EDITORIAL

Backward Holidays

The eighth — and last — day of Passover
ends at sundown tomorrow night. As the
sun's rays fade, so, too, will our matzah and
gefilte fish and horseradish — at least, un-
til next year.
But until then, there is an interesting
phenomenon to consider: The impulse to
reinterpret certain Jewish holidays in light
of recent events.
Passover is especially prone to this reflex
because its themes —freedom and libera-
tion — are applicable to every time and
every place. Within the last few decades,
Passover has been interpreted in the light
of Soviet Jewry, Ethiopian Jewry, the civil

Iraqi corpses. Asked whether God was on
his side, Gen. Norman Schwartzkopf said,
in effect, that God is always on the side of
the victors. This illogic also means that
God blessed Saddam Hussein for each of
his victories against the Kurds and the
Iranians.

Judaism teaches that if it can be said
that God is on any side, it is on the side of
the living and the suffering. It is on the
side of His creation. When Moses and the
newly freed Jews rejoiced at the Egyptian
army's destruction in the Red Sea, God
rebuked them: "My children (the Egyp-
tians) are drowning and you sing praises."

One hundred thousand Iraqis have
drowned in their desert and, sadly, many
Americans are rejoicing. This jubilation
should make us question the national
values which led us to this point, the
values which make us so certain that, as a
nation, we stand most tall when we kill
with such ferocity.

The Democrats?

The Democratic Party is acting as if it is
on its political and philosophical last wind.
In the wake of the Persian Gulf war,
George Bush has received the highest ap-
proval rating of any chief executive since
polling became a phenomenon in national
life. Virtually every potential Democratic
presidential candidate has ducked for
cover, afraid to toss his hat into a ring that
seems to belong exclusively to Mr. Bush.
Even in Congress, which numerically is
Democratic turf, Democrats are acting
timid. They apparently fear that the polit-
ical future • of those who voted against the
war is dim, indeed. They also anticipate
that programs oriented toward the tradi-
tional Democratic franchise of the poor, the
middle-class and the disadvantaged are
doomed before a double-juggernaut: the
GOP's new clout and what Democrats
perceive as the nation's retreat from the
values of altruism and compassion that
made their party a kingmaker during the
New and Square Deals.

6

FRIDAY, APRIL 5, 1991

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rights movement, the women's movement,
the Israeli-Palestinian struggle. The Per-
sian Gulf war provided the latest effort to
recast Passover.
But the meaning and intent of Jewish
holidays and festivals are not ephemeral.
Their import is eternal. This is their power
and their strength. This is what separates
the fleeting from the permanent, the tran-
sient from the constant.
A festival helps us transcend the mo-
ment. It helps us discern the truth of the
moment. To perceive a holiday solely from
the perspective of the moment is to reverse
that holiday's very raison d'etre.

Shameful Gloating

Since the Gulf war ended, Americans
have been cheering because the war was
quick and decisive — and because there
were so few allied deaths.
But gloating while 100,000 Iraqis were
exterminated says something highly ques-
tionable about our culture. It implies that
Americans' sense of national virility and
purpose is tied inextricably to slaughter
and military shrewdness. It suggests that
the "Vietnam syndrome" was finally over-
come — and perhaps, could only have been
overcome — by a slaughter of momentous
and grievous proportions.
And even after a war waged ostensibly to
deter aggression, Americans' reaction to
the killing fields of the Gulf infers that
empathy too often stops at our borders, or,
perhaps, stops when those who are killed
belong to a non-Judeo-Christian religion or
a non-Western culture or are not Cauca-
sian.
Civilians on the home front are not the
only ones who are gleeful in the face of the

e#010-91

There are one or two virtues in a party
writing off the presidency. As National
Public Radio's Cokie Roberts wryly said
the other day (while perhaps thinking
about Watergate or the Iran-Contra
debacle), "Without the Oval Office, the
Democrats don't have to worry about a
major scandal."
But by essentially writing off the Oval
Office and, now, being timorous in Con-
gress, the Democrats might relegate them-
selves to permanent, second-class status.
To avoid this, Democrats can emphasize
policies that promote efficiency, fairness
and universality. They can eschew single
issue politics. They can reject special inter-
est politics. They can fashion a vision of
shared destiny between the poor and the
middle class, regardless of race or gender.
But perhaps most importantly,
Democrats cannot be shy or reticent or
cautious. Any one of these invites defeat.
All three ensures it.

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LETTERS

Handicapped
Parking Needs

The Gender Gap
In Jewish Service

I read with interest Phil
Jacobs' article about the
Michigan state trooper who
asked an able-bodied person
to remove her car from a han-
dicapped parking space. I
understand his outrage.
There may have been times
when you observed a person
park in a handicapped space,
and you may have been equal-
ly outraged.
I would like to remind the
public that many people have
"hidden" non-observable
disabilities. Thus, the public
should not assume that a per-
son who does not look han-
dicapped parked in an illegal
manner. People with cardiac
or back problems, for exam-
ple, often have restrictions
which limit their mobility
and, therefore, require a more
convenient parking space.
A motor vehicle which a
handicapped person drives or
is transported in should have
a visible special permit inside
the windshield. Unless a
vehicle featured a permit, I,
too, would politely ask a
motorist to leave a handicap-
ped-designated parking space.

I was most gratified to see
your recent article "Closing
the Gender Gap" (March 15)
and accompanying pieces on
the local scene. While these
articles might well have gone
further in revealing evidence
of gender bias in the Jewish
communal service field, it re-
mains noteworthy that The
Jewish News has given its
journalistic attention to this
most critical topic.
For many of us in the field
of Jewish communal service,
the propensity for gender dis-
crimination and the alloca-
tion of top professional leader-
ship positions to a (mostly)
male insider network has
long been a source of dismay,
disappointment and even
cynicism.
The tradition of progressi-
vism in Jewish life has not
yet come to rest sufficiently
on the compelling and costly
consequences Jewish men
and women continue to suffer
as a result of rigidity and in-
flexiblity in our definition of
gender roles. To continue in
this fashion is to fail to eval-
uate how our discriminatory
practices undermine the
strength of communal struc-
ture, family life and even the
core marital relationship.
The resulting loss of talent,
resources and the flexibility
needed to solve pressing pro-
blems of family and com-
munity can only serve to lim-
it our ability to balance a
cherished tradition with
change, growth and
adaptability.
An interesting corollary to
your focus on the limited op-
portunities available to wo-
men in the Jewish communal
power structure is our tenden-
cy to imitate the general cor-

Lisa Kaplan
Southfield

.Sweet Justice
In Parking Lot

Kudos to you for "Sweet
Justice in the Parking Lot"
(March 22) and for actively
protecting the rights of the
handicapped.
A fifth grade Sunday school
student of mine volunteered
that her non-handicapped
mother always parked in han-
dicapped spots because "her
time was so valuable." What
a role model!

Lorelei Cohen
Birmingham

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