THE JEWISH NEWS
Incorporating The Detroit Jewish Chronicle commencing with issue
A Happy Hanukah
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
SIDNEY SHMARAK
CARMI M. SLOMOVITZ
Advertising Manager
Business Manager
CHARLOTTE KYAMS
City Editor
Sabbath Scriptural Selections
This Sabbath, the twenty-third day of Kislev, 5725, the following scriptural selec-
tions will be read in our synagogues:
Pentateuchal portion: Gen. 37:1-40.23; prophetical portion: Amos 2:6-3:8.
Licht benshen, Friday, November 27, 4:45 p.m.
XLVI.
No. 14
November 27, 1964
Page 4
Hanukah's Basic Spiritual Credo
We know Hanukah as the Festival of Lights.
It is the Maccabean festiVal whose lesson,
I
derived from the triumphs of the defenders
of religious freedom for their people, also
emerged as a great political triumph for in-
dependence-seeking Jewry of the second cen-
Jury before the Christian era.
But Hanukah is much more than that. It is
the great historic occasion with which com-
menced the right of people to be different,
the rejection of xenophobia, the insistence
upon equality for all, even the foreigner in
the midst of a divergent and unlike majority.
There is a basic ethical and spiritual credo
in the Hanukah lesson—that people have a
right to worship as they choose, to hold views
that may not he to the liking of their neigh-
bors, to adhere to customs that are contrary
to the habits of the majority—as long as the
differing minority is peace-loving and law-
abiding.
This is the basic ideal that elevates Hanu-
kah to a place of importance for all peoples.
not Jews alone. because it established a princi-
ple of the right to differ.
It was a tiny group that had rebelled against
Antiochus. Most of those who were under the
domination of this Syrian tyrant acquiesced
to his decree that there should be only one
people, that only the idols of his choosing
were to be worshiped, that all who were
under his domination were to abandon their
faiths. But the tiny group of Jews refused to
abandon faith. They insisted upon being dif-
ferent. It is this insistence that is accountable
for the survival of the ancient codes incorpo-
rated in our Holy Scriptures. It was the Mac-
cabean valor that gave rise to rebellious
spirits that, through the ages, rejected totali-
tarian rule, whether it was Antiochus' or,
much later, Hitler's, and presently those of
domineering dictatorships.
To Maccabean rebelliousness is to be ac-
credited the subsequent events that had led
to the emergence of Christianity. Without
that triumph of Jewish insistence on the right
to be different there could not have emerged
a group that chose to break away from Juda-
ism and. in turn. to be different. And if there
are Christians today who deny to us that very
right of differing with them, they should be
admonished that if it had not been for the
Maccabean • valor there would have been a
long delay in the emergence of the demo-
cratic idea that gives to each individual the
privilege of (ree thought in contrast to con-
formity that shackles and strangles indi-
viduals.
As the Festival of Lights, as the Period of
Rededication. Hanukah highlights a people's
courageous fight for religious freedom, for
the right to be different. and it emphasizes
the universal principle of individual liberty.
Its lesson is as powerful today as it was more
than 21 centuries ago. and it retains for all
generations the spirit projected for Jewry in
a famous poem by Emma Lazarus:
Oh! deem not dead that martial fire,
Say not the mystic flame is spent!
With Moses' law and David's lyre,
.Your ancient strength remains unbent.
Anti-Israel Arrogance in the UN
- Too often. news coverage of events in the
Middle East fails to provide fully substanti-
ated facts about the continuing difficulties
between Israel and her neighbors. There is a
tendency to judge the issue as if it were an
"Israel-Arab war." as if both were equally
aggressive. And just because the war-monger-
ing enemies of Israel continue to charge the
Israelis with aggression, while they them-
selves have not halted even for a moment
their war threats on Israel, the situation is
viewed with glasses tinted to prejudice
Israel's case.
The fact is that Syria has uninterruptedly
launched attacks on Israeli settlements and
on Israel's fishermen in the Tiberias area.
While Jordan and Lebanon have been the
least aggressive of Israel's enemies, and even
Gamal Abdel Nasser has refrained from
attacking his Jewish neighbor since devastat-
.ing losses he suffered at Israel's hands during
the Sinai Campaign, Syria has been violating
every rule of international decency by its
attacks on Israeli farmers, its attempts to
infringe upon Israel's territorial rights and
its arrogant attitude in the United Nations.
It is the situation in the _UN that is espe-
daily disturbing. Less than a month ago, the
so-called "Group of 77 - failed to uphold its
own dignity by submitting to the barring of
Israel from its deliberations, as a result of
Arab pressures.
While Israel is able to repel attacks, the
situation in the Middle East remains grave.
The Arab threats have not diminished. While
there is an occasional ray of hope from some
quarters whence come assurances of a desire
for peace, the rulers of Arab lands are
adamant in their enmity. and Syria remains
the major threat to peace for Israel.
The approaching new session of the
United Nations General Assembly undoubt-
edly again will be witness to further anti-
"The Church, incher rejection of any
injustice, is mindful of this common patri-
'Judaism and Prayer' Evaluated
For the skeptics, for those who question the value of prayer, a *
new volume issued by the Union of American Hebrew Congregations
as part of the "Issues of Faith" series has special merit.
