ApplebaumBook Deritscher's Biography of Trotsky Reveals Stalinist Anti-Semitism
Isa.c Deutscher is an ac- munist ranks and on the atti- worst Tsarist reactionaries;
Defines Judaism knowledged
and, in Stalin's mouth, though
authority on Russia tudes towards Jews and the

4

Rabbi Morton M. Applebaum,
who now occupies the pulpit of
Temple Israel in Akron, 0.,
formerly rabbi of the Reform
congregations in Lansing and
:Flint. Mich.,
and the for-
mer counselor
of the Mich-
igan State Col-
lege Bnai
Brith Founda-
tion, is the au-
thor of a series
of "answers to
t h e questions
most frequent-
ly asked about
Judaism," pub-
lished under
the title
Applebaum "What Every-
one Should Know About Juda-
ism" by Philosophical Library
(15 E. 40th, N.Y. 16).
Defining the terms Judaism,
H e b r e w, Israelite, Jew and
Cohen — in the section "Non-
Jews Invariably Ask" — Rabbi
Applebaum proceeds to show
that there is no distinct Jewish
race. To the question "How
Does One Become a Jew?" he
replies:
"One who is born to Jewish
parents is a Jew by birth. Those
who are not Jews by birth may
become Jews by choice, by
being converted to Judaism.
Traditional rabbis require that
male proselytes be circumsized,
and that females go through the
initiatory rite of the mikvah,
ritual bath."
Reform Judaism, it is implied,
do not make the last two condi-
tions of converts.
Rabbi Applebaum discusses
the question of proselytizing by
Jews and states that "although
Jews do not seek converts, they
do welcome them."
The "Chosen People" idea,
the philosophies of various
branches of Judaism, the Jewish
views of Messianism, kashrut
and other terms are discussed
briefly.
The Pentateuch, the Proph-
ets, the Apocrypha, Pirke
Avot, the Talmud, the Jewish
calendar, the holidays, ob-
servances of the Sabbath and
other ceremonials are defined.
Services in houses of worship
and life cycle ceremonies, such
as Eris Milah, consecrations,
Bar Mitzvahs, are described in
additional sections of the book.

Religious Education Plan
Viewed by Canadian Towns

NORTH YORK TOWNSHIP,
Canada, (JTA) — Education of-
ficials of North York Township
are studying a proposal to
change school classes so that
religious education will be held
during the last hour of the
school day.
The proposal was offered by
a group of Jewish and non-
Jewish parents who do not wish
their children to attend such
classes. The meeting of the par-
ents with the school officials
was arranged by the Central
Region Joint Public Relations
Committee of the Canadian
Jewish Congress and Bnai
'Brith, which noted that such an
arrangement is already in ef-
fect in two schools in the area.

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and the Soviet leaders. His
early books on Stalin, Trotsky
and the transitional Soviet de-
velopments have added im-
measurably to
an under--
standing of
Communism
and its lead-
ers.
His latest
book, "The
Prophet Un-
armed: Trot-
s k y: 1 9 2 1-
1929," pub-
lished by
Oxford Uni- Trotsky
versity Press (417 5th, N. Y.
16), supplements the earlier
work, "The Prophet Armed:
Trotsky, 1879-1921," and pro-
vides a vast amount of addi-
tional valuable information on
the Communist issue.
Thus, Deutscher states that
"Stalin's successors live in
grotesque horror of Trotsky's
shade because they are afraid
of coming to grips with the
issues with which he, so much
ahead of his time, did come to
grips." He explains their be-
havior as due to projective
circumstances and inertia, "for
Khrushchev and his associates,
even in their rebellion against
Stalinism, are still Stalin's
epigones." He adds that they
act from motives of self-defense,
and he illustrates "the nature
of their predicament" by relat-
ing the following incident that
occurred at a Central Commit-
tee meeting in June - 1957:
"Khrushchev, speaking on
the motion for the expulsion
of Molotov, Kaganovich and
Malenkov, recalled the Great
Purges, the subject invariably
recurring in all the secret
debates since Stalin's death.
Pointing at Molotov and
Kaganovich, he exclaimed:
`Your hands are stained with
the blood of our party lead-
ers and of innumerable in-
nocent Bolsheviks!' So are
yours!', Molotov and Kagano-
vich shouted back at him.
`Yes, so are mine,' Khrush-
chev replied. 'I admit this.
But during the Great Purges
I only carried out your or-
ders. I was not then a mem-
ber of the Politbureau and I
am not responsible for your
decisions. You were.' When
Mikoyan later reported the
incident to the Comsomol in
Moscow, he was asked why
the accomplices of Stalin's
crimes were not tried in
court. 'We cannot try them,'
Mikoyan is said to have an-
swered, 'because if we start
putting such people in the
dock, there is no knowing
where we should be able to
stop. We have all had some
share in conducting the
purges.' Thus, if only in order
to safeguard their own im-
munity, Stalin's successors
must still keep in the dock
the ghosts of some of Stalin's
victims. As to Trotsky, is it
not safer indeed to leave him
where he lies, under the half-
shattered pyramid of slander,
rather than transfer him to
the Pantheon of the revolu-
tion?"
While not intending "to
indulge in any cult of Trotsky,"
Deutscher views him as "one of
the most outstanding revolu-
tionary leaders of all times,
outstanding as fighter, thinker
and martyr."
Trotsky's opposition to Stalin
and his policies, his banishment
from Russia—"he must have
felt as if the whole country he
was leaving behind had frozen
into a desert and as if the
revolution itself had become
congealed"—are described
dramatically and emerge as one
of the great tragedies enacted
on the Russian scene.
Deutscher offers interesting
data on anti-Semitism in Corn-

reactions of the Jewish Bol-
sheviks to the anti-Semitic
tendencies. He writes:
"Official agitators ceased
to distinguish between Trot-
skyists and Zinovievists, in-
cited the rank and file
against both, and hinted
darkly that it was no matter
of chance that the leaders of
both were Jews—this was,
they suggested, a struggle
between native and genuine
Russian socialism and aliens
who sought to pervert it."
"Altogether against his in-
clination," Deutscher points
out, Trotsky, in a letter to
Bukharin, on March, 1925,
dwelt on the "anti-Semitic un-
dertones" of those who agitated
against him. Trotsky wrote: "is
it true, is it possible that
in our party, in WORKERS'
CELLS, anti-Semitic agitation
should be carried on with im-
punity?!" Deutscher goes into
these details:
"It was not by chance that
the agitators struck the anti-
S e m i tic note: they were
briefed by Uglanov; and
Uglanov took his cue from
Stalin who was anything but
fastidious in the choice of
means. But there were means
to which he would not have
resorted even a year or two
earlier; and playing on anti-
Jewish prejudice was one of
them. This had been the
favorite occupation of the

and even in 1923-4 the party
and its Old Guard were still
too strongly imbued with in-
ternationalism to counten-
ance such prejudice, let alone
to exploit it. But the situation
was changing . . . the poli-
tical climate altered to such
an extent that even Com-
munists no longer frowned on
anti-Semitic hints or allusions
dropped in their midst. The
distrust of the 'alien' was,
after all, a reflex of that
Russian self-centeredness, of
which socialism in one coun-
try was the ideological
abstract.
"Jews were, in fact, con-
spicuous among the opposi-
tion although they were
there together with the flow-
er of the non-Jewish intel-
ligentsia and workers. Trot-
sky, Zinoviev, Kamenev, So-
kolnikov, Radek were all Jews.
(There were, on the other
hand, very few Jews among
the Stalinists, and fewer still
among the Bukharinists).
Thoroughly 'assimilated' and
Russified though they were,
and hostile to the Mosaic as
to any other religion, and to
Zionism, they were still
marked by that `Jewishness'
which is the quintessence of
the urban way of life in all
its modernity, progressivism,
restlessness and one-sideness.
To be sure, the allegations
that they were politically hos-
tile to the muzhik were false

perhaps not in Bukharin's, in-
cincere. But the Bolsheviks of
Jewish origin were least of
all inclined to idealize rural
Russia in her primitivism and
barbarity and to drag along
at a `snail's pace' the native
peasant cart. They were in a
sense the 'rootless cosmopol-
itans' on whom Stalin was to
turn his wrath openly in his
old age."
"The Prophet Unarmed" is
not only valuable as a further
evaluation of Leon Trotsky, and
of an era during which he was
a power, later to be ruthlessly
demoted by Stalin. The book
Serves even now as a guide to
a better understanding of Rus-
sian thinking and Communist
.acting. It is another valuable
addition by Deutscher to the
literature that enables the dem-
ocratic countries to visualize
the opportunism and the search
for domination of the Commun-
ist rulers.

Agriculture Secretary
Benson Praises Israel

TEL AVIV, (JTA)—Winding
up a four-day trip to Israel,
U. S. Secretary of Agriculture
Ezra Taft Benson said at a
press conference he was im-
pressed by Israel's agricultural
development and by the concen-
tration of technical know-how
which brought excellent results
in yielding greater and better

crops.__

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