As the Editor
Views the News ...
Blocking the Road'
Dr. Hershman: 70
The entire Jewish community undoubted-
ly shares with Congregation Shaarey Zedek
the joy of celebrating the 70th birthday of
Detroit's distinguished leader and scholar,
Dr. A. M. Hershman, on the ninth day of
Sivan, which this year will occur on May 25.
For more than 40 years, Rabbi Hershman
has served not only the Shaarey Zedek mem-
bership but all Detroit Jewry. By the same
token, his scholarship has enriched not only
his immediate congregation but all American
Jewry.
The recognition that has been given to
Dr. Hershman as a scholar, author and
translator recently was extended to high
non-Jewish ranks when he was invited by
Yale University Press to prepare his recently
acclaimed volume "The Code of Maimonides:
Book of Judges."
As a Zionist leader and organizer, as a
guide to higher values in all our community
efforts, Dr. Hershman has been a force for
much good and for the advancement of our
highest values. We wish him many years of
continued good health, and the strength he
needs to make added literary contributions
for the enrichment of Jewry's cultural treas-
ures.
statement made to Ahkel Yom by Ismael
Sidky Pasha, former Egyptian Prime Mini-
ster: "What= interest has Egypt in consider-
ing as enemies over one million
educated, rich
and productive Jews.? As long as the dispute
between Egypt: and Israel rernain.s. unsettled,
Britain will continue to flatter America and
the Jews behind her at the expense of Egypt.
If France agreed to sign a peace with Ger-
many, why should not Egypt sign a peace
with Israel ?"
Blanshard points out, with reference to
the Jerusalem issue, that "observers in Gen-
eva agree that the perforniance of the UN
Trusteeship, Council, in Spite of manifest
good intentions, seems almost purposeless.
The members are like actors trying out a
road show they know will never reach
Broadway." He indicates that when Arab die-
hards called for enforcement of the letter of
the law in the internationalization proposal,
"United States representatives went along
dutifully, apparently fearing they would be
called disloyal to the UN if they failed to
carry out faithfully this now impractical
directive. So the delegates discussed coinage,
school systems and governorship powers for
an international city which most observers
predict will never exist."
Will the UN adopt a practical policy in
relation to Israel ? The hour for a showdown
is approaching. If there is to be world peace,
the UN will have to act realistically, especial-
ly in issues involving the security of the self-
liberated Israelis.
.
THE JEWISH NEWS
Member: American Association of English-Jewish News-
- t7E•Pers. Michigan Press Association.
Published every Friday by The Jewish Nes
w Publishng
Co. 708-10 David Stott Bldg., Detroit 26, Mich., WO. 5-11i
5a.
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
SHMAR,AK. Advertising Manager
1 . RUTS. L.., CASSEL, City Editor
SIDNEY.
XVII--No. f
Page 4
April 28, 1950'
Sabbath Scriptural Selections
This Sabbath, the twelfth clay of Iyar, 5710,
the following Scriptural selections will be read:
Pentateuchal portion—Lev. 10-1-20 :27.
Prophetical portion—Amos 9-7-15 or Ezek.
22:1-19 (or 10).
Lag b'Orner Occurs on Friday, May 5
Senator's Book Quotes
Wilson's Tribute to Jews
America's unique heritage is described as be-
ing rooted in faith in God and in religious prin-
ciples, in U. S. Senator Elbert D. Thomas' "This
Nation Under God," published by Harper.
It is a unique. volume in which the Senator
from Utah, who was schooled in the Mormon
faith, points out that "our Articles of Faith and
religious literature are filled
with expressions marking the
United States as the land of
destiny, bringing to the concept
of destiny the basic belief that
God's purposes are being evolved
in our historical development
and that His purposes are not
to glorify us, but to enrich the
whole world." He adds that "not
Mormons alone, but all Protest..
ants, Catholics and Jews unite
in this basic belief."
