Martyred Jews to Be Memorialized in Tisha B’ab Services Today; Clergymen Score Massacres

Messages of leading Protestant, Catholic and Jewish clergymen expressing sorrow and indignation over the Nazi massacres of Jews and other civilian peoples of occupied Europe, have been received by the Synagogue Council of America, central body representing all religious groups within American Jewry, it was announced today. The Council has issued a call to all rabbis and congregations to commemorate the victims of Nazi persecution on Tisha B’ab, traditional day of Jewish mourning, which will be observed tomorrow.

In Washington, Congressman Samuel Dickstein, speaking in the House of Representatives, pointed out that Tisha B’ab this year will not only commemorate the day upon which ancient Jerusalem was destroyed but “synagogues throughout the land will add the note of contemporary mourning and indignation over the mass-murders by Nazi executioners of nearly 1,000,000 Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe. The Jewish people count their ‘Lidices’ in the thousands.” Rep. Dickstein inserted in the Congressional Record the appeal of the Synagogue Council, asking its 1,300 member congregations to hold special services mourning the victims of the Nazis and reviewing the destruction of European Jewry.

Among the clergymen who sent messages to the Council were: the Most Reverend Edwin V. O’Hara, Bishop of Kansas City; Dr. Henry A. Atkinson, general secretary of the Church Peace Union; Most Reverend Robert E. Lucey, Archbishop of San Antonio, Texas; Harry C. Graham, national director of the Holy Name Societies; Dr. Everett R. Clinchy, executive director of the National Conference of Christians and Jews.

Special Tisha B’ab messages were also addressed to Jews in the United States by Chief Rabbi Joseph Herts of Great Britain and Chief Rabbi Isaac Herzog of Palestine.