it T THE JEWISH NEWS (USPS 275 020 • 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 16th day of Elul, 5742, the following scriptural selections will be read in our synagogues: Pentateuchal portion, Deuteronomy 26:1-29:8. Prophetical portion, Isaiah 60:1-22. Candlelighting, Friday, Sept. 3, 7:43 p.m. VOL. LXXXII, No. 1 Page Four Friday. - Sept. 3, 1982 DISCIPLINED RECKONING An approach to a new year inevitably calls for an accounting of events that happened and things to come. Especially in the instance of a spiritual period, emphasized by Days of Awe, there is a compulsion to a reckoning in quest of elimination of the unpleasant and planning for the realistic and such actions as will obviate painful errors. This is a time to mobilize for a collective strength that will provide the inner feeling for individuals that in communicating with fellow citizens, in striving for mutual understanding, there will be an aim to have truth predominate, people of good will striving to prevent any injec- tion of bias that leads to destruction and bitter- ness. These are not idle words, at a time when people's judgments are gauged by the media, when the universe has been reduced to such proximities that distance no longer counts, that people in Iran and Lebanon are as accessible to Detroit as if they were in Dearborn. Such proximity is fully recognizable. Yet the hope for One World remains a mere symbol in- applicable to human approaches. There is the divisiveness that enflames prejudices and fences keep appearing wherever there are human beings who must be good neighbors. The very proximity of human to human is to invite destruction. Such are the conditions which transport the • hatreds from neighborhood to neighborhood, from continent to continent. Out of it all emerges the great fear, the basis of a panic that affects the pleaders for amity and peace. How are these conditions to be confronted when they strike at so many doors, no matter how distant the cause for horror? It is the Big Lie that causes the Big Fear, and the lie is the one that had birth under a terrorism which was guided by the advice that the lie, often repeated, has_a chance of being accepted as truth. The duty, therefore, is to the inevitable truth, toward the exposure of the lie, with an aim towards establishing facts so that spewing of hatreds should be impermissible in human ranks. That which divides the world has reached many communities. That is why there is so much talk about the weakness of public rela- tions programming, the failures in the efforts to arouse public opinion to an understanding of the basics of pragmatism and the urgency of people reaching understanding without waving flags of dispute, bigotry and hatred. Too many evidences of bias have intruded on the Jewish scene, on the American environ- ment, on world public opinion that is guided by the media. Therefore the justification of appeals for better public relations, for an educative way of life that will not make an entire world func- ■ •41X1 tion, in a critical period like the present, as if mankind were reviving mediavalism. There is a duty to lead the world, hopefully also through the media, towards the paths of truth. To that end it is necessary for the Jew, as the chief scapegoat in the current crisis, to be Midrash stems from the Hebrew word darash. It means search- among the leaders in such efforts and for his ing, investigating. neighbor, Christian or even Moslem, to contrib- Dr. Henry L. Feingold, professor of history at Baruch College of ute towards an understanding of the facts. the City University of- New York, who is also associated with the Especially urgent, therefore, is the mobiliza- Institute for Advanced Studies of the Humanities at the Jewish tion of the best minds to guide communities and Theological Seminary, is a masterful adherent to the principles of individuals towards knowledgeability. The Big research in a remarkable book, "A Midrash on American Jewish History" (University of New York Press, Albany). Lie must be confronted.. Several prominent Prof. Feingold renders an immense service for the student of Christians sounded their voices to that end in history and the chief institutions which make up the total American these columns. Jewish leadership has a deter- Jewish community. mination to assure such a mobilization. There His Midrash goes to the root of all the Jewish ideological con- remains the need for proper confronting of the cepts, taking into account the Orthodox, Reform and Conservative spreaders of hatred so that the Big Lie should agencies. They are detailed with such clarity that his studies provide not become the guideline for the masses who the proper approaches to an understanding of Jewish devotional con- listen to talk shows and are led to the paths of cepts, to the roots of the movements, their differing attitudes, the bigotry. ideals which motivate Jewish life. If WXYZ programming