Yeshiva U. Students From Detroit
Israeli Autlwr and Journalist Amos Elon
-,„
• i
Play Active Role in Scholarship Event
Describes a Tanaticatty Civilian Society'
By CHARLOTTE DUBIN
A country which forces its gen-
erals to retire after 40 must have
something against a military elite.
Tell that to the hysterical children
who have dubbed Israel "a land
of fascist pigs."
One man who has told them,
and, more surprisingly, been lis-
tened to, is Amos Elon, author of
"The Israelis: Founders and Sons."
(See Review, Jewish News, May
21).
Elon, in the United States for
six weeks to promote his book,
said he is as surprised as anyone
to see the Holt, Rinehart product
"take off like a rocket. They tell
me it's being read by non-Jews
in masses. And it's lucky for Is-
rael, because it seems to have
struck a chord in circles So far
critical of Israel,"
The 45-year-old author and
journalist said he has been
swamped with speaking invita-
tions from college students.
"They are confused; they want
to love Israel but they have
heard so much propaganda
against her. My book reassures
them."
For those who are concerned
lest the war conditions forced on
Israel result in her becoming a
military society, Elon does have
reassuring words.
"American Jews who come to
Israel find an Israeli who is averse
to violence, sick and tired—no,
nauseated—by war. We in Israel
have been fortunate: In a constant
state of emergency, warfare and
unending conflict, you would ex-
pect that the martial virtues would
be advanced, but they haven't.
You'd expect an erosion of the
democratic process, yet ours is a
fanatically civilian society.
"Sure, a large part of the Israeli
economy is geared to the military
conflict," he added, "but there
have been no moral consequences.
We do not have a powerful mili-
tary and industrial complex be-
cause the culture of the society
in Israel is a Jewish culture, and
it would run against the grain."
Take Israel's war heroes. "Ezer
Weizman was the only general
who jumped from 'Pentagon' to
cabinet. But now he's finished
politically—unless he gets a wider
political base, that is." (Weizman
Sonic Detroit area students at Yeshiva University go over plans
for the Detroit Friends of Yeshiva University Heritage. Scholarship
Fund Brunch, to be held June 27 at Cong. Shaarey Zedek. Pictured
are (top, from left) : Stern College for Women students Deanne J.
Sukenic, Marilyn Nussbaum and Susan Butrimovitz, Akiva Green-
berg, Stern College instructor, who taught several of the students
in Detroit secondary schools; and students Hannah Ulrych, Susan
Blitz and Carol Perecman, who will speak at the event. Shown in the
bottom photo are Yeshiva College students Seth D. Cohen and Ste-
phen Richmond, Dr. Isaac Bacon, dean of Yeshiva College, and stu-
dent Jacob Tewel.
For Carol Perecman these have been busy June days. The Oak
Park coed, who attends Yeshiva University Stern College for Women,
attended the Yeshiva commencement June 10 to see her fellow student
and then-fiance graduate. On Sunday, she married Joseph Robert Perec-
man at the Young Israel of Oak Woods.
In her spare time, she is studying the speech she will make this
Sunday at Cong. Shaarey Zedek.
In her first public appearance as Mrs. Perecman, the former Carol
Duchan, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Milton Duchan of Harding Ave., Oak
Park, will address the Detroit Friends of Yeshiva University Heritage
Brunch. Representing her classmates, she will bring greetings from
Dr. Samuel Belkin, president of Yeshiva University.
A graduate of Yeshivath Beth Yehuda and Mumford High School,
Mrs. Perecman is majoring in English at Stern. Her sister, Sharon
Duchan Cohen, is a 1967 graduate of Stern College.
Principal speaker at the brunch will be Rabbi Herbert C. Dobrin-
sky, Yeshiva University's associate director of community services
and director of rabbinic placement. Max Sosin, chairman of the 1971
scholarship fund campaign, will chair the brunch. Co-chairmen are
Irwin I. Cohen, Nathan I. Goldin and David Pollack.
Mr. and Mrs. Cohn and Mr. and Mrs. Harold Soble will be in-
ducted into the Yeshiva University Society of Master Builders. Rabbi
Hayim Donin will present each couple with a bronze Master Builder's
Plaque.
• No reservations are needed. All are invited.
ISRAE[.wISMILE 1P111 1 /72041Vt
A Conversation Series
Released by:
By Shlomo Kodesh
TARBUTH FOUNDATION
FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF HEBREW CULTURE
THAT'S THE WAY OF THE WORLD
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Cast : Two mothers. Scene: A telephone conversation.
A:
Good evening. how arc you? What's new at home? You have a "maze]
17? 1:'71
toy" coming to you. Dalia has finished her finals. My Zahara says that
Dalia excelled in all the exams, written and oral.
B:
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know what will be next.
What's there to know? She is 18, and goes into the army. (Tzahal)
There are no tomorrow's w ernes. Everything is clear.
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Zahara didn't want to pass up the army by any means. "I'm tired of
studies," she said. "I want a rest from books and exams."
There's something to that. Dalia's friend, Ziva, married her boy friend
and is not being drafted.
Marriage at this age? Nonsense! What's the rush? "Everything in its
own good time." Thank God, there's no problem of finding a husband
in the state of Israel. Let her enter the army. She'll be on her own,
shell grow up. That's what a girl does in Israel.
B:
Yes, that's what all the girls in Israel think. But for me, a new im-
migrant, it is hard to imagine our Dalia a soldier. It seems only yesterday
B:
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What did you finally decide? Where will she go?
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We decide! She has already decided. Two days after the exams she
went down south. She joined a Nahal unit in the Negev.
A:
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that she was born...
