DETROIT JEWISH CHRONICLE and the Legal Chronicle

Detroit and THE
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LEGAL CHRONICLE

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Readings of the Law for Saturday, April 4
Pentateuchal portion—Ex. 33:12-34 :26; Num.
28:19-25.
Prophetical portion—Ezekiel 37:1-14.
Readings of the Law for Seventh Day of
Passover, April 8
Pentateuchal portion—Ex. 13-17-15:26; Nuns.
28:19-25.
Prophetical portion—Samuel 22.
Readings of the Law for Eighth Day of
Passover, April 9
Pentateuchal portion—Deut. 14:22-16:17; Num.
28:19-25.
Prophetical portion—Isaiah 10:32-12:6.

APRIL 3, 1942

NISAN 3, 5702

The Case for the Jew

This is an answer to the Case Against
the Jew written by Milton Mayer that
appeared in the Saturday Evening Post
of March 28.
This answer is in no sense a special
pleading on behalf of the Jews but an
attempt to weigh and evaluate the
charges made by Milton Mayer who is
described in the biographical note, as
one whose "scorn for his fellow Ameri-
can Jews is exceeded by his scorn for the
Gentiles."
Scorn may be a cleansing and purify-
ing emotion, but we are concerned less
with the feelings of the writer than with
the truth of the charges made by him.
There are two counts in his indictment.
We think he has proven neither of them.
The first count is that the Jew is not
righteous and he tells the Jew how he
can become righteous in the following
language:

"If he wants to practice righteousness I
can tell him how. He can practice right-
eousness by doing justly, by loving mercy
and by walking humbly with his God. No-
body can tell him how to walk humbly with
his God, and nobody needs to tell him what
it is to love mercy. This he needs to know,
how to do justly, and I think I can tell him.
"Every man is an end in himself. No man
is a means to be used by another. The
man who. in Lincoln's simple words, wrings
his bread from the sweat of other men's faces
is unjust. He may turn philanthropist and re-
pay a nickel on the stolen quarter or a dime
or the entire quarter; he is still unjust. He
may endow a university or support a cathe-
dral or build a string of orphan asylums;
he is still unjust. He is unjust because he
used men as means."

If he had titled his case, the Case
Against Mankind instead of the Jew the
verdict would be guilty with recommen-
dation of extreme mercy due to many
and weighty extentuating circumstances.
In view of historic fact why should the
Jew be singled out as unrighteous, unless
our modern Jeremiah believes that Jews
should transcend conditions and circum-
stances or he expects the Jew to became
a new variety of the human species. As
to the latter expectation the biologic evi-
dence is very strongly against him, for
there has been no change in the human
species for tens of centuries, and as to
his first expectation man's social and eco-
nomic practices have followed the pattern
of exploitation of man by man for ages.
Every intelligent person who knows
anything about the history of mankind,
knows that men have used other men as
means eons before Moses liberated the
Jews from slavery in Egypt. He knows
that men of every race, color, creed and
nationality have used men as means. This
is the long melancholy tale of slavery,
serfdom and the wages ,system. There
have been Isaiahs, Micahs, Amoses and
Jeremiahs, among all the peoples, who
thundered against unrighteousness. But
all the denunciations and thunderings
have had little effect, because in a world
that has always known scarcity and in
a world where the biologic law of self-
preservation obtains, men have not al-
ways been overscrupulous in the methods
employed to insure security and survival.
Insecurity and fear of want have com-
pelled men to overreach and exploit more
than reasonable men should. And as long

as insecurity and fear of want shall
haunt men they will continue to use men
as means if this practice and method
means survival.
However in defense of mankind it
must be urged that man is being used
as a means less and less as man learns
how to use extraneous energy in place
of human energy in the production of the
necessities of life. A comparison of the
lot of the skilled mechanic with that of
the slave of the empires of antiquity will
convince the most skeptical and perverse-
ly obdurate that we have traveled far
on the road to righteousness.
And in this matter of righteousness
perhaps when the Jew gives a nickel,
or a dime out of the "stolen" quarter it
is because he knows that it is unrighteous
and unjust to grind the faces of the
poor, but neither he nor anybody else
has yet found a formula that will at once
do away with the practice of using men
as means. The Jew makes amends in the
best way he knows how, and who can
say that it is not better to be less un-
just and less unrighteous, for even right-
eousness and justice are relative in a
relative world.
The other major charge against the
Jew is the following:

"And their failure, it seems to me is a
sign to all men, a sign that men cannot
survive by saving their skins. Their tragedy,
it seems to me, is a demonstration of the
falsity of the driving principle of our time,
the principle of adjustment to environment."

