September 14, 1939: Rosh Hashanah Edition Part II

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A Fres,mtaii Tocffl" * s M

A Discussion cf Good-WttE m • America

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XVII—No. 45

New Year's Edition—THE JEWISH PRESS—Rosh Hashonah 5700—Thursday, September 14, 1939

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OWARD'NEW HORIZONS

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Below we print a review, from the pesi of a veteran Anglo-Jewish journalist, editor, author, and translator, of Jilriam Shomer iiimsers volume of memoirs, "Yesterday," Though cut only a few Jays, t!ia Seek lias already been acclaimed as a Jewish classic by such outstanding authorities as liiulwig Lewisohn aad Fercta SUrschbein. —ED.

was Issued ia 1929. And now, a j rid the town of a gang of burdacada afterwards, we nava Mis. glars aad incendiaries, and reuZunser's "Yesterday", which I der other signal services. In time feel confident ia destined to take he became acknowledged leader its place among these and. other of the community. Jewish memorialists masterpieces And though he had so inheritand become a classic. ed fortune, and hardly aa assurThere is this difference, how- ed income living virtually by nis ever. Mrs. Zunser's boois is not a wits, labored mightily to give a translation, but an original work good_ education to his sons, make ia English. Nor does it deal with brilliant matches for his daughthe author's own life —as well ter, and to maintain in lordly and it might have done, slie being a lavish fashion a vast household, playwright and public worker ct supporting cot only his numerWheu an orthodox Jaw partakes of any new fruit for thenote — but with that of her ma- ous children never after their marfirst time ia the season, or cele- ternal grandfather aud tea of his riage, but his brothers and sisbrate some joyous event, lie ut-multitudinous sons and dauga- ters, as well as his married, serters the following benediction: ters. vants, and giving freely of his "Blessed art thou, O Lord our Amaaiag Grandfather means to the poor and the strangGod, King of the universe, who He was. aa amazing person, that er within the gate. hast kept us ia life, aad hast pre- •grandfather of hers, who was Bear in mind that all this was served us, aad hast enabled us Lo born aad passed all of his eighty- accomplished under the most terreach this season." This prayer is four years ia the Russian (now rible handicaps, under a cruel and known for short by the Hebrmv Polish), town of Pinsk, which is despotic government which could word Sheheehianu. also the birthplace of Dr. Caaim have given Hitler pointers in the Though .not exactly orthodox, Weiztnann and other Jewish cele- matter of persecution. Truly an I felt like saying SnehecManu on brities. ReJ> Michel BerciasSy. (as asazisg- man and aa astonishing readingg Miriam Shomer Zisnser'a he was called)) was a man- ia the feat! beautiful and tender Soolj of me- grand style: incredibly virile, If Reb Michel did not always moirs, " Y e s t e r d a y , " ($2.50) ic o u r a 3 e ous, and resourceful; succeed, it was because, by this which lias just been issued by j fiery-tenipered, domineering, aad time, vast new forces, social, pothe New York publishing house, -yet generous to a fault, with a litical, and economic, appeared on Stackpole Sons. magnificent saver of life. He had the horizon, and against these The multilingual literature of twenty-four children, all by theforces even Reb Michel's subtlety our people is act rich ia works of same wifa, with whom he livad aad resourcefulness were powerthis type. The first and still the happily for seventy years. less. Then, too, there was the in.«;< greatest Jewish books of memA devout Chassid and the son oirs was written in quaint Yid- cf a -devout Chassid, he did thecursion of an alien culture with dish by a seventeenth-century unorthodox thing of studying the its corrosive influence upon the Oeraiaa Jewess. G l u e e k e l of Russian language, which caused young. (It was this factor which Hamein (of "Pied Piper" fame). | his fanatical father to rend hi. blasted the life of Reb Michel's child, the brilliant The next great Jewish biograpli- 1 garments and mourn his son fortwenty-fourth i l work was Soloinoa Maimon' dead. Having mastered the Rus- Joshua, who tragic story is relatical celebrated L e b a us g as e indite, sian tongue, he proceeded to ac-ed in the last chapter of the wriusu in German and printed <n quaint himself with the law ofbook.) Household 1793. Still anoiher notable Jew- the land, and in time became a The story of Reb Michel aad his ish autobiography, not unworthyy successful laywer, although he to be classed with the preceding aad never attended a law school. gargantuan household forms the I \ two, is the late Israel Kasovich's His knowledge of law, aided by theme of the opening chapter. I t , \ infiite humor, h zestt ' "The Days 01 Our Years," ' the i his courage and razor-like mind, is told with infinite English translation of "which, j enabled him to save the Jewish and tenderness by a writer who lias a keen eye for significant dem a d e by i > w >LJ.' 01 t i s i i lib, ;oi!Jda ,.. irom an od.cus ta tail and a lively sense oJ the dra; Katie. You will like this benevo- breath of romance, of adventure. Jewish, folklore and . quaint cus- eloquently than our author. And lent, lovable despot, and be aaus- And such was his marvelous flu- toms, which are the very soil from where, In-English, is there a finer 1 ed by Ms pathetic wife Yentel, ency that, although he died when which every national' culture description-of'our traditional wedforever big -with child, and yet, still in his fifities, he produced springs. It-.is* interspersed with ding'dances, and of ; ah Old World' 1| "<\ hen occasion required, showing some three hundred novels in Yid- snatches of charming Jewish,folktnat-she- had in her the stuff'of dish, and many more in biblical songs, given both in the-Yiddish Puriih celebration, than Mrs.'Zua"a -woman of valor" 13 Hebrew. Ia this facility of expres- original'and in• skillful English ser gives in "Yesterday"? In short, the book will prove I , i.:ade. Saraa cf t i e strange beliefs, sion lie reseraWed Mrs. Zunser's renderings. It, abounds, in "finely• ! c jstoras, aad folkways described father-in-lav, t i e . famous ..wee!