THE JEWISH NEWS
A Name Indelible in Our History
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
Business Manager
SIDNEY SHMARAK
Advertising Manager
CHARLOTTE RYAMS
City Editor
Sabbath Scriptural Selections
This Sabbath, the 24th day of Tammuz, 5725, the following scriptural selections
will be read in our synagogues:
Pentateuchal portion: Mon. 25:10-30:1; prophetical portion: Jerem. 1:1-2:3.
* The Jewish People have
been bereaved of' a
/alder al' lie stale,
8 Pilototibe more-
/He/If end a Boyer
RP 4
'
*e /Rea/1 U
01FICIA L ANNOUricEtlEtt)
Licht benshen, Friday, July 23, 7:42 p.m.
VOL. XLVII, No. 22
Page 4
July 23, 1965
Anti-Semitism Fostered by Arab Propaganda
It didn't take long for Egypt's Dictator-
President Nasser — soon after $37,000,000
worth of food was released to him on Presi-
dent Johnson's order — again to renew his
threats to Israel's existence. Contrary to
American insistence that Israel's sovereignty
must be assured, Nasser, in a taped television
program, predicted a renewed war on Israel
in five years and said that even if there was
to be a 70-year waiting period, the Arabs
would destroy Israel.
These are repetitious boastings which
might be ignored, except for the fact that
American diplomats are misled by the Egyp-
tian dictator and that, as Senator Thomas
J. Dodd of Connecticut said on the floor of
the Senate last week, "it was a tragic mistake
to give this aid to Nasser without conditions
of any kind."
Senator Dodd based his remarks on facts
showing that the Arabs are conducting anti-
Jewish propaganda in this country. Drawing
upon results of research conducted by the
Anti-Defamation League, Senator Dodd de-
clared that "after reading this study, I can
only agree that it constitutes a record of the
most malevolent international hate cam-
paign against the Jews as Jews since the Hit-
ler years."
* * *
Senator Dodd was supported in his con-
demnation of the new anti-Semitic campaign
in this country by Senators Ernest Gruening
of Alaska, Jacob K. Javits of New York, Fred
R. Harris of Oklahoma, Abraham A. Ribicoff
of Connecticut, Frank J. Lausche of Ohio and
Jack R. Miller of Iowa, all of whom con-
demned the shocking spread of bigotry by
Arabs in their propaganda campaign to villi-
fy Jews, to mislead the public about Zionism,
to advocate Israel's destruction.
In an era that calls for amity, when there
should be peace and accord among nations,
it is appalling to read some of the stupidities
which have been foisted upon those who
may innocently be subjected to the type of
bigotry that is being spread by the Arabs. In
the course of his expose of the atrocious libels
hurled at Jews, Senator Dodd said in his Sen-
ate speech:
"The berserk quality of this propagan-
da is terribly reminiscent of Ter Stuer-
mer' and Streicher and Goebbels. To ration-
al men, its sheer insanity may appear to
render it ineffective. But, as I learned in
painful detail at the Nuremberg trials,
such malicious nonsense can poison the
minds of millions of people; and once they
are thus poisoned, they become capable of
unspeakable atrocities against the objects
of their hatred.
"This new Arab anti-Semitic propagan-
da, like Nazi propaganda in its own day, is
nothing less than an incitation to murder.
And if, in the interest of avoiding offense
to the Nasserite extremists, we close our
eyes to the potential consequences, we re-
duce ourselves to silent abettors of the
crime of incitation to violence and even
to murder."
We had begun to believe that the sort of
propaganda that emanated from Nazi Ger-
many under the direction of Hitler, Goeb-
bels, Streicher and their gang of murderers
would not find sponsors anywhere, let alone
in this country. Fortunately, the responsible
Congressional leaders are seeing through the
veils that are shielding the Arab hate-inciters
so thinly, and as a result of the courageous
stand taken by Senator Dodd and his associ-
ates we may well hope to see the work of the
bigotry-mongering elements relegated to the
condemnation of all justice-loving people.
Senator Dodd, in the course of his speech,
pointed to an article from a Cairo newspaper
included in the Arab propaganda sheets stat-
ing that "what Hitler did to the Jews was
simply revenge for what they did to Christ."
He then referred to the following which the
Arabs are spreading as a quotation from the
April 1964 issue of Scribe, a Cairo periodical
appearing in English, French, Italian, Ger-
man and Spanish:
At the risk of being accused of anti-Semitism
(sic), we want, in the single pusuit of truth,
to prove that President Kennedy, just like the two
American Presidents assassinated before him, was
the victim of a Zionist-armed band. It is no secret
that John Wilkes Booth, murderer of President
Abraham Lincoln, and Leon Czolgosz, who assas-
sinated President McKinley, were both Jews in
the service of the Zionist cause."
The Connecticut Senator concedes that
this country "must continue to offer Nasser
the hand of friendship," but he insisted that
"we must stop kowtowing to him, or muting
our disapproval of his actions." He insisted
that Nasser be informed where this country
stands, "especially on the question of the
vicious anti-Jewish agitation now being car-
ried on by his propagandists," and he empha-
sized that:
"Because we refuse to offend him,
we cannot officially oppose or expose his
anti-Jewish propaganda.
"Because we refuse to offend him, or
to openly disapprove of his actions, we can-
not clearly demarcate ourselves morally
from the many acts of aggression Nasser
has already perpetrated against his Arab
neighbors, or from the major aggression he
is plotting against Israel.
