Page Four THE JEWISH NEWS As the Editor Views the News ... U. S. as Officer, Do Your Duty Sam..ity of Marriage The statement published last week in be- half of the Detroit Rabbinate on the question of the sanctity of the marriage institution should be given serious and careful consid- eration by all Detroit Jews. Our Rabbis ask for very little. They point out that marriage is essentially a religious ceremony and should be performed by au- thorized Rabbis who are recognized in the community through their association with recognized synagogues. Any deviation from such recognition would threaten to undermine religious authority in our community and all of us should be on guard against abuses. In other communities there have been - instances of "reverends" as-. suming to perform marriages and to act as "Rabbis." An increase in civil marriage is aggravating the problem. By adhering to the request made by the Detroit Rabbinate, we can avoid similth- abuses of the basic prin- ciples inherent in Jewish traditions. Let us all give heed to the Rabbis' warning and to their serious admonitions. THE JEWISH NEWS Member Jewish fele,graphic Agency, independent Jewish Press Service, Seven Arts Feature Syndicate. Religious News Service, Palcor Agency, King Features, Central Press Association. Member American Association of English-Jewish News- papers and Michigan Press Association. Published 'every Friday by The Jewish News Publish- ing Co., 2114 Penobscot Bldg., Detroit 26, Mich., WO. 5-1155. Subscription. $3 a year; foreign, $4. Club subscription every fourth Friday of the month. to all subscribers to Allied Jewish Campaign of Jewish Welfare Federation of Deiroit. M.) cents pet year. Entered as second-class matter Aug. 6, 1942. at Post Of- fice. Detroit. Mich.. under Act of March 3, 1879. BOARD OF DIRECTORS. Maurice Aronssoh Slomovitz Fred M. Butzel Isidore Sobeloff Judge Theodore Levin Abraham Srere Maurice H. Schwartz Henry Wineman, IN MY FATHER'S PASTURES: By Soma Morgen- stern. Translated from the German manuscript by Ludwig Lewisohn. Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America. • ritLIMPAp.4. AVINtv Stop Fooling About the UN - The powerful appeal by the New York Herald Tribune in favor of giving Jewish Palestine "access to arms" and W. K. Kelsey's excellent summation of the problem affecting the implementation of the UN decision on Palestine—both quoted elsewhere in this issue; and the Christian Science Monitor editorial under the heading "UN—Let's Stop Fooling" emerge as the most humane appeals for justice sounded in recent weeks. "How weak .can the United Nations get?" is the question posed by the Monitor whose editorial declares with regard to the threats of the Arab League: "So the United Nations has come to this—it can be flouted and defied by anybody!" The Monitor's editorial proceeds to make the following important recommendations: We believe the time has come for the people of America and Britain to insist that their Governments show more interest in giving UN at least the power to fulfill its obligations in Pales- tine. If it is really impossible to form a genuine international police force, they should at least act under Articles 106 or 51. Both duty and opportunity commend such action, for at least three reasons: 1. The imperative need for order. Disorder hardens hates, invites Communism, grows into war. Britain and America have both intervened in Palestine, both have an obligation to main- tain order — the first requirement for the -building of freedom and justice. UN affords an instrument for policing controlled not by any power's imperial purposes but the moral aspirations of humanity. 2. The Importunity to develop UN. It can best grow and gain strength—and the allegiance of the world's people—by performing necessary tasks. Debating and passing resolutions may be requisite steps, but become stultifying gestures unless carried out. It is time to quit pretending. 3. Exploring a final avenue of co-operation with Russia. The Soviet voted for partition of Palestine. There are special to co-operate. If reasons why. in that area it might be it. won't the case will be that much clearer. e• But America and Britain must first prove they want UN success. Let's quit fooling. There is nothing partisan about these statements. They are serious admonitions to heads of the world powers that unless the UN decision is accepted with dignity and sincerity the entire UN structure may collapse and peace will be post- poned in the Middle East—and therefore in the entire world— for generations. The Christian Science Monitor's powerful editorial as- sumes greater significance by virtue of an interesting expose of the arms situation cabled from Jerusalem by the Monitor's correspondent, Francis Ofner, and "appearing in the same issue as the quoted editorial. The Monitor's correspondent points out that— Weapons purchased