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. 48235,
VE 8-9364. Subscription $7 a year. Fo':eign $8.
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, to third day of Tamuz, 5728, the following scriptural selections
will be read in our synagogues:
Pentateuchal portion, Num. 16:1-18:32. Prophetical portion, I Samuel 11:14-12:32.
Candle lighting, Friday. June 28, 8:54 p.m.
VOL. LIII. No. 15
Page Four
June 28, 1968
Exploring the Paths to a Just Society
In the midst of a world that appears to
be in torment, while experiencing the chal-
lenges that are- directed at nations through-
out the universe, men of good will are ex-
ploring the paths that should lead to justice
for all, regardless of race, creed, color of skin.
In a recent address at the University of
California on "Patterns of American Pre-
judice," Dr. Arthur Flemming, president of
the University of Oregon and of the National
Council of Churches, related this story:
"One of Aesop's fables describes a lion and
a goat quarreling at a water hole as to which
should drink first. There was plenty of room
for them to drink together, but none the less
they quarreled and were preparing to fight
it out when, looking up, they saw vultures
wheeling low above them, waiting for the bat-
tle, and its aftermath. They decided to drink
together."
How well this fits into the scheme of
things at a time when serious-minded and
unprejudiced people are searching for a way
out of the prejudice-laden atmosphere!
The late Saul Tchernichowsky, one of the
greatest Hebrew poets of this century, in a
poem, "For Whose Sake Does the World
Exist?" expressed a high sentiment for a
noble 'goal. In a translation from the Hebrew
by Dr. Moshe Davis, this poem reads:
For whose sake does the world exist?
For the sake of the buds
In the fields and the parks
In the woods, by the lakes.
For their sake it exists.
For whose sake does the world exist?
For the sake of the butterflies
In the fields and the meadows,
In the spring, in hot summer,
For their- sake it exists.
For whose sake does the world exist?
For the sake of the children
In the houses and huts.
Wherever they are.
For their sake it exists.
For whose sake does the world exist?
For the sake of the little ones.
Everywhere, always.
For the sake of the little ones
The world carries on.
These guides to high goals in man's
aspirations for human decency need to be
emphasized time and time again because
bigotry raises its ugly head so often and
because, contrary to the poet Tchernichow-
sky's plea for "the sake of the little ones,"
it is the children who often suffer the
most from the inhumanity of man to man.
On the occasion of the commemoration
of the 25th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto
Uprising, held April 20 in Berlin, the govern-
ing mayor, Klaus Schutz commenced his
lengthy address with these comments:
"The uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto
began during the night from 18th to 19th
April. It ended with the detonation of the
synagogue in Tlomackiestrabe. The up-
rising was suppressed on 16th May 1943.
."But the misery of the Jews in the War-
Sa* Ghetto does not only lie between these
dateS..There was horror and misery before,
there was horror and misery to come. The
story 'of the Warsaw Ghetto is merely a
small stretch in the path of untold suffer-
ing trodden by European Jewry, the path
of millions of Jewish people. It is part
of the Jews' fate in Europe, which was
dominated by the Germany of Hitler.
"Millions of dead — it is beyond all
imagination. That's one life, another life
and yet another, and each one is the story
of a human being from birth to death, is
the interplay of luck and misfortune, the
mixture of experience, hope and disap-
pointment.
"Prof. Ludwik Hirszfeld once asked a
little girl in the Warsaw Ghetto what she
would like to be. The little girl replied:
`A dog! The sentries like dogs.'
"During those years there were hun-
dreds of thousands of even more horrifying
scenes 'and hideous sights than that of this
man and the little girl. But the complete
hopelessness left by the Ghetto inhabitants
is reflected in the wish of this little girl.
In what sort of a situation must a man be,
one asks oneself, that it appears more
desirable to be an animal? What sort of
regime must it have been that forced a
young person to find such an existence
worth aspiring after? I shall not answer
these questions. You can reserve your own
judgment."
It is when the children are afflicted, that
human miseries emerge as specifically denot-
ing the degradation of those who sink to
lowest standards. They then become sym-
bolic of the failure to guide man towards
just and human dedications. But these very
inhumanities must serve as inducements not
to despair, to seek the way towards the
elimination of hatred, to strive for the ad-
vancement of the human values which must
guide us along paths of decency and kind-
ness.
The explorations along paths that lead
towards a just society serve to inspire greater
faith that perhaps a better day is coming.
The progress already made in civil rights
movements, the same that accompanies the
memories of the Nazi era, the admonition
that a hundred - year - old guilt toward our
fellow citizens whOse skin is of a color dif-
ferent than ours must be amended — these
are indications that we are reaching towards
new eras of righteousness.
