Too Few Homes For Aged
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.
Pub:1st-led every Friday by The Jewish News Publishing Co.. 17100 West Seven Mile Road, Detroit 35. Mich., VE. 8-9364
Subscription S4. a year. foreign S5
Entered 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. 25
SIDNEY SHMARAK
Advertising Manager
Page 4
FRANK SIMONS
City Editor
February 26, 1954
Sabbath Scriptural Selections
This Sabbath, the twenty-fourth day of Adar Rishon, 5714, the following Scriptural selec-
tions will be read in our Synagogues:
Pentateuchal portion, Es. 35:1-38:20. Prophetical portion, I Kings 7:40-50.
Licht Benshen, Friday, Feb. 26, 6:02 p.m.
Detroiters Set Pace for High Giving to WA
Once again, a small group of Detroiters,
gathered at the national inaugural confer-
ence of the United Jewish Appeal, in Miami
Beach, Fla., has set the pace for liberal
giving to the major American Jewish phi-
lanthropic cause. By exceeding last year's
gifts, Detroit's representatives have set an-
other high standard for giving.
The initial responses of our representa-
tives at the Florida conferences have begun
to mark the opening of Detroit's Allied Jew-
ish Campaign. The impressive showing
made there last week-end augurs well for
our current drive.
In a sense, the demonstration of large
giving at the Florida conference symbolizes
not only the type of giving to the 1954
campaign, but also the extent to which our
leaders will work in this year's campaign.
The yardstick for volunteer efforts in a
great philanthropic undertaking is t h e
amount that the workers themselves give
to the campaign. The liberal contributions
can well be taken as an indication that
those who have organized the initial cam-
paign effort away from home will strive
to enlist the entire community for similar
giving by those • whom they are to contact
during the strenuous weeks of campaigning.
Only a handful have made their con-
tributions thus far. The success of the 1,954
Allied Jewish Campaign will depend en-
tirely upon the number of contributors who
will be reached and the results that will be
obtained in striving to match last year's
giving and to aim at inducing many con-
tributors to increase their gifts.
Nearly 30,000 people are to be contacted.
A large goal is needed if Israel is to be given
all the help she needs in the struggle to
transform temporary into permanent
homes and transient laborers into perma-
nently employed settlers.
Furthermore, the current drive must
provide basic needs for our many local
agencies. It must assure unstinted support
for our educational systems, for the Jewish
Centers, for our civic-protective agencies,
for Sinai Hospital and other health-provid-
ing agencies, the Home for Aged and:num-
erous other movements.
Once again we are challenged to • per-
form our tasks properly in defense of the
downtrodden and in support of traditional
Jewish causes.
The drive has begun and we again look
forward to a good campaign that will signal-
ize hearty interest in our community by all
Detroit Jews.
Honor to the Memory of the Rothschilds
He became famous as "Der Baron." In
An Israeli warship has been assigned to
call for . the remains of Baron and Baroness the time of need, the early settlers in Pal-
Edmond de Rothschild, for reinterment from estine could always look to him for help and
France in the state in which the eminent sustenance. The Baroness encouraged him in
French couple played a leading role in laying his great philanthropic efforts.
the foundation.
In Israel's history, the names of the
Long before the large-scale efforts for Rothschilds loom large. They were among
Israel's upbuilding, Baron Rothschild helped the pioneer builders, although they did not
establish colonies in Israel. He gave encour- themselves settle there. Now, however, in
agement to the men and women who cre- their death, their bodies also are linked with
ated Zichron Yaacob, at whose gates the the land.
mausoleum will be set up to house the re-
Bless the memory of this eminent couple.
mains of the Baron and Baroness.
Do Not Tear Down Y our Neighbor's House'
Abraham Lincoln's words should inspire is a continued campaign of slander against
serious consideration whenever they are Israel. Let us, therefore, also quote this
quoted. In the month of his birth, we in- from Mr. Lincoln: "Truth is generally the
vite consideration of a famous statement best vindication against slander." And Is-
rael's weapon remains the difficult little
by the Great Emancipator:
tool: truth!
"Let not him who hath no house tear
down the house of his neighbor, but
rather let him strive diligently to build
one for himself thus, by example, show-
ing confidence that when his own is built
A Detroit industrialist, S. A. Dodge, who
it will stand undisturbed."
is president of Lions International, was
We call the attention of Israel's Arab
quoted by a California newspaper as having
neighbors to this sentence. The Moslems charged that Palestinian Arabs "are starving
are well provided with homes, with large because of the Jews" and that: "When the
territories, with oil wells. We plead for a
Jews scream, we will send our sons to be
chance for the small state of Israel to re- slaughtered in the Middle East, just like we
deem the wastelands of her tiny territory.
sent the Jews 60 million dollars."
A secure Israel will mean a secure Middle
He was in Los Angeles to address the
East. Prosperous Israelis will reflect the convention of the Lions International Cali-
prosperity of their neighbors. Let no one fornia-Nevada district and in a press inter-
tear down his neighbor's home!
view blamed the Jews for the Arab refugee
In spite of this irrefutable truth, -there problem. Having just returned from a visit
in the Arab states, Mr. Dodge told a re-
porter of the L. A. Jewish Voice that he was
not "allowed" to visit Israel but that he had
"many friends among the Arabs" wfio
An AP report from Amman, Jordan, "showed me plenty."
