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
a . year.
Second•Class Postage Paid at Southfield. Michigan and Additional Mailing Offices. Sub,criiitiun $12
CARMI M. SLOMOVITZ
PHILIP SLOMOVITZ
Business Manager
Editor and Publisher
DREW LIEBERWITZ
HEIDI PRESS
Advertising Manager
Assistant News Editor
ALAN HITSKY
News Editor
Sabbath Scriptural Selections ,
This Sabbath, the third day of Tammuz, 5738, the following scriptural selections will be read in our synagogues:
Pentateuchal portion, Numbers 16:1-18:32. Prophetical portion. I Samuel 11:14-12:22.
Candle lighting, Friday. July 7. 8:52 p.m.
Page Four
VOL. LXXIII, No. 18
Friday, July 7, 1978
Handicapped and Human Values
Assistance to the handicapped, with govern-
ment as well as private resources, has become
such a pressing obligation that no one dares
question the emphasis given such needs.
Special attention at last is being -given to care
for the retarded. Most of them are no longer
institutionalized. There is recognition of the
value of independence and of providing means
to assure that provisions be made for such hand-
icapped to help themselves. This is and can be
further accomplished by providing proper hous-
ing for them. Grouped as family units the retar-
dates become self-sufficient.
Regrettably, prejudices have set in. When
homes are established for groups of men and
women who can attain comradeship by living
together there are the frequent complaints from
those who panic about their entering their
neighborhood. It is a groundless fear stemming
from a lack of knowledge about the needs and it
is a misconception that must be corrected.
These are not dangerous people. They are
human beings. There is less crime among the
settled retardates than among thoie who give
the impression of being civilized but from whose
ranks there has emerged insensible criminal-
ity.
An obligation rests upon all with human
sparks in their hearts to provide help rather
than create hindrances when homes are being
established by handicapped who are retarded
but who are anxiously aspiring to self-
sufficiency and as much of self-support as the
handicapped can attain.
The general need in the community for en-
couragement to the retardates to achieve such
goals apply also to the handicapped in the
Jewish community. There is a sizable number of
such handicapped who need the community's
help and compassion. Many who are interested
in their unfortunate plight are organized into
family groups. Their aimsshould receive larger
communal - interest. The Jewish Community
Center of Metropolitan Detroit already provides
programming for many of them. They need or-
ganizational supervision on a larger scale and it
is to be hoped that the Jewish Welfare Federa-
tion, in the course of time, will include the as-
sociation concerned with the retardates under
its wing, that it will include the movement into
its supportive program. In this fashion, and by
welcoming rather than rejecting the
unfortunately-affected and by insuring housing
for them, the great human need will be re-
spected properly.
The Political Climate
Climates are changing politically. A new
generation of office-seekers is entering the
arena with differing views on both the domestic
and foreign needs and problems. Some evince
knowledge about matters affecting govern-
ment. Others are willing to learn. In many
instances it is necessary to provide the informa-
tion vital to good government and efficient ad-
ministrative abilities.
When one speaks about providing informa-
tion for legislators it smacks of lobbying. More
often than not a lobby is aimed at getting busi-
ness advantages, of acquiring contacts of a
profit-making nature, and as propaganda in
support of motivated advantages. There is also
the lobby that seeks justice for a cause. Those
who disapprove it brand it with disfavor. Those
who recognize unselfish aims to assist worthy
purposes will respect it.
In the course of the revolutionary -transfor-
mations now being experienced on the Ameri-
can political scene there are certain obligations
devolving upon communities concerned with
the future of the Middle East, with Israel and
her neighbors. The concerned have been called
"the Jewish lobby." If it is to retain that desig-
nation its purposes must be defined so that pre-
judice should be eliminated and those engaged
in the "lobby" should be recognized for the un-
selfishness that motivates it.
That which is labeled "Jewish lobby" is not
necessarily Jewish. Many high-minded non-
Jews are equally dedicated in the task of assur-
ing justice for Israel and the elimination of pre-
judicially anti-Semitic tactics from public func-
tions.
The objectives must be defined and if this is
lobbying then there is a responsibility. to ursue
the task ofmaking the issues fii1V ithab
.
Righteous Gentiles Accorded
Glory in Holocaust Story
More than two million of the more than eight million Jews in
Eastern Europe on the eve of the Nazi terror survived the Holocaust.
