THE JEWISH NEWS
Immigration Issues
incorporating the Detroit Jewish Chronicle commencing wish - issue of July 20, 1951
Member American Association of English-Jewish Newspapers, Michigan Press Association, National Editorial Association
Published every Friday by The Jewish News Publishing Co, 17100 West Seven Mile Road, Detroit 35, Mich., VE. 8-9364
Subscription $4 a year, Foreign $5.
Entered as second class matter Aug. 6, 1942, at Post Office,. Detroit,
under Act of March 3, 1879
Mich.,
PHILIP SLOMOV1TZ
Editor and Publisher
VOL. XXVII, No. 13
MONEY SHMARAK
Advertising Manager
FRANK SIMONS
City Editor
Page Four
June 3,1955
Sabbath Scriptural Selections
Thi.s Sabbath. s th.e fourteenth day of Sivan. 5715 the following scriptural selections will be
read in our synagogues:
Pentateuchal portion, Num. 4:21-7:89. prophetical portion, Judges 13:12-25.
Licht Benshen, Friday, June 3, 7;43 p.m.
10th Anniversary and Its Preceding Tragedy
We are now celebrating the tenth anni-
versary of the end of the great European
tragedy which has gone down in history as
World War II. It would have been better if
it were remembered as the anniversary of
the halt to Hitlerism.
Ten years after the defeat of Nazism
and the collapse of Hitler's Third Reich,
Paris agreements, entered into by the lead-
ing world powers, including the United
States, have authorized the revival of a 1-2-
division German army. The Federal Re-
public of Germany has regained its sover-
eignty and now is a member of the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization.
Now we pray that the new Germany
should be devoid of the hatreds which have
caused a world war, the greed which has
plunged mankind into the bloodiest conflict
in history, the insanity which turned an en-
tire people into inhuman demons.
The apprehensions that exist in this hour
of celebration of the tenth anniversary, of
the end of the European war—an anniver-
sary which should have been marked by
jubilation but which, instead, continues to
remind is of the horrors of a decade ago
—are the result of the recurrence of Nazism
in Germany. Neo-Nazi groups continue to
be active in Germany, there are frequent
anti-JeWish demonstrations, and while of-
ficial explanations call these incidents "iso-
lated and untypical," it is difficult to fail to
recognize their existence.
Therefore, apprehension has set in, and
there is justified speculation over an uncer-
tain future.•
With faith in the sincerity of the states-
men of the democratic world, we would like
to retain hope that the past will not be
revived, that the horrors of the days of
Hitler will riot be experienced again, that
tyranny has seen its doom.
But you can not defeat tyranny by for-
getting the experiences of it. The memories
of the dark ages must linger, if darkness is
not to descend anew upon this earth.
We must continue to remind ourselves,
and the generations to come, of the tragedies
that were imposed upon mankind–by the
Nazis; and especially of the brutalities they
practiced against the Jews.
A very moving reminder of the hurt that
was imposed upon humanity by Nazism, of
the pagan onslaught upon Jewry, will be
found in a . very powerful story by Soma
Morgenstern, "The Third Pillar," which has
just been translated from the German by
Dr. Ludwig Lewisohn for the joint publish-
ers, the Jewish Publication S i e t y of
America and Farrar, Straus & Company.
This is not a review of this strong indict-
ment of Nazism. The review already ap-
peared in our columns last week. This is,
rather, a drawing upon this great book for
a very important reminder: of the slaughter
of the 1,100,000 Jewish children by the
Nazis.
The accuser in Morgenstern's story ad-
dresses the court on this subject and makes
pertinent remarks that should sink into the
memory of every human being who seeks
peace and an end to brutality. It is a long
quotation, but we use it for its powerful
value. The accuser in Morgenstern's great
book tells the court: •
the death factories, in order to conform to the
bills of lading: Freight on Board: One thou-
sand children. Received seven hundred and
seventy-six alive, two hundred and twenty-four
as figures. And this had to be so.
Because
wherever the German rules, orders must pre-
vail.
