–
faimingnanw
April 30, 1976 31
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
Women to Discuss
Soviet Jews' Plight
NY Center Is Dedicated to History of Holocaust
By BEN G. FRANK
(Copyright 1976, JTA, Inc.)
NEW YORK — A high
school student who is doing
a term paper on the Holo-
caust, a graduate student
writing his dissertation on
concentration camps, a
psychiatrist who is measur-
ing the effect of hunger on a
human and a group of black
students from the Bedford-
Stuyvesant section of
Brooklyn who are studying
oppression all are visitors to
the Center for Holocaust
Studies temporarily located
in the Yeshiva of Flatbush
in Brooklyn.
Located there are 1,000
hours of taped interviews
with survivors. Slides and
movies, diaries, letters of
deportation, posters, photo-
graphs, charts, and clothes
worn by camp inmates are
available.
Most Of the documents
are tragic. There is a World
War II request from a
woman in Belgium to the
U.S. government requesting
that she and her husband be
allowed to enter America to
be reunited with their
daughter. The request was
denied; the father and
mother perished. But the
girl in the U.S. survived,
married, and recently vis-
ited the Holocaust Center,
as did her son.
The center's founder
and director — herself a
survivor and now scholar
and professor of Judaic
Studies at Brooklyn Col-
lege — Dr. Yaffa Eliach,
said that when working
with her students in a col-
lege course on the Holo-
caust, she began to realize
that what was needed was
one central documentation
and research facility
`Studies in Jewish Thought'
/
/— By ALLEN A. WARSEN
/-
"Studies
in
Jewish
Thought," published by
Yeshiva University Press
and authored by David S.
Shapiro, is a collection of es-
says, including notes and an
appendix. The essays are
divided into three catego-
ries: "Imitatio Dei;"
"Biblical Studies" and
"Thinkers and Issues."
In the category "Imitatio
Dei," the author examines
and clarifies the concept of
"the image of God." He de-
fines it as "walking in the
ways of the Lord," and also
as referring "to the intellig-
ence bestowed upon man
whereby he exercises do-
minion over the world."
In addition, the concept
"in the image of God" is in-
tertwined with man's striv-
ing for holiness and "dedi-
cation to goodness,
compassion, love, justice,
and purity of heart,
thought, and deed."
In the same essay, the au-
thor dispells the myth that
Christianity is the religion
of love, while Judaism is the
religion of vengeance.
He refutes this charge
by referring to numerous
Biblical passages and cit-
ing Micah's threefold
principle: "It hath been
told thee, 0 man, what is
good and what doth the
Lord require of thee: only
to do justly, and to love
Chesed (lovingkindness),
and to walk humbly with
thy God."
The author traces Micah's
maxim's, universally re-
France Lagging
in M.E. Exports
/-'
NEW YORK (ZINS) —
France is lagging behind
major competitors in build-
\ing up export markets in the
Middle East despite its pro-
Arab policies, according to
New York Times. Since
1973, trade data indicate
ghat France has fallen be-
rid West Germany, Italy,
oweden, the United States
and the Netherlands in
building export sales to
Arab states.
Although the United
States and Netherlands, in
reaction to progsraeli poli-
cies, were targets of an
Arab oil embargo after the
October 1973 Mideast War,
their exports to Arab coun-
tries accelerated faster than
France's in both 1974 and
1975, the Times says.
Experts say that French
companies in many cases
simply have been quoting
prices higher than the corn-
garded as the quintessence
of ethical monotheism, to
Deuteronomy 10:12-19:
"And now, Israel, what doth
the Lord thy God require of
thee . . . to walk in all His
ways . . . He doth execute
justice for the fatherless
and widow, and loveth the
stranger . . . Love ye there-
fore the stranger . . ."
Shapiro also points out
that Judaism is the only re-
ligion that produced the
greatest mystical love-song
in all literature, the Song of
Songs.
In the category "Biblical
Studies," Shapiro presents a
perceptive analysis of the
problem of evil. He is partic-
ularly interested in the
question: "In this unified
and harmonious world over
which the One Creator is
sovereign and which is the
manifestation of His good-
ness, how does evil make a
home for itself?"
