The Southern Jewish weekly. [volume], April 13, 1951, Image 1

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

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VOL. 28 NO. 12
PLAIN TALK
By Alfred Segal
PALLBEARERS *
Bob, Larry and I were driving
back to the office from the fun
eral of our fellow-worker, Ed.
yfe had been pallbearers. Ed's
widow had wanted Jew. Protest
ant as well as Catholics among
the pallbearers to carry him into
St. Theresa Church for his final
Mass.
This was in deference to the
way Ed had lived in the brother
hood of man which to Ed wasn’t
just a wishful phrase for use at
good will dinners. Devout in his
own faith, Ed was a man who re
spected others in their faiths. It
wasn’t just tolerance with him.
It was the philosophy of a man
who used to say with the Jewish
prophet (although, probably he
had never read the Book of Mala
chi): “Haven’t we all one God?
It seems to me our only* differ
ence is in our ways of worship
ping Him.” •
So I knew Ed as a good brother,
an authenic kinsman. I lould
walk with him, as I often did on
pur streets, as one who was close
to me |n spirit as in body. Many
the talk we had about the essen
tial unity between our basic relig
ious concepts. Nothing hifalutin,
mind you. Just two plain guys
exchanging their ideals in simp
lest language. For L too, under
stood that the main difference
religiously between us was in the
rituals by which he and I arrived
at the same God and at the same
ethical concepts.
(I may hear from some of the
rabbis about this but I shall keep
on insisting that Ed and I were
well related in the spirit, though
he knelt at the Catholic altar.
Indeed, I must confess with some
contrition that Ed was more often
at the Catholic altar than I at the
Jewish.)
Ed certainly would have felt he
had a most successful funeral,
considering its non-sectarian set
up of his pallbearers. X can
dearly imagine him exclaiming:
"Hi. there. All So good of you
to be with me at this moment in
our church. It's all in line with
what you and I used to agree on
whenever the matter of religion
came up between us."
I had no sense of being a
stranger in St. Theresa’s. Jesus
was there, of course, and with
him I couldn’t think of myself as
an utterly lonely Jew in a Cath
olic church; since Jesus also was
of the Jews. Our psalmist, Da
vid, was there too, singing on the
lips of the priest who, with the
altar boys, had come down the
center aisle to meet Ed at the
door.
As the pallbearers entered the
church at each side of Ed, the
priest intoned the 129th Psalm of
David: "Out of the depths 1 cry
to Thee, Lord. O Lord, harken
to my voice . . . With Thee is
forgiveness and because of Thy
L*w X trust in Thee. My
soul trusteth in His word; my soul
waiteth for the X«ord ».* I*et Is
rael wait for the X,ocd. for with
file Lord is loving kindness."
THE OLDEST AND MOST WIDELY CIRCULATED JEWISH PUBLICATION IN THIS TERRITORY
Jewish Broadcast
Slated for Sunday,
>
The Eternal Light program,
“These Rocks Are Mine,” the first
radio drama-document ever writ
ten and produced entirely in Is
rael for an American and inter
national audience, will be broad
cast simultaneously over the net
work of the National Broadcast
ing Company and Kol Zion in Is
rael on Sunday, April 15, 1951,
from 12:30-1:00 P. M., EST, ac
cording to an announcement by
The Jewish Theological Seminary
of America, under whose auspices
the program is conducted.
This Eternal Light drama,
which is considered unique in the
annals of international broad
casting, will observe the Passover
holiday, and is the first of a spe
cial series of three festival pro
grams prepared under the direc
tion of the Seminary and pro
duced by an Israeli staff in the
studios of Kol Zion, Jerusalem.
The Eternal Light audience in
America will hear the program in
English; while listeners in Israel
will hear the dramatization in
both English and Hebrew. Kol
Zi*on will also transmit the pro
gram, in translated versions, to
the Middle East, Europe and'
North Africa, via shortwave.
