THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS — Friday, Fetru ary 17, 196 1 — 32

Rougher Road for Israel in UN
Predicted by Ambassador Comay

UNITED NATIONS, N. Y:, friends and with the new friends
(JTA)—"Israel's position in the we have made in Asia and Africa.
United Nations now faces new On the other hand, there are
tests and challenges, and the road many signs that the Arab states
ahead is likely to be rougher than want to develop a new diplomatic
it has been for several years," offensive at the United Nations
Ambassador Michael S. Comay, against Israel, and to drag the
head of the Israel delegation to so-called Palestine question into
the United Nations, said Monday. the forefront of UN concern once
Addressing 500 participants in more."
Ambassador Comay sees one of
the annual Seminar of the Zionist
Organization of America, held at the reasons for this greater belli-
the UN headquarters, Comay gerence in the tensions within the
pointed out that the United Na. Arab world itself, and the ten-
tions is now in a state of flux dency to cover them over by a col-
because of the influx of new lective crusade against Israel.
"Rut maybe the main motive
African countries, the Soviet at-
tack on the present UN structure, for renewed Arab activity against
and the involvement of the UN in Israel. at the United Nations is
the desire to influence the . new
the Congo.
"The rapidly changing United African countries and to disrupt
Nations holds for Israel both their ties with Israel," he added.
"However, silly the charge of
opportunities and danger s,"
Ambassador Comay stated. On Israel colonialism may be, it
the one hand, the United Nations should not be ignored. The tur-
moil in Africa produces Arab
is the world's meeting place, and I African groupings, which the
we must there foster our relation-
ships both with our traditional Arabs do their best to exploit
against Israel, as recent events
have shown.
Hebrew corner
"I am not pessimistic about the
outcome," Comay continued. "For
most of the African countries
have direct and positive contact
with Israel, are suspicious of Nas-
s e r's ambitions in Africa, and in
The Midrash Rabbah deals with
the explaining of the verses of the any case are reluctant to be in-
Torah. The legends cited in this volved in the conflicts of others.
Midrash which are described in a
picturesque and attractive idiom are But we may have some disap-
not meant as beautiful stories and pointments in this field and must
nothing more but possess an educa-
tional aim: the Aggada (Jewish Lore remain constantly vigilant." The
as opposed to law) seeks to guide Israel representative stressed the
the people in problems of life and
therefore intersperses its words with following points:

Tsur to Bring
JNF Plans
to U.S. Jewry-

By ELIAHU SALPETER

(Copyright, 1961, Jewish Telegraphic
Agency. Inc.)

