The Canadian English-Jewish \Y/eekl]
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Of
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VOL. XXXIV
MONTREAL, MARCH 14, 1952
No.
First Jerusalem Mayor Is In U.S. To Promote 3,000th Birthday Of His City
JEWS TO MEET GERMANS SOON, SEEK SWIFT PAYMENT
Ask U.S. Supreme Court To Hear Case Of Orthodox Employee
Shlomo Z. Shragai, the first elected Israeli Mayor of Jerusalem, received on his arrival at the New York International Airport, Idlewild, Queens, an ovation from representatives of the city and from delegates of rabbinic and Jewish communal organizations.
The white-bearded, 52-year-old Israel official, who was accompanied by his wife, Miriam, was welcomed by Supreme Court Justice Charles E. Murphy, who, speaking in Hebrew, said: "The people of New York City welcome Your Honor with greetings of peace."
In acknowledgment, Mayor Shragai remarked with a smile that T<Thia is the first time I ever heard an Irishman apeak Hebrew, and I understood every world of 4k" Justice Murphy later explained he had given considerable time to ; mastering the greeting.
The visiting Mayor said there Kttle friction in Jerusalem be-ktue of the partitioning, pointing that about 154,000 Jews lived the new section, of which he Mayor, and 28,000 to 30,000 in
quarter.
ie population of the new city," , "is fully conscious of its undertaking to the inter-Li community regarding the of free access to Christian to the old city, and thou-such pilgrims have crossed _ in security and good-will the laat few years. There is friction between the of the old and new Jerusalem." iragai said civil author-to consider the populations [e expressed the - will soon be.
1-----� - �� ��i
_ _ - to lie and that the way to . _ will also be open." tie Mayor was presented New York City's Medal of by the Mayor of New York^ ITS who participated in the ng at the airport included Nevo, senior Israeli consul jNew York, and officials of Ha->Hamizrachi, the Religious ^^v-r Zionist party in Israel, of %WB�ch Mayor Shragai is a member. The Mayor, born isv Poland, has Jived in Palestine since 1928, and, Itefore being elected Mayor of Jerusalem in 1951 was a member
of the executive of the Jewish Agency for Palestine. He and Mrs. Shragai have four children�three sons, all of whom are in the Israeli Army, and a thirteen-year-old daughter at school in Jerusalem.
In press-conferences at the airport and the hotel, during which his words were translated by interpreters from Hebrew to English, Mayor Shragai said he came to the United States- to help promote the celebration, of the 3,000th anniversary, to assist the United Jewish Appeal and to meet with his political confreres, the American branch of Hapoel Hamizrachi.
Discuaaing Israel's economics, Mayor Shragai expressed confidence that the country's recently promulgated new economic policy would soon ease the burden of austerity under which Israelis live. Israel, he said, can support its own people but requires American assistance through the United Jewish Appeal for the care of newcomers. Israel is committed unreservedly to the promotion of a democratic state which will insure freedom for all its people, and looks on the United States with admiration and friendship, he said.
In inviting Jews as well as non-Jews to Israel for the 3,000th anniversary, Mayor Shragai noted that Jerusalem is a spiritual and moral capital for the entire world as well as a political capital of Israel. The Israeli Government has designated a four-member committee, he said, to make arrangements to accommodate the expected influx of visitors.
While in the United States Mayor Shragai will visit cities J�the eastern half of the country.
Mayor Shifegai is height Hd
hair and a _ ^_
beard. At the airport he wot* a wide black hat and long black overcoat, which is the ueaal garjb of the Orthodox group. Under his hat he wore a black yarmelke, or skullcap, which remained on his head while he was indoors.
His influence in Israel extends far beyond his own city of Jerusalem, since he is a member of the executive of Hapoel Hamizrachi, which is part of the coalition on which Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion's government is founded. Although not a rabbi, he is noted (Continued on Page Twelve)
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Israel will press for swift payment of German reparations during the next four, five or six years at the reparations and restitution � conference with West Germany in Brussels sometime in March, Dr. Nahmn Goldmann takl in Jerusalem.
"For Israel the important thing is that payment be made during the critical period of massive immigration and economic expansion," he said in an interview with the New York Times. He said Israel could not accept as a precedent the period of twenty years or more that the Western Allies had recognized for payment of the occupation costs by Germany.
The fact that the conference is now definitely scheduled meant that the Israeli Government has been convinced by a preliminary exploratory contact between Dr. Goldmann and Chancellor Konrad Adenauer that West Germany will pay. Otherwise the Government, which has had to face the stiff opposition of Israelis who do not want any kind of direct contacts with the Germans, would not have made the final decision to begin the taDu.
Dr. Goldmann explained that delegates of the German Federal Government would meet two Jewish delegations in' Brussels � one representing the Israeli Govern. ment and the other, the Conference on Jewish Material Claims against Germany. The Israel Government will negotiate on Israel's $1,000,000,000 reparations claim against Western Germany that Dr. Adenauer accepted in writing on December 6 as a baais for discussions.
Israel has announced a claim of an additional (500,000 against Eastern Germany, but there has been no acknowledgment of any kind from the Communist regime in Berlin,
The delegates of the World Conference of Jewish Organizations will at the same time seek restitution and indemnification for ink-dividual Jewish claimants and for heirlesa Jewish property.
Dr. Goldmann had had, special police protection sincere arrived because Menachem Begin, head of the extreme right-wing Herat party, had threatened to use violence to prevent direct negotiations with Germany. Dr. Goldmann denied, however, that he had received any threatening letters or had been otherwise molested.
