▪ ▪ THE JEWISH NEWS LA1301L DAY 1970 Incorporating The Detroit Jewish Chronicle commencing with issue of July 20, 1951 Member American Associaton of Englsh-Jewlsh 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 Suti.cription $8 a year. Foreign 56. — -- CHARLOTTE DUBIN CARMI M. SLOMOVITZ PHILIP SLOMOVITZ City Editor Business Manager Editor and Publisher II Sabbath Scriptural Selections This Sabbath, the fourth day of Elul. 5730, the following scriptural selections will be read in our synagogues: Pentateuchal portion, Deut. 16:18-21:9. Prophetical portion, Isaiah 51:12-52:12. Candle lighting, Friday. Sept 4, 6:43 p.m. VOL. LVII, No. 25 Page Four September 4, 1970 Israel's Moral Role in Quest for Peace As the new editor-in-chief of the impor- tant British periodical, New Statesman. Richard C. Crossman, the British parliamen- tarian who had spoken on many Zionist platforms and who had been a close friend of Dr. Chaim Weizmann, addressed an open letter to Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban admonishing that the Jewish state cannot survive "a decade of military domination." It was not an unfriendly letter, but it called for a reply because of its pessimism. and the reply was fashioned in the brilliant stylistic eloquence of Mr. Eban. resulting in an analysis of existing conditions that should be read. by all concerned about the Middle East—especially Gamal Abdel Nasser. There was an allusion to Prussianism in the military aspects of the issues involved, and Mr. Eban suggested that Nasser should be approached in the same spirit as Mr. Crossman addressed himself to Israel. And because the guns were silenced at the time Mr. Eban wrote and there is need for uplift- ing gentle voices for peace. Mr. Eban sug- gested to Mr. Crossman: "If you find that the diversity, turbulence, paradox and indiscipline of our democracy are far from Prussian I may suggest that you write your next open letter to President Nasser. An authori- tative socialist voice calling Nasser to the peace table is overdue. There has been too much in- dulgence of Habash and Arafat and their exclusive fantasies about a purely Arab Middle East without a sovereign Israel as part of its memory, reality and hope. There has been too much docile accept- ance by part of the Left of a rampant Israelophobia with its ugly Stuermer-like expression portraying Israel as lying cutside the human context. In your letter, if you feel like writing it, you could remind President Nasser that the idea of an Israel-Egyp- tian treaty as the gateway to a new era of peace and "evelopment in the Middle East would evoke his better days. For Israel respected the pro- gressive ideals of the Egyptian revolution in its early phase. All of these have been corrupted by the senseless war against Israel. Nasserism once stood for independence and the expulsion of foreign armies. It has now become the vehicle of Soviet penetration and therefore of Great Power confron- tation. Nasserism saw an open nationalized Suez Canal as the symbol of Egypt's new international status. Today the Egyptian canal is closed while the Israeli route to southern waters is open. Finally Nasser once had a vision of social reform which has been lost in the debris of expensive and destructive wars. In two decades the Arab states and Israel have spent 520,000,000,000 on war. Five billion of those would have opened the gates of dignity and work to all the Palestinian refugees. "Is there no moral here? Perhaps President Nasser would not resent your reminder that the principles cf his revolution can still be recaptured by renouncing war with Israel and seeking a final peace. You may tell him in full confidence that there are untapped sources of effort and imagina- tion in Israel which his willingness to negotiate would release and put to work for the establish- ment of a new order of relations in our region. Today as I write to you from Jerusalem the guns are silent in Suez: it is time for sane and gentle voices to be lifted up—and heard." The role of Israel is of a fighting nation but not a warrior state: • "The main achievement of Israel since 1967 is to have remained a fighting nation without becoming a warrior state. Nor do I think that you will find us dominated by 'soldiers.' I put the word in quotation marks because it conjures up a special breed which does not belong to our experience. We have nothing here but civilians, some of whom are temporarily under arms. We may show you a pilot who shot down eight aircraft bringing in the fruit from a kibutz orchard. And when a cease fire and negotiating framework of balanced risk came into view last week, we put parliamentary con- venience aside in order to grasp it with full military support." There is a serious lesson for all of Israel's antagonists in another Eban reminder to Mr. Crossman in which are outlined these non- militaristic qualities of a nation fighting for its very life: "I do not know how long the attainment of peace will take: but you really need not worry lest we shall have become Prussian by the time it comes about. When you come to see us, you will not find us paralyzed or obsessed by war. You will find that 40,000 Arabs from neighboring lands have visited the west bank this summer. You will se a freer movement of men and goods across the whole of the former Palestine area than at any time since 1948. You will be astonished in Jerusalem by an unceasing contact of Jews, Arabs and thousands of all faiths which puts the segregation and fanatical exclusiveness of tae Jordanian occupation to shame. You will find a vast flow of visitors to Israel from all over the world. You will see hundreds of the future leaders of developing countries studying here. Israel, of course, is a society which has its imperfections: but these are redeemed by the free and lucid criticism of them as well as by the constant quest Sholom Aleichem is an undying name. As the great Yiddish for improvement. In short: you will find that you are as far from Prussia as you can get in the humorist, the magnitude of his creative efforts retains significance both in the language in which his stories were written modern world." (Sholom Aleichem s Great Fair Depicts 'Scenes From Chi ldhood' ' There are many other factors to be taken into consideration, such as the new anti- Semitism that is cloaked in anti-Zionism. Mr. Eban offers this advice to Mr. Crossman: and in many translations. His characters now form significant casts on the English stage. He was able to complete only the first two sections of his biography and under the title "The Great Fair —Scenes From My Childhood" his experiences form a most fascinating narrative. First published in an English translation by Tamara Kahana in 1955, this valuable work is now made available by the Mac- millan Co. as a Colliers Book