THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS 56 Friday, January 26, 1919 Detroiters Study Project Renewal Neighborhoods ?.XF .M t4 Project Renewal, the massive plan for social re- construction in Israel, is "possibly the most impor- tant program the United Jewish Appeal has ever undertaken," said Jane Sherman, an officer of the Allied Jewish Campaign's Women's Division who was recently appointed to the UJA'S national coordinat- ing committee for Project Renewal. Mrs. Sherman and her husband Larry led a group of 47 Detroiters to Israel last month on the Detroit Service Group Family Mis- sion. The mission partici- pants were able to see first-hand a few of the dis- tressed neighborhoods which will be affected by Project Renewal, a 10-year, $1.2 billion project being undertaken by Israel and world Jewry to improve the lives of 300,000 Israeli citi- zens.' "To understand Project Renewal, you have to understand something of the history of the state of Is- . rael," said Sherman. "From 1950 to 1960, approx- imately 60,000 Jews a year were brought in from North Africa, Iraq and elsewhere. in the Middle East. Most of them were not provided with a great deal more than a place to live, and many of those were substandard places. Often the homes were meant to be temporary D. LAWRENCE SHERMAN but ended up being perma- nent. "Many of these people were left out while the rest of the country moved ahead. Over the years, the money we raised managed to help a lot of people, but some were left out. These 300,000 people — 45,000 families — just didn't make it. Now they make up 10 percent of Israel's popu- lation. Among young people under the age of 26, it's closer to 20 per- cent. If we don't do some- thing to help them now, the problem will only continue to grow." "We're lucky that we're doing this when the prob- lem is only one generation old," Mrs. Sherman said. "The most important aspect of Project Renewal is that we're going to be providing some very Important social Aar JANE SHERMAN services. "You can't just move people from slums into new apartments and pretend you've solved the prob- lems," she said. "That ap- proach hasn't worked here in the U.S. and it hasn't worked in Israel," she said. "What we have to do beyond this is train these people to function in society. We have to raise their level of expec- tation so that they will want to move ahead. Mrs. Sherman noted thkt in the Hatikva section of Tel Aviv, one of Project Renew- al's first target areas, a day care center has been started ,where parents can leave children as young as a few months for the entire day. "But the mothers also come into the center to work and to learn," she said. "They learn about how to take care of their children, about proper nutrition, how to help the older children with their homework. This is the hope for the future, the children." Other Project Renewal programs will involve paraprofessionals and so- cial workers who have grown up and lived in the communities they work with, she said. A major difference be- tween Project Renewal and other UJA programs is its emphasis on urban areas, Mrs. Sherman said.• "For years, most of our UJA funds have gone to de- velopment towns and rural settlements," she said, "Now for the first time we're concentrating on distressed areas of large cities." Project Renewal will focus on 160 distressed neighborhoods throughout Israel, from Nahariya in the north to Eilat in the south. The Detroiters on last month's Family Mission also visited a target area in the city of Ramla. "One of the houses we saw had been built as a temporary shelter in the 1950s, yet the people were still living there," .Sher- man said. "The walls were made of asbestos, and the roof was corru- gated metal. There were originally two rooms and a bathroom, but they had added another room. When we visited, only . four people were living Jewish Agency programs, there, but they'd had as Mrs. Sherman said. many as eight at one time. "Israel will probably Another place, we saw take in 30,000 new immig- was only two rooms, with rants next year," she nine people in them. said. "And we have to "But despite these condi- maintain our support of tions, the homes we saw rural and agricultural were all clean and neat. settlements, of higher Most of the residents don't education and Youth want to move away. They Aliya programs. Project want to improve their Renewal won't fulfill its objectives if we don't neighborhoods," she said. keep the other programs The mission participants alive too." were imp-ressed by what op- Mrs. Sherm?„,r; they saw, and all made spe- timistic about .14 Re- cial giftsto Project Renewal newal's success. "It's impor- in addition to their regular tant not only for Israel but Campaign gifts, she said. for Jews everywhere," she Besides this year's em- Said. "And it's going to phasis on Project Renewal, work. It will take a lot of the regular Campaign must effort and a long time, but it grow to maintain other will work." , Forty-seven Detroiters, including children, parti- pated in the Detroit Service Group's second Family Mission to Israel. The group is shown at Israel's oldest air base at Hazor. Power of Television and M isuse of 'Documentaries' By ROBERT E. SEGAL (A Seven Arts Feature) ' NEW YORK — The uses • - of the dynamic. power of television affecting the Jewish community have deepened anxiety