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March 14, 1975 - Image 4

Resource type:
Text
Publication:
The Detroit Jewish News, 1975-03-14

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

THE JEWISH NEWS

Incorporating The Detroit Jewish Chronicle coin mencing with the issue of July .2(), 051

Member American Association of English-Jewish Newspapers, Michigan Press Association, National Editorial Association.
Published every Friday by The Jewish News Publishing Co., 17515 W. Nine Mile, Suite S65, Southfield, Mich. -18075.
Second-Class Postage Paid at Southfield, Michigan and Additional Mailing Offices. Subscription $10 t year.

PHILIP SLOMOVITZ

Editor and Publisher

CARMI M. SLOMOVITZ

Business Manager

DREW LIEBERWITZ

Advertising Manager

Alan Ilitsky, News- Editor . . . Ileidi Press., Assistant News Editor

SABBATH SCRIPTURAL SELECTIONS

This Sabbath, the third day of Nisan, 5735, the following scriptural selections will be read in our synagogues: -
Pentateuchal portion, Lev. 1:1-5:26. Prophetical portion, Isaiah 43:21-44:2.3.

Candle lighting, Friday, March 14, 6:19 p.m.

IAN ll, No. l

Friday, March 14, 1975

Page Four

U-M Accords Honor to Israel President

Under normal conditions, the awarding of
an 'honorary degree to Israel's President
Ephraim Katzir is a routine recognition of an
eminent scientist's notable achievements as well
as the important role of the head of a sovereign
state.
One of the tragedies of this era, however, is
that the lowest form of politics is being injected
in human and cultural affairs and propaganda
that borders on the barbarities of the Holocaust
have been practiced by bigots seeking the de-
struction of Israel who have, introduced hatred
for all Jews into the arena of international
relationships.
UNESCO's recent action was an example of
the lowest form of bigotry. The spread of un-
truths about Israel's administrative role in occu-
pied territories also took the form of bias that
tends to undermine good will.
Recognition by a great university of the
merits of a scholar and the executive head of a
,
.1

functioning state might,have been marred had
the inhumanities stemming from Arab proba-
ganda sources been permitted to gain ground in
this land of freedom.
Already, there is evidence that the inhu-
manities are gaining ground in the industrial
sphererof this country. Banking firms are yield-
ing to the Arab boycott and a backward society
could be envisaged as yielding also to the detri-
mental acts of those seeking destruction of an
entire people out of greed to dominate an impor-
tant part of the globe.
The University of Michigan's honor ex-
tended to Dr. Katzir mark a continuation of aca-
demic decencies in this land. They defy the big-
ots. The expression of appreciation for the
award of an honorary degree,to President Katzir
of Israel represents, at the same time, an affir-
mation of academic freedom that must always
reject the imposition of hatreds into civilized so-
ciety.

Impartial Study of Israel 's Humanism

World Jewry does not interfere in Israel's
internal political affairs. The Israelis' kinsmen
strive hard to provide for the new settlers, most
of whom seek refuge from persecutions and op-
pressions. The duty to support Israel's univer-
sity and secondary school system and to provide
havens-for the aged is self-evident.
Another major responsibility in the rela-
tionships with Israelis is to° be on guard against
the spread of untruths. Antagonists of Israel,
Arabs, their Communist allies, the leftists who
have gone off on a tangent, seem to relish every
opportunity to accuse Israel of inhumanity in

TV Blunder on Syria

A popular television program director (Mike
Wallace) who has gained credibility for his prod-
uct (60 Minutes) has fallen prey to naivete with
his submission to such distortions by a foreign
government (Syria) that he has added to the
jeopardy of the status of 4,500 Syrian Jews who
live in constant danger of the worst type of
Genocide.
Already so oppressed and humiliated that
they have been denied the minutest of human
rights, the shocking program nevertheless por-
trayed glory for a surviving Jewish group in a
kind of submission that was possible only under
the Gestapo, or at the, command of the KGB.
There is yet to be a correction, a denial, an
apology. Lacking the expression of regret for
such an outrageous downgrading of truth, it is
well to ask what has happened to the Conference
of Presidents of National Jewish Organizations,
the American Zionist Federation, ADL, Ameri-
can Jewish Congress, American Jewish Com-
mittee, that all of them have failed to get action
disproving falsehoods about Syrian Jews, in a
fashion similar to the National Geographic Mag-
azine's correction of a similar. blunder. Ameri-
can Jewish leadership owes an explanation to
the community they serve for their hesitancy to
act in so urgent a matter involving the fate of
surviving Syrian Jewry.

