Criticism of the proposed anti-Jewish legislation drastically restricting Jewish participation in Hungary’s economic and cultural life was voiced today before a Senate committee by Justinian Georg Cardinal Seredi, Primate of Hungary.
He said exceptions should be made in the case of those Jews who had for a long time been decent, hard working citizens of the country.
“In the name of justice, love of our fellow man and patriotism the conference of bishops deemed it necessary to examine and criticize the bill. Since each of the bill’s articles affects the Christian religion, as a faithful representative of the Church I consider it my duty to draw attention to the errors and dangers of the bill. Christian principles must be stressed everywhere in the nation’s life.
“It is therefore an unhappy thing that the bill draws distinctions between Christians. If the bill were intended to hamper Jewish immigration and end social and economic preponderance of Jews in general, it ought to have been based on other principles. I should like to see a distinction made between Jews who before application of the law were already citizens of Hungary and others.
“It it is just to repress Jewish abuses in the social realm, it is also necessary to reject the Jewish spirit, but exception must be made for honest citizens who either in the Jewish or Christian religion have achieved honest work.”
Mgr. Julius Glattfelder, Bishop of Czanad, was even more intransigent than Cardinal Seredi. “I cannot admit,” he said, “that persons who obtained jobs by legitimate means should be forced out of them….It is not true to say that the bill does not affect Christianity. The re-Judaization of Christians is a breaking with the 2,000-year-old Christian Church and the 1,000-year-old Hungarian idealism. It is absurd to stress the rights of flesh and blood and to speak of pure-blooded Christians and half-blood Jews as if men were to be bartered like horses. One must be made to question that as well as flesh and blood there is also man’s soul.”
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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.
