Rabbi Cohen Raps Rongy’s Claim That Charge of Bias to Jewish Medical Students Unwarranted

Those who impose restrictions on Jewish candidates for admission to various medical schools in the country will “welcome with glee” the recent survey prepared by Dr. A. J. Rongy, prominent Jewish physician of New York, according to Rabbi J. X. Cohen, executive secretary of the Free Synagogue. Dr. Rongy, in his survey completed early last month, which drew wide comment, concluded that charges of unfairness against Jewish students in medical colleges were not warranted; that present restrictions safeguard the welfare of medicine, the public and Jewish doctors; and that Jews should themselves curtail the number of persons of their faith entering the medical field.

Rabbi Cohen, in a spirited reply to Dr. Rongy made public today, asserts that “psychological tests, territorial apportionments and other devious exclusionist devices will henceforth be abandoned by entrance examining boards. Jewish applicants will be handed a marked copy of the Rongy statement and sent home to doting parents, with the advice that social prestige for ‘low-strata parents’ can no longer be so easily acquired through the medical course at XYZ University.” He adds that “to damn Jewish medical candidates as social climbers is unfair to