THE JEWISH NEWS
Incorporating The Detroit Jewish Chronicle commencing with issue of July 20, 1951
Member American Association of English-Jewish Newspapers, Michigan Press Association, National Editorial Amsrei.
lion. Published every Friday by The Jewish Ness Publishing Co., 17513 W. Nine Mlle. Suite 1166, Southfield, Mich. 46076.
Second-Clase Postage Paid at Southfield. Michigan ana Additional Mailing Offices. Subscription to a year. Foreign $8
PHILI• SLOMOVITZ
Editor and Publisher
CARMI M. SLOMOVITZ
Business Ma
CHARLOTTE DUBIN
City Editor
DREW LIEEERWITZ
Advertising Manager
Sabbath Scriptural Selections
This Sabbath, the 28th day of Tishre, 5733, the following scriptural selections
will be read in our synagogues:
Pentateuchal portion, Gen. 1:1-6:8. Prophetical portion, I Sam. 20:1842.
Rosh Hodesh Heshvan Torah readings, Sunday and Monday, Num. 29:1.15-
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Candle lighting, Friday, Oct. 6, 3:48 p.m.
VOL. UCH. No. 4
Page *Four
October 6, 1972
lx
A New American Jewish Obligatory Goal
Hundreds of American Jews, among them
scores of Detroiters, have been studying con-
ditions in Israel preparatory to unprecedent-
ed activities in behalf of Israel and in sup-
port of the tens of thousands who are form-
ing a new aliya, an increased immigration,
from Russia and other areas whence Jews
wish to emigrate and to assume an active
kinship with their people in their ancient
homeland.
There are many motivations in these ef-
forts. Israel can no longer be considered as
merely an embattled country. Only in Israel
do many Jews feel safe. Only there are the
new settlers secure from dangers. But the
threats to Israel have become a menace to
the civilized world. An insane element, em-
barking upon a new policy of destruction, has
chosen to fight Israel on the outside, thereby
endangering the lives not only of Israel's
representatives abroad, but also people among
whom Israel's spokesmen operate in scores
of foreign countries.
Those who participate in what has been
described as study tours of Israel actually
go there to reaffirm the unity that exists
between the Jewries of the world and their
kinsmen in the redeemed Jewish state. They
know, in advance of their visit to Israel, that
the tasks of continuing the upbuilding of the
state are related to developments in their
own lands. Therefore, American, British,
Canadian, French and other Jews, upon their
return from their missions, have not been
found wanting: they have shown dedication
to the great needs inherent in the partner-
ship between Israeli Jews and Diaspora Jew-
ries.
These devotional tendencies are especial-
ly in evidence in this country. American Jew-
ry has not let Israel down; and the tasks
ahead undoubtedly will be marked by an in-
creased dedication to labors for the protec-
tion of a people that is building a civilized
society in defiance of all the dangers that
confront them.
United Jewish Appeal plans for the imme-
diate future call for a vastly increased goal
in fund-raising. Under the chairmanship of
Paul Zuckerman there is an aspiration to se-
cure a sum of $505,000,000 through UJA
alone to meet the needs not only of assisting
newcomers to Israel but also of providing for
the health and educational needs of the coun-
try and especially in assuring a welfare pro-
gram that will eliminate the tragic poverty
situation among a large proportion of Israelis.
The obligations that arise for future ac-
tion involve many situations. There is, of
course, the necessity to assure Israel's ec-
onomic security. Added to it is the internal
social situation attributable to the low stand-
ards among many of the residents whose dire
needs can be met only through new housing
programs, better jobs, an assured secondary
education for children from very large fam-
ilies among Oriental Jews.
UJA Chairman Zuckerman and his associ-
ates in UJA, the Jewish Agency representa-
tives and the government officials know the
conditions and wish to correct them. Cures
can be applied only when the necessary means
are available. That is why the UJA appeals
for vast sums are not unrealistic.
The coming year will be a crucial one. In
1973 it will be necessary to meet the chal-
lenge. It has been sounded: now American
Jewry primarily, together with the Jewries in
other free countries, must give a positive re-
ply to the great demands.
Restoration of De filed Synagogues
Reconstruction of a series of old syna-
gogues in Jerusalem is accompanied by some
of the saddest recollections of the barbarism
that marked the assumption of power over the
Holy City of Jerusalem by the Jordanians in
1948. Not only was the Jewish population,
whose ancestors lived in the Old City for cen-
turies, driven from their homes, but their
houses of worship and study either were de-
stroyed or were defiled. Every element of
religious sanctity that is holy to Jewry was
profaned. Cemeteries were desecrated, and
tombstones were used to pave alleyways and
walks for private homes of the more affluent.
Now the defiled synagogues are being
used again. The Jewish quarter of Jerusalem
is being rebuilt. There is a redesigning of the
area where Jews had lived for centuries—
longer than any other religious community in
the Holy Land—and justice is being restored
together with the holy sites from which Jews
were barred for 19 years.
Restoration of the Jerusalem synagogues
is not only a reaffirmation of a return by Is-
rael and Jewry to a state of normalcy in Jeru-
salem. It is also an act of justice for all fac-
tors in the Holy City because now, for the
first time, every religious sect can worship
without restrictions, synagogues as well as
churches will enjoy the unrestricted right of
assembly and devotion to the faiths of their
constituents.
