'Boning Up'
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.. WO. 5-1156.
Subscription S4 a year, foreign $5.
Entered as second class - matter Aug. 6, 1942, at Post Office. Detroit, Mich., under Act of March 3, 1879.
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FRANK SIMONS
SIDNEY SHMARAK
PHILIP SLOMOVITZ
City Editor
Advertising Manager
Editor and Publisher
Page 4
Vol. XXII—No. 22
February 6, 1953
Sabbath Scriptural Selections
This Sabbath, the twenty-second day of Slivat, 5713, the following Scriptural selections will be
read in our synagogues:
Pen?..N.teuchal portion., Ex. 18:1-20:26: Prophetical: portion, Is. 6:1-7:6; 9:5„ 6.
Licht Benshen, Friday, Feb.
6, 4:58
p. m.
Tercentenary of American Jewry: 1654-1954
American Jewish history begins with
Christopher Columbus. There are claims
that Columbus himself was a Mariano Jew.
His voyage to the new continent. was fin-
anced by former or secret Jews. The dis-
coverer used almanacs and astronomical in-
struments and tables prepared by Jews to
guide him on his voyage.
Jews were active in many fields of en-
deavor in this country for many years. Yet,
the history of the organized Jewish com-
munity in America is considered to have
begun in September of 1654, when 23 Jews,
who left Europe to seek civic and religious
freedom here, landed on Manhattan Wand.
During the next 20 months, much will
be said about the approaching tercentenary
of American Jewry. Celebrations already are
being planned nationally and in many com-
munities throughout the land.
The American JewiSh Tercentenary Com-
mittee has indicated justifiably in its out-
line of the scope and theme of the forth-
coming tercentenary celebration that only a
few Jews came to this country out of an in-
spiration for adventure. The overwhelming
majority, indeed, "sought escape from per-
secution, from poverty, from despair, from
the dreariness and desperation of their daily
lives."
Yes: "They_ dreamed and planned and
worked. They established new . industries,
they contributed to the economic strength
of America, they wrote books and plays and
songs, they held public office, they opened
up new frontiers. They shared in the building
of a great nation; in its struggles and its set-
backs, and its majestic victories. Above all,
they helped to mold the idea that every man
has the right to be treated for what he is,
rather than for his faith or the color of
his skin."
Change the tense to the present, and you
have a condition we are experiencing today.
WE are molding public opinion for the com-
mon good; WE are sharing in the advance-
ment of the best interests. of this nation;
OUR relatives and friends and neighbors are.
holding public office, are writing books and
songs and plays, are participating in majes-
tic victories. ---
It is true: we have been advised, even by
Jews, that we should stay out of public life,
that we should refrain from accepting judi-
cial and governmental appointments in order -
to avert the charge that we control the land.
We did not listen to nonsense that is un-
American because we are American to the
core. Therefore we shall continue to share in
the glories of this land and shall insist on a
share in the struggle for the perpetuation of
the basic American ideals.
Thus, the tercentenary is an occasion for
rejoicing; it also is a challenge to American
Jews to fight, every inch of the way, for
the continuation of the glorious accomplish-
ments of this great land for which we
"dreamed, and planned, and worked."
Mo'os Hitim
It is not too early to think in terms of
supporting the traditional Passover relief
fund known as Mo'os Hitim.
Under the chairmanship of Harry Cohen,
one of Detroit's most devoted leaders, an
appeal has gone birth for cooperation in as-
s u r i n g availability of the vitally needed
funds to enable all needy.families in this city
to observe Passover in traditional fashion.
The fact that approximately 600 families
are in need of necessities for Passover should
serve as sufficient incentive to encourage
contributions to make the aim of the Fes-
tival of Freedom—that none shall go hungry
—a reality.
We urge wide and wholehearted support
of the Mo'os Hitim Committee's appeal for
sufficient funds to make the Passover of
5713 a festival free from want in our com-
munity.
The all-embracing natures of the tercen-
tenary celebrations will develop the theme
and the challenge. We are advised ;to accept
as the slogan for the celebration: "Man's
Opportunities and • Responsibilities under
Freedom," because: I. Our experiences have
shown the "opportunities which exist for
man in an atmosphere of freedom"; 2. Jews
have been .alive to their responsibilities as
citizens; 3. "We must express the hope that
those opportunities and responsibilities Will
soon be made universal."
No one can disagree with these objectives.
As a matter of fact, we believe that Chris-
tians, too, will join with us in acclaiming
them because of their universality and be -
cause the realistic American must acknowl-
edge that before we can hope to make the
basic rights of man universal they mint be
made secure for ourselves; therefore, 'What
we strive for is an ideal for all men.
Nor should there be dissent from the pro-
posal that a permanent physical monument
be established to mark the tercentenary. It
is proposed that: "For the Tercentenary
year, American Jews raise a special fund
large enough to erect in Washington a
House of Human Freedom. This might be a
separate building, or it might be a new wing
of the Library of Congress. In this building
would be housed many of the great docu-
ments of human freedom . . ."
This would entail fund-raising. We do not
relish another campaign for funds. It is pos-
sible, however, that such a monument may
be endowed by men of wealth who should
recognize the validity of the proposal. In any
event, the time to plan it is now, before the
Tercentenary . year.
We are .about to observe a most signifi-
cant event in Jewish history. All American
Jews will no doubt wish to have a share in
the great event. Out of it surely will grow
an appropriate monument that will stand as
erect as our freedom to symbolize our share
in America and our • dedication to unending
labors for the advancement of our country.
New Nazi Specter'
While the plague of Communists haunts
the Jews in East Germany, "the new Nazi
specter in Western Germany," as the title
of an article by Gaston Coblentz, in the New
York Herald Tribune, evidence of mounting
dangers, is rising to haunt the democracies
and to warn us that the Hitler menace has
not ended.
