PURELY COMMENTARY
Never Sink Into Panic: 'Zion Redeemed With Justice'
PHILIP SLOMOVITZ
Editor Emeritus
I
srael's agonizing weeks were heart-
rending. The saddening occurrences
continue to be depressing. They
postpone peace. The hatreds commence
anew.
It is agonizing for world Jewry, not
for Israel alone. It is especially distress-
ing for American Jewry. The White
House and the State Department com-
bined sentiments that contain un-
justified exaggerations that emanate
from a failure to take into account the
background of it all. The United Na-
tions follows a line of action that has led
not to peace but to an implied en-
couragement to the terrorists who have
only one aim: the destruction of Israel.
This is exactly what is at the root of
what has and is happening: the aim to
destroy the Jewish State.
How else is one to interpret the
mobilization of the youngest among the
Arab antagonists of Israel into a state
of terror? All efforts at friendship
diminished with time, and suddenly the
young under the guise of resorting to
protests are making demands for Israel
to "get out!'
Now it is the duty of all Jews to pro-
tect the autonomy of the state, the life
and limbs of its citizens. The basic idea
of self-protection would vanish if that
obligation were negated.
Israel makes errors in judging and
ruling. But, it certainly has not commit-
ted the failure of pleading for negotia-
tions for amity with antagonistic
neighbors. The White House criticism
of Israel's present policies of resisting
mass attacks makes reference to the
urgency for negotiations. How much is
accomplished in inducing King Hussein
and other Arab leaders to be parties to
the required amity talks?
Much is made of Gaza as the center
of trouble, with Israel as the only
available scapegoat. Little is said about
Israel's desire to be rid of its obligations
there and Egypt's refusal to resume
control of the Gaza area. Who will
assume the responsibility for it if Arabs
are reluctant to normalize it there?
The basis for the tragic
developments in this sad situation is a
state of panic which always embraces
the United Nations and now is evident
in U.S. quarters.
Most vital to prevent a total calami-
ty is to avoid panic seeping into the
Jewish community. Jews everywhere
must keep aware of the fact emerging
anew that the Arab preachers of hate
are resorting — as it frequently becomes
evident — to an old threat of driving all
Jews out of the land that has become
Israel as the fulfillment of prophecy.
The moment there is an increased fear
over the threat to Jewish autonomous
statehood, it will spell the collapse of
hope for justice to the Jew and his right
to autonomous existence as an
assurance of it.
The just gains, the Zionist way of
having ended Jewish homelessness
with the redemption of statehood, must
not be defiled.
It is necessary to recall the strug-
gles of the centuries to retain the right
to live. That right, which defied a
Holocaust and the many hate-filled
crusades of the ages has developed into
the redemption that is Israel. Who will
dare denigrate the Jewish libertarian
goals?
Therefore the urgency that the
record of Jewish life in Israel and the
struggles that were encountered should
not be forgotten. One responsible
newspaperman took it into account.
A.M. Rosenthal, former New York
Times editor who is now a New York
Times Op-Ed Page columnist, traced the
record in an article which appeared on
Dec. 22 during the days of severe bit-
terness in the rioting by Arab youths
and the resistance of the terror by
Israel's troops. Under the heading The
Making of Gaza, Rosenthal wrote in
part:
If there is to be any honest
effort toward an end to the
misery of Gaza and the tragedy
of Israel as occupier, other
truths must be faced. So far
almost nothing has been said
about them. The haters of Israel
simply use Gaza as a club
against her. Her supporters
abroad do little but shake their
heads in reprimand or
embarrassment.
The one basic truth that
must be faced is that the tragedy
of Gaza was created by the
refusal of the Arab nations to
recognize the right of Israel to
exist and by their attempt to
destroy the Israeli state, begin-
ning at birth.
