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DETROIT JEWISH CHRONICLE and The Legal Chronicle

Page Four

Detroit Jewish Chronicle

And the LEGAL CHRONICLE

Published Weekly by Jewish Chronicle Publishing Co., Inc., 525 Woodward Ave., Detroit 26, Mich., CA 1040

SUBSCRIPTION: $3.00 Per Year, Single Copies, 10c; Foreign, $5.00 Per Year
Intered as Second-class matter March 3, 1916. at the P8st office at Detroit, Mich., under the Act of March 3, 1879

CY AARON, Publisher
CHARLES TAUB, Advertising Manager

Vol. 48, No. 52

GEORGE WEISWASSER, Editor-in-Chief
NATHAN J. KAUFMAN, Managing Editor

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 27, 1946 (Teveth 4, 5707)

The Council Takes Hold

The Jewish Community Council at its
quarterly meeting last week again, con-
firmed that it is not just an organization
with a high sounding title but that it takes
the lead in communal affairs and sees
them through in a democratic manner.
Many a community council in other cities
can judiciously come here to learn how
it is done.
The community will welcome Dr. B.
Benedict Glazer's report that his internal
discipline committee is making a compre-
hensive investigation of three major prob-
lems that confront the community.

Dr. Glazer is not the kind of leader
that is going to stop with a report and
feel his task accomplished. His commit-
tee, we are certain, will draw up explicit
recommendations and it will then be the
obligation of the council to see that they
are carried out.
The first problem being studied is the
immediate one of the high cost of kosher
meat in Detroit in contrast to the receding
prices of non-kosher meat. Housewives
have been lodging vocal complaints with
us and representative groups for weeks
now. They blame the butchers who in
turn accuse the packers.
This is a grave situation because it
can break down community morale.
Moreover, butchers have been telling us
that many of their customers have been
purchasing non-kosher meats in "re-
' prisal". We cannot overemphasize the
threat this is to the preservation of or-
thodox tradition; in the community.

° Dr. Glazer's committee will be wise to
speed its investigation of this problem.

The other two matters his group is
studying are long-range in scope, but we
are certain Dr. Glazer intends to bring
his study to a head shortly. One is the
disheartening fact that some Jewish
neighborhoods become run down speedily
because of the neglect and carelessness
of a minority, and the other is that there
has been little or no community disciplin-
ing of Jews in business who indulge in
unethical practices which injure the fair
name of the Jew in general.
We say unequivocally that these prob-
lems are the responsibility of the Com-
munity Council to investigate and to
correct. Those who assert that they are
matters of a private nature -which the
Council ought not to probe are dodging
their communal duty.
Dr. Glazer and his committee are to
be congratulated, indeed, that they rec-
ognize that duty. We wish them success.
We await with anticipation the results of
their survey and their recommendations.

Dedicated To Service

Two rabbis new to Detroit and one who
in the few years he has been here has
earned the affection and esteem of the
entire community were formally hiducted
by their congregations during Chanukah
week.
The newcomers are the venerable and
gentle Dr. Eeopold Neuhaus, rabbi of the
emigre synagogue, Gemiluth Chassodim,
Land the young and fervid Rabbi Chaim
::.Weinstein of Congregation Beth Aaron in
the Northwest area.

The old friend is Rabbi Morris Adler
who has become rabbi of Congregation
IShdarey Zedek.
All three, in their own way, have dedi-
cated themselves to the service of God
'rand of their brethren in Israel.
The Detroit Jewish community is hon-
ored that they have chosen us to be the
instruments of that dedication. We pray
that we shall not fail them.

Detroit 26, Mich.

The Visiting Editor

The Jewish Vote

The Jews are always measuring anti-
Semitism, estimating their "friends," list-
ening for adverse comment, viewing with
alarm the rise of "hate" groups, and sup-
porting their protective organizations and
wondering whether these are doing
enough to combat prejudice and to foster
goodwill, and yet the worst thing that
has ever happened to the Jews of the
United States in the memory of and to
the knowledge of this writer, who was
born there, has been caused by members
of their own body in connection with the
recent Congressional and Senatorial elec-
tions.
Up to that time it was an American
Jewish tradition to repudiate the claims
of politicians that there was ever such a
thing as a Jewili vote. It was a derisive
axiom that no one could deliver "the
Jewish vote" because there was no such
thing in existence.

Jewish leaders were the first to say
that Jews voted independently as citizens
and not as members of their group. In-
telligent, self-respecting Jewish individ-
uals have always been revolted by the
antics of politicians who posed as advo-
cates of this or that all of a sudden on
the theory that they could get votes from
thinking people by would-be flattery and
bribery in the form of pre-election prom-
ises and declarations of affection and
support. •

The American Jewish community is a
fine one, patriotic and having a deep love
of country, and its first consideration has
always been whatever is good for the
nation.

Prior to the election, however, the use
of advertisements in daily newspapers
printed in English, which had been initi-
ated by Zionists to bring the pressure of
American public opinion on the British
for a just treatment of the Palestine prob-
lem, was boldly extended to exhort Jews
to vote in the American national election
for candidates and their parties according
to how they stood on the Jewish State
question, thus not only injecting a Jewish
issue into a political campaign but making
that issue supreme over any other having
to do with the interest of the country.

No matter how a candidate stood on
any other issue, the Jews were abjured
to vote for him only if he favored a Jew-
ish State in Palestine , . .

