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.
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PHILIP SLOMOVITZ
Editor and Publisher
CARMI M. SLOMOVITZ
CHARLOTTE DUBIN
DREW LIEBERWITZ
City Editor
Advertising Manager
Business Manager
Sabbath Scriptural Selections
This Sabbath, the 13th day of Kislev, 5734, the following scriptural selections
will be read in our synagogues:
Pentateuchal portion, Gen. 12:4-36:43. Prophetical portion, Hosea 11:7-12:12.
Candle lightin, Friday, Dec. 7, 4:43 p.m
VOL. LXIV. No. 13
Page Four
December '7, 1973'
Anxiety and Gloom: Miserable Admixture
Whoever said, "I don't care who writes
the news, as long as I can write the head-
lines" was a realist who knew the power of
conciseness.
It is proven in the two summarizing
phrases of two words each in the New York
Times Week in Review section in which the
Middle East situation was summarized as:
Egypt: Anxiety . . . Israel: Gloom.
That's what makes the condition affecting
Israel and world Jewry so saddening and op-
pressive: gloom.
It is because Israel succeeded in over-
coming the grave danger of being annihilated,
yet did not win the war. Because the nations
of the world are yielding to pressure, because
there is danger of submitting to the influ-
ence of oil-producing countries even by the
United States, and due to a lack of realiza-
tion in the ranks of the indifferent to the
mounting dangers of Israel's destruction.
Had the terms anxiety and gloom been
transposed, as they were after the earlier
war out of which Israel stalked on the arena
as a victor, it might have been much easier
to hope for peace. But the gloom that has de-
veloped stems from unconcern over the small
state's security amidst 18 enemy nations and
a world dominated by a dog-eat-dog attitude
and the emphasis on "what's good for me..."
with nothing else counting amidst the decline
of morality among nations.
That is why it may be imperative to be
ready for a long struggle in Israel's defense.
The war of nerves is far from over. Tense
days will mark the slow-burning tasks to at-
tain the security that is so vital for the very
life of Israel.
No one can predict whether the military
struggle will subside. But it is safe to say
that the economic needs will grow with time
and that Israel's won't get out of the receding
setbacks too easily or too soon. On that score,
Diaspora Jewry remains taxed to the hilt.
How will the free peoples of the world
respond to the challenges? Will the non-Jew-
ish world take into account the danger that
confronts a comparative handful of people
amidst many in an embattled area? Will it
assert itself for justice as an atonement for
silence during the Hitler era? Is this too
much to expect from people for whom oil is
more valid than humanity?
Between anxiety and gloom, indeed, in
the admixture of both, a calloused world is
on trial. And the people endangered by the
unconcern of a universe engulfed in selfish-
ness must attune to fighting its own battles.
Once again, it is defiance of threat of ex-
tinction that gives the People Israel strength
to carry on, courage to resist reintroduction
of a Holocaust.
Blackmailed World Sunk in Immorality
An immoral spirit hovers over a universe
that has submitted to blackmail and hijacking.
Granting many nations' needs for survival,
exaggerations that have been built up, the
cause celebre that has been built up, the
scapegoat available as the age-old target
whenever there is a crisis—these are develop-
ments that may challenge the politicians but
they do not justify the yield to threats and
pressures that stem from social, political and
religious circles.
All the sanctimoniously motivated factions
are guilty in the current panic-stricken inter-
national atmosphere, and the Americans in-
volved are not immune from criticism.
The Dutch have been made major suffer-
ers in the oil-infested political sphere, yet
they, too, have yielded to blackmail. True:
the KLM plane had to be saved from destruc-
tion, and the passengers needed to be pro-
tected when crazed Arab youths hijacked the
plane last week. But Holland was all too ready
to submit to pressures, and Holland had not
been that demonstrative a supporter of Israel.
Dutch military hardware was not in Israel's
arsenals, and Holland was not so important
a transit center for Jewish migrants to Israel.
Japan was a friend of Israel primarily on
a business basis, and even business was con-
ducted clandestinely whenever Arabs threat-
ened a boycott of Japanese goods. Therefore,
the Japanese "reversal" in policy and her
adoption of a pro-Arab policy did not alter
conditions. Japan was never pro-Israel in the
sense of supporting the endangered little
Jewish state when there was a chance to
speak out politically on the international
arena.
In the long run, only the United States
keeps asserting a friendly attitude toward
Israel—as the vote on another outrageous
United Nations anti-Israel resolution indi-
cated last week.
But even in this country there is an un-
justified panic. The over-emphasis on ap-
proaching calamities—unfortunately aided by
the stock market losses — has not helped
elevate the firmness of an internal American
.
position. It has not inspired confidence. It
has failed to explain that this country is able
to survive energy crises and has the means
to strengthen the economy.
All of which points to a lack of social and
political morality in international relations.
