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July 26, 1985 - Image 4

Resource type:
Text
Publication:
The Detroit Jewish News, 1985-07-26

Disclaimer: Computer generated plain text may have errors. Read more about this.

4

Frlday, July-, :1P135

_ THE uhiliorr. JEWISH NEVUS

THE JEWISH NEWS

OP-ED

Serving Detroit's Metropolitan Jewish Community
with distinction for four decades.

Supreme Court Narrows
The School Prayer Debate

Editorial and Sales offices at 20300 Civic Center Dr.,
Suite 240, Southfield, Michigan 48076
Telephone (313) 354-6060

PUBLISHER: Charles A. Buerger
EDITOR EMERITUS: Philip Slomovitz
EDITOR: Gary Rosenblatt
BUSINESS MANAGER: Carmi M. Slomovitz
ART DIRECTOR: Kim Muller-Thym
NEWS EDITOR: Alan Hitsky
LOCAL NEWS EDITOR: Heidi Press
EDITORIAL ASSISTANT: Tedd Schneider
LOCAL COLUMNIST: Danny Raskin

ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES:
Lauri Biafore
Allan Craig
Rick Nessel
Danny Raskin

OFFICE STAFF:
Marlene Miller
Dharlene Norris
Phyllis Tyner
Pauline Weiss
Ellen Wolfe

BY ROBERT E. SEGAL

Special to The Jewish News

When the Supreme Court in June
ruled six to three that an Alabama sta-
tute is unconstitutional because —
basically — it stretches the "moment-
of-silence" law so wide as to get the
government entangled with religion,
Chief Justice Burger made an argu-
able point in his dissent.
"Some will find it ironic, perhaps
even bizarre," Justice Burger wrote,
"that on the very day we heard
arguments in this case, the Court's
session opened with an invocation for
divine protection." He also pointed out

PRODUCTION:
Donald Cheshure
Cathy Ciccone
Curtis Deloye
Ralph Orme

c 1985 by The Detroit Jewish News (US PS 275-520)
Second Class postage paid at Southfield. Michigan and additional mailing offices

.

Subscriptions I year - $21 — 2 years $39 — Out of State - $23 — Foreign - $35

CANDtEtigi-STING AT 8:40 P.M.

VOL. LXXXVII, NO. 22



Soviet Cynicism

Unconfirmed reports have been coming out of Paris and Israel that the
Soviet and Israeli ambassadors met in the French capital last weekend to
discuss resuming relations between their respective nations and increasing
Soviet Jewish immigration. There would be a condition attached to each of
these. Diplomatic relations, said the Soviets, would depend on Israeli
"progress" on the issue of the Golan Heights. An increase in the number of
Jews leaving the Soviet Union would hinge on Israeli guarantees that they
stay in Israel and not move on to the U.S. The Soviets also want a cessation of
anti-Soviet propaganda from American Jewish groups and from Israel.
It is reassuring that Israel and the USSR are talking again about
establishing relations. Since 1967, when the Soviets broke off with Israel in
the aftermath of the Six-Day War, the Arabs have had a monopoly on direct
conversation with the Soviets. Perhaps if formal relations were resumed, the
Kremlin would not be so eager to back some of the more radical Arab states,
such as Libya or Syria. Under its new premier, Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet
Union might take a more balanced and less troublesome attitude toward the
Middle East.
New York Times' columnist Flora Lewis said this week that Israel could
digest the Soviet Union's two preconditions for Soviet Jewish immigration
"as easy as chicken soup." It is not that simple — or that cute. Assuring the
Soviets that Jewish emigrants would remain in Israel would probably be as
much of a violation of their human rights as is the Soviet Union's current
insistence that they remain in the USSR. Substituting one prison for another,
even if it is the Jewish State for the Worker's State, is not just.
And keeping the Soviet immigrants in Israel would be a hardship on an
already overextended Israeli economy. World Jewry would provide funds to
help Israel absorb the newcomers, but there are limits to even those extensive
resources.
This new Soviet willingness to negotiate the emmigration of Jews
reflects once again its cynical attitude toward them: They are a commodity,
an item that can be bartered and sold. The Soviet Union seems to have
forgotten that it agreed ten years ago to the rights of its Jews — and of people
everywhere — when it signed the Helsinki Accords. To negotiate conditions
and for the emmigration of Soviet Jews is to abrogate the spirit — and,
probably, the letter — of the accords.

Religious Moderation

Ethiopian Jewish protests over the demands made upon them by the
Israeli Rabbinate forces consideration of firm action for rational treatment of
major religious issues compelling cooperation by government with the chief
religious leaders. On the basis of the American separation principle, this will
surely be viewed as a deplorable approach to matters that might compel state
and religion to merge all-too-seriously. Resolving the regrettable restrictions
on the Ethiopian settlers is a serious obligation upon a nation that takes pride
in its democratic idealism.
There are more serious matters to be taken into consideration in the
evolving Israeli experiences that are affected by extremism. At the sessions of
the American Israel Dialogue sponsored in Jerusalem by the American
Jewish Congress, former Israel President Yitzhak Navon, now education and
culture minister, warned that "polarization in relations between religious
and non-religious Jews is the greatest cause for concern in Israeli society."

-
House and Senate open each session
with a prayer.
Ironic? Bizarre? Not at all for
those who would remind Justice
Burger and thousands of others that it
is not compulsory for Americans to
serve in either the top court or in fed-
eral legislative halls, whereas the law
does make it compulsory for children
to get elementary education. And
those children finding themselves in
public (government-operated) schools
rather than private schools, must not
be coerced insofar as religious prac-
tices- enter the state-controlled arena.
Justice Sandra O'Connor, who
might have been expected to share the
dissenting view of Justice Burger, put
the case for invalidating the Alabama
statute precisely. Undoubtedly, much
to the dismay of President Reagan,
who appointed her, and the Moral
Majority, she cautioned that a chal-
lenged government practice should be
regarded unconstitutional if it "makes
adherence to religion relevant to a
person's standing in the political
community." Succinctly and con-
vincingly, she added that direct
endorsement of religion or a message
that religion or a particular religious
belief is favored "fails the test."
Justice Paul Stevens, writing for
the Court's majority, provided judicial

that a few hundred yards away, the

Justice Sandra O'Connor:
A majority viewpoint.

thinking similar to that of Justice
O'Connor. The Alabama statute, he
wrote, violates the First Amendment's
prohibition against an official estab-
lishment of religion because the law
had as its "sole purpose" the fostering
of religious activity in the classroom.
In driving home that point, he noted
that Alabama State Senator Donald
Holmes, the chief sponsor of the law,
had acknowledged in court that the
sole purpose of the legislation was to
permit prayer in Alabama's public
schools.
Put another way, the Alabama
law was not just accommodating a
program of prayer. It was promoting it.
A moment of silent contemplation
in the public school classroom is all
that's necessary to enable each child to
be prayerful if he wishes. But Jerry
Falwell and some of his Moral Major-
ity colleagues are dissatisfied with

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