Week of Book Fair Activities Begins Saturday

The Jewish Book Fair, featuring
hundreds of books for sale, scores
of speakers and other events for
all ages, opens Saturday with a
talk by Leo Katcher 8:15 p.m. in
Shiffman Hall. Katcher, author of
"Postmortem: the Jews in Ger-
many Today," will speak on "The

Role of the Jewish Author in To-
day's World."
Also, Saturday evening at 8:30,
Center Theater will present "J.B.,"
by Archibald MacLeish.
Sunday events will include a
religious school program, with Leo
Katcher speaking, 10:30 a.m.; story

telling by Mrs. Shirley Locke and
Mrs. Martha Marenof, 11 a.m., 2:30
and 3:30 p.m.; the Berry Puppets
in "David and the Giant," 2 p.m.;
Mrs. Leah Porat, "Modern Israeli
Hebrew and Modern Israeli Heb-
rew Literature," for Hebrew-speak-
ing students, 2 p.m.; Chaim Potok

press interview and autograph ses-
sion, 3:30 p.m.; Mrs. Porat, "Litera-
ture and Mass Communication:
Are They Compatible?," 8:15 p.m.;
and "J.B.," by Center Theater,
7:30 p.m.
Monday highlights are talks
by Lily Edelman on "Jewish

Boris Smolar's

'Between You
... and Me'

(Copyright 1968, JTA Inc.)
•
VIENNA — The offices of the Joint Distribution Committee and
of the United Hias Service in Vienna are both in the same building.
In fact, they are on the same floor. I found them crowded with Jewish
refugees from Czechoslovakia and Poland who continue to reach
Vienna in substantial numbers almost every day, seeking their way to
the United States, Canada, Australia and other countries of the free
world.
Hundreds of others seek their way to Israel. These are handled
by the Jewish Agency office. Representatives of the Jewish Agency
meet all the trains arriving from Poland and take care of the Jewish
refugees carrying visas to Israel on their documents. The visas are
issued in Warsaw by the Dutch Consulate there who has attended to
Israeli affairs in Poland since the Warsaw government broke off diplo-
matic relations with Israel.
The Jewish refugees are transferred—upon their arrival in Vienna
—by the Jewish Agency from the trains by special bus to a shelter
in a Vienna suburb, which was formerly the residence of a member
of the Austrian nobility. Leased by the Jewish Agency, this palace—
surrounded by many acres of trees and a large garden — is now the
temporary home for Jewish refugees from Czechoslovakia and Poland
wishing to proceed to Israel. Here, in this huge building, they are
provided with tiooms, food and medical care for about a week and
then flown to Israel on chartered planes.

