THE 'JEWISH NEWS
The Marks He Left Behind
Incorporating the Detroit Jewish Chronicle commencing with issue of July 20, 1951
Member American Association of English—Jewish Newspapers, 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 second 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
Advertising Manager
CARMI M. SLOMOVITZ
Circulation Manager
Sabbath Scriptural Selections
This Sabbath, the twenty-fifth day of Elul, 5720, the following Scriptural selections will be
-
read in our synagogues:
Pentateuch& portion,-Nizzavim, Wa-yelekh, Deut. 29:9-31:30. Prophetical portion. Is. 61:10-63:9.
Licht Benshen, Friday, Sept. 16, 6:22 p.m,
VOL. XXXIII. No. 3
Page Four
September 16, 1960
Pending Showdown on Separation
The United States Supreme Court may
be called upon to rule on vital issues in-
volving the separation of church and
state. The filing of a brief by the Syna-
gogue Council of America and the Na-
tional Community Relations Advisory
Council, maintaining that the Sunday
closing laws in Massachusetts and Penn-
sylvania are unconstitutional, and the
possibility that the test case launched in
a Miami court involving religious prac-
tices in the public schools of Dade
County, Florida, may also be taken to the
highest court, place the limelight on the
renewed battle for separation.
• Holding that the Sunday closing laws
negate the First Amendment which pro-
hibits legislation, nationally and in our
various states, respecting the establish-
ment of religion, the brief challenges the
constitutionality of Sunday laws.
Even more .serious is the issue in-
volving religious teachings in the public
schools. Countrywide interest that was
aroused in the Florida case, which was
postponed because of a death in the
judge's family, but the basic facts in-
volved are hardly known. There was more
heat emanating from the notoriety of the
case than light, which is so vitally needed
for a' rational approach to the issue.
The case in Miami became sensational
when the judge ordered his bailiff to
take out of the court a woman who ex-
claimed from a back row that she would
not have her seven-year-old daughter
see the type of crucifixion play to which
witnesses in the case objected. The reli-
gious performance in the Florida school,
which aroused protest and resulted in
court action, is described by the regional
director of the American Jewish Congress,
Haskell L. Lazere, as follows:
The program, as testified by a number
of witnesses, consisted of a reenactment of
the crucifixion of Jesus as recounted in
the Gospels. A particularly thin and bOny
boy was selected to play the role of Jesus.
Completely naked, except for a towel or
piece of sheeting around his loins, he was
placed, arms outstretched, against a large
wooden cross on the stage of the school
auditorium. Red paint, simulating blood,
flowed from his body. Except for a glaring
spotlight concentrated on the boy, the audi-
torium was completely dark, and except for
a soft undertone of music, completely
silent. Then from either side of the stage,
alternately in the voice of a boy and of a
girl, came readings of the verses in the
New Testament describing the crucifixion.
As the last verse was read the boy on the
cross moaned, gasped, and let his head drop
as if life had finally departed from the
tortured body.
This is the scene the woman, who was
removed from the court room, said she
would not have her little daughter be a
witness to. The woman is not Jewish, and
there are many non-Jews who joined with
the American Jewish Congress in regis-
tering protests against religious teachings -
in the schools.
The disturbing factor in the Miami
experience is that Jews had asked for an
end to the practice of injecting religion
in the schools, that some had requested
that their children be excused from par-
ticipation in the objectionable plays, but
that the protests were ignored.
Now it is indicated that the Miami
case involves a test of eight different
religious programs to which objection is
taken by the challengers of the law—
Bible reading, introduction of prayers
and grace in schools, the singing of reli-
gious hymns, religious holiday observ-
ances, resort to religious symbols such
as crosses and crucifixes, religious bacca-
laureate programs, the conducting of
religious censuses and religious tests for
teachers.
It is no wonder that the Miami Jewish
community and Christians who are aware
of the dangers to the idea of church-state
separation are aroused. From all indica-
tions, those challenging the religious
practices in public schools will not slum-
ber until there is an end to programs that
infringe upon the religious freedoms of
American citizens. Thus, the real test on
the issue is about to come. The Miami
case has aroused bitterness in some ranks.
The only way of completely removing
inter-faith conflicts is by unequivocal
adherence to the separation idea.
What Kind of Germany After Adenauer?
Nomination of Willy Brandt, West
Berlin's Mayor, by the Social Democratic
Party, for the Chancellorship of West
Germany, in a move to defeat the in-
cumbent, Dr. Konrad Adenauer, poses the
question of what kind of a Germany will
emerge if the present Chancellor is de-
feated, in the German Federal election of
1961.
Mayor Brandt is known as a liberal.
He was an anti-Nazi who labored against
Hitlerism inside Germany and later in the
Scandinavian countries.
Will Brandt's rise to power, if he's
elected, in any way affect the German re-
parations program, to Israel, to Jews who
were victims of Nazism and to all others
who suffered at the hands of the Hitler-
ites?
