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F»#e Four
THE SOUTHERN ISRAELITE
Friday, August 29, 195*-
The Southern Israelite
PnbUAed Weekly by Southern Newspaper Enterprises, 390 Court-
land St., N.E., Atlanta 3, Georgia, TR. 6-8249, TR. 6-8240. Entered
as second class matter at the post office, Atlanta, Georgia under the
Act of March 3, 1879. Yearly subscription five dollars. The Southern
Israelite invites literary contributions and correspondence but Is not
to be considered as sharing the views expressed by writers. DEAD
LINE is 12:30 FJVL, TUESDAY, but material received earlier will
have a much better chance of publication.
NATION A l EDITORIAL
K 0C 5r8 N
•T Iwuniriiw.’irmM
Member
American Association
of English-Jewish
Newspapers
Adolph Rosenberg, Editor and Publisher
Gustav Oppenheimer, Margaret Merryman, Sylvia Kletzky
Karen Hurtig, Kathleen Nease
Hillel for Our Sons and Daughters at Athens
We are pleased to see the
campaign to open Hillel
House at Athens finally get
underway.
This facility to serve Jewish
students at the University at
Athens has been greatly need
ed and the record of the past
few years through an inept di
rector and apathetic B’nai
B’rith membership is a dark
one we hope is now over.
Hillel, as our readers know,
is under the aegis of B’nai
B’rith and with one of the
largest memberships in this
fraternal order in the entire
District 5 Grand Lodge, Geor-
S ia has had the least effective
[illel program.
Who was at fault? Why was
it permitted to continue when
so many of our splendid state
leaders knew of the defici
ency? Recriminations need
not be of concern now.
What is important is that
the step has been made to cor
rect the inadequacies. And
they are being led by a young
group of new leaders whose
vigor and enthusiasm will
surely win the admiration and
support of Jewry in Atlanta,
Savannah, Macon, Augusta
and in the many other com
munities, large and small,
where our people are.
Sam Massell Jr., who has ac
cepted the post of general
chairman, is a young man of
action. He is also a graduate
of the University of Georgia
at Athens where he and oth
ers on the first line of the
campaign team were students,
so they all know the crying
need for adequate Hillel faci
lities.
Many programs undertaken
nature, or are for unfortunate
by Jewry are of a goodwill
victims of persecution over
seas.
Hillel is for neither of these
categories. Though there is
an element of good-will in
the standard Hillel sets on the
campus through the degree of
participation and support, it is
basically to serve our very
own youth — our sons and
daughters away from home
during the very crucial years
of college.
The Southern Israelite
knows of no other more ur
gent area than the religious
development of the young
men and women who will re
turn to our communities and
in time take over its leader
ship.
The years of college are
formative ones during which
the philosophy that will guide
the entire future of these
young people emerges warped
and distorted — or whole
some and vigorous. Hillel can
be the balance in favor of pos
itiveness in Athens, as it has
been demonstrated on so many
other campuses.
We trust that our readers
in Georgia — and in other
states if they are so inclined
—will come forward with
support for the Hillel build
ing fund, without waiting to
be contacted. It would be so
wonderful if the facilities
could be ready in time to
serve the students this fall.
Of greater importance is
that this project be consum
mated and that there be no
doubt in the future over
whether the Jewish students
at Athens will flounder as
stepchildren or will experi
ence the oneness which Jew
ishness can bring them
through Hillel.
New Dreyfus Affair
GUEST EDITORIAL
This week marks the sixth anniversary of what has been
called Soviet Russia’s “Dreyfus Affair.’’
It was on August 12, 1952, that twenty-four leading
Soviet Jews were executed after a secret trial which was
reported to have lasted twelve days. Twenty-three of the
defendants were leading Yiddish writers and actors, whose
extinction was a fatal blow to Soviet Jewish culture. The
twenty-fourth victim was a thoroughly Russified Jew who
once held the post of Deputy Foreign Minister of the USSR.
The purge of Yiddish writers and actors began in the
Fall of 1948, when hundreds were sent off to slave labor
camps, where most of them perished. The August trial was
the climax of this campaign of persecution.
Among the charges against the twenty-four was the ac
cusation that they were designing an armed rebellion to
separate the Crimea from the Soviet Union with the view
to establishing there a Jewish National Bourgeois Zionist
Republic.
Actually, what the writers were “guilty” of was a direct
appeal to Stalin to settle the dispossessed Jewish wartime
refugees on Crimean soil. The Crimea had been the site of
Jewish colonization even in Czarist days. These Colonization
efforts were supported by the Soviet Government itself
Standard Truck & Equipment Co.
