-3-

are not fit instruments for the cure of economic ills is given a new twist.
Racial discrimination, we are told by the defenders of the status quo, is
unjust and indefensible but coercive legislation is not the proper instrument
to use for the correction of such ills. Instead we are told to rely upon
education and moral suasion.

Moe roe Berger's volume provides a straightforward answer to this moral
defeatism. The sneer of the defeatists that echoes in the title Equality by
Statute (How can a mere statute produce equality or any other important
human value?) is dissolved in the acid bath to which the author subjects all
the traditional arguments against equalitarian legislation. The argument that
law is impotent in the field of prejudice is most effectively met by showing
that the whole framework of racial discrimination and segregation in the
South is largely a product of coercive law. The notion of law as neutral in
race relations is as unrealistic as the notion of a neutral battlefield.
Law is the battlefield in which all great social struggles take place, and
the contours, natural or artificial, of the battlefield are as important as
the magnitude of the opposing forces in determining the outcome of the
struggle.

Thus Berger shows in convincing fashion that legislatures and courts
down to the later 1930's were busily establishing and strengthening legal
discriminations based on race, with the United States Supreme Court leading
the racist forces. From 1868 to 1937, Berger shows, segregation and various
other forms of racial discrimination were established by state statutes which
were pretty generally sustained by the Supreme Court. At the same time that
tribunal was busily emasculating Federal civil rights statutes and Federal
constitutional provisions that sought to end some of the more extreme forms
of such discrimination. In the face of these decisions the drive to secure

-4-

equal rights for the emancipated slaves petered out and new forms of racism penetrated fields of law, such as immigration and land ownership, where racial discrimination had not been known before.

Berger fixes at 1937 the beginning of the crucial shift in the Supreme Court's outlook on the problem of racial discrimination. Actually, I think, the really important shifts of the Supreme Court came later - the crucial case of *Smith v. Allwright*, outlawing the Texas white primary, in 1944; *Morgan v. Virginia*, invalidating state laws requiring segregation in interstate buses, in 1946; the cases outlawing racial restrictive covenants in 1948; and the *Sweatt* and *McLaurin* cases, which practically outlawed segregation in public higher education, in 1950.

So, too, in the arena of legislation, the drive to eliminate racial discrimination in employment did not really get under way until after Pearl Harbor. Hitler's demonstration of the ultimate implications of racial discrimination had been obscured for many Americans by our State Department's benevolent attitude towards Hitler's rearmament program and towards his Spanish intervention and by a deep-seated American yearning for neutrality in what seemed to be remote foreign quarrels. But after Pearl Harbor any defender of racism could be viewed as a defender of Hitlerism, and the dependence of democratic forces upon non-white allies or potential allies in a life and death struggle set the stage for a surge of sentiment and earnest activity to eliminate racial discrimination from our national life. While some of the camp followers of this movement quickly lost interest at the close of the war, and a good many who had been quiet or neutral on the F. E. P. C. issue during the war suddenly discovered great dangers in anti-discrimination legislation as soon as the war was over, the solid effort to

-5-

remove racial discrimination from the structure of American life remains
today the Number One appeal to our national conscience.

The problem that we face now is not whether legislation ought to be
used to curtail discrimination - both major parties and all national political
leaders ostensibly agree on that proposition - but rather how legislation
can best be used to achieve this end. Berger examines one of the more
promising legislative efforts in this direction, the operation of New York
State's Ives-Quinn Law Against Discrimination. The examination is objective
and meticulous, although it might carry more significance if it were linked
with an examination of Federal activities in the field; the President's
Fair Employment Practice Commission is passed over in a single paragraph, and
the origin of the New York statute is discussed without reference to the
original Chavez bill from which it was largely copied. In general Berger
finds solid positive achievements under the New York law, but he notes with
some dismay that the administration of this statute by a specialized agency
has resulted in some of the typical manifestations of bureaucracy - the
failure to make public the relevant facts, the unwillingness of officials
to cooperate with unofficial groups that have amassed considerable informa-
tion and know-how on discrimination and its cure, and a certain timidity in
the use of legal sanctions, coupled with a strong preference for amicable
adjustments on generous terms.

Unfortunately the author has little to say on the ways in which these
evils of bureaucracy might be reduced and a larger role in the enforcement
of anti-discrimination laws might be given to aggrieved parties or to inte-
rested civic organizations (as was accomplished, for example, in humanitarian
legislation sponsored by the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals).

2

AT HOME:

PRESIDENT EISENHOWER told a press conference that he is at this time not ready to say positively if revision of the McCarran-Walter Immigration Act is on the "must list" for action at the next session of Congress. The President makes no public comment re- ply to a question by the Jewish Tele- graphic Agency, prefaced his answer by saying that he had not studied the immigration issue for some time.

UNITED STATES munitions shipments to Arab League states was among a number of matters taken up in a dis- cussion of "the whole atmosphere of Israel-American relations" held between Israel Ambassador Eban and Secretary of State Dulles.

THE PLENARY meeting of the Na- tional Council of the Advisory Council, which concluded its session on October 13 in Chicago, elected Bernard H. Trager of Bridgeport, Connecticut, as chairman. Resolutions adopted at the meeting were that the present immigration law; urged President Eisenhower to appoint a commit- tee of national security and individual liberties; pledged support of all UN agencies; urged Senate ratification of the Genocide Convention and U. S. participation in drafting of human rights covenants.

THE STATE UNIVERSITY of New York ordered all fraternities and soror- ities in the two state medical schools, nine training schools and 11 technical schools to be closed under its administration not to discriminate in membership on the grounds of race, color, religion, national origin or "other than American". The ruling affects 24,000 students.

CHECKS totalling $14,973,000 were pre- sented by Jewish leaders from various communities to the National Report Conference of the United Nations held in Cleveland. This gives the UJA close to 60 percent of the emer- gency $25,000,000 cash fund it is seek- ing in the last four months of the year.

A 5 MILLION dollar Israel Histadrut campaign in the U.S. was launched following a meeting in New York of 200 leaders of the National Committee for Labor Israel. Dr. Leon Keyserling, leading American economist, pointed out that the Histadrut, "has played, is continuing to play and will continue to play a vital role in the economy of Israel".

ARCHITECTURAL plans for the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeh- ivah University are being made for a conference in New York. The pro- ject will be the initial unit of a $25,000,000 Medical Teaching Center to include colleges of dentistry, nur- sing, public health and postgraduate studies.

THE FIRST large-scale attempt to con- trol rheumatic fever in Israel will be

inaugurated by the Hadassah Medical Organization with the return this month to Jerusalem of an American- trained Israeli physician, Dr. Ernst Na- tum Erhlohn.

DR. DONALD J. HAGER, an authority on race and group relations, has been appointed research director of the Commission on Community Inter-rela- tions of the American Jewish Congress. Dr. Hager, a professor of anthropology and sociology at Princeton, scored on the revision committee of UNESCO which formulated the important 1951 UNESCO statement on race.

ISRAEL:

THE ISRAEL ASSOCIATION of Jews from Russia has appealed to the Ru- mmanian authorities to release the 200- odd Jewish leaders under arrest in that country, and has asked the Israel Gov- ernment to appeal to the Soviet Union to release their release. The White House, the organi- zation also appealed to the Ru- mmanian leaders to permit Jews with family members in Israel to emigrate to the United States. [In New York, Dr. Goldstein revealed that the identity of eight Zionist leaders who had been prosecuted in Russia are being released by the UJA Congress, from sources behind the Iron Curtain.]

A DEMAND for free immigration of North African Jews into Israel was voiced by the Association of North African Jews at a meeting at the American Jewish Council in Tel Aviv. Gideon Raphael, an Israel delegate to the UN who recently re- turned to Israel, told the delegates that North Africa would become the most important source of immigration for Israel.

THE ISRAEL Government has invited Jewish leaders from all Western coun- tries to a special conference in Tel- aviv beginning October 25, for the purpose of reviewing the economic progress and problems of the Jewish population in Israel.

A TOTAL of 11,580 immigrants arrived in Israel between October 1952, and September 1953, a Jewish Agency special mission. He also reported that 49 settlements had been estab- lished this year, including one in the Negev bearing the name of the late Chaim Weizmann.

EIGHTY-TWO Jewish judges took their oath of office in a mass swearing-in ceremony in the chamber of the Jewish Supreme Court. In all, there are 89 judges in Israel's various civil courts. MORE THAN 200 payments on ac- count of blocked bank accounts of Palestinian Arab refugees now residing in Syria and Lebanon were made during the month of September, it was an- nounced in Jerusalem by the UN Con- cilium for Human Rights in the UN Con- cile. It is anticipated that 400,000 pounds sterling will be paid out on all the applications.

CONGRESS WEEKLY

A Review of Jewish Interests

TIMELY TOPICS

Terror in Rumania

WITHIN the next six to seven years, Israel's income from various mining enterprises will reach about $50,000,000 annually, and this will alter the coun- try's present financial picture, Dr. Dov Joseph, Minister of Development, told a meeting in Rehovot.

INTERNATIONAL:

THE ISRAEL delegation at the UN is- sued a statement condemning the anti- Israel propaganda campaign waged by Egypt during the last few weeks. The statement, written at the close charges published by high Egyptian officials with respect to an alleged oc- cupation of the demilitarized zone at El Ajuia by Israeli forces, alluded to "hit and run" tactics by Arab govern- ments which propagate sensational charges and then fail either to submit or to accept those charges in the appropriate UN organization.

DENMARK'S King Frederick IX ac- cepted from Israel Minister Avraham Nisan a parachute-bound Bible in He- brook, a token of the anti-angi- tate from Israel President Yitzhak Ben Zvi for the Danish people's rescue of 6,000 Jews from the hands of the Nisan in 1943. Earlier, the King and Queen, Prime Minister Hesdoft, For- eign Minister Hansen and numerous Danish leaders attended a synagogue service on the tenth anni- versary of the rescue of Danish Jews.

