What a Smell!
THE JEWISH NEWS
Incorporating the Detroit Jewish Chronicle commencing with issue of July 20, 1951
Member American Association of English—Jewish Newspapers, Michigan Press Associations, 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
Advertising Manager
CARMI M. SLOMOVITZ HARVEY ZUCKERBERG
Business Manager
City Editor
Sabbath Scriptural Selections
This Sabbath, the twentieth day of Adar I, 5722, the following Scriptural selections will be
read in our synagogues.
Pentateuchal portion, Ki tissa, Exodus 30:11-34:35. Prophetical portion, I Kings 18:1-39.
Licht Benchen, Friday, Feb. 23, 5:57 p.m.
Vol. XL, No. 26
Page Four
February 23, 1962
Rightists' Threats to Our Moral Lights
Two youngsters, who had planned to
dynamite a synagogue in Fort Worth,
Tex., said that they could not explain
their desire to destroy a house of worship,
but they told the police that the idea
came to them after reading about the
Eichmann trial in Jerusalem and after
watching television programs which
showed actors wearing Nazi armbands.
Is it possible that "the power of sug-
gestion" is responsible for an emergence
of a new wave of anti-Semitism? There
have been many new instances of bigotry
in recent months, and accompanying them
were many expressions of opinion by Jews
that we should overlook them. With a
revival of anti-Semitic incidents we there-
fore also have a renewal of an old opinion
—that it is better to overlook the occur-
rences and let them die a natural death.
Thus, once again we are faced with
threats from the extreme right and advice
that we adopt anew a "hush-hush" policy.
It occasions anew the frequently rever-
berating conflict of ideas relative to the
advisability of speaking up about bigots
and their blind spots.
In view of the revived distribution of
the ugly forgeries known as the Protocols
of the Elders of Zion, together with the
vilest type of anti-Semitic literature pub-
lished in this country, at meetings every-
where, including Detroit, the threat from
the right must not be overlooked.
When he was asked about the new
type of rightist propaganda, in its rela-
tionship to party politics in this country,
President Kennedy referred to the ideas
of the Birch Society. at a press conference,
as being "totally alien to both parties."
Similarly, Carl Sandburg, in a tele-
vision program on Lincoln's Birthday.
compared Birch Society supporters to
those who supported slavery in Lincoln's
time and he quoted Lincoln's reference to
his political foes in the statement: "They
are blowing out the moral lights around
us." Sandburg added that the Birchers, in
their demand for the impeachment of
Chief Justice Earl Warren of the United
States Supreme Court, and in their other
bigoted pronouncements, similarly are
aiming at the blowing out of the moral
lights around us.
It is in this sense that the issue must
be faced every time we learn of new
pronouncements against our democratic
principles, and whenever and wherever
we witness the distribution of literature
aimed at arousing hatred and at dividing
the American people into two ranks—
those who are defending the democratic
Principle but who are branded vilely by
the bigots, and the newly-emerging ele-
ment of rightists that does not hesitate to
resort to the most vulgar tactics in an
effort to destroy our democratic institu-
tions and in their efforts to gain control
of our government.
The appeals to hate have been dis-
tributed at local neighborhood meetings.
Race and religious passions are being
aroused in efforts to destroy our unity as
a people. The desks of our legisators are
being flooded with the vilest type of
appeals to hatred. In some communities
there has been resort to violence, and in
Los Angeles the homes of Christian min-
isters were bombed while they were
speaking at a meeting arranged under
Jewish auspices.
It is no wonder, therefore, that the
National Community Relations Advisory
Council, speaking for the overwhelming
majority of American Jews, in "a warning
to all Americans of the danger of support-
ing movements that seek to deal with the
very real problems of today in a totally
unreal fashion," excoriated the rightists
by stating: •
Aleksei T. Adzhubei, Soviet Premier
Nikita Khrushchev's son-in-law, went into
a rage when he was asked about discrimi-
nation against Jews in the USSR, at a
press conference he held during his visit
in Rio de Janeiro. Aleksei repeated the
standard fantastic claims made by Khrush-
chev and other Communist leaders by as-
serting: "The Jews can leave the Soviet
Union but they do not wish to do so. I
could show you thousands of letters from
Jews who went to Israel and are now
anxious to return."
The New York Herald Tribune, com-
menting on reports in Soviet newspapers
reaching New York that four Vilna Jews
were sentenced to death and four others
to prison terms for alleged "currency
speculation," reached the conclusion that
they reveal a subtle appeal to anti-
Semitism. It has been indicated that
USSR newspapers seldom report on judi-
cial and criminal proceedings and that
the new trend is an indication of anti-
Semitic leanings, since the emphasis in
the reports is on the accused being Jew-
ish, first and middle names being provided
to identify "the villain of the piece."
"The leaders of extreme right wing
movements and their spokesmen cannot
absolve themselves by repudiating vio-
lence—as some already have done. By
denouncing all who oppose their views as
agents or tools of a subversive conspiracy
against the nation, they have fanned
suspicions and hatreds. By sneering at
democratic methods and sometimes pur-
suing secret and conspiratorial forms of
organizations, they encourage vigilantism
and violence. They cannot merely shrug
off complicity when their emotional ap-
peals produce physical assaults upon those
they recklessly label as traitors and
dupes."