Dealers in Used Trucks and Truck Parts
919 MEMORIAL DR., S. E. MU. 8-6610
Mike Taffel — Jack Taffel — Nathan Leiter
throughout the 1920’s. The Jewish colonies were liquidated,
however, at the time of the purge of the “kulaks” in 1929.
It was natural, therefore, for the Yiddish writers to appeal
to Stalin to once again utilize the region for the settlement
of Jews, especially from the Ukraine, whom popular anti-
Semitism prevented from returning to their former homes
in the Ukraine after World War II. All evidence indicates
that the “Crimean Affair” trial was intended as a post-factum
justification of the ruthless liquidation of all Yiddish cultural
institutions in 1948.
It was not until 1955 that the next of kin were officially
informed of the writers’ death “at the hands of Beria gang”
and that the charges “have been discontinued for lack of
evidence.”
The wives and children of the victims have since been
permitted to return to Moscow. Some have been restored to
their jobs. Others have been meagerly compensated, and the
works of some of the executed writers have since been pub
lished in Russian t r anslation. But despite these gestures, the
damage that resulted from Soviet Russia’s “Dreyfus Affair”
is yet to be repaired. Jewish culture is still taboo under the
official pretext that Soviet Jews “have shown no interest in
the revival of Yiddish culture.”
WHAT THE PRESS IS SAYING
AN AJP DIGEST OF CONTEMPORARY OPINION
NEHRU ON ISRAEL
Prime Minister Nehru has done a public service in stating
bluntly that the Arab states will have to accept the act of a perma
nent Israeli nation if there is to be real peace in the Middle East . .
Some of Mr. Nehru’s associates in the Asian-African group will do
well to take his words to heart when they join the Assembly dis-
cussion.
THE NEW YORK TIMES, FROM AN EDITORIAL
FIVE MIDEAST ILLUSIONS BEFOGGING U.S.
The crisis of our policy in the Middle East stems in large de
gree from the misconceptions that we hold about the area . . . The
most persistent and significant misconceptions about the Middle
East are: 1. That the tumult and ferment have been caused by
Krushchev and Nasser. 2. That the Middle East can still be domin
ated by the traditional ruling classes that have held sway there
for centuries. 3. That the Middle East is ready for Western repre
sentative government. 4. That the Middle East thinks as we do
that authoritarian government is evil, and 5. That the Middle East
agrees with us that Soviet policy represents a threat to personal
liberty and political independence . . . Our foreign policy has suf
fered grave consequences as a result of these misconceptions . . .
PEGGY AND PIERRE STREIT, TIMES MAGAZINE
ISRAEL BASTION FOR THE WEST
.... It is obvious that the Western position in the Middle East
today stands or falls on the security ana defense of Turkey, Israel
and Iran. The West should rejoice, in this critical hour, that the
State of Israel exists as one of the pillars of democracy and pro
gressive nationalism in the area, just as it should rejoice in the
existence of Ghana and Bourguiba’s Tunisia as alternatives by ex
ample and strength to Nassers and Khrushchev’s dominion.
CHRISTOPHER LEGGE, IN A LETTER TO
N.Y. HERALD-TRIBUNE
THE RUGGED ISRAELI ARMY
Although Israel is taking no direct part in the Middle East
crisis, its forces are maintaining a state of alert . . . The rugged
little Hebrew army is commanded by extremely capable young
officers, seasoned and tested in battle . . . This embattled country’s
inner strength is best reflected in the pride of the country in the
Army. The Army is more than a defence corps. It is the great single
force for unifying the polyglot peoples from 65 countries who have
come to Israel. It is an invaluable instrument of educating the
immigrants . . . The Army is almost a “national university.” The
newcomer is taught to read and write Hebrew as well as fire an
anti-tank gun. He is also given a smattering of arthimetic, geogra
phy and Jewish history.
CHARLES GAMZEY, FROM ISRAEL,
IN DENVER JEWISH NEWS
OFF THE RECORD—By Nathan Ziprin
It Could Be the Evil Fye
Diplomats, statesmen, politi
cians, fourth-estaters and crystal-
gazers are busy these days look
ing for the roots of our current
world ills. Their quest has led
them to innumerable alleys it
seems but one—the evil eye.
Yes, isn’t it just possible that
what is transpiring in the world
today is the aftermath of evil-
eyeing? Proverb has it that “he
that hasteth to be rich hath an
evil eye." Since we are living
in an era when people and their
governments are stricken by
maniacal aspiration for wealth
and control of treasure, preval
ance of the evil threatens to be
come a universal and challeng
ing malady. An incredible the
sis? But just think for a moment.
