THE ENLIGHTENED BRIGADE

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 Mlle Road, Detroit, Mich. 48235,
VE 8-9364. Subscription $7 a year. Foreign $8.
Second Class Postage Paid at Detroit, Michigan

PHILIP SLOMOVITZ ' CARMI M. SLOMOVITZ

Editor and

Publisher

Business Manager

SIDNEY SHMARAK

Advertising Manager

CHARLOTTE DUBIN

City Editor

Sabbath Scriptural Selections

This Sabbath, the 13th day of Shevat, 5729, the following scriptural selections
will be read in our synagogues:
Pentateuchal portion, Ex. 13:17.17:16. Prophetical portion, Judges 4:4-5:31.

Candle lighting, Friday, Jan. 31, 5:26 p.m.

VOL. LIV. No. 20

Page Four

January 31, 1969

The Time for Genuine Generosity

American Jewry is currently charged with
the task of refuting the spread of vile rumors
about Israel. A serious duty is inherent in
the need to defend Israel's position on the
diplomatic arenas. The admonition always
to suspect unanimity is emerging as a grave
reality at this time, with the nations of the
world in so distressing a pact to ignore
Israel's basic rights that it becomes neces-
sary for the kinsmen of the afflicted to unite
in defense of the people whose very existence
is at stake.
While fulfilling obligations that call for
action on the diplomatic front, there is the
pressing need to honor the debt we owe to
those who have survived the Holocaust, the
responsibility we have to care for the de-
classed and stateless for whom Israel is the
only haven.
In our community the duty is to the
major fund-raising instrument—to the Allied
Jewish Campaign—and for the third time
additionally to the Israel Emergency Fund.
The initial meeting, by the section in the
drive called the Pacesetters, always serves
as a signal to the community at large to
mobilize for action in the great yearly effort
to secure the means for Israel's protection
as a haven for the oppressed. That meet-
ing now is a matter of history—it was held,
it reached the highest goal on record. and
now the entire community must respond in
equal measure, with larger gifts than ever.
Inspired by the visit here of Israel's am-
bassador to the United States. General Itzhak

Rabin. the Pacesetters have set new stand-
ards fc_ giving. The generosity of the
past was surpassed in the response of the
100 men who gave a vast sum towards the
great philanthropic effort. These men knew.
when they enlarged upon their previous gen-
erosity, that Israel alone must carry the
burden of defense. But they also were aware
that the means for settling many tens of
thousands more of new settlers, the provi-
sion for health and education for the im-
migrants who have flocked to Israel as
escapees from persecutions, can not be borne
by the Israelis alone. We must share in
these duties to the hordes who seek haven
from indignities.
The facts involved in the threats to the
very life of Israel and to the security of its
citizens are well known. There are renewed
machinations to undermine the life of a peo-
ple struggling for life against great odds.
Occasionally a kind word is heard from an
understanding Christian. Often a realistic
Muslim speaks out in protest against the in-
humanities that endanger the peace of the
Middle East. But the total burden is ours.
the organized community's. of each of the
citizens among us.
The Allied Jewish Campaign must now

1 .4,, •
' 01 ;1

.

crEE-

.1:;.

V
,?_._5, v
, ,
4 , • ■ •• 'V. , ■ .,.. •

_..0.00 .'
.<27.

•

A, 1,

04,6„...........:411C0

.,..10.74

NY ' XS 1
• l 1
.... lv •f

r -1::;"
.. ■ ,/

ri

Holmes and Wise Friendship:
Impressive Tribute by Voss

"Rabbi and Minister — The Friendship of Stephen S. Wise and
John Haynes Holmes," by Dr. Carl Hermann Voss, first published in
1964 as a hard cover book, drew nationwide attention for its revealing
sociological and political, as well as religious approaches. Now, as a
paperback, it remains valuable now for an understanding of the
events of the first half of this century as
the superb study merited when it first
be viewed as having begun, although the attracted nationwide attention.

formal and official commencement is not due
for some weeks. Therefore, the task of
mobilizing the volunteer army of workers is
at hand. and the time has arrived for each
of us to determine the way towards genuine
generosity.

Assuring Activis m for the Youth

In a protesting age, we are challenged
to take into account the attitude of youth,
the demands for action by the young people,
and are faced with the responsibility to
understand what is happening in our midst,
the reasons for outcries for alleviation of
want and abandonment of racial prejudices.
Because Jews have so much to protest
against even in normal times—because of the
Sin'at olam l'am olam—the eternal hatred for
the eternal people—we can understand the
attitude of our young people when they cry
out against want, in protest against poverty,
in condemnation of injustice imposed upon
people because of the color of their skin or
their beliefs.
Such are our traditions, so basic are the
teachings of our sages, that the protesting
moods are understandable. They are obli-
gatory upon all peoples of all faiths.
It is when people protest against every-
thing except the injustices done to their own
kinsmen that the aim in protest becomes
useless, that a time arrives to question
whether those who revolt understand the
causes they uphold.
Youth needs a purpose. Youth has a pur-
pose. The struggle for civil rights must go
on. The young should have their say in the
manner in which universities are function-
ing. who directs their affairs, what courses
are taught.
But youth, in the course of its actions,
can not and must not destroy: it must build;
it must not vandalize: it should set an ex-
ample for human decency; it should avoid
calling names: let youth remember that he
who strikes the first blow or resorts to pro-
fanity is the one usually to lose the battle.
But this is generalizing and pontificat-
ing. What is needed is understanding of the
needs and an adherence to it. And to ap-
preciate the idealism of youth we must, at
the same time: determine to work with youth
to achieve its goals.
Therefore let it be said that honorable
protest is not only justified but desirable,
and honorable resort to means to attaki great
goals in life calls for clarity and knowledge

