European Jewry

Dr. Nurok, author of the article below, was for many years a member of the Latvian Government. He is chief rabbi of Latvia, a member of the Zionist Actions Committee, of the administrative committee of the Jewish Agency, and of the executive committee for the World Jewish Congress. He is now in this country for the first time.

Not in the past several hundred years have the Jews of Europe found themselves in the precarious position they are in today. A somewhat similar fate confronted them at the beginning of the World War, when the Grand Duke Nicolai Nicolaivitch, uncle of the late Czar, caused the expulsion of thousands of Jews from their homes on the borderland. But then there was the consolation and hope that the outcome of the war would bring them freedom, since it was believed that the minority nationals everywhere would be granted the right to self-determination. The very fact that in the World War Russia allied itself with the democracies of France, England, and latterly also of America, tended to strengthen the belief that the redemption of the Jews in the lands of the Galut was near at hand.

HOPE SEEMS LIKELY TO BE REALIZED

Indeed at the beginning it seemed as though the hope would be fulfilled. Thanks to the historical intercession of the “Committee of Jewish Delegations” in Paris, there were written into the Peace Treaties clauses which guaranteed the political-national rights of all minority peoples. We, the Jewish parliamentarians, in collaboration with the Paris Committee headed by the late Dr. Motzkin, continued to press our demand for the protection of Jewish rights. At the Congresses of the minority groups which met at Geneva we succeeded to rally about that demand some 40,000,000 people, and the Jewish question was always prominently placed at these Congresses. We have likewise utilized in our struggle the League of the Friends of the League of Nations. We left those Congresses only when the Nazis entered them.

SUDDEN CHANGE PUT AN END TO OPTIMISM

Soon, however, conditions began to change for the worse. The freedom slogans of the war period were all forgotten, and dark reaction began to lift its head. From Hitler’s Germany a wave of anti-Semitism struck the whole of Europe. The erstwhile freedom mottos were replaced by such as “Back to Medievalism,” “Down with Emancipation,” and the like. As for the Jews, everything since tended to drag history back to the Dark Ages.

The policy of discrimination and persecution against the Jews is today carried out everywhere relentlessly, whether it is being done crudely, with ax in hand, or under cover, with gloved hands. Not only are Jews robbed of their freedom and citizen rights, but their very existence is being undermined. Jews are being thrown out from all the responsible positions which they had with their own sweat and blood helped to create.

SITUATION HAS IRONIC ASPECT

The cruel irony of the situation is that the beginning of the process of the elimination of the Jew began already with the post-war period, when the world was rebuilding the waste places caused by the war, and all the historical achievements of the Jews in the realms of the arts, literature, science, economy, commerce and industry were as though forgotten.

The economic policy of the several European nations leads to the total annihilation of the Jew through the creation of state monopolies, cooperatives, where Jews are not employed, and the promulgation of such special rules and regulations for the carrying on of import-export trade as the Jew is unable to meet.

JEWS ARE DRIVEN FROM PROFESSIONS

Equally ruthless is the policy to eliminate the Jew from the free professions, such as medicine, law, engineering and architecture. The physicians are unceremoniously thrown out from the city hospitals, thus cutting them off from government subsidy. The lawyers are first presented with unusual requirements for the practice of law, and afterwards they are ordered to the small provincial places where they can hardly eke out an existence. The engineers and architects and chemists are summarily dismissed from government and municipal positions, while the artisan and laborer, too, are continually harassed and limited in their pursuit for a livelihood. And everywhere in the schools there is a numerus clausus for Jews.

STRUGGLE FOR RIGHTS GOES ON EVERYWHERE

Such is the Jewish position in Germany, Austria, Hungary, Roumania, Poland, Lithuania and other lands. With the exception of Germany, which I have avoided due to the boycott, I have recently visited every one of the above-mentioned countries, and our Paris Committee is continually receiving information from all of them.

The Jews of all lands are struggling today for their rights. We have always known that our lot is organically bound up with the lot of Democracy, and that there where Democracy is in jeopardy, Jewish rights, too, are in jeopardy. Unfortunately, the democracies and parliamentary governments generally have been replaced in many Eastern European countries by reactionary governments, Fascism, dictatorship, etc. And if in Soviet Russia Jews are not suffering as Jews, religion, Hebrew and Zionism are nevertheless persecuted, and this is being done by the Jewish section of the Communist Party.

PROBLEM IS WHERE TO FIND ASSISTANCE

Unfortunately, European Jewry is not in a position to help itself. What then shall become of them? Who shall intervene, and who shall champion Jewish rights?

Already in 1931, at a conference following the Zionist Congress, called at the intiative of the American Jewish Congress, there was brought up the question of creating a united Jewish World Organization, founded on democratic principles, and endowed with the prerogative of championing our rights before the whole world. A praesidium of six was then elected, consisting of Dr. Motskin, Dr. Wise, Bernard S. Deutsch, Isaac Greenbaum, Oscar Kahn and myself. It was then that the idea of a World Jewish Congress was first proclaimed. During the years 1932, 1933 and 1934, at the conferences held at Geneva, participated in by prominent leaders of all Jewish communities and representatives of associations and orders, the decision to call a World Congress was repeatedly reaffirmed.

APPEALS FOR CENTRAL AID HEADQUARTERS

As recently as November, 1934, I witnessed a session of our Paris Executive in which the accredited leaders of Polish Jewry sat, participated, and they were all strongly for the calling of a World Jewish Congress in 1935. The same sentiment prevailed in Roumania, Austria, Lithuania, the countries of the Balkan peninsula and Italy. And even in France and in England, all Jews who hail from Eastern Europe are for the Congress, and with them is also a formidable portion of those hailing from Western Europe. The vote of the Alliance Israelite was equally divided on the question, and so was the vote of the Board of Jewish Deputies in London.

It is regrettable that certain circles still refuse to grasp the utter necessity of a World Congress, and that they still repeat the arguments which were heard during the first Zionist Congress. However, we have before us the example of the German Jews and we see clearly that the methods prompted by fear and circumspection have not and will not avail us. We need a center, a steady address, so to speak, to which the Jewish community could appeal in time of need. Such a center can come into being only when it rests on the will of the masses of the Jewish people.