Their Democratic Heritage
THE JEWISH NEWS
Iscorporating the Detroit Jewish Chronicle. commencing with issue of July 20 1951
etw
Member: American Association of English-Jewish Newspapers, Michigan Press Association.
Published every Friday by The Jewish News Publishing Co., 708.10 David Slott Bldg., Detroit 26. Mich., WO. 5-11155.
Sisbscription $4 a year, foreign SS.
Entered es second class matter Aug. S. 1942, at Post Office, Detroit, Mich... under Act of March 3, 1879.
SIDNEY SHMARAK
Advertising Manager
FRANK SIMONS
City Editor
PHILIP $LOMOVITZ
Editor and Publisher
•
January 30, 1953
Page 4
Vol. XXII—No. 21
4
Sabbath (Hamisha Asar b'Shvat) Scriptural Selections
This Sabbath, the fifteenth day of Shvat, 5713, the following Scriptural selections will be read
In OW synagogues:
Pentateuch& portion, Ex. 13:17-17:16; Prophetical. portion, Judges 4:4-5:31.
Licht Benshen, Friday, Jan. 30, 5:16 p.m.
Problems Facing Budgetary Conference Sunday
Sunday's Allied Jewish Campaign
budgetary conference, convened by the Jew-
ish Welfare Federation, will be called upon
to tackle many problems incorporated in the
overall community picture and in the issues
that will face fund-raisers in the months to
come.
While facing a decline in income, if last
year's campaign was a guide in viewing
prospects for the current year, the needs are
greater on all fronts. The new wave of anti-
Semitism in Russian-dominated lands and in
Moslem countries calls for greater relief and
rehabilitation efforts through the United
Jewish Appeal. The expansion of educa-
tional agencies and the construction of the
impressive Sinai Hospital will tax our local
needs. In order that neither the overseas
nor the local agencies should be adversely
affected in the campaign balance, Sunday's
conferees will have to plan the year's pro-
gram with great caution.
How is the stream to be crossed ? First,
let us view our needs. In a recent statement
to the Central Conference of American
Rabbis, Rabbi Philip S. Bernstein presented
the following eloquent analysis of American
Jewry's communal responsibilities:
"In the Torah we read of Jacob's return to
Canaan. He had left as a youth, fleeing be-
fore his brother's wrath. Now he returns to
meet his brother again, but as a iTtature man
with a family, flocks, and substance. He gets
down on his knees by the stream and says:
" '0 Lord, I am not worthy of all the kind-
ream hast bestowed, upon me. I crossed
ness st
this stream with only a -staff in my hand and
now I return with this great company.'
"Is there a Jew in this land who should
not today echo Jacob's words? We remember
the recent past of our own parents and grand-:
parents, the ghettos from which they fled,, the
oppression from which they escaped, the pov-
erty which they left behind. As we recall
again—for. we may never forget the terrible
decimation of those who were left behind in
Europe — should we not say, 'Oh Lord, I am
not worthy of the kindnesses which Thou hast
bestowed upon me?'
"Today, Jews must - not ask, 'How long
must we go on giving,' but must exclaim,
`How lucky we are, to be able to give!'
"We must go on giving as long as there
is one Jew living in a land where he is not
wanted; so long as Israel requires our help
to accept and rehabilitate our brethren who
are at least as much our responsibility as
theirs; so long as there is one blow to be
struck for freedom and for equal rights; so
long as there are people in our own land
who need help because they are sick, aged,
or unhappy.
"It is not a question of either/or. There is
enough substance in the Jewish community
to take care of our local needs and our over-
seas responsibilities. There must be the will,
the vision, the gratitude, the social statesman-
ship, the Jewish heart.
"This is a world-wide program for the
rehabilitation of our oppressed brothers, for
Trees in Israel
Trees always have played a vital role in
Israel. Parched for water, the Holy Land's
major problem, from the days of Abraham
at Beer-Sheba (the Seven Wells) , through
the ages, down to our own time, has been
linked with the need for reafforestation, for
retention of water, for irrigation to assure
good crops.
