TH E JEWISH NEWS
The Vandals at Work Again
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.
PHILIP SLOMOVITZ
Editor and Publisher
SIDNEY SHMRAK
Advertising Manager
CARMI M. SLOMOVITZ
Circulation Manager
FRANK SIMONS
City Editor
• Sabbath Scriptural Selections
This Sabbath, the nineteenth day
of Sivan, 5718, the following Scriptural selections will
be read in our synagogues:
Pentateuchal portion, Nehaalotekha, Numbers 8:1-12:16. Prophetical portion, Zechariah
2:14-4:7.
•
Licht Benshen, Friday, June 6, 7:16 pan.
VOL. XXXIII, No. 14
Page Four
June 6, 1958
Clash in Nationalism: Blessing or Curse?
In his address at the Israel anniver- to reconcile, to fuse the stubborn stuff of
sary dinner in New York, Prof. Henry history and to resolve its apparent paradoxes.
Steele Commager, of Columbia Univer- Her people are devoutly nationalistic. They
sity, took occasion to discuss nationalism are at the same time the most cosmopolitan
as "that institution which for weal or for of peoples and Israel is required to fuse
nationalism and cosmopolitanism. Her people
woe has dominated modern history."
Whether nationalism is a "blessing or are held together by faith and traditions
in the East and have flourished in
a curse," he explained, depended on rooted
every country and society of the West, and
whether it is "benign or malignant."
she is required to bridge and to fuse the East
*
*
*
and the West. Bound together by a deep
In the malignant category he classed religious faith and unalterably committed
to
the tendency "to emphasize the local, the freedom, she is to reveal how religion can
parochial, the private, the selfish, the avoid fanaticism and be reconciled to freedom;
things that separate men from each other. a lesson desperately needed in the Middle
It has commonly taken the form of East. Deeply individualistic . . . she is the Lily Edelman's Splendid New Book:
chauvinism, militarism, territorial and most successful champion and practitioner of
cultural imperialism. This was the pat- the welfare state in her quarter of the globe; `Israel-New People in an Old Land'
is required to harmonize private and pub-
tern produced over the last century by she
"Israel—New People in an Old Land," by Lily Edelman,
lic enterprise and to reveal the potentialities
Germany, Russia and Japan." -
of the middle way to the Middle East. And is a most impressive story of the new State. Especially written
The benign pattern, which he labelled born in fire, living every hour in mortal for children, it will find a warm spot in the heart of every
adult who will take advantage of the information offered by
"benevolent." Dr. Commager described as peril, fighting for her existence with incom- the
able writer.
having "preferred the agencies of peace parable courage and skill, her methods are
Published by Thomas Nelson & Sons (19 E. 47th, N.Y. 17),
to the instruments of war," as having nonetheless not those of the sword and the
"celebrated the common inheritance of bomb but of the plow and the dynamo. She this volume is enriched by a great many excellent photographs.
Prof. W. F. Albright, in a foreward to this book, testifies,
man rather than the things that divide is called upon to reconcile warlike means with
on the basis of his life in Palestine from 1919 to 1935 and on
man," as having "connected itself with peaceful ends and to prove that a people the
basis of visits to Israel in 1953 and 1957 "that Mrs. Edelman's
to fight for its life can avoid the
freedom and equality and popular en- ..required
narrative is a record of fact."
corruptions of 'militarism and be . faithful to
lightenment and morality."
Indeed, as Prof. Albright as-
the ideals of religion and the standards of
*
*
*
civilization.
serts, Mrs. Edelman's story is told
It was in connection with his analysis
"without attempting to conceal
"But the second great responsibility and
of the "fateful test of nationalism" in opportunity
dark pages or to gloss over the
imposed upon Israel is that of
the Middle East that Prof. Commager strengthening and prospering the community
difficulties which this dynamic
society (Israel) must face in
charged the Arab states with "following of science, art, philosphy, and learning. Be-
order to achieve success. She
or being maneuvered into. the malignant cause of the circumstances of her founding
writes with sympathy and verve,
tradition of nationalism established by and because she had from the beginning
making it possible for any un-
countries like Germany, Russia and far more than her normal share of men and
prejudiced reader to catch the
Japan," and accused them of presenting women of learning, talent and special skills,
spirit of the new country and to
she is peculiarly equipped to perform for the
"the spectacle of a nationalism nourished Middle
share the life of the sabra."
East and beyond the role which
not on the rich soil of their own ancient Athens performed for Hellas and which the
Mrs. Edelman covers every
civilization nor on pride in the long past Dutch and English performed in the modern
aspect of Israel's existence. She
or faith in their future but on fear, world—that of being an affluent civilizing
starts out with a general descrip-
tion—"the modern Israeli in the
jealousy, covetousness, territorial, racial agency, a powerhouse of ideas and an arsenal
Mrs. Edelman making" — and proceeds to show
and religious antipathies."
of skills. She is or will be in a position to
*
*
*
inaugurate an intellectual and technological that not all Israelis are Jews, that there also are non-Jews
and Christians) who are citizens of that country.
