Purely Commentary

Freedom is such an elastic word!
Hundreds of millions of people in
many world areas still are under
oppression. Prospects for their libera-
tion and for their right to live lives
unhampered by totalitarianism are
still very remote. Yet, even in lands
of freedom like ours there often
emerge obstacles which stand in the
way of the libertarian ideals all of us
crave.
There is a strong adherence to the
right to dissent in free lands like ours.
The tragic Far Eastern war has
created a passion for protest, and no
matter how bitter the opposition, re-
gardless of some efforts to call the
doves traitors, the peace advocates
speak their minds. Yet, there are limi-
tations even to our freedoms. For-
tunately, these curtailments are, in
the main, self-imposed.
In its totality, the urge for freedom
is vital and there are gains every-
where. Polish students, who have been
branded tools of Zionism, are speak-
ing their minds against the oppressive
Communist rule. And it is primarily
in Czechoslovakia that the right to
self-expression seems to have been
regained. The spirit of the Masaryks
is alive again. Communist extremists
are being outmaneuvered and the
liberals are in the saddle. All we can
now hope is that they will not again
be ousted and that the ideals that
made the Czechs stand out as pillars
in the struggle for justiCe and free-
dom will shine forth again and the
lights that direct people to self-respect
will not be extinguished again.
* * *
At the seder on this Festival of
Freedom, at synagogue services, in
our daily concerns over the status of
man in the months ahead, we pray
for freedom marked by justice and a
large measure of peace. We are in
the midst of serious difficulties for
many nations, on many fronts. Our
Far East involvements are dividing
our nation. The Middle East remains
a boiling cauldron. There are very
few areas in the world that are not
endangered by impending conflicts.
If only we could have more faith
in the international organization in
which we had placed so much hope
as a peace-protecting factor for man-
kind! But power politics, a desire for
control of world areas, the competi-
tive spirit among the dominant nations
in the world and the creation of blocs
to attain the desired power and domi-
nation—these are far from helpful.
The power structures are postponing
amity in the world.
It's not a pretty picture. We'll be
speaking of peace for all mankind as
we study anew the lessons of the

Festival of Freedom. But we will be
under the spell of threats to our
nation, to our kinsmen, to many im-
poverished and downtrodden who
seek a sense of decency in human
relations.
An internal conflict won't help a
bit. The color lines have been drawn
more sharply than ever. Students of
the race issue promise us divisiveness
rather than perpetuation of the idea
that we are "one nation indivisible."
To attain freedom we need vision,
for "without vision a people per-
isheth!" And the emphases on divisive-
ness and the minimum of effort to
correct it is hardly a credit to a great
democracy.
* * *
One factor has been considered too
lightly in the grave internal issue
which emerges as serious as the war
plague.
Responsibility for solving the issues
involved in civil rights devolve upon
both parties, the afflicted and the vast
white population that has inherited
the cancerous guilt for the crime of
slavery. There is need for a measure
of self-help. Jewry's struggle against
oppression was almost entirely of such
a nature. A pioneer in the Zionist
movement, Dr. Leon Pinsker, wrote
under the title "Auto-Emancipation."
He knew that Jews will not be liber-
ated unless they help themselves.
* * *
Freedom is not a license to
depravity, to madness. What hap-
pened on April 4 in Memphis was
sheer madness. An insane white
man was driven by his total loss
a reason to commit murder.
As a result of that depravity
was the mass depravity. An entire
nation was crippled. We have been
held up to mockery in the entire
world. Now so many in our midst
must learn anew the true mean-
ing of the privileges of possessing
freedom. The right to human
liberty does not denote a right to
loot and pillage. The people_ who
were led by Dr. King have a new
responsibility—to prove that they
recognize responsibilities go with
privileges.
Dr. King was a great man and
a fearless fighter for the rights of
the blacks of America. He had writ-
ten a rich chapter of American his-
tory and he gave substance to the
meaning of freedom.
* * *
Have his teachings fallen on deaf
ears? Will the voice of a leader
who reached the mountaintop be
silenced, or will the lesson of his

