Emissaries 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 CARMI M. SLOMOVITZ PHILIP SLOMOVITZ Business Manager Editor and Publisher CHARLOTTE H.YAMS SIDNEY SHMARAK City Editor Advertising Manager Sabbath Scriptural Selections This Sabbath, the seventh day of Elul, the following Scriptural selections will be read in our synagogues. Pentateuchal portion: Dent. 16:18 21:9. Prophetical portion: Isaiah 51:12-52:12. - Licht benshen, Friday, August 14, '7:16 p.m. August 14, 1964 Page Four VOL. XIX, No. 25 Most Serious Item on the 5725 Agenda On the eve of another new year, in the course of preparations for the Holy Days which draw the largest synagogue attend- ances, the period of planning commences— for the schooling of our children, for organi- zational programming, for our cultural events. This also is the period during which the fund-raising agencies will begin to set up machinery for campaigns and to mobilize their volunteer forces to assist them in gath- ering the means necessary for the support of vital agencies here and overseas. Many of the functions will be routine: fund-raising will and must continue to assure the uninterrupted local and national services and to provide relief for our less fortunate kinsmen in other lands, as well as to provide the assistance that must be given to Israel. There is mounting evidence that priority will be given to the educational movements— to our schools and to the cultural programs— and it is heartening to know that there is a growing recognition that we must train our youth to make them Jewishly knowledgeable and at the same time to increase the adult educational programs. * * Many factors enter into the planning stages. There are the schools and the congre- gations and their affiliated bodies. There are the educators who act in behalf of their edu- cational media and the community move- ments whence come the manpower for the guidance of the programs as well as the par- ticipating student bodies—assuming that the adults as well as the children in our schools are to be viewed as students in an over-all program of education. The needs for the expansion of these programs are very vital. Without a well- informed constituency all of our functions are in jeopardy. Unless we have knowledge- able leaders our fund-raising will be affected and our anxiety to assure proper survivalism will increase. There is great need for a well planned public relations program. Whether it is in dealing with the race issue which has affected all Americans and which has created special problems for Jews in the large cities; whether it is in the defense of Israel or in battling against what may well emerge into a mount- ing anti-Semitism from the extreme rightists who now are assuming new roles in Ameri- can life, it is important that those who com- prise the Jewish communities should be properly trained to face facts and issues. 4: * Our community schools are well organ- ized. They will continue to fill many needs. It is recognized that up to the Bar Mitzvah age, and in some instances beyond these years through the confirmation stages of the 16- year-olds, we have the facilities for the train- ing of our youth, in our Hebrew schools and in the congregational settings. But even in this sphere we have chal- lenges and anxieties. The overwhelming numbers of our youth are enrolled in colleges and universities where, we had hoped, their Jewish interests acquired in their primary Jewish studies again would be in evidence. There have been disappointments on that score, and we hear that the Jewish organiza- tions in the schools of higher learning are not getting the proper response from our youth and that they have proven ineffective. How are these interests to be intensified? If that can not be attained through the regu- lar school programs, what is to be done to remedy the situation? If the home influences whence must come the greatest stimulants for the retention of youth interests in Jewish matters are declining, how are they to lie reconstructed? This may be a long-range program, and it must be pursued by utilizing every avail- able force, by solidifying our educational ranks, by strengthening the adult programs. * * In the process of our planning for the highest standards for our schools, there will be- a revival of interest in the day school idea. Such schools are, at best, for the select and for those who are in a position to finance a more expensive type of education, and they must be viewed as of a specialized nature. Louis Rosenberg, research director of the Canadian Jewish Congress, one of the best informed men on the values of the day schools, has evaluated for us the results of day school training in Canada, where such schools have functioned for many years, in the following statement: "Our experience in Montreal, Toronto, Winni- peg, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver has been that a large proportion of younger men who are now taking an active part in Jewish Community life, with its congregational Zionist and social welfare aspects, are graduates of Jewish day schools, who have a good knowledge of conver- sational Hebrew. "We have also found that graduates of Jewish day schools figure prominently among the schol- arship winners at the Canadian Universities and take an active part in Jewish and general stu- dent activities. It may be of interest to you to know that although the largest number of Jewish day schools are in the City of Montreal, the old- est Jewish day schools are in the cities of Ed- monton and Winnipeg, where there is an unde- nominational public school system in which Jews have equal rights with all other Canadians. Nevertheless, many Jewish parents in these cities send their children to the Jewish day schools. "We have found that Jewish children who attend the Jewish elementary and Jewish high schools have no difficulty in integrating them- selves into student life in the University, where the majority of students are not Jewish." The question was raised whether day school graduates have applied their accu- mulated knowledge and experience to com- munal leadership, whether they have helped fill the serious needs of serving as