THE JEWISH NEWS
Incorporating the Detroit Jewish Chronicle commencing with issue of hay 20, 1951
Member American Association of English-Jewish Icewspapers, Michigan Press AssociatiOn, National
Editorial Association.
Published every Friday by The Jewish News Publishing Co., 17100 West Seven Mile Road, Detroit 3 ,5,
Mich., VE • 8-9364. Subscription $5 a year. Foreign $6.
Post Office, Detroit, Mich., under Act of March 3, 1879.
Entered as second class matter Aug. 6, 1942 at
PHILIP SLOMOVITZ
Editor and Publisher
SIDNEY SHMARAK CARMI M. SLOMOVITZ
Advertising Manager
Circulation Manager
Congratulations to Israel
Let Our Generosity to the Allied Jewish Drive
Match Our Pride on the Tenth Anniversary
FRANK SIMONS
City Editor
Sabbath Scriptural Selections
This Sabbath, the sixth day of Iyar, 5718, the following Scriptural .selections will be
read in our synagogues:
Pentateuchal portion, Tazria-Mezora, Leviticus 12:1-15:33. Prophetical portion, II Kings
7:3-20.
Licht Benshen, Friday, April 25, 6:37 p.m.
VOL. XXXIII. No. 8
Page Four
April 25, 1958
Our Salute to Israel:
May She Grow from Strength to Strength
Humbly, with a sense of pride in the Jewish State's achievements, conscious of
the great humanitarian objectives inherent in Israel's rebirth, we salute the Israelis.
May they acquire peace speedily, may their economy grow and may their people
hold fast to that courage and dignity which has elevated their autonomous State to
a position of international significance.
Israel's accomplishments are manifold. Out of an inexperienced people has de-
veloped an able and effective diplomatic f orce that plays its role well on the inter-
national scene, within the framework of the United Nations.
Its population has grown from 650,000 in 1948 to nearly two million today—its
immigrants having come from East Europe, from Moslem countries, from lands of
oppression. The new settlers now possess the freedom of citizenship in a land they
can call their own. The homelessness of hundreds of thousands has ended. No longer
are they persecuted peoples. Now they can strive for peace and for the dignity of
man on a par with free peoples everywhere.
Israel has established a vast network of industries. She has expanded her edu-
cational system and she is proudly developing nigher schools of learning and scien-
tific research projects.
American Jewry has good cause to be especially proud of the share it is playing
in Israel's upbuilding and development. We have contributed, through the United
Jewish Appeal to the settlement and integration of immigrants into Israel's econ-
omy. We have assisted in establishing new industries, through the purchase of Is-
rael Bonds and by means of private in vestments. We have redeemed the land
through the Jewish National Fund and have made Israel a healthy area through
Hadassah, Kupat Holim and other media.
This work goes on. We dare not stop in the middle — for, Israel is in the
midst of completing her task of acquirin g self-sustainment. Our greetings, our ex-
pressions of pride must, therefore, contin le to be shown in the form of continued
devotion to the Allied Jewish Campaign—the major fund-raiser for Israel; to the
Israel Bonds and other efforts in support of Israel.
We greet Israel with confidence that American Jewry will honor the obliga-
tions we have accepted as the partner in Israel's upbuilding. May Israel's growing
stature soon be silhouetted in a peacefully brightened world.
Jewish Publication Society's 70th Anniversary
This Sunday, the Jewish Publication
Society of America will mark its 70th
birthday, at its annual meeting to be
held in Philadelphia.
It is an event to be marked on the
calendar of activities of every Jewish
community in America and by English-
speaking communities elsewhere.
This is the major non-profit Jewish
publishing movement in the land. While
there are a number of private Jewish
publishing ventures, and several of the
theological seminaries also sponsor the
publishing of books of Jewish value, the
Jewish Publication Society of America
specifically functions for the purpose
of making available to English-reading
Jews the outstanding Jewish classics, the
Bible in improved and accepted transla-
tions, works dealing with Jewish history,
the best in fiction, poetry, sociology and
philosophy.
Because it is non-profit-making and
was organized specifically for the pur-
pose of providing the best works in Jew-
ish literature, the members of the society
benefit from the venture and secure the
membership books at low costs.
*
The importance of the Society lies
in its pioneering efforts. It sponsored the
first traditional translation of the Bible 30
years ago and is now in the process of pro-
ducing a revised translation of the Bible
in English. It introduced Israel Zangwill -
to the Jewish reading public and it made
available the English translation of
Heinrich Graetz's "History of the Jews."
