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THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
12 Friday, May 8, 1981
The Podiatry Practice Of
DR. ALBERT DUNN
Has Been Assumed By
Dr. P.D. Rubinstein & Dr. M.B. Stromer
Podiatric Physicians and Foot Surgeons
and will be relocated at
The Washington Square Medical Dental Center
18597 W. 10 Mile Rd.,
3 blks. W. of Southfield Rd.
HOURS BY APPT. 559-4110
24-Hour Answering Service
Hirschmann Volume The Awakening'
Recalls JNF Role in Building Israel
By BEN G. FRANK
NEW YORK — Fifty
years ago, Ira Hirschmann,
then a leading merchan-
diser with New York de-
partment stores, now a vet-
eran diplomat, author and
lecturer, was strolling along
the wide avenues of Berlin
when he was stopped short
by the screaming of a man
addressing a street corner
rally.
"When I become chancel-
lor, the first thing I will do is
to kill all the Jews, not only
here in Germany, but
Detroit Chapter
THE
AMERICAN SOCIETY for TECHNION
ISRAEL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
Invites you to a program .. .
ISRAEL'S DEVELOPING ECONOMY
From a bleak expanse of barren hills and malarial swamps. tiny Israel
has developed intc a modern democratic society that not only feeds its
3.5 million and is a major world exporter of food products — but also
has developed a modern industrial complex. Computers hardware &
software, medical instruments, airplanes, avionics, industrial con-
trols — you name it, Israel makes it.
speaker . . .
AVRAHAM ASHER!
Israel's Deputy Director General, Ministry of Industry, Trade &
Tourism. Former Director of the Metal & Electronics Division
chairman . . .
MONDAY,
MAY 18,
1981
Ramada Inn
28225 Telegraph Rd.
Southfield, Mich.
South of 12 Mile Rd.
Bring Family
and Friends
Robert Brody
Builder-Developer. Director of Michigan and the National Association
of Homebuilders. Board member of Detroit and the National American
Technion Society. Former President of the Detroit Technion Chapter.
everywhere," the man
shouted.
Now, a half-century since
that afternoon in Berlin, Ira
Hirschmann has written
"The Awakening" (Shen-
gold), a book that tells the
history of the JNF and
traces its role in the fulfill-
ment of the Jewish people's
destiny. Reading it, we dis-
cover the secret that was re-
sponsible for the creation of
the Jewish state in our own
day, namely: "The soil is
never dead, it is only tired
and asleep."
That secret was known
by the JNF, and by the
early settlers. They went
out to the desert and to
the swamps and up the
rocky hills to achieve an
historic mission: the birth
of Israel. They literally
"woke up" the soil;
hence, the title, "The
Awakening."
Ira Hirschmann un-
covered that secret in tragic
circumstances. With the
Nazis engulfing Europe,
Hirschmann was named
special envoy to Turkey by
President Franklin D.
Roosevelt. In this capacity,
he saved 50,000 Jewish
children. He negotiated
with governments, pres-
sured individuals and even
went— down to the Bos-
porus, that legendary
waterway that separates
Europe from Asia in Istan-
bul, to meet secretly with
pirates.
Let Us Restqle
our Old Fur
into a ,Beautiful
Contemporan]
Fashionl
rimming
ere,inte
Fine Furs for Sophisticated Ladies
"I found myself back in
the merchandising busi-
ness," he says, "Instead of
goods, it was Jewish chil-
dren at $300 a head." •
But in this case, no one
would take the shipments.
No one, that is, except what
was called in those days,
Palestine. It was the only
open door in the civilized
world.
when
That's
first
Hirschmann
encountered the Jewish
struggle for Palestine. He
met Jews in the Yishuv
and became friendly with
Joseph Weitz, an ag-
ronomist and the genius
of the JNF. The fact that
Weitz and his colleagues
could produce food, veg-
etables, fruits and trees
from sand astonished
Hirschmann.
