THE JEWISH NEWS
rworgorating The Detroit Jewish Chronicle commencing with the issue of July 20. 1951
Mender 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
Second-Class Postage Paid at Southfield. Michigan and Additional Mailing Office, Subscription $12 a year
PHILIP SLOMOVITZ
CARMI M. SLOMOVITZ
Editor and Publisher
Business Manager
ALAN HITSKY
HEIDI PRESS
DREW LIEBERWITZ
News Editoi:
Assistant News Editor
Advertising Manager
Sabbath Scriptural Selections
This Sabbath, the fifth day of Sloan, 5738, the following scriptural selections till be read in our synagogues:
Pentateuchal portion, Numbers 1:1-4:20. Prophetical portion, Hosea 2:1-22.
Shavuot
Sunday, Pentateuchat portion, Esodur 19:1-20:23; Numbers 28:26-31. Prophetical portion. Ezekiel 1:1-28; 3:12.
Monday, Pentateuchal portion, Deuteronomy 15:19-16-17; Numbers 28:16-31. Prophetical portion, Habbakuk 3:1-19.
(Yiskor service Monday).
Candle lighting, Friday, June 9, 8:48 p.m.
VOL. LXXIII, No. 14
Page Four
Friday, June 9, 1978
Shavuot: Trust in Faith
Holding the Torah with firmness, affirming
faith, Jews everywhere again welcome the
great festival that marks the Giving of the
Torah to the People Israel.
In all ages, regardless of the agonies with
which many events are recorded in history, the
faith of the Jew sustained him, as it does to this
day. -
There has never been a time without some
concern over the future. That anxiety is here
again today. Shavuot, however, again serves as
a symbol for retention of confidence that tribu-
lations will yet be transformed into joyful alle-
giance to life and to the sustaining of the
legacies of the People Israel.
"Faith is a Jewish commodity," the great
Yiddish writer Mendele Moher Seforim
acclaimed. It is a slogan that is sustained and
adhered to.
Faith is of significance at this time in a period
of trials and tribulations for Israel.
At a time when neo-Nazism is raising an ugly
head, even with the few who administer the
evils, faith plays its role of defiance. In an in-
scription in a Cologne teller where Jews hid
from the Nazis during the Hitler terror, there is
an affirmation for the ages:
"I believe in the sun even when it is not shin-
ing. I believe in love even when not feeling it. I
believe in God even when He is silent."
Indeed, as Ibn Gabirol wrote "Faith is the
summit of the Torah."
This is the message of this and all Shavuot
celebrations.
Our Youth as Our Trustees
Our youth are our trustees. This is the ir-
refutable fact of life. When communal leader-
ship can be traced to training attained in youth,
the continuity thus recorded registers a notable
tribute to the development and progress of
community activities.
The 40th anniversary of the Junior Division
of the Jewish Welfare Federation confirms
these views. During recent Allied Jewish Cam-
paigns the youth of this community have shown
so much devotion to their share in the important
tasks of providing for the major overseas, na-
tional and local needs, preparatory to fund-
raising they evidenced such dedication to the
important agencies they were assisting, that
the planning and anticipation for the future has
become very heartening.
From the Junior Division there have risen to
leadership many of the men and women who are
now in responsible positions in Detroit Jewry
and the 40th anniversary of the Jewish Welfare
Federation Junior Division, therefore, is of not-
able significance.
In two of his novels, Benjamin Disraeli wrote
interesting comments on youth.
In "Conigsby," 1844: "Almost everything that
is great has been done by youth." In "Sybil,"
1845: "The youth of a nation are the trustees of
posterity."
It is because the seniors in Jewish Welfare
Federation leadership had the vision to under-
stand the value of youth participation and to
encourage it that the JWF Junior Division rose
to great dignity in their identification with
their people.
Disraeli's definitions of youth attain realism
in the Greater Detroit Jewish Community in
the experiences of the Federation's Junior Di-
vision. The 40th anniversary of the youngest
functioning group merits the commendations of
all. The commendations and the sense of
gratitude for achievements notably attained ac-
company the congratulatory messages from a
united Jewish community.
Tourism in I srael's Fame
Tourism, having acquired the status of one of
the three largest industries in Israel, has also
become a major factor in tasks for the protection
of Israel in her striving for social, economic and
academic progress.