O TI-F E4m
PIER
LLZS
FREEDOM
'A Guest for the Night'
s, Y. Agnon's Latest Classic
S. Y. Agnon is the mystic. He also'is the historian of the Old
World—of the so-called shtetl. He links past with present and his
novels are religiously philosophical. -
His "A Guest for the Night," translated from the Hebrew by
Misha Louvish, published by Schocken Books, the distinguished firm
that has undertaken the republishing of the works of the Nobel Prize
winner in literature, is another of his revealing works that introduces
the search into the past with an emphasis on change.
The Guest is the unnamed Israeli—the story is told in the
first person throughout—who returns to his home town of Szibucz, and
it is in the transformations that the reader learns about the experiences
of the visitor who returns to his shtetl, coming face to face with
revolutionary developments.
There is the Guest's friend Yeruham who marries the narrator's
beloved Rachel, and the Guest buys a gift for the offspring of that
marriage. Life in Szibucz goes on but with a difference. There
is a lessening of idealism, one of the hostelries in the city becomes
a bawdy house, the youth becomes alienated, the House of Study
is no longer filled.
There is the search and the disillusionment. There are obserya-
tions that seek to explain the causes and effects: "All the troubles
of the Jews come from nothing but controversy. Sometimes I say to
myself; We are no better than the Gentiles; they make war upon each
other and spill visible blood, while we make controversies and spill
blood that cannot be seen."
Because the steps are retraced from Israel to Szibucz, the Guest
seeks and rediscovers the Covenant and goes through the experience
of holiday observances on his visit. to his home town—in an era de-
picted after World War I.
It is the era of some despair: "All Szibucz waits for the divine
mercy, each in his OW11 way; trade is bad and no one earns enough
for food, and if a man earns a zloty the government comes and takes
half for taxes and half for levies."
There is the problem faced by the Guest with the key. He
turns to the House of Study, but he loses the key and he makes a
duplicate, only to learn that he had it all the time! The mysticism
sets in. The Guest turns to the place of sacred studies even in the
loneliness because so few now use the place.
And in reviewing the experiences he thinks of the Covenant:
"There are other people in Szibucz with whom we have had to do
and of whom we have not yet written, such as Reuben and Simon,
Levi and Judah, or the tailor and his wife, or that old man who made
a key for our old Beit Midrash, or the people of Gordonia, or all the
other sons of Szibucz; but there is a covenant made for the Land of
Israel that whoever does not settle, in the Land is forgotten in the
end, but everyone who has the privilege will be remembered and
to take note of the fact that the vast chain written of in the Land, as it is said (Isaiah, chapter 4), 'Everyone
of Jewish educational systems functioning in who is written for Life in Jerusalem."
USSR Rabbi's Message of a Tara Link
Moscow's Rabbi Yehuda Leib Levin con-
tinues to receive good receptions in this
country, in spite of the regrettable demon-
stration that was so ill-mannered on his first
appearance before an American audience.
A major fact to consider is that the link
that was created between Russian and Ameri-
can Jewry, even if those who forged it are
spokesmen for the ill-reputed Council for
Judaism, was to be welcomed. By granting
the Moscow rabbi the right to visit fellow-
Jews in America the Soviet Union may have
intended to serve a selfish purpose—of be-
clouding the issues related to the restrictions
imposed upon Jews in Russia by aiming to
mislead people generally to believe that Jews
are not molested in the USSR.
At the same time, however, an opportunity
was created for the American Association
for Jewish Education to present the facts to
Rabbi , Levin and to •ask' him , c.hallenglingl:s7
this country indicates the extent of the free-
doms enjoyed by American Jews; whereas
in Russia there is nothing at all to match
the minutest cultural efforts in this land.
It is especially interesting to note in
the speeches of Rabbi Levin that he empha-
sizes the role of Tora as the medium that
binds all Jews.
Why, then, isn't Russian Jewry provided
with an opportunity to study Tora and why
do the relevant questions addressed to him
by the American Association for Jewish Edu-
cation remain unanswered? Why is every-
thing Jewish actually suppressed in the
USSR?
Demonstrations of friendship which have
consistently greeted Rabbi Levin should en-
courage the cementing of the link he has
So it is with Agnon: he does not forget the message of the Land
of Israel. Since the Guest returns to Israel, and the bridegroom
Yeruham Freeman who married Rachel is a dedicated pioneer of
Israel, the concluding words in the novel also are significant. Agnc'
asserts:
"Now let us see what happened to that man who will live in
Jerusalem and What he did in the Land; or rather—since he is
settled in the Land and is only a tiny grain of its soil—who will
deal with a single grain when the whole Land is before him?
"The story of the Guest is ended, his doings in Sebum are done."
This could be assumed to be the return—to the Land—as the
search for the old in Szibucz is finished and the returnee finds SO
much that has vanished and many changes for the negative.
"A Guest for the Night" is a symbolic novel, about a guest who. is
not necessarily for a night but for a brief stay, to learn of the collapse
of an old spirit. It is the traditional form of Agnon narratives and
among the noteworthy novels which gave the great Hebrew writer an
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acknowledged but which remains- invisible. eorned right to the 1966 Nobel' Prize in Literature..