The libel action brought by the Jewish clerk, Umber-to Jabes, against M. W. van Meereten, president of the Deutscher Verein of Cairo, and A. Safarowsky, a printer, came up before the Mixed Tribunal in Cairo yesterday.
Responsibility for the appearance of a pamphlet, immediately after the advent of the Hitlerites in Germany, which slandered the Jews, is charged against the defendants. Jabes, an Italian Jew living in Egypt, considers himself personally libeled and asks for nominal damages of 101 pounds and costs.
The first day of the trial was devoted to arguments as to whether an individual Jew is entitled to bring action for libel when the entire Jewish Community is insulted. M. Castro, the Jewish counsel for the defense, pointed out that it was the duty of the tribunal to protect the various communities resident in Egypt. He also cited a case during the reign of King George II, when an English court decided in favor of an English Jew, who claimed damages for slander because the Anglo-Jewish community of that day was alleged to have killed illegitimate Jewish children.
This particular case is regarded as of the greatest importance. The German press is well represented at the trial and the most important legal talent in Cairo has been retained by the defense. Apparently the Nazis consider the trial as a part of the Jewish campaign against Germany and attach great importance to the trial and the verdict to be rendered.
Jabes’s libel suit originated last June when a Nazi group in Cairo, called “The German League Against Jewish Attacks”, published a pamphlet, “The Extension of Judaism in Germany”, justifying anti-Semitism in Germany and making derogatory remarks about the Jews, accusing them of being Communists.
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.
