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Friday, June 21, 1985
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
PURELY COMMENTARY
PHILIP SLOMOVITZ
An American Tragedy Is Internationalized
The horror that had its genesis in
Athens and continues in Beirut has no
immediate solution, can not justify im-
mediate explanation.
The certainty of Israel remaining a
scapegoat is apparent.
Equally hopeful is the anticipation
that the Israeli tradition of adhering to a
basic principle of involving the redemp-
tion of the captives will not be aban-
doned and will be judged properly and
fairly.
The anticipation that terrorism has
not ended with the current crisis ter-
rorizes mankind.
Perhaps the lesson will sink in —
for the world powers to end conceding to
the sources of the terrorized experiences
at the United Nations and in other in-
ternational media. The constant yielding
to the pressures of the Arab-Soviet blocs
have not aided the aims for peace and
for human conduct.
There is much to be learned — there
are admonitions to be offered. There are
elements whose demonstrations, like the
anti-Israel of last week in downtown De-
troit, give comfort to terror. They must
be discouraged and public opinion must
militate against them.
There is much to be learned and
hopefully common horse-sense will begin
to dominate everywhere.
Meanwhile, the hopeful signs, the
international, must be applauded. The
better tidings commented upon here may
and should serve as encouragements for
better days to come.
Meanwhile, the hope is that the tor-
tured, the captives who are suffering
from an anti-American crusade, will be
freed speedily, and with it should come
an end to the hatreds against this na-
tion. May succor come without delay!
Jihan Sadat Revives
Husband's Humanism For
Endangered Middle East
During the brief years when Anwar
el Sadat arose as a symbol of courage,
defying the bigotries that beset his na-
tive Egypt as well as the entire Middle
East, his wife stood by his side,
encouraging him in peace efforts and in
introducing civilized ideas for his nation.
Jihan Sadat was at his side in the tasks
for peace for Israel. She became a col-
laborator with the late Mrs. Menachem
Begin. Together with Aliza (Mrs.
Mehachem) 'Begin, she joined in
encouraging movements to aid the
handicapped, to make them the duties of
nations and individuals. It was a task
that added gloriously to the genuineness
of the peace efforts between Israel and
Egypt.
In the challenging approaches to
amity between two nations, Jihan Sadat
had a share that will be recorded as a
recognition of social-mindedness and a
desire to erase hatreds. In the aftermath
of events that followed her husband's as-
sassination, saddening events are mar-
ring the new era which beckons for lead-
ership akin to the Sadats'.
In a revealing, also distressing re-
port to the New York Times, from Cairo,
Judith Miller, who has emerged among
the ablest correspondents covering the
Middle East, reported to her newspaper:
Jihan Sadat has come home
to Egypt after a five-month
sojourn in the United States. In
many respects, the widow of
President Anwar el Sadat says
she has returned to a different
land.
"I have been shocked by the
changes in only five months," she
said.
She spoke of the signs of a
rise in Islamic fundamentalism.
This was introductory to Mrs.
Sadat's frank comments on the extent of
trends toward illiberalism and denial of
rights to women in recently-promulgated
legislation in her country.
In this, the first interview she had
given since her return to Egypt, Jihan
Sadat declared that "if fundamentalism
continues to spread .at this rate, it will
be very dangerous in the near future."
That's among the matters to be seri-
ously concerned with in regard not only
to Egypt but especially the Egyptian-
Israeli and entire Middle East develop-
ments. Should President Hosni Mubarak
be influenced by it, it will be bad all
around. He has already yielded to pres-
sures which reduced the friendship with
Israel.
Hopefully, Mubarak will be influ-
enced even to a minimum degree by
Jihan Sadat and the legacies revived by
her presence in Egypt. At any rate, she
remains a socially-progressive force in
her country and even as a minority there
is always the blessing that she speaks
out in defense of basic human decencies.
Happier Cairo Message
From Haifa (Israel) University
comes a happier report than the one
about the fundamentalist dangers in
Egypt. The current head of the Israel
Academic Center in Cairo, Prof. Gabriel
Warburg, reports that some 1,000 Egyp-
tian students are enrolled in Hebrew and
Jewish studies at three Cairo univer-
sities — Cairo, Einshams and Al-Azhar.
It is most revealing to learn from
Prof. Warburg's report that all the listed
universities have Jewish studies de-
partments offering four-year B.A. pro-
grams, and also M.A. and Ph.D. pro-
grams.
With graduates, according to the re-
port, "now numbering in the thousands,"
many having joined government minis-
tries as well as the military and the
Voice of Cairo broadcasting network,
there is hope for knowledge to assure
understanding and a craving for peace
and the abandonment of the prejudices
which have been in evidence in Egypt.
