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Detroit Jewish Chronicle
and The Legal Chronicle
SECTION TWO
VOL. 43, NO. 15
DETROIT, MICHIGAN, FRIDAY, APRIL II, 1941
Humanity Is Threatened
PASSOVER
With Universal Bondage
PARTICLES
This Paper Printed in Three Sections
10 Cents Single Copy; $3.00 per Yeat
Modern Exodus to Zion
By DR. STEPHEN S. WISE
Editor's Note: In an inspiring analogy drawn between the
By BERNARD POSTAL
ancient and modern exodus to Palestine, Dr. Stephen S. Wise,
Senator Brown Points to Passover Lesson as Supreme
Director of Bnai Brith Publicity Chairman of the Administrative Committee of the United Palestine
Expression of Moral Code in the Present
Appeal, sees Passover this year as a symbol of the liberation of
Fight for Liberty
Outside of Palestine, Passover, Jews from oppression.
By THE HON. PRENTISS M. BROWN
United States Senator from Michigan
A distinctive feature of our that experienced in this country.
times is our forced return to first Indeed, more than any other
essentials. Principles that once country of the modern world
aroused inspiration and enthus- does the American nation owe
iasm, for which men and women its existence to the prevalence
once fought and died and that of the moral code of democracy.
in more recent days had become
Discovered by refugees from
trite, slightly common-place for- the Inquisition of Spain, settled
mulas thoughtlessly repeated by in turn by Puritanical refugees
a somewhat bored humanity, have
once more come into their own.
"Equality of the citizens before
the Law," "All men are born
free and equal," "Inalienable
rights of mankind," were long
subject to indifferent observance
and trivial breaches alike. Now
that a gigantic effort has been
made to divorce humanity from
these principles, to abrogate the
Ten Commandments after four
thousand years, we are shocked
into a rediscovery of the funda-
mentals.
After an age-old matter-of-
fact acceptance of these eternal
truths as selfevident, the world
suddenly finds itself face to face
with a brazen attempt to over-
throw them. Faced by this dan-
ger, the world rises in their de-
fense. As of old, as in the days
when the ideas of equality, of
tolerance, of physical and spirit-
ual freedom were first proclaimed SEN. PRENTISS M. BROWN
amid a glorious fight against
primeval shackles of primitive from England, by Catholic refu-
humanity?, these ideas proved gees from Ireland, by Liberal
once more that they are capable refugees from Germany after
of arousing devotion and sacri- 1848 and again in our days, by
fice. We discover that our tradi- millions of poverty-ridden Slays
tions of democratic government and Jews, Italians and Greeks,
are the technique by means of Scandinavians and Orientals,
which these eternal truths are America, as we know it, is a
translated into political and social monument to the equality of
terms. Viewed from this angle, races, to the freedom of the in-
the Declaration of Independence, dividual, and to the essential un-
the Bill of Rights, the Fourteenth ity of mankind despite political
Amendment, are a restatement of and religious differences. A long
the moral code of democracy and succession of placid days had per-
of religion at once.
mitted us to forget our true char-
This awakening is proceeding acter and task.
The stormy days we live
apace the world over, albeit in
many countries under the heavy through now compel us to take
hand of oppression. But nowhere stock of essentials and to re-dedi-
has the shock of awakening come cate ourselves to their service.
All this is peculiarly apt to be
with an impetus stronger than
Passover
Greetings
UPON THIS OCCASION WE
TAKE THIS OPPORTUNITY
TO EXTEND OUR BE ST
WISHES TO THE ENTIRE
JEWISH COMMUNITY FOR
A JOYOUS HOLIDAY!
KERN'S
WOODWARD AT GRATIOT
which this year begins on April
12th (first Seder night is April
11th), is observed for eight days
by Orthodox Jews, but according
to the Old Testament the festi-
val lasts only a week. Palestin-
ian Jews visiting abroad during
Passover are permitted to eat
chometz on the eighth day.
Somewhere in the Mediterran-
ean old, dilapidated freighters
loaded with homeless Jews are
making their way to Palestine.
Those wanderers are enacting
the modern counterpart of the
exodus of the Jews from ancient
Egypt. To the hundreds of men,
The oldest treasure hunt in women and children herded to-
the world is the familiar Pass- gether like cattle in the holds
over search for the hidden afi- of refugee ships, the celebration
komen.
Archaeologists have established
that the date of the exodus of
the Jews from Egyptian slavery
was 1447 B.C., and that the
pharaoh of the Passover story
was Thotmes III.
