Friday, November 30, 1945

DETROIT JEWISH CHRONICLE and The Legal Chronicle

Page Four

PLAIN TALK

Detroit Jewish Chronicle

By AL SEGAL

and THE LEGAL CHRONICLE

Published Weekly by Jewish Ihrunicle Publishing Co., Inc., 525 Woodward Ave., Detroit 26, Mich., T.I. CAdillac

1040

SUBSCRIPTION: $3.00 PER YEAR, SINGLE COPIES, 10c; FOREIGN, $5.00 PER YEAR
Entered as Second-class matter March 3, 1916, at the Postoffice at Detroit, Mich., under the Act of March 3, 1879

Editor-in-Chief, LOUIS W. ENFIELD

Detroit 26, Michigan

Publisher, CY AARON

Managing Editor, NATHAN J. KAUFMAN

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 1945 (KISLEV 25, 5706)

Back Stabber in Our Government?

Something needs to be done by Jews
throughout this country, something vital,
something that requires understanding of
international politics in which the lives of
Jews are pawns.
Resolutions condemning Great Britain's
stand on Palestine are very fine, but they
are only gestures, missing their aim.
Across the ocean, they are so much pop-
pycock. That great meeting in Madison
Square Gardens of New York scarcely
stirred a ripple in England.
About a year ago, a resolution was in-
troduced in Congress by Senator Wagner
calling for the opening of Palestine to
the Jews. That resolution has been buried
in committee all this time.
Why? The President of the United
States endorsed it. The Secretary of State
endorsed it. Why is it still in committee,
hidden, unenforced, nearly forgotten? Is
it possible that our State Department is
keeping it buried there? And if that is
the case, is it further possible that our
State Department is keeping Britain in
line on its Palestine course both by not
actively interfering and, more sinister,
by doing the same thing secretly that
Great Britain is doing openly?
Mr. Hurley, in resigning as ambassador
to China, delivered some blasts at our
State Department and its devious policies.
Perhaps Jews throughout the United
States had better deliver some blasts in
their own cause. For while officially, the
United States Government is very friend-
ly to Jews, no visas are being issued to
Jews to come to this country.
There is a prevailing feeling that our
poor inexperienced politicians are being
led around by the nose by those wily
diplomats from England. We feel that
the exact opposite is true, that this Labor
government would like to throw open
Palestine to the Jews and that objection
comes from, of all places, our own State
Department.
Daily, Jews are dying. Their blood is
on the heads of all who are indifferent
to their plight. Part of this responsibility
rests on Jews who could do something
but who, through ignorance or inepti-
tude, do not. What to do? Write your
congressman. Write your senator. De-
mand that the Palestine Resolution be
taken out of committee where it has been
mired so long and be passed by Congress
as an expression of the highest law-mak-
ing body in the world recording itself in
favor of justice to the Jew.
The enemies of justice and liberty are
in high places in our State Department.
And over all, reeks the pungent smell of
oil, the race for whose control may
plunge us into the bottomless pit of
world war three.
Don't delay. Write today.

Anti-Semitism a Civil Right

Some time ago, a Jew hater stood up
in the hallowed halls of Congress and
spewed forth an evil doctrine.
"There is nothing in the laws of the
United States," he mouthed, "that pre-
vents anyone from hating a Jew."
We may say he is a member of the
lunatic fringe, call him a fascist, con-
demn him as un-American. But his words
are THE LAW OF THE LAND!
Anti-Semitism in the United States is
a CIVIL RIGHT!
In the sedition trials in this country,
jurors were disqualified when they an-
swered affirmatively to the question "Are
you against anti-Semitism?" If a juror
believed that anti-Semitism was wrong,
he was disqualified from judging the acts
of people accused of treason against
their country.

Vol. 47, No. 48

In an accident case, a juror may be
disqualiified if he works or has ever
worked for an insurance company. This
is on the ground that his sympathies are
against recovery on the part of a driver
and this prejudice may hurt the rights
of the parties. Here, one who feels that
hatred of Jews is wrong is considered
prejudiced against the legal right of these
defendants to think and practice anti-
Semitism, which was a universal practice
among the seditionists.
It is somber reality that the right to
hate a Jew is protected by law. At least
that is the case in the United States. In
the court of the world, that is not so. At
least it may not be so. In the trial of the
leading Nazis at Nuremberg, count four
in the charges leveled against them is
their conspiracy to kill Jews. The eyes
of the world are on this trial. If the de-
fendants are found guilty on this count,
it will be notice to all human beings that,
acording to international law, the killing
of Jews is murder, and the conspiracy to
do them great harm is punishable.

A condemnation of anti-Semitism by
this tribunal of the world will be the first
really great blow delivered for the forces
of liberty and justice in favor of the Jew.
Paeans of praise will be sung in every na-
tion for this great victory. And its reper-
cussions will be felt all over the world.

It is due to. the efforts of the World
Jewish Congress that count four was
added to the list of crimes charged
against the infamous Nazi leaders. If re-
sults meet expectations, Jewry in the
world to come will owe a great debt to
this Congress, a debt which cannot ever
be discharged.

