THE JEWISH NEWS
A QTIZEN'S RESPONSIBILITY
Incorporating The Detroit Jewish Chronicle commencing with issue of July 20, 1951
Member American Association of English.,lewish 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 $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, the ninth day of Elul, 5729, the following scriptural selections will
be read. in our synagogues:
Pentateuchal portion, Dent. 21:10-25:19. Prophetical portion. Isaiah 54:1-10.
Candle lighting. Friday, Aug. 22, 7:04 p.m.
VOL. LV . No. 23
Page Four
August 22, 1969
Dialogues: Useless Unless Issues Soluble
Dialogues are vital to discussions of Jew-
ish issues in relation to our neighbors and
certainly in seeking accord between American
and Israeli Jewries—the two most important
Jewish communities in the world as long as
Russian Jewry is isolated and can not claim
such equal status with us and with Israel.
Therefore no matter what the results or how
inept the approaches, the dialogues held an-
nually in Israel under the sponsorship of the
American Jewish Congress are of consider-
able importance. The mere fact that scholars
from both communities meet for discussion
of issues of mutual interest is in itself suf-
ficient to emphasize the significance of the
events.
Nevertheless. it is doubtful whether the
discussions recently held have added much to
the clarification of the needs for further
mutual action and whether doubts that creep
in have been removed. An analysis of the
speeches. of the opinions expressed, indicated
that there was very little added that is new
for a comprehension of challenges that have
afflicted both Israel and the United States.
The religious have sought to emphasize
that only Orthodox' Judaism can sustain a
continuity of the Jewish people while facing
outside pressures. The secular negate such
views. The nationalistic seek an approach to
emphasize Israel's role in an age in which
military concerns can not be eliminated.
But in the long run one wonders whether
the lack of identification either with Jewry or
with Israel on the part of a growing number
of indifferent American young Jews can be
healed with an appeal like D. Joachim Prinz's
about the "dignity and nobility - of the Israeli
spirit in an appeal that it be transmitted to
the Jewries throughout the world. One must
not imply that "dignity and nobility" remains
lacking elsewhere, and if there is to be a les-
son for all concerned it can best be served by
drawing upon the highest qualities emanating
from all Jewish communities.
The president of- the American Jewish
Congress. Dr. Arthur J. Lelyveld, hardly add-
ed much to an appreciation of the basic needs
for cementing the cooperation between
American and Israeli Jewries when he em-
phasized that "we need one another. - Was
that ever doubted? Haven't fund-raisers con-
stantly harped upon this appeal?
Serving to disturb the spirit of ecumenism
in Jewish ranks, however. was the introduc-
tion of a charge by Prof. Harold Weisberg of
Brandeis University that there is a new brand
of Judaism—a "WASP Judaism"—character-
ized by what he termed a typical white Anglo-
Saxon Protestant sectarianism that threatens
to take over the American Jewish community.
Prof. Weisberg may have served an important
purpose when he uttered these warnings:
"Increasingly, the notion of praying and attend-
ing a house of worship defines American Jewish-
ness exclusively, as it does the majority religion.
Yet for 2,000 years Jewishness consisted not only
of praying but of living, not only of worship but
of acts.
"Today, under the pressure of American life,
U.S. Jews are conforming—albeit willingly—to the
behavior pattern of the majority religion, turning
into another American sect."
"By contrast, Israel was becoming an increas-
ingly secular society in which religion as the chief
characteristic was diminishing.
"American Jewry and Israel thus appear to be
moving in opposite directions, widening the gap
that already exists between them by virtue of the
lack of a common language, common experiences
and common problems."
A careful analysis of these fears must in-
dicate that while the term WASP was intro-
duced as an application to Jewish experiences,
what the Brandeis University professor said
is in no sense new, that on many occasions
we have had similar conflicts in Jewish life,
in various eras. We have had the religious and
the secular, the prayerful and the indifferent,
but in all ages there has been an impressive
concern with Jewish needs and duties, and
if these identifications are vanishing or being
reduced the issue is not solved by sensational-
ism vis-a-vis panic over an emerging WASP
Prof. Eisig Silberschlag of Boston Hebrew Teachers College ha
written a magnificent story of the life of one of the very great poet
the man who brought modernism to -Hebrew literature. His "Sa
attitude. When there is understanding of the Tschernichovsky: Poet of Revolt•" published by Cornell Univer
issues. an appreciation of the responsibilities, Press, is the first biographical work on
a concern over the status of our brethren the noted writer in English. It is much
who, with us in this and in other free lands, more than mere biography. It reviews
form an entit! /Nike People in the sense of Hebrew literature in the era of Chaim
our cultural and spiritual links, then the issue Nahman Bialik• Mendele Moher Seforim,
Aleichem, Zalman Shneour. It
becomes clear and the hope for a better fu- Sholom
deals with the history of a period during
ture is basically assured.
which Zionism emerged as the liberation
Dialogue serves to clarify. but it becomes force in Jewry, while other conflicts
useless if it is sensationalized and if the les- were in progress.
ons learned are not dealt with properly in
Tschernichoysicy is the great Hebrew
search for solution. The fact is that there is poet. who mastered many languages but
a general recognition of a basic truth: that we who chose to write in Hebrew. He was
have declined a bit in our quest for the high- self-taught in Greek and Latin and fell in
est goals in advancing educational media, that love with Greek lore. He was a master
we are suffering from a lack of good teach- of Russian and Yiddish and he knew
and German—having studied in
ers. that pedagogy has been reduced dras- French
Germany where he acquired his medi-
tically to an extent that we do not have the cal
training.
