Dead Sea Potash Works Enlarged
With Aid of Israel Bond Funds

Lekachman's Study of Econonriist Keynes

In "The Age of Keynes," a note-
worthy Random House biography,
Robert Lekachman deals with the
life, the ideas, the influence of the
man described as the greatest
economist of our time—John May-
nard Keynes.
Students of economics and of
government, those interested in the
basic developments in this country
in the changing eras that began
with Franklin D. Roosevelt and the
aftermath of revolutionary occur-
rences in this country's economic
status under succeeding presi-
dents, will be enlightened by La-
kachman's work and will find it
indispensable as a guide to an
understanding of what has occurred
in the evolution of the past two
generations.

Keynesian economic s, de-
scribed as the "great advance
founded upon a great achieve-
ment," is evaluated here as "the
triumph of an idea," with
Keynes as the genius who exerted
powerful influence.

During the past year, Israel Bond funds have played a major
role in the expansion of the Dead Sea Works. Shown here is a con-
veyor belt at a new plant which has an annual capacity of 400,000
tons of potash, and is expected to bring Israel's exports of that min-
eral to 600,000 tons per year. The new installation makes a crystal-
lized fertilizer which is preferred by foreign customers to the powd-
ered form of potash which the Dead Sea Works has been producing.

J ohanan ben Zakkai—Hero of Peace

BY DAVID SCHWARTZ

(Copyright, 1966, JTA, Inc.)

Now that summer is over and
the -children are returning to their
school books, it is apropos to re-
call the story of a man who be-
lieved in schools.
Most of us believe in schools in
a sort of way, but not in the way
Johanan ben Zakkai believed in
therm
lie lived in the tragic days of
the destruction of Judea by Rome.
The Jews were putting up a won-
derful battle. Rome was the might
jest empire of the world, and little
Judea had the effrontery to fight it.
Johanan ben Zakkai was a man
of peace. He was an all-out man.
Most of us are for peace when it
is not hard to be for peace, but to
be for peace when the war drums
are sounding and the flags are fly-
ing, that is hard. The Jews who
were battling Rome were v e r y
courageous but you had to be just
as brave to be for peace then.
"Iron," said Rabbi Johanan ben
Zakkai, "is the implement of war,
and therefore our fathers com-
manded us not to use any iron in
the building of the holy altar. Our
people are being ravaged and slain
and others taken captive, sold to
be worked as slaves in foreign
mines. It is impossible for us to
stand against imperial Rome."
"We will die to the last man,"
said the zealots, "rather than sur-
render to Rome."
"No, we must live and not die,"
said Johanan ben Zakkai.
When, on the ninth of Av, the
Temble in Jerusalem went up in
flames, the people wept and Jo-
hanan ben Zakkai wept with them.
"No longer, " said the people,
"will we be able to offer burnt
offerings pleasing to the Lord."
"It is written," said Johanan
ben Zakkai," that the Lord does
not delight in burnt offerings but
rather in mercy and charity."
But roundabout there was preci-
ous little of mercy. Little children
were torn from their mothers and
the highways were full of the
wounded and dying, with no one to
attend them.
One day a funeral cortege was
to be seen wending its way through
the streets of embattled Jerusalem.
At least, some on-lookers said, this
man who had died had friends
left to give him honorable burial.
Slowly the procession made its
way past soldiers and crying
women. The cortege passed through
the gate of Jerusalem. Ordinarily,
the Jewish sentries would have
stopped anyone trying to go through
the gate, but a funeral procession
was another matter.
Outside the gate, the cortege
wended its way until it came close
to a Roman encampment. Then it

stopped. The casket was opened
and out stepped Rabbi Johanan
ben Zakkai.
"Take me to your Commander,"
he said to the Roman sentry. "I
have an important message for
him."
The Ramon commander knew of
him and he was very pleased to
meet him.
"You were of the peace party,"
said the Roman chief, "and you
knew that if the Jewish soldiers
had opened the casket and learned
your purpose they would have
slain you on the spot. Why did you
risk your life?"
"Well," said Johanan ben Zakkai,
"I expect Rome to win, so I wanted
to ask a little favor. I would like
permission to establish a little
school in Yavneh."
It was just too much.
"You risked your life," said the
Roman chief, "to ask for that! If
you asked to be appointed gover-
nor of the province, I could under-
stand. Well, your r e q u e s t is
granted. Go ahead and start your
school."
Johanan emerged from the con-
ference a happy man. "We shall
triumph over the Roman legions
after all."
And so it was. Thanks to the
school at Yavneh, teachers were
trained who spread the teaching of
Judaism, and the Jews survived
the destruction of the state.
Mighty Rome, despite her le-
gions, ultimately fell; but the Jew-
ish people lived on, thanks to the
school at Yevneh.

