Welcome Bnai Brith

Theodor Herzl
and the Pope:
Diaries Reveals
Vatican's Stand
on Zionism

The Jewish News joins with the entire Detroit Jewish community in welcoming the dele-
gates to the Bnai Brith District Grand Lodge No. 6 convention here, June 30 to July 3.
May their important deliberations meet with great success.
Editorial, Page 4 Detailed Stories, Page 28

—

HE JEWISH NEWS

A Weekly Review

Commentary,
Page 2

of Jewish Events

Welcome,
Bnai Brith

Another I srael
Crisis

A Decade of
ORT Activities

*

Michigan's Only English-Jewish Newspaper—Incorporating The Detroit Jewish Chronicle

VOLUME XXIX—No. 17

27

1 7 1 00 W. 7 Mile Rd.—VE 8-9364—Detroit 35, June 29, 1956

Editorials, Page 4

$5.00 Per Year; Single Copy 15c

Reform Rabbis, NCIRAC Faced With
Segregation, Church-State Issues

Brith
Local
to Most District 6

More than 1,000 delegates from 199 Bnai Brith lodges and
120 women's chapters will converge on Detroit this weekend
when the Greater Detroit Council hosts the four-day conven-
tion of District Grand Lodge No. 6, from June 30 to July 3, at
the Sheraton-Cadillac Hotel.
A host of leaders in Bnai Brith and government circles will
attend various sessions of the .conclave. These include: Michi-
gan Governor, G. Mennen Williams, Detroit Mayor, Albert E.
Cobo, members of the Detroit Common" Council, officers of Dis-
trict 6 and Benjamin I. Morris, of Chicago, vice-president of the
Supreme Lodge.
Gov. Williams and Mayor Cobo have proclaimed the week
of June 29 to July 5 as "Bnai Brith Week" in honor of the
oldest and largest Jewish social service and philanthropic or-
ganization in the nation.
- Most prominent of the speakers who will address the con-
vention is the Hon. Michael Saul Comay, Israel Ambassador to
Canada, who will arrive here from Ottawa to address the dele-
gates.
Mr. Comay will appear at the convention banquet at 6:30
p.m., Tuesday, in the Grand Ballroom. Women delegates, who
will hold their sessions separately from the men, will join lodge
delegates at the banquet.
The men will conduct seven general sessions during the
four days, over which Detroiter Sidney J. Karbel, president of
District 6, will preside. The meetings will inchide reports of
progress during the past year, planning for future activities,
election of officers and numerous award ceremonies.
—Detailed stories on Page 28

Two important issues this week faced the conventions of national organizations,
in Atlantic City. The problem of separation of church and state, and the injection
of religious teaching in the public schools, confronted the Central Conference of
American Rabbis. The segregation controversy was a major issue for discussion at
the sessions of the -National Community Relations Advisory Council, when it was re-
vealed_ that Jews in Southern states are strongly affected by the issue.

Rabbis Expose Effort to Breach 'Separation' Wall

Direct JTA Teletype Wire to The Jewish News

ATLANTIC CITY — Widespread efforts are being made "to breach the traditional wall
of separation between church and state which is part of the very foundation of American
democracy and spirit and in Constitutional law," according to a report submitted Tuesday to
the 67th annual convention of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, oldest and largest
rabbinical association in the United States. Some 700 Reform rabbis are attending the parley.
The report, submitted by Rabbi Herman E. Snyder, of Springfield, Mass., chairman of the
commission on church and state of CCAR, warned that a "dangerous threat to church - state
separation is represented by those vague programs allegedly intended to teach moral and spir-
itual values, factual teaching about religion, or common core religion in the nation's public
schools."
"These are dangerous," the commission report explained, "because they are so elusive,
but when analyzed each of these programs would involve the public school in a program of
religious education for which the public school is not equipped, and for which the public school
was not created. Teaching of religion is the business of church, synagogue and home—not of
the public school."
The commission's report expressed dismay at the fact that despite the U. S. Supreme Court
decision of 1948, which termed unconstitutional all released time programs held on public
school premises, 32 per cent of the country's public school systems permit released time classes
to meet in public school buildings.
. Pleas for greater cooperation between psychiatry and religion were voiced at the session
commemorating the 100th anniversary of the birth of Sigmund Freud. Under the chairmanship
of Rabbi Henry E. Kagan, of Mt. Vernon, N. Y., a panel of rabbis emphasized that "couch and
pew" have problems in common. Freud strove for man's emotional security while Judaism
contains much that has striven for spiritual maturity," said Rabbi Joseph R. Narot, of Miami.
(Continued on Page 6)

Israeli Upholds Dead Sea Scrolls Antiquity Claims

Antiquities Illireetor Insists Excavations
Support ‘Authenticity of Caves' Documents'

By S. YEIVIN
Director of Antiquities, State of Israel
EVER SINCE the appearance on the market of
the ancient Hebrew scrolls known as the Dead Sea
Scrolls, Prof. Solomon Zeitlin has with commend-
able perseverance persisted in denying their an-
tiquity, at first attributing them to a conjectured
Geniza of the Hebron Synagogue defiled and de-
stroyed in the course of the • 1929 disturbances;
later, however, conceding the possibility of their
being medieval manuscripts preserved in the same
Geniza, the existence of which is at least somewhat
problematic. In this attitude he was somewhat more
hesitatingly supported by a few other scholars.
Even when more and more finds were an-
nounced, Prof. Zeitlin, nothing daunted, still main-
tained his original negative attitude, sometimes flying
in the face of all archaeological evidence.
Prof. Zeitlin is a scholar primarily concerned
with the study and analysis of ancient texts. Quite
naturally he, therefore, tends to suspect anything
which strays outside the limits of the texts tradi-
tionally handed down from generation to generation,
and to disregard any external evidence, which does
not conform- to the knowledge acquired by the
examination of the traditional texts themselves.