That is why the traditional Jewish Arbor
Day, also known as the New Year of the
Trees, commonly spoken of as Hamisha Asar
b'Shvat, is observed so lovingly. That is why
TU (the 15th day) b'Shvat is utilized for
the planting of trees in Israel, for partici-
pation in tree-planting on soil of the Jewish
National Fund in Eretz Israel by Jewish
communities throughout the world.
Tree planting again will be on the agen-
da of our communities this week-end. Once
again, this project will drain swamps, it will
reafforest barren hills, it will cause vegeta-
tion to take root in soil that, will be made
fertile through the efforts of the Jewish
National Fund's laborers on ground that is
once again being made holy by creative
Jewish efforts.
the strengthening of Israel to the point of
self-sustenance, for the building of a strong,
religiously T motivated, self-conscious Jewish
community in a free America. Such a pro-
gram is within the range of accomplishment:
Such a program will alone - give meaning to
our survival as Jews."
*
*
*
This is a brief analysis of the total. It
is all-too-brief insofar as Israel is concerned.
The new challenges, the pressures from lands
where new waves of persecution are making
the lives of Jews insecure, the importance
to Jew's everywhere that Israel herself should
be made secure, impose upon us multiple du-
ties to increase our giving to the United
Jewish Appeal, to multiply the bond sales,
to offer encouragement to every undertak-
ing in behalf of the struggling Jewish state.
But, first the Jews must understand the is-
sues and must will it that Israel should be
strengthened with unrelenting speed.
The late Justice Louis D. Brandeis posed
the question in its real aspects when, back
in 1923, when we spoke of a Jewish Pales-
tine and when this Zionist aim was a dream,
he stated:
"Do we Jews care enough for the things
worth while in life to take the necessary part
in that adventure? That is the question. Do
we care enough, not only to contribute some
money but to be a part of the undertaking?
To be a part of it we need not be physically
in Palestine, althOugh for- many that is the
best place in whiCh to do their part and the
most satisfactory one.
"In the task of establishing a Homeland
worthy of the highest Jewish ideals every
man and woman can aid and aid effectively,
if he or she will only bear in mind what .it
is that we wish to accomplish; and will make
the daily contribution requisite to that ac-
complishment. I mean literally that we must
give some aid each day. Why should we, who
care for the development of Palestine, let a.
day pass without increasing our knowledge of
Palestine, and at least thinking what we
may do something to advance its develop-
ment?"
S
*.
"Do we came enough" may be a harsh
question, but it is a proper and a real one.
Sunday's budget planners face a serious chal-
lenge in viewing the prospects of the next
drive and in formulating the distribution of
available funds. They must ask themselves
the Brandeisian question and they must give
the proper, the humane answer.
, The conferees cannot, they dare not, sac-
rifice the local causes. But by the same token
they must not, they dare not; risk a decline
in UJA funds and a reduction in income for
Israel. If they should find it difficult to ar-
rive at a mutually acceptable formula on
Sunday, their _decisions should be postponed
in order that possibilities of securing larger
funds should be formulated to fit into a pro-
gram of expanded expenditures. It is better
to work with caution, rather than to err into
methods that may affect our overseas pro-
grams of activity and, eventually, also our
local obligations.
Sunday's conference faces a most serious
business. It will be attended by men and
women whose devotion is above reproach.
We pray that their decisions should be wise
and constructive.
Beth El's New Rabbi
The high standards for service to Congre-
gation and Community set by its previous
rabbis serve as a challenge to the man who
has been chosen to succeed the late Dr. B.
Benedict Glazer.
Rabbi Richard C. Hertz comes here to
fill a post that has been held, during the last
half century, by Dr. Leo M. Franklin, Rabbi
Leon. Fram and Dr. Glazer. The committee
which selected him took into consideration
the important tasks to be attended to. by
Beth El's spiritual leader, the services he is
to be called upon to render to the entire Jew-
ish Community, to the city, state and nation.
