Jewish Post, Indianapolis, Marion County, 22 January 2003 — Page 27

January 22. 2003 NAT IS

Letters

Neusner

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A route better not to follow

Dear editor. Essentially, the Road Map is a rewrite of the now defunct Oslo Accords - except that the time lines are far more taut and the advocacy for Palestinian statehood is far more pronounced. There is another exception. The negotiations that ultimately lapsed into the Oslo Accords were initiated, at least in part, by the Israelis while the Road Map was drawn up, or so it would appear, by a global coalition euphemistically called the Quartet. The internationalization of the Arab-Israeli conflict will probably turn out to be the Quartet's chief assignment, which by the way, has always been at the heart of all of Arafat's desires. One would have to be perfectly innocent to believe that the Quartet will navigate through the Road Map without preference or prejudice. But, besides our misgivings about the Quartet, there are existential questions about the Road Map. All of its

By SYBIL KAPLAN A Ht'ro and the Holocaust. By David A. Adler. Holiday House. 32 pages. $16.95. David Adler has written a number of books on the theme of the Holocaust. In this biography, he writes about Janusz Korczak, born in 1878 in Warsaw, and his childhood as a quiet child and daydreamer. Korczak was really a pen name he took in writing so the judges would not know he was Jewish. There are few people who know about the Holocaust who have not heard the name Janusz Korczak. As an adult, he became a Polish doctor who directed the orphanage in Warsaw. When the Nazis came to eliminate the ghetto, he taught his charges to walk with their heads high and

particulars seem to be arranged in a rather circuitous format. For example, it detours around every claim that Israel might have about its biblical heartland while stopping at every pit stop in order to bolster the Arab claim. More than that, it bypasses Israel's most imminent threat: that ring of implacable Arab states that arc around the Jewish State. That arc of fanaticism enjoys a staggering numerical advantage in just about every weapons category. That advantage is easy to explain. Roughly 40 percent of the world's arms traffic winds up in the arsenals and armories of the Middle East. Given that disparity and the rabid disposition of the Arab world, a return to the lines of '67 would be a suicidal proposition. Solving the Palestinian problem by condemning Israel to an endless night of fear and terror is a solution we can do without. Mitchell Finkel Silver Spring, Md.

with dignity as they went to trains to take them to Treblinka. Bill Farnsworth, a Florida illustrator, adds a particularly intense tone to the illustrations by using oil paint on linen. The work is intended for 6to 10-year-olds, but the story is told in such a matter of fact way that it may elicit questions from children as to what makes the subject a hero and how one could be a hero by leading the children for whom he was responsible to their deaths. One wonders whether the book should have been geared to older readers. Sybil Kaplan is a book reviewer, journalist, lecturer, synagogue librarian, and author from Overland Park, Kansas.

Continued from page 13 participants in one of the great intellectual events of our day, who really do reflect on human nature and make their own all these thinkers reduced to three-by-five cards for Schimmel's purposes, would require as many pages of names as Schimmel fills with abstracts. Here is a massive failure of intellect and learning: someone who wanted to write a book on the seven deadly sins, but instead illustrated at least a couple of them, sloth being an intellectual vice, after all. So far as Schimmel is concerned, the vast academic literature of morality, both philosophical and theological, the enormous and vigorous debates on personality and culture, character and conscience, public policy and religious conviction, these might as well have taken place on the moon. Schimmel has done what he promised to do, which is, cull this and that for relevant sayings, which he has copied down and reprinted or paraphrased in his own dull words. But he has not joined the debate that each of these "sources" meant to conduct. He invokes the authority of this one or that one, instead of addressing the issue on which, in real life, theological or philosophical debate raised controverted issues, and people such as Maimonides or Aquinas, Milton or Shakespeare, not to mention Jesus or Plato or Moses, took up what were, and were intended as, highly partisan positions. So the honest debate of the past is transformed into a detritus of banalities and commonplaces. No wonder Schimmel appeals to what he calls "aesthetics," having found for himself a prose that exquisitely corresponds in form to the flat and dull quality of his thought. Schimmel's failure derives, in the end, from addressing a theological question without the tools of theology, or a philosophical problem without first studying philosophy. His is an essentially secular mode of thought. He condemns secularists for ignoring the writers he reads. But how theological a mind do psychologists require to take the position that "the determinist model is more scientifically useful," but it's okay to "use the language of freedom" because that language is useful. In other words, you don't have to believe in free will, but if you persuade people they have it, they can

