Purely Commentary

By Philip Slomovitz

World Leaders
Boris Smolar's
at UJA Parley ! 'Between You
NEW YORK—Chief Justice Earl
Warren of the U.S. Supreme Court;
General Itzhak Rabin, chief of staff
.. and. Me'
of Israel's army of defense who was

Dr. Katsh —Third President of Dropsie College
Dr, Abraham I. Katsh becomes the third president of Dropsie Col-
lege for Hebrew and Cognate Learning in Philadelphia at ceremonies
next week. It will be an occasion that will inspire renewed interest in a military leader of the June "Six-
great school of higher learning, in its founders and in the man who now Day War," and Louis A. Pincus,
chairman of the Jewish Agency
will direct its educational activities.
The college itself has an interesting history. It has served American
Jewry well and many of our noted scholars studied for their doctorates
in Jewish history, Hebraic lore and all related Semitic studies.
Now the school has acquired direction from a man who is among
our most noted Hebrew scholars, who has done research in ancient and
medieval Hebrew poetry, who is among the few who has been permitted
by the Russian government to gather material for his studies in Russian
archives which contain vast Hebraic treasures.
Dr. Katsh's leadership is certain to give Dropsie College new in-
spiration and both he and the college are to be congratulated on a part-
nership that should be beneficial to all of Jewry.

Day School Enrollment — Interesting Study
There is a very interesting breakdown of synagogue affiliation of
parents of children enrolled in the Hillel Day School.
Children from 204 families are enrolled in the Hillel classes this
year.Of these 58 are unaffiliated, 99 are Conservative, 33 Orthodox and
14 Reform.
A large number of the congregations with which these families are
affiliated have congregational schools, but the parents chose to send
their children to an all-day half of whose time is devoted to Hebrew
studies and the other half to the general prescribed public school cur-
ricula.
An interesting factor is the representation of 33 Orthodox families
among 204 in the total enrollment.
Perhaps the latter point indicates that we could, with some effort,
unify all the day school in our community.
In any event, the representation of all religious factions in the day
school movement clearly points to a general acceptance of the idea. The
day school movement has grown rapidly and is now an accepted factor
in our educational system.
*
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Fantasy Instead of Realism in Arab Camps
The most abused factor in Arab-Israel relations is the matter rela-
tions is the matter relating to the refugees. Arabs are known for their
fantasies ,but in the matter involving the refugees they have expanded
it to vast proportions.
Regrettably, facts and figures are being ignored, and even in the
ranks of the United Nations it is difficult to get a hearing for truth.
That's why, when Martha Gellhorn, the eminent foreign correspondent
and novelist, first exposed the frauds relating to the UN agency's relief
efforts and again most recently returned to the Middle East and re-
vealed the exaggerations and the failure to deal with the issue realistic-
ally, sne was severely attacked.
Describing an "Arab Coffee Break" in the Nation; Miss Gellhorn
indicated how "fantasy" works among the Arabs and related the fol-
lowing:
We were drinking Nescafe in the cool, overfurnished parlor of
an elderly refugee school teacher. A horde of charming, bouncing
small children had been pushed out to make room for serious
grown-up talk. The children all seemed to be the same age and
were, oddly, the teacher's own sons and daughters and his grand-
children. His wife vanished, as is correct. His bright 22-year-old
daughter, already the mother of four, crouched outside the door
like a beggar, holding a bit of white cloth over her face, and lis-
tened.
In 1961, I had made a long tour of the UNRWA (United Na-
tions Relief and Works Agency) Palestinian refugee camps in
Lebanon, West Jordan and the Gaza Strip, and I had been at this
camp near Jericho before. It is disheartening. The world believes,
because it is constantly told, that the Palestinian refugees have
lived in physical misery for nineteen years. Middle-class refugees
will confide, in private, that their poorer compatriots, those who
remain in the camps, owned nothing at home and are no worse ofi
now than before. The majority of refugees, educated, skilled, semi-
skilled, live outside the camps and managed like any other Arabs.
The refugees' misery is in the head. They are sick in their
minds from a diet of propaganda, official Arab dogma and home-
made fantasy, which they have gobbled for nineteen years. Schooled
in self-pity, encouraged to believe they are the world's unique
victims of injustice, they have never been allowed to forget the day-
dream past or to settle for the real future. Since the third Arab-
Israel war hardly touched them, they learned nothing from it.
The school teacher was tired of fire eating and disabused with
Nasser. But the rest of the company, three husky chicken farmers,
men in their late 20s, a tall, pale, elegantly put together student
from Amman University, and a cocky grammar schoolboy, were as
devoted to Nasser as ever. Though all except the schoolboy (we
took a vote) thought a peace treaty between Jordan and Israel
would be a good thing, the young men felt that Nasser must decide.
They had personal problems from the war. The chicken farmers
lacked transport. The school teacher said his wife was running out
of kerosene for cooking. The grammar schoolboy's matriculation
exams at Ramallah had been interrupted; when would the Israelis
arrange for him to finish? The university student was worried that
the Israelis would compel him to repeat his second year instead of
continuing straight into his third year, as was fair, at Hebrew Uni-
versity in Jerusalem. He was stunned to hear that Hebrew Univer-
sity teaches in Hebrew. I kept pointing out, in the face of these
complaints, that the shooting had ended only ten days earlier.
Then, as on remembered cue, we went into the fantasy phase of
conversation. It consits of recounting how many acres of fine fields
and orchards, what splendid houses, were left behind in Palestine
and stolen by the Jews. There is competition in fantasy ownership.
If you add up the lost acreage claimed by the inhabitants of any
camp you usually arrive at a total larger than the whole recovered
arable land of Israel. One very nice man in another camp told me
he had owned 11,000 acres of citrus groves: legend has it that once
the Sultan of Turkey owned that much land in Palestine and sold it
to the Rothschilds. But I think this ownership fantasy is the real
human core of the Palestinian refugee problem, as opposed to the
unreal Arab propaganda problem.
Half the refugees are under 18 years of age; Palestine is a

