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PHILIP SLOMOVITZ
Editor and Publisher
ALAN HITSKY
News Editor
CARMI M. SLOMOVITZ
Business Manager
HEIDI PRESS
Associate News Editor
DREW LIEBERWITZ
Advertising Manager
Sabbath Scriptural Selections
This Sabbath, the seventh day of Tevet, 5742, the following scriptural selections will be read in our synagogues:
Pentateuchal portion, Genesis 44:18-47:27. Prophetical portion, Ezekiel 37:15-28.
Tuesday, Fast of the 10th Day of Tevet
Pentateuchal portion, Exodus 32:11-14, 34:1-10. Prophetical portion (afternoon only), Isaiah 55:6-56:8.
Candlelighting, Friday, January 1, 4:52 p.m.
VOL. LXXX, No. 18
Page Four
Friday, January 1, 1982
NEW YEAR OLD ERRORS
A new year always begins with hilarity. The
traditional outburst, "Ring Out the Old, Ring In
the New," is heard as the clang of glasses ushers
in 1982.
That's how it is, that's how it will be. The
miseries of the past will be blocked out, the
skeptics will keep saying, "Let the future fend
for itself." The future, in the symbolic sense, has
no worries. The Old will be repeated, the
agonized will find it difficult to learn from ex-
perience.
This may be a miserable way of introducing a
new twelve-month period on the calendar, yet it
could be the best way of guiding people once
they have sobered from moments of joyous ex-
changes of salutes into the realities of the end-
less in human experience.
The fact is inerasable. The Poland of 1981 is
like Hungary of 1956, Afghanistan of 1979, the
Middle East of 1947-1981. That's how it has
been, that's what confronts mankind. In the
immediate concerns affecting the Jewish
people, that's how it was and may continue on
the calendar of world Jewry.
Indeed, the Middle East and especially Israel
are the barometers. Israel and the Jewish
people have an easy time judging the forecast.
Experience being the teacher, it is more normal
for Jewry to be pulled from pillar to post, going
through history's ringer, passing from era to
era, from the old to the new.
United Nations resolutions and newspaper
editorials are the evidence that changes are
minimal.
In one day recently, the UN General Assem-
bly, so well noted for its role as a tool of the
hating and the medievally prejudiced, adopted
six resolutions condemning Israel. That was six
times in one day, oh Dec. 10, 1981. In that
month and the previous one the number of reso-
lutions assailing the Jewish state numbered a
dozen. The speeches accompanying them were
delivered by scores of delegates. It was really
one speech: the hatred was duplicated.
Then came an act by Israel: declaring legisla-
tively a fact that had been enacted since 1967
regarding the status of the Golan Heights, and
again the repetitious: Israel was villainous, ag-
gressive, annexationist. What it really meant
was an anger over Israel's refusal to lie down,
take all punishments, resign and disappear
from the face of the earth. Because Israel will
not commit suicide, the hatemongers hold on
fast to the platform they attained in the name of
the United Nations, thereby polluting the noble
aim of a world movement for the attainment
and enforcement of genuine peace.
More than that: the media, the press, find in
'every Israeli action a means of resorting to the
scapegoat approach. The major target is
Menahem Begin. He makes the headlines in the
news stories and the editorials. He is a targeted
victim. He is blamed for everything ascribed to
Israel. The fact is, he is the means of attacking
Israel.
The media, the newspapers, are not as mean
as the hate-mongers in the United Nations. But
they have adopted a new tactic: warning Israel
that she will lose U.S. aid and friendship.
Take as an example the expressions of the
Wise Men on the editorial staff of the Detroit
afternoon newspaper. They illustrated their
widsom, as has been done so often, with a draw-
ing of the fact of the Israel prime minister. They
honored him by inserting his name in the head-
line. Then they concluded with a warning:
"Washington should remind the Begin gov-
ernment — emphatically — that when
Jerusalem substitutes arrogance for wisdom,
Jerusalem alone is responsible for the conse-
quences."
This has became a slogan for a campaign to
warn Israel, to threaten her with loss of Ameri-
can support. It has become an organized drive,
often couched in hypocritical expressions of ad-
miration and comradeship but always rooted in
a venom that has embraced too many in an age
claiming civilized status yet retaining the
medievalism of the search for a scapegoat.
Neither the newspapers nor the vast army of
speakers at the UN sessions needed to go to so
much trouble to attain their aims. They could
all go back into the files and dig up the senti-
ments they now express from those that uttered
them months and years ago. The old hatreds
continue to vibrate and to recapitulate.