JEWISH LEADERS in Mexico City termed "greatly exaggerated" the re- ports published in New York about an alleged stepped-up Jewish com- paign in Mexico. Exception to these reports is also being taken by the Chi- can Jewish press. They emphasize that the Jewish publications are not new and are not being seriously seriously.

THE 10TH PLENARY session of the Council of the Jewish People of Israel was held in Toronto with the re election of Sam- uel Bronfman as national president and Michael Garber as national vice- president. The session deals with orders to be placed on aiding Israel through in- creased contributions, sale of Israel bonds and private investments.

A GROUP of 12 halutzim left Rio de Janeiro for Israel to a Mapi kibbutz. In all some 300 Brazilian Jewish youths have left for pioneering in Israel since 1948.

JOSE FIGUERES, President-elect of Costa Rica, on an official visit to Quito, Ecuador, received a delegation of the local Jewish community, who expressed their thanks for his interest in the State of Israel, which he visited in 1951. (See "Not to Have Dreamed in Vain" by Mr. Figuere in this issue.)

Communist regime but this fact is disregarded.

There is little that can be done to ameliorate the lot of those unfortunate Russian Jewish leaders who are now thrown upon the tender mercies of the Russian courts. But it must be remembered that Communist nations have previously been swayed be- fore an aroused and adamant world opinion. The Jewish authorities must be made to feel that the civilized world recoils in horror from the campaign of brutality and terror against a group already crushed by heavy burdens and intense pressure. The demo- cratic nations must insistently demand that Rumania open the door to Jews for emigration to Israel. It is sheer cruelty for Rumania to contain the Jews and to confront them with periodic accusations, when the decent alternative is to open the gates to them and let them leave for a country to which they wish to immi- gate and which is ready and eager to admit them.

Solute to Hadassah

FROM YEAR TO YEAR the Women's Zionist organi- zation called Hadassah has been going from strength to strength. It remains immune to the effects of the recession that has afflicted all other Zionist bodies in this "era of Zionist fulfillment" following the emer- gence of the State of Israel. Far from being affected by the decline and apathy in organized Zionist life in this country, Hadassah has moved steadily forward, expanding its human resources, increasing its material accomplishments, extending and deepening its influ- ence in the life of Jewish women in America. As it assembles in Washington next week for its 39th annual convention, Hadassah can take justifiable pride in its large and disciplined membership, which has contrib- uted magnificently to the building of Israel and at the same time has become a dynamic force in the develop- ment of a creative Jewish life here.

Maurice Samuel in discussing the interrelationship of American Jewry and Israel in his new book Level Sunlight, has this to say concerning the role of Hadassah:

This remarkable organization, with its three hun- dred thousand members, is worth an extensive study as a sociological phenomenon. It has rescued tens of thousands of Jewish women from the futilities and vacuities of the middle-class pattern of recent times. It has managed to combine action for Israel with programmatic concern for the educational tasks of American Jewish life; it has kept clear of the kind of mob Zionism which came to terms with terrorism in

4

CONGRESS WEEKLY

Israel, which plays up to a non-Jewish nationalist spirit, and which was easily deflected into anti-labor attitudes. Hadassah's leadership challenged the Israeli assumption of exclusive Jewishness not simply in words, but by acting on the tacit assumption that American Judaism is a force in its own right, even if today largely latent.

We are glad to join in this tribute to Hadassah.

## The Areas of Our Concern

ONE OF THE MORE depressing cliches current in American Jewish life is that organizations like the American Jewish Congress could better expend their energies and efforts by confining themselves to problems directly Jewish in character, and by curbing their interest and intervention in problems primarily affecting other groups. This criticism stems essentially from a profound misunderstanding of the opportunities for and the obligations of any minority group in a democratic society. Recently, a writer in the *B'Nai* *Zion Voice* took the American Jewish Congress to task for having gone "into battle for the rights and benefits of our fellow-Americans of the Negro race." The writer made it clear that he felt that this battle is basically of little concern to us as *Jews*; that there are other areas more compellingly Jewish in character to occupy our attention.

Our critic, it seems to us, loses complete sight of the fact that no minority can successfully champion its own rights without the support or assistance of other groups. The truth is that left to ourselves, we can accomplish little; joined with others we can and have achieved significant results. To take but one example: in the litigation brought to the United States Supreme Court involving racial restrictive covenants, in which the American Jewish Congress played an active part, the parties actually involved were Negroes, but the import of the case was to end the use of restrictive covenants against Jews as well. Our assistance in the campaign to end bias in hiring and firing perhaps reduced most to the benefit of the Negro community but only because job discrimination is sharpest against them.

In at least one area the cooperation of Jewish and Negro organizations has helped Jews more than it has Negroes. Fair education practices laws, such as the Quinn-Oliffe Law in New York, were directed primarily against the quota system in medical schools and in colleges. The fact that relatively few Negroes were applicants for those appointments did not deter Negro groups from lending us unqualified support and aid in our campaign for the enactment of this legislation.

It is, of course, simple to be cynical about such phrases as the "fabric of a democratic society" or "cultural pluralism" and to condemn them as impractical and utopian pieties. But these phrases when translated into real belief and social action have mean-

ing and purpose. Part of the American Jewish Congress personality is that it takes precisely such phrases seriously. Continued living in the Diaspora has taught us that the only way to live *with* others is, to some extent, to live *for* others.

We must be concerned with safeguarding the democratic process not only because of our passionate and sincere belief in it as an end in itself, but also because of our realization that it is the best way to preserve our integrity and identity as Jews. It should be by now overwhelmingly evident that the most effective guarantee for the protection and extension of our rights is to round out democracy wherever it is imperfect. This involves fighting on a multitude of fronts to establish and safeguard the rights of all groups in America whenever such rights are curtailed.

We cannot agree with our critic that this fight on a broad front has meant a dissipation or diversion of our interests and energies from specifically Jewish problems and Jewish issues. On the contrary, this very zeal and ardor for the rights of others has strengthened and stimulated our conception of Jewish needs and aspirations. The fact that we have a Commission on Law and Social Action has not precluded our creation of a Commission on Jewish Living, or the publication of the magazine, *Judaism*, which is wholly devoted to an examination of the philosophic, religious and ethical bases of traditional Judaism. We believe it sophisticated and parochial to attempt to divide this area of our concerns into Jewish and non-Jewish interests. Our lives as American Jews must be rich and comprehensive. They must span a host of activities. And we should be delinquent in the fulfillment of our purposes and aims if our program failed to address itself to the challenge of our *total* responsibilities.

Volume 20, No. 27

October 19, 1953

## CONTENTS

CHRONICLE OF EVENTS.................. 2

TIMELY TOPICS .......................... 3

### ARTICLES:

Case History of a Smear........... Will Maslow 5
Not to Have Dreamed in Vain........ Jose Figueres 8

When the Lecturer Comes to Town
Trude Weiss-Rosmarin 9

### IN THE WORLD OF BOOKS:

The Challenge of Racism... Felix S. Cohen 12
From the Hebrew and the Yiddish

Moshe Starkman 13

ART and ARTISTS...................... Alfred Werner 15

Editor: SAMUEL CAPLAN

CONGRESS WEEKLY is published weekly from October through May except weeks of Jewish Holidays, semi-monthly in June, monthly in July, August and September. By the American Jewish Congress, 13 East 82nd Street, New York 28, N. Y. Telefax 9-4300. Annual subscription $4. Single issue, $14. Reprinted as second class matter July 27, 1953 at the Post Office in New York, N. Y., under the act of March 3, 1879.

# Case History of a Smear

## WILL MASLOW

THROUGHOUT ITS LONG AND TURBULENT HISTORY, the House Committee on Un-American Activities has been criticized for injuring innocent people, confusing popular understanding of the meaning of Communism, attempting to throttle social and economic views it disliked and otherwise misusing its functions. The recent attack on the deceased rabbis, Stephen S. Wise and Judah L. Magnes, is the latest and one of the most alarming illustrations of the committee's procedures.

On September 11, 1953, the House Committee on Un-American Activities released to the press without comment four volumes of testimony delivered before a sub-committee sitting in executive, i.e., private, session in New York City on July 6, 7, 8, 13 and 14, 1953. The testimony consisted in the main of statements by ex-Communists linking Protestant clergymen to the Communist Party. The volumes are entitled "Investigation of Communist Activities in the New York City Area."

Included in the 310 pages of testimony thus released was one statement by Benjamin Gitlow reading as follows:

> To be specific: Before the creation of the front organizations,* the ministers who carried out the instructions of the Communist Party or collaborated with it were limited in numbers.

> The outstanding ones among them were, besides Dr. Harry Ward, Dr. William B. Spofford, Jerome Davis, Rev. Tucker P. Smith, Rev. Irwin St. John Tucker, Rabbi Judal (sic) L. Magnes, Rev. John Haynes Holmes, Rev. Sidney Strong, Rabbi Stephen S. Wise.

This was the first indication anyone had had that the names of Drs. Wise or Magnes had been mentioned by any witness before the Committee.

The paragraph of Gitlow's testimony concerning Dr. Wise and Magnes was incorporated in the Associated Press account of the attack on the Protestant clergy and distributed throughout the country on September 12, 1953. It is significant that many newspapers, on their own initiative, refused to publish this paragraph and omitted any reference in their stories to Wise or Magnes; a sufficiently large number, however, did use the Gitlow attack on the rabbis so that it immediately became a matter of national interest.

