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Discusses Migration Troubles of Jews

November 21, 1934
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The problem of Jewish migration is being dealt with in the Observer, a weekly published in Nashville, Tenn., in an article by Rabbi Julius Mark, who writes:

Perhaps the chief problem that is facing hundreds of thousands of Jews in Europe today is that of discovering a land to which they might immigrate. For them life has become unbearable in many countries on the Continent. In Germany, Poland and Austria especially, where some four million Jews are living today, their lot has become pitifully tragic. The brutal governments of these lands are apparently determined to starve to death every Jew who does not find some way of emigrating.

The Jews of these countries for the most part recognize the gravity and peril of their situation. Most of them have given up hope that their lot will be likely to improve in the future. The question that faces them—the stark, grim question, is: “Wohin?” Where shall they go? In which country would they be welcome? There was a time when America opened her heart and her doors to the persecuted of other nations. Today the bars are shut tight against immigrants. Other countries, too, have their own problems of unemployment and are not willing to admit foreigners who might either displace those already at work or be added to the ranks of the jobless. Palestine? A possibility, to be sure, if England had not already indicated on numerous occasions that the Balfour proclamation was released with a tongue in the royal check. Some 40,000 Jews entered Palestine during the past year, but that number is not a great one when we consider the many more thousands clamoring for admission.

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