JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

ever hadani
Farming was based on field crops, fruit, and livestock. The
kibbutz owned two factories: a plastics plant in partnership
with Kibbutz Mishmar ha-Emek, and a biochemical plant. In
2002 the population was 393. The settlement, named after the
South African Zionist Isaac Ochberg, is generally known as
“Gal Ed” (Monument”), a memorial to the settlers’ comrades
who perished in the Holocaust.
Website: www.megido.org.il.
[Efraim Orni]
EVER HADANI (pseudonym of Aharon Feldman; 1899–
1972), Hebrew writer. Born near Pinsk, he immigrated to Palestine
in 1913, and after serving with the Jewish Legion during
World War I, lived in the kibbutzim Maḥanayim and Kefar Giladi.
He edited agricultural publications and from 1948 worked
in the Israel Ministry of Agriculture. Apart from his publications
in many newspapers, he wrote several novels, including
Ẓerif ha-Eẓ (“The Wood Hut,” 1930), an early romantic novel
about Israel’s pioneers, and the trilogy Nahalolim (“Brambles,”
1935); but the bulk of his writing was devoted to the history of
Jewish settlement in Galilee and Samaria. Among his dozen
books on this subject are Ha-Shomer (1931) and Ḥakla’ut ve-
Hityashevut be-Yisrael (1958). His collected works appeared
in seven volumes (1968).
Bibliography: J. Ovray (Ovasi), Ma’amarim u-Reshimot
(1947), 251–8; S. Ginzburg, Be-Massekhet ha-Sifrut (1945), 251–8.
[Getzel Kressel]
EVER MIN HA-HAI (Heb. יַחַה ןִמ רֶ בֵ א; “a limb from a living
animal”), designation of the biblical injunction against removal
of a limb or of a piece of flesh from a living animal and
its consumption. Deuteronomy 12:23 states “and thou shalt
not eat the life with the flesh.” The prohibition forms part of
the Jewish *dietary laws and is one of the seven Noachian
Laws (derived from Gen. 9:4), which, according to rabbinic
view, are incumbent on non-Jews as well (Sanh. 56a–b; see
also Ḥul. 101b–102a; Maim., Yad, Ma’akhalot Asurot 5:1–15;
Sh. Ar., YD 62).
Bibliography: ET, 1 (1947), 48–51; Eisenstein, Dinim, 7.
EVIAN CONFERENCE, conference of 32 nations convened
but not attended by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt on
July 6–14, 1938, at the Hôtel Royal in Evian on the French side
of Lake Geneva to consider the plight of refugees – the euphemistic
way of referring to the Jewish question. The conference
was convened against the backdrop of the German incorporation
of Austria in March 1938, which sparked a massive exodus
of Jews to any country willing to receive them. Convening
the conference was the first American government initiative
regarding refugees.
The Evian Conference was conceived by President Roosevelt
as a grand gesture in response to mounting pressure in
the United States to do something about the refugee problem.
The call for the conference was greeted warmly by the
American Jewish community but it also triggered a hostile
reaction from American isolationist and anti-immigration
forces. Thomas Jenkins, one of those who wanted to restrict
immigration, accused the president of going “on a visionary
excursion into the warm fields of altruism. He forgets the
cold winds of poverty and penury that are sweeping over the
one third of our people who are ill clothed, ill housed, ill fed.”
American Jews and their allies were pressing the admission
of greater numbers of immigrants. Restrictionist forces kept
reminding the president of the Depression, of the domestic
agenda, and of the need to put America first. Roosevelt sought
to balance both concerns, to assuage but also not to provoke.
Walking such a political tightrope hampered any effort to pressure
the international community. Internationally, Romania
flatly refused to attend; it wanted to get rid of its Jews, not to
import new ones, and Switzerland spurned an invitation to
host the conference.
The very invitation to the conference gave an indication
of its reluctance to act. Attending countries were assured that
“no country would be expected to receive more immigrants
than were permitted under existing laws.” Nor would any government
be expected to subsidize refugees: all new programs
would have to be funded by private agencies. American isolationists
were assuaged by the understanding that U.S. quota
system for immigrants would not be touched. Britain was told
that Palestine would not be on the agenda. Two days after
Roosevelt’s announcement of the Evian Conference, Hitler issued
a characteristic statement:
I can only hope that the other world which has such deep sympathy
for these criminals [Jews] will at least be generous enough
to convert this sympathy into practical aid. We on our part are
ready to put all these criminals at the disposal of these countries,
for all I care, even on luxury ships.
The United States delegation was not headed by the president
or the vice president, nor by Secretary of State Cordell
Hull or Undersecretary Summer Welles. Instead, Roosevelt
nominated Myron C. Taylor, a businessman who was one of
his close friends. Great Britain also sent a special delegation.
The other nations used their diplomats in the region. Foreign
leaders got the message. The French premier told his British
counterpart that the American president was acting to soothe
public opinion. Under these circumstances, little was expected
or accomplished.
For nine days the delegates met at the Hôtel Royal,
along with representatives of 39 private relief agencies, 21 of
them Jewish. The world press gave the event extensive coverage.
Delegates from each country rose in turn to profess their
sympathy with the plight of the refugees. They also offered
plausible excuses for declining to open their countries’ doors.
Britain had no room on its small island and refused to open
Palestine to Jewish refugees. The United States spoke abstractly
about “political” refugees, using the euphemism to glide over
the fact that most of the refugees were Jewish. It would fill its
quota, but do no more.
576 ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 6