2 Friday, October 15, 1982
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
Purely Commentary
The Poison is Spreading!
The poison is spreading!
Hate has embraced all-too-many in mankind!
Anti-Semitism has encircled the earth!
How?
Why?
The Pope and Italian government leaders hugged the
maker of terrorism who advocates the destruction of Israel,
which means the heart and soul of the Jewish people, and
gangsters some days later, on Shemini Atzeret, murder a
child and seriously wounded many at the synagogue in
Rome.
That's the judgment of the Jews of Rome.
(And the PLO begins to bathe in sanctimony denying
guilt!)
In Paris, the media, and some government officials,
found an available scapegoat in Menahem Begin, and via
him in Israelis, and Jews are shot down at synagogues and
restaurants.
In Vienna, Bruno Kreisky glorifies Arafat, and Jews
are murdered and victimized.
Are the media exempt in the U.S.? The prejudices were
in evidence when Israel became a target, and anti-Semites
are beginning to come out of hiding.
There is no sanction for the terrorists in this land of the
free and the home of the brave. But the lunatic fringe finds
a way, in a democratic society, of utilizing radio and televi-
sion, the press, the telephone and the post office as media
for hate-spreading. That is why here, too, there are threats
over the phones, poison in the mails. That is why such
garbage as un-Christian and anti-Semitic as Gerald L.K.
Smith's "No War to Save the Jews!' and similar filth is
again being circulated in the mails as a posthumous remin-
der of venom-spreading that was inaugurated in the 1920s.
All of which is an admonition to Christians to accept
responsibility for an age of terror and to battle to eradicate
the horrors, for Muslims to share the guilt and responsibil-
ity, for Jews ever to be on guard, never to be silent in
protest, always to be vigilant in refusal to be submissive to
horror.
* * *
When the Media Contribute
Communicative Geniality
A New York Times "Washington Talk Briefing," Oct.
1, echoes the concerns that have been expressed over the
treatment given Israel during the Lebanese critical weeks.
The item reports:
Reacting to acknowledged hostility among
local Jewish groups, the Washington Post has in-
vited a representative to spend a week observing
how its editors collect and present news of Israel
and the Middle East. One of those editors referred
to the development as "this unprecedented exer-
cise."
Benjamin Bradlee, executive editor of the
newspaper, invited Michael Berenbaum, execu-
five director of the Jewish Community Council of
Greater Washington, to watch news operations at
the Post, beginning Tuesday. In a telephone
interview, Mr. Bradlee said that the arrangement
had been made as a result of "tension between the
Jewish community and the press, between the
Jewish community_ and the Washington Post."
The editor insisted that Mr. Berenbaum's ob-
servation period was "not different one iota" from
visits to the newspaper plant by foreign dig-
nitaries and journalists. He said the observer had
been warned that "if he tries to lobby us, he's out
on his bottom." Asked if Mr. Berenbaum's obser-
vation of news procedures might set a precedent,
Mr. Bradlee replied, "By the time you guys get
through with it, I guess it will."
In a memorandum to editors of foreign news
on the Post, Jim Hoagland, assistant managing
editor, wrote: "This is an unusual idea — and, if I
may say so, on first glance it looked like an awlful
one. My conversation with Birnbaum (sic) has
persuaded me otherwise." A number of Post staff
members were reported to be disturbed by the
experiment.
The related experience in Detroit comes to mind. The
treatment accorded Israel in the local newspapers centered
on the Free Press special week-long emphasis on the
Israel-PLO conflict, and the special features as well as
criticisms of that newspaper's news coverage, especially its
headlining. It resulted in just that type of exchange of views
between Jewish spokespeople here and Free Press staff
members.
Did that session accomplish the purpose of creating
greater understanding between the two factions?
Wayne State University Professor Ronald Aronson
had an interesting comment on the Free Press - Jewish
spokesfolks session and the report on it in the Free Press. It
should be acknowledged that Prof. Aronson's evocative ar-
ticle, which was headed "How Does It Feel to Be a Jew After
the Beirut Massacres?" was an exceptionally analytical
By Philip
Slomovitz
The Anti-Semitic Poison that Seeps Into the Mode arn
Society: Because Clerics, Government Officials and
People Embrace Hatred and Falsified Media
essay, written with calmness and excellent evaluation of
the Jewish and Israeli role in a tragic time. His comment on
the media session expressed a puzzlement.
After the "Rosh Hashana of shame," as the
Jerusalem Post had described it, the statements
by local Jewish leaders in that morning's Free
Press seemed astonishingly remote from the feel-
ings these people had shared with literally hun-
dreds of Jews they had spoken with — and
equally remote from the angry anti-Begin mood
hundreds of thousands of Israeli Jews had ex-
pressed the day before in Tel Aviv.
The criticism could be well applied if Jews were to be
expected to sit in judgment over fellow Jews on the basis of
original condemnations which were then, as they may be
now, debatable. The non-Jewish interrogators, also curi-
ously from Prof. Aronson's viewpoint, did not raise that
issue.
The fact is that in a report on a session under testing,
the newspaper's analysts selected basic points. They did not
touch upon the challenging issue of the press having ig-
nored reports on Jews and Lebanese on their experiences in
Lebanon, and they denied that emphasis was deliberately
given only to atrocities.
Also: Menahem Begin was mentioned, and there was
only a passing reference to him in the Free Press report.
Should he be considered on trial because demonstrators
shouted opprobrium?
The professor is dead wrong in his conclusions about
Menahem Begin, but he is fully entitled to endorse an
agenda to his liking. From closely-tested evidence, Begin
will have his people's endorsement and exoneration.
Prof. Aronson's summation was an excellent comment
on the Jewish role. In the aftermath, the judging must be
left to the examining teams, both Israeli and possibly also
the Lebanese, with hopes that the truth will be unveiled.
