Friday, Sept. 6, 1963 -- THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS -- 4
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Emerging Danger
.1'11E 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 Roan, Detroit 35.
Mich., VE 8-9364. Subscription $6 a year. Foreign $7.
Second Class Postage Paid At Detroit, Michigan
PHILIP SLOMOVITZ CARM1 M. SLOMOVITZ SIDNEY SHMARAK
Editor and Publisher -
Business Manager
Advertising Manager
HARVEY ZUCKERBERG
City Editor
Sabbath Scriptural Selections
This Sabbath, the eighteenth day of Elul, 5723, the following Scriptural selections will be
read in our synagogues:
Pentateuchal portion, Deut. 26:1-29:8; Prophetical portion, Isaiah 60:1-22.
Licht benshen, Friday, Sept. 6, 6:40 p.m.
VOL. LXIV. No. 2
Page Four
Sept. 6, 1963
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The Historic March on Washington
One irrefutable truth emerged from
the historic March on Washington. It was
summarized by President Kennedy when
he gave the assurance that the civil
rights won by the Negroes in 1963 will
never be truncated.
The demand that was summarized by
the term NOW by the Negro spokesmen
seems to have been fulfilled. Except for
the handful of biased people in the South
who have not forgotten the Confederacy,
whose eyesight is color-prejudiced, whose
minds are shut to truth and to reality,
this country has determinedly endorsed
the just insistence of the Negroes that
the restrictions imposed upon them
should be removed.
Now—again with the emphasis on this
word, there begins an era of providing
proper education, better housing a n d
proper employment for the people who
were so inhumanly enslaved. The century
that has elapsed since the issuance of the
Emancipation Proclamation by President
Lincoln was slow moving. While slavery
was abandoned, the Negro remained in
economic and cultural subjection.
In the new era, a responsibility de-
volves not only upon the white man to
correct the wrongs of the past, but also
upon the leaders in the Negro communi-
ties who must guide their people towards
paths of self-liberation. If there are to be
wholesome welcoming trends by indus-
tries and other job-providing forces, they
must be accompanied by proper prepara-
tions and the necessary training without
which the Negroes could not be expected
to fit into the employment opportunities
they will seek.
The responsibility is primarily that of
the Negro community: that it should
mobilize its forces to assure that their
people will fit into the proper positions,
that the educational processes will be so
geared that the previous inequities will
be wiped out.
In a series of four essays in "Fellowship in Judaism — The
It was heartening to know that an
unanimous American Jewish community irst Century and Today," published in England by Valentine-
(18 Cursitor St.. London E.C. 4), by Dr. Jacob Neusner, of
supported the March, that all national Mitchell
Hartford, Conn.. aspects of religious fellowship are evaluated in
Jewish organizations and religious move- high
scholarly fashion.
ments were represented in Washington on
Dr. Neusner, who was ordained Rabbi at the Jewish Theo-
Aug. 28. It was a continuation of an estab- logical Seminary and who now is research assistant in Jewish
lished Jewish tradition of giving aid to History at Brandeis University's Philip W. Lown Institute of
the dispossessed and the downtrodden. It Advanced Jewish Studies. traces the background of the haber
is a policy that will never be abandoned as a fellowship through law and the talmid hakham as the fel-
as long as there will be people in need. lowship of intellect, and in addition to reviewing the two ancient
We are not forgetting that we were bat-1 Jewish fellowships as represented in the Qumran and Jerusalem
he writes interestingly on the status of Jewish
tling for our own just rights only a short backgrounds
today.
time ago. In the process we include all ' fellowship
So effective are Dr. Neusner evaluations that Dr. Robert
the persecuted. Our social justice pro- A. Nisbet,
Dean of the College of Letters and Science, Uni-
gram is universal and so it will remain. versity of California, Riverside, states in a preface to this
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Neusner Compares Fellowships
of Old with Current Failures
book: "The book is more than religious history. It is a percep- -
tive essay in religious sociology . . . The detailed analysis we
are given of the two varieties of religious fellowship is as
instructive to those concerned with the problem of community
put out a blaze in the fields resulting from
and association as it is to religious historians . .."
previous Syrian fire were also fired upon.
The reader is introduced to the earliest connotations of the
Aug. 9—Fire was again opened up three
use of the term companion—haber—and the development of the
times from Syrian positions on tractors in
Jewish fellowship—haburah. Dr. Neusner points out that "in
the fields of Ha'on.
ancient times the commune was a widespread form of social
Aug. 13—Syrian positions opened five bursts organization for religion," that: "It was common to the Pytha-
of fire on a tractor in the fields of Ha'on.
gorean schools of Hellenistic Egypt and to the Nabataean king-
Aug. 15—Syrian positions opened fire on
dom to the south of the Dead Sea. Jewish Palestine itself pro-
three occasions on a tractor in Ha'on.
vided rich analogues to the Pharisaic order. Many of the secte,
Aug. 17 — Syrian positions opened five particularly the Essenes and the Qumran group, shared with
bursts of fire on farmers of Almagor engaged the Pharisees common institutional forms . . ."
Explaining the prosaic literature of Pharisaic law, Dr. Neus-
in putting out a blaze in their fields.
Aug. 18—Syrian positions opened up fire ner emphasizes that "the fellows of the academic sages in the
streets and fields of the land likewise wove a fabric of actions
on two occasions on Huleh region farmers.