Mr. Coblentz, in a wireless story from
Bonn, mentions the activities of Dr. Werner
Naumann, former State Secretary in Goeb-
bels' Propaganda Ministry; Hermann Bern-
hard Ramcke and Otto Ernst Remer, ex-
Hitler generals, and Wilhelm Schepmann,
last chief of staff of Hitler's Storm Troopers.
It is of the utmost urgency that the demo-
cratic governments should view seriously
Mr. Coblentz' observation about these men:
"All of these men have indicated by
their actions and speeches that the only
thing wrong with Nazism was that it
failed to withstand the hammer blows of a
world war."
But even Chancellor Konrad Adenauer
has seen fit to resent the expose of "the new
Nazi specter." Is this to be taken as an in-
dication that the reparations agreement with
world Jewry is in danger of being scrapped?
Does it mean that the Hitler era has not
ended and that we are soon to witness a
new manifestation of Nazism? Are we in
store for another Nazi-Communist pact—to
complete the terror that began in the year
1953, only eight years after the end of
World War II—in an effort to fulfill Adolf
Hitler's pledge to exterminate Jewry? ,
Even if the questions are posed too des-
perately and too pessimistically, we are des-
tined to witness tragic months— we pray
that they should not be tragic years—in the
combined struggle against a combined
enemy: Nazism and Communism.
.
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`The Humor of Humor'
Esar's Definitions and Anecdotes
Enlighten and Entertain the Reader
After reading the fascinatingly entertaining "The Humor of
Humor," published by Horizon Press (63 W. '44th, NY 36'). the
reader is certain to mark down. the name of the author, Evan
Esar, and to remember him as a true authority on the subject.-
Esar explains and defines the various elements of humor.
And while offering explanations he tells stories, quotes epigrams,
relates how the jestbooks are produced and jokelore is created.
Having finished his book, the reader has a much better idea
of the difference between gaps and quips, wisecracks and epi-
grams, fuddletalk and tongue twistets, puns and boners, repartee
and proverbs, satire and sarcasm.
There is information. and. entertainment in this splendid
book, and people in all walks of life will gather stories from
this text to keep them busy passing them on to friends and as-
semblies for months.
Esar mentions as the most famous of ancient riddles the one
Samson asked of the PhiliStines: "Out of the eater came forth
meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness." Explains the
author of "The Humor of Humor": `The answer turned on. the
young lion that Samson had slain with his bare hands, and in.
whose carcass he later beheld a swarm of bees whose honey he
extracted. After Delilah soft-soaped Samson into divulging the
solution and she retold it to the Philistines, he answered them
in frank and memorable words: If ye had not plowed with my
heifer, ye had not found out my riddle.'"
Explaining the Chad- Gadya of the Passover Hagadah as one
of the oldest forms of cumulative humor, Esar writes:
"The Talmudic allegory of Jehovah and the Hebrew na-
tion is still part of the Jewish Passover service, and millions of
Jews the world over chant its verses yearly. It occupies first
place among cumulative folktales and its survival clarifies more
than any other story type the evolution of popular humor from
the sacred to the secular, from verse to .prose, from the symbolic
to the literal, and from adult to juvenile levels. The return of
the Jews to their homeland in Israel after 2,000 years in the
Diaspora seems to prove in a mystical sense the cumulative
power of the cumulative Chad Gadya."
Immanuel Olsvanger's "Royte Pomerantsen" is referred to by
Esar as "a modern type of macaronies." He also make reference to
Chelm, the Polish town, near Lublin, whose residents were made
fun of and were, delineated as idiots. The Chelm reference is in
his chapter "The Fooltown," common among all peoples.
A special chapter is devoted to Goldwynisms. There also is a
chapter on "The Freudian Slip." But one chapter is as good as
another in this book. "The Humor of Humor" is entertaining and
enlightening from cover to cover:
Vital Lessons in
'
This
I Believe
!
Many vital lessons are to be gleaned from "This I Believe,"
the "personal philosophies of 10-0 thoughtful men and women,"
written for Edward R. Murrow and published by Simon & Schus-
ter (630 5th, N. Y. 20). The best known people in this land speak
their minds, unburden their hear,ts„ tell what they think and
reveal how their lives are guided and by what.
Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt labels her thought "Growth That
Starts From Thinking" and declareS. that:
"the important thing was that you never let down doing the
best that you were able to do—it might be poor because you
might not have -very much. within you to give . . . but as long
as you did the very best . . . then that was what you were put
here to do."
Leland Stowe expresses the wtsh, "When I die I wish people
might say. 'He helped people to understand each other better'."
He recalls seeing Hitler's thugs beating up Jews in Berlin and
then hearing it said, back home, "Well, it's their affair." He
comments: "They forgot that freedom and, fair play belong to
all human beings—not to lucky Americans alone."
Former Detroiter Saul K. Padover believes that "if we Ilse
our social intelligence and the ample tools of science a day will
come when there is no bloodshed, hatred, and disease, and no
slums and no poverty, and no destructive fears of the unknown."
Senator Herbert H. Lehman warns against complacency. lie
says the core of his Am_erican faith• is: "To make effective such
things as brotherhood, kindliness, sympathy, human decency, the
freedom of opportunity, the very preciousness of life—to make
these things real requires respect and constant vigilance."
Dr. Nelson Glueck, Nat Holman, Herbert Hoover, Prof. Over-
street, Thomas Mann, Helen Keller, William Zorach, Louis B.
Seltzer and many other noted people are among those who.se
views help make "This I Believe" a noteworthy book, in spite
its shortcomings and many of its trite views. In the main it is a
good. guide for good living.