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THE JEWISH WESTERN BULLETIN
Friday, November 14, 1947
The Jewish Western Bulletin
Offidal Organ ctf the Vancouver Jewish Administrative Council Morris Sapltznian - - Chairman, Jewish Western Bulletin
Philip SliJEiffer.........- Editor
Buth Toubman.....- - - Society Editor
Published Weekly Every Friday at 2675 Oak Street - - CEdar 6011 Business Hours: & ajn. to 5 p.m., except Saturday and~ Jewish Holy Days.
I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors, and I shall adopt new views as fast as they shall appear to be true.
—A- rdham Lincoln, Entered as Second Class Mail Matter at Ottawa.
VAKfCC^tJVEB, B.C., CANADA, FRTOAY, NOV. 14, 1947
By Charldrtte Weber
. —WASHINGTON—
liavel, they say, is broadening. And just that—travel—seems to have been strikingly eflfective in widening the perspective of a TiUEober of good Ckwigressional minds.
So many leaders of Congress took off for Europe on one junket or another this summer that it became almost a national joke. Various expeditions took so many ' Senators and Representatives abroad that one " of them was prompted to remaric, "at one time we could have called a quorum over there!"
How mufdi good the travelling has done in revealing to Congressional leaders the tremendous urgency of certain problems facing Europe and the world will only show when the final vote Is cast on le^slatioa. afftcting-those problems, of couze. But at present, certain, expresa<ms of opinion sepm. to'Indicate that many a Con-. gresacmal ,ey^ was(o^^ jaunt through the war-torn coun- • tries of,Europe.
Bepublican Congressman Frank ill. Chelf of Kentudky, for instance, a member of the House Imnugration Subcommittee • ac • comftanied a thr^man subcommittee the aiuse^^^ fairs . Cbn)imi(t^ - :*P Europe ^ to study ti^;;(l^ldw^ii p , blem. R^tUMdng ;to Chelf immet^ a p^s
conference, .to'pleadterciblt urgency ^.0a}f now iaang''^ya^^.
He blem be
Nations .......^
or this^Ottp|ti^-;^iif,it_ that ^;pl|y|i^rifc^ 1^ among J^^ couht[{^ on a-ilOTi^iata ■i>aBJk'i3be shouId.,l{asp.-act a Jewi^
wee^
futiire ofj;^ie§e .peRg.les, he aid, adding,iUiatjrhe
nitel;^'' ..faiijpr a.,^:|!ecijal ^e^n^ of Cbng^o^-.'if' .liec^^ssary Jt9,\.,9f^te le^kuition to admit tt^ XJ/S. shure.
In his rei>ort, Chelf tells of visi-' ting a camp at. Eschwege, near Kassd, Germany, housing some 4,5()0 Jewish DP's. He visited it on the day the refugees were staging a sympathy strike in retaliation for British action in returning the 4,400 Exodus Jews to Bambiug. Although no one was working and even the boys and ghrls were not at'School he saw; no real xmrest in the camp, Chelf said. Describing the life at the camp, Chelf says that he "discovered" a 300 acre farm which had been reclaimed from an old airbase. On the' farm 225 boys and girls of 14 to 20 were learning to "get back to the soil," he said. They raised chickens, cows, pigs, wheat, hay and oats and the produce they raised was bartered to the Germans to obtain enough food and clothing to support the Jewish people making the ■ "imdergroimd" trip to* Palestine. Some 893 from the camp had made the trip to the Holy Land in the past year, he was told, but 61 of them had been forced to return on the Exodus.
"The young Jewish overseer, aged 22 years, was married and his wife and young child were already in Palestine," Chdf reported. "He said he hoped to join them there soon. Ke told me quite frankly that in order to help supply the Jewish people with sufifi-ciraxt . food to make tlie trek through the medium of the underground to Palestine, he bartered and trade with the German farmers in^ the community.
"I was impressed by the fact that uahabitants of the Eschwege camp excepted nothing from the farm in the way of foodstuffs, be-. cause the farm's operation was niore or less held as 'sacred' in -^t it se&ofiM to be the means : wherein and whereby the trip to ttee iproims^ of Palestine was i :^ksvided," he said. "Althou^ the vyjiung Jewidx farm overseer did ;npt;;^y so, I .am convinced that ^itoei&Jin was the mmis of getting his yoimg wife and baby to Palestine and woiild eventually be his *jpaissporf also."
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Into Tel Aviv Police Station
JERUSAIiEM (WNS)—A gang of men/ believed to be members, of the Irgun Zvai Ceumi, stormed Td Aviv's police station. and released two Jewish youths who had been • arrested on diarges of defacing^ street signs. -
The twenty raiders, according to the police, carried automatic weapons. Before fleeing they seized , police papers and a quantity of arms.
