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."