41111111111111.4111111111111111111111111111111111101•11 11. 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 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 $15 a year. PHILIP- SLOMOVITZ CARMI M. SLOMOVITZ Editor and Publisher ALAN HITSKY News Editor Business Manager HEIDI PRESS Associate News Editor DREW LIEBERWITZ Advertising Manager Sabbath Scriptural Selections This Sabbath, the 17th day of Tishri, 5741, the following scriptural selections will be read in our synagogues: Pentateuchal portion, Numbers 29:17-25. Prophetical portion, Ezekiel 38:18-39:16. Hol Harnoed Sukkot Sunday: Numbers 29:10-28. Monday: Exodus 33:12-34:26. Numbers 29:23-28. Tuesday: _,Numbers 29:26-34. Wednesday: Hoshana Raba; Numbers 29•26-34. Thursday, Shemini Azeret Pentateuchal portion. Deuteronomy 14:22-16:17. Numbers 29:35-30:1. Prophetical Portion, I Kings 8:54-66. Oct. 3, Simhat Torah Pentateuchal portion, Deuteronomy 33:1-34:12, Genesis 1:1-2:3, Numbers 29:35-30:1. Prophetical portion, Joshua 1:1-18. Candle lighting, Friday, Sept. 26, 7:05 p.m. VOL. LXXVIII, No. 4 Page Four Friday, Sept. 26, 1980 IsRAEIA 9 s UN MEMBERSHIP Israel became a member of the United Na- tions long before a majority of the Arab states and their cohorts, now forming the enemy bloc, were admitted to the world organization. Yet the late-comers have begun to speak in terms of expelling Israel from UN membership. Actually, the animosities are inspired by the Russian and Arab blocs, by a Third World corn- bine that is motivated by pressures from the oil-producing countries. It emanates from those who would destroy Israel, and that element has never been in hiding. Yet -Israel remains a member of the United Nations and her role there will continue as an isolated target from the combined bigotries. The United States remains a factor in overruling any attempt to oust Israel, and this will surely continue after the oncoming Presidential elec- tion. Surely some of the European countries will feel the embarrassment of being collaborators in hatreds and will not be parties to expelling a member nation. The major factor in such a dispute is Israel herself. There are many, in Israel and in Jewish communities in the Diaspora, who would gladly abandon an association that spells nothing but trouble for the Jewish state. But the continuing threats from the UN call for rebuttal and Israel will remain there to provide it. There are the positive as well as negative aspects in such an unhappy situation. Israel shares in many of the progressive efforts of the UN. As a member nation, as an element not to be overlooked in the international community, Israel will not leave the world organization. Meanwhile such membership calls for courage to .overcome the hatreds leveled at Israel, and Israel and the Jewish people provide it. DEFEATISM INTOLERABLE A people that has experienced the hellish fires of persecutions must benefit from such training in new confrontations from those who may seek her destruction. The Jewish people is in that condition today. From all fronts come warnings that never before has there been such a revival of anti-Semitism as is in evidence to- day. Israel is isolated. The friends of the past are crouching in fears. Such are the conditions that now address themselves to Jews everywhere with the question whether defeatism, rejected through the ages, will now find root in soils of hatred. Concern over the menacing revival of anti- Jewish prejudice has been expressed by spokesmen for the Anti-Defamation League, religious leaders, Israeli authorities. Abba Eban was unhesitant in his warnings of the growing hatreds and the need to be aware of the dangerous consequences. Most serious in the new alignment of anti- Semitic forces in the world is the isolation of Israel and the abandonment of even the mere verbal friendships for Israel by the leading na- tions of the world. There were a few friends some months ago. In the Latin American hemisphere there were na- tions whose representatives stayed in Jerusalem as emissaries from their govern- ments. They have fled as a result of a shockingly prejudicial United Nations Security Council resolution which was given official status by an American failure to veto it and the U.S. blunder of resorting to an abstention. President Carter's defense of that action fails to carry weight as a result of the transfer of the embassies from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv. The rise of prejudice was evidenced in a Rosh Hashana message widely broadcast by Shimon Peres, the leader of the Israel opposition party, who declared: "Never in all the years since the War of Independence in 1948, has Israel's posi- tion been so desperate or so insecure, threaten- ing the very foundations of the National Home." While the Peres statement also indicates that much of Israel's troubles are self-inflicted, the basic fact is recorded in the initial words just quoted. It is important also to indicate that in his message the leader of the Israel Labor Party also mentions defeatism and rejects any form of it. It is on