PURELY COMMENTARY

Historical Perspectives: Guidelines Affecting Israel

PHILIP SLOMOVITZ

Editor Emeritus

I

n pursuance of an established tradi-
tion of analyzing historical ex-
periences as they affect Jewish life
in the current era, American Jewish
Archives contributes toward an
understanding of the legacies of the
past 40 years toward current tensions
and obstacles. American Jewish Ar-
chives is the name of the magazine of
the movement bearing the same name.
Its current issue, in a series of essays
numbering some 180 pages, under the
title "Historical Perspectives on Israel,
the United States, and American
Jewry" reviews four decades of occur-
rences, the personalities who were in-
volved in them, the challenges and con-
frontations and the continuing
obstructions.
The issues concerned with are
voluminous and there are some aspects
that will surely initiate much addi-
tional debate.
One of the most important issues
touched upon is dealt with under the ti-
tle "American Christians and Israel."
It is authoritatively chronicled by two
eminent Christian scholars, Dr. Carl
Hermann Voss, author of more than a
dozen books and a founder of the
American Christian Palestine Commit-
tee and its first director, and David A.
Rausch, professor of church history and
Judaic studies at Ashland College,
Ashland, Ohio, and author of "Zionism
Within American Fundamentalism,
1878 to 1917." Both are now completing
a book entitled "They Were Not Silent
- American Christians For and Against
Israel, 1917 to the Present."
Special interest attaches in this edi-
tion of American Jewish Archives to a
heretofore unpublished letter by Dr.
Jacob R. Marcus, the founding director
of the movement. It was written July.
19, 1926, to Dr. Judah L. Magnes, presi-
dent of Hebrew University.

Dr. Marcus, who was then assistant
professor of history at Hebrew Union
College, Cincinnati, wrote to the first
president of the Hebrew University, ex-
pressing pessimism over possibilities of
an accord with the Arabs in Jewish
Palestine. He pleaded for high-level
cultural aspirations in the Eretz Israel
of that time. His letter was a paean to
the planned institution of higher lear-
ning and he urged that it be developed
on the major scales of learning, with all
the necessary departments for a univer-
sity. He emphasized such aspirations by
declaring:
But it must be a real univer-
sity. Now we have but the
outlines, the scientific
laboratories and the Institute of
Jewish Studies. What has been
done is good, very good. I have
for three months, week in and
week out, listened to lectures,
and I know that the possibilities
of spreading Jewish knowledge
in a humanistic spirit are in-
finite. There is a freedom, a
broadness, an earnestness
about the work that tugs at the
heart strings of any Jew who
has a spark of Jewish sympathy
within him. The charm of the
place, of the instructors, of the
hour is irresistible. But you
must go farther.
The new university must be
developed. There is practically
no department of general educa-
tion. The brilliant young
talmudists, the tanned haluzim,
the wiry settlers' sons are only
too often deplorabaly lacking in
the elements of a braod secular
education. A thoroughly
modern university is needed
here with complete faculties of
liberal arts, medicine and law.
The school must have com-
plete faculties in these three
groups so that there be no need

to run to the Sorbonne or to
Vienna, or to knock at the doors
of schools where the Jew is
merely tolerated and where he
is compelled to listen to instruc-
tors who pour obloquy on him
and his fathers .. .
While Dr. Marcus was very
pessimitic about the Palestine planning
of pre-Israel years, his comments on the
status of Hebrew University reads like
academic prophesies. Hebrew Universi-
ty is today the achieved image ad-
vocated by the Cincinnati scholar 60
years ago.
The ideological and communal en-
counters between American and Israeli
Jews receive serious consideration in
this issue of the archives. Governmen-
tal American policies and the frequent-
ly referenced "Jewish influences" are
seriously considered.
There are scores of other challeng-
ing items which enrich the archival
treasures of this issue of the magazine.
The Christian-Jewish confronta-
tions are among the most pressing. The
Voss-Rausch review of the experiences
may prove disturbing in the totality of
activities considered by the two authors.
Commencing with the role played
by Dr. Henry A. Atkinson, who found-
ed the Christian Council on Palestine
in 1942, and proceeding with several
other movements that were in-
augurated by supporters of Zionism, as
well as the Christian movements that
were aimed against both Israel the
state and Zionism the cause, the stu-
dent of these cumulative events will not
be cheered by what has happened.
While the two authors are titling
the book they are completing as "They
Were Not Silent — American Christians
For and Against Israel," there emerge
in their analyses more "against" than
"for:" Shortly before the U.N. decision
on the Palestine Partition question
establishing the State of Israel, there
was a strongly - organized anti-Zionist

