---,,a ltaNgitaINI

NENWNWEININOWINF"

74 1111.11.miumw

As the Editor
Views the News .. .

The Outcast

Rumor's Slanders

Shakespeare, who spoke of "stuffing the
ears of men with false reports," said that
"on rumor's tongues continual slanders ride."

Reginald Reynolds (author of "Cleanliness
and Godliness"), has written a new book,
"Beards" (published by Doubleday & Co., 14 W.
49th St., New York 20), the sub-title of which
explains some of the emphases placed on the
subject by the author. The sub-title to "Beards"
reads: "Their social standing, religious involve-
ments, decorative possibilities and value in of-
fense and defense through the ages."
The book, written in a humorous vein, fre-
quently over-emphasizes the jocular and misses
out on a few facts. It does, however, make a
fairly deep study of the history of beards, the
various angles connected with them, the favor
given them and the prejudices aroused against
them.
Mr. Reynolds reviews the tradition of beards
in ancient Jewish history and uses the Jewish .
Encyclopedia as his authority. Referring to the
shaving of Joseph when he was released from
the dungeon and brought before Pharaoh, he
maintains that "the first Israelites in Egypt
appear to have conformed to the customs of the
country," contrary to the rule set down in
Leviticus (XIX:27) : "Ye shall not round the
corners of your heads, neither shalt thou mar
the corners of thy beard."
Often, the author of "Beards" reveals preju-
dices, as in the following:

•

No one has suffered as much from rumor
as Israel, whose people continue to be af-
fected by gossip. All sorts of reports have
been circulated in the past few weeks in an
effort to affect the status of the Jewish
state, especially with relation to the Arab
refugee problem. While the rumors have
served an important purpose in keeping Is-
rael's guardians on the alert against those
who still seek to undermine the foundations
of the new commonwealth, many exagger-
ated reports have had a tendency to create
despair.

Correspondents in Washington, Tel Aviv
and Lausanne have been circulating stories
about a deal-hard-with-Israel attitude in the
U. S. State Department. There has been talk
about American insistence that the Jewish
state should take in a minimum of 250,000
Arabs, at a time when Israel's spokesmen
had set a limit of 100,000 on the number to
be repatriated: One story went to the ex-
treme of warning that the White House was
in accord with the State Department on the
refugee issue and that there no longer was
a divided American policy on Israel. But a
State Department spokesman denied there
was "pressure" on Israel and the old game
was in evidence once more—a game of re-
ports, contradictions, veiled threats and de-
nials.

Unfortunately, some observers, while
speaking in laudatory terms of Israel's far-
sightedness and courage, have begun to de-
tect a "psychosis" of fear haunting the new
state. They point to the censorship as a
danger and they accuse Israeli government
leaders of evasiveness. These are regrettable
conclusions. They are as extreme as those
which have been reached with reference to
the status of the Arabs. Members of an
American delegation to Arab countries re-
cently spoke of the expatriation of a mil-
lion Arabs. They swallowed Arab propa-
ganda hook, line and sinker. The amazing
element in that case was that they gather-
ed their impressions in Lebanon where poli-
ticians speak loudly against Israel but pri-
vately work quietly and effectively to es-
tablish friendly relations with Jews.

A Christian Science Monitor correspon-
dent in the Middle East wrote that the ex-
istence of a Jewish state is regarded "as a
safeguard that Lebanon will not be absorbed
by its neighbor, Syria." This correspondent
wrote: "Of all the Arab countries, Lebanon
is economically most dependent on Israel.
Its main industries—fruit growing and tour-
ism—found their chief outlet among the Is-
raelis. Pressure has been exerted on the
Lebanon government by domestic economic
interests to lift the boycott against Israel.
The government has not dared to take this
decision, which would involve an open break
with the policy of the Arab League. But it
has closed its eyes to smuggling activities,
particularly active on the Arab side."

The situation is serious enough in the
Middle East without resort to exaggera-
tions. But if all the facts were known—as
clearly as the Lebanese situation has been
outlined by the Monitor's objective reporter
—there would be less reason for panic and
war jitters.

