7,
Purely Commentary
B, PHILIP SLOMOVITZ
1..4
Red Officials Tell Bnai Brith Russia's
•
Jews Favor 'Dominant Soviet Culture'
NEW YORK (JTA) — Two 1 Jewish cultural and educational I language, and of Jewish educa-
a German Who Dared to Be a Pacifist
proposals advanced by a Jewish institutions in the Soviet Union tional facilities, or even secular
.- ■
&. cl›
.
Many Germans figure gloriously in current history as en delegation from - -the United States do not correspond with what it school courses in Yiddish or He-
.of courage who dared defy men
the militarist spirit of the,ir. .country- to high officials in Mciscow, with was told by USSR officials—that brew, to a disinterest among
men. Leonhard Frank, the German author who died last week regard to Jewish religion and Soviet Jews are not interested. Jews themselves," Katz reported,
4)
, in Munich at the age of 78, belonged to this grave circle. education, were brushed aside by "Jewish cultural interests could But, Katz added, "there
is
of Yid-
- ,1 4
As far back as World War I, he was forced to emigrate the officials, each of them giving easily flourish in the Soviet still a widespread use Jews, and
w
from his German homeland to Switzerland after slapping a the same answer—that these pro- Union if they are accorded the dish among Soviet
it
German journalist for calling the sinking of the Lusitania the posals would have to come from same encouragement that is we told Mr. Kuznetsof that
individual synagogues in the shown other S o v i e t ethnic is difficult to accept a conclu-
:
groups," Katz said. "In our brief sion that these people would
Kt, "most heroic act in history."
,
a
He was back in Germany, only to be exiled again before the Soviet
The Union.
delegation, composed of but intensive contacts, we found not support enthusiastically
I w last war when the Nazis burned his books. He came to the
United States but did not become a citizen, again returning to American Bnai Brith leaders a persistent streak of Jewish Yiddish press and other Yid-
well
;.T.1 Germany in 1950. Both the Bonn West German Government and headed by Label A. Katz, pres- consciousness, even among young ' dish cultural facilities, as Ian-
ident
of
the
organization,
con-
Jews.
But
they
are
without
as
Hebrew
and
Russian
•
Z the Communist
East
regime
honored Klaus
him. Mann, son of ferred in Moscow separately with almost any cultural means to guage institutions, if they are
He was one
of German
28 Germans,
including
RI
Thomas
Mann,
who
were
charged
with
anti
German
propaganda Alexander N. Kuznetsov, First express it. This contrasts quite Jewishly
oriented."
The Soviet
minister also told
11 c)
Deputy Minister of Culture, and sharply with the Soviet Govern-
the Nazis as far back as 1934 and were deprived of the V. Riasanov, Deputy Chairman ment's support of cultural activi- the Bnai Brith leaders that his
K,4 by
of the Council for the Affairs of ties for other USSR nationality government, as well as Soviet
ti German citizenship.
Jews, favored the continuing
Katz declared.
There are so many occasions to list names of Nazis who Religious Cults. The members of groups,"
The Bnai Brith president said growth of a dominant Soviet
14are being called to the bar of justice that we must not overlook the delegation proposed separate- that he and other representatives culture and the elimination of
ly to the two high officials:
of his organization, during the other cultures that might tend to
(-1 the names of the saintly people who defied tyranny and Nazi
, W
1 . That Soviet Jewry be repre-
A brutality. Leonhard Frank's name belongs in the group of Ger-
in M ow were granted an set groups apart.
sented at a forthcoming interna- stay n osc,
mans who saved a semblance of honor for their people.
_ Katz said that official identi-
s op
opportunity
to discuss "thi-
*
*
*
tional
Jewish
edu- parent contradiction" in Soviet fication of Soviet . Jews as a na-
cation, conference
as well as on other
world-
I:0
Raftling for wide non-political conferences policy toward its 100-and-more tionality group, and the anti-
F.4 Bustani's Unfortunate Contrast: Regrettable
magazine
Saber Realities
August
devoted edition
to "The of Mediterranean
groups with
during
a 60-minute
Semitic
excesses
last
The is English
the French Sea—A Confluence dealing with Jewish cultural and ethnic
five years
of the during
Stalin the
regime,
conference
Kuznetsof.
"
"Mr. Kuznetsof was among "are at least two of the factors
of East and West." The articles in this issue contain numerous religious affairs.
references to Israel and the Arab states. There is a special 2. That "as an act of friend those who attributed the almost that have helped heighten Jewish
per-
article devoted to Israel's former Chief of Staff, General Moshe ship between Jewish communi- total absence of Jewish-content consciousness among young per-
newspapers
and
periodicals,
sons
who
have
lived
their
entire
Dayan, and another to Emile Bustani, "one of the few big ties," the Bnai Brith should send
to synagogues in the Soviet either in Yiddish or the • Russian lives in the Soviet society."
industrialists in the Arab world."
