THE JEWISH NEWS (USPS
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Incorporating The Detroit Jewish Chronicle commencing with the issue of July 20, 1951
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CARMI M. SLOMOVITZ
Business Manager
PHILIP SLOMOVITZ
Editor and Publisher
ALAN HITSKY
News Editor
HEIDI PRESS
Associate News Editor
4
DREW LIEBERWITZ
Advertising Manager
Sabbath Scriptural Selections
This Sabbath, the 21st day of Nisan, 5741, is the seventh day of Passover and the following scriptural selections will be read in our synagogues:
Pentateuchal portion, Exodus 13:17-15:26, Numbers 28:19-25. Prophetical portion, II Samuel 22:1-51.
Sunday, Eighth day of Passover
Pentateuchal portion, Deuteronomy 15:19-16:17, Numbers 28:19-25. Prophetical portion, Isaiah 10:32-12:16.
Candle lighting, Friday, April 24, 7:05 p.m.
VOL. LXXIX, No. 8
Page Four
Friday, April 24, 1981
DESECRATING TRUTH
It is inconceivable, yet true. While the mass
murderers are being tried, in German courts, by
American tribunals, those who apparently
would revive the Hitler spirit and would rein-
troduce the Nazi ideology are denying the very
existence of the Holocaust.
The immensity of the tragedy is over-
shadowed by the arrogance of condoning the
barbarism. How else can history judge those
who now glorify the Hitler image and trample
upon the graves of the Nazi sufferers?
To the credit of the hundreds of students and
faculty members of the University of Michigan,
the spreaders of the venom that aims at denying
the very fact of the Eleven Million victims of
Nazism, Six Million of them Jews, has been
exposed to the conscience-stricken world with
the facts about the horrors and their perpet-
rators.
The immorality of an effort in the ranks of the
extremists among the crackpots of this genera-
tion met with the resentment and contempt it
earned in the protest that was sounded in Ann
Arbor. Sadly for the decent elements who are
outraged by the distorted minds, the bigots
often get a platform for their rantings.
In a recent New York Times Op-Ed Page arti-
cle which was entitled "Forget the Holocaust?",
Rabbi Howard Singer of West Hartford, Conn.,
presented a list of the confrontations experi-
enced by Jews in this generation. He outlined
the threats and indignities, the abuse of
realities in the treatment of the tragedies im-
posed on Jewry and the world in the 1930s and
1940s by the barbarism of the Germans under
Hitler's domination, and he offered as a mes-
sage to the decent people in the world the follow-
ing:
"There is the danger of a false universalism.
Come now, say the enlightened ones, don't be
narrow: Think of the Cambodians, the 'boat
people,' the Vietnamese, the Biafrans. What
can one say to that? It is degrading, even
ghoulish, to seek to prove pre-eminence in suf-
fering, but the Holocaust was unique. Its dead
and maimed were not victims of war or famine
or politics in the normal sense: They were 'proc-
essed' by a bureaucratic killing machine. But
didn't Poles also die in the machine? And Gyp-
sies and homosexuals? True, others were caught
in the machine, but Jews were the people for
whom it was designed, the only people whose
right to live was denied in principle. And the
machine almost succeeded.
`Two out of three European Jews were mur-
dered, children and women included. In con-
trast, battlefield losses for the Russians were
one in 22; for the Germans, one in 25; for the
British, one in 150. The Jews did not suffer as
ordinary citizens of defeated countries; they
were given 'special treatment' — extracted from
their communities and sent away to be killed
because they were Jews. I point this out not to
belittle what others endured but only to keep
the facts in the sharpest focus. It is not necessar-
ily provincial to assert the uniqueness of one
group's experience; it is sometimes the simple
truth.
" 'The world is weary of the past, Oh, might it
die or rest at last!' wrote Shelley, in 'Hellas.' His
wish is mine as well. Healthy humans can't live
in the shadow of the crematoria, poisoning
every sunny hour with bitterness. But the world
won't let my memories die. The demons can't be
exorcised.
"The door to the past can't be closed."
That there should be need for reminder of the
terror, that humans motivated by hatreds
should drag humanity back to the terrors of the
Middle Ages is cause for new concern lest the
ideology of the mass murderers of the Nazi era
be repeated.
Fortunately, encouraging faith, the revival of
the Hitler insanities is meeting with refutation,
with resistance, with the rejection that is so
urgent in an age of revived bigotries. The stu-
dents and faculty at the University of Michigan
serve as a vanguard against the barbarians.
They have many enemies to confront. Their
hands must be upheld, their efforts assisted and
strengthened, lest the bigots gain ground to the
detriment of everything that is decent in this
country and in the humanism of mankind.
