The Southern Jewish weekly. [volume], July 03, 1953, Image 1

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

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THE OLDEST AND MOST WIDELY CIRCULATED JEWISH PUBLICATION IN THIS TERRITORY
VOL 30 NO. 24
PLAIN TALK
BY ALFRED SEGAL
WANTED: JOBS FOR
CANTORS
I have a communication from
Mrs. Dorothy Millstone at 40 W.
68th St., New York, which tells
me that Reform Judaism has gone
in for production of cantors. This
is rather gratifying to know, for
the impression is that cantors
generally are outlawed, you might
say, from the altars of Reform
temples.
The education of cantors has
been taken up by none other than
the Hebrew Union College-Jew
ish Institute of Religion of Cin
cinnati and New York which for
some 75 years has been bringing
up only Reform rabbis. (Mrs.
Millstone is of the public rela
tions department of HUC-JIR.)
The cantorial annex of this
rabbinical seminary is known as
the School of Sacred Music and
is situated in New York. Recently
this school graduated 9 cantors.
They became Bachelors of Sacred
Music, besides.
I hope they can all get jobs in
Reform temples whose rather
chilly atmosphere could stand the
Judaistic warmth that is in a
cantor’s voice. Very few of the
temples employ cantors; a lot of
them have Gentile singers sing
ing to God for the congregation.
I don’t object: It seems to me fit
ting to the brotherhood of man
that the voice of a Christian tenor
in the temple sings En Kelohenu
with my own heart.
(Tim Sullivan who was Catho
lic tenor at St. Peter's also, long
ago sang the Sh'ma in our tem
ple; I could know Tim as a bro
ther in the human race when I
heard him singing this assertion
of the One God in our holy
house.)
But then, out of my own Ortho
dox beginnings, I do cherish the
voices of cantors; they sang with
the voice of thunder and light
ning out of Sinai.
Long ago, in our town, both our
temples employed cantors—Can
tor Goldstein and Cantor Wein
stock. At times Tim Sullivan, up
in the choir loft, joined in the
singing with Weinstock on that
altar. There seemed no incon
gruity. Cantor Goldstein died and
Cantor Weinstock went on to
New York to sing.
After that the services in our
temples never seemed the same
to ears attuned to the old chant.
The rabbis then were reading the
service, but their reading could
be no substitute for the cantors
singing these prayers. Something
was missing; something like a sob
was gone out of them. Grand old
Tim Sullivan wasn’t like Gold
stein and Weinstock whose voices
sounded like emanations out of
our majestic history.
Some unkind critics have tried
to tell me the reason why Reform
congregations haven't wanted
cantors to sing to them . . . It's
on account of rabbis that cantors
(Continued on Page 4)
Flax Growing In Israel
Proves Successful
TIBERIAS, (IIP) Flax grow
ing in Israel, first tried experi
mentally in 1951 has proven more
successful than even the most op
timistic experts have dared to
hope, it was disclosed this week
in the figures of total harvest
crop for 1953.
Starting in 1951 a total of 180
dunams were sown (45 acres);
these yielded an average of 180
kilograms per dunam. 1952 saw
an expansion to 3,400 dunams and
with the experiences of the year
before fresh in mind, many mis
takes were avoided with a result
ant upping of the average yield
per dunam to 250 kilograms. This
year 7,000 dunams were sown and
the average yield per dunam was
boosted to 350 kilograms.
Jewish Broadcast
Slated for Sunday
“Words We Live By,” the Eter
nal Light radio program’s sum
mer series, will present the first
of 10 dialogues between two of
America’s outstanding men of
letters, prominent author Maurice
Samuel, and Mark Van Doren,
Professor of English at Columbia
University, on Sunday, July sth
from 12:30 to 1 P. M., EDST, on
a coast-to-coast network of the
National Broadcasting Company.
The program is conducted under
the auspices of The Jewish Theo
logical Seminary of America.
THE FOLHTH OF JULY
BY DAVID SCHWARTZ
(Copyright, 1953, Jewish Telegraphic Agency Inc.)
*** * * *
The Fourth of July is a day to shoot off fire
crackers. It is a day for Liberty.
Three thousand years ago, a man came knock
ing at the door of the Pharoah of Egypt. “What do
you want?” asked Pharoah. “I want liberty for
the Hebrew slaves,” said the man who was named
Moses. All men are created equal, he said. Phar
oah was incensed. “Go away,” he said, “if you
don’t. I’ll have Senator McCarthy summon you.
I think you are a subversive.”
Three thousand years later at Philadelphia, a
tall red-headed man got up and read a Declaration
about all men being created equal, and then the
Liberty Bell rang out ding-dong, ding-dong, till
the whole city of Philadelphia was full of the peel
ing bells. On the Liberty Bell was written the
words, “Proclaim liberty unto all the land and
unto all the inhabitants thereof,” the words used
by Moses three thousand years before.
We Jews have a lot of experience with liberty,
most of the time of a negative sort, because we
were denied it so often. Maybe that was why we
cherished it. Our law givers so prized liberty that
they ordered that a man who willingly consented
to be enslaved, should have his ears pierced. *■
But our record, let us not delude ourselves, is
far from perfect. Jeremiah attributed the loss of
the Jewish nationhood to its denial of liberty. He
speaks of God as saying to the Jews, “because ye
have denied liberty one to another, therefore i
give unto you liberty to the sword, to the pesti
lence, to famine.”
