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THE JEWISH NEWS
Dual Loyalties
A BERK AMERati *WO A6ETTSWEVi
fiNAOUATVON rsost
Incorporating the Detroit Jewish Chronicle commencing with issue of July 20, 1951
Member American Association of English—Jewish Newspaper, Michigan Press Association, National Edi-
torial 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
Advertising Manager
Business Manager
City Editor
Sabbath Scriptural Selections
This Sabbath, the tenth day of Tammuz, 5721, the following Scriptural selections will be
read in our synagogues:
Pentateuchal portion, Hukkat„ Num. 19:1-22:1. Prophetical portion, Judges 11:1-33.
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Licht Benshen, Friday, June 23, 7:52 p.m.
VOL. XXXIX. No. 17
Page Four
June 23, 1961
Trial's Lesson: Never Forget the Crime
As the Eichmann trial progresses,
there is an increasing amount of skepti-
cism about the value of prolonged hear-
ings and the gathering of testimony that
is often interpreted as repetitive.
Jews as well as non-Jews are begin-
ning to question the value of stretched-
out chronicling of events that occurred
during the brutal Nazi regime.
It becomes necessary again, therefore,
to show why the trial of the arch criminal
is such a vital necessity and why it is so
important for mankind to make the rec-
ord crystal clear for the present genera-
tion and for future historians.
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The world had begun to forget. As a
matter of fact, too many of the very
generation that experienced the unspeak-
able Nazi crimes had become calloused to
what had transpired.
Many preferred not to be reminded
of the past. Many still wish to forget.
Some have been made overly sensitive
by the tattooed numerals on their arms
which made them not human beings but
numbers in the concentration camps.
Since Adolf Eichmann, who sits im-
passively, seemingly unmoved by the
testimony that is unfolding against him,
is merely a symbol of the historic task
that has been undertaken by the Israelis
to expose the crime of his people, it is
vital that the purpose of the trial should
be understood.
It is aimed at reminding the world
of the threat that was hurled at all
mankind by insane people who sought
the destruction of every vestige of
human decency and who had made the
Jews their first victims. It is intended
to keep alive the memory of the Mo-
. caust, so that by knowing the facts
there will be concerted efforts never
again to permit the repetition of such
crimes.
The stories of the brutalities are
heartrending. They are difficult to listen
to and to examine. But they were so
brutal in their making that rational
human beings must learn to hear them,
else no one ever will be prepared to
oppose their like.
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The shocking arrogance of a young
Nazi, the son of Eichmann, who has
abused American hospitality by spread-
ing anti-Semitism in this country is one
of the proofs of the need constantly to
admonish people not to fall prey to the
propaganda of bigots.
The great Jewish historian, Simon
Dubnow, the centenary of whose birth
we observed last year, understood the
need for the retention of historical facts,
in order that the truth should be dissemi-
nated unhindered and falsehoods proper-
ly repudiated. The Jewish Publication
Society and Meridian Books have just
issued as a paperback Dubnow's "Na-
tionalism and History." Dr. Koppel S.
Pinson, who edited and introduced this
important book, three years before his
own untimely death early this year, wrote
in his introductory essay to this book:
"When the Nazis entered Riga they
evicted Dubnow from his home and
seized his entire library . . . After a
short period of ghetto organization the
Nazis liquidated the ghetto at the end
of October 1941 and a month later they
carried out their first 'action' against
the Riga Jews. Dubnow was seriously
ill, but friends managed to conceal
him for a while. On the night of Dec.
7-8 the Nazis carried out their second
`action.' All the old and sick as well as
the women in advanced pregnancy
were herded together in buses. Dubnow
was also taken outside to be squeezed
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into one of these overloaded buses. He
was in high fever at the time and was
hardly able to move his feebled legs.
A Latvian militiaman then advanced
and fired a bullet in Dubnow's back
and the sainted martyr fell dead on the
spot. . . . A story went round that the
last words Dubnow muttered as he
was being led out to the bus were:
`Brothers, don't forget! Recount what
you hear and see! Brothers, make a
record of it all!"
This is what is being done in Jeru-
salem: the record that has been accumu-
lated is being recounted for all to hear,
for the world to realize even at this late
hour what an act of horror was perpe-
trated against Jewry and mankind.
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In Dubnow's "Nationalism and His-
tory," the late Prof. Pinson incorporated,
as a concluding chapter, under the title
"What Should One Do in Haman's
Times?", the letter Dubnow wrote to the
editors of Oyfn Sheydweg in 1939. He
had then seen the handwriting on the
wall and he warned that Hitler's "system
of extermination" is a replica of Haman's
plan in the Biblical account. He began to
call for action—for resistance, for orga-
nization by Jews, for efforts to expose the
crimes.
Dubnow's letter should be read and
studied. It should become a guide for
libertarians.
The entire -record of the Eichmann
trial is a guide for all who strive for
liberty. Its clarion call is: what has hap-
pened must never recur again, and the
guilty must stand before the bar of
justice for all time to come.
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If proof is needed to show that the
Nazi-Fascist elements once again are
striving to gain a foothold in many parts
of the world, it was provided a few days
ago in a report from Madrid. A Free Press
correspondent stated, in his report from
the Spanish capital, that "there they en-
dure and flourish . . . They erupt into full
view from time to time to embarrass and
discourage those who would like to see
Spain rehabilitated in the eyes of the free
world. Recently, recurrent nostalgia for
Nazism broke surface once again in the
form of articles lamenting the Allies' win-
ning of World War II and the passing of
the Hitler-Mussolini era, and denouncing
the Adolf Eichmann trial in Jerusalem as
`ridiculous' and `nauseating'."
So, the partners in the Hitler-Musso-
lini crimes, whose nostrils became attuned
to burning flesh of their victims in ex-
termination camps, now are "nauseated"
by the expose of their crimes!
Now they tell us that the gas chambers
were technical installations "to test sol-
diers' gas masks!" They overlook the
fact that the entire story of the Nazi
crime, of the murder of millions in the
Nazi gas chambers already has been
placed on the record, that the chronicle
of their barbarities fills 40 volumes of
testimony compiled at the Nuremberg
trial, and that former Nazis today testify
to their crimes.
As the evidence accumulates in Jeru-
salem, there is an equally impressive ac-
cumulation of indictments against those
who still would hide the facts, who strive
to hide the truth and to seek compassion
for the arch murderers.
All of which adds to the important
need for the presentation of all available
details against Nazism, no matter how
long the proceedings may drag in Jeru-
salem. It must be done so that the revela-
tions will unify the determination of the
free world never again to permit a recur-
rence of the Nazi-Fascist crimes.
G.
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'Weekday Prayer Book' Issued
by U. S. Rabbinical Assembly
Several editions of our Prayer Book have appeared" in recent
years with new or revised translations.
The newest, "Weekday Prayer Book," issued by the Rabbi-
nical Assembly of America, (Broadway and 122nd, New York 27)
is worthy of more than the ordinary interest that is usually shown
in a prayer book.
This one is perhaps the most useful for week-day use for
synagogue or at-home services.
Unlike other similar prayer books, this one contains the
Torah readings for the Mondays and Thursdays during week days
when there are Scriptural readings, the readings from the Torah
for Hanukah, Hol Hamoed Pesach, Hol Hamoed Sukkot, Tisha
b'Ab and other fast days.
There are some variations in this prayer book and several
important additions, including:
A special prayer for Israel's Independence Day, Hanukah
and Purim prayers and modifications in passages dealing with
animal sacrifices.
Some of the changes in translations are noteworthy. The
commission that was in charge of the preparation of this prayer
book, headed by Rabbi Gershon Hadas as dhairman and Rabbi
Jules Harlow, secretary, explains that while many other editions
of the Siddur have special signs marking off portions of the text
to be chanted by the Hazzah, "this text is so printed that there
is no need for such signs."
The commission also states that "the adoption of the familiar
second person in reference to the deity, revisions in the Hebrew
text, and parallel changes in the translation were adopted in
the effort to make our prayer book more readily accessible and
more meaningful to the contemporary worshipper ... The English
and the Hebrew texts have been so arranged and spaced as to
make individual reading pleasurable, and to encourage responsive
reading by congregations."
M. Seasongood s Speeches
Murray Seasongood, who was born in Cincinnati in 1878
and has lived there since—except for brief absences during
the nearly 83 years of his active life—was Mayor of Cincinnati,
1926-30, for two terms.
He was an active leader in Bnai Brith, was prominent in
the Legal Aid movement and served as president of the Na-
tional Municipal League.
An able lawyer, he was a professor of law at the Cin-
cinnati University. He was in the front ranks in defense of
many important causes.
His sister, the late Martha S. Stern of Cincinnati, estab-
lished a trust fund for the publication of selections from his
major addreSses. She commissioned Seasongood's wife, Agnes
Seasongood, to publish the book.
The task is now completed. In "Selections. from Speeches
of Murray Seasongood, 1900-1959." are incorporated the eminent
Cincinnatian's public utterances.
Mrs. Seasongood has ably performed the task of editing the
speeches, which are incorporated in his new book, published by
Alfred A. Knopf (501 Madison, N. Y.).-
In her foreword to the book, Mrs. Seasongood reviews
her husband's interesting activities and points to the manifold
interests he had not only in his own profession but also in the
arts and sciences, in music, in movements in behalf of the
blind, and other causes.
The selected speeches commence with his "Ivy Oration" in
June 1900, when he was selected Ivy orator at Harvard. That
month he also spoke on "Commencement Past and Present" at
Harvard, and that speech, too, is in the book.
Then follow his address on Law in Shakespeare, Social
Sciences and the Law, England Our Friend, Youth and the
State—Clean Politics, tributes ,to friends, remarks as a toast-
master, etc.
There is a variety of subjects in the 46 quoted speeches. It
echoes a lifetime of constructive activities.
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