Poge Two
Editorial topics
publisher's repori
'^HIS issue of the Bulletin ahnost didn't get printed due to the scheduled sifike of composing room employees in some 20 print-shops in Vancouver, including the Bulletin printshop. The strike was diie to begin on Monday morning but was called off, at the last minute. We were considering going back to the mimeograph machine for this issue but of course we're happy we didn't have to do it.
However the fact that the strike did not take place does not mean that the end result will be different. The printers will now be getting a substantial wage increase which will once again bring up the cost of publishing the Bylletin.
A year ago, due to rising costs in other departments, as well as efforts to produce a better paper and provide better service, we were obliged to raise our subscription rate.
We are now pleased to rejport that the circulation of the Bulletin has continued to grow and niany new subscribers have been enrollec in the past year. Our annual circulation report is now being issued together with a new advertising rate card. The report shows that since the last rate card was issued two years ago the Bulletin's paid circulation has grown by more than 25 percent.
Our community continues to grow and the Bulletin grows with it. Four out of every five Jewish families in B.C. are Bulletin subscribers and over 85 percent of the total distribution of the paper goes to paying subscribers.
Despite its steady growth our community is still a small one compared to the Jewish communities of other large cities. The growth of the paper keeps pace with, but is also limited by, the growth of the community. For this reason the per capita cost of producing a Jewish paper here is much higher than in other cities.
Because of the new increase'in the cost of printing which is about to come our way we will now be obliged to make some small upward^ adjustment in our advertising rates. ^
We are confident that we can rely on the continued support of our advertisers and subscribers,' and all our readres. Any advertiser or prospective advertiser is of .course welcome to a copy of our annual circulation report.
The importance of trees
By DAVID BEN GURION (On the occasion of Jewish Arbor Day, or as it is popularly known ^ Tu b'Shvat, which, this year, falls on January 17 and which is widely observed fluroughout Che Jewish world as a day on wliich to iriant frees in Israel, we herewith, reprint a significant statement by David Ben Gurion, Israel's Prime Minister, on the importance of trees for the Jewish State.)
WE must plant hundreds of thousands of trees covering an area of five million dUnams, one quarter of the surface of our country; we must cover the mountains and the uncultivable land, the hills and the sand dunes, the barren plains of the Negev—all the land of Edom and of the Arava, as far as Eilat. We must plant these trees for many reasons, not least for security, all along our frontiers, our highways and roads, around public buildings and military installations.
The mountains of our country still stand naked and pray for the hand of the planter to restore their pristine woods and forests. . . . We are under no obligation to accept the heritage of desolation from the p&st, for it is within our power to afforest the waste, to fertilize the sand dunes, to dig wells, to exploit the hidden resources, to build and to revive the dust of the earth, to redeem its minerals and natural treasures—indeed, this is the true conquest of the land; this indeed is the great mission which the Jewish National Fund is called upon to undertake in our own day.
JEWISH WESTERN BULLETIN
It
Friday, January 18, 195/
Spedal events Series opens Monday at UBC Hillel House
"Special Events" week, HiUel Foundation's annual cultural series at UBC wiU feature five prominent speakers on this year's program.
On Monday, January 21, Pro. Stanley E. Read, Faculty of English, will discuss "The Influence of' the Bible in English Literature."
On Tuesday, January 22, Maurice Leznoff, Department of Sociology, will speak on "Ghettoism in North America."
On Wednesday, January 23, Dr. Harry Stein, Professor of Educational Psychology, will talk on "The Factor of Religion in Personality Growth."
On Thursday, January 24, Rabbi Solomon Maimon, of the Sephardic Bikur Cholem Congregation in Seattle will discuss "Is the Torah Alive for Today?**
On Friday, January 25, Cantor Ab-rahani Detitsch, of Congregation Beth Israel, will present isel^ctidn of Jev^-ish liturgical and fblk niiisic. dom-inentary will be by Lariy iBLotenbei-g.
Chairman for this year's "Spedal
Events" week is Henrietta "Cookie' Diestel. All events will take place at Hillel House at 12:30 p.m.
Tzedeck
Schara
How we should envision the Ten Copimandments as being written down oii the twin Tablets is the question to be discussed by Rabbi Goldenberg at the Schara Tzedeck Eve Service this Friday, January 18, at 8:30 p.m.
