"Moses Watched the
Churchill Extolls Moses
Opening New Vistas for the
Jewish Tourist, in -Washington
starveling herbage. He com-
muned within himself, and then
one day when the s u n rode
fierce in the heavens, and the
dust-devils and mirages danced
end flickered amid the scrub, he
saw the Burning Bush.
"rt burned, yet it was not con-
sumed. It was a prodigy. Per-
haps it was not a bush at all,
but his own heart that was
aflame with a fire never to be
quenched while the earth sup-
ports human beings.
"God spoke to Moses from the
Burning Bush. He said to him
in effect: "You cannot leave
your fellow - countrymen in
bondage. Death or freedom!
Better the wilderness than slav-
ery. You must go back and
bring them out."
"God went a good deal fur-
ther. He said from the Burn-
ing Bush, now surely inside the
frame of Moses, "I will endow
you with superhuman power.
There is nothing that man can-
not do, if he wills it with enough
resolution. Man is the epitome
of the universe. All moves and
exists as a result of his invinci-
ble will, which is My Will."
"Great interest attaches to
the behaviour of Pharaoh. It was
a dead-lift struggle between Je-
hovah and Pharoah. But -Jeho-
vah did not wish to win too
easily. The liberation of the
Children of Israel was only
part of His high purpose.
"Their liberation had to be
effected in such a manner as to
convince them that they were
the Chosen People, with the su-
premeforces of the universe
enlisted. in their special interest,
should they show themselves
faithful. So Jehovah laid on His
plagues on : the one hand, and
hardened the heart of Pharaoh
on. the other. -
"Amid the general confusion
which followed this surrender
the Chosen People spoiled the
Egyptians. They marched ace.
cordingly to the northern inlet
of the Red Sea. The fugitive
tribesmen were trapped be-
tween the sea and Pharaoh's
overwheliting host.
"Bute Jehovah did not fail. A'
violent eruption occurred, of
which the volcanic mountains
in these regions still bear trams.
The waters of the sea divided,
and- the Children of Israel passe
ed dryshod across the inlet;
Pharaoh and his host, hotly fol-
lowing them, were sWallowed up
by the returning waters.
"We must, at this point, ex
a man, hurt ed In the palace
or -its purlieUs. But he is no amine briefly the whole ques-
Egyptian. He walks .abroad, he tion of the miracles. Everyone
sees what is going on. He sees knows that the pollution of riv-
his own race .exploited beyond ers, the flies, frogs, lice, Sande
storms' and pestilence • among
all economic need or social
tide. He sees them the drudge inen - and ''cattle, are the well-
of Egypt, consuming their strong; knewie afflictions of the East:
life and seed 'in the upholding The most sceptical person can
of its grandeur; and even readily believe that they °O..;
grudged the pittance which they turret' with exceptional - 'fre.'
quency • at this juncture: Ties -
earn.
strong north wind which `is' Said
"Ile sees. them .treated ,as, .a to haee 'blown back' the waters
helot class; they, the free chil- of the Red Sea May well have .
dren .of ,. the , wilderness, who .beeri - assisted' by a seismic and
came as honored guests and had volcanic dieturbance.
,w.oel5ed every hour of their.pass-
"All- these mitely rationalistic
age! Upon these general ireprese, and scientific explanatiOnS only
sioriS sees an t=?Egyptien beat,. prove' the truth or the -' Bible
{rig:, an Israelite.
story. It is silly to . -WaSte:
:"Not for :a moment does he arguing-whether Jehovah beoke
hesitate. He knows which side His _own natural laws to ''save
he is on, and the favours of the His Chosen People, or whethei-
Court and the. privileged .at- He merely made them work In
taplarnexits which he had with favourable manner. At, any late
the ruling and possessing race there is no doubt about' one mir;
vanish in a moment. He slays acle.
the Egyptian, amid , the loud and
"This wandering tribe, in
continuing , applause of the in- many respects indistinguishable
surgents of the ages.
from numberless nomadic come'
"Pharaoh .acted. He decreed enunities, grasped and problainie
death upon the murderer. Moses ed 'an idea of which all "the
fled into the "Sinai Peninsula. genius of Greece and all the
These are the most awful de- power of Rome were incapable.
serts where human life in any There was to be only one' God, a
form can be supported. Still, universal God, a God of nations,
always a very few people have a just God, a God who would
been: able le keep body and Soul "ptinish in another world a wick-.
together amid the rigours of the ed Man dying rich and prosper-.
Sinai. Peninsula.
