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DETROIT JEWISH CHRONICLE and The Legal Chronicle

Detroit Jewish Chronicle

and THE LEGAL CHRONICLE

Published Weekly by Jewish Chronicle Publishing Co., Inc.

JACOB H. SCHAKNE
JACOB MARGOLIS

Pres.-Gen. Mgr.
Editor

6entrel Offices and Publication Bldg., 525 Woodward Ave.

Telephone: CAdillac 1040 Cable Address: Chronicle
Suuscription in Advance
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ro

,rsute publication, all correspondence and news matter
such this office by Tuesday evening of each week,
When mailing notices, kindly use one side of paper only.

The Detroit Jewish Chronicle invites correspondence on sub.
jects of interest to the Jewish people, but disclaims respon-
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—Numbers 22:2-25:9.
Prophetical portion—Micah 5:6-6:8 :

JULY 16, 1943

TAMMUZ 13, 1943

Racial Equality

negotiations be carried on through the
Red Cross with the Nazis and the satellite
states? We do not know the answer, but
we do know that since the Bermuda Con-
ference most of us have accepted the
do-nothing decision of the conference and
have said and done nothing about it.

July 16, 194:

Plain Talk...

by

AI Segal

•
Man on Street

The statement of Prime Minister Mack-
enzie King should revive the whole matter
of rescuing Jewish refugees, and may stir
Y GOOD friends among the the Jewish man on the street
those who have charge of the project to
Zionists have been complain• he would tell you: "Me and tny
at least try to rescue those for whom ing about
the piece against Zion- nationality? My nationality k
entry has been provided.
ism that Lessing Rosenwald wrote American and I'm nothing else.
It may well be that any major emigra- for Life Magazine recently. I It always gives me a gripe to
always rhave t o fb emchiding
i n(i in wt them be asked by some non-Jew, what.
tion from the satellite and occupied coun- for the i r state
i s your nationality? Of course,
tries will have to wait until the end of an anti-Zionist has come to be what he means is to ask me is
regarded as a kind of traitor to whether I am a Jew. They seem
the war, but that is not a good and suffi- what is
s h nation,
had
to think that being a Jew, is a
isRocaseline viatldh,e they sa i d ,
different nationalityalwa
re
cient reason for not exploring any and
from s other
publicly stabbed "the Jewish na- Americans. But I
ply
every possible means for rescuing as tion" in the back. Their quaint. I am an American and y nothing.
fantasy
already
has
established
else."
many refugees as possible before the end
a Jewish nation in being and
The Jewish man on the street
of the war.
has peopled it with patriotic citi- would say that he is a Jew be-

Pearl Buck, noted American novelist,
who spent many years in China and
who admires and respects the Chinese,
spoke at a meeting on the sixth anni-
versary of the Chino-Japanese war.

We have become to a degree immunized
to horror by constant repetition. We ac-
cept no for an answer too readily, because
too frequently we are not in a position to
know whether the no answer is because
of
inertia and indifference or because
Mrs. Buck insists that mere lip service
of
the
actual difficulties.
to the idea of racial equality is not
enough. She wants us to amend the immi-
Some action should be taken on Con-
gration laws so that the Chinese Exclusion gressman Celler's demand, and certainly
law is removed from the statute books. the offer of Canada should be exploited
She wants the Chinese to be admitted to the utmost.
on a quota basis, just as are Europeans.

