A One - Sided Arms Race

• 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, National Editorial

Association.

Published every Friday by The Jewish News Publishing Co., 17100 West Seven Mile Road, Detroit 35, Mich.,
VE. 8-9364. Subscription $5 a year, Foreign $6.
. Entered as second class matter Aug. 6, 1942, at Post Office, Detroit, Mich., under Act of March 3, 1879

PHILIP SLOMOVITZ

SIDNEY SHMARAK

FRANK SIMONS

- Editor and Publiiher

Advertising Manager

City Editor

Sabbath Rosh Hodesh .Shvat Scriptural Selections
This Sabbath, Rosh Hodesh Shvat, 5716, the following Scriptural selections will be read
.
in our synagogues:
Pentateuchal portions, Ex. 10: 1-13: 16. Prophetical portion, Jer. 40: 13-28.

.

VOL. XXVIII.

No. 19.

Licht Benshen, Friday, Jan. 13, 5.06 p.m.

Page Four

January 13, 1956

American Jewry Comes to Israel's Defense

American Jewry, whose generosity
played an important role in the rebirth
of the Jewish State, has been disturbed
over events that transpired in the Middle
East. There were many in our midst who
criticized Israel's retaliations against. the
Arabs. The distinguished New .York Sena-
tor, Herbert H. Lehman, took occasion to
counsel "restraint." A number of Amer-
ican newspapers warned Israel that the
attacks on the Syrian military post might
stand in the way of American military aid
to assist in balancing Israel's strength with
that of the Arabs.
Subsequent events proved that the Is-
raelis had no alternative. A lifeline in the
Lake Galilee was thregened and Israel
was compelled to hit back. Egypt was
combining forCes with Syria with the de-
clared intention to destroy the Jewish
State, and Israel had to assert itself.
At the same time, immoral acts were
being committed by great powers. Great
Britain condoned the shipments of "sur-
plus" military, supplies to Egypt via Bel-
gium. The Belgian government began to
act against such a frightful ganging-up on
Israel by means of arming Arabs to the
teeth, thus endangering the very existence
-of the Jewish State.
More than that, Soviet spokesmen, un-
satiated by their unholy alliance with
Egypt in creating an arms race in the
Middle East, launched a- vicioattack on
Israel, linking Israelis with "ivii.Perialists"
and accusing them of designs on the free-
doms of- the Arabs.
While these things are - happening to
Israel, on the international front, Arab
propagandists are at large, attacking the
integrity of American Jewry, invading the
sanctity of 'American democratic institu-
tions in an attempt to create an anti-
Jewish atmosphere in this country. They
have gone so far in their outrageous' ac-
tions that the New York Mirror, charging
the Syrian -Ambassador to the United
States, Farid Zeineddine, with being "too
fresh" in his statement, "why not let New
York be a homeland for • the Jews," sug-
gested: "If he continues to talk so out-
rageously, about American citizens, of
whatever faith, color or prior nationality,

Dr. Ludwig Lewisolin

Dr. Ludwig Lewisohn, eminent educa-
tor, brilliant writer, able orator, became
an important figure in Jewish life, upon
his awakening, about - 35 years ago, from
the complacency of assimilation.
His novel, "The Island Within," which is
being ranked to this very day among the
best-written stories by an American writ-
er, bluntly presented the problems in his
own life, as a Jew, to his vast reading
public.
Earlier, his "Upstream" and "Mid-Chan-
nel" presented an inner searching of his
career as an educator, as a Jew among
non-Jews.
His "Last Days of Shylock" climaxed
his devoted studies .of Judaism. His latest
book, "Theodor Herzl: A Portrait for This
Age," has enriched the Zionist bookshelf.
Dr. Lewisohn had rendered valuable
services to the Zionist movement. He be-
came' a strong defender of orthodox prin-
ciples and advocated the day school pro-
gram of Jewish education. -
By being one of the first 13 professors
at BrandeisUniversity, he became one of
the makers of the new school of higher
learning at Waltham, Mass.
He left an indelible mark upon Amer-
ican Jewish history and upon English-
Jewish literature, and he will be long
' remembered for his contributions toward
constructive Jewish movements.

he should be asked to go home, and that
could hold for any other ambassador."
There is mounting evidence that the
accumulated indignities imposed upon
Israel, the unfair practices of several gov-
ernments, the threats to destroy Israel,
have begun to "get our goat." It is becom-
ing evident that American Jewry, recog-
nizing that Israel is fighting with her
back to the sea, once again being threat-
ened by the Arabs so that all Israelis will
be pushed into the Mediterranean, are be-
coming quite angry and will, again, launch
a battle for the defense of a defenseless
people: _
Also, it is becoming increasingly evident
that Christians as well as Jews are seeing
through the shenanigans of unwise or mis-
led politicians and are beginning action to
put an end to an anti-Jewish campaign
by foreign diplomats in this country and
to a threat to Israel's security by Arab
states whose dictators not so long ago ad-
vised the Palestinian Arabs to leave their
homes because they would help them re-
turn there to drive the Jews into the sea
and to take over everything they had
created; who hold the refugees they had
created as pawns in a battle against Israel.
* * *
There is a limit to human endurance,
and American Jewry is beginning to ex-
press itself. The American Jewish Com-
mittee already has branded the Arab diplo-
mats as the worst offenders in a campaign
to foment anti-Jewish acts in this country.
In spite of the undignified ands -un-Chris-
,
tian act of American
educators in the
Middle East,. who are- attempting - to inject
political issues in the forthcoming Presi-
dential election, in an evident effort to
harm Israel, Atherican legislators are see-
ing through the vile propaganda campaign
that has been launched in this country.
.American Jews will speak their minds
at the extraordinary conference in Wash-
ington, next Tuesday and. Wednesday. The
16 major national Jewish organizations,
representing a cross-section of the Jews of
this country, will action the situations that
have been created by a multiple of inci-
dents: the Communist • anti-Israel efforts,
the British pro-Arab arms sales, the Arab
threats of war, the blindness to the situa-
tion of unfriendly members of our own
Government.
The -voice of American Jewry will be
heard in Washington next week. It will
surely echo throughout the land, in offi-
cial American circles, in the halls of Con-
gress, and surely in every American Jew-
ish community. It will be a call to action
never again to permit vile indignities to
be hurled at Jewry and at Israel. It will be
an occasion for American Jewry to say to
Israel that we stand ready to uphold her
hands in the fight for freedom and in a
struggle for survival.

