As the Editor
Views the News
Give Them Life!

`JD n't Worry-It's Another Inquiry'

Detroit Jewry is being called upon to con-
tinue giving life to the million and a half
survivors from Nazism and to make that life
worth living.
When the $5,335,000 Allied Jewish CaM-
paign "for Survival and Reconstruction"
opens next Tuesday evening, nearly 4,000
volunteer workers will proceed to carry the
message of our historic mercy effort to 35,000
potential contributors.
If we can reach every person who is in
position to make a contribution, and if we
live up to our responsibilities by giving twice
or three times or more than the amount we
have given hitherto, success will be assured.

"No matter how generous your contribu-
was last year—the NEED is greater in 1947,
and the goal is approximately twice as
much. If you can give three, even fixe, ten
times as much when you are called on, we
hope you will measure up to the immensity

of the task and the grandeur of the oppor-
tunity to live up to the destiny that history
has assigned to all of us."
The generosity with which many of our
people already have responded to this year's
appeal spells justice rather than charity.
It represents recognition of a duty to our-
selves as much as to our kinsmen who have
no one else to look to for survival and for the
reconstruction of their shattered lives.

Our responsibilities to the 1947 Allied
Jewish Campaign are not limited to the three
agencies of the United Jewish Appeal—Joint
Distribution Committee, United Palestine
Appeal and United Service for New Ameri-
cans. For the first time since - 1942, after a
lapse of four years during which Jewish
causes were provided for in the War Chest,
the Allied Jewish Campaign again incorpo-
rates all our overseas, national and local
obligations. -The $5,335,000 goal includes al-
locations for HIAS, the Hebrew University
in Jerusalem, American Fund for Palestinian
Institutions, the Jewish Welfare Board, the
Hillel Foundations, American Jewish Con-
gress, American Jewish Committee, Anti-
Defamation League; and such local agencies
as United Hebrew Schools, Jewish Home for
Aged, Jewish Vocational • Service, Jewish
Community Council, Resettlement Service
for Refugees and other causes.
*
*
The reports that come from hundreds of
communities throughout the land point to
unprecedented liberality in giving to the
United Jewish Appeal. From all quarters
comes the news of doubling and trebling of
previous contributions.
This is the case in Detroit and in many of
the Michigan communities.
For instance, Mr. Osias Zwerdling, the
chairman of the Ann Arbor drive, informs us
that five people who gave $7,600 in 1946 have
increased their gifts to a total of $13,600.
• Such a spirit of giving should prove most
heartening to the unfortunate European sur-
vivors.
Let us go forth, in the 1947 campaign, to
achieve total success, to give life to the sur-
vivors, to make that life worth living and
thereby to strengthen our own courage in the
knowledge of having done our duty well.

THE JEWISH NEWS

' Member Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Independent Jewish
Press Service, Seven Arta Feature Syndicate, Religious
News Service, Palcor Agency.
Member American Association of English-Jewish News-
papers and Michigan Press Association.
Published every Friday by The Jewish News Publish-
lug Co., 2114 Penobscot B:ldg., Detroit 26, Mich., RA. 7956.
Subscription, $3 a year; foreign, $4. Club subscription.
every fourth Friday of the month, to all subscribers to
Allied Jewish Campaign of Jewish Welfare Federatidn of
Detroit. 40 cents pei year. '
Entered as second-class matter Aug. 6, 1942, at Post Of-
Ace, Detroit. Mich.. under Act of March 3. 1879.

Pfc. Feigenbaum's
Memory Honored
In Chaplain s Book

1261 Broadway, New York 1.
The tribute to the Detroit hero, included in the
chapter "Anzio Anxiety," reads:
My assistant, Pfc. Joe Feigenbaum of Detroit,

