2 Friday, December 18, 1981
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
Purely Commentary
By Philip
Slomovitz
A Lesson in Jewish Continuity Is Offered by the Repeated
Experiences as Hanuka Is Observed in a Spirit of Recognition
of the Right to Differ and to Retain Dignity in the World
Continuity as a Slogan in the Experience of the Ages, Emphasized by Hanuka
It is an endless story, all ofJewish history, emphasized so gloriously by the Hanuka
festival.
It is the eternal lesson of resistance to total destruction, of the will to live that
conquers all obstacles.
It is even an insistence on the right to differ, and differences lend so much charm to
genuine human relations!
Indeed, continuity is the password in Jewish experience.
Else, the Jew would have been a major object in museums, and it is in museums
where even the hated are always treated with respect.
Yet, it cannot be said that the Jew has not been or is not respected. There are the
insane, the crackpots, those who would brutalize, who distort, who create and encourage
hate. There are the rational. the human factors, the adherents to the common decencies
that make people neighbors with human qualities. They recite the Psalms, they Worship
the legacies from the Jewish ethical teachings which have become the most important
factors in their own religious faiths. Many have been taught to hate, and some have
negated the very teachings they inherited from those selected for persecution. These are
passing phases in life. On the record is the Jew as Mark Twain portrayed him in 1898, in
his essay "Concerning the Jews" in Harper's Magazine:
If the statistics are right, the Jews constitute but one percent of the human
race. It suggests a nebulous dim puff of star dust lost in the blaze of the milky way.
Properly the Jew ought hardly to be heard of but he is heard of, has always been
heard of . . . He has made a marvelous fight in this world, in all the ages; and he
has done it with his hands tied behind him.
That was eight decades ago. The Jew does not count the one percent mark of the
human race today. Imagine what Mark Twain could have said had he lived in the years of
the Holocaust! Perhaps he would have added that once again, hands tied, he displayed a
miracle: he survives!
All of which spells continuity, and it is not inglorious. It is a part of what Twain
called "the human race."
Even now, the inhumanities are in evidence. They begin with the Jew as target, they
grow with mankind the sufferer. This compels the small- minority of realists, the sane
portion in mankind, to be a partner in the aim of human survival and respect for the Jew
who is the most miraculous in survivalism.
Granted: the hatreds have not diminished; anti-Semitism may be increasing drasti-
cally; the battle for justice is endless; there is still the challenge to the alert. Isn't this,
also, the mark of continuity, the hemshekh in Jewish experience?
These are the facts to be recorded again on the occasion of the Hanuka festival. As on
all occasions, Hanuka spells the difference inherent in the Jew from his neighbors. It is a
difference to be lived with, has been lived with, will continue because of the Jew's
resistance to anything that could spell destruction . . . and it applies to the civilized i n
mankind who live with him.
That's the point: that even in an age of great terror, at a time when one of the great,
miracles in Jewish existence today, the rebirth of Israel as a sovereign symbol of the
Jewish people, Jews retain respect in history and people live at peace with them. There is
the battle against the insane: all mankind is engaged in that struggle, as the current
rejection of all threats of terrorism in this nation's capital emphasize.
It is not all dark and gloomy. Even the battle for justice for the Jew in the Middle East
should be viewed as conquerable. The ugliest may continue to be demonstrated, in all
forms of strife against prejudice, but it cannot dominate.
The fact is that the Menoras will be lit and the candles will shine brightly. Some
winds may cause them to flicker. In the determined Jewish experience of historic
continuity they will sparkle with brightness.
That's how the Happy Hanuka greeting is exchanged by Jews everywhere.
Stephen S. Wise's Dominant Role in American Zionist Ranks Defined by Prof. Urofsky
Stephen S. Wise is a name
indelibly recorded in his-
tory. In the battle for justice
on the American scene, the
Zionist who inspired the
multitudes with his leader-
ship, the friend of Presi-
dents and the challenger of
the obstructionists who
were late in. joining the
ranks ofJewish libertarians
— this is an incomplete
summary of the genius of
the man who again is the
subject of a noteworthy
biography.