BENJAMIN GITLOW gave his testimony on July 7, 1953 in New York City before Representative Kit Clardy (Rep.-Mich.) and Francis E. Walter (Dem.-Pa.), a sub-committee of the House Committee on Un-American Activities. Questioned by Robert L. Kunzig, committee counsel, Gitlow described himself

as one of the top officials of the Communist Party in the United States from 1919 to 1929, when he was expelled. At the time of his expulsion, he was general secretary of the Party in charge of its work in the textile unions. Mr. Kunzig stated that the main purpose for which Gitlow had been invited to testify was to give his "experience in connection with the relationship of the Communist Party to religion."

Gitlow began by describing the Communist Party as an theistic organization that nevertheless had a policy of infiltration of religious organizations, and he named a half-dozen Protestant clergymen who had "worked closely" with the Party. Mr. Kunzig then asked whether Gitlow could tell how the Communists infiltrated "the religious field." He replied that before he answered he would deal briefly with "the tactic of the united front adopted by the Communists in 1922" after their policy of instigating revolutions in Germany and elsewhere had failed.

This united front policy, according to Gitlow, resulted in the formation by the Communist Party of many united front organizations in the United States. He then continued: "To be specific: Before the creation of the front organizations, the ministers who carried out the instructions of the Communist Party or collaborated with it were limited in numbers" (emphasis added). He then named "the outstanding ones among them" as Rabbi Magnes, Rabbi Wise, Rev. John Haynes Holmes and six other Protestant ministers of whom three had already been named by him. There were no other references by Gitlow to Wise or Magnes or any other rabbi.

It is evident that Gitlow in his references to Wise and Magnes was referring to the five years between November, 1917, the date of the Soviet revolution, and 1922—a period more than thirty years before the date he testified. Dr. Magnes left the United States and emigrated to Palestine in 1922 settling permanently in that country. In 1925 he became chancellor of the Hebrew University in Palestine. Gitlow clearly therefore was referring to events before 1922.

Far more shocking than Gitlow's performance was that of the committee. It allowed him to make his charges relating to events of thirty years ago without requiring him to substantiate them with the slightest evidence. Gitlow was not questioned at all about this reference to Wise or Magnes. He was not asked how he knew about the alleged Communist collaboration, whether it was based on his personal knowledge or hearsay or when the collaboration took place. It will be noted that Gitlow lumped together the ministers who carried out the instructions of the Communist Party" with those who "collaborated" with it, as though there were no differences in the two accusa-

*Identified previously by the witness as before 1922.

# Not to Have Dreamed in Vain

JOSE FIGUERES

THESE WORDS ABOUT ISRAEL ARE FOR READERS who are acquainted with the subject. Until recently, I did not know much about Israel and it is not simple to explain my "discovery" of Israel to people who are as ignorant of the matter as I was. Some day I shall write the whole story as I see it. Now I am merely setting down fleeting impressions of some aspects of the country's life, written for those who have followed the Zionist movement and the creation of the state.

When I was eighteen I first confronted socialism in my readings at the Boston Public Library, and the dream of a more perfect world set me on fire. Later, as an industrialist and farmer, I was involved with the problem of employer-employee relations. At that time strange things were happening in the world. Germany and Italy tried to reorganize themselves under a new social system which ended in dictatorship and war. Russia's formidable attempt dissolved in another dictatorship, the most ferocious and inhuman of modern times. In the United States the New Deal, and in England the Labor Party, initiated new directions, yet there were those who would have us believe that economic freedom cannot be achieved without the sacrifice of political liberty. Until I visited Israel I had lost the hope of ever seeing, in my lifetime, a nobler society, more rational, more just.

Passing through New York in 1950, en route to Israel, I requested some preliminary information from the Jewish Agency. My mind was virgin ground in regard to Zionism, colonization, the new state, etc. Benno Weiser, the writer, gave me and my companions a few patient words of explanation: the Jews are a people whose most distinctive characteristic is their spirituality. I was struck by the paradox of this assertion and the traditionally biased conception of the Jew as the merchant, never the creator. The "Merchant of Venice" was the classic anti-Semitic prototype of the Jew. Evidently, Mr. Weiser's allusion was to the scientists, philosophers and musicians, to the Jews who have made such a disproportionately large contribution to universal culture. I recalled somewhat nostalgically Baruch Spinoza, that glittering star of another impregnated epoch of my youth. Nothing else occurred to me in relation to the spirituality of the Jewish people.

On landing at Lydda Airport, I began to sense in the atmosphere and in the people, something which I could not immediately define, but which gradually became clearer as I went about Israel and began to penetrate more deeply into what is being created there. Israel is a spiritual country. This feeling seeps

from the rocks being removed everywhere to make room for pipelines and provide space for more buildings. This sentiment is released into the air by the sun-drenched orange groves and radiates from the faces of the children.

Activity everywhere is feverish; there is no time to be lost. Soil has to be prepared for agriculture. Communications must be stretched. The construction of schools and hospitals cannot be slowed down. In short, at a dizzying pace, a country has to be created. And defended, for peace has not yet been achieved. The invasion might be repeated at any point, at any moment, with any number of attackers. This combination of effort and enterprise represents a gigantic material achievement, but that is not the greatest attribute of the country. The greatest is the spirit which permeates the new state.

MAN'S IMPORTANT MATERIAL accomplishments have undeniable value: the Pyramids, the Colosseum, the Panama Canal, the Manhattan skyscrapers. Israel also represents an important material accomplishment: a nation created from barren land. But the new State of Israel is, above everything else, the incarnation of an old ideal, the idea of a society dedicated to the production of a nobler human being.

Israel is a miniature world where men work to fulfill a pleasant social duty, and have the satisfaction of watching growth. It is a world where each man strives for his own betterment through creative activity. Work is part of education.

Our civilization has been characterized by a love of property. Material things which legally belong to us form part of our being. The means of production are subject to our personal whims; the very breath of our nostrils is profit. We dedicate our lives to the cultivation of selfishness. Our acquisitive desires impoverish our spirits.

The colonists of Israel have reversed this attitude toward life. Theirs are internal riches. Their daily life consists of harsh realities and their constant physical efforts are consecrated to the ideal of service. Their possessions are like knowledge which increases when shared. They are, in reality, gardeners of the spirit of man. While we fret ourselves over what we possess, they are preoccupied by what they are.

Our literature is full of odes to the seed which flourishes and flowers, to the tree which grows, giving fruit and shade. Too often our poets express artificial emotions, because they themselves have never touched the earth, nor made it fruitful with seed and water. On the other hand, our agricultural workers live in constant communion with nature, but they lack the spiritual development to appreciate her beauty and gran-

OCTOBER 19, 1953

deur. Thus we have two groups of incomplete men.

The colonists of Israel are whole men, for they have fused the cultivation of the earth with the cultivation of the spirit. They are cultured peasants and erudite laborers. They form that new spiritual synthesis which constitutes the distant goal of the world's educational systems.

At the Kibbutz Ginegar, a 22-year-old sociologist told me, while watering young olive trees, that mankind has to find a satisfactory definition for the word "culture." Here in the Western world one is prone to be an armchair socialist. We maintain a pious intellectual objection to the exploitation of man by man, but we arrange it so that somebody else supports us while we philosophize. In Israel the colonists work by day and philosophize by night. They are heroes in an interminable campaign which they carry on till the end of life. Sacrifice is their routine; the thirst for perfection their only form of egotism; spiritual satisfaction their victory and their reward.

The agricultural setup of Israel might seem slightly utopian were it not so tangibly realistic. A hundred thousand cultured laborers scattered over the country-side maintain a standard of food production higher than that of any similar group of wage earning workers. I have seen the fields and the stables, and the bookkeeping figures in the ledgers. In these prosaic matters I am not easily deceived. The yield is high and the administration is excellent.

THE ECONOMIC SYSTEM OF ISRAEL is the salvation of its democracy. Liberty is a reality; equality of opportunity is not a myth. The socio-economic rights of

the individual are fused with his civil rights. The socialization of agriculture is a phenomenon which surges up from the bottom toward the top, seeking efficiency for the whole. It is the antithesis of totalitarianism, for every effort and every sacrifice is voluntary. The guiding beacon is education.

Education in the new state is a major goal of life. To live is to educate oneself. The country gives the impression of dedicating all of its endeavors to bringing up and educating the child. Poverty's children are non-existent at the kibbutz. There is no such thing as a family too numerous to be properly cared for and educated. Economic responsibility for the future generation falls on the entire adult population. But if society does not tamper with family ties neither does it subject the child—the seed of future generations—to the precarious fortunes of its parents.

The new state has the government it deserves: a spiritual people should be guided by philosophers. A country of workers needs to be governed by super-workers. Men of inexhaustible effort, multilingualists of limitless erudition, statesmen whose practical vision pierces the clouds of idealism, these make up the group of Israel's leaders.

I realize that as I write emotion begins to master me, for the theme carries me away. Going through Geneva I remember expressing some of my observations to Luis Alberto Monge of the International Touching it all!" What a fine use of an adjective. Touching is the word for Israel! To see a society functioning without the driving force of greed. A whole civilization dedicated to the betterment of man. To see the new world. Not to have dreamed in vain!

# When the Lecturer Comes to Town

TRUDE WEISS-ROSMARIN

LECTURE-GOING IS THE GREAT AMERICAN INDOOR sport of mature adults. Jews, too, like to engage in this mild intellectual exercise, and so our community is astir with all types of lectures during the "R" months. As is well known, the lecture season coincides with the oyster season of the "R" months—September, October, November, December, January, February, March and April. From May to August, American Judaism is on summer time. Temples and Synagogues are closed, except for *Yahzeit-minyan* and weddings, while the rabbis catch up on the reading and religious school teachers are camp counselling in a valiant attempt to keep the wolf from the door. In these months, the program committees and the lecturers are hard at work, for the "R"-less months are the lecture booking season and the time when harassed lecturers prepare their notes—mental notes, of course, as the lecturer, like the con-

cert virtuoso, is expected "to perform" by heart.

Most lecture-goers assume that the life of the lecturer is a chain of existing triumphs and adventures. "Isn't it thrilling to travel and never know what will happen next?" is a favorite question of comfortable matrons who think of a lecture tour as a "thrill" rather than as a weary business of delayed and cancelled flights, trains that are late, overheated or freezing hotel rooms, and the inconveniences of life out of a suitcase. Besides, all Jewish lecturers have other professional duties. Some teach, some edit, some work for organizations and some turn out a book a year, for there is no lecturer who can live on the proceeds of his eloquence before Jewish groups. Nevertheless, most lecturers are delighted with their work. They are happy when they can share their thoughts, hopes, doubts and concern for the Jewish future with alert men and women.

Mr. Figueres will be inaugurated as President of the Republic of Costa Rica on November 7.

this century. His work, from the Einstein Tower he built in his native Germany shortly after the first World War, to the remarkable structures he produced in Israel and in the United States during his last years, will live as models of directness, simplicity and honesty, which befit the style of this industrial age.

The current revival of "The World of Sholem Aleichem" both on the stage and in books has contributed to the fine arts in many respects. An outstanding artist, Aline Bernstein designed the imaginative costumes for a successful off-Broadway show that has been filling the Barbizon-Plaza auditorium for many evenings. A special treat is the souvenir booklet sold at the theatre which contains more than twenty drawings by Ben Shahn. When Shahn was a child, his father, a Lithuanian, read to him stories by Sholem Aleichem; as the artist explains, "we didn't have radio or TV then." In Shahn's masterful drawings, economical in line and relying on suggestion rather than minute description, the ghetto world, not only of Sholem Aleichem, but also of Mendele Mokher Sforim, of I. L. Peretz, and of those who collected the tales about the wise fools of Chelm, comes alive again. Shahn's compelling visions of the old world musicians, sages, housewives, and therapeutic domestic animals belong to the best in Jewish art.

Another artist to give us versions of yesterday is Ilya Schor. Unfortunately, very few of the reviewers who wrote about Sholem Aleichem's *Adventures of Mottel, the Cantor's Son* (Henry Schuman) did more than mention the illustrations, although they are gems of woodcutting. Where Shahn's drawings are austere, his figures being reduced to the barest essentials, Schor's rich fantasy crowds a great number of fascinating details into pictures confined to only a few square inches. He captures humor as well as tragedy in rhythmically whirlingly designs reminiscent of folk art as well as of medieval miniatures. Schor's poetic rendering of poor Mottel's trek from the *shtaedtel's* misery to the confusing skyscrapers of New York matches the writing of the beloved novelist.

Works by three outstanding Israeli

artists have recently reached this country. Jacob Steinhardt and Franziska Baruch have joined forces to produce a masterpiece for the Jewish Publication Society of America: *The Book of Jonah*. The collaboration between the graphic artist and the calligrapher started about thirty years ago when the two, then residents of Berlin, produced a Haggadah. In order to integrate Steinhardt's illustrations and the words, the text was not typeset but lithographed by Miss Baruch. The same method was applied in the case of the present volume—both the Hebrew text and the English version are the work of Miss Baruch; Steinhardt's sixteen woodcuts either fill entire pages, or are mounted in the text. While now a citizen of Israel and head of Jerusalem's Bezalel School of Art, Steinhardt is one of the few remaining representatives of the German Expressionism that reached its peak between 1914 and 1924. His medium permits him to evoke, in the sharp contrasts between black and white, metaphysical messages that are not easy to forget.

Anna Ticho is also a master in black and white. A resident of Jerusalem, like Steinhardt, perhaps she felt that there are no colors on the palette to represent the strange, uncanny hues of yellow, buff and grey that are the Holy City. Indeed, at times the blazing sun burns out color altogether. But where Steinhardt, in depicting Jerusalem, is powerful and masculine, Mrs. Ticho employs a delicate pencil. At New York's Passoelt Gallery she exhibited a number of drawings that were sheer delight. Whether the subject is Arab beggars, Oriental women in the Old City, gnarled olive trees, or the stony desert around Jerusalem, she always manages to convey a feeling of nostalgic beauty.

Brief items: Four frescoes by A. Raymond Katz are now adorning the main corridor to the chapel of Temple Beth El at Norwalk, Connecticut. They represent Law, Prophetic Idealism, Learning, and the Ideal of Zion. Katz used an ancient method, demanding rapid work—the artist must apply his paints on the plaster wall while it is still wet. . . . Hannah R. London's scholarly *Miniatures of Early American Jews*

Dear Parents:

## This Year or Next?

IS YOUR CHILD 6-7-8 or 9 and still waiting for next year? Have you decided whether his Jewish schooling begins this year or next?

LET US LOOK AT IT FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF SOUND EDUCATIONAL PRINCIPLES.

A minimum of 5 years is required to give your children a sound elementary Jewish education. The curriculum must be designed to appeal to the child at each age level. Here is what we mean:

* AT 6 your child likes to listen to Bible and holiday stories. He is fascinated by the Hebrew alphabet. He is thrilled to bring home his first Hebrew book. He enjoys learning songs.

* AT 7 the Jewish school has a definite place in his life. He wants to know many things about Jewish holidays, the customs, the synagogue, Israel, God. He recites his prayers with feeling.

* AT 8 reading and writing Hebrew become easy. The stories of the Humash have a wonderful ring to his ears. But he also begins to understand their ethical and religious ideas. He takes part in Sabbath services.

* AT 9 your child is a great reader. He knows enough Hebrew to read simple stories with enjoyment. He becomes familiar with Humash—with the books of Joshua and Judges. He reads about Jewish heroes. He begins to study Jewish history. He is now well under way to a sound Jewish education.

If your child is 6-7-8-9 don't wait for next year. Do it this year. Enroll your child in a Jewish school now!

For further information, write to the
Jewish Education Committee
of N. Y.
1776 Broadway New York 19, N.Y.

(Pond-Ekberg Company, Springfield, Mass.) is a valuable contribution to art, and to the history of American Jewry. It includes portraits by some famous eighteenth and early nineteenth century artists, especially Edward Greene Malbone, Charles Wilson Peale, and James Peale. . . . A memorial exhibition, honoring the sculptress Rosa Newman Walinska, was held at New York's Atran Jewish Art Center. Mrs. Walinska was known as a Yiddish poet before she took up sculpture late in life. Her work, solid and expressive of a noble personality, deserves wide recognition.

Wednesday - August 26 [A53?}

Dear Mr. Cohen,

Your Air Mail Special did not arrive until this morning. Mr. Rochmes and Mr. Schifter both read your letter to Dr. Wallace (Mrs. Lloyd was out of the office, on the Hill) and had no change to make. The comments of all three attorneys on your book review are attached. I should like to type them but perhaps it is more important to get all this on the way to you as fast as possible.

Pearl Ann will be at her desk Monday. She is off to
Philadelphia today for the balance of her vacation.

We are all looking forward to seeing you and Lucy
next week.

ROUTE SLIP

DATE: August 26

TO:

Mr. Cohen

x Mr. Rochmes

x Mrs. Lloyd

Mr. Lazarus, Jr.

x Mr. Schifter

____ Note and return

____ Note and file

____ Necessary Action

____ Prepare Reply

____ Initial and forward

Remarks: Mr. Cohen wants this returned to him "as quickly as possible along with the comments of any of the staff attorneys whom you can induce to read and comment on the same day you type."

FROM: Vivienne Camps

November 5, 1952

Mr. Will Maslow
Commission on Law and Social Action
American Jewish Congress
15 East 84th Street
New York City 28, N.Y.

Dear Will,

I haven't forgotten my promise to review Morroe Berger's
"Equality by Statute", but neither have I gotten very far
with the job. I have been in a terrible rush these past
few weeks. Please be patient and I will come through.

In the World of BOOKS

The Challenge of Racism

Reviewed by FELIX S. COHEN

EQUALITY BY STATUTE: LEGAL CONTROLS OVER GROUP DISCRIMINATION. By Morroe Berger. Columbia University Press. 238 pp. $3.25

The legal framework of American democracy has been fashioned, in large part, as a response to four great challenges: political tyranny, chattel slavery, industrial autocracy, and racism. Out of the challenge of the political tyranny of King George the Third emerged most of what is distinctive about our American form of government. As the major objectives of this revolutionary movement came to be safely institutionalized, the living conscience of America came to focus more and more upon the inconsistency between the practice of slavery and our national profession that all men are born free and equal. When the abolition of slavery had been achieved, the perspective of American idealism shifted to the challenge of economic autocracy. A long period of economic legislation, beginning with the anti-trust laws of the 1890's and the workmen's compensation laws that soon followed and finding its fulfillment in the laws of the Roosevelt Era protecting labor's right to organize and bargain collectively, establishing minimum wages and maximum hours, and setting up a comprehensive system of social security, made it increasingly difficult to view American workers and consumers as an exploited proletariat.

And so, some time in the 1930's the national conscience reached a stage at which neither King George the Third nor Simon Legree nor Wall Street could any longer kindle in the hearts of young or old idealists the strong moral drives that are prerequisite to basic legal change. Quickly enough the empty devil's chair was preempted by Adolf Hitler, who showed more eloquently than any teacher or preacher before him what hells of horror can emerge from the basic strains of racism in American life that have for so long mocked our national faith in democracy and human equality.

Felix S. Cohen, a distinguished lawyer, has written extensively on civil rights and immigration.

Racial discrimination, the theme of Morroe Berger's book, *Equality by Statute*, is not something new in American life. What is new in American life is the sensitizing of the national conscience to the deadly infection of racism. There is every reason to expect that the concern with the domestic and international implications of racism which has played so large a role in American life since Pearl Harbor is likely to grow in the decades before us.

