THE JEWISH NEWS
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Incorporating The Detroit Jewish Chronicle commencing with the issue of July 20, 1951
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PHILIP. SLOMOVITZ
CARMI M. SLOMOVITZ
Business Manager
Editor and Publisher
ALAN HITSKY
News Editor
HEIDI PRESS
Associate News Editor
DREW LIEBERWITZ
Advertising Manager
Sabbath Scriptural Selections
This Sabbath is the sixth day of Heshuan, 5743, and the following scriptural selections will be read in our synagogues:
Pentateuchal portion, Genesis 6:9-11:32.
Prophetical portion, Isaiah 54:1-55:5.
Candlelighting, Friday, Oct. 22, 6:21 p.m.
VOL. LXXXII, No. 8
Page Four
Friday, Oct. 22, 1982
STUDY: LIMITLESS AGE
A post-holiday period ushers in the season for
adult educational programs, for the cultural
series conducted by synagogues and temples.
Study is both a privilege and a duty. It is not
limited by time, nor does it require special
periods for learning. Hillel had a guideline for
it, as quoted in the Mishna: "Say not, when I
have leisure I will study; you may not have
leisure."
Nevertheless, the demands of time, the eco-
nomic obligations, dominate the restrictions
and the more concerned make it a personal duty
to learn, to be informed, to share knowledge
with the scholars of the ages.
Conditions that dominate the pressures of the
eras which impose challenges on the Jewish
people from all areas and all peoples impose the
obligation to know Jewish history. There are
benefits from the legacies while protecting one's
conscience to be ready for confrontations
when the role of the Jew is vilified and facts are
distorted.
Understandably, the children come first.
There is a precious rabbinic comment on teach-
ing the youth in the Talmud, Taanit 24a: "In
Rab's days, there was a teacher whose prayer for
rain was answered promptly. Asked to tell
about his special merit, he said: 'I teach children
of the poor as well as of the rich; I accept no fee
from anyone who cannot afford it; and I have a
fishpond to delight the children and to encour-
age them to do their lessons.' "
The duty to teach the children is not only
uppermost in Jewish traditional obligations. It
is the predominant one. Without knowledge
they are helpless.
This is applicable now to the adults. If the
children are to be informed, the parents must be
equally knowledgeable, to make the unity of the
family based on a communal understanding of
life's needs and the pressures that affect it.
There is the personal sense of belonging, of
confronting the challenges that affect Jews
more than any other people. That is basic to the
communal programming for adult educational
activities. So much often spreads among
peoples, making them aware of the truth of
Jewish existence. So frequent are the libels cir-
culated about Jews, so deeprooted are some
Does Israel have a sense of humor? -
prejudices, that the neighbor must be informed
For the doubters there is proof of its functioning — in the daily
when he errs. But to be able to inform the
cartoon Dry Bones and in the satirical writings of Ephraim Kishon.
stranger it is vital that the Jew himself be fully
Is Kishon a replica of Mark Twain? Are his writings echoes of
informed, that he imbibe Jewish knowledge,
•
that he know and understand his history and Sholom Aleichem?
Art Buchwald has this view of Kishon: "Ephraim Kishon is the
traditions.
second funniest humorist I know . . . He is hilarious and I hate him."
Indeed, they are equals, and there is proof in many of the Kishon
That is why the Conservative synagogues
have combined their forces and are conducting pieces appearing in English, thus giving him international status in
addition to his delightful comments in Hebrew, and he is naturally
seminars and cultural programs for the adults.
envied while sharing glory in lighter vein stories.
That is why the Reform temples annually
There is new proof of it in "New York Ain't America" (Bantam
undertake similar programs and plead with Books).
their Conservative counterparts for the widest
The Bantam Kishon paperback begins with "Writer's Cramp." It
participation in such programming.
is followed by "Weather Forecast: Scattered Umbrellas," "The Silver
That is why so many OrthodoX groups make it Frenzy," "The Anti-Biotic Relay Race," "Holiday From Marriage,"
a practice to conduct study periods between "Nobody Listens," "Insured Income," "Art Is a Many-Splendored
Minha and Maariv services daily.
Thing," "A Friend Indeed," "The Class Reunion," "A Fishy Business,"
The appeal for participation in such programs "The Logic of the Law," "See No Evil! A Sequel to Kafka's 'The
is widespread. The response must be equally Trial,' " "Frankie," "The Hardest Currency," "To Buy or Not Buy."