When Thomas Jefferson, Ben-
jamin Franklin and John Adams
were appointed to prepare a de-
sign for the seal of the United
States on the same (lay that the
Declaration of Independence was
adopted, they first proposed a
device showing Pharaoh sitting
in an open chariot, a crown on
his head and a sword in his
hand, passing through the divid-
ing waters of the Red Sea in
pursuit of the Israelites; with
rays from a pillar of fire beam-
ing on Moses, who was repre-
sented as standing on the shore
extending his hand over the sea,
causing it to overwhelm Pharaoh.
Many Protestant clergymen in
the America of Colonial. days
drew a parallel between George
III and Pharaoh in their dis-
courses on the grievances of the
colonies against England, Infer-
ring that the same providence of
God that rescued the Israelites
from Egyptian bondage would
free the colonies.
recalled by my Jewish cocitizens
on their ancient festival of Pass-
over, the holiday of liberation
from slavery. It was the darkest
hour of Israel's history, the hour
of Egyptian bondage, that led to
the supreme expression of the
great moral code which had been
laid down on Sinai and has re-
mained the corner-stone of civili-
zation ever since.
At present, it is not one race
alone that is faced with the re-
vival of slavery. It is humanity
as a whole that finds itself
threatened with universal bond-
age. Together we shall face the
danger, together we shall over-
come it, and together we shall
vow allegiance to our old Amer-
ican dream: the dream of a free
society of free and equal and
mutually tolerant men.
Foundation Buys
Biblical Digest
WASHINGTON, D. C. — The
Bible Foundation, the national
non-profit Bible educational body
formed several years ago in
Washington, D. C., also main-
taining offices in New York City
and Aurora, III., announced its
purchase of the Biblical Digest,
a monthly magazine that has
been published in Siloam Springs,
Ark., for the past four years.
Mary E. Hughes is executive
director of the Foundation.
When the NRA was first
formed, President Roosevelt se-
lected Miss Hughes as the di-
rector of the Women's Division
and she completed organization
of wmen in every state in the
Union. Her success was largely
attributable to her previous ex-
perience in organizing religious
women groups of America for
national religious educational and
welfare movements. Miss Hughes
res'gned as vice president of the
Golden Rule Foundation to be-
come executive director of the
Bible Foundation.
The editorial offices of the Bib-
lical Digest are in the Presby-
terian Bldg., 156 Fifth Ave.,
New York City.
tificates. They must be landed
in secrecy or else be apprehended
and placed in internment camps.
But for them "Next Year in
Jerusalem" has become "Next
Week in Jerusalem" and the last
ordeal of misery does not break
their spirit.
For the Jews in Palestine and
for the hundreds of thousands
in the dark ghettos of Nazi-con-
trolled Europe who yearn to
find their way to Palestine, Pass-
over takes on a new and cogent
meaning far more profound and
soul-stirring than the original
exodus from Egypt. In fact, to
them the existence of modern
Palestine with its capacity to ab-
sorb increasingly large numbers
of refugees is comparable to the
miracle of the crossing of the
Red Sea. Passover in Palestine
is a process of reliving not mer-
ely the history of the Jews as a
people, but their personal his-
tories as slaves under the Ger-
man Pharaoh and as free men
redeemed through the rebuilding
of the Jewish National Home.
There can be no greater testi-
mony to the paramount import-
ance of Palestine than the fact
that even in this year of devas-
tating war Jews are continuing
to reach the shores of the Prom-
ised Land. Although the war has
blocked normal shipping lanes in
DR. STEPHEN S. WISE
the Mediterranean, the over-
of Passover is not a relic of whelming pressure of men and
the remote past. It represents, women struggling desperately to
in fact, a sorrowful chronicle escape the Nazi ring of steel
of their own suffering and flight and barbarism has shaped new
from bondage under a modern roads to freedom. The exodus
Pharaoh. In their agony and from Hitler-dominated Europe to
hunger, as they huddle together Palestine is proceeding through
in the dark corners of the un- three major routes. The Jews
seaworthy vessel, the final words who are situated in Western
of the Passover service ring in Europe sail from Lisbon on ves-
their ears. Louder and louder, sels which round the Cape of
clearer and clearer, until all con- ood Hope and reach Palestine
sciousness of other things van- through the Indian Ocean. Jew-
ishes. Above everything rises the ish refugees in Rumania and Bul-
prayer, "New Year in Jerusalem." garia and other Central and
Weeks and months have passed. Eastern European countries
The ship has constantly zig- travel to Istanbul where they
zagged off its course to avoid take the overland route through
enemy craft or British patrols.
See WISE—Page 8
These refugees do not have cer-
Passover
Greetings
To You and to Those
Whose Happiness Is
Yours, a Very Joyous
Holiday.
•
ealVSHORS"
1426 WOODWARD AVE.