Page Four

THE•JEWISH NEWS

As the Editor
Views the News - .

Thanksgiving for All

The Center Art Exhibit

The Jewish Community Center's 25th
annual art exhibit deserves to be honored as
an important landmark in our community.
This anniversary exhibit serves to recall
that our Center was a pioneer in this
country in sponsoring Jewish art exhibits.
The Center's sponsorship of an art school
was an important outgrowth of these art
displays, and many of our young people
have gained recognition as a result of the
training they had in this school.
The current exhibit, which should be
visited by every Detroit Jew, also serves to
honor Mrs. David B. Werbe, founder of the
school and the exhibits.
The entire community will surely join
in congratulating the Center and its art
committee on the occasion of the present
anniversary.

The Evil Hands'

Nokrashy Pasha, Prime Minister of Egypt,
charged that "evil hands" were responsible
for the riczting, plundering and murders in
Cairo, Alexandria and other cities.
"Evil hands," inspired by the Arab League,
were responsible for the horrible murder of
more than 100 Jews in Tripolitania.
The American Zionist Emergency Council
is justified in its charge that the Arab League
had engineered the riots.
It is an outrageous situation.
If a recurrence of these riots is to be pre-
vented in the future, the United Nations,
especially Great Britain, must live up to their
pledges to the Jews, they must act firmly in
establishing the Jewish Commonwealth and
in granting unlimited immigration rights to
Jews in Palestine and they must thus, once
and for all time, put an end to Arab machin-
ations and terrorism against innocent Jews
in Arabic countries.

THE JEWISH NEWS

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Published every Friday by The Jewish News Publish-
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Entered as second-class matter August 6, 1942 at the
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March
3, 1879. at Detroit, Michigan, under the Act of

BOARD OF DIRECTORS
MAURICE ARONSSON
PHILIP SLOMOVITZ
FRED M. BUTZEL
ISIDORE SOBELOFF
THEODORE LEVIN
ABRAHAM SRERE
MAURICE H. SCHWARTZ HENRY WINEMAN

PHILIP SLOMOVITZ, Editor
• A. R. BRASCH, Advertising Counsel

VOL. 8—No. 9

NOVEMBER 16, 1945

The.Week's Scriptural Selections
This Sabbath, the ninth clay of Kislev, 5706,
the following Scriptural selections will be read
in our synagogues:.
Pentateuchal portion—Gen. 28:10-32:3.
Prophetical portion—Hos. 12:13-14:10.

Candle-lighting time this Friday is at 5:24 p.m.

Facts You Should Know

Answers to Readers'
Questions About Jews

Thanksgiving, 1945 _

American Jews have much to be thank-
ful for.
Together with our non-Jewish neighbors,
we are free to speak and to act as human
beings, as citizens of the greatest democracy
in the world.
We are free to worship in accordance
with our traditions, and we are at liberty
to read and to publish our views.
*
*
*
As Jews, on this Thanksgiving Day, we
have much to hope for and to pray for-.
There are pogroms in several countries,
just as there were pogroms after the last war.
Jews were massacred in Arabic countries
last week.
Jews live a life of fear in Poland and in
other hate-infested European countries.
*
*
*
The spirit of Thanksgiving is, in a great
sense, marred by these happenings.
It is marred by reports of an increase
in anti-Semitism and of the injustice that
is being done to our people in Palestine.
Thanksgiving holds forth a challenge for
Jews to continue the struggle for the reten-
tion of those rights which make America
great, and to insist that these rights should
also be granted the unfortunate survivors
from Nazism.

Friday, November 16, 1945

Please describe the Ketubah, telling what it
means.
—M.A.

The Ketubah, the Hebrew marriage contract
drawn for reading during wedding ceremonies,
is written in Aramaic. The word, meaning "to
write," refers to the agreement into which the
bridal couple enters. It contains the date, place
and names of the contracting parties and out-
lines the legal responsibility of the husband
toward his wife.
*
*
*

Who was the founder of Dropsie College?

P P.
Moses Aaron Dropsie, born in Philadelphia in
1821, died there in 1905, lawyer and philanth-
ropist, member of Whig party and active in Jew-
ish communal affairs, was president of Mai-
monides College, of Gratz College and Phila-
delphia branch of Alliance Israelite Universelle.
• He left a bequest for the founding of a Jewish
college which led to the founding of Dropsie
College for Hebrew and Cognate Learning in
1908. It is a post-graduate institution leading to
Doctorate degrees and admits students of both
sexes and- all creeds. It has a large Semitic
library and publishes the Jewish Quarterly
Review.

-

.

*
*
*
What is a "Minyan"?

—L. K. L.
A "Minyan" is a quorum of 10 men, traditional-
ly the minimum requirement for Jewish public
devotion.

Courtesy Appreciate America, Inc.

