World Press Digest

The London Times, commenting on the conference of Sephardic Jews in London, says:

The Sephardic Jews, with their tragic past, in which the great expulsion from Spain in 1492 stands out as the most memorable event, have a noble heritage of culture and steadfast faith. In this country they have, since their settlement in the time of Oliver Cromwell produced a number of very notable men, such as Benjamin Disraeli and Sir Moses Montefiore.

The conference, which was attended by delegates from Palestine, Egypt, and Syria, from Northern Africa, as well as from various parts of Europe, considered the possibilities of organizing the Sephardic communities that are scattered from Shanghai to Buenos Aires. The political, economic, and social upheavals that have taken place during the last two decades, particularly in South-Eastern Europe and the Near and Middle East, have shaken these communities to their foundations. The rise of new groups in France and South America has increased, rather than diminished, the gravity of the problems to be dealt with.

FINDS NEW YORK’S JEWS INFERIOR TO BRITAIN’S

Beverly Nichols, young British novelist, comparing the British Jew with the American, writes as follows in the London Sunday Chronicle:

In Britain you see the best of the Jews. In New York you see the worst.

When you walk down the Bowery and see swarms of fat, ugly, gesticulating, avaricious Hebrews, you feel there is something to be said for Hitler.

But in Britain the Jew seems to go through a sort of refining process…. Even physically.

Lord Reading, for instance, has features that are chiselled as delicately as an old ivory plaque. He has hands that Van Dyck would have loved to paint. And he has a mind that is far more worthy to be called Christian than that of many a bishop.

I do not understand the anti-Semite.

I never have understood him. In fact, the prejudice against Jews is so utterly strange to me that I believe it must have a physical origin. Like the horror some people have of cats.

For it is certainly not a religious prejudice, as it is shared by completely irreligious people. Nor can it be put down to jealousy. Nor to any matter of manners nor of morals, for in Britain, at any rate, the Jews have better manners than most of us, and their family life is of the strictest.

‘GERMANY OF 1914’ SEEN HERE AGAIN

The National Review, discussing the present negotiations between England and Nazi Germany, says:

Under the benevolent eye of various British governments—for all parties are to blame for our present dangers—the Germany of 1914 is once more before us, strong, warlike and violently aggressive. Our public men, when they “rehabilitated Germany,” imagined a peaceful, repentent, industrious Germany that would throw bouquets to the “generous British.” They have got the Third Reich with all the arrogance of 1914, and with all the old sense of superiority which has been revived in the German by his successful persecution of the Jew.

ROTHENBERG HITS AT SEPARATIST ACTION

Morris Rothenberg, president of the Zionist Organization of America, writing in the Hadassah News Letter on the forthcoming Zionist Congress, says:

Responsible Zionist opinion must view with the utmost anxiety the increasing emphasis in the World Zionist movement of party viewpoint and separatist action, the accentuation of differences rather than of the common aim which unites us. Therefore, the Zionist Organization of America, Hadassah and the Order Sons of Zion, true to the historic character of General Zionism, have given expression in their Congress platform to those principles which subordinate factional interests to national needs and that lead to a quickening of the tempo of Palestine upbuilding.