"Nasser does not speak for the entire
Arab world. He speaks for only an extre-
mist segment of it. I think it would vastly
improve our posture before the entire
world, including the Arab world, if we
made further American aid to Nasser con-
tingent on his peaceful behavior."
In their campaign against the Jews, in the
factual quotations revealed by Senator
Dodd, the Arabs revived charges that out-
shame the vilest bigots of the Middle Ages.
There is, for example, this quotation from
the Cairo newspaper Akhbar el-Yom:
"Christianity holds fast to its belief that Jews
killed Christ—because they admitted their guilt
and boasted of it, and because the way they treat
Christians and everybody else is like that of
bloodthirsty murderers."
Is it any wonder that there were snags at
the Vatican during the Ecumenical Council
sessions when Arab spokesmen appeared
with threats against the adoption of the pro-
posals to erase the deicide charge?
That is why Senator Gruening, during
the Senatorial discussions that followed the
expose by Senator Dodd, asserted that, in
reference to decisions to prevent Nasser ag-
gressions, "we should be somewhat critical
also of some of our own colleagues who take
the actions of the Senate to conference, after
an overwhelming vote that aid to Nasser
should cease, and, almost invariably, and
without exception the actions of the Senate
are deleted in conference. I believe that it
is about time that we had an extended de-
bate on how long we shall subsidize such
characters when their every act is a viola-
tion of every principle that the United States
espouses."
The Senate has spoken with firmness. It
is to be hoped that the forthcoming actions
against the spread of bigotry will be equally
firm.
It is to be hoped also that the Christian
community, and Moslems as well, will speak
out against the venom which is being circu-
lated in hate against not Israel alone but
against world Jewry, against the Zionist idea
which is the basis of the libertarian hopes
to end the homelessness of oppressed Jews
— many of them now residing in Moslem
countries — and especially against the Jews
of the United States.
'The Signal Fires of Lachish'
Glorifies Israel's New Values
So deeply moving is the collection of essays by Rivka Guber
about Israeli pioneers, settlers in far-flung areas of Israel and
defenders of the land as well as its cultivators, that her book, "The
Signal Fires of Lachish" (published by Herzl Press) has won the
admiration and commendations of noted Israeli leaders, including
former Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, Rahel Shazar, the wife
of Israel's president, and others.
It is a splendid translation from the Hebrew by Margalit Benaya,
containing a large number of impressive line drawings by Abba
Feniel.
The title of the book also is the title of the series of illuminating
articles in the second part of the volume. The first portion, which
contains evaluative material on Israeli settlers and the children of
Israel, is entitled "And Thy Children Shall Return."
The author's deep-felt sentiments about Israel's rebirth are
expressed in a preface in which she defines "homeland, native
land,"—describing the new statehood as it emerged from the war
pangs and a people's sufferings.
Many interesting characters are described in the first portion
of the book. Esther of Bombay mirrors the migratory trends, the
arrivals "on the wings of eagles." The emergence of villages is
depicted in "Two Villages That Succeeded." Perhaps the most
moving story in that section of this fine volume is the article
"Rebellious Children." Indeed, Israel's youth are portrayed in the
precociousness and mischief. But they have their courage, and the
description of events at Kfar Warburg in Rivka Guber's book shows
how they come forth with understanding and bravery in time of
need. And so the author concludes with a quotation from Schofman,
one of the first modern Hebrew writers: "Beware of judging these
unruly children, for they may well pull far more than one wagon
of ours out of the mud!"
Many are the tales of heroism incorporated in "The Signal Fires
of Lachish" portion of the book. The entire history of our people,
the past linked with the present, is related in the experiences of the
settlers, those of the mountain areas and the newcomers.
The author's recollections, of the war and the reconstruction,
tales about the men and women who are building the new Zion,
make these tales replete with power. As Mrs. Shazar stated about
the author and her works:
"From time to time a rare book appears which captivates its
readers by its extraordinary humanity and vitality, and is to be
judged on these qualities rather than by formal literary standards.
Both of Rivka Guber's books come into this category. Where her first
book told her own courageous story of a mother in Israel whose
two sons fell in the War of Independence, this second book relates
with truthfulness and compassion the nation's struggles immediately
after the war—its attempt to absorb and integrate the thousands of
new immigrants drawn from many diverse cultures and backgrounds) ---N,
The final story has the title of the book and its second section
It is the story of the Palmach heroes who dared and won, who
risked in order that the state should be secure. And the descrip.
tive portion of the story where "the young men and women took
their seats in the pickup truck with their rifles, as though they
were back in the days of the Palmach, and went forth to the
`operation' of going to a movie," is simply enchanting.
The spiritual crises, the military challenges, the welfare needs—
many factors enter into the story which makes "The Signal Fires of
Lachish" an outstanding work about a great historic event — the
making and populating of Israel with men from all parts of the globe
who merge into a great nation.
New Novel—Jewish Sleuth Story
A new breed has been emerging lately in American novels of
suspense — the Jewish sleuth. In "The Winds of April," a novel by
I. D. Baharav, the hero is a working member of the New York police
force, Detective Len Lander. A chance encounter in the Fifth Avenue
Library traps out-of-towner Nell Abarbanell in .a maze of purloined
documents, arson, unnatural death and wide-ranging conspiracy.
Detective Lander stalks a beatnik coffeehouse, a Russian cultural
mission and a Jewish wedding, among hazards, before closing the
case. The novel was published by Pilinary Souree's, NeW York.
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