Calm in the Midst of Storms

THE JEWISH NEWS

incorporating the Detroit Jewish Chronicle commencing with Issue of July 20. 1931
member American Association of English-Jewish Newspapers, Michigan Press Association.
Puhlished every iday by The Jewish News Publishing Co., 17100 West Seven Mile Road, Detroit 35, Mich.,
subscription S4. s year. foreign 115.

89364

Entered as second class matter Aug. 6, 1942. at Post Office, Detroit, Mich„ under Act of March 3. 1879

SIDNEY SHMARAK
Advertising Manager

PHILIP SLOMOVIT2
Editor and Publisher

Page 4

VOL. XXV. No. 3

FRANK SIMONS

City Editor

March 26, 1954

Sabbath Scriptural Selections
This Sabbath, the twentY-second day of Adar Sherri, 5714, the following Scriptural selections
will be read in aur synagogues:
Pentateuchal portions, Lev. 9:1-11:47, Num. 19. Prophetical portion, Ezek. 36:16-38.

Licht

Benshen,

Friday,

March 26, 6:34 p.m.

Murders Spell War Between Israel and Arabs

.

Israel has much to, be concerned about in
the repeated acts of terrorism and murder
in the Middle East. Once again, the Holy
Land is being transformed into the battle-
ground of the world, and the events that are
transpiring there represent real dangers to
peace.
Only a day preceding the unspeakable
crime that was committed in the Negev by
an organized Arab military force, Gen.
Moshe Dayan, Israel's Army Chief of Staff,
made the sad assertion that "war with the
Arab countries is imminent" in view of re-
peated Arab declarations that their aim is
to annihilate Israel.
The very next day, 11 Israelis, men, wom-
en and children, were ambushed on the
Eilath-Beersheba road and were mercilessly
murdered by infiltrees from Jordan.
The Arabs and their friends are pointing
to Kibya as an analogous situation, but they
act dumbly about the many hundreds of
Jews who were murdered singly or in small
groups on Israel's borders by Arab maraud-
ers. The United Nations had acted on the
Kibya incident. It remains to be seen wheth-
er spokesmen for the nations of the world,
and more especially American leaders, will
see fit to express the revulsion that must be
uttered by all who recognize the horror that
marks Arab intentions in their relation to
Israel.
The cumulative effect of the gathering
clouds over that war-ridden area of the world
is to add tension to tension, hatred to hatred,
suspicion to suspicion. It is a condition that

must be ameliorated as speedily as possible,
in the best interests of peace-seeking hu-
manity.
A major danger in the rapidly deterior-
ating situation is the threat of a developing
quest for revenge, especially in view of the
root that: exists among Orientals for retali-
ation. The redemption of Israel has brought
to the Jewish state hundreds of thousands of
Jews who were compelled to escape from McCarron Immigration Law's Injustices Exposed
Arab countries where vengeance is the rule
rather than the exception. While "the noblest
vengeance is to forgive," the very people who
have been taught by the Arabs not to for-
give but to retaliate may be drawn into
There is no vacillation or faltering by J. Campbell Bruce in his
crime by crime. And while the guilty will
"have simply stepped in their own chewing Ifearless analysis of the cruel McCarran-Walter Immigration Act,
gum," (quoting Philip Barry's "Philadelphia in his very challenging book, ''The Golden Door: The Irony of
Story") , major harm will come to Israel Our Immigration Policy." Random House, the publishers, share
the glory of having displayed sufficient courage to call the
more than to her neighbors either from ret- in
nation's attention, through this book, to the tragedies imposed
ribution or from retaliation.
by the new act upon many aliens, to the dangers that stem from
Thus, to harassed Jews' annoyance—Lnay, it for citizens and non-citizens alike.
Mr. Bruce knows and understands the implications in this
even devastation—is added injury and in-
sult. It is due, primarily to the indifference act. He has made a thorough study of it, has searched into the
of a world calloused to murder, but more irecords and has examined many of the cases mentioned in his
The published results make the reader's hair stand on
especially calloused to a tragedy that forces book.
edge at the recognition of the harm the new immigration . act does.
the recently-liberated Jewish state to fight to the established. American traditions of justice and fair play.
against great odds for its very existence.
Because Communists, unfortunately, try to make capital of it,
We repeat our contention that a strong by linking McCarranism with McCarthyism, in order to build up
stand by the UN and a firm demand by our la case for martyrdom—without regard to honest liberalism that
redress from harm through proper, democratic legislation—
own Government can put an end to the war seeks
it was proper for Mr. Bruce to, declare, at the outset, that he
threats. But to achieve peace it is essential abhors every form of tyranny, with emphasis on his abhorrence
that human needs be placed above oil re- i of Communism. He also goes on record favoring "an overall an-
quirements—and to attain this we may be nual limit to immigration." He emphasizes the need for a "screen-
forced to witness many more horrors until ing process to keep out undesirables, especially Communist
agents." But he declares that "that should not rule out a fair and
mankind's conscience is fully awakened.
just treatment of the BONA-FIDE immigrant and the visitor to

