THE JEWISH NEWS
Incorporating The Detroit Jewish Chronicle commencing with issue of July 20, 1951
Member American Association of English—Jewish Newspapers, Michigan Press Association, National Editorial
Association.
Published every Friday by The Jewish News Publishing Co., 17100 West Seven Mile Road, Detroit 48235 Mich.,
VE 8-9364. Subscription $6 a year. Foreign $7.
Second Class Postage Paid at Detroit, Michigan
PHILIP SLOMOVITZ
Editor and Publisher
CARMI M. SLOMOVITZ
Business Manager
SIDNEY SHMARAK
Advertising Manager
CHARLOTTE KYAMS
City Editor
Sabbath Scriptural Selections
This Sabbath, the thirteenth day of Iyar, the following Scriptural selections will be read in our
synagogues.
Pentateuchal portion: Levit. 16:1-20:27. Prophetical portion: Amos. 9:7-15.
Licht Benshen, Friday, April 24, 7:05 p.m.
VOL. XLV. NO. 9
Page Four
April 24, 1964
HIAS at 80: A Record of Nobility
Only an older generation remembers
the affection in which HIAS was held by
the masses of immigrants who came to
this country in the first two decades of
this century. Originally functioning as
the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society and
shortened into the initials of the name-
HIAS—this agency, now known as United
HIAS Service, is currently celebrating its
80th anniversary. Its record of humani-
tarian service, the cheer it provided for
many tens of thousands of newcomers
to this country, the guidance it provided
for them and the hope it created for
many who were on the verge of despair,
have earned for HIAS the acclaim that
goes to it on its anniversary.
Even after the large influx of Jewish
migrations from lands of oppression to
this country had ceased, HIAS remained
a guiding light for a great many. When
it was necessary to secure certificates of
entry for refugees from Nazism and
other persecutions, and to issue guaran-
tees that the newcomers would not be-
come a burden upon the American com-
munity but that they would be cared for
by those who pledged their sustenance
here, it was HIAS that was turned to for
assistance. When the battles for those
seeking havens here were conducted by
appeals to our Government, it was HIAS
that provided the legal aid in our nation's
capital.
It is well that these services should
be remembered and that the current
United HIAS Service activities in behalf
of those who continue to seek security
in this country should be taken into ac-
count. The aid given to Cuban refugees,
the assistance provided for those who
have come here from countries behind
the Iron Curtain and from Moslem coun-
tries of oppression, continue the marvel-
ous record of HIAS.
Because the name HIAS was syn-
onymous with kindness and the tradition-
al Jewish welcome to strangers and the
humanitarian ideas imbedded in Judaism,
the experiences of one who has person-
ally benefited from the gifts of HIAS are
worth recording. Nathan Ziprin, editor
of Seven Arts Features Syndicate, recall-
ing his own experiences when he arrived
at Ellis Island or Castle Garden, as the
port of arrival was then referred to,
wrote in part about that tense Friday in
December 1909:
The Friday was one of the shortest of the
year and we were deeply worried that the
Sabbath might set in ere the questioning ritual
by immigration officials ended. There we were
in a wire-meshed enclosure separated from an
anxiously waiting father by no more than two
or three yards, yet for all we felt it was the
endless distance between the oceans before our
splendid ship, the Mauretania, left Liverpool
less than five days before for what was to be a
record-breaking trans-oceanic trip.
Father now was showing signs of growing
impatience. The hour was nearing for the corn-
ing of the Sabbath and we knew he would not
permit even reunion with family to divert him
from the Sabbath path. If that happened, there
would be for us and for him the agony of wait-
ing three more days. Father was an extremely
pious Jew, a chassid who trembled with anticip-
ation on the coming of the Sabbath. With each
passing moment his restlessness mounted and
our anxiety too. We knew we would not stand
in his way to receiving the Sabbath.
At this very moment a man with a button
on his coat that bore a Yiddish imprint ap-
proached us, inquiring whether we needed help.
He was of the "hachnosas orchim" society, he
told us. Mere mention of these words conjured
up warm thoughts. In the Jewish conclaves in
the Ukraine from which we escaped, hachnosas
orchim, giving shelter to the wayfarer and
wanderer, was amongst the most radiant mitzvos,
a virtue for which only Heaven had a rewarding
word.
Now we knew we would not be lost even if
there was to be no immediate reunion with
father. In a Yiddish that was welcome to our
ears the HIAS man—we later learned he was
a Jewish writer, probably the late David Igna-
tov—reassured us we would not be lost and
that if father left we would still be brought in
time to our destination—a street that was but
several blocks away from the HIAS building
on East Broadway, then the heart and pride of
the Jewish East Side of New York City.
However, there was no need for HIAS inter-
cession. Father's anxiety must have reached
heaven on this erev-shabas hour and the doors
opened wide and we sped to a tugboat that
brought us to the Battery and later to a horse-
drawn car that moved through a snarl of ve-
hicles we never saw before until it stopped on
the corner of the building on Scamel Street that
was to be our first home in American for a long
time.
That was my first moment with the agency
of mercy that was the HIAS. The memory of
that contact has however lingered on throughout
the 55 years since that distant Friday. To this
day my mind's eye has a clear image of the
basement in the building on East Broadway that
housed BIAS and of the Jewish immigrants get-
ting their first feel of America before being
sent to their destinations, often to cities in the
vast lands of distant America. Throughout its
years on East Broadway, the hachnosas orchim
was second to none of the Jewish institutions
that bloomed in those remote days, promising
with future for the escapees from pogroms and
the squalor of the Eastern European shtetlach.
