72 Friday, March 21, 1981

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

Rabbi Milton Steinberg Is Lovingly Remembered

By REV. CARL VOSS

(Editor's Note: This ar-
ticle about one of the
most distinguished of
American Jewry's schol-
ars is written by the dis-
tinguished Christian
author and theologian. It
is published simultane-
ously with Jewish Affairs
of Johannesburg, South
Africa, and the Recon-
structionist Magazine.)
On the first day of spring,
March 21, 1950, the New
York Times brought a win-
try blast into the hearts of
untold numbers of people
both here and abroad when
it carried an obituary
flanked by a striking photo-
graph of the deceased:
Rabbi . Steinberg dies at
age 46, Leader of Park Ave-
nue Synagogue since 1933.
Also was known as author
and lecturer.
I recall all too well that
bleak morning, for my
grief was intense; but at the
same time I was disap-
pointed by the brevity of the
article. Here were only bare
facts about what had been a
distinguished career and a
remarkably successful
ministry, not only in the
pulpit and as a pastor, but
also in public life.
The depths of grief ex-
perienced by so many
could not, of course, be
captured in the single
news column; but to some

AP.

MILTON STEINBERG

extent they were glimp-
sed in the mourning
notices on the opposite
page where Milton Stein-
berg's achievements in
public life and his influ-
ence on the hearts and
minds of his contem-
poraries were freely
noted. There were 28
such organizational
notices.
Just as Milton's beloved
teacher, Mordecai M. Kap-
lan, felt bereft by his death,
so, too, did such Christians
as Reinhold Niebuhr and
Paul Tillich. These men re-
garded Milton as a peer, as a
truly original mind,
encyclopedic in knowledge
and incisive in thinking,
catholic in interests and
sensitive to all nuances of
intellectual speculation.
As a former student and
rifelong friend of bekth

Niebuhr and Tillich, I was
astonished — as they were,
too, they often confessed —
by Milton's unique ability to
understand their insights
even though they were
those of Christian
philosophical theologians.
They appreciated his skill
in critically analyzing their
ideas and, on many an occa-
sion, with devastating effec-
tiveness.
Like Milton, they had
struggled with the
centuries-old conflict be-
tween the Hebraic and Hel-
lenic traditions and thus
had a spiritual kinship with
him, especially because all
three men acknowledged
and the centrality of the
Hebraic heritage in our
Western civilization.
As a non-Jew, I owe a
great debt to Milton
Steinberg for all he
meant to me as friend and
-colleague. True, I knew
him for less than eight
years; and I saw him all
too seldom in the latter
years of his life, for in late
1943 he suffered a heart
attack as he toured army
camps in the Southwest
bringing comfort to
Jewish soldiers day after
day in a punishing
schedule.
His health was never the
same again, his energy was
depleted; but those of us
who knew him well admired

and respected his struggle
to regain his former vigor.
He and I had first met
in Pittsburgh in the
autumn of 1942. Milton
was the star attraction in
the galaxy of speakers
whom Henry Atkinson of
the Church Peace Union
and Clark Eichelberger
of the Commission To
Study the Organization
of Peace had brought to
Carnegie Hall for one of
their Win-the-War-Win-
the-Peace Institutes.
I was instantly captivated
by this winsome, kinetic
young man, then not yet
40-years old, who spoke
with such precision and
clarity, whose earnestness
was balanced by humor,
whose passion and prophe-
tic zeal were paired with
tenderness and compassion.
Above all, he had the gift
of making everyone in his
audience listen and feel that
each individual was in-
cluded in his vast circle of
friendships. Like myself, a
host of others considered
Milton confidant and coun-
selor.
Soon I came to know him
much better when I worked
with him and his cousin,
Rabbi Philip S. Bernstein of
Temple Brith Kodesh of
Rochester, N.Y., both of
whom had been asked by
Dr. Stephen S. Wise, chair-
man of the Emergency

A
DR. CARL VOSS

Committee on Zionist Af-
fairs, to aid Dr. Emanuel
Neumann in reviving the
old (1931) but now dormant
American Palestine Corn-
mittee and in organizing
Christian ministers of
Zionist sympathies into a
"Christian Council on
Palestine" (1942).
We were intent on
channeling demands that
the British Mandatory
for Palestine open it to
Jewish immigration and
the rescue of the rem-
nants of European Jewry
whom Hitler had 'sworn
to exterminate.
When Henry Atkinson as
chairman asked me to be-
come the executive secre-
tary of the Christian Coun-
cil on Palestine (later to
merge with the American
Palestine Committee to be-
come the -American Chris-
tian Palestine Committee),
it was Milton who, in that
fall-winter-spring of 1942-
1943, initiated me into the

intricacies and complexities
of the Jewish community.
Milton also gave me
much sound advice. One
day in his home he said,
"Carl, one thing I would
urge upon you. The days
ahead are going to be
both fascinating and
exhausting for you, and
you must be sure to keep
one foot in the Christian
community. If not, it'll be
too much for you, you'll
go nuts.
"My people will °v.
whelm you. They have in-
tense emotions, and, with
the best intentions in the
world, they'll swallow you
up. - They'll simply engulf
you. Remember that!" And I
did.
Then he became more
serious and said, "Some-
times I find my people hard
to understand, especially in
our war on anti-Semitism.
You're going to discover
this, too, especially in the
Zionist movement, for I find
the politics in those circles
utterly baffling. I just don't
understand all that goes on;
but I have learned, as you
will, too, that the basic idea
of Zionism is sound and
good. It's true, it's valid.

"When you find yourself
floundering, remember:
The Basic Idea is authentic
and that is the most impor-
tant thing."

