Pledge to Meet Obligations
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
Editor and Publisher
SIDNEY SHMARAK
FRANK SIMONS
CARMI M. SLOMOVITZ
City Editor
Circulation Manager
Advertising Manager
Sabbath Scriptural Selections
This Sabbath, the seventh day of Kislev, 5718, the following Scriptural selections will
be read in our synagogues:
portion, Hosea 12:13-14:10.
Pentateuchal portion, Vayetze, Gen. 28:10-32:3. Prophetical
Licht Benshen, Friday, Nov. 29, 4:22 p.m.
VOL. XXXII, No. 13
November 29, 1957
Page Four
Pisgah Lodge's 100th Anniversary
The history of the Detroit Jewish
community is closely linked with that of
Pisgah Lodge, the first Bnai Brith group
organized here.
Temple Beth El was our first congre-
gation, and our community's history
starts with the Beth El story. Pisgah
Lodge was next in line in historical
sequence as a major fraternal organiza-
tion here.
*
*
*
Formed exactly 100 years ago, Pisgah
Lodge parallels its story with that of the
entire Jewish community of Detroit. Its •
leaders were the leaders of our congre-
gational life. Its activities mirrored the
happenings in Jewry throughout the land
and, in fact, throughout the world. For,
when the national Bnai Brith leaders
fought for just rights for our coreligionists
everywhere, Pisgah's leaders also partici-
pated in such efforts.
In the last decade, Pisgah Lodge, pur-
suing a national Bnai Brith policy, has
played a noble role in defense of Jewish
rights here and abroad and in behalf of
Israel.
Pisgah Lodge has played a vital role
as supporter of the activities of the Anti-
Defamation League of Bnai Brith. It gave
encouragement to the Hillel Foundations,
and its leaders shared in the formation
of the three Hillel branches at the Uni-
versity of Michigan, Wayne State Univer-
sity and Michigan State University.
*
*
*
During its century of activties, Pisgah
Lodge not only has shared in all com-
munal responsibilities, but also has pro-
vided leadership for many of Detroit
Jewry's important causes.
In leadership building as well as in
its support of major creative efforts,
Pisgah Lodge therefore has paralleled
the community's functions.
*
*
Out of Pisgah Lodge came the inspira-
tion for the formation of two score other
Bnai Brith groups here—the local sister
lodges and their women's auxiliaries.
Pisgah also sponsored the activities of the
Bnai Brith youth organizations.
Thus, Pisgah Lodge's role is a signifi-
cant one in our community. We join
heartily with the national Bnai Brith lead-
ers and the organization's many friends
here and throughout the nation in con-
gratulating Pisgah Lodge on its one-
hundredth anniversary.
B. A. Botkin's Excellent Stories in
'
A
Treasury of Anecdotes
!
Henceforth, whenever you see the name of Ben A. Botkin
in association with a book, you can be certain that you will
be treated to the choicest type of humor.
This reviewer passes on this judgment on the basis of
the previous works of this able compiler, and especially after
reading his latest work just off the press, the Random House
product entitled:
"A Treasury of American Anecdotes . . . Sly, Salty, Shaggy
Stories of Heroes & Hellions, Beguilers and Buffoons, Spell-
binders & Scapegoats, Gagsters and Gossips • . . from the
Grassroots and Sidewalks of America."
This is a long title: actually, the publishers will advertise ,
it as "A Treasury of American Anecdotes." But with all due
credit to the possible modesty of Random House, we quote the
full title because the contents then are properly hinted at.
Fully to benefit from the book, and to get all the laughs it
provides, you must possess the book.
Where does one start reviewing? There is a laugh on every
incident in his reaction to anti-Semitic
page. It also fulfills a purpose, as indicated in the quotation
occurrences in Russia:
appended to the introduction by Botkin from J. Frank Dobie:
"I think in July 1956 a Communist Party "There are just three essentials to a good story: humanity, a
member came to me with the proposal that point, and the Storyteller." -
we frame a document, as an open letter to the
Botkin proves a point, that "Old stories never die." The
Soviet leadership, demanding some explana- reason, he tells us, "is, of course, that there are always new
tion of the anti-Semitic atrocities in Russia storytellers to put old wine into new bottles."
(still unexplained at this writing, I may
In this book, Botkin tells some of the old stories so well,
that even those of us who have heard them before get a
observe).
