Newspaper Page Text
Question Jewish Participation
In Henry Ford
DETRIOT (JTA)—■—The ques
tion whether Jews should serve
on a committee of civic leaders
set up by the mayor of Detroit
to observe the 100th anniversary
of the birth of Henry Ford, is
raised in the Jewish News herV
by its editor and publisher, Philip
Slomovitz.
Two Jews have accepted mem
bership on that committee. Mr.
Slomovitz questions the “wisdom
of those who join in honoring an
Centennial
arch anti-Semite.” He points out
that the U. S. Post Office Depart
ment has rejected a request that
a commemorative stamp be issued
on the occasion of the 100th an
niversary of the birth of the au
tomobile tycoon.
"Henry Ford,” he argues, “not
only was personally responsible
for the spread of anti-Semitism,
when he first began to distri
bute the faked ‘Protocols of the
Elders of Zion’ and his atrocious
hate-inciting pamphlet “The In
ternational Jew’. Even long after
his apology to the Jewish people
for his actions—an apology made
in order to put an end to the
libel suit that was pending in a
Detroit court in 1927 — he was
responsible for the spread of his
anti-Semitic ideas in Germany
and in Datin America, in addition
to the damage he had done to his
Jewish fellow-Americans.”
Rabbi Leon Fram, one of the
Jewish participants in the Henry
Ford Centennial Committee of
Detroit, in a statement in The
Jewish News, said: “Henry Ford’s
anti-Semitism was an episode in
his life. It was not his principal
interest or activity. Above all,
the fact remains that Henry Ford
apologized. He took action during
his lifetime to purge himself of
the sin of his anti-Semitism.
What more can the fair-minded
person ask? Even though it is true
that his apology did not undo the
evil his anti-Semitic publications
had wrought, it is also no*
questioned but that his
and unconditional apolot
made a strong impression
American people and
greatly to repudiate anti-i
tism in American life and rev -e
its impact.”
Tin- Southern Israelite
A Weekly Newspaper for Southern Jewry — Established 1925
Vol. XXXVIII ATLANTA, GEORGIA, FRIDAY, AUGUST 2, 1963 NO. 31
WORD FROM THE WORLD’S
HIGHWAYS AND DYWAYS
Rabbi Reports on Jewish Aid In
Negro Struggle For Equal Rights
ROME (JTA) — The United
States Supreme Coart’s decision
banning The Lord’s Pray In pub
lic schools was criticised last
weekend by the Vatican news
paper, L’Osservatore Romano.
The principle of separation be
tween church and state in the
United States, the newspaper
said, “is tending to become, also
legally, agnosticism.”
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israel
has offered to help Yugoslavia’s
sufferers from the disastrous
earthquake at Skopje, and Yugo
slavia has accepted the offer
“gratefully,” Mrs. Golda Melr,
the Foreign Minister, reported to
the Cabinet here. The first ship
ments of aid to the victims of the
catastrophe left Israel by air
Sunday, with the full Cabinet’s
approval.
Mrs. Meir told the Cabinet she
offered to Yugoslavia immediate
dispatch of Israeli teams of per
sonnel to help the victims of the
earthquake, as well as tents, med
ical supplies and vitamins. In its
acceptance, the Yugoslavian Gov
ernment asked that the tents and
supplies be sent first, waiving
temporarily the offer of medical
teams and other personnel from
Israel.
NEW YORK, (JTA)—The
New York Board of Rabbis call
ed on all of its members today
to observe Saturday, September
7, as a special occasion for ser
mons emphasizing the need for
an end to discrimination against
Negroes in the United States.
The Board is comprised of rab
bis belonging to all three bran
ches of organized Jewish con
gregations here—Orthodox, Con
servative and Reform. In its
call, the Board declared:
"Having been victims of dis
crimination for over 20 cent
uries, Jewish people can sym
pathize fully with any group
that is being discriminated
against because of race, color or
creed. It is for this reason that
the plight of the American negro
has always been a basic concern
of Jewish people.”
NEW YORK (JTA) — The
World Jewish Congress offiee
here Monday issued an English
translation of the recently adopt
ed Swiss deeree on “Unrlaimed
Properties of Stateless Persons
and Foreigners In Switzerland”
and its implementary regulation.
