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, Mich. 48235.
VE 8-9364. Subscription $6 a year. Foreign $7.
Second Class Postage Paid at Detroit, Michigan

PHILIP SLOMOVITZ

CARMI M. SLOMOVITZ

Editor and Publisher

SIDNEY SHMARAK

Business Manager

Advertising Manager

CHARLOTTE HYAMS

City Editor

Sabbath Scriptural Selections

This Sabbath, the thirtieth day of Sivan, 5726 — Rosh Hodesh Tammuz — the
following selections will be read in our synagogues:
Pentateuchal portions, NUM. 16:1-18:38, 28:9-15. Prophetical portions, Is. 66:1-24,
I Sam. 20:18, 42.
Second Day Rosh Hodesh Tammuz Torah reading, Sunday, .Num. 28:1-15.

Licht Benshen, Friday, June 17, 7:51 p.m.

VOL. XLIX NO. 17

Page 4

June 17, 1966

Road Toward Integrated Communities

Problems that continue to arise over the
disruption of existing residential areas, and
the strivings of civic-minded groups to retain
area normality, may disturb our community
much more in the months to come than they
have in the past decade. The population move-
ments toward the suburbs, the issues that
arise in matters related to our public school
system, the tensions that stem from occur-
rences in New York and in Los Angeles,
compel serious consideration of a basic Amer-
ican problem.
Efforts continue to be made in one Detroit
area so as to improve the functions of an im-
portant high school, by advancing its curricu-
lar standards, to assure retention of that stu-
dent body's integrated status.
Meanwhile, in another area, as a result
of the fusion of several school districts to
function as the new, Beaubien High School,
an even more serious organized move is in-
effect to assure good neighborliness. The
Beaubien Action Committee is striving to
cooperate with educators to establish an
excellent school system for Negroes and
whites, and the results of this undertaking
may well serve as a pattern for general action.
What this task sums up is a direct effort
to discourage further neighborhood deteriora-
tion, to encourage residents to remain in an
important area in the Northwest, to establish
the type of good neighborliness and friend-
liness among all elements of the population
that will make integration feasible.
Many serious obstacles must be hurdled
in tackling the pressing issues. This is not a

one-way street: it is a two-way avenue that
demands cooperation from both racial ele-
ments, from all government agencies, from
our school system. It calls for understanding
among all of our people, and in the Jewish
community where the integration efforts have
become challenging. But there also is need
for understanding among the incoming Negro
elements, and unless all can get together on
a rational and non-prejudicial basis, the tasks
of all community councils and those striving
for integration will become more difficult.
There are, indeed, prejudices to be over-
come. Here is a typical -example of existing
suspicions: In a study of the Los Angeles
situation, in an article in the New Republic
entitled "Watts — Waiting for D-Day," An-
drew Kopkind, its author, reports:
"In Watts, the whites — and even the
middle-class Negroes — cannot do much to
win the confidence of the ghetto. There is
suspicion all around. One Watts nationalist
leader told me, when I called for an inter-
view, 'I don't think you'd give us a fair shake
because like most liberals you're probably a
Jew and very sensitive to anti-Semitism, and
you just don't want to understand black na-
tionalism.' The impression is strong that, in
every way, it is already too late in Watts."
Detroit isn't Harlem or Watts. Neverthe-
less, suspicion spreads, and so do rumors,
and both contribute towards disunity and
disharmony. It is this that must be averted.
It is sincerely to be hoped that groups like
the Beaubien Action Committee will succeed
in that direction.

Facing the Issues of Educational Failures

Commenting upon the warnings of Jewish
religious leaders that there is a diminishing
effectiveness of Jewish education and that
many Jews now see themselves "in predomi-
nantly secular terms," the Christian Century
stated editorially: "The only appropriate
Protestant or Roman Catholic comment is
`Welcome to the Club!' "
Indicating that the Jewish religious spokes-
men who participated in a symposium in
Toronto on the subject of religious needs dur-
ing the Conservative rabbis' convention,
apparently confessed that the Jewish commu-
nity "has failed to transmit its religious heri-
tage to its children," the Protestant Christian
Century added:

The secularizing process—hailed by some and
feared by others—is sweeping through every re-
ligious community in the country with the excep-
tion of a few Christian sects isolated from main-
stream America in their wilfully structured
religious ghettos. But the Jewish theologians at
Toronto held that the loss of Jewish religious
identity and commitment is due not primarily to
secularizing forces but to "divisive denomina-
tionalism, the most pernicious and destructive
element in American Jewish life. Jewish denomi-
nationalism, they believe, has taught "primary
loyalty to an institution, rather than to God and
Torah." And since an atomized Judaism is not
equal to the pressures of the times, Judaism must,
they insisted, have its own ecumenical movement.
They urged the Orthodox, Conservative and Re-
form divisions of Judaism to cooperate in curri-
culum research, in studies of the drop-out prob-
lems in religious schools, in analyses of the
Jewish position on contemporary ethical dilemmas,
in strengthening Hillel Foundations on campuses
and in deepening religious instruction. Moreover,
they predicted that official Jewish divisions will
eventually disappear if the three groups work to-
gether in teaching their children about God, man
and human duty. Christian educators, who have
little to contribute and much to learn, will watch
this development in Judaism with great interest.