Final Juclg!nent for Eretz Israel?,

The 55 member states of the United Nations are charged
with the responsibility of solving the Palestine problem, and
the prayers of all faiths are being directed to the spokesmen
for the great world powers to strive for justice in this, which
some describe as the final judgment in the issue.
A tremendous amount of money and energy already has
been expended in the calling of the. Special Session of the
UN General Assembly. Tons of literature will be prepared in
the presentation of the case—by world Jewry, acting through
the Jewish Agency for Palestine; by the British-made Arab
League; by the perfidious elements in the British government
whose pledge-breaking has become the symbol of tyranny.-
Our people very naturally are asking many questions at
this time. We are anxious to know whether the responsible
leaders, chosen to act in behalf of the UN, will be as firm in
repudiating the British White Paper as was the Mandates
Commission of the League of Nations; whether the UN will
be strong enough to enforce a just solution; whether Great
Britain will live up to UN decisions, unlike her high-handed
method in dealing with the report of the Anglo-American
Committee of Inquiry.
*
In the presentation of the Jewish case, our spokesmen
will be compelled to cite many grievances.
The creation of a police state in Palestine by the British
is an act of cruelty and injustice.
The establishment of detention centers in Cyprus, and
the exclusion of Jews from Palestine, not only represents
gross miscarriage of justice but are indications of British
misrule. The riots that have taken place in Cyprus are further
indications of. British•misrulei! None other . than the represen
tative of the British Chief Rabbi's Council in Cyprus, Rabbi
M. L. Heilperin,. has cabled to Colonial Minister Arthur
Creech-Jones declaring that the official account of the killing
of Moshe Lehrer, a Cyprus internee, was false. Rabbi Heil-
perin stated that British guards had fired on a peaceful
Jewish demonstration and he branded as untrue the com-
munique that Lehrer was shot and several others wounded
when the refugees attempted to break out of camp.
Another misrepresentation of fact is charged to the British
authorities in the record of a message from Chief Rabbi Isaac
Herzog of Palestine by the U. S. Mizrachi organization. Rabbi
Herzog branded as "complete fabrication" a BBC report that
he prohibited rabbis from attending the funeral of Dov Gruner
and his comrades.

The UN must take into consideration the historical facts
regarding the establishment of the Jewish National Home.
Former Colonial Secretary Leopold S. Amery, one of the
"fathers" of the Balfour Declaration, has just reiterated, in
an article in the London Sunday Times, that after World
War I Britain intended to establish a Jewish National Home
in the whole of Palestine "and envisaked that National Home
both as a material and psychological starting point for the
regeneration of these ancient (Arab) lands" surrounding
Palestine. •
The pledges to Jewry are a matter of record and can not
be denied. Will the UN act in the spirit of historic justice?
Will the final judgment be an act of truth or will it be inspired
by fear and by power politics?
World Jewry awaits anxiously the decisions which will
provide the answers to these questions. The spirit in which
the answers will be formulated controls the destiny of a mil-
lion and a half survivors from Nazisni.

There also is an internal issue affecting our position
before the nations of the world.
Shortly after the Jewish Agency for Pale.stine had•reached
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
an agreement whereby non-Zionist and other Jewish groups
Maurice Aronssor
Philip Slomovitz
Fred M. Butzel
had consented to cooperate in the presentation of a unified
Isidore Sobeloff
Judge Theodore Levin Abraham Srere
case in 'support of Jewish claims in Palestine, the abortive
Maurice H. Schwartz
Henry Wineman
movement functioning under the name "Hebrew Committee
PlirLIP SLOMOVITZ. Editor
of National Liberation"-'—one of the Hecht-Bergson organi-
zations—'and the "Council for Judaism" undertook - to break
VOL. XI—NO. 7
MAY 2. 1947
unity and to ask for seats at the UN General Assembly. Im-
Sabbath Scriptural Selections
mediately, press and radio announcements suggest that
This Sabbath, the thirteenth day of Iyar, 5707, "Jewry is divided." Actually, the abortive groups speak for
the f9llowing Scriptural selections will be read in
a handful of recalcitrants who must be repudiated. . The
our synagogues:
sooner the irresponsible elements are discredited—whether
Pentateuchal portion—Lev. 16:-20:27.
Prophetical portion—Amos 9:7-15 or Ezek. 22:1- it is in their fund-raising campaigns in Detroit and else-
19 (or 16).
where or in their destructive political activities—the better
Lag b'Omer occurs on Thursday, May 8
for all Israel and for Eretz

„,

Tribute to Detroit Hero

A glowing tribute to e 'Detroiter whci died in
the service of our country is incorporated in Rabbi
Morris N. Kertzer's account of his experiences
under fire, as a chaplain, in his book, "With an H
on My Dog Tag," published by Behrman House.

