OPINION

Remembrance Vs. Survival:
Jews Must Re-Order Priorities

JEREMIAH

I

am a child of Jewish
refugees. My father es-
caped Hitler from Poland.
All his siblings were killed, as
were his parents, nephews
and nieces.
As a young girl, my mother
fled Russia with her parents.
Many of her relatives perish-
ed in the Bolshevik Revolu-
tion, in the Stalinist oppres-
sions which followed, or in the
German onslaught. of World
War II.
I am a Jewish communal
service professional who was
among the first to develop
teen travel programs to
Poland to witness the in-
famous sites whose names
will forever cast a pall upon
Jewish history. I did so hoping
that the shock of confronting
the 'Shoah (a much more ap-
propriate term than

The author is a Detroit fund-
raising professional who,
because of the nature of this
article, has asked to remain
anonymous.

"Holocaust" with its
christological connotations)
might provide enough of a
spark to ignite assimilated
Jewish souls adrift in the
valueless morass of American
society.
I present this background to
make it clear that my creden-
tials for discussing the Shoah
are neither remote nor
secondhand. Because of my
background — not in spite of
it — a trend that is growing
throughout the North Ameri-
can Jewish community, in-
cluding Detroit, is disturbing.
We live in a time of increas-
ingly limited Jewish
resources. We are struggling
to fund the overriding Jewish
concern of our day, the reset-
tlement of massive Russian
immigration. We are attemp-
ting to increase our funding
for Jewish education, having
understood that strengthen-
ing formal and informal pro-
grams in the Diaspora is
essential.
Yet, we continue to set aside
burgeoning sums of money for
Holocaust memorials, climax-
ing in the current construc-

tion of the $400 million U.S.
Holocaust Memorial Museum
in Washington, D.C. Detroit's
Holocaust Memorial Center
has recently announced plans
for an $8 million addition,
partly funded by the German
government.
There can never be an ade-
quate memorial for those who
perished or a museum that
imparts the full measure of
the pain and agony suffered
individually and collectively
by the Jewish people. We have
an obligation to honor and
perpetuate the memory of our
martyrs, to educate ourselves
as well as the world about the
destruction, and to be
vigilant so that it can never
recur.
Nonetheless, a sense of pro-
portion and perspective must
be maintained. -The cardinal
observances of Jewish tradi-
tion — Shabbat and the holi-
days — commemorate joyous,
positive milestones in our
history. Our most tragic
historic events, marked as
fast days, remain secondary.
Tisha B'Av does not take
precedence over Passover.

The Persecution Of Jews
Still Continues In Syria

YITSCHAK BEN-GAD

T

here are approxi-
mately 4,000 Jews liv-
ing in Syria. over 3,000
live in Damascus, with the
rest in Aleppo and Qamishli.
In these cities, the Jewish
communities are concen-
trated in ghettos where they
are monitored 24 hours a day
by the Syrian secret police,
the Mukhabarat.
While Syria remains a clos-
ed and repressive society for
all its citizens, Jews are clear-
ly singled out for unique
persecution. Jews cannot vote
or hold many government
jobs. They are barred from
certain professions and educa-
tional opportunities. All let-
ters, phone calls and other
forms of communication with
corrrespondents abroad are
monitored and subject to
censorship.
Jews traveling outside
Syria must leave behind fami-
ly members and large finan-
cial deposits as security for
their return to the country.

Yitschak Ben-Gad is Israel
counsel general to the
Midwest.

Jews caught trying to escape
are imprisoned and often tor-
tured. Amnesty. International
has documented cases of tor-
ture of Syrian Jewish
prisoners.
Of particular concern are
the emigration rights of
young Syrian Jewish women
who cannot find eligible

A Syrian diplomat
last year asked
the UN Human
Rights Commission
to read a notorious
anti-Semitic tract.

