E JEWISH NE Michigan Week May 15-21 'mut? W eekly Review Editorial, Page 4 Events (") Michigan's Only English-Jewish Newspar VOLUME XXXVI 1—No. 12 1001:joinitJendionin S?lop ,,•4 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.