Newspaper Page Text
The Southern Israelite
A Weekly Newspaper for Southern Jewry — Established 1925
XXXIII ATLANTA, GEORGIA, FRIDAY, MARCH 14, 1958
Rabbis Seek Laws Permitting
Orthodox To W ork Sundays
Annual Welfare Fund Meeting
Monday To Honor Leadership
To Install Officers and Board
ATLANTIC CITY, (JTA) —
The Rabbinical Council of
America, representing Orthodox
rabbis in this country, concluded
its conference here recently
with a resolution calling upon
various state legislatures “to
rectify a grave injustice to Sab
bath observing Jews who at
present are subject to stringent
Blue Sunday laws and not per
mitted to engage in earning a
living on Sunday even though
they refrain from labor on Sat
urday.”
Declaring that such a condi
tion is unfair to and not in keep
ing with basic America con
cepts, the resolution called par
ticular attention to this condi
tion in New York with the
largest Jewish population of any
city in the world. The resolution
appealed to Mayor Wagner of
New York to introduce legisla
tion in the New York City Coun
cil to ameliorate this discrimina
tory practice.
The conference urged the So
viet Government to grant com
plete religious freedom to its
Jews and to permit them to
carry on their cultural life with
out fear or restraint. The con
ference also urged the Soviet
Government to allow free emmi-
At the request of the Israeli
Government, Israel Rogosin has
resumed plans for a $20,000,000
rayon plant in Israel.
Cancellation of the plans was
dramatically announced in At
lanta on February 20 by Indus
trialist Rogosin himself.
At the installation dinner, giv
en in his honor by the Hebrew
Academy of Atlanta, Mr. Rogo
sin had hinted his action result
ed from a lack of spontaneous
response in America and handi
caps in Israel itself.
He left the following week
for Israel where he confered
with officials.
Their response and pledge of
wholehearted cooperation ap
parently caused his shift in plans.
After a conference with Levi
Eshkol, the finance minister, Mr.
Rogosin said he was proceeding
“full steam ahead.”
The Israel government, he
said, is very anxious to have this
type of project developed in
their country. He quoted the de
sire and pledge of cooperation
from the Israel minister him
self as the motivation behind re
sumption of the project which
has already witnessed the con
struction of a $1,000,000 building
and the fabrication of several
hundred thousands of dollars of
specialized machinery.
Site of the project is in the
new industrial development area
being promoted under the aegis
of Philip Klutznick, national
president of B’nai B’rith.
Mr. Klutznick, too, has indi
cated to Israeli officials that he
will give the project full sup
port.
gration to Israel of those Jews
who desire to leave.
The Rabbinical Council also
adopted a resolution urging the
President of the United States
and the Secretary of State to
issue a declaration that the
United States will not tolerate
any military or economic aggres
sion against any sovereign state
in the Middle East.
The conference appealed to the
United States Government to
discontinue supplying armaments
to the Arab states of the Mid
dle East. Only economic assist
ance will bring about peace,
high standards of living and
neighborly cooperation, it was
emphasized in a resolution.
The conference called upon the
American Jewish community to
participate in a mass religious
pilgrimage to the State of Israel
during the 10th anniversary
celebration in 1958. “We urge
each rabbi to secure a minimum
of 10 congregants to join him
in traveling to Israel in 1958,”
the resolution said. “We salute
the State of Israel for its stu
pendous achievements during its
first ten years, and consider it
a beacon of human freedom in
the feudal Middle East.”
Atlanta officials of the Aca
demy learned of the change in
Rogosin plans from Judge David
Benjamin, Justice of the New
York Supreme Court, through
whose efforts and friendship
with several Georgians the He
brew Academy was originally
included as a beneficiary of a
$250,000 gift in stock provided
a similar amount of Israeli bonds
already purchased would be
converted to stock on a two-
for-one basis. The person con
verting the bond would receive
a similar amount in Rogosin
stock and a like amount would
go to the Hebrew Academy.
Around $25,000 in Israeli bonds
actually had been turned in for
conversion and it was understood
that close to $75,000 had been
pledged for early conversion.
COLUMBUS — Georgia Jewry
this weekend focuses on Colum
bus whose Congregation Beth
Israel dedicates a new House of
Worship.
This historic Georgia Congre
gation will open a three-day
dedication ceremony with spe
cial dedication services at 8 p.m.
Friday, March 14, in the new
Temple.
Rabbi William Silverman of
Special to The Southern Israelite
A tribute to the leadership of
the 1957 campaign, a welcome to
the leadership of the 1958 cam
paign, the election of officers and
board members for the ensuing
year, an outstanding guest speak
er from Israel, and the first
showing of the most stirring
documentary films of our times
will feature an event-packed eve
ning when Atlanta Jewry gath
ers at the Atlanta Jewish Com
munity Center at 8 p.m. Monday
evening to attend the annual
meeting of the Atlanta Jewish
Welfare Fund.
During the course of the eve
ning, the audience will join in
honoring the chairmen of both the
Men’s and Women’s Divisions of
the 1957 campaign for the dis
tinguished service they rendered
to their local community, their
nation, and the cause of Jewry
the world over as a result of
their untiring efforts in making
the 1957 campaign an outstand
ing success. Follov.’ing this they
will welcome the new leadership
which takes the helm to guide
the 1958 campaign safely into
port.