the treatment of prisoners and of terrorizing
residents in newly administered territories.
Any one with a sense of justice who has vis-
ited Israel, and a number of the leaders of Chris-
tian communities in ISrael which are function-
ing in fullest freedom, have repudiated the
charges. But their repitition is a cause for great
concern and demands serious attention.
The bigotries ,that united the Communist
and the Arab blocs in their accumulation of
never proven charges against Israel were in evi-
dence again at the metting of the United Na-
tions Human Rights Commission in Geneva. So
crude and bigoted were the unproven accusa-
tions of Israel in the adopted resolutions that
the Western powers, including the United
States, reacted against them. The Geneva ac-
tions merely reiterated the abortiveness of the
UN role in its submission to any method by the
barbarians aimed at the destruction of Israel.
The newest of the UN uncivilized outrages is an-
other symptom that demands fact-finding by
impartial people to end the lie-spreading from
the UN affiliates — if enough people can be
found to listen to the truth.
Let there be selected a commission of prom-
inent Christians to study the existing conditions
in Israel and to submit a report on the accusa-
tions . Let there be, once and for all time, an ex-
pose of the source of the vicious propaganda that
damages Israel's image. But let such a commis-
sion be selected by American Jews with the
cooperation of reputable Christians to assure its
not being packed with prejudiced men. Jewry
knows from experience the damage that preju-
diced commissioners can impose upon an inno-
cent community.
It is possible that the new steps being taken
by the Conference of Presidents of Major Amer-
ican Jewish Organizations to mobilize forces to
counteract Arab propaganda will lead in the di-
rection of this proposal. But our public relations
media and many national leaders have been
found all-too-weak in time of trouble. A new ap-
proach is therefore an urgent necessity.

`

A Notable Work of Research

500 Years of Jewish History
In New Haggada Chronicle

.

For centuries the Passover Haggada has been the Jewish artist's ma-
jor literary instrument for utilization of his skills in portraying Jewish
historical events.
A major collective achievement chronicling the Haggadot that have
recounted Jewish historical events during the past 500 years has just
been issued by the Jewish Publication Society of America.
Written by Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, this unusual and beautiful vol--
ume offers, for the first time, a comprehensive view of that most popular
and beloved of Jewish classics, the Passover Haggada, from the begin-
nings of Hebrew printing in the 15th Century to the present day. It fea-
tures 200 facsimili plates, reproduced with the greatest fidelity to the
originals, of representative pages from rare printed Haggadas in two of
the world's outstanding Judaica collections: the libraries of Harvard Uni-
versity and the Jewish Theological Seminary of America.
"Haggadah and History" ranges in scope from an illustrated Hag-
gada printed in Italy in 1486 to a Hebrew-Russian Haggada published in
Israel in 1972 for Soviet immigrants. Along the way there are striking
representations from all the corners of the vast Jewish experience. This
rich visual history is complemented by Prof. Yerushalmi's fascinating
historical introduction and detailed descriptions of each plate. The result
is a rare blend of scholarship and aesthetic appeal.
"Haggadah and History," however, is much more than -a history of
the Passover Haggada. It is also a mirror of the last five centuries in
Jewish history, as reflected in the Haggada itself. As Prof. Yerushalmi
so eloquently demonstrates, to follow the Haggada through history is to
follow the historical course of the Jewish people who are its custodians.
Thus geographical shifts in places of printing provide a microcosm of the
worldwide migrations of Jews.
The diversity of the Jewish Diaspora comes to life in Haggadas ema-
nating from different communities and translated into a host. of lan-
guages. The metamorphoses of Haggada woodcuts and engravings pro-
vide keys to Jewish attitudes. Departures from the traditional text reveal
the ramified impact of modernity. And if the Haggadas mimeographed
in Vichy concentraticku camps evoke the tragic years of the Nazi era, Is-
raeli kibut.z Haggadas are moving doCuments of the rebirth of the Jewish
People.
"Haggadah and History" — an "aesthetic and informative tour de
force," as Gerson D. Cohen, chancellor of the Jewish Theological Semi-
nary of America, has described it — will be welcomed by scholar and
layman alike, by all who are interested in Jewish history and in Jewish
art, by lovers of fine books, and above all, by those who would appreciate
the record of the Jewish people amid the flux of history.
A numbered, bibliophilic edition of "Haggadah and History," limited
to 200 copies, has been set aside for collectors, librarians, and conno-
iseurs. In addition to ."Haggadah and History,"' this edition contains a
portfolio in which are enclosed facsimiles of the eight surviving leaves
from the oldest known illustrated printed Haggada, with a special
introduction.
Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi is professor of Hebrew and of Jewish his-
tory at Harvard University. He is the author of "From Spanish Court to
Italian Ghetto" and other works on the history of Sephardic Jews, the
Marranos, and the Inquisition.

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