THE JEWISH NEWS

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hicmporating The Detroit Jewish Chronicle coin mencivil with the issiw July 20, 1951

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. -18075.
Second-Class Postage Paid at Southfield, Michigan and Additional Mailing Offices. Subscription $10 a year.

PHILIP SLOMOVITZ

Editor and Publisher

CARMI M. SLOMOVITZ

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DREW LIEBERWITZ

Business Manager

Advertising Manager

Alan Hitsky, News Editor . . . Heidi Press, Assistant News Editor

Sabbath Scriptural Selections

This Sabbath, the 25th of Av, 5736, the following scriptural selections will be read in our synagogues:

Pentateuchal portion, Deuteronomy 11:26-16:17. Prophetical portion, Isaiah. 54:11 55:1.

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Thursday and Friday, Rosh Hodesh Elul, Numbers 28:1 J5.

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Candle lighting, Friday, August 20, 8:07 p.m.

VOL. LX I X, No. 24

Page Four

Friday, August 20, 1976

Voter as Activist and Chief Judge

The die is cast. The battle is on. The two
major political parties — all the others do not
count, not even as a balance of power collective-
ly — will battle it out in the coming 10 weeks.
Occupancy of the White House may or may not
change in 1977. Meanwhile, the American elec-
torate again assumes the role of Chief Judge on
a Judgment Day to Come.
The specially privileged, the Voter, is
destined to learn that the American way of life
is the predominant factor in the government
destined either for perpetuation of its staffs or
for change of guard. In either form, the
legislative bodies and the courts, and primarily
Public Opinion, will have greater power than a
single individual.
Would that in the process of choosing the
Chief Executive the real ruler, the Voter, would
determine to give as much attention to the
nation's needs on a permanent basis as is given
in the course of a battle for power by politicians!
Then party lines will be narrowed and the pUblic
needs affirmed as policy for job-seekers as well
as job-givers, for voters as well as candidates.
It is the thinking, the knowledgeable, the
activist citizen whose concern creates an in-
fluence and whose knowledge and understand-
ing of national needs, involving the domestic
obligations as well as foreign policies, evolve a
response from the heads of the government,
regardless of party.
It is when the citizen is unconcerned that
government becomes a sham and rulership may
become either corrupt or domineering.
Anxiety over foreign policies, the American
view of Israel and the Middle East, the fate of
refugees, wherever their origin, and the hopes of
many in lands of oppression who look to this
country, are part of the debatable policies
affecting U.S. foreign policies. These are

primarily humanitarian aspects in the
relationships of peoples, and to have
transformed them into political party
differences was an error. To have made them
causes for disputes between differing politicians
is unreasonable and unrealistic.
Insofar as Israel's position in the foreign
policies of this country is concerned, the view-
point of one important political leader is vital to
the issue. He summarized the facts by stating
that Israel's security is humane, and an inter-
national obligation because Israel is a symbol of
the world's quest for justice.
Israel's security, her quest for justice, her
needs to assure an eventual peace by making her
strong enough to resist attacks for enemies on
her borders who outnumber her 40 to 1, are
imbedded policies of both political parties, and
whichever remains or moves into the White
House has a duty that is not to be tampered
with.
There are, nevertheless, tasks which can
and are affected by differing views as well as
sentiments involving the domestic needs and the
relationships with the nations of the world.
When the constituency of this great nation
exercises an interest in post-election problems
as much as it did while candidates were battling
for power, then hope for a strong government
motivated by reason, good judgment and justice
will be unmatched.
Whoever retains or attains power, this
nation will not be sold down the river by
irresponsible politicians. The result of the con-
test now commencing will be resolved at the
polls in November. The nation is safe as long as
the Chief Judge on that Day of Judgment, the
Voter, is a thinking American activist. All glory
to the Voter.

World Complacency Breeds Terrorism

U.S. Senator Jacob Javits and Israel Prime
Minister Yitzhak Rabin joined in expressing
their sense of horror over the unending wave of
terrorism and attempted hijackings after the
outrage at the Istanbul Airport last week.
The murder of .Sehator Javits' chief aide,
Harold Wallace Rosenthal, the attack on the
airport and its attendant threat to the lives of
many scores of innocent people, all were part of
a continuing incitement to mass murders by
men like George Habash and Yasir Arafat and
their trained killers.
Javits and Rabin were right in blaming the
unending terrors upon an indifferent inter-
national community. The impotence of the
United Nations, the fright that has been in-
spired by the Soviet and Arab blocs in the ranks
of Third World nations are the causes of failures
to stem the terrors.
The shocking proof of worldwide com-
placency to the growing terrorist movement is
shown in an analysis of experiences that reveal
that 201 terrorists are at large at this time.
The facts were analyzed by Jewish
Observer and Middle East Review of London as
follows:
From July 1968 to July 1976, at least 72
acts of terrorism have been perpetrated
throughout the world by Arab terrorists and
their allies. At least 204 Arabs and others

