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THE JEWISH NEWS
Incorporating The Detroit Jewish. Chronicle commencing with the issue ofJllltl 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 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
Pour out thy wrath upon the
nations that know thee not and
upon the kingdoms that call
not upon thy name...
DREW LIEBERWITZ
Advertising Manager
Alan Hitsky, News Editor . . . Heidi Press. Assistant News Editor
Sabbath Scriptural Selections
This Sabbath, the 10th day of Nisan, 5736, the following scriptural selections will be read in our synagogues:
Pentateuchal portion, Leviticus 14:1-15:33. Prophetical portion, Malachi 3:4424.
Passover Scriptural Selections
First seder of Passover, Wednesday evening. First day of Passover, Thursday, Pentateuchal portion, Exodus
12:21-51; Numbers 28:16-25; Prophetical portion, Joshua 5:2-6:1;27. Second day of Passover, Friday, April 16,
Pentateuchal portion, Levitcus 22:26-23:44; Prophetical portion, II Kings 23:1-9; 21-25.
Candle lighting, Friday, April 9, 6:48 p.m.
V OL. LXIX, No. 5
Page Four
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Friday, April 9, 1976
Passover: Inalienable Libertarianism
Freedom as the inalienable right of all mankind is the lesson of the great festival about to be
ushered in on the Jewish calendar.
Passover's claim to universality is rooted in that principle: that liberty is for all, not for the few.
No other symbols are as valid in emphasizing the significance of Passover than the humanism
it affirms for all peoples.
Nevertheless, the Passover lesson remains to be learned by most.
Civil liberties are still to be attained in many areas.
Equality for the oppressed — and there are many, in many parts of the world, without it.
Oppression has not been eliminated from the dictionary. There are the slave camps in many
parts of the globe, the Iron Curtain marks an enslavement that is undeniable and the backwardness
enforced by cruelties that perpetuate medievalism is rampant where the craving for liberty does not
assert itself.
Nevertheless, the Passover spirit has taken root among many. It has its effects on the Christian
world, it is in evidence among the blacks of America whose Negro spirituals are legacies from the
Passover story, and the Bible tale is inerasable from memory.
It is major, of course, in Jewish experience, and its cementing power for family unity that
marks every home celebration is the inspiring factor for Jewry's commemorations. In that spirit the
Passover message binds Jews everywhere in dedication to the libertarian ideal that found its root in
Passover.
Festival Lessons: Knowledgeability
Passover's Hagada is not a prayer book. It
is history with a message. It recounts the glories
of libertarian achievements and it inspires
knowledge of a people's past as it alludes to th
present and has a message for the future.
Because of its role as teacher — the Hagada
could well be treated as a textbook — it emphas-
izes the festival's importance as a demander for
knowledge.
Thus, Passover may well be considered a
holiday that creates a craving for knowledgea-
bility of the Jewish role in history. His scholarly
essay on the Hagada, in "The Birnbaum Ha-
gada" edited and translated by the eminent edi-
tor and translator, Dr. Philip Birnbaum, defines
the value of the Passover storybook by indicat-
ing this important fadtor:
The traditional Hagada, based upon the
idea that he who questions much learns much, is
a continuous chain linking the generations to-
gether. We have succeeded in preserving the na-
tional and religious significance of the seder
chiefly through the effective use of the indispen-
sable Hagada.
Its subject matter is extensively quoted in
talmudic literature and widely discussed by au-
thorities like Rav Saadyah Gaon, Rashi, Mai-
monides, and so on. Its text is permeated with
folklore, prayer and poetry. A lterations or
changes, ostensibly designed to meet the needs
of our own day, would eventually undermine
this classical work which has been cherished
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through the ages.
To be sure, some passages in the traditional
Hagada are strange to those who are not ac-
quainted with the midrashic style of our sages.
These passages have at all times stimulated
questions and answers and have given rise to
lively discussion.
The Hagada is filled with biblical quota-
tions and rabbinical interpretations so that ev-
ery Jewish family, once a year at least, is af-
forded an opportunity to comply with the
statement that those who discuss Torah at the
table are eating at the table of God. Indeed, the
Hagada has been serving as a ready textbook
furnishing material for thoughtful round-table
discussions.
The Passover Hagada is specifically the all-
embracing textbook that offers an invitation to
extended studies of Jewish traditions, Jewish
historical aspirations, the people's ethics and
some of its ancestral heroes.