While he is challenged by the opportuni-
ties that face him, Rabbi Hertz also has the
good fortune of serving one of American
Jewry's outstanding congregations. We wish
him great success in his new post.
Alici(f2/4
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Dr. Lowdermilk's Antecedents
An American Jewish Press Syndicate Feature
Dr. Walter C. Lowdermilk's plans for the harnessing of the
Jordan, through the development of his Jordan Valley Authority
project, will go down in history as one of the great contributions
towards the development of Israel.
His plan had its antecedents. - Thirty
years ago, the Illustrated London
News reported the following under the
headline "Pour the Mediterranean
Into the Dead Sea":
The ingenious plan of using the
waters of the Mediterranean to pro-
vide electrical power for Palestine—
comes from a Frenchman, M. Im-
beaux, Ingenieur en Chef des Ponts et
Chausees. His idea is quite simple.
At the present time the evaporation
from the surface of the Dead Sea,
which has a water area of about 926
square kilometres, more than balances
the inflow of the Jordan River, which
is taken as being, on the average, '70
Lowdermilk
cubic. meters or 15,400 gallons per
second, say, 1,186,560,000 gallons per day. M. Imbeaux points out
that there is a site near the ancient city of Jezreel, and at a
distance of 356 kilometres, say 22 1/4 miles, from the port of Haifa,
and near the junction of the valleys of the Nahr el Moukattah
and the Nahr Djaloud, where a reservoir could be built at a
height of 80 m. above sea-level.
"By means of a tunnel about three kilometres long, water
could be led from that reservoir to a fore bay immediately above
the, valley of the Nahr Djaloud—a tributary of 4,he Jordan—which
fore bay would stand at an elevation of 78 m. above sea-level,
The proposal is to form an enlarged port at Haifa which could
be entered by sea-going vessels, and to construct a series of eight
locks between sea-level and the reservoir. These locks would
have an average rise of ten meters, and at each of them there
would be electrically-operated pumps, so that sea water might be
lifted into the reservoir and be employed not only for the produc-
tion of electrical energy by allowing it to flow through turbines
into the river, but also for providing a navigable waterway from
the sea right up to just above the Jordan Valley, a distance of
just over 64 kilometres. At an elevation of 265 m. below sea-level
it is proposed to construct the first of two hydro-electric gener-
ating stations."
Concise 'History of the Jews'
.
In 1911, the distinguished English Jewish scholar, Paul Good-
man, published a brief "History of the Jews" which, by its con-
ciseness and accuracy, attracted wide attention and thereafter
was widely used in Jewish ranks. Several revised editions have
been published since that time and Mr. Goodman had planned
to expand his work and to bring it up to date. His death on Aug.
13, 1949, however, made that impossible.
But his splendid history has not lost interest. The eminent
historian, scholar and communal leader, Israel Cohen, has written
three additional chapters which now bring Mr, Goodman's work
up to our own time—through the rise of the State of Israel. "His-
tory of the Jews" in its revised and enlarged form has been
published by E. P. Dutton & Co. (300 4th Ave., NY10). In its 252
pages it incorporates all the basic facts about our history. The
new edition undoubtedly not only will retain but will increase the
popularity of this fine work.
The new edition is enhanced by an interesting introduction
by Dr. Abba Hillel Silver who evaluates the present status of
Jewry and the transfer of importance of the centrality of Jewish
leadership to America and to Israel. From now on, he points out,
the Jews of the United States will be charged with the "major
responsibility for carrying on the burden of their people's proud
herit-age in the Diaspora."
Dr. Silver expresses the view that American Jewry "is not a}-
together unprepared or unequipped for this task," and that there
is ground for confidence because "there is a strong concordance
between the spiritual and ethical traditions of the two peoples'
(Americans and Jews).
"History of the Jews" by Paul Goodman, revised by Israel
Cohen, is a small volume, but it is remarkable for its all-inclusive-
ness. In 252 pages it covers the vast field of thousands of yeas
of Jewish happenings. It is a volume well worth expanding intir3
enlarged new editions and certainly well worth reading.