RABBI STEPHEN S. WISE, Free Synagogue, at Carnegie Hall: “Among the worst enemies of the Jew is the political racketeer and gangster who uses the name of his faith for his own filthy gain. I am referring especially to the gentlemen responsible for the Brooklyn Jewish Democracy. Anyone who dares link the name of ‘Jew’ with any political organization ought to be scourged and excommunicated. They are the vilest type of professional Jew.
“Those who undermine our faith most are the wrongdoers, whom the world will always hail as representative of our race. I would organize a vigilance committee to visit every judge in the city urging that they punish these men to the full extent of the law.
“But sometimes I wonder, are these men entirely responsible for their misdeeds? Are they responsible for seeking an illegitimate way of getting food when the utility companies and many banks have anywhere from 100 to 200,000 jobs to fill, and will not admit a Jew into their employ? Yes, I can safely link the names of these companies to the reason for many of our people turning to underhand methods of making a living.
“And the most cowardly and indecent statement made by any orderly group of men is the report of the New York Chamber of Commerce which declared that no refugee Jews should be admitted to America. I am waiting to see what the Jewish members of this stuffed shirt group will say about the report.
“Many of our foremost enemies lie within our own ranks. There are those who will forsake everything that is Jewish merely for their own selfish gain. Or those who take pride in being mistaken for a gentile.
“But the most dangerous enemy is the one who will make the Jew the scapegoat to take the blame for things which all the human race.”
LAUDS FAULHABER FOR STAND
RABBI LOUIS I. NEWMAN, Congregation Rodeph Sholom, 7 West Eighty-third Street-“The Jewish people have given their highest regard for clergymen of faiths other than their own, when they have espoused the great principles of good-will, truth, freedom of conscience, and brotherhood, which alone can bring amity between races and religions.
“Hence we join in appreciation for the courageous Cardinal of Munich (Cardinal Faulhaber) who, when menaced by the Nazis if he dared leave the city, informed them of the train he would take and the station from which he would leave, challenging them to do their utmost. His is one of the greatest single deeds of herism in our times, and everyone, whether Gentile or Jew, in these troubled times when secret and malevolent forces are endeavoring, with the help of men like Father Coughlin, to bedevil the emotions of the people, must hail him as the true servant of the Living God.”
CONCENTRATE ON PALESTINE
RABBI ISRAEL GOLDSTEIN, Congregation B’nai Jeshurun, Eighty-eighth Street West of Broadway-“The Angola project today is no more worthy of serious consideration than was Uganda thirty years ago. As long as it is still possible for Jews to get into Palestine, the Jewish people must concentrate its energies upon Palestine. Even apart from sentimental and Zionist considerations, it is the one place in the world best suited for happy Jewish living. It has already proved to be the most successful colonizing enterprise the Jewish people have ever undertaken-successful economically, culturally, and spiritually.
As a result of the thirty years Jewish labor in Palestine since the Uganda controversy arose, a foundation has been laid which, if only the political difficulties could be cleared away vis-a-vis the British government and freer immigration established, in accordance with the absorptive capacity of the country, could provide a basis for the immigration not of thousands but of hundreds of thousands of Jews in the course of the next decade.”
HITS ‘MEN OF SCIENCE’ APATHY
RABBI JOSEPH ZEITLIN, Temple Ansche Chesed, West End Avenue at 100th Street-“It is a sad commentary on civilization when ‘men of science’ are apathetic towards the indignities and cruelties that are practiced against their fellow scientists simply because these men happen to be Jews. Recently The American Spectator expressed itself as being bored because of our putting Nazi German on trial. There may be some justification for boredom when savage or brutal methods are used to combat the tyranny of Nazism, but how, in the name of mercy, can anyone withhold his protest against a reversion to medieval degeneracy? The martyrs of the past knew of no sacrifice too great for the cause of religious liberty. Would that this age were inspired by their noble example.”
ISRAEL ‘CHOSEN PEOPLE’
RABBI WILLIAM MARGOLIS, Congregation Chab Zedek, 118 West Ninety-fifth Street-“Throughout these centuries of punishment and persecution, of ceaseless affliction and oppression, the Jew has continued to live and to thrive. Israel has emerged from the fiercest fires of bigotry and prejudice scarcely singed; Israel’s spirit is scarcely scathed. Israel has been spared; Israel has sustained and survived what would have long ago destroyed stronger nations. And Israel has outlived all those who ‘chose’ our people for annihilation.
“None but a chosen people with a chosen purpose and destiny could have done what Israel has done. And not Israel, but history, the world, human destiny has proclaimed us the chosen people-chosen to live and to suffer and to survive, until our message, the message of divine justice, brotherhood and peace, shall proclaim all as God’s chosen people.”
CITES ROTHSCHILDS AS EXAMPLE
RABBI WILLIAM F. ROSENBLUM, Temple Israel, 210 West Ninety-first Street-“In this time of attack on Jewish ideals and practices, the picturization of the Rothschild brothers with their faithfulness towards the cause of peace in Europe, their devotion to their people, their honest and dignified prosecution of their business as bankers, offers one of the most striking refutations of the calumnies and the balderash about the Jews that is being circulated through the mails and over our news counters by the paid and semi-paid propagandists of the very country which Nathan Rothschild and his brothers helped to save in the early part of the nineteenth century from the ravages of Napoleon.
“Unity is the crying need of the Jews of the world, and the House of Rothschild is a beautiful sermon uttered in the phraseology of the prophets. If there is one place where the Jews have liberty and freedom, they must not be content until a like situation prevails for the Jews throughout the world.”
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.
