Seeking to Turn the Clock Back 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 RYAMS City Editor Sabbath Scriptural Selections This Sabbath, the twenty-seventh day of Iyar, the following Scriptural selections will be read in our synagogues. Pentateuchal portion: Levit, 25:1-27:34. Pr ophetical portion: Jeremiah 16:19-17:14. Licht Benshen, Friday, May 8, 7:20 p.m. VOL. XLV. No. 11 Page Four May 8, 1964 Allied Drive's Final Days for Action In the few remaining days before the formal closing of the Allied Jewish Campaign, whose concluding dinner meeting has been set for next Wednesday, a great many mem- bers of our community who have not yet been contacted will be charged with the duty of asserting themselves. They must prove by their actions in the current drive that they are interested in our numerous cultural func- tions, in our school systems, in the recrea- •tional and social service agencies, in Sinai Hospital and the Home for the Aged; and they must indicate that they will not be counted out in the roll call of those who are supporting the overseas rescue efforts and the settlement of escapees from lands of oppression in Israel. These are just a few of the causes which depend upon our major fund-raising agency for their sustenance. There are, in addition, numerous national agencies whose upkeep depends in some measure upon our gifts towards the important movements in Ameri- can Jewry. * * * When the spokesmen for all of the func- tioning local agencies met several months ago to plan the distribution of available funds from the current drive, it was established that a minimum of $5,000,000 must be raised if the urgent needs are to be met. As we approach the end of the drive, it is evident that a large sum still is to be secured in available pledges, that several thousand contributors are yet to be contacted, that a sizable number of our people have not yet responded to the call for action. It is imperative that there should not be a let-down and that the anticipated increased response over last year's gifts should be fully realized. This is not a drive for big givers alone. It is a campaign that must enroll the participation of every category of contribu- tors, from the smallest to the very largest, from the very young to those of all ages. There are far too many who do not con- tribute to the United Jewish Appeal national- ly and to the Allied Jewish Campaign locally, and in our own community it is not too late even now, with only a few days remaining before the end of this year's drive, to enroll hundreds, perhaps thousands, who are able to give and who either have not responded or have not been reached by solicitors. More than duty is involved: it is the sense of honor of members of a great com- munity that is at stake; and that honor must be redeemed with courage and with speed. Unless every potential giver is enrolled in the drive, we will be found wanting by our kinsmen everywhere and in the records of our communal life. * * It has been our boast that we are a very good community. If that record is to be main- tained, if we are to emerge as a group that is determined to retain the unity that is needed for survival and for the perpetuation of the basic principles upon which a com- munity is built, the coming few days must bring forth a more generous response and a truly voluntary demonstration of loyalty towards the overseas needs represented in the United Jewish Appeal—the Allied Jewish Campaign's major beneficiary; in behalf of Israel's leading educational institutions; in support of the local and national causes which are enrolled as participating members of our community's enrolled agencies. A real test is in the offing in the coming few days. May the response prove that we are the merciful children of a merciful people, ever ready to provide for the needy and to retain the honor of Jewry that goes with the established Jewish traditions of lending se- curity to the causes that spell humanitarian- ism and spiritual sustenance. Is There New Ganging-Up On Israel? Recent events—the latest Nasser threats, the damaging propaganda in the Jordan pavilion at the World's Fair, the flood of mail to American newspapers vilifying Jewry— seem to indicate that the anti-Israel campaign is being expanded. They are dangerous evidences of an effort to undermine Israel's existence. They are part of the Nasser scheme to control the entire area inhabited by all the Arab states and of Israel, and they menace the peace and the security not only of the Middle and Near East but threaten, at the same time, world- wide peaceful relations among all nations. If this is part of the East-West struggle, with Arabs constantly waving the threat to the West that if they do not get all they want from Western countries they will turn to the East—as Hussein of Jordan actually did during his recent visit in Washington—then it is all the more deplorable that the Western Powers are not taking a firmer stand in the direction of averting a crisis. It is not enough to utter verbal platitudes of assurance that an assault on Israel will not be tolerated. In the event of an attack on Israel, due to its proximity to her neighbors, there can be destruction before there is action. Then the only consolation will be a rebuke from one government or another—too late to avert a calamity. The discussions during the sessions of the Council of Ministers of the Central Treaty Organization indicated that all is not well, that the military race in the Middle East is menacing the peace of the world, that