Between the Lines

When the Jews of America usher in Passover tomorrow, few of them will be aware of the fact that over a million of their brethren in Poland—a third of the entire Jewish population of the country—will have hardly any food this Passover.

Paying the utmost attention to the situation of the Jews in Germany, and contributing large sums to prosperous Palestine, American Jewry has practically forgotten the largest Jewish community in Europe—the Jews of Poland—at a time when this particular Jewish community is not only facing every kind of political and economic oppression, but actual starvation.

A MILLION BEGGARS

Jewish history has never seen such a huge number of applicants for Passover food as is recorded this year by the Jewish charitable institutions of Poland. In Warsaw alone, 50,000 Jews have applied for Passover charity. In the provincial cities of Poland the number of applicants is proportionally much greater. There are towns in Poland where ninety per cent of the Jewish population is not in a position to buy matzoh and has to apply for it to the Jewish community.

Among the applicants are people who only a few years ago themselves donated large sums to charity. Only a few years ago they were men of means; men who celebrated the Passover as gloriously as any Jewish family in America.

THE JEWISH TRAGEDY

Now these people are reduced to beggary. Fighting with their own emotions, they stand in line with other applicants for a few pounds of matzoh. They are no longer givers. They are recipients of charity.

The tragedy of these people can hardly be conceived in this country where, despite depression, citizens are not being ruined by taxes or deliberately pushed out of their economic existence, as are the Jews of Poland. The mentality of a Jew has been reduced from the status of a well-to-do man to that of a beggar, and the moral torture such a Jew suffers when applying for charity, is scarcely understandable in our country.

BRITISH JEWRY AND POLAND

It is for this reason that many a Jew in America, while properly estimating the Jewish situation in Germany, has a poor conception of Jewish life in Poland. Never having witnessed such misery as confronts the Jews of Poland, the average American Jew can hardly visualize it.

The Jews of England, who in distance are much nearer the Jews of Poland than American Jews, have now come to the conclusion that the Jewish situation in Poland is economically not only as bad as that of the Jews in Germany, but even worse. A special campaign will therefore be started in England next month to raise funds for Polish Jewry.

Something must be done along these lines also in America.

J.D.C. AND POLAND

At the annual meeting of the Joint Distribution Committee in New York last Sunday, it was reported that of the $1,290,000 which the J.D.C. spent in 1934, approximately $300,000 went to all East European countries, including Poland and Rumania, where, according to Mr. Joseph C. Hyman, the J.D.C. secretary, Jewish economic distress has reached the highest proportions.

This sum for East European countries is proportionately too small. A country like Poland, where a million Jews must apply to charitable institutions for Passover food, deserves greater attention on the part of American Jewry. If nothing can be done for Polish Jews politically, let us at least do the most we can for them along the lines of relief. The J.D.C. must be helped to render larger assistance for Polish Jewry.