European Jewry Urged to Rally to Support of Kellogg Peace Plan

(J. T. A. Mail Service)

“If war is a tragedy for all peoples, it is the greatest tragedy for the Jewish people,” writes Mrs. Edith Zangwill, widow of Israel Zangwill, in an appeal for European Jewry’s support of the Kellogg Peace Treaty. Writing to the “Jewish Chronicle,” Mrs. Zangwill says:

“An organization has recently sprung into being in order to press the signing of the Kellogg Treaty. This is the British American Women’s Crusade, and it has arisen in answer to an appeal from a huge body of women in the United States who are working towards the same end. These American women have already demonstrated that a Government finds arguments singularly persuasive, when put forward by several million voters.

“It may be asked what ned is there of a further organization when we already have the League of Nations. But the League of Nations cannot deal with any proposal connected with the United States, as that country is not a member of the League. As individuals, all the leading supporters of the League in this country have expressed themselves strongly in favor of the Kellogg treaty. Viscount Grey said with reference to it, that ‘in its effect on the object of the League of Nations, which is to secure the future peace of the world, it will be more important and more helpful than anything that could have been done with the League of Nations itself,’ Further the League of Nations Union is one of the twenty-eight societies that are cooperating in this crusade.

“With regard to the other affiliated societies, these include nearly all the organized associations of women: they include groups belonging to the different political parties and also to many different religions and sects. Until ten days ago no Jewish society figured among them. Now, I am thankful to state that both the Union of Jewish Women and the Jewish Religious Union have signified their willingness to cooperate.

“I am venturing to bring the crusade to the notice of the readers of the ‘Jewish Chronicle’ in the hope that they, either as individual members, or as societies, may also be willing to join it. If war is a tragedy for all peoples, it is the greatest tragedy for the Jewish people. For as Jews form a part of every nation, whoever conquers, Jews are among the conquered. And further, in wartime, Jews do not only suffer at the hands of their enemies; they also suffer at the hands of their friends. An increase in anti-Semitism is one of the invariable and dreadful results of an attack of war-fever. Not long ago. I saw some documents, attested documents, telling of things that were done to the Jewish citizens of Russia in 1917, by other Russians chiefly soldiers. Always the Jewish position in Tsarist Russia was terrible, but never before had it been as terrible as this. For in war time no help could come to them; they were surrounded by a double ring of enemies, those outside, and their own countrymen. The things I read were beyond human utterance, beyond human conception. One can never forget them. The past cannot be undone, but the future is ours. The Kellogg treaty may not succeed in ending war, but, at least, it will make war more rare, more difficult. The treatment of Jews in past wars is in itself a sufficient reason for joining the crusade,” Mrs. Zangwill concludes.