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THE JEWISH NEWS

THE JEWISH NEWS

What the

Stars Foretell

Member of Independent Jewish Press Service, Jewish Tele-
graphic Agency, Seven Arts Feature Syndicate, Religious News
Service, Palcor News Agency, Bressler Cartoon Service, Wide World
Photo Service.
Published every Friday by Jewish News Publishing Co., 2114
Penobscot Bldg., Detroit, Mich. Telephone, RAndolph '7956. Sub-
scription rate, $3 a year; foreign, 84 a year. Club subscription of one
issue a month, published every fourth Friday in the month, to all
subscribers to Allied Jewish Campaign of Jewish Welfare Federa-
tion of Detroit, in accordance with 1942 Allied Jewish Campaign
pledges, at 50 cents a club subscription per year.
Application for Second Class matter pending at Detroit, Mich.

By RABBI MEIR LEVI
Executive Director, Michigan
Synagogue Conference

"Not by might, nor by power but
by My spirit says the "L-d of
Hosts." (Zechariah 4,6.)

BOARD OF DIRECTORS
MAURICE ARONSSON
PHILIP SLOMOVITZ
FRED M. BUTZEL
ISIDORE SOBELOFF
THEODORE LEVIN
ABRAHAM SRERE
MAURICE H. SCHWARTZ
HENRY WINEMAN

PHILIP SLOMOVITZ, Editor

DECEMBER 11, 1942

This Week's Scriptural Portions:

On the Sabbath of this week, the fourth day of Tebet,
the following Scriptural selections will be read in our syna-
gogues: Pentateuchal portion, . Gen. 41:1-44:17; Prophetical
portion, I Kings 3:15 —4:1.

Jews in the Armed Forces

The Jewish News is pleased to be able to publish
in this issue the names of approximately 2,500 Detroit
Jewish men and women serving in the armed forces of
the United States.
Our readers will undoubtedly be interested to learn
that the compilation of this partial list was made possible
through a careful check-up of the men and women who
had contributed to the Allied Jewish Campaign of the
Jewish Welfare Federation of Detroit.
Americans of all faiths are now engaged in the
supreme task of assuring victory for the democratic prin-
ciples of justice and 'decency for all mankind. Our people
are playing an important role in the war effort, and
the partial list of men and women who are serving in
the Army, the Navy, the Marines and Air Forces, appear-
ing in this issue, is striking proof of the effectiveness of
the American way of mobilizing a force to fight for a
righteous cause.
The Hanukah festival, which concludes tonight, fit-
tingly reminds us that there is need for courage and
faith in battling for justice. The struggle today is not
unlike that of the Maccabees. It is a fight for the eradi-
cation of pagan ideas of destruction and indecency and
for the protection of the rights of men.
May our valorous men who are serving our country
be given strength and courage in the battle which has
engulfed the entire world, and may we soon see the
end of the spirit of destruction which inspired this war.

The Path to a Friendlier World

Sponsors -of the movement to advance good will
among all faiths will be encouraged in their future efforts
by the survey of_ Jewish textbooks, conducted by the
Synagogue Council of- America, for the purpose of elim-
inating passages "unfriendly to other religious denom-
inations."

Dr. Israel Goldstein, president of the Council, re-
ports that in 450 textbooks no more - than 44 passages
were found which were considered objectionable and
were therefore eliminated. In addition, only 23 items
required modification or annotation.
The result of the survey is most encouraging. Rabbi
Leo Jung of New York, chairman of the committee which
conducted the survey, was justified in stating that "it
must be a source of profound satisfaction to all Jews
aware of the sublimity of our traditional teaching to
know that also in practice these ideals are adhered to."
Other religious denominations have conducted simi-
lar projects in order to raise religious teachings to higher
levels. It is to be hoped that ALL faiths will follow this
practice, especially with regard to the Crucifixion story
which has been responsible for so much misery for the
Jewish people, and will make it the aim of their churches
to strive for complete elimination of all prejudiced in
the teaching of the tenets of their beliefs.

Jews in American Wars

This is a most appropriate time for the publishing
of the record of Jews who have participated in the wars
of our country.
The Jewish War Veterans of the United States have
rendered a genuine service by issuing the informative
pamphlet, "Jews in American Wars," written by J.
George Fredman and Louis A. Falk.
We learn from this pamphlet that Asser Levy, in 1654,
became the first American Jewish soldier; that a Jew,
Benjamin Nones, carried the wounded General Lafayette
from the battlefield; that in the last war the Jews in the
service included two generals and one admiral and that
there are already in the present American armed forces
five generals and one admiral.
The preface to the Fredman-Falk brochure states
justifiably that it is a patrotic duty to re-tell these facts
"because the facts of American history are the best an-
swer to libels which endanger the unity of our nation."
Since ther is no end to libels, there should be no end to in-
formative material disproving untruths.

The Weekly
Sermonette

Can Physical Weapons
Alone Win a War?

MAURICE H. SCHWARTZ and PHILIP SLOMOVITZ, Publishers

VOL. 2—NO. 8

Friday, December 11, 1942

Maurice Aronsson at 50

Maurice Aronsson is 50 years old today.
This is news of more than passing interest.
Maurice Aronsson has reached great heights in corn-
munity leadership on the strength of his meritorious ser-
vices during the last 25 years. Possessing deep-rooted
devotion to the worthy causes of his community and of
the Jewish people, he has earned the respect and admir-
ation of his fellow men, and his contributions to the wel-
fare of his people rank among the most liberal on record.
It is typical of Mr. Aronsson that he should have
chosen to entertain 500 servicemen, at dinner and theater,
on the occasion of his birthday, rather than to encourage
private parties. That is symbolic of his thinking along
lines of love for his fellow men.
We congratulate Mr. Aronsson on his birthday, with
the wish that he may be blessed with many more years
of good health and happiness.

