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Page Four
THE SOUTHERN ISRAELITE
Friday, July 19, 1963
Comments . . .
A Digest of Contemporary Opinion
“MORALS AND POLITICS”
The feud between Israel and the Middle
East Arab states is politics. Anti-Semitism is
morals. The modern Christian Church, it
seems to us, should be the last to confuse the
two. According to the Rev. Gustave Weigel,
professor of ecclesiology at Woodstock Col
lege in Maryland, a statement condemning
anti-Semitism was prepared for the Ecumin-
ical Council in Rome last year but was not
presented. The reason, he said, was concern
lest the Arab states view such action as tak
ing sides with Israel. The Roman Catholic
Church has communicants in many lands. For
this reason and from its very nature it is not
required to favor one nation as against anoth
er. But the prosecution of a people simply be
cause of religion or racial antecedents is a
clear question of right and wrong. The Arab
Moslems are a religious people who should
be able to make this distinction. Even if
some of them failed, it seems to us this is a
place where a stand on high principle is indi
cated. We take Father Weigel’s statement
that a majority of the bishops attending the
conference were favorable to an anti-Semitic
declaration as representing the true senti
ments of Catholics as well as Christians of
other denominations. We hope Father Weigel
is in error in his estimate that delegates to
the conference again will “rather avoid the
issue than face it” when they reassemble in
September . . .
New York World-Telegram-Sun
SPIRITUAL PARTNERSHIP
We regard the Jewish people in all parts
of the world as our devoted partner in the
establishment and strengthening of our State
—the Jewish State. This partnership is un
paralleled in human history. We must try
to transform the material partnership with
Western Jewry into a spiritual one, and see
to it that the eternal values of our people—
the Book of Books, the Hebrew language, and
our people’s history—are imparted to every
Jew in the world. Israel must be the center
for Jewish immigration and for raising the
spiritual level of the Jewish people . . .
Premier Levi Eshkol
“TRUTH OR TALK”
A transcript of the recently-completed
American Jewish Congress second annual
“dialogue in Israel” has not yet become avail
able but the sparks of outrage from the Jew
ish “Establishment” are already beginning to
fly. Discussions centered around “The Jew
ish Intellectual and Jewish Identity” and
“The Jewish Writer In Israel and America,”
and the fact that the discussants had some
hard words to say about identifying with
the narrowly parochial aspects of Judaism
and the need for freedom of expression even
to the point of attacking the “good life” of
the American Jewish middle class has al
ready drawn fire. Thoughtful American Jews
who have been concerned with the drift away
from organized Jewish life of what should
normally be the Jewish community’s pride—
scientists, physicians, lawyers, professors,
writers, artists, etc.—recognize at once the
significance of these questions both for the
future development of American Jewish life
and the future relationship between Ameri
can Jewry and Israel on the philosophical
level. Instead of reacting to their words out
of automatic responses stemming from nar
row interests and with insufficient study ...
we should hear out what intellectuals, who
disenchanted with the American Jewish
community, have to say; indeed, we should
seek their criticism, so that our community
may be strengthened by ideas from the best
minds. Then a dialogue becomes a search
for truth and not just talk . . .
The Jewish Advocate, Boston
JEWISH CALENDAR
•ROSH HASHONAH
Thursday, Sept 19, IMS
(First Day)
•TOM KIFPUR
Saturday, September 29
•SUCCOT
Thursday, October S
(First Day)
Friday, October 4
(Second Day)
♦HANNUKAH
Wednesday, December 11
•Holiday begins
preceding evenings
THE SOUTHERN ISRAELITE
and THE SUNCOAST JEWISH NEWS
Published weekly by Southern Newspaper Enterprises, 396 Court
land St., N F... Atlanta 3, Georgia, TR. 6 8249, TR. 6 8240. Second
class postage paid at Atlanta, Ga. Yearly subscription five dollars.
The Southern Israelite invites literary contributions and correspond
ence but is not to be considered as sharing the views expressed by
writers. DEADLINE is 5 P.M., FRIDAY, but material received earlier
will have a much better chance of publication.
Adolph Rosenberg, Editor and Publisher
Gustav Oppenheimer, Kathleen Nease, Jeanne Loeb
Albany, Ga.—What of the Night?
Somebody has pulled the wool over the eyes of Albany,
Ga., and the good citizenry, hoodwinked, has been led down
the garden path from light into darkness.