by the . Jews, are only partly of Amer- ican origin, while Arab arms are chiefly British, German and Russian made. Russian arms are almost exclusively "balalayka" sub- machine guns lehich have been smuggled into Mid-eastern coun- tries since 1944 from northern Iran. German war equipment is more widely distributed among the Arabs in the Holy Land. The Arabs of Bethlehem are reported in possession of nine German light tanks of the Tiger Mark 3 type. Near , the village of Bir Abu Kefa around Gaza there is a secret Arab airfield. A considerable quantity of American tommy guns have found their way to armed Arabs in Palestine. These weapons once were part of American aid. to the British, which the latter passed to the Arab governments in the Mideast. The Jews are obliged to pay black market prices for equipment ... The price which Arabs are paying for one round of .303 rifle ammunition is 18 Palestine mils (between seven and eight American cents). But the Jews are paying up to 70 mils (28 cents). The only weaporfs which Jews do not purchase for exorbi- tant prices are those which are being manufactured in secret Haganah factories in Palestine. These facts reveal the seriousness of the existing situa- tion. While Jews are deprived of the right td self-defense, the Mufti-inspired Arabs are receiving arms from many quar- PHILIP sLomoviTz. Editor ters and appear to have the blessings of the British govern- VOL. XII—No. 20 JANUARY 30, 1148 ment in their destructive activities. Meanwhile our own State Department hasn't "quit fooling" about the UN. The time Sabbath Scriptural Selections This Sabbath, the twentieth day of Shevat, 5708, las come for real action—and. the sooner we force a sincere the following Scriptural selections will be read in approach the better for the prestige of the United States and - our synagogues: the United Nations and the security of the Jews in Eretz Pentateuchal portion—Ex. 18:1-20:26. Prophetical portion—Is. 6:1-7:6;9:5,6. Monument to Eastern Jewry Morgenstern s Novel Is Praised by Samuel Haven. for DPs After many months of agitation and ap- peals, there is some hope that the present seassion of Congress may act favorably on pending legislation for the admission of dis- placed persons to the United States. The N. Y. Herald Tribune last week echo- ed the sentiments of liberal Americans when it declared: "There is everything to be said for per- mitting a fair share of the dislaced persons to come to our shores. The United States re- sponsibility for leadership toward a just and permanent peace requires that we offer a sol- ution of the war's gravest human problem. Resettlement is now the only acceptable solution for the hard core of refugees remain- ing in the DP camps. This country must open its doors if it hopes that other nations will open theirs .. An important role in Congressional action is being played by Michigan's Senator Homer Ferguson, co-author with nine other U. S. Senators of a bill in the Senate for the ad- mission of DPs. We are encouraged by the following statement made to us by Senator Ferguson: "We expect to have the bill on the Sen- ate Calendar by February 1: The legisla- tion is on the list for action in this session. I am going to undertake to have it receive priority for consideration by the Senate when the Committee reports it out February 1. The reason for its not having been on the list of legislative proposals approved for action by the Policy Committee was that there did not seem to be any use of putting it on the list until we could get it out of the Com- mittee. Now that we know it will be re- ported out by the first of February, it is on the list for action in this session." On the strength of this assurance, the efforts of all liberal forces should be exerted to make it known to our representatives in Congress how important action on the DP problem is at this time. While our major responsibilities lie on the Palestinian front, since the bulk of survivors from Nazism will have to go to Palestine, the lives of tens of thousands of DPs - depend upon an open door policy in other lands, and the United States must—as the Herald Tribune has pointed out —take the lead in welcoming refugees as an encouragement for similar action by other lands. It- is sincerely to be hoped that action will not be long delayed. Friday, January 30, 1948 Israel A review by MAURICE SAMUEL, author of "Harvest In The Desert", "The World of Shalom Aleichem," etc. What a rare and wonderful experience it is to pick up a new book, to glance through the first paragraph, and to be pulled up by the feeling: "Good heavens! This is a writer!" Then to settle down comfortably, willingly and gratefully to the slow perusal, ungrudging of the hours, un- haunted by the thought: "I might be doing some- thing better with my time." This, quite simply, is what I want to say first about Soma Morgenstern's "In My