Friday, November 19, 1948

DETROIT JEWISH CHRONICLE

Page Four

Detroit Jewish Chronicle

wo-F aced

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

SUBSCRIPTION: $3.00 Per Year, Single Copies, 10c; Foreign, 33.00 Pet Yeir
3. 1916, at the Post Office at Detroit, Mich., under the Act of March 3, 1879
GEORGE WEISWASSER, Editor-in-Chief
SEYMOUR TILCHIN, President

Entered as Second-clan matte, March

Vol. 50, No. 44

Friday, November 19, 1948 (Heshvan 17, 5709)

Israel Looks to Truman

DETROIT 26, MICIL

office has organized 12 new congregations
during the past year would seem to give
some weight to this argument.
The question of whether or not the Union
should move to New York is a debatable
one, and the onlooker can only hope that it
is debated within the councils of the Union,
honestly and rationally, without rancor or
emotion.
The Union of American Hebrew Congre-
gations is one of our great American re-
ligious organizations. Founded 75 years ago
by Dr. Isaac M. Wise, it is one of the
largest and oldest religious organizations
in this country.
As it celebrates its diamond jubilee, it is
to be hoped that its delegates will be less
concerned with the internal problem of
whether or not to move to New York and
more concerned with the great problems
facing Klal Yisroel.

Something new on Palestine is patently
brewing in the diplomatic field. On the
one hand is the announcement that, with
Britain doing the prodding, the Security
Council has set up a committee to study
possible punitive measures against Israel if
she continues to refuse to return to her
mid-October positions in the Negev.
On the other hand is the report that
President Truman has bluntly notified Brit-
ain that he has no intention of following
a joint American-British policy on Palestine.
There is good reason •to believe that the
President, flushed with victory and grateful
for Jewish support in many key cities in
the country, will soon accord de jure recog-
nition to the fledgling State and propose
that Dr. Weizmann's suggestion that the
U.S. take the initiative in spurring Jewish-
Arab peace negotiations be followed.
If the latter report is true, there is a
good possibility that there will be an open
Welcome, Rabbis Lehrman, Katz
clash between Britain and Mr. Truman with
Two Detroit Synagogues installed new
regard to British ambitions in the Near
East. It must be increasingly evident to Rabbis Sunday.
the President that Britain is promoting her
At Beth Aaron, new congregation in the
imperial interests in Arabia at the expense Northwest area, Rabbi Pinchos Katz was
of the western powers' friendship with the inducted as spiritual leader, and at Bnai
only enlightened State in the peninsula.
Moshe, vigorous veteran congregation on
•
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Dexter boulevard, Rabbi Moses Lehrman
Certainly the President must see that assumed the pulpit.
peace would be nearer in Palatine today
Detroit has been uncommonly fortunate
if it were not for United Nations interven- in the calibre of its Rabbinate. Ranging
tion. Preliminary peace talks between Is- all the way from venerable scholars to
rael and Egypt and Transjordan have start- young seminarians in their first pulpits,
ed, but every time the Security Council they have been, in the main, men of in-
meets, it utters some veiled threat at Israel sight and of wisdom.
and the Arabs are thereby encouraged to
Rabbis Katz and Lehrman are compara-
assume that it might be worth protracting tively young men. Detroit offers them vast
the war because of the prospect of gains fields of endeavor and the assurance that
which the UN would enforce.
their toil in the vineyards of the Lord will
If that is their reasoning, the Arabs are bring them the love and loyalty of their
a deluded folk. They might just as well charges.
accept Gen. Riley's findings that they are
•
•
•
licked and concede the war.
There is much work to be done. The new
If they want to gain the goodwill of the Rabbis must bring with them selflessness,
victors, the better part of valor would be industry
and discernment. No one expects
to reach an agreement based on the Nov. them to be sensations and spellbinders.
29, 1947 decision of the Assembly rather Their
want them to be friend-
than risk new defeats, new territorial tosses ly and congregations
hard-working. With those attributes,
and, what will be very costly in the long
they will build up confidence and devotion.
run, the increasing scorn of the world.
Both Rabbis Katz and Lehrman come
with reputations already made. With the
cooperation of their congregation and the
UAHC Diamond Jubilee
backing of such leaders as Dr. Marvin Last
It is one of the disheartening vagaries of at Beth Aaron and Sam Freedman of Bnai
Jewish life that organizations are often Moshe, the new Rabbis are destined to bring
torn apart while engaging in a long and new qualities of leadership and service to
bitter dispute about some relatively unim- the community.
We wish them happiness and success.
portant internal matter, while at the same
time major problems of Jewry are pushed
into the background.
These thoughts come to mind in reading
Useless Education Month
th° polite but nevertheless acrimonious
statements that have been issued in con-
Last. week, we called the annual Jewish
nection with the problem of whether the Education Month campaign meaningless.
Union of American Hebrew Congregations It is meaningless because it produces neg-
should or should not move its headquarters ligible results.
from Cincinnati to New York.
We sometimes wonder whether its spon-
The mere onlooker would get the im- sors do not promote it merely to let the
pression from a reading of this lengthy Jewish public know that Jewish schools are
documentation that this is one of the great functioning daily. When you read the en-
problems in American Jewry.
rollment figures of those schools, you see
Like the great majority of the general why the teachers and principals have to
public, who can't understand what all the propagandize an Education Month, since
shouting is about, we are not overly con- most Jewish parents apparently don't know
cerned whether or not the Union moves its that a comprehensive educational program
headquarters to New York. But we are a runs full blast in the community.
bit dismayed over the sharpness with which
What we need, instead of propaganda, is
the debate is being conducted.
action.
Parents are not going to be con-
Surely, the fact that the Union has been vinced to
send their children to a religious
traditionally in Cincinnati is not by itself school with ads in the papers or with direct
good reason for not moving. Just as cer- mail destined for the waste basket.
tainly, the attempt to whip up an anti-
There has to be personal contact with
New York sentiment as the basis for stay- parents.
must be reasoned with; they
ing away from the great metropolis is an must be They
convinced.
argument based on emotion, rather, than
This is a job that will require a well or-
reason.
•
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ganized door-to-door campaign. As a sub-
Proponents of the move claim that New stitute, the scores of Jewish organizations
York is the center of Jewish and general in the city, the sisterhoods, lodges, lands-
life, that more than half of America's five manschaften and societies, could be induced
million Jews reside in our largest commun- to foster individual campaigns within• their
ity. From this point, it is argued that the own groups to encourage their members
Union, in an attempt to reach the greatest to send their children to religious schools
mass of American Jewry, should have its if their future is to be fortified.
headquarters in that area.
Personal contact, not propaganda, will
The fact that an enlarged New York give Education Month significance.

