THE JEWISH NEWS
Incorporating The Detroit Jewish Chronicle commencing with the issue of 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. 48075
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PHILIP SLOMOVITZ
Editor and Publisher
ALAN HITSKY
News Editor
HEIDI PRESS
Assistant News Editor
CARMI M. SLOMOVITZ
Business Manager
DREW LJEBERWITZ
Advertising Manager
Sabbath Scriptural Selections
This Sabbath, the eighth day of Nisan, 5738, the following scriptural selections will be read in our synagogues:
Pentateuchal portion. Leviticus. l4:I-15:33. Prophetical portion, Malachi 3:4-24.
April 21, first Seder of Passover
Candle lighting,-Priday, April 14, &54 p.m.
VOL. LXXM, No. 6
Page Four
Friday, April 14, 1978
50th Anniversary of NCCJ
Fifty years of dedicated labors to establish the
best relations between Christians and Jews are
now being recorded with gratitude for the ac-
complishments of the National Conference of
Christians and Jews.
All of the trials and tribulations that were
experienced during the years of NCCJ's labors
to eliminate friction and to establish an aim for
good will are fused in the movement's history.
It began when there was the threat of the Ku
Klux Klan and its related bigotries and the
anti-Catholic campaign against Alfred Smith
on the political arena. It'continued during the
Nazi era. NCCJ functioned in tasks to bring
Catholics, Jews and Protestants together long
before there was emphasis on ecumenism.
In the current stages, NCCJ, under the na-
tional guidance of Dr.-David Hyatt, is a move-
ment that defies the prejudicial and insists on
emphasizing the truthful, the factual, the
realistic needs for a common ground on social
and moral and often political issues.
The best example is the determined will of
NCCJ leadership to reject the hatreds that
marked much of the 1930s and 1940s with pre-
judices stemming from Hitlerism.
The very effective program on the Holocaust
is a special example of the labors of this impor-
tant movement. In the Greater Detroit com-
munity the Holocaust programs conducted
under the guidance of the director of the Detroit
Round Table, Charles Benham, are cause for
recognition of labors well begun and devotedly
pursued.
There were times when the movement's effec-
tiveness was questioned. It was during years of
tension and distress. These anxieties have not
vanished, but the courage of a new and strong
leadership provides the basis for basic ac-
complishments.
They are achievements that earn recognition
and apprecialion from all religious groups and
from all quarters go forth messages of congratu-
lations to the National Conference of Christians
and Jews and the Detroit Round Table on the
50th anniversary of a well-merited movement.
35-Year Warsaw Ghetto Memory
The 35th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto
Uprising gives added meaning to the freedom
theme that marks this year's observance of Pas-
sover.
The courage of the relative handful who de-
fied armed Nazi forces is a matter of record and
is inerasable from the chronicles of history as a
tribute to the vision of the ghetto fighters who
realized that submission to the savageries of the
German forces was hopeless and that only the
resistance that was initiated would be respected
by history.
There were few, too few, survivors from the
battle by the handful against the massed milit-
ary forces of the Germans, but the bravery of
those who would not continue to submit to Nazi
tyranny served as proof that there was resis-
tance, that Jews did not always offer themselves
as sheep to the bestialities of The Hitlerites.
Perhaps the memory of the Warsaw Ghetto
Uprising is the strongest factor in the determi-
nation of assuring that the Holocaust should not
be forgotten, that the memory of it should serve
as a weapon preventing its repetition.
Recognition of the heroism of the participants
in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising is an emphasis
on the significance of the resistance to tyranny.
It existed and those who resisted will be honored
and respected in mankind's as well as Jewry's
history.
The Warsaw Ghetto resistance has its echo
for generations to come and more especially for
the embattled Jewish communities behind the
Iron Curtain and the Moslem countries where
fears pursue the Jewish residents. In some of
these lands Jews are denied citizenship and in
the USSR they are under constant surveillance.
For these Jewries there is the motto among
their kinsmen in free lands of "Never Again" in
relation to the Nazi threats.
The lesson of the resistance under Nazism
also emerges whenever there is evidence of a
neo-Nazi resurgence, as is avowed in Germany
today; and in the U.S. and other lands where the
Nazi arrogance attempts a defiance of the law
against genocidal tendencies. It is always the
outcry that confronted the Nazis in the ghetto of
Warsaw that keeps the libertarian spirit alive.
Israel's Freedom of Assembly
Israel's detractors must concede that democ-
ratic principles are not abandoned in the embat-
tled Jewish state even in periods of emergen-
cies.
Officers in Israel's military forces and their
friends demonstrated against the Begin gov-
ernment in a demand for territorial submis-
sions as means of attaining peace.
Often, Arabs living under Israel's military
administration frequently demonstrate, not
against the government alone but in defiance of
the established relations and against Israel as a
state. '
The former was conducted peacefully, the lat-
ter are often marked by Violence. But all such
assemblies have the freedom of the state's
democratic status. This keeps re-affirming the
democracy of Israel. Israelis and their suppor-
ters have much to be proud of in the retention of
this high principle as a mark of glory for the
civilized status of Israel and her people.
—077:1
Schocken - - Published Essays
Gershom Scholem's Essays
on `Jews, Judaism in Crisis'
In an era of deep emotions, when tense feelings affect the attitudes
of Jews who are plagued by many problems, -the views of a noted
philosopher are of immense value.
Prof. Gershom Scholem, the eminent authority on mysticism, a
Hebrew University professor who has influenced a generation,
touches upon many of the occurrences in recent years and on the
values related to them in a series of his essays incorporated in "Jews
and Judaism in Crisis" (Schocken Books).
Writing "with particular admira-
tion" about Prof. Scholem, the editor of
this volume, Prof. Werner J. Dan-
nhauser, gives an impressive account
of the essays he had selected for this
work. He was the translator of most of
them from the German, Dr. Scholem's
mother tongue, and he points to the
significance of collected works that de-
signate the devotion to the many is-
sues recorded by the eminent scholar.
It was in 1974 that Dr. Dannhauser
arrived to teach a semester at the Heb-
rew University and it was at that time
that the translations and compilation
took place.
The influence of Martin Buber and
of Leo Baeck is in evidence in the es-
says of Dr. Scholem, in matters relat-
ing to the German experiences as well as on Zionism, the Holocaust,
the Jewish experiences in the 60 years of Prof. Scholem's activities as
student and teacher, as the philosopher on major issues affecting
Jewish life.
The translator-editor views the Scholem essay on Jews and Ger-
many as one of the major ones in this book. It is not only the German-
Jewish background — Scholem admonishes against perpetuation of
the suspicions and the Jewish antagonism to what had occurred,
although he emphasizes that the horrors are unforgettable — but also
the treatment of the Holocaust and related occurrences are of great
significance in expertly-defined issues. An example of the
thoroughness of comments on major problems is in the letter Scholem
had written to Hannah Arendt in criticism of her book on the
Eichmann trial. Prof. Scholem does not pull punches. He rejects the
negativism of the Arendt viewpoint and chides her for her lack of
concern with the fate of her people.
Essays on Buber's conception ofJudaism, on youth in Jewish ranks,.
on S.Y. Agnon are impressive. Then there are essays on Walter
Benjamin, the eminent author who suffered under Nazism and ended
his life during the Holocaust. These are deeply moving. -
"Israel and the Diaspora" and "Reflections on Jewish Theology" lie
equally illuminating.
In its totality, "On Jews and Judaisin in Crisis" is one of the most
vitally impressive volumes defining Jewish experiences that have
appeared in recent years.