4-THE BUtLETIN-Thursday, November 17.1977
ML ARNOLD km WRITES
ON GENESIS: ANEWREADING By Bruce Vawter Doidileday. 501 pages. $14.95.
LEVITICUS By Martin Noth Westminster. 208 pages. $10.
Significant New Book Reviewed by Dr. Ages, Professor of Roi^^   Languages and Literatnrer
THERE HAS BEEN a tendency in Jewish life to disregard scholarship carried out by Qiristian writers especially when it bears upon Hebrew Scripture.
Tliis traditional disinclination stems from a period in history when Gentile researchers in-teipreted Jewish texts in such fanciful ways that they were unrecognizable for Jews.
Yet Jewish tradition has always been ready to accept elucidations regarding Biblical questions no matter what the source. One has only to look at the famous Hertz edition of the Torah to discern his dependency on the findings of" Christian scholars.
These introductory comments serve to highlight the new studies of Genesis and Leviticus that American publishers have brought out recently. Vawter's -book is completely new; Noth's is a welcome reedition of a classic.
BOTH WRITERS belong to the modern schools of Biblical criticism; that is to say, they see Scripture as a series of documents dating from different periods but brought together by inspired redactors. People whose approach to Bible is f undamentalist, will find this approach offensive.
Others with more liberal insights will welcome the magisterial surveys of the first and third books of the Hebrew Bible found in these excellent vdumes.
Vawter's interpretation of Genesis is accompanied by a new translation of the Hebrew text whKh I personally find to be somewhat too pedestrian — "and
which detracts, therefore, from the majestk! simplicity of the Hebrew.
His ideas on the creati(m stories, the uniqueness of man and the parallels with other ancient civilizations — are not merely admirable, they are brimming with originality. His interpretation of "created in the image of God" is
the best analysis of this difficult passage I have seen to date.
Noth's interpretation of Leviticus has the merit of organizing for the reader the different categories, of sacrifices described in Sefer Vayikrah, and thereby indentifying better the natureof the cult in ancient Israel.
FLICKERING CANDLES and old, torn prayerbooks in the Rostov-on-Don Synagogue symbolize the precarious stale of religious Jewish life in Russia which the Kremlin seeks to extinguish completely, hi a photo obtahied by the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry. A 'ShalomPak' of letters ia Russian and English on Jewish topics io help rekfaidle the flame of Judafem among Soviet Jewish families is available free from the SSSJ at 200 West 72nd street, suites 30-31, New York, N.Y. 10023.
ARAB PHILATELIC PROPAGANDA AGAINST THE STATE OF ISRAEL By Harvey D. Wolinetz Distributed by Rubin Mass. Jerusalem 74 pagesl Illustrated
Reviewed by Moshe Kohn
J. B. Newdl Monuments
Hebrew Inscriptions Our Specialty
Established 1909
Personal attention paid to ALL ORDERS
Fraser and 35th Ave. 327-1312
IT IS NO SECRET that countries use postage stamps to convey, to citizens and to foreign friends and enemies alike, 'messages* about ffadr national ethos and history, about their current domestic preoccupations, and — last but not least — about their attitudes to international issues and conflicts, in which they are involved.
This booklet treats the use of postage stamps by Arab countries — separately and in coordination with each other — as a vehicle of anti-Israel propagands. The author, an American-bom Jew who recently recently returned home to Jerusalem, started specializing in collecting Eretz Yisrael stamps as
BiACEC TOP CAiS
TAXI SERVICE 683-4567
Special N0f Ice To
STATE OF ISRAEL
BOND HOI-DERS
'All Bond^^-^rchased from November 1965_wi,irmature '
^«-M-^.,"A^u,,., 1^+  -10-7-7- ' "T
" \ REDEEM YOUR MATURED STATE OETISRAEL"^ . Z BO_NDS NOW AND RE-INV_EST IN '
Ijf  you _ have  not yet -paid your new  lsr;ael Bond commitment, please do'so now.//        , '\ For further infoCTlSipipliST^
a boy, and more recently, in collecting other Israel-related stamps.
HE HAS FOUND that "the philatelic propaganda techniques (of the Arab governments) utilize a five-point range of the basic emotional appeals of pity, hatred, envy, fear, and revenge," with many stamp issues using "the technique of exaggeration and distortion.**
All this should come as no surprise to those familiar with Arab propaganda generaUy. But it is an interesting pomt to consider in light of the author's statement that "what is rarein {diilatelic issues is the use of postage stamps to . . . campaign against someone or to stress the negative aspects of anotiier nation. Even the carefully managed Nazi propaganda machine used postage stamps for positive political propaganda onfy.**
At the time Wolinetz wrote this booklet, 15 Arab countries — Lebanon, Morocco and Tunisia included — had issued more than ISOstamps dealing with Israel and their campaign against the Jewish State..
