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T
HE
SOUTHERN ISRAELITE
A MAGAZINE PERPETUATING JEWISH IDEALS
Passover—the Feast of Freedom
Passover, the Jewish religious “Independence Day,” celebrates the
deliverance of the Jews from Egyptian bondage. With the seder,
• t e hagiiddahs, matzo, hitter herbs, open door and empty chair for
the spirit of Elijah, the ceremonials of the orthodox, the conservative,
ami the reform, whatever they may be, vivify the picture of the
exodus, of Moses leading the children of Israel out of the land of
homlae'e. Joy and thanksgiving have symbolized the festival since
the miraculous leave taking. The keynote of the holiday is freedom.
Not only is physical freedom essential,* but spiritual and religious
freedom are stressed. Tyranny in whatever form must be eradicated,
,iml lie who shares a belief in the Divine can never be partner to
servitude or oppression.
In our own day the significance of the Passover message is doubly
meaningful. While men have turned from outright slavery, there is
-till economic oppression and the denial of freedom and liberty of body
and conscience. There has been no ultimate exodus. There has been
no settling down for the vagrant, restless spirit of the Jew. Persecution
lias ridden tantamount on the wave of attempted annihilation. What
need is there to use historical references? They are all too well known.
Why point to Spain, to Germany, to Rus
sia. to Poland? The flagellation of per
secutors from the Romans and Egyptians,
the barbaric Christian tribes, the Inquisi-
tioners, the czaristic and imperialistic or
ders, Eastern European pogromites, the
swastika and brown shirt wearers, the stu-
* I***) t and erstwhile intelligentsia attack-
' ,s all of these testify the cruelty the
•h'u has endured, but with stripes of the
ladi across his back the Jew carries on!
1° '"urn tin* hope is Eretz Israel, others,
America, and still others, the colony of
l ,n;| Pidjan offers the hope of the end of
tyranny and bigotry.
1 he Jews settle in a country, lend all
M their persisting strength to the growth
"t culture, the spiritual and economic up-
Jhlance, and then, comes some wave of
1 n d spite of a colossal sort, and the
. . . ,nor *‘ tactful if Kipling had refrained from such
anti-St untie insinuations. If would have been more dignified if Kip-
Iiiilt had spoken ot Hollywood as the cosmopolitan market place of
cheap merchandise instead of hanging it all on poor Israel. Hut even
Sift U r n <l/\ i w\ 4 m in #1 1. ... i i « « •
so, we do not mind
so demonstratively
1 In* poem, however, does make us sad because it
y emphasizes the decline of a great writer. If at
BABYLONIAN LAW
4000 B. C.—100 B. C.
In the high culture of ancient Babylon and her lister
city of Nineveh on the fertile Mesopotamian plains, the
lamp of the law attained an amazing brilliance. Their
code of Hammurabi was the first written law. Contracts,
wills, deeds and notes, were well known and widely used.
Prom domestic relations to estates in land, the jurist in
the noon of that ancient day had little to learn from
moderns. Her culture and legal system endured successive
waves of conquest, losing its racial independence under the
Persians about 500 B. C. and disappearing under the Greeks
400 years later. With the destruction of Babylon the light
of the law was dimmed hut the living flame passed on.
• i <» girai ninri. ii til
east Kipling’s poem had been biting, bitter and satirical. It just reads
ike the footnote to the work of a once great poet, a footnote which
does not hurt Israel, because the hand that applies the slap has become
so pathetically weak.
A Courageous Step
Hirth control has gone a long way towards success. The resolution
passed by the National Council of Jewish Women endorsing the value
of hirth control is hut another evidence of the continuous march to
universal acceptance which the movement led by Margaret Sanger
began less than half a century ago. The Council of Jewish Women
is to he congratulated for its unequivocal support of this social move
ment. At a time when public bodies for varied political and financial
reasons refuse to go on record as to their definite attitude of birth
control, the Jewish women showed fine
judgment in placing themselves in the
ranks of the progressive groups who
work for an improvement of social condi
tions even though such a step very fre
quently involves an abandonment of tra
ditional taboos.
late
goes on. When will it cease?
’ ,ln ga Din Coes Down
h'ldvard Kipling in a poem called
man s Song” has given vent to some
Semitic animus. The Kipling chef
vre deals with Hollywood. One ot
!1 es says: “Parcelled into sites corn
'll and embellished and patrolled by
ltes ,’’ and then the great English
r ?oes on poking fun at the vulgarity
haos at Hollywood “watched over
'i*ael. ’ The poem in question is
r harmless, yet it will become the
ot many critics who will condemn
n e lor the special pointing out of
as the guilty party in the case. M e
t develop any indignation against
°et whose work belongs to the best
■dern English literature. Of course,
CONTENTS
Palestine Without Zionism
By Em a Pinner
Conquerors or Captives
By Florence Rothschild
Portrait of a Father’s Son
By Henry Mon tor
Prominent But Not Eminent Amer
ican Jewry
By Henry Montor
Society
Strictly Confidential
By Phineas J. Biron
Southern Notes
More Than a Humanist
By Pierre Can Paassen
National and Foreign Notes
College Notes
Mishkan Israel: A I ale of Jewish
Survival in the South
In the Limelight
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
21
26
ISot So Funny
The Cincinnati columnist, Alfred Segal,
in a rather witty discourse makes fun of
the practice by Jewish journalists of
claiming celebrities as Jews. He mentions
the attempts to appropriate Charlie Chap
lin and Douglas Fairbanks alongside of
those to call Columbus, Jack Dempsey and
Hitler our own. Mr. Segal is wrong. Fair
banks, and Chaplin are of Jewish descent
even if Mr. Segal never heard of it before.
Nor can we agree that the claiming of
celebrities is such a funny habit. The
Gentile world is only too often prone to
forget that Jews have contributed to the
realms of science, art and even entertain
ment some of its most distinguished repre
sentatives. Of course, the Jewish race will
not insure itself against persecution if
Douglas Fairbanks’ real name is Ullinan,
and if Chaplin was born Kaplan. One
Einstein is more important to us than all
other celebrities. But repeating to the
world that this or that favorite son of the
world is a Jew is a healthy comment on
the versatility and the abilities of the
Jewish race. So, why keep silent because
it would be dignified. When some of our
Gentile journalists will stop characterizing
criminals or other undesirable as Jews,
we will cease claiming the blood of celeb
rities.
! r A e r the Act of March 3, 1879. Publifhed monthly by The Southern eicetK tho*e tn unci afwT*i n' t he editorial column*. F»tabli»h*d
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