`Before You Leave, Sir!'

As the Editor
Views the News ...

`Mink on Weekdays (Ermine on Sunday) '

Felicia Lamport's 'Trials'
In Millionaire Setting

Jerusalem Issue

The Jerusalem issue is far from dead.
Although the UN Trusteeship Council has
admitted failure in handlinc,
handling anything like
the proposal of the last
General Ses-
sion, pressure in favor of internationalization
of the entire area of the Holy City continues,
especially from the Vatican. A recent re-
port from Rome to the New York Times,
quoting well-informed Vatican circles, stated
that "the Vatican still feels that nothing
short of an international regime for both
New and Old Jerusalem would give sufficient
guarantees for the protection of the Holy
Places."
This statement was answered, in a letter
to the Times, by two eminent Christian lead-
ers, Samuel Guy Inman and Thomas Sugrue,
both of whom had visited Jerusalem, who
pointed out that "it is difficult to understand
why the security of some 30 shrines cannot
be guaranteed without imposing an anomal-
ous political regime on 100,000 people in a
modern city built outside the walls which
enclose almost every one of the Holy
Shrines." Their statement also pointed out
the following self-evident truths:

There seems no more reason to force an
international status upon the Jews of Jeru-
salem, who are so completely and obviously
part of Israel, than to cut all the inhabitants
of Rome out of the body politic of Italy and
make them subjects of an international
regime because of their proximity to shrines.
A sullen and resentful population strain-
ing under an artificial status will not en-
hance the peace of Jerusalem. Nor is it prac-
tical or logical to expect an unwieldly, un-
popular international regime to serve as a
dike to save Jerusalem from implication in
any general military conflict in the Middle
East.
The protection of Jerusalem's Holy Places
can—it seems clear to us—be assured by the
curatorship of such a United Nations Inter-
faith Commission as has recently been advo-
cated by several hundred distinguished Ameri-
can clergymen in a communication to Presi-
dent Truman and as has, in effect, been pro-
posed also by the Government of Israel. The
presence in Jerusalem of such a Unitd Na-
tions group would in itself minimize any war-
like tendencies on either side of the boundary
line for the population would thus be reminded
constantly and visibly of the entire world's
religious interest in the Holy City. The peace
of Jerusalem can, we are convinced, best be
built upon this logical and democratic basis.

The New York Herald Tribune bluntly
indicated that the original proposal, backed
by the Vatican, was "nearly still-born when
it came forth" and "since then it has clung
to a faint life through artifical respiration
largely administered by the Arab League."
This editorial showed that the original plan
failed "because it took no account to the
realities of the status of Jerusalem, and be-
cause it was pushed through by an oddly
assorted combination of nations—Arab, So-
viet and Latin-American—each acting from
motives that had nothing to do with achiev-
ing a workable solution. Sir Carl Berendsen,
New Zealand's representative, succintly
summarized the UN's procedure thus far
when he described it as a 'sorry farce' and
`not a solution but an evasion.'
The challenge to the nations of the world
at present is to arrive at a solution that will
avoid ,"evasion." The proposal of the Israel
representatives to the United Nations al-
ready is being acclaimed in democratic
countries as the only logical one.
Many of the Latin-American countries
are abandoning their former stand and there
is sufficient encouragement for the view that
the blind dilly-dallying of the past year will
be abandoned.
Once the Jerusalem problem is solved,
perhaps the UN's new attempts to enforce
peace in the Middle East will prove. success-
ful. Then we shall see new steps towards real
amity in that part of the world.

THE JEWISH NEWS

Member: American Association of English-Jewish News-
pr,pers. Michigan Press Association..
Published every Friday by The Jewish News- Publishing
Co. 708-10 David Stott 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

RUTH L CASSEL, City Editor

Vol. XVII—No. 18

Page 4

July 14, 1950

Sabbath Rosh Hodesh Ab Scriptural Selections.

This Sabbath, the first day of Ab, 5710, the
following Scriptural selections will be read in
our synagogues
Pentateuchal portions—Num. 30:2-36:13; 28:
9-15.
Prophetical portion—Isaiah 66.

