New meanings of

Tisha b'Ab and

Sabbath Nahamu

See Editorial

on Page 4

VOLUME 15—No. 20

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THE JEWISH NEWS

To Memory of

The Late Justice

Frank Murphy

A Weekly Review 01 of Jewish Events

2114 Penobscot Bldg.—Phone WO. 5-1155 Detroit 26, Michigan, July 29, 1949

Article by Aaron
Kurland, Page 16

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U. 5.•011srael Amity Group Formed;
Housing, Inflation Issues Solved

Direct JTA Teletype Wires to The Jewish News

22 Syrian War Prisoners
Prefer to Stay in Israel

TEL AVIV (JTA)—Twenty-two Syrian prisoners re-
fused to return to their homeland when they were brought
to the Syrian-Israeli border as part of a group of 79 Arabs
who were to be exchanged for 31 Israelis.
The Syrian authorities refused to go through with the
exchange when the 22 insisted upon remaining in the Jewish
state. They demanded that their compatriots be forced to
return. The 22 then appeared before U.N. officials and made
a declaration that they wished to remain in Israel. At this
point the Syrian authorities agreed to the exchange and the
22 were permitted to stay in the Jewish state.
Israeli government officials were hopeful that signing
of the armistice agreement with Syria will speed up the final
peace treaties with the Arab states.
The Syrian agreement is interpreted as implying ac-
ceptance and recognition of the existence of Israel by all its
Arab neighbors. This feeling exists despite the provision
in the Syrian armistice pact, which is not in any of the other
three, that "arrangements for the armistice demarcation line
are not to be interpreted as having any relation whatsoever
to ultimate territorial agreements."
The boundaries set forth hi all four armistice agree-
ments enjoy international sanction of one kind or another.
It is felt here that the agreements represent a means of
transition from armistice to final peace. The United Nations
Palestine Conciliation Commission now resuming its sessions
at Lausanne may be able to use them effectively to facilitate
a permanent peace settlement, it is believed here.

TEL AVIV—A non-political organization aimed at developing close relatiols be-
tween the United States and Israel was established here Monday night in the pretence
of U. S. Ambassador James G. McDonald and Associate Supreme Court Justice William
0. Douglas. Members of the Israeli government, the Knesset and judiciary, as well as
outstanding private citizens of Israel participated in the founding of the association for
friendly relations between the two countries.
Opening the meeting, Dr. Mordecai Nurok, Mizrachi leader and member of the
Israeli Parliament, told the assembly that the people of Israel have a special regard
for the United States and remember the great support extended by the U. S. in the
establishment of - the Jewish state. He said that the new organization would be non-
political in character and would aim at developing mutual relations popularizing
American culture, science and domestic procedures in Israel, and giving the U. S. a
concept of Israel's cultural and social values and its mission in the Middle East. He
extended greetings to the U. S. government and to President Truman whom he called
"one of the greatest among world leaders."
Ambassador McDonald declared that the establishment of this organization came
as a "pleasant surprise." He expressed appreciation of the efforts to develop friend-
ly relations and cultural exchanges between Israel and the U. S. and termed it a con-
tribution to world peace and freedom.
Justice Douglas described his impressions of Israel and especially of life in co-
operative settlements. He expressed the conviction that democratic methods prevailed
in Israel and voiced the hope that closer cooperation would develop between Israel and
the U. S.

Finance Minister Kaplan Defends Budget
Israel's Finance Minister Eliezer Kaplan, replying to criticism of the government
budget in debate in the Knesset, stressed • that support of the budget would constitute
a vote of confidence. He charged that the opposition had failed to submit a better plan.
Mr. Kaplan took notice of contentions that the government is over-staffed, de-
claring that the 15,000 persons on the payroll comprise one-half of one percent of the
population. England, he pointed out, has two percent of its population in government

Continued on Page 3

World Zionists Mark Max Nordau Centennial July 29

From Assimilationist to Zionist

`To Save Them from Assassins'

(From the New Palestine, January 26, 1923)

A Remarkable Prophecy Made in 1920

(The following is from a letter written by Dr.
Max Nordau to Reuben Brainin, dated Paris, June
16, 1896, in reply to a request from the latter for
some biographical data. These autobiographical notes
are published in English for the first time).