In his stirring appeal to the community
which we were privileged to publish in our
last week's issue, Mr. Fred M. Butzel, general
chairman of the drive, makes the important
point that—

4,

Friaiy, May 2; 1947

THE JEWISH NEWS

. Pogo Four

ran about among the men to snake sure that
. everyone had at least a taste of Matzoh. Joe'
would appear before me out of the dark and
whisper exultantly: "What a crowd! What a
wonderful seder!" He was thrilled that a Jewish
chaplain had been flown all the way from the
States to officiate on an occasion such as this.
Upon my arrival, he had served as substitute
Jewish chaplain for the Third Division. Joe had
three loves: his widowed mother in Detroit, his
Judaism, and the 7th regiment of the Third
Division. When he wasn't talking about his
mother; or his pride in being Jewish, he talked
of the greatness of the 7th Regiment:. "I've been
with them since they were activated," he would
say. "Been through every campaign. They're the
greatest outfit in the U. S. Army. For the eight
days of Passover, he worried about my Passover
diet, and somehow obtained eggs in which to fry
Matzoh for me. I wrote his mother telling her
-she should be very proud of her son. Later, Joe
gave up his life on Highway 6 on the road to
Rome. The righteous ones, says our tradition,
are greater in their death than in their life.
•
•
•
Having designated chaplains of various denomi-
nations by initials, the "H" in the title of Rabbi
Kertzer's book stands for Hebrew. -
Rabbi Kertzer, one of 311 Jewish chaplains who
served the 550,000 Jewish men and women wearing
the uniform of the United States in the late war,
discussed the attitude of Jewish GIs toward re-
ligion and religious observance. "Religion at Anzio'
he says, "was not inspired solely by the foxhole.
Men who were not in grave danger flocked to
services. They made up a serious congregation, if
not a solemn one. There was, for example, an in-
tensity in community singing and an eagerness
to participate in the service wilich - contrasted
sharply with the timid congregational responses

at home. Every chaplain I met was impressed with
the warmth and enthusiasm of the men attending
services overseas." •
"With an H on My Dog Tags ' is Pleasantly stud-
ded with richly humorous anecdotes, many of a
particularly appealing Jewish flavor, like the story
of the young GI who confessed that he had spent
part of the proceeds of a successful evening at
cards on "something I have wanted all my life—
a real good pair of tefillin" (phylacteries).
"With an H on My Dog Tag" is illustrated by

Laszlo Matulay.

FOR OUR YOUNG PEOPLE

THE LUNCHEON DATE

By EMMA EHRLICH LEYINGER

Hector Chevigny, blind author of "My Eyes
Have a Cold Nose" tells us of an experience which
should embarrass any white American as much as
he says it did him.
Led by his Seeing Eye dog, he was walking up a
New York street toward a restaurant where he
usually lunched. An office boy named Billy, whom
he had frequently met at a publishing house,
greeted him and walked beside him. Mr. Chevigny
invited the lad to lunch.
"But will they serve me?" the boy asked.
"Why not?"

"Because I'm

colored."

Up to that moment Hector Chevigny had never
dreamed the young man was a Negro. He was just
a friendly, well-mannered fellow on whom the
author's blindness. had bestowed a temporary
equality. Now Chevigny. knowing what reception
they might expect, suggested: "Suppose you take
me to the place where you eat. "But," he
hesitated, "perhaps they won't let my dog in

there?"
Billy suggested that there would be something
of a row if his friend's guide were excluded. His
vehemence shamed Shevigny who knew that he

would not have fought to prevent the Negro's
exclusion. No protest was made at Bill's restaurant
but Chevigny seems not to have enjoyed his lunch.
Perhaps he remembered certain public signs in
Nazi Germany: "Dogs and Jews not allowed."

Facts You Should Know

Answers to Readers
Questions • • •

What is "Lag b'Omer" (oceurIng - this year
on Thursday, May 8)?
.
The period of time that eiapses between the
Passover and the Pei2tecost Holidays is a period of
49 days. These days are observed by ritualistically
counting each day on the evening before. They are
days in which marriages and any sort of merry
making is prohibited, resembling, in this sense,
somewhat of a mourning period. The -33rd day of
this period is called "Lag b'Omer," a term which
means the "thirty-third (day) of the (counting of
the) Omer" and is observed as a "semi-holiday"
during which the restrictions are relaxed.
During this 49-day period it is claimed that
24,000 of Rabbi Akiba's disciples were killed in the
famous Bar-Kochba rebellion against the Roman
Legions for Jewish independence in Palestine,

which occurred about the year. 130 C. E. It. is
claimed that either the killing stopped on the 33rd
day or that the killing was done on interspersed
days which numbered 33 in all. -For this reason, it
is claimed that the 33rd day as established as a
minor holiday, in anniversary- of the end of the

slaughter.

,

- Another reason advanced for this festival-is that
Manna, the heavenly food that was given to the
Israelites in the desert, began to appear on this
day.