Aug. 19—Ten Syrian soldiers inside Israel that represented the effort to build God's kingdom on earth." He
also declares that "the Qumran community chose a revolutionary
territory ambushed three Israelis driving a
path to Utopia."
tractor in the fields of Shorazin. Two of the
Developing the theme relating to the haber and the fel-
Israelis were killed by Syrian fire.
lowship through law, Dr. Neusner states that "the fundamen-
Aug. 20—Syrian troops opened fire on an
tally uncompromising articulation of law became manifest in
Israel tractor in the Huleh region. Other Syrian
social, commercial, agricultural and personal relationships."
positions later joined in the firing.
Describing the duties that devolved upon a member of the
Israel has • experienced numerous un- haburah, the author states that "membership in the fellowship
happy relationships with truce supervisors was achieved through a pattern of actions which demonstrated
devotion to certain neglected Jewish traditions."
who had bent backwards to whitewash the the initiate's
The chapter devoted to the talmid hakham, like the other
Arab aggressors. It had come to a point chapters
annotated, deals with ancient scholarships, with
of Israel's refusal to cooperate with sev- scholars richly
whose wisdom is quoted and whose ideologies are
eral of the UN commissions because the evaluated.
cards were stacked against them. Fortu-
"Jewish Fellowship Today" serves as "an after-word" to
nately, Gen. Bull has fairly reported the the preceding evaluative essays. The author discusses the place
events that occurred in the Middle East. of the synagogue in the social life of its members and he de-
But the manner in which newsmen swal- plores that "whatever the synagogue ought to be, it is very
lowed Syrian propaganda hook, line and rarely a community or a religious fellowship. The various
and chapters and posts (their name is legion) usually
sinker is most deplorable. It is to be lodges
consist of a small number of activists, and a long mailing list.
hoped that the UN report, which indicates They
together a very few people for a random moment
the great guilt of the Syrians, will lean- in the bring
month, and provide limited social experience (often
towards a much more fair approach to recreative, but very little fellowship. Even in the more modest
the Israel-Arab conflict both by the forms of synagogue and institutional life, such as the 'brother-
world's statesmen in the UN and by the hood' or the 'sisterhood' or the youth group, one finds strangers
correspondents who are expected to cover meeting strangers, remaining strangers."
His contention is that the "neighborhood ghetto" has achieved.
the scene rather than to accept as fact
"a place in the undifferentiated mass," and he suggests that "a
the Syrian propaganda handouts.
way of achieving community is indicated by the ancient fellow-
The stand that was taken by the U. S. ship." He proposes: "A meaningful social group among Jews
delegation at the UN in favor of the con- ought to take its particular character and definition from the
demnation of Syria was one of the heart- Jewish faith and tradition . . . A Jewish social group of fellow-
ening developments in the struggle. It ship ought to bear witness to an intrinsic sociological idea within
should serve as a signal to the Syrians to Judaism . . ." He urges the discovery and definition of "the cata-
refrain from saber-rattling, to turn their lyst of fellowship" and the recognition of "the very temporal
of fellowship or 'community' itself."
attention to peace rather than to foment- character
Admitting that fellowship will not save the world and will
ing war.
make little difference to the Jewish community, he concludes,
But the Russian veto proved that ob- however,
that "it may matter to the mundane life of the private
struction still is the rule when the quest person," that: "If it has any value at all the fellowship must be
for domination predominates. The USSR regarded as a tentative and austere step towards meaningful and
wrote another black page into its dark creative use of that interim between birth and death that each
man knows as life."
record.
Distortion of Truth A bout Syrian Attacks
Soon after the attacks on Jewish farm-
ers in Almagor, in the Korazim area in
Israel, it became so definitely evident
that the Israelis were innocent of any
provocations, that the shootings may have
been an attempt to divert the attention
of the Syrian people from the mismanage-
ment of their government, that it was
inevitable for those who are anxious for
a modicum of justice to become perplexed
over the slowness with which the wheels
of justice turned at the United Nations.
The accusations against Syria were
sound, they were upheld by Maj. Gen.
Odd Bull, chief of staff of the UN Truce
Supervision Organization, after his
thorough study of the occurrences. Yet
there was a shameless attempt to give the
impression that there was "an exchange
of shooting." It was not an attack on
Israel, but an exchange of shots insofar
as the slanted reports that emanated from
the UN were concerned.
Similarly shocking was the manner of
reporting about the incidents which re-
vealed a bending-backwards gyration on
the part of the press to appease Syria
and to refrain from revealing the truth
about Syrian atrocities, the outrageous
murder of innocent farmers and the de-
tention of Israelis as prisoners.
So that the facts may be known, it is
important that the Syrian aggressions
should be placed on the record. In a
period of four weeks, the following inci-
dents were reported:
July • 13—Five women and one man were
removed by Syrian troops from an Israel boat.
Two women and one man are still being held
by Syria.
July 22—Syrian positions opened automatic
fire on two occasions at a tractor working in
the fields of Ha'on.
July 29—Fire was again directed from
Syrian positions at farmers plowing in the
fields of Ha'on.
July 31—Syrian fire was again opened at
a tractor plowing in the fields of Ha'on.
Aug. 7—Syrian positions opened fire on
three occasions on tractorists working in the
fields of Ha'on.
Aug. 8—Syrian fire was again opened on
three occasions on tractorists working in the
fields of Ha'on. Farmers who later tried to
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