This charge is subject to the same
criticism as his other charge. He particu-
larizes when he should generalize. What
proof can he produce to demonstrate
that the driving principle of our time is
the principle of adjustment to environ-
ment more than it has been a driving
principle at any other time in the history
of life upon our planet.
All forms of life, in the struggle for
existence, had to adjust themselves to
their environment or else perish. Only
those that did so, successfully, have sur-
vived; the rocks are full of the failures.
Survival in a stable world has often
been• achieved by means of protective
coloration, imitation, flight and conceal-
ment. But in a drastically changing world
the individual and the species need cour-
age, endurance, tough mindedness, resil-
iency, persistence, co-operation and self-
sacrifice.
Certainly, a small fraction of the Jews
has use the protective coloration of assim-
ilation, Episcopalianism, Christian Science.
They have imitated, concealed and fled.
They have tried to look, talk, act like their
neighbors; they have imitated them in
their worst, as well as in their best prac-
tices, they have concealed their identity
and fled from their own kind.
In a stable world these devices have
a survival value; one can save his skin
even though he loses his soul and iden-
tity, but in the cataclysmic changed world
of Nazi Germany all these devices did
not even save their skins. This kind of
adjustment to environment was a failure,
and has always failed in the past.
The vast majority of Jews have not
resorted to protective coloration, imita-
tion, concealment and flight but have
faced the world with courage, endurance,
high mindedness, resiliency, persistence,
co-operation and self sacrifice. They have
had to develop these qualities in order
to adjust to a constantly changing and
often hostile world. And when the psy-
chiatrists, of whom Mayer speaks scorn-
fully, speak of adjustment to environment,
they mean not only a stable but particu-
larly a changing environment, for they
know that the modern world is in a state
of flux.
The Jew is not a failure. In fact, they
are a definitely successful people, for not
only have they survived but have retained
their identity. They have not only re-
tained their identity but have so im-
pinged upon the world that they have
caused and are causing more repercus-
sions than any numerically inferior
group in the history of mankind.
This should not make us arrogant,
smug and complacent for in a changing
world one cannot rest on his laurels. We
must strive to become more righteous and
more just and not be satisfied until the
day comes when no man will use an-
other man as a means, and all men shall
be ends. And we must continue to de-
velop those qualities of mind and heart
that will enable us to overcome any hos-
tile environment.

April ;