- etesed characterizations . and-:-.in an endless source of entertain1 ' I by Mrs. Zusaer In this and other ding-bard Elialcum Zunser, who gentle huiaor whieli, . unlike so ment to the general reader, and 1 chapter r e m i n d one cf Pearl once, on a bet, composed five in- much of Jewish humor, tickles but an invaluable scource-book to .stutricate poems In eight minutes! does not scratch. And on one,' to dents of Jewish life and manners I ., Lack's "Tie _Good Earth." The suceeding chapters recount . And- just as Shomer -was a pi-my- knowledge, has ,s u n g ' the in the nineteenth' and twentieth the lives of Reb Michel's tea chil- oneer in the field of the Yiddish praises of ..Jewish cooking. more centuries.' , iren who attained adulthood, and novel, so he was one of the creatjeir adventures ia Russia aad ia tors of the Yiddish drama. After „ America, to which nearly all ofthe Russo-Turkish War of 1876, tnem eventually emigrated. Each he went to Odessa at the invitalife 13 a complete drama, rich ia tion at Abraha.ni Goldfaden, the . pathos and humor, and pregnant father of the Yiddish theatre, and i nita fate, for tragedy dogged the began to write plays, which were 1; footsteps of virtually all of them. immensely popular. Before long 't i The finest of these chapters, in- ho had a theatre of his OWE and There appears to be a stirring er of all faiths are more concerned deed, the highlight of the book, is produced his own plays. the Church-State question the one which Mrs. Zunser devotes Wfeea the Russian government of anxiety and misgiving in var- about than they have even been. A few to her mother Dinneh, and her suppressed the Yiddish theatre, ious quarters-in this country to- years the suggestion that recelebrated father Nochim- Mayer Shomer returned to novel-writing. day over the question of the rela- ligiousago liberty in America was enShaikevitsch, better known by his Meanwhile his former actors emi- tions of church and state. We had dangered j anagrammatic pea name, "Shorn- grated to America and establish- thought it to be forever settled thinkable. would have been uned a Yiddish playhouse in New here, and the the principle of sepcr. But in 1939, when the church SSomer! To tbe younger, Amer- York. A few years later they sent aration was firmly established by is fighting for its very soul in , ican-born generation of Jews, the for him, and he spent the remain- both tradition and practice. ' name means nothing. The man ing fifteen or sixteen years of his But we have not escaped cer- lands acrocs the sea we are only has been dead since 1905; his life in New York, turning out an tain repercussions from events too willing and ready to assert : novels are no longer read, nor his endless stream of plays and abroad, where this is a live and that "no Issue in modern life is dramas played. But to us of annovels. On his premature death in contested issue, aad it appears more urgent or more complicated cider, Russian-born generation, 1905, a hundred thousand peo- that the priaciple is imperilled by than the relation of organized reand to our fataers before us, it ple turned out for bis funeral and pressures from the country, con- ligion to organized society." was once a name to conjure with. mourned the man whose name sciously or^unconsciously applied, The essential cause of the preI He was the first Yiddish novelist had become a legend. that threaten to dislodge it. sent concern of American leaders ' to be read by millions, into whose It is a far cry from Shomer's American religious and lay lead- with church-state relations lies in and drab lives his thrilling romantic novels, with their crude fantastic tales brought a plots and characters, to the fictional masterpieces of Sholom Asch and I. J. Singer, and from his primitive dramas to .the dramatic masterpieces of Asch, Singer, Pereta Hirschbein, David Pissky, Ossip DyraoTv-, Harry Sackler, H. Leivick, and others. But let us not fail to honor, the man who created the very public which made the modern Yiddish novel' and drama possible. The story of Shomer's birth, boyhood, marriage, and ris© as a novelist and playwright — a story, more fantastic and thrilling than any tale concocted by him —.is told by his daughter with surpasssmg brilliance. She ends with a powerful defense., of her father against his critics and detractors. It the book contained only this chapter, it would still be worth its price. Mrs. Zunser's memoirs cover a period of more than, a hundred j ears, from 1S34, the year of the "Panic" (not a financial crisis, be it understood) in Russian Jew5 ry to the present in the United States. This is perhaps the most e/entful and fateful period in our history. A period teat saw the growth .'of Israel from less, than four, million -.souls to more than sixteen millions; a period that ? *\ itnessed our emancipation- in Western Europe, the spread of tbe Kaskalah ;Oi- modernist movement, tae renaissance of Jewish letters, the birth of the Yiddish theatre, the emigration of millions cf Jews' to t i e New World, the r.se o£ the .Zionist and . Jewish labor movements, tbe World War, ''the Russian Revolution, the disin-_ >_r 3 111 igration of Russian Jewry, and j Ue trluEipis ef HHle'rism in Ger-' 11 £iany Trfti its nseaaee of a new 1 al!C« O 1 cari Egs for- our people. In ; all s w'-iese^siirrins .dramas,' played on a 4420-22 •Iorestc3 Blvd. s 1 •* 'Grid stage, 31 rs. Zunsar and her iii forbears were either actors or 1 nss-sida spectators. • | S| Mrs. Zunser's book 'is full cf s

