Jewish Palestine Sells to World
Purely ,
Commentary
By WILLIAM SAPHIRE
The label "made in Palestine," once familiar only in Middle East markets,
is fast becoming the trade-mark of high quality to consumers the world over,
particularly in the United States and Great Britain.
Palestine's total exports during the first three months of 1946 amounted to
$27,000,000, or $4,000,000 more than in the corresponding period of 1945, which
was the all time peak year for Palestine exports.
Palestine's best customer is the United States, to which goods valued at
$6,000,000 were shipped during the first three months of this year. The main
export items to this country are diamonds for industrial use and for jewelry,
which constitutes Palestine's fastest growing industry, and places her on a level
with the Netherlands and Belgium as one of the world's chief producers of
finished diamonds. In addition, the U. S. purchased quantities of Palestine made
By PHILIP SLOMOVITZ
J
THE WAYS OF DEMOCRACY
The Nov. 5 election was another dem-
onstration of how our democracy works.
The voters felt the need -for a protest
vote, and they cast it.
There were fewer Jewish issues than
expected. The bigots refrained from in-
jecting anti-Semitic notes in their. ap-
peals, and in great measure the last elec-
tion eliminated tension that ordinarily
enters into political campaigns.
In some communities, particularly in
New York and in Chicago, Democrats
were "warned" by some Zionist groups
that lip service is not enough and that
they must act in support of their
promises. Republicans were quick to pick
this up and we had a plethora of
promises. The political actions of some
Jewish groups certainly did not have
unanimous support and the new predom-
inates that Jewish issues should be kept
out of politics. Since pledges in support
of Jewish needs and aspirations in Pal-
estine bind both parties to humane obli-
gations, non-partisan action must remain
the basis for our activities.
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artificial teeth, which competed successfully with the home made product, further
testifying to the skill of Palestine's technicians. Essential 6ils and kosher wines
and cognacs made up the remainder of American imports from Palestine.
Running almost neck and neck with the U. S. as number-one. purchaser of
Palestine products is the United Kingdom, which helped make up its acute
shortage of consumer goods with imports from Palestine during the first three
months of the year, totaling $5,2q0,000. Apart from citrus fruits and their by-
product the chief British purchass were potash and diamonds. Palestine was
able to sell large quantities of brushes on the British market despite the fact
that brushes are a domestic manufacture of Britain.
France, which during the first three months of last year imported nothing
from Palestine, purchased, during the same period this year, $148,000 worth of
Palestine made artificial teeth, olive oil and wines, the latter two items being
traditional products of France.
Sweden and Denmark bought quantities of cut diamonds. A new customer
was Portugal, which purchased a large quantity of Palestine chemicals.
The Union of South Africa was Palestine's best customer, with her purchases
of potash alone, during the first three months of this year, totaling $380,000.
Practically no Dead Sea products were shipped to that country last year. Pal-
estine's export to Canada, whose principal purchases are diamonds and olive oil,
improved by about one-quarter. Australia is importing quantities of olive oil
and razor blades. -
Brazil continues to import considerable quantities of artificial teeth from
Palestine. Turkey purchased wearing apparel, chemicals, paints, pharmaceutical
articles, metal goods, artificial teeth and brushes, while Iran imported woolen
dresses, linen and machinery. The British Crown Colony of Cyprus imported
industrial articles from Palestine and the British mandate of Tanganyika, in
East Africa, appeared on Palestine's export list for the first time this year.
The only major country purchasing less this year than in a corresponding
period of last year, was India, which so far has bought Palestine goods valued
at $504,000 as against a value of $1.263.000 in 1945.
HERBERT H. LEHMAN'S DEFEAT
Had Herbert H. Lehman been elected
to the U. S. Senate, he would have been
the first Jew to serve as United States
Senator since 1913. The last Jew to serve
in the U. S. Senate was Simon Guggen-
heim (1867-1941) of Pueblo. Colo.. who
represented the state of Colorado from
1907 to 1913. There were five other Jews
who served as U. S. Senators:
Judah Philip Benjamin (1812-1884) of
New Orleans, U. S. Senator from Louisi-
ana, 1853-61.
