Page Three

DETROIT JEWISH CHRONICLE

Friday, November 21, 1917

SERMON OF THE WEEK:

U.S. Jewry Too Remote to Vilna Gaon's Era

By RABBI MORRIS ADLER

THE FOLLOWING are excerpts
from a lecture given Nov. 14
by Rabbi Morris Adler of Shaa-
rey Zedek:
A great community is often
mirrored best in its great sons
who are the products of its
deepest and noblest impulses.
Rabbi Elijah, the Gaoh of Vilna,
is probably the outstanding prod-
uct of that great JewisD com-
munity in Eastern Europe to
whose destruction we were wit-
ness in our time.
• • •
NOT THE LEAST pathetic as-
pect of that catastrophe is the
fact that American Jews seem to
manifest an inadequate appreci-
ation of the way of life, the tra-
ditions and character of the com-
munity in Europe that has gone
up in flames. Is it because we
are too close to it in time and
space?
Have not in most instances our

own parents and grandparents ciate the spiritual quality and
migrated from there? Have we physiognomy of East European
not in our midst Synagogues, Jewry?
Talmud Torahs, Yeshivahs,
Landsmanschaften and other
agencies that bear upon them the
name and stamp of cities in Po-
land and Lithuania.
Is it then proximity that dulls
our vision? Or is it possible, and
this is a depressing reflection,
that not nearness blinds us to
the quality and eminence of the
backgrounds of our immediate
forebears—but remoteness.
• • •
WE ARE psychologically and
culturally remote. We Jews are
masters of adaptation. In a gen-
eration or two we can re-make
ourselves in the image of a new
environment and allow our lives
to become wholly inter-pene-
trated by it. Is it then that we
no longer possess the attitudes
RABBI ADLER
and criteria properly to appre-

activities of human living. It was
a life of intensity that was led
as a whole community subscrib-
ed to a discipline which others
reserve for their monastic orders.
Long after individual Jews left
the Ghetto, they carried with
them the whole-heartedness, the
devotion, the urge for ideals, the
reverence for learning which the
Jewish community inspired in
them and which they now trans-
ferred to other movements.
• • •
WE ARE DEALING with one
IT WAS NOT ALONE a group of the most cultured centers in
of scholars that formed it, but all the world. Over them hung
all — water-carriers, artisans, the sword of insecurity, around
shop-keepers—were partners and them a population that could be
sharers in it, and were natural- roused to violence, behind them
grim memories of the persecu-
ized in its society.
It was an unpartitiOned Jew- tions of 1648. Economic need
ish life that they led, full-blood- haunted them, unfair laws op-
ed and manifold, expressing it- pressed them, a petty official-
self in literature, song, story, dom trampled upon them. Yet,
(Continued on page 15)
dress, humor and all the daily

The occasion of the 150th an-
niversary of the death of the
immortal Gaon of Vilna offers
the inspiratiop for attempting a
portrait of that complex and
richly gifted center. East Euro-
pean Jewry represented first of
all an organic, self-contained,
profoundly vital and deeply root-
ed Jewish life. More than any
other Diaspora Jewry it was in-
tegral and complete, and its uni-
verse was the universe of Juda-
ism.
• • •

Plain Talk

Boston UJA Oak Pleads for Man
School Speedup tilt
Passes Goal of in Atom Bomb Chaos
Child
For The Gifted
$9,100,000 Perhaps There May Be No Tree Left

Personal Problems

Prodigy Should Develop Abilities
Within Circle of Own Age Group

to Appeal for Just One More Chance

BOSTON—The Jewish com-
munity of Boston made history
again when it reached its record-
By ALFRED SEGAL
shattering $9,100,000 goal in the
HE FINAL atomic bomb had fallen and chaos was upon the
United Jewish Appeal.
face of the earth. No human being lived and all the lesser
Announcement of the great
By W. A. GOLDBERG, Ph. D.
Boston triumph was made at a animals had been destroyed. Yet the mountains still stood and in
WE READ from time to time about infant prodigies who leave closing campaign dinner by Her- a protected crevice between two mountains an oak tree still lived.
" for college at the ages of 11 to 14, having galloped through man Gilman, chairman, who also
It was a great oak that had been there as long as the moun-
grammar schools as if it were a horse race.
headed the victorious 1946 Hub tains could remember. An im-
Some parents derive a justifiable measure of pride when City drive which produced a mense silence covered the earth ed down on man, through the
Junior skips twice or three times. To them this is "progress" in greater result than that of any and it was again as it was in ages, as hard as the rocks of
school, perhaps even an edge over he usually lacks any sense of comparable city in the nation. the beginning of all things, be- which they were made.
Cousin _Minnie's little Sheldon reality of living, of getting along
The tree was more generous. It
Boston's successful campaign fore Genesis.
who is six months older.
with others and, sometimes, even was hailed by Henry Morgen-
The oak tree spoke to the two remembered all the children of
It is certain, however, that an awareness that other people thau Jr., general chairman of
mountains. "It the generations in the nearby
UJA, as an "example of high
these "prodigies" are ill-at-ease exist in the same world.
seems man has village who had picnics under it.
•
inspiration for the entire coun-
There was the little girl it so
in college, in the company of boys
become 'ex-
and girls four ENRICHED PROGRAM
try."
tinct," it said. well remembered from 100 years
or five years PROGRESSIVE PARENTS and
The story ,of the 1947 Boston
"He killed before. Her eyes had captured a
older. Certain-
himself," o n e fragment of the skies in the
school personnel are slowly campaign is a chronicle of dedi-
ly they have getting away from the idea of cation and zeal by a group of
of the moun- summertime. There was the
little social life, speeding up the school program. Jewish leaders who, for months,
small boy on crutches who used
tains replied.
certainly their The evidence is not absolutely virtually deserted their own
The other so bravely to ascend even ten
interests a r e conclusive, but the enriched pro- businesses, spent day and night
mountain said: steps toward the mountaintop.
vastly different. gram seems to offer more to the in the offices of the Combined
"It was a be-
"Mankind wasn't so bad after
The problem child. That program stimulates Jewish Appeal or in visiting
coming end for all," the tree said. "I remember
forces parents the child with superior intelli- prospects at their homes or
man. He asked those little children."
Al Segal
and educators gence or with marked abilities in shops or in addressing meetings.
for it, you
More than doubling, his con- might say."
to consider one or two directions to a fuller
Dr. Goldberg whether the schoql program than is given the tribution of last year, Arch-
CHILDREN SCORNED
But mountains always had been
bishop Richard J. Cushing helped
purpose of school is to teach sub- usual child.
NE OF THE mountains re-
austere eminences, like Sinai from
jects, to give "book larnin " or
That means that the unusual Boston reach its goal by for- which the Commandments came.
plied: "But man didn't mind
whether it has more than a scho- child, being conscious of greater warding a check for $2,500 to Like stern judges they had look- the lives of his children. He
Gilman.
(Continued on page 15)
lastic aim.
made wars and his children died
in them."
The United States Office of Ed-
ucation's recent booklet, "Curri- Strictly Confidential
The other mountain said: "Yes,
culum Adjustments for Gifted
if man had only saved the vir-
Children," summarizes the best
tues of his childhood! Children
concepts in the matter. It ques-
were the best people until they
tions the entire program of rapid
grew up."
promotions and general school
The two mountains looked with
acceleration.
grim satisfaction at the spectacle
• • •
of ultimate justice spread out in
SOCIALIZING PROCESS
the devastation that lay at their
COUNSELORS, ALONG with
nobody will deny that Gray one ill-smelling phase of Ameri- feet. This was the fulfillment
AS J. BIRON
y P
"' observant parents have long
knows the American Legion can Legion activities. Gray mar- of retributive justice, of the un-
shals many more. And so Rey- yielding moral law which moun-
believed that school is a socializ-
COUPLE OF COLUMNS ago from the inside.
A
ing process, learning to live with
One of the more startling nal and Hitchcock, who last win- tains in their majesty always had
we told you about the dif-
ter signed a contract with Gray resembled in the eyes of man.
others being equally important
of 0. John Rogge in get- chapters in Gray's manuscript, providing for a $1,200 advance
with absorbing ideas from the ficulties
One mountain said: "This is
ting his book on native fascism according to George Seldes, edi- to the author, said "No soap"
printed page. We hav6 seen the
published. To- tor of In Fact, alleges that the after the whole manuscript was man's inevitable fate."
smarty pants who knows the an-
The other one said: "The earth
day you'll be Legion's Americanism Commis-
I
placed before them.
swers before the teacher has fin-
is rid of him and, really, do we
interested to sion is closely tied up with a
Other publishers — Random desire any more of him?"
ished the question. They are not
know why Jus- bunch of former alleged sedi-
adjusted children, usually.
tin Gray's tionists, including such anti- House, Harper's, Little, Brown
• • •
Intelligent parents have provid-
book, tentative- Semites as the Rev. Gerald Win- and Co.—followed suit. No soap.
MERCIFUL OAK
ed added means for socialization
ly titled "The rod, Elizabeth Dilling. William
Seldes, who uncovered the
BUT THE O ~ K TREE said I'll
in their homes, encouraging hob-
UN - American Dudley Pelley and such charac-
anti-Gray
plot,
says:
"What
ac-
bies and extra-curricular activi-
Legion," still is ters as Harry A. Jung of the
speak o God for him, any-
ties, as well as sending their chil-
looking for a American Vigilantes, Joseph tually frightened publishers off, way," nd the wind carried the
Kamp
of
the
Constitutional
Ed-
howeVer,
was
this
first
full-
dren to special schools.
publisher.
oak t ee's voice to God . . . 0
Gray is a ucational League, James True, fledged documented expose on God(who didst create us all, who
Unusual school progress has a
P. J. Eiron former rifle- inventor of the term "kike-kill- the most powerful veterans' gayest to each his place, all of
tendency in some children to
make up for a lack of other and man with the 3rd Rangers Bat- er," and others.
group in the world and •the peo- us together, in our different va-
This chapter, which links the
normal accomplishments such as talion in North Africa, Sicily
ple and organizations it named." rieties, to make the beauty of
American Legion with notorious
ability to play baseball or foot- and Italy, and was Yank cor-
In any case, Justin Gray is still the earth. I speak for all the
trees and for the worms and for
ball, meeting other children on respondent in the Pacific. After anti-Semites, is documented with looking for a publisher.
the
correspondence
between
Le-
his demobilization he was the
an equal level.
If "Body and Soul" comes to man . . . particularly for man
gion
leaders
and
these
Jew-bait-
We Jews have seen the coun- Legion's national representative
your movie house don't fail to from whose hands this destruc-
terpart of this brilliancy in the in charge of organization in New ers.
• • •
see it . . . It's a tough story tion came."
"tuft-mensch," in the Yeshivah- England, and later was assistant
Then one of the mountains
about a Jewish fighter, brilliant-
STILL LOOKING
bocher type of individual. That Americanism director for the
(Continued on page 4)
(Continued on page 15)
WE
HAVE
JUST
pointed
out
person is full of knowledge but American Legion. We're sure

T

• • •

O

Legion Americanism Un its Linked
to Professional Anti-Se mite Gang

1

