THE JEWISH NEWS
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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 27th day of Tevet. 5741, the following scriptural selections will be read in our synagogues:
Pentateuchal portion. Exocus 6:2-9:35. Prophetical portion, Ezekiel 28:25-29:21.
Tuesday, Rosh Hodesh Shevat, Numbers 28:1-15.
Candle lighting, Friday, January 2, 4:54 p.m.
Page Four
VOL. LXXVIII, No. 18
Friday, January 2, 1981
TESTING THE ANTI-SEMITES
Anti-Semitism in France was subjected to an
important analysis by one of the acknowledged
leaders of French Jewry, Guy de Rothschild, the
president of Funds Social Juif Unifie, on a visit
in New York with leaders of the Joint Distribu-
tion Committee. He described the French anti-
Semitism as less of a phenomenon than before
1939. He conceded that the more recent anti-
Semitism is marked by "habitual daily vio-
lence," while in the 1930s anti-Semitism had its
expression in daily experiences. He rejected the
views that the French government is anti-
Semitic and said that the French policy is
"anti-Israel government" but not anti-Israel.
Rothschild's opinion that the French attitude
"is not for the destruction of Israel" could be
viewed as offering some encouragement that
there is hope for better treatment of the issue by
French representatives in international rela-
tions. This could be applied to all European gov-
ernments.
Nevertheless, the fact that there has been
daily violence against Jews in Paris and other
French cities does not grant too much comfort
from the statements by the French leader.
Of special interest in this connection is the
analysis of the increased anti-Semitism in
France in an article in the New York Times
Magazine on "The Jewish Question in France"
by he Times chief of its Paris bureau Richard
tiler. He concluded his article with a parable
,
:
provided by the French Jewish leader:
"A Jew in a Russian shtetl sees a friend from a
nearby village come running up the road, ter-
rified. 'Why are you running?' he asks. We are
at peace. There are no wars, there are no pog-
roms.'
But they are killing camels,' says the other.
" And what have camels to do with you?' the
first Jew asks.
" 'So they are beginning with camels, but
who's to say where they will stop?' "
This reads like an admission as well as an
admonition that matters have not changed
much, even in the country that was noted for
emancipation of Jews more than a century ago.
The scapegoat is still available. The Jew who
has not become accustomed to it is naive indeed.
There are the defenders of the French and
chief among them is Raymond Aron, the emi-
nent French-Jewish commentator, columnist in
Le Monde, who criticized Israel Prime Minister
Menahem Begin for attacking the emerging
French violence against Jews and Jewish in-
stitutions. He maintains "there has never been
so little anti-Semitism in France as today."
This statment must be treated seriously, yet
it must await developments indicating whether
Arab anti-Israel pressures will influence
French public opinion or whether the French
sense of justice will reject such threats from
Israel's enemies.
MURDERERS , COVENANT
How long will the cowed among the nations
and the misguided in Jewish ranks remain
blind to a brutalized fact: that no matter how
much sanctimony is claimed by the so-called
Palestinians, their idols, the PLO, are bent
upon destroying Israel!
In a report from South Lebanon, released by
ZINS news bulletin, the following is quoted
from the Lebanese newspaper Al Liwa, making
public the text of the political program adopted
by the Congress of the Fatah movement, upon
its having re-elected Yasir,Arafat as its leader:
"Since the launching of El Fatah, interna-
tional imperialism, led by the U.S.A., which is
strategically allied to International Zionism
taking its base in Palestine, has been trying to
destroy our armed revolution. These attempts
took the form of direct military strikes at one
time and the form of conspiracies and liquidiat-
ive schemes at another — i.e. the war in Jordan
in 1971 and the war in Lebanon."
The imperialist offensive against the region
has intensified in a variety of settlement
schemes. Resisting these schemes is the duty of
all Arab liberation forces. El Fatah is an inde-
pendent national revolutionary movement,
whose aim is to liberate Palestine completely
and to liquidate the Zionist entity politically,
economically, culturally and ideologically. The
battle of liberating Palestine is part of the
nationalist struggle and therefore it is the duty
of the entire Arab nation to support this battle
with all its moral and material means.
The only way to achieve our aim is through
the armed popular revolution. The armed revo-
lution of the Palestinian Arab people is a deci-
sive factor in the battle of liberation and the
liquidation of the Zionist presence. This strug-
gle will not stop until the Zionist entity is liq-
uidated and Palestine is liberated."
