° Pave T.-Etc DETROIT JEWISH CHROrnct 6 and The Legal (...hronte: ,Detroit Jewish Chronicle end THE LEGAL CHRONICLE Friday, June 7 1946 Personal Problems 'ablished Weekly by Jewish Chronicle eublIshing Co., Inc., 525 Woodward Ave., Detroit 26, Mich., Tel. CAdillec 1040 By W. A. GOLDBERG, Ph.D. Director, Counselling Service SUBSCRIPTION: $3.00 PER YEAR, SINGLE COPIES 10c: FOREIGN, $5.00 PER YEAR rtered as Second-class matter March 3, 1916, et the Postale° at Detroit, Mich.. under the Act of Mar,h 3, 1879 Copyrighted, 1946, by W. A. Goldberg. Ph.D. Editor - in - Chief, LOUIS W. ENFIELD Vol. 48, No, 23 Publisher, CY AARON . ■ Managing Editor, NATHAN J. KAUFMAN FRIDAY, JUNE 7, 1946 (SIVAN, 8, 5796) Detroit 26, Michigan Only a Memory Now A Man Who Knoz:s Joseph Patterson is dead. He lived his life on this earth and he made his im- pression. The world was not much better off for his having been here. Ilya Ehrenburg is coming to Detroit. He will be here on June 11 and will speak with two other Soviet writers at the Scot- tish Rites Cathedral. As owner of the New York Daily News with a circulation larger than any other newspaper in the country, Patterson was in a position with in- finite possibility for good. He could have been a great influence for clear thinking, for liberalism, for encour- aging the kind of policy in our gov- ernment that would have been of the greatest benefit for millions. The coming of Ehrenburg is an event for the city of Detroit. He brings a message that Americans ought to heed. For Ehrenburg was th e ace Soviet correspondent during the war. His coverage of the Spanish war was classic. Instead, he followed an anti-liberal, anti-Semitic, anti-New Deal line. He em- ployed columnists like O'Donnel, whose anti-Semitic sallies recently evoked such a storm of protest in New York. The peculiar part of it is that Patterson started off as a liberal, a member of the Socialist party, on fire with a burning zeal for the betterment of mankind. Some- where within him there was a latent idealism that might have made him an- other Marshall Field. There is a responsibility, a great social responsibility, that goes with the possession of great wealth or great power. People who have the two, for wealth in this country auto- matically carries great power with it, owe a duty to the public to use that power in the public interest. Many of them disregard that duty but it is there nevertheless. Sadly enough, many of those who have this power, and the duty, become divided personalities. All too often, the conflict between their idealism and their selfish- ness drives them into the completely op- posite camp and they pay out their cash to help Fascist movements and to fight liberalism. That is what happened to Patterson. Except from his own class, there will be few to say a kind word for him. He will go down unhonored and unsung, another case of a great opportunity gone wrong. As Far Away as Hawaii Jewish life in Hawaii has acquired a deeper Zionist consciousness as a result of the lively Zionist Organization of Am- erica Shekel Campaign conducted by the Jewish servicemen stationed on the Pa- cific Islands. The 10-day campaign, which started on May 10, resulted in the purchase of 325 shekolim, receipts for which have already been forwarded to the ZOA headquarters in New York. For the first time, the word, "Shek- el," anneared in a Pacific newspaper. Through the efforts of Private First Class Joseph Fried, in charge of pub- lic relations for the campaign, the Sunday Honolulu Advertiser, circula- tion 250,000, carried a prominent dis- play, entitled, "The Meaning of the Shekel," at the top of its editorial page, accompanied by a 2-column feature article. The Honolulu Star- Bulletin aso ran a number of stories. Several rallies were held, and enthusi- asm ran so high that even a non-Jewish Naval Commander offered to buy a shek- el and "to do his part to aid the suffering Jewish remnant in Europe." It required the greatest tact, Private Fried reports, for the sailor on the Shekel Committee to tell his superior officer that only Jews could purchase shekolim. The Shekel Drive in Hawaii is now history, but its impact on the com- munity there will not soon be for- gotten. It has meant not only 325 votes for the ZOA delegates to the World Zionist Congress, but a new awareness among both Jews and Christians on the islands of the trag- edy of Jewish homelessness and the imperative need for a Jewish home- land in Palestine. While in Spain, he began to write an analysis of the psychology of treason and the dangers of Fascism in France. His novel was called "The Fall of Paris" and in it, he forecast the downfall of France with uncanny accuracy. Detroiters should attend this talk in large numbers. There are very few people on our American scene who have as clear a grasp of the entire world picture as this man and the two men who speak with him on the same platform. The world is in a perilous condi- dition today. The political situation is fraught with danger. We are sitting on the edge of a volcano which may erupt any day and heave us into the vortex of a maelstrom that may mean the end of civilization. And we Amer- icans sit complacently and watch our- selves drift toward destruction with- out pausing to ask ourselves who or why. The purposes of our leaders are not clear to us. The picture most of us have of the situation is a hazy one. We cannot even urge our leaders to do this or that. It is for this reason that Detroiters should take advantage of the opportunity to hear this man of vision, this man of perspec- tive, this man of knowledge. Everybody understands that the world situation is one that calls for hope and prayer. Few people understand the back- ground of the difficulty or the solution possible. The more people, gifted ana- lysts, we can have from other countries who can point out these difficulties to us, the better off we are. During Vacation The school vacation time is at hand and it is awaited with alarm by law en- forcement officials and parents. When youngsters have no set routine to .follow, their restless energy is apt to lead them into mischief. Accidents will increase. Many promis- ing youngsters will be cut off long before their time. Much juvenile delinquency will be rampant that can easily be pre- vented by wisdom and forethought. It is up to parents to avoid all this dif- ficulty before it happens. They must see that in all the schools this matter is dis- cussed and that plans are made. They should investigate sources of recreation in the neighborhood. They should get their children to join the Jewish Center and to avail themselves of its advantages, Above all, they should encourage their children to make schedules for their days so that both children and parents have some idea how each child is going to spend his day. A child who has a set routine to follow and h busy doing the things his parents approve of is a child who is going to stay out of trouble. The time to take care of this is right now. •Memorial Day Issue Available Calls have been coming into the office requesting extra copies of the Memorial Day issue of the Detroit Jewish Chron- icle. Copies are still available for those who want this ara keepsake. Call the Detroit Jewish Chronicle at Cadillac 1040 or write us at 525 Wood- ward, Detroit 26, Michigan, and a copy will be sent to your home. All rights reserved Your questions in personal problems will be answered by mail as far as possible or in these columns. Send your question and a stamped, self-addressed envel- ope to Dr. W. A. Goldberg, 1314 Eaton Tower, De- troit 26, Mich. a- )3 the Detroit Jewish Chron- icle, 525 Woodward Avenue, Detroit 26, Mich. YOUR NEIGHBORS, TOO, RAISE YOUR CHILDREN "A sixteen-year-old boy was recently arrested and convicted of killing his mother. This high school boy had no liberty to play, no time for play. His mother, according to the newspaper story, insisted on his spending all his time at prayer imaging. Despite extenuating circumstances, he is now serving a prison terns. , What explanation can there 1w for this boy's action?" This story, not unusual except as to the method of securing a release from parental domination, points to a moral. As I reconstruct this home, the boy was dominated by his mother, whose intentions were highly motivated. He had become submissive, outwardly a "mod- el" boy in all respects. Within, he was ill at ease. He thought his home life had no place for the normal living of all the other boys around him. He was torn between submission to his mother and a burning desire to be like other children. The conflict reached the point where he stabbed his mother to death. His home had unusual demands, not ordinarily found in the homes of neighbors in this day. As a conse- quence, the mother is dead and the boy will remain in prison for many years. Not all situations arc so extreme and not all homes make such demarlds. The human being desires to conform. Men wear ties in stifling heat. Women wear outlandish clothes and feather-brained hats, just to be in style. The teen-age period is exciting, with dangers and tremendous power. The signs cannot be read correctly by parents who are con- scientious. There are pressures to take a dare, to drive fast, to dem- onstrate importance visibly. In ordinary homes, during the war, it was not unusual for six. and seven-year-olds to have one or two dollars spending money in their pockets. Parents gave this money to get the child out of thy house. In homes where sudden wealth has accumulated, a similar sit. uation existed. A fourteen-year-old boy, on a date, will think nothing of spending twenty to thirty dollars. This is as much as their parents earned in one week at the same age. This is as much as the boy, on his first job, will earn in one full week. The child can be held blameless, to be sure. Mr. Abernathy wishys to have his child reflect his sudden advanced economic status. So his child gets a car, buys orchids, a tuxedo or a girl gets evening gowns and perfume. The question comes up: Can the child maintain this standard on his own account? Worse still, it raises group standatd.; so that the less-well situated cannot compete.. The child of fourteen cannot understand the failure of his parents to give him the same things as his friends in school get without much effort. Adjustment to the Community This is not an unusual process. It is all around us. It says to the thinking parent: You do part of the job of raising your child, the community adds its part. It says: You must fit your standards inta community standards. If the pattern is undesirable or unsatisfactory, you cannot meet it by forbidding your child to participate. Your child will not remain happy. Your job just begins. You must then provide! your child and those like him with desirable substitute's, acceptable to the children. If the substitutes are not satisfactory, the children will resent and disobey the standards you hold dear. In another situation, there is a school with extraordinarily bright and aggressive children. Classes are large. Children cannot be handled individually. The quiet child, whatever his ability, is at a disadvantage. He cannot compete. The teacher believes the child to be inferior, since she has no demonstration of ability, since she judges against a highly. competitive background. The non-aggressive child begins to believe what the teacher assumes. His work drops. This decreasing self-con- fidence discourages him. He too wants recognition in work, school, from friends and associates. Recognition is normal for development. The rules of the normal home arc always bombarded by the rules of other homes in the neighborhood. The normal child will try to win his point by citing other people's rules to you. This pressure of th! community is best met by adherence to important items and relaxation in non-essentials. But the important items cannot be outlandishly dif- ferent than the normal for other children in the area. "Don't You Read The Papers, Son?" •,.. . 'WOE DOW EVERY1lllN WE EAN"-LIS. STATEMENT Blow ,0„.. I ortse RA -"' - v • r0 1 OuNcEs ; ,47 2 .- ;"Ap ' ■ • -_-,___ •—