The advantageous position of the Jews in Czechoslovakia is pointed out as a horrible example by the Voelkischer Beobachter, chief Nazi Party organ, in an article in its current series on the Jews in Central Europe.
Czechoslovakia is regarded by the paper as the only obstacle to "solution" of the Danube problem, because of the alleged predominance of Jews there. In previous articles it advised Rumania to ally with Germany and in this way obtain a free hand with the Jews.
While the 1930 census shows only 186,000 Jews in Czechoslovakia, or 1.3 percent of the population, the paper says, there are actually 500,000, counting those enumerated as Jews in religion but not nationality, and those of Jewish blood listed as agnostics. This half-million the census counted Jews as Czechs, it charged, to enable the Government to claim a 51 percent Czech majority in the country.
Jews occupy prominent positions in economic and cultural life, the paper adds, strengthened by the influx of Jewish emigrants from Germany, and it says, "behave in Praha in the same arrogant and loud manner as they behaved in Berlin before 1933."
The entire Eastern province of Ruthenia, the Beobachter continues, is "practically ruled" by the "Wonder Rabbi" of the city of Munkacs, Baruch Rabinovich. Rabinovich, it says, is the second of a dynasty founded by his father-in-law, the late "Wonder Rabibi" Elcazar Spira.
"The real ruler of Munkacs," it says, "is not the military commander of the city, but the wonder-rabbi. Rabinovich now occupies the office of the uncrowned ruler of Carpatho-Russian Jews and is practically the ruler of this eastern province of Czechoslovakia."
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
