4 Friday, April 27, 1984 THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS THE JEWISH NEWS Serving Detroit's Metropolitan Jewish Community with distinction for four decades. Editorial and Sales offices at 17515 West Nine Mile Road, Suite 865 Southfield, Michigan 48075-4491 TELEPHONE 424-8833 PUBLISHER: Charles A. Buerger EDITOR EMERITUS: Philip Slomovitz EDITOR: Gary Rosenblatt BUSINESS MANAGER: Carmi M. Slomovitz ART DIRECTOR: Kim MbIler-Thym Atv NEWS EDITOR: Alan Hitsky LOCAL NEWS EDITOR: Heidi Press EDITORIAL ASSISTANT: Tedd Schneider ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES: Drew Lieberwitz Rick Nessel Danny Raskin Seymour Schwartz OFFICE STAFF: Marlene Miller Dharlene Norris Phyllis Tyner Pauline Weiss Ellen Wolfe PRODUCTION: Donald Cheshure Cathy Ciccone Curtis Deloye Ralph Orme © 1984 by The Detroit Jewish News (US PS 275-520) Second Class postage paid at Southfield. Michigan and additional mailing offices. Subscription $18 a year. CANDLELIGHTING AT 7:06 P.M. VOL. LXXXV. No. 9 `F' is for freedom Texas is generally considered a long way from Michigan. But until the end last week of a ten-year restriction on references in textbooks to evolution, the long shadow of Texas reached into Michigan — and beyond. As the largest single purchaser of textbooks in the U.S., the State of Texas has an inordinate influence on the contents of public school textbooks used nationwide. So when Texas' board of education ruled in 1974 that it would only purchase biology textbooks with curtailed sections on evolution, every new biology text in the country was also affected. Since only one version of a textbook is published, only -a fiscally foolhardy publisher would risk incurring the wrath of the Lone Star state by bucking its rule on evolution. The effect was dismal. Coverage of evolution in textbooks reportedly decreased by 30 to 80 percent since 1974. People for the American Way, a national anti-censorship group, has called the repeal of the rule as significant as John Scopes' 1925 conviction for teaching evolution in a Tennessee school. Perhaps so. The freer our textbooks, the freer our children's minds. Shackles on their books are also shackles on their thoughts. The Texas rule was a subtle incursion on our civil liberties. But it is these subtleties that can do us in. It has happened before. Huey Long and Joe McCarthy were masters of the slow undermining of freedoms. So was Hitler. The underlying commonality of social cataclysms is that they never start as "big bangs." Instead, they creep along, sputtering and coughing, perhaps even backfiring occasionally, until they reach a frightening momentum: The Texas rule was knocked down ten years after it had almost become an unassailable institution in that state. Luckily, it was knocked down. We breathed a sigh of relief, for with the rule's demise went one more inhibition on free speech and free press. Any such caveat is also a curb on ourselves and our futures, on our intellects and our visions of the world. That must never be forgotten. Jewish Mafia in America: Israeli and Soviet style BY WOLF BLITZER The Jewish News Washington correspondent Washington — Israeli and Soviet Jewish immigrants are becoming in- creasingly more involved in organized crime in America, according to a just- published U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee study. The study, which analyzed _or- ganized crime by other immigrant groups as well, was based on testimony provided the panel last year by the New York City Police Department's Organized Crime Bureau. The report said that former Is- raelis are believed to be involved "in a myriad of organized criminal activi- ties." "Intelligence, to date, indicates there are approximately 1,000 indi- viduals, loosely structured, with sev- eral key members, possibly in leader- ship roles," the report continued. "Ap- proximately 100 legitimate businesses in the New York area have been iden- tified as being operated by this group." The Soviet organized crime group, based mostly in the Brighton Beach Both groups are structured by relatively recent emigres from their respective homelands; both show a propensity for a. violent action .. . section of Brooklyn, "does not yet ap- pear to have the sort of sophisticated structure that characterizes tradi- tional organized crime, but it appears to be well-structured and ominous in its embryonic stage." Emil Ciccotelli, deputy chief of the New York Organized Crime Control Bureau, was quoted in the report as saying the Israeli and Soviet Jewish groups were totally disconnected. Still, he noted, there are similarities. "Both groups," he said, are structured by relatively recent emigres from their respective home- lands; both show a propensity for vio- lent action consistent with that which is observed' among other organized crime groups; both have international contacts; and both show operations in wide-spread areas of the United States." "As with the Italian organized criminal network," he continued, "these groups show wide diversifica- tion of criminal enterprise." Regarding organized Israeli crime in New York, the study concluded by noting that the "group appears to be growing, and becoming increasingly more violent. Furthermore, the group seems to be able to generate large sums of revenue from illicit activities, and, in turn, reinvests these monies in additional businesses. The group will remain relatively unknown and insulated, because of their low-key lifestyle, ethnicity, and the sophisticated nature of their crimes. They will utilize the services of other organized crime groups, if their expertise or conduits are needed. Ap- parently, this group will pose a sig- nificant problem for law enforcement authorities in the coming years." The study noted that the or- ganized Israeli crime network was based largely in New York but there was evidence it was spreading the northeastern portion of the United States. At the same time, it said, the group has been operating on an inter- national level for some time." Thus, it said that the group is well entrenched in southern Califor- nia, Arizona and southern Florida, as well as having extensive contacts in the Near East, southern Europe, South America, Canada and Mexico. Several members have served prison sentences in Israel." According to the report, Califor- nia and Arizona authorities have said this group was involved in insurance frauds, ficticious billing, bankruptcy , )-7 Progressing leadership Again, as in recent years, despite the economic pressures and the ensuing difficulties, Greater Detroit Jewry rose to commendable heights in tackling the philanthropic responsibilities. The immense success of the current fundraising effort is a tribute to the community's pursuance of duties that involve responses to the needs for scores of agencies and Israel. Especially noteworthy is the large number of contributors and the large army of volunteer workers. It is to the latter and their leaders that special recognition is presently due. The acceptance of leadership by a younger element in the community, the understanding by them of the challenges involved, all combine to speak volumes in an acknowledgement or a continuing devotion to duty. The fact that this progressive leadership knows what it is laboring for must lead to a similar understanding of the background of the needs and their sources, thereby emphasizing an historic understanding of the involvements which call for philanthropy in the present. They must also encourage a vision for the future. It is the creation of a progressive leadership that lends status to a successful fundraising campaign; and it is because of it that great pride is merited in the current Allied Jewish Campaign achievements. The leadership of Jack Robinson and his associates has meritoriously earned the acclaim accorded it. c (