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 indicate approval–Editor.]

The opinion that the Arabs have become reconciled to the fact of a Jewish National Home in Palestine, is expressed by the special correspondent of the London “Times.” In an article on Palestine Revisited appearing in the London “Times” of April 12, the correspondent writes:

“The experiment of providing simultaneous accommodation for a Jewish National Home and a comparatively large non-Jewish population in a small and economically speaking, far from rich country, seems to have come to be accepted as just one more of the numerous paradoxes, religious, cultural and geographical, to which Palestinians are already so well accustomed.”

This attitude on the part of the Arabs is due, the correspondent believes, to a realization by the Arab that “however National the Jews’ Home may be in Palestine he, the poor Hagarene, is among the children of Abraham, more truly the son of the soil.” The very backwardness of the Arab, we are told, is regarded by him as an economic advantage over his Jewish neighbors. To quote again: “An Arab-built house is cheaper and can be let for a lower rent than a corresponding house of Zionist workmanship, Arab production of the simpler necessaries of life is cheaper and, in fine, the Zionist, in his enthusiasm for finding a short cut to the realization of all his dreams in a single generation has overlooked the fact that the son of the soil has been left in possession of a valuable economic weapon with which to defend himself and his traditional simplicity against the aspiring immigrant.”

THE EMERGENCE OF A NATION

The career of Lord Reading is more than an individual achievement–it is “the emergence of a nation out of mediaevalism,” declares the New York “World” of Apr. 22, commenting on Reading’s advance to the rank of Marquis, the highest title ever conferred on a British Jew.

“Reading is a mile-post,” writes the paper. “When he was born, Lionel Rothschild was but newly seated in Parliament after an eleven years’ struggle for such a modification of the oath as would admit a Jew to Parliament. He was twenty-five when Nathan Rothschild entered the House of Lords. Think what an English Earl was to a Jew of the middle ages in his Ghetto, and we see in Reading’s career more than the rise of a man–it is the emergence of a nation out of mediaevalism.”

The “Evening World” of same date compares Reading to Disraeli and observes that “if Lord Reading lacks some of the more shimmering qualities of that picturesque poseur, he has proven his capacity for the highest public service. Americans who remember his brief diplomatic mission to Washington will rejoice in his recognition.”

Referring to Lord Reading’s distinction as a jurist, the New York “American” remarks:

“The drift of distinguished Jews to the bench has not been so marked in England as in the United States. In this country the roll of great Jewish judges is a long as well as brilliant one, in which respect it simply parallels the experience of American Jews in other professions and callings.”