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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 10th day of Shevat, 5744, the following scriptural selections will be read in our synagogues:
Pentateuchal portion, Exodus 13:17-17:16.
Prophetical portion, Judges 4:4-5:31.
Thursday, Tu b'Shevat
Candlelighting, Friday, Jan. 13, 5:08 p.m.
VOL. LXXXIV, No. 20
Page Four
Friday, January 13, 1984
THE JUDGES AT THE POLL S
President Ronald Reagan is yet to declare
whether he will be the Republican candidate for
re-election. It is assumed that his announce-
ment in the coming days will be a reassertion of
the generally-held view that his and George
Bush's names will be on the ballot contending
with whoever of the eight Democratic aspirants
will be the opponent. The political year is never-
theless heating up rapidly. In fact, it is already a
boiling pot. It even had an echo in Damascus. It
is watched with eagerness in Jerusalem. The
world's capitals focus their concerns on Wash-
ington.
Indeed, as the pot boils, many disputable
issues are being introduced. Among them, most
expressively, is the Middle East. The result of
the tragic involvements in Lebanon may have
serious effects on a situation filled with agonies.
In the process, there are already the kind of
disruptive voices that advocate reduction in the
Israel-American friendship, some even calling
for complete, if not major, reduction in U.S. aid
to Israel.
It is the good fortune of the common-
sense approach that nearly all the candidates
have gone on record declaring they will con-
tinue the policy of cooperation between the two
nations.
Fortunately, the emphasis is on the Ameri-
can role that is in accord with a democratic
Israeli position that links the two into a
partnership vital to the peace of the entire Mid-
dle East. Candidates who recognize the role of
this nation affected by worldwide conditions
which call for a strong American ally in the
Middle East, emphasize views which accept the
reality of the Israel-American cooperative
friendship. There is much talk now that it is
disintegrating. Responsible aspirants for the
Presidency minimize it; most of them reject it.
Therefore, the atmosphere is not as vicious
as some would describe it.
What the prophets of doom will surely rec-
ognize in the course of time is not only what the
well-briefed candidates know and respect: the
ultimate judge is the citizen at the ballot box.
That's the element that expresses wisdom when
casting a ballot.
The average citizen knows what is good for
America, and that's how he votes. The balloter
always supported what is best and wisest for
America. Come judgment day, and it may well
be anticipated that friendships among democ-
racies are not easily broken. Come November,
and if prophecy is permission it may well be
expected that the Israel-American friendship
will continue as a symbol of genuineness and
indestructible friendships.
IN FAIRNESS TO GEORGIA
Editorial opinions in many newspapers,
declarations by heads of national Jewish
movements and reactions throughout the land
by Jews and Christians, expressed shock at the
failure of the Georgia Board of Pardons and
Paroles to clear the name of the innocently ac-
cused and subsequently lynched Leo Frank. In
many quarters, the recapitulations saw the
tragic case as the most atrocious anti-Semetic
experience in American history, and it was re-
called that as a result half of the Georgia Jewish
population fled from the state out of fright.
That the entire state of Georgia should not
be charged with prejudice, it is necessary to
place on record again a resolution that was
adopted nearly a year ago by the Georgia State
Senate, urging posthumous exoneration of Leo
Frank. The text of the resolution, reprinted here
from the April 1, 1983 issue of The Detroit
Jewish News is presented again:
Whereas, Leo Frank was tried in the
Superior Court of Fulton County in 1913 for the
murder of Mary Phagan; and
Whereas, he was convicted in an atmos-
phere charged with prejudice and hysteria; and
Whereas, he was sentenced to death but his
sentence was commuted by Governor John
Marshall Slaton; and
Whereas, in August of 1915, he was taken
by a mob from the state institution in Mil-
ledgeville and carried to Cobb County where he
was lynched; and
Whereas, Alonzo Mann, a 14-year-old wit-
ness at the Frank trial, was threatened with
death and was not asked specific questions
which could have cleared Frank; and
Whereas, Mr. Mann has come forward to
clear his conscience before his death and claims
that Leo Frank did not commit the murder of
Mary Phagan; and
Whereas, if Leo Frank was not guilty of
such crime, it is only fitting and proper that his
name be cleared, even after his death.
