Page Four
THE JEWISH NEWS
As the Editor
Views the News
IF ALL 'FOREIGNERS' WENT BACK
TO THE 'OLD COUNTRY'
Palestine Revenue
A Tel Aviv report, quoting a statement
from the Jewish Agency's - department of
statistics, reveals that Jewish Palestine,
numbering a third of the total population
of the land, contributes 70 per cent of the
revenue derived by the Palestine govern-
ment from taxation.
It is no wonder, therefore, that Palestinian
Jews have protested the government's pro-
posal to increase taxation on the strength of
the knowledge of the extent to which our
people finance the gdvernment's functions
and receive so little in return—either for
health, education or social service activities
within the Palestine Jewish community.
What an amazing picture the Palestinian
situation presents! Jews provide the great-
est measure of progress in Palestine, but
their activities always meet with obstacles
from the government in power and they do
not even receive a fair share of cooperation
in most vital community needs. Is it any
wonder that we protest so much?
THE JEWISH NEWS
Member of Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Independent
Jewish Press Service, Seven Arts Feature Syndicate,
Religious News Service. Palcor News Agency, Wide World
Photo Service, Acme Newsphoto Service.
Member American Association of English-Jewish News-
papers 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
T4 a year. Club subscription of one Issue a month,
published every fourth Friday ir the month, to all
subscribers to Allied Jewish Campaign of the Jewish
Welfare Federation of Detroit, at 40 cents a club sub-
scription per 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
MAURICE ARONSSON
PHILIP SLOMOVITZ
FRED M. BUTZEL
ISIDORE SOBELOFF
THEODORE LEVIN
ABRAHAM SRERE
MAURICE H. SCHWARTZ HENRY WINEMAN
pnrur SLOMOVITZ, Editor
A. R. BRASCH, Advertising Counsel
VOL. 7—NO. 11
June 1, 1945
The Week's Scriptural Selections ,
This Sabbath, the twenty-first day of Sivan,
5705, the following Scriptural selections will be
read in our synagogues:
Pentateuchal portion—Num. 8:1-12:16.
Prophetical portion—Zech. 2:14 - 4:7.
Facts You Should Know
Answers to Readers'
Questions About Jews
Two Blackguards
Two of the world's worst blackguards are
in the •hands of United Nations' authorities.
The former Grand Mufti of Jerusalem,
the collaborator of Hitler and Mussolini,
murderer of Jews, was arrested in France
and will be turned over to British author-
ities.
Julius Streicher, sadist, anti-Semite, mur-
derer, torturer of men, women and children,
was captured in the Bavarian hills • by a
group of American soldiers who were led by
Maj. Henry Plitt, Jewish U. S. Army officer.
* * *
It is not sufficient to know that these-two
• terrorists and murderers were arrested.
There - must be assurance that they will
receive the punishment that is ,due them and
that they will not be treated too kindly. •
Streicher's horrible propaganda served as
background material for American and Brit-
ish sadistic anti-Semites. The unspeakable
works he had created must be uprooted
everywhere and the punishment to be given
him should serve as a warning to bigots and
gangsters like him everywhere.
*
*
*
Then there is the former Mufti.
His works were formerly financed by the
British government because of the peculiar
set-up in Palestine where funds derived from
taxes, in the main paid by the Jewish corn-
munity, were used to pay for Arab com-
munity functions.
British authorities had been tolerant of
this murderer. Their previous policies must
be abandoned and the force of world public
opinion will have to be mobilized to prevent
authorities from being unreasonably merci-
ful to this gangster. •
* .*
*
On the eve of the opening of the . United
Nations Conference in. San Francisco, an
Arab delegate spoke favorably of a proposal
to make Jerusalem the seat of the ne* world
organization. But he added to the proposal a
new idea—that other centers be used as
headquarters in rotation; and he mentioned
Jedda, Cairo, Alexandria, Bagdad, Beirut
and Damascus.
He said nothing about Mecca and he did
not refer to the rumor that the Arabs had
intended to offer asylum there to the Mufti.
