A charge that Republican politicians in an effort to obtain the “Jewish vote” in New York City during the last presidential campaign had pressed former prohibition administrator of New York, Major Maurice Campbell, to increase the issuance of sacramental wine permits, is made in the course of the series of articles by Major Camp-bell in the New York World. Major Campbell states that in 1927 Seymour Lowman, assistant secretary of the treasury in charge of prohibition had informed him that he would be justified in permitting the issuance of two or three million gallons of wine to the Jews of New York for ceremonial purposes.
“This,” says Major Campbell, “would have meant a return to the scandalous conditions of 1923 when more than 3,000,000 gallons were issued and flooded the bootleg market of New York. I refused to do it.” Only a few months before, he stated, he had been offered a proposition by which “it was said I could make $250,000 if I would thus loosen up on the sacramental wine, cloaking the distribution behind a commission of rabbis.”
Protests were made by politicians to Mr. Lowman, Major Campbell charges, because of the curtailment of sacramental wine. “In August, 1927, Emanuel Hertz, a New York attorney representing the rabbis, filed a protest with Assistant Secretary Lowman regarding the cutting down of the wine withdrawals. Hertz, protesting against the treatment given the rabbis and obtaining Lowman’s approval of his desire for 3,000,000 gallons a year, volunteered to get together four or five representative rabbis in New York, who, as a committee would certify to me a list which would comprise about 400 rabbis who had congregations and synagogues; but Mr. Hertz was never able to make good on this proposition.”
Still later, Major Campbell states, he himself laid before treasury officials a plan to distribute sacramental wine to Jews similar to the procedure adopted for medicinal whisky, which is done by prescription or order. The procedure was approved but the plan failed, the former prohibition administrator states, because the wineries could not be prevailed upon to establish distribution depots.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.
