Expose of
Unethical
Advertising
Sol icitations
Story on Page 2
VOLUME 17—No. 23
HE JEWISH NE S
A Weekly Review
708-10 David Stott
of Jewish Events
Bldg.—Phone WO. 5-1155
Detroit, Michigan. August 18, 1950
The Moral Issue:
Is Reprisal
Justifiable in
Avenging Wrong?
Read Commentator's
Column on-Page 2
7
$3.00 Per Year; Single Cocw , I Oc
Haifa Oil Refineries Open, Save
$3,200,000 in Foreign Currency
Direct JTA Teletype Wires to The Jewish News
Editors Flay Assimilationists;
Urge Community Democracy
NEW YORK — (JTA) — Democratization of Jewish communities and placing of
welfare funds under democratic controls is demanded by the editors of two of the
leading Yiddish newspapers in the country.
In an article bearing the title, "The Democratization of The Jewish Communities,"
D. L. Meckler, editor of the Jewish Morning Journal, cautioned that "if control over
the welfare funds remains centralized" we "will very soon have virtual dictatorship
in American Jewish life, so that such a national movement as the Zionist movement
will not be able to exist independently."
Should the centralization tendency remain unchecked, he warned, it "Will not even
be possible to come before these welfare funds with claims and lay before them the
arguments, as would be the case under a system of democratized Jewish communities
and democratically-controlled welfare funds."
• As example of the domination of the welfare funds over other community agen-
cies, Meckler cited the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, which, "on an order or hint from
above has been deprived of the support which the welfare funds had been givino- it
for years and enabled it to become what it has becomean important factor in b the
gathering and dissemination of Jewish news throughout the world.
"Under a democratically controlled system this would be impossible," Meckler con-
tinued. The matter would have been threshed out publicly. The JTA would have had
an opportunity to present its case. Under the present circumstances, the JTA has
nowhere to turn. A small group has decided that the welfare funds shall no longer
give it (the JTA.) support or cut its previous support to a minimum, and the decision
is carried out and there is no opportunity to revise that decision.
"Is it an attempt to control this news agency or to reform it ?" Meckler asks.
Writing in The Day, Mordecai Danzis, its editor, charged that Jewish life in
America "is now controlled by assimilationist elements" who "head most of the Jew-
ish institutions" and who are the "ringleaders in the welfare funds." Because "the as-
similationists are the ones who hold in their hands the key to our communal-treas-
ury" and because "they possess the powerful instrument called welfare funds," they
not only have "the power to do as they wish" but are sharpening their appetites "for
even greater power in our communal life," Danzis wrote.
He accused the leadership of the welfare funds of trampling "on every democra-
tic principle" and of having transformed the welfare funds "into an inconsiderate ma-
chine, and a soul-less bureaucracy," adding that the "leadership of the welfare funds
lies in the hands of semi- or full assimilationists" with an aversion for the Jewish
masses, the Yiddish language, Hebrew and Jewish education.
See Editorial about JTA on Page 4
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TEL AVIV—Approximately $3,200,000 in for-
eign currency will be saved through the resumption of
refining operations at the Haifa oil plants, according
to agreements concluded between Israel and oil inter-
ests in London and Washington, David Horowitz,
director-general of the Israel Finance Ministry, de-
clared on Tuesday.
Mr. Horowitz, who conducted the negotiations on be-
half of Israel in the U.S. and Britain, revealed that Israel's
total expenditures on oil requirements will approximate
$23,800,000. He predicted that 700 workers will obtain
permanent employment at the Haifa refineries as the re-
sult of full-scale resumption of operations.
Officials of the Foreign Ministry are henceforth ex-
empted from wearing formal dress during official func-
tions, due to the prevailing austerity program and the re-
cently-introduced rationing of clothing and footwear. An
official announcement to this effect was published Tues-
day. Appropriate instructions were also issued Tuesday
to the Chief of Protocol to bring the exemption to the
attention of foreign diplomatic representations in Israel.
A group of Americans active in the Histadrut cam-
paign in the United States, who are now visiting Israel, on
Tuesday presented Premier David Ben-Gurion with a col-
lection of phonograph records manufactured by the Israel
Recording Corporation in New York and including recent
Israel musical compositions.
The visiting Americans also paid a visit to Histadrut's
central marketing organization headquarters where they
were told that Histadrut institutions in Israel were con-
sidering various investment possibilities for thousands of
Americans interested in the _program of Histadrut.
(Among the group is Hymitz of Monroe, Mich.)
Israel's economic anCi poliTAIrpolicies were outlined
by Premier Ben-Gurion and Firn,Li'ce Minister Eliezer Kap-
lan at a four-day national conference of Mapai, the Israel
labor party, which opened here Monday night and was at-
tended by 1,400 delegates and more than 1,000 guests.
Some 400 of the delegates are immigrants who reached
the Jewish state during the lagt two years.
Premier Ben-Gurion renewed his appeal to the left-
wing Mapam group of the Socialist party, as well as to the
General Zionists, to join the Coalition Cabinet. Mr. Kap-
lan presented to the conference a three-year economic plan,
the main feature of which hinges on the absorption of an
additional 700,000 immigrants and on the attraction of
capital investments through new loans and other devices.
Israel Gets Membership on UN Committee
GENEVA—Israel was elected Tuesday for the first
time to membership in the social committee of the UN
Economic and Social Council. The committee deals with
all social questions, including the problems of displaced
persons, refugees and stateless persons. The Jewish state's
election to the body was unanimous.
A conference of the ad hoc committee on refugees
and stateless persons in whieh the Israel government is
participating opened here Monday. Dr. Jacob Robinson,
legal adviser to the Israel delegation to the United Na- , .
tions, is representing the Jewish state at the meeting. The
Israel government has submitted a number of important
suggestions to the conference.
Mayor Gets First Absentee Ballots:
First applications
for absentee ballots were returned this week and were presented by RABBI MORRIS
ADLER, chairman of the Jewish Community Council's committee on absentee voting, to
MAYOR ALBERT E. COBO and LOUIS A. URBAN, director of elections. With Rabbi
Adler in the Community Council delegation at the City Hall were DAVID I. BERRIS, Young
Israel leader, and MRS. WILLIAM P. GREENBERG, president of Temple Israel Sisterhood.
Mr. Urban asked the committee to urge the Jewish community to act promptly in re-
questing absentee ballots so as not to overload the Election Commission staff. Dispelling
fear as to the secrecy of the Vote by absentee ballot, the director explained that all ab-
sentee ballots are returned in sealed envelopes. They are turned over to the precincts
on election day. The number of the ballot which is on the outside of the sealed envelope
is checked off, and then the ballot is deposited with all the other ballots before being
tabulated so that no one can see the way a vote is cast. The campaign for absentee voting
will continue until Saturday, Sept. 9. For, ballot applications or other information, contact
the Jewish Community Council, 803 Washington Boulevard Building, WO. 3-1657.
Bloodmobile for Israel:
JUDGE
BENJAMIN SHALLECK, co-chairman of the American Red
Mogen David, turns over the keys of a mobile blood unit to
CILA GORDON, secretary, and MORDECHAI PUNIANSKI,
executive director, of the Magen David Adom in Israel. The
bloodmobile is one of two machines now enroute to Israel to
help the first aid agency establish a self-sufficient blood plasma
program.