It could not have happened had it not been for the compassionate, the
saintly in Christendom. They are honored as the Righteous Gentiles
and in the Yad Vashem records - they are accorded the gratitude of the
Jewish people and a place of honor as the Hasidei Umot HaOlam —
the righteous among the nations of the world.
The story of these in Christendom during the period of bestialities
is told in a deeply moving account by Rabbi Philip Friedman. "Their
Brothers' Keepers" is an appropriate title for his book, one of the five
included in the Schocken Holocaust Library. It is a record of heroism,
of resistance, of refusal to yield to the Nazi terror and of martyrdom by
rescuers of Jews and others who were doomed in the beastly Hitlerian
program.
Many are the world war heroes recorded by Dr. Friedman. The
chapter on Raoul Wallenberg is a timely review of the courage of the
Swedish emissary who singlehandedly rescued tens of thousands of
Hungarian Jews, preventing their being sent to the death camps.
Tribute is paid to the Mother Superior of the Benedictine Convent
of Vilna and the refuge that was provided for Jewish children in that
small nunnery. Those in the nunnery who labored with the Mother
Superior are enumerated as responding to great needs and defying
Israel is faced with serious problems. In spite
of the Sadat fulminations about peace the truth
is that Arab tactics have not changed, that their
combined schemes are to undermine Israel's
dangers from the Nazis.
security, and Sadat is yet to be heard refuting
Another heroine is Mother Maria of Paris. The role of King Christ-
the threats of his partners in the Arab scheme.
i an X of Denmark, the heroic king who gave courage to the Jews of his
There remains the necessity of clarifying the
country who were rescued with the aid of Christians, has a role of
issues, of indicating how menacing the situa-
great dignity in this volume dealing with the righteous.
tion is for Israel and how damaging harm to
There was Alois E. Stepinac, the Archbishop of Croatia, who was
Israel in the Middle East will be to the United
among the compassionate. In all of Croatia there were innumerable
incidents of Christians who resisted the Nazis and they are recorded
States.
in Friedman's book.
There will be new faces on the political scene.
Clandestine organizations of non Jews in several European coun-
It is vital that they should be fully apprised of
tries, the French underground and even members of the militia are
the events that affect a small nation whose de-
among the heroic accounts in this story.
pendence in large measure is upon the United
A foreword by Father John A. O'Brien of Notre Dame University
States and whose needs are of great imminence
expresses the Christian affirmation of the "Sympathy and bravery of
in the struggle for peace and for justice in the
the thousands of men and women who shielded and befriended the
victims at the risk of imprisonment, torture and death."
Middle East.
Eber-
In a postscript to "Their Brothers' Keepers," Dr. Ada
The changing political scene places greater
Friedman, the wife of the author, describes how the righteous were
duties upon spokesmen for Israel and their
Yad
honored by the Anti-Defamation League in New York and at
friends than ever before. Call it "lobby." In the
Vashem. She emphasizes the urgent need of perpetuating informa-
instance of Israel and the Jewish people it is the
tion about the compassionate "as a lasting tribute to those selfless
force that seeks fairness in matters affecting the
humanitarians who were willing to sacrifice their lives for justice and
very existence of an entire nation.
the belief in the dignity of man."
Two other volumes in the Schocken Holocaust Library are of great
There are many new candidates, there will be
significance in the studies of the Nazi horrors:
new legislators. They should be kept fully in-
"The Holocaust K ingdom" by Alexander Donat, the editor of the
formed so that they may be guided by the truth
series, deals with the author's own, his family's and his fellow suffer-
in judging the Middle East, the American in-
ers'
plight, and the survival of those who were able to overcome the
volvement and Israel's security. These ap-
terrors. It is a deeply moving chronicle of anguish and it also is one of
proaches have always been the duty of com-
hope that is embedded in the desire to live. It is an autobiographical
munities concerned with justice and wisdom in
book but it assumes historic significance.
foreign affairs affecting the American nation.
"The Death Brigade" by Leon W. Wells also is autobiographical.
Such responsibilities are even more pressing
today in a time of great danger facing Israel at He tells the story of the ghetto in the Polish city of Lvov from 1941 to
1945. It tells of internment in the Jabowska Concentration Camp, of
the hands of so many enemies who surround and
and hiding until
a.0 escape, recapture, sentence to die, another escape
overwhelm her numerically and in an arms race
Wells had testified both at the Nurember g
that finds them with arsenals that could destroy liberation.
.Erchmann Because
trials, his account assumes historic importance.
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