THE JEWISH NEWS
The New Pharaoh
Incorporating the Detroit Jewish Chronicle commencing with issue of July 20, 1931
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. 8-9364
Subscrption $4 a year, Foregin $5.
Entered as second class matter Aug. 6, 1942, at Post Office, Detroit, Mich., under Act of March 3, 1879
PHILIP SLOMOV}TZ
Editor and Publisher
VOL. XXVI, No. 8
SIDNEY SHMARAK
Advertising Manager
Page Four
FRANK SIMONS
City Editor
October 29, 1954
This Sabbath, the third day of Heshvan, 5715, the following Scriptural selections win: be read
fn o'ur synagogues:
Pentateuchal portion, Gen. 6:9-11:32. Prophetical portion, is, 54:1-55:5.
The Arab Refugees:Some Very Pertinent Facts
Recurring emphasis placed on the statue
of the Arab refugees, the perpetuation of
whose problem continues an aggravating is-
sue f o r Israel, places emphasis on a very
significant communication sent to the Chris-
tian Science Monitor by John Bruce of Bos-
ton. Expressing chagrin over the importance
that is being given to Arab viewpoints, Mr.
Bruce calls attention to the following edi-
torial from The Church of England News-
paper:
"When the new nation of Israel is under
severe criticism, particularly with regard
to the Qibya incident, it is worth recollect-
ing some of the circumstances in the back-
ground of recent events. .. According
to the favorite mythology these raids are
the work of refugees whom the Israelis
most unjustly and cruelly dispatched from
the country in 1948.... From Arab sources
we know how the Arab leaders themselves
ordered villagers out of their houses and
out of their own territory. They deliber-
ately started a panic movement. It is true
that ultimately the Israelis helped it along
. . . But the initial movement of the refu-
gees came about on Arab orders and it is
the Arab leaders who are to blame for it.
"Ever since, these refugees have been
living in abject misery. Their place in
Palestine was taken by Jews whom the
Arab states sent there. Expelled from their
Arab home lands they naturally occupied
the room the Arabs themselves had
vacated.
"These Jews received a welcome from
their co-religionists. Did the Arabs receive
a similar welcome from theirs? On the
contrary: the Arab governments who or-
dered them out have left, them to wallow
in their wretchedness. Attempts by the
agencies of the United Nations Organiza-
tion to find a solution of the problem have •
met with little response. Christian mis-
sionary societies have done all they could
to help and have been liberal in the dis-
tribution of material aids but at the best
this can only be paliate
"Perhaps the Arabs are tumble to solve
the problem. It is difficult to believe this,
however, considering that tens of millions
of . . . money are pouring into the Mid-
dle East in return for the oil which British
and American companies are finding there.
It should be possible to absorb these refu-
gees into irrigation schemes, agriculture
and manufactures. Yet nothing is done,
although the money continues to pour in...
"Meanwhile, the Jews are under boycott
from the Arab nations. Their own oil re-
fineries at Haifa are still closed down.
They see the British preparing to hand
over the Canal bases, with all they signify,
to their enemies, the Egyptians. They are
aware of British help in arms and finance
to the Arab governments. Their own eco-
nomic plight is dire. Is it really astonishing
if they, too, feel desperate?
"There is only one answer. That is for
Britain and the United States together,
acting, if possible, with the United Nations,
to insist upon a Middle East settlement
that will cover all these poisonous prob-
lems. If we depend upon the Arab states
for oil, they depend upon us for the use
and exploitation of it and for finance, as
also for defence against Russian threat.
There should be adequate material here for
a bargain."
Mr. Bruce's personal comments on the
Issue, with relation to this editorial, are
equally important, representing as they do
the opinions of an interested American. He
stated in his communication to the Christian
Science Monitor:
"In another periodical on the Near-East
it is related that of the number of Arab
refugees, a large part of those in Trans-
Jordan, have always lived in their pres-
ent home, right in Trans-Jordan. Yet, to
bolster the Arab case, the population of
the refugee camps includes thousands of
natives of Trans-Jordan. No Arab spokes-.
man mentions that living conditions are so
wretched that many Arabs have gone into
the refugee camps, where at least they can
get regular meals.
