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.,
VE 8-9364. Subscription $6 a year. Foreign $7.
Second Class Postage Paid at Detroit, Michigan
PHILIP SLOMOVITZ
Editor and Publisher
SIDNEY SHMARAK
CARMI M. SLOMOVITZ
Advertising Manager
Business Manager
CHARLOTTE HYAMS
City Editor
Sabbath Scriptural Selections
This Sabbath, the 5th day of Nissan, .5726, the following scriptural selections
will be read in our synagogues:
Pentateuchal. portion: Levit. 1:1-5:26.
Licht benshen, Friday, March 25. 6:31 p.m.
VOL. XLIX, No. 5
March 25, 1966
Page 4
WarsawGhetto sTriumphOverSupermen
If we were merely to limit ourselves to the
plight of the children who were subjected
to indescribable sufferings during the rule of
the Nazis, it would be sufficient to break our
hearts, to cause us to weep uninterruptedly
over the terror that was invented by insane
minds for torturing human beings.
When this community marks the 23rd
anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising
of 1943, here will be occasion to look at the
record, to witness the creations of children
who were not only under fire but who were
destined for the gas chambers that had been
prepared for them by the German savages.
The display of the drawings and poems by
the children in the Theresienstadt concentra-
tion camp will serve as a reminder of a type
of resistance: the children's answer to bar-
barism in the form of art and literature and
expressions of human kindness.
*
*
*
We now have another documentary — a
remarkable expose of the devilish way in
which the Nazis used hunger as a weapon to
destroy the Jews in their ca'mps and ghettos
and the courageous manner in which children
joined with adults in resisting this devilish
scheme. An impressive document, "The Uses
of Adversity," by Dr. Leonard Tushnet, con-
taining "Studies of Starvation in the Warsaw
Ghetto," published by Yoseloff, describes the
plight of the Jews who were condemned to
death by the Germans, the anguish and the
sufferings, and pays tribute to the heroic
doctors who labored to study the problems,
to find a solution to the pains of starvation
and to provide whatever relief they could
possibly offer. They were themselves among
the victims, and they were martyrs in the
cause of healing. But the chief miracle in
that resistance effort was the task of the
smuggler — the illegal actor who became a
hero because he was bringing in food under
the barbed wires, in devious ways, to provide
sustenance for the thousands who were con-
demned to die of hunger.
It was like declaring legalized murder to
be not only inhuman but illegal and inhuman.
And in battling against such horrors the
children played an historic role. They were
very young — some • of them only 5! — and
they learned to join the battle for existence.
*
*
*
In his deeply moving account of the
starvation in the Warsaw Ghetto, Dr. Tushnet
thus describes the role of the children:
"No matter how much food the smug-
glers brought in, it was quickly snapped
up by the Ghetto population, at least by
those who could afford the high prices.
But there was another even more wide-
spread special group of smugglers, not
engaged in business, often the sole sup-
port of their entire families. These were
the little children from five to ten years
of age. They travelled alone or in gangs.
The smallest and emaciated of them
wrapped burlap bags around their bony
little bodies and crawled through the
barbed wire or were hoisted over the
walls; the bigger ones acted as look-outs.
Hiding in alleyways on the "Aryan" side,
they made their way to more outlying
districts, begging, buying or stealing food.
Death on discovery awaited them no less
than for the adults, but more humane
policemen contented themselves with
merely giving the children severe beatings.
Dr. Ludwik Herszfeld tells of two in-
stances he saw: A German guard took aim
and deliberately shot a child in the legs,
and remarked, "One smuggler less"; an-
other turned a • child around and calmly
shot him between the shoulders. To be shot
to death was a chance that had to be taken;
the choice was between that and starving
to death. The little nameless heroes of the
Ghetto went on with the only way open to
them. They brought in bread, flour and
potatoes to sustain their families a little
while longer. Their deeds were celebrated
in a poem by Henrika Lazowert, one that
became widely popular in the Ghetto:
Through walls, through holes, and through
ruins,
Through barbed wire I make my way.
Hungry, thirsty, and barefoot,
I slide through like a snake,
At noon, at night, and at dawn,
In the heat and hard summer rains.
Envy me not my poor bundle—
My life itself' is at stake.
*
*
*
The plight of the children was only part
of the Warsaw Ghetto tragedy. But the chil-
dren, too, had their role in the resistance, in
the historic uprising that refuted the Nazis'
claim to being supermen. Little children,
starving men and women, a helpless horde of
people who were unprepared for battle fought
against a Nazi army. They were destroyed,
but their spirit survived and in the long run
they and not the Germans were the victors.
This is what we shall pay tribute to when we
mark the 23rd anniversary of the Warsaw
Ghetto uprising.
Self-Hatred as Ev i l as Bigotry
It it were not so tragic, an occurrence in
New York last week would indeed serve as
material for a great comedy. A group posing
as backers of humane slaughtering staged a
little riot against kashrut. They don't like
shehitah — the Jewish traditional way of
animal slaughtering — and they demonstrated
against it by displaying a distorted picture of
shehitah, through misrepresentations and
abuses.
