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St. John Ervine Protests He is Not Anti-semite

April 22, 1929
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St. John Ervine, British playwright, and until recently guest dramatic critic on the “New York World,” voices a note of protest in the current issue of the “American Hebrew.”

Mr. Ervine seeks to refute the charge made by William Zukerman, London correspondent of the publication, to the effect that Ervine had been sounding a warning in the “London Observer” against “the Judaization of America.”

Mr. Zukerman stated that: “Mr. Ervine’s articles simply teem with Jews. From the moment Mr. Ervine stepped on the ‘Leviathan,’ (which is, of course, the ‘Levy Nathan’) he has been haunted by Jewish spectres. Every article tells a new and wonderful tale of the Jewish invasion of New York and of America; how the Jews are gradually pushing out the poor Yankees; how the ‘real’ American is being drowned in the Semitic sea surging around him, and how America is being visibly stamped with Orientalism.”

Mr. Ervine, whose protest was written on the eve of his departure from America, says as follows: “Why is it that Jews always conclude that you are anti-Semitic if you mention Jews or that you are trying to promote a pogrom when you inform ignorant people of the number of Jews in New York? And why, too, are so many American Jews so anti-British when England is the only country in the world that gives the Jew a square deal? There is no office or position in England that a Jew cannot hold. A Jew became Prime Minister. A Jew became Viceroy of India and Ambassador to the United States and Lord Chief Justice. Is there any likelihood of a low attaining the Presidency of the United States?”

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