THE JEWISH NEWS U

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INIKABESSUE

Incorporating The Detroit Jewish Chronicle commencing with the issue of July 20, 1951

Member American Association of Engl ish-Jewish Newspapers, Michigan Press Association, National Editorial Association '
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. Nine.Mile, 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

HEIDI PRESS
Associate News Editor

DREW LIEBERWITZ-
Advertising Manager

Sabbath Scriptural Selections

This Sabbath, the ninth day of Elul, 5739, the following scriptural selections will be read in our synagogues:
Pentateuchal portion, Deuteronomy 21:10-25:19. Prophetical portion, Isaiah 54:1-10.

Candle lighting, Friday,-Aug. 31, 7:30 p.m.

VOL. LXXV, No. 26

Page Four

Friday, August 31, 1979

'TO DISTORTION S NO SANCTION'

A phrase used by Gcorge Washington in a
One such interest, says Representative Wal
statement he addressed to the then very small ter Fauntroy of the District of Columbia, is oil •
American Jewish community, assuring to Black Americans have a special stake in peace
bigotry no sanction," should always be parap- in the Middle East, he contends, because higher
hrased to distortions no sanction."
oil prices would be felt most severely by disad-
This must be used as a basis for understand- vantaged blacks. Presumably, by coming to the
ing by Americans of all faiths and all races as an side of the PLO, blacks can influence American
assurance that the American people cannot and policy and thus pacify the oil sheiks, who would,
must not be divided, that anything leading to out of gratitude, hold down prices, thus helping
misunderstanding or as a basis for divisiveness poor people.
should be tackled promptly and the untruths
"Higher energy prices do hit hard at the poor.
nailed, never to emerge as means of creating But it does not follow that OPEC can be so easily
hatreds and suspicions.
appeased. Talk of restraint notwithstanding,
Inflamed passions were permitted to escalate the oil cartel has again and again behaved
in the past few days as a rift in the black-Jewish exactly the way cartels generally behave: in its
ranks, and the basis for it is, in the main, distor- own economic self-interest. Prices have gone up
tion of fact. The resignation of a highly re- and up, they will continue to go up and no poor
spected black as the head of the U.S. delegation Americans will'pay any less for heating oil this
to the United Nations was sensationalized as winter because a black _ organization does or
stemming from Jewish demands and Israeli does not support the PLO.
threats, and from both ranks came proof that
"The Rev. Joseph Lowery of the Southern
this was not true. The charge that Israeli in- Christian Leadership Conference advances a
telligence had exposed the conversation be- similar reason for a black policy on the Middle
tween Andrew Young and the PLO spokesman East but he cites supply rathe'r than price: If oil
also was disproven, with the established infor- is cut off, it will have a devastating effect on
mation that the State Department had the facts America but a fatal effect on black America.' It
in the case.
is true that OPEC could impose another oil em-
Nevertheless, these charges were peddled in bargo , as in 1973. But that would also be con-
many quarters and a most regrettable stubbor- trary to its members' economic interests and
ness emanated in black quarters with an insis- there is no evident reason for an embargo. Nor is
tence of protecting the PLO under the guise of there any reason to believe that the danger of
"human rights," while ignoring the basic factor one is reduced by SCLC's sudden plunge into the
of the genocidal covenant of the embraced ally foreign policy seas.
whose one motive is the destruction of Israel.
And there is, in any event, a larger question
Fortunately, it is not an altogether unanim-
ous black opinion that sets its goal upon to be asked about such arguments. Like other
legitimatizing those who would condone the ac- ethnic groups, blacks can articulate distinct
tions of a group that would introduce another goals and positions. But, as with other ethnic
Holocaust into world society, using the Ameri- groups, the only way to turn such positions into
can people as a medium in such tactics. There policy is to persuade the public of their logic and
are enough of the fair-minded American blacks justice — in short to make not simply black but
who will not so condone such approaches to a American foreign policy."
The very sanctity of fair play in American
serious issue, , a group that understands the
value of unity in American ranks and will not deliberations appeals to the rational elements,
to all concerned, to take into consideration the
yield to genocidal threats.
How deplorable that highly esteemed spokes- realities of a situation which must not be ig-
people for the blacks should have been misled nored. There is a resort to blackmail, as a
into a scheme that leads to divisiveness! An weapon against Israel, and this must not be
example is the viewpoint expressed by June tolerated in a free society.
Brown in a column in the Detroit News. It was
The elements that have crept into an intoler-
written on the spur of the moment, and every able dispute have multiplied, and the primary
accusatory note, like the Jewish-Israeli pres- obligation was lost, nearly totally ignored, at
sure or the myth of the role of Israeli intelli- the outset. It, is the basic fact that relations
gence in exposing the Young conversations between ethnic or other groups in American
have been dispelled. It is to her credit that in a society must not be poisoned, and the atmos-
follow-up column Miss Brown moderated phere in this country was filled with poison, at a
realistically. There is always room for correc- time when blacks and Jews should have met in a
tion. The myths must be dispelled. Else, hatred handclasp asserting that distortions will not di-
will expand, the required unity will be aban- vide them, that hatreds will not be approved,
doned, the American principle of fair play will that the friendship between the two neighbors
lose its affect.
will not be affected by foreign venom.
Apparently the pressures from Arab oil inter-
The call upon this community to be calm, to be
ests and the resort to blackmail by means of oil, reasonable and unyielding in the objective of
to suppress Israel by means of blackmail, may making American unity realistic and workable,
well be a factor in the tragic American domestic must be adhered to as an ideal of American
incident. The New York Times touched upon it loyalty that should be treated patriotically.
editorially, Aug. 22, under the title "Blacks, Nothing revealing distortion should be re-
Anger and the PLO," which declares that "hurt jected; everything leading to American unity
and anger now seem to be propelling some and rejection of hatreds should be obligatory.
blacks into asserting other, questionable,
To distortions no sanction." Cementing of
foreign policy interests in the Middle East." The friendships among all faiths and races with this
editorial proceeds to declare:
as a motto, is an American, a human duty.

