100%

Scanned image of the page. Keyboard directions: use + to zoom in, - to zoom out, arrow keys to pan inside the viewer.

Page Options

Share

Something wrong?

Something wrong with this page? Report problem.

Rights / Permissions

The University of Michigan Library provides access to these materials for educational and research purposes. These materials may be under copyright. If you decide to use any of these materials, you are responsible for making your own legal assessment and securing any necessary permission. If you have questions about the collection, please contact the Bentley Historical Library at bentley.ref@umich.edu

September 09, 1988 - Image 2

Resource type:
Text
Publication:
The Detroit Jewish News, 1988-09-09

Disclaimer: Computer generated plain text may have errors. Read more about this.

PURELY COMMENTARY

Jewish Survivalism: Museum, School And Home

PHILIP SLOMOVITZ

Editor Emeritus

T

here is much that is deeply
moving in the lengthy article
in the Aug. 14 art section of the
New York Times, entitled "In Amster-
dam, 400 Years of Jewish Life,"
subheaded "A Museum Built From
Four Synagogues."
In this article, Marilyn Bender, trac-
ing the background of Amsterdam
Jewry, tells about the progress made
historically and the community's vir-
tual annihilation under Nazism.
The tragic account of the destruc-
tion is accounted for briefly: "Not un-
til the German occupation of the
Netherlands in 1940 were Dutch Jews
to become familiar with persecution."
Some 105,000 victims perished in Nazi
death camps. Approximately 10,000
survived in hiding.
One of the photos in the story has
this description: "The new Jewish
historical museum, a complex of
Ashkenazic synagogues connected by
passageways."
This is historiography in the Jewish
experience. Jewish communities
flourished and prospered and the
hatreds that arose most everywhere
often led to the destruction. There arose
in their stead museums to perpetuate
them. There have been instances when
churches were the museums that re-
tained Jewish art and ceremonial
treasures and the documentaries of our
history.
The hope and prayer in the Dutch
Jewish instance is that there will be
revival, that the museum will be a sym-
bol. Yet, we must not forget the threat
that is represented by the museum. It

must not replace the activism of Jewish
life.
The temptation exists again to refer
to the concern that was expressed in the
early years of Zionist struggles in the
strength-seeking aims to resist and defy
anti-Semitism. Chaim Weizmann, long
before he became the first president of
Israel, when he was president of the
World Zionist Organization, in a period
of anguish, rebuking the enemies of
Israel while recognizing the religiosity
of many of them, submitted that those
who would destroy Jewry would sanc-
tify dead Jews in a admiration of the
genius many ascribe to our people. His
comment was that the Jew's antagonist
would sanctify him in a museum. His
message was the will to live, the rejec-
tion of a commitment to a perpetuated
museum.
While the new Dutch action invites
appreciation for the preservation of
Jewish historiography, it is accom-
panied by an admonishment that the
aim is to revive the most treasured and
sanctified in Jewish life for the new
community, the revived and especially
the young ones that functioned com-
munally in the Netherlands.
Commendable tasks are presently
being conducted in Jewish communities
to perfect the status of our schools and
social agencies and to assure an enrich-
ment of our functioning on the highest
level. Such a search for advancement is
being made in our community, in the
wake of studies that were conducted by
responsible citizens over many months.
The decisions arrived at are praisewor-
thy. They call for excellence in the
schools, fulfilling social service needs,
devotion to the Jewish Center programs
and the synagogue. Reference to the
home whence comes greatest inspira-

tion was not ignored. It is on this basic
family spirit that we must assign our
sincerest interest.

If we permit reduction of the home
influence, everything may be lost in the
course of time. It is our most powerful
instrument for survival.
The newest spiritual scholar to
make his home in Detroit, Dr. Daniel
Polish, who has assumed the role of
senior rabbi of Temple Beth El, in his
introductory message to his con-
gregants, spelled out the "home"
message. In his first column in the Tem-
ple Beth El bulletin he discussed the
urgency of leaning upon an inspired
educational program and he emphasiz-
ed the importance of deriving en-
thusiasm from the home. In that
message to the temple family he stated:
We feel ourselves, too, to be
a part of an ancient people and
we take pride in the 4,000 years
of Jewish life. We revel in that
sense of our place in history,
and our people's place in this
world. We want, for our
children, that same sense of
rootedness in our past, and con-
nectedness with Jewish life
wherever it is lived on this
planet.
In our secret hearts, it is
those things that we wish for
our children, as they attend
religious school. Yet, there is
another secret in our hearts: the
knowledge that no school can
transmit that sense of spiritual
meaning, that tradition of
values, that sense of real con-
nection with the life of the
Jewish people. We know that
schools can only amplify what

