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I PURELY COMMENTARY
JET
JEWISH ENSEMBLE THEATRE
presents
Crossing
Delancey
BY SUSAN SANDLER
Directed by Morton Zieve
Featuring Sylvia Kauders,
The original Broadway "Bubbie."
Tickets 788-2900 or
77a.
--RdZA
— 645-6666
JET
Jewish Community Center
Aaron DeRoy Theatre
6600 W. Maple Rd. • West Bloomfield
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356-6848 540-0418
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40
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 1991
Our Conscience:
Conscience:
To Bigotry No Sanction
Our own generation for
Americans of all faiths has
phoned in the repeated need
to appeal to the conscience of
mankind not to condone pre-
judice and persecution and
all manifestations of re-
ligious bias.
In the years of Nazi
persecutions and the threats
to the many millions who
were subjected to the
Hitlerite hatreds we appeal-
ed to the Christian com-
munities to make their
churches soundingboards
against anti-Semitism and
all religious and racial
hatreds. When we con-
fronted silence we were
shocked that there should be
failure in the human cons-
cience.
Is it possible that we are
confronting a similar situa-
tion today? There is no
longer a doubt that racial
prejudices have not been
squelched. We are witnesses
to conditions of increasing
anti-Semitism. The condi-
tions in Crown Heights,
Brooklyn, are the most
shocking and intolerable.
There is a warning of the
most menacing aspects to
the black community as well
as to the Chasidim.
No one desires to be silent
to an admonition by New
York Times op-ed page
columnist A.M. Rosenthal,
who made this stirring ap-
peal to justice and common
sense:
But no black or black-
white issues will be eased
as long as anti-Semites and
anti-Semitism continue to
be unanswered and so ob-
viously tolerated within
the black community.
Fighting the bigots, black
and white, is not a social or
political matter — it is a
moral obligation. I hope it
becomes everybody's bus-
iness, though I am not as
hopeful as I was only re-
cently — before Crown
Heights, and the great
silence.
In any case, Jews cannot
be silent, or talk in soft,
"sensitive" platitudes — not
because they have most to
lose, but the most to
remember.
We must turn back the
pages of history to two cen-
turies ago, to learn from the
principles established by the
founding fathers of our re-
public. It was in his message
to the Hebrew Congregation
in Newport, R.I., that
always takes the lead in the
battles against race
hatred,recognized the
rioting, looting and bodily
harm to many Jews as the
ugliest form of anti-
Semitism. His condemnation
demands widest recognition
and emphasis by all
honorable citizens. This is
his judgment against the
shocking un-Americanism in
Crown Heights:
George Washington:
"To bigotry no sanction."
George Washington made
this inerasable declaration:
All possess alike liberty
of conscience and im-
munities of citizenship. It is
now no more that tolera-
tion is spoken of, as if it
was by the indulgence of
one class of people, that
another enjoyed the exer-
cise of their inherent
natural rights. For happily
the government of the
United States, which gives
to bigotry no sanction, to
persecution no assistance,
requires only that they
who live under its protec-
tion should demean
themselves as good citi-
zens, in giving it on all oc-
casions their effectual
support.
Abraham. Foxman:
"It should not be invisible."
In Crown Heights emerged
the most outrageous of pro-
Nazi black hatred of Jews.
Abraham Foxman, national
director of the Anti-
Defamation league, which
Anti-Semitism is all over
the place in Crown
Heights. It is ugly, it is
crude, it is classical and it
is deadly. And the fact that
it is American and it is
black should not make it
invisible or tolerable.
New horrors and in-
humanities have arisen on
the American scene and it
does not call for much
imagination to realize with
what contempt George
Washington and all decent
Americans of both centuries
and all denominations would
have treated the spreading
anti-Semitism. Honorable
Americans have no hesita-
tion in denouncing racial
hatred. Those who them-
selves are subject to race pre-
judice could be expected
from endorsing religious
bigotries and anti-Semitism.
Some irresponsible black
spokesmen have failed to do
so.
The lessons taught in true
American tradition, forcibly
expressed by our founding
President, must demand
constant learning and
fulfillment. George Wash-
ington did not express, "To
bigotry no sanction" only to
the citizens of his time. It is
meant for all hooligans and
their sick-minded leaders in
gangsterism who have thus
far been restrained by police
action from instigating
pogroms.
It is now for the decent-
minded of all races and
faiths to keep providing and
adhering to honorable
American citizenship that
must never permit
hooliganism, whether
against Chasidim or any
other Americans.
To George Washington's
address of 200 years ago is
added the powerful expose of
anti-Semitism by Abraham
Foxman. It comes as a new
affirmation by all responsi-
ble Americans never to be
silent whenever a racist, a
bigot, an anti-Semite ap-
pears on the scene. The