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DETROIT JEWISH CHRONICLE and The Legal Chronicle

Detroit Jewish Chronicle

and THE LEGAL CHRONICLE

Published Weekly by The Jewish Chronicle Publishing Co., Inc.,

Entered as Second-class matter March 3, 1916, at the Post-
office at Detroit, Mich., under the Act of March 3, 1879.

General Offices and Publication Bldg., 525 Woodward Ave.

Telephone: Cadillac 1040

subscription in Advance

JACOB MARGOLIS
PHILIP SLOMOVITZ
MAURICE M. SAFIR

Cable Address: Chronicle

$3.00 Per Year

Publisher
Editor
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ro insure publication, all correspondence and news matter
must reach this office by Tuesday evening of each week.
Nhe nmailing notices, kindly use one side of the paper only.

the Detroit Jewish Chronicle invites correspondence on sub-
Acts of interest to the Jewish people, but disclaims responsi-
bility for an indorsement of views expressed by the writers.

Sabbath Scriptural Portions

Pentateuchal portion—Lev. 16 :1-18 :30.
Prophetical portion—Mal. 3 :4-24 or Amos 9 :7-15.
Readings of the Law for the First Day of

Passover, Tuesday, April 23.

Pentateuchal portion—Ex. 12 :21-51. Nuns. 28 .
16-25.
Prophetical portion—Josh. 3:5-7; 5 :2-6 :27.

Readings of the Law for Second Day of
Passover, Wednesday, April 5

Pentateuchal portion—Lev. 22 :26-23 :44. Nuns.
28 :16-25.
Prophetical portion—II Kings 23:1 (or 4) -9 :21-25.

Chol Hamoed Passover Reading s of the Lad.

Thursday, Ex. 13:1-16; Friday, Ex. 22:24-23:19.
In addition, Nuns. 28:19-25 is read on each day.

APRIL 19, 1940

NISSAN II, 5700

Our Festival of Freedom

Passover is most closely knit with the
human fight for freedom. The revolt
against oppression which gave rise to
this festival also served as the precedent
for all humanitarian movements.
On the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia are
engraved those words from the first les-
son in the fight against human bondage:
"Thou shalt proclaim liberty throughout
the land and unto all the inhabitants
thereof." It was the lesson taught to
Israel by Moses, and was handed down to
the generations that followed the first
great liberator as the slogan in the aspira-
tion for justice and righteousness.
Today, nearly half of the Jewish peo-
ple of the world is in the same position
in which our ancestors found themselves
in Egypt. This tragic period is marked by
a return to barbarism, by an attempt on
the part of tyrants to enslave and to per-
secute a minority. More than five million
Jews are again in bondage, and if the
spirit of Passover and its aspiration for
freedom is to survive, the Jewries in the
lands of liberty must seek the liberation
of the downtrodden.
Passover implies physical as well as
moral freedom. It involves feeding the
hungry and clothing the naked, as well
as securing independence for the unfor-
tunate persecuted. It calls for a revival of
courage. It demands understanding that
by retaining faith and refusing to yield
to despair we win half the battle for
justice.
The Festival of Freedom has a lesson
which gives us strength to carry on. Jew-
ry may well feel that the miseries of
today are but temporary and that the
world is certain to return to sanity.

When Delay Is Laudable

Often, we have occasion to criticize
those who delay action on important
issues. But from Athol, Mass., comes a
most significant bit of news proving that
delay is at times desirable and laudable.
In the Jewish community of Athol,
where plans had been made for the erec-
tion of a synagogue, the building program
was postponed in order to facilitate the
mobilization of forces for the great relief
effort to save European Jewry. Once be-
fore, when synagogues were set aflame in
Germany, in November, 1938, this small
Jewish community delayed constructing its
house of worship. Now, with an increase
in suffering, Athol Jews decided on an-
other postponement.
There is a great lesson in this action
for all Jews. During the important drives,
like Detroit's Allied Jewish Campaign,
all other efforts, which are certainly
minor, should be postponed, and all gath-
erings should be utilized for help to the
campaign.
There is another lesson in the action of
the Massachusetts community. In Detroit
recently a synagogue was sold and the
small group of remaining members decided
to build another house of worship on

