PURELY COMMENTARY Harvard's Glory At Age 350 Continued from Page 2 the achievements of distinguished Jews. 6. Enrollment of Jews in the university should be limited to 15 percent and he resented Jewish protests which seemed to interfere with carrying this program _ _ into effect-at that time. 7. Judaism and Americanism are mutually exclusive, Dr. Lowell claimed. When this program of an emi- nent college professor is examined 20 years later in the light of what now appears to be false prophecy, we are compelled nevertheless to recognize therein a condition which is to this date part of the unwritten numerus clausus that is in force in numerous colleges and universities in this country. If there are those who today will resent the unearthing of this incident involving a man who had passed away only a few weeks ago let them recall the fact that President Lowell was among the leading Massachusett's citizens who opposed the appointment of Louis D. Brandeis to the United States Supreme Court. To Lowell is attributed the story of the recommendation of an able Jewish lawyer for appointment to the faculty of the law school of Harvard University of which Ros- coe Pound was the dean and under whom Felix Frankfurter served as professor. When Lowell learned that the person recom- mended was a Jew he asserted, "one frankfurter to the pound is sufficient." An incident has just taken place at the University of Michi- - gan which unfortunately proves that even today we have on the fa- culty of some universities men who harbor grudges and nourish on prejudices. It is charged that a Jewish candidate for the editor- ship of the University of Michigan Datty-w trlb i fuoo.i the appointment because he is a Jew. The Univer- sity of Michigan Daily, let it be re- corded to the credit of its courageous editors, carried the following editorial in its issue of Jan. 16, 1943: "BOARD CRIP- PLES MICHIGAN DAILY." "We always believed that hard work, initiative and competence were the criteria for promotion on the Michigan Daily and that your student newspaper, in the best interests of the university, was to be run for and by the students. "Yesterday a faculty- dominated Board in Control showed us once again that this is not true. "They refused to appoint to a senior position one of the most de- serving applicants on the staff. They refused to appoint a student whose work both in quality and quantity led that of other junior night editors, and who was voted in the top range by the staff he would have had to work with. "He was NOT appointed be- cause he believed in telling the truth, because he believed that the Daily should be an active, con- structive student newspaper un- hampered by the whims of indi- vidual board members, and, we believe, because of his religion. "The fact that Leon Gor- denker did not receive an ap- pointment is not all-important. The reasons why he did not, the haphazard manner in which the board investigated the applicants and the general attitude of the board throughout the past year ARE important. "The only time some of the beonauridnemini g erbeesrts in h e m the w as when they were, through one means or another, attempting to stifle the student thought ex- pressed therein. Representing a university which is supposed to train young people to take their place in a democracy, board members have time and time again shown that they are afraid to let students think for them- selves. On every local controver- sial issue — and many national — which the Daily has discussed in its editorial or news columns, the students have had to fight for the right to reveal facts and express opinions. That the board's interest has centered in this side of the Daily alone is evident from the fact that only two of them, to our knowl- edge, have made an effort to understand the organization of the paper in which they are sup- posed to have so great a responsi- bility. The others have shown such little interest that even yesterday, when faced with the important job of choosing the next editors of the Daily, three of them did not exam- ine the scrapbooks which con- tained the year's work of the applicants. "One question asked of Gor- denker in a pre-appointment Louis Brandeis interview, illustrates how little some members of the board know about the Dailyx: "The questioner wanted to know why, when Gordenker was night editor of a certain issue, he let an "objectionable" editorial appear. After a year and a half on the board, the member should have known that the night editor has absolutely no control over what editorial appears in the Daily;. The choice of editorials is , Religious Diversions Continued from Page 2 tian, and Islamic traditions, his- tory, and beliefs. • To foster learning and understanding, sharing and listen- ing, trust and respect for dif- ferences, and dispel stereotypes about these major Abrahamic faiths and their respective tradi- tions. The Greater Detroit Interfaith Round Table is not the voice of any particular religious group. We seek to bring together persons wih varying religious commitments as peers in meaningful dialog. The Greater Detroit Interfaith Round Table is the local chapter of the National Conference of Christians and Jews. The goal of our work is to build brotherhood locally and nationwide by strengthening interreligious and interracial understanding and cooperation. In effect, this marks the end of a con- flict. It anticipated Good Will among all faiths. It introduces an aim for genuine unity among citizens. Now comes the contrast, created by an unfortunate occurrence in the Ameri- can Jewish community. An agency that operated since World War I, for 69 years, was shattered recently because a woman who had trained as a rabbi had been posted to active duty as a naval chaplain. This is a result of the increasing tensions that have been introduced in Jewish 30 Friday, August 1, 1986 ranks and appear to threaten even more serious rifts. To fully appreciate the complete as- pect of the latest unity-shattering occur- rence, it is best to quote the explanatory report in the New York Times published when the Commission on Jewish Chap- laincy of the JWB was destroyed. The NYTimes reporter, Ari L. Goldman, thus gave an account of the occurrence: The Jewish commission that has approved rabbis as chap- lains for the United States armed forces since World War I broke up yesterday over whether a rabbi who is a woman can serve as a military chaplain. The breakup came when the nation's major Orthodox rabbin- ical group, the Rabbinical Coun- cil of America, announced that it was withdrawing from the 69- year-old Commission on Jewish Chaplaincy of the JWB because Reform Judaism independently approved a woman as a Navy chaplain. The woman, Rabbi Julie Schwartz, 26 years old, of Cin- cinnati, will be the first woman to serve as an active duty Jewish chaplain. The breakup of the commis- sion, which was composed of Or- thodox, Conservative and Re- form rabbis, reflects larger ten- sion within the overall Jewish THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS community over such issues as whether women can serve as rabbis and whether Jewish lineage flows from the father as well as the mother. The commission operated under a voluntary arrangement with the military, reviewing and then recommending chaplain candidates. In its absence, the individual rabbinical bodies will make their own recom- mendations. The breakup does not affect the many other educa- tional and social service activi- ties of the JWB, which was prev- iously called the Jewish Welfare Board. The Orthodox announce- ment was made by Rabbi Louis Bernstein at the 50th convention of the Rabbinical Council in Bal- timore. "When they endorsed a woman," Rabbi Bernstein said of the Reform rabbinate, "we said: `That's it. The commission on Jewish Chaplaincy of the JWB is finished.' " In a telephone interview, Rabbi Bernstein said he was given unanimous support for the withdrawal action by the 200 rabbis gathered for the conven- tion. "We do not want to splinter the Jewish community any further than it is," he said. "But it is quite clear that this was im- . posed on us and left us with little choice. Orthodox Judaism can- not accept women rabbis." The Orthodox believe that men and women have different religious roles. While most family religious obligations fall on the women, communal respon- sibilities such as prayer and legal representation in conversion, marriage and divorce are the man's domain. As a result, they argue, women cannot serve as rabbis. The mere equating of the two de- velopments could anticipate condemna- tions. Yet the painful question remains why Jews and Christians can extend a friendly hand to Moslems, and Jews cannot similarly embrace and assure the unity that is so vital in life. Orthodoxy need not and will not yield on the question of women being welcomed as rabbis and the patrilineal commitment having become a Reform Jewish commitment, with many Conser- vatives having begun to endorse it. But why deny the Orthodox rabbis the right to serve as U.S. military chaplains? Can't there always be a measure of coop- eration among all Jews? Must the shock- ingly regrettable events in Israel which have become endorsements of violence be initiated in this country? Whatever the condemnations of the suggested equation involving peoples of all faiths, anything that leads to de- humanizing relations among people and destroying unity is shameful.