2 Friday, July 1, 1983 THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS Purely Commentary Glorious Way of Celebrating Fourth of July: The Task of Assuring Proper Garb for Statue of Liberty and in Process Honoring Emma Lazarus and Her 'New Colossus' Liberty and Its Colossus: Repairing a Statue Becomes Patriotic-Sentimental Ideal great deal of courage." What Mr. Young did not mention was that Mr. Abram had twice arranged Dr. King's release from jail, once for a traffic charge and once for his role in a department store sit-in. While Dr. King was in jail on the traffic charge, Mr. Abram acted as a go-between for the telephone call the civil rights leader received from John F. Kennedy, then a Presidential candidate. Mr. Abram, who served as an important link between Mr. Carter and the Jewish community in the 1976 Presidential campaign, announced in 1979 that he could not back his fellow Georgian for. re-election because Mr. Carter had failed to show "moral leadership" in handling the incident that brought about Mr. Young's resignation from the Carter Cabinet. Mr. Young resigned after giv- ing conflicting versions of a secret meeting he had held with a representative of the Palestine Liber- ation Organization. The pity is that Andrew Young, already having fomented discord at the UN, continuing in that spirit in his mayoralty role as a fraternizer with anti-Israel Arabs, should have chosen a most respected name for abuse. Mor- ris Abram has been, continues, as a consistent supporter of civil rights movements. Even bias from Atlanta will not erase these facts. Paul Borman and his associates in the Farmer Jack supermarkets have done some very interesting planning for the oncoming Fourth of July celebration. They have introduced a movement to repair the Statue of Liberty on Bedloe's Island. The sentiments of this task are deeply moving and the mottoes are superb. Referring to the Great Lady on the shores of New York, the Farmer Jack appeal is, "She's watched over us. Now let's watch over her." Thereby the Borman-managed supermarkets call at- tention, on the eve of the freedom festival, to the famous poem on the Statue of Liberty and to its author, to Emma Lazarus and "The New Colossus." Therefore, the opportu- nity to print again that great poem, which has been recited a million times and has been put to music: • The New Colossus By EMMA LAZARUS Not like the brazen giant, of Greek fame, With conquering limbs astride from land to land, Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand, A mighty woman, with a torch, whose flame Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles. From her beacon hand Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame. "Keep, ancient lands, your stories pomp!" cries she With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free; The wretched refuse of your teeming shore — Send them, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me — I lift my lamp beside the golden door!" On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Emma Lazarus' publication of her great poetic work, this com- mentator wrote in these columns, in the June 9, 1971 is- sue, about the "Dramatic Story of Emma Lazarus and `New Colossus': Centenary of Liberty Bard's Poetic Debut." This is a timely occasion once again to pay honor to the Colossus Bard. The Lazarus Centennial essay thus referred to contained these passages: Emma Lazarus is a name indelibly recorded in American-Jewish history. "The New Colossus" which has given her world fame as a champion of rights for homeless is engraved for all generations on the Statue of Liberty on Bedloe's Island in New York Harbor. The basic facts are recorded and frequently repeated as a reminder of the eminent poet's role as an interpreter of Jewish ideals. She was born in New York City, July 22, 1849, wrote her first poem when she was 14, and in 1871 her first book of verse came off the press. This year (1971), therefore, marks the centenary of her emergence as a poet of note whose writings were commended by Ralph Waldo Emerson and other noted American writers. Fifteen years later she was to become world famous for her poem "The New Colossus" which was engraved on the Statue of Liberty to be read by millions to this day. When her poem "The New Colossus" was cho- sen for the Bartholdi monument, it was a bright occasion for the noted poet who died in her 38th year — Nov. 19, 1887 — only one year after the poem was immortalized' on the national monu- ment, the Statue of Liberty Enlightening the World. It was on Oct. 28, 1886, that President Grover Cleveland formally dedicated the Statue of Lib- erty. Emma Lazarus, one of the unforgotten geniuses of American Jewry, was the daughter of Moses and Esther Lazarus, Orthodox Jews of aristocratic Portuguese lineage. Raised in weal- thy and sheltered surroundings, she was edu- cated by private tutors and spent her youth among the well-to-do. She reached the peak of her greatness as the result of the awakening within her of the Hebraic spirit. It was always latent but was not brought to the surface until she was shaken out of her reti- cence and literary naivete by the pogroms in Rus- sia and Romania from 1879 to 1882. The tragedy of these events stirred her so deeply that she turned her poetic genius to the