November 2:
Crucial Days
at the Polls in
(LS. and Israel

Regrettable
Date Conflicts

Shiffman's
Generosity

Christadelphians'
Taunt to Nasser

Commentary
Page 2

In Israel it is equally crucial, Who will

it be after Nov. 2; will it be Levi Esh-

Racial issues have been injected into

kol (left) again as premier of the Jew-

our current political campaign .

ish State, or will it be Menahem Begin

It is urgent that all citizens go to the

(right) as the representative of the

polls on Tuesday to cast their bal-

Herut-Liberal faction? And what role

lots without bias, in a spirit of fair-

will Ben-Gurion play in the final show-

ness—the American way.

down in Israel's disrupted political

spheres?

THE JEWISH NEWS

1=. "T" 1=2 CD I "T"
A Weekly Review

NA c I-1 1 G44 1/4 iv

In This Issue:

Section Two

Stuffed in

Front

of Jewish Events

Section

Michigan's Only English-Jewish Newspaper — incorporating The Detroit Jewish Chronicle

VOLUME XLVI I I—NO. 10

Printed in a
100% Union Shop

17100 W. 7 Mile Rd., Detroit 48235—VE 8-9364—OCT. 29, 1965

$6.00 Per Year; This [sue 20c

Soviet Tactics at UN Arouse
41 Detroiters, on Israel Mission,
Global Defiance
Pledge 38 Pct. More to '66 Drive;

(

Eisenhower at UJA Parley Dec. ll

On the final day of their 14-day visit to Rome and Israel, last Thursday,
the 41-member Detroit Service Group mission, meeting at the new Hilton
Hotel in Tel Aviv, made personal pledges to the 1966 Allied Jewish Campaign
reflecting an increase of 38 per cent over their 1965 gifts.
The meeting, at which Walter L. Field and George M. Stutz, mission
chairmen, presided, was joined by five Detroiters who are participating in
the national United Jewish Appeal study mission—Max M. Fisher, UJA general
chairman; Sol Eisenberg and Irwin Green, 1965 Allied Jewish Campaign
chairmen; Phillip Stollman, AJC vice chairman and UJA executive committee
member; and William Avrunin, executive director of the Detroit Jewish
Welfare Federation.
Thirty Detroiters are members of the national UJA mission whose Israel
visit concluded last night with a dinner at which Israel Prime Minister and
Mrs. Levi Eshkol were the hosts. (See story, Page 5).
The invitation issued this week to the annual national UJA conference,
to be held at the New Hilton Hotel in New York Dec. 10-12, states that the
conference will inaugurate the 1966 WA campaign and will commemorate
the 20th anniversary of V-E Day. Guests at the conference banquet, Dec. 11,
will be former President and General of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower,
Field Marshal Earl Alexander of Tunis and General Pierre Koenig, heads of
the American, British and French armed forces in World War II.

NEW YORK (JTA)—The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish
Organizations, representing 21 national Jewish groups in the U. S., called on the
Soviet Union to reverse the action of its United Nations delegation in "frustrating"
adoption of a UN convention condemning anti-Semitism.
The Soviet proposal, offered as an amendment to the Draft Convention for
the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, had included Zionism among the prac-
tices condemned in the statement under consideration in the Third Committee of
the UN General Assembly. An earlier amendment, cosponsored • by the United
States and 33razil, listed anti-Semitism along with Nazism and other forms of
race hatred.
"The falsehood embodied in the Soviet proposal is so blatant, "the confer-
ence declared, "as to make it clear that it could never have been intended seri-
ously but was rather designed simply to eliminate the possibility of any reference
to anti-Semitism among the practices outlawed in the Draft Convention.
"Regrettably, that effort has succeeded. As a result of the Soviet maneuver,
the General Assembly's Social, Humanitarian and Cultural Committee has voted to
exclude all amendments listing specific forms of hatred, including the one re-
ferring to anti-Semitism.
"We cannot believe that the Soviet people take any comfort from the action

(Continued on Page 14)

i

History-Making Responsa to Ben-Gur on Query Compiled
In Baruch Litvin's Sensational Volume, 'Jewish Identity

SHAUL LITVIN, son of Mr. and Mrs. Baruch Litvin, mak-
ing presentation of his father's book to DAVID BEN-GURION.

Shaul Litvin has just returned from Israel where he attended
the wedding of his son, Daniel, to an Israeli who had come to the
Jewish State from Turkestan 15 years ago, was graduated from the
Hebrew University, served in Israel's army and is now a teacher in
one of the Israel religious schools. Daniel, who holds the bachelors
and masters degrees from the Israel Institute of Technology —
Technion — has been in Israel for six years. He is now pursuing
graduate studies for his doctorate. The grandparents, Mr. and Mrs.
Baruch Litvin of Mount Clemens, were ordered by their physician not
to make the trip to the wedding. It was while in Israel that Shaul
Litvin two weeks ago presented the first copy of "Jewish Identity"
to Ben-Gurion. It was one of two special deluxe editions made of the
book. The other copy was made for Mr. Litvin.

Responses by 45 of world Jewry's leading scholars to a popularly phrased question, "Who is a
Jew?", that was posed by the then-Israel Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, now compiled into a
single volume by a venerable Mount Clemens Orthodox Jew, Baruch Litvin, appears certain to emerge
as the most significant single work dealing with Jewish identification.
After more than three years of conflicts during which Litvin met with obstacles in getting
his work published, the compilation has just come off the press, under the title "Jewish Identity—
Modern Response and Opinions." The documentary compilation by Litvin was edited by Prof.
Sidney B. Hoenig. Able scholars assisted in some of the translations from the Hebrew, French and
other languages. Morris Noble, Detroit educator, was one of the translators. Another translator was Dr.
Alfred Greenbaum, one of the librarians of Wayne State University Library.
"Jewish Identity," containing the views of the Jewish scholars who were selected to provide
the answers to the question posed by Ben-Gurion, is like a world who's who of the most noted
Jewish men of learning.
Litvin subdivided his compilation into sections subdivided among rabbis, lay scholars and
authors. Views of Israeli rabbis and the laymen head each section, followed by the reponsa from
European and then American writers. There is an appended list of profiles of contributors, thus
enabling the readers to gain information about the men expressing their views on the subject.
There are two indices—one of sources of references and another of subjects and names. The only
Hebrew material in the book is a letter to Ben-Gurion from the
late Chief Rabbi Isaac Joseph Soloveitchik of Boston and the late
Rabbi Chaim Heller of New York.
This work was financed in its entirety—including all mailing
and translating and editing expenses—by Litvin. It is an exces-
sively expensive work that has been published by Philip Feldheim
of New York. It represents a labor of love—Litvin's desire to
reaffirm basic principles that should lead to a check on assimila-
tory tendencies in Jewry.
It was not an easy task. One of the
who responded to
Ben-Gurion protested against the book's public ' )n, and Ben-Gurion
withdrew his permission to have the compilat Jon published. There
was an intercession by a prominent Israeli leader and after added
pleadings permission was renewed. That, too, involving the in-
curring of great expense.
In the course of the controversy that ensued, there arose the
dispute over a title, and Litvin finally decided to call his work
"Jewish Identity" instead of what had by then become the hack-
neyed phrase "What is a Jew?"

(Continued on Page 10)

BARUCH LITVIN