To the Israeli concept, Dr. Commager lend-lease, to develop her own mideastern (Moslems
Then follows a tour of the land, a description of how the
Four. She can send out the physicians
ascribed "its deep rooted religious and Point
people live and labor, the types of people who make up the
humanistic traditions, its historic devo- and Surgeons, the engineers and agricultural land, how Israel is ruled, her strivings for peace, and other
experts,
chemists
and
physicists,
technicians
tion to the arts of peace, its long member- and administrators, the teachers
matters related to the struggle for existence and the aims for
and scholars success in a new land by new settlers.
ship in the great community of learning" who can help solve the many problems
that
as representing "not only in the Middle weigh so heavily on the East. To do this in
There is a good historical chapter in Mrs. Edelman's book
East but among all the nations of our the immense material demands upon her —"How Israel Came to Be." This helps make her work valuable
time, a nationalism that is humane, strength she must make a very special effort as a textbook in classes in which the students specialize in a
civilized and benign."
to cultivate that love of learning and nourish study of the Holy Land, its people, its rebirth and its successful
that spirit of philosophy which has for so long struggle for success against great odds.
We welcome the assertion of Dr.
Mrs. Edelman, who is the editorial associate for Bnai Brith's
distinguished the Jewish among all the peoples
Commager that "whether nationalism
department of adult Jewish education, is the wife of Dr. Nathan
of
the
earth.
is to justify itself before the bar of
"No other people of modern times, until Edelman, chairman of the romance languages department of
history will depend in large measure
Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. They have a 10-year-old
the
Israelis, have been required to bear daughter.
on whether the Arab or the Israeli
such
heavy
responsibilities;
none
other
has
version of nationalism triumphs in that
been required to do this . with so few re-
quarter of the globe."
sources under such difficult auspices, sur- Esther Salomon's 'The Fertile Plain'
Then came this tribute to Israel, in rounded by so many dangers. But the _people
Esther Salaman, author of "The Fertile Plain," published by
which Prof. Commager discerned two of Israel have already . performed •a miracle
"major responsibilities which history and it is not surprising that further miracles Abelard-Schuman (404 4th •N.Y. 16), was born in the Ukraine,
studied at Kiev University where she witnessed the social up-
seems to impose upon her and opportu- are expected of them. But if they are to heavals
during the civil war. She became active in Zionisin, went
nities which history spreads before her. vindicate nationalism by proving that even to Palestine in 1920 and worked there as a librarian and
in a
"First she is called upon to serve as
in the Middle East it can be benevolent
a
bridge from the old to the new, to harmonize,
The French Crisis
Prophecy becomes a dangerous occu-
pation in the present state of affairs in
the world.
The Middle East remains the major
danger point in the struggle for world
power, and the French-Algerian situation
hardly enhances the issues.
Israel, surrounded by nearly a dozen
enemies, constantly threatened by trig-
ger-happy Jordanians and Syrians, is
compelled to remain constantly vigilant.
Even the strong friendship that was estab-
lished between Israel and France appears
endangered by the rise to power of Gen-
eral Charles De Gaulle.
Time alone hides the answers to all
the riddles that plague mankind today.
;• if
they are to bridge the East and the West,
the old and the new individualism in the
welfare state; if they are to be educators
and civilizers in. the Middle East; if they are,
in short, to perform further miracles, they
must be assured of favorable conditions in
which to live and function."
Accompanying the great tribute to
Israel is a keen understanding of the
Jewish State's position, a recognition of
the aims and aspirations of the Israelis,
and a frank analysis of its duties.
In the main, Israel has fulfilled many
of the obligations outlined as incumbent
upon a benign state. The numerous sci-
entific projects sponsored by the Israelis,
the urge for learning, the desire for
peace, point to a continuing effort in
the direction of a nationalism that will
be a blessing for the Middle East and for
all mankind.
cooperative colony.
In 1921 she returned to the Ukraine, managed to rescue her
family and sent them off to Palestine and herself went to Cam-
bridge, England, to do physics research. She was married in 1926
to Dr. M. H. Salaman, who is engaged in cancer research in
London, and they live there with their four children. Mrs.
Salaman has written another published novel, is working on a
third and has published poems she has translated from the
Russian together with the poet Frances Cornford.
An understanding of this family background is necessary
because it explains the plot of "The Fertile Plain." The novel
is the story of a young girl among non-Jewish Russian class-
mates. It reads almost like an autobiography. It gives excellent
reactions to conditions in Russia, to friendships between Jews
and non-Jews, to the life of Jews under the Czars and to the
rejoicing that accompanied the knowledge that liberation irom
tyranny had come with the revolution of 1917.
Mrs. Salaman's reactions may have been summed up iiri a
single sentence in her book: "A Gentile who has loved one good
Jew can never be an anti-Semite, and a Jew who has loved one
good Gentile is never again mistrustful of Gentiles." It . may be
a debatable attitude, but that's Mrs. Salaman's in "The Fertile
Plain" in which she makes strides forward as a writer and earns
being watched for ever-improving style and contents in the novels
we are promised from her pen.