The Mounting Menace
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
Stiitorial 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, 1942 at Post Offic,, Detroit, Mich.. under act of Congress of March
3, 1879.
PHILIP SLOMOVITZ
Editor and Publisher
CARMI M. SLOMOVITZ
SIDNEY SHMARAK
Circulation Manager
Advertising Manager
FRANK SIMONS
City Editor
Sabbath Hol Hamoed Sukkot Scriptural Selections
This Sabbath. the twentieth day of Tishri, 5719, Sabbath Hol Hamoed Sukkot, the
following Scriptural selections will be read in our synagogues.
Pentateuch& portion, Ex. 33:12-34:26. P rophetical portion, Ezekiel 38:18-39:16.
Licht Benshen, Friday, Oct. 3, 6:17 p.m.
Scriptural selections for Concluding Days of Sukkot
Pentateuch& portions: Shernini Atzeret, Monday, Deut. 14:22-16:17, Num 29:35-30:1;
Sinthat Torah, Tuesday, Deut. 33:1-34:12. Gen. 1:1-2:3., Num. 29:35-30:1. Prophetical portions:
Monday, I Kings 8:54-66; Friday, Joshua 1:1-18.
VOL. XXXIV. No. 5
Page Four
October 3, 1958
'Your Newspaper Guards Your Freedom!'
During National Newspaper Week,
being observed this week, Americans are
asked to take into consideration again
the values of a free press, without which
our freedoms, even in great democracies
like ours, would be imperilled.
"It is the press of the United States
which keeps our democracy alive and
vital," President Theodore Roosevelt
admonished our people.
Contrasted with our principles and
with this view, to which all clear-thinking
people adhere, is the following viewpoint
that was expressed in 1920 in behalf of
the dictatorships by Nikolai Lenin:
"Why should freedom of speech and
freedom of the press be allowed? Why.should
a governinent which is doing what it believes
to be right allow itself to be criticized? It
would not allow opposition by lethal weapons.
Ideas are much more fatal things than guns.
Why should any man be allowed to buy a
printing press and disseminate pernicious
opinions calculated to embarrass the govern-
ment?"
If ever people doubted the values
of democratic living and the rights that
are cherished by freedom-loving people
in communities that are blessed with a
free press, their misconceptions should
be dispelled, by the Leninian statement.
National Newspaper Week of f e r s
another contrast. Welles Hangen, in a
report from Cairo to the International
Press Institute, reveals that "the first
fruits of union with Egypt have all but
choked the Syrian press."
Hangen, whose report has just been
made public by World Jewish Affairs,
points out that "Damascus, which pro-
claims itself the oldest continually in-
habited city in the world, is in acute
danger of losing its newspaper voice to
Cairo." He reveals the following:
"Syrian newspapers now face subsidized
competition from the big Cairo dailies.
"All major Cairo dailies now have news
and circulation offices in Damascus. Several,
such as 'al-Akhbar'. publish special Syrian
editions using material cabled or telephoned
from their Damascus bureaus.
"In June the Egyptian newspapers cut
their newsstand price in Damascus to 15
Syrian piasters (just over four cents), equal
to what most Syrian dailies sell for. This
move prompted indignant protests of unfair
competition from already hard-pressed Syrian
publishers. Four Damascus dailies in partic-
ular began giving vent to their grievances
early in July in a spate of angry editorials
against Egypt's press 'war'.
"The invasion of the Syrian market by
the Cairo press has slashed advertising rev-
enue as well as circulation for all Damascus
dailies. Already `al-Sham', a moderately
nationalist Damascus morning paper, has sus-
pended publication. A number of Syria's
dailies and several of its dozen weeklies are
now_ appearing erratically. Only one Damas-
cus newspaper, 'al-Ayyam', organ of the
business community, now publishes eight
pages a day. All others are reduced to a
slender four.
"Reports from Cairo say the redundant
publishers and their staffs may be absorbed
in the Syrian branch of President Nasser's
expanding propaganda machine. Four Damas-
cus dailies are reputedly marked for merger
into a new newspaper to be called `al-Wihda'.
Seven others are slated to disappear entirely.
The three strongest Damascus papers, none
of which enjoyed a daily circulation last year
exceeding 9,000 copies, have vowed to keep
up the fight. They include `al-Ayyam', the
most prosperous; 'al-Rae al Aam', often a
mouthpiece for Syria's dissolved but still
powerful Baathist party; and 'al-Nour', the
Communist organ. Other Damascus dailies
sold only 1,200 to 2,500 copies a day before
union with Egypt. Some now complain their
circulation has dropped 50 percent since the
United Arab Republic was proclaimed in
February.
"The outlook is even worse in Aleppo,
Syria's largest city and major industrial cen-
ter. The ministerial committee is reported to
have advised the city's seven daily news-
paper publishers to form a single corporation
to publish one newspaper.
"Two dailies in Horns and two in Hama
are now slated for extinction. A single news-
paper will serve the entire H.oms-Hama area
at the expense of its three less fortunate
colleagues.
"The fate of the Syrian press is an ironic
lesson in President Nasser's techniques of
political amalgamation. The most vocal advo-
cates of Syrian-Egyptian union have become,
or are about to become, its first casualties."