DEMONSTRATING AT 33
Scores of organizations have enrolled to
demonstrate their kinship with Israel prepat-
ory to the observance of the 33rd anniversary of
the state of Israel, on May 10.
A planned parade is only one of the symbols to
be in evidence on that day as a message to the
Israelis that there is concern for their status,
that whatever may threaten their existence
also is a matter affecting the attitudes of fellow
Jews everywhere.
Yom Ha'Atzmaut, as the day marking Israel's
rebirth, invites solidarity in Jewish ranks to
assure the continuing progress of the redeemed
state.
It is an occasion for emphasizing the friend-
ship between Israel and the United States and
the partnership between the two nations in
their related aims to guarantee that democratic
principles will be protected in the best interests
of Israelis and Americans and in the hope that
an emerging Middle East peace should not be
long delayed.
While Israel, Jewry and their friends will be
acclaiming "33" as a symbol of libertarian
ideals and aspirations, it is important that this
spirit should find response from democratic
forces everywhere. The dangers to these ideals
have grown. The need to battle for fair play and
just human considerations has become a sacred
duty for the civilized in an era of increasing
villainy. The East-West conflicts certainly have
stood in the way of human accords.
Hopefully, therefore, the Israeli acclaim for
liberty at age 33 will be an inspiration for lovers
and defenders of liberty. With such aspirations
it is to be anticipated that Israel's friends will
have many supporters on the nation's 33rd an-
niversary.
Tyrone Guthrie Sympathies
for Shylock, 'Tenth Man'
Tyrone Guthrie is among the leaders in the interpretative and
theatrical producer role of the Shakespearean art. He has been com-
mended and also criticized. He was the target of the resentment that
was expressed when "The Merchant of Venice" was staged in Strat-
ford, Ont., about 15 years ago.
He remains a defender of staging the Shylock story, his conten-
tion being that Shylock is to be admired when compared with the
villainy of the Christians in Shakespeare's story. This is reechoed in
recollections of Tyrone Guthrie in "Astonish Us in the Morning"
(Wayne State University Press), which contains a series of interviews
with reminiscences about the eminent master with some 30 of the
very prominent masters of the stagecraft.
Alfred Rossi, author of "Ashtonish Us in the Morning: Tyrone
Guthrie Remembered," has one special reference to the eminent stage
director's approach to the Shylock theme. In the interview with
William Hutt there is an emphasis on Guthrie's sympathetic attitude
toward Shylock. The question Rossi posed and the Hatt reply are:
"If you could tell me one thing that was the secret of Guthrie's
success, what do you think it might be?"
"Well, I think it was Guthrie's approach to life, really*, perhaps
even to the universe. He saw the whole world in sharp contrast. In
observing the world, he saw that there can be no darkness unless
there is light. There can be no white unless there is black, there can be
no good unless there is evil. And in all of his productions, when he
wished to create an effect, he would lead the audience the other way
first and then bring in the effect that he wanted to create.
"To give you a specific example of this I hark back to 'The Mer-
chant of Venice' and the trial scene. As I said before, when Shylock
made his exit the entire court booed and hissed and in fact some of
them literally spit on Shylock. Now it was a Christian court that was
trying this man.
"And after Shylock had made his exit, and everybody booed and
roared and spit and baited this Jew, there was a sudden hush, and one
person on stage started to cry. Which meant, of course, that there was
a sudden shame from the Christian element, and a realization of how
they had treated this man. And this was the effect he wanted, this in
fact made Shylock's exit for him, in spite of the fact that by this time
Shylock was off stage and back in his dressing-room. That was
Shylock's exit, that man crying. And this in fact was what he wanted
his audience to do."
Guthrie is described as having traveled frequently in his profes-
sional role to Israel, and his attitude is defined as one of fascination
with the country.
In an interview with Michael Langham there is another
ment of special Jewish interest.
"I know that you were with him on the opening night of 'The
Tenth Man' in New York. I wonder if he was attracted to. the play
because he was influenced by the Habimah production of 'The Dyb-
buk?' "
"Probably. I know he regarded him time in Israel as a rich
learning experience. It was a world he's never known before. And he
felt a deep sense of debt. Directing 'The Tenth Man' was part of his
paying it. And it was by no means a 'goy' attempt at a Jewish play.
"He had dug right underneath it all and there was a warm, loving
sense of unified purpose between him and the company, which in itself
was remarkable — I'm sure he could not have pulled this off without
the earlier experience of directing 'Oedipus' and 'The Merchant' for
the Habimah.
"Incidentally, it was typically Guthrie-esque that in the latter
production the whole company was Jewish, excepting two Christians
whom he chose to cast as Shylock and Jessica."
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