THE JEWISH NEWS
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y 20, 19.31
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1ssistatit *Nt•% ■ !.. Editor
Sabbath Scriptural Selections
This Sabbath, the 12th day of Tammuz, 5736, the 161lowing scriptural selections will be read in our symtgoques:
Pentateuchal portion, Numbers 19:1-25:9. Prophetical porthm, Micah 5:6 6:S.
-
Thursday. Fast of 17th of Tammuz.
Pentateuchal portion, Exodus d2:11-14; .34:1-10. Prophetical portion orfte•noou wily) Isaiah .3.5:6-56:s.
- Candle lighting. Friday. Jul, 9. 8:31 p.m.
NOL. L\1\, \o. 18
Page Four
Friday.
July
9. 1976
A • Shadow on Bi-National Friendship
American Jewry has been lulled into a
sense of complacency with assurances from all
political ranks that Israel will not be abandoned
by this country and the American-Israel friend-
ship will not be abused.
Nevertheless, the warnings constantly re-
peated are that the erosions are spreading and
that congressional support may be waning. The
anti-Israel propaganda appears to be taking root
in many quarters and fear is extant that the
military and economic assistance from the
United States to Israel will be reduced.
Is it possible that, in view of the pledges to
Israel in the platforms of both parties and that
assurances of support by all presidential candi-
dates that the slashing of U.S. aid to Israel will
assume drastic proportions?
It is much better to be plagued with concern
and fear now than to be caught unawares after
the election and in the process of newly develop-
ing situations that may cause obstructions for
Israel. Therefore, the responsibilities that de-
volve upon the friends of Israel are growing in
proportion. It is all-too-easy to abandon or erase
or amend promises after the election and the ra-
tionalism of Israel's role and the reality of the
tasks of the Jewish state's supporters must be
affirmed now and re-affirmed whenever there is
a need to exercise protection for Israel and to
ask for proper aid for the constantly endangered
country.
The Israelis are especially concerned over
the threatened changes in U.S. attitudes, and
American Jewry must take the warnings of
news analysts and commentators seriously, no
matter how unrealistic they may be. Changes in
attitudes are not new. They are recurring. Presi-
dent Ford was a firmer advocate of just rights
for Israel as a member of Congress from Grand
Rapids. As President he deviated and made con-
cessions. What guarantees, therefore, are there
about any candidate or any successful aspirant
to the highest office in the land and to the
legislators?
The need for proper evaluations of Israel's
status and the obligation to keep re-affirming
the facts about the imperativeness to avoid
abandonment of Israel are graver than ever.
While the American-Israel friendship flourishes
the striving for the cementing of that friendship
must go on tirelessly. The duties to assure con-
tinuity for the American-Israel accord are more
vital than ever.
When Religion is Big Business
This is a free country and in the name of a
free press and free speech anything is possible.
That is why it is note, bit suprising to see
cult advertising to such a large extent that the
paths to delusions are free and clear.
It is not unusual to come across advertising
and circularized propaganda that quotes the
Bible and glorifies the new images who are
flaunted in the name of religion.
Many young Jews are said to have fallen vic-
tim to such cultists, and parents, rabbis and oth-
ers who are concerned that Jewish identification
should not be besmirched are in a quandary.
Of course, the efforts to counteract such re-
ligion-is-big-business propaganda are not mini-
mina'. The approach to youth is seriously
aimed. Nevertheless, the submissions to trickery
by religious propagandists, the misunderstand-
ings that have trapped some of the young Jews,
are causes for concern.
The Jewish teacher, the directors of youth
movements, have serious obligations. They must
inspire and educate youth and the tasks of creat-
ing the best social contacts for college students
are as valuable as the classrooms.
There can be no cessation to planning and
preparing proper curricula and the wisest guid-
ance in this challenging situation. It is to be
hoped that youth themselves will be leaders in
assuring the sincerest identification by their fel-
lows in assuring strength of the Jewish heritage
and tradition.
Terrorists and Their Cohorts
How senseless to exercise horror over the
latest hijacking outrage when the guilty are not
limited to the criminals who terrorized the hos-
tages on the Air France plane! The guilty are in
the higher quarters, in the United Nations and
in the Third World, in the Kremlin and in the
capitals of the ruling nations of the world.
