THE JEWISH NEWS
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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
CHARLOTTE liYAMS
SIDNEY SHMARAK
CARMI M. SLOMOVITZ
City Editor
Advertising Manager
Business Manager
Sabbath Scriptural Selections
This Sabbath, the 30th day of Av, 5725, the following scriptural selections will
be read in our synagogues:
Pentateuchal portion: Deut. 11:26-16:17; Num. 28:9-15; prophetical portion: Isa.
66:1-24; I Sam. 20:18; 42.
Licht benshen, Friday, Aug. 27, 6:57 p.m.
VOL. XLVIII, No. 1
Page 4
Aug. 27, 1965
Neighborhood Changes and the Replacements
Our nation faces grave dangers on many
fronts. We are involved in Vietnam in an
unhappy development that is tantamount to
war. We pray that this threatening situation
may end very soon, and we hope with all
Americans that the United Nations will suc-
ceed in taking over so that we should be re-
lieved of the responsibilities in the Commu-
nist-infested area.
But there is an even graver situation
domestically. The race issue certainly is not
a trifling matter. The riots in several areas,
the loss of lives, the looting and the disre-
gard for the law are cause for reckoning, for
serious consideration of the responsibilities
that devolve upon government and people
to help solve the problem.
There is general agreement that the con-
ditions which have forced our Negro fellow-
citizens into a state of lawlessness must be
corrected. We must strive to provide the best
educational media for the Negro children so
that they may very soon fit into the eco-
nomic system without danger of a continuing
joblessness. Housing conditions must be im-
proved, the slum areas must be eliminated
and all other standards of living must be up-
lifted.
In the course of viewing the situation we
must also be realistic. There is involved the
problem of changing neighborhoods. This,
too, is a normal development, since the Ne-
groes must be enabled to leave the slums and
acquire wholesome residences.
But why is it that in nearly instances of
disturbed areas it is the Jew who is directly
involved as the replaced person? Why is it
that integration does not affect all elements
in the larger American communities and in
the main it is the Jew whose business remains
in the Negro sectors while his residence is
acquired by the Negro, and the resentment
that emerges, leading to looting of stores, in-
variably affects the Jew?
Is the fault of the Jewish community that
our neighborhoods are changing abnormally,
that there are flights from one area to an-
other without permitting acceptable and re-
comendable integration?
It is difficult to believe that this can pos-
sibly be true. In that case, it could well be
said that other ethnic groups also have fled
from their homes to make it possible for Jews
to move in. And if entire areas have been
evacuated to enable Jews en mass to change
neighborhoods, then the pursuit by Negroes
is similarly understandable.
What the existing situation proves is that
the large American communities are in a
sickening state, that we have not found a way
for proper integration, that we are in a sick
mood and we had better get well quickly be-
fore the entire nation is affected by the dis-
ease that results in looting and lawlessness
on the one hand and race hatred on the other.
Lessons of the Past and the Pacts for Peace
During the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem,
there were, among the hundreds of newspa-
per correspondents and communications
media representatives many men who were
hardened by the facts of life. They came to
listen to a trial's proceedings, to facts that
were believed to have been generally known.
But when witnesses began to produce evi-
dence of the cruelties that were practiced
against children, when it was revealed anew
that the beasts had tortured babies, crashing
some against walls, tearing limb from limb,
they broke down, and many wept.
This was experienced again during the
Auschwitz trial which ended in Frankfurt
last Thursday. There, too, the horrors were
spread on the court record, the inhumanity of
men who turned into beasts became evident.
Yet, during that trial, defendants jeered,
they were unaffected, and they might have
been heard crying "chicken" to those who
showed compassion. And their defense was
that they took orders! It is under the guise
of order-taking that men murdered, that hu-
man beings turned into animals—and some of
their acts might have been abhorrent even
to the dumbest of animals!
* 0
Now we have a new era — one of diplo-
matic cooperation between the two peoples.
One of the partners in the new relationship
— the Jewish — has survived an attempt by
the earlier generation of its Germanic partner
to destroy it. Therefore the relationship re-
mains tense, the exchange of ambassadorships
still is marked by a measure of suspicions,
and the leaders of both people are faced with
the responsibility of creating new conditions
which will assure a genuine friendship.
Indeed, the suspicions are two-fold: the
Germans will most naturally be confronted
with the unforgettable question whether Jews
with whom they will have dealings will al-
ways be reminded of Auschwitz; and Jews will
most assuredly link the German name with
ancestors whose cruelty will go down in his-
tory as the most brutal in mankind's records.
A new era commences in German-Jewish
relations. World Jewry will surely concur
with Israeli leadership in encouraging the
establishment of -good- relations between the
tw_o_conntries_ancLin_an_effort to prevent the
recurrence of anything resembling Nazism.
But in the process there will be neither for-
giveness nor forgetfulness, and there will al-
ways emerge the question of the morality of
following orders, when such commands lead
to murder and to genocide.
*
The verdicts in the Frankfurt trial of the
Auschwitz criminals were rendered during
the same week in which the emissaries of
Israel and Germany assumed their posts in
Tel Aviv and Bonn. They are inseparable
aspects of a situation that calls for serious
consideration of human as well as diplomatic
relations. While international friendships are
necessary to lead to peace among peoples
and to worldwide amity, the abandonment
of a theory of order-taking becomes a moral
issue. It is part of the most sacred humani-
tarian principles that injustice, massacring
—genocide—is to be ruled out if people are to
live in peace and in mutual accord. It is as
wrong to take orders to pillage and to loot
and to kill fellow-humans in Warsaw and in
Lodz and in Berlin and in Budapest, as it is
in Los Angeles and in Williamsburg and in
Rochester.
