EDITORIAL
Collective Innocence
"John Demjanjuk was railroaded," his son claims. "He is not Ivan
the Terrible of Treblinka."
Archbishop Valerian Trifa was an innocent man who would have
bankrupted his Romanian Orthodox Church if he had continued to
fight government charges of illegal entry into the United States. So
say the supporters of the late Iron Guard leader who fomented a
pogrom that killed scores of Jews in Bucharest in 1941.
And if you ask their neighbors in the Detroit area, several men
being investigated by the U.S. Office of Special Investigations are
warm, friendly people who keep their yards well-tended and are nice
to the neighborhood children.
Welcome to the reality of searching for Nazis 40 years after the
United States allowed them entry into this country through shoddy
immigration procedures or in the belief they would help America
in its Cold War fight against communism.
Jewish groups in Detroit and throughout the country have
worked hard to mend ties with Americans of Eastern European
backgrounds in the aftermath of the Holocaust. Those ties, however,
must be based on honesty. They will certainly be affected by com-
munal meetings, like Sunday's in Warren, in which Eastern Euro-
pean groups deny facts of history. Or they allege a Jewish or com-
munist conspiracy against a Trifa or a Demjanjuk.
Was John Demjanjuk railroaded? Supporters of the Cleveland
automobile worker have made those claims and presented evidence
since 1981. In nine years, they have been overruled by the Federal
District Court in Cleveland, the U.S. Court of Appeals in Cincinnati,
the U.S. Supreme Court and Israel's Supreme Court.
If this is railroading, we are certainly keeping to a slow schedule.
negotiations between Palestinian and Israelis — only if the PLO
chooses the negotiators and they come from both inside and outside
Gaza and the West Bank, a caveat that will probably raise Israeli
eyebrows, if not outright objections. The talks would be a prelude
to elections in the territories, elections to which Arafat may even-
tually agree if the PLO is given a role, a caveat certain to evoke a
loud Israeli veto.
Such a scenario would certainly throw the Bush administration
into disarray. Committed both to Israel and to Palestinian elections,
the administration would be torn between the Jewish State and suf-
frage in the territories. Which of these two the administration will
favor is difficult to predict, although given Secretary of State James
Baker's recent speech in which he urged Israel to abandon any vi-
sion of a "Greater Israel," the possibility is greater than it was half
a year ago that elections may get the American nod. And that, of
course, would trigger a genuine crisis between Israel and the United
States and American Jews and the White House.
The problem is that wherever one looks there are crises: between
America and Israel, America and Palestinians, Jews and the State
Department, Palestinians and Israelis, and Palestinians and Palesti-
nians. In lieu of solutions, there is fear and suspicion and bloodsh-
ed. And even after one or two of these crises are solved, there may
still be fear, suspicion and bloodshed. That may be the nature of the
Middle East, but it does not have to be the future of the Middle East.
The hope for evolutionary progress toward peace and reason is one
that we cannot afford to surrender.
Shaky Evolution
It is a time for sadness in Israel and the West Bank and Gaza.
Hardly a day passes in which Israeli Jews are not shot at or killed
by Palestinians. Or that Palestinians are not killed by either Israeli
solders or Jewish settlers. Or that one Palestinian, accused of col-
laborating with the Israelis, is not killed by another Palestinian.
Fears have surfaced that this is the summer that the intifada
and the Israeli response to it will lose any pretense of moderation.
Many worry that the Palestinians and the settlers will become more
violent, and the army will become more violent. If so, then this is
also the summer that will determine just what how much Israel and
the Palestinians really want to extricate themselves from the mess
that has been called their "situation" for too long.
Palestine Liberation Organization chairman Yassir Arafat has
said that he is ready to accept the latest United States proposal for
DO YOU
%in A CIME
Nig CLOUD Will.
Lirr NOW
LETTERS
Availability
Of Scholarships
I found Arlene Erlich's
"Angling for College Money,"
the cover article of the
June 9 Jewish News, in
general to be a helpful
presentation of the problems
involved in getting money for
college.
The discussion of merit
scholarships was deficient,
however, in not mentioning
the merit scholarships offered
by Wayne State University.
"A four-year, full-tuition
scholarship with no strings
attached and no embarrass-
ing financial questions,"
6
FRIDAY, JUNE 30, 1989
everyone's dream. Each year
Wayne State University offers
hundreds of scholarships
which exactly match that
dream .. .
Louis Finkelman
Director B'nai B'rith Hillel
Foundations of Metropolitan Detroit
Super Father
Ignored The Past
The cover picture (June 16),
with its caption, "The New
Jewish Father," and listed
qualities, "Sensitive, Nurtur-
ing, Strong, Caring," offends
me because it infers that
neither my generation, my
father's, my grandfather's nor
any of the preceding genera-
tions as far back as Abraham
has been "Sensitive, Nurtur-
ing, etc."
Young men of today do not
have a lock on super-
parenting. They neither in-
vented it, nor do they
necessarily practice it. The
values listed are traditional
ones. They are the values of
the Jewish people and are as
old as Judaism itself.
Each of the generations
has dealt with problems of
parenting in its own way, and
each generation was made up
of many different approaches
to the task; but the values
were there.
This letter is not meant as
a commentary on the article,
"The Jewish Father." That is
another matter.
Douglas Harris
Southfield
AIDS Is Here,
Not Over There
Please allow me to com-
ment on Mr. Rosenblatt's ar-
ticle, "Is AIDS A Jewish
Issue?" (June 16).
As needed and appreciated
is his concern, the attention
flaws by focusing on male
homosexuals in San Fran-
cisco, and one from New
Jersey, reinforcing a major
misconception that AIDS is
something that happens to
someone else somewhere else.
According to statistics of the
Michigan Department of
Public Health, as of May 8,
Continued on Page 10
Let Us Know
Letters must be concise,
typewritten and double-
spaced. Correspondence
must include the signa-
ture, home address and
daytime phone number of
the writer.