Thus, the first c as u a l t i es in the
battle between the democracies and dic-
tatorships are the newspapers, and the
moment the press is sacrificed the secur-
ity of human beings is abandoned.
Whether it is in Soviet Russia, whose
people dare not express an opinion, or
in the Nasser-dominated Arab s p h e r e,
dictatorial rule is a warning that freedom
of speech will be doomed, that there will
be a controlled press, and that all vestiges
of libertarianism will be destroyed.
Once again, National Newspaper
Week rallies our people in support of a
free press under the slogan: "Your News-
paper Guards Your Freedoms!" Once
again Americans are invited to take into
consideration the definition of our press
by Ralph Waldo Emerson, who said:
"We have the newspaper, which
does its best to make every' square inch
of land and sea give an account of
itself at your breakfast table."
Your newspaper provides you with
the facts that lead to a knowledge of the
truth, by way of which we can all support
the most humane principles, while bring-
ing to light the element that should be
Condemned when indecency creeps into
our midst.
Indeed, the newspaper defends the
right of all people to know all the facts
about all issues. Through a free press,
by means of the printed word which can
not be erased, the peoples in democracies
are provided with the strongest weapon
in defense of their liberties.
More power to the un-muzzled press
whose chief aim is to prevent the people
from being muzzled.
Round Table Chairman
The Detroit Round Table made a good
selection in the appointment of Nate S.
Shapero as its Jewish co-chairman.
As a civic leader who has taken a deep
interest in our community's major under--
takings, as a leader also in the Jewish
community, and as a generous contri-
butor to important causes, he has played
a vital role in our community.
His numerous activities included the
•chairmanship of the 1946 Allied Jewish
Campaign. He continues to take a deep
interest in the Weizmann Institute in
Rehobot, Israel, having instituted the
local Weizmann Committee in 1940 when
he was host to Dr. and Mrs. Chaim Weiz-
mann.
The Round Table will surely gain
from his leadership. His selection is a
fine choice for succession to the late
Henry Wineman, who had devoted him-
self to the chairmanship of the good will
movement for many years.
A Chronicle of Heroism
'Siege in Hills of Hebron':
Story of Etzion Bloc Battle
In the course of creating valuable groups of settlements in
preparation for the establishment of the Jewish State of Israel,
colonists purchased land near Hebron and formed the Etzion
Bloc.
It was one of the most dangerous areas for Jews in Palestine.
The settlers constantly were harassed, but they held fast to the
area because it was defensively valuable to Jerusalem.
Whn the War of Liberation was fought, the Etzion Bloc
battle was the most tragic. It was marked by great heroism, but
it was the only area to be lost by Israel.
The story of this battle is told in a deeply moving series
of accounts of the struggle, in a book, "Siege in the Hills of
Hebron," compiled and edited by Dov Knohl, a founding member
of Kfar Etzion and one of its few survivors.
*
*
In an introduction to this book, which was published by
Thomas Yoseloff (11 E. 36th, N.Y. 16), Israel's Ambassador to
the U.S., Abba Eban, pays tribute to the "valor and sacrifice in
the hills of Judea ten years ago" and to the "men and women of
simple faith in. an hour touched by tragedy and exaltation."
Eban's two-page essay reviews the background of that
area where "the Etzion Bloc settlements were built amongst the
hills and rocks flanking the road from Hebron to Bethlehem."
He pays honor to the pioneers in that bloc who were "steeped
in the tradition of Jewish faith and dedicated to the vision
of reviving the land and restoring its fertlity." He recalls that
"it was here that Abraham had pitched his tent when be
entered the Land of Promise by Divine command. Here David
had tended his flocks, and the Maccabees had waged their
sublime and desperate revolt against the oppressors of their
faith •
These were "the familiar memories" of the Etzion village
settlers who in a few years "had brought some life to the barren
soil, gathred the first crops, and raised their first families."
When the United Nations adopted the Partition Plan on Nov.
29, 1947, this area was allocated to an independent Arab State."
But Arab violence broke out and the Etzion settlers were "iso-
lated amidst the surge of Arab ferocity."
If
*
*
*
"Siege in the Hills of Hebron" describes the struggle. The
heroes who contributed to this account are listed in the back of
the book — including those who were killed in the battle.
Evaluations of this struggle are appended to this volume.
They were written by• Gen. Yigael Yadin, who was Chief of
Operations of the General Staff in the Israel War of Liberation,
and by Gen. Yieal Alon, former national commander of the
Palmah.
A. glossary of Israeli terms which appear in these accounts
also is appended to the book.
"Siege in the Hills of Hebron" is part of the history of the
new Israel. It is a well told account of heroic battles and will
form an important chapter in the story of the rise of the State
of Israel.
Israeli 'Forms_ of Settlement'.
Evaluated in WZO Paperback
Another paper-backed book issued by the Youth and Hech-
alutz Department of the World Zionist Organization, jointly with
the Jewish National Fund in Jerusalem, provides interesting
information about Israel settlements.
Published under the title "Forms of Settlement" and written
by Efraim Orni, this brochure describes the functions of the
Kvutza and Kibbutz, Moshava and Moshav Ovdim.
The functions of the religious settlements are evaluated
and an essay, "Ingathering of the Exiles," describes the new
immigration movement to Israel. There is a valuable glossary-
index listing important settlements.