Considerable light on the question of whether or not the “Jewish issue” can legally be brought into the Ford-Sapiro trial is shed in an opinion given to the Bureau of Jewish Social Research by Max J. Kohler, well known New York attorney.
The opinion was written in 1923 and pertained to a request of the Board of Jewish Deputies in England.
The “Jewish Daily Bulletin” has obtained a copy of the opinion dated July 25, 1923, in which Mr. Kohler stated:
“Your letter of the 9th inst. on behalf of the Board of Deputies of British Jews came duly to hand, inquiring as to whether in the United States Jewish communities are authorized to maintain legal proceedings for libel or slander, and stating that in England the law gives practically no such protections, so that Jews can and are freely libelled, provided individuals are not specified in the attack. In answer, I would state that the law in the United States seems to be the same, we having adopted the English common law on the subject. I believe the rule has not been changed by statute in any of our states, though I cannot answer authoritatively as to any state, other than New York, and it would answer no useful purpose to attempt to wade through the statutes of each of our 48 states, each of which is authorized to modify by statute the common law rule. The general American rule is laid down in Vol. 25, p. 363, of the ‘Cyclopedia of Law and Procedure’ as follows:
“‘When the defamatory matter has no specific personal application, and is so general that no individual damages can be presumed, and the class referred to is so numerous that great vexation and oppression might grow out of a multiplicity of suits, no private suit can be maintained. But although the defamatory publication is directed against a particular class of persons or a group, yet any one of that class or group may maintain an action upon showing that the words apply specifically to him.’ See also pp. 426 and 582; also Odgers on Libel and Slander (1912 Ed.) p. 147 et seq.; Newell on Slander and Libel (1914 Ed.) p. 326 et seq.; Fraser on Libel (1917 Ed.) p. 319.
“The American cases on the subject are collected in the notes in 5 Lawyers Reports Annotated New Series 480 and 8 Am. $amp; Eng. Annotated cases 131, both of which maintain that the rule should, however, be different in view of Le Fanu vs. Malcolmson 1 House of Lords Cases 637.
“A few years ago, an effort was made in Michigan to change the rule by statute, in view of Henry Ford’s propaganda, but after a bill had passed both houses of the legislature, it was recalled from the Governor’s possession because of newspaper opposition.
“There is considerable doubt whether the rule applies to prosecutions from criminal libel, in view of the English decision, concerning a libel on Jews, rendered in Rex v. Osborne 2 Barnardiston 138, 156; W. Kelynge’s Reports 231 and 2 Swanston 503 note (1732), where an inflamatory article tended to stir up riot against them. The Court there said, according to the note in 2 Swanston:
“‘Such sort of advertisements necessarily tending to raise tumults and disorders and inflame them with an universal spirit of barbarity against a whole body of men, as if guilty of crimes scarce practicable and totally incredible.’
“The varying reports of this case leave it uncertain, however, whether the Court sustained the prosecution as one for criminal libel or for breach of the peace. The case was discussed by Chancellor Walworth in an early N. Y. case in a minority opinion in Ryckman vs. Delavan, 25 Wendell 186.
“Possibly the language of the N. Y. Court of Appeals in People ex rel Burnham vs. Flynn 189 N. Y. 180, 185 in condemnation of ‘an unexampled illustration of race bitterness and hatred’ by the theatrical critic Metcalf, in assailing the Jews in ‘Life’ may induce N. Y. courts to follow this early English case. In Austria, for example, statutes expressly authorize criminal prosecutions of one publishing such matter as a breach of the peace, but Dr. Josef S. Bloch’s ‘My Reminiscences’ (Vienna & Berlin, 1923) p. 60-1 shows that anti-Semitic prejudices prevailing may result in acquittals, quite independently of the merits, and this may occur still more easily in such cases in the United States, where guilt may be established beyond a reasonable doubt in criminal cases, with the result that people may be led to believe that the libellous statements were proved to be true. To allow individual Jews indiscriminately to sue civilly for a libel on their whole race or community may conceivably lead to still greater evils in particular cases, if verdicts for defendants are rendered.”
When interviewed by the “Jewish Daily Bulletin” yesterday, Mr. Kohler stated:
“Since the above opinion was rendered nearly four years ago, the passage of the above-quoted from the ‘Cyclopedia of Law and Procedure’ was superseded by the section in 36 Corpus Juris 1161 where the rule was much more qualifiedly stated that civil libel will not lie for false statements against a whole class. Among the authorities there cited, tending to negative the alleged rule, is the case of Marsden vs. Henderson 22 Upper Canada Queen’s Bench 585, which, by a strange coincidence, involved an alleged libel upon a class of middle men claimed to have preyed upon the farmers of Canada. Around the end of 1924, the Supreme Court of Hungary rendered an opinion, reversing the lower court and sustaining a conviction for libelling the Jews collectively. It was reported in “Pester Lloyd” of Oct. 10, 1924 and published at length in French translation in the organ of the Alliance Israelite Universelle, entitled ‘Pais et Droit,’ Vol. 4, No. 8 (Oct. 1924).
“I myself reviewed at some length the “Reminiscences of that splendid champion of Jewry, the late Dr. Joseph S. Bloch of Vienna, with particular reference to his successful prosecution in Austria of libels against the Jews collectively–in the ‘American Hebrew’ of Sept. 7 and 14, 1923 in an article entitled ‘The Power of Truth.’ One of the law suits is the basis of Dr. Bloch’s invaluable work ‘Israel und die Voelker’ (1922; 830 pages) which is our best refutation of anti-Semitic libels against Talmudic ethics and an English translation of which has been under way for some time.”
JEWISH COMMUNAL ACTIVITIES
The Central Synagogue at Lexington Avenue and Fifty-fifth Street, New York City, of which Rabbi Jonah B. Wise is rabbi, observed the eightieth anniversary of its founding Friday night with special services under the auspices of the Brotherhood of the Synagogue.
The synagogue was founded eighty years ago in Ludlow Street. It moved uptown as its membership grew and the present edifice was dedicated by the late Rabbi Isaac M. Wise, father of the present rabbi.
The principal addresses were delivered by Rabbi Wise and Dr. Nathan Krass, rabbi of Temple Emanu-El.
Max L. Shallek, President of the congregation, spoke.
Others who took part in the services included Nathan L. Guinsberg, whose father was cantor at the Synagogue for more than forty years, and the following sons of former rabbis at Central Synagogue: Dr. George Alexander Kohut, Daniel A. Huebsch and Eugene Mosses. Others who took part were Cantor I. H. Weinstock, Joshua Kantrowitz and Rudolph Polk.
The twenty-third annual convention of the Jewish Consumptives Relief Society will be held this summer in Atlantic City. The dates announced from the Denver headquarters this week are May 21-23. Convention headquarters will be in the Hotel Breakers.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
