THE JEWISH NEWS
Behind Him All the Way Now
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.,
YE. 8-9364. Subscription $5 a year. Foreign N.
Entered as second class matter Aug. 6, 1952 at Post Office, Detroit, Mich., under Act of March 3, 1879
PHILIP SLOMOVITZ
Editor and Publisher
SIDNEY SHMARAK
Advertising Manager
CARM1 M. SLOMOVITZ
Circulation Manager
FRANK SIMONS
City Editor
Sabbath Script ural Selections
This Friday, the fourteenth day • of Tammuz, 5717, the following Scriptural sel-
ections will be read in our synagogues:
Pentateuchal portion, Pinhas, Numbers 25:10-30:1. Prophetical portion, I Kings
18:46-19:21.
The Fast of Tammuz will be observed on Tuesday
Licht Benshen, Friday, July 12, 7:49 p.m.
VOL. XXXI, No. 19
Page Four
July 12, 1957
Sulzberger and Deutscher: Conflict Over Israel
Arthur Hays Sulzberger, chairman of
the board of the New York Times, is one
of the world's most distinguished ,pub-
lishers. Like his father-in-law, the late
Adolph Ochs, whose genius for organiza-
tion and for the establishment of a great
worldwide chain of correspondents was
responsible for the rise of the Times to
its position of unquestioned leadership
among the daily newspapers of the world,
he affirms his Jewishness. Unlike his
father-in-law, who was an anti-Zionist,
he is a non-Zionist.
In an interview he granted to the
Newark Jewish News, Sulzberger said: "I
want it clearly understood that I am a
Jew," and 'discussed his attitudes on Zion-
ism and Israel. He said that while he had
opposed the establishment of Israel, now
that the Jewish State is in existence his
view toward it "is the same as my attitude
toward Indonesia, for instance. I wish it
well but I am completely without any
nationalistic fervor about it."
Then came the gem of the interview.
He expressed agreement with the stand
of his late father, Cyrus Sulzberger, "that
if those who fought for the establishment
of the State, starting back before the first
world war, had worked with the same
zeal and intensity to permit Jews to live
any place in the world in peace and se-
curity it would have been better and
wiser."
* * *
Sulzberger is an able and a wise man.
He understands world conditions. He
knows Israel's and world Jewry's position.
His newspaper has conducted the most
valiant battle in defense of IsraePs se-
curity in the most recent crisis, and has
exposed the Nasser danger to the free
nations more effectively than any other
newspaper in the world. Yet he adheres
to a view that if there were no Israel, it
would have been wiser for Jews.
Would it?
We are puzzled! Jews who followed
the precpt quoted from Cyrus Sulzberger
have learned that they were fighting for
a lost cause. Those who struggled for
emancipation found themselves betrayed.
Jews in Communist countries who have
all but cast away their heritage are learn-
ing to their consternation and despair that
they still are being viewed as aliens and
as strangers and now are craving for the
opportunity to settle in Israel.
Since the first world war, Jews who
had fought for the right to live in peace
and security wherever they were and, to
emphasize their cosmopolitanism, bitterly
fought against Zionism, learned to their
sorrow that they were battling for an
unrealistic dream. They have learned, as
many former anti-Zionist Socialists and
bundists had learned, that they had
placed too much hope in the humani-
tarian preachments of their fellow theo-
reticians who, under Hitler and Stalin,
had betrayed them and had themselves
become fomenters of anti-Semitism.
Let us call to witness one of the world's
best informed men on Communism and
Socialism, a former anti-Zionist who has
visited Israel and has since then spoken
frankly regarding his original position on
Zionism and the Jewish State. Early in
1954, Isaac Deutscher, the eminent biogra-
pher of Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin, author-
ity on Communism who now fights the
Kremlin after having become convinced
of its danger to humanity, wrote two
articles in The Reporter fortnightly on his
visits in Israel. In a summary of his im-
pressions, Deutscher stated:
"Israelis who have known me as an
anti-Zionist of long standing were curi-
ous to hear what I was thinking about
Zionism now. I have, of course, long
since abandoned my anti - Zionism,
which, was based on a confidence in
the European labor movement, or, more
broadly, a confidence in European so-
ciety and civilization which that society
and civilization have not justified. If,
instead of arguing against Zionism in
the 1920's and 1930's, I had urged Euro-
pean Jews to go to Palestine, I might
have helped to save some of the lives
that were to be extinguished in Hitler's
gas chambers."
This is the confession of a man who
could have been helpful and now admits
he was not.
But Sulzberger would have us believe
that the attitude of pre-Hitler days was
the right one!
How blind can men be to reality?
*
*
This is not to be interpreted as an
utterly despairing viewpoint on the future
position of Jews in free countries. We
have faith that the principle of fair play
and untarnished justice for all peoples
will prevail in our own country, that
Americans will defend the democratic
principles and that anti-Semitism will be
unable to raise its ugly head in official
quarters in the United States, in Great
Britain, in Canada. It is only when anti-
Semitism becomes an official weapon that
Jews have a great deal to fear from the
rise of bigotry against them.
