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 Roumanian government is mistaken if it hopes to whitewash itself through the cheap publicity of Colonel Ament’s “investigation” of the Jewish situation in Roumania, declares the Jewish press, commenting on the Colonel’s whitewashing campaign inaugurated in the New York “Morning Telegraph”. The papers emphasize that Col. Ament is an unknown quantity in American public life and his statements can have no bearing or authority.

The “Day,” referring to the Colonel’s emphasis on his “unofficial” capacity as investigator of the situation in Roumania, writes:

“What is the meaning of ‘unofficial’? When a Mr. Johnson or a Mr. Patrick goes to Roumania it does not occur to anyone to report that the visit is ‘unofficial’. When we speak of ‘unofficiality’ it is in reference to persons who are official. If a Senator, an Ambassador or some other government official visits a foreign country the question whether his visit is in connection with his position in the American government or whether it is in a private, ‘unofficial’ capacity becomes pertinent. Col. Ament is merely an American citizen. His title of Colonel originates from the war period; he is like many others upon whom the rank was bestowed during service but who are now loth to discard it in daily use.

“But Ament is not connected with the U. S. Government. That was the reply of Washington to an inquiry on the subject. The name ‘Colonel’ and the term ‘unofficial’ have helped to make the impression that Ament is an American representative who came to Roumania to investigate the situation. We say ‘helped’ because obviously the chief advertisers of the Ament-expedition were persons close to the Roumanian Government. Roumania is interested to spread the impression that Ament was its ‘unofficial’ investigator.

“However, Roumania, besides being an anti-Semitic country, is apparently stupid too if she expects to whitewash herself and improve her financial credit abroad through cheap publicity around the trips of her Queen made at the expense of an old millionaire and through such ‘reports’ as Col. Ament’s.”

In the “Jewish Morning Journal” Jacob Fishman ridicules the tactics of the Roumanian government. If the Jews were not so sensitive they would regard Roumania’s inability to find a better mouthpiece in the American press then the “Morning Telegraph” as an excellent joke, he says, pointing to the fact that the “Telegraph” is an organ of “the movies, the theatre and the turf” and that one of its chief sources of revenue are the advertisements of the race “tipsters” and the cheaper class of variety actresses.

“It is this race-track and burlesque organ that has suddenly delved into the Roumanian-Jewish question and seeks to whitewash the Roumanian government,” Mr. Fishman writes, adding:

“We do not believe the Jews should take seriously the interviews of Col. Ament which are hashed up by a Meyer Solmson. We are convinced that no American of any standing will pay any attention to articles coming from such a source.

“The whole matter can be viewed rather as an indication of the predicament in which the Roumanian government finds itself if it can secure no other mouthpiece.”

PROPOSES COMMITTEES FOR STRICTER OBSERVANCE OF KOSHER LAW

A proposal looking toward stricter enforcement of the Kosher food law in New York is made in the current issue of the “Jewish Forum,” in an editorial commending Assemblyman Samuel Mandelbaum for his amendment to the penal law on the sale of Kosher food now before the legislature in Albany. Giving the text of the amendment, the “Jewish Forum” observes:

“It is now up to Orthodox Jews to organize for their own protection as well as the protection of those less vigilant or less concerned with strict adherence to Jewish dietary laws. Every congregation should now have its committee on Kashruth, to whom reports are to be regularly made concerning violations of the Kosher Food Law, which committees should be organized first on a basis of local conditions and then on a city wide scale.”