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.]

A rebuke to Mr. Herbert Fordham, New York lawyer and former member of the Bar’s Committee on Character and Fitness of Applicants, for his assertions regarding Jewish law students and lawyers which injected a Jewish issue into the discussion on higher requirements for admission to the bar, is made in the “Jewish Morning Journal” of yesterday. Jacob Fishman, discussing the subject, remarks:

“We have given expression to our belief in higher requirements for law students, but we certainly cannot agree that Mr. Fordham had a right to make a Jewish issue of the question. Perhaps it is true that proportionately a larger number of Jews are trying to become lawyers than that of any other race, but nevertheless that does not make the matter a Jewish issue. We do not wish to accuse Mr. Fordham of anti-Semitism, but it was surely tactless of him to repeat statements somebody had made to him to the effect that soon 90 per cent of all lawyers in Brooklyn would be Jews. Even if this were so, it would still be no argument for higher requirements. The only question is whether the standard of the profession is falling or rising. If the standard has fallen the requirements should be raised whether the new lawyers are Jews or of any other race. Jews would surely be pleased to have the standard raised. And the Jews are not responsible for the Regents system, which admits some unqualified types to the bar.”

THE LAND SETTLEMENT MOVEMENT IN GERMAN JEWRY

The movement for land settlement which has been started among the Jews in Germany is motivated by a desire to distribute the Jewish population in that country more evenly than at present between trade and agriculture, a point on which the anti-Semites are constantly harping, we read in the “Pariser Haint” Yiddish daily of Paris (Feb. 22).

“The German Jews always regarded themselves as firmly rooted in the economic life of the country,” the writer says, “and it was always felt that no matter how strong anti-Semitism might become, the Jews would never be ousted from their economic position. Yet, suddenly the German Jews began to realize that the ground under their feet was shaking, that they too were insecure, and the result is that a large scale colonization movement has been started, not for ‘the poor brethren of Eastern Europe’ but for the German Jews proper, as a safeguard against the economic menace which German Jewry has suddenly discovered facing them.

“Some share in this has been played by anti-Semitism. So much was read in anti-Semitic literature about theories of Jewish ‘unproductively’ that an exaggerated, even caricaturistic idealization of the land worker was evolved, as if the peasant were the only ideal type and all others, especially traders, were ugly and unproductive.”

The writer then gives the following statistics regarding the distribution of the German Jews in various callings, based on the census of 1907: at that time of 18,000,000 persons in Germany engaged in agriculture (constituting 28.7% of the total population) 5,772, (or one percent of the Jewish population) were Jews; in industry and manufacturing, of 20,000,000 (or 42.7%) 128,000 (or 22.6%) were Jews; in trade, of 8,000,000 (13.4%) 313,176 (552% were Jews.

“It is no wonder,” we are told further, “that the German Jews began to realize their position was endangered and began to seek new ways of solving their problem. The colonization work is now in full swing and it is viewed very earnestly and has the cooperation of all elements. In view of the practical and organizational abilities of the German Jews, the enterprise has every prospect of success.”