THE JEWISH NEWS USPS 275-520 Incorporating The Detroit Jewish Chronicle conmencing with the issue of July 20, 1951 • Copyright The Jewish News Publishing Co. Member of American Association of English-Jewish Newspapers and National Editorial Association and Affiliate Member of National Newspaper Association and Capital Club. 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 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.