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PHILIP SLOMOVITZ
CARMI M. SLOMOVITZ
DREW LIEBERWITZ
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Sabbath Scriptural Selections
This Sabbath, the 28th day of Sivan, 5736, the following scriptural selections will be read in our synagogues:
Pentateuchal portion, Numbers 13:1-15:41. Prophetical portion, Joshua 2:1-24.
Rosh liodesh Tammuz, Monday and Tuesday., Numbers 28: 1-15
Candle lighting, Friday, June 25, 8:54 p.m.
VOL. 1,X1X. No. 16
Page Four
Friday, June 25, 1976.
Jerusalem as Capital of Israel
America's traditional interest in the Middle
East, with special concern for Israel's security,
was expected to receive serious consideration by
both political parties. There is no partisanship
towards Israel in either the Republican or Dem-
ocratic ranks. Therefore, the strong plank in the
Democratic platform was an anticipated expres-
sion of commitment to Israel's needs and the al-
leviation of her plight as a target of all of the
Arab states.
In the Democratic platform there is a spe-
cific reference to Jerusalem and a pledge not
only to recognize Jerusalem as inseparable from
Israel but also with the strong assertion that Je-
rusalem must become and be 'recognized as the
capital of the state of Israel. In fact, the plat-
form pledges the transfer of the American em-
bassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem as an empha-
sis of American concern that the historicity of
Jerusalem as a symbol of Jerish autonomy
should not be tampered with.
This represents a challenge to the stubbor-
ness of the U.S. State Department which has in-
sisted upon appeasing Arab protesters on the
question by being among ale chief abstainers
from the recognition of Jerusalem as a focal
point in Israel's sovereignty.
How will the Republican Party react to this
basic question relating to Israel's struggle for
recognition of her capital city as an unchal-
lenged factor involved in Israel's indisputable
role as a nation among the nations?
Will the Republican leaders include in their
platform a pledge similar to the Democrats' as
a pledge that the U. S. will, at last, move this
country's embassy to Jerusalem?
More than any one else, President Gerald
Ford is challenged by the stand taken by the
Democratic platform committee. As a member
of the House of Representatives, through the
years when he took a very strong stand in Is-
rael's defense, President Ford also had advo-
cated that Jerusalem be recognized as the capi-
tal of Israel. He was silent on the subject since
assuming the presidency or had failed to refute
the enemies of Israel who have made Jerusalem
part of the anti-Israel campaign both in the
United Nations and whenever the Middle East
problems had become problems for interna-
tional review.
Will the Republican Party join the Demo-
cratic platform committee in a declaration reas-
serting Israel's historic right to Jerusalem and
her just position in having revived the Holy
City's role as the capital of the state?
There are many involvements in the Jerusa-
lem issue. Among - the bitterest antagonists of
Israel on the Holy City question is Pope Paul VI.
The propaganda has resulted in such wide-
spread mutilations of truth that Jerusalem, the
City of Peace, could well be turned into another
cesspool of hatred engineered by the Commun-
ists operating from the Kremlin and the anti-
Israel forces among the Arabs and at the Vati-
can. America's two major political parties may
well become the media for an assurance of jus-
tice to Israel in all related matters, with empha-
sis on Jerusalem. Republican action on the ques-
tion will merely reaffirm the attitude on the
issue of President Ford.
Unusual interest thus is injected in political
party attitudes on a vital question involving the
rights of Jews in the Holy City where Israelis
are assuring freedom of religion for all faiths.
Out of the American principle of fair play, relat-
ing to Israel, may indeed emerge another glo-
rious response from those who dominate this
country politically.
The Sick World of Complacency
A complacent world is a sick world. The Le-
banese tragedy proves how deplorably far hu-
man values have sunk into barbarism and how
indifference can undermine basic justice in hu-
man relations.
A progressive community has been terri-
fied, thousands of its people slaughtered in the
course of an internecine war, but the world re-
mained silent. The kinsmen of the residents of
that land, Christians and Moslems, were
numbed into inaudibility.
The Vatican, quick to anger when Israel is
involved, has said very little about that critical
situation which could well result in the destruc-
tion of a civilized society.
