i 'J.A l Z. tit A".1 f 3.1 ;iti 2 January 30, 1976 THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS Purely Commentary Jewish leadership in Crucial Times ... Demand for Cour- age and Realism While Mobilizing Constituents' Loyalties ... Victims of Iraqi Brutalities Expose Invitational Lie Iraqi Murderers Seek New Victims They dare so much, those who would destroy Jewry and Israel! Yet nations who must be viewed as being in the civilized category are silent and thereby become acces- sories to intended crimes! It's not new, the Iraqi shamelessness of inviting Jews who have been exiled and and disenfranchized to return. Survivors from the Iraqi terror were prompt to reply and to expose the falsehoods that were spread in space so easily obtainable in many newspapers at the price obtain- able from the oil magnates. The American Sephardi Federation, representing more than a million and a half refugees from Arab countries, responded to the Iraquis by calling attention to this photo, the origin of which is explained as follows: Iraqis watch the bodies of Sabah Haim, (left), and David Hazaquiel, both Jews, dangle from the scaffold after they were hanged in Baghdad. On Janu- ary 28, 1969 it was reported in The New York Times that Secretary General U Thant deplored the hanging of 14 persons in Iraq as an impediment to peace in the Middle East. Leadership Crises On Agenda Is Demand for Realism and Courage Adversity often creates panic. Is it pos- sible that a people steeped in courage, in an age of many difficulties, should suddenly be- gin to cringe? Is it imaginable that a people always on the defensive but never lacking in dignity and valor when confronted by dan- gers should suddenly find itself numbed by an inability to defy terror? Woi Id Jewry faces many new dangers in an age in which some of the best friends in Christendom have suddenly choked up on oil and are abandoning the Jew in his struggle for a better world. Perhaps this is generalizing a bit too much and may be judged also to be a yield- ing to a panicked state in Jewish experience. Nevertheless an admission is demanded to the realities of current experiences. Two in- ternational gatherings were convened in Je- rusalem recently to deal with Jewish issues and both proved total flops. The leadership was unable to rise to new heights over clouded horizons. Eloquence seems never to be lacking when a leader is primarily a fund- raiser, and when the men on top emerge as phantoms on an international battlefield it is time to think realistically about the fail- ure in pragmatism. Rabbi Alexander M. Schindler assumes a new role on the stage of Jewish leadership as president of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. He assumes the important position as a spokesman for American Jewry with an admonition that he will not take orders and will not hesitate to criticize, especially when and where Israel is involved. It would be unfair to treat his predeces- sor, Rabbi Israel Miller, with disrespect. Rabbi Miller, who is one of the leading candi- dates for the presidency of Yeshiva Univer- sity, is an eminent scholar and an advocate of total libertarianism in the Jewish quest for just rights. He is eloquent as a speaker because he is authoritative on the subjects he tackles. He has been criticized as being too By Philip Slomovitz yielding to Israeli leadership attitudes and to pressures from U.S. government officials. It is time to defend him and to make the point that one man can not set policies for an en- tire entity if the associates are the yielders. There is need for a common denominator that rejects splits, and Jewish ranks could easily be split without the common ground which is to be protected by knowledge and courage, by a fearless approach to the needs of the hour. If Dr. Miller has faltered on sbme occasions the cause may be like paint- ing that has been organized haphazardly. The entire canvas portraying the Jewish communal setting may have to be redrawn because the need is for a total fearlessness, for a unified determination not to yield to panic, especially when threats to the endan- gered Jewish position may come from such high quarters as the White House, the State Department, the British Foreign Office and the diplomats in many other lands. Rabbi Schindler does not assure immediate success for the cause over which he now must pre- side with Quixotic gestures. The urgency is for the mobilization of the Jewish will for identification, with the battle for fairness and for the construction of such a solid com- munity steeped in knowledge of itself that its weapons for decency in human relations will be unbre4kable. The urgency for realism, for pragmatic approaches to the communities' needs, be- comes more pressing because the battle is not only for justice