Friday, February 2, 1945
THE JEWISH NEWS
Page Four
As the Editor
Views the News -
`Stupid, Callous' Policy
Davar, Palestine's Hebrew daily news-
paper, describes the new British policy of
limiting Jewish immigration under the
White Paper to 1,500 a month as "stupid and
callous."
This is tantamount to a verdict that has
the endorsement not only of the Jewish peo-
ple—including even anti-Zionists--but also
the non-Jewish communities in derriocratic
countries.
The Davar rightly declares that the new
restriction "is not only inhuman and callous,
but it is also devoid of any political sense;
if it is intended to postpone the final sus-
pension of Jewish immigration under the
White Paper, it can do so only for a little
while because the day of suspension is draw-
ing near; on the other hand it creates a poli-
tical and psychological background for just-
ifying bars on Jewish emigration and for
limiting the possibilities of Jewish rescue
from Europe."
The fate of hundreds of thousands of
Jews who must be given an opportunity to
escape from the European inferno hangs in
the balance, and the British authorities will
be responsible for many lives if they adhere
to this "stupid and callous" program.
In her address to the Pioneer Women's
Organization of Detroit on Jan. 23, Mrs.
Walter C. Lowdermilk bluntly accused the
British Colonial Office of responsibility for
failure to rescue many Jewish victims of
Nazism who could have been saved if not
for the immigration restrictions in Palestine.
Mrs. Lowdermilk declared that the battle is
between the Jewish people and God on the
one hand and the Colonial Office on the
other.
The line-up is clearly defined. Colonial
Office stupidities must be exposed frankly
and consistently. It is a battle for the lives
of many thousands of Jews and it must not
end either in a draw or in a defeat for hu-
manitarian principles.
Halevy Anniversary.
Halevy Singing Society's 30th anniver-
sary concert to be held on Sunday evening
is of more than passing interest. It should
serve to draw the attention of the entire
community to the existence in our midst of
an important cultural group which, for 20
years, has made a worthy effort to encourage
interest on the part of Detroit Jews in
Jewish musical attainments. Halevy has
served the community well and deserves the
wholehearted commendations of all on the
_occasion of its anniversary.
`Conditional 'Surrender
If it is true, as Victor Riesel, New York
Post staff correspondent, reports from Phil-
adelphia, that a drive to force abandonment
of "unconditional surrender" for Germany
and for the withdrawal of American troops
from Europe is being conducted by a
"heavily financed" group of Christian Front-
ers and ex-Bund members, then we are in
danger of losing the peace.
The demands have been insistent and
consistent that only "unconditional surrend-
er" of the Nazi-Fascist forces should be the
dominating demand of the United Nations.
It is discouraging to learn that . elements
known as anti-Semitic and to whom is
ascribed wide circulation of anti-Semitic lit-
erature during the 1944 political campaign
should be gaining ground.
If we submit to "conditional surrender"
it will mean, in a sense, our own surrender
of our basic democratic principles.
THE JEWISH NEWS
Member of Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Independent
Jewish Press Service, Seven Arts Feature Syndicate,
Religious News Service, Palcor News Agency, Bressler
Cartoon. Service, Wide World Photo Service, Acme
Newsphoto Service.
Member American Association of English - Jewish
Newspapers and Michigan Press Association.
Published every Friday by The Jewish News Publish-
ing Co. 2114 Penobscot Bldg., Detroit 26, Mich. Telephone
RAndolph 7956. Subscription 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 the Jewish
Welfare Federation of Detroit, at 40 cents a club sub-
scription ner year.
Entered as second-class matter August 6, 1942, at the
Post -Office at Detroit, Michigan, under the Act of
March 3, 1879.
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
PHILIP SLOMOVITZ
MAURICE ARONSSON
ISIDORE SOBELOFF
FRED • M. BUTZEL
ABRAHAM SRERE
THEODORE LEVIN
HENRY
WINEMAN
MAURICE H. SCHWARTZ
PHILIP SLOMOVITZ, Editor
A. R. BRASCR. Advertising Counsel
VOL. 6—NO. 20
FEBRUARY 2, 1945
The . Weeks Scriptural Selections
This Sabbath, the twentieth day of Shevat, the
following Scriptural selections will be read in
our synagogues:
Pentateuchtgl portion—Ex. 18:1-20:26. -
Prophetical portion—Is. 6:1-7:6;9;5,6.