The law lifts the stringent
Swiss banking regulations that
protected the identity of deposi
tors and have, until now, pre
vented action regarding bank ac
counts, deposits or other assets
left unclaimed since the war.
Enactment of the Swiss legis
lation follows long negotiations,
both by the Allies and various
Jewish organizations—Swiss and
foreign. Tb~ decree deals with
all kinds of properties of which
it is known or presumed that they
belonged to persons who have
been “victims of racial, religious
or political persecution.”
JERUSALEM (JTA)— Twelve
young religious zealots were sen
tenced by a magistrate here
Sunday to five days’ imprison
ment each, after being convicted
of having caused a Sabbath dis
turbance, near the Mandelbaum
Gate, by stoning buses and dam
aging bus stations. Six others, all
under 16, were detained by pol
ice. One of the latter group is a
son of Dr. Zorach Warhaftig,
Minister for Religious Affairs.
The melee started when mem
bers of the ultra-Orthodox Ne-
turei Karta massed near the
Mandelbaum Gate where Israeli
buses had been lined up to trans
port Baptist pilgrims entering
this country from Jordan-held
part of Jerusalem, for a tour of
Israel. The Baptists arejmembers
of a large group of their faith
holding a world conference at
Beirut, Lebanon.
The ultra-Orthodox youths
started throwing stones at the
buses. Israeli police tried to halt
the demonstration. For a time,
the riot was quieted when the
police authorities convinced the
demonstrators that all of the bus
drivers were non-Jewish and
were, therefor, not violating the
Sabbath. However, the rioting
was resumed when Neturei Kar
ta adherents charged that some
of the buses were owned by the
Hamkasher Cooperative, all of
“Mitzvah” Youngsters
Hack From Mission
in Puerto Rico
NEW YORK, (JTA)—A group
of nine Jewish youngsters re
turned here from Puerto Rico
last night, after a month-long
working visit organized under
the Mitzvah Corps program of
the National Federation of Tem
ple Youth, the Reform youth
movement affiliated with the
Union of American Hebrew Con
gregations.
During their stay on the
island, the youths engaged in
such manual tasks as ditch dig
ging and construction of hurri
cane-proof cement houses. In
the evenings, they taught basic
English to their hosts, and sang
Yiddish folk songs.
CHICAGO, (JTA) — The
American Jewish community,
which has been involved in the
quest for civil rights for a long
time, has now developed “a new
sense of urgency regarding in
equality to the Negro,” a repre
sentative of the Reform rabbin
ate told a Catholic conference
whose members are Jewish.
Considerable damage was
caused by the rioters. When sev
eral of the demonstrators were
arrested, their colleagues tried to
rescue them, and the fighting be
tween the rioters and police was
intensified. Two policemen were
injured.
The bus company suspended
service Sunday in the Mea
Shaarim quarter, where the Ne
turei Karta adherents live. Bus
firm officials said the service had
been halted because many ve
hicles needed repairs. Members
of the Neturei Karta set up their
own transport in automobiles
mobilized to take residents of
their quarter to or from work.
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Ultra-
zealous Orthodox youths of the
Neturei Karta organization con
tinued stoning buses Sunday
night, while their elders held an
open-air mass meeting denounc
ing alleged Sabbath violations.
The Neturei Karta demonstra
tions, begun Saturday, resulted
in the arrest of 18 youths. Two
policemen were injured, and nu
merous buses carrying Christian
pilgrims entering Israel from
Jordanian territory through the
Mandelbaum Gate, were dam
aged.
During Sunday night’s demon
stration, Amram Blau, one of the
Neturei Karta leaders, addressed
a crowd of his adherents in Yid
dish, denouncing Sabbath dese
crations. He threatened that,
next Saturday, “all of Jerusalem
will assemble to defend the Sab
bath.” Meanwhile, youthful fol
lowers continued attacking buses,
throwing passengers into a panic.
The Hamkasher Cooperative,
whose buses were the cause of
the demonstrations, continued
Sunday to bypass passenger
routes through the two districts
inhabited by the ultra-Orthodox
—Mea Shearim and Bet Yisroel.