It published Prof. Louis Ginzberg's
"Legends of the Jews" and the histories
and essays of Simeon Dubnow. It made
available scores of other outstanding Jew-
ish classics.
These efforts have placed the Jewish
Publication Society in the position of be-
ing one of the major important culture-
sponsoring movements in America. They
have earned for the Society the support
of every American Jew.
*
*
Under the leadership of the Society's
president, Edwin Wolf II, many impor-
tant new projects have been undertaken.
Together with Farrar, Straus &
Cudahy, the Society is publishing a num-
ber of children's publications, in the series
that is being popularized as Covenant
Books.
Another very commendable undertak-
ing is the new series of paperbacks, pub-
lished cooperatively with Meridian Books.
Already, the JPS, together with Meridian,
have reprinted three outstanding. JPS
classics—"A History of Mediaeval Jewish
Philosophy" by Prof. Isaac Husik, "Stu-
dents, Scholars and Saints" by Prof. Louis
Ginsberg and "For the Sake of Heaven"
by Dr. Martin Buber.
These efforts show initiative and an
understanding of the needs of American
Jewry, and the JPS continues through
these means to endear itself to English-
reading Jewries everywhere.
On the occasion of the Society's 70th
anniversary, we renew again the appeal
we have made previously for at least
100,000 members in this movement. The
present membership of 10,000 represents
a strong element of support for the So-
ciety, but it would be to the greater glory
of American Jewry if the response to the
Society's needs would be at least ten-fold.
We congratulate the Jewish Publica-
tion Society on its anniversary and wish
it increasing strength in the months and
years to come. And we wish for American
Jewry that it, too, should share in such
growing cultural status by a mounting
interest in the Society's worth and values.
'Why I Am a Jew'
"The story of the Jew even as it embraces the wide dis-
tances" and as it "transcends time" is told in the form of a
scholarly review of the Jewish position by Dr. David de Sola
Pool, in his new book, "Why I Am a Jew," published by Bloch.
Offering "this small book humbly, as a sheaf garnered from
the rich harvest of Judaism," Dr. Pool, who has just completed
50 years' service with New York's oldest synagogue, the Sephar-
dic Shearith Israel, defines the Jew by means of historical ex-
periences.
"In all the centuries of their dispersion," he writes, 'they
as a rule spoke the language of the land
where they dwelt. They were subject to
all the diverse influences of their cul-
tural environment. Yet largely because
of their distinguishing religious regula-
tions, as well as in a measure because of
centuries of physical isolation often
violently enforced from without as dur-
ing the dark Middle Ages, they main-_
tamed their own distinctive character
throughout their long annals. 'Remem-
ber the days of old, consider the years
of many generations' (Deut. 32:7). If
we are to understand more fully what
has produced and preserved their iden-
tity and continuous determined will for
survival, we must look back over the
whole of their chronicles. This begins
Dr. de Sola Pool
with the Bible, the Biblion, the book. It
was the Jew who made the Bible, and it has been the Bible
which made the Jew."
Dr. Pool reminisces about the past 2,000 years, speaks of
the next 2,000 years, and reaches the conclusion that the
Jew's "loyalty to his heritage and its ineffable significance for
him" has preserved him in the past and "today and tomorrow
it must preserve him and with him the message he carries."
He evaluates Israel, the synagogue, the ideals that are in-
herent in Judaism. He speaks of the Jewish Home, - of Judaism
and Universalism, of the Messiah and the Chosen People, and
his final inspiring thought is in the title to the concluding
chapter, "To Thine Own Self Be True," in which he states:
"Armed with faith we can fight soulless knowledge and
self-destroying technology; fascist aggression and military
violence; racial hatreds, class bitterness and annihilating inter-
national strife. We know no better way. We know no other way
if we are to build a world in which 'none shall hurt, none
destroy . . . for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the
Lord as the waters cover the sea.' (Isaiah 11:9)."
Mental Religious Guidance
Discontent and mental illnesses call for guidance. Psychiat-
rists and psychologists, social workers and otser professionally-
trained people, are engaged in tackling the problems.
A responsibility in dealing with disturbed elements cer-
tainly rests upon religious leaders. Rabbis often are called upon
to guide and advise people who are being upset by personal and
other problems.
Rabbi Jacob Leibowitz, in his book "Religious Guidance,"
published by Philosophical Library (15 E. 40th, N. Y. 19),
makes a commendable attempt to meet the issues.
In 90 brief essays, he touches upon nearly every element
involved in the problems dealing with mental illnesses and the
disturbances that are most often in evidence among people today.