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Friday, November 3, 1944

DETROIT JEWISH CHRONICLE and The Legal Chronicle

Detroit Jewish Chronicle

and THE LEGAL CHRONICLE

PuVished Weekly by Jewish Chronicle Publishing Co., li....
Pres.-Gen. Mgr.
JACOB H. SCHAKNE
Editor
JACOB MARGOLIS
Advertising Mgr.
CHARLES TAUS

Geier.' Offices and Publication Bldg., 525 Woodward Ave.

Telephone: CAdillac 1040

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To Insure publication, all correspondence and news matter
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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.

Entnred as Secor.d-class matter March 3, 1916, at the Post-
ofii':e at Detroit, Mich., under the Act of March 3, 1879.

Sabbath Readings of The Law

Pentateuchal Portion—Gen. 18:1-22:24.
Prophetical. Portion—II Kings 4:1-37.

NOV. 3. 1044

CHESHVAN, 5705

An Old American Custom

Winston Churchill asked the House of
Commons to continue as it is for another
year, or at least until the war with • Ger-
many is over. This request was made
despite the fact that no general elections
have been held in Britain for nine years.

This is in marked contrast with Amer-
ican political ways and practices. We hold
our presidential and Congressional elec-
tion, war or no war.

Is Britain afraid to hold a general elec-
tion because a defeat of the Government
may be interpreted as a repudiation of
its policies? Or is it because they fear
that a defeat of the government would
be used by the Goebbels' propaganda
machine to better German morale? What-
ever the reason, it is not a good and
sufficient one for us, inasmuch as we
carry on a vigorous, rancorous, even in-
tolerant campaign, without any concern
as to what the Nazis may think or say,
and without interpreting it as a repudia-
tion of the fundamental policies of the
party in power.
We hold our election; our civil courts
are open; men are tried by a jury of
their peers, even though the trial drags
on month after month, as has the sedi-
tion trial in Washington, D. C.

This is not the first time we have held
an election in war time. We held on in
1864 when Abraham Lincoln was elected
for a second term, and when a civil war
raged the length and breadth of the land.

. The American people made no pro-
vision for the postponement of an elec-
tion. They have found no situation so
critical, since the Constitution was adopt-
ed, that impelled them to postpone an
election.
The American people apparently be-
lieve that no one is ordained to be its
ruler, and they have sufficient confidence
in the ability, integrity, competence and
honesty of the men who seek the highest
offices in the land, that they are willing
to hold an election in the most critical
times.
Perhaps we are prejudiced in favor of
our way, because it is the only way we
have known. We think it is better than
the British way.

Pointing a Moral

This tale points a moral that cannot
be repeated too often.

A nation that, for any reason, accepts
a police regime as a substitute for a civil
one, will discover that it has surrendered
to a monster that will spread its tentacles
until it has caught the whole community
in its poisonous and tenacious grip.
This is what happened in Nazi Ger-
many.. The people hoped that they were
trading some of their hard won liberties
for more bread and security, but in the
end they have no bread, security or lib-
erty. They are a fear-ridden and en-
slaved people, whose every impulse to
act as free men has been smothered, and
whose every waking moment is filled with
dread of Gestapo reprisals against them
or their families.
Aachen may explain to some of our
impatient people why the German people
have not revolted. They may begin to
realize that a program of terror carried
on uninterruptedly, by a sadistic gang
of men with arbitrary power, can and
does destroy all the will to protest and
resist.
The ruthless Nazis, with dreams of
ruling for a thousand years, have been
no gentler with their own protestants and
dissidents than they have been with the
"lesser breeds" they have conquered. In
Naziland there is no such thing as a pri-
vate opinion or a private judgment. There
is one party, one opinion, one judgment,
and all those who do not accept are en-
emies whose fate is definitely determined
if they are unfortunate enough to expose
themselves to the fury of the insensate
Gestapo. And it should be borne in mind
that the Gestapo is so thoroughly organ-
ized; so compact; so united by a common
danger and by a bond of criminality, that
it has become the instrument for carry-
ing out all the mad and vicious orders of
those whose plan it is to bring ruin to
Germany and the whole world.

The residents of Aachen, no doubt,
have relatives in unconquered parts of
the Reich. These relatives would feel the
full fury of Nazi wrath if their kinsman
should expose himself as a civil servant,
working with the Allies. Who would be
so indifferent to the fate of his relatives,
even in countries where men still have
courage and hope? To expect anyone to
stand out as against the Nazis in Aachen
is really asking a little too much from a
people that has been deprived of every
vestige of freedom for more than a
decade.

Keep on Giving!

The lot of European Jewry in the liber-
ated area is heavenly compared to their
lot under the Nazi occupation. Laws have
already been passed, commissions have
already been appointed to study the prob-
lem of restitution of confiscated Jewish
property. Every honest effort will be
made by the new governments to solve
the complex and difficult problems equit-
ably and expeditiously.

All of this will take time, in fact, many
years may pass before all the hearings
are completed and the judgments ren-
dered and the confiscated property re-
turned. In the meantime, the burden of
caring for the immediate and pressing
needs will fall upon the Jewish relief,
rehabilitation and rescue agencies. These
agencies receive their funds from the
War Chest, and that means that not only
will you have to give this year, but in
all probability will have to continue giv-
ing for years to come. This is not an en-
couraging prospect, but it is an obligation
that we all owe to our less fortunate
brethren who have been fortunate to
escape with their lives from the tell of
The curious part of the tale, is the job Nazi Europe.
of Mayor seeking the man, and the melan-
Your War Chest contribution takes care
choly part of the tale is the fear that has
gripped Aachen, and, for that matter, of all local and outside needs. Make your
all of Germany since the unspeakable contribution large enough so that the drive
will go way over the 'top this time.
Nazis came to power.

