THE JEWISH NEWS
USPS 2$_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
DREW LIEBERWITZ
Associate News Editor
Advertising Manager
Sabbath Scriptural Selections
This Sabbath, the eighth day of Tishri, 5743, the following scriptural selections will be read in our synagogues:
Pentateuchal portion, Deuteronomy 32:1-52.
Prophetical portion, Hosea 14:2-10, Micah 7:18-20, Joel 2:15-27.
Monday, Yom Kippur
Pentateuchal portion, morning, Leviticus 16:1-34, Numbers 29:7-11; afternoon, Leviticus 18:1-30.
Prophetical portion, Isaiah 57:14-58:14, Jonah 1:1-14:11, Micah 7:18-20.
Candlelighting, Friday, Sept. 24, 7:07 p.m.
VOL. LXXX I, No. 4
Page Four
Friday, Sept. 24, 1982
MULTIPLE JUDGMENTS
Atoning while being judged could well be treated as a most fascinating Jewish characteristic.
As the Day of Atonement approaches, the Yom Kippur worshippers keep in view the Judg-
ment. It is also the Day of Judgment, and in every respect it accounts for the recognition that while
none is personally on trial, all may have the combined feeling that a new twelve-month carried
with it a destiny that is in itself a judgment. In the main, it could, without risking sacrilege, be
termed self-judgment.
So conditioned, Yom Kippur is replete with judgments. The self-testing is merged with an
accounting of the experiences that needed testing and therefore provide guidelines for the actions
to be anticipated.
There were judgments in the year left behind that were accompanied by severe tensions. Now
the historian and the student of them must ask whether they have become rooted, whether they
will vanish or will be repetitive.
Jewish records of the past year are filled with accounts of the testing. Many talk in judgment of
Jews. Some were very rash. Many were linked with distortions of truth which added to discord.
In the process, the Jew needed to test himself, to be his own judge, to take into account the
errors which marred hopes for an amity that makes him an aspirant to peace and an advocate of
good will between nations.
It is in the manner in which Jews as a people were judged that the occurrences under
consideration, those involving Israel, the relationships with the non-Jewish communities, suffered
from malice rather than dedication to justice and the cooperation that is so vital in human
relations. Antagonists become judges. Neighbors often emerged as haters.
Sadly, for mankind as much as for the Jews, perhaps more so, the events of very recent
months were marred by animosities. The crime of anti-Semitism grew into a state of bitterness
belonging to civilized society.
Israel's duty is to herself, to be secure, to prevent threatened destruction, to hold her head high
and never again in an abandoned state. She is amidst saber-rattling peoples who sank into a
condition under which those who share a desire for humanism and democratic existence emerged
as the obstructionists to the hope for a just approach to cooperative living.
It is under such circumstances that Israel and Jewry were judged, that they were reduced to a
state of defense under attacks often besmirched by the Hitlerian method of history, that of the Big
Lie often repeated so that it should be accepted as the truth.
It is under such agonized conditions that the Jew is himself compelled to do some judging, that
he must account for his role in a world traditionally antagonistic, whose friendships must be
regained and retained.
This is the time of testing during which one must judge with realism, pragmatically, confront-
ing issues with courage.
Courage often calls for admission of errors. Perhaps there were a few errors too many in the era
under scrutiny. In that event, there must be the self-judgment to assert that a people knows how
and when to correct errors.
Perhaps there should have been more self-criticism. Perhaps Israel, to take the Jewish state as
an example, should have had more criticism from fellow Jews throughout the world. But even in
error no one dare say to a sovereign state that it is to be controlled from the outside, at a time when
the assertion must be that the world respects the autonomy that chooses its leadership. In the
self-judging there must be the respect for the People Israel that chooses its own leaders. When the
judging of Israel becomes acrimonious, this aspect dare not be ignored: Israel chooses her leaders
and over it no one dare threaten control.
In the self-judging, therefore, there is another aspect never to be ignored. Israel was not reborn
to submit to destruction. Therefore, in the judgments to be uttered, there must be a reassertion of
faith and confidence that the unity that protects Israel must remain indestructible.