defense of her people. In prose and in verse she pleaded for justice to the Jew. The vigor of her writings and the sincer- ity of her pleas gave notice that a giant advocate had arisen to defend the rights of the Jews. In By Philip Slomovitz EMMA LAZARUS poem after poem, she counseled a Zion rebuilt, depicted the tragedy of a harassed Israel and created word pictures which, for prophetic and beautiful expression of the age-long cry of the Jews, have seldom been equalled. The writing of "The New Colossus" was a di- rect outgrowth of Emma Lazarus' belated but passionate concern for the safety of her fellow Jews. Despite her delicate health, she spent many days visiting the haggard and ragged Jewish im- migrants from Russia and Romania who crowded the immigration station on War Island in 1881 and 1882. Recalling Emma Lazarus and her "Colossus" is a:glori- ous way of supplementing the appeal to place a new garb on the Statue of Liberty. To the initiators of the Statue of Liberty Fund, to Paul Borman who thereby pays honor to the memory of his father Abraham Borman, and to the Farmer Jack firm should go appreciation for patriotism and sentmentality. Tampering with the Record Harms Human Relations MORRIS ABRAM ANDREW' YOUNG In the best interests of wholesome Americanism, it is so very urgent that good relations should not be tampered with, that strife should be averted, that differing views should not be cause for anger and hatred! Affirmative action unfortunately caused some rifts, the human relations approaches are not always above mis- representations and distortions, President Reagan's ap- pointees to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission caused an animosity that is to be deeply regretted. The President's naming of Morris Abram as one of his selectees for that commission became a cause for dispute and anger. How unfortunate that the name of a consistent libertarian should have been dragged into a gutter-like dispute! In relation to the Abram appointment, Phil Gailey had an analytical report in the New York Times, in the course of which he recalled: Mayor Andrew Young of Atlanta, a former aide to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr: who served as President Carter's representative to the United Nations, recently scoffed at the notion that Mrs. Abram, a native of Fitzgerald, Ga., had ever been "directly involved in the civil rights movement" in the South. "Morris Abram was a lawyer who got Martin Luther King out of jail on a traffic ticket," Mr. Young told reporters, adding, "It didn't require a Shocking Terrorization Emerges as a Profanation Borough Park, a sanctified area in Brooklyn, N.Y., has been profaned by a mobster element that poses in religios- ity. It happened before, when the always kindly and courteous Lubavitch representatives were molested by a group that acclaimed itself as an opposition to the Chabad functionaries. It is elementary to state that there is no reason for bitterness by one group toward another, and the record of activity by the Lubavitcher does not and could not show even the slightest resentment over the existence of another faction that calls itself Hasidic. Perhaps the Satmar them- selves have no explanation for their terrorist tactics against the Lubavitch and also the Belser Hasidim. The courts of law now have it on their records that a group that transported a Satmar terrorist spirit from Hungary has introduced violence and has inflicted bodily harm on Hasidim they dislike because they bear the names Bels and Lubavitch. There are some 100,000 Jews who are in Hasidic ranks in Borough Park. They worship in some 100 synagogues. There was room for all and a unifying spirit beckoned to them — until some — hopefully the label does not apply to all Satmar — chose to kidnap, harm, constantly molest elements that may not even differ too drastically with them. The terrorists are even accused of arson, and fires reportedly have been kindled by the terrorists in the syna- gogues. It is no wonder that these acts have been branded as a Hillul haShem — profanation of the Divine Name! There is much that has happened in Brooklyn that also is traceable to Mea Shearim in Jerusalem, to the Neturei Karta who keep shouting that they do not approve of the Israel that really provides for them. That element that has sent messages to Hussein of Jordan, inciting him to rescue them from Jews who are Zionists. Such is the link that is the inhumanity of fanaticism, the terror created by a very few whose crimes give the impression of a massive terroristic force. They are few but they cause much harm. Those who know the Lubavitch, sufferers at the hands of this horrible group, do not need proof of their humility and rejection of the inhumanities to which their associates were subjected in Brooklyn. On the local scene, as elsewhere, the respect and admiration for them remains intact. ORT Leaders Toast Herzog Newly elected Israeli President Chaim Herzog, right, accepts congratulations from Dr. William Haber, adviser to the president of the University of Michigan and past president of the World ORT Union (left) and Shelley Appleton, chairman of the World ORT Union Executive Committee at a reception given by ORT in Jerusalem. Herzog is a former president of the World ORT Union.