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May 30, 1975 - Image 4

Resource type:
Text
Publication:
The Detroit Jewish News, 1975-05-30

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THE JEWISH NEWS

Incorporating The Detroit Jewish Chronicle commencing with the issue of July 20, 19.51

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 8 . 65, Southfield, Mich. -18075.
Second-Class Postage Paid at Southfield, Michigan and Additional Mailing Offices. Subscription $l() a year.

PHILIP SLOMOVITZ

CARMI M. SLOMOVITZ

Editor and Publisher

Business Manager

%Ian Ilitsky.

CNA S Editor .

DREW LIEBERWITZ

Advertising Manager

. Heidi Press. %ssistaitt Ness. Editor

SABBATH SCRWITRAL SELECTIONS

This Sabbath, the 21st day of Sivan, 5735, the following scriptural selections will be read in our synagogues:
Pentateuchal portion, Num. 8:1-12:16. Prophetical portion, Zechariah 2:14-4:7.

Candle lighting, Friday, May 30, 8:41 p.m.

\ OI.. LXVIL No. 12

Page Four

Friday, 'Hay 30, 1975

The President's Crucial Negotiations

Negotiations set to commence in Salzburg
on Sunday between President Gerald Ford and
Egypt's President Anwar el Sadat, to be contin-
ued thereafter in Washington with Israel's
Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin may prove cru-
cial not only for the Middle East but for the
peace of the world.
While the chief objective is the striving for
an end to the Middle East conflict, the Soviet
Union claims equal consideration in decisions
involving the Middle East. The mandate appar-
ently held by Sadat to represent many of the
other Arab states adds to the seriousness of the
situation.
Obstacles viewed as difficult, if not impos-
sible to resolve, endlessly serve as speculations
in the news media over possible developments in
the coming months. From Cairo emanate pres-
sures so unreasonable, the demands made upon
President Ford in advance are so irrational, that
they cause wonderment whether the balloon
tests thus unleashed have much meaning.
Implications in the anticipated demands by
Arabs upon President Ford are that the United
States abandon aid to Israel under present con-
ditions in order to force Israel out of territories
under dispute. In effect, the demands are that
the U.S. should- abandon this nation's involve-
ments in the Middle East, thus forfeiting the in-
ternational role in that area to the Russians and
to the Arab potentates.
Perhaps the speculative and the prognosti-
cated in the news media are meaningless when
the responsible heads of governments actually
sit together to talk about the Middle East situa-
tion. The reports from Vienna, where Secretary
of State Henry Kissinger and Soviet Foreign
Minister Andrei Gromyko met last week, are
the more rational results of sensible diplomacy.
The postponement of the planned Geneva con-
ference, the aim to prevent El _Fatah influence
when the negotiating conferees are to meet, ap-

pear to have reached a stage of cooperativeness
rather than the suspected divisiveness.
Apparently the Kissinger-Gromyko deci-
sions will have strongest bearing upon the forth-
coming Ford-Sadat meetings. America's leader-
ship would be subjected to ridicule and this
nation's statesmen would be reduced to charla-
tanry if the pressures reported from Arab
quarters were to gain validity. The modifica-
tions in approaches reported from Vienna pro-
vide a measure of relief from the tensions that
stem from the rumors and media speculations.
Nevertheless, the hope must be entertained
in advance, and its meaning communicated to
the President, that there will be no submission
to orratorical demands upon this country and
therefore in the process of negotiations upon Is-
rael. American interests do not brook submis-
sion to the selfishness that would deny a nation
struggling for security the right to defend itself
an d to have secure borders.
Primary in the issue is the need for the con-
tending nations to sit together to resolve their
problems and to -agree on acceptable borders. As
long as third parties negotiate for those involved
in the struggle, and as long as there remains a
barrier between the two contending parties, the
war danger will remain and even the most pas-
sionate searchers for peace will be encouraging
conflict by their ineptitude and inability to re-
solve the issues.
President Ford has an acknowledged back-
ground of understanding Of the Middle East sit-
uation. He is committed to justice for Israel,
fairness to the Arabs and a guarantee of reten-
tion of America's diplomatic role in the Middle
East. Adhering to these principles, it can be an-
ticipated that pressures won't operate destruc-
tively when the Ford-Sadat meeting takes place
Sunday. With firmness it is to be anticipated
that fair play will be the rule when Israel's fate
is debated in Salzburg.

