THE JEWISH NEWS Amer.rar. Subse.r44,, S7 • a PHILIP -7 -.f • 57":" . "- 7 "".Y . 1 - . ;•ar. sLomovra Editor and Publisher CALM! M. SLOA4OvITZ CHARLOTTE DUBIN Business Manager City . Editcr Sabbath Scriptural Selection , :he 27:h day t,e reaci in c.,ur syncgocues Pentateuchat portion, Letts :7/ :•:: 4 kiel 45 - 16-46 F:6:h :: -:-- :7: E.-- : Nisan Torah ' Candi. lighting. Frlda,. -15:11 3 5 41 ; r - VOL. LVII. No. 3 Page Four April 3. 1970 Vital Goal. of Current Campaign Detroit Jewry has entered upon a new of the major ftind - raising effort sponsored by era of expanded philanthropy on so high a our community. plane that it may well serve as an example For the first obligation there is need to other communities whose interests in an enlarged volunteer army. and addit:or.a. scores of educational. recreational and social workers are al4ays needed. Then there :s services causes and in Israel's security are the duty of locating the many more w ho are akin to ours. in position to contribute but who have re- Never before in the history of this com- frained from becoming a part of their com- munity has so vast a sum been subscribed as munity. The duties to all of us are so pressing. a demonstration of concern in the welfare of our kinsmen. The accomplishments in ad- the obligation to protect Israel and the insti- vance of the formal inauguration of the tutions we have created in our own commu- Allied Jewish Campaign and the Israel nity are so vital, that enrollment of non- Emergency Fund serve as highest commenda- aligned becomes one of the major needs in a tions for the loyalties and dedicated labors period of crisis. No matter how large the sums that will of the volunteer force that conducts the be subscribed in the present campaign. the drive. need is so great that every additional dollar Now the campaigners are entering upon helps assure economic security for Israel what may well be the most difficult portion and protection for the agencies that have be- of the campaign — the concluding weeks come part of our life as an organized com- during which an additional $3,000.000 must munity. be secured from the givers of smaller It is clear That the more volunteers we amounts than have been recorded until now. have the more certain the successful reach- Once again, as the task of reaching the ing out to the potential contributors. and 12,000 who have • not yet been solicited is the more new donors we have the more hon- pursued, there emerge the two primary needs orable the total response. Let us strive for — of contacting all the potential contributors both, and let us hope that the 812.000.000 and of reaching out into the ranks of those minimum goal for the 1970 campaign will be who have not yet shared in the sacred tasks fully attained. Unbounded Bigotries in the USSR - Anti-Semites cannot be expected to be subject to human disciplines. If they were, they would not he bigoted. But even anti- Semites often show a sense of honor. Not so in the instance of the Russians who have inherited the hatreds of the Black Hundreds of Czarist days. An instance of extreme bigotry is in evi- dence among anti - Semitic Russians who now go so far as to blame Zionists for the Babi Yar massacre. Since the end of the war that brought about the Holocaust, Russia, for unexplain- able reasons, kept the Babi Yar tragedy as a deep, dark secret. The more than 70,000 Jews who were murdered or buried alive there were insignificant to the Russians. Jewish lives apparently have no value to the Russians. But when they go so far, in the -anti- Zionist ,campaign that stems from anti-Semit- ism, to say that Zionists share guilt for Babi Yar, they become the inhumans akin to the Nazis.• It is no wonder that, as has been estab- lished in recent days, 80,000 Jewish families in Russia are asking for permission to emi- grate and to go to Israel. Even the extreme anti-Semitism of the Russian Communist bigots has not deterred them from expressing their view in defiance of Kremlin threats. And it is no wonder that the youth of America have become aroused over the So- viet anti-Semitic outrages. They demonstrated their sentiments in Ann Arbor and in many other American communities. Let the voice of protest against the in- humanities that stem from the Kremlin be heard from every civilized center in the world, until there is an end to the outrages condoned in the Soviet Union! Much of the anti-Israel bias among some young people has been traced to influences from the Kremlin. It is the Soviet-oriented press, whether among the underground col- legiate elements or the handful of Panther- influenced Blacks, that hay been linked to the campaign that calls itself "anti-Zionist" but which is in reality anti-Jewish. When the true nature of such propaganda M en at Crossroads' Personifies Founders of Religious Ideologies Aiming "to bring into focus the images of the men who stood at the ' crossroads and directed the energies of the first centuries before and of' the Common Era," Rabbi Beryl D. Cohon of Brookline, Mass., describes the lives, times and doctrines of the founders of talmudic Judaism and New Testament Christianity in "Men at the Crossroads." This volume, published by Thomas Yoseloff, deals with the era "between Jerusalem and Rome." Rabbi Cohon's approach is indicated in his prefatory comments in which he refers to the issues involved in discussions of the subjects at hand and in his declaration that "there is no understanding of the issues . . unless we stand in reverence before the men who personify the issues of the first