Jewish Post, Indianapolis, Marion County, 31 October 1947 — Page 4

THE NATIONAL JEWISH POST

Friday, October 31, 1947

Finebcrg Opposes A.D.L. Stand Crossfire Dangerous; Jew Seen As Victim Sprrial NEW YORK -Taking a stand diametrically opposed to tRat of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, S. Andhil Fineberg, of the public relations division of the American Jewish

Audience Poll Shows “Crossfire” Is Good DENVER, Colo.—An audience poll on “Crossfire” at a sneak preview here shows that 92 per cent of the replies listed the film as very good or pretty good, the Intermountain Jewish News reported. Eighty-six per cent would recommend it to their friends, the paper said, and 63 per cent identified against the villain, Montgomery, who in a drunken rage, kills Samuels, a Jew. At the end of the film, Montgomery, trapped, is killed by the law, and 84 per cent thought he got what he deserved, while 29 per cent felt he should be punished, reformed, thus producing a happy ending. More pictures on this level were indicated by 74 per cent with many added comments warning against a “cycle.” Fortythree per cent agreed that Montgomery did not have reason enough for killing Samuels.

Committee, declared this week that the movie “Crossfire” is definitely harmful to Jews. Before giving its unqualified approval to “Crossfire”, the A. D. L. had held a series of private showings in various parts of the country, where trained experts gauged the audience’s reaction. “TT is easy to understand the ses, we may soon find the Jew J. popular approval the picture presented on the screen as someis receiving,” Rabbi Fineberg one whose windows are smashed; wrote in an article, “Examining as someone to whom jobs are re-

The Movie Gift Horse.”

fused; as someone unwelcome at

“As a murder mystery it is a the colleges; as someone mis-

real thriller and w'hat several of its characters say against intol-

treated in many other ways. In all of these pictures anti-Jewish

erance is balm to ah who find scurrilities must be spoken. Some prejudice hurtful,” he says, “And of the film characters will deyet, if this picture encourages a nounce anti-Semitism but the stream of similar pictures, the American Jews will be fixed in result will be regrettable. the public mind as persons most alians, or other groups who en- likely to be disliked. As for the Jew has been portrayed (by a exhortations against the abuse, symbolic character) as someone scientific research indicates that who is liable to be killed simply such preaching has negligible ef-

because he is a Jew. A few weeks feet.”

hence we shall have Ameiican pointing out a different treatJew’S pictured on the screen as . . . .. . . ^ ^ . i ment of prejudice against other

persons to whom people do not ^

want to rent or sell their prop- K rou P s > Rabbi Fineberg insisted erty (‘Gentlemen’s Agreement’). ‘ There is little likelihood of simiA few months later, the Ameri- lar portrayal on the screen of can Jew may be portrayed as American Catholics, Negroes, Itsomeone whom others do not allians, or other groups who enwant as a son-in-law (‘Earth and dure similar prejudice. Catholics High Heaven’). would resent it. Theirs are con“If these are box-office succes- sistently admirable screen roles,

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THESE CHOICE WHISKIES SOLD COAST TO COAST

as in ‘Boys’ Town,’ ‘The Song Of Bernadette,’ ‘Bells of Saint Mary’ and ‘Going My Way’— to mention only a few. “TF there is anything the Jews JL of America need, it is that they be regarded not as a problem but as people, w>ho, as individuals, range from saints to sinners. When regarded as a group, they must appear as a deserving people, who elicit respect, not animosity. To employ mass propaganda emphasizing a rising tide of prejudice against any minority group has a boomerang effect upon prejudiced or wavering elements. It creates the impression of group support for the individual’s hostility. The hater or nearhater feels he is not alone, that he has many allies. The surest way for a group to become a scape goat is to have itself regarded as the natural victim of adverse emotions. That, in fact, is the kernel of the scape goating process. The group whom the majority believe is esteemed, the group that is rarely thought of as unpopular, is most likely to be in high favor tomorrow and the day after. No sane individual would advertise himself as unpopular in the hope of winning friends and allies thereby.” As to the comment that “Crossfire” is the first picture “to face the Jewish problem,” Rabbi Fineberg maintains that "The Jewish problem is the most damaging phrase that confronts the Jews anywhere. We can and should speak freely of ‘the problem of anti-Semitism,’ ‘the problems of Jewish-Christian relationships, etc. But throughout the European continent before the debacle the phrase ‘the Jewish problem’ was a term of common parlance and heightened the impression (hat Jews are necessarily a problem to their neighbors. I prefer that Hollywood treat my co-re-ligionists as people, rather than as a problem. We should combat anti-Semitism by specific measures, wherein we take real action directed toward eliminating concrete acts of intolerance and discrimination in specific localities by specific steps and by specific laws. These are infinitely better tools than fictitious characters which strengthen the impression that many people hate Jews ‘Such unpopularity must be deserved’ has been the incessant and effective cry of the anti-Sem-ites.” | MIEKE always will be a cer- ^ tain minimal amount of anti-Jewish hostility. We cannot wipe that out completely. Where then is the stream of publicity about dislike of Jews to end? The tide of group antagonism cannot ebb out completely. If the wash must continue on the scales of tremendous propaganda about the Jew as a natural scape goat, the tide can never cease until a complete defeat of the Jews results. Talking up anti-Semtism will no more diminish it than bewailing a man’s lack of friends will help him acquire friends. ‘‘Their motives are of the best,” Rabbi Fineberg continues, regarding the picture’s producer. “But while a little fire may warm a home, if it is likely to start a conflagration that cannot be confined, the fire can hardly be welcomed. The ‘please don’t hate them’ treatment of the Jew has always proved much more a boomerang than an aid. Constructive, positive suggestion is excellent and the negative appeal is mistaken. “ A NTI-Semitism is a subtle, corrosive force which can be successfully combatted only by subtle methods. These must

