The problem of organizing American Jewry is dealt with in the “Day” of Nov. 15 by S. Niger, who proposes a plan whereby this problem can be solved, he believes.
“We have”, writes Mr. Niger, “an alliance of Polish Jews in America, an alliance of Ukrainian Jews, an alliance of Roumanian Jews, etc. But we have no alliance of American Jews.
“Each of these alliances has an address. American Jewry has none. Its address is c/o Mr. Louis Marshall. And if Marshall were to yield his post it would be c/o some other individual.
“Even the American Jewish Congress is no exception. Because it does not represent a federation of Jewish institutions and activities in this country. It is merely another separate organization, the sole contact between it and the other organizations being that the Congress asks the others for money to help upkeep its ‘office’.
“If we wish to have a central federation of American Jewry it must grow out of and rest upon all the other local and national federations. In other words, it must be a ‘federation of federations’.
“The process must start from the bottom up. All Jewish institutions and organizations in every city must first be coordinated, then these must be federated into state and national organizations and these in turn must be represented in the one central American Jewish federation. This cannot be accomplished in one day. But a start can be made by coordinating all those larger federations which are now in existence.”
JEWISH MEMBER OF SEJM CRITICIZES POLISH GOVERNMENT
I. Greenbaum, leading Jewish member of the Polish Sejm, in an article in the “Heint” of Warsaw, accuses the Polish government of feigning that it is endeavoring to give the Polish Jews in the Eastern provinces of Poland their just “minority” rights, only it is waiting for their cooperation in this matter.
“On the one hand”, says Greenbaum, “the government, with the approval of the Sejm and the Senate, issued decrees which proclaimed very brutally that the Jews in the Eastern provinces are doomed to serve as mere tools for Polonization. On the other hand, it assured the Jews that if they will have patience until the fall session of the Sejm the government would turn its attention to their problems with a view to solving them satisfactorily. But when fall came, anonymous statements from “authoritative sources” began to appear in the press to the effect, first, that I, through my activities, am hindering the government in its good intentions toward the Jews, and later, that I am not to blame, only the government is waiting for the Jews to take the initiative in this matter.
“It is truly astounding to hear this from the government after numerous memorandums had been presented to it, after the matter had been discussed with it over and over again. The government knows well enough what the Jewish demands are. It did not wait for the ‘initiative’ of the other national minorities in giving them their rights. Why does not the Polish government come out with a frank, unequivocal statement as to how far it is willing to go in satisfying the just demands of the Jews?”
WHAT WILL UNITED STATES JEWS DO NOW?
Pointing out that the election of President Coolidge and a Republican administration will bring about no change for the better in the immigration policy of the United States, the “Jewish Daily Eagle” (Nov. 9) of Canada asks:
“Will the Jews of the United States continue their attitude of timidity which they maintained before the present immigration restrictions were adopted and of advising and criticizing the Canadian Jews, or will they do something now in ‘their own’ America?
“And yet again-what can they do?”
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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.