In each of the earlier great challenges to the American conscience, the defenders of the status quo were quick to assert the futility of a direct legal attack upon existing evils. Granted that King George the Third was a tyrant and a fool, that slavery was a profound social evil, and that unrestrained capitalism was inhumanly cruel, it could always be said that these evils would gradually recede under the gentle influences of advancing education and moral suasion. And so today the old argument that coercive laws are not fit instruments for the cure of economic ills is given a new twist. Racial discrimination, we are told by the defenders of the status quo, is unjust and indefensible but coercive legislation is not the proper instrument to use for the correction of such ills. Instead we are told to rely upon education and moral suasion.

Morroe Berger's volume provides a straightforward answer to this moral defeatism. The argument that law is impotent in the field of prejudice is most effectively met by showing that the whole framework of racial discrimination and segregation in the South is largely a product of coercive law. The notion of law as neutral in race relations is as unrealistic as the notion of a neutral battlefield. Law is the battlefield in which all great social struggles take place, and the contours, natural or artificial, of the battlefield are as important as the magnitude of the opposing forces in determining the outcome of the struggle.

discriminations based on race, with the United States Supreme Court providing a mantle of respectability for the racist forces. From 1868 to 1937, Berger shows, segregation and various other forms of racial discrimination were established by state statutes which were pretty generally sustained by the Supreme Court. At the same time that tribunal was busily emasculating federal civil rights statutes and federal constitutional provisions that sought to end some of the more extreme forms of such discrimination. In the face of these decisions the drive to secure equal rights for the emancipated slaves petered out and new forms of racism penetrated fields of law, such as immigration and land ownership, where racial discrimination had not been known before.

Berger fixes at 1937 the beginning of the crucial shift in the Supreme Court's outlook on the problem of racial discrimination. Actually, I think, the really important shifts of the Supreme Court came later. It was only in 1944 that the Supreme Court, having upheld special curfew and evacuation orders based upon "ethnic affiliations," decided in the *Endo* case that the Federal Government could not hold admittedly loyal citizens indefinitely in detention camps because of their "ethnic affiliations." The same year saw the crucial case of *Smith v. Allwright*, outlawing the Texas white primary; *Morgan v. Virginia*, invalidating state laws requiring segregation in interstate buses, was decided in 1946; the cases outlawing racial restrictive covenants in 1948; and the *Sweatt* and *McLaurin* cases, which practically outlawed segregation in public higher education, in 1950.

So, too, in the arena of legislation, the drive to eliminate racial discrimination in employment did not really get under way until after Pearl Harbor. After Pearl Harbor any defender of racism could be viewed as a defender of Hitlerism, and the dependence of democratic forces upon non-white allies or potential allies in a life and death struggle set the stage for a surge of sentiment and earnest activity to eliminate racial discrimination from our national life. While some of the camp followers of this movement quickly lost interest at the close of

OCTOBER 19, 1953

13

the war, and a good many who had been quiet or neutral on the FEPC issue during the war suddenly discovered great dangers in anti-discrimination legislation as soon as the war was over, the solid effort to remove racial discrimination from the structure of American life remains today the Number One appeal to our national conscience.

The problem that we face now is not whether legislation ought to be used to curtail discrimination—both major parties and all national political leaders ostensibly agree on that proposition—but rather how legislation can best be used to achieve this end. Berger examines one of the more promising legislative efforts in this direction, the operation of New York State's Ives-Quinn Law Against Discrimination. The examination is objective and meticulous, although it might carry more significance if it were linked with an examination of federal activities in the field. The President's Fair Employment Practice Commission is passed over in scarcely more than a single paragraph, and the origin of the New York statute is discussed without reference to the original Chavez bill on which it was largely modeled. In general, Berger finds solid positive achievements under the New York law, but he notes with some dismay that the administration of this statute by a specialized agency has resulted in some of the typical manifestations of bureaucracy—the failure to make public the relevant facts, the unwillingness of officials to cooperate with unofficial groups that have amassed considerable information and know-how on discrimination and its cure, and a certain timidity in the use of legal sanctions, coupled with a strong preference for amicable adjustments on generous terms.

Regrettably the author has little to say on the ways in which these evils of bureaucracy might be reduced and a larger role in the enforcement of anti-discrimination laws might be given to aggrieved parties or to interested civic organizations (as was accomplished, for example, in humanitarian legislation sponsored by the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals). But that is another story. If Professor Berger will deal with that problem in a sequel to *Equality by Statute*, he will more greatly serve a just cause to which he has already made a significant contribution.

By MOSHE STARKMAN

Quite a large number of books reached us during the summer months. Since space does not permit us to give samplings from these books, we will restrict ourself to mere annotation.

A vast literature has grown about the Holy Bible, its separate books, subjects and personalities. For the scholar, as well as for the layman, it is difficult to find his way through this vast outpouring. The Israeli historian, Getzel Kressel, has compiled for such readers an invaluable bibliographic guide, titled *Madah Hamikrah, The Story of the Bible*, issued by the Culture Center of the Israeli General Federation of Labor through the M. Newman Publishing House (Tel Aviv, 1953, 190 pages). The bibliography contains 800 entries, with comments about each entry. It deals with works on Bible themes produced in Hebrew, Yiddish, English and German.

Kressel's bibliography is divided into fourteen major sections: Introductions to Bible Study; The Text of the Bible; Concordances and Anecdologies; The Translations of the Bible; Biblical Archeology and Inscriptions: Commentaries to the Bible Language, Grammar and Dictionaries; Ancient History of the Jews and the Oriental Peoples; The Holy Land, its Geography, Climate, etc.; Atlasses and Maps to the Bible; Biblical Folklore; Other Subjects; The Apocrypha; Ammenda et Addenda. The excellent index of authors and themes enables the user of the guide to find readily the information he desires.

Some of the outstanding scholars in Israel are devoting their energies to post-biblical literature, particularly to the *Mishnah* and the *Talmud*.

Two years before his death, the great poet Bialik issued the first of the six divisions of the *Mishnah*, *Zeraim (Seeds)*, with his new edition of the text to include vowels and a popular commentary. It was Bialik's aim to make that early code of biblical law accessible to the general reading public. The Mosad Bialik, the institute bearing his name, and Dvir, the publishing house that he founded, have now started to issue the other parts of the *Mishnah* in editions as envisioned by the great poet. The second division, *Moed*

(Feasts), with the "vowelization" by Khanokh Yalon and a commentary by Khanokh Albeck, was recently published and aroused heated polemics in scholarly journals and in the general press. Thus the work received attention even among readers who would normally not have any interest in *Mishnah* study.

Another scholar, the late Gedalyahu Alon, wrote a series of volumes *Toldoth HaYehudim BeEretz Yisrael BeTkufath HaMishnah VehaTalmud* (History of the Jews in the Land of Israel in the Era of the Mishnah and the Talmud, published by HaKibutz HaMeukhad). The first volume deals with Jewish life from the destruction of the Second Temple to the days before the beginning of the Bar Kokhba rebellion against the Romans. The second volume, dealing with the unsuccessful revolt and its results, will soon be published. Alon's work is based on his lectures before his classes at the Hebrew University, as taken down by one of the students, Samuel Sfrai. The manuscript was edited by Dr. E. Z. Melamed, and the geographer, Michael Avi-Yonah, drew the maps which fix the sites mentioned in the book. Prof. J. Beer's introduction to the book lauds the scholarly contributions of Alon to Jewish historiography.

The greater part of the Babylonian Talmud is in Aramaic. While there are full translations of the Talmud in German and English, none is available in Hebrew, with the exception of a few *Mesikhoth* (Trattates). Two publishing houses in Tel Aviv, Dvir and Massadah, have united to issue the entire Talmud in a Hebrew translation. A beginning has been made with the issuance of *Baba Kamma* (The First Gate), the tractate which opens the fourth Talmudic division, dealing with *Nezikin*, meaning Damages. Both the translation and the commentary to it are by Dr. Ezra Zion Melamed, under the supervision of the great scholar Dr. I. N. Epstein. As was the case with the new edition of the *Mishnah*, so the translation of *Baba Kamma* has excited scholarly discussions as to the proper Hebraization of various Talmudic terms and idioms.

