PurelyC-O-Eirwntary The Indestructible Credo for People Determined to Defend Life Dignifiedly and in Self-Respect as Defined by Jewish Youth in Current Crisis By Philip Slomovitz No More Genocides, No More Holocausts for People Determined to Live With Honor What a blessing for the United Nations that Israel is able to resist threats to her very life! The moment Israel succeeds in defeating the combined forces of the numerous enemies and their overwhelming forces, the UN Security Council steps in to end the conflict and to rescue the darlings of the would-be perpetrators of another holocaust. Let us be grateful for what had happened—for the genius of Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger who is earning the Nobel Peace Prize with his firm steps to end wars! Many lives of the flower of the Jewish nation have been lost, and now many will be saved. It was not the fourth but the fifth war. Gamal Abdel Nasser tried a fourth war in 1969, with an attrition threat that ended in failure. Now his successor will claim victory because his warriors fought more bravely than ever before. Let such bravery serve the purpose of leading to peace. When the Yom Kippur War com- menced, Cairo talk was about the "Israelis now running like lice." The record has been set straight. Our kinsmen have redeemed the honor of humankind by giving emphasis to the basic idea for man's survival: his will to live. Now, the reckoning—with the religious elements which have not been united against the blasphemy of the War of the Day of Judgment; some newspapers; a few legislators. For the record, there was a noble response: Liberal Protestants responded nobly; many Catholics proved their passion for justice; most newsmen were fair in their objectivity; the U. S. Congress overwhelmingly defended Israel; the White House did not let Israel down. It is because the Jewish people acted with unanimity in support of Israel that our kinsmen had the most desirable message of courage in a struggle for life. Once again, our youth helped strengthen Jewish ranks. In all of our univer- sities, Jewish students mobilized to act in the crisis. Some offered their services as volunteers for Israel's industries and farming communities. Overwhelmingly, they gave their financial support. We need select only one sample of student solidarity: that displayed at the University of Michigan. Prof. William Haber was so deeply moved by the response from thousands of U-M students that he wrote his impressions to U-M President Robben W. Fleming. To quote Dr. Haber: Those of us who follow "Jewish affairs" have often been concerned about the decline in identity of the younger generation. Some, like so many young people, are at war with the "establishment," whatever that means; others with their parents; still others with established dogmas and beliefs. Many older folks, Warnings by Meany on 1980 Olympics Sacrilegious Abuse of Facts in Christian Science Organ The Christian Science Monitor, consistently criticized in Jewish ranks as an enemy organ, proved its colors again. While both Syria and Egypt kept asserting they would not accept a cease fire unless Israel withdrew from all "occupied territories," Geoffrey G-odsell, the Monitor's over- seas news editor, reporting from Beirut, stated in the Oct. 15 edition: "The Israelis resisted all United Nations calls for a cease fire—already accepted by Arab combatants— until they had seized what they wanted from the Syrians to safeguard their hitherto exposed settlements in upper Galilee. This time the Israelis have taken on the Syrians first, apparently in hope of a swift and cheap victory en- abling them to swing relatively unscathed forces southward to push the much stronger Egyptians back . . . " So the Israelis this time took the Syrians on first? It wasn't resistance to a Yom Kippur infamy? It was an aim for a "cheap victory"? It's the way a correspondent writes that matters. That's how we can judge our friends! Is it too much to expect that an organ for a religious denomination should have some consideration for human values? The Christian Science Monitor has long been under suspicion that it is anti-Israel. It also proved it in its cur- rent editorial attitude. Its two-column editorial, Oct. 17, "Some Middle East Facts,''' revealed how facts can be distorted. Recognized as one of the great American newspapers, the Monitor has faltered. As a religious periodical, it not only failed—refused?