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.]

An appeal for conciliation between the Zionists and the Joint Distribution Committee on the question of Palestine reconstruction and Jewish colonization in Russia, is made in the “Day” of Oct. 7, by Joseph Barondess. Mr. Barondess, who was responsible for the resolution which brought about the compromise and peace at the Philadelphia conference of a year ago, writes under the Hebrew caption “Sinnas Chinom” (Unjustified Hate). He declares, in part:

“Within my humble powers and influence I endeavored at the last conference in Philadelphia to bring about peace, and it did seem then that the peace which we Jews need so much in our present calamitous condition, had indeed been arrived at; but no, the spirit of controversy intruded again and once more our ranks are broken, our weak forces shattered through our old curse of ‘sinnas chinom’…

“Of course both sides have their complaints against each other. There are just complaints and unjust ones. But regardless of who is right and who is wrong, who will lose and who will emerge the victor in this brother-strife, one thing is certain and that is, that Palestine and our unfortunate brothers and sisters in Eastern Europe will be the losers thereby.”

THE PASSING OF AMERICA’S YIDDISH HUMORIST

The death of Israel J. Zevin, Yiddish humorist, who was better known by his pen name of Tashrak, is lamented by the Jewish press. Mr. Zevin was perhaps the most picturesque figure produced by American Jewry in the field of literature. Arriving here as a young man he was a peddler for several years and it was in that period that he observed and studied at first hand the life and types among the immigrants which he later described. His humorous depictions of middle class Jewish life in America, of such characters as Chaim the Customer Peddler, Thomas Barclay Tchaprinsky, Flossie, Reverend Hotzmach, etc., won him a wide and appreciative following among the Yiddish reading public.

“Israel Zevin had the vision to see the new world in its making, the new types being developed under the new conditions in America,” observes the “Jewish Daily News,” of which Mr. Zevin was a constant contributor for over 30 years. “He had the eye to observe the life among the Jewish immigrants on the Jewish street of America, and the young peddler, who like most newcomers at that time sold small articles and trinkets on the street, became a writer describing the new Jewish life of America.

“For some thirty-four years,” the paper continues, “Mr. Zevin followed the vicissitudes of Jewish life in America in all its phases. He watched the progress of our peddlers as they became wealthy store owners and manufacturers, as they became Americanized, as their children grew up and became school teachers, lawyers and doctors, as they emerged from the East Side and settled in the new Jewish sections (Blotetowns), as they were transferred from ‘Chaims’ into ‘Charlies’ and from ‘Itles’ into ‘Henriettas.'”