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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
Editor
DREW LIEBERWITZ
Advertising Manager
Sabbath Scriptural Selections
This Sabbath, the third day of Iyar, 5743, the following scriptural selections will be read in our synagogues:
Pentateuchal portion, Leviticus 12:1-15:33. Prophetical portion, II Kings 7:3-20.
Monday, Yom HaAtzmaut — Israel Independence Day
Candlelighting, Friday, April 15, 6:56 p.m.
VOL. LXXXIII, No. 7
Page Four
Friday, April 15, 1983
ISRAEL: 'LIGHT UNTO ITSELF'
At age 35, Israel has a message for the
world. The sovereign nation also has a message
to herself and_ her people, and to Jews
everywhere who have shared in the hopes for
her redemption and continue to labor for the
state's security.
Always in the limelight, frequently
maligned, the years that are brief in any na-
tion's history register a record of such impres-
sive achievements for Israel that there is jus-
tified cause for pride by the builders of Zion and
all who have a share in the glories of attained
sovereignty.
In the three-and-a-half decades of reborn
statehood, Israel was confronted by many obs-
tacles, was compelled to resort to warfare to
sustain herself. Much vitality was needed to
attain the realities that are the Jewish state's.
Seldom off the front pages of the world
press, even less often credited with the accom-
plishments that have made the state a recog-
nized factor in the international community,
there is such a continuing chronicled historical
record of hurdling obstacles that rejoicing in
achievements is fully justified.
In recent months there have been so many
accusations, so many expressions of hatred, that
the ultimate result, if that may be considered
attained on the occasion of the 35th anniversary
of Israel, is that the adherents to fair play in the
American sense of justice and goodwill in man-
kind can claim pride in the consistency of
Jewish adherence to the ideals which have kept
the people alive during the sorrowful centuries
of oppression.
Israel was challenged in her historic record
of being "a light unto the nations." The manner
in which self-judgment was performed in recent__
weeks should have convinced even the bitterest
of enemies that this ethical principle has not
been abandoned.
Major in import: rice is that this message
has not been addressed primarily to the world
community but that it is the inerasable code for -
Jews everywhere, for Israel and the Diaspora
alike.
_
An important anniversary like the current
one would lose its value if it were not for the
permanence and adherence, even the perfec-
tion, of that moral code. Its basis is in humani-
ty's records, the proof in Israel's way of life.
There is a cultural-spiritual force in Israel
that retains the message of its creative realities.
Compelled to adhere to its military needs, with-
out which security could never be attained, it is
as a spiritual center, with emphasis on the uni-
versities, that lends credence to the sense of
pride that is engendered by the accom-
plishments in the Jewish state, in the preparat-
ory stages for it and during the 35 years of
sovereignty.
Would that those who reserve the most
sensational spots in newspapers, and in com-
ments in the media, would speak of what Israel
creates and produces rather than the negatives
which have predominated. Research is a devo-
tion in the medical spheres, there are technical
advances, cures are sought for mankind's
illnesses.
These are not exaggerations. They are
realities, and the academic concerns are a mat-
ter of record.
That which has made Israel a haven for the
oppressed remains a factor in state-functioning,
and the fact that the state of Israel marks an end
to the homelessness of the Jewish people, which
was a mark of shame for mankind, offers satis-
faction even for Israel's severest critics.
Therefore, that which was achieved is a
cause for the rejoicing which marks a celebra-
tion of an important anniversary.
Israel can claim the pride of being "a light"
not only when it is tested by the international
communities but especially as a symbol of
Jewish pride in attainment of the highest goals
in perpetuating human values.
There is much to be concerned with on the
occasion of the present anniversary celebration.
There is much more to take pride in. Israel and
her high standards of morality are more than a
mere goal. They are the reality of the 35th an-
niversary.
It is with such rejoicing over genuine at-
tainments that Diaspora Jewry greets Israel on
her 35th birthday. Because there are genuine
friends in the non-Jewish spheres who share
these greetings, the current celebration is even
more significant. In this spirit that which is
personal flit Jews becomes a community-wide
event for the justice-loving and spiritually-
motivated in mankind.
