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 not indicate approval.–Editor]

The arrival in this country of Chaim Nachman Bialik, the famous Hebrew poet, is hailed by the “Jewish Morning Journal” as a happy occasion for all American Jewry.

“The refined, cultured and feeling part of American Jewry,” the paper avers, “feels proud with the visit of Chaim Nachman Bialik and greets enthusiastically in him the bearer of a great tradition, one of the pillars of a literature which does not cease to be esteemed by Jews of all classes, even by those who do not have the bliss of being well versed in it.

“Chaim Nachman Bialik is the Hebrew poet of our age; he has the distinction of being the singer of his generation of being regarded as the highest literary artist in his field in the last several decades.”

NON-JEWS EQUALLY AVERSE TO INTERMARRIAGE AS JEWS

Objection to intermarriage is as strong among non-Jews as among Jews, points out Chas. A. Joseph (in his “Random Thoughts” to be released to the American Jewish press this week) in the course of a reply to one “A. A,” who, in a letter to the “Nation” of New York, contended that the cause of anti-Semitism is the disinclination of the Jews to intermarry.

“Did ‘A. A.’ ever stop to think,” Mr. Joseph asks, “that the non-Jew may have just as strong an objection to marrying a Jew as a Jew has to marrying a non-Jew? He seems to think that if the Jews should tomorrow decide to marry out of their faith all they would have to do is to announce their program and it would become immediately effective. Nonsense, Perhaps the reason Mr. Ford is perfecting himself in the art of dancing is due to the fact that he expects Herman Bernstein and Aaron Sapiro to make him do some lively stepping when they get him on the witness stand during the trials for libel.”

DISCUSSES QUESTION “WHY THE JEW WINS”

Under the caption “Why The Jew Wins !” the New York “Evening Graphic” has begun a series of articles, the intended purpose of which is to survey the question of anti-Semitism and, as the paper puts it, “the Jewish problem in the United States.”

In the issue of Feb. 10, President Coolidge is quoted as follows on the Jews:

“No Jew should ever look upon our institutions as alien. His people have had their tremendous share in making them. If they are imperfect, his is a part of the blame. If they surpass all others, his is a part of the glory. In either event, they belong to him equally with others.”

In the issue of February 11, the writer of the series, Evan Blaine, tracing the movement against the Jews from 1920 when Ford’s “Dearborn Independent” began its attacks on the Jews and the KuKlux began its activities, expresses his conviction that the ill-famed “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” were “a tommyrot of misrepresentation and forgery.”

Referring to the book “The Patriotism of the American Jew,” by Samuel W. McCall, ex-Governor of Massachusetts, the writer declares:

“There is astounding data in this book to offset the charges that we have referred to–as thorough a refutation of the accusation of unpatriotism as the most aggrieved Jew could hope for. No man reading this volume could fail to be convinced.”

Concurrently there is an article by Norton Tuck who quotes Dr. Bernard Revel, head of the Isaac Elchanan Seminary, as giving the following answer to the question, Why Does the Jew Win?

“The answer is plain. It is simply another example of the general law of the survival of the fittest.

“The reason that the Jew was found fit to survive during more than two thousand years, when other nations and peoples were annihilated and destroyed,” he continued, “was that the life of the individual Jew, as lived in the devoted family life, gave him strength to survive. Every Jew had been taught, in school and synagogue and home, certain lessons which made for his enduring strength.”

URGES PALESTINE GOVERNMENT TO ABANDON NEUTRALITY POLICY

The demand that the Palestine government substitute its policy of neutrality to the Jews by one of active cooperation in economic matters, is expressed editorially in the “Ha’Aretz,” Hebrew paper of Tel Aviv, which, in its issue of Jan. 10, discusses the present economic situation in Palestine. Says the “Ha’Aretz”:

“Jews come and go, they build, work, bring wealth, millions of pounds, they create institutions, educate their children, care for their sick, and also for the safety of the country–and there in Jerusalem is a government that sees, hears and is satisfied, or is dissatisfied, if things do not go well, but of deeds, help and cooperation–there is no trace. The treasury of the government is meaintime being filled. Those Jews are nevertheless in Palestine–a place where there are taxes and duties levied–and they have a close connection with the government treasury, they fill a surplus of demands of thousands of pounds in the government treasury–where else can you find such a condition now in the world? And when there are public government works to be done, as for instance on the road Rosh-Pina–Metullah, about 1500 men are employed, among whom are only several hundred Jews, inasmuch as there is need of their expert work, and when there is a road, Haifa- Acre, to be built, where the government, according to an agreement with the “Port construction Company” of Haifa has to supply the workers–it employs prisoners of the jails in Acre and does not give the work to Jewish unemployed.”

Regarding the survey being made by the Palestine government of the commercial and industrial situation in Tel Aviv, the paper says it would “like to believe that the purpose of the survey is to find ways and means of remedying the situation so as to prevent a crisis,” but expresses the fear that the real purpose of the survey is “to see whether it is possible to make new restrictions in the immigration rules…”

“Maybe it would be worth while,” the paper concludes, “that the government should abandon its present policy of ‘neutmlity’ towards Jews, and devote its attention to the created situation and bring this time active aid to those who are already in the country instead of worrying continually about those who are going to come–by closing the gates of the country?

“Maybe the government will at last understand, that the present depression is due largely to the policy of restriction, and that any new restrictions can only deepen and increase the crisis.”