our THE JEWISH NEWS As the Editor Views the News - - - A Good Buy By DAVID MORANTZ Wanted: Volunteers the Talmud and folklore of the Jewish people dating back as for as 3,000 years). PEARLS OF WISDOM "Be not one who gives alms with one hand," says the Talmud, "and steals with the other." - "He who gives alms to the poor with an un- friendly mien and downcast face, even if he give a thousand pieces of gold, has no merit owing to his manner of giving, but one should give joy- fully with a cheerful mien." "If a poor man ask your help and you have nothing to give him then appease him with cheer- ing words." "He who urges others to give charity and causes them to practice it, earns a greater reward than he who gives." "One's own maintenance takes precedence be- fore that of any one else. One is, therefore, not obliged to give alms before he can maintain him- self. Children's Corner Dear Boys and Girls: The Holy Days are over, but the period of Jewish fall festivals will not conclude until after Simhat Torah. This Saturday and Sunday we will observe as the first days of Sukkot, the Feast of Tabernacles. The following week-end we will observe Fri- day as Hoshanah Rabbah, Saturday as Shemini Atzeret and Sunday, Sept. 30, as the joyous festival of Simhat Torah. As you all know, it is traditional for us to build Booths or Sukkoth during this festival as a reminder that our forefathers lived in tabern- acles when they left Egypt to settle in Palestine. I wish all of you a very pleasant holiday. * UNCLE DANIEL. Bigotry in Central Europe THE JEWISH . NEWS Member of Jewish Telegraphic Agency , Independent Jewish Press Service, Seven Arts Fe ature Syndicate, Religious News Service, Palcor News Agency. Wide World Photo Service, Acme Newsphoto Service, King Features Syndicate. Central Press Service, Member Association of English-Jewish News- papers and American Michigan ig Press Asso ciation Publish ed 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 ir the mnth. to all subscribers to Allied Jewish Campaign of o 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. Er BOARD OF DI RECTOFtS MAURICE ARONSSON PHILIP SLOMOVITZ FRED M. BUTZEL ISIDORE SOBELOFF THEODORE LEVIN ABRAHAM SRERE MAURICE H. SCHWARTZ HENRY WINEMAN rum". SLOMOVITZ, Editor A. R. BRASCH, Advertising Counsel VOL. 8—No. 1 SEPTEMBER 21, 1945 The Week's Scriptural Selections On Saturday, the first day of Sukkoth, the fol- lowing selections will be read: Pentateuchal portion s—Lev. 22:26-23:44; Num. 15:12-16. Prophetical portion—Zech. 14. On Sunday, the second day of Sukkoth, the following selections will be read: Pentateuchal portion s—Lev. 22:26-23:44; Num. 29:12-16. Prophetical portion—I Kings 8:2-21. Talmudic Tales (Based upon the ancient legends and philosophy found In. Within two weeks, general solicitations will begin for the annual War Chest cam- paign. Actually, however, the task of securing the large sum that is needed to guarantee the continuation of overseas relief activities and the support of major national and local welfare, educational and recreational pro- jects requires immediate effort on the part of all of us. Men, women and children of all faiths cry to us for help. Our concern over the tragedy of Irsael makes the task of the War Chest, which includes the 55 causes of the Allied Jewish Campaign of the Jewish Wel- fare Federation, the major responsibility of the Jewish community. The immediate need is for workers. Of- fer your services NOW. Call Miss Esther R. Prussian, director of the Detroit Service Group, CO. 1600, and render whatever ser- vice you can—as a solicitor, as a volunteer clerical workers, or in whatever capacity you can serve the cause. Bigotry has not ended anywhere, and one of the tragedies of the post-war experi- ences is that anti-Semitism is rife in Europe. Correspondents for leading American newspapers agree that the situation is a very sad one. John MacCormac, in a cable to the New York Times from Bratislava, states: "The de- feat of Nazism has not ended anti-Semitism in Central Europe. Too many fellow-travel- ers of one kind of fascism or another benefit- ted from the dispossession of Jews from positions and properties to welcome the re- turn of the survivors now." Mr. MacCormac, in a lengthy description of the tragedies suffered by. Jews in the era of peace, refers to charges made by Jews that they "were not allowed to share in the distribution from the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration in some rural parts of Slovakia, and even in Bratis- lava were rudely jostled when they tried to stand •in line for their allocation." * * * Another eminent correspondent, Joseph G. Harrison, in a cable to the Christian Science Monitor, also from Bratislava, de- clares that "for the Jews of Slovakia, the persecution which started with Hitler is still going on." He charges: "Perhaps the most cruel treatment occurs when Jews appear in •relief lines. Despite 'the strictest rules that United Nations Relief and Rehabilita- tion Administration aid must be handed out impartially and on a basis of need, in many areas of rural Slovakia Jews are met with laughter when they ask for UNRRA food, notwithstanding the fact that they are in- variably the members of a community most in need." A major responsibility devolves upon this country to press the issue and to de- mand that there should be an end to anti- Semitism, especially where government of- ficials and relief workers are responsible for prejudice. And it is the duty of Jewish leaders to mobilize all availale strength to secure action against the continuation: and spread of the Nazi ideas which Europe has inherited from Adolf Hitler and his gangsters. Friday, September 21, 1945 Drawn ror National War Fund—Web. Brown, Akron (0.) Beacon-Journal Sukkoth and Our Indomitable Spirit THE SUKKAH AS A SYMBOL The Sukkah recalls the pioneering days of the Jewish people. They were periods of hard- ship but evidently of high worth and importance, for again and again the prophets remind the people of those great days. In America, similar- ly, the frontier days are idealized. We speak with admiration of that era of heroism. We de- scribe the life of the frontiersmen as one of freedom and self-reliance, simple and honest. The Sukkah reminds us of the ideals of the pioneers and calls us to follow in their paths of honesty, love of freedom, self-reliance, and democracy. The Sukkah is also a reminder of the tents and shacks in which the Halutzim first live when they establish a new colony in Palestine, as well as of the harvest booths used by modern Jewish farmers in Eretz Israel. These pioneers, too, are idealists from whom we have much to learn. Great teachers have pointed: to the Sukkah for lessons of conduct. Maimonides said it teaches us that in days of prosperity we should- remember periods of evil and, of poverty, so that we may remain humble and sincere at all times. The frail roof, the Talmud declares. should prevent us from putting our trust in the power . of man. Benjamin Disraeli's description of the indomitable Jew- ish spirit remains the classic definition of all times. "The vineyards of Israel," we quote Disraeli, "have ceased to exist, but the eternal law enjoins the children of Israel still to celebrate the vintage. A race that persists in celebraing their vintage, although they have no fruits to gather, will regain their vineyards. What sublime inexor- ability in the law! But what indomitable spirit in the people!" It is a good piece to recite on Sukkoth, in an age when only a few of our people have survived to celebrate the vintage and to be satisfied to live humbly—even in a Suk- kah—yet to be deprived of the frail security even of the Sukkah. Think of it: in the hour of liberation, Jews are being massacred in Poland; those who had returned to their former homes in Poland are fleeing back to their former "shelters"—the concentration camps of Germany. * * THE MEANING OF SUKKOTH Yes, the Sukkah is a symbol—of homelessness and in-. The ancient Feast of Sukkoth, meaning "Booths," security; but because it remains a tradition in Jewish life, celebrated for eight days beginning at sun-down, it is also proof of the inexorable and indomitable powers of Friday, Sept. 21, and for nine days in Orthodox was originally a harvest festival and a people physically weak and on the face of things defense- synagogues, a period of thanksgiving. Reminiscent of the- less. days when Israelites, and other oriental peoples, The spirit of Israel is the people's strength. It has pull- because of the short harvest season, when fruits - ed us through many crises and will pull us through the and crops had to be gathered speedily, dwelt in booths in the field, it is also a time to recall the present tragic condition. History will undoubtedly continue fact that the children of Israel dwelt in booths to append the complimentary descriptive word "sublime" in the wilderness when they journeyed