It is our contention that such misrepre-
quotes reliable sources as stating that Jor-
dan had refused to offer asylum to 400 sentations arise out of lack of knowledge and
a desire to be "shown plenty" in a one-sided
Druzes who had rebelled against Syria. It
fashion. The truth is that no one ever was
is reported that this group, headed by its
feudal lord, Sultan Pasha al Attrache, upon barred from Israel. On the contrary, Israel
its arrival at the Syria-Jordan border to strains her energies to invite foreigners to
see what is transpiring in the new state.
ask that the political refugees be offered
We regret Mr. Dodge's unfortunate atti-
refuge, was denied permission to cross the
border to avoid trouble with Syria's Presi- tude. Lions International should send him
dent Adib Shisheicly. It also has been re- to Israel to study conditions there dispas-
vealed that members of the Attrache family sionately — on his own -- without being
"shown" the way to prejudice. Surely, a
were ordered arrested by Shishekly.
The Druzes, in Israel, it will be recalled; fair-minded American should think twice
before giving vent to an outburst like "when
fought on Israel's side. They have appealed
to Israel for aid in behalf of their oppressed Jews scream we will send our sons to be
slaughtered . . . " Let him learn the truth,
kinsmen in Syria. Thus the Arab problem
even if it must cause a blush.
becomes even more complicated.
Ignorance Incites Libel
Arabs versus Druzes
Deutscher's 'The Prophet Armed'
Powerful Biography of Trotsky
Isaac Deutscher, already recognized as one of the outstand-
ing authorities on Soviet Russia, has produced a magnificent por-
trait of Leon Trotsky's life in the years 1879-1921 in his latest
book, "The Prophet Armed" (Oxford University Press). He will
complete his picture of the eminent Socialist leader in "The
Prophet Unharmed," which will deal with events up to Trotsky's
assassination.
The Jewish-born Trotsky, one of the conquerors of Russia for
Communism, emerges as a most interesting personality. He is por-
trayed in all his strength and all his weaknesses, as the founder
of the Red Army, as a brilliant orator and writer.
Jewish readers will find the clue to Trotsky's Jewish attitudes
in Deutscher's description of his Jewish background. David Leon-
tievich and Anna Bronstein—Trotsky's parents—were farmers who
settled on the land near the little town of Bobrinetz in the prov-
ince of Kherson. The father was "the man of the land"—the Am
Haaretz, "indifferent to religion, contemptuous of the Synagogue."
The mother was inclined to be observant and retained Jewish
loyalties. The son, Levi or Leon, who was to become a viorld fa-
mous figure, was sent for a brief time to a Jewish school—to a
heder—but he returned home without acquiring Jewish know-
ledge. In later life, his interests were limited to the revolutionary
activities.
He was anti-Zionist, assimilationist, harangued against the
Bund, in spite of the Socialist-anti-Zionist position of this Jew-
ish group that was founded in the same year as the Zionist
movement. While, in his brief stay at the heder, he was taught
the Bible, Deutseher points out: "Knowing no Yiddish, he could
neither understand his teacher nor get along with his school-
mates." In the colony where his parents settled as fariners he
"noticed a strange contrast: on one side of the village stood
the wretched hovels of Jewish colonists; on the other shone
the neat and tidy cottages of German settlers. He was natural-
ly attracted to the gentile quarters."
After a few brief months at Gromokia, where he attended
heder, "he said goodbye to the Scriptures and to the boys who
would go on translating, in a strange sing-song, verses from the
incomprehensible Hebrew into the incomprehensible Yiddish." In-
stead, "he learned to read and write Russian," etc. The numerus
clausus was in force in Russia, but Trotsky entered the gymna-
sium, and soon his career as a revolutionary leader began.
Bronstein (Trotsky) was impressed by the German-Jewish
Socialist Ferdinand Lasalle. "In Bronstein's upbringing the
Jewish creed had played no part at all, and only in the prison
did he acquaint himself with Greek orthodoxy." But in prison
he was married by a Jewish chaplain to his first wife, Alexandra
Sokolovskaya.
When he fled from his Siberian prison in Irkutsk, "he had to
inscribe the name he was to assume, and he scribbled that of one
of his former jailers in the Odessa prison. In this hazardous
escape did the identification with his jailer perhaps gratify in
the fugitive a subconscious craving for safety? It may be so.
Certainly the name of the obscure jailor was to loom large in
the annals of revolution: it was—Trotsky."
Trotsky had published bitter attacks on Zionism. Deutscher
errs in his reference to Zionism, to the effect that Herzl sought
to buy Palestine and Nordau wanted to acquire Uganda, and that
"a fanatical follower of Herzl made an attempt on Nordau's life."
This is incorrect, Nordau having worked closely with Herzl, and
the fanatic's act had nothing to do with any rifts between the
two Zionist leaders. Deutscher refers to an interview Trotsky
gave in 1937 to the Forward stating that after experiences with
the Nazis it was difficult to believe in the "assimilation" of - Jews
for which he had hoped. that Zionism itself could not solve the
Jewish problem, but that under Socialism it might be necessary
for Jews to settle in a separate territory.
Curiously enough, after. the October Revolution, Trotsky, the -
Architect of the Revolution, refused to head the government and
withdrew in favor of Lenin. He also objected to being named
Commissar of Home Affairs "because he feared that in his office
his Jewish origin might be a liability: the counter-revolution
would whip up anti-Semitic feeling and turn it against the
Bolsheviks." He therefore became Soviet Russia's Foreign
Secretary.
The genius of Trotsky, the contradictions in his characte/k his
oratorical sparks, distinguished him among the Soviet leaders.
He was thoroughly the revolutionary, thoroughly un-Jewish, nev-
ertheless he was moved to action by the pogroms —but always
from the incentive of the Revolution.
• We shall be watching with keenest interest the follow-up
volume to show the man who was exiled by his own party and
who struggled from the outside against Stalinism.