THE JEWISH NEWS
lucorportning The Detroit Jewish Chronicle commencing with isms of July 20, 1951
Member American Association at English—Jewish Newspapers, Michigan Press Association, National Editorial
nasociation.
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 S7.
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 19th day of Tevet, 5728, the following scriptural selections will
be read in our synagogues:
Pentateuchal portion, Exodus 1:1-6:1. Prophetical portion, Isaiah 27:6-28:13,
29: 22, 23.
Lighting of candles, Friday, Jan. 19, 5.11 p.m.
VOL. LII. No. 18
Page Four
January 19, 1968
The Kremlin's Yiddish Language Organ
Sovietisch Heimland, the Kremlin's tool, the Ukrainian writer whose "Judaism With-
published as a Yiddish monthly in Moscow, out Embellishment" was such a vile revival
is the official apologist for the Russian anti- of the ugliest lies published about Jews that
Semitic policies. Utilizing a discussion at the even the Communist regime saw fit to put
recent YIVO Institute conference on the sub- an end to that type of villification.
ject "The Struggle of American Jews for the
Now, with the renewal of the anti-Semitic,
Rights of Other Jews," the Moscow Yiddish anti-Israel and pro-Arab policies by the Soviet
editors charged that the YIVO symposium Union, Kichko has resumed the role of
was an "attempt to divert the attention of Streicher and is printing again the filthiest
the Jewish public from the ills of American type of anti-Jewish propaganda that has been
society and its treatment of the Jews."
seen anywhere since the days of Nazism.
If there were a way of reaching the read- Anti-Semitic cartoons again are being pub-
ers of Sovietisch Heimland and of the Jew- lished in the Russian press and the inherit-
ish masses in Russia, we could inform them ance of bigotry from Czarism is in evidence
how, whenever there are anti-Semitic in- again.
cidents in this country we expose them, we
Has the Sovietisch Heimland said a single
speak about them, we register our protests. word about these anti-Semitic propagandists?
Of course there is anti-Semitism everywhere How could the Kremlin's Yiddish organ pro-
— in the degree of the freedoms of the coun- test when its role is to be the mouthpiece
tries involved — but when citizens have a for the people who are engineering the anti-
right to speak, to complain, to expose in- Semitic propaganda?
decencies, their status is secure. What's the
At least this much should be known:
situation in Russia?
that the periodical that accuses us of divert-
At the same time that Sovietisch Heimland ing attention from anti-Semitism by exposing
published its condemnation of YIVO, there the vile bigots in the USSR has never said
reappeared in the Kiev Komsomolskoye a word in protest against the persecution of
Znamya a series of articles by Trofim Kichko, Jews in Soviet Russia.
Linking Our Youth With Our Heritage
An appeal for more serious considera- the status of the Jewish communities of Amer-
tion of the need to implant Jewish conscious- ica. In the course of compiling data and
ness in our college youth, emanating from reaching decisions, youth should be consulted,
the Hillel Foundations' directors, certainly and should be made a part of decision-mak-
will not pass without serious attention in our ing. But especially we must adhere to the
communities. There already has been estab- basic ethical teaching and ascertain that our
lished a status of priority in communal plan- youth know that we have done so. Then we
ning on cultural aspects of Jewish life and may hope for successful Hillel Foundations,
on the need to expand our educational en- for a responsive youth, for unity in our
deavors. Surely, the Hillel groups through- ranks that should lead to a strengthened co-
out the land have been fully aware of the operative effort that will link both adults
needs, and there has been an awareness of and their children with a heritage that af-
duties to the smaller colleges as well as to fairms the principles that inspire our youth.
the major institutions of learning. In all of
them there has been evidence of apathy, of
Continuing Emergency
indifference leading to an escape from Jewish
affiliations.
Setting the 1968 Allied Jewish Campaign
Would it be fair to say that the youth into motion with a new record advance sum
is totally lost to us, that because they seek pledged here in the past few days, there is
closer sociability with non-Jews they are justification for the confidence expressed that
estranged from us? Is it right to assume the obligations to Israel will be adhered to
that, as has been charged at a recent gather- and that the regular funds, which already
ing of synagogue youth, that a major respon- provide for the needs of the United Jewish
sibility lies on parents who "live an as- Appeal, will be supplemented by gifts to
similated rather than a Jewish life," and the Israel Emergency Fund to assist in as-
that the children of such indifferent parents suring economic security for Israel.
can be expected to follow in the path of the
It is an accepted fact that Israel's dangers
elders?
have not vanished with the triumph in the
At the conference of Atid (Future in Six-Day War, that the re-emerging threats
Hebrew), the college youth affiliated with from Arab saboteurs and infiltrators into Is-
the Conservative synagogues, this question rael continue to demand the strengthening
was posed and in refuting it they indicated of the partnership between Israel and the
that the parents were influenced more by Jewries of the world which remain the most
economic than other conditions, that youth consistent protectors and defenders of the
today is confronted by situations occasioned Jewish State on the world scene.
by the Holocaust, race relations, Vietnam and The period ahead is one of mobilization
the battle to erase poverties, and that the for the many thousands of Detroiters to
young may, therefore, be expected to act create a spirit of renewed giving and to
more realistically. One participant in the commence with an understanding of the basic
Atid symposium said: "Young men live needs in the trying period that is filled with
with visions and elders live with realities. war threats. Only a self-sufficient and well
We can hope that youth's visions become fortified Israel can possibly withstand the
the realities."
menacing threats from the neighbors who
If such hopes are to materialize, it will profess enmity, from a potential Fifth Col-
be necessary to face realities realistically — umn within Israel's confines and the ani-
to commence implanting the understanding mosity that motivates Moscow's encourage-
that the ideals about which youth dreams — ment to the Arabs to strive for Israel's
and consider its visions — are basic to Jewish destruction.
