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 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. 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.