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September 11, 1942
GOOD WILL
(Continued from Page 5)
City as the Sara Delano Roose-
velt Interfaith House in the form-
er town house of President Roose-
velt and his mother. Purchased
from the President by an inter-
faith committee of citizens on the
initiative of Bnai Briths, and pre-
sented to Hunter College, the
Roosevelt Interfaith House was
created as a kind of laboratory of
democratic living for the 12,000
Hunter College girls who are of
all races, creeds and colors.
Omaha's Dundee Presbyterian
Church was the scene of a unique
venture when Catholics, Jews,
Mormons, Episcopalians and Pres-
byterians joined in sponsoring an
educational exposition designed to
clarify the meaning of their many
individual religious rituals, cere-
monies and customs. Special
rooms in the church building were
et aside for each grolup, with
representatives of the various
faiths in attendance for two days
to explain their displays to those
of other faiths. Missionary col-
lections featured the Presbyterian
room while the Jewish room had
separate tables set for the Pass-
over Seder and Hanukkah and
another displaying a Torah. In
the Catholic room was a &splay
of vestments, cruets of Holy
Water and an alter equipped for
the celebration of the Mass.
At Ohio State University, the
Bnai Brith Hillel Foundation
sponsored a "third" Seder for the
benefit of 75 Christian students
representing 12 denominations,
who sought an opportunity to see
what a Seder was like. Holly-
wood's Temple Israel has inaug-
urated a weekly class for the
study of the New Testament, while
in Springfield, Ill., Rabbi Herman
E. Snyder, is giving a survey
course on the fundamentals of
Judaism at a community school
for adults. The course is an out-
growth of a demand for authori-
tative information on Judaism
from residents of all faiths. Com-
municants of Chicago's Warren
Avenue Congregational Church
celebrated the Passover in their
own church together with mem-
bers of the Washington Boule-
vard Temple, whose rabbi con-
ducted the service.
In Shreveport, La., where once
the Ku Klux Klan ruled, the era
of good will in action was ushered
in when a bronze plaque contain-
ing the Ten Commandments was
placed in the Caddo Parish Court
House lobby at exercises partici-
pated in by inter-faith leaders.
Climaxing this sort of good will
in action was the publication of
an unprecedented declaration of
fundamental religious beliefs held
in common by Protestants, Cath-
olics and Jews. Issued by the Na-
tonal Conference of Christians
and Jews over the signatures of
many of the leading clergymen
and laymen, the statement, the
first of its kind in American his-
tory, stated the foundation of
common religious convictions on
which American institutions rest.
The building of morale in the
national war effort through an
objective analysis of the social,
cultural and educational aspects
of group conflict and a diagnosis
of the manifestations, causes and
proposed solutions of inter-faith
conflict is the ultimate goal of a
pioneer inter-faith relations sem-
inar being given as a full credit
course at the University of Iowa
School of Religion by Rabbi Mor-
ris Kertzer, Jewish professor at
the school, and director of the
Iowa Bnai Brith Hillel Founda-
tion.
That these are not exceptional
incidents is evidenced by some
even more significant in the field
of human relations. Three close
friends of the Protestant and
Jewish faiths who found that they
would be unable to join the same
fraternity at the University of
Connecticut started one of their
own on a non-sectarian basis.
With the avowed aim of having
the various faiths "living har-
moniously, side by side, cooperat-
ing in social and academic life,"
the new fraternity, known as Phi
Kappa Lambda, is open to Cath-
4 , lie„Iew and Protestant.
The Pittsburgh Optimist Club
sp.msors the Bond Toy Mission.
which collects thousands of old or
broken toys and then refurbishes
them for distribution to needy-
youngsters at Chrstmas time.
'leading this unique undertaking
are two Jews, Stephen Berger
and A. A. Bluestone. Bnai Brith's
Gotham Lodge in New York has
adopted an East Side Boy Scout
troop made up of Catholic, Jew-
ish, Protestant and Chinese young-
sters from underprivileged homes.
The lodge equips the troop, sends
its members to camp and provides
13
DETROIT JEWISH CHRONICLE and The Legal Chronicle
it with leaders and meeting places.
Members of a Chicago chapter of
Aleph Zadik Aleph developed a
novel inter-American good neigh-
bor project when they began send-
ing pencils, notebooks and erasers
to needy school children in several
Latin-American countries.
