THE JEWISH NEWS (USPS 275-5201 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 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!