THE JEWISH NEWS
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. 48075.
Phone 356-8400
Subscription $7 a year. Foreign $8.
PHILIP SLOMOVITZ
Editor and Publisher
CHARLOTTE DUBIN
CARMI M. SLOMOVITZ
City Editor
Business M
Sabbath Scriptural Selections
The Sabbath, the 24th day of /yar 5730, the following scriptural selections will
be read in our synagogues:
Pentateuchal portion, Let- it. 26:3-27:34. Prophetical portion, Jeremiah 16:19-17:14.
Rosh Hodesh Sivan Torah reading, June 5, Num. 28:1-15.
Candle lighting, Friday, May 29, 7:41 p.m.
VOL. LVII. No. 11
May 29, 1970
Page Four
Fear Not — Slogan for Survival
If the pro-Arab forces in the world are
aiming at creating panic and to instill fear
among Jews and Israelis with their propa-
ganda in democratic countries and the terror-
ist activities on the Israeli borders, there is
danger of their succeeding.
Seldom is an expression of fear heard in
Jewish or Israeli ranks—due primarily to the
recognition of the reality of Israel's position
which demands adherence to faith and reten-
tion of confidence that any submission to ter-
ror or to a feeling of despair bordering on
possible defeat may mean an admission of
ultimate collapse of Israel's forces and there-
fore of the state itself.
The tensions that have arisen in recent
months, the attrition upon which Nasser de-
pends, the increasing losses suffered by Is-
rael's military forces, may be responsible for
evidence of a possible fear that may serious-
ly affect the conditions that exist in the
Middle East.
A sad example of the developing condi-
tions was an article in a very recent issue of
the Hebrew daily Haaretz of Tel Aviv by one
of its chief writers, Ehud Ben Ezer, which was
entitled "I Am Frightened." The expressed
fear wa over the loss of faith that regardless
of the go d or the bad acts, regardless of the
attitudes f the Israelis, the Arab attitudes
remain uni fluenced, and the only basis on
which the dominant El Fatah forces are per-
forming their terrorist acts is for the total
elimination of the state of Israel.
The writer in Haaretz is concerned that
the personality status of Israelis may be sac-
rificed, that extreme elements may rise to the
surface, that the aspiration for peace may be
destroyed, that fanatics may become a ruling
factor.
Anti-Israel sentiments in the United Na-
tions Security Council are factors in creating
a spirit of despair, and the manner in which
sensation-seeking writers are injecting mys-
terious notes into the discussions relating to
Israel and the Jewish people complicates the
situation.
It has come to a point of such seriousness
that groups that are totally lacking in com-
passion or in consideration for the safety of
nearly 3,000,000 Israeli citizens whose
existence is at stake, are even aiming at
undermining the philanthropic efforts of the
United Jewish Appeal. A very small and very
destructive Jewish group has become an ally
of Arab forces that are making unjustified
accusations involving the relief movements
in Jewry, and there has never been a more
ripe time for unified action by Jews every-
where, especially American Jewry, to prevent
calamity and to avoid misinformation and mis-
representation that could lead to the weaken-
ing of the forces striving for Israel's security.
At the United Nations, it is the combined
Russian and Afro-Asian bloc that is most
damaging to any effort for peace, and when
the story of current events is fully recorded
the role of Great Britain and France will
emerge among the most inhuman and most
inconsiderate.
By aligning themselves with the destruc-
tive forces in the international organization,
Britain and France became strange bedfel-
lows with Israel's enemies. Their votes in the
Security Council will be recorded as marks
of shame for their people.
Fortunately, there are Englishmen and
Frenchmen who know better. A distinguished
member of the British House of Commons,
Julian Amery, son of the late Leopold Amery
who as secretary of the British War Cabinet
in World War I was among the chief support-
ers of the Balfour Declaration, writing in the
London Daily Telegraph, advocated firmness
in dealing with the USSR in the present crisis
and he stated in the course of his article:
The Western Powers must make it clear that
they would respond vigorously to any Soviet efforts
to strengthen Egypt, whether with war material
or men. Meanwhile, they should do nothing to re-
strain Israeli retaliation against military targets
in Egypt until Egypt agrees to return to the cease
fire.
To return to the cease fire without having ob-
tained any of ber political objectives would be a
serious humiliation for the Soviet Union. Voices
will, accordingly, be raised in the West calling for
concessions to save the Russians' or Nasser's face.
The West must, of course, avoid provocative
postures and, as over Cuba, make it as easy as
possible for the Russians to climb down. President
Nixon was probably right, therefore, at this stage,
to refuse to sanction the sale to Israel of Phan-
toms. These could in any case only have been
delivered in 1971.
But It would be quite wrong to concede to the
Russians at the conference table what they have
failed to extract by blackmail and force. The ob-
jective of Western policy is not only to achieve
peace between Israel and her neighbors but to
achieve it under conditions which remove the
threat of Soviet predominance in the Middle East.
We have every interest in working for a just
settlement between Israel and her two pro-Western
neighbors, Jordan and Lebanon. We have no
comparable reason for urging the Israelis to with-
draw from Sinai or the Golan Heights unless and
until Russia is prepared to relax her grip on Egypt
and Syria.
We differ with his condoning of President
Nixon's delays in providing immediate mili-
tary aid to Israel, but in the main he presents
a challenge to the Western powers and he
points to a grave danger in the Middle East.
