THE JEWISH NEWS

Monkey See — Monkey Do !

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

Member American Association of English-Jewish Newspapers. Michigan Press Association, National
identorial Association.
Published every Friday by The Jewish News Puilishing Co. 17100 West Seven Mile Road, Detroit 35,
VE 8-9364. Subscription $5 a year. Foreign 56.
1114•11.,
Entered as second class matter Aug. 6, 1942 at Post Office, Detroit, Mich. under act of Congress of March
I, 1879.

PHILIP SLOMOVITZ

Editor and Publisher

SIDNEY SHMARAK

CARMI M. SLOMOVITZ

Advertising Manager

Circulation Manager

FRANK SIMONS

City Editor

Sabbath Scriptural Selections
This Sabbath. Rosh Hodesh Shet'at. the following Scriptural selections will be read in our

Pentateuchal portion,,.
66 1-24.

Vaera. Er .

6:2-9:3.5.

N11711.

28:9-15.

Prophetical

portion, Isaiah

Licht Benshen, Friday, Jan. 29. 5:25 p.m.

XXXVI—No. 22

Page Four

January 29, 1960

Germany' s Condemnation of Vandalism

Condemnation of West German anti-
Semitic incidents received the unanimous
vote of the West German Parliament. The
declaration. read in the Bundestag by
Prof. Carlo Schmid, acting president of
the Lower House of the German Parlia-
ment, branded the acts of the vandals
"a disgrace. -
Interestingly enough. Prof. Schmid
declared that "the disgrace" was not
diminished by the fact that similar oc-
currences had taken place in other coun-
tries, and he added:
"We. Germans. do not have the right
to point our finger at others. In Germany
under the sign of the swastika, six mil-
lion Jews were murdered. Therefore.
what happens here is more disgraceful
than elsewhere. If these young people
who some people say are responsible
could realize the harm they are doing to
their country. perhaps they would think
twice. These new incidents have brought
back on Germany all the accusations of
evil which we have had to endure in the
past. The Federal Republic is being
smeared in the eyes of the world."
But the American Jewish Committee,
commenting on the Bundestag action, said

it was "gravely disappointed and deeply
concerned" that neither the West German
government nor the Bundestag had pro-
posed a positive, long-range plan of edu-
cation for democracy, and stated that
"condemnation and indignation do not
suffice."
For that matter, it was insufficient for '
Chancellor Adenauer to assert that Com-
munists had a greater role than the neo-
N azis in the anti-Semitic resurgence. The
acts of vandalism were committed by neo-
Nazis, and the blame should go where
it belongs.
As a matter of fact, Prof. Schmid. in '
his statement to the Bundestag. came
closer to the truth when he said that '
what happens in Germany is more dis-
graceful than elsewhere — because the
plague began in Germany. whence also -T"
beg an the holocaust that ended in the
death of six million Jews.
Once again. we are subjected to
eternal vigilance, and it is encouraging
There is cause for special interest in what might ordinarily
to know that the American Jewish Corn
mittee, as well as other Jewish organiza be considered an enigma when one of the world's great mathe-
Lions, are not accepting mere repudia- matical geniuses also produces an interesting novel. This is es-
tions of the German as well as worldwide pecially true when the novel happens to be a good one.
Prof. Norbert Wiener has defied the inexplicable by pro-
scandals with too much complacency.

Prof. Wiener Mathematician.
urns Novelist, Exposes Patent
Chicaneries in The Tempter

-

-

ducing a good novel. His "The Tempter." published by Random
House, is a good narrative. well written. with a revealing theme.
It is a novel about inventors and inventions, about piracy
of patents, the snatching of patents from inventors, the moral
world. In the early 1920s, during the era issues involved and the schemes that are concocted by big bus-
of programs upon Jews in Poland, a few iness.
bigots attempted to introduce the foreign :
"The Tempter" is the story of an able engineer who yields
ideas of hatred in our own community. to the ruthlessness of the industrialists he works for and with.
Jews were molested, and a boycott of Jew - He yields to the "end justifies the means" theory which the
ish shops was started in Hamtramck. A mathematician-novelist exposes as corruption.
To the engineer whose conscience begins to function. the
few Jews got together. went "into the •
enemy camp, - gathered up several of the head of the corporation declares: We've got to move and move
shall have to hurry the patents through the Patent
offenders and beat them up. That was quickly. We I've
considerable drag in Washington . . . We
the end of active anti - Semitism in ourO
shall e have
take
-e the case before the , courts and get a decision
own community: the boycott was called in our favor
't° as s early as we can . . . '
off. and the traditional Hamtramck Polish -
it is evident that Prof. Weiner wrote his novel in order to
Jewish friendships were restored.
expose chicanery. to condemn the snatching of patents from
These experiences do not prove. how- their makerS. to condemn ruthlessness.
There is a warm love story woven into the narrative—a
ever, that the thrashing of culprits is the
solution to a grave problem. It works high level tale that fits well into the charming novel.
The author is an interesting personality. He is the son of
in isolated cases, but it can not serve as
the late Leo Wiener. who was a noted philologist and translator
an established rule.
and who, in', 1899. wrote "The History of Yiddish Literature in
The fact to remember is that even in the 19th Century." an important work that is to this day con-
pre-Israel Palestine, where the defense sidered one of the outstanding authoritative works on the his-
of Jewish settlements was a basic need. tory of the Yiddish language.
"thrashings - could not be established as
His son, Norbert. who was born in Columbia, Mo.. in 1894.
a rule. In the struggle to attain amity entered Tufts College as a child prodigy at the age of 11 and at
with the Arabs, the Jews always practiced 18 received his Ph. D. from Harvard. For 40 years he was a
self-restraint, and it was mainly in the member of the mathematics department of the Massachusetts
days of the Night Raiders, who were Institute of 'Technology. and he recently was named Institute
Professor, a distinction given only three other MIT scholars. He
organized under Brigadier Qrde Wingate. became famOus as "the father of cybernetics," the problem
that there were some retaliations. But as of control and communication in man and machines.
an established rule, Jews practiced self-
Prof. Wiener's novel is interesting and revealing. It deserves
restraint and all activities were in the a large reading public.

