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Pag* Two
THE SOUTHERN ISRAELITE
Friday, April 26, 1968
AS WE WERE SAYING by ROBERT E. SEGAL
"Time Is Always Ripe To Do Right”
(A. Seven Arts Feature)
It appears now — so late, so
late—-that Martin Luther King in
fluenced the Uvea erf mote people
than any man of this generation.
A confirmed s e g ne gationist
writes a public letter, ac
knowledging that the prophet
whose ideas march, on beyond his
death, taught him that one on
the ether aide erf a penetrating
debate can be nofcle end gentle
even though the segregationist
remains unconvinced. ,
Another nvwtod 1 - is queasy on
seeing laws broken realizes now
that Dr. King was right when he
reminded those convinced ct their
irreversible judgment that Hitler
ian laws, even though legal, had
to be broken by men who cared
for freedom.
One who trembles at the
tbou^it of Black Power has now-
gone back and read Dr. King for
enlightenment: “The problem is
that in America, power is un
equally distributed. This has led
Negro Americans in the past to
seek their goals through love and
INSIDE
ERUSALEM
Israel
By CARL ALPERT
Speeches With Substance
JERUSALEM — The Great Ec
anomic Conference at 1968 drew
637 businessmen and industrial
ists from 29 countries. To these
were added 313
Israeli leaders crf|
industry, busi
ness, government
and technology.
For five days,
they swar m e d
through Jerusa
lem’s hotels
Overran the
Knesset building,
the Convention!
Center and the' .
the Israel Muse- Alpert
um. They listened to more than
250 speeches which were cover
ed by a statt of 75 translators,
secretaries and recording techni
cians.
The theme was bow to increase
Israel’s production and export.
Investment funds were pledged,
projects announced, new com
panies set up, and much helpful
enthusiasm generated. The news
agencies covered the proceedings
competently and in full.
Among the nuggets which I
rescue from possible oblivion:
Zalman Suzayeff, President of
the Israel Manufacturers Associ
ation: “I speak for the private
economy of Israel. We believe In
private enterprise based on pri
vate initiative and -private owner
ship. We believe that this form
of economy is best for the coun
try. We would prefer that neither
the Histadrut nor the Govern
ment should enter business at
all."
Asher Yadlin, manager of the
Histadrut industrial holding com
pany: “The Histadrut has been
engaged extensively and inten
sively in building and expanding
an economic structure for close
to 50 years. I’m sorry, Mr. Suz
ayeff, we are here and we are
here to stay .... We believe in
partnership with private capital
and investors .... We have
learnt the hard way that raising
wages without a parallel increase
in productivity does not contri
bute to stability.”
Baron Edmond de Rothschild:
“What we are doing for Israel
we would be quite ready to do
for the neighbors at Israel it these
countries would have the cour
age to establish peace with Is
rael.”
Mr. D. Sussman, representing
South Africa on the Praesidium,
won the hearts of all with his
eloquence and youthful charm.
He summed up the results of the
arduous conference by comparing
it to his honeymoon which left
him in a state of euphoria,—and
very tired.
Dr. Alec Lemer, of London:
“The display windows in Tel
Aviv stores are seen by many
tourists, and (foreign buyers
among them. There is something
about most of these display win
dows which has all the romance
and the allure of a brickyard!”
Shimon Reich, chairman of the
Kibbutz Industries Association:
“There are 232 kibbutzim in Is
rael, and 121 of them operate a
total of 183 enterprises of non-
agricultural nature. Twenty of
these are rest and recreation
resorts and the other 163 are in
dustrial enterprises. These em
ploy more than 7000 workers and
the value of their production in
1967 was IL. 260,000,000.
The industrialists and the ty
coons discussed their million dol
lar deals for five days. They an
alyzed profit potential, tax ad-
vantages, market development
and banking economics. They
coldly scrutinized balance sheets
and criticized poor management
practices. They were hard-boiled
and down to earth about their
business affairs—but at the final
session hundreds of them dabbed
at their eyes with handkerchiefs
when a parade of little children,
dark-eyed, tousle-headed, well-
scrubbed youngsters marched into
the hall and in mighty chorus
solemnly sang “Jerusalem of
Gold."
moral suasion devoid of power
hid white Americans to seek
their goals through power devoid
of love and conscience ... It is
precisely this collision at immoral
power with powerless mortality
which constitutes the major crisis
of our time.”
American Jewish leaders who
assembled once more to challenge
Soviet anti-Semitism the week
end immediately following Dr.
King’s assassination, listened in
deep respect and loving memory
as his recorded message of 1966
came anew to their ears: “While
Jews in Russia may not be physi
cally murdered as they were in
Nazi Germany, they are facing
every day a kind of spiritual and
cultural genocide . . . Negroes
can well understand and sympa
thize . . . When you are written
out of history as a people, when
you are given no choice but to
acoept the majority culture, you
are denied an aspect of your own
identity. Ultimately you suffer a
corrosion of your . . . self-resp
ect.”
