Purely Commentary

Liberals Who Harm Liberalism: Reiterated
Support for Candidacy of Hubert H. Humphrey

Before very long we will be inundated with the political hysteria
that stems from the national conventions. While the choices of both
parties already appear apparent, there still is the impression of develop-
ing contests. In the course of the pre-conventions' speculations, there
has been an avalanche' of articles, most of which have been angled to
harin the candidacy of the Vice President.
The tragedy inherent in the current passing of judgment is that the
so-called liberals, those of the Nation, Progressive, New Republic and
others Upon whose views we often count so much, have literally ganged
up on Hubert H. Humphre y .
Even if there was a doubt—and we deny that there is such doubt
—the question that arises is : is there a substitute?
•
Humphrey's record is so excellent, he has acted so well through the
years, in critical periods he risked so much when he Was :the leader in
battles for civil rights and other causes, that to knife him now is unjust.
The chief accusation against him is that he backs up the Johnson
policies: domestically there is no criticism, but in foreign relations
there is the antiLVietnam outcry. We are not prepared to defend the
current policy, but it is undeniable that much of it is an inheritance
from three previous .administrations, and we have confidenee- that
Hubert Humphrey has the good sense to speed a solution to a tragic
war issue.
Ability, experience, a -large measure of courage, devotion to duty
—these are qualitieS that make the Vice President the dominant figure
on the political arena. He remains our candidate for the Presidency.

The Arab Lie and the Duty to Expose It

Arab propagandists do not stop at anything. They spread the lie
against Israel and they are injecting their falsehoods in many spheres.
Last week they were caught lying by newsmen in Rome when two
Jordanian officials accused Israel of imposing the death penalty upon
Arab saboteurs in the West Bank. They retracted—but it was an excep-
tional instance when they were caught lying. Too often, in too many
areas, especially in the United States, they get a free hand at spreading
libelous propaganda.
On the international arena, Gen. Yehoshafat Harkabi of Israel, one
of the world's outstanding Arabic scholars, has exposed the methods
that lurk from Cairo to accuse Jews generally of all the atrocious false-
hoods that had been leveled at them, including those contained in the
nefarious Protocols of the Elders of Zion and not excluding the medieval
ritual murder lie.
Not many, however, are aware of this sort of propaganda which
•contributes to ill will rather than to peace.
Attention should be called to an important service that has been
rendered in exposing the Arab lie - by an eminent American writer,
M. S. Arnoni, editor of The Minority of One, whose "Rights and Wrongs
in the Arab-Israeli Conflict" is, as we have judged it, one of the best
analyses of the Middle East situation. He has ren-
dered a great service in that significant volume in
describing the falsifications of facts by Arabs and
the Soviet Union; and now in his challenging maga-
zine, replying to a pack of lies by an Arab woman
writer in the Marxist Monthly Review, Tabitha
Petran, he provides a mass of material that explores
the entire issue and presents historical data that
should serve completely to demolish the lie factory.
Unfortunately, the lie travels faster than the truth.
Because Arnoni has conducted such an important
one-man research project, we recommend his 10-
Arnoni
page fully annotated essay in the June 1968 issue of
'The Minority of One as a course of study for all those who desire to be
informed on the Israel situation vis-a-vis the Arab threats so that they
should be well prepared to refute the lies.
We especially recommend this essay to the Leftists, the young Jews
who have begun to swallow all the Communist propaganda, so that they
themselves be well prepared against attacks that are certain to rever-
berate against them even though they—we hope they are few!—side
with the extremists who have adopted an anti-Israel pattern..
Arnoni's essay, "The Anatomy of an Advocacy: The Middle East
and the Integrity of Some 'Analysts,' " is in itself book-length and it
must be studied in its entirety. Suffice it at this point to give full credit
to one who refuses to permit untruth to dominate in a matter that
involves the very life of an entire nation.

Humphrey Preferred While
the Liberals Err . . The Arab
Line and the Duty to Expose It