this score that Jews everywhere must be united in a time of crisis. For the first time since the founding of the Jewish state there is special emphasis on the need to mobilize for survival. Jews generally refused to-thinlOn terms of surviving because of the determined emphasis on the Psalmist's dec- laration, "I shall not die but live." Now there is talk in such terms. This must be refused in no uncertain conditions. Anything that spells defeatism must be rele- gated to the insulting and self-abjuring. There is no room for panic in Jewish life. It would be sheer folly to say that we do not have friends. There are many in the churches and in non-Jewish ranks who will not abandon us. There is the predominant element in the U.S. Congress that stand S - guard in Israel's de- fense whenever it is called into action. Hopefully this condition will continue in the incoming Congress. Defeatism has no place in Jewish thinkingk It is inconceivable. The Jewish people has been tried and must not be found wanting. The anti- Semitic virus is in evidence and will be de- stroyed. Hatred for Israel is threatening and it will be defied. How else does an undying people live? Definitely, by rejecting defeatism. Anything approaching fright over possible consequences must especially be avoided. If there is a compulsory defensive then panic is surely objectionable. '1 "11%914114" `Jewish People, Thought' Defines Historic Experiences Jewish traditionalism, the social aspects of Jewish experiences, receive notable treatment and thorough analysis in "Jewish People, Jewish Thought: The Jewish Experience in History" by Prof. Robert M. Seltzer of Hunter College, New York (Macmillan). Philosophy, theology, social thought as well as the economic developments are the evolutionary aspects researched in this volume. The totality of the eras under review is especially impressive in this study. The author commences with the origins of Israel in ancient times in the Near East, continuing through the distress of the Holocaust and the founding of the state of Israel in the present period in the history of the Jewish people. Indeed, Jewish civilization as it developed for 3,200 years is outlined impressively by Prof. Seltzer, and his researched results are accompanied by charts and maps. The list of the maps is in itself a presentation of historical experience, introducing the factual geo- graphic outlines of a people's life and struggles. There are 16 maps that denote the travels, the expulsions, the wanderings of a people under stress. Debates that have developed over faith in religious concepts after the Holocaust are included in Dr. Seltzer's study. Theological re- sponses, the Orthodox adherence to faith provide interesting atti- tudes probed in this volume. "Determinedly rationalist tendencies still have their exponents, and it is possible that new forms of Jewish critical rationalism will emerge in the future, for Judaism has been an intellectual as well as an existential quest for meaning. The aim of Maimonidean philosophy, to show that the philosophical presuppositions of science are compatible with the philosophical presuppositions of Judaism, remains to be fully explored in view of recent remarkable advances in such fields as cosmology, subatomic physics, and molecular biology. "Thus, the metaphysics of Alfred North Whitehead has inspired in Christian thought the approach known as process theology, em- phasizing the primacy of events, of selfhood, and of organic wholeness in nature, and of God as supremely real, yet responsive to and growing with the creative becoming of the cosmos. Even apart from this par- ticular system of thought, the biblical theme of God as creator may offer the possibility of a new Jewish theology of nature as a reservoir of dynamic potentialties of which human existence is one emergent actuality. "That other major theme of Judaism, messinac fulfillment, may also stimulate a reformulated conception of Torah and mitzvot (and halakha) as ideal ends according to which present reality is to be shaped. Combined with existentialist insights, the result would ' enriched integrated Jewish theology that does justice t ie Maimonidean conviction of the unity of truth, to human subjectivity and natural purposiveness, to the fragile and the eternal, to God as the source of created order and God as ground of future order that is to be brought about by the moral will of his creatures. "The course of modern Jewish thought — indeed of all Jewish thought — demonstrates that every theology is provisional and that Judaism remains contemporary only through confronting a perplex- ing and changing present. Without the desire to conserve and assimi- late the gift of the past, there is no genuine Jewish identity and no genuine human identity. "Without the horizon of messianic purpose, there is no existen- tially appropriated, unifying self-dedication to the reality of God, Torah and Israel. Holding on to a continuity always in danger of being lost but always available for renewal, a tradition more than 32 cen- turies old perseveres."