July 4, 1941

DETROIT JEWISH CHRONICLE and the Legal Chronicle

4

Detroit Jewish Chronicle

and THE LEGAL CHRONICLE

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

President

JACOB H. SCHAKNE

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

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Telephone: Cadillac 1040

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Sabbath Scriptural Selections

Pentateuchal portion—Nuns. 19:1-22:1.
Prophetical portion—Judges 11:1-33.

JULY 4, 1E41

TAMMUZ 9, 5701

Instead of Unity

Nearly a year ago, the American Jew-
ish Congress anounced plans for the
formation of an Institute for Jewish Af-
fairs, to study war and peace aims.
More recently, the American Jewish
Committee formed a similar institute for
the same purpose. Now comes the Jewish
Labor Committee and announces the
formation of a third institute of a similar
nature.
Who will be next to form another
such institute?
When the Intergovernmental Commis-
sion on Refugee Problems met at Evian
le Bain, in France, three years ago, there
were petitions from 30 different Jewish
groups in behalf of refugees.
It was a most pathetic display of lack
of unity which did not help the cause
of the refugees.
Will the forthcoming peace conference
—for, sooner or later there will be such
a conference—be placed in a position of
saying "a plague on all your houses?"
Instead of unity and peace within our
ranks, we have chaos.
A worse state of affairs could not be
wished on us even by our bitterest ene-
mies.

Newspaper Guild and the Day

total membership, including the Jewish
synagogues, of 64,501,594.
Based on these figures, all arguments
by anti-Semites that Jews are not reli-
gious melt away like an ice cube on a
hot July day. Affiliation of Jews with
synagogues appears on the basis of these
statistics to be far above the average
among all other faiths, with the possible
exception only of the Catholics who are
reported to have a total of 18,733
churches with a membership of 21,-
284,455.
The figures published by the Federal
Council of Churches may be questioned
as to authenticity; but insofar as the
Jewish facts are concerned, whatever
criticism is in order on the basis of poor
surveying will have to be directed at the
Jewish compilers of facts, not at the
Christian organizations accepting them.

Return to Tradition

Reform Jewish ranks are showing a
tendency to return to traditional observ-
ances.
In Detroit, at Temple Beth El, this
tendency has already been in evidence
several years. The Sunday morning serv-
ices have been abandoned for the Friday
evening observances. The Kiddush has
been restored to the ritual. Other tradi-
tional observances are in evidence.
But the most striking proofs of a re-
turn to traditions were in evidence at the
convention of the Central Conference of
American Rabbis in Atlantic City.
Rabbi Solomon Freehof advocated
greater respect for the dietary laws.
The newly-elected president of the
Central Conference of American Rabbis,
Dr. James G. Heller, made a powerful
statement in which he declared:

.'.Heard in the Lobbies.'.

CONGRATULATIONS!

PRIME RUMORS

Hats off to General Motors'
Treasurer—Meyer L. Prentis of
Detroit—who just got a deserved
bonus of 1,000 shares of common
stock for hard labor in 1940;
each share is worth $18.28 to the
corporation but has been averag-
ing $50 on the market . . . No
stock but a $32,000 cash bonus
went to Walter Dannenbaum of
DuPont . . . More people liked
more cans and bottles of Pabst
beer in 1940—which brought no
unhappiness to Harris Pe•lstein,
Pabst head, who also doubles as
head of the Chicago Jewish Char-
ities . . . Kudos also came to Paul
Lukas for his masterly portrayal
in Lillian Helman's "Watch on
the Rhine." Paul's father was a
Jew and his mother a devout
Catholic. He left Hungary in
1927, refusing to sign a proferred
contract with the Royal Theater
because of its anti-Semitism. By
the way, you've got to hand it
to pretty Paul for the deft way
he plasters his toupe . . . When
you make up a list of Jewry's
up-and-coming leaders don't for-
get William Schweitzer of Eliza-
beth, N. J., son of a great father
and leader of his Jewish commu-
nity's drives, his championship
caliber may be due to the fact
that he's the nation's greatest
small bore rifleman, who's tucked
more rifle and pistol honors under
his belt than most others.

