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Friday, August 9, 1985

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

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Start Worrying

Continued from preceding page

later it will end in disaster.
Jews, as Professor Simon
Rawidowicz observed, saw
themselves as the _"ever-
dying •eople." Jews were _
perennially in a morbid cone
dition, forever on the verge of
extinction. Each generation
sees itself as the last of the
pious, the last of the loyal-
ists, the last of the learned. It
makes no difference that
none of these self-written
obituaries came to pass. Dire
prognostications need no con-
firmation and are not subject
to disconfirmation. The mind-
set declared an invincible at-
titude. To paraphrase Nietz-
sche, no people possesses the
gift of immaculate percep-
tion.
Only the enemy reports
good news about Jews. Pity
the messenger of good news.
Report to a Jewish audience
that Yankelovitch, Gallup,
Lou Harris and others sur-
veying American attitudes
-towards Jews agree that 80
percent of non-Jews asked
would vote for a Jew as presi-
dent. Ask a Jewish audience
if that report is believable.
Most express incredulity.
How many would agree that
80 percent of non-Jews would
not vote for a Jew as presi-
dent? That result they find
credible. Against an idee fixe
polls, surveys and statistics
do not count. The worst is the
truest.
Only evil messengers carry
good news, and are therefore
to be suspected. The anec-
dote, vintage 1935, describes
two Jews seated on a park
bench in Nazi Germany. One
addresses the other: "I see
that you are reading Julius
Streicher's Der Sturmer.
How, Morris, can you read
such a vile anti-Semitic paper?"
"What else shoud I read?"
"Read a Jewish news-
paper."
'Not on your life. A Jewish
newspaper is filled with sad
news about pogrom and pov-
erty and persecution. But
this Nazi paper writes of
Jewish power, the Jewish
conspiracy of the Protocols of
the Elders of Zion, the grip
Jewish bankers hold over
world finances.That is very
gratifying. Would you de-
prive me of a little naches?''
Report to a Jewish au-
dience that in the Gallup Poll
(1981) commissioned by the
American Jewish Committee
the following groups in
America were judged as hav-
ing too much power: 1) Unions
- 45%;-2) Corporations - 42%.
Following these two leading
groups were'Necks, anti-
abortionists, Pro-abortion-
ists, Catholics, Evangelicals,
and down on the bottom of
the list, Hispanics and Jews.
But Jewe wiR not accept such
polls. It runs counter to our
plausibility structure. Jews
are not "willing" to believe
the good news.

During the Vietnam War,
not a few Jewish commen-
tators. were convinced that
Jews would be blamed for the
loss. As one prominent po-
litical scientist noted, "Gen-
erals don't lose wars; they
find scapegoats." And Jews
will be the logical scapegoats.
When the oil embargo hit the
United States, some Jewish
leaders warned that Jews
would be blamed for the long
queues. Who else? Neither of

In my home, worrying
was a lifestyle. If things
were good today, tomor-
row they would likely be
worse.

these predictions were real-
ized. It did not affect the pre-
judgement of those who re-
main invulnerably ignorant,
convinced that anti-Semitism
is as inevitable as death and
taxes.
Story is told of a husband
and wife on an African safari.
Within the tent she steps
upon a soft, sinuous object.
"Cobra," she cried out. Her
husband, looking at the ob-
ject, replied, "Rope." No one
can fault a person bitten by
a snake for being frightened
of twigs. But the forest is
filled with twigs and broken
branches and we must live in-
that forest. To avoid the
forest out of Tear of the ser-
pents would turn us into
frightened spirits, living a
thousand deaths.
Caution is in order; but
agoraphobia, fear of open
spaces, is no way to live our
lives. Fear of the enemy is a
social instinct vital for self-
preservation, but is a power-
ful enemy consuming our
lives. Neither Pollyanna nor
Cassandra thinking are
healthy guides for our people.
Erik Erikson' argued that
basic distrust must be bal-
anced by basic trust, and if
we are to face the future
bravely, the latter must out-
weigh the former. This our
tradition calls "emunah," the
basic trust whia is the pre-
requisite for vital living.

NIF Seeks
Israeli Funds

New York — The New Israel
Fund announced plans for a
major fundraising effort in Is-
rael. One of the 'first North
American Jewish philanthropies
to target Israeli donors, the New
Israel Fund, with offices in New
York and Jerusalem, has dis-
bursed grants • totaling over $1
million since 1980 to Israeli
programs promoting social jus-
tice, democracy and improved
Jewish-Arab relations in Israel.