; these doer ous; `6." God from whose service
recesses the fugitive /Viosee, tile• CI:Od of the humble arid Of
dwelt in extreme Privation for the weak and poor was
rnahy Yeas's:.
.
arable.
"Every prophet has to come :."We believe that the most set-
from civilization, but - every entitle view, the most up-to
prophet has to go into the wild- date and rationalistic , concep,
.erness. He must have a strong tion, will . find its fullest eatise
impression of a complex 'Society faction in taking the Bible.story
and all that it has to give, and literally, and in identifying one
then he must serve periods of of the greatest of human be-
isolation and meditation. This is ings with_the most decisive leap--
the ,.proces* by which' psychic forward ever discernible in the
dynamite is made:
human story'."
It is not generally known that Sir Winston Churchill has
always been very much impressed by the Hebrew Bible. In his
book, "Amid These Storms," published in 1932, he devotes a
special section to extolling the greatness of Moses. Excerpts
from this section follow:
By MILTON FRIEDMAN
(Copyright, 1955, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, WC-)
WASHINGTON—Passover occurs at a time when the first of
millions of tourists begins arriving in Washington for a spring
pilgrimage 'to the national shrines. But few visitors are aware
of evidence to be seen here which could tell the world that
America is a democracy built by Jews as well as Christians. *
Jewish tourists know as little as non-Jews about the Jews who
helped erect the capital city. Nor do they know much of the
prominent role Jews have taken in national affairs here. Tourists
entering Washington from the South cross the Arlington Memorial
Bridge, the magnificant span leading to the Lincoln Memorial,
which was designed and constructed by a Jew, Joseph B. Strauss,
who also built the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.
In the Great Plaza in front of the Commerce Department
Building is the Oscar S. Straus Memorial; a fountain flanked by
two pedestals supporting allegorical figures in bronze. This
memorial to the first Jew to serve in a President's Cabinet is
the work of the Jewish sculptor Adolph A. Weinman. Straus
was named Seeretary of. Commerce and Labor by President
Theodore Roosevelt in 1906.
The Hebraic Collection in the Library of Congress is a little-
known but extensive collection of Jewish books, manuscripts,
documents and pamphlets. It had its inception with a gift of
20,000 volumes and pamphlets brought together over a period of
years by the world traveler Ephraim Deinard and was presented
to the Library by the philanthropist Jacob H. Schiff. The Hebraic
Section numbers 51,000 volumes in Hebrew and Yiddish..
In the stamp exhibit room of the Post Office Department
Building can be seen the three` U. S. stamps honoring Jews.
The first is the 3-cent Joseph Pulitzer Commeinorative, issued
in 1947 on the 100th anniversary of the birth of the famous
Hungarian-born editor.
The second stamp, issued in 1950, is the Samuel Gompers
3-cent Commemorative, honoring the great labor leader on the
centennial of his birth. The third stamp :containing reference
to a Jew is the Foil/. Chaplain 3-cent Commemorative in honor of
Rabbi Alexander D. Goode, a Catholic, and two. Protestant .
chaplains. They gave -their life jackets to soldiers on the torpedoed'
IT. S. transport "Dorchester" in 1943 and went down with the ship.
A statue of Benjamin Franklin, founder of the postal service, '
stands in the huilding's ante-room. It the work of William
Zorach, a Jew regarded by many as the foremost sculptor of his
faith in the United States.
The Smithsonian Institute's "Living Hall of Washington,
1944" contains the -bronze statuettes of 50 notable American lead-
ers of World War. Two. All but four are the..wOrk of the Jewish.
sculptor Max Kalish who died before he could complete the stat-
uettes of - President Eisenhower, General MacArthur, Admiral
Nimitz and Admiral Halsey. Three Jewish notables are included:
Bernard Baruch, adviser to Presidents: Henry Morgenthau, Jr.,
wartime Secretary of the Treasury; . and Walter Lippmann, the
newspaper columnist.
In the same museum can be found a reproduction of the
original microphone invented by Emile Berliner in 1877. It was
this Jewish physicist's development of the loose contact transmit,
ter that made Alexander Graham Bell's telephone a practical
Instrument. Berliner was also the inventor of the present method
of duplicating disk records and developed accoustic tile for sound-
proofing. He was one of Washington's best loved citizens foi three
decades. In 1924 he invented the Berliner helicopter, a milestone
in aviation. This helicopter can be seen in the same Smithsonian
building.
The Supreme Court Building displays portraits of Louis D.
