THE JEWISH NEWS
Incorporating The Detroit Jewish Chronicle commencing with issue of July 20, 1951
Member American Association of English-Jewish Newspapers, Michigan Press Association, National Editorial Alnoetar
lion. Published every Friday by The Jewish New• Publishing Co., 17515 W. Nine Mile, Suite 865, Southfield, Mich. 48075.
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PHILIP SLOMOVITZ
Editor and Publisher
CARMI M. SLOMOVITZ
Business Manager
CHARLOTTE DUBIN
City Editor
OUT OF ME GRASS a..
DREW LIEIERWITZ
Advertising Manager
Sabbath Scriptural Selections
This Sabbath, the third day of Shoat, 5733, the following scriptural selections
will be read in our synagogues:
Pentateuchal portion, Itxod. 6:2-9:35. Prophetical portion, Ezekiel 28:25-29:21.
Candle lighting, Friday, January 3, 4:57 pan.
VOL. LXII, No. 17
Page Four
January 5, 1973
Endless Terror: UN's Disgrace
Why shouldn't gangs of terrorists, in
Bangkok or anywhere on earth, feel free to
proceed with threats to the lives of innocent
people? Weren't they given the green light
to do as they pleased by the Arab-dominated
United Nations?
It's shameful enough—that there should
be a perpetuation of insecurity everywhere
on earth. It is even more disgraceful that the
freedoms gained by gangsters should nave
• had the approval of the world organization
that was formed for the purpose of estab-
lishing peace on earth.
Hijackers in the main have failed in every-
thing except the imposition of fears upon
harmless people. Even the most recent inci-
dent of criminality that had led the hijackers
to Cuba resulted in prosecution and the re-
turn of the $2,000,000 ransom money.
The worst incidents in the terrorist acts
were those of the Arab-instigated murders in
Munich and several similar horrors like the
letterbombs and the wholesale massacre at
Lod. With proper and firm steps, the terror
can be stopped—provided there is interna-
tional cooperation.
But the Arabs. the Communist bloc and
their friends in the UN acted otherwise. It
was necessary for them to protect gangster-
ism and at the same time to rebuke the
American delegation in its effort to prevent
international hooliganism. Therefore the out-
rage is imbedded riot only in the insecurity
that has been encouraged but especially by
the failure to secure cooperation from the
world organization in the effort to end the
spreading terror.
In Israel's instance, there is the contin-
uing duty to resist threats, to insist upon
adherence to human decencies, to carry on
the battle against international blackmail and
terrorist trickery.
It's not an easy fight. Lives are endan-
gered. The bandits claim to be conducting a
war, and the only battle they seem to be
able to pursue is the threat to innocent lives.
But Israel gets no encouragement from the
world at large, except for whatever support
comes from the United States and several
American countries. In nearly every show-
down, even the British and the French align
with the Arabs and the Communists against
Israel.
There are several factors not to be over-
looked in the Bangkok experience. The fact
that the Egyptian ambassador was able to
get the Arabs who invaded the embassy to
release the Israelis is an indication of what
can be achieved when the human factor
overrules the inanities that dominate in an
aim to terrorize.
More important, however, was the action
of Thailand's officials. Having learned a
tragic lesson from the Munich outrage, the
Thai police exercised good judgment. Their
determination to avoid a calamity brought
prompt and sensible results. They were suc-
cessful, together with the Egyptian ambassa-
dor, in convincing the "clever" would-be ter-
rorists that their task was a hopeless one,
that Israel does not and will not yield to
blackmail and that they might just as well
seek their own safety and abandon their use-
less aim.
There was an even more important lesson
in Bangkok. The so-called Black September
emissaries were gentlemen. They treated the
Israelis well. They did not torture or rob.
They needed American dollars and they se-
cured them from their captives dollar for
dollar. They may even be said to have showed
compassion. Which goes to prove that there
can be a good relationship between the Jews
and Arabs.
It is clear that if the world at large,
through the UN, were to act against terror-
ism, if nations were to exercise the firmness
the Thai officials displayed, the experienced
agonies from terrors could be averted.
And it is necessary also for the Arabs to
concede once and for all that Israel exists
and is here to stay
It's an endless battle, and Israel struggles
against great odds. What the enemies of the
little but the unyielding state fail to acknowl-
edge is the undying spirit of the attacked
nation. Will they ever learn? Israel keeps
teaching about her indestructibility. Right
now all she can hope for is the solution that
comes with time.
Day School Fact ors in Education
It is to the credit of Max M. Fisher that
major attention to the needs of the day school
factor in Jewish education was inspired under
his leadership as president of the Council of
Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds. But
even before he had begun to encourage great-
er responsibility in communal sharing of the
day school functions there were communities,
notably Philadelphia's, that had begun to pro-
vide substantial allocations toward these edu-
cational media. Detroit is among the most
recent Jewish communities to add the day
schools to the educational systems supported
with income from the Allied Jewish Cam-
paign, and the budgeting conference held last
month to review the needs to be provided
for from the 1973 fund-raising effort has al-
ready been told that an additional $100,000
for day school programing is being considered
in planned allocations.