If there were ever a time when the
Jews could feel perfectly free to inject
a Jewish issue into an American political
campaign without counting the conse-
quences, this is not it. The very recent
experience of the Japanese in Canada
and in the United States shows what can
happen with citizenship even 'in democ-
racies.
These are ticklish and unsettled times.
Soine day the student of anti-Semitism on
this continent may look on the attempt
to have Jews vote on political candidates
only if they were pro-Zionist in somewhat
the same way that a geologist looks at a
water-shed.
While extremist Zionists were busy in
this pernicious endeavor, the Bnai Brith
and the American Jewish Committee were
planning a conference on anti-Semitism
to take place in January. They can dis-
cuss the election event but it will take its
place as the most damaging thing that
has ever happened to the foundations of
the Jewish community of America. The
question is: Can it be prevented from
happening again?

CANADIAN JEWISH REVIEW,
Montreal

Friday, December 27, 1946 a

L EGr ifi Rg EON

FIGHTING ANTI-SEMITISM
Dear Editor:
The first annual conference of
the Joint Defense Appeal to be
held Jan. 4, 5 and 6 at the Coro-
nado Hotel in St. Louis, marks
the first time in the long history
of American Jewry that a confer-
ence has been convened to discuss
anti-Semitism in America. The
Joint Defense Appeal, is the fund-
raising organization for the Amer-
ican Jewish Committee and the
Anti-Defamation League of Bnai
Brith, financing the civic protect-
ive program maintained by the
two defense agencies.
A program has been prepared to
present expert opinion about the
problem of anti-Semitism. Author-
ities will describe the activities
undertaken to combat the evil. Of
importance to the hundreds of
Jewish communities in the coun-
try are the special sessions that
have been scheduled to discuss
community participation in a na-
tion-wide defense program.
BIGOTRY GROWS
It is unfortunate that so soon
after a world war, which had as
among its aims freedom of wor-
ship and freedom from fear, it
has been found obligatory to hold
these discussions. The bitter truth
is, however, that racial and re-
ligious bigotry is still a danger to
be overcome in man's slow march
to peace and security.
Witness the resurgence of the
Ku Klux Klan, the recent organi-
zation of the Columbians. Witness
the efforts of Gerald L. K. Smith

.1
to gain converts and win power
in the United States. Witness the
stream of anti-Semitic literature
that pours out of the hate press.

DEMOCRACY PERILED
It is not from self-interest alone
that American Jewry will hold its
first conference on anti-Semitism.
Jews are particularly conscious of
the fact that any program directed
against the Jew is but a step in
the undermining of democracy.
Jews know that hate propaganda
directed. against the Jew endangers
America and the freedom of all
Americans.
As staunch defenders of the
democratic ideal, the leaders of
our people will gather to discuss
anti-Semitism and to take fitting
measures for its elimination in or-
der that democracy may continue
in this country with its guar-
antees of freedom for all.
JACOB SCHWAB,
New York City

10 ARE SOUGHT
Dear Editor:
Will the following persons, or
anyone knowing the present ad-
dress or whereabouts of any of
the following, please call me at
UN. 2-5021.
Sylvia Bernstein, Gertrude Co-
hen, Lucy Drobinsky, Lois Paul
Hartman, Sophie Jacobs Fox, Do-
rothy Lankin, Lucile Pinkus Lake,
Rose Politzer, Ruth Goodgall Pru-
na and Rose Novog Soref.
MRS. SEYMOUR FRANK
Chairman

A Jewish Nobleman Is Eulogized:
He Sacrificed Self to Life of .Servire

(Continued from page 3)

to help establish Judaism in the
United States as an ethical and
spiritual way of life.

Jewish ideals, as expressed in
Jewish religion, were central in
his concept of being a Jew. In
the Union of American Hebrew
Congregations he could be help-
ful toward furthering this con-
cept. This was the better job and
there was scarcely a day when
he wasn't at it.

He was a non-Zionist but his
heart was warm for Palestine
and its upbuilding as a good
home for the homeless. He was
no anti-Zionist, for to be anti-
Zionist would mean to take part
in one of the dissensions of Is-
rael.

tween the contenders in Israel. A
man of peace among the few
whose feet are bright on the
mountainside, the bearers of good
tidings of peace. He was at his
Jewish function the day before
he died.

"Well," said the young re-
porter. "How would you write
the lead on Mr. Rosenberg's
death?" I wrote: "Adolph Rosen-
berg, lay leader of the 310 con-
gregations of the Union of
American Hebrew Congregations,
died after a heart attack this
morning."

"You see," I said to the boy,
"his religious faith was the main
thing in his life and that's the
lead for his obituary, not his
The controversies in Jewry sad- business.
dened him. When Israel should be
marching in unity before the eyes
But the city editor changed it
of its enemies, Israel was in war- a bit. City editors are dazzled
fare against itself. Israel was more by the prominence of a man
stopping along the way for angry in business than by his most faith-
controversy.
ful devotion at a religious altar.
* • •
So it came out this way: "Adolph
ACTED AS CONCILIATOR
Rosenberg, president of Gidding's
IN HIS HIGH PLACE as presi- and lay leader of 340 congrega-
dent of the Union of American tions of the Union of American
Hebrew Congregations, Adolph Ro- Hebrew Congregations, died after
senberg was the conciliator be- a heart attack this morning."

Speaking of Housing

