From Flint Comes Generosity for Eminent
Artist: Pelavin Heads Group That Is Issuing
Raskin's Newest Art Work, 'Ovinu Malkenu'

Approaching his 88th birthday,
Saul Raskin, the eminent artist
whose works on the Haggadah, the
prayer book and numerous re-
ligious subjects are treasured in
Jewish homes throughout the land,
has produced a new book. This
time is it on the traditional Holy
Day prayers—"Ovinu Malkenu"-
"God Our Father."
An unusual story, of tribute to
the artist and to his works, and
as an indication of the affection-
ate regard in which he is held by

SAUL RASKIN

his admirers, is connected with

the publication of the most im-
pressive "Ovinu Malkenu," which
is expected to come off the press
next week. It is a story that has
its locale in Flint, Mich.
For the past year or two, a Flint
attorney who takes a deep inter-
est in Jewish art and literature,
B. Morris Pelavin, has been visit-
ing with Raskin at his studio in
New York. He made several pur-
chases and learned in the course
of the conversations with the artist
that he had completed a new work.
But he no longer had the means of
publishing his creative art. Previ-
ously he had done the work him-
self and then enrolled the large
following his art had earned.
Pelavin thereupon proceeded to
form a corporation of interested
people who contributed a generous
sum to assure the publication of
the new book.
Genesis Publishing Corporation
was organized by Pelavin together
with his son, Michael A.; Raskin's
son, Prof. Eugene Raskin of New
York; the following from Flint:
Louis Kasle, Dr. Saul S. Gorne, Dr.
Maurice Taylor, Edwin L. Elk,
Louis Epstein, Jack C. Shaprow,
Joseph Megdell, Arthur Hurand,
Samuel M. Catsman, Abe Schreiber
and Irving L. Geisser; Albert Katz
of Shaker Heights, 0.; Howard
Mack of Hackensack, N. J., and
Lee Reimer of New York.
Academy Photo-Offset Co. and
its head printer, Lee Reimer,
supervised the printing of the
attractive work.

In a deeply moving message to
Pelavin, Raskin described the back-
ground of the effort to assure the

publication of "Ovinu Malkenu,"
when the Flint admirer told him:
"Permit me the honor, Mr. Ras-
kin, to be your publisher!"
....Overwhelmed by the affection of
his admirers, Raskin wrote: "It
all happened around Hanukah
when we praise the Lord for the
miracles He performed for our
forefathers, and also is perform -
ing in our time. I have the
feeling that a miracle also hap-
pened to me, by sending to me a
man from Flint . . . To me he is
like Elijah the Prophet, assuming
the name of the person Pelavin,
blessed be his name!"
The large-sized book is in the
style of the Pirke Aboth, the Hag-
gadah, Song of Songs and the
other Raskin works. It has a total
of 100 pages-46 comprising the
text, the opposite pages illustrat-
ing them, and an introduction.
Accompanying the Hebrew text

Rabbi Gilbert Emphasizes Obligation
to Inter-Religious Communication

So much has been published in
recent years—indeed, in recent

months—about the Jew in relation
to his neighbors; yet, nearly every
paper.
I
consider
the
medium
of
are several Yiddish acclamations
of faith that add considerable in- black and white drawings a most expression and practically all an-
terest for the readers whose cul- noble one for such a work. Any alyses add to an understanding of

