SPIECIAL OFFER! LOSE UP TO 50 LBS. '89 BEFORE 133 LBS. GONE FOR GOOD! 141 LBS. We Specialize in Offering Custom Diets Prescribed by Physicians and Hospitals Allen Park Dearborn Heights East Detroit Farmington Hills Livonia Mt. Clemens Novi Southfield Troy Westland Editor Emeritus 386-7230 563-3356 771-4955 855-0555 477-6060 263-4600 476-9474 559-7390 528-3585 261-2910 'EXCLUSIVE OF LAB & SUPPLEMENTS RUN WITH A WINNER The M9.1 Electronic Treadmill is a runaway winner from Precor, maker of the world's finest home exercise equipment. PURCHASE A PRECOR TREADMILL NOW THRU FEDRUARY AND SAVE $1 OW° We feature o full line of h home gym equipment... •Multi Station •Rowers • Weight Machines •Ski Machines •SounosiSreamers •Srationary Bkes •Weights & Benches • And More FIMIE55111111/11 souRcelm ANN ARBOR Maple Village .996-9553 NOVI Novi Town Center 347-4944 Maple at Jackson In the Fox Village Mall S. of k696 - Next to Borders Book Shop Hours Mon. Thu Sot. 10-9 p.m. Sunday 12-5 p.m. THE PRIORITY CARD1 FOR THE "REMEMBERED WOMAN" IS WAITING FOR YOU AT e ff •-- 'FASHION HAS NO SIZE .. . 14 PLUS I OPEN SUNDAYS 12 TO 5 Sugar Tree 6209 Orchard Lake Rd. • W. Bloomfield • 851-80014 40 FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 1991 Folk Songs Avenge Barbarities PHILIP SLOMOVITZ Life is so much more fun now. I love going out & shopping is so much easier. ...Sharon Lizura • Diets Prescribed by Our Medical Director • Supervised by Nurses • No Pills • No Drugs • Eat 3 Meals a Day • Specialty Diets Prescribed by Your Doctor Available AFTER h"--- for only Includes All Weight Loss Weeks 274 LBS. PURELY COMMENTARY I n the historiography of the Holocaust there is the accumulated record of never total submission to the inhumanities imposed upon the Jewish victims. Even under the most grueling conditions there was de- fiance and rejection of the tyrannical. That did not br- ing the desired relief. Only the few succeeded in trium- phing over the tyranny, but the craving for self-help re- emerged as spiritual de- fiance. In the earliest years of humiliations, Jews con- ducted religious services in what were soon to become death camps. When available, there was Talit u'Tefillin; holidays were observed. There were theaters in their ranks and music prevailed. There were artists who portrayed the horrors and much of their work remains as evidence against the Germany of Hitlerism. There was and there con- tinues to be debate over the genuineness of resistance. There was an undeniable appearance of courageous self-liberation. Often added is evidence to prove it. Now comes an unusually elevating sort of resistance in the form of music aveng- ing the Nazi crime. It is the performance of a non-Jewish survivor who was singing as a means of expressing hatred for the perpetuation of Nazi crimes. This fascinating story is related to an article in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung fur Deutschland by Patrick Bahners. The trans- lation of it is provided for us in the German Tribune of Hamburg. It reveals: - When folksinger Wolf Biermann was young, he found a present before his bedroom door every mor- ning: a feather, a marble or a piece of sugar. It was a greeting from his absent father. His father was dead, murdered by the Nazis in Auschwitz. It was 1943 and Wolf was not yet seven. His mother, who placed the present in the boy's toy box every morn- ing, made him promise something. "Wolf," she said, "you must avenge your father." Wolf Bier- mann has avenged his father with his songs. Emma Scheyer A mother would sing her child to sleep in Yiddish with the words "Sleep, my child, daddy will come with freedom." The composer of the lullaby wa . s Alel Wolkowyski. The first verse, paradoxically, begins "Quiet, quiet, let's be quiet." That was 1943 and Alek was eleven. Wolf Biermann's father was Jewish and a com- munist, and he was killed for this. There are important addi- tional comments in the German Tribune translation which appeared under the headline "A Folksinger's Revenge With Yiddish Songs." It is in the following observations: Biermann honored the Jewish dead, which was by no means out of place. He produced a sense of uncertainty, which must happen to a German who hears songs and would like to join in singing them, songs which were created by people who were sent to their death by his forebears. He did this so convinc- ingly that the question about the authenticity or being staged never arose. One should only commit oneself to the penultimate road if no one among you mistakes it for the last one. If we all, especially Biermann, stroll along the penultimate road, we can thank those who took the last one. An important recollection about an eminent Detroiter's popularization of Yiddish songs like the one just referred to merits spe- cial consideration. We owe recognition to Emma Schaver for having treated us with the recording of her "Ghetto Songs." She sang them to survivors from Nazism in the displaced per- sons camps she had visited after the war. Emma Schaver con- tributed toward giving revived courage to the sur- vivors. She also enriched all of us when she and her hus- band, the late Morris Schaver, made her voice available to us through the recordings. Our encourage- ment is due to again make the songs of courage available to us. ❑ Armageddon: Without Panic PHILIP SLOMOVITZ Editor Emeritus E very calamity, human distress, threat of war and fear distress always induce resort to the term "Armaggedon." Fundamentalists resort to it and for Jews it may arouse puzzzling curiosity as to whether it could be treated as anything approaching a Jewish concept. Therefore, with the special interest in the present war crisis a quote from a long list of biblical and political quota- tions in the Universal Jew- ish Encyclopedia: Armageddon, a final battle between the forces of good and evil. Derived from the Hebrew for Mount Meggido, conceiv- ed as the place of a Mes- sianic struggle (Revela- tions 16:16) The present world anx- ieties add to the curiosity about this terminology and call for continuing Jewish research. Therefore, the need to utilize a more com- plete study of the Ar- mageddon religiosity as it is defined in the following from the Encyclopedia Judaica: Armageddon, name of the site, in Christian eschatology, of the final battle between good and evil. The name Ar- mageddon is not mention- ed prior to the New Testament but is believed by some to be a corrupt