72 Friday, September 24, 1982.
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
7n,stitutionalized' Anti-Semitism, Increasing Hatred
Exposed in Perlmutters"Real Anti-Semitism' Book
Xenophobia, dislike of the
unlike, has been a frequent
annotation for anti-
Semitism. The hatred that
stems from time immemo-.
rial to this day has many
other aspects.
This continuity of prej-
udice is summarized in the
newest work on anti-
Semitism, "The Real Anti-
Semitism in America" (Ar-
bor House). Its author is
Nathan Perlmutter, na-
tional director of the Anti-
Defamation League of Bnai
Brith. His co-author is his
wife, Ruth Ann Perlmutter,
who has served, among
other positions, as women's
division director of Israel
Bonds in Florida.
One of the chapters in this
volume, "The Stamp of
Anti-Semitism," em-
phasizes the continuity, and
states:
"Why? Why the persis-
tent continuity of anti-
Semitism, from ancient
and agricultural Egypt to
splendorous and
militaristic Rome on to
classless and scientifi-
cally Marxist Moscow?
And in all the way sta-
tions in between, in time
and space, like some pe-
rennial poison flower?
"In our time, studies have
abourrded. Authoritarian
personalities, it has been
suggested, are the carriers
of bigotry and anti-
Semitism. Alas, however, I
have known too many
authoritarian personalities
who, politically speaking,
wore white hats, their
authoritarianism com-
promising, but nonetheless
furthering do-good causes.
Among them have been
Jews.
"Other studies have
traced anti-Semitism to
the crucifixion story, and
while indubitably the
crucifixion of Jesus has
played a horrific part in
the rationalization of
anti-Semitism, from John
to Torquemeda and from
Torquemada to Father
Coughlin and beyond, I
wonder. To be sure, the
Christian - professing
czars scorned Jews as
Christ killers.
"But the incredibly long
wandering, 40-year march
from Egypt' was an escape
by Jews from the jurisdic-
tion of pharaohs who pre-
ceded Jesus by centuries.
Romans persecuted Jews
before taking note of Chris-
tians and couldn't have
cared less about the
crucifixion. Voltaire
scorned Christianity yet
poured his venom on Jews.
"Books, tracts, doc-
toral theses, sermons,
colloquia, workshops,
conferences, seminars
have attributed anti-
Semitism to capitalism
and to communism, to
political opportunists, to
xenophobia, to father-
hatred, to Jews for being
too passive and to Jews
for being too aggressive.
"But for all that these and
dozens of other explana-
tions may each contain
seeds for the sowing • of
anti-Semitism by given
people in given places at
given times, the question
remains, Why is anti-
Semitism so ubiquitous and
perennial?
"Why did Egyptians
along the Nile, Americans
along the Mississippi, dime-
less thugs in Berlin and fat
cats in posh country clubs,
rich, poor and middle
classes, black and white,
male and female, children
and grandparents, church-
goers and atheists, the let-
tered and the unlettered,
the Left and the Right, not
infrequently have in com-
mon one thing? — their
amenability to anti-
Semitism?"
The totality of coverage
of the aspects relating to the
never diminishing anti-
Semitism is what makes
"The Real Anti-Semitism in
America" so important.
Oil is under scrutiny.
Russia is studied for the
revelation of "in-
stitutionalized anti-
Semitism." Therefore the
Middle East and Israel's
obligation to defend her-
self are a major consider-
ation, as indicated in the
following:
"Today, for all the sig-
nificant progress Jews have
made in the United States,
for all that we have never,
in all the millenia of our
wanderings, enjoyed a safer
harbor than here in the
United States, Jews are
nonetheless uneasy.
"Not because of a sensed
personal danger, like
Tevya's in czarist
Anatevka; nor is the unease
attributable to lingering re-
sentment from boyhood
frustration with patterns of
discrimination; it is not be-
cause of father-experienced
humiliating stereotypes; it
is not because of neo-Nazis,
stirring again, for we know
their shadows are longer by
far than their hulk; curi-
ously, more ominously, it
isn't even due to anti-
Semitism.
"Rather is it a fear of
Jewish endangerment
coiled in state policies,
themselves free of anti-
Semitism, which in plausi-
ble scenarios spring free,
NATHAN and RUTH PERLMUTTER
jeopardizing Jewish secu-
rity. The dominant anti-
Semitism in the haunting of
Jews today is without famil-
iar anti-Semitism. It is
nothing personal . . . as
yet.
"Oil, for instance, is not
anti-Semitic. It is
a-Semitic. The parching
thirst for it, however, has
changed the world's
Middle East foreign pol-
icy, and in the process
has compromised Israel's
international standing,
and has contributed to
the sure-footedness of Is-
rael's implacable
enemies.
"Jews. worry about that
and worriedly ruminate .. .
What if a Middle East war
were to deprive the world of
oil? Would a darkened
world, a world ground to a
halt, scapegoat Israel?
Scapegoat Jews, Israel's ad-
vocates?
"Soviet-American trade
is detente's carrot. It earned
dollars and pounds, its yens,
francs and marks now pla-
cate capitalists who only
yesteryear vowed unyield-
ing hostility to the red
menace, to red fascism,
terms perferred to com-
munism because more
lurid, they more accurately
described capitalist views.
"Detente's acquired
technology and supplemen-
tary food correspondingly
soothes Communists who
only yesteryear swore undy-
ing contempt for capitalists.
For many Jews, however, to
say nothing, in this context,
of the millions of gentile
captives in the Soviet cage,
contributions to the stabili-
zation of the Soviet system
are a helping hand to the
one major power in the
world today that has in-
stitutionalized anti-
Semitism.
