Plight of Jews in Eastern Europe Depicted at First Day’s Session of American Jewish Congress

(Jewish Daily Bulletin)

The American Commission on the Rights of Religious Minorities has sent a commission to Europe to study the situation of the Jews in various European countries. The report of this commission will be ready in a few months. This was the information given to the American Jewish Congress delegates by the Rev. Dr. Arthur J. Brown, president of the Commission, who addressed the biennial session of the American Jewish Congress at the New Willard Hotel here yesterday. Over four hundred delegates were registered and about 500 guests were present at the session.

Judge Milton S. Strasbourger, chairman of the Washington Committee of the American Jewish Congress, opened the session on behalf of the Committee. Commissioner Tallifera welcomed the delegates on behalf of the District of Columbia and Dr. Abram Simon on behalf of the Washington Jewish community. At the suggestion of Mr. Steuer, Dr. Wise was elected chairman, Louis Lipsky, Judge Gustave Hartman, Jacob Ginsburg of Philadelphia, Mrs. Archibald Silverman of Province, R. I., and Solomon J. Liebeskind were elected vice-chairman. Bernard G. Richards, Dr. S. Bernstein and Martin Levy of Philadephia were elected secretaries.

Besides the biennial message delivered by Dr. Wise, president of the American Jewish Congress, the addresses of Rev. Brown and Deputy Isaac Gruenbaurn were the outstanding features of the first day’s sessions.

INTEREST IN GRUENBAUM ADDRESS

Much interest centered around the address of Mr. Gruenbaum who, at the conclusion of his report on the situation of the Jews in Eastern Europe, touched on the question of the Jewish Agency. “I do not welcome it,” he stated, developing his idea of opposing the admission of the non-Zionists to the task of upbuilding Palestine as a homeland for the Jews. “I do not believe they will do at and if they will it will be done badly,” he declared.

Except for these remarks, no discussion developed on the question of the Jewish Agency, notwithstanding the fact that much speculation went on prior to the opening of the session as to what would be the course taken by the leaders of the Congress on this matter.

What was virtually an indictment of the anti-Jewish persecutions in European countries and particularly in Roumania, was expressed by Rev. Brown in his address in which he declared:

“Injustice anywhere by anybody should be denounced by every rightminded person, and the injustice to which the Jews have been subjected is one of the tragic inquities of history. I need not recount the details since they are known to you and have been widely published. I speak to you not as to Jews but as to my fellow Americans for the question is not merely Jewish but humanitarian and is independent of religious distinctions. In discussing it, I shall state opinions that I have long held and that I have often expressed when no Jews were present.

REV. BROWN DENOUNCES PERSECUTIONS

“I have heard three explanations of the persecution of the Jews as if they were in part at least, justifications. One of these explanations is that the persecution is due to the race hatred that is inovitable to human nature. I reply that from the viewpoint of the inalienable rights of man to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness there is only one race, and that is the human race. We should not think of the Jews of Roumania, or of any other country for that matter, as if they belonged to a different species. Indeed, I think of them primarily not as Jews at all but as my brother men, men made in the image of God like the rest of us, and as much entitled as we are to the common rights of humanity. As for race hatred being inevitable, I deny it flatly. Nothing that is wrong is inevitable. Wherever it exists, earnest, highminded men should resolutely try to eradicate it.

“A subtle and almost instinctive prejudice is apt to characterize attitude toward those who belong to a different group. The common word ‘rival’ in its etymology refers to the people who live on the other side of a boundary river, as if the very fact that they were on the other side made them rivals. Prejudice of this kind was one of the root causes of the Great War. It has now become common to dignify it as ‘nationalism.’ The intensification of this selfish and exclusive spirit is an ominous aftermath of that War. We see its portentous manifestations in almost every country. It is convulsing India, China, and the Philippines. Nor is America free from it. We are sadly familiar with the type of politician who shouts from the housetops: ‘America First,’ ‘Let us look out for ourselves and have nothing to do with other nations.’ I, too, would like to see America first, but not first in selfishness but in unselfish service to the world.

URGES LARGER HUMANITY

“Do we not need, all of us, to cultivate a larger idea of humanity, to realize anew that the wrongs of other people are our affair, that we cannot sit down here between our two oceans and brag about our imperial domain and our vast wealth while other peoples are being cruelly oppressed. It was Cain the murderer who said that he was not his brother’s keeper.

“Another explanation of the persecution of the Jews masquerades under the name of religion. We are told that because Jews crueified Jesus Christians should hate them to all generations. But many Jews followed Him. His first disciples and all his apostles were Jews. Even if they had not been, it is nothing less than monstrous that the attitude of men and women today should be determined by something that was done nearly two thousand years ago, whatever the character of that act. We do not anathematize Italians because it was a Roman Governor who sentenced Jesus.

“As a matter of fact, religious prejudice is a contradiction of terms. Prejudice is not religious, it is devilish. The idea that men are to suffer in their persons and property, and even in their lives, because of their religious faith is utterly abhorrent. A member or a certain secret order, which loves to parade in nightshirts and heads hidden in pillowcases, anxiously said: “I hope I shall not find any Jews in Heaven.’ He need not worry. Unless he cultivates a different spirit he won’t find any Jews there, for he won’t be there himself to look for them. Whatever differences we have on Christ, whom I revere and worship as my Saviour and Lord, it is clear that He himself never countenanced either racial or religious hatred. When two of His disciples asked Him to call down fire from Heaven upon some people who had not received Him. He sorrowfully replied: ‘Ye know not of what spirit ye are of.’ He knew what spirit they were of and so do we. It was the spirit of the devil. One of His most beautiful parables, that of the Good Samaritan, taught kindness and goodwill toward those whom his countrymen despised.

“It is humiliating to me as a Christian that men who call themselves by that name are guilty of injustice toward those whom they regard as non-Christian. Every true Christian denounces such persecutors as not genuine followers of Christ. Their protession of religion is merely a fig leaf to cover the shame of their unchristian acts. A vast deal in this modern world that passes loyalty to truth is simply common, unregenerate pugnacity. A half drunken man, after riding uptown on a Madison Avenue street car in New York, is said to have exclaimed to his wife. ‘That blame car was full of Jews. The fact is I was the only damn Christian in the whole car.’ That is precisely the kind of a Christian that he was.

WANTS JUSTICE IN PLACE OF TOLERATION

“Let us have done with the spirit of religious intolerance. It is un-Christian, un-Jewish, inhumane, altogether abomiuable and contemptible, whether in Jew or Christian, Protestant or Roman Catholic. It always fails to achieve its object. It is historically true that persecution of men on account of their religious beliefs has served only to strengthen their faith, arouse the sympathies of others, and spread their influence. We do not want toleration. I dislike the word. We want justice and brotherliness. The spirit of true religion in both the Old and New Testaments is the spirit of kindly attitudes, of sympathy and love, of repect for the sincere opinions of others even when we do not agree with them.

“The third explanation that is urged as a justification to the treatment of the Jews is economic. We are told that the Jews have gotten business and wealth in their hands so that they control the economic life of the country. Well, the non-Jews of my acquaintance are as eager to make money as are the Jews. They adopt precisely the same methods to get it, and they don’t use it any better when they do get it. Jews have indeed the reputation of being sharp traders. But so have the Yankees to whose stock I belong. So have the Scotch who have been described as keeping the Sabbath and everything else they can clasp their hands on. In the Near East it is said that one Armenian can out-trade ten Jews. After General Grant returned from his tour around the world he said that the most astonishing thing he had seen was that wherever the Chinese had come into competition with the Jew, the Chinese had driven out the Jew. If the Roumanians haven’t the ability or the thrift to earn money, and sense enough not to waste it when they have it, they ought to be sufficiently good sports not to grow peevish and blame the men who toil and save. Many Roumanians, like many Russians, recklessly borrow money of Jews without any thought of repayment. They squander the hard earned wealth which they have borrowed, and then, when reminded that their notes are due, they raise a great hue and cry and foment pogroms.

OVERWHELMING EVIDENCE OF MINORITY OPPRESSION IN ROUMANIA

“Unfortunately, Jews are not the only people in Roumania who have been subjected to persecution. There are Christians in that country who have also been unjustly treated. The alleged great province of Transylvania away from Hungary, of which it had been a part for a thousand years, and gave it to Roumania as a reward for her cooperation with the Allies. Many people in Transylvania are Presbyterians, Lutherans, Unitarians, and Roman Catholics. The Roumanians, however, are members of the Eastern Orthodox Church. It is the State Church of Roumania, and the King is ex-officio the head of it. The treaty expressly provided for the protection of these minorities, but the Roumanian officials have repeatedly and notoriously violated it. The American Committee on the Rights of Religious Minorities, of which I have the honor to be a chairman, has sent two deputations to Roumania to investigate conditions on the ground. More recently, President E. Y. Mullins of Louisville, has visited Roumania. Other deputations have been sent by the churches of Great, Britain. The reports of these various deputations present and absolutely overwhelming mass of evidence that treaties have been violated, that property has been confiscated and that grievous wrong have been in flucted. We do not ask exceptional privileges for any minority group. We simply demand the honest observance of a treaty which Roumania solemnly accepted.

THE QUESTION OF U. S. INTERCESSION

“In the effort to secure justice for the Jews and other religious minorities in other lands, we in America are handicapped by the policy of our own Government. There are indeed many differences in intervention by one government in behalf of the subjects of another government, although John Hay, when Secretary of State in 1902, did instruct the American Minister to Roumania to protest against the discrimination against Jews. But we can rightfully expect to adopt and international policy and attitude toward other nations which will not weaken the influence of any protest which Americans may make against injustice. Much has been published in recent months about the widespread and deepending dislike of America which prevails in Europe. Quite apart from the nationalistic feeling to which I have already referred, and which is as strong in Europe as it is in America, quite apart, too, from the vexed question of war debts, the unpleasant fact remains that the practically unanimous feeling in Europe, not only in the debtor nations but in those that owe us nothing, is that, after America has helped the Allies to win the War, it went away and left crippled Europe to deal unaided with the stupendous task of world reconstruction and readjustment which the War entailed. The World Court has been established and is in successful operation at The Hague. One of our fellow citizens was the progenitor of the Court, and yet his own Government has thus far refused to take its seat at that Council table. The Senate allowed the recommendation of the President and Secretary of State to slumber in a Committee for nearly three years, and then passed it subject to reservations which it knew would be unacceptable to other nations. Fifty-two nations, including every other nation on earth, save one, which claims to be civilized, followed the leadership of that immortal President of the United States, Woodrow Wilson, in forming a League of Nations. Whatever its defects, it is the only agency in existence, and the only agency which there is the slightest prospect of coming into existence, to prevent the recurrence of war. But America stands aloof in company with Russia and Turkey.

“If America were in the League it would be in a position to deal with Roumania’s violation of treaties, but as an outsider it can do nothing. Just now we are on the very brink of trouble with Mexico. That is precisely the kind of dispute that could be peaceably settld by the League, as the League has peaceably settled similar disputes between other governments. But our Government insists on being sole judge, jury and executioner in dealing with a small and helpless nation. Sir Gilbert Murray keenly says that 52 members of the League are pledged never to attack any nation and to submit all disputes to arbitration, judicial settlement or informal conciliation, but that Russia and the United States have retained, except for certain bi-lateral treaties, their freedom to attack anybody at any moment for any reason which may seem good to their governments, (Christian Century, Dec. 23, 1926). Yesterday’s ‘Times’ reports that President Coolidge asks Americans to back the Government’s foreign policies. Then let the Government adopt policies that are worthy of being backed. To acquiesce in policies that we believe to be wrong just because they are governmental, to keep silence when the Senate takes a position which stops the Government from cooperating with its citizens in demanding that Roumanians shall be true to her plighted treaty word and shall no longer hunt down Jews like wild beasts–silence in such circumstances, I say, may be enforced in Turkey but not in America. For my part I want the whole world to know that the great Republican statesman, who was the father of the World Court, spoke for millions of his countrymen when, in his memorable address last December, he deplored and rebuked what he plainly characterized then as ‘insensate prejudice’ which has kept us out of the League and the Court, which he declared, ‘have been rendering incomparably the best service in the cause of peace known to the history of civilization.’ All honor to the Grand Old Man of America–Eliha Root.

“How one longs for the dawning of the day when men in Roumania and America, in France and Germany and Great Britain, in China and Japan and India, will rise above nationalistic, sectarian barriers and recognize one another as brethren,” Rev. Brown declared.

GRUENBAUM URGES CONTINUED FIGHT FOR JEWISH RIGHTS

A renewal of the effort to secure and protect the rights of the Jewish populations in East European countries on the basis of the national minority treaties and the support of American Jewry in this work was urged by Deputy Gruenbaum in his address, in which he outlined the situation of the Jewish populations in the enlarged and new states created as a result of the war.

Deputy Gruenbaum explained his conception of the effectiveness of the national minority rights, arguing that the continuation of the fight for the realization of these rights has a chance of bringing results. The guarantees for this realization are twofold: one, in the fact that not only the Jews are interested in the national minority rights, and that they can find the cooperation and assistance of other national minorities and, two, in the unity of the Jewish people and their common interest that Jewish rights be secured and protected. This principle of all-Jewish cooperation with regard to the citnzenship right has been recognized and acted upon by western Jewry. As a result of this recognition the various alliances and societies were formed in France and England to work for the equality of the Jew. What is necessary now is that the same be done with regard to the national minority rights.

The third thesis in Mr. Gruenbaum’s address was that, as a result of conditions created after the war, the Jewish emigration question has assumed a compelling character and the solution of this problem is provided in the Zionist movement and in Palestine.

“My task here is to give a general picture of the present situation of the Jews in East European countries, to explain the causes which have created these conditions and to point to the tendencies in this development,” Deputy Gruenbaum declared. “I do not desire to enter into details. I am particularly unwilling to voice complaints. It is essential, in my opinion, to understand and to draw the logical conclusions. I hope by this method to avoid any possible exaggeration or superficiality. I also believe that by this method I will be spared the usual accusations which one encounters when speaking of the situation of the Jews from a platform abroad. Although I have never been afraid of these accusations, it is naive to believe that in this time of the radio, long distance telephone and cablegram, anything can be hidden.

DEPICTS JEWISH SITUATION IN EASTERN EUROPE

“Following the conclusion of the World War the situation of the Jews in Eastern Europe radically changed. New states arose, peoples who had been suppressed before became independent. The old form of adaptation which had been employed by the Jews in the course of generations were destroyed. The new languages and cultures which were released from bondage, the new froms of life, compel the Jews to adapt themselves to a new environment. This is a difficult and often very painful process. So much for the political conditions.

“As to economic conditions, it is obvious that not only in the new states, but everywhere, and most of all in those countries where great economic revolutions took place, the economic functions of the Jews have been partly destroyed and partly become more difficult. The old markets for which the Jewish industries, the artisans and crafts produced, which were supplied by Jewish commerce, have disappeared or become inaccessible. In the internal markets the local merchant, industrialist and artisan of the master people have taken his place. The successor, due to hsi political influence, exploits the state machinery in his economic rivalry with the Jew. The nationalization process, which monopolizes various branches of industry and commerce, tends toward the same goal. An internal system of protectionism is being developed for the purpose of strengthening the middle class of the master people.

JEW OUSTED FROM ECONOMIC FIELD

“There emerges thus, a process of driving out the Jew. This process is strenthened by the taxation system. All possible financial exploitation is being applied to the Jew. The Jews pay the heaviest taxes and receive from the state no equivalent in the form of employment or fulfillment of cultural and social needs. The change from one occupation to another is not everywhere possible for large masses. A surplus of population, in places larger than in others, is occurring and causes the need to emigrate. This need for emigration, however, cannot be satisfied and that is what makes the situation worse.

“The liberation of the suppressed peoples and the creation of the new states has not yet solved the nationalities problem. Not all people became independent. It is now becoming apparent, more than during the Peace Conference, that the principle of the self-determination of peoples needs correction. The principle of minority rights is based on the idea that the right of a national group to free development is not dependent on who is the master in the state. There is not a people living which has not small or larger minorities in other states. There is no state in which one people is concentrated without a mixture in population. The Jews, due to their dispersion, understood this circumstance and became the champions of this idea at a time when other peoples conducted a bloody battle for their complete independence, refusing to recognize that there will always be minorities. Now, the national minorties are realizing this.

“Evidence of this is seen in the Congress of National Minorities and in the blocs of the nationalities,” Deputy Gruenbaum declared.

THE LESSON OF THE PAST

“The minority right treaties were supposed to solve this problem. If the treaties had been carried out the problem would not have been solved but it would have been considerably lessened. The treaties entirely ignore the difference between territorial and ex-territorial peoples. The Jews cannot ignore this difference. They fully realize that unwittingly they may be transformed into a tool of suppession in the hands of a majority element against another minority. The examples of the past show that such a role is a dangerous one. In the fight of the peoples for their freedom the Jews should not be an obstacle.

“The minority fights treaties were really the first step. It is a mistake to believe that with the ratification of the treaties they will become an acrual fact. The truth is that only then the fight for its realization began. This fight is far from finished. The question of citizenship is not yet settled. All kinds of obstacles under formal pretexts are being placed in the way of the Jews and other minorities in attaining citizenship in the various countries. Civil equality has not yet become a legal fact not to speak of an actual fact. The cultural needs have not yet been met. The Jews are being completted to maintain their own schools which are not legally placed on an equal basis with the government schools. State funds are still being used to carry on a process of denationalization through the official school system. Internal self-government has not yet been put into effect. The Jews are being considered merely as a religious community, which is not treated equally with the other religious communities when their budgets are made up. The Jews are still contronted with the dilemma of either resting two days a week or breaking their mode of life and violating their religion,” he declared.

The speaker polemized with some of the editorial writers in the Yiddish press who criticized him for making the statement that a million Jews in Poland are surplus population and have to emigrate. “It is true I made the statement and I cannot see why this should cause misunderstanding. I have told the truth and there is no use trying to hide it. We Zionists have learned from Herzl to speak freely and frankly on Jewish needs,” he declared.

Communist candidates for office in the Ladies’ Tailors. Custom Pressmaker. Theatrical Custome and Afterntion Workers’ Union No. 33 were defeared in every instance at Saturday’s elections, it was announced by the Interational Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union, with which the local is affiliated.

Dan Wishnevsky, leader of the Communist element that according to the announcement, led the local into a five-day strike last summer that ended in “empty victory” after the expenditure of $9,000, was defeated for manager of the union by Boris Drasin. The vote was 370 to 279. All other offices, as well as trusteeships and directorships, went to the opponents of the Left Wing.