The discussion will take place in the auditorium at the Oneg Shabbat which ifoUows the late Service.
The Friday night liturgical service will be chanted by Rev. W. Shuster assisted by choir director Harry Toft. The iSchara Tzedeck • choir is composed of: Fred Toft, Harry (Jsovsky, Joel Aitman, Leon Bogner, Mark Waldman, Stanley Levy, Martin Lip-sky, Moshe Gold, Malcolm Weinstein. kiddush will be recited by David Goldenberg and the Sedrah will be given by Melvin Schloss.
Schara Tzedeck hosts one-day conference
Congregation Schara Tzedeck and Rabbi and Mrs.. Bernard Goldenberg will be hosts to the sessions and dinner meetings of the one day Conference of th^ Rabbinical Council of America Northwest Region which will take place in Vancouver Thursday, January 24.
Attending the sessions will be the members of the Rabbinical Council of America from Seattle, Tacoma and the Army base at Fort Lewis, Washington. Seminars on Congregational work, self-study, and research in Jewish Lav/ and Philosophy will make up the bulk of the Conference-proceedings.
Israel Foreign Ministry director visits Europe
LONDON (WJA)—Areih Shel, Director of the East European Division of the Israel Foreign Ministry, has arrived in Europe for a visit of Hungary and Poland. He carries with him 10 kg. of penicillin and streptomycin, a gift from the Israel medical association to the sick and wounded in Hungary.
Editor^ view
A. T. Arnold
Beiri0ii|ii0 the agenda for the Jewish comEBiunity
WARNING OF NEW JEWISH DP PROBLEM^ WITH HUNGARY JEWS
LONDON (WJA)—A warning that a "new Jewish DP problem may arise in Austria" within a matter of months is given in a report to the World Jewish Congress Executive Committee by Dr. S. Roth, European Executive Secretary of the World Jewish Congress, who has just returned from a visit to Austria.
Dr. Roth disclosed that recent arrivals from Hungary in Austria included as many as thirty per cent of Jews, although Jews formed not more than one per cent of Hungary's total population. Up to the beginning of January, at least 16,000 Jewish refugees from Hungary had crossed the frontier into Austria—about one tenth of all the Hungarians v/ho escaped from the country since the revolution.
About 5,000 of the Jewish refugees have already left Austria, Dr. Roth
told the Executive Committee of the World Jewish Congress. One thousand of them have emigrated to Israel 2,000 to the United States, 800 to Canada, 200 to Australia and abou: 1,000 to various West European countries. In spite of efforts on the part of the Jewish Agency and HIAS to accelerate departures, emigration possibilities to countries other than Israel are now gradually becoming exhausted or emigration froni Austria is being slowed down owing to absorption difficulties in receiving countries.
"It is to be feared," Dr. Roth said, "that in six months or so we may be faced with a new problem of Jewish
displaced persons, which may be aggravated if the influx of escapees from Hungary into Austria continues. The same issue would arise with regard to non-Jewish refugees.
THE JEWISH WESTERN BULLETIN
Pubhshed Weekly Every Friday at 2675 Oak Street, Vancouver 9, B.C.
ABRAHAM J. ARNOLD, Publisher and Editor BERTHA ARNOLD, Advertising and Circulotion
Official Organ of the Jewish Community Council of Vancouver
DR. J. V. WHITE, President MORRIS SALTZMAN, PublieaKcn Chairmen LOUIS ZIMMERMAN, Executive Director
PHONES: Bulletin Office, BA. 3125; Evenings, BA. 3098 Cohiniunity Centre Office, CE. 1168
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Business Hours: 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., except Saturdays, Jewish and Legal Holidays. Authorized Second Class Mall, Post Office Dept., Ottawa
FRIDAY, JANUARY 18, 1957 Candle-lighting Time Sabbath Eve., January 18, 4:27; Jonuory 25, 4:38
THIS| is the time of year when some of our major ady known as "closed corporation." To cure this organizations are holding their annual meetings condition the oft-tried method of "grin and bear it" and either electing, or installing, their executives for or "voting with your feet" must be replaced by a the coming year. solid determination to break through.