lately for _ those who dread any promo- tion of American homeg- rown Nazism along with those who are dismayed when Palestinian terrorists are portrayed in any role other than destroyers of lives and property. In the first instance, the Public Broadcast System's act of televising "The California Reich," a 58- minute documentary about West Coast would-be Nazis filmed two years ago, the television industry. dis- played the decency of add- ing an opening and closing statement effective in dous- ing the fire. Had the film been shown as a straight ac- count of California kooks imitating the methods of Hitler's swastika-stamped marchers trying to blow up a storm against American Jews, television stations might have had a plague of arson on their hands. William J. McCarter, president of WTTW in Chicago, refused to run "The California Reich," re- ferring to it as "almost a re- cruitment film." A number of other stations, including Detroit's WTVS (Ch. 56) tossed the film back into the can. the Fortunately, documentary, when shown elsewhere, car- ried the agreed upon pro- logue and epilogue, put- ting the film in context and editorializing against the bombast, strutting, racism, and yammering laced through the picture. ABC's screening of "Ter- ror in the Promised Land" proved a much more explo- sive- event. Boiling decades of Arab struggles against Jews in the Middle East down to a "news close-up" inclined to justify, if not glorify, Arab terrorism, the producers of this telecast displayed alarming in- sensitivity and were promptly and properly ex- coriated for their wayward7. ness. Dore Schary, one of America's foremost scriptwriters and pro- ducers, hit the mark most expertly in his denunciation of ABC's program. "To refer to the PLO cause (as the film did) as an extension of the Holocaust is a brutal comparison and disgusting in its implications„-"Schary declared. "The Holocaust cost the lives of six million of our people. The only Palestinians who have died have been those who have either killed or tried to kill Israelis. There has been no breath of genocide." Challenging the tendency of the documentary to por- tray Palestinian terrorists as examples of freedom between 1948 and 1967 fighters akin to those hon- when the West Bank and ored for their courage and Gaza were under Arab sacrifice in World War II, rule?" "Why distort his- Schary made another tel- tory by claiming that the ling point. He said he Middle East war is one wanted the producers to between European Jews examine in detail the claim and Palestinian Arabs? that the PLO trains its men Why omit pre-1948 and_women to die, to prefer Arab-Jewish conflict? suicide in their cause. "If all Why skip over Arab har- of them are so committed, rassment and murder of why is it that Israeli jails • Jews in Arab lands?" are full of terrorists who Frank Reynolds, who in- surrendered once they were troduced "Terror in the attacked?" he asked. Promised Land" for ABC Other penetrating questions were raised elsewhere: "Why did not the film point out that there was no move to create a Palestinian state viewers, is not alone in his tendency to tilt Arabward. Nicholas von Hoffman, widely read syndicated col- umnist, has urged his readers to keep up on Mid- WASHINGTON, D.C. — Most everybody would probably like to browse through the "nation's attic" and pick out a few things for a special exhibition. Anna Cohn, director of Washing- ton's Bnai Brith Museum, had that chance. She went "shopping"_in the back rooms of the Smithsonian's Museum of History and Technology and Museum of Natural History for Judaic ceremonial and folk art ob- jects now on display at the Bnai Brith Museum. Accompanied by a Smith- sonian curator and staff conservator, Cohn selected 75 of the museum's 500-odd objects of Jewish signifi- cance. Her favorite is a unique 19th Century red velvet curtain from a synagogue in Turkey with Hebrew lettering embroi- dered in pure gold thread. Many of the rare objects have never before been on public exhibition. The Smithsonian's museums are able to display only about three percent of the Institution's 78 million ar- tifacts. The exhibit of Judaica includes manuscripts, textiles and works of brass, silver, gold, and ivory. The loan exhibit also -has several objects dle East developments by reading the pro-PLO Middle East Resource Center pub- lications. A sample of Von Hoffman's slant in his editorial comment that what Israel wants is "the pauperization and dis- placement of the entire population of the occupied West Bank" Frightening is the power of television and the printed word. The American public deserves to be fully and honestly informed; the democratic process is wounded severely when those who produce televi- sion scripts and news col- umns let their prejudices and ill-informed judgments carry them away. Smithsonian Treasures Shown at Capital Bnai Brith Museum DORE SCHARY which survive - the ree Holocaust -,C" ugh spiceboxes, silver cups, circumcision sets, marriage contracts, H- luminated manuscripts, Torah ornaments and prayer shawls. The Smithsonian's collec- tion of Judaica was started in 1893 when objects were for the Institu- tion's display at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. The objects were later studied and cared for by Immanuel Casanowicz who spent 35 years at the Smithsonian working with religious artifacts.