Thursday, September 8, 1949
DETROIT JEWISH CHRONICLE
Page Four
List Faults
of 'Loyalty'
Amendment
Detroit Jewish Chronicle
Published by the Jewish Chronicle Publishing Co., Inc.
WOodward 1-1040
2827 Barium Tower, Detroit 26, Michigan
SUBSCRIPTION:
$3.00 Per Year, Single Copies, 10c; Foreign, $5.00 Per Year
Entered as Second-class matter March 3, 1916, at the Post Office at
Detroit, Mich., under the Act of March 3, 1879.
WERE urged to
vote "No" on the so-called
loyalty amendment on Tuesday's
ballot by the Detroit chapter of
the Michigan Committee on Civil
Rights. Members of the commit-
tee include Rabbis B. Benedict
Glazer and Morris Adler.
The following are excerpts
from a statement to the press:
EMILY SOMLYO
Business Manager
SEYMOUR TILCIIIN
Publisher
Thursday, Sept. 8, 1949
D ETROITERS
(Ellul 14, 5709)
Detroit 26, Michigan
Post Recants, Blasts Council
The Indianapolis Post has apparently reversed itself on the
American Council for Judaism. It has all this time, because of a
perverted interpretation of "liberty of the press," been virtually
the only English-Jewish paper that gave any space to the Council
propaganda. It even recently promised one of the Council leaders
a monthly column to defend its philosophy.
On the basis of our collective
experience in successfully elim-
inating Communists from posi-
tions of leadership in the corn-
munity by exposure and vigorous
democratic action against them,
it is our considered judgment that
the amendment proposed will be
wholly ineffective to achieve its
avowed purpose—to make our
city government secure against
those persons who, voluntarily or
ohtrewise, serve as tools of to-
talitarian powers and who might
be in strategic positions to ef-
fect sabotage and espionage.
• • •
The Post, it seems, however, can no longer stomach the dis-
torted, fanatic viewpoints of the Council wherein the loyalty of
most American Jews was constantly being challenged by these
pitiably confused "100 percent Americans of Jewish descent."
Here are excerpts from a page one editorial in the "Post" dis-
custing an article in the Reader's Digest by Alfred Lilienthal of
the Washington council chapter:
•
•
•
A careful reading of Mr. Lilienthal's subtle but vicious article
indicates that his opposition is not limited only to the Zionist
program, which of course he twists to suit his own purpose by
quoting sentences out of context, meanwhile making use of
other obvious propaganda devices; his views, if carried to their
logical conclusion would require the dismantling of Jewish com-
munity centers, Jewish drganizations and Jewish clubs of all
kinds. This inevitably will be the end-product of the Council's
philosophy.
What does the Council he to achieve by going to the non-
Jewish public?
Does it hope to convince non-Jews that U. S. Zionists are
traitorous?
Does it hope to blackmail the Jews of the U.S., its lay and
Rabbinic leadership which almost without exception has de-
nounced the Council's activities as nefarious and despicable?
• • •
Perhaps so, but it probably is obvious by now to the Council
that it cannot sway the U. S. Jewish community from Zionism
t tie iota. That leaves only the conclusion that the Council has
become so bitter that it blindly seeks destruction not alone of it-
self but of the Jewish community of the U.S. as a whole.
Appeals to the conscience of the Council seem to be of no
a vaiL The council has lost all sense of restraint. It should and
must be called to account. A readership of around 50,000,000
persons, most of it in the United States, has been advised by
the Council through the Reader's Digest that U. S. Jews may
be disloyal to their country in their support of Israel.
Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver had no choice but to provide an
answer to the charges, and the answer is in the same issue, despite
his reluctance to being placed in the position of the man answer-
ing the ancient loaded question: Are you still beating your
wife?"
• •
•
This sort of debate over unproven but dangerous accusations
is not democracy at its best, despite claims to that effect by a
short list of Council members and fellow travellers who approved
the airing of the issue of dual loyalty and lauded the Reader's
D;gest for its presentation of "both sides."