an acute awareness of the impli- democracy. Restriction of freedom cations of totalitarianism. In. Ger- of speech, or'of tbo press, or of many, Italy and Russia, worship assembly culminates la suprcssion of the state has supplanted wor- of the freedom of the-pulpit. The ship of God. The fascist countries "destruction of religiouS'.Ilberty in and other countries have relegated religion to an a c Germany t of piety and prayer, stripped of its' abroad lias caused church J leaders social implications and its nics- everywhere' "furiously to think" j and* to put their head's together to sage of brotherhood. plan for its preservation where it Concern of AH jis Such a concept of religion is in- j still employed. tolerable to the A m e r i c a n Pronouncements-of a sectional churches and synagogues whose)or sectarian.character on.the.subconcern with social and economic jject .of religious '.freedom,, ami issues has increased as they have | church and state have their pjace witnessed the moral effects of un-i^nd value. But no,section or.ucct employment and poverty on the j will determine for America' the individual. Nor can. the churches course that,it-will pursue for the tolerate any-system which defies I preservation of its liberties. ,That any one p a r t l c ular race and will be'done-by the. people as ,1 j preaches hatred against any Telig- whole and religion, ' not 'this or \ that religion, but - religion -must f ious, racial or cultural group. ; j In America this question is equ- supply the leadership.- . •.'.• To quote - Governor Lehman ally the concern of all who,love ! their country, whether Protestant, again, "It is 3 I g n ificant-"that Catholic or Jew. Governor Leh- among tho-first agencies, to ^.real\ man of New York, in his address ize-the danger, to democracy, from J before the International Christian dictatorship have been our. great j Endeavor convention, said truly religious organizations..Truly they | that "in the; struggle to fortify may be said today to constitute [ democracy through strengthening democracy's g r-.e a t c s t bulwark our spiritual life, the Ideals and against the menace of anti-demoI purposes of all faiths are identi- cratic ideologies." So it has' been, and so it must continue to bo. } cal." ••-':'.:• \ This, lends significance to theReligion must lead the way. i fact that the National Conference In the words of Dr. David do f of „ Christians and Jews, which in- Sola Pool, who addressed- the Inj cludes, those of all three .faiths in stituto on August 29th, f'Tho its constituency, - selected as theAmerican prlnciplo of the •rigid.,. .]• subject for the Willlamstown In- separation of Church and -State', I stitute' of -Human Relations, held invaluable in the past in assuring \ last month "Citizenship and Relig- the development of individual j ion: A Consideration of American freedom of conscience under det Policy with Regard to the Rela- mocracy, has b e c o mo an "even f tion of Church and Synagogue to- more precious heritage today mi- f the State." der the darkening shadow of In- I Threats to Liberty creased state ' control over relig[ But the threat to religious liber- iou3 organizations and teachings." f ty and to the principle of separation of church and .state., goes much deeper, and is much'wider than-are'any of the considerations thus far mentioned. The general assault upon" all human liberties New York (WNS) — Jew-bait-' that has : made "such headway' in the world is a direct and immedi- ing is the modern version of ttie ate threat to freedom of worship. Spanish Inquisition and the New All the freedoms are interrelated. England witchcraft "hunt, and.it They must hang together or they is a test of our Christian civilization to see how eoon it can be will hang separately. Anti-Semitism leads to anti- stopped, declared tho Rev. Dr. Christianity, and finally, .to antl- Ralph W. Sockman.

