4 Friday, August 21, 1981 THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS THE JEWISH NEWS IUSPS 275-520) Incorporating The Detroit Jewish Chronicle commencing with the issue of July 20, 1951 Copyright The Jewish News Publishing Co. The 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 Business Manager PHILIP SLOMOVITZ Editor and Publisher ALAN HITSKY News Editor HEIDI PRESS DREW LIEBERWITZ Associate News Editor Advertising Manager Sabbath Scriptural Selections This Sabbath, the 22nd day of Au, 5741, the following scriptural selections will be read in our synagogues: Pentateuchal portion, Deuteronomy 7:12-11:25. Prophetical portion, Isaiah 49:14-51:3. Candle lighting, Friday, August 21, 8:06 p.m. VOL. LXXIX, No. 25 Page Four Friday, August 21, 1981 ON THE ROA D. TO PEACE?' Peace, in all its connotations, whether with related terms of Shalom and Salaam, suffered a juggling interpretation. Bitter conflicts defied positive definition. Hatreds displaced aspira- tion for the higher values in human existence. Now there are signs that barriers may be re- duced, that obstructions could be eliminated, that people separated by extreme distances might be brought together for a taste of har- mony. Is it possible that Saudi Arabia, yesterday's pronouncer of a call for a Jihad, a -Holy War, may tomorrow say Salaam to her neighbor and accept a stretched-out Israeli hand for a greet- ing with a smile, denoting neighborliness, flirt- ing with friendship, reaffirming kinship? Both Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israel Prime Minister Menahem Begin called the Saudi -Arabian proposal old copy. Yet, ter- minology that may be misinterpreted as "recognition" is flaunted as a departure from Jihad. Therefore; the prolonged pessimism is being only minutely reduced by hope. Understandably, there is caution in ap- proaching the displayed but-not-as-yet- completely-outstretched hand of peace. There are the unacceptable conditions. There is the terrorist element not yet shaken off by any of the Arab potentates. There is the matter involv- ing Jerusalem. When the Saudis steady themselves to the realism of the situation, when they admit that there is 'total religious freedom in Jerusalem and on that score recognize that the glory of the Holy City of Peace is assured under just and democratic Israeli administrative fairness, out- stretched hands will clasp. Distance in attaining amity among nations will be expanded if the hatreds linger and the misunderstandings predominate. Hopefully there are rays of light which, like human lasers, may evaporate bitterness and make possible the establishment of an accord that could, as it should, assure security for the Saudis as well as for Israel. Israel's neighbors are as much in need of a sense of confidence in their survival against the destructive elements threatening them, from enmities internally as well as externally, as is Israel. Neighborliness can obviate threats to existence. This is the juggling of the peace needs. Israel is surrounded by enemies and must exercise caution even when neighbors hitherto posing as enemies threatening Israel's very life begin to speak of peace. These gestures must be supplemented by evidence of sincerity. Proving it, the distances creating hatreds can vanish. The task is difficult, the protective needs seri- ous. That which made possible the Camp David ' Accord between Egypt and Israel may, well prove the criterion for future results in what is now a dream but may tomorrow become reality in .the vacillating term called Peace.' ROMANIAN 'PAPER BRIDGE' Romanian Jewry sends an inspirational mes- sage to American and world Jewish com- munities. It is occasioned by the 25th anniver- sary of the publication of the Jewish Journal — Revista Cultului Mozaic — the observance of which is now attracting global interest. There are some 33,000 Jews left in Romania. In the 33 years of Israel's existence; 350,000 Romanian Jews settled in the Jewish state. These figures are of significance because the total Romanian Jewish population prior to the Holocaust numbered 900,000. Now it is a 'kehilla, an organized community of Jews func- tioning with a devotion to Zion in the atmos- phere of Communist government. The recognition given the Romanian Jewish Journal by Jewish leaders from all parts of the globe, including Israel's President Yitzhak Na- von, Chief Rabbi Immanuel Jakobovitz of Great Britain and many others, is a tribute to Chief Rabbi Moses Rosen of Romania who, as editor of the Jewish Journal, as leader and guide of his people, has established a notable rapport be- tween Jewry and Romania. The appellation given the Romanian Jewish Journal, that it is the "Paper Bridge" linking Romanian Jewry with world Jewry, symbolizes the unity of the People