A lliefiCall lavish Palatal Cotter CLIFTON AT214111 • CINCINNATI 20, OHIO I IIEDETROIT, LWISR HRONICL - i 3ingtuni 0.111tutltall bung THE ONLY JEWISH NEWSPAPER PRINTED IN MICHIGAN Section DETROIT, MICHIGAN, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 3, 1926 VOL. XXXI, NO. I Two THE SESQUICENTENNIAL AND THE AMERICAN JEWS By RABBI LEON N. FRAM, Temple Beth El. upon the authority of the Nov Testa- queens come to his mansion to pay rounded the house in which lived the able of the shofar and his son. You him homage. All the school children humble son of the shofar. The people ment. 'the English autocrats tried to were very much disturbed. They exploit the piety of their subjects as a are of course acquainted with the of America long to see him, and when looked as though they were worried device by which to manacle and en- shofar. It is his hoarse voice you hear they see him they want to kiss him. about something. They seemed to slave them. It is paradoxical that in in the temple every Rosh Hashanah, They say that the son of the shofar need some word, some message to give the record of the gentle ministry of or New Year. Now, the shofar, as once had a much sweeter voice than them courage. The son of the shofar Jesus who disdained all the kingdoms every one knows, is a native Palls- his father's. They say that people remembered that before he left home of the earth and groped dreamily after tinian, hut—did you know this?—he used to love to listen to his singing, his old father had hung an ornament kingdom of heaven, it is strange that has a son who resides in America. but now his voice is cracked, and he about his neck on which were inscribed in such a story prideful m o narchs Yes, the aged Palestinian Shofar has doesn't use it any more. certain words. "These words," father should have found sanction for their a son who lives in Philadelphia. The It all happened in this way. When had said to son, "are the only wealth very earthly ambitions. Yet certain son of the shofar occupies a magnifi- the son of the shofar first came to your poor father can give you." As passages in the New Testament did cent mansion in the very heart of the Philadelphia he was poor and un- he looked down upon the perturbed Tend themselves to the support of the city of Philadelphia, and he is even known, so he lived high up in a garret anxious crowd, the son of the shofar claim that kings ruled by "divine more famous than his father. From and he made his living by singing to thought that his father's words were right." There was the saying of all the four corners of the earth peo- the people on the street. One day in just the message that these people Jesus, "Render unto Caesar the things ple come to Philadelphia just to see July a great crowd of people sur- needed to hear. So he raised his clear that are Caesar's and unto Gal the the son of the shofar. Princes and sweet voice and sang them out. things that are God's." This was in- "Proclaim liberty throughout the terpreted to confer absolute power up- land unto all the inhabitants thereof." on the Caesar, the kaiser, the czar or These words electrified the people. the king. There was the statement of All the worry and indecision were Paul in his letter to the Romans, "Let gone from their faces. Instead their every soul be in subjection to the eyes flashed with enthusiasm and they higher powers for there is no power began to cheer for liberty. Yes, the but of God; and the powers that be message of the shofar was just what are ordained of God. Therefore he these people needed. Delighted to see that resisteth the power withstandeth his father's words so heartily received, the ordinance of God." Confronted the son of the shofar kept singing with this supposedly Christian sanc- them over and over again, while the tion for a barbaric despotism, they crowd kept on cheering. In his ex- that smarted under oppression in Eng- citement he did not realize that he was land and America were at first be- straining his voice too hard. All of a wildered and undecided. For the sudden it cracked and he could sing lenders of the rebellion in England no more, and he never sang again. But and America were not atheists like the what did it matter? In the singing revolutionaries of France. They were of one song his voice had inspired men deeply religious men and they believed to the greatest achievement in the his- in the authority of the Bible. Then, tory of the world. With the voice of guided, no doubt, by an unconscious the son of the shofar in their ears, the impulse they began turning the pages people marched forth from Phila- of the Old Testament and there they delphia and did not come back until saw things that they had never noticed they had won the battle for liberty. in the Bible before. In the Books of And when they returned victorious to Judges, Samuel, and Kings they read Philadelphia their first thought was how time after time the prophets of to express their gratitude to the dis- Israel defied its kings and priests, abled singer who had s.r strangely in- challenged the powers that me, and spired America with a sweet