—to take into account the sacrilege on Yom Kippur. It kept repeating old cliches that have ac- cumulated in the battle conducted by Israel's enemies for the nation's destruction. It took exception to the "resupply" of Israel's arms and put in quotes the facts of Russia's "massive" supply of weapons to the Arabs. It took exception to Dr. Henry Kissinger's position when it quoted his remark about "irresponsibility" in in- ternational relations. Here is how the sanctimonious Monitor concluded its editorial: "We urge all Americans to keep in mind the fact that the issue is not the survival of Israel (which is not in question) but only the spoils of the 1967 war." This is untruth, it was an appeal to hatred, a distor- tion of all facts relating to the present struggle. There is one word that describes this attitude: SHAMEFUL! Christian Scientists owe it to true faith not to permit such an outrage to be perpetuated. That editorial could only have been written so heart- lessly, under the conditions of the present Israel battle for life, either in Cairo or in Damascus or in Baghdad. Christian Scientists are on trial: can they possibly permit such venom and outright bias to represent them when a world crisis is under , consideration? 2—Friday, October 26, 1973 concerned with the identity issue, suspected that there has been what one per- son referred to as a substantial hemorrhage among young people in Jewish values and beliefs and, particularly, in identification. I was not among those. I saw young people who had normal qualms about institutional values and goals but were basically not at war with their origin and traditional values. Events on. the campus during the past week to 10 days confirm my im- pression and I thought you would be interested. I have learned that between 60 and 75 per cent of the Jewish students on the campus (and many non-Jewish) have contributed nearly $25,000 to the Israel emergency campaign. I was over- whelmed by their sense of organization. A coordinator was designated for each residence hall, apartment house, co-op or other housing unit where more than just a couple of Jewish students live. Over 150 solicitors were recruited and trained. Each person was personally approached. Many students who gave checks for $50 and $100 are employed as dishwashers in restaurants or are working their way through school in similar ways. The response and the generosity is something I had never seen on this campus and is far greater than during the critical few days of 1967. I am sorry that such response and such a reidentification is genet • by a war. I wished there were some peacetime equivalent that would do it. Lit any event, it does tell us something about the young Jewish generation which many of us were not certain still existed. One thing is clear, these American-born men and women, born of second- generation American parents, loyal to USA, find a special meaning in Israel for them. It was a personal note from Bill Haber to Bob Fleming, but it merits a place of honor in the record of young Jewry's adherence to self-respect, to a role of honor and dignity as inheritors of the sacred legacies of Jewry and the great traditions of America which demand that all men fight for the right so that no one should be oppressed, wherever he may live. Israel and Jewry have nothing to be ashamed of in this period of crisis. It was a battle for life, and the defenders of a nation threatened with extinction have emerged nobly. No more holocausts! No more genocide—for us or for any one else! That's the slogan under which our representatives now turn to the peace table—in the hope that deluded enemies, who possess so much land, so much oil, so much money, may recognize that human • values are sacred, that they can retain all their wealth and power, but that they can not rob their cousins, their neighbors, of the mere right to exist. Shalom can also be pronounced salaam—as long as it is done honorably, honestly, with dignity. That's how we shall always insist as the pattern for life for Jewry, for Israel, for our neighbors, for humanity! THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS ment was succeeded 60 years ago by the Hillel Founda- tions which were inaugurated by Bnai Brith. Now the opportunities for Jewish affiliation are provided, through Hillel, in practically all of our institutions of higher learn- ing, and the debt to Hillel is immense from a Jewish community that craves for more dedication to their people by college students. At Wayne State University, the inspiration that comes from Rabbi Kapustin is felt not only among the Jewish students who affiliate with Hillel but also from the faculty that has learned to appreciate the scholarship of the direc- tor of the student movement. Dr. Kapustin's learning is felt in the courses he offers as a member of the WSU faculty. His guidance in matters involving Jewish tradi- tions stems from his own piety and from his continuous studies that have given him recognition for authoritative- -ness in matters relating to current Jewish history. He had experienced the scourge of Nazism from which he escaped in time to avert sharing the fate of his colleagues and kinsmen. The impress that was left with him gave him added strength to pursue the task of striving for continuity in perpetuating Jewish knowledge and tradi- tion. It is for this dedication as