What's all the shtiotin' for in
charging the State Department
with ill-concealed anti-Semitism in
issuing stringent regulations to
guard the visas for refugees from
abroad when, a parrot tells
it was a very important dipH-
matic Jew who was the first, to
suggest that the refugee stream
concealed the jetsam of Gestapo
and GPU agents?
Friends of Chicago's Rabbi Solo-
mon Goldman are campaigning
for a return engagement for him
as president of the Zionist Or-
ganization, perhaps as early
September.
George Washington Hill, Amer-
ican Tobacco's president, is all
toasted against Henry Luce be-
cause Henry's Time revealed that
the Hit Parade's big baritone
Barry Wood with the healthy
proboscis is none other than New
Haven's Lou Rapaport, Yale, '311.
Intimates of Harold Ickes, val-
iant defender of the Jews, are
having a hard time explaining
why the triumvirate of Jews is
gunning for him—with Arthur
Knock shooting from the Times,
David Lawrence from his syndi-
cated blasts and George Sokolsky
from his own mimeographed pop-
pings.

"A Judaism that conserves the past, that
is anchored in Jewish tradition, but that is
open to the discoveries of modern thought,
is still the need of myriads in the United
States. There are millions of unaffiliated,
who remain unattached because we have not
reached them, because we have not known
how to translate our message humanly, so-
cially, organizationally into their terms. Re-
form Judaism is no longer what some sus-
pected it to be in its early years. It it not
un-Jewish. It is not assimilationist. It is not
anti-traditionalist. It is certainly not anti-
Zionist. It wants a Judaism that is free—
free to develop, free to change in accordance
with its perception of new truths. But always
in accordance with those principles which are
indigenous to it, which are its mainstream
of flow throughout the ages. Many things con-
vince me that all the sections of Jewish
religious life are converging toward this
viewpoint, that the differences that divide
Conservatism, Orthodox and Reform are be-
coming less and less important. We must
make efforts toward such an understanding
both in thought and in action. It is my hope
that during these years we may make appre-
ciable prozress in these directions, bringing
the message of liberal Judaism to the un-
affiliated myriads, closer cooperation with
our brothers of other groups—before long,
meeting with them where we may discuss
these things freely and openly."

Action taken by the Newspaper Guild
convention in Detroit to condemn the
Jewish Daily Day and to attack David
Dubinsky and the Amalgamated Clothing
Workers' Union calls for comment.
The National Labor Relations Board
has ruled against Newspaper Guild in the
Day strike. Furthermore, public opinion
has been antagonistic to the Guild be-
cause it sought to compete, possibly to
destroy the well-established union of
Jewish writers—the Peretz Verein. Guild
The new head of the Reform rabbinate
members went so far as to dub Mr. Du-
described
the duties of a rabbi as fol-
binsky a "strikebreaker" for sympathiz-
ing with the Day and for opposing the lows:
strikers who bolted the Peretz Verein for
"The rabbinate must be again today the
the Guild.
representative of the whole round of Jewish
life. It must interpret it in its own tradi-
Such action will not help the cause
tion of spirit and body, people and faith,
of the Newspaper Guild. Its injection of
priest and prophet, synagogue and commu-
strife among Jewish writers, its efforts
nity, Israel and the world! Upon the rabbi
to destroy an existing Jewish journalists'
rest many duties and many opportunities:
to love all that is of his people and faith;
union whose standards have always been
to know it, to savor it day by day; to
high, will not advance its cause. It is
speak to his people of all these things, of
possible that the rank and file of Guild
themselves as living spirits, as the heirs of
members were misled on this question
a noble legacy, as men who need loving serv-
ice and wise counsel; to face the problems
by the leaders of the newspapermen's
of their relation to the general community
union. There is no other way of judging
not with servility but with courage and
a decision arrived at in the convention
dignity; to take part in all that seeks to
resolution which made an effort to in-
lead men toward righteousness and brother-
fluence Jewish life and to assume a posi-
hood. No one can do all these things well.
But no rabbi is worth his salt who does not
tion of authority in fields that are strange
strive to do all of them—to be scholar,
to it.
prophet, teacher, friend and good citizen!"