Israel, the realists must recognize, has
to be on guard on all fronts, whether it is on
the issue of the Arab fugitives or the rela-
tionship of the state with its neighbors. The
moment Israel relaxes and fails to be vigi-
lant, she may be in danger of destruction.
When correspondents and observers begin to
appreciate this truth, there will be a reduc-
tion in the spread of rumors and relaxation
in the resort to exaggerations.

THE JEWISH NEWS

Member: American Association of English-Jewish News-
papers, Michigan Press Association.
Services: Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Seven Arts Feature
Syndicate, King Features, Central Press Association, Palcor
News Agency.
Published every Friday by The Jewish News Publishing
Co.. 2114 Penobscot Bldg., Detroit 26, Mich., WO. 5-1155.
Subscription $3 a year; foreign $4.
Entered as second class matter Aug. 6, 1942 at Post Office,
Detroit. Mich., under Act of March 3, 1879.

PHILIP SLOMOVITZ, Editor
SIDNEY SHMARAK. Advertising Manager

VOL. XV—No. 25 Page 4 September 2, 1949

Sabbath Scriptural Selections
This Sabbath, the ninth day of Elul, 5709,
the following Scriptural selections will be read'in
our synagogues:
Pentateuchal portion—Deut. 21:10-25:19.
Prophetical portion—Is. 54:1-10 or 54:1-55:5.

`Beards'—and Prejudices:
Book of Many Emotions

The Low Tide in Vacations

The vacation period has reached its lowest tide and the
beginning of September heralds the reopening of school and
the return to the routine grind in classrooms.
Our youngsters' spirits will be gloomy for a while as
they watch the water receding in the pools and as they see
the school opening date approaching on the calendar.
It is just as tough on adults—to witness the disappear-
ance of August and the commencement of another period of
serious responsibilities in the home, the community, the
school, the business and political worlds.

, StVgP
.7.1,

"David, to simulate madness, (while enjoying the very
kind hospitality of Achish, King of Gath, which he later
rewarded in his habitual manner) 'let his spittle fall down
upon his heard'—it being assumed that no man in his
senses would so defile the ornament of his face (or was it an
imitation of frothing at the mouth?). It took in the King
of Gath, who agreed that David was mad indeed (I Samuel
XXI:13, 11). Poor credulous Achish: he harbored David in
spite of his alien birth and his apparent lunacy, trusting him
in spite of his own advisers, the lords of the Philistines, and
believed all David's stories of his sallies against his own
countryinen, when in fact the young brigand had been looting
and exterminating the neighboring peoples 'which were of old
the inhabitants of the land,' leaving no one alive to contradict
his bulletins (I Samuel XXVII). David this credulous king
dismissed eventually with a first-class reference: 'Thou haat
been upright,' the simple Philistine said (and we are not told
if David's ruddy countenance showed a deeper red) 'for I
have not found evil in thee, since the day of thy coming
unto me." .• . . It is sad .that the Philistines left no history,
for the little that we know of them from their worst enemies
show them as good- fellows, whose fault was that they lived
on the fertile plains and held the seacoast, which Ahab's
ancestors coveted—though it took some three thousand years
to annex that vineyard from the descendants of their heredi-
tary foes."

In this fashion, the new authority on beards
becomes also an authority on history. While he
is correct in many impressions, regarding David
and Solomon, there are some prejudices which
mar the scholarship of 'this interesting book. Mr.
Reynolds states that he finds personally revolting
the reference to Aaron's beard; "The previous
ointment upon the head, that ran down upon the
beard,. even Aaron's beard: that went to the skirt
of his garments." Then there is this paragraph:

"Joab (himself as we have observed, ever faithful in his
treachery) made use of what must have been a Hebrew
courtesy when he decided to liquidate a rival. `And Joab
took Amass by the beard with his right hand to kiss him.
But- Amasa took no heed to the sword that was in Joab's
hand. So he smote him therewith in the fifth rib .. and
he died.' These heroes were sinister, so to speak. it was
that little trick and such another that David remembered
against his old friend when he had seemingly forgotten his
own peccadillos."

