Shavuot, 5720-1960
THE JEWISH NEWS
Incorporating the Detroit Jewish Chronicle commencing with issue of July 20, 1951
Member American Association of English--Jewish Newipapers, 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 serond class matter Aug. 6, 1942 at Post Office, Detroit, Mich. under act of Congress of March
8, 1879.
PHILIP SLOMOVITZ
Editor and Publisher
SIDNEY SHMARAK CARMI M. SLOMOVITZ
Advertising Manager
Circulation Manager
FRANK SIMONS
' City Editor
Sabbath Scriptural Selections
This Sabbath, the ninth day of Sivan, 5720, the following Scriptural selections will be read
in our synagogues:
Pentateuchal portion, Naso, Num. 4:21-7:89. Prophetical portion, Judges 13:2-25.
Licht Benshen, Friday, June 3, 7:42 p.m.
VOL. XXXVII. No. 14
Page Four
June 3, 1960
Our Community's Welcome to Golda Meir
Every visit to Detroit by Mrs. Golda
Meir was an occasion for community-wide
celebration and for hearty welcome to
Israel's distinguished woman leader.
The former Milwaukee school teacher,
who dedicated her life to the Labor Zion-
ist cause prior to the emergence of the
State of Israel, and to the latter, of which
she became a citizen from the moment of
its declaration of independence, is recog-
nized as the outstanding world Jewish
woman leader.
In the numerous posts she held, in
Zionist ranks and Israeli government cir-
cles, she displayed a keen sense of under-
standing of Jewry's problems. She has
proven to be a great Foreign Minister
and a spokesman for Israel.
As Israel's spokesman in the United
Nations, she commanded great respect—
for her perception of world problems, the
manner in which she interpreted her peo-
pie's position and her ability to plead for
justice for Israel.
Mrs. Meir has been and remains one of
the ablest interpreters of her people's
needs, and her appeals for the Israel
Bond campaigns have been among the
most effective ever heard here.
High marks of recognition to her
great achievements will be extended
to her when she receives honorary
degrees, prior to her arrival in Detroit,
from Smith College and the University
of Wisconsin.
Her visit here on June 7 is awaited
with keen interest and in anticipation of
another warm message from Israel.
We join heartily in welcoming Mrs.
Meir to Detroit, and in doing so repeat
our appeal to the community to support Life Story of Noted Yiddish Poet
the Israel Bond campaign and to give
Mrs. Meir the warmest response in her
appeal to Israel Bond purchasers.
Theodor Herzl 'Dispeller of Helplessness'
In a most significant evaluation of the
contributions made by Dr. Theodor Herzl,
who "nourished among the Jews the am-
bition for national dignity and statehood,"
Dr. Emanuel Neumann, one of the most
competent interpreters of the Zionist
idea, in his impressive pamphlet on Herzl
"The Birth of Jewish Statesmanship," de-
clared:
"It had been his task to overcome
the inertia of centuries and set his peo-
ple into motion. Deliberately and with
persistence, he had striven to dispel the
mood of helplessness and dull acquie-
scence in their fate and breathe into
them a new spirit of self-confidence and
the will to achieve . . . . Ultimately, the
Jewish people did not fail him but rose
to the supreme challenge. In the Dias-
pora they rallied about the standard
he had raised. In Israel, 'the Mac-
cabees rose again' as he said, and 'a gen-
eration of wonderful Jews' pitted their
will and faith against six invading
armies—and triumphed."
This tribute, part of a series of pub-
lications issued by the Herzl Institute on
the occasion of the Herzl Centennial, is
worth taking note of, and the entire bro-
chure by Dr. Neumann forms one of the
truly significant evaluations of the life and
work of the modern prophet in Israel, the
founder of the political Zionist move-
ment.
Jewish communities throughout the
world, by observing the Herzl Centennial,
are, at the same time, giving recognition
to the messianic aspects of Zionism and
the historic events that marked the emer-
gence of Israel as the fulfillment of the
Zionist ideal.
The genius of Herzl and the realiza-
tion of the ideals he propagated in the
few years during which he labored to
build up the Zionist Movement can best
gain appreciation by the reading of some
of Herzl's declarations. The Herzl Insti-
tute, and other institutions in Zionism,
have published a rich literature on the
occasion of the Centenary. The following
compilation of excerpts from Herzl's
Diaries are especially worth noting at
this time:
Men are ruled by the simple and the fan-
tastic. It is astonishing—and common knowl-
edge—with what little intelligence the world
is governed.
For a flag men live and die; it is, indeed,
the only thing for which they are ready to
die in masses, if one trains them for it.
To bring the Jews all under one hat will
be a miserable job, although, or rather be-
cause, they each have a head.
The main thing is to show determination.
The moment I doubt, I am grotesque.
In Palestine's disfavor is its proximity to
Russia and Europe, its lack of room for ex-
pansion, as well as its climate, to which we
are no longer accustomed. In its favor, the
mighty legend.
