THE JEWISH NEWS
Incorporating The Detroit Jewish Chronicle commencing with the issue 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. 48075.
Second-Class Postage Paid at Southfield, Michigan and Additional Mailing Offices. Subscription $10 a year.
PHILIP SLOMOVITZ
Editor and Publisher
CARMI M. SLOMOVITZ
Business Manager
DREW LIEBERWITZ
Advertising Manager
Alan Hitsky, News Editor . . . Heidi Press, Assistant News Editor
Sabbath Scriptural Selections
This Sabbath, on the 20th day of Adar 1, 5736, the following scriptural selections will be read in our synagogues:
Pentateuch& portion, Exodus 30:11-34:35. Prophetical portion, I Kings 18:1 39.
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Candle lighting, Friday, Feb. 20, 5:53 p.m.
VOL. LXVIII, No. 24
Page Four
Friday, February 20, 1976
Quest for Peace: Lost Opportunities
Tragic conditions which keep neighboring peoples apart and constantly at knives' edges com-
pel repetitive resort to historic facts and experiences as reminders that the search for peace has
always been on the agenda. Frantic pleas for amicability had their obstacles and the obstructions
unfortunately have developed into even greater hatreds.
Nevertheless it is necessary to keep repeating the facts gleaned from the historic record, in
the hope that the aim to attain peace will not be totally scuttled.
The truth is that Arab-Jewish cooperation was projected and was on the verge of attainment.
Authoritative summation of the earliest approaches to amity recall these facts:
One of the saddest aspects of the modern (Note that "Palestine" here referred to the Jew-
history of the Middle East is the way early coop-
In a letter to Felix Frankfurter, then a
eration between Arabs and Jews in Palestine
prominent American Zionist and later a Su-
was sabotaged by Arab terrorists.
With the beginning of the British Mandate preme Court Justice, Feisal wrote: "We Arabs,
in 1922, Jewish immigration into Palestine grew especially the educated among us, look with
apace. Rapid economic developments resulting deepest sympathy on the Zionist movement . . .
from Jewish settlement attracted tens of thou- We will wish the Jews a hearty welcome home
sands of Arab immigrants from the economi- . . . We are working together for a reformed
cally stagnant surrounding states to Palestine, and revised Near East,-and our two movements
where there was work and higher wages and op- complement one another. The movement is na-
portunity for a higher standard of living. The tional and not imperialistic."
But Arab extremists began to replace the
Arab population increase was especially marked
moderates
and cooperation gave way to terror.
in Jewish areas.. In Haifa, for example, the Arab
population rose by 216 per cent between 1922 In 1920 and 1921 Arab mobs killed 52 Jews. In
and 1939; in Jaffa, 134 per cent; in Jerusalem 97 1929, in the ancient Jewish religious centers of
Hebron and Safed, 133 Jews were murdered. Be-
per cent.
tween
1936 and 1939 Arab bands killed 517 Jew-
Recognizing the advantages which Jewish ish
state.)
settlement offered, Arab leaders spoke out in ish settlers.
Arab terrorists led by the Mufti of Jerusa-
support of Zionism. In 1918 — a year before he
was declared King of Syria by the General Syr- lem did not hesitate to use the same tactics
ian Congress — Emir Feisal signed an agree- against their fellow Arabs. The New York Times
ment with Dr. Chaim Weitzmann (representing reported on Oct. 15, 1938 that "extremist follow-
the Zionist movement) which called for "all nec- ers of the Mufti . . . are rapidly achieving their
essary measures . . . to encourage and stimu- aims by eliminating political opponents in Pa-
late immigration of Jews into Palestine on a lestine who are inclined toward moderation."
In 1948, shortly before the establishment of
large scale and . . . to settle Jewish immigrants
upon the soil." The preamble noted that Feisal the state of Israel, Golda Meir met with King
and Weitzmann were "mindful of the racial kin- Abdullah of Transjordan in an attempt to pre-
ship and ancient bonds existing between the Ar- vent the threatened Arab invasion. But it was
abs and the Jewish people" and that they recog- too late. Arab extremists were now in full
nized that "the surest means of working out the swing. The moderate Abdullah was assassinated
consummation of their national aspirations is on his way to prayers in Jerusalem and the Muf-
through the closest possible collaboration in the ti's Arab higher committee publicly announced
development of the Arab state and Palestine." its aim as "the elimination of the Jewish state."
It's obvious that the same destructive tactics are pursued by the PLO and the aim is to destroy
rather than to create good will and cooperation.