song stirred the people to rebellion. And in from Palestine. They took him out of the Book of Samuel they found a won- his humble garret and placed him in derful chapter which tells how the the magnificent mansion in which he tribes of Israel demand that Samuel, now resides, and to which at this very their judge and priest, provide them a time people are thronging to give him king, how Samuel resists their de- birthday greetings. mand and tries to dissuade them from I have told you, my friends, the it. Ile tells them that to ask for a parable of the shofar and his son. You have already guessed it a application, The Liberty Bell, which rang forth from the belfry of a meeting-hall in Philadelphia, when the Declaration of Independence was signed 150 years ago—the Liberty Bell is the child of the shofar. The words which are inscribed on the bell are the very words in which CHERRY 5040 the Bible defines the function of the 900 PENOBSCOT BLDG. shofar: to "proclaim liberty through- EUCLID 2973 out the land and unto all the inhabi- 5504 UNDERWOOD ST. tants thereof," to emancipate all who DETROIT, MICHIGAN were held in bondage, to give justice to all who had been wronged. And we shall see that the very document of the American Declaration of Inde- pendence, the signing of which was signalized by the ringing of that bell, had its source in that earlier th•ument of bunion freedom—the Hebrew Bible. Let me tell you, my friends, the par- 1 OSWALD LEITERT Painting and Decorating they turned to the story of the instru- king means to reject God. Oliver characters of the Book of the Old ment which used to call the tribes of Cromwell's Puritan soldiers read this World. The people of New England Israel together or democratic as- chapter around their campfire and it called themselves the Israelites of sembly. The story of the shofar: "Ye is has nothing to do, of rendered their attack upon the armies America. ( shall cause the sound of the shofar to Washing- course, with the "Israelites' of Renton pass through the land, and ye shall of Charles I irresistible. ton's men read it in the snow-bound Harbor.) And they renamed Ohl 1:m1c- proclaim liberty throughout the land ent:imminent at Valley Forge, and de- land, Egypt, the House of Bondage, to all the inhabitants thereof." terminal not to give up until the and the Atlantic Ocean which they had (Leviticus XX1-10). Yes, it was the mules of George III. had been swept crossed safely in their flight from aged voice of the shofar that taught from the land, The Bible was a tan- England they identified as the Red the Liberty Bell ring for the ages. genius book for monarchs. We shall Sea George III was the pursuing Hellenism vs. Hebraism. never be able fully to estimate the Pharaoh panting to recover his slaves, contagion which the revolutionary and America was the Canaan, the Is it not strange that all this is not spirit of the prophets of Israel, spring- Promised Land which God had given found in the history texts of ur school- ing out of the pages of the Jewish to those who had the hardihood to en- children? Is it not strange that these Bible, exerted upon the English-speak- dure the trials of the wilderness. And well-established facts of American his- ing peoples of the seventeenth and this is how it happened that when tory shall sound new even to men and eighteenth centuries. Nowhere else they built a college, these Bible-intox- women who have made a considerable in human history do we find any liter- icated men made Urim Ve Turmin its study of American history? We must ture affecting human beings so im- motto, and when they sketched a de- not commit the error of attributing mediately and so vitally as the liter- sign fur the seal of their new-born these omissions to prejudice. The ature of the Old Testament affected country, they drew a picture of the blame belongs to what might be the English and American revolution- Exodus, and when they organized a termed pedagogic inertia. First of ists. The story of Samuel resisting curriculum for their schools and col- all, the writers of historical text books the institution of a monarchy, the leges they made Hebrew the chief have not yet learned to take account story of Gideon being offered a crown study, and when they wanted consti- of the most obvious fact of history, and declining it, the story of the tutions and codes of law: for their set- the subtle ifluence of literature upon prophet Nathan pointing the finger of tlements, they adopted the Torah or human events. If they mention liter- And when they ature at all, it is merely as an orna- accusation at the powerful King David the Law of MOWN. and saying "Thou art the man!", the wanted an inspiring very' to place ment or luxury of life and not as one story of the prophet Elijah saying to upon a bell which was to call them (Turn to Page Six) the pompous King Ahab "Thou hest together for democratic assemblies, robbed and also murdered!"