The UN Is the Victim
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 Office, Detroit, Mich. under act of Congress of March
3, 1879.
PHILIP SLOMOVITZ
Editor and Publisher
SIDNEY SHMARAK
Advertising Manager
CARMI M. SLOMOVITZ
Circulation Manager
FRANK SIMONS
City Editor
Sabbath Scriptural Selections
This Sabbath, the ninth day of Tebet, 5720, the following Scriptural selections will be read
our synagogues:
Pentateuch-al portion, Vayiggash, Gen. 44:18 -47:27. Prophetical portion., Ezekiel 37:15-28.
i41
Licht Benshen, Friday, Jan. 8, 5 p. m.
VOL. XXXVI. No. 19
Page Four
January 8, 1960
An Israeli Arab's Plea for Amity
If the views of Rustum Bastuni, the
Haifa architect who was one of the Arab
members of the second Israel Knesset, are
a criterion, there is hope for the happiest
relations between Jews and Arabs in Is-
rael.
Bastuni, who is a member of the edi-
torial board of New Outlook, an important
magazine published by Jews and Arabs in
the interests of peace between the two
kindred peoples, is editor of the Arab
literary journal, El Fajr. Now visiting in
this country, Bastuni said, upon his arrival
in New York, that there are elements in
Arab states "who sincerely know the value
of peace with Israel, but they unfor-
tunately do not represent formal policy."
He maintained that there are "pro-
gressive elements" in the Middle East who
understand that their best interests would
be served by collaboration with Israel and,
speaking as a loyal Israeli, expressed the
hope that cultural links will be forged be-
tween Jews and Arabs in and outside of
Israel.
While he was not too optimistic about
an early peace, he nevertheless pleaded
-
for it and advocated it. He deplored the
exploitation of the refugee issue by Arab
states, who, he said, "have used the refu-
gees as a pressure group and have made
no real effort to solve the problem or im-
prove their situation."
Thus, he branded both Nasser and
Hussein as totalitarians who are adhering
to an anti-Israel policy "to evade solution
of internal issues."
Bastuni speaks with affection for his
Israeli homeland, and he advocates peace
like a humanitarian. It is to be hoped that
all his Arab fellow-Israelis will speak in
Israel and among their kinsmen as he
does in this country. That may be one of
the ways of showing the world outside the
war-infected Middle East that Israel's
Arabs stand side by side with the Israeli
Jews in striving for peace and in planning
for a good future for their entire area. In
that fashion, perhaps, the states that are
now antagonistic to Israel will soon recog-
nize the need for peace, and the hesitant
and fearful in the United Nations will
strive for amity with the zeal necessary
for the attainment of the goal.
Hammarskjold: Appeaser, or Too Trusting?
United Nations Secretary General Dag
Hammarskjold had scores of opportuni-
ties to call the bluffs of Arab potentates
when they were defying the UN decisions
and were breaking agreements with him,
while, at the same time, flaunting inter-
national regulations.
His errors have become apparent as
a result of the latest flagrant pledge-
breaking that has resulted from Nasser's
halting of a Greek vessel carrying Israeli
products to French Somaliland. This was
a shipment that was to have been passed
by Nasser, by agreement with the UN
chief. Hammarskjold was betrayed by
the man who has been appeased just a
bit too long.
It would have been healthier for the
Egyptians, and much saner in the inter-
ests of world peace, to have insisted upon
strict adherence to international law. But
Hammarskjold — and our State Depart-
ment and the World Bank as well—
gambled a bit too much on Nasser and
on so-called Arab good will.
Now appeasement is paying off tragi-
cally. It is not Israel alone who suffers,
but the cause of world peace has been
given a terrible blow.
Major Challenge Facing U.S. Jewry
A report submitted to leaders of com-
munity-sponsored day camps last month
showed that the number of American
Jewish children in the 5-to-14-year range
has increased by 40 per cent in the last
decade.
The report stated that the number of
American children in this age bracket in-
creased from 24,319,000 to 33,901,000
in the last ten years, the number of
Jewish children having increased from
746,000 to 1,040,000.
These figures give us a better oppor-
tunity to realize that too few of our chil-
dren are receiving any sort of a Jewish
education.
Last year's Study of Jewish Education
in the United States, which was conducted
for the American Association for Jewish
Education by Dr. Alexander Dushkin and
Dr. Uriah Z. Engelman, contained the
national figures of enrollment of Jewish
children throughout the country. The
study showed a total of 553,600 of our
children enrolled in schools subdivided
as follows: Weekday Afternoon Schools,
261,295; Sunday Schools, 249,635; Day
Schools, 42,651.
