4 Friday, September 1, 1918
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
THE JEWISH NEWS
Incorporating The Detroit Jewish Chronicle commencing with the issue e..f .1111v 20. 1951
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PHILIP SLOMOVITZ
Editor and Publisher
ALAN HITSKY
News Editor
CARMI M. SLOMOVITZ
Business Manager
DREW LIEBERWITZ
Advertising Manager
HEIDI PRESS
Assistant News Editor
Sabbath Scriptural Selections
This .Sabbath, is the 30th day of Ac and Rosh Hodesh Elul, and the following scriptural selections will be read in our synagogues:
Pentateuchal portion. Deuteronomy 11:26-16:17: Numbers 28:1-15. Prophetical portion. Isaiah 66:1-24.
Sunday. second day. Rosh Hodesh Elul, Numbers 28:1-15.
Candle lighting, Friday, Sept. 1, 7:48 p.m.
VOL. LXXIII, No. 26
Page Four
At Camp David
Allowing for many doubts, the Camp David
discussions may be blessed by the privacy in-
tended for them.
News analysts will speculate. There may be
many leaks. But the initial intentions of
eliminating outside interferences could serve
well in contributing to an approach to peace by
an avoidance of outside pressures.
The conference at Camp David could have an
Friday, September 1, 1978
Without Goliath
additional merit if the President of the United
States would serve as an intermediary, avoid-
ing any attempt at imposing a peace upon par-
ties who must reach an accord dependent on
their needs and not on any effort whatever to
dominate a situation that needs an elimination
of further aggravations.
This means that David must meet the modern
Pharaoh to the exclusion of a Goliath.
Emigres a Factor in Detente
Emigres from Russia seem to be developing
into a new force in detente.
Because a few more Jews have been granted
visas to emigrate from the Soviet Union, it is
assumed to be a Russian move in the direction of
assuring a renewed effort in the direction of
either reviving or strengthening U.S.-USSR re-
lations.
To what extent this is true remains to be
judged by events that will develop in the course
of months, perhaps years, to follow.
Meanwhile, the obstacles in the paths of those
seeking the right to settle in Israel remain in-
tact, the price demanded from those attaining
visas continues to be high, most of the time
exorbitant, and the persecution of dissidents
has not abated.
It is sheer folly to believe that Russia will
relax her attitude of unfriendliness towards Is-
rael as a path towards accord with the United
States. If this were the case, why the USSR
government-inspired condemnation of the
Camp David meeting and the Communist criti-
cism of Anwar Sadat for going to Camp David
for a meeting with President Carter and
Menahem Begin? Why the great to-do
whenever the Communist leaders meet in Mos-
cow with Yasir Arafat and other terrorist lead-
ers? Why the official endorsement of everything
that spells anti-Israelism and develops into
anti-Jewishness?
Jewish population figures are difficult to ar-
rive at even in the United States. The number
usually juggled in the U.S. is 6,000,000 but re-
sponsible demographers maintain there are less
than 5,500,000 Jews in this country. How much
more difficult, therefore, the task of establish-
ing the population figures in countries where
there is oppression or where Jews are under
stress for political, social and economic reasons.
Therefore, the news about Jews in two
Arabic-speaking countries is notably impor-
tant. Lebanon and Yemen figure in the specula-
tions.
It is reported from Lebanon that of a popula-
tion of 1,800 in 1973, only 450 Jews still live in
that land embattled by Christian and Moslem
strife. In Beirut, where many Jewish mercan-
tile and industrial establishments flourished,
there are now only 50 Jews.
In Yemen, where Jews were treated as
pariahs, the population figure listed in the 1973
American Jewish Year Book was given as 500.
But there is a revealing story by Yitzhak Shar-
gil, the JTA Tel Aviv correspondent, who indi-
cates that while it had been believed that all the
Yemenite Jews had left for Israel on the Opera-
tion Magic Carpet transfer, there still are 1,000
Jews in Yemen and that they live in harmony
with their Moslem neighbors.
Studies of population trends must, inevitably,
demand attention for the Polish Jewish popula-
tion, millions of whom were murdered by the
Nazis, many driven into exile by the country's
anti-Semites. Of the 3,500,000 Jews in pre-war
Poland, only about 7,000 reportedly remain.