To this question, the
author states, biblical
thought had given the fol-
lowing answer: "Man had
been created as a free per-
sonality, as free as God
Himself . . . i.e., man is
not a creature whose des-
tiny is decided by over-
powering external forces
from whose decree there
can be no escape; man,
like God, is free and self-
determining. Man has al-
ternatives place before
him and he has power to
choose."
Yet, the complexity of
this problem remains, and
has not ceased to intrigue
the human mind.
A classic example of this
lasting problem is Abra-
ham's pleading for justice: "
`Project Understanding' Aids
NY Police and Hasidic Youth
BY BEN GALLOB
(Copyright 1976, JTA, Inc.)
Hundreds of Hasidic boys
and girls in Brooklyn's Boro .
Park section have been vis-
ited at their yeshivot during
class hours by uniformed
police officers in an inten-
sive Jewish-sponsored effort
to end negative feeling on
the part of the children to-
ward police generally.
The idea of the visits to
the schools was conceived by
officials of Jewish Parents
United, a member agency of
the Council of Jewish Agen-
cies of Boro Park, which has
the largest concentration of
Orthodox Jews in New York
City, according to Rabbi
Burton Jaffa, a JPU direc-
tor.
"Project Understanding"
is a follow-up program to a
series of discussions be-
tween members of the police
department in Brooklyn and
leaders of Boro Park's Or-
thodox and Hasidic commu-
nities which took place over
a period of seven weeks ear-
lier this year. Those meet-
ings were held daily for dif-
ferent groups of 15 to 40
policemen taking part in an
effort to achieve a better un-
derstanding between the
police and Boro Park's Jews.
Eight yeshivot, includ-
ing two schools for girls,
were listed for the class-
room visits by Detective Al
Falcone and Officers Alan
Swanson and Eugene Bar-
,atini. Introduced by Rabbi
Jaffa and Rabbi Nahum
Josephy, another JPU di-
rector, the officers ex-
nla ;noel _tn
_
thy ehilartah
how police services were
vital to the security of the
Jewish communities and
their residents and how
the police department
functioned.
Rabbi Jaffa said that the
problem could properly be
described as one involving
strongly ambivalent atti-
tudes on the part of the chil-
dren. Many of their parents
experienced the terrors of
Europe during the Nazi era
or the brutalities of the So-
viets and have absorbed
some of the fierce hatred
and fears from descriptions
of those parental experi-
ences.
But, said Rabbi Jaffa, the
children also have experi-
enced the friendly help of lo-
cal police and often harbor
totally contradictory feel-
ings. ,
Rabbi Jaffa said the pro-
gram was started on the
premise that the first ap-
proach should be made to
parents. An initial appear-
ance for the idea was at a
PTA meeting in a bid for
parental understanding and
support. Then the JPU rab-
bis went to the yeshivot
where they had personal
contacts and obtained
agreement from principals
for the in-class sessions.
Lunches for Aged
SEATTLE (JTA) — A
federally-funded demon-
stration program is under-
way here to provide up to 40
hot kosher lunches for Jews
60 and older on a once-a-
wppk_bas is
. . . That be far from Thee
to do after this manner, to
slay the righteous with the
wicked, that so the righ-
teous should be as the
wicked; that be far from
Thee; shall not the judge of
all the earth do justly?"
Similar appeals were
made by Moses, Jeremiah,
Ezekiel, Amos, and Habak-
kuk. Especially moving is
the Psalmist's entreaty:
"How long, 0 Lord, wilt
Thou forget me for ever?
How long wilt Thou hide
Thy face from me? How
long shall I take counsel in
my soul, having sorrow in
my heart by day? . . . Be-
hold Thou, and asnwer me,
0 Lord my God . . ."(Psalm
13:2-4)
It is important to note
that none of the entreaties
intimates that God is un-
just. Job is the only excep-
tion.
Yet, God justifies Job.
Instead, He rebukes Job's
friends for accusing him of
ungodly conduct.
The reason God de-
fended Job, the author
explains, was because he
"was truly an upright and
God-fearing man. He was
simply unaware that by
his suffering, by his pro-
tests and remonstrances,
and by his determination
in the face of all that he en-
dured never to swerve
from the path of the high-
est good, he was justifying
God's faith in man."
Of particular interest in
the category "Thinkers and
Issues" is the essay "A Note
on the Guide of the Per-
plexed" by Maimonides. In
this essay, the author points
out that Saadia Gaon shows
"greater deference to hu-
man reason than does Mai-
monides," and lists other
criticism.
