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Friday, February 1, 1985
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
THE JEWISH NEWS
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s p_) 1985 by The Detroit Jewish News (US PS 275-520)
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CANDLELIGHTING AT 5:29 P.M.
VOL. LXXXVI, NO. 23
`Time' Out For Sharon
As Americans and as Jews, we are pleased with the outcome of the
Sharon vs. Time libel trial. In fact, it was perfect.
Though technically Time won the case, the newsmagazine was proven to
have defamed Sharon by printing untruths about him. Time received a
well-deserved rebuke for its negligence and sloppy work. Moreover, as the
New York Times noted in its editorial following the trial, "the jury found an
absence of malice, but no shortage of arrogance." Many Jews, in America as
well as Israel, who have long felt that Time is biased in its coverage of the
Jewish state, took pleasure in the magazine's embarrassment, especially in
the fact that the jury went out of its way to reprimand Time for "negligently
and even carelessly" defaming Sharon.
Yet the verdict affirmed the American legal system's protection of a free
press and in so doing, kept Gen. Sharon from claiming a complete vindication
for his actions during the war in Lebanon. Sharon insisted that he was
defending not only himself in bringing Time to trial but also defending his
country and the Jewish people. In part, he was right. But he was also seeking
to undo the criticism of him in his own country, particularly the findings of
the Kahan Commission two years ago. And no trial could or should remove
the stigma from Sharon of having acted willfully and recklessly in launching
the war in Lebanon.
For now, Sharon can finally return home, claiming he has humbled the
mighty Time, which in turn can claim that it has upheld its right to report,
while the public can feel reasonably secure that justice has been served and
the press remains accountable.
Prejudice Sanction
Even temporary concession to the bigotry that was permitted in denying
front door access to a building leading to a vocational workshop and to a group
of students who are black was an outrage.
If the Jewish Vocational Service, which operates the workshop, is guilty
in the neglect of having sanctioned this abuse of human rights, then it owes
an apology to the entire community.
Anyone in the group thus abused could have started a multi-million
dollar bias suit against the landlords of the building and those in charge of
services for the handicapped.
There can not, there must never be, even the minutest sanctioning of
prejudice, and there can be no excuse for permitting the insult and
humiliation to have lasted even for a week.
The shocking experience must serve as a lesson to all concerned never to
sanction abuse of just rights to anyone, and due consideration should be given
to the handicapped who often prove too weak to defend themselves. Let there
be an adherence to the basic human principle: To prejudice no sanction!
OP-ED
Israel Psychoanalyzed:
Widening Political Gaps
BY ARNOLD AGES
Special To The Jewish News
Ever since Amos Oz stunned the
literary world with his interview cum
analysis of Israeli_ society, which he
called In The Land of Israel, there has
been a rush to replicate the novelist's
fresh approach to the problems of the
Jewish state. Of late a new class of
investigative researchers have be-
come interested in the Israeli scene —
psychiatrists.
Several years ago, Dr. Gerald
Caplan of the Harvard Medical School
went to Israel at the invitation of
Jerusalem Mayor Teddy Kollek in
order to study the interpersonal fac-
tors affecting the municipality in its
dealing with the city's Arab popula-
tion.
In his book, Jew and Arab in
Jerusalem (Harvard University
Press), Caplan showed that some of the
frustration experienced by Israeli
Arabs derived from their encounters
with an impersonal Israeli bureauc-
racy. Caplan showed clearly that the
Israeli Arabs, accustomed to a social
etiquette which allowed for unhurried
discourse, found the Israeli way of
doing things abrasive and (from their
perspective) "uncivilized."
We do not know if Caplan's
analysis and recommendations have
been implemented by the Israeli gov-
ernment. In fact, even if all his
recommendations were to become im-
mediate government policy it is un-
likely that the basic antagonism be-
tween Jews and Arabs would disap-
pear.
This is the inevitable conclusion
flowing from the researches of another
psychiatrist who went to Israel re-
cently to study the complex nature of
dissent in Israeli life.
Walter Reich, from Yale Univer-
sity, a specialist in clinical psychiatry,
has written a small but important vol-
ume, Stranger in My House (Holt,
Rinehart and Winston), containing in-
terviews (case studies might be the
appropriate medical term) of people
representing diametrically - opposed
views on the future of the Jewish state.
Among the people whom the doc-
tor interviewed were Rabbi Moshe
Levinger of Hebron, Mayor Bassam
Shakaa of Nablus, the editors of the
Jerusalem newspaper Al Fajr, an
anonymous Palestinian cab driver and
Professor Ben-Porath of the Hebrew
University.
During the discussions, Reich
never assumed the passive role associ-
ated with psychiatrists. On the con-
trary, he needled his subjects, argued
with them, pointed out their logical
inconsistencies, alluded to their, mis7
conceptions and misperceptions.
The result is a far-ranging,
blunt, eye-opening report
on the widening rift in
Israeli society.
The result is a far-ranging, blunt,
eye-opening report on the widening
rift in Israeli society — a chasm which
appears to be widening and which in-
cludes not only a Jewish-Arab
perspective but a JeWish-Jewish gap
as well.
Levinger told Reich that "the first
Zionist was not David Ben-Gurion and
not even Theodor Herzl, but God. It
was the Land of Israel that God chose
as His seat, as the plaCe from which his
moral teachings were to be issued, and
it was the responsibility of the Jewish
people to live in the land that God had
given them in order to live by His
teachings and, in so doing, to
enlighten the world. The honor of the
world," Levinger repeatedly insisted,
"was served by the Jews' return to
.
Continued on Page 22