THE JEWISH NEWS
ans utvoi DOWN WO‘Q.9
Incorporating The Detroit Jewish Chronicle commencing with issue of July 20, 1951
Member American Associaton of Englsh-Jewish Newspapers, Michigan Press Association, National Editorial Association
Published every Friday by The Jewish News Publishing Co., 17515 W. Nine Mile, Suite 865, Southfield, Mich. 98075.
Phone 356-8400
Subscription $7 a year. Foreign $8.
PHILIP SLOMOVITZ
Editor and Publisher
CARMI M. SLOMOVITZ
Business Manager
CHARLOTTE DUBIN
City Editor
Sabbath Scriptural Selections
This Sabbath, the 24th day of Shecat, 5730, the following scriptural selections will'
be read in our synagogues:
Pentateuchal portion. Exod. 18:1-20:23. Prophetical portion. Isaiah 6:1-7:6, 9:5, 6.
Torah reading for first day of Rosh Hodes?! Adar L, Friday. Feb. 6. Num. 28:1-15.
Candle lighting. Friday, Jan. 30,
VOL. LVI. No. 20
Page Four
5:25 p.m.
January
311, 1970
Defense - of Life and Will to Live
Recognition of the seriousness of the
Mid East situation once again has drawn
many Christian spokesmen into the ranks of
those who are concerned that the position of
Israel should not be reduced into a state
of helplessness and that any effort to im-
pose a peace upon the Israelis should not
be tolerated. This calls for dissent with
our own government, but the right to differ
when a people's just rights and very secur-
ity are involved has always been fully con-
doned and there is justification in the action
that was taken in Washington by the na-
tional emergency conference during the past
weekend.
Since Israel does not ask for participa-
tion in the conflict by American troops—in
fact, all such proposals are being rejected
by Israelis who wish to resort only to their
own manpower in the present struggle—the
very suggestion of even-handedness repre-
sents a misinterpretation of the Israeli posi-
tion. In view of the large amount of arms
that go to the Arab states, from Russia,
France, Great Britain and the United States,
there is just cause for Israel's only request:
that she be given the means to retain her
sovereignty.
What has happened in recent months is
that Arab propagandists have invaded the
British Isles -where members of Parliament
have acted detrimentally to Israel and where
the press has been filled with anti-Israel
statements; and there has been a reduction
in assertions by members of both houses of
Why Israel Shoots - - in
Why is Israel constantly bombarding
Egyptian positions as if a full-scale war were
in progress?
Is there justification for the constant re-
sort to air attacks on Nasser's positions, some
very close to Cairo?
A report from Beirut. Lebanon, to the
Christian Science Monitor by the usually
well informed correspondent, John K. Cooley,
a few days ago, revealed the following:
"Please report your course. What do you see?"
rasped an impatient voice in Russian.
"Classified, classified, (chastniye, chastniye),"
came the clear answer, crackling out of the 23-
meter shortwave radio band. "This is a classified
conversation. I will report when I return."
The frequency was one often used by the con-
trol tower of Cairo West Air Base. The first speak-
er was a Soviet ground-control officer. The second
was a Soviet naval pilot flying a jet reconnais-
sance aircraft, probably a Tupolev TU-16 bomber,
over the Mediterranean.
This is not the stuff of a Grade C film about
the cold war. It was an actual conversation
monitored by accident and recorded by a news-
man here very recently.
Soviet naval pilots, who fly wide-ranging recon-
naissance missions from Cairo West Air Base,
were first noted by the United States Sixth Fleet
about a year ago. They seem to have become
a permanent part of a permanent Soviet presence
in Egypt.
Israel's growing air offensive, striking at tar-
gets as close as nine miles from Cairo, has hit
areas where Soviet personnel may well be sta-
tioned.
Some reports say a handful of Soviet experts
and instructors serving in Egypt have actually
been killed in action.
Moscow, eager not to endanger its good work-
ing relationship with President Nasser's govern-
ment, has not confirmed this.
President Nasser said in an interview last
March that the number of Soviet personnel in
Egypt was "less than 1,000." He added, "I am
going to ask for more."
Egypt 'reCently ' confided to
Soviet
Congress in our nation's capital in Israel's
defense. The latter trend is partially being
reversed and there is hope that senators and
representatives in Congress will speak out
anew against the prejudicial tendencies that
threatened Israel.
There are indications that the press of
this country once again recognizes the need
of protecting Israel's role in the world and
perhaps we shall witness renewed firmness
against the threats to destroy Israel.
In the approach to even-handedness there
remains the admission that there can be no
peace between peoples until and unless the
peoples involved speak to one another. Will
they finally sit down and converse regard-
ing the various aspects of the troubled situ- I
4.1174.
'An Oasis of Hope' for Yiddish
•
s een
S in Doroshkin s R.eview
ation? This must not be viewed as im-
possible.
What's the status of Yiddish in this country? How did it serve as
and only by condoning threats and
refusing to recognize the validity of claims a powerful medium of expression during the years of large migrations
country? What's its future?
to life and liberty by the one nation — Israel to this
Milton Doroshkin, who holds a professorship at Bronx Community
— as it is confronted by 14 antagonistic - College of the City University of New York, in "Yiddish in America—
states will the chances for amity become im Social and Cultural Foundations," published by Fairleigh Dickinson
possible.
University Press, traces an interesting history that is not necessarily
Demonstrations for justice like those wit - that of Yiddish—since there are related subjects such as the theater,
-
landsmanshaften,
the press—but a rich chapter in American Jewish
nessed in Washington the past weekend un
doubtedly will contribute towards the recog - history.
Every aspect touched upon serves to draw attention to significant
nition of Israel's rights to life and American I
Jewry's justified position that it must speak media in which Jews were involved, primarily on the East Side of
New York
The Yiddish press gets a fairly good review, although it Is
far from complete. It does not touch upon current conditions, but
the early story is well covered. For instance, Prof. Doroshkin
comments extensively on the interest of the late Louis Marshall
in a Yiddish newspaper. With the eminent orator Zvi Hirsch
Maslainsky he formed the Jewish World. But it did not last. After
a couple of years it was sold to Ezekiel Sarasohn, publisher of
the Tageblatt .
Lucy S. Davidowicz is quoted that "The Jewish World failed because
o ru ic
l cla not encompass the worlds of uptown and downtown Jews of
it ce
out in defense of kinsmen whose very exis-
tence is at stake. Else there will be another
Auschwitz, and that is unthinkable and im-
possible in the light of the determined will
of Jews everywhere that there shall never
again be a recurrence of any Holocaust,
anywhere- on earth.
Democraces
Defense Am
i
Other aspects of the Yiddish press, its successes and failures are
Western colleagues the extreme irritation of Soviet part of this study.
officers after Israel's capture last Dec. 26 of a
Dr. Doroshkin describes the Yiddish press as mirroring the striv-
complete new seven-ton Egypt radar set in a ings of the people, the Jewish community's day-to-day activities, rep-
commando raid near Ras Gharib on the Gulf of resenting a high involvement by the people.
Suez coast.
"The history of the American Yiddish press," he asserts,
The Soviet presence in Egypt is obvious though
"appears to this writer to reflect well the sociology of American
hardly obtrusive. Russian programs are broadcast
Jews during the era of 1880 to 1924. The formation and trans-
formation of the Yiddish press intimately involved all the other
daily over Cairo Radio for Soviet personnel.
Yiddish cultural institutions, notably the literature, the theater,
In Zamalek, Cairo's fashionable residential
trade union, labor and political life."
quarter, several blocks of apartments and villas
Similarly, therefore, Dr. Doroshkin deals with the latter functions
have become Russian-speaking neighborhoods.
Robust Soviet housewives chatter as they emerge as well and touches extensively upon the theater, the labor union
from the Soviet Army commissary with bulging developments, the political life.
But as in the instance of the press he does not entirely define
shopping bags.
Though their rigorous training program and all of them. Like the press, the theater, in its present status, is not
often bluff manners have not endeared them to adequately analyzed. He makes much of the election of Meyer London
Egyptians, the Russians are getting results, West- to Congress and the jubilation by the Forverts (that's how he spells
ern military attaches say. the name of the Jewish Forward), but the political analyses are not
Slowly but surely, the Egyptian Army, shat- total
Still, the many appendices, the various tabular listings of figures
tered in 1967 and totally reequipped since by the
Soviet Union, is becoming a better fighting force. of landsmanshaften, immigration data and other listings provide ma-
terial for the social study this book represents.
Despite this, President Nasser is said to have
Dr. Doroshkin does not refer to a Yiddish daily that appeared
told Yasir Arafat, chairman of the Palestine Lib-
briefly in Detroit, but he comments upon the process of language
eration Organization (PLO), that Egypt would be
changes in synagogues from Hebrew and Yiddish to German and
ready for war only in five years' time.
English and gives Detroit's Temple Beth El as an example.
This being the case, Israel's policy be-
He is quite excited about the volume of Yiddish poems "Onions
comes fully understandable.
and Cucumbers and Plums" edited by Sarah Zweig Betsky and pub-
I lished by Wayne State University Press in 1958. His lengthy comment
With the Russian intrusions into the area
about this book is sort of a review in which he lists the minutest
becoming so menacing, it no longer becomes details such as thanks to congregation Shaarey Zedek and to an artist
necessary to explain why the unending at- for use of his Torah pointers.
tacks, with an aim to destroy the positions
Such are the rather shallow portions of a book the factual data
that are being built up by the USSR for Nas - in which serve a good purpose sociologically and culturally. An in-
ser.
stance worth referring to is the list of Jewish fraternal orders in 1924
I
Independent Order Brith Abraham had more lodges and more
Unless these military posts are destroyed, when
members than Bnai Brith.
Israel's status will be weakened.
The comment on the "federating" of landsmanshaften also is in-
It is true that the U. S. Sixth Fleet also is teresting. Generally, the status of landsmanshaften is well outlined
in the Mediterranian and this country can ill here.
The WSU book "Onions and Cucumbers and Plums" is among
afford to have Russia gain a stronger position
the factors that give the author the opportunity to say that there
through a built-up Nasser military machine.
is now a "reminding of Yiddish cultural awareness in the breast
What Israel does also protects the Ameri-
of second generation American Jews who have been imbued with
the national culture in their childhood but have practically lost it
can position in the Middle East.
somewhere in growing up."
Israel is not shooting at random: it aims
"In the desert of pessimism" Dr. Doroshkin envisions "an oasis
at preventing a strengthened Soviet-Nasser of hope" and he sees a good future for Yiddish.
position. More power to such efforts to pro-
His assertion: "It still lives in the body of the contemporary
tect Israel and to save America's role in the Jewish community where its influettce is being continuously felt and
-middie.East!•..;.‘
1