Perhaps a time will come in this coun-
try when the practice of active anti-Sem-
itism, the conspiracy to do harm to a
minority group will be as much a crime
in the eyes of the law as murder, rob-
bery and arson. This same will apply to
all persecuted groups whether the object
of their persecution is their race, their
color or their creed.
But in the meantime, in this most en-
lightened of all liberty loving nations,
the ideal of liberty and justice.to all is
only in bud. It will take effort and work
to bring it to flower.

God Bless the Ladies

Looking through the columns of THE
CHRONICLE, one can see story after
story of donor luncheons being given by
women's organizations. Their purposes
are all worthy. Their speakers are al,
eloquent and informed. Their procedure
is all very systematic.

I gave a speech recently be-
fore the Temple Sisterhoods of
our town, though giving a
speech is one of the worst things
I do. The faithful sisters seem
to be meeting right along and
willing to listen almost to any-
body who appears to have any
idea at all on the matter of
what to do about Judaism.
They have become the priest-
esses at the temple altars, and
quite lonely, too; the men aren't
around very often. They are
prominent on Yom Kippur,
though, when the various offic-
ers of the temples display them-
selves on the altar beside the
rabbi.
The unhappy lack of men in
the temples was one of the top.
ics of the speech I gave to our
Sisterhoods.
I envisaged the rabbi ascend-
ing his altar on the Sabbath. . .
"His heart is faint and languish-
es as he looks down upon the
congregation. It's a meager con-
gregation composed largely of
women, His heart blesses them
and thanks God that Israel's
wife still is left to guard the
altar, The rabbi feels hopeful.
Maybe Israel's wife will carry
his sermon to Israel's ear when
he gets home in the evening.
Israel himself hasn't been around
since Yom Kippur."
I told them about the time I
was a member of a temple
board — a pillar of Israel's
house, you might say.
"Of course, you know the
functions of a temple board.

Presumably to be a temple board
member is not just a matter of
being a stuffed shirt whose name
is printed on the temple bulle-
tin and whose vanity gets tickled
thereby.
"I take that one of the func-
tions of a board member is to
set an example of piety for all
others by regular attendance at
temple services.
"Who before all others should
be at the temple gates faithfully
but Mr. Zilch, the temple board
member. Who shall rather stand
in the holy place than Mr. Zilch
whose vanity delights to consid-
er that the temple has so hon-
ored him; to say nothing of the
pride of Mrs. Zilch who at every
opportune and inopportune oc-
casion likes to mention the fact
that Zilch is on the temple
board.
"But is Zilch in the temple
on the Sabbath? At the board
meetings Zilch is heard beating
his breast on account of the
backsliders of Israel and the way
they are delinquent in dues, but
he himself is not in the temple
on the Sabbath.
"Well, in our temple it got so
bad that there weren't enough
men present at Sabbath serv-
ices to assist the rabbi in the
ritual of the Torah-reading. So
what to do? It was felt that,
anyway, one of the board mem-
bers should be there but how
could they get a board member
to attend the Sabbath services?
"It was decided to draft them,
(Continued on Page 13)

I

14
.

IC eCHTIIDE flAL

By PHINEAS J. BIRON

WISH DEPARTMENT . . .
T h e California Relocation
Agency of the U. S. Government
recently published a set of rules
for fighting racial bias, and wo
wish that every Jew would take
them to heart and follow these
rules in his fight against anti-
Semitism. . . Never be afraid.
the Government says in essence,
to expose bias. . . Though it
may give some publicity to the
professional hate-mongers, it will
wake up America's decent peo-
ple. . . We also wish it were
true that a powerful combine of
movie producers has organized
to produce anti-bias and anti-
discrimination films. . . We wish,
further, that it were true, is
reported, that the New York
Daily News lost 250,000 readers
and six million dollars in adver-
tising contracts since it pub-
lished that outrageous O'Donnell
column.
DP DEPARTMENT . . .
UNRRA Director-General Her-

bert H. Lehman, testifying be-
fore the House Foreign Affairs
Committee, disclosed that more
than 1,300,000 "displaced per-
sons" have not been repatriated.
Of these, Lehman said, 800,000
are Poles, about 207,000 are na-
tionals of former enemy coun-
tries, approximately 35,000 are
Russians and some 234,000 are
listed as "miscellaneous." . .
What, no Jews? . . Or are they
now called Poles, Russians and
miscellaneous? . . Jewish prison-
ers from Mauritius Island were
not received with welcoming
banners when they returned to
Palestine. . . It seems that the
gentlemen of the Jewish Agency
do not approve of their politics.
• . The Czechoslovakian govern-
ment claims that 3,000 Czech
Jews now living in Palestine
have applied for return to their
native country.
JEWISH NEWS . . .
Although Dr. Weizmann did
(Continued on Page 13)

TRUDGING THAT TOUGH OLD ROAD

For as long as this world has been
stumbling blindly along, it has been the
function of women to help their men
folk in one way or another. Slowly but
surely, this function is increasing in scope
and importance.
Women are entering into politics and
thinking politically. They are entering
into law and becoming judges. They are
entering into diplomacy and expressing a
point of view.

By and large their point of view is a
sane one. Women have their weaknesses
just as men do. But in the aggregate, they
are less liable to be bamboozled than
the men.
We hope that this method of donor
luncheons will be used to make women
better informed and more active in all
fields. If this happens, if this becomes
widespread enough to cover women of
every classification, then there is hope
that this old world of ours can still reach
the distant goal in the great struggle
toward peace and happiness.

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