Synagogue Affiliates

Research conducted by the Federal
Council of Churches of Christ in America
shows that there are 3,728 Jewish con-
gregations in this country, with an ag-
gregate membership of 4,641,184. These
figures are based on a survey conducted
by Jewish statisticians in 1936.
The total number of churches reported
by the Federal Council of Churches, in
the 1941 edition of the Yearbook of
American Churches, is 244,319, with a

Thus, under the new leadership,
stronger adherence to traditional prac-
tices, an aggressive stand on Jewish com-
munity responsibility, an uncompromising
attitude on scholarship, all tend to point
to a better day of spiritual Judaism, and
this must, in the long run, lead to a posi-
tion of more effective Jewish leadership
and more pleasant inter-group relation-
ships. Rabbi Heller should be given en-
couragement in the program he has out-
lined for himself as president of the
Central Conference of American Rabbis.

FELIX CAN'T SIT STILL

Court attendants who get cock-
eyed trying to follow Felix Frank-
furter as he jumps around on his
seat while testimony is sounding
in the Supreme Court will be re-
lieved to hear from Latin Pro-
fessor Burke that the boy was al-
ways restless. Reminiscing on
some of his famous pupils on re-
tiring after 50 years at New
York's City College, Burke says
the Justice was a bob-tailed won-
der in his class way back. Felix
used to balance himself precar-
iously on the edge of his seat,
just busting to get a chance to
answer every question the prof
asked in Latin class. At Harvard,
decades later, Frankfurther bal-
anced himself just as gingerly—
but this time on top of a desk,
not a seat, as he expounded the
law to his classes. And now, Felix
Frankfurter is still restless on the
bench—even though it is the high-
est bench in the land.

BROADWAY BLASTS

Toast of the White Way is
Billy Rose, who's working as hard
as a Jew in a Nazi concentration
camp to get up some swell shows
for the Army boys.
The yarmelke-Jews are hound-
ing George Jessel these days,
wanting to know in what cheder
he'll enroll his son if that's what
Lois finally gives in a few months.
They say the best of the ear-
twisting establishments is none too
good for the cantor of the "Jazz
Singer."

HOLLYWOOD HUMDINGERS

Tough-talking Sam Levene, who
usually detectives in the pies, is
hack on Vine Street while work-
ing in a new picture for Louis
Mayer . . . The head of M-G-M
seems to be off of Buchanism
and "moral rearmament" for the
moment while tagging along after
Zionism . . . Result of Chaim
Weizmann, they say, when the
Mr. Big of Zionism was taken
around the Culver City lets to
shake hands with Clark Gable,
Jeannette MacDonald and Spencer
Tracy . . . Sam N. Behrman is
another of the acolytes in the
Weizmann priesthood, for he's put-
ting it up to the mansion-mag-
nates of Beverly Hills and Bel-
Air to shell out for Weizmann's
chemical research institute in Pal-
estine . . . "Last Engagement,"
the Marx Brothers are saying
again as they finish "The Big
Store." Ha•po says he will go
on the stage; Groucho will do
play-writing, and Chico wants to
wind up in a blaze of glory as a
radio comic . . . The last pub-
licity gag for John Garfield didn't
go over so hot. Our old Jules from
the Bronx is said to have pouted
against his role in "Nine Lives
are not Enough"; but how were
folks to know that it was build-
up for his swell acting in "Out
of the Fog"? . . . And while
you're writing a letter tell Jack
Warner what you think of his
publicity dept.'s smelly routine
of publicizing the anti-Nazi "Un-
derground" by faking stories of
a new organization to collect ra-
dio parts to be sent to the "free-
dom" stations in Germany.

LONG MAY IT WAVE!

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