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 decision of the U. S. Supreme Court that pogrom refugees can be exempt from the literacy test for immigrants on the ground that they are fleeing from religious persecution is termed an honorable decision by the “Jewish Morning Journal” of Sept. 15. The ruling was rendered in the case of Mrs. Szejwa Waldman and her three daughters who came to the U. S. in 1922 after escaping from the Proskurow pogrom but were detained at Ellis Island until now.

“The case was drawn out four years,” the paper writes, “and the lawyer who acted as counsel to Mrs. Waldman, Mr. Max J. Kohler, one of the best versed students of American Jewish history and an authority in laws concerning Jews and immigration, deserves our deepest recognition for his successful work. The last point made was that the Waldmans were refugees from religious persecution before the immigration law by which they were excluded was enforced. That is really the fact, because the horrible pogrom in Proskurow occurred in 1919. But it was not so easy to have this taken into consideration, because the unfortunate woman and her children who escaped from those massacres, arrived in the United States three years later.”

ANENT THE CHICAGO CONTROVERSY

On the question of the controversy in Chicago between the Jewish Charities federation and the Moses Montefiore Talmud Torah and the Marks Nathan Jewish Orphan Home, the Chicago “Chronicle” of Sept 11 observes:

“The Moses Montefiore Talmud Torah, like the Marks Nathan Jewish Orphan Home, dared refuse the ukase of the Jewish Charities to change their method of teaching, and their budget was promptly cut off. One can never tell what the Charities will demand next. Both institutions have done well by not acceeding to the demands of the Charities leaders; it was not only a case of self-preservation, but of self-respect, as well. The Montefiore Talmud Torah is in need of funds to continue their work and will make an appeal for assistance in the synagogues during the Holy days.”

Federal prohibition agents began on Tuesday to close 250 sacramental wineshops. Under orders from Major Chester P. Mills, prohibition administrator for this district, the wine found in the shops was confiscated by the Government.

The raids are the result of the failure to close the shops, Major Mills said. Orders for their closing were issued last month to be effective September 1. Rabbis were ordered to personally appear at prohibition headquarters to obtain permits to sell wine if they wished them. Major Mills declared then that wine might only be sold in the rabbis’ homes or synagogues.

Rabbi Moses Mo### Epstein, Dean of the S###dka Yeshiva in Hebron, Palestine, is in St. Louis, Mo. for the High Holidays in the interests of the Yeshiva.