As the Editor
Views the News ...

Approach to Unity

Soo CLERGYmEN WARN THAT ANTI-SEMITISM
is - THE RESPONSIBILITY( OF THE CHRISTIAN
'JORLD AND MUST BE ELIMINATEDL.

From Cleveland comes news of revolu-
tionary action in the field of Jewish com-
munity organization.
After nearly three years of study and
deliberation, the Jewish Welfare Federation
and the Jewish Community Council have de-
cided to merge their activities into a single
community organization to be known as the
Jewish Welfare Federation and Council.
The new organization, according to the
decision reached by better than a two-thirds
vote, provides that the new organization
"shall perform the functions and have the
powers now performed and exercised re-
spectively by the Federation and the Coun-
cil."
All of the functions of both organizations
now will be performed under single manage-
ment. Not a single project will be eliminated.
The democratic idea is to be respected, both
in the selection of committees, in the func-
tions of the community organization and in
the election of officers and board members.
The significant steps taken by the Cleve-
land Federation and Council to fuse their or-
ganizational functions has strong bearing on
situations existing in other communities, in-
cluding our own.
In Detroit, as in Cleveland, the question
of merging the two community movements
has been a subject for discussion for several
The Christian Century, whose anti-Zionist and anti-
years. The negatiations, as in Cleveland,
have not been devoid of rancor and of ill Israel positions have bordered on extreme unfairness, has
feeling. Personality conflicts have been in- published an article which smacks of partial atonement. By
jected into the deliberations which have been printing the views of the eminent Christian, J. Henry Car-
broken off and renewed periodically. Fortun- penter under the title "The Arabs Can't Go Back," this mag-
ately, the discussions have not ended and azine returns to an earlier attitude of fair play.
Mr. Carpenter presents views which call for serious
are still in the process of revival.
consideration. He deals with three proposals made by 50 top
With conditions in Detroit being akin
churchmen representing the World Council of Churches and
to those in Cleveland, the action of the
the International Missionary Council, at a conference in Bei-
organizations in the important city across
rut. Their conclusions called for the return of a number
from us on Lake Erie should serve as an
of Arab refugees to their original homt.s, a plan of compensa-
encouragement to our own Federation and
tion
for the refugees, and the gathering of large sums for
Council to emulate an example that should
the settlement of Palestinian refugees in new homes.
serve to strengthen community unity, at
In his analysis of this plan, Mr. Carpenter, asserting that
the same time effecting economies and in-
he wants a practical solution based on all facts, stated that
troducing more efficient methods of serv-
the study tour group of which he was a member "felt exact-
ing Jewish needs in the educational, rec-
ly the same way as the Beirut conference when we left the
reational, civic-protective as well as fund-
Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan one Saturday evening after
raising areas.
A - study of the Cleveland merger, as out- dark and, led by a spike-helmeted Arab legionnaire carrying
lined in the report elsewhere in this issue, a lone lantern, crossed at the Mandelbaum Gate into Israel.
will indicate the extent to which the fusion Many of us were pro-Arab and some of us were anti-Zionist.
of the Federation and the Council in that I, personally, was in this group. I am still iaot a believer in
city seeks to enforce democratic practices in Zionism and I continue to be especially interested in the
Jewish life. All contributors of at least $5 to Arabs." f
This anti-Zionist reaches important conclusions. He
the organization or any common fund as-
sociated with it will be considered bona makes the blunt statement, in answer to the first two of the
fide members of the central community. The three Beirut proposals, that "there• can be no return of any
proposed board is to be elected on a demo- substantial number of these refugees to Israel and no hope
compensation in the near future." He then adds:
cratic basis. Organizations and individuals of any
"It is an absolute disfavor to the Arabs to encourage such
will have voices in the functions of the com-
hopes in any way. It only holds up the peace that much longer.
munity.
The greatest help would be to come out flatly and say there is no
This does not imply, by any means, that
possibility of the Arabs' going back to their old homes and that
our community has been an undemocratic
individual compensation is a will-o'-the-wisp; it will not come
one. Here, too, every contributor to the
in the immediate future and probably never will be realized in
Allied Jewish Campaign is rated a full-
any individual case. The only solution is the third recommenda-
fledged member of the community. Every
tion—that
the people be rehabilitated in Arab lands. The sooner
contributor is called to annual meetings to
we accept this and undertake immediate effort to get the Arabs
participate in the selection of the Federation
to see it, the more we will do to alleviate their neglect and suf-
board—just as organizational representa-
fering and the greater will be our contribution toward the peace."
tives are expecited to vote for offices of the
Mr. Carpenter's article is not mere rhetoric. He reveals
Council. Because only two per cent of the
qualified voters fulfill their obligations as a keen understanding of facts he had gathered on his tour
voters does not make the organization un- and he especially rebukes the Beirut conferees for basing their
democratic, just as a slight vote in a city recommendations on "only one side of the picture." He makes
election does not make our community total- the point that Israel must be considered. He quotes the op-
itarian. But the fusing of both methods, or- inion of a high official of the UN Relief Work Agency who
ganizational and individual, as agreed upon said in Amman, in answer to a question whether any of the
in Cleveland, leads towards a more harmon- refugees can go back to their old homes: "None of them. It
is an impractical hope." Israel's Premier David Ben-Gurion,
ious union.
who is described as being above vengeance and as being
We urge deep study of the Cleveland
"greatly concerned about the plight of the Arab refugees,"
plan and speedy consideration of it in De-
asked, "To what will they (the Arabs) come back?" For the
troit. The sooner we plan a. single organi-
resettlement of Arabs in Arab lands, Mr. Ben-Gurion offered
zation here, the better for Detroit Jewry.
Israel's first million pounds. But he made an additional point
We have a basis for common unity. Let us
that the world must not be permitted to forget: • . -
follow it.