out of when speaking of such a spirit. Egypt. Their wandering in the wilderness was These sentiments, satisfying as they are to the spirit followed by entrance into the Promised Land— an augury of the Promised Land we hope the of our people, are not without their challenging elements. nations of the world will now enter if we in- They must not lull Jews into a sense of false satisfaction and augurate a real era of peace. security or into a feeling of smugness. Many congregations erect booths in a suitable Let us return to a consideration of the horrible medieval place in the synagogue and decorate them with fruit and other products of the fall harvest, and position to which liberated Poland has reverted as soon as many families and synagogues still erect booths a handful of Jews began to return to their former homes in for the -entire Sukkoth period. The Book of Ec- that land whose martyrdom under Nazism is being disgraced clesiastes is expressive of the character of the festival. "All may be vanity to some people," by massacres. says Ecclesiastes, "but to revere God- and keep * * his commandments" is the primary duty of the A little more than a year ago, there was already an in- Jew. dication of impending trouble. What was purported to be It is interesting to realize that the Pilgrim the text of a confidential memorandum, submitted by the fathers patterned the Thanksgiving Day which we celebrate, after this Old Testament harvest Polish underground to its government in exile, stated, with festival of thanksgiving. The symbolic fruits of an implication of strong endorsement of its views, that this beautiful feast are the citron, the willow, Polish Jews were not entirely exterminated by the Nazis the myrtle and the palm. With these beautiful and that the non-Jewish Poles would "consider the mass works of creation we celebrate God's wisdoni thank Him for His kindness 'and His mercy Deimmigration of the Jews not as a return to their previous and will endure forever. position but as an invasion against which it would defend MY EARLIEST SUKKAH itself even in a physical manner." - By DR. ISRAEL ABRAHAMS My Earliest Sukkah was .my. mother's. In One's hair stands on edge upon examining the develop- ments affecting the surviving Jews in Europe, upon reading those days—how many years ago I do not care to count—my summer holiday lasted exactly nine such a statement. days a year. We needed no train to take us to Yet, we dare not succumb to despair. And we must not the country destination—we just stepped into become overconfident, or haughty, and we can not be in- our little city garden. In brief, our one and only annual outing was spent in our Sukkah and we different. young • boys and girls enjoyed our change of * * * far more than I have relished longer and We must re-examine our "inexorability". We dare not scene more distant excursions in recent years. It has be smug, and we MUST be courageous in this hour of need. been said that the pleasures we make for our- An entire remnant of our people must be saved, and it is selves are fuller and fairer than the pleasures are given to us. our responsibility to rise sublimely to the challenge of the which Perhaps this is why we loved our Sukkah, day. for we made it. ourselves. We did not- employ a Our opportunity to show our strength, as symbolized professional carpenter to put in a single nail. or in the Sukkah, will come during the War Chest drive, and plane a single beam. We bought rough logs and boards at the city timber yard, which was continually thereafter whenever the demand is made upon never after the fire of a quarter of a us to be fair with ourselves in providing the means with century rebuilt ago. We- planed the logs and grazed our which those who can be rescued shall be rescued. fingers, but -the pain did not count. Though all these preparatory stages occurred a fortnight be- We must be above petty consideration. the actual building operations never We must not be deaf to or stone-hearted in dealing with forehand, began until the night when the great Fast was the cries for help that come to us from the unfortunate over. Old traditions clung to us, and somehow segments of oppressed Israel. we knew that it was a special merit to close the These are the challenges of the Sukkah and Sukkoth— Day of Atonement, hammer in hand, putting m the first nail of the _ - Sukkah, passing _ as the and we must not be found wanting. Psalmist has it "from . strength to strength."