The Jewish
Black Book

Pentateuch and Rashi in Braille

BY JOSHUA IL JTJSTMAN

Chief JTA Correspondent in Israel
(Copyright, 1965, JTA, Inc.)

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JERUSALEM — Four-hundred-
and-fifty pages. Long, wide pages;
each in double-column—each filled
with names and figures.
33,914 names.
Each—the name of a town, town-
let, village or hamlet.
Each spells names of tens, scores,
hundreds, thousands of men and
women and children.
A book filled with names; a bleak
book — black as the face of death.
For that's what it spells — the
"Black Book of Localities whose
Jewish population was exterminat-
ed by the Nazis," now published
by "Yad Vashem" in Jerusalem.
Opening the book we find a
"Table of European Jews who
were to be exterminated" — a
table compiled at the Nazis' Wann-
see conference on the "Final Solu-
tion," held in mid-January 1942.
The table's total: over eleven
ion Jews.
* * *
Well, the plan "failed."
We turn a page and find another
table, prepared in 1946 by the An-
glo-American Committee of En-
quiry on the extermination of the
Jewish population of Europe, and
here the total is "only" — close
to six million.
The hair-raising figure of nearly
34 thousand localities "purged" of
their Jews by the Nazis includes
fifteen European countries: Aust-
ria, Czechoslovakia, Estonia, Ger-
many, Greece, Hungary, Latvia,
Lithuania, Luxembourg, Nether-
lands, Norway, Poland, Romania,
USSR and Yugoslavia. To it, one
should add the Jewish communities
of Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark,
France and Italy which did not es-
cape the horrors of the "Final Sol-
ution" but where the killings did
not generally take place in the lo-
calities themselves and they have
thus not been enumerated in the
book.
* *
Going through these pages one
again becomes conscious of one's
inability to grasp. and convey the
meaning of the word "holocaust."
Here is one "locality": Warsaw
where before the war there lived
about 352,000 Jews; or Lodz: 202,
000 and so on and on and on.
Then one goes through the long
lists. In Poland there were more
than 17,000 localities with Jewish
inhabitants! And among them one
finds hundreds upon hundreds of
small townlets and hamlets where
only a few Jews have been living—
in some even as few as two or three
or a few scores. Here we don't
deal with "millions" and it is
these small numbers that bring
to you the grasp of the extent of
the horror. Here "millions" are
translated into a language which
man's mind is able to -grasp. Here
the world of "Polish Jewry" or
Lithuanian Jewry" or "German
Jewry" is laid before your eyes in
the horrifying breakdown of the
thousands of townlets and villages.
Here is before your eyes genocide
multiplied by 33,914—all the fiend-
ish planning and thoroughness with
which it was carried out; with
which the murderous Nazi arms
reached into the smallest and re-
motest corners to seek out its vic-
tims. Into 33,914 localities!
* * *
The world now knows the names
of extermination camps like Aus-
chwitz-Birkenau, Belzec, Chelmno,
Treblinka Bergen-Belsen, Dachau
and other like places of infamy.
However, these death camps were
only the last stages on the blood-
covered assembly line of the Nazi
murder machine. As the authors
of the Black Book point out: All
down that line, Jews were being
pitilessly murdered. Each and every
operation of the Nazi machinery
for the destruction of Jewish com-
munities involved deliberate mass-
acre of untold numbers of Jews.
There were mass shootings and
burning, murderous forced
marches, slaughter. Very few- of

Rabbi Ascher M. Yager of the Inwood Hebrew Congregation
in New York shows Mrs. Harry J. Finke, president of the Jewish
Braille Institute of America, the first high-fidelity tape recording
of the complete Pentateuch and Rashi's Commentary on the
Pentateuch, in both Hebrew and English, on 64 reels of tape with
a playing time of 128 hours. Rabbi Yager recently completed the
nroiect, as a volunteer, for the free, world-wide circulating library
of the Jewish Braille Institute.

Rabbi Barack's Book 'Sabbath History'
Tells How Rest-Day Ideal Developed

Passover Recipes by Yeshiva U. Chef

Passover holiday starts April 16
and runs through April 24.
Since all leaven is prohibited
during the Passover season, there
is a variety of substitutes made
with matzo products.
Alfred Parker, chief chef at
Yeshiva University in New York,
who supervises the preparation
and serving of some 10,000 kosher
meals each week, has a number of
recipes which typify the creativity
of cooks faced with the Passover
dietary problem. One recipe which
the kosher food expert has volun-
teered is for matzo balls.
Parker became a cook by acci-
dent. At the age of 18 he was an
engineering student in his native
Vienna but was forced to flee
when Austria was invaded in 1938.
He went to a refugee camp in
Switzerland where he helped out
in the kitchens and gradually be-
gan to cook. So well did he learn
his new trade that he obtained a
jab in a Zurich restaurant and,
from there, moved to the re-
nowned Hotel Fachschool in Lu-
cerne.
He came to the United States in
1947 and stepped into his Yeshiva
University role ten years later.
Parker prepares no Passover
meals for Yeshiva University. The
school's students are on vacation
during the period.
Here are some of his recipes:

Pinch of ginger
1 1,4 cup of matzo meal
Pinch of baking powder
Open eggs and beat, adding spices.
Put in fat at room temperature, add
water, °matzo meal and baking pow-
der. Refrigerate for a miniumum of
30 minutes (to 24 hours). Use china or
enamel bowl as recepticle, not stain-
less steel. Form balls and put in boil.;
ing salt water. Boil for 30 minutes.
Serve in soup or with mushroom or
pot-roast gravy.
Yield: 16 medium-sized balls.