century, and try to understand." He provides a summary of his literary effort in this explanatory statement: "In Herod and in Hind we see the raw power of Rome in an antagonistic embrace with the faith in the Law in the academies; in the thinking and activities of the Pharisees, Sadducees, Zealots. Essenes, apocalyptists and Messiaists we observe with fascination the desperate reach for the Messiah who would redeem and heal and unroll a new heaven over a regenerated earth- John the Baptist crying in the wilderness; Jesus transfigured and Jesus on the cross; Pilate sentencing Jesus and washing his hands of all guilt; Saul of Tarsus captivated and transfigured on the road to Damascus into , Paul the Apostle to the gentiles; Josephus walking over the corpses of his comrades whom he had betrayed at Jotapata and then writ- ing his histories, with some pangs of conscience, for a harlot's hire; Ychanan ben Zakkai turning his back on flaming Jerusalem and retiring to an obscure village and laying the foundations for the portable fatherland for his people that has withstood all the on- slaughts of some 2,000 years; Akiba at the stake; the rabbinic masters and the Church fathers rearing their walls, to shut in and to shut out—these personify the passions that have given us our Judeo-Christian civilization, with all its blessings and all its woes." guilt of the Babi Yar massacre, a poison that has seeped into many quarters—includ- ing the poison that becomes evident even Dismemberment of Judea under Herod's will, the period of Herod's rulership which gave him a title of greatness; the roles of Hillel and Shammai and the story of the Jerusalem Academy, the sayings of among a handful of American editors who Hillel which soon became those of Jesus and which developed into the need not be exposed because they expose Golden Rule of the ChristianS, the emergence of the Pharisees and the between them and the Sadducees—these are among the earlier themselves—that the true nature of an un- gulf occurrences with which Rabbi Cohon deals•in his thesis. civilized person emerges to the fore. Marking its 85th anniversary, Yeshiva Not only because it is the oldest American University has a most interesting background. university under Jewish auspices, but be- lts roots are in Yeshiva Etz Chaim. which cause its curriculum includes many subjects functioned on New York's lower East Side. that are vital to a continuation of training of This early theological school merged in 1915 Jewishly-inspired and traditionally trained with the Rabbi Isaac Elhanan Theological leaders for our communities. Yeshiva has Seminary, which was founded in 1897 in earned high status during the years of dedi- memory of the famous Kovno (Lithuania) cated labors by its teachers and supervisory Rabbi Isaac Elhanan Spektor (1817-1896i. It staffs. then began to grow, under the initial leader- Jewish studies. are pursued by the vast ship of Dr. Bernard Rdel into the vast edu- — 1 becomes evident, the youth that may be mis- And these represent the summation of the scholarly efforts to gather led will know how to react to untruth and one volume the data relating to the early period of Christianity and misrepresentation. It is when the anti-Semitic into the era of Jewish experiences which began the divisiveness between bigots in the Soviet Union go to such ex- Judaism and Christianity. tremes as to say that Zionists shared in the Yeshiva University's 85th Anniversary cational complex and into the university which is receiving national acclaim. Under the present leadership of Dr. Sam- uel Belkin, Yeshiva University and its allied theological school continue to progress. oper- ating in four centers with a total student body of 8.000. It is a modern complex and its experiences varied. It has gone through many birthpangs even a student strike in 1908. ; In the extensive study of the New Testament references to the birth of Christianity and the life of Jesus, Rabbi Cohon discusses baptism, social action and prayer. lie declares that "Jesus was saturated from infancy with Pharisaic Judaism" and that he fol- lowed rabbinic masters of the day in the matter of prayer. He shows that the Golden Rule is a version of the rule advinced by Hillel and that "'The Lord's Prayer' is a restatement of the rat). binic affirmations of the Kaddish." There is a strong argument in favor of reclaiming Josephus as a historian and builder in Jewish history and to abandon the charge that he was a traitor. Rabbi Cohon states: "Granting all. his faults, Josephus still stands as a tragic son in the household of Israel in an evil hour, witnessing to the heroic record which he personally snatched from the burning." The descriptive chapters in Yohanan ben Zakkai and on Akiba as majority of the Yeshiva University students. The faculty includes many eminent scholars. well as those on the Christian "Apostles and Martyrs" add significantly to this study. The objectives are the elevation of Jewish Is there only one true pattern of belief, Rabbi Cohon asks, and in cultural values. reply he quotes from Micah: "Let every people walk in the name of the American Jewry benefits immensely from Lord its God; but we will walk in the name of the Lord our God forever this great university and has cause to be and evef." proud of its achievements and of the prom- ises of even greater gifts to our communities in the decades to come. Appendices to this volume include Letter of Paul, recent 'discussions on Deicide, an outline of the works of Josephus. a page from the Tal- mud on the martyrdom of Akiba.