Benjamin Franklin Jonas (1334-1911)
of New Orleans, U. S. Senator from
Louisiana, 1879-85.
Isadore Rayner (1850-1912) of Balti-
more, U. S. Senator from Baltimore.
• 1905-12.
Joseph Simon ( 1851-1935) of Portland.
U. S. Senator from Oregon. 1897-1903.
David Levy Yulee (1811-86) of Cedar
Keys, Fla., U. S. Senator from Florida,
1855-61.
The House of Representatives, how-
ever, will retain several prominent Jews,
among them being Congressmen Sab-
bath and Blum.
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VANDENBERG'S LEADERSHIP
Insofa r -1-g the Jewish cause is con-
cerned, there will be a definite gain in
the Senate in Senator Arthur H. Van-
denberg's assumption of the chairman-
ship of the Foreign Re-
lations Committee. Sen.
Vandenberg is a staunch
supporter of the Zionist
cause. Since 1930, he
has been associated with
Christian friends of the
movement for the estab-
lishment of the Jewish
National Home. He was
among the leading fig-
Sen. Vandenbergures in securing passage
of the Senate Resolution in support of
Jewish aspirations in Palestine. Senator
Torn Connally, on the contrary, who will
retire from the chairmanship of the im-
portant Foreign Relations Committee,
was a bitter opponent of Jewish claims.
Senator Vandenberg was the first,
nearly a year ago, to propose establish-
ment of a system comparable to the Nan-
sen Passports introduced after the last
war to relieve the status of the stateless
in Europe, and he is deeply concerned
that there should be a workable solution
to the problem of the survivors 'from
Nazism.
We are confident that the leaders of
both political parties will be prepared to
recognize that humane issues, including
the problem of Palestine and the Jewish
National Home, must be treated on a
non-partisan basis and that Zionism is
neither a Democratic nor a Republican
problem but as a humanitarian obliga-
tion.
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YEAR'S MOST IMPORTANT BOOK
Your Commentator has no hesitation
in stating that Ira A. Hirschmann's "Life
Line to a Promised Land" (published by
Vanguard Press, 424 Madison Ave., New
York 17), is the most important book of
the year. As a record of the rescue work
conducted in Europe by this brave man,
it is the most significant of its kind ever
published. And it is great reporting.
The concluding chapters in the book
take pretty good care of the British for
their tactics which had made them ac-
complices to the crimes which accompan-
ied the failures in rescue measures. No
wonder that this book's distribution was
banned in Palestine!
More about this great book next week.
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Frjday, November _ 15, 1946
THE JEWISH NEWS
Page Two
Copyright, 1946. by Independent Jewish Press Service, Inc.
Heard in
The Lobbies
Between
You and Me
By BORIS SMOLAR
By ARNOLD LEVIN
(Copyright, 1916. Independent Jewish
Press Service, Inc.)
.
(Copyright, 1946, Jewish Telegraphi••
Agency, Inc.)
ZIONIST WIRE
According to insiders David ben' Gur-
ion and Dr. Abba Silver are deep in ne-
gotiations on the composition of the next
World Zionist Executive with the aim of
reducing squabbles and personality show-
uowns to a minimum when Congress con-
venes in Basle. Dr. Moshe Sneh is no out-
sider to these conversations.
Now that the British have discarded
their blacklist of "unacceptable" Jewish
Agency leaders, and have released Moshe
Shertock and his colleagues, David ben
Gurion will be able to meet with Foreign
Secretary Bevin in New York or Wash-
ington. Such a meeting was impossible
when Ben Gurion and Sheh were poten-
tial internees .. . when Ben Gurion, Dr.