There is another experience constantly re-
peating itself and again registered in the
numerous anti-Israel resolutions adopted in re-
cent weeks in the massive UN structure on the
shores of the East River. The vote attacking
Israel is always near unanimous. There are al-
Ways abstainers. Nearly always, the opposition
in the U.S. and Israel. This should serve as a
message to those who warn Israel of the loss of
U.S. friendship that it exists and will always
remain unabandoned. But the lesson has deeper
implications: the Western nations, those who
are respected as civilized, fail to speak out
against the Soviet-Arab bloc of haters! They are
silent! The U.S. had Canada and Norway as
partners on a couple of opposing declarations
three weeks ago. On one resolution there was a
handful of supporters of the cause of justice for
Israel. In the main, the world'powers were, are,
silent!
What was may well continue endlessly.
Therefore the target must be resilient. It calls
for the unity which keeps the people indestruc-
tible. It welcomes a new year hopefully, and it is
not blind to reality.
Knowing these facts, the targeted can wel-
come the New Year 1982 with more jubilant
cheer than those who are unaware of dangers.
Knowing dangers, world Jewry can pave a path
of security and cheer in spite of all obstacles. It
should be inspiring to welcome the New Year
1982 in a spirit of faith, in confidence in the
defiance of weakness, with an acclaim for the
few, the justice-minded, who are the pillars for
the survival of the civilized who make fair play
a way of life.
It is with these ideals and the faith in them
that there can be the justified message inherent
in a Happy New Year!
`Jerusalem Cathedra':
Anthological Treasure
"Jerusalem Cathedra" is a volume of immense historical signifi-
J
cance. It encompasses, as the subtitle to the book indicates, "studies in
the History, Archeology, Geography and Ethnography of the Land of
Israel."
It is an enrichment of the Judaic series published by Wayne State
University Press.
Containing essays covering the total history of the Land of Israel
by eminent scholars, authorities on the many topics covered in the
book, it was edited by Lee I. Levine, senior lecturer in archeology and
Jewish history at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
Because the title of the book could lead to misconceptions,
Cathedra having Christological connotations in the definitions pro-
vided by most dictionaries, the terminology provided by the editor of
the volume is especially welcome. Dr. Levine provides it in the preface
to "Jerusalem Cathedra":
"The word 'cathedra,' derived from the Greek, means 'a seat of
learning' or 'a seat of honor.' In modern Hebrew, the term has come to
mean a university chair or a forum for scholarly exchanges. Almost a
decade ago, the Ben-Zvi Institute of Jerusalem first organized a
series of such forums, which not only provided the model for our
`symposium' articles, but also inspired a Hebrew quarterly, and now,
`The Jerusalem Cathedra.'
'The Jerusalem Cathedra' series has been initiated as a result of ° j
the proliferation of research in all aspects of the history of the land of
Israel during recent decades. Much'has been written in Hebrew, and
one of the aims of this series is to make some of the fruits of this work
H
available to the English-reading public."
The immense value of "Jerusalem Cathedra" for students of the
(,
history of Israel and the area in which it functions as a state and as a
continuing factor in the records of the Jewish people becomes appa-
rent in the eras under review. The many essays, notably illustrated
with photos, drawings and maps, commence with the ancient period,
continuing with the medieval period and giving substance to the
present in the modern period.
In every respect, Jerusalem and Israel are historically recorded,
with the tracing of the most vital factors analyzed by the experts
whose researched material fills the 360 paaes of this volume.
irtidea and her neighbors are scrutinized in the early period, and c'
the rise and fall of various kingdoms and the decline of some of the
national powers, as in the instance of the early Egyptian period,
under review.
King Herod, the reconstruction of the Temple, the related trying/
situations during the Herodian period, provide data that will provide
enlightenment on the experience in ancient Judea and the conflicts
with the challenging nations of that time.
Current concern_ over Islamic influence has especially meritori-
ous material regarding the early concerns of Islam for Jerusalem and
the role of the Mohammedans in the historic developments affecting
Arab-Jewish relations.
The final portion, dealing with the modern period, will be found
especially helpful in continuing research involving the issues affect-
ing the entire Middle East. Here the reader is provided with the
contrasting conditions between the Old Yishuv and the New Yishuv.
"Jerusalem Cathedra" is a classic. It is history treated with
devotion to research and the volume must serve as a textbook for the
story of Jerusalem, Israel, the Middle East and the peoples who
figured in the cast of characters in all the eras under study.