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Yom Kippur
German Atonement
Chancellor Konrad Adenauer's statement
and the preliminary action taken by the
West German Parliament spell Atonement.
The plans that are now being formulated
for indemnification of Jews who suffered at
the hands of the Nazis and for enactment of
legislation to punish anti-Semitic agitators
are, as Jewish spokesmen have indicated,
merely introduCtory offers for restitution.
Proof of German sincerity in accepting re-
sponsibility for the crimes under the Nazis
can be incorporated only in the fulfillment
of pledges to compensate the sufferers and
to make a lasting peace with Israel.
The initial steps taken by Dr. Adenauer
and the West German Republic are, of
course, encouraging. At last we witness a
demonstration of decency in an area where
the world's worst crimes were enacted only a
few years ago. There is a. measure of relief
in the knowledge that German leaders today
feel a sense of shame for what had trans-
pired.
The state of Israel and world Jewry
anxiously await concrete action by the Ger-
mans to put into force the words that were
spoken last week. Sincere adherence to the
spoken word will help atone, in part at
least, for the tragedies that were heaped
upon our people.
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 536-10 David Stott Bldg., Detroit 26, Mich., W0.5-1155.
Subscription $4 a year; foreign $5. •
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
FRANK SIMONS, City Editor
Page 4
October 5, 1951
Sabbath Shuva Scriptural Selections
This Sabbath, the sixth day of Tishri, 5712,
the following Scriptural selections will be read
in our synagogues:
Pentateuchal portion—Deut. 31.
Prophetical portion — Hos. 14:2-10; Joel
2:15-27.
Licht Benschen, Friday, Oct. 5, 5:48 p. m.
Yom Kippur (Wednesday) Scriptural Selections
Pentateuchal portions — Morning: Lev. 16,
Num. 27:9-11; Afternoon: Lev. 18.
Prophetical portions — Morning: Is. 17:14-
58:14; Afternoon: Jonah.
Tragedy of Eternal Stronger
Resner Reveals Status of
Jew in Moslem Countries
.
The Great White Fast, to commence on
Tuesday evening, beckons our people to
meditation, to preparation for a year for
which we ask peace and the elevation of
mankind to high spiritual ideals.
The portion of the Torah read on Yom
Kippur morning, from Leviticus XV, asserts
that Yom Kippur "shall be a statute forever
unto you: in the seventh month, on the tenth
day of the month, ye shall afflict yoUr souls,
and shall do no manner of work, the home-
born, or the stranger that sojourneth amono-
you. For on this day shall atonement be
made to cleanse you; from all your sins shall
ye be cleansed before the Lord."
And in the Haftarah, from Isaiah LVIII,
we are told that the Yom Kippur fast is the
kind that leads us
To loose the fetters of wickedness,
To undo the bonds of the yoke,
And to let the oppressed go free,
And that ye break every yoke.
There is a great ideal inherent in the Yom
Kippur message. And on the eve of the Great
Fast it is customary for the father to bless
his children, thus:
"Ma.y God make you as Ephraim and
Manasseh. May it be the will of our Father
in heaven to implant within your heart
love and fear of Him. May you desire to
study the Torah and obey its command- .
ments. May your eyes look straight ahead,
your mouth speak the truth, your hands
perform good deeds, and your legs be
quick to do the will of God. May He grant
you upright sons and daughters who will
live in accordance with the Torah. May
your source of livelihood be secure, so that
you earn a living without depending on
the favors of man and have time to wor-
ship the Lord. May you be inscribed for a
lon,c_, and happy life."
In our time, we can add to this blessing
the prayer for peace and for the end of
threats of war.
May Yom Kippur lead to the fulfilment
of these ideals so that the world we live in
may truly be blessed with the bounties of
nature and the sanctity inspired by Al-
mighty power.
Vol. XX—No.
