World Press Digest

The matter of Jews employing Jews in the United States is commented upon in an editorial in the February issue of the B’nai B’rith Magazine. The editorial says:

Particularly interesting was the speech of Joseph Schlossberg, a Jewish trades union leader, before the recent Jewish welfare convention.

Mr. Schlossberg spoke on “Jewish Anti-Semitism.” He pointed a finger at certain Jewish business men who do not want Jews in their employ.

We hope there are not many of these. Not that we say that Jews shall employ only Jews, for that would be as abominable as the attitude of others who say, “We shall employ only non-Jews.”

But the current situation seems to make it imperative that places be made for Jews in Jewish business and industry. This situation has become rather well known and many a young Jew feels the doors of industry closing against him when he fills out the application blank for employment.

There is always a certain question to be answered: “What is your religion?” By experience he has learned that the answer to this question may contain condemnation for him; since if he answers, “I am a Jew,” there may be no employment for him.

It has come to pass that to obtain employment in non-Jewish industry a Jew has had to resort to expediencies, subterfuges and compromises. If he has a Jewish name he alters it to one that contains no betrayal of his identity. To the question, “What is your religion?” he answers, “Unitariar.”

By this masquerade he manages to obtain a position to which his merits entitle him. Though he is competent, his work is under the shadow of a daily fear; perhaps today they will find him out. They will find him out and the manager will summon him: “You are a Jew!”

This has happened.

HOW LINCOLN WOULD TREAT NAZIS

What would Abraham Lincoln think of the Nazi discriminations against the Jews? The Jewish Criterion, Pittsburgh, Pa., answers this question as follows:

It is well over a century and a quarter since Abraham Lincoln uttered his first sound and almost seventy years since he was mortally wounded by a crazed actor in a theatre box. If he were suddenly to return to the mad whirl of our day, his Kentucky blood would boil over the Nazi scourge against the Jews.

For the Emancipator was a greater friend of the Jew than is generally known today. History has it that during his first term as President, Swiss discriminations against the Jews became alarming. For years before Lincoln took office the Swiss-Jewish controversy had disturbed the sleep of Presidents Fillmore and Buchanan, but neither was able to settle the difficulties though both voiced their objections to the persecutions of a people because of their religious beliefs. Despite their vigorous opposition, the Senate ratified a treaty with Switzerland that dripped with anti-Semitism. Jews were denied the same rights and protection as other citizens of foreign states.

It remained for Lincoln, who inherited the bugbear, to trample it under foot. He started by appointing a Jew, Bernays, consul to Zurich. He then began hammering away at the Swiss government until it agreed to modify the treaty to insure the same protection to Jews as to all other foreigners on their shores enjoyed.

SUPPORTS MOVE TO HONOR ZHITLOWSKY

The Detroit Jewish Chronicle commenting editorially on the preparations to celebrate Dr. Zhitlowsky’s jubilee in the United States, says:

The movement to honor the seventieth birthday anniversary of Dr. Chaim Zhitlowsky must be recognized as an outstanding event in the cultural life of the American Jewish community.

Dr. Zhitlowsky is not only one of the outstanding Jewish figures in the world today, but is an eminent leader in Jewish labor circles and is the spokesman for the important faction in Jewry which strives for a national and a cultural Jewish autonomy everywhere.