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 CARMI M. SLOMOVITZ
Editor and Publisher
Business Manager
SIDNEY SHMARAK
Advertising Manager
HARVEY ZUCKERBERG
City Editor
Sabbath Scriptural Selections
This Sabbath, the fifteenth day of Shevat, the following Scriptural selections will be read
in mir synagogues: _
Pentateuchal portion, Be-shallah: Hamishshah-'asar bi-Shevat; Exod. 13:17-17:16. Prophetical
portion, Judges 4:4-5:31, Judges 5:1-31.
Licht benshen. Friday. Feb. 8, 5:38 p.m.
VOL. XLIL No.
24
Page Four
February 8, 1963
Leonard N.Simons' Well Earned Honor
By dint of devoted labors and dedica-
tion to a score of humanitarian, social
service and educational movements,
Leonard N. Simons has won the admira
tion and respect of his fellow citizens. .
For his civic duties, his interest in
learning, his encouragement to authors
and to libraries, he was given an honorary
Doctorate by Wayne State University.
Brandeis University honored him with
a Fellowship in recognition of his assist-
ance to the . Jewish-sponsored institution
of higher learning.
National and local movements have
recognized his ability as a leader and
organizer and drafted him for services
he has performed with skill and with an
understanding of the causes he repre-
sented.
Now. our immediate Jewish commu-
nity is honoring him as the selectee for
the 1963 Butzel Award of the Jewish
Welfare Federation.
The board of judges that voted this
award to him is to be commended on
its good judgment.
Leonard N. Simons' name now is
•
added to this illustrious group of men
and women who had received the awards,
in the name of Detroit's most distin-
guished leader, the late Fred M. Butzel:
the late Julian H. Krolik, who was the
first award winner in 1951; the late
Henry M. Wineman, 1952 awardee; Judge
William Friedman, 1953; Abraham Srere,
1954; Mrs. Joseph H. Ehrlich, 1955; Sam-
uel H. Rubiner, 1956; Judge Henry M.
Butzel, 1957; Abe Kasle, 1958; the late
Sidney Allen, 1959; Judge Theodore
Levin, 1960; Irwin I. Cohn, 1951, and
Mrs. Henry Wineman, 1962.
Leonard Simons indeed pursues a role
akin to that of the late Fred M. Butzel,
in whose name the Federation awards
are being made annually. He has an in-
terest in youth and education. He sup-
ports libraries and encourages the distri-
bution of books. He has aided the Home
for the Aged and Sinai Hospital, has been
a bulwark of strength in support of the
Jewish Publication Society of America,
has assisted the Anti-Defamation League
and is one of the most dedicated leaders
in our Allied Jewish Campaigns.
Practically single - handedly, he has
succeeded in raising a million dollars for
the proposed new facility for the Jewish
Home for the Aged.
He is playing a major role in marking
the tenth anniversary of Sinai Hospital.
He was very helpful in raising the
necessary local fund to finance the Jewish
Publication Society's initial step in pro-
ducing the revised translation of the
Torah, and now he again is in the fore-
front of this task in enlisting 200 more
participants in the fund for the continued
revisions of the translations of the Proph-
ets and the Wisdom Writings.
Not to be overlooked also is the lead-
ership role being played by Mr. Simons
to remove from dictionaries and encyclo-
pedias unjust slurs on the Jews and wrong
definitions of Jewry and Judaism.
This is a brief record of a rich career
that is continually being further enriched
by the 1963 recipient of the Fred M.
Butzel Jewish Welfare Federation Award.
It is with deep appreciation of his labors
that we join in congratulating Leonard
N. Simons on the coveted honor he has
just been awarded.
'Nationalism and the Jewish Ethic'
'Basic Writings of Ahad Ha'am'
In the basic writings of Ahad Ha'am just republished jointly
by Schocken Books (67 Park, NY16) and Herzl Press (515 Park,
NY22), under the title "Nationalism and the Jewish Ethic," are
incorporated a number of major essays which are as timely today
as they were when they first were written — some of them having
appeared more than 40 years ago, others
dating back to 1889.
The first essay, "The Wrong Way"
— "Lo Zu HaDerekh" — was the note-'
worthy affirmation of the eminent schol-
ar and philosopher, Asher Ginzberg
(1856 1927), who wrote under the pen
"one of the
name of Ahad Ha'am
and who advocated the
people"
cultural Zionist idea — ''to strengthen
and deepen its hold on the Jewish
people, not by force, but by the spirit."
This essay was written in 1889, before
the advent of Herzlian Zionism.
In "Slavery and Freedom," the
1891 essay in this volume, Ahad Ha'am
reiterated his views, advocating "spiri-
tual freedom" which he would not "ex-
change or barter for all the emancipa-
tion in the world."
