PURELY COMMENTARY

PHILIP SLOMOVITZ

David And Jane: Pride In Leadership

Biennally, men with records of many
accomplishments have been chosen here
for philanthropic leadership and as
chairmen of Allied Jewish Campaigns.
They all earned editorial commendations
and the recognition due for tireless labors
and devotion to the great causes. This
year's selections earn special attention
from the community they are to lead. Not
necessarily for the added enthusiasm
created by the selection of a woman as co-
partner in leadership, but because the two
selectees represent the accomplishments
of a generation of loyalties that elevated
the two to top ranks that become available
in self-dedication to their people's needs.
David Hermelin and Jane Sherman
come from the ranks, having started as
solicitors, with step-by-step acquisition of
leadership roles in small groups, then in
entire divisions, and finally as the top
ranking who lead, with an expectation
that community will follow.
This is the point to be made in
greeting the David and Jane elevation to
directing positions: that their successes on
the ladder to leadership are accounted for
by their participation in and encourage-
ment to volunteerism. There is nothing
more vital for any cause than the

vised by and for women. She is especially
triumphant in the United Jewish Appeal.
Project Renewal has become a great
obligation now being more fully adhered
to thanks to her leadership. Therefore,
what she has attained has recognition on
a global scale, in this country, in Israel
and wherever the needs are fulfilled.

Something special must be said about
David Hermelin. World leadership in the
Israel Bonds Organization is noteworthy
in itself. r ][13 be a successor to Prof. William
Haber as head of the American ORT is a
position of glory. He is much more: he is
of the synagogue. It is not only because
David Hermelin held the presidency of
Congregation Shaarey Zedek. It is
because on its bimah he has been hazzan
and Torah reader. It is because he rises to
spiritual heights in his observance of what
he associates with and is its advocate.

David Hermelin

Jane Sherman

volunteer. Without the central figure in
communal devotions it will become dif-
ficult, perhaps impossible, to attain any
successes in pursuing results in philan-
thropy and social welfare.

David and Jane posses the qualities
that make for leadership. Jane Sherman,
like her partner in the new leadership, has
gained acclaim in many movements, with
men associates as well as in causes super-

Two respected personalities will lead
the next Allied Jewish Campaign. They
are from the ranks and keep lending
dignity to the ranks. Having elevated
volunteerism on the highest bases, they
make it a duty to peoplehood always to be
proud of. That's why their oncoming
leadership justifies the pride.

Insecurity: Is Fear Under The Vine Tree?

In the Prophet Micah we have a
prediction of a glorious future, and it
must be without fear. We read Micah
4:4:

They shall sit every man
under his vine and under his fig
tree, and none shall make them af-
raid.

We, as inheritors of Scripture
and Prophecy, treat this as a sacred le-
gacy to be shared by all Jews. It is for
Israel and Diaspora alike.
Major in Micah is the command-
ment: fear not!
Yet, from Israel comes doubt. An
unfortunate "Jewish spy case" aroused
so much fear that it caused some lead-
ing Israelis to pose the question: do
American Jews feel insecure in their
Land of Promise?
Out of an understable concern over
spying by an American Jew for Israel
against Jewry's best friend, the U.S.,
came a worrisome challenge to the
Jews: are you concerned about your se-
curity?
Out of such a fear also developed
the panic about double allegiance.
That's where American Jews should
have reacted with disgust. Such a fear
did not merit recognition. The many
columnists who made it a topic for con-
sideration, Jews and non-Jews alike,
should have been greeted with outrage.
Our loyalty is not on trial and we are
as loyal as anyone in media and gov-
ernment.
Why the repetition? Because per-
mitting fear to dominate us will ac-
complish just what we repudiate with
all the emphasis in our power: the out-
rageous introduction of the very
thought of insecurity.
The confidence we have in our citi-
zenship rejects the mere suggestion
that security in citizenship is
threatened. If it were, we would not be
alone. It would endanger all religious
elements, everyone of every racial and

