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PUBLISHER: Charles A. Buerger
ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER: Arthur M. Horwitz
EDITOR EMERITUS: Philip Slomovitz
EDITOR: Gary Rosenblatt
CONTRIBUTING EDITOR: Elie Wiesel
ART DIRECTOR: Kim Muller-Thym
NEWS EDITOR: Alan Hitsky
LOCAL NEWS EDITOR: Heidi Press
STAFF WRITER: David Holzel
LOCAL COLUMNIST: Danny Raskin

ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES:
Lauri Biafore
Millie Felch
Randy Marcuson
Rick Nessel
Danny Raskin

OFFICE STAFF:
Lynn Fields
Percy Kaplan
Pauline Max
Marlene Miller
Dharlene Norris
Phyllis Tyner
Jeri Poma
Mary Lou Weiss
Pauline Weiss
Ellen Wolfe

Psychoanalysis Can Reveal
The Roots Of Anti-Semitism

CHARLES J. SILOW

fter the Holocaust, many be-
lieved that there would no
longer exist serious anti-
Semitic threats to the Jewish people. It
was widely.thought that the world was
so horrified by the murdering of six
million Jews that an attempted re-
currence of genocide would be un-
thinkable. It was widely assumed that
anti-Semitism was itself dead, that it
was considered so forbidden and
shameful, being linked with the think
ing and actions of the mass murderers
of six million Jews.
When the Neve Shalom Syna-
gogue in Istanbul was attacked this
past year; many Jews were horrified
inasmuch as an act of so-called politi-
cal terrorism had graphically and
dramatically become identical with an
act of anti-Semitic terrorism. Com-
parisons were widely made between
the attacks by the Nazis on Jews in
synagogues during the 1930s and '40s.
For many Holocaust survivors, the
images of Jews being shot and then
burned brought back very painful,
horrifying memories. Many Jews felt
frightened and angry by the notion
that Jews, once again, because they
were Jews, were being targeted for vio-
lence. The protective psychological
bubble, that anti-Semitism was not a
real threat, was punctured for many.
Many important questions began
to be raised, how was it that Jews could
be murdered in a synagogue in prayer
in 1986•just as they were attacked in
synagogues in the 1940s? Wasn't
anti-Semitism supposed to be dead?
Why does anti-Semitism continue to
exist?
Let us attempt to answer these
questions by attempting to under-
stand more about the nature of prej-

udice and anti-Semitism in general.
To help us understand more clearly,
let us turn to psychoanalytic theory.
Psychoanalytic theory basically states
that all human behavior, no matter
how seemingly illogical, is explainable
and has a purpose. All human beings
employ a variety of psychological
mechanisms in everyday life to help
deal with troubling or upsetting ideas
or feelings.
As examples, a person may at-
tempt to block out or deny that some-

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PRODUCTION:
Donald Cheshure
Cathy Ciccone
Curtis Deloye
• Joy Gardin
Ralph Orme

©1986 by The Detroit Jewish News (US.Fs 275-520)
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CANDLELIGHTING AT 4:48 P.M.

OP-ED

VOL. XC, NO. 18

Light The Lights

Tonight, we will light the first of the eight candles of the menorah. The
light from the candles will cut through the winter darkness, and in so doing, it
will also symbolize for us a much-hoped-for spiritual illumination.
The lighting of the menorah occurs during the shortest days of the year.
At this moment of seasonal darkness, we turn toward the light, yearning for
the conquest of bleakness, despair and apathy. The light of the menorah
reminds us that the darkness can be transcended with new commitments to
the freedom for which the Maccabees fought 2,152 years ago.
Since the Maccabees overthrew the Greeks, Jews have seen many dark
days. They have witnessed persecutions and the cruelest brutalities. They
have faced virtual extermination. But they have always survived. The light
from the menorah is the light of this survival, the light of our hope, the light of
our certainty that we will rise above the darkness of the moment.
It is the light of our salvation.

Freedom's Proliferation

The celebration of Chanukah commemorates one of the first recorded
victories for religious freedom in the history of mankind, and Judah
Maccabee never dreamed how far his victory would transcend the ages and
•
denominations.
This holiday season has seen the animated Jewish hero of the movie An
American Tail merrily available for Christmas promotions at Sears stores
and McDohald's restaurants. Feivel Mouskewitz never had it so good in the
movie, but neither did Bubbie and Zadie as they fly through the sky on
Chanukah, visiting all the good little Jewish boys and girls in the world in
Daniel Halevi Bloom's book,Bubbie and Zadie Come To My House. Bloom has
for several years provided Jewish children a post office box in Alaska to write
to if they become jealous of Christian children's annual letters to Santa Claus.
Ho, Ho, Ho!
In another effort at ecumenical celebrations, several Detroit area
specialty shops had blue and white Christmas stockings available,
emblazoned with the Hebrew word shalom in bright letters.
Our first inclination is to bemoan the mixing of religious symbols, the
commercialization of Chanukah, the blurring of distinctions. But, to borrow a
phrase, in the spirit of the season we must marvel at how far we have come in
the area of religious tolerance . :and how far we must go.
Jewish spokesman have been joined by their Christian brethren in
recent years, decrying the homogenization of the holiday period. Religious
Christians, like their Jewish counterparts, have criticized the dilution of
-.3 their holiday with the symbols of another. We are all threatened when
giftgiving and legal decisions become the major issues during the holiday
season, and overshadow the real meaning, the religious significance, for both
Christians and Jews.
As Feival Mouskewitz discovered, the streets of America are not paved
with cheese or with gold, and Judah Maccabee's battle for freedom did not end
2,000 years ago.

Charles J. Silow is a psychotherapist and
president of Children of Holocaust
Survivors Association in Michigan.

Jews, as the victims of
scapegoating, can
educate the world about
the consequences of
prejudice and hatred.

thing is upsetting when in fact it is
very upsetting. A person may project
onto another person unacceptable
thoughts or feelings; it is the "other
guy" who feels angry or scared, not us.
Similarly, groups can come to sym-
bolize troublesome thoughts. An
example of this is when others are
blamed or scapegoated. The variety of
stereotypes of the Jew, the Zionist, the
Arab, and the black, the white, all can
come to represent various psychologi-
cal issues within people.
For Adolph Hitler, the Jew came
to symbolize very disturbing
psychological conflicts within himself.
Writing in Mein Kampf, , the dark-
haired Adolph Hitler stated: "With
satanic joy in his face, the black-haired
Jewish youth lurks in wait for the un-
suspecting girl whom he defiles with
his blood." And "systematically these
black parasites of the nation defile our
inexperienced young blond girls."
Hitler's fantasies about his im-
agined Jewish youth were projections
of his own "dark" and "satanic" con•
flicts about women, we would specu•

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