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THE JEWISH NEWS

lUSPS 275-520)

Incorporating The Detroit Jewish Chronicle commencing with the issue of July 20, 1951

Copyright

The Jewish News Publishing Co.

Member of American Association of English-Jewish Newspapers, National Editorial Association and
National Newspaper Association and its 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
Editor and Publisher

ALAN HITSKY
News Editor

CARMI M. SLOMOVITZ
Business Manager

HEIDI PRESS

Associate News Editor

DREW LIEBERWITZ
Advertising Manager

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Sabbath Scriptural Selections

This Sabbath, the 19th day of lyar, 5741, the following scriptural selections will be read in our synagogues:
Pentateuchal portion, Leviticus 26:3-27:34. Prophetical portion, Jeremiah 16:19-17:14.

Candle lighting, Friday, May 22, 8:34 p.m.

VOL. LXXIX, No. 12

Page Four

Friday, May 22, 1981

HUMANISM'S BITTER LESSON

Israel Independence Day — Yom HaAtzmaut
— celebrated here together with Jewish and
friendly Christian communities throughout the
world on May 10, provided new lessons in
Illiman relations.
There were many lessons for that day, and for
the months and years to follow.
The primary fact relating to the festive occa-
sion was the holiday spirit that induced Jews
and non-Jews to celebrate the day. It was the
response of kinfolk saying to their fellow Jews
in Israel that there was a unified people's
gratitude for the emergence of a peoplehood
able to proclaim the end of homelessness and
the right of Jews to be masters of their own
destiny. Celebrating with them were Christians
with a sense of honor and self-respect joining in
a brotherhood that values liberty as a guideline
for justice.
Perhaps it is the tragedy of mankindthat in
the Shakespearean definition the evil that
men do lives after them, the good is often inter-
red with their bones." There are in mankind
those who would perpetuate it. It was evident on
Yom HaAtzmaut when haters_ of Jews gathered
to mar the festivities. They assembled to propa-
gate another Genocide, a revival of the era of the
Holocaust.
Therefore, those who were witnesses to the
Holocaust and all who will not forget its horrors
and consequences were outraged. They ex-
pressed it, while many felt like merely em-
phasizing the contempt for the terrorizing and
the brutalizing.
The anger was understandable, even though
the 30-more-or-less in the group of the inhuman
mimicks of Nazism were so insignificant amidst
the thousands whose very presence repudiated
the advocates of destruction of everything that
is decent in mankind.
To emphasize the contrast, the elders of
Southfield, Mich., should be given the respect
and commendation due to responsibly-elected
government officials. Due recognition should be

given to the protectors of the peace of our- com-
munities.
The handful who came to disrupt the peace of
the community of Jews and Christians would
have loved to witness bloodshed. They would
have welcomed ruination of the spirit of jubila-
tion in the glory of Israel's rebirth. On that score
they failed. The celebrants held their heads
high; with dignity. They had the support of a
responsible U.S. Congressman, William
Brodhead; the mayor of the city of Southfield,
Donald Fracassi; the directing head of the De-
troit Round Table of the National.Conference of
Christians and Jews, Charles Benham; a re-
spected member of the Michigan State Legisla-
ture, Joe Forbes, their many eminent associ-
ates. They echoed an interest in fair play and in
common decency.
There were casualties. Those who remember
the Holocaust would not listen to the "Kill more
Jews" cries from the insaned protesters, the few
who came to destroy. A few were unfortunately
hurt in an unnecessary melee. It was regret-
table, saddening, upsetting. It was the price one
pays for democracy. It is the price of freedom.
This costly price must not be misjudged. It is
paid with anguish. It does not negate the
realism of life in a free land.
In this free land there was a celebration and
there was a melee. In the long run, that which is
the American way prevailed: police prevented
rioting and danger to many lives. The commu-
nity in which they work provided the attractive
Southfield area for a great celebration. The de-
cent, the civilized prevailed; the Nazi spirit was
sunk in contempt. The latter may always repre-
sent a threat to the human free spirit; those who
subsist under the "Never Again" ideology will
never permit recurrence of the horrors.
The celebration of Yom HaAtzmaut marked
that spirit of the will to live and to protect the
civilized society. This is what emerged from the
celebration of the 33rd anniversary of Israel in
Southfield. This is what it will undoubtedly al-
ways be. Blessed be the 33rd Yom HaAtzmaut.