Governmental studies have indicated that
shehitah is far from cruel, that the traditional
Jewish method is humane. But the Council
for Judaism needed a platform. Perhaps
Fannie Hurst, who previously joined the ranks
of the anti-Zionists but later appeared to have
returned to the pro-Israel fold, also needed
a platform. So—they shouted against kashrut.
The problem of shehitah has come up
again and again in many lands. Invariably,
those who have aimed to prevent cruelty to
animals have conceded to the humaneness of
the Jewish practice. In many instances, efforts
to curb shehitah stemmed from anti-Semitic
courses.
Seldom, however, have Jews joined ac-
tively in a movement to interfere with an
established Jewish religious practice. The
joining of Jews with antagonistic anti-Jewish
forces in New York is a shocking demonstra-
tion of a lack of understanding about shehitah
by Jews, and this is deplorable.
What a spectacle these self-hating Jews
provided! No one forces them to eat kosher
food. It would be useless to indicate to them
that the pure food laws of our land stem from
the kashrut teachings. But there is no argu-
ing with bigots, and there is less of a chance
to win an argument when the haters are self-
haters. This is the only way to describe the
demonstrating haters of kashrut who pose as
humane in the treatment of animals but who
did not hesitate to resort to blows at those
who want kosher food. That's how it has been
in history: Nazis protected their dogs whom
they sicked for attacks on Jews. The pogrom-
ists in Russia first went to church to recite
our Psalms and then went to destroy the
ghetto. Jews who attack their fellow-men for
adhering to a religious tradition, while preach-
ing humaneness to animals, are akin to such
inconsistencies. They can be described by
only one word: self-hatred.
The Perennial Tribute
WSU Publishes Franklin Talks
Under Wattenberg's Editorship
Under the editorship of Dr. William H. Wattenberg, who held
the Leo M. Franklin Memorial Lectureship in Human Relations at
Wayne State University for 1963-64, WSU Press has issued Volume
XIV of the Frank memorial lectures publications under the title "AU
Men are Created Equal."
Distinguished participants in this lecture series, whose papers are
part of this volume, included Prof. John P. Roche of Brandeis Univer-
sity, Supreme Court Justice William 0. Douglas, former Assistant Sec-
retary of State and Ambassador to Brazil Adolf A. Berle, in additioli
to Dr. Wattenberg and the following participants in a symposium on
"Psychological Issues With Respect to Race Relations:" Lloyd Allen
Cook, Juanita Collier, George Henderson, Ross Stagner and Henry
Watts.
Dr. Wattenberg's lecture was on "The Problem of Self-Imposed
Inequalities." In it he made the point: "We have tended to accept
too readily the motion that efficiency must produce leisure. There
is another way of looking at the situation. This is to say our
efficiency has given us an oversupply of human service. This
service is every bit as perishable a good as would be an oversupply
of vegetables. Perhaps we must take the position that the human
service must be utilized and our problem is to find ways of
using it."
Roche spoke on "Equality in America." Douglas' topic was
"Equality and Diversity." "Economic Equality and Government Action"
was Berle's topic.
The Arabs and Israel
Jay Walz's 'The Middle East'
Reviews Many Conflicting Issues
Jay Walz, N. Y. Times foreign correspondent, in "Middle East,"
a Times Byline Book published by Atheneum, expresses the view that
Israelis and Arabs will not become good neighbors "in the time of the
present rulers," since they all participated in the hostilities, but he
believes that "time will remove these veterans from the scene, and
their successors will focus their telescope not so much on the frontiers
of Israel as on the great region before and beyond."
•
Showing that there is an exchange of brainpower between the
various countries, maintaining that Palestinians are the ablest of the
Arabs and that "probably those who have had opportunities for
advancement would not be content to go back to the basically unviable
strip of land Israel occupies," he adds:
"Similarly, young Israelis are growing up who do not understand
fully their parents' attachment to the Jewish homeland. Their brains
too are being exported—on technical aid programs in developing
Africa, for instance. This indifference may in time match that of
the young Palestinians. Broader nerspectives, a broader outlook,
broader opportunities may lead a future generation to a land and a
life that are really promising."
Walz advocates patience and he goes along with the State Depart-
ment in supporting continued aid for Nasser. "Regardless of Nasser's
discourtesies, it is paramount that young Egyptians and Arabs every-
where keep looking toward the West," he states.
His book commences with a review of historical events, including
Zionist developments. He points out that "the Arabs have never
appreciated what Israel meant to Jews."
Regarding the Arab League, he writes that it is "virtually
impotent without the intermittent infusion of Nasser's dynamic per-
sonality." But he adds that "however much Nasser's dynamism may
alarm the West, it sometimes frightens the Middle East more and
certainly has not yet united it." And the "unwanted" state of Israel is,
as he indicated, "used to drive Arabs together."
U. S. interest in Israel, the Jordan water plans and other aspects
of the Middle East situation are thoroughly reviewed in this well-
formulated paperback.