THE JEWISH NEWS
Itscorporatin g The Detroit Jewish Chronicle commencing with issue of July 20, 1951
Member American Association of English—Jewish Newspapers, Michigan Pre= 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
Editor and Publisher
CARMI M. SLOMOVITZ
Business Manager
SIDNEY SHMARAK
Advertising Manager
CHARLOTTE DUBIN
City Editor
Sabbath Scriptural Selections
This Sabbath, the fifth day of Tevet, 5728, the following scriptural selections will be
read in our synagogues:
Tora Readings for Fast of Tebet, Thursday
Pentateuchal portion, Exodus 32:11 - 14, 34:1 - 10. Prophetical portion, Isaiah 55:6 - 56:8.
•
Pentateuchal portion, Gen. 44:18 - 47:27. Prophetical portion, Ezekiel 37:15 - 28.
ti
Candle lighting, Friday, Jan. 5, 4:56 p.m.
VOL. LII. No. 16
Page Four
January 5, 1968
Israel and U.S. Statesmen's Cooperation
President Johnson's impending two-day
meeting with Israel's Prime Minister Levi
Eshkol draws attention anew to several major
Middle East problems and to the needs im-
plied in proposals that are being discussed to
formulate desalination plans to advance the
economic opportunities so vital to the needs
of the Arab states as well as Israel.
When the two statesmen meet on the Pres-
ident's Texas ranch, the Johnson Five Point
Program presented immediately after the
Six-Day War is certain to be discussed and
one of the implications in the Johnson ap-
proach to the issue is that direct Arab-Israel
negotiations are desirable. Israel's spokesmen
and their Jewish kinsmen everywhere insist
that it is imperative.
There will, also, come up the question of
aid to the Middle East states in desalinating
the waters of the Mediterranean to make
available sweetened water necessary for home
consumption and for industrial as well as
farming usage. Already there are numerous
proposals on this score. The Eisenhower-
Strauss plan, developed by Lewis Strauss and
advocated by the former President, is on the
agenda of Republican party leaders. Then
there is the original Johnson plan which was
proposed by the President three years ago
when he addressed the Weizmann Institute
dinner in New York.
At the same time, the Haifa Technion's
scientists have developed methods of desalin-
ating sea water by direct contact distillation.
The Technion's research. its scientists' discov-
eries, now appear certain to contribute not
only to the advantageous applications of the
new methods to Israel's dire needs for potable
water but also, in the course of time, to solve
major problems for areas like California's
whose water problems are akin to those of
Israel.
The U.S. Senate already has evidenced a
deep interest in the problem, and there is
great hope that much good will come out of
the discussions which will be resumed when
Congress reconvenes on Jan. 15. But the most
impressive results may be obtained from the
Johnson-Eshkol conferences next week.
Of far greater immediate importance in
these discussions will be the issues that have
emerged from the recent war, the pressures
upon Israel by the increased number of its
Arab residents, the dangers that still affect
the borders and the unfortunate need for the
retention of armed forces in many areas
where neighbors still face each other as
enemies.
The Arab states are being armed by the
Soviet Union and French military aid to Israel
has been curtailed. This calls for assistance
from Israel's major friend in the international
arena — the United States. Will President
Johnson give Prime Minister Eshkol assur-
ance that such aid will be forthcoming?
Such are the issues that will confront the
two statesmen when they meet on Sunday
and Monday. They affect the peace of an
important world area and therefore are vital
to the peace of the world. The prayers of all
peace-loving American citizens are that the
Johnson-Eshkol conference will bring all in-
volved closer to amity.
Thanks to Those Who 'Stand Erect Among the Free'
When the Hitler terror began on a large
scale, in 1939, the Jewish populations of the
four Scandinavian countries was as follows:
Denmark, 5.690; Sweden, 6,650; Norway,
1,360: Finland, 1.770. Today the figures given
in the current American Jewish Year Book
are: Denmark, 6,000; Sweden, 13,000; Nor-
way, 750: Finland 1550.
The increase in population figures in
Sweden is understandable. Sweden alone, in
the entire group of Scandinavian lands, re-
ceived a large number of displaced persons.
On the whole, these comparative figures are
relevant to consideration of a very significant
anniversary: the 25th year of the Danish ac-
tion to rescue, practically overnight. the en-
tire community of the Jews of Denmark, from
Hitler's clutches.
As preparations are being made for the
October 1968 celebration of this anniversary,
of the historic nights of flight from Denmark
into Sweden, it is well that the basic
facts should be known. In that way proper
tribute will be paid to Denmark, to its people
and to its government, for a great human-
itarian role that will be engraved indelibly in
the history of the world.
When the Nazis invaded Denmark and
Norway, the 8.000 Jews in the countries be-
came targets for Hitler's cannons. Their
status was hopeless and only the determined
will of the kings of the two countries pro-
vided assurance for their rescue. More than
half of the Norwegian Jews were deported to
extermination camps but nearly all of the
Danish Jews were rescued as a result of the
courageous stand that was taken by the under-
ground of Denmark that defied the Nazis.