_

Israel's Doors Open for Aliya

A nation gains its highest laurels when, in
time of stress and economic difficulties, its
doors are kept open for those seeking refuge
from persecution.
American ideals have retained high status
with the decision to welcome and provide for
refugees from the Vietnamese calamities. Israel
paved the road for humanitarian idealism by
making "the ingathering of the exiles" one of the
state's chief objectives.
Now, in a time of great difficulty for Israel,
military needs have seriously affected the coun-
try's economy. Israel, nevertheless, keeps her
doors open for all who seek haven from indigni-
ties in lands of oppression and those who wish to
seek means of perpetuating the legacies of Juda-
ism in the Holy Land. The open door policy of
Israel is one of the nation's most valued ideals.
These principles relate not to the perse-
cuted alone but to free Jews everywhere who are
constantly asked to participate in Aliya, by join-
ing the Israelis in the great effort of.building the
land and elevating its cultural and industrial
needs.
The need for increased Aliya to Israel will
be defined at the all-day series of seminars

planned for this Sunday in this community.
Many young people are believed to be anxious to
join the builders of Zion, to share in the activism
that is so vital to a nation whose progress devel-
oped from the migrants representing dozens of
countries whence Jews came "to build and to be
rebuilt" in the process.
Viewing the needs realistically, there is the
compelling admission that responses to Aliya
have been minimal, especially since the 1973
war. Therefore the need to emphasize the ideo-
logical as well as the practical aspects, the need
for identification to cement Israel-Diaspora kin-
ships.
Under the leadership of Mrs. Charlotte Ja-
cobson, chairman of the American section of the
Jewish Agency, prominent personalities will
outline the needs and participants in Sunday's
conference will have an opportunity to become
acquainted with the needs and to share in im-
portant tasks in behalf of the Jewish state. A
community responsibility relates to this confer-
ence out of which; hopefully, will emerge an in-
creased Aliya participation from Michigan
Jewry.

The Greek Inscriptions

Volume Describes Historic .
Beth She'arim Excavations

Land purchased by the Jewish National Fund in 1925, in what has
become the vital Valley of Jezreel in Galilee, pioneering in excavation
activities became one of the most interesting developments in Israel.
The explorations that began there in 1936 at Beth She'arim, under the
direction of Dr. Benjamin Mazar, who presently is directing the ar-
cheological tasks in Jerusalem, have marked the beginnings of great
efforts resulting in the tasks on Masada, at Hazor and other sectors
where history is being revived by significant diggings.
A second volume describing the excavations in that spot in the
Galilee, "Beth She'arim," by Moshe Schwabe and Baruch Lifshitz
(Rutgers University Press) deals with "The Greek Inscriptions."
Interrupted by World War II in 1940, the excavations were re-
sumed for another five years in 1953.

Transcription and translation of the inscriptions, found in the
unearthed Beth She'arim, the tombs in the burial place, the histor-
ical data collected to describe the findings, merge in this fascinat-
ing work to provide a history of a reconstructed era and the back-
ground of events that marked Jewish life there.

Traced to the Hasmoneans in 161 BCE, the story related here
describes the life of the people of that era, the Hellenistic influences,
the subsequent Romanization, the settlement there of Jews from Ju-
dah after the Bar Kokhba 132-133 CE Revolt.
Always an agricultural center, a role now resumed there by Jew-
ish settlers, the religious practices, the customs of the time, the social
aspects emerge from the current study, in a volume rich in photo-
graphs, supplemented by maps, replete with the inscriptions when e
the story has been redeemed.
In the story of Beth She'arim it is related how the burial ground
became famous as the final resting place for great scholars in anti( nt
Israel, and for many from other lands as far as Palmyr.

It was in the Antonine-Severeine period, 138-135 BCE, that
this area became an important center of Jewish life. The Talmud
refers to the residence there of Judah ha-Nasi who established the
Sanhedrin that functioned there as an historic tribunal for Jews.
Judah ha-Nasi was buried in the Beth She'arim necropolis.

Tourists in Israel who are interested in archeology are aware of
the many mausolea and catacombs which are among the most exten-
sive in the land and among the most impressive of all excavations.
Prospering until theEourth Century rebellion, the area was laid
waste by Gallus in 352 CE. A poor settlement continued to exist until
its abandonment a century later, to be reconstructed again during
Jewish resettlement commencing in the 1.920s of this era.

Sde Yaakov, Kfar Yehoshua and other settlements now.
serve as reminders of olden times, of an era forgotten for more
than a thousand years and its significance recovered commencing
with the diggings from 1936 until the end of the 1950s.

The second volume in the "Beth She'arim" series, through the ex-
tensive study of the Greek inscriptions, provides new interest for a
great chapter in Jewish history and inspires recollections regarding
both the Greek and Roman eras, and during the Hasmoneans' domina-
tion, with a related subsequent interest in the Bar Kokhba Revolt.
The thoroughness of the Beth She'arim archeological at-
tainment is attributable to the two scholarly co-authors. Former He-
brew University Prof. Moshe Schwabe, an epigraphical scholar, inter-
rupted his task of translating the Greek inscriptions due to poor
health. Upon his death in 1957 the task was continued by Dr. Baruch
Lifshitz, senior lecturer at the Hebrew University, who comp'eted the
notable undertaking.

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