THE JEWISH NEWS ,USPS 275-520, Incorporating The Detroit Jewish Chronicle commencing with the issue of July 20, 1951 Copyright © 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. 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 14th day of Tevet, 5742, the following scriptural selections will be read in our synagogues: Pentateuchal portion, Genesis 47:28-50:26. Prophetical portion, I Kings 2:1-12. Candlelighting, Friday, Jan. 8, 4:59 p.m. VOL. LXXX, No. 19 Page Four Friday, January 8, 1982 RESPONSIVE PEOPLEHOOD All of the responsibilities of the year that has just ended are renewed as the calendar changes. The duties that involve human considerations are unchanging. For the Jewish people, under pending conditions, the obligations assume greater proportions. There is an annual demand for unity in peoplehood, and it becomes more evident with time. The philanthropic needs make greater demands at this time, and in a period when the economy is less stable the urgency to assure protection for existing institutions and for the major causes always in need of assistance is apparent. These considerations are especially evident at this time, as the machinery for the Allied Jewish Campaign gets into operation. The needs are immense on the home front. The domestic duties are most pressing. There are the national agencies to be supported, and there are the obligations to Israel, whose hands must be upheld in time of crisis. _ This states the situation very simply. In summary, it is urgent that the educational aims should not be reduced, that the care for incom- ing migrants should be continued, that the aged should not be forgotten. If the critical times have any meaning, then the civic-protective movements, the defense agencies, must be kept in view. These tasks apply to the national as well as the local scene. Need it be repeated that the duty to keep Israel protected is paramount? There are the social needs in Israel, for the struggling in the population and the newcomers. The progressive educational system in the Jewish state, the uni- versities, must not be abandoned. Providing for these needs, Israel will be able more easily to provide for herself militarily. These are the factors to keep in view during the Allied Jewish Campaign Sabbath, when a score of synagogues will dedicate the Friday night and Sabbath morning services as the AJ- Campaign Sabbath. They are matters to be treated as uppermost in Jewry's needs when Super Sunday is observed on Jan. 17. This must be treated as a major duty resting upon every identified Jewish citizen, during the special days set aside as Allied Jewish Cam- paign dates and during the entire year when the services of all Jews are needed to solidify the forces as an assurance that obligations will be met. The duty of assuring success for the current philanthropic effort must become uppermost for the entire community. This is how peoplehood attains respect and creates dignity and unity so vitally needed for world Jewry. THE STACK ED CARDS Post-Hanuka lessons confirm the emergence of miracles. Even in the midst of tragedies, it is miraculous, for example, that Israel emerged into sovereign statehood, that the nation survvied in an age and an area of the greatest of dangers. As a new year commences, the anticipation is repetition — recurrence of threats, continuing dangers, hopeS for miracles in the struggle for survival in the very process of experiencing the dangers to the very life of a functioning nation. Therefore the commencement of a new year must be treated with realism, 4Pith a recogni- tion that the dangers have not subsided. Much more than that: the new year must be recog- nized as a period during which Israel, world Jewry and the nations Involved will be witnes- sing the stacking of cards, the growth into mountains of dangers to Israel the state and its citizens. That which affects the existence of Israel has its effects on the Jewish people. There is, there- fore, an urgency that the economic and the de- fensive, the means for existence, be planned together. In the main, however, Israel herself must be on the alert and must recognize the thickness into which stacked cards are growing. The approach of the withdrawal from Sinai towards the end of April and the resistance to it by the settlers in communities established there by Israelis, the results of striving for security on the Syrian border in the acquired Golan Heights, the effects of the many operations — all combine to urge pragmatism in Israel and by the Israeli officials. The firmaments are darkening. The friends of Israel are vanishing. The ranks of the friendliest among the non-Jewish citizens of Is- rael are experiencing bitterness that borders upon hatred for the state in which the Druze have acquired citizenship. The eroding aspects of the U.S.-Israel friendship also leads to a de- mand for caution in confronting the dangers. Isn't this a time for a unified government in Israel for abandonment of other conflicts? Shouldn't the stacking of cards against Israel be treated with the seriousness required in dealing with the Arab neighbors, with Arabs within Israel, with the autonomy proposals, with the demonstrations against Israel that have incur- red violence and rejection of the neighborlinea that is so vital to a nation's existence? At the moment, aba4doiliment of party differ- ences, resort to unity and to a coalition that should assure realistic approaches towards de- aling with the enemies without and the split ranks within, must be viewed as an urgency in the hours of danger. Israel's sovereignty should not rule out such a proposal from without. It is a matter so urgent as to be treated with the ut- most seriousness. EASY TO HATE? In the very first days of the New Year, it is already evident that the old haters are unable to erase venom. It's the old story: while PLO re-defines the aim to destroy Israel, the would-be wiseacres continue to portray Israel's prime minister as the villain. Tragically, those who should judge well from historic lessons fail to see the light. Even some Jews are misled into the hatred that has become anti-Began-ism. Response to Holocaust , Post-Auschwitz Catholic' Indicts Christians' Lethargy Some 60 photographs in "The Christian Response to the Holocaust" (Stonehenge Books, Denver) compiled by 'Harry James Cargas, serve as a massive indictment of the Nazi crimes. They do not provide comfort for the reader. They are a reminder of the bestialties — the photos of the tortured, life in the camps, the outraged and the guilty who performed the crimes. Cargas describes himself as a post-Auschwitz Catholic. He gives due credit to the Christians who dared to condemn the outrages, but they are recorded as few in number. The book assails the rank and file of Christianity who failed to act during the critical and murderous years. Silence is condemned by the author. He traces the history of discriminations by Christians and brands the guilty. Then comes his indictment of the indifferent during Nazism and he advocates recognition of the manner in which prejudices were inflicted, advocating "reconciliation" with Jews, toward which he makes 14 proposals: "The Catholic Church should excommunicate Adolf Hitler. "The Christian liturgical calendar(s) should include an annual memorial service for Jewish victims of the Holocaust. "We Christians must publicly and officially admit the errors of our teachers where they were wrong concerning Jews. "The Christian Church must insist on the essential Jewishness of Christianity. "Jesus should be recognized as a link between Jews and Chris- tians. "The church's teachings on the subject of evil need to be re- evaluated. "Traditional Christian theologies of history must be re- examined. "The Vatican historical archives for the 20th Century need to be opened to historians. "Chairs of Judaic studies ought to be established at more Chris- tian colleges and universities. "We might look to see if a redefinition of the notion of inspiration in Christian scripture is appropriate. "Christians must find new terminology for what we now desig- nate as the Old Testament and the New Testament. . "Catholics must demand an encyclical letter which deals specifi- cally with the sins of anti-Judaism and with the sins of Christians in their actions toward Jews. "The heavy Christian emphasis on missionizing should be rected toward perfecting individual Christian lives. "We Christians need to get on our knees and repent our sins against Jewish people." An introduction to Cargas' confessionals is especially damning. In it, Elie Wiesel also lists the guilty, shows how Poles, Ukrainians and others collaborated with the Nazis and added to the agonies suffered by Jews on Hitler's orders. Cargas' is a revealing work. It calls attention to the indifference in Christian ranks. Obviating it was a necessity in reducing the sufferings and possibly rescuing millions from the terror. The current situation in Poland serves as an additional reminder of Auschwitz and Treblinka. The volume becomes commemorative of the spirit of the concerned who resisted the barbarism, just as it condemns the brutalities of the mass murderers.