost
among large donors because of an "undeicur-
rejit of ideological differences." This tend
ency is diminishing.)

One member of the community seriously
offered as a partial explanation of the gen
erally limited amount of synagogue activity
the fact that San Fiancisco had such fine
weather that people were n't so di-posed to po
to meetings or sen-ices. But considering the
climate of Palestine, or at the very least Los
Angeles, it would seem that the predisposi
tion to apathy (after all, the San Franci>co
V factor) owes less to the temperature of
the air than to the tone of the communirv.

214

378

COMMENTARY

The vocal critics of the present leadership
of San Francisco's Jewish community are
centered mainly «:oun<l several hundred peo
ple who feel strongly about traditional Juda
ism and world Jewish affairs. They aren't
interested in excommunicating those whose
personal Judaism has taken a different turn
(They are mostly good men. They have
done fine things here. But because of their
background they are out of step with Jewish
life. A Jewish community cannot flourish
\vithout its traditions, its historical and cul
tural references . . .") so much as they are
interested in making their own influence felt,
sponsoring activity along more traditionally
religious and more Zionist lines. They feel
that a different leadership would give a
different, "more specifically Jewish," com
plexion to the comrnmity, and this is what
they hope to achieve.

The "Old Guard," for its part, is iiot anx
ious to relinquish any more of the office of
leadership th:n it has to. It believes that it
is properly restraining thcs; newer elements
whose activities mi^lxt be alien to the tradi
tions of the city anJ deteriorative of the good
public relations ihev have so meticulously set
up. Although <hcy arc net to articulate about
their own conceptions of Judaism, it is clear
tliat they feel that it is not they who arc "out
cf step" but their critics, who fail to recognize
that Jewish life must mean something differ
ent to third generation American Jews from
what- it did to their ancestors cooped up in
the ghettos of Europe and rejected by t'ae
world.

"Majority" is cried on both sides but there
has been no counting of noses. (In any case,
most of the noses of the community wouldn't
be twiiching excitedly in any direction.) At
this point, "unity of expression" does not
seem possible or, by any democratic stand-
' ards, desirable. There is som<" sentiment in
the committee that is sporadically working on
the problem to sei up a parallel body to the
Survey Committee that can, whenever nec
essary, sponsor programs or make statements

that will reflect an independent viewpoint on
specific Jewish matters. It does not seem that,
under the circumstances, such a body would
seriously give aid to anti-Semitism in the city
—if indeed that is a valid consideration at all
—or that, on the other hand, it would seri
ously change the basic character of the local
community.

•l n TIIATEVER happens on that level, it seems
V "/ that in certain areas the disputants are
becoming more amenable to cooperation. In
10^8 the AJO held a meeting to greet Reu-
ven Dafni, West Coast consul of Israel, and
everybody cair.e. Dafni wrote a letter to the
AJO stcting that he was giatified in the
understanding that- it was the "first time"
that all the elements of San Francisco had
so gathered. Recently all the groups have
been working cooperatively in opposition to
the Mundt-N'ixon bill.

A prominent "both carr.ps" m.in in town
said: "Give us five or ten yr.us :aorc and all
tin's dickering will have been reconciled." He
is prob.ibly ovcr-opu'misric, but the gap in
general is not so grc.it as it was ten ytrsrs ago.
San Fr^'.cisco is less isolated. No nutter how
nc?t its own Lack yard may be. it is no longer
so easy as it or.cc was to ignoie the untidiness
of the out.-ii!e world, or to resist its picssures.
The younger generation, in al! classes, has
teethed on I litler sr.d Isiael and modem war.
It is less certain of the rightoousiiesi of the
sfi»i!S <jnc; it is more perple.xed about things
in central, ,>nd more co::rdously interested
in its Jewishness in particular, than were
its fathers and grandfathers.

The over-all character of Srn Francisco's
community sterns to be in for some "pen
dulum" change, however slight and however
temporary. But come what may, the bulk of
the Jc-.vs of San Francisco, neither vanished
nor concerned with themselves cs laboratory
specimens, will merely thank die Lord that
in whatever fashion they find it necessary to
practice their Judaism, they are doing it in
San Francisco.

215 APPENDIX B

.-.
v • >

/^;;AMERICAN RACE RELATIONS TODAY: STUDIES OF THE
\<fe- PROBLEMS BEYOND DESEGREGATION

•• n

., \ ••?

.-•N .-" '

EARL RAAB

Reviewed by
EPHRAIM MARGOLIN

':"£' ','•- -.-'•'

>..-*.

•-- - ..•, .

- Copyright e 1963 jqr . . . r^.V
The Yale -Law Jottmal ;<5o, W -

,.;«.••»/.* -*-

Reprinted from the Y,aU Lam Journal
Volume 72, Number 5. April 1963 I

\ '

AMERICAN RACE RELATIONS TODAY : STUDIES OF THE PROBLEMS BEYOND
DESEGREGATION. By Earl Raab, ed. New York: Doublcday Anchor. 1962.
Pp. 195. $.95.

MOST sociologists, like cubist painters, represent life in a manner accessible
only to their own kind. They crossbreed themselves into intellectual malnutrition
and loneliness. The potential reader retreats in the face of semantic barbed-
wire and terminological mazes unaware of the insights and unexposed to en
lightenment. The ignorant fringe reacts with sporadic hysteria to cases of "block
busting" or "de facto integration." Inbetween crises, the bland are leading the
bland

Sociological opera have their rare exceptions: witness a slim volume with
the forbidding name : American Rate Relations Today edited and partly writ
ten by Earl Raab. Says Raab :

... the problems of race relations are broader than the problems of dis
crimination which they include. It is now clear that the social objective all
along was not just equal opportunity and desegregation but equal achieve
ment and integration ; and it is also clear that the former will not auto
matically — or perhaps swiftly enough — lead to the latter. Indeed the for
mula may have to be reversed under certain circumstances : extended in
dividual opportunity may depend finally upon group achievement.

This is, hypothetically, the new frontier of race relations : to deal with
those factors other than discrimination which seriously deter equal group
achievement and integration.1

Even professional anti-professionals are unlikely to close the book at this point.
And rightly so. For the book, in its thirteen essays, opens rare vistas and initi
ates ferment. There are no books like it on our scene for succinctness, challenge
and that razor strop quality for alert minds.

In the first essay, Ending the Past,1 Raab points out that the process of learn
ing does not appear to cause a decline in bigotry among the students of southern
colleges.' Nonetheless, there is an indirect impact of education on racism as
learning expands the range of students' interests. The newly acquired interest
in education (or law and order, or economic development) may prevail over
the interest in segregated living, when alternatives are framed in exclusive terms
of integrated education or lawlessness, integrated employment or no govern
ment contracts.4 Obviously, these "countervailing perspectives" do not "counter
vail" until the margins for evasion are removed. Gradualism stiffens resistance.
.

1. Pp. 19-20.
•> o- tt

217

1963) REVIEWS 1089

Margins for evasion can be removed. In the essay entitled The Prejudiced
Society,6 we read that Southern whites inducted into the army accept integra
tion with cold morning showers, as the "army way."* Their situation as in
ductees is unfamiliar to them and new situations admit new patterns of conduct
and foster new attitudes. Significantly, the "army way" was instituted by ex
ecutive order some years ago. In pragmatic terms which oversimplify the por
tent of the essay, executive order and legislation could accomplish similar results
in other areas — by conditioning the availability of housing, schooling, employ
ment or public accommodations on a policy of non-discrimination, and by utiliz
ing the "newness" of new situations.

Margins for evasion will be removed, we are told in the third essay, The Sit-
ins and the New Negro Student.1 The new Negro in the South discovered the
power of passive resistance and economic boycott. He mobilizes allies and ap
peals to public opinion. He is no longer alone. And he is no longer patient.

The three essays abstracted above are 5, 26 and 7 pages long. They represent
cubic miles of sociological research. Condusory in presentation, laden with
bare minima of supporting evidence, they are as stimulating in their content as
they are pleasing in their form. Their only flaw, if flaw they have, is shortness.
Consider, for instance, the dimension that could have been added to the book
with the inclusion of the following restatement of Raab's views that the point
of greatest instability in race relations occurs not when conditions are worst,
but at some point in the scale of their improvement.

The desire for equality and status accelerates as these goals become more
attainable. . . . Caught in the surge, traditional leaders and organizations
step up their own pace, sometimes in sheer defense . . . dramatic protest
. . . and slight case of anarchy . . . lead inevitably to actions and demands
which appear as "excesses". . . .*

It follows that the white liberal and the NAACP lose ground. New leadership
emerges and at times it is less than stable. Collaboration becomes difficult where
heads are used as battering rams. Bigots, in search of rationalization for their
free floating hatred, focus on "excesses" of the New Leadership. Turning his
back on patterns of weakness and gradualism characterizing his elders, the New
Negro seeks his self image for his new role. This search, psychologically un
explored, yet so apparent in modem Negro literature and so reminiscent of the
need of many minorities to act more than equal in order to feel equality with
others, looms large over any discussion of legal and sociological solutions to
racial tensions. It provides a significant transitional bridge between the first
part of this collection called Ending the Past • and the second part entitled
Beginning the Future.19

5. P. 29.

6. Pp. 43-45.

7. P. 69.

Point of OrcatrM TnMahilitv San Pranricro XJ^w«1*»t»»- «f »**• f^.«**.:i

218

1090 THE YALE LAW JOURNAL [Vol.72:1088

That "future" is set in the urban areas of the North and West where "the
gap between equal opportunity and equal achievement has been most strik
ing. . . ."" Residential patterns determine educational patterns, which deter
mine economic patterns, which determine residential patterns. Our metropolitan
areas bifurcate into cities which are increasingly Negro and suburbs of exclusive
Whiteness. Politically, socially and economically, race relations permeate our
whole existence. Elections, city planning, taxation, education, labor relations,
law enforcement problems, all are inextricably interwoven with race relations.
They are the increasingly explosive ingredient of our economy, society and
government, un-defused only at gravest peril.

In the area of education, this is nowhere made clearer than in Nathan Glazer's
statement that while "Southern segregation has to be abolished independently
of its import on education ; Northern school concentration becomes a problem
that demands action primarily because it may lead to inferior education for
Negro children."12 The statement, as indeed the volume itself, emphasizes and
assumes an agreement on the lowest common denominator: abolition of dis
criminatory legislation. Hence, abolition of southern segregation. But from
there, the debate shifts into the new frontiers : from equal treatment under the
law to equal opportunity for the deprived, even if it calls for inequality favor
ing the Negro. Earl Raab, Morton Grodzins, Dan Dodson, Nathan Glazer and
James Conant elaborate on the inadequacy of the "color blind" doctrine, on the
practice of selecting a lonely "exhibit A" Negro to mask continued segregation
in universities, on the "tipping point" phenomenon, disintegrating integration
and "benign quotas." While the discussion is not ideally balanced (Will Mas-
low's point of view ls is nowhere in evidence even though future legal battles
may well be fought in the area delineated by him), it drives explosive lucidity
through much factual material. i

Since rontinency requires eschewing details, let us limit ourselves to one part
of James Conant's sub-section on de facto segregation." Vide Conant in a nut
shell : The real issue is not racial integration but socio-economic integration. By
reductio ad absurdum Conant sneers that if a child's self-respect requires in
tegration on racial lines, economic integration may be equally necessary, and
white slum children should be transported into schools in high income residential t

districts." To Conant, de facto integration is at best a slogan and more likely
to be a hindrance by diverting energies from real solutions :"...! think it would
be far better for those who are agitating for the deliberate mixing of children
to accept de facto segregated schools as a consequence of a present housing
situation and to work for the improvement of slum schools whether Negro or
white."1* The "real" solution, Conant states, is "through the existence of at

11. Ibid.

12. P. 138.

13. Maslow, De Facto Public School Segregation. 6 Viu.. L. REV. 353 (1961).

14. P. 159.

15 P. 162.

16 P '«'

219

1963] REVIEWS 1091

least some mixed schools, integrated teaching staffs, and increased expenditures
in slum schools. . . .""

