Newspaper Page Text
Page Six
The Southern Israelite
December 24, 1937
The
Southern Israelite
Published weekly by the Southern Newspaper Knterprlie*. Inc., M. 8.
Miller, Kditor; Orln Borsten. Associate editor; M. Stephen Schiffer, Pub
lisher; Nathan Upton, Business Manager. Executive Offices, 101 Marietta St
Building, Suite 513-14, Atlanta, Georgia, phones: WAlnut 0791-2. New York
Representative, S. M. Ooldberg, 1270 Sixth Ave., R K. O Building, Room
#00. New York City.
ADDRESS ALL COMMUNICATIONS TO MAIN OFFICE IN ATLANTA. GA.
Knt/’red ns neconrl clan* matter at the Poet Office at Atlanta. Ga., tinder the Act
of March 3, 1879, Yearly subscription one dollar and fifty cents Single copies,
five cents. Canada and foreign subscriptions, one dollar and fifty cents per yea.
The Southern Israelite invite* correspondence on »ubjecth of inlerent to the Jewish
paoplc. and literary contribution* but the editor i* not to be considered to Hhnrtng the
ei»w« *xpreN*<Hl by the writers, escetit those enunciated in the editorial columns.
OPEN LETTER TO A HERO
Fame is a heady drink that leaves even the most modest
of men with a longing for the whole bottle. When Isador
Gennett, the New York newsdealer who placed a wreath
upon the monument of Germany’s war dead, returned to
American shores last week, there was no doubt in the minds
of the reporters who interviewed him that the war veteran
was thirsty.
It may he that Isador Gennett will return to his news
stand and be content to live away from the limelight from
now on. But it is very unlikely, for he is a man of great
imagination and is capable of translating his dreams into
terms of action. Few men could have cut such a figure march
ing down Lfnter den Linden in Berlin, or have performed
his mission with so inspiring a dignity.
No, Mr. Gennett will not go back to the obscurity of a
newsstand. Having tasted the sweet elixir of fame he will
not be satisfied with prosaic hot tea after working hours.
Mr. Gennett will be a leader of men now; he will issue state
ments to the press and rap commandingly with his gavel at
meetings.
But is it worth it, Mr. Gennett? Would it not be better
to retire now, still flushed with success, still an overnight
idol? As a leader of American Jewry you will find that
fame can have a bitter taste. You will be attacked, criti
cized, even ridiculed. That is the lot of most men to whose
ranks you may aspire.
You have had your day in the limelight, Mr. Gennett.
Think twice before you sacrifice its brightness, its headiness,
its warm sense of achievement. The job of being an Ameri
can Jewish leader is a thankless one. Be careful on that
pedestal, Mr. Gennett—see, already you are beginning to
slip.
KETTLETOWN LETS OFF STEAM
The town of Southbury, Conn, is a pleasant, picturesque
New England locality, no different from thousands of other
towns scattered over the broad expanse of the United States.
Its citizens are stout-hearted men and women who live sim
ply, raise their children in the American family ideal, and are
preoccupied with problems of the home and business. In
short, Southbury is the typical American small town, and its
people are the kind who may be found throughout the coun
try.
Yet the eyes'of the nation are upon Southbury today.
Last week the New England town established and approved
a zoning ordinance which forbids the use of its Kettletown
section by the German-American Bund for military train
ing. The people of Southbury cling to the ideal of Democracy
and the stars and stripes; they do not want Kettletown over
run with goose-stepping Nazis who use “Heil Hitler” instead
of "Good morning” and who fly the swastika from their camp
tents.
Newspaper reporters and newsreel cameramen descend
ed upon Southbury last week and the town found itself fa
mous. Members of the zoning commission and townspeople
were interviewed. "Goodness gracious,” exclaimed one
Kettletown housewife, “we only did what was right. We’re
honest, law-abiding folk and this Bund, or whatever they
call it, wants to overthrow our government. Besides, it’s
not good for the children to see guns.” All this week news
reels are bringing Americans the story of Southbury’s plan
to keep Nazi ideology away from its boundaries. Atlantans
have applauded the stirring words of Southbury’s good citi
zens with theatre audiences all over the country.
