American Yewisk Periodical Page 24 Friday, April 20, 1951 DETROIT JEWISH CHRONICLE STUDENT RECITAL A student recital at 4 p.m. Triday, April 20, at the Jewish Community Center will feature Avren Foreman, Carl Frieden- berg, Reva Kowalsky, Joan Ma- chin, Estelle Pappas and Phyllis By RABBI LEON FRAM Pullberg. They are pupils of Congregation Temple Israel Julius Chajes, director of music at the Center. MOST OBSERVERS of Jewish life in America will say that it is over-organized. They refer to the plethora of societies, socill, fraternal and charitable, whose notices fill the pages of the Anglo- The Chronicle deadline is on Jewish press. Tuesday noon. It may be said, however; that danger, every little club aspired the more organization we have, to be the spokesman for Jewry. the less are we organized. It Any number of little societies PASSOVER GREETI NGS is only central and overall con- were convinced that there must trol that give a community be immediate action and that To All Our Friends mastery of its destiny. they knew exactly what action to take. Many tragic mistakes When Detroit Jewry faced the were made before community peril of Nazi propaganda in the responsibility was finally estab- years preceding the second lished. World War, we were all shocked DELICATESSEN into the realization that the The Jewish Welfare Feder- community lacked an organiza- ation sponsored the interfaith 13118 DEXTER tion to speak for it and to plan body called the League for BEN EPSTEIN for its defense. Human Rights, over which the writer was asked to pre- The multifarious socie t ies GEORGE FINK side. This form of organiza- which proliferated themselves tion proved successful in the in the city aggravated the prob- specific area of the boycott of Nazi goods. However, when the war broke GREETINGS .. . PASSOVER out in 1939, it became obvious that Jewish civil defense could GREL4I'INGS no longer center on the boycott approach. The League was hon- RABBI FRAM orably discharged, and the Jew- • • • ish Community Council took AL POLLAK lem. Despite the evidence they over the civic-protective func- offered that Jews joined plenty tion. • • • Wholesale Fruits of organizations, they demon- 2420 Grand River THE WRITER WAS then strated after all that the Jews 7201 WEST FORT STREET of Detroit were not adequately drafted to chair the Community WO. 3-0895 Relations Committee of the VI. 1-7982 organized. In the face of the common Council. It is out of his own personal experience, then, that the writer narrates its organ- izations into a responsible, cen- tral body that could speak and act for the community as a whole. It is one thing to have brought a central democratic or- ganizations into being. It is an- other thing to have its authority generally acknowledged. It is one thing for a community to accept the discipline of a cen- tral authority in the field of self-defense. It is quite another thing to acknowledge its jurisdictions in other fields such as internal conflicts within the community or the programming and co- ordination of Jewish activities. It is such a slow, treadmill Common Goals and Needs Mahe Unification Essential Ben & George POLLAK PRINTING CO. ROSENGARD & CO. PASSOVER GREETINGS Holiday Greetings Friedberg Jewelry process to win community rec- ognition and cooperation that communal leaders are apt to despair and to wish that by some miracle a "Kehillah," a fully centralized authoritative community organization might come into being. Or they may indulge the comforting vision that a perfect Kehillah lies at the end of the difficult road they are traveling. It can easily be forgotten that in those European countries where such an authoritative Ke- hillah has appeared in the his- torical past, it came as the re- sult of a delegation of powers from the government. Among the powers thus granted the Jewish community had the pow- er of taxation. A Jewish com- munity organization which op- erates with the force of the law of the land and possesses the sure source of funds af- forded by the power to tax— that was the Kehillah in Europe. • • • IS THIS FORM of Jewish or- ganization realizable in the cities of America? Is it desirable even if it can be achieved? In the United States a re- ligious or cultural community with the power to tax is prob- ably unconstitutional. It would certainly be fought in the courts and resisted so strenuously as to render it ineffective even though legal. American Jews are committed to the voluntary processes of de- mocracy and to the separation of church and state. We are, therefore, left with this paradox. One, the Jewish community in America needs an effective central organization. Two, the Jewish community in America cannot have any legally binding organization with the power to tax. Such a paradox need not lead to frustration. The voluntary way of self-control is harder to achieve than the authoritative control imposed from without. Once, however, the voluntary way is attained, it is morally more satisfying and ultimately more effective. Patiently, step by step, we must educate the members of the community to a sense of their common needs, and to the need of self-discipline for the realization of common goals. Step by step the vol- untary democratic centrol or- ganizations must vindicate its usefulness, impress Itself upon the imagination of the people, and assume an indispensable moral force. It is a long hard way, but for the Jews of America it is the only way. 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