.

LZOA and Education

Preceding the formal opening of the
new Labor Zionist headquarters, on
Schaefer near Seven Mile road, the Labor
Zionist Organization has put its right foot
forward by introducing first its educa-
tional system.
It is symbolic of the movement's em-
phasis on the proper training of its youth
—through its United Jewish Folk Schools
classes as well as the Habonim movement
—that the opening of the classrooms
should be given priority arid that the
LZOA's educational efforts should be ac-
commodated in advance of the opening
of the building for the movement's activi-
ties in behalf of the labor .Israel move-
ment.
Such concern over the proper training
of our youth has earned the community's
heartiest greetings and congratulations, to
the LZOA authorities and to the manage-
ment of the United Jewish Folk Schools.

`Funniest Man in the World ...'

Joe E. Lewis: The Joker Is Wild'

Last Yom Kippur, Joe E. Lewis was heralded as the first
Jewish showman to have secured a substitute for his TV appear-
ance, so that he could observe the Day of Atonement. It became
evident, then, that there were Jewish religious sparks in this great
entertainer.
His biography, "The Joker Is Wild," written with great charm
by Art Cohn who caught the spirit bf the man and incorporated
it in a story that holds the reader's attention from beginning to
end in the .368-page book, has been published by Random House
(457 Madison, NY 22).
The biographer pulls no punches. He portrays his hero as
he is: as the associate of people in all walks of life, including some
Chicago gangsters, as a heavy drinker, as one who gambled away
fortunes at the race track. The book, Art Cohn writes, is his;
the life, Joe's; the title was suggested by Bennett Cerf, president
of Random House.
At 25, Joe was a triumph at the. Chicago Green Mill. He
announced that he was transferring to the New Rendezvous Cafe.
Machine Gun Jack McGurn warned him he would not live to
make the transfer. He did. But several days later he was attacked
and slashed by three gangsters who left him for dead. It was
a miracle, but he survived, he regained his voice, he struggled
against great odds and made a great come-back, earning the title
—conceded him by colleagues and by the country's greatest lead-
ers—as "the funniest man in the world."
"The Joker Is Wild" deserves reading. It . is truly a human
document. It is a history of show business as Joe encountered
it. It is the story of the lad, born to the Abraham Klewans on the
East Side of New York, who did not forget his people, who loved
his mother, Pauline, who now is 98. His dear friend, Abe Marovitz,
who became a Judge in Chicago, said of him to Joe's biographer:
"One day we went to the Broadway Synagogue for mourning
services for his father. 'I'd like to donate $250,' he whispered to
the shamus, 'but it must be anonymous.' The shamus nodded, and
went to the altar. 'A donation, $250,' he 'announced in a loud voice
to the congregation, 'Anonymous, by—JOE E. LEWIS'."
Describing Joe's defiance of McGurn, who later lost his life
in an act of vengeance by . the Chicago gangsters, Cohn writes:
"If you were born a Jew, raised with seven brothers and sisters
in the poverty of a tenement house on Jefferson and Cherry streets
in New York, and your father died when yoti- were ten, you were
bred to fight. Joe never looked for a scrap but he never backed
away from one . . . "
When a floorwalker in a department store, where he had
gotten a job at $15 a week when he thought he was out of corn-.
mission after the slashing 'called him a "Jew bastard," Joe - belted
him unconscious." He lost his job. The cycle of his troubles was
as wide as his later successes. He had to learn to speak and to
read from the very beginning, he wag helped by - a priest and
by the country's greatest showmen. He justified their trust in him.
He once-staked $10,000 to an unknown man he befriended,
to help him a business venture, in appreciation o his having
spent the night with him drinking, in a saloon. His trust paid off
there, too. The man turned out to be Leonard Sachs who was
promoting boxing shows.
At one time, when he was groping for a chance to make good,
he appeared in 'Jewish dialect acts. Cohn explains: "Joe, a proud
Jew, was unaware that he might be disparaging his people. He
.laughed at their humorous traits without malice or self-conscious-
ness. . . . This was before Jews became sensitive—to gas—before
the laughter of native Yiddish comedy was suffocated in the kilns
of Germany and in six million Jewish throats. Joe abandoned
the material. .. . It was imitation. . • . He did not want to be
a counterfeiter."
Judge Marovitz gave him a mezuzah. He thought it brought
him luck, as Abe had promised.
It has been announced that Paramount will film "The Joker
Is Wild," that Frank Sinatra will star as Joe E. Lewis. Charles
Vidor will direct the play.
If the film will be as good as the book, it will be another
sensation.

.

