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PAGE 20 THE SOUTHERN ISRAELITE October 3, 1986 iiiiiiiiimnmiminnrrn - umm I Wishing you a J Happy New Year we are open for business all year round 3382 Shallowford Rd. Chamblee 458-0888 <-> — ■ + mil ii 11 n 11 n i i i n n m nl CARDS/arT WRAP/ PARTY GOODS/INVITES H ►h —Asner— Continued from page 19. hand—both fights are different parts of my soul.” Asner has never been to Israel he plans to go. but everywhere he has traveled out of the country has been for work, (most recently he’s been to the Soviet Union and Swit zerland). He has opinions about Israel, however. He asks, “Just as the old saying goes, what does it profit a man if he gains the world but loses his soul—what does it profit Israel if she gains all the arms in the world, and only ends up achieving a denial to the Arabs of their rights as a result? More firepower for Israel doesn’t mean a damn thing. Israel already receives enough military aid that the coun try might sink beneath the weight of the arms.” If his tone of voice sounds peeved with Israel, he does not hide the fact that he is upset that Israel often plays a surrogate role for Washington, D.C., in doing what he considers reprehensible things in Latin America—such as Israel’s actions “in the shady little game that keeps going on” with arms for a repressive regime in El Salvador. *7 didn't believe an American could describe the Soviet situation so accurately/” — YAKOV GORODETSKY... O ne of the three major Soviet activists let out of Russia this year, Yakov Gorodetsky also wrote to author, Stan Rose, co publisher of the Southern Israelite: < < ¥ want this book 1 to be widely read in the USA because sometimes Americans don’t know the issue. MEMO FROM RUSSIA is right to the point!” Photos by Shirley Rose $995 Available nationally by special order at B. Dalton Booksellers! Southern Israelite readers: We will send you autographed copies of MEMO FROM RUSSIA Just fill out the information below and include $2.00 shipping charge for each order. Your name Add:*** . City. State Number of booka ordered ( ) @ *9.95 each plua >2.00 ahtpplng charge = * Zip — Total Pteaae eend check with thla order and mall to: MEMO FROM RUSSIA c/o Southern laraellte Sun Book Dlvlalon 7373 W. 107th St. Overland Park. KS 66212 NOTE Shipping charge .pplte. only to „ b ordered. Addltlon.l copl „ , nc , order are $9.95 j He is bothered by the pheno menon of Kahanism, but he notes that it was “the Mother Teresa of Israel, Golda Meir, way back who suggested that an Arab mother Ed Asner doesn’t grieve for her offspring as does a Jewish mother, or words to that effect.” (This quote is denied by most Golda Meir scholars.) He is bothered by the fact that the logic of supporting only the most militaristic of Israeli politi cians produces a situation in which Jewish political action committees will support a candidate “be he a pederast, a child molester or even an anti-Semite” so long as he en dorses more arms for Israel. About such people, “I confess I feel a loa thing. How can such people be blood of my blood, seed of my seed, to allow such a prejudiced, biased blindness to develop?” Asner concedes that significant segments of Jews have become conservative, but this has happened to the society as a whole, he points out. What has happened, however, he thinks, is that those Jews who have grown wealthy and conserva tive have “outshadowed their co religionists with money” in the organized Jewish community. “I think the last election showed that the demise of Jewish liberalism at the polls was decidedly premature. The vote by Jews for the Demo cratic nominee far exceeded what was expected.” His father was a Republican because he was a businessman Asner explains. The elder Asner was also Orthodox, and Asner explains that as long as he was liv ing under his father’s roof, all he was allowed was an Orthodox life “That was the law.” He never doubted once he left home that he would probably not keep the orthodoxy. He says that his father almost expected this would happen to his children when they did leave home (and it did). Still it was not going to happen under his roof. And indeed, Asner did stray from Judaism once he left Kansas City. For a while, he got totally side tracked from Judaism—“I wem from Kansas City to the University of Chicago, dropped out after a year-and-a-half, being enamored of a non-Jewish girl, and having succumbed to the theater.” But later when he married his wife Nancy, she had a “mild Reform conversion.” Asner is now separated from Nancy, and he says he is sorry that he insisted on her conversion. “I’m sorry to say it was something that 1 needed, to free me. I regret now that I couldn’t have offered mar riage without conditions.” His three children, however, were reared as “mild Jews” because he wanted his children to “receive that connection with Judaism. As a kid, I felt the occasional barbs of anti-Semitism, and that made me rush into Judaism with a passion ate fervor, to both defend it and myself.” He pauses. He also notes that “on the other hand, to regard other groups as inferior, or unclean, to forgive the expression, is not some thing which at this stage of my life, anyway, I would care to identify with.” Lionel Rolfe, editor of the nearly century-old "B'nai B'rith Messen ger" in Los Angeles, is also the author of "The Menuhins: A Fam ily Odyssey" and "Literary L.A.," both published by Panjandrum Books of Los Angeles. Willett Toyota 2650 N. Decatur Rd. Decatur, GA 30033 299-0551 Danny Tourial Best Wishes for a Happy and Healthy New Year Fleet Leasing all cars and trucks wdpl i t makes and models MR 2