Latin America's Menacing Reptile
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 HYAMS
City Editor
Sabbath Scriptural Selections
This Sabbath, the sixteenth day of Av, 5724, the following Scriptural selections
will be read in our synagogues:
Pentateuchal portion: Dent. 3:23-7:11. Prophetical portion: Isaiah 40:1-26.
Licht benshen, Friday, July 24, 7:41 p.m.
VOL. XLV. No. 22
Page Four
July 24, 1964
Arab Boycott: The Threat to Americans
For several years now, an Arab boycott
has been directed against leading firms in
many lands, and an organized campaign has
been conducted by the Arab League's boy-
cott office against Americans doing business
with Israel.
Many firms, having resisted Arab pres-
sures, have exposed the Arab terror cam-
paign. Hotels and at least two automobile
firms -- have condemned the tactics of those
who seeking Israel's destruction.
By instituting a boycott against the Chase
Manhattan Bank, the Arab League has
gained the notoriety it seeks in its efforts to
undermine Israel's position. The latest move,
undertaken as a reprisal against a bank that
acts as a fiscal agent for Israel Bonds,
serves as a warning that similar action could
be undertaken against nearly every bank in
this country. since there is an obligation upon
all banks to cash the Israel Bonds when they
mature and to accept from depositors in-
terest coupons on Israel Bonds.
The newest Arab move against Israel is a
threat to American financial institutions and
businesses and reveals in all its ugliness the
destructive work of Israel's enemies.
Primarily it is a challenge to our govern-
ment to establish definitely whether the
United States is ready to yield to pressure
from those who threaten the very existence
of a friendly nation with whom the United
States has the friendliest relationships.
It is a challenge also to the State Depart-
ment, as well as to the executive department
of our government whether a foreign group
that attempts to interfere with business re-
lations of Americans abroad will be per-
mitted to continue tactics that tend to dis-
rupt amicable relations among nations.
Unless there is prompt action to put an
end to the entire Arab boycott scheme
against Israel, thereby harming the functions
of many American industries doing business
with Israel, there will be reason to believe
the charges of pro-Arabism in American of-
ficialdom. There will then be reason to be-
lieve that a state of fear exists in Washington
from the threats of a handful of anti-Israeli
propagandists who are resorting to interna-
tional banditry in a campaign to destroy a
nation that is associated with all the Arab
states in membership in the United Nations.
The all-too-frequent reply from Wash-
ington is that in the event of threats to Israel
this government will use the machinery of
the United Nations to put an end to aggres-
sion. The State Department doesn't use the
United Nations as an excuse to lean to when
it is challenged by Soviet tactics. It would
not revert to the UN if our industries were
threatened anywhere else. Let there be an
end to double talk, now that the threats to
the freedom of American trading has been
hurled at us from Damascus.
Time for Revival of Vigilance
A growing anti-Semitic movement inspired
by Nazis is causing concern in Argentina.
Like all other similar demonstrations of
hatred instigated by racists, the bigots' move-
ment was minimized at first. But govern-
ment officials now are viewing it with in-
creasing seriousness, and the demands of a
small but financially powerful group of na-
tionalist extremists, who have asked that
Jewish organizations—especially the Zion-
ists—should be investigated, are being op-
posed by leaders of the major Argentinian
parties.
The new Argentinian anti-Semitic move-
ment was branded as follows by Argentina's
former President Arturo Frondizi: "This is
the most blatant example of a well-organized,
sinister plot designed to divide the nation
with the base prejudices that not so long
ago brought horror and shame to an entire
civilization."
How fortunate. during the early stages of
a crisis, that responsible men who sneak for
the leading parties of Argentina have the
vision to recognize the dangers!
Yet, the acting chairman of the League of
Argentine's Jewish Associations, Herzl Ges-
ang, has charged that the police in Buenos
Aires were "at best naive in dealing with a
recent wave of attacks and vandalism against
Jewish stores and schools." It will be recalled
that a home was machine-gunned, that stu-
dents were beaten, that Eichmann's son had
begun to organize groups of Argentinian
Nazis to emulate his late father's tactics.
The Argentinian Jewish leader's accusa-
tions include a warning — for authorities
everywhere not to be naive. When there is a
threat from rightists it must be faced real-
istically and treated firmly. This is as true of
American rightists as it is of Argentina's or
those in any other land.
Argentina's experiences should have
served as a warning to Republicans in San
Francisco. It didn't.
The emergence of bigotry anywhere should
awaken our traditional vigilance at home, be-
cause the inhumanity of man to man that
stems from small groups only too often en-
gulfs continents.
The time has come for all of us again to
revive the spirit of vigilance which is primar-
ily American, as a warning against racism
and all forms of bigotry. This is a special
duty of Jewish communities where the effects
of hatred usually are felt first.