In New Haven, 500 young peo-
ple front 30 Protestant churches
and Jewish synagogues and Bnai
Brith youth groups spent a whole
year blazing a community trail
in united social action for relig-
ious youth. With the volunteer
guidance of 50 municipal authori-
ties, each church group selected
a specific area of research in New
Haven government and then w ent
to work to dig out the first hand
information. As each report was
completed, copies were circulated
for study among all groups as
well as to city officials, labor and
industrial leaders and others af-
fected by the areas studied.
The same kind of good will in
action was displayed at Ohio State
University where this year's' Bnai
Brith Hillel Interfaith Fellowship
for outstanding campus good will
leadership was awarded to Louis
Douglas Mitchell, a Negro, and
Jane Frances Scott, an Episcopal-
ian. In San Francisco the city
council established the I. M. Gold-
en Medal to be awarded annually
to the citizen of San Francisco
who has done most to create good
will in the city. The medal is a
memoral to the late Judge Isidor
M. Golden, Bnai Brith leader.
Finally, there is the new class-
room technique of documentary
playwriting developed by the
Service Bureau for Intercultural
Education for high school students
as a means of making them more
aware of the contributions made
to American life by various racial
and religious groups, introducol
in Westchester County by a com-
mittee of citizens and educators,
with the financial support of Bnai
Brith.
The most continuing expression
of good will in action is the fre-
quency with which Christians vol-
untarily contribute to Jewish in-
stitutions and the succession of
Jewish benefactions to Christian
agencies. In honor of the 10th
anniversary of Bishop William
S•arlett as head of Christ Church
Cathedral, Temple Israel of St.
Louis presented the Protestant
Episcopal Cathedral with a pair
of massive carved oak doors. At
the same time Karl F. Johnson,
a Catholic., and Glen R. Hillis, a
Protestant, went out to the non-
Jews of Kokomo, Ind., to raise
funds to construct a synagogue
in the city. Philadelphia's Elm-
wood Methodist Church has a
Jewish tower and Catholic and
Episcopal walls, all built by the
voluntary labor of neighbors rep-
resenting every faith and four
races.
While Jack Haslin, an Irishman
who had been the landlord of the
Nathan Hymn family of Elgin, Ill.,
was bequeathing his erstwhile ten-
ant $3,000, including $500 to each
of Brim's four sons who enlisted
in the army, Jacob J. Stein, syna-
gogue leader in Fayetteville, N.
C., was leaving $500 to the Fay-
etteville Ministers Union, which
is composed entirely of Protestant
clergymen. In Pittsburgh, Hyman
Goldenson bequeathed $100 each
to 18 Protestant churches and 10
Catholic churches. The Mount
Calvary Church in Springfield,
Mass., a Negro congregation, rid
itself of a $2,400 mortgage when
the Beth Israel Synagogue can-
celled the indebtedness. In nearby
Newtons, 27 churches and a syna-
gogue united in a joint fund-rais-
ing campaign to replenish their
budgets in a I2-hour drive. And
most striking of all is the case
of Mrs. Gottfried Bernstein of
Chicago, who founded and still
heads the Blind Service Associa-
tion, which, while getting 90 per
cent of its support from Jews,
has a record of beneficiaries who
are 92 per cent Christian.
These instances of good will in
action for the year now ending
are but samplings of many that
have come to public notice and
the thousands of others that made
no headlines but added mightily to
the bumper crop and once again
gave proof in a practical way that
the ordinary people of America
who make our country what it is
and who believe in the things for
which we are fighting, not only
preach brotherhood but practice
it. Through good will in action
they are showing that they under-
stand that it is as important to
fight against religious hatred at
home as it is to give battle to
the enemy whose creed is the anti-
theses of good will in action.
Rosh Hashonah
Herald of a Better Day
•••...
A NEW YEAR DAWNS ON A TROUBLED WORLD AND
WITH IT COME NEW DREAMS OF PEACE, NEW ASPIRA-
TIONS, AND NEW HOPES FOR THE FUTURE.
IN THIS NEW YEAR 5703 MAY WE GO ABOUT OUR
NORMAL DAILY TASKS WITH RENEWED COURAGE AND
THE DETERMINATION TO CONTRIBUTE FURTHER TO THE
ENRICHMENT OF OUR BELOVED COUNTRY
TO THE JEWISH COMMUNITY OF DETROIT WE EX-
TEND GREETINGS AND SINCERE GOOD WISHES FOR A
YEAR OF HEALTH AND HAPPINESS.
• • •
woo
Sam's Cut Rate,
Incorporated
RANDOLPH at MONROE
CAMPUS MARTIUS at WOODWARD
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