The Haifa University announcement
of such happy occurrences poses the
question: "Can understanding be far be-
hind?" May it be close to fullest realiza-
tion with national commitments to ac-
cords for amity.
`Hatikvah' Endorsed,
Commended Contrary
To Extremist Criticism
Zionists and traditional Jewish ob-
servers may be amazed to learn that
Hatikvah, the accepted Zionist national
anthem which has become the national
antherp. of Israel, is rejected in extremist
ranks.
In his informative book, The Jewish
Heart (Ktav), which is replete with es-
says and sermons on many important
Jewish topics, Rabbi Jack Simcha Cohen
reveals: "Those who ascribe to the
yeshiva and Chasidic world as well as to
halachic orientation absolutely refuse to
sing this song. They make a point of
eliminating it from any program under
their auspices."
Posing a "why?" for such an atti-
tude, Rabbi Cohen, himself a strong tra-
played down attaches some interest to
this story. It could be interpreted as the
media finding lessening of interest in
Farrakhan. But "the black leader" ap-
pears to be looking for every available
means to spread his hatred, his anti-
Semitism, his admiration for Hitler and
the Nazi ideology. Therefore, the revival
of the admonition to the acknowledged
black leadership, including Jesse
Jackson, that they must be the ones to
repudiate the extremists and hate-
spreaders.
The trend toward a strengthened
inter-racial relationship, the increasing
sincerities toward black-Jewish rela-
tions, do, indeed, provide hope and as-
surance that good will prevail. There-
fore, the haters must be ostracized from
decent society.
Naphtali Herz Imber
ditionalist, provides a fully detailed ac-
count of the origin of the Hatikvah, tells
about its author, and gives fullest
endorsement to the hymn.
Rabbi Cohen's endorsement of the
Hatikvah, his statement in the ultra-
devotional sense, demolishes the critics.
He assails an attack on the author
of the Hatikvah, Naphtali Herz Imber,
because he was an alcoholic. He declares:
"Today the leaders of our people
cannot tolerate such views ... I, for one,
sing the Hatikvah with pride. There are
even times when the song evokes great
positive emotions within me."
Other essays in Rabbi Cohen's The
Jewish Heart deal with the Jewish holi-
days, Torah and general studies, Jewish
moral overtones, humility, parental obli-
gations to children, an elegy to Golda
Meir, and many more that relate to
prayer, devotion and Jewish ethics.
Sholom Aleichem's
Autobiography: Genius
Linked To Jewry's Epics
Sholom Aleichem is not a fantasy. It is
not merely a monicker for hilarity. It is not
limited to a byline for a successful Broad-
way musical. It is the nom-de-plume of a
genius who has given dignity to the Yid-
dish language, who has provided master-
pieces for the translations into English and
other languages, who has become a reality
in the Jewish history of this century, prom-
ising a continuity into the next.
From the Fair is the self-descriptive
story of the early years in the life of Sholom
Rabinowitz, who now belongs to the entire
literary-minded and humor-appreciative
world under the pseudonym Sholom
Farrakhan Still At It
With Hitler Admiration
Although the cabled item from
Hamburg, West Germany seems to have
gained very little attention, it merits
some consideration. A UPI cable from
Hamburg was published in the New
York Daily News. Its text reads:
Louis Farrakhan, leader of
the Nation of Islam, said in an
interview published yesterday
that Jews fear him because "they
know someday they will be
punished for the bad things they
have done to blacks."
Farrakhan told the West
German news magazine Der
Spiegel that American blacks are
a "social powder keg" and the
situation for blacks in the United
States is worse than it was 20
years ago.
Asked his views on Adolf Hit-
ler, Farrakhan said Hitler's great
achievement was arousing the
German people and getting the
average person — as well as in-
tellectuals — to support him.
"Yes, this man fascinates me," he
said. "In my youth, I saw all the
Hitler films ... I cannot praise
his philosophy and ideology.
However, I see certain basic
principles that are generally
valid in his achievements in
building up Germany."
Its having been generally ignored or
Sholom Aleichem
A new work found.
Aleichem. It is the story of Sholom told in
the third person and is really the autobiog-
raphical that was written only a few years
before his death under the Yiddish title of
Funem Yarid - From the Fair (Viking).
In addition to being such a marvelous
treat, in the style of one of the most bril-
liant Yiddish writers, From the Fair at-
tains added quality in the translation.
This, the latest in the hitherto unpublished
Sholom Aleichem writings, is rendered
into English with perfection by Curt
Leviant, himself a prize-winning novelist
and short-story writer, who has to his cre-
dit three other translations of Sholom
Aleichem into English. The late Maurice
Samuel, one of the most brilliant Jewish
writers of previous years, was acknowl-
edged the most qualified authority on Yid-
dish and translator of the works of the most
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