The United Nations Security Council,
where venom spews in search for condemning
Israel, adopts a stance of such shocking indiffer-
ence that one must marvel over the criminality
of people chosen for peaceful tasks who, instead,
contribute to violence and inhumanity by their
silence.
The Lebanese tragedy was transformed
into an international disgrace with the assassi-
nation of two Americans and their Lebanese
chauffeur. The Arab terrorists have been given
so many leeways in their quest for purification
while inciting to murder that all hopes for some
form of humanitarianism in the Middle East are
vanishing.
The United States has made concessions
that are proving costly. The compulsion to eva-
cuate Americans in Lebanon is part of a political
debacle and human bankruptcy. It would have
been out of the question for this country to re-
peat President Eisenhower's action in sending
the Marines to quell trouble in Lebanon, as he
did in 1957. Times have changed and such force-
fulness now is unthinkable. But it adds to the
horrors that now spells Lebanon.
The Lebanese situation is threatening the
peace of the entire Middle East and, therefore,
also to Israel. It is -close to Israel's border that
the battles have raged and innocent people mur-
dered, and the menacing developments are no-
where near an end. Therefore the danger is
cause for great concern.
More than the anxiety over Lebanon's fate
in Israel and the neighboring Arab countries is
the concern it creates for the world at large. If
mankind can be silent over occurrences in Leba-
non, while basking in hatred for Israel and con-
tributing towards race hatreds in Africa and
Asia, what hope is there for a better world and a
more humane mankind? What a challenge Leba-
non has become for humanity!
Walter Laqueur's Zionist
History Issued in Paperback
Published histories of the Zionist movement reached their peak in
scholarly approaches with the publication in 1972 of "A History of
Zionism" by Walter Laqueur (Schocken). Its republication as a
650-page paperback, also by Schocken, extends the long run of this
excellent work as a best-selling work defining the Jewish libertarian
movement.
All aspects of Zionist activities are covered in this book. Back-
grounded by a resume of Jewish experiences in the Diaspora that ne-
cessitated the craving for an end to homelessness an a defiance of the
anti-Semitic persecutions, Laqueur's history traces the early efforts,
the pre-Herzlian and the subsequent. -
The emergence of the political movement, the formation of the
World Zionist Congresses, the ideological foundations engineered by
Dr. Theodor Herzl, have their significant shares in this history.
Vladimir Jabotinsky and his opposition movement, the role of
Chaim Weizmann, Zionist leadership on a worldwide scale are deline-
ated. The part played by American Zionists and the movement's activ-
ism in this country have proper coverage.Laqueur's history, splendidly
documented, is a major work providing knowledge and understanding
of the tasks that led to the emergence of the state of Israel.
New Comprehensive Volume
on Samson Hirsch Philosophy
"Tradition in an Age of Reform" by Noah H. Rosenbloom, re-
cently published by the Jewish Publication Society of America, repre-
sents the first comprehensive exposition of the religious philosophy of
Samson Raphael Hirsch (1808-88).
The leading figure of Jewish Orthodoxy in Germany, Hirsch is
regarded as the progenitor of neo-Orthodoxy in Western countries,
aspiring to fuse European culture with unqualified loyalty to rigor-
ously observed traditional Judaism.
Of the vast number of philosophers, theologians, and scholar
who have revolutionized Jewish life and thought in the 19th Century,
few have exerted a more distinctive and continuing influence.
Avoiding the partisanship which has
marked much of the commentary on Hirsch,
Noah Rosenbloom provides an objective pres-
entation of Hirsch's views on Judaism in the
context of the Jewish and non-Jewish intellec-
tual trends of his time.
In the course of his account, Prof. Rosen„
bloom ranges across all of Hirsch's volumi:--
nous writings, with special attention to such
. philosophical-theological works as "Horeb–
SAMSON HIRSCH
and "The Nineteen Letters of Ben Uziel." Th' )
volume also contains a biographical profile of its subject.
Prof. Rosenbloom's pioneering study endeavors above all to set
forth Hirsch's religious philosophy as he intended to convey it in his
own time — a philosophy that has retained its validity for our day as
well.
Rosenbloom is professor of Hebraic Studies at Stern College in
New York City. He is the author of "Luzzatto's Ethico-Psychological
Interpretation of Judaism" and has contributed essays and reviews to
numerous scholarly journals.