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January 04, 1980 - Image 4

Resource type:
Text
Publication:
The Detroit Jewish News, 1980-01-04

Disclaimer: Computer generated plain text may have errors. Read more about this.

THE JEWISH NEWS

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.. 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 S15 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

The: Sabbath, the 16th day of Teret, 5740, the following scriptUral selections will be read in our synagogues:
Pentateuch& portion, Genesis 4 7:28-50:26. Prophetical portion, 1 Kings 2:1-12.

Candle lighting, Friday, Jan. 4, 4:56 p.m.

VOL. LXXVI, No. 18

Page Four

Friday, January 4, 1980

NO ENT) TO OPPRESSION

Whatever hopes nourished human hearts,
after two world wars, that there would be an end
to persecutions, that freedom would ring out for
the oppressed, is vanishing. The return to
bigotry in several areas of the globe makes the
present era tragic. There are fears that create
hopelessness.
Iran is exemplary for the world and has be-
come a distress area for Jews.
Whatever truths are uttered against the
Shah Pahlevi, the fact is that Jews were secure
under his regime. Jews prayed for his welfare
out of fears that when his regime fell there could
have been wholesale massacres.
There are no massacres. Jews are protected
by Khomeini. Moshe Dayan said at a press con-
ference recently that Jews in Iran are not perse-
cuted as a religious group. He added in his
comment that the Iranian Jewish community is
impoverished, contrary to claims of their being
wealthy.
Very little is reported about Iranian Jewry.
They are isolated and they are silent. They do
not speak to anyone. The only report that has
come from Teheran about Iranian Jewry is an
important account about that community in the
Miami Herald by its staff writer Guy Gugliotta.
It's a gloomy tale about a synagogue that is
sparsely attended, about people who have
pledged an allegiance that assails Zionism and
rejects Israel.
Gugliotta reports that half of Iranian Jewry
has left the country, that 40,000 remain, and for
these there now develops a new concern
threatened by insecurity. A lack of freedom

adds to the burdens of solving anew the problem
of homelessness which remains a major Zionist
task.
Iran is not the only area of distress. The
Argentinian issue remains a delicate one. After
releasing Jacobo Timerman there were declara-
tions of faith by Argentinian Jews who claimed
they had the government's protection. The
Argentinian authorities maintained there were
no oppressions, until last week, when another
prominent Argentinian journalist was forced to
seek freedom and left Argentina with his fam-
ily.

The inhuman factor in the case of Robert Cox
was the threat to his 10-year-old son, in an
anonymous letter, that the Cox family would be
killed unless they left the country. Cox was
editor of Buenos Aires' Heralda and had lived in
Argentina since 1960. Such an experience de-
flates all of the assurances about a new era of
freedom for his adopted country.
Thus the inhumanities increase and fears are
generated, forcing emigration of people who
have lived in established communities for many
years.

The situation in many lands remains grave.
The Russian emigration movement escalates as
a result of increasing dangers there for the
Jewish community and for the dissidents of all
faiths and nationality backgrounds.
For Jews seeking havens of refuge, only Israel
is-major with her open door for the oppressed.
That's how it is now in a world of turmoil. It is
grave for mankind, especially tragic for Jews.

LEARNED ARISTOCRACY

A notable transfer of professorships is taking
place at two of the world's leading universities.
The Salo Wittmayer Baron Professorship in
Jewish History, Culture and Society will be fil-
led by Prof. Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, who will
be giving up the posts of Jacob E. Safra Profes-
sor of Jewish History and Sephardic Civiliza-
tion and chairman of the department of Near
Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Har-
vard University.

It would not be politic to say that the loss is
Harvard's. After all, the gain remains — a
major post will continue to be filled by an emi-
nent scholar.

The assumption of a Columbia University
chair named in honor of one of the most brilliant
Jewish scholars of all time and the leader in his
field in this century is a matter to be viewed
with great interest and appreciation. It is the
recognition of great scholarly qualities by the
leading universities that merits acclaim. It is an
indication that scholarship will be respected
and students will be encouraged to benefit from
it.
Prof. Baron's vast library, the hundreds of
eminent people who studied with him and bene-
fited from his tutelage, his creative works,
make his name an impressive Baron Chapter in
Jewish history:
Dr. Yerushalmi was a student of Prof. Baron.
Therefore he adds to his many qualities an asso-

ciation that adds to his status.
An aristocracy of learning is being
encouraged and perpetuated in the transfer of
professorships. It is the American community
that continues to gain from the respect accorded
eminence in learning and teaching.

