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Page 4

VOLUME 14--NO. 24

I

2114 Penobscot. Bldg.—Phone WO. 5-1155 Detroit 26, Michigan, February 25, 1949

The Autobiography of

CHAIM
WEIZMANN

President

of Israel

By' Chaim Weizmann

34 igiapia• 22

$3.00 Per Year; Single Copy, 10c

emend End to Strife,
pening UJA Drives

American Jewish communities, encouraged by the news from the Middle East of impending
peace between Israel- and the Arab states, are demanding immediate commencement of United
Jewish Appeal drives and the -end of internal- strife in efforts affecting the future of the Jewish
State.
Before the .end of the current week there is a possibility that Egypt and Israel may conclude
a peace pact. President Truman has infornied a delegation of Jewish editors and publishers on
Monday that he has good news from Egypt, Transjordania and Syria. In order to prevent a break-
down of morale in _efforts for large-scale settlem cut of Jews in Israel,-many communities, are join-
ing with President Chaim Weizmann of Israel, Israeli Finance Minister Eliezer Kaplan, former
Governor of New York Herbert Lehman, Berl Locker, chairman of the Jewish Agency Execu-
tive, and others in calling for speedy implementation of campaigns for the UJA's goal of $250,-
000,000 in 1949.
Dr. Weizmann's message was addressed to Henry Morgenthau, whose return to leadership
of the UJA together with Henry Montor has caused one of the most serious rifts in Jewish life.
Dr. Weizmann expressed the "fervent hope that all forces in American Jewry devoted to the
cause of
. Israel" will rally to the support of Mr. Morgenthau "sinking all differences in a supreme
united effort."
While the resignations from the Jewish Agency of Dr. Abba Hillel Silver and Dr. Emanuel
Neumann have met with regret in many quarters, the majority on UJA leaders, represen,tatives of
most of the Zionist parties and a large element in the Zionist Organization of America are sup-
porting Dr. Weizmann. and his associates in calling for a speedy end to strife and the immediate
commencement of UJA campaigns throughout the
land.
The Committee of Zionist Contributors, on the
other hand, has issued an appeal for "peace and
unity and an end to the internecine conflict in-
flicted on our movement by Henry. Montor and
his associates," and Herman .Weisman, national
UPA -chairmally Aas--cerinnett Mr. Locker for
The American Association of EngliSh-
the deciSion to recalf.Morgenthau and Montor to
Jewish Newspapers, at its convention in
UJA leadership. He called the action of the ma-
Washington, Feb. 18-21, unanimously adopt-
jority of the Jewish Agency Executive illegal.
ed a resolution condemning the division in
But Harold J. Goldenberg, chairman of the UPA
Jewish ranks at a time when unity is so nec-
national council, counteracted by warning that a
essary in efforts for Israel's upbuilding.
"handful of men guided by the dogma of 'rule or
Editors and publishers from coast to coast
ruin' are seeking to sabotage the destiny of the
expressed a sense of shame over the airing
Jewish people."
of internal Jewish issues and personality con-
flicts in the non-Jewish press and called for
It is this sort of strife that li'as aroused indigna-
immediate resumption. of unity and com-
tion in Jewish ranks and is creating a demand that
mencement of drives for the United Jewish
'internal conflicts be ended. The publishers' con-
Appeal throughout the country. Jewish lead-
vention in Washington on Sunday went so far as
ers were severely criticized for jumping into
to describe the coflict as the conversion of Jewish
print with statements which tend to confuse
life into "a public laundry" for the washing of
the minds of contributors and which place
dirty linens in the demand for a return to _unity.
Jewry in a bad light in the eyes of their
A decision reached by a meeting of 55 members
neighbors.
of the UPA national board on Monday to accept
The editors and publishers also expressed
concern over the fusing of a multiplicity of
the decisions of the JewiSh Agency Executive and
causes in single drives, placing all sorts of
to call for immediate implementation -of UJA ef-
movements
on a par with the UJA, and urged
forts under Mr. Morgenthau's leadership ft ex-
the adoption of democratic policies in com-
pected to aid in forcing peace in Jewish ranks.
munity planning.

,

Earliest Days

The townlet of my birth, Motol, stood on the
banks of a little river in the great marsh . area
which occupies much of the Province of Minsk in
- White Russia; flat, open country, mournful and
monotonous but, with its rivers, forests and lakes,
not wholly. -unpicturesque. - Jews dived all about,
in hundreds of towns and villages, as they had
lived for many generation's, scattered islands in a
Gentile ocean.
Motol was in one of
the darkest corners of
the Pale of Settlement,
• that prison-house ere-
- ated by Czaristic Rds-
sia for the largest part
of its Jewish popula-
tion. For centuries, al-
ternations of bitter op-
pression and compar-
ative freedom — how
comparative a free
people would hardly
understand — had
deepened the con-
sciousness of exile in
these scattered com-
munities.
My family w a s_
among the well-to-do,
and it may help -give
some idea of the stand-
ards of well-being in
Motol when I say that
our yearly budget was
seldom
more than five
Oser Weizmann
or six hundred roubles
($250). Out of it there were a dozen children to
be clothed, shod and fed, and given a tolerably
good education, considering our circumstances. On
the other hand, we had our own hbuse—one-story,
*with seven rooms and a kitchen, some acres of

(Continued on Page 20)

President Welcomes Publishers: On

Mon-
day morning, PRESIDENT HARRY S. TRUMAN welcomed a delegation from the
'American Association of English-Jewish Newspapers, under the chairmanship of
PHILIP SLOMOVITZ, editor and publisher of The Detroit Jewish News and president
of the Association, in his office at the White House. The occasion was the celetwation
I f the 100th anniversary of the English-Jewish weekly press in America.
Mr. Slomovitz presented the President with a resolution commending the Chief
Executive for his aid to Israel and nominating him for an - honorary degree by the

Leaders Criticized by
Editors for Airing. of
Issues Among Non-Jews

.

—International News Photo

Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and with a reproduction of the first issue of the
Asmonean, the first English-Jewish weekly published in America.
In the photo, left to right: Willy Pels, Southern Israelite, Atlanta, Ga.; Albert
Golomb, Jewish Outlook, Pittsburgh; Leo H. Frisch, American Jewish World, Min-
neapolis; Philip Slomovitz; J. M. Feldman, The Sentinel, Chicago; President Truman;
Dr. Alexander Brin, Jewish Advocate, Boston; Samuel Neusner, Jewish Ledger, Hart-
ford, Conn.; Philip Klein, Jewish Times, Philadelphia; Eli Jacobs, Jewish Review, Buffalo.

,