Digest of World Press Opinion

The international Student Service, in a booklet just published, “Student Service in the World Crisis,” reports:

Among the 6,000 to 7,000 students who were expelled from the German universities, between 1,600 and 1,700 left their country. In the past year, 1933-34, I.S.S., through its offices in London, Paris, Geneva, New York, Leiden and Rome, has been in touch with 1,494 of these students (more than ninety per cent). About 350 students, whose private means had become exhausted, applied to I.S.S. for financial assistance. Of these ninety-two students received scholarships for one year for the continuation of studies, thirty-four others received scholarships which enabled them to pursue reorientation work towards practical professions. Some nineteen others, through I.S.S., received more or less permanent posts which enabled them to earn their own living.

In addition, approximately 550 other students have been furnished with information concerning conditions of study and possibilities of emigration. In the face of exceedingly difficult conditions, the total sum of 117,665.55 Swiss francs (about $33,618) has so far been raised through special campaigns for this work.

CITES DISCRIMINATION BY AUSTRIA

The Manchester Guardian, commenting upon the anti-Semitic feelings in Austria, says:

There is no doubt that since the overthrow of the parliamentary democracy in Austria and the crushing of the Austria Socialist party the anti-Semitic movement in Vienna has received a considerable impulse in governmental quarters.

It is significant, for instance, that hardly a single Jew is to be found in any important government or municipal office in Austria, despite the Jews’ predominance in certain of the professions. The present municipal authorities in Vienna, who superseded the enlightened Socialist regime after the events of February, are reputedly strongly anti-Semitic. Impartial foreign observers are in agreement on this point.

There is evidence that discrimination is shown against the Jews, discrimination no less marked than in Danzig, in appointments over which the government has control. For example, in the municipal hospitals in Vienna it is customary to appoint young doctors to various appointments by seniority. Since June, 1933, the right of appointment has been in the hands of the Ministry of Social Administration, and there is evidence that Jewish doctors have been continually passed over by the Ministry. In one case Jewish doctors were passed over eleven times, in another sixteen times, and in a third eighteen times, for no apparent reason. In other cases Jewish doctors have been degraded or the principle of seniority disregarded. A large number of Jewish doctors have also been dismissed from the health and welfare institutes, from the school dental clinics two (out of three) Jewesses were alone given notice.

In other branches of the public service the Jewish engineers appear to have suffered from discrimination. Four Jewish engineers out of thirteen were dismissed in June, although they had distinguished war records and various dependents. In the kindergartens in Vienna the percentage of Jewish nurses dismissed is also reported as high.

The Jewish community in Vienna is exceedingly perturbed at these dismissals, and recently remonstrated with the Federal Chancellor and Mayor of Vienna. The government continues to deny that it is anti-Semitic, but the indications that a movement against the Jews is growing are considerable.

COMMENTS ON ZIONIST ‘CRISIS’

The Zionist Record of South Africa, under the headline “Towards a Crisis,” says editorially:

To those who have read between the lines of the glamorous news that has been broadcast from Palestine to the rest of the world in recent years, telling in no uncertain voice of increasing good fortune and prosperity, the cabled statement by Mr. Ussishkin on the land situation in Palestine that appeared in our last issue, will come as no surprise. With earnestness the sincerity of which is inescapable, Mr. Ussishkin states: “The land situation in Palestine is inevitably developing towards a crisis which threatens destruction to the basis of our whole national structure unless emergency measures are adopted at once.”

BRITISH LABOR PAPER HITS NAZI CHURCH

Speaking of the role of the Evangelic Church organized by Bishop Mueller on Nazi lines in Germany, Labour, a monthly labor publication in England, states:

Many Evangelical parsons openly preach anti-Semitism, as, for instance, the notorious Pfarrer Muenchmeyer, who was thrown out of the church for assaulting a young girl, and who is now a prominent Nazi and one of the organizers of the Jewish boycott.

Many Evangelical parsons were members of the Steel Helmet, the Nazis and other Nationalist organizations. They took part in all monarchist demonstrations, and many of them preached doctrines of hate and revenge against the Socialists, Jews and pacifists.

ASSIMILATION HELD PROVEN FUTILE

Hedenu, a publication issued by the Students’ Organization of the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary, declares:

Hitlerism should teach the Jew the impossibility of escaping himself. Assimilation, as a solution for the Jewish problem, is proven futile, as the sins of the fathers are visited upon the third and fourth generations. Sick from contumely, the Jew returns to his mother’s bosom to soothe his troubled breast.

Once more we learn that Palestine, and Palestine alone, may help solve our precarious position in an alien world. The faithful Jew learns, in common with those about him, the injustice of the present economic system.

‘LANDLESS ARAB’ IMAGINARY FIGURE

Millgate Monthly, a British publication, speaking of Jewish-Arab relations, writes:

Today four-fifths of the land remains in Arab hands. “The Landless Arab” is nothing but the f##ment of Arab imagination. The bulk of Jewish settlement has taken place in areas which were, until recently, malaria-stricken, and where few Arab families were able to live, let alone earn a living. The Jews have purchased land at high prices from absentee Arab landlords, and have always compensated any peasant tenants who were on the land, although not legally bound to do so.

In many cases, under the Land Transfer Ordinances, they have leased land to these tenants. Today, land-sales regulations have been so tightened up that “dispossession” is absolutely impossible. Not only peasant tenant rights, but also squatters’ rights are now protected.

It is significant that the increase in the Arab population and improvement in the Arab standard of living has been most marked in those districts where the greatest progress has been made in Jewish settlement, and is lowest where there are few or no Jews.