Many changes have taken place since
the date of our columnist's arrival at
Ellis Island. But the tradition of hach-
nosas orchim—of a welcoming hand to
strangers arriving in our midst—remains
the guiding principle of HIAS whom we
greet on its 80th anniversary by shar-
ing the gratitude that millions of im-
migrants have shown it for its indelible
services rendered in a spirit of dedication
to the established Jewish principles of
kindness to the strangers. HIAS has help-
ed transform those who came here as
strangers into wholesome elements in
American life. The first greetings of
friendship have helped give courage to
the bewildered masses arriving here. This
tone of kindness predominates and HIAS
remains a term spelling joy and creativity
in American Jewry.
Let There Be Total Enrollment in Our Drive!
Only three weeks remain for the en-
rollment of Detroit Jewry in the great,
all-embracing, Allied Jewish Campaign.
This is the one-time appeal in the life-
saving effort through the drive's major
beneficiary—the United Jewish Appeal—
and for the numerous national as well
as all the local causes.
On the closing date of the drive, it is
urgent that every Detroit Jew becomes a
full-fledged member of our community by
making a generous contribution to the
drive.
Not only the adults, but the youth as
well must be enlisted as participants in
the enormous effort in support of De-
troit's vital institutions, the national edu-
cational causes, the overseas relief needs.
More than 23,000 potential contribu-
tors are being contacted for their gifts.
What a glorious day it could be for our
community if we could increase this num-
ber by several thousand more names of
men and women, of all ages, who have
not hitherto contributed to the Allied Jew-
ish Campaign! Let us hope that such will
be the case when the drive ends May 13.
Revealing Facts About Hurban,
Data About Diaspora Education,
Zionism, in 'In the Dispersion'
The lessons learned from the Nazi holocaust, the question
of resistance, the records that were kept of the Nazi era and
the attitudes of non-Jews on the tragedies that afflicted Jews are
related in a number of surveys and monographs, in the newest
issue of "In the Dispersion," issued in Jerusalem by the World
Zionist Organization's organization department and its research
section.
Dr. Nahum Goldmann, writing on "Jewish Heroism in Seige,"
states that while there were attempts at resistance in several
countries, "there were very few collective uprisings"; that "in
most cases resistance movements were composed of small
groups"; that the Nazis "succeeded in breaking the spirit of
resistance by imposing a terrible demoralization on its victims."
He insists, however, that charges of failure to resist are
"completely without foundation . . . based on a lack of psycho-
logical insight into the situation of the Jews in the ghettos
under Nazi rule. I can well understand how difficult it is for
a man living in freedom to comprehend the living conditions'
and feelings of those Jews in the Nazi ghettos. But when such
experience is lacking, and in the absence of the understanding
that should be based on an attitude of respect and reverence,
there can be no moral right to utter accusations or even to
express doubts as to the attitude and behavior of these com-
munities. How many attempts at organized revolt took place
among the other peoples who suffered under Nazi tyranny?"
Indeed, as Dr. Goldmann shows, the situation of the Jews
under the Nazis was worse than for other people. Traps, such
as the deluding Judenrat, aroused the vain hopes that Jews
would be allowed to live their lives anew. Dr. Goldman there-
fore marvels that there was as much courage as is known. He
emphasizes, however, that there was dignity and pride among
Jews in the concentration camps which "even pierced the Nad
murderers' wall of insensibility and moved them deeply."
"Dr. Goldmann asserts: "Any attempt to deny the heroic
character of diaspora history is a sign of ignorance, intolerance,
exaggerated arrogance and an unjust attitude toward generations
of heroes who bore high the standards of revolt in their own
way and under their particular conditions."
"Then and Now" by Zivia Lubetkin, who fought against
the Nazis in the Warsaw Ghetto and is among the few survivors
of that battle, pleads that the sacrifices and the heroism of the
thousands who fought with the partisans against Nazism should
not be forgotten.
There is a stirring story by Zvi Szner on how records of the
horror in the Konin Labor Camp were kept by Rabbi Yehoshua
Moshe Aaronson, how they were retrieved and how they forin
an important part of the Hurban literature.
Then there is an important article by Isaac Kabuli about the
Jews who fought in the Greek underground .. .
Important data is incorporated in Israel Gutman's article "The
Holocaust" and there is an interesting evaluation of the bad role
played by the East European press in treating the Warsaw
Ghetto revolt and the anti-Jewish stand that had been taken by
most Poles during the tragedies under Nazism.
Guiltiest of all are the Polish Jewish Communists and their
leader Hersz Smolar. The role played by the Zionists in the
Uprising is belied and the facts distorted.
This issue of "In the Dispersion" contains valuable mate-
rial on "How Is Zionism to Be Revived," an essay by Jacob
Amit; articles on immigrant absorption in Israel and the way
of teaching about the catastrophe to Israeli children, by R.
Lev and I. Gutman.
Studies of the Jewish population of New York, British Jewry
Today, Jewish Education in Uruguay, Tunisian Jews in Paris,
French and Algerian Jewries and Recent Books on Remote Com-
munities—by A. Rubinstein, E. Krausz, A. Sapolinsky, C. Yeru-
shalma, D. Done, R. Kashani—are additional valuable portions
of this book. It concludes with an excellent evaluation of "The
Legacy of Jewish Music Through the Ages" by E. Gerson—Kiwi
"In the Dispersion" in its totality is a most illuminating collection
of essays on a variety of vital subjects for our time.
C
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