Community Views
Editor's Notebook
Warmth In Knowing
What Awaits Us
KENNETH KNOPPOW SPEC AL TO THE JEW SH NEWS
PHIL JACOEIS EDITOR
W
hen Yitzhak Shamir
was defeated, he ac-
knowledged with sur-
prising frankness that
he had been prepared to drag
out his "peace negotiations" for
10 years. During this time, he
expected to build so many set-
tlements that a land-for-peace
settlement between Israel and
its neighbors would become im-
possible. Many of the recent let-
ter writers to The Jewish
News and a full-page
ad in the New
F
York Times
by the group
that dares
name itself
"Pro Israel"
show the pan-
ic that the
greater Israel
advocates are
now feeling.
They are dis-
mayed that the
Shamir-Sharon
vision of a per-
manent greater
Israel encom-
passing the West
Bank and Gaza is
being challenged by
the Israeli government.
In fact, the very use by
that organization of "Pro Is-
rael" as its name — with
the implication
that all who do
not share its
vision of
greater Israel
are somehow
-_-_-_, anti-Israel-
shows incred-
ible chutzpah.
This is vividly
illustrated by
its outrageous
mis-character-
ization of
Americans for
Peace Now
(APN) as pro-
PLO and anti-
Israel. This
assertion is
presumably based on the fact
that APN supports a land-for-
peace arrangement and refus-
es to prejudge the outcome of
the final status negotiations.
That "Pro Israel" wraps its
ideological fixation for a greater
Israel under a security facade
may be politically expedient but
constitutes rank hypocrisy. In
an age of Scud and other mis-
siles, to define Israeli security
in purely territorial terms is ab-
surd. The security of Israel is
ultimately dependent upon
peaceful relations with its neigh-
bors. This is the point empha-
sized by Israel's foremost expert
on the Arab world, the former
>
Kenneth Knoppow is a resident
of Farmington Hills.
chief of military intelligence and
adviser to several prime minis-
ters including Begin,
Yehoshafat Harkabi, in his
landmark book Israel's Fateful
Hour, which all those concerned
with Israel's security should
read.
The Labor-Meretz coali-
tion government of Israel
has had the courage to
The security
of Israel is
ultimately
dependent upon
peaceful relations
with its neighbors.
recognize that peace is made
with one's enemy and that
Arafat has been moving the
PLO in the direction of making
peace with its enemy, Israel.
The path to peace will not be
easy. Many decades of hostili-
ty will not end overnight. This
fact was paramount in the De-
clnration of Principles which left
the final status negotiations to
a later date, thus permitting a
period in which trust can be
built.
In the meantime, both Arab
rejectionists and the Jewish
"fright-wing' will unfortunate-
ly do whatever they can to de-
rail the negotiations. However,
peace is in the interest of all par-
ties. The alternative is a per-
manent state of hostilty
between Israel and its neighbors
in an age of missles. This is a
prescription for disaster for all
parties, especialy Israel.
American Jews should sup-
port the Israeli government in
its courageous efforts to build a
peace that provides real securi-
ty premised on normalized re-
lations with its Palestinian and
other Arab neighbors and which
includes solid security guaran-
tees that build but do not de-
pend upon trust. In so doing,
American Jews can contribute
to transforming the original
Zionist dream of a Jewish state
living in peace and security
alongside its neighbors into a
very long overdue reality. ❑
It took a ferocious
snowstorm, and
the subsequent
closing of New
York's airports, to
produce a quiet
gem right here at
Detroit Metro.
Among our sto-
ries this week is
an article about a group of New
York-bound high school students
from Los Angeles who were to
attend a Yeshiva University
mini-United Nations conference.
Because of the snowstorms, their
plane was re-routed to Detroit.
With thanks to our image
makers, Coleman Young, Dev-
il's Night and even Tonya Hard-
ing, a typical early reaction to
someone coming unexpectedly
to Detroit is,
"Detroit! Not
Detroit!" Isn't it
amazing to De-
troffers that peo-
ple coming from
a region of fires,
earthquakes
and South Cen-
tral L.A. riots
can have a neg-
ative reaction to
going anywhere.
This was,
however, the
feeling of some
of the students
when learning
they were on
their way to Mo-
town. But that
reaction took a
quick change for
the better when Southfield res-
ident Bob Weiss noticed the kip-
pot and the davening that was
happening in Metro Airport.
Learning their situation, he
called into the Orthodox com-
munity and made quick arrange-
ments for the closely
approaching Sabbath.
Until they left for their desti-
nation on Sunday morning, the
L.A. youngsters were housed in
Sabbath-observant homes,
served kosher food, maybe a
good cholent, and they became
part of the Southfield Orthodox
community for a couple of days.
We learned from them, and they
learned that a home away from
home can even be in Detroit.
Now for the gem. Parents
back in L.A. really didn't have to
worry about the people their chil-
dren were staying with. They
didn't have to worry about fol-
lowing the laws of the Sabbath
or kashruth codes. Because, with
few exceptions, the scene of peo-
ple lighting Sabbath candles is
universal. The kiddush, the
blessing over wine, is blessedly
universal. It's the feeling when
the sun goes down Friday
evening for Sabbath observers,
the knowledge that work is over
and it's time to be with one's
family and at one's synagogue.
What is important here is that
a Jewish child, a Jewish family,
can go pretty much anywhere in
the world and, depending on
their needs, they can be helped
and facilitated. In this case, Or-
thodox students were in need of
Sabbath arrangements. Even
though they weren't familiar
with the families they'd stay
with, they pretty much knew
who they were. Also, their par-
ents knew that their children
would be safe. Many of us
when traveling make arrange-
ments through friends to stay
with a family for the Sabbath. A
friend tells the story of how his
wife's car broke down on the Belt
Parkway in
Brooklyn just
an hour prior to
the Sabbath.
She was from
Washington,
D.C., and had
no way to con-
tact friends in
Brooklyn. Like
a messenger
from the heav-
ens, a car pulled
over. It was a
Jewish woman
who offered
help. As it
turned out, the
woman knew
the stranded
person's friends.
We often joke
about "Jewish"
geography. There is, however, a
tremendous amount of truth and
security in the knowledge that
there is someone we "know" in
almost any major city.
It's not a question of being any
one kind of Jew, either. If the
L.A. travelers had been mem-
bers of United Synagogue Youth
or the National Federation of
Temple Youth, there's plenty of
help, plenty of contact that could
have been made here in Detroit.
Remember in the summer of
1990 when hundreds of kids
from all over the world came to
Detroit to compete in the Mac-
cabi Games? Some didn't even
speak English very well, yet they
were all absorbed into Detroit
Jewish family lives that they
were basically familiar with from
home.
That's part of Jewish life that
we often take for granted. But
it's something, to borrow a com-
mercial line, that we don't leave
home without.
It's just that sometimes we
need a blizzard to remind us how
good it is to be Jewish and to re-
ally understand it when we talk
about being part of a Jewish
"community." ❑
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CO
FEBRUARY
Peaceful Relations:
More Than Boundaries