4
December 4, 1742
DETROIT JEWISH CHRONICLE and The Legal Chronicle
Detroit Jewish Chronkle
and THE LEGAL CHRONICLE
Published Weekly by Jewish Chronicle Publishing Co., Inc.
JACOB H. SCHAKNE
JACOB MARGOLIS
Pres.-Gen. Mgr.
Editor
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sibility for an endorsement of views expressed by its writers.
Entered as Second-class matter March 3, 1916, at the Post-
office at Detroit, Mich., under the Act of March 3, 1879.
Sabbath Readings of the Law
Pentateuchal Portion—Genesis 37.1-40.23
Prophetical Portion—Zechariah 2.14-4.7
DECEMBER 4. 1942
KISLEV 25. 5703
Chanukah
Chanukah, the Festival of Lights, will
be celebrated for eight days in our land
by the actual lighting of the candles, be-
ginning with one and ending with eight.
In most of Europe the holiday will be
celebrated in spirit only, for the candles
will not be available and if they were the
blackout would prevent their being
lighted.
Chanukah symbolizes light and cleans-
ing. This time the cleansing is not so much
the cleansing of the temple of humanity
by removing the pagan idols, as it is the
cleansing of the temple of humanity and
destroying the pagan ideologies that seek
to defile and destroy mankind.
When the cleansing job has been com-
pleted, then the light of reason, decency,
justice, freedom and equality will go on
over the whole world. It is our devout
wish that the job of cleansing will be a
thorough one this time.
After the long blackout, we should be
able to appreciate the light.
Rabbi Max J. Wolhgelernter
Rabbi Max J. Wolhgelernter has com-
pleted five years of service as Rabbi of
Beth Tefilo Emanuel. These five years
have been tragic years in the history of
Israel, but men like Rabbi Wolhgelernter
are not dismayed by the melancholy
events that have made of lesser men mis-
anthropes and pessimists.
During his ministry here he has worked
earnestly and untiringly in the field of
traditional Judaism. To him must be given
much of the credit for the work of Young
Israel, Michigan Synagogue Conference,
Sabbath Observance League and many
other activities.
Men like Rabbi Wolhgelernter know
that with the catastrophy that has befall-
en Polish Jewry that America must be-
come the center from which Jewish
thought and ideals must spread over the
entire world.
We are confident that in the years to
come his energy, patience, learning and
humanity will make his ministry even
more fruitful and valuable to the entire
community.
A Day of Mourning
World Jewry is in mourning and is
making urgent pleas to the heads of the
United Nations to save the harried, de-
spairing remnants of our people in Nazi
occupied Europe.
The threat of reprisals, recommended
by some, will not in our opinion have
any effect upon these brutal gangsters
who today rule their own people by
naked violence. Like all gangsters they
are reckless gamblers who realize that if
they win nobody can punish them for
their criminal misdeeds, and if they lose,
then they will pay the penalty.
Then too there is the danger if re-
prisal action is taken in order to satisfy
Jewish demands, that the people may
not feel as kindly and may not be as
ready to give aid and comfort as they
have repeatedly given in Austria, Ger-
many, France, Holland and Belgium.
It may be some consolation, in this hour
of grief, to know that our own Herbert
H. Lehman is now Director of Foreign
Relief and Rehabilatation and that he will
bring relief and will begin to rehabilitate
as soon as he has the opportunity and oc-
casion to do so.
Beware of the German Generals
Twenty-five years ago the Allies got
rid of the "demoniacal" Kaiser, but the
Generals remained. Let us not make the
same blunder a second time. Both Hitler
and the Generals must go this time. If
the Generals remain there is the ever-
present danger that the cry of "living
space," "place in the sun," "German
superiority" will be raised, and then again
will the world be plunged into another
global conflict.
At the end of the last world war the
peacemakers thought that a skeleton army
of 100,000 was tantamount to complete
disarmament of Germany. It may have
been if these 100,000 had not been
made into officers; and if the bal-
ance of power political policies and
fear of Bolshevism had not encouraged
Hitler and the Generals to increase the
armed forces far beyond anything con-
templated by the Versailles Treaty.
The false and hollow "living space"
argument would have had no persuasive-
ness in Germany if the armed might of
Germany were not there to back it up.