Nahum Goldmann and Eliahu Epstein
lunched ,with the British Ambassador on
Nov. 5, several hours after Shertock was
released, Ben Gurion reportedly wise-
cracked: "Under the extra-territorial
privileges enjoyed by embassies, I would
have been subject to arrest had I break-
fasted here .. ." What difference several
hours can make!
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ZIONIST TRENDS
American Zionist leaders who advo-
cated a policy of abstaining from endors-
ing any of the political parties in the
recent elections, now feel that this policy
was justified . . . With the victory of the
Republican Party, these leaders claim
that it was a wise move on the part of
the Zionist movement not to commit it-
self in favor of one party or another
during the elections.
High sources in Washington indicate
that although Secretary of State Byrnes
is going to meet with British Foreign
Secretary Bevin on the Palestine ques-
tion, President Truman will continue to
have direct control of this question . . .
The over-all responsibility for the Pal-
estine issue has not been switched to
Byrnes, they reveal, emphasizing that
Truman is determined to get action on
his request to have 100.000 displaced Jews
admitted to . Palestine immediately.
New suggestions are now being dis-
cussed in the ranks of American Zionists
with regard to the forthcoming World
Zionist Congress
which opens next
month in Switzerland . . . One of these
suggestions is that the executive of the
Jewish Agency and the executive of the
World Zionist Organization function un-
der separate presidents . . . Headquar-
ters of the Jewish Agency, it is suggest-
ed, should be in the U. S., while the_head-
quarters of the World Zionist Executive
can remain in London and in Palestine
. .. The executive of the Jewish Agency
should be composed of not more than a
ARTHUR KOESTLER'S NOVEL
This is a minority opinion on Arthur
Koestler's Palestine novel, "Thieves in
the Night" ($2.75, Macmillan Co.) The
writing is splendid, some of the insight
is good, and yet the novel as a whole is
confusing and artificial . . . Unless we
have misread the novel, his thesis is that
Palestine Jewry has no other alternative
than resistance after the fashion of the
Stern Group and Irgun . . . Two members
of the collective settlement which is the
main locale of the narrative join up with
Irgun, an unusually high percentage for
a small commune, and incredibly higher
than the proportion in real life . . . Jo-
seph, the main character, whom the au-
thor wrings through this evolution from
communal settler to Irgunite, is incident-
ally only a half-Jew, a man who spent
a great portion of his childhood and all
of his adolescence in the home of his non-
Jewish mother and her parents. The
awareness of his Jewishness and his
awakening to Zionism come when a
dozen Zionists and non-Zionists, but lead-
ing American personalities would be in-
vited to act as "experts" in the executive
. . . Among those mentioned are Robert
Nathan and Henry Morgenthau Jr.
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Believe it or not, but about 10,000
children are expected to be born this
year to Jews in the camps for displaced
persons in Germany and Austria . . . The
number of births is constantly increas-
ing, and the number of expectant moth-
ers is so large that one of the major
worries of JDC is how to get diapers and
layettes.
Judge Simon Rifkind, speaking in New
York about the necessity of establishing
a medical school in Palestine, related the
the
following, which is characteristic
present situation of the Jews in Germany
. .. "When I was advisor on Jewish af-
fairs to the AMG in Germany," he said,
"I received a report that 1,003 students
had been admitted to the Heidelberg
Medical School, which had just reopened
. The extra three caused me to be sus-
picious, and I had the matter investi-
gated . . . It turned out that the three
were Jewish students who had been ad-
mitted after the American military au-
thorities had discovered that in the first
1,000 students there was not a single
Jew."
Gentile woman, with whom he had been
intimate„ repulses him on noting in his
flesh the evidence of his Jewishness .. .
The incident may be symbolical, but it
definitely is incredible, or, to say the
least, atypical. It is a woman too who
causes him to join the Irgun. After vac-
cilating for many months on whether
to join them or not, he joins Irgun after
a girl with whom he was infatuated, is
a
mutilated by Arabs . .. The decisiveness
of the 'woman factor" is far from. typical
. . . Joseph's reflexes and thought pat-
terns in general are yeshivah-style, and
betray nothing Gentile about him, de-
spite the author's contention that Joseph's
reactions are half-Gentile . . . Koestler's
Arabs, too, are stylized. He fails to give
life size portraits of them.