J. Campbell Bruce Pleads for
Fairness in 'The Golden Door'

Are the Nazis Returning to Rule in German

This is not an idle question.
Earlier this month, only a few years
after he had been sentenced as a "Nazi ac-
tivist," Dr. Erich Mix, Nazi Lord Mayor of
Wiesbaden when that city's synagogue was
put to the torch in 1938, was sworn in as
Lord Mayor of his city.
Margarete Rabe has been released from
the war crimes prison at Werl, Germany.
She was a German concentration camp
overseer who was sentenced to 21 years in
jail in 1948 for maltreating women prisoners
and for selecting 3,000 of them for death in
the gas chambers.

Pencils and Charity

Those who have received pencils in the
mail, with requests for contributions for
charitable causes, will be interested in last
week's decision by the New York Guild for
the Jewish Blind to abandon this practice
at the recommendation of the Joint Legis-
lative Committee. Because "less scrupulous
groups" now are doing the same thing, the
Guild for the Blind, which was the first
group to use the pencil-distribution method
for fund-raising, decided to abandon it.
The president of the guild, James A.
Goldsmith, had an interesting report on this
subject. In the past 40 years, the guild
had mailed 54,110,718 pencils and close to
75 per cent of those addressed responded
with contributions. Income from the pencils
provided $97,000 towards the guild's total
budget of $600,000 to aid 4,000 blind. -
It is valuable that these facts should be
known, eSpecially, in view of the serious
efforts. that are being. made. to curtail irre-
sponsible and unscrupulous solicitations for
charities by operators whose expenses ab-
sorb the major portion of the income, leav-
ing only a fraction for the cause exploited
by undesirable methods. The voluntary
abandonment of pencil sales by the Guild
for the Blind emphasizes anew the necessity
of strengthening the organized, communally-
supervised philanthropic movements like the
Detroit Allied Jewish Campaign and similar
charitable efforts throughout the land. Only
through responsible community undertak-
ings can strict control over charities and
worthy purposes be assured.

•

These incidents are being multiplied
many-fold, raising new fears of the restora-
tion to power of former Nazis.
Does this spell danger? Does it mean
that the Nazis are returning to power?
The London Jewish Observer and Mid-
dle East Review has published interesting
facts by pointing to the following sets of
boards of directors:

Deutsche Bank
1941

Erich Bechtolf
Oswald Roesler
Fritz Wintermantel
Karl von Halt
Karl Schirner
Hermann J. Abs
Florian Kloeckner

Hugo Henkel

Dresdner Bank
1941

Hugo Zinsser
Hans Schippel
Erwin Dircks
Carl Goetz
Carl Schleipen

Commerzbank
1941

Theo Goldschmidt
Heinrich Fleitmann
Wilhelm Vorwerk
Hans Erkelenz
Wilhelm Nueber
Carl Nottebohm

Deutsche Bank
(Successor Banks)
1954
Erich Bechtolf
Oswald Roesler
Fritz Wintermantel
Karl von Halt
Karl Schirner_,.
Hermann J. Abs
Guenter Henle
(Klooeckner's son-
in-law)
Jost Henkel
(Hugo Henkel's son)

