News Brief

Executive Secretary, B’nai B’rith

There is a Jewish problem in the United States. Until comparatively recently this assertion would have been resented with considerable bitterness by a substantial proportion of Jewish leadership in the United States.

A LINK IN THE CHAIN

Whatever the changing manifestations of the problems may be, fundamentally it is a question of relations between the Jewish group in America, the four and a half million of them, and the world of 120 million Gentiles surrounding them.

Thus defined, the Jewish problem finds its definite place in the domain of sociological theory. It is but a link in the chain of group relations, beginning with tribal wars of primitive society and world conflicts embracing sometimes all of humanity. But a mere classification of the problem, its assignment to its proper niche, may satisfy the theoretical sociologist. It does not meet the situation. Something more than definition, classification or description or even explanation of a problem is what living society expects. What humanity wants is a solution, not merely an abstract ideal on the horizon but a roadway to it. The study of the problem may begin with a mere explanation. It must end with a program. What can we do to solve the Jewish problem in the United States or anywhere else on the assumption that a solution is not only necessary but possible. What can and must we do? That is the practical, everyday meaning of the very abstruse wording of the theme to which tonight’s discussion is devoted.

Obviously any effort to outline a complete program or even more modestly a course of immediate action must reckon with various steps already taken or suggested.

1. Information.

The course of events in Germany during the last ten years offers a significant warning that the anti-Semitic movement cannot be disregarded. It cannot be laughed out of existence no matter how preposterous it and its theoretical promises may appear to be. Apparently there is no inclination on the part of American Jewry to disregard it.

DEFENDS BULLETIN

2. Dissemination of information.

The Jewish Daily Bulletin, “Today,” the Anglo-Jewish press and many other Jewish publications, daily, weekly and monthly have made the information available to the Jewish as well as general public. There is some difference of opinion as to the wisdom of throwing the scarlet light of publicity upon the information obtained. With a masochistic tendency, perhaps characteristically Jewish, we love to read of our troubles in Galuth and perhaps grossly exaggerate them. On the other hand by a process of psychologic compensation against this tendency many of us show a desire to hide the truth. “I would give the Jewish Daily Bulletin all the money they ask,” quotes a Southern leader, “but for suppression, not for publication of this sheet. It serves as a continuous reminder to the Gentile that the Jews are being discriminated against and cruelly persecuted not only in Germany but throughout the world. What better defense does Hitler need?”

A thoroughly infantile sentiment, for no policy of dealing with the situation can be effective unless as the first prerequisite it is aware of the situation. Besides any effort to place a cloak of secrecy upon facts invariably leads to an even more alarming exaggeration.

BROAD KNOWLEDGE NEEDED

3. Counter-propaganda.

The mechanics of the anti-Semitic movement is complicated. Its commonest passive instrument may be classified as “defamation” of Jewish character in the past, present and future. The more active mechanism is a proposal of measures against the Jew, either legal expulsion, restriction of legal rights or extra legal, such as incitement to isolation, discrimination, social or economic, (boycotts) or in extreme cases to direct physical attacks (Russian pogroms or German atrocities).

The necessity for counter-propaganda is recognized. Its organization leaves much to be desired. The Anti-Defamation League has undoubtedly the most extensive experience but its resources are too limited. On the other hand a large number of competing or at any rate independent organizations have sprung up, hundreds of committees and in addition thousands of intrepid Jewish St. Michaels ready to undertake the slaying of the dragon.

It is assumed that every literary or even every literate Jew, and certainly every Jewish attorney and rabbi is fit to handle the job. The long and short of it is that they are not. Meeting invective with invective, epithet with epithet, may offer a satisfactory release to one’s emotions, but is seldom convincing to the by standing public. Effective and honest counter-propaganda requires a knowledge of history, general and Jewish, of comparative religion, of economics, philosophy, statistics and other sciences, and above all an understanding of mass psychology. It should be entrusted only to experts of integrity and recognized standing. It is a common task of American Jewry and that complete and effective unity for this task has not yet been established is a serious reflection upon our practical sense.

