Detroit Marks Israel's ath Anniversary
ON THIS DAY
by I. AKAVIA
Israel's Minister Reuven Shiloah
Guest Speaker This Saturday Night;
/7
rintire Community n
ivitea to Attend
On this day let Carmel call,
Let the youngsters cry :
Negev, Emek, Sharon, all
Underneath the sky,
They are ours. So let us tell,
Free, 0 free is Israel.
This day, sea, come roar your fill,
Sunshine, brightness, throng.
On each height, on every hill,
Riseth up our song.
On this holiday come tell:
Freedom dwells with Israel.
The entire Jewish community of Detroit is in-
vited to the Yom Ha-Atzrnauth celebration, marking
the eighth anniversary of Israel's independence, this
Saturday night, at 8:30, at Adas Shalom Synagogue.
Arranged under the joint auspices of the Zionist
and Jewish Community Councils, the event is open
to the entire community. Admission is free.
Irving W. Schlussel and Samuel J. Rhodes, pre-
sidents of the co-sponsoring organizations, have
issued a call for a large turnout to signalize De-
troit Jewry's concern in Israel's welfare and to
send forth a message of cheer to the Israelis who
are fighting for their freedoms.
Reuven Shiloah, Envoy Extraordinary and Min-
ister Plenipotentiary of Israel to the United States,
will be the guest speaker.
Making their first appearance before a Detroit
audience, at this gathering, will be the Israeli
Student Dance Group and the Israel Chalil Student
Orchestra under the direction of Hannah Stiebel
and with piano accompaniment by Ariel Stiebel.
P
REUVEN SHILOAH
Colorful pageantry and unusual settings will highlight the community-wide
celebration.
' Zinovi Bitstrizky, assistant concertinas ter for the Detroit Symphony Orchestra,
will direct the Adas Shalom Symphonic Ensemble.
Rabbi Jacob E. Segal, spiritual leader of Adas Shalom Synagogue, will give the in-
vocation. The Julius Rosenwald Post of the American Legion, Joseph Shapiro, adjutant
will present the flags in an impressive ceremony.
A special dramatic and musical presentation, "They Will Return With Singing,"
will be presented with the participation of the Israeli students. Ruth Seligson and Ger-
trude Strauss will be the narrators.
The featured speaker, the Hon.. Reuven Shiloah is a native Israeli, born and
educated in Jerusalem. He studied Arabic and taught in Baghdad. He was graduated
from the School of Oriental Studies of the Hebrew University.
He has had extensive political experience, first with the Histadrut, the General Federation
of Jewish Labor in Israel, and then as a liaison officer with the British and Allied Military Head-
quarters in the Middle East and in the Mediterranean.
Prior to the establishment of Israel, he was special advisor on Arab affairs to the director
of the policital department of the Jewish Agency. He attended the United Nations Charter
Conference in San Francisco as an observer on behalf of the Agency.
As special advisor to the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr. Shiloah was a member of the
Israeli delegation in the armistice talks with Egypt. He was later the head of the Israeli dele-
gation in the armistice talks with Jordan.
A proclamation issued by Detroit's Acting Mayor Louis C. Miriani last Friday proclaimed
April 14 "Israel Independence Day." (Photograph and detailed story on Page '7). In Flint,
April 13-20 was proclaimed "Israel Independence Week" by Mayor George M. Algoe. _
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Purely Commentary B
Pohvi it";
S lyo m
Have Faith, Israel!
Israel observes its eighth anniversary in an
hour of serious danger, in a time of great
crisis.
Renewed fighting, on the eve of the
United Nations Secretary General Dag Ham-
marskjold's departure for the Middle East, to
tackle the peace problem, adds to the aggra-
vations.
What can possibly be the ultimate outcome
of such mounting troubles?
Already, many prophets of doom have
predicted Israel's collapse. We disagree. There
are trials and tribulations, there are unneces-
sary casualties, but we refuse either to admit
or to subscribe to the possibility of Israel's
total destruction.
It is necessary, in this challenging period,
that we go back a few years, that we retrace
the course of history, that we recall the horrors
that were visited upon our people.
Many of those who now are fighting for
their very existence in Israel are the survivors
from Nazism. They are the people who pos-
sessed the stamina—and the good luck—to
cheat the Nazis of additional victims for the
gas chambers. These men and women, those
who preceded them as settlers in Israel and
the many ors who escaped from other
infernos (from behind the Iron Curtain and
from Moslem lands of oppression) are now
making their last stand for freedom. Either
they succeed in the fight for liberty and the
right to live, or they perish.
People with a respect for a life dare not,
therefore, speak in terms of destroying life.
Those who concede to Israel's enemies that the
young state's existence is short-lived do an
injustice to the human element in international
happenings.
Israel's eighth anniversary calls for faith
and confidence, courage and reaff irmation of
the idea that the reborn Jewish State must
be given encouragement and must not be
deprived of means necessary to life, liberty
and the pursuit of happiness.
Our celebration of Israel's anniversary is
an occasion for us to say to the Jewish State
that, as co-partners in a great historic effort,
we shall not abandon our kinsmen, that we
uphold their hands in the struggle for justice.
