THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
Friday, Dec. 28, 1973-9
`Bring Kin to Israel'
JERUSALEM (JTA) — To
boOst holiday tourism, the
ministry of tourism is urg-
ing every Israeli family to
write to its relatives and
friends abroad inviting them
to come to Israel at this time.
HARRY THOMAS1
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Psychiatrist Exposes Abuses in 'Religion May Be Hazardous'
For all its virtues, "reli-
gion may be hazardous to
your health," says an Ari-
zona psychiatrist who wrote
a book with that very title—
paraphrasing the cigarette
package warning.
Dr. Eli S. Chesen argues,
in this paperback published
by Collier Books, that reli-
gion too often is abused. He
gives examples from all faith
groups to illustrate his con-
tention.
"Once a rule or command-
ment is handed down," says
Chesen, "it tends to endure
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still be salvaged in the name Jewish' is combined with a
of tradition and thereby lose wish to become assimilated
any meaning it might have by the Gentile world. Often
had initially. the Jew discovers that total
"For example, the Jewish acclimatization to the Gen-
practice of keeping a kosher tile community is impossible;
home is thought by most peo- he finds it difficult to estao-
ple (including Jewish people) Nsh more than superficial
to have originated as a health friendships in a world from
precaution against the para- which he continues to feel
sitic d i s e a s e trichinosis, separated. So m e find the
which is harbored by pigs .. . dilemma so painful that they
This is presumptuous think- proceed to . denounce their
ing, however, in the context religion or convert from it."
of what the Old Testament
actually says; the practice
of keeping a kosher home
did not start as a health pre-
caution. It began, rather, as
a means of isolating an
idendity for the J e wish
people.
PACKER • PONTIAC
on the New "74's"
long a f ter it can still be and stresses the need for I twice a year. Conversely,
looked upon as serving a parents to build proper atti- there are parents who never
miss services but whose daily
purpose . . . If it becomes tudes.
life r e f u t e s principles of
possible to re-explain or ra-
"In adulthood," he states,
tionalize such a rule, it can "the fantasy of being 'non- morality.
RED STOTSKY
MILT LEVIN
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Chasen urged parents and
teachers to keep in mind the
age of a child when teaching
him Bible stories and leg-
ends. He himself recalled a
story told to him in Hebrew
school "about a martyred
rabbi" (Akiba). "I do not
recall the reasons just the
"I do not question the val-
gore . . . The Bible is filled
idity of t h is intention. I with violence from Genesis
merely point out that this to the end, and I would no
custom is being folloWed by more expose my young chil-
a multitude of Jewish people dren to this than I would
subject them to a bullfight
for the 'wrong' reason."
or a public execution."
Chasen touches upon the
He chastises parents whose
dilemmas that face Jewish own ambiguity about religion
children living in a Christian is readily apparent. Their
society — not the least of children are encouraged to
which is the observance of have a Bar' Mitzva, but they
Hanuka at Christmas time — themselves attend services
Some of Chasen's views
will win no friends among
Bible scholars and clergy-
men.
"The Bible has wielded
such strong authority that few
ever give consideration to up-
dating or discarding it. In-
stead, an alternate and po-
tentially dangerous course of
action is taken.
"The clergymen and asso-
ciated scholars reinterpret
the old passages in an at-
tempt to apply them to mod-
ern times. Eventually they
are reinterpreting their own
interpretations and injecting
into them their own personal
biases. And so the Bible is
reread backward, forward,
upside down and inside out,
according to the whim of
those select few who are in
a position to do so . . . "
"As this whole process is
allowed to grow, the clergy-
man himself, not the Bible,
can become the sacred COW
w i t h God-given authority.
The Bible, then, is really
used not as an authority, but
as a vehicle with which a
man can promote his own
prejudices."
—C.D.
Bank Denies
Loan Proves
Arab Leaning
CHICAGO (JTA)—Officials
of the First National Bank
of Chicago told a group of
Jewish leaders that they fully
disassociated themselves
from a statement by a British
banker that the Chicago bank
had participated "on the
Arab side" in a $200,000,000
loan to Abu Dhabi that had
been syndicated and organ-
ized by Morgan Grenfell and
Co. of London.
The local bank officials and
Jewish leaders met last week
after an article appeared in
the Chicago Sun-Times on
Dec. 13 by Bernard Nossiter
from London stating that
Douglas-Home, the Morgan
Grenfell director for the Mid-
dle East and son of Britain's
Foreign Secretary Sir Alec
Douglas-Home, had told him
that other leading U. S.
banks — including the First
National City Bank and Chase
Manhattan—were invited to
participate in the syndicate
loan but turned the offer
down as "too politically sensi-
tive!'
Nossiter wrote that Doug-
las-Home told him, "They de-
cided they were on the Jew-
ish side of the fence. We are
on the Arab. It was a com-
mercial decision taken some
time ago. There is more bus-
iness to be done in the Arab
world. It has 80,000,000 peo-
ple, against 2,000,000 in Israel
from Touro College and Stern
Also, there is less competi-
College in a noon-time cere-
tion; Rothchild's can't lend
mony.
to the Arabs."
A display, including pic-
Robert Abboud, vice-chair-
tures of atrocities committed man of the bank's board who
against Israeli soldiers cap- flew in from London to par-
tured during the Yom Kip- ticipate, issued a statement
pur War, conditions in Soviet declaring that it was import-
labor camps, and the recent ant to the bank that the state
trials of Soviet Jews, was set of Israel continue to prosper
up in the tent and viewed by and develop in security and
hundreds of passers-by.
!peace and reaffirmed the
POW Photos in Times Sq.
NEW YORK (JTA) — A
large tent, surounded by
large pictures of Israeli
prisoners of war and Soviet
Jewish prisoners of con-
science was erected in Times
Square in Manhattan.
A joint project of the
Greater New York Confer-
ence on Soviet Jewry and the
American Zionist Federation,
the tent served as a focal
point for a day-long demon-
stration and distribution of
informational materials on Is-
rael and Soviet Jewry.
The mothers of two Israelis
now being held in Syria were
joined by scores of students
William Hugget, author of
the novel "Body Count," and
an authority on the treatment
of American prisoners of
war in Vietnam, spoke of the
Syrian brutalities as the
worst he has ever seen.
eres a lot of good
between Winston..
.:::
bank's gratitude to the Jew-
ish community of Chicago for
its valuable contribution to
the bank's growth.
Abboud assailed Douglas-
Home's statement as "highly
offensive and inaccurate, es-
pecially since they seem to
associate the First National
Bank of Chicago with them.
We are proud of our relation-
ship with Israel and nothing
will change that."
Abboud told the Jewish lea-
ders that the loan to the Per-
sian Gulf sheikdom was ini-
tiated before the war and
completed Nov. 7. There is a
covenant in the loan agree-
ment that prevents use of the
funds for any war purposes,
he said.
Elderly to Get Meals
Under Federal Grant
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LOS ANGELES (JTA)—A
multi-agency program, di-
rected by the Jewish Federa-
tion-Council, will provide hot
kosher meals to the Jewish
elderly under the recently ap-
proved Title VII of the fed-
eral Older Americans Act.
Young Israel Synagogue
has received a subcontract to
provide 26,000 meals annually
at the rate of 100 per day,
five days a week, at a nom-
inal fee.
Development of the pro-
gram will make possible ex-
pansion and diversification of
the kosher meat delivery
project started with the year-
old Meals-On-Wheels pro-
gram of the JF-C which oper-
ates in a limited geographical
range. A project director
named by the Jewish Family
Service will conduct day-to-
day management of the meal
sites.