THE
JEWISH NEWS
USPS 275 520)
Incorporating The Detroit Jewish Chronicle commencing-with the issue of July 20, 1951
CopyrightC)` 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
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CARMI M. SLOMOVITZ
PHILIP SLOMOVITZ
Business Manager
Editor and Publisher
ALAN HITSKY
News Editor
HEIDI PRESS
Associate News Editor
DREW LIEBERWITZ
Advertising Manager
Sabbath Scriptural Selections
This Sabbath, the eighth day of Av, 5741, the following scriptural selections will be read in our synagogues:
Pentateuchal portion, Deuteronomy 1:1-3:22. Prophetical portion, Isaiah 1:1-27.
Sunday, Fast of the Ninth of Av
Pentateuchal portion, ( morning) Deuteronomy 4:25-40, (afternoon) Exodus 32:11-14, 34:1-10. Prophetical portion, Isaiah 55:6-56:8
(Lamentations is read Saturday evening.)
Candle lighting, Friday, Aug. 7, 8:26 p.m.
VOL. LXXIX, No. 23
Page Four
Friday, Aug. 7, 1981
THE MEDIA VULGARIZED
Thomas Jefferson had much to say about the
press. He placed the newspaper in the highest
categories of human endeavor. At one point,
however, he gave this definition:
"Perhaps an editor might divide his paper
into four chapters, heading the first, Truths; the
second, Probabilities; the third, Possibilities;
and the fourth, Lies."
The glory of the American press will never be
disgraced under the system of government
which grants the people democratic rule. Yet,
the Jeffersonian difinition comes into play at
the present time when so many in editorial posi-
tions are abusing the first of the principles,
Truths, and permitting a role to the fourth, Lies.
It is the Half-Truths which have penetrated
much of the copy stemming from columnists and
commentators that has caused disappointment
bordering on anger in recent weeks.
Probabilities and Possibilities always have
their share in journalistic judgments. But when
issues involving the existence of an entire na-
tion are transformed into a war against a single
individual, when problems affecting an entire
vital area in the world are transformed into an
abusive personality venom, there is cause to say
that such elements in the media are vulgarizing
the responsibilities inherent in the treatment of
facts and realities.
The manner in which the approach to the
Middle East situation has become a campaign of
vengeance against Israel's prime minister is
cause for genuine resentment.
Journalistic judges have basic reason for
analyzing a tragic occurrence which caused
many deaths. They have no moral right to
transfigure the head of a government, portray-
ing him as a villain who undermines relation-
ships with this nation whose friendship is
among the roots of a cooperative duty for an
assurance of life, liberty and the pursuit of de-
cency and good will among peoples.
The shocking attacks on the personality of
Prime Minister Begin have an undeniable link
with the danger to the life of the nation whose
destiny is guided by the man under attack. The
prejudiced in the media are not only unwilling
to recognize the Truths in the menace to Israel's
very life. They would, in the process of condemn-
ing the spokesman for the Jewish state lend
credibility to the forces bent upon destroying
DECLINE IN BIAS?
A poll conducted on behalf of the American
Jews Committee shows a marked decline in
anti-Semitism in this country.
Yet there is still a 34 percent element that
adheres to the prejudice and therefore continues
to emphasize the need to combat the venom.
A deplorable element in the study is the evi-
dence of an existing prejudice in the ranks of the
black community. This factor calls for special
consideration in view of the social and political
aspects in American life that bind Jews and
blacks to the major duty of preventing hatreds.
Chief hopes for mutual consideration is to put
an end to such divisiveness.
the embattled state.
Those who have vulgarized journalism fail in
the first portion of the Jeffersonian definition of
the press, Truths, when they remain blind to the
cause of the Begin anger: the covenant of the
PLO.
On April 12 of this year Farouk Kaddoumi,
head of the PLO political desk in Beirut, stated:
"There are no moderates or extremists in the
PLO. There are clear objectives and clear
policies which we are all trying to apply. No
leader in the PLO can abandon any of our na-
tional goals. We have said over and over again
that we refuse to recognize Israel. This is an
unchangeable, permanent policy . . . There are
no ifs and buts. We say we will not recognize
Israel."
Another representative of the forces seeking
Israel's destruction, Dr. George Habash, the
leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of
Palestine, negated the Western European ten-
dency to portray the PLO with moderate colors.