4104o
Our chief thought at the moment is—as it should be—
the school and the children. The American way of building
healthy minds in healthy bodies must be strengthened. Our
teachers should be given the security they . need to enable
them to offer their best services for our youth, and the
safest and most attractive environments should be assured
for the kind of educational set-up we crave for your youth.
The low tide in vacations affects our Jewish schools as
much as it does the public school system. The community
Jewish schools also will commence their new terms during
the coming week.• New pupils will be enrolled in the Hebrew,
Yiddish and congregational schools and a responsible
community once again will be faced with the task of pro-
viding the best possible education for our youth.
We are always certain that the boys of the pre-Bar
Mitzvah age will attend Jewish schools for the duration of
time that they require to prepare for their confirmations.
But this is not enough. Our schools must not become Bar
Mitzvah and Confirmation factories. It is imperative that
our youth should receive the training that is necessary to
make of them well-informed Jews who will understand the
problems that face their people, their community and their
kinsmen in Israel. Girls as well as boys must be encouraged
to attend Jewish schools.
It is estimated that not more than 30 per cent of our
youth receives any sort of Jewish education—either in the
community daily schools or in the Sunday Schools. The prob-
lems that thus are created for our future communal activities
are obvious. Such a condition encourages intermarriage, re-
duces interest in Jewish relief, reconstruction, educational
and religious causes and undermines the security of our
communities.
The responsibilities are clear: in • a well-functioning
community it is imperative that every Jewish boy and girl
should be enrolled in a Jewish school. Can this be achieved?
Can we make a proper beginning towards attaining such a
goal during the scholastic year that begins next week ? The
effort to that end should be made seriously. It should be
the Number One objective of our community calendar.

Mr.• Reynolds might have made a study of
Polish Jewish beards and also of Polish (Chris-
tian) hands which plucked them during pog-
roms. But his prejudices did. not lead him that
far. He does, however, inject his bias again,
when he speaks—with doubt—of David killing
the lion, or when he makes this comment: "But
we should still be in the Holy Land—I will not
say in Palestine, for that word is the same as
Philistine, and signifies the place where the
Israelites never lived until our own time." Now,
that shows historical kriowledge!
There is some fun-poking with reference to
Purim and Mordecai—further indicating bias.
The author also has tongue in cheek in his
discussions of "shaving and circumcision" and
"forcible shaving of Jews." Thus, research is
mingled with prejudice in a book which, in the
main, shows considerable knowledge of the sub-
ject and contains many items of interest.

Story of Negro GI ExpoSes
Nmerican Democracy's - Sores

. By AVRUM SCHULZINGER

LAST OF THE CONQUERORS, By William Gardner Smith,
Farrar, Straus & Co., New York..

Written before the author was 20, "Last of
the Conquerors" conveys from the pen of a Negro
GI homeward bound on an Army troopship an-
other indictment against White Supremacy.
It is not a new feeling to be shamed. Shamed
for the social and economic and political crimes
fellow men, Jew and Gentile alike, of white skin
perpetrate upon the Negro. .
But so long as that shame can be aroused
there is a healthy hope for betterment of the
Negro's lot. And Mr. Smith, in this book, liter-
ally wrings the neck of the white man's shame.
He paints the paradoxical portrait of the
American Negro, "the night fighter," the "white
GI inoculated to turn him black, temporarily,"
(as bigots accused the Negro soldiers of inform-
ing EuropeanS) finding social democracy for
himself in post-war Nazi Germany.
"Now I know what it is to walk into any
place, any place, without worrying about wheth-
er they serve colored. You ain't been here long
enough to feel that like I do. You know what the
hell I learned? That a nigger ain't no different
from nobody else ... They don't teach that stuff
back in the land of the free."
That's the indictment, in the tears of frus-
tration the persecuted have always known. It's
the accusation of American democracy that a
veteran Negro GI bequeathes to a new arrival in
the United States Army of Occupation, Ger-
many. That's the revealing new slant in a twist-
ed world that this literature brings forth to
haunt white man's supremacy.
Mr. Smith tells a story of fact. Fact that
once again exposes one of the sores of our
democracy, in an impressive way.