By MAX NORDAU

Only political Zionism has a simple and clear
doctrine of salvation: We need Palestine, not disin-
terestedly but effectually; and not a Palestine oc.
cupied by individual owners. We need it for the people,
that we may establish there those millions of our
brethren who are being threatened with massacre or
rapine in the Ukraine, whom Poland is trying to
strangle slowly but inexorably by means of economic
boycott, and whom Austria, Hungary and Germany
want to push back into the ignominy of the Ghetto.
"It isn't possible, there are no, houses to live in."
No houses? They will live in tents to begin with.
Rather that, than to have one's throat cut in po-
groms.
"They will have nothing to eat." We will feed
them until the first crop. During the four years of
the war twenty-two million troops, who neither sowed
nor reaped, were fed.
"It will cost billions." No, but many millions—
and they must be found. The Jewish people will give
the required money when they will know for certain
that it is to be used in a manner that will produce

My paternal ancestors were Sephardim. They

came from Segovia, Spain, whence they were driven
out during the time of Inquisition. For three gener-

ations after the expulsion, the members of my family
lived in Tunis. From there they emigrated to Turkey,
where they lived for four generations.
My father was born in Krotoshin in 1799, his
family name being Sudfeld. When I was a boy of 16
I chose the name of Nordau for myself, with the
consent of my father and by permission of the gov-
ernment.
My father was extremely pious, sternly Orthodox,
and observant of all the rules and regulations per-
taining to the Jewish religion. He did his best to
bring me up in the same spirit so that I might heed
all the Jewish commandments and become a pious
Jew.
When I turned my fifteenth year, I abandoned
all the Jewish rules and the Jewish code of behavior,
and from then on Judaism and Jewry became for me
nothing more than a memory, but a pleasant memory
be it said.
Thus you will see that from my 16th year until
my 40th my way of life and my relationships were
entirely alien to all things Jewish. By conviction, by
emotion, and by philosophic conception, I was Ger-
man through and through. My Jewish feelings slept
in me; I believed that they had died completely and
that all that had been Jewish was now completely
destroyed, leaving not a trace behind.
Anti-Semitism opened my eyes and turned me
back to the Jewishness which I had forgotten. The
hatred of others for us taught me to love our people.
And from year to year my enthusiasm and love of
my Lpeople grew greater and greater, and my pride
in my Jewishness grows ever stronger. Now I know
that I am a brother of all Jews, a son of my people.
When my dear friend Herzl, who wrote Juden-
staat, and my second dear friend, Zangwill, came to
me and asked me to help them in the work of re-
vivifying the Jewish people and rebuilding the Jew-
ish land, I dedicated whatever little force I have
to this great ideal with the utmost enthusiasm.

lasting results.
We claim Crown lands in Palestine. We want to

MAX NORDAU

On July 29, the centennial anniversary of the
birth of Max Nordau, one of the great figures in
Zionist history, will be observed by the World
Zionist movement. A native of Budapest, Nordau
was well educated. He was a practicing physician
and medical researcher, but soon became inter-
ested in diagnosing the maladies of the social sys-
tem.

Although he had turned his back on Judaism
in his adolescence, in 1892, Nordeau, by then a
world-famed writer and philosopher, met Theodor
Herzl in Paris and was brought back to his people.
From that time on he devoted himself passionately
to the Zionist cause, serving three times as presi-
dent of the-Zionist Congress and lending, at all
times, his prestige and fame to the movement. He

died in Paris in 1923.

establish our fellow-Jews on it; first hundreds of
thousands of them, later millions, not in fifty or a
hundred years, but quickly, to save them from the
assassins and to make them a valiant vigorous Jewish
nation, rejuvenated, planting deep their roots into
the nourishing holy soil; realizing the moral ideals,
the ideal of justice and brotherly love, as preached
by the Prophets of Israel; giving to the world, for
the first time, the example of complete man, culti-
vating the earth, and at the same time, their minds,
handling the plough and the book, producing material
values, living intensely the full intelledtual life of
their times, forming a vast elite of work and thought.
That is the program of political Zionism as Herzl
and his collaborators always understood it.
There are not several, there are not two, there
is only one single method of overcoming this diffi-
culty; we must by all means and with the utmost
speed see to it that our numbers are equal to those
of the Arabs in Palestine, and that we outnumber
them as far as possible, however small the difference
may be at first.
The British Government will stand behind us and
will be able to support the -Balfour Declaration with-
out incurring the reproach of violating the principles
of the Peace Treaty.
But. someone will say, the task is gigantic, almost

superhuman. Gigantic? Yes!—Why?