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 30th day of Sivan, 5743,
the following scriptural selections will be read in our synagogues:
Pentateuchal portion, Numbers 16:1-18:32, 28:9-15.
Prophetical portion, I Samuel 20:18, 42.
Sunday, second day, Rosh Hodesh Tammuz, Numbers 28:1-15.
Candlelighting, Friday, June 10, 8:49 p.m.
VOL. LXXXIII, No. 15
Page Four
Friday, June 10, 1983
TALK SHOW ANTI-SEMITISM
Tuning in on talk shows popularized by
radio stations has caused much conern in many
quarters. The trouble stems from a spreading of
venom, a continuing distortion of facts and a
failure properly to refute the spreading libels.
All-too-often, these prejudicial practices
reveal themselves as organized means of
maligning Jews, of condemning Israel, of re-
peating the age-old accusations that cannot be
dismissed by merely shouting "lies, lies." When
not effectively confronted, an old Nazi approach
— "the more often the lie is repeated, the sooner
it will be accepted as truth" — becomes a real
menace to facts and realities.
It is no wonder, therefore, that the talk
show becomes a matter of concern and deep
hurt; that it often arouses anger.
The angered may as well realize that an
adherence to the basic principle of freedom of
expression, of untrammeled rights acquired by
the media, must be treated as non-interference
with the treatment accorded to the news media.
It is in relation to editorializing, to expression of
opinion and interpretation of the news that
basic principles are under scrutiny.
Therefore, there must be an acceptance of
realism and a sensibly practical judging of a
spreading practice that must be tested.
There are two solutions to be taken into
consideration: one is the response from the lis-
teners to the adopted programming; the other is
the reception given to the libelers by the mod-
erators of such programs.
The latter portion of this double-barreled
approach is vital to the issue. It is to be expected
that when a person moderates a program, he or
she must have a basic knowledge of the problem
at hand. If it is the Holocaust, it is criminal for
the guide to the discussion to permit-anyone to
sully memories, to abuse hsitoric realities, to
fail to take into account that Hitler's Germany
was responsible for some 20 million murders,
the Six Million Jews among them.
A moderator should have some information
about Israel and Zionism, about the events in
the Middle East, about the struggles and the
American-Israel traditional friendship. It does
not mean that a news medium moderator be-
comes a propagandist for Jews and for Israel. It
does require respect for Jewish sentiments, for
recognition of many of the developing factors in
world situations.
The first portion of the projected approach
is a challenge to Jews. Listeners to talk shows
must feel a duty not to permit libels and distor-
tions to gain much ground. Therefore, they
must be well prepared to confront the libelers.
At this point there should be a granting of
criticism, based on self-scrutiny, of self-
judgment. If there is a lack of knowledge in
Jewish ranks about the historically-tested
occurrences and developments, then the tackl-
ing of the issue at hand becomes difficult, often
impossible.
The realities suggest the urgent need of
teaching the community, of providing the
truths and the factual that are necessary for the
refutation of libels whenever and wherever they
may be uttered.
This calls for strengthening of the priorities
in Jewish communal procedures, of making
education, teaching and learning, the major re-
sponsibility on the community calendar.
This latter obligation includes the duty to
the fellow citizens who are in vital positions as
media moderators. They, too, must have the
facts, and the organized Jewish community
must provide them.
If these analyses are applicable to the situ-
ations that create agonies among those who
hear the libelous and distorted from the media,
then there should be proper application of
whatever cures are needed to solve the ills in the
communicative areas. -Solutions do not come
from panicking. Therefore the need for action —
and for realism.
SADDENED ANNIVERSARY
A year has passed since the inauguration of
the Peace for Galilee military action, and the
anniversary is a laden with sadness.
Nearly 500 Israelis have lost their lives in a
war that became a necessity to end the PLO
menace, and the struggle is not over. Israeli
soldiers in the thousands are still in Lebanon,
and the demands for their withdrawal are grow-
ing.