til

■ ••") ■

110V4*,,,

of the values of life and the aims for a
higher life.
To understand others and to fight for
their rights, youth—and now we speak of
Jewish youth—know themselves and their

own people. If youth battles for the right
of people to know the Negro, and to assure
courses that teach the Negro's contributions

to this nation, they also should know their
own—their Jewish—background. If one
does not know himself, how can he pos-
sibly understand others? Jewish youth that
strives for civil rights must know that
Jewish tradition makes is obligatory for Jews
to uphold the basic ethical principles that
demand justice for all regardless of race or
creed, protection of the impoverished and
the raising of their standards of living, elimi-
nation of want and bigotry.
There can be a program for activism by
our youth—if it is to be based on established
principles in Jewish life. Our young people
can and should fight for equality, and while
doing it they should not forget the inequal-
ity of their own kinsmen in lands of op-
pression—the Moslem countries, Poland.
Russia . . . .
Our young people should fight for courses
about the Afro-Asians and the blacks in our
midst—and at the same time they should
turn to the acquisition of knowledge about
Jews and Judaism.
They should protest against suppression
—and in the course of it they should think
of the outrageous anti-Semitic acts of Charles
de Gaulle. They should take into account the
threat of Nasser and his cohorts to turn I
Israel into another Auschwitz.
Yes, there are programs for activism by
youth—and they must be on the basis of
knowing that if they are not for themselves
no one else will be, and while battling for
Jewish rights they dare not think that they
can be for themselves alone. In the knowl-
edge that they must fight for the rights of
all people, without excluding their own, they
will be contributing towards a better life
•_... •
2
J
•
,

Published by Association Press (291
Broadway, NY 7), Dr. Voss' epic story is
not only a great tribute to two great liber-
tarians: it is in the main valuable for its
research into events that involved the ,AV
emergence of liberal movements, battles
against persecutions, struggles for the
liberation of the Jewish masses abroad
and for relief of the impoverished in this
country.
A generation that is currently involved
in civil rights efforts, in the advance.

ment of the nation's cultural needs, in

the battle against want, has much to
learn from the lessons left by Wise and

Dr. Voss
Holmes, and Dr. Voss has tackled the
subjects of his work with understanding and dedication. He emerges
the admirer of both heroes of his work, and with justification.

For Zionists, the Voss volume is of special significance because
of its delving into early history of the movement for Jewish national
redemption and because it introduces some of the early problems
relating to the Arab question, the visit to the Holy Land of Rev.
Holmes, his introduction to the various issues and those relating
to Jewish aspirations when he met with men like Judah L. Magnes
and other noted leaders.

For both Wise and Holmes the friendship was a partnership in the
battles against vice, poverty, political chicanery.

As far back as 1929, Holmes foresaw triumph for the Zionist
idea "as a matter of time." He was horrified by British rule which
led to disquiet in those years.

Voss takes occasion to comment on Holmes' book "Palestine:
Today and Tomorrow—A Gentile's Survey of Zionism." He emphasizes
that the pro-Zionism of the Christian clergyman was in no sense
- marked by anti-Arab polemics." He calls Holmes a cultural Zionist.

It is valuable in the Voss account of the two men to turn the pages
of history back to the Roosevelt era.
There were disillusionments but also triumphs in the lives of the two
men. Dr. Wise had his disappointments as a Zionist leader towards the
end of his life. But he had his glorious hour, having lived to be witness
to the emergence of Israel. Theirs was a friendship to the end of tile/'
days.

About Holmes, Voss declares that he was "the last Puritan," that
he was at heart "the New Englander: rigorous in his thinking and
ethical code, convinced that God moves in both nature and history and
that men are made for destinies higher than those upon this ear&
"Even in the last weeks of his life , "- Voss writes, "Stephen 'use
was a Lion of Judah. Through the battle - worn body coursed 8 new
strength. He reared the scarred head, set anew the grim jaw, and
attacked again on platform and in print."
Mrs. Louise Waterman Wise, the brilliant wife of the eminent
preacher and Zionist leader, his daughter, Justine Polier, SOOs
James Waterman Wise, pass in review in accounts of their nraoF
f n n np
ti v e a fa
eircle that continues tolive in the inenlaZI
of
appreciative generation.
m ily
Voss' tributes to the two great men, Holmes and Wise, serve Alle
as a history of their time. It is an eminently worthy volume as biog-
raphy, history and appreciation of the courage of men who gave much
of themselves
ves to country and humanity.