Linwood Ave. Since there is already an
abundance of congregations in that neigh-
borhood, we feel justified in imploring the
responsible leaders of this synagogue to
abandon their plan and to use the fund
they secured from the sale of the old syna-
gogue for the important purposes which
beckon to us. For instance, a fund like
the one they secured can be used for
Passover relief and can be utilized to
make easier a special Mo'os Chitim effort
in the midst of a great community drive ;
or it can be used for a specific local refu-
gee relief effort, especially among the very
orthodox ; or it can be used for distribu-
tion among emissaries for yeshivoth in
Palestine and Europe, thus reducing the
number of appeals for funds.
In commending the action of the Massa-
chusetts Jewish community we urge ad-
herence in our own community of the need
for postponement of all efforts that may
compete with the Allied Jewish Cam-
paign ; and we propose refraining from
erecting new synagogues in sections where
we are already over-built and where
houses of worship stand vacant except on
holidays.

A Bad Bill Is Vetoed

President Roosevelt has vetoed a very
bad bill. Among the crop of dangerous
anti-alien bills now pending in Congress
was the Starnes Bill which received the
approval of both Houses of Congress.
This country is fortunate in the wisdom
inherent in the White House whose pres-
ent occupant recognized the dangers of
this measure and refused to approve it.
Since we may be considered prejudiced,
we quote the words of the outstanding
American newspaper in comment on the
President's veto of this bill. The New
York Times wrote editorially, under the
title "A Good Veto":
"The President is to be congratu-
lated for his veto of the Starnes bill,
which called for the mandatory de-
portation of aliens engaging in espion-
age or sabotage, alien criminals, and
those convicted of violation of the
narcotics laws. The reasons that the
President gives for his veto are con-
vincing. Remarking that he is in full
accord with the view that the gov-
ernment should be empowered to deal
firmly and effectively with persons
guilty of espionage or sabotage, he
points out that ample authority is
found in existing law for the deporta-
tion of aliens guilty of such activities.
Of one provision of the bill which
would subject to deportation aliens
who have been convicted of violation
of any State as well as Federal nar-
cotic law, he offers no criticism. But
to the section of the bill which would
make mandatory the deportation of
all aliens who have been lawfully
committed to a public or private insti-
tution as habitual users of narcotic
drugs he offers grave objections. He
points out that the bill makes no dis-
tinction between the purveyors of
narcotics, who should be dealt with
severely, and those who are only un-
fortunate addicts, rather to be re-
garded as subject to a lamentable
disease than guilty of a crime. Nor
does the bill make any distinction
between aliens who have been cured
of the habit as the result of treatment
and those found to be incurable.
"The new crop of anti-alien bills,
though there may be one or two de-
sirable measures among them, should
properly be regarded with suspicion.
Many of their provisions are both
unjust in themselves and capable of
setting dangerous precedents. It was
never more necessary for our democ-
racy to be vigilant against anything
that moves toward the kind of dis-
criminations against or persecutions
cf minorities with which the dictator-
ships have made us so familiar."
It is to be hoped that the President's
refusal to approve the Starnes Bill will
mark the beginning of clearer thinking
and of refusal on the part of our legis-
lators to waste their time thinking up
negative laws. There is too much good
to be done in the present era of madness
that our representatives in Congress
should be wasting their time on measures
which would bring misery for unfortunate
people, who need to be guided to good
Americanism rather than made to feel
as if a Gestapo is always on their heels.

April 1 9,

1940

Apr

• STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL •

Tidbits from Everywhere

By PHINEAS J. BIRON

THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW

THIS AND THAT

On Monday, April 8, George
Backer's New York Post, in a
dispatch mailed from Copen-
hagen by W. L. White, carried
this sentence : "Germany, if she
wanted to, could occupy Den-
mark in an afternoon" . . . At
the time the PoSt staff didn't
know it, of course—but, if you
remember, it was on Monday,
April 8, that Germany devoted
an afternoon to the occupation
of Denmark . . . Certain shrewd
observers insist that Switzerland
is one country that needn't fear
any violation of its neutrality by
Germany . . . This because so
many Nazi bigwigs, including
Badolf himself, have large sums
of money in Swiss banks . . .
The theory no doubt being that
good cash is safer out of Hitler-
land than inside Germany . .
Some of those aerial photos of
English cities which the Nazis
publish with the claim that their
reconnoitering planes have made
them in recent months show
empty lots that in actuality were
built up by the middle of 1939
. . . In other words, the photos
are of pre-war vintage . . . Latest
German rumor is that the elusive
Dr. Hjalmar Schacht is in town
to raise cash for Hitler by sell-
ing German-owned American se-
curities.

Herbert Kline's "Lights Out in
Europe," the film that imludes
authentic shots of the on hreak
of the war in Poland, En ;land
and France, has been cho•(.n as
the first picture of a serie that
Look magazine is sponsorn 4. i n
competition with the Mar ∎ of
Time . . . An indication that
Charlie Chaplin's long - ited
dictator film is nearing it- pre-
miere is seen in the news hat
Charlie has already ordered tux-
edos—their first—for his y. , stng
sons to wear on that occasit
Broadway links the name_ of
Edward Seligman, of the
ing family, and Shirley Eder,
whose daddy sits on the New
York Supreme Court bench.
Herman Stark, who owns the
famous Cotton Club, is known as
an ardent amateur mathemati-
cian . . . Those who have seen
his Cotton Club Revue will agree
that he has a good eye for
figures,

JEWISH NEWS

INFORMATION PLAYS

Things you can learn about
Jewish places of worship from
the Universal Jewish Encyclo-
pedia, now in process of being
published in New York, include
the following . . . That the Wail-
ing Wall in Jerusalem, which has
been established as the one ab-
solutely authentic sacred spot of
Palestine, is not the wall of the
Temple itself, but of the area in
which the Temple stood . . .
That excavations at Duns have
revealed a synagogue which has
remarkable mural decorations .. .
That back in the 12th century
Cologne boasted a synagogue
with stained glass windows . . .
That the first synagogue to be
built in the Western Hemisphere
was erected at Pernambuco,
Brazil, in 1631 . . . Nearly 100
years passed before the first Jew-
ish house of worship was built
in what is now the United States
—at New York City in 1728 .. .
Marranos recently discovered in
Portugal are now, after four
centuries, able to practice their
faith openly and have a syna-
gogue of their own . . And
while rabbis aren't exactly the
same thing as synagogues, the
relationship is close enough for
us to report in this place that
the Encyclopedia reminds us that
Gershom Mendes Seixas, New
York rabbi, was a member of the
first Board of Regents of Colum-
bia University, and that, strange
as it may sound, Ireland has a
Chief Rabbi . . . Actually, of
course, this little bit of informa-
tion shouldn't sound strange to
you at all . . . For didn't Chief
Rabbi Isaac Herzog of Palestine
occupy the Irish Chief Rabbinate
before he was called to Eretz

The squabbling within the Zi-
onist Organization of America
has been brought out into the
open now, with a series of ar-
ticles in the Day . . . The ar-
ticles, written by Kretchman Is-
raeli, who is himself a member
of the ZOA Executive Commit-
tee, not only constitute a breach
of discipline, but are a most un-
fair piece of journalism . . . To
call Dr. Solomon Goldman a
"non-Jewish Jewish leader" is
the height of distortion of facts
. . . Dr. Goldman can match his
Ilebrew knowledge and style
against that of any Hebraist in
this country, and even when it
comes to Yiddish writing and
familiarity with Yiddish litera-
ture he could make some of his
Yiddish-writing opponents look
sick.
Less than a decade and a half
have passed since Louis N. Jaffe,
Brooklyn lawyer, built the sump-
tuous Yiddish Art Theater for
Maurice Schwartz at Second
Avenue and 12th St., on New
York's East Side . . . But
Schwartz has moved uptown, and
the basement floor of his old
theater is now being prepared
to serve as a Chinese night club,
kosher style, to be known as
"Goldberg's Chinatown" . . . We
wonder whether the ambitious
Mr. Goldberg is expecting to lure
some of the trade of the Cafe
Royal across the street, the tra-
ditional rendezvous of Yiddish Israel?
journalists and actors.
(Copyright, 1910, S. A. F. S.)

2.0TECTING" HIS NEIGHBORS' NEUTRALITY I

By BRESSIMI

C

