Jewish Post, Indianapolis, Marion County, 1 March 1940 — Page 8

The Jewish Post A Journal for Indiana Jewry Published erery Friday by The Jewish Post Editorial and circulation office, 024 K. of P. Bldg., Indianapolis, Ind. For advertising rates, apply at the office. Entered as second class matter at the post office at Indianapolis, Ind., under the act of March S. 1879. Printed by the Mall Printing Co., >14 East Market Street, Indianapolis, Ind.

G. M. COHEN—Publigher

Changes of address should be sent direct to the Circulation Department Unless received two weeks in advance, The Jewish Post cannot assume responsibility for Issues missed. Please include old address. Telephones LI ncoln 3403-8404.

FRIDAY, MARCH 1, 1940 HEBREW CALENDAR Purim March 23 Passover April 28-80 Shevuoth June 12, IS Cfaamisho Osor B’Shevat.. .Jan. 26 Lag B’Omer May 26 First Day of Shevuoth.... June 12 Tisha P’Ab Aug. 18 Rosh Hashonah Oct. 8, 4 Yom Kippur Oct. 12

The Editor’s Chair: When I worked on a daily newspaper I was known for two things: getting the paper sued for libel and asking silly questions. Both of these proclivities I have carried over into the Anglo-Jewish field. Of course no one has sued this paper for libel, and we all know why, but you should see how patient some of my friends have to be with me when they are trying to explain something which they feel is as obvious as my nose for news, but which I have a great deal of difficulty in digesting. What I mean is this. Remember my continued disbelief in the diadactic denial of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that they are owners of the Seven Arts Feature Service. I should be satisfied, but whenever I get a chance I go digging, asking people, wanting to know why and how come this and that. With this result. Now from a source which I consider exti'a reliable, I learn that George Backer, president of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, is owner of Seven Arts. This is no great crime. The only harm this joint ownership can do is to prevent some organization which the ownership frowns upon from receiving proper publicity in the Anglo-Jewish press. For instance, every Anglo-Jew-ish publication worthy of being called a publication has taken a whack at the impotent General Jewish Council. Yet the J.T.A. only once, to my memory, reported a meeting of the G.J.C., and on that occasion immediately sent out a “kill” order to delete every bit of the article that was of any consequence. Were there two competing news services', the chances of accurate reporting would be exactly double what they are now. At present there is as much freedom of the press in the Anglo-Jewish field as one man, one viewpoint, allows, and this is no reflection on this one man’s honesty or integrity. It means ony that there can’t be any real difference of opinion. The next step is for the J.T.A., if I’m right, and the Seven Arts (I hope I’m right) to send out a statement of the real situation. And truly I’ll forever hold my peace.

TO SPEAK IN TOLEDO Mrs. J, A. Goodman is leaving Monday for Toledo, O. to address a Youth Aliyah group Tuesday afternoon and give a talk before the Business and Professional Group of Hadassah Tuseday night at a dinner in the Art Museum.

Should Organizations Advertise in the Jewish Press?

M7HAT responsibilities organizations have to their local Jewish publication is discussed in forceful terms in a front page editorial in The Jewish Transcript, of Seattle, Wash., last week. Pointing out that organizations require “not only news, but tons of sales propaganda to put over their countless purposes,” The Transcript declares that these groups should by way of suppoi’ting the paper, take paid advertising space from time to time. The Transcript said it referred “to the annual drives of the Federated Fund, the B’nai B’rith, the Hadassah Donors’ Luncheon, the Talmud Torah Bazaars, New Year’s balls and dances, annual picnics, and hundreds of other enterprises which it is required to popularize, entirely at its own expense.” “The Transcript,” the editorial says, “should not be required to carry the load” and it “should be shared by the institutions benefitted.” The impassioned plea of The Transcript does not find a counterpart in the situation in Indianapolis. The Jewish Welfare Fund drive always

arranges for paid space to supplement the news matter announcing its annual drive, most organizations use paid advertising to enhance the attendance at their large affairs, and those who like the B’nai B’rith or the Council of Jewish Women have little call for paid advertising usually show their appreciation by buying space for greetings at the important holidays of the year. Still there is enough applicability of the Seattle situation to Indianapolis to warrant comparison. Some organizations still persist in using the two local publications for meeting notices, announcements of their affairs, and other purposes which save them the stamps, printing and other expenses, but never consider the possibility of inserting paid advertising on special occasions. In all fairness, however, most Indianapolis Jewish organizations escape inclusion when the charge is made that they fail to give recognition and support to their local Jewish press.