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Yes, she has already reported to the draft board. Nonetheless, not all
the girls are drafted. There are other possibilities: R.O.T.C. marriage, etc.
A:
New Life for Iran Ghetto Family.
Begins With Asslstane
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Thank you. Thank God, the exams are already behind us. It was dif-
want to waste a minute. Now tomorrow's worries begin. ‘Ve don't
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ficult to watch the girl's suffering. She studied day and night. She didn't
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Then the problem is solved. Is there room for worries?
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Dalia's problems were salted, but her mother's worries remain. Well,
that's the way it goes... (the way of the world)
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in Israel for only 20 years.''
As to their charges that the
government f a v o r s immigrants
from the Soviet Union: "When they
complain that the Russian Jews
are getting all the good apart-
ments, they forget that all new
immigrants get new housing. When
the Sephardim came 15-20 years
ago, they too were put into new
housing. But the maabarot were
not as well built as the housing
being put up today. Consequently,
their homes have deteriorated, and
the areas have become slums."
Elon sees it less of a dis
crimination problem than of a
question of poverty. "Israel's
founding fathers dreamed. of
egalitarian society—a dream
AMOS ELON
strong that any social differences
ran counter to the central pub-
is Herut Party leader) As for Gen.
Moshe Dayan's graduation to polit- lic ideology. Salaries always
were well balanced between high
ical power, it could hardly be
and low. Now that has changed
called a meteoric rise, 15 years
after his army retirement. Unlike to some extent, and it's not good.
But what the government must
Weizman, he's a dove on many
do is not put down the well-
issues.
to-do, but push up the poor."
If Elon's book has proved suc-
He added that there is a tax of
cessful abroad, it has created no
less of a storm in his own "con- 87 per cent on any earnings over
trary, lively, soul-searching" coun- $500 per month. A man earn-
try, where many may resent being ing $350 a month pays 60 per cent
in taxes.
told:
Born in Vienna, educated in
"There is a symmetry between
the Israelis' traumatic memory England, sent by his newspaper
Haaretz to report from the United
of holocaust and the neurosis of
States, Germany and Poland, Elon
shame • and anger, humiliation
and white rage that has been brings to his subject a sophistica-
generated among Arabs by Is- tion that marks the new breed of
rael's recurrent successes. Both Israeli intellectual. But it is with
awe that he describes the "Found-
sides are in a sense 'possessed'
ers" of his book.
. . . Whatever their subsequent
follies and outrages might be,
"Fewer than 3,000 fantastically
the punishment of the Arabs for inspired men established this
the sins of Europe must burden
country, hoping to create a new,
the conscience of Israelis for a just society. They brought a tradi-
long time to come."
tion of humaneness and a concern
Yet, Elon said in an interview for social welfare—a utopian idea
here, "The Israeli occupational that is generally unknown today.
regime in the West Bank is the "The Zionists," Elon continued,
most humane in modern history. I "were part of the radically revolu-
don't think in this century there tionary movement of Eastern Eu-
has been another occupational rope. Trotsky and Ben-Gurion
regime without one case of rape. came from the same moral frame-
Fewer than 120 people are cur- work. Their roles could have been
rently imprisoned under suspicion interchanged.
"Much of the -golden dream
of sabotage. You can travel in the
occupied territories for days with- didn't come true," said Elon.
out seeing one Israeli. Of course, "There's an element of irony and
it's no pleasure to be the occupant, sadness to that, but it is more
or the occupied." human."
What Elon views as Israel's
With all her achievements,
gravest internal problems are the there is a mood of melancholy
"church"-state issue ("Change will among Israel's people. "After
come from the young Israelis who the Six-Day War, they thought
don't want to live in a theocracy") peace had come at last. But it
and the integration of Oriental im- didn't come. There's a twist of
migrants into the political system the tragic there that can be seen
and an egalitarian society. in Israeli literature being written.
Elon admits that polities so today.
far remains the.-sport of Ashkena- "Yet," Elon said, "they face the..
zim (Europeans), and the Sephar- situation without losing their moral
dim (Orientals) have not been awareness. It .would be easy to
playing. But he explains: "Don't become beasts: but they don't let
forget the SeAtrelim have been Atfr. happen."
11'lltrt711 71: 17117 ilnor ni^vo1 .a
Excerpted from the book "Israel With A Smile", published by Tarbuth Foundation, 515 Park Ave., N. Y. C. 10022
Her name was Parvine, she was
4 years old, and there she stood,
all eyes and filthy, matted hair,
shuffling from one foot to the
other in her broken sandals, look-
ing around her with a mixture of
fascination and fear.
It was her first morning at the
day care center which the Joint
Distribution Committee (JDC) had
recently organized for preschool
children in the mahalleh (ghetto)
in Teheran, and she had never
seen anything like it in her life.
A young woman came over to
her and gently took her by the
hand, drawing her into the group.
At that moment, 16 years ago,
Parvine's life, like a twig, was
bent in a new direction — and a
teacher was born in Teheran.
48 Friday, June 25, 1971
—
. The parvareshgah (Persian
day care center) • where Par ,
found herself is one of the
which the Joint DiStribution
Committee has created in Iran
as a • way of giving disadvan-
taged children like Parvine ade- .
quate food and health care, ,,as
well as play activities which
broaden their very limitedliori-
zons. Today, the centers are
run by local women's commit:
tees, with JDC's financial sup-
port and technical assiStance...1
'
Financed by funds the 'MC re-
ceives from the United Jewish Ap-
peal, they are part of a whole
range of health and social services
designed to help Iranian Jewry
in their struggle to emerge from
centuries of grinding poverty.
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS