Page Four ,

DETROIT JEWISH CHRONICLE

Friday, February 18, 1949

'4r Detroit Jewish Chronicle

Published by the Jewish Chronicle Publishing Co., Inc.
2805 Barium Tower, Detroit 26, Michigan

WOodward 1-1040
SUBSCRIPTION: $3.00 Per Year, Single Copies, 10c; Foreign, $5.00 Per Year
Bettered u Second-class matte: March 3. 1916, at the Post Office at Detroit, Mich., under the Act of March 3. 1879

SEYMOUR TILCIIIN, President

Friday, February 18, 1949

GEORGE IVEISWASSER, Editor In Chief

-

(Shvat 19, 5709)

In Brief . . .

On Monday, the Federal Communications
Commission will begin hearings on charges
filed against George A. Richards, who is the
chief owner of the "Goodwill Stations,"
WJR, Detroit; KMPC, Los Angeles; and
WGAR, Cleveland. Richards was the owner
of WJR when, in the depths of the depres-
sion a spark could have provoked the first
pogroms in American history, that egregi-
ous priest, Charles Coughlin, ranted against
Jews Sunday after Sunday over WJR with-
out pause. Sworn affidavits by his own
employes show that Richards ordered his
newscasters to distort news deliberately
and cunningly, to tie up Jews with Com-
munism, gangsterism and the black market,
to smear the President of the United States
and members of his family and to attack
liberal programs. Unfortunately, the FCC
hearing is merely one to decide whether the
facts warrant a full investigation. We are
sure that the commission will remember its
own words that the radio can serve as an
instrument of democracy "only when de-
voted to the communication of information
and the exchange of ideas fairly and objec-
tively . . ." They will judge whether Rich-
ards has lived up to those principles.

* * *

Welcome, Lawyers' Guild

Detroit is proud to greet the National
Lawyer's Guild here for its annual conven-
tion this weekend. The Guild is one of the
strongest agencies in our nation combat-
ing repressive measures intended to de-
stroy our democratic way of life. It has
zealously defended the civil liberties of all
people regardless of their nationality, re-
ligion, color or political affiliation. It stands
opposed to the searing shame of segrega-
tion and discrimination. The Guild played
an active role on the Palestine question.
During the height of the crisis last year,
it sent 300 delegates from all over the coun-
try to New York to meet with Warren Aus-
tin, the American delegate at the UN, to
protest the vacillation of our government.
The Guild believes that the maintenance of
the Bill of Rights requires respect for the
privileges of all Americans and therefore it
defends -and supports any minority group
whose basic rights are endangered. It is
to the credit of the Guild that it has never
flinched in the face of the taunts of the mob
and the pressure of the mighty. Welcome,
Guildsmen, to our city. May your delib-
erations help speed the day of justice and
brotherhood.

* * *

Valentine or Arbor Day?

Success of an organization depends not
only on dynamic leadership but also on the
imagination and originality of its program
planners. It would seem from a reading
of the club and lodge news in last week's
Chronicle that few Jewish organizations
have the requisite imagination to take ad-
vantage of a situation and utilize it wisely
for the strengthening of the group's proj-
ects. It so happens, Valentine's day and
Chamisha Asar B'Shvat, Jewish Arbor Day,
both fell on Feb. 14. One would assume,
therefore, that Jewish clubs would have
celebrated Arbor Day on Feb. 14. Yet club
after club held Valentine parties and ig-
nored the Jewish festival. Aside from the
religious or nationalistic aspects, a little
imagination could have made the day's af-
fairs more meaningful. Somebody just
blundered. The same is true for those
groups which scheduled some affair or
other on Feb. 12 and Feb. 22 without any
reference to the patriotic implications of
the birthdays of Lincoln and Washington.
With a little thought and ingenuity, social
and program chairmen can make their
meetings and parties more significant and
original. They ought to try.

-

DETROIT 26, Mich.

A Liberal Paper Dies

The demise of the New York Star has
saddened every person with liberal sympa-
thies and every friend of Israel and Jewry.
This crusading newspaper, which was the
short lived successor to PM, was loudest in
indorsing a program of decency and broth-
erhood and in protesting injustice wherever
it may have been. Marshall Field III and
Bartley Crum will ever be remembered in
the annals of American journalism and in
the struggle for human rights for sponsor-
ing honest and progressive journals like
PM and the Star. It is deeply to be deplored
that New York Jews failed to give their
fullest backing to either paper yet are
among the strongest supporters of the
shabby Daily News, a reactionary, hate-
fostering sheet. The same is true in Chi-
cago 'where Jews rush to buy the infamous
Tribune and remain cold to the liberal and
vigorous Sun-Times.

* * *

DP's Betrayed

A shocking report which surpasses the
worst expectations—is how the New York
Times describes the first semi-annual re-
port of the United States Displaced Persons
Commission. The report shows that only
2,499 persons were admitted to the U. S.
during the first half year of the DP bill
passed by the 80th Congress instead of the
50,000 who were eligible to enter the coun-
try even under that reactionary and dis-
criminatory bill. "The present bill is a
betrayal of honest plans to move DP's to
new homes and new lives", the Times as-
serted.