MANIPULATED HYSTERIA
Psalm 85:12 has a lesson for the most naive
in its admonition: "Truth springs out of the
earth."
Indeed, truth cannot be hidden for too long,
especially in any attempt to scuttle it.
There is a continuing attempt to do just
that in what is termed the revolutionary in the
West Bank which is Judea and Samaria to the
Israelis.
Demonstrations are normal in a human
sphere. When they are steeped in misrepresen-
tations which develop into lies, they vulgarize
human relations.
This is the result of a clever scheme to
mobilize hundreds of young girls, most of them
mere youngsters, to feign nausea while shout-
ing accusations that Israel is poisoning them.
It is a reminder of the Middle Ages, when
Jews were accused of poisoning wells. This has
become part of an historical record of the hat-
reds that resulted in pogroms, mass murders,
the burning of Jews in synagogues in the period
of the Crusades when such lies were spread be-
cause Jews, adhering to dietary laws, were pro-
ted health-wise.
Now there is the manipulated mass hys-
teria among youngsters and the clever inciters
to hatred are resorting to such means.
From Wayne State University Press
`Jerusalem Cattledra' Is High-
Ranking Historical Research
Eretz Israel as the center of world interest, Israel as the emerging
national-spiritual Jewish force, Jerusalem in its traditional glory —
all these factors are impressively presented as a notable contribution
to students of Jewish and world history in a highly-scholarly collec-
tion of essays.
"Jerusalem Cathedra" (Wayne State University Press) is the
immensely-researched collection of data by scholars of notable emi-
nence.
"Cathedra" is "an official chair, as a professor in a university."
This defines an approach to totality in exproring the vastness of the
material incorporated in this WSU volume.
Edited by Lee I. Levine, the three sections indicate the coverage
of all eras historically related to the subject. The ancient, medieval
and modern periods are under discussion.
That the first essay in the ancient period should begin with a
discussion of Jerusalem in Biblical times is an initial symbol of a
continuity that traces the major factors in the over-all spectrum of an
important accumulation of historic data. Dr. Benjamin Mazar intro-
duces the subject as an authority of note, as an archaelogical expert
who conducted the diggings which unearthed the relics of the past.
- Excavations and their findings also are echoed in the essay on "A
Sadducean Halakha and the Jerusalem Aqueduct." Joseph Pattrich
provides the information' that illuminates this subject.
Menahem Stern deals with the "Social and Political Realignment
in Herodian Judea."
In the section on the ancient period there is also an introductory
essay about "Gaza During the Greco-Roman Era," by Arueh Kasher.
Because the last section, dealing with the modern period; includes an
essay, "The History of the Gaza Strip: A Geo-Political and Geo-
Strategic Perspective," by Mordehai Gichon, the thoroughness and
completeness of the studies in this volume receive added attention.
The entire histoiy of the Israel of the present period of
revivalism is linked with the medieval as well as the present and is
emphasized in the two essays dealing with the medieval period.
The section on the modern period is remarkably extensive. It
deals with the First Aliya, the religious polemics injected in the 1937
partition plan and the Gaza aspect. The symposium on the "Greater
Syrian Plan and the Palestine Problem" bring the discussion up to the
present.
It is because of the research and the eminence of the authors who
were selected for so thorough a study of the Israeli-Palestinian-Arab
involvements that "Jerusalem Cathedra" gains so much significance.
It should be noted, for example, that Mordehai Gichon,: in his
analysis of the present-day status of the Gaza Strip, states:
"The battles of Israel's Defense Forces in the Strip, beginning
with Israel's War of Independence, are outside the scope of this study.
However, one who compares them with the events of history will
discover that, in terms of the fundamental geographic-security char-
acteristics of the area and their effect on the battles waged therein —
little has changed. In conclusion we may say that the basic role of the
Gaza Strip as the main artery of communication between Egypt and
Israel has not changed throughout history, nor has the major influ-
ence exercised by developments and events in that area upon the fate
and fortunes of Israel."
It is evident that an objective approach, concern with historic
facts, gives credence to "Jerusalem Cathedra" as a work of historic
merit. The book is an enrichment of the Judaica publications which
give WSU Press special status in producing books of great Jewish
merit.