Nasty Issues in Politics

From the beginning of popular elections, unsavory issues
have been raised by politicians in efforts to secure the
support of voters.
In recent years, racial and religious issues have been
common, in national as well as local elections, and the
nasty last-minute campaign that was conducted in Detroit
on the eve of the Nov. 6 election ought not to. surprise
.anyone.
Optimists will surely say that these events, since they
are so quickly forgotten, merely prove the strength of our
American democracy. But there are enough pessimists
to decry such tactics and to hope for a change in political
maneuvers.
And the pessimist surely is correct- because one bad
error in public relations can lead to much trouble.
*
*
It stands to reason that our democracy can be healthies
only when political issues are discussed on the basis of prin
ciples and not of rumors and misrepresentations. At the
moment, the outlook for such improvements in our political
thinking is rather remote.
Every citizen's duty, however, is to fight for decency
in politics, just as we constantly plead for decent and fair
dealings socially and economically.
During the final dayS of the Detroit political campaign
there was an exchange of charges.
Mayor Edward J. Jeffries was accused of failing to
repudiate Gerald L. K. Smith's support.
Richard T. Frankensteen, on the other hand, was brand-
ed a Coughlinite because in 1935 he appeared on the same
platform with Father Charles E: Coughlin under auspices
of the Automotive Industrial Workers Association.
Neither charge could stand careful scrutiny.
Mr. Jeffries, like so many other people, looks upon
Gerald L. K. Smith as a foolish rabble-rouser whose followers
have dwindled to numbers so small as to be undeserving of
being dignified with attention.
And the charge against Mr. Frankensteen is stupid—be-
cause the Frankensteen-Coughlin association referred to
in the circular issued against him dates back to a year long
before Fr. Coughlin had begun to follow the anti-Semitic
line.
*
*
*
Detroit was not an isolated instance as a community
where racial and religious issues were raised in the political
campaign.
It was nasty in other cities, and it is regrettable wher-
ever it becomes evident.
What can the decent citizens of America do to prevent
the recurrence of such Campaigns?
The successful candidates, regardless of the injuries
the'y personally suffered as result of such unfair practices,
can render a great service to America by resolving to fight
racial and religious issues to a finish, by becoming sponsors
of educational movements, in our schools, over the radio,
in the press, against the repetition of efforts to pursue
political aspirations along un-American paths.
This is the time to begin such a movement.
Let there be an end to racial and religious issues and
let us encourage every movement that will prevent a repeti-
tion of the practices we experienced during the past- week.
*
*
Many mistakes have been made in the past.
Many of us are guilty.
Too many statements and advertisements which were
published in the past should never have been permitted to
see the light of day.
Some of the leaflets appealing to race hatred were so un-
American in spirit that they called for justified resentment.
A united community must be on guard against their
recurrence.
Whether it is the Jewish issue or the Negro issue—the
moment it is injected in political campaigns it threatens to
undermine the foundations of our democracy.
Let there be an end to such tactics, and let us all pledge
never to be parties to their repetition.

Children's Corner

Dear Boys and Girls:
During Jewish Education Month, now being
observed, you can take occasion to study the im-
portance of the Bible to our people and to man-
kind.
The Jewish Education Committee of New York
has compiled an interesting series of questions
which are useful in a study of the Bible. I am
glad to incorporate them, with the proper answers,
in this column.
If your school has not arranged for a Book
Month celebration, urge your teachers to have one.
A pleasant Sabbath to all.
* * UNCLE DANIEL.

QUESTIONS ABOUT THE BIBLE

1. What Jewish book is the "best seller" in the
world? .
2. What book has been translated into more .
languages than any other in the world?
3. How many separate books does the Bible
contain?
4. What is the name of a sacred -Jewish book
meaning five?
5. In what book of the Bible are the Ten Com-
mandments found?
6. What book of the Bible is read completely:
(a) On Purim? (b) On Shevuoth? (c) On Yom
Kippur? (d) On Pesach? (e) On Tishah
b'Ab? (f) On Sukkoth? (Give credit for
each book.)
7. In what country was the Bible written?
8. In what language was the Bible originally
written?
9. In what book of the Bible is found the story:
(a) Of Abraham? (b) Joseph? (c) Moses?
(d) Saul? (e) David? (f) Solomon? (Give
credit for each name).
10. In what book of the Bible is "Shema Yisrael"
found?
11. Why are the Jews known as "The People of
the Book?"
12. To what peoples, besides the Jews, is the
Old Testament holy or sacred?
13. When are Portions of the Bible read in the
synagogue? -
14. Give the title of a book of the Bible named
after a person.
15. If you wanted to find an oration in the Bible,
to what book would you turn?
16. If you wanted to find a poem in the Bible,
to what book would you turn?
17. What does Tenach mean?
18. Which books of the Bible have doubles?
19. Give the name of an author of a book of the
Bible.
THE ANSWERS
(1) Bible (2) Bible (3) 39 (4) Humash, Penta-
teuch (5) Exodus & Deuteronomy (6a) Esther
(b) Ruth (c) Jonah (d) Song of Songs (e)
Lamentations (f) Koheleth or Ecclesiastes (7)
Palestine, some in Babylonia (8) Hebrew, some in
Aramaic (9a) Genesis (c) Exodus (d) Samuel 1
(e) Samuel 1 & 2 (f) Kings 1 (10) Deuteronomy
(11) created the Bible (12) Christians (13) On
the Sabbath and Holidays, and also on Mondays
and Thursdays (14) Joshua, Samuel, Isaiah, Amos,
Jeremiah, etc. (15 Deuteronomy, books of the
Prophets (16) In many books—Exodus, Deuteron-
omy, Psalms, Sonc, of Songs, etc. (17) Torah,
Neviim or Prophets, Ketuvim or Scriptures (18)
Samuel, Kings, Chronicles (19)- Isaiah, Jeremiah,
etc.

Talmudic Tales

By DAVID MORANTZ

(Based upon the ancient legends and philosophy found in
the Talmud and folklore of the Jewish people dating back
as far as 3,000 years).

MISTAKE NOT THE SHADOW

"Since your God hates idolatry, why does he
not destroy the idols and thus remove the tempta-
tion to worship them?" sk heathen once asked of
a learned rabbi.
"The idolators," replied the sage, "worship
the sun, the moon and the stars. Would you ex-
pect him to destroy our beautiful world because
of the acts of the foolish?"
"Would you thus cause the innocent to -suffer
in order to punish the sinners?"
• Says the Talmud further on the subject:
"Unhappy is he who mistakes the branch
for the tree, the shadow for the substance."

