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, made in a recent issue of the “American Hebrew,” by Claude Montefiore, leader of the anti-Zionist League of British Jews, to the effect that Jewish Nationalists and Zionists are “hardly able” to possess goodwill to their fellow – countrymen, is termed by the London “Jewish Chronicle” at “a gratuitious insult to thousands upon thousands of his fellow-Jews with whose political views he is at variance.” The “Chronicle” feels that “the plain meaning of that article admits of no question. It is simply that in Mr. Montefiore’s view, Jewish Nationalists holding the creed they do, are incapable of patriotism to the country of their birth or adoption. He thus meant by what he wrote precisely what analogously Professor Goldwyn Smith, the Father of British anti-Semitism meant when, in an article in the “Nineteenth Century,” he asked, ‘Can Jews be Patriots?’ and went on to endeavor to prove that they could not.

“We are bound to express the view that never did a responsible man make so reckless a charge, and never was a more damaging and groundless statement, that may well be used as a dangerous weapon in the hands of the enemies of our people. made by anyone who professes and calls himself and is worthy so to be called a member of the House of Israel,” the paper declares.

JEWISH FARM MOVEMENT IN CANADA

The opening last Sunday in Ontario, Canada, of the Farm Training School. organized by the Federation of Jewish Farmers in that province. for purposes similar to those of the National Farm School in Doylestown. Pa., is hailed by the “Jewish Daily Eagle” of Montreal as an important event in the life of Canadian Jewry. The aim of the new school is besides training Jewish immigrants to be efficient farmers, to effect the admission of a larger number of Jewish immigrants to Canada under the special clauses in Canada’s immigration laws, favoring farmers.

“According to the founders of the school.” the “Daily Eagle” writes. “their purpose is to open the doors of Canada wider for Jews. With a movement for Jewish farming the government will no longer be in a position to reproach us that Jews are not interested in agriculture. We expect.” the paper says further. “that the Farm Training School will really raise the prestige of Canada Jewry in the matter of farming and moreover, that we will be included fully in the privileges enjoyed by the Canadian railway companies, which are allowed to bring in immigrants who are farmers, a privilege from which the Jews are excluded so far, having to be content with a special quota of fifty immigrants a week.”