Belgium, Holland, Switzerland and oth er
countries of Europe are even more crowd-
ed than Germany and we have not heard
that they wanted more living space. The
reason is obvious: They have not the
armed forces to take that which they can
make, if they must.
Germany has proved the falsity and
hollowness of the living space argument
up to the hilt since Hitler came to power
at the end of January, 1933.
If the organizational skill, managerial
ability, ingenuity, inventiveness, technical
knowledge and labor had been utilized
in the production of capital and consumer
goods, instead of war goods, in the last
decade, Germany would have enjoyed the
highest standard of living ever enjoyed
by any country of Europe, provided there
was a fair and equitable distribution of
income.
Hitler and the Generals preferred a
police military regime rather than a civil,
with the consequence that Germany and
the whole world have been needlessly
plunged into the worst war in the history
of humanity.
The talk of a peace offensive is again
being heard in the capitals of Europe.
These offensives seem to follow either
successes or reverses of the armies of the
Third Reich. This time it is more circum-
stantial due to the remarks allegedly
made by General Ritter von Thoma, Ger-
man Africa Corps Commander under
Field Marshal Erwin Rommel.
The tenor of his remarks indicated a
dissatisfaction with the interference by
Hitler in German military affairs.
This incident was followed by the al-
leged curt dismissal of General Franz
Haider as chief of the general staff. The
sum and substance of these episodes to-
gether with the Von Bock and Von Brau-
chitsch affairs have given rise to the story
that the Generals are ready to "isolate"
Hitler and are ready to talk peace.
Obviously, more than the complete dis-
armament of Germany is needed to pre-
vent further European and world wars.
Balance of power politics, imperialism,
tariff barriers, economic backwardness,
must be removed if the world is to be
safer and more secure. If all this cannot
be achieved at one time, the least that
can be hoped for is that the Reich Gen-
erals should no longer be a sinister threat
to the peace of the world. These Generals
must go with Hitler and his camarilla.
Deliverance
The picture of fleeing humans has be-
come a commonplace. Despite the fact
that it has been oft repeated, one must
be possessed of a vivid imagination to
appreciate the tragedy of it all.
The Jews of France fled to Spain when
the Nazi hordes violated the armistice
and occupied Unoccupied France. This
tragedy, however, was not as poignant
as previous occupations because on the
other side of the Mediterranean hundreds
of thousands of Jews were delivered from
Nazi laws and concentration camps by
the order of President Roosevelt.
Let us hope that the African deliverance
is the beginning of the complete deliver-
ance of our people throughout the world.
PLAIN TALK
by AL SEGAL
"Judith"
OUR Town, one day the didn't argue the matter, 1,6 14,
I I N other
week, at one of the tem- so young.
ples, the women of our two tem-
ple sisterhocds had lunch with
the 72 members of the women's
of
board of our local Council
Afterward they all
Churches.
marched together in a most sis-
terly way down the main aisle of
the temple, the unity of their
footsteps sounding like the verit-
able sisterhood. Then the Jewish
and Protestant sisters recited the
psalms together and everybody
felt it could be a decent world,
after all, if it only tried to be.
One of the Jewish sisters said
afterward that she passed much
of the time in the temple th'nk-
ing just what it means to be Jew-
ish. I shall call her Judith, a
name which I regard much more
lovely than most of those which
are currently being handed
around among girls.
Judith had been brought up on
the idea that being Jewish was
strictly a separate identity. As
soon as she was old enough to be
intelligently conscious, she became
aware of being surrounded by
an impalpable ghetto.
She didn't recognize it as a
ghetto until long later. In her
childhood she had no name for
the invisible barrier between her
and Mary Fogarty. Mary Fogar-
ty was one of the girls in her
neighborhood. Mary was one of
the many little girls in the neigh-
b•ohood who went to the paro-
chial or to the public schools
closeby.
Judith remembered the first
time she met Mary. They were
both about seven years old then.
Mary was sitting on her front
steps and had some jacks in her
hand. Mary said, won't you play
jacks with me? That's how she
came to know Mary. They became
fast friends.
In that time Mary didn't look
at all like a different kind of
person to Judith. She was just
a nice girl who knew how to play
jacks well. She could make a
ball bounce up and down without
missing up to the count of 30.
