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 suggestion to Henry Ford that he donate one million dollars to the United Jewish Campaign as a means of substantiating the claim made recently in the “Dearborn Independent” to the effect that, so far from being a Jew hater Mr. Ford is a Jew lover, being violently opposed only to the Jewish capitalists, is made by the “American Israelite” of May 6.

“Now, talk is cheap,” the paper writes, “and ‘The Israelite’ would suggest to Mr. Ford a very easy way to convince the Jews that he rather loves them than not. The misery and destitution and untimely deaths among the Jews of Europe caused directly by oppression and persecution is most pitiable and a great effort is being made to give what relief we can by raising $15,000,000 for this purpose. Now Mr. Ford has an income of many millions a year and an accumulated fortune which is reported at a billion. In short, he is said to be the richest man in the world. Now if he were to take one of those millions and donate it to the United Jewish Campaign to be used for the relief of the suffering Jews abroad be would become not only a great benefactor of the Jews but to humanity as a whole.”

140,000 — WHERE ARE THEY?

Criticism of New York Jewry for its showing so far in the United Jewish Campaign drive for $6,000,000 is voiced in the Forward” (May 8) by Zivion, who feels that the sum of money secured as well as the number of contributors, 10,000, are inadequate compared to the size and wealth of the Jewish community of Greater New York. Assuming that New York has a Jewish population of 1,750,000, the writer observes:

“In a population of 1,750,000 persons we can count close to half a million adults and even reckoning that donors are exclusively males, there should have been at least a quarter of a million Jews in New York to contribute to the relief drive.

“Well, let us assume that not every one is in a position to give, though everyone should make a special effort to do so in this emergency, I am ready to deduct 50,000, even 100,000 of such that cannot contribute and there still remain 150,000 who are in a position to give. Up to now only 10,000 have contributed–where are the other 140,000?

“And while I am trying to find out what happened to the Jewish masses when they were called on the give a little for the relief of their fellow-Jews in Eastern Europe, I would like to know where the thousands of New York’s wealthy Jews have hidden?

“The truth is,” Zivion believes, “that there is but a small number in American Jewry who give. It is. therefore, the task of the leaders of the campaign to find ways of reaching the large number of non-givers.”