Fr-

Detroit's School
Crisis Judged
By Our Traditions

A Truism From
the Talmud:
Jerusalem was destroyed
because its children were in
the streets (see Jeremiah
6:11), not in the schools.

—liamnuna, Babylonian Amura, in Tal-
mud, Sabbath.

How Spokesmen for

School System Treat

the Issue That Kept
the Schools Closed:

The Hebrew Teachers Association
kept asking for arbitration, but the
school's superintenden, Hs execu-
tive secretary and the UHS presi-
dent rejected the request ... Even
a Din Torah was refused . . . Now
the bitter clash has ended with a
community's gratitude that the chil-
dren will be back in school.

Why did a community permit such a situation? More in Purely Commentary, Page 2

Applicable
to Averted

School Crisis

The world abides only
for the sake of school
children.

--Judah HoNail. quoted
in Talmud. Sabbath.

THE JEWISH NEWS

A Weekly Review

C*1:1

of Jewish Events

Duty to
Educate:

"Thou shalt teach them
diligently unto thy chil-
dren."

—Deut. 6:7.

Michigan's Only English-Jewish Newspaper

Vol. Dal. No. 22

-V— 17515 W. 9 Mile, Suite 865, Southfield, Mich. 48075 356-8400 $8.00 Per Year; This Issue 25c

February 9, 1973

Expect Immediate Reopening of Schools

UHS Contract Signed Thursday,

Thus Averting Communal Crisis

Congress Trains Its Big Guns
on Soviet 'Education Tax'

By JOSEPH POLAKOFF
JTA Washington Bureau Chief
WASHINGTON (JTA) — More than half of the membership of
the House joined in sponsoring the "Freedom of Emigration Act"
aimed at causing the Soviet Union to eliminate the head tax and other
measures preventing Soviet Jews and others who wish to emigrate
from doing so.
The legislation was introduced formally in the House Wednesday
by Rep. Wilbur D. Mills (D. Ark.), chairman of the powerful Ways
and Means Committee, and Rep. Charles A. Vanik (D. Ohio) who
authored the act and had initiated action against Soviet emigration
discrimination in the last Congress.
With the United States and the Soviet governments having signed
a widespread trade agreement last September, the proposed legis-
lation would restrain the U.S. from giving the USSR most-favored-
nation treatment until, in Vanik's words, the Soviet Union "ceases its
discriminatory emigration policies."
The Cleveland legislator has held that the U.S. —"as a nation
cannot overlook denigration of human rights for the sake of com-
mercial gain."
Pointing out that the U.S. government had under Republican
President Howard Taft acted against Russia 62 years ago in a
similar situation, Vanik observed that "this unsavory experience is
not new in our relations with Russia." In 1911, he said, because of
the pogroms against Russian Jews at that time, the U.S. government
canceled the 79-year-old commercial treaty of 1832 to "demonstrate
our abhorrence of that officially condoned policy of terror."
The Mills-Vanik Emigration Act parallels legislation proposed
last October by Sen. Henry M. Jackson (D. Wash) which 76 senators
—more than three-quarters of that chamber's 100 members—supported
and also that which Vanik himself had proposed shortly afterward
as a companion with 161 sponsors.
(Continued on Page 26)