JERUSALEM — Yacov
Israel's former AmbaSsador to
France and, before that to the
Latin American countries, who
was recently elected President
of the Jewish National Fund,
will address the JNF national
conference in Washington, D.C.,
on Feb. 22, and will visit large
cities in the United States and
Canada to address JNF groups.
Tsur's visit has far-reaching
aims. He is going to America
after the JNF world conference
held in Jerusalem on the eve
of the Zionist Congress. At that
conference a new program for
the JNF was presented and
adopted; it is this program that
Tsur wants to bring before the
American Jewish public.
The turning point in the JNF
position came recently when the
agreement on the Joint Land
Authority between the Israel
government and the JNF was
put into practice. Under this
agreement the JNF will be in
charge of all afforestation and
land improvement activities
both on JNF and State lands.
The government quit afforesta-
tion and land improvement work
altogether. According to Tsur,
his experts estimate that within
several years 2,500,000 dunams
of waste land can be turned
"1. As the new United States Ad- into either farmland or new
matters relating to the Jewish people,
Eretz Israel, the Torah of Israel and ministration has emphasized, the forest land. ,To carry out this
the redemption of Israel. United Nations should be regarded enormous project, the JNF will
Many commentaries have been writ- as a forum for reconciling dif-
ten to the Midrash Rabbah but most ferences and not for inflaming them require about 500,000,000
of them have been penned i in a by sterile controversy. This applies pounds.
difficult style not understood by to the Israel-Arab conflict as
This implies several impor-
ordinary folk. In particular, Diaspora strongly as it does to the Cold \A'ar.
Jews who are not fluent in Hebrew "2. The United • Nations should tant developments as far as the
and Aramaic have found the Mid- refrain from tampering with resolu-
rash difficult to understand. Lions, and writing into them what work of the JNF is concerned.
The Yavne and Mahbarot Lesifruth, might appear to be minor conces-
publishing companies, Tel Aviv, have sions to Arab. demands. It must be The first one is obvious: JNF
recently published the whole of the understood that these demands are will need more money, and the
Midrash Rabbah in a vocalized and not made in the interests of a solu- world conference decided to
annotated edition. tion of the refugee problem, but in
In the Yavne edition. M. A. Mirkin the interests of political 'warfare double the JNF budget—which
contributes a new scientific corn- against Israel, in the hope of under-
mentary. In his commentary he also mining our position and eventually means that contributions from
explains the passages written in trying to settle accounts again with abroad will have to be doubled.
Aramaic and his commentary is full Israel. In the long run, therefore. This is not a simple increase
and exact. The Mahbarot Lesifruth such gestures of appeasements are
in the existing effort. At pres-
edition has printed in the body of destructive. -
"3. The true role of the United
the book the Hebrew translation to
the Aggadot .written in Aramaic. to- Nations is to go on insisting on a ent, to a large extent, JNF
gether with the commentary of E. settlement of outstanding issues be- fund-raising is the "work of
Levi, so that they can be read easily tween Israel and the Arab states oldsters and children" in many
and with no difficulty. by negotiation. Even if the Arab
In these books the gates of the Governments refuse to negotiate, parts of the world. One of the
Midrash have been opened before they should be discouraged from aims of Tsur's visit to America
both Israel and Diaspora Jewry and believing that in a changing and
so both the Hebrew reader and stu- expanding UnlIted Nations, they is to recruit new volunteers
dent can enjoy this treasury of Juda- can gain ground at Israel's expense.
ism without difficulty. Here the United States has a vital among the young adult Jewish
Translation of Hebrew colmun issued stabilizing role to play.
community for JNF work.
by Brit Ivrit Olamit.
There are many problems
on the practical side of im-
r 4 •
T
plementing this expanded
program. For many years,
J N F gave employment to
-r i41
thousands of new immigrants
who had settled in new vil-
and could not yet earn
appiv -14 -1 ItiTir;m lages
a living from their own farms
or from industries which were
, tzlop being
txItP ,"t14 1- tell.P" '1PP
established since in
both cases it takes time be-
en,trIbrpi Crip)7? rO-Rzi-)7?;-;
fore a farm becomes produc-
ritz?4 tive or a -plant is constructed
ragirp
tt-n
and ready for manufacture.
Employing these people, the
, 471» trAnp
trilDt? '1P 6 '?
JNF received from the Israel
1,#)n
government the amount equiv-
alent to what would have
rvp. wp
been paid to these new im-
migrants had they been em-
,ror?'mri
1'7 V;
ployed in relief work and the
JNF only added the differ-
roa
ence up to normal daily wage.
Now, however, unemployment
'.1t?;7
is practically non-existent in
nnInn
, +-pvrT i
,L2r)tr - rl3L? Israel, while the JNF will re-
quire more workers than be-
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have to hire them through
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vg
the Labor Exchanges, paying
from the entire wage its own
,,ttp - xt?Lrlrlpt?i4 nix -p4
budget.
Another major project of this
riTs;
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':11/.td. inr)P4
kind is the planting of a broad
band of forests all the way
17 t17
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m•rr
from Dimona to the Gaza Strip
area in the West. The purpose
) L
'1 ?nS`tP.
here is to establish a natural
to2s
screen which would keep out
the desert sands and dust which
phir 11pitpri,
at present is a great handicap
to the industrial development
141ty?
S'?'?
of the new townships in the
Northern Negev. The dust can-
arrTrryi
not be kept out of the machines,
and increases considerably the
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g
1
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cost of maintenance.

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■

Aground the

A Digest of World Jewish Happenings
from Dispatches of the Jewish Telegraphic
Agency and Other News-Gathering Media,

United States

' WASHINGTON — Senator Stuart Symington, Missouri
Democrat, was named chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee's Near Eastern subcommittee by Committee chairman,
Senator J. W. Fulbright. The Arab-Israel issue and other regional
matters fall in the subcommittee's field of interest. . • . Declaring
that young people are "seriously concerned with world condi-
tions," teen-age leaders of the Bnai Brith Youth Organization
presented Senator John J. Sparkman of the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee with a resolution endorsing the Administra-
tion's proposal for a youth "peace corps" to assist other lands.
. . . Philip M. Klutznick, Jewish leader, was sworn in as United
States Representative to the United Nations Economic and Social
Council. . . . Israel Ambassador Avraham Harman discussed
general problems affecting the Middle East in a meeting with
Secretary of State Dean Rusk, but declined to elaborate, de-
scribing his Visit as a courtesy call and explaining that it was
his first opportunity to pay respects to the new Seereary since
his appointment.
LOS ANGELES — The largest voluntary hospital in the
western United States was created through the merger of Cedars
of Lebanon Hospital and Mount Sinai Hospital, the principal
goal being the establishment of a unified medical center of at
least 1,000 beds. • . . A rare leaf from the 600-year-old Gutenberg
Bible was given to Sinai Temple for its permanent library.
ATLANTA — The first edition of the merged Southern
Israelite of Atlanta and the Suncoast Jewish News of St.
Petersburg, Fla., was published here.
NEW YORK—A blind Episcopal Clergyman, Rev. H. J. Sut-
cliffe, was honored by the Free Sons of Israel for teaching
Hebrew and Hebrew Braille to sightless Jews who wanted to
participate actively in synagogue services. . . . A group of 47
private investors left on the first Shareholders Tour of Israel
after an Idlewild airport reception at which they were guests of
Israel's Economics Minister, Aryeh Manor, and Shimon Horn,
North American director of the Government of Israel Investment
Authority. . . . Frederick H. Boland of Ireland, president of the
United Nations General Assembly, received a gavel and Brother-
hood Award at the Sutton Place Jewish Center.
ROCKAWAY PARK, N.Y. — The 13th annual convention of
the National Association of Hebrew Day School Parent-Teacher
Associations, attended by 400 delegates from 150 Hebrew all-day
schools, urged JeWish federations and welfare funds to increase
their aid to day schools and declared that the schools would
otherwise have to seek financial aid from government sources,
"which the federations vehemently discourage."
WESTPORT, Conn.--Members of seven religious congrega-
tions—Protestant, Roman Catholic, Jewish—moved to end hous-
ing discrimination here by distributing pledge cards in their
places of worship, with each signer undertaking to welcome into
his neighborhood any resident of good character, regardless of
race or religion, and to be willing to, rent or sell to such a
person. Spokesman for the group was Rev. Richard L. Snyder,
assistant minister of the Saugatuck Congregational Church.
. . . Suburban comfort and complacency may sap the vitality
of Jewish life in America, speakers told an AJC-sponsored con-
ference of 150 Jewish educators, while urging stronger links
between American Jews and Israel as an antidote to the "con-
formity and lack of purpose of life in suburbia."
CINCINNATI — The 80th birthday of Rabbi Eliezer Silver,
leader of American Orthodox Jewry, - was be celebrated at a
dinner here. Rabbi Silver, the founder of the Agudat Israel
Organization in America, came to the United States from
Lithuania in 1907.

Israel

TEL AVIV — Fourteen Centurion tanks purchased from
Britain arrived aboard the SS, Kinneret after a stormy passage
through the Mediterranean and were unloaded immediately • at
an undisclosed point off Israel's coast.
JERUSALEM—The Jewish AgenCy executive approved a
1961-62 budget totalling 184,240,000 pounds ($103,174,000) and
heard that if efforts to obtain a higher exchange rate from the
government on the Agency's overseas currency income were
successful, 75 percent of the increase in Israeli funds would be
used to raise allocations ,to setlements. . . The government
approved transfer of 74 percent of the shares of Israel's largest
chemical firm, the Fertilizers and Chemical Co. of Haifa, to the
Israel Investors Corporation, an American firm, while the re-
mainder will be retained by the government and agricultural
cooperatives. The decision, which may foreshadow other transfers
of government plants to private investors, was taken over the
objection of Development Minister Mordechai Bentov, of Mapam,
who tried to limit the American firm - to 50 percent of the
chemical shares.

Latin America

RIO DE JANEIRO—Former President Juscelino Kubitschek
expressed his appreciation to a number of Jewish organizations
and prominent Jews for their "patriotic support" of his adminis-
tration.

Europe

BONN — Georg -Michalsen, former SS Major and deputy to
Odilo Globocnik, the Henchman of Lublin, was arrested near
Hamburg on charges of complicity in the murder of Jews in
Nazi camps.
PARIS — Le Figaro, a leading newspaper, reported that the
prominent Polish leader Piasecki, head of a Catholic organization
which is closely associated with Polish Communist ruling circles,
has been accused openly in Warsaw of delivering to the Nazis
a Jewish woman and her two young daughters, following charges
first made by western sources. . . Leaders of the Roman Cath-
olic, Protestant, .and Jewish faiths in France visited President
DeGaulle in December to urge a truce in the war in Algeria,
according to the Protestant weekly Reforme, which added that
while DeGaulle showed himself "sympathetic," the suggestion
"did not respond to the situation at that moment.",
VIENNA—The Communist newspaper, Volkstimme, reported
that a former high SS officer, Dr. A. Quietensky; was given the
post of police commander of a Vienna district.