THE

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

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CARMI M. SLOMOVITZ
Business Manager

PHILIP SLOMOVITZ
Editor and Publisher

ALAN HITSKY
News Editor

HEIDI PRESS
Associate News Editor

DREW LIEBERWITZ
Advertising Manager

Sabbath Scriptural Selections

This Sabbath, the 20th day of Av, 5740, the following scriptural selections will be read in our synagogues:
Pentateuchal portion, Deuteronomy 7:12-11:25. Prophetical portion, Isaiah 49:14-51:3.

Candle lighting, Friday, Aug. 1, 8:33 p.m.

VOL. LXXVII, No. 22

Page Four

Friday, August 1, 1980

THE UN CIRCUS

One has to be very naive not to anticipate
what happened at the UN General Assembly
last week.
The circus remained in the Big City and the
Third World continued to be misled by the
Israel-hating Russians and the Arab bloc that
has only one aim in view: the destruCtion of
Israel.
The European nations are to be pitied for the
positions they placed themselves in: the state of
fright that causes them to be silent in time of
injustice.
Only the U.S. sides with Israel, and now there
is the cumulative talk about an awaiting of the
post-election opportunities to "pressure Israel."
Whoever views the continued poisonous situ-
ation as marking a growing state of isolation for
Israel is equally naive. How could the situation
worsen when the Big Powers are in a state of
fright and only the United States remains at
Israel's side?
There is no hope for justice from the UN circus
whose clients are the abortive who would de-
stroy a sovereign state and reintroduce the in-
humanities of the Holocaust and the crimes of
Genocide.
If the November U.S. elections stand in the
way, the testing will arrive very soon. Will it be
pressure, despite the comedies enacted at the
UN? There were attempts at pressures in ear-
lier critical periods for Israel. They are pre-

dicted again. Little David turns the pages of
recorded history and sees the monstrous
Goliath confronting him again. The slingshot
always seems at hand in the rejection of panic
and pessimism.
Adding to the tribulations that have turned
the UN into a hate-mongering organization is
the continuing policy of the European Economic
Community to flirt with the oil-producing na-
tions by endorsing the PLO policies. The EEC is
pressing for acceptance of the decisions that
turned its recent conference in Venice into an
anti-Israel policy. This creates new dangers to
the peace in the Middle East.
The poisoned atmosphere in the UN fortu-
nately created a reaction that stems from the
effort to impose the extremism of hatred upon
the European community as well as on the
Third World. The Arab-Communist inspired
resolution met with resistance from some quar-
ters. Russia remains the most adamant inspirer
of anti-Semitic hatred. The anti-Israel actions
continue to serve as challenges to the Euro-
peans not to submit to the hatred that is poison-
ing mankind.
The major emphasis at the UN is the rejection
of the peace efforts between Egypt and Israel
and the condemnation of the U.S. for its role in
fostering such tasks. Thus the UN, which came
into being as a peace-maker for mankind has
become an advocate of warfare and the arm of
genocide. It is something to mourn.

WHEN BIGOTS MENACE

A warning was recently issued by the Bnai
A political campaign, especially in a
Presidential election, could be endangered by Brith Anti-Defamation League of a spreading
limitations that are reduced to personality con- trend in KKK strength. ADL points out that
tests. The issues that affect the life and destiny KKK membership in 22 states increased from
8,000 to 10,000. Much worse is the ADL esti-
of the people must not be ignored.
In the current campaign, the economic, the mate that the roll call of sympathizers rose from
foreign matters, are vital. So is the threat to the 30,000 to 100,000.
Separation ideal. Often there are bigotries to
This is a matter to contend with and to be
contend with. In recent months there has been
such a resurgence of threats from the Ku Klux taken seriously. It affects the nation because it
Klan that its role on the American scene must threatens certain elements in many com-
munities, thereby introducing divisiveness in
be considered in all seriousness.
The freeing in Chatanooga of three KKK the American population. It is something never
members on charges of assault with intent to to be tolerated and must be treated with
commit murder, by an all-white jury, empasized . severest condemnations. It is to be hoped that
the extent of the menace that threatens this when KKK crimes are treated in the courts that
they will receive due punishment.
nation anew.