He became fascinated by
the JNF and he realized
that he could not have re-
scued those children with-
out the JNF. Without the
land purchased by JNF, he
says, without the dream
that began in 1901 when the
JNF was founded, "there
wouldn't have been a
Jewish homeland and I
wouldn't have had any place
Apology Offered
by UNESCO
for Saudi Memo
Your older furs will be revitalized through the magic
touch of our remodeling department. Watch them
come alive as we restyle them into modern garments
with the wonderful look of contemporary fashion, (as
pictured, a stole, cape or jacket becomes a
fashionable fur and knit jacket). You will be amazed
and pleased with our excellent ideas and workmanship.
Hours:
Mon.-Sat. 9:30-5:30
IRA HIRSCHMANN
181 S. Woodward
1 Blk. south of
Maple, Next to the
Birmingham Theatre
642-1690
NEW YORK — The
secretariat of UNESCO
(United Nations Educa-
tional Scientific and Cul-
tural Organization) has
conveyed apologies to the
United States Department
of State, and to Sidney Lis-
kofsky, the American
Jewish Committee's inter-
national organizations di-
rector, for distributing an
official Saudi Arabian
memorandum replete with
anti-Semitic distortions.
The memorandum was
published in a brochure, to-
gether with the records of
conferences on "Moslem
Doctrine and Human
Rights in Islam," held in
1972 and 1974 in Riyad,
Paris, Vatican City, Geneva
and Strasbourg. It pur-
ported to explain, for the
purpose of a report to the
1971 session of the United
Nations Human Rights
Commission, some "Princi-
ples of Human Rights in Is-
lam" and on Saudi domestic
practices aimed at realizing
economic, social and cul-
tural rights.
to _send 50,000 to 100,000
persons."
Even in the 1940s,
Hirschmann saw that the
JNF would make it possible
not only for Israel to feed it-
self but to export produce,
grain and vegetables
throughout the world.
And despite politics,
Hirschmann-concluded that
Jews would be known
throughout Africa and A
for having introduced to
world the JNF secret
making land cultivable. Is-
raelis would become known
as great farmers.
In two chapters that re-
late facts which are often
overlooked, he writes
that hundreds of millions
of dollars were paid by
the JNF for the purchase
of land from 1880 to 1947,
often at exorbitant
prices. In 1944, JNF paid
$1,000 per acre for mostly
arid or semi-arid land.
That same year, accord-
ing to the U.S. Depart-
ment of Agriculture, rich,
black soil in Iowa was
selling for $110 per, acre.
It is often overlooked that
with Jewish settlement, the
country became the subject
of mass Arab immigration
from neighboring, back-
ward countries.
"Everywhere a Jewish set-
tlement was established, an
Arab village followed.
Within 25 years of Israel's
existence, the Arab popula-
tion doubled," Hirschmann
explains.
Hirschmann elaborated
on the modern story of the
JNF which is now develop-
ing land resources in the
crucial Galilee; blasting
roads and preparing sites
for settlement in the Negev
and Arava.
He recalls _that in 1945,
returning from Turkey to
the U.S., he stopped off in
Palestine. He has a vivid
memory of one night: "I
watched an Israeli girl
planting flowers. On her
knees in front of her small,
prefabricated two-room
house, she patiently sifted
the soil through her fingers,
separating the stones from
the sand. Then holding her
flowers tenderly, she set
their roots in shallow holes
she had scooped out of the
newly restored earth.
"Doling out drops of
precious water, she
tamped down the ground
with her hands, patting
the soil almost as lovingly
as one would handle a
newborn child. At
watched this girl perfoA
her act of love for the soil,
I thought that here was
the symbol of Israel — a
portent of clover in the
desert."
For Hirschmann, his past
and the accomplishments of
the JNF merge into fulfill-
ment. In Ira Hirschmann's
own words: "Those children
I saved as an envoy of
President Roosevelt," he
says, "grew to become a
generation of tree planters,
a generation of fighters, a
generation of Jews who re-
covered their land."