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CARMI M. SLOMOVITZ
Business Manager
DREW LIEBERWITZ
HEIDI PRESS
Advertising Manager
Associate News Editor
PHILIP SLOMOVITZ
Editor and Publisher
ALAN HITSKY
News Editor
Sabbath Scriptural Selections
This Sabbath, the third day of Tishri, 5741,
the following scriptural selections will be read in our synagogues:
Pentateuchal portion, Deuteronomy 32:1-52.
Prophetical portion, Hosea 14:2-10, Micah 7:18-20, Joel 2:15-27.
Sunday, Fast of Gedalia
Pentateuchal portion, Exodus 32:11-14, 34:1-10.
Prophetical portion, Isaiah 55:6-56:8 (afternoon only).
Candle lighting, Friday Sept. 12, 7:29 p.m.
VOL. LXXVIII, No. 2
Page Four
Friday, Sept. 12, 1980
YEAR OF CHALLENGE
Every new year occasions challenge to mankind. The coming months
presage anxieties for years ahead. In the year 5741 now being welcomed on
the Jewish calendar there are anticipations of anxieties that are certain to
tax the energies 'of people tested by time and confronted with unmatched
responsibilities.
If ever history showed signs of repetition, it is now. In recent times there
have accumulated the negatives in human relations that could spell despair
for the uninitiated. For the Jew, they show continuity in relations with
neighbors who need to earn anew the values of brotherhood and neighborli-
ness, the urgency that people should live together in harmony and respect
each other's roles in life.
There is an evident growth in anti-Semitism and it is, in many respects,
as much a flaunting of basic decencies to people of many faiths as it is to the
Jew. When Nazism re-emerges as a partner with the Ku Klux Klan, it is an
ugliness that brings shame upon the community where it is permitted to
make an appearance. Since the Jew is a chief target, it is of special concern to
him.
If this is as tragic as the evidence of it in many communities emphasizes,
it is all the more deplorable because it is linked with the racial bigotries and
often finds an echo in the conflict in the Middle East. Because of the bank-
ruptcy of the original aims of the international aspects of the United Nations,
platforms have now been provided for hatreds in the movement that was
formed for the advancement of peace and good will. The vileness of some of the
tactics by irresponsible representatives of ill-spirited nations have added to
the agonies of discords aimed primarily at Jews and have made the UN a
resort of intolerance.
From these hatreds stem a measure of the difficulties that will interfere
with the road to peace in the Middle East. Every effort is being made to
undermine what had been achieved at Camp David. Fortunately, the Egyp-
tian leader has not ended the negotiations. The interruptions are deplorable,
but they are not an end to peaceful aims. What was begun in a spirit of
good-will continues to retain some of the seeds that will hopefully lead to
cooperation. But the threats to Israel's existence remain a source of greatest
concern.
Whatever the differing views, no matter how serious the blunders
charged against the Jewish state, in the totality of obstructive experiences it
is the threat to the very existence of Israel that is the basis for the controver-
sies that have assumed an international character. The European com-
munities, in their craving for oil which makes them dependent upon the Arab
states, have registered one of the most serious blows against Israel in recent
months. These attitudes continue to be among the most damaging factors in a
year when peace will surely be more difficult to attain.
There is no doubt that the anti-Semitic factors combine with the hatreds
for Israel by would-be destroyers. This is what makes the threat to Jewry so
serious. It becomes a major factor in anticipating a year during which Jews
will have to be on guard with more concern than ever. And if Jewry becomes a
target of haters on an increasing scale, it won't be the Jew alone who will be a
target for hatred. It is a poison that envelops mankind. That is why 5741
commences as a year of challenge for all mankind, and for the Jew as the most
convenient scapegoat for the haters who surround him.
EVER-PRES SING PRIORITIES
Packed synagogues on Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, then the dwindl-
ing attendance on holidays and the Sabbath, pose the natural query whether
the two- or three-day-a-year identification suffices in cementing Jewish
interests and in providing the community necessary for the dignity of the
Jewish people.
Primary in the concerns over identification is the anxiety that an or-
ganized community should also be an informed community. The synagogue,
as the beth tefila, is traditionally viewed as closely linked with the school,
with study and teaching.
The accepted principle of giving priority to Jewish studies, to knowledge,
remains inseparable from the house of worship and from the roots of com-
munal experience.
The High Holy Days must inspire commitment to that basic principle of
making the acquisition of knowledge the very vital element in Jewish' life.
As Jews congregate for the Holy Days, this commitment must retain its
priorities. Out of it will emanate the strength that is needed for dignified
Jewish living.
CONFRONTING- 5 17 41
A new year is seldom anticipated as if it could be without problems, as if only
the glorious were on the horizon and mankind's illnesses are totally curable. This
may never be humanity's lot, even if the messianic were attainable. Therefore,
5741 is to be welcomed routinely, as another twelve-month period during which
the good will conflict with the evil, and those enveloped in it will be the prayerful
lot hoping for the best.
There is still the hope for the best, while acknowledging the usual concessions
that people also must be prepared for the worst. In 5741 both will need greater
emphasis — the need for greater emphasis on hopefulness, the imperative pre-
paratory to being able to anticipate the worst.
A world in turmoil inevitably multiplies the concerns that are strictly in the
Jewish sphere. Whether in economics or the social areas, the religious and the
cultural, the effects on Jews are always in evidence.
For world Jewry, the economic problems, the inflationary, provide causes for
anxiety. In periods of prosperity, a major problem is quickly soluble. Since an
impressive portion of Jewish communal activities is in the philanthropic obliga-
tions, a depressive atmosphere in times of economic decline cause difficulties.
Jewish communities have serious obligations to Israel as well as the important
local and national movements, and any handicap financially is a basis for the
concern lest major causes should suffer. Jewish leadership would be blind to
realities if it did not realize that greater effort will have to be made in a time of
stress to assure that Israel and the movements that matter in the social sphere are
fully provided for.
Israel's difficulties are so vast at this time that anything that might contribute
to greater want would be deplorable. Israeli government subsidies had to be
reduced drastically in the past couple of years in the fields of education, care for the
elderly, provisions for the incoming new settlers. Therefore, the gap must be fin'
by the Diaspora Jewry, with American Jewry carrying the major load.
Meanwhile, there is also the priority to be given to the educational institu-
tions, to the urgency of increasing all efforts towards the advancement of the
education of the youth.
These needs and those of the elderly, the duty to provide for the vocational and
recreational agencies, must not be overlooked.
Such are the duties that will confront Jewry philanthropically.
Then there is the role to be shared politically. The voice of Jewry must be heard
whenever the libertarian principles are endangered, every time a threatening
enmity is expressed for Israel. On that score the new year will carry obligations
that will keep saying to Jews in the democratic countries, primarily the United
States, that they must not slumber when the freedom and security of Jews and
Israel are under attack.
These are obligations that are always in evidence, whatever the year.
In 5741, as in the past, Jewry should never be found wanting when it is called
upon to be militant in defense of justice.
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