Purely Commentary
By Philip SlOMOviTz
Philo-Semitic Factor in the Loyola Tradition
A famous Catholic name emerges in its fullest glory in Henry
'Yiddish Poets in Song' Contains Important
Selections from Many Noted Jewish Writers
"Yiddish Poets in Song," pub-
lished by Jewish Music Alliance
(1 Union Sq., NY), distributed
here by Morris Citrin of the Jewish
Folk Chorus, is a most interesting
anthological work.
Edited by Mordecai Yardeini
and an assisting editorial board,
this anthology was issued in honor
of the 80th birthday of Reuven
Youkelson, for many years presi-
dent of the Jewish Music Alliance.
Containing the musical scores
as well as the poetic words of the
numerous songs, the selection of
many of the best known Jewish
writers for inclusion in this volume
elevates this work to high literary
and musical standards.
Kamen's "The Spanish Inquisition" (New American Library Publica-
tion). Kamen's appraisal of the tribunal of horror and tyranny des-
cribes the plight of "conversos"—the Jews who became converts to
Christianity in order to escape the dangers of the Inquisition.
The story is tragic enough. There was sufficient misery to con-
demn the Inquisition for all time. But there were those in the Catholic
Church who rejected racialism. Typically rebellious, against the ac-
tions of the anti-Semites was the attitude of Saint 'Ignatius Loyola,
whose spiritual qualities elevated him to significant recognition and
to eventual sainthood and in appreciation of whose gifts to his faith
a college has been established in his honor in Chicago: Loyola Col-
lege. Kamen's story of the Inquisition relates the basic facts about
Loyola's refusal to yield to pressures from the bigots.
Loyola was so adamant in his adherence to faith that, as a
student at Alcala in 1527, he was even suspected by his antagonists of
adhering to Judaism. Countering the hysteria, Loyola: denied that he
was practicing Judaism, and there was proof in his contention, since
he stemmed from a noble Spanish family in the Guipuzcoa province,
where there were no Jews at all.
Later, however, he told a group of friends that; he would have
considered it an honor to stem from Jews, explaining: "What! To be
related to Christ Our Lord and to Our Lady of the Glorious Mary?"
Especially interesting is the account of Loyola's rebuke to a
friend—Don Pedro de Zarate—who had spat when ;mentioning the
In a series of articles in the Lon-
term "Jew." Loyola spoke so gloriously about Jew and Judaism don Times, Anthony Nutting, who
that he all but convinced his friend to become a Jew.
was minister of state in the for-
•
•
eign office during the Sinai Cam-
The account of Loyola's refusal to adopt a polic'y of hatred for paign of 1956, writes that Great
"conversos" tells about the pressures that came from Archbishop Britain, France and Israel "plot-
ted" the drive on Suez and that
Siliceo.
representatives of the three na-
According to Kamen: "Ignatius (Loyola) refused to change his tions met to plan the attacks.
attitude. All through the controversy in Spain about the statutes of
According to the new revelations,
'limpieza' (the racialist cult of "limpieza de sangre" or purity of
blood, by which descendants of Moors and Jews were forbidden to David Ben-Gurion and Guy Mollet
represented
Israel and France and
hold any public office), and up to his death in 1556, he would not
allow his order to discriminate against conversos, and when conversos Selwyn Lloyd, the British Foreign
Secretary,
was
Britain's spokes-
did apply to enter its ranks he advised them to join the company in
Italy rather than in Spain. When talking of the "limpieza" cult he man.
A new crisis may be anticipated
would refer to it as the Spanish humor'—el humor espanol; or, more
bitingly on one occasion, humor de la corte y del Rey Espana—"the by the articles which will appear in
book form in July.
humor of the Spanish king and his court."
It is reported that a book by
"Because of the opposition of the Jesuits, Siliceo conceived an
ardent hatred of the order, and in this he was followed by other Prof. High Thomas, "The Suez
Affair,"
charges that each denial
prominent members of the Spanish clergy and the Dominican-con-
trolled Inquisition. All three Generals of the order after Loyola were by the Israeli and French repre-
firm in their opposition to the statutes. The immediate successor of sentatives "a ppears to be a
Ignatius (in the Society of Jesus) was Diego Lainez General from straightforward lie" and that Nut-
1558 to 1565. The fact that he was a converso aroused bitter opposi- ting's story corroborates Prof.
tion to his election from Philip II and the Spanish Church. In a letter Thomas' testimony.
to Araoz in 1560 Lainez denounced limpieza as el humor or error
nacional (the national humor or error) and demanded total obedience
from the Spanish Jesuits. His successor was a Spaniard of unimpeach-
able Old Christian blood—Francisco Borgia, Duke of Gandia, famous
to history as St. Francis Borgia. Borgia's position was so well known
that he was victimized to the extent of having some of his works put
on the index of phohibited book.s."