It is our belief that the German-American Bund will
find American small towns extremely hostile to their activi
ties during the summer to come. Southbury by that time will
have not only protected itself against subversive, foreign
propaganda; it will have also shown other small towns that
there is no place in America for Nazi doctrines.
There should be a page in American history for the
town of Southbury, Connecticut. The action taken by the
New England town against foreign military camps is as sig
nificant to modern times as Boston’s tea-dumping party was
to the birth of Democracy.
Religious Liberty
New York (WNS)—America’s
Constitutional guarantee of relig
ious liberty is the strongest bul
wark against Fascism in America
because “there is an irreconcilable
conflict between religious groups
and a totalitarian state,” Justice
Irving Lehman declared in an ad
dress on the sesquicentennial of the
United States Constitution. Speak
ing before a convocation of the
New York society of the Jewish
Theological Seminary of America,
Seen As Bulwark
Justice Lehman said he had no
fear that dictatorship and anti-
Semitism would find a foothold in
the United States because “I be
lieve that American idealism and
American independence will not
tolerate the destruction of our lib
erties. American idealism includes
I believe, an acceptance of relig
ious ideals and the influence of re
ligion in America is great even
among those who rarely attend
church.”
\ mr Charmed by Sou-
PMFsmiP them hospitality dur-
TALKSTINE - mg hi3 Atlanta visit
last week was Palestine-born Dr.
Bernard Berger, on the first lap
of a tour which will take him to
key cities of the Southeast in the
in-erests o.‘ Nachschon Ltd., the
Palestine Labor Maritime Com
pany.
Witty, cosmopolitan and thirty-
ish, Dr. Berger is by his own ad
mission a Palestine propagandist.
“Germany has her propagan
dists," he mused. “So has Italy.
Then why shouldn’t Palestine have
propagandists?”
A voluntary worker for Pales
tine’s maritime industry is Dr. Ber
ger, will upon the conclusion of
his tour liquidate his American
interests, return to the Jewish
Homeland permanently. Now the
possessor of American citizenship
which he assumed during his
American career as a journalist,
he looks forward to the aay when
he can travel with the passport of
the Jewish State to come. Length
of his American visit will depend,
he declared, upon the date of the
emergency parley to be called by
the World Zionist Congress for the
enactment of the partition plan.
Something of the poet is Dr.
Berger in his love for Palestine,
said in giving reasons for his tour:
“When I left Palestine this last
time, it was with a heavy heart.
E’rom the ship I looked back upon
Mount Carmel and all the thou
sand, twinkling lights of Haifa.
For hours, the lights on Mount
Carmel were visible. I thought to
myself, ‘Why am I leaving this
land? Whv must any Palestinian
leave the country he loves?’ This
tour in a way is my atonement for
leaving.”
Of all the stories
told in Atlanta by
Dr. Berger, who as
a ranconteur has an inexhaustible
supply, most amusing was the saga
of novelist Fannie Hurst’s conver
sion to Zionism. Polite hostility
between the two writers began
when they represented opposing
viewpoints in a public debate on
Zionism, continued at Miss Hurst’s
home some time later.
“You are a fanatic," the best
seller novelist told Dr. Berger. “I
can never accept Zionism.”
Dr. Berger smiled patiently.
“Some day we will meet in Eretz
Israel, my friend, and I will make
you a fanatic, also.”
“Never,” declared sleek-haired
Fannie Hurst. “I will never go to
Palestine.”
Years later the two opponents
met, true to Dr. Berger’s prophecy,
in Tel Aviv, made the rounds of
Palestine’s cooperative colonies to
gether, saw refugees from Ger
many land in the harbor. Straw
that broke the camels’ back was her
introduction to one of Tel Aviv’s
most colorful characters, a Ger
man exile who sells hot dogs on a
main thoroughfare.
"So this is the author of “Imi
tation of Life?” said the hot dog
vendor. “Yes, you told a very in
teresting story in that book. But
wait until you hear my story—the
story of my life.”
Before the autobiographical ac
count had ended Fannie Hurst had
slipped away, was found by Dr.
Berger walking tearfully up Allen-
by Street.
