THE JEWISH NEWS u-P25520 , Incorporating 7'/ Detroit ,leicish Chronicle commencing with the issue of•July 20. 1951 Member American Association of English — Jewish Newspapers, Michigan Press Association, National C.cIttorial ..\•;socrtlioh 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 vea•. PHILIP SLOMOVITZ Editor and Publisher ALAN HITSKY News Editor CARMI M. SLOMOVITZ Business Manager HEIDI PRESS Assistant News Editor DREW LIEBERWITZ Advertising Manager Sabbath Scriptural Selections This Sabbath, the 27th day of Shevat, 5739, the following scriptural selections will be read in our synagogues: Pentateuchal portion, Exodus 21:1-24:18; 30:11-16. Prophetical portion, II Kings 12:1-17. Tuesday and Wednesday, Rosh Hodesh Adar, Numbers 28:1-15 ■ -1,,,.• Candle lighting, Friday; Feb. 23, 5:57 p.m. Page Four VOL. LXXIV, No. 25 Friday, February 23, 1979 Iran: Learning from the Past Iran not only captured--..the headlines: it re- tains them and the entire world is in a state of uncertainty over that nation's future and the effects of its rioting and civil war will have both on the future and on the peoples in that area of the world. For Jews, there is a repetitive historic lesson in Iran, with the usual uncertainty of how to solve matters, how to relate past experiences to the occurrences of the present time, which way people who are embroiled in a revolution should turn for safety from oncoming dangers. Iranian Jewry is being advised to send its children to Israel, if they cannot either save themselves or -choose to abandon their ancient homeland and adopt the Jewish state as their place of refuge. As a matter of fact, Iranian Jews are not united on the subject of seeking refuge any- where. Many, perhaps most of those who remain there, seem bent upon retaining Iranian citi- zenship. That's the confidence they have in their country's returning to normalcy. Of the approximately 10,000 who have left Iran, only about 1,100 are said to have expressed a desire - to remain in Israel. What does this mean, and how can anyone realistically advise a largecommunity of people who are torn between being rooted in a land of their birth and of escaping from what may prove a calamity for them if they remain. Like Jews everywhere, Iranians have a loy- alty to the land of their birth. They trace a history of more than 2,200 years. They turn to the period under Cyrus the Great who helped in Israel's redemption and from whose time there was a home for Jews in Iran. But there also were massacres of Jews under Islamic rule. There were mass conversions of Jews in Iranian villages when Mohammedans confronted them with a choice of life as Muslims or death if they rejected the offer. . Nevertheless, there was a period of calm and Jews are well established in Iran. Now they face an Islamic domination which is anti-Israel and which, while pledging security for Jews and their institutions, nevertheless is marked by grave dangers. Who and how are these people to be advised? Are they to be told that Iran could be like Poland in the 1930s, when hundreds of thousands could have saved themselves but chose to remain where their businesses were in progress? The record speaks for itself: of the three- and-a-half million Jews in Poland, about 7,000 old men and women remain, mostly in Warsaw and Cracow. • Should the Iranian Jews be admonished to judge - themselves as the Jews of Germany should have when Hitler was rising to power? Of the 600,000 German Jews, some 25,000 re- main. They, too, would have been listed among the Six Million victims of Nazism, except for those with vision who left in time to save them- selves, even if they had to abandon their pos- sessions, the homes they cherished, the loyal- ties they had for the Germany they loved. Are the Iranians in the same position as the German and East European Jews who went to their doom? It is doubtful whether this, the Holocaust, can be repeated now that there is an Israel to wel- come .the oppressed and the threatened. But who is to advise Iranian and other Jews to pack up, to seek transportation if that is available and to settle in Israel? They have a. homeland they love, possessions they labored for. Thus, while history has its lessons, it is dif- ficult to learn them. It is even more difficult to apply them. These are the tricks of history. World Jewry, humans everywhere, `hope and pray that neither Jews nor their neighbors in Iran will be tricked into oblivion. Brotherhood in an Era of Evil In the 50 years of its activities as the nation's good-will movement, the National Conference of Christians and Jews has never been con- fronted with challenges as serious as the cur- rent. Never before have as many areas in the world been involved in as many obstructions to amity as the present. Never before have there been as many sus- picious trends in group relations as the pre- sent. True: the accomplishments have been im- mense, progress has