* r. *

THE GREAT TRAGEDY: There is quite a difference betWeen the
Jewish refugees from Czechoslovakia and those coming from Poland.
Whereas, most of the refugees from Poland want to go to Israel from
here, this is not the case with most of the refugees from Czechoslo-
vakia. A majority of the latter prefer to emigrate to the United States
or Canada. Some of them seek their way to Switzerland, which has
displayed a good deal of sympathy in admitting people escaping now
from Prague.
There are even some Jewish refugees from Czechoslovakia who
wish to settle in West Germany. They hope that • as Nazi victims they
may succeed in claiming reparations from the Bonn government as
German-speaking people and as Jews who suffered during the Hitler
regime. They were not in a position to request reparations when they
lived in Communist Czechoslovakia.
Those of the refugees who are being processed for emigration
to the United States, Canada, Australia and West European countries
do not receive aid from the Jewish Agency. Aid to them must be given
by the Joint Distribution Committee office here.
These tragically uprooted men of high caliber have to depend
entirely on the meager aid they receive from the JDC to keep body
and soul together. More than 1,000 of them — men who never begged
for anything — now crowd the corridors of the JDC office waiting for
the dole to cover their most primitive needs. There were 2,410 of
them last week. I found their number reduced now because of the
speed with which visas to countries of the free world are being granted
to them. However, thousands of new refugees are expected. All indica-
tions point to the fact that the influx of Jewish refugees from Czecho-
slovakia will grow and that the JDC will be faced with even greater
urgencies than now. Since the Soviet military occupation of Czecho-
slovakia, the JDC office in Vienna has spent more than $200,000 on
aid to refugees.
The number of Jewish refugees who reached Vienna from Czecho-
slovakia is growing. Jews fear that "show trials" with strong anti-
Jewish undertones—like the, notorious Slansky trial several years ago
—will soon be staged in Prague under Moscow pressure.
r.
*
HUMAN MISERY: As the winter approaches, the JDC here is
faced with another important problem — it must supply winter cloth-
ing for the Jewish refugees. Most of the escapees reached Vienna with
no luggage and in light summer clothes. I have seen refugees who
smuggled themselves out of Czechoslovakia in sandals. They are now
in need of shoes. Some came out wearing summer sport shirts. Now
they need warm shirts and underwear. They need overcoats and winter
suits. This is no less a necessity than shelter and food, and the JDC
office here is fully aware of this fact. It is a situation which requires
urgent attention and hundreds of thousands of dollars. To this must
be added the needs of the Jewish refugees from Poland who are con-
tinuing to arrive here also.
It is interesting to note that while the American consulate here
is doing its best to act speedily on visa appliCations from refugees
from Czechoslovakia, the refugees from Poland applying for American
visas are not that lucky. Quite a number of Jews arriving here as
refugees from Poland have relatives in the U. S. whom they want
to join. In comparison to the comparatively short time that it takes
for a Czech refugee to receive a visa to the U. S., refugees from
Poland must wait at least four months until they hear about their
visas. Washington obviously considers the Czech situation more of an
emergency, than the Jewish situation in Poland.
In the meantime, the refugees from Poland must be supported
by the JDC here. However, most of the refugees from Poland proceed
from here to Israel. Their problem is quite different from that of the
Jewish refugees from Czechoslovakia. They don't smuggle themselves
out of Poland. They are simply being forced out of their country by
their government which seems determined to make the country
"judenrein" within a period of one year. However this is a subject with
which I intend to deal separately, since the situation of the Jews in
Poland today is getting worse each day in every way as can be seen
from Vienna.

48 Friday, November 8, 1968

—

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

Books," 10 a.m.; Mrs. Morris
Bachman, "A Jewish Artist —
Marc Chagall," noon; Ruth Gru-
ber, 8:15 p.m.; and Sheldon Tan-
nenbaum, "The Works of Nellie
Sachs and Philip Roth," 8:15
p.m.
Tuesday, Hadassah Education
Day, will feature a panel on "Cross-
roads: the Jew Today—the Route
to Take," 10 a.m., luncheon at
noon and talk by Rabbi Morris
Kertzer. Myron S. Kaufman will
speak 8:15 p.m. on "Sex, the Jew-
ish Ethic and Morality."
Wednesday, Sisterhood Day, will
have rabbis' wives on a panel, "Our
Rebitzens on Today's Issues," 10
a.m. After 12:30 luncheon, Zelda
Popkin will speak. That evening at
7:30, will be a lecture by B. Z.
Goldberg on "Our Present Jewish
Generation: A Look at Yesterday
and Today," and one at 8:45, by
Rabbi Immanuel Jakobovitz.
Thursday events will be talks by
E. M. Broner, "Bagels and Books,"
10 a.m.; Marie Waife-Goldberg,
noon; Richard Lobenthal, "The
New Left — Is It Right?," 12:30
p.m.; and Elie Wiesel, 8:15 p.m.
Events for the following days
will be listed next week.

Jewish Book Annual Lists
930 Works Written in '68

CNov. ii' 1D
Dec 15, 1968

db1300kMOntli COMMEMORATING

THE 25 TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE GHETTO UPRISINGS

JEWISH BOOK COUNCIL OF AMERICA, sponsored by

National Jewish wdfiztr Boa r415 Easr26 t`h Strut/V.1"C Io

11

Jewish Book Month poster heralds the Nov. 15 to Dec. 15 ob-
servance of the annual cultural event sponsored by the Jewish Book
Council of the National Jewish Welfare Board. Newly designed by
Ismar David, noted calligrapher, the trilingual poster graphically
depicts the Jewish Book Month theme in commemoration of the
25th anniversary of the ghetto uprisings: "Resistance and Redemp-
tion." The poster's quotation from the !Talmud, "The parchment
burns but the letters soar upward," conveys the enduring values
of Jewish literature.

