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f4_ .:!frIciay, May 3, 1985
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
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1985 by The Detroit Jewish News (US PS 275-520)
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CANDLELIGHTING AT 8:14 P.M.
VOL. LXXXVII, NO. 10
A Loss Of Trust
This may not be a time of war, but it is a time when we are thinking about
war. Forty years after the guns of World War II were stilled, that grim epoch
is much in the news. And ten years after people scrambled to the helicopters
on the roof of the U.S. Embassy in Vietnam and the American presence ended
in that sad, bloodied country, our East Asian debacle is much in the news. In
fact, over the last few weeks, it's been difficult to pick up a newspaper or news
magazine without coming across an article or memorial about either of these
wars.
Much like the "Great War" of 1914-18, the Second World War was
roundly touted as the war to end all wars. Between the machinations of the
Nazis and the instant devastation of Hiroshima, the world assumed that the
art of warfare had proceeded about as far as the mind of man could push it.
But since then, we have seen the deployment of H-bombs and ABM's and now
there is talk of lasers on the battlefield and star wars in the heavens. If
nothing else, man's murderous ingenuity is impressive. It seems to have no
bounds.
We have heard over and over again of the lessons of Vietnam. Dean Rusk,
secretary of state under Kennedy and Johnson, has blamed much of the
trouble on the Southeast Asian Treaty Organization and urged that the U.S.
look carefully at the implications before it enters into any future security
treaties. J. William Fulbright, who was the leading Senate opponent to the
war, has said that he learned "not to trust government statements."
Rusk's and Fulbright's lessons point in the same direction: A loss of
innocence, a loss of trust in the world and in our assumptions about it. And so,
in a sense, we have come full circle. With World War II, we assumed that we
had plumbed the abyss. But the abyss grows deeper. New schemes to achieve
ever greater "mega-deaths" are being concocted almost every day. And with
Vietnam, we thought that the nation had absorbed some wisdom from its
blunders in the jungle. But the White House and the Pentagon seem deter-
mined to repeat many of its mistakes, this time in the jungles of Central
America. So, again, a trust is betrayed, a trust that there had been lessons in
the tragedies of Vietnam, that it had not all been for naught.
Plato said, "Only the dead have seen the end of war." Perhaps he was
right. One can only hope that for once he was mistaken.
Matrilineality
Patrilineal proposals in treating the Who Is A Jew tests acquired a new
dimension at the convention of Conservative rabbis in Florida recently. -
While those endorsing acceptance of the Reform attitude are, presently a
minority, there are indications of a growing endorsement of this
revolutionary step.
Matrilineality is certain to remain a predominant policy in Jewish ranks
for some time to come. It is inconceivable that the Orthodox will yield to the
Reform viewpoint which is becoming an accepted practice in the liberal
Jewish movements. Nevertheless, it is important that the major argument
for the patrilineal proposition be considered in all seriousness. The concern
over increasing mixed marriages, the low Jewish birth rate, the assimilatory
conditions, all create the fear of a drastic decline in the Jewish population.
Is the patrilineal aim a solution to the major fear in the Jewish future?
The pity is that there is no acknowledged Sanhedrin to rule in the matter.
Therefore, matrilineality is certain to predominate for some time to come.
OP-ED
Editors Have Overlooked
Israel's Operation Moses
BY JOEL D. TAUBER
Snecial to The Jewish News
For a brief moment in time, the
world found something nice to say
about Israel.
Of Operation Moses, New York
Times columnist William Safire
wrote: Israel's quiet acceptance of re-
sponsibility should say a great deal to
Africa, to American blacks and Jews,
and to all who believe that the
`Falashas' of the world should be
strangers no more."
After 1,500 years of longing for
Zion and 37 years from the founding of
the State of Israel as a haven for the
Jewish People, Ethiopian Jews have
come home.
Shocked at what we had seen on
television of the starving, sick mul-
titudes in Ethiopia, we learned that
Israel once again had become the con-
science of the world. The dramatic
"homecoming" made headlines.
We kvelled in the achievement. Is-
rael basked in the sunlight of an ap-
proving public opinion, but only for a
moment. Soon the media were back to
business as usual, back to Lebanon
and the "intractable" Israel govern-
ment.
Operation Moses was old news,
forgotten.
As Berl Falbaum noted in this
column on March 29, there is no such
word as fairness when it comes to Mid-
dle East news coverage. Israel makes
great copy as long as the copy is di-
rected against her. There are no head-
lines in a nation's quiet bravery.
In truth, the absorption of Ethio-
pian Jews in Israel is the most re-
markable story of all. Try to imagine a
state the size of New Jersey taking in
1.8 million immigrants in 37 years.
Staggering? Israel did it. And, with
the help of world Jewry, she's doing it
again.
Try to imagine a nation with the
Joel Tauber is president of the Jewish
Welfare Federation of Detroit.
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highest per capita debt in the world
taking on yet another enormous bur-
den, thousands of immigrants whose
ways are of another century. (In 1939,
it was too much of a burden for the
nations of the civilized world to take in
937 Jews, themselves cultured and
"Western." So they were returned to
Try to imagine a state the
size of New Jersey taking in
1.8 million immigrants in
37 years.
Europe, and the majority ended up in
the gas chambers.)
That the cost of settling each
Ethiopian Jew in Israel would run
$6,000 — a total of $300 million — was
fully understood by the government
and the Jewish People. But no one
said, "There's no money." They said,
"Send them."
If I were an editor, I would see
headlines in this. The immediate and
total mobilization of an already over-
taxed nation to meet the medical,
housing, social and vocational needs of
several thousand immigrants has
been like no other in the world.
The outpouring of help by Israeli
volunteers has been just as extraordi-
nary. True, there are those who would
question the Ethiopians' religious ori-
gins that go back more than 1,500
years; others view the black newcom-
ers as "different," alien — an impres-
sion that every wave of aliyah has
shared and that only time will alter.
But the vast majority of people
have responded to them with warmth,
taken them to their hearts and into
their homes as truly the children of
Israel. Would-be tutors had to be
turned away from the absorption cen-
ters, there were so many. Gifts of do-
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