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
Subscription S4 a year. foreign SS.
Entered 2F second class matter Aug. 6. 1942, al Post Office, Detroit. Mich.. under Act of March 3, 1879
PHILIP SLOMOVITZ
Editor and Publisher
VOL. XXIII, No. 19
SIDNEY SHMARAK
Advertising Manager
Page 4
5-1155
FRANK SIMONS
City Ed itor
July 17, 1953
Sabbath Scriptural Selections
This Sabbath, the sixth day of Ab 5713, the following Scriptural selections will be read in our
synagogues;
Pentateuchal portion—Dent. 1:1-3:22. Prophetical portion—Is. 1:1-27.
Tisha b'Ab Scriptural Selections, Tuesday: Pentatenchal portions: Morning. Dent. 4:25-40;
Afternoon, Ex. 32:11-14; 34:1-10. Prophetical portions.' Morning,. Jer. 8:13-9:23; Afternoon,
is. 55:6-56:8.
Licht Benshen, Friday, July 17, 7:05 p.m.
'Arms for What?--Egypt s Destructive Proposals'
Conflicting reports, which at times appear
contradictory, are making the rounds with
respect to the Israel-Arab conflicts and the
debates over the arming of Middle Eastern
states.
Especially disconcerting is the suggestion
made last week by the Egyptian. Embassy in
Washington that an all-Arab Near Eastern
defense organization be formed to exclude
Israel.
It is possible that Lord Salisbury, acting
British Foreign Secretary, and U.S. Secre-
tary of State John Foster Dulles may dis-
cuss the defense problem at the current
meeting. They should take into considera-
tion the existing facts, the reality of Is-
rael's existence and the need for cooperation
on the entire Middle Eastern front. The ex-
clusion of any one state involved in consid-
eration - of peace in that area will mean pro-
longation of strife.
The Detroit Free Press viewed the prob-
lem realistically when it stated. editorially,
under the heading "Arms for What?":
k
Failure of the State Department . to interest
Arab nations in fornzing an - American-backed
Middle East Defense Alliance seems to be lead-
ing to an attempt to compound the failure.
Government advisors now plan to offer
individual arms aid agreements to each of the
Arab nations.
Presumably these suspicious countries are
expected to do on their own what they fear to
do collectively—resist aggressive moves by the
Soviet.
- But if the Arabs are so intent on side-step-
ping the Cold War between East Ad West,
how can we expect them to do much individ-
ually?
Besides, arming a group of nations currently-
seething with hatred for Britain, France and
Israel does not sound sensible at this time.
An especially provocative report, from
London, states that the Washington confer-
ence of Foreign Ministers is expected to act
on reaffirmation of the 1950 U.S.-British-
French guarantee of the borders of Middle
East states against aggression and that this
is to be followed by a new Western approach
to Arab states to participate in a territor-
ial defense organization in conjunction with
British forces at the Suez. If the Arabs are
to persist in eliminating Israel from such a
defense organization, the entire United Na-
tions approach to peace will be defeated.
According to a JTA report from London.
"the British are said to be most concerned
over the possibility that the State Depart-
ment will be swayed by Egyptian pressure to
favor an all-Arab defense pact based on the
use of what is now Britain's base at Suez."
Should the present Administration of our
Government play a partisan role in the Mid-
dle East issue, all that peace-loving people
aspire to will be - doomed to failure. There
can be no peace through partisanship, and
an all-Arab defense pact excluding Israel,
spells the narrowest type of partisanship.
We find it difficult to believe that this is
the case in Washington. Contrary to all pes-
simistic reports, it is our belief that our Gov-
ernment will strive for Arab-Israel peace.
that it will not yield to Egyptian bias and
that it will insist upon accord and amity for
the sake of world peace. It is to this end that
all who are concerned ovel' the security of
the struggling Jewish state and all who as-
pire for peace for the entire world must
labor in the present war-charged era.