JeW'Baiting hike

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'Witchcraft Hunt

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yappiness and .perlty in Abu

FOR O U T D O O R ADVERTISING •CA3

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By Robert Ashv/orth

HA 3800

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NEON SIGNS • ELECTRIC SIGNS . ROAD SIGNS

A PLE

RAD1TION, venerable and beautiful, has been a pillar of strength to Judaism. From the golden past the age-old wisdom of Israel's sages has given inspiration and courage to those disturbed by today's critical moment.

of the 'chain of the generations is Rosh • the milestone of each succeeding year . . . ieliMy Israel's glory and accomplishment.

At this New Year., an additional link in the old and ancient cnain tne ivosiier ±sntchers ot tend the traditional Rosh Hashonah greeting, "UShonnh Tovah

KEET S M

1619*2

OMAHA KCSr.

1629 Mo. 24th St.

The elation of the opirit at -the New Year . . . ite revival of aspirations for the better life . . . its hope lor the future arc pleasant to see. ^ ' Clothec cleaned by PEERLESS' modern methods are aloo a pleasure to bolictet . . . Unexcelled workmanship^ Brings to ouits and dresses the orirjinal shape • and re-ihvigorateo .tlic material . . . returning tlse Icoli of nev/nehs. Let PEERLESS refurbish jour wardrobe and prepare .you for the New Yeas* and the months that follow.

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KOSHER

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Mi

nit m WV"


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