THE JEWISH NEWS

Hanukah, 5717

incorporating the Detroit Jewish Chronicle commencing with issue of July 20, 1951

The Maccabean Spirit of Freedom Still Prevails

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.
yE. 8-9364. Subscription $5 a year, Foreign $6.
Entered as second class matter Aug. 6, 1952, at Post Office, Detroit, Mich., under Act of March 3, 1879.

PHILIP SLOMOVITZ

SIDNEY SHMARAK

Editor and Publisher

FRANK SIMONS

Advertising Manager

City Editor

Sabbath Scriptural Selections

This Sabbath, Sabbath Hanukah, the twenty-seventh day of Kislev, 5717, the following
Scriptural selections will be read in our synagogues:
Pentateuchal portion, Mikketz, Gen.. 41:1-44:17. Prophetical portion, Zachariah 2:14-4:7.
Rosh Hodesh Tebet Torah selection., Wednesday, Num. 28:1-15.

Licht Benshen, Friday, Nov. 30, 4:44 p.m.

VOL. XXX. No. 13

Page Four

November 30, 1956

Hanukah 5717: The New Maccabean Spirit

We have just ushered in an historic
Hanukah. Once again, . we recall the tri-
umphs against oppression and religious
I bigotry in the days of the Maccabees, 2,100
years ago. And as we review the events of
past ages, we find a likeness to them in
the events.that are transpiring before our
very eyes.
The similarity is great. In the days of
Antiochus of Greece, it was a battle by a
handful for liberty and the right "to wor-
ship freely. In our day, embattled Israel
has fought and won a fight for the right to
independence. -
The analogy of tile- existing situation
must not be underestimated. Israel faced
the danger of extinction from invading
murderous Arab gangs. It was a matter of
life or death, and the small Jewish State
was compelled to act promptly on a choice
either of destruction or survival.
*
*
*
Israel in our time had a more difficult
task than the Maccabees of old. The anci-
ent battles involved a single enemy—the
Hellenes. Israel, on , the other hand, is
surrounded by seven war-threatening na-
tions. She faces a hostile world and an
unsympathetic United Nations, many of
whose representatives, misled by venom-
ous propaganda, have reacted cruelly to
Israel's fight for liberty. Even the repre-
sentatives of the United States, whose lib-
eration beginnings were like Israel's, had
threatened Israel and made her position
difficult in the world Organization.
Under such circumstances, Israel could
not even resort to modern methods of
mobilizing her forces for the attack that
was aimed at preventing an invasion cal-
culated to destroy her. The Israelis could
not risk the use of modern media for the
gathering of her forces. They had to avoid
the use of the printed or written word,
or the telephones and telegraphs. They
were compelled to depend upon the spoken
word. Thus, perhaps like the Maccabees of
old, by word of mouth, they called in the
armed forces and the reserves, and the
great movement began to eliminate the
nests of fedayeen who had been harrassing
the people of Israel, threatening them
with insecurity, endangering their lives,
destroying their property.
It was a remarkable battle, and it is
gradually becoming evident that, contrary

to suspicions, there were no advance agree-
ments between Israel and the British and
the French. It was a gamble and a serious
risk, and the gratifying results for the
Israelis proves again that nothing succeeds
like success. For, had the Israelis failed in
their move into Egypt, they would have
faced disaster. But disaster already was
staring them in their faces, and there was
nothing left for them to do but to take
the initiative and to order an end to the
menacing dangers facing the small nation.
But -the dangers are far from over.
Army and government spokesmen in
Israel have said tht "Israel's only mili-
tary objective is to establish normal peace-
ful relations with a neighbor who until
now has refused this." There is more than
one saber-rattling neighbor with whom
Israel must make peace, and the difficul-
ties in the path of amity have not sub-
sided.
A grave injustice has been perpetrated
against Israel in the United Nations, with
the regrettable help of our Government,
at a time when attempts to destroy Israel
continue. But these obstacles merely
emphasize the continued need for vigilance
and for Maccabean valor. They prove the
wisdom of Israel's standing up for her
rights and her determination to protect
lives in defiance of all difficulties.
* * *
Thus, the Maccabean struggle con-
tinues. It is a battle against tyranny and
a fight for justice—on the battlefront
against the Arabs as well as in the assem-
blies of the United Nations and the parlia-
ments of the world. It is an uphill struggle
to attain understanding of Israel's position
- and of the craving of a small people for
peace and amity.
In this struggle, world Jewry must
share the efforts of embattled kinsmen in
behalf of decency and peace, in support
of the right to self-defense, and must
provide economic aid for people who are
protecting their last citadel of freedom.
This is the Hanukah message this year.
In the course of our rejoicing on this
festival, let us provide the help that is
needed to assure the perpetuation of the
Maccabean valor that distinguishes our
fellow-Jews in this age. Then we shall
have peace for Israel—a peace that should
spell also peace for the Middle East and
for humanity. •

Louis Lipsky: a Revered Octogenarian

One of American Jewry's most distin-
guished leaders, Louis Lipsky, will be 80
today. He has welIdeserved that his birth-
day should be an occasion for celebration
by Jewish communities everywhere.
Primarily a Zionist, having served as
president of the Zionist Organization of
America and in numerous other American
and world Zionist positions, Mr. Lipsky
has earned the esteem of our people in
many other capacities.
I Fearless in his approaches to Jewish
needs, to the major aspiration of ending
the homelessness of Jews who suffered
persecutions in many lands, he has been
and remains to this day one of our ablest
interpreters of Jewish problems through
the media of the spoken and written words.
He is one of our ablest public speakers.
He is a brilliant writer and a master par-
liamentarian.
• In the years when Zionist leadership
called for battles with Jews more than
with Christians—many non-Jews seemed
to have understood the importance of the
Zionist idea better than some of our own
brethren—he was unhesitant in his public
utterances. An able logician, his philoso-