Israel. That there are 10,000 readers of the magazine, which has ap- peared, trilingually in Romanian, Yiddish and Hebrew, that it has become a textbook for He- brew studies for the general Romanian Popula- tion, induces respect and admiration for Rabbi Rosen and his associates in the leadership of the Jews of Romania. That some 800 copies of the magazine, which now also uses English as a fourth language, should reach many Jews in the Soviet Union is also a matter inspiring respect' for a community with a Jewish identification. There is another anniversary marked by the 600-year-old Romanian Jewish community — the 250th anniversary of the Romanian Sephardic Jews who became a part of the larger Ashkenic community in the..land. These achivements have earned the respect and admiration of Jews everywhere who send greetings to Romanian Jews on the occasion of the two anniversaries. EXPOSING A CANARD Yitzhaq Ben-Ami's factual statement on the Deir Yassin tragedy is a timely expose of the unfortunate resort to the casualties of war as means of condemning Israel and the Jewish people. People die in the tens of thousands as victims of war conditions. It is when Jews and Israelis are involved, as in the instance of the July 7 bombing of the Beirut PLO headquarters, that Jews are accused of abandoning morality. The fact is, as in the instance both of the bombing of the King David Hotel and the Deir Yassin misfortune that the Israeli military were ordered never to attack civilians. When civilian deaths resulted, they were beyond such control. The Ben-Ami essay in this issue serves im- portantly in setting the record straight in its reference to all authorities, Arabs included, for a vindication of the Jewish forces from the ac- cusation of deliberate immorality. Jewish Literature Journal 22 Essays 'Reconsider' I. B. Singer's Writings "Studies in American Jewish Literature" makes its appearance as a journal devoted to the American Jewish writer and the American Jewish experience. It will appear annually as a product of'the State University of New York Press, Albany, and the first issue is devoted to the works of Isaac Bashevis Singer. The journal is edited by Daniel Walden, of the Pennsylvania State University editorial board, and members of the editorial board included noted authors and academics. With the appearance of the first volume in the series there is the announcement that the second volume will be entitled "From Margi- nality to Mainstream: The Mosaic of Jewish Writers." In the "Reconsideration" of Isaac Bashevis Singer's work, the American Jewish Literature introductory volume places emphasis on the successes of the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature despite the decline in the use of Yiddish as the major Jewish language. Both the commendations and criticisms of Singer are accounted for and his tireless labors, his uOiminished creativity as a writer, "from right to left in Yiddish," as the introduction to this paperback literary study indicates. The "greatness" of Singer is thus defined in this new serialization of literary Jewish works: "Happily married for many years to his de- voted Alma, he lives unpretentiously on New York's upper West Side. 'I don't go to the theater, or to fancy restaurants, and I don't dress well,' he told Tony Schwartz. 'This is not my fashion. I live the same life that I did when I was a poor man.' The Nobel Prize has not changed him. 'I'm still one of the millions of miserable people who eat, think, hope, worry, sleep, pray and die.' "Singer is a modest man and he is a humble man, a man who until recently spoke to everyone who called him on the phone. Above SINGER all, he is a great writer who writes in Yiddish because it contains treasures that have not been revealed to the of the world. 'It was the tongue of martyrs and saints, of dreamers'ill" cabalists — rich in humor and in memories that mankind may never forget,' he explained in his Nobel speech. 'Yiddish is the wise and humble language of us all, the idiom of the frightened and hopeful humanity.' " The critical analyses of Singer and his works, included in this volume, are by 22 reviewers who comment on many of Singer's major works. The fact that these essays are packed into 187 pages is an indication of the conciseness of the articles. Yet they express the validity of Singer's' rise to leadership in the literary world. Among Singer's works reviewed in the 22 essays are "The Fools of Helm," "The Family Moskat," "Satan in Goray." This introductory volume of "American Jewish Literature" thus symbolizes 'authorship, selects the gems from Yiddish appearing in their English translations, offers an interesting study of the Nobel Prize winner. The volume is an interesting addition to Jewish literary studies.