Conant's views are contained in four pages — and bulky tomes could be written
in rebuttal. Even granting arguendo that Conant is right, how wise is it to
underestimate slogans at a time when an underprivileged people pulls itself by
its bootstraps into a new society? Considering the psychological reality of the
Negro quest today, is it too much to ask that in the beginning be The Word?
Is it really so evident that de fotto integration and the solutions urged by Con-
ant, are mutually exclusive? Moreover, if Conant acknowledges that the exist
ence of "some mixed schools" is important in stemming inferiority feelings of
the Negro children, has he not admitted the place of the de facto integration
battle in the total scheme of things? Hence, cities attempting to integrate are
not "on the wrong track" ; they merely refuse to accept the status quo, as Conant
does ; having accepted the value of integrated schools they have proceeded log
ically to implement and extend integration. In short, Conant seems to err by
elevating his complementary remedy into exclusiveness. Civil rights people sel
dom fight for integration without stressing remedial classes, integrated teaching
staffs and employment opportunity. And Conant's argument — of the absurdity
of equalizing education for rich suburbs with that available in poor slums by
creating heterogeneous school districts through bussing or zoning — far from
being absurd, lends added support to open enrollment plans.

Above all one senses a confusion in Conant's terms between "slum children"
and "Negro children." Naturally, not all slum children are Negro and not all
Negroes are slum dwellers. The solution of the slum issue rests in remedial
classes, higher horizons programs, playgrounds, home betterment, counselling,
placement, training programs and housing anti-discrimination laws. This should
not be confused with the solution of the Negro "problem." Hurt people, strug
gling for self respect and a self image in the encircling world of whites need
stronger solutions. They must know that wherever possible (and no one de
mands more than that) boundaries will be drawn to alleviate ghet toization ;
whenever possible, new sites for schools will be chosen to eliminate, not to per
petuate, the housing moats. We must end the horror of racially constricted
horizons. It is the least we can do, still leaving the undone vast. Conant's piece
should be approached with enthusiasm heightened by disagreement. For such
is the nature of dialogues that a thought begets a thought and an argument
breeds counter arguments.

In conclusion Raab articulates major premises and presents us with a frame
work for facing big issues.18 This he does with grace and power and, above all,
with wisdom befitting one of our great sociologists. If this Iktle volume suc-

17. Ibid.

18. The last three essays in the volume, on American Mexicans, or Puerto Ricans and
on Black Muslims, are in a lesser category altrx«»t^.- <"»-- —

220

1092 THE YALE LAW JOURNAL [Vol. 72: 1088

ceeds in wedging several large questions in a hopefully significant number of
bellies, it would have accomplished a significantly hopeful bit of intellectual

integration of its own.

EPHRAIM

fMember of California and Israel Bars, West Coast Counsel for the American Jewish
Congress.

221 APPENDIX C

IEWISH COMAflUNITY RELATIONS COUNCIL

OF SAN FRANCISCO, MARIN AND THE PENINSULA

Beneficiary ot the Jewish Welfare Federation

(415) 391-4bDD

The Fight Against Anti-Semitism: 1981

There is not one anti-semitism; there are three anti-semitisms . There are
three fronts on which the fight against anti-semitism must take place. They are
different phenomena. They have different symptoms. They have somewhat different
causes. They call for different remedies. They are not directly connected with
ea"ch other, in a causative sense.

A, DEFINITIONS: WHAT ARE THE ANTI-SEMITISMS?

1) Covert acts of anti-semitism. Physical acts of anti-semitism which are
covertly done and are illegal in one form or another. Thus: arson, defacement,

vandalism.

2) Anti-semitic attitudes. The prevalence of negative, hostile and prejudicial
feelings and beliefs towards Jews. Notably: the belief that Jews have too much
power; that Jews try to control everything; that Jews cause the nation's problems;
that Jews are interested only in money; that Jews are more dishonest than others.

3) Organized anti-semitic political movements. Movements which are organized
in the public arena to take political power, with a built-in and public anti-
semitic platform. Thus: Nazism, Ku Klux Klan. This is the ultimate concern of
the Jews.

— 2A: Public expression cf anti-semitic attitudes.

Literature, leaflets, public statements and public meetings which express
negative, hostile and prejudicial beliefs towards Jews.

2- 222 •
These are most often the product and instrument of organized anti-semitic

political movements. But sometimes, these are expressions which seep out
of the reservoir of anti-semitic attitudes, uttered by a public figure such
as General George Brcwn, or in private insult. Sometimes, they are anonymous
a covert phenomenon, but differing from other covert acts of anti-semitism
in not being physical nor, under present law, illegal.

(Note: The term "overt anti-semitism" is often used, and presumably includes
categories I, 3 and 3A above — but it is too broad a term to be remedially
useful.)

B, PERPETRATORS: WHO COMMITS THESE ANTI-SEMITISMS?

1) Ideological anti-semites. These are people who believe in a package of the
anti-semitic attitudes described above. They may or may not commit anti-semitic
acts or join anti-semitic movements.

2) Situational anti-semites. These are people who commit anti-semitic acts,
or join anti-semitic movements, even though they do not hold significant anti-
semitic beliefs or attitudes.

Example: When the American people were asked whether they would support a
Congressional candidate running on an anti-Jewish platform, the overwhelming
majority said "no." But about a third of all Americans said it "wouldn't
make any difference." In other words, if the candidate promised them better
jobs or lower taxes, or whatever, they would go along with his anti-semitism.
These people are not committed to anti-semitic belief; it is just that they
are not committed against anti-semitism.

223
3.

C, WHAT IS THE CURRENT STATE OF THESE ANTI-SEMITISMS?

INCIDENCE. CAUSES. CONNECTIONS, EVALUATIONS

1) Covert acts of anti-semitism.

Incidence: There are clearly more physical acts of anti-semitism being
committed in America today than in the 1950s; and more, according to the ADL,
than in the past few years. Thus, while considerably fewer physical acts of
anti-semitism are being committed than in the 1930s — a "high" point in
American anti-semitism — the current direction is towards more frequency.

Causes: Organized anti-seraitic political groups do not normally commit
covert acts of anti-semitism. They desire recognition, credit and political
advantage for what they do. Covert act's of anti-semitism are normally committed
by disconnected individuals or disconnected non-political groups.

Such disconnected individuals or groups can be either ideological anti-semites
or situational anti-semites (see above). But in either case, they are individuals
or groups without constraints in engaging in violent or illegal behavior.

The increase in covert acts of anti-semitism would indicate that there are
either more anti-semites, or there is more license for ideological and situational
anti-semites. Since the prevalence of attitudinal anti-semitism is down rather
than up (see below), the indication is that increased covert anti-semitism results
from more license for anti-semites, and for those who are willing to use anti-
semitism, rather than from an increased number of ideological anti-semites.

That increase in license has two causative aspects: a) Generally decreasing
constraint with respect to violence and illegal behavior. For one thing, there
is a constant percentage of the population which is emotionally disordered in a
•vay that can lead to unconstrained behavior. As populations get larger, and become

4.22*

•

compacted, there Is an increasing number of such people in evidence. For another
thing, a general climate of unconstrained behavior tends to become contagious.
b) Generally decreasing constraint with respect to expressing anti-semitism publicly.
For almost two decades after World War II, anti-semitic beliefs were largely un
fashionable and underground. They have come out of the closet. This is a form
of license, too.

Evaluation: Those who commit acts of covert anti-semitisra are not often those who
form or even become significant members of organized anti-semitic political move
ments. But covert acts of anti-semitism have a significance of their own which
requires utmost attention:

. They are evidence of a license to violence which is in itself dangerous, and

contagious.
. They are also evidence of a license to act out anti-semitism, which is in

itself dangerous and contagious.

. In themselves, they frighten and endanger Jews, who are entitled to society's
best protection.

2) Anti-semitic attitudes.

Incidence : The prevalence of negative and hostile beliefs about Jews has
considerably diminished since the 1930s and has continued to diminish since the
1950s. Fever Americans believe that Jews have too much power in comparison with
other American groups. (In American public opinion, Jews are now ranked behind
evangelical Protestants, Catholics and Blacks, among others, in having "too much
power.") Fever Americans believe that the Jews are the cause of our national
troubles, or that Jews are more dishonest than others. In short, at this particular
time, there seem to be fewer ideological anti-semites than in either the remote or
recent past.

5. 225 .

Causes: There Is a constant reservoir of anti-semitic beliefs because they
have been culturally trainsmitted in the West for so long. In the United States,
in the 1930s, almost half of the American population held some package of anti-
semitic beliefs which qualified them as "anti-semitic." In the 1950s, about a
third of the American population held such a package of beliefs. In more recent
years, less than a quarter of the American population held such beliefs.

However, because of the "cultural reservoir" of anti-semitism, that figure could
go up or down, depending upon its stimulation. The rise of organized anti-semitic
political movements is usually the cause of a higher prevalent level of anti-semitic
attitudes, rather than the result (see below).

Evaluation: The bulk of the membership of organized anti-semitic political
movements are not ideological anti-semites. Most ideological anti-semites do not
act out their anti-semitism, unless the political climate stimulates them and gives
them full license. Covert acts of anti-semitism are committed by both ideological
and situational anti-semites.

Hundreds of programs and tens of millions of dollars have been spent trying to
reduce the prevalent levels of anti-semitism. Success is slow, and reversible.
Nevertheless, it is obviously necessary to maintain a constant effort to diminish the
reservoir of anti-semitic attitudes at any given time. While that prevalence of anti-
semitic attitudes does not cause covert acts of anti-semitism, or organized anti-
semitic political movements — it does make their existence easier.

Z) Organized anti-semitic political movements.

Incidence: There has been no major anti-semitic political movement in America
since the 1930s, when the Coughlinite movement had millions of followers. There is
still none. The KKK is the closest candidate today, but is overwhelmingly rejected
jy the American people.

226
o.

While embryonic organized political anti-semitic movements are fragmented,
and have not significantly gained in membership, they are clearly more vocal and
demonstrative than several years ago. This would seem to follow the patterns
described above: not that there are more ideological anti-semites, or more ideolo
gical anti-semitic movements, but that there is more license for both, and for
those willing to engage in anti-semitism. That is not a matter for comfort, but
to note in terms of perspective and remedial program.

Causes: The mass base of anti-semitic political movements is not primarily
composed of ideological anti-semites. Most of them are situational anti-semites;
people who go along with anti-semitism because it serves their other purposes, and
they don't care about anti-semitism one way or another.

Example: The members of the Coughlinite movement, the largest anti-semitic
political movement in American history, were — by actual count — not significantly
more ideologically anti-semitic than the rest of the population. They joined the
movement for other reasons, and went along with the anti-semitism.

Evaluation: Organized anti-semitic political movements are effective and
gather a mass base, only when the conditions are ripe for political extremism. Such
conditions include a general breakdown of law and order in society; a breakdown of
the economic order; a bitterly divided society, where some groups feel that they are
hopelessly left out, and other groups are fearful that they are going to lose what
they had; where political life becomes fragmented, non-coalitional and fractional.

While there is currently no major anti-semitic political movement, that is no
reason for complacency as long as the conditions for political extremism remain
possible, and a significant segment of the population remains "indifferent" about
the political use of anti-semitism.

227

Of the three anti-semitisms, covert acts of anti-semitism are on the increase,
prevalent levels of anti-semitic attitudes are slightly on the decrease; and there
are no major anti-semitic political movements, embryonic groups such as the KKK and
neo-Nazis being fragmented and without broad support, although they are more vehement
than they have been in recent years.

The lower levels of prevalent anti-semitism — of ideological anti-semites — are
not inconsistent with higher levels of covert anti-semitic acts; nor would it
be inconsistent with a future growth of anti-semitic political movements. Neither
covert acts of anti-semitism, nor organized anti-semitic political movements depend
on ideological anti-semites.

While the three anti-semitisms are not causatively connected, they each deserve
deep concern in their own right. Covert acts of anti-semitism are abhorrent and
dangerous in themselves. Organized anti-semitic political movements can spring up
virtually overnight, if conditions are right.

Since each of the anti-semitisms is a serious but somewhat different phenomenon
than the others, each requires a somewhat different remedial program (see appended
Action Checklist). We would do a disservice by too glibly connecting the three
anti-semitisms, and not distinguishing among them, giving each its remedial due.