Nevertheless, Maimon-
ides, more than anyone else,
influenced Jewish philo-
sophic thought. His "Guide
of the Perplexed," consid-
ered the sa heolo-
gi•a of Judaism, is the best
known and "most influen-
tial of Jewish philosophic
work."
The uniqueness of this
work, the author emphas-
izes, "consisted in the fact
that it presented the most
comprehensive synthesis of
reflective Jewish thought of
all time, based on a most
thorough analysis of Jewish
belief and observance."
"Studies in Jewish
Thought" is a profound and
perceptive commentary on
major Jewish spiritual and
intellectual concerns, and is
a significant contribution to
Jewish scholarship.
where not only her stu-
dents, but thousands of
others could easily obtain
a visual and oral history of
the Holocaust from docu-
mentation, books, music
and art work and "not
have to jump from one li-
brary to another."
Encouraged by Dean Eth-
yle Wolf, dean of the School
of Humanities at Brooklyn
College, Prof. Yehuda Bauer
of the Institute of Contem-
porary Jewry of the Hebrew
University, Yad Vashem in
Israel and the Yeshiva of
Flatbush, she embarked on
recording on tape the story
of the Holocaust as told by
its survivors. Born in Vilna
in 1937, she pointed out that
her own age group is the
youngest which can vividly
recall the terror of that era.
The archives of the insti-
tute has a special diary. Its
recordings, according to the
center, begin when a Jewish
girl escaped from one con-
centration camp, was picked
up by the Nazis again, es-
caped a second time, and
was found unconscious in a
ditch by a group of British
POWs. The prisoners picked
her up and hid her in their
compound. One POW,
Willy, kept a diary describ-
ing life in the prisoner of
war camp and the aid they
gave the Jewish girl. Both
were victims. But historians
can see from the diary that
while the English were pro-
tected by the Geneva Con-
vention, the Jew was consid-
ered sub-human.
Dr. Eliach and her staff,
which includes many volun-
teers — some survivors,
some children of survivors,
and others — have begun to
interview thousands of
American GIs who liberated
the concentration camps, to
get their historic roles and
reactions.
NEW YORK — Rabbi
Haskel Lookstein, an expert
on Soviet Jewry, will ad-
dress a special American
Mizrachi Women's Golden
Jubilee Celebration May 9 in
New York City.
Rabbi Lookstein led the
Simhat Torah celebration at
the Moscow Synagogue last
year and officiated at Suk-
kot services in Leningrad in
1972 and 1975. He is ex-
pected to discuss the role of
the American Jewish com-
munity in the struggle of
Soviet Jews for freedom as
well as the work of Ameri-
can Mizrachi Women in ab-
sorbing Russian Jews in
AMW's projects in Israel.
MOVIE
GUIDE
Americana Complex
1, 2, 3, 4
(;ri.t•tifielti \..111 9 Mile
559-2730
TUE % . 11-:liti IN ()NE lit ii-DING
‘1,.(1.
∎ •INF:ES
THE VITIIS - 1 Silo% mil.
at
:00—:fl
"FAMILY PLOT" (PG)
"ALL THE
PRESIDENTS MEN"
(PG)
"CRIME AND
PASSION" (R)
"SUNSHINE BOYS" (PG)
"THE BAD NEWS BEARS"
(PG)
BERKLEY ' 2
Bargain Nights Sunday thru Thurs. All seats
51.00. No coupons. Coupons good Fri. & Sot.
with regular admission prices.
HELD OVER 2ND WK!
Weekdays including Sot. Open 6:45
Walter Matthau 8. George Burns Academy
Award for best supporting actor
Sunshine Boys (PG)
at 7:20 & 9:35
Sun. Open 1:30
Sunshine Boys (PG)
at 1:40, 3:35, 5:35.
7:30 & 9:30
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OLYMPIA STADIUM
FRI., MAY 14 — SUN, MAY 16
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Presented by
RODGER HESS
PRODUCTIONS INC
Cal!-
Your favorite cartoon characters
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Sat., May 15 — 1:30 & 5:00 p.m.
Sun., May 16 — 1:30 & 5:00 p.m.
Tickets: $4.50 Reserved
$3.00 General Admission
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4
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