Friday, September 7, I945

DETROIT JEWISH CHRONICLE and The Legal Chronicle

Page Eight

The Citadel of the Spirit of Judaism

By JOSEPH KLAUSNER
(Professor of Modern Hebrew
Literature, Hebrew University,
Jerusalem)

When millions of Jews were
exterminated in. Europe, it meant
not only the slaughter of human
beings whose only crime was their
Jewish origin, not only the ruin
of hundreds of ancient and deep-
ly rooted Jewish communities; it
also meant the wiping out of Jew-
ish religious and cultural institu-
tions. Thousands of Hedarim and
Yeshivoth (elementary Hebrew
schools and colleges) were de-
stroyed where tens of thousands
of Jewish children had studied the
Bible and the Talmud and later
Hebrew literature. Great libraries

HAPPY
NEW YEAR
GREETINGS
and
BEST WISHES
to
DETROIT
JEWRY

WITH AID OF U.P.A. THEY HAVE BEGUN A NEW LIFE

filled with Jewish books in He-
brew and other languages were
burned and pillaged. Rabbis and
scholars, teachers and writers
were slain or died of hunger and
epidemics in their thousands and
tens of thousands. And the few
who survived fled and were scat-
tered to the four winds.
Now there is little more left
to us than the Jewries of the
Anglo-Saxon countries—the Uni-
ted States of America and the
British Empire. In those great
communities rabbinical seminaries
and colleges for Jewish studies
are headed by distinguished schol-
ars. But almost all those scholars
either came from Eastern Europe
themselves or sat at the feet of
teachers from Eastern Europe.
And now that that spring of To-
rah and Jewish scholarship ha;
dried up, it is to be feared tha*
watered by those springs will
the great trees whose roots were
gradually wither away.
Again, in America, England
and the other Diaspora countries
Jewish instruction is a kind of
supplement to the general sub-
jects studied in the universities
and colleges of the Gentiles. Jew-
ish subjects are relegated to an
isolated nook of their own in the
wide realm of human knowledge.

2 KINDS OF LEARNING
It was not so in the days of
the prophets; they prophesied on
Canaan as well as on Israel and
Assyria and Babylon, Egypt and
Judah. Nor was it so in the age
of the Tannaim and the Amoraim,
who are mistakenly thought to
have rejected the Gentile learn-
ing of their times and to have de-
voted themselves exclusively to
the Torah of Israel.
Professor Louis Ginzberg, a
leading authority on the Talmud,
Quotes a pasage from the intro-
duction to the book of Hosea by
St. Jerome, one of the early
Church Fathers, where that great
Christian Bible commentator
severely criticizes the Jewish
scholars of his day for spending
their time in the laboratories of
Physicians. The Talmud employs
the term "Askan bi-Dvarim,"
which means one who investigates
natural phenomena in order to
clarify religious problems.
This close contact between Jew-
ish and general learning did not
cease even in the Middle Ages;
but it was broken off in modern
times. General learning and Jew-
ish learning then became two
separate worlds; general subjects
were studied by Jews in the uni-
versities of the Gentiles and the
Torah of Israel in Yeshivoth and
rabbinical seminaries.
The Supreme Providence that
works in Jewish history and does
not permit this small and op-
pressed people to be destroyed
foresaw, so to sneak. that one
day the Jewry of Eastern Europe
(Continued on Page 9)

Le Shono Tovo Tikosevu

Maize This a Joyous
Roth Hashonah
with Happiness and
Best Wishes to all
Detroit Jewry!

Brought n6- Palestine from Hitler Europe and
absorbed by the Jewish community with the
aid of the United Palestine Appeal, these girls
are helping to rebuild the Jewish National
Home and preparing the way for the integra-
tion of large numbers of additional immigrants.
Left, 17-year-old Fani Polar of Bukowina, was
orphaned by Nazi brutality and left to provide
for three younger sisters and brothers. She and
one brother were rescued. Right,Wardit Schwab.

16, of Czernowitz, was brought to tile Jo:Ash

homeland from Transdnistria. Her father mur-
dered by the Nazis, her mother's fate unknown,
she fled with forged papers, twice crossing the
frontier illegally. With the financial assistance
of American Jewry channeled through the
U.P.A., these and thousands of other newcomers
are helping to build a homeland for the sur-
vivors of European Jewry. The U.P.A. is a
partner in the United Jewish Appeal.

1945

Rosh Hashonah

Greetings . . .

Rosh Hashonah, hallowed in its heritage of eternal

hope, is the spiritual beacon-light of Israel . . . On the Jew-

ish New Year the faith in the future dispels the clouds of

disappointments in the past.

To the Jewish people, each new year is another

stone in the ancient walls . . . another reassurance that the

structure of the ages, reinforced by the undying faith of a

people, will remain strong whatever the stress may be.

May the year 5706 bring it a renewal of faith, hope

and courage. May it bring peace nd contentment to a

•

BY PE PSFCOLA COIF °
MADE ONLY
LONG ISLAND CITY,NJ•

tom' D LOCALLY NY

os

*441 (4 Om yowl VJAN
URNIIII

health and happiness in the fullest measure.

Phone PLaza 7790

Or at Your Dealers

Bottled by

witt

of
Detroit

war-weary world and to the Jewish community a year of

CONFECTIONERS

GINGER ALE CO.

JULIUS M. SINGER, Prop.

Established in 1875 and Still Ex.
elusively ()lined and Operated by
Members of the Sanders Family

3601 E. Hancock

5706

To help our boys — Everyone
MUST buy MORE War Bonds
and Stamps every pay day.