These are the elements involved in the
teachings. It also will compel adherence to
these principles, even if there has to be boiling cauldron of the Middle East. Its cool-
firmness in the matters involving Vietnam, ing depends as much on world Jewry as it
especially when race issues challenge us not does on Israel and the Israelis and the task
to abandon honor in granting to our neigh- of aiding Israel in critical situations imposes
bors those rights that are cherished by us. serious duties upon all of us in the .present
Many surveys ere'being •conducted.to. test . .Allied Jewish - Campaign.
'Concise Encyclopedia of Living
Faiths' an Impressive Volume
Beacon Press has issued a very large paperback defining the world's
religions. "The Concise Encyclopedia of Living Faiths" is a big book,
and it is an outstanding work dealing more extensively with all faiths
than most works of its kind.
Edited by R. C. Zaehner, especially well illustrated, it Is the
thoroughness of this work that makes it so effective.
Noted scholars contributed essays to describe the numerous faiths,
and among the contributors to various essays are A. L. Balsham, H. A.
R. Gibb, A. C. Graham, G. Bownas, Edward Come, I. B. Homer, John
Kent, T. Corbishley, J. G. Davies, R. H. Robinson, H. Francis Davis,
Werber Eichhorn, Nicholas Zernov, the editor of the volume, Dr. Zaeh-
ner, and the author of the article on Judaism, Prof. R. J. Zwi Werblow-
sky of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem—all authorities on the sub-
jects assigned to them.
Various differences in religious precepts are recorded in this
collective work and an indication of some of the factors is given in
Dr. Zaehner's introduction in which the states, inter alia: "Both
Judaism and Buddhism are commonly accounted 'religions;' but
what single common factor united them? The one purports to give
an account of God's dealings with his chosen people in history, both
God and his people being treated as objective realities, whereas the
other, in its early stages at least, has no consciousness of God as an
external reality, assigns no importance whatever to history, sees no
purpose at all in human life, but proclaims rather that salvation
consists in individual escape from an intolerable existence into a
state of being which is unconditioned, beyond space and time, and
in which suffering and the deceptive joys which are but a mask
for suffering are finally brought to rest. Between two such concep-
tions of man and the world in which he lives, there is a gulf fixed."
Dr. Zaehner further elaborates on two sharp distinctions between
"Indian" and "Judaic" conceptions of reality, with the parallel streanis
of religious energy, and in his definiton of the two main streams as Wen
as the subsidiary streams parallel to them he states:
"What are these two main streams, and what are the subsidiary
streams that run parallel to them? A glance at the map of the world
religions will show that there is a fairly clear dividing line between
the limit of extension of the two man religious traditions. `Western'
religions, by which we in fact mean the religion originating in the Near
East, owes its origin, directly or indirectly, to the Jews; 'Eastern' reli-
gion either owes its origin to India or is profoundly influenced by In-
dian religious thought. In each case there is the parent stock from
which the more widely diffused religions spring. In the West this parent
stock is Israel, the Jews; in the East it is India. And just as Israel gives
birth to Christianity and less directly—to Islam, so does the national
religion of India, Hinduism, give birth to Jainism and the two great
forms of Buddhism which now share between them almost the whole of
South East Asia, China and Japan. In each case a religious genius ap-
pears among the "chosen" people: In the case of the Jews, Jesus Christ;
in the case of the Indians, Gotama the Buddha. In each case there then
springs up a new religion distinct both from the parent stock and from
its great offshoot; in the one case, Islam, in the other Mahayana Bud-
dhism which is so radical a transformation of early Buddhism as to
constitute, almost, a religion in its own right. In each case again there
are religions originating in lands adjacent to one of the two 'chosen'
peoples which are akin to and ultimately assimilable by the two great
religious streams: In one case Zoroastrianism, in the other Taoism.
Here, however, the parellelism ends. The resemblances are of structure,
not of content. It is in the matter of content that the two streams are so
radically divided. Even a superficial comparison of the two halves of
this book should make this point clear."
The first portion of the new Beacon Press volume deals wth
"Prophecy" and the initial chapter is devoted to "Judaism, or the
Religion of Israel," in which Prof. Werblowsky deals extensively
with the method and scope of faith, with the Bible and biblical
criticism, with rabbinic Judaism and teachings of the prophets.
His essay is a review of history as well—of experiences in the
Middle Ages; and it contains reviews of the teachings of Malmo-
ides, Yehudah Halevi, Bahya Ibn Pakuda; with the Messiah and
messianic hopes. He explains the Kabbala, touches upon the various
trends in religious adherence, comments on the resurrection of the
dead and other factors in Jewish teachings and beliefs.
Christianity, Islam, Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, Shintoism, Buddh-
ism, Confucianism—all are given thorough treatment, providing a com-
plete history of the faiths, their teachings. The second portion of the
book, entitled "Wisdom," covers the ideologies of the numerous beliefs.
This is an impressive work that guides the reader perfectly, that
provides encyclopedic knowledge about the religions of the world.