THE JEWISH NEWS
Incorporating The Detroit Jewish Chronicle commencing with issue of July 20, 1951
Member American Associaton of Engish-Jewish Newspapers, Michigan Press Association, National Editorial Association
Published every Friday by The Jewish News Publishing Co., 17515 W. Nine Mile, Suite 865, Southfield. Mich. 48075.
Phone 356.8900
Subscription $7 a year. Foreign $8.
Editor
CHARLOTTE DUBIN
CARMI M. SLOMOVITZ
PHILIP SLOMOVITZ
City Editor
Business Ma
and Publisher
Sabbath Scriptural Selections
This Sabbath; the 1Sth day of Tecet, 5730, the following scriptural selections
will be read in our synagogues:
Pentateuchal portion, Gen. 47:28-50:26. Prophetical portion, L Kings 2:1-12.
Candle
VOL.
LVI. No. 15
lighting, Friday.
Dec. 26,
Page Four
4:47
HAS TICKET—WILL 11(AVEL
1,1( k
p.m.
December 26, 1969
A New Year's Mounting Problems
We are entering a new era of challenge
that will call for serious decisions and cour-
ageous leadership.
All that we have experienced in 1969
could well fade into insignificance without
proper handling of issues if the nation's
leadership were to look for shortcuts, if prob-
lems were to be confronted on the basis of
political convenience, if the realities of life
were to be ignored.
There still are the racial tensions, the
educational problems are legion, attitudes of
our youth are based on a rebellious spirit
much of which is justified as long as the
necessities of life are not ignored and the
means resorted to are not destructive.
If the war continues without hope of an
early end, there also will be no end to demon-
strations, to rebellion. If we do not establish
accord between blacks and whites we will
have fears that may never be overcome by
even the stringest aspirations for law and
order. Unless there is an end to poverty there
will be an endless class war.
These are not new matters. But they
emerge more pressing than ever before. They
become the tests of our democracy. They are
now the crucial pathways to a more glorious
age—provided we eliminate fears and face all
eventualities on the basis of the most human-
itarian and most practical roads toward an
honorable society.
Nothing is hopeless in a democratic soci-
ety. Where there is a determination not to
ignore challenges we can have a clear road
toward the highest standards, the most digni-
fied and the most honorable dealings between
man and man—and if we have accord among
our citizens we can have cooperation towards
the making of a society rooted in the finest
principles of social justice.
The matter of fears and anxieties afflicts
the Jewish communities as well. We are not
immune from dangers. We are afflicted with
threats and worries and a creation of panic
that menaces us as well as the society in
which we live. There will be no end to the
tragedies of the Middle East. We shall have
the issues revolving around the changing
neighborhoods. There will be the seriousness
that accompanies assimilation and therefore
with the major problem of intermarriage.
We can overcome them—provided we go
to the roots, especially if we strengthen the
citadels of home, school and synagogue. If we
keep watering the roots or restoring those
that are withering, we shall have a safe
future. And in a safe future there is inherent
the faith in Israel and her people, the de-
termination not to permit Jewish homeless-
ness ever again to become an international
disease, the readiness to uplift the spirit-
ual and cultural values of our people.
These are not mere cliches, or a resort to
chauvinism. It is an, obligation to the cultures
of the Nyorld—to assure the survival of the
basic ideals of religious tolerance, humani-
tarian principles the supreme codes to which
the Jew is dedicated and which he personifies
as a citizen of the world who must have an
identity if the roots of social consciousness
for all peoples are to live and prosper.
Honorably pursued, our nation, our faith,
our kinsmen, the peoples of the earth must
aspire to a year during which warfare will
come to an end, terrorism will cease, peoples
will learn to live as human beings in a neigh-
borly spirit. May this be the fate of the year
1970!
$500,000,000 Philanthropic Duty
When the United Jewish Appeal was told,
at its annual conference two weeks ago, that
there will be a $500,000,000 philanthropic
obligation on American Jewry to provide for
the needs of 60,000 immigrants who are ex-
pected to settle in Israel in 1970, the signal
was flashed for all of us to be prepared for
unprecedented action to assure a haven for
homeless and security for the home in which
these newcomers to Israel will be housed.
There is repetition now of historic ex-
periences in two eras—those of the Six-Day
War when Israel's security was weighed in
the balance and of the time when Jews were
fleeing for their lives from many parts of
Linked with the philanthropic duties are
the obligations. Jews have to the statehood
that was reborn, nearly 22 years ago. It spelled
the fulfillment of an historic dream and the
acquisition, at last, of the right to self-govern-
ment by the people that denied haven else-
where. Now there is the duty to protect that
home, to make certain that the roots of his-
tory and those that were sunk into holy soil
anew by Jewish pioneers will neither be
destroyed nor will they be poisoned by the
hatreds that threaten their very existence.
It sounds like a lot of money—and it is—
the sum of $500,000,000 that is now spoken
of as the immediate need in defense of Is-
rael's incoming settlers. But it must be viewed
as normal for an abnormal time. It must be
considered as obligatory. The response al-
ready being given to the appeals for the
urgently needed funds is encouraging, and
it augurs well also for the approaching De-
troll Allied Jewish Campaign.
Leni Yahil's Factual Account
of the Rescue of Danish Jewry
There is continuity in writing the record of the important rescue
efforts during the last war, and the story of Denmark's defiance of the
Nazis and the manner in which that country's Jews were saved from
destruction continues to be among the most fascinating.
A new volume just issued by the Jewish Publication Society of
America recounts the developments in all their important details.
In "The Rescue of Danish Jewry," the new JPS volume, Dr. Leni
Yahil who now teaches Jewish history at the Hebrew University in
Jerusalem, traces the entire record by giving a history of the Jews in
Denmark. proceeding to outline the attempt to annihiliate the com-
munity of some 8,000 and their escape to Sweden.
Subtitling her book "Test of a Democracy," Mrs. Yabli, whose
book was translated from the Hebrew by Morris Gradel, shows
bow, in October 1943, a community that might not have escaped
annihilation emerged almost intact thanks to the determination of
the people of Denmark, their underground movement, the readiness
of Sweden to accept the escapees, the understanding of the Danish
Jews that they must work in unison to get out of the hell that was
imposed upon them and their Christian neighbors.
In the course of the historic occurrence, the entire matter became
a legend and was treated as such. But it was a reality, and Mrs.
Yahil's work is presented as a factual story of the courage and
humane aims of a great people.
Extensively annotated, Miss Yahil's ktory is the work of an able
historian. A native of Germany who came to Palestine in 1934, Mrs.
Yahil knows the background of the Danish occurrences and she is
authoritative on German history—both combining to assure for her
work the eminence of historicity, factuality, enhanced by splendidly
coordinated gathering of data.
Denmark is described by Mrs. Yahil as one of the few countries
where the Germans of the Third Reich who "did not behave like a
a normal people" failed "to get a foothold; there was no framework
to absord them, despite the encouragement the policy of coopera-
tion might have given them."
Because some Germans closed their eyes to the flight of the Jews
and thereby assisted in the rescue work the author adds -to this:
"This fact has a surprising consequence: it engendered something
like normality in German behavior. Those among the occupiers who
were not already beyond the pale of human decency found a pillar Of
the world. The threat to Israel has become
support in the Danes; others simply retreated. It was clear to the
most acute and the lack of safety for Jews
Germans that in Denmark the Jews were to be left alone."
in a number of countries, among Moslems
While Mrs. Yahil's review of an important chapter in history Is
and behind the Iron Curtain, is large-scaled,
devoted to Danish Jewry, it also deals with normalization of Jewish
requiring renewed assurance that all who
life in a democracy like Denmark. The free Jewish community of Den-
seek havens as Jews in a Jewish environment
mark began to share in responsibility to the Jewish people as a whole.
will continue to receive the welcome that has
The author indicates how the Zionist idea emerged as factor for event-
become part of Israel's hospitality.
ual normal living.
Swedish Jewry's role is a matter of great interest in this book and
the author show how the first Jews in Sweden to take measures to
rescue Danish Jews were the Zionist, and in the course of time all Jews
in Sweden made the illegal transport work their personal affair.
This will be most interesting: the United
Of special interest is Miss Yahil's comment that "theq/inisb
Israel? For partisanship and indifference?
story teaches us that the possibility of influencing the *iermans
Nations General Assembly has authorized For failure on the part of the democracies to
and
their treatment of the Jews existed. The prerequisite was the
U Thant, its general secretary, by unanimous speak out against bias?
conscious identification of the whole population with its Jewish
action, to plan the formation of an interna-
citizens.
Only where there was true equality was there a true de-
Will it be a school for expediency for
fense of the Jews."
tional university under UN auspices.
American and British diplomats and for
Mrs. Yahil's research into the Danish rescue story Is a lesson for
It was a proposal by U Thant himself that French inconsistency?
non-Jews as well as Jews because it indicates that "the Holocaust was
resulted in the "invitation" to him to study
a
catastrophe
in the life of the nations no less than it was a catastro-
Perhaps it will become another Cairo or
the feasibility of such a university. Now it
phe in the life of the Jewish people" because "the Danish experience
will be interesting to see what the great world Beirut university where professors are train- shows
that it was possible to preserve cultural values in theory and in
ed to distort facts when it becomes necessary
organization is able to develop. On the basis
practice, and in so doing prevent the implementation of barbaric
of the blocs and prejudices and unilateral to threaten Israel's destruction.
extermination."
skills of most of the delegations, what can it On the basis of U Thant's record vis-a-vis
This volume is very extensively annotated and is unquestionably
become? A school for anti-Semites, for Soviet Israel, that's how much confidence we have one of the most valued works on the Dams' successful effort to reject
Prospect of a U Thant-Managed University
and Afro-Asiaa, tgo_cks. tQ -gang up. on. little. - izt a_ university .under_U_Tbaues direction. .
barbarism. and to assist in rescuing its Jewish citizens.