.

krrA

Genius of Isaac Rosenberg:
His Poems, Plays and Letters

Isaac Rosenberg was a great poet, an artist of note, a Zionist
whose works were'influenced by his Jewish. sensitivities.
He already acquired recognition in many fields by the time of his
death in World War I, in the service of the British army. He was killed
on April 1, 1918, when he was 27.
Now there is renewed acceptance of
his works, compiled in "The Collected
Works of Isaac Rosenberg" (Oxford
University Press).
This impressive anthology of his
poetry, prose, letters, paintings and
drawings was edited by Ian Parsons,
with a foreword by Siegfried Sassoon.
The comments by the editorstouch on
the dedication of the young poet-artist
and are a tribute to a creative soul and a
very sensitive man.
The 32 pages of his paintings, many
in color, his drawings, the sentiments
expressed in the many letters reveal the
genius of one who died while in the
process of creating.
His Jewish odes were included in
ISAAC ROSENBERG
writings as a teenager. Many of his not-
able poems were written in the trenches.
Exemplary is The Jew" which he wrote before his army career,
in 1916:

THE JEW

Moses, from whose loins I sprung,
Lit by a lamp in his blood
Ten immutable rules, a moon
For mutable lampless men.

The blonde, the bronze, the ruddy,
With the same heaving blood,
Keep tide to the moon of Moses,
Then why do they sneer at me?
The letters in this volume, many hitherto unpublished, addi-
tionally show the dedication of a sensitive poet-artist to his work,
his ideals:
Indeed, the Jewish devotions are evident in poetry and praise.
This is a work to be cherished. It will be treated as a classic by
lovers of poetry, in the appreciation of the artist whose genius now
emerges anew in an anthology of great merit.

`The Bible Fun Book'

David A. Adler provides entertainment and knowledge for 6-to-
12-year-olds in "The Bible Fun Book" (Hebrew Publishing Co. Bonim
Books).
Replete with puzzles and riddles starting with a Creation rebus,
this 52-page, large-sized paperback is as the title states, filled with
fun. In every entertaining page there is a Jewish lesson, as in The
Serpent's Tail," "Help Noah Build the Ark," "When Abraham Was
Young," "Bible Silhouettes," and many other titles.
In a Bible quiz, coloring pages, drawings to be completed, in many
ways this is a book to delight children and to provide an opportunity
for parents to work with the youngsters in having fun and providing a
knowledge of many of the best-known stories in the Bible.