OPINION

A Jewish Name Is Not Enough

PHIL JACOBS

Managing Editor

With the Aug. 4
primary ap-
proaching and polit-
----',
ical conventions grabbing
our prime time attention,
news coverage about upcom-
ing elections and adver-
tisements from candidates
are on the increase.
Here, in The Jewish News,
the elections are being
previewed. An issue surfac-
ed, however, in the West
Bloomfield trustee race. In
this contest, 16 candidates
'are vying for four positions.
Our coverage July 17 focus-
ed on the Jewish candidates.
One candidate, Richard
Andich, was concerned that
he was not identified as one
of the Jews running for of-
Cce. His inquiry raised the
question as to what happens
hen a candidate, whose
last name isn't necessarily
Jewish, insists that he or she
is Jewish.
Does a person have to have
"berg" or "stein" at the end
of his or her name to make
im or her Jewish? Does it
really matter if a candidate
is a Jew or not?
It shouldn't matter.
Coverage of a broad, local
race shouldn't focus only on
the Jewish candidates.
iEverybody should be includ-
ed, and Judaism shouldn't
-eally be an issue. A differ-
ence might come, however,
when we are talking about a
race for national office such
as U.S. House or Senate. Or
more locally, when the race
is mayoral or gubernatorial.
There, issues pertaining to
global security that might
have a Jewish point of view
are important.
But for township trustee, I
I think not. Instead, everyone,
i no matter if we're seeing a
',three-person run or a
cavalary charge, should get
an opportunity to be covered
in this newspaper.
I have a relative in Wash-
ington, D.C. His father
(---'---i.hanged his last name 50
years ago because his Jewish
,D last name was "too Jewish"
to mean company advance-
ment. But, my relatives not
only changed their name,
they also lived the life of a
White Anglo Saxon Protes-
tant family. To this day, my
40-year-old cousin doesn't
feel any need to attend any
synagogue, even during
, , High Holidays. He doesn't
know Yom Kippur from
Passover, and a kosher dog
at the ball park is probably

1

r

the extent of his Judaism.
So, his last name doesn't
sound Jewish. He isn't Jew-
ishly literate. But his
mother and father are both
Jewish. According to Jewish
law — guess what? —he's a
Jew.
There's the story of retired
baseball player John
Lowenstein, now a TV color
analyst in Baltimore. Each
time a reporter would ask
Mr. Lowenstein whether or
not he was Jewish, the ball
player came up with a diff-
erent answer. Sometimes he
was, sometimes he wasn't.

Does it matter if
the candidate is
Jewish?

He didn't allow us to pin
down his religion. The
bottom line was that it real-
ly didn't matter for the
teams he played on, as long
as he hit well and had a good
glove.
In most cases, that's the
situation with politics. A
non-Jew can have a good
record on issues that Jews

care about. Jews share the
same concerns with every-
one else when it comes to
government. The only added
dimension is government's
role when it comes to Israel,
church-state issues, re-
ligious questions and maybe
some others.
While a candidate
shouldn't necessarily flaunt
his Jewishness, and while
we shouldn't focus as a
newspaper only on Jewish
candidates, there's another
important side as well.
As voters who happen to be
Jewish, unless a candidate
represents an ideology that
favors Jewish interests, we
shouldn't vote based on a
person's last name.
Candidates from many di-
verse spiritual paths have
represented Jewish citizens
well, no matter what the
level of government. A
Christian council person can
get a zoning ordinance pass-
ed just as well as anyone
else. There have been Jews
as well as Christians who
have made good politicians
and not-so-good politicians.
The burden is on us,
however, to do our own

Af11.7/S by D. ....10.6.1 Caorngn, 1992. D. B. Arils. Datnb.1.1 by L. 49.4a Trnn

homework and find out who
is running and what they
believe in. It's our respon-
sibility to vote, and we all
know too many people who
don't exercise this right.
But it's also our respon-
sibility to be informed
voters. Putting someone in
office for two or four years is

a major accomplishment for
the candidate and his or her
supporters. Two or four
years of holding office is
worth at least 15 minutes of
research on our part.
Vote for a candidate based
on record and achievement.
A last name should not be
first. ❑

The Spy Case That Won't Go Away

GARY ROSENBLATT

Editor

Lost in the shuf-
fle of news re-
ports from Israel
in recent days,
following the
surprise victory
of Yitzhak Rabin
it I
and his new
Labor-led coalition, was Yit-
zhak Shamir's call for cle-
mency for Jonathan Pollard,
the American Jew serving a
life sentence for spying for
Israel.
The news seemed intrigu-
ing, along with so much
about this case that won't go
away.
Why, after years of ignor-
ing persistent pleas from
Pollard supporters for his
intervention, did Mr.
Shamir, as one of his last of-
ficial acts as prime minister,
write a letter to President
Bush on Mr. Pollard's
behalf? Was Mr. Shamir's
gesture intentionally too
little, too late, or was he
sincere in calling for presi-
dential clemency for a man
who has spent six years
isolated in a cell at the fed-
eral prison in Marion, Ill.
Some Jews have the

strongest contempt for Mr.
Pollard, the former Navy in-
telligence officer whose sale
of thousands of pages of
classified information to
Israel caused serious strains
between Jerusalem and
Washington for several
years. (He was paid $45,000
by Israel and promised an
additional $300,000.)
Others view Mr. Pollard
as a martyred hero whose
love of Israel and concern for
its security motivated him to
risk his life. These people
maintain that information
he supplied, particularly
regarding Iraqi military
capabilities, helped Israel
withstand Scud missile at-
tacks during the Persian
Gulf War.
Somewhere in between
these two extreme positions,
a growing number of Jews
feel that while Mr. Pollard is
guilty of a serious crime and
deserves punishment, his
sentence should be com-
muted to time already serv-
ed. They assert that his
sentence was far more se-
vere than sentences given to
other spies, including those
who supplied information for
far longer periods of time to
enemies, rather than allies,
of the U.S.

Jonathan Pollard:
Solitary confinement.

The Pollard case con-
tinues to underscore the rift
between an increasing
number of rank-and-file
American Jews sympathetic
to his plight and the leader-
ship of the organized Jewish
community, which refuses to
intervene.
A recent pro-Pollard rally
in New York drew several
thousand people, who were
addressed by such notable
supporters as Nobel Peace
laureate Elie Wiesel and
evangelist minister Pat

Robertson. At the same
time, the American Jewish
Congress and the National
Jewish Community Rela-
tions Advisory Council —
the major policymaking arm
of American Jewry — have
concluded that, after a study
of the case, Mr. Pollard does
not merit special attention
because there is no proof of
anti-Semitism involved.
For some American Jews,
the Pollard case is their own
JFK conspiracy — a dark vi-
sion of an historical event
that, over time, takes on
greater significance and
underscores the chasm of
mistrust between the or-
dinary people and the elite
leadership.
In this case, amcha, the
rank-and-file Jews out there
who belong to B'nai B'rith
and Hadassah and who care
deeply about Israel, feel that
the leadership of the
organized Jewish commun-
ity is doing its best to ignore
the plight of Jonathan
Pollard.
The critics charge that
prosecutors violated the
1986 plea-bargain agree-
ment by seeking a life
sentence against Mr.

Continued on page 10

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

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