Israel's Serious Needs

THE JEWISH NEWS

issue of July 20, 1951
Incorporating the Detroit Jewish Chronicle commencing with

Member American Association of English-Jewish Newspapers, Michigan Press Association, National
iliditorial
Association
Published
every . Friday by The Jewish News Publishing Co., 17100 West Seven Mile Road, Detroit 35,

VE 8-9364. Subscription $5 a year. Foreign $6.
Entered as second class matter Aug. 6. 1942 a't Post Offic.., Detroit, Mich. under act of Congress of March
a, 1874

PHILIP SLOMOVITZ

Editor and Publisher

SIDNEY SHMARAK

Advertising Manager

FRANK SIMONS

CARMI M. SLOMOVITZ

City Editor

Circulation Manager

Sabbath Scriptural Selections
selections
This Sabbath, the twenty-second day of Shevat, 5719, the following Scriptural
synagogues:
in
our
be
read
will
Prophetical portion, Is. 6:1-7:6; 9:5-6.
Peutateuchal portion, Yitro, Ex. 18:1-20:23.

Licht Henshen, Friday, Jan. 30, 5:26 p.m.

VOL. XXXIV. No. 22

January 30, 1959

Page Four

The Major Campaign Admonitions

oftOUG

19

4

Once again, a handful of Detroit Jews
has set the pace for generosity at the
opening session of the Allied Jewish Cam-
paign this week. The large sum pledged
by a small group of our leading citizens
appears to augur well for the current
drive. Accompanying it, however, is the
admonition to the community at large
that unless all of the members of our Jew-
ish community are prepared to contribute
in similarly generous fashion, grave prob-
lems will face not only the dispossessed
who must be rescued this year, but our
own local agencies as well.
Only in the months that followed the
rebirth of Israel have we faced a chal-
lenge as serious as the one that confronts
us today in the task of rehabilitating and
resettling large numbers of oppressed
Jews. It is becoming increasingly evident
that as many as 100, 00 new settlers may
have to be provided for in Israel this year.
The young state, battling against serious
odds, on guard against antagonistic neigh-
bors who constantly threaten her exis-
tence, is keeping her doors open to the
large numbers of Romanian Jews who are
awaiting visas to migrate to Israel. Many
Jews also are expected to receive permis-
sion to leave other lands from behind the

Iron Curtain, and the responsibilities that
go with such migrations are growing in
t sR.eke t
immensity.
The United Jewish Appeal, the major
philanthropic agency that is charged with
the duty of resettling these people, must
et.,..•• •
have an additional $100,000,000 to be able
to provide for the needs of these emigres.
In addition to this tremendous need,
our local and national agencies are faced
AiieLe je
with the danger of taking cuts in alloca-
tions unless. last year's campaign income
is greatly increased. This means that De-
troit Jewry's contributions to the Allied Noteworthy Biographical Sketches
Jewish Campaign, whose chief beneficiary
is the UJA, must be doubled. In the event
of the mere matching of last year's in-
come, many plans for the expansion of
Dr. Leo Jung, one of the most distinguished leaders in the
our educational and health programs and world in the ranks of orthodoxy, has earned the gratitude of our
for increased aid to the aged and the sick people for his numerous scholarly works, his "Jewish Library"
series being among the most informative .- ---
will have to be scrapped.
It is as simple as all that: that unless in matters relating to our traditions and
historical developments.
sums vastly larger than last year's are to major
In 1953, this reviewer had occasion
contributed to the Allied Jewish Cam- to express
his enthusiasm over Dr. Jung's
paign, those who are escaping from per- "Jewish Leaders"—the impressive volume
secutions and humiliations will be denied with a score of biogr aphical sketches that
assistance and our local institutions will threw light on a number of our great
personalities and the movements they
be greatly handicapped.
Will our community respond to the represented and advocated.
Dr. Jupg's latest work, "Guardians of k
needs of the hour in the present cam-
Our Heritage," pursues the latter task and;
paign?
provides us with very valuable infor-

■

Guardians of Our Heritage

•

•

'For Humanity s Sa ke --Faith in the UN

Defying logic and reality, Israel's ene-
mies appear determined to utilize the
tragic position of the Arab refugees to
such an extent that it should serve to
undermine Israel's non-too-secure position.
Regrettably, United Nations Secretary
General Dag Hammarskjold appears to be
in so helpless a position that, in his re-
port on his recent Middle Eastern trip,
he stated that Arab-Israel tensions remain
serious due, in part, to Israel's refusal to
cooperate with UN armistice machinery.
His opinion of Israel-Arab relations was
described as "somber" and while he said
there is a "will to peace," he stated:

"I am sorry to note that the armistice
agreements and armistice machinery are just
as much under a cloud as they have been in
the past few years. The mixed armistice
commissions are not functioning in the way
they should function. One of the parties
(Israel) does not participate, and there are
also other elements which are unsatisfactory
in the picture."

