THE JEWISH NEWS
Incorporating The Detroit Jewish Chronicle commencing with issue of July 20, 1951
Member American Assoclaton 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 356.8400
Subscription $7 a year. Foreign $8.
PHILIP SLOMOVITZ
Editor and Publisher
CARM1 M. SLOMOVITZ
Business Manager
CHARLOTTE DUBIN
City Editor
Sabbath Scriptural Selections
This Sabbath, the 15th day of Adar 1, 5730, the following scriptural selections
will be read in our synagogues:
Pentateuchal portion, Exod. 27:30-30:10. Prophetical portion, Ezekiel 43:10-27.
Candle lighting, Friday, Feb. 20, 5:52 p.m.
VOL. LVI. No. 23
Page Four
February 20, 1970
Is There Hope for a Just Spark From USSR?
It has been, for a number of years now,
of hope against hope—that the Kremlin will
scrap its heritage from Czardom and will
abandon anti-Semitic tactics, that the Jewish
citizens of the USSR will be given cultural
opportunities on a par with other nationality
groups, especially since the Jews, like all
other nationalities in Russia, are listed as
Jews and considered as such on their pass-
. ports and in censuses; that the anti-Israel
policies will be scrapped.
But these are vain aspirations. The Rus-
sian Bear retains the role of hatred toward
Jews, and the attitudes of the Pobedonostzevs
and Chmielnickis retain ground in an atmos-
phere in which Jews in Russia live in fear
of an uncertain future. True: they are treated
equally in the economic sphere, but cultural-
ly the anti-Semitic trends have taken them
back to the age of Nicholas II, the time when
blood libels were treated as possibilities if
charged against Jews, the era of seeking
scapegoats behind which to hide when there
are governmental errors and finding the
Jews the most suitable for that purpose.
In her statements to James Reston and
James Feron of the New York Times, in an
interview in Tel Aviv last week, Israel
Prime Minister Golda Meir made a frank
reference to Russia, thus:
The Russians don't want peace in this
area. They're interested in keeping a
strong hold over their clients. And their
clients don't want peace. God forbid if
there should be peace in this area. Then
Nasser will say "Well, I don't need tanks,
I don't need planes, now I want to build
the country a little, I'll go to the United
States—and the United States wouldn't
meet him more than halfway? Then what
would friend Kosygin do here? He can be
here only as long as Nasser needs planes
and tanks. If there's no destruction, he's
out of the picture.
The point is well taken. Russia has not
given Egypt, or any other Arab country,
tractors. She only supplies arms for destruc-
tion. Russia has not given a dime to United
Nations funds to assist Arab refugees. Rus-
sia only seeks to undermine good will.
There is immense power in the newest novel relating to the Nolo-
In the instance of the "heroism" of the
Arab terrorists who attack innocent airline caust and to the tragedy of the children who suffered from Nazhnn.
passengers in the free capitals of the world, In "The Children of Mapu Street" just issued by the Jewish l'atblicel•
Russia hasn't spoken a word of protest.
Lion Society of America, Sarah Neshamit writes wtih deep feeling,
Unforgettable Holocaust Story
in 'Children of Mapu Street'
When there is injustice, the USSR spokes-
men are able to convert untruth into their
weapons of destruction.
Perhaps not much more is to be expected
from the communized Kremlin; no more than
was to be expected from the Holy Czarist
Fathers. Yet, in a civilized world, we always
hold on to a small measure of hope that
those who already are rebelling against the
dictatorial regulations in Russia will in some
fashion be able to get a spark of sympathy
for the maligned Jews and the unjust pre-
judice against Israel.
Henrietta Szold—Tribute on an Anniversary
For Hadassah, the 25th anniversary of
the death of its founder, Henrietta Szold, is
a suitable occasion to recall the movement's
growth from small beginnings to the great
tribute it now provides for one of American
Jewry's greatest women.
Miss Szold dedicated her life to the ad-
vancement of her people's highest ideals.
Deriving inspiration from her father, Rabbi
Benjamin Szold of Baltimore, Henrietta, as
a young girl, acquired a love for Jewish
learning and kept studying our people's his-
tory and traditions. Out of it developed her
will to serve, her desire to create means to
assure a new status for the sorely maligned
Jewish people.
Like Emma Lazarus, she was so deeply
stirred by the sufferings of Russian Jewry
that she became an ardent Zionist and formed
the Hadassah movement of women Zionists
in 1911. As a co-editor of the Jewish Pub-
lication Society towards the turn of this
century, she was a translator of important
They use many names — they resort to
terms such as democratic and liberation, and
it is not El Fatah alone that wants it to be
known that an Israeli can be killed on a bus
in Munich or a Greek child in Athens
That's the extent of heroism—and when
they are caught they wish to be known as
prisoners of war!