3 Nations Met
on Suez 'Plot',
Nutting Says
N.J. Senate OKs
Busing for Pupils
in Private Schools
•
•
•
Borgia had occasion to explain why he permitted "conversos"
into the ranks of Society of Jesus. He wrote to Prince Eboli, Philip
ll's prime minister:
"Why does the king keep in his service x and y, who are conver-
sos? If his Majesty disregards this in those he places in his house-
hold, why should I make an issue about admitting them into the
service of that Lord for whom'there is no distinction between persons,
between Greek and Jew, or barbarian and Scythian?"
Worthy of note is another significant historic statement con-
demning racialism. Francisco Villanueva, as rector of the Jesuit Alcala
College, objecting to the anti-conversos campaign, wrote to Ignatius
Loyola:
"It is a great pity that there seems to be nobody willing to leave
these poor people anywhere to stay on earth, and I would like to
have the energy to become their defender, particularly since one
encounters among them more virtue than among the Old Christians
and hidalgos."
For the record, it is important that it should be known that there
was a vociferous minority that disapproved of the Inquisition's
methods, and when Loyola University is mentioned it should be
recognized as having been named after a very great spiritual figure
in Catholicism.
It is also interesting to note that the Loyola collegiate tradition
began with the establishment of the St. Ignatius College in Chicago,
Sept. 5, 1870. Loyola University's charter was acquired Nov. 21, 1909.
A Catholic university "Dictionary of Saints" states that the members
of the "company of spiritual soldiers" he founded originally intended
to be missionaries in Palestine, that for 400 years its members "dis-
tinguished themselves especially in fields of education."
While this is primarily a Catholic story, the courage of an eminent
Jesuit of the 16th Century who opposed the persecution of Jews
during the Inquisition deserves recognition in Jewish records.
(Copyright, 1967, JTA, Inc.)
B.
(Direct JTA Teletype Wire
to The Jewish News)
TRENTON, N.J.—A bill to ex-
tend publicly financed bus trans-
portation to children attending pri-
vate and religiously - sponsored
schools in New Jersey was ap-
proved Monday by the State Sen-
ate after having previously been
adopted by the assembly.
Gov. Richard J. Hughes, a strong
supporter of the proposal, was ex-
pected to sign it without delay.
The measure had been vigorously
opposed by several Jewish organi-
zations and civil liberties groups.
The vote in the senate was
20 to 6. Before the voting, the
measure was amended, requir-
ing that it be sent back to the
assembly, which approveu the
changes by 37 to 11.
Under existing state laws, non-
the time, no one was injured.
Belo Horizonte has a Jewish popu-
lation of 300.
Suspicion by police points to a
young man, the son of a German
immigrant. It is believed the at-
tack may have been mounted as
a threat against the Jewish com-
munity which has been demanding
number of people in the club at that Brazil extradite Franz Paul
Boris Smolar's
'Between You
. . and Me'
By BORIS SMOLAR
(Copyright, 1967, JTA, Inc.)
THE "FORWARD" ANNIVERSARY: The Jewish Daily Forward, largest
Yiddish daily newspaper in the world, will celebrate its 70th anniversary
on May 14 ... Aside from the fact that no Jewish newspaper can boast
70 years of continued existence, the Forward has a good deal to boast
about in the role it played in American Jewish life since the very
first day of its publication . . . Its 70 years reflect the development of
three generations in American Jewry, as well as the phenomenal
changes that have come about in the life of the Jews in this country
. .. Seventy years ago, when the Forward began to appear, the Jews
in the United States were predominantly immigrants . . . In fact, it
was for these Jewish immigrants — who began to come in wave after
wave to this country from Eastern Europe — that the Forward was
started . . . Most of them were penniless, did not know a word of
English, worked endless hours in sweat shops, or eked out a meager
living as peddlers . . . For them, -the Forward was not only a news-
paper to read, but a guide to life in the new country — an adviser on
their daily problems, a teacher of "Americanization," and a protector of
their economic interests . . . It was with the aid of the Forward that
Jewish workers in sweat shops won their strikes, and it was also with
the aid of this newspaper that the weak needle-trade unions became
what they are today — strong citadels of the organized American labor
union movement . . . In fact, it was these unions — the Amalgamated
Clothing Workers of America, the International Ladies Garment Work-
ers, and other "Jewish" trade unions organized with the aid of the
Forward — that paved the way for other American labor unions to
become effective instruments in the fight against the merciless exploita-
tion of labor that existed in this country at the end of the last century
and in the early three decades of this country .. The Forward not
only supported their strikes, but was to them like the Rock of Gibraltar
in general in the years of their miserable existence as "greenhorns"
— a word now long forgotten.