Yom Kippur
Israel's Immigration Problem
Any Jew who adopts an attitude of indifference towards
Israel's problems and refuses to assist in keeping that coun-
try's door open for the hundreds of thousands of new set-
tlers who must be rescued during the coming two years is,
in effect, subscribing to death warrants for those who must
escape from their present abodes.
• This never was, and can not possibly be, interpreted as
propaganda. The tragedies of the Jews in Moslem lands are
mounting. Retention of our kinsmen in those countries is
tantamount to a death sentence for entire communities.
In "Eternal Stranger," in which he exposes the condi-
tions of Jews in Arab landS, Lawrence Resner reveals. how
the Jews have been reduced to the status of fourth class
citizens in Islamic areas and are at the mercy of "semi-sav-
age desert vandals." This book, to be issued in a few days by
Doubleday, shows how Israel "would be the ultimate desti-
nation" of these downtrodden people. Only the Jewish state
holds forth hope of redemption for them.
But there are obstacles in the way. There is talk now
of restrictions upon immigrants coming to Israel. With the
number of newcomers having dropped to 75,000 a month
during August and September, and the food scarcity creating
havoc in the land, the Tel Aviv newspaper Haaretz began a
campaign for restricted immigration. It declared editorially:
"Unrestricted immigration is inconsistent with the establish-
ment of a firm basis to our economy. Immigration must be
planned. If the economy breaks down there will be no immi-
gration at all."
This may sound logical, but logic never is consistent
with humanitarian ideals. In time of tragedy one does not
stop to compute medical costs. When a people is forced to
the wall, its kinsmen dare not take time out for pilpul,
for debates and meditations. With the need as great as
the one facing our people today it is imperative that we
should act firmly and promptly, without hesitation as to
costs. Human lives defy the value of dollars. If we inter-
rupt our rescue Work even for a day, we will be responsi-
ble for the lives of thousands of people.
•
It is fortunate for Israel and for the Jewish people that
Israel's present leaders, under the guidance of Prime Min-
ister David Ben-Gurion, do not subscribe to the defeatist
attitude and maintain that the country's security can be
maintained and assured only by a steadily increasing popu-
lation, and that Israel_ can not go back on her principles of
rescuing every oppressed Jew who must be saved. The poli-
cies of Ben-Gurion must be continued and Jews everywhere
must send forth word that they will finish the job begun
with Israel's establishment—the great humanitarian effort
of rescuing all Jews who can be saved in Israel.
Only American dollars can save the situation in Israel
The large number of new settlers has sapped the country's
energies to such a degree that it would be utterly unjust to
say that the Israelis should carry the burden of receiving
the newcomers alone, without the backing of American
Jewry. This is the crux of the problems: to what extent
will the JewS of America back up Israel's needs? The free
dollars provided by the United Jewish Appeal, the invest-
ment dollars of private groups and the Israel bond drive,
must be poured into Israel to ease' the way of the build-
ers and to assure a free avenue of escape for the oppressed
with our help.
The United Jewish Appeal has started a campaign for
cash, seeking to raise $15,000,000 during October, at the
rate of $500,000 a day. It is part of the emergency drive de-
cided upon after . the national UJA leaders had made a thor-
ough study of Conditions in Israel. It is imperative that each
of us should participate in this effort, that those who have
not paid their pledges to the Allied Jewish Campaign should
do so now, that the needed funds should be provided for Is-
rael's protection. This is one of the steps that should be taken
to keep Israel's doors open for all who desire to enter them.
And then we shall have to plan again to assure fulfilment of
all our obligations. We have started a great undertaking. Let
us finish it with honor and in dignity. There can be no more
important resolution for humanitarian action on the eve.
of Yom Kippur,
"Eternal. Stranger" by Lawrence Resner
(Doubleday, 575 Madison, 14Y22) reads like a
horror story. It is the expose of the tragic po-
sition of Jews in Moslem countries.