The time has come for all who seek peace to
take a firm stand in demanding of their gov-
ernments that there should be an end to
lethargy in the present crisis.
In the meantime we have a major respon-
sibility in Jewish ranks to avoid panic, to
recognize the basic duties to retain confidence
in Israel's role and to strive for the only
factor that is most vital in the aim for peace:
Israel's survival. Panic undermines action.
Fears do not help. Our chief objective now is
to eliminate the scare and to hold firm to the
hope that peace can come and that the threat
of another genocide can be totally eliminated.
Several months ago, foreseeing a possible
yielding to panic, Israel's defense minister,
Moshe Dayan, addressing a religious group,
turned to the Bible to admonish Jews not to
fear, using the Hebrew term al tir'ah, fear
not,
N
-
5
X
He quoted the verse in Genesis 15:1:
‘,. . . the word of the Lord came to
Abram, in a vision, saying,
'Fear not, Abram,
I am a shield to you,
our reward shall be very great.'"
Now we turn to Jewry, to Israel and Israe-
lis, and quote these words again, "Fear not,"
as an encouragement not to panic, to retain
faith. Because only without fear can there be
survival. This is our platform in this grave
hour for Israel: Fear not!
—i
Sarna's Genesis Study Defines
Israel's Monotheistic Creation
While meant primarily for the teacher, "Understanding Genesis—
the Heritage of Biblical Israel" by Prof. Nahum M. Sarna of Brandeis
University, issued as a paperback by Schocken Books, serves a distinct
purpose for laymen who are inclined to deeper study and to research
into lore about the Bible.
First published in 1966, this scholarly work is sponsored by the
Melton Research Center of the Jewish Theological Seminary of Amer-
ica.
Various movements involved in Bible studies, in the criticisms,
analyses, dating, other elements in researching sources and back-
grounds, are thoroughly accounted for.
Dr. Sarna offers a definition: "Understanding Genesis" strives.
first and foremost, to impart to the general reader a body of essential
knowledge, the distillation and integration of the results of specialized
research in many varied disciplines that shed light upon the biblical
text .. "
While not decrying "the importance of course—criticism," Dr.
Sarna's study points to failures of the critical school. A basic flaw,
he contends, is "its failure to distinguish between the date of the final
editing of a work and the age of the material contained therein."
"In actual fact," Dr. Sarna states, "no advanced cultural or
religious tradition has ever existed in a vacuum; it cannot therefore
be studied in isolation. This is all the more true of the people of
Israel, who strode upon the stage of history at a time when the
great civilizations of history had already passed their prime. By the
testimony of its own traditions, this people came into contact with
many cultures . . . "
The relationship of Israel to its land is a factor in Dr. Sarna's
study. He states: "In the long history of Palestine never, apart
from Israel's exceptional experience, has the fate of the country
been tied exclusively, or primarily, to the fortunes of any one
people. Topographical consideration proved to be a stumbling
block to the achievement of unity. From Dan to the north to
Beersheba in the south is only about 160 miles, while from the
Mediterranean coast to Rabboth Amon in the east is only 90
miles. Yet within this small area can be experienced a most
unusual combination of boundaries, a wide diversity of topography
and extreme variations in climatic conditions, the like of which
would be hard to duplicate in a much vaster area.. . .
"Miraculous it indeed is that in all of history, Israel alone, a
foreigner in the land, managed to establish a nation on this soil,
to convert it into a 'holy land,' and inextricably to bind up its
own destiny with it forevermore. Israel, alone, was able to with-
stand and overcome the powerful erosive and homogenizing forces
of contemporary paganism to develop a unique religlo-moral civil-
ization of universal and eternal value. This was an accomplish.
ment of stupendous proportions, rendered all the more astonish-
ing because it came about in an area of the world in which the
burden of tradition lay very heavily on men and in which other
peoples always exhibited an amazing conservatism and an obstinate
resistance to change."
Of importance is the point advanced by Dr. Sarna of the emphasis
in his study on "the importance of difference . . . to delineate those
areas in which Israel parted company with its neighbors." Thus he
brings out "the essential religious concepts that underlie the Genesis
narratives and which are characteristic of the Bible as a whole. On
the one hand, there can be no doubt whatsoever that the cumulative
effect of the parallels is to confirm that Israel shared the common
cultural patrimony of the ancient Near Eastern world. On the other
hand, it is equally incontrovertible that where indebtedness exists there
has been a considerable amount of careful selectivity and adaptation.
The old mythological motifs were not slavishly borrowed; there is no
question here of uncreative imitation. Sometimes, in fact, these motifs
seem to have been deliberately used in order to empty them of their
polytheistic content and to fill them with totally new meaning, re-
fined, dynamic and vibrant. At other times, they have been torn out
of their life context to become mere literary devices, static and con-
ventionalized."
Therein he outlines the apparent "uniqueness of biblical literature":
The Hebrew cosmology represents a revolutionary break with the
contemporary world, a parting of the spiritual ways that involved
the undermining of the entire prevailing mythological world-view.
These new ideas of Israel transcended, by far, the range of the religi-
ous concepts of the ancient world. . . . The germ of the monotheistic
idea may, indeed, be found outside of Israel; but nowhere has mono-
theism ever been found historically as an outgrowth and development
of polytheism. . . . Israel's monotheism constituted a new creation, a
revolution in religion, a sudden transformation."