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. Foreign SS.
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 11th day of .4r. 5729. the following scriptural selections will
be read in our synagogues:
Pentateuchal portion. Dent. 3:23-7:11. Prophetical portion. Isaiah 40:1-26.
Candle lighting, Friday, July 25. 7:40 p.m.
VOL. LV. No. 19
___
__
Page Four
_
_
July_ 25, 1969
Day Schools' Precarious Financial Status
Having grown rapidly in the past decade,
now numbering 349 schools with an enroll-
ment of more than 71,000 pupils, the Day
School movement in this country, while
recording progress, has begun to suffer
from financial difficulties. There is, a "state
of crisis" in New 'York City, where 50.000
children are enrolled in the Day Schools.
and it is not unrealistic to surmise that, with
few exceptions, the Day Schools are not in a
sound financial position.
As a matter of fact, in our own commun-
ity, the largest of the- Day Schools—Hillel-
may also be facing a crisis because funds are
lacking to complete the projected school
building without which the educational pro-
grams can not be continued properly. At the
same time it is doubtful whether the other
two Day Schools are sufficiently supported
to guarantee their uninterrupted functioning
as combined schools for Jewish and secular
studies.
There is greater recognition of the valid-
ity of the need for. Day School as means of
assuring a fuller course of Jewish studies
for our youth. A decade ago there was such
strong opposition to the Jewish schools on
the all-day study basis that any support on
a community-wide basis was unthinkable.
But there is a growing realization of the
need to increase the hours of Jewish studies
for our children, and while those attending
Day Schools represent a small percentage of
the total. they form a nucleus for maximal
educational programs.
It is true. of .course. that changing neigh-
borhoods and a decline in the standards of
studies and teaching in our public schools
have contributed to the growth of the Day
Schools. Regardless of the causes for their
increase in the number of schools and in
attendance, the fact is that they exist and
that the local Jewish Federation. like a
number of others throughout the country.
now is partially subsidizing the schools.
Since they do exist and now face a serious
problem, there is the need to recognize that
they cannot be abandoned, and the financial
crisis must be met. But the cost is very great
and the parents of those attending such
schools cannot be expected fully to cover the
vast costs. A way must be found to solve
the problem, else the plight of the teachers
in these schools, the danger to the high-
ranking programs in studies that are con-
ducted on the highest levels, may escalate
and lead to a collapse of a group of schools
that have become a system of their own in
our communities.
Perhaps. as we had proposed on other
A spokesman for the "Division of Over-
seas Ministries" of the National Council of
Churches has become a spokesman for . ele-
ments who are striving to place obstacles
in the road of making Jerusalem truely a
free city for all faiths and to beautify some
of its slums.
Using as an excuse the charge that
"demolition" of Arab homes really means
the wiping out of entire Arab-populated
areas. H. G. Dorman Jr. undertook to speak
for all churches by asserting that they oppose
Israel's "annexation of the Jordanian por-
tions of Jerusalem." This terminology at once
exposes the hand of a man speaking for
churches who in reality is out to add to the
not have materialized.
harm intended against Israel.
Since when is or was any
portion of
Jerusalem Jordanian?
Where were the churches when. for 19
years. a Jew could not get into the portion
of the Holy City that was "annexed - by
Jordan?
Why the sudden outpouring of sanctimony
when these very people were not heard from
when Jews could not pray at their holy
places in the Holy City?
There are too many Christians who. while
suffering from the guilt of indifference to
the Jewish position, have the gall to propa-
gate anti-Israeli proposals. That's what the
spokesman for the National Council of
Churches did in relation to Jerusalem. Will
his organization of churchmen repudiate his
audacity? It's for them to act, even if we
find it necessary to call attention to a griev-
ance against Israel and Jewry.
Leftist Anti-Nazi in Anti-Israel Role
is receiving a hero's acclaim for his labors.
How can one explain a man's defensive
efforts in the trying years of the world war,
and now turning against the survivors who
have no other home but Israel?
Perhaps the rjor explanation ites•it•tliv*
Literary nostalgia is reflected in a volume of extreme interest pub-
lished by the Jewish Publication Society of America.
Meanwhile it is to be hoped that our edu-
Prof. Hindus deals with the narratives of immigrants, and his
cational media will not be abandoned. that
theme develops into a commentary on a people's role that became
a way will be devised to solve the problem
gigantic.
created by the growth of schools for which
Good judgment is exercised by the editor of this volume in
larger sums are needed. It is possible that selecting for his opening essay an autobiographical item—the life story
the Day Schools could both be saved and of the world famous sculptor Jacob Epstein who was born on New
better served if they were included in the York's East Side. There is an interesting item about it in Prof. Hindus'
community school system. This is a matter introduction. He states:
"Jacob Epstein, who was possibly the best known and most dis-
urgently to be pressed upon communal lead-
tinguished representative of the section in the eyes of the world. was
ership and seriously to be considered by all born there in 1880. Ironically enough, this famous native son left the
who are responsible for the .Jewish school United States early in his twenties to study in Paris and later settled
system.
in London, where he was to be singled out for the honor to he knighted.
Much ado has been made of a member of fact that the story about Nak emanated from
the Dutch resistance-to-Hitler forces who has Amman. the Jordanian capital.
turned against Israel.
Piet Nak was a defender of Jews in Am-
sterdam. He risked his life in the process.
He was under arrest and when released was
in hiding, continuing his anti-Nazi activities
until the end of the war.
Now he refuses to champion Israel's cause.
He has joined the Arab anti-Israel ranks and
Nostalgic Subject: Milton Hindus
Anthology, 'The Old East Side'
Prof. Milton Hindus of Brandeis University has compiled an an-
thology, "The Old East Side," that provides a history of literary devel-
opments and embedded in the collection are data-laden stories of the
area that is now a memory — the center of Jewish life in New York
wherein the hordes from Eastern Europe created history.
occasions, the problem may be solved in some
While, as Prof. Hindus asserts in a remarkable introductory
measure by the unification of our Day resume of the subject under discussion, "the monumental outlines of
Schools. It appears to us that at least two what may be called the heroic age of lower East Side Jewry in New
of the functioning schools ought to be under York between the 1880s and the mid-1920s could be drawn in„.a few
a single supervisory force. When there is broad strokes," the fact is that this 45-year episode in history is replete
pressure for support a merger could go a with action, with spiritual and socio-political evolutions, with a literary
creativity without which the present domination of Jewish writers could
long way towards averting a calamity.
'Silent' Churchmen in Anti-Israel Role
In this age of protest there is cause for
an expression of indignation against a parent
body by the religious groups associated with
the National Council of Churches in the U.S.
OLD %-‘
He did not return to the United States for a quarter of a century, and
there he felt like a complete foreigner again. His relation to the East
Side is perhaps a little more like that of James Joyce to Dublin except
that it may have been less ambivalent and more affectionate on his
side. He felt that he had drawn much of his -early material and a life-
long inner strength from this source, and he seems to have regretted
somewhat exiling himself from it. -
This is a reference to the source material that has interesting appli-
cation to the East Side's influences upon those who stemmed from it.
Out of the poverty of the East Side there emerged genius. and
the great men and women who drew their strength from a back-
ground of dreamers and sufferers had roots that later produced
plants that grew everywhere and prospered magnificently.
The backgrounds are important. There are the stories of Abraham
Cahan of the Forewara. His The Rose of David Levinsky" and his
story "Yekel - are now part of a glorious literature. They were, when
first written, part of a struggle for recognition.
There is the nhilcsophy of Prof. Morris Raphael Cohen, as pre-
sented in his "A Dreamer's Journey."
And for an understanding of the new literature. we have Henry
Roth's "Call It Sleep." It was an almost forgotten book until its appear-
ance nine years ago. after a lapse of 35 years. Now it is spoken of as
the trail-blazer in current literary trends.
Each of the selections chosen by the anthologist for this volume
is preceded by the biographical sketch of the chosen author. That
helps considerably for an understanding of the era under discussion.
This factor combines with the texts themselves which present ideas,
historical incidents, personalities.
We have, as typical instances of what the anthologist has achieved,
selections from Lillian Wald's "Windows on Henry Street." And there
is Anxia Yezierska's "Red Ribbon on a White Horse," The selection
from Charles Reznikoff's "Louis Marshall: Champion of Liberty" adds
immeasurably to the discussion of an interesting theme outlined in a
compilation of essays and historical incidents, as well as descriptive
fiction.
Maurice Hindus' "Green Worlds," other essays, add to the impres-
siveness of this volume.
But a much more plausible explanation
will be found in the fact that Nak is an ex-
Its value lies in that not Jews alone but non-Jewish writers as
treme Leftist, that he follows the Communist
well, are quoted for their impressions of a ghetto that has made Illa-
line and that his party affiliation has much
tory. There is James Gibbons Huneker's selection of images , quota-
to do with his thinking.
tions from the writings of Jacob Riis; important episodes in the
works of Hutchins Hapgood, Lincoln Steffens, William Dean Howell.
Like the Nazis who find refuge in claims
There is the expressed concern over the negative attitude of Henry
of having "taken orders," the Communist is James (Prof. Hindus states that James lived long enough to be
not different in any sense: he follows orders. ashamed of his judgment—something not totally proven).
What the Kremlin says is sacrosanct.
We therefore have the complete picture, even of the critics of the
impreS-
If there are Jews who find New Leftist East Side. The dream, the mixture of reality with vision, the
sivness of an immigrant folk rising .to great heights—it is from these
and Communist orders inviolable and follow
Hindus
has
points that the subject must be. tested, and Milton
orders blindly by turning to a self-hating role viewing
produced a portrait of "The Old East Side" that will bring back many
as enemies of Zionism and Israel, why not memories and will stir much emotion among those who know the sub-
Easy- a Dutchman'?--••- - - - •
: jeet and find their-knowledge rekindled by this book: