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.