NEW YORK (JTA)—Essays on
Holocaust literature and the de-
velopment of fiction and poetry in
Israel since it became a state 20
years ago are among the articles
featured in Volume 26 of the Jew-
ish Book Annual, published by the
Jewish Book Council of the Na-
tional -Jewish Welfare Board. The
252-page yearbook of Jewish liter-
ary creativity also lists and briefly
describes more than 930 books of
Jewish interest published in the
United States, Israel and Britain
during the 12-month period ending
May 1968.

•
Scientific Books- Exported
by Israel to Many Lands _

-

(Direct JTA Tiletype Wire
to -The Jewish News).

.

JERUSALEM -The Israel In-
stitute for Scientific TranSlatiohs
was the -largest exporter of books
and periodicals from Israel- this
year, the ministry of commerce
reported.

Bernard Isaacs' New Book of Short Stories

Pursuing his literary efforts,
which already have gained wide
recognition among Hebraists and in
English-reading communities, De-
troit's revered educator Bernard
Isaacs now has to his credit an-
other collection of short stories.
"Selected Stories" by Isaacs
has just been issued from the
press of E. Lewin-Epstein, Ltd.,
publishers, in Bat-Yam, Israel.
There are 19 stories in this vol-
ume. They were originally pub-
lished in Hebrew and in this vol-
ume they are presented, in a trans-
lation into English ably done by
Shoshana Perla.
Distribution of the book in this
country is handled by Mr. and
Mrs. M. Perla, 700 West End Ave.,
New York.
Isaacs, the lover of Zion, the
traditionalist who has absorbed
the best in American life, the
student of Israeli attitudes, skill-
fully combines in his stories epi-
sodes in this country and in Eretz
Israel. He portrays Jewish tra-
ditional incidents with an affect-
tion that emphasizes the experi-
ences of -ant author who had him-
self participated in the life so
well delineated by him.
An introduction to his stories by
the Israeli author, Israel Zemora,
is a fitting tribute to the Detroit
octogenarian who tirelessly pursues
his literary efforts with an enthus-
iasm worthy of a man half his
age. Z emor a says in praising
Isaacs' creative labors that:
"Bernard Isaacs is a born
shorCstory_ writer. . His percep-
tion is such that when he sees
one particular detail of life he
perceives in it all that transpires

and lies concealed within the
depths of the society from which
this particular detail was taken.
His gaze is profoundly penetrat-
ing. He is a true psychologist,
not a pseudo - psychologist; he
fathoms the deepest abyss of the
single soul and noting its every
line, holds it fast and never lets
it slip out of range of his vision;
he sees the masks large and
small which the individual soul
dons in order to conceal its true
identity and forces it to doff the
masks under his scrutiny.
"Bernard Isaacs relates his
tales briefly and with a compact-
ness which yet paints a broad
canvas, telling with great talent
the most vital facts, the essence

,

BERNARD ISAACS

of events and personalities. He
is not given to ornamentation and
decorative approaches; he goes
straight to the heart of the mat-
ter, to the fundamentals. His
stories are short quantitatively
speaking but qualitatively broad.
"Reading the stories of Bern-
ard Isaacs one does not stop at
the closing sentence of the story
but continues for quite a while
to meditate on the contents, stim-
ulated by the great compression
this author practices. Each of
his stories is like a pebble which
a diligent and energetic hand has
thrown into the water; the pebble
sinks and rises, creating ripples
in ever-widening circles which
extend further and further into
the distance."
There is genuine delight in many
of Isaacs' stories. He mingles fan-
tasy with realism, injects the herit-
age of Israel into his tales which
serve as inspirations for the dedi-
cated and often create a desire
for additional Jewish knowledge.
"I Am a Jew" injects an inter-
esting note regarding fears and
suspense of Jewishness in strange
locales. "The Air of Eretz Israel,"
"A Modern Halutza," other stories
about kibutzitn and -life in Israel
are part of the nostalgic in Isaacs'
approaches to Jewish themes - re-
lating to the revival of Jewish life
in the ancient homeland and often
indicate the love for the revived
Hebrew language.
Isaacs' "Selected Stories" will be
welcomed by Detroiters in appre-
ciation of labors by a man who
for half a century has been an im-
portant leader in this community's
cultural life.

