THE JEWISH NEWS
Last-Minute Reminder
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
Business Manager
CHARLOTTE RYAMS
Advertising Manager
City Editor
Sabbath Scriptural Selections
This Sabbath, the 26th day of Sivan, 5725, the following scriptural selections will
be read in our synagogues:
Pentateuchal portion: Num. 13:1-15:41; prophetical portion: Josh. 2:1-24.
Licht benshen, Friday, June 25, 7:53 p.m.
VOL. XLVII, No. 18
June 25, 1965
Page 4
ORT's Expanded Worldwide Services
Most impressive proof of the effective-
ness of the program conducted by ORT—the
Organization for Rehabilitation Through
Training—in many lands is provided in the
accompanying chart which indicates the high
degree of the movement's services and its
training programs in areas where its acti-
vities are most needed.
When the ORT leaders convene in Rome
next week to review progress of recent years
and to plan for even more extended services,
they will be able to point to the fulfillment
of aims to uplift the untrained in many lands
and to transform them into creative human
beings.
As ORT's able president, Dr. William
Haber, pointed out in his annual report, as
a result of ORT's efforts, "by a magnificent
assertion of the will to live, somehow, un-
believably, those who survived found the
spiritual strength for renewal." ORT's pro-
grams made that possible.
It is especially interesting to note the
progress that has been made by ORT in
Israel alone. The movement's first courses
started in a converted Jaffa factory when
Israel regained statehood. There were 1,300
trainees in the first year of ORT's Israeli
efforts and in 1965 the number is rising to
23,000, the record of growth being as fol-
lows for the past four years:
1960
20
Communities served
Vocational High School Students 4,712
271
Religious School Enrollment
1,608
Apprentices
Total in all ORT Israel Programs 10,306
1964
34
8,467
2,374
5,839
20,821
While there was inevitable decline in the
number of trainees in lands whence Jews
have emigrated in large numbers, the ORT
program has had large-scale enlargements in
France, where there has been a mass settle-
ment of refugees from Algeria and other
countries, and in other areas. There are, in
fact, possibilities . of greater need for ORT
facilities in Latin American and other areas.
Thus a great movement that began in Rus-
sia 80 years ago is today among the most vital
for many Jews who would be without op-
portunities for advancement without ORT's
training programs. Dr. Haber and his associ-
ates will have cause for pride in their accom-
plishments when they review the ORT
achievements at the meetings in Rome.
Needs for vocational training have been
recognized in Jewish life, and especially in
Israel, for many years. It is part of our heri-
tage which places priority on productive ac-
tivities, which teaches, as in Genesis 3.17:
"In toil shall you eat . . . all the days of your
life."
In Israel, projects by Histadrut and its
affiliates, the Zionist Organization at Kfar
Silver and other movements, encourage the
youth to learn trades and their elders to en-
gage in creative efforts that, through the
Zionist ideal, led to the divorcement of Jews
from the role of being luftmenschen.
To Hadassah especially, in Israel, the
idea of vocational training owes a spe-
cial debt. At a time when we speak
with anxiety over the need to expand
secondary educational opportunities in
Israel, it is well to remember that one
of Hadassah's very interesting projects
in the Jewish State is the Alice Seligs-
berg Vocational High School for Girls,
in Jerusalem. A four-year course is of-
fered in this school, which is port of the
Jerusalem Brandeis Center. Secretarial
work, homemaking and restaurant pro-
jects, sewing, designing, weaving and
other crafts are taught. In addition,
there is a two-year course for teaching
opportunities, medical and library as-
sistants and other job opportunities.
Thus, through a functioning Vocational
Guidance Bureau, bureaus established by
Hadassah in Jerusalem and other cities are
assisting young Israelis in their preparation
for employment in productive pursuits. Had-
assah sponsors a mechanics' shop and at
Romema it conducts a printing workshop.
It is interesting to note that at the latter
the Zionist women's ingenuity resulted in
the creation of a new Hebrew type face that
is called "Hadassah Hebrew."
*
*
Thus, ORT's program in Israel is a con-
tinuation of age-old teachings that Jews
should pursue productive labors. Other move-
ments contribute towards the advancement of
the inherited ideal of honoring the dignity
of labor.
ORT is the leader in vocational train-
ing among Jews. With the aid and encourage-
ment of the major Jewish movements in the
world, it guides Jewry towards the whole-
&time labors taught by our sages.
1964 ORT Enrollment by Training Units
Trainees and Teaching Staff
Total
Enrollment
348
261
433
37
9
5,100
260
268
2,223
20,821
4,153
2,384
2,982
440
1,367
223
823
196
Country***
ARGENTINA
AUSTRIA
BELGIUM
BRAZIL
ENGLAND
FRANCE
HOLLAND
INDIA
IRAN
ISRAEL
ITALY
MOROCCO
POLAND
SOUTH AFRICA
TUNISIA
URUGUAY
U.S.A.
