Come in and Share 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 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 0 ffic,, Detroit, Mich. under act of Congress of March • 187:. PHILIP SLOMOVITZ Editor and Publisher SIDNEY SHMARAK Advertising Manager CARMI M. SLOMOVITZ Circulation Manager FRANK SIMONS City Editor Sabbath Scriptural Selections This Sabbath, the fourth day of Adar II, 5719, the following Scriptural selections will be read in our synagogues: Pentateuchal portion, Pekude, Ex. 38:21-40:38. Prophetical portion, I Kings 7:40-50. Licht Benshen, Friday, March 13, 6:18 p.m. VOL. XXXV. No. 2 Page Four March 13, 1959 Propaganda Mills Grind Messages of Hatred: World Jewry Must Pursue Humanitarian Aims For fully a decade, Jews who had re- sided in Moslem countries were on the run. Escaping from persecution, their very lives endangered, robbed of their possessions, they were forced to abandon their homes and their properties. Their ancestors had lived in the lands they be- lieved to be their motherlands for a thousand years, but they suddenly were deprived of all semblance of security. The Moslem rulers encouraged their flight. They were to be rid of at all costs, their possessions were to be acquired by the despots from whom the dispossessed Jews sought escape, and the exodus was on so large a scale that Jews from Mos- lem lands who now reside in Israel num- ber at least 400,000. But when a new phase of Jewish emi- gration began last October from another area of unhappiness for Jews, from Com- munist-dominated Romania, Arab rulers began to protest. They exaggerated and sought to give their downtrodden masses the impression that a million Jews were massing to get to Israel. They protested to Soviet Russia, to Romania and even to the United States. * * * While the influx of immigrants from Romania into Israel continues, there are recurring rumors that it may yet be cur- tailed, possibly as a result of Soviet Rus- sian policies to prevent the exodus of Jews from behind the Iron Curtain. Rom- anian authorities already have linked the migration of Jews to Israel to "imperi- alist sources"—a common term frequent- ly used by Communists when they refer to Zionists — and the charge has been made that Israel is seeking to inspire rifts between the Communist bloc and the United Arab Republic. Linking Israel's Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion to "dirty and dishonest" propaganda methods, the official Roman- ian press agency Agerpress has accused Israel of having made the claim that 300,000 Romanian Jews had registered for settlement in Israel, and as a counter- charge the Romanian official statement declares that at the last public Romanian census only 146,262 persons had register- ed as Jews and that only a small number had declared their desire to settle in Israel. * * * What are the facts? There were 850,- 000 Jews in Romania before the Nazis took control of the country. When Hitler was ousted from there in 1944, 400,000 of them had perished at the hands of the Nazis. Of the remaining 450,000, 100,- 000 went to Palestine immediately after the end of the war and another 100,000 settled in Israel during the years 1949 and 1950, when their emigration was per- mitted by Romania. But the doors were shut to possible exit for the remaining quarter of a million Jews by Romania's orders of 1951. It was not until Septem- ber 1958 that the sudden reversal of pol- icy made it possible for Romanian Jews to apply for and to be granted exit visas. Thus, the new exodus began. As of now, more than 25,000 Romanian Jews already have settled in Israel in the new wave of emigration from that unhappy land, and only the cruel interference on the part of Soviet Russia and the protests from Nasser and his associates may stand in the way of continued emigration. The fact is that the Jewish Agency, which is supervising the settlement of the Romanian Jews after they land either in Austria or Yugoslavia, upon their de- parture from Romania, has claimed only a figure of 100,000 for those who are ex- pected to settle in Israel-this year. Some Israelis have contended that 150,000 Romanian Jews may eventually be moved from behind the Iron Curtain. This in no sense corresponds with the officially un- derestimated Romanian Jewish popula- tion figure of 146,262 or with the exag- gerated Nasser figure of a million Jews massing to get to the Jewish State. * * * But the propaganda mill is grinding and the Soviet obstacles to Jewish emi- gration, erected as means of strengthen- ing the Khrushchev-Nasser a l l i a n c e, emerges as a mighty threat to Jewish hopes for liberation. The Soviet and Arab radios are thundering attacks on Zionism, and every means at the disposal of the enemies of Israel is being utilized to in- terfere with the rescue efforts. All sorts of charges are being leveled at Israel and at Jewry. The accusations are made that the new migration move- ment is a military scheme to strenghten Israel. While Romanians have claimed that the permission granted to Jews to leave their country was motivated on "humanitarian grounds" — to facilitate the reunion of Romanian Jews with their relatives in Israel — the fact remains that there is not a scintilla of compassion for the • unfortunate people whose posi- tion