Page 4

Friday, Septemb er IS, 1944

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

Pres.-Gen. Mgr.

JACOB MARGOLIS

CHARLES TAUB

Editor

Advertising Mgr.

General Offices and Publication Bldg., 525 Woodward Ave.

Telephone: CAdillac 1040
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Cable Address: Chronicle
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To insure publication, all correspondence and news matter
must reach 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 Scriptural Selections

Pentateuchal portion—Deut. 29:9-30:20.
Prophetical portion—Is. 61:10-63:9.

Readings of the Torah for First Day of
Rosh Hashonah, Monday, Sept. 18

Pentateuchal portions—Gen. 21; Num. 28:1-6.
Prophetical portion—I Sam. 1:1-2:10.

Reading of Torah on Second Day of
Rosh Hashonah, Tuesday, Sept. 19

Pentateuchal portions—Gen. 22; Num. 29:1-6.
Prophetical portion—Jer. 31:2-20.

Readings of the Law for Fast of Gedaliah
Wednesday, Sept. 20

Pentateuchal portion—Ex. 32:11-14; 34:1-10.
Prophetical portion—Is. 55:6-55:8.

SEPT. 15. 1944

ELLUL 27. 5704

Rosh Hashonah

Unless all signs fail this shall be the
last year of war with Germany. Our
thinking, acting and planning will there-
fore have peace as a frame of reference
instead of war, and consequently many
of us will have to reconvert our mental
processes to peace time problems.

With the end of war there will prob-
ably come a mood freighted with less
emotion and strain. We all will be able
to reason more clearly ; to appraise more
accurately; to evaluate more correctly,
and our perspectives will be clearer.

With the war definitely won the prob-
lem of winning the peace will place more
onerous burdens upon our mental facul-
ties than did the war. We will have to
abandon many of the rash and belliger-
ent attitudes that are necessarily evoked
by the fierce conflicts of war. If we talked
and thought in terms of unconditional
surrender we shall have to begin to think
in terms of conditions and agreements.
If we talked and thought in terms of
total responsibility of the Nazi Fascists
for the starting of the war, we shall have
to think less in terms of who was re-
sponsible for the war, and more in terms
of who shall be responsible for a just,
enduring and safe peace.
In the spirit of the Rosh Hashonah
season we should do a thorough job of
self-searching to discover our own short-
comings in the crisis of the war, so that
we may the better meet the crisis of the
peace. If we all do a thorough job of
self-searching, we shall discover that we
were probably a bit too arrogant, intol-
erant, self-righteous and arbitrary. These
attitudes may not have been too disas-
trous during the strain and stress of the
war, but for the peace they are certainly
not calculated to reach an understanding
with our own allies, not to mention our
former enemies.
The spirit of Rosh Hashonah does not
demand of us that we forget, but it does
demand that we forgive where forgive-
ness is possible. Above all, it demands
that we begin the year cleansed of hat-
red, arrogance and intolerance, even to-
ward those who have used us as means
and did not have a proper regard for our
human personality.
We must concern ourselves with a
peace that will be just and fair, so that
it may be enduring. The talk of soft and

hard peace is most unsatisfactory and
confusing. The Germans thought the
Peace of Versailles was hard, most of the
Allies thought it was soft. If we make
the peace hard enough to suit the most
revengeful and vindicative, is there any
assurance that it will prevent another
war? If we make the peace soft enough
to suit the more forgiving and pacific,
will it prevent another war? We do not
believe either hardness or softness alone
will prevent another war. The problem is
much more complex than the over-simpli-
fication connated by hardness or soft-
ness.
The peace can be achieved if we use
good will, sound judgment, critical exam-
ination and clear understanding. We must
seek to find the basis for an enduring
peace. To do this may mean that many
of our preconceived ideas, prejudices, and
even self-interests may have to be giv-
en up.

All the people of the world are pray-
ing for a righteous and enduring peace,
but on this Rosh Hashonah none prays
for it with greater earnestness, sincerity
and humility than the Jewish people
people everywhere.

Good News

At last there is some news of the Jews
of Europe that is heartening. From Gren-
oble, France comes the report that a
number were found who had been given
up as dead. They had either joined the
underground or had been rescued and
concealed by them. We belong to that
group of wishful men and women who
hope that the stories of extermination are
exaggerated. We cling desperately to
the belief that many of those formerly in
Poland, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria,
Yugoslavia, Holland and Belgium will
turn up.
Our wishes, hopes and beliefs are based
upon the conviction that men and women
make every effort to preserve their lives.
They will resort to many tricks, schemes,
devises and subterfuges to escape from
those who would destroy them. We have
no way of knowing how many were taken
in by their neighbors in all the occupied
countries. We have no way of knowing
how many succeeded in joining the under-
ground or hiding in out-of-the-way places,
in woods and swamps, and in places
where their pursuers would be least like-
ly to look. We do not even know how
many succeeded in escaping to those
countries that were not occupied or in-
vaded by the Nazi hordes.