Is a 'Good Thrashing' a Cure for Hoodlums?

West German Chancellor Konrad
Adenauer said he was in favor of a
"good thrashing" for hoodlums caught
engaging in swastika painting and in con-
ducting anti-Semitic activities.
In London. where he was attending a
meeting on Christian unity. and where
he preached in Coventry Cathedral, Dr.
Otto Dibelius, Bishop of the German
Evangelical Church. endorsed Dr. Aden-
auer's feelings and approved the thrash-
ing on the spot of young West German
offenders caught in anti-Jewish acts.
These sentiments prove that not all
Germans are villains, that there are re-
sponsible leaders among them who refuse
to condone anti-Semitism, vandalism and
hoodlumism, and that Israel's Prime
Minister David Ben-Gurion had solid
ground to stand on when he declared in
the Knesset last week that "the Germany
of today is not Hitler's Germany."
Nevertheless, the question remains: is
a thrashing a solution for the outrageous
offenses which have spread worldwide?
Is it a cure for hoodlumism. in Germany
or anywhere else?
In a sense, Dr. Adenauer and Bishop
Dibelius are right. There are demented
people whose vandalism can be stopped
only by putting into practice the rule that
ruffians who resort to fisticuffs will only
be influenced by the mailed fist.
On the record, there is a great deal of
data to prove that vandals, ruffians and
pogromists have been stopped in their
tracks by Jew ish defense groups. in many
areas. Jews defended themselves in Rus-
sian, Polish and Lithuanian communities,
and where there were defense corps there
was greater security for the molested.
Jews proved the value of self-defense
and of creating self-protecting movements
in Palestine, in the days when Arab
nomads pillaged Jewish settlements, often
tortured or murdered innocent men,
women and children. When Jews showed
strength and indicated that they would
not permit anyone to trample upon them.
as in the days of defenselessness in the
ghettos, the bandits turned to flight.
There were experiences involving
thrashings in the free communities of the

direction of making friends of the Arabs
rather than of punishing them.
In democratic countries. the estab-
lished legal standards must be respected.
and the law enforcement agencies must
act to prevent hooliganism and vandalism.
What is needed everywhere, in and
out of Germany, but especially in
present-day Germany, is a campaign
to educate the youth, to inform them
about the crimes committed by the
Nazis, with the aim in view of shaming
them into a recognition of the basic
elements of human decency.
While thrashings undoubtedly would
do a lot of good in Germany, where
arrogant youth should be taught not to
imitate Hitler by restoring the swastika
as their symbol and by resorting to the
"hell" salute, they can not apply else
where. And since German officials and
clergymen have endorsed thrashings for
unruly youths, that's all to the good
in Germany.

-

—

Valuable Data on Eilat and
Negev in New Issue of Focus

The latest issue of Focus.' the journal for youth leaders
published by the Youth and Hechalutz Department of the World
Zionist Organization, in Jerusalem, contains two important essays
on the Negev.
Shimon Applebaum is author of the article on "From the
Past to the Future in the Negev," throwing new light on the
southern portion of Israel and its future possibilities.
Of special interest in this issue of Focus, which is edited
by I. Halevy-Levin, is Prof. Joshua Prayer's "Eliat at the Time
of the Crusades." Episodes in the career of Reginald of Chatil-
Ion, the successes of Saladin and the strategic position el
the Aqaba area are reviewed in this important essay.
Six-and-a-half pages of this issue are devoted to the Hebrew
poem by Saul Tchernichovsky, "A Kibbutz Settles on the Land,"
with an equal number of pages devoted to the English transla-
bon of the poem by Sholom J. Kahn.
"The Early Days of Sde Boker." as told to Hadassa, trans-
lated by Israel Schen; "Social Concepts and Values in Biblical
Judaism." by Joseph Heinerngnn. and "In Our Land, In Israel,"
by Z. Y. Anochi, are the outer features in this issue of Focus.

