“The Juedische Rundschau” feels that it is not possible to answer immediately in behalf of German Jewry because the question is a new one to which the majority of German Jews who grew up in the “assimilation ideology” must first become accustomed, but it expresses the fervent hope that the leaders of German Jewry will at length concern themselves with the kernel problem, that they, indeed, will take the initiative. There is but little evidence of this, it adds and continues to give its own stand:
As far as the first of Boehm’s questions is concerned, it no longer depends on the Jews whether they desire to be a racial entity or not. They have already been segregated from the Germans and, since all of them cannot emigrate because of various ties, a new design for their living here as citizens must be found. Although the assimilationists may hold different opinions than ours, there is nothing else for them to do today but to face the facts and to build something from reality rather than to reiterate their desires. And the situation being such as it is, we answer the second question in the affirmative.
THINGS CAN’T GO ON LIKE THIS
We want honest discussion out of which shall grow a synthesis which will be the basis of tolerant and tolerable living for both Jews and non-Jews. The old phrases must be discarded. Non-Jews as well as Jews know that things can’t go on as they now are. The Jews must be rooted in their own sphere. There is a way to be found to regulate the Jewish question, which is of the greatest importance for Germany today, according to the innate nature of the problem and to remove their source of conflict.
The present regime not only bars assimilation by compelling “dissimulation” but it has subjected the Jews to such radical measures of persecution such as no minority has ever suffered. The purpose of the national minorities, as defined by treaty, is to protect them against assimilation and discrimination, to allow them freedom of cultivating their own religion, language and customs, equality before the law and in their enjoyment of political and civil rights, including the holding of public office or the pursuit of a profession or business enterprise.
AUTONOMY ADDED RIGHT
Cultural autonomy is but an added right which the minorities enjoy in addition to the full enjoyment of civil rights and liberty, according to the treaty clauses protecting minorities to which Poland and Austria are signatories. The wording of these clauses is clear, unmistakable.
(“The Juedische Rundschau” cites articles 63,66,67 of the Peace Treaty of St. German with Austria and Article 8 of the treaty of June 28, 1919 which Poland signed. But it seemingly disregards the sentence of von Freytagh-Loringhoven which it prints in the preceding column??”we would not be bound by the provisions of the so-called treaties for the protection of minorities, nor would we be under the control of the League of Nations”. It makes mention of Lord Robert Cecil’s efforts to have the discriminations and persecutions to which the Jews have been subjected be considered as a violation of the minority protection clauses.)
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
