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 Ir u.N H . E c. - op lk i N o lI r A ucT I R 1 i0E 3 N ° uc5 B E ON WOME HERM AN irtl Itin MEN ViNY PoNAR -r11 .p ib LiKE ZaMetliiNG IN AN cestfrica aro THE g AWANZEMENT OF MEN 1 A IONIE „ 44414 14.4 4