Purely Commentary
ORT's Guidelines Can Help Michigan Schools
A report of the Michigan State Chamber of Commerce states that
the schools in our state are not adequately preparing their students
for the world of work. State Chamber President Harry R. Hall clari-
fied this statement by saying:
"For the past decade, the State Chamber has been urging that
vocational-technical education in Michigan be restructured, reappraised
and redefined to meet the educational needs of 70 per cent of the
pupils in primary-secondary schools who do not enter institutions of
higher learning. It is nothing short of eonomic cannibalism to have a
large percentage of the school product cast on the labor market with
no marketable skill."
The State Chamber should utilize the experiences of the ORT, the
Jewish Organization for Rehabilitation Through Training. Many coun-
tries have called upon ORT for guidance in introducing and administer-
ing vocational training programs—and with great success.
ORT's activities in Israel, in Iran, among Algerian Jews in France
and in other lands have been examples of great eduational achievements
in assuring productivity and community responsibility to provide proper
training for all young people. What ORT has done on a worldwide scale
could well serve as a guideline for Michigan as well.
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A Basketful of Crimes . . . Condoned by Indifferent World Powers
There was insanity in the German land of culture
in the 1930s and 1940s, It was engineered by Adolf
Hitter and was known as Nazism. Now, in the pro-
gressive 1970s, the head of a government, Gen.
Idi Amin of Uguanda, has given absolution to the
worst crimes in history.
In penitential Munich, the New Germany con-
sistently abjures the 'brutalities of a not-too-distant
past. The Ugandan president condones the crimes
of beasts who had invaded the international Olym-
pics village and turned one of the dormitories of
athletes into a bloodbath.
It is not yet certain whether a loan that was to
have been given by our government to Uganda has
been canceled out of protest against the idiocy
and the medievalism of Uganda's dictator. While
protests are mounting against Ugandan brutalities,
in the course of expressing shock over Amin's new
anti-Semitic crusade, it may be well to be prepared
in advance with demands upon the nations of the
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world to refrain from giving comfort to the new
Many Canards in Politics
criminal on the world scene.
(In despair, in search for a nachtasyl—a haven
There'll he lots to talk about, to discuss, to create disputes, to
anger and frustrate as well as unify many Americans over many issues— of refuge in the night during Jewry's worst suffer-
ings
from anti-Semitism—Theodor Herzl yielded to
and one labeled the Jewish issue and the Jewish vote" will be among
a British proposal that Uganda be utilized for a
them.
Arnonz the disputable bits was one in Newsweek, under "Reading temporary Jewish homeland. He failed to get sup-
the Media," which stated: "An early, 'unnoticed symptom of Jewish port for that British-made plan. How fortunate that
political attitudes might nave been spotted in the Miami press galleries. it had failed, primarily due to the courageous
No Jewish publication sought accreditation to the Democratic con- opposition of the Russian delegation, under the
vention; three asked to cover the GOP."
leadership of Menahem Ussishkin, at the World
The fact is that the only Jewish news agency, the Jewish Tele- Zionist Congress in Basle in 1903).
graphic Agency, which also publishes the Jewish Daily Bulletin, was
What Amin did—and does! is only part of the
represented by its White House correspondent, Joseph Pollakoff.
terror. There is the Soviet Union, giving comfort to
An item of interest, under the heading "The Jewish Vote at Both the sick-minded who are planting bombs in the
the Democratic and Republican Conventions in 1948," appeared in mails and who boast that they are supporting those
Near East Report, the Washington letter on American policy in the who massacred in Lydda and in Munich. They pon-
Near Fast, edited by I. L. Kenen. It stated:
tificate at the Kremlin, but they are bringing back
Aiming to prove his favorite propaganda thesis that American into an international field the czarist pogroms!
politicians must kowtow to Zionists in order to win elections, David
How else is one to interpret the boast that the
G. Nes recently told K:ltimore Evening Sun readers that President terrorists will be supported with weapons? The
Truman was able to carry New York in his 1948 victory as a result Soviet spokesmen, already having admitted the
of a pledge to Israel.
crime of attempting to impose ransom upon free
But Stanley A. Blumberg, a Baltimore journalist, debunked Nes men who wish to choose where to live, speak of
in a column in the Sun on Aug. 23 in which he recalled that Truman arming bandits at a time when such Arab states
had actually lost New York. Louis Bean, the analyst, has written that as Jordan and Lebanon look upon it with distrust
Truman was elected in 1948 because he won farm states.
and suspicion; at a time when the Russians had been
Nes, U.S. charge in Cairo in 1967, is a prolific anti-Israel prop- ousted from Egypt where they must have sown dis-
agandist who, we have occasionally pointed out, is often uninfluenced
by facts.
It's good that someone as well informed as Si Kenen is on the
scene to expose canards—and there'll be plenty of them in the months
ahead!
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By Philip
The Jewish Way- of Replying to Terror .
Tree-Planting and the Call for Humanism
cord. But how can one expect justice from a tyrant?
There is a Yiddish saying: "Geh zukh yeysher fun
a Cossack.' . . . Try to secure justice from a Cos-
sack!" We shall no doubt have proof of the Russian
compassion in United Nations General Assembly
debates almost momentarily!
