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.,
YE 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

Business Manager

Advertising Manager

CHARLOTTE HYAMS

Cif,/ Editor

This Sabbath. the 27th day of Iyar. 5725, the following scriptural selections will be
-read in our synagogues:
Pentateuchal portion: Letit. 26:3-27:34. Prophetical portion: Jer. 16:19-17:14.

Licht benshen, Friday, May 28, 7:39 p.m.

VOL. XLVII, No. 14

Page 4

May 28, 1965

Changing Neighborhood: Equality Basis

Changing neighborhoods are not new
phenomena. But when the problems relating
to them involve safety and security, when
discipline becomes a major issue in our
schools, the changes that occur invite more
than a passing interest. They do, indeed, call
for joint efforts on the part of those who are
making the changes, the newcomers into
areas that are being evacuated, the commun-
ity at large.
It is most unfortunate that in viewing
existing situations those involved more often
than not speak of property value. What is
involved for the city, for the citizens, are the
moral values—the fact that American citizens
must live together in peace and in harmony.
The issue has become especially distress-
ing by the involvement of our school system,
the emergence of issues related to quality
education, the fear that has arisen over a de-
cline of educational standards because of the
fusion of new elements who are coming into
integrating neighborhoods with those that
had been more firmly established in areas
that seem to be changing, perhaps too rapidly.
What is involved here, if the situation is
to be viewed realistically, is a responsibility
that devolves upon the larger community,
upon the City itself and its administrators,
upon the school authorities who may be held
responsible for introducing policies that may
create havoc—policies that call for pupils to
be transported from schools near their homes
to others that will require transportation—
travel that can become difficult for children
unaccustomed to it, travel that may prove
unduly expensive for some parents.
There is a threat in the developing changes
to our school system, and if a vast system of
private schools should emerge as a result of
it, it will not be creditable to a great com-
munity.
Then there is the question of safety. The

mere injection of a need to assure safety is
in itself an indication that there is fear of a
lack of it. This can become panic-inspiring,
and it is something to be considered most
seriously.
Panic must be avoided at all costs, and all
precautions should be taken that wholesome
integration should be attained peacefully,
honorably, in a spirit of American tolerance.
What is happening is some areas now may
happen in others tomorrow. This calls for
proper evaluation of the basic needs of a city
like ours. If integration means panic, there
should be a cure. If there is panic, it must
be averted. Whatever changes take place in
a community must be accomplished peace-
fully. This calls for an understanding of prob-
lems. of inevitable conditions, of the needs of
all elements of our community who must be
educated to acquire or to build their homes
peacefully.
If there are dangers to safety, they chal-
lenge leadership, spiritual and temporal, re-
ligious and secular—all the authorities of
the state as well as of the citizen's movements
—to educate the folk involved to refrain from
inhuman acts which threaten the security of
their fellow men, regardless of their religion
or race.
*
*
*
There is a dire need to educate all of the
people, to uplift those who have been or still
are among the less fortunate and the less
skilled. so that there can be established a basis
for true equality. When we have learned to
live together, Americans all, in harmony, with
a true spirit of understanding each other's
needs, we shall have a stronger America
internally. Otherwise, if we are weak at home,
we shall be vulnerable to attack from the
outside. A strong America must be democratic
and wholesome within. Then we shall have un-
challenged claim to moral leadership among
the free nations of the world.

The Menace of the Rightist Movement

In his warning of the menacing growth pecially menacing in view of the possibility
of the John Birch Society from a member- of the formation of a single united rightists'
ship of 40,000 to 80,000 in two years, Dr. force that may cause anything like the Know-
John Slawson, executive vice president of the Nothing and similar groups of the past to
American Jewish Committee, explains that fade into insignificance.
the Birchers' claim that they are "saving".
Once again, the responsibility of Ameri-
America in reality means that they are "de- cans who are concerned over what is tran-
stroying public confidence in the nation's spicing is to resort to "eternal viligance."
highest officials, in its institutions, in the This calls for a vast educational movement—
leadership of its civic groups and organiza- NOW.
tions, and in democracy itself."
Dr. Slawson pointed out that the Birch
Society is pursuing its objectives "with more
substantial backing and manpower than ever Detroit's interest in higher education is
before, and with the evident intention of annually highlighted by the generous re-
shaping the society into a national extremist sponse to the appeal of Yeshiva University,
right-wing political force." whose progress has won the respect of educa-
In more than 20 leading American news- tors from many areas.
papers, including one in Detroit; special ad-
Once again, this community will offer
vertising sections have been purchased by assistance to Yeshiva University, through the
the Birchers, and it appears inevitable that proceeds of the annual dinner to be held on
their society's membership should grow even June 2. Primarily, the local fund-raising suc-
faster. The fact that annual income of the cesses are due to the activities of the David
society has risen from $130,000 in 1959 to Goldbergs, who currently are subsidizing the
$3,200,000 in 1964 is another indication of affair to assure the continuation of efforts in
growth and expansion and of enrollment of behalf of the institution to which they are
many who may be among the country's wealth- devoting their major interest.
iest people who are bent upon supporting
Detroiters have responded to appeals from
the right wingers and their menacing pro- the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, the
grams.
Technion, Weizmann Institute and Bar-Han
Sponsoring 70 to 100 meetings nightly, University, and Tel Aviv University will not
having sent propagandists into 25 states dur- be ignored here.
ing April alone, securing an income of ap-
Similarly, the Jewish Theological Semi-
proximately $50,000 a week from the sale nary and Hebrew Union College - Jewish
of books and pamphlets, the Birch Society's Institute of Religion are aided here.
Yeshiva University has not only gotten
status can no longer be laughed at, and the
warnings of the American Jewish Committee a good response, but its backers here include
come at a time when it is necessary to mo- a number of rabbis who were ordained at
bilize all the democratic forces to strengthen the Yeshiva and a growing number here who
the democratic principles as a defense have become linked in their interests with
against the impending dangers from the re- the university. These are devotions that
attest to a recognition that education must
actionaries.
- - The grave clanger:frOin the right is es- get priority in communal planning.