There'll Come A Day!
"I Hold As Innocent -
Their Blood"
By DR, NOAH E. ARONSTAM
(Based on Joel 4:21)
Dulcet and mellow as tinkling of harpstrings
A prophecy comes with a message of promise:
"The mountains shall yield the fruit of the pine,
The hillsides shall drip with milk and with honey;
Fresh water shall flow through the brooks of
Judea
And fountains shall drench the thirstying soil
And water the Valley of Shittim.
Ye denizens and dwellers on earth,
Hearken to Fate's proclamation:
Israel has blazoned his imprints once more,
And his deeds shall .acclaim him a nation.
But Edom shall turn a desolate waste
For the violence wrought to my nation,
For the shedding and spilling of innocent blood.
But Judah shall find a lasting abode
From now and forever
Through all generations.
I will hold their blood as innocent blood.
Thus speaketh the Lord of Creation."
So spoke the son of Pethuel of old,
The dreamer of dreams and visions.
Lo! the hillside is heavy with stalks of the vine
And the valley is green with the promise of
harvest,
Moist with the dew,
The dew of the night
And meandering brooks of Judea.
The dream will comes true,
If thou wilt it my people,
If thou wilt it with heart and with might and
with trust;
The dream will come true,
For our cause it is just! *
*
:
*
'Appreciation
The Tragedy of Warsaw
To Dr. Noah E. Aronstam
By DR. MOSES BENMOSCHE
Israel's tragedy, as symbolized by the destruction of the
Jewish. community of Warsaw is complete.
A Yiddish broadcast over the Lublin radio has revealed
that only a handful of Jews were found in Warsaw when the
city was taken by the Red Army.
The normal Jewish population of the city of 300,000 had
increased to 500,000 as a result of the transfer to the Warsaw
ghetto by the Nazis of many Jews from nearby cities. There
were only 10,000 survivors at the time of the heroic uprising,
and of these only 1,000 remained alive, it was revealed by
Warsaw Jews who live to tell the tale of horror.
Now, Warsaw belongs to the many,,cities without Jews.
This is the current tragedy of our people.
(Editor's Note: Dr. Moses Benmosche of 600 W. 11th
St.. New York City, well known former Detroit physician
and surgeon, who was also prominent here as a poet who
wrote under the pen name of Enoch Mebs, is the author,
of the following poetic tribute to his friend and confrere,
the physician and poet. Dr. Noah E. Aronstam. Dr. Ben-
mosche wrote this tribute to Dr. Aronstam after reading
his poems in The Jewish News).
You have thrilled me with your verse before,
You have twanged my heart-strings many a time.
Oft you've given of your wisdom's store,
In a message, either prose or rhyme,
Like the prophets, to convey a truth,
To upbraid us, or to point the way
Which human flesh, in its age and youth,
Must travel, through growth down to decay,
Until at last we're brought face to face
*
*
*
With realities' cold burning fire,
our spirit holds the only trace
For the few survivors there is a ray of light. Gen. Rola That
Of what is good in all our heart's desire.
Zymierski, Supreme Commander of Polish Troops and Min- And thus your pen wields power and truth and
ister of Defense of the Polish Provisional Government, whose
grace,
headquarters have been moved from Lublin to Warsaw, has While I, in friendship, all your words embrace.
made the statement upon entering the liberated city that his
"army of democracy" had vowed that "any manifestation of
racial hatred and anti-Semitism are inimical and alien to us,
and if, as a result of Hitlerite propaganda, anti-Semitism of
any kind still lingers, it will be most ruthlessly stamped out
by the Command."
Gen. Zymierski corroborated the well-known facts about
Jewish heroism when he declared:
"I avail myself of this opportunity to declare that Jew-
ish soldiers and officers are fighting with great bravery and
diSregard for personal safety. They are fighting courage-
ously, and very frequently heroically, for the freedom of Po-
land which was turned into a country of indescribable suf-
fering for the Jews by the German occupationists."
