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,
VE 8-9364. Subscription $6 a year. Foreign $7.
Second Class Postage Paid At Detroit, Michigan

PHILIP SLOMOVITZ

Editor and Publisher

SIDNEY SHMARAK

Advertising Manager

CARMI M. SLOMOVITZ HARVEY ZUCKERBERG

Business Manager

City Editor

Sabbath Scriptural Selections

This Sabbath, the ninth day of Teveth, 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 Benshen, Friday, Jan. 4, 4:56 p.m.

VOL. XLII. No. 19

Page Four

January 4, 1963

Ostrich Color-Blindness at UN

In a time of crisis, when a responsible
body fails to call a spade a spade, danger
multiplies. When libels are permitted to
take root in an international assembly, it
will take a long time to uproot the evils.
This is what has happened at the
United - Nations during the debates over
the renewal of the Relief and Works
Agency for aid to the Arab refugees.
Except for the renewal of the UNRWA
mandate and an allotment of an addi-
tional $32,400,000 for aid to the Arab
refugees, all that was attained was that
the international body had permitted the
Arab spokesmen to place into the record
of the world organization some of the
vilest anti-Semitic utterances ever heard.
At a time when leaders of anti-Semitic
movements in many lands are mobilizing
their forces to create an international
hate movement, the United Nations,
which was created for peace and for
amity among all peoples, appears to have
given them the platform they seek—and
our dear Semitic cousins, the Arab spokes-
men, became the emissaries for such a
movement.
What had taken place at the UN was
most deplorable, yet there was only one
delegate who spoke up against bigotry—
the delegate from Denmark. The press
of the land remained complacent, and
because of the unfortunate newspaper
strike in New York, only one newspaper,
the New York Herald Tribune, had time
to speak up against what was happening
at the UN.
Just before the New York papers were
shut down, during the first days of the
tragic UN discussions, the Herald Tribune,
under the heading "Arab Bluster—and
Refugees," had this to say editorially:

"The Arabs are at it again. In the second
vituperative speech at the United Nations
within a few days, one Hussein Zulficar Sabry,
deputy foreign minister of the United Arab
Republic, has denounced Israel, using invec-
tive such as even the Communists generally
avoid in their official utterances.
"Mr. Sabry's attack is all the more sig-
nificant in that it comes just when the re-
current Arab refugee problem is beginning
another ride on the UN roller coaster. The
plan now under consideration was drawn up
by Dr. Joseph E. Johnson and apparently has
strong backing from the United States dele-
gation. At its heart lies a proposal that the
Arab refugees be given the option of express-
ing a preference, by a secret ballot, between
returning to the land that is now Israel, or
being resettled in some other country with
compensation for lost property.
"When the Arabs resume their exercises
in oratorical scurrility while the refugee de-
bate is on, it becomes all the more easy to
understand the Israelis' reluctance to accept
the return of refugees except as part of a
large peace settlement. The argument set
forth by proponents of a solution like the
Johnson plan is that few refugees would
actually vote for a return to Israel. But proof
to support this view is difficult to adduce, and
Israel's reluctance to accept it on faith is
certainly comprehensible. Furthermore, the
repeated denunciations of Israel, accompanied
by promises of extermination, which are
hardly likely to produce a frame of mind
among the refugees which would make them
useful and peaceful Israeli citizens.
"One can argue, of course—and this con-
tention, too, is often made — that the Arab
leaders really don't mean a word of what they
say in public, that their threats are only for
home consumption, and that their real atti-
tude is much more realistic. Maybe so. But
when Mr. Sabry pours so much thought and
enthusiasm into calling the Israelis names,
it's hard to blame them for thinking that he
really means it — and guiding themselves
accordingly."

But all else were silent; The great
international organization buried its head

in the sand, ostrich-like, and remained
color-blind to the fraud that was being
perpetrated, leaving it to Israel alone to
defend herself against the libels that
were being uttered by the Arab maligners.
That is why the respect that is due to
so important a movement as the United
Nations still is lacking. When the repre-
sentatives of 110 nations get together and
keep listening to anti-Semitic outbursts,
to the likening of Jews and Judaism with
Nazis and Nazism, to calls to murder and
to approvals of attempts to international-
ize the anti-Semitic sins, the period that
was assigned for debate over the plight of
refugees whose sufferings are mostly
Arab-made became one for lamentations!
The experience at the UN during the
past months should lead to a re-evaluation
of the status of the international body.
Unless it becomes truly an organization
that strives for human rights, it loses its
significance. Once again, there is need
for stock-taking and of a study of condi-
tions which have led to the ostrich-like
color-blindness in the citadel of the 110
UN member nations.

