Page Four
THE JEWISH NEWS
For God and Country
THE JEWISH NEWS
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, $4 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, at 50 cents a club subscription per year.
Entered as second-class matter August 6, 1942, at the Post
Office at Detroit, Michigan, under the Act of March 3, 1879.
By RABBI HERSCHEL LYMON
Director of Education of Temple
Beth El
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
PHILIP SLOMOVITZ
MAURICE ARONSSON
ISIDORE SOBELOFF
FRED M. BUTZEL
ABRAHAM SRERE
THEODORE LEVIN
HENRY WINEMAN
MAURICE H. SCHWARTZ
PHILIP SLOMOVITZ, Editor
MARCH 12, 1943
This Week's Scriptural Portions:
This Sabbath, the sixth day of Adar Sheni, the following
Scriptural selections will be read in our Synagogues: Penta-
teuchal portion, Ex. 38:21-40:38; Prophetical portion, I Kings
7:51-8:21. On the Fast of Esther, next Thursday, the fol-
lowing selections will be read: Pentateuchal portion, Ex.
32:11-14; 34:1-10; Prophetical portion, Is. 55:6-56:8. On
the Feast of Purim, Sunday, March 21, Ex. 17-8-16 will be
read during morning services in our Synagogues .
As the Editor
Views the News -
MI
NM
MI
The Late Sam -Osnos
It is no exaggeration to state that the business achieve-
ment of the late Sam Osnos was one of the most amazing
of our generation.
But the phenomenal success of the Osnos family is
secondary to the place father and sons earned in the life
of the community. Within a few years, the name Osnos
assumed importance in relief and social service activities.
Mr. and Mrs. Sam Osnos and their sons shared alike
in the satisfaction that comes from rendering service to
their fellow-men.
The fact that the sons, Max and Herman Osnos, are
following in the footsteps of their successful father is of
great importance in evaluating the respect in which the
Osnos name is held in Detroit and Michigan.
Jews and Nazi Labor Camps
One of Detroit's daily newspapers unfortunately per-
mitted a very misleading headline to appear over an AP
story last week. The headline read "Nazis Force Jews to
Work," and the subhead was "Cultural Pursuits Are Elim-
inated."
The impression given in these two headlines is that Jews
lean towards "cultural pursuits," but the Nazis get them to
go to work. While the story quoted a broadcast from Berlin
to the effect that the Nazi commissioner for occupied Hol-
land, Arthur Seyss-Inquart, had placed half of the Nether-
land Jews in "work camps," there is no explanation of the
meaning of such camps.
What the Detroit newspaper should have explained is
that these camps are the "forced labor camps" which imply
slavery and expulsion to which is being fought all- over
Europe—in Poland, Holland, Norway, Belgium, Denmark
and France. The fight in the world today is against this type
of "forced labor," but the newspaper headline we quote fails
to present the true picture.
The AP story to which we refer quoter Seyss-Inquart
as saying that Jews had been eliminated from cultural pur-
suits' and were gradually being forced out of the country's
business life. This, as is generally known, is Nazi policy
in all occupied countries against their entire populations,
and forced labor is the fate of all able bodied men and wo-
men. If the fight we are engaged in today against Nazism
is serious business, as it should be, then our newspapers
should be more careful in the preparation of headlines for
news stories.
Goebbels gloats over such headlines.
Higher Bar Mitzvah Standards
Bar Mitzvah, which hitherto represented well rehearsed
reciting of the Maftir, family parties and the ingathering
of a harvest of gifts, soon may be raised to a higher level
of introducing our 13-year-old boys to the tenets of Jewish
observance, providing the standards proposed by Congrega-
tion Shaarey Zedek are adhered to.
The new demands for Bar Mitzvahs, adopted by the
Shaarey Zedek, are incorporated in a statement which will
be found on the congregational page of this issue of The
Jewish News. It includes a commendable outline of require-
ments which should serve the purpose of stimulating greater
knowledge of Jewish traditional observances as well as a
deeper respect for Jewish law and traditions.
This proposed departure from previous Bar Mitzvah
practices deserves to be followed by other congregations as
an effective means not merely of training a better informed
and more faithful Jewish youth, but also as an influence upon
the parents and the Jewish home.
Congregation. Shaarey Zedek deserves highest commen-
dation for introducing the new standards for Bar Mitzvahs.
The Weekly
Sermonette
Jewish Leadership
MAURICE H. SCHWARTZ and PHILIP SLOMOVITZ, Publishers
VOL. 2—NO. 21
Friday, Mardi 12, 1943
The Lights Slowly Go On Again
The lights are slowly being turned on again in those
parts of the world where men and women still acclaim civili-
zation as a human asset.
From Washington has come forth the call to the British
government to cooperate with our government in taking
steps to European Jewry from the Nazi threat of extermina-
tion; and the British government has accepted the proposal
of the United States to hold a two-power discussion of the
refugee problem, probably in Ottawa.
Other good news comes from Africa, where General
Henri Giraud has finally annulled the Vichy anti-Semitic
laws.
It is clear that the mass demonstrations staged in New
York and Detroit and dozens of other communities in this
country, as well as the protests in England, Palestine and
Canada, have borne fruit. The civilized world can no longer
remain silent when the collective voice of spokesmen for
Christians and Jews is heard in condemnation of an attempt
by a nation ruled by assassins to destroy an entire people.
