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November 23, 1973 - Image 4

Resource type:
Text
Publication:
The Detroit Jewish News, 1973-11-23

Disclaimer: Computer generated plain text may have errors. Read more about this.

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 Associa-
tion. Published every Friday by The Jewish News Publishing Co., 17515 W. Nine Mile, Suite 865, Southfield, Mich. 48075.
Second-Class Postage Paid at Southfield, Michigan and Additional Mailing Offices. Subscription $10 a year.

PHILIP SLOMOVITZ

Editor and Publisher

CARMI M. SLOMOVITZ

CHARLOTTE DUBIN

City Editor

Business Manager

DREW LIEBERWITZ

Advertising Manager

Sabbath Scriptural Selections
This Sabbath, the 29th day of Heshvan, 5734, the following scriptural selections
will be read in our synagogues:
Pentateuchal portion, Gen. 25:19-28:9. Prophetical portion, I Samuel 20:18-42.
Rosh Hodesh Kislev Torah portions, Sunday and Monday, Num. 28:1-15.

Candle lighting, Friday, Nov. 23, 4:47 p.m.

VOL. LXIV. No. 11

Page Four

November 23, 1973

Russian Menace: Warning to Ostriches

A long list of obstacles is to be hurdled
in the months and years ahead in the struggle
for a safe and just Middle East, if there also
is to be a secure and just global condition
for mankind.
Only the blind and unrealistic, motivated
by misleading hate-mongering from the
hordes who aspire to destroy Israel. do not
and can not recognize the dangers ahead.
A cease fire does not solve anything as
long as the ghost of hatred and destruction
hangs over a very small Jewish nation that
will not die at the hands of those who, in
the process, would destroy themselves.
There is a major enemy in the field of
international struggles for common decency.
Russia's quest for access to the Red Sea
through a Suez Canal she seeks to dominate,
the Russian incursions into American policies
and economics, the USSR and Japanese ab-
sorption of grain and soy beans and news-
print, the Soviet desire to gain control of the
oil-producing areas — these are factors not
to be ignored either by our friends or our
enemies who would remain free in a troubled
world.
Columnist Joseph Alsop indicated the
danger stemming from the Kremlin's aims
to exert its domination over the Middle East-
ern area. Vermont Royster, "Thinking Things
Over" in the Wall Street Journal, added a
warning of lessons to be learned, experiences
forgotten and admonitions to take into ac-
count:

There are two things, it seems to me, that
are clear enough. One is that the strategic bal-
ance in the Middle East has been radically
altered. The other is that, as matters now stand,
the only potential winner discernible is the Soviet
Union.
Certainly the Arabs have no victory; the
Syrians are pushed back to the outskirts, of
Damascus and the Egyptians find a conclave of
Israelis on their side of the Suez Canal. Nor
have the Israelis won, except in the narrowed
tactical sense; they gained only burdens,- military
and political, which they will have difficulty
either carrying or shaking off.
The United States gained nothing. The Soviet
Union, however, emerged as potentially the dom-
inant influence over Arabian oil. So long as the
Arab countries cling to a policy of "pushing the
Israelis into the sea" the Soviet Union can, if it
chooses to do so, push the Arabs into closing off
the oil because it has the power to turn on or
off the supply of arms necessary for that Arab
purpose.

Had the antagonists to Israel labored real-
istically, dangers could have been averted for
the Western world — and the Arab peoples
would have benefited, the menacing situation
they may confront from their Russian friends
could have been averted.
"Thinking It Over," Vermont Royster had
a few good words of advice, for those who
harm us as much as for those who would
defend us. when he added to his analysis of
the situation in the Wall Street Journal:

The Arab choice now is to come to some sort
of settlement with Israel, at least recognizing its
existence, or to see their countries become noth-
ing more than serfs and pawns of the Soviet
Union. In no other way can they continue their
policy of trying to drive the Israelis into the sea.
There are signs that Soviet fiefdom is not a
welcome choice. Some of the Arab countries
stood aloof from this war, others were at best
reluctant dragons. While all have been happy
with Soviet arms, all are fiercely independent
and none—from Sadat to Hussein—wants to be
swallowed up by the Russians.
The Israelis, for -their part. must also be
less intransigent or face a very gloomy future
indeed. Not merely another generation of war,
but the prospect that one day they will lose one
of those wars. The pressure is on them now to
deal seriously with the Palestinian problem and
be more flexible in settling their borders.
Even the Russians, who have gained more
than anybody, have learned that war in the
Middle East could bring them to confrontation
with the U.S., from which they have nothing
more to gain. And the U.S., now more than ever,
has a vital interest in intervening for some kind
of a viable political settlement.