The author of this novel is eminently well qualified to write each
a story. Born in Sejny, the Suwalki Polish Lithuanian border die.
trict, she fled when the Germans invaded the USSR but was caught
and imprisoned. She escaped and fought with the partisans for toe
years, went to Israel before the War of Independence and was a
founder of Kibutz Lohamei Hagetaot in Western Galilee that serves
as the memorial kibutz for survivors from the ghettos. She has pub-
lished many articles and some books on the Holocaust. She is mat
ried and has three children.
She comes from an intellectual background. Her father, Moshe
Shlomo Dushnitzky, a Warsaw Polytechnical graduate, served as a
surveyor, and her mother studied in Germany and Russia.
Her novel was translated from the Hebrew by David S. Segal and
historical works into English and helped pro- retains all the effectiveness of the originaL
vide a notable literature for American Jewry.
While intended for teen-agers, this novel is recommended equally
as well for adults who have much to learn from the experiences
Miss Szold's chief contribution to world
of the children depicted in the tale of suffering in World War H.
Jewry and to Israel was the inauguration of
There is historical significance to this story because it relates So
Youth Aliya—the commencement of the
the street in Kovno that was named in honor of Abraham Maps,
great movement of rescuing Jewish children
the author of the Hebrew novel "Love of Zion," one of the Hui
from the dangers that were then—in the
Zionist novels on record.
mid-1930s—posed by Nazism. As a result,
thousands of children were saved from the
Nostalgically, Sarah Neshamit, in a prologue, wrote about Kovno,
Holocaust, and the movement grew in scope "a Jewish city, teeming with elementary schools, high schools, and an
until it embraced other areas, in addition to kinds of institutions; Hebrew rolls off the children's tongues."
Germany. Many thousands of Jewish youths
It is in this wonderful environment that the terror began, where
became Israeli free citizens thanks to the children were subjected to humiliations, many of them later joined,
vision of a great lady who herself settled in as the author did, the underground and fought in the forests against
Eretz Israel and directed the rescue efforts the Nazi criminals.
from Hadassah headquarters.
The entire cycle of brutalities is under analysis. The author
In the 25 years that elapsed after her tells of the nightmares, the puzzlement whether children should ran
passing, both Hadassah and the Youth Aliya with parents, how to escape the impending dangers.
ideals grew to great dimensions, and all the
The role of the non-Jews, many of whom joined the Nazis ter
services rendered by the women Zionists persecuting Jews , is exposed here
as an indictment of what had baps
and the Youth Aliya idea that is now a major
pened during the tragic years.
task of the entire Jewish people signalize
And there are those who assisted the escapees and the clerks
the genius of the great lady whose name
sought to convert Jews. There also are the children who posed
deservedly is held in highest esteem by the who
as Christians and did escape, only to be plagued, later to return to
entire Jewish people.
the fold as the Nazi terror ended.
Conscience of Mankind Struck at Munich
They are such great heroes—the terrorists
who are competing for honors as to who can
get credit for killing a tourist in Athens or in
Zurich or in London or in Munich.
but of personal experiences, about the horrors with which youth 'Wen
confronted, their will to live, their struggles, their participatibit In
underground activities.
That's what Israel has to contend with—
the courage of terror that strikes at civilians
and at innocent people. Since they can not
compete on a battlefront, they seek satisfac-
tion in murder.
You can't reason with competitors for the
privilege of committing crimes. But how are
we to judge a world supposedly civilized that
is limp under circumstances of brutalities that
strike more at the conscience of mankind than
at the Israel they seek to destroy?
Non-Jews who retained sparks of humanity lost their lives In lb*
course of the struggle and in their efforts to rescue Jews. Tbus , thers
are the compensating factors as well as the challenging and the con-
demning.
The hunger, the fear, the danger—all combined to "terrorizes
but the strong survived, there was the hope of Israel and of Me.
and the one sustaining hope was Erets Israel.
One of the characters still was influenced by the church and
retained the crucifix, but reunions served as redemption for some of
the other survivors whose recollections nevertheless were deep-rooted
while they hoped to forget the torments of the past.
"Would they ever really forget?", the author asks in the conclud-
ing words. It is evident that her story is a reminder of what had
happened to children, from a famous Jewish city, who lived on a
street made famous.
Sarah Neshamit's "The Children of Mapu Street" is an unforget-
table story.