Page Two
Purely
Commentary
THE JEWISH NEWS
Quotation of the Week
"The American stand toward religion in general and toward specific
religions applies equally to the various racial stocks which go to make up
the American people.
"We must realize that no single faith can lay claim to monopolistic
possession of religious truth.
"We must become conscious of the fact that even with victory over the
Nazis we shall still be facing common dangers which threaten the welfare it
not .the very existence of the human race. Life is shot through with tragedies,
disappointments and frustrations. Man, irrespective of religious, racial and
political differences, finds himself in the same boat. At times it seems very
frail and insecure, and the sea on which it is embarked so turbulent and
the winds so angry and the night so dark that we must huddle together for
mutual encouragement and solace. It is together we can find courage, can
share our hope. Together we have strength. Together we can use that strength
and hope and our intelligence to overcome our common perils."
—DR. BERNARD HELLER, Former- Director of the
Bnai Brith Hillel Foundation at the 'University of
Michigan, in article "The Comradeship of Faiths"
in the Spring 1945 Issue of Common Ground.
.
By PHILIP SLOMOVITZ
FREEDOM FROM FEAR
Passover calls for self-examination, for
a review of our position as Jews and as
Americans, for a re-evaluation of the
issues evolving from the need for assuring
freedom to all peoples.
When the entire world becomes free
and untrammeled by prejudices, Jews
also will be free.
But since that day is far off—human
nature being what it is—it remains
necessary for Jews to face realities.
. The battle for justice goes on, but it
can not be won unless the fight is con-
ducted without fear.
We may as well admit it—that the
events of the past few years have fright-
ened many Jews.
This is the worst that can happen to
us—and to avoid it, our chief concern
on Passover should be to free ourselves
of fear.
SPLITTING OUR RANKS
Anti-Semitism is responsible not only
for the physical and mental anguish of
Jews who are caused to suffer from dis-
crimination: it renders us additional harm
by splitting our ranks, by dividing Jews
into contending factions, by destroying
our unity.
The major reason for the splitting of
our ranks is the fear of "mah yomru
ha-goyim"—what will our neighbors say?
In reality, all we need to fear, in our
President's words, is fear itself. Our
neighbors prefer frank discussion and a
firm approach to the issue. Firmness
brings results—but . we need to be shown
a frightened man who can be firm. .
THE HEALTHY APPROACH
The battle against anti-Semitism is a
very minor issue when you - compare it
with the great responsibility that faces us
to retain our self-respect and to strength:-
en our courage in a fight for existence
as a group that is determined to retain
its peoplehood and its cultural status in
the world. We can win the battle for jus-
tice if we are courageous. We can lose
it if we are fearful.
Passover is the proper time to review
our major • responsibilities and to realize
that one can not fight for just rights
without eliminating fright.
Jews must realize that mere lip serv-
ice is not enough; that feasting on past
glory is insufficient; that impractical ob-
servance of Passover without applying its
courageous lessons to our own needs is
unworthy of a great people.
May the Passover of 5705 stir us from
our lethargy and cause us to recognize
the great responsibilities of the hour.
THE CURRENT RESPONSIBILITY
What are the current Jewish responsi-
" bilities?
Clearly, they demand that we, should
abandon internecine strife, that we
should restore unity in our ranks
wherever that is possible.
In " Zionism and in fund-raising, na-
tionally and in our individual communi-
ties, we must demand that there should
be common' action on all our issues,
lest the division in our ranks should hurt
our cause internally and whenever the
councils of the nations of the world
discuss the future position of Israel.
.$800 000 for Zion
School Luncheons
JERUSALEM (JPS-Palcor)—The sum
. of $800,000 has been spent by the Hadas-
sah Medical Organizaticin, and the Vaad
Leumi .(Jewish Palestine's National
Council) for providing free meals .and
meals at a reduced rate to 27,500 school
children. • •
The project encompassed 390 schools
and kindergartens. The staff consisted
of 69 cookery teachers in. 80 'schools, 118
kitchen assistants, and 99 cooks and as-
sistants in other than school premises.
