A line from one of the world’s most famous poems, “The New Colossus,” by Jewish poetess Emma Lazarus, has been eliminated as “offensive from a plaque at Idlewild Airport. The line is “The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. It was ordered deleted from an inscription of the poem on orders of Austin J. Tobin. executive director of the New York Port Authority, which operates the huge airfield.
Instead of the five lines which appear on the base of the Statute of Liberty which have been memorized by countless thousands of schoolchildren, only four lines appear on the Idlewild plaque. Mr. Tobin said the deleted line “had meaning during the mass migrations of the 19th century but it has no meaning now and might be offensive to the fine people of Europe–they might not regard themselves as wretched refuse. ” He added that he did not think the poetess, who wrote the famous lines 70 years ago, would have objected, remarking “I think she might have done the same. “
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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.