well as for the services he has rendered that he will receive due honors planned for him at the testimonial dinner. Shameful acts of the Hitler era must not be repeated. George Meany, president of AFL-CIO, pursues the warning in an expression of his sense of outrage over what had occurred in Moscow during the University Games. In a two-page editorial in AFL-CIO American Feder- ationist, he commenced with a recollection of the past, enumerated the experiences of the present and concluded with a demand that the 1980 Olympic Games should not be held in Russia, stating, in part: Let us not repeat the shameful blunder of 1936 when the U.S. Olympic representatives yielded to Hitler's blandishments and bullying and made possible the holding of the Games in Berlin — the "capital city of Nazism." This action was a flagrant violation of the anti-racist provision of the International Olympic Committee Constitution. The Soviet behavior at the University Games was a blow against all human decency and not only against the Israelis. This behavior is of the same spirit and stripe as the Kremlin's inhuman treatment of the Russian intellectuals crying for freedom and human decency. As longs as the Soviet government distrusts its own people, no other people can trust the Kremlin * rulers' talk about international detente. Awarding * * Moscow the 1980 Olympics would hurt rather than The Red Herring: the Jewish Vote help true detente. The Hoary Red Herring also has been pulled out of Brezhnev's Russia is totally unfit and unqualified to the magicians' hats. Once again there is the taunt about hest the Olympics or any other international sports the Jewish vote that has influenced American policies. It's event. Totalitarian Moscow is not a fit place for the an old trick for the Christian Science Monitor: Robert youth of the world to come together in welding friend- R. Bowie of the Harvard Center for International Affairs ship through athletic competition. used it in an article in the Monitor on the Middle East. The 1980 Olympics in Brezhnev's Moscow would do Lucius D. Battle, former U. S. ambassador to Cairo, no more than did the 1936 Games in Hitler's Munich resorted to it in his feature article in the New York for "creating international respect and goodwill and Times Magazine Section, Sunday, in dealing with the thus helping to construct a better and more peaceful question "The Arabs: Why Now?" world." (Point 3, IOC "Fundamental Principles") The Therefore, it is proper to pose the question again: if Olympic torch is already close to extinction. The there were no Jewish vote, no Jews in America a nd Olympics cannot afford any more tragedies; 1936 and elsewhere to come to Israel's defense, would it a 1972 were more than enough! Moscow must not be lost, would the world let Israel down completely, chosen as the site of the 1980 Olympic Gaines. genocide be the order of the day? If another scandal is to be averted, action must be Maybe so: since genocide is the threat, a world Jewry, pursued until a just decision is reached. Meany renders a primarily American Jews, owe a debt to themselves to great service in behalf of wholesome vigilance and reten- labor to the end that no one should dare again think in tion of honor for decent sportsmanship. terms of a holocaust. That's how we vote. * * * Honors for Dr. Kapustin * * Iraq—Symbol of UN's Degradations Honors planned for Rabbi Max Kapustin, on the oc- The international organization keeps degrading itself. casion of his 25th anniversary of service to Hillel Founda- tion at Wayne State University, provides an opportunity Iraq has been named a three-year member of the UN to take into account the values of the movement to which Security Council. It disgraces the World Human Rights he dedicated himself after serving in the rabbinate in Charter. What a challenge this is to those celebrating the 28th anniversary of the founding of the United Nations— this country for a decade. American Jewry was always aware of the need to especially when, as at the Fisher Building in Detroit, a bring Jewish knowledge to the campus. In the first decade UN Security Council session is the model. How about of this century, the Menorah movement was inaugurated. reproducing the lynch atmosphere when the Arabs and The late Dr. I. Leo Sharfman, head of the department of Russians mobilize mobs and the world powers in a lynch economics at the University of Michigan, was one of its scene with Jews as targets? Now Iran asks all Arab states to nationalize Ameri- organizers in his student days at Harvard. Admittedly, reaching out to Jewish students with can industries which have helped enrich them. And Iraq cultural offerings about their people was always a difficult rejects the U.S.-USSR-formulated cease fire! That's the security' task. It was not easy in the Menorah days. That move- 'comrade Who'll be 'given a Voige, 'Is igrUtutTianity' S! 5- _? 1 .1