E JEWISH NE
Michigan
Week
May 15-21
'mut?
W eekly Review
Editorial, Page 4
Events
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Michigan's Only English-Jewish Newspar
VOLUME XXXVI 1—No. 12 1001:joinitJendionin S?lop
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17100 W. 7 Mil
The Detroit Jewish Chronicle
A Bouquet to
Bennett Cerf
The Nefarious
Anti-Israel
Council for
Judaism
Commentary
Page 2
.iDetroit 35, May 20, 1960 $5.00 Per Year; Single Copy 15c
U.S. Christi& iiders Plead for
USSR's Return of . Jewish Rights
NEW YORK, (JTA) Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt, Associate Supreme Court
Justice William 0. Douglas, Thurgood Marshall, Legal Counsel of the NAACP,
and the Rev. Dr. Reinhold Niebuhr, professor of Applied Christianity at Union
Theological Seminary, appealed to world leaders to give serious consideration
to the situation of Soviet Jewry, in a joint statement:
"At a time when the minds and hearts of men are bent toward serious
efforts to enhance understanding among the nations and to advance peace in the
world, we are moved . . . to call attention to an injustice which seriously disturbs
the international atmosphere and which requires humane redress.
"We speak of the discrimination against the Jewish minority in the Soviet
Union — the pattern of differential treatment to which Soviet Jews are subjected
as an ethnic cultural and religious group.
The four distinguished civil libertarians cite the fact that though the Jews
are specificall y recognized as a "nati onaity"
l
in the Soviet Union , "they are the
only group of this kind which since 1948 has been deprived by official policy of
any of the attendant rights accorded to all other nationalities in the Soviet Union."
The statement also notes that religious Jews are hampered in the practice
of their religion by the closing of synagogues and the official ban on the Hebrew
language and a nation-wide federation of religious communities.
"This unhappy situation has been brought into sharp relief by the syste-
matic and organized campaign of Soviet press incitement against Judaism as a
religion and on individual Jews as anti-social elements," the four signers stressed.
They called for the following five steps:
1. Reinstatement of full cultural facilities for the Jewish minority; 2.
Permission for Jewish religious institutions to practice their rites freely and to
establish formal contact with each other; 3. Permission for Soviet Jewish cultural
and religious institutions to establish contact with their counterparts in the outside
world; 4. Permission for Soviet Jews to be reunited with their dispersed kin in
Israel and throughout the world:
, and 5. •- To end the anti-Jewish press campaign.
—
New-Found Judean Papyri
Identified by Prof. Yadin
as Letters from Bar Kochba
JERUSALEM, (JTA) Eleven letters, written by Simon Bar
Koehba, leader of the Jewish revolt against the Roman
Emperor Hadrian in 132 135 A.D., have been found in a cave
near the Dead Sea, it was announced here.
The letters are considered one of the most important
archaeological discoveries in recent years and one of the most
significant ever made in connection with the Bar Kochba
revolt. The archives were found by one of four teams operating
under direction of Prof. Yigael Yadin, in the Judean hills
near the Dead Sea where, tradition holds, Bar Kochba's bands
made their final stand against the Romans.
Prof. Yadin made the announcement at the home of
President Itzhak Ben Zvi, to a group which included Prime
Minister David Ben Gurion, Brigadier Chaim Laskov, the Israeli
Chief of Staff, and other outstanding Israeli personalities.
The 11 letters, written on papyrus, were found, bundled
together, in a woman's leather bag uncovered in a cave high
above the Hever canyon which leads to the Dead Sea.
Seven of the 11 letters, Prof. Yadin reported, had been
opened. Two were written in Greek and the remainder in
Aramaic. Three of the letters were well preserved, with not a
word missing, and three others were fragmentary. The seventh
Itter was in a state of almost complete preservation. Four
letters await opening.
The letters were written by Bar Kochba to his deputy
commander, Yehonatan Bar Baayah. Most of them ordered
Bar Baayah to requisition provisions or to arrest certain
persons and bring them before the commander.
Prof. Yadin (who commanded the Israeli liberation forces
in the war for Israel's independence in 1948 and who frequently
testified that much of his strategy was based on that of the
Jewish generals of old) said he believed that the letters had
been written before the revolt against the Romans had been
crushed and that they had been taken into the hide-out in
the Judean hills by Bar Baayah when he took refuge there.
The Dead Sea find corroborated the traditional view that
Simon Bar Kochba, leader of the Jewish revolt against Roman
rule in Palestine, was a stern, energetic man who insisted on
obedience.
Some of the letters were informally addressed: "From
Shimon Bar Kosba"—the Aramaic form of the Jewish general's
name. Others, more formal, opened: "From Shimon Bar Kosba,
Prince over Israel." They did not carry his signature but were
signed in his name by one of his adjutants.
Prof. Yadin told the gathering that the importance of the
letters had not been immediately realized. Prof. Benjamin
Mazar, president of Hebrew University, announced that more
expeditions were being planned to the caves in the Judean
—
-
-
-
Report Deletion of Anti-Jewish
Scenes from Oberammeraau Play
LONDON, (JTA)—Some anti-Jewishpassages have been
deleted from this year's script to be performed by the Passion
Play participants at Oberammergau, Germany, according to
press dispatches from Bonn.