WASHINGTON—
It is possible for different reporters to report
varying versions of the same event. This reporter
is still astonished however, by the accounts pub
lished in the non-Jewish press of events which oc
curred at a press conference held at Washington’s
Willard Hotel by the Anti-Defamation League of
B’nai B’rith.
The conference was conducted by Judge Meier
Steinbrink, of New York, national chairman of the
ADL. He had just finished describing how “Amer
ica faces a twin enemy—danger from aggressive
Communism outside our shores and danger of ero
sion of our cherished freedoms from within.” Then,
from within the room, a voice began to heckle
Judge Steinbrink. It was the voice of Upton Close,
the radio commentator who has repeatedly been
exposed by the ADL.
Close had barged into the press conference. He
•availed himself of the ADL’s hospitality. He tried
to get reporters to listen to his criticisms of the
ADL. He even brought along his son.
Shouting that the ADL followed the Communist
line by accusing him of anti-Semitism, Close used
the Hitler line of attempting to equate Jews with
Communism in almost the same breath that he
complained Jews had deprived him of free speech.
He denied being anti-Semitic and said it was this
allegation which had cost him a number of radio
outlets. He said that ADL “called out their dogs to
hound” him off the air. v
Washington ADL Director Herman Edelsberg
told Close that he was '‘the victim of his own rec
ord.” When Close complained that the ADL had
refused to talk with him in the past, Judge Stein
brink invited him to make an appointment to dis
cuss any question at any time. Close continued to
bait the ADL. The ADL chairman then asked Close
and his son to cease their bickering and to leave
the room so that the press conference could con
tinue and the reporters could obtain the material
they came after. Close refused to leave but finally
did so when a move got under way to summon the
authorities.
Close, on his way out of the hotel lobby, deliver
ed a harangue to reporters on how the ADL fol
lowed the Moscow line by attacking such a great
JACKSONVILLE, FLORIDA, FRIDAY, APRIL 13, 1951
Hie ADL Fight Against Upton Close
Revealed by Milton Friedman
W. Palm Beach
Leader Heads
State U. I. T.
-BBi
N. C. Goldman, President of
the Seaboard Finance Company
of West Palm Beach, active civic
worker and prominent business
man, well-known in Ohio and
Florida for his devoted leadership
to numerous life-saving and re
habilitation projects both here
and abroad, has accepted the
Florida State Chairmanship for
the U. I. T., of which Professor
Albert Einstein is the President.
Professor Einstein in a personal
message to Mr. Goldman stated,
(Continued on Page 4)
anti-Communist as Upton Close. He insinuated
that Hitler was right in linking Jews arid Commu
nism. This reporter covered the entire affair.
The next day this reporter read published ac
counts which made him wonder if they concerned
the same events he had covered. The Denver Colo.,
“Post” editorially complained that Close was being
“persecuted” by Jews. The “Post” said, “If respon
sible Jewish leaders in the United States are wise,
they will put a stop to the threats of boycott and
discrimination that are being hurled by various
Jews and Jewish organizations against the radio
commentator Upton Close.”
“It is apparent,” the “Post” said, “that organized
Jewry is a pressure group.” The paper suggested
that “If one pressure group can accomplish such a
thing as that, who knows, somebody might take
similar action against a whole segment of our
population, such as the Jewish segment.”
Listed below are a number of items which the
accounts of Close’s “persecution” failed to include:
1. In a speech at Milwaukee, Wis., October 29,
1949, Close said: “Thirty million Americans of
German descent should arise united and fight the I
present administration and the B’nai B’rith and
Anti-Defamation League.”
2. In a speech at San Francisco, Close once
said: “The Anglophiles and the Jewish people on
the umbilical coast east of the Hudson River” were
being “taken for a ride in a taxicab of sympathy
for England or hatred for Hitler” and were involv*
ing the nation in World War 11.
