Newspaper Page Text
The Southern Israelite
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A Weekly Newspaper for Southern Jewry — Established 1925
Vol. XLI
ATLANTA, GEORGIA, FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 1960
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Bar-Uan U. Degrees
RAMAT GAN (JTA) _ Bar-
Ilan University here conferred
degrees and diplomas on 254
graduates in various departments
of the university. Rabbi Joseph
H. Lookstein, of New York, act
ing president of the university
conferred the degrees.
Twenty-two of the graduates
received masters degrees; 131 re
ceived bachelors degrees; di
plomas were presented to 16
graduates of the Institute of
Criminology. Rabbinical teaching
diplomas were awarded to 31;
and 54 received high school
teaching certificates.
College Apologues
For Nazi, Arab
Impersonations
NEW YORK (JTA)—An offic
ial of Georgetown University ex
pressed regrets to New York Uni
versity officials about a custom
of the Washington school of
having students dressed as a
Nazi soldier and an Arab doing
impersonations at the school’s
basketball games. But Father
Anthony Zeits, director of stu
dent personnel at Georgetown
University, insisted there had
been no anti-Semitic remarks
made during the NYU game with
Georgetown on February 5. Fa
ther Zeits made his statement in
response to a protest from a
group of students.
John Geis, NYU sports publicist,
said that during the first half of
the game, two youths came out in
front of the Georgetown student
body. The one dressed as a Nazi
soldier held up his arm in a Nazi
salute and shouted ‘‘Sieg Heil,”
the publicist said, adding that the
Georgetown stud e n t s replied
“Sieg Heil.’
Father Zeits also said that “we
have a large Jewish population”
at Georgetown and he added “I
think it was unfortunate that the
thing ever occurred.” He said he
was send’ng letters of regret to
all persons writing to the school
on the incident. He declared that
the impersonations had ‘‘been a
bit of fun” at most games during
the past two or three years.
NEW YORK, (JTA) — Two
Jewish members of the John
Birch Society announced here
this week that they are forming
a new organization, called the
Jewish Society of Americanists.
The men are Samuel Blumen-
feld. an employe of the John
Birch Society, in Boston; and
Alan Stang. of New York, author
of a book linking the civil rights
movement with Communism.
They said the society's aim will
be “to demonstrate to our fellow
Americans and coreligionists that
the Americanist principles, be
liefs and aims of the John Birch
Society are based on the very
precepts of Judaism.”
At a news conference they said
that, since an announcement two
weeks ago in a Birch Society
publication that the Jewish group
would be formed, “several hun
dred” Jews have endorsed the
move. Mr. Stang, declaring the
title of the society a “misnomer,”
said the group will admit not
only non-Jews but also non-
members of the John Birch
Society.
Thomas J. Davis, a Birch pub
lic relations official, claimed
there are 1,000 Jews in the USA
among the society’s 100,000
members. Officers of the new
Israel's Arab
Pomdatinn Grows
JERUSALEM, (WUP)—Israel’s
Arab community is multiplying
more rapidlv than its Jewish
population, despite Jewish immi
gration, it was disclosed here this
week in the latest Annual Rnuort
of the Labor Ministry’s Man
power Planning Authority.
During the vears 1951 to 1964,
Jewish natural increase fell from
26.3 a year per thousand inhabi
tants to 16.2, while the rate for
the Arabs rose from 37.8 to 45.
One-third of the Jewish popu
lation is aged 14 vears or less.
Among the Arabs, this age group
accounts for half the population.
Jews bom in Western countries
are slightly more numerous than
those bom in Africa and Asia,
but among the inhabitants under
35, Europeans are outnumbered
two to one.
Israeli-born Jews have risen
from 25 per cent of the Jewish
population in 1951 to 40 per cent
in 196^. Those under the age of
35 out-number all the foreign-
bom Jews in that age-group to
gether.
Most of the Jews bom in Africa
and Asia are in productive occu
pations, while most of those orig
inating in Israel or in the West
ern countries work in services.
Over 70 per cent of gainfully
occupied women are in the
services.
A member of the Ku Klux Klan
told the House Committee on un-
American Activities last week
that he had financed a compaign
designed to "expose the kosher
food racket.”
Committee members expressed
annoyance at references in one
of the items in the “literature”
which Imperial Wizard James R.
