American Jews at Fork of Road, Dr. Smertenko Says

“The challenge to American Jewry is not made by Jews; it is simply recognized by Jews. It is made by the non-Jew, both friendly and anti-Semitic. Each side expects the Jew to declare himself and each one is entitled to a reply. Hence the Jew can no longer blunder along, trusting to events to create a pattern for him where he really is only groping in the dark,” declared Professor Johan J. Smertenko, in an address before the Y. M. H. A. of Perth Amboy, N. J. Professor Smertenko’s address was one of a series of lectures arranged by the “Jewish Daily Bulletin.” “He must make out the chart for his future himself and have it clear enough so that all can read, gold enough so that his enemies will hesitate to attack him, and intelligence enough so that his friends will applaud it. When the Jew answers the challenge thrown down by conditions in present day America, he will not only be helping himself but he will, as usual, be rendering a service to all minorities the world over, and not the least service he will render thereby to America.”

“Present conditions in American life, as well as their own intelligence, have made the thinking Jews recognize that they are at the fork of the road. American Jewry can choose only one of two ways of living; it can seek contemptibly but unsuccessfully to merge with the mongrels that form the lower stratum of American civilization and be despised of all the higher elements in American life as well as to fail in contributing anything vital to this life and its culture; or it can, on the other hand, proudly take its place as a distinctive but integral unit in the population of the United States and render to the culture and development of America such inimitable services as it has once before given to European civilization,” he declared.