62 Friday, December 19, 1980 THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS ADL Head Explains Jewish Vote NEW YORK — Jews vote their own interests, and need make no apology for doing so, according to Nathan Perlmutter, na- tional director of the Anti- Defamation League of Bnai Brith. In an analysis of the "Jewish vote" in the current issue of the Bnai Brith newspaper, Metropolitan Star, Perlmutter stated in part: The inference of the term "Jewish vote" depends on its phraser and his audience. There are obvious dif- ferences between a social scientist discussing the "Jewish vote" in a classroom and an anti- Semite attributing base motivations to political office seekers because of the "Jewish vote." Still, no matter the dis- avowals by many Jews of the existence of a "Jewish vote," there nonetheless is a demon- strable Jewish voting pattern. The disavowals over the years can be at- tributed to Jewish self- consciousness, itself the consequence of feared visibility in an environ- ment deemed hostile. But, of course, close ob- servers of American voting patterns have known for a long time that there is a Jewish pattern. Jews have been voting for candidates whose political platforms they deem compassionate of the needs, caring of the change in Jewish voting. underdog, and which are The Democratic Party's critical of such socially mis- Presidential candidate, the chievous conditions as ra- candidate of the party of cism, discrimination, ul- FDR, and of Harry Truman, of John F. Kennedy, and of tranationalism. This voting pattern has Lyndon Johnson (the latter seen Jews vote against received 90 percent of the Jewish candidates and in Jewish vote), actually re- favor of non-Jewish candi- ceived less than half the dates when the former's Jewish vote! views trailed — socially — Without commenting on the latter's. Moreover, the respective qualities of Jewish voting singularly Messrs. Reagan and Carter, among ethnic voting pat- this stunning shift in terns, has been supportive Jewish voting patterns, of political platforms fre- whether it be an aberration quently at odds with the or a precursor of real economic interests of the change, is, I believe, a posit- relatively well-off Jewish ive contribution to Jewish community. interests. Said plainly and All of this is by way of say- simply, it suggests that four ing that there is, indeed, a years hence, the Republican Jewish voting pattern and Party need no longer write that it reflects very favora- off the Jewish community; bly on the civic-mindedness conversely, the Democratic of the Jewish community. Party may no longer take The 1980 Presidential the Jewish community's elections have witnessed vote for granted. a change in Jewish vot- That our voting pattern ing patterns, which may, in 1980 was reflective of the with the passage of years, be looked upon as having nation at large should been politically very sig- satisfy us that electorally we are politically prescient nificant. The published estimates or as politically naive as our this November reveal that neighbors. President Carter received 45 percent of the Jewish Cultural Week vote while Ronald Reagan MUNICH — This city was estimated as having re- ceived 39 percent of the hosted Israeli Cultural Jewish vote. When this lat- Week in December, de- ter figure is added to the 16 scribed as the largest, most percent of Jewish votes es- comprehensive Israeli cul- timated for John Anderson, tural exhibition ever held in we find a remarkable sea Europe. • a* • ° 414A • . In our town, you can count on Israeli Students Learn Arabic Through Special 'Newspapers By SIMON GRIVER World Zionist Press Service JERUSALEM — At last Israel is talking to some of her Arab neighbors. But the country will always remain linguistically and cultur- ally isolated from the Arab world if Israelis cannot speak Arabic. In the wake of the peace treaty with Egypt, the _teaching of Arabic in Is,- raeli schools has taken on a renewed significance. To cater to this crucial linguistical need, and for the teaching aids which it demands, David Herman, a Jerusalem publisher and educator, is introducing his own Arabic newspapers in Israeli schools. Herman, a graduate in modern lan- guages from Selwyn Col- lege, Cambridge, emigrated from England in 1966. He emphasizes the impor- tance of language in ad- vancing the spirit of cooper- ation and coexistence `My America' Depicts Lower East Side Life Reading "My America" by Eliot Wagner one has the feeling of being catapulted back through time to the heyday of Hester and De- lancey Streets of New York's Lower East Side, but that's the book's only saving 4H•••••• • grace. ••• Published by Kenan Press, the novel is a noble venture, particularly in its depictions of the Jewish lifestyle in the post-World War I era, but falls short in ••• ••• its tediousness. •••••• ::•••• The book focuses on ••• ••• •••••• Hymie Share, an inscruta- ble womanizer, and his fam- .••• •• ily, all of whom are caught •••••• ••••• • ..•• • • up in the race to make a bet- ••••• ••••• ter life for themselves, by ..•• ■ •• •••••• ....GO taking advantage of the •••••• •••••• ..••• ■ • goodies to be grabbed in •••••• •••••• America. -••••• .••••• ••••••• Unfortunately, the •••••• •••••• •••••• vernacular in which the .•••••• story is written makes for .•••••• .