In addition the fund provided for 7,300
children at 35 summer resorts last year.
They had three meals .daily. Another 3,-
400 children outside the school scheme
received .-one meal=.- daily in Jerusalem,
Haifa and TiberiaS. Thes-e children at-.
tended. Talmud Torah - classes during the
summer holidays and it was necessary
to provide for their nutrition.
The childrenprepare their own meals
under • the- teachers' supervision, and
some schools also give culinary lessons
as a result of which 11,817 children
learned the art of cooking, last year.
The 1944 budget ,of $800,000 compared
with $560,000 the preceding year. Higher
cost of food and a larger number of chil-
dren accounted for the increase. Hadas-
sah provided 16.2% of the cost, the Vaad
Leumi (with government grants) another
24.2%, Yishuv contributions, women's
organizations, and children's payments
.Ar2Y.141-tcl
,
Between
You and Me
Strictly
Confidential
By BORIS SMOLAR
By PHINEAS J. BIRON
(Copyright, 1945, Jewish Telegraphic
Agency, Inc.)
RANSOM NOTES
Now, that nearly all of Budapest has
been taken by the Russian Army, and
the days of the pro-Nazi Hungarian re-
gime are numbered, it can be revealed
that the Gestapo asked for ransom prior
to starting the mass-extermination of
more than 500,000 Jews in Hungary .. .
The ransom conditions were delivered to
Cairo by Joel Brand, a leader of the
Budapest Jewish community, who was
sent by the Gestapo from Hungary to
contact Jewish organizations and Allied
diplomats . . . The message brought by
Mr. Brand, 'said that the Gestapo would
be willing to discontinue the deportations
and annihilation of Jews in all part§ of
Hungary for 2,000,000 cakes of soap, 800
tons of coffee, 800 tons of cocoa, 200
tons of tea and 10,000 trucks . . . A num-
ber of Jews would also be permitted to
leave for Palestine and an unlimited
number of Jews would be allowed to
proceed from Hungary :to Spain, the
Gestapo offer added . . . The offer was
transmitted from Cairo to Washington
and to London, but, naturally could not
be accepted since it would have meant
providing the enemy with aid• . . The
question was whether Mr. Brand shoiild
be detained' in Cairo and not permitted
to return to Budapest . . But the State
Department declared that it had no ob-
jection to permitting the Hungarian Jew-
ish leader - to return to Hungary . . .
Upon Brand's return to Budapest empty-
handed, the Gestapo intensified its. mass-
extermination of Jews, deporting and an-
nihilating about 500,000 Jews in practic-
ally six. Months' time.
The speed with which the Jews of
Hungary were destroyed exceeds even
the pace at which the Jews in Nazi-held
Poland were wiped out . • . Only about
2,000 Jews succeeded in escaping from
Hungary during these six months of -un-
precedented terror . . . At present, only
about 10 per cent of the 600,000 Jews
who lived in Hungary a year ago are
still alive . . . The Russian Red Cross
notified Jewish groups that there are
20,000 Hungarian Jews in Russia . . .
They were taken prisoner shortly after
Hungary. joined Hitler's invasion of Rus-
sia, when Jews were sent to the front
as slave laborers.
*
*
RESCUE SIDELIGHTS
The possibility of settling 25,000 Jews
from the Balkan countries in the Belgian
Congo is now being discussed with the
Belgian Government.
National Refugee Service is forming,
a Committee for.' the Study of Recent Im-
migration -from Europe' to the United
States . . . The aim of this study is to
determine the degree of economic and
social adjustment which newcomers to
these shores have, made and, to ascertain
the extent of contributions they have
made to the cultural and economic life of
the country . . . The study is being con-
ducted on a completely non-sectarian
basis and will include a survey of
Christian 'as well as. Jewish • refugees.
Although the Palestine Government
recently announced that • U. S. citizens
whose accounts in Palestine banks have
been blocked can now transfer their
accounts to banks in America, the
Palestine authorities are still refusing
to release . these "blocked accounts" . . .
