Sir John Simon, the British Foreign Secretary, today denied formally rumors that he is a Jew in a letter to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
“I am just an ordinary Briton of Aryan stock, without any admixture of Jewish blood,” Sir John wrote. “My mother comes of an old English family and my father was Welsh.
“I hope this denial will not be distorted into sympathy with anti-Semitism, which I regard as un-English and which I utterly condemn.”
Sir John made the denial because of persistent rumors that he was Jewish and that British foreign policies were being influenced by “Jewish associates.”
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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.