How long has it been that you
yourself perhaps have threaten
ed to kill with a look? Giving
one the eye is such a reality
with twentieth-century man that
he accepts its magic as an ax
iom that is no longer susceptible
to intellectual or even scientific
scrutiny. We are millions of
miles out of the woods, whence
we ultimately emerged into civ
ilization’s light, but who will
gain say that the overwhelming
majority of mankind still be
lieves that envy confers on hu
mans the strangely dangerous
quality of striking out and work
ing injury upon all who stand
in their way?
The verity of the evil eye
thesis is by no means circum
scribed either to specific peoples
or geographic areas. It is truly
universal. It is common to all
faiths. Our own fount of wisdom,
the Talmud, mentions two rabbis
who could transform men into
heaps of stone by gazing at them.
The Malmud also relates that
when Eliezer ben Hyrcanus was
dismissed from his teaching posi
tion at the academy be burned
to ashes everything on which he
turned his eyes.
Fortunately man in his little
corners has been able to per
ceive and develop counter-meas
ures and preventive designs
against the evil eye. The gamut
runs from bell-wearing to in
cantations. In some areas of the
Middle East special prayers are
said before eating to foil the
evH eye from extracting the
nourishment from the food. In
China children still wear bells
against the evil eye. Among some
Christians it is believed that the
first words of the GospeL ac
cording to St. John are effective
protections against the eviL if
written on virginal parchment
and placed in a goose quill one
hour before sunrise on the first
Sunday of the year. Among
Jews, children carry bread and
salt, and if already exposed they
are cured by a lighted havdallah
candle held close to the mouth.
In Tibet, where it is believed
the evil eye causes absent-mind
edness, a cure is effected by
writing a magic spell in Chinese
ink on pieces of wood. The Tal
mud advises painting fruit trees
red when the first fruit is falh
to ward off the evil; eye. Among
all peoples there is belief in the
existence of a privileged few
who are possessed of the secret
knowledge that can divert the
evil eye after it had struck.
Among Jews only women are
possessed of the secret formula,
accomplishing it through incan
tation. The chant they sing is
no secret, but in efficacy it is
limited to few feminine tongues
it seems. The chant goes like
this: Three women sit on one
stone. One says yes, the other
says no. The third one says
whence it came thither shall it
go.
There are of course other
cures as well, such as talismans,
amulets, secret pronouncement,
weird incantations, magic spells
and prayers.
If you are looking for addition
al material about the folklore of
vision, you might consult THE
EVIL EYE, recently published
by Macmillan under the pen of
Dr. Edward S. Gifford, Jr., one
of our great opthamologists.
When I presented this amaz
ingly interest exploration into
the history of beliefs about vi
sion to Dr. Benjamin Friedman,
a leading New York eye special
ist, I inscribed on the cover of
the book the words, “May the
evil eye never have dominance
over your hands.” He appreciat
ed the act of gratitude but he
smiled at my gesture. Yet the
impression I carried off was that
he wasn’t so sure after all that
the evil eye can’t be as trouble
some as the stricken eye.
In his private domain man
seems to nave developed anti
dotes to the evil eye. If we could
only find a magic spell over the
evil eye in the international do
main we might perhaps be near
er solution of our problems than
through such monstrous divices
as sputniks and dullniks. Projec
tion of evil and hurt by merely
looking has terrorized mankind
throughout history. What the
world needs today is merciful
vision, a NEW LOOK,
Open Board Meeting
Sept. 8 for Atlanta
ZOA at Benamy Farm
An open board meeting will
be held by the Atlanta Zionist
District at 7 p.m. Monday, Sept.
8, at the Benamy Lake Farm.
In addition to the picnic sup
per, several Israeli dishes will
be served including “chumus,”
as well as “kumsitz" (Turkish
coffee).
Joe and Hadvah Margolis have
charge of the program. Cost per
couple is $1.50. Reservations can
be made at the Atlanta District
Office, MU. 8-2576. Directions to
the Benamy farm will be sent
to those making reservations.
ZOA members, wives and friends
are invited.
96%
4%
of the Atlanta Bar Association voting
in the official secret BAR POLL on
August 22, 1958 voted Judge Virlvn
B. Moore “Best qualified.” y
voted his op
ponent “Best
qualified.”
RE-ELECT
JUDGE VIRLYN B.
MOORE
Judge Fulton Superior
Court
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