Digest of Public Opinion on Jewish Matters

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

The American Jewish Congress thru its session in Washington has demonstrated, in the opinion of two Jewish papers, the “Day” and the ” Jewish Daily News,” that its chief function and capacity still continues to be as a demonstrative body, an organ for expressing protests against anti-Jewish persecutions in Europe.

If the American Jewish Congress can be regarded as the “throat of American Jewry.” declares the “Day,” it cannot he viewed as “the head, or the thinking apparatus of the Jewish masses in America.” The paper proceeds:

“If there are any differences of opinion in American Jewry, if there are problems which demand concentration of thought, if there are different Jewish parties and groups which point out roads leading to the Jewish goal–none of them were seen, heard from or sensed at the great gathering in Washington.

“Perhaps this absence of friction was deliberately prearranged. But is it possible that the sphere of Jewish unanimity is so limited as one would gather from the Jewish Congress session? Of course, it is good to place oneself on a platform that has room for everybody; but it should not be forgotten that such a platform needs boards, and many of them.

“The chief trouble with the American Jewish Congress,” the paper opines, “is that it believes, as heretofore, that its existence as a democratic representation of American Jewry is in itself a great achievement. The mere existence of an organization, even if it is democratic, is not a sufficient raison d’etre. It is merely a means to an end. It is important insofar as it can be employed for important purposes. Up till now, the only purpose for which the American Jewish Congress, as constituted, could be used–was for protesting. It is time that a change be brought about, so that the American Jewish Congress, the highest democratic instance of American Jewry, be endowed with logic as well as with lungs.”

The “Jewish Daily News” while praising the American Jewish Congress session in Washington for its protest against the anti-Jewish persecution in Rounania, criticizes the statements of Mr. Leo Wolfson and Mr. Solomon Sufrin, leaders of the Roumanian Jews in America, for their assertion declaring that the previous protests of American Jewry have already brought results. “Such statements,” the paper says, “nullify the effect of a protest and injure the cause, for, if the situation has improved there is no longer any reason for vigorous protests. We cannot call upon the world to intervene with Roumanian against the anti-Jewish persecutions and in the same breath say that the situation in that country is better. The Roumanian government can resort to this statement and exploit it against the latest protest of the Jews. In view of these things the protest has been deprived of a good deal of its moral force, which it would otherwise have had. We fail to understand why the Congress acted so tactlessly.”

Joseph Levenson, leader of the 1st Assembly District and an authority on history and economics of the lower East Side, said Tuesday night at the National Republic Club that philanthropists would fail in their effort to change the complexion of that district. Jews would remain there, he said, because it was so near their work that they could come home and have kosher food for lunch and could attend their synagogues, morning and evening.

“No matter what our sympathies may dictate, the sad fact remains,” he said, ” that the East Side will continue to house many of the extremely poor. In these days of high rents, there are still thousands of apartments on the lower East Side renting from $3 to $6 a room. As in every other large city, there must be laborers, porters, chauffeurs, long, shoremen and workers of all sorts who, in the nature of things, will continue to live near their place of employment and who must be furnished with homes at very low rentals.

“Some people talk about building modern apartments for the very poor under state and city auspices, but the facts is that such apartments–even if exempted from taxation–cannot be built on the East Side under existing land values and building conditions to rent for less than $10 to $12 a room, a prohibitive rate for those who now live in the cheap ‘ cold water walk-up’ flats. Exemption from taxation for such new ‘ model’ tenements would only add a new rent burden to the occupants of the $3 and $4 a room apartments.”