Damned by Both Sides
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
Business Manager
Advertising Manager
City Editor
Sabbath Scriptural Selections
This Sabbath, the ninth day of Tevet, 5722, the following Scriptural selections will be read -
in our synagogues:
Pentateuchal portion, Wa-yiggash, Gen. 44:18-47:27. Prophetical portion, Ezekiel 37:15-28.
Licht Benchen, Friday, Dec. 15, 4:44 p.m.
VOL. XL. No. 16
Page Four
December 15, 1961
Disgraceful Handling of Refugee Problem
Just before the commencement of the
vitriolic Arab attacks on Israel, during
the United Nations debate on the refugee
question, Dr. John H. Davis, director of
the UN Relief and Works Agency for
Palestine Refugees, when asked, at a
press conference, whether he could make
an "educated estimate" of the number of
unreported deaths on his agency's relief
rolls, stated:
"I don't actually know. There is consider ,
able inaccuracy. The basic ration rolls are
still the same as they were when UNRWA
started (in 1950). We have made a constant
effort to rectify the rolls and have met with
only very limited success. There is among the
refugees a reluctance . to report deaths. In
Jordan, UNRWA has refused to place new-
born children on the ration rolls unless" the
deaths were reported. As a result, while
30,000-children were added to our register of
refugee population, only 4,500 of these . chil-
dren were added to the ration rolls.
"It is true that the host governments re-
sist Our efforts to rectify the rolls. But it
must be understood clearly that the refugees
themselves resist rectification by threatening
strikes and riots. They simply do not have
confidence in us to deal fairly with- them."
Then, pinned doWn_ on the actual esti-
mate of Jordan's registered figure of
591,439 Arab refugees, Dr. Davis admit-
ted that the unreported deaths since 1950
totalled between 90,000 and 100,000. He
thereupon qualified his statement by
explaining that 125,000 newborn children
have been kept off the .UNRWA rolls,
offsetting the cost of providing rations
' to the dead.
- Any refugee problem is steeped in
tragedy, and the case of the Arab refu-
gees is especially sorrowful because it has
been marked by postponement of solu-
tions, by perpetuation of want, by the
continuation of the handing out of doles
rather than serious effort to resettle the
hundreds of thousands who had fled from
the territory that is now the State of
Israel.
The statement by Dr. Davis is an inch-
cation of the shocking manner in which
responsible people, acting for the great
nations of the world, have permitted a
continuation of plight as a result of pres-
sures from embittered politicians.
The overall picture is steeped in utter
disgrace. Rolls have been padded, the
birth of tens of thousands of children
have increased the numbers of those who
need relief, and the great United Nations
is subjected to hearing speeches full of
slander.
Had there been a genuine concern for
the refugees, divorced from political con-
siderations, the refugee problem could
and should have been solved speedily,
effectively and humanely. But the ap-
proach to solutions has been and remains
disgraceful. The manner in which the
issue has been faced is not to the credit
of the United Nations.
Rancor is being perpetuated at the
international organization. Instead of solv-
ing the issues we see a continuation of
hatred. In the decades to come, when the
history of the United Nations will be
written, this problem of refugees• • and
failures to aid in their rehabilitation and
resettlement will form one of the nega-
tive and unrealistic chapters in a story
that should represent the creation of good
will among nations.
A Grim Reminder of Nazism to the Calloused
In his speculative article on what races, including the Jews."
Had Hitler won, Shirer believes that
would have happened if Hitler had won _
World War II, in Look Magazine, William American Jewry would have been liqui-
L. Shirer contends that if Britain had dated, that Europe would already have
been defeated the United States would been Judenfrei—free of Jews—by 1945
have been defenseless and that the five —and that it would then be Eichmann's
million Jews in this country would have turn to say the. same about the Jews of
America.
been doomed.
While Shirer's views are not strictly
Hitler didn't have a new approach in
his hatred of Jewry. He swallowed hook, speculative, they are based on quotations
line and sinker the report he received from Hitler, Eichmann and their ilk. It
from the spy, Colin Ross, about "the is well that he tells us anew of what was
monstrous power of Jewry in America," in the offing, so that the memory of the
and the cable he received from his mili- nightmare may not be blotted out.
Too many are forgetting, even if they
tary attache, Friedrich von Boetticher,
that the United States was run ",by the are forgiving, what had happened. Too
Jews and Freemasons." He believed that many have become calloused, and too
Franklin Roosevelt was jealous of him many are not even fully informed about
and he told Herman Rauschning that the the great tragedies of the 1930s and the
Americans of German stock were "the early 1940s. Let there be a reminder of
sound element" in the U.S. and that they the horrors, so that free men should
were the ones who had a "wholesome never permit their repetition. Shirer has
aversion for the Negroes and the colored done just that in his latest essay.