2 — Friday, November 17, 1967

Warren

Rabin

for Israel, will head an interna-
tionally renowed roster of guest
speakers at the national conference
of the United Jewish Appeal here
Dec. 8, 9 and 10.
Headed by Max M. Fisher of
Detroit, UJA general chairman, the
three-day conference at the New
York Hilton Hotel will mark the
30th anniversary of the UJA and
will celebrate the State of Israel's
20th Year of Independence. The
delegates will chart the plans and
set the objectives for the UJA's
1968 nationwide campaign.
UJA officers who will join with
General Chairman Fisher and As-
sociate General Chairman Gins-
berg in leading roles during the
conference include Rabbi Herbert
A. Friedman of New York, execu-
tive vice chairman; Mrs. Harry L.
Jones of Detroit, national Women's
Division chairman; and leaders
from many cities and a number
of European countries.

Sapir Announces
Plans to Resign

(Direct JTA Teletype Wire
to The Jewish News)

JERUSALEM — Finance Min-
ister Pinhas Sapir said Wednes-
day, in an interview with the army
weekly Bamachaneh, that he in-
tended to resign at the close of
the current parliament in 1969.
The finance minister noted he
had been a member of the cabinet
for 12 years and that he felt this
was enough. He also said that di-
rect and indirect costs of the Six-
Day June War had been a "ten-
figure number." Israel's defense
budget is classified information.

(Copyright 1967, JTA Inc.)

CJFWF ASSEMBLY: The Council of Jewish Federations and
Welfare Funds—which stands in front of the organized Jewish commu-
nities in this country and Canada as their central advisory body—comes
this weekend to its general assembly in Cleveland with 'a record of a
year's work unprecedented in Jewish history . . It was the council
that joined hands with the United Jewish Appeal during Israel's Six-
Day War to mobilize for Israel the maximum financial aid in the Jewish
communities . . . It was also the council that inspired Jewish commu-
nity leaders throughout the United States and Canada to a great height
in their responsibility for Israel's humanitarian needs during that cri-
tical period.... Many millions of dollars were raised by American and
Canadian Jewish communities in unprecedented generous-giving in one
month—the month of June—for UJA's Israel Emergency Fund... : And
this was the result of joint feverish activities of the UJA and the Coun-
cil of Jewish Federations. . . . But the critical period for Israel is not
over yet, and these joint activities will have to be repeated also in 1968.
. . . The council is resolved to lend its full support and energy to the
UJA for this "repeat performance."... In fact, some of its leaders have
already begun to work in this direction . . The general assembly in
Cleveland will applaud this action with pride and will set the guidelines
for Jewish fund-raising for 1968, with priority for Israel's emergency
needs ... These needs will be the central theme of the assembly, which
represents all elements of American Jewry. .

CJFWF AND ISRAEL: The extraordinary activity which the
Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds has displayed during
the critical days for Israel in June did not pass unnoticed in Israel....
Today more than ever the council is considered in Israel a formidable
force in American Jewry regulating American Jewish communal life
and directing it with great ability.... People in Israel who never knew
much about the organized American Jewish communal life suddenly
"discovered" the council as the central body of the American Jewish
communities and gave its delegation the warmest of welcomes. ... The
CJFWF is no longer to them a stranger; nor are the federations and
welfare funds . . . A new understanding of the central role of the
federations in American Jewish life has arisen in Israel; Israelis who
hitherto knew little or nothing about the Jewish federations in this
country want to know more and more about it now. . . . Similarly, a
new and stronger relationship between the Israel government and the
CJFWF has developed . . The Israel government is now not only
answering frankly questions posed by the CJWFW—giving often con-
fidential information—but is also solocity the views and advice of the
CJFWF leaders.. . . A perfect link has been forged' by the CJFWF
between Israel and the Jewish federations and welfare funds in this
country since last June. . . . Its effects will be beneficial both to Israel
and to the Jewish community.

