Senator William H. King of Utah last night told about 4,500 persons gathered at the Brooklyn Academy of Music to inaugurate the newly organized Brooklyn Jewish Democracy, that “it is necessary that we band together to uphold the ideals of religious freedom and fight intolerance.”
He spoke with much feeling of the Nazi propaganda campaign against the Jews in the United States and urged that steps be taken to combat the “venomous thing which seeks to undermine the American government.”
Other speakers at the meeting, who included former Municipal Court Justice Jacob S. Strahl, Dr. Samuel Margoshes, editor of The Day; Rabbi Joshua Goldberg, U. S. Senator Royal S. Copeland and Samuel Liebowitz, attorney echoed the view of Senator King to the effect that America is threatened with dangerous forces.
Judge Strahl called Hitler a “modern Rasputin.” He paid tribute to President Roosevelt on the occasion of his first anniversary in office. He deplored the fact that the Jewish population in Brooklyn, approximating more than half of the voting strength of the borough, has so little “representation in office.”
“We Jews should respect ourselves, if we expect to win the respect of others. We should join together in every possible way, politically and otherwise.”
In a vigorous address in which he demanded “militant leadership for the Jewish people, who should learn to take it standing up,” Mr. Liebowitz, who defended the Scottsboro Negroes, said he endorses the move to marshal the forces of American Jewry into one organization.
The list of officers, elected at a private meeting last week, was made public last night, and is as follows: Samuel Liebowitz, president; Dr. Louis D. Gross, Abraham Segall, Dr. Henry Calvin, Abraham Stark, Harry Steinberg, vice-presidents; Edward C. Jacobson and Edward E. Baker, recording secretaries; Lewis J. Jacobsen and Benjamin W. Solomon, financial secretaries; Reuben B. Smith, corresponding secretary: Joseph Chomsky, assistant corresponding secretary; Abraham N. Levy, and Harry M. Firestone, treasurers; John J. Harvey and J. M. Landau, sergeants-at-arms.
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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.