been reached in improving race relations, blacks and whites are in greater accord. But the suspicions lurk everywhere, in- citements to hatred have not subsided, people walk in jitters on public avenues the moment the sun sets, and neighborliness is lacking the social kindliness that is normal in a free society. That is why the call to action for the obser- vance of the 1979 Brotherhood Week is so vital and requires so much earnestness in its obser- vance. President Carter made a good point by stat- ing, in his Brotherhood Week message: "Brotherhood and sisterhood begin with re- spect. And respect was the foundation upon which the National Conference of Christians and Jews has built a wonderful reputation for civic and humanitarian work." Dr. David Hyatt, the president of the Na- tional Conference of Christians and Jews, the parent organization of the Detroit Round Table, realistically urges that the spirit of good will should be means for human involvement and the advancement of the spirit of cooperation among all elements in the American society on a 52-week-a-year basis. This also should be a major aim of the movement that seeks the abandonment of prejudice and hate. The pro- gress,. already attained in that direction must be made the spirit of true American and basic humanism. FEBRUARY 18-25 `King of the Jews' Relates Tragedy of the Judenrat Who were the Jewish collaborators with the Nazi rulers in East- ern Europe? Were they Jewish traitors or did they assist, as many claimed in the rescue of Jews under their domination? Judenrat was the Jewish council that functioned under the Nazis as supervisors of the status of Jews who were to be selected for shipment to the death camps. They often held the fate of those sub- jected to their whims under their supreme power. They also had opportunities to save some. "King of the Jews" by Leslie Epstein (Coward, McCann and Geoghegan) is the story of such a Jew. Trumpleman, the personifica- tion of a Lodz Jew who headed the Judenrat, emerges as a power in this deeply moving, brilliantly written novel. He began by posing and practicing as a doctor, in a Jewish village under Nazi rule, he rose to power as head of the Jewish council and the novelist Epstein from then on portrays the role of a man who dominated, who was ruthless, who loved children, but was stern in selecting deportees for concen- tration and death camps. The Judenrat portrayal is brutal and is a reminder of one of the most tragic factors in Hitler's rule, of the Nazi terror that also utilized Jews as means of performing their devilish purposes. Trumpleman, however, also is a power unto himself. - His photo appears on concentration camp currehcy, on postage stamps. There were heads of Judenrat councils who were driven to mad- ness. Some committed suicide. The Trumpleman role is unique in its cruelties: Yet there remains the claims that he, like others, sent hundreds to their doom in order to rescue thousands. Is this a reason- able defense of the dictatorships ofJews who served as Nazi agents in the era of the occupation of horror? Epstein's "King of the Jews" does more than provide good reading of a horror story which also is filled with many fascinating incidents of the power of Nazi rule in Eastern Europe. It kept alive an interest in one of the tragic chapters related to the Holocaust, the Epstein ac- count serving to reveal the role ofJews who were utilized by the Nazi beasts to serve as their means of subduing Jewish resistance and of submitting to the brutalities. It is not a new story. Several volumes have been published deal- ing with the Judenrat. Isaiah Trunk's "Judenrat," a Stein and Day book, was a National Book Award winner three years ago. Dr. Trunk's and related books on the subject were historical? documentary. Now, in Leslie Epstein's novel, Judenrat is as fiction. Will it inspire further study, to assure acquaintance with facts, both in the interest of historical truth as well as for an understanding of the characters who dominated the Jewish councils and were in most instances humans who resisted the pressures and in others actually were selfish collaborators who relished being authoritarian and domineering, power-seeking and indifferent to the sufferings of fellow Jews? The facts themselves are always more valid than the imaginary or whatever calls for transforming history into fiction. The latter process has often helped encourage study of the facts. In the case of the Holocaust, the Resistance, the repulsing of collaborations, one must insist that facts are more important. As one famous historian once put it, "History Is Stranger Than Fiction." This is the way to judge the story of Jewish experience. Leslie Epstein's is a notable account of a tragic chapter in the history of Nazi brutalities. It is fiction yet it throws light on the horrors and inspires additional reading. It serves an impressive liter- ary and historical purpose. .