firm steps must be taken to avert a crisis, else the moderate East-West conflicts that are limited to a cold war will inevitably burst into a flaming hot war. The accumulating evidence of emerging troubles should prove to our Government and to our allies that mere lip service is insuf- ficient, that it is not enough to offer assur- ances of protection to Israel, that there is need for action and that the sooner there is a repudiation of the war-threatening declara- tions by Nasser and a demand for an end to the arming of the Arab states by the Com- munist bloc, the better for all mankind. * * There is no doubt that the dangers are mounting, that Israel is never totally secure in an environment of saber-rattling. It is equally certain that many non-Jews in this country have been and are being misled into believing the Arab propaganda. It is clear that unless public opinion is mobilized to counteract the destructive influences, Israel will suffer and the prestige of Jewry every- where will be harmed by the misinformation about our interest in Israel's security. The responsibility devolves upon Jewish leadership to mobilize forces for clarification of Israel's position, for the presentation of the facts in the issues revolving around the Middle East problems, for the establish- ment of the best relations with all elements involving leading to peaceful considerations. It is necessary that the State Department and the Executive Department of our Gov- ernment should always be kept fully aware of the honorable intentions of Israel and of the Israelis' kinsmen. It is vital that laymen should be as well fortified with information, to be offered whenever there is an attack on Israel and on Jewry, as the professionals. There must be no let-down in our civic- protective functions. There must be built up a strong volunteer force of men and women who will speak up whenever there is an at- tack. The dangers are too evident to permit continuing complacency. Judaeo-Spanish Dialect Recordings Perpetuate Ladino Folk Songs, Ballads of Love While Yiddish is losing its following and fewer people use it as their language of conversation from year to year, it is still a vibrant tongue for hundreds of thousands of Jews. But another Jewish dialect, the Judaeo-Spanish Ladino, either already is dead, except for a handful still using it, or is disappearing so rapidly that it soon will be a forgotten tongue. That is why we owe such a deep debt of gratitude to Collectors Guild (507 5th Ave., NY17) for having produced the recording "Ladino Folk Songs," thereby perpetuating the folk songs and the love ballads of Spanish Jews for whom Ladino was such an important medium of expression for several cen- turies. There is much charm in the selections in this recording, which are sung with so much feeling by Raphael Yair Elnaday. We are informed that from his eighth birthday Elnadav's Yemenite parents encouraged him to develop his voice so that he mastered hazanuth with the celebrated Sephardic hazan Yaacov Levi, in addition to training for semicha—ordination for the rabbinate. He studied voice and violin at the Conservatory Arzi Israel in his native city of Jerusalem, and also studied with Prof. Moshe Cordova with whom he • mastered 75 makams (modes) of Turkish music. He emerged an expert in and an authority of Sephardic, Yemenite and Turkish folk songs which he has interpreted over the Israel air waves. Elnadav became chief hazan of Ohel Moed, the largest Tel Aviv Sephardic synagogue, in 1950. He became chief rabbi of the Havana, Cuba, Sephardic synagogue in 1955. In 1959 he became chief hazan of Shaare Zion, the Brooklyn Syrian congregation, It is to this sweet singer's voice that we owe the assurance that the songs of a dying tongue will not in themselves remain dead but will be available for future generations and will enable those who are tracing lost Jewish dialects to have a better histori- cal idea of Ladino through the songs of the Judaeo-Spanish dialect. In some of the melodies in "Ladino Folk Songs" it is easy to detect Jewish traditional hymns and Biblical terms. There are cradle and wedding songs, a Purim drinking song, charming love ballads. In its entirety, this record contains folk songs with impres- sive musical incantations that will delight music lovers of all faiths. Elnadav was accompanied by the Salonika Trio. The musical arrangements are by Richard J. Neumann. The recording was produced by the husband-wife team, B. and H. Stambler. Middle East Problems Berger's 'Arab World Today "The Arab World Today," by Morroe Berger, which was published by Doubleday in 1962 and was then reviewed in these columns, has been issued as a Doubleday Anchor paperback. Berger shows that Zionism and the emergence of Israel served to spur Arab nationalism and to create the unity that has been lacking in Arab ranks. "With the exacerbation of Arab-Jewish relations on the Palestine question, Nazi propaganda flooded the Near East and found a large audience willing to listen to it, and a few in- fluential *Moslems willing to learn the technique. Since the creation of the state of Israel in 1948, anti-Semitic propaganda has not needed to be imported from Europe; 'Westernization' has made the Near East self-sufficient in this as in some other kind of production, though criticism of Israel and Zionism is of course not in itself necessarily anti-Semitic." Berger's book, evaluating the status of Arabism, has many references to the position of Israel and the status among Arabs of Zionism and Judaism.