•
THE JEWISH NEWS
of July 20, 1951
Incorporating the Detroit Jewish Chronicle commencing with issue
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
Entered as second class matter Aug. 6, 1952 at Post Office, Detroit, Mich., under Act of March 3, 1879.
PHILIP SLOMOVITZ
Editor and Publisher
CARMI M. SLOMOVITZ
SIDNEY SHMARAK
Circulation Manager
Advertising Manager
FRANK SIMONS
City Editor
Sabbath Scriptural Selections
This Sabbath, Shabbat Shekolim, the twenty-fifth day of Shevat, 5718, the following
Scriptural selections will be read in our synagogues:
portion, 11
Pentateuchal portion, Mishpati'in, Exodus 21:1-24:18; 30:1-16. Prophetical
Kings 12:1-17.
Rosh Hodesh Adar is observed today.
Licht fienshen, Friday, Feb. 14, 5:21 p.m.
VOL. XXXII. No. 24
Page Four
February 14, 1958
Brotherhood for Peace and Freedom:
'Believe It! Live It! Support It!'
An interesting slogan has been adopted
for this year's observance of Brotherhood
Week. "Believe It! Live It! Support It!"
is the call of this year's observance. Once
again, all peo-
ple of good
will are asked
to rededicate
themselves to
the ideal of
respecting
each other, of
working to-
gether for the common good of striving
for mutual understanding so that religious
and racial prejudices should be reduced
drastically, perhaps eventually bringing
it to a total end.
The leaders in the good will movement
are realistic in their request that brother-
hood should be made a year round prac-
tice, that it should not be limited to a
single week in the year but that its values
should be made known at all times.
Only a few weeks ago, the Democratic
standard bearer, Adlai E. Stevenson, in
an address delivered at the World
Brotherhood dinner of the National Con-
ference of Christians and Jews, made
these significant remarks:
"A hundred years ago, even 50, perhaps
even 15, to speak of World Brotherhood was,
I suspect, to adorn with. rhetoric what was
at most a remote ideal. Today, however, it
has become an insistent, demanding reality,
thrust upon us whether we accept it or not
by a science that has broken down the fences
which had before separated the peoples of
the world.
"Recently a new star flashed across the
skies. I wish it had been we who lighted that
first new star. It disturbs me greatly, as an
American, that it was not. Yet I know, as a
citizen of the world and as a member of to-
morrow, that the basic issue is no longer the
supremacy of nations. It is the supremacy of
man for good or for evil, for survival or sui-
cide. The significance of what has happened
lies not in which nation has first reached into
outer space but in the fact that man has now
obliterated, for better or for worse, what we
used to call time and distance.
"I deny that the satellite is a portent of
disaster. I think rather of John Donne's mark-
ing of the times in history that are pregnant
with those old twins, Hope and Fear. Surely
this is such a time, a time not of catastrophe
but of choice, not of disaster but of decision.
"A, very large part, I suspect, of the ma-
turing of mankind to its present estate has
come from adversity, or the threat of ad-
versity. More frontiers of what we call
progress have probably been crossed under
the pressure of necessity than by the power
of reason. Prophets have appeared all
through history to proclaim an ethic, but
humanity has not heeded them, and the world
has wandered its way — until the hard steel
of survival itself has been pulled against our
too soft mouths.
"Now, once again, science has forced hu-
manity to a crossroad from which there is no
turning back, no escape—and just one road
that leads upward. The choice is either ex-
tinction—or the human brotherhood that has
been the vision of visionaries since the be-
ginning of time.
"I deny that human fulfillment cannot keep
pace with material advance. We know and
must insist rather that what was heralded by
the splitting of the atom, what is now pro-
claimed by the earth satellite, is nothing nar-
rower than man's complete genius — not to
exterminate himself, but to control himself.
"What the 'bleep-bleep' is saying is that
now the world his no option, that it must
turn from narrow nationalism, sectarianism,
racialism, that the only conceivable relation-
ship among men is one based on men's full
respect — yes, their love, if you please — for
each other."
After a lapse of 90 years, one of the outstanding commen-
taries on the Pentateuch at last will be available in English.
The famous homiletical work by the distinguished_leader of
Orthodox Jewry in Germany, Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch,
lids just been published in London and is now being distributed
in this country by Bloch Publishing Co., of New York.
The translation has been done by Rabbi Hirsch's grandson,
Dr. Isaac Levy, of London, England.
For technical reasons, the first volume in the translated
series is "Exodus" and the second, which will appear before
very long, will be Vayikra=Leviticus. Genesis, Numbers and
Deuteronomy will follow in that order.
