Studio in Harvard Row Mall

td. t_

4/041

The

War, affected talks between
Arabs and Israelis.
Some of the author's most in-
teresting material focuses on Ra-
bin and Shimon Peres, their
different styles of negotiating and
very different approaches to
peace.
He describes Mr. Peres, now
acting prime minister of Israel, as
an incomparably aggressive
peacemaker, often negotiating on
Israel's behalf— and even imple-
menting plans — without the ap-
proval of his superiors. In London
in 1987, for example, he met with
King Hussein of Jordan, where he
agreed to an Israel-Jordanian-
Palestinian delegation to consid-
er the future of the territories. He
notified then-Prime Minister
Yitzhak Shamir after the negoti-
ations, author Makovsky says.
So, too, did Mr. Peres play a vi-
tal role in instigating the Rabin-
Arafat talks.
"To persuade Rabin to pursue
the Oslo track, those close to Peres
say he focused on security issues,
used third-party assessments to
bolster his own views, and played
down the significance of contro-
versial moves he himself had pro-
posed," Mr. Makovsky writes.
"Shimon would tell Rabin, 'I just
talked to (then-French President
Francois) Mitterand and Arafat
told him to moderate things,' a
former Peres aide said. 'At the
same time, Shimon may not say
that the rest of this down the road
(will result in) is a Palestinian
state.' "
David Makovsky is diplomat-
ic correspondent for the
Jerusalem Post and a special cor-
respondent for U.S. News and

in-law, Gratz told of a man who
kept his wine not in a vial of pre-
cious metal, for that would leave
it sour, but in "common earthen."
So, too, Rabbi Leeser is "ugly and
awkward — but so sensible and
pleasant as well as pious," Gratz
wrote.

F

acing the Extreme (Met-

ropolitan Books) by Tzvetan
Todorov is an examination
of morality in a time of com-
plete immorality. What, the au-
thor asks, constituted moral life
in the Nazi death camps and the
Soviet gulags?
Using testimonies from Primo
Levi, Etty Hillesum, Albert Speer
and others, Mr. Todorov "recre-
ates" life in the camps, where he
finds that an extensive moral sys-
tem did in fact exist. Small, yet
courageous acts — an acquain-
tance who offered up a rare cup
of coffee — occurred daily, and
sustained many. What's more, the
author says these and other or-
dinary acts of "dignity and care,
compassion and solidarity," were
at least as profound as the grand
gestures usually associated with
a "hero."
"Irina. Ratushinskaya and her

41

m1/fro
Headquarters

0

I 4

SPOT

50°/0•70%
OFF
ALL NAME BRANDS

A. ALWAYS 20% OFF! coanI3

• swimsuits size 4 through
womens size 54
• regular & tails
• cover-ups (long and short)
0 • 2 piece swimsuits
4 (mix and match)

4

• Vertical Blinds • Pleated Shades
• Levolor Blinds • Wood Blinds

21728 W. Eleven Mile Rd.
Harvard Row Mall
Southfield, MI 48076

Free Professional Measure at
No Obligation
Free in Home Design Consulting

Hours: Mon.-Sat. 10-5

352-8622

New Rochester Hills

r L 7e, 1

651-5009

Lingerie & Always
Summer Swirnwear

945 West Huron • Waterford

681-2727

1/2 Block West Of Telegraph)

8 1 0-544-4500

3071 W. 12 Mlle • Berkley

PARTY THEMES • BALLOONS
FLOWERS • WEDDING FLOWERS & •
SYMPATHY FLOWERS

FULL SERVICE FLORISTS

PARTIES, SYMPATHY, HOSPITALS

CeN Stocker
Lorry Stocker • Sandi Stocker
Since 1930

.......

. ...

World Report.

W

hen Isaac Leeser's fu-
neral procession began
passing by, patients at
the Jewish Hospital of
Philadelphia stood up and walked
to the door. Those well enough
joined the queue.
"Strong men wept like chil-
dren," one of the rabbi's friends
recalled. A newspaper reported,
"So lengthy was the cortege that
it was impossible for the eye to
reach from one end to the other."

Isaac Leeser and the Mak-
ing of American Judaism

(Wayne State University Press)
by Lance Sussman is the first bi-
ography of one of the leading fig-
ures in American Jewry in the
19th century. It is the story of a
shy, private man who had a pro-
found influence on American-
Jewish identity.
A native of Germany, Rabbi
Leeser was a Zionist, a spokesman
for improved Jewish-Christian re-
lations and an early advocate for
professionalizing the rabbinate.
He was a contemporary of Rabbi
Isaac Mayer Wise (with whom he
did not get along) and of Rebecca
Gratz, who compared Rabbi
Leeser's physical appearance with
a bottle. In a letter to her sister-

S uzanne s

Tzvetan Todorov: A question of morals.

companions received a gift ... of
clothing that had been stitched
together from rags and scraps of
cloth by the old women who had
occupied their barracks before
them," he writes. "'How much
human warmth is stored up in
these beggar-like witnesses to
the ingenuity of our babushki?'
Mended countless times, the tat-
tered clothes had become the
repository of previous acts of car-
ing."
Tzvetan Todorov is a critic
and author whose previous
works include The Fantastic: A

•Briclal Gallery

33316 Grand River Avenue

Downtown Farmington

810-474-3131

Structural Approach to a Liter-
ary Genre and The Conquest of
America.

New in paperback:
On Judaism (Schocken) is a
collection of essays from Martin
Buber. It features a new foreword
by Rodger Kamenetz, author of

The Jew in the Lotus.
A Travel Guide to Jewish Eu-
rope (Pelican) by Ben Frank is out

in second edition, now featuring
the Czech Republic, Hungary,
Slovakia and Poland.11)

CLASSIFIED
GET RESULTS!
Call The Jewish News

354-5959

Neighborhood Project Lender
GROUP ONE MORTGAGE
Stuart Daniels 810-617-3836
Take the Mystery out of Mortgages

107