But this is just what happened in lands
where, as men like the Sulzbergers
advocated, Jews were advised to repudiate
Zionism and to labor only for the right
to live in peace and security among their
neighbors. In many countries, the liber-
tarian aspirations of Jews_ in the lands of
their. birth were sacrificed either to
Fascism, Communism or Nazism. A -third
of the Jewish people was exterminated as
a result of this betrayal of the basic demo-
cratic ideals to which anti-Zionist Jews
had dedicated themselves exclusively. It
is because of Zionists who adhered to their
dream for Jewish national rebirth in addi-
tion to participating in efforts for freedom
in lands of their birth, that the foundation
was created for a State where Jews were
able at first to find refuge and now to
attain citizenship in the autonomous State
called Israel.
It is because of the experiences we
}gave enumerated that we believe the
Sulzbergers to be so utterly misled in
their approach towards Zionism. Out of-
our deep respect for Arthur Hays Sulz-
berger's genius as a publisher, we regret
his unrealistic approach. It should have
been much more consistent with the les-
sons of the tragic events we had witnessed
in Germany from 1933 to 1945 — and in
Russia since then.
The Purged Kaganovich
There is no need to shed tears over
the purging of Lazar M. Kaganovich by
the Nikita Khrushchev clique in Russia.
The only Jew in the Communist regime
is known to have followed the Stalinist
anti-Semitic line. It has harmed rather
than helped the Russan Jewish commun-
ities in their aspirations for the advance-
ment of Jewish cultural undertakings, and
he may have spearheaded the anti-Zionist
and anti-Israel campaigns in the Soviet
Union.
The new Soviet purge appears to have
unleashed new hopes for better under-
standing between East and West and for
more amicable discussions with the Com-
munist rulers on armaments and on world
peace. Previous Communist attitudes
cause us to be skeptical and to urge that
we abide by the clarifications that are al-
ways provided by the time element. Only
time will prove anything in matters that
involve so muddled a concoction as placing
faith in the Soviet rulers.
1-1 =
• *1
`e;',4 ,,;`
Immigrants' Many-Stranded Roles
'They All Chose America'
Describes Manifold Gifts
Many volumes haVe been written to show the many-
stranded roles of immigrants in the making of America. One
of the most fascinating of the collective stories related about
newcomers to this land is "They All Chose America," by Albert
Q. Maisel, published by Thomas Nelson & Sons (19 E. 47th,
N. Y. 17).
Maisel describes the gifts to this country, and their share in
its making and in its progress, by Jews, the Dutch, the Swiss,
Swedes, Scots, Poles, Negroes, the English, the French, Germans,
Greeks, Irish, Italians, Japanese- and Mexicans.
At the very outset, Maisel states:
"When an Italian sea captain led three small Spanish
caravels out of Palos Harbor in 1492 — with crews that,
prophetically, included an Englishman, an Irishman and a Jew
—he set into motion a churning series of migrations that were
destined to alter decisively every aspect of civilization in both
the Old World and the New."
He proceeds to show that "Swedish or English, German or
Jewish immigrants .. . had affected America in many varied
ways."
His chapter "The Jews" is a fine analysis of American
Jewish history. It is the story of Jews who have made important
contributions to American life, and to all aspects of American
art, science' and literature; as well as to government, the field
of sports and the labor movement.
Maisel describes the arrival of Jews in New York in the
days of Stuyvesant. He speaks of Haym Salomon, who financed
the American Revolution; the merchant Aaron Lopez, the early
American Jews the Minises, the de Leans, the Noneses and
many others.
He relates the story of Joseph Jonas, Cincinnati's first Jew;
of the great philanthropist Judah Touro, the men in the labor
movement, the great actors, the noted musicians, the literary
giants, the statesmen, the athletes, the economists.
Maisel reaches an interesting conclusion on "The Jews" in
"They All Chose America." He sees our people clinging to their
faith, continuing "to feel a special kinship for their co-religionists
abroad and a special hope for the strengthening of Israel," and
he adds:
"If our country has any meaning at all, we can be certain
that . . . the spirit that has here united Jew and Gentile in
brotherhood will achieve new bonds of unity in a nation that
has made their age-old dream of equality come true."
Yiddish Literary Echoes
By BORIS SMOLAR
Editor, Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Those who fear that Yiddish literature is on the decline in
the United States will gain new courage from daring New York
publisher Israel London. . It was only a few months ago
that London, an expert in the publishing business, established
a Yiddish-language publishing house, "Kval.". . . This week he
brought out his second beautiful volume which, from point of
view of attractive printing and binding, can compete with any
English-language book published by a modern American firm.
. . . It is Zalman Shneour's novel "Der Mamzer" ("The Illegiti-
mate Child") . . . The first book published by "Kval" was Isaac
Bashevis-Singer's "Beth Din Shtub" ("My Father's Court Room")
. . . Both authors need no introduction, since their works have
frequently been translated into English and published in this
country by Roy Publishers and by Knopf ... They were among
the best sellers. . "Kval" books, which are among the best
works of contemporary Yiddish novelists, are fast joining the
best seller class . . . Which can be taken as indication that there
are still plenty of readers of Yiddish literature in this country
. . . Successful with his first two books, London is contemplating
publishing in Yiddish translation books by Ernest Hemingway
and other renowned authors A man of fine taste, and a great
lover of Jewish art and literature, London deserves wide recog-
nition for his "Kval" enterprise . . . He fortifies interest in his
books by radio discussions in Yiddish in which numerous Yiddish
writers participate .