By Philip
Slomovitz

Pentateuch Cited
for Guaranteed
Annual Income

Mark Twain had condemned "The. United States of Lynchendom"
at a time when there was the shocking era of lynchings which con-
tributed so much to the despair of our time. The great humorist wrote
NEW YORK — The American
in all seriousness in expressing his "disgust over 'the damned human Jewish Congress has cited ancient
race.' "
Jewish law in urging the Joint
In his essay in Ramparts, Geismar quotes Mark Twain who, in Economic Committee of the Senate
1900, uttered this protest:
and the House to produce a
"Shall we? That is, shall we go on conferring our civilization "viable" plan for .a guaranteed an-
upon the people that sit in darkness, or shall we give these poor nual income for al Americans.
things a rest? Shall we bang right ahead in our old-time, loud,
A federally-financed system of
pious way, and commit the new century to the game; or shall we cash payments to families and in-
sober up and sit down and think it over first? Would it not be dividuals whose incomes fall below
prudent to get our civilizational tools together, and see how much the subsistence level was urged in
stock is left on hand in the way of glass beads and theology, and la statement submitted to the fiscal
maxim guns and hymn books, and trade gin and torches of progress policy subcommittee oe. the Joint
and enlightenment (patent adjustable ones, good to fire villages Economic Committee by Howard
with, upon occasion), and balance the books, and arrive at the M. Squadron, co-chairman of the
profit and loss, so that we may. intelligently decide to continue the American Jewish Congress national
business or sell out the property and start a new civilizational governing council.
scheme on the proceeds?"
"The concept that it is a public
There wasn't complete blindness over racism, the meanness of responsibility to provide for the
humans, the inhumanity of man to man even when lynchings were ram- poor to enable them to live in
pant. But there wasn't enough of the vision of Mark Twain to infiltrate health and dignity is central to
the human heart and mind to prevent what is happening in the Jewish thought," the statement de-
matter of racism to our generation.
clared, adding:
"The Pentateuch, the core ()-
Jewish law, proclaims that th,
To Battle Against the Destructive Leftists
Would that M. S. Arnoni and Maxwell Geismar could combine their poor have both the moral and a
skills in the battle against the new Leftists who are today becoming so legal right to be supported.
menacingly anti-Semitic.
fact, the Pentateuch speaks in \—
Even the Jewish New Leftists have been misled into an anti-Zionist sense of a 'guaranteed annual in-
come' for the poor when it decrees
anti-Israel clique.
that the poor shall receive as a
Arnoni and Geismar are both disgusted with the way in which matter
of right 'that which grows
Communist influences have caused the New Left to become anti-Semitic in the corner
of
and the Jewish portion of that group self-hatingly un-Jewish and anta- gotten sheaf or the field, the for-
fruit, the produce
gonistic to their own people.
Perhaps the better judgment of rational people, under the guidance of the fields every seventh year,
and the tithe of the harvest every
of such men of reason, will help solve the problem.
third year.' I I

Tora Given Czar
Being Exhibited
by Israel Museum

VED(S11•1•1. ■■■ ya.C.....n.a.m.....,...............
11•01 •11,0 ■ 11•1 ■0■ 11.1•11 ■ 0111=1,4} ■
041•MI ■ 141 ■ 01M•

Boris Smolar's

I

'Between You
. and Me'

