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Friday, December 13, 1985

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THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

PURELY COMMENTARY

PHILIP SLOMOVITZ

Chanukah Inspires Many Lessons, Scores of Experiences

Chanukah has the endless theme of historic experience, of lessons from the past
to be applied to the present.
The current emphasis on the theme really began a week before the Feast of
Lights when "the Spy Case" began to torment Israel and Jews everywhere.
It was an occasion for embarrassments and the tormenting kept growing. With
the needling in the press, there was never a reference to the case without the com-
mentators and reporters reviewing every "sin" ascribable to Israel. Therefore, the
continuing bewilderment causing confusion and predicament.
Let it be remembered that while Chanukah has its roots in militarism — how
else is the Maccabean spirit to be defined — it also has the message of pacifism. The
festival's candles are always lit in a spirit of joy marked by hopes for peacefulness in
the home and the neighborhood. The impressive lesson always associated with it is
from Zechariah 4:6. "Not by might nor by power but by My spirt, saith the Lord of
Hosts" — Lo b'khayil v'lo b'koakh .. .
Rooted in memory, this is inerasable even when there is need for military
weapons.
The "spying" sensation was, perhaps remains, most unfortunate. The confidence
in Israel's ethical codes and moral persuasions must and should always create the
hope that the evils implied will never seep into the Israeli bloodstream.
The internal concerns are primary in the spirit to be imbibed from Chanukah.
How can Jewish identifications be kept intact? It is fortunate that Chanukah creates
the spirit so vital in youth. But youth grows up and many leave the Jewish fold. The
most serious problem is the mixed marriage.
The attempt to link Chanukah with the sister festival, Christmas, as if the ob-
noxious Chanukah Bush as it used to be referred to, were a compulsion. There can
be respect for both festivals without linkage or abuse, as there is dignity in all inter-
faith treatments. The mixed marriage is serious, and the assertion that one in three
marriages in Jewish ranks now is an intermarriage presents a problem and a chal-
lenge.
Something interesting along those lines has just developed in Washington. An
article by Joseph Berger in the Dec. 2 New York Times commences as follows:
The gold medallion Leslie Goodnian-Malamuth wears around her
neck serves as an emblem of her lifelong struggle as the child of an inter-
faith marriage.
On one side, it has a Star of David; on the other, an engraving of St.
Christopher rescuing a shipwrecked child. Miss Goodman-Malamuth, a
tall woman with honey-colored hair, turns the Star of David to the world
because she identifies herself as a Jew.
"But there's this other side I keep hidden," she said. "The medallion
sums up the conflict."
That conflict, between two religious worlds in which she has never
felt fully accepted, is one shared by an increasing number of children
coming of age after three decades of a surge in marriages between Jews
and Christians. Egon Mayer, a Brooklyn College sociologist, estimates
that such children now number 400,000 or 600,000.
Their experiences range from an easy ability to swing between cul-

Detroit Achievement
Images National
Holocaust Planning

In a speech delivered at the Na-
tional Holocaust Memorial groundbreak-
ing ceremonies in Washington recently,
U.S. Senator Robert Dole, Senate major-
ity leader, declared:
Forty years ago, General
Dwight Eisenhower visited one of
the recently liberated concentra-
tion camps in Europe. Knowing
that it would be a wrenching ex-
perience, even for someone used
to the terrible sights of war, he
nonetheless felt he had to go, "in
order," he said, "to be in a posi-
tion to give first-hand evidence of
these things, if ever, in the future,
there develops a tendency to
charge these allegations merely
to 'propaganda'."
We are here today for the
same reason. After four decades,
memories — even horrible
memories — can fade. After four
decades, many of those who sur-
vived the Holocaust and could
tell us how it really was — many
of them have passed from our
midst. And after four decades of
peace in Europe and dramatic
political changes around the
world, with former enemies now
fast friends and former allies
now our adversaries, it is hard
sometimes to recall or even be-
lieve how something so vast and

Robert Dole

inhuman could ever have hap-
pened.
The museum whose construc-
tion we start today will remind
us that it did happen. Even more
important, it will remind us that
— unless we are vigilant in our
defense of liberty for all — it
could happen again, to any of us.
Though the massive tragedy
of the Holocaust fell upon the
Jews of Europe, this will not be a
Jewish museum. Though it will
sit on this impressive site in our
nation's capital, it will not be an
American museum.
It will be a museum about,
and for, all the people of the
world. It will speak with equal
meaning and importance to us