Red Break Visioned

The rumblings of a new rift in Jewish
social life were heard in an editorial in the
Yiddish Communist "Freiheit" which clear-
ly predicted a break of the Communist-
controlled Jewish communities of the east
with the World Jewish Congress. The Con-
gress had hitherto united 60 Jewish com-
munities throughout the world without
distinction of ideology or regime. Lately
there were signs that the Jewish Commu-
nists had decided on a new policy towards
Jewish life in the Diaspora as well as to
Israel. The "Freiheit" attacked the World
Jewish Congress for its support of alleged
anti-Soviet propaganda and for "pro-Mar-
shall Plan" sympathies and indicated that
the American Jewish Congress is following
a similar policy which can only mean that
Jewish Communists in Europe and in this
country are planning a clean break with
Jewish organizations which they had
backed for reasons of Soviet policy during
the war and post-war years.

* * *

Let the Rabbis Decide

N. Y. Jews may witness the revival of an
ancient Jewish institution—the "Bes-Din"
(a trial by Rabbis) in a unique case of so-
cial interest. Henry Hurwitz, editor of the
Menorah Journal, announced his intention
of asking for such a trial to clarify the
position of the UJA towards the defense
agencies. Hurwitz and a number of other
editors have been criticizing the practice of
the UJA to subsidize organizations like the
defense agencies and the Jewish Tele-
graphic Agency which are not engaged in
actual relief work. In a series of articles,
he has argued that the UJA Collects .noney
to relieve the plight of Jewish refugees in
Europe and in Israel. It has no moral right
to give away millions every year to non-
relief agencies, he says. Since Hurwitz has
been trying, in vain, to get satisfaction from
the UJA, he is planning to summon its lead-
ers to a 'Bes-Din".

In Honor of a Friend of Israel .

Need Democratic Body
to Lead Communal Life

By LOUIS SEGAL
(Secretary, Jewish Workers' Alliance)

N

YORK.—Now that the American Jewish Conference hall
been dissolved, the urgent need of a more democratic structure
of our organizational life must be brought to the attention of Jewish
0
public opinion.
In order to forge unity among to communal activities of every
the Jewish people in America and sort.
In America there are organized
in order to prevent cultural and
national sterlity, we must create communities which, however, °f-
an organizational structure of fer no stimulus to Jewish cultural
American Jewish life which activities. We have the chests and
would lead the people in all its welfare funds whose only aim id
most important activities as the to raise funds for local and nil•
actual authority recognized by all tional needs.
• • •
Jews, no matter what their idea-
MECHANICAL BODIES
logical leanings.
BUT THESE CHESTS and web
• • •
fare funds are -organized too ma•
NO LOCAL EMPHASIS
chanically to be able to arouse
WHEN WE ANALYZE all the any interest among the Jewish
attempts which were made on masses, aside from contributing
previous occasions to create a money, to add to the content oI
democratically elected central Jewish life.
Jewish organization, we must
There are Community Councils
come to the conclusion that all in some towns but they are not
these attempts ended in failure democratically built. They have
mainly because they were built no programs of activities which
from the top down instead of would encompass all Jewish in-
from the bottom up.
terests, national and inter.
Both in the American Jewish national
Congress and in the American
A democratic, well organized
Jewish Conference the emphasis Jewish Kehila in every town can
was laid on national bodies.
develop a broad program of ac•
The initiative came from the tivities in all phases of Jewish
national bodies and the intsitu- life, locally, nationally and with
tions remained in their control.
respect to world Jewry.
This resulted in a situation in
If we had a number of such
which the national bodies, or at Kehilot in America, we could then
least some of them, always feared organize them into one central
that the central organ which they body, which would form the hard
built would minimize their pres- core. That would mean that every
tige and curtail their activities.
Jew in every community would
This was the cause for the col- actually be a member of the
lapse of the American Jewish Con- great central organization ed
ference. This was also to a great American Jewry.
• • '10
extent the reason why the Ameri-
REAL
BLESSING
can Jewish Congress began in the
last few years to accept individual
IT IS SELF-UNDERSTOOD
members, reversing its previous that the Kehilot are to be based
practice of having only organiza- on the democratic principle, with
popular elections held every two
tions as members.
• • •
or three years. Such a demo.
cratic organization of American
BEGIN WITII MASSES
IF WE REALLY want to build Jewish life would be a real bless-
a central representation of Amer- ing for us here and also for Israel
ican Jewry we must begin with in all its aims and undertakings.
Democratic Kehilot will bring
the masses. Millions live in small
communities which have their new interests to every Jew who
own activities, needs and organi- will have the sense of participa.
zational structures. All those coin- tion in the elections of councils
munities, however, have Jewish and officers, in the forming
interests in common with Jews programs, in budgeting.
He will know that he is partici.
all over America and in the en-
pating actively in the life of his
tire world.
Local groups, Kehilot, were ba- community and also in the shap•
sic organizational units in Europe, ing of Jewish life in America.
He will be conscious of the fact
particularly in Poland where mil-
lions of Jews lived before the that by being a member of a cen•
cataclysm. Elections to Kehilot fral, national organization, he
were fraught with deep national will be participating in the great
significance; the Jewish masses work of strengthening and de•
participated in them with zeal and veloping Jewish life all over
passion and thus were stimulated world.