Brandeis, Benjamin N. Cardozo and Felix Frankfurter, the three
Jews who have served- on the U. S. Supreme Court. Brandeis, the
first Jew named to -the nation's highest court, was appointed by
President Woodrow Wilson in 1916 and served until retirement in
1939. Cardozo, named by. President Herbert Hoover in 1932, came By SIR WINSTON CHURCHILL
to the Supreme Court with a reputation of being "the most dis-
An AJP Feature
tinguished American jurist not on the Supreme Court." He num-
"He
was
the greatest of proph-
bered among 'his forebears Gershon Mendes• Seixas, the patriot ets, who spoke
in person to the
rabbi of the Ainerican Revolution. Rabbi Seixas was the first Jew
chosen,as a trustee - of Columbia University. Cardozo was the sec- God of Israel; he was the na-
tional hero who led the Chosen
ond to be named by Columbia. He died in 1938.
People out of the land of bond-
Frankfurter was-
to the Supreme Court in 1939 by age, through the perils of the
President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
In the Treasury Department one can see a portrait of Henry wilderness, and brought them to
the very threshold of the Prom-
Morgenthau, Jr., 'who served as SeCretary of the Treasury longer ised
Land; he was the supreme
than any man in American history except Albert Gallatin. The law-giver,
who received from
second Jew to be a member of' -the - Cabinet, Morgenthau was ap-
God
that
remarkable
code upon
pointed by President Roosevelt and served throughout the New which the religious, moral,
and
Deal. He is the son of Henry Morgenthau who was U. S. ambas- social life of the nation was
so
sador to Turkey under President Wilson.
securely founded. Tradition last-•
The American Federation- of Labor has .erected a monument ly
ascribed to him the author- .
in front of its Washington headquarters to Samuel Gompers, the ship
of the whole Pentateuch,
English-born Jew who was one of the founders and for nearly and the
mystery that surround-
40 years the president of the AFL. •
ed his death added to his pres-
A gigantic Masonic building, the House of the Temple,
located on the outskirts of the District of Columbia. Emanuel de
'‘Let: us first retell the ',Bible
la Matta, whose portrait hangs in the Temple, was one of the four :storY..
-
Jews among.the nine founders of the Masonic Supreme Council.
"The. days Were • gone 'when
In the Temple Library is the Simon Wolf Collection of Hebraica Jbseph
ruled in E gypt The No-
and Judaica, which was bequeathed by Simon Wolf. On terms of madic tribe
of. BedbuinS who
personal friendship with many presidents of the United States, had
sought asYlum
the ever-
Wolf was for many years the key figure in virtually every effort to fertile - banks of the by ' Nile
had
protect Jewish rights abroad. He was appointed consul general to increased and multiplied. From
Egypt in 1881. Also in the Temple library is a collection of Hebrew being a. band of strangert hos-
manuscripts assembled by Albert Pike a non-Jew who was grand- pitably received into the wealth
master of the Supreme Council from 1859 to 1891 and a Hebrew pf a powerful kingdom, they had
scholar.
become a social, political- and
Today the Jewish community of greater Washington numbers industrial - problem.
60,000 and includes many federal employees. The first leader of
"There must have arisen one
the. local community was Capt. Jonas Phillips Levy, younger of those movements with which
brother of the celebrated Commodore Uriah P. Levy. Capt Levy the, modern world is acquainted.
distinguished himself in the Mexican War as commander of a
:wave of anti-Semitism swept
gunboat. It was in response to his plea that Congress gave legal across the land. Gradually, year
sanction in 1857 to the Jewish community by proclaiming "that by year and inch by inch, the
all- the rights, privileges and immunities heretofore granted by Children of Israel were reduced
law to the Christian churches in the city of Washington be, and by the Policy of the - state and
the same hereby are, extended to the Hebrew Congregation of the the prejudices of its citizens
said city." Levy became the first president of the Washington from guests to servants and from
Hebrew Congregation.
servants almost to slaves.
Adas Israel Congregation, where Israel Ambassador Abba
"The Egyptian .government by
Eban and other diplomats worship, is the city's second oldest Jew-
various
measures sought to ar-
ish congregation. It recently moved into a monumental, modern-
istic building whose main facade is covered by a huge menorah. rest the increase of male Is-
This building. and other Jewish places of worship, blend with the raelites. Finally they determin-
ed to have the male infants
dignity and beauty of the capital city.
killed. It was at this moment
that Moses was born.
6— DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
Friday, April 1, 1195 .
"The years pass. The child is
.
elfifiny
'Mocks which browsed upon a
;.: