Page Two
JEWISH WESTERN BULLETIN
Friday, August 23,
Cause without parallel
Although it will have some very charming hostesses, a most fashionable setting and thT:^ autumn's latest wardrobe styles complemented by glamorous m^de^-S, for all its accoutrements the Medical Aid to Israel tea this Wednesday is no run-of-the-mill social. Its history, for one thing, antedates the State of Israel by five years.
It was during the Second \Vorld War Avhen wounded and sick Allied soldiers, casualties :f the NorHh African fighting, were brouL ht to the Holy Land f :.r treatment. The Jewish community of Palestine had placed all of its resources behind the Allied cause and the "Red Mogen David" (the Jewish equivalent of the Red Cros.^), facing severe shortages, appealed to the Jewish cmmunities abroad for help.
Jewish women everywhere replied with traditicnal sympathetic Jewish response. Everywhere, they went into fund-raising ''action" organizing s:cials, tea^ and luncheons for tihe cause. Here in Vancouver the wives of seven doctrs, one dentist a n d a pharmacist volunteered to be hostesses at a tea held at the home of Dr. and Mrs. Morris. The sum raised was close to 8300.
From this somewhat modest beginning, hrwever. there began an impresive succession of achievements. When in 1947 an ambulance was requested, the Medical Aid tea answ^ered the call. When the Jewish State became a realty and t?he Yishuv could not cope with the
medical needs of hundreds of thousands of new refugees flowing mto the country, the ladies he.ped provide medical supplies, drugs and equipment. When a polio epidemic struck the country, and Saraland was turned mto a rehabilitation centre, the ladies provided funds for a hydrotherapy pool and therapy room, and in addition supplied a station wagon to transport patients to and from the centre for treatment. When assistance was needed for 'he Col. David Marcus blood fractioniza-tion plant, the ladies sent their gifts iz help produce Gamma Globulin, preventative oi severe paralysis after polio and serum albumen, for treatment of burns and shock. Then, when Jonas Salk discovered the vaccine thai would bring an end to the dreaded polio, Israel undertook the production of the vaccine and the ladies again helped. And more recently, when Israelis turned their attention to the development of the Negev, and the frmtier city of Eilat needed X-ray equipment for its hospital, they received it, and more too for improvement of the hospital's maternity and surgical departments.
This year, proceeds of the Medical Aid to Israel Tea will be used to help establish ? Foundation Fund at the Hebrew University's department of cancer research. It is a cause with such universal scope, particularly if you consider the benefits in the 6vent of a breakthrough, that it is in a category without parallel.
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THE CRY
The Papal play
A highly controversial play accusing the late Pope Pius XII of not speaking out against the Nazi annihilation of the Jews is going to have a much larger audience than v.'as first expected, for it appears now that the best-selling West German literary work "The Deputy," by Rolf Hochhuth, will be presented on Broadw'ay this season. As reported in the National Jewish Post and Opinion in a front-page article Augu.-it 16, it will also be performed in London, Stockholm, Tel Aviv, Milan, Vienna, the Hague and Paris and in other cities of Norway, Finland, Denmark and \Vci:;t Germany. In addition, the film rights have been purchased and it is expected that a major movie will be produced based on the play.
iCie writer is not aware that a translation c! "The Deputy" from the original German has as yet been published. In any even:, its appearance in Berlin and its projected wider dissemination mentioned above have already been the cause for much i.l feeling and soul-searching. For having been ir.esented in its origina' setting it has already received wide critical atteniicn in the world press. Its universal presentation cn stage and screen can now serve only to arouse heated passions among both Catholii-s and Jews.
The Jewish Post's article anticipates that conflict over the play will centre on the portra} al of Pope Pius whidh intimates "that the Pope's motives for not issuing a statement against Hitler's 'final solution' were: 1. he was a coward; 2. he didn't want to interfere with any faction fighting Communism, which he feared more than Nazism; and 3. he was worried about the value of his Hungarian railroad stock. (This outraged the German Catholics perhaps more than anything else.) At the time \\ihen the hero/a young priest, implores the Pontiff to condemn Hitler's action, he shakes off his pleas to di.-cuss .stocks and bonds." The play'con-ti-asts the Pope's inaction wih the martyrdom cf the young Jesuit priest rFather Ric-ardo Fontana) v;ho pinned the ]\Iagen David to his cassock and chose to be deported from Rome to the gas chambers of Auschwitz.
A critici^■m of the nlay together with a reply by Author Hochhuth was reprinted f'^rlier by the Vancouver Sun in a transla-tit-.n from Die "Welt of Hamburg.
This critic-ism in itself is uni(iuc since ir \v.i< written by one of the characters mentioned in the play. Albrecbt von KesseL wi-o w:;^ the stalY of Ernest v^n Weizacker, German 'inibassador to tlie Vatican, dni'ing
the war. Von Kessel declares that in September, 1943, when German paratroopers occupied Rome, both he and his clhief, von Weizacker, vainly tried to warn the Jews of Rome of their pending doom. Then he also defends Pope Pius by declaring that by September. 1943 the idea of kidnapping the Pope and transporting him to Germany had entered Hitler's calculations. "We had specific in formation that if the Pope had resisted there was the possibility that he would be "shot while attempting to escape."