"I framed this document; to be signed by chuckle out of every one of them.
prominent American Communists, and it was
He has a number of good Jewish stories. His "Jewish
presented at a special meeting called for the Quakers" is excellent:
purpose. John Gates was there, the only one
"Several families of Philadelphia Jews have, in the last
of the Party leadership, and Morris Schappes, decade especially, been attracted to Quakerism. A man asked
the Jewish historian, also attended. In the a rabbi whether he realized that some of his people were
course of the discussion, Schappes told of a becoming Quakers. The rabbi replied, 'Oh, yes, some of my
series of articles in the Manchester Guardian best Jews are Friends.'"
by a British reporter who covered . the trial
"The Last Straw" is old, but still good: "On a New York
of a number—twenty, I believe—of elderly subway train a Jewish fellow noticed a Negro sitting opposite
Jews in Moscow. These Jews were accused him reading a Yiddish newspaper. After puzzling over this for
of the possession of 'Zionist' literature, and
while, he approached the other and tapped him on the
for this fiendish crime they were sentenced a shoulder. 'Excuse me, mister, are you Jewish?' The Negro
to three to ten years each.
looked up, shrugged, and said, 'That's all I need!' "
"As Schappes spoke, he noticed the grow-
There is a temptation to quote story after story, the
ing expression of horror on the face of Gates, Jewish ones and the hundreds of the others. But there is a
himself recently released from prison, and
limit to space—and the reader must be encouraged to become
then Gates asked, 'Under what law?'
the possessor of the volume. Let's just be content with one
"Schappes mentioned the particular arti-
"A Critic":
cle in the Soviet criminal code, and added, more,
"A man bought a ticket to one of the Yiddish plays an
'A law, Johnny, ten times worse than the the Lower East Side. Before the show was half over, he
Smith Act.' "
hurried out and stood at the box office asking for his money
*
*
*
back.
"'Why, didn't you like the show?' the ticket seller asked
The revelations are shocking, and the
answer to the question "under what law" him.
"'Oh. I liked it,' he answered.
is a simple one: It is the law of the jungle
" '1;Vell, then, wasn't your seat a good one?'
that dominates Russia today, that contin-
"'Yes, it was a good seat,' he said.
ues to abuse Jews because they are so
`Well, then, what's the trouble?' the ticket seller asked.
handy as a v ail a b l e scapegoats, that
"'I'm scared to sit alone in the theater.' "
Well, there is no end to the scores upon scores of good
threatens world security.
excellently told by Botkin. Get the book. You'll have
It is no wonder that the nations of the stories,
million laughs for yourself, your family and all your friends.
a
world are in such a quandary in dealing
,
The Law of the Jungle in Russia
Nikita Khrushchev's domination of
Russia, his rise to such great powers that
he no longer needs to be concerned over
the possible might of the Russian army,
as evidenced by his dismissal of Marshal
Zhukov, is the most puzzling development
in world politics. It is the most disturb-
ing of all international developments, and
serves as a major threat to the peace of
the world.
Khrushchev emerges today as perhaps
an even more vicious anti-Semite than his
predecessor, Josef Stalin. The anti-Jewish
attitudes of the Communist leaders serve
as a serious threat to Israel and to Jewry.
*
*
*
In his revealing article, "On Leaving
the Communist Party," in the Saturday
Review, Howard Fast touched upon sev-
eral of the aspects of the Russian situa-
tion as it affects the Communist leaders'
attitudes on Jews and Judaism. Fast
recalls:
"A good while before the Twentieth
Congress of the Bolshevik Party the rumor
came to us that Itzik Feffer, the beloved
Jewish poet, was dead, and that he had died
strangely. We didn't know. I asked and others
asked:
" 'Where is Itzik Feffer and how did he
die?'
"A hundred times that question was
asked and left unanswered, and we who asked
it were looked at as fools because we could
not understand the political subtleties of the
murder of poets. I asked it of a Pravda corre-
spondent only a few days before I finally
broke with the Party—but I was an unwel-
come guest now in the beautiful building on
Park Avenue, for I had already spoken my
first angry criticism in the pages of the Daily
Worker and the Communist cultural maga-
zine, Mainstream. As the diplomatic recep-
tion eddied around us, this man from Pravda,
talking with the voice of "socialism" and
"brotherhood," said to me angrily, in English,
which he spoke very well,
" 'Howard, why do you make so much of
the Jews? Jews? Jews? That is all we hear
from you! Do you think Stalin murdered no
one but Jews?' "
At another point in his confessional,
Howard Fast reports on this interesting
with the Soviet issues and the Soviet
threats.
*
*
*
Meanwhile Russia remains the stum-
bling block to peace in the Middle East.
It is the Soviet propaganda that is the
cause of the new disturbances on Israel's
borders.
Russia continues to fish in troubled
waters, and the failure of the democratic
powers to put an end to her intrusions
is directly responsible for the war threats
that are again heard from Israel's enemy
neighbors.
F
Mauriac s Line of Life
'
Francois Mauriac, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature,
provides additional evidence of his power as a literary giant in
his new novel, "Lines of Life," published by Farrar, Straus &
Cudahy (101 5th, N. Y. 3), and translated by Gerard Hopkins.
This is a strong narrative about the dissipated son of an
industrious peasant. Augustin Lagave's son Robert returned to
the village to convaleSeence from a serious illness. He creates
innumerable problems, arouses love mixed with hatred, and is
the cause for numerous spiritual upheavals among those who
surround him, including those who, while they are solicitous
about him, become disillusioned.
There are contrasts here between those who are born to
love and those born to work—and these contrasts create a force-
ful spiritual narrative.