“When I received this news
(of Dr. King’s assassination)
Yevgeny Yevtushenenko cried
out, “that same bullet entered
me.”
J ews ever y w h e r e recalled
something else Dr. King ibad said:
“Perhaps if there had been a
broader understanding at the
uses of non-violent direct action
in Germany when Hitler was
rising and consolidating his
power, the brutal extermination
of 6,000,000 Jews and millions of
other war dead might have been
averted.”
If only more Protestants and
Catholics had made the oppres
sion at Jews by Nazis their op
pression, countless lives would
have been saved, Dr. King rea
soned. But wisely he added that
he would reject token identifica
tion with the victims, saying:
“Shatlo& ~ “ifnders^nding' from
people of good will is more frus
trating than absolute misunder
standing from people of ill
will . . . Lukewarm acceptance
is much more bewildering than
outright rejection.”
Those who have thought long
and hard on injustice and indig
nities and on absence of mercy
now honor Dr. King because he
had the power to love, matched
by the courage to test universal
truths at constant risks of life.
No jail could imprison his soul;
no humiliations could rob him erf
his dignity; no preachments of
gradualism could curb his res
olution to win for the disinher
ited “all, here, now.”
Men, sick with hate, reviled
him; colleagues, bewildered by
his spiritual audacity, misjudged
him and gave him bad advice.
The Birmingham Police Commis
sioner, Bull Connor, declared
those awarding him the Nobel
prize had scraped the bottom of
the barrel. The rabbis, the priests,
and the ministers who urged him
to water down his protests un
wittingly gave him a pulpat in a
Birmingham jail from which he
preached one of the most en
during sermons men will ever
know: “We must use time cre
atively, and forever realize that
time is always ripe to do
right . . . Now is the time to lift
our national policy from the
quicksand of racial injustice to
the solid rock of human dig
nity.”
Martin Luther King’s immor
tal utterances and gallant, tireless
actions flow towards undying
truth with an accuracy like that
which speeds an arrow in the
hands of a skilled archer straight
to target.
None still claiming membership
in the society of the concerned
dares default now on the solemn
obligation to assume the new
responsibility of helping—by con
stant action — to fill the void
where he stood and battled, pre
vailing even in death.
BORIS SMOLAR
Between You And Me
(Copyright, 1968, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Inc.)
JEWISH TRADITIONS:
I am not an Orthodox Jew but I must ad
mit that I was greatly impressed seeing sev
eral hundred B’nai B’rith youths praying in Tefilin (philaeteriies)
at one of their regional conventions . . . Tefilin is the cornerstone
of Bar Mitzvah . . . But while Bar Mitzvah is very popular with
Jewish youngsters in this country when they reach the age of 13,
the tradition at Tefilin is completely strange to them . . . Rarely does
an American Jewish youth follow up his Bar Mitzvah ceremony by
observing the tradition of praying in Tefilin . . . The tradition is
alien not only to Jewish youths, but to most of their parents ... It,
therefore, speaks highly for the B’nai B’rith Youth Organization that
at a time when youth in America is inclined toward hippie culture,
the BBYO is seeking to attract the interests of its members to Jewish
tradition and learning . . . The BBYO is also to be congratulated for
the program guides it has just published on the Sabbath and on the
Nazi holocaust . . . Both volumes were expertly prepared and edited
by Rabbi Leivy Smolar, Associate Professor of History and Bible
at the Baltimore Hebrew College . . . They give inspiring guidance
to Jewish youth and contain selective material which will definitely
appeal to the hearts and the minds of Jewish youngsters . . . The
book on the Sabbath—entitled “Youth and the Living Sabbath” —
follows the B’nai B’rith principle that young Jews must look upon
the Sabbath not as a day of austerity and limitations, but one which
offers opportunities for rich, enjoyable and creative Jewish activ
ities . . . The selected Sabbath programs aim to strengthen Jewish
tradition among younger Jews and to imbue them with the spirit that
Sabbath is more a day of Do’s than of Dont’s—that it is not merely a
day when Jews are told not to smoke or ride, but a day of singing,
dancing, praying and enjoying relaxed friendship . . . The BBYO
book outlines the Sabbath policy of the organization which is in itself
a very important contribution to Jewish education ... It contains
material for Oneg Shabat programs, including 66 popular Hebrew,
Yiddish and American songs.
* * *
THE TEFILIN MOVEMENT: Th® Teflin mass-prayer conducted at the
conference of the B’nai B’rith Youth Or
ganization is part and parcel of a "Tefilin Campaign” now started
in this country by the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Memachem M.