religious background. Because we all
united, in all social and religious
spheres, to repudiate it, our citizenship,
together, is impregnable and above re-
proach.
The Pollard spy case has drawn the
necessary expression of regret that
Jews should have been involved in spy-
ing against the U.S. In the course of
time, there will surely develop a second
question, whether the accused spies
were treated justly. Prof. Alan M. Der-
showitz, a nationally recognized legal
authority, maintains the sentence for
Pollard was excessive. Commenting on
it, in a letter published in the New
York Times April 17, Robert C. Leh-
man, assistant professor of sociology at
Princeton University, wrote:
Prof. Alan M. Dershowitz of
Harvard Law School correctly
terms the life sentence for
Jonathan Jay Pollard, con-
victed of spying for Israel, "out-
rageously excessive" (Op-Ed,
March 18). In recent years,
Americans convicted of espion-
age for non-Communist coun-
tries have received much lighter
sentences. So even have spies
for the Soviet Union.
• In 1982, Ens. Stephen
Baba was sentenced to eight
years for selling secret
electronic-warfare documents to
South Africa; under a plea
agreement, he was to serve only
two years.
• In 1985, Samuel Loring
Morison, a former naval intelli-
gence analyst, was sentenced to
two years for stealing secret
Navy documents for a British
publication.
• In 1986, a Federal court
reduced the sentence of Sharon
Scranage, former Central In-
telligence Agency employee,
convicted of spying for a

Ghanaian official, from five
years to two.
• Espionage for the Soviet
Union is incomparably more
harmful to national security
than spying for Israel, one of
our closest allies. And yet:
• A former C.I.A. employee,
William Kampiles, was sen-
tenced in 1978 to 40 years, with
eligibility for parole after 10
years, for selling plans for a
U.S. spy satellite to the Rus-
sians.
• In 1981, David Barnett,
former C.I.A. agent, was sen-
tenced to 18 years for no less an
offense than selling to the
K.G.B. information on U.S. in-
telligence operations and the
names of some 30 covert U.S.
agents.
• A life sentence for Mr. Pol-
lard, which even the prosecu-
tion had refrained from request-
ing, seems way out of line.

This is not intended to exonerate
those judged guilty and their col-
laborators in Israel. The guilt stands
condemned, with an admonition of
non-repetition. The aim here is to de-
plore fear and to warn against panic.
That can be the worst of crimes, bor-
dering on self-flaggelation.
An importantly impressive admon-
ition appears in a very good book just
off the press. Prof. Paul Johnson pro-
vides the advice in a truly impressive
work, A History of the Jewish People
(Harper & Row), the review of which
will appear in another week. Prof.
Johnson, one of the most distinguished
journalist and historians of our time,
who held professorial posts in this
country and abroad, dealt at length
with history from time immemorial and
covered the Zionist ideology and the
Holocaust to the fullest. He took into
account all of the dangers that tested

the Jewish people through the cen-
turies. Prof. Johnson provides a
deeply-moving summary of the Jewish
way to approach life in which he quotes
an historic bit of advice from the Book
of Joshua, thus:
If David had to meet
Goliath, he must possess a sling.
During the Second World War
Jewish scientists had played a
critical part in making the first
nuclear weapons. They had
done so because they feared
Hitler would develop an atomic
bomb first. In the 1950s and
1960s, as Soviet and Arab hostil-
ity to Israel grew, Israeli scien-
tists worked to equip the state
with a means of deterrence. In
the late 1970s and 1980s they
created a nuclear capability,
whose existence was secret but
understood in the quarters
where it would have most effect.
Thus Israel was in a position to
fulfill the second of the two new
tasks which circumstances had
placed upon her.
But it would be wrong to
conclude a history of the Jews
on this grim note. Jewish his-
tory can be presented as a suc-
cession of climaxes and catas-
trophes. It can also be seen as
an endless continuum of patient
study, fruitful industry and
communal routine, much of it
unrecorded. Sorrow finds a
voice while happiness is mute.
The historian must bear this in
mind
Over 4,000 years the Jews
proved themselves not only
great survivors but extraordi-
narily skillful in adapting to the
societies among which fate
thrust them, and in gathering
whatever human comforts they

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