Meanwhile it was reported that an agreement to end hostilities had. been reached" ■ betweCTu Hagfinah and Irgun Zvai Leumi. Howeyerj . a number of minor skirmishes between tlie two groups have been reported throiighout the country. Two Jewish youths were sentenc-. ' ed to ten years on charges of having illegally possessed a quantity of explosives and-minor weapons. . The youths, 17-year-old Abraham Cohen and,24-year-old Meyer Golan, were seized by the police on' July 3, '
At Tel Aviv the police arrested three men bearing grenades. The men Were picked up iii the park • in the cotu^ of a police roimdup of suspicious persons. . <
The Arab general strike against the Balfour Declaration on iSim-day passed without incident though it had been advertised as •ushering in a period of Arab terrorism .against the Yishuv. The fiasco confirms the opinion of Jewish leaders that the vast bulk of the Arab masses is not in line .
DR. MORDECAI KOSOVEB, authority on Palestine and the/Near East,' has joined the foreign affairs staff of the American Jewish.committee, it was '^nnunced today by Dr. John Clawsdn, Executive vice-president. .
Dr. Kosover lived in Palestine from • 1925 to. 1937, during which period he also traveled in neighboring Near Eastern coimtries. He is a graduate of the Hebrew Teachers College, Jerusalem, attended the School of Oriental Studies of .Hebrew University, Jerusalem, taught at various schools in F^es-tine and the United Stat^, and acted as correspondent for a number of Yiddish daily newspapers in Europe anid the' United States.
with the warlike and war-threatening attitude - of the Arab Higher Committee, the sponsor of the strike.
4/000 Jewish Refugees Now HousedinThe Rothschild Hospital
Four thousand Jewish refugees from famine and fear are living today in an old grey building occupying half a block in an obscure, street of the capital of one of Europe's smaller, coxmtries. This is the Rothschild Hospital in Vienna, "home" to a little less -than half of the 10,000 Jewish men and women and children who have swarmed into what was once the -gayest and brightest city in all Europe.
The refugees are from Riunania, where hunger and' inflation and •; anti-Semitism put them to. flight. The Rothschild Hospital, along „ with ^ee other cienters holding the remainder of the Rumanian infiltrees, is operated by the Joint Distribution Committee, which has been forced to assiune the sole responsibility for sheltering, feed- ; mg, clothmg and giving medicsd care to the 10,000 refugees. Since May, when the influai: began, the ' JDC, which reecives its funds in the U.S. from the ?170,000,000 campaign of the United Jewidi Appeal —has spent more than $300,000 on food alone to meet this emergency.
MADE TRANSIENT CENTRE
At the end of the war this grey building, designed to hold less than 1,000, was transformed by the JDC from a hospital into a reception center for the Jews streaming from the East into the American , zones of Germany and Austria. So far, 100,000 have passed through in transit —mostly Jewish survivors from Poland who are now scattered in the camps of Germany, Italy and Cyprus or have already reached the shores of Palestine.
Last February the Polish emigration dwindled to a trickle and the upsurge of Rumanian' emigration began. To discourage new movements into Austria, the U.S. Army rxiled that no refugees arriving in the American zone after April 21, 1947, could look to the Army for help. UNRRA is gone, the new International Refugee Organization does not operate here.
Attention Please!
Any comments relative to the Bulletin which readers wish to make should be expressed in writing to the Editor, who will exercise • his best efforts to guide future policy accordingly.
Thus there feU on the JDC the responsibility of keeping these Jews alive.
' But the Army order had little /•effect on the movement from Rumania. Growing anti-Semitism in Rumania, fanned by hunger, led more and more Jews from their homes. With small children and babies in arms, they set out west ward across Himgary to Austria.
SIX TVEEKS EN ROUTE
The journey takes from four to six weeks. Once on Austrian soil, the JDC meets the refugees with emergency ^ood, clothing and medical aid and brings them to the Rothschild Hospital.
As the refugees kept poiu-ing in from Riunania, the canvas Army cots m the Rothschild Hospital began to spill out of the hospital rooms. They spilled first into the corridors of the first floor, then into the, corridors on the second floor. But after a while the corridors were crowded and the cots began to spill into the basement, . then up into the comers of the huge attic, along parts of which one must walk on planks because of leaks in the roof.
And after all the corridors were • filled, as well as the basement and attic, the refugees still came, so cots began to spill out into the yard until m,are than 50 men, women and •children now sleep there each night with a prayer in their hearts that it won't rain.*
The suT3committee of the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine, which inspected the Rothschild Hospital on its stirvey of the DP situation in Europe, was shaken by what it saw in the Rothschild Hospital. The Conunittee members saw Jews sitting oii Army cots, packed side by side. They saw the bleak "stare of des-pair,V the little encampments of cots grouped in the yard like shacks in" a hobo jungle.