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■^TtyTHEN The Jewish State is set up,its logical first President will W be Chaim Weizmann. Don’t be at all surprised if he is elected by acclamation. I hope he is. On the other hand, the powers of the President will be severly limited. You can leave it to David Ben Gurion to limit Weizmann’s powers; he did it pretty well as chairman of the Executive of the of the Jewish Agency, while Weizmann was president, and he will do it just as well when Weizmann is President of the Jewish State and he, Ben Gurion, is Prime Minister. I am reasonably sure that if a Jewish State is set up soon, David Ben Gurion will be Prime Minister. But not by acclamation. Will Silver run against Ben Gurion? Of course not. How could he? Only citizens or at least residents of the Jewish State will elect and be elected. Weizmann has a home on Rehovoth. Ben Gurion came to Palestine as a young man and has lived there since, except for the couple of years during the first World War when he was deported by Turkish authorities, lived in New York and then came back to Palestine with the advancing British Army as a member of the Jewish Legion. BUT WHAT about Silver? * Silver is the recognized leader of American Zionists and is becoming increasingly recognized as the most important Zionist leader outside of Palestine anywhere. He will be the logical man to become the first President of the reconstituted World Zionist Organization (perhaps under a new appelation) after the Jewish State is set up. He may have a good chance to hold high office in Palestine—but not until he has made his home there. Gabe Cohen will bear me out that I expressed these views in my conversation with him during his last visit to New York a couple of weeks ago and that he asked me to write a column on that. I don’t know whether Silver shares my views on Weizmann and Ben Gurion, but I have no doubt as to what he thinks about his own place as a leader of Palestine Jewry. Only the other day he told me, and authorized me to quote him: "I have no ambitions for Palestine. The Jews of Palestine can take care of themselves. They have capable men and they don’t need my guidance.” He then proceeded to say that he had chosen as his special task the conduct of the political struggle in America, which, as he felt and as events had proven, was to be the political battleground for the setting up of a Jewish State. TODAY the Jewish Agency and the World Zionist Organization perform a dual function: one of a world wide Jewish movement for building Palestine and one of a de facto government of Jewish Palestine. ^ When the Jewish State is officially established the two functions will have to be separated: The government of the Jewish State is one thing; the Zionist organization is another. Whether of not Moshe Shertok will continue to be the Secretary of State, or Foreign Secretary, in the Jewish State as he has been in the Jewish Agency will depend on the voting situation and party relations among the Jewish and Arab citizens of The Jewish State: Zionists outside of Palestine will have no influence in the question. The same will apply to Eliezer Kaplan as Secretary of the Treasury. The Jewish Agency Executive is a Cabinet which is patterned after the European rather than the U. S. style; it is selected out of the parliamentary groups and the President, like the President in France, like the King in England, has little real power outside of the prestige commanded by his position and his personality. The future Jewish State will probably continue in the same tradition. The strongest political party in Palestine is Mapai (Palestine Labor Party). It is not unlike the British Labor Party in social and economic outlook. But while in England the Crossman group and the other labor rebels are within the party, in Palestine the labor dissidents form separate parties—Hashomer Hatzair, Ahdut Haaroda. Ben Gurion is the leader of the Mapai, that is why he is Chairman of the Agency Executive and that is why he is likely to be the first Prime Minister of the Jewish State. But wait, we haven’t got that State yet.

establish the right of the Jew to respect and equality of treatment by demanding similar treatment for all racial and religious groups. Spot-lighting the Jews as disliked people in mass media is rarely necessary, and is usually self-defeating. Processes of the right kind have been launched and have already had considerable effect—despite tremendous Nazi and native anti-Semitic propaganda. We may not have made great gains, but we have weathered terrific attacks. Coughlin, the German-American Bund, the Christian Front, the Ku Klux Klan and sundry rabble-rousers have assailed us fiercely. They did not win. The anti-Semites lost decisively during the most criti-

cal period. And there were no movies like ‘Crossfire’ when the menace was greatest,—perhaps that was fortunate. “I hope that Jews will be portrayed in the movies, but in the manner that Catholics have been portrayed there—as likeable people whose friendship anyone would desire. Surely, that is a fair and legitimate role to seek for the Jews on the screen. Surely, Jewish life in America has provided more than one ‘Jolson Story’ for the cameras.”

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