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.]

With the death of Israel Zangwill the Jews have lost one of the most interesting “dreamers of the ghetto,” declares the “Day” of Aug. 2.

Terming Zangwill “a proud Jew and a great humanitarian,” the paper writes:

“Zangwill was in a sense a tragic figure. A thinker, poet and orator of the first rung, he was always drawn to public leadership, which was not his calling. He lacked the flexibility and compromising quality, which is so necessary for statesmanship, political leadership, and he lacked the art of veiling his thoughts, which is so essential for a diplomat.

“He was a man of deep convictions and never hesitated to voice them openly, even when it injured his own interests.”

The paper goes on to describe Zangwill’s deserts in introducing into English literature Jewish types which revealed the Jew in a new light to those who had known only Shylock and Fagin.

REGARDS KALENIN’S STATEMENT AS ARGUMENT AGAINST JEWISH AGENCY EXTENSION

The opinion that the statement of Michael Kalenin, president of the Union of Soviet Republics, on the subject of the Jewish colonization plan in Russia, is a further argument against the extention of the Jewish Agency as demanded by Weizmann, is voiced by “Rassviet” of Paris, organ of the Zionist-Revisionists.

Referring to the recent Zionist convention in Buffalo the “Rassviet,” writing editorially on July 18, criticizes the Zionists for adopting the two resolutions, one urging the continuance of the efforts to extend the Jewish Agency, the other opposing the Russian colonization plan. These two resolutions, the paper holds, are inconsistent, especially now, in the light of Kalenin’s statement.

Believing the Russian colonization plan to be antithetic to Palestine, the paper writes: “At first, these two resolutions (of the Buffalo Zionist convention) might seem compatible. However, it is but necessary to recall that the campaign for the Crimea plan is being conducted in America by the Marshall group to realize the incongruity of the resolutions. In truth: If the Russian colonization plan undermines the Zionist work and injures the cause of the reconstruction of the national Jewish Homeland in Palestine, then how is it possible to entertain the idea of accepting into the organization of the highest organ of the Zionist organization those who are defending and financing this colonization project?”