Under such conditions it is a wonder that family life should continue to exist at all. Yet, on the whole, it doesfiercely, passes-sively, with all the thoughts of the parents bent on creating a good happy life for their children.
Marion DoTinnes Wallace
A.T.C.M.
Teacher of Piano & Theory 4!S8 Osier Ave. BA, 6467
Member B.C. Registered Music Teachers Federation
(D19
The WEO-ARE NEEDS ASSISTANCE in obtaining em-plojonent for several middle-aged men.
Part time work will be considered.
The Jewish Family Welfare Biu%au also needs part time housework jobs for several women who would be able to mind children and do light housework. Phone the Jewish Family Welfare Oflace-<aEkiar 4343.
By Rabbj David C, Kogen
PALESTINE LETTER
: . ' A number of young Americans are studying at the Hebrew Ifciversity today. 'Some are former GJi's, while othas have taken a year's leave of absence from Rabiiinical Schools tojpend two simunens and the intervening academic year in Palestine. In most cases these young men and ' 'women W'ork in cooperative colonies diuing the summer and have a chance to tour the coimtry before embarkinjg. on their coiurse of studies at the Hebrew University on Moimt Scopus. A number of my friends are studying there this year. One of them, a former room mate of mine at the Jewish Theological Seminary, writes the following concerning his experience in Palestine during the past few months.
' "I have already spent a number of delightful wieeks in the Holy Land. Part of the time was spent in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Haifa, familarizing myself with the wban life of the country. You can imagine how pleasant it was to hear Hebrew spoken on all' sides. It is always a surprise to me to hear a bus driver yell out the stops in Hebrew, or a merchant explain the virtues of "a pair of shoes in Hebrew. The children invent their own forms o fexpresaon at times. I am still not quite used to .seeing Hebrew signs over'^aU the stores and Hebrew street signs. Tl Aviv gives me the impression of being a completely peaceful city, an all Jewish city, a sort of fortress against the assimilation that is so coimnon in Am^ica.
A POBTION OF THE WORLD TO COME
"After a few weesk we went north to work in some of the settlements there. The beauty of the place and way of life appealed to me greatly. I have not seen any scenery in the Unitied States that compares to Galilee; It seems that I am getting a portion of the world to come in this life. The people with whom I live founded their settlement eight years ago. The nucleus was from Poland and Himigiary. Today there are 300 members in this setflement and 200 children. Among these people there are twenty from the DP. camps.
"You shoidd be surprised seeing me work in the vineyard, or helping the carpenters put up a new building. Several months ago the people in this settlement buil^ a new swimming pool. Imagine the big fuss they made when they found out I was a Red Cross swinuhing instructor in the United States. For a fe\7 weeks they had me teaching swinoming three hours a day to every man, woman, and child in the settlement. This gave me an opportunity to meet all the "Comrades," and to get to know them. I am greatiy impressed by their way of life, especially by their simplicity and love of nature, and their devotion to the land and to its upbuilding. Somehow, without being dramatic, I must say that they are reied heroes. There is something very fine about the communal life, the team spirit that one finds among them*"
LIKES RELIGIOUS COLONY BEST
A littie later my friend followed up with this letter: 'What I like about my experience in Yavne, the settieanent of the Poel Hamizrachi, was the pppbrtimity that I had to live as a memb^ of the settiement I worked just like anybody else in all branches of the work that are to be found'insudi a community. This type of settlement appealed to me much more than the others. If I have learned ncthing else this summer, then I have at least made up my mind for myself nationalism is not enough. I like ths idea of haying Palestine as a land of refuge and also as a national home for the Jewish people, 'but in this settlement of rdigious; Jews I have come to the conclusion that without religion — even in Palestine — there is an impcnrtant part of life that is missing. I think that this experience had made me much more religious ilhan I was previously. I found at Yavne a healthy putiook towards religion, a religion that comprises somewhat and changes according to the daily conditions of life. Even though I could not agree with everything that happened in this settiement, I found that the only lasting satisfaction that I could have in any of these commimities would be in a place like Yavne."
Very often we hear some of our friends speak on the basis of theory rattier than parctice. They express the idea that Jews need religion in the Diaspora coimtries only, because the other ties that keep them together are rather weak. Apparently my friend has come to the conclusion that even in Palestine Jews need a healthy religious outiook in addition to their ideals concerning the development of a national hcnneland P^haps he would now accept the slogan of the Mizrachi organization, the religious Zionists, who want the people of Israel in the land of Israel living according to the religion of Israel. "
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