working with
with them were apprehended in
connection with these acts of terrorism.
Their crimes have involved mainly hi-
jacking but also indiscriminate attacks on
civilian targets. These include the massacre
of 27 passengers at Lod Airport in May 1972;
the murder of 11 Israeli athletes at the
Munich Olympic Games in September 1972;
and the slaughter of 32 bystanders and
passengers at Rome Airport in December
1973.
Of the 204 terrorists apprehended, only
three are still in prison — and they are all in
Israel. The rest are free, having been released
in their respective countries of their deten-
tion, either after a short while and often
without a trial, or as a result of Arab terrorist
blackmail.
A worldwide, internationally activated task
of punishing the guilty, denying them access to
airports and public avenues of transportation
and letting it be known that these crimes will
not be tolerated is mandatory.
If the entire Western world were to
cooperate with the U.S. in assuring legislation
to outlaw the hijackings, murders, blackmail
and related crimes there might be a solution to
the horror. The lack of such assistance in the UN
is a contributing factor to the continuity of
savagery.

41

"-UTIA

Hechal Shlomo Museum
Provides Illustrative Data

Hechal Shlomo, headquarters of the Orthodox Rabbinate in
Jerusalem, is a major center of interest for tourists to Israel as well as
the country's residents. The rabbinic leadership is there, the im-
pressive Sabbath services are enhanced by the well-trained youth
choir and seminars held there draw great interest.
Of unusual importance is the Hechal Shlomo Museum, whose
values, contents and emphases on all aspects of Jewish life receive
emphasis in a splendidly illustrated volume, "Jewish Life in Art and
Tradition," (G. P. Putnam's Sons), edited by the museum's curator,
Yehuda L. Bialer.
Based upon the collected art and ceremonial objects of Sir Isaac
and Lady Edith Wolfson in the Hechal Shlomo Museum, this
noteworthy book contains 48 full-color plates and some 200
monochromes.
The accompanying explanatory essays attest to the scholarly
editorship of the museum's curator:
Yehuda L. Bialer was born in Warsaw in 1896 and specialized
in both Jewish studies and art history there. In 1936, fleeing from
the Nazis he took refuge in the Soviet Union, returning to Poland
after World War II and emigrating to Israel in 1949.
From then until 1965 he served as a departmental director in
Israel's Ministry of Religious Affairs, starting to organize the Sir
Isaac and Lady Edith Wolfson Museum in 1958, and was its
director right up to the present.
In this magnificently illustrated volume Bialer has focused
upon the collection of Jewish ceremonial art in the Sir Isaac and
Lady Edith Wolfson Museum at Hechal Shlomo, Jerusalem, to
convey a comprehensive portrait of the Jewish cultural heritage.
Using the various ritual objects preserved in the museum,
Bialer explains the customs and ceremonies that have helped keep
the Jewish people intact over the centuries — from the marriage
ceremoney and establishment of a new household to the rites and
customs surrounding the funeral and mourning, as well as the
cycle of the Jewish year.
As curator of the museum, Bialer draws upon his extensive
knowledge of Jewish custom and lore and his specialized study of
Judaica to highlight the unequalled variety embodied in Jewish
tradition, with objects from Poland to Yemen, northern Europe to
North Africa.
Most important of all, the volume as a whole is an impressive
testimony to how deeply Jewish art is grounded in the daily rounds
of Jewish life, showing that the creative impulse has always been
firmly tied to the home and family, the synagogue and th-
community, and that the patrons of Jewish art were the people
the patrons of Jewish life.
In the preparation of this work Bialer had the cooperation of the
musuem's assistant curator, Estelle Fink. The photography is by
David Harris.
The daily life experience of the Jew, in home and synagogue, the
holiday observances and the festivities that mark Jewish family life
emerge in great detail and in all their glories in the descriptive tasks
attained in "Jewish Life in Art and Tradition."
In an appended note to this volume Maurice Jaffe, Hechal Shlomo
president, asserts:
Publication of this album will fill a long-felt need for the
synagogue, the community and the individual. Essentially, the album
constitutes the life-cycle of the Jewish man and woman from birth to
death. Even as every age of Jewish history is depicted in art and
sculpture, so the influence of every age and every society is portrayed
here.