Those who give credence to the idea
that "the power of suggestion" contrib-
utes toward the enrollment of innocents
and uninformed in the ranks of the bigot-
ed overlook the undeniable fact that these
very uncultured elements already are
being reached by the nastiest tune of
propaganda and the most vulgar "litera-
ture." If such appeals to hatred are to be
permitted to enter into legislative offices
and into millions of homes without refu-
tation. the danger can become truly great.
There must, therefore, be a recogni-
tion of the need for the presentation of
facts, for the dissemination of truth, in
order that untruth should not gain a
foothold in this land. The danger from
the right is too serious to be overlooked.
Let it be widely known that the rightists
aim at "blowing out the moral lights
around us," and that, in the words of
President Kennedy, their ideas are
"totally alien" to all of us.
i•
Anti-Semitism Soy etMorality Play'
The Herald Tribune declares that
"the careful labeling of Jewish principals
makes it patently clear that Jews are
being used as major characters in a
Soviet morality play."
Thus, the typically Communist de-
plorable attitude towards Jews and their
"morality play" has contributed towards
making the USSR an inferno for its
Jewish citizens.
Charming Resort Stories
Burton Bernstein's 'The Grove'
For genuine delight, those who crave for good short stories
will derive real pleasure from "The Grove," the collection of
narratives by Burton Bernstein, published by McGraw-Hill
BOok Co. (330 W. 42nd, N.Y. 36).
The Grove is a summer resort where the Feins and the
Ruttmans and the Slobodkins and the Katzes, the Eisendraths
and the Fingerhoods, fished and bathed—and worshipped in their
own little synagogue.
The author, a member of the editorial staff of the New
Yorker where his stories first were published, explains the
People and the setting in an introductory essay:
"As far back as I can remember, my family and I spent our
summers in a small Massachusetts town called Sharmon,- beside
a black and blue deep-water lake, Lake Maisasoit . . . It was
for the sake of its watery pleasantness and for the cool night
breezes that blew in from Cape Cod that so many middle-class
Boston families, like mine, over-stuffed their automobiles every
June and trundled off to Sharmon till September . . . My family
and about a dozen others lived in a niche of the lake shore
called the Grove . . . they are what this book is about."
Whether it i5 shul politics, when the father of the author—
the stories are told in the. first person by a youngster—is about
to be deprived of his job as synagogue treasurer, or an episode
about a handyman who utters anti-Semitic remarks, or an aunt's
outburst of a "yevorekhkha" at an intermarriage ceremony—
each of the nine tales has so much charm that "The Grove" may
well be classed as one of the truly noteworthy books of fiction
of the current year.
Bernstein has masterfully portrayed the activities at the
resort, the habits of the residents at the Grove, their social
activities, their cooperative spirit when it was necessary, their
strife when human differences entered into the picture.
There is real humor in the description of Slobodkin being
ticketed for reckless driving while he was chasing away a
bumblebee. But when the judge dismissed the case, Slobodkin
insisted on his rights in court to speak, to demand why, if the
case was dismissed, he had to be bothered to bring character
witnesses. He joyfully pays the $25 fine for contempt of court
because "every dog has his day in court."
The "Mr. Clarke" story is about the handyman who utters
vile thoughts about Jews to the youngster relating the tale, but
he also gets his promise not to repeat what he said, and the
youngster, when Clarke is discussed, instead blurts out: "he bit
me on the arm." It was his way of saying that Clarke was a
villain.
In "A Voice Like a Regular Florence Nightingale," the
neighbors at the Grove are enchanted by a maid's singing. But
when she does not make the mark as a candidate for opera, she
is forced back to the house work she originally was employed
for, and the harmony vanishes.
It is in "The Boston Dinner Party" that the Jewish "protest"
is uttered against an intermarriage by the recitation of the
traditional kohanic blessing.
The narrator's acquisition of a motorboat and the adventures
that result from it, the community meetings, the synagogue
squabble—all combine to make "The Grove" an excellent col-
lection of short stories.
Bernstein has had an interesting career. Befor'e entering on
his present tasks, on the staff of the New Yorker, he was a
Wyoming cowpuncher and was the youngest licensed airplane
pilot in Massachusetts.
Commend Tana de Gamez' Novel
"Like a River of Lions," a first novel by Tana de Gamez, will
be published by New York *Graphic Society 'Feb. 26th. Norman
Corwin has called this book , "as uninhibited as the passions of the
Spanish Civil War through which it passes. A curious blend of
idealism, sex, pride, intrigue, tenderness and violence, whose
locales range from Madrid to Morocco to Madison Avenue to the
Councils of the United Nations, and whose compass needle points
to Israel."
Dr. Joseph J. SchWartz, vice president of the Israel Bond
Organization, in a statement issued this week, commended the
novel, as follows:
"This excellent novel contains an unusually fascinating and
dramatic account of man's struggle for freedom during the past
quarter century — in Spain, in Israel, and in other parts of the
world. In its treatment of Israel it reflects a first-hand knowledge
and a deep-rooted understanding. Events that preceded the estab-
lishment of the State of Israel are recreated in flashes of exciting
detail. It is a memorable book, a fiery ode to human liberty."