takes place in the home. If those
commitments are not expressed
and lived out in the home, the
school will only amplify the
dissonance between what is
taught within its walls, and
what is lived within the home of
the student.
If those ideals and com-
mitments are part of a life of a
family, then the school can help
the child understand that they
participate in a community of
values, that their home is part of
a network of homes and of a
larger community that share
ideals and dreams.
So, no school can succeed in
isolation. No home can either.
School and home work best in
partnership; they complement
one another and enhance one
another. I invite your family to
become part of our school, to
work with the school making it
the place that you want it to be,
fulfilling your hopes and expec-
tations of it.
We often write about such an urgen-
cy. Rabbi Polish gives it new substance.
The home is the most vital principle
commanding our concern and commit-
ment. Without the home inspiration
and influence we are lost.
Hopefully the Rabbi Polish message
will bring the desired results in the
search for communal improvements and
survivalism.
There is no more vital way of
welcoming the New Year 5749 than
with this appeal.
May it bring the blessed response
needed as a greeting on Rosh
Hashanah.

Benjamin Franklin Must Not Be Villified

T

he ugliest fabrication on record
as means of creating hatred for
Jews is the canard about Ben-
jamin Franklin having been an anti-
Semite. Historians, without exception,
were unanimous in the refutation of the
claim that there was even the minutest
comment prejudicial to Jews that was
ever uttered by the eminent American
leader of the 18th Century. All historic
groups that perpetuate the Benjamin
Franklin name have joined in the
refutations.

has been repeated by Arab anti-Zionists
and Russian bigots as well.
There is always the duty to expose
the lies and refuse to permit the
villification of the name of Benjamin
Franklin. Now there is a compelling
obligation to expose the libel, the
canard having been quoted in an arti-
cle in the Aug. 28 New York Times
Magazine.
In the article on "The Case of Paul
de Man" by James Atlas, with the ap-
pended note "In his youth, was the emi-
nent critic a pro-Nazi journalist or an
immature opportunist?" there is this at-
tribution accounting for the critic's
published views:

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
(US PS 275-520) is published every Friday
with additional supplements the fourth
week of March, the fourth week of August
and the second week of November at
20300 Civic Center Drive, Southfield,
Michigan.

Second class postage paid at Southfield,
Michigan and additional mailing offices.

Postmaster: Send changes to:
DETROIT JEWISH NEWS, 20300 Civic
Center Drive, Suite 240, Southfield,
Michigan 48076

$26 per year
$33 per year out of state
60' single copy

Vol. XCIV No. 2

2

September 9, 1988

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 1988

BEN FRANKLIN

Haters are not deterred from their
venom.Anti-Semites misuse the
Franklin name for their nefarious pur-
poses. The Nazi propagandists com-
menced to use the faked claim of a
Franklin anti-Semitic comment and it

What did de Man have to say
about the political situation?
His few references to what was
going on around him were in-
geniously evasive. The one
troublesome item — "the indeli-
ble wound," as de Man's friend
Derrida described it — was his
article of March 4, 1941, "Jews in
Contemporary Literature."
No matter how many times
one has read quotations from
this article, to see it in facsimile,
as it appeared in Le Soir 47

years ago, is a frightening ex-
perience. Beneath a headline,
"Les Juifs Et Nous" ("The Jews
and Us"), on a page illustrated
with unflattering photographs
of Jews, were four aricles
devoted to the Jewish influence
on European culture. Beside de
Man's contribution was a quote
spuriously attributed to Ben-
jamin Franklin, "A leopard can
never change its spots. The Jews
are Asiatics; they're a menace to
any country that will have them,
and they must be excluded by
the Constitution:'
How is it, then, that no one
has been found who can recall
a single instance of anti-
Semitism on the part of its
author? "I have never heard
anything from anyone that
could be interpreted as hostile
to Jews, even in retropspect,"
says Geoffrey Hartman. De Man
was "a compassionate man,"
confirms Peter Brooks, a pro-
fessor of humanities at Yale.
"There wasn't a hint of anti-
Semitism in the man I knew." Or,

Continued on Page 40

Back to Top

© 2024 Regents of the University of Michigan