Daily Digest of Public Opinion on Jewish Matters

[The purpose of the Digest is informative: Preference is given to papers not generally accessible to our readers. Quotation does indicate approval.–Editor.]

Dr. Simon Askenazy, well known Polish Jewish historian, at one time Poland’s representative at the League of Nations, is looked upon by anti-government circles as the Polish Richelieu and the power behind the Pilsudski dictatorship, according to a Warsaw despatch to the New York “Times.”

In an interview with the “Times” correspondent, Professor Askenazy highly praised Josef Pilsudski and placed great hope in the present government.

Speaking on the question of the national minorities in Poland, Professor Askenazy stated:

“For the first few years of our independence we were busy with wars, while our neighbors were engaged in fostering animosities among the minorities. These minorities are not entirely of our making. They were decided by the Treaty of Versailles and the League of Nations.

“Whatever has happened, we have them, and they constitute a third of Poland’s 30,000,000 population. It is one of our greatest problems, but we mean peacefully to assimilate them, just as America did her many commonwealths after the Civil War. There will be equal chances for all.

“Nobody knows this better than Marshal Pilsudski,” he continued. “He has the advantage of knowing all Poland better than any other Pole, and he is exceptional.”

Concerning the minorities, the Professor defined them as: “one, Slavonic Ukrainians of Volhynia; two, White Russians of the Vilna district; three, Germans; four, Jews. The Slaves and Russians.” he declared, “exist because they are attached to the soil. The Jews are scattered, but tied to Poland because they existed for hundred of years and always as an important factor in trade. The Germans also were scattered through ancient colonization methods.

“Numbering ten million in all, the minorities constitute a problem which was never touched before by the old partition authorities,” Professor Askenazy stated, adding that they always had been used as pawns, the one being moved against the other for the purpose of cultivating hatred, and that despite the country’s brilliant history, “real liberty for these factions only began with the end of the great war,” the “Times” correspondent states.

“Robert Lloyd Howard of Harvard,” Prof. Askenazy continued, “was the first person to recognize the minority problem in Europe, his report to President Wilson being carefully considered in the present-day treatment of peoples.”

EXPRESSES ORTHODOX VIEW ON WILHELM’S ARTICLE ECHOING WISE CONTROVERSY

The “Jewish Daily News,” Orthodox Yiddish daily, which led the fight last winter against Dr. Stephen S. Wise because of his sermon on Jesus, now takes a similar stand in commenting upon the article of ex-Kaiser Wilhelm and the reply of ex-Kaiser Wilhelm and the reply of Dr. Nathan Krass, is the last issue of “Current History.”

“One must admit that from the ex-Kaiser’s viewpoint, he is right, while the Jewish followers of the Nazarene Klausner, Wise and company, have no viewpoint worthy of the name,” the paper writes. “Wilhelm speaks like a Christian, while Klausner, Wise and company do not speak like Jews. He speaks in the name of a religion to which he belongs, while they speak against the spirit of the religion to which they belong. His position is therefore much stronger than the position of these men who fluctuate between one religion and the other.

“Wilhelm’s opinions concerning the development of Jewish history are not important and do not touch the issue His statement that Christianity is connected forever with the belief in the divinity of the Nazarene is important.”

The editorial severely criticizes those reform rabbis who speak of Jesus as “a Jewish teacher of an unparalleled code of ethics” and declares that those who speak so “no longer stand on the foundation of Judaism.

“Disputes between Jews and Christians concerning the Nazarene are unpleasant. One cannot, however, have anything against Wilhelm for his article in Current History, because Jews started the dispute.

“Whom do they seek, these men? What do they want of the founder of another religion, by shouting that he is theirs and they are his?” the editorial asks. “These Nazarenes not only undermine the foundation of the Jewish religion, but they also create a tremendous anti-Semitism, for this dispute concerning the Nazarene can only irritate pious Christians who want to have their Nazarene as they themselves want to interpret him and not as Klausner, Wise and Krass interpret him. It is also against the conception of civilized people in modern times to ‘butt in” on somebody else’s religion. In this viewpoint Wilhelm is justified in his anger,” the paper concludes.

DOES NOT OBJECT TO BEING CALLED A JEW

“The Dearborn Independent” in its issue of July 24 quotes a letter from H. L. Mencken published in Gilbert K. Chesterton’s publication, known as “G. K.’s Weekly,” in which Mr. Mencken states:

“Someone sends me page 129 from the issue of your ‘Weekly’ for May 1 last. In it there is a flat statement that I am of the Old Testament. This, I beg to assure you, is an error. I am perhaps the only genuine Anglo-Saxon at present living in America and have all of the classical stigmata. I do not object to being called a Jew, but it occurred to me that you might be interested in the truth.”