There is no limit to the distortions and the resort to repetitive falsehoods in the Arab propa-
ganda whose chief spreaders are the PLO representatives who have been given respectability in the
UN. They go back to the Balfour Declaration in a demand for its scrapping 59 years after it had
been incorporated into the world's records and 1947 is a basis for demands to crowd Jews into a
ghetto state. But even the minutest form of sovereignty is not anticipated in the thinking and
programming of those who would destroy Israel and the PLO asserts bluntly that its only ultimate
aim is the elimination of the Jewish state.
As the promulgation of the United Nations it surely was to be expected that the honorable
members of that august body would protect the fruit of its labors. There is no compassion. All
appeals for Israel's security are falling on deaf ears. How will the problem be solved and the tragedy
averted? Can the lone defender, the United States, exert enough strength and influence to avert even
greater tragedy than is envisioned in the lost opportunities for an accord? Perhaps Israel's determi-
nation never to sacrifice sovereignty will, in its ultimate triumph, cleanse the world's corroding
statesmen of the guilt they now bear for failure to acknowledge firmly the duty of sharing in such
inevitable survival against a seriously endangered small nation.
In the present situation of severe gravity for Israel one aspect remains a certainty: Israel can
not and will not subscribe to any proposal interpretative of a prescribed suicide. On that score world
Jewry will defend the Israeli position against the PLO or any element anywhere that advocates
submission on reduction of Israeli sovereignty to a ghetto and to the danger of annihilation.
The immediate defenders of Israel are those who retain the strength within the state to assure
security for the embattled people. The closest allies in such a defense are the kinsmen of the Israelis
— world Jewry. The providers of the tools for such survivalism is the American people.
To assure such support libertarians of all faiths are obligated to strive for further strengthen-
ing of the American-Israeli friendship. There is no substitute for this weapon for human decency in
the Middle East.
Economic Aspects of Jewish
History Defined in 2 Books
Two important books, both devoted to valuable studies of eco-
nomic aspects of the Jewish people, have just been issued by two ma-
jor publishing houses, the Jewish Publication Society of America and
Schocken Books.
In the JPS volume, "Aspects of Jewish Economic History," Dr.
Marcus Arkin surveys Jewish contributions to economic progress.
Prof. Arkin's study serves to make a highly complex subject ac-
cessible to the general reader. Ranging across the broad spectrum of
the Jewish experience, it offers informed observations on such sub-
jects as the importance of farming in biblical times, the economic fac-
tors prompting the expulsion of the Jews from 15th Century Spain,
an investigation of the Shylock image in Elizabethan England, and the
impact of Jewish immigration on the economic life of New York.
By means of a series of interconnected essays, Prof. Arkin first
takes the reader from biblical and post-biblical times through some of
the main centers of Jewish economic life in the Middle Ages.
He then discusses the underlying features of West European Je-
wry during the early modern period of mercantilism, offers stimulat-
ing new viewpoints on the attitudes of Shakespeare, Marx, and Som-
bart, evaluates the careers of some of the great financial families like
the Rothschilds, and concludes with a reassessment of Jewish eco-
nomic activity in modern communities as different from one another
as the United States, South Africa, and Israel.
An annotated bibliography provides guidance for further study
and adds to the value of this highly readable survey of an often over-
looked field of Jewish contribution.
Arkin is director-general of the South African Zionist Federation.
He was formerly head of the Department of Economics at Rhodes
University, Grahamstown, South Africa, where he was also dean of
the faculty of social science.
His four-part history of the English East India Company's activi-
ties at the Cape has become the standard work on the subject. He is
also the author of "South African Economic Development: An Outline
Survey," "Economists and Economic Historians," "Introducing Eco-
nomics: The Science of Scarcity" and "The Economist at the Breakfast
Table."
Contributors of important essays to the Schocken volume, "Ec-
onomic History of the Jews," include eminent scholars and historians.
This definitive work was edited by Nachum Gross, lecturer in eco-
nomics at the Hebrew University. The major work is by Prof. Salo
Baron, the eminent scholar and Columbia University professor emE.
tus, and Prof. Arcadius Kahan of the University of Chicago.
Social as well as economic factors are under review in this impor-
tant work which also emerges as an analysis of the history of the
periods under consideration.
Dr. Baron's resume of the economic history from the First Tem-
ple period to the end of the Middle Ages touches upon the many exper-
iences in which Jews have been tried and during which they mastered
many skills, overcoming obstacles that included the migrations from
land to land.
Dr. Baron is the author of the monumental "A Social and Reli-
gious History of the Jews," of which 15 volumes have so far appeared.
Dr. Kahan deals with the modern period.
Agriculture, industry, the services and professions are under
scrutiny in the Jewish historic experiences in this most authoritatively
defined work of notable scholarship.