Passover, therefore, equates with knowl-
edgeability. It encourages scholarship. It is no
wonder that it became a means for encouraging
Jewish artistry and some of the finest art works
produced by Jews have been based on the Festi-
val of Freedom and the Hagada.
Such a holiday status lends added signifi-
cance to the observance of the festival and ad-
herence to the lessons it teaches.
When USSR Maligns the Senate
Copy released by Novosti, the official Soviet
news agency, must be viewed as representing
the Kremlin's viewpoints. As the mouthpiece of
the USSR, Novosti echoes the propaganda it
disseminates.
So much venom is circulated by Novosti
that its material nauseates. Whenever it re-
leases something that contains a modicum of
truth it is immediately distorted into half truths
by the lies resorted to in attempts to emphasize
the Communist tackling of major issues.
When Novosti released one of its typical
bits of garbage about the Zionists, charging that
Jews and Israelis were dominating opinion in
the U.S. Senate, a spokesman for the U.S. State
Department, Robert Funseth, condemned it as
"distorted, inaccurate and in poor taste."
But this is the form of all of the features
and propaganda material pouring out of the No-
vosti hate mills. When Jews expose the Novosti
lies they are charged with being counter-propa-
gandists. The fact is that our exposes are efforts
similar to the State Department's to ask for the
truth and to demand it from the Kremlin hate-
mongers.
PASS OVER
Zeitlin's 'Who Crucified
Jesus' in Its Fifth Edition
Prof. Solomon Zeitlin has to his credit many contributions to
scholarship, and his numerous published works are an enrichment in
research and historical analyses. "Who Crucified Jesus" ranks among
his immense guides to one of the most aggravating problems affecting
Jewry and relationships with the Christian world. Re-appearance of
this noteworthy work in a fifth edition, just issued by Bloch, there-
fore marks another important milestone in the eminent scholar's
career.
Acknowledged as the outstanding authority in the world on the
era of the Second Commonwealth, Dr. Zeitlin's review of the contro-
versies relating to the crucifixion and the role of the Sanhedrin re-
mains the basis for repudiation of the most serious charges against
the Jews.
The new edition contains the declarative statements by the author
on this important work which defines the issue in all its historic de-
tails, with thorough studies of the Gospels.
Basic in the Zeitlin study is his explanation, with historic proof,
of two Sanhedrin bodies having functioned in
the period under review, with the legitimate
body having been maligned and a fluke group
branded with the guilt that has been attrib-
uted to responsible Jewry in Christian theol-
ogy.
Dr. Zeitlin demonstrates in this book
"unequivocally," as he emphasizes, "that the
Jews had no interest in putting Jesu-s to death,
that he was, in fact, executed as a political
offender.
"In the text of 'Guidelines and Suggestions
for Implementing the Conciliar Declaration
Nostra •Aetate (In our time),' the Council re-
called that 'what happened in his passion can-
not be blamed upon all (italics mine) the Jews
then living, without distinction, nor upon the
Jews of today.' In other words, some of the
Jews of that time are to be blamed for the cru-
cifixion of Jesus, for they sought to destroy
him for his religious offenses. It should, how-
ever, be re-emphasized that Paul, in his Epis-
ties , never accuses the Jews for the Crucifix-
PROF. ZEITLIN
ion."
Prof. Zeitlin utilizes the occasion of the appearance of the flab
edition of his "Who Crucified Jesus?" for criticism of the form ChM ,
tian-Jewish dialogues have taken in the course of the experiences Jews
encountered in the Diaspora. In the new introduction to the fifth
tion of his book, which continues to serve as a guide for all faiths
the question of the Crucifixion, Dr. Zeitlin states:
"It is to be noted that the theology of the Crucifixion, by which
the Church emphasized that the Jews killed Christ, brought immeas-
urable suffering and death to innocent people. It was a cruel, libelous
accusation against the very people who gave Jesus to the world. The
Christian world must atone for its its guilt of propagating that the
Jews crucified Jesus.
"Anti-Semitism is a cancer gnawing at the vitals of civilization.
Although the Jews are the first and real victims of the disease, ulti-
mately it will become a pestilence that will strike Christians as well.
The primary aim of the Nazis was to destroy the Jews and Judaism,
but ultimately, their goal was to destroy Christianity as well.
"In this book, after examining critically all the historical and le-
gal sources pertaining to the trial and execution of Jesus, I have ar-
' rived at the verdict that neither the Jews nor their leaders were re-
sponsible for the death of Jesus. Jesus was crucified by the Romans
as a political offender."