An appeal by leading non-Jewish clergymen and publicists was issued to the Christians of America to raise a fund of $15,000,000 to match the $15,000,000 fund sought from the Jews of this country by the United Jewish Campaign, a statement issued yesterday by the headquarters of the United Jewish Campaign declared.
The signatories to this appeal are Rev. Dr. A. W. Anthony, chairman of the Committee on Good Will Between Jews and Christians of the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ, who has assumed the treasureship; Dr. Samuel Harden Church, president of the Carnegie Institute, Pittsburg, Pa., Rev. George Elliott, editor of the “Methodist Review,” New York; Rev. Dr. Charles P. Fagnani, of the Union Theological Seminary, New York City; Rev. Dr. John Haynes Holmes, Pastor of the Community Church, New York; Rev. Dr. Frederick Lynch, former editor-in-chief of “The Christian Work,” New York, Dr. David Starr Jordan, president emeritus of Leland Stanford Jr., University, California; Edwin Markham; Dr. Nathaniel Schmidt, Cornell University; Mrs. Vida D. Scudder, Professor of English Literature, Wellesley, Mass; William H. Short, Secretary of the Amos Society; and Dr. George F. Moore, Professor of the History of Religion at Harvard, and vice-president of the Amos Society.
EXPLAIN REASONS FOR THE APPEAL TO CHRISTIANS
All of the signatures to this appeal are members of the Amos Society, an organization for “the propagation of the lofty humanitarian doctrines of the Hebrew Prophets from Amos to Jesus of Nazareth.” The appeal was issued by them, the statement of the United Jewish Campaign declares, on the ground of the “central twin-dogma of that sublime religion of the spirit and heart which was the unity and the Fatherhood of God, and its inescapable conclusion, the Brotherhood of Man.”
“What would Jesus do in such a case,” the appeal asks, after quoting from the description by David A. Brown, of the Jewish tragedy in Eastern Europe. The appeal calls upon the 100,000,000 Christians of America to match the $15,000,000 Jewish fund with a $15,000,000 fund of their own for the same purpose. Checks are to be sent to Dr. A. W. Anthony at the offices of the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America, 105 East 22nd Street, New York City.
The appeal reads as follows:
“Appeal of the Gentile members of the Amos Council in behalf of the poverty stricken Jews of Eastern Europe.
“In the month of August 1923, the Amos Society was founded in the City of New York for the propagation of the lofty, humanitarian doctrine of the Hebrew Prophets, from Amos, the Shepherd of Tekoa, in the 8th century B.C. to Jesus of Nazareth in whom the teachings of his countrymen and predecessors reached their acme, both as to depth of thought and intensity of feeling.
“The central twin-dogma of that sublime Religion of the Spirit and Heart was the Unity and the Fatherhood of God, and its inescapable conclusion, the Brotherhood of Man.
“WE CANNOT LEAVE ENTIRE BURDEN TO JEWS,” APPEAL SAYS
“It is upon this ground that we, the undersigned Gentile members of the Amos Council, appeal to our brethren and sisters in Christ to extend their help to the over 1,000,000 starving Jewish families of Eastern Europe, whose miserable plight almost defies description. We cannot and will not leave the entire burden of this stupendous work of philanthropy upon the shoulders of our Jewish fellow-citizens, who never fail to contribute their generous share to the alleviation of the world’s misery at large, without ever asking after creed or race of the victims of the calamity.
“The $15,000,000 which the Joint Distribution Committee through the present nation-wide Drive attempts to collect will not only serve to relieve the immediate and most urgent needs of nearly 7,000,000 human beings, most of whom formerly belonged to the bread-winning classes, but also to send nearly 100,000 additional Jewish families back to the soil in Southern Russia to join the 50,000 Hebrew farmers who are already settled in the Ukraine. The soil has been generously offered by the Russian government; all the Russian government; all that is needed is to equip the newcomers with the necessary tractors and farm implements.
“To quote the words of Mr. Louis Marshall and Mr. David A. Brown, two of the most devoted and indefatigable chief conductors of this Good Samaritan Campaign:
“‘We are called upon to help a people who have put up a valiant struggle against the current that is dragging them down. They have struggled as no people have ever struggled and today they are facing the blackest tragedy that has ever confronted any human group.
“‘When the national debt question is settled and Europe can begin to function normally, the Jewish situation will improve. But, in the meanwhile, not only in Poland, in Russia and Bessarabia, but also in Lithuania, Esthonia, Latvia, Austria and every other country in Eastern Europe, death stalks in every Jewish home. We must help them to bridge over this terrible period. The star of hope to which their eyes are strained is right here in America. Let us not cause this star to wane on the horizon. — Louis Marshall.
“‘Women and children are dropping on the streets from hunger in Bessarabia. Many others are found dead in their homes in Poland. A horrible scourge of typhus is sweeping over the Jews, in both lands, adding to the toll of death.
“‘In thousands of homes, men, women and children are sick to the point of utter exhaustion from hunger. There is another gruesome picture that is given in the cables received by me and by the Joint Distribution Committee in the last few days that unless substantial help comes quickly–the Jewish orphan asylums will be compelled to close because their resources have been exhausted to the last penny. Thousands of children will be turned out into the streets to roam about aimlessly, hopelessly, blindly. Many children already on the streets eat what they can find in garbage cans or what they can pilfer from a shop or a stand. They sleep in alleys, in cellars. They are ragged. They are tattered and their morals are being destroyed.
“‘My European correspondents inform me that hundreds are killing themselves, are hastening death because their sufferings have made them impatient of its arrival.’ — David A. Brown.
“We Gentiles, when we are face to face with a perplexing question often ask ourselves. “What would Jesus do in such a case?” No Christian heart can be in doubt as to the action Christ would have taken in this stupendous catastrophe which has befallen the descendants of his own brethren in race and faith among whom he walked and worked and for whose benefit he felt having been called by the Lord. Let, then, all noble-minded Gentiles, from the bottom of their Christian hearts, give the dementi to the pessimistic prognostication of one of the speakers at the New York Drive Rally on May 2nd last:
“‘If we do not help these people, these men, women and children of our faith, race and kin, then nobody will aid them. Either we help them or they perish–miserably, hopelessly, in unnumbered thousands’!
“During the World War we came to the help of the Allies; let us repeat now our Argonne stunt by helping mitigate the terrible consequences of the aftermath of that war. Let us help our Jewish fellow-citizens to ‘go over the top’; let us, the 100,000,000 Gentiles, match their $15,000,000.
“Checks to be made out to the order of the Joint Distribution Committee and to be forwarded to the Treasurer of the Amos Council Appeal Committee, Dr. A. W. Anthony, Chairman of the Committee on Good Will Between Jews and Christians of the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America, 105 East 22nd Street, New York City.”
Isidor Singer, former managing editor of the Jewish Encyclopedia, was the founder of the Amos Society.
A bequest of $25,000 to the Eagelville Sanatorium for Consumptives, a Jewish institution, in Philadelphia for the establishment of a memorial, is provided for in the will of Mrs. Caroline Hirsh Sidenbach, of Philadelphia, who left a $100,000 estate. Mrs. Siedenbach also gave $5,000 to the Federation of Jewish Charities and $1,000 to the Congregation Rodeph Shalom. The Hebrew Sunday School Association was bequeathed $200.
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.
