Purely Commentary
From the time of the lighting of the first
Hanuka candle, Wednesday evening, through
the suceeding eight days of celebrating the
triumphs of the Maccabees of old, Jewish
communities everywhere will be entertain-
ing hopes for peace. Maccabean valor of
more than 2,100 years ago, repetitive resist-
ance to tyranny throughout the ages, affirm-
ation of the right to live which marked
heroism in our own time—as in the victories
on the battlefield in a struggle that became
known as the Yom Kippur War—are facts
of history. What concerns Jewry and Israel
today is the need for other victories—at
negotiating tables for peace.
Whatever political wisdom will be re-
quired to attain amity is tinged with great
concern. Once again, Jewish negotiators will
be confronted by animosities. The bargain-
ing for the very right to live commences in
an atmosphere of hatred and distrust. Is-
rael is begrudged breathing space. Macca-
bean ,valor is interpreted as aggression.
Bending towards concessions has not gained
recognition thus far.
Yet, hope is eternally entertained in
Jewish minds and hearts. There is no yield-
ing to despair. What was possible on the
battlefield could well prove successful con-
versationally.
Perhaps this, too, is a triumph : that the
enemy will converse with the people whose
destruction he has been advocating. There
hasn't been any talking whatever until now.
Now antagonists are approaching the speak-
ing stage. It is the first step in amity.
May it pave the road to the good will that
can bring progress for many peoples and
an end to fears of a possible world conflict
that could lead to an international calamity.
* * *
Not Israel alone, nor Hanuka alone, but
the entire Jewish people, and the year-round
concerns, are matters for serious consider-
ation.
It is not the delusion that causes the
anti-Jewish slogans on bumper stickers,
and the signs on trucks, or the temporary
setbacks we may suffer in public relations.
There is a future to consider and therefore
there is the confrontation with the re-emerg-
ence of prejudices akin to those of the
Middle Ages.
In ages gone by they were the accusa-
tions of ritual murder and of well poisoning
and of stupidities involving religious fana-
ticisms.
Now it is oil and the economic setbacks
and the political shenanigans. Unbelievable
as they may be, the biased minds always
find the scapegoat in the Jew. Oil does not
mix with water, but oil drawn from wells
of hatred has been injected in the blood
of hate-mongers. It may cause us greater
danger than the blood spilt on a battlefield.
* * *
It is still the international hatred. It is
on all fronts. In a single issue of the New
York Times—Dec. 7.—there appeared two
items of concern. James Reston, posing the
question "Will the Arabs Go Too Far?",
introduced a sad note. In relation to the
energy problem and oil. commenting on
"blackmail on the installment plan, and
so far it has worked for the Arabs very
well," added: "They have split the indus-
trial nations." He proceeded to comment on
the method of introducing discord in rela-
tion to UN pressures and added: "It is a
cunning policy, for. it assumes that the gas
and oil shortage will not only turn American
opinion against Israel but eventually against
the American Jews who help finance
Israel.'
In the same issue appeared a report on
what has happened to a once-flourishing
Hanuka's Goal to Rekindle Faith and Confidence
in a Time of Crisis and Hate-Mongering . . . Gains
for the Entire World With Justice for the Jew
Jewish community in Poland. Henry Kamm
wrote for the New York Times from Wro-
claw; once it was the Jewish community
of Breslau where there were 10,000 Jews
and a great theological seminary.
They are all gone. The oldest impressive
synagogue was burned to the ground by
the Germans and a few Jews who came
to Wroclaw after Hitler were examined
by Kamm in synagogues that survived but
is in shambles. He spoke to these elders
"who are living out their days on meager
pensions and in apathy." Kamm reports
about these elders:
"They said that they did not notice a
swastika chalked on the door, heavily pad-
locked, on the old Grand Synagogue, and
the letter 'Z' the initial of the Polish word
for 'Jew,' and obscene words.
"A foreign visitor wiped off the swas-
tika, unaware of two boys in their early
teens and their dogs. When he had finished
the boys walked toward him. As they drew
even, one faced the visitor with a smirk and
said in German, deliberately, 'Jude!' The
other spat."