“Dr. Berger,” she sobbed, “I,
too, am now a fanatic.”
TRAVEL
HINTS
CONVERTING,
A NOVELIST
Widely-traveled is Dr.
Berger, who fluently
speaks Hebrew, Yiddish,
French, Arabic, German and Ital
ian. On recent visits to Germany
and Italy, however, his reception
has been far from a cordial one,
contains the elements of exciting
melodrama.
Eager to see what had happened
to his “Beautiful Germany,” Dr.
Berger presented his American
passport at the German border,
was warned that because of his
anti-Nazi writings he would be
made highly uncomfortable by the
Gestapo. His stay in Berlin was
punctuated with “friskings,” con
stant shadowing, all in the name of
“protective custody.” Taken at
last to Gestapo headquarters, he
(dapped a Nazi for insolence, was
given 48 hours to leave the country.
In Italy, he was shadowed by
one of II Duce’s crack detectives
for days, finally learned the reason.
Advised Dr. Berger: “Never buy
a copy of the Manchester Guardian
at a newstand in Italy. They are
for sale only as a trap. If you
buy a copy, prepare to be followed
and watched for suspicious acts.”
The Fourth Wise Mein
;By A1 SegaL
•MERRY CHRISTMAS,” I say to good will and peace.
my neighbor and my salutation is
no mere neighborly gesture.
For I believe in Christmas as I
believe in all kindness, in charity
and in good will. I cannot be apart
from Christmas. All through De
cember I write about Christmas in
my function as a worker on the
By reason of these things it
shone so brightly that night when
it guided the Wise Men. These men
themselves had occasion to discov
er of what the Star was made; they
saw this in the water from which
their camels drank.
They had been following the
daily press. The other day a Star until of a sudden it was lost
friend (a non-Jew) said, You
seem to understand Christmas bet
ter than many of us do.
Yes, I answered, I guess it’s be
cause for 2000 years I have desired
peace and good will. So I look at
from their sight, and they knew
not which way to go in the desert;
and they encamped there and scan
ned the heavens to find the Star
again.
THE THREE WISE MEN then
Christmas as at a dazzling old | took up their journey again and
ideal which I have always loved, I followed the Star to its destina-
and I say, Some day the world ■ tion. And after that the Star was
shall catch up with Christmas. I never heard of again until the
I MEAN THAT Christmas still j story came to me one day when
is a distant goal, and I am not dis- I was thinking of Christmas which
heartened because in 2000 years
the world hasn’t caught up with
it. The time will yet come. . a
gorgeous dawn. . when the world
will take hold of Christmas. Then
I shall not be afraid anymore of
tomorrow about which I wonder
today. . What new hate, what
new revilement tomorrow?
No, we really haven’t had
Christmas yet and when I say
Merry Christmas I am making a
wish for a remote ideal to be
realized in our time. I have been
waiting these 2000 years for Christ
mas. I wait and dream and listen
for Christmas and, listening, I hear
a story about the Star of Bethle
hem.
The story comess out of remotest
inter-stellar spaces in which the
Star vanished when it was through
guiding the Three Wise Men. . .
“For we saw his star in the east”
(as it is written in the Christian
Scripture.)
IT IS ASTONISHING, indeed,
that our astronomers never have
sought to learn what became of this
Star or to discern of what it was
made, as they know how to do
with the aid of the spectroscope.
In the story, as it comefc to me, it
is reliably told that the Star was
still seemed so far off even after
the 2000 years.
Now, I am told, no sooner was
the Star through with leading the
Wise Men than it dissolved. How
it is that a star can so suddenly
dissolve is not for me to say; all I
know is that it dissolved. It was
such a dissolution as undid the
Star even to impalpable dust.
All that of which the ‘ Star was
made became but star dust. This
is to say, the love and the justice,
the compassion, the good will, the
peace and the mercy of which the
Star was compounded became star
The wind carried it and has
carrying it ever since,
Phineas Birnr>\
THE LEdIToff
New York Hails “I zzy ”___
Klan Dance Now—Death
Of An A C tress-Th e
Joke Of The Week
dust,
been
fact.