Others are "The Nose That Almost Changed-the Course of His-
impressive. The availability of the desired
tory," "Dear Golda . . .," "Jubilation," "Bottoms Up," "Noblesse Ob-
courses makes it obligatory for the concerned
lige," "The Expresso Gambit," "Beware the Guard," "Frank Admira-
Jews not to ignore, the opportunities for learn-
tion," "Going Dutch," "Higher Mathematics," "Operation Last Shirt,"
ing.
"Morris, Where Are You?" "Turkish Delight," "See Italy . . . and
Ephraim Kishon Proves
Israel Has Sense of Humor
U.S., ' ISRAE L AND THE UN
It is an old story, vindictively retold, to the
discredit of the anti-Israel forces and the corn-
fort they derive from the biased in the deluded
civilized society.
The venom that has enveloped the United
Nations is now focused on the attempt to oust
Israel from the world organization. These tac-
tics have been in evidence for some years. UN-
ESCO's deliberations were among the first to be
poisoned. Now several other UN agencies are
prejudicing their decencies with similar action.
This has led U.S. Secretary of State George
Shultz to warn that if such a move were under-
taken this country would withdraw from such
agencies.
On occasion there even develops a sentiment
in this country entirely to abandon affiliation
with the UN. William Safire echoed such sen-
timents by stating in reference to the newest
anti-Israel villifications:
"The latest skirmish in the continuing war on
Israel took place first in the International
Atomic Energy Agency; next came an attempt
to deny credentials to the Israelis in the Inter-
national Telecommunications Union; in coming
weeks, the attack will come in the Office of the
UN High Commissioner for Refugees and later
UNESCO.
"The Arabs were well aware that the Reagan
Administration would have no choice but to
walk out of any UN session to which the Israelis
were denied access. That is not merely an execu-
tive branch decision; it is the recorded sense of
the Congress, in a concurrent resolution — pro-
posed by Rep. Jack Kemp and Sen. Daniel P.
Moynihan — that was passed almost unanim-
ously six months ago .. .
"As a conscience of humanity or a reflection of
international power, the General Assembly has
become a joke.
"This is our chance to call the Third-World's
bluff, let them push us out, and then invite the
UN to locate elsewhere. The U.S. should remain
in the Security Council, assigning a low-level
foreign service officer to the seat to cast vetoes,
but should refuse to dignify the less responsible
UN bodies with our presence."
Secretary of State Shultz's emphatic declara-
tion is a re-affirmation of U.S.-Israel friendship
and a call to decency on the international scene.
It is a relief from the mounting abominations.
What is not to be ignored,, however, is the
encouragement Arab-Third World-Soviet hat-
reds receive from the so-called civilized Western
European powers. While they, too, said they
will not approve of Israel's ouster from the UN,
the votes most of them have cast against Israel
in the deliberations of UN agencies serve to
indict them in the courts of humanism. They are
accomplices to venom and injustice.
Drop Dead," "Lama," "Land Without Fleas," "Eating Out," "An
Obelisk in Every Knapsack," "For Guests Only," "Job," "Lovely Rain,
Isn't It," "Bullshit Artist," and then comes "New York Ain't
America," the story used as the title for the book. The concluding piece
is "How Does One Write a Funny Piece?"
The reason for listing all the titles is because collectively they
suggest the total coverage of human interests, Israeli experiences and
problems, the humorist's concerns.
It is in "New York Ain't America" that the reader will be submit-
ted to the hilarity that exposes a humorist-satirist who has been to
New York, has studied its ways and the people who populate it, and
then covered the United States in a manner that would have caused
not only Buchwald but Mark Twain as well to envy the remarkable
observer.
The reader is taken everywhere, on a tour. The travelogue covers
Washington, Texas, Arizona, ("A Broadway musical is worth more
than all the cattle in Arizona), the California areas, with a view of the
New York metropolis that will draw many laughs, and a good laugh,
as in Buchwald, often creates anger.
He doesn't leave out Las Vegas, which he reaches after being in
Hollywood. He traverses Las Vegas with "its fabulous main street and
no side streets whatsoever." He likens it to his Negev: "We entered the
sands because it reminded us of our Negev, and found ourselves in a
huge hall in which thousands of madmen were rolling dice, operating
slot machines and playing cards and roulette."
New Orleans provides added fascination and then comes the end
of a journey, the plane a half-hour late in departing: "Lined up in the
passengers' lounge were about 20 slot machines glittering in a variety
of colors. You only had to insert a coin and hold the lever. May my
right hand forget its cunning if I forget thee Las Vegas."
And then, passing judgment after the hold-up and the ignoring of
everything except the slot machines, "By the way, what is New
Orleans like?"
Could there be a better observer, providing proof that "New York
Ain't America?" Here is the proof that Kishon entertains — and also
enlightens. He is a marvelous Israeli humorist!