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Friday, December 27, 1985
HVI:
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
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CANDLELIGHTING AT 4:49 P.M.
VOL. LXXXVIII, NO. 18
To Feed The Hungry
A new and unique program to aid the hungry of the world is gearing up
around the nation. (See story, Page 26.) Called Mazon, the Hebrew word for
"sustenance," the project asks those contributing to donate a self-imposed
surcharge of three percent of the expenses of a "life-cycle event," such as a bar
or bat mitzvah or a wedding. The funds will go to projects that aid the hungry,
regardless of their political or religious affiliation or the nation in which they
live.
Mazon is in the best tradition of Jewish giving. The Talmud adVises us to
feed the poor at Passover or to save a corner of our fields at harvest time so the
poor can pick their own food. In the United States, at least, Jews are not
primarily agrarian, so. the concept of reserving certain crops for the poor is
moot. But we can undoubtedly reserve a portion of our wealth.
Perhaps at no time can Jews be more aware of the contrasts between the
m
grim realities of the world and the relative affluence which many
of us enjoy
than when we have the pleasure of a simcha. There are about 40,000 bar and
bat mitzvahs in the U.S. each year. There are almost as many Jewish
weddings. Estimates of the cost of these affairs range from $500 million to
$800 million. At the same time, almost 40,000 children around the world die
each day of malnutrition or its side effects.
Taxing ourselves through Mazon for these affairs should not be perceived
as a way to expiate whatever guilt some of us may have for sitting down at a
banquet while millions go hungry. It is a way to share our joy with the less
fortunate, to recognize our common humanity, and to help solve a problem
that has plagued mankind for countless generations.
Pollard Wolves
The ramifications from the Pollard spy case continue, at least in the
media sector. Although Israel has cooperated fully with the U.S.
investigation and the strategic working relationship between the two
countries is said to be fully restored, several U.S. newspapers and
commentators use the incident as an excuse to rail against Israel.
Friends of Israel could easily be accused of knee-jerk reacting if they
simply defend Israel against any accusation. "My country, right or wrong" is
a response that is clearly transparent in the Middle East public relations
battle. Few, however, have used the knee-jerk defense in the Pollard case,
while Israel's foes have stooped as far back as 18 years to revive the USS
Liberty canard.
Spying on its closest friend, and patron, has hurt Israel's cause in the
United States. But Israel has tried to make amends. It has apologized and
dismantled the intelligence .unit that authorized and controlled the Jonathan
Pollard affair. The case is not a proud one in Israel's history, but i t should be a
closed chapter now.
Israel, its government and its people will suffer the consequences of the
Pollard case, whether its actions were any different than other allies of the
U.S. Hopefully, the loss of public credibility for certain media representatives
will be equally as significant.
OP-ED
Prize Does Not Illuminate
Our Dark Nuclear Winter
BY DR. RICHARD J. ROSENBLUTH
Special to The Jewish News
"Soviet and American physicians
have a prescription for your survival"
begins a solicitation I recently re-
ceived from the Nobel Prize-winning
International Physicians for the Pre-
vention of Nuclear War (IPPNW).
They were certain that I, as a
physician, was fully aware of the im-
plications of nuclear confrontation.
What they overlooked is that, with
educators such as Helen Caldicott and
her friends in the media running
amok, even a 7-year-old can dissertate
on the unspeakably frigid tundras of
nuclear winter.
The letter goes on to inform me
that SALT notwithstanding, the arms
race continues apace. But I can help
reduce the likelihood of nuclear war, I
am comforted to learn, by joining — or
at least helping to fund — the IPPNW.
They pretend to be an interna-
tional organization of physicians who
eschew politics (and also, I fear, any
concern for human rights) and virtu-
ously believe it is they who can con-
vince both superpowers, once and for
all, of the urgent need to disarm. They
outrageously assert that "already
their work has been instrumenal in
securing agreement from the Soviet
Union to .stop nuclear testing if the
United States also agrees."
In my profession, I see human life
wither away under the ravages of
cancer. I do not have to prove to anyone
the depths of my concern for others,
based as it is on a religious as well as
professional code of ethical conduct. I
am offended that my profession is
being exploited to serve interests that
I am convinced are not my country's.
Dr. Rosenbluth is director of the cancer
program at Hackensack (N.J.) Medical
Center and assistant professor of clinical
medicine at New York University School
of Medicine. He is active in the
Association of Orthodox Jewish
Scientists and the National Jewish
Coalition.
The self-congratulatory expres-
sion that Soviet party-line doctors, of
all people, share common goals with
their Ainerican counterparts displays
historical myopia and plain poor
sense. Solzhenitsyn describes in lurid
detail the activities of many a Gulag
physician who was shamelessly un-
true to the standards of our profession.
Soviet psychiatry is still trying to
cleanse its name, sullied by years of
collaborationist activity in service to a
state that equates the love of freedom
with insanity. How can we physicians
forget that an invited paticipant at a
There is an assumption
that non-experts are better
suited to solving military
and political problems
than trained professionals.
recent symposium in Washington,
D.C. on the "medical implications of
nuclear war" was none other than Dr.
Marat Vartanian, director of the
Soviet All-Union Scientific Center for
Mental Health, known to have played
a distinctive role as chief apologist for
Soviet psychiatry to the world medical
community.
Even more to the point is the dis-
covery that Dr. Yevgeny Chazov, the
Soviet co-chairman of IPPNW, had
signed a letter, printed in Izvestia in
1973, denouncing Andrei Sakharov.
This Dr. • Chazov is this year's co-
recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, the
same prize the Soviet government
tried to deny Dr. Sakharov.
There is an assumption. pervasive
in certain parts of our society, that
non-experts are invariably better
suited to solving military and political
problems than are trained profession-
als. Dr. Bernard Lown, the American