THE

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JEWISH NEWS (USN 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 Editorial Association
Published every Friday by The Jewish News Publishing Co., 17515 W. Nine Mile, Suite 865, Southfield, Mich. 48075
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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 fourth day of Elul, 5740, the following scriptural selections will be read in our synagogues:
Pentateuchal portion, Deuteronomy 16:18-21:9. Prophetical portion, Isaiah 51:12-52:12.

Candle lighting, Friday, Aug. 15, 8:15 p.m.

VOL. LXXVII, No. 24

Page Four

Friday, August 15, 1980

THE POLITICAL EMBRACE

What else could be expected than an embrace
after all the wrangling over policies, abilities,
perspectives, and not to be ignored — ambi-
tions?
The party had power and attraction, and
there could be no other result than an embrace
at the Democratic National Convention be-
tween the two leading contenders for the
Presidency.
That's how it works in American politics, and
elsewhere as well. The party that has gained
power has a chance to retain it, unless there is a
revolt so drastic that the demand for a change
brings results.
This has happened often, but not often
enough. Israel and Sweden are examples. The
labor ranks, the Socialists, were in power in
both countries for three decades before the con-
servatives rolled to power. What'll happen there
now remains to be tested.

In this country the two major parties retain
adherents because their political symbolism is
too important to be abandoned. Therefore, the
embrace. The party cannot be abandoned.
Is the embrace and the party domination good
for the country? Those who wish to remain in
power also must make it good for the party. as
well. Therefore, that which appears like a
fraudulent attempt to blind the voters to
realities, the party platform, must be treated
with respect. Such treatment demands that the
document presented as the party's pledge to the
people and its ideological obligation for the four
years ahead must be kept aloft as a reminder to
those assuming power that pledges are not
made to be broken.
The voters will know how to judge between
men, candidates and parties after the debates
involving the two chief contenders for the major
political job, as well as the third candidate who
should not be counted out of the race too soon.

PERSONALITIES AFLOAT

Whatever may be said about the debates al-
ready encountered, the accusations, charges,
counter-charges and demands for attention by
the candidates for the office of President, there
is no denying that the personality issue will
play a role in the campaign.
The actors on the stage now being watched by
the American people are divergent in character,
in appearance, in manner of speech.
One was a peanut farmer, the other an actor.
Both were governors of their respective states.
Neither is lacking in experience as a cam-
paigner. Nevertheless, no two are ever alike.
There are differences and preferences, and in
politics, as in the special spheres, there are al-
ways the preferences. Some attract, some repel.
The personality issue is not to be ignored-.
With it, however, will surely go the viewpoint

of each of the contenders. How will the ideas, the
policies, be treated by the voter who is a king for
a day nationally once in four years?
Blunders often mar an entire career. The two
major candidates — in the process the third may
yet play a more important role — will have to be
cautious. They have the -social and economic
problems to tackle on the home front and the
foreign policies to be guided by.
Jerusalem has become a major issue glob-
ally. Will it be treated with justice by the candi-
dates.
Israel, and in the proce,ss Jewry, have become
the targets of the bigots in the entire world. How
courageously will the candidates face up to the
issues?
The answers will be provided in the debates in
the weeks ahead.

THE DIPLOMATIC GASPS

Reaching the roots, the agonizing concern
over the status of Israel, the gamble over the
Israel-U.S. friendship, the security of a very
small state that is acknowledged as being the
only democracy in the Middle East, approaches
reality.
Lots of promises will be made in the coming
months. Much talk will be directed toward the
Middle East issues. Jews will be assured that
the party, depending on who speaks for what,
will stay close to the established American
policies.
What are these policies? They are uttered
with frequency, but not always with total sin-
cerity. There is a tongue-in-cheek diplomacy
that can never be trusted fully.
Jerusalem is exemplary. There is a State De-
partment policy that seems determined to treat
the Holy City, the City of Peace, Yerushalayim,
not as the historic right of the Jewish people for
whom it is inerasably sacred but as a means of
flaunting it before Israel's enemies as some-
thing anyone who has a church or a mosque
there can aspire to. Only under Israel's ad-
ministration has there been absolute religious
freedom in Jerusalem. The diplomats would de-
stroy it with their whims and inabal4nces.,..

