Sealed on Day of Atonement
THE JEWISH NEWS
Incorporating the Detroit Jewish Chronicle commencing with issiu of July 20, 1951
Member American Association of English—Jewish Newspapers, Michigan Press Associations, National
Edit orial Association.
Published every Friday by The Jewish News Publishing Co., 17100 West Seven Mile Road, Detroit 35,
Mich., VE 8-9364. Subscription $6 a year. Foreign S7.
Second Class Postage Paid. At Detroit, Michigan
PHILIP SLOMOVITZ
Editor and Publisher
SIDNEY SHMARAK
CARMI M. SLOMOVITZ HARVEY ZUCKERBERG
Advertising Manager
Business Manager
City Editor
Sabbath Shuvah Scriptural Selections
This Sabbath — Sabbath Shuvah, the Sabbath of Repentance — the following Scriptural
selections will be read in our synagogues:
Pentateuchal. portion, Ha'azinu, Deut. 32:1-52. Prophetical portion, Hosea 14f2-10, Micah
7:18-20, Joel 2:15-27.
Yom Kippur Scriptural Selections, Monday
Pentateuchal portions: Morning, Levit. 16:1-34, Num. 29:7-11; afternoo -- Levit. 18:1-30.
Prophetical portions: Morning, Isaiah 57:14-58:14; afternoon, Jonah 1:1-4:11, MiC6,t 7:18-20.
Licht Benshen, Friday, Oct. 5, 5:49 p.m.
VOL. XLII. No. 6
Page Four
October 5, 1962
Yom Kippur—the Sabbath of Sabbaths
Every human being has something to atone for, else a special Day of Atonement
would have been limited for the atoning.
By the same token, groups of people, nations and governments always have
errors to regret, sins for which they must seek atonement.
Yom Kippur also has the designation Yom Kippurim—Day of Atonements. It is
a day for accumulated regrets for wrongdoing during the passing year.
The entire world needs to undergo atonement. Often the sins of individuals fade
into insignificance when they are compared with the faulty functions of governments
and of the nations they represent.
On the Yom Kippur we are about to solemnize, we'll have cause to evaluate the
status not only of individual man but also of the nations of the world.
The struggles among men, the battle for domination among nations, the
jealousies that flourish on a worldwide scale, the suspicions that lurk everywhere, are
sufficient to arouse the wish that there could be as much soul-searching among the
peoples of the world as groups as there will be among individual Jews on the solemn
Yom Kippur Day on Monday.
But groups are immune from such obligations to other groups or to individuals
within their ranks, with resultant perpetuations of fears which prevent the stimulation
of amity among nations.
Nevertheless, as long as individuals are considered capable of cleansing
themselves of sins, it should not be considered impossible for the groups into which
they expand similarly to strive for a more just way of life.
Therefore, while recognizing that there is more to fear from transgressions
among nations than the sins among their citizens, the mere fact that atonement is
included among man's soul-searching and desire to improve upon his ways of -life is in
itself encouraging as a factor for good in life.
There is a Talmudic admonition: "Yom Kippur redeems one from the sins
between man and God, but not from the sins of man against his fellow man." In this is
represented the universality of Judaism.
At the same time, there is a tradition for internal responsibility within our
fold. The noted sage and scholar Isaac Luria once said, in explanation of the resort to
the pluralistic idea of Yom Kippurim:
"Why was the confession (of Yom Kippur) arranged in the plural number, so
that we say, 'We are guilt-laden,' instead of 'I am guilt-laden'? Because all Israel is one
body, and every individual Israelite a member of that body. Hence follows mutual
responsibility among all the members."
Thus we have, on this sacred day, an intermingling of ideas, the emphasis on the
universal and the insistence upon the inner duties which make Israel worthy of the role
to utter its prayers for all human beings.
A call that was issued eight centuries ago by one of Israel's greatest seers, Moses
Maimonides, who admonished his people to remember their Creator, to look into their
souls, to mend their ways, remains among the clarion calls of Yom Kippur.
Maimonides' declaration asserted: "Forsake your impure thoughts and your wicked
deeds, and follow kindness and righteousness."
It is the appeal to justice and righteousness and kind dealings of every man with
his neighbor that is at the root of the appeal, and it is this idea that emerges as the
major principle which makes our Day of Atonement the Sabbath of Sabbaths.
Robert St. John's Saga
'Israel'—A Noteworthy Account
Robert St. John has to his credit several noteworthy books
on Jewish subjects and on Israel. He has visited Israel several
times, has met its leaders, has made a study of its people and
the conditions in the Middle East and is
undoubtedly, one of the noted author-
ities on the results of Zionist efforts.
His knowledge of the subject at once
becomes evident in his newest book,
"Israel," a Life World Library publica-
tion, issued by Time Incorporated, New
York. Prepared jointly with the editors
of Life Magazine, this is a superb work,
replete with factual material and en-
hanced by the most unusual photographs.
