THE
JEWISH NEWS (USPS 275-5201
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., 17.515 W. Nine Mile, Suite 865, Southfield, Mich. 48075
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CARMI M. SLOMOVITZ
Business Manager
PHILIP SLOMOVITZ
Editor and Publisher
ALAN HITSKY
News Editor
HEIDI PRESS
Associate News Editor
DREW LIEBERWITZ
Advertising Manager
Sabbath Scriptural Selections
This Sabbath, the fourth day of Av, 5739, the following scriptural selections will be read in our synagogues:
Pentateuchal portion, Deuteronomy 1:1-3:22. Prophetical portion, Isaiah 1:1-27.
Thursday, Fast of the Ninth of Ay
Pentateuchal portion. (morning), Deuteronomy 4:25-30, (afternoon) Exodus 32:11-14, 34:1-10.
Prophetical portion ( morning), Jeremiah 8:13-9:23; (afternoon) Isaiah 55:6-56:8.
(Lamentations is read Wednesday -evening).
Candle lighting, Friday, July 27, 8:38 p.m.
VOL. LXXV, No. 21
Page Four
Friday, July 27, .1979
REPETITIVE DISTORTIONS
A study of media communications tactics and experts would be interesting and perhaps reve-
aling. It is a fact: when settlements are men-
public reactions, concerned with the Middle
East and their effects on Israel, might produce tioned they are immediately branded as "il-
findings applicable to scores of other issues of legal." This justifies protest and resentment.
Some basic principles have been advanced by _
human interest.
During the trying days of the spreading the representative Conference of Presidents of
anti-Semitism, which involved Father Major American Jewish Organizations. The
Coughlin, Gerald L.K. Smith and their many need for settlements in Israel is endorsed, the
associates, scholars directed their attention to right to Jerusalem as Israel's capital is affirmed
the study of propaganda techniques. Several and other basic principles are outlined, as fol-
books were published on the subject, including lows:
"1. Israel's settlements on the West Bank are
one by Wayne State University academicians.
Now it would be well to go deeper into the study legal, Jimmy Carter to the contrary not-
of reactions to the propaganda that relates to withstanding. -
"2. There must be no Palestinian state' on
the Middle East.
Sociologists and psychologists might delve the West Bank. Such a state would be a dagger
into the interesting aspect of a bitterness that pointed at the heart of Israel.
"3. There must be no dealings with the PLO,
seems to have been injected into the media, the
spoken as well as the printed word, regarding the terrorist gang that seeks to destroy the
settlements. The setting up of such residential Jewish state. Here is Yasir Arafat, quoted by
projects in all remote parts of Israel were taken the Associated Press (Beirut, May 8, 1979): 1
for granted until shortly after Menahem Begin am confident that we shall eventually overrun
won a victory in the Israel election of 1977. Prior Begin's own offices in both Jerusalem and Tel
to that time under the aegis of the Labor Align- Aviv . . . even if only one guerrilla cub survives
ment that held power politically in Israel for the prolonged struggle.'
"4. Jerusalem' is indivisible. As the spiritual
decades, more than 60 settlements were estab-
lished. Then, suddenly, when several settle- capital of the Jewish people, it must remain the
ments were set up in areas bordering on Jordan, political capital of Israel, a united 'city under
-
Israeli sovereignty.
they were branded as "illegal."
"5. Israel is committed to carrying out both
There is no doubt about the lack of wisdom in the letter and spirit of the Camp David accords.
the choice of some of the areas for such settle-
"This consensus has long been the unstated
ments. That's where the internal disputes arose understanding of American Jewish friends of
with the Gush Emunim. But there also are the Israel. But it is well to publish them lest there
areas that call for strict security. As in the in- be any miscalculation of the unity of American
stance of Alon Moreh, the military who differ on Jews and the strength of their commitment to
the security needs must be called in for serious the security and dignity of Israel and its
consideration of the needs. This is where the people."
Israeli high court plays an important role, and
If and when there will be another study of
the best judgment of .a nation distinguished for propaganda techniques, these ideas, officially
its democratic principlesn'rnust be relied upon.
formulated, may serve to brand the "illegal"
appendage to settlements as a prejudicial ele-
But there is another aspect of great serious-
ness.- Because of the prejudices that have ment in confrontations with Israel, and the
ensued, every time the term settlements is used Jewish and other supporters of Israel. In the
there is the tendency to append to it the descrip- interim, the fact is unique: an appendage of
"illegal" to an Israel policy seems, to stem from a
tive "illegal." Could this happen consciously,
unconsciously, subconsciously, prejudicially, developing bias. This may prOve unquestiona-
deliberately, viciously? This is where study by ble.
