THE JEWISH NEWS tu.75520,
Incorporating The Detroit Jewish Chronicle commencing with the issue of July 20, 1951
Copyright ( The Jewish News Publishing Co.
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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
Business Manager
PHILIP SLOMOVITZ
Editor and Publisher
ALAN HITSKY
News Editor
HEID I PRESS
.
Associate News Editor
DREW LIEBERWITZ
Advertising Manager
Sabbath Scriptural Selections
This Sabbath is the sixth day of Hanuka and Rosh Hodesh Tevet, 5742,
and the following scriptural selections will be read in our synagogues:
Pentateuchal portion, Genesis 41:1-44:17, Numbers 28:9-15, 7:42-47.
Prophetical portion, Zechariah 2:14-4:7.
Candlelighting, Friday, Dec. 25, 4:48 p.m.
VOL. LXXX, No. 17
Page Four
Friday, December 25, 1981
GOOD WILL IN EARNEST
In a season of joyous exchanges of greetings,
in the midst of the Hanuka spirit accelerated in
the wider community by the Christmas celebra-
tion, genuine faith dictates a high note of
neighborliness.
This should be acclaimed as a period of friend-.
ship among people regardless of their religious
differences. The glory of a nation rooted in the
highest ideals of justice, fair play, the honor of
respecting the human rights of all citizens,
gives emphasis to what has been defined in the
simplicity of Good Will. Adherence to it is as
elementary as the acceptance of the basic prin-
ciples of belonging to the community of citizen-
ship. With it goes the undeniable duty of coop-
eration and_ confidence in the rights of people-
hood. Such rights mark the glory of peaceful-
ness in all of the communities in which mutual
respect predominates.
Elementary is the simplest way of defining
the quest for good will. Yet, it is obstacled. It
does not always last. Often those who exchange
greetings during the holdiay period end those
wishes soon thereafter. Therefore, when Good
Will is resorted to as an exchange of good
neighborliness it must be accompanied with a
hope that it is not limited to a brief period in the
year but is uttered with a desire that it continue
and not be disrupted.
This is a season to emphasize the mutuality of
citizenship and neighborliness for all time,
never to permit hatreds stemming from foreign
vintage to invade the land of the free and the
cordial. Tragically, the hatreds seep in. They
are not often eradicable.
There is good reason for emphasizing the need
for Good Will, for the strengthening of the prin-
ciples enunciated by the National Conference of
Christians and Jews, on a national basis and
through the local agencies like the Detroit
Round Table of the NCCJ. Because there is re-
newed evidence of racial antagonisms, of grow-
ing anti-Semitism, of terrorist threats menac-
ing people and their leaders and their govern-
ments.
There are also the sectional evidences of inex-
cusable venom, like the black-white thrusts, the
shocking emergence of anti-Jewish sentiments
in the black community. The latter is a special
cause for concern in a period when Good Will is
defined as a principle of the entire nation. The
traditional Jewish dedication to civil liberties,
the friendship that existed between these two
groups which often suffer from the same prej-
udices, should have obviated the merest sugges-
tions of unfriendliness between them.
These are the things to be erased in the season
of Good Will.
There are the Jewish traditions for the obli-
gation to respect differences and to make it
workable. In her impressive work on Jewish
ethical values, "Voices of Wisdom," Francine
Klagsbrun has an item entitled "Accepting Dif-
ferences." It is a portion of a section in the book
entitled "Relating to Others." Here- is how she
defines the acceptance of differences:
The rabbis celebrated the differences among
people as one of the miracles of creation. 'A man
strikes many coins from one die, and they are all
alike,' they explained. But God strikes every
person from the die of the first man, yet not one
resembles the other.' Respect and love for
others, we learn, stem from recognizing and ac-
cepting the uniqueness of each individual."
Francine Klagsbrun annotates this definition
by relating the following from the Babylonian
Talmud, Tractate Berakhot:
∎,,in"
New Schocken Volume
French Jewish Resistance's
Heroic Record Documented
,
A favorite saying of the rabbis of Jabneh was:
I am a creature of God and my neighbor is also a
creature of God.
I work in the city and he works in the country.
I rise early for my work and he rises early for his
work.
Just as he cannot excel in my work, I cannot excel in
his work.
Will you say that I do great things and he does small
things?
We have learned that it does not matter whether a
person does much or little, as long as he directs his
heart to heaven.
