Purely Commentary
There is every indication that 5733
will be a year filled with action and
could well be marked by unusual ac-
complishments. It could well lead to
greater approaches to peace. With
more than two years of comparative
tranquility, with a cease fire that
brought a cessation to active warfare,
with the internal Israel-Arab conflict
much less tense than it has been since
1967, there is hope for some sort of
accord, even if a total peace still is
very remote.
It will be the year of Israel's 25th
anniversary, a year of celebration for
Jewries everywhere. It won't erase dif-
ferences of opinion on a variety of
matters. There won't be uniformity.
Insofar as American Jewry is con-
cerned, there certainly will be unity.
That will make 5733 an important
year.
Confidence in unity is provided by
the commitments that keep repeating
toward the United Jewish Appeal, for
Israel Bonds, the Jewish National
Fund, Hadassah, the needs to keep
labor in a productive state.
Thus, insofar as Israel is concerned,
we can expect continuity in the part-
Looking with confidence and unhesistant
hope for many good things in the year 5733
nership between Diaspora and our tax on the movement of Jews, the vir-
kinsmen in the Jewish state. We will tual property confiscations that are
differ in many respects, yet we will presently practiced in the USSR, the
be respectful toward the disputants. bias against Jews who are seeking
knowledge of their people's history
• • •
and their ancient language—these are
Perhaps it is more urgent that we methods so tyrannical that they de-
should be concerned especially with mand condemnation from the nations
the Diaspora, with the great American of the world. It remains to be seen
Jewish community, with the Jewries whether our owh government and
in many other lands.
other nations will speak out in pro-
Surely, the needs of our fellow Jews test against the indignities.
in the Soviet Union will tax our ener-
American Jewry's uninterrupted la-
gies and will demand action for a bors in defense of Russian Jewry are
long time to come to assure for them assured. There will be no hesitancy
the right to live wherever they may in acting, in defending, in providing
choose. There will be a struggle to necessary aid to our kinsmen. Our
provide for their emigration rights record for aid to the less fortunate
and for their resettlement in Israel. will not be sullied.
• • •
American Jewry won't let them down:
this already has been demonstrated.
Will 5733 be a better year for Jew-
Jewries in other free lands will come ish cultural tasks, in assuring greater
to their aid. It will be necessary to dedication to educational projects and
enlist the aid of non-Jews and of the in the involvement of youth in their
international community to prevent people's labors?
further discrimination and to put an
We are not speaking of survival.
end to the extortions imposed upon Any one who doubts our ability to
those desiring to emigrate from survive had better resume study of
Russia.
Jewish history. It may be chauvinistic
The medieval tactics of imposing a to say that we are indestructible, but
Slomovitz
By Philip
if we were foolishly to refrain from
asserting it, our enemies would say it
for us.
The road to total commitment is
not easy. There are obstacles. There
is an increase in mixed marriages, and
they certainly do not add to numerical
strength. There are other obstruc-
tions, stemming from assimilatory
tendencies, that stand in the way of
unblemished solidarity in our ranks.
Nevertheless, the outlook is not hope-
less. There is rising concern over our
needs among our youth.
We must view the approach of 5733
as being in a spirit of hope and con-
fidence. We believe that a better day
is approaching, that even those who
limit their religious interests to three
days a year may show greater devo-
tion, that intermarriages may begin
to show gains rather than losses
through an embracing of Judaism by
the non-Jewish partners in marriages.
There are more signs of good days
than of bad, and we therefore look
for improvements in the coming year
not as miracles but as normal develop-
ments in the ranks of a wholesome
people that values its heritage.
An Old-New Lesson in Assimilation and Survivalism
A tragedy in Munich compels resumption of seriousness in tackling
Jewish issues, in viewing the status of Jews as Jews and their role vis-a-vis
Israel: and more especially the Jewish position internally, insofar as Jews
had learned from historic experience and had either remained loyal to
legacy or had begun to assimilate.
There is much talk about an impending peace between our kinsmen
in Israel and the Arabs. Perhaps the horror perpetrated by the demented
Arab terrorists will speed peace rather- than deter it. Isn't their act one
of disgrace for all Arabs and are they not thoroughly ashamed that in-
sanity has become the basic Arab trait in human relations and on the
w orld scene?
Insane men bombed planes, they have murdered and threatened
the lives of innocent people, they have attacked pilgrims to the Holy
Land. King Hussein of Jordan and a handful of other sensible Arabs
condemned such outrages, and the rest are under challenge as human
beings.
Perhaps peace agreements will also make it easier for the Arabs
themselves to get rid of the nuisance called terrorism. But if the terror
must still be dealt with, Israel will have to find new means of confronting
the dangers, and the greatest sufferers always will be the Arabs themselves.
It is the internal need that is the most challenging. How does Jewry-
face up to the issues? Do we yield to panic or do we support Israel when
Israel is attacked, just as we must defend a Jewish community when it
is under attack?
It is not a debatable issue. The answer is simple and clear.
