Still a Major Issue
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.
Published every Friday by The Jewish News Publishing Co, 17100 West Seven Mile Road, Detroit 35, Mich., YE. 9-9384
Eubscrption $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 SLOMOVITZ
Editor and Publisher
VOL. XXVI, No. 9
SIDNEY SHMARAK
Advertising Manager
Page Four
FRANK SIMONS
City Editor
Friday, November 5, 1954
Sabbath Scriptural Selections
This Sabbath, the tenth day of Heshvan, 5715, the following Scriptural selections will be read
in our synagogues:
Pentateuchal portion, Gen. 12 :1-17 :27. Prophetical portion, Is. 40 :27-41 :16.
Voice of U.S. on Middle Ea st Arms Issue
More than 300 candidates for Congress,
Democrats and Republicans, went one record
prior to the election in oppdsition to the arm-
ing of the Arab states at the expense of
Israel's security.
This was one of the most heartening de-
velopments of recent months. It indicated
clearly that the conscience of America has
been aroused by the moral issue involving the
Middle East.
It is, indeed, a moral issue. Israel is a
small country. She is surrounded by hostile
nations whose constant infiltrations into Is-
raeli territory and continuous threats to
Israel's security have created a most menac-
ing situation.
In the memorandum that was presented
to Secretary of State Dulles by the Jewish
delegation that represented every faction in
American Jewry, it was clearly indicated
that "the peoples of the Middle East can be
won for democracy by an improvement of
the intolerable economic, social and cultural
conditions under which they now exist and
by the extension to them of the human rights
which are now wholly or partially denied to
them." Israel has consistently pleaded for
economic aid for the entire area, not for her-
self alone. It is economic aid that is needed
to strengthen the backward peoples of the
world, not arms in the hands of those who
aim to make war upon a struggling young
state.
Secretary Dulles is believed to be prepar-
ing to discuss the entire question again with
Israel's Ambassador, Mr. Abba Eban. He is
reported to have waited until after the elec-
tion, in order to eliminate all political con-
siderations. We applaud his intentions, since
the peace of the Middle East is a bi-partisan
concern. And we sincerely hope that in con-
sidering all aspects of the Arab-Israel issue
he will think in terms of reviewing and revis-
ing earlier decisions.
At the same time, we entertain the hope
that our State Department, having succeeded
in several areas involving foreign policy, will
now undertake to strive for peace in the
Middle East by insisting that the Arabs face
Israel in a direct negotiations conference.
There can be great compensation for our
Government in the knowledge that it had
undertaken to make peace and succeeded.
In the meantime the arming of the Arabs
remains a moral issue. The immorality of
arming those who seek to make war upon
Israel is recognized by responsible American
leaders. To those who have not as yet recog-
nized the immorality of this issue we address
again the concluding declarations appended
to the memorandum submitted by the heads
of all national Jewish organizations to Secre-
tary Dulles:
We respectfully request that our Gov-
ernment refrain from arming the Arab
states in the absence of positive guarantees
leading to peace; that our Government do
nothing to impair the prevailing balance of
strength in the Middle East; that it extend
to Israel the same agreements already of-
fered the Arab states, and that it invite
Israel to join in regional defense planning.
We believe that such steps would best
serve the national interests of America
and the free world. They would hasten the
restoration of peace and expand the region-
al defense capacity of the Middle East.
We appreciate President Eisenhower's
recent reaffirmation of firm friendship
towards Israel and all other nations in the
area, an objective to which you, Mr. Secre-
tary, have also given warm expression.
But we respectfully submit that actions
under the present policy do not serve the
attainment of that purpose. We are hope-
ful that the foregoing observations may
contribute constructively to the achieve-
ment of our over-all objectives of peace,
friendship and defense in the area, serving
the highest interests of the security and
welfare of the people of the United States.
Tribute to a Noted Leader
Biography of Judah L. Magnes
FOR ZION'S SAKE. A Biography of Judah L. Magnes. By Norman
Jewish Publication Society of America.
Bentwidi.
A Review by CARL HERMANN VOSS .
Norman Bentwich, British-born citizen of the new state of
Israel and former Attorney-General of the Mandatory Govern-
ment of Palestine, has written a perceptive, informative and
touching biography of Judah Magnes. ''For Zion's Sake" is a labor
of love in memory of a great and good man whom many, Jew and
non-Jew, admired and respected greatly.
When Dr. Magnes died in New York City in 1948, he had only
recently returned to his native America after a quarter century
distinctive service in Palestine.
In the pleasantly-flowing prose of these engrossing pages,
Magnes lives again. Here is the handsome youth of Oakland,
Calif. (described by the local newspaper, in
1894, as "brilliant, noble, promising" whO
studied for six years at the University of Cin-
cinnati and Hebrew Union College, and then
goes abroad for two more years of enjoyable
graduate study at Berlin and Heidelberg.
Here are the beginnings of an always con-
troversial, and yet consistently creative, ca-
reer first as rabbi, in the years from 1904
to 1911, of Temple Israel in Brooklyn, Temple
Emanu-El and Congregation Bnai Jeshu-
run in Manhattan; then, in the next decade,
as organizer and chairman of the Kehillah,
that well-intended but ill-fated effort to or-
ganize the Jews of New York, and of other
cities as well, into a "community." Here are
J. L. Magnes the several pilgrimages to Palestine, on the
sponsorship of the course in American Jewish last of which, in 1922, he stayed as the Chancellor—later, as Presi-
history at Wayne University under the La- dent of ; the newly-founded Hebrew University on Mount Scopus
Med Foundation grant and the special classes and as chairthan of the Emergency Committee of Hadassah.