In "Big Businessman Bustani—A New Type of Arab," the Union
a gift Bibles,
of religious
articles,
including
prayer
books
and prayer shawls, which are in
Lebanese Bustani is quoted as follows:
Boris Smolar's
"At Saida, there was a boy named George in my class. He short supply in the USSR.
was much stronger than I was and he beat me up all the
Katz, who returned from
time. Well, we came back from vacation. I had suddenly grown
up. And I had just one idea, to get my revenge on George. Moscow, said that "each offi- o
When school opened, I rushed up to him. There he was all vial gave the same answer the
t
right — but he now seemed so thin and frail that I changed the
first for
request"—that
request
Soviet Jewish par-
in international Jew-
my mind.
my
lit 1961,
conferences "would have to
"Take
Jewish (Copyright Agency, Inc.)
"Take the Jews and the Arabs — they're just like George
and me. Today, the Jews are strong and the Arabs are weak._ be initiated by individual 1)ipl
Moods
omatic
The opening of the United Nations General Assembly next
The Arabs can't forgive the Jews. - But give the Arabs 25 years, synagogue groups in the
week signalizes the start of the diplomatic season . . . This
let them benefit from their oil royalties, and they, too, will be
Jews time it will be a rough season for the world in general and for
strong and they will become magnanimous. They will have lost USSR." As to the offer of to send-
in Russia,
Katz said that there Israel .. . Many of the problems that will come up before the
their inferiority complex." ing religious
articles
How is one to judge this? Is it to be implied that in was no response to it "except UN Assembly — like the Berlin problem, the Soviet atom bomb
the Algerian issue, as well as the Soviet request for the
magnanimity the Arabs will be kind to Israel? If they seek to say that we would have to tests,
kindness, why not find it in peace? Who are the constant saber- take it up first with the syna- reorganization Of the UN Secretariat — will overshadow the
chronic Arab-Israel conflict . . The Arab refugee problem is
gogues."
rattlers if not Bustani's kinsmen?
on the agenda and the Arab countries are determined to make
What a pity that men of the caliber of Bustani can not
In reporting on the visit of the the greatest anti-Israel show at the United Nations around it
speak of amity, at the outset, instead of likening Israel, on Bnai Brith delegation to Moscow,
. • The world is used by now to the anti-Israel speeches
whose border with Lebanon's, Bustani' homeland, there is rela- Katz said here that the delega- repeated like on a phonograph record by Arab delegates each
tive peace, instead of comparing his neighbor to a mythical tion's observations on the lack of year at the UN Assembly . . . However, now that Nasser feels
George!
himself a leader not only of the Arab world but also of the
There is too much talk of war and too little of peace. Would
"neutral" nations that participated in the recent Belgrade
Jewish
Expert
Identifies
that "statesmen" could learn to soften their speeches and
conference, he will attempt to push his views at the UN with
thereby truly to benefit their peoples!
greater impertinence . . . Thus, not the substance of the Arab
Ben
Franklin
Book
* * *
speeches will matter, but rather the atmosphere in which they
PHILADELPHIA, .(JTA) — will be delivered . . . We are living in an atmosphere where
A Cosmopolitan Reporter Is Duped
Edwin Wolf II, president of the even countries friendly to Israel — even the United States — are
The many people who were disturbed by the hate-motivated Federation of Jewish Agencies seeking to gain friends among the "neutral" nations and win
statements of a Redford woman whose misinformation about Israel of Philadelphia, has been cred- their votes at the United Nations on crucial issues . . . The Arab
was quoted in an article in Wednesday's Detroit News, should ited by Boston Public Library states have 11 votes at the UN and are considering themselves
have been better prepared for a pack of untruths. It was not with identifying a book in the li- "neutral" in the fight between the Western countries and Mos-
the first time that misinformation -
cow, notwithstanding the fact that some of them are openly
spread encourage
about Israel,
and of
it brary's rare book shelves as one pro-Soviet . . . The sentiment in the State Department is, there-
surely won't be the last—as long was
as bigots
a state
war rather than peace.
written and owned by Benjamin fore, to do nothing that could be offensive to their sensitiveness
. . . This policy will, for purely practical reasons, also be
The misguided woman, who so indisCriminately passed on her Franklin.
followed by the American delegation at the United Nations when
lack of knowledge about both Arabs and Israel, did not visit Israel.
