HE EWISH

Byroade and

Judaism Council

A Weekly Review

Significant

Names in the News

Commentary, Page 2

Sheyuot;
Our Bill of
Rights
Festival

of Jewish Events

Michigan's Only English-Jewish Newspaper—Incorporating The Detroit Jewish Chronicle

.

VOLUME 25—No. 13 .q.p4.

17100 W. 7 Mile Rd.—VE. 8-9364—Detroit 35, June 4, 1954

Jewry's Status and
Cultural Outlook

Editorials, Page 4

$4.00 Per Year; Single Copy,

15c

Romani a n Secret Trials Arouse
Protests of Free World Jewries

Shevuot's Message: The Ten
Words Judaism. in Miniature

• By DR. A. M. HERSHMAN

(From Rabbi Hershman's Shevuot 1941 Sermon, Reprinted in his book
"Israel's Fate and Faith")

In the Temple of Jerusalem, we are told in the Mishnah,
the Decalogue was recited daily. This practice, however,
was not followed in the synagogues outside Jerusalem on
account of the heretics, who held that only the Ten Words
were given to Moses on Mount Sinai. To discountenance
this view, the Rabbis deemed it necessary to discontinue the
practice which prevailed in the Temple.

It is highly significant, however, that though the
Decalogue is only part of the Torah, it is the Torah in a
nutshell, the Jewish religion in outline, the seed out of
which the tree of Judaism has germinated and grown. It
contains all the ingredients which enter into the make-up
of the Jewish religion. For the essentials of Judaism are:
faith, ceremonial institutions, ethics, and inwardness of
spirituality. Judaism embraces these four constituents.

Raid on Mizrachist's
Office May Cause New
Israel Cabinet Crisis

Direct JTA Teletype Wire
To The Jewish News

JERUSALEM—A demand that the
Israel government should require
publication of the income in for-
eign currency of all political parties
and public funds was voiced Mon-
day night at a meeting of the
Poale Mizrachi political committee
and parliamentary faction.
The demand was a reaction to
the police raid on the offices of the
World Mizrachi Central Committee
here and the seizure of documents
referring to the affairs of Deputy
Minister of Social Welfare Israel
Shlomo Rosenberg. Earlier, a Tel
Aviv tabloid had reported that the
Attorney General was drafting an
indictment against Mr. Rosenberg,
allegedly charging contravention
of the currency control regulations.
Mr. Rosenberg denied the charges
and offered to surrender his dep-
uty's immunity and stand trial.
The Poale Mizrachi political com-
mittee also declared in a letter to
Premier Moshe Sharett that the
Cabinet's statement of last week
on the raid of the Mizrachi head-
quarters was "unsatisfactory."
In addition, the committee in-
structed Dr. Zorach Wahrhaftig to
return to his post as Deputy Min-
ister for Religions. He had offered
his resignaton in protest against
the police raid.
Israel- faced the possibility of
another Cabinet crisis and the
exit of the Mizrachi representa-
tives in the coalition as a result
of the police raid on the head-
quarters of Mizrachi.
The newspaper Yedioth Achro-
noth reported that Attorney Gen-
eral Chaim Cohen was preparing
an indictment of Mr. Rosenberg,
charging him with contravening
the currency regulations. Mr. Ros-
enberg immediately denied on the
Knesset floor that he had been
guilty of law violations.
Moshe Shapira, Minister for Re-
ligibus Affairs and leader of Poale
Mizrachi, called on Premier Shar-
ett to discuss the development.
The central committee's com-
plaint to the government was sub-
sequently the subject of a four-
hour discussion by the Cabinet
with Mizrachi and Hapoel Mizrachi
members strongly pressing it.
Following the meeting, the Cab-
inet issued a communique stating
that it had heard reports from the
Ministers of Justice and Police that
the "examination of the Mizrachi
Central Committee's books are
connected with the investigation
of one person and are not aimed
at the Mizrachi."
The communique, believed aimed
at averting a Cabinet crisis, was in
reply to two demands of the Miz-
rachi leaders: 1. That Premier
Sharett apologize to the World
Mizrachi Central Committee for
the raid: 2. That the Cabinet ap-
point a special investigating com-
mittee to study the charges against
Mr. Rosenberg,

World opinion this week was focused on Romania
where persecution of Jews and mass arrests of Zionists
have increased the tragedy of the Jewish community.
Throughout the world, public opinion has been
aroused by reports of persecutions. Resolutions have
been introduced in the U.S. Congress condemning the
outrages, and President Eisenhower has been asked
to register his indignation. Jews throughout the free
world are demonstrating against the charges leveled
against Jews in secret Bucharest trials. In Israel, for-
mer Romanians went on a hunger strike to arouse pub-
lic opinion against the persecutions.
The Jewish Congress' World Jewish Affairs bureau
this week presented a report analyzing the background
of the Romanian events and revealing the following
facts:

Four years ago about 150 Jews of prominence in the com-
munal life of Romanian Jewry vanished. Only recently has
the world received news of their fate.. After languishing in
Romanian jails some of them were brought before secret tri-
bunals, to hear sentences imposed on them ranging from
three months to life imprisonment.
In these trials, the defendants were informed that their
penalties were the price they had to pay for a miscellaneous
assortment of crimes: Zionist activities and propaganda, "ef-
forts to assist in illegal emigration from Romania, contacts
with the Israel Legation, communication with the World
Jewish Congress and Zionist organizations in foreign coun-
tries, and distribution of funds supplied by the Israel Lega-
tion in Bucharest.
At the outbreak of World War II there were about 760,000
Jews in Romania. Despite Romania's shameless anti-Semitic
policy between the two wars, the Jews of Romania somehow
clung to the hope that better days would come. These hopes
were shattered when Antonescu gained control.
This puppet regime looked to the Third Reich for its
political and spiritual guidance and eagerly cooperated with
the Nazis in applying to Romanian Jewry the whole complex
of Nazi laws aimed at the total annihilation of the Jewish
people. Due to a combination of circumstances, however,
liquidation of Romanian Jewry proceeded more slowly than in
other countries under Nazi domination, with the result that
slightly less than half of Romanian Jewry survived the war.
Thus, Romanian Jewry—numbering between 390,000 and
420,000—emerged at the end of hostilities as the largest Jewish
Community on the .European continent with the exception of
Jewry of the Soviet Union.
The war ended in Romania in 1944. Many Jews felt it
was possible for them to rehabilitate their lives in their accus-
tomed surroundings. 50,000 of the 51,000 Jewish survivors of
Bessarabia and Northern Bucovina (parts of pre-war Romania,
ceded to the Soviet Union) decided for Romanian citizenship,
when given the choice in 1945.
The Jews who cast their lot with Romania lost no time in
laying the foundations for the reconstruction of Jewish com-
munal life. Religious life soon began to reassert itself in the
re-establishment of hundreds of synagogues; Jewish schools,
libraries and two Yiddish theaters (in Bucharest and in Jassy)
were organized or recreated; 16 weeklies appeared, and the
traditional Jewish consideration for social needs found its ex-
pression in the restoration of a network of hospitals, orphan-
ages, and homes for the aged. A dynamic Zionist movement,
embracing virtually the whole of Romanian Jewry, and num-
bering in its component parties and youth organizations no
less than 108,000 members, was reactivated.
Romania emerged from the general elections of March 18,
1948, as a full=fledged Communist State with a single party
system. The same year the Communist Party adopted a caus-
tically-worded resolution against Zionism. This precipitous
reversal in official policy towards Zionism was accompanied
by a campaign of violent anti-Zionist propaganda. Other
assaults on organized Jewish life followed. Thus, the char-
itable institutions as well as the schools which had been
restored with substantial Jewish help from abroad, were
nationalized.
Romanian Jewish organizations were n- ot able to with-
stand this pressure for long, First, the Union of Romanian
Jews, traditional stronghold of Romanian Jewry, then the
Jewish Party, and finally, the Zionist Organization of Ro-
mania, decided to dissolve: The training camps for prospec-
tive young settlers in Israel clung on to life for a few addi-
tional months.
Some time in 1950, over 150 leaders of Jewish life in Ro-
mania were arrested. In spite of .all efforts from abroad to learn

Continued on Page 19

Shevuot 5714

The Jewish News dedicates this issue to the Confirmands, Consecrants and Gradu-
ates of our congregational and community schools. May they be inspired to unin-
terrupted consecration to the cause of Jewish learning, and may they re-dedicate
themselves to the sacred moral and ethical teachings of the People of Israel.

—Woodcut by Ilya Schor. Frontispiece from Dr. Abraham 3. Heschers "Earth

Is the Lord's." Photo Courtesy Jewish Theological Seminary of America.

Names of 1954 Confirmands,

Consecrants! Graduates, Page 28

