EDITORIAL

Pollard's Poll

The American public is amazingly ignorant about the Jonathan
Jay Pollard spy case. Of 1,459 Americans polled by the New York
Times and CBS News last week, only 18 percent of the non-Jews were
aware that Pollard had spied on the United States for Israel. Only 62
percent of the Jewish respondents were aware of that fact.
Coming only a month after Pollard was sentenced to life in prison,
and after weeks of bitter debate over the appropriateness of his
sentence and the role of the Israeli government, the poll is a disturbing
yardstick of public awareness in the U.S.
If ignorance is bliss, however, last week's poll should allay the
concern of those in the Jewish. community who fear an anti-Semitic
backlash over the Pollard affair, Israel's involvement in the
Iran-contra arms scandal, or the abundance of Jewish-sounding names
indicted for illegal Wall Street manipulations. Thinking back a
generation or two, Jews ran a far higher risk of being personally hurt
by the scandals through social or economic backlash.
Is the backlash not present today because of progress in human
relations, or because of ignorance? Is the Jew no longer tarred through
guilt by association, or is an ignorant general public just too lazy to
pick up the brush?
Seventy-five years ago, Temple Beth El's Rabbi Leo Franklin
admonished Detroiters that Jews must be above reproach. The failures
of a single individual reflected poorly on the entire community. The
public opinion poll following the Pollard case appears to show that this
old axiom is changing as far as the general community is concerned.
But the morality lesson for the Jewish community should not have
changed at all.

the Moscow Embassy were discovered to have swapped access for sex.
Then, the new embassy was discovered to be a giant beacon for Soviet
intelligence. And finally, the Soviets held their own show-and-tell
session in Washington, displaying electronic paraphernalia which they
said the United States had planted in their new embassy.
Through all this, the United States has acted like an injured
innocent. Officials have denied that U.S. intelligence uses hookers.
They have called the Soviet espionage initiatives "more dastardly, in
the moral and technical sense, than anything we'd ever do to them."
Balderdash. The entire fiasco smacks of poor planning, no foresight
and little sophistication in the real world of superpower jockeying. It
tells more about American foreign relations insight than it does about
Soviet intrigue. And it is indicative of some very, very dumb things
that have been done by some people who are supposed to be very, very
bright.

Battle Of The Bugs

During the Vietnam War, some macho types were fond of such
epigrams as, "We had to destroy the village to save it." In Moscow, we
may have to destroy the embassy — reportedly riddled with electronic
espionage devices — to save it. But whether we can save our dignity
may be an even greater problem.
The entire episode, in fact, has been a thorough embarrassment to
the United States. First, the very Marines entrusted with guarding

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LETTERS

Why Not Rebuild
The Temple?

Now is the time to start plan-
ning the rebuilding of the Thm-
ple. Orthodox, Conservative,
Reform and non-observant
Jews: Let's make the Temple a
reality in our days.
I believe there is resistance to
building the Temple for fear of
destruction. After all, two
Temples have been destroyed
already in our history.
Another reason nobody is
talking about the rebuilding of
the Temple is the mosque of the
Golden Dome built over the
ruins of the ancient Beit
Hamikdash.
People believe that the con-
struction of the Temple implies
the destruction of the Mosque,
and that is not a Jewish way of
doing things. However, today
with the advanced construction
technology available it is
perfectly feasible to build a
platform, a bridge-like struc-
ture, that would place the 'Ibm-
ple directly above the mosque
without destroying it.
Building the Temple over the

6

Friday, April 17, 1987

mosque will have great
strategic advantages. The
enemies of Israel cannot
destroy the Temple without
destroying the mosque .. .
The generation of our fathers
gave us Israel. Let our genera-
tion make the Temple possible.
We didn't wait for the Messiah
to return to Israel. Must we
wait for the Messiah to rebuild
the Temple?

Aaron Swirski,
Auburn Hills

Temple Kol Amis'
Position Clarified

May I draw your attention to
two incorrect inferences which
might result from recent stories
in The Jewish News:
Temple Kol Ami has been a
sponsor of the Mazon - Jewish
Response to Hunger project
since Yom Kippur, and we have
a "Soya" box in our lobby into
which congregants and friends
place food for the needy after
every shopping trip. Similarly,
the young people of MSTY and
NFTY (the Reform regional and
national youth organizations)

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

have been adding contributions
to Mazon to the cost of their
conclaves and conventions for
over a year.
In a story about a proposed
Reform day school (April 10),
your writer states that Kol Ami
will send some of its
kindergarten students to the
program at one of the area con-
gregations. While individual
member families of our temple
may be choosing one of the
three classes offered by our
sister congregations in the
area, we are certainly not "sen-
ding" students anywhere.

Norman T. Roman
Rabbi, Temple Kol Ami

Lupus Awareness

The Michigan Lupus Foun-
dation would like to thank
you for publishing our ad in
The Jewish News. It is only
with the help of concerned
people such as you that we
are able to accomplish one of
our primary goals — aware-
ness of lupus.
We are convinced that in-

creased awareness leads to
earlier diagnosis, which in
turn leads to improved prog-
nosis. Many thanks for your
help in the fight against
lupus.

Gerald Ladd

Michigan Lupus Foundation

ty, conducts itself in relation-
ship to what it professes to be.
It is here, in the high stan-
dards it claims, that Israel's ac-
tions make it a hypocrite head
and shoulders above the na-
tions it so often condescending-
ly compares itself to when it
comes to virtues.

Reginald Townsend
Detroit

Israels' Position
Is Hypocritical

The self-righteous stance
taken in your April 3rd
editorial regarding the
"hypocrisy' of criticism against
Israel for its trade with South
Africa needs to be viewed from
a more pertinent perspective.
Israel's answer to criticism
for wrongdoing has always been
to draw attention to the criticiz-
ing party's own shortcomings.
(Children caught doing wrong
often draw attention to others
as a means of justifying their
own action.)
The caliber of standards that
Israel proclaims as virtuous can
only be accurately assessed by
looking at how Israel, in reali-

Worthwhile
Organization

It was a great pleasure for me
when I read the article about
Alyn Rehabilitation Center in
Jerusalem in The JewishNews
(April 10).
Our organization, David-
Hordoker Women's Organiza-
tion, has been active with Alyn
for many, many years. It is one
of our important projects in
Israel.
In 1981 Bessie Dorchen and
I visited Alyn Hospital and
Out-Patient Center and were
very enthused with the care,
help, love and compassion .. .

Bessie Chase
Oak Park