Purely Commentary By PHILIP SLOMOVITZ STEPHEN S. WISE STORIES Iry Kupcinet, who used to write sport columns for us as a special JTA corre- spondent, now authors an interesting col- umn in the Chicago Times (Kup's Column). Recently, Kup told a few interesting stories about Dr. Stephen S. Wise, and we record them here as of unusual in- terest at this time, especially in view of Dr. Wise's appearance in Detroit for a lecture on Oct. 23 under auspices of the Men's Club of Shaarey Zedek. Kupcinet wrote: Dr. Stephen Wise, in town on behalf of the Palestine problem, recalled his visit to Zurich, Switzerland, in 1936. At that time Dr. Wise hoped to enter Ger- many to study at first hand the condi- tions there. His request for a visa, how- - ever, was turned down by the U. S. Consulate, which feared for his life. Dr. Wise then appealed to Ambassa- dor Dodd in Berlin. "I wouldn't come here if I were you," the ambassador advised him. "Your picture has ap- peared in every newspaper in Germany and the S. S. and Gestapo would be sure to arrest you." "But surely they wouldn't harm an American visitor," protested Dr. Wise. "Of course not," replied the ambassa- dor. "But shortly after your plane landed anywhere in Germany, the newspapers would carry a story to the effect that there was a Communist uprising at the airport and, unfortun- ately, Dr. Wise was killed accidentally." Dr. Wise didn't go to Germany, but instead returned home. In 1903, Dr. Wise visited Theodore Herzl, the founder of Zionism, in Vienna. Herzl at that time had a pre- monition of his death, which followed a few months later, and told the youthful Wise: "I know I won't live to see the estab- lishment of a Jewish state in Palestine, but you, Stephen, will." "I was just 29 years old then," re- called Dr. Wise. "Now I am '73 and I cannot die, I must live, until that dream comes true and a Jewish state is estab- lished in the Holy, Land." Dr. Wise remains one of the fascinating personalities in Jewish life. He has dif- fered with many world Zionist leaders, and it is reliably reported that there is another rift between him and other American Zionist leaders. We shall know more about it when the ZOA convention takes place in Atlantic City. This time Dr. Wise may be the victor. He is an optimist, and we have a feel- ing that both he and Dr. Chaim Weiz- mann will live to see the realization of their hopes—for the creation of a free and democratic Jewish Commonwealth Israel—especially since it is also OUR hope. • • • in ,Eretz CURFEW HUMOR George Cassidy, New Yory Post cor- respondent in Palestine, is among the Christian newspapermen who has caught and fully understands the spirit of the Jewish -builders of Zion. In a recent column, Cassidy recorded some of the humor now current in Palestine. The stock joke of the week, he writes, takes this form when two Palestinians met at the bus station opposite the pdrked tank: "Did you hear about the two news- papers that they're going to start? "No, what are they?" "The Daily Curfew and the Sat- urday Evening Search!" Mr. Cassidy explains that the Jews in Palestine are reacting to the British in the same way as Londoners and other Englishmen reacted to the German air attacks upon their communities during the first years of the war. Perhaps it is even more so—since England officially was at war and Jews are just being held in check by cruel decrees coming from a democratic power. In a sense, this makes our people stronger and our case more powerful. U. S. Failures The U. S. has failed to live up to its professions' of moral righteousness both in connection with helping Jews in Eu- rope during the Nazi regime and in the solution of the Palestine problem . . . This is the opinion of Sumner Welles ex- pressed in his "Where Are We Heading," published by Harper's . . . He points out that the lives of many hundreds of thou- sands of Jews in Europe could have been saved if President Roosevelt's Evian pol- icy had really been carried out. Welles believes Arab - opposition to a fair settle- ment of the problem is artificially stimu- lated by the British. Friday, October. 111„ 1946 THE JEWISH NEWS Page Two A Plea for Peace in Palestine Word From a British. Resident in Zion Text of a Letter Which Appeared in London New Statesman and Nation July 13, 1946 Sir:—The Government's action seems to be universally taken as action against the "Jews" or "Jewish terrorists". It is not. I say, with full knowledge of my charge, that it is, first and foremost, action against socialiSm. British civil servants in Palestine still believe in the caste system of "rulers" and "ruled", and often complain that in Palestine there are no "segregation" areas as in East and West Africa where British officials can live apart. They contrive to live as far apart as possible. While many of these men are very decent chaps and are my friends, they are products of an outmoded system. Time after time they have made such remarks to me as "the Jews would not be so bad if they were not such d—d Socialists". Only recently I was - told by a senior official that "Jerusalem wants us to break the Labor Party's hold on the transport system by encouraging bus companies, which are not Workers' Co-operatives". In the High Commissioner's proclamation to the people of Palestine on the morning of June 29, he said that Government was not taking action against the whole Jewish Community but only a "part". We