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
Editor and Publisher
ALAN HITSKY
News Editor
CARMI M. SLOMOVITZ
Business Manager
HEIDI PRESS
Associate News Editor
DREW LIEBERWITZ
Advertising Manager
Sabbath Scriptural Selections
This Sabbath, the 15th day of Shevat, 5743, the following scriptural selections will be read in our synagogues:
Pentateuchal portion, Exodus 13:17-17:16.
Prophetical portion, Judges 4:4-5:31.
Candlelighting, Friday, Jan. 28, 5:25 p.m.
VOL. LXXXII, No. 22
Page Four
Friday, January 28, 1983
OUT OF THE EMBERS
Metropolitan Detroit rose to great heights
the morning after the fire reduced to ashes
much of the structure of Beth Abraham Hillel
Moses synagogue.
From all the sister congregations came
word that what had existed exists, and the
others are actual extensions of the congregation
that had an active life here for 90 years, contain-
ing a merger of three congregations and func-
tioning under the traditional slogan coined in
Psarms, "Lo'emut ki ekhye" — "I shall not die
but live to declare the words of the Lord."
From Christian fellow citizens came simi-
lar assertions of faith, offers for use of their
facilities for the Beth Abtaham Hillel Moses
continuity.
Such is the Jewish spirit, this is the Ameri-
can way of life, always extending a helping
hand to assure perpetuation of .the corporate
spiritual values which also create the kinships
that spell the highest measures of a civilized
society.
The message of the community is a clear
one, the dedication to continuity is firm and
therefore attainable.
Out of the embers is developing the
strength and the new unending life that merges
with faith and never slumbers.
A song that gained popularity in the early
decades of this century acclaimed the high aim
of "Libnot u'Leibanot Bo" — "To Build and to be
Rebuilt by It." It is still heard occasionally as a
dedication to the Zionist ideal and it relates to
people building and rebuilding and rededicat-
ing — themselves and their ideals.
This is what is occurring out of the sadness
that_ struck not only Beth Abraham Hillel
Moses but the entire Jewish community.
Most inspiring is the Hebrew hymn
"Sheyibane Beth HaMikdash," an acclaim for
the rebuilding of the Temple. After the Shir
Shalom prayer in the Sabbath liturgy there is
thiS "Yehi Ratzon:
May it be Thy will, 0 Lord our God and God
of our fathers, to grant our portion in Thy Torah
and may the Temple be rebuilt in our days. There
we will serve Thee with awe as in the says of old.
Such is the message. Out of the embers
evolves rebuilding, a continuity as of yore. Beth
Abraham Hillel Moses rebuilt is the reassur-
ance of the indestructibility of the People Israel.
A BIAS ON TRIAL
It took 38 years to awaken a wider con-
science in behalf of a great hero of World War II.
It is 48 years since Raoul Wallenberg's incarc-
eration by the Russians, after he had rescued
tens of thousands of Jews, and certainly also as
many non-Jews, from the death camps. There
have been many demands for action in his be-
half; certainly in these columns in which the
Wallenberg historic chapter had major consid-
eration. Now there are rebukes for the Swedish
failures to demand the freeing of Wallenberg,
and the condemnations of the Russian insis-
tence upon keeping the fate of Wallenberg a
secret.
The revival of the Swedish role by George
F. Will, who rejects the apologetics in defense of
Sweden, serves to add importance to the new
interest in Wallenberg created by eyewitness
reports that he is still alive.
Then there are the noteworthy concerns
expressed on Wallenberg by the New York
Times, whose editorial entitled "The Swede and
the Gulag" adds a note of condemnation on the
Soviet bars to Jewish emigrants desiring to find
refuge and succor in other lands.
The New York Titles points out editorially
that the number of emigration visas that were
issued to Russian Jews in 1982 was 2,670„,con-
trasted with 9,447 in 1981 and 51,320 in 1979.
The Times editorial thereupon offers an ad-
monishing bit of advice:
"Those figures speak sadly about the harsh
and hermetic nature of Soviet society in Leonid
Brezhnev's final years of power. If Yuri An-
dropov wants to alter his country's baleful im-
age, let him honor Raoul Wallenberg's heroism
by loosening the emigration padlocks."
There is a seriousness both in the guilt that
may be ascribed to Sweden, whose hesitancy to
act in Wallenberg's behalf until now was as-
cribed to a policy of avoiding a conflict with a
nation whose friendship was treated with cau-
tion, and the Russian insistence upon keeping
the Wallenberg fate a secret.