The Festival of Freedom: Realities
Linked With Loyalty to Libertarianism

non-violence be learned anew?
We pray for sanity among all
the elements who make up this
great nation! Then our freedoms
will be fully earned.
Freedom does not denote selfish-
ness. If we aspire to liberty for our-
selves, we must also guarantee liberty
for our neighbors. That's the major
rule in the civil rights struggle. This,
also, is a duty in our relationship with
others who share with us the task of
creating a wholesome society.
It is a rule that applies both to con-
querors and conquered. It needs em-
phasis in the Middle East. Just because
Jews have been expelled or forced to
leave Moslem countries which now
are becoming Judenrein is no excuse
for our ignoring the elements who
have swelled the population of Israel
after its acquisition of large stretches
of new territory in the Six-Day War.
There is justification to the claim
that Arabs should be given certain
added political rights, that the able
among them should be invited to par-
ticipate in the government, that great-
er concern should be shown for their
needs.
Yet it must be admitted that criti-
cism of Israel's actions all-too-often
is tinged with prejudice. In many
respects. Israelis bend backwards to
nrovide for the Arab ponulation and
to encourage its economic and social
security.
*
*
Liberty as an antonym to slavery
must be accounted for also by a large
measure of self-respect and by refusal
to yield to tyranny and to self-
degradation.
All too often, there are evidences of
self-humiliation that affect the en-
tire people, that harm the retainers
of self-respect as well as those who
lose their respect. It existed under
the Nazis when a handful of- Jews fol-
lowed a Goebbels order and con-
demned American Jewry for its con-
demnation of Hitlerism. It was in evi-
dence in Egypt when a few attacked
Zionism to appease Farouk and Na-
guib and Nasser. There were Jews in
Moslem countries who avowed anti-
Zionism to protect their status. Now
was have a small group of Polish Jews
who are appeasing Gomulka in order
to prove that Zionism is a sin and
that it is unrelated to Judaism.
* * *
We must not judge these spiritual
defectors too harshly. We had the
Marranos in the era of the Spanish
Inquisition. They, too, protected
themselves by a temporary abandon-
ment of faith. In defense of life
much is permissible.

By Philip
Slomovitz

But in the instance of Polish Jewry,
the element that is now defending the
anti-Zionist stand which began as a
sheer anti-Semitic outburst of hatred
has itself been thoroughly assimi-
lated into the present Polish political
attitudes. It did not protest against
the ()lsting of the Joint Distribution
Committee from Poland, after the
great American agency's significant
tasks in Jewry's behalf: it did not
coonerate in pro-Israel efforts.
Russian Jewry, it appears. has been
more courageous. We do not know
of an organized movement of Jews in
the USSR who, in behalf of the entire
pennle supported the Kosygin-Fed-
erenko line at the UN. On the con—_
trarv. in a general way, young",
ha ,, e snolcen out in Russia a
sunpression of free speech. They are
suffering for it, but they have shown
a measure of restraint and self-re-
snect.
It remains to be seen whether
Polish Jewry will adamantly reject
the pressures that it should go along
with its government's slanderous anti-
Zionism. So far, Folkshtirnme has al-
rea.dy Yielded to self-humiliation by
publishing the entire tent of the Go-
s-oeech and by adherence to
the hj-i-otry that has exnloded in
Poland. In some respects the Go-
- +-)e,ech as much as says to the
fe,Y remaining Jews in Poland: get
out!
Self-abnegation is humiliatinst.This
is the type of anti-libertarianif, that
is rejected by the very spirit'otl:
festival we are now ushering in.
* * *

N.

