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, Mich., VE 8-9364. Subscription $6 a year. Foreign $7. Second Class Postage Paid At Detroit, Michigan PHILIP SLOMOVITZ Editor and Publisher Illegillah's Lesson Eternal Now it came to pass in the Z)o.ss of Ahasuerus- scox Of CMER) SIDNEY SHMARAK CARMI M. SLOMOVITZ HARVEY ZUCKERBERG Advertising Manager Business Manager City Editor Sabbath Scriptural Selections This Sabbath, the thirteenth day of Adar, the following Scriptural selections will be read in our synagogues: Pentateuchal portion; Tezawweh, Zakhor; Exod. 27:20-30:10, Deut. 25:17-19. Prophetical portion, I Samuel 15:2-34, I Samuel 15:1-34. Licht benshen, Friday, March 8, 6:12 p.m. VOL. XLIII No. 2 Page Four March 8, 1963 Happy Purim --- Festival's Lessons Masquerading and revelry, home and synagogue parties, are on this week-end's agenda for Jews throughout the world. Purim offers an opportunity for hilar- ity, and this happy festival is the only occasion on which the synagogue sanctu- aries are used for children and adults to let loose their innermost emotions for expressions of their Jewish pride in an accounting of an historical period during which anti-Semitism was conquered. While the story of Esther and of Mor- decai and their defiance of Haman, whose evil decrees for the destruction of the Jewish community of Persia was thwarted, has turned the festival into a great demonstration by children, it also has inspired their elders who have gained courage from it to carry on the constantly recurring struggles against anti-Semitism. There is considerable talk right now about the i n c r ease of anti-Semitism, especially on our own continent. While taking the admonitions against the re- currence of anti-Semitism most seriously, we gain confidence from the lesson of Purim that the hatreds on which bigots bask will be overcome and their threats will be defied. Persia is a typical example of Jewish defiance of dangers from anti-Semitism. It was in the land Persia that Ahasuerus was induced to reverse an earlier ruling, secured by the anti-Semite Haman, to destroy the Jews. Now, in the midst of a most regrettable struggle between Israel and her Arab neighbors, Persia—modern Iran— is one of two states in the Middle East to thwart the combined Arabic pressures to continue friendly relations with the Jewish State. A third, Cyprus, now is following their example. Part of the lesson of Purim is never to lose faith in the ultimate triumph of A Thought-Provoking Book justice and decency. That • is why this festival provides so much joy in our com- munity. That is why there will be a whole "lelayim" this week-end — on the one festival on our calendar when the bars are down, when toasts are made and when the synagogue shares in revelry. Goodman's 'The Community of Scholars' Challenges College System of the Current Time School Millage Plan Must Be Supported No other problem facing the Ameri- can people in the present era of turmoil and uncertainties is as serious as that involving our school system. The need for more and better-trained teachers, for adequate school buildings and for well- planned curricula - is so vast that it must be viewed as the first on the agenda of improving community functions. One would imagine, in view of the great obligations we owe our children, that any plan for the improvement of our schools, no matter how large the expense to be incurred, would be accepted and encouraged. Yet, the grumbling that is heard over an involved tax increase in the proposals for a new school millage and the fear that is entertained in some quarters because the passing of the pro- posed school recommendations at the April 1 election will involve new finan- cial obligations to the voters, is little less than frightening. When the welfare of the country is involved, in the preparation of our youth for good citizenship, there ought to be no hesitation in assuming duties to our schools. It is imperative, therefore, that between now and April 1 a tireless cam- paign should be conducted to educate the Detroit voters to their duties to their school system. The School Tax Limitation Proposi- tion to be placed on the April 1 ballot calls for an increase in taxes to be levied for a five-year period, 1964-1968, by 1.28 per cent—boosting the tax, per thousand property valuation, from $7.50 to $12.80. This will include: 1. Continued op e r at i on of the school system at the present level; 2. Provision for a conservative estimate of school enrollment; 3. Salary commitments; 4. An annual 2 percent increase in cost of services; 5. Improvements in educational services. These are minimal requirements and should be viewed as such, and therefore should be accepted as elementary duties of citizens to their communities. The April 1 millage proposal does not include provision of funds for build- ing construction, and therefore there will be on the ballot a bonding proposition for a $90,000,000 building expenditure for buildingS and sites. This, too, is urgent and should be adopted without hesitation. The most recent analyses of school needs and rising obligations have been given in reports to the Detroit Board of Education as follows: 1. Enrollments can be expected to increase. The least amount of increase might be up to 295,500, if out-migration is at 2%, and other conditions remain as at present. Out-migration is slowing down. The new requirement to add "trainable" pupils under a new State law will increase enrollment. Drop- outs are decreasing. Enrollment may well exceed the 204,400 projected if out-migration and in-migration bal- ance, in which case the estimates are too low. 2. Taxable valuation is anticipated to level off at about $5 billion, and State aid funds to continue under the present formula. 