Friday, December 1?. 1947

DETROIT JEWISH CHRONICLE

Page Four

On Guard!

Detroit Jewisli Chronicle

'ablished Weekly by Jewish Chronicle Publishing Co., Inc., 548 Woodward, Detroit 26, Mich., CA. 1040

SUBSCRIPTION: $3.00 Per Year, Single Copies, 10c; Foreign, $5.00 Per Year
meted as Second-class matte. March 3 1916,-at the Post Office at Detroit, Mich., under the Act of March 3, 1879
ROBERT KRAUSE, Business Manager
•
,
SEYMOUR TILCIIIN, President
GEORGE WEISWASSER, Editor-in-Chief

49, No. 50

Friday, December 12, 1947 (Kislev 29, 5708)

Ilaganah Must Be Armed

Ilaganah's ultimatum to the Arabs in
.:retz Israel has expired and the reprisal
base has begun. This was to be expected
n the course of events.
No one can charge that the Jewish mili-
ia is inspired by a spirit of vengeance.
'aganah cool-headedly refrained from re-
liatorT raids for a week and even fought
ack Jewish mobs attempting to attack
rab sections of Jerusalem and Jaffa. This
n the face of a frenzied onslaught which
ost 25 Jewi.sB lives in the Yishuv alone
and which resulted in the destruction of
millions in property.
Haganah gave due warning to the Arabs
and now there is a well-organized defense
and systematic reprisal with the purpose of
teaching the Arabs again that they cannot
murder and pillage with impunity. We ven-
ture to guess that they will early learn
their lesson as they did in the Tel-Aviv
Jaffa border fighting in the fall when Ha-
ganah employed similar tactics.
The Arab raids were, of course, expect-
ed. Despite the screeching, and often mis-
leading, headlines in the daily press, the
attacks were not, however, as violent as
was pictured.
Moreover,. if British police and troops
had fully performed the obligations ex-
pected of civilized police forces, the few
attacks which did succeed would have been
:rifstrated in time.
There is evidence from non-Jewish
iurces that the British criminally ignored
*leir duty as soldiers and that some delib-
eately fired on Ilaganah militiamen de-
3nding Jewish areas in Arab raids.
Jewry, in view of Britain's pledge of
cooperation to the UN after the partition
ote, had the right to expect that she would
maintain order while her troops still re-
.iained in Palestine. But despite this prom-
le and despite the fact that her self-in-
erest, strategically and economically, should
:lave brought forth a policy of conciliation
with the Jewish State,, she flagrantly dis-
played her animosity and her vindictive-
ness.
The new State, then can expect nothing
from a Britain which has a psychological
stake in seeing that it should fail. And
unless the UN itself, particularly, through
its Security Council, takes vigorous action
to insure that its commission will not be
hampered by Arab outbreaks in its job
of governing during the transition period,
Jews must turn to the United States and
Russia, the chief proponents of the parti-
tion plan in the UN.
If Washington announced that it would
facilitate arms purchases by Ilaganah, the
Arab States would be deterred from going
on with reported plans to fight partition
with the sword. The United States would
be apprizing the Arabs that it backed the
UN to the hilt and would not stand by
while armies were massing to destroy the
new state it helped create.
The United States should lift its em-
bargo to permit Ilaganah to arm: The
Palestine rioting can grow into war; raids
can develop into full-scale battles. If the
new State should go down before an Arab
attack, it might well take all the UN with
it. The United States cannot take the
gamble.

Judicial Timbre

No matter on what basis Gov. Sigler
plans to fill the vacancy in the Wayne
county Circuit Court, he will make-a wise
choice by naming a qualified Detroit Jewish
attorney.
If his intentions are political, there are
one or two Jewish candidates here who are
stalwarts of the Republican party and are
at the same time endowed by experience
and temperament to be judges.
If partisanship will play no part in his
decision, then there are available at least
a dozen Jewish attorneys who will be cer-

DETROIT 26, MICH.

tain to add new prestige to any court to
which they may be appointed.
We refrain from offering names. The
governor, we are certain, is well aware of
whom we speak and of their calibre as
citizens and potential jurists.
It has been several years now since a
Jew has held a judicial position in the
county. The big Jewish community of De-
troit would be happy Mcleod if the gover-
nor should pick one of its citizens for a
place on the bench.

as
'er

Foster Understanding

One of the best ways to foster brother-
hood among different religious and racial
groups is by personal contact. Sermons
on tolerance and goodwill have some value,
to be sure, but a meeting between two
groups where each can see by personal ob-
servation and exchange of views that the
other fellow is so little different, after all,
is the better way.
The men of the Northwest Synagogue
recognized this the other evening at a joint
meeting with their neighbors, the men of
the Mayflower Congregational Church.
This week, the girls of the Career Group
of the National Council of Jewish Women
advanced this ideal by meeting with the
girls of the Central Methodist Church
Young Peoples Club and of the Alvo Club
of the YWCA in a joint Chanukah-Christ-
mas celebration.
By gathering together for a social eve-
ning, the young women, Jewish and Gen-
tile alike, had an opportunity to overcome
some of their prejudices about their neigh-
bors. There is nothing like personal con-
tact and an open mind to recognize that
your neighbor while he has some differences
in religion or culture is actually not at all
"different" or foreign.
The career group and their imaginative
leader, Pearl Devenow are to be, congratu-
lated for their enterprise and their good
sense in promoting friendlier relations with
other religious groups by meeting with
them.
So are the girls of the Central Methodist
Church and the Alvo Club of the YWCA.

