To Be Swept Away for Good
THE JEWISH NEWS
Incorporating the Detroit Jewish Chronicle commencing with issue of July 20, 1951
Member: American Association of English-Jewish Newspapers, Michigan Press Association.
Published every Friday by The Jewish News Publishing Co., 708-10 David Stott Bldg., Detroit 26, Mich.,
Subscription $4 a year, foreign $5.
Entered as second class matter Aug. 8, 1942,• at Post Office, Detroit, Mich., under Act of March 3, 1879.
PHILIP SLOMOVITZ
Editor and Publisher
Vol. XXII—No. 10 •
FRANK SIMONS
City Editor
Page 4
WO. 5-1155.
SIDNEY SHMARAK
Advertising Manager
November 14, 1952
Sabbath Scriptural Selections
This Sabbath, the twenty-seventh day of Heshvan, 5713, the following Scriptural selections will
be read in our synagogues:
Pentateuchal portion, Gen. 23:1-25:18; Prophetical portion, I Kings 1:1-31.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, Rosh Hodesh Kislev,Num. 28:1-15 will be read.
Licht Benshen, Friday, November 14, 4:54 p. m.
Striving for Peace in Korea and Middle East
A major issue in the political campaign
that has ended in the election of General
Dwight D. Eisenhower to the Presidency of
the United States involved the demand for
a speedy peace. The tragedy of a prolonged
war has created the inevitable demand for
a speedy peace in Korea. We join in the
earnest prayer that peace may be attained
very soon. We wish to add the plea that
peace in the Middle East be included in the
program of the incoming administration.
Israel is involved in this hope. The clan-
g e r of attack from Israel's neighboring
states hovers over the young state and the
entire Mediterranean area. A war in the Mid-
dle East, like an outburst of warfare any-
where, can conceiveably endanger the peace
of the entire world. We therefore plead with
President-Elect Eisenhower to give as ser-
ious consideration to the peace of that area
and of the entire world as to Korea.
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General Eisenhower's position vis-a-vis
Israel is well known. The President-Elect, in
a message to Dr. Abba Hillel Silver, on Oct.
17, 1952, made these important declara-
tions:
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*
'I should wish you and all Americans to
know that I am in complete and hearty ac-
cord with the statement on Israel in the Re-
publican platform. This, as you well know,
was not a new departure, politically motiv-
ated, but one which represented a consistent-
ly friendly and cooperative attitude on the
part of the Republican Party over a period of
many years. You will recall how vigorously
n d effectively Republican Senators a n d
Congressmen, Governors and State Legisla-
tors supported the cause which was rz ever
viewed by them as a partisan issue, but as
one which commended itself to all right-
thinking people because of its -inherent justice
and as the right solution for one of mankind's
grave and pressing problems.
"As Commander of the Allied Armies dur-
ing the last war, I had the fullest opportunity
to observe closely the tragic conditions of the
war ravaged and Nazi decimated Jewish com-
munities of Europe.
"Along with all .men of goodwill, I salute
the young state and wish it well. I know what
great things it has accomplished. I admire the
hardihood of its pioneers and the vision and
quality of the work of resettlement and re-
clamation which they are so energetically
prosecuting. I also know something of their
besetting difficulties and of the problem&
both political and economic, which confront
them. Foremost among these is that of es-
tablishing peace with the Arab world. Such a
peace would be a boon both to Israel and to
the Arab states. Such peace. in the Middle
East is essential to the free world. Every en-
couragement should be given to facilitate
direct negotiations between the State of Is-
rael and its Arab neighbors whose indepen-
dence, freedom and prosperity are equally the
hope and wish of the American people.
"One of the -.serious stumbling blocks in
the way is the problem of the Arab refugees.
In my judgment, both statesmanship a n d
humanity dictate that these unfortunate re-
fugees should, as rapidly as possible, be as-
sisted with adequate means honorably to re-
integrate themselves in the neighboring Arab
countries wherever their reabsorption in Is-
rael is either not feasible or practical.
