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Friday, April 11, 1986
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
THE JEWISH NEWS
Serving Detroit's Metropolitan Jewish Community
with distinction for four decades.
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PRODUCTION:
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© 1986 by The Detroit Jewish News (US PS 275-520)
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Subscriptions: 1 year - $21 — 2 years • $39 — Out of State • $23 — Foreign - $35
CANDLELIGHTING AT 6:50 P.M.
VOL. LXXXIX, NO. 7
Every Drop Counts
At the gas pumps, it's the best of times. Or at least the best we've
had in more than nine years. Average prices are down by 24 cents. At an
occasional service station, you can even get service: Attendants will wash
your windshield and offer to check your oil. On a good day, they'll even
offer to put a tiger in your tank.
It's almost like the good old days. The only hitch is that we will
never again have the old days, no matter how good they may have been.
If there is any lesson that Americans (and the rest of the Western world)
should have learned from the energy crises of the last 12 years, it is that
petroleum supplies are ultimately finite. Oil prices may waver.
Short-term oil supplies may increase one month and decrease the next.
But in the long run, oil is an endangered species. No matter what OPEC
says or no matter how deep Houston drills, there is only so much oil that
can be squeezed out of the ground. '
That is why we should not be persuaded that 79 cents for unleaded
gas means we should scoot around the countryside on old-fashioned
Sunday afternoon drives or push our air-conditioners to their maximum
settings in the sticky months ahead. Energy conservation is still sensible.
It is still prudent. With domestic oil companies' recent decrease in oil
exploration, the U.S. may eventually be in as vulnerable a position as it
was when OPEC shut down westward-bound oil in late 1973. When that
occurs, our national security — and our national habits — will be
severely compromised. Once again, we may be at the whims — and the
mercies — of our major foreign oil producers, the Arab states of the
Mideast. And once again, we will feel impotent and helpless.
The Eyes Of The Beholder
A recent decision by a U.S.. Court of Appeals highlights a peculiar
hole in federal laws. About a month ago, the Fourth Circuit Court of
Appeals in Richmond, Virginia ruled that Jews were not entitled to
protection under a 1966 civil rights act because they do not constitute a
race. The law, according to the court, had been passed to assure all races
living within the United States of their civil rights and Jews, said the
court, are not a race.
But lawyers representing Shaare Tefila Congregation in Silver
Spring, Maryland insisted that racial bigotry had motivated the vandals
who had attacked their synagogue. And that the 1866 law applied to acts
motivated by perceptions of race — not only by actual, biological ,
distinctions of race.
Indeed, Jews themselves have never claimed that they are a race.
They come ftom too many parts of the globe to warrant that distinction.
But it is the enemies of the Jews — Nazis, the Klan and others — who
have insisted that they .are a race.
The federal court's decision to exclude Jews from protection of the
1866 civil rights law fails to take a broad look at the dynamics of
prejudice. But even more troublesome is the fact that the decision reveals
that there is currently no remedy in the federal system for racially
motivated acts committed against Jews. What is clearly needed is a new
statute that fills this legal vacuum. Or a ruling by the U.S. Supreme
Court that overthrows that of the appeals court.
■••■••■■■•■• •■ •••
OP-ED
Cheap Or Fair Comment:
Reagan, Nicaragua, Jews
BY DEBBIE K. SCHLUSSEL
Special to The Jewish News
As a student, as an American,
and as a Jew, I was appalled at the
egregious cartoon which appeared on
Page Four of the March 28 Jewish
News. Perhaps one of the reasons
that there is so much anti-Semitism
in. the world is the fact that liberal
Jewish establishments, such as The
Jewish News, repeatedly alienate
our allies, such as President Reagan,
in such a crass and craven manner,
whenever they attempt to help us.
President Reagan was doing the
Jews a favor by exposing Sandinista
anti-Semitism because until re-
cently, the media, including The
Jewish News, have failed, perhaps
deliberately, even to mention it. As
a member of the National Jewish
Coalition and Citizens For America,
I will elaborate on this.
The communist Sandinista re-
gime abuses the human rights of its
own people and threatens the secu-
rity of the United States. In addition
to the Sandinista shutdown of Radio
Catolica (Nicaragua's Catholic radio
station), the totalitarian regime of
Nicaragua's "elected" president (I
use the term "elected" with reserva-
tion), Commandante Daniel Ortega,
has committed many atrocities in
carrying out its strict policy of reli-
gious suppression. Any sign of reli-
gious expression is not tolerated by
the Sandinista dictatorship, and is
swiftly obliterated.
The Nicaraguan government
continues to insist that it practices
separation of Church and State. Yet,
it continues to sponsor. anti-Pope ral-
lies, and employs several token pro-
Sandinista Catholic priests as "gov-
ernment advisers."
The Sandinistas also represent a
specific threat to the many Central
Debbie Schlussel is a Southfield High
School senior and National Teenage
Republican Valedictorian.
American Jews. That threat is
anti-Semitism. Before the Sandinista
revolution, anti-Semitism .in
Nicaragua was virtually non-
existent. However, as the Sandinis-
tas gained strength, so too did anti-
Semitism.
Flagrant anti-Semitic acts —
the firebombing and burning down
of the Managua Synagogue with its
The Sandinistas represent
a specific threat to the
many Central American
Jews. That threat is
anti-Semitism.
congregants trapped inside by the
Sandinista soldiers, the confiscation
of Jewish property, the arbitrary al..-
rest and detention of Jews — were
committed by the Sandinistas as
their revolution was at its height
and once .they were in power. The
Sandinista soldiers, after they set
the Managua Synagogue afire,
shouted, "Death to the Jews! What
Hitler started, we will finish!"
How is it that the Anti-
Defamation League of B'nai B'rith,
the President of the United States,
the U.S. State Department, and
many in the U.S. Congress have
documented and proven consistent
Sandinista antillSemitism, and yet,
one Rabbi Balfour Brickner of the
Stephen Wise Free Synagogue, no
proven authority on foreign affairs
or anti-Semitism, continues to deny
that Sandinista anti-Semitism has
ever existed? Couldn't it be that his
extreme liberal bias has blinded him
from the facts of Sandinista anti-
Semitism, and caused him to make
Continued on Pdge 20