* * *
The JPS correspondent who entered Warsaw with the
army of liberation as the ruins were still smouldering des-
cribes the former great Jewish center as constituting a "vast
prairie," with grass covering its streets. He reports that
members of the Jewish CentraL,Committee who also enter-
ed Warsaw vowed to rebuild the city as a Jewish center
and to immortalize such heroes as Tosya Altman, Michael
Klepfisch, Tsivya Lubukin, the historian Itzhak Shiper, Sch-
achno Zagan, Joseph Levortovsky, Aronsky and others.
A Polish official told the correspondent:
"Our promises that Poland will be restored as a Jewish
center, that Warsaw will again be the home of Polish-Jewish
culture, are not empty words. On the ruins of the old Jewish
neighborhood new streets will rise where a creative Jewish
life will flourish once again. A mausoleum to commemorate
the fallen heroes of Warsaw, Jews and non-Jews, will be
constructed in the center of the city. The superhuman ef-
forts of the heroes of the ghetto haven't been in vain."
* * *
This is just what Jews pray for: that the sacrifices of a
people that has lost a third of -its world population shall not
have been in vain:
It is not only the reconstruction of devastated Jewish
property that must be assured.. There must be a guarantee
that homeless Jews will be provided for, that the unfortun-
ates will be given protection in new centers and that there
shall never again be a recurrence of conditions, from which
our people has suffered during the past two decades. There
Must be assurances that Palestine will be redeemed and that
Jews will be given a status of decency and honor in the world.
A Ford Statement on Tolerance
Newspaper advertisements frequently reveal important
national trends for which precedents are established by-the
nation's leaders and industrialists.
The Ford advertisement last w e ek contained such a
statement. It declared, speaking of "What Star Shall Guide
Our Country?", that "we can be tolerant of other races, other
ideas and beliefs, while we hold fast to our American ideals."
Corning from the Ford Motor Co., this is a significant
statement, and it could not have been timed better than to
be issued on the eve of national observance of Brotherhood
Week,
Children's Corner
Dear Boys and Girls:
Jews have made great contributions to man-
kind. But our greatest gift to the world is the
Bible.
The Talmud says of the Bible: "Turn it, and
turn it again, for everything is contained therein."
The great writer, Israel Zangwill, once said
about the Bible:
"From century to century, even unto this
day, through the fairest regions of civiliza-
tion, the Bible dominates existence. Its vis-
ion of life moulds states and societies. Its
Psalms are more popular in every country
than the poems of the nation's own poets
. . all other literature seems 'trifles light
as -Air'."
I just came across the following, which was
first published in 1689 in an old English Paris
Register, about the Ten Commandments, the basic
rules regarding human conduct , which are among
the most important contents of the Bible:
Have thou no other gods but Me;
Unto no image bow thy knee;
Take not the name of God in vain;
Do not thy Sabbath-day profane;
Honour, thy father and thy mother, too;
And see that thou no murder do;
From vile adultry keep thee clean;
And steal not, though thy state be. mean;
Bear no false witness, shun that blot;
What is thy neighbour's covet not.
The Bible is our great possession, and I hope
you will cherish the great book and study
all
it.
I wish you all a pleasant Sabbath.
UNCLE DANIEL
* * *
THE PROPHET
By AHAD HA-AM
The typical products of the Hebrew spirit 'are
not conquerors or inventors or artists , but pro-
phets—men whose special gift it is to see into
the heart of things, and to enunciate moral laws
based on the spiritual truths which are revealed
to their superior insight.
* * *
WHY THE TORAH WAS GIVEN IN A DESERT
The Midrash says that if GOd had revealed His
Law in an inhabited land, that country would
have been so proud that it would have exalted
itself over all the other lands on earth. There-
fore, the Divine Revelation took place in a desert.
He revealed His Law in a desert because the
sons of the Torah are as free as the sons of the
desert.
He revealed it in a desert which belongs to
all, to indicate- that His Torah is the possession
of all.
* * *
How many times are the Ten Commandments
—F. R.
listed in the Bible?
There are two listings of- the Ten Command-
ments—in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5—with
slight variations.