RUTHLESS FUTURE?

Predictions in military circles are that Kho-
meini will be ousted in not more than two years
and that his successors will be even more ruth-
less.

Which poses the question whether the
scapegoats will remain "Americans and
Zionists" on the basis of which the fanatical
onslaughts on abused embassy employees were
perpetrated.

Auguries are a dime a dozen today and may
not fully materialize. But in the Iranian experi-
ence the lesson is already applicable. The vic-
tims are in an evident sphere. The reasons as-
cribed for the criminal acts are constantly being
duplicated in the maddened Middle East.

While the world, Jews especially, are well
prepared for the worst, the means for protection
and defense against the cruellest of anticipa-
tions must become part of a workable plan.
Nothing can be properly workable unless the
nations of the world cooperate against barba-
rism. So far, the cooperative spirit is lacking.

Holocaust Facts For Youth,
Facts Related by Survivor

Judy Hoffman experienced all the horrors of the Nazi occupation
of Holland. She was born to a Cohen family in Germany and her
parents sent her off to Holland with other Jewish children who were

provided with homes in an orphanage. •
From one orphanage she was taken to another at the age of seven.

Her parents perished. The foster parents in Amsterdam named her
Dotje. She had gone to Amsterdam with her brother Joseph, but was
separated from him when she left to live with her foster parents. Both

miraculously escaped death at the hands of the Gestapo.
Now she is Judy Hoffman and she relates her story in "Joseph and
Me: In the Days of the Holocaust" (Ktav).
It is a story for children and it fills a great need of explaining to

the youth how a young girl suffered and how she survived. It is like
the Anne Frank story.
Of the 54 Jewish children who were given shelter in the orphan-
ages described, only Judy and her brother Joseph survived. Joseph
managed to see her only once during the turbulent years, but he
survived in the ranks of the resisting underground and years later
they were reunited in Israel. It provided the enthusiasm with which
Judy Hoffman writes, in her concluding chapter, about Israel, the
savior for those who survived the Nazi terror.
The sufferings she endured make this a deeply moving tale.
Written for children, it has equal power for the elders. In simple
terms, it relates how children were martyred, how the German beasts

tortured and beat the victims.

Judy was in hiding and therefore lived to tell the tale. At one

point she relates:

"I prayed that God would stop the Germans from frightening me
so much, but God must have been very busy with many other more
important prayers, for he didn't answer mine."

At war's end, Judy managed to find a home with relatives in
Mexico. It was not until she was 16 that she was sent to school to get
her elementary education, to learn to read and write and to master
arithmetic.
Her story enriches the Holocaust literature. It will keep alive the
memory of events never to be permitted repetition, for youth espe-
cially

and also those of all ages.must be enlightened by the Holocaust.

The Jewish Lists' Covers
Many Notables' Biographies

Hundreds of Jewish personalities are included in "The Jewish

Lists" by Martin H. Greenberg (Schocken Books).

The compiler-author has gathered lists of scientists, authors,
physicists, businessmen, Jews in public life and the arts and sciences.
notables in academia,
sports and other fields of activities.
Of unusual interest are two indices: 32 pages of lists of birth
places and 24 solid pages of names gathered for this interesting book.
Greenberg teachers international relations at the University of

wisconsin, Green Bay.
Exemplary among those listed in the book are: Irving Stone.
Mike Nichols, Milton Helpern, Herbert Bayard Swope, Harry
Houdini, Lipman E. Pike, Elmer L. Rice, Yip Harburg, Eugene Fer-
kauf, Arthur Murray, Edwin H. Land and August Belmont.
Also included are Detroiters Byron Krieger, Harry Newman, and
others; Edward Israel of Kalamazoo; Mervin Pregelman, Lansing:
Morton Mintz, Ann Arbor; William L. Seidman, Grand Rapids.

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