•
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OVER THERE
•
Strictly
Confidential
By PHINEAS J. BIRON
Copyright, 1946, Seven Arts
Feature Syndicate, Inc.
INSIDE STORY
This is th real story of the founding
of the International Union of Students
(IUS) in Prague, Czechoslovakia, a few
months ago ... It is a story that the Amer-
ican press surrounded with its own spe-
cial brand of iron curtain ... It is a story
of international student cooperation
againit fascism that bridged the mythi-
cal chasm between "Eastern" and "Wes-
tern" civilization .. . U. S. students sent
25 delegates to Prague . . . Four Jews,
three Negroes, six Catholics and repre-
sentatives of other minority groups
which,' together, are America . . . In
Prague they met with delegations from
all over the world . .. They received a
message of solidarity from students of
the Hebrew University of Jerusalem pro-
hibited by the British from attending .
They participated in framing the IUS
program based on the students' need for
democracy at the scholastic and the world
level . . . A book on the fallacies of ra-
cism is being compiled, and plans made
to fight discrimination in colleges and
universities . . . The 25 American dele-
gates returned home with plans for the
organization of a National Association
of American Students (NAAS) . .
Based on a program of student self-
government, federal aid to all students on
a merit basis, and the strongest possible
opposition to "quota" systems in educa-
tion, the NAAS will include Bnai Brith's
Hillel -Foundation, Catholic Newman
Club, University Christian Association,
American Youth for Democracy, and a
host of other student organizations,
among them representatives from many
student governments. A convention has
been called for Dec. 27 in Chicago.
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DID YOU KNOW?
Prague has the oldest Jewish Syna-
gogue in Europe where the legendary
Golom was created to destroy medieval
Jew baiters . . . When the Nazis were
decimating the Jewish people of Czecho-
slovakia, the Chief Rabbi of Prague call-
ed on the Gauleiter in charge . . . Per-
suaded him to build a museum to show
the people the Germans were destroying
. . . With typical Teutonic efficiency the
Gauleiter gathered a collection of Jewish
cultural articles from all over Europe
... Now, after the Czech government has
removed the libels and the lies, the Jew-
ish museum at Prague is the largest and
most complete in the world.
How You Can Help
Destroy Prejudice
By REV. WILLIAM C. KERNAN
Everyone can help to make America a
united country--and thus a strong coun-
try. Here are some suggestions:
1. Be a good neighbor. As a good
neighbor, you'll help your friends recog-
nize and rid themselves of poisonous and
divisive misconceptions.
2. Refuse to spread lies and rumors
about people of a different race or re-
ligian.
3. Keep your children's minds free of
prejudice. You want your child to be
loved, not hated. Therefore you will
teach them to love those with whom they
come in contact You will educate their
minds to reject any suggestion that they
must shun or jeer at any other child who
doesn't happen to go to your church—
whether he be Catholic, Protestant, or
Jewish. You must see that your children
are good citizens of America—good citi-
zens of the world.
4. Realize that men must be judged as
individuals—not as members of groups.
Remember that a man's religion,. be it
Catholic, Protestant, or Jewish, is the
little acre that yields him his belief in
God—it's as much his own as the home
he lives in. Remember it is not for us to
judge men by color, race, creed, or na-
tional origin—but by the character of
their lives—alone.
5. Encourage employers and employees
to avoid discrimination. Be his name
Kelly, Cohen, or Peterson—judge him - by
only one standard—is he qualified to fill
the job? And if you are an employee,
treat a new fellow worker as a fellow
American. Like or dislike him as you
choose . . . but only on the basis of what
he says and does . . . only on his merits
as an individuaL Not because his religion
or racial background may differ from
yours. Remember . . . Americans come in
all races,
colors, and creeds.
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