"A Voice That Spoke for
Justice: The Life and Times
of Stephen S. Wise" by Mel-
vin I. Urofsky (State Uni-
versity New York Press,
Albany) is the result of re-
search that presents an im-
portant study of the emi-
nent personality. In less
than 500 pages, Prof.
Urofsky has so thoroughly
evaluated the approach_ to
the serious issues in which
Dr. Wise was involved that
the new biography serves
not only as a reminder of the
courage of the hero of this
story but especially the
events of the half-century in
which Dr. Wise was the
leader and the challenger.
He lived in many eras,
some supercharged by
his wit and oratory and
devotion to the ideals
which marked his life.
Once again the reader
learns that in the early
years of Wise's struggles
to make Zionists of his
opponents he was con-
fronted by the
"Yahudim." That was the
term that was used for
the assimilationists, the
isolationists in Jewish
life. They were the rich
Jews who dominated the
American Jewish Com-
mittee. It was not limited
to those among the mas-
ses, the East European
Jews, in their opposition
to the German, the
Yahudim. It was a term
frequently used also by
Dr. Wise's close as-
sociates, including Sup-
reme Court Justice Louis
D. Brandeis.
MELVIN UROFSKY
Passing in review in the
Urofsky biography are the
distinguished and less dis-
tinguished of the genera-
tions over which the Wise
personality dominated. The
Wise family, the two ac-
complished women, his wife
Louise Waterman Wise,
and daughter Judge Justine
Wise Polier, and his able
scn James Waterman Wise
are in the literary portraits.
There's wasn't a Jew of
prominence, on the Ameri-
can and worldwide scenes,
who didn't cross the paths of
Wise in his numerous ac-
tivities. Therefore Louis
Marshall had a role in the
Wise controversies, when
Wise refused to be control-
led if he were to ascend the
pulpit of Temple Emanu-El
in New York. That's when
the term "Marshall Law"
was coined.
* * *
Stephen Wise
and Roosevelt
Wise's friendship with
Franklin D. Roosevelt
was interrupted briefly
by a dispute in New York
State when FDR was
governor. That's when
SSW was in close contact
and collaboration with
the noted Christian
minister, John Haynes
Holmes, in their joint bat-
tle for just social lesigla-
tion. When the quarrel
with President Roosevelt
was patched up, Wise ap-
proached him on the Nazi
threats to Jewry as well
as Palestine as a Jewish
state.
It was on the Palestinian
issue that a most revealing
FDR attitude is recalled by
Prof. Urofsky. As is well for the Jews did not repre-
known, FDR liked to kibitz, sent a commitment to nor
to resort to the humorous. In even an understanding of
the Zionist attitude, what the Zionist attachment to
might have been lighter Palestine. The president,
right up to his death, be-
vein often became ironic.
It was during one of lieved that the Middle East
Wise's visits at the White imbroglio could be settled in
House that FDR suggested a political manner; all that
a substitute for the Zionist was necessary was to strike
hope. As Dr. Urofsky re- the right bargain.
"The intense fervor
ports the incident. -
FDR—" 'I have got some- and ideological commit-
thing that I have got to talk ment of both Arab and
to you about. I haven't told a Jew never impressed
soul as yet, but I am think- him; one could always
ing about it. You know negotiate a deal. There
there is no room in Pales- was little Wise could do
tine for many more people, other than continue vain
and don't you think the time efforts to educate the
has come for your people to president and to refute
consider settling someplace some of the misinforma-
else, in large unoccupied tion reaching the Oval of-
territories where they could fice."
Recording the life and
build new homes?'
