Sermon Attacks Press Ballyhoo in Kidnap Trial

Criticism of both the conservative and “yellow” press for “ballyhooing” the Hauptman trial was expressed by Dr. Israel Goldstein in a sermon yesterday morning at Congregation B’nai Jeshurun, 257 West Eighty-eighth street.

“I doubt if there is another country in the world where there would be so much ado about the trial of a kidnaping and murder suspect,” Dr. Goldstein declared, “no matter how prominent the family of the victim. The Hauptman trial is a commentary on American ‘ballyhoo.'”

Holding the press to blame for such a situation, Dr. Goldstein said that if a revolution were to break out, “it would probably come off second-best in competition with the Hauptman trial for the attention of the press.” He charged that “such a phenomenon is a sign of decadence in American life generally and in the press in particular.”

Dr. Goldstein also criticised the court procedure in the Hauptmann trial, describing it as “characteristic of American court procedure with its technicalities and antiquated forms.”

NEWMAN URGES PARENTAL AUTHORITY

Restoration of parental authority over children, as well as a return of “those qualities in parents which make them worthy of respect,” was urged by Rabbi Louis I. Newman in his sermon yesterday morning at Congregation Rodeph Sholom, 7 West Eighty-third street.

“Modern parents,” he said, “continue to fall back upon the old-fashioned methods which were in use before the rise of the new educational psychology. The commonsense parent has never needed the slogans and technique of the psychologists, for they have been sufficiently trained in knowledge of human nature to cope with their children’s problems. It is necessary today not only to restore parental authority, but to restore those qualities in parents which make them worthy of respect.”

Rabbi Newman described modern youth as too often cinematrained and cinema-conditioned. “They are accustomed,” he declared, “to violent reactions in life too soon for their mental and social health.”

‘NAZI,’ ANCIENT AND MODERN

Rabbi William Margolis in his sermon at Congregation Ohab Zedek, 118 West Ninety-fifth street, declared that the term “Nazi” is found in Sumerian legendry about fifty-five centuries ago.

“Perhaps it is irony,” he said, “that this reference of Nazi as a divine patron for the sexual gratification of beastly man, explains some of the barbaric perversions of the Nazified minds of leaders in Germany. At any rate, all this is a pretty coincidence—a feast for Freud.”

WORTHWHILE HABITS AND LIFE’S IDEALS

“Habit can be employed by the individual for infinite good,” Rabbi Joseph Zeitlin said in his sermon at Temple Ansche Chesed, 100th street and West End avenue.

Pointing to the habit of prayer, Rabbi Zeitlin said that “if society would advance so that that the ideals of social justice, civic responsibility and the bonds of brotherhood and friendship become realities, then people must be trained through such worth-while habits of life.”