Robert St. John
In an introducetion to the book, Edward Burnett Lawson,
a former U. S. Ambassador to Israel, states: "Israel is a tiny
country which has embarked on a great adventure. It is one
in which its people feel they cannot fail. With an unshakable
belief' in its destiny and in the divine meaning of its existence,
Israel has astounded the world with its remarkable accomplish-
ments. But the road has been difficult. Dishearteningly meager
resources, severe economic pressures and constant threats to
its security have magnified everyday problems . . . In one
respect, Israel. is a paradox. It is well known yet unknown.
Although thrust into the world spotlight at the hour of its
rebirth and prominent in the news ever since, its basic
character remains shrouded . . . Just how Israel came into
being, what has given it the strength and ability to survive
and prosper, and what accounts for its influence the world
over are still matters of - mystery to many Americans. It is in
this respect that Robert St. John and the editors of Life have
performed a valuable service. In both text and picture essays,
modern Israel is here brought into sharp, clear focus . . . "
In this fashion, the former Ambassador proceeds to evaluate
a splendid book and to give recognition to the fact that it serves
to provide a better understanding of Israel by its readers.
St. John's "Israel" goes back to ancient times in the
author's description of the background of Jewish history, in his
The contention of civil liberties advo- uniquely interesting approach to "The Land of the Book," the
cates is that any attempt to curtail free- highway to history, the final moments in exile's speech, his ex-
dom of assembly, even for those who seek planation of how an ancient prophecy has been fulfilled,
The Yellow Badge--Worn With Pride
A drive inaugurated by the Board of
Deputies of British Jews to secure a mil-
lion signatures to a petition to Parliament
to outlaw racial incitement poses a seri-
ous question on the issue involving free-
dom of assembly and civil liberties.
By aligning itself with the movement
inaugurated by the British Yellow Star
anti-fascist movement and the Jewish Ex-
Servicemen's Association, the Board of
Deputies gives approval to requests for
the banning of meetings of the type held
in recent weeks in England at which pro-
Nazi slogans were shouted, anti-Semitism
was propagated and self-styled Nazis like
George Lincoln Rockwell came to Eng-
land to participate in the inauguration of
an international Nazi movement.
Advocates of civil liberties have op-
posed the measure requested by the pro-
posed petition of British Jews, but the
vitriolic and violent anti-Semitic and pro-
Nazi declarations of the leaders of the
revived fascist movements in England
have caused so much concern that a seri-
ous effort is being made to put an end
to those who would bring Hitlerism to
Great Britain and spread it worldwide.
So serious is the effort of the anti-
fascists who are seeking parliamentary
action against the Nazis that a Christian
minister, Rev. Bill Sargent, Vicar of Holy
Trinity Church in Dalston, is heading the
Yellow Star movement.
to destroy us, would also lead to curtail-
ment of the same rights for ourselves. But
the fascists openly advocate genocide.
They brazenly call for the extermination
of the Jewish people, for the revival of
everything that Hitler stood for. Their
inhumanity repudiates all of the sacrifices
that were made in a world war to prevent
the subjection of the entire world to the
tyrannical rule of a mad dictator. Now
they would again impose, upon all man-
kind, the type of dictatorship against
which the world fought only 18 years ago.
A way must be found to assure the
perpetuation of civil rights for all, while
preventing the advocacy of wholesale
murders and the denial of human rights
to those who refuse totalitarianism.
Meanwhile, the Yellow Star movement
reminds us of the time when, by defying
the cruelties of the Nazis upon the advent
of Hitler, the yellow star was forced
upon all Jews in Germany, proud German
Jewish leaders told their constituents:
"Wear it with pride—the Yellow Badge."
By making the yellow Magen David a
proud symbol, those who have inaugu-
rated the anti-fascist movement in Eng-
land are contributing mightily towards
the negation of the Nazi propaganda that
is being re-introduced.
The able author displays great skill in describing the con-
trasts between the old and the new, the ancient and the
modern in Israel, and in both story and the pictures which
were assembled by Life Magazine's experts there is a grand
view of the old which is often still to be found in the Land
of Israel and, the new which JeWs have create.d admirably and
courageously..
A master at describing history briefly, St. John's brevity
nevertheless succeeds in bringing into his historical record the
story of Zionism, the people who created the movement and who
nurtured it until it became a great diplomatic as well as military
triumph leading to independence for Jews who were compelled
to seek refuge from oppression.
So skillfully does Robert St. John describe the methods of
the ingathering of the exiles that his book is already an authori-
tative work on the productivity of new arrivals and their inte-
gration into Israel's economy.
Equally descriptive is St. John's account of the democratic
processes in Israel and of the eminent leaders who have made
that great democracy in the Middle East possible. He writes
with love and affection about Israel's leaders, and his interest
in Israel is reflected in chapter titles, such as "The Crisis-
Seasoned Government Elite."
This book—it has only 160 pages, but its 81/2x11 folio en-
abled the publishers to introduce enlarged and striking pho-
tographs—deals with the desert as well as the large cities, and
the author tells how the desert has begun to bloom. He describes
"The Enduring Spell of Antiquity" as well as the way in which
the past is being recovered from the dry earth. He deals also
with the problems—the Arabs and the religious issues—but in
the main he is concerned with "A Maturing Nation," and every
element involved in the maturing process. The minorities who
are being gathered in Israel, the Zionists, Hadassah—all the
builders of Zion—play a noteworthy role in the St. John saga.