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Open letter
to Thelma Thomas Davis
by Murray ZuckofT
JTA Editor
NEW YORK (JTA) As one who participated in numerous
civil rights demonstrations and marches I read with sorrow and
with pain your statement to some 6,000 delegates and visitors at the
annual convention of the Delta Sigma Theta in New Orleans a few
days after Andrew Young resigned as U.S. Ambassador to the
United Nations.
In your address as president of that predominantly black
sorority organization you said, in part: ‘We have been patient and
forbearing in their (Jews) masquerading as friends under the
pretense of working for the common purpose of civil rights. This
latest affront reveals clearly that their loyalties are not compatible
with the struggle of black Americans for equal opportunity under
the law. Indeed, we question whether their loyalties are first to the
State of Israel or to the United States. The loyalties of black
Americans have never been questioned.”
I decided to write this letter to you because you were the first, so
far as I can gather, to articulate a feeling that apparently had tain
dormant until Young’s resignation but which subsequently found
voice among several other black leaders.
I suspect that the fact that you and other black leaders were so
quick to question the motives and loyalties of “many” American
Jews was because this thought was repressed, at least in terms of
public statements, until a suitable excuse could be found to let it
“all hang out.” In all candor I strongly feel that you and other black
leaders used, yes, used, Young’s resignation to release repressed
hostility toward American Jewish leaders and Jewish
organizations for real or imaginary grievances. The allegation of
dual or prior loyalties is an old canard unworthy of your position
as an educator.
I don't recall that at any time during the civil rights struggle any
Jew fighting alongside black brothers and sisters was asked to sign
a loyalty oath or take a sincere-o-meter test before taking up a
position on a picket line or participating in marches, or being
beaten or arrested, or killed—as were the Michael Schwerners,
along with the Medgar Evers.
One of the unfortunate consequences of discussing
contributions by Jews to the civil rights movement under the
conditions of trying to dispel allegations such as the ones you have
raised is that it frequently tends to degenerate into a haggle on the
part of both blacks and Jews, each side fully equipped with a ledger
of who did what, where, when and for whom. But the civil rights
struggle was never reducible to a line item in a bookkeeping ledger or
The Eastern Wall
Benjamin Epstein, son of Dr. and Mrs. Jacob Epstein of Atlanta, stands atop the
Great Wall of China. Epstein, 21, was in China for two weeks this summer with the
Brown University Chorus, the first American collegiate chorus to tour the People’s
Republic of China. Epstein is a senior at Brown, majoring in physics.
Controversy clouds
Lebanon raids issue
at Cabinet meeting
by David Landau
and Yitzhak Shargil
JERUSALEM (JTA)-With
international and domestic
criticism of Israeli raids into south
Lebanon increasing, Premier
Menachem Begin was scheduled to
meet this week with top Cabinet
members to reassess the
government’s policy. The meeting
was scheduled after Foreign
Minister Moshe Dayan, at
Sunday’s Cabinet session, urged
his colleagues to consider the total
effect of the policy, not just the
military aspects.
There have been a number of
articles by leading journalists here
questioning the wisdom of the
Israeli policy. Several stressed the
negative public relations image
that has resulted from numerous
television reports abroad of south
Lebanese civilians fleeing after
Israeli raids and from the reports
of casualties and the massive
destruction caused by the raids.
Some columnists have
questioned whether the cost to
Israel in terms of manpower and
military material was commensur
ate with the results achieved by the
policy. There has also been critical
analyses of Israel’s relationship
with Maj. Saad Haddad, leader of
the Christian militia in south
Lebanon, who has an adverse
image abroad. In addition, some
analysts have warned against what
they termed the possible
Victnamization of the situation in
south Lebanon in which Israel
could be drawn deeper and deeper
into a conflict which it could not
control politically.
Dayan echoed many of these
arguments at the Cabinet meeting
Sunday, according to sources. He
reportedly spoke of the damage to
Israel’s image by the conflict in
Lebanon in which Israel was being
depicted as the aggressor The
Foreign Minister said television
pictures of the damage caused by
the Israeli army tended to push
into oblivion, in the minds of the
average viewer in the West, the
carnage and havoc committed by
the Palestine Liberation
Organization at whom the Israeli
attacks arc aimed
Defense Minister Ezer
See Controversy page JO.
SnipJ
i
Alison Fine gets a hand from her mother, Mrs.
Lowell Fine, as the blue ribbon is cut to mark Sunday’s
opening of the Atlanta Jewish Community Center’s
Zaban 8ranch Perry Morris, Norah Stahlman and
Erwin Zaban are the other ribbon cutters.
See Open letter page 6
The Southern
Israelite
The Weekly Newspaper to* Southern Jewry
. . Our 55th Year
VOL. LV
Atlanta, Georgia, Friday, August 31, 1979
No. 35
)220