The Zionist Organization of America dedicated the current issue of its official organ, “The New Palestine” which was off the press yesterday, to Nathan Straus on the occasion of his eightieth birthday.
In addition to biographical material on Mr. Straus and the reproduction of greetings which were sent to him by out-standing Jews and non-Jews throughout the world, “The New Palestine,” which is edited by Meyer W. Weisgal, contains special articles on Mr. Straus by Health Commissioner Louis I. Harris, Louis Lipsky, president of the Zionist Organization, Dr. Stephen S. Wise, Sophie Irene Loeb and Rabbi David De Sola Pool.
Writing of Nathan Straus’ contribution to public health, Dr. Louis I. Harris says:
“The name of Nathan Straus will be linked with that of Louis Pasteur through the centuries. A great many achievements in the field of public health and social welfare will be forgotten in the next few decades, but I make bold to say that the contribution made by Nathan Straus to the prolongation of life of all of his fellow, without regard to creed or race, especially in making commercial pasteurization practicable, will endure as an historical event of signal importance.”
Louis Lipsky enlogizes Mr. Straus as “an energetic fighter for good causes. Whenever a wrong aroused his virile antipathy, he became a party to the agitation caused by its existence, and he would seek ways and means ruthlessly to destroy it. He has been a splendid hater of hate and intolerance”.
Nathan Straus is called “America’s best-loved Jew” by Rabbi Stephen S. Wise. “Nathan Straus is the proudest Jew I Know”, Dr Wise writes. “He has never felt forced to make excuses for his Jewish birth, he wears his Jewishness not with carefree lightness but with a sense of sobriety and responsibility which looks to his fellow-Jew for self-vindication.”
A special article is contributed by Mr. Straus himself, in which he reviews the work he accomplished in helping to rebuild Palestine as the Jewish national homeland.
Sophie Irene Loeb, chairman of the Child Welfare League of America, writes “that for generations to come the heart and soul of Nathan Straus will go marching on through thousands of children that he has saved for mankind-children who would have died but for his persistent battle in their behalf.”
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.