REVIEWS ACCUSATIONS

Limited time will not permit me to elaborate this point. Certain standardized charges have been made a thousand times over again. The crucifixion myth, the blood accusation, the Elders of Zion, the international conspiracy, the gold monopoly, the universal adoption of communism, the excessive insanity record, the arson charge, the bankruptcy charge, the unwillingness to engage in manual labor or in agriculture or in dozens of similar charges. Preposterous? Perhaps. But even Mencken, once the mouthpiece of sophisticated American youth, is not above accepting many of them at their face value. Over and over again from one end of the country to the other these charges come up in thousands of different disguises and counter-propaganda must continue.

It is futile, says the pessimist. It is all a part of the good will blah. You can’t overcome a prejudice by argument. But tempting as such pessimism and skepticism may be-as a bond to a natural tendency towards resentment-it certainly lacks the virtue of consistency. For one cannot in one breath point at the danger of misrepresenting propaganda and also decry all efficiency of counter-propaganda. It the educational process is sufficiently powerful to mislead people why must it remain futile in overcoming these misleading teachings.

CITES RIGHTS OF DEFENSE

4. Defensive action.

An organism attacked has a right to defend itself. In fact, it is not even the question of an abstract right. It is the natural reaction of a healthy organism, individual or social. It is a question of self-preservation, of the emotion of rage. It is an expression of the functioning of the glandular mechanism but again in a combat the outcome is never certain. Moreover, the reaction should not be out of proportion to the attack. Also in social conflicts it is not merely a measure of strength between Goliath and David. It is a matter of strategy and tactics and sometimes even of diplomacy.

5. Education.

One may truthfully say that the problem of education-re-education if you will-of the entire people, the adult as well as the child, is a gigantic task. But equally gigantic is the problem which only the achievement of this task can hope to solve. The Jewish problem for thousands of historical reasons has its many special and specially difficult aspects. Nevertheless it is but one aspect of the entire problem of group relations.

COLLECTIVE EFFORTS WEAK

Now there is a great deal of lip service rendered to the necessity of education as a method of solving the Jewish problem in this country, and some efforts in that direction are being made, but the weakness and futility of these efforts, individually and collectively, is pathetic. An occasional pamphlet now and then, sometimes published largely for the purpose of establishing the claim of this or that organization to doing something, or perhaps published under non-Jewish auspices with the naive timidity of admitting the Jewish sources, a few lectures by rabbis, politicians, Jewish and non-Jewish, and pathetic grabbing of every kind word said of Jews by prominent non-Jews-these are all methods adopted to advertising some ware but not to change the current thinking and feeling of a great people. In this task of education and re-education, one must admit that the methods of the National Conference of Jews and Christians, sometimes so superciliously referred to among us, are much more dignified, much more direct and one may hope more efficient.

It is in contemplating the magnitude and importance of this task that the failure of achieving complete unity of effort among Jewish leadership is most obvious and most distressing. No resources are too large to be devoted to this purpose. No brain trust need be too proud to devote itself to it. There is need in that brain trust of Jewish and Gentile brains alike. Its task is much more complicated than the mere effort at counter-propaganda spoken of earlier. It is not merely to clear up the historic details of the distorted story of crucifixion, not merely to deny the idiotic charges of the blood accusation or the world conspiracy. It must create entirely new attitudes of man to man impressing itself in relations of group to group. It cannot limit itself to apologizing for Jewish cultural traits or explaining them away. It must not teach more condescending tolerance. It must give to the majority an understanding and appreciation of cultural values contributed by minority groups no matter how small. It must boldly disclose the reactionary character of every dictatorial effort at domination of one culture over another.

It is a large task and it is not to be accomplished in a day, but who is there to believe that anti-Semitism with its history of two or three or four thousand years will be wiped out in a day. And who is there to believe that the Jewish problem in any country can or will be solved unless and until such a radical change in group attitudes has been accomplished.