Hopefully, the media will have the traditional role of reve-
aling realities rather than giving credence to the contrary
demonstrations, such as the one in Kennedy Square in _
Detroit where a placard-carrying representative of that
gathering chose to assert that "Israel kills 10,000 Muslim
women and children."
The immediate concern, in view of the question posed
by Prof. Aronson, is whether the communicative media
approach is productive of good relationships. A newspaper's
summary of a session with critics may serve to exonerate. It
does not whitewash the media's role during the entire
Lebanese crisis. The Jewish role can be condemned if the
people's representatives are silent on the issues. Perhaps
they had justification in not rushing with a verdict. The
mere fact that they join in an exchange of views may reduce
claims of absolution from guilt.
Where there is guilt, it will become evident. There is
surely also the sin of silence; and also the error of prejudg-
ing.
Much is being learned from the developments which
spelled horror.
Self-indictment, self-flaggellation will not provide the
good will sought between communities, amidst differing
Jewish factions. The search for just and honorable solutions
is in the process. Now patience will likewise have a basic
role in a sad period in Jewish and world history.
* * *
The FORUM OF SHAME
in the Detroit News
The Detroit News already has an outrageous record of
prejudice in its editorial treatment of Israel and her duly-
elected leaders.
That's the News' prerogative: to express editorial
views as its geniuses see fit.
But when that newspaper sinks so low as to print
garbage that incites to riot and invites the Hitler spirit into
a free American society, it earns contempt.
That newspaper, whose founders would now surely be
ashamed and outraged by the latest display of bias, pub-
lishes a Forum page on Saturdays, Last Saturday's page
became a FORUM OF SHAME. It contained these two
letters.
"Hitler — dead or alive," the answer to this
very old question, is: Hitler is alive and well dis-
guised as Israeli leader — Menahem Begin. Seems
to me Mr. Begin has forgotten the Holocaust.
R.J.Y.
Dearborn Heights
I see where Menahem Begin, along with Ariel
Sharon has finally joined the other animals --
Stalin, Hitler, Amin — as some of the worst men in
our century.
Joseph Godell
Sterling Heights
If this is the way news commentators in a major
American newspaper seek to provide a forum for readers, in
an indiscriminate fashion that must have had a responsive
endorsement from that newspaper's responsible editors,
then the city it serves has been limiliated. Only the re-
sponsible editors will suffer anguish of shame. All others
already felt their stomachs turn from the effects of such an
outrage.
* * *
The Italian Tragedy
Italian Jewry boasted Of a traditional record of friend-
ship. Italians and Jews shared the glories of amiable
cooperative citizenship and mutual respect in their reli-
gious, economic and political interests.
The outrage that occurred on Shemini Atzeret-Simhat
Torah cast a pall of horror on the friendship that was
injured by the bigots who had inspiration from the vilest
elements.
In his report on the occurrence from Rome, to the New
York Times on Sunday, Henry Kamm called attention to
the following:
Leaders of the Jewish community are con-
cerned over what they consider anti-Jewish un-
dertones in the press and in other aspects of pub-
lic life since the Arafat visit and particularly since
the massacre of Palestinians by Lebanese Chris-
tian militiamen in Beirut three weeks ago.
A bomb was thrown into the Milan synagogue
on Sept. 29, damaging the empty building. A Milan
hotel canceled a scheduled Bar Mitzva reception
on the demand of labor unions. The unions also
refused to service flights of El Al, the Israeli air-
line, and port workers boycotted Israeli ships for
a week.
The Modena City Council, which is controlled
by Communists, canceled a scheduled festival of
films featuring American Jews, notably Woody
Allen, and individual Jews reported anti-Semitic
slights, which are rare in this country.
Surely the people of Italy are ashamed of this, and
some members of the Italian government are already
smarting from the inhumanity of such occurrences.
A civilized status will surely be restored in that his-
toric land, but the mark of shame will be difficult to erase.
Silver Spiceboxes Form Towering, Display
JERUSALEM — Hand- War II in Europe and which
crafted miniature silver to- were collected and donated
wers, with their steeples to the museum. The
and flags, based on well spiceboxes on display, many
known European towers are of which are exquisitely
on display at the Israel crafted, were in domestic
Museum in Jerusalem. use for many years and were
The towers are acutally a usually passed down from
collection of traditional generation to generation.
The tower was the most
"hadas l'bsamim,"
spiceboxes used in the popular shape for
ceremony to welcome in the spiceboxes among the
new week with aromatic Jewish communities of
spices. The ceremony, Europe. The earliest
known in Hebrew as "hav- known examples of
dala," takes place at the spiceboxes of silver and
conclusion of the Sabbath to in the form of a tower ap-
mark the separation of the parently come from 16th
Sabbath from the rest of the Century Germany. Al-
week.
though there exist a mul-
The museum's collection titude of spicebox
of spiceboxes, . like many of forms, the tower be-
its Jewish ritual articles, is came and remained the
composed primarily of ob- most popular design.
jects which survived World More modern examples
of tower spiceboxes were
produced by the artisans
of the Bezalel School at
the turn of the century
and by contemporary sil-
versmiths.
Spice-towers, whether
based on actual or imagi-
nary buildings incorporate
the basic forms and ar-
chitectural features of a to-
wer; masonry, balustrades,
pillars, spirals, domes, tur-
rets, shingles and flags. The
spice containers generally
resemble one another in
their proportions and in
their divisions into three
parts: foot, container and
turret.
A silver "hadas
Towers exist in the Re-
naissance, Baroque, Rococo, l'bsamim" (spicebox)
Neo-classic, Art Nouveau from the late 17th or early
18th Century.
and modern styles.