THE JEWISH NEWS

Incorporating The Detroit Jewish Chronicle commencing with issue of July 20, 1951

Member American Association of English—Jewish Newspapers, Michigan Press Association, National Editorial
Association.
Published every Friday by The Jewish News Publishing Co., 17100 West Seven Mlle Road, Detroit, Mich. 48235.
VE 8-9364. Subscription $7 a year. Foreign $8.

Second Class Postage Paid at Detroit. Michigan

PHILIP SLOMOVITZ

Editor and Publisher

CARMI M. SLOMOVITZ

Business Manager

SIDNEY SHMARAK

Advertising.

Manager

CHARLOTTE DUBIN

City Editor

Sabbath Scriptural Selections

This Sabbath, the ninth day of Adar, 5728, the following scriptural selections
will be read in our synagogues:
Pentateuchal portions: Exodus 27:20-30:10, Deuteronomy 25:17-19. Prophetical
portion: 1 Samuel 15:2-34.

Tora Readings for Fast of Esther, Wednesday

Pentateuchal portion: Exodus 32:11-14, 34:1-10. Prophetical
55:6-56:8.

portion:

Isaiah

Tora Reading for Purim, Thursday

Pentateuchal portion. Exodus, 17:8-16.
Book of Esther will be read at Wednesday night services.

Candle lighting, Friday, March 8, 6:11 p.m.

VOL. LII No. 25

Page Four

March 8, 1968

Purim and 'the Bending of the Knee'

Purim, to be observed universally next
Wednesday night and Thursday, retains its
manifold lessons and again will be marked as
one of our most joyous festivals. Unlike other
holiday celebrations which are mainly serious,
emphasizing the spiritual, Purim, like Hanu-
ka, is an occasion for resort to the lighter
vein, for happy family and community festivi-
ties. On Purim there was a triumph over
anti-Semitism, just as on Hanuka we have
the victory of the Maccabees over tyranny
and religious oppression.
That is why, on Purim, we have carnivals,
masquerade parties, resort to puns and humor
and to the staging of family. schools' and
community dramatic presentations based on
the humor that stems from the delineations
of Haman as a villain and Ahasuerus as an
idiot.
This, however, is not the major objective
for the Purim festival. Because we are con-
stantly threatened by prejudice, since we
must always depend upon the courage of
Jews who uphold Jewish ideals and come to
their people's aid in time of need, we draw
upon the lessons narrated in the Book of
Esther as guides for our everyday actions.
We always refer to the fearlessness of
Mordecai as an example to be emulated by
Jews of all ages who should never be silent
in the face of threats to our people's existence.
There is constant reference to Esther as
a symbol of a person who has the ears of the
rulers in power wherever they may live and
who exposes cruelty and threat and asks for
intercession against tyranny.
It must be remembered, as we learn from
the story of Esther and her uncle, that Morde-
cai refused "to bend the knee" to Haman.
This is significant. There have been too many
occasions when knee bending has led to tra-

gedy, when failure to resist tyranny only
encouraged the tyrants. Do not bend the knee
must remain a slogan for all peoples, at all
times, if indecency and intolerance and op-
pression is to be erased from man's vocabu-
lary.
Then there is the lesson of anti-Semitism.
In the Purim story there is the Hamanic
inspiration to hatred as he addresses himself
to Ahasuerus: "There is a group of people
living under your domain whose laws and
conceptions are different from other people."
It is this type of appeal to hatred that has
created misery through the generations. It
remains one of the basic incitements to de-
struction and has all-too-often led to mass
murders.
With this sense of bias still dominating
many unknowing and bigoted people, the
striving to uncover the sinfulness of such a
view remains a major obligation upon man-
kind. It is especially a challenge to Jewry
and we must always fight it, seeking to en-
lighten our neighbors to understand the
values of good neighborliness even though we
may differ in religious observances, in politi-
cal views, in social relationships.
Since this lesson of Purim also remains
vital, we know the obligation: that we and our
children and their children should know how
to face all issues, how to battle against anti-
Semitism, how to overcome prejudices that
are detrimental to all humanity.
Purim's lessons are vital. They are per-
petuated in history and in our people's ex-
periences. As we prepare for the joyous
observance we also seek ways of perpetuating
the battle against bigotry and oppression. In
that fashion Purim retains the glory of a
the battle against bigotry and oppression.

Will USSR Heed Peti tion Against Bigotry?

In spite of the vicious Soviet attack on
Israel and world Jewry at the United Nations
during the debates on the Arab-Israel conflict,
contrary to confirmed revelations of the per-
secution of Jews and the ban on Jewish cul-
tural activities in the USSR, Russian apolo-
gists continue to lay claim to just treatment
of their Jewish fellow citizens. An amazing
display of ignorance of existing conditions
and of indifference to the plight of nearly
3,000,000 Russian Jews was displayed
recently when the anti-Israel anti-Zionist
Council for Judaism saw fit to publish an
article by a non-Jewish Toronto correspondent
who served his newspaper in Russia, main-
taining that Jews suffer discrimination no
less than do other religious groups.
Because there still exists this type of
apathy, as well as the Russian insistence upon
distortion of facts, we find it necessary to
call attention to "A Petition" that was ad-
dressed to the president of the Council of
Nationalities of the Supreme Soviet of the
USSR by Svyatoslav Yosypovych Karavansky,
a Soviet Ukrainian writer, who called "atten-
tion to the discrimination against the Jewish
population . . . because the attitude of a
society toward its Jewish population is the
litmus paper indicating that society's level of
international consciousness."
Karava:nsky charged that "the closing
down of Jewish cultural institutions (news-
papers, schools, theaters, publishing houses);
the execution of Jewish cultural workers;
discrimination in admitting Jews to institu-
tions of higher and secondary learning —
these are all practices that flourished in the
era of the personality
seem
. .....
....... cult. . It would
.