Letters to the Editor

DEFENDS JNF

Dear Editor:
I have just finished reading
your paper of Nov. 12, in which
you wrote an editorial called
"Freedom of the Press."
You stated that "The Jewish
National Fund here continues to
give notices of its activities or
advertising for its undertakings
ONLY to the paper owned . . ."
etc.
Thank God, they have the
sense to pick on a paper to do
their advertising which does not
pick petty personal quarrels with
others, using such a great insti-
tution of the Jewish people as
the Jewish National Fund as a
basis.
• • *
You claim to be a Zionist, and
yet, in your paper of this sum-
mer, there appeared a very
vicious editorial, in which you
clearly stated: Do not give to
the Jewish National Fund, and
then further on, as if you thought
better of it, you said to send
any contributions directly to the
Jewish National Fund in New
York.
Some Zionist you are—you
sound more like a Revisionist! I
don't blame the Jewish National
Fund one bit for not giving you

any publicity after such despic-
able editorials.
I suggest that you separate
your editorial policy from your
advertising department.
LIVNA FRIEDMAN,
2737 Gladstone,

FROM B.B. WOMEN

Dear Editor:
We wish to take this oppor-
tunity to thank the Detroit Jew-
ish Chronicle for its splendid
publicity in relation to our cur-
rent fund raising drive which
culminates with an afternoon
theater party at Masonic Temple
on Nov. 22.
The members of our Council
realize that your generous pub-
licity is a great help to the suc-
cess of our project.
GREATER DETROIT BNAI
BRITH WOMEN'S COUNCIL
Mrs. Robert A. Coggan,
General Chairman.

HELPED BY CHRONICLE

Dear Editor:
The Women's League of Tel-
Guiborim wishes to thank you
for your fine publicity in con-
nection with our second annual
donor dinner dance. We attribute
our success to your kindness.
HELEN ROSENFELD,
Donor Chairman.

Press Silent as Polish Envoy
Pays Tribute to Israeli Army

(Continued from page 3)
Outrata, who was the other
envoy present at the dinner,
pleaded guilty to the charge
of having rendered military as-
sistance to Israel. Said Outrata:
". . . I am proud and happy
that our people were among the
first to offer help and assistance
to the State as well as to the
people of Israel; moral help by
recognizing the State of Israel
and material help in supplying
the fighting Israelis with some
of those things without which,
in our civilization, the most
courageous man would be help-
less against an organized, well-
armed enemy.
"And I am happy that the re-
sults of this struggle—results so
real that they can no longer be
denied by the foes as well as
by the friends—I am happy that
these results were achieved with
the material that we were able
and glad to offer. That material
proved as useful as it was well
used; and we as a freedom lov-
ing nation are glad of it...."
• • •
IT IS SIGNIFICANT that the
American press did not report
these important addresses. These
speeches have a different ring
from the statements made by

the English, American, French
and Chinese UN spokesmen.
To publish Winiewicz's and
Outrata's speeches would have
meant to remind the American
'people that the so-called "Iron
Curtain countries" have never
wavered in their support of Is-
rael, while our own President
has made campaign speeches
which had no effect whatsoever
on the US bi-partisan anti-
Israel policy at the Paris UN

session.

• • •

RABBI BENJAMIN SCHULTZ,
who was forced out from his
congregation in Yonkers because
he smeared Rabbi Stephen S.
Wise as a red, is very busy these
days. As director of the "Amer-
ican Jewish League Against
Communism," he is active is
spreading the red smear on
Jewish organizations and indi-
viduals. We, because of our
progressive stand on Jewish is-
sues, are one of his pet aver-
sions. He labels us "fellow trav-
eler," and never misses an op-
portunity to apply the red brush.
What an occupation for a Rabbi!
And that in the midst of the
"Communist-Jewish Menace" cry
of the anti-Semitic rabble.