Continuing his dispute with the
nationalism of Herzlian Zionism, Ahad
Ha'am, in "Jewish State and Jewish
Problem" (1897), pursued his idea,
Ahad Ha'am
using, as he stated - in his explanation of a note to the First
World Zionist Congress, "hard expressions." He would not with-
draw his criticism:
settlements, in which newcomers from a
Thus, Ahad Ha'am's advocacy of spiritual and cultural Zionism
number of underdeveloped areas are seek- persisted. Even in his tribute to Dr. Leon Pinsker's memory, in
ing opportunities to rebuild their lives in "Pinsker and Political Zionism" (1902), Ahad Ha'am adhered to
an environment in which they will be able his views, as he did in "Summa Summarum" (1912). in which
to improve their health, it is important he reiterated his desire for "a national spiritual center of Judaism,
will bind all Jews together . . ."
that ambulances should be available in which
His "old warning" was repeated in 1920 in "After the Balfour
time of need. Many 6f the kibbutzim and Declaration,"
in which he urged that there should not be pressure
other settlements in Israel must be "too quickly to the goal" because "we have to show in practice
reached over rough roads, and for that how far we have the material and moral strength to establish
purpose the availability of serviceable the national home which we have been given permission to es-
tablish in Palestine."
vehicles is vital.
Edited, with an elaborate introduction, by Dr. Hans Kohn,
A gift of 50 new ambulances to Magen
professor of history at the New York City College, this volume
David Adorn would be a most suitable the Ahad Ha'am views on Jewish nationalism and his learned
15th anniversary gift and it is to be hoped essays on Jewish ethics.
It is Prof. Kohn's contention that there is a growing appre-
that there will be enough generous peo-
ciation even now of Ahad Ha'am's views, that Statehood is not
ple to provide it.
an end in itself for Jewry, that the growing difficulties in Israel-
Diaspora relations were foreseen by the eminentW
philosopher. He declares in his introduction:
"That great masses of Jews should, after the
creation of a State of Israel, wish to retain
new standards of living among the down- their Jewish identity and communal institutions-,
trodden masses of their people, Nasser yet show no inclination to return to the restored
and his fellow dictators have been fash - homeland. was for classical Zionist theory an
Toning bigotries, and the illiterate Arab inconceivable historical contradiction, and a
masses were clay in the hands of the shock from which it has never recovered." He
molders of nations that thrived on hate. thus upholds Ahad Ha'am's conception of a
Elimination of illiteracy could mean "spiritual center" as drawing "continual sus-
the beginning of a campaign that might tenance from the presence of the Jewish State."
"Ahad Ha'am's type of compromise," Dr.
lead to the self - emancipation of the Kohn
Hans Kohn
may someday be reached be
masses. But accompanying a it there also tween asserts,
the Diaspora's desire to be a free and equal partner in
lurk two other dangers: that the literature the making of modern Judaism, and a Zionist Israel's claim to
for the former illiterates might remain historical and religious uniqueness."
-
—
—
A Gift of Ambulances to Israel
On the occasion of Israel's approach-
ing 15th anniversary of autonomous
statehood, the American Red Mogen
Dovid for Israel—the counterpart of the
Red Cross—proposes that 50 new ambu-
lances should be sent to Israel for serv-
ices there by the Magen David Adorn.
This is a practical proposal. A caravan
of ambulanCes can render much good in
the Jewish State. It would supplement
the health - saving vehicles already in
operation in Israel and would give assur-
ances of increased services by the Israeli
Red Cross forces in time of need:
Magen David Adorn is a necessary
function in time of peace. Under the new
conditions of an expansive system of new
Illiteracy and the Middle Eastern Enigmas
Egypt reportedly has allocated a
$36,000,000 sum for the eradication of
illiteracy by 1970. Nasser's Education
Ministry will be faced with the task of
reducing the number of those who can
neither read nor write who form 73 per-
cent of the population of 26,000,000—
Cairo alone accounting for 825,000 illit-
erates.
Should Egypt succeed, it will mean
that Israel's most antagonistic neighbor
is seeking a road other than the major
hate campaign—a path of educating the
people rather than of merely arousing
hatreds and of creating animosity against
Israel.
As of now, the anti-Israel drive re-
mains the only objective of the Arab
potentates. It is on the "hate Israel and
seek her destruction" slogan that the
Arab dictators have been able to cement
a semblance of unity. Instead of creating
-
Prof. Kohn concludes: "Ahad Ha'am believed that he was living at a
the mass of misinformation gathered by
time when Judaism was, as the title of his first volume of collected essays
Nasser, with the aim of making Israel the implied,
'at the crossroads.' Distasteful as assimilation was to him, the
vulgarized, distorted Judaism whose emergence lie feared seemed no less so.
sole target for venom; and that the Com- Yet,
Ahad Ha'am was too aware of the dilemma of modern Jewish history
munist quest for victims might reach to pretend to possess any clear-cut answer. His preponderant pessimism,
undoubtedly sprang from roots deep within his personality. was an
them before they can be educated for a which
honest reaction to what he saw going on all around him. What he was
willing
to offer, both to his time and our own, was the faith that the Jewish
better life by the democratic forces in people had
not yet played out its historic role . .
the world. It is against such dangers that
In the present-clay debate over the meaning of the terms
the forces for decency in the Middle East Jews and Judaism, the Ahad Ha'am essays provide background
and the world at large must be on guard data for renewed evaluations, and Dr. Kohn's analyses are timely
contributions to this discussion.
in the years to come.