Because many of the violators of the boycott movement are Jewish merchants the Non-Sectarian Anti-Nazi League, of which Samuel Untermyer is president, at a meeting yesterday decided to urge presidents and rabbis of synagogues throughout the country to denounce such merchants from the pulpit during the High Holy days, and to bar them from the Holy Day services.
The League was provided with a list of those Jewish merchants who are known to be buying and selling goods and to be using German ships and services despite the Hitler persecution of the Jews in Germany.
“There can be nothing so vile,” the League declared in a statement, “as this trading with the enemy. This is as traitorous an act as any that can be committed during a state of war, and in a large sense this fight against Hitlerism is a state of war.
“If our own people deal with the Nazi murderers, for the sake of a few cents profit, why should we expect better cooperation from the Gentile population of the country which has shown every evidence of willingness to aid us in our fight?
“They can say rightfully ‘why ask for help, when your own people are selling you out?’ We must then cleanse our own ranks. If this cannot be at the very least a hundred per cent. Jewish boycott, it is doomed.”
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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.