• THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS 14 Friday, December 21, 1979 E & M AUTO CLINIC ADLER'S COLLISION WORK ,4 'ECIALIZING • CUSTOM PAINTING IN INSURANCE CLA • AUTO • SPORTS CARS • TRUCKS • lOANER CARS FIBERGLASS BODY REPAIRS • FREE ESTIMATES • TOWING • PICK-UP & DELIVERY Call 3 OR 356-5076 22280 W 8 MILE RD • SFLD BET LAHSER & TELEGRAPH 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." 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Use thIS coupon now Offer expires Mon.. Dec 31st 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. .