Now, therefore, be it resolved by the Senate
that this body strongly requests that the State
Board of Pardons and Paroles conduct an inves-
tigation into the Leo Frank case; and, if the
evidence indicates that Leo Frank was not
guilty, the board should give serious considera-
tion to granting a pardon to Leo Frank post-
humously.
Be it further resolved that the Secretary of
the Senate is authorized and directed to trans-
mit an appropriate copy of this resolution to
the State Board of Pardons and Paroles.
* *
The state of Georgia now takes great pride
in the progressive record of wholesome Jewish
communities in a state where there is interreli-
gious amity. Contrasted with the approx-
imately 16,000 Jews in Georgia in 1914, half
reportedly having fled as a result of the
animosities surrounding the Leo Frank injus-
tice, there are now some 30,000 Jews in Geor-
gia. They share citizenship and human values
with their fellow Georgians. It does not lend
glory to would-be pardonists who failed in a test
of humanism and justice.
`To Learn and to Teach'
Illiteracy Viewed as
Threat to U.S. Jewry
American Jewry is charged with the responsibility to introduce
full time education for children and illiteray is judged as the major
threat to Jewry in the challenging "To Learn and to Teach" by Rabbi
Jack D. Spiro (Philosophical Library).
The thorough analysis of the present state of the Jewish educa-
tional program is treated with great concern, in a summation of the
problem in which Rabbi Spiro declares that, on the average, a Jewish
lad concluding his studies with his Bar Mitzva would have completed
only four months of Jewish studies.
This is based on the author's contention that, on the average, only
40 percent of Jewish youth receive a Jewish education and the aver-
age has only 75 hours of teaching for an entire year.
The challenge in the Spiro book is forcefully contained in the
following judgment of the deplorable situation viewed by the author:
"Education must be the first priority of the American Jewish
community if we are to cope with this crisis of survival. The 'now'
generation must be educated if there is to be a new generation.
"It is a relatively new aspect of this crisis that our students ask
regularly, and with disconcerting frequency, 'Why be Jewish at all?'
They say, 'Who needs it? Why can't we just live ethically, decently,
without attaching the label `Jew'?' Instead of saying with Jonah, Ioni
Anochi (I am a Jew), they are saying with Terence, Homo Sum (I am a
human being). No one should deny the latter statement, but we may
ask why it invalidates the former."
It is the ignorance predominant in Jewish ranks that induces
Rabbi Spiro to pursue his theme of the urgent need for emphasis on
education and adoption of programs to attain the goal necessary for
the craved-for survival.
It is as a Reform rabbi who originally adhered to the usual
arguments against the Day School idea that Rabbi Spiro offers the
impressive arguments in support of the Day Schools, advocating it as
a major need, as a principle to be adopted for attaining full time
Jewish obligations in training the Jewish child and providing him
with the knowledge so essential to Jewish identification.
Basing his views on personal experiences, listing the rejection of
Day School proposals which were assailed as "Ghetto mentality," the
author now disputes the old fears of 50 years ago "when we were
isolated and struggled for acceptance." Now, he emphasizes, with
integration a fact, there is need to face up to a frequently-posed
question, "Why be Jews at all."
It is the total absorption into the American community that
invites his warning and he therefore emerges as the strong supporter
of the Day School full-time educational needs. Negating the
arguments that Day Schools are contrary to the American spirit, and
proving his point with references to policies now pursued in this
country, Rabbi Spiro shows how Reform Judaism came to endorse and
adhere to the Day School ideal.
"Full-time Jewish education is an idea whose time has come for
all branches of Judaism, and therefore it is irresistible because
Jewish survival is at stake now more than it has ever been in our
history," Rabbi Spiro declares.
Replete with tales from the Talmud, quoting the Sages, Rabbi
Spiro's "To Learn and to Teach" is a lesson for the generations, a guide
for communities. It is a powerful appeal for proper structuring of a
knowledgeable community.
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