At the time when the Hebrew translation of *Baba Kamma* was is-

["14", "sued in Tel Aviv, the Yiddish translation of the same tractate appeared in Brussels, Belgium, and published in Warsaw. Dr. Jacob Shatzky's monograph on the life, work and martyrdom of the young historian Emanuel Ringelblum, who was executed in Warsaw by the Nazis after he had secretly saved for posterity most important documents on the sufferings of Polish Jews under German occupation. Dr. Shatzky includes a bibliography of Ringelblum's writings. The monograph serves as an introduction to Ringelblum's Yiddish book *Historic Chapters of Jewish Life in Poland*, published recently in Buenos Aires, as a volume in the series \"Polish Yiddish.\"", "A full Yiddish translation of the *Mishnah* has been available since the last decades of the 19th century. A more modern translation, with an excellent commentary, by the late Simkha Pyetrushka, was published in Montreal not so long ago. But there is as yet no Yiddish translation of the entire Talmud. Yiddish versions of separate tractates were issued by the late Dr. Isaac M. Zalkind of London and Menahem Naum Sapoff of Brooklyn, and Rabbi Shlomo Drilich of New York published in six volumes his translations of the tractates *Hagigah* (The Festal Offering), *Kiddushin* (Betrothals), *Makkoth* (Stripes) and *Khlullin* (Animals for Food Purposes).", "Talpiot is the name of a Hebrew quarterly devoted to research of Jewish law, philosophy and ethics. This quarterly is sponsored by Yeshiva University and edited by Prof. Samuel K. Mirsky. The latest volume, dedicated to the memory of Rabbi Shlomo Poliacheck, the Tal-mudic genius who was known as the Meicheter Iluy, contains close to thirty essays and monographs dealing with various phases of Jewish history. Israel's Chief Rabbi Isaac Herzog and the late Sephardic Chief Rabbi Ben Zion Uziel are among the contributors to this volume. And the past and the present are joined in Rabbi Herzog's \"Open Letter on the Re-nawal of the Sanhedrin,\" in the es-Press of the *Hakhal* ceremony during the Sabbatical Year and its modern form, by Prof. Mirsky and Rabbi Judah Gershuny, as well as in Dr.", "EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, experience in\nfundraising, community relations, ad-\nvertising, languages, desires connection\nwith Jewish institution, anywhere. Will\ntravel to Write to CONGRESS WEEKLY,\nBox X.", "Simon Federbush's discourse on the\nRevival of Hebrew Law in Israel.", "A valuable contribution to Jewish\nbiography is Dr. Jacob Shatzky's\nmonograph on the life, work and\nmartyrdom of the young historian\nEmanuel Ringelblum, who was ex-\ncuted in Warsaw by the Nazis after\nhe had secretly saved for posterity\nmost important documents on\nthe sufferings of Polish Jews under Ger-\nmans occupation. Dr. Shatzky in-\ncludes a bibliography of Ringel-\nblum's writings. The monograph\nserves as an introduction to Ringel-\nblum's Yiddish book *Historic Chap-\nters of Jewish Life in Poland*, pub-\nlished recently in Buenos Aires, as a\nvolume in the series \"Polish Yiddish.\"", "Rabbi Pinhas Mordecai Grayev-\nsky, who died over 12 years ago, had\nbeen born in Jerusalem and devoted\nmost of his life to the publication of\nworks on the Holy City and its per-\nsonalities, past and present. Aryeh\nGrayevsky, the late author's son, has\nnow begun to sublimate drafters of\neditorship of M. D. Gaon, his\nfather's Dyokonoah DiYerushulayim\n(Portrait of Jerusalem). The first\nvolume is an album, containing pho-\ntographs of many Jerusalemites of\nvarious generations. To each photo-\ngraph is added a biographic sketch.\nThe album contains a preface by Ar-\nyeh Grayevsky, and evaluations of\nthe author by F. Kressel and M. D.\nGaon.", "Glueckel of Hameln (1645-1724),\nmother of twelve children, became", "immortal in Jewish literature through\nher reminiscences which comprised\nseven notebooks. Written in the\nYiddish of the seventeenth century,\nGlueckel's memoirs depict not only\nher personal life and the lives of the\nimmediate members of her family,\nbut are also an excellent portrait of\nJewish life in general. N. B. Minkoff,\nthe Yiddish poet and essayist, evalu-\nates Glueckel and her *Zikhrоines* in\na study, printed in Mexico, and pub-\nlished by the New York firm of Me-\nnashe Vaxer (151 pages).", "Going to Europe or Israel?", "Next cruise direct sailing to Israel\nluxurious S/S Constitution New\nYork to Haifa March 25, 1954", "For good service and prompt\ntravel arrangements communicate\nwith", "ROSEN TOURS\n1186 Broadway (Cor. 29th St.)\nNew York, N. Y.\nTel. OR 9-3470", "SUPERMARKETS IN ISRAEL", "2 King George Street\nTel-Aviv", "Reproduced in this ad is one of a series of American-style supermarkets which re-cipients of Scrip to Israel gift certificates can be had at a vast supply and variety ofGLYPH<127>GLYPH<127>GLYPH<127>GLYPH<1

2

CONGRESS WEEKLY

CHRONICLE

OF EVENTS

AT HOME:

PRESIDENT EISENHOWER told a press conference that he is at this time not ready to say positively if revision of the McCarran-Walter Immigration Act is on the "must list" for action at the next session of Congress. The President, making this statement in the press, asked a question to a Jewish Telegraphic Agency, prefaced his answer by saying that he had not studied the immigration issue for some time.

UNITED STATES munitions shipments to Arab League states was among a number of matters taken up in a discussion of "the whole atmosphere of Israel-American relations" between Israel Ambassador Bahan and Secretary of State Dulles.

THE PLENNY meeting of the National Community Relations Council which concluded its sessions on October 13 in Chicago, elected Bernard H. Trager of Bridgeport, Connecticut, to be the new Executive Board. They adopted called for revision of the present immigration law; urged President Eisenhower to appoint a committee and individual liberties; pledged support to all UN agencies; urged Senate ratification of the Genocide Convention and U. S. participation in drafting of human rights covenants.

THE STATE UNIVERSITY of New York ordered all fraternities and sororities in the two state medical schools, nine teaching schools and 11 technical schools operated under its administration not to discriminate in membership on the grounds of race, color, religion, national origin or "other artificial criteria." The ruling affects 24,000 students.

CHECKS totalling $14,973,000 were presented by Jewish leaders from various communities to the National Report Conference of the United Jewish Welfare Peal held in Cleveland. This gives the UJA close to 60 percent of the emergency $25,000,000 cash fund it is seeking in the last four months of the year.

A 5 MILLION dollar Israel Histadrot campaign in the U.S. was launched following a meeting in New York of 200 leaders of the National Committee for Labor Israel. Dr. Leon Keyserling, leading American economist, pointed out that the Histadrot, "has played, is continuing to play and will continue to play a vital role in the economy of Israel."

ARCHITECTURAL plans for the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University were made public at a press conference in New York. The college will be the initial unit of a $25,000,000 Medical Teaching Center to include colleges of dentistry, nursing, public health and postgraduate studies.

THE FIRST large-scale attempt to control rheumatic fever in Israel will be

inaugurated by the Hadassah Medical Organization with the return this month to Jerusalem an American-trained Israeli physician, Dr. Ernst Na-arat Erenhend.

DR. DONALD J. HAGER, an authority on race and group relations, has been appointed research director of the Commission on Community Inter-relations of the American Jewish Congress. Dr. Hager, a professor of anthropology and sociology at Princeton, served the revision committees of UNESCO which formulated the important 1951 UNESCO statement on race.

ISRAEL:

THE ISRAEL ASSOCIATION of Jews from Russia has appealed to the Russian authorities to release the 200-odd Jewish leaders under arrest in that country, and has asked the Israel Government to appeal to the Soviet Union to help to diffuse their release. The organization also appealed to the Russian authorities to permit Jews with family members in Israel to emigrate to the Jewish State. [In New York, Dr. Israel Goldstein revealed that the identity of eight Zionist leaders who are being prosecuted in Russia had been released by the AJCongress from sources behind the Iron Curtain.]

A DEMAND for free immigration of North African Jews into Israel was voiced by the Association of North African Jewish leaders at a meeting of the Tel Aviv. Gideon Raphael, an Israeli delegate to the UN who recently returned to Israel, told the delegates that the Jewish world would become the most important source of immigration for Israel.

THE ISRAEL Government has invited Jewish leaders from all Western countries to a special conference in Jerusalem beginning October 25, for the purpose of reviewing the economic progress and problems of the Jewish

A TOTAL of 11,580 immigrants arrived in Israel between October 1952, and September 1953, a Jewish Agency special mission. He also reported that 49 settlements had been established this year, including one in the Negev bearing the name of the late Chaim Weizmann, the cases of citrus fruits.

EIGHTY-TWO Israeli judges took their oath of office in a mass swearing-in ceremony in the chamber of the Israeli Supreme Court. In all, there are 89 judges in Israel's various civil courts.

MORE THAN 200 payments on account of blocked bank accounts of Jewish Arab refugees now residing in Syria and Lebanon were made during the month of September, it was announced in Jerusalem by the UN Commission for Palestine. It is anticipated that 400,000 pounds sterling will be paid out on all the applications.

A Review of Jewish Interests

TIMELY TOPICS

Terror in Rumania

WITHIN the next six to seven years, Israel's income from various mining enterprises will reach about $50,000,000 annually, and this will alter the country's present financial picture, Dr. Dov Joseph, Minister of Development, told a meeting in Rehovot.

INTERNATIONAL:

THE ISRAEL delegation at the UN issued a statement condemning the anti-Israel propaganda campaign waged by Egypt during the last few weeks. The statement, hitting at the false charges published by high Egyptian officials with respect to an alleged occupation of the demilitarized zone at El Aujia by Israeli forces, alluded to "hit and run" tactics by Arab governments which propagate sensational charges and then fail either to submit or to accept the false charges in the appropriate UN organs.

DENMARK'S King Frederick IX accepted from Israel Minister Arahav Newton a amendment-bound Bible in Hebrew and English a token of gratitude from Israel President Yitzhak Ben Zvi for the Danish people's rescue of 6,000 Jews from the hands of the Nazi in 1943. Earlier, the King and Queen, Prime Minister Helmut Heftedor, Foreign Minister Hansen and numerous Jewish leaders attended a synagogue service in Copenhagen, and the King presented a anniversary of the rescue of Danish Jews.

JEWISH LEADERS in Mexico City termed "greatly exaggerated" the reports published in New York about an alleged stepped-up anti-Jewish campaign in Mexico. Exception to these reports is also being taken by the Mexican press. They emphasize that the attacks are anti-Jewish publications and are not new and are not being seriously.

THE 10TH PLENNY session of the Central Jewish Congress was held in Toronto with the reelection of Samuel Bronfman as national president and Michael Garber as national vice-president. The session dealt with the questions of relations on aiding Israel through increased contributions, sale of Israel bonds and private investments.

FANCE of 12 halutzim left Rio de Janeiro for Israel to join a Mapai kibbutz. In all some 300 Brazilian Jewish youths have left for pioneering

A LIST of the goods which Israel would like to receive during the forthcoming reparations treaty was submitted to the German authorities by the Israel purchasing mission in Cologne. The schedule deals with orders to be placed between April 1, 1954, and March 31, 1955, which is the third fiscal year provided for in the reparations pact.

