THE JEWISH NEWS
(USPS 275 520)
Incorporating The Detroit Jewish Chronicle commencing with the issue of July 20, 1951
--
Copyright © The Jewish News Publishing Co.
Member of American Association of English-Jewish Newspapers, National Editorial Association acid
National Newspaper Association and its Capital Club.
Published each Friday by The Jewish - News Publishing Co., 17515 W. Nine Mile, Suite 865, Southfield, MI 48075-4491
Postmaster: Send address changes to The Jewish News, 17515 W. Nine Mile, Suite 865, Southfield, MI 48075-4491
Second-Class Postage Paid at Southfield, Michigan and Additional Mailing Offices. Subscription $18 a year.
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 sixth day of Adar II, 5744
The following scriptural selections will be read in our synagogues:
Pentateuchal portion, Leviticus 1:1-5:26.
Prophetical portion, Isaiah 43:21-44:24.
Thursday, Fast of Esther
Pentateuchal portion, Exodus 32:11-14, 34:1-10.
Prophetical portion, (afternoon only) Isaiah. 55:6-56:8.
Candlelighting, Friday, March 9, 6:12 p.m.
VOL. LXXXV, No. 2
Page Four
Friday, March 9, 1984
BETRAYALS • • • SUICIDES
A tragedy perpetuated in the Middle East
has so many accompanying agonies that it is no
longer limited to that area alone. Perhaps it
should be judged as having been agonized unin-
terruptedly for many years. It has grown to new
and unrestricted dimensions and it causes con-
cern outside the limits of an embattled part of
the world.
While it is centered in Lebanon, it is unre-
stricted. It leads to Cairo and has evidence in
Amman. It is rooted in fears and the cement was
in hatred and bigotry.
Can it be disputed that the scrapping of an
agreement with Israel, dated May 1983, at the
outset placed the former civilized Lebanon in
the ranks of peace-seeking and peace-loving na-
tions?
It' is true that with the Syrian knife at his
throat, the Lebanese president was forced into a
betrayal of a great trust. Even if partially re-
tained, the great betrayal was already in action.
,
Yet not to be ignored is the additional factor of
abandonment of a great trust in Cairo. Perhaps
it began in the very spot where peace assumed
great courage. It was in spite of threats from
many Arab nations that Anwar Sadat went to
Jewish Jerusalem to make peace. Now his suc-
cessor, Hosni Mubarak, accepts as bedfellows
those who strangle peacemakers.
That's the tragedy in the main: that
peacemaking is obstacled, that betrayals are
the course of each day's experience in the Mid-
dle East.
There is a clear warning in all of this: that
betrayals do not menace only a few, with Israel
as the chief target; that the entire Middle East
is affected; that it is suicidal for the entire area;
that it is threatening to good will everywhere.
That's what created the American effort to re-
scue Lebanon as an additional tragedy. Peace
seeking is a dangerous road to human decency.
THE JEWISH RESPONSE
Facing up to what is occurring, friends of
Israel, more notably the Jewish communities
everywhere, are irritated in their roles as world
citizens, concerned as Jews who have the major
obligation of lending all the support that can be
accumulated to prevent calamities for the re-
deemed in Israel.
If attitudes are to be judged by the re-
sponses given regularly and uninterruptedly by
the Greater Detroit Jewish community, there is
a heartening feeling that the Bnai
Rahamanim
the traditionally compassion-
ate — are not neglecting duty in a great crisis.
Without the unity of the Jewish people, Is-
rael would have much less to depend upon in a
struggle that is often embittered, always defen-
sive.
It is this unity that is so vital to Israel, even
more important for Jewry as the defender of
Israel and the people and the state.
The Allied Jewish Campaign in Detroit is a
major test in the challenge that is addressed to
—
all. There is a measure of unanimity- in the
enrollment of supporters of the major
humanitarian philanthropic movement, with
such great vitality, that a sense of pride
emerges in the process.
Even unanimity, however, has some re-
strictions. There is need for as close to total
enrollment in the ranks of the currently con-
ducted Campaign to protect the local and na-
tional movement as well as to uphold the hands
of the builders of Zion.