Tschernichovsky
best means of reaching our youth.
it may well be said that during the years in which he strug-
Thus. we have not learned how to intro- gled Indeed,
materially. he drew upon his practice as a physician for his live-
duce a proper understanding of the lessons lihood, but income from royalties on his books and poetry stood him is
taught by the Holocaust.
great stead.
Thus. also, we are failing miserably in
There is an t,.tere , ttng comparison between him and his friend Matt.
Here is or.e of tie conelii.ions drawn by Silberschlag: "Bialik ,arks the
forestalling the menace that stems from the
end of a road unth his attachment to a dying past and with his longing JO?
a nationalist future. Tschen,whot-sky is the architect of the new style and
New Left because our teachers have not been
the new content in Jetcish life and letters.. Silbersehlag states in explaining
able to transmit to the probing youth the les-
the basis for this conclusion: - Jewish Inartgrology of the middle ages and
modern times became a dominant motif in Tschernichorsky's poetry. BUS
sons that have been taught for decades by the
even this theme, hackneyed at.d hoary in Hebrew literature, was reinter•
failure of universalism of the spirit of Marx-
ism to bring about an international good will
and an eradictation of the hatreds that have
preted by 7seherrochovsky. Instead of elegiac effusions on the misery of
Jewry in lyrical terse, he created dramatic characters who shouted defiance
and hurled curses at criminals who killed in the name of Christian IOW.
And he created dramatic scenes of such power that their anguish became
the angered inspiration of his generattton in search of a new freedom OS
the ancient land of Israel. The pathos of Tschernichovsky rarely degenerated
into mere rhetoric. Unlike any other figure in the long 'history of Hebrew
literature, he created, to use a phrase of Edwin Arlington Robinson,
'poetry of the commonplace.' In the many idylls and ballads, in the Inane
idyll-tike and ballad-like poems. he dwelled on the details of daily living
—on imminiate objects, on inflections of conversational idiom—with
and an understanding that seemed to have vanished from world Literature
after the demise of Greece. His keen sena* of observation restored
visual world of infinite variety to Jewish consciousness."
seeped into out own ranks.
We can hold dialogues anywhere — in
Haifa. in Detroit. in New York—or go over
the same ground that the American Jewish
a tore
Congress dialogues conducted in Israel in re-
cent years. Such dialogues are vital wherever
From his earliest youth, Tschernichovsky bad an interesting life, fit
and whenever they may be held. But if they
do not bring a solution to the two major prob- Jewish ranks, as a poet, among non-Jews, as a physician in the Rus-
lems we have outlined, then they fail miser- sian military forces, later in Israel where he was critical of havIaga--
ably. We fail to see wherein the recent Haifa restraint—and opposed submission to terrorism.
He married a Russian woman, a member of the nobility, but their
sessions brought about any tangible results.
Haifa, and their child WaS
brought up as a JeW.
Tschernichovsky lived in Israel from 1931 until his death in 1943, Has
wife and daughter having joined him there. He visited American cities
are aggravating, much more disturbing are and was widely _acclaimed and his fame as a poet was established.
the libels leveled at Israel alleging mistreat- (Silberschlag fails to list Detroit among the cities that were visited bet
UN on Trial M ore Than Israel
No matter how venomous the attacks on
Israel at the United Nations, whatever the
decisions, the international organization does
not emerge in a good light. It is the stigma-
tized organ that functions only at the bequest
of a clique—the combined Communist and
Arab blocs.
The expose of the true condition vis-a-vis
Israel and Jordan proves the justified sus-
picion that an unfortunate gang-up is pre-
venting peace. Israel and Jordan had agreed
secretly to curtail hostilities and when the
pact was broken Israel resumed shelling of
terrorists' hangouts and the guerrilla attacks
caused also renewed retaliations on terrorist
camps within Lebanon.
Naturally, Israel's enemies don't like it,
and the matter has again become a subject
for UN discussions. Butwhile the UN debates
Dr. Saul Tschernichovsky:
Story of a 'Poet of Revolt'
ment of prisoners and residents in occupied
territories. The Red Cross watches the situa-
tion but has no cause for complaint. Foreign
emissaries have seen how Israel bends back-
wards to treat the Arabs well. Arab leaders
have in the main commended Israel's inten-
tions. But Americans who have joined the
propaganda ranks are resorting to the easiest
way of hitting below the belt by charging
incredibly that Israelis are murdering, steal-
ing, abusing, failing to feed prisoners.
UN investigators are put to the test. If
truth cannot be established through even the
prejudiced interrogations, what hope is there
for a measure of amity through the interna-
tional organization? The UN, not Israel, is
daughter married a Jew, they settled in
Tscherniehovsky).
This biography of one of the greatest of all modern Hebrew
poets pays this tribute to Tschernichovsky: "His native endow-
meats were massive: they included an epic talent in poetry a
rarity in world literature in general and in Hebrew poetry in par-
ticular; a sensitivity to language and a passion for negologism; *
literary and scientific curiosity. He used them and was used by
them with abandon. His epic gift was responsible for the idylls
which were an innovation in Hebrew literature and which can stilt
be considered a major achievement ..."
There is no doubt that Silberschlag's biographical subject NM ti
—
genius. He complied a Hebrew-Russian dictionary. He was the linguist.
He rendered distinct service to the Zionist ideal.
His works paved the road for a new literary style and for marked
Hebraic inspirations. While he was known as "the Greek poet" because
of his love for Greek and Greece, it is Hebrew and Israel that benefited
from his skills and his creative accomplishments. Silberschlag did
notably well with his subject and Cornell University Press has renderCil
on trial.- • • - - • -a real service by producing this work, • t