THE JEWISH NEWS ( USPS 275-520) Incorporating The Detroit Jewish Chronicle commencing with the issue of July 20, 1951 Member American Association of English-Jewish Newspapers, Michigan Press Association, National Editaial 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 $15 a year. PHILIP SLOMOVITZ CARMI M. SLOMOVITZ Business Manager Editor and Publisher ALAN HITSKY News Editor HEIDI PRESS Associate News Editor DREW LIEBERWITZ Advertising Manager Sabbath Scriptural Selections ..This Sabbath, the seventh day of Tamniu,' 5740, the following scriptural selections will be read in our synagogues: Pentateuchal portion, Numbers 19:1-22:1. Prophetical portion, Judges 11:1-33-. Candle lighting, Friday, June 20, 8:53 p.m. VOL. LXXVII, No. 16 Page Four Friday, June 20, 1980 REALISM TO THE RESCUE This is a time for realism, for acceptance of the brutality of facts demanding concessions no matter how they hurt. This is a time to seek solutions to painstaking developments compel- ling resort to every available effort to assure prevention of calamities that may prove too costly to tolerate. Granting that the media may have been un- fair to the Israeli positions in diplomacy and in dealing with the problem of Arabs in and sur- rounding Israel, assuming that many news analysts acid commentators are somewhat prej- udiced in their treatment of Israel, the circus lated reports are so devastating that they can- not be ignored. The major American publica- tions have begun to circulate reports about at listing instances of tortures of Arabs by Israelis. Because such condemnations are cer- tain to multiply, it is urgent that they should not be ignored. The first obligation is to correct whatever shortcomings may exist, to provide assurance, that bestialities will not be tolerated by Israel, that if the reports contain even a grain of truth they must lead to the prevention of bestialities and to guarantees that protection of life and liberty in Israel will be for all, for Moslems and Christians as well as Jews. It is the only way of perpetuating Jewish ethical codes in a Jewish state. There is the more serious issue: that of estab- lishing the best relations with Arabs, of creat- ing a cooperative spirit with the Arab popula- tion within Israel and on the borders, hopefully leading to the eventual attainment of peace in the entire Middle East. This will call for conces, sions. It will challenge diplomacy and the abil- ity of peoples with a common kinship to assure safe and decent neighborliness for all. The call is for concessions, for an acceptance by Arabs of an autonomy that spells dignity and the fullest respect of all peoples, one for the other. Palestinians are not interpretively PLO. They are Arabs who have lived in Palestine, who aspire to autonomy in what they may wish to label again as "Palestine" although tens of thousands of them already have their citizen- ship in Jordan which has been part of Palestine. How can an accord be attained? How can Saudi ,Arabia and Jordan be brought into the peace-making process, when they are actually suffering from fears of assassinations from other Arabs in the tense era of retaliations? Had there been unity and a sense of justice on the international front, without the weapons wielded under the power of oil, and had the European powers cooperated towards peace, the problem could be resolved. The effort still should be made with whatever concessions may have to be made to the Palestinians. There is no doubt about the unity in Israel's ranks towards a common goal. The belief that there are party differences on the subject in Israeris exaggerated. An analysis of some of the latest developments in the New York Times, by its Israel correspondent David Shipler, ex- plained that there really are no divisions in Israel on the basic issues' among the political, parties, that only the methods of solving the problems are at issue. Shipler points out: At the moment, for example, the Labor Party is working hard to appear more flexible than Mr. Begin's coalition on,Palestinian issues, cal- ling for an end to Jewish settlements near Arab towns and for some territorial compromise on the West Bank. "Foreigners are fooled by this more easily than Israelis, who remember which party was in power when the first militant Jewish groups established settlements adjacent to Arab popu- lation centers, which party yielded repeatedly to militants' demands by turning fledgling camps into villages and suburbs such as Kiryat Arba, the provocative center for ul- tranationalists at the edge of Hebron. It was Labor, of course. And in some of these cases the defense minister who said eyes' was Shimon Peres, the Labor Party leader who now attacks the Begin government for putting settlements near Arab towns. "Perhaps the Labor Party has changed its mind. Or perhaps things just look different when you're not in the saddle. In any case, many Israelis expect _little dramatic change if Labor wins the next election." Therefore, abandoning internal controver- sies, there should be unity of action in Israel. The problem is one of involving the Arabs in a responsive mood. For this the friendly ap- proaches of the world powers are necessary. This cannot be attained by making Palestinians an issue attached to hatred rather than to the realism of acknowledging that Palestinian means whoever lived or lives in pre-Israel Palestine. This includes Jews as well as non- Jews, Moslems and Christians on a par with Jews. Until the realistic approach is assured the difficulties will be perpetuated. It is with an accord in view that all must work for as speedy a realization of cooperativeness as can possibly be mobilized. It will call for concession and humanism on all sides. It is the necessity for an avoidance of renewed bloodshed that will be all-too-costly to-contemplate. UNITY Is VITAL Never before was Jewish unity as important as it is in this critical hour in world history. ' Israel's very existence is threatened. The European community, greedy for oil, is ready to sacrifice the Jewish state. Great Britain, whose basic principles were thought to be in Scriptures and in prophecies in the redemption of Zion, subscribes to the intrigues of the barbarians who are reviving the menace of anti-Semitism. This has become the goal of the European na- tions and Britain, France and the Scandina- vians are endorsing it. To assure that Israel's only'friend the United States, remains on Israel's side, unity is _essen- tial. Therefore, American Jewry should support the Begin government and repudiate the so- called peaceniks whose untimely condemna- tions of Israel's defensive methods are threats to the very existence Of Israel. The PLO has gained ground, and Israel must retain the defensive line to overcome it. Let that be the motto of all seekers of justice in the cur- rent struggle for decency. espouse Agnon's Novels, Narratives Reissued in 3 Paperbacks Three paperbacks just issued by Schocken BoOks mark the repub- lication of the widely acclaimed novels and short stories by Shmuel Yosef Agnon, the winner of the 1966 Nobel Prize. in Literature. - The most massive of the three new paperbacks is the 485-page novel, "A Guest for the Night," translated by Misha Louvish. It first appeared in 1968. A publisher's note gives the additional facts about this novel and its translation: "The Hebrew original of this novel appeared under the title `Oreah nata lalun' as volume VII of the first edition of Agnon's works (Schocken Publishing House, Jerusalem, 1939). The title is a phrase taken from Jeremiah 14:8. The work was reprinted several times; a definitive, revised version was issued as volume IV of the Schocken- Haaretz edition of Agnon's narratives (Jerusalem-Tel Aviv 1953). The basic translation into English is the work of Misha Louvish. For the rendition in its present form the publisher had the cooperation of Professors Naftali C. Brandwein, Allen Mandelbaum, and Oscar Shaftel." "The Bridal Canopy," the 390-page novel, translated by 'I.M. Lask, first published in 1967, added significantly to the status of Agnon in the world's literary circles. A review by Edmund Wilson summarized the appeals in Agnon's writings which gave his stories realism while they combined the tradition and the Jewish legacies with contemporary experiences. Wil- son wrote: "What makes Agnon so remarkable and an appropriate recipient of the Nobel Prize is that he is able to em- body in his talmudic world so much of our common humanity, and even of our common morality, so much of - ironic humor and ironic touching pathos, that he can be read, I should think, with appreciation by anyone." There is particular charm in the third p erback, the shortest, the SHMUEL AGNON 128-pagtv'In the Heart of the Seas." This, too, was translated by I.M. Lask. This story has the added - attraction of the series of appropriately expressive illustrations by T Herzl Rome. The drawings captured the spirit of a notable Agnon. "In the Heart of the Seas" was one of Agnon's earliest works, published 1948 and re-issued prior to the 1980 edition in 1975. This charmL story undoubtedly was among those that contributed towards Ag- non's selection for the Nobel Prize. Children of the Holocaust "Children of the Holocaust" by Helen Epstein, first published by Putnam as a hard-cover book, has been re-issued as a paperback by Bantam Books. This deeply moving story recounts the experiences of Holocaust survivors as they were passed on to the author by her parents. Explored is the meaning of recollections of the horrors from the tattoo of her mother's arm to the depressions, mounting to rages, which continue to affect her father. There is a subsequent normalization as the children and the mother who survives the father also accepts the realism of a new era in America. But the memories linger.