While Secretary Dulles' latest declara-
tion, made before the Senate approprations
committee during consideration of the Mu-
tual Security Act, remains a statement veil-
ed in diplomatic language, the fact that he
emphasized the need for Arab-Israel peace
is in itself • heartening. Let us continue to
talk peace and to labor for it and we shall
attain it: and if it is demanded consistently,
even the elements .unfriendly to Israel in the
"State Department will come nearer reality
and will press for justice in the Middle East.
Tisha b'Ab: Still a Day to Be Remembered
Traditionalists continue to observe .Tisha
b'Ab as a day of sorrow and lamentation.
In spite of Israel's rebirth ; the day of the an-
niversary of the destruction of the First and
second Temples is treated as a day of.mourn-
ing.
In a sense, this is a correct view of Tisha
b'Ab, which will be solemnized by Jewish
communities everywhere next Tuesday. It is
on this day that Babylon's Nebuchadnezzar
destroyed the First Temple, and the Romans
demolished the Second Temple. On this day
many other sad events took place, causing
Jewry to view the ninth day of Ab as the
saddest day. on the Jewish calendar.
Many minor calamities, as well as some
major ones, were Tisha b'Ab events. Bethar,
where the heroic Bar Kochba made his final
stand against the Romans, fell on the ninth
of Ab. The decree, recorded in Numbers
14:29, that Israelites in the desert would not
personally enter the Promised Land, because
a generation free from desert and Egyptian
bias was expected to build the Land of Israel,
is recorded to have been made on this day.
Now, with Israel an independent nation,
those who insist upon remembering the des-
truction assert that the days of sadness
must not be forgotten or ignored because it
is difficult to rejoice without remembering
calamities. Because such sentiments persist,
the cause of a free Israel is stronger. It en-
ables the friends of. Israel to muster strength
from memories and to increase loyalties to a
great cause.
In the past few weeks several other an-
niversaries took place—among them those
of the passing of Theodor Herzl, Chaim
Nachman Bialik. and Vladimir Jabotinsky.
Among a limited number of our people there
was a sense of deep sorrow that anniver-
saries which were once remembered at
public gatherings have been forgotten. In
truth, these names can never be forgotten—
they are merely being ignored. Similarly,
Tisha b'Ab can not be forgotten, but it also
must not be ignored.
We have a basic example to indicate the
reason for remembering Tisha b'Ab. In our
own lifetime, which was so tragically af-
flicted by Nazism, people are beginning to
forget the calamities that occurred in
Europe. Too many are unaware of the hor-
rors that were imposed upon Polish and Ro-
manian Jewries in the first quarter of this
century, and many already have forgotten
the tragedies created by Hitlerism. If we
were also to forget the traditional Tisha
b'Ab, we would be deprived of a great ele-
ment in the tasks that are necessary for
Jewish survival: the remembrance of the day
of destruction which, in an hour of redemp-
tion, encourages us to build anew and to
redeem Israel's strongholds.
The synagogue services, the Jewish Na-
tional Fund appeals, the mere reminiscing
on the day of sadness as means of strength-
ening loyalty to redemption, make Tisha
b'Ab a vital instrument for good in Jewish
life.
Tisha b'Ab should serve as a reminder to
Jewry that the task of rebuilding remains
undone, that there are hundreds of thous-
ands of our people who are yet to be rescued,
that the land is yet to be reclaimed. That
is why the task of the Jewish National Fund,
whose appeals will be heard in our syna-
gogues on Tuesday, continues to be among
the important obligations of our people. That
is why a sad day—which now is marked by
liberation and regained freedom for many
who were oppressed only five years ago—
helps, through fasting and the reading of
Lamentations to strengthen the hands of the
builders of Zion. The sadness that has been
converted into a new dignity makes the peo-
ple stronger. It lends new courage to the con-
tinuing struggle for security. Out of such a.
struggle must eventually come blessings for
Israel and mankind.