The studies are endless. They point to drastic
changes that have taken place, to the aftermath
of the Holocaust on the one hand and to the
oppressions in many lands which have affected
Jews in areas other than Eastern Europe which
was marked by the mass exterminations.
Like the ghosts of medievalism which crawl
through the pages of Jewish history, there is the
continuing struggle for survival. This, too, is
not only the inevitable in Jewish history: survi-
val is perhaps evern more predominant than the
terror of anti-Semitic aims to exterminate.
Therein lies a legacy for oncoming genera-
tions, that they may understand the destiny of
their people. Am Yisrael Hai — the people Is-
rael lives — is more than a slogan in the battle
for survival. It is the indomitable in Jewish life.
It would be well if there were relaxation and
eventual abandonment of anti-Jewish prej-
udice, of a total change in attitude towards the
dissidents. That certainly would mean the
strengthening of detente. At the moment it ap-
pears to be too much to hope for.
Population Studies and Survival
John Paul I
To the Catholics of the world go the hearty
greetings for fulfillment of the hopes of Pope
John Paul I for achievement of peace and amity
for all mankind.
Many problems remain unsolved. The Vati-
can has yet to recognize the very existence of
Israel. It must take a strong stand against the
horrors perpetrated against the Maronite
Catholics in Lebanon. There must be an end to
the genocidal threats that stem from the ranks
of the Arab terrorists.
The new Pope can do much to provide leader-
ship in these areas. It is to be hoped that he will
confront the issues with determination and
courage.
Wilson's `Israel and Dead
Sea Scrolls' Paperbacked
When the Dead Sea Scrolls became a subject of controversy and
their discovery was a major sensation in archeological ranks, "The
Dead Sea Scrolls" by Edmund Wilson was the major work to give
credence to what the author and an overwhelming majority of scho-
lars viewed as authentic.
Together with Wilson's essay on "Israel," published in 1967 after
the Six-Day War, when the Jerusalem Museum came under Jewish
direction, "The Dead Sea Scrolls" now appears in a paperback issued
by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, as a volume that is certain to revive
interest in a subject of mu s h dispute.
The late Mr. Wilson, whose "Dead Sea Scrolls" was a best seller for
several years, was intrigued by the role of the Essenes and the Jewish
sect's possibility of having been an antecedent to Christianity. He,
therefore, devoted himself to the task of researching the subject lead-
ing to the writing of his book.
Pointing out that the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered by Be-
douins, Yigael Yadin, who has pursued archeological endeavors relat-
ing to the scrolls, referred to Wilson as a "very scholarly amateur"
who attained popularity for his definitive work.
Wilson took into account the critics who did not believe that the
scrolls belonged to antiquity. He made this special reference to the
chief critic, the late Dr. Solomon Zeitlin:
"In the case of those Jewish scholars — such as Solomon Zeitlin of
Dropsie College and Yitzhak Baer, now retired, of the Hebrew Uni-
versity — who have refused to recognize the antiquity of the docu-
ments, I believe that this reluctance has been due either to their
presenting so many variants from the Masoretic text of the Bible,
which was established at an unknown date by a committee of rabbini-
cal scholars who did their best to suppress any other text, and which
has since been accepted by the Orthodox Synagogue as unalterable
and unquestionable, or to the natural conservatism of learned men
who have arranged to their satisfaction the available materials of
their subject and who recoiled from any fresh evidence that adds new,
unaccounted for matter."
The differences ofopinion that ensued are not recorded here, but the
scholars who claimed that the Dead Sea Scrolls did not stem from
antiquity persisted in their presentation of views that had kept the
issue aflame. With the passing of Dr. Zeitlin the controversy seems to
have ended.
The Wilson volume, nevertheless, remains one of the great docu-
ments about the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Secularism Is Challenged
in New Bamberger Volume
Rabbi Bernard Bamberger offers "an approach to religious think-
ing in general and Jewish religious thinking in particular" in "The
Search for Jewish Theology" (Behrman House).
With emphasis on Hebraic truths, Dr. Bamberger challenges sec-
ularism. He delves into religious dogmas dealing with the messianic.
In his definition of immortality, he states:
"A religious faith in immortality, it seems to me, is simply the faith
that the good and wise God has His adequate solution of evil and
suffering — of all the frustrations and disappointments, all the
wasted and ruined lives. What the solution is, the religious believer
does not need or aspire to know."