It is true that this happened in a country
filled with venom against Jews, in an atmo-
sphere of medievalism. But it exists.
* * *
And now, in the month of Good Will, in
the period of celebrating Hanuka as well as
the great Christian festival that will occur
in the midst of the Maccabean festival, the
question has been posed and may be asked
by many not in our midst:
"Israel and Jewry are alone, isolated,
in a hostile world. Only Uncle Sam is Is-
rael's friend. Is it possible that the whole
world is wrong and the Jew right—witness-
ing the stubborness of the Jew who defies
the animosity of an entire world? Or, is
Smolar Recalls Historic Ben-Gurion Incident
By BORIS SMOLAR
a Hagana agent sent word
Editor-in-Chief Emeritus, JTA from Transjordan that the
(Copyright 1973, JTA, Inc.)
Grand Mufti of Jerusalem—
I knew David Ben-Gurion an arch enemy of the Jews
intimately for 45 years. Dur- who worked hand -in - hand
ing my visits in pre-war with Hitler—was plotting a
Palestine, I spent many "Bloody Friday" on the Jews
hours with him in the years in Jerusalem. The plot pro-
when he was general secre- vided that on Friday, the holy
tary of Histadrut and led day for the Arabs, large
Israel's Federation of Labor groups of Arabs from Trans-
to its power. I maintained jordan — who enjoyed free
close contact with him later, crossing of the Palestine bor-
when he was chairman of der—were to enter Jerusa-
the Jewish Agency Execu- lem ostensibly for praying at
tive. After the establishment the Great Mosque, the sec-
of the state of Israel, when ond holiest spot in the Mos-
he became Israel's first lem world. Actually, they
premier, I was welcomed' in were to carry arms under
his home many times.
their flowing robes and
* * *
would, after hearing an in-
I shall always remember flammatory harangue by the
one of the outstanding dra- Mufti against the Jews, rush
matic episodes in my rela- out of the Mosque with rifles,
tions with Ben-Gurion. It pistols, swords and knives to
took place in 1936, when I start a "blitzkrieg' massacre.
Other details reported by
discovered, a kind of a "Wa-
tergate Affair" in Jerusalem. the Hagana agent left no
The Jewish Agency wires, I doubt that the situation was
learned, were being bugged grave. There were only two
by an Arab leader who oc- days left till Friday and the
cupied a high position in the British garrison in Jerusalem
was not big enough to pre-
Palestine government.
Palestine was then in the vent the infiltrating Arabs
midst of Arab riots against from carrying out their plan-
the Jews, and Jerusalem was ned pogrom. In addition, the
under martial law. I came to Jewish Agency leaders felt
Jerusalem to supervise the that they could not depend
coverage of the news for the on the military administra-
Jewish Telegraphic Agency tion in Palestine, which was
in those critical weeks. There not exactly friendly to the
was Arab sniping on the Jews.
Ben-Gurion sprang imme-
roads and much firing on
Jewish colonies. Curfew was diately into action. He or-
proclaimed in Jerusalem and dered Moshe Shertok, then
British soldiers appeared af- political secretary of. the
ter 6 o'clock in the evening Jewish Agency—who changed
in full battle dress patrolling
the streets. The Jewish un-
derground security organiza-
On his visit to
tion, Hagana, was on the
the United States
alert.
Secret agents of Hagana, in 1951, the then
dressed in Arab garb and Israeli Prime
speaking Arabic fluently, Minister David
mingled with the Arabs. in Ben-Gurion con-
bazaars not only in Palestine ferred with Con-
but also in neighboring Arab gressmen Frank-
countries. Any bit of inform- lin D. Roosevelt
ation about Arab moods and Jr. and John F.
Kennedy.
plans was important.
One day, on a Wednesday,
his name to Sharett after the
establishment of Israel when
he became Israel's first For-
eign Minister—to alert Dr.
Chaim Weizmann in London
over the intercontinental tele-
phone and to ask him to seek
through the Colonial Office
the rushing of British mili-
tary units overnight from
Cairo to Jerusalem to pre-
vent bloody disaster on Fri-
day.
