THE JEWISH NEWS
Incorporating The Detroit Jewish Chronicle commencing with issue of July 20, 1951
Member American Association of English—Jewish Newspapers, Michigan Press Association, National Editorial
Association.
Published every Friday by The Jewish News Publishing Co., 17100 West Seven Mile Road, Detroit, Mich. 48236.
VE 8-9364. Subscription $6 a year. Foreign 57.
Second Class Postage Paid at Detroit, Michigan
PHILIP SLOMOVITZ
Editor and Publisher
SIDNEY SHMARAK
CARMI M. SLOMOVITZ
Advertising Manager
Business Manager
CHARLOTTE DUBIN
City Editor
Sabbath Scriptural Selections
This Sabbath, the 18th day of Shevat, 5728, the following scriptural selections
will be read in our synagogues:
Pentateuchal portion, Exodus 18:1-20:23. Prophetical portion, Isaiah 6:1-7:6; 9:5,6.
Candle lighting, Friday, Feb. 16, 5:47 p.m.
VOL. LII. No. 22
Page Four
February 16, 1968
Brotherhood Week-Its 1968 Challenge
Brotherhood' Week's inauguration on
Sunday is accompanied by a measure of puz-
zlement. It comes at a time when law enforce-
ment agencies are taxed with problems of
how to assure peace in our communities and
of measures of averting strife in our midst.
If we are in such a predicament relative
to the possible reoccurrence of rioting such
as many of our major cities experienced last
summer, how can we, without reservations,
approach observance of a period of good will
by inspiring confidence in man's better
nature?
Perhaps this is what should make Brother-
hood Week an event of major significance on
our calendar: the desire to attain the best
relationships among all elements in our midst
and of assuring the retention of brotherhood
for the entire year.
Because the fears that have dominated
our thinking and have marred our aspirations
for amity have persisted during the entire
year, there enters into the discussion of
Brotherhood Week's aims a factor of great
disturbance. We must ask why we now revert
to a celebration of a week's duration, ignoring
the seriousness of relationships during the
other 51 weeks of a year that was filled with
tensions?
We are failing somewhere. We are lacking
the stamina to create the type of good will that
cements relationships among faiths and races
and assures the type of unity in American life
that should eliminate strife — especially in
an era when our nation faces so many threats
from the outside.
It is true that the tensions of our time
are not necessarily limited to the color line,
that the crime wave is ascribable to white
hoodlums as much as to the rebels in the
ranks of the blacks. Neverthless, it is equal-
ly true that religion and race are intertwin-
ed in much that is happening today, and
our obligations to eliminate strife depend
on the elements seeking good will more
seriously than on any other group in our
midst.
President Johnson recognized these real-
ities and in his Brotherhood message to the
nation, released through the National Con-
ference of Christians and Jews, called for
national unity. His message is significant for
our time. It strikes at the very root of our
needs when he states that we must strive
for partnership "as brothers in the human
family." His message deserves full reproduc-
tion. It read:
During the past year our nation has been
rocked by a series of riots and racial violence
such as we have never before experienced.
There can be no justification for such break-
downs in law and order and wanton killing
and looting. The law of the land must at all
times prevail—and be respected and obeyed
or the causes of freedom, equality, and na-
tional unity are lost.
Yet the causes of freedom, equality, and
national unity might equally well be lost if
the evils of poverty, apathy, ignorance and
bigotry were allowed to prevail.
One hundred and ninety-one years ago our
Declaration of Independence enunciated the
principle that all men were created equal,
and that they were endowed by their creator
with certain inalienable rights. These rights
were later explicitly guaranteed in our Con-
stitution and Bill of Rights. We must live up
to that guarantee and make these rights a
reality for every American citizen.
I call upon all Americans to join the Na-
tional Conference of Christians and Jews in
the observance of Brotherhood Week, 1968,
and in the support of its intensive year-round
educational program in behalf of national
unity. If unity is ever to be achieved, educa-
tion for better human relations must con-
tinue not only during Brotherhood Week, but
throughout the year in our schools and col-
leges, in our churches and synagogues, in our
police academies and in our community
forums.
_Let us move swiftly and surely in the
months ahead to insure that ALL Americans,
in truth, are treated equally as partners in
our National life, and as brothers in the
human family.
—
The current challenge is obvious. The
duties that confront us are clear and em-
phatic.
We must emphasize anew the obligations
inherent in the Brotherhood Week observance
that was initiated some 30 years ago by the
National Conference of Christians and Jews.
Let it be observed with great seriousness,
and also with a determination that good will
should not be limited to lip service one week
in the year but should be declared an unend-
ing obligation upon all Americans. May the
Brotherhood Week to be marked during the
Feb. 18-24 period result in the revival of the
most sacred American ideals — of respect of
neighbor for neighbor and the re-enforcement
of the great American principle of fair play
which gives assurance of respect for the
rights of all Americans on a basis of equality
inherent in the ideals all of us must strive to
perpetuate honorably.
USSR's Perpetuation of Czarist Anti-Semitism
While incessantly denying that the Com-
munist regime is anti-Semitic, an important
element in the Russian regime proved last
week that the Czarist inheritance of hatred
for the Jewish people has not ended.
The Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian
Soviet Republic gave "a diploma of the
Presidium of the Supreme Soviet" to one of
the USSR's vilest anti-Semites, Trofim K.
Kychko.
