A picture which took in the entire gamut of Jewish life from gloomy forebodings on the future of Polish Jewry to ecstatic praise of Jewish accomplishments in Palestine was painted yesterday by Zelig Tygel, secretary of the Federation of Polish Jews in America, who returned from a seven weeks’ #our which included Poland, Palestine, Egypt and Italy. Mr. Tygel ###ered 12,000 miles by railroad, ###ane and steamer.
### situation of the Jews in Po######r. Tygel declared, was ### indescribable.” The Jews ### mainly traders were de### on the peasants and the ###s were poverty-stricken. ### can picture the degree of ###erty among the Jewish masses ###en I tell you that they are content to earn a few zloty (the zloty is worth almost nineteen cents) a day to buy bread. But, while poverty exists among the Polish peasants, they are helped by the government in innumerable ways. Taxes are remitted, they belong to consumers cooperatives, and they receive goods from the many government monopolies at special prices.
“The Jew is entirely helpless. The government gives him no help at all. Poland is a country of monopolies and syndicates, but the Jews are left out completely. Poverty among the Jewish masses is growing at an alarming rate and the government does nothing to solve the problem.
“The Polish youth hate the Jews and the entire educational system in Poland inculcates hatred for the Jews.
REGIME UNJUST WITH JEWS
“The Polish government is a pure, sound and honest government,” Mr. Tygel continued, “and will suppress the anti-Semites to the limit of its power, but the government is not dealing justly with the Jews. They do not seem to realize that if they do not solve the Jewish question the whole future of Poland will be menaced.
“The Polish constitution grants equality to all Polish citizens, including the Jews, and the Jews are protected against the anti-Semites, but physically and economically Polish Jewry is being ruined as surely and definitely as German Jewry is being ruined by Hitlerism. So of what avail are the constitutional guarantees?
“In Lwow I attended a meeting of the Jewish community and the president of the community admitted in a speech that forty per cent of Jews of the city asked for aid during Passover. Similar figures hold true for Warsaw, Wilno and the other cities with large Jewish populations.
“The worst feature of the whole situation,” Mr. Tygel declared, “is that the Jews of Poland appear to have lost their courage, they are apathetic and no longer have the vitality necessary for a fight against their lot. There is even no apparatus for a general body to fight for the Polish Jews.”
PALESTINE A SHINING LIGHT
Mr. Tygel was warm in his praise of Apolinaris M. Hartglass, Polish Jewish leader who yesterday revealed the extent to which Polish Jewry has been ruined, calling him “a true, honest representative of Polish Jewry and one of the few still fighting for his people.”
“Polish Jews in the United States must come to the aid of their brothers in Poland,” Mr. Tygel urged. “After all, the Polish Jewish question concerns all Jewry.
“The Federation is raising the question of the resumption of relief for Polish Jews. We intend to call a conference of organizations of Polish Jews in this country and urge them to raise relief funds for the Jews of the cities of their origin.”
Mr. Tygel also urged that American Jews with relatives in Galicia, where recent floods did the most damage, send them food packages and clothing, saying that there was dire need for clothing in the flood-devasted areas. He pointed out that such packages could be sent to Poland duty-free.
From Poland Mr. Tygel went to Palestine which, he declared, was the “only country in the world where a man could live fully and happily as a Jew.”
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.
