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THE JEWISH NEWS

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Fate of a Nation in Balance

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., 17100 West Seven Mile Road; Detroit 35, Mich., VE.
subscription $4. a year, foreign $5.
Ensered as second class matter Aug. 6, 1942: at Post Office, Detroit. Mich.. under Act of March 3. 1879

PHILIP SLOMOVITZ
Editor and Publisher

VOL. XXIV, No. 10 _

SIDNEY SHMARAK
Advertising Manager

Page 4

8-9364

, FRANK SIMONS
City Editor

November 13, 1953

Sabbath Scriptural Selections
This Sabbath, the seventh day of Kislev, 5714, the following Scriptural selection will be read .
in our synagogues:
Penateuchal portion, Gen. 28:10-32:3. Prophetical portion.. Hos. .12:13-14:10 or 11:7-12:12 or

1:7-14:10.

Licht Benshen, Friday, Nov. 13, 4:22 p.m.

New Offensive for Revision of Immigration Act

Action inaugurated by the National Com-
mittee to Repeal the McCarran Act, which
includes Catholic, Protestant and Jewish'
leaders for the revision of the McCarran-
Walter Act should prove heartening to those
who are anxious to see a speedy restoration .
of justice in our country's dealings with im-
migrants and in the assurances of security
we offer to naturalized citizens.
Prominent Michigan leaders, all of them
Christians, appended their names to this
letter addressed to President Eisenhower by
the National Committee to Repeal the Mc-
Carran Act :
As citizens deeply concerned with the well-
being of our country, we are asking your sup-
port of S. 2585, the bill introduced by Senator
Herbert H. Lehman and thirty-one other mem-
• bers of Congress as a substitute for the Mc-
Carran-Walter Immigration Act.
We believe S. 2585 deserves your support, as
it would remove the . discriminatory features
of our present immigration laws, and over-
come the existing administrative confusion
which has resulted both in injustice to indi-
viduals and embarraSsment to our nation. The
proposed legislation, in keeping with our
country's great traditions, would provide for the
re-uniting of families, an asylum for the per-
secuted, a haven for refugees, ancka selection
of immigrants to our own technical and
occupational needs. Futher, the proposed leg-
islation would secure to these new Americans
those "inalienable rights" that are our shared
heritage.
The urgency of your support for S. 2585 is
Underscored by press reports alleging' that a
pact with the Administration bars any change
in the McCarran-Walter Law (New York
Times, Sept. 24). We hope that such an agree-
ment does not exist, but are understandably
concerned.
For the reasons cited, and particularly in
view of these reports, we believe it impera-
tive that, in accordance with your campaign
pledge for the thorough revision of the Mc-
Carran-Walter Immigration. Act, you now urge
upon Congress the importance of passing S.
2585.
It is encouraging to know that the injus, .

tices incorporated in the 1952 immigration
act are not being forgotten. The courageous
periodical The Recorder, in an editorial note
in a recent issue, quoted our Washington
JTA correspondent and made these com-
ments on this issue :
Recently there were rumors that the White

House had prOmised not to push for revision
of the McCarran-Walter Immigration Act if

Senator McCarran would not tangle up pas-
sage of the emergency refugee bill when it
came up in the last days of Congress. Mc-
Carran suddenly w
down and contented
himself merely with
ith voting against the bill.
According to the New York Time's unof-
ficial transcript of the PYesident's October 8
press conference this transpired:
Milton Friedman of the Jewish Telegraph
Agency--Now that that the Administration
has sucessfully achieved the passage of your
emergency bill, can you tell us if the correc-
tions O.: what you described in your State of
the Union Message as discriminations of the
McCarran-Walter Act is part of the program
for the second session of the Eighty-third
Congress?
. . . A.—Wel, while he had not gone back
to the study of that question for some time,
and had not—he was not, therefore, ready to
state :positively that on his priority program
there. was certain "must" legislation in that
regard. He would say this: if the people ad-
miniStering that bill, the people responsible
for it. still believed there were imperfections,
we should certainly do our best to correct
them.
One thing you can say for the President.
He looks uncomfortable when he's answering

such questions.