All the oppressions and persecutions in Rus-
sia and Romania, in the days of the Tzars and
of the worst demonstrations of anti-Semitism,
do not begin to compare with the humiliations
which Jews are suffering in Morocco, Algeria,
Tunisia, Lybia, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Aden
and other Moslem centers.
Mr. Resner, a brilliant reporter, tells the story
of the Jews in the Arab lands. He reveals con-
ditions which will amaze the reader.
The only hope for these people is their
settlement in Israel, but even the path to the
Promised Land is made impassable for them
by their oppressors. Yet. the escape to Israel
goes on. Those who read "Eternal Stranger,"
unless their hearts have turned to stone, will
not permit anything to stand in the way of
their help to the Jewish state, to the UJA,
to every agency that helps the re-establish-
ment of Israel.
The report on Libya is an indictment of
British cruelty in the days when the Bevin ad-
ministration fought against the establishment
of a Jewish state. Mr. Resner shows that with-
in a half hour after the pogroms started in
Tripolitania in 1945, the British could have
ended them. "Police action at the time was
neither prompt nor efficient," he writes. That
pogrom is one of the black marks which the
British will be unable to erase from their
history.
Mr. Resner pays great tribute to the MC
for all its efforts in behalf of the downtrodden.
He has an important chapter on America's role
as an ally of the oppressed and he makes this
interesting comment:
"If anyone were ever to ask me how I
think America could undertake to win the
friendship and unquestioned support of the
huge populations in the vast backward areas
of the world, I would have a ready answer:
'Hire a man named Dr. Joseph J. Schwartz.
Give him a five-billion-dollar budget for a two-
year period. Within that time he could so ef-
fectively establish a basis for a solution of
many of the world's social problems that there
would be little question thereafter about sup-
porting his kind of program'."
But since even the sale of a half-billion-
dollars-worth of Israel bonds is difficult; since
it is always impossible to secure the minimum
requirements of the UJA, it is clear that the
problem can not be solved so easily.
The revelations • in Mr. Resner's "Eternal
Stranger" are so impressive that they should go
a long way to encourage increased efforts for
the relief of the downtrodden and their rescue
in Israel.
'The Uprooted': Study of
Imm i grants in the U. S.
Oscar Handlin, associate professor of history
at Harvard, an outstanding authority on immi-
gration problems, has produced a significant
work on the subject of migrations, dealing with
it as an important human problem in "The Up-
rooted" (Little, Brown & Co., publishers, 34 Bea-
con, Boston 6). -
Mr. Handlin's book is the epic story of move-
ments of peoples into this country. It deals
with the social backgrounds of the migrants,
with their search for havens 'nd freedoms, their
flight from conditions which made it impossible
for them to live normally. And we are given the
developing elements in this land into which they
have become integrated, their children adopting .
new ways, The new generations shedding the in-
fluence of the old world.
There is a most interesting chapter on "Reli-
gion as a Way of Life" in which Mr. Handlin
describes dissenters who "encountered compar-
able difficulties of adjustment" in the United
States. On this point he writes:
"The extreme dissenters, the Jews, followed
a pattern of development much like that of
the immigrants who transplanted established
religions. In the case of this group, the lack
of a hierarchy and of any discipline outside
the congregation encouraged very rapid
splintering. Any ten Jews were free to form a
synagogue and to worship in what way they
willed. As soon as the numbers were large
enough, the multiplication of congregations
began. Already in the 1850's differentiations
had appeared among the English, the Ger-
mans, the Poles, and the Bohemians. And
when the volume of immigration increased
toward the end of the 19th century, the divi-
sions became more minute. .
. . . The Americanism of Judaism was the
Reform Movement, which gathered force at
mid-century and reached its ultimate expres-
sion in the two decades after 1830 . . . "
Mr. Handlin analyzes the economic and sociai
developments which accompanied the trans-
planting of peoples and the migrations to this
country. As a social study, as the history of an
important movement of peoples, "The Uprooted"
will provide interesting background for students
of the American way of life and the integration
of many elements into our society and economy.