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., tinder 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 twenty-seventh day of Adar I, 5722, the following Scriptural selections will be
read in our synagogues.
Pentateucizal portion, Wa-yaklzel, Exodus 35:1-38-20. Prophetical portion, II Kings 12:1-17.
Licht Benchen, Friday, March 2, 6:05 p.m.
Vol. XLI. No.1
Page Four
March 2, 1962
1'
USSR Perpetuates Czarist Anti-Semitism
Once again, tWe limelight is being 23,000 Jewish believers. Some syna-
focused on the spread of anti-Semitism gogues have recently been closed and
01 Russia. New evidences of anti-Jewish private minyanim dispersed.
.eiitiments, in which government officials Unlike the right given other faiths
are involved, and against which the to maintain educational institutions,
t'SSR leaders have failed to act, have there is only one yeshiva in Russia with
been brought to public attention.
only 12 students, half of • them from Journalists' Guide To The UN
A study made by the Jewish Minori- Georgia and Central Asia.
While other faiths are permitted to
send representatives abroad to make con-
tacts with co-religionists, such contacts
are denied to Russian Jews, and "no
tees, and the Communist party practices, Jewish seminarian has ever been allowed
freedom of anti-religious education and
to advance his studies at institutions of
propaganda as well as freedom of wor- higher Jewish religious learning abroad."
ship, "Judaism is subjected to unique
USSR discrimination against Jews is
discrimination in several fundamental especially noticeably in the Soviet news-
ways."
papers. The manner in which the USSR
It is pointed out that while Chris-
press propagandizes against Jews is de-
tianity, Islam and Buddhism are per-, scribed as follows:
milted to have central organizations,
This pattern of discrimination is accom-
panied by a ceaseless campaign in the press
Judaism is "deprived of the constitu-
ties Research into the problem relating
to religious observances is especially
revealing. The results of this study show
that while the Soviet constitution guaran-
tionally and legally assured. instrumen-
talities through which it. could maintain
mutual communication and contact, serv-
ice religious needs of believer's and per-
petuate its spiritual continuity)'
While other major religious bodies
are authorized to convene religious con-
ferences of their representatives, "re-
ligious Jews lack this right."
.Judaism, unlike the other major re-
ligious bodies, is not permitted to publish
religious books, and this is one of the
few areas in which Islam, too, shares the
fate of Judaism.
Christian Bibles and the Islamic Ko-
ran have been published in recent years,
but "no Hebrew Bible has been per-
mitted for. Jews since 1917." Only tiny
editions of the Jewish calendar have
been permitted and "religious Jews have
had to depend on photographed copies
of hand-written calendars, circulated
from hand to hand."
No siddurim have been printed in the
USSR from 1917 to 1958 and in the latter
year an edition of 3,000 copies of the
siddur was permitted — "a ridiculously
small number for the hundreds of thou-
sands of religious Jews in a total Jewish
population of 3,000,000." While the gov-
ernment has aided other faiths with sup-
plies of paper, such assistance has been
denied to Jews. While other faiths were
permitted to produce religious articles,
the production of taleisim and tefillin
and the distribution of matzot has either
been prohibited or harassed.
While there are thousands of churches
—one church for every 1,800 believers
and one priest per 1,100 believers--there
are 60 to . 70 synagogues and as many
rabbis for the 1,500,000 Jewish believers
—one rabbi and one synagogue for 22-
against Judaism and religious Jews.
Personal attacks against rabbis and lay
heads of congregations are both more fre-
quent and virulent in the case of the Jews.
Jewish rites are savagely ridiculed as
barbarous and cruel. Jewish religiqus prac-
titioners are portrayed as thieves, connivers
and alcoholics.
Only with regard to Jews and Judaism is
the theme of subversion, lack of patriotism
and disloyalty inje'cted into official anti-
religious propaganda.
In an atmosphere of widespread "popular"
anti-Semitism, the effects of this pattern of
public policy and propaganda are not diffi-
cult to imagine.
Such is the extent of anti-Semitism
in Russia. It may be an inheWance from
Czarism, but it can be viewed mainly as
being rooted in a perpetuated hatred
that is based on xenophobia—on dislike
of the unlike—on a fanatical nationalism
which suspects anyone who may have a
kinsman abroad; _ is, of course, an un-
justified hatred o the vital Jewish minor-
ity in Russia which was among the most
loyal supporters of the anti-Czarist re-
gimes and among _whom the USSR would
have found most devoted citizens. The
large number of Jews who served in the
Russian army, the heroism and the mar-
tyrdom of hundreds of thousands of
them who gave up thir lives for their
"fatherland," the many contributions
made to Russian science by Jewish schol-
ars—these are among the many evidences
that point to a loyalty for which the
Jewish "citizens" of Russia are being re-
paid with medieval barbarism_
The truth about Russian anti-Sem-
itism is piling up, and the USSR chief-
tains are not immune from guilt. They
exterminated Czarism but are perpetuat-
ing the most barbaric. of all Czarist prac-
tices: anti-Semitism.