RECIPE FOR
MATZO MEAL PANCAKES

4 large eggs
1 4 teaspoon salt
Pinch of white pepper
Pinch of baking powder
3 4 cup of water
1 cup of matzo meal
Open eggs and beat well, adding
spices and water, then the matzo
meal and lastly, the baking powder.
Refrigerate for a minimum of 30 min-
utes. Use china or enamel bowl as
recepticle, not stainless steel. Grease
frying pan thoroughly, and use a
serving spoon to drop in batter.
Yield: six to eight pancakes. If
used as an entree, make smaller por-
tions for 12 servings.

The Jewish community. of Costa
Rica, which dates back to the end
of the 19th Century, today
numbers some 1,500 persons, most
of whom came to the country from
Germany during the rise of Hitler.

■■■■■■■ 1211..1012CIEG

A GOOD MAN TO KNOW !

RECIPE FOR MATZO BALLS

4 large eggs
cup diluted fat
cup water
1 teaspoon salt
Pinch of white pepper

1 /3
1 /2

Greenberg Shul Vacation

During Passover week, nursery
and afternoon classes of Hayim

Greenberg School will be closed,
reopening April 25 and 26.
Enrollment for the fall term is
now open. Children ages 3 1/2 to 5
Rabbi Nathan A. Barack of "like all of Judaism, is for the are eligible for the nursery and
Sheboygan, Wis., has delved into benefit of man ... . The Sabbath youngsters 6 to 13 are accepted in
the historical background of the as'a day of rest is based on a cos- the grade school.
day of rest, and his book, "A mic foundation, the universal
History of the Sabbath," publish- need for regular rest."
ed by Jonathan David (131 E. 23rd,
Rabbi Barack tells of the ban on
NY10), is a most enlightening work on the Sabbath and explains
work.
the meaning of this prohibition
Much research went into the and outlines the type of activities

making of this book, as is evi-
denced by the fact that of the 200
pages, 65 are devoted to notes ex-
plaining some of the contents.
Resorting to biblical legends,
utilizing the available material

that are forbidden. He states:
"One must not desecrate the Sab-
bath even in order to perform a
mitzvah, for the Torah, by placing
the laws commencing the Sabbath
next to those concerning the con-
dealing with the Sabbath, Rabbi struction of the Tabernacle, was
Barack turns first to the era of not permitted on the Sabbath. One
Ezra and proceeds from there to must not, therefore, work on a
evaluate the Sabbath's significance scroll, phylacteries, mezuzah or
as it was viewed by rabbinic au- ark curtain on the Sabbath, for
thors.
these things can be done before or
Discussing the philosophy of after the Sabbath . . "
the Sabbath, Rabbi Barack ex-
There also are rabbinic prohibi-

plains that the basic reasons for
the Sabbath are to indicate the
culmination of creation, to pro-
vide rest for servants, as a sign
of Gods covenant with, and
His sanctification of, the Chil-
dren of Israel, and the linking
of the Sabbath with the Exodus.

"The Sabbath," the rabbi states,

these hideous acts have been ac-
counted for. Very few of the tens
of thousands of Nazi assassins re-
sponsible for these barbarities have
been brought to trial. Surely, the
trials that took place and that are
taking place in Germany, dealing
with some Nazi units, do not em-
brace even a fraction of the thous-
ands upon thousands responsible
for the murders that have been
committed in the thousands of
places listed in this Black Book.
How, one wonders and one is
appalled, are all these crimes to
be allowed to go unpunished? How
is it possible, in the name of the
Law, to let them go unpunished?
The idea of making the statute
of limitations applicable to the
Nazi crimes is as weird as it is re-
volting. Going through the pages of
the Black Book again and again
makes one gasp at the very thought
that a vast horde of mass murderers
would suddenly become immune,
no longer subject to punishment
for the rivers of blOod they have
spilled and that still cry out to
mankind from the depth of the
earth upon which man hopes to
live like a human being.

tions, but there are duties super-
seding the Sabbath, such as work
in the Temple, the physical de-
fense of a community, the princi-

ple of life preservation which pro-
vides for dispensation to provide
help when needed in an emergen-
cy. Also: "The Sabbath may be
desecrated for a woman who is
about to give birth." But "the
Sabbath may not be desecrated to
mete out capital punishment."
Synagogue services and ob-

servances in the home are out-
lined by Rabbi Barack.

The importance of the Sabbath

for Jews and the holiness attach-
ed to the day of rest are review-
ed by the author, who also de-
scribes how the world's reaction
differed — admiration emanating
from some quarters but persecu-
tions on the Sabbath being the
rule in some Christian countries.
The total portrayal given in this
book offers the most valid expla-
nations of the significance of the

Sabbath, making Rabbi Barack's
book most valuable for school use
and as a treasure in home as well
as in public libraries.

The Psalms resound, and will
continue to resound, as long as
there shall be men created in the
image of God, in whose hearts the
sacred fire of religion shines and
glows; for they are religion itself
put into speech. — C. H. Cornill

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
Friday, April 16, 1965-23

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