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PAGE 4 THE SOUTHERN ISRAELITE December 9, 1983
The Southern Israelite
Th* Weekly Mewipoper For Southern Jewry
*oce 1925
Vida Goldgar
Editor and Publisher
Bambi Jo Eafon
Feature Editor
Luna Levy
Assistant Editor
l.ouis O. Hertz
Business Manager
Leonard Goldstein Esc hoi A. Harrell
Advertising Director Production Manager
Published every Friday by The Southern Israelite, Inc.
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Mailinq Address: P O Bo* 77388, Atlanta. Georgia 30357
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The
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Good choice
Just a year ago, at the Anti-Defamation League’s annual Abe
Goldstein Human Relations Award Dinner, Mr. Abe,
commenting on the success of the event, said, “What are we going
to do for next year?”
Two weeks later, Abe Goldstein, one of Atlanta’s most
outstanding and respected citizens, passed away.
Now.it is “next year " and the award which exemplifies so
much of what Abe Goldstein stood for will be presented at the
ADL's annual dinner Saturday night.
The choice of Sidney Feldman to receive this year’s human
relations award would have pleased Abe Goldstein. Feldman,
whose community service ranges throughout both the Jewish and
the general communities, is a deeply caring individual. His
selection as the 18th ADL honoree does credit to the Anti-
Defamation League and to the memory of Abe Goldstein.
The crime of silence
by MJ. Rosenberg
Ne*r F«t Report
It is not every week that New
York's left-wing weekly, The
Village Voice, sees fit to run an
article criticizing the Arab world
and praising Israel. That is just one
reason why an article in the Nov.
29 Voice is worth reading.
Another is that the piece is by
Sol Stern, a journalist who
specializes in Middle Eastern
affairs and in excoriating those
segments of the American left
which condemn Israel while
finding virtue in totalitarian Arab
regimes.
In 1980, Stern took on The
Village Voice itself in a page one
article called “Writing Off Israel.”
Stern wrote; “The Middle East is in
flames. Tyrannical , regimes led by
self-styled revolutionaries, are
terrorizing their people, and
threatening the survival of industrial
civilization. Only the iniquities of
Israel, however, stir up the
political writers at The Village
Voice.”
Apparently, not much has
changed al the Voice or on the left
in these past three years. In his
latest Voice article. Stern again
attacks Voice writers and other
critics of Israel for what Stern calls
“the crime of silence."
Stern wrote about coverage of
the wholesale slaughter that is
taking place in northern Lebanon
"For nearly a month now,
Palestinians and their Syrian
sponsors have been bombing
refugee camps and slaughtering
their own people. Watching the
stupefying scenes on television, 1
cannot help recalling some of the
things that were said in the media
last year when it was the Israeli
army pursuing the PLO. I
remember John Chancellor
standing at the outskirts of Beirut
castigating ‘imperial Israel.’ I
remember comparisons between
Israel and the Nazis in this
newspaper (the Voice) and many
mainstream publications. I
remember the newspaper ads
signed by concerned intellectuals,
the demonstrations in front of the
Israeli Embassy, and the
exhortations to the Jews to desist
from the ‘crime of silence.'”
Stern writes that there is a
“crime of silence" being committed
today “as the Syrians deliver the
coup de grace to Arafat’s PLO.”
Not that protests matter much to
the Syrians.
Stern makes his own position
clear. He believes that the Syrian-
sponsored war is a “tragedy for the
Palestinian people.” He also
makes it clear that he himself had
grave reservations about Israel’s
1982 “Peace for Galilee”
operation, noting that in Israel
itself there was and is a debate
about the war and its aftermath.
He writes that he thought
Menachem Begin was wrong when
he said, after theSabra and Shatila
massacres, that when gentiles kill
gentiles “they come to hang the
Jews."