Diplomacy, imbedded in the State Depart-
ment, is the dominating factor. Therefore,
whatever the promises by political candidates,
the American policies will emanate from State.
An agonizing aspect of the developing man-
ipulations to strike at Israel's very existence in
the matter involving Jerusalem, and the resolu-
tion about its capital status that was such an
unnecessary move in view of the realism of the
capital status, is the attempt to line up nations
now acknowledging Jerusalem's Israel-adopted
status to withdraw their legations from the
Holy City. This adds to difficulties in negotia-
tions and is, of course, most deplorable.
Therefore, the concern lest whoever is elected
lacks the courage to stand firmly by Israel in a
time of crisis. Jerusalem is only one of the is-
sues. Those who insist on destroying Israel and
who crave for recognition are the menacing fac-
tor. Will the occupant of the White House
commencing in 1981 have the courage to fight
for the prevention of another Holocaust? This is
the test. Diplomats and statesmen can either
add to distortions or they can glorify the just in
humankind. The electorate may have no power
over either, but it can at least keep it in view
while .ca§ting . the. 141ots on Nov. 4.

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A Schocken Publication

Jewish Names: Their History
Selection, Americanization

Names and choosing of them, the origin of Jewish names, their
conversions from the Hebraic to the Anglicized, these and many other
factors are presented in a most fascinating book on the subject.
In "A Dictionary ofJewish Names and Their History," (Schocken
Books) Rabbi Benzion C. Kaganoff of Chicago goes into details, listing
names, relating how in lands of oppression they were imposed upon
Jews, utilizes the anecdotal in outlining his informative topic.
First published by Schocken in 1977 as a hardcover book, the
Kaganoff volume has been reissued as a paperback.
Trends for Americanization are indicated in the adoption of
names, especially in the Orthodox community and among the
author's Orthodox colleagues. Rabbi Kaganoff states in advance that
he was surprised to learn "how uninformed and misinformed so many
were about the meaning and origin of their family names." He arrives
at the conclusion "the bridge between the Old World and America has
become weaker and weaker between each passing generation."
"The historical processes that created the name forms that ap-
pear today" are thoroughly studied in this volume on names.
This volume is the most extensive study of onomastics since the
publication 140 years ago of "Names of Jews" ("Die Names der Ju-
den") by Dr. Leopold Zunz, a founder of the Science of Judaism move-
ment.
Typical examples of names ofJewish families are incorporated in
this study.
In his description of name origins, Rabbi Kaganoff gives this
example:
"A classic example of multiple naming is Moses Schuster Kahn,
who was also known as Moses Spanier Kahan and Moses Frosh
Spanier. Schuster is an occupational surname, denoting, in German,
that he was a cobbler by trade; the Hebrew-based name Kahn tells us
that he was of priestly lineage; Spanier identified him as having
originally come from Spain; Frosh (`frog' in German) indicates that
either Moses or his forefather once lived in a house 'at the Sign of the
Frog.'
"This disorganized state of affairs as regards Jewish fame.,,
names created great difficulties for government authorities, and st ,
when the German states undertook to 'emancipate' the Jews at
turn of the 18th and 19th Centuries, they made an effort to regulari--
Jewish family names by requiring them to adopt fixed and permanent
ones."
The introduction of house signs, with picture signs that preceded
the modern custom of numbering houses, is credited to the Jews in
Frankfort-on-Main, in an era that was otherwise so vastly illiterate'.
The house signs were in accordance with the occupants' occupations.
Thus, as the author writes: "Thus, those signs are responsible for the
prevalence of fish names in Jewish family hames: E.g., Fisch (the
English word fish), Lachs (salmon), Hecht (pike), and Karp or Car-
pels."
"The most famous house sign name which Frankfort has given us
is, of course, the name Rothschild (Red Shield). House Number 148 in
the Jusengass bore a Red Shield," Kaganoff writes, explaining the
famous Rothschild name plate.
A chapter in the Rabbi Kaganoff book entitled "From Eizik to
Irving: From Shayna to Shirley to Sandra" typifies the description of
the "Americanization" process in name changing.
A dictionary of selected Jewish names appended to this work is
the helpful medium in the study.
Rabbi Kaganoffs researched subject is both informative and de-
lightful reading.
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