Of course, Israel must deal with the seri-
ous issues. Abba Eban provided a measure of
confidence when he said that with peace can
come a solution_ to the Palestinian problem.
But the solution needs an avoidance of more
obstacles and further threats from terrorists.
Will the ostriches, heads buried in the
sands of Araby, awaken from their lethargy
and recognize the situation as it affects all
mankind, not Israel and Jewry alone?
Jews, at least, must not submit to blind-
ness, they should avoid deafness, the chal-
lenge to them to be aware of the dangers
not to be ignored.
This is a time for realism and for vision.
The conscience of mankind is being tested.
Jewry's must be one of freedom from guilt.
Holocaust of the past, Genocide as a new
threat, keep warning us to be on the alert
and never to abandon our fellow men.

Challenges From Mixed Marriages

Mixed marriages apparently are not the
major problem for Jews in free countries.
More serious is the decline in knowledge
about Jews and Judaism in our ranks, the
reduction in identificiation stemmina from
b with
an indifference that goes hand in hand
either ignorance about one's spiritual lega-
cies or misinformation.
The impressive study released by the
Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare
Funds' National Jewish Population Study in-
dicates "a more intensive participation for
those who marry Jews . .. and for intermar-
rieds in which the wife is Jewish." It is clear
that a better Jewish background could assure
marriage within the fold.
At the CJFWF general assembly, the
problem of mixed marriages received added
thorough consideration, with emphasis by
Rabbi Irwin Groner on strict adherence to
basic Jewish traditional defense of policies
that do not permit concessions which may ser-
iously injure the Jewish position. Reform rab-

bis' readiness to perform mixed marriages
had a defender, yet it was evident in the senti-
ments of the large delegation of young people
that they lean toward non-appeasement.
Noteworthy in the CJFWF study is the in-
crease in conversions to Judaism. Since this
is the major hope for retention of youth in
our ranks and preventing drastic reductions
in the Jewish population, the need for com-
munal action is clear. It calls for ability to
interpret our ethical teachings in order to
assure loyalties. It demands teaching abilities
to hold converts within our ranks with the
dedication that is vital to a people's existence.
As a matter of fact, ability to define and
interpret our role as an historic people
emerges as the major need in Jewish life.
Are we able to produce such able teachers
for our people? That's the challenge suggest-
ed by the revelations in a most important
population study for which the Council of
Federations has earned American Jewry's
gratitude.

Kovner's Poems in English:
Tribute to Noted Partisan

"A Canopy in the Desert" is more than a book of poems." It is
an expression of a people's innermost feelings. It introduces to the
English reader one of Israel's most inspired authors. It is also a re-
minder, through that poet's experiences of the challenges of a Holo-
caust that cost the lives of millions and raised to new heights the
dedicated to humankind who survived.

Abba Kovner is the poet, the Partisan hero of the Resistance,
whose works are collected, some in the original Hebrew, most in
their English translations by Shirley Kaufman, together with Ruth
Adler and Nurit Orchan.

University of Pittsburgh Press published these sel'cted poems,
and the volume, available in cloth binding as well as paperback, gains
immensity as a noteworthy literary product from the important intro-
ductory essay by the translator, Shirley Kaufman.
It is the spirit injected by the translator, as much as the genius
of the poet himself, that adds great merit to this work which acquires
significance from the opening quotation from a speech by the poet,
when he toured the United States and said:

"When I write I am like a man praying."

What he has written is, indeed, a collective prayer.

"A Canopy in the Desert," described by the translator as a move-
ment "from chaos to order," has the merit of timelessness, there is
in it the power of one who plants—and sings—amidst the sands of
time. It is deeply moving, as the portion "A Farewell Song and Words
From the Drunk Who Embraces an Empty Battle."
Supplementing it, powerfully, are the other sections of this im-
pressive work, the long poems "My Little Sister," "A Parting From
the South" and "From All the Loves."
While the English reader will find himself greatly compensated
with a splendid translation that contains nearly as much power as
the original, the Hebraist will emerge even more enriched, as, for
example, with this opening stanza from "My Little Sister":

They came as far as a wall.
On the seventh night into the dawn
heard from the wall the drowning in the snow
not seeing the 'marchers' faces
in the white wind.

.717.01-1 -717 ni4 t];:r
nix 'raj 1 nr.ptp riLr'n
az2tgn rritori x 777?inn 17/4

4

Kovner's story as related by Miss Kaufman is as deeply moving
as his poems. They interrelate. It is the story of a struggle, in the
Jewish tradition, in the resistance, in which Kovner played a significant
role as a fighter with the Partisans; and of rewards marked by the
Israel Prize in Literature in 1970 and, in 1971, the International
Remembrance Award for Holocaust and post-war literature. There is
a tribute to Kovner by Miss Kaufman that merits perpetuating in
recognition of a master. It states:
"In one sweep, he gathers the past and the future, the human and
superhuman, national and total space. His occasional obscurity is not
from the poetry's complexity but from the wilderness he explores, the
mystery of 'human tragedy. . . . There are times when not to under-
stand, or not to understand completely, is more important, more in-
stant, more significant, than total comprehension. Ambiguity and mist
are both qualities that help turn life into art. This is how Kovner
writes. And this is how we must read him."

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