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December 26, 1975 - Image 4

Resource type:
Text
Publication:
The Detroit Jewish News, 1975-12-26

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

THE JEWISH NEWS

Incorporating The Detroit Jewish Chronicle commencing with the issue of July

20, 1951

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 865, Southfield, Mich. - 0)75.
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

Alan Ilitsky, News Editor . . . Heidi Press. Assistant News Editor

Sabbath Scriptural Selections

This Sabbath, the 23rd day of Tevet, 5736. the lbllowing scriptural selections will be read in our synagogues:

Pentateuchal portion, Exod. 1:1-6:1. Prophetical portion, Isaiah

27:6-28:13; 29:22-23.

Candle lighting. Friday, Dec. 26, 1:18 p.m.

OL. LXV111, No. 16

Page Four

Friday., December 26, 1975

1976: A Time for Reckoning

Unlike the spiritual Jewish new year which
is an occasion for rededication to the higher
goals imbedded in faith, the civic new year is
sort of a bookkeeping time. It is an occasion for
stocktaking. It is especially applicable to 1976,
with its legacies from an era of violence and ter-
rorism that is tantamount to barbarism. Taking
account of the many tragic experiences in which
the entire world was inveigled, the new year
commencing within a week is fraught with re-
newed dangers of tensions and insecurities, de-
manding good judgements for proper and firm
actions towards a distraught world's return to
sanity.
The concluding weeks of 1975 were espe-
cially disparaging for peace loving and law-abid-
ing people. Terror affected many countries.
Some of them earned their sufferings because of
their indifference to threatening developments
and their failures to cooperate on the interna-
tional proposals, especially by the United States
in the submission of measures to be dealt with
by the United Nations, to make terrorism an in-
ternational crime.
Blind to the realities of growing crime
waves foStered by terrorists, the countries who
hesitated to cooperate in a world-wide effort to
outlaw terrorism suffered from the menace
themselves.
What now? Will there be an awakening?
Will the calloused and unconcerned realize that
indifference to the dangers confronted by neigh-
bors — nations as well as individuals — may
eventually affect them with the same menacing
situations? Will there be an end to apathy in
personal as well as national situations?
* * *

When Nazism threatened mankind there were
many, too many, who believed that it was
merely a Hitlerite threat to Jews. That's when
people become indifferent: if it is only the Jew,
a pall on him ! It wasn't long before Christians as
well as Jews became the victims of Nazism and
in some respects the awakening to the threat
from barbarism and bestiality came too late.
This is applicable to the indifference to terror-
ism which first was practiced against Jews and
then became a world menace.
This is applicable also to the situation in the
Middle East. Israel was the initial target. Then
came the Kurds in Iraq, the Maronite Catholics
in Lebanon. Who's next? If Israel is not pro-
tected, who knows what other menacing situa-
tions will develop, from the blinded Third World
members and the biased Communist bloc.

* * *

Jews have special concern that in 1976 and in
the years ahead courage should not diminish,
leadership should be emboldened, judgment
should not be warped. The ancient admonition,
"When there is no vision, the people perish"
(Proverbs 28:18) must be kept in view.
While truth has been shunted into unrecog-
nizability, the urgency of establishing it, in the
interest of historical factuality and for the pur-
pose of guiding the rational who would listen be-
comes a matter of priority in Jewish activism.
The entire UN program is now rooted in false-
hoods and truth beckons for recognition like a
beggar.
The challenges to Jewry are immense. At

this time they are staggering. Furthermore,
they are multiplying.
It stands to reason that the support for Is-
rael must not be reduced, that it must be in-
creased and considered as a sacred duty. Aliya is
vital, in spite of the obstructions. Investments
are more necessary now.
Yet the basic duty relates to the public rela-
tions activities, to politics, to relationships with
the media.
Once again this relates to the duty to estab-
lish the truth regarding Israel and the Jewish
relationships to the Jewish state. Public opinion
is vital to the issue. The American-Israel friend-
ship must be strengthened and for that purpose
the good will of all Americans is vitally needed.
The current year, so crucial for the world,
its developments so vital on Israel's calendar,
has another very important aspect. As a presi-
dential election year, it has stimulated discus-
sion on the effects of the upcoming contest.
Many news analysts and commentators insist
upon linking the fate of Israel with the Ameri-
can electorate's decision on leadership. This ap-
proach must be viewed with great concern. It is
diStressing because an urgent human need, a
libertarian struggle, is being dragged into ques-
tionable considerations. The Zionist ideology, Is-
rael's rebirth and national continuity as a legacy
of its traditional inhabitants and Jewry's con-
cerns for both the principle and the reality of
the issue, are not political pawns. There is justi-
fication for the conviction that a noble idea must
not be polluted with doubts. Every indication is
that not a single candidate for the presidency is
antagonistic to Israel or to Jewry. Even if there
were a Communist activist in the 1976 presi-
dential campaign it is doubtful whether the can-
didate would be a crusader of hatred towards
Israel and Jewry.
Therefore the principle and the ideal reject
injection of the issue into the political campaign.
How will the emerging issues be brought
properly into the understandable American and
international agendas? For this purpose, able
and effective, courageous and tireless leadership
is needed. Credibility in leadership is an impera-
tive necessity. Having established it more firmly
there will surely be the confidence that is so ur-
gent in Jewish ranks today.
* * *

