Who's Next?

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

•

SHMARAK
PHILIP SLOMOVITZ CARMI M. SLOMOVITZ SIDNEY
Advertising Manager

Editor and Publisher

Business Manager

HARVEY ZUCKERBERG

City Editor

Sabbath Scriptural Selections
This Sabbath, the sixth day of Adar, the following Scriptural selections will be read in our
synagogues:
Pentateuchal portion, Terumah; Exod. 25:1-27:19. Prophetical portion, I Kings 5:26-6:13.

Licht benshen, Friday, March 1, 6:04 p.m.

VOL. XLIII, No. 1

Page Four

March 1, 1963

How Arabs Have Progressed in Israel

Israel is so sharply divided on the
question of the existing military rule im-
posed as a restriction upon the 260,000
Arabs who form a formidable minority in
that country that the motion to abolish
the military government was defeated by
the close vote of 57 to 56. There prevails
the fear that by freeing the Arabs from
the military control there will be the
danger of strengthening fifth columnists.
In due time, the restrictions imposed
by military rule undoubtedly will be re-
moved, and the last barrier between the
Jewish and Arab citizens of Israel will
thereby be abolished.
In the meantime, in view of the re-
grettable • spread of anti-Israel propa-
ganda, on the score of Arab relations, it
becomes necessary to emphasize time and
again the great benefits which have come
to Israel's Arabs as a result of the re-
establishment of the Jewish State. -
Arab propaganda often has trans-
gressed the elementary principles of
truth—to an extent of its brazen attempt
to introduce anti-Semitic notes in discus-
sions of the -relationship between the two
peoples. By making the existing condi-
tions known- factually the vicious propa-
ganda may, let it be hoped, be eradicated.
An interesting fact about the benefits
accrued to the Arabs from Israeli rule is
that, since 1948, when Israel's independ-
ence was proclaimed and was established
by resisting the onslaught upon the small
Jewish state of five neighboring enemy
countries, Arab land-irrigation increased
15-fold. The Arabs had used 800-year-old
methods of irrigating their lands by
means of hand-driven apparatus of using
sticks or iron bars, attached to carts
driven by mules. In 1948 Arabs in Pales-
tine irrigated 500 acres of land. Now, as
a result of the opportunities afforded
them by a friendly Israeli government,
they are irrigating 7,500 acres of land in
Israel by modern methods.
Contrary to previous sights, Arab
women now are seldom seen carrying
pails of water on their heads. There are
103 Arab villages in Israel, and more than
half of them have had water piped into
all their homes by the Israel government.
Previously, all the Arab villages secured
their drinking water from wells located
many miles from their homes.
Many revolutionary changes already
have - taken place in Israel, where there
now function 28 local Arab councils.
Illiteracy is disappearing entirely
among the Israeli Arabs, and only seldom
does one come across an Arab child who
does not benefit from the country's com-
pulsory education law. There isn't an
Arab village in the entire country that
does not have one or more kindergartens
and the necessary provisions for an ele-
mentary education.
Compare this with the facts acknowl-
edged in a recent statement in Cairo that
the Egyptian government had allocated
the sum of $36,000,000 to eradicate
illiteracy by 1970—admitting that 73%
of Egypt's population of 26,000,000 can
neither read nor write, Cairo alone ac-
counting for 825,000 illiterates!
So that all the facts relating to Israel's
treatment of the Arabs may be known in
all their details, we present here a por-
tion of a statement by Haim Mass re-
leased from Jerusalem:

"The medieval rule of clans headed by a
Mukhtar has been replaced by a democratic.
ally elected local government. Sometimes the
obvious inferiority of services in the Arab sec-
tor as compared with those in the Jewish
parts of the country is balanced by lavish sub-
sidies by the Israel government, out of pro-
portion to Arab local councils share in the.

state's development budget.
"The development program is not con-
fined to villages. The Arab town of Nazareth,
where during the British Mandate the water
portion to Arab local councils' share in the
shortage was so acute that large prices were
paid for drinking water carried by women
from wells in the neighborhood, has had a
modern water network installed, for the most
part at government expense.
"In the formerly all-Arab town of Jaffa an
Arab .teachers' seminary has been opened, to
provide tutorial staff for the ten existing Arab
secondary and 152 Arab elementary schools.
Considering that at the time of the emergence
of the State there were only two 'secondary
schools and 60 elementary schools at the dis-
posal of the Arab minority and, having regard
to the fact that there has been only a mod-
erate population increase in the Arab sector,
efforts to improve educational standards of
the Arab minority has been most pronounced.
"Shimon Landman, Director of the Minori-
ties Division in the Israeli Ministry of the
Interior, recalls how 10 to 15 years ago Arab
women gave birth to their children almost
exclusively at home, with the assistance of a
midwife or female relative, or at harvest time
out in the fields where they happened to be
working. Today, every Arab woman, irrespec-
tive of her social status, enjoys the facilities
of a maternity ward in a public hospital or in
one of the two Arab health centers at Tirah
and Baka el Gabrieh. In addition, Arab
women are entitled to the same maternity
grants as paid to Jewish mothers by the Na-
tional Insturance Institute for the acquisition
of basic requisites for the newborn. Arab
women also receive medical attention and
advice on child care in Mother and Child Wel-
fare stations found in all towns and villages.
The Ministry of Health, the Hadassah Medical
Organization and the General Workers' Sick
Fund see to it that not a single Arab village
is left without regular medical services and
that not a single Arab child is excluded from
the country-wide vaccination and anti-infan-
tile paralysis drives..
"Mother and child welfare plays only a
small role in the task of bringing emancipa-
tion to the Arab woman. The fact that by
Moslem tradition wives are purchased for
money and valuables appears to be detrimen-
tal to endeavours in this direction. Thus, life
in the Arab village is characterized by a dual-
ity of purpose. On the one hand, Arab women
are taught in the village clubs how to read,
write; cook, sew and take care of their babies;
on the other, they have to work from sunrise
to sunset in the fields, and at harvest time
little girls are prevented by their fathers
from attending school, in open violation of
the law whose representatives must tempor-
arily surrender to 'tradition.'
In the north, where most of the 250,000
Arabs of Israel live, progress has been
so rapid that 14 years of Israeli rule
have had a greater civilizing influence than
the 431 years of Ottoman and British adminis-
tration. Illiteracy is disappearing, disease has
been stamped out. The Arab village is becom-
ing prosperous, more enlightened, more self-
conscious and more public-minded. The de-
plorable necessity of retaining Military Gov-
ernment, indispensable for security considera-
tions, cannot do away with the fact that in no
Arab country anywhere in the Middle East
have such strides been made in so short a
time to raise an Arab generation free from
the fetters of feudalism and backwardness."