Educated persons in Albany have gullibly accepted the
premise that the racial unrest is communist inspired, blindly
refusing to note or recall their own nation’s history.
The most revolutionary principles to appear in the world
during the last thousand years were not communist’s — but
Democracy’s.
Far overshadowing in stark and strident upheaval any
thing the Reds have or could ever conjure up, Democracy’s
principles came into being at a time when there could have
been no such outside influence as communism to foment the
philosophy or the revolution.
Who were Democracy’s authors and architects? Under
world characters? Foreign agents? Albanians need remember
such well-positioned personalities as Jefferson, Washington,
Franklin — and the others of the times to recall who were
behind our nation’s basic philosophy. It is this philosophy
which underwent a bath of blood in the refinement of a
century ago and which today is in the process of being im
plemented by persons of goodwill and good faith, albeit in an
atmosphere of inconvenience and resistance to change.
Persons who know this southwest Georgia community as
well as does this editor, who was born, educated and reared
there, find it strange that Albany should now stand so em
bittered and be-moated against “outside influences.” Albany
was until the PosUWorld War II years a community of great
progress and liberality, a place which seized outside influences
in thought, modes, products, philosophy — everything which
bespoke progress and ongoingness and synthesized them into
a forward-looking spirit which made the city a model for its
section of the nation — and of the entire nation for that
matter.
Albanians boasted of its interfaith goodwill and under
standing — and even of its interracial goodwill. At a time
when the rest of the South staggered under the millstones of
blue-laws, Albany recognized modern change and difference
and adapted itself to new ideas.
This editor recalls that a great issue of his youth in the
south was the elimination of the dispicable practice of lynch
ing. Its eventual disappearance seems to us to have been a
victory for human rights in its time of greater consequence
than the current fight for desegregation. We remember that
as an Albany youth, our elders were proud that Albany and
Dougherty County was one of a single handful of counties
throughout the southeast which had never had a lynching.
This, our elders felt, indicated the racial goodwill and regard
of the city and county.
Health, business, education, entertainment, religion, inter-
faith relations, interracial relations — you name it and Albany
pioneered in adapting the advances made in those fields out
side its confines for its own benefit and for the benefit of
the area. But all these were during Pre-World War II Al
bany.
Who killed this spirit? What killed the spirit? When and
where did it die? Where along the line did people who pio
neered to make their community a model for the nation turn
backwards and retreat into the dark recesses of obscurantism
in the whimsical hope that the world would go by and things
would remain unnaturally static and unchanged?
Was Albany too far out in front for the spirit to be real
and for her to point the way in the great changes that are
taking place in the South today?
Our journalistic confrere Gabe Cohen, whose daughter was
involved in rfecent demonstrations to open Albany’s eyes,
points to certain similarities to conditions under Nazism. To
day, German citizenry blandly deny they had knowledge of
the persecutions which were taking place during World War
II against their Jewish neighbors and so claim innocence of
the crematoria, the concentration camps. In a totalitarian
state, it must be simple to hoodwink the citizenry, to keep
them in ignorance.
But this is Democracy and in the radicalism of Democra
cy the truth cannot be hidden save with the acuiescence of
those ivho willingly consent to be hoodwinked.
The inference of Gabe Cohen is that if the citizens of
Albany really knew what took place within its jails, or in the
hearts of its colored population they would update their racial
attitudes and there need be no armed camp. He points out
the need for dialogue.
* * ¥
Albany Jewry ivould probably maintain they have the
best interfaith goodwill in Georgia and probably the nation.
This could be highly debatable, but even if the condition ex
ists in the minds of the Jewish residents of Albany, it cer
tainly has failed to produce the confidence which would in
spire informed Jews to speak out for justice and humanity.
As a matter of fact if a single instance of forthrightness has
taken place, it has failed to come to our attention.
But we are not interested in an indictment of Albany or
its reluctant Jewry. Albanians have themselves written the
indictment. In pointing out the past record, we find consider
able hope in the decades of Albany’s progress and are con
fident that soon the community will shake loose the hoodwink
and participate in the current refining of our Democracy —
not because an outside court says so — but because it is right
and decent and humane. It is the American way.
Operation “Bootstrap”
by JIMMIE WISCH
EDITOR & PUBLISHER, TEXAS JEWISH POST
(Reprinted from “Texas Jewish Post,” Ft. Worth)
Planned for this August by the Negro leader
ship of the nation is a gigantic March on Washing
ton, D. C\, if full and equal Civil Rights are not
granted to Negroes before that date.
