News Brief

“If there is a genuine religious difference between the partners of a mixed marriage, their children are pretty certain to grow up in an unhappy environment. A Jewish father and a Catholic mother—the Abie’s Irish Rose complex—are likely to be most unsatisfactory parents unless one of them gives up his past religious affiliations. In our case, we have decided to tell the boy (his child) that he is a Jew, but to make no fuss about it. Of course it would have been simple enough for us to go over to some more popular religious group in the hope of decreasing his difficulties by one count. But would it have really done so? Would it not rather have increased them? Jews who ‘pass’ have not solved this problem by mere dissembling.”

DR. NAUMANN IS SPEAKING

Vindication of the Hitler regime is unthinkable for Jews and a great many non-Jews. It is therefore with anger that we read the vindication of the Nazi activities by one who calls himself a Jew—Dr. Max Naumann, president of the Union of German-National Jews.

“In my capacity as a German, as a Jew, and as the leader of a Jewish Union,” states Dr. Naumann, “I gladly take the opportunity offered me by ‘The Investigator’ (an English publication) to rectify these tales of horror. It is absolutely untrue that the Jews in Germany today are exposed to any corporal dangers whatsoever. In the first days following the elections a number of excesses occurred, but for the sake of truth it must be admitted that this number was substantially lower than occurred in the course of other revolutions . . . . Since that time—that is to say for more than three months—no atrocities whatever have been perpetrated against Jews . . . .

“Not only for the sake of our German Fatherland, which we love with every fibre of our being, in spite of all that has happened to us, and indeed is still happening, but also for the sake of the Jews themselves, to whom an extremely doubtful service is being rendered by the political ###This group; regarded by us German-National Jews as a ‘middle stratum’ and from which many cross-connections lead to the most undesirable personal elements among true or pretended Zionists, has produced those so-called politicians, literally business-mongers and pompous personages, who, since the unfortunate termination of the war fourteen years ago, have done inestimable harm to the German Fatherland by their activities, both from the viewpoint of every German-feeling individual and every German-feeling Jew; they have by their unrestrained, importunate, and sensational behavior, brought discredit on the German Jews as a whole.”

THE JEWISH CENTER

Two articles bearing on the Jewish Center movement will appear in the September issue of The Jewish Center, published by the Jewish Welfare Board, national organization in affiliation with Y.M.H.A.’s, Y.W.H.A.’s, and Jewish Community Centers throughout the United States and Canada. One, entitled “The Synagogue Center,” is by Harry L. Glucksman, executive director of the Jewish Welfare Board. The other is entitled “The Temple Center” and is a study of Centers connected with Reform Jewish congregations of the United States. The authors are Julius B. Maller and Joseph Zubin, who undertook the research work under the auspices of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations.

Dr. Charles S. Bernheimer, managing editor of The Jewish Center, is the author of a third article, entitled “Broadening the Jewish Community Horizon.” It was the presidential address delivered at the recent annual conference of the National Association of Jewish Center Executives at Detroit.