`That's the Prize We Want Most'
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, 1952, 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 fourth day of Tebeth, 5717, the following Scriptural selections will be
read in our synagogues:
Pentateuchal portion, Vayiggash, Gem 44:18-47:27. Prophetical portion, Ezekiel 37:15-28.
Licht Benshen, Friday, Dec. 7, 4:43 p.m.
Page Four
Vol. XXX. No. 14
Veterans' Program for
All national Jewish organizations have
reaffirmed their positions in defense of
Israel in a crisis which could have threat-
ened the Jewish State's very existence.
We do not count, of course, the small
group of less than 15,000 Jews who have
banded together to destroy Israel. When
we speak of humanitarian Jews, we refer
to those who would help their fellow-men
to survive, rather than to organize for
their destruction. In fact, we are con-
vinced. that the vast majority of those who
are now listed as members of the self-
hating Jewish organizations would have
quit the movement long ago, had they
known how they are being misled by de-
structive leaders.
To the credit of all our Jewish move-
Bar-Ilan Tribute
America's spiritual links with Israel
was emphasized most eloquently in an ad-
dress delivered recently, in Tel Aviv, by
the U. S. Ambassador to Israel, Edward
B. Lawson.
Ambassador L a w s o n, acknowledging
the conferring upon him of an honorary
fellowship in Bar-Ilan University of Tel
Aviv, which is sponsored by the Mizrachi
Orthodox Zionist movement, had this to
say:
"The distinction conferred upon me today
I shall always cherish as one of the principal
links that for all time binds me to Israel and
to the rich religious and cultural traditions
by which this land and its people have been
formed and shaped. I shall ever find it a
source of a deep satisfaction that as a Fellow
of Bar-Ilan University, I am one of a company
comprising an academic institution with a
sound and integrated philosophy of education.
I am proud to be associated with a university
that sees no incompatibility between sacred
and secular learning and gives just emphasis
to both; which acts toward its students as a
spiritual no less than as a purely intellectual
mentor; and which embodies the ideals of
American higher education in another land.
"I must regard its significance as far
broader than that of a merely personal award.
In conferring this Fellowship upon me, the
University is primarily and deservedly not
unaware of the political philosophy and the
democratic spirit of the country which I have
the honor to represent. Thus there is recogni-
tion of those national qualities—equal justice
before the law; freedom of speech and
assembly; religious liberty; the concern for
education and the individual citizen's constantly
increasing opportunities to use it for the
benefit of himself and of society; and my
country's full realization, insofar as legislation
can achieve it, that education is for all people
to the limit that their capacities allow.
"All the ideals, so essential to the full
development of a genuine university, have
formed the intellectual climate which has so
influenced the founders and staff of Bar Man
University. The most eloquent tribute to the
value of these principles is their perpetuation
through American academic concepts here in
Israel;
"To the pride with which I accept the
Fellowship conferred upon me today there
must be added also humility, for, as I have
implied, my honor is essentially accorded to
the United States of America, its founders and
its people. I am the holder of this accolade of
merit that can never be wholly mine; in a
larger sense I am rather the custodian of a
trust. I accept both the honor and the
responsibility with a lively sense of their
significance, and with the resolute hope that
of all they represent I may ever be found
worthy."
-
-
The ideas evaluated by Ambassador
Lawson represent the highest principles in
the Judea-Christian traditions, in whole-
some international relations, in the friend-
ship which has cemented American-Israel
relations.
Ambassador Lawson's views should
serve as a guide for future cooperation.
They are ideas to be welcomed and ac-
claimed in both democratic countries—the
United States and Israel.
December 7, 1956
Middle East Action
ments, which represent at least 95 per
cent of the 5,000,000 American Jews, it
should be said that they have come forth
with strong appeals for peace in the
Middle East. The American Jewish
Congress, the American Jewish Com-
mittee, our religious representatives
and women's groups, have spoken with
dignity on the subject.
The American Jewish Committee, in
a statement addressed to Secretary of
State John Foster Dulles, has asked for
UN action to assure "direct negotiations
for a just and durable peace" and for
guarantees of such treaties by the
world's powers.
The Jewish War Veterans of the United
States, whose leaders have taken a deep
interest in Middle East problems, are
among the groups that have aligned them- Great JPS Literary Creation
selves with the democratic elements in
Israel's defense. In a statement of policy,
in which the entiA issue affecting Israel
is thoroughly reviewed, the veterans state
that "the big questions in our minds at
present are:
Ginzberg's 'Bible Legends,'
a One-Volume Anthology
"Will the developments in the Middle
East increase or decrease the Soviet
Union's influence in that area?