Vancouver Lodge B'nal B'riih will install its new Lack of membership interest on the one hand, or executive and begin its activities for 1957 with an "closed corporation" on the other, are merely the unusually fme program this Sunday evening at- the extremes of community problems, and one often Schara Tzedeck Synagogue. gives rise to the other. But if some^ of the more
On Monday evening the Zionist Organization, tangible questions get the attention and considera-Pacific Region, will hold its annual meeting and elec- tion they deserve then we will surely find a natural tibn of officers at the Centre, with a special report tendency towards the easement of extreme situations, on Camp Hatikvah expansion plans; REFUGEES FROM HUNGARY
Next Wednesday the local supporters of the His- A yery immediate problem facing our commun-tadrut, variously known as the Labor Zionist organ- ity is the reception of Jewish refugees from Hun-ization or Canadian Association for Labor Israel, gary. The housing committee of National Council will be holding their annual meeting. They will be of Jewish Women reports difficulty in getting tem-in the fortunate position of having with them for porary home hospitality for these people. However that occasion the new national head of the Labor the numbers of Jews arriving in our midst are not Zionist movement in Canada, Mr. I. M. Bobrove of so great that they should present much of a problem. Montreal. The Labor Zionists have also been con- We are only being called upon to help a very small
cerning themselves with camp problems recently since proportion of the total numljer of Hungarian re-the Habonim purchase of the Galiano Island camp- fugees arriving in Vancouver, site. Having acquitted ourselves so nobly on every oc-
STILL HOPE FOR CENTRE SITE casion in the past when we were asked to welcome
The Jewish Community Council is planning for Jewish immigrants, surely with the larger and more
its annual meeting in February, a highlight of which established community that we have here today we
is bound to be the new developments in Centre pro- can easily do so once again, gramming. It' is also hoped that there may yet be , YOUTH ACnVITIES
some positive development with regard to a new Another current issue of importance is the youth
Centre site by that time. activities situation. It seems that all Organizations
All our synagogues have installed their new ex- have been rapidly expanding their youth programs
ecutives in recent weeks and the Beth Israel and this season, which generally speaking is all to the
Schara Tzedeck are in the midst of energetic pro- good. ttoWever in at least one area, that of the
gram effprts most of which are centred around youth teen-agers, some overlapping appears to be develop-
and educational activities. ing.
On the Jewish educational front we also have a Canadian Jewish Congress which conducted a
new executive in the Peretz School busy making youth survey here a couple of years ago and now
jlans for a more active program. The Tahnud Torah helps to make possible expanded program activities
as well continues its flourishing activities, although at the Centre is considering the calling of a confer-
we have not had'any word from them recently at ence of representatives of all youth serving agencies
he executive level. to consider ways and means of coordinating their
All this is by way of introduction to a review of activities in this area,
vital issues facing our local Jewish community with THE CENTENARY
which all groups'should be concerned. ' Another question which should move to a top
PROBLEM OF PARTICIPATION place on* the agenda of every organization this year The first issue which every organization faces is . is that of participation in the B.C. Centennial cele-
he problem of membership, or stated another way, brations in 1958. The fact that the Centenary of
he question of degree of interest and concern shown the Jewish Community in B.C. coincides with the
by the people of the community with the variety of centenary of thfe Province gives a double reason for
vital problems facing the Jewish community.
One of the oft-heard criticism of our time is that we are living in an era of check-book Judaism. It is probably true that; there are too many individuals
celebration.
This is not just a project for the Jewish Centenary committee but for each and every Jewish organization. Representatives of the Centenary Committee
in the modern Jewish community who believe that plan to hold discussions with every organization on hey can meet all their responsibilities as Jews mere- their part in the various projects to be undertaken.
y by signing a check.
ftnancial contributions are important, but it takes jeople dedicated to constructive purposes in Jewish fe to make those contributions do the job for which hey are intended.
These are only a few of the vital issues on the agenda of our community today. We have not touched on every problem by any means, nor have we mentioned every organization. In the coming weeks we shall consider in greater detail some of
Every organization needs new blood in its leader- r these questions and others, as weU as the organiza-ship and a more active membership and this is the tions, institutions and areas of the.community in time of the year when future prospects are being which these issues have to be tackled, sought out or should make themselves known. In the meantime our letter column is always open
Of course there are undoubtedly some groups here to comments and opinions on current community
matters.
as elsewhere suffering froi
_____ *u,
organizational mai-