Thus, a debatable subject is now an ac-
cepted fact. Opposition to the day school idea
stemmed from the hope that the public school
principles will not be abnegated, that one of
the strongest instruments in a democrary, the
educational system that equalizes all citizens,
will not suffer and will not be weakened. In-
stead, new conditions have contributed toward
the spread of the day school program, many
who previously objected to private schools
now are backing parochial or semi-parochial
—some are called progressive — Jewish
schools.
We live in a new era. The changing neigh-
borhoods, the fears in some areas, the desire
to assure a better education for Jewish chil-
dren because of the regrettable impressions
that there is a decline in standards in the
public school system—these are factors in the
new trends.
There is, however, the major aspiration—
that of assuring for our youth a through Jew-
ish education. There is an admission of a
decline in standards previously provided by
the afternoon schools. The need for day
schools is emphasized as vital in striving for
thoroughness in Jewish schooling in an era
when there is all-too-much talk about the
vanishing Jew.
Under any circumstances, it is an estab-
lished fact that the day schools, which already
exceed the communal schools in enrollments
in our immediate community, must not be
denied maximum support. The Detroit Jewish
Welfare Federation already is laboring in that
direction. That's a progressive step in our
educational program.
A Tragic Expose
'Judenrat'—Story of Councils
Under Nazis and Collaboration
What was the role of the Judenrat in the Nazi era in Poland?
Did the Jewish Councils collaborate with the Nazis? Did they betray
a sacred trust and join in rounding up Jews for deportations, or did
they assist in saving J " ws and did many of them resist?
"Judenrat--The Jewish Councils in Eastern Europe Under Nazi
Occupation" is one of the very significant additions to the library de-
voted to the story of the scourge of Nazism. It provides data resulting
from the thorough studies conducted on the subject by Dr. Isaiah
Trunk, who holds a masters degree from the University of Warsaw
and his doctorate in Jewish literature from the Jewish Teachers Semi-
nary in New York. He Is a research associate at
the YIVO Institute
for Jewish Research in New York.
In his "Judenrat," published by Macmillan, Dr. Trunk has in-
corporated the facts he had gathered over a period of
five years from
records about the Jewish Councils and the data he acquired from 405
communities that had undergone the horrors imposed upon them by
the Nazis.
Supposedly self-governing, the Jewish Councils, the creations of the
Ilitlerites, were formed "to serve only one purpose — to execute Nazi
orders regarding the Jewish population." Yet there were instances of
refusals to follow such orders, there were suicides among leaders
selected to operate these councils, there was frequent defiance. Dr.
Trunk's big book of some 700 pages contains the facts necessary for
an understanding of the era and its tragedies.
Indeed, there were instances of collaboration and betrayals, yet
Dr. Trunk admonishes the reader not to submit to generalizations. He
advises that the councils be Judged each In terms of the conditions
that existed In the specific areas, advising to view the council members
as having been "under the pressure of cynical, merciless terror by the
Nazis at all times, that the prospect of being killed sooner or later
was a concrete eventuality, and that every step they took was liable
to postpone or hasten it . Only in the
context of this extraordinary
situation Is it possible to grasp at all or explain the activities of the
Councils or their members."
Never before in Jewish history were Jews subjected to terror
directed by fellow Jews--and the Judenrat therefore became a mark
of disgrace.
In the course of his analysis, Dr. Trunk advises that "cooperation
with the Germans was a threat to spineless Council members. They
were in danger of going to the extreme in cooperating with the Nazis,
not so much in the illusory belief of interceding for the common good
of the Jews as for their own benefit. In an atmosphere of moral
nihilism, corruption of Nazi officialdom and inhuman terror, it
was
not easy for such Council members to be on guard against crossing
the fine demarcation line between
cooperation and collaboration. Com-
pelled to adjust themselves to the 'mentality of their German bosses,
some of the Council members were disposed to adopt their methods.
They were often forced to do so. There were also Councilmen with a
compulsive urge to rule, and participation in the Councils provided
them with the opportunity of relieving their lust for authority and
honor; for this they felt obligated to the Germans."
Dr. Trunk points out on the question of "authority" thus acquired
by Jews from the Germans that "Since the Middle Ages, no other
Jewish body had exercised so much economic, administrative, judicial
and police authority. This alleged
'authority' could corrupt many Coun-
cil members and chairmen.
For the price of continuing in office (and
this could happen only at the mercy of the Nazis), they entered into
open or covert collaboration."
Thus, the author views the existence of Jewish Councils from an
historical point of view, while elaborating upon the evils
that stemmed
from collaboration.
While it is an expose of horror, "Judenrat" is a most valuable
study of a serious aspect of Jewish actions
during most trying times
in history and of human reactions that
reveal the evil in man, although
the exceptions registered martyrdom.