Venable, 61, had subsidized.
The item was a list of hundreds
of American firms making kosh
er products, which were identi
fied as “Jew kosher outfits” and
“one world outfits.”
The KKK leader was asked
whether he would retract a let
ter a letter he had written urging
boycott of those firms to destroy
group include Michael S. Kogan,
chairman Mr. Blumenfeld, vice-
chairman; and W. C. Solomon,
executive secretary. None of
them is known in Jewish public
life.
Rightwinger Poses
As Jew in Anti- War
Call to Viet Troops
LOS ANGELES (JTA)— The
Anti-Defamation League of B’nai
B’rth charged here that a right-
wing extremist has used a Jew
ish name in tape recordings
broadcast to American troops in
South Viet Nam to “come home”
in a crude attempt to impugn the
loyalty of American Jews.
The ADL said that Ronald
Ramsey, a radio propagandist
with an extensive record as a
rightwing radical, used the name
Joe Liber Epstein broadcast re
cordings to troops in South Viet
Nam. Milton Senn, Pacific South
west director of the ADL, said
the use of the Jewish-sounding
name also was intended to im
pugn the support of American
Jews “for our nation’s resistance
to Communist aggression and im
perialism.”
Max Dressier,
JNF President,
Dies at 64
MIAMI BEACH, Fla. (JTA)—
Max Bressler, president of the
Jewish National Fund of Amer
ica and former president of the
Zionist Organization of America,
died suddenly here after suffering
a heart attack. He was 64.
Born in the Ukraine, Mr.
Bressler migrated to the United
State in 1921. He was a mem
ber of the national cabinet of the
United Jewish Appeal and of the
executive board of the Bureau
of Jewish Education in Chicago
where he lived. He was also a
member of the World Zionist Ac
tions Committee.
He served as president of the
ZOA from 1960-62 and was elect
ed JNF president in 1963 and re
elected in 1965. He was slated to
retire from his JNF post next Au
gust after heading the pilgrim
age to Israel to dedicate the John
F. Kennedy Monument and Peace
Forest, a project which he Init
iated. Funeral services were held
in Chicago.
what Venable called in the let
ter ‘the most diabolical plot ever
conceived by these leeches of
mankind.”
Venable replied: “I’d like to re
tract it. I apologize.” He was
identified as the Imperial Wiz
ard of the National Association
of Klan Organizations for units
in Florida, Georgia, South Ca
rolina, Arkansas and Louisiana.
No Wonder
KKK-Nazi
Link, Says
Testifier
WASHINGTON, (JTA)—Links
between the Ku Klux Klan and
the American Nazi Party were
revealed at a hearing before the
House Committee on Un-Ameri
can Activities.
Ralph Pryor, 33, an ex-police
man from Wilmington, Del., said
he quit the Klan in disgust after
Nazi involvement in a Klan
rally at Rising Sun, Md., memo
rializing Daniel Burros, a New
York Klansman and former Nazi
Party member who committed
suicide after disclosure that he
was Jewish.
Mr. Pryor told the committee
the affair was more like a “Nazi
rally” than a Klan memorial ser
vice. He said that Nazi music
was played, Hitler-style speeches
delivered, and American Nazi
"firing sqads” participated. He
said “I became sick to my
stomach.”
Another witness, Roy Frank-
hauser, former member of the
Nazi Party, National States Right
Party, and identified as grand
dragon of the K.K.K. for Penn
sylvania, was questioned to elicit
information on Nazi links with
the Klan. Committee investigator
Donald Appell indicated Klan
ties with the Nazis, stating that
three Klansmen Mr. Frankhauser
worked with in New York were
formerly affiliated with the
American Nazi Party.
BONN, (JTA) — Victims of
Nazism, most of them Jews,
were shortchanged by about
$100,000,000 in the last 10 years
through a German Government
“error," it was revealed here.
Most of the “mistake” consisted
of deducting from their restitu
tion checks a percentage charged
to income taxes—whereas the
law specifically exempts restitu
tion income from federal taxes.
In addition, many of the pay
ments were illegally “rounded
off” downward, and the pensions
paid were not increased by the
same percentages by which civil
service scales had been raised.
The law links the restitution pay
ments to the percentage increases
given to civil scales. The “error,”
it is estimated here, had reduced
the payments made to victims of
Nazism by about 12 percent.