3. Allowance is needed for contin- uing present salary schedule commit- ments, for an annual amount for re- placing boilers, roofs, lighting, other equipment and adding to inadequate sites, and the 2% recognized by the Citizens Advisory Committee as a reas- onable annual expected cost increase. 4. To carry forward approved ma- jor recommendations of the Citizens Advisory Committees for improvement of the Detroit schools as has been esti- mated would require in the neighbor- hood of $26 million annually. There are, in our community, many who are being misled by the effects a very slight increase in expenses may have on their personal financial status to in- duce them to oppose the schools' pro- posals. There are others who, being childless, do not recognize the fact that an improved school system is vital not for parents and their children alone but for the community as a whole. All the estimates presented by the Detroit Board of Education, both on school needs and the requirements for new buildings, are conservative. It is impera- tive that a degree of understanding of the seriousness of the existing situation should be attained, and a duty revolves upon every citizen to enlighten his neigh- bor relative to the pressing needs, so that all may go to the polls on April 1, over- whelmingly to adopt the schools' millage and building propositions. Paul Goodman, the peer among America's social critics, has made a most profound study of American colleges in "The Com- munity of Scholars," published by Random House. It is a critique that challenges the educational leaders of our time. This study delves into every aspect of college education — curricula, management, academic personalities; the pay of profes- sors, and various other matters related to the serious issue so well tackled by the brilliant analyst. • "The university, the studium generale," Goodman declares, "is the appropriable city . . . A city culture is a mixture of clashing influences, foreigners from all parts. The objective culture that we have inherited is by now total confusion; and certainly there is too much of it for anybody to cope with. As if this were not bad enough, the young are kept from learning, by rules, task- work, and extraneous distractions. They have no conversation and they meet no veterans. Nevertheless, there is no other way for them to grow up to be free citizens, to commence, except by discovering, in an earnest moment, that some portion of the objective culture is after all natively their own; it is usable by them; it is humane, comprehensible and practicable, and it com- municates with everything else. The discovery flashes with spirit." * * * Goodman emphasizes that "education can be regarded as socialization, to make the young conform harmoniously to society — and this can be a base or noble purpose, depending on the quality of society. Or it may be regarded as the effort to perfect people as such, perhaps giving them defenses against the existing, or any, society, in the interest of liberty. But the Western univer- sity rather regards society itself as a drama of persons, in which the educated understand the play and so can invent a new play. Liberty is, essentially, the exercise of initiative in a mixed City." Commenting on how "the growing social animals become free citizens . . grow into a way rational to themselves . . . have taken on the civilization; are responsible for it . . . are no longer simple social animals confronting God and the other people," Good- man, in a footnote, repeats this anecdote of Buber's: "An Eastern sage and a Western sage are climbing a mountain. But the Western sage is carrying a heavy box, drops it, falls backward, shoUlders it again, struggles on. The Easterner easily races ahead to the top and is soon on his way down. `Why don't you throw away that box?' he says to the other, `then you could easily get up.' But what,' says the Westerner, `if I have to get to the top just with My box? Otherwise it is nothing to me'." * * * Goodman further comments: "By and large, we have to say that the city culture of the West is both moral and technical, personal and collective." Yet, he adds, , "the principle of the studium generale is that civilization has been a continual gift of the Creator Spirit; it consists of inventions, discoveries, insights, art works, highly theorized institutions, methods of workmanship. All of this has vastly accumulated over the ages and become very unwieldy, yet, in the spirit, it is always appropriable. . . It is by losing himself in the objective, in inquiry, creation, and craft, that a man becomes something. It is as if a man 'makes himself,' but of course it is the spirit that makes him. On the other hand, he need not be submerged in the civilization that he inherits, that others made, for if he studies it he will surely find himself there; it is his." Thus, the challenge to the college educators, nay, to the com- munity. Goodman's is thought-provoking book. It should stir debate and result in social advancement. It is a work- that adds glory to an already glorious name of an eminent thinker and scholar.