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THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
14 Friday, December 21, 1979
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rSo Help Me God!' Is Witty and Humorous
By ALLEN WARSEN
"The continued existence
of the Jews attests that life
is not meaningless, that
people can indeed affect the
course of history.",
The above quotatinn
frurn Herbert Tarr's most
recent novel "So Help Me
God!" (Times Books).
The novel's historic back-
ground is the war in Viet-
nam and its setting is the
United States, described by
the author as "Dodge City,
a sobriquet symbolizing
"the millions scrambling for
deferment, fath erhood,
psychiatrists, Canada,
obscene tattoos, anything to
elude Selective Service or
jail."
The plot is not continu-
ous, but consists of
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episodes stitched to-
gether by Andrew Baron,
a non-Jew. His friend,
Levy Simon, a graduate
from a HPbrew college, a
pacifist and profoundly
religious, considers the
use of religion, especially
Judaism, as a means of
avoiding military service,
as spiritually and mor-
ally degrading.
Instead of enrolling in a
rabbinical school, Simon
enlists in the armed forces
and is sent to Vietnam. He
is caputured by the North
Vietnamese and held pris-
oner in a jungle camp until
the end of the war.
Levy's father, an Or-
thodox Jew and concentra-
tion camp survivor, calls the
extermination centers
"amusement parks for
monsters." He defines
"trier as "feh," and regards
over-eating "unkosher."
Questioned, "Why the New
Left Jews battle for every
cause under the sun except
the ..1,,, ws?" he replies, "In
my native Czechosiovakia,
everybody identified him-
self as either a Czech or a
Slovak, only Jews called
themselves Czechoslova-
kians."
His wife, also a former
concentration camp inmate,
when asked to explain,
"Why didn't the Jews fight
back?" states, "I always
thought the real ou ..c.4-z-
'Why .4;-,
torture
m urder?' "
and murder?'
Andrew Baron, as
noted above, a non-Jew,
applies for admission to
the Rabbinical Institute.
Asked by an admission
board member to
evaluate "Portnoy's
Complaint," he says,
"When my mother's
friend found out that the
novel was about a thir-
tyish Jewish bachelor
who savagely condemns
his parents for having
ruined his life," she said,
"'Well, Portnoy was a
fool to let them do it.' "
Baron's favorite profes-
sor, the septugenarian Dr.
Tchernichovsky, resembles
Michelangelo's David
minus the horns. Dr. Tcher-
nichovsky considers the
synagogue the Jews' porta-
ble homeland and Jesus
"the master of the parable,
an art form invented by the
Pharisees."
He maintains that Jesus'
religion "was always
Judaism and Paul's religion
about Jesus became Chris-
tianity."
The Midrash Dr. Tcher-
nichovsky often quotes is
that of the elderly man
ridiculed for planting
acorns. "Old man," laughed
a passing youth, "do you ac-
tually expect to see those
acorns grow into trees?" The
old man replied serenely,
"The world was not barren
when I entered. So I plant
for those who shall come
after me."
Baron converts to
Judaism in accordance
with "halakhic" pre-
cepts. He dubs his
classmates as "ists: deist,
theist, nationalist,
polydoxist, traditionalist,
humanist, naturalist, Re-
constructionalist."
Isaaca Zion, a classmate
and descendant of nir e gen-
erations of rabbis, aspires to
be the 10th-generation
Rabbi Zion, and hopes that
her descendants will con-
tinue the family tradition.
Isaaca's favorite holiday is
Purim, since it is the only
Jewish holiday whose main
hero is a woman.
Herbert Tarr's "So Help
Me God!" sparkles with
humor and is replete with
perceptive aphorisms and
stimulating ideas. The
episodes are comical, sus-
penseful, overflow with ac-
tion and end happily.
Herbert Tarr, a rabbi,
authored "Heaven Help
Us!" and "The Conversion of
Chaplin Cohen."
Suit to Block
Synagogue Sale
NEW YORK (JTA) — A
lawsuit in a New York court
to block the sale of an aban-
doned but still usable
synagogue
stimulate inquiries to de-
termine the validity of such
transactions extending far
beyond New York state, ac-
cording to•Howard Zucker.
man, president of the Na-
tional Jewish Commission
on Law and Public Airo;—
(COLP
In response to that law-
suit, filed in State Supreme
Court in Manhattan, Judge
Martin Stecher ordered a
trial to determine whether
conditions of the sale of the
Kalvarier Synagogue, on
Manhattan's Lower East
Side, to the Eastern Buddh-
ist Association for $180,000
had been made in accord-
ance with the state's Reli-
gious Corporation Law.
The sale was made by
three men, Abraham
Gulker and Saul Golds-
tein of Brooklyn and
Seymour Shyman of
Manhattan, claiming to
be trustees of the congre-
gation.
75-year-old
The
synagogue building had
long been abandoned by its
original congregants but
was being used for regular
weekend worship by some
25 Jews in the area who con-
tributed to the upkeep of the
synagogue, according to
Zuckerman.
New Appointee
RAMAT-GAN — Mor-
decai Shalev, former Israeli
ambassador to Canada, has
been appointed special
assistant to the president of
Bar Han University.
Shalev recently retired
from the diplomatic service
after 30 years in various
posts at the Israeli Foreign
Ministry.
-
Blood Drive Held
TEL AVIV — Magen
David Adorn, Israel's na-
tional emergency and blood
bank service, recently held
an emergency blood drive in
Tel Aviv because of low
stockpiles of blood.
The emergency drive
alleviated the shortage.
.