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 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.