were intended to think that that "part" was the "terrorists". The fact is that it was the Labour Party against whom action was taken. The "terrorists" are concentrated in the towns. It was the villages which were searched, not the towns. It was the Socialist leaders of the Community who were arrested in bulk. In Haifa the Conservative chairman, M. G. Levin of the Jewish Community Council, was left free, while his Socialist deputy was arrested. David Hacohen, a Socialist Municipal Councillor, was the only one taken from the Municipality. The only leading manufacturer arrested was U. Friedland. By chance he happens to be a keen Social/St and member of the Labour Party. According to the Palestine Broadcasting Service, - the High Commissioner offered Dr. Weizmann to reinstate the Jewish Agency if Messrs. Rokach, Senator, and Hirsch were coopted to replace the arrested Labour members. All three are anti-Socialist. If you look at the New Year's and King's birthday honours list for local residents in Palestine in the past—even in the last .twelve months—you will see that all are representatives of the Right. There is not a Labour man amongst them in spite of what Labour has done for the country. Is it not possible to send a strong Trade Union delegation to Palestine to work for peace? Their task would not be nearly so difficult as people imagine. There is very little animosity between the Arab and Jewish working men. People try to stir up trouble between them from time to time, but it never lasts long. Throughout the whole of the "disturbances" of 1936-39 I had on my daily payroll between 1,000 and 1,200 men. There was no time when we did not work with mixed angs of Arabs and Jews, despite many attempts by British officials to try to split them up into Arab gangs and Jewish gangs. The strike of Government officials in April this year showed how the two races can work together. A BRITISH RESIDENT. (Our correspondent, whose name we cannot give for obvious reasons, is a well- known non-Jewish member of the British business community in Palestine. Ed.) Heard in The Lobbies By ARNOLD LEVIN (Copyright. 19.16. Independent Jewish Press Service. Inc.) - REUTER'S Reuter's editors must be terribly dis- illusioned men. For weeks now they have been drumming up "tension" among Ha- ganah and the dissident resistance groups and predicting civil war among Pales- tine's Jews. Haganah, however, refuses to take its directives from Reuter's. •While disapproving of the tactics of the dissident groups, Haganah knows who its real enemies are. These enemies. are not Jews. • • • ABOUT EDITING The New York Times has come up in recent weeks with several graphic il- lustrations of its motto, "all the news that is fit to print." For months on end the New York Times carried Gene Currivan's Palestine dispatches confounding Haganah, and the Sternites and Irgunites, and indiscrim- inately calling all of them gangsters and gangmollis. But the same newspaper has carried the features within a fortnight about the Mufti. The latest was a spread of a North American Newspaper Alliance interview with the Mufti in which his opinion was sought about the federation plan and the charges against him that he was "anti-British." This gave the Mufti a splendid opportunity. We shall not discuss the propriety of seeking an interview with this dubious political personality, but there can be no two opinions about the ethics of submit- ting loaded questions. Confirmed charges against the Mufti include his role as the organizer of the murderous Moslem Legion in Yugoslavia, as the co-plotter of the extermination of Europe's Jews, as collaborator in the Iraqi fascist revolt. But none of these questions were asked of the Mufti. NANA asked him only about his being anti-British and about his "residing" in Germany during the war. The answer to these was simple enough and gave the reader a distorted picture of the Mufti. Were it not for Dr. Wise's observa- tions, appended to the tail end of the interview, none of these facts would have been-brought out. NANA's questions cer- tainly made no attempt to bring out all the facts about the Mufti. That really is ethical journalism. The two stories on the Mufti followed by James Reston's Washington dispatch accusing the President of failing to take note of the principle of self-determina- tion as applied to Palestine's Arabs. This leaves no doubt as to where the N. Y. Times stands, nor as to how the news- paper espouses its stand.. Between You and Me By BORIS SMOLAR (Copyright, 1946, Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Inc.) BEHIND THE SCENES President Truman's statement support- ing the demand of the Jewish Agency for the establishment of a "viable Jewish state" in Palestine was as much of a sur- prise to Zionist leaders as to the average Jew .. . That is because the person who inspired the statement, although a Jew, is not a Zionist . . . He is. one of the late President Roosevelt "brain trusters, who still advises President Truman on impor- tant political matters . . . The State De- partment soon- will make public a num- ber of Nazi foreign office documents which will reveal the role played by the ex-Mufti of Jerusalem as Hitler's collabo- rator .. . Translation of these documents has just been completed in Washington. • • • ZIONIST TRENDS Zionist leaders are gratified at the ap- pointment of Arthur .Creech-Jones as British Colonial Secretary . . . He is known to be strongly pro-Zionist . . However, the key to the solution of the Palestine problem remains in the hands of Bevin and Morrison, the "strong men" of the Labor' Cabinet . . . The informal talks which are now being conducted in London between the British government and leaders of the Jewish Agency are being carefully studied by the Zionist leadership in the U. S. . . . There is dis- satisfaction over the report that the lead- ers of the Jewish Agency are asking for the admission of 5,000 Jews monthly to Palestine during the period of the nego- tiations . . . It is argued that this demand may set a dangerous precedent for the future . . . Jewish Agency activities in Latin American countrjes are being care- fully watched by British diplomatic rep- resentatives there, who are not at all happy about the growth of pro-Palestine committees in that part of the world. • • • • ANTI-SEMITIC FRONT Will the Mutual Network renew the contract for Upton Close's broadcasts which are resented by Jews and all lib- eral elements in the U. S.? ... This ques- tion is of great interest to Jewish organi- zations engaged in combatting anti-Semi- tism in this country • . . The contract expires this month . . . Radio station WOR, the network's outlet in New York, has been receiving an average of 200 telephone calls after each of Close's broadcast . . . Each of the callers pro- Have tested against the broadcasts . . you ever heard of an organization . called "Youth Society to Preserve Christian Palestine?" ... Well, this is one of Gerald K. Smith's latest creations . . . The anti- Semitic front in the U. S. was "strength- ened" this month with the establishment of an organization which styles itself "The American Gentile Army." Strictly Confidential By PHINEAS J. BIRON Copyright, 1946, Seven Arts Feature Syndicate, Inc. A TRUE THRILLER Tel Aviv was under a curfew. .. . All inhabitants had to be indoors at 6 P.M. . .. British soldiers came parad- ing through the streets on the lookout for Stern gang members.. . . Suddenly a detachment of 50 British MP's stopped in front of a group of houses, ilook 10 young men into, custody, and marched them off under the protection of the English soldiers.. . . These 10 prisoners were members of the Stern group and so were their captors, who had donned British uniforms to save them. • • • ATTENTION: GOODWILL ORGANIZATIONS The elders of Oberamergau village in Germany are making plans to resume their famous passion play. . . They must, however, get permission from the American military government. . . . We hope that the permission will not be granted. . . . The 2600 members of the cast were—almost to a man—notorious Nazis and among the most vociferous anti-Semites. . . . Passion plans, wher- ever given, are not conduCive to inter- religious goodwill. . . . Germany is the last place for such a spectacle. . . . Here is a job for our goodwill organizations. . . . They should urge our zone commands to look into the records of the Oberam- ergau cast. • • QUESTIONS To Rabbi Philip Bernstein. just back from Europe: Is it true that American soldiers in Germany are falling in love with the Aryan theory and behaving ar- roc*antly toward Jewish DP's? To Ben Hecht: Are you collaborating with Quentin Reynolds on a movie about British policy in Palestine? To Actors Equity: Is the theatrical producer interested in bringing Emma Goering to this country a well known Jewish impressario who should know better? To Warner Brothers, Hollywood: We are told that you tried to convince Frank Sinatra to play "The Jazz Singer" with the proviso that the Jewish hero be changed into an Irish lad. . . . It is only when Frank insisted on playing the orig- inal Jewish character that you reluc- tantly consented. • • POT POUR! David Lax, a combat-veteran whose paintings are in the National War Mu- seum, is offering three courses in Art under the City College Adult Education Program. . . . Dave, incidentally, is do- ing an important series on the war, which will arouse hot controversy. . . . Watch for it in about a year. Frances Adler's book on Jacob P. Ad- ler, her father, is ready for publication •after • 10 years of writing and rewriting. Publishers should grab it. It's an epic. Peter Bergson, chairman of the. He- brew Committee for National Libera- tion, until recently in danger of being deported to Palestine, has squared his case with Washington. Upon the Height Of Pisgah A Simhat Torah Poem By DR. NOAH E. ARONSTAM Upon the height of Pisgah Moses stood • And viewed the Promised Land. A tremulous and radiant haze Declared the birth of dawn As the first rays of the sun kissed the earth. Moses deeply fascinated by the sight Let his glance wander down the Plain. There his eyes beheld the Land of Gilead Unto Dan; even unto the Hindersea. To the South he dimly glimpsed The City of the Palms As it- spread its splendor unto Zoar. A tear trembled in his .eyes. "Lo, this is the Promised Land," he mused. "Thine eyes drink in its beauty— The fulfillment of a Pledge— That my people shall. inherit In Peace and Concord for all times. But-as to myself: .I may only view it From afar; not vouchsafed is to me The happiness to dwell- therein." His countenance was bathed by the glow Of sunbeams through a mist. • • • Down the Height of Pisgah His path led back to Israel's encampment, And a smile divine suffused his /ace As he breathed: "Lord, Thy , Will be done."