'CONFIDENCE' AND PATRIOTISM
Grace Aguilar, the 19th Century young
writer, whose essays, poetry and historic novels
were the remarkable results of Jewish inspira-
tion when she was a very young girl ā she was
born in 1816 and died in 1847 ā wrote the
following in one of her noteworthy works about
Spanish Jewry, in the book entitled "The Song
of the Spanish Jews":
Oh, dark is the spirit that loves
not the land
Whose breezes his brow have in
infancy fanned;
That feels not his bosom responsively
thrill
To the voice of her forest, the gush
of her rill.
When President Carter, in one of his speeches
defining the energy crisis, appealed for a revival
of patriotism, he reopened a page that seemed to
be blotted: It's a long time since the mere term
"patriotism" was heard from public platforms.
The President's appeal for a solution of the
"Crisis of Confidence" receives a measure of
strength from the just quoted Aguilar poetry.
Does the episode of the President's appeal to
Faith and inclination to Cohfidence inspire Pa-
triotism? One thing is certain: there has been a
lack of confidence and any linkage of these qual-
ities of citizenship with politics can be counter-
productive. The non-political patriotism may
have been dormant. It is difficult to believe it is
dead.
v, i, v, v.
a
vā ā¢
New Schribner's Volume
Sholom Aleichem 's Genius
Depicted in Holiday Stories
Sholom Aleichem was much more than a humorist. He was the
best interpreter of Jewish holiday observances. This is emphasized in
"Holiday Tales of Sholom Aleichem" (Scribner's), translated by Aliza
Shevrin of Ann Arbor.
Mrs. Shevrin, who is the wife of a University of Michigan profes-
sor of psychology, adds immensely to her translations with an intro-
ductory note in which she shows how effective Sholom Aleichem was
as a writer of stories for children and at the same time inspired the
elders with his fascinating tales.
Applicable pictures based on the stories, by Thomas di Grazia,
illustrate the Shevrin translations.
Two of the seven stories in the book, "The First Commune" and
"The Goldspinners," have not previously been published in English.
The other five titles, which serve as reminders to Yiddish readers, are
"Really a Sukka," "Benny's Luck," "A Ruined Passover," "The Es-
srog" and "The Passover Exiles."
The translator notes interestingly about her approach to her
work as a translator of Sholom Aleichem, stating:
"About once a month a group of us meet to
enjoy an evening of Yiddish. We are college
professors, townspeople, housewives, some
from the old country and others born in
America. We shares lc ve for a language
fashioned over the centuries to express the
longings, passions, delights, and humor of a
people who once lived in the small villages, of
shtetls, of Eastern Europe. At our meetings,
we take turns reading stories. When a Jewish
holiday approaches. c,ur favorite author be-
comes Shol,m Aleichem, the humorist,
satirist, awl the most beloved of \ Yiddish
writers.!" -
SHOLOM
Mrs. Shevrin is more than translator. She
ALEICHEM
is also the interpreter of the values inherent
in the humor of Sholom Aleichem whi,ch also emerges as definitive in
treating Jewish experiences and the observances of the holidays. As
in the topic she treats, Mrs. Shevrin, in the introduction that war-
approaches Jewish traditional observances, expresses her love fo
writings of the man who told tales to and about children with
inspiration for the elders.
"Not only was Sholom Aleichem a master of Yiddish literature
and a great storyteller, he had an intuitive grasp of human nature. He
knew exactly how children and their parents would behave .. .
"Although six of the stories, are written in the first person from
the point of view of a young boy, it is obvious that the boy differs from
story to story. In some he has both mother and father, in others only a
widowed mother. In some, he is very poor; in others, his family is
rather well-off. Sometimes he is an only child and sometimes he has a
brother or sister."
Mrs. Shevrin, daughter of an Orthodox rabbi, thus renders a
service with excellent translations and the presentation of two stories
never before offered to English readers. She traces the life of Sholom
Aleichem while expressing regret that more of the youth, including
her own children, have not learned Yiddish to read Sholom Aleichem
in the original. Her Scribner-published book renders a service to
lovers of the works of Sholom Aleichem.