73 4 tnie, %;ic•71 Friday, December 27, 1985 HVI: THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS THE JEWISH NEWS Serving Detroit's Metropolitan Jewish Community with distinction for four decades. Editorial and Sales offices at 20300 Civic Center Dr., Suite 240, Southfield, Michigan 48076-4138 _ Telephone (313) 354-6060 PUBLISHER: Charles A. Buerger EDITOR EMERITUS: Philip Slomovitz EDITOR: Gary Rosenblatt CONSULTANT: 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 OFFICE STAFF: Lynn Fields Marlene Miller Dharlene Norris Phyllis Tyner Pauline Weiss Ellen Wolfe ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES: Lauri Biafore Allan Craig Rick Nessel IDanny Raskin PRODUCTION: Donald Cheshure Cathy Ciccone Curtis Deloye Ralph Orme © 1985 by The Detroit Jewish News (US PS 275-520) Second Class postage paid at Southfield, Michigan and additional mailing offices. Subscriptions: 1 year - $21 — 2 years - $39 — Out of State - $23 — Foreign - $35 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