The Council offers not one shred of evidence and has never
been able to prove that support of Zionism by U. S. Jews has
resulted in anything remotely resembling dual loyalties, even
using its own standards of what is and what is not permissible to
citizens in a democracy.
The Council only makes charges but it makes them not as
suspicions but as though they were demonstrated facts. The
Council tells American citizens that Zionists arc guilty of loyalty
to Israel beyond the bounds of their obligations as U. S. citizens,
and that only a public disavowal will remove them from the
"lass of bundists and other proven traitors.
• • •
It is time now for action against the Council. A democracy—
even the voluntary association by which U. S. Jews constitute
them.selver into organizations—has some forms of defense at its
command. The NCRAC should consult with other national Jew-
Hi organizations and the full weight of organized Jewish opin-
ion should be brought to bear on the Council itself and on Council
members individually.
The Council has no more right than has Gerald L. K. Smith to
;ihel the U. S. Jewish community.
Symbol of Survival
The story of the linking of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv by train
for the first time since Israel's existence could not have failed
to thrill those who have been following the rapidly moving
events in that part of the world.
The story of the besieged city, the perils its inhabitants
went through from the moment the first Arab gun was aimed
at Israel's heart and the heroism of the beleaguered men, wom-
en and children who stood the test with courage and faith—
these are now still-to-be written pages for history and material
for legend and folklore. The construction of the rails and the
roads linking Israel with its heart—Jerusalem—is the culmina-
tion of an effort that cannot be explained by physical courage
alone. Nor can there be any mistake about the symbolic and
political significance of the event.
Yet, to us it seems there was even greater drama when
the first train arrived. That it brought flour to the Holy City
was a welcome omen of course. But the greater omen lay in
the fact that it brought to the site of God's sanctuary some
70,000 books that escaped the fires of Hitlerdom. Book and
prayer shawl and phylactery have been our share and consola-
tion throughout our wanderings in the ages. The survival of
our books has been the story of our survival.
SOME
Late Dean Deplored
Ignorance on Bible
By the late GOV. WILBUR L. CROSS
(Editor's Note: The following statement by the late Gov.
Cross of Connecticut is a significant testiment by a non-Jew.)
HEN IN 1938 my Jewish friends of Connecticut established
a Yeshiva University scholarship in my name, I was some-
times seriously asked whether I were .of Jewish descent. My usual
reply was that my father Samuel
was the son of Eleazer and Han- discovered that the Puritan dis-
nah, and my mother was the ciplines were fast passing. Only a
daughter of Ephraim and Abigail, small minority of my students
while a short distance away lived could explain the Biblical allu-
my uncle Jesse who had a son sions in the great classics of
named David.
Shakespeare and Milton.
Not only did parents in the
I required them to provide
Puritan community bestow He- themselves with Bibles and to
brew names upon their children read such passages as were neces-
but they passed long winter eve- sary for an understanding of the
nings reading the Bible, stopping play, poem, or essay assigned for
now and then for a sip of cider their study. Not long afterwards,
or an apple or two to keep the I was appointed chairman of a
doctor away. My uncle Jesse read committee whose function was to
the Old Testament through every prescribe the English require-
winter for more than 40 years. So ments for admission to college
he said.
throughout the United States. I
My father and mother began to persuaded that committee to in-
tell their children Biblical stories clude in an elective list of books
before we learned to read them narrative parts of the Old Testa-
for ourselves. The clergy, too, ment.
liked to take for a text a passage
Something was accomplished,
which enabled them to depict the however, little it may be, for the
life of a great Biblical character. English Bible has remained in
In our homes were explained that list now for 35 years.
to us the commandments, not
Two ancient cultures, Matthew
merely the 10, but many others, Arnold wrote, divide "the em-
and we took it for granted that pire of the world between them."
