Purely Commentary
Walter E. Klein Appointed Executive
Director of Jewish Community Council
By PHILIP SLOMOVITZ
Senate's Middle East Report: Biased or Incompetent?
A "Staff Study" on the Middle East, prepared for the use
of the Committee on Foreign Relations of the United States
Senate, contains so many omissions, and fails so obviously to
present the correct picture of Israel's position, that one is
compelled to ask whether it was deliberately biased, or whether
it is a result of incompetent handling of a serious aspect in the
world situation today.
While this study does indicate that there is a lack of unity
in Arab ranks, it fails to expose the diabolical schemes of the
Arab rulers in their efforts to destroy Israel. At the same time,
there are distortions in the presentation of Jewish historical
facts, and the handling of the refugee problem is shallow.
This study's entire handling of "The Palestine Problem"
leaves even the least informed person in a state of amazement.
One would imagine upon reading it that the Holy Land, whose
great spiritual importance and position of sanctity are due to
the activities of the Jews throughout the centuries, was the geo-
graphical area in which Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks,
Romans, Arabs, Crusaders, Mongols and Turks were the rulers.
The impression given is that "Palestine remained within the
political and cultural hegemony of succeeding Hellenistic mon-
archies," followed by the. Roman and Moslem conquests and by
the invasion of the Crusaders. Nothing is said to indicate that
Moslem rule in the Holy Land lasted approximately 400 years
and that Jews influenced the land during two thousand years
of domination.
The manner in which Arab-Jewish relations are treated in
this study is hardly to be interpreted as contributing towards
a solution to the problem. If anything, it may further inflame
the existing embers of hate and may increase tensions. If it
was deliberate, it was unrealistic and may prove harmful in
future approaches to a solution to the Middle East problem;
if it was a result of incompetence, it calls for re-evaluation of
our thinking in planning our foreign policies.
*
In the Name of Free Speech
*
'To Bigotry No Sanction'
Walter E. Klein, former asso-
ciate director of the Jewish
Community Council of Detroit,
was named executive director
by the executive committee of
the Council.
Announcement of the appoint-
ment was made by Stanley J.
Winkelman, Council president.
Klein succeeds the late Boris
M. Joffe.
A native of Cleveland, Klein
versify and of Western Reserve
University, where he completed
graduate studies. Prior to World
War II, he was a district super-
visor with the Public Welfare
Department in Cleveland, and
was subsequently with the pro-
bation department of the Juve-
nile Court of Cuyahoga County.
Morris Garvett Named Chairman
of Jewish Center's Ninth Book Fair
Morris Garvett, prominent at-
torney, past president of the
Jewish Center, will be chairman
of the Center's ninth annual
Jewish Book Fair..
Garvett was chairman of the
seventh and eighth annual Book
Fairs.
The annual Jewish Book Fair
will be held Saturday through
Monday, Nov. 19, 20 and 21, fea-
turing special exhibits and sale
of Jewish books. It will be ad-
dressed by noted authors at
opening night, family day, Yid-
dish-Hebrew night, ladies' day
and men's night programs.
In conjunction with the Book
Fair, the Center will again spon-
sor poster and essay contests.
There will be a junior poster
contest for children up to 12,
and Teme Skully literary and
poster contests in intermediate
(ages 12-14) and advanced (15-
18) divisions. Prizes of books or
money will be awarded for en-
A Free Press writer, in an article on "Talk of Freedom,"
on Independence Day, used a quotation from a speech by Adolf
Hitler, also on freedom, and his comment on it was that "Hitler
twisted words to fit his own objectives."
In the name of free speech, especially in a democracy like
ours, bigots are able to twist as Hitler twisted, and,, additionally,
they possess the good fortune of acquiring protection of the
law for evil purposes.
That is exactly what has been happening in our nation's
capital. Under the protecting cloak of freedom of speech, a bigot
had been propagating the extermination of an entire people.
George Lincoln Rockwell, "fuehrer" of the American , Nazi
Party, was inciting to riot. He was propagating the most inhuman
ideas, singling out Jews and Negroes for his attacks_ But he had
the protection of the police, and the American Civil Liberties
his Nazi-patterned
Union came to his rescue whenever he or
Stormtroopers faced difficulties.
Such have been the fortunes of a bigot who defied the
basic principles of decency and who defiled a major American
ideal which was defined as follows by George Washington
in an address to the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, R. I.,
170 years ago:
"It is now no more that toleration is spoken of as if it
were by the indulgence of one class of people that another
enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights, for,
happily, the Government of the United States which gives
to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires
only that they who live under its protection should demean
themselves as good citizens in giving it on all occasions their
effectual support."