3. In a Cleveland speech, Close raved about
“Communist control” of American Jewry.
4. In a Michigan speech, Close said “Marxists are
trying to smear all persons who are against them
by labeling them as anti-Semitic.”
5. In February, 1948, Close attacked the Zionists
as a “loud-mouthed, intolerant, persecuting, vio
lence-loving, dual-citizenship seeking group.”
6. Close has joined with Gerald L. K. Smith in
baiting Jews in public office, aiming at such per
sonalities as Judge Samuel Rosenman, Presidential
Assistant David K. Niles, Associate Supreme Court
Justice Felix Frankfurter, elder statesman Ber
nard Baruch, and so forth.
Jewish Judge Presides,
Jewish Attorney Prosecutes
Communist Spies
NEW YORK (AJP) —A major American daily newspaper last
week smashed the nervous silence of Jews and non-Jews on the
impact of the Jewish names in the atom bomb spy trials with a
powerful editorial defense of American Jewry, and hundreds of New
Yorkers applauded the newspaper's stand.
$300,000 Goal Is Set- For
Savannah Campaign
The sum of $300,000 has been
set as the goal of the 1951 cam
paign of the Savannah United
Jewish Appeal and Federation
by the Campaign Cabinet,
comprising the leaders of Sa
vannah Jewry.
This goal represents an in
crease of approximately 35%
over the sum of $220,000 rais
ed in 1951 by Savannah Jewry.
The sum represented by the
campaign goal is needed to fi
nance the work of approxi
mately forty agencies, institu
tions, and causes serving all
types of Jewish needs—in Sa
vannah, in the Southeast, na
tionally, and overseas.
The editorial was the first stand
by any large American publica
tion to bring the issue out into
the open.
The editorial, entitled "Orches
tra of eight million", appeared in
the New York Daily Mirror April
3rd, after a lengthy debate among
top executives.
The debate was not whether
the editorial defense should be
qsed but as to whether the tactic
was a wise one. As far as could
1 be learned, the idea for the edi
torial was worked out as an in
dependent effort by the Hearst
paper.
"We decided to run the editorial
as an answer to the whispering
campaign against American Jews
because of their Jewish names in
the atom espionage cases," Glenn
Neville, executive editor of the
daily told the American Jewish
Press. The paper has a daily
circulation of more than a million
readers.
The page-long editorial opened
with congratulations to “three
fine Americans of our city: Judge
Irving R. Kaufman, who presided
over the court which tried the
atom bomb spies; United States
Attorney Irving R. Saypol; and
his assistant Roy Cohn, who pros
ecuted and convicted those spies,
Julius Rosenberg, Ethel Rosen
berg, and Morton Sobell.
"Some bigots will say the three
spies are Jews and will denounce
all Jews." -the editorial said.
"They will forget to say that the
| judge, the prosecutor, and the
prosecutor's assistant who did
such a magnificent job for Amer
ica, are also Jews."
In boldfaced type, the editorial
continued:
"The unfairness of drawing
general conclusions from particu
lar instances, the indecency of
fixing a universal stereotype from
a bad type is here exemplified."
The editorial went on to say that
such judgments were like saying
that all Americans of Italian de
scent were like Frank Costello;
that all Anglo-Saxons were like
Alger Hiss; that all Irishmen
were like “Cockeye” Dunn, a
local mobster.
Bounding hard at -the.-theme,
the editorial said "there is no
logic in drawing false conclusions
from a minimum of facts.
“Who dares to say this Rosen
berg creature is typical of our
citizens of Jewish persuasion,
when against him can be pitted
millions of Americans such as
Bernard Baruch, Bernard Gimbel,
Isidore Strauss, Barney Balaban,
Admiral Strauss, Chaplain Joshua
Goldberg, Rudolph Halley and so
many others who come so quick
ly to mind?”
The editorial said that it was
raising "this very sensitive ques
(Continued on Page 5)
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