Keter Malkut
Written on the occasion of 900th anniversary of the death or
Solomon Ibn-Gabirol
By DR. N. E. ARONSTAM
Gabirol: Thou hast bequeathed to posterity
The laurels of a poet's crown!
Lo, these laurels have blossomed forth
For our heritage as "The Royal Crown."
A poem wherein thou humbly singest
In wonderment and exaltation
Of the unfathomable Immanence
Whom thy soul conceived with awe and love.
And thus thy verse proclaimed:
"With these prayers on my lips, I crave,
That man may find his way to the real fount;
I've showed therein the wond'rous path
Of the living God—
Alas, too brief to tell it'All in All;
And named it in our inadequate and mo i - -L- 7 speech:
'The ROYal CrOwn'."
HISTORIETTES
Royalty and Jewish Queens
One of the most intriguing results of Jewish intermarriage is
the large number of royal and noble families of Europe whose
family tree shows one or more Jewish ancestors. The first Euro-
pean country to 'have a Jewess as queen was Bulgaria. It was in
1335 that Theodora, daughter of a family of Byzantine Jews,
married Czar Ivan Alexander, who first met the beautiful Jewess
when she. presented a petition to him on behalf of the Jewish
community.
Queen Theodora's son, Ivan Chickman, succeeded Ivan Alex-
ander in 1346, but the Turkish conquest of Bulgaria wiped out the
dynasty. In the same century, Poland also had a Jewish queen
whose name was Esther. Her father was a humble tailor in Opoc-
zno. Nevertheless because of her great . beauty King Casimir III
married her. Casimir reigned from 1333 to 1370, but his alliance
with the Jewess began only in 1356.
Queen Esther bore Casimir three children, a daughter and two
sons. The former was raised as a Jewess and the latter as Christ-
ians. From Queen Esther's children are :descended some of the
noblest families of contemporary Poland.
Until the 19th century Theodora of Bulgaria and Esther of
Poland were the only full-blooded Jewqsses to sit on a throne.
In the 1880's, however, Alice Heine, daughter of Michael Heine
and a cousin of Heinrich Heine, Germany's great poet, married
Prince Albert I of Monaca, ruler of the smallest independent king-
dom in the world. Until 1902, when she was divorced, Princess
Alice shared the throne with Prince Albert. Before her marriage
to Albert she had been the Countess of Richelieu. Her daughter,
by her first marriage became the Duchess of Rochefoucald.
Liechtenstein's Jewish Princess
A reigning princess of modern times was Princess Elsa of
Liechtenstein, a full-blooded Jewess, who, with her husband,
Prince Franz I, ruled over the sovereign state of Liechtenstein, a
tiny principality of 65 square miles and 10,000 inhabitants, located
on the upper Rhine between Austria and Switzerland. Later
their nephew, Franz Joseph II, ruled the small state.
The romance of Princess Elsa and Prilice Franz is one of the
most famous of modern times. Sister of Barons Wilhelm and Max
von Gutterman, the coal kings of pre-war Austria, Elsa first made
the acquaintance of Prince Franz during World War I, when he
was the heir to the throne of Liechtenstein and she the widow
of Hugo. von Eroess, a wealthy Hungarian land-owner. They
became fast friends during the trying war days, Franz being a
daily guest in the Eroess palace in Vienna. Prince Johannes II,
Franz's brother, was not very generous in supplying his heir with
the means for the maintenance of a regal establishment in Vienna.
When food became scarce in the Austrian capital, Frau von
Eroess came to Franz's rescue with wheat and meat from her
estates in Hungary. Franz wanted to marry Frau von Eroess
even then, but Johannes opposed the alliance because she was a.
Jewess. When Johannes died in 1931 at the age • of 89, after a
reign of 71 years, Franz married the Jewess and made her the
sovereign princess of Liechtenstein.
Princess Elsa's portrait adorns a. postage stamp of the Prfoa-
cipality of Liechtenstein.