At the same time, the Russian bias toward
pleaders for exit visas has come into play at a
time when the doors to emigrants is being shut
with a vengeance. It is the Russian role espe-
cially that is vital to the issue labeled Raoul
Wallenberg. As the man whose name is at-
tached to Honorary American Citizenship —
the only other person to have earned such an
honor having been Winston Churchill — Wal-
lenberg becomes a U.S. responsibility in the
battle for justice and for his release from Rus-
sian imprisonment.
GOODWILL ON AGENDA
Washington's Birthday was the choice, by
the National Conference of Christians and
Jews, and its Detroit, arm, the Detroit Round
Table, as a day to emphasize goodwill, high-
lighting Brotherhood Week. Another day rates
the goodwill designation: the Sabbath of Jan.
22, when a service for a Jewish congregation
was hosted by a Christian house of worship.
The significance of the event was that all
faiths shared in the sorrow of a burnt synagogue
and extended hands of friendship.
Meanwhile, the entire community, of all
faiths, is in an embrace after the unhappy
occurrence of Jan. 18.
That's how goodwill gains a place in
people's hearts on a year-round basis.
Such is the spirit of justice and toleration
that has becOme a reality here in a time of sad-
ness.
Prof. Ellmann's Classic:
His Imperishable 'Joyce'
Prof. Richard Ellmann, the native Detroiter who has gained fame
in world literary circles, especially for his definitive works on Joyce,
and also his authoritative writings on Yeats, is in the limelight again
with his classic, "James Joyce" (Oxford), republished in a revised
edition on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Joyce's birth.
So much of human interest intermingles with the Jewish aspects
of the renewed Joyce that the republished volume assumes immense
interest. It has a special appeal for the historically- and socially-
minded Jew. It is not only because of the Leopold Bloom character in
"Ulysses" but because of the many aspects that involved anti-
Semitism, that generated opposition to the bias, that indicated the
famous Joyce involvements in with traditional aspects of justice re-
lated to Jews and their historical aspects.
How revealing that in Ellmann's "Joyce" there are two references
to the ritual murder libel and to resort to it by bigots in two experi-
ences related in the revised biography.
Ellmann relates that when Joyce returned to his Dublin home
from Paris in 1903 "he was in time for one of the rare manifestations of
anti-Semitism in Ireland, a boycott of Jewish merchants in Limerick
that was accompanied by some violence." That Joycian experience is
explained by Ellmann in this footnote:
"On Jan. 12, 1904, Father John Creagh, a Redemptionist, ac-
cused the Jews of shedding Christian blood. The boycott lasted a year.
Eighty members of the Jewish community were driven out, and only
40 were left. Then Creagh was withdrawn from Limerick."
Ellmann also reports in his biographical account that Joyce
attended a protest meeting in 1919 to condemn the ritual murder
libel. It accounted for an episode in "Ulysses."
Joyce's frequent use of Hebrew words may also account for his
interesting comment on the Talmud, as quoted by Ellmann:
"The Talmud says at one point, 'We Jews are like the olive: we
give our best when we are being crushed, when we are collapsing
under the burden of our foliage.' "
Among the deeply moving Joycian experiences is the interest he
showed in refugees from Nazism. Ellmann has an important account
of how Joyce "in 1938 began to help people escape from Nazi territory
to Ireland and America." Important evidential instances of the help
he personally provided is accounted for in the Ellmann biography.
"I have written with the greatest of sympathy about the Jews,"
Joyce replied to a Harvard Jewish student who wrote to him critically.
"The first of these was Hermann Broch, whom Joyce knew
through an essay, 'James Joyce and die Gegenwart'; Broch was ob-
liged by the Anschluss of March 1938 to leave Vienna, and Joyce
helped him reach England. Two others were relatives of old friends:
one was the son of Charlotte Sauermann, the second a nephew of
Edmund Brauchbar.
"Joyce had friends in the French Foreign Office and elsewhere
shose help he enlisted, with his usual energy, in behalf of about 16
refugees in various stages of flight or resettlement.
"Joyce had Padraic Colum write to the Irish Minister of Justice,
asking for a residence permit for one of these. The reply was no. Joyce
would not accept the refusal. He said to Colum, 'You didn't put the
matter strongly enough. Write to the man again.' This time the
minister acceded."
Thus, a great literary work also emerges as an historical docu-
ment.
Reading Ellmann's "James Joyce" is a fascinating experience. it
may well be rated the most brilliantly written biography of the cen-
tury.
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