Von Kessel then comes to the crucial argument on which Author Hochhuth centres his play: "Finally, all of us — that is to say all members of the German embassy at the Vatican — agreed on one point — No matter what our other difference'^ may have been, we were convinced that a fiery protest by Pius XII against t'he persecution of the Jews would in all probabi ity put hoth the Pope himself and the Curia in the greatest danger and at that late date—namely in the fall of 1943—would not have saved the life of a single Jew. Hitler, like a trapped beast, would react to any menace that he felt directed at him v/ith proportionate violence."
Author Hochhuth does not agree. Replying in Die Welt he charges that the Pope made no protest to Hitler even as late as 1944 (the Allies had already re-taken Rome by that time) when he learned that 380,000 Hungarians had been deported to feed the gas chambers of Auschwitz which were working overtime. "Surely at this point Hitler could not have made a martyr of the Pope even if he had wanted to," Hochhuth said. The author declares that many Jews would have hidden or fled for their lives and that many more Christians would have helped had they been urged to do so by the Pope. "They did have faith in the Vatican radio and in the Pope, the great neutral . . . and by Julv, 1942 he did know that in Poland alone 700,-000 people had perished . . . and . . . not once did Pope Pius XII warn them, though the Vvestern allies often urged him to use his authority." He concludes: "The fact remains: if one takes one's religion seriously, if one measures the sincerity of the Church by the c'aim it makes, the silence cf the Pope was a crime."
Rising to the defence cf the late Pope, j the associate editor of the Catholic oeriodical f "America," the Rev. Robert A. Graham calls ' tl^e play a typical German anti-clerical play. [ "This author (a Frotestant) doesn't deny |
See THE PAPAL PLAY (Conlinued on Page 3)
The Bulletin is proud to present the eighth in a new fea' for its readers—a Jewish scholar's translation into contempo language of the First Book of Psalms. Rabbi Gershon Hadas, translated into current English the traditional Jewish daily pr book for the Rabbinical Association of America, in 1962, lab long and hard to produce this new text of the familiar, beld .Psalms.
A Psalm of DcsvEd
For the Choirmaster With instrumental accompaniment
N NEW TRANSLATION BY RABBI GERSHON HA
Help, Lord! Piety has gone from the world; The faithful have vanished from among men.
Men mouth to one another empty words, Flattering in speech, their hearts are false.
May the Lord destroy flattering lips And tongues glib with boasting pride.
They say: We gain power with our tongue; Our lips are our own; who is Lord over us?
Because of the poor and the oppressed, Because of the bitter cry of the helpless,
I shall bestir myself, says the Lord; I shall save them from their tormentors.
The promises of the Lord are like silver, . Melted in a crucible and refined sevenfold.
You will watch over the righteous, O Lord, And preserve us from this evil generation.
The wicked strut about us everywhere Because vileness is exalted among men.
"Economic crimes" continuing
LONDON
ches report Odessa for
— Moscow dispat-the sentencing in
economic crimes of two more Soviet citizens with names that eem to be Jewish Kunyansky and Melamud. The to convicted men were ordered shot and their property confiscated.
Ml protests
matzoli conviciions
WASHINGTON—In a letter of protest to Soviet Ambassador Anatoly F. Dobrynin, Label A. Katz, B'nai B'rith president, called on the Soviets to review the case of four Moscow Jews convicted of baking and selling matzohs. He asked for corrective action on behalf of the accused.
JEWISH CALENDAR (LUAC
Candle Lighting
AUGUST 23 - 7:45
AUGUST 30 - 7:40
1963 5723 Tisha B'av July
Rosh Hashana Sep
Yom Kippur Sep Succoth Oc
Simchat Torah Oct.
AU holidays Degin on preceding evening.
indorsations Grant
Habonim Campaign ........Sept. 1:
Richmond C. C.
Tv-i^r,rivke Night .............. Sept.
NCJW Fashion Show ........ Sept
JCC Women's Dance ........ Sept.
Had. L. Freiman Yiskor
Tea ........................................ Sept.
Richmond C.C.
Yom Kinnur Dance ........ Sept.
Gordonia Yiskor Tea ............Sept.
NCJW Opening Lunch ........Oct.
Home for Aged Ladies
Aux. Succoth Tea ............ Oct.
Mizzrachi Yiskor Tea ..........Oct.
Centre Women Dine ...........Oct.
Hadassah Ann. Bazaar ......Oct.22
Habonim Mother's Tea ........Oct.
The Jewish Western Bulletin
Official Organ of the Vancouver Jewish Community Council
Friday, August 23. 1963
Published weekly every Frida/ at 950 West 41st Ave., Vancouv*.r 13, British Columbia.
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WILLIAM GELMON
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