Chancellor Hitler’s implied threat in his Reichstag speech to Nazify Czechoslovakia gave added significance today to a statement by President Edouard Benes to an American rabbi that Jews and other minorities enjoy equal rights. An official communique was given today to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in connection with an audience given by President Benes to Rabbi Irving Frederick Reichert, of San Francisco, last Dec. 3.
“The Jews in our country enjoy, with all sections of the population, full equality of rights, and with all other minority nations, the rights of a national minority,” President Benes declared. “A large part of them regard themselves as a minority nation; another part prefers to be regarded merely as a religious community. Under the laws of our democratic State, they are free to regard themselves as either.”
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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.