The Rockwells do not "demean themselves as good citizens."
They do not understand the meaning of the guiding American
principle of "to bigotry no sanction." Regrettably, the inter-
preters of the law lacked the vision to foresee what can happen
in a free land like ours when wild and demented propagandists
are permitted to run loose amidst civilized beings and to
propagate the extinction of their _fellow men. The result was
inevitable. The principle of free speech suffered because the
interpreters of this sacred idea knew not how to make it prac-
ticably workable. The result was an attempt to beat up Rock-
well in a New York court building, with the result that he was
denied the right to speak on Independence Day in that city;
and the subsequent dissolution of his meeting last Sunday when
he again attacked Jews and Negroes, when the Washington
audience "refused to tolerate incitement to hatred, when the
police finally arrested Americans who shamefully dressed and
acted like Stormtroopers and then refused to grant the bigot
the right to sanction bigotry at another rally on the Fourth
of July.
These developments could have been avoided without resort
to abuses of the right to free speech. If a Communist agitator
were to deliver a public address, anywhere, not necessarily with-
in the shadows of the White House and the Capitol, he un-
doubtedly would have been called to account. If any other
deranged person were to propagate destruction of property or
the sending of fellow citizens to gas chambers, as was the anti-
Jewish pattern under Hitler, we have no doubt that he would
promptly be called to task and would be given a sanity test.
But Rockwell was on the loose! Rockwell propagated un-
molested, while those who criticized and challenged him were
under police surveillance, and under threat of arrest. Is it pos-
sible that the events that led up to the restrictions upon Rockwell
leave District of Columbus authorities unblushing? Last week,
Washington authorities finally ruled that a 22-year-old Jew who
was arrested for "loud talking" during Rockwell's fulminations
had a right to heckle the bigot, that Larry Selinker, against
whom charges therefore were dropped, "was just exercising
his Constitutional right to free speech." But . until that ruling
was issued, Rockwell and his followers alone had that "Con-
stitutional right to free speech."
This is the most disgraceful experience in the history of
the capitol of our nation—that a man who propagated gas
chambers for Jews should have had the right to advocate
murder while those who disapproved of his actions should
have been subjected to arrests! Yet, spokesmen for at least
two Jewish groups in Washington were so blind to reality that
Israeli, Jordanian
Firemen Cooperate
in Fighting- Blazes
JERUSALEM, (JTA) —
For the second time, Israeli
and Jordanian firemen co-
operated in extinguishing
blazes in the Jerusalem no-
man's land.
Fire engines from both
sides roared into the neutral
area, and Israeli and Jor-
danian fire hoses poured on
water to keep the fire from
spreading.
In the first fire, June 23,
the Jordanians first attacked
the fire and kept it from
spreading into Israeli terri-
tory. July 3, it was the other
way around.
He served as an enlisted man
is a graduate of Ohio State Uni-land officer in the U.S. Navy, and
upon discharge, in 1945, he be-
came associated with the Com-
munity Council here. Among
other communal activities, he
has been an officer of the De-
troit Chapter of the American
Association for the United Na-
tions, is a past president of the
Jewish War Veterans Memorial
Home Association and former
chief of staff of the Department
of Michigan of the Jewish War
Veterans. He was a member of
the Citizens Advisory Committee
of the Board of Education and
presently serves on the board's
committee on equal educational
opportunities.
He and Mrs. Klein are the
parents of five daughters. _
*
*
Council Committee
Chairmen Appointed
Stanley J. Winkelman, presi-
dent of the Jewish Community
Council, announces the appoint-
ment of the following chairmen
of the Council's standing corn-
mittes for 1960 -61:
Dr. Samuel Kroh.. and Max
Biber, internal relations; Louis
Rosenzweig, community r e 1 a-
tions; I. Pokempner, and Sidney
M. Shevitz, culture commission;
Walter Berlow and David I.
Rosin, arbitration and concilia-
tion; Harold Berry and Lawr-
MORRIS GARVETT
ence Gubow, budget; Sol
legal
tries relating to Jewish Books Schwartz, constitution and
Morris
Lieberman
committee;
and Book Fair. The contest
runs from Sept. 6 to Oct. 21. and Charles Goldstein, person-
Information is available from nel; Dr. Samuel Krohn, evalua-
the Center's Book Fair office, t i o n; Dr. Shmarya Kleinman,
changing neighborhoods; S o 1
DI 1-4200.
