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." airral011501F. • • .4.. /bit •• . '0; • • :: t •0. i - \ .. ?..*: h . 4 .4 ;C 1774 • 0,P .;* c Ai .116 4 ,. ' . ill' '-• .4 • - ' eow' - 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 Se 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 MI RI 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 sir • / 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