Page Four
DETROIT JEWISH CHRONICLE
Friday, May 21, 1948
Detroit Jewish Chronicle
Detroit's Pledge in Spotlight
Published Weekly by Jewish Chronicle Publishing Co., Inc., 548 Woodward, Detroit 26, Mich., CA. 1040
Wodd
SUBSCRIPTION: $3.00 Per Year, Single Copies, 10c; Foreign, $5.00 Per Year
&tend iu Second-class matte, March 3. 1916, at the Post Office at Detroit. Mich., under
the Act of March 3, 1879
SEYMOUR TILCHIN, President
GEORGE WEISWASSEft, Editor-in-Chief
Vol. 50, No. 18
Friday, May 21, 1948 (Iyar 12, 5708)
••••
A new nation has been founded. Yes-
terday in Israel was an historic date for
th'e Jews of Palestine and of the entire
world. It spelled victory for the hopes of
generations of brave and determined men
and womOn. The partition which they had
won by their own struggle had already been
an accomplished fact, but yesterday it was
recorded for history in words which it will
be impossible now to erase from men's
minds.
An auspicious week for all Israel will be
brought to a close for Detroit Young Israel
on Sunday with festivities celebrating 25
years of service-to Judaism and the Jewish
community.
Only because recent world events have
been so overwhelming has Young Israel's
Silver Jubilee failed to receive the honor
it merits. We are sure, nevertheless, that
despite the excitement and the drama of
the refounding of the Jewish State, De-
troit Jewry pauses with us to salute this
magnificent group of young men and women
whose devotion to Israel's traditions is of
the kind that has made the events of re-
cent days possible.
Jewry has found strength and pride in
the idealism and courage of the pioneeri
and fighters who have moulded the State.
It has found no less strength from the
religious inspiration of youths who have
never yielded in their adherence to the pre-
cepts of faith and .who have combined their
spiritual loyalties with a physical bravery
that is evoked only out of love for one's
land.
These too are the heroes of reborn Is-
rael, and American Young Israel has played
no little part in providing them with inspi-
ration, manpower and sustenance.
As we honor Detroit Young Israel on
its joyful 25th birthday, we honor all young
men and women of Eretz Israel, builders
of a new life and a new hope.
•
t'
-1-
4.x.r4ORZI4x-r-Ir ■ ••.
To Israel: Welcome
Good Luck to Young Israel
•
1
The proclamation of the State of Israel
gives Jewry a new holiday. For the first
time in our history, the month 'of Iyar
will have a festival to be celebrated year
after year and forever.
Squeezed in between Nissen and its
week's celebration of Passover and Sivan
with its observance of Shavuoth, festival
commemorating the giving of the .Law of
Mt. Sinai, the month of lyar through the
ages, has been unnoticed•and forlorn.
It had to wait thousands of years for a
festival of its own, a festival that, in great
measure, has the spiritual and nationalistic
validity of Pesach or of Chanukah.
How the 5th of Iyar will be celebrated
in years to come, the future alone will tell.
But if the past is to be the judge, certainly
the day in which Israel was reestablished
and recognized by the United States will
go down in Jewish lore as a day of days
in which to give thanks to the Almighty,
in which to offer tribute to the brave men
and women of that day who carved out the
State with their love and who watered the
mortar of its structure with their sweat
and with their blood.
Detroit Jews can be proud of themselves
for their splendid response at the Libera-
tion Day rally Sunday at Roosevelt Field.
They itteked the playground so tightly
that there was no standing room left. There
must have been at least 20,000 persons
there and hundredS more were turned away.
It was the largest gathering in Detroit
Jewish history.
The jubilation and delight were con-
tagious. It was evident that those present
came because of their exultation over the
establishment of the State of Israel and out
of their desire to voice their solidarity with
their brethren. _
The demonstration' was doubly signifi-
cant because it came on "I Am an American
Day". Those principles of our government
which we acclaimed that day, it was recog-
nized, won a new triumph in the establish-
ment of a free and democratic Jewish State
in the despotic, dictator-ridden Middle East.
We congratulate the Zionist Council and
the Jewish Community Council committee
on a job well done.
We congratulate the community on this
great outpouring to demonstrate its joy and
its unity with Israel.
.44-104,
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DETROIT 26, MICH.
A New Festival—The 5th of lyar
Detroiters Hail Israel
NINA, 51.1.11TV:.
•
•
•
Detroit Jews
Pledge Their
Solidarity With
II
Israel
This does not mean that the struggle
is over in Israel. By force of arms the
Haganah has built an independent state;
by force of arms it will now have to de-
fend it.
•
•
•
The long, tough, but necessary job of
working out good relations with Israel's
Arab neighbors is only beginning, and it be-
gins unhappily in violence. But the Jews
of Palestine have won the world's respect
by their willingness to fight their own bat-
tles, and to win them. They have held an
older respect by never abandoning their
conviction that in the long run they will
win in peace, as well as in war.
Random Thoughts
1111101111111111111111111141111111111111111141111111111111111111111N111
By Seymour Tile/fin
I)ETROIT WITNESSED the the Shofar were probably the
largest Jewish mass demon- most impressive events.
stration in its nistory Sunday.