'Rabbi Hirsch's Chumash Commentary includes the Hebrew
There is no denying the truth of this
text,
translation of the text into English and the full text
contention that World Brotherhood now of the the
eminent scholar's commentary in the English translation.
has become "an insistent, demanding re-
The Hirsch commentaries are as valid and as applicable
ality." Yet, even in our time, with the today
as they were nearly a century ago. For instance, Rabbi
scientific advances Challenging our think- Hirsch's dissertation on the Sabbath, in his commentary on the
ing and actions, it is not easy to advance 20th chapter of Shemot, not only is illuminating but can serve
this great idea. It still must be propa- as a guide for Jews of this century.
gated. It still requires constant pleading,
In relation to prohibition of work on the Sabbath, Rabbi
unending beckoning of people to come Hirsch wrote: "Only hard physical. work , is prohibited on
closer together for a common understand- Sabbath, but easy, non-strenuous work, or work undertaken for
ing of their common needs.
spiritual activities is allowed . . ."
Perhaps the results of Brotherhood
An impressive lesson for all mankind is offered in Rabbi
Week still are negligible. It will require a Hirsch's commentaries on slavery. Commenting on the status of
great deal of preaching to get people to the servant who refuses to be freed even in the seventh year
make Brotherhood the year-round ideal and on Exodus 21:6: "then his master shall bring him unto the
we hope for it. But even the minimal judges and shall bring him unto the door or unto the doorpost
results attained through this idea through and his master shall pierce his ear_ with an awl and he shall then
the years has borne fruit. By continuing serve chim for ever," Rabbi Hirsch wrote:
"The slave who prefers the security and carefree comfort
it, we make it even more fruitful.
is assured to him in the state of bondage to his own inde-
Brotherhood Week, therefore, remains that
pendent family life with all its worries and cares, is taken by his
a vital observance on our calendar. It master to the door or doorposts of a home and his ear is there
gains weight this year with its practical pierced with an awl by the master to the door, not to the door-
approach in the slogan: "Believe It! Live posts. The doorposts are representative of an independent home.
As such they occurred in the moment of Redemption in which
It! Support It!"
God raised the Egyptian slaves to free men, and gave them once
again the right, and thereby the duty, of founding their own inde-
pendent homes . . The Jew who belittles the dignity of being
`doorposts,' independently to bear on his own shoulders the bur-
2. Shehita is a humane method of slaugh-
den of a home, and sells his freedom for the ease of 'belonging'
tering animals for food. It is the only method
of slaughter which has been proved to be to some one and who has no ear 'for the call of God to freedom
and independence, his ear is bored to a door, in the presence of a
humane by scientific studies.
`doorpost' and thereby the stamp of 'belonging to a home' im-
3. Preparation of animals for slaughter also
should be humane without making it impos-
pressed on him . . .
"But just as it is to the slave, so is the freemaking power
sible to perform the act of Shehita.
of the seventh year a warning to the master. too, and for all
4. As community relations agencies, Jewish
organizations are under no obligation to sup-
masters, whose brethren have been brought into a state of de-
port humane slaughtering legislative meas-
pendence on them, to keep clear in mind the invisible, sole, one
and unique Master; to consider Him as One above masters and
ures. The question before us has been
whether to oppose any and all such measures slaves, and not to abuse their higher position based on money
or not to oppose those which clearly and in
and position to keep their brethren who have come to be
acceptable language safeguard Shehita.
dependent on them in illegal bondage."
Rabbi Hirsch's comments on the prohibition of trefa as
The measure, as passed by the House
by a voice vote, included an amendment "the -first dietary law after Sinai (that). . . . refutes all theories
have been—and are being—put forward, of dietic, climatic,
which recognizes Shehita as a humane which
contemporary reasons for the dietary laws. (With the idea, of
method of slaughtering. But Rep. Leonard and
of abrogating them). It is not our bodily health, but our
Farbstein maintains that this amendment, course,
spiritual and moral purity and capability, our kedusha, our being
which was introduced by Rep. Victor L. ready, for everything which -'is godly and pure, which is the
Anftiso is not acceptable to the Jewish expressed object of these laws."
community. The issue therefore remains
It would be wrong to select just a few of Rabbi Hirsch's
on the agenda. That is why the facts, as views to indicate the value of his commentaries. His entire work
_Exodus, just
outlined by NCRAC, must be made known is a worthy scholatly interpretation of the Book of \ - as
great evalu-
so that we should not suffer from mis- as his complete commentaries have been accepted
ations
of
the
Holy
Scriptures.
apprehensions in the Jewish community.
Facts About Shehita and Animal Slaughtering
Doubt has been expressed over the
fairness to the Jewish position, and to the
practice of Shehita — the Jewish ritual
slaughter for animals — in the measure
adopted last week by Congress.
Jewish spokesmen have made a serious
effort to explain to members of Congress,
in the course of the discussions of the
adopted measure, H.R. 8308, which was
introduced by Rep. W. R. Poage, chair-
man of the House Subcommittee on Live
Stock and Feed Grain of the Committee
on Agriculture that the Torah forbids
pain to animals and that there is a pro-
scription of cruelty to animals in Jewish
religious laws.
A statement issued in behalf of the
national Jewish organizations by the Na-
tional Community Relations Advisory
Council points to the following general
Jewish agreement on the issue of humane
slaughtering and Shehita:
1. The religious practice of Shehita must
be protected.
Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch's
Commentaryon Book of Exodus