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Fife Twelve
THE SOUTHERN ISRAELITE
Friday, Nov. 24, IM1
PLAIN TALK-By Allred Segal
I Get a
This scolding is from my
friend and former newspaper
colleague Maurice Schapiro
whose home is in Elizabethtown,
Ky. It’s all about mine and Maur
ice Schapiro’s own idea of what
being a worthwhile Jew really is.
He believes I’ve been all wrong
on that through the many years
I’ve been writing this column.
Yes, it’s about 20 years, at least.
“You have beeh repeating the
same broken record for 20 years
in which you have been writing
for the Anglo-Jewish press,”
Maurice scolds. "You’ve been
saying that to be a good Jew it
is enough to obey the Ten Com
mandments, to do justly, show
mercy, and walk humbly with
thy Lord.”
He suggests that I seem to
think it less important to go
regularly to synagogue or to
temple ... “A few things ought
to be made straight about your
philosophy.”
But, oh, Maurice, I keep on
believing that the essence of all
religion is in what our Micah
said: "What doth the Lord thy
Immigrant’s
Son Wins
IMobel Prize
BERKELEY, Calif. (JTA)—Dr.
Melvin Calvin, professor of chem
istry, at the University of Cali
fornia, who won the 1961 Nobel
Prize award for chemistry, is the
son of a Jewish immigrant, who
came to this country from Lithu
ania 60 years ago, the Jewish
Telegraphic Agency learned here.
His father, Elias Kalvarisky,
settled in Detroit where he later
became the manager of an A&P
food store. His widowed mother,
Rose Calvin, now lives in Los
Angeles. She visited Israel last
year.
The Nobel prize winner was
bom in St. Paul, Minn., in 1911
and received his scientific train
ing at the Michigan College of
Mining and Technology and the
University of California, where
he began his academic career as
an instructor in chemistry in 1937,
when he was 26 years old. He was
in Israel several years ago, visit
ing the Weizmann Institute and
the Technion at Haifa. He is the
second American Nobel prize
winner announced this month.
The other, Dr. Robert Hof-
stadter, a Stanford University
physicist, also is a Jewish scien
tist Dr. Hofstadter shared the
Nobel prize in physics with Dr.
Rudolf Mossbauer of Germany.
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Scolding
God require of three: Only to do
justly, and to love mercy and to
walk humbly with thy God.”
And Deuteronomy which is
one of the Books of Moses, tells
me about the same as to what it
means to be a worthwhile Jew.
It says there: “And now, Israel,
what doth the lord thy God re
quire, but to fear the Lord, to
walk in all His ways, and to love
Him, and to serve the Lord thy
God With all they heart and with
all thy soul; to keep for thy good
the commandments of the Lord.”
Oh, I know well that Maurice
Schapiro himself is the kind of
Jew required by both Micah and
Deuteronomy, but, in his scold
ing, he tells me that there’s even
more than than that in being
truly Jewish. He says: “Your
children and grandchildren need
the moral support that going to
temple or synagogue at least
once a week will give them, to
remind them of the important
truths which Judaism teaches.”
Maurice tells me about people
of other religions and their dedi
cations. He says: “I read in the
paper today how an Eastern
Kentucky woman supports a
Methodist Church, through she
is the only member, and she
manages at 78 to never miss a
church service. I read how a
Catholic priest in the Kentucky
mountains roves the hills to
serve a congregation of 32 souls.”
But ... as to Jews . . “But,”
says Maurice Schapiro, “Jews
care so iittle for perpetuating
Judaism in the synagogue that
the post of chaplain at Ft. Knox,
Ky., where hundreds of Jewish
boys from New York and Penn
sylvania train, is often empty.”
(Mr. Schapiro of Elizabethtown,
Ky., resides close by Ft. Knox.)
And he adds: "On Passover all
Jewish personnel of Ft. Knox
were given leaves, as far as poss
ible, since there was no chaplain
to serve them."
Then as a long-time friend of
mine and a newspaper colleague,
he tells men how to write this
column whenever I try to tell
here what to my mind being a
Jew really means.
“Yes,” he says, “you should
discuss a Jew’s duty to attend
synagogue or temple instead of
Fight on Blue
Laws Rejected
TRENTON, N.J., (JTA)—The
New Jersey Supreme Court re
jected this week the claim of a
Jewish merchant that the state
Sunday closing law violated his
rights as an Orthodox Jew.
In sustaining the law by a 4-3
vote, the New Jersey court cited
a majority ruling by the United
States Supreme Court that Sun
day closing laws in other states
did not violate the rights of those
who observed the Sabbath on
Saturday. The New Jersey law
was adopted two years ago, by
referendum in 12 of the state’s
21 countries. It bans the sale on
Sunday of clothing, furniture,
building material and appliances.
The decision upheld the con
viction of David Fass, a West
New York merchant who was
arrested for selling carpeting on
Sunday. He appealed the arrest
on grounds that as an Orthodox
Jew, he had to shut his store on
Saturdays, and that because the
Sunday law forced him to close
his store on that day, he was
under economic disadvantage.
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telling us what we already know
about the resounding truths of
Micah and of the Golden Rule
out of the Sermon on the Mount.
I myself grew up Jewishly
listening to my father preach fer-
verently in temple. Please, Segal,
resolve to urge your readers to
go to temple or synagogue each
week. If the temple and syna
gogue fail, there will be no one
to remind Jews that they are
Jewish . . . and then who’ll sup
port all those org anizations
whose chief claim on our sup
port is that they are Jewish.”
Well, I thank Maurice Schapiro
for his scolding even though only
today I received out of Los
Angeles a letter in which the
writer is saying, “Segal, some
time your column sounds like
the words of a prophet!” Yes, a
scolding is more helpful than
praise which serves only to
swell the poor head of a guy.
I tell my friend Maurice that I
keep on believing that noblest
expression of being Jewish is to
live by what the prophet Micah
says and by what Deuteronomy
says along the same line.
What else is there in the mean
ing of religion than to do justly
and to love mercy, and to walk
humbly, as Micah said? And I’m
not at all quarreling with those
of us who hope to express this
meaning by speaking up to God
in schul . . . and living up to it
after the service is over . . . that
is to say, when they go back to
their business.
Indeed, Maurice, I must con
fess that I myself look up to one
of the ordinary nobler human
beings even more reverently
than I venerate a rabbi in a
synagogue. Such a person may
not be in schul regularly, but he
knows what being Jewish really
is ... to live up to the height of
Micah, and religiously I repeat
once more what Micah said:
What doth the Lord thy God re
quire of thee: Only to do justly
and to love mercy and to walk
humbly with thy God.”
Thanks again, Maurice, for
prompting this column.
Bring your guests to the
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the dozens of different
gourmet coffees, teas or
chocolates and Vienese
desserts
A perfect choice for an
evening, or for after the
theatre, concert or movie
Now in Atlanta’s Picturesque
Baltimore Place Village
ft continental
(toffee House
New Address
7 Baltimore Place, N.W.
Look for the sign
of the gas light
Enjoy the subtle background
music of a Flamlnco guitarist,
a Folksinger or the artist
de jour. Listen if you wish—
or proceed with your own
conversation in the
informality which is a
"Coffee House.”
Open Weekdays Open Sundays
From 7:00 P.M. 874-9162 From 1:00 P.M.
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