PUNK THRONWTHE RYE
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
CARMI M. SLOMOVITZ
Editor and Publisher
Business Manager
CHARLOTTE DUBIN
City Editor
DREW LIEBERWITZ
Advertising Manager
Sabbath Scriptural Selections
This Sabbath, the 10th day of Shevat, 5734, the following scriptural selections
will be read in. our synagogues:
Pentateuchal portion, Exodus 13:17-17:16. Prophetical portion, Judges 4:4-5:31.
Candle lighting, Friday, Feb. 1, 6:29 p.m.
VOL. LXIV. No. 21
Page Four
sre-`z
(-- A.9.4„
February 1, 1974
Israel's Ideal: Ballots Above Bullets
So much has been built around Israeli
military figures as if they were the rulers of
their land that a more cautious analysis of
the parliamentary election by the New York
Times foreign affairs expert, C. L. Sulzberger,
comes as a relief from fears over a possible
reduction of traditional culture and morality
into militarism.
Writing from Paris, commenting on "the
astonishingly modest role played by the
armed forces" in the December elections,
Sulzberger pointed out that while "the troops
voted in a massive way, as compared with the
vote of soldiers in other democracies . . . they
voted with normal divisions of opinion as
would have occurred in peacetime armies of
free political systems."
What about the constant linking of names
like General Moshe Dayan, his several asso-
ciates in the army, General Itzhak Rabin who
recently retired from the U.S. ambassadorship
and is now a member of the newly-elected
Knesset, General Ariel (Arik) Sharon, the
hawk among the newly-elected Likud mem-
bers of the Knesset, who engineered the dra-
matic crossing of the Israeli troops across the
Suez after the Egyptians had gone into Sinai
with their Third Army?
To Sulzberger, the democratic character
of Israel rules out any possibility of a military
takeover of the Israel government, and his
emphasis is that in the democratic state of
Israel the ballot rules over the bullet. Such
strict adherence to the higher principles of
democratization are of major importance
globally as a protection of the goals for a
future Middle East steeped in freedom, and
the views of Sulzberger are of major interest
at a time when diplomats are bandying peace
proposals in Geneva. Here is how Sulzberger
evaluated the "ballots over bullets" situation
in Israel:
The period since Israel was created in 1948
has seen career officers' putsches create regimes
in a host of contemporary governments including
Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Algeria, Libya, Uganda, Indo-
nesia, South Korea, Zaire, Nigeria, Ghana, Chile,
Peru and Greece.
Indeed, it has been a thesis of some political
theorists that in today's time of change when the
so-called Third World is coming into its own, it is
an understandable occurrence that professional of-
ficers, with their patriotic zeal, discipline and dis-
taste for corruption, should seize power.
Fortunately for Israel, this temptation has never
been the case. Despite its situation in a turbulent
area where violence has been the norm for a
quarter of a century, the Israelis have passionately
adhered to civilian democratic rule.
Moshe Dayan has been cruelly blamed for mis-
fortunes (including large casualties) that have
piled up since the Yom Kippur attack on Israel
and General Sharon was contrastingly acclaimed
for his canal crossing and encirclement of the
Egyptians.
In an artificially oversimplified political sense,
Sharon represented an extreme right and hawkish
faction in comparison with Dayan's relatively (and
only relatively) dovish and accommodating posi-
tion. Yet both men's backers and both men adhered
rigidly to the ultimate test as laid down for nor-
mal democracies—judgment by the ballot box. Nor
was there the slightest thought of a potential coup.
On more than one occasion I have asked high
Israeli officers whether they considered it possible
for a military putsch to seize power in their em-
battled little country. Gen. Aharon Yariv, retired
chief of intelligence, acknowledged that theoreti-
cally this could be possible; all one needed was
intelligence, armor and aircraft, as shown both in
Iraq and Greece.
Nevertheless, this "technical" observation was
not only theoretical but actually impossible. Is-
rael's democratic spirit is difficult to minimize and
this spirit is based upon a tradition that the army
is subject to civilian authority.
The great majority of the armed forces are
civilians called up from regular jobs whenever the
state deems necessary. Only the air force has a
majority of career personnel; the small navy is
about 50-50. In the army, career personnel begins
with a few noncommissioned officers and then,
from sergeant majors up, the percentage increases.
But, as General Yariv pointed out, the officer
corps does not live apart from the rest of the
population. Colonels and generals come from every
sector—commerce, villages, towns, kibutzim, There
is no common social denomination for the officers.
This concept of democracy is deeply imbedded.
In past years, when Israeli military genius was
unchallenged, European observers often compared
its armed prowess to that of 18th Century Prussia,
which maximized use of internal communication
lines against larger, hostile neighbors.
But one shouldn't forget another European corn-
parison, underscored by the recent elections. Re-
gardless of strain and crisis-use of its mainly re-
servist army, the chances of military domination
of Israel's political destiny seem no greater than
those of Switzerland, on whose democratically
available civilian-soldiery Israel's army was first
modeled.
This should be viewed as an analysis of
a people's ideology. Fighting for life, often
struggling for security, constantly pleading
for understanding from other religious groups
and from the nations of the world, Israel, a
democracy, places ballots above bullets. Will
peace also teach a similar lesson to the na-
tions whose belligerency reverses the ideal and
makes bullets the aspirations for diplomacy?
The lesson from Israel also contains the hope
for mankind. Perhaps the Yom Kippur War
was a stepping stone in the foreseeable future
toward a civilization without saber-rattling-
at least in the Middle East.