"The State of Israel has given every indi-
cation of being a progressive democracy which
is desirous of cooperating with the free world
in defense of human freedom and against
totalitarian aggression. It is in the interest of
the United States and of all peace loving na,
tions that political and economic aid to es-
tablish their own security should be extended
to I sr ael „"
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We quote this statement in its entirety
in-order to indicate once again the position
of the great general who has become famous
as the Liberator of the Displaced Persons.
His attitude reflects the bi-partisan policy of
our government in relation to Israel and the
Middle East. It is consonant with a program
of financial aid to Israel which has made
Uncle Sam a Santa Claus for Israel—a pos-
ition that has been endorsed by New and
Fair Dealers, by many isolationists and Dix-
iecrats. It is a policy that has the endorse-
ment of a majority of Michigan's members
of Congress, including Senator Homer Fer-
guson and Senator-Elect Charles E. Potter.
In order that there should be consistency
in governmental policy, it is imperative that
our next Chief Executive and his administra-
tion should give serious thought to the
question of peace in the Middle East. We are
confident that the wishes of our govern-
ment will be respected, once the next admin-
istration lets it be known to the parties
concerned that the United States desires
peace between Israel and the Arab States.
We pray that this objective will be attain-
ed. We have faith that peace is possible and
we are convinced that once peace is estab-
lished many of the problems involving East-
West conflicts in the Middle East will be re-
solved thereby.
While praying for the well-being of our
next President and for the success of his
administration, we humbly include in our
wishes a prayer for the speedy attainment
of peace in. Korea, in the Middle East and
wherever war clouds still hang dangerously
over the heads of innocent peoples.
TO Your Tents, 0 Israel: For Unity
At the 21st, annual General Assembly of
the Council of Jewish Federations and Wel-
fare Funds, in Boston, Nov. 21-23, important
decisions will be reached on the issue involv-
ing the National Community Relations Ad-
visory Council and- the organizations which
are strenuously opposing the implementation
of the Maclver Report whose recommenda-
tions call for the elimination of duplicated
efforts in communal affairs.
With the exception of the American Jew-
ish Committee and the Bnai Brith Anti-
Defamation League, there is unanimity of
sentiment that the Maclver Report should be
enforced and that the NCRAC should be
recognized and supported as the over-all
actions body in matters involving Jewish
communal interests.
On the strength of the numerous de-
cisions that already have been reached by
many Councils, Federations and national or-
ganizations, it is assumed that the Council
of Federations' Assembly will reaffirm its
last year's position in support of the NCRAC.
The imperative need today is to avoid a
possible rift in Jewish ranks as a result of
the • withdrawal of the AJ Committee and
the ADL from the NCRAC. In the best in-
terests of American Jewry and in behalf of
a unified program of action in defense of
Jewish rights, we plead with the Committee
and ADL to go back to NCRAC, to cooperate
with the groups from whom they recently
bolted and to help all of us strive for unity
where unity is possible. We do not ask for
uniformity, but for unity where it is possible
—and NCRAC makes it possible for all of us
to cooperate in a unified program.
For the sake of such unity, we plead
with the dissenters: To your tents 0 Israel,
in Jewry's best interests!
Congressman Sabath
Americans everywhere join with t h e
people of Illinois in mourning the passing,
two days after his re-election for a twenty-
fourth term in Congress, of Representative
Adolph Sabath.
For the Jewish communities of America
it is an especially grievous loss. Congress-
man Sabath was in the front ranks of the
fighters against bigotry. He led the battle
against manifestations of prejudice and he
bore the brunt of many arguments in Con-
gress against bigots who sought to inject
prejudice in Congressional debates. ,
His name will live in American and Jew-
ish histories, and his memory will be blessed
by all who knew and revered him.
Arthur Koestler's Autobiography,
Author's Road To and From Zion
Arthur Koestler, one of the literary world's stormiest petrel's,
whose books and articles on Israel and Zionism have been sub-
jects of controversies, appears in a new and very interesting light
in the first of his projected two-volume autobiography, "Arrow
in the Blue." (Macmillan).