That which has been accomplished in the past week is
only the beginning in an eff9rt to achieve victory against
Nazi barbarians on the humanitatian front.
This is a war that must be fought not only on the battle-
field, to assure military successes, but also on the humanit-
arian front, to guarantee the perpetuation of those human
values which are the very roots of objectives of a world con-
flict to assure freedom for all
The battle on the home front to assure victory on the
humanitarian front must be carried on with vigor and de-
termination. If the millions of Jews who have been condemn-
ed to death by the Nazis can not be saved, then we will have
lost an important round in our conflict with the barbarians.
The cry for justice must not be silenced, if the world is
never again to be plunged into darkness and turned into a
jungle.
What we must guard against is the experience of the
Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees at Evian. Prev-
ious efforts were masked by expressions of sympathy and a
refusal to act. Unless there is action NOW, the new program
of relief inevitably will fail. The democratic nations are
being put to the test.
The Soviet Executions
Soviet Ambassador Maxim Litvinov has issued a state-
ment asserting that the Jewish labor leaders, Henryk Erlich
and Victor Alter, were "convicted as spies and subversive
agents."
The burden of proof is with Soviet Russia. It is incon-
ceivable that Jews, especially men of the stature of Erlich
and Alter, could have been responsible for comfort to the
Nazi enemy.
Although they were anti-Zionists, even the extremist
Zionists, including the Hebrew labor daily Davar of Jerusa-
lem, have joined in condemning Soviet action.
The execution of these two Jewish leaders comes as
a shock to all who are concerned that nothing should be
done to undermine the friendship of all democratic peoples
for Soviet Russia.
The Mufti in Berlin
A recent issue of the Detroit News carried an Associated
Press photograph showing Haj Amin Effendi al Husseini,
the exiled Jerusalem Grand Mufti, in Berlin, chatting with
Arabs who are serving with the Nazi army.
The photograph tells a revealing story. It exposes the
position of the Arabs in their relation to the United Nations
and serves to warn the Allies that not all Arabs have joined
the ranks of the democracies now that victory over the
Axis is certain.
In spite of it, however, the policy of appeasement con-
tinues in North Africa and in Palestine, with Jews remain-
ing in an unfavorable and prejudiced position.
It is high time that the democratic powers recognized
that Jewish loyalties are unquestioned and that the horrible
plight of our people demands the abandonment of a policy
which does not assure the devotion of the Arabs to the
Allied cause, and which fails to put an end to Jewish suffer-
ings in territories now held by the United Nations.
It is a tragic fact that 10 years
after Hitler's rise to power the
Jews of America are not yet
fully united in an anti-fascist
effort. Ten years after Hitler
commenced his drive to exterm-
inate the Jewish people inter-
nationally, we in America have
not yet established active bonds
of anti - fascist
collaboration
a n d solidarity
with our fellow
Jews through-
out the world.
American Jew-
ry is disunited.
Jewish leader-
ship itself is
disunited. Sadly
enough, the in-
stinct for self- Rabbi Lymon
preservation has
not formed a conscious, deeply-
felt cohesion.
Political feuds, sectarian dif-
ferences, denominational disputes
must be brushed aside.
One Consideration
Only one consideration should
have any importance and relev-
ance: how to insure the survival
—yes, the actual physical exist-
ence—of the Jewish people. Sur-
vival or extinction—that is how
history poses the question; it is
as simple as that.
To become involved in tang-
ential questions without facing
squarely this all-important con-
sideration upon which our very
lives are at stake, is to show a
crass disregard for the tremend-
ous times in which we are liv-
ing. It is to show a puerile ina-
bility to grasp the historical im-
peratives of our day.
Lack of Sympathy
It is to show—if reason has
passed into temporary obsoles-
ence— a gross lack of sympathy
and feeling for Israel whose
heart is once more torn out on
the rack and garotte. Rol dental
achihah zoakim—the voice of
thy brother's blood cries out—
and that is the only voice that
I can hearken to!
The one truth looms promin-
ently: that we shall be com-
pletely and decisively destroyed,
body and soul, if facism itself is
not quickly destroyed. If Hitler-
ism wins, we shall not have the
opportunity of indulging in the
luxury of sectarian differences
or polemics.
All our energies must be
whole, free-will offerings to the
cause of the United Nations;
they must not be diverted by
tangential disputes; they must
not be sapped or diluted by in-
ternecine strife; they must not be
adulterated by side issues!
God knows, a strong, proud
integrated, unified Jewish people
is the best contribution we can
make to the cause of destroy-
ing fascism.
One More Factor
And finally one more factor
should knit our people together.
It is the longing and aspiration
for a better world—a world in
which men do not have to go to
war every 20 to 25 years to kill
or to be killed.
Jews are fighting and dying,
shoulder to shoulder with other
freedom loving peoples, no mat-
ter their political persuasions or
their sectarian beliefs, to make
the world safe, to establish the
conditions whereby the pursuit
of decency and justice and
equality can once more be re-
sumed.
A United People
The great coalition of powers
known as the United Nations
can produce a still greater phe-
nomenon in our personal history:
a United People!
In glorying in our- heritage
and in our ancestry we are not
displaying chauvinism: rather
are we asserting ourselves; bet-
ter still we are declaring to the
forces of reaction that we shall
conquer—and not be defeated;
that we shall rise—and not fall;
that, God willing, we shall live
and not die.
—