Declaring that “none has suffered more cruelly than the Jews of the unspeakable evils wrought on bodies and spirits of men by Hitler and his vile regime,” Prime Minister Winston Churchill in a message to the London Jewish Chronicle, oldest Anglo-Jewish publication which celebrates its 100th anniversary tomorrow, assured the Jews of the world that “in the day of victory the Jew’s sufferings and his part in the present struggle will not be forgotten.”
This is the first statement made by a member of the British Cabinet concerning the future of the Jews after the defeat of Nazism. The statement will be published tomorrow in the Centenary issue of the Jewish Chronicle. It reads:
“On the occasion of the centenary of the Jewish Chronicle, which is a landmark in the history of British Jewry, I send a message of good cheer to the Jewish people in this and other lands. None has suffered more cruelly than the Jew of the unspeakable evils wrought on bodies and spirits of men by Hitler and his vile regime. The Jew bore the brunt of the Nazis first onslaught upon the citadels of freedom and human dignity. He has borne and continues to bear a burden that might have seemed beyond endurance. He has not allowed it to break his spirit. He has never lost the will to resist.
“Assuredly, in the day of victory, the Jew’s sufferings and his part in the present struggle will not be forgotten. Once again, at an appointed time, he will see vindicated those principles of righteousness which it was the glory of his fathers to proclaim to the world. Once again it will be shown that though the mills of God grind slowly, they grind exceedingly small.”
PREMIERS OF OTHER GOVERNMENTS FELICITATE THE CHRONICLE ON 100TH ANNIVERSARY
The Centenary Issue of the Jewish Chronicle tomorrow will also carry special messages from the Premiers of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Norway, Belgium, Holland, Yugoslavia and Greece. Also greetings from General de Gaulle, leader of the Free French, and from Ivan Maisky, the Soviet Ambassador in England. Dr. Chaim Weizmann, Prof. Selig Brodetsky, Chief Rabbi Hertz and leaders in all walks of Jewish life in Britain are among those contributing articles and messages of felicitations to the special issue.
Dr. Cecil Roth, Jewish historian, in an article reviewing the history of the Jewish Chronicle, points out that the Chronicle is the only Jewish periodical in any language and in any country which has lived to be one hundred years old. “Prior to the establishment of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency which began a systematic collection of Jewish news from the four corners of the earth, the London Jewish Chronicle was the only Jewish publication which had such an organization at its command, thus before the days of the first World War the Chronicle was absolutely irreplaceable for any Jewish historian,” Dr. Roth writes.
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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.
