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 SLOMCWITZ
Editor and Publisher
SIDNEY SHMARAK
CARM1 M. SLOMOVITZ
Advertising Manager
Business Manager
CHARLOTTE HYAMS
City Editor
Sabbath Scriptural Selections
This Sabbath, the twenty-fifth clay of Heshvan, 5725, the following scriptural selec-
tions will be read in our synagogues:
Pentateuelial portion: Gen. 23:1-25:18; Prophetical portion: I Kings 1:1-31.
Licht benshen, Friday, October 30, 5:11 p.m.
VOL. XLVI. No. 10
Page 4
October 30, 1964
Approaching the Day of Judgment
We are on the eve of the Day of
Judgment.
Next Tuesday, when all roads will lead
to the ballot boxes of the free American
electorate, the verdict on our future will
be written by ourselves, by the constituents
of this land who will decide who is to occupy
the most important elected role in the world.
We must go to the ballot boxes with the
faith that whoever will be elected will follow
the dictates of the people and will strive to
perpetuate the ideals which have made this
the land of the free and the home of the
brave.
While prophecy is not always treated
with the utmost respect and is on occasions
subjected to ridicule, we join in the augury
that President Lyndon B. Johnson will be
retained in offce, that he and his running
mate. Senator Hubert H. Humphrey, will - be
our chief executives for the coming four
years.
But we have sufficient faith in our Con-
gress, in our high court. in the public opinion
of the American people. to believe that if
the Goldwater-Miller ticket were to succeed,
in spite of all the odds against it, that even
the extremists would have to toe the mark;
that the bitterness and the name-calling the
candidates resorted to in the course of a vile
campaign would be amended; that the press-
ure groups would. in the course of time,
be eliminated from influential positions either
in government or among the right-wing prop-
agandists who have seen fit to preach hate
and to instill shocking negativism in Ameri-
can life.
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When .we go to the polls on Tuesday, let
us remember the many obligations that
face us.
The ablest judges must be chosen, men
best suited for posts in our educational insti-
tutions and for the Detroit Board of Educa-
tion should be given preference, and the legis-
lators to be elected should be people of high
repute. The able and tried candidates for
both houses of Congress have earned suffi-
cient confidence to be given the voters'
approval, and it is to be hoped that the
judiciary has been studied sufficiently so
that only the most responsible candidates
should head our courts, the old and the new.
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The presidential election retains priority New Brochure Series
of interest in Tuesday's election.
As we have advocated throughout the
pre-election period, we must hope that the
two-party system will be retained. But that
can be assured only when political discussions
are on the highest levels of decency. when
differences are ideological and principled.
When, however, hate-motivated right-wing
groupseek to divide the people in an effort
to rule the country, they should be repudiated,
as we believe they will.
We approach the national election with
great solemnity. We have great confidence in
the good sense of the American people and
we are certain that at midnight on Tuesday
we shall be able to seek our rest with a feel-
ing of safety. with an assurance of security
for America—the land and the people.
Thenceforth we hope that the fears that
have hitherto been injected will vanish. that
a spirit of faith and fearlessness again will
predominate in our midst, and that the land
of the free will remain just that: the bastion
of freedom for us and for the world.
The 50th Anniversary of the JDC
A highlight of the forthcoming United
Jewish Appeal conference which will launch
the 1965 drive, in December, will be the
observance of the 50th anniversary of the
American Jewish Joint Distribution Commit-
tee. It is an anniversary of such historic sig-
n i fi c a n c e that it deserves extraordinary
attention.
When the first call for help came at the
outbreak of the First World War, in 1914, in
the form of a request for a $50.000 fund to
protect the Jews of Palestine who were then
living under Turkish rule, the Joint Distribu-
tion Committee of American Funds for Jewish
War Sufferers was organized under the chair-
manship of Felix M. Warburg. The reason for
that long name was that the new agency,
which was to establish highest standards on
record for philanthropy, was composed of
two bodies that had merged to form the
JDC—the Central Committee for the Relief
of Jews and the American Jewish Relief
Committee. Soon thereafter the Central Corn-
mittee for the Relief of Jews also joined the
newly formed body and a single organization
emerged to tackle the important job of pro-
viding relief for suffering Jews during the
first world conflict.
But the big job for JDC was yet to arise.
It was with the appearance on the world
scene of the Hitler scourge that the JDC
again was faced with responsibilities that
taxed the energies of our people and placed
the duty of rescuing hundreds of thousands
of our kinsmen from certain death. The JDC
had planned to liquidate shortly after the end
of World War I. But new emergencies arose.
There was famine in Jewish-populated areas
in Eastern Europe. There were pogroms in
Poland and in Romania, and the humiliated
and impoverished Jewries depended upon
American aid for their sustenance and for
retention of their sense of dignity.
Then came the era of Nazi terrorism. and
all hopes for the termination of philanthropic
activities ended. Hundreds of thousands had
to be cared for. provisions had to be made
for those who could escape from Germany
to be helped with emigration facilities.