.
Jewish tradition, the ethical teachings of all
faiths, call for respecting as well as accepting
differences. They are ingrained in the moral
obligations of all, each to the neighbor and
fellow citizen. This is the true spelling of Good
Will. This is the obligation of every season of the
year. It happens to receive emphasis during
Hanuka, during the joint occurrence of Hanuka
and Christmas. It is in the highest spirit of
human values that the greetings need emphasis
now and always.
ANGER FROM BOTH ENDS
Instead of a cemented friendship there has
developed an anger, Jerusalem matching
Washington.
Only the very naive could fail to concede that
the Golan Heights must remain under Israel's
administration. Anything to the contrary would
spell suicide for Israel; and Israel has one basic
motivation of making life livable.
But White House and State Department at
least wished to be advised about Israel's legisla-
tive steps relating to the Golan. Instead, the
Knesset action equated a previous on affecting
the realism of the Holy City of Jerusalem re-
maining for all time the capital of the Jewish
state.
How else could it possibly be — that the most
threatened source of trouble generated by Syria
was to be stripped of the threat to Israel's exist-
ence, and that Jerusalem's Jewish status was
never to be questioned.
Why the anger in Washington, with an ac-
companying punishment for Israel?
Why the anger in Jerusalem as a resentment
to the bitterness in Washington?
Because anger begets anger.
Nevertheless, there is hope as a counterac-
tion, that the wounds will be healed and the
U.S.-Israel friendship will be restored.
,
French Jewry was among the chief targets of Nazi brutality and
the Hitlerite campaign to exterminate the Jews. Many perished. It
was not without resistance. On the contrary, the heroic mobilization
of forces to combat the invading Nazis, the rescue tasks, the demonst-
ration of cooperation with the underground in the battle against the
intruders is a chapter that has aspects of notable valor.
The account of this struggle for the protection of those who _could
be rescued from the Nazi hordes as well as in resisting the humilia-
tions of the invading Germans is told in "The Jewish Resistance in
France, 1940-1944," volume in the Schocken HoloCaust Library, by
Anny Latour. The book was translated from the French by Irene R.
Ilion.
The author of this deeply-moving work ,emphasizes, "On today's
historian falls the task of exposing not only the suffering of centuries,
but the resistance to the processes of destruction."
She points out that while the storm was raging the Jewish resis-
tance opposed the unleashing of brutality "with purity of moral
strength."
It was, indeed, a struggle for the survival of Judaism, and the
fighters for this principle were united to perpetuate Jewish legacies,
the teaching of the Bible and Jewish ethical values.
Miss Latour traces the beginnings of the struggle, indicating how
the crime escalated, and describes the network of the Jewish exis-
tence to show the determined will of those who fought against great
odds.
The Jewish Maquis became symbols of a force that joined with the
non-Jewish groups to counteract every move aimed at the destruction
of human values. Robert Gamzon, who headed the Jewish Scouts of
France, organized the Maquis. The first groups were from Lautrec
and they expanded. It was in the mountainous area of La Malquiere
that the initial activities began. They were inspired by a Bible-loving
Protestant family.
The Maquis' story is among the most moving and most impres-
sive of the experiences of the forces of resistance in World War II. They
are the symbols of the Jewish resistance in France so impressively
told in the Latour documentary.
There is this quotation from Charles DeGaulle about them: "This
form of warfare is something entirely new to the officers heretofore
trained only for battles fought by the rules of conventional warfare."
The Maquis used every means to resist and counteract the Nazi
barbarians. "Until the last minute, there were to be cruel differences
between what the Maquis asked for, sometimes desperately, and w'
was sent to them."
Thus, also the cooperation between all forces aligned against the
Nazis.
There were parachutists who used every means to rescue
children and others who could be saved from Nazi clutches. There was
the spread of information, the dissemination of leaflets to inform the
French about the concentration camps, the death camps.
Of greatest significance is the capture by the Maquis of a Ger-
man garrison stationed at Castres. It is one of the many incidents of
heroism.
The Latour volume is history clothed in the inspirational tasks of
defending the rights of Jews, of rescuing people, of unmatched
heroism. "The Jewish Resistance in France" is enriched by a lengthy
chronology of that history. The book is an encyclopedic record fortified
by scores of photographs of the heroes and events that marked the
resistance. It is one of the most moving works in the Holocaust
Library.