New Textbook Policy

By action of the Detroit Board of
Education, minority groups are to be por-
trayed in their proper historical perspec-
tive in our textbooks, the board having
ruled that our schools "are committed to
contribute in maximum degree to under-
standing and goodwill among different
racial, religious and nationality groups."
This commendable decision resulted
from the recommendation of Dr. Samuel
M. Brownell, Superintendent of Schools,
who told the school faculty committee
he had selected to make the necessary
studies of the issues that arose here
recently that there was a "genuine basis
for criticism," that, like most history
books, the one in use here "did not deal
adequately and fairly with the Negro in
American history."
The new policy must lead to adequate
correction of the previous shortcomings
and our school authorities have earned
the community's acclaim for their action
to solve a serious problem.
At the same time, the step just taken
should lead to other corrections. For in-
stance, as in the apparently deliberate
omissions of adequate analyses of the
crimes committed by Nazi Germany, the
textbooks currently in use in Germany
fail to place blame upon the German
people and upon their Nazi rulers for
genocide and for the mass Nazi murders.
Our own textbooks, in describing the
tragic World War II, in which millions
of Christians also lost their lives, due to
the inhumanity of Germany, fail to relate
the true story of the holocaust.
While insisting that West Germany
should refrain from condoning the hush-
ing up of history's most tragic events,
for which the Germans are responsible,
we must also make certain that the rea-
sons for our having participated in the
last war should not be kept in secrecy
and that the crimes of the Nazis should
for all time be kept in the world's records
—including our Ameridan textbooks.
The step taken by the Detroit Board
of Education and our public school offi-
cials to correct the previous wrongs in
dealing with the Negroes should also
inspire similar steps in relation to other
groups and to numerous of our historical
developments, especially the one dealing
with the last war. The adoption of a fair
textbook policy is a step in the right
direction.

Rabbi Kertzer's New Book:

'The Art of Being a Jew'

Taking up the cue, in the debate over "What Is a Jew?",
Rabbi Morris N. Kertzer of Larchmont, N.Y., adheres to the view
that Judaism is a way of life, that "Judaism is neither a body of
doctrine nor a theological discipline, but a way of life—and even
more accurately, a way of looking at life."
His views appear in his new book of essays, "The Art of
Being a Jew," published by World (2231 W. 110th, Cleveland 2).
Explaining the meaning that goes into such a way of living
as Jews, Rabbi Kertzer emphasizes that "there is vision enough"
in the 3,000 years of human experience "for all who have the
desire to see."
In the more than 50 essays in this volume, Rabbi Kertzer
deals with every imaginable subject of current Jewish interest—
intermarriage, rabbis and their congregants, Biblical themes,
Jews and the public schools, the dilemma of the Eichmann trial
for the modern Jew, the shadows of war and religion's answer.
There is also the humorous aspect — as expressed in a
chapter "The Talmud's Lighter Side — or — Is That in the
Talmud?" It is an interesting commentary on the Talmud's
views of human characteristics. In this chapter Rabbi Kertzer
explains that "historic Judaism had none of the trappings of
modern sociology and psychology, but it knew a great deal
about the subtleties of the mind."
Those who are concerned over the religion-in-the-schools
issue will be especially interested in Rabbi Kertzer's approach
to it. He states, for example: "I believe that requiring a teacher
to read ten verses of the Bible every morning without comment
is both bad religion and bad pedagogy. I love the words of Amos
and Micah too much to have them handled without tender care."
The other matters discussed are handled with skill by the
able rabbi who has a fine background for scholarship and
authorship.

Gaer's The Best of Recall'

Joseph Gaer, author of a number of widely acclaimed books
on the religions of the world, continued his work of advancing
Jewish scholarship through the Jewish Heritage Foundation, of
• which he is the executive director.
In the JHF quarterly, Recall,
which appears under his editorship,
noteworthy essays, poems and short
stories have been published. Under
Gaer's inspiration, many well known
and new authors have been encour-
aged to express their views, to do
research in the field of Jewish
scholarship, to emerge as able writers.
The outstanding works that
have appeared in the JHF Recall
Magazine have now been gathered,
again under the editorship of Gaer,
and have been published by Thomas
Yoseloff under the title "The Best
of Recall." It is a collection of
Jewish scholarly works that de-
- Joseph Gaer
serves wide distribution.
Symposia on the subjects "What Is Truth?" and "Anti-
Semitism as a Christian Problem" are among the features in
this volume.
There are poems by Charles Reznikoff, Kenneth Seixas Wells,
Ruth Finer Mintz, Ruth Kessler Leserman and Ruth F. Brin.
Editorials from Recall are on timely subjects, discussions of
Jewish problems and the needs for advanced educational activi-
ties and articles on a variety of other subjects enhance the
volum e.
James N. Rosenberg's "Notes On A Table-Cloth" call at-
tention anew to the author's lifelong experiences and offer
a review of an interesting career that led to notable activities
in Jewish ranks.
A score of other authors are represented in Gaer's volume,
pointing to his own pioneering efforts to advance literary skills
among Jews and to the many who were enabled to see their
works in print as a result of the JHF undertakings.