tural roots are in the traditions of
the older generation.
The introduction explains the
contents, and it emphasizes anew
the originality, the imagination,
the spiritual strength that abides
in the 87-year-old artist whose
works nevertheless are filled with
the spirit of youth. The calligraphy
of the new work approaches per-
fection. The drawings are impres-
sive. The idea of illustrating
"Ovinu Malkneu" is in itself most
ingenious.
R a s k i n, in his introduction,
writes:
The Tehillim (the books of
Psalms), the Siddur, the Rosh
Hashanah and Yom Kippur Mah-
zor, are the three books of prayer
by the Jewish people. These books
do not stand completely apart from
each other. The Tehillim enters
the Siddur with a great number of
its Psalms, and the Siddur occu-
pies considerable space in the
Mahzor. In fact, the three books
of prayer make one great book by
which our people in all their dis-
persions approach their Father in
Heaven. This book of prayer, more
than anything else, unites all Jews
in one people.
The prayer Ovinu Malkenu is
one Of the oldest and the dearest
to a Jewish heart. It is considered
to be the prayer of Rabbi Akiba
in his fasting days. In a Siddur
dating from the 9th Century, there
were only 25 verses in Ovinu Mal-
kneu, but during the long chain
of disasters, bloody persecutions
and plagues, the number of invo-
cations increased to 44, in ardent
hope that no more additions would
take place.
Each of the 44 verses begins
with the words Ovinu Malkenu, our
Father our King, and stands sep-
arately. In a group of 6 verses, our
Father and King is asked to in-
scribe His people in the books of
blessing. Another group pleads for
mercy and forgiveness. A few invo-
cations pray to nullify and frus-
trate all the hateful design of our
enemies. Many are the appeals to
our Father and King to do for the
sake of His name; for those that
perished by sword, fire and water,
for sanctification of His name, Kid-
dush Hashem. In these 44 verses
all our needs, hopes, fears, visions
and aspirations are expressed. Our
hearts are deeply moved by devo-
tion, love and trust in our Father
and King.
For many years, in the days of
Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur,
I lived through together with my
people, the deep emotion of that
great prayer. Looking at their
faces, hands, bent figures weeping
in their tallithim, I thought how
good it would be to make a book
just of this prayer with its 44 invo-
cations, a drawing for each verse
opposite the page with the invo-
cation.
For 10 years, I postponed doing
the book in doubt of my capacity
to express all 44 variations on the
theme Ovinu Malkenu, the people
and the angels of God receiving
the prayers and bringing them to
the gates of Heaven. Will I do
justice to such a supreme prob-
lem?
. When I was approaching the age
of 86, I suddenly realized that time
is against me, that I must not
hesitate any longer. "Do it now,"
I said to myself. So, with a prayer
to my Father and King to grant
me strength, clarity of vision and
wisdom of heart, as He did to the
biblical artist Bezalel, I started
the book and completed it after
.about two years of intense work.
It is a book of 46 full page
drawings and as many pages of
text, done with black pencil, pen
and ink, ball-pen, charcoal or car-
bon pencils, all black an white

introduction of color would dimin-
ish or destroy its effectiveness.
You cannot imagine the Torah
written in colored inks. The use of
black and white .enabled me to
give faces their full psychological
content, and the figures their dra-
matic intensity. It gave me the full
blacks of the tallith stripes, and
the tender grays of the angels'
wings.
I think my dear God heard my
prayer and helped me produce
my very best work during the con-
cluding years of life.
The book was published by a
group of sincere friends of things
good, fine and Jewish. Thanks to
them the book is now before my
people, young and old, saying be-
fore an open Oren Hakodesh the
words of Ovinu Malkenue:
Our God and the God of our
Fathers,
They People asks for
Rahamim

Jewish-Christian associations.
"A Jew in Christian America"
by Rabbi Arthur Gilbert, publish-
ed by Sheed and Ward, has much
to commend it. It covers a
vast field, it takes into considera-
tion many aspects of a co-exis-
tence which some call a problem
but which ceases to be problema-
tic when the existing conditions
are properly understood. Rabbi
Gilbert's definitions won't be ac-
cepted by all elements, but in the
main they are illuminating.
One-time associate of the ADL,
with an interruption to direct a
project for the National Confer-
ence of Christians and Jews, Rabbi
Gilbert presently again is with
ADL as director of its interreli-
gious curriculum research depart-
ment.

