– 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. 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