"What will be the United States' fu-
ture foreign policy in relation to the
Arab world and Israel?
"Will democracy, as represented by
Israel, lose or gain ground?
"Will Nasser, whose prestige has
already fallen, continue to survive as
Egypt's dictator?
"Will the United Nations gain in
power and prestige by its swift Middle
East actions?"
The Jewish War Veterans' leaders then
proceed to outline their position as follows:
"JWV stands with the United States
and the United Nations in the efforts to
bring about a real peace to the Middle
East.
"JWV stands by Israel in its efforts to
negotiate a real and lasting peace with its
neighbors and in the meanwhile protect
its citizens and. property with every re-
source at its command.
"JWV deplores the closing of the Suez
Canal to any ships of any nation.
"JWV stands with Britain and France
in its efforts to have Egypt live up to its
treaty obligations with respect to the Suez
Canal.
"JWV stands for the position that
Egypt must be prevented from inspiring
other Arab countries to wage war, prac-
tice economic discrimination and foment
discord and trouble for the Western de-
mocracies in their dominion.
"JWV urges the Egyptian people to
make every effort to remove Dictator
Nasser from power and to unshackle
itself from communist domination, which
has brought them only war and hunger.
"JWV urges all so-called neutralist
nations to witness the Soviet Union's
`Freedom - loving policies' in Hungary,
Poland and other satellite states as a
lesson to be noted for the future.
"JWV stands, as it has always stood,
four-square against the menace of com-
munist imperialism which has already
wreaked misery and havoc in many
countries of the world and obliterated
freedom wherever its evil boots have
trod."
We commend this statement as a realis-
tic approach to a grave issue affecting not
Israel alone, but the entire world.
It is necessary to repeat, again and
again, that the peace of the world hinges
upon the solution of the Middle East prob-
lem. The great powers have blundered in
the past, but it is not too late to mend the
errors and to take a firm stand for peace,
for international cooperation, for amity
based on direct Israel-Arab peace talks.
Let's have action—without delay!
Prof. Shalom Spiegel
Late Dr. Ginzberg
One of the great accomplishments of American Jewry's
major publishing venture—the Jewish Publication Society—is
its having made available to Jews and Christian everywhere the
monumental seven-volume "Legends of the Jews" by Prof. Louis
Ginzberg.
This great creative effort, together with the publication of
Henrietta Szold's translation of the "History of the Jews" by
Heinrich Graetz and the popularization by the Society Of the
works of Israel Zangwill, had elevated the status of the Jewish
Publication Society to a very high rank. JPS has, of course, unin-
terruptedly, for more than 60 years, produced some of the best
Jewish classics. To this day, it makes available to Jewry the
finest efforts of Jewish writers.
* * •
Now it calls attention again to one of its best products, "The
Legends of the Jews," which has just been reprinted in a single
shorter and simplified form—in a 650-page book under the title
"Legends of the Bible." Even in its shorter form, the late Dr.
Ginzberg's work still surpasses any other similar work in its
clarity, in the immensity of the field it embraces, in the wise
selections made from the seven-volume encyclopedia collection
to the present one-volume work.
Dr. Shalom Spiegel, professor of medieval Hebrew literature
at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, has written a
scholarly introduction to this one-volume collection of legends.
In it, Dr. Spiegel evaluates the work of Prof. Ginzberg (1873-
1953). This introductory essay is a scholarly evaluation of the
canonization of the Bible. It presents the historic background of
legends to his dissertation "Haggadah of the Church Fathers"
published in 1899-1900.
• • •
Dr. Spiegel calls attention to the "universal knowledge of
rabbinics" of Prof. Ginzberg as having given him an edge over
other scholars in the preparation of his work. Dr. Spiegel states:
"Ginzberg illumined and explored many unknown or little-
known bypaths of the Hebraic bookland, adventuring res-
olutely into the remotest regions of Egypt and Baylon, Persia
and India, Hellas and Rome, medieval Europe and Islam, and
tracing the footprints of the Jews as 'the great disseminators
of folklore, who on their long wanderings from the East to the
West, and back from the West to the East, brought the products
of oriental fancies to the occidental nations, and the creations
of occidental imagination to the oriental peoples' "
The Legends included in the new JPS book are from the
Creation and Adam to Esther. They include legends about Noah,
Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, Job, Moses, Joshua, Judges, David,
Solomon, Judah and Israel, Elijah, Elisha and Jonah, Later Kings
of Judah, Exile, and Return of Captivity-Daniel and Ezra.
"The Legends of the Bible" represent an unusual treat for
Jewish Publication Society members who have an opportunity
to enrich their bookshelves with this outstanding work.