As one of the events, the audi-
At the testimonial dinner, Mr.
Rogosin had announced that the
Hebrew Academy would receive
a $100,000 cash gift as an evi
dence of the faith its supporters
had indicated in the Rogosin’s
Israeli plant.
It was not known immediately
how the promise of the $100,000
gift would be affected by the
change in plans, but officials re
sumed their efforts to raise the
$250,000 originally set as a goal.
Mr. Rogosin had told the At
lanta dinner audience that ap
proximately $250,000 had been
converted by Brandeis Univer
sity, which along with the Ein
stein Medical College and a
score of other American Jewish
institutions, had been listed as
recipients of the $4,000,000 in
stock, Mr. Rogosin intended to
contribute in return for bond
conversion.
Temple Ohabai Sholom in Nash
ville, will be the main speaker.
Participating will be Rabbi Har
old Gelfman of Macon; Rabbi
Israel Gerber of Dothan and
Rabbi Joseph I. Weiss of Nepo-
msit, L. I. Rabbi Weiss is a
former spiritual leader of the
Columbus Temple, which is now
being served by Rabbi Alfred
Goodman.
A children’s dedication serv-
ence will hear a brief report
from Nathan Lipton, one of the
chairmen of the 1958 campaign,
who, with his co-chairman Sid
ney Feldman, and eight other
young leaders, attended the 1958
United Jewish Appeal inaugural
conference in Miami. Mr. Lip-
BEN KAPLAN
. . . AJWF Speaker
ton will recount the proceedings
of that meeting.
One of the highlights of the
Britain Is Oppossed to
Interference with shipping
GENEVA, (JTA)—Britain is
opposed to any extension of ter
ritorial waters in the Gulf of
Akaba or any other interference
with shipping or the right of in
nocent passage through the
strait, it was indicated here this
week by Sii Reginald Manning-
ham-Butler, Britain’s Attorney
General and head of its delega
tion to the 80-nation conference
on the freedom of the seas here.
Sir Reginald, in a lengthy ex
position of the British position,
noted that extension by indivd-
ual nations of the limits of ter
ritorial waters involved a re
striction of the freedom of other
nations and leads to friction
among nations. Asked whether
his views could be applied to the
Gulf of Akaba, where Saudi
Arabia has announced an exten
sion of its territorial limits in
an attempt to hamstring Israeli
use of the waterway, the British
Attorney General said: “Yes.”
ice is scheduled for 11 a.m. Sat
urday, March 15, marking the
dedication of the Religious
School facilities.
Rabbi W. Gunther Plaut, of
Mt. Zion Temple, St. Paul, will
make the principal address at
the dedication banquet at 7:30
p.m. Saturday, March 15.
A dedication reception will be
held for the public Sunday af
ternoon.
evening will be the first show
ing in Atlanta of a stirring 22-
minute documentary film en
titled “The Second Chance.”
Featuring Rabbi Herbert A.
Friedman as narrator, the film
will take the audience on a “you
are there” tour of Jewish life
in Poland as it exists today.
Much of the film is so highly
confidential in nature that it has
been restricted to private show
ings only and is not available
for showing on television or to
members of the general press.
Here, for the first time, will be
footage secretly filmed and
(Continued on Page 6)
Moscow Speaks Mind
About Fast With
Blast of Epithets
LONDON, (JTA) — Moscow
propagandists have uncorked
their choicest epithets in a typi
cal Soviet reply to the accusa
tions of Howard Fast, the Jew-
ish-born novelist who broke with
the party and who has since
fired steadily at the Kremlin’s
destruction of Jev/ish culture in
Soviet Russia.
The long silence of the So
viets on Fast’s relentless de
mands for information on the
whereabouts of scores of Yid
dish writers liquidated during
the Stalin regime was ended with
the recent page-long blast in
Moscow’s chief literary news
paper.
The article in Literaturenaya
Zazette condemned Fast as a
“militant Zionist” and as an
apologist for Israel, though at no
time since his disenchantment
has Fast indicated he had be
come a Zionist.
Fast, who won a 1953 Stalin
peace prize while still a mem
ber of the Communist party, was
described by the article as a
writer who “was never capable
of good logical thought,” and
that he had confused religion
with Marxism and therefore
“had never been a member of
the party.”
He was also described as a
swindler, an opportunist, a sav
age and a deserter, as well as
being immodest, discourteous,
cheap, well-eyed, cowardly, dis
honest and indecent.
The article made no references
to Fast’s demands for an ex
planation of the destruction of
Jewish culture in the Soviet
Union, the slaughter of the Yid
dish writers and the continuing
refusal of the present Soviet
regime either to rehabilitate the
honor of the murdered writers
or to permit cultural autonomy
to Russian Jews.
Rome Anniversary
Program Mar. 16
ROME—Twentieth anniver
sary of the Rodeph Sholem
Synagogue will be marked
Sunday at 3 p.m. Sunday,
March 10.
Rabbi Harry Epstein, spirit
ual leader of Ahavath Achim
Congregation, Atlanta, who
delivered the dedication ad
dress, will be the principal
speaker.
Rogosin Continuing Project Upon Request
Of Israeli Officials, Atlantans Learn
by ADOLPH ROSENBERG
Columbus Congregation Dedicates
New Temple This Weekend