teachers in Jewish schools, and Mr. Rosenberg sup- plemented his statement by informing us: "Jewish adults who are graduates of Canadian day schools are comparatively young. Neverthe- less, there are a number of such graduates in Winnipeg, Edmonton and Montreal who are active in communal work, particularly in the field of Jewish education. "Moreover, I am informed by Dr. Samuel Lewin, the director of the Jewish Teachers' Seminary in Montreal, that a considerable num- ber of the teachers in the Jewish day schools of Montreal and other Canadian cities are gradu- ates of the Jewish Teachers' Seminaries in Mon- treal and Toronto." This fortifies the claims of the day schools' proponents that these schools serve an im- portant function, and the day school idea must now be considered more seriously. * * 'Cornerstones of Liberty' Basic 'Separation' Documents in Religious Freedom Cornerstones A veritable classic, containing documents dealing with important decisions on the freedom of religion, has been reissued as a paperback. "Cornerstones of Religious Freedom in America," edited by Jos- eph L. Blau, first publishd by Beacon Press in 1949, is now available in a popularly-priced volume as a Harper Torchbook. This revised and enlarged edition, with a new introduction by the editor, includes public documents and court decisions on important cases. It has been brought up to date in view of more recent court de- cisions. As a "counterblast to politically or religiously whipped-up hys- teria" arising from test cases on Bible reading in the schools, the editor quotes from the United Presbyterian Church report which em- phasizes that "moral convictions peculiar to a religious body ought not to be imposed on the general public by law." It adds: " it does mean that organized religious bodies ought not seek by law to obtain prefer- ential treatment for their own organizations." Dr. Blau thereupon asserts that "the sober judgment of the many churches and other religious groups whose theological justi- fication of religious freedom now converges with the constitutional interpretation of the Supreme Court rests on a solidly grounded conservative religious scholarship." But future events may bring about revisions, it is further indi- cated, and there is a warning, in view of some pressures, that "the language of freedom will be used in an attempt to destroy freedom." The proposals to legislate against the Supreme Court rulings are taken into consideration and the editor states that, in view also of demands for Federal aid to parochial schools—with some Jewish groups aligning themselves on that score with Catholic and Protestant denominations=- "once the principle of Federal aid for non-public schools were to be established, it could be used as a precedent to serve regional ends. The advocates of racial segregation could—and would—use the precedent to continue the separate schooling of the races by creating non-public, but publicly financed schools for the purpose. Once the darn that holds back public support of private schools is broken, we shall all be inun- dated." Dr. Blau adds: "By grace of the bold thought and courageous action of many men and women, the people of the United States stand today on the threshold of achieving that full freedom of religion which the Founding Fathers invisioned. Its terms are writ large in the law of the land; its legal justification is firm. Its value to the developing forms of expression of the religious spirit has been explored and proclaimed by distinguished religious leaders and their thought adopted as part of the programs of many churches. The final step, the task of this generation, is to implant the conviction that reli- gious freedom is essential to the religion of free men in the hearts and minds of the people themselves." Commencing with an explanation of "Colonial stirrings" in the earliest expressions on religious freedom, Dr. Blau's compendium opens with Roger Williams' statement on "The Bloudy Tenent of Per- secution" (1644) in which he asserted that "to molest any person, Jew or Gentile, for either professing doctrine, or practicising worship merely religious or spiritual, it is to persecute him. • . ." It is followed by William Penn's "The Great Case of Liberty of Conscience" (1670), the Remonstrance by the Inhabitants of Flushing (1657), Thomas Jefferson's "Act for Establishing Religious Freedom" (1779), James Madison's "Remonstrance on the Religious Rights of Man" (1784), the affirmations on civil rights for religious minorities of the early 1800s, Jacob Henry's speech of 1809. Significant among the documents is the 1819 speech on the Maryland "Jew Bill" delivered by II. M. Brackenridge. A section is devoted to resistance to forced Sabbath observance, and others on keeping religion out of politics, out of the public schools and out of the Constitution. There is a thorough view of the rulings of the Supreme Court, quoting the decisions since 1940. "The Testimony of the Churches" is given special consideration and the declarations of the Central Conference of American Rabbis and the United Synagogue of America are included among them. Blau's "Cornerstones of Religious Freedom in America" serves as a most valuable source book on the question dealing with the basic These are a few of the problems that enter into the discussion of our needs to perpetuate Jewish values and to strengthen Jewish loyalties. There are many problems that remain unsolved. There is the serious shortage of teachers, and we are beginning to recognize the futility of turning to Israel, where there is a similar inadequacy, for help and for manpower. We must provide it for ourselves, as American Jews for American children. There remains the issue revolving around the college students which calls for serious consideration. If we plan properly, if we continue to make our cultural aspirations the prior ob- jectives in Jewish communal planning, there will be hope for proper solutions to these problems. These surely are uppermost on the agenda for all American Jewish communi- ties, and they represent the chief challenge idea of Separation of Church arid State. to us as we usher in the year 5725.