THE JEWISH NEWS

A Birthday Toast

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.
Entered as second class matter Aug. 6, 1942 at Post Offic,.., Detroit, Mich.. under act of Congress of March
8, 187:.

PHILIP SLOMOVITZ

Editor and Publisher

SIDNEY SHMARAK CARMI M. SLOMOVITZ

Advertising Manager

Circulation Manager

FRANK SIMONS

City Editor

Sabbath Hanukah Scriptural Selections
This Sabbath, the second day of Tebet, 5718, the following Scriptural selections will
be read in our synagogues:
Pentateuchal portions, Mikez, Gen. 41:1-44:17, Num. 7:48-53. Prophetical portion,
Zechariah 2:14-4:7.

UNIVERSAL
DECLARATION
OF

HUMAN RIGHTS

Licht Benshen, Friday, Dec. 12, 4:43 p.m.

VOL. XXXIV. No. 15

Page Four

December 12, 1958

Human Rights Declaration's Anniversary

Ten years ago, the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights, and its basic articles declare:
"All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are
endowed with reason and consience and should act towards one another in a spirit
of brotherhood. Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this
Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, color, sex, language, re-
ligion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other
status . . . Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person . . . No one
shall be held in slavery or servitude . . . No one shall be subjected to torture or to
cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment . . . Everyone has the right
to recognition everywhere as a person before the
law . . . All are equal before the law and are
entitled without any discrimination to equal pro-
tection of the law . . ."
This may have been only a beginning for
action in behalf of the strengthening of the dignity
of man, in support of equal rights for all. The
Declaration is only ten years old, and the infant
needs stronger teeth and more power to enforce
the ideas for which the United Nations is striving.
But having made the beginning, the United
Nations, and its member nations, have reason to
hope that the ideal for which all mankind must
strive is not far off from complete fulfillment.
There are many obstacles in the path of this
great document. We see them in this country, in
the area torn by racial strife. We witness diffi-
cuties in the path of libertarians behind the Iron
Curtain. The struggle goes on in Africa and in
Asia. But the guiding instrument is at hand. The
philosophy for freedom has been placed on record.
It is one of the major accomplishments of the
United Nations which is itself still in the weaning
stage from childhood, on its way to maturity.
Freedom for all human beings and peace for
all mankind are the aims of the United Nations.
They are attainable aims, and by emphasizing the
great humanitarian principles of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, which was adopted
on Dec. 10, 1948, we reaffirm the entire world's
obligation to fulfill the principles of this great doc-
ument. May it develop into the force so vitally
needed by mankind to assure freedom for all.

Refugee Problem: Challenge. to Obstructionists

in innocuous, often irrelevant matters,
the UN, like other parliamentary bodies,
acts quickly. When basic issues are in-
volved, it is more difficult to get quick
action.
This is especially true of the matter
involving the tragedy of the Arab refu-
gees. Arab propagandists seem deter-
mined even now to keep the issue alive
by maintaining it as a weapon against
Israel. Thus, the half million Arabs who
left Israel in 1948, now number more
than 900,000. They live in proverty, de-
pendent upon relief provided by the
United Nations—mostly with funds com-
ing from the United States — and they
remain unproductive, without a future.
There are vast opportunities for them
in the numerous Arab countries that are
impoverished by a lack of trained man-
power. But it seems more important for
those who pursue the Nasser schemes to
perpetuate poverty and disease than to
come to terms with Israel, which is seek-
ing direct peace negotiations with her
Arab neighbors.
A letter from one of the Arab propo-
gandists in the UN to the New York
Times necessitated an editorial note in
which the Times quoted from Abba
Eban's statement to the Special Political
Committee of the UN:

"In his report to the Eighth Session the
Director (of U.N•R.W.A.), recording the failure
of the Arab Government to follow a like
course, spoke of this single ray of light:
" 'Had it not been for the assumption by
Israel of responsibility for some 19,000 Arab
refugees in Israel at the end of the previous
year, the number would have been still greater.'

"By pursuing a similar program in the
ensuing year and by developing its plan for the
reuniting of families, Israel brought the total
number of Arab refugees integrated into its
economy up to 48,500. lf, in proportion to
their- own population and area, the Arab coun-
tries had adopted a similar attitude toward
refugees on their own soil, this whole problem
would have melted away." (Italics in original.)