Indeed, there are many judgments, and those that are internal, the Jewish self-scrutiny, must
also be the self-respecting. That calls for the protective — always in truth and based on dignity but
always firm.
A plethora of judges have set up courts to sit in judgment of Israel. In the process they have
judged the Jews. Included were and are the venomous. Among them are chroniclers of an era that
began with the mircale of Israel's rebirth, and they have led to current history, also possessing a
process that has been poisoned with distortions, with half-truths that • have polluted the facts.
The intentions can be treated as honorable, but there are factors in "the findings" threatened
with leaving bad tastes, creating ill and often evil images.
The need is for the involvement of the competent who will portray Jewry honorably, in the
dignified fashion justified by history. Hopefully, proper public relations services will be called into
being for that purpose.
The judgements are many. The approaches must continue in dignity, in the people's unity.
Such must be the verdict.
(A typographical error in last week's editorial page headline transposed the numbers of the
New Year. Happy 5743!)
—
Elie Wiesel's Literary Gems
Are Given Academic Acclaim
An impressive collection of works about Elie Wiesel is emerging
as a library shelf supplementary to the massive collection of works by
the eminent author.
Critical studies of the Wiesel accounts of the Holocaust, his dedi-
cation to the Hasidic movement where he had gathered inspiration on
a family Hasidic basis, have been published for a number of years.
There are books about him and his literary accomplishments, and
perhaps the most impressive is "Legacy of Night" by Ellen S. Fine
(State University of New York Press, Albany).
Dr. Fine deals with her subject as "The Literary Universe of Elie
Wiesel," and this described the extensive study as a detailed account
of the scores of works to Wiesel's credit.
She commences with his first great work, "Night," and with it the
reader is treated to a most fascinating, step-by-step emergence of
genius in the Jewish ranks which needed the inspiration of the
Hasidic author who gained global recognition.
Dr. Fine, who is associate professor of French at Kingsboro Col-
lege of New York University, does much more than express admira-
tion for Wiesel. She analyzes the first work, his "Night," his sub-
sequent works, and in the process the reader has a moving commen-
tary on the Holocaust and the tragic experiences that moved Wiesel,
who survived Auschwitz, whose family perished there — all except
two sisters — and who keeps arousing Jews and non-Jews to an
understanding of the Jewish problem and to a devotion towards
elimination of hatred and respect for Jewish traditional idealism.
In addition to "Night" Prof. Fine provides reviews and comments
on "Witness of the Night," "Messengers From the Grave," "Dawn,"
"The Accident," "A Beggar in Jerusalem," "The Dead Town," "The
Gates of the Forest" and a score of Wiesel's other numerous works.
Dr. Fine's "The Legacy of Night" is further enriched by the
preface by Terrence Des Pres, of Colgate University, who added a
moving view, as a Christian, of the Holocaust. He declares that "the
spectacle of the death camps continues to haunt us . . . This memory
does not fade. This nightmare goes on and on . . ."
The preface, in its commendation of the excellence of Prof. Fine's
impressive work, declares:
"Elie Wiesel is not an ordinary writer. We cannot read him
without the desire to change, to lead better lives. His books are of the
kind that save souls, and for this reason Ellen Fine's 'Legacy of Night'
is not an ordinary exercise in literary criticism.
"If to listen to the witness is to become one, then to approach
Wiesel's fiction with sympathy and rigor, as Dr. Fine does, is to grow,
to gather power and move with cumulative force toward a vision
which may be terrible in its torment but which greatly enlightens and
uplifts."
Additionally remarkable about Prof. Fine's book is the chronol-
ogy of the life and works of Elie Wiesel and the bibliographical record.
In the latter there is a list of Wiesel's works so impressive that it
overwhelms the reader. The chronology is even more impressive,
more revealing. It is a record of great achievements, of triumphs
which could have crushed the ordinary person. The fact that Wiesel
has earned a dozen honorary doctorates from leading universities
emphasizes the recognition accorded him.
In its entirety, the Ellen Fine volume emerges as a recognition of
the life and work of a great author and the evaluative in his labors to
arouse human feelings against recurrence of the tragedy he experi-
enced in a cruel period in history.