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DETROIT JEWISTI CHRONICLE

Page Three

- Strictly Confidential

Plot to Oust Jews in Film Industry Hinted

By PHINEAS .1. BIRON

910 JULIET LAWRENCE, New
York: There is nothing incon-
gruous about the title of our col-
umn, "Strictly Confidential," and
our attacks on the hush-hush pol-
icy.
The title ''Strictly Confidential"
is intended to convey the idea that
We make available material which
certan interests would like to keep
strictly confidential. You will note,
dear Miss Lawrence, that column-
P. J. tilrou
ists do use this reverse nomencla-
ture. There are columns called "Off the Record," "Be-
tween You and Me," "Not Fit to Print," "Strictly
Personal," and many more, all conveying the same
idea of making public what others consider con-
fidential. So there you are.

We shall continue putting the spotlight on the
so-called "strictly confidential" stories.
• • •

JOHANNES STEEL, in the December issue of
his Confidential Report, writes: "The recent capitu-
lation in Hollywood's motion picture producers has
overtones of anti-Semitism which make it seem the
forerunner of a drive against Jewish businessmen,
similar to that which took place immediately before
and after Hitler's accession to power in German in
1933."
Steel then quotes a high member of the adminis-
tration in Washington to this effect: "There is a
drive on to get the Jews out of the industry . . .
Those bankers (non-Jewish—P.J.B.) who influence
the motion picture industry believe that because of
what the Jews have suffered in the last 15 years
they are incapable of making the kind of pictures
,needed at this time . . . Even those who would like

Personal Problems

Kaddish by Proxy
Is Mockery of Bite

Religion Iv Commercialized by Act
Which. Is a Negation of Spirituality

•

By W. A. GOLDBERG, Ph.D.
IF YOU READ the ads, you can discover a lot. For an undis-
closed sum (probably small), you can hire a gentleman (who
says he is a religious gentleman) to say Kaddish for you or to
observe Yahrzeit in your place. You can have Kaddish recited
in the United States or in Palestine. Before the war, you could
have had it said in Europe too.
Carrying this further, it may a substitute, 'then the time has
become possible to hire someone arrived for self-examination as
to attend serv- to the important elements in
ices for you on our lives.
Kaddish and Yahrzeit by
the Holy Days,
to go to a fu- proxy smacks of commercialiSm
neral in your to me, even though it is on a
place or to act petty scale. It resembles the
as a "stand- "Kosher-Shel-Pesach" labels fur-
in" in any re- nished centrally for nationally
ligious observ- advertised soft-drinks which are
bottled locally.
ance.
I, as a layman, do not like
If this is car-
that 'kind of subterfuge. If it
ried
to
its
Dr. Goldberg
logical conclu- does nothing else, it is the fast-
sion. we can have congregations est way communal leaders can
composed of proxy observants destroy the beauty and meaning
and no active members. Or it of ceremonies like Kaddish, Yah-
might be possible to have serv- rzeit. Perhaps it is no worse
ices reproduced on a wire re- than the mushroom Synagogues
corder and play them back in a which infest our larger cities
busy office or in an automobile during the High Holy Days,
while traveling between cities. strictly another business venture.
• • •
PERSONAL OBLIGATION
Off the Record
S A LAYMAN, I like to be
lieve, with both reason and
emotion, that Judaism, in any of
its denominations, calls for per-
sonal presence and personal ob-
servance. Prayer is personal.
Synagogue or Temple attendance
is personal as must be the re-
cital of the Kaddish and the ob-
servance of Yahrzeit.
By NATHAN ZIPRIN
Otherwise, what meaning re-
NEW DIVIDING line has
mains to any of the duties and
rites for the individual Jew?
just been established in the
If we do not read Hebrew flu- life of Palestine Jewry. From
ently or at all, we read English. now on they will be split in pro
Without belittling the ability to and anti-Russian, pro and anti-
read prayers in the original western blocs.
tongue, prayer to this layman
Dr. Snell, former head of the
is not a matter of form, not a Haganah, is busy organizing the
atter of language but a mat- pro-Russian element. The Com-
sr of the spirit. It can be said munists don't amount to any-
.-- English or any other lan- thing, but they can - figure on the
fa
guage
just as effectively as in Hashomer Hazair, Achduth Avo-
Hebrew.
da (opposition to Ben Gurion)
• • •
splinter groups from the general
Zionists. The total strength of
NEVER TOO BUSY
THEN ARE YOU or I so busy all these elements would hardly
a- with our business, that we exceed 25 per cent of Palestine's
cannot spare the half-hour or Jewish population.
hour to comply with the re- • • •
quirements of Synagogue at- ZIONIST PUBLIC opinion used
tendance for Kaddish. for Yahr- to be severely anti-Russian be-
cause of Russia's suppression of
zeit?
Can we not divest ourselves Zionism, Hebrew, etc. Only Brit-
of daily cares for this short pe- ain's consistently anti-Zionist and
riod to pay our respects to the Russia's clear-cut position in fa-
parent or parents who brought vor of partition reversed the
us into the world and raised us? trend. If the U.S.A. would lend
Can we not divest ourselves of prompt and effective assistance to
daily chores for a sufficient time carrying out the UN decision, the
to relate ourselves to the Lord pro-Russian sentiment would be
of the Universe, whether we do weakened.
further
development
This
it in the orthodox, conservative
or reform ritual, whether we strengthens the argument in fa-
do It in the Sephardic or Ash- vor of giving the Jewish State
a permanent neutral status. It
kenazic or Chassidic form?
If the answer is that we do should be possible to sell the
not have the time and must hire idea to world's public opinion

