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Pare Four
THE SOUTHERN ISRAELITE
Friday, July 11, 1958
The Southern Israelite
Georgia Artist Presents Portrait to Eban
Published Weekly by Southern Newspaper Enterprises, 390 Court-
land St., N.E., Atlanta 3, Georria, TR. 6-8249, TR. 6-8240. Entered
as second class matter at the post office, Atlanta, Georria under the
Act of March 3, 1879. Yearly subscription five dollars. The Southern
Lsraelite Invites literary contributions and correspondence but is not
to be considered as sharinr the views expressed by writers. DEAD
LINE Is 12:30 P.M., TUESDAY, but material received earlier will
have a much better chance of publication.
TRAFFIC SAFETY-EVERYBODY'S BUSINESS
Highway tragedies know no barriers of race, color or creed
and in Minneapolis the Minnesota Rabbinical Association
members have joined their governor in a dramatic state-wide
move to curb traffic accidents.
To this effect the following notice appeared last week
in the American Jewish World, English-Jewish newspaper
which serves the St. Paul-Minneapolis area:
MINN.—In our Holy Scriptures (Deut. 22:8) we read:
‘When thou buildest a new house, then thou shalt make a
parapet for the roof, that thou bring not blood upon thy
house, if any man fall from thence.”
The roofs of the houses in Oriental countries were flat
ind were used for walking, sleeping and other domestic pur
poses. It was very necessary to erect a parapet to prevent
lccidental falling off. The builder owner or tenant who fails
to protect human life is charged with blood-guiltiness be
fore God. Our sages of ancient days extended this prohibition
to cover all cases where danger to life exists through negli
gence.
The Minnesota Rabbinical Association endorses . . . Re
ligious Traffic Safety Weekend and urges every member of
the Jewish faith to join in this united religious campaign to
awaken in the conscience and mind of every driver the real
ization that negligence at the wheel of an automobile is a
transgression even if no accident has occurred. It is bound
to happen later.
When thou drivest an automobile, thou shalt abide by all
the rules of traffic safety in order that thou bring not blood
upon thy car.
The admonition is just as applicable to all our readers,
no matter in what state they reside or drive.
Jewish - Christian Relations—A Third Course
GUEST EDITORIAL
There is a rule of thumb in Jewish community relations
under which it is assumed that any hostility toward Jews
can come only from dirty-minded anti-Semites and that re
lations between Jews and other groups, such as Catholics
and Protestants, are ipso facto pleasant, have never been
Dtherwise and will never be otherwise regardless of circum
stances.
The fact is, however, that the circumstances have in
cluded a fight by American Jewry, with varying persistence
and some success, against Christian-sponsored or Christian-
backed breaches of the Constitutional wall between Church
and state. Any reasonably objective observer, aware of this,
might logically assume that if American Jews publicly op
pose Sunday closing laws, which a very large number of
American Christians strongly favor, then it would be a most
unusual human reaction for some of many of those Christians
not to be annoyed by the Jewish stand.
The same Jews who glibly tout this rule of thumb for
Jewish-Christian relations expect and accept the fact that
Catholics and Protestants have their religious differences,
that these spill into public controversy and that relations be
tween the two major Christian groups can become quite
strained indeed.
All this makes most heartening the stand of the Syna
gogue Council of America in seeking direct talks between
the leaders of the three religious communities to deal with
what its president. Rabbi Theodore L. Adams, has described
as “the growing tension in relations” between the three re
ligious groups over fundamental church-state issues.
Rabbi Adams asked the Synagogue Council to act after
he warned that religious leaders who say that there are no
inter-group irritations on these hotly-debated issues “are
fostering an illusion which will one day blow up in their
faces.”
This is a warning which deserves serious thought because
the Synagogue Council in recent years has developed close
Lies with Catholic and Protestant groups and their leaders,
jnd has effective channels to the thinking of these Christian
readers and opinion-makers at both the national and local
levels. The approach of the Synagogue Council is unique in
that it aims to achieve mustual understandings of these issues
with Christian leaders at a deeper theological level than is
possible through the more typical community relations ap
proach.
The struggle by American Jews for the protection of
their religious rights as Americans does not have to be a
case of either refusing battle for fear of bad reactions from
the Gentile or of sailing into battle without regard for the
possibility of such negative reactions. The Svnagogue Council
of^ America has wisely sketched out a third‘course.
WHAT THE PRESS IS SAYING
An AJP Digest of Contemporary Opinion
ST. PAUL’S FESTIVAL OF NATIONS
The St. Paul Triennial Festival of Nations is an inspiring ex
perience, especially in these days of world tension when it is so
vital that people learn to understand the differences of their neigh
bors and to respect their right to differ. Among the 43 national and
ethnic groups participating in the Festival, St. Paul Jewry presented
a characteristic phase in which the historic drama of the State of
Israel was the most attractive feature. It was good to see the friendly
“rivalries” between the lively Irish jigs, the quaint Latvian dances,
and the barefooted Israeli dancers weaving and whirling to the
beat of the primitive Miriam drum. It was a rivalry of art which
tends to resolve tensions and promote harmony . . .
