The centennial anniversary of the birth of Oscar Straus, the first Jew to serve in a Presidential Cabinet, was marked today at the 48th annual meeting of the American Jewish Eistorical Society, which is sponsored by the National Jewish Welfare Board. Mr. Straus, who was the first president of the Society, was Secretary of Commerce and Ambassador to Turkey during the term of President Theodore Roosevelt.
Lee M. Friedman, of Boston, president of the A.J.H.S., declared that “we Jewe own it to ourselves and to America to make known the role which Jews have played as an integrated and vital element in the settlement and progress of the United States.” Papers on various phases of American Jewish history were read by 17 Jewish historians. Speakers included Rear Admiral Lewis L. Strauss, who resigned recently as a member of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission.
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