All of these "errors” were dis
closed at a meeting of the repre
sentatives of the German laender
(provinces) at the Bundesrat, the
upper house of the German Par
liament. Indirect confirmation of
the charges of “error” were seen
here this week in the fact that the
Bundesrat has been given by the
Government the task of formulat
ing a new decree that would
raise individual restitution pay
ments by sums ranging from 12
NEW YORK, (JTA)—Moscow’s
Chief Rabbi Yehuda Levin is al
ways surrounded when visited by
foreigners by men suspected of
being government agents, two
Catholic writers reported this
week.
Rev. Thurston N. Davis, editor-
in-chief of America, the Jesuit
weekly, and Rev. Eugene K. Cul-
Convict Six
For Arson at
Synagogues
LONDON, (JTA) — Prison
terms ranging from six months
to five years were imposed this
week on six former members of
the tiny British National Social
ist Party, who were convicted of
“maliciously setting fire” to two
East London synagogues last
July. They were accused of start
ing fires at the Ilfqrd District
Synagogue and the Leabridge
Road Synagogue.
Justice Phillimore, in imposing
sentence, denounced the defend
ants’ association with the neo-
Nazi movement. The jurist em
phasized that the defendants
were not being punished for their
beliefs because “anybody in this
country can believe anything he
likes.” But, he told the six men,
“you have chosen to interfere
with the freedom of worship of
respectable Jewish citizens of
this country and to destroy their
property. You defaced the walls
of their synagogues and then set
fire to them. These are grave
crimes and it is my duty to make
an example of you in the hope
that those who share your beliefs
will think twice before following
your example.”
percent to 50 percent—depending
on income—retroactive to Sep
tember 1, 1965.
The Bundesrat is expected to
act on the proposed decree this
week. The increases would coat
the Government $30,000,000 for
restitution recipients on the rolls
prior to last September. Addition
al payments, estimated at be
tween $10,000,000 and $20,000,000
would benefit restitution recipi
ents covered by recent legisla
tion.
Martin Hirsch, a Social Demo
crat member of the Bundestag,
the lower house of Parliament,
has openly denounced the
“error.” Furthermore, he has al
leged that Chancellor Ludwig
Erhard has declined to rectify the
mistake, and called this alleged
failure a “scandal." Mr. Hirsch
is one of the country’s foremost
experts on restitution problems.
He was chairman of the Bunde
stag’s restitution committee until
that body was abolished last falL
One angle of this development
considered piquant by most ob
servers here, is the fact that the
mistake was discovered not by
the Finance Ministry but bv a
low-echelon employe of the Min
istry of Defense. The man who
found the error is said to be a
half-Jew.
hane, managing editor, went to
Moscow and Leningrad last
month, as members of the Appeal
to Conscience Foundation, to
seek information on Jewish life.
Their report, in this week’s
America, reiterated an earlier
finding of the delegation that
there was little to contradict the
charge of Soviet anti-Semitism
and that Soviet Jewish leaders
constantly feared government
reprisals. The Catholic editors
noted that statements are issued
from time to time purportedly
by Jewish leaders and comment
ed that if Chief Rabbi Levin was
the one who signed the state
ments, they felt that the state
ments “were written for him by
others, probably by the minor
lay officials who are officers of
his synagogue and who surround
him like a bodyguard.”
The editors asserted that the
Chief Rabbi “can rarely be seen
in private” and that when they
talked to him, what little he had
to say about Jewish life in Russia
“was carefully tailored to the
sensibilities of his lay admoni-
tors.” They cited the “ominous
activity of the lay committee
men who surround the aging
rabbis” and said they were prob
ably agents.
They said that the delegation
was forbidden to see Rabbi Levin
when they tried to talk to him on
a second visit to Moscof during
their tour. They were told that
Rabbi Levin was “in quarantine”
in a hospital and added that the
lay officers refused to say where
he was. Finally Rabbi Arthur
Schneier of New York, another
delegation member was allowed
to talk by telephone to Rabbi
Levin who told Rabbi Schneier
he was “doing all he could” that
he was not free to say where he
was and that he “sent regards to
his brethren in the United
Jewish Members of Birch
Society Form Organization
KKK Leader Admits Call for
Boycott of Kosher Products
Suspect Moscow Rabbi
Surrounded by Agents