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.]

“How did the newspapers discover that young James, son of Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, has decided to abandon his studies for the rabbinate?” asks Zivion in the “Forward” of May 1.

“I know,” the writer says in the course of his observations on the subject “that actors and actresses have their press agents, whose duty it is to keep the names of their employers before the public eye. But how did the papers learn that a young man whose name is James Wise does not want to be a rabbi? I am afraid the publicity devil may have had something to do with it Heaven knows in this country, where the publicity agent’s work begins and where it ends. For in the midst of the great news that James Wise does not want to be a rabbi, we learn, by the way, that the same James is publishing a book, and precisely on the subject of religion, Judaism, etc., that is, we are expected to become interested in the book and buy it as soon as it appears.”

FEARS “PROTESTANT-CATHOLIC-JEWISH PERIL”

The fear of “a national peril of Protestant, Catholic and Jewish bigotry” voiced in a recent issue of “The Herald of Gospel Liberty. Official Organ of the Christian Church,” published in Dayton, Ohio, is ridiculed by the “American Israelite” of April 29.

“The Protestants of the country.” avers the “Israelite” editorially, “are in the saddle and are riding the high horse. However, that they may become a national peril there is no danger. The Catholics are quite able to speak for themselves, but the warming that Jewish bigotry is a danger to the country is something to laugh at There is just about as much danger of the earth colliding with the moon and the destruction of both. But fortunately for the American people, statements like the one made in “The Herald of Gospel Liberty have no weight.”

STATISTICS FOR HARVARD

A fact overlooked by Professor Julian L. Coolidge, who recently asserted that since 1895 the Jews at Harvard have increased 650 per cent, is pointed out by the “Jewish Independent” of Cleveland. In an editorial under date of April 30 the paper observes:

“While Prof. Coolidge’s figures show a healthy increase in Jewish enrollment (a fact that needs no Jewish apologies) the explanation could well accompany the 650 per cent increase screeching, that from 1895 to 1922 the Jewish population increase in United States was 450 per cent.”