Jewish People

In David Koresh's theology, Passover probably is as important as Easter, say specialists in theology, who recommend closely examining Old Testament and Jewish feasts and symbols for a deeper understanding of the significance of the coming holidays in Branch Davidian life and ritual.Speculation is increasing that Mr. Koresh might end his standoff with law enforcement officials at the Branch Davidian compound near Waco on one of these coming significant days.Yesterday, Mr. Koresh met with an attorney on the porch of the cult compound.

The history of Jewish people in Annapolis is like all history -- people famous and ordinary, noble and notorious, saintly and sinful.The pantheon of Annapolis Jews includes Albert Abraham Michelson, a Naval Academy midshipman who returned to the academy as a physics professor and became the first person to measure the speed of light.But there also was Jacob Lumbrozo, the first Jew in the colony, an unsavory doctor who became infamous for his numerous adulterous affairs and questionable medical procedures.

A story in the March 27 issue of the Carroll County Sun, headlined "Holy Week, Easter celebrate life after death," contained the following statement:"Judas, one of his followers, betrayed Jesus that evening to the Jewish leaders who considered him a threat to their power. He was crucified the next day, which is celebrated as Good Friday."The Gospel texts state that the crucifixion itself was carried out by the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate. Biblical scholar Eugene J. Fisher writes, "The arrest of Jesus . . . was done covertly and at night precisely because of his popularity with the (Jewish)

Maya Fishman, one year and two months out of the Soviet Union, listened with tears welling in her eyes while the yeshiva boys sang the ancient Hanukkah melody Maoz Tzur."

"Treasures of the Jewish Museum," opening at the Baltimore Museum of Art on Sunday, is of course for Jewish viewers; but it may be even more valuable for those who know little of Jewish history and religion, in part as a revelation of shared aesthetic and religious traditions."I would hope the non-Jewish viewer would come away with an understanding of what the synagogue service is and how Jews celebrate their holidays and life cycle events. Many [Jewish and non-Jewish] rites are different ways of marking similar events, such as birth, marriage and death," said Vivian B. Mann, Morris and Eva Feld chair of Judaica at New York's Jewish Museum, from which the exhibit comes, and co-author of the catalog that accompanies it.Then, too, the catalog points out that while earlier study of Jewish art and artifacts emphasized the Jewish tradition, the works in this exhibit "were chosen for their intrinsic aesthetic value, with an eye toward their stylistic relationship to the art of their time."

From the Kingdomof Memory Reminiscences.Elie Wiesel.Summit.213 pages. $19.95.In more than two dozen novels and nonfiction books, Elie Wiesel consistently stresses two messages. The first is the need to testify, as a survivor, about the Holocaust and the depredations it visited upon the Jewish people. The second is that universalism must be rooted in a parochial experience, in being true to one's origins. Virtually all of his themes are subsumed under these two ideas.Readers of Mr. Wiesel will recognize in his new book images he has conjured up in previous works -- a pious childhood and adolescence in the Hasidic ambience of Sighet, Transylvania; the seismic changes in his life when the Nazis sent the inhabitants of his town to Auschwitz; Yiddish writers who pledged their troth to Stalin; visits to the Soviet Union, and confrontations with death at the site of concentration camps.