Thursday, June 30, 1919

DETROIT JEWISH CHRONICLE

Page

Three

STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL

UJA Lag Laid to Bureaucracy, Bad Publicity

By PIIINEAS J. BIRON
IT IS NO LONGER a secret that the results in the
UJA campaign are far from satisfactory. Big
donors instead of increasing their 1948 contributions
are cutting down, The technical directors in chai . ge
of industrial groups are having a
tough time because many chairmen
of industries are reluctant to apply
pressure.
Leaders who a few years ago rolled
up their sleeves and gave real service
are not available for work. Visiting
celebrities from Israel who only last
year were able to obtain immediate
response for emergency appeals are
meeting with meager success.
What is the trouble? Nobody
seems to know.
Birok
According to a theorectical and
logical analysis, the 1949 UJA campaign should have
much smoother sailing than the last one. The political
and military situation in Israel is much more stabi-
lized. Israel is now a member of the United Nations
. and notwithstanding incredible obstacles is taking

care of close to 20,000 DP immigrants every month.
How then explain the alarming let down?
•
•
•

OF COURSE THE obvious explanation is the busi-
ness recession which does prevail even it Washington
optimists deny it. Yet on the other hand more people
have become Israel-conscious than ever before.
Without criticising the selfless and efficient army
of UJA workers under the experienced leadership of
Henry Montor, one is compelled to recognize one
cardinal weakness in the campaign, and that is the
failure of the public relations experts of the UJA.
There can be no doubt that the promotion, publicity,
advertising or whatever you wish to call that phase
of the campaign responsible for the psychological
climate of public opinion have not succeeded in
dramatising the aims of the UJA. It has not inflamed
the imagination and enthusiasm of millions of Jews
who could put the campaign over the top even without
the help of the very big donors.
•
•

THE OLD WORN OUT charity slogans are being
used. The same speakers are touring the country
addressing the same kind of dinners and meetings.

Have Saturday Off
Yet Shun Synagogue

By ALFRED SEGAL
ANY friend, Eli Elias, the Hunt-
ington Park (Los Angeles)
merchant, dropped in on me as
he always does when he comes
through our town on his • buying
trips toward New York.
"And how's business?" I asked,
not by way of making conversa-
tion, but as one who is slightly
. worried about 3r*••-•
the nationals
economy, "a n d
are times going
to be better be-
fore they get any
worse?"
• But Mr. Elias'
mind was not so „-
much on his bus- •
iness. Indeed, at t.
t h e moment it • •••••'
Segal
was not at all on
business. It was dwelling on Ju-
daism and what's to become of
'us all, considering how neglectful
most of us are about our religion.
• Mr .Elias is a businessman for
whom business merely is a way
of making a living, though he
. works hard at it and has made a
fine success. Yes, its
• a good
but it isn't life. Life is some-
thing else again. Life has to do
with God and with a man trying
to look somewhat like His
image: life is a \ matter of ideals
and walking with head lifted to-
ward the stars.
Sure enough, ideals must be
applied to a man's business, too,
but business is just a sideline by
which the physical process of life
.is kept going.
• • •

e

OLD AND YET NEW

. Mr. Elias had been traveling
across the country from Los An-
geles talking about something
new in Jewish life to whatever
Jew he met on the way. It was
really old, as old as Jewish life
itself which is the oldest living
entity in the world; but it was
new because it had become only
a memory of many Jews.

•
Plotting for Rule
of UJA Charged

..NEW YORK—The alleged alli-
ance which the American Jewish
Committee is trying to cement
between itself and the govern-
ment of Israel in order to control
the raising and distribution of
United Jewish Appeal funds will
degrade American Judaism and
in the long run, pauperize the
State of Israel unless stopped in
time, Henry Hurwitz, declares in
the spring number of the "Meno-
rah Journal."
In the leading article entitled
"Fear or Faith: Which Shall
Govern the Jewish Future in
America?" Hurwitz, editor, re-
veals that the heads of the Amer-
ican Jewish Committee solicited
the Passover invitation to visit
Israel from the Israel Govern-
ment.