We do not abandon our kinsmen. We do not subject ourselves to
fright. We must be practical and rational at the same time. We have
serious obligations to our neighbors, and are duty-bound to be humani-
tarian when dealing with our Arab cousins. But protection of the
Jewish position is first on the agenda. After millenia of sufferings
we do not open another road to gangsters and terrorists to destroy
Jewish freedoms.
Terrorists in Munich created very serious concerns for us. Solving
the tragedy in the setting of the Olympics is first under consideration.
But it also compels us to learn other lessons. It revives the matter of the
former Arab villages on the Lebanese border—Ikrit and Baram.
"Back to Palestine" was the title of an editorial in the New York
Times in which Arie L. Eliav, former secretary general of Histadrut, is
quoted as favoring the Arabs' return to these villages and assistance in
the formation of the proposed Palestinian state for the rehabilitation of
Arab refugees from what is now Israel. We concur on the latter point,
and we would favor resettlement of Arabs in their former homes—pro-
vided Israel is secure and protected.
After the new happenings—attacks on aircraft, threats to embassies,
abuse of international rights in Munich by way of attack on innocent ath-
letes who had come for world contests on a par with sportsmen from Arab
and other countries, there is the vital question: can there be trust in a
community as long as a single demented person can organize a state of
terror as a result of the freedom provided him by his benefactor Israel
who has been chosen for his destruction?
Terrorism in Munich gives new cause for support of the position
taken by Golda Meir and her associates in the Israel government against
reopening of an avenue for possible terror on the Lebanese border. We
know that Jordan and Lebanon would be the first to make peace with
Israel, but their rulers are threatened with assassinations. We know that
peace must be established with Egypt to have validity in the Arab world.
When there is a peace pact, the border villages can be reopened for Arabs.
Until then Israel's security comes first!
These lessons are learned from bitter experience. But it always has
been bitter experience that has assured unity in Israel's ranks. Let there
be that unity! And on this Rosh Hashana let there be a resolve to stand
2—fridev- Seat. 8, 1972
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
pat, never to abandon our positions. This means never abandoning support
for Israel.
There is another matter that calls for vital consideration at this
time. It is the question of assimilation. There is much of it in our ranks.
Perhaps it has increased. Perhaps the increase is more damaging than
ever at this time. There is the certainty of new experiences, such as the
one in Munich on the sad morning after Labor Day, demolishing the assimi-
lationist and escapist attitudes among Jews—and among the young who
are not so well informed.
And some of the older assimilationists also are learning their les-
son. Stephen Birnbaum, a free lance writer, had gone to Germany and
traveled there on Rosh Hashana 5732, - .nd described "the end of assimi
lation." Birnbaum was not—perhaps 1. is not now—an observant Jew.
But he found the echoes of the past in the Germany he visited. The Times'
Sunday editor found it necessary to insert as a special boxed quote this
assertion:
"Five days in West Germany had uncovered an identity I had
labored a lifetime to minimize."
He told of havi g met the handful of surviving Jews in Regensburg.
in that community's s y nagogue where those with the camp numerals on
their arms were unab e to gather a minyan for that Yom Kippur of 5732.
It had been a community of 10,000 and now they could not get a 10th
man for the minyan!
Birnbaum concluded with a telling statement:
"Germany is not the place for an assimilated Jew to visit if he
expected to stay assimilated."
Was it only his visit, and the present experience in Munich, that
proved this statement?
Read your history! Study the role of the Jew in all ages and apply
it to our time—or to any time in history! Learn the lesson of Jewry's role
among the nations of the world! See if this mark of endless Jewish wan-
dering—the Magen Davided valise—which was used to illustrate the Birn-
baum article in the NYTimes, does not symbolize an historic fact while
serving as an admonition to all generations: beware of the realities of un-
ending dangers to Jews as long as the human factors are abandoned in a
sick world!
There is always a factor to re-awaken Jewish consciousness. It has
come up again—on Rosh Hashana! It may serve again as a reminder to
the assimilationist that he has lived a lost cause.
Perhaps it will be another symptom in the scheduled atonement 10
days later. Perhaps it will be a way for many to say: truly, we have sinned!
But history forgives such sinners. There's the return! And while a terrorist
often paves the road to return, it emerges as a reality in Jewish experience.
And while terror never pays, atonement always ends in a return
to dignity and self-respect. Perhaps this is the current message in our
welcome to 5733.
• • •
•
In the shadow
of Dachau, en
the tragic Sept. 5, men went instill*
and sullied every aspect of human rela-
tions! The insanity of the small group
of terrorists was a direct result of en-
couragement they receive from their
governments, from Cairo, Beirut and
Damascus, and only in Amman there
sits a king—Hussein—who had the cour-
age to say that Arab t ists are mad-
men who can not have his support. It
is because these ists were pam-
pered in Moscow that They became
worse than beasts. that even a Hitler
or a Goebbels could not compete with
them in either insanity or bestiality or
both!
People of good will among all na-
tions, of all faiths—with the Germans
now on the side of the human elements
in mankind—now pray for a new era
of peace and justice and an end to the
inhumanity of man to man and the ter-
ror that has dragged Arabs into bloody
gutters. Perhaps 5733 will mark the be-
ginning of the prayed-for new era f or
decency in humanity!