Annual Federation Budgeting Conference
Sunday's annual pre-budgeting con- with the new responsibilities which call
ference, at which a f o r m u 1 a will be for increased support for the major bene-
developed for the 1962 Allied Jewish ficiary, the United Jewish Appeal.
The pre-campaign budgeting confer-
Campaign allocations, is vastly more im-
portant this year than any of the previous ence is a signal to all communal move-
similar community gatherings held tradi- ments to complete their current tasks and
tionally in preparation for the humani- to remove whatever obstacles may stand
tarian drive which will commence soon. in the way of the Allied Jewish Campaign
It is not only the preparation for fund- by eliminating competitive drives.
The Israel Bond drive still has a job
raising that makes Sunday's planning
meeting important. At that time, the new to perform, in its efforts to attain the
chairman will be announced for the 1962 $1,300,000 goal for the year. It is to be
Allied Jewish Campaign, campaign lead- hoped that this aspiration will be fulfilled.
ers and workers will have an opportunity Meanwhile, in order to assure all the
to share their views on the overseas, na- support Israel requires the forthcoming
tional and local needs which are to be Allied Jewish Campaign must be assured
supported in the drive, and an opportu- all the available support in our com-
nity will be provided the community's munity. Sunday's conference provides
representatives to become acquainted initial means for such assurances.
Prof. Kallen's 'Job as Greek
/
Tragedy Issued as Paperback
More than 50 years ago, Prof. Horace M. Kallen "restored
the Book of Job of the Old Testament" to what he believed
"was its .original formthat of a Greek tragedy in the manner of
Euripides." That classic has been reissued as a paperback by Hill
and Wang, N. Y. 11, under the original title "The Book of Job
as a Greek Tragedy."
Dr. Kallen's restoration has had many college readings, pro-
fessional performances starring Sam Jaffe, Wladimir Nelidoff
and others.
Perhaps the most important staging of the Job theme took
the form of Archibald MacLeish's "J. B." A drama by Robert
Frost similarly gave impetus to the interest in Job.
The renewed and increased interest
in "Job" inspired Kallen, in a preface
to the new edition, to state that "of all
books in the biblical canon, the poetic
drama of Hebrew Job concurs best with
whatever is modern and not merely
contemporary in the faith of modern
man."
In a preface to his book, written
while he was on the faculty of the
University of Wisconsin, in Madison,
Oct. 1, 1917, Kallen also viewed the
tragedy of Job as romance. The first
edition carried an important introduc-
tion by the late Prof. George Foote
Moore, of Harvard University, one of
the world's greatest authorities in
Semitics, whose three-volume "Duda
ism" remains to this day among the
most important works of research by
a Christian on the Bible and the
Dr. Kallen
Talmud.
Prof. Moore commended Dr: Kallen's work by declaring:
"It would be a mistake to regard 'The •Book of Job as a Greek
Tragedy' as an ingenious paradox; it is a serious hypothesis
which invites serious consideration from 'Biblical scholars- and
students of literature."
Dr. Kallen's "tragedy" is preceded by serious studies, by
analyses of the Joban philosophy of life and studies of Greek,
influence on Hebrew life and letters., In his study. Kallen
asserts that the Jews' "natural race-life had come to conscious-
ness first in religion, then in nationality; then in an identfication
of the two, and this identification had taken the typical form of
the theory and practice of life, unique and with well-defined
characteristics, which we call Hebraism . . . By its force their
religion lived and endured; so that while other oriental religions
were deglutinated into the eclectic mush of the times, Judaism,
like Job who challenged its truth, clung to its integrity, and with
all its borrowings from Babylonia, from Persia, from Greece, re-
mained the same, not only not deformed by what it had borrowed,
but much enriched."
Kallen describes the encounter of Hebraism with Hellenism
He refers to "the vogue and influence of Euripides" as consti-
tuting an "unparalleled fact in literary history" and he declares
that "the intent of Job is distinctly untraditional and Euripidean."
'The World of Isaac Lamdan'
"The World of Isaac Lamdan — Pioneer, Poet," is a deeply
moving tribute to a great Israeli pioneer and a noted poet by
Rabbi Samuel Umen of Manchester, N.H. Published by Philo-
sophical Library (15 E. 40th, N.Y.), this impressive work de-
scribes the life work- of the sensitive poet who pleaded for the
Zionist ideal and for peace, who inspired the youth and became
a symbol of Israel's striving for highest ideals.
Rabbi Umen does not limit himself to describing Lamdan
the Jew, the Zionist, the man and the poet. He commences his
account of the noted poet's life and works by outlining the
history of the Hechalutz movement which had benefited from
Lamdan's devotions; he reviews early Zionist literature and in
"The World of Lamdan'' describes his hero's life (1900-1954).
Thus, the book about Isaac Lamdan also is a book about
Jewish aspirations and about Zionism and about the State of
Israel, while offering great tribute to a great poet.