The new year may well be considered a time
for more extensive planning for the communal
school system and for the synagogue.
For the first time in the history of Jewish
social welfare and philanthropic co-planning,
the problem of the synagogue emerged at the
Council of Federations General Assembly. It
was a signal to the leaders of various communi-
ties to anticipate an obligation to assure the un-
interrupted progress of religious institutions as
part of the funCtions of wholesome communi-
ties.
Unquestionably, the success of the Jewish
school systems, the expansion of the day schools
which have gained wide recognition in recent
years, become objects of priority. While consid-
eration is given to the needs for educational
tasks in American Jewish communities, the con-
tinuation of such concern must be viewed with
all urgency as the most vital need in Jewry.

Colonial Times to Andy Jackson

Wolf and Whiteman Define
Philadelphia Jewish History

As a focal area in American history and as the city to which many
Jews flocked to establish one of the early Jewish settlements in the
country, Philadelphia serves as an important point for elaboration on
the story of the Jew in America.

A history of that community is, therefore, of great value not only
to the Jews of that city but to the entire American Jewish community.
As part of the valuable series of books planned for the American
Revolution Bicentennial year, the Jewish Publication Society has in-
cluded a notable work by two men who had previously collaborated in
historical research, Edwin Wolf 2nd, a former JPS president, and
Maxwell Whiteman. "The History of the Jews of Philadelphia," their
joint effort, covers the periods from colonial times to.the Andrew
Jackson years. Therefore more is to be expected and American Jewish
history will be enriched by the efforts of two qualified historians.

First published 20 years ago and long out of print, "The History of
the Jews of Philadelphia" has been hailed as a classic work of its kind.
The work is being re-issued by the Jewish Publication Society for
America's Bicentennial observance.

* * *

During much of the period with which this volume deals, Phila-
delphia was the most important city in the New World. This history
describes the life of America's early Jewish settlers — how they man-
aged to obtain kosher meat and get their children properly married
without benefit of shohet or rabbi, how they were treated by their
non-Jewish neighbors, how they developed communal institutions to
preserve their Judaic heritage, what measures they took in support of
the Revolution, how they reacted against slavery.
"The History of the Jews of Philadelphia" traces the stories of
men and women — bankers, brokers, actors, teachers, soldiers and
shopkeepers — who played an integral role in the development of the
city and nation, and simultaneously laid the foundation for the mod-
ern American Jewish community.
Through these pages one becomes acquainted with those whose
lives and achievements are part of the American and the Jewish rec-
ord. "The History of the Jews of Philadelphia" presents the Gratzes
and the Levys, the Phillipses and the Mordecais, the Salomons and
scores of others, in their shops and synagogues, on the battlefields an-I
at the polling places of the new American republic. It is an account of
the struggle and adjustment on spiritual, social, and economic levels.
* * *
Wolf is a Philadelphian with a lifelong interest in the history of
the city, expecially its Jewish community. A past president of the Jew-
ish Publication Society of America and a nationally recognized au-
thority in the rare-book field, he is librarian of the Library Company
of Philadelphia, the first subscription library in the United States,
founded by Benjamin Franklin in 1731.
His publications include "Rosenbach: A Biography" and a forth-
coming pictorial history of Philadelphia.
Whiteman is the archival and historical consultant for the Union
League of Philadelphia. He is a commissioner on the Pennsylvania
Historical and Museum Commission and is associated with a number
Df patriotic, hereditary and military societies.
He is the author of "Gentlemen in Crisis: The First Century of the
Union League in Philadelphia" and is working on a history of East
European Jewry in Philadelphia.

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