43rd Anniversary of a Letter

THE JEWISH NEWS

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 CARMI M: SLOMOVITZ HARVEY - ZUCKERBERG

Circulation Manager

Advertising Manager

City Editor

Sabbath Scriptural Selections
This Sabbath, the fifteenth day of Heshvan, 5721, the following Scriptural selections will be
read in our synagogues:
Pentateuchal portion, Ve-yera, Gen. 18:1-22:24. Prophetical portion, II Kings 4:1-37.

Licht Benshen. Friday. Nov. 4, 5:05 p.m.

Page Four

VOL. XXXVIII. No. 10

November 4, 1960

To the Polls--With Faith in Our Ideals

Tuesday will be the Day of Judgment
for the two major parties in American
politics. For the millions of Americans
who will cast their ballot, it will be a
Day of Judging.
There are 84,000,000 qualified voters,
and the predictions are that 67,000.000
will cast their ballots. Would that all the
84,000,000 had studied the issues and re-
solved to express their preferences at the
polls! While personality problems inevi-
tably crop up in any political campaign,
the issues are the causes at stake, and con-
cern over problems affecting the people
Must lead to evaluations of facts involved
in a crucial political controversy.
The first concern on the eve of the
election is that the voters should make
use of their franchise and of their rights
as citizens, and that there should be as
few absentees from the voting booths as
possible.
Then there is the obligation to avoid
yielding to panic and being swayed by
propaganda which this year has been
seriously affected by appeals to racial and
religious prejudices.
When the final ballot is accounted for,
and we learn who our next Chief Execu-
tive will be, there is this certainty: as in
the past eighteen decades, the verdict of
the electorate will be accepted as the in-
evitable decision of the majority of our
people, and we shall settle down to the
business of continuing a life of confidence
and dignity as Americans who are deter-
mined that the democratic way of life
should survive and should serve as a
guide for all the peoples of the world.
Because this is so inevitable, we be-
lieve, with all the confidence that should

motivate the American people, that the
political contest should be viewed in the
spirit of faith, with a sense of spiritual
strength that, regardless of the results,
the American idea is stronger than any
single party, and the American way of
life will provide courage to those who are
to be chosen to this nation during
the coming four years. .
*
*
*
There are, indeed, serious party dif-
ferences. Surely, there are preferences
that will motivate the manner of our bal-
loting,.
Yet, whoever is President, we are to
elect, at the same time, a new House of
Representatives, a third of the United
States Senate, and there still is function-
ing a reputable and dignified Supreme
Court.
And there are the people of the
United States, who cannot be swayed by
bigotry, whose motivations are along the
lines of the ideals of our Founding
- Fathers. These guides, whether they are
in the forefront of governmental leader-
ship or behind the scenes, serve always to
admonish the Chief Executive of our
nation that he has a great duty to per-
form, that, - once elected, he becomes the
Chief Executive of the entire American
people.
In such a spirit, we must have faith
that no matter who becomes our Presi-
dent this nation will always strive to rise
to great heights of _ honor and love of
justice.
In this spirit, we urge all citizens to
cast their ballots and to have faith that
this nation. under God, will continue to be
a guide to humanity in striving for liberty
and justice.

The rich did not respond, and the poor
of that day — at the turn of this century
—did not possess the "penny a day." The
process, therefore, was a slow one, and
while Jews prayed for the Messiah it took
a long time for them to create the Mes-
sianic idea through practical work in
Palestine.
Yet, while the translation of Prof.
Schapira's proposal into action was slow-
moving, the JNF made its contribution to-
ward the strengthening of Jewish life in
a measure unequaled by any other idea.
It introduced productivity into a ghetto
atmosphere which had stifled enterprise
and compelled Jews to be luftmenshen
air-inflated people — who depended for
their sustenance on luck, on trade —
mostly among themselves—on the least-
secure opportunities in areas of oppres-
sion. They were stifled by the ghetto
walls, and they were prevented from get-
ting into farming and other productive
pursuits by governmental restrictions.

Jewish National Fund pro-
Came
_
-
- •-- the

-

-

'Zionism Under Soviet Rule'

Guido L. Goldman provides an interesting background to
Zionist activities in Russia and the manner in which the move-
ment was treated by the Soviets, in "Zionism Under Soviet Rule
(1917-1928)," published by Herzl Press.
This 136-page pamphlet describes the Russian setting; the
extensive Zionist activities in the early days after the revolution,
the movement's conflict with the Bund and the prejudicial
attitude towards it in Jewish Communist ranks. But the Bund
suffered a fate akin to Zionism.
The "baneful effect" of the- Yevsektsia activities on the fate
of Zionism was the result of evolutionary occurrences that grad-
ually led to the total banning of Zionism..
Yevsektsia, the Jewish section of the Communist party,
"definitely stated its objective of effecting the total liquidation
of the Zionist movement." It took many months to bring about
the destructive objeCtive and "early 191:9 was the period in which
the destruction of Jewish 'national' institutions and 'national'
parties, specifically the Bund, was to be completed." Then the
full-scale campaign against Zionism in the USSR was launched
in the Ukraine in the summer of 1919.
Mass arrests of Zionists took place, yet: "A . central Zionist
Bureau was secretly established in Moscow during the late
summer of 1920 under the direction of Eliazer Cherikover with
the objective of organizing on a national level all clandestine
Zionist activities. Secret meetings were held, underground publi-
cations were surreptitiously circulated, and the Zionist organiza-
tion remained alive, in its handicapped and harassed form, for
almost another decade."
While the anti-Zionist actions continued, Zionism remained
virile. There were two pro-Zionist publications, but the Yevsekt-
sia also was work, "the respite was short-lived" and a ."more
intensive persecution than ever before" commenced.
The description of the "unmitigated persecUtion" is dra-
posal, and with it — and its related Zion-
a
ist inspirations — the encouragement to matic. Zionists were called "counter-revolutionary.. There was
minuscule
left-wing
Poale
Zion
and
by
1924
Zionism
in.
Russia
Jews to turn to the soil, to start digging
a "moribund movement."
into neglected areas and make them pros- was becoming
The persecutions increased and the final years were tragic.
per.
A "unique exception" was made of the Poale Zion, but Yevsekt-
With the JNF idea came dignity and sia even disrupted these leftists. With the introduction of the
the emergence of a new pride — the joy Birobidjan project in 1928, the government decided to liquidate
of belonging to a people that is once the Poale Zion and the movement ceased to function in that
again acquiring the basic means for inde- year.
The Russian Hechalutz movement, which was founded in
pendence — the soil; the satisfaction of
1918 by Josef Trumpeldor,, who later became a martyr in de-
assisting in converting desert-land into fense
of the Jewish settlement Tel Hai in Palestine, also pio-
garden spots.
neered "in the maelstrom." Until 1925 it Maintained ten farms
and the Chalutz movement prospered despite arrests. Hechalutz
True: the task was by remote control. survived the other movements until 1934 when its grand vision
Only a handful of Jews settled on JNF- was thoroughly quashed. Goldman declares that "the liquida-
acquired land in Palestine to till the soil tion of this movement is a cogent example of the growth of
very con-
and to make neglected areas blossom like totalitarianism in the Soviet Union. It demonstrates
that by 1928 the Soviet system would no longer tolerate
roses. But the acquisition of the land of cisely
any movement with loyalties attached to a non-Soviet land,
Israel was the task of Jews everywhere, despite the fact that this movement was in practice _ the fore-
and the satisfaction that went with re- runner of collectivized farming in the USSR and had from the
demption was so great that it can safely start eagerly endorsed Communist rule in Russia." •
be said that to the JNF belongs the credit
Goldman describes the emergence of the Birobidjan• Move-
of having restored pride in productivity, ment and the suppression of Hebrew. He describes Zionism as
the dignity that goes with the straighten- a challenge to the total assimilation of Jews, for which • the
USSR was striving. Thus, the Communists, seeking an end to in-
ing of a people's backs. •
the
The JNF's great accomplishment dependent Jewish cultural activities, while affirming that
.
Jews were a nation, was out to expunge Zionism.
was much more than an inspiration to
"Zionism," Goldman writes, "presented a three-pronged chal-
a return to the soil: it' was a call to
lenge to Soviet ideology. First, it denied the primacy of the
action, to self-respect, to creativity, and social revolution for the Jewish people; secondly, it denied that
it meant that the people who were being the Jewish problem could be solved in the Diaspora; and, finally,
mobilized for JNF action also would it offered the spiritually oppressed Jew an alternative. Each of
defend their rights. It was, in a multiple these three challenges was sufficient cause to prompt the move-
.
•
liquidation."
way, a mobilization for the reacquisi- ment's
With the emergence of Israel, there became evident that the
tion of a- people's self-respect.
Zionist feelings persist among Jews in the USSR.. The USSR's
The recollection of these positive ac- combatting of Zionist attractions is ascribable to the emergence
complishrnents makes the 60th anniver- of Zionism as a solution for many of Russia's three million Jews,
sary_ year of the JNF an occasion for gen- the author of this brochure states. He draws the conclusion that
uine celebration. It enhances the good "the ideological appeal of Zionism has survived more than
feelings that go with a people's resump- three decades of totalitarianism and still remains today as the
tion of a place of honor among the most hope of a significant part of Russian Jewry for a better and fuller
way of life."
creative forces in the world.

JNF's 60th Year--Occasion for Rejoicing

The annual conference of the Jewish
National Fund, to be held here on Sun-
day, marks the inauguration of the 60th
anniversary of the fund. It is an occasion
for re-evaluation of the significance of the
traditional fund.
No other cause has left its impact
upon Jewish life as indelibly as the JNF.
It commenced with an idea, promulgated
by the distinguished Jewish scholar and
mathematician, Prof. Hermann Schapira;
that if Jews everywhere gave a penny a
day each, for the redemption of the soil
of Eretz Israel, Jewish nationhood could
be re-established speedily.

Russian Jewry's Pro-lsraelism

-