Practical Proposals by Anti-Zionist

THE JEWISH NEWS

Incorporating the Detroit Jewish Chronicle
commencing with issue of July 20.1951

Member: American Association of English-Jewish News-
papers, Michigan Press Association.
Published every Friday by The Jewish . News Publishing
Co. 708-10 David Stott Bldg. Detroit 26, Mich.,. W0.5-1155.
Subscription S4 a year; foreign S5.
Entered as second class matter Aug. 6, 1.942 at Post Office,
Detroit, Mich., under Act of March 3, 1879.

PHILIP SLOMOV1TZ, Editor
SIDNEY SHMARAK, Advertising Manager

Vol XIX—No. 19

Page 4

July 20, 1951

Sabbath Scriptural Selections
This Sabbath, the seventeenth day of Tam-
MUZ, 5711, the following selections will be read
in ours synagogues:
Pentateuchal portion—Num. 22:2-25:9.
Prophetical portion—Micah- 5:6-6:8.
Selections for Fast of Tammuz, Sunday
Pentateuchal portion—Ex. 32:11-14; 34:1-10.
Prophetical portion—Is. 55:6-56:8.
• .,••4 I ti y 6.4111,,ii1@al.

"Certainly we wish to give reparations to the Arabs, but we
cannot until we have been paid for all we lost in Germany,
Hungary, Poland or Austria. We have our demands now before
the United Nations. When this is adjusted we will be glad to
make an adjustment with the Arabs. Besides, you must remem-
ber, we Jews have claims against the Arabs for all we lost in the
territory now in their hands."

Thus, we are introduced to an issue that is not one-sided,
as pro-Arab anti-Zionists would make it. Mr. Carpenter as-
serts that "if we really want peace, we must take measures
that will bring peace. We must look at both sides. We must
not build up false hopes ... There can be peace in the Near
East on the terms I have described. Israel needs that peace.
We need it. The whole world clamors for it. Let us meet
those terms." He advocates that all church and world groups
should "demand that their governments and the UN provide
the funds, the technicians and the machinery to resettle
these people."
Practical-minded people who have avoided antagonism
to Israel have felt all along that Mr. Carpenter's proposal is
the only feasible one for a solution to the Arab refugees
problems. Israel and Jewry go along with such a plan. If the
anti-Zionist Christian Century will back it up, and will co-
erate in aspiring to a 'ust solution we shall get somewhere.

op rostsiAt**—i eitarstiris ist.P_ressi Isstentso -

The Book of Ecclesiastes
And the Modern Reader

By SAMUEL °IRVING BELLMAN, M.A.

Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities;
all is vanity.