-

phical essays and lectures on the need for
statehood for Jews who were treated like
pariahs everywhere, remain to this very
day among the finest expositions of Zion-
ism.
When Zionist enrollment was compara-
tively small, Mr. Lipsky was among the
great leaders, among whom were the late
Justice Louis D. Brandeis, the late Judge
Julian W. Mack, noted rabbis, authors,
industrialists and labor leaders, who ele-
vated the Zionist movement to a position
of priority in Jewish life.
At the same time, Mr. Lipsky helped
enrich contemporary Jewish literature
with his critical essays, his articles on the
stage and the drama, his evaluations of
Jewish leaders, his comments on world
affairs.
Louis Lipsky celebrates his birthday
in dramatic fashion: by being in Israel at
the time when he becomes an octogen-
arian. It is apprOpriate that world Jewry
should be greeting him on this happy
event in the area he helped re-create as the
State of Israel. -
Our appreciation of his great gifts to'
Jewry accompanies our message of good
wishes to him on his 80th birthday.

—

Collancz's 'Confession of Faith'

.

'From Darkness to Light'

Victor Gollancz has produced ,another anthology.
It could
well be called a supplement to his -"Man and God." But the
new work, "From Darkness to Light: A Confession of Faith in
the Form of an Anthology" is so much more impressive, more
compelling, more intriguing, that it stands by itself as another
great Gollancz. creation. Harper & Brothers add another
Magnificent work to their publications with this Gollancz.
As in the case of his "A Year of Grace," Mr. Gollancz
would have liked this work read "from beginning to end as a
consecutive whole," so that it should not become "a series of
snippets." Yet, it is a work that can be "useful for the bedside."
And the author-compiler will surely have the satisfaction of
knowing that the marvelous "snippets" will be read and re-read,
so that the book becomes a complete whole.
Fittingly, the volume begins with "Origins," and the first
is from Edmond Fleg's "Israel":
"I am a Jew because, for Israel, the world is not
yet
completed: men are completing it.
"I am a Jew because, for Israel, Man is not
created:

men are creating him-
"I am a Jew because, above the nations and Israel, Israel
places Man and his Unity.
"I am a Jew because, above Man, image of the divine
Unity, Israel places the divine Unity, and its divinity."

The first part of the book, which includes selections from
Psalms, ends with the prayer, in Hebrew, "Barukh. ata . .
hagomel lalchayavim tovot shegmalani kol-tuv," .and. 600 pages
later in the book appears the translations and the explanation,
under the heading "The Hebrew":
"When an orthodox Jew has recovered from a grave

physical or spiritual sickness, or has been saved from a
disaster, it is customary for him to attend a synagogue- service
on the Sabbath and to snake a public affirmation, over
a
scroll of the Torah, in the form of words printed on Page 63.
They mean: 'Blessed art Thou, 0 Lord our God, King of
the
Universe, who does good to the undeserving, and hast done
all good to me'."
Yet, the orthodox and the traditional Jews may take
exception to the emphasis the author gives, in a quotation from

his awn work in 1946, that "it was Christ who was to experience
the universality of God's Fatherhood with a directness and
immediacy never approached before or since." This statement
follows a poetic interpretation of the values of Judaism and
a Talmudic legend that when the Egyptians were drowning, God
stopped the singing by Miriam, saying: "My children are
drowning and ye would rejoice?" But if GoLlancz's approaches
are interpreted as christological, his interpretation of the Christian
idea "why we should love our enemies" is incorporated in his
statement about "the greatest of all Christ's gifts—the greatest
of all the gifts, I would dare to say, of Hebrew prophecy—to the
religion of the western world."
Victor Gollancz draws upon all faiths, the classics of all
nations, from all ages, in culling from the wisdoms of all
literatures. The Bible and the Talmud, the New Testament, the
Zohar, Buddhism, Tolstoy, Rabbi Bunam of Pzhysha, Baal-Shem,
Theologia Germanica, Spinoza, the Seer of Lublin, Psalms,
Rabbi Nahman of Bratzlav, Proverbs, the Paradise of the Fathers,
the Midrash, Gandhi, Ecclesiasticus, Hassidic legends, Rabbi
Hayyim of Mogielnica and scores of others are represented here.

Baruch Spinoza's Philosophy

How to Improve Your Mind

/

Baruch Spinoza's "How to Improve Your Mind," based on
the great philosopher's "De Intellectus Emendatione," translated
from the Latin by R. H. M. Elwes, has been published by
Philosophical Library (15 E. 40th, NY 16). A biographical
note by Dagobert D. Runes evaluates Spinoza's
(1632 1677)
creative works.
The emphasis placed by Spinoza was that "the more
intelligible a thing is, the more easily it is.remembered."
The famous philosopher reached the conclusion that "false and
fictitious ideas as such can teach us nothing concerning the
essence of thought . • . we must lay down some common basis
from which these properties necessarily follow, so that when this
is. given, the properties are necessarily given also, and when it
is removed, they too vanish with it."
In his biographical note, Dr. Runes describes Spinoza's
"concept of the quietude of the soul." He states that the
philosopher considered it "the greatest blessing and SW112.712.211/1
bonuni of being, whatever keeps man from attaining it is negative
. . . while whatever helps him reach this state of suprem
happiness is positive . ."

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