Campaigner - FTP Directory Listing

Still in Search of
Alexander the Great
The Search for Alexander exhibi- fabrications, the greatness of the
tion presently open for public man known as Alexander and his
viewing at the National Gallery achievements do indeed shine.
of Art in Washington, D.C. is When I finally made my way
appropriately named. If one were in, I was seated in a large theater
to accept the explanation of the to view an introductory film. I
Alexander the Great phenonmena was convinced I was in the wrong
that this exhibition supplies, it place. The opening scenes of the
would be a search that would go film axe from the popular movie
on for all eternity.
The Black Stallion and focus on a
The tapes and films that ac- wild horse galloping around a
company the exhibition are the corral. There are also shots from a
most incredible pile of rubbish comic strip by the same name.
imaginable. Despite this, the ex- All of this is to prepare the
ofgildedsilver(left), depictingthesackofa hibition is well worth the trip viewer for the introduction to
because, through all the lies and Alexander. Actually, it's not an
first century Jew Is it to defuse the the fact that Mr. Lansky is still odd thing to impute to a journal
possible accusation that the Cam- trying to get over there. I am not that has been at the forefront of
paigner might be, if not anti-Semi- persuaded that the government of reviving the ecumenical Judaism
tic, at least anti-Judaic the State of Israel--which, when that was buried and suppressed by
God knows I hold no brief for the proper occasion arises, I feel Philo's Aristotelian enemies over
the Zionists or for the ADL, I free to criticize with the best of the past several centuries. Indeed,
believe that one can be anti-Zion- the Campaigner's authors is in- all of us would probably know a
ist without at the same time being volved with the Mafia or with the great deal more about the true
anti-Semitic. But I cannot get international drug traffic, nature and origins of anti-Semiaway
from the impression" that And, when the ADL feels un- tism if a full investigation were
there is something of the smell of easy about The Merc!_antof Venice carried out into who suppressed
the "Protocols of the Elders of and is afraid of anti-Semitic reper- Philo. That would reveal an inter-
Zion" about the journal's refer- cussions, I may indeed not share esting antihumanist conspiracy of
ences to Jews. Yet this may be due the ADL's hypersensitivity; but I the first order!
' to the fact that the journal goes in also know that the ADL is basing Beyond this, other ironies in
for "conspiratorial" explanations its fears and its actions upo n unfor- Dr. Petuchowski's letter are on
in general, and need not represent tunate precedents which do exist, more dangerous terrain.
a special animus against Jews. I Sincerely yours, It is emphatically not the. case
will admit that. Still, there are Prof.JakobJ. Petuchowski that the ADL's operations against
always different ways of looking Cincinnati, Ohio The Merchant of Venice represent
atone and the same phenomenon, any legitimate Jewish concern
For example, the fact that Mr. Burdman replies: about the plays of Shakespeare or
hitherto Mr. Lansky has been re- Of course, the main implica- any other ostensible'threat to Jews.
fused permission to reside in the tion in Dr. Petuchowski's letter is While there may be honest indi-
State of Israel, in spite of Israel's that the Campaigneris highlighting viduals in the ADL or the B'nai
"Law of the Return," I find to be Philo to cover up an "anti-Judaic" B'rith, the ADL's investigative, or
. a much more significant fact than bias. This is, to say the least, an Continuedonpage63
CAMPAIGNER / FebrUary 1981 5