PRAYERS FOR TERRORIZED

Another resort to murder, at the Vatican, in-
creased the sense of horror with which mankind
has been gripped during the years of increased
terrorism.
The prayers of all faiths, of the peoples of the
world, continue to be chanted for the well being
of Pope John Paul II.
With the prayers go the expressions of thanks
that the leader and guide of the hundreds of
millions of Catholics is recovering from the as-
sassin's bullets, that he will be well and will
again lead his people towards a better era de-
void of terror.
What has occurred in the recent weeks, the
assassin's insane intensions, the distorted
minds intent upon abusing the privileges
granted in a world seeking freedom for nations
as well as individuals, awakens the responsible
in civilized society to unite against the horrors
that are being perpetuated.

What has happened is a warning to the gov-
ernments of the world never to tolerate any-
thing approaching the terror that makes
human life valueless at the hands of the
sickminded in many areas of the world.
Wherever and whenever there are symptoms
of the insanities, they must be repelled, re-
pudiated, rejected, never granted the slightest
accord from a human mind.
This must begin at the United Nations where
it was unfortunately symptomized on occasions,
and in all the parliamentary settings in man-
kind.
What had occurred in Washington several
weeks ago, and now at the Vatican, must. not be
repeated.
Caution against repetition is imbedded in the
prayers that were chanted for President Ronald
Reagan and are now repeated for the welfare of
Pope John Paul IL

*OA

Proof That Nazi Horrors Were
Known But Not Understood

An important study of the news coverage of the Holocaust and of
the failure to understand the motivations and results is presented in
an important study of "The American Protestant Press and the Nazi
Persecution of the Jews." A thorough study of the subject, published
under the title "So It Was True" (University of Minnesota Press) was
conducted by Associate Professor of Religious Studies Robert W. Ross
of the University of Minnesota.
Dr. Ross' researched material includes the years of the Nazi
terror, 1933 to 1945, and is an all-inclusive document. It shows that
the events that occurred were_fully reported. But he indicates how
they were either misunderstood or that the extent of the barbarities
was not''realized.
There is, for example this conclusion to his chapter entitled "1939
to 1942: Toward the Final Solution: Who in America Knew?":
- Who in America knew about the Final Solution? The reports in
the American Protestant press clearly establish that, as early as 1939
and through the subsequent three years until the end of 1942, the
record of the Final Solution for the 'Jewish question' was being
written for the readers of that press. To be sure, the editors, writers,
and composers of copy for the paid advertisements did not have a full
understanding of what they were reporting. They did not know that a
formal set of directives and orders had been issued that were, in fact,
designed to eliminate all Jews by annihilation in Nazi-occupied
Europe.'
"They did not know of the dedication of Heydrich, Himmler,
Eichmann, Hans Frank, and the Nazi bureaucracy_ as they set about
to accomplish the task of exterminating the Jews.
"They did know that Hitler, Goering, Goebbels, Himmler and
members of the Nazi party hated Jews, that nothing was done by the
Nazis to halt the extermination of the Jews, and that one of the first
actions of the Nazis upon their conquest of a country was to initiate
the persecution of Jews ; establish the Nuremberg decrees as law, and
soon after begin to deport Jews to Germany and Poland .. .
"But the cumulative evidence had been written. Deportation,
labor camps, hostages, Nuremberg decrees, sterilization, disease.
Food cards 'and work permits, the lack of which meant deportation,
destitution, hunger, massacre, extermination, mass murder, and fi-
nally 'poison chambers.' American Protestant Christians knew!'
The totally documented study by Prof. Ross is among the most
vital studies of the events that occurred during the Hitler era.
Dr. Ross comments on the silence. He emphasizes the failure
understand what was happening which contributed to the silencc_
stating:
"The editors and writers of the American Protestant press tried to
deal with the mass extermination of the Jews of Germany and Europe
as if it were a part of an ordered, stable, normal world. In fact, it
happened in a world gone mad.
"In the end, editors and writers seemed unable to cope with
somethina as unreal, even unimaginable, as the mass slaughter of
millions' b of people, among them six million Jews, in an organized,
bureaucratic, planned extermination. They could report this mad-
ness, this unreality, but, beyond the reporting and even beyond the
expressed shock and horror over the discovery of the death camps,
there remains the awful pall that hangs over this entire episode in
modern history."
Prof. Ross' "So It Was True" rates among the most important
books on the subject of the Nazi tyranny. It is an historical document
of very great merit.