Have faith, Israel!
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We Must Meet the Challenge
The anniversary of Israel's rebirth calls
for re-evaluation of our responsibilities and a
study of the failures in meeting the challenge
that accompanies. Israel's crisis.
We have spoken of it before. We repeat
it now. The few friends who are coming for-
ward to speak up in defense of Israel are proof
that our public relations programs are weak.
The Arab propaganda machine is working over-
time and is spreading malicious rumors not
only about Israel but also—often primarily—
about American Jews.
Our approach to the issues seems to indi-
cate a deterioration in our efforts to present
the true picture of Israel's needs against the
odds piling up against her through the propa-
ganda mills of the Arab Information Centers,
the American Friends of the Middle East and
Israel's antagonists in the State Department.
The combination of Israel's enemies is ham-
mering away at our positions, at the sacred
right of Arrierican Jews to speak up in defense
of their kinsmen and at the right of the
Israelis to live a normal life in a land of their
own.
We have not learned how to be calm and
dispassionate and at the same time firm and
untiring in our replies, in our determination
to meet the challenges that come from groups
who seek to destroy us.
On this anniversary, we reiterate o u r
appeal for the rebuilding of our public rela-
tions machinery, for the strengthening of our
defensive methods, for the establishment of a
school for diplomats—even though they be in
the ranks of laymen and of ordinary American
citizens—who should be able to reply to
misrepresentations, to lies and libels, with
truths: with facts and figures.
The crisis calls for action. There must be
no relenting in the gathering of such strength.
May the anniversary of Israel's rebirth inspire
us with the strength needed to meet all chal-
lenges from enemies who not only are attacking
Israelis on their borders,- but who also are
invading the United States with vicious attacks
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Between You and Me
By BORIS SMOLAR
(Copyright, 1956, Jewish Telegraphic' Agency, Inc.)
"Sell-Out" Plan:
The attitude taken by President Eisenhower and Secretary
of State .John Foster Dulles in refusing arms to Israel "for the
time being" is beginning to worry Wall Street. . . . Big invest-
ment firms are evaluating the American stand on the Arab-Israel
problem from the point of view of basic American interests in
the Middle East . . They come to the conclusion that the
welfare of the ordinary American citizen, as well as the value of
his personal investments and the peace of this country, will be
affected unless the present U. S. policy with regard to Israel is
changed. .. . One investment firm, analyzing the United States
and British stand in Israel asserts that a British-American "sell-
out" of Israel is now in preparation. . . . It -establishes the exist-
ence of a three-point plan aimed at "scuttling" Israel, and it
warns that, unless reversed by dramatic new developments, this
plan points to the partition and crippling of Israel as a state.
. . . The three-point scheme on which the State Department is
allegedly working looks, according to the analysis, like this. . . .
First, isolate Israel morally in world opinion; second, ship of-
fensive weapons to the Arabs while refusing defensive arms to
Israel, thus making sure that Arab -power is overwhelming;
third, step in to "mediate" the Arab-Israel dispute, forcing Israel
to make major concessions . . . In the opinion of Wall Street
experts, the moral isolation of Israel was achieved after the
United Nations' recent censure of Israel without a single dis-
senting vote at the UN Security Council . . . This censure against
Israel for silencing Syrian artillery that had fired across the
border on Israel citizens is considered in Wall Street circles as
quite unjustified . . . It is pointed out that there was no censure
of Syria for firing on Israel civilian fishermen . . Also that
there was no United Nations censure of Egypt for its anti-Israel
blockade carried on openly for years in the face to two UN orders
to desist . . . As to the second step in the British-AMerican anti-
Israel conspiracy, Wall Street experts emphasize that even before
the Russian shipment of jet planes, tanks and submarines to
Egypt, an imbalance in Arab-Israel power alignment has been
created by the sale of British and American weapons to the
Arabs . . . The "mediation" offer—the third step in the plan—
will, according to the Wall Street analysis, be made to Israel
after massively armed Arab armies, which are now being poised
on 'Israel's borders, start their invasion.
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Danger Signals:
The sensitivity developing in Wall Street over Washington's
refusal—under pressure of American oil interests in the Arab
countries—to sell arms to Israel has also been indicated during
the last few weeks in some Wall Street publications . . How-
ever, the analysis made now says quite openly that the present
policy of the State Department will under the best of circum-
stances lead to the eventual loss of the Middle East to Com-
munism. . . . It can also, in the opinion of the Wall Street ex-
perts, lead to graver consequences: the massacre of the Israeli
population and the outbreak of atomic war. . . . These experts
find it "hard to understand" why the State Department is main-
taining its present pro-Arab and anti-Israel policy .. . They say
that the Official explanations, such as the desire to avoid an arms
race between Israel and the Arab governments, "do not jibe well
with the heavy shipments of offensive weapons to Egypt–Saudi
Arabia, Syria, Transjordan and other Arab states by both the
United States and Britain during the past year". . . . They find
it disturbing that "a heavy veil of secrecy" has been drawn over
the shipments of arms from the United States and Britain to
to Arab nations. . . . They consider American and British tactics
in appeasing the Arabs and in posing as a friend of the Arab
nations as "doomed." -