It never occured to either of them
to make anything of the fact
that their religions weren't the
same or that they came out of
different stocks.
Judith couldn't recall just when
and how she became conscious of
any essential difference between
her and Mary. Her people never
told her not to play with Mary,
but from what she heard she
came vaguely to an awareness
that folks like Mary were of a
separate kind and that she
shouldn't be going too much with
her.
1 /
I L T ALI, had to do with her
first cmcepts of being Jewish.
Being a Jew, as she got it, was
to be somebody different. There
was something of being proud in
it, to something of the idea of
a holy obligation to stick ex-
clusively to your own, something
of tribal exclusiveness. Judith
She remembered getting farth-
er and farther away from Mary
Fogarty. Mary, as she thought
of her now, became like a figure
in the movies fading out in the
remote distance. It was a ,low
fade-out. Nothing special had hap-
pened to cause this, no childish
quarrel.
She began to think of Mary
as some one far off. Judith was
ten years old then and in her
religious concept, being Jewish
had become definitely a separate
identity that couldn't be allowed
to mingle. It had come to mean
something exclusively sad.
Judith guessed that perhaps
Mary Fogarty, on her side had
come to the same idea about her
religious identity. Very likely she
did. Very likely just as • Mary
fades out of Judith's vision, so
Judith vanished from Mary's eyes
into the fog that people like to
call the gulf between religions.
It may be the fault of religious
education generally, ludith
thought.
Yes, she mused, all the rel'g-
ions may be to blame. They speak
much of brotherhood but they
had the most to do with the
hateful separations among the hu-
man kind. Their jealousies, their
back-biting, their claims of ex-
clusive sanctity and perfection.
But, Judith felt that since she is
Jewish she had a right to find
fault only with her own people
in this.
A great part of them had been
living in a vacuum of exclusive-
ness. Many of them had made
a virtue of being separate and
had been thinking of themselves
as people of a special dest:ny.
Judith remembered hearing what
the prophet had said about all
people having one father, but she
thought some of the Jews would
set all the Jews aside as special
children.
Judith thought of the years of
her maturity during which she
had fully and actively accepted
the idea of being somebody ut-
terly different. Being a Jew was
to carry separate banners and to
march on our side of a narrow
street. The people marching on
the other side looked as remote
as Mary Fogarty did the time she
faded out.
1 1 1
U
NTIL the hour of sitting in
the temple with the Chris-
tian sisters, reciting Psalms with
them, she had never questioned
the idea that she a Jew, was
altogether different and must
stick to a separate compartment
labeled "Jews."
She liked this much better —
this sitting with the Christian
sisters in the temple and speak-
ing to God in one voice with them
• . . The heavens declare the
glory of God and the firmament
showeth his handiwork . . . Let
the words of my mouth and the
meditation of my heart lie ac-
See SEGAL—Page 13
HEBREW CALENDAR
5703-1942
Hanukkah .............................
...................................................... ... Dec. 4
Rosh Chodesh Tebeth
...................................................................... Dec. 9
Fast of Tebeth ............
........................................ Dee. 18
........................
5703 - 1943
Rosh Chodesh Shevat ............................................................... Jan. 7
Chamisho Osor B'Shevat ......................................................... Jan i
• Rosh Chodesh Adar I .................................................................... Feb
t1
• Rosh Chodesh Adar II
Mai
**Fast of Esther ............................................................................ Mai 20
Purim................................................
Mat. 21
Shushan Purim
........................Mar 2•
Rosh Chodesh Nisan ...................................................................
Passover ........ ..................................................................................
20 6
• Rosh
Chodesh Iyar...................................................................... Ma: 1i
Lag B'Omer
Rosh Chodesh Sivan ...................................................................... I j i ti a lY 3 4
Shev
Roh
s uotc
hod
h. e . ...
•
s s t h of
ch o Tammuz .....................
................................................................................................................................
Ab
Aug -
Fast of Ab .................................................................................. Aug 1
• Rosh Chodesh Ellul .................................................................... Sept I
(
• Also observed previous day.
" Fast observed previous Thursday.
Holidays begi n an the evening preceding the dates designated