THE JEWISH NEWS
Oil Burns on Troubled Waters
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. 3-9364. 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 Publisher
Advertising Manager
City Editor
Sabbath Scriptural Selections
This Sabbath, the twentieth day of Adar, 5716, the following Scriptural selections will
be read in our synagogues:
Pentateuchal portion, Ki Tissah, Parah, Ex. 30:11-34:35, Num. 19:1-22.
Prophetical portion, 36:16-38.
Licht Benshen, Friday, Maroh 2, 61 :05 p.m.
VOL. XXVIII. No. 26
Page Four
March 2, 1956
The Humiliating 'Mess in Washington'
There is chaos in our nation's capital.
"The Mess in Washington" has as-
sumed a moral aspect with the extension
of military assistance to the vast Arabian
oil-producing area.
There are inquiries and probes. There
will be more of them. But even if the
State Department should again reverse
itself, as it did within 43 hours between
the on-again, off-again embargo on the
Saudi Arabian tank shipment, and should
grant to Israel her meager request for
some heavy arms with which to defend
herself, the inconsistency of our State De-
partment can no longer be either ex-
plained or excused.
Attempts have been made by the State
Department and by the darlings of the
Arab propagandists in this country, under
the leadership of Dorothy Thompson and
Dr. Garland E. Hopkins, to clamp down
on discussion of Middle Eastern affairs in
the forthcoming Presidential political cam-
paign. President Eisenhower has aligned
himself with that viewpoint. He, his secre-
tary • of state and their associates, have,
by a most inconsistent act—that of send-
ing arms to the Arabs while admonishing
Israel that as guardians of our Govern-
ment's destinies they are bent upon avoid-
ing an arms race — nullified their advice
and have thus ended. another–irrational.
policy.
* • *
The time has come for frank speak-
ing. There are 1,700,000 Israelis—including
250,000 Moslems and Christians who share
the fate of 1,450,000 Jews in that little
land in the Middle East. These people are
surrounded by 45,000,000 Arabs. The peace
of Israel's 8,000 square miles of land is
endangered by guns, tanks, bombers,
MIGs, pointed at a defenseless people from.
3,000,000 square miles of enemy territory.
The arch-enemy of democracy, the Soviet
bloc, is providing the arms for the threat-
ened assault on the Holy Land. The demo-
cratic nations have resorted to lip service
in their protests against Soviet intrusions
in that area. But while blaspheming with
insincere resentment, Great Britain open-
ly armed the Arabs, and our country be-
came a party to an international sin.
The time has long passed when we
must -apologize for strong words, or for
sentiments uttered in newspapers pub-
lished in areas heavily populated with
Jews. That was a trick pf the enemies of
decency. The proper approach is evidenced
in such expressions as we have read in
The Detroit News, in the editorial, "Where
Does This End?", on 'Feb. 21:
"If we have so enslaved diplomacy
to military considerations it seems time
to take a clearer look at where we are
headed. Arming our friends under the
implied threat that otherwise they will
join our enemies has the smell of black-
mail and the look of diplomatic bank-
ruptcy. The only possible move to re-
cover a posture of peace now is to permit
commensurate arms sales to Israel. But
where does this sort of whipsawing stop
short of war?"
The Chicago Daily Sun-Times edi-
torial, "Blunder on Arms," calls the Saudi
Arabian shipment "bungling." Newspa-
pers throughout the land, radio commen-
tators, men of good will among all faiths,
are horrified by the • contradictory, inex-
plicably heartless policies- of our State
Department.
Dr. Max Lerner refers to President
Eisenhower's statement in his natural gas
veto message in anger of the "arrogant"
corruption that created "doubt concerning
the integrity of governmental processes,"
and asks: "Will he now apply the same
moral standards to Dulles and the State
Department, and veto their flagrant policy
of . favoring the Arabs? Or will he allow
a fatal doubt to cling to an American
policy involving not just gas and profits
but world peace and the blood of peaceful
people?" .
*
*
Now, there must be no end to blunt
speaking. We call to witness again Dr.
Lerner, one of our country's most eminent
students of world affairs, whose New York
Post "Arms, Oil and Blood" column makes
these justified charges, on the score of
the State Department's apparent secret
handling of the tank shipment to Saudi
Arabia:
The issue of the attempted concealment
of the facts is a phase of the more serious
issue of the camouflage of principle. Many
Americans had taken in good faith the State
Department fear of a Middle East arms race.
Now it turns out that Dulles, Hoover, George
Allen & Co. never for a moment meant it.
They used the no-arms-race argument in
refusing defensive arms for Israel, but dis-
carded it when they shipped tanks to Saudi
Arabia.
Dulles has placed the American govern-
ment in an impossible situation. He showed
high indignation at the arms deal between
Russia and Egypt. Now . our own arms deal
weakens the indignation-power of Dulles.
The St.ate Department has a curious group
of defenders now. One is Dorothy Thompson,
who used to hate the Nazis, then turned to
hating the Cornmunists, anti now turns her
hatred against the Jews both in Israel and
America, whom she lumps together as
"Zionists." One might have thought she
would hesitate to propagandize thus for those
who have just received Communist arms.
The other is Garland Evans Hopkins, who is
playing the Goebbels line about Jews putting
Israel ahead of their own country.