Kurtzman, mass media.
The following Book Fair
Winkelman a 1 s o announced
chairmen have been selected: the formation of a new commit-
Opening night, Garvett; family
tee under the chairmanship of
day, Bernard Weiss; Yiddish-
Mrs. Philip Bernstein to plan
Hebrew night, Bernard . Isaacs
programs.
and Louis LaMed; ladies' day, the delegate assembly
y, composed of
Mrs. Henry Onrich and Mrs. The a s s e m b l
of. the 340 Jew-
Samuel Aaron; volunteers corn- representatives
member organizations of the
ish
mittee, Mrs. Arthur Rice and Council, meets four or five times
Mrs. Jack Rom; publicity and during a year. It is the policy-
promotional materials commit- making body in the `"Cos moil
organizational structure.
tee, Allen Luckoff.
On the Record
By NATHAN ZIPRIN
Editor, Seven Arts Feature Syndicate
Footnote to History
Recent assertions that the late Dr. Stephen . S. Wise was the
founder of the American Jewish Congress have brought a num-
about
they continually advocated a ber of inquiries from readers who seem concerned
the
facts.
hush-hush policy, failing to
From an examination of available records and from conversa-
realize that audiences w h o
were subjected to the insane tions with people who stood close to the American Jewish Con-
gress from its very inception, it would appear incorrect to de-
Rockwell addresses would not
scribe Dr. Wise as the founder of the Congress unless we use the
submit to long to abuses,
term elastically instead of historically.
that sooner or later there had
Dr. Wise himself never claimed to be the founder of the
to be a showdown, that it is
this
impossible to view a menace organization. A man who was close to him in those days told gave
to free s p e e c h ostrich-like writer that there were many occasions when Dr. Wise
credit as founders to several of the pioneers of the movement,
while trying to be holier-than-
divinit y in defending free which began in 1914 at the outbreak of World War I. The impetus
to the formation of the Congress was given in August of 1914 by
speech for those who would
adoption of a resolution by the Zionist Emergency Conference.
deny it to its defenders. The
The resolution was presented under the joint signature of Dr. N.
Jewish spokesmen who were
Syrkin, Baruch Zuckerman and B. G. Richards.
so unrealistic, who were more
It was almost two years later that Dr. Wise endorsed the
concerned with efforts to si-
movement. Subsequently he was joined by Judge Brandeis and
1 e n c e our correspondent in
others. At that time men like Louis Lipsky, Ber Borochov, Dr.
Washington than they were
Syrkin, Zuckerman and others had already been working ardently
with putting an end to big-
for
otry in our nation's capital, to create sentiment for the idea. Helpful in creating climate
have earned censure and have the movement were the two obscure young men, sojourners in the
land, David Ben Gurion and Yitzhak Ben Zvi. However, when the
lost much of the confidence
that had previously been Preliminary Conference was held in 1916, it was Dr. Wise who
delivered what was considered the finest theoretical postulation
placed in them.
of the movement and its objectives. At that time Congress com-
Now we have reached a show- mittees had already been formed in different parts of the country
down. Let the chips fall where
up
they may: It is not the Nazi and it was the delegates from these committees that made
party and its leader, Rockwell, the Preliminary Conference.
The first chairman of the Congress Organization Committee
alone, who must be repudiated.
was Nathan Straus, Sr., and the first president of the Congress
It is necessary that the authori-
itself was Judge Julian W. Mack, who headed the Committee of
ties who permitted the shame-
in Paris in 1919. When Congress was re-
ful situation to continue in Jewish Delegations
on a permanent basis, Straus became its first president.
organized
Washington should be rebuked.
who,
Federal as well as District of After a number of years he was succeeded by Dr. Wise
except for a brief interlude in the troublesome '20s, when the
Columbia officials should be
late Bernard S. Deutch was president, held the post until the
called to task for their failure
-
.
to act against incitement to close of his distinguished career.
question whether
This
writer
refuses
to
get
excited
over
the
murder, and Jewish spokesmen Dr. Wise was or was not among the founders of Congress. Only
who failed to judge the situa-
in a technical historic sense is it inaccurate to place him in that
tion realistically, who were as niche. In fact he was one of the pillars without whose support the
blind as mice, should be se -
fabric would not have emerged.
verely reprimanded.