is loaded with talk In the process of his deep-rooted studies he takes into account the influence of Zionist guidelines, as well as the changes that have taken shows on which spewing of hatred is permissi- ble, there must be a preparedness to face up to- place in the movement. It will be well for Zionists to take into account this comment in them and to be ready with -responses. this splendid Midrash: When editorial writers show their bias, the "An outstanding difference between the Conservative movement concerned must respond. and the other two wings developed originally over the question of When efforts are made to divide people on Zionism. We have noted that the original classic Reform position was racial bases, leadership in contending ranks anti-Zionist. (That' has not been true for a long time. Today the must be activated to prevent separateness that Reform branch maintains a full program for its students and adhe- spells anguish in true Americanism. rents in Israel.) Anti-Zionism also prevailed in the Orthodox wing. - Does American Jewry have proper leadership "Adherents of ultra-Orthodoxy associated with Agudath Israel to create a proper vigilance to refute the de- • continue to believe that Zionism and the state of Israel are abomina- structive in the media? tions. However, that view has become a minority view in the obser- Are there too many vested interests in civic vant community. In fact, a disproportionately high number of the protective ranks which prevent u _ nified action small trickle of olim (immigrants to Israel) from America are Or- thodox Jews. in time of crisis? "But the most comfortable home for Zionism in America, espe- Is the Jewish community strong and firm in cially cultural manifestations, has been the Conservative move- the confrontation with the inhuman and un- ment. its If one considers the commonality of Jewish people-hood, civilized whose aim is to destroy good will? Zionism is in a sense a kind of secular equivalent of Conservatism. This is a time for mobilization, for truth and `Catholic Israel' and Jewish peoplehood, which is contained in Zionist action in the proper and desirable direction. It ideology, are opposite sides of the same coin. It is thus no accident that dare not be delayed. American Zionism did not receive initial legitimation until Solomon Feingold Midrash Enriches Jewish History Studies UGLY IND ICTMENTS With all due respect to journalistic desires to be evenhanded and to uncover all facts relating to world occurrences, as well as to the obligation of free peoples to speak out on all issues and to have their views known, the manner in which exaggerations are being multiplied, as they were in Monday's Detroit Free Press. What the Free Press did, and what some other newspapers do likewise, in an effort to resort to indictments of Israel, without ascertaining the facts, represents an ugliness unmatched any- where except for an echoing of what had been presented in the Stuermer-Nazi days. The portrayal of Israel as a mass murderer represents a submission to the basest of Arab propaganda, failing to indicate that Israel's ousting of the PLO from Lebanon spelled libera- tion of that country from a seven-year-long brutal occupation of that land. President-elect Bashir Gameyel would have been the first to condemn Israel's leadership in freeing his country. He and the Christian as well as many Moslem Lebanese leaders did not, could not, subscribe to the indictments that are assuming a gutter-like anti-Israel campaign. Newspapers resorting to the type of journalism protested here could have waited for the true facts rather than utilize photographs displaying such an outrageous one-sidedness that there is cause_ for resentment. It is inexcusable. Schechter gave strong support to the kind of redemption it held out for secular Jews." Dr. Feingold adds that "American Zionism is today no longer the lodestar for American Jewry that it once was," because "it may have reached its middle age and thus loses its popular drawing power." These views as well as those relating to the major religious movements are not treated supercritically but as means of attaining an understanding of changes that were inevitable since Zionism has attained its goals in statehood. Perhaps the secularists will find special comfort in the Feingold studies when he states: ". . . for those willing to see, something new is coming to life in American Jewry, too: secular, highly individuated, superbly educated persons, who relate to their Jewishness by sensing that they are members of the Jewish people and that this people possesses a special elan which differentiates them from others.' "A Midrash on American Jewish History" requires extensive study, something that cannot be provided in a mere book review. This Midrash could well serve as a textbook. Dr. Feingold enriches the literature devoted to such studies with his excitingly-challenging Midrash.