Former President Harry S. Truman, declared, in an impromptu address here yesterday, that anti-Semitism in this country was “as grave a challenge” as denial of rights to Negroes and that it was time “that we face up to the offensive treatment accorded to the Jewish people here and elsewhere. ” He spoke at a United Jewish Appeal luncheon.
He emphasized that he did not mean “to minimize the seriousness of the problem of the Negro in the United States” but that “Americans must realize that anti-Semitism continued to exist in one guise or another in institutions of higher education and that discrimination and exclusion was not uncommon “in some of our large business institutions, in our professions of law, medicine and other fields.”
He criticized supporters of equal rights for Negroes who fail to protest against anti-Semitism. “Where were these people all the time that discrimination and exclusion were practiced against our Jewish citizens in so many insidious ways?” he asked.
Declaring that “our spiritual leaders have proved ineffectual,” he said: “Even at the Vatican, where historic reforms are under consideration, the problem of anti-Semitism had to be tabled for lack of agreement.” This was understood to be a reference to the draft declaration on Christian-Jewish relations which the second session of the Ecumenical Council failed to take up, postponing action until the third session this fall.
The UJA announced at the luncheon that a scholarship fund for secondary education had been set up in Israel in Mr. Truman’s name. He was given a silver-bound Bible made in Israel.
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.