On the eve of the Civil War, Wendell Phillips
took this passage of Jeremiah as a text for his
speech. It was terribly appropriate. Because in
JACKSONVILLE, FLORIDA, JULY 3, 1953
Fights For
Jewish Rights
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DR. ISAAC LEWIN
A five-year battle to advance
Jewish rights through the United
Nations, has been compiled by Dr.
Isaac Lewin, Professor of Jewish
History at Yeshiva University, in
his book “Religious Jewry and the
United Nations” recently publish
ed by the Research Institute for
Post-War Problems of Religious
Jewry.
Dr. Lewin, who has represented
the Agudas Israel World Organi
zation at the U. N.’s Economic
and Social Council since 1948,
poignantly outlines the effort to
defend Jewish rights through the
U. N. charter by tackling such
Questions as freedom of religious
observance, Jewish war orphans,
(Continued on Page 4)
America liberty had been denied to one segment
of the population, all of America was to have “lib
erty to the sword, to the pestilence and to famine”
And they did for four years!
Liberty is not just a pretty word. Without it,
the people perish. Samuel Adams, “father” of the
American Revolution, once said that a lot of
people, on using the word liberty, think of it only
in terms of themselves. It’s that way today. I
have no doubt, for instance that Senator McCarthy
firmly believes that he is strongly devoted to lib
erty. He is ready to grant full liberty of speech to
anyone who agrees with him. He is willing to
grant anyone full liberty to denounce those with
whom he does not agree.
Senator McCarran, too, is a strong champion of
liberty, no doubt. Not only is he so out of personal
conviction, but it must be remembered that he
represents the great liberty loving state of Nevada.
Nowhere is there more liberty to let the chips fly
than in Nevada, but Senator McCarran is a bit
skeptical of other types of liberty. He has notice
ably clipped the wings of the Goddess of Liberty
in the harbor of the city of New York. If liberty
does not mean equality, it means nothing, but the
McCarran Law discriminates against those de
siring to enter the country.
I passed by the statute of the Goddess of Lib
erty the other day. I wondered what the “old gal”
with the torch was thinking about in these terms.
I think I know what Jefferson would say. He
was no book burner. He spent all of his ready
cash buying books and had the largest private li
brary of books in America. When Congress passed
the Alien and Sedition laws, he said, like Einstein
today, ’ “they should no more be obeyed than if
Congress had ordered the people to bow down
before images.”
AUSTRIA ACTS TO MEET JEWISH
DEMAND ON COMPENSATION
VIENNA, (JTA) The Austrian Government moved last week
in the direction of fullfilling one of the major demands made by
the delegation representing major world Jewish groups.
The Cabinet accepted the draft
of two measures which would ex
tend restitution and compensation
benefits to former Austrian Jews
now living abroad. The measures,
which some believe may mean
payment of as much as 1,000,000,-
000 schillings ($40,000,000) to the
Jews abroad, provide:
1. Compensation will be 'paid
and pensions will be restored to
former Austrian officials or their
heirs who no longer have Austri
an citizenship and have not yet
received rehabilitative assistance.
2. The Eighth Compensation
Law will be amended to extend
payments under the act to those
who were persecuted on racial
and religious grounds and who
up to 1938 were Austrian citizens
but are no lopger citizens.
Formal negotiation on the basis
of detailed claims submitted by
the Jewish committee to the Au
strian Government, between Au
strian Government and Jewish
experts got under way last week.
It was soon apparent, however,
that major differences had de
veloped in the two viewpoints
over the question of heir less Jew
ish property.
Austrian officials refused to
recognize the Jewish demand for
a lump sum payment for this
property and asserted that the
Jewish demand was not in line
with the real value of the prop
erties concerned.
Split on Issue of Heirless
Property
According to one report here,
the Jewish delegation asked pay
ment of one billion schillings as
a lump sum settlement for heir
less Jewish property. The Austri
ans were said to have termed this
demand “grossly exaggerated”
and to have rated the property
at no more than forty million
schillings. Finance Minister Rich
ard Kamitz was quoted as offer
ing to turn the property over to
the Jews rather than make a
lump sum settlement.
Ai sessions here this week, the
Jewish experts raised the issue of
compensation for 95,000 Austrian
Jews now living abroad, as well
as for 12,000 Jews still domiciled
in Austria, and declared they had
not been properly compensated
for losses they suffered under the
Nazi regime in Austria. They
pointed out, as an example, that
Austrian Jews now residing in
the United States or in Israel
have received no compensation at
all for unjustified imprisonment
by the Nazis. They also demand
ed that the Austrian Government
should aid Jewish refugees who
lost their homes in Austria.
At a reception for Adolph Held,
chairman of the American Jewish
Labor Committee, who is a mem
ber of the Jewish - reparations
delegation, Austrian Vice-Chan
cellor Adolph Schaerf, Socialist
leader emphasized that the So
cialist Party of Austria, one of
the two government parties, will
strongly support in Parliament
passage of a law providing repa
rations payments for Jewish vic
tims of Nazism. However, he add
ed that with regard to heirless
Jewish property, the matter de
pends largely upon Austria’s fi
nancial ability to pay. The recep
tion for Mr. Held was given by
the Austrian Socialist Party.
(The Manchester Guardian, a
leading British newspaper, re
ported from Vienna that the Au
strian-Jewish reparations negotia
tions "are likely to prove long
and difficult owing to sharp di
vergencies over fundamental
questions." The report said that
the Austrian officials take the
view that when heirless property
can be proved to be Jewish, it
should be used for the benefit of
the small Jewish communities in
Austria and under no circum
stances for the benefit of Israel
or of Jewish groups outside Au- %
stria.)
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