In an evaluation of "The Scandinavian
Response to Hitler's 'Final Solution,' " Prof.
John H. Wuorinen, a former chairman of the
history department of Columbia University,
stated that the Scandinavian countries "dem-
onstrated unhesitating adherence to these
high principles: those in jeopardy must be
protected; cruelty and injustice must be
fought; tyranny must be resisted and freedom
safeguarded. It is especially because of their
devotion to these imperatives and because of
their readiness to apply them by extending a
helping hand to Jews threatened with extinc-
tion by Nazis during the Second World War,
that the Scandinavians today stand erect
among the free."
And because the Danes especially stand
so erect, it is heartening to know that the 25th
anniversary of the great rescue operation is
being honored with a "Thanks to Scandina-
via" fund to provide scholarships for Danish
students in universities in this country and in
Denmark. Under the chairmanship of
Richard Netter, this project is already a real-
ity and many who are determined not to for-
get Denmark's "erect stand among the free"
and that country's defiance of Hitler and Hit-
lerism should continue to provide for this
fund.
The Danish anniversary is assuming large
proportions. There will be many tours to
Denmark as part of a worldwide plan for par-
ticipation in honors to be accorded to the
Danes in recognition of that chapter in their
history that was marked by so much heroism.
Meanwhile the "Thanks to Scandinavia" fund
also is becoming a call for appreciation by
people in many lands. Those who "stand erect
among the free" will not be forgotten.
'The Brigade': Bartov's Splendid
Novel Translated From Hebrew
Co-published by the Jewish Publication Society and Holt, Rinehart
and Winston, the novel "The Brigade" by Hanoch Bartov, translated
from the Hebrew by David S. Segal, is one of the most powerful stories
of the year.
Bartov, who is now counselor for cultural affairs attached to the
Israel Embassy in London, won the Shlonsky Prize for Literature when
his novel was published in Hebrew in 1965. Author of other novels, of
numerous short stories and of several plays, one of which was staged
in Los Angeles in 1964, Bartov, a native Israeli, was for 10 years the
correspondent for the Israeli daily Lamerhav in the 'U.S.
"The Brigade" contains episodes of the experiences of
members of the Jewish Brigade which fought in World War II
under the British. The end of hostilities deprived the Jewish
Brigade of the opportunity actively to engage in warfare with the
Germans. The nightmare caused by the Holocaust hounded the men,
and their eventual landing in Germany gave an opportunity to
test their feelings, to explore the Jewish role in world crisis that
marked the worst tragedy in history. Meeting up with some of
the children who survived the Holocaust gave the uniformed men
a chance to view the effects of war and the brutalities that emerge
from it.
The supreme test comes when the hero of the novel, Elisha Kruk,
who narrates the Bartov story, confronts Germans, is faced with the
problem of vengeance and emerges in the spirit of Jewish historic
experiences which reject brutality and unnecessary vengeance and
retaliation. It is when some of the men follow him and a comrade into
a German home where they sought lodging in the post-war days and
plan to rob and to rape, our hero prevents the brutal from being
performed.
The hero — the narrator — in "The Brigade," Elisha, left school,
his work, his puritanical family, to get into a war he now is prevented
from engaging in. He is left with an unfulfilled longing for revenge.
There is sense of impotence.
He and his associates-"lust find their identity under new condi-
tions. There is the feeling that the high moral aspirations have lost their
meaning.
Sent north, the men of Elisha's brigade hurl stones at passing
German prisoners in a futile attempt at action. Later, the young
soldiers are greeted as saviors by a group of pious Hungarian Jews for
whom they can do nothing, and still further on, they are mocked by
some Ukrainian women—deportees whose only idea of a Jewish army
is inextricably bound to death camp memories in which these young
Palestinians have no part.
In Venice, Elisha encounters a cousin who survived the camps
by working in a crematorium. Revolted, he is neither able to accept
this survivor nor to manage his mounting desire for vengeance.
But it is on the brief stay in Germany, when the hero of this
novel becomes aware that brigade members were readying to
attack the wife and daughters of an ex-SS officer, that he is
really put to test. It is then that be endangers his own life,
threatens to shoot any one who commits the abhorrent crime,
rescues the women and eases his own conscience. It Is then that
he recovers his true Jewish self.
He had had a sex experience, he was revolted, he kept thinking
about the girl he left behind in Israel. In the end he emerged true
to his conscience. And his narrative concludes:
"If only I could forget that trip, forget how I was stripped naked
in my weakness. I will never return there, I whispered to my bleeding
memory, but as I spoke, my thoughts turned to pillars of salt. And
still I whisper over that memory, over that blood: Thank God I did
not destroy myself in Germany. That God that was beyond me. I am
what I am."
"The Brigade" is powerful, replete with action, memorable for
the lesson it teaches. And it emerges well in an excellent translatios.