January, 1981

228

The Second Agenda*
EARL RAAB

Ixrcutiif Dirfctor, Jtuiih Community Rrlatwni Council. San francitea

. . . (thr) active relationship betu'trn America and the Jew is, for us, the practical
point at which our particularistic sun'ival and our universalistic mission come together,
critically for both. But at this moment, me are not engaged nearly enough at that point.
Indeed, we may be moring au-ay from it.

EACH of us in the field of Jewish
service presumably has two jobs.
One involves the particular profession
we practice. The other is the Jewish
agenda we all have in common — if we
can define it.

If we dive immediately into a sea of
universalistic rhetoric, then we will have
missed any significant definition of that
common Jewish job. "Helping people,"
"doing justice." "building a better
world" — those are not just Jewish jobs,
they are everybody's job. And, besides,
those are not jobs that can be done
directly by anyone without some inter
vening definitions.

Nor will we get a significant defini
tion of the common Jewish job by
swimming in particularistic rhetoric.
"Ensuring Jewish survival." "enriching
Jewish lives," "making better Jews."
Those are also forms of rcductionism
which cannot be advanced without some
intervening definitions.

Of course, there is always the pos
sibility that we would be better off just
to do our professional jobs well in the
reasonable hope that larger Jewish val
ues will thereby be served. Jews do
have a tendency to over-define. One
of Mort Sahl's early jokes was really a
kind of Jewish joke. A bank robber
gives a note to the teller, saying "Hand
over all your money at once or there

will be trouble" and the teller writes
back, "Please define your terms."

Perhaps we can't help ourselves.
Zangwill once wrote: "The Jewish mind
runs to unity by an instinct as har
monious as the Greek's sense of art. It
is always impelled to a synthetic per
ception of the whole."

However, if we stay away from the
grand, reductionist definitions, and look
for some working definitions in this
time and this place which unify our
Jewish functions, the search itself can
be useful.

The main body of world Jewry sits
astride a unified triangle of relation
ships at whose apex is the Jew, and at
whose base points are Israel and the
United States of America.

Jew

• Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Con
ference of Jewith Communal Service, Lo» An
geles. June 27, 1984.

After ica

Israel

229

• THE SECOND AGENDA

In other words, there are four sets
of relationships to be examined, four
sets of relationships which define the
major body of Jewry in the free world.
One is the relationship between Jew
and America. On that slope lives the
American Jew. The second is the re
lationship between Jew and Israel. On
that slope lives the Israeli Jew. The
third relationship, across the middle of
the triangle, is the relationship between
the American Jew and the Israeli Jew.
And the fourth relationship, at the base,
is between America and Israel.

The security and the identity of the
modern Jew depend largely upon the
soundness of those three points of the
triangle — Jew, Israel and America —
and of tho'se four relationships. And
within this triangle lies the lachliss of
the relationship between the "univer
sal" and the "particular" as it affects
our lives and our jobs.

One of the more easily understood
aspects of that integrated triangle is
the interdependence of America and
Israel. For the foreseeable future, the
survival of Israel depends upon the sup
port of America. And it is clear to
many of us that the survival of Israel
as an expression of the dwindling as
sociation of free, democratic societies
is critically important to the U.S.

By the same token, the security of
the Jew at the apex depends upon the
seamlessness of that triangle. The se
curity of the American Jew, living on
the slope between "Jew" and "Amer
ica," depends upon the democratic na
ture of the American society. And in
certain practical ways, it depends on
the relationship between America and
Israel. As an example, the evidence
indicates strongly that any serious anti-
Semitism in America in the foreseeable
future will flow from ruptured relations
between Israel and America, rather
than the other way around. For that
matter, the security of Soviet Jews and

French Jews, also depends heavily on
that triangular relationship.

However, in our common agenda, we
are not just concerned with the physical
security of the Jews, but with the sur
vival of Jews as Jews, with Jewish iden
tity. There is reason to believe that the
spiritual identity crisis of Israeli Jews
is created by discontinuities between
Jewish identity and Israeli identity and
will continue until those two identities
have been better integrated. That mat
ter has been much discussed. Less dis
cussed is the possibility that the spir
itual identity crisis of American Jews
is created by discontinuities between
Jewish identity and American idemitv.
and will continue unless those two
identities arc better integrated.

But for American Jews, there is an
other possible discontinuity. American
Jews need also to integrate into their
American Jewish identity their rela
tionship to Israel as a plnce of residence
for Israeli Jews, as well as a place of
spiritual reference. However, it is pos
sible that they will never be able to do
that successfully, until they establish
themselves firmly as authentic Ameri
can Jews, if they can.

To say that is almost to say the un
thinkable. The term "authentic Amer
ican Jew" has evil connotations for
those who believe that all jews either
are or should be alien anyplace but in
Israel and who believe that the term
is redolent of earlier German Jewish
delusions about being "authentic Ger
mans."

But the reality is that most American
Jews will remain residential^ in Amer
ica, unless, as the theory goes, Amer
ican changes character malevolently.
And the reality thrrt is that, if such a
malevolent change takes place, it will
be an extremely dangerous future for
Israel itself. And therein the line of
special relationship between America

' j ,

i.:,

230

JOURNAL OF JEWISH COMMUNAL SERVICE

and Israel completes the magical tri
angle.

Some would say that the authenticity
of American Jewry might be built
around its political responsibility to
maintain that bottom line of the mag
ical triangle, the relationship between
Israel and America. But, however stim
ulating the fulfillment of that respon
sibility has been to Jewish identity in
America, it will not indefinitely sustain
that identity.

Conversely, some would say that an
American-Jewish authenticity is not re
quired (much less possible), but only a
Jnt'ish authenticity in America. That is.
a Jewish authenticity and an American
authenticity could exist side by side,
not touching, one of the idealistic vi
sions of a pluralistic America. But it
won't work, according to most evi
dence, not in modern structured so
ciety. Too often, the two identities, not
functionally integrated, are at war. As
a result, one or the other is diminished,
and it has usually been the Jewish iden
tity. And therein lies the spectre of a
pathological and disappearing Ameri
can Jewish community. The emergence
of the State of Israel, mainlv, has
seemed to replenish the Jewish identity
in America. But that identity is des
tined to become based exclusively on
the bottom line of the triangle, and
leaves American Jews somewhat un
easy.

One dimension of the uneasiness has
to do with what being an American
Jew means to American Jews, the re
lationship between being Jewish and
being American.

Perhaps American Jews never fully
understood the nature of that rela
tionship, and probably they miscalcu
lated it. It is not that the Jews have
achieved a tripartite power status in
America. They have not. It is not that
they have totally overcome their mar
ginal status in America. They have not.

It is not that they are especially loved
by other Americans. They are not. It
is not that the possibility of anti-Sem
itism has been rooted out in America.
It has not been. It is not because Amer
ica has provided a safe and free haven
for many Jews, which it has. Most sig
nificantly, America has provided a ma
jor locus and a major vision of a world
society which is consonant with Jewish
existence and with Jewish values. The
kind of political freedom for which
America erratically but uniquely
stands — and for which European lib
eralism never stood — has to do not only
with religious freedom in the narrower
sense, but provides the only possibility
of human and spiritual fulfillment in
the modern political world.

And America has provided a vision
of a society which can be open to
change without being certain of its des
tination — open to history, open to both
the past and the future.

If a common denominator of Jewish
identity is an identification with Jewish
history, then it necessarily entails a cer
tain Jewish stance toward history itself,
toward being active in history and to
ward history being actionable. Arthur
Cohen once posed a fundamental Jr^nh
question: "How docs my faith enable
me to survive not I'M spite of history but
in and through history? " America may
have provided Jews an opportunity to
take such a stance, to be active in his
tory, and to help shape a human society
in which history is actionable.

If all this — or something like it — is
true, then we are provided with some
guidelines towards the fulfillment of
our common Jewish job, our second
Jewish agenda.

In general, as far as our job as Amer
ican Jewish agencies is concerned, three
of these relationships fall within the
purview of our job as American Jewish
agencies: one is the relationship be
tween America and Israel, but that is

231

• THE SECOND AGENDA

a job which we are well conscious of
and preoccupied with, however well we
are doing it. The other two relation
ships, I would suggest, need a great
deal of repair: that between the Amer
ican Jew and America; and that be
tween the American Jew and the Israeli
Jew.

To begin with, what does it mean to
be an American Jew, an authentic Amer
ican Jew, beyond being an educated and
committed Jew in general? On the sur
face, it means participating fully and
influential!) in shaping the nature of
American society, or, more explicitly,
helping to move the American society
in certain desirable directions. Those
directions have very much to do with
the extension of political and human
freedom within the American society
itself.

Further than that, it means recog
nizing America's unique role as the
ideological and physical standard-bearer
of human freedom in the world, and
leader of the free world. It means re
cognizing the critical importance of that
unique American role in the dangerous
modern world now beset by an ag
gressive totalitarianism and an increas
ingly aggressive Muslim fundamental
ism. And it means not just recognition
but active support for that American
role in the world.

Such a deep involvement in Ameri
can affairs is a vital/rawA job, so much
so that it must be a Jeu-ish community
job. Only such an America can sustain
a free and flourishing Jewish life in
America. Only such an America can
maintain the survival of Israel — and
perhaps other sectors of world Jewry —
for the foreseeable future.

However, it is not just a matter of
Jewish security. It is also a matter of
American Jewish authenticity to par
ticipate "in and through history."
Within the unique locus of America,
on behalf of spiritual and political free

dom, and within the context of Jewish
meaning, we can help shape a society
and a world in which history is action
able for the better.

The other changing job we have in
order to fulfill ourselves and survive as
American Jews is to relate strongly and
intimately as authentic American Jews
with Israel and Israelis. Thai once
seemed easy. \\'e gave financial sup
port, we gave political support, we vis
ited, we qrelled. we fraterni/ed, we par
ticipated to various degrees in Israeli
Hebrew culture, the modern-day cul
tural equivalent of Yiddishkeit.

Partly, it was easy because, over and
above our commitment to the security
of Israel, a commitment which will
never flag, we never had any questions
about the nature of Israeli authenticity.
But on the triangle's slope between Jew
and Israel, there have been emerging
some questions, which are fully rec
ognized by Israelis.

Israel has been changing culturally.
To put it more concretely, in terms of
American Jews, we can less and less
easily see Israel as some idealized Eu
ropean Labor Zionist dream come true.
Israel is a real nation, with its own po
litical and social problems and realities.
It is a great nation with a great people,
but it is not a summer camp or museum
for starry-eyed American Jews. Israel
is its own country, and will go its own
way.

For one thing, these changes will
make it even more difficult for Amer
ican Jews to base valid American Jewish
life primarily on the existence of Israel.
On the other hand, of course, neither
can an American Jewish existence be
contemplated without a special and
close relationship to Israel and Israelis,
beyond politics and money.

The point is that such a relationship
must be based on the realities of Israel,
not on a made-in-America vision, and
must cut through the bureaucratic cur-

232

JOURNAL OF JEWISH COMMUNAL SERVICE

tain which lies between most American
Jews and Israeli Jews, as constructed
by national and international Jewish
agencies with their oxvn special agen
das.

In sum. the common Jewish job we
all have is to strengthen the structural
and seamless nature of this triangle —
to do what we can, beyond our 'im
mediate jobs, to integrate all these re
lationships on which depend a durable
Jewish identity in America, and more.
But what can we do as professionals,
as agencies organized as Jewish com
munities, to accomplish this?

The advanced consciousness of this
model of integrated Jewish needs
among American Jews is itself impor
tant, and will have consequences. But,
more specifically, our institutions, the
educational agencies, the Centers, the
Federation entities, and so forth, should
with all deliberatcness include all these
elements and these relationships in their
programs. They should be conscious
vehicles of American Jewish authentic
ity. That is a matter of educational im
port, and it is also a matter of Jewish
involvement in common areas of gen
eral community action. Such Jewish in
volvements have been decreasing in re
cent years.