American historians said that the Passion Play's original
script "repeated some of worst prejudices of medieval and
modern theme, and constituted an attack on both history and
religion."
One of the accusations reported here is that Hans Schwaigh-
ofen, who portrays Judas in the Passion Play, had at one time
drawn illustrations for anti-Semitic leaflets.
Communist Germany Tolerates Ex-Nazis
BERLIN, (JTA)—Ex-Nazis are occupying prominent posts
in the East German (Communist) government, including the
Cabinet, the Judiciary committee of Free Jurists reported.
Communist propaganda has been charging, recently, that
former Nazis occupy high places in the Federal Republic
of Germany. In hitting back, the committee stated that:
East German Minister of Agriculture Hans Reichelt and
Minister of Supply Kurt Merkel are former Nazis. Two other
former East German Cabinet members—former Minister of
He iith Luitpold Steidle and Werner Winkler, ex-Minister for
the Ohel.,:00.1 Industry—resigned only a year ago because West
German sources "revealed their Nazi past.
Rectors of the universities of East Berlin and Griefswald
are former Nazis, as well as the rector of the Teachers Semi-
nary at Potsdam and 46 members of the present East German
parliament
-
Be.n-Gurion. hi New • Battle with Israeli
Orthodox Leaders over Exodus Version.
Direct. JTA Teletype Wire to The Jewish News
JERUSALEM—Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion was embroiled in a hot new contro-
versy Tuesday with Orthodox religious elements over the . new version of the Biblical Story
of the Exodus which he recently expounded at a press conference. But the venerable Premier
was given a 61-6 vote of confidence when the issue was raised Wednesday in the Knesset.
Ben-Gurion said that only 600 Israelites had left Egypt in the exodus and that the Is-
raelites had lived in Egypt only two generations. According to the Bible, the Israelites had
remained in Egypt for 400 years and 600,000 of them had participated in the Exodus.
The newspaper Hambodia, organ of the Ultra-orthodox Agudat Israel, denounced Ben-
Gurion's views as "heresies" and refused to publish them. It called him "a violator of the
most sacred Jewish values, the Bible." Dr. Jacob Unterman, Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv, also
sharply attacked Ben-Gurion for his views.
Ben-Gurion asserted that even the Septuagint version of the Bible said that the Israelites
had spent 430 years in both Egypt and Canaan--not only in Egypt. Chapters of the Pentateuch
and Chronicles, he said, described Moses as the son Amram, the son of Kehat, the son of Levi.
Since Levi and Kehat were among those who left for E gypt with Jacob, Ben-Gurion argued, it
appeared
e d that only Amram and Moses had been born in Egypt and therefore the stay of the
Israelites in Egypt had only been for two generations.
•
As to the numbers participating in the exodus, Beti-Gurion said, each on of Jacob
brought up 50 descendants in two generations. By simple arithmetic, he said, that brought the
number of Israelies at the time of the exodus to 600. He suggested that the Biblical figure of
600,000 was the result of misreading
he t Hebrew word "elef", meaning "thousand" , but which
could also mean "family".
Report Pressure . from ARAMCO, Friends
Milton Friedman, the Jewish Telegraphic Telegraphic Agency's Washington correspond-
ent this week disproved Sen. J. W. Fulbright's charges against alleged Jewish "pressure"
groups, and points, on the contrary, to pressures that were exerted in Washington by
ARAMCO and the so-called American Friends of the Middle East, under the chairmanship
of Dr. Edward L. R. Elson, President Eichenhower's pastor. Friedman described one such
AFME meeting at which:
.
"Arab speakers included Abdul Rahman Azzam, first secretary-general of the Arab League
and others. Circulating about the Institute sessions was wealthy Dr. Harold N. Arrowsmith
of Baltimore, long interested in Jewish "conspiracies." He once provided neo-Nazi Lincoln
Rockwell with printing press equipment, virtually putting Rockwell in the bigotry business.
"The one-sided anti-Israel propaganda forum featured one panel that could have been
staged in Cairo. Israel was denounced by the panel, which included a number of professional
Arabs but not a single spokesman for the Israeli side. : . .
"An Israeli diplomat in the audience . . . charged that the conference had become a 'trial'
of Israel. . . . A few non-Jews agreed that the whole business was ridiculously biased. .
"Using a guise of respectability and alleged objectivity, the Institute claims to strengthen
American understanding of the Middle East. A 'life member' is . . . Secretary of State Herter.
"The oil companies recently increased support of the Institute. A number of fair-minded
and objective members were dropped from the Institute's board of directors. They were
replaced by Arab partisans like Bayard Dodge and oilman Kermit Roosevelt.
"The Institute's funds come from ARAMCO. Standard Oil, Atlantic Refining Co., Socony
Mobil Oil, Gulf Oil, the Ford Foundation, Chase Manhattan Bank, International General Elec.
tric, International Telephone and Telegraph, First National City Bank of New York and others.