Of the 18 youths arrested Sat
urday, 12 were remanded to jail
for five days each. They were
being held for hearings, and not
sentenced, as erroneously report-
—Continued on page 4
here. This view was expressed
by Rabbi Balfour Brickner, di
rector of the Commission on
Interfaith Activities of the Union
of American Hebrew Congrega
tions, in an address before the
National Catholic Conference for
Interracial Justice.
Judaism, said Rabbi Brickner,
is committed to the Negro cause
both theologically and morally,
advocating human equality “be
cause it is right.” At the same
time, he noted, “the security of
the Jewish community is inex
tricably bound to the security of
all groups, since practices of dis-
crirain ation and segregation
against others are a direct threat
to the status of the Jewish com
munity.”
Tri-faith clerical participation
in civil rights demonstrations,
he said, has shown that “Jews
are neither hostile to rabbinic
involvement nor afraid of com
munity consequences.” He re
ported a number of actions be
ing carried out currently by
Jewish groups on the national as
well as the local levels.
He called attention to the for
mation of a rabbinic task-force of
Orthodox, Conservative and Re
form rabbis by the Synagogue
Council of America, for partici
pation in peaceful racial dem
onstrations. Jewish lay leaders,
he said, are increasingly joining
picket lines and sit-ins, and
broad programs of grass-roots
community action are under
taken by Jewish community
councils.
Rabbi Brickner also reported
that Jewish congregations are
conducting drives for funds to
assist the Negro cause in various
cities; the Philadelphia Jewish
community, as an example, has
adopted a program grant of
$25,000 to cover “a variety of
actions”; a congregation in an
other city raised $1,300 at a Fri
day evening Sabbath Service for
the Southern Christian Leader
ship Conference; and over $5,000
was raised by a congregational
Social Action Committee in To
ronto, which also resulted in the
establishment of that city’s first
Human Relations Commission.
The rabbi felt that the “in
crease” of Jewish activity in be
half of the Negroes’ cause is due
to the fact that ‘American
Christendom has increased the
degree of its own involvement.”
“Jewish efforts have been
given real impetus by the new
tri-faith activity,” he said.
"While organizations, nationally,
have been willing to be in the
vanguard of the civil rights pro
gram locally, Jews have hereto
fore felt that theirs was not the
responsibility to be the first in
a community to take the initia
tive. This attitude is still preval
ent. The Jewish community will
move only as fast and as far as
their Christian neighbors. There
fore, I cannot too strongly em
phasize the advantage of inter-
religious action.”
He admitted that there still
exists a gap between the pro
nouncements and recommenda
tions of national agencies and
what “the individual members
of a specific Jewish community
are willing to accept and initi
ate.” He stressed, however, that,
in his opinion, this picture would
be the same within the ranks of
Protestantism and Catholicism
as well.
California Rabbis Back
Negro Fight for Rights
LOS ANGELES (JTA) — The texts of the Jewish religion—the
Board of Rabbis of Southern Cal
ifornia Monday issued a state
ment expressing “profound sym
pathy with the Negro commun
ity in Greater Los Angeles in its
struggle to achieve full emanci
pation and equality.” The Board
represents Conservative, Orth
odox and Reform rabbis.
“As Jewish religious teachers
we are deeply concerned about
the problems of discrimination
and injustice which afflict our
Negro neighbors,” the statement
said. “Our own history of suf
fering from prejudice and per
secution has made us particular
ly sensitive to the plight of op
pressed peoples everywhere.
“Our moral principles and way
of life, drawn from the sacred
Bible and the Talmud—move us
to speak out at this time, as the
ancient Hebrew prophets spoke
out in their generation against the
indignities imposed upon any
group in our society.
“We call upon the political,
civic, business and labor leaders
of this great metropolitan center
to act with dispatch in answer
to the grievances voiced by
Negro leaders through eliminat
ing segregation and inequality in
the social, educational and eco
nomic spheres of community life.
We call upon the members of our
congregations to act in all their
business and social contacts with
their fellow citizens in the Negro
community in accordance with
the moral Imperatives of our re
ligious tradition.”
Sentence 12 Young Zealots
For Sabbath Disturbance