There has to be a large measure of courage
wherever there is a demand for plain speaking and
for action against tyranny. After it had been stated
that the U.S. loan to Uganda would be canceled
because of Amin's Nazi position, it is now reported
from Nairobi, Kenya, that Uganda had been told
by U.S. Ambassador Thomas P. •elady that there
is only a "short delay" in granting the $3,000,000
loan, "due to the need to work out certain final
details . . " What kind of business is this, in the
light of the temporary bit of bravery at the UN
when George Bush signaled the U.S. veto of a
measure that was shockingly unjust to Israel? Can't
we have a few more declarations of faith in world
decency?
Already, the U.S. State Department has been
commended by national Jewish organizations. Were
they too hasty?
Pathetically, truth is all too often treated for
convenience, as a matter of political expedience.
When it serves diplomatic purpose, fact is like putty,
to be molded as the statesman chooses, That's how
it has been at the UN; that's how it is with the
big powers.
There will be the Big Debate about terrorists; the
U.S. and Canada will ask for sanctions against hi-
jacking; perhaps there will be an effort to protect
the mails—all in an effort to curb the murders by
the crazed bandits who have gotten enough money
to invade numerous world capitals. But France
plays a game of opposition to protective measures,
Britain is hesitant, Russia is in outspoken opposition
to any attempt to curb crime.
What's to be expected from such international
inanities? Can we look forward to a day when truth
and decency and self-respect will have meaning?
It's the era we live in, and in this atmosphere
when the fears even in American communities super-
sede confidence in fellow human beings, we seem
destined for a lot more trouble before we see the
light of an humanitarian period restored in our
lives.
Book Month Salutes Israel's 25th Year
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'Hashmal' — Electricity in the Bible
In answer to a question about Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Edison
and the discovery of electricity, the popular Detroit Free Press Action
Line gave this explanation:
"All Franklin figured out in 1752 was that you can get quite a
poke when you fly a kite with metal parts in a thunderstorm. Some
Frenchmen had performed the same experiment two years before
Franklin, but Ben got the fame. He didn't discover electricity either.
Englishman Sir Thomas Browne coined the word in 1646. It's a long
way from lightning to light bulbs, and Ben had a lot of other things
on his mind. When he wasn't busy thinking up sayings like 'Fish and
visitors smell in three days' for Poor Richard's Almanac, he was tied
up tinkering with pot-bellied stoves, bifocal glasses and indoor toilets.
Ben was always on hand for political causes too, once started a move-
ment to oust the bald eagle as a national symbol, campaigned to
replace the 'dirty, foul ill-tempered eagle' with the turkey."
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As to electricity: who did discover the high power? We often turn
to the Bible for clues. Israel has utilized terms from the Bible and
Talmud to enrich the spoken Hebrew language, with the result that
hashmal became the popular word for electricity. It is from Ezekiel.
Three times hashmal is mentioned in Ezekiel, as follows:
Ezekiel 1:4: And I looked, and, behold, a stormy wind came out
of the north, a great cloud, with a fire flashing up, so that a bright-
ness was round about it; and out of the midst thereof as the color
of electrum, out of the midst of the fire.
Ezekiel 1:27: And I saw as the color of electrum, as the appear-
ance of fire round about enclosing it, from the appearance of his
loins and upward: and from the appearance of his loins and downward
I saw as it were the appearance of fire, and there was brightness
round about him.
Ezekiel 8:2: Then I beheld, and /0 a likeness as the appearance
of fve - from the appearance of his loins and downward, fire; and
from his loins and upward, as the appearance of brightness, as the
color of electrum.
While the devil often quotes the Bible for his purpose, the Holy
Book doesn't hurt the scientist either.
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Trees Perpetuate Names of Victims
In pre-Israel days in Palestine, every time an Arab uprooted a
tree planted by a Jew on Jewish National Fund land it was replaced
by a dozen additional ones.
Now, in memory of the victims of Arab insanities perpetrated by
terrorists, a forest will be planted in the Modi'in Israel area. Every
time there is an attempt at destruction, Jews rebuild. That's our basic
ideal: to build rather than destroy.
In our own community. the JNE reports that some 85 per cent of
the trees planted as memorials to the Munich victims were by non-
Jews: they had read the call to action in The Jewish News, they re-
ported to JN P.
Planting and building is one of the JeWish answers to terror.
2—Friday, Sept. 22: 1972
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
JEWISH BOOK MONTH
October 27- November 26,1972
Celebrating the 25th Anniversary of the State of Israel
More than 2,000 local groups will conduct programs in observance of Jewish
Book Month, which the Jewish Book Council of the National Jewish Welfare Board
has designated for Oct. 27-Nov. 26. "Israel: Land of the Book"—the theme chosen by
the JIVB's Book Council for this year's observance in honor of Israel's 25th anniver-
sary—is here reproduced in three languages—Unglish, Yiddish and Hebrew. JWB will
also conduct two group consultations, has published program resources and will conduct
other events which have been designed to be useful to Jewish centers and othr corn-
agencies in programs celebrating Israel's 25th anniversary.
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