The tactics, the intentions, the plans for an-
other Holocaust for Jewry have not changed.
How long will the well-intentioned, who seek
new deals for the so-called Palestinians, con-
tinue ostrich-like to bury their heads in PLO
sand and fail to recognize the reality of a tragic
situation threatening Israel?
The basic facts about the term Palestinian
were historically analyzed in the important ar-
ticle by Prof. Franklin H. Littell. As a non-Jew
who knows history and the Bible, who is out-
raged by anti-Semitism and by the threats of
another Genocide, Dr. Littell called attention to
misnomer, the Palestinian myth, under which
destructive programs are plotted against Israel.
The terrorist-inspired events that have made
possible the continuing threat to Israel are an
indictment of the international community.
The United Nations is writing a chapter so dis-
graceful to its original purposes that people of
good will must view the actions of the world
organization with a sense of shame. In an era of
gravity for mankind, marked by war threats in
many sections of the globe and actual warfare in
the Middle East, the UN General Assembly had
nothing to do but to deal with nearly a dozen
proposals to assail Israel. There even was one
such resolution adopted by the UN Security
Council with the approval of the United States.
There is only one word for such actions —
shameful!
New Bantam Release
Nathan Ausubel's 'Folklore
Treasury' Now Paperbacked
Nathan Ausubel is in the top ranks of American Jewish an-
thologists. His collected gems of Jewish poetry, the treasured in
folklore and humor, gained best-seller status and have served im-
measurably in aiding many engaged in doing research on Jewish
historical material as well as current literature.
Ausubel's "A Treasury of Jewish Folklore" has remained a classic
in its field since its first publication in 1948 by Crown Publishers. It is
now welcomed in a new Bantam Books edition, as a paperback.
Ausubel's "Folklore Treasury" has the distinction of having gone.
through 32 printings, before its present reappearance as a paperback.
The wick acceptance of this work, its continuity.As an infornuitive
'Work containing the classics in Jewish lithratiire;beeornes apparent
even with a mere reading of the -variety of topics and sources that
emphasize the treasures of folklore.
Ausubel, a scholar of note whose works also include translations
from the German- and biographies of notables, drew upon the Talmud,
the tales of the Midrash, legends from all ages, Hasidic stories as well
as the most notable anecdotes and tales from modern writers.
Because he is personally so appreciative of the Jewish joke, his
collection of folk tales is immensely anecdotal.
While this treasury of folklore is in itself an anthological classic,
Ausubel's introduction to his collected efforts is most impressive. It is
the revelation of the influence of his Jewish home which encouraged
him, enthused him, to gather the gems that compose a very great
work, now available as a paperback after more than 30 years in
hard-cover books.
The genius of the ingathering of these treasures is explicitly
emphasized by Ausubel in this notable definition which applies to his
literary treasure:
"There is no folklore that can claim such a long and continuous
history as the Jewish, that has had such a vast range of productivity
in both time and geography. It is richly varied and colorful with t} , -
imprint of the many diverse cultures that Jews have assimilat
everywhere through the many centuries.
"Nonetheless, despite the absorption and adaptation of non-
Jewish elements from without and despite the consequences of more
than 25 centuries of wide dispersion in almost every part of the world,
Jewish folklore probably possesses an over-all unity greater than that
of any other.
"It is noteworthy, for instance, that, while American folklore has
had a continuous 300-year history of creativity in a unified geo-
graphic area, it nevertheless can claim a lesser integration than the
folklore of the Jewish people with its several thousand years of turbu-
lent history in so many parts of the globe."
The many sections into which this Ausubel treasury of folklore is
divided pinpoint the immense value of this work. They deal with
Heroes, Wise Men, Parables, The Ancient Art of Reasoning, Wise
Judges, Riddle Solvers, Miracles, Mystics and Wonder Workers, Mes-
siah stories, Scoffers, Droll Characters, Wahs and Wits, Fools and
Simpletons, Cheim Wisdom, Shlemihls, Ignoramuses, Liars and
Braggarts, etc., etc., etc.
This goes on ad infinitum fOr more than 500 pages. It is a work
that entertains and also informs. It is a great work and it lends
endless glory to the literary skills of Nathan Ausubel.