••••• confusion and often pas- ••••••• •••••• sages will have to be re- ..••••• ..• • •• read for clarification. ..•• •• Wagner has to be given credit for trying, but he just •••••• ..•••• news •••••• doesn't make it. . ••• ■ • —H.P. THE JEWISH NEWS to bring you local, national and international of Jewish interest . ...e s . ... e• .. . alp Let your mailman deliver this news to your door every Friday No need to .•••••• •••••• ..•••• S.. . .. --: 1 • To: The Jewish News 17515 W. 9 Mile Rd., Suite 865 Southfield, Mich. 48075 "Please send a year's subscription to NAME ADDRESS CITY FOR: FROM STATE stal• occas•on II gill through better communica- tion. "Look at Israel's President Yitzhak Navon," he says. "He is one of very few Israeli leaders who is an accomplished Arabic speaker and on his recent trip to Egypt, this helped him to win the hearts of the Egyptian people." More than 140,000 pupils now learn Arabic in Israel's Jewish schools, which repre- sents almost 10 percent of the school population. The figure would be far larger but there is a shor- tage of qualified Arabic teachers. All the same, after English; Arabic is now the most commonly taught foreign tongue in Israel's schools. When Shlomo Alon and Haya Dahan, two Jerusalem school inspectors and writers of Arabic text books, were approached by Herman with the idea of publishing an Arabic news- paper, they responded enthusiastically. Herman already pub- lishes four "easy" English newspapers at various levels. Many of the 60,000 a month that he distributes are used by Arab schools, while others are taken by Diaspora schools because of their Israel content. "When I surveyed the education scene in Israel at the begin- ning of the 1970s I couldn't believe there were no news- Jewry's Diminished Numbers JERUSALEM (ZINS) — Speaking of the demog- •••••• ..•••• •••••• raphic situation of the ..•••• ..•••• Jewish people, Gideon •••• • Hausner, a member of •••••• Knesset, told the last ses- sion of the Knesset, "We, ••••__ .. the Jewish people, have re- mained with diminished numbers we are the only people in the world that has not recovered since the roam, . . . the best great catastrophy of World •••• • is here at home! War II. "There are today 20 mil- 1515 enclosed lion more Japanese than there were at the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor. ZIP There are now 18 million more Russians than there ••••• •••• • were on the 21st of June, 1941 when Germany • • launched its assault on the ..•• •• An Israeli student scans one of David Her- man's "newspapers" de- signed as a teaching aid for Arabic. papers available to lan- guage teachers." The Arabic newspapers are called "Salamat," mean- ing greetings and "Jaridati" "My Newspaper." Salamat is for beginners and is printed in Hebrew letters to ease pupils into the complexities of the lan- guage without the extra problem of a strange al- phabet. Jaridati is for more advanced students and is in Arabic print. The newspapers are also a mine of informa- tion about Arab culture; the articles contain in- formation about the Mos- lem religion and thus the first issues explain the concept of the "Haj" (pil- grimage to Mecca). There are humorous Are . stories, Arab proverbs; photo quiz about President Sadat and a picture of the Egyptian flag, as well as features of Jewish interest. The newspapers have been introduced on an ex- perimental basis in the Jerusalem area, where the 25 percent of the population who are Arabs nearly all speak Hebrew, while very few of the Jewish majority speak Arabic. The response of both teachers and pupils has been- encouraging and the newspapers will soon be distributed nationwide. Herman sees his news- papers as spearheading a revolution in Arabic teach- ing in Israel and hopes that they will contribute in the revolution from war to peace. "I am taking lessons in Arabic myself," he says. "As a Semite it will be good to be able to speak both the great Semitic languages." Soviet Union, and there are now 17 million more Ger- mans than there were on the 1st of September 1939, when Hitler began his war against Europe. "Only the Jews have failed to increase their numbers. We entered the period of World War II with approximately 18 million souls, and today, 35 years after the war, we only number some 15,200,000." (Some demographers have begun using a lower figure of 14 million Jews and a Hebrew University expert recently said he be- lieves there are no more than 11 million Jews in the world.) 11) Dobin Aiding in Nazi Hunt MIAMI BEACH — In an effort to gather eyewitness testimony for forthcoming trials of Nazi war criminals, the U.S. Justice Depart- ment recently sent Rabbi Rubin R. Dobin, chairman of the American Anti-Nazi Association to Israel. In addition to Israel, there are some 150 cities and villages in Europe in which survivor-witnesses are being sought. Rabbi Dobin is working in con- junction with the Yad Vas- hem Government Holocaust Authority and the Nazi war crimes branch of the Israel' police force. Rabbis' Board Marks Centenary NEW YORK — The New York Board of Rabbis will have its 100th anniversary dinner May 17 at the Wal- dorf Astoria Hotel. Among the guests invited to the dinner are Israel President Yitzhak Navon, President Jimmy Carter and President-elect Ronald Reagan. Rabbi Israel Mowshowitz is chairman of the centen- nial dinner.