Mayor Teddy Kollek, under whose wise
guidance the reconstruction of Jerusalem has
been conducted on a peaceful basis, without
abuse of sentiments in any religious commu-
nity, stated, when the reopening of the re-
deemed synagogues was celebrated last week,
that the reconstruction of the houses of wor-
ship was "one of the several symbolic steps
we are taking to restore the Sephardic com-
munity." There also are the Ashkenazic struc-
tures which are again being put to honorable
use, and the current reconstruction efforts
symbolize the determination of Israel not to
permit abuses to be perpetuated.
Jerusalem's role in the process of Israel's
redemption can not be ignored. While there
have been accusations against Israel from
some religious quarters regarding the insist-
ence of Israel on administering the City of
David, there is a growing admission of the
justice of Israel's position. Of course, the
Holy City has been sanctified by other faiths,
but to none other than Israel does it have the
aspect of historicity that justifies Jerusa-
lem's being claimed as the capital of Israel.
And because the fairness of its administra-
tors, under the leadership of Teddy Kollek
and his associates, has been applied without
discrimination, the new rulership marks an
end to prejudice and defilement.
Even the negative aspects that had been
recorded in "0 Jerusalem," whose authors
now are being challenged for their over-em-
phasis of Jewish guilt in the Deir Yassin
tragedy, must be rejected. Perhaps the au-
thors of that best seller will amend their po-
sition to avoid unfair condemnation of Israel.
The rededication of violated holy places
and synagogues is part of the continuity of
effort in restoring Jewish rights after 19
years of abuses which King Hussein has been
unable either to explain or to atone for.
There can be no peace without a Jewish
Jerusalem, and there is a growing feeling
that this concept of justice will find lesser
opposition as time proceeds to establish the
fairness of Jewish claims and aspirations.
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Ab Cahan's 'Yekl' and Other
Stories in Paperback Revivals
Abraham Cahan, the editor of the N. Y. Jewish Daily Forward
(Yiddish) for nearly half a century, published many stories in English.
His descriptions of life in the New York ghetto attracted wide atten-
tion and were acclaimed for their:revelations of the characters on
New York's East Side.
In his stories, as in his essays and editorials, the late Mr. Cahan
dealt with the social conditions of the Jews who came here as strug-
gling immigrants. "Yekl" was one of his very famous stories, pub-
lished in 1896.
It is now available in a Dover paperback. In addition to this novel,
the new Dover paperback book also contained the following Cahan
stories. Under the heading, "Abraham Cahan cast in a new role," Mr.
Sweatshop Romance," "Circumstances" and "A Ghetto Wedding."
The titles at once reveal the topics dealt with and their condi-
tions—the matchmaking, the sweatshop sufferings, the social aspects
of a new settler's needs and difficulties.
Dover publishers were fortunate to have secured the services of
the eminent scholar, historian and literary critic, Bernard G. Richards,
before his death, to write the introduction of this series of reprinted
stories. Under the heading, "Abraham Cahan cast in a new rolle," Mr.
Richards gave an historic account of the era that influenced Cahan's
activities and writings. His introduction states:
"Every conceivable journalistic form, serious and humorous
—from editorials, feuilletons and polemical discussions to drama-
tic and literary critiques—came from the pen of Ab Cahan,' as
he signed himself. He wrote with such vigor and ease, with such
keen penetration and enlivening humor that his opponents read
him with envy and his friends and followers with ever-increasing
admiration. By the same token, his appearance on the platform
charmed and thrilled his audiences."
Mr. Richards described how Ab Cahan turned to fiction writing
and he quotes the tributes to him by the noted writers of the first
part of this century who recognized his genius and viewed his nar-
ratives as great contributions to a study of social conditions of his
time.
The stories reprinted in the Dover paperback emphasize thg
contributions the eminent Yiddish author made to Jewish literature,
and they serve as a reminder of conditions that existed at the time
when the topical forms in Cahan's writings combined descriptions
of human experiences mingled with the social needs that influenced
the actions and interests of the Jewish immigrants of 70 years ago.
Yehezkel Kaufmann's Classic
'Religion of Israel' Reissued
Yehezkel Kaufmann's rank as one of the most notable autrorities
on the Bible and on the history of Jewish religious codes and traditions
gives special significance to one of his major works, "The Religion of
Israel: From Its Beginnings to the Babylonian Exile."
First published by the University of Chicago Press in 1960, this
notable contribution to Jewish theological studies has just been re-
issued as a paperback by Schocken Books.
Translated and abridged by Dr. Moshe Greenberg, eminent Amer -
ican Bible scholar, the Kaufmann work is an abridgement of the
Hebrew classic published in Tel Aviv in 1937.
The 16-page index to cited Bible passages is an added affirma-
tion of the immensity of this study.
The prophetic role of Israel was noted by Prof Kaufmann (1889-
1963) who taught Bible at the Hebrew University in his concluding
statement in which he states that "the history of Israelite religion in
the last generation befcre the Exile" moved toward the goal of "the
molding of Israel into a prophet-nation, 'a witness to the peoples.'
Its teachers instruct it to suffer patiently and have faith in the
vision even if it should tarry; to live in the faith that YIIMH is God.
there is none eLse. The fruit of this faith was to ripen during the
period of the Second Temple."