Our agencies and institutions also
need to rethink and make more pro
found, their activities with respect to
Israel and Israelis. \V'e need to be at
once more honest and more intimate
with respect to Israel. This applies to
work projects as well as to educational
programs. In these projects, we need
to puncture the bureaucratic curtain as
much as possible, which means more
direct, and more local, contact. Project
Renewal could be seen as a move in
that direction, although it is too often
vulnerable to a lady-bountiful touch.
This more direct approach could be
extended to other areas.

In order to move in such directions,
logic calls for our agencies and insti
tutions themselves to become more
cohesive, so that they are not them
selves isolated from each other and
from that second Jewish agenda. Each
community should have an active coun
cil of Jewish agencies and institutions
whose explicit job is not just adminis
trative arrangements, or mutual show-
and-tell. but the development of and
the dealing with the larger common
Jewish agenda, of which the triangle is
one possible model.

Now. such direction and such activity
may come hard for agencies and in
stitutions which are hard-pressed for
time and energy, and properly have
their eyes out for the successful accom
plishment of their narrow ly mandated
functions. But, unless we can mend the
functional fragmentation of Jewish in
stitutions, we are not doing our part
in preventing the further isolation of
Jews from America, Jews from Israel,
Jews from Jewish identity. And here is
where the leadership role of the profes
sionals can be potent, because we are
ourselves often the bureaucratic prob
lem.

There is another hazard: that we will
relegate this search for integration to
national organizations, headquarters
and think-tanks. There is an important
stimulating and fructifying role for
such, but, unless this effort is vibrant
and active at local levels, with local
program and local initiative, it will just
be lost again in a bureaucratic ma/e.

After all, this triangle is not just an
abstract shape. It is the real, living
shape of the Jewish community in the
world today, and that which was said
Talmudically by a rabbi over sixteen
centuries ago is again critically appli
cable: "The community is Israel's ram
part." The reintegration of that com
munity in modern circumstances is our
second agenda.

233

One of the things that triangle tells
us is that the particularistic Jew will
neither thrive nor survive in the mod
ern world without some active rela
tionship to the world around us. And
the nature of that relationship is de
nned in the triangle. It is somewhat
different for American Jews and for
Israeli Jews — but, for both of them, in
somewhat different ways, the nature of
America is vital. And here we are, as

THE SECOND AGENDA

American Jews and American Jewish
agencies, at this historic center. This
active relationship between America
and the Jew is, for us, the practical
point at which our particularistic sur
vival and our universalistic mission
come together, critically for both. But,
at this moment, we are not engaged
nearly enough at that point. Indeed,
we may be moving away from it.

Twenty-five years ago
in this Journal

The tendency on the part of some
social group workers to operate on
the basis of a set of fictions at variance
with the reality of practice has picked
up alarming momentum in recent
years. It is time for the profession to
halt — however momentarily — its
search for professional status and to
look realistically at its goals, the means
of achieving them, and at the com
munity needs that await the attention
of the leadership of the field. Prob
lems of volunteer-professional rela
tionships are not new to social work.
One only needs to review the records
of social work conferences during the
first two decades of the Twentieth
Century to see that casework under
went a similar struggle. The writings
of Mary Richmond have acute rele
vance to the problem of our time.
She indicated her own displeasure at
the fact that "some social agencies
use volunteers in a very wasteful way,
keeping them at clerical tasks when
they could easily be made ready for

more responsible work." and she
urged that "the world is not a stage
upon which we professional workers
are to exercise our talents, while the
volunteers do nothing but furnish the
gate receipts and an open-mouthed
admiration of our performances. So
cial work is a larger thing than
that." so

In a paper given at the National
Conference of Charities and Correc
tion in 1907, she further declared:

We hear much about trained paid workers
in these days, but the supreme test of a
trained worker is the ability to turn to good
account the services of the relatively un
trained."

Let us meet this test with conviction
and with the confidence that this is
indeed the crucial task of a social
group worker.

Daniel Thursz

on: "The Volunteer in Social
Croup Work"

234

APPENDIX E

DECEMBER 11. 1987

THE NORTHERN CALIFORNIA JEWISH BUL1

S.F. educators explore
Jewish identity program

By FERN ALLEN

Bulletin Israel Correspondent

JERUSALEM — San Francisco
and Israeli educational experts re
cently exchanged ideas here on
how to strengthen democratic plu
ralism and Jewish identity in their
respective communities.

"We found that this can develop
into a two-way process. Israel can
benefit from the American experi
ence of developing common norms
of civility," noted Alouph Hareven,
associate director of the Van Leer
Institute, which hosted a delegation
of six San Francisco representatives
who attended the five-day seminar
late last month.

During the seminar, the delega
tion met with Israeli Education
Minister Yitzhak Navon, as well as
with other Education Ministry offi
cials.

The San Francisco representatives
included Earl Raab, former execu
tive director of the Jewish Commu
nity Relations Council of San Fran-

Deadline for copy

Friday noon is the deadline for
all copy to be submitted for the
following week's /«<>;$/! Bulletin.
For information or assistance,
call 957-9340.

cisco, the Peninsula, Marin and
Sonoma Counties; Seymour Martin
Upset, professor of sociology at
Stanford University's Hoover Insti
tution; George Karonsky, a retired
teacher and administrator in the
San Francisco public school system;
Eleanor Blumenberg, an intercul-
tural education expert; Noah Ka-
plowitz, a political scientist at the
University of California; and
Gaude Fisher, an urbar xnologist
at the University of Cali' ;iia.

According to Raab, the San Fran
cisco delegation examined the pos
sibility of adapting the v«n Leer In
stitute's "12 Israeli Families
Project" to Jewish schools in the
San Francisco Bay Area.

The project in Israel entails meet
ing three generations of 12 different
Israeli families from diverse back
grounds. Iraqi, Ethiopian, secular,
religious, and Arab Israelis are
among the families used in the pro
ject, which has successfully helped
to break down stereotypes in Israel.

But in San Francisco, the project
would instead explore four differ
ent types of American Jewish fami
lies, Raab said. "This would give
Israelis a chance to understand
American Jewry," he noted.

He stressed, however, that adapt
ing such a project to the San Fran
cisco Jewish community still is in its
initial planning stages. "Everything

Earl Raab

. . .strengthening pluralism

is open right now," he said.

Raab added that while such a
project would be instituted in the
Jewish schools in San Francisco, a
video of the project also might be
made — so that pupils in the public
school system could learn about
American Jewry as well.

Hareven pointed out that young
American Jews can enhance their
Jewish idem, through such edu
cational exchanges between San
Francisco and Israel. "And we can
strengthen democratic pluralism for
ourselves," he said.

Funding for the seminar was pro
vided by the San Francisco Jewish
Community Federation of San
Francisco, the Peninsula, Marin
and Sonoma Counties, according to
Raab. ..<«'

JULY 21. 1989

THE NORTHERN CALIFORNIA JEWISH BULLETIN

Brandeis picks Raab to head Jewish

,. •.--.-• *» . •-...-•

By D.C. EINSTEIN
Of the Bulletin Staff

Chalk one up for the West Coast
Brandeis University in Waltham,
Mass., has reached all the way
across the country and tabbed San
Franciscan Earl Raab as the director
for its new Nathan Perlmutter
Institute for Jewish Advocacy.

The 70-year-old Raab, who made
a national name for himself in
Jewish public affairs during 36
years as head of the San Francisco-
based Jewish Community Relations
Council, was the obvious choice for
the post, according to Brandeis offi
cials. The only question was
whether he would forsake the city
by the bay for the suburbs of
Boston.

"As I called and asked knowl
edgeable folks around the country,
invariably one name that either
topped the list or was right up there
was E<rl Raab,* said Bernard
Reisman, who put together the pro
gram for the institute.

After going over the resumes he
had, Reisman realized none of the
candidates could compare to Raab,
whose resume he did not have, "as
a great figure in the field."

So on impulse, he picked up the
phone. As expected, Raab was
reluctant to leave San Francisco. But
Reisman persisted, and a deal was
struck Raab will teach at Brandeis
during the fall semester, returning
home in the spring. Periodically,
. though, in both spring and summer,
Raab will fly east for consultation,
Reisman said.

The arrangement will last for two

years, after which Raab and the uni-

. versity will decide whether to

, In addition to keeping him home
. for half the year, the arrangement
j will allow Raab to continue in his
! role as consultant to the JCRC, from
; which he retired as executive direc
tor in 1987.

1 was anxious not to be separat
ed from San Francisco, but once we
• worked out a way I wouldn't have
. to leave, 1 didn't have any trouble
. - making up my mind," he said.
/• He also has had no trouble diving
into his new position. He already
A has begun working out a curricu-
,. him, and his efforts have impressed

• Reisman, director. of Brandeis'
,,Hornstein_J>rogram in Jewish

• >t Communal Sejflce^which will host

• .,-the institute.* ^>j, >"«" <• ^. .

.The materials that this guy has
together V^jfqurse outlines,
-t positionjxipers.jcase studies — are
,(«aid.^I_vvrote him
e delighted
the lesLAUrntAciilfv .would ore-

Earl Raab
...accepts Brandeis offer

pare their course materials as articu
lately and quickly as he has."

As envisioned by Raab and
Reisman, the institute will serve
two functions: A graduate program
for the development of profession
als, and a program for ongoing edu
cation of professionals already in
the field.

The graduate program, which
will be populated this fall by eight
students, will concentrate on "what
we sometimes call Jewish communi
ty relations," Raab said. That
means an exercise of Jewish power
and influence in the fight against
anti-Semitism, in all those public
affairs which affect Jews."

The curriculum will comprise
three main aspects, Raab said.
There is a body of academic
knowledge to be learned related to
political science. There Is a second
body of knowledge relating to expe
rience in community organizations,
and how to do things in the field.

"And third, there is the under
standing of the mission, which is to
guarantee the security of the Jew in

America and elsewhere."

Raab said he thinks the time is
right for such an institute — the
first of its kind in the United States.
Its namesake, the late Nathan
Perlmutter, was the longtime
national director of the Anti-
Defamation League of B'nai B'rith.
. If s a good time to look at the '
professional field because the job of
the professional is getting more
- : complicated," Raab said. •"•'.' "' I ,
' '"' -For instance, he elaborated, it's
tougher these days to sell Israel to
America — both Jewish and non- '
*• Jewish. TSome techniques have to j
'-".be developed which will avoid the i
apologetic approach — which never I

' 'works — '«nH fh» nu*rl>4*f*n«it,» I

relations institute

position, which never works."

What is needed instead, he said,
is a strategy "persuasive to the cen
ter of the American population."

There also is a need to combat
increasingly effective public rela
tions on behalf of the Arab states
and the Palestinians, Raab said.

"Certainly one of the concerns of
Jewish professionals around the
country is the fact that the Arab-

American lobby, following the
Jewish model, has become more
effective and in some cases has dis
torted the picture," he said.

All those issues also will be stud
ied by lay leaders enrolled in a con
tinuing education program, which
the institute will offer beginning
next summer. Raab will play a lead
ing role in that program, Reisman
said.

Meanwhile, Raab's duties at
Brandeis will not prevent him from
finishing work on a book about the
Jew in America, which is tentatively
scheduled to be published next
year. And he is continuing unabated
on his work for the JCRC, which
currently includes analyzing data
from the agency's study on Jewish
attitudes in public affairs, a study
that is conducted every 18 months.

236

APPENDIX G

OCTOBER 12. 1990

THE NORTHERN CALIFORNIA JEWISH BULLETIN

ENTERTAEVMENT/IBE ARTS

Essays in book confront tough issues facing

U.S. Jewry

By JOHN ROTHMANN

Bulletin Correspondent

American Pluralism and the Jew
ish Community, edited by Sey
mour Martin Lipset, may not
make the best-seller list but it is
nevertheless a fascinating collec
tion of essays providing an inter
esting view of the American Jew
ish community.

Authored by some of the most
distinguished scholars, thinkers
and writers in the Jewish world,
the essays explore such difficult
issues as Jewish identity, the rela
tionship with Israel assimilation,
intermarriage, the Jewish experi
ence, American pluralism and
other issues racing our communi-

ty.

But first, the dedication of the
281 -page book "to * special
man," in the words of Lipset,
should pique the interest of the
Jew* of San Francisco.