Shertok and Weizmann
spoke in Russian, on the as-
sumption that even if some-
body listened in on their con-
versation, he wouldn't under-
stand it anyway. However,
it turned out that the person
who listened in on their talk
was an Arab leader, a mem-
ber of the Nashashibi family
who studied in Turkey and
learned the Russian lan-
guage. He also held an im-
portant post in the Palestine
government.
A Jewish friend of mine,
who also held an important
post in the Palestine govern-
ment but stood far from the
Jewish Agency, secretly in-
formed me of the Shertak-
Weizmann conversation, how
it was taped, by whom and at
what time. This person usu-
ally provided me with "in-
side information" as a friend
anxious to help me in my
journalistic work. No remun-
eration was involved.
I decided to use this sensi-
tive information not for pub-
lication but to alert Ben-
By Philip
Slomovifz
it possible that the Jew alone is right?"
The answer is obvious: that the whole
world is wrong and the Jew is right. Ahad
Ha'Am, the great Jewish philosopher, posed
the same question towards the end of the
last century, when the blood libel was a
weapon against Jewry. Ahad Ha'Am, dis-
cussing the ritual murder charge, asked:
"Is it possible, under conditions of global
hatred against Jews, that the whole world
is wrong and that we are right? And his
answer was YES: that the ritual murder
charge proves it. If a blood libel charge
can be leveled at us and is not totally re-
jected then the whole world is wrong."
This is applicable in our time. When a
small nation is confronted by hostility on a
global scale, it proves that it alone is rir -
All little Israel asks is the right to h
Why isn't there an element of strength to
support it?
* •
That's a major question for Hanuka time,
and the celebrants of the festival have the
right to ask it.
Courage is not strange to us and to Israel.
It is rekindled with the Hanuka lights. It is
a sentiment rooted in faith and in confi-
dence. It is a more pressing need today
than it ever was before.
At this time it is gaining new strength—
for Israel and for Jewry and for mankind.
If a small people can regain the compas-
sion and the friendship of the world, the
world that lacked it will gain by it.
What better objective for the Ha auks in
the year of a Yom Kippur War, of an
energy crisis that has given cause for re-
newed bigotries, in a time when mankind
needs faith in higher goals and confidence
in the brotherhood of man? If Hanuka re-
news the message of the spirit, it will merit
the glory it lights for humanity.
Highlights in B-G's Life
Gurion and Shertok of the
fact that their wires were
being bugged directly into the
residence of a prominent
Arab.
About 15 minutes later, I
was sitting before the entire
executive of the Jewish
Agency whom Ben-Gurion
summoned urgently, relat-
ing to them the facts I knew.
Shertok confirmed that the
facts were correct. Ben-Gur-
ion gratefully thanked me on
behalf of the executive for
not making them public and
for bringing the matter of the
wire-tapping to his attention.
He had long suspected—but
only suspected—that the Jew-
ish Agency wires were being
tapped. He consulted me on
certain actions to be taken
and I was in a position to
give him practical advice.
Another communication sys-
tem was set up by the Jew-
ish Agency which neither the
Arabs nor the Palestine gov-
ernment could bug.
The planned Arab pogrom
on the Jews in Jerusalem
was checked in time. Act-
ing on Dr. Weizmann's re-
quest, the British government
promptly ordered troops to
Jerusalem from Cairo. They
arrived overnight in time to
be seen on the streets of
Jerusalem on Friday morn-
ing. Ben-Gurion never forgot
my role in this episode. I
cherish the awards which he
bestowed upon me. They in-
clude medals and books with
special inscriptions.
On his 80th birthday, Oct. 2, 1966, David Ben-Gurion
was presented with an ancient Israel artifact by Max M.
Fisher of Detroit and Rabbi Herbert A. Friedman, then
respectively, the general chairman and executive vice pres-
ident of the United Jewish Appeal.
In the lower photo, Ben-Gurion is shown with a special
smile for children who greeted him on his birthday.
2—Friday, Dec. 14, 1973,
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS