Rescue and Rehabilitation Nahum Sokolow Zionist * History Tribute to Nobel Prize Winner Agnon • Pompidou's Anger Over U.S. Voices Commentary Page 2 VOL. LVI, No. 25 In hundreds of communities through- out the world, Joint Distribution Com- mittee representatives provide assistance to needy and assist in creating a spirit of dignity in the difficult struggle for life in Jewish communities. JDC's role in behalf of Jews in Iran and Israel is described in a series of photographs on Page 48 of this issue. JDC is supported by the United Jewish Appeal v&ith funds received from the Detroit Allied Jewish Campaign. Allied Campaign Opens March 25 Pursuant to the scores of prepara- tory meetings already held in behalf of the Allied Jewish Campaign-Israel Emergency Fund, the annual major fund-raising drive will commence offi- cially at a dinner meeting at the Jewish Center, March 25. A number of ram- paign division meetings are scheduled for this week. Detailed Story on Page 6. THE JEWISH NEWS Michigan Weekly Review of Jewish News Our Statesmen and the Cure for the Middle East Major Duties: Allied Orive and Bonds Editorials Page 4 Michigan's Only English-Jewish Newspaper — Incorporating The Detroit Jewish Chronicle $7.00 Per Year; This Issue 20c 17515 W. 9. Mile Rd., Suite 865, Southfield, Mich. 48075 356 8400 March 6, 1970 $e'.27 - Denigration of Jewish Protests Against Pompidou's Anti-Israel Policies Meets With Resentment Israel's Request for Planes Still Under Study by Nixon WASHINGTON (JTA) — The 30-day deadline which Pres- ident Nixon set for announcing a decision on Israel's re- quest for additional Phantom jet aircraft came and passed Monday with no word from the White House. There was no indication that any decision had been reached. Authoritative Sources said the various options available to the President were Mill being studied. . Nixon said at a press conference Jan. 30 that the U. S. "Will consider the Israelis' arms requests based on the threats to them from states -in the area," and a decision would be made in 30 days. Five days earlier the President said in a message to American-Jewish leaders that the U. S. was prepared to supply military equipment to friendly governments, like Israel's, "to defend the safety of their people." The delay in announcing a decision on the Phantoms was attributed by sources here to events in the Mid East since Jan. 30 and to technical and diplomatic analyses which have compli- cated the President's decision-making task. Congressman Leonard Farbstein said he was certain the United States would accept Israel's order for additional Phantom jets and other military equipment whenever there appears any indication or livelihood that Israel's -deterrent strength in the Middle East is endangered. The New York Democrat, asked by the Jewish_ Telegraphic Agency to comment on the White - House delay in announcing a decision on Israel's request for more Phantoms, said the U. S. would sell more jets to Israel because that country "is the West's only buffer against domina- tion of the Middle East by the Soviet Union." Widespread condemnation is being sounded of attempts to denigrate the actions of Amer- ican. Jewish communities where protests were uttered against the pro-Arab policies of the Pompidou government in France. Charges in some quarters that the protesters were discourteous to a guest from a foreign country and they harmed America's foreign relations with France were resented by Jewish leaders, and there is general praise for the orderly conduct of the pickets at French consulates and those who demonstrated wherever Georges Pompidou visited. There was resentment against the excessive manner in which President Nixon apol- ogized to Pompidou, the general feeling being in support of Americans' right to express their views on human issues and especially one in this instance that involves the security of an entire nation now threatened with extermination by those to whom Pompidou is selling war planes. Protests against the implied rebukes to the Jews of America have been issued by individuals, communities and public officials. In behalf of the city of Oak Park, the following telegram was sent to President Nixon on Tuesday: "The Mayor and Council of Oak Park, Michigan, resent your apology to President Pompidou for conduct which was the exercise of every American's lawful right to peacefully protest conduct harmful to the best interest of the United States. We, and the citizens we represent, take offense at being characterized as part of a minority whose actions were incor- rect when in fact American policy is aided by demonstrating popular support for your own expressed desire for non-escalation of the arms race and peace in the Middle East." The telegram was signed by Mayor Joseph Forbes and Councilmen David H. Shepherd, Sidney L. Shayne, Merton Colburn and Bernard F. Cronk. Among those expressing resentment over the developing situation and Pompidou's cancellation of a scheduled meeting with heads of all American Jewish organizations was the New York State Chapter of Jewish War Veterans of the United States. The chapter stated it had "refused to knuckle under to White House pressure" and cancel a member- (Continued on Pages 11, 12) EDITORIAL: We Condemn Those Who Impugn Our Loyalties Shameful Act of Local Newspaper Whose Biased Editorial Undermines Basic American Principles of Free Expression Rooted in American idealism is the right to protest, the freedom of speech and assembly, rejection of domination by demagogues, potentates or dictators. Inherent in such rights is the similar privilege to express views involving basic human rights and to seek protection for the oppressed wherever they may be. These principles have been in practice from the earliest times of our history. This country protested against Romanian persecution of Jews in the 1870s. There were condemnations of Russia's bigotries in the latter part of the 19th Century, during nearly every decade of the 20th Century whether Russia was under Czarist or Communist rule. Americans have protested against British rule in Ireland, and there is a long record of this nation's plain speaking in defense of just rights for people wherever they May have resided. But because Americans had demonstrated in protest against French injustice toward Israel, a local newspaper had the audacity to revive an old libel—implying allegiance on the part of Zionists. double This is not the time to argue with a writer who may have been misled ignorance into such a charge, and to try to prove to him that there is no such by as Zionist guilt, to convince him that when there are actions by Jews they are thing as such and not by Zionists, or that protests against enemies of Israel arc _ not by Jews limited to Jewish participation but have strong support from the Christian corn- - fuunity. Involved at this time is the audacious, ignorant, outrageous, un-American and Intl-American charge against a loyal element of the American population whose human interests led them to picket lines against those who malign their kinsmen and thereby - contribute toward the policies of elements seeking to destroy an entire nation and late again to-impose genocide upon a large Jewish community. We hold fast to the right to express these views, and we charge the Free Press With having insulted an entire community and of having given credence to the most inhuman and indecent charge ever perpetrated against the Jewish people. We accuse the Free Press of the guilt of having incited to hatred, of having revived an ancient canard and thereby having aligned itself with the criminality of anti-Semitism. What the Free Press did is tantamount to the terror that emanates from Arab countries, with the support of the Kremlin, condoning mass murders of innocent people on civilian airliners. What the Free Press did is worse: it introduced a note of hatred resort to bigotry toward fellow Americans by questioning their loyalty. and by such and venom the writer or writers of the venom in their editorial columns have them- selves lost the right to lecture fellow citizens. We do not yield to any one in our loyalties to this country. It is because of our basic American idealism that we reject anyone's right to rob us of the right to speak out freely for justice, and against intolerance. When a newspaper has the audacity to ask us which of our loyalties comes first—thereby implying dis- the loyalty—we class them immediately with the lunatic fringe that subscribes to hatred that Pope Pius XI branded as "the crime of anti-Semitism." 11e charge the Free Press with that crime ! We accuse the Free Press of publishing an un-American, anti-Semitic, venomous charge that is more damaging to our American institutions than anything that has happened in our midst in these critical times during which we seek to unite the people in this land in support of every human movement. There is indecency in what the Free Press wrote, and it calls for a public apology to every Jew in our community.