Should Get Goldmann To Open Drive

DROBABLY the clearest exposition of the situation of world Jewry today is to be found in the speeches Nahum Goldmann, an official of the World Jew : sh Congress, has been making in the United States. So profound and yet practical has Goldmann’s analysis of the world situation been, that it has almost changed the entire trend of thinking in American Jewry on local and national and world-wide problems. In fact, a move is now on foot, to give Goldmann some official

position in an American Jewish organization so that he can be kept in the United States permanently. The Post is now reprinting the speech Mr. Goldmann delivered in Detroit some weeks ago before the Council of Jewish Welfare Funds and Federations. If he stays in the United States, Goldmann would make a splendid guest speaker to open Indianapolis’ Welfare Fund Drive set this year for April 11-20.

New National Sorority Boon for Campus

DLEDGING by Sigma Delta Tau of Sigma Phi 4 Upsilon, local Jewish sorority on the campus of Indiana University at Bloomington, marks the third important event in Indiana Jewish fraternity and sorority circles in the present year. First was the announcement by Sigma Alpha Mu of plans for the building of a new fraternity house. Then Phi Beta Delta, not to be outdone, last week made public its own plans for the construction of an imposing structure to replace its present home. Recognition by Sigma Delta Tau, one of the five national Jewish sororities, of Sigma Upsilon, will fill a lack in the “organized” life of the campus which has been felt for some time. Both S. A. M. and P. B. D., each well over ten years old, have thrived on the Indiana Campus, and given

their national organizations two of their finest chapters in the United States. As a result, more and more of the State’s fine Jewish boys have converged on Bloomington, but the girls, on the other hand, because of the fact that there was no national Jewish sorority there, often decided on Illinois, or Michigan, or Ohio to further their education. In all probability, the Jewish student enrollment at Indiana will grow by leaps and bounds within the next few years. A fine Hfllel Foundation, two strong national fraternities, and now a splendid sorority, should make the campus at Bloomington a mecca not only for high school graduates from our own State, but from neighboring States as well.

Current Comment

Maury Maverick Tells Why He Refused to Withdraw Rebuke iv> Five Jews in Vigilante Group Stopping Meeting—Another definition of Democracy : “Democracy is liberty plus economic security. It is the right to think, talk, pray and eat regularly.” That summary sounds clear and uncomplex, as though it were directed to simple minds from a simple, down-to-earth individual. ... It was. . . . The definition is that of Maury Maverick, the kind of a Texan that it is hard to keep from describing as rough, gruff, tough and two-fisted ... or maybe three-fisted, when you get to know him. Maverick addressed a few gatherings last week, one of them that of Los Angeles Lodge B’nai B’rith. There were probably no conservative thinkers there, as such things go, but if there were, they must have been jolted by some of the things Mayor Maverick told them. . . . Like this: “Liberty means liberty for everybody—not just for yourself or your group.” Or: “If you don’t fight for the liberty of everybody, you won’t have any of your own to fight for.” The Jews in San Antonio, Maverick feels, are not blameless in this matter of civil liberties and the preservation of the rights of the people. . . . When Communists sought to hold a meeting in a San Antonio hall, a self-appointed vigilante gang that included five Jews, one a leader in the party, broke up the meeting “with force and violence,” on the theory that Communism is un-American and therefore Communists have no right to speak their minds. . . . When Maverick rebuked these hei-oic Jewish patriots, charging them with intolerance and betrayal of the American spirit, the good, respectable Jews of San Antonio pi’otested. A delegation came to wait upon Mr. Maverick, composed of rabbis and communal leaders. . . . They pleaded that they were not responsible for