paperback. In it Shalom Aleichem the Writer describes Sholom Aleichem the Man and it commences with this deeply Sholom Aleichem moving dedication as a gift to his children: "To you 1 dedicate in Work of works, my book of books, the song of songs of my soul. I realize that this book—just as any man's handiwork—is not without defect. But who knows better than you what it has cost me.' I have given to it of my best: MY HEART. Read it from time to time. Perhaps you, or your children, will learn something from it—to love our people and to appreciate their spiritual treasures which lie scattered in all the dark corners of our great Exile, in this great world. This would be the best reward for my faithful, more-than-30-years' labor in our mother tongue and literature." Into every chapter of this book Sholom Aleichem has, indeed, poured his heart's blood and his devotion to his people's fate. It is a great work that rises to enormous heights because it depicts in the admirable style of a great writer the torments as well as the joys of his people. And in the process he introduces the humor that perpetu- ates the legacy he has left for Jewry and for mankind. Whether he deals with the ghetto characters or with their festivals, their foods and their clothes, their hunger and their satiation with the faith that keeps them strong—he has incorporated in his autobiography the major experiences of a man of vision and an artist who has woven tales of glory as well as pathos. When, for example, he describes "Stepmother's Vocabulary," he emerges anew as the creator of a character and her character- istics that give emphasis to the humor that has made the name Sholom Aleichem synonymous with the geniuses in his art. Some of the appellations may sound like curses, but for those who know the background of the shtetl they describe characters whose language is rough but whose hearts are softer than their words. In that chapter also is the lexicon that has made this work famous. Here we have a typical reaction—the manner in which characters in Jewish tradition laugh at themselves, and for humorists there is a great lesson in concocting stories while painting personalities. It is remarkable how the great humorist caught the spirit of devo- tion and how well he has portrayed government officials, cantors, musicians, those who struggle for their very existence and a bit about the more affluent. There are dreams and realities in this autobiographical account, and all are the result of life that had its tensions and sufferings and needed an interpreter who could create laughter. In this paperback we have the marvelous samples of the laughs that were inspired by a man who himself suffered from the agonies of a world under stress and duress and who could nevertheless turn each experience into lighter vein, transforming martyrs into saints and heroes. It is a "Great Fair" that we experience in Sholom Aleichem's "Scenes From Childhood." "I am less concerned than you about whether Israel has provided 'a cure for anti-Semitism in the West.' I am more worried about the new inter- national 'progressive' type of anti-Semitism. In its old form anti-Semitism 'said that certain rights were due to all individuals except Jews. In its modern expression it affirms that national indi- viduality and sovereignty are inherently gocd, and if they are Arab one simply cannot have enough of them. They come under question only if they happen to be Jewish. The distinction between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism is a semantic fic- tion: both converge on the unifying principle of discrimination. "Since we do not disagree on this I come to the two points in which I cannot share your dis- comfort. Yeti are clearly anxious about the effects of victory on Israel's character and conduct: and you have a picture of an Israel dominated by formidable 'soldiers' who are hostile to cease fire and recalcitrant to political initiatives. Now it is better that the editor of the New Statesman should be agitated than that he should be compla- cent: but when you get worried about whether we 'ape the ethos of a Prussian state' your agitation carries you much too far. One of the disadvantages of your status in the last six years is that you could not come to Israel very often. The public 'media' on which you had to rely are more fasci- nated by violence than by peaceful action. For these reasons you, like others, have not seen Israel in a full-length mirror. All Israeli life is lived today in the memory of the peril that we faced in 1967. Every one of us had good reason to fear the very worst that can befall a man, his family, his home and his nation. In our people's history many things are too strange to be believed: but nothing is too terrible to have happened. We have vig- orously survived the danger with consequent injury to our martyr's image. And if you ask me as you seem to do, 'What have you gained by victory?' I answer simply: 'Everything that we would have lost without it.' "I am just as sensitive as you guess to the moral dangers which could arise from the ab- normal relationship between a democratic society and a disenfranchised Arab community living un- der its control. This abnormality was not sought: it was created by war, and it can be cured by peace. Peace would replace cease-fire lines by negotiated and agreed boundaries to which armed forces would be withdrawn: and, in any solution which my present cabinet colleagues would en- dorse, the majority of the 2,000,000 Palestinian Arabs would be the citizens of an Arab state, (beginning on our newly negotiated eastern fron- tier), whose structure, name and regime they "Songs of the Wilshire Boulevard (Los Angeles) Temple Camps" would be free to determine." by Charles Feldman has been published by the Union of American Richard Crossman's warnings to Israel Hebrew Congregations camp and education department. This interesting stapled soft-cover book includes Sabbath and other received definition of the status of Jewry UAHC Publishes Camp Songs and of the position of Israel ably framed in the language of the brilliant spokesman for the Israelis, Abba Ebn. We pray that Arabs, too, will read this and the other declarations by the Israelis—many of them frantic plead- ings for peace and amity—in order that the unnecessary war may really see its end. liturgical selections, two Psalms (23 and 24), songs of Bible land and a "Just for Fun" section that contains "Tum Balalaika," "Brotherhood Calypso," "When the Messiah Comes" and "Krakovyak." The selection is suitable for all camps and renders a valuable serv- ice for congregational youth. Available from UAHC congregations also is its new 1970 textbook catalogue which reveals the issuance of a large variety of books suit- able for studies in youth and adult classes.