"Only the chief murderers know exactly
how many children were slaughtered. We are
dependent on estimates. But according to all
human judgment our estimates are exact,
grievously exact, exact with the silence of
death. They cut off one third of the body and
the life of our people, namely, six millions.
They have cut out one third of our very heart:
eleven hundred thousand: eleven hundred
thousand children; eleven hundred thousand.
"We countetV them in twenty lands, in hun
dreds of cities, in thousands of houses.
e
counted them in the schools and in the orpha I Israel's Emerging Constitution'
houses and in the nursery schools. Every
where, where once there was laughter an d
childish tears and joy and play and the sing
song of study and the confusion of childish de _ Rabbi Emanuel Rackman, of Far Rockaway, N. Y., in his intro.
light, everywhere there was silence.
duction to "Israel's Emerging Constitution: 1948 1951," (Columbia
"And in this deathly silence we counted 011 r University Press, 2960 B'way, NY 27), contends that, contrary tirl
dead children. We counted them from land to prevailing views, Israel does have a consttiution, and declares:
"It is often said that Israel • has no constitution. This is
land, from city to city, from village to village.
an error. The fundamental laws and practices that govern
And with the number of the dead there grew
the operation of a state are its constitution, even if no speci-
and grew the torment of the counters of the
fic instrument is thus entitled."
dead. We, the orphans, the survivors, we have
He proceeds to state, quoting from "Introduction to American
become a people of the counters of the dead.
Twelve million who count the dead, and six Government by F A. Ogg and 0.'0. Ray:
million dead and among them eleven hundre d "As a matter of fact, the federal consti-
of the United States is more than
thousand children.
"Among these children were some who wer e the document ratified in 1788: 'While we
Jewish children only according to the Germa n still may properly enough refer to the docu-
ment itself as "the constitution," in a
law concerning the blood. These children di
not know why they had to die, and in th e larger and truer sense the constitution is
hands of the hangmen they cried out afte the document as enveloped in a vast, liv-
their mothers. But among them were also piou ing, changing complex of interpretations
and usages."
children, little disciples of the Torah with side
Thus, Dr. Rackman's book is intended
curls and believing eyes under their luminou
foreheads. These children knew why they wer e as a "history of the making of that con-
hounded and tortured and slain. When the stitution, attempting both an evaluation
,
Dr. Rackman
hand of the hangman was upon them, they and a prognosis."
The total result of his effort is an informative volume. It la,
cried not after their mother; they cried after
their Father, their Father in Heaven, and with in fact, a.history of the establishment of Israel and the develop-
the dying declaration of their faith they per- ment of Israel's institutions.
Dr. Rackman reviews the activities of the political parties in
ished for the Sanctification of the Name.
Israel as well as their antecedents—the World Zionist Organiza-
"And even as the murderers did not dis-
criminate between those children and these, so tion and the Jewish Agency. Those desiring an understanding DI
we do not discriminate and we say: Those the workings of Ma.pai, Mapam, the two Mizrachi groups and other
parties will find them well delineated here.
children and these children are all our chil-
He analyzes, of course, the constitutional drafts by Dr.
dren and they all died for the Sanctification of
Leo Rohn and Prof. Asher Vitta, and presents the views upon
the Name Who Will avenge the blood of the
them of the secularist And religious parties. And he proceeds
martyrs.
to describe the numerous transition laws out of which is grow-
"And even as the murderers did not dis-
ing a working constitution.
criminate among these children in the matter
Rabbi Rackman's book becomes important especially for its
of torture and death, even so the defilers made
no discrimination in the matter of defilement. explanations of Israeli actions on capital punishment, polygamy
As it had been decided in the council of the and other issues. "Capital punishment," he states, "which Judaism
virtually outlawed two millenia ago, was regarded as a 'must' for
three chief murderers, so defilement every-
where following upon slaughter. They caused Arabs. If the State did not practice it then the family of a mur-
the hair of the dead to be sheared and sent dered Arab would itself pursue the 'blood-feud' against the mur-
derer. Israel's Minister of Police was firm in his opposition to
the hair of the children to workshops to make
the abolition of capital punishment, thoUgh this was one issue
mattresses of them. They sent the figures to
regard to which even Mapam and the Religious Bloc were
workshops where cleansing material was man- with
agreed. The law proposed in the Kneset for the abolition of capi-
ufactured. There the flesh, taken from the
bones, was boiled and turned into that sub- tal punishment excepted traitors. To this exception the leader
of the Communist party objected. He feared that the Govern-
stance which the weaver of lies had thought
ment itself, presumably if it supported American warmongering,
out as a cure against legends.
might be committing the treason and would have to be killed to
"And they called this substance Figure Soap,
save the people. Mapi's spokesmen were divided on the entire
or even Genuine Figure Soap or, at times, War-
issue. Many felt that moralvalues were not yet secure enough
ranted Genuine Figure Soap_ And they packed
in the world to permit the abolition of the death penalty."
up this product in boxes and sent the boxes out
The author's chief conclusion is: "Israel will yet see con-
wherever their Gestapo and their S.S. men held
stitutional development. However, it is difficult to avoid the
power, especially the power of spreading
conclusion that the principal patterns of its constitution were
mors and of mixing lies with truth in such a
already formed in the first three years of the State's existence.
-
manner that no one was able to determine
The principal changes of the future will most likely be found
which was to be believed and what not ..."
in party organization and practiceS.
*
*
Practice Forms the Law
-
On the historic anniversary of V-E Day,
we join_ in this reminder of an occurrence
that dare not be forgotten. It must not be
obliterated from memory, lest it be repeated.
Yes, we hold on to faith. We pray for
peace. We hope that the Germany that has
been revived will be a just and a peace-loving
and a human Germany.
We mix prayer with hiStory. We hope
for the good; we can not forget the past.
"For three years the freight trainS -.. with
their freight of children rolled.:. -through the •
twenty lands of the civilized world. By day
men saw them roll and went to their work. By
night women heard them, while they sang lul-
labies to their own children.
"And upon the whole of this continent
there-was to he found no power, either secular
Wise men have said again and again, as
or spiritual, which was willing to raise either
they
watched great nations tear each other
an arm or a cry and bid these trains to cease
asunder, that the world would be happier if
rolling.
it were ruled by the smaller peoples of the
"And all these trains reached their desti-
world. Burma and Israel proved the point
nation. And at every such destination there
this week, as they embraced, through their
stood a factory of death. And their gates
opened to receive the itx-eight fa children_ e nd ,: representatives, in the ,young. Jewish_ ;state
the children
stilt
had to - fieti) . "Let thig." • si&i. -of 'ft-lei:Id:ship
' ieso
s n
carry the children who were already dead into
other nations.
•
Burma and Israel
'63
Dr. Rackman asserts that most Israelis "believe that the ulti-
mate preservation of democratic institutions depends less upon
constitutional guarantees than upon the general consensus of the -
land's_ inhabitants." He warns that "unless a way is found to re-
duce the number of parties, party political activity will continue '
to be more important to most of the legislators than lawmaking:
and law enforcement."
Agudat Israel had ruled against a written constitution, and
the Mizrachi groups—the author is a Mizrachist—went along with
these extremists. Thus, the religious issues in Israel remain para-
mount, and Dr. Rackman states: "The resolution of the religious
issue would clear the way for the drafting of a written consti-
tution and the possible merger of Mapai with the religious labor
parties. Economic programs and philosophies would then remain
as the principal causes for party division."
Functions of R.L.A.S. in Berlin
The effective manner in which R.I.A:S.—Radio in the Ameri-
can Sector of Berlin—functions to counteract SOviet propaganda
is described in "Dangerline" by T. Morris Longstrcth, published
as a book for 12-16-year-olds by Macmillan. g:
"Dangerline" is the story of an American who crossed the
04ngex,..ppne. of..Beriin, to rescue a friend. It is full of thrills and
tensions and ably relates how the CommleS.-'were 'outwitted '14
the hero who disguised himself in the uniform of People's Pace.