THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

Friday, May 19, 1972-19

Boris Smolar's

'Between You
... and Me'

Editor-in-Chief Emeritus, JTA
(Copyright 1972, JTA Inc.)

By BORIS SMOLAR
(Editor-in-Chief Emeritus, J.T.A.)
(Copyright 1972, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Inc.)
JEWISH KNOWLEDGE: The British people are proud of their

British Museum as one of the world's greatest depositories of price-
less documents of human history. The French have their Bibliotheque
Nationale. The American people have their Congressional Library with
its valuable possessions. The Jewish people have all the reason to be
proud of their YIVO Institute.
The YIVO Institute—which held its -four-day annual conference in
New York recently is among other things the greatest depository of
Jewish cultural treasures. Its archives, open to researchers and to
the public, have the largest collection—over 2.000,000 items—of orig-
inal documentary material on Jewish life of many centuries. Its library
of over 310,000 volumes in 15 languages is considered to be the most
outstanding of its type in the world.
The YIVO conference was held under the slogan "A Century of
Higher Jewish Learning." But among the historic documents and
original material which one finds in the YIVO there are very many
which are much older than a hundred years. In fact, there are some
which are from 400 to 500 years old. They include early Hebrew and
Yiddish books, among them a sizable collection of volumes printed by
the first Hebrew presses in Constantinople, Venice and other cities;
and the first Yiddish books of the 16th Century which include a rare
copy of the "Taytsh Khumesh." You can find in the YIVO archives
letters, manuscripts and documents of historic importance ranging
from an original diary of Dr. Theodor Herzl to top-secret Nazi orders
resulting in the mass-annihilation of the Jews in various lands.
YIVO archives and library are practically the main, if not the
sole, source of information on the past and present social, economic
and cultural life of Jews all over the world. Nearly 100 doctoral dis-
sertations and master's theses are completed annually by graduate
students of American universities interested in topics pertaining to
Jewish life, and almost all of them are based on research in the YIVO.
The students are mostly Jews, but there are also non-Jews among them.
I saw a Japanese scholar in the YIVO library who was doing research
on subjects linked to Jewish history.

JEWISH INDIFFERENCE: YIVO is well-known today in the Amer-
ican academic world and highly respected there. Its achievements, as
a secular scholarly research institution, also are well known and ap-
preciated in U.S government agencies dealing with humanistic sci-
ences. This explains why the National Endowment for Humanistic
Sciences is now willing to give YIVO a substantial sum of money for
various cultural projects on condition that the sum is matched now by
Jewish contributions in cash or in pledges to be paid within three
years.
This generous offer—testimony to the reputation of YIVO in the
American non-Jewish world of scholarship—should have evoked among
Jewish leadership and organization the kind of national pride which
would make the finding of ''matching funds" very easy, especially
at a time when there is so much need to strengthen Jewish knowledge
among American Jewish students. Yet, the YIVO call for matching
funds is not finding the proper response.
The Washington offer to YIVO is a challenge to American Jewry.
Failure to comply with the "matching" request will deprive the YIVO
of a large sum of money amounting to nearly $200,000.
The only foundation which has so far—similar to the Detroit Jew-
ish Federation—replied in the positive to the YIVO call is the Atran
Foundation in New York. A constant supporter of YIVO. the Atran
Foundation has decided to contribute $75,000 within a period of three
years as its share in the matching fund sought by YIVO.
YIVO resources are used by universities, museums, libraries, gov-
ernmental and quasi-governmental agencies, film, radio and television
producers, national and local Jewish organizaticns and a growing
number of the general public, including a significant number of non-
Jews. Does not an institution of this kind deserve the maximum
financial support on the part of the American Jewish Community?
Is it not our obligation as the largest and richest community in the
world to keep the records of our past preserved? Are we not the
keepers of our own cultural treasures?

Golda Opposes Total

TEL AVIV (ZINS)—At a stormy
debate in the central committee
of the United Labor Party, de-
voted to the issue of separation of
religion and state, and the coop-
eration of Mapai with the Miz-
rachi Party, Premier Golda Meir
declared that the total elimina-
tion of religious influence from
state policy would constitute a
great disservice to the Jewish

people.
Replying to her critics that
Israel should recognize civil mar-
riages, Mrs. Meir said. "I am not
concerned over the threat of mix-
ed marriages in this country, but
if we should appear to have con-
doned them here, this would have
a devastating effect in encourag-
ing mixed marriages in the Dias-

pora.

Religion-State Split

The most embittered attack
against the religious parties was
made by David Hacohen, veter-
an leader of the labor move-
ment. He argued that it is un-
majority to
thinkab'e for a
knuckle under the will of a re-
ligious minority, highly partisan
and politically-minded. Ilacohen
asked whether, according to
Halakha, Golda Meir (a woman)
would be allowed to be head of
government.

Bt the prime minister rebuffed
all attacks declaring that if we
fail to safeguard Judaism. those
who shed their blood for the estab-
lishment of the Jewish state will
have died in vain. Our entire
raison d'etre is to guarantee that
the Jewish people will have. a
. future."

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The Jewish National Fund
cordially invites you to attend a
TESTIMONIAL DINNER

in honor of
DR WII LIAM IIABFR

on the occasion of the

estahlishment of the

& FANNIF liABER

FOREST in Israel

on Wednesday evening
lune the seventh
nineteen hundred and seventy-two
for k
at six-thirty

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PC VI et , / 4'0 114P{

Congregation Shaarey Zedek
27375 Bell Road, Southfield

(;clect .Speaker
DIE R1 LION THE IORD /ANN/ R

ourstdr.fing 11,0 , 0 and arila•rndlotroally
a harrum rd I lumen Rights
re•H ow

sox-thirty o'r for k
Dinner, seven o'r drx k

Coll 1.1d , ,

R.S V P

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Hos.

Dress informal

f f
Honorary Chairmen Max M Fisher

Tiff ll,R1.) /45%1R

Rohhen Fleming
Chairman _ Mrs Moon. Adler
Co-chairmen - Mrs Harry Ber ker/ I Dais Berry
trier
Irwin I Cohn / loseph II
Mrs Irvin I Kurt, / David K Page
Harry H Platt / David Pollax - k
lerbed Sr hlager/ Dr Reeve M Siegel
Icor-raid S.' Simons /Philip 5lomoviti
Mrs Donald Thal / Paul 7uc kerrnan
()%ia , 7werrlling
David P Tar k, President,
le,ish %%mond) F undd
I I i.)n Detroit

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CONTRIBUTIONS 40 TREES 41,011N.) PER COUPLE 6100.00

ntcrmat

;inc ret;ervat ■ ort'.

JEWISH NATIONAL FUND. 22100 GREENFIELD. OAK PARK 48237 - Phone 968-0820