That man is Earl Raab, execu
tive director emeritus of, the Jew
ish Community Relations Coun
cil In "San Francisco and a colum
nist for the Jewish Bulletin. - ' '

Lipset sums up Raab's per
spective mis way: Raab "played a
major role in thp affairs of that
city in areas that' wenf -far afield
from' the inferesls of the Jews,
' particularly in civil 'rights and
mejiJal health.JB.ut his primary
concern has been for th> security
of JewsJn the city, the _ru;Hon and
'

Seymour Martin Upset
In the preface, Lipset writes, "I
would like to acknowledge a
deep personal debt to Earl Raab.
We have been friends and collab
orators for over four decades.
During that time, we have writ
ten' books -and 'articles, and
worked together in various com
munal activities both within the
Jewish arena and bWond.--.-

"I have lea rnecHnuch from
him about society,; but more im
portantly, he has taught me about
people. His life has illustrated an
old Jewish adage, that to be able
to' help yourself, you must be
i willing to give priority to helping
others.^ .-r» .-. — -, - ' •-••
.The book is a fitting tribute to
Raab, for it touches on many of

Earl Raab :

the themes to which he has dedi
cated his life.

The volume, by Transaction
Publishers, is divided into four
sections, the first of which ex
plores "Jewry in North America,?
jincluding a fascinating compari
son of American and Canadian
Jewish communities- • S* J?- ;. >"
J- Each of the three essays in the:
second section, ''Pol i tics',*;. Is
'packed with intriguing informa-
•tion. Of particular interest this
election year is the essay by Alan
M Fisher titled The Jewish Elec
torate: California 1980-86," In
which Fisher breaks down how
California Jews have voted and
felt about individuals and issues •
in the last decade. _,_.- *--•«>

The Community," the thin
section, examines in consider
able depth how we feel abou
our synagogues, federations
public affairs committees anc
charity.

Three works are contained u
the book's final section, "Sai
Francisco and Earl Raab," in
eluding a reprint of Raab's das
sic 1950 essay There's No Cib
Like San Francisco," whici
makes for great reading 40 year
later.

Another essay in the last sec
tion is by Berkeley scholar
David Biale and Fred Rosen
baum. The Pope Comes to Sai
Francisco: An Anatomy of Jewisl
Communal Response to a Politi
cal Crisis" is a superb analysis o
Pope John Paul Q"s trip to the tit}
in September 1967.

Biale and Rosenbaum describ

the reactions and interactions o

.tfie JCRC, the Holocaust Cente

of Northern California, Michae

Lemer of TOdbun magazine, anc

. Bay Area rabbis.

,'< Biale and'Rosenbaum nam

names, 'describe situations, anc

reveal with candor and integri t

• the issues raised by the pontiff'

cvisit. While there may be thos

who will differ with some o

their thoughtful analysis and in

237

APPENDIX H

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APPENDIX K

Minute of silence
in public schools
makes Jews uneasy

A majority of Americans say they would favor the pro
posed Constitutional Amendment to allow prayers in the
public schools. But neither we nor Congress should jump to
conclusions about what they mean by that. To begin with,
we should not conclude that the public wants to officially
Christianize America or its schools.

Seven out of 10 Americans say they favor prayer in public
schools, but fewer than two out of 10 say that the prayer
should be said aloud. The seven out of 10 who say that no

prayer should be said

aloud believe that "there

should be a minute of
silence each day so that
students could pray
silently, meditate or do
nothing if they prefer."

In short, most Ameri
cans would like to see
more expression of reli
gion in public life, but
they do not want a
denominational prefer
ence.

That is an old story in
American life. Partly, it
is a result of the great
religious diversity
among American Chris
tian groups. None of
them wants to see another denomination take precedence.
Their religious emphases, even many of their prayers, differ.
On a practical level, American Christian leaders have
often said that they did not want Judaism to be given sec
ond-class status because it would be the precedent for some
Christian denomination to be given the same negative
treatment. Worse, America could break up into dozens of
warring religious factions.

But most Christians also think of Judaism as part of their
"religious family." Our forefathers are their religious forefa
thers; our prophets are their prophets. Many are not happy
about us not "progressing" into Christianity, but they still

Earl
Raab

CANDID COMMENTS

The writer is director of Brandeis
University's Nathan Perlmutter
Institute for Jewish Advocacy. He
Is executive director emeritus of
the S.F.-oased Jewish Community
Rtiattons Council

peel connected.

In America, even most of the religious right commonly

'refer to the "Judeo-Christian" heritage. When eight out of
10 Americans said that a Christian nativity scene should be

i allowed on city property, only one out of those eight said so
because "Christianity takes precedence." And the same
eight out of 10 said Jewish religious celebration should also
be allowed on city property.

For a number of reasons, American Christians do not
have the same "family" sense about Islam as they do about
Judaism. That is not likely to change very soon, and many
Jews feel that it is just as well to leave it at that. However, the
same old pragmatic consideration operates: If the principle

I of equal treatment does not apply to all, someday it might

; not apply to you.

But if most Americans are opposed to prayers being said
aloud in the schools, why are they so interested in having a
discernible minute of silence? After all, there is no law, nor
could there be, preventing a child from praying silently in
school. As someone said, as long as there are math tests,

there will be silent prayer in the schools. So why do we have
to legalize something that is already legal?

Many think that the schools are now in effect onri-reli-
gious. They believe that the passage of a law permitting
silent prayer would be an important gesture to affirm free
dom of religious expression and to signal that it is okay to
be religious if you so desire. Besides, they say, like chicken
soup, silent prayer can't hurt; it's not like second-hand
smoke.

Most Jewish organizations do not agree. Obviously they
do not believe that a minute of silence is unconstitutional,
but as an organized activity, it makes them uneasy. Sectari
an remarks might slip from the lips of some teachers.

House Speaker Newt Gingrich is playing a shell game
with the religious right when he proposes a constitutional
amendment to permit school prayer. If the amendment
restricts itself to/silent minutes." it is just a silly dish of
lukewarm chicken soup. If the amendment calls for vocal
prayer or is dangerously vague, it will probably not be rati
fied, although it nevertheless deserves our opposition.

JEWISH BULLETIN • JANUARY 6, 1995 27

241

APPENDIX L

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' liberty, compas

And the more liberal parties were those most incli
grant emancipation to the Jews. When an Orthodoj
took his seat on the left of the Austrian parliament a

ry and a half ago, he explained, with a double me
that " Juden haben keine Recht" (Jews have no right).
In modern days, that link between left and libei

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But the link is still being ignorantly used, as in Tl
York Times reference to the proposed review of affiri
action as moving "toward the right," meaning "awa;

the liberal."

However, a review of affirmative action is inten<

•£

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t

Mfume not to mention Bill Clinton. They say s
efforts are still needed to help some disadvantaged g
But they also say that some practices in the name o
mative action have probably broken out of liberal bo
Equal opportunity to compete in the marketplace
tainly a liberal idea. But there are groups whose co
tive abilities have been badly eroded by generati
deliberate exclusion. Special efforts to raise their ab
compete are, therefore, liberal goals.
But quotas for hiring or awarding government coi
— and the use of preferences to bypass competition
usually anti-liberal, subverting equal opportunity. 1
is not a "move to the right* to try to modify such ;

242

. APPENDIX K

I --

- JEWISH-BULLETIN • APRIL 21, 1995

Local authors Lipset, Raab
probe future of U.S. Jewry

JOHN F. ROTHMANN

Bulletin Correspondent

"American Jews enjoy much more
opportunity and freedom than ever before,
and yet American Jewry is beset by great
uncertainty about its future in the new mil
lennium."

With these words, Seymour Martin
Lipset and Earl Raab set the theme for
their latest engaging work, Jews and the
New American Scene. This timely volume
appears as Jews in America discuss what
the future holds for continuity and sur
vival.

The authors of this superb work are
well-known to this community. Lipset, a
senior fellow of the Hoover Institution at
Stanford University, is also a professor of
public policy at George Mason University
and a senior scholar of the Wilstein Insti
tute for Jewish Policy Research.

Raab, who served for 35 years as the
executive director of the S.F. -based Jewish
Community Relations Council, is director
emeritus of the Pearlmutter Institute for
Jewish Advocacy at Brandeis University
and has been a columnist for the Jewish
Bulletin for many years.

Lipset and Raab present a portrait of

book review

the exceptional condition of Jews in
America from the very beginning. With
insight and clear analysis, they describe
the tremendous promise of what they
term "double freedom."

Jews in America have had the freedom
to be Jews and to be Americans. With that
"double freedom," they write, Jews must
also confront what the authors describe as
"that identity crisis, brought on by the
pressure to assimilate —'also a function
of exceptional America — [which] is
today more threatening than ever to
Jews." _ _ '

Describing what they term as "the
downside of except ionahsm ," the authors
point out that with all of the discussion

Earl Raab

about continuity, "the evidence suggests
that such a Jewish core will survive better
than most other ethnic groups because of
the religion-connected dimension of Jew
ish Life."

They point out that even as religious
identity weakens, it is "defensiveness
which keeps. ..a large segment of Jews
involved."

Their overview of anti-Semitism is
stunning. Employing surveys, history and
analysis, Lipset and Raab deal with hatred
of the Jews historically, as well as the cur
rent questions involving black-Jewish
relations. y

Despite tensions and problems within
society, the authors contend that '"Ameri
ca today remains the unprecedentedly
safe and hospitable environment for Jews
that it has been, particularly since the e£3
of World War II." . .;;';

They also say that "the large sector of
American Jews who are primarily 'defen
sive* in their group identity will tend to
melt away, to leave the community"

243

t yr iv? '

m~B»^ im*

Seymour Martin Upset

Israel, they say, is the "X factor" among
American Jews. While most say, "If Israel
were destroyed, I would feel as if I had
suffered one of the greatest tragedies of
my life," there is an ambivalence to that
relationship.

Israel, they assert, "is a cause that could
conceivably place a strain on relations
between Jews and other Americans; it is a
country whose vulnerability to attack
reminds American Jews of their own ves
tigial sense of insecurity."

The authors also recount the history of
the evolution of American feelings
towards the creation of Israel. Drawing on
their own San Francisco connection, they
point out that "San Francisco had been at

..the center of an anti-Zionist movement
known as the A'merican Council for
Judaism."

In all, Upset and Raab offer a superb
summary of American-Israeli relations.
Their discussion of American politics and
the Jews is also outstanding. Pointing to

j the basic liberalism of Jews in America,

they trace attitudes and voting patterns in
recent elections with great skill.

The authors conclude with their view of
what they term "the fragile remnant."
They believe that "if there are not big his
torical surprises, the cohesive body of
Jews will not only be a smaller portion of
the American population by the middle
of the next century, it will be smaller in
absolute numbers."

But, they add, "the remnant — both the
more devout and the fellow-travelers — .
will tend to be those who feel somehow
connected to the religious core of their
tribal identity."

Lipset and Raab have raised tough
questions, provided powerful insights
and offered fascinating conclusions that
should be the basis for further discus
sions on continuity.

This book should be read by every Jew
who is concerned about the future of Jew
ry in America. This is an important, pow
erful book. In purely American terms,
Lipset and Raab have hit a home run.

Jews and the New American Scene by
Seymour Martin Lipset and Earl Raab
(239 pages, Harvard University Press,
S22.9S).

Reception for Raab
will be held in S.F.

A reception, discussion and book-
signing with Bad Raab will be held at
5:30 p.m. Monday, April 24 in the 2nd
floor board room of the Jewish Com
munity Federation, 121 Steuart St.,
S.F.

Raab, executive director emeritus of
the S.F.-based Jewish Community
Relations Council, is co-author with
Seymour Martin Lipset of Jews and the
New American Scene. The topic of
Monday's event will be assimilation
and what can be done about it. For
information, call (415) 957-1551.

244

APPENDIX N

Ultimate weapon
of terrorists: fear

"I'm frightened and really angry at the American govern
ment," said a woman at a Safeway check-stand line the day
after the Oklahoma City explosion. "We have too many for
eign involvements that are not our business."

She was thinking of the Israeli-Arab conflict, the image of
the World Trade Center in her mind. A day later, the focus
turned from "foreign involvements" to domestic racists.
Either way, the tragic event in Oklahoma City has a special
edge for Jews, and the woman's remark suggests one answer
to the question: "What do terrorists hope to gain?"

In most cases, they

want to frighten so many

people that the govern
ment will change its
course in some way. Such
terrorist acts are not new
in this country. In 1920, a
horse-drawn wagon
filled with explosives was
detonated on Wall Street,
killing 80 people and
injuring hundreds. There
have been a number of
other such terrorist
bombings here. They
have had. no policy
impact.

Whether terrorist acts
are committed by Mus
lim zealots or racist
extremists, neither cause

has a base of sympathy in this country. The American people
are more sympathetic to the Israelis than to the hard-line
Arabs by a ratio of about 9-to- 1 , and have basically remained
that way since 1967.

Caw enforcement agencies say total membership of such
domestic groups as the Nazis and the Aryan Nations —
which actively hate African Americans, Hispanics, Asians,
Jews and assorted foreigners, as well as the U.S. government
— numbers about 25.000, or one-tenth of 1 percent of the

Eari

Raab

CANDID COMMENTS

The writer is director emeritus of
Brandeis University's Nathan
Pertmutter Institute for Jewish
Advocacy. He is executive director
emeritus of the S.F.-based Jewish
Community Relations Council.

population.

Such groups have not grown over recent decades, although
they have become more violent in keeping with the temper of
the times. Some of the active bigots join militia groups,
whose thousands of members like to play with guns. But
almost all Americans, even the more prejudiced, view these
groups — and their violence — with horror.

Even so, can terrorist acts frighten so many people that
they will cause policy changes? In the case of domestic ter
rorism, the answer is a fiat "no." However, in the case of ter
rorism inspired by American support for Israel, the possibili
ty can't be dismissed, as the reaction of the woman in the
Safeway check-stand line suggests.

The Arab oil embargo protesting American support of
Israel during the 1973 Yom Kippur War caused long and
exasperating gas station lines, and didn't achieve its intended
results. Americans reacted against the Arabs, not against
Israel. However, the situation might be different if there were
a string of seemingly unending terrorist acts on this score —
on the scale of the IRA attacks on England.

Such an unceasing domestic terrorist campaign is not like
ly to happen. But the increased possibility of arjy such acts

should cause just enough fear to spur the U.S. government to
take more precautions against political terrorism. Policy
aside, the loss of life and of civilized standards are intolera
ble.

Such precautions can alter our democratic society if car
ried too far, but there is still plenty of room left. We are more
protected than most countries because we are between two
oceans, but more attention must be paid to those who fly
into our country. Furthermore, the capabilities of our intelli
gence operations must be expanded. And we must take a
closer look at domestic as well as foreign groups.

We weakened the ability of our intelligence agencies to
infiltrate groups in America because we felt groups were
being targeted solely because of their dissident opinions..
Now, using congressional oversight, we must expand infiltra
tion on groups judged to have a potential for violence.

You might want to urge the administration and members
of Congress to work in these directions. But it is also neces
sary that we not panic or exaggerate the danger. Beyond tak
ing necessary precautions, we must not let terrorists seriously
modify our behavior. Remember: The planting of constant
and infectious fear is what these groups have in mind.

JEWISH BULLETIN • APRIL 28, 1995 27

245

APPENDIX 0

o-
o-

X
to

246

APPENDIX P

racy

still
^' lies

tp target Jews

militias, evangelist Pat Robertson and Nation of
; Islam leader Louis Farrakhan share a common charac-
Z teristic They til thrive on painting evil conspiracies in
,"', high places.

/^'..The current details vary — from Jewish doctors

; " planting AIDS in the African American population to

^1-the American government itself blowing up the Okla-

' homa federal building. But neither the basic political

conspiracy theory nor

' _ '. - its causes have changed

much throughout the
ages.

Robertson demon
strated the agelessness
of conspiracy theories
when he cited the Illu-
minati plot in his 1994
book. "The Secret
Kingdom." In 1776, a
Bavarian professor
formed a secret
Masonic society, called
the "'"minati to
oppose the Jesuits. It
ceased to exist a few
years later, but had a

" CANDID COMMENTS

r": The Hrtterls director emeritus of
;-; Brandeis University's Nathan
? Perlmutter Institute for Jewish
_" AAocscy. He Is executive director

served conspiracy
, lovers ever since.

;;,Some Federalists charged presidential candidate
j. Thomas Jefferson with being a member of that hidden
(Organization* which they said "spread infidelity, impiety
'and immorality." Timothy Dwight, the president of Yale
. no less, made a speech in 1798 in which he asked, "Shall
daughters become the concubines of the Illumi-

In the next century, one conspiracy theorist, William
Carr, stretched the plot all the way back to the Crucifix
ion: "It was the Illuminati who hatched the plot by
which Christ would be executed by the Roman soldiers.
It was they who supplied the 30 pieces of silver used to
bribe Judas "

In the 1920s, both Henry Ford and the Christian Sci
ence Monitor connected the Illuminati with "The Proto
cols of the Elders of Zion." Father Charles Edward
Coughlin did the same in the 1930s. In the 1960s, "Illu
minati insiders" were tied to the civil rights movement
by the John Birch Society. And now, Robertson is con
tinuing this tradition.

JEWISH BULLETIN • JUNE 16, 1995 28

The Illuminati has been a good image for conspira
cies, suggesting an exotic, hidden center of power that.:
manipulates everyone's life. When people feel under
siege and powerless, they are often pleased to be given • ;
simple, evil target against which to direct their anger. "•

Conspiracy theories always require the complicity of ;
some exotic group, such as the jews or "international j
bankers" who, when named, turn out to be Rothschilds,
Loebs and Lehmans. But it has not always been the Jews.
In 19th century America, the Vatican was more often. '
cited as the center of conspiracy. Catholic buildings
were burned down, and Catholic homes searched for

Continued on next page -

Continued from previous page
arms in order to forestall the
"Papist plot."

The current militias have
named the U.S. government as the
central conspirator. Americans
have always been wary of big gov
ernment — except during deep
economic depressions or war.
Absent those conditions, the dis
trust has risen again. Sometimes
this is healthy. But government
bureaucracy is usually more capa
ble of creating confusion than
conspiracy. As a result, a good
conspiracy theory usually
requires more precise targets,
such as ethnic groups engaged in
secretly manipulating their gov
ernment.

While Jewish plots took center
stage in the first half of this centu
ry, they are less often invoked in
the United States today. Of course,
Farrakhan and his ilk are still fry
ing to keep the image alive. But
perhaps American Jews have lost

some of their conspiracy-useful
ness because they have become
too well-known and well-placed
in an integrated nation. Even
when Robertson raises the image
of the Illuminati and of interna
tional bankers, he carefully avoids
mentioning Jews." •• ; .• • •

However, the genius of conspir
acy theory is the idea that the hid
den evil force does not play by the
rules; therefore, those who are
rooting out such an evil aren't
required to play by the rules
either. Anything goes, including .
revoking democratic procedures^
and engaging in terrorism. That is -
why, as the conspiracy birds gath-~ j
er, we need t he'a n t i- ter rorism^
laws now proposed by,.— yes —,c
our government.: And that is why V
Jews, whose security is 'so dosdy .'
tied to the democratic process^
must continue lo', distrust any.j
man or militia offert ing a conspir- i»
acy theory to society's ills — even •
if the Jews are not yet mentioned. £.•,

247

APPENDIX Q

CO
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EWISH BU

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the Sup urt de
ance a stu religious
udent activities. He also
cision to allow religious
on said, "Religion has a
public square belongs to

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Supreme Court have explicitly said that while publi
gionizing is usually OK, public Christianizing is not.
Even the main religious-right organizations are n
ing for official Christianization, perhaps partly b
they know they cannot get it. There are just to

e
e

248

APPENDIX R

Jewish Bulletin,
September 8, 1995

Jews shouldn't involve Congress

in anti-peace

The new battle among American Jews about Israel has
become so bitter because it has spilled over into the Con
gress.

Not many years ago, there was an axiom among Amen-

"can Jews: Criticize Israel to the Israelis, or to other Jews, but

never, never to the American public, and certainly not to

American policy-mak-

. ers.

Those days have gone
forever. Today, a well-
organized group of
American Jews, who
once believed in never
publicly criticizing the
Israeli government, has
launched a strong lobby
ing effort to organize
members of Congress
against the peace
process.

Thomas Friedman of
The New York Times has
described it this way: "A
loose coalition of some
Jewish groups, conserv
ative lawmakers and

f-v:

Earl
Raab

CANDID COMMENTS

the writer is <Hnaor emeritus of
Brandels University's Nathan
Pertmutter Institute for Jewish
Mvocacf. He is executive director
emeritus of trie S.F.-oased Jewish
Community Relations Council.

Israel's Likud Party are
currently spearheading a drive to push through Congress
three initiatives that have a real potential to undermine the
Israeli-Syrian and Israeli-Palestinian negotiations — which
^ is exactly what the activists want."

The wont w«y American Jews could handle this internal
f struggle is by labeling each other as "traitors" to Israel. Nei
ther tide is a traitor, but one is wrong in its strategy for
Israel's future security.

Both sides have in common a distrust of the Palestine
Liberation Organization, Yasser Arafat and the Syrians. But
the pro-Rabin Jews believe that most Palestinians — and
eventually most Syrians — will come around to the under
standing that brought Egypt and Jordan to make a peace
agreement Israel is here to stay, and the onh/ way for the
Arabs to get on with their lives is to hold their noses and
make some peace arrangement

American Jews have a right to oppose the Israeli govern
ment's peace policies. Only history will tell us for sure
whether they are right or wrong. But we can't wait for histo
ry. And at the moment, for most American Jews, the Israeli
government strategy seems far more persuasive than the
likely alternative: continued war, the greater domination of
Hamas and the like among frustrated Palestinians, and an

increase in terrorism. .• ^-—

However, with the active support of a gp^TgTj:
Jews Congress could put roadblocks in the way of
peace process. One has to do with Ming *£&
• ff to Jerusalem, where it Wongs, ofcoune^Butjfe

. . • v*t \,.f

__l of some American
Leader'Bob'Dole introduced a bill th_
tSexible date for the embassy move. Martin Indyk, u.o^
amSssadoVto Israd (and formerly of the American Israel **
Public Affairs Committee in Washington, DC.), has ;saia -_
this bill "would explode the peace process and put us out ot ^
™ --» as a facilitator." Both the Israeli government and^
• -he Dole version, but finally did not opJKMfcp-

Continued from previous page
Golan Heights peacekeeping force that would monitor
the region in the event of an Israel-Syria peace treaty. A
U.S. force may indeed be problematic, but to pass
such a ban prematurely, before the Syrian talks really
get going, is just another effort to stall the peace

process.

However, the most immediate controversy has to do
with the 1994 Middle East Peace Facilitation Act
(MEPFA). which Congress passed to enable the United
States to participate in the peace process and, at Israel's
request, to provide development funds for the Pales
tinian Authority. In September, that law has to be
renewed. The Helms-Pell proposal, a bill by Sens. Jesse
Helms (R-N.C.) and Claiborne Pell (D-R.I.). strength-

ens the criteria for PLO compliance, and is supported v
by most American Jewish organizationsand^Uje.v
Israeli government -; .+#.+>,

But the American Jewish opposition tpjhe peace
process has generated alternative bills with such,,
demands as a four-to-six-month deadline for Arafa? to
completdy disarm Hamas and other undercover mib--
tants and extradite them to Israel. Such thort-terrn
objectives would be impossible to meet even jf Arafat
donned a yarmulke and converted to Zionism.They
are designed simply to scuttle the peace process. ^-Y

The passage of the Helms-Pell msiorijwill.be an
important test of America's support for-the peace
process. Members of Congress would like to hewj »om
you. ">V '• -': '? **

249

APPENDIX S

Anti-Semitism
is not primary
threat of strong
Christian right

A funny thing happened on the way to the annual conven
tion of the Christian Coalition last week Two rabbis were
invited to speak, and they accepted Some Jews were scandal
ized, but exactly why are so many Jews so troubled by the
Christian Coalition?