For several years a measure formalized by
the United States was pigeonholed at the United
Nations by the majority, dominated by the Arab
and Communist blocs, who refused to impose an
international penalty on criminals who resort to
terror and hijacking. •
While there is no guarantee that the pro-
posed measure for outlawing hijacking as an in-
ternational crime might bring the desired re-
sults, it is at least a way of warning the beasts
who seek to transform civilized society into a
jungle.
The guilty are to be found in the very capi-
tals whose rulers find it difficult to negotiate
with hijackers. Ugandan, Iraqi, Lybian, Syrian
and Egyptian rulers have failed to assert firmly
their opposition to the terrorism that caused so
much tragedy in Munich, at Lydda Airport, at
airports in the free world and in Jewish settle-
ments. Now, they themselves are in a quandary
how to solve the problem because they had given
it their consent. Under such circumstances the
Third World, with the encouragement of the So-
viet Union, bears major responsibility for condi-
tions that have made air travel so hazardous.
Israel's courage in uprooting a major act of
terrorism in an enemy country turned July 3,
1976 into an historic day. It is already viewed as
an admonition never to submit either to tyranny
or to barbarism. That act of bravery on the eve
of America's 200th birthday, added new glory to
the determination of free men that never shall
there be sanction to barbarism and to terrorism.
Legal, Ethical Precept;
Depersonalization of Man
Stirs 'Crisis and Faith'
Rabbi and philosopher-scholar Dr. Eliezer Berkovits declares that
the legal and ethical precepts of Judaism form a viable alternative to
people floundering in a world devoid of recognizable, believable
fashions.
In his new book "Crisis and Faith" (Sanhedrin Press, Hebrew
Publishing Co.), Dr. Berkovits, who now lives in Jerusalem, asserts
that the "value system of the West has collapsed, and that this col-
lapse has had its most fateful consequences in the area of education."
The author warns in his book that despite the Holocaust that re-
sulted in the decimation of one-third of the Jewish people, "Jews did
not collapse morally and spiritually," while "disillusionment has be-
come the lot of Western man."
"Our generation has formulated some seductively shining slo-
gans," Dr. Berkovits writes, including "self-fulfillment, personal free-
dom, liberation from the taboos of the past, the new morality, etc.
They sound extremely progressive — (but) for some time now a
change has been afoot.
"A growing number of Jews are no longer as confident as they
used to be that we are really progressing, that we are moving toward a
glorious future, indeed toward a future of any kind . .
We are perturbed by the increasing divorce rate, by the
erosion of the quality of Jewish family life, by the high
percentage of intermarriage.
"Some of our best young people are drifting into
alien worlds and alien lives . . . A system that prom-
ised human progress seems to have rendered only disin-
tegration and loss of substance."
Noting that Jewish survival may be threatened by
outside enemies, Dr. Berkovits emphasizes that thr
threat is even greater from the enemy within. "TK.
problems of Jewish identity and the erosion of Jewish values," he
writes, "result partly from the crisis of Western civilization, of which
modern Jewries have been an intimate part and in whose disintegra-
tion they now share." The Nazi Holocaust was a Jewish tragedy, the
author says, but "the tragedy of mankind was greater by far . . . The
ghettoes and concentration camps revealed the bankruptcy of Western ---
civilization."
In his provocative work, Dr. Berkovits touches on the depersonali-
zation of modern man — as contrasted with the profound emphasis
inherent in Judaism on each and every person — and also discusses
the so-called new morality, Jewish sexual ethics, the need for progress
in Jewish religious law, the status of women in Judaism, the spiritual
center that Israel is yet to become, and other subjects of contemporary
interest.
Asserting that in recent years there has begun to develop among
Jews a "turning homeward" in which young people and adults have
been returning to the study of the sources of Judaism, with special
emphasis on Jewish ethics, Dr. Berkovits urges the creation of an in-
tellectual bridge between Jewish religious studies and secular studies.
In a concluding chapter, the author makes a poignant appeal for Jew-
ish unity that would cross all lines of religious and secular identifica-
tion.