Page 2-The Canadian Jewish News, Thursday, September 20, 1984
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RABBI W. GUNTHER PLAUT
For some years now various communities in West Germany have instituted special visitors' programs. They have invited individual Jews or a whole group to visit the place of their former resi dence from whence they were driven during Nazi times. (Rabbi Erwin Schild of Toronto made a visit and on coming back spoke about his fascinating experience.)
Recently, Frank Reiss who is connected with the Anti-Defamation League, returned from such a venture and reported on it. Here are some excerpts from his notations which struck me as particularly relevant: RabbiPlaut
xThere is nothing unusual about a boys choir singing Havenu Shalom Aleichem. There is nothing extraordinary for a school to be named after Martin Buber or an antique oil painting depicting a religious Jewish scholar to be hanging on the \yall; of an ancient palace;
: But, when the choir is composed of German youngsters from Berlin and the school carrying the name of the Jewish philosopher lies in the Berlin suburb of Spandau — a stone's throw from the Citadel where Hitler's deputy, Rudolph Hess, still serves a life sentence— and the painting is in the Charlottenburg Palace, the former seat of Prussian emperors, then the ordinary becomes noteworthy.
This was the consensus of 250 American Jews who. at the invitation of the government of the City of Berlin, visited the homeland they: had been, forced to leave after Hitler came to power.
As a former Berliner. I was a participant in,the visit. Its purpose? To translate into action what the Germans have expressed many times: that Germa: ny as a nation does carry historical responsibility for what happened to the Jews and, consequently wants to help in the healing process, whenever that is possible. . . . ,
Survivor of camps
I am a survivor of concentration camps but being in my 40s and by far the youngest in the group, I was asked a number of times what I was doing there. I was only 2 when my parents fled Berlin. Without yisas^ they ran in the wrong direction to their captivity and deaths.
No, I went sightseeing with the group. My visit became another reminder of hbw richly German Jews contributed to German culture, science and life in general. . only to be told that they didn't belong, had no right to live there .or anywhere else, for that matter. . . .
Among the hon-Jews, the passing of so many years has brought change. I read somewhere tliat immediately after the war, an Australian rabbi who visited Germany was asked upon his return home whether he thought the Germans regretted what they had done. *'Only the innocent ones," he replied. Now, four decades after Hitler ended his life, innocent Germans constitute the vast majority. There also appears to be an enormous urge to deal with the past and to learn from it.
For example, there is an exhibit at the reichstag, the Qerman parliament burned by Hitler as one of the final acts of killing democracy. The exhibit shows the Nazi era without a trace of whitewash. The events, in all their horror, are to be seen and learned from.
There are also, however, extremist forces in Germany, just as there are elsewhere in the world, striving to revive Nazism, In the minority, as once Nazism itself was, their poteritial for violence and divisiveness is nevertheless hot underestimated. They are carefully monitored by the West German government and, as in most othier free countries, not accepted by the vast majority^of the people. . . .
To the participants of this trip, places_continue to tell the story — new ones, and thosetio longer there. Where once the beautiful synagogue of the Fasanenstrasse stood, there is now the Jewish community centre of Berlin. Incorporated into its structure is the portal of the house of worship destroyed during Kristallnacht. the symbolisqi was not lost on us — the Jewish people go on and survive. This is the message from Berlin — to the world .
Badly burned in Lebanon
.-■■..By WOLF BLITZER
WASHINGTON -
Israeli officials and American Jewish leaders are already wondering about a 2nd-term Reagan administration. This is quite understandable given President Ronald Reagan's dramatic lead oyer Democratic challenger Walter Mondale in virtual-• ly all of the public opinion polls two months before the Nov. 6 contest.
Polls, of course, can be wrong. Reagan could slip between now and election day, and Mondale might yet wind up as President. Many observers in Washington still recall Jimmy Carter's come-from-behind victory over President Gerald Ford in 1976. There have been many other political, upsets over the years.      ' '
Reagan's adyisors are trying to avoid a sense of over confidence in their campaign. They don't want to take anything for granted.
Mondale's organization is going all out to reestablish the traditional Democraatic Party coalition of blue collar union workers. Blacks, . urban liberals. Jews, women and others. A high voter turnout, they believe, will help them defeat Reagan.
