Turn, Turn, Turn
And so it began upon the onset of evening four
days when Rosh Hashanah was ushered in. And
so it will end upon the onset of evening five days
from now when Yom Kippur ends:
The teshuvah — our "repentance," our "turning-
about" — that occurs annually during the Days
of Awe that extend from Rosh Hashanah through
Yom Kippur. We turn toward God, and we turn to-
ward ourselves, and we turn toward our family and
friends, our neighbors and our colleagues. We
plumb the depths of our souls, the fullness of our
hearts. We plumb how we treated others during
this last year — and how we treated ourselves. We
plumb our stance toward God, attempting to deci-
pher it, understand it, come to terms with it. For
of all our relationships, the one with the divine is
perhaps the most mysterious, the most elusive, the
most enigmatic and obscure.
And in the turning, we rediscover ourselves and
we rediscover those around us and the world
around us. We find that we can be kinder to our-
selves and to others than we have been; that com-
passion and empathy are not mere abstractions,
but are virtual imperatives of life, especially dur-
ing these hectic and rushed days near the end of
the 20th century. We find that we have avoided
ourselves, avoided others, avoided God; that the
introspections and the thoughtfulness required for
the interior life have too often been lacking and
that we can do better.
During these days, we renew ourselves. We
breath in a fresh spirit and dedicate ourselves to a
daily teshuvah, to a day-to-day remembrance of
who we are and how we live our lives and how we
can live them better and more honestly and more
fruitfully.
We will slip in this resolve for we are human; we
will forget for we are mortal. And next year, we will
gather again — in our synagogues, in our homes,
in our hearts — and engage new in teshuvah, for
that is our nature and that is our duty.
A Glimpse Of The Future?
TH E DE TRO T J EW IS H NEWS
Every few weeks, it seems, Israel cedes to the
autonomous Palestinian entity in Gaza and Jeri-
cho more responsibilities: taxation, health, so-
cial welfare, education, tourism. But particularly
interesting is what the recently ensconced Pales-
tinian authority, under the direction of PLO
leader Yassir Arafat, has done with all this new-
found power, especially regarding human rights.
Palestinian intellectuals were especially con-
cerned about how human and civil rights would
fare after an Israeli pull-out. Among others, Harlan
Ashrawi, an ex-member of the Palestinian team
that negotiated with Israel for the peace accords,
formed a group to monitor the human rights ac-
tivities of the fledgling self-government.
There must have been a reason for such concern,
especially since watchdog groups were not formed
to monitor the economic or educational affairs of
Mr. Arafat's government. So far, the reasons for
the concerns are fairly obvious: A Palestinian was
killed in his jail cell in Gaza under circumstances
extraordinarily similar to deaths that sometimes
occurred to Palestinians when they were jailed un-
der the Israeli occupation. One of the major dif-
ferences, though, is that a tremendous outcry wcald
ensue from Palestinians and international human
rights organizations when a Palestinian died while
under Israeli custody. The few isolated protests to
the death of the Palestinian under Israeli custody
indicate, once again, that Palestinians and oth-
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ers apply a double-standard to Israeli than to Pales-
tinian affairs.
This is more than regretful. Aside from hypocrisy,
it shows the dilatory and apparently less than se-
rious undertaking of creating a credible Palestin-
ian self-government. Recently, Fateh Azzam,
director of the al Haq human rights institute in the
West Bank town of Ramallah, told the Paris news-
paper, Le Monde, that Mr. Arafat is not acting like
a dictator.
. "It is worse than that," said Mr. Azzam. "You
can't see any kind of regime taking shape. We are
gently sliding toward chaos."
Whether gentle or harsh, such a slide needs to
be checked immediately. At stake is not just the
Palestinian future or the Israeli future, but the fu-
ture of the entire Middle East. As goes Mr. Arafat's
experiment in self-government, so goes the region.
Neither Palestinians nor the international com-
munity can afford to be silent when human rights
are violated. Israelis cannot gloat when they hear
of wrong-doing by Palestinian authorities. And
democracy cannot be frustrated and stymied by a
government still trying to find its way through the
thickets of Middle East intrigue and administra-
tive amateurism. If this is the pattern of the future
and not just the tentative governmental groping
of a self-entity trying to define itself and rule itself,
then both peace — and Palestinian self-respect —
are threatened and endangered.
Letters
Watching Argentina
Cave In To Fear
It is shocking to see a sovereign
nation surrender to fear, but that
is what we witness in the case of
Argentina.
The president of that country
had stated that if there were ev-
idence that Iran was behind the
recent bombing of a Jewish oc-
cupied building in Buenos Aires,
he would sever diplomatic rela-
tions with that country. Yet a few
days later we learn that Mr.
Menem and his advisors had de-
cided not to break relations be-
cause there could be reprisals.
Such a weak response of a gov-
ernment to terrorist threats is
not new or unique. The govern-
ments of France and of Germany
have a history of releasing con-
victed terrorists or giving them
free passage or releasing them
without attempting to bring
them to trial. Even foreign poli-
cy reversals have been known to
occur in response to outside pres-
sure by terrorist Islamic groups
or countries.
Perhaps Mr. Menem and his
government feel that so long as
only Jews are the target of ter-
rorist attacks, other Argentinean
citizens and the government can
stand aside and let Iran proceed
at will, provided their actions are
confined to Jewish targets. A
reading of history and a reminder
of Mr. Neville Chamberlain may
convince President Menem of the
futility of caving in to threats,
which is this case have not even
been made.
Kurt Singer
Southfield
Use of Cartoon
Is Questioned
This is ridiculous. Continuity
is just as serious as "genocide"
and as serious as "survival." As
all Jewish community leaders are
aware, assimilation is a major
problem in the Jewish commu-
nity.
In another article in the same
edition, there was a survey of
synagogues and their positions
on intermarriage. There were a
number of clergy who marry
Jews and non-Jews. Many Jew-
ish young adults are marrying
out of the faith. Jewish numbers
in America are dwindling. We as
Jews are finishing the job that
Hitler started 50 years ago. Yet
the cartoon contends that as-
similation is not as serious a
problem as "genocide" or "sur-
vival."
Another article in this same
edition, spoke about Jewish ig-
norance among Israeli youth.
The premise of the article is "that
the secular majority of young Is-
raelis know little and care little
about their heritage." Israel is
facing the same problem that we
as Jews are facing over here in
America — the lack of good Jew-
ish education.
The only solution to this very
serious problem of assimilation
is to give today's children a good
Jewish education. This education
must answer three questions:
Why be Jewish? Why continue to
be Jewish? Why is it special to be
Jewish and not like all other na-
tions? With this knowledge Jews
will not assimilate and our sur-
vival will not be at stake.
Shira Drissman
Farmington Hills
A Letter From
Not The Editor
During my years growing up in
Detroit, Oak Park and Ann Ar-
bor, I experienced little confusion
with people sharing either my
first or last names. Since moving
to the Twin Cities, however, I
have encountered at least four
other people with the same
name, and periodically receive
phone calls regarding carpentry,
trucking, printing and class re-
unions. Not long ago, feeling un-
der the weather with a virus, I
trudged out to a local pharmacy
to pick up a prescription my doc-
The cartoon in the August 26th
edition of The Jewish News was
not only irresponsible in its mes-
sage, but also incorrect accord-
ing to the other articles in the
same edition.
The cartoon characters said
that 50 years ago "Jews faced
genocide." Twenty years ago it
was "survival." And today's prob-
lem is "continuity." The conclu-
sion of the cartoon character is
that the Jews' problems are get-
NOT THE EDITOR page 28
ting better.
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