"Peace, sweet peace,
yearned for universally,
prayed for in a thousand
languages, everyman's
shared icon, the effectua-
tion of which is a states-
man's passageway to
immortality, can in our
time, in the Middle East,
sour Jewishly shared
longings for it.
"Jews are anxious about a
Middle Eastern peace that
is imposed and that, though
it results in the absence of
war, and renders oil safe,
makes being Jewish in Is-
rael hazardous. Being ac-
customed to worrying, the
Jewish psyche's tolerance
for apprehension is ample.
"So Jews worry, too,
about the fallout of world
disapproval and animus, as
they continue to press for
support of Israel's security
and consequently,
gradually, increasingly, are
perceived by a peace-
minded society as intransi-
gently indifferent to
`peace."'
There is the radical J-ew
who has turned to the left
and' who is an obstacle to
pursuance of justice. Noam
Chomsky and his
negativism are selected to
illustrate such obstacles, as
the authors state:
"In 1981, Professor
Noam Chomsky, patron
rebbe of the expired but
still faintly respiring New
Left, authored an intro-
duction for a French
book, -"Treatise in De-
fense Against Those Who
Accuse Me of Falsifying
History." Its author,
Robert Fourisson, prop-
ounds the theory that the
Holocaust never hap-
pened. The Holocaust, it
seems, is a Zionist fiction.
"Chomsky's introduc-
tion, he has assured listen-
ers, is not intended as an af-
firmation of Fourisson's
macabre and cruel anti-
Semitism. Rather is he, in
gifting his name and
presence to the book, affirm-
ing the Nazi apologist's
freedom of speech, freedom
to stoke the embers of Jew
hatred.
"In an ironic way, the rad-
ical or revolutionary Jew is
among anti-Semitism's
more pathetic victims. His
God has failed him so often."
Quoting Mark Twain's
his‘toric essay "Concerning
the Jews," the authors pose
an old question regarding
jealousies of Jewish accom-
plishments, and they relate
it to a posed obscenity
whether Jews should strive
to make their children "av-
erage" and not to excel.
There is a warning in
this volume to Jews not to
"default on our covenant
with Sinai." There is this
moving admonition:
"Moshe Dayan, musing
on the dual challenge Jews
have always faced — of hav-
ing to fight their oppressors
and simultaneously to fight
for the preservation of their
Jewish identity — would of
an evening read poetry
aloud with his wife.
"Nathan Alterman's 'The
Battle for Granada' was a
poem he found especially
poignant. In it, Samuel the
governor, a 13th Century
leader of the Jewish com-
munity of Spain and the
Berber king's commander of
Granada's army, is ad-
dressed by another Spanish
officer:
. . . for apart from the
military campaigns of
Granada
you have another war
a war of your own
an unending war.
It is the war of your
people,
whose shepherd you are.
It is the war of your lan-
guage
whose hosts you com-
mand.
It is the war- of your son,
whose teacher you are,
to teach him the writing
of antiquity . ."
(„)
Nathan and Ruth
Perlmutter have rendered a
great service with a power-
fully revealing book. Would
that it could be placed in the
hands of all Christian
ministers, government offi-
cials and even Israel's an-
tagonists in the Middle
East! Its major importance
is, of course, for Jews, how
must be informed, who must
not be misled by false prop-
aganda.
—P.S.
Institute Developing Pacemaker Analyzer
REHOVOT — For the
half-a-million heart
patients throughout the
world whose life depends on
the reliable functioning of
an implanted pacemaker
there is now good news from
Israel's Weizmann Insti-
tute.
Institute scientists, work-
ing with physicians at Is-
rael's Chaim Sheba Medical
Center, have developed a
comprehensive new system
for checking the total per-
formance of pacemakers.
The Pacemaker Function
Analyzer (PFA) is the result
of a joint research effort by
the institute's Dr. Henryk
Fischler of the Department
of Membrane Research, and
Prof. N. Neufeld of Tel Aviv
University's Medical School
working with Drs. Salomon
Behar and Shlomo
Feldman.
Advanced electronic
techniques are employed
to detect a wide range of
pacing malfunctions and
to provide detailed
analysis of what has gone
wrong. Test results are
available simultaneously
in three forms: digitally,
on a scope and as a
print-out.
The finished product was
designed by COM Scientific
Industries Ltd. of Haifa,
which has incorporated the
latest microprocessor
technology into the self-
contained PFA.
The new device monitors
each element of the
pacemaker — its battery
and electronics as well as
the electrodes attached to
the heart. All this is done
without causing the im-
planted pacemaker to miss
a single beat.
The painless test, which
takes only a few seconds, is
completely external: four
electrodes are attached to
the body's extremities to
check the patient's EEG
(electrocardiogram) as well
as the pulses produced by
the pacemaker itself.
The instrument's elec-
tronics correlate the heart's
own function with that of
the pacemaker and signal
any irregularities. The PFA
can be adjusted to test any
pacemaker presently on the
market and to compare cur-
rent performance with that
at the time of implantation.
Clinical tests of the PFA
have been under way at the
Heart Institute of Israel's
Chaim Sheba Medical Cen-
ter since 1974. To date,
some 250 pacemaker
patients with various
heartbeat irregularities
have been examined. The
PFA's developers point ou'r,,
that their device is design&
for use in various medics'
situations: in both genera'
pacemaker clinics; in spE
cialized clinics; and i
intensive-care units.
The system operates as
continuous monitor, givii
off an alarm and registerii
any intermittent failure
a print-out for futu
analysis.
Pacemaker informati
can be transferred electr
ically via a special. to
phone for total analysis
the new PFA. In additi
PFA software can be
dated for compatibility w
new pacemakers now be
developed.
Commercial developm
of the PFA is being carr
out by Yeda Research a
Development Co., RehoN li
which handles the licens'
to industry of Weizmann!,
stitute inventions.
[
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