THE JEWISH NEWS

From Dream to Reality

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

SIDNEY SHMARAK

Advertising Manager

Business Manager

CHARLOTTE HYAMS

City Editor

Sabbath Scriptural Selections
This Sabbath, the twenty-seventh day of Tishri. 5725, the following scriptural
selections will be read in our synagogues:
Pentateuchal portion, Gen. 1:1-6:8: Prophetical portion, Isaiah 42:5-43:10.

OE XLVI. No. 6

Licht benshen, Friday, October 2, 5:53 p.m.

Page 4

October 2, 1964

Basic Issues in Assimilationist Tendencies

During the recent holiday period, the ra1.37
bis throughout the land participated in stock-
taking. Concern was expressed in many syna-
gogues over the lack of enthusiasm in Jewish
matters by our youth—especially the college
youth—and especially over the negative and
often antagonistic views on Jews and Juda-
ism by many Jews who have risen to high
intellectual ,ranks.
Out of these expressed views there
emerged the inevitable conclusions that our
'educational programs must be expanded, that
priority should be given to the needs of our
school system, and that all efforts should be
exerted to establish cultural links between
our' communities, our college youth and our
intellectuals.
How is this to be attained? It is a source
of very deep regret that we have not yet
found a way out of our dilemma. Our intel-
lectuals, to whom preachers during the Holy
Days extended olive branches. asking them to
return to our fold, have become so un-Jewish
in their thinking, have adopted so antagonis-
tic an attitude to Jew, and Judaism, that
they were not around when the appeals were
directed at them, and those who may have
' accidentally wandered into our synagogues
-are, in the main,. deafened to our appeals
to become part of our organized commu-
nities.
Wherein lies the solution? How can we
overcome the lethargic feelings of our kins-
men? How can we bind our youth in closer
ties' with us?
*
*
*
We overlook a basic fact: that assimilation
is not a new venture among young and

emancipated Jews. In every era during
which the ghetto walls had begun to crumble,
Jews turned to intellectual pursuits and
many of them quickly forsook us.
Now we are again experiencing such a vast

embracing of the liberties that engulf us
that we face the danger of losing many of
our kinsmen who are lured by worldly
temptations and do not realize that it has
become possible to enjoy the freedoms that
are now ours and at the same time to honor
our traditions and acknowledge our heritage.
Will Jewish education solve the problem?
I's it true that more schools, better teachers,
modernized school structures are the needed
elements for a solution to a most serious
Jewish. problem?
*
*
a
We would be unfair to ourselves and to
community planners if we were to concede

that a mere expansion of our school system
is all that is involved. In is not altog6ther
true that we have abandoned our teachers
and have failed to place Hebrew teaching
on a high professional level._ During ,:the
past few years we have elevated the 'stand-
ards of Jewish schools. We have provided
greater opportunities for Jewish teachers who
are being encouraged in every possible Way

to continue in the field of Jewish education.
It is interesting to note that in a New
Year message to members of his move-
ment. Rabbi Max J. Routtenberg, president
of the Rabbinical Assembly of America
(Conservative), listed priorities for this
year. and he included among them this item
which he placed first on his agenda:

Jewish Education—We must create a real
profession in Jewish education, even as we

have done in the rabbinate. Our movement

must give concentrated attention to the train-
ing of teachers, principals. educational super-
visors, for elementary schools, high schools,

day schools.

Who would deny these needs? Yet, who
will undertake to deny that attention al-
ready has been given these needs?

Will day schools solve the teacher-short-
age problem? Simultaneous with the state-

ment of Dr. Routtenberg there was issued

another statement by Dr. Isidor Margolis,
in behalf of the National Council for Torah

Education of the Religious Zionist Organi-
zation of America.

Welcoming the formation of the World
Council on Jewish Education, the Religious
Zionist spokesman pointed to the importance
of the day school movement, and he made
this comment:

•

•

"The degree to which the recognition at the
world conference of the vital role of the Day
School in meeting the desperate shortage of
Jewish teachers will be implemented in assistance
to such schools remains of course to be deter-
mined. However, it seems evident that if the
World Council on Jewish Education is to make
any real dent ih the problem of the growing short-
age of Jewish teachers, it cannot overlook the
YKUF (Yiddish Kulter Farband) adds another volume to its col-
Day School movement which despite its success
in this country — or perhaps because of it — has lection of Yiddish literary works it is publishing in English translations
with
"Morris Rosenfeld: Selections From His Poetry and Prose," which
its own severe problems for which help would
has been edited by two well-known Yiddish writers, Itche Goldberg and
be profoundly welcomed."

M orris Rosenfeld' s Poetry and

Prose Republished in English
Translations Sponsored by YKUF

Max Rosenfeld.

