No
'Pussyfooting'
in Clearing
South's Name
Truman
and Israel
Editorials
Page 4
THE_ jEWISH NE S
A Weekly Revi,
Michigan's Only English-Je ,
VOLUME XXXI I I -- No. 10
Printed in a
100% Union Shop
oz, r).\,
441
e.\
,4
cZ
• Events
of Jewish
•
—Incorporating The Detroit Jewish Chronicle
Jewish
Delicacies .. .
Essays on
Yiddish Etymo-
logy .
. 'The
Magic Barrel'
Enchants the
Reader
Commentary,
Page 2
VE 8-9364—Detroit 35, May 9, 1958 $5.00 Per Year; Single Copy 15c
Major 41
sh Organizations
Call for 1Federal Laws, FBI
cition, to re.4. ant. - BortibinOs.
American Jewish. Congress
Sited by - Miami Beach:Uotel
for 'Withdrawing oncl.ave
MIAMI BEACH (JTA) — A spokesman for the Deauville
Hotel announced Monday that the hotel has started a suit to
_halt the national convention of the American Jewish Congress
here May 14 - 18 and to ban the organization's expected 500
delegates from meeting at any other hotel in Florida.
The court action came after the organization cancelled
plans to hold the convention at the Deauville and re-scheduled
the meeting for the Carillon Hotel. AJC spokesmen here said
the switch was decided on 10 days ago after the organizatiOn
received information the Deauville allegedly was anti-labor.
"We received repeated assurances that the hotel was not
anti-union," the American Jewish Congress declared in a
statement, "but on April 21 we learned that the Deauville
had obtained an injunction restraining the hotel and restaurant
workers and bartenders local from normal labor organizational
activity. Walter Reuther, president of United Auto Workers,
is a speaker scheduled for the five-day meeting. •
"It has always been a basic principle of the American
Jewish Congress to support the rights of labor to organize
and bargain collectively," the statement continued. "Upon
ascertaining the true situation and in order to protect the
interests and relationships of the AJC, we were compelled
to change our plans at considerable expense."
Bernard Fuller, attorney for the Deauville, said the hotel
would file a damage suit against the Congress, "but at this
time we cannot tell what our damages will be, and we are
unable to set an amount which may be used in the suit."
Six major national Jewish organizations joined in urging Congress to pass
a pending bill that would make illegal possession or use of dynamite 'a federal
crime. They also called on the Federal Bureau of Investigation to launch. an
investigation into the recent bombings of Jewish centers and places of worship
in southern cities.
The American Jewish Congress, Jewish Labor Committee, Jewish War
Veterans of the U.S.A., Union of American Hebrew Congregations, Union of
Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, and United Synagogue of America
expressed their views in a statement made public in New York through their
coordinating agency, the National Community Relations Advisory Council.
They chiled for prompt enactment of H.R. 11806, introduced by Rep. J.
Carlton Loser, of Tennessee, to make it a federal crime to transport between
states, or to possess any dynamite so transported, intended for unlawful use. It
would create the presumption that a federal law has been violated by anyone
found to have dynamite in his possession against local state law.
While maintaining that there is ample basis for federal intervention in the
bombings that damaged Jewish centers and places of worship in Miami, Char-
lotte, Gastonia, Nashville and Jacksonville, and an attempted bombing in Birm-
ingham, during the past several months, the Jewish groups support the LoserBill
as clarifying the authority of the Attorney General to intervene.
Southern Cities Pool Rewards; Mayors Act Against Terrorism
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (JTA) — Mayors and other municipal officials of 29
Southern cities conferring here on the bombing of synagogues and centers and
schools attended by Negro children set up a liaison organization to exchange infor-
mation about the attacks in an attempt to halt them once and for all.
Mayor Haydon Burns of Jacksonville who, together with Mayor Ben West
of Nashville, Tenn., had taken the initiative in calling the extraordinary parley,
(Continued on Page '7)
Sentimental Southerners Angered by Hoodlumism
Civil War Study Shows Confederacy Was Freer
of Anti-Semitism Than Abolitionist North
BY MILTON FRIEDMAN
Agency, Inc.)
WASHINGTON—Millions of Southerners senti-
mentally linked with the Confederacy are fighting
mad. They are angered by the use of the name
"Confederate Underground" by hoodlums dynamit-
ing synagogues.
Southerners with authentic attachment to the
old South are indignant that the new self-styled
"confederates" are giving the confederacy a had
name. By dynamiting respected Jewish religious
institutions, including synagogues founded many
years ago, the unknown terrorists have offended
Southern sensibilities. Many who revere what is
to them the dignity and grandeur of the former
Confederacy are outraged.