Thus, only a little more than half of
our children are enrolled in all of our
schools, leaving nearly a half million of
our children without any Jewish training
whatever.
This represents our major problem in
community planning. It also points to
the major challenge facing us: that of
giving our most earnest attention to the
needs for increased facilities for Jewish
education, for the training of more teach-
ers, and—this being the most important
angle of all—the urgency of encouraging
parents not to neglect the Jewish educa-
tion of their children.
Yeshiva Annual Event
"It takes leadership to make leaders"
is one of the slogans adopted by Yeshiva
University of New York in the advance-
ment of the programs pursued in 17
schools and divisions at six teaching cen-
ters in New York City.
By providing thousands of its stu-
dents the opportunity to combine a gen-
eral ' college education with Jewish
learning, Yeshiva University is serving
a valuable purpose. Its research in vari-
ous fields, its emphasis on Jewish as well
as general subjects, give the university a
unique position and justify its claim to
being a Jewish university.
Income for its support is secured in
Detroit annually by the sponsorship of a
dinner given in honor of a local leader.
The man to be honored this year—Al
Borman—is gaining a place of eminence
in our community by his devotion to a
number of important local and national
causes, by his interest in and support of
Israeli movements and his adherence to
traditional Jewish principles. A valuable
cause is aided in the course of the
extension of honors to Mr. Borman.
15 Stories, Authors Views in
Gold's 'Fiction of the Fifties'
"Fiction of the Fifties," published by Doubleday, a collection
of stories by eminent writers whose works figured prominently
in short story writing in the past decade, is more than an
anthology of "best narrations."
Herbert Gold, the compiler of the stories, has not only
written a most enlightening essay on the decade of American
writing, on the value of the novel and short story and on the
writer as metaphysician, but he has rendered this especially
valuable service:
He has asked each of the authors of the 15 stories in the
book to answer the question: "In what way—if any—do you feel
that the problem of writing for the Fifties has differed from the
problems of writing in other times? Do you believe that this age
makes special demands on you as a writer?"
There is a variety of answers. For example, Bernard Mala-
mud, who is represented in the book with the story "The Magic
Barrel," wrote:
"Although the Fifties have a Cold War character, I would
say that the problem of writing fiction in this decade is
basically no different from writing in the past. One struggles
alone to achieve art. The age makes no special demands except
as it tends to devalue man; that being so, I work on the
assumption that the opposite is true."
Thus, the approach in gathering the material and viewpoints
of authors and the collector's own scholarly essay make "Fiction
of the Fifties" not only a spendid anthology of short stories but
also, in a sense, give it the status of a textbook for classes in the
study and writing of short stories.
In addition to Malamud's story, Herbert Gold has included in
his book his own story, "Love and Like," and selections from the
stories of Leo E. Litwak, S'aul Bellow, James Baldwin, Anatole
Broyard, R. V. Cassill, John Cheever, Evan S. Connell, Jr., William
Eastlake, George P. Elliott, Flannery O'Connor, J. F. Powers,
Frank Rooney and Harvey Swados.
'Shalom'--NovelAboutJourney
of Nazi Survivors to Palestine
"Shalom," an impressive novel about escapees from Nazism
who are on their way to Israel, published by Little, Brown & Co.
(34 Beacon S., Boston 6), is a noteworthy account of the tensions
that marked the bitter period of resettlement and the era of
rescue.
To understand the novel, it is important that the reader
should know the background of the 35-year-old author, Dean
Brelis. A former Boston reporter and a correspondent for Time-
Life, Brelis, who is a Harvard graduate and who earned a Nieman
Fellowship, went to Israel in 1948 with displaced persons from
a European DR camp he had visited in 1948.
Thus, he had knowledge at first hand to write about the
people in his novel, about the conflicts among them and their
acceptance of the Israeli haven highlighted by the call of peace-,-
"shalom."
The scars that were made on the minds and bodies of the
variety of travelers on the journey described by Brelis at times
appear incurable.
Even the idea of the tour to Israel creates doubt, frustrations
and disillusionment. An American woman who provides the funds
for the journey is at times maligned and distrusted.
The British interference with boats on the way to Palestine,
prior to the rebirth of Israel, is among the obstacles.
But there is an element of peace linked with reconciliation
with reality, based on acceptance of the only available haven for
the rescued—in a Jewish Homeland—that makes the account of
the journey, which always emerges as factual, a triumph for
those seeking rescue.
"Shalom" is a good novel. It portrays ably the pains and
frustrations of sufferers from persecution and leads up to a good
climax of peace which fits so well as the title of the novel.