*

*

IT WOULD BE WELL, therefore, to start with
the examination of the archaeological evidence con-
nected with the Dead Sea Scrolls. It is true that the
first seven scrolls, either more or less complete or
else representing considerable fragments of origi-
nally complete works, were acquired from a dealer,
partly by the late Prof. E. L. Sukenik of the Hebrew
University, and partly by Mar Athanasius Yoshua
Shemuel, the Syrian Patriarch of Jerusalem.
Following this, an inquiry led by several authori-
tative scholars established the fact that these were
found in a natural cave in the vicinity of an ancient
site known as Khirbet Qumran, in the Judaean
Desert, some 22 km ESE of Jerusalem as the crow
flies. The Rev. Father R. de Vaux, of the Ecole
Archeologique Francaise, and L. G. Harding, ar-
chaeological advisor to the government of Jordan,
immediately arranged for the excavation of the cave.

one of pottery; a third one, also of pottery, was
Editor's Note: The interest aroused in the Dead
Sea Scrolls, and Prof. Solomon Zeitlin's challenge found elsewhere on the premises. One of the inkpots ,
still contained a residue of dried ink.
of the antiquity of the scrolls, impelled The Jewish
In this building was found, associated with coins
News to ask men in authority to outline their
views on the subject. This article by S. Yeivin, of the Roman procurators, one jar of the same type
of Jerusalem, director of Antiquities of the State as the large jars in which were stored the manu-
scripts, allegedly discovered in the first cave (1 Q)
of Israel, was written exclusively for The Jewish
near Khirbet Qumran, and numerous fragments of
News as a reply to Dr. Zeitlin's views which were
similar pots together with fragmentary scrolls were
published in our columns on several occasions.
later found by the Rev. Father R. de Vaux and
Mr. Harding, when they excavated the cave . in
EXCAVATIONS have since been carried out
the spring of 1949. These finds seem to date the
during some seasons at Khirhgt Qumran itself by the
actual hiding of the scrolls in cave 1Q (among which
Rev. Father R. de Vaux, on behalf of a partnership of
were the seven scrolls now in the possession of the
several scientific bodies. They revealed the presence
Hebrew University) to the end of the second phase
of a large communal building of unusual plan and
of occupation of Khirbet Qumran, namely the 3rd
construction, but which would admirably suit the
quarter of the 1st cent. C.E. -
purposes of the Issiim, as far as the character of
The results of the excavations carried out by .
this sect is known from literary source. Among
de Vaux and Harding in cave 1Q (as reported in
other arrangements the building contained a large
D. Barthelemy and J. T. Milik, Discoveries in the
scriptorium, -which feature can only.be justified if we
Judaean Desert I, Oxford, 1955) show that various
assume a permanent and large-scale occupation with
small finds discovered during the process date the
the copying of texts on the part of the tenants of
deposits in the cave to the 1st cent. C.E., prior to the
the building. This tallies well with the large mass
year 70 C.E.
of literary fragments found in the neighboring
*
caves. Archaeological criteria date the foundation of
AFTER THE FIRST publication of the frag-
this communal building to the end of the II cent.
ments of Leviticus written in the ancient Hebrew-
B.C.E., apparently under John Hyrcan; it was
Phoenician script, the present writer attempted to
certainly occupied under Alexander Jannaeus. An
date them on palaeographic grounds arriving at
earthquake gravely damaged the building, putting
the conclusion that they belong to a ms. written
an end to the first phase of its occupation. This
probably towards the end of IInd cent. B.C.E. and
event is most probably to be connected with the
not later than the 1st half of the 1st cent. B.C.E.
earthquake which occurred in the spring of 31 B.C.E.
Dr. S. A. Birnbaum, however, inclines towards a
(known from literary source). The excavators have
much earlier date about the second half of the Vth
found reason to believe that the settlement was
cent. B.C.E. Both dates, of course, refer to the time
largely abandoned a short time before that, appar-
the ms. was written, and not to the date of its hiding
ently during the short reign of Mattatyahu Antigonos
in the cave.
(40-37 B.C.E.).
Some fragments of the linen used in wrapping
the scrolls before they were placed in the jars found
THE SITE OF Khirbet Qumran itself was re-
in cave 1Q were submitted for dating by means of
occupied and the building restored and even enlarged
measurements based on Carbon 14. Dr. W. F. Libby,
some time under Herod Archaelaus, around the be-
who carried out the dating measurements, reports
ginning of the present era. With this second phase of
that the fragments were found (in 1952) to be 1917
occupation are connected a large assembly hall on the
years old with a margin of some plus or minus 200
ground floor and the above mentioned scriptorium,
(Continued on Page 2)
in which were found two inkpots, one of bronze and