(By Our Bucharest Correspondent)
The attack made recently in the Roumanian Senate by the Arehbishop of Moldavia, was refuted by the Jewish Senator, Horia Karp.
The Arehbishop contends, Senator Karp said that the Jews have a distinctive mentality that they are full of antheses. Such arguments will not help to bring together the various sections of the population of this country in the service of the State and place to the best advantage of the nation the specific abilities of the Jewish people.
I listened to the Archbishop in astonishment I cannot understand how anyone can hold such views about a section of the population which has loyally cooperated in the development of the country. Others have made similar changes against the Jews, but they were secularists. How can a leader of religion make such accusations against the Jews?. The Jewish people, the Arehbishop claims, is the most believing and the most unbelieving of peoples, the closest to God and yet most estranged from the creatures of God if they do not belong to the Jewish people. We who sought God and found Him for ourselves and for all mankind ! It sounds wrong even when it comes from a secularist who might be ignorant of the facts of the history of monotheism and the was contribution which the Jews here made to the establishment of moral faith among humanity. We estranged from God’s creation, who were the first to give mankind the idea of respect for human life who preached the same love to the stronger and to the Jew who took thought for the beasts of the field and created the day of rest for them also. Who will among us of being estranged from God or His creation who gave the world the cooperation of man created in the image of God?
##
That the Jews of today seek to amass wealth is true. But which people does not. To the Jews, to the Jewish people, wealth never was and is not now an end in itself. Money was to them a vital need which gave them a chance to live, the kind of life to which they have been subjected for the past two thousand years. Money was to the Jews their only means of salvation because, up-rooted from their ancient homeland, driven from the East to the West and from the West to the East, they were never allowed to settle anywhere permanently. They were never allowed to buy land to settle there to hold it as their own to till it and to safeguard it. They were always looked upon as aliens as undesirables. They lived constantly under suspicion, spied upon at every step terrorized by the feudal lords, who used them as their tools to exploit the peasantry and the common people. That they should be allowed to stay in any place they had to pay for the privilege. That is Jewish materialism. The Jews wanted to live and they had to find what was the only means which could win from the other peoples the right to let them live.
But at all times we held fast by our faith and our ideals, even in the midst of the auto-da-ies of the Middle Ages. Our ready was that we had lost the ## beneath our feet. Since the day that we lost our land we have been subjected to all sorts of accusations and charged with all kinds of crimes. It is my hope that in another twenty years you will be able to see how the Jewish people has advanced again to its great ideals. Ask the ? and he will tell you what materialists the Roumanian Jews are who have settled in Palestine and whom he formed there sloughing their land and as peasants colonizing the country.
## a home and refuge among us ! We an egoistical people which, at a time of slavery and barbarism said that when a stranger comes into your land you shall not oppress him! We an egoistical people who had risen to that height of ethical thought which says, “What is distasteful to you do it not unto your neighbor!” We egoists who set down in the Bible the great commandment–“If your neighbor stumbles and his hand trembles you shall help him, whether he is a Jew or whether he is a stranger, and let him live among you”!
We are all egoists. It may be that some of us are exceptionally egoistical, as there are such among all peoples. We cannot conceive of life without egoism. The instinct of self-preservation is egoistical. Altruism is a creation of the human mind and it arises generally out of the instincts of pity love or justice.
Moses could be righteons to the highest degree. Jesus could sacrifice himself in his boundless altruism and love of mankind. The Prophets were great lovers of righterousness. The Apostles could endure all hardships to call mankind to love. But ordinary people cannot be other than egoistical. To make this a specific charge against the Jewish people as such is to commit an injustice.
The Archbishop accused the Jews of being a bundle of contradictions. But he is one himself. For he tells us that he is in constant contact with Jews and has many Jewish friends that the Jews have a great many virtues, that they conduct themselves well, that they are courteous and polite and yet he complains because there are many Jews in the towns of Moldavia who engage in handicraft and commerce. What then are these people to do in order to live ! They were not allowed to live in the villages so they had to live in the towns. They were not admitted to Government Service, so they had to become artisans and traders, and they have done their work well. In the particular field of economic life in which they have been permitted to engage they have made a splendid contribution of work which has been of benefit to our country the Senator declared.
Seventy-five men and women assembled at the home of Aaron Kheel 845 West End Avence New York on Thursday evening to hid farewell to Dr. Chaim Welmenn who is returning to Europe next week.
The speakers besides Dr. Wellmann were Mr. Kheel Janah J. Goldstein. Israeli Matz, ? Matz. Dr. Louis I. Harris. Harold Debrest.
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.