It is in relation to the new crisis facing
the Arab refugees that the New York
Times stated editorially:

The United Nations Special Political Com-
mittee is deadlocked on the question of what
to do about the more than 900,000 Arab refu-
gees now existing in the Gaza Strip, in Jordan,
and in smaller numbers in Lebanon and in
Syria. The subject comes up every year when
the Director of the U.N. Relief and Works
Agency for Palestine Refugees reports and
asks for the money he needs.
Israel has just offered to take back an
unstated number of refugees who have rela-
tives in that country and pay immediate
compensation to those who do not go back.
It is clear that relatively few can go back.
The immediate thing to do at this session
of the U.N. Assembly is to get pledges giving
Director Carver the ten cents a day his help-
less wards require.
This country ought again to take the lead.
And we must plan for a final solution that
will preserve the integrity of Israel, promote
peace in the Middle East and bring out of
their long wandering in the wilderness the
900,000 innocent victims of a quarrel that
ought to be ended forever.
Israel is ready and willing to go along with
a plan to end the tragedy of the refugees and
to resolve the Mid-East crisis for the benefit of
all concerned. This is the test that faces the
UN. It is the supreme test that challenges the
sincerity and the ability to act as the stateman
of the world. It also challenges the Arab
spokesmen to end their obstructionism.

Two Works by Dr. Leo Baeck

'God and Man in Judaism
'Christianity and Judaism

'

'

Two important movements have just taken note again of the
life and works of the eminent German Jewish scholar, the late
Dr. Leo Baeck, the Berlin Chief Rabbi who was sent to Theresien-
stadt by the Nazis but whose works survived Israel's enemies:
The Jewish Publication Society has just published his
essays under the title "Judaism and Christianity," and the
Union of American Hebrew Congregations has reissued his
important little book, "God and Man in Judaism."
Thus, very valuable theological and social
studies are preserved and an outstanding Jew-
ish scholar is remembered through his books.
The JPS volume, in which the basic issues
between Judaism and Christianity are evalu-
ated, was translated by Dr. Walter Kaufmann,
professor of philosophy at Princeton Univer-
sity, who also has written a biographical intro-
duction to the book, which was beautifully de-
singed by Elaine Lustig.
Prof. Kaufmann considers the late Dr.
Baeck "one of the most saintly men of our
time." He speaks of his style as "deeply un-
Dr. Baeck
critical" and says "he seems to write as if
he had the truth and merely faced the problem of communi-
cating it."
He tells the story of Dr. Baeck's martyrdom under the Nazis,
of the death of his wife in Germany, of his lectures after his
release from Thereisienstadt in this country, in England, Israel
and Grmany. Prof. Kaufmann's tribute to Dr. Baeck is "He
needs no eulogy. He only needs to be read."
When the JPS decided to publish Dr. Baeck's essays, he
was still alive. Before he died in 1956, he personally selected the
essays to be translated by Dr. Kaufmann. Included in the series
is "Romantic Religion," which had attracted very wide interest;
"The Faith of Paul," "The Son of Man," "Mystery and Command-
ment" and "The Gospel of a Document of the History of the
Jewish Faith."
In his essay on Paul, Dr. Baeck wrote that the faith of this
Christian Apostle was the Jewish faith, that "Paul longed for
the first response to his gospel from his Jewish people." It was
a Jewish background that nurtured Paul, we are told.
"Romantic Religion," one of the longest essays in this book,
deals with the Messianic ideas, with casuistry, with redemption
as represented in Christianity and with the heritage of Christi-
anity from the Old Testament.
"The Gospel as a Document" as a study of comparative
literatures reveals Dr. Baeck as a great authority not only on
the Old Testament but also an the New and an the Gospels.
Deep interest attaches to the foreword to "God and Man"
written by Leonard C. Montefiore who describes the late schol-
ar's sufferings under the Nazis and the proof he provided by
his own example "that his faith did not consist of mere empty
phrases or pious expressions."
Quoting Dr. Baeck, "It is the optimism that is contained
in the decision of God, the optimism that becomes the command-
ment and therefore sometimes demands heroism and martyr-
dom; it is also the capacity and the determination to make the
great resistance, to be zealous and earnest, to do and dare to the
end," Montefiore states: "Reading these words in the light of
after events, one wonders and even one believes that Baeck, a
prisoner in the concentration camp of Theresienstadt, must have
felt that he was proving by his own example the truth of his
words and perhaps felt comforted that by his conduct he deliv-
ered a message more eloquent than any sermon."
"God and Man in Judaism" is one of the major essays by
Dr. Baeck. In it he emphasized the two-fold history of Judaism
— as it affects Jews and as it influenced other religions. "In-
deed," he stated, "a history of the Christian Church might be
written from the point of view of the prominence of the Jewish
element in it."
The late Dr. Baeck was one of the most significant person-
alities of the 20th century. Rabbi, teacher, theologian, heroic
representative of the German Jews during the Hitler era, Dr.
Baeck's life was as eloquent as his words. He devoted his
studies to clarifying Judaism and its theological differences from
Christianity.