THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS Friday, November 21, 19131 29 Christian Viewer Finds TV Movie 'Skokie' Unsatisfactory By FRANKLIN LITTELL National Institute on the Holocaust PHILADELPHIA — In spite of some great acting, especially by Danny Kaye, the recent TV program :'Skokie" was profoundly unsatisfactory. And the at- tempt to hook up ACLU public relations efforts with it was, although not as obscene as the constant ad- vertising interruptions in the showing itself, out of or- der. First, for dramatic and moving moments the show rates an "A." But second, for making sense as a whole the show rates an "F." The basic defect was one that becomes more and more dangerous: to make a "Jewish issue" of something that rightly in- volves a larger consti- tuency. The deliberate offense tendered the survivors in Skokie centered on the fact that they were Jews, and that the misguided and doc- trinaire young idealist who represented Collins for the ACLU was a Jew. But that is only the occasion of the offense, not the sub- stance of it so far as life and liberty in America is con- cerned. The religious and fami- lial issue of the Holocaust is a basic matter, suitable for religious com- munities and families to deal with. The legal issue is a public matter, and -every loyal American should be aroused when a group of American citi- zens is threatened in life and liberty and privacy. If America has reached the point where only Jews are concerned about Jews, we had all better start look- ing at flight schedules. So far as law is concerned, the KKK bullyboys threatening a fishing com- munity of Vietnamese on the Texas coast with Thompson submachine guns and, Garand auto- matics is just as much an issue as American Nazis' threat to decent citizens in Skokie, Ill. The TV show muddied the waters on this issue, and left the impression that the al- ternatives were only sub- mission to a 19th Century fundamentalist interpreta- tion of the First Amend- ment or accepting and as- serting one's Jewish iden- tity. Danny Kaye tried to pull things together at the end by stoutly affirming, "At least this time we we- ren't killed." True: but no thanks to the American Nazis and their sym- pathizers, and no thanks to the American Civil Liberties Union. There was only one to- tally false set of statements in the film, and they were made by the ACLU repre- sentative from New York. It is not true that the Weimar Republic deliberately failed to uphold the rights of its citizens. It is not true that justice failed in the Weimar Republic because the judges were all Nazi sympathizers. Even in the Third Reich_ the Nazis had to set up a separate line of "Peoples' Courts" because with all their power and manipula- tion they still could not to- tally corrupt the regular courts. What failed in the Weimar Republic is pre- cisely what failed in the TV show. The situation was allowed to develop where the Jews were pitted against the bullyboys. Al- though there was reference in the show to the concern of Jews and Christians, and certainly the mayor and the police chief portrayed ad- mirable roles as gentiles, there was no reference to the extensive mobilization of church action by the Chicago Church Federation and the association of Catholic nuns. There was no reference to the fact that the Na- tional Conference of Christians and Jews sent a top officer into the area (a Disciples of Christ minister), and that he had 5,000 church members ready to march with the Jewish community if it came to marching and counter-marching. The only alternative por- trayed to the bullyboys was Jewish, apart from the town officials — except of course for the other gang of roughnecks mobilized by the doctrinaire left-wingers from the city. And this gang was used to push the picture of Jewish resistance to the extreme, thereby discredit- ing the opposition as a mob or potential mob. And this too was false— a false portrayal which was substantively more damag- ing than the false state- ments about conditions in the Weimar Republic. In pre-Nazi Germany the abuse and threat to the Jews was also treated as a Jewish issue. The doc- trinaire "liberals" recited mindlessly their slogans about "freedom of speech," and the doctrinaire lawyers and judges codified a false freedom into a suicide pact. their people. If the day comes, God forbid, when Jewish citi- zens can only count on Jewish defense organiza- tions, then they will de- serve center stage. Now The Jewish defense also put its trust in the "rule of law," not sensing and acting upon the real truth: that law_ was breaking down. One could wish that doc- trinaire generalizations might, in concrete situa- tions, be chastened by common sense. But that didn't happen in the Weimar Republic, and it is slipping badly today in America. Why are legal fundamen- talists so enraptured of slo- gans and so indifferent to elemental justice? The Weimar Republic was de- stroyed not only by overt threats by terrorists. It was destroyed by infiltrators and fifth columnists who weakened the nerve of gov- ernment. And it was de- stroyed by self-styled champions of freedom who floated with sovereign indif- ference above the anxieties of other people. What was different in Skokie was that the whole community responded in a way worthy of Americans. And what was additionally important was that Ameri- can Christians responded differently from the way German Christians re- sponded in the Weimar days. That needs to be brought out, and the TV show failed to do it. It remained stuck in the old picture of the Jews against their enemies, standing virtually alone. To this false picture the Jewish defense organizations con- tributed, eager as they were to be seen as champions of in America, however, it would help if they would think about the best de- fense for all of America's loyal citizens. Skokie was not a Jewish issue, so far as the law of the land is concerned. It was an American issue. To date, so far as real justice is con- cerned we are still mired in the polarities that de- stroyed the Weimar Repub- lic. ASSOCIATION OF REFORM ZIONISTS OF AMERICA (ARZA) presents DR. NISSIM ELIAD Chairman of the Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism, former secretary general of the Independent Liberal Party and member of the Knesset for eleven years. Tuesday, December 1st 8:00 P.M. TEMPLE EMANU-EL 14450 W. Ten Mile Road Oak Park 967-4020 There will not be a charge. 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