One of the best known Jewish families in
America—the Lamports—are the heroes of -an
unusual, albeit very amusing and most interest-
ing, story written by one of the family's scions.
"Mink on Weekdays (Ermine on Sunday)," by
Felicia Lamport, published by Houghton Mifflin.
Co., (2 Park St., -Boston) reveals the thinking
of the child of a millionaire Jewish leader and
her reactions to the wealth that surrounded her,
the partially-kosher preferences of her mothef,
her travels and language studies, the synagogue
influence (or lack of it).
Felicia (now the wife of a Harvard Law
School professor) is the daughter of the late
Samuel C. Lamport whose name was among the
most respected in American Jewry for many
years. His wit, quite evidently inherited by the
able author of this alluring book, is a subject
of Felicia's admiration. By the same token, the
numerous "advantages" provided her and her
sister the book is also about Sara, a year
older, who shares or precedes in acquiring the
privileges accorded them—by Mother is referred
to as: "There is such a thing as having to sub-
mit to so many privileges that you wind up
underprivileged."

W O tl

In a sense, "Mink on Weekdays" is a re-
flection of the changes that are taking place
in Jewish life from strict observance to the
acceptance of concessions—especially- when the
family under view travels abroad nearly every
summer, has governesses for the children. and
a J-apanese butler. As Felicia puts it, speak-
ing of Mother: "Her orthodox parents had
brought her up to believe that it was admirable -
to keep a kosher house and sinful to do other-
wise. But her brothers and sisters, brought up
in the same way and far less rebellious than
she in most things, had abandoned the dietary
laws in their own homes, and Mother had no
feeling that they were sinning." Mother ac-
cepts the doctors' orders that the chiLdren
("you know Sara is anemic") must have bacon,
(served in the children's separate apartment)
and "if anyone asked her why she kept a ko-
shr house she would explain that she wanted
her parents to be able to eat there, which was
undoubtedly true, although it did not explain
why she continued after her parents died."
"Secretly," Felicia writes, "I suspect that she

TOLE ("RAY t1 t. AGE NCY

Paramount Cause: Education

To speak of the paramount need of Jewish education in
reality is to resort to superfluity in discussing Jewish issues.
Nevertheless, the urgency of advancing Jewish cultural ef-
forts is so great, in the fact of a certain amount of indiffer-
ence that has invaded our ranks, that we never seem to say
too much about the subject.
We are moved to discuss this need by the figures that
were recently published showing the enrollment of children
in Catholic schools. The noted authority on school problems,
Benjamin Fine, education editor of the New York Times,
has pointed out in a very enlightening article that when the
new academic year will open in the fall a record .enrollment
of 3,500,000 will be counted in the Catholic schools and col-
leges in this country. On the basis of a total Catholic popu-
lation in this country approximating 26,000,000, this figure
is impressive. When it is compared with the number of Jew-
ish children who get any sort of Jewish training, ranging
from an hour to two hours on 40 Sundays in the year to
those who attend daily Hebrew two-hour classes four or five
times a week, it is staggering.
Naturally, we are primarily interested in Detroit and
Michigan school figures. Mr. Fine's study shows that' in 1940
the Catholic school enrollment in elementary and secondary
schools totalled 91,942 and will rise to 116,701 in 1950.

s

Figures for Jewish school attendance, made public in an
analysis conducted by the Council of Jewish Federations
and Welfare Funds, shows that the total attendance in
Jewish schools in 1947-8 was 239,398 and, by including the
Release Time students, rose to 255,865 in 1948-9. Included
in the latter figure are the following enrollments in Michigan
cities: Detroit, with a Jewish population of 95,000, 6,298;
Flint, 242 pupils in a Jewish population of 2,200; Grand
Rapids, 280 students in a Jewish population of 1.300, and
94 pupils in Jewish schools in Lansing.
By comparison with the Detroit Catholic population of
about 1,0001 000—which sends 116 pupils to its schools for
every 1,000 of its affiliates—the Jewish school attendance
should number at least 10,000. While, at the rate quoted
the figure of more than 6,000 is not too discouraging, the
fact remains that there are many thousands of our children
who go through life without any Jewish education what-
soever.
Conditions in the Jewish community are, of course,
vastly different. Catholic children are not required to put in
extra time for their specific Catholic studies after school
hours since they attend parochial schools ; while the Jewish
child, after a full day of studies in the public school, is asked
to spend an extra hour or two in the Hebrew school. The
discouraging factor will be located in the inclusion in the
number given—the 6,298 Jewish students—of many thou- .
sands of children who acquire a smattering of Jewish know-
ledge in one or two-hour sessions on not more than 40 Sun-
days in the year. Another discouraging factor is the limita-
tion of Hebrew studies to requirements for Bar 'Mitzvah.