tures to a bland indifference to religion to deep feelings of rootlessness.
To help the adult children speak freely about these experiences, Miss
Goodman-Malamuth and a friend, Robin Elizabeth Margolis, recently or-
ganized a group called Paraveh, the Alliance for Adult Children of
Jewish-Gentile Intermarriage.
Pareveh is a Hebrew word that describes foods that under Jewish
dietary laws are neither dairy nor meat, an absence of firm identity that
whimsically mirrors the ambivalence many children of intermarriage say
they feel. The organization's use of a Hebrew name also suggest that most
of its members feel their greatest tensions in gaining acceptance from the
Jewish community.
Many who choose to identify themselves as Jews but whose mothers
were not Jewish find they are not accepted as Jews, because Jewish law
traces religious descent from the mother.
In addition, says Miss Margolis, the group's executive director, chil-
dren of interfaith marriage sometimes "suffer from severe feelings of dis-
placement and detachment." Even at home, she said, these children are
often caught in tugs of war between their parents and their parents'
families over whether they will be mostly Christian or mostly Jewish. In
the larger world, they are exposed to anti-Semitic or anti-Christian re-
marks.
Pareveh's founders say they hope to help people integrate their two
contrary sides and to work with Jewish organizations in being more wel-
coming to such people.

If it has never been indicated before there is that realism in this article: that the
mixed marriage is a problem for both elements, yet it is much more serious for the
Jew. In a non-Jewish sense the party can either ignore their plight in an indifferent
society or can vanish in an unsuspecting world. It is much more difficult for Jews.
Yet, the NYTimes Berger story implies that the anti-Semitic aspect does not
vanish.
"Pareveh," organized in Washington, is inspiring formation of a chapter in New
York. There is an active chapter in Palm Beach, Fla. Therefore, there is nothing to
stop its growth in other cities, including metropolitan Detroit. It is important, there-
fore, to know the full meaning of the word. "Pareve" is generally known as meaning
"neither milk nor meat" and "neither dairy nor meat." Harkavy's Hebrew Dictionary
-
provides the terms "neutral" or "wishy-washy."
The founders of the interesting movement may not like the latter translation.
Yet its meaning must be taken into consideration, as many needling Jewish terms
usually do. For example, in judging Jews or in self-judgment there is the Yiddishism
Modne Yiden, meaning "peculiar Jews."
The "pareve" may not be transformed into the "peculiar," yet "peculiarly" they
will have similar problems.
There is hardly a theme, especially that leading to the positive in Jewish life,
that isn't applicable to Chanukah. Let the best in positivism pursue the observers
and the most creative emerge from it. Happy Chanukah!

all. If any of us are faced with
persecution, none of us will be
really secure. If any of us begin
to forget what happened during
the Holocaust, all of us will face
a greater risk that it could hap-
pen again.
Senator Dole also expressed these
sentiments ' when he was in Detroit to
accept the award of recognition to the
U.S. Congress by the Detroit Holocaust
Memorial Center. What he envisioned on
a national and world scale is already
embodied in the Holocaust Memorial
Center, whose significance also assumes
an interdenominational status.
From the responses on record here,
the attention given notable achieve-
ments, the Detroit Holocaust Memorial
Center serves as -a guide for national
programs in fulfilling Presidential and
Congressional commitments to
memorialize the victims of Nazism, to
keep alive the memory of the sufferers.
On this score the leadership of Rabbi
Charles Rosenzveig has special merit.
His rabbinic background, his knowledge
of the historic events, himself among the
surviving witnesses of the Hitler terror,
well qualifies him to keep emphasizing
the aims represented by the Holocaust
Memorial Center.
Notable in Senator Dole's role in
giving emphasis to the importance of
remembering, of keeping alive in the
memory of the victims, is the pledge
made by Senator Dole that he will con-
tinue to act for an assurance of Senator-
ial enactment of the Genocide Conven-
tion. Senator Dole has stated in his

speech relating to the National
Holocaust Center:
"There is another task before us in
the Senate which directly relates to the
reason we are here. We need to consider,
and to pass, the Genocide Convention as
soon as possible. I have placed it on the
list of things we need to do before we
end our work this year. The Administra-
tion has asked that we finish work on it.
I am determined that we will."
Much good may yet develop out of
the evil on the basis of this pledge. It is
an emphasis on recognition of major ob-
ligations and will surely be applauded
widely.

Historiography

Holocaust fact-preserving represents
one of the most important history-
writing experiences credited to the gen-
eration following the Nazi genocide. It
merits acclaim and is receiving it.
Exemplary is the response gained by
the Detroit Holocaust Memorial Center's
recognition of the concern encouraged by
the U.S. Congress when it was presented
the Detroit Merit Award. A majority of
the Michigan delegation in the U.S.
House of Representatives and the two
Michigan Senators were among the not-
ables in attendance. "
Simultaneously, the 'AFL-CIO con-
vention adopted strong resolutions
endorsing and encouraging continuity of
sponsorships of memorials to the tragic
events and honoring those who aided in
rescue tasks. This is the American way
of treating human obligations.
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