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.