THE JEWISH NEWS Incorporating the Detroit Jewish Chronicle commencing with issue of July 20, 1951 Member American Associatiun 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 City Editor Business Manager Advertising Manager Sabbath Scriptural Selections This Sabbath—Shabbat Shekalim—the twenty-fifth day of Shevat, 5721, the following Scriptural selections will be read in our synagogues: Pentateuchal portion, Mishpatim, Ex. 21:1-24:18, 30:11-16. Prophetical portion, II Kings 12:1-17. REPDI1T ON ANTI-JEWISH ACTIVMES Licht Benshen, Friday, Feb. 10, 5:30 p.m. VOL. XXXVIH. No. 24 Page Four February 10, 1961 Bar Mitzvah Standards: Progress in Education Our community owes a debt of grati- tude to the United Hebrew Schools for its efforts to advance Jewish educational standards, by establishing a new code for Bar - Mitzvahs. Having secured the endorsements of nearly all of our congregations in setting up regulations which will require five years of advance Hebrew studies prior to Bar Mitzvah, the United Hebrew Schools is pioneering in a project that should serve as a guide for all American Jewish communities in assuring a thorough education for our boys before they become confirmed. Congregation Shaarey Zedek has gone a step further,with its requirement of a seven-year pre-Bar Mitzvah study pro- gram. There are provisions also for more extensive study programs for girls, prior to their consecrations and confirmations, with requirements for a knowMge of Hebrew and Jewish history. The forward step taken by the United Hebrew Schools and the cooperating con- gregations comes at a time when national and world assemblies of Jewish leaders have expressed anxiety over the educa- tional status of American Jewry. It is most deplorable that among those who have emerged as panicky in evaluating American Jewry's cultural position are American Jewish leaders who should be aware that progress has been made in our communities, that there is, a spirit of - despair, that the Jewish communities in the United States have really just come of age and have commenced to act ma- turely when facing the problems that have arisen with the need for advanced Jewish educational programs. We have depended for a number of decades upon educators who have come from Eastern Europe or from Israel. Under presently emerging conditions, we must conduct our school systems along lines of high level educational training. The establishment of schools like the Midrasha of the United Hebrew Schools, the formation of adult education pro- grams and similar undertakings indicate that we are along a path of realistic thinking in advancing our educational media. The new Bar Mitzvah requirements, which are to go into effect the coming September, are a clarion call to our com- munity to give priority to our educational needs, to plan to provide the best availa- ble Jewish education for our children, to determine to be helpful in the building of a well-informed Jewish community. . Only one question now attaches to the new revolutionary plan: will . all congre- gations cooperate fully in enforcing the new Bar Mitzvah regulations, or will the idea be resolved into mere lip service? If the signatories to the declaration of the United Hebrew Schools are sincere in their assertions—and we have no reason to doubt their sincerity—then we are on the road to creating a better Jewish life, because it will be a high-level cultural existence, repudiating the panicky obser- vations that have hitherto been made about American Jewry. U.S.8,11 The Blessings of Survival Sherman's Ethnic Study Shows Confidence in Jewry s Future C. Bezalel Sherman, who, as director of cultural and com- munity relations of the Labor Zionist Organization of America, has travelled widely and has made a thorough study of the forces that have shaped the American Jewish community, sums up his "study in ethnic individuality" in "The Jew Within American Society," which has just been issued by the Wayne State University Press. Financial assistance in making possible the publication of this book was provided by the Morris and Emma Schaver Publication Fund for Jewish Studies. * Efforts in Journalism A Detroiter's Pioneering with Rhodes and his staff on several Across the first page of his newspaper, the Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle, pub- lished in Milwaukee, Publisher Irving G. Rhodes last week has strung a new line that reads: "Our Fortieth Year of Publi- cation." He has added this line prepara- tory to celebrating his 40th anniversary on Dec. 21, 1961. He has thus heralded an important day for his Jewish community, and, judged by past performances, there is certainty that it augurs a demonstra- tion of loyalty and affection for the man who has created a great instrument for his community and who continues to provide Milwaukee Jewry with one of the best Jewish periOdicals in America. We take special pride in making note of the occasion of the Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle's 40th anniversary because its publisher is , a former Detroiter and be- cause, during the years of his publishing career, he has exerted many efforts to assist in the raising of the standards of the Jewish press. In an editorial analysis of the events that transpired during the 39 years of the Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle's existence, our confrere speaks of being "a strange breed," explaining: "we don't get rich doing what we do, but we bust (almost) at the seams out of pride and love for what we are doing." As fellow-publishers, having worked fronts, especially in attempts to establish new idealistic approaches in Jewish news- paper publishing, we can attest to the validity of this claim. It is more effective than its modesty. Irving Rhodes, who has won his spurs in many endeavors—it was thanks to his genius, for example that Mil- waukee Jewry became a million-dollar an- nual contributor to the United Jewish Ap- peal when he was his city's campaign chairman—especially distinguished him self as a newspaperman. He understands journalistic needs and he strives to fulfill them. He knows that his community will be helpless and uninformed unless he keeps it aware of what is happening in Jewish ,life, and he strives to attain the proper goals through his splendid news- paper. Because he knows the needs and rec- ognizes his duties, he has secured, in Edwarde F. Perlson, an able managing editor. He has been one of the men who has upheld the hands of the directors of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in assuring the uninterrupted flow of news from all parts of the globe. Irving Rhodes is a credit to his pro- fession. More power to him as he pre- pares to mark the 40th anniversary of his great newspaper. , Ben-Gurion s Resignat ion: Temporary Crisis While the resignation of David Ben- Gurion as Israel's Prime Minister creates worldwide anxieties, the developments in the Jewish State must be viewed realis- tically. Israel has progressed so admirably that she is able to replace her pioneer statesmen with well trained substitutes. There is a good staff of diplomats in Israel's services, and there need be no fear as to her future. The tragedy is not in Ben-Gurion's resignation, which may prove to be very temporary, but in the incident that caused it. Israelis are chagrined that a matter involving the State's security should have been turned into a public scandal. That's the cause for regret. It is to be hoped that it will be a lesson for Israel's leaders—to avert the recur- rence of such errors in the future. Sherman expresses the view that, "originally fragmented in their cultural views and communal activities and subsequently achieving a high degree of acculturation in a short period of time, the Jews, had they fitted into the general patterns of integration, should have reached a state of near-dissolution as a community by the third generation." But the opposite occurred, the contradiction consisting "in the growth and solidification of the Jewish community coming about partly because of American assimilatory trends and partly in spite of them. Inner forces of cohesion within the Jewish group have turned acculturation itself into an instrument to develop and to strengthen ethnic individuality. The persistent majority attitudes peculiar to America resisted the complete assimilation even of those wavering Jews who may have actually desired to leave the Jewish fold. Utilitarianism, pragmatism and democracy have been transformed into factors of Jewish ethnic consolidation." Sherman tells of having watched "the changing panorama of American Jewish life" as it unfolded itself in all its dimensions, by attending major conventions of American and international organizations. He declares: "Neither America nor the Jew has been wholly on the receiving end or wholly on the giving end in the casting of the Jewish community as an integral part of the American nation and as a segment of the Jewish people. There has been a dynamic give and take; and reciprocal influences have been constantly at play in the process, This is what makes the evolution of the Jewish settlement in this country so significant and fascinating a page in the annals of both the United States and the Jewish people." "The Jew Within American Society" has special merit because of the thorough study made by the author of the role of East Eur- opean immigrants in this country, the economic mobility of the American Jew, the inner solidification of the American Jewish community; and other factors in American Jewish life. Suniming up his conclusions on the American Jew's ethnic individuality, Sherman writes: "We find it deviating from the course which the other ethnic groups have followed in the process of integrating themselves into the larger American society. Those groups, in contradistinc- tion to the settlers who built a new civilization on the basis of an old culture, have discarded their old cultures in order to adapt themselves to the new civilization dominated by the Anglo-Saxon elements. The greater the distance a group has covered on t h e road to adaptation, the farther it has moved away from its own ethnic moorings. The Jews have proved to be an exception to this rule, and herein lies their uniqueness as an ethnic com- munity." Thus, the author of this book contends that "the disappearance of the Jews as a separate group is not in sight as long as prevailing social conditions in the United States and the existent world situa- tion of the Jewish people continue." He adds that "only as a corn , munity the Jews can best and most effectively inject their tone into the American symphony." He comments that if Jews "were to retain their ethnic identity solely - because the majority refuses to absorb them, then their existence would be marked by frustration and bitterness. . . If, on the other hand, their group identity is founded on their will to live and to enrich America with whatever creative originality they possess—they will be able to make of their exceptional status a joy to themselves and a blessing to the United States."