Plain Talk...

by Al Segal

•

Invitation

I MET my friend Abernathy
who was mindful of Yom Kip-
pur being close at hand and said
to me "We all need a Yom Kip-
pur."
Mr. Abernathy has admired the
custom of Jews getting together
in communal way on this Holy
Day and taking account of their
faults. He has thought of sug-
gesting a Yom Kippur to the
Methodists among whom he be-
longs.
Not that the Methodists need
a Yom Kippur more than other
Christians, but he thought the
Methodists might as well start
it among the Christian denomina-
tions. Methodists, he winked,
have their faults, too, in the same
proportion as other folks.
He was going to speak to his
minister about it. Maybe if his
church took steps to join with
the Jews in a Yom Kippur ob-
servance the idea might get
around among all the Christian
churches and be accepted.
Mr. Abernathy asked: Why
should the Jews be the only ones
to set a day aside for the con-
templation of their faults and
for resolutions to strengthen
themselves in the elements of
character in which they are
weak? Can other people feel so
sure of themselves that they don't
need the discipline of a Yom
Kippur?
He thought it was exquisite
irony: The Jews who have been
the most sinned against are the
only ones who make a day of
looking at their own sins and
deciding to do something about
them.
He thought this was particular-
ly a time for a universal Yom
Kippur, not so much to confess
private sin but for a world-wide
penitence for the sins of human
society. Yes, in the hour of
victory mankind should prostrate
himself in a Yom Kippur of all
the pepoles and consider his sins
which brought him down to such
sorrows and may bring him down
again.

store and we sat down and had
a coke. Mr. Abernathy, wh o is
familiar with the form of con-
fession in our Yom Kippur serv-
ice, had in mind a confession of
sin for a universal Yom Kippur
serv ice.
H
hqauvicek si
sketched the
outline;
We
nned
brotherhood
and
in sinning
against the brotherhood we have
sinned against the Father.
We have sinned in that, after
the last war, we betrayed the
dead when we would not join
together for a world made good
by peace and justice.
We have sinned in that each
nation pursued only what seemed
to be its own good, only to learn
from bitter pain that there is no
good for any nation that is not
the good of all.
We have sinned in that we
listened to falsehood from foul
mouths and by this falsehood
have allowed ourselves to be
turned against neighbors of other
faiths and races.
We have sinned in that we
have dishonored ourselves by
whispering these falsehoods and
spreading them to poison other
men's hearts.
We have sinned in that in a
world so rich there are the mil-
lions who hunger.
We have sinned in that we
have judged men by the condi-
tion of their birth, by the color
of their skin, by the false judg-
ment of our prejudices.
We have sinned in that we
have given false judgment against
whole groups of men because of
the faults of a few of them.
We have sinned in that by
these sins we have not alone hurt
fellowmen but have degraded
ourselves and have hideously dis-
torted the divine image in which
we were created.

f

f

ABERNATHY thought
that about covered the main
points of the sinning that man-
kind could confess on a universal
I
I
Yom Kippur.
R. ABERNATHY said victory
Yes, he said, it might be all
is not enough without con-
trition. He took me into a drug- See SEGAL—Page 6, Section 1.A

MR.

M

DANZIG MUSEUM IN EXILE

SEMINARY IS HAVEN FOR COLLECTION
SAVED FROM NAZI DESTRUCTION

Some may think this is a bit of the
"grasping at straws" point of view. May-
be it is. But until we are persuaded by
evidence that would satisfy a judge, we
shall still hold fast to the hope that many
more of our fellow Jews of Europe have
escaped the fiendish, brutal Nazis.

We have been surfeited with tales of
horror, terror and atrocity. We may at
least indulge in the hope that from now
on the stories will be less grim. We may
even hope that an increasing number of
stories will tell us of the rescue and dis-
covery of many thousands who had al-
ready been mourned as dead.

A phenomenon that deserves the at-
tention of the psychologists and the psy-
chiatrist is the self flagellative and
masochistic behavior of many of our peo-
ple in this matter of believing the worst.
Most of these people are kindly, generous
and ordinarily believe the best, but in
this matter of atrocities they seem to
derive a peculiar satisfaction from the
most lurid and horrendous tales. Perhaps
the constant repetition of these atrocities
have calloused them, and now they only
react when the tale surpasses anything
they have heard before. And then again,
perhaps they express their frustration and
resentment against the authors of the
horrors in this fashion. Whatever the
reason may be, we still hope that our
worst fears will be dispelled by more
stories of joy and happiness of the res-
cued and liberated.

Professor Max Arzt (left) of The Jewish Theological Seminary
of America, and Rabbi Berthold Woythaler, Rabbi of Temple Beth
Sholom, Manchester, Conn., inspect articles of the Danzig Collec-
tion at the Seminary prior to their removal to public exhibition in
Scribner's Book Store window, New York, beginning Sept. 1, the
fifth anniversary of the Nazi occupation of Danzig. Rabbi Woy-
e
thaler formerly lived in Danzig and worshipped in the synagogu
in which the articles were displayed. The articles were sent to the
Seminary for safekeeping a few weeks before the Nazi invasion
of Danzig in 1939.