His press conference was covered by the AP on
May 9 of this year but from that report was
omitted the following assertion by Habash:
"Should (Philip) Habib seek my view on the
subject, I will remind him that the sole solution
to the Palestinian issue — since the Balfour
Declaration — is the extermination of the
Zionist entity and Zionism."
It is in pursuance of this objective that the
PLO, and therefore also the PFLP, became
heavily armed, with military hardware from
the Soviet Union and Libya, with funds to
achieve their aims from Saudi Arabia, with as-
sistance from Syria, with encouragement from
Jordan whence the PLO adherents were ousted
at a cost of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of
lives.
It is in defense against the dangers stemming
from such objectives that Israel's air forces
struck to prevent the planned extermination.
The guilt for the heavy loss in lives is attributa-
ble to the planners of the genocidal objective.
Truths have been ignored. Possibilities and
Probabilities were abused. Lies were permitted.
Turning vital matters affecting the very life
of an entire nation into a campaign of vitupera-
tion against the head of that state and failure to
take into account the menace to that nation in a
brutalized area of the world represents vulgari-
zation of the press. It in no sense destroys the
basic qualities of the ennobled journalistic
society of this nation. The highest motives of the
press will surely survive, in spite of the nega-
tions coming from the deluded in its midst.
In an article in Collier's Weekly, March 23,
1912, Louis D. Brandeis, who was to become a
U.S. Supreme Court Justice four years later,
wrote:
"The function of the press is very high. It is
almost holy. It ought to serve as a forum for the
people, through which the people may know
freely what is going on. To misstate or suppress
the news is a breach of trust." Adhering to this
ideal, with Truth as the predominant duty, is
the continuing obligation which will retain no-
bility for the American press.
AM
4,1774
4
Scores of American Women
Who Were Jewishly Inspired
Scores of Jewish women had major roles in all aspects of the
nation's experiences and the leaders among them were motivated and
inspired by their Jewish interests and identifications.
Fascinating stories about these interesting personalities have
been compiled in an impressive volume, "Consecrate Every Day"
(State University of New York Press, Albany), in which June Sochen
deals, as her book is subtitled, with "The Public Lives of Jewish
American Women," covering the last century, 1880 to 1980.
The title of Miss Sochen's book derives from the injunction to her
followers in the National Council of Jewish Women by Hannah
Greenbaum Solomon, "Consecrate Every Day."
An historian, Miss Sochen was asked to speak on the role of
Jewish women in American history by the Women's Division of the
Chicago Jewish Federation in 1976. It encouraged her to make the
study which resulted in this compiled effort.
There is an interesting comment by the author on the volunteer
activists in Jewish women's ranks, referring to the role of Hannah
Solomon:
"Often, the most involved Jewish volunteer activists were
middle-aged women who became 'organization' women after their
children were grown or at least were all in school. Their husbands
usually supported their work and often actively encouraged it. Jacob
Schiff directed his wife and daughter's philanthropic activities care-
fully. Henry Solomon, Hannah Solomon's husband, admired his wife's
work with the National Council of Jewish Women, an organization
she founded. Indeed, it was often the financial success of the husband
that contributed in two different ways to their wives' becoming volun-
teer activists: first, by providing enough money to relieve the wives of
domestic duties, and second by contributing to their wives' causes."
The list of women who are in the category of activists, as well as
the scores of others who have made and continue to make notable
contributions to Judaism and America forms an impressive Who's
Who in Miss Sochen's book.
"Consecrate Every Day" is an excellent addition to the two-
volume anthological work on Jewish women in America by Dr. Jacob
Rader Marcus, the review of which appeared in The Jewish News on
July 24.
Survivor's Memories
Expanding bookshelves of volumes dealing with the Holocaust
were increased by another deeply moving book containing the
memories of a survivor.
There is an element of courage and faith in "And the Sun Kept
Shining" (Schocken Books), in which Berthe Ferderber-Salz describes
her flight from the Nazis from pillar to post, her courageous devotion
to her children for whose rescue she experienced many agonies.
The author relates her hiding in a Polish village and her suffer-
ings in the displaced persons camps. She kept in contact with her two
daughters who were sheltered by a Polish family. Her husband
perished in the gas chambers. She was reunited with her daughters.
She tells about the wedding of her niece in the Bergen-Belsen
concentration camp.
There were those who helped her and many who deceived her.
These experiences combine to make a most impressive tale about
the Holocaust and the survivors who defied agonies in the will to live.