Reform Leader

"FEELING JEWISH"

Through the recent years a lot
of the Jews had been feeling
Jewish chiefly on account of the
pain of persecution. Or they were
feeling Jewish on account of
some personal slights they suf-
fered as Jews. Or, as many Jews
did, they were feeling Jewish
because of Palestine and the
hope of making it a good country
for afflicted brethren.
But now the hope of Palestine
is achieved in Israel, and for
American Jews that cannot offer
any patriotic stimulation. Ameri-
can Jews know that America is
their homeland and Israel will be
an admirable country for their
kinsmen whom they must help
to settle.
As for persecution, that can't
keep us feeling. warmly Jewish.
Persecution is hard, bitter bread
for Jewish life to try to live on
and, anyway, we can't call it per-
secution in America.
A lot of people don't like us
but that isn't persecution. We
are getting along all right in this
our America. And giving money
for defense is no expression of
Judaism; it is only an expression
of. fear.
So Mr. Elias had been speaking
up all the way across the country
for a new, brave assertion of
essential Judaism. It has to do
with bringing Jews back to the
Synagogue which stands on the

The economic situation in Israel is desperate. It is
bad public relations to hide the fact that a gigantic
catastrophe is menacing the entire structure of Israel.
The United Jewish Appeal speaks with the voice of
bureaucratic complacency which lulls the American
Jews to sleep. It is high time to tell them the truth.
•
•
•

RELIABLE INFORMATION REACHES us that Ike
Eisenhower is keeping bad company. It is reported
that close friends of Memel K. Hart, the notorious
anti-Semite and pro-fascist, are welcome in Ike's sanc-
tum at Columbia University. They are filling the ears
of America's great military genius with ideas about
launching a new America First movement.

Among these evil gentlemen is one whose name
figured prominantly in the mass sedition case in
Washington. "Somebody should tip off Ike" wrote
Walter Winchell in a recent column.

Council Balks
DSR Bigots

assured "that prompt action will
be taken by this office."

The successful approach of the
Council to the DSR is but one
more in a long series of efforts
on part of the organization to re-
Two DSR employes accused of duce discrimination against Jews
anti-Semitic behavior have been in all fields of life, Boris Joffe,
disciplined, Leo J. Nowicki, gen- executive director, pointed out.

Mr. Elias was talking about a
revival of Jewish religion and he
was almost evangelical about it.
Jews had gone away from Jewish
riltigion. on a variety of tangents:
Jewish culture, Jewish philanth-
ropy, Jewish nationalism, Jewish
self-defense.
He wasn't finding fault in any
of these but he was asking: How
about Jewish religion? After all,
Jewish religion was the corner-
stone.

Jewish religion has been the rea-
son for staying alive. Its ethical
laws, embodied in the Torah,
were called the Tree of Life from
which Jews fed plentifully even
when they had little else to live
by. Jewish religion was what the
martyrs died for.
• • •

Tens of thousands of workers, clerks, small business-
men who could be enlisted in the sacred task of
winning the last battle of Hitler's war against the
Jews are untouched by the unimaginative campaign
technique of the UJA.

eral manager of the DSR, re ,
ported to the Jewish Community

Council, to whom the incidents
were related.

DR. JACOB R. MARCUS, pro-
fessor of history at Hebrew
Union College, was elected
president of the Central Con-
ference of American Rabbis.

Negro Gives Gift
to Jewish Scouts

The complainants, the Council
disclosed, followed the practice
of making a written record of the
circumstances of the incident, the
names of witnesses, the date, time
and place of the incident, and
the badge number or other identi-
fication of the employe respon-
sible.

59th in the UN
Hutted by Micah

LONDON—(Special)—A corre-
spondent to the London Chroni-
cle points out that Jewish proph
ecy hinted that Israel was
destined to be the 59th member
of the UN.

He quotes Micah 5, 6: "And
the remnant of Jacob (i.e. pres-
Nowicki further requested the ent-day Israel) shall be . in the
Council that "if at any time, in- midst of many nations like dew
formation comes to you which from the Lord."
would indicate that there is even
The Hebrew for "like dew,"
the slightest discrimination in Ketal, represents, in the numeri-
serving the public on DSR ve- cal value of its letters, the nutn-
hicles, please let me know," and ber 59.

ST. LOUIS—Thanks to the gen-
erosity of a St. Louis Negro, Boy

Scout Troop No. 11 of the St.
Louis Young Men's Hebrew As-
sociation will have a new country
camp this summer.

The land, a 20-acre site near
Troy, Mo., was given to the Scout
troop by H. D. Robinson, in gra-
titude for "the treatment I re-
ceived from so many white peo-
ple, especially the Jews."

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A survey conducted by the
JWB committee on scouting re-
vealed that there are 476 Scouting
units e in 176 Jewish community
centers and YM-YWHA's which
reported. The survey disclosed
that there are 280 Boy Scout units
and 190 Girl Scout units.

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Tel Aviv Studies
Ties to Vatican

by Kuppenheimer

TEL AVIV—(WNS)—A deci-
sion to explore the possibility of
establishing diplomatic relations
between Israel and the Vatican
was reached here.

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Recent utterances concerning
treatment of Christian minorities,
holy shrines and religious insti-
tutions have created much mis-
(Continued on Page 7)
understanding between the Vati-
can and Israel. An exchange of
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