Many wonder why our Treasury De-
partment permits the British to block
American accounts in Palestine, -thus
treattng U. S. citizens as if they were
enemy aliens . . It is interesting to note
that from the issuance of the Balfour
Declaration to the end of 1943, Jews in-
vested about $600,000,000 in Palestine . . .
This would make an average of $1,000
for each Jew—man, woman and child—
now living in Palestine . . . About three.
quarters of the invested capital came
from immigrants, or from private in-
dividuals living_ abroad.
•
.
- -
Copyright, 1945 Independent Jewish
Press Service, Inc.
HEAR YE! .. .
Note to the FBI: Leaflets with the
caption "Jews Are the Curse of America"
are being distributed by the thousands
in Philadelphia . . . The leaflets appeal
to all Christians to attend the trial of
the two 'Philadelphia police officers who
beat up the young Jew named Anmuth
who gave Governor Dewey a Bronx cheer
during the election campaign . . . Using
true _ Streicher language, this handbill
urges Christians to defend liberty in the
assault of "dirty Asiatic Jews against
clean American policemen."
Orson Welles, the Hollywood actor
turned columnist, tells us that he under-
stands that American citizens• of the Jew-
ish faith are encountering special dif-
ficulties in obtaining visas for France .. .
If this is correct, our. State Department
should - look into the matter ... Remem-
ber when President Taft abrogated our
commercial treaty with Czarist Russia
because of that type of discrimination?
The Rev. Clifton's • Macon's article
"Who Were the Christ-Killers?" appear-
ing in the March 15 issue of The Church-
man deserves an orchid . . . It is a most
vigorous condemnation of Passion Plays
as fomentors of anti-Semitism.
* * *
NOTES ON FUNDS
Thanks to Joseph Morrison of Detroit
for his contribution to the Sgt. Meyer
Levin Memorial . . . We also greatly
appreciate the donation of Maurice Berg-
man, of Universal- Pictures, New York, to
the same fund . . . Keep on sending in
your contributions . . . Meyer Levin de-
serves the most beautiful of memorials
. . . We shall publish the names of
donors until May 1 . . . Then we will•
announce the total and close our little
campaign.
An analysis of the projected 1945 bud-
get of the United Palestine Appeal agen-
cies, $34,314,434, discloses allocations of:
$12,000,000 for land purchase, $5,500,000
for agricUltural settlement, almost $5,-
000,000 for immigration, housing and re-
lief of refugees.
Congratulations to the Montreal Jewish
People's Library . . . It has just acquired
the land for a modern library building
that will cost $250,000.
* *
THIS AND THAT
"Porgy and Bess," the Heyward-
Gershwin opera of American Negro 'life,
is being made over into a Yiddish' music-
al, - with a ghetto as its setting, we -hear.
FeW, if any, American Zionist leaders
have be_en so lavishly honored as Mendel
Fisher on the occasion of- his 10th an-
niversary as executive director of the
Jewish National Fund .. . We are in re
ceipt of a deluxe booklet containing tes-
timonials to Fisher from - national and
international public figures . A master-
piece of tasteful presentation.
The. Hon. Pelix Frankfurter, Associate
Justice of the United States - Supreme
Court, some months-- ago was r awarded
the. New Orleans Trophy of Zeta -Beta
Tau Fraternity' for the year 1944, with-
out publicity.
Sophie Tucker, having finished writ-
ing. the story of• her life, is now planning
to return to Broadway as the star 'of a
new 'comedy.
AleXander. Granach, the refugee actqr
who died last week after 'scoring suc.,
cess on Broadway with his, performance
in "A Bell for Adano," -had completed
his autobiography before he passed an
.. It--will be published this spring.
Zelda Popkin, who has written some of
the better mystery stories of recent years,
is now branching out ... Her new novel,
"The Journey Home," described as non-
mystery,,will be published soon.
.•
Friday, March 30, 1945
Heard in
The Lobbies
By ARNOLD LEVIN
(Copyright, 1945 Independent Jewish
Press Service. Inc.)
BELIEVE IT OR NOT
Heinrich Himmler, fop killer in the
German hierarchy, is sensitive to the
wrong kind of publicity. He has let it
be known that if newspapers. abroad
would become less hostile, he would .ex-
tend - better treatment to the internees
in his concentration camps and might
even release some of his victims. Mouth-
ing this propaganda, which is obviously
a last minute effort by Himmler to save
his own skin, some innocents approached
moulders of, public opinion in this coun-
try and told them that Herr Himmler
contends that he. is not to blame for
Maidanek, Oswiecirn• and all other atroc-
ities ascribed to him, and that these were
committed by defiant adjutants, fre-
quently without his knowledge, and al-
ways against his wishes—Himmler might
have had a better chance of convincing
the world if the three and a half mil*
lion Jews "vanished" in Europe were
still alive, if the tens of thousands of
Russian P. W.'s, destroyed in his camps,
were still living.
* *
MEMORY BOOK
Ilya Ehrenburg, a Jew, Russia's top
war correspondent, whose pieces are oc-
casionally syndicated by the Independent
Jewish Press Service, told this interesting
tale of a Nazi officer captured by the
Russians who stammered, frightened:
""I'm not a Nazi. I married a Jewess!"
* * *
PALESTINE LINE
Very interesting, King Ibn Saud's op-
position to Zionism. It is, he contends,
because he loves the desert and the Jews
are turning the, desert into fields, forests
and cities. Will the United Nations per-
mit him to browbeat them with his love
for desolation and for retardedness? ..
Incidentally, it seems certain that when
the time arrives to rise and be counted,
the U.S.S.R. will declare itself in favor
of a Jewish state . . . The Palestine reso-
lution may again be placed before Con-
gress.
*
* *
WASHINGTON L_ INE
Washington is expecting Maxim Lit-
vinov to return to the Capitol when the
war ends . . . (the European war). An-
other Colonel: Bill Paley, head of CBS,
promoted for his excellent work as Dept.
Chief ' of the Psychological Warfare Di-
vision at Supreme Allied 1Nadquarters
. . . Producer Mike Todd is doing a good
job for the Government, Walter Winchell
hints.
* * *
ATTORNEY-AT-LAW
Henry. H. Klein, Jewish sedition trial
attorney and intimate of Colonel Sanc-
tuary and other Jewbaiters, is reported
by the Propaganda Battlefront, a news-
letter exposing the lunatic fringe, to have
authored the current issue of The Malist,
"one of the most vicious of the pro-fascist
and anti-Semitic sheets." Klein :`ex-
poses" .Justice Frankfurter as a "com-
munist, an international banker, and a .
Zionist." Klein will be paid royalties
by The Malist editor for this issue which
is sure to become a lunatic best_ seller.
*
4, *
MORE OF HATEISTS
Harvey Springer, "cowboy evangelist"
who has helped spread the gospel of
Gerald Winrod and Gerald L. K. Smith,'
has just incorporated a new organization,
the. Rocky :Mountain Evangelist Assacia-
ton: which 'ties together several of his
"educational" ' channels. He is a man to
watCh—and curb.
Carl. -Mote, Indiana utility executive
and top-ranking_ idealogist and leader of
the hateists, has= Warned: "I dare- . .
anyone' to call= me a fascist. I'll sue
anyone Who does it for slander or . libel
as soon- as a complaint can be filed and
don't you: forget . it." Well, the Rev. L. M.
Birkhead, Henry Hoke and Anne Sim-.
mons of Friends of Democracy have call-
ed him that, accepting his dare.
'America In Danger, -hate bulletin is-
sued by CharleS Bartlett Hudson of
Omaha, Neb.; has resumed publication.
Whether: for expediency or because
they have quarreled, we can't just tell,
but Elizabeth Dilling and Gerald L. K.
Smith are disclaiming any connection
with . former. German American Bund
member Homer Maertz (not all Bund-
ists - 'were interned), who /proposed at
SMith's 'American First Party convention
that America's Jews be deported or
sterilized.
Brooklyn's own "Charlie Coughlin"—
Edward 'Lodge Curran, 'of the Interna-
tional Catholic Truth Society—is hate'-
, ing all over the map.