GROUP of 12 halutzim left Rio de Janeiro for the chamber of Commerce in New York. In all, there are 89 judges in Israel's various civil courts.

JOSE FIGUERES, President-elect of Costa Rica, on an official visit to Quito, Ecuador, received a delegation of the local Jewish community, who expressed their thanks for his interest in the State of Israel, which he visited in 1951. (See "Not to Have Dreamed in Vain" by Mr. Figueres in this issue.)

There is little that can be done to ameliorate the lot of those unfortunate Russian Jewish leaders who are now thrown upon the tender mercies of the Russian courts. But it must be remembered that Communist nations have previously been swayed before an aroused and indignant world opinion. The Russian authorities must be made to feel that the civilized world recils in horror from the campaign of brutality and terror against a group already crushed by heavy burdens and intense pressure. The democratic nations must insistently demand that Rumania open the door to Jews for emigration to Israel. It is sheer cruelty for Rumania to contain the Jews and to confront them with periodic accusations, when the decent alternative is to open the gates to them and let them leave for a country to which they wish to immigrate and which is ready and eager to admit them.

Salute to Hadassah

FROM YEAR TO YEAR the Women's Zionist organization called Hadassah has been going from strength to strength. It remains immune to the effects of the recession that has affected all other Zionist bodies in this "era of Zionist fulfillment" following the emergence of the State of Israel. Far from being affected by the decline and apathy in organized Zionist life in this country, Hadassah has moved steadily forward, expanding its human resources, increasing its material accomplishments, extending and deepening its influence in the life of Jewish women in America. As it assembles in Washington next week for its 39th annual convention, Hadassah can take justifiable pride in its large and disciplined membership, which has contributed magnificently to the building of Israel and at the same time has become a dynamic force in the development of a creative Jewish life here.

Maurice Samuel in discussing the interrelationship of American Jewry and Israel in his new book Level Sunght, has this to say concerning the role of Hadassah:

This remarkable organization, with its three hundred thousand members, is worth an extensive study as a sociological phenomenon. It has rescued tens of thousands of Jewish women from the futilities and vacuities of the middle-class pattern of recent times. It has managed to take action for Israel with programmatic concern for the educational tasks of American Jewish life; it has kept clear of the kind of mob Zionism which came to terms with terrorism in

Not to Have Dreamed in Vain

JOSE FIGUERES

T
Hese words about Israel are for readers
who are acquainted with the subject. Until re-
cently, I did not know much about Israel and
it is not simple to explain my "discovery" of Israel to
people who are as ignorant of the matter as I was.
Some day I shall write the whole story as I see it.
Now I am merely setting down fleeting impressions
of some aspects of the country's life, written for those
who have followed the Zionist movement and the crea-
tion of the state.

When I was eighteen I first confronted socialism in my readings at the Boston Public Library, and the dream of a more perfect world set me on fire. Later, as an industrialist and farmer, I was involved with the problem of employer-employee relations. At that time strange things were happening in the world. Germany and Italy tried to reorganize themselves under a new social system which ended in dictatorship and war. Russia's formidable attempt dissolved in another dictatorship, the most ferocious and inhuman of modern times. In the United States the New Deal, and in England the Labor Party, initiated new directions, there were those who would have us believe that economic freedom cannot be achieved without the sacrifice of political liberty. Until I visited Israel I had lost the hope of ever seeing, in my lifetime, a nobler society, more rational, more just.

Passing through New York in 1950, en route to
Israel, I requested some preliminary information from
the Jewish Agency. My mind was virgin ground in
regard to Zionism, colonization, the new state, etc.
Benno Weiser, the writer, gave me and my compan-
ions a few patient words of explanation: the Jews are
a people whose most distinctive characteristic is their
spirituality. I was struck by the paradox of this asser-
tion and the traditionally biased conception of the
Jew as the merchant, never the creator. The "Mer-
chant of Venice" was the classic anti-Semitic prototype
of the Jew. Evidently, Mr. Weiser's allusion was to
the scientists, philosophers and musicians, to the Jews
who have made such a disproportionately large con-
tribution to universal culture. I recalled somewhat
nostalgically Baruch Spinoza, that glimmering star of
another impressioned epoch of my youth. Nothing else
occurred to me in relation to the spirituality of the
Jewish people.

from the rocks being removed everywhere to room
for pipelines and provide space for more build-
ings. This sentiment is released into the air by the
sun-drenched orange groves and radiates from the
faces of the children.

Activity everywhere is feverish; there is no time to
be lost. Soil has to be prepared for agriculture. Com-
munications must be stretched. The construction of
schools and hospitals cannot be slowed down. In
short, at a dizzying pace, a country has to be created.
And defended, for peace has not yet been achieved.
The invasion might be repeated at any point, at any
moment, with any number of attackers. This combi-
nation of effort and enterprise represents a gigantic
material achievement, but that is not the greatest at-
tribute of the country. The greatest is the spirit which
permeates the new state.

MAN'S IMPORTANT MATERIAL accomplishments have
undeniable value: the Pyramids, the Coliseum, the
Panama Canal, the Manhattan skyscrapers. Israel
also represents an important material accomplish-
ment: a nation created from barren land. But the
new State of Israel is, above everything else, the in-
carnation of an old ideal, the ideal of a society dedi-
cated to the production of a nobler human being.

Israel is a miniature world where men work to ful-
fill a pleasant social duty, and have the satisfaction of
watching growth. It is a world where each man strives
for his own betterment through creative activity. Work
is part of education.

Our civilization has been characterized by a love
of property. Material things which legally belong to
us form part of our being. The means of production
are subject to our personal whims; the very breath of
our nostrils is profit. We dedicate our lives to the
cultivation of selfishness. Our acquisitive desires im-
poverish our spirits.

The colonists of Israel have reversed this attitude
toward life. Theirs are internal riches. Their daily
life consists of harsh realities and their constant physi-
cal efforts are consecrated to the ideal of service. Their
possessions are like knowledge which increases when
shared. They are, in reality, gardeners of the spirit of
man. While we fret ourselves over what we possess,
they are preoccupied by what they are.

Our literature is full of odes to the seed which flour-
ishes and flowers, too often the tree which grows, giving fruit
and shade. Too often our poets express artificial emo-
tions, because they themselves have never touched the
earth, nor made it fruitful with seed and water. On
the other hand, our agricultural workers live in con-
stant communion with nature, but they lack the spi-
ritual development to appreciate her beauty and gran-

At the Kibbutz Ginegar, a 22-year-old sociologist told me, while watering young olive trees, that man kind has to find a satisfactory definition for the word "culture." Here in the Western world one is prone to be an armchair socialist. We maintain a pious intellectual objection to the exploitation of man by man, but we arrange it so that somebody else supports us while we philosophize. In Israel the colonists work by day and philosophize by night. They are heroes in an interminable campaign which they carry on till the end of life. Sacrifice is their routine; the thirst for perfection only form of egotism; spiritual satisfaction their victory and their reward.

The agricultural setup of Israel might seem mistily
utopian were it not so tangibly realistic. A hundred
thousand cultured laborers scattered over the country-
side maintain a standard of food production higher
than that of any similar group of wage earning work-
ers. I have seen the fields and the stables, and the
bookkeeping figures in the ledgers. In these prosaic
matters I am not easily deceived. The yield is high
and the administration is excellent.

TRUDE WEISS-ROSMARIN

L
ECTURE-GOING IS THE GREAT AMERICAN INDOOR
sport of mature adults. Jews, too, like to en-
gage in this mild intellectual exercise, and so
our community is astir with all types of lectures dur-
ing the "R" months. As is well known, the lecture
season coincides with the oyster season of the "R"
months—September, October, November, December,
January, February, March and April. From May to
August, American Judaism is on summer time. Tem-
ples and Synagogues are closed, except for Yahrzeit-
minyan and weddings, while the rabbis catch up on
the reading and religious school teachers are camp
counselling in a valiant attempt to keep the wolf
from the door. In these months, the program com-
mittees and the lecturers are hard at work, for the
"R"-less months are the lecture booking season and the
time when harassed lecturers prepare their notes—
mental notes, of course, as the lecturer, like the con-

Most lecture-goers assume that the life of the lec-
turer is a chain of existing triumphs and adventures.
"Isn't it thrilling to travel and never know what will
happen next?" is a favorite question of comfortable
matrons who think of a lecture tour as a "thrill" rather
than as a weary business of delayed and cancelled
flights, trains that are late, overheated or freezing
hotel rooms, and the inconveniences of life out of a
suitcase. Besides, all Jewish lecturers have other pro-
fessional duties. Some teach, some edit, some work for
organizations and some turn out a book a year, for
there is no lecturer who can live on the proceeds of
his eloquence before Jewish groups. Nevertheless, most
lecturers are delighted with their work. They are
happy when they can share their thoughts, hopes,
doubts and concern for the Jewish future with alert
men and women.

OCTOBER 19, 1953

9

the individual are fused with his civil rights. The
socialization of agriculture is a phenomenon which
surges up from the bottom toward the top, seeking
efficiency for the whole. It is the antithesis of totali-
tarianism, for every effort and every sacrifice is volun-
tary. The guiding beacon is education.

Education in the new state is a major goal of life.
To live is to educate oneself. The country gives the
impression of dedicating all of its endeavors to bring-
ing up and educating the child. Poverty's children
are non-existent at the kibbutz. There is no such thing
as a family too numerous to be properly cared for and
educated. Economic responsibility for the future gen-
eration falls on the entire adult population. But if
society does not tamper with family ties neither does it
subject the child—the seed of future generations—to
the precarious fortunes of its parents.