Dresdner Bank
(Successor Banks)
1954
Hugo Zinsser
Hans Schippel
Erwin Dircks
Carl Goetz
Carl Schleipen

Commerzbank
(Successor Banks)
1954
Theo Goldschmidt
Heinrich Fleitmann
Wilhelm Vorwerk
Hans Erkelenz
Wilhelm Nueber
Wilhelm Nottebohm
(Carl Nottebohm's son)

our shores."
Proving that "the present immigration law is a bad law by
citing examples of what is being done under it in this land of
the free," Mr. Bruce pleads:
"Let us offer . . . hospitality, not hostility. To do that we
need an immigration law that is not written in fear, nor rooted
in racial discrimination. And those who administer the law need
a change of attitude toward the immigrant and the visitor, an
attitude that is not cynical, malevolent and beyond all regard for
due process."
Mr. Bruce makes specific charges. "Due process has long been
overdue in the operations of the Immigration Service," he asserts.
He warns: "The loss of United States prestige abroad, now at its
lowest postwar ebb, may be attributed in part to the shabby
He
treatment our consular officials accord visa applicants."
maintains that the fault lies with our immigration laws, but
especially with the McCarran Act.
The major danger, Mr. Bruce proves by citing case after
case, lies in the investing by the new law of absolute powers in
consular underlings. He points out that the new law "allows
immigration officials to imprison aliens indefinitely without a.
hearing; holds a Damociean threat of deportation over the
head of every alien in our midst; sets up a second-class citi-
zenry, and creates an atmosphere conducive to corruption."
Mr. Bruce's book proves an interesting point: that whenever
redress was secured by wronged aliens or naturalized American
citizens they were the result of the facts having reached respon-
sible newspapers which publicized unfair enforcement of arbitrary
rulings by "consular underlings." Mr. Bruce even shows that there
have been instances of pay-offs and graft in some quarters.
The testimony given before the President's Commission on
Immigration by Boris M. Joffe, executive director of the Detroit
Community Council, who also was chairman pro tempore of the
Michigan Committee on Immigration, is among the expert evi-
dence- quoted in this valuable book.
Mr. Bruce offers valuable suggestions for revisions of the
McCarran-Walter Act. He disproves the contentions of the au-
thors of the measure that their bill is a fair one.
It remains to be seen whether the proper authorities will
make note of Mr. Bruce's warnings. His book should be placed
in the hands of every member of Congress and of President
Eisenhower, in the hope that his warnings and his presentation
of facts will be studied earnestly, with a view to fulfilling Repub-
lican campaign pledges that fair immigration legislation will he
adopted. In the meantime, great wrongs are being perpetrated
by an unwise law.

Arnold Posy Writes Stories for Youth

Utilizing the Peter Pan method, the characters portrayed by
Arnold Posy in his new book, "Holiday Night Dreams" (Bloch),
are carried enthusiastically through the air as they enact the
stories and fantasies from Jewish folklore."
Notable Jewish heroes are delineated here for the young
reader, as Mr. Posy deals with the various festivals, with Elijah,
with Moses, with the first Biblical figures who are described in
the story, "The Creation of the World," with the Golem and the
Maharal, and a score more.
The reader is introduced to the wonders of Jewish folk tales,
to the legend of the creation of the clay Golem, to the story
about a simple weaver, Leibele, whose likeness to St. Francis of
Assisi caused a spreader of untruth to confess guilt of having
plotted to destroy a Jewish community. Leibele's pleading with
the Pope, the Maharal's creative genius, the battle on many
fronts . of Right against Might, combine to form a .good collection.

Last week a number of German cities
inaugurated annual observance of. "Brother-
hood Week," a concept adapted by German
Societies for Christian-Jewish Cooperation
from the American model. Federal Presi-
dent Theodor Heuss again has accepted the
protectorate over the "Week." It is to be
hoped that "brotherhood", inspired by such
observance, will help erase Nazis. Post-war
Germany has an opportunity to prove that
such "brotherhood" is not mere lip service.
It certainly can not be attained by restor-
ing to their former offices all of the former
of short stories. Hella Arensen illustrated Posy's book.
Hitlerite officials.

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