The presidium of the World Conference of Jewish Organizations, will deeide who wUl be its representatives at the negotiations. The Israeli Government delegation will be headed by Dr. Giora Josefsthal, director of the Jewish Agency's absorption' department, and Dr. F. E. Shinar of the Foreign Ministry; and the German delegation by Prof. Frank Boehm of Frankfurt University. After the opening meeting the details will be worked out by teams of Jewish and German expert*.
One-Third Of Free Loan AM
The case of an Orthodox Jewish resident of Youngstown, Ohio, who was denied unemployment compensation when she refused to accept a position requiring her to work on Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, was carried to the United States Supreme Court. Complainant in the case is Mary Jane Heisler, who was* denied unemployment benefit* on November 13, 1948, after she refused to investigate potential employment at St. Elizabeth Hospital, of Youngs-town, Ohio, when told that the job would require working on the Sabbath.
Leo Pfeffer, counsel for the Youngstown Jewish Council and the American Jewish Congress, filed the appeal with the highest federal court from a decision by the Ohio Supreme Court which affirmed a ruling of the State Board of Review of Unemployment Compensation. The appeal was filed following an order of Ohio Chief Justice Carl V. Weygandt allowing the action.
In the brief filed with the U.S. Supreme Court, Mr. Pfeffer argued that the Ohio decision violates Amendment 1 of the U.S. Constitution, which says that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," and 14 of the U.S. Cons ". . . no State �h*ll
force any law wfcich_______
the privilege* or irouiMSW ff tkens of the
in Pennsylvania, last year, when the Pennsylvania Unemployment Compensation Board of Review reversed itself and granted unemployment benefits to the complainant after the American Jewish Congress appealed to the Pennflyl-vania State Court. The brief also quotes an editorial in the Christian Century, leading Protestant magazine in ^he country, which endorsed the position taken* by the American Jewish Congress in the Pennsylvania case. "It should not ... be left to this Jewish organization to fight alone," the Christian Century wrote. "Every church which claims to stand for religious liberty and the right of conscience should associate itself with the appeal. For a* the brief submitted by the Jewish Congress points out, the rule the Pennsylvania State Board has laid down would apply quite as much against any Christian who refused to take a job requiring work on Sur4ays."
Twenty-five major national and local Jewish organizations protested against the action of the New York State Joint Legislative Committee on the Sabbath Lew in recommending "immediate relief for sports promoters" from the operation of the Sunday Law but failing to propose similar relief for persons "who abide by their deeply held religuma
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Mrs. Gold a Myerson, Israel's Minister of Labor, said her . nation's economic difficulties were the result of a "self-imposed transition period of hardship" in order to achieve a highly industrial and productive framework within the next few years. At the same time she warned that the current lack of foreign exchange posed a grave threat to the attainment of economic independence.
The Israeli official, in Washington to represent Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, opened a two-day emergency conference at the Israel Embassy there, called by Abba S. Eban, Israel's Ambassador to the United States. The conference was specifically designed to acquaint American 'Jews with the fledgling state's economic situation as well as to survey the role that the (500,-000,000 Israel bond issue will play in the building of Israel's economy.
Mrs. Myerson told several hundred Jewish communal leaders that Israel's serious economic conditions stemmed from the doubling of her population to 1,400,000 through the immigration cf "impoverished and persecuted refugees." "These immigrants would not be alive today if they did not come to Israel, she said. "We, on the other hand, could not move forward rn our economic development without the addition of this population which has quickly demonstrated its skill and courage to help build the country."
Henry Morgenthau Jr., chairman of the board of governors of the (500,000,000 Israel bond issue, pointed to "the miracles of production" that have been performed in Israel, aseerttof* that "these victories on the economic battiefront have strengthened our belief that economic crisis and hardship in Israel are about to rive way to a bright and productive future."
Mr*. Myerson mentioned the discovery of phosphate in the Negeb, peat in the Lake Huleh region, and the resumption of Dead Sea potash extraction. "Israel BOW stands oa the thresh-hold of sa industrial rwotv-tion which mat force the world to revise its concept of Israel as a poor country,1* she said.
"Then major eeveftoptaeata win pave the road to economic independence only if we receive quickly the Investment dollars to provide us witfc the necessary Maditaery and transportation facilities, At present we need lane el fereifftk currency fer tat
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fiscal atislt for that fret, loans of $720,586 had been made last year to 3,040 persons, of whom about one-third were cot of the Jewish faith.
"We can estimate only this fact," Mr. Durst said, "because no borrower is asked what .his faith is. As a matter of fact, in its sixty years of operation the society has never investigated a single borrower. We ask him only three questions: his name, address and occupation."
Loans of $5 to (500 are avail-able. As a requirement to safeguard the society's funds, the borrower of more than (100 must have two endorsers from metropolitan New York area who are in business, a profession or otherwise are financially responsible. For loans of (100 or less the society requires only one endorser.
Mr. Durst said a borrower's application "is treated with strict confidence, and we make no inquiry as to why he needs to borrow funds or what he in-tends to do with the money." The average loan last year, he said, was (237; in the thirties it was (60. Last year's number of borrowers represented an increase over that of the previous six years. "The total amount borrowed last year is almost double that of 1944 �a pretty good indication of our inflationary spiral and what the dollar will buy today," he said.
He pointed out that most requests for free loans came from Mwhite collar an<J civil service workers, pensioners and others on a fixed income who find then-selves caught in the pinch of rising prices." Noting that one-third of last year's requests were for (.60, he said that "seems to be a conventional sum asked for by honeewfvea who find themselves behind a month's rent or need new clothes for a child's graduation or are faced with an unexpected medical bill or some soch emergency."
Mr. Don* asserted that "last year's record is not above our average percentage of losses�wWch is less than one-quarter �f 1 per cent of the total free loans." He added that "this equalled or bettered the loss record of most commercial banks." Repeating that the society was forced to apply to endorsers for repayment in less than 2 per cent
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