In his new book he touches
upon American Jewry's position
on the 1965 Education Act and
he takes a stand in support of the

Haifa Dockworkers End Strike
With 10 Pct. Increase in Salary

HAIFA (JTA) — The port of
Haifa was at work again Monday
at full speed, as 1,600 dockworkers
and stevedores returned to duty,

ending their seven-week-long slow-
down strike, which had clogged
the port with nearly 40 ships and
cost the ship owners an estimated
$6,300,000.
The workers went back with a
compromise settlement which

granted them a 10 per cent wage
increase this year and a rise next
year which is not to exceed an ad-
ditional 5 per cent. Finance Min-
ister Pinhas Sapir, who is also act-
ing prime minister now, said that
formula is in line with the gov-
ernment's official wage policy.
In accordance with the settle-
ment, a special committee was
named Sunday night to study the
workers' other demands, including
their insistence that stevedores
employed for eight years be given
the status of permanent employes,
entitling them to certain . social
welfare benefits.
The rulings by the five-man
committee are to be binding on
both sides, and the group is to

hand its decision within a month.
Israel Garber, secretary of the
Haifa Stevedores Union, said Mon-
day:
"It is still not clear whether the
settlement is a victory for my men
or not. Only when the committee
hands down its decisions regard-
ing our outstanding claims will we
be able to see how we stand,'-'
The settlement was reached
over the weekend at a meeting
of leaders of the Histadrut, Is-
rael's federation of labor, with
Transport Minister Moshe Car-
mel and Haifa Mayor Abba
Khoushy. It was approved by
two of the sections of the Haifa
Labor Council Saturday and Fri-
day, and finally passed the third
section here Sunday night.

Johnson plan for unfreezing of
federal funds to aid educational
public movements. He touches
upon anti-Semitic trends in this
country and calls for total repu-
diation of the reactionary ele-
ments. He reviews the history of
Christian-Jewish relations, the
legislative methods to achieve
religious freedom, and numer-
ous related issues.

He advocates frank conversa-
tion on public issues and he pre-
dicts that it would lead to discov-
ery in America of consensus
where it does not now exist, "and
understanding each other better
we would handle disagreement
with greater civility and charity.
His contention is that all reli-
gious groups resort to pressures
upon legislators, and his charge is
accompanied by rebuke.
He contends that "religious lead-
ers, acknowledging the plurality
of our society, have an obligation
to be in communication."

On the topic "The Mission of
the Jew," Rabbi Gilbert asserts:
"Our faith compels us to be in
and of the world, to work at it
and with it. There is no genuine
distinction between the secular
and the holy. All is of God and
is under God's judgment. Our
task is to sanctify life by dedi-
cating it completely . . . " And
he qualifies his view by adding
that "Jews do not believe that
they must convert others and
bring them into the Jewish peo-
plehood in order to achieve the
redemption of humankind. Let
each nation, each people, all re-
ligions, come to God, each in
their own way (Micah 4:5)."
He is critical of the _division

among Jews in Israel, of quarrels
among some groups.
His appeal is primarily for co-
operative, interfaith activities. As
a Reform rabbi, it is evident that
his approach is from that stand-
point, and in the main he makes
a good case for his appeal, as in-
dicated in a portion of his con-
cluding words:
"In the paradox of religion,
strength is our weakness, and our
weakness is strength. Humbly, I
suggest that God's Truth is larger
than any of us have or could have
encompassed. Conversing with each
other we discover that God is
among us revealing Himself anew."

Representatives of Histadrut
said, after the settlement, that if
investigation proves that Haifa
workers received wages lower than
those paid to similar workers at
the port of Ashdod, the Histadrut
will act to equalize the basic pay
here. Mayor Khoushy said that the
settlement has satisfied between
60 per cent and '70 per cent of the THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
workers' demands.
40—Friday, June 17, 1966

Rothberg School Ground Breaking Spurs Fund Efforts

Ceremony marking ground breaking for vocational high school in Ramat Hasharon, Israel, estab-
lished through the Israel Education Fund of the UJA by Sam Rothberg of Atlanta in honor of his late
parents, climaxed IEF's most intense month of project activation. The heavily attended event in Tel Aviv
suburb followed the start of construction of comprehensive high schools in Ramie and Eilah and a public
library in Kiryat Malachi. Rothberg, standing at mircrophone, is responding to the welcoming address
by Mayor Shmuel Hacham, immediately to his right. Other children of Kalman and Minnie Rothberg
attending were Mrs. Leonard Gidding of Plainfield,N.J., third from left on platform, and Mrs. Alex-
ander L. Kramer of Newark, N.J., extreme right. Educational projects activated by IEF since inaugu-
ration in September, 1964, include 26 high schools and four public libraries.