The book, • "Experiments and
She was at the Gaza Strip under guidance of a propagandist whose Observations on Electricity," had the Arab-Israel issue will come up there as part of the Arab
purpose it suited well to spew hatred against Israel. She probably rested unnoticed on the library's refugee problem . . . What it actually means is that Israel would
never heard about Hadassah whose medical services have benefited shelves since 1873. Wolf, head feel at the UN Assembly now more isolated than ever, since
the Arabs more than the Jews—from the time the first two of the Library Company of Phila- she belongs to no bloc and depends entirely on the backing
Jewish nurses went to Jerusalem to establish a clinic in l913. delphia and a Franklin authority, of the United States and the Western nations.
* •
She must be entirely unaware of the fact that the Arabs were a identified a penciled notation on
sick people until the Jews came to Palestine; that there are sick the inside surface of the front Soviet Notes
peoples everywhere except in Israel where Arab standards are the cover as an authentic Franklin
Is Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev anti-Semitic? .
highest in the world. shelf-mark.
John A. Armstrong, professor of political science who taught
What is one to expect from a person who had set out to
Corrections in Franklin's hand- at the University of Denver and Columbia University, and
spread venom—just because an Egyptian student, who should have writing appear on 20 pages of who is now teaching at the University of Wisconsin, says "yes"
. . Armstrong traveled extensively in the Soviet Union in
been an emissary for peace, turned out to be a hate-monger? the book.
recent years and is the author of several books on Soviet
Even more regrettable about the Detroit News article than
Russia . .. In his latest book, "The Politics of Totalitarianism,"
the lies about Israel and the untruths about the Arab position is
the manner in which an otherwise good reporter—who covers Brandeis Prof Seeks • dealing with the Soviet Union from 1934 to the present — pub-
lished by Random House — he goes into great length on the
the Detroit News metropolitan beat—should have permitted himself
treatment of Jews in the USSR under Stalin as well as under
to become a tool for anti-Jewish propaganda. He was duped and Semite-Cretan Link
he should know it. He and his paper have a perfect right to
Prof. Cyrus H. Gordon, head Khrushchev . • . He charges Khrushchev with "cynically per-
quote anyone they wish, no matter how harmful to -other people. of the department of _Mediter- petuating the traditional morality embodied in Stalin's violent
But they have no right to become tools of anti-Semitism.
ranean studies at Brandeis Uni- • anti-Semitism" . . . He brings out a theory that Khrushchev,
When the article quoted the woman whose hate-spewing versity, has called for combined as foriner head of the Communist apparatus in the Ukraine,
should disturb her Christian conscience about UAR ``nee,ds,as Olaf- 'archaeological exploration in Is- 144 been responsible for the special harshness of the anti-
as Israel, which has all the money," the reporter might as Well have rael and-Crete to study the close Seinitic campaign in the Ukraine during the last years of the
used an age-old anti-Semitic cry against the Jews: that "the Jews relationship between the Cre- Stalin regime . . . He points out that, although during the
have all the money." . tans and Semites of the second notrious "doctors' plot" period, the entire Soviet press was full
of propaganda directed against Soviet Jewry, the campaign was
.
The truth is: there is a struggle going on to get funds needed millenium B.C.E..
"especially intense" in the Ukraine, where Khrushchev reigned
to rescue Jews from lands of persecution, chief among them the Gordon, who identified 150 . . . He says that for years rumors had circulated in Moscow
Moslem countries, and it is not an easy role for an embattled clay tablets at Haghia Triada,
that Beria was himself Jewish, or partly Jewish . . . There is,
people. But the Arabs are not helping anyone, they have not near the south coast of Crete, however,
no substantiating evidence for this rumor, Armstrong
come to the aid of the Arab refugees whom THEY dragged out as inventories written in Ak- adds, but points out that "nevertheless, Beria and the Jews
of Israel; yet they are the Arab coffers that are filled with oil- kadian, a Semitic language, is had been in the same boat as Stalin's intended victims" . .
drenched fortunes and large subsidies secured mainly from the convinced that interchanges be- As soon as Stalin died, Jewish police officials who had been
people of the United States. t w e e n the ' earliest historic in disgrace were restored by Beria to active duty . , . Beria
Yet, also, it is the American people that is being misled Greeks and the Hebrews were also dismissed T. A. Strokach, long-term associate of Khrush-
by tripe like that quoted by the able Detroit News cosmopolitan so close that undoubtedly "they chev, who had supervised the Ukrainian police system, for
reporter. Dear friend, how you have been duped! And how some shared a common east Mediter- persecuting Jews.
Americans are being duped thereby! ranean heritage."
Leonhard Frank
—
-
'Between You
... and Me'
Ilk