Letters to the Editor

SINCERE THANKS

Dear Editor:

Please accept the sincere
thanks of the Greater Detroit
Bnai Brith Women's Council,
for the fine cooperation we re-
ceived from the Detroit Jewish
Chronicle, in publishing our ar-
ticles in connection with the
Bnai Brith Ball.

It was my privilege to , work
with you, and I am very happy
for the interest shown us.
(Mrs. Saul) BELLE BLOOM,
General chairman.

How Leaders Met Big Day

(Continued from Page 3)
teen, produced and directed, dem-
onstrated that the public is ripe
for mature Hollywood products,
• •

No Dual Allegiance

Approval of the Jewish State will re-
vive certain misconceptions about the rela-
tionship between American Jews and the
new State. Some of the misunderstanding
is based on ignorance and some on perver-
sity. It will take more than mere explana-
tions, we confess, to eradicate the latter.
The errors are premised on the tradi-
tional misinterpretation of the meaning of
Zionism. The hate peddler and the Ameri-
can Jew with a chauvinist mania always
saw Zionism as a negation of one's Ameri-
canism. "Dual allegiance" was their byword
and they saw nightmares in which a six-
cornered star on a field of blue and white
swallowed up 48 five-cornered stars on a
field of blue.
This was fantastic. A Zionist's desire to
see a land established for his brothers who
wished to dwell there in no way diminished
his own loyalty and devotion to the United
States.
Witness the millions of good Irishmen
who are sentimentally tied to Eire yet re-
main our best citizens. Witness the hun-
dreds of non-Jews who are Zionists who
would laugh at any intimation that their
loyalty is thereby endangered.
With the State in the offing, American
Jews will want to lend their material and
spiritual support to its growth, but they
will still hold on tightly to their Ameri-
canism which they cherish.
Eretz Israel will be the political home of
hundreds of thousands of Jews whom their
American brothers will encourage and
strengthen but the Americans will remain
wholly American with no ties anywhere
except those based on sentimental, religious

or humanitarian grounds.

CHEST GRATEFUL '
Dear Editor:
It is with a great deal of
pleasure that I can write to you
to thank you for your splendid
cooperation in sending the 1947
Community Chest Campaign
over the top.
Without your help in telling
the people of your community
about the Red Feather we would
never have been able to report
that Metropolitan Detroit had
raised $5,461,844 or 102.1 per
cent of its goal.
- JOHN R. DAVIS,
Chairman.

MAGAZINE FOR SALE
THAT ENGLISH-JEWISH ma-
gazine which was for sale a few
months ago is still on the mar-
ket. The asking price is close to
$100,000, and the publisher
claims that there are several
bidders .. .
Emanuel List, leading basso of
the Metropolitan Opera Corn-
pany, is taking Yiddish lessons.
He wants to enlarge his reper-
tory of Yiddish songs . . .
A whole group of Broadway
stars is contemplating spending
Easter in the Holy Land . .
Jascha Heifetz, who is taking
a year's sabbatical leave from
the American concert stage, has
just completed a series of re-
citals in Paris, London and Swit-
zerland, donating the proceeds
of two of them to charity .
Orchids to Bernard Titeruch,
who pulled off a most important
eleventh-hour job in connection
with the Jewish case at Lake
Success . .
Bruce Bliven, editorial direc-
tor of the New Republic, is
available for lectures on "Anti-
Semitism — Post-War Model
1947".

DON'T LIKE IT
REPORTS FROM Europe In-
dicate that European Jewish cir-
cles are not happy about the
plans of the National Confer-
ence of Christians and Jews to
set up local committees in Eu-
rope. They are not very much
impressed with the record of the
National Conference in America.
Besides, they don't know how
to interpret the National Con-
ference's support of Archbishop
Stepinac, who is serving a sen-
tence in Yugoslavia for anti-
Semitic activities, among other
things.
It would seem, however, that
the European representatives of
the American Jewish Committee
are hacking the National Con-
ference, and, since the AJC is
very close to the Joint Distribu-
tion Committee's work in Eu-
rope, indirect pressure is being
applied on European Jewish
leadership to follow the National
Conference line.
In other words, there is a
great similarity between the
Truman Doctrine-Marshall Plan
and the strategy of the American
Jewish Committee-Joint Distri-
bution-National Conference ac-
tivities in Europe . . . And the
Jewish rank and file in France,
Germany and Central Europe are
on the spot.

fA World

NPW ■

Service Feature) I)

Chanukah Tales and Legends

(Continued from Page 3)
once issued a decree banning
card-playing. No one was admit-
ted to community membership
without pledging himself not
to indulge in card games, not
even with Christians.
At Venice a Rabbi, who in his
youth crusaded against card
playing and who issued a num-
ber of brochures warning pf the
consequences of the evil, him-
self became addicted to the evil.
When the Rabbinate issued an
excommunication decree against

card players the Rabbi. fought to
void it, but without success. One
of the Yeshivahs in Italy had a
rule that "none of the Yeshivah
students shall play cards dur-
ing the interim days between a
given holiday (chalhamoed), on
Chanukah, Purim and on cir-
cumcision and wedding days."
Card playing and the "dreidel,"
a sort of put-and-take contri-
vance, seemingly have their or-
igin in the gambling instinct.
The latke-eating custom, of
course, requires no explanation.