1st should obey these command- They are the Greek and Hebrew.
ments and live the good and Throughout the dark Middle Ages
righteous life. However, much as your scholars, despite horrible
I may have since swerved from persecutions, kept alive your an-
the teachings of childhood, I feel cient culture and at the same
that I still retain some of the time became an important ave-
spiritual inheritance I once re- nue through which ancient Greek
ceived from the Torah indirectly literature and philosophy were
through -the Puritan way of life. transmitted to modern times.
• • •
• • •
W
IMPROVEMENT
WE GRANT THAT the present
language of the proposed amend.
ment represents an improvement
over the original draft submitted
to the Common Council.
However, judged on its own
merits rather than on the basis of
comparison with more question-
able procedures, it is our firm
conviction that the hasty, ill-ad-
vised action taken by our Com-
mon Council in an atmosphere
of hysteria whipped up particular.
ly by one of Detroit's daily news-
papers, leaves only one choice
open to non-Communist liberal
organizations—unqualified oppo-
sition to the loyalty amendment.
This stampede to tamper with
an important provision of our city
charter and substitute instead an
ordinance of questionable legality
and effectiveness, in our opinion,
constitutes an unbecoming disre-
gard for basic American rights
of all the citizens of our city.
• • •
BAD LITTLE STUDY
WE AFFIRM THE right and
the duty of a democratic society
to defend itself against all en-
croachers whether from the right
or the left.
We do not believe the exer-
cise of this obligation necessitates
making a conspicuous and dan-
gerous departure from the sound-
er course of calm deliberation on
a matter of such vital importance
which citizens of a democracy
have every right to expect of
their elected representatives.
In addition to the violation of
the basic concepts of justice and
freedom cherished by all Amer-
icans—which violation we believe
is inherent in this amendment,
its language is also questionable
on the following grounds:
Its text is so ambiguous that its
operation depends almost entire-
ly on the personalities of those
NOTES ZEAL TODAY
REQUIRED READING
who would serve on the loyalty
A LIKE ENERGY and earnest- commission it proposes to estab-
IN AFTER YEARS when I be-
gan teaching English literature ness are characteristics of your lish.
in school and college, I quickly
(Continued on Page 16)
• • •
National Office Is Checking
JWV Part in Peekskill Riot
TOO BROAD POWERS
WHILE PROVIDING the ac-
cused the right to confront his
accusers, it permits the loyalty
commission to exercise broad dis-
cretionary power as to when this
right may be denied the accused.
It sets up as criteria for de-
termining disloyalty—"meni her-
ship in an organization controlled
directly or indirectly by a foreign
power."
We arc concerned about pos-
sible misuse of this section. par-
ticularly since it well may multi-
ply the many injustices to which
unpopular nationality and re-
ligious groups are already sub-
ject in our society.
Another criteria listed is "mem-
bership or active association in an
organization which advocates the
overthrow of the American gov-
ernment by force or violence."
Fundamental to our whole system
of law is the belief that guilt as
NEW YORK — The n,, Tonal taken against JWV members in-
headquarters of the U. S. Jewish volved.
If Westchester County mem-
War Veterans said it was investi-
bers of the JWV had asked for
gating the extent to which West- permission to join in the demon-
chester County members of the stration against the contemplated
organization had been involved appearance of Paul Robeson in
in the recent violence at Peek- Peekskill, "that permission would
have been denied," Kaufman said.
skill, N. Y.
He continued:
Ben Kaufman, national execu-
"We disagree emphatically with
tive director, in a statement issued Paul Robeson's personal political
on behalf of the JWV's national views.
commander, Myer Dorfman, said
"But we believe with equal con-
JWV policy forbids picketing and viction that the violence and rac-
similar public demonstrations by ial and religious abuses mani-
its members without the sanction fested at the Peekskill demonstra-
of the organization's national tion are far more destructive of
executive committee.
American democracy than any
He added that if investigation song Robeson might have sung,
shows this policy has been vio- or any speech he might have a personal matter, rather
lated, disciplinary action will be made."
matter of association.
than a