"You could shoot a super-arrow
into the blue with a super-force
which could carry it beyond the
earth's gravity, past the moon ..
such an arrow could be made real,"
Koestler meditated, taking the title
for his book from this passage in
his work.
The first portion of his , story
leads up to his becoming a Com-
munist, and his readers are left in
tense anxiety, awaiting the excit-
ing review of his Communism that
has since turned into violent op-
position to the USSR system. Arthur Koestler
In the meantime, the first volume places a great deal of
emphasis on his Zionist interests.
He expresses strong affection for Vladimir Jabotinsky, the
founder of the Revisionist movement who drew him closest to
Zionist thinking.
Membership in a Zionist Burschenshaft (a senior students'
group) in the Vienna Technische Hochschule is described in de-
tail, and the reader is treated to the numerous adventures of the
group, its battles with anti-Semites, its search for Zionist real-
ization. He was temporarily disillusioned by the whittling down
of Zionism, but—
"I was saved from disillusionment by a personality whose
decisive part in the establishment of the Jewish State has not
been sufficiently recognized. His name was Vladimir Jabotin-
sky, and he became the first political shaman in my life."
The resume of his experiences in Palestine, where he went
as a pioneer in the '20s, his criticisms of Zionist leaders and of
Zionists who themselves did not go to the Jewish homeland, will
be read with a great deal of interest. He is especially critical of the
Labor Zionist elements, of the preferences, as he charges, that
was given to their members who sought visas to go to Palestine.
He speaks of himself—the Revisionist—as having been an excep-
tion when a visa was issued to him by Dr. Blauer who was in
charge of the Vienna Palestine Office. There is rebuke in his
description of his meeting with Dr. Blauer:
"I still remember mild Dr. Blauer's doubtful look as he
talked to me. He probably also had a son at the University and
would have very firmly objected to his embarking on such a
wild adventure. To be a Zionist was one thing; to let 'a boy of
good family' go out into the wilderness among the mosquitoes
and Arabs was quite another."
As in his previous works, Koestler speaks disparagingly of
Hebrew. He derides Yiddish. Yet, upon his becoming a Communist,
when he adopted the name Ivan Steinberg, he concludes his first
autobiographical volume with these paragraphs:
"'Ivan' was an obvious choice: it sounded Russian and nice.
But what had made me think of `Steinberg'—which, in German.,
means 'the stony mountain'? I knew no person by that name.
"Or did l? As I was walking home from that crucial meeting
.whose shadow will accompany me all my days, I suddenly re-
membered my friend Har-Even, the psychoanalyst. (Har-Even,
still in Israel, is referred to earlier in Koestler's "Arrow in. the
Blue"). I remembered how he had tried to persziade me to retrace
my steps, to go back home and finish my abandoned studies.
`If you don't go back and graduate,' he had kept repeating, 'you
will always remain a runaway and a fugitive on the earth.' Dear
old Har-Even. 'liar' means mountain, and 'Even' stone; his name
was a Hebraized version of Steinberg.
"So the language of destiny could even be expressed in
Hebrew. I thought it was a dirty trick of it to recall t h u s,
crossword-puzzle fashion, the Biblical curse pronounced by my
psychiatrist friend.. On the other hand, if one was destined to
remain a vagabond and a fugitive on the earth, it was just as
well to know it, and to accept it."
Perhaps there is inconsistency in the hatred for Hebrew and
this recollection. In reality it mirrors something of the finer in
Koestler's nature—that splendor that took him to Palestine, that
caused him to study and master Hebrew, that made him the ad-
mirer of Jabotinsky.
To prove this point: Koestler claims that he is "the father
of the Hebrew crossword puzzle." He introduced it in Doar Hayom,
Jerusalem Hebrew daily, and he, called it . "Hiclud Hamo'akh,—
"Brain Acrobatics." •
"Arrow in the Blue" is good reading. Since it is autobiography,
Koestler has the right he .uses to resort to the intimacies, he de-
lineates in. his book. It is an interesting volpme and it leaves the
reader in wait-for the,next book. That'sproof of the writer's genus.