A Vital Lesson

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 attic'-. Detroit. Mich. under act of Congress of March
;), 187:-

PHILIP SLOMOVITZ

Edit, r and Publisher

SIDNEY SHMARAK CARMI M. SLOMOVITZ

Advertising Manager

Circulation Manager

FRANK SIMONS

'City Editor

Sabbath Scriptural Selections
This Sabbath., the thirteenth day of Heshvan, 5720, the following Scriptural selections
will be read in our synagogues:
Pentateuchal portion, Lekh Lekha, Gen. 12:1-17:27. Prophetical portion, Isaiah 40:2741:16.

Licht Benshen, Friday. Nov. 13. 4:55 p.m.

VOL. XXXVI. No. 11

Page Four

November 13, 1959

Programming and the 'Rigging of It

Congressional investigation of "pro-
gram rigging" should inspire, if it does
nohing else, a deeper interest in all our
communities of cultural planning and the
proper interest that needs to be inspired
among Americans of all faiths and all
stations in life in higher standards of
education.
It has been said in defense of the
"rigging" of the programs that they had
provided "entertainment" for millions of
Americans and that they encouraged an
increasing desire among parents to have
their children learn more about historical
and other facts by emulating the geniuses
who appeared on the sensational TV pro-
grams.
This was a sort of un-natural sensa-
tionalism which developed into a new
form of sensation-seeking in the exposes
themselves, in the popularization of the
investigations during which the former
heroes appeared as the villains who
yielded to temptation.
The latter has its value—in the les•
son it has for those who are willing to
learn the lesson of not being tempted by
get-rich-quick methods.
But the entire issue has a far more
important lesson for those who are re-
sponsible for the planning of 'cultural
programs in our communities_
Much too often, in programming,
there is a tendency to seek the sensa-
tional,. to strive for "entertain rent" re-
gardless of cost and with even less regard
for the caliber of people who are invited
"to entertain us." Too often—and we are
now concerned with Jewish communal
movements—those responsible for setting
up prograths look for "names" to attract
audiences.
While it is most regrettable that it
has become so difficult to secure proper

F

responses to calls for public assemblies,
with the result that community gather-
ings have been poorly attended, we ques-
tion the right of responsible leaders to
make the sacrifice of content in exchange
for audience-pulling names. We have dis-
cussed the problem of programming on
many occasions, and we renew it now
with an expression of deep regret that
there has been a partial abandonment of
certain principles in programming in the
search for the sensational.
Some synagogues have been as guilty
of such an approach as many of our social
groups, and we renew the appeal to them
to revert to policies of educating the peo-
ple rather than merely entertaining them.
On the occasion of the current ob-
servance of Annual Book Month, we wish
to express our sense of concern also over
the choice of books that are being re-
viewed by synagogue and other groups.
Admitting the prevalence of urgent de-
sires on the part of those attending book
review sessions for the recounting of
stories contained in novels that gain list-
ings in "best seller" classifications, it is
our contention that, as the late Lewis
Browne phrased it, history is stranger
than fiction, and book reviewers can find
sufficient material in the history, philos-
ophy„ theology and sociology of our people
to thrill their audiences while inspiring
and instructing them.
Grave errors continue to be com-
mitted in programming in our own com-
munity. Perhaps the "program rigging'?
will serve to- revive an interest in proper
program-making so that false, futile and
misleading entertainments — some of
which are banal and unworthy of our
status as Jews and as American citizens
—may be avoided in the future.