It s points to the menacing situation faced by
Israel and Jewry everywhere—with Jews the
inevitable scapegoat. It is like the Middle
Ages, when Jews were accused of poisoning
wells whenever there was a plague or the
spread of illness.
The historic scapegoat needs to be pre-
pared to meet the dangers inherent in the
travesty of justice being perpetrated against
Israel, and indirectly against Jews who are
the targets of Arab attacks. The oil crisis is
solvable—authorities who are without bias
reassert it again and again. Now the great
task is to help create an atmosphere of real-
ism and sanity in the world. And in the pro-
cess there may be the necessity to fight anti-
Semitism anew, as if we were in the mid-
16th Century. There will be survival, but the
battle for justice will not be an easy one.
Blacks, Beauty, Justice
Black is beautiful: and it must be just.
How tragic that a mutilated friendship
should compel this expectation!
A friend in the U. S. Congress—Rep.
Charles C. Diggs—visiting in Nairobi, was
confronted with a delusion about a "brother-
hood" between blacks and Arabs that threat-
ens American attitudes toward Israel.
Is the Jewish devotion to the needs of
Blacks to be all too readily negated?
Will the expose of the developing condi-
tions, so movingly presented by a noted Ma-
pam leader, Dov Bar-Nir, in his letter to an
African chief appearing in this issue, fall on
deaf ears?
Is it possible that the beauty of the Black
spirit will deviate from justice to a people
and a nation, world Jewry and Israel, whose
basic ideals have been to work in brother-
hood with Blacks and Africans?
Dr. Marcus' German History
Relates to Pre-Nazi Periods
For an understanding of the status of German Jewry and the
calamity that struck it under Nazism it is important to have a thorough
understanding of that community's historic background.
Dr. Jacob R. Marcus, director of the American Jewish Archives,
wrote the history in 1934, and for students of the developments of
German attitudes toward Jews "The Rise and Destiny of the German
Jew" as presented by the eminent scholar retains its significance to
this day. His work of nearly 40 years ago has been republished by
Ktav, with a "Postmortem" by the author.
In the "Postmortem," a four-page statement written this year, Dr.
Marcus recalls that when he wrote his book he believed that "barring
wholesale expulsion or massacre, which seem rather remote even
under the implacable hatred of the National Socialists, what has been
Called the 'Jewish genius for survival' will manifest itself in Ger-
many." Four years later when he was in Germany, he spoke to the
then head of the New York Times bureau, Otto D. Tolischus, who told
him: "They are going to kill all the Jews."
Thus we have the tragic recollection of 'a time when there was
confidence and it vanished with the expanded strength of the Nazis.
Dr. Marcus poses another question: "Can German Jewry rise
Again?" He follows it with a rather disturbing note:
"Having learned nothing from the past, we historians return
once more to our vomit, to the pages of our notes. We persist in our
effort to see what the past has to say, although these very notes
failed us in the 1930s when we scrutinized them for a hint of the German
Jewish future. We go on consulting the record for we have nothing else
to guide us. In this world of yes and no, we always have a 50 per cent
chance of being right."
Because Dr. Marcus' study had only begun to judge the rise of
Hitlerism, his early work has 'another element of interest: the recon-
struction of the approach to the menace by anti-Nazi groups in this
country. This is where the Dickstein Congressional Committee came
in, the civic-protective groups mobilized, the appeals to the conscience
of the world commenced. But the story also includes the record of
the nativists, the Pelleys and their ilk, the Silver Shirts. It also refers ,
to the activities of the Communists which were for a time linked with
the Nazis in the Hitler pact.
Historically, the Marcus work has merit as a review of the anti-
Jewish laws promulgated by Hitler, the boycott of Jewish businesses,
the religious factors in the hate movement, the propagation of the
Nordic theory. -
As an addendum to the study of anti-Semitism, Dr. Marcus' book,
in spite of its age, retains great value. Its historicity contributes to
whatever studies are conducted both of anti-Semitism as well as the_
earliest stages of Nazism.
-
Leo Schaya's 'The Universal
Meaning of the Kabala'
First pbblished in France, in 1958, "The Universal Meaning of
the Kabala" by Leo Schaya has been reissued as a paperback by
Penguin Books in its Penguin Metaphysical Library.
Translated by Nancy Pearson, this work first was published as
a hard cover by Universal Books, after being republished from the
French in England.
The significance of this brief but thorough 170-page study of the
mysticism represented in the Kabala is excellently defined by the
author who gives the subject clarity.
In this scholarly work the reader will find splendid evaluation
of the Zohar.
A foreword by Jacob Needleman points out that Leo Schaya's
work opens up "a new way of understanding the distinctive em-
phases" in the universal roots of Judaism."
The author states: "It is in the spirit of metaphysical universality
that the present study has been undertaken." The searches for the
metaphysical, for the "Divine Objects," for the prophetic in evaluating
the "Image of God" give emphasis to the author's having attained the
aim of providing impressive definition for the spiritual forces pro-
vided by Kabala studies.