CJFWF AND UJA: The Jewish federations and the welfare funds
have always been the backbone of the fund-raising campaign of
the United Jewish Appeal. . . . But never has the relationship between
their council and the UJA leadership been so close as since the days of
last June . . . Both the council and the UJA aided each other in
mobilizing urgent and generous aid for Israel's civilian needs in the
June days and both are now determined to concentrate all their efforts
for the benefit of UJA's Israel Emergency Fund of 1968.... This close
relationship is now being recognized as a factor not only in raising
more funds for Israel but also in keeping Jews in this country more
united and more Jewish-minded .. . The CJFWF will now, at its gen-
eral assembly, analyze the implications of the Israel Emergency Fund
for 1968, taking in consideration the drastic changes in giving levels and
the new givers who emerged with magnificent gifts during the June
campaign for Israel.... Already, federation leaders who were with the

Constitution Loss Hailed by Majority of Jews in N.Y.

that New Yorkers "of all races
and religions are deeply committed
to the principle of church-state
separation," adding that the "one
great issue" in the vote was the
proposed elimination of the Blaine
Amendment, and that "it was this
issue that the people cast their
ballots."
The statement cited the simul-
taneous approval of the proposed
$2,500,000,000 transit bond issue
as proof that New Yorkers were
"willing to pay taxes for vitally
needed improvements, but not for
private parochial schools." The
statement also expressed the hope
that New York politicians would
myth taught in school and at home. I do nut think that any of these accept the vote and not seek to
people truly want to return to Israel—not unless the Israelis will achieve abolition of the ban on
give them the country, improved by decades of labor, and oblig- state aid to such schools by other
means.
ingly jump in the sea. What the refugees really want is money for
However, one of the Orthodox
their imagined lost possessions. They don't seem to know that,
Jewish leaders who supported the
repeatedly since 1949, the Israeli Government has offered compen-
draft constitution, Rabbi Morris
sation, sometimes with conditions, such as a peace treaty, some-
Sherer, president of Agudath Israel
times for nothing. Nor, apparently, do they know that these offers
of America, blamed the defeat of
have always been angrily rejected on their behalf by the Arab gov-
the charter on "the manner in
ernments. To accept compensation would be to end the Palestine
which its opponents succeeded in
Refugee Problem. The compensation is there and waiting, but it subtly projecting
the constitution's
will never satisfy these people because it is based on fact, not fan. image as a Catholic document, thus
tasy. If ypur father owned a recorded 5 acres of land, and you distorting the basic American is-
believe he owned 500 acres, you are bound to feel bitter and sue involved."
cheated by an exact repayment.
He also attributed the defeat
The fantasies have been treated as truths, Jews are being accused at the polls on the fact that the
of controlling the press and thereby coloring the news from the Middle constitution draft had been pre-
East, and Arab propaganda has grown to vast proportions because, re- sented as a single "package" thus
lated to it, is the age-old prejeudice against Jews. Christian periodicals leading to "public confusion" on
have resorted to organized and expanded campaigns of vilifications the principal issues involved. He
against Israel and Miss Gellhorn's often appears like a voice in the predicted that the issue will be
winderness. Perhaps there will be enough listeners to cause her expose put before the voters again in 1969
of facts in dealing with a most serious situation that could well affect and that, then, the Blaine Amend-
ment will be repealed.
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS the peace of the entire world.

NEW YORK (JTA)—A variety votes cast. The negative vote out-
of Protestant, Jewish and civil side New York City was heavier
rights agencies throughout New than the vote m the city, where
York State hailed the defeat in the proposal was defeated in all
the statewide referendum of a pro- five boroughs, including those with
posed new state constitution which heavy Catholic representation.
Despite the heavy anti-charter
would have eliminated a 73-year-
vote, leaders of both the Repub-
old ban on use of public funds for
can and Democratic parties said
sectarian schools, the so-called
they would push for an amend-
Blaine Amendment.
ment repealing the Blaine
The battle over the draft charter,
Amendment when the New York
which had evoked a sharp split in
Legislature reconvenes in Jan-
the New York Jewish community
uary.
—Orthodox Jews allied with Cath-
The American Jewish Congress,
olics in support of the draft—ended
with more than 3,250,000 votes one of the groups that opposed
against it out of some 4,500,000 the draft, said that the vote proved