to the Jew on the interna- tional front but also for a remodeling of the very community battling for such fairness. The obligation to revitalize Jewish life is all the greater because out of such remobiliza- tion alone can there be hope for a new cour- age, a new wisdbm, a new dignity, a new de- termination never to yield to infamy. In the creation of such new conditions there must be a supporting community whose constitu- ents must feel free to criticize, but who must be ever ready to give strength to those who assume leadership over critics as well as sup- porters. Such is the challenge to the emerg- ing new leadership: it can expect criticism and must encourage it, and it has the right to claim allegiance in time of need. And that time is here and now. Questions From Arab School Books: This Is How Children Are Taught in Schools in Arab Lands The books listed were printed by the Egyptian Ministry of Culture and Education in Cairo. The reply to the Iraqis is brief. In an advertisement in the New York Times, the Sephardi movement declared: On Dec. 11, 1975 the Iraqi government published an advertisement in this newspaper inviting the Jews from Iraq to return. The Jewish refugees from Iraq must refuse this invitation. They know only too well what it means: Sudden disappearances. Mur- ders. Hangings. Arbitrary imprisonments. Confiscation of property. Living in fear and humiliation. And, discrimination in all walks of life. We, the Jewish refugees from Arab lands whose history in those countries goes back more than 2,000 years, long before Islam — suggest that the Arab governments finance the welfare of their own brothers, instead of using them as political pawns, while they spend huge amounts for hypocritical propa- ganda, half truths and outright lies. But what's to be done with the lie that gains respectability because it is backed by oil money? How long will European statesmen (sic!) keep choking on oil? is them'a danger that Americans will fall victims to the lie also because of oil? Lebanon 5 houldhave been enough of a warning to all decent-minded people. But cted in an atmosphere of silence, even from the Lebanese Maronites' what is to be expe fellow Catholics at the v L'Ican? Are the stated facts falling on deaf ears? The truth must be stated and the photo alone should awaken a bit of mankind's * conscience. * Confirmation of the indictment of Iraq is provided in the inhumanity represented e photograph reproduced here. If further confirmation were needed it was pro- Moslem-PLO combine in Lebanon. The Lebanese Christians are the best - y the s in a trial of Iraqi savagery. These are the people Israel must - deal with in the Er international forums! 1. Arabic Grammar, 4th grade (elementary), p. 78: Exercise 5: Decline the verb: "The Arabs (plan) to destroy the Zionists." 2. Arabic Grammar, 5th grade (elementary). Question: "Why do we hate Israel? Why do we want to destroy her?" Answer: "The fatherland must be victorious; Israel must be strangled." 3. Literary Texts for the 1st (preparatory) grade, p. 155: "You Jews shall never have a homeland, You never had a homeland; We will take over Palestine— And bury you in its soil." From a poem by Elia Abu Madi. Reader for the 3rd (preparatory) grade, pp. 34, 90: 299. "In Palestine lived King David who turned his back on the evil Jews . . . we can never forget how the Jews tormented Muhammed, the Prophet of Allah, and tortured Jesus, who preached love and peace." "My Arab brethren . . . help me throw Israel into the depths of the ocean, to the remotest deserts." . 5. "Zionist Imperialism," 9th grade (secondary), p. 249: "Israel wishes to exist and does all she can to further that aim . . . the defense burden she bears is overwhelming, because of the enmity of her Arab neighbors. Should the Israel Army be defeated in battle, all the country will be destroyed . . . Israel hopes to be the homeland of the Jews, and they have the stubborness of 4,000 years of history behind them. But Israel shall not live if the Arabs stand fast in their hatred. She shall wither and decline. Even if all the human race, and the Devil in hell, conspire to aid her, she shall not exist!" by Abbas Mahmud al-Akkad. 6. History of the Arab Fatherland in Ancient Times, 1st grade (preparatory), p. 52: "Pharaoh will always be honored in our memory for destroying the Jews who endan- gered him." 7. History of the Arab Fatherland and its Culture, 2nd grade (preparatory), p. 102: "The Hebrews were not true Semites, and their temporary occupation of the Holy Land disintegrated after the death of King Solomon." 8. History of the Arab Fatherland in Modern Times, for seminars — 5th grade, p. 181: "While the U.AR strides gloriously forward, Israel screams with fear at her destiny and fate — her ultimate destruction by the Arabs."