There have been a great deal of passive resis
tance demonstrations by Negroes to secure the
rights which are guaranteed to all citizens by the
Constitution as a matter of record.
As a matter of practice, the case is much differ
ent. Thus Negroes, who have sought relief from
the courts of the land have taken and used the
picket line, the sit-in and prayer-readings in the
street to arouse the conscience of a nation to rally
to their cause.
The President of the United States has spoken on
their behalf satisfying a demand of Negro leader
ship, to plead with Americans of good faith to sup
port the fight for equality for the Negroes of the
nation who number nearly 20 million or 10 percent
of our national population.
The sad fact is that in our vibrant democracy
we have to legislate on the Constitutional guaran
tees that we already have. If we each did our
utmost to obey God’s moral law, follow the Golden
Rule and respect the dignity of our fellowmen, we
would not be confronted with a problem that could
escalate into a violence that may well shock the
foundations of this great nation.
The Jew feels compassion for the Negro that is
denied his Civil Rights for many reasons. Fore
most, perhaps, is the fact that the Jew had been
denied his rights as a First Class citizen in this
country for many years. It is within the last decade
that Jews have not been openly discriminated
against in medical and other professional schools.
Many national companies, even as this is being
written, will not hire Jews as a matter of policy.
We could name local companies who practice the
same directives. Few Jews can be members of the
Country Clubs, and in many cities Jews formed
their own clubs to offset this social discrimination.
We could recite many incidents. We remember
vividly leaving school at the age of 14 to search for
work during the Great Depression of 1929-1935.
Having no money, “we skipped to the L” or stole
a ride on the subway to get to New York to search
for work. We applied for a messenger boy’s job.
How could we forget going into the large office
of the personnel director of the big utility com
pany. He was a ruddy faced man who looked like
the typical clean, fresh outdoor type.
Filling out the employment application, we
came to a word that startled us: “Religion.” We
remembered discussing this with some of the other
boys who were leaving school to find work. Some
of them said, “Put down Protestant if you want
to get a chance.”
We recalled the advice while filling out the
form and thought we’ll write “American.” Ameri
can ought to be enough to get a job in this land of
the free and the home of the brave. What greater
thing was there than being an American?
Then we paused and watched the employment
director behind the desk. A colored man had come
up to him solicitously and asked if he had wanted
a shine. He threw a foot out to the shine box, lit
a cigar and rolled back in his chair.
We returned to the application. We could not
answer the question on “Religion” with “Ameri
can.” We wrote “Hebrew” in the space, completed
the application and presented it to the employment
manager.
He glanced at it and started to laugh. Soon the
laugh turned into a belly laugh, then he almost be
came hysterical with the tears running down his
eyes from laughter. “Sam,” he pushed the applica
tion before the bootblack. “Sam, look, this Heeb
thinks he can work for this company. Ain’t that
a hot one, Sam? He doesn't know we’d sooner hire
a nigger before we did a Jew!”
The colored man showed a row of white teeth
and smiled a whistling-in-the-dark smile. He had
to go along with Mr. Employment Director. “Look,
we don’t hire Heebs here,” he said sternly, sudden
ly changing his laughter to an execution-like pro
clamation.
We looked at him, our eyes burning, our chest
nearing the breaking point. A first impulse was
to pick up one of the ink bottles and throw it at
him. But we walked out and soon the cold winter
air dispelled the tears and the long walk back from
New York’s financial district to Brooklyn alleviated
the torment. And with each step there was resolu
tion about what we would do in this great land
of ours . . . someday . . .
The above incident is just the story of one Jew.
Perhaps any Jew could repeat others more terrify
ing. Some could not only duplicate the story but
repeat versions that have happened on different
occasions to them.
We trust that the Negro leadership of this
nation will spend as much time as they do in dem
onstrating for equal rights in orienting their people
about the larger task each person is faced with,
regardless of their color or religion.
The task we refer to is “Operation Bootstrap.”
This "Operation” calls for each of us to do the
utmost in the performance of his job, regardless
of its meniality or its superiority.
The performance of the Operation would guar
antee the respect of all people with whom workers
come into contact.
We approached a professional man who has
done much for the Negro fight for Civil Rights and
(Continued on page 5)