A

joie Marks Plain Talk
33 Years of Dorothy Takes Vow
Aid to Jewry of I.oyalty as Jewess

"The 'Joint' has saved my
life." A simple statement simply
said by a Jewish man in Po-
land, a Jewish woman in Aus-
tria, a Jewish child, by millions
of Jewish men, women and chil-
dren in many lands that ring
the earth.
It is a simple statement that
has helped carry millions of
Jews safely through the chaos
of World War I, the economic
blight of the '20s in Eastern
Europe and the world-wide de-
pression of the '30s. It lessened
the catastrophe of Hitler's rise
to power for ten of thousands.
and ameliorated to some degree
the horror of World War II and
the trying postwar days.
The "Joint" — Joint Distribu-
tion Committee -- last weekend
marked the completion of one-
third of a centry of service to
the Jews of the world; of as-
sistance, of providing life-sav-
ing food, medicine. clothing,
shelter, of extending hope, a
chance to rebuild, an opportu-
nity to establish the future.
Begun by giants of Israel —
Louis Marshall, Jacob Schiff,
Felix Warburg. Julius Rosen-
(Continued on Page 6)

Gentile Girl Accepts Judaism. in Rite
of Conversion at the Chapel of HUG,

By ALFRED SEGAL
WAS AMONG those present the other week when Dorothy be-
came Jewish. She had chosen to take the faith of the Jewish
young man she was about to marry. Only some half dozen of us
witnessed the rites in the chapel of the Hebrew Union College,
which is the seat of reform Judaism in the United States.
Dorothy stood before the altar, -
rod, in affirmation of her new
with her young man beside her faith.
and fitly accepted the Jewish
Indeed, her spiritual ancestry
religion with was queenly. The Rabbi said
all its implica- Dorothy was like Ruth, the
tions. Being Moabite, who when her husband
Jewish is cer- died chose to remain among the
tainly no easy Jews . . . "Whither thou goest,
way deliber- I will go, and where thou lodg-
ately to take est I will lodge; thy people shall
up in times be my people and thy God my
like these. (In- God," she said to Naomi, her
deed, I know mother-in-law.
of some fright-
Later she became the wife of
': ened Jews who
Al Segal
would give up Boaz and by him gave birth to
their inheritance for a mess of Obed who was the father of
pottage if they could be sure Jesse who was the father of
that the pottage wouldn't turn David the King. Dorothy was
the spiritual descendant of •the
sour.)
great grandmother of Israel's
Dorothy's slender figure looked king and singer.
almost queenly when she bowed
• • •
her head and recited Shema Yis-
STUDIED JUDAISM
THE RABBI SAID one doesn't
have to be born that way to
be really Jewish. To be Jewish
was a spiritual dedication like
Ruth's and, it was to be hoped,
like Dorothy's.
Dorothy had taken the course
of Jewish studies in the Hebrew
Union College. She had learned
that Judaism, according to the
Reform concept, was not just a
Mizrachi leader, stole the thun- self-service for those whar pro-
der of applause when he re- fess the faith. It had to do with
ferred to Silver as his colleague duties to all mankind.
"but not in the Rabbinate."
In the book for proselytes
When Israel Rokach, the may- (published by the Central Con-
or of Tel Aviv, stepped on the ference of Ainerican Rabbis)
dais tile women in the audience from which' she had studied, she
were heard gasping at the beau- had read fundamentals of Torah:
ty of the First Lady of the all "Thou shalt love thy neighbor
as thyself . . . Ye shall love the