As a comment on internal Jewish needs
and problems, this is an interesting observa-
tion by a theological organ. Is an internal
Jewish "ecumenical" movement possible? Re-
gardless of the differences among the three

divisions in our religious ranks, can we hope
for achdut
for unity — at least in the
formulation of the educational programs?
There are frequent expressions of pessi-
mism, and rabbis have been most outspoken
in their fearfulness over the reactions of
their faith by young Jews. There is no doubt
that the secularist incursions at times appear
menacing. We can not endorse the extreme
sense of doubt that accompanies the testing
of our spiritual strength. Nevertheless, it is
heartening to know that the threats to the
survival of Jewish values are being met with
earnestness and with a desire to approach a
solution that will make the educational
approaches workable. Perhaps the frankness
with which all segments in Jewry are con-
sidering our cultural needs also will bring
about the unity that is essential to the attain-
ment of the basic goal in our educational
efforts.

—

Our Day Schools

The school year has ended and our educa-
tional institutions now have the responsibility
to plan properly for the year to come. The
many problems that face us — those of per-
sonnel, of financing, of proper curricula —
must be tackled with a sense of deep responsi-
bility.
In the Jewish community there are recur-
ring challenges. Studies are now being made
on the status of our schools. Committees are
exploring the advisability of communal sup-
port for Day Schools. That study must be
accelerated. The need for expanded Jewish
studies is so vital that there dare not be any
delays in decisions.
Each of our local three Day Schools appar-
ently is performing its duties well. Their
needs are great. The need for their existence
is becoming more apparent as time goes on.
There must be no postponement of action
to protect them and to assure continuation
of their positive tasks as Jewish educational
media.. -

The History of the Cabinet

Remarkable Historical Account
In Gerald W. Johnson's Analysis

When a book for young people offers a vast amount of historical
data and not only properly evaluates the subject under discussion
but deals with the entire matter by gathering material closely related
to it, he contributes towards the enlightenment of the upcoming
generation.
Such a book is "The Cabinet" by Gerald W. Johnson, published
by William Morrow and Co. (425 Park, S., NY16).
Johnson, a Baltimore free-lance newspaperman, has injected
into his work such fascination, and has gathered so many important
facts about all our Presidents, that while his book deals with the Cabi-
net, it could well be considered a resume of presidential phobias,
habits, customs, loves, hatreds, jealousies and political squabbles.
Indeed, the young reader will learn from this book the tech-
niques of presidential Cabinet functions, the manner in which the
presidential assistants first were called into being, how the Cabinet
developed into an established function of our government.
There are so many details about. the Cabinets from Washington's
time to-date, there were so many intrigues, our Presidents were faced
with so many challenges, that Johnson's compilation, because of the
intimate accounts it relates, reads like a novel. Yet it is history, and
by offering this valuable account he has enriched our textbooks.
Indeed, this reviewer would urge that the Johnson book should
be used as a textbook. As supplementary material related to the
history of the presidency, it is superb.
A reviewer could take note of developments during any one
of a dozen administrations in describing this work. Let us take as
an example of the experiences of James Madison. "It is possible,"
the author of "The Cabinet" writes, "that Madison knew more
about the theory of government than any other man alive in 1808,
the year that he was elected. But the theory of government is one
thing, and the art of government is something very different. This
fact is one that philosophers have seldom understood."
Then he proceeds to describe the dangers that confronted h'
because of unwise selections, the chances he took and how he saV
himself from embarrassment when he appointed James Monroe as
Secretary of State. "This struggle," Johnson writes, "was the first
great effort by CongresS to make the Cabinet subservient to it rather
than to the President." And the subsequent transformations are
recorded in the accounts of the battles incurred by other Presidents and
the manner in which the Cabinet emerged as such a vital function in
American affairs.
Johnson also describes how the Kitchen Cabinet developed — how
Andrew Jackson, while having an official Cabinet "in the front parlor,"
had "met his real advisers in the back of the home, out of sight,
perhaps in the kitchen. Thus the famous Kitchen Cabinet, which
Jackson's enemies pretended to believe was a terrible thing, came
to be."
Thus, an interesting theme is developed with marked skill, and
a fine book, interestingly illustrated by Leonard Everett Fisher, is
the result of an able writer's skilfull research into history.

Rabbi Klappholz's 'Living Faith'

In 82 pages, Rabbi Kurt Klappholz, who majored in philosophy
at the University of 'Berlin and was ordained at the Holdesheimer
Rabbinical Seminary of Berlin, and who now holds a pulpit in Brook-
lyn, has incorporated 15 essays dealing with Jewish life, Torah and
observance, in a volume entitled "Living Faith," published by Bloh,
Rabbi Klappholz, who is a leader in Orthodox ranks, deals
effectively with the subject of prayer and defines the concept Of
holiness.
His essays deal also with daily living—with concepts of prosperity
—as well as with matters related to faith.
There is an interesting essay on "The Shepherd Psalm"—
Psalm 23—and his concluding essay, "The Path to Real Happiness,"
incorporates Psalm 1. Therein he strikes a high note by declaring:
"The wicked are like the chaff, which—having no substance—
disintegrates when the wind carries it away." And he concludes by
quoting from that Psalm:
"For the Lord regardeth the way of the righteous;
But the way of the wicked shall perish."