Why is Israel not cooperating with
some of the UN commissions? The UN
secretary general could not offer explana-
tions, and he probably would not, as it
would have opened up another contro-
versy. But there were occasions when
mixed armistice commission decisions
were so prejudical to Israel that it would
have been suicidal to continue to cooper-
ate with biased functionaries. On at least
two occasions, Commission members re-
turned to their countries and wrote books
in which they revealed their antagonism
to Israel. Under such conditions, the
Israelis felt compelled to withdraw.
"There are also other elements which
are unsatisfactory in the picture," Ham-
marskjold said. Of course there are such
elements! Israel had offered a plan of ac-
tion to solve the Arab refugee problem,
which is the major stumbling block to
peace and cooperation. But the Arabs are
adamant in their determination to use the
refugees as a weapon against Israel, and
they therefore refuse to abandon the
weapon by solving the refugees' plight.
In an editorial on "Mr. Hammarskjold's

Travels," the New York Times indicated
that "what is mainly wrong in a large
general way, as everybody knows, is that
the Arab states have not yet accepted
the continued existence of Israel, and that
in spite of the UN Emergency Force some
border troubles still occur." The Times
editorial proceeded to state:

A solution might be had if the problem
of some 900,000 Arab refugees could be
equitably solved. Israel has promised to
take back a few of these refugees and to com-
pensate those of the remainder who once had
land in what is now Israeli territory. Since
half of the refugees are under 16 years of
age, it is clear that many of them never lived
in Israel, or lived there only as very young
children. But the Arabs have rejected an
Israeli offer made at last fall's session of
the General Assembly. The refugees con-
tinue to need aid from the U. N. Relief and
Works Agency for Palestine. They subsist on
a total of about twenty-five dollars a year
per capita, of which we pay about '70 per cent,
Britain about 20 per cent and Russia nothing.
The U.N.R.W.A.'s mandate expires in
1960. The United States is on record in favor
of "some more satisfactory means of deal-
ing with the refugee problem than the
mere continuance of the present system."
Our spokesmen have not spelled out what
they really mean.
It is Mr. Hammarskjold's exacting task
to come up with some proposal, or some new
facts, that will not irritate anybody con:
cerned. For humanity's sake we must wish
him luck.

mation regarding 27 very important relig-
ious figures in Jewry. In addition, there
is an informative introduction by Dr. Jung
Dr. Jung
on the subject "The Rabbis and Freedom
of Interpretation," and a valuable essay by Dr. Nima H. Adler-
blum, "Memoirs of Childhood — An Approach to Jewish Phil-
osophy."
This is Dr. Jung's 18th book. He has edited it with great
skill and has again evidenced his appreciation of the major
figures in Jewish religious life in the selection of the rabbinical
authorities and sages chosen for treatment in "Guardians of Our
Heritage." (The book was published by Bloch.)
Dr. Jung not only has chosen the outstanding personalities
who have left an indelible impression on Torah Judaism for
inclusion in this volume: he also has selected the ablest author-
ities to write about the leaders delineated in this volume.
The first essay in the book, Dr. Adlerbium's approach to
Jewish philosophy, is the longest, running 120 pages.
Two of the authors of essays in this book have passed away
since the planning of this work — the late Juda Ari Wohlge-
muth, of Zurich, Switzerland, who wrote about Joseph Leib
Bloch and Joseph Wohlgemuth; and the late Yeshayahu Aviad-
Wolfsberg, M.D., of Jerusalem, who wrote the essay on David
Hoffmann.
In the translation from the Italian by Mitzi Feuerstein,
Chief Rabbi Elio Toaff wrote the essay about Hayyim Joseph
David Azulai (1724-1806), the eminent scholar who was known
as HIDA, from the initials of his name. It is a brief but a
very thorough analysis of the sage's work.
Nathan Hacohen Adler (1741-1800) is the subject of an
essay by Josef Unna, of Kfar Haroeh, Israel. Rabbi Walter S.
Wurzburger, of Toronto, is the author of the sketch about the
famous Rabbi Hayyim of Volozin (1749-1821).
Of special interest is the essay on Rabbi Tzevi Hirsch
Kalisher (1'795-1874), by , Prof. Jacon Katz, of the Hebrew
University in Jerusalem, in a translation from the Hebrew by
Nathaniel Zelikow. Kalischer was the famous rabbinical propa-
gator of Zionism a generation before Herzl.
Another distinguished personality, Rabbi Jacob Ettlinger
(1798-1871), is described by Rabbi Akiba Posner of Jerusalem
and Dr. Ernest Freiman of New York in an essay translated from
the Hebrew by Rabbi Leonard Rosenfeld.
A great American Jewish personality, Rabbi Isaac Leeser,
who was the founder of one of the early American Jewish
periodicals, "Occident," is the subject of an essay by Prof.
Moses Isaacs and Nancy I. Klein.
The great orthodox leader, Samson Raphael Hirsch (1808-
1888) is presented in an able study by Mordecai Breuer, of
Kfar Eliyahu, Israel.
Especially deserving of attention is the description of
the life and works of the late Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv, Moshe
Avigdor Amiel (1833-1945), written by Solomon Kerstein,
editor of Bloch Publishing Co.'s Literary Bulletin.
Other personalities who are evaluated in this book are
Isaac Elhanan Spector, Simha Zessel Broida, Joseph Tzevi Halevi
Duenner, Abraham Jacob Gershon Lesser, Hirsch Hildesheimer,
Samuel Hirsch Margulies, Tobias Lewenstein, the late Chief Rabbi
of Israel Avraham Yitzhak Hacohen Kook, Ernest Weill, Ezra
Munk, Nehemiah Anton Nobel, Aaron Lewin, Menahem Ziemba
of Praga, Isaac Breuer, Joseph Carlebach and Eliahu Eliezer

The wish "for humanity's sake" should
be shared by all responsible people. But
there are too many irresponsible elements
standing in the way of peace and genuine
cooperation to assure a speedy solution
to the Middle Eastern problem. On top of
it, to refer again to the New York Times
editorial, "our spokesmen have not spelled
out what they really mean."
Instead of improving, the situation
appears to be getting worse. Its aggrava-
tion has made Mr. Hammarskjold's posi-
tion more difficult. It is to be hoped that
faith placed in the UN and in the leaders
among its members will not prove fruit-
Deessler.
less—"for humanity's sake."