Under the title "Judaism . and Prayer," this 113-page book, which
includes 10 pages of valuable annotations, Rabbi Herbert M. Baum-
gard of South Miami, Fla., covers a vast field. He evaluates prayer
as a discipline, its functions. the value of praying together, and the
ultimate aim of "God and man together. interacting and tied together,
in a never-ending process of prayer and work (avedah)."
There is emphasis on prayer as work — as avodali--mind Dr.
Banmgard explains: "There can be no value to prayer unless
the one who prays is prepared to work and to use the gift of
courage or strength, which he obtains from God, towards the
solving of his problems."
The God-idea is presented as more than a concept and the author
asserts: "The existence of God is not dependent upon our definition
of Him, but the image we have of Him may determine how we live
our lives . . . The understanding Western man has of God is the
result of thousands of years of seaching and struggling towards a
higher truth."
There is strong emphasis on the importance of prayer. and Dr.
Baumgard declares:
"It is idle to ask, is prayer legitimate? Is it consistent with
modern science and knowledge?' The universality of the disposition
to pray. whether among the primitives of the jungle or among
the sophisticated Intellectuals of the western world. seems to
indicate that the urge to pray is a response to one of man's deepest
needs. In fact. the Hassidic Jews of Eastern Europe in the 18th
Century taught that prayer was both natural and involuntary.
To them, prayer was a response from within man towards a
`pull' from without, a response which man could not resist even
if he -wished to do so."
The author draws upon prophetic teachings and quotes often
from the lore of Hassidism.
His work is impressive and will be found of great value not by
the Reform Jews alone—the book stemming from their quarters—
but by Jews of all other denominational thinking and adherence.
Israel demonstrations. Israel is not suffering
from fear and is able to withstand the verbal
attacks as ably as she has succeeded in ward-
ing off military assaults. Yet there is always
cause for concern. The anxiety over the
Middle Eastern situation is considerably miti-
Teen-agers and young people are being guided in their study of
gated by the knowledge that the small State
of Israel is well able to face many dangers, I Jewish issues in "Modern Jewish Problems," •by Rabbi Roland B.
and that these dangers help to keep her Gittelsohn of Boston, in a revised edition of the book issued by the
alerted and to make her resistance uncon- Union of American Hebrew Congregations.
In order properly to define what is a problrn, what is a Jewish
querable.
at that, Dr. Gittelsohn commences by
'Modern Jewish Problems'
Reviewed in Gittelsohn's Book
The Ecumenical Schema on the Jews
Let it be recorded to the credit of Ameri-
can Catholic- prelates, notably Cardinals
Meyer and Ritter. that they had conducted
a courageous campaign to assure that what-
ever schema is adopted on what had been
labeled "the Jewish question" should be
accomplished with justice.
There were efforts to inject in proposed
Ecumenical Council declarations invitations
to Jews to convert to Catholicism. Apparently
such an attitude has been abandoned by an
overwhelming majority. Yet there was an
impressive minority that opposed any action
that might be favorable to Jews. Arab spokes-
men played their nefarious role in such ef-
forts. Yet the revised Council schema speaks
of the rich "spiritual' patrimony" and asserts:
Important 'Issues of Faith' Volume
mono y between Christians and Jews. Thus,
the Council deplores and condemns the
hatred and persecution of Jews, whether
they arose in former times or in our own
day. Nothing in the catechetical work of
preaching should teach anything that could
give rise to hatred or contempt for Jews
in the hearts of Christians."
This is a more positive statement than
had first been proposed. It will take a bit
more time to digest the new schema and to.
judge the Vatican attitude on the issue which
should never have been - referred to as a
"Jewish question" but which should always
have been considered as an obligation on
Christianity's part to right a wrong practices
for 19 centuries in the persecution of Jews
in the name of but contrary to the teachings
of the Jew Jesus.
problem and a m_odern one
explaining "What Is a Jew?" and in it he reviews the cultural and
religious aspects with emphasis on belonging, He describes Jews as
more than a race and points to those who believe Jews are a nation.
By offering reading suggestions, by posing many questions, he leads
youth to think and to reach its own decisions on many issues.
He describes what keeps Jews together—some believing that
it is trouble, others that it is religion, Zionism, charity—and he
sums up by indicating that there is a purPose to the unity.
Why remain Jews, the intermarriage dilemma, political, com-
munity, anti - Semitic problems, Zionism and the status of Israel,
educational and other needs, area the subjects covered with con-
siderable thoroughness.
In a chapter entitled "Why Jewish Education?", Rabbi Gittel-
sohn emphasizes that "no generation can add to Judaism or
preserve it unless that generation knows what the sum total of
Judaism has been in the past."
The chapter describing Zionism demolishes some of the false
notions about the movement and explains its positive aims.
Then there is a chapter on Israel, reviewing the state's accomplish-
ments and pointing also to its numerous problems.
The revised edition has a new chapter on social action. The read-
ing sources, case history, posed questions add to the value of an
inspired work that is certain to increase the interest of those read-
ing it in current Jewish needs.