Jewish Press Comments on Kolenberg’s Act in Slaying of General

The New York Yiddish press comments on the despatches from Europe reporting that the young man name Kolenberg who slew General Slasch(###) in revenge for the execution of Kolenberg’s older brother in Nikolaya(###) Ukraine, is Jewish. Exception (###) taken to the attempt to make a comparison between this case and that (###) Sholom Schwartzbard. “The Day writes: “If Kolenberg took the law in his hands and sentenced to death General Slaschoff for the death of his brother, it is Kolenberg’s private affair concerning which the Soviet country will have to decide. The Jewish national consideration cannot be drag gage into this matter and there can be (###) comparison of the Kolenberg case was the Schwartzbard trial. At first, (###) the Schwartzbard case was a private matter. No one delegated Schwarttzbard to shoot the exiled and unprotected Petlura. Schwartzbard carries out no mission of national importance. Only when the Ukrainian anti-Semitis attempted to make a saint out of Petlura and to depict Schwartzbard’s people as a treacherous band of murderers, only then the Schwartzbard trial assumed a national character and attracted national sympathy.

“However, the Kolenberg-Slaschoff case is different. A murder has taken place. If there were any motion which might be considered as a (###) gating circumstance, it may be submitted and explained. This is the task of the Soviet administration a justice, to establish the facts and (###) render a verdict. The Jewish people has no particular interest in this case. It remains calmly at a distance for (###) is an internal, private affair of (###)sian justice and of Russian life.”Somewhat different is the reaction of the “Jewish Morning Journal.” “The news in the event is that they have begun to appear Jews who (###) their lives to take avenge of person, who have shed innocent Jewish blood. There have always been ‘bloody (###) gromchicks.’ It would be easy to (###) this entire page with the names of the Petluras and the Slaschoffs of the la(###) few centuries. However, the killer of Jews was always personally se(###) from Jewish revenge. A new time has now arrived: one who undertakes (###) kill Jews may expect that there will be some Jew who will have the (###)rage to do to him likewise. S(###) courage is new among us and go(###) marksmanship is also of some value.“Is it right or wrong? One (###) argue one way or the other as long as one chooses but the situation will remain unchanged. We have annually hundreds and perhaps thousands of Jewish shootings concerning which (###) agree that they are wrong and that they should not have taken place. The best defense we have for Jewish gagsters who murder each other, for Jewish bandits who kill the victims (Continued on Page 4)

who are unwilling to let themselves be robbed, for Jews who make use of revolvers, knives and other weapons on various occasions, just as the Gentiles do-is that we are ‘entitled’ to a certain number of criminals. It would be ridiculous to expect that among thousands of Jews who are capable of shedding blood there should not at times appear one with an inclination to avenge Jews,” the paper states.

“If one wished to go deeper into the argument one could say that the non-Jews are responsible for the acts of violence committed by Jews in cases when they are committed by one Jew against another, as well as in cases similar to those of Schwartzbard and Kolenberg. The enemies of the Jewish people have always wanted to estrange us from Judaism. Even in the time of the worst persecutions, the Jew who was willing to kneel before the cross could remain secure. Now, we can tell them: ‘You have achieved your end. We are becoming like you. Let each leader of a pogrom band expect that a Jew with a non-Jewish psychology may send a bullet through his head or heart.’

“Opinions are of little significance here. The fact is that we are living in a time when it is possible and even probable that among the, to our regret, great number of Jewish murderers there many be found a second, third, fifth and tenth Schwartzbard,” the “Morning Journal” writes.

Dr. Julius L. Siegel has been appointed Research Assistant in the Department of Oriental Languages and Literatures at the University of Chicago. He will assist Professor Martin Sprengling and Associate Professor William C. Graham on the Peshitto Project in which they are now engaged. Professor James Henry Breasted is Chairman of the Department. Dr. Siegel is a graduate of the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary, 1921, and has the M. A. degree from Yale, 1927. He was the Oscar W. Strauss Fellow in Jewish History, 1926-27, at the Dropsie College and received the degree of Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Chicago.