The Nazi era has ended, but the recollec-
tions of it will haunt the descendants of the
persecutors, will alert the victims and their
relatives, will compel serious consideration
by peoples everywhere to the issues involved
in basic human relations.
* *
*
No verdict against the criminals who
were responsible for the death of millions
can be too severe. But it is not the criminal
alone who is involved: his kinsmen must
make new vows never again to permit an or-
der-giving regime to commit genocide.
At the same time, the generations that
follow, by making new pacts of amity, have
the joint responsibility to strive for the high-
est goals allotted to man: to treat life as
sacred, to consider protection for human
dignity as a basic goal for all governments.
Under such rule we may even hope for even-
tual worldwide peace. Just as "out of Zion
shall go forth the Law," so, let us hope, may
out of- the new pacts made in Zion's behalf
develop such a peace.
MSU Professor Kreinin Describes
Israel's Extensive Aid to Africa
Israel's vast program of aid to African countries, the extensive
program of technical know-how provided by Israelis to underdeveloped
areas, is described factually in a significant study by Dr. Mordecai
Kreinin, professor of economics at Michigan State University.
In his volume, "Israel and Africa—A Study in Technical Co-
operation," published by Frederick A. Praeger (111 4th, NY 3), the
MSU professor has gathered the data relating to asssistance given by
Israel in rural development, the training of youth, vocational manage-
ment, medicine, commercial ventures, guidance in organizing trade
unionism and numerous other fields which have helped elevate the
standards of countries receiving such aid.
As an indication of the traditional aim to render such assistance
to their fellow-men by Jews, Prof. Kreinin commences his work by
quoting from Theodor Herzl's "Altneuland," written in 1902, in
which the founder of the political Zionist movement wrote as part
of his predictions of the world society to come: "Now that I have
lived to see the restoration of the Jews, I should like to pave the
way for the restoration of the Negroes ... That is why I am working
to open up Africa."
What has motivated Israel's aid program for Africa? Dr. Kreinin
states that Israel, herself a beneficiary of aid programs until mid-1962,
became a supplier of technical assistance, having welcomed 1,300
trainees from 60 countries in 1961, and "this development was given
as a major reason for terminating American technical aid to Israel."
The reasons for Israel's aid to Africa are: First, "the satisfaction
of being able to help others"; the 'obvious advantage in gaining friends
in the increasingly important Afro-Asian bloc, thus breaking through
the economic and political isolation of the Middle East"; "technical
cooperation with other nations can provide employment for a small
but significant manpower surplus."
There are the "ideological contacts established through the
socialist and labor movement," and Prof. Kreinin's study offers an
interesting analysis of the history and scope of Israel's program,
showing how relations began in Burma and the contacts thereupon
spread to other African countries.
Describing the functions of the cooperatives in Israel, of the
Moshavim and the Kibbutzim, Dr. Kreinin explains the training in
cooperatives transferred to the African settings based on Israeli ex-
periences.
By conducting seminars, by training African students in Israel,
these programs were advanced. As a typical example, Dr. Kreinin
relates: "Following a three-week study tour by four Guinean labor
leaders, a delegation of 10 cooperators from Guinea spent seven
months in Israel (in 1960), studying the trade unions and cooperative
movement. They paid particular attention to agricultural cooperation,
and part of their training involved work in the villages and study of
their organizational structure . . . Upon their return home, they all
entered various phases of cooperation."
Experiences in Israeli villages, demonstration of the work of the
cooperatives, were taught to Africans and the benefits were derived
by the students from Western and Eastern Nigeria, Burma and othe --
lands. The social and economic advantages of land settlement well
thus transferred to the Africans. Agricultural training in Israel be= ----/
came a vital factor in this technical cooperation program.
Through Gadna—the Israeli Youth Battalions—and Nachal-
the Fighting Pioneering Youth—the Israelis taught community de..
velopment and youth training to African students. Ghana Young
Pioneers gained inspiration from the Israelis. "In Togo an Israeli
survey expert offered a plan for establishing a pioneer agricultural
youth movement . . The Ivory Coast requested Israeli assistance
to transform its entire army to a Nachal pattern." A long list of
other countries is mentioned as having requested aid in developing
the youth movements.
The vast program of aid in vocational training, management educa-
tion, medicine, trade unionism and commercial ventures are outlined
at length in the impressive study by Dr. Kreinin. Crucial problems
arose and were resolved with Israelis' aid and the labor movement's
strength in Israel served as a guide to African organizational schemes.
Especially significant is Israel's aid to the Africans in the medical
field. Prof. Kreinin points out that Israel is continuing such assistance
by introducing "clinics or hospital departments in specialties such as
pediatrics and ophthalmology."
The setbacks and hostilities also are enumerated by Prof. Kreinin
who states that African countries may yet be in the camp hostile to
Israel. "But these setbacks are clearly outweighed by the friendly
attitude and staunch support for Israel by almost all of the African
nations," he concludes.
Dr. Kreinin, a native of Israel, received his MA and PhD at the
University of Michigan where he was on the teaching and research
staffs before going to MSU in 1957. Recipient of major fellowships
and awards, he has been a consultant to the U. S. Department of Com-
merce, the Joint Economic Committee of Congress and the Council on
Foreign Relations in New York. He is the author of many monographs
and magazine articles and is currently engaged in research •on the
im • act of the Euro • can Common Market on Israel's economy.