I Bul hc add*. “1a the light of
.recent events in Lebanon, should
we not concede that it (Begin’s
remark) contained an element of
truth? This August, after the Israeli
army pulled out of the Shouf
mountains, the Druse militias went
on a rampage through several
Christian villages. There were
massacres similar to those that
occurred in Sabra and Shatila. The
Israeli press gave the story extensive
coverage...however, there were no
editorials in leading U.S. papers,
no columns by Anthony Lewis, no
demands for tribunals or
commissions of inquiry.”
The latest massacres are also
being ignored. “There have been
no demonstrations at Syrian
embassies....At the United
Nations, no country suggests
convening the Security Council.
When Arabs kill Arabs, it is
apparently regarded as a ‘family’
matter,” he writes.
Stem concludes that Israel’s
more hypocritical antagonists hold
Israel to a standard they apply
nowhere else. “What...are they
trying to tell us about the Arabs
when they invoke a high standard
only for Israel? When they decline
to register moral outrage at Arab
behavior, is it because they hold
the Arabs to no standard?...Because
if you really can’t hold the Arabs to
standards of decency, how are you
going to convince the Israelis to
trust the same Arabs in the risky
business of making peace?”
Stern is asking the right
questions. However, he has been
around long enough to know that
the response he will receive is the
very “crime" he is condemning:
silence.
Words to remember
With the kicking around Israel has gotten in the United
Nations over the years. President Reagan’s firmly stated support,
voiced at the Hanuka menorah lighting of the Jewish Community
Center in Maryland (see story, page 3) is certainly welcome.
Whether or not, as cynics say, the president’s appearance at
the Jewish institution was motivated by the 1984 election is really
of very little importance. Before long, all the candidates will
undoubtedly be munching bagels and donning yarmulkes when
appropriate.
The fact remains that Reagan's pledge to “stand together” with
Israel and his support of Soviet Jews were made before an
audience who will not forget.
Where Judaism
by Stanley M. Lefco
It seems that one can't pick up a
Jewish publication without finding
an article on intermarriage,
assimilation, or the numerical
decline of the Jewjsh population. What
is causing a number of Jews to turn
away from Judaism or to turn
apathetic about it? We believe that
one of the many reasons is a simple
lack of understanding of what
Judaism is about.
In his book, “Where Judaism
Differed,” the renowned and late
Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver reviewed
the avoiding of alternatives and
Judaism as a pattern in history.
He noted that Judaism
proclaimed God as justice and
never as love. More than any other
religion of ancient times, Judaism
stressed the idea of community.
The organized social body was
regarded as “the matrix of the
individual's personal life and
destiny." An essential element of
Judaism is “faith in the worth of
the individual and of human
personality."
He also pointed out that one of
the reasons why Moses is not
viewed by Jews in the same way
that Christians view Jesus is that
the “major interest of Judaism
always centered in the way and the
goal rather than on the guide.” In
Jewish life the individual is called
upon to seek the good life through
active participation in the
community.
Two central themes in Jewish
teaching are social justice and
economic rights. Silver noted that
none of the Hebrew prophets
advocated communism in any
form and that Judaism is not
committed to any dogmatic
economic system
V
differed
In respect to Jewish mysticism,
he wrote that its stress was on
discovering the “recondite truth by
probing deep into the inner
meaning of Scriptures, into the
text, the letters of the text, their
numerical value, combination and
permutation."
On what he called the
“Orthodox Christian interpretation"
of the role of the Jewish people.
Rabbi Silver noted that it was to
serve as a living symbol to the
truths of Christian faith. Seeing
the Jews with their disabilities,
Christians will realize “ever anew
the truth of the crucifixion and the
punishment which overtook those
whom they held to be responsible
for it." This is food for thought for
those seeking to gain a better
insight into the attitudes and
philosophy of groups like the
Moral Majority as they relate to
Jews and Israel.
Silver pointed out that in
proclaiming the one and only God
and in denying the very existence
of any other god, Judaism created
the universal God idea, the
universal fatherhood of God, and
its logical corollary, the universal
brotherhood of man.
Reading Rabbi Silver, one
discovers that Judaism provides
and gives guidance for the pursuit
of noble goals and can lead to the
fulfillment and enrichment of life.
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