'Before I Forget'

Paean of Pride in Sluyser's
Stories About Holland Jewry

When they began asking for "a Sluyser" in Dutch bookstores,
it became evident that "Before I Forget" by Meyer Sluyser, now
available in an English translation, published by Thomas Yoseloff
(11 E. 36th, NY16) had become not only a best seller but one
of the sensational books of our time.
In a translation from the Dutch by the author, edited and
with an introduction by Angelo Cohn, this volume represents a
series of reminiscences about Jewish life in Holland before the
Nazi era. It is a perpetuation of the nostalgic about a community
that has been destroyed by the cruel invading hordes, and it has
its elements of tributes to the heroes of the resistance and to
the noble souls who created a good life before the criminals
invaded the land.
Sluyser was himself in the underground forces. A newspaper-
man who became known for his writings against the . emerging
European curse, he became a marked man when the Nazis ar-
rived in his country in 1940. With his wife and two small children,
he escaped to England in a small boat. He continued his career
as a correspondent, was a Canadian newspaper representative
during the war, and upon his return to his homeland, where he
found a devastated Jewish community, he recorded his recollec-
tions under the appropriate title "Before I Forget." Before the
world forgets, his stories will enable people to remember the
glory that once emanated from the proud Dutch Jewish community.
How appropriate that his stories should begin with a tribute
to grandmother, to a paean of love and affection for mother,
in the story "My Yiddishe Mama." The eternal Jewish prayer
and the eternal Jewish love are marked in this tale. It is no
wonder that when readers applied for the Dutch edition of
the book they asked for "a Sluyser." The warmth of his Mania
stories, the charm of . the narratives, are enriching narrative
literature.
"Grandmother Gittel died before the Nazis invaded Holland
and, blessed be God, she had a grave for herself alone." This is
how Sluyser concludes the story "Reading and Writing You Can
Learn, But Brains You Can Only Have." In it is explained the
stubbornness of the woman who determinedly accomplished her
purpose, when she went to visit her daughter in London with
scraps of paper via which to get directions, without knowledge of
language, merely with will power.
Then there is the remarkable shidduch, the marriage of a
freethinker with a very frum girl as told in "The Stranger the
Couple, the Better the Match." This, too, is a proverb of Grand-
mother Gittel that what was considered a difficult match turned
out to be a happy marriage.
Humor and pathos will be found throughout the book, as
in "Two Rich Aunties and Legacies Lost," and in "Being Happy?'
In "Gokkie Tarnot, Blessed Be His Memory" we have the
mirroring of the war experiences, a recollection by a non-Jewish
giant of a man who fought against . Nazism in the underground.
It is a story as Master Bille, a Gentile butcher, told it, and as
he took occasion in his way to pay honor to the memory of
Gokkie Tarpot, whose real name no. one knew but the memory
whose kindnesses inspired Bille to risk his life to help Jews
Israel's Arabs have been called the of
during the Nazi occupation.
most fortunate of the Arab peoples. They
"This Is Monday" is a very sad tale. It is the story of an
share Israel's prosperity but they also idealist, Mr. Monday, who became one of the victims of the Nazis.
play a role in the security that must be He was a cobbler who attempted resistance against the Nazis
provided for that little and still struggling with a vengeance, but like his fellow Jews in Poland he was
state. When the Arabs of Israel will have murdered in cold blood.
"Who Told You I Wasn't Burned Centuries Ago?" is another
completely abandoned their enmities and
will consider themselves, as they should, interesting account of an anti-Nazi — of Zephyr da Costa who
detected and exposed SS officers. And, interestingly, Zephyr's
full citizens, military government rule favorite
record is Sophie Tucker's "My Yiddishe Mama."
surely will be abandoned and amity will
There is added charm in "Yesterday Never Comes Back" and
rule the land- Then perhaps the Arabs in "Jacob the Sleepthief."
Israel will share in the great opportunity
Sluyser rejoiced over the creation of the State of Israel, and
of establishing peace for the entire area his enthusiasm over the great act of historic justice is expressed
so that the standards of the Arabs' kins- in the final story, "There Will Always Be a Yiddishe Mama."
men in other lands may be elevated and It is an appropriate conclusion to a very great collection of
a new era of social justice will rule in the Jewish stories that serve as a paean of pride in the recollections
about a life that was so honorable in the Dutch Jewish community.
Middle East.