. All the facts we have given indicate that
there are enough people °to keep the issue
alive and that there is enough discomfort in
official quarters to assure some. action in the
months to come. The only way •to shed dis-
comfort is by changin c, the law. Our chief
hope at present is that the issue will be
solved in the months to come and that re-
sponsible leaders will not see fit to defer
action too long.

Tears Instead of Water:- M fiddle East's Great Need

There is an old Hebrew saying : "Water
is the least valued among things existing,
and the most valued among things wanted. '
And the Italians have another interpreta-
tion: "A glass of water is sometimes worth
a tun of wine."
Nowhere are these admonitions applicable
more than in the Middle East. Nowhere is
water as valuable as in Israel and in the
Arab countries.
Nevertheless, there is obstruction in ef-
forts to irrigate these areas, and political
considerations appear to be more valuable
than human needs.
The Jordan River Canal project, work
on which was stopped by Israel, was the
type of project aimed at aiding the parched
areas. But politics and the cries for war
triumphed over practical considerations. In-
stead of water, there are tears. It may in-
deed be said that while the areas are crying
for water, all we have are cries for war and
the tears of those in need of means to parch
their thirst, to irrigate their lands, to make
their factories function by means of power
eenerated by the projects which have been
stopped by blind fanatics.
Shortly before the Huleh issue was raised
in the United Nations, the Jewish Observer
and Middle East Review. of London made
these comments in an editorial entitled "The
Contested Jordan":
In 1950-51, when the Syrian-Israel conflict
over the drainage of the Huleh demilitarized
zone was often the principal border issue, a
puzzled delegate at the United Nations re-
marked: "Why all this fuss about a swamp?"
Indeed, it is difficult to see any rational objec-
tion to so creative and apparently *armless
an enterprise as the conversion of malarial
swamp land into productive soil and the utili-
zation of the overflowing Jordan waters for
irrigation.
Ideally, if sensible counsels prevailed and
there was an Arab-Israel peace, a common
plan by Israel, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon to

utilize the River Jordan for regional irriga-
tion as envisaged by the Hays Plan would be
the obvious solution. -But political considera-
tions meanwhile rule out so sensible a con-
tingency.
Therefore Israel pursues its own Huleh
drainage scheme, Jordan is working on the
development of the Yarmuk, and Syria, it is
now reported, is diverting the waters of the
River Banias, a small Jordan tributary—one
hopes not merely as a political maneuver
against Israel. These piecemeal enterprises in-
stead of a project engineered on a compre-
hensive regional level are inevitably wasteful,
but it is beter that the problem is tacked
piecemeal than not at all.
In the existing situation much depends on
the experts. If the individual schemes have
been designed with genuine consideration for
the irrigation requirements of the whole area,
it should not be beyond ingenuity for the sep-
arate schemes to be joined up when the po-
litical atmosphere makes inter;-regional co-
operation possible. If the United Nations limit-
ed its activities to guidance along these lines
it would achieve a notable diplomatic victory
in the Middle East.

When will the contending forces and the
United Nations realize that there is so much
waste at present—waste of human material,
neglect of needs for development of neglect-
ed areas and a blind approach to the needs
milliOns of people who must work togeth-
er if there is to be a common ground in the
creation of a better way of life? .
Unfortunately, there is little hope for co-
operative effort without peace. The United
Nations, and especially its leading member—
the United States—must make the quest for
peace in the Middle East the chief objec-
tive in international relations. There are
many who concede to our confidence that
peace can be attained—provided a concerted
effort is made by our Government and by
the other nations with vision in the UN to
induce the Arabs to meet Israel at a peace
table. If only the value of oil were to be
forgotten for a short time!

