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Friday, May 25, 1984

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

THE JEWISH NEWS

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© 1984 by The Detroit Jewish News
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CANDLELIGHTING AT 8:31 P.M.

VOL. LXXXV No. 13

Jerusalem Day

This Wednesday marks the celebration of the newest holiday on the
Jewish calendar, Yom Yerushalyim (Jerusalem Day), corresponding to the
28th day of Iyar, the day that the city of Jerusalem was unified in 1967,
during the Six-Day War.
Those who lived through that miraculous period will always remember
the scene of Shlomo Goren, then the chief chaplain of the Israeli army,
standing at the reclaimed Western Wall, surrounded by tearful soldiers, a
gun on his holster, a shofar at his lips. That image at that moment embodied
for many Jews the image of the new Israeli, prepared to fight for his people
and praise God for His miracles.
At a time when there is much debate in Washington over whether or not
to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, it is
important to remind the world that Jerusalem always was and always will be
the political capital of the State of Israel just as it is the spiritual capital of the
Jewish people.
The city of Jerusalem must remain united. Only then will its
inhabitants, and those of all Israel, begin to live amongst each other in peace.

Testing the campuses

Surveying attitudes ofJewish college students on questions of marriage,
mixed marriage and family planning may serve to relieve the anxieties over
the reputed decline in youth identifications with their communities. Even in
the increasing ranks of those who lean toward mixed dating and the resultant
intermarriages, the reported attitudes, with emphasis on the women, is with
commitments to raise the families Jewishly. Because of the Halachic
regulations recognizing children as Jews when the mother is Jewish, this is
especially significant in the study that was inspired by the American Jewish
Committee.
The results of this partially-covered survey, while certainly not
conclusive, point significantly to the basic areas for action in seeking
solutions to the obstacles that arise so frequently in efforts to encourage and
increase the identification of youth with the Jewish communities and their
parental backgrounds, with a hoped-for leaning toward commitments to their
historic legacies. It is the college campus that is most vital in such efforts.
The difficulties are immense and undeniable. One would be considered as
hiding one's head in the sand if he were to fail to admit that, with all the
glories stemming from Hillel Foundations, they reach only a very meager
percentage of youth on the campuses.
The problem, therefore, is one of reaching out to youth, of being able to
approach them with the appeals for retention of interest in the ideals.
When the campus is recognized as the testing ground for the issues so
vital for Jewish identifications which could well be labeled "Jewish
loyalties," the problematic is not limited to the students. The professorial
ranks are equally vital to the issues at hand. It is equally undeniable that
academic faculty play much of a role in tasks to inspire Jewish
very few of
devotions among their Jewish students.
Therefore, the campuses are testing grounds in the aim to inspire Jewish
loyalties among youth. Every effort toward making the campus the chief area
for concern in reaching out to Jewish youth must be given priority in
gpmmunal planning. ,

,........s..1.1.0 4116.11R10.-401111111.6..,.

Are our Jewish academics
the new endangered species?

BY HENRY SREBRNIK
Special to The Jewish News

Has the plight of the Jewish aca-
demic reached the point where we
may soon begin to see a dramatic de-
cline in the number of Jews choosing
to enter university life?
The past decade has not been
kind to young scholars. Newly
emerged from graduate schools after
years of arduous study, research and
writing, they have found a dearth of
academic opportunities and a short
supply of jobs. Those, that do exist are
most often in small, isolated college
towns, far from centers ofJewish life.
If single, these Jews know it will be

The past decade has not
been kind to young
scholars, particularly
Jews hoping to live in a
Jewish environment.

statistically improbable for them to
find a mate there; if married, they
face the problem of how to keep their
spouse occupied and how to raise
their children in a non-Jewish
environment without an infrastruc-
ture of Jewish schools and commu-
nity services.
Like other "two-career: profe-
sional couples, many Jewish aca-
demics have had to adjust to "com-
muter marriages" — but this entails
psychological hardships and, espe-
cially for Jews, goes against one of
the main components of Jewish tra-
dition: a closely-knit family
structure. Ironies abound: in the rad-
ical 1960s, people often lived to-
gether without being married; in the
economically hard-hit 1980s, they

The author, who holds a doctorate in
political science from the University of
Birmingham in England, lives in Ann
Arbor and claims "first-hand
experience" on the topic of unemployment
among academics.

are only too often married but living
apart. The choices such people have
to make are often very painful.
I know a couple, with children,
living in Boston. He teaches on a
fixed-term contract in the history of
science department at Harvard; she
haS a less prestigious but more secure
position at Salem State College. He is
offered a tenure-track (i.e., perma-
nent) position at Rutgers Univer 44-v
in New Jersey. Should they
move for the sake of his career, she
giving up her own career (and in-
come)? Should they stay on in Boston
instead of uprooting themselves, at
the risk of his not getting another
offer such as this for a very long
while? Or should they become an "in-
terstate highway and airplane"
couple, visiting each other whenever
the pressures of work allow? And
what about the children?
Even sadder are. the cases of
" gypsy scholars," academics who,
like migrant farm workers, move
from school to school on one-year ap-
pointments, unable to land more
permanent jobs, shlepping their
families with them across the coun-
try, never putting down roots any-
where, the spouses usually unable to
work in the small communities in
which they find themselves.
The bloom is clearly off the aca-
demic rose, and the message is per-
colating down to the community.
Item: The wife of a Jewish aca-
demic with a Ph.D. in history from
the University of Michigan, unable
to find an academic position, confides
that her parents didn't want her to
marry him.
Item: the principal of a very
prestigious Jewish day school in
Brookline, Mass., the holder of a
Ph.D. in history from Columbia, but
unable to obtain a university post, is
told by the parents of his pupils,
"please don't let our children become
academics." This, from people who
themselves teach in colleges.
Item: Students at the United