Thus there remains the uncertainty over
The first volume in the new series issued by YKUF 1189 2nd, NY
the source for solving at least part of the 3) was The New Country," stories about American Jewish life, which
problem, and we shall have to look for nirrtNc ,vas translated by Henry Goodman.
basic ways of creating the cement that is to
•
Morris Rosenfeld was one of the best known figures on New
York's East Side. He became famous as "the poet of the sweatshop."
hold our generations welded together.
He drew his inspiration from the sweatshop which he learned to
*
a
a
know in all its tragic aspects as a laborer in the clothing industry.
If we are to go to the root of the problem,
In the 1890s he already had won fame for his poetry and he also
we must not only aim to provide the best
wrote some important prose selections. Prof. Leo Wiener of Harvard
schools for our youth: we must also assure
University, the author of the first history of Yiddish literature
for them the encouragement, the example
published in this country, translated Rosenfeld's poems into English
that comes from parents and home. We can't
in 1898 and the volume appeared under the title "Songs of the
Ghetto."
expect a thorough adherence on the part of
The new YKUF volume assumes added importance because of the
the very young and a return by those who
have drifted from us if their loyalties are scholarly introductory essay by Itche Goldberg, who evaluates the his-

tory of Yiddish literature and traces the Rosenfeld saga. Paying honor
to Morris Rosenfeld, whom he acclaims as having "possessed a lucid
and lyrical quality of enduring value," Goldberg points out that Rosen-
feld "reflected and responded to the social and national currents of his
How can we expect the emergence of a day with a great measure of sensitivity and understanding."
more inspired leadership if the home is
A foreword by Max Rosenfeld is of equal. importance as an evalu-
crumbling, if the high moral standards are in tion both of Yiddish literature. of the spirit of the time in which Morris
question, if there is an increase in divorces, Rosenfeld labored and of Rosenfeld poems and prose writings. •
Nathan Ausubel is one of the translators of the Rosenfeld
and ignorance of basic Jewish values is in

to be measured by negative actions by elders
who are themselves unqualified for highest
conduct in Jewish life.

evidence everywhere?
a a
In his New Year message to his colleagues
of the Conservative rabbinate, Dr. Routten-

works incorporated in this volume. Other translators include the
famous woman labor leader, the late Rose Pastor Stokes; the emi-
nent non-Jewish master of Yiddish, the late Helena Frank; Max
Rosenfeld; and Aaron Kramer.

Not only the poems, but the prose writings as well are of great

berg also listed the following as the second significance, mirroring sentiments of the era during which Morris
Rosenfeld struggled to attain dignity for the Jewish working man.
item on his agenda for action:

Judaism on the Campus — cooperation with
existing bodies working with the college student,
Establishing a working relationship with Jewish
faculty members who have positive commitments
to Judaism. Assisting individual rabbis, in their
communication with their college students, with
materials, programs. ideas.

This, too, has been attempted—without
good results. Why, therefore, should we be
so unrealistic as to overlook the truth—that
we are yet to find a way out of our dilemma,
that the solution is yet to be found, that we
must go to the roots of all issues and, while ,
strengthening our educational system, we
must look for the strongest possible media
for the reinvigoration of our homes, for the

restoration of the moral codes without which

In "Three Generations - he deplored the assimilationist tendencies,
the escape from the East Side's creative efforts of those who went to
the Golden Ghetto, and he pleaded in his conclusion:
"Reverence for the martyrs of the East Side! Bow your heads ar
to an immortal quarter century!"
Life in the ghetto, the craving for justice and for the improvement

of labor's lot. the general conditions in Jewish and American life, the
evils of the sweatshop, the sufferings of the 1907 crisis and many
other experiences are expressed in the Rosenfeld selections.
A brief autobiographical sketch condensed in four pages appears in
this volume in the form of a letter Rosenfeld had written to Prof.
Wiener in 1897.
• There are poems dedicated to Walt Whitman and to Heinrich Heine
and in a poem entitled "Yiddish" Rosenfeld expresses resentment
against those who shun Yiddish, and the final verse declares:
"Our 'leaders,' Maybe, wouldn't give

for Yiddish, hall a groshn;
we just laugh at them, and live,
and talk our mama-loshn!"

we cannot subsist, for the establishment of
He acclaimed the right to self-defense in his Hanukah essay, wrote
such links with our children that will bring
those of us who are a bit lagging in our about other festivals, commented on politics.
In whatever studies may be made of Jewish conditions
loyalties back to the fold a bit sooner than country at the beginning of this century. Rosenfeld's thoughts in this
are in-
we expect our children to return.
valuable as comments on an important generation of American Jews.
a
a
a
We have serious duties to perform.

Mere preachments will not solve the
problem.
We must begin by strengthening the exist-
ing educational institutions and we must
embrace every constructive means of adding
to the methods of recapturing the traditional
values of Jewish life.
We need courageous handling of the prob-
lem, and the issue must be faced on the
basis of total acceptance of the basic ideals
which must re-establish . the unity between •
young and old, between' the new and the

World History's Great Events
Listed in Vest Pocket Volume

From Random Press comes a remarkably valuable vest pocket
book that is filled with information and will prove of great value to
people of all ages.
"Great Events of World History — From Earliest Recorded Time
to the Present," edited by Charles D. Lieber and Anne Dyer Murphy,
is a chronological account of historic events.
Every era in history, all countries and all nations, are represented
here. It starts with a "Timetable of the Earth" and with a chart on

"Prehistory of Man" and continues chronologically, commencing with
3200 BCE.
Supplementing the chronological data there is an index of subjects

passing generations. By a reaffirmation of
the indestructible ideals of Israel we shall accompanied by dates. These prove additionally helpful in locating

again build the vanguard that is so vitally significant occurrences.
needed to assure Israel's continuing function
'Supplementary tables are devoted to "Great Documents of History"
as "a people of priests and a holy nation." and "Important Modern Inventions."