Sen. Thomas
"This Nation Under God." in,
addition to dealing realistically with the basic
theme of the influence of religion on our coun-
try, is especially fascinating because of the hun-
dreds of facts it contains about our democracy,
the Presidents of the United States and numer-
ous details about the history of this country. •
U N 'Road Show'
A strong United Nations could, as it
should, have prevented the crises affecting
Israel today. Instead of conducting "road
shows" with the aim of reaching a "visionary
Broadway," the UN, by taking a realistic
view of the situation, would have prevented
bitterness and would have brought the world
nearer to peace. Instead, we have new war
threats.
Paul Blanshard, writing for the Nation
from Amman, in Hashemite Jordan, on "Sec-
ond Round for Israel?", describes the exist-
ing difficulties, the willingness of Jordan's
Ablullah to make peace with Israel and the
opposition from the other six Arab nations.
Blanshard maintains that "if Israel can make
peace with Abdullah's kingdom, it can break
the economic hammerlock of the Arab
League."
Of considerable interest and. importance
is the quotation, in Blanshard's article, of the
Influence. of Religion on U. S.
Israel's Significant Anniversary
Israel's second anniversary, which will be observed here
at the State Fair Coliseum on Sunday, calls for renewal of
Jewish loyalties to an ideal which basically is rooted in hu-
manitarianism and which seeks to end the tragedy of a
people oppressed for centuries.
On the day of rejoicing Jews must also remember the
martyrs whose sufferings served as a background for the
present-day triumph of Israel's re-established nationhood.
While saluting the builders of the Jewish state, we must
also, in all humility, think of the ghetto walls which now lie
in ruins, of the humiliations which were heaped upon Jews
in lands of oppression, of the threats to liberty which still
are in evidence in Germany, behind the iron curtains and in
Moslem lands.
While deploring the new waves of 'anti-Semitism, West
German Chancellor Dr. Konrad Adenauer in effect admitted
the seriousness of the existing situation there. The threats
that were hurled at Karena Niehoff when she testified at the
trial .in Hamburg, that Veit Harlan, Nazi film producer,
sought to make the picture "Jew Suess" violently anti- Semi-
tic, aroused new fears of a resurgence of a pogrom spirit
among the rejuvenated Hitlerites. The crowd, which was pre-
vented by police from inflicting bodily injury upon the wit-
ness, shouted such epithets as "Jewish swine," "dirty Jew,"
and demanded "get out of Germany."
This incident is mild compared with the one reported by
the World Jewish Congress from Vienna. Raising the ques-
tion whether the Jewish community is projected "against un-
precedented insults and dangerous threats," the Congress
calls attention to an entertainment at a Linz factory where
the workers were asked by the master of ceremonies : "What
is the difference between Jews and bugs ?" When there was
laughter but no reply to the question, the m.c, volunteered
this solution : "None whatever—they all survive after having
been gassed."
Mere protests and demands by the Congress for an in-
vestigation are not enough. The issue must be considered as
challenging us internally to face facts and to recognize reali-
ties. If Germans and Austrians can continue to make sport
of Jews by refusing to feel the shame of the crematoria, then
the danger facing humanity in the coming years stares at us
The Nazi ideologies are not dead and the Hitlerite
menace is as threatening today as it was in the early '30s.
We would have to be blind not to visualize the impending
dangers and not to view them restrospectively. The new anti-
Semitic incidents should prevent us from forgetting the hor-
rors of the 20 years during which the Nazi terror hovered
over Europe. They should remind us again of the devastation
that was suffered by the Jews of Europe and the price—the
six million dead—that was paid on the altar of man's inhu-
manity to man. It should emphasize in new light the import-
ance of Israel's rebirth as a nation.
If Jews are to be true to their heritage of being "merci-
ful sons of a merciful people;" if our people recognize the
validity of the ideals of social justice that were preached by
our sages, then we must especially emphasize the significance
Of the Israel independence day because it represents not lib-
eration but self-emancipation.
