Now-editorial Notes

By Herman Bernstein

The Jewish Daily Bulletin of yesterday contained a cable from Warsaw stating that Anatole Muehlstein, the Polish Jewish diplomat, is to be appointed the first Polish Minister to Lithuania. Mr. Muehlstein is reported to have been instrumental in establishing peace between Poland and Lithuania after a ten-year interruption of diplomatic relations between these countries. That a Jew was entrusted with this most delicate mission and that he is now to be rewarded by the Polish government with this important diplomatic post is regarded as an evidence of both good judgment and good will.

Another communication from London in the same issue states that a delegation representing orthodox Jewry had expressed to Count Skirmunt, the retiring Polish Ambassador in London, the gratitude of Orthodox Jewry for the constant sympathetic interest he had shown at all times in Jewish affairs. Count Skirmunt told the delegation that the Polish Government would do its best for the amelioration of the situation of its Jewish citizens.

The same issue of the Bulletin also contained the first of a series of three special articles on the present situation of the Jews in Poland, by Boris Smolar, correspondent of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, who recently visited Poland. Mr. Smolar reports that the situation of Polish Jewry is indeed alarming.

While the economic situation of Polish Jewry has been horrible for many years, reports from Poland as well as from Polish Jewish sources in London have given the impression that the Pilsudski government was not only not anti-Semitic but was engaged in combatting the anti-Semitic political parties that antagonized the government by indulging in anti-Jewish outrages. The complete suppression of the anti-Jewish Nara party, after the assassination of the Polish Minister of the Interior, was regarded as definite evidence of the Pilsudski government’s determination to crush anti-Semitic hooliganism. Of course, it was quite clear that the government adopted this drastic measure not merely for the sake of the Jews. The Naras had kept embarrassing and challenging the Pilsudski government on the ground that it was too friendly to the Jews. The National Democratic Party is continuing to do so, without resorting to the savage methods of the Naras.

Those who believe that the situation of the millions of Polish Jews can be ameliorated only through the establishment of friendlier relations between the Polish people and the Jewish people saw a new hope for Polish Jewry in the reported latest developments in Poland.

An investigation of the Polish Jewish situation by an impartial and authoritative commission would, indeed, be helpful. It is urgent to ascertain the truth and it is just as urgent to devise ways and means of aiding Polish Jewry in its present most desperate economic catastrophe.