We did more than render lip service
Goebbels Must Be Strained
when we ended our extraterritoriality in
As was to be expected, the propaganda
China. This act was proof that we wanted
machine of Joseph Goebbels minimized
to make amends and do justice to our
the landings of American, British and
Chinese Allies.
Canadian troops on 100 miles of the
There is a bill now in Congress to re- beaches of Sicily ; and as was expected,
peal the Chinese exclusion laws. Tremen- the boastful Italians have assured
dous pressure will be needed to pass their people that it would take a million
the repeal. Too many Americans do not men and a whole year to conquer the
really believe In racial equality. And as island.
proof of this lack of belief we have only
It is really not important what the
to point to the recent Detroit and Los
agencies
of propaganda and "enlighten-
Angeles riots.
ment" say; what is important is the effect
However, if only the rioters did not upon the German and Italian peoples.
believe in racial equality, the problem What will the repercussion be among the
would not be a difficult one, but the fact German people after they had been re-
peatedly assured that the Fortress Europa
is that many of our so-called "best citi- was impregnable, every point of its 7,000-
zens" and large sections of our passive mile perimeter.
population do not really subscribe to the
The German people would have to be
doctrine of racial equality in the political idiotic, or at least moronic, if they should
and economic spheres.
pay any further attention to the mouth-
If we are to speak with greater au- ings of the "masters of propaganda," and
we do not believe that they are either
thority to the Asiatic peoples in the post- idiotic
or moronic, but are just a weary,
war world we must prove to them that disillusioned people who have probably
we sincerely believe in racial equality. become so apathetic that they have just
We must, at least, so modify our laws resigned themselves to anything that may
that they are not discriminated against happen. .
in the matter of admission to our country.
We have never been among those who
expected
a revolt among the masses of
To achieve the status of racial equality the German
people, and we believe that
in our own land we will have to do a this would be so, even if the vast Nazi ma-
much better job of education than we chine were not as vigilant and effective in
have done up till now. We will have to keeping the people in subjection and un-
improve our housing conditions and raise der such complete surveillance.
the living standards for the underprivi-
Yet this same apathetic and weary Ger-
leged. This is a man-sized job. The Amer- man people can be aligned on the side of
ica that has been able to create such an the United Nations if they were assured
abundance of material things can do the that we do not intend to degrade and en-
job of making racial equality a fact if slave them.
and when it wills it.
From all the available evidence it ap-
pears that the Italian people on the whole
were never in favor of the war, and were
Action Needed
never won over completely to the world-
Prime Minister Mackenzie King of Can- conquering plans of the now ridiculous,
ada declared in the House of Commons strutting Mussolini.
recently that the Canadian Government
The Italian people have been assured
is prepared to accept more Jewish refu-
in a concrete and definite manner that
gees.
they are not placed in the same category
This declaration by the Canadian Prime as the Germans. The removal of the enemy
Minister synchronizes with the demand alien classification of Italian nationals in
made by Congressman Emanuel Celler the United States spoke more eloquently
of New York, that the United States and than any verbal assurances that we did
Britain open negotiations with the Nazis not hold the Italian people responsible
and the satellite states for the rescue of for the cowardly, criminal acts of fin.
Jews in Rumania, Hungary and Slovakia. Duce and his castor oil gangsters,
Representative Celler urges in support
We may well believe that the dem-
of his position the fact that negotiations onstrations in Italy since the. Invasion of
are constantly carried on in the matter Sicily were against Fascism and for peace,
of the exchange of prisoners of war rather than in support of the government
through the Red Cross. So why cannot and the war.

M

■

zens and quislings.
cause his religion is Jewish
.
My friend whom I shall call by "Mind you, I don't go to the
the now familiar name of Zilch synagogue as often as I should.
was feeling particularly dis- I go on the anniversaries of my
trought. He asked what would be parents' death and I'm there on
thought of a citizen of the United 1 om Kippur and Rosh Hashonah.
States who spoke that way In that way I am Jewish and I
against the best interests of this don't see why they want to make
country? Then what's to be said anything else out of me."
about Mr. Rosenwald who from
His mind isn't at all troubled
the roof tops, you might say, by policies of Palestine and he
declaims against even the idea resents being dragged into it
of a Jewish nation?
. . . "I am a citizen of the
Mr. Zilch was so full of dis- United States and I have enough
tress that he scarcely had words to do keeping up with the poli-
enough to say about Mr. Rosen- tics of this country, and why
wald. He said it didn't matter if should they mix me up with the
obscure people like me were politics of a foreign country.
derelict to the Jewish nation. But That doesn't do me as a Jew in
Mr. Rosenwald! America any good."
When I said, "But Mr. Zilch,
He gets worried about his
what is the Jewish nation?" he American status when he hears
turned away in complete disgust talk of a Jewish state in Pal-
and left me standing at the estine. One of the things he has
street corner. I called after him. felt comfortably sure of is the
I meant to tell him that I know security of his American citizen-
nothing of a Jewish nation in ship, and won't a Jewish state
being, that as a Jew I have no in Palestine put another national
feeling of being of a Jewish na- tag on him and make him look
tion . . . "Mr. Zilch!" . . . But like two kinds of American? He
he would have nothing more to says of course he knows he would
do with me. still be the good American he is,
Whenever I stick my neck out but a lot of people who are al-
in this way I always get it ways looking for chances like
slapped, but I must say I think that would say you've got a
Mr. Rosenwald was quite right. government over in Palestine and
He said: "Those of the Jewish why don't you go there? . . .
faith who oppose the creation "We have trouble enough ex-
of a National Jewish State hold plaining ourselves and why should
that it embraces the very racist they put any more on us?" . . .
theories and nationalistic philoso- He asks to be allowed to be only
phies that have become so preva- himself—an American of Jewish
lent in recent years, that have religion.
caused untold suffering to the
I f
world, and particularly to the
HIS MAN on the street is no
Jews. Those who hold this view
straw man I have invented for
contend that race and national- the purpose of my argument. I
ity long ago became obsolete as know him as my friend in the
realities in Jewish history; that simple social relationships and I
they remain now only as a re- have reason to believe he is in
action to discrimination and per- the majority. He is not prominent
secution."
and he is never heard in thy'
I
I
public forums of Israel. He is
BELIEVE that most Jews in never found in the gathering
the United Nations go along places of the professionals who
with Mr. Rosenwald in having no because they do all the talking.
national feeling other than that
of being American. If you asked
See SEGAL—Page 9

T

I

The Shot Heard 'Round the World

I-I)

u.

S. Tressu ,,

