THE JEWISH NEWS Incorporating The Detroit Jewish Chronicle conemencing with the issete of Jelly .20, 1951 Member American Association of English-Jewish Newspapers, Michigan Press Association, National Editorial Association. Published every Friday by The Jewish News Publishing ('o., 17515 W. Nine Mile, -Suite 865. S(wthlielii, Second-Class Postage Paid at Southfield, Michigan and Additional Mailing Offices. Subscription $10 a year. PHILIP SLOMOVITZ Editor and Publisher CARMI M. SLOMOVITZ DREW LIEBERWITZ Business Manager Advertising Manager Man Ilitsky, Neus Editor . . . Heidi Press. tssistant Neiss Editor SABBA:11-1 SCNIPTLRAL SELECHONS This Sabbath, the 28th day of Sivan, 5735, the following scriptural s.elections will be read in our synagogues: Pentateuchal portion, Num. 133-15:41. Prophetical portion, Joshua 2:1-24 Rosh Hodesh Tammuz, Monday and Tuesday, Num. 28:1 15. - Candle lighting, Friday, June 6, 8:46 p.m. VOL. LXVII, No. 13 Page Four Friday, June 6, 1975 . ■ Israel and the International Community There is a measure of decency in the inter- ership in refusing to condone the bigotries that national community, and the subscribers to fair have made the UN impotent in human relations. play and justice must not be ignored. Therefore The few nations which have rejected the inhu- a place of honor must be given to four nations manities that have besmirched the UN, the who have joined in defending Israel's role in the United Nations Economic, Social and Cultural World Health Organization. Together with the Organization (UNESCO) and now the WHO United States, the bigots' action in condemning seem to stand alone in a battle for common de- Israel at the WHO meeting in Geneva was oh- cency. jected to by Uruguay, Bolivia and Costa Rica. Meanwhile Israel struggles to retain the This poses the question: what has happened friendship of the few, the strong links with the to the democratic spirit of so-called civilized U.S. and a sense of balance in her own ranks Western countries? where hatreds such as stem from world powers Indeed, what is the role of Great Britain, tend to create bitterness. France, Holland, Belgium and the Scandinavian A similar feeling of self-control needs to be countries? retained by world Jewry. The battle for justice The warning by John Scali, the retired U. S. now demands continuation of effort to enlighten delegate to the United Nations, of an impending those who are blinded by developments so that effort to expel Israel from the world organiza- they may understand the indecencies which tion adds immeasurably to the disgraceful situ - mark international actions stimulated by the ation that has been created on the world scene bigots who control the UN. by the nations seeking Israel's destruction and It is in the interest of decency for mankind the fear that has gripped the so-called democra- that the injustices emanating from the world or- cies which go along in the threats leveled at Is- ganization must be battled to a finish. For the rael. The encouragement given to these hatreds Jewish people it marks a reversal to the dangers by the Soviet Union and the Communist bloc that were confronted in medieval times. If civili- may well be viewed as a major contributing fac- zation is to benefit, Israel and Jewry must again tor to the growth of prejudice and the rebirth of labor to the end that beastialities are relegated medievalism among the nations of the world. to the jungle and that the human spirit is res- The United States retains a position of lead- tored to mankind. Diaspora Under Scrutiny Shunning fears, displaying the courage that is so vital to a people's existence, Israelis often admonish those who are inclined to be panicky over their status to look at their own situations in order fully to appreciate the confidence they retain in their status and their future. Now there is a new concern among Israelis, involving the spiritual aspects of life in the Diaspora. Rabbi Isaac Stollman, a former Detroiter whose home in Jerusalem for the last 10 years has given him a renewed sense of confidence in the "Heaven on earth" he has found in Medinat Israel, expressed the growing concern in what he termed a fear over American Jewry's future. He spoke of 50 per cent intermarriages here, of "the loss of our, youth," of danger in abandon- ment of Torah. It is not the future of Israel Jewry that causes him worry — he is certain of. the power of faith in Eretz Israel; the reported declines in world Jewry's spirituality concern .him. He is not alone in expressing such fears, and the Diaspora Jew is therefore challenged to make an accounting of his status. Is there really so much danger to American Jewry's future? Is the term "the vanishing Jew" which was bantered recently a real threat, or can it be relegated to the mythical? Most certainly, the concern can not be ig- nored and the warning is not viewed with . dis- damn. There is a lessening of worry over assimi- lation because the fusion of the Jewish group with the majority of the population develops so naturally in the normalcy