Brandt, accepting his party's nomina-
tion, said: "We will do everything dif-
ferent, but will do it better." He and his
party promise, in the main, to pursue the
course that was followed by the Adenauer
administration during three four-year
terms.
Will the next West German adminis-
tration be more successful in uprooting
the recurring traces of neo-Nazism? Who-
ever is Chancellor of Germany, his major
task will be to uphold the principles of
democratic rule and of opposition to all
evidences of bigotry which was sympto-
matic of Germany from 1930 to 1945.
.The -world at large will watch the
results of the next Federal election with
deepest concern.
Priority for Jewish Education in 5721
In a few days, we will usher in a New
Year. The spirit of the Holy Days hovers
over us, and the preparatory period is
marked by a new tie of kinship, by an
evidence of devotion to the heritage that
distinguished the People of Israel.
It is heartening to know that, simul-
taneous with the planning for the sacred
services on the Holy Days, our congrega-
tions also are giving due consideration
to the organization of their schools and
to the preparation of our children for
Jewish training.
On the eve of the New Year 5721, we
can feel greatly encouraged that the
commencement of another twelve-month
period on our calendar is marked by
priority in our community for the Jewish
educational needs. That's an excellent
way to start a new year.
I
Essay in New Edition of War
by Josephus Discusses Scrolls
Harper & Bros. has issued "The Great Roman-Jewish War:
A.D. 66-70" ("De Bello Judaico"), by Flavius Josephus, in a
Cloister Library Harper Torchbooks paperback.
It is the William Whiston translation as revised by D. S.
Margoliouth and edited with an introduction by William R.
Farmer.
Included in this paperback is "The Life of Flavius Josephus"
as written by the author, in the first person.
Appended-to the book is an explanation of "The Slavonic
Josephus." Another appendix contains the genealogies of the
Herodian and the Asmonean or Maccabean families. There also
are a series of maps of Palestine and Jerusalem in the first
Century of the present era, with an index to the maps; a
chronological table of the historical events dealt with by Josephus;
Margoliouth's note on the chronology of Josephus and a biblio-
graphical note.
A prefatory note, written by Dr. Nahum N. Glatzer, deals
with "Josephus, the Slavonic Fragments and the Dead Sea
Scrolls." In it, Dr. Glatzer states:
"The most recent re-reading of Josephus has been occa-
sioned by the discoveries, since 1948, of writings of a Jewish
sect that had withdrawn from Jerusalem to lead a monastic life in
the austere region at the shores of the Dead Sea (Qumran).
When the first columns of the scrolls of the 'Community of the
Covenant' were deciphered, the find's immense contribution to
our understanding both of the religious development in the final
period of the Judean Second Commonwealth and our knowledge
of the background of the early Christian movement was in-
stantly realized. And, although the name Essenes does not ap-
pear in the scrolls, it became immediately clear, despite the
stubborn objection of some scholars, that the Dead Sea brother-
hood is identical with, or closely related to, the 'Essenes' whom
Josephus describes in the second of the 'War.' The report of the
historian (written to satisfy the curiosity of his ROman reading
public) and the testimonies of the sectarians (which were not
meant for publication) complement each other: Josephus' ac-
count is all the more telling, since the writer, as he reports in
his "Life,' had himself spent three years with Banus, an Essene-
like hermit, living in the same wilderness, presumably, as the
Dead Sea Scrolls Community. The historian's idealistic portrayal
of a sect dedicated to communal life in justice, brotherly love,
ritual purity, lnunility, and learning, corresponds on the whole
to the sect's actual rules and regulations discovered among the
sectarian Manuscripts."
Philosophic Work in Paperback
Buber's The Prophetic Faith'
Students of philosophy and religion will undoubtedly wel-
come heartily the appearance of "The Prophetic Faith," by
Martin Buber, as a paperback. It has just been issued by Harper
& Bros. as a Cloister Library Harper Torchbook.
Originally published in 1949, By Macmillan, "The Prophetic
Faith" is one of the important works by Buber. The English
translation from the Hebrew is by Carlyle Witton-Davies.
The eminent author's task in this work was "to describe a
teaching which reached its completion in some of the writing
prophets . . . to the return from the Babylonian exile, and to
describe it both as regards its historial process and as regards
its antecedents.
Asserting that "there is no need to be afraid of the argu-
ment that 'there is nothing here but legend," Dr. Buber states:.
"Historical song and legend are to a large extent the natural
forms of the popular oral preservation of 'historical' events"
that are "of vital importance for the tribe."
Thus, discussing "The Song of Deborah," he states that it "is
almost universally regarded as a genuine historical song . . . a
spontaneous poetical outbreak of the heart of man, who having
taken part in a mighty historical event is now impelled to
Master it in rhythmical form, to grasp, to express, to transmit it."
Reviewing the origins of the event, he speaks of the relationship
of God to the faithful and the YHVH, the God of Israel. He goes
into great detail in discussing the God of the Sufferers, the role
of the prophet as leader and the various stages in Jewish religi-
ous developments.