Schneerson . . . The campaign aims at strengthening Jewish traditions
and Jewish identity among teenagers and is being directed with de
termination and with growing success . . . The Lubavitcher Hassidic
movement also sponsors more than 70 dubs for children from coast
to coast as well as diversified educational programs ter teepagers
and adults ... It conducts a unique service for Jewish farmers who
live in isolated areas ... At various intervals representatives of the
Lubavitcher movement travel by auto to these communities to visit
homes of the farmers and to discuss Jewish educational problems
with their families . . . They help the farmers overcome the lack of
Jewish school facilities and provide them with self-teaching literature
tor the home . . . Bookmobiles of the Lubavitcher movement are
simultaneously visiting outlying communities and provide Jews in
the rural areas with the opportunity to deepen and broaden their
knowledge of Judaism . . . Incidentally, the Lubavitcher movement
is now celebrating the 70th anniversary of its school system ... It
was 70 years ago that the first Lubavitcher yeshivas were established
in Russia, the country where the Lubavitcher movement origi
nated . . . Today, one can find Lubavitcher allday schools in almost
every country in the world, except in the Communist coun
tries . . . Tens of thousands of pupils are enrolled in these
schools ... In the United States, one can find now at least 15 Lub-
aviteher allday schools in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh
and other cities ... It was the late Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Joseph
I. Schneerson, who laid the foundation ter these schools in 1942,
when he arrived in this country after being rescued from Nazi Eur
ope . . . His first move, on the day he stepped on American soil, was
to establish a Lubavitcher full-day school in Brooklyn . . . His pio
neering effort stimulated other Jewish religious organizations to
emulate his work, with the result that today there is a net of ever
growing Jewish day schools existing in this country attended by
some 48,000 pupils.
B'NAI B'RITH ACHIEVEMENTS:
THE i SOUTHERN ISRAELITE
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land St., N. E., Atlanta, Georgia 30303, TR 6-8249, TR. 4-8240. Sec
ond class postage paid at Atlanta, Georgia. Yearly subscription $7.50.
Tbe Southern Israelite Invites literary contributions and correspond
ence but is not to be considered as sharing the views expressed by
writers. DEADLINE b 5 PM. FRIDAY, bat material received earlier
will a much better chance of publication.
Adolph Rosenberg, Editor and Publisher
Kathleen Nease, Joseph Redlich
Vida Goldgar, Harry Rose, Betty Meyer, Kathy Wood
Georgia Press Assn.
IA1 miwspaper
Ias § k 6 , @ <
- mama
7 Arts Features
Jewish
Telegraphic
Agency
World Union Press
Jewish Calendar
•SHAVUOT
• June 2, Sunday
•TISHA B’AV
August 4, Sunday
•ROSH HASHANA
Sept. 23-24,
Mon. - Tues.
•YOM KIPPUR
Oct. 2, Wednesday
•SUKKOT
Oct. 7-8,
Mon. - Tues.
•HASHANA RABBA
Oct. 13, Sunday
•SHEMINI ATZERET
Oct. 14, Monday
•SIMHAT TORAH
Oct. 15, Tuesday
•HOLIDAY BEGINS
SUNDOWN PREVIOUS DAY
Returning to the achievements of
the B’nai B’rith Youth Organi
zation in the field of strengthening Jewish traditions, we find that
even more important than the BBYO book on Sabbath is its book
“Lest We Forget” dealing with the holocaust . . . American Jewish
youth is a generation born after the fall of the Nazi regime . . . Well-
educated and well-meaning as these Jewish teenagers are, they don’t
grasp sufficiently the tragedy of the annihilation of six million Jews
by the Nazis . . . Many of them don’t know the meaning of genocide,
and none of them know that among the six million Jews killed,
there were 1,200,000 children . . . The BBYO book brings to them
the gloomy picture of the Nazi destruction of European Jewry in a
meaningful way designed to help them understand what took
place . . . It presents the holocaust through material which pictures
not only the Nazi bestialities, deportations and gas ovens, but also
Jewish resistance, martyrdom in the ghettoes, heroism in under
ground work, and the hopes tor liberation which Jews entertained,
even in their darkest days in the extermination camp ... It answers
basic questions and offers “Lest We Forget” programs to be spon
sored by B’nai B’rith for youngsters during the annual observance
of the Memorial Day tor the Jewish Martyrs at Nazidom ... It also
carries several pages of selected bibliography an the holocaust with
a view of stimulating the Jewish youngsters to read more—in fiction
and non-fiction,—on various phases of the destruction by the Nazis
of the JewiA people in Europe . . . Although intended tor the younger
generation, the BBYO guide-book can interest adult Jewish groups,
inasmuch as the material therein is an excellently chosen and well-
edited example.