EDITORIAL
Helping Hands
The Friedman and Schmidt families who arrived at Metro Air-
port Tuesday night are part of the largest wave of Jews to leave the
Soviet Union since the gates to emigration shut in the early 1980s.
International politics aside, is the Detroit Jewish community
prepared to receive and acculturate the newcomers?
The community provides each immigrant family a three-month
support system of welcome, housing and food, plus an ongoing pro-
gram of English classes and job placement. But with nearly 40 ar-
rivals in the last few months and as many or more set to come in
the next few months, Jewish Family Service's small resettlement
staff is already overworked.
Due to the higher-than-expected level of immigration to Detroit,
JFS has requested additional budgeting from the Jewish Welfare
Federation. The Federation has begun to study the request and
assured JFS that it will meet the increased need.
Absorption of newcomers is not only the responsibility of Jewish
institutions, however. There are ways for the ordinary Jew to help.
Volunteers are needed as translators, drivers and as guides through
American life for the newcomers.
While those arriving now are joining already established families,
the community must still take an active part in helping the im-
migrants acclimate to their strange new life. Our communal agen-
cies must allocate the resources to do the job right. Our people must
involve themselves and draw the Russians into Jewish life and the
Jewish community.
Disaster
The United States' strategy in the Persian Gulf is a disaster
waiting to happen. So far, the accidental crash of a Navy helicopter
has killed at least one American, the newly reflagged oil tanker
Bridgeton has been crippled by a mine — and U.S. strategists and
naval forces have been exposed, respectively, as having little vision
and being inadequate. We have, it seems, neither enough
minesweepers nor enough military prescience to get the tanker escor-
ting job in the gulf done correctly.
Even England has turned down our request for British
'minesweepers to clear shipping lanes in the Persian Gulf. England
is both fearful of getting embroiled in the seemingly interminable
Iran-Iraq war and confident that its low-profile, eight-year-old Ar-
milla Patrol can continue its stellar job. In the last year alone, the
patrol has escorted without incident 150 British ships through the
Strait of Hormuz at the mouth of the gulf.
But this collective egg on American faces may be minor corn-
pared to what could lie ahead. The chance for combat with Iran is
real and palpable. The chance of a regional war becoming a broader
war is frightening.
American anger toward Iran under the Khomeini regime is
understandable. We were embarrassed in 1979 when our embassy
staff was held hostage for 444 days; we were embarrassed when
Iranian-backed terrorists killed hundreds of American Marines in
Lebanon; and we are embarrassed now when shipping is no longer
safe in the Persian Gulf.
But anger is not enough. What is needed is a consistent policy
toward the Islamic republic. Our diplomatic strategists must decide
whether we want revenge against Iran — or accommodating the
Union. We cannot ship arms to Iran one day, covertly or not, and
rattle our swords the next. Our military strategists must decide
whether we intend to sail softly and carry a big stick in the Persian
Gulf, or invoke an attack on the U.S.-escorted tankers and, thus, allow
the Pentagon a chance to smash the Iranian infidels.
It is time to reassess our stance toward the Persian Gulf, toward
Iran, toward Khomeini — and toward our own Navy and its valued
personnel. What is needed is consistency over time — not knee-jerk
policies that conform to the peculiar and changing exigencies of the
moment.
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LETTERS
Acceptable
To Anybody
I deeply appreciate ("Pure-
ly Commentary," July 24) .. .
I can tell a story about Fred
Butzel, whom I never met but
who I am told put in a good
word for me when I needed it.
After I came out of prison and
started to work on my
Documentary History of the
Jews in the United States, I
applied to the American
Jewish Historical Society for
membership. When my ap-
plication came before the
board of directors, some peo-
ple raised the question of
whether I was fit for member-
ship since I was a felon and a
convict and so on. Louis
6
FRIDAY, AUG. 7, 1987
Finkelstein of the Jewish
Theological Seminary was
one of those who raised the
question.
Whereupon Dr. Joshua
Bloch, chief of the Jewish
division of the New York
Public Library . . . spoke up
and, calling attention to the
fact that Louis Finkelstein
had a brother who had serv-
ed time in Sing Sing, said
something to the effect of, "If
I were you, Louis, I wouldn't
talk," and then testified to the
fact that I was a serious
scholar (since he had observ-
ed me coming to the New
York Public Library, Jewish
division, for years on end).
Whereupon Fred Butzel put
an end to the discussion by
saying that if I were accep-
table to Bloch I should be ac-
ceptable to anybody .. .
Morris U. Schappes
Editor, Jewish Currents
Why Are The
Haredim Silent?
While Philip Slomovitz's
July 17 article on the Haredi
community in Israel deserves
condemnation, I was very
dissapointed by the response
of the Detroit area Orthodox
rabbis which appeared in the
July 31st issue.
The rabbis write that
members of the Haredi com-
munity "all abhor the
violence and subversion with
which Mr. Slomovitz
associates them all."
The fact of the matter is
that a key source of tension
betwen the Haredi communi-
ty and other Israelis is that
Haredi leadership has at best
remained silent and, in some
unfortunate instances, has
expressed anything but
abhorrence for Haredi
violence .. .
Anyone who has been to
Israel and has seen the
bathing suit posters placed in
bus stop displays which
sparked so much controversy
would concede that such pro-
vocative ads would never be
permitted in the United
States. When elements in the
Haredi community opted to
take the law into their own
hands and deface the posters
and torch the bus shelters
Knesset members from
Agudat Yisrael refused to
condemn the activity.
Keep in mind that this
destruction of public proper-
ty was highly organized: To
keep police busy and off their
trail, peole swamped the
authorities with false bomb
reports — a tremendously
dangerous prank in a city
where real bombs are
periodically placed.
I understand why some
Haredim feel they cannot
respect anything associated
with the Zionist State .. .
What I don't understand is