Jewish city.
stranger for ye were strangers
• • •
in the land of Egypt."
ROKACH WAS reluctant to ad-
Dorothy had found that Ju-
dress the audience, pleading ex- daism is an easy road to un-
haustion from the trip and the derstand, though hard to take
ceremonies at City Hall, where for those who like the material
he was received by Mayor comforts with their religion.
O'Dwyer. Dr. Emanuel Neumann, Her textbook had told her that
who presided, refused to presg Judaism is: (1) "A belief in and
Rokach, but appealed to him to devotion to God who is One and
deliver "an addressele" at least. Holy"; (2) "A doctrine of life
Eliahu Epstein, the brilliant . . . that makes righteousness
head of the Washington office of and love among men the heart
the Jewish Agency, is slated to and soul of all human conduct";
be the first ambassador of the (3) A belief in "the fatherhood
Jewish State in Washington. . . . of God and the brotherhood of
His wife is one of Palestine's man; "have we not all one
Father . and hath not one God
great beauties.
created us all?' "
British M.P. Richard Crosstnan
• • •
makes some pretty blunt charges
PORTION
FOR
ALL
against the State Department in
HE LEARNED that Judaism
an artiele syndicated last week
isn't arrogant in its profes-
by the Overseas News Agency.
For one thing, says Crossman, sions, claims no preferred inti-
the State Department sabotaged macy with God.
Her book said: "Judaism has
proposals for an international
police force for Palestine because no dogmas, the acceptance of
(Continued un Page 4)
it would "offend the Arabs."

I

Yishur Split in Pro and Antiled
Blocs After Sne ► 's Resignation

A

11

to co-operate and make the pictures Wall Street
wants are not psychologically able to."
Think this over when you read about the "anti-
Communist" drive in Hollywood. Which reminds us
that tho.California Hearst press the other day ran a
streamer across its front pages- reading: "Tyrone
Power gives up Lana Turner to fight COMMU-
nism. • . " A new low in propaganda.
• • •
THE SEVEN AMERICAN PROTESTANT clergy-
men and editors of religious journals who visited
Yugoslavia in the summer of 1947 have just issued
the report on their findings. The report is called
"Religion in Yugoslavia" and unequivocally affirms
that there is full freedom of worship in the Repub-
lic of Yugoslavia. •
In the report we found the following reference
to the Jewish position: "The Jews, whose treatment
during the war was lamentable and whose present
(Continued on Page 13)

that the land of the Bible should
be kept out of war.
•
• •
THE GUESTS at the dinner
given in honor of Dr. Abba Hillel
Silver on the eve of his de-
parture for Palestine were treat-
ed to a mixture of light and
serious talks.
Rabbi Meier Berlin, World
-

Masada Pledges
e,

-

Support to UJA

NEW YORK — The mobiliza-
tion of more than 94 Masada
chapters, including the Detroit
group, in support of the $250,-
000,000 United Jewish Appeal
for 1948, was pledged this week
in a telegram to Henry Morgen-
thau Jr., UJA chairman.
Jacob M. Snyder of Philadel-
phia, national president of Ma-
sada, Young Zionists of Ameri-
ca, said in a message to Mor-
genthau that "we place the en-
tire organization of Masada at
your disposal and pledge un-
qualified support and assistance
in 4948 to UJA."

PLAN RAYON PLANT
NEW YORK—The building of
a five-million dollar rayon and
staple fiber plant in the Jewish
State is projected by the Pal-
estine Rayon Corp.

S