In 1947, the United Nations,
Continued on Page 30
The U.S. Supreme Court: A Current Footnote
p
reparatory to the U.S. Senate
Judicial Committee hearings
on confirmation of President
Ronald Reagan's appointment of Judge
Anthony Kennedy to fill the vacated
seat on the U.S. Supreme Court, there
continued reverberations of occurrences
in the immediate past.
The Robert Bork "fiasco" is not
forgotten.
Judge Douglas Ginsberg is fre-
quently referred to among the often
recalled calamitous results of
challenges to Presidential
appointments.
There has to be an excuse for deal-
ing with negatives in governmental af-
fairs, and some in the media have of-
fered the excuse for resorting to such
unpleasant developments in life. They
admonish that occurrences like those of
Bork and Ginsberg remain unavoidably
"footnotes" to history. They are in-
erasable from the record of appoint-
ments to the U.S. Supreme Court.
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Vol. XCII No. 19
2
January 1, 1988
FRIDAY, JANUARY 1, 1988
Arthur Goldberg
Louis Brandeis
Therefore the Ginsberg element in
the story remains a "footnote" to
American Jewish history.
When the President announced the
name of Douglas Ginsberg for con-
sideration by the U.S. Senate to confirm
the appointment, there was near
unanimity in the judgement of the
media that the "Jewishness' of the can-
didate was a "plus" on the President's
selectivity. Immediately editorial
writers and columnists and commen-
tators commented that being "Jewish"
was — so was the implication — sort of
an endorsement personality-wise. No
one dared assert that it was a recom-
mendation quality-wise: that remained
to be proven.
In the comments on the appoint-
ment of Ginsberg it was emphasized
that he would be the sixth Jew to serve
in the High Court. The five who sat in
the Supreme Court until now were
Louis D. Brandeis, Benjamin Cardozo,
Felix Frankfurter, Arthur Goldberg and
Abe Fortas.
Felix Frankfurter
With the "Jewishness' of judicial
candidates thus made a subject for
discussion, the appellation as applied to
those who have served begs analysis.
The resort to this characterization
is not mud-slinging by any means. It
certainly is not character assasination.
If the entire matter of Bork and
Ginsberg is a "footnote" to American
history, then the "Jewish" angle ap-
pended to Ginsberg is also a footnote to
Jewish-American archival records.
What about the Jewishness of those
who already served on the Supreme
Court?
In some respects, the family
backgrounds are the tests. Ginsberg
had two mixed marriages. Anything
else known about him in the Jewish
fashion is that he was or is a contributor
to the United Jewish Appeal.
Abe Fortas intermarried. His wife
(Carolyn Agger) shared a law office with
him and both had an immense legal
practice. She gained notoriety as a
heavy cigar chain smoker. He indicated
an interest in Jewish affairs and upon
his retirement from the High Court he
lectured widely on Jewish platforms. He
spoke twice at Detroit's Cong. B'nai
Moshe and befriended the late Rabbi
Moses Lehrman.
Benjamin Cardozo was a bachelor.,`
He stemmed from an historicallyi
famous family background and took
great pride in it. The Encyclopedia
Judaica states, in a biographical sketch
about him:
Cardozo was a member of his
ancestral Spanish and Portuguese
Synagogue in New York and was a sup-
porter of the Jewish Education Associa-
tion of New York.
Felix Frankfurter was intermar-
ried. He was not known to have any con-
gregational connection. There is a mark
of great distinction in Jewish history as
an associate of Louis D. Brandeis in the
Zionist cause.
Frankfurter's father was the "scion
of a long line of rabbis!' He attained a
mark of great distinction in Zionist
history and the Encyclopedia Judaica
provides this record:
Frankfurter became closely
associated with Louis D.
Brandeis, who practiced law in
Boston until his appointment to
the Supreme Court in 1916. This
association brought
Frankfurter deeply into the
Zionist movement, and in 1919
he went to Paris with the Zionist
delegation to the peace
conference.
Through T.E. Lawrence he
met Emir Feisal, head of the
Arab delegation, and in conse-
quence of their talks he receiv-
Continued on Page 30