"As for compensation for the abandoned
property of the Arab refugees — which
claim Israel has offered to settle at the
peace conferences — has any Arab or
Christian ever mentioned any compensa-
tion for the lives and property of the
Jews, confiscated on the excuse that these
unfortunates were Zionists? Has any Egyp-
tian mentioned compensation for the Jew-
ish lives and property lost on that 'Black
Friday' when a third of Cairo and Alex-
andria not long ago were destroyed?
"Today Dulles and Churchill are sending
arms to those great lovers of freedom,
the Arabs. Against whom can the Arabs
fight? The Russians? As a practical mat-
ter, what can a million armed Arabs do
to Russia, when you consider that Israel
whipped the combined armies of six Arab
nations? No arms for Israel, but hundreds
of millions for Egypt. Appeasement of the
Arabs will not pay for Dulles any better
than appeasement of the Nazi helped
Chamberlain."
In view of the growing dangers result-
ing from the shipment of arms by this
country and Great Britain to Israel's ene-
mies, Mr. Bruce's statements are of major
importance at this time. They assume added
merit as a result of the • assurances
that have been given by more than 100 men
seeking seats in Congress that they will ex-
ert their efforts, if elected, against the con-
tinuation of the Middle Eastern arms race.
Campaign pledges are less important
than the recognition of the immorality of
arming one set of nations against its smallest
neighbor. The aim of our Government must,
at all times, be in the direction of peace.
No one should be armed in any area on the
globe as long as that territory is engulfed
in war threats. The plea must be one for
peace, and a race for arms should be dis-
couraged. This remains our major prayer
and our dominant plea to our Government.
In his address at the American Jewish
Tercentenary dinner in New York, President
Eisenhower stated:
"In the Near East, we are all regretfully
aware that the major differences between
Israel and the Arab states remain unre-
solved. Our goal there, as elsewhere, is a
just peace. By friendship toward both, we
shall continue to contribute to peaceful re-
lations among these peoples. And in help-
ing to strengthen the .security of the entire
Near East, we shall make sure that any
arms we provide are devoted to that pur-
pose, not to creating local unbalances which
could be used for intimidation of or agrres-
sion against any neighboring nations. In
every such arrangement we make with any
nation, there is ample assurance that this
distortion of purpose cannot occur."
It is good to have the assurance that
there is to be no "distortion of purpose," and
that our Government is striving for peace.
Equally painfully, however, we must make
note of the fact that the State Department
is working at cross-purposes with the White
House by insisting on sending arms to the
Arabs. This must be avoided, and the arrival
at peace agreements must be made the first
objective in international relations. Our Gov-
ernment must insist upon direct negotiations
between Arabs and Israelis. Then we shall
be able to arrive at a practical solution to
the existing problem.
The President's statement h a s been
called "meaningless" by the veteran Zionist
leader, Louis Lipsky, and the calls for
more positive declarations on the arms issue
must be heeded. The assurances that have
been given by Vice President Nixon and Sec-
retary of State Dulles that our Government
will strive for peace will prove heartening
only when the policy of arming Arabs at
Israel's expense is abandoned.
In our own state, we are fortunate that
our representatives in Congress, Senator
Ferguson among them, continually intercede
with the President and the State Department
against the policies that will damage Israel's
security unless there is an end to the arming
of the Arabs. But the State Department ig-
nores these intercessions. His hesitancy in
calling a halt to Mr. Dulles' anti-Israel policy
is one of the President's major weaknessnes.
A Tercentenary Controversy
Handlin's BOOk Draws Severe
Attack from Ludwig Lewisohn
If the Tercentenary Year is to serve the major purpose of
emphasizing positive Jewish needs; if this historic year is to
encourage a healthy and wholesome approach to our Americanism,
then we must be careful in our selection of the right kind a
literature and in our approval of the proper kind of books.
Several good books already have been published. Louis Zara%
"Blessed Is the Land" (a Crown publication) is a splendid novel.
Rufus Learsie's history of the Jews in America (issue by World
Publishing Co.) is the best U. S. Jewish history. But Oscar Hand-
lin's "Adventure in Freedom" (a McGraw-Hill book) leaves much
to be desired.
In his review of Handlin's book, in the Saturday Review, Dz.
Ludwig Lewisohn warned as follows:
Mr. Handlin's 'Adventure in Freedom' is not easy to deal
with in 1954. To him freedom. for the Jew means generally free-
dom not to be a Jew or freedom to be as little of a Jew as possible
—freedom, in the last analysis, to disappear. "Here," he writes,
"no man was a Jew because he had to be." Since all Jews are born
as such and live as such and die as such and since the only choice
between emptiness and mimicry and servility on the one hand and
Jewish learning and fulness and piety on the other, the temper
of Mr. Handlin's book is easily discernible from this single sentence.
Throughout he minimizes Jewish character, Jewish differentness,
Jewish destiny. According to him the divine ordinances are "a
yoke thrust on from without" and their "laws and customs"
ghetto "walls," and Jewish accommodation to American life meant
"radically to revise their own conceptiOns of themselves and of
the nature of their culture." Oddly enough, considering his title
and his apparent temper, he rejoices in every manisfestation of
unfreedom. Adjustment is his motto and undifferentiation his
ideal—the melting-pot, the sand-heap, the unfeatured crowd. He
mentions scarcely a single Jew who has worked creatively within
American civilization, neither Maurice Samuel nor the late Milton
Steinberg, neither Abram Heschel nor the Zionist leaders. He
delights in Hank Greenberg and Macy's.
"It is no wonder, then, that he blankly omits all the salient
facts and achievements of American Jewry. He omits to mention
the 200 Hillel foundations at American colleges; he omits the
growth of Jewish education at its most authentic and heroic
from seventeen Law and Tradition (Torah umesorah) schools in
1935 to 156 in 1953. He neglects to describe the growth of the
Young Israel movement and that great renaissance which marked
the sweep of American Zionism, until at the World Congress of
1946 one-half of all voters (in excess of 1,000,000) were American
voters. By the same token he fails to mention the fads of the
religious intensification of life after Zionism had reached its peak
and its political fulfilment in the State of Israel.
"You would never know from Mr. Handlin that within the
last decade Reform Congregations had increased from 300 to 461,
Conservative Congregations from 265 to 473, and that the number
of Orthodox Congregations has reached 3,000. Nor would you
learn from his pages anything concerning the eminent Yiddish
poets that have flourished in America or of the small distinguished
body of Hebrew literature created here. Nor would you learn—
for his prejudices include every Jewish effort—that there are
100,000 Jewish farmers in the United States today with 20,000
farm units. But you will find in his pages almost incredible sen-
tences such as that "in the movies of John Garfield, in the novels
of Saul Bellow, and in the language of the comic strips a much
wider audience began to catch glimpses of what Jews were."
"Jews, the People of the Book, the people with the longest
history of literacy in the world, are to be observed in their true
character not in Jewish Center or at study or at prayer but in
the "comic strips." Where could Mr. Handlin have lived? With
what Jews? Why, since everything authentically Jewish is alien to
him, should he have written this book? He is psychically the
descendant of a perishing type—the German, French, Austrian
citizen of the Jewish faith. (Deutscher Staatsbueger Mosaischer
Konfession.) It was the mark of these unhappy people that they
sought to differentiate themselves exclusively by a religion which
they either did not know or despised. Does Mr._Handlin not know
—whether he likes it or not—that the Jewish religion consists in
the conviction of divine election and the consequent duty to sanc-
tity all the acts of life? He does not like it. Very well. But to
slant history, according to a dislike is hardly sound or scholarly
practice."
We join in these warnings. There is no room for the frightened
and defeatist attitudes which have invaded some Jewish quarters.
Dr. Handlin's book, with all its merits, is, nevertheless, marked by
fear. Its emphasis is on the right of Jews to vanish. That's not
the American way. This great land has flourished by benefiting
from the contributions of all its elements. The continuation of
this basic principle is the true message of the Tercentenary Year.