There is no limit to the duties that
devolve upon those who advocate
freedom, who seek it for themselves
and for their neighbors and who
would sacrifice their very lives to
guarantee human liberties.
Passover is the pioneering period
in Jewish and in world history. If
only we will learn the lessons inher-
ent in its teachings! If mankind could
only be trained unselfishly to sustain
the ideals that are imperishably link-
ed with just dealings and of man's
humanity to man! Perhaps the trage-
dies we experience now will serve to
provide the vital lessons to erase
from man's minds all inclinations to
hatred and to suspicions of our neigh-
bors' intentions.If we can rededicate
ourselves to such ideals as we gather
for the inspiring seder ceremonies,
will have fulfilled the most demand-
ing duties imposed upon man: the ob-
ligation to seek freedom, to assure
it for all peoples and to strive for its
realization.

'Why do we deal treacherously every man against his brother • •

—Malachi 2:10

Only one white man committed a heinous crime in
Memphis on the evening of April 4. Only ONE, and he
was white. Yet thousands rioted thereafter, dozens are
now dead, hundreds have been wounded, thousands have
been arrested, an untold num
her of businesses have been
ruined, many buildings have
been razed by fires resulting
from arson.
Invoking the Prophet's
words in Lamentations, we
are now faced with the truth
of how numerous cities that
were full of people now sit
solitary and are as widows...
We have been turned
into marks of derision among
the nations of the world, and
the enemies of this land have
been given reason to gloat:
because the unexpected has Dr. Martin Luther King
happened. The riots of Watts
and Detroit and Newark have been re-enacted. There was
looting and arson and rioting in American cities. They
have disgraced thte credo of the man whose death was
such a shocking and disgraceful expression of hate and
madness. The response to it represented an equal measure
of senselessness.

Dr. Martin Luther King had risen to great heights
as a leader in the movement for dignity and justice and
freedom for the black people. He had elevated their
status. He was a chief_ factor in educating the whites to
an understanding of • the imperative need to erase the
indignities of the past, to bring atonement for the injustice
inherent in slavery. He had just about concluded his
task, when obstruction set in, taking the form of lawless-
ness and disregard for the human values which America
will respect and guarantee.
The tribute to Dr. King therefore is accompanied by
sadness. We had all hoped, prior to April 4, for the fulfill-
ment of a great Prophetic lesson which was among the
favorites of the martyred Dr. King who loved the Bible.
He would surely have wanted all of his people — all of
the people of America—to share gloriously in the admo-
nition in Malachi 2:10:
Have we not all one father?
Hath not one God created us?
.Why do we deal treacherously every man
against his brother,
Profaning the covenant of our fathers?
Now we must learn it anew — and we must teach it
anew to Martin Luther King's people. And when they
have learned it in the spirit of the leader whose life
ended so tragically, brotherhood will be restored and the
mountaintops will resound anew with voices of decency.
When this spirit is restored, the full honor to Dr. King's
memory will not be blighted again.

The memory of Dr. King received glorious tributes.
and there was not a single element in this land that was
not represented in the expressions of sorrow over his
passing and of horror over an outrageous act.
Dr. King came close to the Jewish community. Many
times he had conferred with rabbis and laymen; ---
abhorred anti-Semitism, and he supported the just
of a Zion redeemed. He did not approve of the bigoteu:
campaign against Jews by the extremists among his
people and he spoke out against it firmly. These were
acts in accordance with the credo he adhered to. It was
a noble credo, and his American fellow-citizens as well
as admirers throughout the world said so.
Now commences a battle to fulfill Dr. King's dreams,
to prevent recurrence of bigotry, to end lawlessness.
Only a united people can make a reality of the
dream of an end to the practices of inhumanity of man to
man.
May that realization come as speedily as possible se
that we may see an end to the turbulence that has
threatened to divide this nation.
Only a total erasing of wrongs can possibly assure
elimination of strife. We must restore a sense of security
in America, a spirit of fearlessness when one leaves his
home, an end to the packing of homes in many com-
munities with guns. When neighbors stop fearing neigh-
bors we'll be able to resume a peaceful domestic life.

2—Friday, April 12, 1968

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

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