Digest of World Press Opinion

The Brooklyn Jewish Center Review reprints a condensed version of an article published fifty years ago in the London Times on Sir Moses Montefiore, the “campaigner for Jewish rights,” the 150th anniversary of whose birth is now being observed. Mr. I. Davis, the author of the article, relates:

Till 1828, only twelve Jews at a time were permitted to carry on business as brokers in the city of London. Even in 1853, when a Jew presented himself to the Benchers of Lincoln’s-inn, for call to the Bar, a solemn discussion was held until the young man’s petition was granted. Owing to the survival of tests at Oxford and Cambridge, Jews did not take the degree there till a much later date. A year before Montefiore’s birth the Irish Parliament especially excluded Jews from the benefits of the Naturalization Act, and it may be partly due to this disability that up to 1881 only 453 Jews had settled in Ireland.

FIRST JEW ON ‘CHANGE

Relating that Montefiore was one of the first twelve Jews who were permitted on the London Stock Exchange as brokers, Mr. Davis continues.

Sir Moses crossed the desert to the city of Morocco in 1863 and obtained the Sultan’s promise of protection for the Israelites. He was too weak to ride, but travelled for eight days in a chaise a porteur, over burning sands. being then at the age of 79. The Moors saw with surprise one of the despised Hebrews arrive in an English government vessel, and escorted to the capital by British officers. The Sultan’s edict, though often violated, has remained a pledge and point d’appui for remonstrance.

He went to Roumania four years later, though threatened with assassination at Bucharest.

In 1872, at the age of 88, Sir Moses went to Russia to present an address to Tsar Alexander II, on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the birth of Peter the Great, and thereby won assurances for the betterment of the condition of the Russian Jews. Sir Moses’ public acts and appearances in behalf of Jewish rights were infrequent after that.

NAZI PAPER COMPARES ENGLISH, REICH JEWS

The Westdeutsche Beobachter, a Nazi newspaper published in Cologne, deals with the question of English Jewry in an article entitled “England and the Germany of Today.”

In no other country have the Jews succeeded in winning so little political influence as in England. The English have, to be sure, sometimes placed Jews like Disraeli and Lord Reading, who unreservedly gave their services to England’s cause, in prominent positions. But for the most part the Jews still live and are conscious of living in a sort of invisible Ghetto.

Naturally, as almost all of them have touched Germany on their way from Poland and Russia westwards, and left behind relatives and connections, they seek to conduct anti-German propaganda in England. But their success, as compared with results in other countries is small.

Of all the measures adopted by the German government, the one best understood and thoroughly approved by the English people has been the treatment of the Jewish question. Only the ruins of Liberalism, now obsolete in England as elsewhere, and the Labor Party, slowly but surely disintegrating still afford the Jewish men of letters a field of action—a field, nevertheless, not to be under-estimated. The ever-increasing number of scandals involving members of the Jewish race convinces the English people about the nature and actions of the Jews more than any propaganda could do.

Jewish propaganda has been successful, however, in one thing: in its assertion that National Socialism has robbed Germany of the best part of its intellectual and artistic heads, by which, of course, such people as Einstein, Theodor Wolff and their co-racials are meant. This success can be put to the account of the German non-Jewish intelligentsia, who were formerly only too ready to proclaim and extol the so-called “superiority” of Jewish intellectuals.

REVISIONIST ORGAN ATTACKS EASLEY

Commenting on the exposure that Ralph M. Easley, chairman of the executive committee of the National Civic Federation was involved in spreading anti-Communist literature attacking the Jews in the United States. Our Voice, organ of the Zionist Revisionist party in America, writes editorially:

We have not heard that Easley has been deposed or the Civic Federation overhauled.

Because it is subversive to every Jewish interest we are squarely opposed to Communism. But we have no interest in fighting it by underhand methods. Jews either as individuals or as organizations blunder badly when they align themselves in any political struggle with pseudo-patriotic organizations or secret agencies for, all other considerations apart, such bodies sooner or later attempt to score by acting as provocative agencies.

GERMAN REFUGEES AND THE U. S.

The Chicago Daily News reports from Berlin that no less than 3,000 German Jews have proceeded to the United States since Hitler came to power. The paper writes:

Jews make up three-fourths of the present German emigration to the United States and of these Jews approximately one-third are doctors, lawyers, teachers and their families.

German Jews in the “nonpreference quota” category of emigrants to the United States outnumber all Italian emigrants in that category and outnumber all Russian emigrants of all categories for the most recent period for which comparative statistics are available.

These are the paradoxical results of attempts of the two governments — American and German—to strengthen the Nordic element in their countries, and to reduce or eliminate altogether non-Nordic influences. It was the desire of the United States to encourage Nordic immigration that caused Congress to give northern countries, like Germany, high quotas and southern and eastern countries, like Italy and Russia, low ones.

It is the anti-Semitic policies of the National Socialists here which make German Jews want to go to the United States.

BETTER CITIZENS

The paradox is completed by the high social and intellectual level of the German Jews who are now going to America. The American policy of favoring immigration from Nordic countries was supposed to be based on the belief that Nordics make better American citizens than non-Nordics. Yet by every objective standard these German Jewish immigrants will make better citizens than any other equal number of persons now entering the United States.

DEPLORES PREJUDICE IN COSTA RICA

The Jewish Ledger of New Orleans comments editorially upon the spread of anti-Semitic propaganda by the Nazis in the small Latin-American countries. The paper states among other things:

The latest nation to join the anti-Semitic family is the midget Central-American republic of Costa Rica. The presence of an anti-Jewish movement in that Latin-American State is really tragi-comical. The whole population of Costa Rica is no larger than that of New Orleans, and the Jews form about one-fifteenth of one per cent. Yet the agitation against them is so strong that they are living in constant fear. Only 350 Jews reside in all Costa Rica and their residence dates back only a few years. They possess neither wealth nor influence. Nine-tenths of them barely earn a living, and the other tenth does no more than earn a living, yet the “Protocols” are circulated and the press is succeeding in making the populace believe that the Jews are conspiring to dominate Costa Rica.