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.