The Arabs have lots to explain.
Are they up to their old tricks?
If treachery- and gangsterism is to be
averted in the future, the former Grand
Mufti of Jerusalem must be considered as
one of the worst of the war criminals.
Friday, June I, 1945
Courtesy Aonreciate America. Inc.
. The Congress Book Collection
The Book Collection instituted by the American and
World Jewish Congress to replace the literary treasures
that were destroyed by the Nazi-Fascist gangsters must not
be viewed merely as a physical effort to provide the Jewish
communities with ordinary necessities.
It is a great spiritual effort to reconstruct the lives of
our people and again to provide them with those imperish-
able weapons which have kept Israel alive through the 'Cen-
turies.
The great -danger that threatened our people under Nazi
rule was that their spirits will be broken. The destroyed
synagogues and schools, the burnt Scrolls, prayerbooks and
textbooks, the banishment of teachers and pupils from their
communities—these were the brutal symbols of a program
for the destruction of civilization.
The Book Collection of the Jewish Congress is' part of
a plan to redeem not only Jewish lives, but Jewish hearts
and souls; to reclaim the spirit of our people; to restore to
Israel the soul of a people.
Every available article of value, every Siddur and
Machzor, every textbook, every Hebrew grammar and read-
er, all available Sifre Torah, should be donated for ship-
ment overseas to the communities which every one of us
must help reconstruct.
The Book Collection calls for action and cooperation
NOW.
Have You Bought an Extra Bond?
Very few expressed their rejoicing over the defeat of
Nazism in jubilation. Too many tears have been shed, too
many lives were lost, too much misery was visited upon the
world to call for exultation.
All we did was to sit in silent prayer, to meditate, to
pray and to hope that there will be an end to destruction
and to tyranny and to man's inhumanity to man.
The first moments of thanksgiving are over and an-
other hour of reckoning has arrived. It is the hour of
further planning to win the war over the surviving enemy,
to defeat the Japanese, to bring lasting peace upon the eart'h.
We are playing, all of us, a great role in this war, through
our kinsmen on the battlefields, in the air and on the seas;
and through our home front war efforts in the purchase of
bonds and in whatever other activities we may have a
share.
We can do more. We can purchase that extra bond,
that additional investment which will strengthen the hands
of our government in its efforts to achieve final victory
over the remaining enemy.
Each one of us should buy that extra bond. Collectively
it will shorten the war, save human lives and lead towards
the realization of a dream of lasting peace.
Wayne University's President
Selection of Dr. David D. Henry as president of Wayne
University should be occasion for rejoicing in our commun-
ity.
Dr. Henry has an excellent record for scholarship, for-
ability as a leader, for liberal and progressive thinking.
As one of the leaders in the Michigan Chapter of the
American Palestine Committee, he has demonstrated his in-
terest in the movement for Palestine's redemption as the
Jewish National Home. His interest in the Zionist cause
had led national leaders in the Christian pro-Palestine move-
ment to select him as a member of the national committee
of the American Palestine Committee and to call upon him
for advice and for service in advancing the movement to
render justice to Jewry.
We congratulate Dr. Henry with a feeling of confidence
that Wayne University will continue to among the very
great educational institutions in the land under his direction.
To what extent does the JDC care for
Yeshivoth, orphan asylums, homes for in-
digent as well as cultural and educational in-
stitutions in Palestine?
—M. Q.
The JDC has a very substantial stake in help-
ing a number of Yeshivoth and cultural and ed-
ucational institutions, as well as rabbis, in Pales-
tine. • It gives a yearly grant to the Hebrew Uni-
versity and has made special grants for em-
ergency needs. In 1944, through the Cultural and
Religious Committee, JDC spent $48,500 in Pal-
estine. In addition, JDC granted $71,100 directly
and have provided relief to refugee rabbis and to ,
certain Yeshivoth in the amount of $62,000. The
total 1944 appropriations for this work in Pal-,
estine amounted to $315,000.
*.
*
What is the Midrash?
—S. M.
