The Marseilles tragedy, which shocked the world and cost the Jews the life of their foremost defender in European politics and of a monarch who had treated his Jewish subjects with justice and equality, is having its predicted consequences.
Within a day after the murder of Foreign Minister Barthou and King Alexander I of Yugoslavia, Europe hummed with a report that the assassin was a Jew. Probably because of the falsity of the report it gained wide and rapid circulation. As a result, numerous ugly incidents broke out in Yugoslavian cities and serious attacks on the Jews there were averted only by drastic government action and repeated assurances by the authorities that the Jews were completely blameless.
The situation, however, remains most delicate. For the present, the Regency is maintaining order and is, most properly, according full protection to its Jewish citizens.
But until the whole murder conspiracy is uncovered and the guilt fixed definitely where it belongs, the Jews in Yugoslavia must fear the activities of every unscrupulous agitator who evades the government restrictions and every deluded believer of the Nazi press, which has already labeled the assassinations the work of a “Jewish-communist plot.”
The death of M. Barthou brought to an untimely end a statesman who, with the interests of France paramount in all his thoughts, nevertheless courageously and brilliantly defended the interests of the Jews at Geneva and elsewhere.
His death comes as a severe blow to Jewish hopes. While no change is to be expected in French policy as a result, nevertheless the French program may lose seriously in effectiveness as a consequence.
The Zionist movement offered a convincing demonstration of Jewish opposition to the proposed legislative council for Palestine and dissatisfaction with the immigration policy of the Mandatory government when the Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland adopted strongly worded resolutions of objection.
Significant of the tone of the meeting was Dr. Chaim Weizmann’s voicing of an outspoken demand that Transjordania be opened to Jewish enterprise.
Despite the protests of the British body and those of Zionists throughout the world, there appeared no indications that the Colonial Office and the Palestine Administration had any intention other than to establish the legislative council as soon as possible.
The government likewise gave no indication that it would consider anything but negligible concessions on the subject of increased Jewish immigration.
Conversations leading to a termination of inter-party strife in Zionist ranks were opened during the week by officials of the World Zionist Organization. Progress was reported.
Important developments took place during the week in this country. Lest Adolf Hitler and his companions think that, by acceptance of the German Olympics bid, the United States also accepted the Hitler regime at its face value, the American Federation of Labor, in convention at San Francisco, unanimously re-affirmed its pledge to boycott German goods and German services and pledged itself to a renewed fight against Hitlerism and Fascism.
A. F. OF L. HITS NAZIS
President Green of the A. F. of L. and others roundly scored the Reich government for its persecution of the Jews and of the labor movement in tones that left no doubt of their meaning. The action must also be considered a direct reply to Secretary Hull’s recent pronouncement against boycotts.
The American Nazi movement definitely entered the American political arena when Louis Zahne, Nazi political dictator, announced the political organizations he con-
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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.
