November 11th is Armistice Day. Sixteen years ago on this day a delirious joy filled all hearts, the streets were crowded with a happy humanity, each and everyone felt as if on this day a better world be born, as if out of the terrors, the anguish, the sorrow and the bereavement of those four barbarous years of war mankind would emerge with new ideals and the firm determination to make this earth of ours a better place to live in.
The fine fire of that first Armistice Day has died down and most of the glorious hopes that we then cherished have vanished into thin air. The years have made us sadder and wiser; they have shown us that humanity has still much to learn before a spirit of justice, of liberty, of brotherhood can reign on earth, and if we confess to ourselves the truth then we must say that sixteen years ago the millenium seemed far nearer than it appears today.
Yet not all the lessons of the war have been in vain, not all the uplift and enthusiasm of the first Armistice Day has evaporated. The generation that has lived through the World War feels the responsibility to future generations to prevent the recurrence of a similar catastrophe and the best minds of our time, the most generous hearts, the noblest souls unite in the determination to make a future war impossible, to resist the propaganda of munitions makers and politicians and to insure the possibility of progress through the asurance of peace.
Peace societies have sprung up all over the world and have understood how to enlist the sympathies of youth for its aims and ideals. It is natural that women are in the forefront of those peace movements bu# it is a deep gratification to note that Jewish women, above all others, devote themselves wholeheartedly to the service of pacifist ideas, and that in all the various women’s organizations almost every group, be it large or small, has declared itself in favor of the peace-movement and is active in the furtherance of its ideals.
November is in all those groups observed as Peace Month and Armistice Day is celebrated by Jewish women not merely as a day of remembrance, a day referring to the past, but a day dedicated to future endeavor, a day pertinent with possibilities, renewing our hope and trust and calling us to unremitting work for our own people, for the community we live in, for our country, and for mankind.
The spirit of this day has been splendidly expressed in the stirring appeal which Mrs. Rebekah Kohut, the president of the World Organization of Jewish Women and one of the founders of the National Council of Jewish Women, made over the radio asking a mobilization of all Jewish women in the cause of peace, education, welfare and civic work. Mrs. Kohut feels justly that the present times present a challenge to all of us and that in the service of humanity the work of everyone is needed. We are certain that Jewish women will heed her appeal and become fully conscious that it is in their hands to make—as Mrs. Kohut puts it so finely—a choice “between a disorganized, chaotic, and insecure world, and a world in which there is peace, freedom, and security. “
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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.