control themselves (or some such). But the Judaic, Christian, and classical philosophers and theologians really believed in the things that they were saying. They did not argue that there were better ways of thought or analysis, but that, by writing nice prose, they could solve problems. Judaic and Christian teaching on the seven deadly sins defined sin as rebellion against God. But in the pages of this book, God makes no appearance at all. Issues of authentic faith in the living, commanding God, who demands virtue and condemns sin, never make an appearance. All Schimmel really shows us is, if you don't know what theology is, don't write theology. Sin is a theological category, and Schimmel thinks it has something to do with aesthetics. If philosophers and theologians write great prose (and some really do), the reason is, they think great thoughts and find great words for expressing them. No wonder, then, that Schimmel wants therapists to get patients to go see movies that portray their vices as ludicrous. Fat chance! In the end, this silly, ignorant book underscores the pathos of the instrumental theory of religiosity: you can't have the advantages of religion if you're not religious. Religion is not useful. It's true. Or it's not true. But it's never meant to be merely useful.

Ages Continued from prev. page countries, combined with longburied attachment for the religion of one's parents and grandparents, have emboldened some Turkish figures to inject themselves into the political arena, and they have obtained considerable success. Kinzer reports a speech made by one such leader in 1995 in which all the classic grievances associated with Islam were trotted out, including the unsubtle urging that the earth be cleansed from the devil’s own experiment station on earth - Israel. The speech was greeted with rhapsodic applause. (Kinzer's book appeared before the recent victory of an Islamic faction in the parliamentary elections.) Two of the most interesting case studies which emerge in this essay pivot on the Armenian and Kurdish questions. Official

Turkish responses to allegations about the murder of hundreds of thousands of Armenians during World War I are twofold. Deaths did occur, the Turks acknowledge, but in the context of fighting between adversaries. However, the magnitude of the slaughter is denied as well as certain documents from the period confirming the Turkish campaign against the Armenians. Kinzer notes, however, that many Turks are becoming more open to a rational debate on the subject and are questioning their own government's embarrassing silence on the subject. On the issue of the Kurds, whose demands for statehood in the past have angered Turkey, Kinzer had enlightening sections on the PKK, the Kurdish rebels whose leader, Oclan, was put on trial for treason. Kinzer makes a number of important points in his coverage of the Kurds. While they stem from a different ethnic stock than the Turks, the Kurds are Muslims. The history of the Middle East shows, moreover, that the Kurds also play hardball in asserting political and language rights and that they have inflicted great losses in confrontations with the Turks. Despite the enmity between Turks and Kurds (inspired by the latter's demands for a separate state), the passion for autonomy has diminished in recent years, and there are many communities in Turkey where Turks and Kurds live harmoniously. Intermarriage is also becoming more and more common. One serious lacuna in an otherwise exemplary reportage is the absence of significant commentary on the relations between Turkey and Israel. Turkey is one of the few Muslim countries that maintains diplomatic relations with Israel. Both countries, moreover, have engaged in joint military maneuvers. Until the elections of 2002 Turkey was able to maintain close political, social, and military ties with Israel. The impaneling of a government composed of a majority Muslim fundamentalist faction does not harbinger well for continued good relations, despite the soft words which the current president of Turkey has uttered about what might be called "Islam Lite." If Turkish history furnishes a guide, the generals might have to intervene directly if the Islamists in the Turkish government cause their nation to veer dangerously out of its traditional orbit.

Book Reviews Not just for young readers