THE JEWISH NEWS
Incorporating the Detroit Jewish Chronicle commencing with issue of July 20, 1951
Member American Association of English--Jewisb 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 8-9384. Subscription $5 a year. Foreign $8.
Entered as second class matter Aug. 8, 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
in
This Sabbath, the seventh day of Siwan, 5722, the following scriptural selections will be read
our synagogues:
Pentateuchal portion. Deuteronomy 14:22-16:17. Prophetical portion, Habakkuk 3:1-19.
Licht Benchen, Friday, June 8, 7:45 p.m.
Vol. X1.1, No. 15
June 8, 1962
Page Four
Shavuot and Our Torah Legacies
Flowers will be in abundance in our
synagogues this week-end in commemo-
ration of the festival of Shavuot, one of
the three harvest festivals that were tra-
ditionally observed in the Land of Israel.
It is the Feast of the First Fruits, and as
such it has become one of the significant
agricultural festivals.
For world Jewry, those in tFie-Diasyora
as well as in Israel, Shavuot has assumed
even greater significance as the festival
with a religious message, as the occasion
for the celebration of the anniversary of
the Giving of the Torah to Israel on Mount
Sinai. While bringing first fruits to the
Temple, the Jews in ancient times rejoic-
ed in the Torah as handed down by Moses.
Wherever Jews have observed the fes-
tival, they remembered its agricultural
aspect and marked the anniversary of the
handing down of the Ten Commandments
on Mount Sinai.
Because of this link with the Torah,
Shavuot has been selected as the occasion
for consecrations and confirmations in
our congregations. It is a time for re-
dedication to faith and to learning. That
is why Shavuot is the Zman Matan Tora-
tenu—the season of the Giving of the Law.
Shavuot is one of the three Pilgrim
Festivals when Jews in ancient times
journeyed to Jerusalem to mark the
sacred events of Passover, Sukkot and
Shavuot at the Temple. As the Festival of
the Giving of the Law, Shavuot has as-
sumed a universal aspect that gives
greater significance to learning, to
Torah, among Jews everywhere.
That is why, on Shavuot, we rejoice
in the Law and review the traditions of
justice that have been handed down by
our great teachers as guides and moral
standards for our people.
We may well re-study the moral as-
pects of Jewish life as we review the
traditions that have become our legacy.
Well may we take into account the fol-
lowing excerpts from Rabbinic Lore as
we mark the Shavuot festival:
Do not do unto others what you
would not like others to do unto you.
There is none more detestable than
a faithless friend.
Do not place the crown of leader-
ship upon your own head; let others
do it.
One should not accept leadership
unless he is qualified for it. Like leader,
like community; like community, like
leader.
When you speak, say little; for the
fewer your words, the fewer your mis-
takes.
Ifyou have, in the slightest manner,
offended your friend, let it seem to
you as if you had done him a gross
injustice; if you have done him a fav-
our, let it appear trivial. If he has done
you an insignificant favour, let it seem
to you as a great act of kindness; if he
has done you a great injustice let it
seem to you trivial.
If some of your friends praise you
and others rebuke you, prefer the
friendship of those who rebuke you,
for the flattery of the former is to your
detriment, and the censure of the latter
to your advantage.
Anger causes error. Anger expels
reason. Anger is reason's worst enemy.
Anger is synonymous with folly. Anger
degrades the most gracious. One can-
not be right when he is angry. Anger
and excitement are death's emissaries.
No matter how great a scholar and
how scrupulously religious one may
be, if he disgraces his fellow man in
public he has no portion "in the future
world."
It is incumbent upon every person
always to promote peaceful relations
with his fellow men.
You may possess all good qualities,
yet if you are devoid of modesty you
lack the essential quality.
The humbler one is, the closer he
is to God. He who thinks that he has
already attained perfection is in fact
the farther removed from it.
He who is humble will in the end
be exalted, and he who is haughty will
in the end be humbled.
A small truth can overcome much
falsehood, even as a small light can
disperse much darkness.
God hates him whose mouth does
not express what is in his heart.
Idleness makes life monotonous.
Do not break a promise made to a
child; if you do, you teach him to lie!
Truth is heavy; therefore few carry
it.
The greatest truth is doubt.
Truth lasts forever, but falsehood
must vanish.
A lie is worse than death, because
it does not end with it.
Treachery is the worst of vices.
Pride and intellectual poverty go
hand in hand.