that the condemnation of the cult should have
also put an end to these flagrant injustices,
yet this did not occur. To appease public
opinion abroad, Nikita Khrushchev (who paid
little attention to public opinion in the Soviet
Union itself) was forced to 'rehabilitate' the
innocent Jewish cultural leaders executed
under Stalin. But he went no further."
In his petition, which has been reprinted
in full in the New Leader, Karavansky asks:
"Where are the Jewish theaters now, the
newspapers and publishing houses, the
schools? In Odessa, there are approximately
150,000 Jews, but not one Jewish school. And
what about admission to institutions of higher
learning? Again in Odessa, where 25 per cent
of the population is Jewish, Jews make up
only 3-4 per cent of the student body at these
institutions. That is the unofficial quota main-
tained in processing admissions. Yet Jewish
students applying 'to institutions of higher
learning in other cities are told: 'You have a
school in Odessa — go to your 'own' school.'
Students from the Urals, Siberia, Moscow,
Tula, Saratox (all with their own large, well-
established universities) are permitted to
study in Odessa, where they are provided with
specially constructed dormitories, while local
Jewish students (as well as the local Ukrain-
ians and Moldavians) are severely restricted
in their right to a higher education."
Will Russia provide succor where neces-
sary and will the Supreme Soviet Council
listen to Karavansky and other appeals?
Past experiences do not offer much hope for
fair action in the Soviet Union, and it becomes
necessary constantly to expose the antagon-
ism that is especially directed . at. the Jews.

Evelyn Anthony's 'The Rendezvous'

Powerful Novel Reveals Nazis'
'Terrors Vengeance by Israelis

"The Rendezvous" by Evelyn Anthony, published by Coward-McCann
(200 Madison, N.Y.). is a novel about the last war—about a Nazi who
was in charge of interrogations of caught resistance fighters in Paris,
who was kind to a young girl who refused to divulge the name of the
head of the anti-Nazi group, who was transferred to the Russian front
and later was held responsible for the murder of 4,000 Jews in Lodz

Undoubtedly inspired by the Eichmann case and by the hunt by
1.sraelis for Nazi criminals, this dramatic narrative has many inter-
esting angles. There are love affairs, and the Israel intelligence force
emerges as a formidable factor in attaining vengeance for the Nazi
crimes. There are psychiatric factors and the introduction of attitudes
toward Jews by non-Jews, including an unworkable mixed marriage.

The heroine is the young French girl, Therese Masson, who is
first interrogated by Gestapo Colonel Alfred Brunnerman, who is
forced to turn her over to a brutal associate who tortures her. In
the course of the initial interrogation a love affair develops between
Therese and the Gestapo colonel—an affair that is resumed 20 years
later, resulting in the Gestapo colonel's execution by Israelis.

At the outset, the author calls attention to interesting data
in this prefaced note to her novel: "So much, both fictional and
otherwise, has been written about the methods employed by the
Gestapo in interrogation that it hardly seems necessary to say
that the details in this book are authentic, but I must explain that
the fourth floor referred to as the interrogation center in the
Avenue Fich was in fact located in the Rue des Saussaies. I have
taken the liberty of amalgamating the two places. The practice of
therapeutic amnesia is comparatively new to Western psychiatric
medicine, but has long been used in the Soviet Union for politi-
cal purposes.
"Israeli Intelligence operates in the United States, and is
reputed to have its nerve center in New York itself. In 1966 two
former members of the German SS were reported to have been
executed by the Israelis in Madrid and Buenos Aires respectively
for crimes committed against the Jewish people during the last war."

This annotation has several implications. It affirms the fact about
the terroristic methods that were used in interrogating members of
resistance forces and others who were tortured by Nazis during the
war. It makes the claim that there are organized forces everywhere
searching for Nazi criminals. It explains the act, by the Jewish doctor
in "The Rendezvous"—Joe Kaplan—in effecting the "therapeutic
amnesia" which caused Therese Masson to forget her background,
to consent to marry Robert Bradford, Dr. Kaplan's friend and asso-
ciate in the U. S. army while in Paris; it explains the loveless union
with Bradford for 16 years and the resumption of her love affair with
Brunnerman, who posed as the architect Karl Amstat when her memory

was restored to her during the initial sex act.
The novel is intriguing. It is a splendidly developed theme about
the former Nazi who might have evaded the pursuers from the Israel
intelligence forces had he not been misled into believing that be was
being watched by a car following him, after the intelligence group
had lost track of him: he confused a car that followed the same road
he did for along stretch as being those of Israelis. It was Dr. Kaplan,
a member of the group assisting Israelis in tracking down criminals -
who directed the searchers in locating the former SS colonel who had
been kind to the woman he fell in love with and who was guilty of the
mass murder of the Lodz Jews on orders from his superiors.
Brunnerman, fearing the pursuers, called Dr. Kaplan, arranged

to step out of his motel room to be shot — on condition that Therese
should not be harmed, and that's how vengeance was attained.
The Nazi crime is exposed here. The Israeli role is indicated.
Israe l 's intell i gence forces emerge as well organized. The ease with
which the Nazi Brunnerman capitulated is a bit puzzling but it is part
of a very dramatic story.
"The Rendezvous" has other interesting angles, especially the
one involving attitudes toward Jews in the Bradford-Kaplan society.
the hatred for Kaplan of his non-Jewish wife who leaves him when
she learns about his association with Israel's intelligence forces, and
other aspects of interfaith relationships. It is an excellent novel and
serves as a reminder of the terrors of the Holocaust as well as of the
role of Nazis who acted on orders from superiors.