The new state has the government it deserves: a
spiritual people should be guided by philosophers. A
spiritual of workers needs to be governed by super-
workers. Men of inexhaustible effort, multilinguals
of limitless erudition, statesmen whose practical vision
pierces the clouds of idealism, these make up the group
of Israel's leaders.

I realize that as I write emotion begins to master
me, for the theme carries me away. Going through
Geneva I remember expressing some of my observa-
tions to Luis Alberto Monge of the International
Office of Labor, who interrupted me by saying, "How
touching it all is!" What a fine use of an adjective.
Touching is the word for Israel! To see a society
functioning without the driving force of greed. A
whole civilization dedicated to the betterment of man.
To see the new world. Not to have dreamed in vain!

"THE MIRACLE"
DECISION

THE SUPREME COURT, by unanimous vote, has just rendered two historic decisions on movie censorship. On May 26, it declared unconstitutional a New York State ban on the Italian film "The Miracle"; and on June 2 it invalidated a municipal ordinance of Marshall, Texas, under which showings of the American film "Pinky" had been prohibited.

"The Miracle" tells the story of a demented woman's seduction by a stranger who she thinks is St. Joseph, and of the birth of a child which she considers miraculous; it was banned under a movie censorship law which included the word "sacrilegious" as a ground for prohibition. "Pinky" tells the story of a white man's love for a Negro woman, and was banned under a city ordinance authorizing prohibition if a film is "of such character as to be prejudicial to the best interests of the people of the city."

The chief points of the Court's ruling on "The Miracle" are that motion pictures are entitled to the protection of the First Amendment, reversing a 1915 decision that movies are "a business pure and simple"; and that a state not only may not use a definition of "sacrilegious" too indefinite to come within "the kind of narrow exception to freedom of expression which a state may carve out to satisfy the adverse demands of other interests of society," but also has "no legitimate interest

1

in protecting any or all religions from views distasteful to them which is sufficient to justify prior restraints upon the expression of those views."

The "Pinky" decision simply cited the "Miracle" ruling, though Justice Frankfurter added that he believed the city ordinance's indefiniteness violated constitutional due process.

These decisions constitute a major victory for civil liberties. True, the Court cautioned in the "Miracle" decision: "It does not follow that the Constitution requires absolute freedom to exhibit every motion picture of every kind at all times and places." But the highest legal recognition has now been accorded to a long-established reality, that the movies are an important medium for the dissemination of information and ideas; and this could mark the beginning of a new era in motion picture content and treatment. Further, it is now established that "prior restraints" (pre-exhibition censorship) must be held within the limits of "narrow exception"; and this could mark the end of the control over movies now exercised by state and local censorship boards throughout the country.

Finally, a stern warning has now been given to private pressure-groups of all sorts, not only that their use of governmental censorship will be closely confined, but also (by implication) that their use of other methods to bring about censorship or suppression—as distinguished from free argument on the merits of any movie—violate the spirit of a basic constitutional principle that "previous restraint is a form of infringement upon freedom of expression to be especially condemned."

Since its founding in 1920, the American Civil Liberties Union has fought censorship of all kinds on many fronts. And it played a conspicuous part in the "Miracle" victory. It helped obtain an injunction against the New York City license commissioner's original ban late in 1950. When the New York State Board of Regents, early in 1951, withdrew the license it had previously granted, the ACLU helped fight the case through the state courts. In 1952, a large number of the Union's volunteer attorneys, including four members of its Board, helped prepare the 82-page *amicus curiae* brief filed with the Supreme Court; and the Court's opinions indicate that the justices gave it careful reading.

But much remains to be done. Through its National Council on Freedom from Censorship, and through its growing number of local organi-

2

zations, the Union intends to press home these "Miracle" and "Pinky" victories at state and city levels throughout the country—with respect to all media of communication, against all kinds of censorship. As a start in this new drive, the Union is publishing herewith significant excerpts from the "Miracle" decision and from the text of its November 1951 policy statement on pressure-group censorship.

## FROM MR. JUSTICE CLARK'S OPINION, DELIVERED FOR THE COURT

The issue here is the constitutionality, under the First and Fourteenth Amendments, of a New York statute which permits the banning of motion picture films on the ground that they are "sacrilegious"...

It cannot be doubted that motion pictures are a significant medium for the communication of ideas. They may affect public attitudes and behavior in a variety of ways, ranging from direct espousal of a political or social doctrine to the subtle shaping of thought which characterizes all artistic expression.

The importance of motion pictures as an organ of public opinion is not lessened by the fact that they are designed to entertain as well as to inform...

It is urged that motion pictures do not fall within the First Amendment's aegis because their production, distribution and exhibition is a large-scale business conducted for private profit. We cannot agree. That books, newspapers, and magazines are published and sold for profit does not prevent them from being a form of expression whose liberty is safeguarded by the First Amendment. We fail to see why operation for profit should have any different effect in the case of motion pictures.

It is further urged that motion pictures possess a greater capacity for evil, particularly among the youth of a community, than other modes of expression. Even if one were to accept this hypothesis, it does not follow that motion pictures should be disqualified from First Amendment protection. If there be capacity for evil it may be relevant in determining the permissible scope of community

3

control, but it does not authorize substantially unbridled censorship such as we have here.

For the foregoing reasons, we conclude that expression by means of motion picture is included within the free speech and free press guaranty of the First and Fourteenth Amendments...

To hold that liberty of expression by means of motion pictures is guaranteed by the First and Fourteenth Amendments, however, is not the end of our problem. It does not follow that the Constitution requires absolute freedom to exhibit every motion picture of every kind at all times and all places. That much is evident from the series of decisions of this Court with respect to other media of communication of ideas. Nor does it follow that motion pictures are necessarily subject to the precise rules governing any other particular method of expression. Each method tends to present its own peculiar problems.

But the basic principles of freedom of speech and the press, like the First Amendment's command, do not vary. Those principles, as they have frequently been enunciated by this Court, make freedom of expression the rule. There is no justification in this case for making an exception to that rule.

The statute involved here does not seek to punish, as a past offense, speech or writing falling within the permissible scope of subsequent punishment. On the contrary, New York requires that permission to communicate ideas be obtained in advance from state officials who judge the content of the words and pictures sought to be communicated.

This court recognized many years ago that such a previous restraint is a form of infringement upon freedom of expression to be especially condemned...

New York's highest court says there is "nothing mysterious" about the statutory provision applied in this case: "It is simply this: that no religion, as that word is understood by the ordinary, reasonable person, shall be treated with contempt, mockery, scorn and ridicule..."

This is far from the kind of narrow exception to freedom of expression which a state may carve out to satisfy the adverse demands of other interests of society. In seeking to apply the broad and all-inclusive definition of "sacrilegious" given by the New York courts, the censor is set adrift

4

upon a boundless sea amid a myriad of conflicting currents of religious views, with no charts but those provided by the most vocal and powerful orthodoxies. New York cannot vest such unlimited restraining control over motion pictures in a censor. ...

Under such a standard the most careful and tolerant censor would find it virtually impossible to avoid favoring one religion over another, and he would be subject to an inevitable tendency to ban the expression of unpopular sentiments sacred to a religious minority. Application of the "sacrilegious" test, in these or other respects, might raise substantial questions under the First Amendment's guaranty of separate church and state with freedom of worship for all. However, from the standpoint of freedom of speech and the press, it is enough to point out that the state has no legitimate interest in protecting any or all religions from views distasteful to them which is sufficient to justify prior restraints upon the expression of those views.

It is not the business of government in our nation to suppress real or imagined attacks upon a particular religious doctrine, whether they appear in publications, speeches, or motion pictures. ...

## ACLU POLICY STATEMENT ON PRESSURE-GROUP CENSORSHIP

The American Civil Liberties Union defends, as being within both the letter and the spirit of the Constitution, any simple expression by any individual or group of disapproval of any book (or film, play, periodical, radio program, etc.) or any attempt simply to dissuade others from buying it.

The ACLU recognizes, as far as legal right is concerned, the use of such orderly and lawful means as peaceful and unobstructive picketing and the organization of a specific and primary boycott, even when they imply some degree of coercion.

However, in view of the fact that the field of communication differs significantly from the general field of industry and commerce, the Union actively opposes, as being especially contrary to the spirit of the Constitution, the use of such means in the following ways:

5

(1) as pressure, or explicit threat thereof, at any time prior to the actual offering of a motion picture, etc., to the public; and (2) even after the actual offering to the public, in the form of a general or secondary boycott—designed, for example, to close a theatre entirely or to close other theatres whose proprietors ally themselves with the proprietor of the first theatre.

The Union recognizes that the problem of "pressure-group censorship" is full of differences in degree, and that it is hard to draw lines which represent the best possible combination of the freedom of expression and the freedom to see what is offered on the one hand, and the freedom to protest effectively, on the other hand.

But it believes that intimidation and reprisal have no place in the field of ideas.

The ever-increasing attempts of private pressure-groups to bring about the censorship or suppression of motion pictures, etc., which they disapprove—either through public officials or directly—dangerously undermine one of the foundation stones of American democracy, the freedom of expression. (This is especially true in the case of such operations as are secretly financed or conducted.)

The Union therefore pledges itself to intensify its efforts to investigate and combat this dangerous tendency, by all appropriate methods.

It urges those responsible for the publication or production, the distribution or circulation or exhibition, of newspapers, periodicals or books, of radio or television programs, of plays, motion pictures or other theatrical entertainments, to stand firmly against this threat to the freedom of their industries and the freedom of the people as a whole.

In accordance with its long-established policy, the ACLU will refrain from expressing disapproval of the contents of any book, etc., unless in the opinion of the Board extraordinary circumstances necessitate such expression.

National Council on
Freedom from Censorship
of the

AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION

170 Fifth Avenue, New York 10, N.Y.

347

June 1952

6