Such sentiments have been voiced in newspaper
editorials throughout the South. They have been
reflected in official Washington by Southern mem-
bers of Congress. Most Southerners oppose the in-
tegration of Negroes in public education. But they
see the bombings of snagogues as uncouth and in-
excusable. To them, such violent anti-Semitism is
alien to the Southern tradition.
Senators from states where synagogue bomb in-
cidents occurred have taken a stand. They are
Senators Holland and Smathers of Florida. Kefau-
ver and Gore of Tennessee, and Sparkman and
Hill of Alabama. They urged FBI action, suggest-
ing that the conspiracy crossed state lines. But the
U.S. Attorney General ironically cited "states'
rights" arguments, claiming the FBI could ?tot
legally intervene.
Sen. Holland was especially moved. He personally
talked with J. Edgar Hoover, urging the F.B.I. to
aid local police in apprehending the synagogue at-
tackers. Generally, Southern legislators dislike Fed-
eral intervention in local matters. But agitators
(Copyright, 1958, Jewish Telegraphic
simply went too far when they lit bomb fuses in
Jacksonville, Nashville, Birmingham, and else-
where.
Governors, Mayors, and police chiefs throughout
the South would like nothing better than to expose
the so-called "Confederate Underground." Chapters
of such groups as the United Daughters of the Con-
federacy have indicated considerable embarrass-
ment.
Southerners have mustered history books 'to
support a case that the Confederacy was freer of
anti-Semitism than the "abolitionist" North. There
is evidence. Horace Greeley's abolitionist New
York Tribune reads like the "Der Stuermer" of its
day, Anti-Semitism among abolitionists was such
that the Northern Jewish leader, Simon Wolf,
sought action against "these (anti-Semitic) mani-
festations . . - radiating from the highest official
circles."
A scholarly Jewish study of the Civil War con-
cluded that "the volume of abolitionist anti-Semitism
exceeded Southern bias, and its proponents were
sometimes men of stellar prominence . . . "
An anti-Semitic harangue delivered in the U. S.
Senate in Civil War days was such that the Jewish
community of Washington held a mass protest
meeting. The speech was made by Sen. Henry Wil-
son of Massachusetts. Gen. U. S. Grant, Northern
Commander, was ordered by President Abraham •
Lincoln to withdraw an anti-Semitic order issued
to troops. The anti-Semitism of Yankee General
Benjamin Butler was notorious. Jews under his
command were court-martialled in the manner of
France's Dreyfus trial.
Like Americans of all faiths, Jews were found
on both sides in the Civil War. Loyal to their re-
gion, the Jews of the South served the Con-
federacy to the extent that a Jew was Secretary
of State and later actually premier of the Con-
federacy. He was Judah P. Benjamin. He is
praised throughout the memoirs of Mrs. Jefferson
Davis, widow of the Confederate President.
Moses Cohen Mordecai of Charleston, S. C., op-
erated one of the most famous blockade runners.
Dr. Daniel de Leon was Surgeon General of the
Confederate Army. Abraham Charles Myers was
Quartermaster General.
The Memphis Daily Appeal reported in 1861
that "the Israelites of Memphis are behind none in
showing their devotion to the South, both by liberal
contributions and by taking up arms in her de-
fense."
At the Battle of Seven Pines, a 19-year-old Jew-
ish youth, Albert Moses of North Carolina, seized
the Stars and Bars from a dying flag bearer and
rallied his company. He died heroically.
Judge A. T. Watts of Dallas wrote of Max Fran-
kenthal of the 16th Mississippi Infantry. He said
that Frankenthal, "a little Jew, had the heart of a
lion. For several hours he stood at the immediate
point of contact, amid the most terrific hail of lead,
and cooly and deliberately loaded and fired, with-
out cringing. I observed his unflinching bravery
and constancy." Frankenthal later became a leader
of the United Confederate Veterans.
Major Adolph Proskauer of Alabama was
wounded several times. The confederate ranks in-
eluded many Jews: Front North Carolina came six
Cohen brothers. From. Georgia, Raphael Moses and
his three sons. The five Moses brothers enlisted in
Georgia. The three Levy brothers of Virginia
served under Robert E. Lee.
The history-conscious South is not ready toisper-
mit hoodlums to attack the places of worship of a
group that participated in the Confederacy. Nor will
the South allow its dream of past glory to be shat-
tered by individuals with a Nazi mentality who hide
behind the name "Confederate."