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.]

The charge that, so far from being controlled by Jews, as alleged by the anti-Semites, the press of Germany is largely under anti-Semitic influences, was made by Georg Bernhard, editor of the “Vossische Zeitung”, in a lecture delivered on Feb. 21 in Breslau and quoted by the “Juedische Zeitung” of that city, wherein we read:

“Dr. Bernhard declared that the charge that the press is being ‘Judaized’ can easily be disproved. Jews are to be found as journalists only in Berlin and other large cities and even here only in few of the newspapers (Mosse, Ullstein, ‘Frankfurter Zeitung’, to some extent Scherl). The point where public opinion in Germany is chiefly influenced is the province and the province is dependent on the great news agencies, where Jews are almost completely barred. No matter how important the metropolitan press may be the voter stands under the overwhelming influence of sources which at best are not directly anti-Semitic.

“In Berlin and in Frankfurt am-Main,” Dr. Bernhard continued, “there are of a total of 350 journalists, 108 Jews, many of whom are converts. In Germany, however, there are some 4,000 journalists, the majority of whom are anti-Semites.”

ON THE ANTI-SEMITIC PROPAGANDA OF MRS. STETSON’S CHRISTIAN SCIENTISTS

The anti-Jewish and anti-Catholic propaganda conducted through radio by Mrs. Stetson, who is the leader of a seceding wing of the Christian Science movement, is the subject of comment in the “American Israelite” of March 17. The paper observes in part:

“Mrs. Stetson’s absurd attitude drew forth a long reply from an ‘unnamed Jewish leader’, which is much to be admired because of its candor and temperate statements. Naturally it is a waste of time to point out the entire nonsense of such statements as those by Mrs. Stetson and her accomplice and their utter futility for anything except to continue and help spread the pernicious doctrines which many of the Christian churches are just now preaching against the Jews, the Roman Catholics and a few other sects under the ban of these one-hundred-per-cent-Americans, not to say Christians. The so-called Christian Scientists as represented by Mrs. Stetson must not be confused with the original Church of Christ, Scientist. The latter are people of the highest intelligence and entertain the broadest views toward other beliefs and nationalities.”