International Functions Told
in Szapiro's UNESCO Volume
By arrangement with the United Nations Educational, Scien-
tific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), International Doeu.
ments Service of Columbia University Press (2960 Broadway, N.Y.
27) has issued "The Newspaperman's United Nations," as a jour-
nalists' guide about the UN and its specialized agencies. -
Its author, Jerry Szapiro, is a distinguished newspaperman
who has held posts in the UN secretariat, as director of external
services of the department of public information and as director
of the UN Information Center at the UN European office in
Geneva.
The journalists' guide outlines the development of international
cooperation and traces the events that led to the UN's creation. It
describes the functions of the General Assembly and the Security
Council, explains the system of specialized agencies, the trusteeship
and the many other functions.
Among the agencies described are the UN Children's Fund
(UNICEF), as well as the UN's legal system, the International
Court of Justice, the Genocide Convention, the International Labor
Organization (ILO), the Universal Postal Union and other branches
of UN activities.
Especially valuable in this guide are the UN membership
lists and their specialized agencies, the commissions and com-
mittees and information centers, and the principal officers. These
appendices, as well as the general outlines of the functions of
the UN and its commissions and specialized services, make
Szapiro's volume valuable for the lay reader as well as for
journalists for whom it is intended.
Szapiro devoted a section of the book to an explanation of the
Middle Eastern problems and "the Palestine question." It provides
a concise history of Israel's emergence as an autonomous State,
the Arab-Jewish conflict, the Sinai campaign and other matters
relating to that area.
Explaining the refugee problem, Szapiro traces the events that
led to the formation of the United Nations Relief and Works
Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). He
states in the course of his review of UNRWA's activities:
"The Israel government opposes repatriation of the refugees
and has offered to pay compensation under certain conditions for
abandoned Arab property. On the other hand, the Arab countries,
hosts to the refugees, oppose plans for permanent resettlement and
integration outside Israel and insist on the right of the refugees
to be repatriated. The refugees themselves remain sceptical of
large projects of self-support, which they tend to regard as aban-
donment of repatriation. In the circumstances, relief and welfare
remain the main activities of UNRWA.
"Basic rations of a value approximating 1,600 calories are daily
distributed to some 450,000 people. Pregnant and nursing women
receive additional rations. The majority of the refugees live in
the Agency's camps. Health services include hospitals and dispen-
saries, maternity wards, vaccinations. Particular attention is paid
to sanitation and water supply. Msre than 100,000 children attend
schools maintained by the Agency. Stress is laid on vocational
training.
"In view of the precarious situation of the Agency, the Assem-
bly has once more drawn attention to the fact that after 11 years
the refugees have not yet been repatriated or compensated and
no progress has been made in reintegrating them into the economic
life of the region."
Man and His 'Dominion Over Thy Works' Attitude of USSR Jews on Bias
John Glenn has conquered space and
lower than the angels,
has circled the globe three times in less
than five hours. His feat was the result
of man's "dominion" over powers that
x+, ere hitherto unapproachable. It was
man's conquest of the mysteries of the
universe.
The historic event, which gives such
great status to our country, is, in a sense,
the fulfillment of the Psalmist's vision
(Psalm viii:4-7, 10):
When I behold Thy heavens, the
works of Thy fingers,
The moon and the stars, which
Thou hast established;
What is man, that Thou art mindful
of him?
And the son of man, that Thou
thinkest of him?
Yet Thou host made-him but- little
By BORIS SMOLAR
The attitude of the Jews in the Soviet Union toward the anti-
Jewish discriminations there is conveyed in a book, "The Churches
and the Soviet Union." It is a study of the treatment of religion
in Soviet Russia by Constantin de Grunwald, a well known historian
and laureate of the French Academy . . . Mr. de Grunwald, in his
chapter on the treatment of religious minorities in the USSR, says
that "numerous groups of Soviet Jews feel some resentment" about
their treatment . . . They are, he says, the first to recognize that
there is no individual racial discrimination in the Soviet Union ...
However, they claim that they are the victims of a rather intangible
"collective" discrimination ... The author says that Soviet Premier
Khrushchev and his aides are indignant over the accusation in the
"malicious press" abroad that they are "following in Hitler's
footsteps" with regard to the treatment of Jews . . . Mr. de Grun-
wald feels that such allegations are far from being justified ... He
cites an incident which he personally witnessed on a bus on the
outskirts of Moscow where anti-Semitic utterances by one passenger
were
immediately checked and condemned by the other passengers.
the rapidly multiplying conquests that . . . On
the other hand, however, he comes to the conclusion that
they may ever be the media for peace what is needed is some sort of official declaration which would
and for the security-6f all-mankindl • - restore to Soviet Jews their feeling of self-respect. -
And hast crowned him with glory
and honor.
Thou has made him to have &min-
ion over the works of Thy hands;
Thou hast put all things under his
feet: . . .
0 Lord, our Lord,
How glorious is Thy name in all
the earth!
Now man is on a par with the angels;
now man has "dominion over the works"
of the Almighty!
And the greatness of our land is re-
fleeted in the conquest of space, in the
glorious achievement! May this , same
greatness and glory of America so guide