The fruit of pride is enmity.
There are many ethical teachings to
take into account on Shavuot. Let it be
noted that the Pirke Avot, the Sayings of
Our Fathers, are traditionally read on
the Sabbaths between Passover and Rosh
Hashanah. Shavuot symbolized the collec-
tive values of the ethical codes handed
down on Sinai as well as the myriad of
interpretations and appendages of which
the above are typical selections.
May Shavuot continue to guide us
along paths of learning, of a recognition
of the great values of the Torah, Of the
lessons the festival holds forth for all
mankind.
Remorseless Crimina and a Guilty Nation
Adolf Eichmann died without re-
morse. He was the arch criminal who had
earned the punishment he received.
Since it was decreed that he was to
die, it was proper and realistic that the
penalty should have been exacted speed-
ily, else there would have been additional
attempts to drag the issue unjustifiably
into the United Nations, the world court
and other international forums.
The prompt execution was another
way of declaring that Israel is a sovereign
state with unchallenged rights to super-
vise its own courts and that no one is to
interfere in its internal autonomy.
Eichmann was not alone to be pun-
ished. With his hanging and the blowing
away of his ashes after his cremation, so
that.there should never be a cause for the
erection of a shrine in memory of a Nazi
criminal, went another reminder of the
Hitlerite atrocities and a rebuke to the
German people for having condoned the
12 years of Nazi atrocities. Because the
German crime made it imperative for the
Jewish State to resort to capital punish-
ment, the entire German people must be
held guilty of having created a condition
that forced Israel for the first time to
resort to hanging in punishing the world's
arch criminal.
SNEW0114
A MOO torn- row AoliARYter
Historic and Famous Sayings
'Penguin Quotations Dictionary
If asked who wrote the famous and
How odd
oft quoted quatrain
-
Of God
To Choose
The Jews
and you wish to be accurate, all you need do is check with "The
Penguin Dictionary of Quotations," the 664-page volume published
by Atheneum (162 E. 38th, NY 16), and you'll get the right
answer: It is a W. N. Ewer oddity.
And if any of the thousands of other famous sayings need
tracing, this impressive work, ably compiled by J. M. and M. J.
Cohen, will be found a most authoritative work.
Admirers of Al Jolson will remember him saying, "You ain't
heard nothin' yet, folks," but the new generation that knows not
Jolson can trace it instantly in the Cohens' book.
You may be looking for the author of
"1 am as poor as Job, my Lord, but not as patient,"
and the Cohens direct you to Shakespeare's Henry IV.
The phrase "If I forget thee, 0 Jerusalem" is well known, but
an average reader may not be acquainted with it as coming from
the Psalms. In "The Penguin Dictionary" the 137th Psalm is
quoted:
By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept
when we remembered Zion.
We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof.
Sing us ane of the songs of Zion.
How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
If I forget thee, 0 Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her
cunning.
There are many Biblical quotations which, by using the .excel-
lently compiled index can be traced in this dictionary.
The world's most distinguished leaders, scholars and authors
are represented in this volume. Three columns are assigned to
quotations from Disraeli, Shakespeare is among the best represented
and there are few important quotations that are missing from this
compilation.
Few books of quotations are a match to this collection of
wisdom and puns, and by making it easy for the reader to trace
the sayings through the carefully and accurately prepared index
this becomes a most popular work.
Focus' Contains Data on Death
Camps, Kvutzot, Muslim Jewry
'
Focus, the journal for youth leaders, published by the Youth
and Hechalutz Department of the World Zionist Organization,
devotes its latest issue, edited by I. Halevy-Levin, to incidents
in Nazi death camps.
Reproducing the evidence given by Zivia Lubetkin on the
uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto, at the Eichmann trial, this issue
also contains articles by Tuvia Blatt and S. Willenberg on the
revolt in the. Sobibor death camp and the destruction of Treblinka.
An important supplement to these essays is Edwin Samuel's
article, "The Call of Duty," describing heroic efforts in behalf
of Youth Aliyah in Berlin during the tragic war years.
Hayim Gevati has an important article on "The Kvutza
in Israel's Economic and Social Structure."
Of special interest is the group of photographs of memorials
to Israeli heroes by noted architects and sculptors.
Population data is provided in the article "The Jews in the
Diaspora" by Israel Ottikar. Oriental Jewry's status is described
in "The Jewish Communities in the Muslim East" by H.
Hirschberg.