SWITZERLAND
Central Institute._
TOTAL
42,328
Teaching Training
Units
Staff
20
10
7
5
6
7
3
2
—
1
184
86
4
11
6
9
70
25
809
192
48
92
67
28
72
126
—
—
34
17
6
6
4
3
19
5
1,359
625
Vocational Training
Schools
Wkshps.
21
303
230
17
29
37
1,801
68
846
12,334
401
987
702
62
34
56
1,745
117
892
505
133
217
180
823
Vocational Child's Apprent.
Courses Train. Plans
9
15
31
387
9*
1,327
86
57
903
2,905
211
564
1,270
198
80
1,264
5,839
730
258
932
109
43
63
17,125
5,415
6,317
3,864
*Agricultural Training
**In-Plant Training
***Does not include Greece, ,Guinea and Mali
Maurice Pekarsky's Legacy:
Tribute to a Great Scholar
Dr. Maurice Pekarsky was one of the giants in the Hillel Founda-
tions movement. He rose above parties. He became the great inter-
preter of the basic Jewish ideals. He was the pleader for knowledge,
the propagandist for the cause of Jewish education,
the student for his own edification, the teacher of
many whom he sought out as disciples in universities
where he served as Hillel director.
How fortunate that his collected works, his
speeches, essays, his unpublished comments on life
and Jewish matters, should have been compiled in
an impressive book, "The Legacy of Maurice Pekar-
sky," published by Quadrangle Books (180 N.
Wacker Dr., Chicago 60606). And how deserving that
the foreword should be by Dr. A. L. Sachar, who was
his chief in Hillel, and that the introduction should
be by the book's editor, Alex Jospe, the national Dr. Pekarsky
director of programs and resources of the Hillel Foundations !
Dr. Sachar asserts that "the listening heart" which distinguished
Rabbi Pekarsky made him "the incomparable teacher."
He calls him "an incandescent teacher," "a luminous thinker," "a
shining personality."
Jospe also wrote a biographical note about Rabbi Pekarsky, whose
adolescent years were in Grand Rapids, who was a University of
Michigan honor graduate (1930), who held posts at Hillel Foundations
at Cornell, Northwestern and Chicago universities and at the Hebrew
University in Jerusalem, and whose untimely passing in 1962 took
from American Jewry one of its ablest educators.
To Jospe, Pekarsky was a dialectical person par excellence. He
encouraged dialogue. "He was quick to sense the intellectual or emo-
tional difficulties you might have with the presuppositions or some
particular view of Jewish tradition, and he would gently begin prob-
ing your assumptions and question your own questioning until he had
enlarged your understanding of what this particular concept might
have meant in its original context and what it might contribute to
your understanding of man's condition today."
The contents of "The Legacy of Maurice Pekarsky" are varied.
"On Being Jewish" is the partial text of an address he delivered
at a Hillel summer institute, and "The Crisis of Judaism" is from
his unpublished notes. His "Letters from Jerusalem" are masterful
expressions based on his experiences in Israel, containing criti-
cisms, encomia, enthusiastic evaluations of the new ideas and new
creativity of Israel.
An essay of special merit is his discussion of religion in Israel,
his comment that "neither in act nor in thought does Orthodox Jewish
religion in Israel speak to the mind and heart of the young people,"
and his admonition that "despite the vast difference between Jewish
life in Israel and the United States, and the particular motives,
urgencies and weight that our respective situations assign to these
questions, we are ultimately in the same religious situation."
Invaluable in this important collection •is the series of com-
ments on aspects of Jewish student life. This may well serve as a
guide in stimulating student activities in Jewish ranks.
Pekarsky's experiences on the campus are well reflected in this
compilation. The late leader's attempts to mobilize student activitie-z--
the frustrations that accompanied them, the lessons he learned, (
serve as guides for those who aim to strengthen Jewish interest arrh.._
our students.
In numerous ways, Pekarsky had contributed wisely and valiantly _
to Jewish life. His legacy, incorporated in this book, is a tribute to a ---,
great man whose life was a dedication to Jewish ideals.
'Mid-20th Century Nationalism
1963 Franklin Memorial Lectures
928
**594
"Mid-Twentieth Century Nationalism" is the title of the volume,
440 just issued by Wayne State University Press, containing the addresses
536 delivered two years ago in the Franklin series. It is Volume XIII of
Franklin Memorial Lectures.
Edited by William J. Bossenbrook, WSU professor of history, holder
of the Leo M. Franklin Memorial Lectureship in Human Relations at <
WSU for 1962-63, the lectures in this series, in addition to the one
by the editor on "German Nationalism and Fragmentation," were:
"French Nationalism and Western Unity," by Prof. Hans Kohn;
9,607
"The Problem of National Minorities in the USSR," by Dr. Alfred G.
Meyer; "Nationalism in South Africa" by Dr. Amry Vandenbosch and
"Communism's Impact on African Nationalism" by Assistant Secretary
of ,State G. Mennen Williams. .