what their co-religionists had done. . . . They begged him to withdraw his rebuke. . . . Instead, Maverick charged them with the same intolerance—and proved he was right—by pointing out that not one of them had risen to remark to his congregation that Civil Liberties had been violated . . . that it was the duty of every Jew to protest again this violation, and to disclaim the act of the super-patriots. (One of the rabbis later told Maverick that he bad stood up for the victims of the vigilantes, and that for his pains, his congregation chieftains advised him to concentrate on spirituality and morals and lay off the heavy stuff.) Maverick insists with some degree of reason (and with a delightful lack of knowledge of the extreme degree of disunity with which the Jewish people is endowed) that all Jews are responsible for the acts of some Jews. ... If anyone but Maverick said that, we’d be justified in giving out a piercing shriek: “Hitler!” When Maverick says it, it’s because, as a man of great native shrewdness, he knows that the people in general have pre-empted the attitude of blaming all the Jews for the acts of some of the Jews. . . . The Jewish position in disclaiming this responsibility is logical, says Maverick, but who gives a damn about logic? ... In dealing with the masses of the people, logic, he is convinced, has never been a very good talking point. Maverick’s philosophy of life, his credo, his ideal, his advice to Jewry and general statement of policy probably sums itself up like this: “When you see a Mexican or a Japanese persecuted, you let your neck get scratched when you stick it out; let yourself get kicked around ... so that in the next rumpus, you won’t be left alone trying to save your own neck yourself.” . . . He’s got something there. . . . Good Shabbas.—The B’nai B’rith Messenger.

COMMITTEES NAMED . (Continued from Page 3) auditors are Max M. Plesser and Dr. Philip Falendar, and refreshments, Leo Talesnick, chairman; Henry Silverman, Mrs. S. Block, Mr. and Mrs. Dave Hollander and Abe Draizer. Other committees are wheel of fortune, Aaron Click and Herman Chalfie; contact, Mrs. David L. Sablosky, chairman, Mrs. Henry Blatt and Mrs. Max Klezmer. Door committee includes Julius Falendar and H. T. Cohen. Harry S. Joseph is chairman of publicity. Gifts will be handled by Mrs. Kulwin, Mrs. Dave Dobrowitz, Mrs. Aaron Unger, Mrs. Abe Unger, Mrs. Barney Podkin and Mrs. Edgar Blay, and games, Henry Salam. As in the past, gold tickets at $5 each will be issued to patrons and patronesses of the ball. Aaron Unger is chairman of the gold ticket committee. Mrs. Herman Chalfie and Leo Selig are general co-chairmen of the ball.

SPEAKS IN CINCINNATI Daniel Frisch, local Zionist leader, will deliver an address to the Cincinnati Zionist District next Tuesday night.

Florence Slutzky and Hannah Miller are leaving for Gary where they will attend the Youth Conclave.

Our Film Folk (Continued from Page 4) the investigator claims to have bagged. * * « No procrastinator is Chaplin . . . that is, after two or three years of starting to get started. He winds up like a cyclone. His picture is ready for scoring, cutting, which he is rushing so as to release it . . . while dictators are still . . . dictators! 4 4 * The most successful benefit in the history of the institution was given for the Jewish Home for the Aged this week. And Leo Carillo, George Murphy, and Rudy Valee made the affair, reaping a pile of shekels never dreamed of by that organization.

4 4* “Medicine Man,” one of Jack Benny’s earliest “chef-d’oeuvres” . . . vintage 1931 . . . wll be unleashed on the public . . . and is Buck bucking! But the distributor claims it’s so bad . . . it’s good! 4 4 4 Potpourri: Groucho has a 20-year-old son! Boy is on the way to becoming a tennis champ. “Gone With the Wind” has already harvested over 85,000,000 for its producers. Posterity will think of 1940 as the year of the great wind. They say Eddie Cantor is stil stymied on an air deal because he refuses to delete world topics from his chatter. Fritz Mandl, the ex-Mr. Hedy LaMarr, is coming to Movie Center to “angel” some picture production. Martha Raye’s dressing room bears the monicker, “Mrs. David Rose.” “I Married a Nazi” will make the inevitable transition from print to prints. Ruby Lynn, Rubinoff’s daughter, makes her debut as the vocal ingredient of a dance band. Although Jolson had his ex-Ruby out to dinner, there appears little likelihood of a retake . . . her only comment was, “We both have to eat.” Vogue please note: Peter korre ’wrears tail-less shirts.