of American life. It is this normalcy that calls for greater effort to assure retention of the legacies, which mark the difference between Jews and their neighbors and make their spiritual values distinct for them. Israeli kinsmen are not alone in testing the concern over continuity of Jewish loyalties. Re- sponsible leadership in this country recognizes the: need for positive educational programming, for opposition to mixed marriages which emerge as a threat to Jewish identifications. Is youth escaping from Jewish duties? Are the young actually vanishing from the commu- nity? Is there really a lessening of identifica- tion? It is possible that the most menacing area is the university. The accepted view is that the mixed marriage factor is especially threatening among the college youth. Perhaps it is exagger- ated. The situation now is not different from those in the 1920s through the 1950s. But the numbers of Jewish students in universities have grown immensely in the 1960s and 1970s, and this is a major cause for growing separation in that area from organized Jewish life. A fact not to be ignored is the existence of concern over the developing conditions in Ameri- can Jewish ranks. Perhaps the Hillel Founda- tions can be strengthened. The establishment of Jewish centers on campuses by the Hasidim, as in the instance of the Lubavitch on the Univer- sity of Michigan campus, is an instance worth considering. As long as the needs are not ig- nored there must be a rejection of hopelessness. As in all Jewish crises, hope reigns supremely. Hopefully, a new period of re-identification may well be anticipated while Diaspora is under scrutiny. Impressive Record of Heroic Jewish Resistance to Nazis The Six Million were victims of Nazi barbarism but they were not all submissive. The record of Jewish resistance is rich in examples of heroism. Young and old, men and women, mere youngsters, partici- pated in underground activities. Yuri Suhl told the story in his impressive "They Fought Back, The Story of the Jewish Resistance in Nazi Europe," published in 1967 by Crown. Now it is available in a paperback issued by Schocken Books. The value of this record is timeless. It retains the facts about the heroic stand that was taken by many in the Nazi-made ghettoes, in the concentration camps 'and in the crematoria. Suhl's editorial task in "They Fought Back" was to gather factual statements by participants in anti-Nazi underground battles and to chronicle them to indicate how the resistance operated in the various labor and death camps. Many of the articles by the authoritative parti- cipants in the resistance are supplemented by Suhl's subsequent data gathered about the immediate subject under discussion. An example: Suhl's dramatic stories contain especially moving descriptions of heroism by children. An important article by Misha Gildenman tells about "Diadia Misha (Uncle Misha) and His Partisans: The Blowing Up of the Soldiers' Home." Appended to this article is the following "Editor's Postscript:" "In his account of Jewish children who displayed heroism as partisans, Kaganovich brings some additional information about 12-year old Motele, based on Diadia Misha's memoir. When Dia- dia Misha's partisans discovered a boy sleeping in the woods, he gave his name as Mitka and they thought he was a Ukrainian. Later they learned that he was Jewish, the son of a miller, and that he was born in Krasnuvka, a village in Volhynia. " 'By coincidence,' writes Kaganovich, `Motele was not at home when Germans and Ukrainians killed his father, mother and little sister. That same night he escaped to the woods and hired himself out to peasants as a shepherd, for his room and board. In Diadia Misha's detachment the clever, daring and alert boy was utilized for intelligence and espionage work.' "In addition to blowing up the German Soldiers' Home, Mo- tele is credited with, among other things, saving the lives of two Jewish children and a Russian, partisan, and with shooting a Ger- man to death with his revolver. Motele fell in battle shortly before liberation. He was crawling over to a new position to warn the Soviet officers of an impending danger when he was struck by a German bullet." Such are the acts of heroism, translated from the records retained in the writings of Ber Mark, Reuven Ainsztain, Emmanuel Ringel- blum, Abraham Lissner and many others. They are the stories of the heroic acts in the Warsaw Ghetto and the other Nazi-created areas of , terror. There is an index to' many hundreds of areas of resistance. These indicate the extent of the resistance so well delineated in Suhl's important historical record. `Faith in Spite of All' is Cited "Faith in Spite of All, A Rabbi's story" by Rabbi Juda Glasner (Vantage Press) was awarded the George Washington Certificate this week by the Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge. The award cited a chapter in Rabbi Glasner's book on "Detente or Subterfuge" in which, the rabbi described detente as a temporary Russian strategy to Western estern technology.