The Israel day of freedom should be made an occasion
for great demonstration by our people as a salute to people
who refused to remain enslaved and who fought courageous-
ly for freedom. It should be a major occasion for continued
help to the infant state so that it should not be handicapped
in its efforts for even a single day.
A large turnout at Sunday's salute to the state of Israel
and a liberal response to the Allied Jewish Campaign are the
best way of greeting the heroes in the Jewish state and of
defying the reborn Kazis who continue to seek Jewry's de-
struction. It will be our way of telling Israel that we won't
betray a sacred obligation to Israel's cause of liberty
and
justice.
Declaring that "to both Jewish and Christiaft
habits of thought were added; among other .
things, our ready acceptance of the gradation of
law and the process of appealing to higher,
law," Senator Thomas incorporates in his book
the following statement by Woodrow Wilson:
"The laws of Moses as well at the laws of
Rome contributed suggestion and i;7tpulse to
the men and institutions which were to pre-
pare the modern world; and if we could but
have the eyes to see the subtle elements of
thought which constitute the gross substance
of our present habit, both as regards the
sphere of private life, and as regards the ac-
tion of the state, we should easily discover.
• how very much besides religion we owe to
the
Jew."
Among the documents quoted is George.
Washington's famous message to the Jewish con
gregation of Newport. Nearly every President
quoted in proof of the thesis in this book.
•
Senator Thomas makes an important contri- •
bution to the literature on the history of this
country with his factual records and his chart
which shows the life span of our Presidents, data
about them and the eras in which they lived,
this country's population figures under each
President, etc.
This reviewer highly recommends this book
for its facts as well as its philosophy.
Romantic Poems
Stampfer's 'Jerusalem Has
Many Faces' a Prize Winner
"Jerusalem Has Many Faces" by Judah
Stampfer (published by Farrar, Straus & CO.,'
53 E. 34th St., New York 16} is a romantic col-
lection of poems which will enchant the reader.
As Dr. Ludwig Lewisohn of the faculty of Bran-
deis University points out in his introduction to
this book, the author has "followed the tide of
anguish" and sought to reach "the heart of the
sublime"—"in the verses that commemorate the
war of Israel, of which he was a . part; he has
been able to do that and much more,
because
m
he is rooted in that deeper tradition of Israel—
the people and not only the State—which is what
the poet needs: a life within his life."
Dr. Lewisohn pays even greater tribute -AO
the hero-poet in these words:
"His poems, being the poems of an authentic .
Jew, a Jew authentic by both faith and deed,
are a genuine contribution to American litera-
ture. Immitation does not add to cultural wealth.
The Jews who write as though they were not
Jews merely multiply what already exists.
The Jew who writes well and poignantly
out of the depth of his Jewish soul and experi-
ence enriches and fruitfully modifies the litera-
ture of the language into which he was born."
A grandson, of the late Chief Rabbi Kook of
Israel, Stampfer studied at the University of
Chicago and Hebrew Theological College in Chi-
cago and at Yeshiva College and Columbia in
New York. He won a fellowship to the Hebrew.
University but arrived in Palestine during the
fighting to find the school closed. For 14 months,
he fought with the Israel forces. He now
studying for his doctorate at Harvard and holds
a Hillel directorship at Harvard and Brandeis.
His "Jerusalem Has Many Faces" was chosen
as the Spring, 1950 Volume in the Hillel Library
Series and was awarded the first Bnai
A. L. Sachar Prize for creative writing.
•
The poems breathe the spirit of Israel. They
echo the power of battle as it was waged by •
the Jews in defense of their positions in the
Jewish state. Fear of the night, lack of food,
struggle for liberty, the return to this country,
and the search of a. job, the panic of insecurity,
the problem of race hatreth-these and many
other problems are among the themes incor-
porated in his verses. It is, on the whole, a good •
book worthy of its prize.
•-\