Political Planks: The Backward Trends
Under domination of the ultra-conserva-
tives, most of them acting as the representa-
tives of the Republican nominee for the
Presidency, Barry Goldwater, the platform
committee of the GOP appears to have
leaned to the right on many issues.
Veiled attacks on the Supreme Court evi-
dent in several of the adopted planks cer-
tainly do not speak well for the platform.
Elimination of any reference whatever to
Israel and the Jewish State's security is con-
trary to previous practices. Failure to issue a
declaration in support of efforts that have
been made by all presidents since Harry S.
Truman for the liberalization of the existing
vicious anti-immigation measures does n o t
speak well for the Republican platform.
To the non-partisans like ourselves, these
are grave disappointments. The weak refer-
ence to the civil rights issue, which is one
of the major American responsibilities has
already created many disappointments, and
many other planks emanating from San
Francisco are too weak to offer much hope
for a change in attitudes from a party that
seeks to become our governing element.
In the months to come, during which the
debate between parties will predominate in
public discussions, the candidates for the
presidency, and those seeking congressional
seats on the basis of the principles enunci-
ated at party conventions, will have much
explaining to do. It is to be hoped that if
the adopted planks can be explained away,
if there is the possibility of amending
threatening clauses in party principles, that
the emendations should be done with the dig-
nity that is due from aspirants to public of-
fice who face a great nation as their electors.
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•
Jews Viewed as Quasi-National
Group in Montagu's Race Fallacy
"Equality is the condition of freedom," Ashley Montagu, former
professor of anthropology at Rutgers University, declares in "Man's
Most Dangerous Myth: The Fallacy of Race," published by World Pub-
lishing Co.
In this analytical work, the author declares that "it is a fundamental
tenet of democracy that it must balance the interests of all its com-
ponent groups and citizens."
The only hope for solving the race problem, Montagu states, "lies
in education of the right sort." He declares:
"If we can succeed in reorganizing our system of education from
top to bottom, making our principal purpose the cultivation of human
beings living in one great cooperative enterprise with other human
beings, we shall have gone a long way toward achieving a new
society."
The author denies that Jews are either a racial or a national group.
Disproving the former he states: "Owing to the original mixed ancestry
of the Jews and their subsequent history of intermixture with every
people among whom they have lived and continue to live, the Jews of
different regions are neither genetically nor physically equivalent"
He states: "Jews would constitute a national group if they sub-
scribed to the principle of Jewish nationality. Some Jews do, but
these are the minority and not the majority. The majority are the
nationals of the country in which they were born or live."
He expresses the view that: "It would be preferable to call the
Jews a quasi-national rather than a pseudo-national group, for there
is nothing 'pseudo' about their nationalistic cultural traits, even
though they may not be definitely recognized as a nation neatly de-
limited by definite geographic boundaries. It is by virtue of the traits
of this quasi-Jewish national culture that a Jewish community may be
said to exist and that any person exhibiting these traits may be recog-
nized as a Jew, whether he is an adherent of the Jewish religion or
not. Such traits are not inborn, but acquired, and they have nothing
whatever to do with biological or so-called 'racial' conditions. They
are conditioned by culture alone."
Montagu continues to explain: "The Israeli people or nation shots' ----,,
not be confused with the quasi-national Jews of the Diaspora. A laor,
proportion of non-Jews of Arab-Islamic affiliation are citizens of the
Israeli nation, while by far the majority of Jews are citizens, and will
remain citizens, of other countries."
Emphasizing his conclusion that "Jews are not and never have
been a 'face' or ethnic group, but they are and always have been a
sociological entity best described as a 'quasi-national' group or people,"
Montagu adds:
"There could, undoubtedly, be no better demonstration of the fact
that the Jews are not a 'race' or ethnic group than an inspection of the
people of the Israeli nation. The variety of physical types represented
among the Israeli Jews probably exceeds that to be found in almost any
other land. A Jewish physical type has been neither preserved nor
transmitted down to the present day, because such a type never existed;
if such a type had existed it would long ago have been dissolved as a
result of the subsequent intermixture of Jews with other peoples. What
the Jews have preserved and transmitted have been neither physical
nor mental 'racial' traits, but religious and cultural traditions and
modes of contact."
His conclusions are based on a study that draws upon many Jewish
sources and is supplemented with charts indicating the cephalic
index and blood groups as well as the percentage of eye color and
hair color among Jews.
In his emphasis on the school room as "the laboratory for human
engineering," the author states:
"Approaches to the solution of the 'race' problem must be made
at all levels, but ultimately it is the individual teacher upon whom
our reliance must be placed. Good teachers are more important than
anything they teach. An integrated program in human relations
throughout the school system is indispensably necessary, a program
to include teachers as well as pupils, but it does not have to start
that way. It can commence with a small group of teachers, and failing
such a group, with but a single one. Let such a one say to himself:
'I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything; but I can do
something. What I can do I ought to do; and, by the grace of God,
I will.' "
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