has been made so difficult under communism and who communists seek to oust from their society in order to ac- quire their jobs, their homes, the posses- sions they had retained in spite of all handicaps through the years of despair and struggle during and after the tragic war, first under the Nazis and then under the equally discriminating communists. This is how the cards stack up at this point. It is difficult enough for Israel to tighten its economic belt in order to be able to absorb the persecuted masses. It is challenging enough for world Jewry to be placed in the position of providing hundreds of millions of dollars that are so vitally needed to provide for the emi- gration of large masses of our kinsmen who are virtually being forced out of their homelands, each with a limited amount of poundage of personal posses- sions. On top of it all, there are the inter- ferences from men of ill-will, from the political opportunists for whom Jewish lives are cheap pawns in the struggle for world power. * * * Fortunately, the people of Israel are undaunted by what is transpiring in the propaganda factories. Fortunately, also, world Jewry recognizes its responsibility and we expect that the response to the needs of the Romanian Jews and to all others who may seek exit from the com- munist and other infernos will be com- mensurate with the needs of the afflicted people. Israel carries on and is ready to re- ceive tens of thousands of new arrivals. Our answer to those who are playing the inhuman game of the Moslem and com- munist propagandists must be that we are determined to support the emigrants and to uphold the hands of the builders and defenders of Israel, at all costs. Many Laughs Provided in 2-Volume `Bumper Crop' by Bennett_ Cerf Tall tales and tongue twisters, stories about farmers and politicians, puns about Hollywoodians and people in all walks of life, provide a thousand laughs in Bennett Cerf's "Bumper Crop," published by Doubleday. It is a two-volume hilarious collection of anecdotes about famous people and the man on the street, about the psychiatrist and every conceivable practitioner of any imaginable art. Incorporated into these two volumes are Cerf's five best sellers—"Shake Well Before - Using," "Try and Stop Me," "Laughter Incorporated," "Good for a Laugh" and "The Life of the Party." * * There is a laugh in store for the reader on every page. Many of the stories have been heard before: after all, they already have been told by Cerf, in his books and in his published columns. Nevertheless, most of them continue to draw chuckles. Cerf is such an excellent storyteller that even in repeating his tales he arouses mirth. For instance, there is the story about Heifetz: "Rumor is that a pedestrian on 57th Street, Manhattan, stopped Jascha Heifetz and inquired, 'Could you tell me how to get to Carnegie Hall?" 'Yes,' said Heifetz. 'Practice.' " Or this one about a noted Yiddish actor: "Robert Harris, known to millions for his TV characterization on 'the Goldbergs,' once played a season in support of the Yiddish star, Maurice Schwartz. Harris played the part of Schwartz's . attorney. One scene called for him to sit. down at a table and breathe a heavy sigh. Opening night he sighed so heavily he blew out eight candles on the table. As the curtain dropped, Schwartz whispered angrily, 'Stop padding your part!' " The George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart stories are among the amusing portions of the collection that contains so , much ma- terial that a review of "Bumper Crop," no matter how long, could not possibly give the reader an indica- tion of the wealth of the books' contents. The best known authors, scientists, ar- tists, athletes, barbers, soldiers, musicians, edi- tors, columists a n d cartoonists pass in re- view in the pages of the Cerf volumes. Mark Twain is well represented here. So is Albert Einstein. So also are well - known politicians. Cerf re- lates: "Somebody once asked the late Huey Long if he thought we would ever have facism Bennett Cerf in the United States, `Sure we will,' predicted Long, 'only we'll call it anti-facism!'" * There is a lesson for the reader in not taking offense at certain approaches to storytelling, as in this one: "A raconteur in Haifa began a funny story at a dinner party with the standard introduction, 'It seems there were two Jewish gentlemen . . . ' A sensitive guest objected. 'Why,' he demanded, `do so many stories begin "once there were two Irishmen," or "Once there were two Jews"?' Okay,' soothed' the raconteur, `I cetrainly intended no offense. Let's say there were two Chinese, named Ling Pu and Fo Wang. So, Pu and Wang were hustling over to the synagogue for a bar-mitzvah ceremony . Bennett Cerf advises how not to tell a story, and the reader may thereby acquire the art of how to tell one properly. Packed-full of humor about authors is the lengthy "book review" section in the second volume. Sholem Aleichem's "The Old Country" is quoted, as well as the advice given by the great Jewish humorist to a lovesick Lothario: "Remember, my boy, you can marry more money in five minutes than you can make in a lifetime." There are 1,465 pages in these two volumes, and there are nearly as many laughs packed into them as there are pages.