Fath- er's -Pastures." It is not something put to- gether for the market by someone who "had an idea" and is able to string sentences togeth- er. It is literature. It is a clear vision of life mirrored in a record; the product of a mind which brooded for many years in careful and loving scrutiny over an entire world, anti then proceeded to set down, with grace and clarity, with tenderness and insight and humor, all that it had perceived and all that had moved it. I would have read and re-read this book with deep joy even if its particular theme had not been so precious to me; and I 'would have felt as keenly the protest of its pure craftsirianship if it had not been applied to a Jewish subject. For it is, among other things mentioned below, an im- plied protest. Every honest man is a reproach to rogues and mountebanks and charlatans; and the Jewish theme, now being to the fore, has at- tracted its quota of these—the "easy popularity" boys and girls, the "clean-up-while-the-going's- good" word peddlers, the , shrewd speculators in drooling goodwill movements. Against - these shod- dy offerings, which confirm the corruption of pub- lic - taste by exercising it daily, "In My Father's Pastures" stands like a prophetic rebuke. The narrative of this book moves with skilfull counterpoise on two levels, the personal and the panoramic. On both there is—despite the tragic close—enchantment. The personal story deals - with the 19-year-old Alfred Mohilever, who has been brought up unjewishly in Vienna, and who is adopted by his uncle, Wolf Mohilever, of Galicia, a landowner and an orthodox Jew. Alfred in turn as eagerly adopts and learns the religion of his uncle and of his:‘.‘:orfathers. The milieu is not the city, and not even the urbanized village life of the Jew. It is the country- itself. A group of Jews on the land, in the midst of a gentile landscape: orthodox Jews, with a Jewish and rural tradition; Jews as familiar with cattle and crops, ploughshares and scythes, as they are with chumosh and Ra- shi, Tzadikkim and Sabbath candles— these are the protagonists. What is immensely at- tractive about it all is that they are drawn as persons, not as types. The writer does not strike an attitude and invite one in the read- er. He narrates and describes: meticulously, intimately, slyly,-affectionately, making a con- tinuous drama of the revelation of character and personality, so that each individual be- comes an unforgettable event. Some of them, like the boy, Alfred, - the red-headed pious old maid, Pessa, and -the 77-year-old bailiff, Y ankel Uhristiampoter, become obsessively interesting. I am afraid to say of this book, and of its pre- decessor, "The Son of the Lost Son," that they are the begining of a monument of that perished. Jewry—afraid only because the reader might gather that I am speaking of some vast and for- bidding classic which one tries to read only in a passing fit t'shuvah. These are books which in the reading are a continuous delight, and in the re- membering a permanent treasure. "In My Fath- er's Pastures" has the immense advantage of having been translated by Ludwig Lewisohn; but in both books there are memorable passages which I have read out over and over again to friends: Judah Mohilever davvening, the mourn- ing ceremony at the Agudat Israel convention, the concert in Vienna, in the first book; in the second, the Sabbath service in Judah Mohilever's home chapel, the harvest day among the peasants, the kitchen scene between red-headed Pessa and the maid, Malanka, the wooing of the shickse, Donja, by Alfred (right in the midst of his redemption, too). I think these will in time to come take their place in every anthology of Jewish writing. If the third and fourth volumes of the series maintain the standard set in the first two, the monument will have been completed. Facts You Should Know Answers to Readers' Questions ... Is there any place in Jewish Law that it is written that a child cannot be named for a living person? In "Sefer Chasidim" the author, "Judah the Pious", definitely prohibits naming .children after living persons. For a time it was customary to name Jewish children after living persons— usually grand-parents. It was later discouraged for a number of reasons: Some writers feel that it was prohibited because of the spread of such a custom among foreign nations. Others feel that it was preferable to name the child after deceased persons in order to protect and promote geneologies; that it was a means of promoting the feeling of immortality implying that the dead can thrive through the liVing. Many claim that doing so avoids some confusion involved in having two relatives bearing the same names. Jews today are very strict about this custom. On the other hand there are definite sects among Jews which still name children only. after living relatives. Many Sephardic, .corn- , munities do so.