Perhaps the most controversial and enigmatic
book of the entire Old Testament canon is Ec-
clesiastes, or Koheleth, that strange chronicle of
a sophisticated man's restless soul-searching. De-
spite its numerous contradictions and non se-
quiturs this provocative work has a universal ap-
peal for all levels of mentality.
Tradition has popularly held Koheleth to have
been writen by Solomon. Certain references in the
work, combined with the many passages of wis-
dom it contains, helped fix the book firmly in
Hebraic literature as one of Solomon's creations.
Evidence strongly indicates, however, that it was
composed several centuries after Solomon, and in
fact is only 21 or 22 centuries old. There are
certain passages in Koheleth, however, that date
far back in antiquity. Sentences from Genesis
and Proverbs, to name but two other canonical
works, are re-quoted in Koheleth.
• • •
From the contents of Koheleth it is quite easy
to see that several different trains of thought
are represent-ed. On the one hand there is a
melancholy, disillusioned view of life and human
striving; on the other, a pious belief in the su-
premacy of God's will.

Let it- not be supposed that Koheleth was
welcomed into the Old Testament canon with
universal approval and open arms. A protract-
ed controversy raged between the schools of

Shamrnai and Hillel in regard to the accept-
ability of Koheleth, and only after much dis-
putation and argument was the book admitted.
Koheleth, now the fourth of the five Megiloth
in the Old. Testament, because of its puzzling
negative attitude toward life, provoked a re-
joinder in the apocryphal book called the Wis-
dom of Solomon. This work attempts to refute
Koheleth's heterodoxy and skepticism. We be-
come familiar with Koheleth every Fall, when,
becaUse of the many references it contains in
regard to life and growth and the annual re-
newal of the earth's promise at harvest, it is
appropriately read during Sukkoth.
The dominant attitude in Koheleth appears
to be one of melancholy. "Vanity of vanities, all
is vanity." Pleasure. labor, acquisition, knowledge,
all is vantiy. From the standpoint of Renaissance
English though the author must have had an
abundance of the melancholy humor. Nothing
satisfied him, and he went around in a restless
state of chronic discontent.
Certain scholars have sharply separated the
basic pessimism of Koheleth from the more
optimistic passages and labelled the latter as
extraneous corruptions of an original text. Mor-
ris Jastrow's A. Gentle Cynic (Philadelphia, 1919)
is a case in point. The interested reader is direct-
ed to this scholarly interpretation and re-trans-
lation of Koheleth, as well as to the more recent
one of Robert Gordis.
• • •
That mercurial spirit Voltaire, struck by the
provocative and yet inconsistent nature of Ko-
heleth, rendered certain appropriate passages
into French verse and dedicated them to Ma-
dame Pompadour and Frederic the Great. To
him Koheleth was "un monument precieux."
Renan, the nineteenth-century Biblical scholar,
was moved to make the sweeping statement that
Koheleth was the only charming work ever writ-
ten by a Jew. Hardy, the great Victorian, at-
tempted in his early career to render Koheleth
into Spenserian stanzas, but gave up when he
found the original Unmatchable.
Where does the greatest appeal of Koheleth
lie? In the writer's humble opinion, the intro-
spection of a wealthy, bored patrician who dis-
covers the vanity of wishes is the most potent
message to be found in Koheleth. Even to the
most cheerful and easy-going spirit there come
moments of thoughtful pause, when life seems
hollow and vain, when pleasures pall and doubts

creep in.

Was Koheleth written merely as a release for
pent-up emotions? Some scholars say the book
was principally intended by the author for a
didactic purpose: to instruct youth in regard to
the greatest good that Is to be found in life.
Perhaps this was the reason for Koheleth. But
the book is at the same time an unmistakable
chronicle of a man who had everything and
found it to be no more than vanity and vexation

of spirit.

But Koheleth is a sharp derogation of wan-
ton hedonism. It makes us calf a halt in our
idle pleasure-seeking, it makes us wonder what
life is all about and why we are looking only to

our own ends.
Once we are apprised of the fruitlessness of
striving, Koheleth carries us further and gives
us the best advice it is possible to give: "Rejoice,
0 young man, in thy youth; and let thy heart
cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk
in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of
thine eyes; but know thou, that for all these
things God will bring thee into judgment. There-
fore remove sorrow from thy heart, and put away
evil from thy flesh: for childhood and youth are
vanity." Beyond this, words are ineffectual.
Koheleth concludes with a hymn to youth, en-
joining it to remember its Creator while it is
strong and potent, before the decay and debility
of old age and encroaching death sets in. From
this standpoint: then. we may profit from Ko-
heleth and glean a plentiful measure of wisdom
from its pages. Whether the author was a bored
cynic, a frustrated malcontent, a melancholy
misfit, or a hedonist with a momentarily bad
disposition, his underlying message comes out
clear and forceful; enjoy life to the fullest, but
remember that the Source of life \Notches to see
, how you make use of it.