Emergency Uninterrupted: Jewry's Duty
A re-definition of the status of the Middle
East may be in process. While the area has
been labeled "The Battleground of the
World," there are new indications of an emer-
ging willingness on the part of Israel's enemy
neighbors to come to some terms. We may
be far from peace, but closer to a lasting
cease fire and a possible end to warfare.
Regardless of the developments and of
the success attained through the genius of
Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger, Israel
remains on the defensive. There still are the
terrorists and the Arafats, Syria, Libya, Iraq
and their cohorts keep threatening Israel.
Confronted by undeniable realities, the
Jewish communities throughout the world
must meet the serious challenges of provid-
ing Israel with the means for survival. The
embattled state's leaders know how to handle
the matter, from this time on, with caution
and total preparedness. World Jewry's duty
is to relieve Israel of the responsibility of
welcoming and integrating new settlers of
providing the necessary health and educa-
tional facilities and the funds with which
they are to function. The social and welfare
needs must be shared by all of us.
Therefore, the current duty for Jews
everywhere is to say to our kinsmen that they
will not be abandoned, that our close rela-
tionship and partnership is sacred.
Call it Emergency Fund or Conscience
and Honor campaign: it must receive the sort
of response that will give Israel the courage
and the strength to resist any other threats
to the nation's existence.
Our generosity is a matter involving
historic obligations from which no one dares
shirk.
'Sunrise in Jerusalem' Moving
Narrative of Tsur's Youth
Dr. Jacob Tsur, eminent as an Israeli diplomat and as a Zionist
leader, produces equally commendably in literature. His books and
essays, written mostly in Hebrew and in French, have been guides
toward an understanding and appreciation of the Zionist ideals. His
diary as Israel ambassador to France is valuable as commentary on
modern political events.
"Sunrise in Jerusalem," co-published by Herzl Press with A. S.
Barnes Co., has special interest in the life of this author, who is the
world president of Karen Kayemet l'Israel,
the Jewish National Fund. It is autobiographi-
cal, describing the early youth of Dr. Tsur, his
family's struggles during World War I, life in
Poland and in Russia, and his subsequent ex-
periences in France, as a student, before his
having entered the arena of Zionist and Israeli
leadership.
Dr. Tsur admonishes the reader that the
purpose of "Sunrise in Jerusalem" "is to evoke
the atmosphere of a long-forgotten period in
Jewish life . . . it is the story of a simple,
long-suffering people who had the courage and
the tenacity to lead a desperate struggle for
Dr. Jacob Tsur
survival in the midst of stormy European up-
heavals and to start a new life on the faraway shores of a new country."
This is a summary of struggles in which Tsur as a mere youngster
shared in the revolutionary period of the first world struggle, during
the transition of life in Warsaw, the period in Russia and the return
to Poland before finally overcoming the obstacles on the road to Zion.
The reader will wonder anew how people could survive the miseries
that marked the road to freedom. The will to live a free Jewish life
triumphed when the Tsurs came to Palestine.
Tsur's father had gained recognition as a journalist, and he re-
sumed his activities in Palestine, but it was a struggle, and he later
became editor of the Tel Aviv Municipal Council Bulletin, on invitation
from Mayor Meir Dizengoff. It was during that period that Tsur, too,
became associated, as a mere lad, with the Tel Aviv Council, having
been assigned to transcribe. the minutes of the community body by
Mayor Dizengoff. The mayor had known him "as a child" but the
chance of assigning such an important task to him proved workable.
Jacob Tsur had studied in Italy and after an interim stay in
Palestine and the assignment with the Tel Aviv Council he enrolled at
the Sorbonne to continue his studies in France. During the years of
misery in Europe, while in Florence, in Palestine and then in Paris,
he met, through his father and later on his own, some of the outstanding
Zionist personalities.
In Jerusalem it was Eliezer Ben Yehuda and his family, including
his son Ittamar Ben-Aviv, who provided intimacy. In Tel Aviv, in
addition to Mayor Dizengoff, the influence of Hayim Nahman gialik left
its mark on Jacob Tsur.
Notable experiences with Zionists are recorded in the youth's
student life in Florence. Then came the Parisian interlude, sr
good luck through Shoshana Persits in acquiring a proofreader's
partial editorial job for the Hebrew magazine Haolam, published and
edited by Moshe Kleinman. It gave Tsur his livelihood during his
student days and it brought him many significant acquaintances, in-
cluding that of Nahum Sokolow from whom he secured a lengthy essay
that ran in the magazine for an entire year.
Many other of Tsur's experiences were of great historic interest.
He records frequently the cafe where vengeance was enacted on the
one-time head of the Ukrainian government, Semion Peliura, who was
responsible for the pogrom that cost many Jewish lives. It was there
that Shalom Schwartzbart assassinated Petliura, avenging the crimes.
Tsur tells about Scliwartzbart's defense by Maitre Henri Torres who
secured a verdict acquitting him.
Tsur's story of his youth is a tribute to the labors of his father,
the cooperative and self-sacrificing spirit of his mother — both having
died before their 50th birthdays — and the rest of his family. He writes
about them with affection.
In view of the spirited way in which the Parisian days are recorded,
a followup story of his later years and the full account of French ex-
periences, as ambassador of his country, will be looked forward to
with interest. Meanwhile, "Sunrise in Jerusalem" already provides
fascinating reading.