Carl Hermann Voss

movement. As Voss-Rausch indicate:
Indeed, opposition even then
had begun in one organization,
the Committee for Peace and
Justice in the Holy Land, corn-
posed of such well-known pro-
Arab supporters as former oil
company executive Kermit
Roosevelt, Barnard's dean,
Virginia Gildersleeve, Yale's ar-
chaeologist Millar Burrows,
Harvard's philospher William
Ernest Hocking, Harry Emer-
son Fosdick of Riverside
Church, Union Theological
Seminary's president Henry
Sloane Coffin, and Rabbi Morris
Lazaron of Baltimore's Hebrew
Tbmple and the American Coun-
cil for Judaism. The rabbi's
presence reflected, it was an-
nounced, "the non-partisan
character" of the organization's
constituency.
The composition of several groups is

Continued on Page 44

Tickton Recollection: Like A Literary Fairy Tale

ecognition afforded on a com-
munity-wide basis for contribu-
tions to the musical arts by Tern-
ple Beth El Music Director Jason
Tickton and his wife Mamie would have
been additionally enhanced by a foot-
note about his father, Daniel Tickton.
Recollection of it introduces a story that
is like a literary fairy tale.
The elder Tickton was blind, yet he
was in active practice for many years as
an accountant.
At the same time he fulfilled
another mission: writing about hs
memories when he was associated with
the editorial staff of the Hebrew
newspaper, Hazeferah in Warsaw,
Poland. Hazeferah was then edited by
the eminent world Jewish leader
Nahum Sokolow who was later to
become president of the World Zionist
Organization.
There is an added thrill to this fairy
tale. It was provided by Daniel's son
Jason. There was such a marked in-

2

FRIDAY, JULY 22, 1988

fluence in the son's affection for his
father's literary skills that Jason
assembled the stories and essays Daniel
Tickton had written and created two
volumes of the works of Daniel Tickton.
Jason Tickton clipped the scores of
articles, accumulated them into two
volumes which he hard-covered in red
cloth entitled "Memories and Events by
Daniel L. Tickton." They retain the
value of only one available set and are
a preservation of a father's works by his
son.
Daniel Tickton was born Nov. 2,
1881, in Poland, and died Sept. 26,
1956, in Detroit. He came to the U.S. in
1903 after a journalistic career that in-
cluded reporting and essay writing
under the tutelage of Nahum Sokolow.
The clipped stories are expressions
of interest in the world Jewish
developments of the early decades of
this century, with emphasis on the per-
sonalities who influenced the era and
with special affection for Sokolow and

his literary and linguistic skills.
There are also personal and family
recollections and one of the articles in
the collection is about Daniel Tickton
himself. It was written in 1956 by Ruth
Levine Cassel, then the The Jewish
News city editor.
Many of the stories could be used
collectively under the title "True
Stories of Early Century Life in Jewish
Warsaw" as something relating to
"Shtetel Life." They become preserva-
tions of occurrences in an old world that
should not be forgotten.
Tickton often wrote about Sokolow
and his personal impressions of one of
the great Jewish personalities of the
early years of this century.
Of unusual interest is an article
from The Jewish News, April 5, 1964,
which was published under the title
"Moving Story of 40 Years of Blind-
ness." He told how the first fears were
replaced by "personal philosophy." He
explained: "If there is one thing that

has constantly reinforced my desire to
succeed, to prove a worthy father, ac-
countant, and citizen, if there is one
thing that has pulled me out of depres-
sion and out of my quandary, it is faith
in the Lord. All my life I have tried to
walk upon the roads of righteousness.
I think my success is due to the fact that
the roads were paved with the Lord's
good graces and blessings?'
Personalities of note, impressive
recollections of holiday observances,
emphases on the notable role of Nahum
Sokolow and a philosophic legacy for
family and community — there are
elements in preserved essays that make
the writer Daniel Tickton
unforgettable.
Addenda to the Tickton episodes
provide communal interest. The friend-
ship with Daniel Tickton continued for
a number of years during which I in-
cluded his essays in the selected special
Jewish News articles. The friendship re-

Continued on Page 44