THE ARABS often speak of the map allegedly hanging in the Knesset showing the Land of Israel *f rom tiie Nile to tiie Euphrates.'* The onty official map of this sort that I know of is the one appearing in a 1964 Jordanian issue of five stamps plus a souvenir sheet on the occasion of the, Arab Summit Conference of Jan. 13,1884 (a good three-and-a-half years before Israel started "holding occupied Arab territory"). Here, we see
New. Hotorayst @tta^
LONDON — Concerned at the lack of material easily available on tiie Holocaust, the British Board of Deputies* Central Jewish Lecture and Information committee has commissioned famous historian, Martin Gilbert to compile an historical atlas on the subject.
Paul Shaw, director of the committee, said tiiat the new atlas — would contain much previously unpublished material.
Gilbert had engaged in extensive research and virtually all, the book's photographic material had never been used before. There would be 30 annotated maps.
King Hussein hovering over the Mediterranean gazing longingly at a white space comprising Israel and Jordan, with no borders between them.
In all fairness, however, it should be noted that a 1972 Jordanian stamp issue and another in 1973 show only J(»rdan, Judea and Samaria . — and, of course, -Jerusalem.
On June 22, 1967, 12 days after Abdel Nasser weepingly offered the Egyptian people his resignation over his Six Day War fiasco, Egypt issued a stamp showing a heroic Nasser holding his right hand high over a cheering mass of people, and a fire-red map of Israel surrounded by a bright reddlsh-orangeflame. The stamp's tide: "Arab Solidarity for the Defence of Palestine."
EVEN LEBANON'S philateUc service joined other Arab countries in commemorating the "Criminal Burning of the Al-Aksa Mosque" in 1969, and Pakistan did the same on the occasion of the Islamic Conference of Foreign MinisterSr in : Karachi in 1970. No such stamps are known to have been issued when a fire broke out at Al-Aksa m 1963, when the Old City of Jerusalem was under Jordanian occi^ation.
These are but a few examples of' the many treated in this fascinating, carefully documented booklet. If you collect stamps — and even if you do not—it will giye you an interesting insight into this aspect of the Arab campaign to destroy Israel.
[Jerusalem Post]
THEISRAEL COMMUNIST PARTY .ByDuniaNahas CroomHelm $12
Reviewed by Zeev Ben-Shlomo
THE ISRAEL COMMUNIST PARTY,. (Rakah), has no counterpart in tiie world Communist movement. For one thing. Communist ideology denies the existence of the Jewish people but acknowledges the existence an Israeli nation. Again, Communist parties the world over find the. sources of their political ci^^amics either in dealing with social and economic problems (Western Europe) or by supporting ^^progressive" nationalist movement (in the Third World).
The IsraeH Communist Party is theonfy one in which such aims are downgraded or hardly exist. It derives its dynamics from its support of a minority — the Arabs in Israel and on the West Bank ~ in tti^ conflict against the very nation Miiose national Communist party-it claims to be.
This contradiction has atti:acted tiie attention of Arab intellectuals. Dunia Nahas is a Lebanese journalist on tiie staff of the Beirut daily, 'An-Nahar\ alttough the
reader will search in vain on the publisher's bluirb for any indication of this fact.
FROM A SCHOLARLY VIEWPOINT her book is unsatisfactory. Nahas apparently does not read Hebrew and had no opportunity to conduct interviews except with a few Israeli Arabs. Nor is she acquainted with the main works in Hebrew on the Israeli CommunistParty and there are omissions in her acc(imt of the continuous crises the party underwent^, oh the issue of its "lisraeli" identity.
While unsati3factory as' scholarship, however/the book is an example of concise propaganda. Nahas sees the Israeli Communist Party as unable to contain its basic contradiction. It has become an overwhehningly Arab party yet it acknowle(tges Israel's ri^t to exist. J
Nahas' argument suggests that this bi-nationalism cannot hold and tiiat the pressure of Middle East realities will cause Israeli Arab and Jewish Communists to emerge as separate supporters of theu* respective nationalisms with only Arab nationalism being given the right to be called "progressive". For Arabs, this argument is convenient. JCNS