Did Wilson Clash With Britain
Over Zionism? Historian Reveals
Controversy Over the Mandates

An AJP Feature

"The World Between The Wars" by Quincy Howe, published by
Simon & Schuster (630 5th, NY20), covers the tense era, makes
interesting reference to the rise and destructiOn wrought by NazA-
ism, the issuance of the Balfour Declaration and the controversies
that surrounded it and the related events which caused bloodshed
and despair, with whatever sunshine that seeped in.
Mr. Howe describes how "the Nazi seizure of power in Austria
vindicated Hitler's strategy of terror"; commenting that Hitler's
atrocities "did not take place in darkest Africa or in poorest Asia,
but in the heart of enlightened Europe." The bloody story which
"seemed to have no limit and no end," "had a purpose": "The
Christian communities which had persecuted Jews for more than
a thousand years before Hitler came into the world always held
out conversion and salvation as alternates. Hitler, on the . other
hand, offered the Jews no alternative to extermination."
. His reference to the -Allies' "conflicting commitments—to the
Jews and Arabs in Palestine and to one another elsewhere," con ,.
tains the revelation that "when the Peace Conference awarded
League Mandates over Palestine and Mesopotamia to Britain and.
over Syria and Lebanon to France largely because British and
French troops happened to have occupied those 'countries (Pres-
ident) Wilson objected."
Wilson then - sent a delegation of six Americans on a 40-day
inspection tour of Palestine and Syria. The President is said to
have favored inclusion of Palestine in a "united Syrian state," and
.Mr. Howe writes that the Americans
called for "only a greatly reduced Zi-
onist program . . . only very gradually
initiated." Interpreting the Wilsonian
stand as opposition to Zionism, con-
trary to all previous beliefs, Mr. Howe
writes:
"The British did not care for this
attack on Zionism, which the Balfour
Declaration had endorsed. They liked
even less the proposed 'united Syran
state' which seemed to contemplate
their ultimate withdrawal from the
Middle East. But instead of challenging
the American report, the British coun-
Wilson
tered with a flank attack. President
Wilson had begun to show a laudable willingness to accept an
American mandate over devastated Armenia, where war and mas-
sacre had wiped out almost one-third of the country's two and a
half million people. If Wilson's sympathy for the distressed and
deserving Armenians could lead him to involve the United States
more deeply in Middle Eastern affairs, might the British not also
convince him that they backed Zionism only because they wanted
to help the 'persecuted Jews of eastern Europe find a national
home? Hence the stillborn Treaty of Sevres provided for a possible
American mandate over Armenia." And the Armenian mandate
plan was abandoned later.
The stupidity of Nazi anti-Semitism, the use made of the
fake Protocols in the attacks on the Jews, the viciousness of Nazi
propaganda are reviewed at length by the able historian.
"The World Between The Wars" is an impressive volume. It
is a thorough resume of happenings during two decades of history
which have their impact on our present generation and the genera-

tions to come.

Book Month Reflections: We Kiss A Book

By DAVID SCHWARTZ .
(Copyright, 1953, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Inc.)
This is Jewish Book Month. Actually, with Jews the who*

year is a book year. Where other people in their faiths stand in
adoration before images, and kiss rings and other symbols of faith,
we in our synagogues rise from our seats only when a book is
brought forth from the ark and we kiss only a book—the Torah.
It is significant that the first of the institutions of the new
Israel to attain relative completion was the Jewish N'ational
Library. The story of the Russian Jewish physician, Dr. Joseph
Chasanovitz, who decades before the Balfour Declaration, accepted
books in payment for his medical services—books with which the
foundation of the Jewish Homeland library was laid—has become
legendary. It is because of a Book that we finally came back to
Israel. Take away that Book, and we should have disappeared
among the nations.
Ecclesiastes long ago sighed, "To the making of books there tio

no end."

The late Prof. Neumark of Hebrew Union College, who wrote
many philosophical books, once said, "Boys, it is not enough to
write a book and it is not enough to have the mpublished. You've
got to read them too. Don't depend on your friends to read then3211