•
•
•
THE IN-BETWEEN GENERATION: Established by the generation of
Jewish immigrants — which is now classified as the first generation
of American Jews — the Forward played no small role also during the
period of "second generation" which was composed of the children of
the immigrants ... This was a generation which was mostly ashamed of
being Jewish and made every effort to run away from it; it considered
Jewishness as a synonym to living in poverty, not mastering the English
language, being an outsider . . . This was a generation where younger
Jews changed their names from Katz to Keats, from Cohen to Cowen,
from Pressman to Preston, from Bernstein to Benson, in order not to
be taken for Jews at least by their names . . . This was a time when
Jewish girls working in offices as typists and filing clerks wore little
crosses on their necks trying to create the impression in the office
that they were not Jewish . . These were years when intermarriage
made its first entry into Jewish families, where the American-born, or
American high school educated Jewish youngsters looked down upon
their immigrant parents who lived in poor sections of the city and
spoke a broken English . . . Unlike their parents, these youngsters
hated to work in shops, refused to live in cold tenement houses where
there was no electricity and no hot running water, rejected Jewish
education — even Bar Mitzva — and sought their way to an easier
life . . . Many of them succeeded as salesmen and in small business,
and some found themselves living in better sections of the city after
being married . . . Secretly, however, a good many of them were read-
ing the Forward, some studying the advertisements there for business
and others finding the Forward as a link to the world in which their
parents still livecL • • •
public school students are allowed
to ride free on public school buses
on established public school THE PRESENT GENERATION: The present "third generation" of
routes.
American Jewry does not read Yiddish and is therefore not among the
The measure approved Monday readers of the Forward - .. This explains why the circulation of the
will extend this service to non- Forward is today far from what it was some 25 years ago ... However,
public school students in communi- even the present generation of Jews — especially the studying Jewish
ties which provide such transpor- youth — is aware of the important role which the Forward has played,
tation for public school pupils but and is still playing, in American Jewish life .. - Jewish students in the
not to non-public school pupils. field of social work have now in their textbooks much of the material
There are 334,000 non-public school that had been published in the Forward for years, especially the feature
students in New Jersey, including "Bintel Brief" ("A Bundle of Letters") in which readers sought and
a number attending Jewish day received advice on family matters and other social problems . . . There
schools.
are today at least three books being written in English on Abraham
zil Jewish Club Attacked; None Is Injured
RIO DE JANEIRO (JTA) —
Federal and local police authori-
ties here said they think they may
have traced the identity of a per-
son who fired a revolver bullet
through a front window of the
Jewish Club of Belo Horizonte,
capital of the State of Minas
Gerais. Although there were a
The Yiddish group which pre-
dominates includes the works of
H. Leivik, I. L. Peretz, Morris
Rosenfeld, Morris Vintchevsky,
Mani Leib, Yehoyash, Sholem Alei-
chem, Avrom Reizen, Jacob Glat-
stein, Moishe Nadir, Itzig Manger,
and many others. Noted musicians
wrote the lyrics.
The secretary of Jewish Music
Alliance, Abraham Lechowitzky,
Chaim Nahman Bialik's "Aharei authored an explanatory introduc-
Moti" with music by Yardeini, tion to this work, in Yiddish. There
Shaul Tchernichovsky's "S h i r is a section devoted, pictorially, to
Eres" with music by Moishe Bik the composers who assisted in pro-
ducing this valuable work.
and other selections.
In addition to the Yiddish
songs, there are sections devoted
to Israeli music and to English
songs. Noteworthy among the
latter is Morris Rosenfeld's "I
Lift My Eyes," set to music by
Yardeini. Another English selec-
tion is Walt Whitman's "Come
Be Free," set to music by Rich-
ard Neuman.
In the Hebrew group is included
Stangl, the commandant of the Nazi
concentration camps at Treblinka
and Sobibor. Brazil's Supreme
Court is to rule in 10 days or two
weeks on applications for his ex-
tradition filed here by Poland,
West Germany and Austria. He
has been in jail since his arrest
as a war criminal at Sao Paulo
on March 2.
Cahan, the first editor of the Forward, who was a colorful figure and
one of the best editors the American press — not only the American'
Jewish press — ever had ... Much can be found about the role of the
Forward in numerous English books dealing with American labor
history and with the life of New York's Lower East Side . . . Out-
standing figures in-the Forward were, in addition to Cahan, also its
editor emeritus Hariy Rogoff — who is considered "the Walter Lippman
of the Jewish press" — its late general manager, B. Charney Vladeck,
after whom New York City named a building project; Adolf Held, a well-
known figure in the Jewish world; and Dr. Lazar Fogelman, its present
editor . . . The Forward is strongly pro-Israel, although in its early -
years of existence it was anti-Zionist. •
2—Friday, .May 5, 1967
THE DETROIT. JEWISH. NEWS