In this regard, they are § especially anxious to see 5 Rev. Jesse Jackson and = other Black leaders register E and then bring large num- 1 bers of Blacks to the polls, | especially in the sputh. : =
Still, most observers in = Washington believe, a Rca- 5 gan re-election must still be = regarded as most likely. e
Thus, some serious 5 questions are being asked s about Reagan's policies s toward Israel and the Arab = states during ; a second s 4-year term. 5
Interviews in recent 5 days with Israeli dipio- = mats, key Reagan foreign e policy strategists, state 1 department career for- = eign service officers, and = other knowledgeable e sources suggest that ase- = cond term is likely to s result in "more of the = same" -- meaning con- = tinned strong U.S. sup- s port for Israel as a j strategically and morally e important ally but often e tempered by diplomatic e overtures to the Arabs, e including increased arms S sales to them. s
There is also a s wideispread consenus in i Washington that Reagan 1 and his team will avoid i any new diplomats initia- e tives in the Middle East. 5 . . at least for the time e being. 1
Reagan's Sept. 1, 1982 | peace plan remains on the s books. The state depart- S ment formally reaffirmed = support for it on its 2nd an- e niversary. But the changing § situation on the ground as —S' well as the political uncer- s tainly in Israel and the con- • s tinuing reluctance of e Jordan and other "moder- e ate" Arab states to step e forward decisively in sup- e port of the plan have tern- 1 porarily — and perhaps e I even permanently — s shelved it. s "U.S. policy." one in-
formed U.S. official predicted, "will be stric^ ly reactive, rather than innovative. The President was burned badly in Lebanon and in his peace plan. He has no intention of falling into that trap once again. The Middle East will not be a high profile policy during a second term."
This official as well as others noted that the continued availability of oil and the removal of U.S. troops from Lebanon have automatically tended to remove the Arab-Israeli conflict from atop the U.S. foreign policy agenda, there are other more pressing problems, especially the state of East-West relations and arms limitation talks.
For Reagan, moreover, the number one item on his plate has always been domestic economics. This is the area in which he feels most comfortable, and the bulk of his personal time will again be devoted to improving the U.S. economy.
During a second term, there will be a special emphasis given to reducing the federal deficit and moving toward a balanced budget, according to White House officials. Still, Israeli officials
recognize, there will be pressure on the President once aain to take up the Middle East question. This pressure will come from Saudi Arabia and other Arab states, and will then be reinforced by state department specialists on the Middle East,
Certainly, no one in Washington is ruling out a crisis which could thrust the Arab-Israeli con ct once again to the top of Reagan's decision-making process. But barring such an emergency, don't expect to see Reagan go out of his way to revive interest in the Middle East. He is painfully aware of its poltical and military pitfalls.
Israeli officials are under no illusions that there has b^n any real shift in long-standing U.S. positions on the major issues. Reagan still opposes West Bank settlements even if he refuses to brand them as illegal. He still favors an eventual territorial withdrawal from most of the West Bank and Gaza. East Jerusalem is still regarded as occupied territory and the U.S. embassy — duringa Reagan administration — will remain in Tel Aviv.
But these issues are likely to remain on the diplomatic back burner until
actual peace negotiations are revived — and there is scant hope for such a development in the near future.
Where some friction between Washington and Jerusalem could erupt, U.S. and Israeli officials agree, is in the area of U.S. arms sales to the Arab states.
Saudi Arabia, in particular, has already made known it wants many more advanced weapons, including F-15 fighters, AWACS surveillance aircraft,stinger and sidewinder missiles and almost everything else.
Such sales are expected lobe delayed until after the November election. But the pressure from the Pentagon, the actual U.S. defence contractors who make the equipment and stand to make a handsome profit if they are sold, the state department, and the Arabs themselves is likely to result in some new sales, which Israel and its friends in the American Jewish community and on Capitol Hill can be expected to oppose.
this is by no means an. unusual feature of the American-Israeli relationship. There were many similar rifts over U.S. arms -sales to Arabs in the past,
including the highly acrimonious 1978 F-15 "pacakge" sale to Saudi Arabia and the 1981 AWACS sale. The accompanying debates generated very real friction in U.S.-Israeli ties.
What we can expect from such sales this next time, according to informed officials, is a revived U.S. effort to mollify Israel by "sweetening the pot." In effect, that means increasing economic and military assistance to Israel and strengthening the strategic relationship between the two countries.