—these are not merely stories from the He- brew Bible, they are facts of English and American history, so real were they in their influence upon the men who made English and American his- tory. That great historian, Lecky, says in the second volume of his work, "The History of Rationalism in Eur- ope": "It is an historical fact that the defenders of civil liberty derived their political principles chiefly from the Old Testament and the defenders of despotism from the New." East •s. West. The Old Bible responded to Young America's cry of need. The Prophets of the East poured their holy spirit upon the pioneers of the West, And rending this book when they rose and when they lay down, when they sat at CADILLAC 4185 35 AND 37 W. JEFFERSON AVE. home and when they walked by the way, the builders of the New World learned to identify themselves with the SEASON'S GREETINGS John T. Woodhouse & Co. CANDY -5 I Prosperous Detroit Chanukah Greetings We extend our sincere greetings and wishes to our friends and patrons and to the Jewish Community for a Joyous Chanukah. We serve noonday lunches to suit everyone's taste. We're always glad to see you and you'll meet friends at Boesky's. BOESKY BROS. KOSHER DELICATESSEN 8900 TWELFTH STREET Empire 6860 We Definer 5145 HASTINGS STREET Empire 2981 Phone Ca of Any Ti III Mme. M. Rutherford 1 GOWNS AND SUITS MADE TO ORDER 412 METROPOLITAN BUILDING CADILLAC 0288 Margaret A. King Established 1905. ELECTRIC NEEDLE EXPERT Speci•list in All Lines of Belauty Culture. Hair Good. and Toilet Articles. 207 FINE ARTS BLDG., 58 W. ADAMS ST. Randolph 0737 Politics and the Bible. To forsake parables and to begin an investigation into realities, how did those words from the Book of Leviti- cus, one of the most obscure and dif- ficult books of the Bible, happen to be engraved upon a hell suspended above the roof of a meeting-hall in Philadelphia? I might answer for the same reason that Yale College adopt- ed as the motto of its seal two Hebrew words from the Book of Exodus, Urim ve Turmim, "I,ight and Truth," or for the same reason that Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson pro- posed as a design for the seal of the Thirteen Colonies the scene of the children of Israel crossing the Red Sea, with Moses lending them and Phareah in hot pursuit, or I might say for the same reason that the Ile brew language was the chief subject taught in the public schools of New England and in its colleges, particu- larly Harvard and Yale. Or I might say for the same reason that sonar half-dozen American colonies regard- ed the Torah or the Law of Moses as their constitution. In a word, the reason that a verse from the Hebrew Bible found it way so naturally upon a meeting-house hell in Philadelphia is that the people of the American col- onies were in love with the Hebrew Bible. They read the Old Testament more than any other book, they read it over and over again. From it they drew all their ideas, and its scenes and stories colored all their thoughts. It is true, of course, that a senti- mental attachment to the Bible Liter- ature is characteristic of all English- speaking people. Someone has said "The English people have the Bible in their blood." The greatest writings in English letters, Shakespeare and Milton, for example, are fundamental- ly influenced by the Bible. Teachers of English will tell you that a knowl- edge of the Bible is an indispensable introduction to the classics of English literature. It is, indeed, no exaggera• lion to say that the English language which we speak today was created by the Bible. England was a confusion of dialects until the King James Translation of the Bible unified it into one common tongue. For all English- men, reading the Bible daily and pray- ing from it constantly, began to speak in the words and phrases of that translation. It would be easy to pick at random any paragraph from the daily newspaper and show you how the expressions of our every day con- versation are drawn directly from the peculiar idioms of the Hebrew Yet even this remarkable predilec- tion for the Bible which has charac- terized the English people as a whole does not altogether explain why the American colonists were so passion- ately devoted to the Old Testament or the specifically Jewish Bible that they came near neglecting the New Testa- ment or purely Christian Bible. It wan out of a special and terrible need that the English Puritans and the Pilgrim Fathers and the embattled colonists directed their minds upon the lore and the law of the Jew. They needed the Old Testament because the English tyrant whether he was James I 01 Charles. I er George III invariahlj based his claims of absolute power The continued prosperity of Detroit is synonymous with the continued success of the Detroit Life Insurance Company. The people of Detroit, appreciating the inherent economic and finan- cial worth of life insurance contracts, constantly are adding to their life insurance coverage with the Detroit Life Company. On November 15th, this great Michigan financial institution had insurance in force on the lives of people in Michigan totalling $63,300,000. The record of new business written up to Novem- ber 15th, during the year 1926, totalled $22,000,000. 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