_
That the opposition to the Likud govern-
ment should be exercising unanimity in de-
mands that Israel withdraw from Lebanon is
understandable. That the Peace Now move-
ment should have gained in strength with an
impressive continuity of action is an evidence of
an impassioned craving for an end to warfare
and for the Israeli adherence to freedom of ac-
tion which does not hesitate to condemn the
government in power when it is found wanting.
Yet, there is the compulsion to provide the
protection necessary for an Israel whose borders
will be freed from the dangers that compelled a
tragic war. There is no security for Israel under
any circumstances, except under the power of
the nation's ability to defend itself. There is
little, if any, consolation in the numerous re-
ports that PLO leaderShip is split, that Arafat
has an active opposition. There is the unques-
tioned danger that whoever may succeed Arafat
could prove more menacing.
Comfort from the distressing occurrences is
not easily approachable when such strange bed-
fellows as the Soviet Union, Saudi Ar'abia and
Algeria form a combine to bail out Yasir Arafat
from his unsafe position amidst his own PLO.
Such are the conditions under which a war
anniversary is being recorded. At best, it is a
tragic mood.
.
`Olomeinu'— Inspirational
Traditional Story-Telling
"Olomeinu — Our World" is the magazine of the Torah
Umesorah, the National Society of Hebrew Day Schools. It features
general information about Jews and educational movements, and
fiction — narratives about Jewish festivals and observances — has
become an important element of the magazine for students in the day
schools and their families.
These stories have now been compiled into a series of volumes
which emerge as important literature for young readers. "The Best of
Olomeinu" is the title of the series of narratives published by Urn-
esorah Publications. The fourth volume in the series has just been
issued, and the stories are an emphasis on the festival season just
concluded — Lag b'Omer, Shavuot, the tradition of the counting of the
Omer.
Rabbi Yaakov Fruchter, editor of the magazine, compiled the
stories for the newest "Olomeinu" volume. It was edited by -Rabbi
Nosson Scherman.
There are 20 stories in this volume, eight of them by Rabbi
Zevulun Weisberger.
Thus, as fiction, fully relating to festivals and traditional obser-
vances, in the present creative effort including the Sefira, a notable
contribution is made to Jewish studies.
Not only the youth, who are the immediate beneficiaries in these
story-telling compilations, but their parents as well benefit from an
authoritative, definitive task which results both in learning and in
enjoying good stories.
"Olomeinu" enriches traditional tasks in the Jewish learning
processes. It also adds status to the Hebrew day school movement.
The Bible as History'
Archeologically Tested
Archeology continues to play a basic role in testing history.
Are the many tales told in the Bible provable, real? Have they
actually occurred?
In "The Bible as History" (Bantam Books), Dr. Werner Keller, a
German Bible student and teacher, touches on the important and
challenging questions, such as the Great Flood, the Crossing of the
Red Sea, the Battle of Jericho, the battles fought by Joshua and other
"puzzling" and adventurous occurrences.
The newly-revised edition of Dr. Keller's important studies re-
lates to the Old Testament; the Isreli Kingdoms, the Maccabean
period. Dr. Werner also reviews the New Testament events.
There is this interesting conclusion by this eminent Christian
scholar:
"Is the Bible always right? We shall certainly be able to answer in
the affirmative for those passages which have been confirmed by
non-Biblical parallel sources or by archeological discoveries. The
Bible can claim another form of 'rightness,' however, insofar as it
brings nearer to us its times and the people of its times with their
ways of thought and behavior so that we learn how better to under-
stand their sermons, parables, allegories, visions, symbols and allu-
sions.
"Perhaps we shall some day be in a position to affirm, even of
passages, which are still unclear and puzzling to us today, that the
Bible is right after all, as seen through the eyes of the people of its
times!"
Even in the Christological approaches, Dr. Keller's volume
arouses great interest and inspires study in "The Bible as History.".