The ironic fact is that not all the yielding
to Arab blackmail (after all, says Miss
Thompson, we need their oil and their per-
mission for an air base) will do us much
good in the end. The Arabs must reason that
an American government ready to betray the
Israelis to them could have no moral answer
when the Arabs, in turn, betray America to
Russia.
How about the effect on the leaders and
people of Israel? They may conclude that
the cat is now out of the bag, and that
despite Dulles' pious cliches he never for a
moment intended to hold the balance evenly
between the Arabs and Israelis. Seeing how
quickly the embargo -was lifted again, they
may conclude that -the blackmail of oil pro-
fits and the air-base lease will count for more
than the nightmare vision of an Arab bom-
bardment of Tel Aviv and Haifa.
Our first task is to prevent a war. If we
do this by getting the Arabs to sit down at
the peace table, then let us forget about arms
to anyone. But the Arabs do not listen to our
peace pleas. Hence we must make certain
that their growing armed strength will not
embolden them to attack. A "neutral" policy
of giving arms to neither side will be
dangerous, since the Communist flow of arms
to Egypt (and now to Syria) leaves Israel at
the mercy of the Arab League. The only
immediate step we can take to avoid war is
to help Israel defend itself, and thus warn
Egypt and Syria away from the adventure.
Bar-Mitzvah for Young and Old
Dr: Mendes' Splendid Book
Two prefatory statements to the revised edition of "Bar
Mitzvah For Boyhood, Youth and Manhood" by Dr. H. Pereira
Mendes, published by --Bloch, throw light on the author's and
publisher's intentions. The book opens with this note:
"This book should be read by the boy when Bar-Mitzvah;
also in youth, and again in young manhood, because at each of
these ages he- will better understand the, real inner meaning and
the nobility of the title Bar-Mitzvah."
Then comes the explanatory statement: "On the night of his
Bar-Mitzvah, Henry Pereira Mendes consecrated his life to God
and vowed to be His minister. Seventy years later, after giving
almost 60 years of ministry to - Congregation Shearith Israel in
New York City, he wrote this book to interpret for Jewish youth
the high concept of Bar-Mitzvah. May this book, first published
by the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America in
tribute to the memory of its first president, the Rev. Dr. Mendes,
inspire young Israel to loyal and noble Jewish living."
Additionally enlivened by a preface by Dr. David deSola
Pool, who succeeded Dr. Mendes to the ministry of the oldest
Jewish congregation in America, this book has the merit not only
of inspiring young boys and young men, but also appeals to
Jewish young women to acquire an understanding of their
heritage. Dr. Pool emphasizes that "like the boy's Bar-Mitzvah
the Bas-Mitzvah ceremony must be a public consecration of the
fact that the girl has gained sufficient basic knowledge on which
to build an informed, intelligent and accountable Jewish life."
Louis C. Gerstein is the author of the introduction to the
book, and the author's foreword states the book's object is "to
make every reader 'proud to be a Jew or Jewess.' "
The contents, which begin with an outline of the purposes
and reasons of Bar-Mitzvah, include articles on "The Destiny of
the Jew," "The Shema," Jews as nationals in the countries of
which they are citizens, grace at meals, Jewish religious symbols
and practices, the Bible, Tephillin, Mezuzah, holidays and holy
days, the Sabbath, fast days. There also are a number of extracts
from the writings of non-Jews about Jews and Judaism.
.
'Birth of the Bill of Rights'
The Bill of Rights didn't just happen. It took several years
to bring it into being. There were many debates over it. "The
Birth of the Bill of Rights-1776-1791" is developed, in all of its
historical perspectives, in an excellent work by Dr. Robert Allen
Rutland, published by the Universty of North Carolina Press,
Chapel Hill, N. C.
"A vast and rich background of legal knowledge accumulated in
the mother country" (England), the Colonial achievements, the
differing views of James Madison and Patrick Henry, and the
role played by Thomas Jefferson, are outlined with scrupulous-
ness. An immense amount of research has gone into this work,
and its result is especially valuable in its application to present-
day concepts.
Dr. Rutland indicates that "the greatest development of civil
rights through legal protection—more specifically, Supreme Court
decisions" came after World War I. He points to the revulsion
which caused the Ku Klux Klan "to wither into ineffectiveness,"
to the declaration of the unconstitutionality of segregation," to
matters of internal security, and declares that "the plain good
sense of the American people has so far vindicated the hopes of
the Revolutionary generation."
The great men of the Revolution, Dr. Rutland admonishes
his readers, "foresaw change, believing that in the Bill of Rights
great standards of personal freedom had been established. Their
hope was that an enlightened and responsible citizenry could
uphold the enduring values of the Bill Of Rights regardless of
.
The facts cry aloud against injustice
and in defense of every rational move to
protect the peace of the Middle East and
of the world. How long will our leaders
yield to blackmail? How much longer will
Jew-haters dominate the scene at a time
when every effort must be made not mere-
ly to avert a war by unrealistic demarca-
tion lines and unhappy bungling of arms
sales, but through serious efforts to secure
genuine peace agreements between the
contending elements in t h e unhappy
Middle Eastern struggle?
The time to answer these questions,
the circumstances."
Mr. Dulles, is NOW!