The remittance to Ivan Maisky, Soviet ambassador in London, of $40,000 collected among Jews in Palestine as a token of aid to the Russian soldiers in their heroic fight against the Nazis was announced here today by the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee. The sum of $10,000 has been collected for the same purpose also by the Jews of Cuba.
In announcing these contributions, E. Wattenberg, leading member of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, pointed out that while these Jewish communities, as well as those of England, Mexico and Australia, are responding to the call of the Committee to secure 500 bombers and 1,000 tanks as a “Jewish gift” to the Russian armed forces, no response has been forthcoming from the Jews of the United States.
“There are ten times as many Jews in America as in England. One borough in New York has more Jews than all of Cuba. Why then is there nothing heard about a united action of American Jews to help the Red Army in her heroic struggle against the Hitlerite hordes?” Mr. Wattenberg asked. He recalled that 170 Jewish writers, artists and scientists in America last year signed a message stating that “American Jews are prepared to make the greatest sacrifices in order to help the Soviet Union and its allies to destroy the enemy of mankind and of the Jewish people.” This promise, he said, had not yet been honored.
RUSSIAN SOIL IS DRENCHED WITH BLOOD OF JEWS KILLED BY NAZIS
The Russian soil “is drenched with blood of Jews and other people of the USSR,” said Mr. Wattenberg, recalling the massacres in Minsk, Kiev, Odessa and the Crimea. By making to the Russian army such a substantial gift as 500 bombers and 1,000 tanks which will bear the names of historical Jewish heroes, fighters and thinkers, the Jewish people will demonstrate to the world that they have, as a whole, joined with the anti-Hitler coalition as a belligerent nation, he argued.
“For the last three years the Jews in Europe have undergone the severest trials in their history, while the Jews in America have lived relatively secure both physically and economically. American Jews formerly sent every year tens of millions of dollars to their relatives and friends in Europe. These remittances have lately been stopped. Many relatives have perished at the hands of the Hitler bandits. Many have abandoned their homes and their American friends have lost all contact with them. Jews in America are thus actually ‘ saving’ millions of dollars. They can and must contribute a large part of this sum for the buying of tanks and bombers for the Red Army,” the leader of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee concluded.
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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.