IT WAS, INDEED, from the
wind that I heard this story, and
I said to the wind, You’ve carried
this star dust for 2000 years.
And the wind answered, I shall
carry it until the people catch up
with Christmas. Then this star
dust shall be their Christmas gift.
. . this loving-kindness and justice,
this compassion and good will and
peace and all righteousness shall
be their Christmas gift.
Oh wind, I said, give it now’.
Give it to the hearts of the ty-
rants and to the murderers of
compounded of all decent things peace. Give it to the arrogant and
that are of the human heart. . . j to the oppressors and the ravishers
of love and justice, of compassion, (Continued on Page 7)
THE REAL NAME of I sador
Gennett, the Jewish war veteran
who put a wreath on Germany*
war memorial and thereby horri
fied orthodox Nazi circles. i s Yo
sel Ganapolsky. A delegation of
the Jewish War Veterans met Gen
nett at Quarantine, and was dis
tressed to find him wearing not a
JWV cap but the headgear of the
Disabled American Veterans, of
whom he is one. His prepared
statement to the press struck the
ship news reporters as the funniest
thing they had heard in many a
month. Only their kindness saved
the JWV embarrassment. Believe
it or not, Gennett saw service with
the famous Imperial Hussars, the
Czar’s own regiment. But an at
tack of mumps just as he was ready
to sail for France with the 82nd
Regiment of the 326th U. S. Infan
try prevented him from getting a
crack at the Germans during the
World War. He feels, however, that
he has made up for it now. He
claims to be something of a writer
and is proud of his membership m
the American Writers Union. His
69-page manuscript of his experi
ences in Germany is now’ being
edited by a special committee.
LUDOV NOVINA, influential
Prague daily, is offering the books
of Sholom Asch as circulation pre
miums. The death of Renate Mue
ller, one of Germany’s leading
screen actresses, who was reported
to have died from the effects of a
reducing treatment, was really
suicide. She was grieving because
the Nazi authorities had broken
up her romance w’ith the Jewish
banker Otto Deutsch, now in exile.
Hollywood is trying to sell Mau
rice Schwartz the idea of screen
ing his stage version of “The Bro
thers Ashkenazi,” but Maurice
wants it filmed in Yiddish. Wall
Streeters are predicting the ap
pointment of Benjamin Butten-
w'ieser, of Kuhn, Loeb and Co., to
the presidency of the Federal Re
serve Bank of New York. A Jew
ish attorney by the name of Sid
ney Berry is credited with having
settled out of court a libel suit
brought against Time Magazine
by the Russian Cathedral in New
York, which was built with money
donated by the late Czar. China’s
new press agent in America is
Carl Byoir, who was once accused
of press-agenting Hitler. Latest
dance craze is the Ku Klux Klog,
created by a member of the cast of
the WPA play “Processional," in
which Catholics, Jews and Pro
testants appear in Klan regalia.
Ira Gershwin is working on a bi
ography of his late brother George.
GEORGE HOLMES, the Connec
ticut business man and war vete-
ran who is leading the fight against
the opening of a Nazi camp in
Southbury, was once a member o
the Ku Klux Klan, but quit the
sheeted order when he became dis
gusted with their American
keyshines. Credit New York P
columnist Lenny Lyons with t. s
pip of a yarn. Seems that a snoo
lady who owns a country esu
near a military encampment pnon-
ed the commandant to send
of his men to one of her parties,
which was suffering from an o\
abundance of females. She spec
fled that nene of the nnin D
guests be Jews. In a little w
four Chinese and four is t
presented themselves. “There
be some mistake,” the stu ..
bluenose cried. “There couMg
be,” one of the soldiers repueo,
“our Colonel Lefkowitz
makes mistakes.” A nat * 1 ? 11 ^ ,
ish figure who lives in Philadelphia
is the winner of this year _-i
Epilson Pi national service awaru
for the outstanding con l r ‘ reC T
to Jewish life. A pledge of s
keeps us from telling you bis
All the talk of a Jewish colony
in Madagascar has done Pa Qr ,Hists
no good. Pro-Arab propagandist
in London have seized on
dagascar scheme to argu a
there is no longer any ne
big Jewish immigration to
efitine.