The Midrash is the name given to the oldest!
existing expository material of Jewish scholars,;
gradually accumulated from the explanations or
amplifications of Scripture passages. -
* * *
Who was the oldest man mentioned in the.
Bible?
—.U. V.
Methuselah, who died at the age of 969 years,,,
in the year of the Flood.
* * *
What is the prayer recited by Jewish
housewives preparatory to kindling the Sab-
bath candles? M. U.
The prayer reads: "Blessed art Thou, 0 Lordi
Our God, King of the Universe, who has sail-4
ctified us with Thy commandments and coin-,
manded us to kindle the Sabbath lights." As
the light is not to be enjoyed before the blessing,.;
the Jewish mother first covers her eyes with herd
hands before lighting the candles. •
Children's Corner
THE STORY OF HILLEL
This story of Hillel begins with an eniscide on
a cold winter's day. Although he was descended
from an aristocratic Jewish family that traced its
descent back to King David he was desperately
poor when, as a youth, he went to Jerusalem from
Babylonia in order to devote himself to study.
He wanted to learn fro/IL the sages of that time
(a decade or two before the common era) named
Sheinaya and Abtalyon. He had no money to
pay the entrance fee to the academy and so he
climbed on to the roof where, through a skylight,
he could listen to the discussions below. It was
bitterly cold; snow began to fall, and Hillel was
soon overcome. The teachers suddenly realized
that the hall had become unusually dark. The
body of the frozen Hillel was obscuring the light.
They carried him down, and though it was the
Sabbath worked to revive him, and thus saved
the life of one who was later to become one of
the most celebrated and saintly teachers of the
Law.
Hillel was an apt pupil, and it was some years
later on returning from a visit to Babylon that
his scholarship received recognition. A thorny
problem was _ under discussion which no one
could solve. Then Hillel intervened and pro-
pounded the right solution, quoting as his author-
ities his early teachers Shemaya and Abtalyon.
His learning was at once acclaimed and he was
elected head of the Sanhedrin with the title of
Nasi or prince. He soon gathered round him a
body of disciples and his school was known as the
House of Hillel in opposition to that of a con-
temporary teacher, the House of Shammai. The
controversies between the two schools, acute
though they were, are praised as being leshem
Shamayim (for the sake of heaven).
Hillel is famed for his patience. The story is
told of how one man bet another that it would
be impossible to make Hiller lose patience. So his -
opponent kept calling Hillel out of the. public
baths with fantastic questions, to all of which
Hillel replied gently. At last, recognizing the
futility of pursuing the test, the man exclaimed:
"So you are Hillel! May there be not many like
you in Israel". "Why, my son?" Hillel asked. "Be-
cause I have lost a wager through you." "It is
better that you should lose your wager than that
I should lose my temper," the sage retorted. On
another occasion a heathen went to Shammai and
asked to be taught the essence of the Jewish
law while standing on one foot. Shammai thought
the request frivolous and drove the man away.
He went to Hillel, who told him, "What is dis-
tasteful to thee do not unto thy fellow-man; this
is the whole law; the rest is mere commentary."
The saying became famous, and was repeated
substantially several times in the New Testament.
There are other sayings of Hillel which have
been preserved and which all help to illustrate
his saintly character. He believed in the care of
the body as well as the soul. "Just as the statues
of the king set up in the theater have to be kept
clean." he said, "so the body of man made in the
image of the King of Kings must be kept clean."
Once when on his way home he heard a tumult
and he expressed his confidence that it did not
emanate from his own house, quoting the words
of Psalm xcii: "He shall not be afraid of evil tid-
ings." He taught Jewish solidarity with the ad-
monition: "Separate not thyself from the con-
gregation." A rich man who had come down in
the world Hillel provided with a horse and a
servant, in order that he might not be put to
shame. He urged charity of judgment, bidding
his followers to "Judge no man till thou art come
.unto his place." ("Rumour is - a lying jade").
"Love peace and pursue it," was his constant ex-
hortation. When he died his students uttered the
lament: "Alas for the meek one! Alas for the
saint! Alas for the disciple of Ezra."