Even the few who are yet to be reached to
create a unanimous front must not stay out of
the ranks now being mobilized. Presently, this
is one of the major means of sending forth a
message that in a world threatened with end-
less enmities and warfare, the Jews stand for
creativity. Therein lies the obligation to give
strength to the philanthropic solicitations now
in progress, to provide success to the Allied
Jewish Campaign, to give an assurance that
Jewish unity is undiminished.
UNSULLIED POLITIC S
A quadrennial demand for elimination of
bias in competitive political aspirations is again
on the agenda. Especially during the four-year
cycle of campaigning for the Presidency, inter-
religious groups call upon candidates and their
adherents to live up to the highest goals in striv-
ing for high official posts.
This is in evidence again in a call for politi-
cal decency issued by the Detroit Round Table of _
the National Conference of Christians and
Jews, in which the Catholic, Jewish and Protes-
tant co-chairmen declared:
"Today we call on all candidates and public
officials to pledge to avoid prejudicial language
or actions in their campaigns or offices — not
only because it makes good political sense but
because it is morally right.
"To insure that any religious or ethnic
group is not subject to attacks or insinuations is
the duty of all fair-minded persons. This is what
makes American democracy work. We expect
the same quality from public officials."
This is a declaration that cannot and dare
not be ignored because it is a call for self-respect
in American and human relations. Hopefully, it
will not need repetition to assure adherence to
its high goals.
Prof. Neiman's Book
Hebrew Literary Critics
as 1784-1884 Functionaries
Desrcibed in Ktav Volume
A remarkable revelation, introduced as a fact not to be ignored, is
contained in a highly-scholarly and thoroughly-researched volume
regarding Hebrew literary criticisms preceding the period of the
Haskala in Russia in the latter part of the 19th Century. The title of
the book is "A Century of Modern Hebrew Literary Criticism, 1784-
1884" (Ktav). The author, Prof. Morris Neiman, who taught Hebrew
language and literature for 33 years at Brooklyn College, delves
deeply into the subject and refutes views that such criticisms post-
dated the era under review.
Prof. Neiman "subscribes to the thesis that it is erroneous to
assume that Hebrew literary criticism had its inception in Russia and
that there was none in Germany and Galicia prior to 1860."
An important admonition in the author's introduction to this
noteworthy analysis of Hebrew literary criticisms merits special at-
tention. Dr. Neiman states:
"If, for example, the Golden Age in Spain produced lasting mas-
terpieces in all branches of thought and literature, then some form of
literary criticism must have existed. Works like `Shirat Yisra'el'
(Hebrew Poetry) by Moses Ibn Ezra and the chapters dealing with
literature in `Tahkemoni' (An Assembly of Wisemen) of Alharizi and
the `Teshuvot' (The Rejoinders) of the disciples of Dunash and
Menahem ben Saruq testify that such was the case. And it seems
probable that these few books that were preserved are quantitatively
only a small fraction of a greater body of critical literature that did not
survive the ravages of time."
It is important to note that Dr. Neiman revives an interest in the
Me'assefim, those who wrote in the Me'assef, Hebrew for The
Gatherer, which began publishing in 1784 and had noted writers as
contributors. The assembling of these writers is in itself significant.
Then there is the review of the works of writers in Galicia, the
beginning of literary criticism in Russia — with emphasis on the
writings of Funn and Levensohn, and the roles of the more popularly
known, including the Kovners, Smilanskin, Lilienblum and others.
In every respect, Dr. Neiman goes into impressive detail about
the works under review and the form of the criticisms.
In that process, the reader learns about the literature under
discussion, the products of an important era — 1784-1884 — when
there were so many oppressive experiences in spite of which Jewish
life went on and the search for learning and'the dedication to culture
predominated, even if it was among a minority. It was the kind of
minority that gave strength to a Jewry surviving spiritually against
great odds and creating legacies which become apparent in works like
Neiman's "A Century of Modern Hebrew Literary Criticism."
Apparent in what the Neiman research attains are many
episodal revelations, such as:
"The criticism of the romantic period (1830-1860) was confined to
the effort to establish European forms of literature in Hebrew. Thus,
the Hebrew-reading public had to be convinced of the utility and
meaningfulness of fiction, and a great many of the critical essays
written at the end of that period were devoted to that subject."
Prof. Morris Neiman makes a distinct contribution to efforts to
preserve the Jewish literary treasures with this notable impressive
work.