••• STRICTLYCONFIDENTIAL..•

by Phineas J. Biron

INSIDE STUFF

Or may not read in your daily
The reason why Senator Guy paper (clipper arrivals being a
M. Gillette of Iowa did not dis- military secret till a day aft er
cuss the Strum tragedy on the landing here) . . . One of the
Senate floor, as he had intend- most impressive and inter ding
ed, is, as we understand it, that Jewish affairs this seaso n w ill
the State Department exercised be the reception to be .,:iv
e n
pressure on him, fearing that Dr. Silver on his return from
such discussion might provoke
anti-British feeling in this coun- England . . . The Cleveland
try . . . Madagascar, which Hit- Rabbi will have some sensation-
ler is said to be envisaging as al announcements to make as
a huge concentration camp for a result of the conference he
the world's Jews, promises to
provide hot news ere long . . . has had with British leaders in
At least, the arrival of hundreds London . . . William Ziff, one-
of German "tourists" is being time adjutant of the late Vlad-
reported . . . Are we going to imir Jabotinsky, and author of
be too late again? . . . Daniel "The Rape of Palestine"—and
Arnstein, the Burma Road ex- who, incidentally, is the most
nert, has evolved a plan for us- important publisher of aviation
ing New York's taxis for the magazines in this country—has
transportation of troops in an already made several flying trips
emergency . . . He claims that to England for consultation with
if his plan is adopted .thousands aviation authorities, being re-
of taxis would be available at garded as an expert in that
field . . . An amazing conversion
practically a moment's notice . .
The rabbis who signed that —and it looks like a genuine
statement denouncing the Jew- one—is that of Boake Carter,
ish army idea and calling upon the news columnist, who until
the Jews of Palestine to enlist not so long ago was earmarked
in the regular British fighting as not particularly philo-Semitic
forces, are the same d die-hards' " Carter is devoting an al-
—except, of course, for a few most disproportionate part of his
younger additions to their ranks writing these days boosting the
—who opposed the U.S. Con- Jewish army idea and pleading
gress Resolution endorsing the for understanding of the Jewish
Balfour Declaration over a score problem in the Near East.
of years ago . . . Incidentally, LITERARY DEPARTMENT
the British colonial master minds
That Britain is laboring under
in Palestine would not accept
30,000 Jews in the British fight- no delusions concerning the pos-
ing forces over there, but would sibility of a Nazi invasion this
insist on putting them in labor year is evidenced by the pub-
lication of an official handbook
battalions.
there telling the populace how
to carry on guerilla warfare in
TRANSATLANTIC
case the need arises . . • The
From England comes the news author of the book is one
that a refugee from Nazism to "Yank" Levy, a native of Can-
whom the British gave a new ada, who is now an instructor
home has repaid this hospitality in the British Home Guard.
a thousandfold . . . An engineer, . . . Australia's war regulations
he has discovered a special pro- against sending money out of
cess for reclaiming steel from the country are helping the
slag, and is now helping his
Mnerican soldiers there have
adopted country get hundreds a good time . . . All because
of tons of extra steel each Rose Franken's "Claudia," which
month . . . From Holland, via recently closed a long Broadway
Leonard Lyons, we get the story run, is being played quite suc-
of a recent address Anton Mus- cessfully down under, and Miss
sert, the Dutch Nazi, delivered Franken's royalties, which can
in a large hall in Amsterdam. not be sent to her here, are
. . . Arrangements had been being turned over to a special
made to broadcast 15 minutes fund from which American priv-
of the pro-Hitler harangue thro- ates benefit . . . Congratulations
ughout the Netherlands . . . to New York's Yeshiva College
So the Hollanders flocked to the on the publication of its new
hall—thousands of them, filling album of Portraits of Famous
it to overflowing . . . And as Physicists, with biographical ac-
the delighted Mussert began his counts by Henry Crew . . . The
speech they jumped to their feet album constitutes the fourth in
and started shouting "Heil Mus- the Scripta Mathematica series
se•t" at the top of their lungs of Pictorial Mathematics, which
—and continued the shouting provides as painless a way as
till the broadcast period was we know of to get n idea of
over without a single word of the history of mathematical and
Mussert's propaganda speech
physical science . . . Prof. Jeku-
having been sent over the ether. thiel Ginsburg, who fathered the
entire project, deserves especial
ZIONIST NEWS
credit for the appearance of
A stir and consternation was these albums . . . Emil Ludwig,
created some time ago when a the biographer, feels very much
former president of the Zionist relieved now that Moscow has
Organization of America pro- officially corrected the confusion
posed, in all seriousness, that about his name . . . When Kurt
the United Palestine camaign Ludwig was found guilty as a
be omitted this year and the Nazi spy and sentenced to a 20-
funds it would raise .be collected year prison term here recently.
for defense work here . . . The Moscow papers featured th•
gentleman in question, who story, but changed the "Kurt"
spends part of each year in to "Emil" . . . Possibly some
Florida, received a sizzling reply, Moscow scribe got the idea by
which he will remember for a remembering that Emil Ludwig.
long time, from Rabbi Abba Mi- the famous anti-Nazi author
ld Silver . . . By the time you whose original name was Cohen.
read this Dr. and Mrs. Chaim Is a first cousin of General
Weizmann will be established in Milch, the guiding spirit of the
a New York hotel, as you may Nazi air force.

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C) The National Jewish Monthly, B'nai B'rith.

KEEP YOUR EYE ON THE BALL, UNCLE!