A minature Tora given to Czar
Alexander III 100 years ago has
reached Jerusalem and is now on
(Copyright 1968, JTA Inc.)
exhibition at the Israel Museum.
The parchment of the Tora is not
JEWISH EDUCATION: The Jewish school system throughout the
even four inches high, yet the tiny
has closed for the summer with a loss of more than 45,000
letters of the text allow for clear country
pupils as compared with the previous
reading. The thin scroll is rolled
years. Only two years ago, the
on carved ivory rods. Together total number of children enrolled in the schools was estimated at
This school year the estimated enrollment was less than
with the Tora the Museum re- 600,000.
555,000.
ceived two gold embroidered
The loss is especially grave considering that the 600,000 level
mantles and a silver aron-kodesh
(ark) — 91h inches high — orna been maintained for about 10 years. It represents a 7 per cent had
re-
mented with dolphins and with a duction in the number of children who have attended Jewish schools of
ring for hanging.
all types—Sunday schools, afternoon schools and all-day schools—in 455
The Tora had been given to the communities; this, at a time when the need for intensified Jewish educa-
Czar when he passed through a tion has been stressed in all Jewish communities.
small Jewish community in Es-
There are about 1,300,000 Jewish children in the country.in
tonia, 100 years ago. Some years year-age group. This means that about 800,000 of them have the 3-17
ago friends gave it to the late crossed the threshold of a Jewish school. In the 8-12 age group, never
more
Moshe Haim Hassid in Russia. His than a third have never been to a Jewish school and do
not know the
sister, Mrs. Hassid-Yaffeh, now a Jewish alphabet.
resident of Bat Yam, Israel, gave
The picture is especially gloomy in cities with large Jewish popula-
this rare Tora to the Israel Mu- tions. The larger the
Jewish community, the smaller the percentage of
seum, where it is exhibited as
a part of the largest exhibition of children attending Jewish schools. The picture is not rosy in the small
Jewish ceremonial art in the communities either. The 13 largest Jewish communities in the country—
each with a Jewish population of 50,000 or more—have on their records
world.
70 per cent of the total pupils enrolled in the Jewish schools. The other
30 per cent are scattered in schools located in about 440 smaller com-
*
munities.
Street in Jerusalem
Invoking Mark Twain on Racism
But more than 42 per cent of the total attend Sunday schools only
Rabbi Polachek
Another very eminent author whose works need to be taken into for
percentage is much higher outside of Metropolitan New York.
NEW YORK — On July 17, a —the
There, you have a picture of
account at this time is the noted essayist and literary critic Maxwell
how meager Jewish education is in
street
in
Jerusalem
will
be
named
Geismar. He is currently completing research for his book on Mark
country today. The fact that 43 per cent of the pupils in all schools this
are
Twain and his essay in Ramparts, " Mark Twain on Racism, Imperial- in honor of Rabbi Shelomoh Pola- girls also throws an interesting light on the present state
of Jewish
chek,
one
of
the
century's
pre-
education.
ism and Other Enduring Characteristics of the Republic," compels
eminent talmudic scholars and an
*
*
serious attention.
*
early and ardent Zionist.
PARENTS AND CHILDREN: The American Association for Jewish
During his lifetime, Rabbi Pola- Education, which disclosed the decline in the
of children int,
check, who was known as the Jewish schools, attributes it to the decline in number
the Jewish birth rate
"Meitsheter. Elul," died in 1928.
during the last few years. But it does not mention the fact that there
Rabbi Polachek taught and lec- are many young Jewish parents who never
Editor's Note; Paul Eldridge, Not yours by virtue of a law or
attended a Jewish school as
tured at the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan children. It can be assumed that these
well known author, poet and novel-
ukase
parents=themselves strangers
Theological
Seminary,
an
affiliate
ist, was a champion of Israel's Grudgingly given
to Jewish education—have no interest in providing such education for
of Yeshiva University.
their children.
cause in the era prior to the Grudgingly observed
The seminary in those years was
This opens an entirely new problem—the growing need for adult
emergence of the Jewish State. Circumvented by labyrinthine wiles
This, one of his newest poems, was Until bereft of meaning -arid of directed by Dr. Bernard Revel, Jewish education. The time has come for the Jewish communities to
essence
who later founded Yeshiva College think very seriously about Jewish education for parents no less than for
inspired by the Aliya movement
Mali
which, with the seminary, formed children.
inaugurated at the 27th World Serves but as jeweled c/Oak
• ---11
To
hide
the
leprous
scabs
and
the
foundation
of
the
school
which
Zionist Congress.
Jewish education in America is estimated
scales
evolved into Yeshiva University. year business. No less than that sum was spent to be a $100,000,000-a.
this year to provide
Of prejudice and hate.
By PAUL ELDRIDGE
In remembrance of his contribu- Jewish education for the 555,000 enrolled children. There are at least
good it is to have your own
-
How good it is to have your own How
tions
to
talmudic
thought
generally
country—
17,000 teachers employed—many of them on a part-time basis—in Jew,
country—
and to the seminary in particular, ish schools. There are Jewish school buildings, Jewish education
Woof and warp of- you
commit-
Not yours by fragile sufferance
Soil of her soil
the university will send a represen- tees, Jewish textbooks. It is true that only 4,000 of the teachers
Not yours as a random caravansary Breath of her breath—
are
tative
to
the
street-dedication
cere-
licensed
to
teach
in
Jewish
schools.
But
it
is
also true that up to now the
Precarious oasis of whimsical pity Your own— root and blossom and mony — Rabbi William Drazin, of
American Jewish school system needed 500 or more new teachers eaeh
Twixt one desert of exile and an-
fruit
Ramat Gan, Israel, a distinguished year. It had to depend on teachers from Israel. If the Israelis
other
Nourished by your blood
were not
rabbinic
alumnus
who
is
a promi- available, some Hebrew schools would shut down, -
Not yours by the grace of a royal Sanctified by your bones—
nent
industrialist
in
Israel.
Joseph
The
Council
of
Jewish
Federations
and
Welfare
Your own — ancestor unto de-
Funds has some
Favorite of one beholden Pharaoh
Rabbi Polachek's son-in-law is time ago established a Committee on Planning for Jewish
scendant
Education.
Rejected by invidious successors
Rabbi Israel Mowshowitz of the The CJFWF emphasized that the strengthening of Jewish education
Spirit and tongue and tradition
in
One generation as guests and
Your own
}Merest Jewish Center, Flushing, quality and effectiveness is of the utmost importance
freemen
to the future of the
N.Y.
Unchallenged
Jewish
communities
in
America.
The
Ten as wretched slaves.
Council's committee has been in
Indisputable—
How good it is to have your own How good it is to have your own
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS operation for about two years under the chairmanship of Mandell L.
country—
Berman, noted Jewish community leader in Detroit. It is developing
country !
2—Friday, July 12, 1968
guidelines for communities, and much hope is placed on its activities.
_ _

Patrimony

I