LEO II. FRISCH, The American Jewish World
New Trends in U.S. Jewish Communal Life
Shipboard Marriage
Prevented by Captain
When Abba F.ban came to At
lanta for the community’s rally
marking Israel’s Tenth Anniver
sary, he found a very special
gift on hand from a Gcorgiu art
ist.
It was a portrait of the Am
bassador and United Nations
representative painted by Faye
Kaplan as her contribution to
Israel’s tenth birthday fete.
Miss Kaplan, above, displays
the portrait to Nachum Astar,
Southeastern Consul for Israel,
who accepted it in behalf of Mr.
Eban. Consul Astar is shown in
photo at right greeting the dis
tinguished Israeli diplomat when
he stepped out of a Delta Air
lines plane' at the airport for the
Atlanta rally.
Miss Kaplan has studied at the
High Museum of Art, Atlanta
Art Institute and Art Student’s
League of New York. She is a
member of the National Associa
tion of Women Artists, the At
lanta Jewish Community Cen
ter and Atlanta Hadassah. re
cently she had the honor of ex
hibiting a picture in the National
Academy of Art. She has been
commissioned to do portraits of
several prominent personages,
including Adlai Stevenson, Doro
thy Kilgallen and Richard Ko
mar. Miss Kilgallen and Mr. Ko
mar have a studio at the Ritz
Carlton Hotel in New York
where they recently exhibited
and sold some of the Atlantan’s
paintings. The Vienna Art Pub
lishing Company has issued re
productions of four of Miss
Kaplan’s paintings which have
sold throughout the country un
der the name of La Jana.
A member of the Entertain
ment Committee of the JWB-
Armed Services Committee of
Atlanta, she has been active on
numerous occasions at USO pro
grams for the servicemen, when
she sketched servicemen, pre
senting the portraits to them as
keepsakes.
Despite the higher visibility of competition and conflict in Jew
ish life, one of the major trends in local, national and international
Jewish affairs is the trend to “coordination” and variations on the
theme of “consultation.” The NCRAC itself and the increasing num
ber of Community Relations Councils demonstrate the validity of
this technique and reveal the unfounded fears of those who adamant
ly still refuse to join this process. In international affairs, the Con
ference of Presidents of 17 National Organizations on Israel, The
Material Claims Conference, and the emerging Conference of World
Jewish Organizations are significant evidence of this trend. The part
which the American Jewish Congress and the World Jewish Con
gress has played in each of these developments is well known and
needs no elaboration . . . Cooperation implies a willingness to sub
merge one’s identity for what appears to be the greater good. It re
quires a recognition that an agency is a servant of the community
and not merely a mechanism for continued self-aggrandizement . .
DR. ISAAC TOUBIN, The Day-Jewish Journal
Only Jew in Ike Administration Leaves Post
Admiral Lewis L. Strauss has resigned as Chairman of the
Atomic Energy Commission, and although not always agreeing with
his decisions with respect to policy, we feel that his complete de
votion and energy to keeping America militarily advanced in nu
clear power will be missed. To quote the Los Angeles Times;
“Our own opinion is that losing Adm. Strauss is the greatest single
blow to security and national atomic development that we could
suffer at this time. He can be replaced by somebody who knows
much more about the theory and the application of the physics
of fission and fusion, but by none who has his strong will and
clearness of vision.” We are sorry to see Admiral Strauss, a Jew
—the only Jew in the Eisenhower Administration—leave a post to
which he gave such devotion.
JOSEPH JONAH CUMMINS, B’nai B’rith Messenger
JERUSALEM (JTA)—A couple
frustrated in their desire for a
shipboard marriage aboard an Is
raeli liner bound from New York
to Haifa, has provided the Israeli
Ministry of Justice with a new
legal problem.
Having been forced to wait un
til the vessel docked to seek out
a rabbi and be married, the
couple complained to the Minis
try against the captain’s refusal
to perform the ceremony—a hal
lowed tradition of the sea. To
add to their sense of injustice,
they were told that, had they
been non-Jewish, the captain
would have performed the cere
mony.
When he was asked to officiate,
the captain sought the advice of
a passenger—a prominent Ameri
can attorney. The latter warned
the mariner that Israeli law pro
vided that Jews could only be
wed by a rabbi, and that he had
no legal authority to substitute
as a spiritual leader. The captain
thereupon refused to officiate
and the stage was set for the
appeal.