As one reporter put it to me,
A Jewish' national state in Palestine According to police estimates, As
the Shofar was blowing,
changes the map, and it changes the world. 20,000 persons jammed Roose- clouds
gathered in the sky and lit-
The Middle East holds more than strategic velt Field to participate in the tle droplets of rain came down,
bases and oil, it is filled with people.
long-prayed-for celebration. The and as I looked into the audi-
police said that thousands of 2nce, tears streamed down their
Whether Jews or Arabs, they 'stand to others were turned back because faces
mingling with the droplets
win by the great decision announced yes- of traffic congestion.
of rain."
• • •
terday. For the new state means that a I take special pride in this
window has been opened in the Middle East. meeting not only because I was NAME SON ISRAEL
New ideas and new skills will pour through its chairman but because this EVERYBODY WHO was with-
this window. They will raise the standard demonstration was different in in hearing distance was deeply
many respects that it took moved and many gave vent to
of life for millions of people whose poverty so
on great significance and because their emotions by sending up
and illiteracy have been a curse to them- it is rarely that we Jews can
envelopes with money to the
selves and a danger to the world.
hold joyous demonstrations. In- platform although no solicitation
•, • •
stead of being a protest rally or of funds was made.
Americans ; more than any other people r. rally to raise funds or to raise A woman whom I have known
for the support of one for a long time came up to me
greeting Israel today, know from the stories emotions
cause or another, this was one and said, "Seymour, my (laugh-
of their own fathers and grandfathers what of deep joy and religious devo-
ter just gave birth to a son yes-
it means to stir old roots with new rain, tion.
terday, we shall name him Is-
•
•
•
to mix modern science and engineering with
ael."
STARTS PROMPTLY
the oldest cultures in history.
People everywhere were say-
IT WAS unusual in many re- ing, "I wish my 'father or moth-
This is why the greeting of the Ameri- spects. A program was distrib- er had lived to witness this
can people to the new Israel preceded official uted to all those present. As day." As I stopped at my par-
de facto recognition, and dwarfed it in im- the program indicated, the ents' house after the meeting,
portance.
Meeting was scheduled to start my father who seldom displays
at 3:30 and to end at 5:30. It his emotion, put his arms around
President Truman 'had divided counsel started promptly at 3:30 and me, kissed me and broke into
on the diplomatic problems involved. Ile ended promptly at 5:30.
tears.
Even God was with us. He
• • •
had a railroad strike, a European Recovery
Program and an election on his mind. This allowed rain to pour all week ISRAEL IN THE NEWS
DID YOU NOTICE that dis-
is a large country, committed to the large prior to the meeting, allowed
the sun to shine all Sunday patches now arriving from Pal-
and expensive process of balancing diver- morning
and, at exactly 5:30, estine read, "Tel - Aviv, Israel"?
gent forces and seeking solutions by agree- as Hatikvah was being sung at
Have you sent your wire or
ment.
the end of the meeting, the letter to President Truman
•
•
•
rains fell again.
thanking him for the immediate
While this was a joyous occa- recognition of the Jewish State?
In a democracy, patience is a solid vir- sion,
the meeting was filled with I know there is a great deal
of
tue, and the people can often speak louder moments of throat-choking emo-
than their diplomats. President Truman tion and of sadness. The parade hesitancy on the part of Jews
has had patience for many months. Fri- of the flags and the blowing of to do so because of Truman's
((Continued on Page 14)
day night he won high credit for the
promptness with which he recognized the
sentiments of the overwhelming majority
of the American people.
Most Americans have already spoken on
the challenge which Israel presents to us,
and there can be no mistaking what they
say. For this is a challenge in our own
tradition. It gives us a chance'to strength-
en the United Nations.
For if the United Nations fumbled the
ball, it never dropped it, and the bounda-
ries of the new state, like partition itself,
rest firmly on United Nations acts. It gives
us also, perhaps, a thread of hope in our
tangled relations with the Soviet Union;
the Russians have backed partition and in-
dependence from the start. Finally, it
gives us a chance to help a great and vig-
orous people to build their nation.
•
Americans welcome a new nation to-
day. We wish its people well, and we know
that helping them will help ourselves:
• '
PM, New York.
Gives $250,000 to Campaign
to Mark His Joy Over State
NEW YORK—A $250,000 gift casion I am impelled to express
to mark the establishment of my gratitude to God who has
the Jewish State has been made brought us to this day and to
to the United Jewish Appeal by our people who have been
thus
Abraham Mazer, New York rewarded."
paper manufacturer and com-
munal leader, it was announced
Morgenthau, In announcing
by Harry Morgenthau, Jr., gen- the gift, stressed the need for
eral chairman.
immediate cash contributions' to
In a letter to Mbrgenthau, Ma- the United Jewish Appeal 'in
zer wrote that "it is for me a light of the vast possibilities for
source of the deepest personal mass immigration which have
satisfaction that this great mo- been opened as a result of the
ment has come within my own establishment of the Jewish
lifetime. In this hour of great State.
celebration, we are mindful of
The mass exodus of Jews from
the generations who have pre-
Cyprus—where 25,000 have been
ceded/us and who have labored interned—and
from the DP
and died to bring this dream to camps of Europe, which now
reality.
contain 250,000 homeless Jews,
"On this occasion we pay trib- will require tremendous sums,
ute-to the pioneers who even to- far
exceeding the $250,000,000
day are building this State on goal of the United Jewish Ap-
their own bodies. On this -oc- peal, Morgenthau pointed out.