World Press Digest

Gottlieb Gluge, the first physician to describe influenza (1837), was for many years physician to the King of Belgium.

The charge that the Histadruth, the Palestine Laborites, are controlling the Jewish Agency is brought out in a report published by The New York Times from Palestine. Reporting Mr. Smilansky’s address at the annual convention of the Palestine Jewish Farmers Association, The Times quotes the farmers’ head as saying:

There are thousands of Jewish farmers in Bukowina, Bessarabia, Poland and other countries in Eastern Europe who love the soil and who are longing to come to work the soil of Palestine but to whom the Jewish Agency, which is now controlled by the Palestine Jewish Labor Federation, has refused to grant immigration certificates because these good farmers may disagree with the policy of the labor Federation.

This situation was brought to the notice of the Palestine Government, and thanks to the persistent work of the Jewish Farmers Federation executive, four hundred certificates for Jewish farmers have been obtained. Although this number is small I am satisfied that the ice is broken and that we shall in future receive certificates for much larger numbers.

PROGRAM IS OUTLINED TO COMBAT NAZIS HERE

A five-point program for the Jews to fight Hitlerite propaganda in the United States is outlined by the Jewish Ledger, official B’nai B’rith organ in New Orleans. The program as recommended consists of:

1. The use of publicity against secret movements.

2. Invocation of the law against racketeers trading in anti-Semitism.

3. Cracking down on dangerous agitators calling to race-hatred and inciting to riot.

4. Relentless exposure of organizations and firms, but particularly of public service corporations, discriminating against Jews in employment.

5. The use of our rights as American citizens and voters to persuade every candidate for political office to state his position candidly on the issue of Americanism involving the equality of all before the law, irrespective of race and creed.

CULTURE FOR ALL IN PALESTINE

Bronislaw Huberman, the world-renowned violinist, reporting his impressions of Palestine in Hadassah, organ of the Women’s Zionist Organization of America, says

One has the feeling as if with every new orange tree planted a parallel tree of spiritual culture was planted, too. One time it is a music school, then a theatre, then a museum, or a collection, a library or a hospital and all this in ten years. If I had not seen it with my own eyes, I would never have believed it. I think it is really unique in the history of all colonization of the white race.

I believe firmly that Palestine will in a very short time be the first country where the human humiliation of a culture limited only to a class section will disappear; the first country where we shall witness the miracle of a culture of an entire community. Under the spell of this new evolution one cannot help imagine that this may be the proper atmosphere for the creation of a new, a definite gospel of salvation of humanity.

REICH FEARS FINANCIAL CHAOS

Sir John Foster Fraser writes in the Yorkshire Telegraph on Germany, as follows:

The economic state of Germany is not only bad, but definitely bad. Whatever may be Germany’s future military intentions, the war spirit has been damped down.

Today Germany is near a panic that the “mark” may break. It is not forgotten what happened over a dozen years ago in the inflation days when it cost a hundred thousand marks for a breakfast. The fear is terrible.

That explains the feverishness of Germany to make commercial pacts with all countries — even bowing low towards France—in an endeavor to recover some of the trade lost in the time of the Jewish pogrom.

ANTI-SEMITISM HERE PERPLEXES THE JEWS

The World-Telegram, publishing an interview with Harry Schneiderman, assistant secretary of the American Jewish Committee, emphasizes the fact that the Jewish people have never been so perplexed and threatened with unfriendliness as they are now. The paper quotes Mr. Schneiderman as saying

Attacks have come out in the open since Hitler, and that is a dangerous thing. People aren’t held back by feeling it is a shameful bigotry. Anti-Semitism is cultivated; it is proclaimed instead of being whispered. It seems to be acceptable socially, and it has made a deep impression on the Jews themselves.

Here is what I mean. Nearly thirty years ago when Oscar S. Straus was appointed to the Cabinet by President Theodore Roosevelt, all the American Jews felt happy and proud. Recognition at last!

Now we have Henry Morgenthau as Secretary of the Treasury, and thousands are shaking their heads, fearful he may make some unpopular move, because that will be a chance to put blame on the Jew. They are conscious of being under fire.

BOYCOTT PARLEY SHOWS A UNIVERSAL CHARACTER

The Economic Bulletin, official organ of the Non-Sectarian Anti-Nazi League, comments editorially in its January issue as follows:

If it had done nothing else, the international boycott conference in London would have been a tremendously valuable gathering only because it demonstrated once and for all that the boycott is without a doubt a universal non-sectarian movement. By far the largest proportion of the 200 delegates from twelve countries were non-Jews. The majority of the speakers and of those elected to office in the World Anti-Nazi Non-Sectarian Council to Champion Human Rights were also non-Jews.

Representatives of organized labor and spokesmen for the various Christian churches were the principal figures at the conference. The liquidation of the separate Jewish boycott committees in the various countries of Europe and their absorption into the World Anti-Nazi Council further emphasized the non-sectarian character of the boycott.

Gottlieb Gluge, the first physician to describe influenza (1837), was for many years physician to the King of Belgium.