The role of Henry Morgenthau,
FDR's Secretary of the Treasury,
emerges in an interesting light.
Morgenthau insisted upon a "stub-
born adherence to balanced
budgets." Lekachman writes that
"although Roosevelt frequently
thwarted his Secretary of the
Treasury, Morgenthau's opinions
prevailed in the formulation of the
calamitous 1937 budge t." And
there is the additional comment:
"Occupying the central economic
post in any administration was
Henry Morgenthau, an undeviating
enemy of deficit spending, whose
consent to public expenditure
usually testified to humanitarian

sympathy for the victims of eco-
In relation to the tragic era
nomic hardship rather than re- under Nazism, Lekachman has
asigned comprehension of the vir- this to say about Keynes' economic
tues of deficits. A budget balancer ideas:
like Morganthau was the exception
"History cannot be rerun.
in the New Deal, but among the
remainder of Roosevelt's aides Hence the question remains
there were more opinions that was arguable whether, if the Ver.
helpful to a perplexed chief sailles Treaty had been as mag-
nanimous from the outset as
executive." -
Keynes urged or as relentlessly*
It is in this fashion that the bi- Carthaginian as Clemenceau de-
ographer and analyst, in studying manded in the name of France,
the Keynes methods. explores and Hitler might never have mobi-
explains the mind of the great lized German resentment and
economist whose ideas left a come to power. It is as certain
powerful influence upon his as these things can be that the
motherland, Great Britain, and the Allies incurred all the enmity
United States.
which a ruthless settlement

"In his personal politics,"
Lekachman writes, "Keynes re-
mained the rebellious mugwump.
In 'Am I a Liberal?' the text of
an address that he delivered at
the Liberal Summer School at
Cambridge in 1925 he started
with the question of how he
could be a Conservative. Con-
servatives are dull and unexcit-
ing, they pursue 'no ideal,' and
they aspire to 'no intellectual
standard.' What about the Labor
Party? Keynes granted the party
a superficial attraction. But in
the end, membership was impos-
sible for such as Keynes because
the Labor Party was a 'class
party,' and the class is not my
class. . . "

It was the Keynes program for
social welfare developments that
served later to inspire Medicare,
the Poverty Program and similar
Great Society ideas.

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

might properly have earned
them, but secured little credit
from later revisions of the treaty.
Germany was neither weakened
enough by severity nor recon-
ciled enough by generosity to
become a peaceful member of
European society. . . ."

History from many aspects finds
valuable commentary in this vol-
ume in relation to the world's
economic experiences. Keynes
found an able biographer in Robert
Lekachman.

Harbor Developments

In the next four years, Israel
will invest about $35,000,000 in the
completion of Ashdod and Elath
harbors, and the further develop-
ment of Haifa and Kishon ports.
These funds will come from the
development budget, over one-third
of which is provided by Israel
Bond funds.

Friday, September 9, 1966 37

-

Do electric dryers really cost less to buy?
Do you really get no-charge service?

Israel Road Building
Israel Bond capital, which since

1951 has strengthened Israel's net-
work of transportation, will be
utilized by Israel in the coming
year for the expansion of the na-
tion's highways, railroads and air-
ports. Israel will spend some $11,-
500,000 for the construction of new
roads and the -improvement of ex-
isting ones, including the comple-
tion of the S'dom-Elath Road, a
road to the site of the Arad chem.
ical complex, and the widening of
the Hadera-Haifa Road. At a cost
of $20,000,000, the Negev Railway
will be extended to Oron and Tsefa
for the transport of phosphates and
potash, and the track will be re-
newed between Tel Aviv and Haifa.
About $17,000,000 will be invested
in the development of airports,
primarily Lydda Airport, which
serves as the gateway to ever-
increasing tourist traffic.

Education makes a people easy
to lead, but difficult to drive; easy
to govern, but impossible to en-
slave:—Lord BroughaM —

Do kids like ice cream?

The answer, of course, is a rousing YES ! Model for model, electric
dryers cost from $20 to $40 less than gas dryers. And every electric
dryer is backed by Edison's No-Charge repair service. No charge for
any electrical parts. No charge for labor. Edison is the only utility

company in this area that offers no-charge repair service.

Can you get this kind of worry-free assurance with a gas dryer?
Sure—with a manufacturer's repair service policy. But it will cost you
up to $120 over the first five years of operation alone!
One thing more. Edison's No-Charge repair service applies even if
you don't buy your dryer from Edison—so long as the dryer is electric
and you get your electricity from Edison. And if you buy now from a
participating dealer, the low price you pay includes the cost of wiring,
if any's needed. So when you add it up, an electric dryer can save
you up to $160 in just a few years. That can
keep the kids in ice cream a good long time.
EDISON

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