American officials are expecting the next lisraeli government to try to make as attractive a deal as possible in this area, especially because of the mounting economic problems facing Israel. "The Israelis are very good at this game," an official commented almost admiringly.
If Reagan is re-elected and if George Shultz remains as Secretary of State — as is now expecte;d he will — the U.S. will devote a considerable amount of time worrying about Israel's economic situation. Israeli economic officials at the embassy in Washington are by no means opposed to such an active U.S. role.
does not a good mto
By
RICHARD COHEN
WASHINGTON -
This summer rread Gore Vidal's Lincoln — more of an essay, really, than a novel. Vidal sticks to the facts about Abraham Lincoln, incorporating actual dialogue taken from historic journals to create a Lincoln who. Republican though he was, would have been booted out of the Republican convention. By Ronald Reagan's standards. Honest Abe was insufficientlv religious.
In fact, Lincoln hai an aversion to even mentioning the Almighty in his speeches and when on occasion he did so. members of his cabinet — some of whom were deeply religious — were both stunned and grateful.
I am hardly a Lincoln .scholar and .so I can not tell you if Lincoln was a religious skeptic or whether he held to the now-quaint view that religion is a deeply personal matter, much too serious and consequential to be abused for political reasons. He recognized, after all, that both the South and the North thought they had God on their side and that the Bible itself was used by both abolitionists and slaveholders to justify their conflicting positions.
Contrast Lincoln with the current occupant of the White House, Ronald Reagan. Here is a man who punctuates many of his speeches with references to the deity, who has reduced Him to the level of a cabinet officer, made Him a cheerleader for the GOP and considers Him a contributor to his re-election effort.
In the person of Senator Paul Laxalt, the President has appealed to fundamentalist ministers to aid his campaign, even though he must know that if the ministers got their way Laxalt's state of Nevada, best known for gambling and divorce, would revert to desert;
I don't know what Lincoln would have thought of all this. I guess he would have been appalled. But the historical examples of Lincoln suggests that a political leader's religiosity, especially one worn on the sleeve, tells you absolutely notlTing about him. Lincoln, for instance, was clearly loath to invoke the deity and almost never went to church. Yet he was not only a great President but a great man. ;
On the other hand, Jimmy Carter, whose religious commitment was absolute, was hardly a great Presidentandjust an ordinary man. It hardly mat-
tered to most people that Carter was a good Christian when at the same time the only thing zooming toward heaven was the prime rate. In such straits, they would Have preferred Richard Nixon — a man "whose God is pragmatism.
The point is that a person's religious commitment tells'you almost nothing about that person. In fact, when it comes to safeguarding civil liberties and ensuring progressive and fair social policies, I would rather.take my chances with your average atheist than.say. Rev. Jerry Falwell. I grant you he is religious. But so,too. is the Ayatollah. It hardly matters to a poor, devoutly Christian American that the President who has made his life harder is also devoutly Christian — or says he is. Religion is not what counts; politics is..
What's true for Reagan is true for all politicians. It hardly matters to me that Walter Mondale seems now to attend church with a vengeance and that Geraldine Ferraro does the same. And New York Governor Mario Cuomo is no more or no less right in his political positions becau.se he is a devout man.
There are others who take contrary positions on, say, capital punishment and abortion who are equally devout. What matters — the only thing that matters — are the political positions they take. As they say in the army, they can pray on their own time. ;
But if you can read the mind of the long-dead Lincoln, he recognized that religion can have a singular political impact. It can divide.
Lincoln was intent on unification, but that should be the goal of all Preisdents. When Reagan appeals to religion, he cites the one thing that divides us— that makes us not Americans, not even Republicans and Democrats, but believers in this or that religion or sect. It separates believers from non-believers. Christians from Jews, the born-oUce from the born-twice, and suggests that some sort of religious concensus can be reached at the polls — a sheer impossibility in a multi-ethnic, multi-religious nation. — The President charges ahead anyway, injecting religion where it does not belong, excluding when-he should be including. He has made the party of Lincoln into one that's inhosjjitable to the very essence of Lincoln himself, turning the deity into a party hack. That is the ultimate conceit. Ronald Reagan may or may not be a Christian, but when it comes to humility this much is certain: He is no Lincoln.
(Copyright Washington Post Writers)
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