WO NOT HARM ISRAEL'

here."
Resenting what he termed "aggressive
abuse" of Israeli government positions, Israel
This makes sense. What the rash criticisms
Prime Minister Menahem Begin addressed a
did
was to inspire increased venom giving the
plea to the initiator of the letter that included
• impression of divided Jewish ranks, lending
the signatures of 56 American Jews which was
entitled, Our Way Is Not Theirs." It was a strength to the efforts to declare East Jerusalem
occupied territory. Mr. Begin was justified in
condemnation of Mr. Begin which aroused great
challenging critics when their appeals serve to
concern both in this country and in Israel.
undermine Israel's status. Criticism must not
On the right to criticize, the Begin reply to
be discouraged, but destructive attacks on Is-
Leonard Fine stated: On matters that relate to
rael must be condemned.
the national security of the little nation in Eretz
While critics sought to create the impression
Israel, please refrain from proferring advice, at
of disunity in Jewish ranks, there is an empha-
least in public, within earshot of our enemies
tic unity which refuses to condone unscrupulous
who conspire to do us evil. Remember, please,
attacks on the personality of Israel's prime
the simple fact that we care for our children and
minister.
grandchildren — and these little children live

Polish Jewry's Experiences
Trace Achievements, Agonies

A thousand years of historical experiences, the achievements as
well as the agonies of a people that rose to the millions and has been
reduced to a few thousand by persecutions, is analyzed by a noted
historian in On the Edge of Destruction: Jews of Poland Between the
Two World Wars" (Schocken).
Prof. Celia S. Heller of Hunter College, New York, a sociologist
and historian, takes into account all of the creative Polish Jewish
labors and leads up to the tragedies that were imposed by Hitlerism
and the subsequent occurrences.
First published in 1977, this important historical record has been
reissued by Schocken as a paperback.
Prof. Heller describes how Jews dealt with their tragedies in
World War H, the resistance and the aftermath of the tragedy im-
posed by Nazism. The cultural attainments, the Orthodox trends, the
assimilationists and their counterpart, the Zionists and the youth
movements — a score of these themes is reviewed in the thorough
study that emerges in this volume.
Not only the Nazi terror but Polish anti-Semitism, the resort to
the ritual murder libel and the enmities that eroded are outlined by
Prof. Heller.
Jews were lured by Polish Socialist promises to remain in Poland
in the 1950s. Then began an exodus resulting from the victimization
by the Poland they helped to create." This was the experience during
the Communist persecutions under Wladyslaw Gomulka.
Jews who had left their faith also became the targets of the
Communist anti-Semites and they were declared Jews again. As Prof.
Heller states: The solution for which the Polish government and
large portions of the Polish nation clamored in the 1920s — a Poland
free ofJews — became a reality, although not through the emigration
that the Poles had proposed but through the death that the Nazis had
disposed. In Poland, in the days following the end of the war, it was
commonly admitted and not often regretted that Hitler had solved the
Jewish problem. Jewish life in Poland: the verdict that the Polish
nationalists had formulated at the beginning of the century and
championed in post-World War I independent Poland, that the Polish
government had begun to realize in the 1930s, and that the Nazis had
brutally executed in the 1920s" was at an end.
With the aged and dying the only ones left, "The disappearance of
Jews is taken for granted in Poland," is the sad note struck by the
author.
Dr. Heller charges that "also eradicated in Poland is the memory
of the Jewish martyrdom during the Nazi period. The Polish govern- .
ment like the Soviet one has decreed that Jews must not be cited
particular victims of the Nazis."
Is there an historic defiance of such brutal tactics? Dr. Heller
concludes her deeply moving theme:
"The special nature of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising of 1943 is n
to be mentioned; the uprising must be seen as part of the nationa.--
Polish struggle against the forces of racism and fascism.' Even the
captions of the exhibits in the former Auschwitz (Oswiecim) concen-
tration camp conform to this rule; the term Jew hardly figures in
them. And yet, despite all this, the link to that past Jewish commu-
nity of Poland continues to exist: not in Poland but in Israel and also
in the Jewish communities of the Western world, where numerous
descendents of Poland live. That life is and will be as strong as
the numbers of them who cling to a Jewish self-identity and to a proud
if sad memory of the Polish community that once was. For that
community is now an integral part of past Jewish history for all Jews
to share in, as in the Jewish community of Spain whose final tragedy
it was destined to eclipse."