A serious communal crisis was averted when the Hebrew Teachers Association
signed a contract on Thursday morning. Classes are expected to reopen immediately, after
many bitter sessions which threatened to divide the community.
The Jewish News learns that it was thanks to the influence of George Zeltxer,
a vice president of the Jewish Welfare Federation, that the accord was reached. It was
his effort, together with that of Julian Tobias, chairman of the Federation's education
committee, that compelled negotiations through the AFL-CIO.
An agreement originally was reached last Friday, and it was expected that schools
would reopen last Monday. But the teachers, meeting Saturday night, all day Monday
and again all day Tuesday, rejected the contract.
They demanded resumption of the second session—closing of which was approved
overwhelmingly by the UHS board of directors at a meeting at noon on Jan. 30; and
they insisted on payment in full for the two weeks—now three weeks—during which the
schools were closed. Zelter's return from Washington Wednesday night forced resumption
of negotiations with assurances teachers' demands would be met.
The teachers and many parents claimed that stumbling blocks to negotiations were
the superintendent of the schools, the schools' executive secretary and the president of
UHS, Norman Katz. The latter kept saying he would not pay teachers for lost time, that
he would not arbitrate, that he had the support of the schools' board of directors.
Although reports in the daily press—the issue reached such a stage that it became
a matter of general interest in the non-Jewish community as well—stated that the action
against the teachers was that of the UHS board, it was pointed out by the administration
critics that the board had acted only on closing of two school branches and abandonment
the late school session—the first by a vote of 14 to 10, the second by a vote of 29 to 3.
But the strike or lockout itself was not directly acted upon by the UHS board at its two
meetings in January.
The administration claimed it was a strike; the teachers, because they offered to
return to work while negotiating, insisted it was a lockout.
The issue aroused bitterness and two parents' meetings were held. (A report of
Sunday's meeting is on Page 46). The teachers, charging that their very livelihood was
affected, said that abandonment of the late class sessions would mean a cut of 40 per cent
in their incomes and they called it "cruel." Katz said if the teachers were to be retained on
the present basis it would cost the schools $600,000 over a 15-year period and he could not
approve it. The teachers countered that while they were being locked out, administrators
principals, also were not working because of the closing of the schools, were being paid.

Reported Execution of Nine Iraq Jews Widely
Protested; Families Presumably in Hiding

Iraqi Jews have been given exit visas by
PARIS (JTA) — Diplomatic sources here said that 20
since last fall
This followed the report that nine Jews imprisoned in Iraq
Iraqi emigration authorities. sources
said that the families of three of the victims have reportedly left the
were recently the
executed.
The
families of the other six were presumably hiding in Baghdad. The homes of the nine
country, and
have been covered with signs reading, "The former residents have fled."
a power struggle between the Iraqi secret
The sources attributed the issuance of exit visas to
security services. They did not elaborate. The Union of Jewish Stu-
the
army
and
the
general
Police,
execution in a cable to President Ahmed Hassan
dents meeting here last Thursday protested the
al-Baler of Iraq.
the Iraqi government protesting
the Danish League for Human Rights cabled
In Copenhagen,
the recent
killing of nine imprisoned Jews. Signatories included Jens Lillelund, who the Danish Jewish

community honored last year as a "friend of Israel."
(In New York, the American Jewish Congress has called on the government of Iraq to confirm
or deny the reported executions. In a telegram to Abdul Karim al-Shaikhly, Iraqi ambassador to the
United Nations, the AJCongress also called on Iraq to "publicly establish that the prisoners remain
in safe custody and to provide immediate access to them by an impartial body such as the Inter-
national Red Cross." The telegram, signed by Judge Justine Wise Polier, vice president of the
less will give credence to these reports and call forth upon your govern-
AJCongress, added: "Anything
condemnation
for an act of barbarism and brutality that must shock the
ment the most severe
conscience of the world.")
mission to the United Nations told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
(A spokesman for the Iraqi
information regarding the reported executions. In Washington, the State Department
that there was no
(Continued on Page 6)
also said that it had no information.)

Goren OKs Non-Orthodox
in 'World Rabbinic Council'

TEL AVIV (JTA)—Chief Rabbi Shlomo Goren said that he would
not bar non-Orthodox rabbis from the World Rabbinical Council he
proposes to set up in Jerusalem to deal with halakhic problems aris-
ing in Israel and the Diaspora.
"There is one Jewish nation, and whoever accepts the ruling of
the Bible and accepts the Halakha and Shulhan Arukh (code of religi-
ous law) will be welcomed to join the rabbinical council I am setting
up," Goren said at a press conference here.
Ile said the sole criteria for inviting rabbis and Torah scholars
was adherence to Halakha—religious law.
Rabbi Goren made his remarks when asked by newsmen if non-
Orthodox rabbis from abroad would be eligible.
The Orthodox religious establishment in Israel refuses to recognize
Reform and Conservative rabbis, and they are prohibited from per-
forming rabbinical functions in Israel.

The Ashkenazic chief rabbi said he planned to press vigorously
for the adoption of an amendment to Israel's Law of Return that would
define a Jew as a person born of a Jewish mother or converted ac-
cording to Halakha.
The law as it stands omits the words "according to Halakha" and

permits the recognition of conversions performed by non-Orthodox

rabbis abroad.

(Continued on Page Si

