The Week in Review

Tension continues to reign in Austria. The situation of Austrian Jewry is still uncertain with no indication of what the future will maring… The Jewish Telegraphic Agency disclosed that Premier Mussolini of Italy sent word to Dollfuss through Signor Suvich, Italian Under Secretary of State, not to curb the rights of the Jews and informed the Chancellor that the was watching the Jewish situation in Austria closely. Dollfuss answered that his government has who intention of introducing new ## against the Jews, a ## he has repeated time and again, but protested that he cannot prevent the government from revising the Austrian constitution and admitted that the revision would affect the Jews…. Reports from Vienna state that a committee of the Austrian cabuet has drafted a new constitution for the country declaring Austria a “Christian State.” The new constitution, it is said, will be submitted to the cabinet and put into force through the emergency decree under which the Dollfuss regime has ruled since it dissolved the Austrian parliament more than a year ago. . . . Prince von Starhemberg, commander of the Fascist Heimwehr, declared in an interview that there was no Jewish problem so far as “national-minded Jews were concerned.” He also ridiculed the Utopian race theories of the Nazis. . . .

However, while the leaders of the regime continue to talk softly and do their very best to conciliate foreign opinion, other leaders of the Heimwehr and the Christian Socialists talking for domestic consumption say that the Jewish position in Austria will be changed and limited. Many propose minority status for the Jews. . . . For instance, the Christian Socialist trade unions, the only legal trade union organizations left in Austria issued a call for the Austrian workers to enroll in their ranks. Since Jews are not eligible for membership in these unions, negotiations are under way for the formation of purely Jewish trade unions. . . . The government, acting under the emergency decree, has announced that it will disbar all lawyers previously employed by the Socialists, despite the fact that many men were not Socialists. In view of the fact that there are 1,500 Jewish attorneys in Vienna out of a total of 2,000, this will mean the disbarment of the majority of Viennese lawyers. . . .

Aside from these matters there is the question of the eventual triumph of the Nazis in Austria. Austrian Nazis are ominously quiet, showing the effect of an order from Nazi headquarters in Germany. The Habicht ultimatum is said to have been extended for another week. . . . At the same time rumors persist of an agreement between Dollfuss and the German Nazis. In any event the lot of the Austrian Jews is one of uncertainty with trouble in store for them no matter who finally wins in Austria.

GERMANY.

Events of the week in Germany show that no matter what the attitude of the central government may be, the Nazi party as such is determined not to allow any compromise with the German Jews. One of the most hopeful signs in Germany in the past months was the obviously sincere desire of German Jewry to shift its occupational base from the professions and trade to agriculture, handicraft, manual labor and artisanship. An organization in which all the great German Jewish organizations were represented was formed to help Jewish youth obtain training in those fields and to turn them from the liberal professions. Communal houses near the scene of the training were being organized where Jewish young men could stay while they underwent training. In many cases Jewish organizations paid the necessary fees.

These attempts to change radically Jewish life in Germany are opposed by the Nazi party, the very group which so viciously attacked the Jews as “non-producers.” Acting apparently on direct orders from the Munich Brown House, local Nazi leaders in every section of Germany have forced the peasants to promise not to employ Jewish farm hands and artisans have been forced to promise not to employ Jewish apprentices. Even Jewish artisans have been warned by local Nazis that if they persist in hiring Jewish apprentices they will be denied materials for work. In one week forty Jewish farm hands were dismissed and the total of dismissals is growing daily. Even those who promised to leave for Palestine or the Argentine as soon as their training was over were dismissed. . . . At the same time new impetus to the anti-Jewish boycott was given when local Nazi leaders in Germany warned their followers that despite orders from the central government any Nazi seen entering a Jewish store would be expelled from the party. . . . Dr. Conti, Nazi head of the medical service in Prussia, announced that the medical and sanitary departments of Berlin were entirely free of Jews. . . . A new organization to further and protect all German Jewish commercial interests in Germany was formed recently with the participation of all the central Jewish groups. . . . Purim was widely celebrated by German Jewry. German Jewish papers, including the C. V. Zeitung, carried lengthy Purim stories, Jewish cafes advertised Purim programs and the Jewish Culture League Theatre gave a special Purim performance.

PALESTINE.

Huge crowds paraded through the streets of Tel Aviv in celebration of Purim. Police reported that although hundreds and thousands crowded every thoroughfare in the all-Jewish city, no untoward incidents occurred. . . . The Haifa correspondent of the Frankfurter Zeitung reported tremendous increases in the importation of German goods into Palestine as a result of the “three million mark agreement” which was recently renewed to cover 3,500,000 marks. . . . The increase in shipments of Palestine oranges to Germany has only increased slightly, the Frankfurter Zeitung correspondent said.

GREAT BRITAIN.

Lord Rothschild, speaking at a political meeting, warned that Fascism was gaining ground in England and urged to prevent dictatorship in the country. . . . British Fascism was debated this week in the House of Lords. All of the peers who participated, including Viscount Cecil and Lord Snell, vigorously condemned Fascist private armies. Lord Feversham, replying for the government, admitted that Sir Oswald Mosley’s group was growing, but pointed out that the two anti-Semitic Fascist groups were losing ground. He declared that the government saw no cause for apprehension in the British Fascist groups.

THE REST OF EUROPE.

Dr. Hausner, formerly Polish Consul in Tel Aviv and former Jewish deputy in the Polish parliament, left for the United States on a mission for the Polish Foreign Office. . . . A court martial in Jassy Rumania, sentenced eleven rioters for participation in the Czernowitz riots last week which led to the transfer of the Maccabiad from Czernowitz to Prague. . . . Wasil Krestess, a Bulgarian metal worker who placed a bomb in the Kjutendil Synagogue in Sofia, was arrested and confessed that he blew up the synagogue out of his hatred for Jews. . . . The Dutch government ordered that kosher meat be served to Jewish unemployed instead of tinned non-kosher meat as previously ordered. . . . The Greek government cut the fees of travellers embarking for Palestine from Salonica in half. It is hoped to attract 20,000 Jewish tourists yearly to the port of Salonica. . . . A Jewish lawyer, Felici Alfredo, and a Jewish industrialist, Falck Georgio, were nominated to the Italian Senate by the Italian Fascist party. . . .

THE UNITED STATES.

More than 1,000 Jewish worker delegates gathered at a conference to create a permanent Jewish workers’ group capable of speaking for Jewish labor on Jewish affairs. . . . Difference of opinion on a clause prohibiting membership in any other “organization with a general Jewish aim” led to a split. Over 200 delegates of the Poale Zion, Jewish National Workers’ Alliance and other groups, left the meeting declaring that they could not adopt a clause which would prevent them from working with other Jewish groups. The dissenters immediately set up their own committee and issued a call for another conference to be held in May. . . . President Roosevelt, Governor Lehman and Mayor LaGuardia sent messages of greeting to American Jewry on the Purim holiday. The messages were read over a nation-wide hook-up by Congressman Sol Bloom. A Purim program was also broadcast. In an address before the Jewish Welfare Board, Felix M. Warburg, noted philanthropist, urged Jewish youth to consider pursuits where “brain and muscle are brought into work to their satisfaction and to their country’s health.” . . . A bill was introduced in the New Jersey Legislature by Minority Leader Rafferty providing for severe penalties against those guilty of spreading propaganda against any group because of their religion, race or color. It is believed that the bill is aimed against the Nazi propagandists in the State. . . .