Jewish spouses in Syria as a
result of the demographic im-
balance of the Jewish com-
munity in which young
women outnumber young
men. After President Jimmy
Carter's intervention in the
late 1970s, Damascus pledg-
ed that it would look
favorably on emigration re-
quests from Jewish women
unable to find husbands.
After permitting 32 unmar-
ried women to emigrate in
1988, the numbers steadily

decreased to 24 in 1989, 14 in
1990 and zero in 1991.
Jews are permitted to prac-
tice their religion and the
community maintains
synagogues and elementary
level Jewish schools. The
schools are supervised by
Muslim headmasters and the
teaching of modern Hebrew
and Zionism is forbidden.
At the FebrUary 1991
meeting of the UN Human
Rights Commission in
Geneva, a senior Syrian
diplomat recommended that
fellow members read the
notorious anti-Semitic Syrian
tract, The Matzah of Zion.
Written in 1985 by Syrian
Defense Minister Mustafa
Tlas, the tract is an updated
version of the infamous
Damascus Blood Libel of 1840
which accused 16 Jews of hav-
ing murdered a Catholic
priest and his servant in
order to use their blood to
bake matzah.
Syria has yet to publicly de-
nounce these remarks and
ban the publication and
distribution of the tract inside
Syria.
The time has come to
release the Syrian Jewry. 111

Artwork from Newsday by Anthony D'Adamo. Copyright° 1991, Newsday. Distributed by Los Angeles Times Syndicate.

Our heritage understands
that neither theology nor
faith can be built solely upon
a sense of tragedy. Only a
creative, forward-looking
system of philosophy and
observance can insure that a
people share a common faith
regardless of their fate.
Compare the relative ease
with which funds can be rais-
ed for Holocaust memorials
as opposed to Jewish educa-
tion programs — there is no
business like Shoah business.
A recent study indicated that
the New York Catholic ar-
chdiocese spends nearly
$1,300 per pupil for educa-
tion, while the New York
Jewish Federation spends less
than $100.
Half a century after World
War II, when Jewish teen-
agers walk where Germans
planned and executed their
horrid crimes, it is abundant-
ly apparent that Hitler was
not only physically but moral-
ly defeated. The Jewish state
is flourishing, and now that
communism has fallen, Jews
virtually everywhere are free.
Yet, there is still ample op-
portunity for our people's
former adversaries to enjoy a
posthumous victory. Since the
beginning of the 20th century
far more Jews have been lost
to the hazards of assimilation
than from the perils of
pogroms.
In an information-rich era,
where every modern medium
is available and can be utiliz-
ed for the education of Jews of
all ages, there is no excuse for
this pattern to continue.
There is only one Yad
Vashem, the seminal
memorial to the Shoah for all
the Jewish people. It is
located in Israel, the eternal

nexus of the Jewish people,
where Jewish destiny is
fashioned.
The Jewish state will en-
dure far longer than all the
Jewish Holocaust memorials
of the Diaspora. We cannot
make that statement with
the same degree of assurance
about the Jewish people in
the Diaspora. For our mar-
tyred brethren, the most pro-
found and meaningful
memorial may not be yet
another sculpture or exhibi-
tion about what has perished,
but action for Jewish life to
endure.
Some will maintain that
our community, with its am-
ple wealth, can attain many
goals simultaneously — "we
can do it all." It would be nice
to believe that this is possible,
but it is not. Escalating local
and overseas needs are
already straining the Jewish
philanthropic system.
This is not intended to con-
demn or disparage the in-
dividuals who labor to memo-
rialize the Shoah. Who can
utter even one syllable of
rebuke for those who wish to
redress and remember this
monstrous wrong?
Rather, this is a sad lament
for all of us — lay leaders, pro-
fessionals, the community at
large — who in their Jewish
heart of hearts know that
more can be done.
Let us fully reevaluate our
funding priorities. Let us
resolve to establish and sup-
port programs that perpetu-
ate genuinely Jewish
concerns.
We have a responsibility to
make certain that mean-
ingful Judaism is more than
just a memory for future
generations.

❑

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

7