Aachen, that storied and ancient city
that was the scene of some of the hottest
fighting of the war, is in the news again.
This time the tale is curious and melan-
choly. According to Ned Kellmer, Colum-
bia Broadcasting System radio correspond-
ent, the United Nations' authorities can-
not find a German who is willing to
accept the job as Mayor of the city.
He reports that the inhabitants of that
ruined and battered city are willing to do
the jobs assigned to them, but not a man
or woman could be found who dared to
expose himself to the vengeance of the
Gestapo, by accepting the Mayor's post.

Plain Talk...

The moral is that a people that per-
mits its civil liberties to be frittered away,
that permits the writ of habeas corpus°
to be suspended ; that permits freedom of
speech, assemblage and press to be des-
troyed, will pay an enormous price for
its folly.

by Al Segal

•

JVe Give a Sermon

Mr. Segal was invited
Y to preach
the Sunday sermon

OUR

in a Methodist church recently
and he guesses he must have
made quite a hit. His success
was not in what he said, for, as
every one by now should know,
he hasn't any too much wisdom
to give. Nor was it in the way
he preached, for he is a fellow
with no tricks of elocution, no
talent for dramatic posing, no
pulpit voice with all the varia-
tions of an organ.
He has himself suffered acute
pain to listen to the pulpit voices
of some of the rabbis and now
that his own turn had come he
wasn't going to afflict a congre-
gation with the same sort of
thing. As a preacher, Mr. Segal
could muster none of the syn-
thetic graces of a Hollywood
clergyman.
No! What made Mr. Segal's
sermon the big homiletical hit of
the week was its brevity, the
like of which few congregations
seldom are given to enjoy. He
spoke only 18 minutes!
The regular preacher of the
church had told him that his own
sermons generally were 35 min-
utes long. That, Mr. Segal
thought, is quite too much to
make people take. He himself
has suffered sermons as long and
even longer; these ordeals had
left him with a sacreligious an-
tipathy for sermons generally.
Long sermons had caused his
errant mind to wander far from
the holy things of the sacred edi-
fice. It's pretty hard for an or-
dinary mind like Mr. Segal's to
stay concentrated on a holy ob-
ject like a sermon or a rabbi
for a long time.
If a rabbi could look into Mr.
Segal's head at the 30th minute
of his sermon he would be hor-
ribly shocked: Mr. Segal's mind
isn't there at all at the 30th
minute of a sermon. It's away,
strolling in forbidden places, or
hopping here and there, like a
bee dipping into all kinds of
flowers.

A

T THAT
T

I

look so awful. Somebody should
tell her; her husband, perh aps,
But then husbands seldom notice
what their own wives are wear-
ing.
Or Mr. Segal's mind is away,
running after his long-departed
youth. Ho! Ho! That was a
time! His mind has come to this
meditation because it has just
spied in the congregation a wom-
an he went to school with ever
so long ago. He used to sit be-
hind her in the classroom and
look at the curls on her neck.
He could have hanged himself
on one of them and enjoyed a
happy death. But how horribly
time does to people! Here is that
girl in her middle-age. She must
have spent an hour making up
her face this\ morning. When she
was 17 God \ was looking well
after her with nature's cosmet-
ics. How pink her cheeks, how
cherry-like her lips then, how
bright her eyes! (She has to
frame them in the shadows of
an eye-brow pencil now!)
Yes, that's the way it goes.
Mr. Segal's straying mind turns
around to look at himself. It
meditates .sadly upon the fact
that he has just had to take a
course of vitamin shots into the
artery of his left arm. He used
to be such an eager youth with-
out any knowledge of vitamins..
The rabbi certainly would get
far off the track of his sermon
if he could follow Mr. Segal's
mind around here to there, from
the one lady's hat to the other's
face, to the artery in Mr. Segal's
left arm, through the temple
window to the clouds.
That's what happens when a
preached preaches too long for
ordinary minds incapable of pro-
longed and steady concentration
even on that which is good for
them. Alas, if a rabbi could
look into heads he would dis-
cover a congregation of vacant
heads, their minds all away, flit-
ting in all directions, as far as
Florida. ("Should we go to Flor-
ida this winter or shouldn't we?
Florida is so good for our sin-
uses and that hotel we were at
last time was so nice.")

time Mr. Segal's
mind is on the hat of the
lady in the pew just in front of
I I I
his. It is thinking what a silly THE rabbi would feel sickened
to discover some of the best
hat! Why does a woman accen-
tuate her lack of beauty by call- parts of his long sermon falling
ing attention to it with a hat into vacancy.
like that? It must have cost her
See SEGAL—Page 17
a pretty penny, too, to make her

J.W.V. BRINGS VET LEADERS TOGETHER]

Jvic

7

ry
4v ire

144.*

1""`l

4 'P

Si?: National Commanders of
Veteran Organizations Meet To-
gether for First Time at 49th
Annual Encampment of Jewish
War Veterans:—(seated 1. tp r.)
Edward N. Scheiberling, Na-
tional Commander, American
;Legion; Archie H. Greenberg,
National Commander, Jewish
'War Veterans; Jean Brunner,

National Commander, Vete rans
of Foreign Wars; and : ■ litton
Cohen, National Commander ,
Disabled American Veterans;
(standing 1. to r.) Edward T.
McCaffrey, National Cornwall&
er, Catholic War Veterans: and
Earle D. Norton, National Com-,
mander of Army and Navy Le-
gion of Valor.

•