Aid for Yeshiva U.

Hapgood's 'Spirit of Ghetto'
Recreates East Side of 1901

In 1901, Hutchins Hapgood wrote an exciting collection of articles
about the East Side of New York, its people, its pushcarts, even its
anarchists and atheists.
Funk and Wagnalls published "The Spirit of the Ghetto" in 1902.
Now, 63 years later, Funk and Wagnalls (360 Lexington, NY16) has
reissued the volume, in elegant and more stylized form, and it emerges
as a revived classic.
While it was originally a sympathetic approach by a friendly
non-Jew to delineate Jewish life. it has become a valuable portion of
the social studies related to Jews.
Enhancing the revised edition is an impressive preface by
Harry Golden, who has made an additional contribution to the
volume: the insertion of his appended notes which bring the book
up to date and explain some of its contents by the injection of the
tone appropriate to the '60s and suitable as an addendum of
modern history to the tales of the past. At the same time, the
drawings from life by Jacob Epstein which illustrate every chapter
in the book provide the reader with superb art by one of the
world's greatest creative artists.
Golden does, indeed, add spirit to the volume with his inserted
current details about the East Side, its changes, its past, its famous
characters.
The character delineations by Epstein bring to life the men and
events of six decades ago.
Hapgood ]mew how to find his famous men. He wrote a chapter
about Naphtali Herz Imber, author of "Hatikvah."
He perpetuated stories about the actors and actresses at the begin-
ning of this century.
He knew and understood, and therefore was able to write, authori-
tatively about the Yiddish press of his day.
The teachers, the rabbis, the students of the time, their houses
of learning, are evaluated here, and Israel Zangwill's "Children
of the Ghetto" are drawn upon for comparison. These are the
"prophets without honor" who are depicted in a deeply moving
chapter in which Hapgood pays honor to the Orthodox rabbis.
Then there is the description of the Jewish woman, her devotion
to her home and family. The affectionate, the eternally serious, the
lovers of learning — these are the heroines of an appreciative Chris-
tian author.
There is a tribute in "The Spirit of the Ghetto" to "the wedding
bard," to Eliakum Zunser, the printer who became a great poet and
whose name has gone down among the great in Yiddish literature.
And Hapgood does not overlook Menahem Dolitzki, :Morris Rosenfeld,
S. Libin, Masliansky and others.
The socialist influences are not overlooked, Zionist pioneers are
under consideration, and Golden does his bit to fuse the past with
the present by adding information that makes the past more real.
"The Spirit of the Ghetto" is unusual in many respects—in its
sympathy and understanding, in its affectionate approach to Jewish
issues and to Jewish characters, many of whom emerge as heroes in
a volume that is, indeed, the recollection of both the spirit, the—
idealism. the heroism and the creativity of the East Side—the ghetto-:,
with pride and dignity.

'

Legal Aspects of Civil Rights'

"Legal Aspects of the Civil Rights Movement," published by
Wayne State University Press, is an impressive collection of essays
devoted to. a study of the legal aspects of the civil rights struggle for
human rights.
Edited by Prof. Donald B. King of St. Louis University Law School
and Prof. Charles W. W. Quick of Wayne . State University College
of Law, this voluminous work deals with problems
involving education, housing, justice, civil disobedi-
ence. transportation.
It includes a review, "Progress in Civil Rights
to 1964," by Harry Fleischman, co-ordinator of race
relations activities for the American Jewish Com-
mittee. This essay offers a .nationwide review of
civil rights activities and describes the work of
Jewish groups as part of the National Conference
on Religion and Race.
Harold Norris, who teaches constitutional and
criminal law at Detroit College of Law. is the au-
thor of the report "The Civil Rights Act of 1964."
He describes the work of various commissions, re-
views federally assisted programs, outlines voting
statistics, efforts for equal employment opportuni:
Norris
ties and other aspects of civil rights legislation.