Dr. Dagobert D. Runes is the author of so many books and
is the compiler of so large a number of encyclopedic anthologies
on philosophy and literature, that another voluminous work
appearing under his signature no longer offers the element of
surprise.
Nevertheless, his newest work, "Pictorial History of Philos-
ophy," issued by his • publishing house, Philosophical Library
(15 E. 40th, N. Y. 16), is so impressive that even the readers
who are acquainted with his works will marvel at his ingenuity.
The book carries an- interesting expose of a Nietsche
scandal. Here is an episode that came to light largely through
the- efforts of Dr. Karl Schlechta.
The ill and helpless Nietzsche had been systematically
victimized by an avaricious younger sister who, as early as
1894, appropriated the rights to all his manuscripts and papers,
and for six years at the home of her mother in Naumberg
established - a Nietzsche Archive where she presented the men-
tally disturbed philosopher clothed in white toga as the living
center of the house. .
The sordid issue of the falsification of Friedrich Nietzsche's
correspondence at. the hands of his fanatical younger sister is
dealt with in "The Pictorial History of Philosophy."
Elizabeth Nietzsche,. being the only person with legal
access to the Nietzsche papers, published among others,
spurious, aphoristic material under the title The Will to
Power, in which she interpolated bizarre pan-Germanistie
and anti-Semitic outbursts of her lover (and later, husband),
the high school teacher, Bernhard Foerster. These were at-
tributed to the Nietzsche who had repeatedly authored such
sentences as: "The word anti-Semite is not much more than
to gain support was another proof that a synonym for failure . . . I pity the European brain if we
the Israelis as a whole, including the Ori- were to abstract from it the Jewish mind . . . The self-admira-
ental Jews who comprise half of the coun- tion of the German race-consciousness is almost criminal .. .
try's population, refuse to be misled by Anti-Semitism is the disease of this century . . . I have a
rabble-rousing. The victory for the ruling simple rule of life—to have no traffic with any of these
party was the country's verdict that lying race swindlers."
Foerster prevailed upon Nietzsche's sister to go with him
prejudices are not condoned and will not
in order to found there a new Germany (NUeVa
to
Paraguay
be promulgated. It serves as a signal to Germania), in which they could live out with congenial kms-
Ben-Gurion and his associates to strive men their Wagnerian ideas.
for an amicable solution to a problem
- Irrefutable evidence has been produced by Prof. Schlechta
that was created by unfortunate incidents, and others that Nietzsche's sister erased and even signed out
accompanied by a riot in three areas, and letters addressed to her mother, replacing the original name
to find a way of establishing amity among with her own, and of course changing the signature from "Your
loving son, Fritz" to "Your loving brother, Fritz."
all elements in the population.
The pseudo-Nietzschean maxims of the Beyreuth Circle,
There is no - doubt also that Ben- led by
Foerster, found, in Adolph Hitler and his clique,
Gurion's victory was an endorsement of devout admirers.
his policies of selling small arms to Ger-
The new book is universal. It deals with philosophers of all
many. While the Germans can never be ages, and the author has compiled the most interesting available
forgiven for what had happened during photographs for insertion in this large book.
the Hitler regime, and the Nazi holocaust
There also are, however, important essays explaining the
must never be forgotten, there are cir- extensive text. After "a word to the reader" in an essay of four
cumstances in the arms deal which call pages on "Philosophy, Man and Morals," Dr, Runes devotes the
for realism—in view of the vast German first 44 pages in the book to a discussion of Judaism, Jewish
Talmudists, Cabbalists, etc.
indemnification program and West Ger- philosophers,
essays are historical reviews of Jewish thought
many's apparently serious efforts to stamp and These
learning, of Jewish literary activities, of works of noted
out anti-Semitism in post-war Germany— scholars like Saadia, Ibn Gabirol, Bahya Ibn Pakuda, Mai-
and the position taken by Ben-Gurion has monides, Crescas, Luzzato and many others.
received endorsement as a realistic ap-
Dr. Runes devotes four pages to a discussion of Spinoza
proach to the new State's international and Spinozism and then comments on the episode of Uriel
Acosta, on the Menasseh Ben Israel and Oliver Cromwell period.
relationships.
Israel emerged in glorious form as He then has a- discourse on "Judaism in the Modern World"
which he explains the works of Moses Mendelssohn, Salomon
a democracy from the Nov. 3 election. in
Maimon, Moses Hess, Theodor Herzl, Chief RabbiAbraham
The Israelis are to be congratulated on Isaac Kook, Hermann Cohen, Achad Ha-Am and Martin Buber.
their good sense of political normalcy and
These sections as well as the entire text are fully illustrated.
on their determination to build a truly
Many interesting photographs fill this compact text. The
democratic nation. The good wishes of all author has packed into his work the names and facts about the
liberty-loving people surely go to the new philosophers and philosophies of all ages. He has produced a
truly. interesting book.
government chosen by them.

Israel's Sense of Political. Normalcy

Many implications are conveyed by
the victory at the polls in Israel last week
of the Mapai party and its brilliant leader,
David Ben-Gurion.
The election results, while they in-
creased the strength of the Socialists, in
reality gave endorsements to the moder-
ates in Israel. It was a vote of confidence
for the labor party in contradistinction
to the policies represented by the extrem-
ists both on the left and on the right.
Herut's position in the balloting
should especially .serve as an admonition
to those of Israel's antagonists who con-
stantly harp on the claim that there is
a powerful minority in Israel that seeks
territorial expansion. Many among the
propagandists who speak and write depre-
catingly about Israel, especially a number
of authors of recently published books on
the Middle East, continue to harp on this
in order to prove an unexisting point that
Israelis have their eyes on neighboring
countries. The Nov. 3 election in Israel
completely demolishes this unwarranted
charge.
The JTA analysis of the election
results contends that many Isfaelis voted
for Mapai in order to prevent the rise of
and the "strong arms methods" of Herut
and the emergence of extremist attitudes
of this rightist party. Such a rebuke is
accompanied by a repudiation of claims
of Israel's intentions to expand its terri-
tory at the expense of her neighbors.
The defeat suffered by the Commu-
nists similarly indicated the moderate
trend in Israel. The failure of the dema-
gogues among the North African settlers

Runes 'Pictorial History of
Philosophy Contains Sections
Devoted to Jewish Scholarship