The problem, therefore, is one of intensifying Jewish
education by increasing attendance in our daily Hebrew
schools and by creating a maximum of interest in the maxi-
mum educational program.
A more extensive curriculum is planned by the United -
Hebrew Schools whose branches reach out into nearly
every Detroit area which is populated with Jews. The
establishment of the Midrasha has' been helpful in en-
couraging deeper interest in our schools. A revived pro-
gram of adult Jewish education similarly is' helpful.
The major need is to find a way of reaching all Jewish
homes where there are children of Hebrew school age, of
encouraging the parents to send them to our schools, of
making it possible for the youngsters to reach the schools
without difficulty and of taking advantage of the benefits
offered them by our modern Hebrew school system.
The facilities for Jewish studies are at hand. What we
need is a transfer of emphasis from the one-day a week
school. to the more intensive school system.
If we can reach into every Jewish home and encourage
larger attendance in our schools, the paramountcy of Jewish
education will be definitely established,

kept a kosher house largely because of the dif-
ficulties it imposed. To her, the planning and
serving of epicurean meals was almost a career,
although she never learned to cook herself."
Once, when Grandmother came for, a meal,
Mother shouted a "hide them quickly" order,
rushing into the children's apartment where •
Felicia and Sara were eating bacon sandwiches.
To keep the record straight, "when we were
a little older it became a tradition for the whole
family to go out for a lobster dinner on my
father's birthday."
The children's activities were strictly super-
vised by their interesting Mother (Father de-
scribed her: "Your mother is a very remarkable
woman, many things to many people. She has
elements of the duchess and the fishwife in her.")
She wanted them to become Bas Mitzvah, they
rebelled inwardly, but—as in all instances=
yielded. Parents and children attended syna-
gogue as regularly as opera, -but often Father
managed to play hookey and to go off for a golf
game on the Sabbath.

"Mink on Weekdays" is a remarkable com-
mentary on American Jewish life and its
changes from generation to generation—whe-
ther or not the author had such an evaluation
in view. The chapter describing the Friday
night meal and the serving of gefuelte fish and
other traditional delicacies is superb. The in--
cident on Kol Nidre night when a chess game
followed the Temple service and, inadvertent-
ly, Father and Daughter munched on apples
(humorously) adds emphasis to the deviations
that are visible in Jewish observance.
To prove the wit of Father, here is an
dent, recorded in the chapter referred to in
which the story of gefuelte fish and the Friday

.

night meal is described.

"Why, it's the most wonderful thing I ever
tasted!" a lady once said, and Mother beamed.
"It's not a bit like gefuelte fish," the lady con-
tinued. Mother stiffened; that was not the
comment she wanted at all: HER fish was the
apotheosis of gefuelte fish.
Someone asked Mother how it was made;
she began a rather vague explanation about
chopped carp and whitefish and eggs, but
Father took over.
"Made?" he said. "You might as well ask
how a salmon is made. Every Friday morning
the gefuelte fish swarm down the Hudson in
schools of thousands and tens of thousands:
The orthodox Jews stand on the bank with
nets, and the reform Jews on the other bank
with poles—they don't think nets are sporting.
Of course the orthodox side catches twice -as
many as . . . "

Mother's interruption is in evidence here.
Scores of other incidents, in the course of the
European travels, their visits in Palestine (ref-
erence is made only to Arabs and not a word
about Jews—but that was years ago!) Felicia'S
first kiss, all add to the charm of this well-
written book which has special attraction for
Jewish readers but which will fascinate all who
road it. This reviewer is surprised that this book
is not, already, on top of the best seller lists.