"Wise immediately ob- times of SSW, Prof. Urofsky
jected to the premise that has written what could well
Palestine had been filled, be termed an American
and then added, 'I don't Jewish history of the first
know how large Hyde half of this century. The
Park is. I suppose a few SSW biography naturally
hundred acres in extent. I includes the assumption of
wonder, Chief, whether leadership by Wise of the
you would be willing to American Jewish Congress.
swap it for the million Justice Brandeis figured in
acres of the King Ranch it prominently. So did the
revered scholar Horace M.
in Texas?'
"No, I would not, but I Kallen. That's when the
might be glad to have both. Yahudim were exposed in
Hyde Park is alright for me, the quest of a democratic
but I would like the King way of conducting Jewish
Ranch for my five children. communal activities. On
" 'It isn't the same thing,' this score, the following
Wise persisted. 'They ha- from the Urofsky accounts
ven't lived in Hyde Park for is of importance:
" The holding of a Jewish
4,000 years and my people
have lived in Palestine for Congress,' Jacob Schiff
lamented, would mean 'no-
more than that . .
conversation thing less than a decision
"The
. that we are Jews first
greatly disturbed Wise, but
he still did not grasp the fact and Americans second.' A
that Roosevelt's sympathy conference of 'conservative
and thoroughly tried men'
would accomplish more
than a congress led by
Zionist agitators.
"The congress movement,
Marshall warned, gave
`flamboyant orators an op-
portunity to make them-
selves conspicuous for a
moment irrespective of the
permanent injury which
they inflict upon Jewry.'
"The very term 'con-
gress' frightened the AJ-
FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT
STEPHEN WISE
Committee leaders, im-
plying as it did elections,
parties, campaigns, open
debates, and worst of all,
airing internal Jewish
problems before the
world.
"Because of its elitist at-
titude, the AJCommittee,
whatever the wisdom of its
policy, gave the game away
from the start. In the public
mind, the AJCommittee
stood for secrecy, exclusion,
and autocracy, while Bran-
deis and Wise called for a
free, democratic and self-
governing deliberative
body."
American Zionist affairs,
leadership in the Zionist
Organization of America
and the World Zionist Or-
ganization, the Emergency
Committee for Zionist Af-
fairs and the conflict that
erupted between Dr. Wise
and Dr. Abba Hillel Silver
receive thorough review.
The records of many chal-
lenges as well as internal
disputes in Zionist ranks
thus are kept intact in the
Urofsky analyses.
The evidence of the
emerging Nazi terror
caused serious concern and
moved Wise and Justice
Brandeis to act in an effort
to enroll the interest of
President Roosevelt. The
Urofsky summation of what
occurred is another very
important aspect in the life
of Stephen Wise. Urofsky
states:
When he and Franklin
Roosevelt patched up
their quarrel in January
1936, Wise could finally
begin to counteract the
information fed into the
White House by the 'Sh-
Sh Jews.' At their meet-
ing, the president told
Wise: 'Max Warburg
wrote to me lately that
things were so bad in
Germany, there was no-
thing to be done.'
Roosevelt then threw his
hands up and said, 'Well,
if Max thinks nothing can
be done, then nothing can
be done.'
"Discussing this meeting
afterward, Brandeis ex-
pressed to Wise his belief
that the Administration
might have spoken out in
1933 but for the caution ad-
vised by Warburg and the
other yahudim. Now at
least Roosevelt would hear
from those advising action
and not despair, although it
is still a matter of dispute
whether the American gov-
ernment could, in fact, have
done anything,
"Wise, however, felt some
things could be done. He
x's.•
LOUIS BRANDEIS
urged Secretary of the
Treasury Henry Morgen-
thau, Jr. to foreclose any
economic negotiations
ween Germany and the L
ited States that might in
any way help the Reich's
economy. He tried to urge
Roosevelt to speak out pub-
licly, and advised Jewish
athletes not to participate
in the 1936 Olympic games
in Berlin.
"Within Congress, a few
figures such as William E.
Borah began to protest more
openly about Nazi degrada-
tions. All these things kept
Wise's hopes alive."
(Continued on Page 80)