From his youngest days, he had been. a Zionist, one of the
sponsored by several organizations and by thel
first
to hail Herzl and the vision of an Old-New Land restored.
Jewish Centers are in themselves most en-
Now he could help in the task. During the 1920's, '30s, and '40s,
couraging.
difficult and painful years of Israel's rebirth, he sought to be a
By registering a determination to place mediator. Often he succeeded to remarkable degree; but passions
emphasis on Jewish educational needs, by ran too high, and Magnes found to his disappointment that Jew,
sponsoring courses that will help create a Arab and Briton in the Holy Land were not destined to lie down
community with knowledge about our peo- as the lion and the lamb. Nor was Magnes himself to dwell in
ple's heritage, our past and present and our , amity with his friends in Zion.
Men might disagree with MagneS; but, as opponents, they
aspirations for the future, our responsible
honored
him for his scholarly gifts as well as his administrative
organizations are rendering the proper service ability, for
his basic integrity and his spiritual resources. They
to Jewry. We commend their actions and we could not help but be grateful for his sensitivity to social ills, his
urge the community to uphold their hands deep-seated aversion to the sleek religiosity of the well-born and
in their serious efforts.
the well-to-do, his reverence for the well-springs of Judaism, his
love for Zion's hills and valleys, wadis and tels.
Those who visited with him on Mount Scopus and in Rehavia,.
as did I in 1947, will find him, in these pages; walking again the
streets of his beloved Jerusalem, radiating as always a nobility
Dr. Emanuel Neumann, speaking at the . and a dignity rarely found in today's world. One might be tempted-
question Bentwich's sweeping statement that, by 1922, • when
meeting of the national executive committee to
Magnes and his family left for Palestine, the man "had left an
of the Zionist Organization of America, impress upon New York Jewry as no other man of the century,"
charged the Egyptian Embassy in Washing- for - immediately one thinks of a number of others; but there is no
doubt.that Judah Magnes left a mark on American life and Israeli
ton with "flagrant violation of diplomatic life that is indelible and beneficient—and immortal.
proprieties" when it issued a statement ac-
(A differing view of the book will be given in another review
a
—
The Multiple Educational Programs
All our religious groupings are repre-
sented in the adult education programs
planned for the current year. The Orthodox,
Conservative and Reform synagogues have
formulated plans for the teaching of Bible,
religion, the philosophy of Judaism, history
and Hebrew.
These are indications of the desire in
Jewish ranks to promote cultural movements
and to encourage acquisition of knowledge
about Jews by Jews.
It is the response rather than the promo-
tion of such efforts that is troubling the com-
munity. All of the Conservative synagogues,
both Reform Temples, all of the Orthodox
elements have found it necessary to combine
forces within their spheres in order to en-
courage the largest possible enrollments in
three consolidated adult education institutes.
It is now considered most unwise for any one
synagogue to plan an independent educa-
tional program and it is taken for granted
that individual action would draw so poor a
response that the effort would be valueless
and meaningless.
If the combined undertakings could be
counted upon to produce the maximum re-
sults, we would have a most constructive
community adult educational program. But
even under combined efforts it is necessary
to plead with people to enroll in such courses.
The leadership is willing to sponsor extensive
educational programs, an.d the constituency
must be made more responsive.
This is our problem today: to find a way
of reaching into the hearts of our people so
that they may understand how necessary it
is for them to know their own history and to
participate in the advancement of our cul-
tural values; to be able to draw into our ranks
for manpower in the preparation of leaders
and the training of well-informed constitu-
encies.
The fact that our congregations are act-
ing to advance the cultural aspects of Jewish
life, the heartening beginnings made in the
—
Egyptian 'Hutzpahl
cusing American Zionists of trying to "dis-
credit" the U.S. Government in the arms-
to-the-Arabs issue.
This is not the first time that Arabs used
arrogance and the lowest type of "hutzpah"
in an attempt to smear American Jews in
relation to their loyalties to their country.
Dr. Neumann termed the action of the
Egyptian Embassy "a public attack against
a large body of Americans who are exer-
cising their rights, as citizens, in criticizing
certain policies of their government which
they regard as mistaken and harmful to
America's true interests."
In his interesting addresses here last
week, Bnai Brith's dynamic president, Phi-
lip M. Kluznick, similarly branded any at-
tempt to deprive citizens of the right to criti-
cize their government as un-American. Bu t
the arrogant ride on—spurred by cheap
"hutzpah."
in a later issue).
et s Consoling Statements
Rabbi
includiql in 'A Ti-easury of Comfort'
Several of Rabbi Morris Adler's consoling statements are in-
cluded in a new Crown Publishers' (419 4th, NY16) product: "A
Treasury of Comfort," edited by Rabbi Sidney Greenberg. .•
This volume of collected statements, sayings and proverbs of
"consolation, hope and guidance' by the great and humble for the
bereaved . ' aims "to meet. the needs of those who find themselves
in the valley of the shadow."
The world's greatest personalities, the Bible, the Prophets
are quoted in this impressive book.
. Four selections are quoted from Rabbi Adler's sayings and
writings, under the following headings: "Sorrow Gan Enlarge the
Domain of Our Life," "We Do Not Stand Alone," "The Common
Date with Adversity" and "The Universal Heritage." In the latter,
the Detroit rabbi states: "We shall be helped in maintaining our
balance during life's trials if we remember that' sadness is The
universal heritage of mankind. The contingency of pain is the
only condition on which love, friendship and happinels are eve'
offered to us. This recognition is the hallmark of maturity."