Digest of World Press Opinion

The Leeds Mercury comments upon Hitler’s double personality and emphasizes the fact that while Hitler pleads for peace he at the same time advocates violence against the Jews. The paper writes.

If Hitler want us to believe in his policy of international peace, let him declare for a decent domestic peace. He has accomplished nothing by his persecution of the Jews. The German worker still suffers.

Let Hitler abandon his crude youthful ideas of Jew-baiting.

Let him be fair to a persecuted minority at home, and then we may say that this man has learned a lesson and gained moral courage, and when he pleads for international understanding we can say we understand the man behind the plea and we will treat earnestly with him.

LEAGUE POWER TESTED BY SAAR

The New Palestine, commenting upon the Jewish situation in the Saar region, writes:

If the Saar region goes back to Germany, the Jews there will find themselves in a Hitler kettle.” High Commissioner McDonald figures that the number of German Jewish refugees in Europe will be increased by at least 5,000 from Saarland. Will the League of Nations take notice of the situation? When the Jews of Germany were reduced to something lower than a minority people, less than second-class citizens—in fact, when they became human beings whose rights were at the disposal of the government, the League of Nations could not interfere in the domestic affairs of a sovereign state. But it should be possible to lay down the law to Germany in taking over the Saarland to protect the Jews in their elementary rights. This will be a test of the authority and power of the League.

MASK DROPPED ON COLLEGE QUOTAS

Dr. S. Margoshes, commenting in The Day on the advice of Dr. James L. McConaughy, president of Wesleyan University, to Jewish students, not to take up medicine, writes:

As far as we know this is the first time that an American university has officially gone on record stating and justifying the existence of a quota for Jews in the medical colleges based on the ratio of the Jews to the total population of the U. S. We have known, of course, that such quota is in operation in most of the medical schools in America, but we have known also of the spurious arguments that have always been advanced by the heads of the medical colleges whenever the charge was made of Jewish exclusion.

The limitation of medical facilities has been leading for some time as the chief reason advanced for turning away Jewish applicants. But there were others. Some colleges have adopted psychological tests, personality interviews, rules granting admission only to two students from any given college, geographical requirements giving preference to applications from the South and the West; in short, all sorts of devices have been invoked to exclude the vast majority of Jewish medical applicants, without, however, precisely mentioning a quota.

To be sure there has been hypocrisy which, as Shakespeare defines it, is the tribute which vice pays to virtue. It connoted a certain sense of shame and of guilt in academic circles with regard to the acceptance of a principle which though practised was still considered unjustifiable because discriminatory in its essence. Now the shame is gone. The mask has dropped and the true face is visible to all the world. The revelation creates a new situation with grave consequences both to America and to the Jewish people.

IRAQI BREEZES CHANGING COURSE

The Palestine Post publishes a report from Bagdad on the situation or the Jews in Iraq, which reads:

The breeze of anti-Semitism which it was thought was lurking around the corners of Iraq may have died down, or may not have existed in official quarters. In all events, an encouraging article was published in Akha al Watani. this week commending the Iraqi Jews as excellent citizens and asking the Jewish community to take no notice of the sensational press which had seized an opportunity to recruit readers by riding an anti-Jewish hobby horse. This paper is the organ of the Watani party to which the Prime Minister belongs. Local newspapers such as Tariff and Al Iraq did not touch the Jewish question during the short spell of panic which followed the confiscation of Jewish newspapers, the dismissal of several Jewish government officials and the arrest of Mr. E. Levy who had written a letter to the Manchester Guardian complaining of the position of the Jews in Iraq. It is hoped that the suspending of publication of Al Ikab, a Baghdad newspaper which began its career ten days ago with persistent scurrilous attacks on Jews, may be taken as a sign of the Government’s approval of such tactics.

NEW ORDERS

In the same issue, the Palestine Post carries, however, a telegram from Baghdad which reads:

Baghdad.—A further order has been sent to all postmasters and postal agencies by the Minister of Posts and Telegraphs in Iraq ordering the confiscation of another fifteen Jewish periodicals. They include periodicals published in Hebrew, Yiddish, French, and Arabic, and it is indicated that the reason is because they are of Zionist tendency.

SEES BOYCOTT MADE STRONGER BY PARLEY

Commenting upon the first International Anti-Nazi Boycott Conference which closed this week in London, electing Samuel Untermyer president, the London Daily Herald says:

The anti – German boycott, hitherto almost exclusively Jewish, is to be reinforced by the cooperation of many shades of religious and political opinion which denounces that persecution and suppression of liberty by the Nazis.

WELFARE BOARD PUBLISH AIDS TO GROUP LEADERS

The Jewish Welfare Board yesterday announced publication of a pamphlet designed to aid group leaders of Jewish Centres and “Y’s” throughout the country in planning their activities. Contributors to the publication, “Training Course for Leaders in Group Work,” are experts in the particular phase of social service with which group work deals.

Another pamphlet, “Jewish Background,” includes a series of outlines by Jewish educators. This, the Jewish Welfare Board announces, affords a basic course in Jewish history, culture and current Jewish problems.