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Pa* 4 THE SOUTHERN ISRAELITE Mart* ||, |m
JACK GELPBART
Politics:
a walk in molasses
Am
Mi MZArt *
DtfmGki
Let me teil yon why yarn
the March 1&<
la not aab I <
•ome of He's
We endorse ...
the pram of
the
of the
la the Fifth Diatrirt
Pravler ia the beat
race, we feel that Wyehe
ia a field that m the
we feel that be haa
the job aad coold, ia his
ia WmdungtxNL The race ia so
it appears likely that a runoff will be
Ia the race hr Fahoa County Conuaissiooer, we favor Lee
Beach as the eaadidate who would be most likely to bring a
breath sf fresh air iato the often smelly politics of the Com-
delays, the sense-
snd the self sci ring derisions which
to be as everyday part af the political pro-
I deal bob to haply that all politicians are
■on-cooperative or that they are not trying to
»era* as ia the best way possible, but it is true,
nrrerthefaaa, that trying to make the political
praccas work is like walking ia a sea of mohwsrs.
During our effort, for example, every politician
we talked to speed that the Arab boycott of com
panies doing hwsinem with Israel was wrong.
There waa modi head-shaking and toogue-
dueking by alL "Oh, that’s bad," they would say,
"it’s wrong for one compsny to discriminate
But when the time came for actual support of
the bill, it then became accessary to check with the
Chamber of Com meres, the Georgia Trade Com
mission, the Port Authority and anyone else, in
cluding private companies that might have the
faintest objection. This is known as "cheeking it
out."
And so delay piled on top of delay and the
legislative session is now about to run out with the
bill still languishing in committee.
If there is s lesson to be learned from this, it is
that you soon learn who will put themselves "on
the line” and who won’t During the struggle te put
the bill into law I have been exposed to both.
Let me say that we are very lucky to have many
legislators who are dedicated, hard-working and
committed to serving our best interests. 1 count
among these our Jewish legislators and Sen. Pierre
Howard Jr. But I am sorry to report that ail too
many of our public servants seemed only in
terested in preserving their status quo aad did not
care to “rock the boat” with a piece of controversial
legislation, no matter how right the cause.
Now none of this is s totally new revelation. We
all know the political process is not perfect. But on
March 15 there is an election and that is when we
should make our voices heard. We should go to the
polls then and vote for the kind of public servants
who would be fearless and be most likely to oil and
grease the rusty cogs of politics.
I, for one, have had enough of walking in
e oral queiuKu
District.
dona.
Clubl
they have done just
Several
dard Club
Now, ia
that. . , % . i '
The letter indicates that “All persons of Mood character
■hall be eligible for membership,” aad goes oa to point oat
that "each prospect will be considered solely on the criteria of
(the by-laws), and without regard te race, odor, or religion.”
We applaud the Standard Chib for their action and wait
now with eager anticipation for word from other dabs.
Dry Banes
LodCS
exa 1W6
CIAW>
anF-.
t
r
OQ\
APMtoGt!
“Voyage off the Damned": a movie
of a painful time and place
By David Borenstein
The Soothers Israelite
headline on page one, June 9,
IMA was "New World Haveas
Hosed to Refugees."
It was a popular technique for
the Nazis at that time to deport
Jews to countries whose
willingness to accept them was
at best questionable. After the
Kristallnimht ai November 1938
German Jews of Polish descent
were herded aboard trains and
sent bade to Poland. The Polish
government, expecting the new
immigrants, quickly passed a
“Catch 22” law stating that Polish
nationals, Le. Polish-Jews who
had resettled in Germany and
had not lived in Poland for a
number of years, could not
return. Thus the Jews were left
stateless oa the German-Polish
frontier aad Dr. Goebbels could
proudly say, to the world, "Look
no one else wants the Jews
either."
When Dr. Goebbels hatched
the plot from which the movie
"Voyage of the Damned" ia
taken, he sought to furrow anti-
Semitic fields in the new world.
He thus extended his reach from
Germany's nervous neighbors of
eastern Europe to the distant
sunshine of Cuba.
On May 13, 1939, 937 Jews
boarded the S.S. St. Louis of the
Hamburg America Steamship
Line and left Germany for Cuba.
It waa the intention of Goebbels
for them to be denied landing
rights throughout the world,
necessitating the ship returning
its Jewish cargo to Germany.
As viewers of the current film,
we are allowed to look in on the
trial and travail of the
I mss i npn which was shared by
some of the German crew as
well. What the viewer sees in the
movie is. an adequately told
story that attempts to involve os
with too many characters, thus
an "Airport" of the
a shortcoming of
the film is that it does not con
voy the harrowing cir
cumstances under which Jaws in
Nazi Germany lived. True, we
are told that the Jews are leav
ing and that there are concentra
tion camps but the feeling of
despair and false hope that ran
rampant through the European
Jewish Community is ignored.
This failure to convey
helplessness may not be felt by
Jewish adults who have a
knowledge of the era, but Jewish
youth and non-Jews may well
come away with only a shallow
understanding of the time.
Only several scenes give any
indication that the situation in
Germany was bad and none of
the scenes shows how much of
Jewish cultural, political, and
economic life was already lulled
before the actual murdering
began.
"Voyage of the Damned" falls
into the relatively new genre of
r. This style,,
unfortunately allows the
screenwriter and director to take
great liberty with facts and in
“Voyage of the Damned" this
results in a glaring lack of
credibility. Anna Rosen, for ex
ample, ia a‘teenager on board
along with her parents. At one of
the opening dances she joins s
German officer for a waits.
When her father registers a
protest with Mrs. Rosen, she
gently reminds him that the girl
is only a child who knows
nothing of politics.
Later, Anna tearfully explains
to a German she has befriended
that her father has suffered for
two years at the hands of the
Gestapo.
This irks one because it leads
an unknowledgeable viewer to
wonder just what waa really the
state of German Jews. Any Jew
in Germany during the reign of
Hitler, no matter how young,
could not hava been naive con
cerning politics. We now know:
It was a dally life and death ex-