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 Menthe,- Ninerican Association of Engin:II-Jewish Newspapers. Michigan Press A , sociation. National Editorial Published every Friday by The Jewish News Publishing Co., 17515 W. Nine Mile, Suite 865, Southfield, Mich. 48075 Postmaster: Send address changes to The Jewish News. 17515 W. 9 Mile Rd., Suite 865, Southfield, Mich. 48075 Second-Class Postage Paid at Southfield, Michigan and Additional Mailing Offices. Subscription $12 a year. 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."