We recognize ourselves as a nation by our
faith.
We are an historical unit—a nation with
anthropological diversities. This also suf-
fices for the Jewish State. No nation has
uniformity of race.
A man who is to carry the day in thirty
years must be considered crazy for the first
two weeks.
I believe the Jewish State-to-be is a world
necessity—and that is why it will come into
being.
We can't foresee the future. Let us go
forward and we shall see.
The foundation of a state lies in the will
of the people for a state.
He who wills something great is in my
eyes a great man—not he who achieves it.
For in achievement luck plays a part.
The chief tenet of my life: whoever wishes
to change men must change the conditions
under which they live.
My testament for the Jewish People: make
your State so that the stranger will feel com-
fortable among you.
The Herzl Centennial serves to remind
Jewry of the vitality of Zionism, not alone
of the significant role it has played in the
past but also of the continuing merits of
the movement and of the obligation to
keep the idea strong as a symbol of the
determined will of Jewry to remain Is-
rael's partner in making the State secure.
Shiffman Clinic Wing
Dedication of the Shiffman Clinic
Wing, at ceremonies on Sunday, with open
house dates set for Tuesday and Wednes-
day, marks an important event on our
community's calendar.
Succeeding as it does the former North
End Clinic, the new wing was made pos-
sible by the generous $500,000 gift of
Abraham Shiffman and the assisting con-
tributions of the Jewish Welfare Federa-
tion, the Federal Government, the Ford
Foundation and the Greater Detroit Build-
ing Fund.
Congratulations are due to Sinai Hos-
pital, on the extension of its services
through the new clinic, the Shiffman
Foundation and those who assisted in
making possible the extension of the local
hospital services. They represent a great
contribution towards fulfillment of De-
troit's health needs.
Morris Rosenfeld's Biography:
Goldenthal's 'Toil and Triumph'
Morris Rosenfeld was one of the great Yiddish poets of the
last generation. He was the interpreter of Jewish hopes and the
painter of his people's woes. He was the singer of paeans to
the aspirations for a homeland by the dispersed and oppressed
masses in Jewry, and therefore must be considered as one of
those who appreciated the Herzlian dream.
His story is told in a very interesting account written by Dr.
Leon Goldenthal, a New York dentist who was enamored with
Rosenfeld's works even before coming to this country. Dr. Gol-
denthal, now in semi-retirement, used his spare time to do
research on the man he learned to admire, and his book, "Toil
and Triumph," published by Pageant Press (101 5th, N. Y. 3)
is the result of his labors.
This reviewer assumes that the biographer is the son-in-law
of Rosenfeld, whose daughter, Rose, is recorded in the book as
having married Dr. Leon Goldenthal.
"Toil and Triumph" is interesting from many points of
view. It relates a story of struggle, of a man who toiled in
factories, yet gained recognition as a poet. It is an account
of a Yiddish writer whose works received acclaim when they
appeared in their English translations.
Some of his best known poems are appended to the
biography. Among the translators were such eminent personal-
ities as Rose Pastor Stokes, Helena Frank, L. Trommer, the
non-Jewess Alice Stone Blackwell, Dr. Felix Adler, the non-Jew
William Dean Howells, Profs. Ashley and Wiener of Harvard
University and many others.
S
In the appendix also are included Rosenfeld's outstanding
prose writings, and a number of the poems he had written
in English.
The eminent historian, Prof. Leo Wiener, who wrote the
best known history of Yiddish literature, took a deep interest
in Rosenfeld and was among those who brought him to widest
attention in literary circles.
Rosenfeld's was not an easy life, and he encountered many
controversies. The most distressing of his quarrels was with
Abraham Cahan, the well known editor of the Forward. There
is an accusation in the book that Cahan followed a Rosenfeld
theme in a poem he had written, and it is possible that the
feud began with that incident.
The story of the major feud with Cahan is dated - in the
biography as of July, 1914, when Cahan is reported to have
called Rosenfeld in and berated him for writing with "too much
gall." Rosenfeld replied in kind. There was abuse and counter-
abuse. and Rosenfeld left the Forward staff. There were others
who feuded with Rosenfeld, but the biographer explains that he
was not a good "mixer" and did not make many friends. He
explains that Rosenfeld had great respect for genuine culture,
but reacted with "strong language" against his critics.
S
In the main, Dr. Goldenthal treats his hero well, commends .
him as an affectionate son, as an "exemplary family man", .
that he "spoke out of his soul" when he wrote about children.
Rosenfeld is pictured as a man who took great pride in his
Americanism, as a "poetic Zionist."
On his jubilee, he was honored by the Peretz Verein, in
1922, as "the People's Poet." When he died, June 23, 1923,
there was widespread mourning over the loss of a great per-
sonality.
"Toil and Triumph" has the merit not only of delineating
the life of an eminent poet, but also of describing the period
in which he lived, the poet's protest against the Triangle Fire,
his appeals for just causes. The biographer did commendable
justice to the hero of his book.