The immensity of the JDC task is ex-
pressed in figures—in the more than 4,000.000
Jews who were helped by this great agency in
76 countries. in the $810,000,000 sum that was
spent during the half-century period for
relief.
Liquidation of the displaced persons
camps was made possible by the JDC. Coop-
erative efforts with the Zionist movement,
with the Jewish Agency, assured mass migra-
tion efforts that resulted in the settlement
of hundreds of thousands of Jews in Israel
after their escape from lands where they had
been persecuted, disfranchised, dispossessed
of their belongings.
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JDC had made possible the airlifting of
46,000 Jews who were brought, via Operation
Magic Carpet, from Yemen to Israel. Other
communities were liquidated and their sur-
viving Jews were settled in Israel with JDC's
aid which had helped more than 400,000
Jews establish new homes in the new Jewish
State.
Many prominent leaders contributed to-
wards this great effort. The Jewish communi-
ties in free countries aided in the great task,
and Detroit Jewry played a vital role in the
rescue efforts and as supporters of the JDC
programs. It is as partners in the great JDC
effort that the Jews of this city join in the
celebration of the historic event—the 50th
anniversary of the American Jewish Joint
Distribution Committee.
NMI
Shema, Torah, Intermarriage,
Prayer, Law Viewed in Tracts
By making available a series of brief tracts explaining basic Jew-
ish principles. Burning Bush Press (1109 5th, NY28), makes it most
difficult for any one who seeks knowledge to lay claim that it was not
available.
Four Conservative rabbis and one Reconstructionist are the authors
of the five brochures in the Jewish Tract Series.
"The Shema." the basic declaration of Jewish Faith, is explained by
Rabbi Fritz A. Rothschild, faculty member of the Jewish Theological
Seminary, who states that "Jewish law and tradition would not have
assigned it so central a place in the daily prayer service if it did not
contain something essential to a proper understanding of our religion.
The Sheina is described as "the first Hebrew sentence which the
young child is taught to pronounce by his father, and the final
affirmation of faith which the dying Jew utters in his last conscious
moments."
Rabbi Rothschild refers to these historical experiences in his
explanatory essay:
"Even during the Hadrianic persecutions (132-135 C.E.) there was
one man who defied the orders of the Roman Emperor: Rabbi Akiba, the
foremost scholar of his generation. taught the Torah publicly despite
the prohibition of the government. He was led to his execution at dawn
just as the time for the morning Sherpa had arrived. As he went to his
death he recited aloud the Sheina Yisraei, thus fulfilling a mitzvah at
its appointed hour and, at the same time, openly defying the claim of
all earthly power to absolute loyalty. His executioners tried to stop this
declaration of faith by torturing him with iron combs, but Akiba finished
the sentence and died with the word ehad—one—on his lips, thereby
fulfilling his own interpretation of the commandment to love the Lord
with all thy soul (life) which he had understood to mean: 'Love
even when He takes your soul (life)!'
"The example of Rabbi Akiba was followed by countless martyrs
throughout the Middle Ages. During the Crusades. whole congregations
died with the words of the Sheina on their lips rather than give up their
faith. Every Jew utters the declaration of God's unity when he feels
death approaching. thus affirming the sovereignty of God and his love
for Him even at the moment He takes the soul."
Rabbi David Aronson of Minneapolis, in "Torah—The Life of the
Jew," describes Torah, Scripture and the unwritten tradition, as being
"the sum total of Israel's culture, spiritual heritage and religious
tradition."
There is no time for graduation in pursuing Jewish studies, this
brochure asserts. and Rabbi Aronson states that "the mastery of Torah
is not a matter of mere knowledge," that "it must express itself in the
growth of one's character and in the development of one's personality."
"Intermarriage" is the subject of the tract written by Reconstre0-
tionist Rabbi Ira Eisenstein. He describes the increases in mixed
marriages and emphasizes the values that are worth preserving. He
urges dispassionate evaluation of the issue in the best interests of the
Jewish family and in assuring the happiness of individuals concerned,
a well as "the psychic security of children," and he encourages accept-
ance into the Jewish fold of non-Jews who show a sincere desire to
embrace Judaism and have no ulterior motives.
Another tract, "The First Words of Prayer," was written by Rabbi
Jack Riemer of Dayton, 0. It is an interesting explanation of the spirit
of prayer and an interesting explanation of some of the important
selections from the prayer book.
"Jewish Law—A Conservative Approach," by Rabbi Ben Zion Bokser
of New York, explains some of our laws and the challenge of secularism.
He also explains Reform attitudes and shows how the basic Jewish
law is reaffirmed by Conservative Judaism.
Asserting that Conservative Judaism does not merely modify certain
elements in Jewish law but must also be equally emphatic in "affirming
the authority of the law which abides unchanged," Dr. Bokser state=
"The observance of Kashrut in the home and outside the horne,lhe
observance of the Sabbath by cessation from work, the restoration a the
festivals to a place of holiness in our lives, the duty of daily prayer, the
study of the Torah—these constitute basic elements in the discipline
which has made for the distinctiveness of the Jewish group. To these
elements we add, it goes without saying, the ethical and moral demands
which are likewise part of Jewish law."