The Apex of Our Tragedy

Nearly a third of the Jewish population of Poland—
a million persons—has perished during the three years of
Nazi rule of the country.
This is the tragic report of Dr. Ignacz Schwarzbard,
member of the Polish National Council in London.
To this report is added the information released by
Dr. Stephen S. Wise, in behalf of the American Jewish
Committee, American Jewish Congress, Bnai Brith, Syna-
gogue Council of America, Agudath Harabonim and
World Jewish Congress, that half of the 4,000,000 Jews
in Nazi-occupied Europe have been slain.
This is the apex of our people's tragedy. We had
learned to believe that the heaviest catalogue of cruelties
imposed upon the Jews was recorded in the past, during
the Inquisition, the days of Chmielnicki, the Crusades and
the Russian pogroms of the last century.
But it was evidently left to the Nazis to surpass the
brutalities of all times.
Nearly a hundred years ago, the great German-Jew-
ish scholar Leopold Zuns, writing in his essay "Leiden der
Juden," declared : "If there be an ascending scale of suf-
ferings, Israel reached its highest degree."
This scale of sufferings now reaches the high heav-
ens, and the voice of mankind cries for a halt and for
retribution.
We take heart in the news that Jewish heroism
matches Jewish sufferings on all fronts, and we derive
courage from the hope that the certain collapse of the
Nazi terror will call a halt, for all time to come, to the
terrifying brutalities inspired by Germany.
In the meantime, the tragic news of wholesale murd-
ers of Jews, which have moved our people to declare days
of mourning, prayer and fasting, cry out to our allies in
the present world struggle to strive for victory for human
decency, in order that the crimes of Nazism may never
again be repeated. Our prayers add to the challenge
that goes forth to civilization to uproot the madnesses
and perversions among all peoples, in order that the peace
we are fighting for may never again be blemished with
the bloodshed of millions of innocent victims of tyranny.

Albert

Kahn

The death of Albert Kahn casts a shadow of gloom
over the entire American industrial field.
Mr. Kahn's name will live forever in the history
of engineering and architecture, to which he had made
very great contributions. He was the designer of many
of the outsanding manufacturing plants, industrial and
community centers in the world, and under his guidance
staffs of able engineers helped create the powerful Soviet
industrial structure which is today an important factor
in the defense of democratic ideals in the world.
His memory is deservedly being honored by the en-
tire nation.

Is it true that this war can
only be won on the battlefields,
that we must meet military
strength with superior force of
our own, that steel is to be bent
and broken only by steel?
That may be true in a military
sense. But we too often forget
the important part of imponder-
ables, of little incidents which
so often have changed the des-
tinies of continents and peoples.
The battle of Waterloo, ac-
cording to historians, was lost
because Napoleon overslept on
the morning of the battle.
(Sternstunden der Menschheit
by Stefan Zweig).
In this most technical of all
wars, when planes rule the air,
battleships the seas, we are as
dependent on natural forces as
we were years ago. On the Rus-
sian front "General Winter" is
expected to help or destroy stra-
tegic plans. Bombing expeditions
are hampered because of bad
weather. "All depended on the
weather"—we read in a first
hand report from the African
front—"We could have the same
fate as the Spanish Armada,
which was destroyed by storms".
The key to nature, hidden in
G-d's own hand, had opened the
gate - for this far-reaching mili-
tary campaign of the United Na-
tions.
Two. Rabbis relate that Jacob
was desperate when he faced
the mighty descendants of Esau.
They compare him to a black-
smith watching flax-laden cam-
els pass his shop. He marvels
at the immense wealth, but a
smart passerby reminds him that
one spark from his anvil could
turn all the wealth into smoke.
Mountains can be moved,
bridges and tunnels destroyed
by a few grams of high ex-
plosives carried in the vest
pocket of a saboteur.
What holds true in physical
nature holds equally true in the
relationship of man. This war
against brutal force has proved
beyopd doubt that spiritual wea-
pons are of as much importance
as those of a physical nature.
Leningrad, Moscow and Stalin-
grad have shown that the morale
of a people is still stronger than
tanks and bombs.
The words of the prophet "Not
by might, nor by power, but by
My spirit says - the L-d of Hosts,"
were inscribed on the banner of
the Hasmonaim, those gallant
liberators of Israel from the Syr-
ian yoke. They will again come
true also in our time.

Harofe Haivri's
15th Anniversary

The Hebrew Medical Journal,
which is dedicated to the ad-
vancement of Hebrew Medical
literature, is now entering its
15th year of successful publica-
tion under the editorship of Dr.
Moses Einharn of New York.
War, the Brea L tragedy which
is today depriving humanity of
much that it valued and cherish-
ed, has curtailed the publication
of Hebrew literature in Palestine
and in the Diaspora, so that
HAROFE HAIVRI is the one
Hebrew medical journal to re-
main in existence. The history
of the journal is one of continual
growth and expansion, and with
the ever increasing responsibili-
ties and requirements which are
made upon it, the editors believe
that Harofe Haivri will continue
to grow and to record material
of permanent interest to medical
men everywhere.
Those who desire information

of any sort, or who wish to sub-
Scribe, should communicate with
The Hebrew Medical Journal,
983 Park Ave., New . York City.

