Sir:
When Dr. Charles W. Eliot recently warned Jews of the danger of assimilation, he meant assimilation through intermarriage and in this respect he was undoubtedly correct-Intermarriage has a tendency to destroy Jewish self-consciousness and hence Jewish individuality and solidarity. A Jew is not less an American because he has preserved his Jewish self-consciousness, no more than an Irishman is less an American, because his Irish self-consciousness is still regnant within him. Dr. Eliot did not, in any sense, impugn the Americanism of an Irish, Jewish or Anglo-Saxon American. His warning against intermarriage, however, was timely and certainly well-meant.
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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.