Many Jews are unhappy with the coalition's politically con
servative agenda. But on
many issues, such as
crime and welfare, at least
three or four out of 10
Jews hold views that are
compatible with those of
the Christian Coalition.
The organizations politi
cally conservative agenda
is not the main threat to
Jews.

Instead, many are
threatened because they
believe the Christian
Coalition is anti-Semitic.
And, indeed, some past
remarks of the organiza
tion's founder. Pat
Robertson, have been
suspect But the Christian
Coalition as an organiza
tion has never espoused anti-Semitism, and neither has Ralph
Reed, its leader. Certainly the Christian Coalition has been a
staunch supporter of Israel, as has Pat Robertson himself.

The invitation to rabbis to speak before the convention
might be seen as a sign of the group's absence of bigotry. It

Earl
Raab

CANDID COMMENTS

The writer is director emeritus of
Brandeis University's Nathan
Perlmutter Institute for Jewish
*Aocacy. He is executive director
emeritus of the S.F. -based Jewish
Community Relations Count*.

could just be a token gesture to take away any taint of anti-
Semitism. Still, no real anti-Semitic organization would do
such a thing.

Jews who always place Christian fundamentalists at the top
of groups by which they feel threatened — even though all
studies and surveys show that the fundamentalists are no
more or less anti-Semitic than other Americans. However, it
is not really the coalition's anti-Semitism that most directly
troubles Jews.

What most threatens Jews is something else, something
more insoluble, h is the Christian fundamentalist belief, pro
tected by the First Amendment, that their religious precepts
are the only ones that will save everyone else. In all good con
science then, would h not be ill-willed of them not to want the
political state to pass laws that their religion says are necessary
for everyone's salvation?

If the Christian fundamentalists were a large majority in
this country and gained political control, they would have to
do just that — not because they are evil or anti-Semitic, but
because of their integrity. Muslim fundamentalists believe all
Muslims should live in a state run by a strict Muslim regime,
for the good of all Muslims. Many Jewish fundamentalists
also believe other Jews should live according to halachah
(Jewish law), which they say benefits all Jews.

American Jews should have something in common with

the 2 million members of the Christian Coalition. Fewer than
one out of 10 Christian Coalition members say either the
budget deficit, taxes or abortion are the most important issues
facing the country; about two-thirds name "moral decline" as
the most pressing issue.

b is an issue with which the Jewish community should be
more concerned. But h would be impossible for Jews to join
with extreme fundamentalists, who, to reverse moral decline,
would want Christianity to become the official religion of the
country, with denominational Christian prayers in the
schools and so forth — all out of the best will for Jews and
others.

Fortunately, most American Christians are not that evan
gelical or fundamentalist If they care at all, they follow the
declarations of the recent popes and the mainstream Protes
tant churches, which say explicitly that Judaism is legitimate
and inviolable in its own right They also worry that their own
denominations will be dominated by the fundamentalists,
and it does not seem at all likely that they will let that happen.

However, h is understandable that Jews are concerned if a
fundamentalist group appears to be gaining political power,
even if h seems to be friendly. Irs fine for rabbis and other
Jews to talk with the Christian Coalition, as long as the rabbis
will not dismiss Jewish concerns about the real fundamental
ist danger.

JEWISH BULLETIN •' SEPTEMBER 15, 1995 29

250

APPENDIX T

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251

APPENDIX U

Reject Farrakhan while supporting
black aspirations

There is a side to the African American community that
we tend to overlook. The dramatic plight and mass of the
black under-class preoccupies us, properly enough. But
upwards of four out of 10 African Americans qualify as
middle class.

To begin with, that means they have professional, white-
collar or skilled blue-collar occupations. But it also identi
fies some of their values and aspirations.

It is of particular importance for Jews to understand this
phenomenon. Louis Farrakhan's march on Washington,
for example, largely consisted of middle-class men. That is
both ominous and encouraging.

After all, Jews have learned the hard way about the prin
ciple of the "poisoned good,* sometimes known as the
"rat-poison* rule for measuring leaders. It is well known
that rat poison can consist of about 90 percent good corn
and 10 percent strychnine. But no one says that because rat
poison contains mostly good things, we should therefore
ignore the small amount of bad. To do so would be fatal at
the dinner table, and it is fatal in politics.

Not all rascals or wrong-minded politicians qualify
under the rat-poison rule, but when they do, their leader
ship has to be 100 percent rejected despite their 90 percent
good statements or deeds. For that reason, although agree
ing with much they had to say, mainstream Republican
leaders totally rejected David Duke and mainstream Jewish
leaders totally rejected Meir Kahane.

Both men crossed a line of malevolence: They attempted
to reduce the humanity of other groups and whip up-

hatred against those groups as a whole. Overt racism is one
line in the human sand that we cannot allow a political
leader to cross. There are special evil and destructive con
sequences. Louis Farrakhan has dearly crossed that line.

On the other hand, to a large extent, the African Ameri
can men who gathered in Washington, D.C., were middle

class or middle-class
oriented. They want to
succeed. They want to
be independent of gov
ernment aid. They want
to fight drug-infested
neighborhoods and the
dissolution of the family.
In fact, most of those
displaying that middle-
class consciousness
want to be integrated,
that old civil rights
word. They know that is
the only way they can
make it. But they want
to help each other
toward that goal by
dealing with each other,
buying from each other,
helping each other's businesses. That is one way they can
help their whole community rise, including those less for
tunate than themselves. And that is the way all large

Earl

CANDID COMMENTS

The writer is executive director
emeritus of the S.F -based Jewish
Community Relations Council. He
Is director emeritus of BranOeis
University's Nathan Perlmutter
Institute for Jewish Mvocacy.

immigrant groups have operated in America, including
Jews.

That is the good in Farrakhan's message, without the
poison.

However, his message is laced with poison, and for that
reason, he must be 100 percent rejected and shunned, lest
his strychnine becomes mixed with everyone's corn. But
we cannot stop at that rejection.

The solid aspirations of the African American middle
class, which has grown so substantially since the civil
rights revolution, and was expressed by so many in Wash
ington, must be encouraged. When the Latino and Asian
American middle dass make it, they tend to fit into main
stream America. But the black middle dass is still more
segregated and self- segregated because of the uniquely
tragic and perverse history between them and America.
And they are still weighed down by the continuing misery
in the ghettoes that they escaped.

Few middle dass blacks have yet swallowed Farrakhan's

poison, but they could someday if the reasons for their

j alienation are not lightened. More of them could swallow

• that poison if we smear them all prematurely with the tar

of Farrakhanism or,- conversely, if we become afraid to

insist on the reasons for rejecting Farrakhan 100 percent.

That is why many Jewish agencies have supported most

, of the aspirations of the marchers while simultaneously

rejecting the march's founder. The stability of the African

£'Amer j can^df%*diis f$*q_ importanftq jthejAmer ican

r* future that we must walk that~dimcult tightrope. '-~^-j'

JEWISH BUUETJN.iVNpVEMBER .3, 19

252

APPENDIX V

•s

JEWISH BULLETIN • FEBRUARY 16, 1996
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253

APPENDIX W

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254

APPENDIX X

JEWISH BULLETIN • NOVEMBER 28, 1997

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255

June 1998

COMPREHENSIVE LIST OF ORAL HISTORIES WITH MEMBERS OF THE
JEWISH COMMUNITY OF THE SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA

Jewish Community Federation Leadership Oral Histories

The Jewish Community Federation Leadership Oral History Project was initiated in
1990 with the sponsorship of the Jewish Community Endowment Fund to record the
recent history of the Jewish Community Federation. Through oral histories with
living past presidents and executive directors of the Federation, the project
documents Jewish philanthropy in the West Bay as spearheaded by the Federation
during the past half-century.

Braun, Jerome (b. 1929), President. Jewish Community Federation of San
Francisco, the Peninsula. Marin and Sonoma Counties. 1979-1980. 1995

Dobbs, Annette R. (b. 1922), President. Jewish Community Federation of San

Francisco, the Peninsula. Marin and Sonoma Counties. 1988-1990. In process.

Feldman, Jesse (b. 1916), President. Jewish Community Federation of San
Francisco, the Peninsula. Marin and Sonoma Counties. 1973-1974. 1991

Goldman, Richard N. (b. 1920), President. Jewish Community Federation of San
Francisco, the Peninsula. Marin and Sonoma Counties. 1981-1982. 1993

Green, Frances D. (b. 1928), President. Jewish Community Federation of San
Francisco, the Peninsula. Marin and Sonoma Counties. 1975-1976. 1996

Haas, Peter E. (b. 1918), President. Jewish Community Federation of San
Francisco, the Peninsula. Marin and Sonoma Counties. 1977-1978. 1994

Heller, Douglas M. (b. 1931), President. Jewish Community Federation of San
Francisco, the Peninsula. Marin and Sonoma Counties. 1994-1996. In process.

Kaufman, Ronald (b. 1934), President, Jewish Community Federation of San

Francisco, the Peninsula. Marin and Sonoma Counties. 1984-1986. In process.

Ladar, Samuel A. (1903-1991), A Reflection on the Early Years of the San
Francisco Jewish Community Federation. 1990

Lowenberg, William J. (b. 1926), President. Jewish Community Federation of San
Francisco, the Peninsula. Marin and Sonoma Counties. 1983-1984. 1996

Lurie, Brian (b. 1942), Former Executive Director. Jewish Community Federation
of San Francisco, the Peninsula. Marin and Sonoma Counties. 1974-1991. 1997

256

Myers, Laurence E. (b. 1922), President. Jewish Community Federation of San
Francisco, the Peninsula. Marin and Sonoma Counties. 1986-1988. 1993

Rothenberg, Alan. President, Jewish Community Federation of San

Francisco, the Peninsula. Marin and Sonoma Counties. 1996-1998. In process.

Seller, Donald (b. 1928), President. Jewish Community Federation of San

Francisco, the Peninsula. Marin and Sonoma Counties. 1990-1992. In process.

Sinton, Robert E. (b. 1915), President. Jewish Community Federation of San
Francisco, the Peninsula. Marin and Sonoma Counties. 1967-1968. 1991

Steinhart, John H. (1917-1994), President. Jewish Community Federation of San
Francisco, the Peninsula. Marin and Sonoma Counties. 1969-1970. 1992

Swig, Melvin M. (1917-1993), President. Jewish Community Federation of San
Francisco, the Peninsula. Marin and Sonoma Counties. 1971-1972. 1992

Swig, Roselyne C. (b. 1930), President. Jewish Community Federation of San

Francisco, the Peninsula. Marin and Sonoma Counties. 1992-1994. In process.

Weintraub, Louis B. (b. 1914), Administration of the San Francisco Jewish
Welfare Fund. 1996

California Jewish Community Oral History Series
of the Judah L. Magnes Memorial Museum

The California Jewish Community Series is a collection of oral history interviews
with persons who have contributed significantly to the Jewish life of the San
Francisco Bay Area, as well as to their professions and the wider community.
Sponsored by the Western Jewish History Center of the Judah L. Magnes Museum, the
interviews are produced by the Regional Oral History Office of The Bancroft
Library.

Altman, Ludwig (1910-1990), A Well-Tempered Musician's Unfinished Journey
Through Life. 1990

Fleishhacker, Mortimer (1907-1976), and Janet Choynski Fleishhacker, Family.
Business, and the San Francisco Community. 1975

Fromm, Alfred (b. 1905), Alfred Fromm: Wines. Music and Lifelong Education.
1988

Haas, Elise Stern (1893-1990), The Appreciation of Quality. 1979

Haas, Walter A., Sr. (1889-1979), Civic. Philanthropic, and Business
Leadership. 1975

Hilborn, Walter S. (1879-1976), Reflections on Legal Practice and Jewish
Community Leadership: New York and Los Angeles. 1907-1973. 1974

257

Hirsch, Marcel (1895-1980), The Responsibilities and Rewards of Involvement.
1981

Koshland, Daniel E., Sr. (1892-1979), The Principle of Sharing. 1971

Koshland, Lucile Heming (1898-1978), Citizen Participation in Government.
1970

Koshland, Robert J. (1893-1989), Volunteer Community Service in Health and
Welfare. 1983

Kuhn, Marshall H. (1916-1978), Marshall H. Kuhn: Catalyst and Teacher; San
Francisco Jewish and Community Leader. 1934-1978. 1979

Magnin, Edgar Fogel (1890-1984), Leader and Personality. 1975

Kinder, Rose (1893-1981), Music. Prayer, and Religious Leadership; Temple
Emanu-El. 1913-1969. 1971

Salz, Helen Arnstein (1883-1978), Sketches of an Improbable Ninety Years.
1975

Schnier, Jacques (1898-1988), A Sculptor's Odyssey. 1987

Sinton, Edgar (1889-1984), Jewish and Community Service in San Francisco, a
Family Tradition. 1978

Stone, Sylvia L. (1902-1984), Lifelong Volunteer in San Francisco. 1983

Treguboff, Sanford M. (1910-1988), Administration of Jewish Philanthropy in
San Francisco. 1988

Other Interviews Related to the Jewish Community

The following interviews, reaching back to histories from the first year of the
Regional Oral History Office, represent a selection of memoirs with individuals
of Jewish background, or individuals whose professions have brought them into
important contact with the greater Jewish community.

