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 joint prayer intended for all Americans, which was composed recently by a Catholic priest, a Protestant minister and a rabbi, has been the subject of severe criticism in England.

The “Universe and Catholic Weekly” of London has voiced a protest against the joint prayer, terming it a “wrong idea of unity,” and stating the Archbishop of Baltimore has issued a warning against it.

Commenting on the protest of the Catholic organ, the “Jewish World” of London, in an editorial of April 28th, remarks:

“The paper tells us that the Archbishop of Baltimore has issued a strong warning against this sort of thing, and I am sorry that no similar allocution has been sent out by any rabbi. I have called attention, I don’t know how many times to the evil that must result from this ‘harmonizing’ between Jews and non-Jews, and I agree with my contemporary that it is a seeking of the ‘wrong ideas of Unity.’ But then, what is to be done seeing that in America they call jazz, harmony?”

BRISBANE SUGGESTS Y. M. A. A.

A suggestion for the creation of a Yong Men’s American Association, to serve members of all faiths instead of segregating them into Y. M. C. A.’s and Y. M. H. A.’s, is made by Arthur Brisbane in his daily column in the “N. Y. American” of May 7. Commenting on the present drives in New York of the Y. M. C. A. and the Y. M. H. A., Mr. Brisbane observes:

“How would it be to start a Young Men’s American Association, which all could join, Jews, Protestants, Catholics, Mohammedans and Zoroastrians?

“It seems too bad that in this country young men should be segregated in groups according to religion or race. What we need is a complete mixture.”

CRITICIZES IDEA OF COMBINED YESHIVA AND COLLEGE

The idea of a Yeshiva College is criticized in the “Day” of May 7 by Dr. A. Coralnik, who, commenting on the Yeshiva College cornerstone laying a week ago, contends that college and yeshiva are incompatible.

“What is the connection between Torah and general science?” Dr. Coralnik asks. “Did Maimonides study medicine in a Yeshiva? Always in the past the Torah was studied in the Beth Hamedrash while science was studied where everybody studies it. And that is why both were attained. That is the law: you cannot mix fire with water, or water with oil. Either one of them must surrender or they separate again.

The orthodox of a generation ago might even have admitted, let us say, that science is necessary, though he did not believe in it. But for him science was merely a profession or a trade. A doctor, a chemist, an engineer, he argued, is a matter of trade, not of wisdom. You learn the rules of these sciences, just as you learn tailoring or shoemaking. And where does a tailor learn his trade? From another tailor, not from a rabbi. It has nothing to do with Torah. On the contrary, one hinders the other; Torah demands of one that he submit himself completely–and to divide means to weaken.”

Dr. Coralnik also charges that the orthodox Jews who are in back of the Yeshiva movement are aiming ultimately to spread their influence to Palestine and to turn Zionism into an orthodox movement. He quotes in this connection a publication of the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Yeshiva where the hope is expressed “to take over the rule of the non-orthodox Zionists–to conquer them and to redeem the land according to the Torah and the traditions.”

Dr. Joseph Krimsky has been appointed chairman of the Physicians’ Division of the $500,000 campaign of the Hebrew Sheltering and Immigrant Aid Society, John L. Bernstein, Chairman of the Hias campaign, announced.