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. Second-Class Postage Paid at Southfield, Michigan and Additional Mailing Office.. Subscription $8 a year. Foreign 105 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.