Adelson, David (1912-1992), History of the Kaiser Permanente Medical Care
Program. 1990

Arnstein, Lawrence (1880-1979), Community Service in California Public Health
and Social Welfare. 1964

Arnstein, Flora Jacobi (1886-1990), Ongoing: Poetry. Teaching. Family in San
Francisco. 1885-1985. 1985

Braden, Amy Steinhart (1879-1978), Child Welfare and Community Service. 1965

258

Eliaser, Ann (b. 1927), From Grassroots Politics to the Top Dollar:
Fundraising for Candidates and Non-Prof it Agencies. 1983

Falk, Adrian J. (1884-1971), An Interview with Adrian J. Falk. President. S&W
Fine Foods. Inc. 1955

Gerstley, James G. (b. 1907), Executive. U.S. Borax and Chemical Corporation;
Trustee. Pomona College; Civic Leader. San Francisco Asian Art Museum.
1990

Goldberg, Laurette (b. 1932), Early Music Performance in the San Francisco Bay
Area. 1960s-Present . 1997

Goldblatt, Louis (1921-1983), Louis Goldblatt; Working Class Leader in the
ILWU. 1935-1977. 1980

Goldman, Rhoda H. (1924-1996), and Goldman, Richard M. (b. 1920), Experience
and Adventure in the Goldman Charitable Funds. 1994

Haas, Evelyn Danzig (b. 1917), Fine Arts and Family: The San Francisco Museum
of Modern Art. Philanthropy. Writing, and Haas Family Memories. 1997

Haas, Walter A., Jr. (1916-1995), Levi Strauss & Co Executive. Bay Area
Philanthropist, and Owner of the Oakland Athletics. 1995

Hart, Ruth Arnstein (1917-1977), Concern for the Individual: The Berkeley YWCA
and Other Berkeley Organizations. 1978

Heilbron, Louis H. (b. 1907), Most of a. Century: Law and Public Service. 1930s
to 1990s. 1995

Heller, Elinor Raas (1904-1987), A Volunteer Career in Politics. In Higher
Education, and on Governing Boards. 1984

Jenkins, David (1914-1993), The Union Movement, the California Labor School,
and San Francisco Politics. 1993

Katz, Morris (b. 1923), Paul Masson Winery Operations and Management. 1944-
1988. 1990

Kay, Harold (1909-1994), A Berkeley Boy's Service to the Medical Community of
Alameda County. 1935-1994. 1994

Khuner, Felix (1906-1991), A Violinist's Journey from Vienna's Kolisch Quartet
to the San Francisco Symphony and Opera Orchestras. 1996

Kleiner, Morris (1889-1985), Recollections of Family. Community, and Business:
Poland. Canada, and Tacoma. Washington. 1889-1974. 1974

Levi Strauss and Company: Tailors to the World [interviews with Walter A.

Haas, Sr., Daniel E. Koshland, Walter A. Haas, Jr., and Peter E. Haas] 1976

Levison, Alice Gerstle (1873-1973), Family Reminiscences. 1967

259

Lewis, Benjamin, M.D. (b. 1911), History of the Kaiser Pennanente Medical Care
Program. 1986

Lewis, Jonathan C., (b. 1948), Executive Director. California Tax Reform
Association 1978-1979; Legislative Assistant to Senator Nicholas Petris.
1971-1977. 1991 [California State Archives series. To order, see note

below. )

Lewis, Rubin M. (1899-1976), From Butte to Berkeley: The Making of a Thoracic
Surgeon. 1977

Lowdennilk, Walter Clay (1888-1974), Soil. Forest, and Water Conservation and
Reclamation in China. Israel. Africa, and the United States. 1969

Lubin, Rebecca M. (1885-1983), Reminiscences of Mrs. Simon J. Lubin. 1954

Margolis, Larry, (1923-1997), Chief Assistant to the Speaker of the California
Assembly. 1961-1965. 1990 [California State Archives series. To order,
see note below.)

Matyas, Jennie (1895-1988), Jennie Matvas and the ILGWU. 1957

Meyer, Karl F., Dr. Med. Vet., Ph.D. (1884-1974), Medical Research and Public
Health. 1976 [Epidemiologist; Director, Hooper Foundation, UCSF]

Meyer, Otto E. (b. 1903), California Premium Wines and Brandy. 1973

Raab, Earl (b. 1919), Advocate of Minority Rights and Democratic Pluralism.
1998

Reyher, Rebecca Hourwich (1897-1987), Working for Women's Equality. 1978

Roger, Sidney (1914-1994), A Liberal Journalist on the Air and on the
Waterfront: Labor and Political Issues. 1932-1990. 1998

Rosenblatt, Joseph, (b. 1903), EIMCO. Pioneer in Underground Mining Machinery
and Process Equipment. 1926-1963. 1992

Russell, Madeleine Haas (b. 1915), Democratic committeewoman , philanthropist,
In process.

Selvin, Herman F. (1904-1982), The University of California and
California Law and Lawyers. 1920-1978. 1979

Sennett, William (b. 1914), Communist Functionary and Corporate Executive.
1984

Shirpser, Clara (1901-1996), One Woman's Role in Democratic Party Politics:
National. State, and Local. 1950-1973, 1975

Singer, Rita, (b. 1915), Attorney, U.S. Department of Interior. 1944-1976;
California Department of Water Resources. 1977 to present. 1992
[California State Archives series. To order, see note below.)

260

Sinton, Nell (1910-1998), An Adventurous Spirit: The Life of a California
Artist. 1993

Stern, Milton R. (1918-1996), The Learning Society: Continuing Education at
NYU. Michigan, and UC Berkeley. 1946-1991. 1993

Strauss, Simon David, (b. 1911), Market Analyst for Non-ferrous Metals and
Non-metallic Minerals. Journalist. Mining Corporation Executive. 1927- 199A.
1995

Wagner, Eleanor (b. 1917) Independent Political Coalitions; Electoral.
Legislative and Community. 1977

Warschaw, Carmen (b. 1917) A Southern California Perspective on Democratic
Party Politics. 1983 [Available for research only in The Bancroft Library
and the Department of Special Collections, UCLA.]

Wollenberg, Albert Charles, Sr. (1900-1981), To Do the Job Well: A Life in
Legislative, Judicial, and Community Service. 1981

Wyman, Rosalind (b. 1930), "It's a Girl:" Three Terms on the Los Angeles City
Council. 1953-1965: Three Decades in the Democratic party. 1948-1979. 1979

Yedidia, Avram (1911-1990), History of the Kaiser Permanente Medical Care
Program. 1987

Zellerbach, Harold L. (1894-1978), Art. Business, and Public Life in San
Francisco. 1978

Zellerbach, William J. (b. 1919), and Edward Nathan (b. 1920), Zellerbach
Family Fund Innovations in Support of Human Services and the Arts. 1992

Zellerbach, William J. (b. 1919), and Zellerbach, Stephen A. (b. 1927),
Recollections. [Zellerbach Paper Company], 1992

MULTI- INTERVIEWEE PROJECTS

Gumbiner. Robert (b. 1923)

FHP: The Evolution of a Managed Care Health Maintenance Organization.
1955-1992. 1994 [Physician; HMO founder Southern California]
Includes interviews with nine former and present FHP employees, with
early association or with key positions in the company: R. Colleen
Bennett (b. 1934); Burke F. Gumbiner (b. 1950); Harold W. Johnson, III
(b. 1944); David LeSueur (b. 1949); Charles A. Lifschultz (b. 1948);
Jack D. Massimino (b. 1949); Raymond W. Pingle (b. 1947); Westcott W.
Price, III (b. 1939); Henry Schultz (b. 1915).

FHP: The Evolution of a Managed Care Health Maintenance Organization.
1993-1997. Volume II. 1997

Includes interviews with Nick Franklin, senior vice president of FHP Public
Affairs; and Burke F. Gumbiner, FHP senior vice president and president of
FHP insurance group.

261

Land Use Planning Volume III: Four Perspectives on State. Regional, and Local
Mandates for Land-Use Planning. 1960-1982. 1982

Includes a 69-page interview with Ilene Weinreb (b. 1931) "A City Official
Analyzes the Impact of State and Local Planning Mandates on Local
Government . "

Renaissance of Religious Art and Architecture in the San Francisco Bay Area.
1946-1968. Volume II. 1985

Includes interviews with Lucienne Block Dimitroff, "Art, Music, Family,
Fresco, Belief."

Ruth Levi Eis, "The Jewish Artist and the Synagogue."
Victor Ries, "Religious Artistic Expression in Metal Sculpture."

The Suffragists: From Tea-Parties to Prison. 1975

Includes a 61-page interview with Ernestine Hara Kettler (b. 1896), "Behind
Bars."

To order:

Contact the Regional Oral History Office, 486 Library, University of
California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 9A720-6000; 510-642-7395.

To order from California State Archives Series:

Hardbound copies of the transcripts may be ordered from the California
State Archives, 1020 "0" Street, Room 130, Sacramento, California, 95814.

262

INDEX--Earl Raab

affirmative action, 34-37, 164
Alioto, Mayor Joseph, 94
American Association for the

United Nations, 52
American Civil Liberties Union,

57, 58-59, 114
American Israel Public Affairs

Committee [AIPAC] , 61, 62, 103
Anti-Defamation League, 170, 183
anti-Semitism, 27, 122, 124, 138,

162, 170-171, 185, 186. See

also Jewish Community Relations

Council
Apprentice Opportunities

Foundation, 35
Arab students, 124

Barbagelata, John, 41

Bay Area Council for Soviet Jewry,

47, 141-146. See also Soviet

Jewry
Bay Area Human Relations

Clearinghouse, 32-33, 115-116
Becker, William, 26, 30, 34, 35,

42, 43, 116
black- Jewish relations, 37-38,

121-125
Block, Eugene, 19, 21, 22, 32,

60, 189
B'nai B'rith Survey Committee,

21, 23. See also Jewish

Community Relations Council
Boyle, Father Eugene, 40
Brandeis University, 51-52, 193
Bransten, Edward, 45, 71
Brown, Governor Pat, 42
Brown, Willie, 32, 116
Buchanan, Pat, 28, 139, 186

California Association of Mental
Health, 30, 49-50

California Fair Practices

Committee, 33-34
Christian fundamentalists, 137-

140, 185-186
Christopher, Mayor George, 43,

116
church-state issues. See Jewish

Community Relations Council
City College, New York City, 6-10
Colvin, Reynold (Rennie), 44, 63,

124, 165
Commentary Magazine, 18, 19, 21,

37, 97
Council for Civil Unity, 32-33

democratic pluralism. See Jewish

Community Relations Council
dual loyalty, 83-84

education in public schools, 157-

166

English-only issue, 153-156
evangelicals, 185-186

Farrakhan, Louis, 125, 184-185
Feinstein, Mayor Dianne, 46-48,

110

Fine, Rabbi Alvin, 20
Friends of the Farm Workers, 30

Goldman, Rhoda, 110-111
Goldman, Richard, 45
Guyer, Sydnee, 63, 189

Haas, Walter, Sr. , 43, 45

263

Holocaust

memorial, 110-111

other genocides, 111-112.

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