The Southern Jewish weekly. [volume], August 11, 1939, Page Page Three, Image 3

About The Southern Jewish weekly. [volume] (Jacksonville, Fla.) 1939-1992

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Friday, August 11, 1939
SUyr Snaialf Uppfelu
An Independent Weekly Serving American Citizens of Jewish Faith
Combining the Florida Jewish New,s and The Jewish Citizen
"The Oldest and Most Widely Circulated Jewish Publication
in the Southeast”
Edited end Published by ISADORE MOSCOVITZ, B.S.J.
Printed Weekly at 406 Broad St.
P. 0. Box 903 Phone 5-6266 Jacksonville, Florida
This publication is not subsidized by any organization and depends for
it« existence solely on income derived from subscriptions and advertising.
This weekly is opposed to Communism, Fascism, and Naziism and is
dedicated to the Ideals of American democracy.
For the convenience of those wishing to make cash remittances for subscriptions and advc
tiling, an office is maintained at 402 Graham Building, where proper receipts will be issue
“Although this publication is individually owned and opinions no
otherwise credited are those of the editor, we cordially invite th
general public to express its views on all matters'of interest to ou
readers.”
c.tarad as Second-Class Matter, at the Post Office, Jacksonville, Florida, Under th
En,er * Act of March 3, 1879
Subscription One Year, $2.00; Six Months, SI.OO
Member of Religious News Service
Member of THE JEWISH TELEGRAPHIC AGENCY
Jews And Zion
The Zionist Congress which opens in Geneva on Augus'
16 will be faced with momentous decisions—perhaps mort
momentous than those that have ever confronted a Zionisi
Congress in the past. Jews everywhere will hope and pra>
that this Congress will find the wisdom and the statesman
ship to rise to the historical occasion. At the same time,
I think it is incumbent upon all of us who are deeply con
cerned with the fate of Eretz Israel to try to crystalize in
our minds some of the basic problems relative to the Jew
ish homeland, in the light of the new trends and develop
ments that history has set in motion.
Let me pose a simple question: do we Jews really want
Eretz Israel ? If this sounds elementary, let me assure you
it isn’t. On the contrary, it is, in essence, the most diffi
cult question of all. Perhaps I can clarify this best by ask
ing another question: Are we a nation, in the generally ac
cepted, broad national sense of the word (not in the strictly
technical juridicial meaning, for that presumes the exist
ence of a country and a government) ? This, too, will ap
pear simple at first glance. Os course, we are!—all who
believe in Zionism and in the destiny of the Jewish people
will answer. But if this answer could satisfy us formerly
in the days when Theodor Herzl emerged upon the Jewish
scene, it can no longer satisfy us today when the diabolic
forces of a barbarous hatred organized on an international
scale threaten to destroy us.
Time was when we who are Jewish nationalists believed
that by accepting for ourselves the concept of nationhood,
without interfering with loyalty to our adopted lands, we
set up a milestone along the road of our historical destiny.
And the Zionists, building a Jewish land which, in time, is
to realize our national concept in the international juridicial
sense, certainly were convinced that we were performing
a function whose ultimate goal would be the basis of oui
whole folk-life as a people with our own land and our owr.
government. Because in the eyes of nationalist Jews, Zion
ists as well as non-Zionists, the national concept meant, in
essence, that even in the Diaspora w r e are leading a form
of life which justifies us in calling ourselves children of
the Jewish nation. To Zionists the inescapable conclusion
was the need to revive and nurture Hebrew culture and all
that the Galuth has created toward the perpetuation of
our national existence. Nationalist Jews who were non-
Zionist, believed in the cultivation and furtherence of the
Yiddish language and literature, and the encouragement and
stimulation of all those folk manifestations which were
evolved in the Diaspora, even to the translation of the Bible
into Yiddish. I am not attempting a thorough definition
of the two groups, but am merely giving a brief resume as
a prelude to answering the question I have broached.
Zion is again the answer to the question of survival or
extinction. Not Zionism alone with all its programs, but
Zion the land, which will enable us to continue our exist
ence physically and spiritually as humans, and as Jews
for it is needless to repeat that our enemies seek to wipe
ns off the face of the earth completely and without reser
vation.
It is both amazing and disheartening to see the kind
of approach, or shall I say, lack of approach, most Jews
have toward the question of our survival. Fortunately,
tens of thousands of our people have been instrumental in
creating the nucleus of our renascent nationhood m wnat
we proudly call Eretz Israel Yes, Zion is the Jewish
land—but as yet it is not ours. . . ~
By right all of us should have risen up like a mighty
army to strain every ounce of energy in helping t P -
neers of Eretz Israel toward the speedy fulfillment of .their
heroic task—a task they are performing at great risk and
sacrifice and self-denial in behalf of our whole People. .But
of this there is no sign—positively none. I say Furtively
none, for in proportion to the tremendous re p
that rests upon us in the face of the ever-increasing men
ace against our very existence, the little we are g
the redemption of Eretz Israel is as nothing.
Let us hope and pray that out of the deliberations of
the Zionist Congress in Geneva will comeforth thenew
historic word for the new times, the \ ord / f *™®*" t d vred
feative salvation in this darkest epoch of
seom)le. (Z.Tygel)
THE SOUTHERN JEWISH WEEKLY
BETWEEN YOU
AND ME
By PAUL A. PETERS
BOOK REVIEW
A book you’ll read with heart
exploding
Is “Mr.
Go
,on are being told plenty about
the incident . . .
f
GHOST; Refugee Row is telling
this story ... A ghost met a
Nazi soldier and boasted: “I can
disappear at will.” . . . But the
Nazi got the last word with this:
“Pooh, that’s nothing, I can re
turn from Spain without ever
having been there.” . . •-
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’ANORAMA
A Weekly Survey of People and Ideas
By A. A. ROBACK
Lucy Stone
August 13th marks the 121st birthday of Lucy Stone;
d next month, her daughter, Alice Stone Blackwell, will
f.h her eighty-second year. The PATERFAMILAS of
trinity, Henry Blackwell, was born in May, 1825.
Very, very seldom is a family so inspired by a common
pose of social justice—in other words, dominated by a
y spirit — for a full century, as was the Blackwell family,
at inner harmony guided the lives of these three, who
e never allowed an occasion to pass without making their
uence felt?
In her biography of her mother, which to a certain ex
t is also the biography of her father, Miss Blackwell tells
that Henry Blackwell “was a frequent speaker at the
etings held to protest against the Jewish pogroms in
ssia. The great Jewish audience stood up when he rose
speak.” How this warrior on behalf of liberty would
ve thundered against the persecutions of the Jews today
d particularly against the Coughlinites!
I am writing this column under the spell of the play
mcy Stone,” which was performed recently in Boston —a
ay which I thought would be merely a chronicle but turned
it to be a touching account of a gentle woman superhu
anly strong in her convictions and efforts to realize an
lea which had gripped her when she was but a youngster,
j such an extent that she vowed to go to college and study
lebrew so that she could decide for herself whether the
interpretation in the Bible of the clause “And he shall rule
over thee” is correct. This woman became the great pio
neer of woman’s rights in America. She cared naught a
bout traditions and conventions, if these were at adds with
fairness and good sense.
PATHETIC SCENES
The most moving scene in the play, skillfully brought
out by the playwright, Maud Wood Park, was that in which
all the furniture was taken from the house because Lucy
refused to pay taxes on the principle that as a person with
out rights, she had no civil obligations. Even the cradle in
which she was rocking the now 82-year-old Alice was re
moved, as the bailiff’s men were wiping away a stray tear
(Continued on Page 8)
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