For a time, Kychko lived what was
believed to have been "in disgrace" when
public opinion within and outside Russia
condemned him for writing and the Soviet
Union for permitting the publication of his
"Judaism Without Embellishment." The "dis-
grace" ended when he was acclaimed again
for his attack on Israel and world Jewry
after the June Six-Day War. Once again he
drew upon the spirit of the Nazis and the
anti-Semitic language of Julius Streicher. He
again circulated most atrocious libels against
Jewry, and if ever there was doubt that the
Soviet UniOri • lea'dettliip - it • Anti-Setnitrc; it
was dispelled by Kychko's return to Com-
munist glory.
Neverthless, the Russian authorities are
pushing for public consumption the appear-
ance of a pamphlet on the Jews in Russia
in which many claims are made of great
accomplishments by Russian Jews, of the
Soviet Union as a sort of panacea for its
Jewish citizens. In the newly-hailed brochure
the author called anti-Semitism "the natural
outcome of the policy of the Russian czars
toward the nationalities under their rule,"
and he added that the czarist policy "doomed
these nationalities to appalling backwardness
and ignorance, almost total illiteracy, starva-
tion and disease."
This is an excellent description of the
Communist heritage from czarism. What we
are witnessing today is a continuation of the
czarist attitudes. The honor the Ukrainian
Soviet accorded to Kychko is another element
of proof of the deterioration of Russia's
claims to human decency in the USSR treat-
ment* V 'its '3,000,000 'Jews."
-
•
'
History of the Israel Knesset
Reviewed by Parliamentarian
From the very foundation of Israel's parliament, the Knesset,
Asher Zidon has been its deputy secretary. He may therefore well be
considered the best qualified person to describe the working of the
Israeli parliamentary regulations, the history of Israel's governing
body, its composition in relation to other branches of the government,
the parliament's working committees and other elements involved
in the democratic functions of the Israel government.
In "Knesset, the Parliament of Israel," a 350-page volume pub-
lished by Herzl Press, supplemented by numerous tables containing
the basic facts about the Knesset, Zidon relates the fascinating story
of one of the youngest parliamentary bodies in the world yet perhaps
among the most active.
In translation from the Hebrew by Aryeh Rubinstein and Gertrude
Hirschler, this volume is enhanced by a brief foreward by Abba Eban
who indicates that "the unicameral Knesset, with its 120 elected
representatives," is "the central pillar" of Israel's democratic idea_
Appropriately, Zidon's "Knesset" commences with a descrip-
tion of the parliament's beginning, of its membership, the methods
that were used in organizing it, the rights and duties of its mem-
bers, their salaries and remuneration.
Why 120 members? Zidon explains: "Dr. Zerah Warhaftig, repre-
senting HaPoel HaMizrahi, who had made the proposal, gave as the
reason for his choice of 120 the historical fact that the Great Assembly,
the first supreme legislative authority to be elected by the Jews in
the era of the Second Commonwealth, had had 120 members."
While candidates for the Knesset in the main are submitted by
the political parties in Israel, a group of 750 qualified voters can sub-
mit a candidate, and persons nominated must accept in writing.
The total salary of a married member with one child under 20,
including family and cost of living allowances, less the income tax, is
866 pounds—at the present rate of exchange about $260 a month.
The roles of speaker and deputy speakers, the administrative
facilities of the Knesset, the stenographic minutes, procedures and
customs, requirements for conduct and etiquette, the party system—these
are among the many details thoroughly reviewed to indicate the par-
liamentary functions and to show how the opposition is able to express
itself in a coalition government.
Basic Israeli laws are referred to in the author's account
of the Knesset at work and of the question of a constitution which
was formulated but never adopted. It is pointed out that the
present status of the question for a constitution Is that the basic
laws are being acted upon and that while there is little progress
in efforts to conclude the adoption of a constitution "the con-
stitution issue has not been dropped from public debate."
At present, Zidon explains, "the basic laws, except for their tech-
nical designation, do not as yet carry any features distinguishing them
from other laws, since, formally, they wield no greater authority than
ordinary legislation . the title of 'basic law' has been given to such
legislation which was adopted with the clear intention to incorporate it
into a future constitution."
Examples of legislation, such as the Law of Return, citizenship,
education, judges, courts etc., are considered "constitutional-type
in every respect, and there is no reason these should not be incorporat-
ed, at least in part, into the constitution of the State of Israel."
"It is yet to be decided," Zidon asserts, "whether the constitution wilt
be `strict' or `elastic' and tchether and to what extent it will supersede
ordinary legislation. And if the constitution should be accorded priority
over ordinary laws, there still is the question who—the courts or some
other institution—is to rule in case of conflict on the constitutionality St
laws passed by the Knesset or of any act of the government."
Commencement and conduct of debate, the legitimacy of heckling,
the methods of summation, the processes of several readings, the lam*
that have been adopted, are among the many items covered in relation
to the workings of- the Knesset.
The author provides data regarding the several elections that have
taken place, the changes in the Knesset's memberships, and even the
results of presidential elections. For instance, Chaim Weizmann
ceived 83 of the 120 votes when he was elected first president at
Israel. In the second election he received 85 of the 120 votes.
Yitzhak Ben-Zvi received only 62 of 120 votes in his election to his
first term as president and 76 votes when he was elected for a second
term. For his third term he received 62 votes.
The present president, Shneour Zalman Shazar, received Cli
the 120 votes.
Zidon's important book gains significance with its numerous
descriptive tables, showing the Knesset elections and the memberships,
distribution of Knesset seats, membership changes, ages of Knesset
members, countries of their origin, women members, Arabs and Druzes
in the Knesset, etc.