That Jacob Wassermann, the German-Jewish novelist, is now trying to avoid the consequences of his recent public declaration insulting to the East-European Jews, is the opinion of "Die Neue Welt," Vienna Zionist organ, which in its issue of December 6, says:
"Wassermann gave his opinion of the Eastern Jews not in a letter but in a very carefully prepared and written-out lecture before the German Society for Political Studies, a non-Jewish public. The quoted passage about East-European insults was reported in the newspapers as part of his talk, and Wassermann then had no corrections to make to this.
"Later on the matter became uncomfortable for Herr Wassermann, because ‘Die Neue Welt’ showed how Wassermann tried to display his Germanness before the Aryans by insulting other Jews, and other journals took the same stand. When Wassermann now says he was provoked into an ‘impatient counter-gesture,’ he is deliberately stating an untruth. Who provoked him at that time so that he had to defend himself? He delivered a lecture before a non-Jewish public, a lecture which was prepared to the minutest detail. Polish and Russian Jews, who might have protested and provoked him, weren’t there. Nobody contradicted him, since there was no discussion. So that when he now takes the attitude of a nervous person who was ‘provoked into this outburst, he is playing comedy. When he now talks of all sorts of libel, he is himself acting like an entrapped libeller. When he now wishes to change ‘dirt’ into ‘spirituality and depth’ and ‘filth’ into ‘capacity for martyrdom,’ it is the sort of juggling that assumes the public to have a short memory and to be stupid. Next thing this ardent Jew may tell us that he had his child baptized, because he was ‘provoked’ into doing it."
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.
