Digest of World Press Opinion

The New York Daily Mirror publishes an article by Hendrik Willem Van Loon on the Nazi movement in America, which states among other things:

The Dickstein commission has now moved its headquarters from New York to Washington, and for the moment at least there is an end to those incredible scenes that took place during those hearings. I wonder what would have happened to these youthful gangsters in their foreign uniforms, their foreign insignia and their Hitler-hoorays, if their cavortings had been committed in the days of—let us say—the older Adams or his contemporary, the late Mr. Thomas Jefferson.

Had these young patriots then dared to come a swashbuckling into meetings, loudly proclaiming their allegiance to foreign rulers and dictators, they would have wandered into the nearest lock-up with a rapidity that would have been most heartening to all those of us who believe that people should wash their dirty laundry at home and not drag it into the parlors of their unwilling neighbors.

OUTPUT OF HEBREW BOOKS IN PALESTINE

The Davar, Palestine Hebrew labor daily, prints an account of Hebrew books published in Palestine during the year. The paper relates:

Four hundred and eighty-eight books were published in Palestine during the past year as compared with 47# in the previous year, and 431 in the year before. In the year 5690, the number of books in Hebrew published in Palestine was 469, while in the subsequent year it dropped to 427. Of the 488 books published during last year, forty-six were original works of the belles-lettres class, as compared with forty-one in the preceding year, while thirty-six were translations of the same character; there were eighty-five new books for young people and children; ten volumes of essays and criticism, fifteen collected and miscellaneous works, sixty-four books on science, 114 educational works, twenty-four religious and homiletics and ninety-four of miscellaneous character. Of the original works thirteen were verse, twenty-eight novels and short stories, and nine dramas. As might be expected, Tel Aviv is the publishing center. Of the total, no less than 380 were published in the first and only Jewish city; Jerusalem follows with 100. The rest were published in Haifa and in one or two of the colonies.

Outside Palestine, the number of Hebrew books published during the same period was 294 (as compared with 290 the previous years). Of this number, 170 were published in Poland, compared with 150 published in the preceding year, sixty in the United States as against fifty the year before, twenty in Germany as against eight in 5693, twenty in Rumania and five in Lithuania. The remarkable increase in Germany is due to the demand for Hebrew educational works.

GERMANY’S RECENT ‘ARYAN’ MEASURES

The Manchester Guardian, writing on recent new anti-Jewish measures in Germany, says:

The news from Germany is perplexing. The Nazis have been tightening up the various prohibitions against Jews earning a living. By insistence that those who practice the arts must belong to the “occupational groups,” which are confined to “Aryans,” Jewish painters, architects and others are to be starved out. The egregious Dr. Goebbels is using his “Press Chamber’ to throw out of work news agents and other Jews connected with the distribution of news. As against this increased brutality the immunity of financiers and bankers is the more conspicuous. In our country Jews have not so tight a control of finance as they have in Germany. There the government understands that German finance, particularly international finance, will simply fall to the ground if it is taken out of Jewish hands.

JULIUS STREICHER AS GOVERNOR OF SILESIA

Speaking of the appointment of Julius Streicher as governor of Silesia the Edinburgh Evening News says:

An ardent anti-Semite, Herr Julius Streicher, has been appointed governor of Silesia, in succession to Herr Bruckner, who was arrested on Hitler’s personal orders. Herr Streicher has been governor of Franconia for two years, and the Jews there have probably suffered more than those in any other part of Germany.

HIGH COMMISSIONER AND COUNCIL PROPOSAL

The London Jewish Chronicle, in an editorial analyzing the recent statement of the High Commissioner in Palestine, says:

We are sorry to note that the High Commissioner still clings to the project of a Legislative Council for Palestine, and proposes to take it up seriously when he finds out how the new Municipal Councils work. He holds that the Council, with safeguards to secure peace, and the Mandate unhampered, can be established.

Our own view is that it cannot ensure the inviolability of the Mandate, unless it be on terms which the Arabs would not accept. An agreement between Jews and Arabs must assuredly come first, and constant harping on a Legislative Council serves only to delay its arrival.

AGREEMENT ON SAAR BETWEEN FRANCE, REICH

Commenting on the agreement on the Saar, reached between France and Germany. limiting the protection of the Jews to one year only, the New Republic says:

In contrast with the policy of the late Louis Barthou, the present French Foreign Minister, Pierre Laval, has dropped all interest in the fate of the Saar, acting, it would seem, on the assumption that the result of the plebiscite of January 13 is already a foregone conclusion: that Germany is certain to be the victor. By this decision and the treaty that ratifies it, he has abandoned to Hitler’s mercy, save for the protection of a few vague and verbal guarantees, all the factions in the Saar—Jews, Catholics, Socialists, Communists—that hoped to maintain the status quo.

The synical merchandising of the Saar between France and Germany cannot be explained simply on the basis of reciprocal advantages gained by each country, certainly not by such advantages as are publicly announced in the treaty.

Antonia, daughter of the seventeenth century Eberhard III, Duke of Wurtemberg, attained a considerable knowledge of Hebrew.

Isaac Artom became in 1858 private secretary to Count Cavour.