[The purpose of the Digest is informative Preference is given to papers not generally accessible to our readers. Quotation does not indicate approval — Editor.]
Charges that the Ku Klux Klan is responsible for discrimination against Jews and Catholics in the Juilliard Musical Foundation are being made, in connection with the movement to oust Dr. Eugene A. Noble as managing director of the Foundation. The New York “Evening Post” on Saturday carried a report on the matter, stating in part:
“Alfred Human, editor of the magazine ‘Singing’, admitted today that much of the criticism against Dr. Noble was based on reports — previously denied by the director — that favoritism was being shown Protestant aspirants for musical honors, particularly the sons of Methodist clergymen, and that discrimination was being displayed against Catholics and Jews.
“At the same time, while this whispering campaign admittedly was under way, Mr. Human declared he was not in a position to give the names of aspirants whose ambitions had been either nursed or drenched with cold water because of their religious affiliations.
“Mr. Human was asked concerning a report that threats from the Klan had reduced the audience to twenty-five at a protest meeting last week.
“Mr. Human admitted he had heard the report, but declared that fear of the Klan should not deter any musician from coming to a second meeting scheduled to be held in Birchard Hall, 113 West Fifty-seventh Street, a week from today.”
EAST SIDE — WEST SIDE
The East Side is losing its old quaintness and charm and becoming much like the West Side, and one of the many indications of the change. as seen by the “Herald-Tribune”, is the opening of the new Yiddish theatre at Second Avenue and Fourth Street. In Sunday’s issue the “Herald-Tribune” writes:
“The opening of a ‘million dollar theatre’ at Second Avenne and Fourth Street with a musical comedy in Yiddish entitled ‘Parisian Love’ induces divers reffections, among them some on the rapid disappearance of ‘little old New York’. More and more the ‘quarters’ in the old-fashioned sense of the word — the sense in which charactertistic neighborhoods still exist in a ‘little old’ London — tend to disappear in that glittering monstrosity called New York.
“Recall, for example, how the opening of a luzurious new Jewish theatre might have been treated a quarter of a century ago. Lincoln Steffens, then city editor of the old ‘Commercial Advertiser, might have sent some of his East Side experts — the serious Cahan or one of his more dilettante ‘fans’ over to Grand Street to cover the event sympathetically and solemnly, with due accent on the superior artistic seriousness of the foreign colonists. ‘The Sun’ would have sent up one of its bright young men to do one of those characteristic ‘old’ ‘Sun’ stand offish stories, one of the tricks of which consisted in picturing the antics of other folks authentically while at the same time, somehow, conveying the notion that ‘we’ could never be imagined doing such things.
“In any case the East Side was still ‘abroad’ — with possibilities of quaintness and charm, perhaps, but always different and queer, a fenced-in little world of its own.
“Imagine, now, one of the bright young reporters of the present generation going out, in similar fashion, to cover the opening night at this new Second Avenue theatre! What would he find?
“In the first place, a Second Avenue with ‘movie’ houses, theatres, aftertheatre suppers, windows full of expensive fur vcoats, taxis and blazing lights, in no wise different from any half dozen blocks of ‘Broadway’. In the theatre itself a vast auditorium, soft carpets, dinner coats, Broadway prices (which the more or less Yiddishspeaking audience is quite ready, apparently, to pay), and on the stage itself a musical comedy which, except perhaps for a certain European chunkiness and formality on the part of the ladies of the chorus, follows the traditional lines.
“In short, you might just as well be in the more or less roaring Forties as at Second Avenue and Fourth Street, and what there is to be funny about in the old-fashioned pattonizing style doesn’t easily meet the eye. Possibly it, or. at any rate, some contemporary equivalent for the old – fashioned exoticflavor that used to be so amusingly characteristic of the New York of a generation ago still exists and can be seen by the different eyes of those who were just going to college when the war came along. But, if they still do see it, they seem to keep very quiet about it.”
Dr. Nathan Blaustein. for the last thirteen years adjutant – general of Beth David Hospital, 115th Street and Lexington Avenue. New York City. was guest of honor at a testimonial dinner given him at the Hotel Biltmore Sunday night. The speakers were Dr. G. A. Friedman. chauman of the medical board of the hospital: Charles Greenberg, president Dr. Simon Tanneahaum. superimendent; David J. Rosen, Herman Morris and the Rev. B. A. Tinmer.
Dr. Tanuepbaum announced that a $5.000 fund for the ### of a physiotherapy department had been donated by iriends of Dr. Blaustein as a tribute to him.
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.