Even in most crucial periods, when the world
press was sensationalizing the threats to Israel
from Arab terrorists, tourism never stopped.
Interestingly, in the million mark of tourism
to Israel, more than half have been and continue
to be non-Jews. Considering that only about 10
percent of American Jews have thus far visited
Israel, this figure is not quoted as a boast. It is
offered as an encouragement to efforts to in-
crease the tourist trade.
Some very exciting facts regarding Israel
tourism have been compiled, including these:
• In the first two months of 1978, North
American tourism to Israel increased 37 per-
cent, compared to the same period in 1977.
• In the Midwestern states, there was an in-
crease of 66 percent in January, and an increase
of 52 percent in February, compared to the same
months in 1977.
• In the first three months of 1978, 40 inter-
national conferences were held in Israel, doubl-
ing the number in 1977, with the participation
of 8,500 delegates from abroad, an increase of 66
percent over last year.
• From January to March, 1978, there were
231,000 visitors to Israel from all over the
world, an increase of 21 percent over the same
period last year.
Israel's 30th anniversary inspires renewed
action by Diaspora Jewry in behalf of the
Jewish state in many areas. Not least among
them is tourism. It remains vital as means of
bringing Jews together and of keeping them
fully advised about the progress achieved in
Israel. It also means income for Israel. It helps
bring non-Jews and Jews together in the best
interests of a peace-aspiring Jewish commu-
nity. The vitality of efforts to increase tourism is
apparent. Let that be one of the aims for ad-
vancement during Israel's 30th anniversary
year.
Knopf Volume
`New York Jew' Symbolizes
Kazin's 'Documentation'
"New York Jew," the Knopf-published sensationaTwork by Alfred
Kazin, could be described as a documentary on the remarkable men in
the literary world. It might also be designated as a confessional or a
credo. After all, it is a personal volume, about himself and the men he
had dealt with and who either affected his attitudes in his labors as
one of the distinguished authors of this era.
So numerous are his contemporaries who gained his attention in
defining his own role as a Jew and as an author that "New York Jew"
also emerges as anthological.
Of course, the new Kazin book is autobiographical, and the nine
pages of index contains so many names of the confreres and possible
antagonists who affected his life and work that "New York Jew" could
also be called a critique, an expose of the people around Kazin.
Kazin is all that the title of his book
implies. He is a New Yorker and a Jew.
His father, Abraham, carried a sewing
machine on his shoulder doing odd
tailoring jobs. Kazin is the critic of those
he has watched, has confronted in his
professional career, has liked and dis-
liked; and if he had not disliked he at
least differed with.
There was Lionel Trilling: What a
marvelous story of two giants, differing
yet loving the same field of endeavor.
Not only the authors, but the theater
as well: he is the typical New Yorker
who knows the stage and the stagecraft
and the actors who have made history.
ALFRED KAZIN
He knows the Yiddish theater and the Yiddish press: how could a
good observer have failed, especially if he is that much a part of the
Great Metropolis?
Bibliographically, if one were to include Hannah Arendt, Isaac
Babel, Jacques Barzun, Charles Bernard Berenson, Bruce Bliven and
scores of others, there is an accumulation of evidence of the univer-
sality of interests. They are not all writers. Leonard Bernstein and
others give added indication that music as well filled the life of the
remarkable Alfred Kazin and the intriguing "New York Jew" story.
Politics finds a place here and McCarthyism once again is exposed
in all its lunacy.
He had been to Israel and there is a moving account of his visit at
the Western (Wailing) Wall. One line leaves an impression when he
asserts: "Jerusalem is not negotiable."
There is realism in his description of life in Israel, the reactions of
the soldiers, the admonitions to him after the 1967 war that Israelis
can build as well as destroy.
Incident after incident, the Kazin story is like a narrative of current
history linked with a glorious past and a fascinating life in New York
which is, of course, his bailiwick.
There is much to be learned from Kazin, his editorship of the New
Republic, back in 1942, his many other roles, his exploits, his four
marriages and his mistresses.
There is much, of course, about his family, his immigrant mother
who never learned English, the background• that makes "New York
Jew" a notable saga. It is Alfred Kazin the contemporary literary
genius who gives realism to the city that has become his love and the
people who are inseparable from his anthological reservoir.