Appeal Drive for $1,250,000 Opened Here

cause you are sorry, but because you are sore,” he said. “Neither the program of help for the Jews and non-‘Aryans’, so barbariously treated in Germany, nor the Palestine program, so involved with the problem, is a matter of charity. When you are told of what the Nazis are doing, through the Jews, to the self-respect of the world, you should wish to help the Jews in their unequal fight. If you are a Jew, in addition, you should know no limits in giving aid and thereby doing your share.”

RAISED $5,220,800

Jews during the past year raised about $5,220,800 themselves.

“This was done,” he pointed out, “in the face of rapidly declining wealth and equally increasing dependence. If American help is withdrawn, their morale will be shattered before they are physically crippled by our lack of cooperation.”

In sharp contrast to this dark picture, was another first hand description, given by Felix M. Warburg, national chairman, of conditions which he had found on a visit to Palestine a few weeks ago.

PALESTINE CHANGED

“The Palestine in which the Jews of America began their constructive effort in 1914,” Mr. Warburg said, “and the Palestine of today, thanks to a great extent to the money which Americans have sent to build industrial enterprises, to build houses, to develop farms, to fight disease, are widely different. Out of a land barren and uncultivated, there has been developed a mandatory territory which is to a large extent fruitful and self-supporting. I have just come from there and I can vouch for it that it is the only country at this moment that has large surplus in the government treasury, that has made improvements all around and that has a shortage of labor in contrast to the unemployment in nearly every other country.” Mr. Warburg made a moving plea for aid for the Jewish youth of Europe. “If I had to write any emblem or any motto on our flag for this year,” he declared, “I would say Help us to salvage the best of youth,’ for at this moment their future in Germany and in Poland looks dark indeed. In Poland, at least, it is not the government which causes the hardship, and we have to acknowledge gratefully that the present government has done nothing that shows any planned cruelty against the Jews.

CITES JOBLESS RISE

“However, notwithstanding this, it is true that economic conditions, which have caused the government to establish all kinds of monopolies and pressures to fill available positions with Poles, have also caused a good many Jewish-Polish families to lose their positions and, with the reflux of Jewish-Polish citizens from Germany back into Poland, the pressure of the Jewish unemployed is very great.”

Another phase of the program of relief and reconstructive aid which is provided through agencies affiliated in the United Jewish Appeal was given by Paul Baerwald, chairman of the Joint Distribution Committee and co-chairman of the Appeal. More than one and a quarter million dollars, Mr. Baerwald declared, was expended by the Joint Distribution Committee during the last twelve months to aid the Jews of Germany and Eastern Europe. The program of this organization, he said, is established on the “broad basis of common helpfulness, with complete freedom from politics, propaganda, or partisanship of one kind or another.”

Nathan Strauss, a co-chairman of the local drive, declared that the spirit of the drive was “to save the Jewish spirit. In ages past, Jews have ever stood shoulder to shoulder in the hour of need,” he added.

“The basic right to live has been denied to the Jewish families of Germany,” declared Mrs. Richard Percy Limburg, chairman of the women’s division, who pledged to the campaign the co-operation of the Jewish women of New York City.

“There is this basic difference between the need in this country and that of our co-religionists abroad: No one denies to any other person in America the right to live,” Mrs. Limburg said.

OUTLINES PLANS

I. Edwin Goldwasser, one of the chairmen of the local campaign, outlined the plans of the campaign committee to arouse the Jewish community of New York to an understanding of the conditions under which German Jewry is now existing and to a comprehension of the present destitute situation of the millions of Jews in Poland and Eastern Europe.

Michael Schaap, president of Bloomingdale Bros., the third co-chairman of the New York drive, made an appeal to the business leaders of Greater New York to cooperate in the campaign.

Leon M. Wallstein Jr. chairman of the junior division, announced that the Jewish youth of the community were organizing to contribute their share to the fund that will aid in the retraining of the German-Jewish youth for means of livelihood in the future.

Messages were read from Governor Herbert H. Lehman and Prof. Albert Einstein.

Considerable interest was also aroused by a series of telephonic greetings from other cities which were heard through amplifiers by the guests at the dinner. The messages came from San Francisco, Los Angeles, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Boston, Cincinnati, Detroit, Chicago, and Philadelphia.

Those who were scheduled to speak were Judge M. C. Sloss, San Francisco; Irving Thalberg, Los Angeles; Aaron Waldheim, St. Louis.; Leo Lehman, Pittsburgh; Dr. Cyrus Adler, Philadelphia; Judge Jacob J. Kaplan, Boston; Wililam J. Shroder, Cincinnati; Charles Rubens, Chicago, and Henry Wineman, Detroit.