The Berlin Supreme Court yesterday issued an injunction forbidding the anti-Semitic newspaper “Voelkischer Beobachter” to continue to print the addresses of members of the B’nai B’rith. Should the paper violate the injunction it will have to pay a big fine.
The lawyer for the anti-Semites, quoting from Jewish Telegraphic Agency dispatches, claimed that it was necessary to publish these addresses as a warning of danger, since the B’nai B’rith forms “a state within a state,” defending Jewish interests against individual countries, and thus in case of an international conflict it would be a danger for Germany.
In trying to prove his point, the lawyer for the anti-Semites mentioned the fact that the American B’nai B’rith years ago worked for the abrogation of the commercial treaty between the United States and Czarist Russia, as well as other steps which the B’nai B’rith has taken to influence governments. The political solidarity of World Jewry is mainly represented by the B’nai B’rith, the lawyer claimed.
The Jewish lawyers, Walther and Reichmann, the former representing the B’nai B’rith and the latter the Central Verein der Deutsche Juden, answered the arguments of the anti-Semites by showing that the B’nai B’rith ideal is only humanitarian and cultural.
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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.