`From These Men' by Shimon Peres Is Historic
Look at Israel Through the Eyes of 7 'Founders'

By BETH ROTH

Shimon Peres may well
be the next prime minister
of the state of Israel. In this
political fact lies the signifi-
cance of his newest book,
"From These Men, Seven
Founders of the State of Is-
rael," translated by Philip
Simpson and published by
Wyndham Books.
In choosing these men
(with whom he worked
closely), he indicates the
importance of cultural and
scientific creativity to the
survival of an exciting
civilization. The book is a
collection of Peres' recollec-
tion of seven so-called foun-
ders of the state of Israel, an
informative and, at times,
poetic ode.
David Ben-Gurion is
given more than one-fourth
of the book. He was Peres'
teacher and Peres was his
protege. We learn that
Ben-Gurion, a man of
strong and stubborn will,
read voraciously. A student
of both the Bible and of the
sciences, he was a consum-
mate linguist. Versed in at
least 10 languages, he al-

ways read his materials in
their original state.
For Peres, Ben-Gurion
was the quintessential Is-
raeli. Frugal in lifestyle,
he was self-assured in his
political and military life,
a self-assurance formed
and informed by schol-
arly reason.
The six remaining found-
ers Peres chose have some
or all of these attributes
and, in combination, they
bring together a comple-
ment of talents necessary to
the development of a mod-
em Jewish state.
Berl
Katznelson,
idealogue of the Labor
Party, was a brilliant and
compelling teacher whose
ability to transform Mar-
xists and religious Jews into
Israelis was an invaluable
asset in the formation of the
state.
Levi Eshkol, Israel's third
prime minister, was chosen
by Peres for inclusion in his
book for the balance and
grace with which he hand-
led domestic and foreign af-
fairs.
Nathan Alterman, ex-

quisite poet, was the prod-
ding prophet like the one for
whom he was named. He
felt the anguish and the
pain of his beleagured land
but was able to transform
that reality with his gift of
words. Thus he wrote a
poem which Ben-Gurion
read from the podium of the
Knesset in October 1956:

I dreamed last night of steel,
much steel, new steel,
The bearer of laden canis-
ters ringing on iron chains,
Arrives from afar, sets foot
on the shore and as imagina-
tion turns into reality,
With the first touch of the
land, he becomes the expres-
sion of the power of the Jews.

Ernest David Bergmann
was the brilliant scientist
who saw the desert as a
mechanical garden, "the
scientification of Israel," as
Peres tells us: "To a consid-
erable degree, his overall
scheme still guides us today
in our planning for the fu-
ture."
Moshe Haviv, a Turkish
Jew, "neither Ashkenazi

SHIMON PERES

nor Sephardi," neither "eg-
ghead" nor "pragmatist," a
lawyer by profession.
"Neither optimist nor pes-
simist," he was "quite sim-
ply, lively and intelligent."
And he was much, much
more, as we read on:
"It turned out that
Mosh could do anything;
a book needed publish-
ing — he was the pub-
lisher; there was a law-
suit to be contested — he
was the advocate; funds
had to be raised — he or-
ganized it; colleagues be-
came estranged — he
concilliated them;
branches needed open-
ing — he found them; a
speech had to be made —
Mosh dazzled his audi-
ence; somebody needed a
heart-to-heart talk —
Mosh could spare the
time."
Moshe Haviv was mor-
tally wounded in the Six-
Day War.

Yonatan Netanyahu was
mortally wounded in the
raid on Entebbe. Yonatan
Netanyahu, Yoni, corn-
mander of the raid, a stu-
dent of philosophy at Har-
vard University. "First in
the line of fire, first to fall,"
a bullet through the heart.
As a boy of 17, he had writ-
ten:
"I must feel that not only
at the moment of my death
will I be able to render ac-
count of the time which I
have lived, but that at every
moment of my life I can look
myself in the face and say,
thus and thus have I done."
All of Peres' seven men
have fallen; all seven are
now dead. Blit implicit in
the book is his belief that
when we "go with the men,"
we replace the fallen with
other men and women, per-
petual founders of the
ever-evolving state, men
and women with the ability
to transcend and transform
the harsh realities of aland
ever fraught with peril: bat-
tered in winter by high
taxes and an overbearing
bureaucracy, battered in
summer by a merciless sun
and wind, ceaselessly bat-
tered by a human wall of
active, hostile neighbors
ever ready to attack.
By selecting these
seven men as founders of
the state, Shimon Peres
demonstrates an under-
standing of the complex
reality of the Israeli
scene. All seven are de-

scribed as learned, sensi-
tive, poetic, and most im-
portant, dynamic.
It is not coincidental that
Peres ends his story with his
eulogy to Yoni, the latest of
the founders to fall. He
compares Yoni's task to that
of David when fighting
Goliath:
"The conflict between
David and Goliath," he
says, "also had a spiritual
dimension and it may be
that through this dimen-
sion the outcome of the
struggle was determined
from the start."
Peres envisions a Jewish
state grounded in a
"spiritual" dimension too
profound to question. But he
knows that the state rr
use the talents of her
creative citizens, even when
it means the necessity for
turning a philosopher into a
warrior.
He titled his first book
"David's Sling." He sees
himself as a poet-
politician like David of
old and sees an unbroken
continuity between those
times and today. Perhaps
his election would augur
well for a state whose
identity and continued
survival rests on an an-
cient dream.
A special window display
of copies of "From These
Men, Seven Founders of the
State of Israel" can be seen
at The Little Professor Book
Center, 189 S. Woodward
Ave., Birmingham.

