NEWS
`Christian Jews'
Continued from Page 22
Kelly & Company. From
Judaism to Christianity, "is a
real dramatic change," he
said. "It says something
about Jews in general."
But Rev. Lyons saw the
phenomenon as "a Christian
problem. Jews ought not be
defending Judaism against a
group like this," he told The
Jewish News before his tele-
vision appearance. "Jews be-
come the victims of these
kinds of movements and
ideas, but it's a Christian
problem."
Rabbi Tolwin said it was
"important" to have Rev.
Lyons on the program. Jacobs
and Stone "wanted to bump
him from the show because it
undermines them if a Chris-
tian clergyman says there's
no room for them."
Ishmael Reed: Writing
With Malice Aforethought
JOSEPH COHEN
Special to The Jewish News
West Big Beaver Road • Suite 112 • Troy, Michigan 48084 • (313)
AMERICAN
SOCIETY FOR
TECHNION-
ISRAEL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
Detroit
Chapter
r
pli." ■ 11111111111,1
guest speaker .. .
ADRIAN KANTROWITZ, M.D.
❑
❑
❑
❑
Professor of Surgery, Wayne State University, College of Medicine
Chief, Section of Cardiovascular Surgery, Sinai Hospital, Detroit
Author or co-author of nearly 200 articles published in medical journals
Has been granted five U.S. patents on medical devices
topic . . .
Artificial Hearts and Heart Transplants
moderator:
Bernard J. Cantor
•
•
•
•
Board Member, Detroit Technion Chapter
Trial attorney in patent, trademark and copyright cases in Federal Courts
Former Examiner in the United States Patent Office
Lectured on patent subjects at Wayne State University and at Bar Associa-
tion and engineering groups
7:45 p.m. Thursday
NOV. 20
24
UNITED HEBREW SCHOOLS
Friday, November 14, 1986 THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
21550 West 12 Mile Road/Southfield
he extent to which
Jewish-black rela-
tions have deter-
iorated in the past two de-
cades is a major concern of
the responsible leadership in
both communities. Regretta-
bly, but not surprisingly, this
deterioration is reflected in
contemporary literature.
Works about and by both
Jews and blacks are marked
by estrangement, distrust
and overt hostility.
The most recent evidence is
found in Ishmael Reed's new
novel Reckless Eyeballing (St.
,...._Martin's Press). Long into
harsh, strident, outrageous
satire, Reed in his seven
novels, four volumes of poetry
and two collections of essays,
has attacked a wide range of
both black and white institu-
tions, traditions, customs,
attitudes and habits with an
anger that burns red-hot
from book to book. His anger
may well be justified, but, oh
Lord, it's tiresome. Controv-
ersial and explosive, his con-
siderable talent as a writer is
weakened by an absence of
compassion but strengthened
by a literal directness that
forges words into weapons. If
you become one of Reed's
targets, you're as good as
dead.
In Reckless Eyeballing the
Jews are one of his major
targets, though his heaviest
artillery is reserved for black
and white feminist writers
whom he holds responsible
for the on-going castration of
black males. The ultimate
enemy is Alice Walker (The
Color Purple) who is viciously
portrayed as Tremonisha
Smarts, a powerful black
playwright-director. She is
aided and abetted by Becky
French, an antagonistic, in-
transigent white producer.
These two women conspire to
force Ian Ball, the young
black male playwright pro-
tagonist, into making his
play pro-feminist or face the
premature end of his career.
He capitulates to their de-
Dr. Cohen is director of the Jewish
studies program at Tulane
University.
mands (while taking his re-
venge as the hair-cutting
Flower Phantom, leaving
Tremonisha and about eight
other feminists shorn of their
locks a la the French women
collaborationists of the Nazis
at the end of World War II)
after Jim Minsk, his
mainstay, a young Jewish
producer, is killed by a mob
in the South.
The publisher's blurb says
that in this "fierce and
funny" book — it is funny
when it's not inflicting
gratuitous pain all over the
place — "sexual and racial
politics, anti-Semitism,
feminism and provincialism
all come under fire." As far,_
as anti-Semitism's coming.
under fire, that's debatable.
More frequently, it's Jews 4-•
who come under fire.
It is in the killing of Jim
Minsk, the young Jewish
producer, that Reed readily
tramples on Jewish sen-
sibilities. Minsk is invited to
Mary Phegan College in
Georgia as the distinguished
critic-commentator on the
school's annual "passion
play," reenacted since 1912.
Mary Phegan, it will be re-
called, was the young girl
Leo Frank was accused of
raping and murdering that
year. The "passion play" con-
sists of three tableaux in
which a Jewish Count
Dracula is shown attempting
unsuccessfully to suck the
blood of a Southern white
woman, a caricatured
medieval Jew is caught try-
ing to steal a Madonna and
Child and is beaten and
hosed down ("How'd you like
a little baptism, you kike?"
his tormentor shouts); and,
for the climax, Leo Frank is
shown carrying the limp
Mary Phegan to Jim Conley,
the janitor, asking his help in
burying the body. The audi-
ence is whipped into a frenzy.
When Minsk tries to escape,
he is captured, mutilated and
murdered.
Reed's willingness to turn
the Leo Frank tragedy into a
cheap racist joke is not just
insensitive, it's despicable,
and done with malice
aforethought.
Copyright 1986 Joseph. Cohen
(