J. D. B. News Letter

(By our Berlin Correspondent)

A strong protest against missionary work among the Jews is made by Pastor Falck in the current issue of the anti-Semitic periodical “Hammer’,, which is edited by Ex-Deputy Theodor Fritsch, member of the anti-Semitic International.

“The conversion of Jews,” the Pastor argues, “makes it easier for Jewish blood to infiltrate into the Aryan races. The workers in the Jewish missions claim that it is written ‘Go ye and teach all nations, baptising them.’ But this means that messengers are to be sent to other nations to teach and baptise them. It does not in any sense apply to the Jews today. For the Jews sit in the midst of as like a spear head in our flesh. Conversionist work among the Jews only pulls the point deeper into ourselves.

“If the Jews had their national State in Palestine, or elsewhere, those who feel it heir mission to convert Jews into Christians might go out as mission workers among them there and establish here a Jewish-Christian Church. We should not complain of that. But as things are, with the Jews living in our nidst, there is no question but that a Christian Jew is able to penetrate into the German national entity sooner than a Mosaic Jew. This Jewish conversionist work then only hastens the growing number of mixed marriages between Jews and Germans and spreads Jewish blood among the German people. The Jews in the mass and as an entity–individual ?onorable exceptions only prove the rule ?are not a desirable element in German national life. The memory of Barmat and Kutisker makes it unnecessary to explain this at any length.

“The danger,” the Pastor declares, has been recognized in Church circles. There are many clergymen in Germany who would rather pay the amount generally raised in their churches for the Jewish missions out of their own pockets than commend these missions to their congregations. The Protestant Federation of Austria has adopted a resolution which says: ‘This General Assembly of the Protestant Federation in Austria views with profound anxiety the peril of an ever growing dominant Judaism, a peril not only to the economic position of the German people but also to their spiritual and cultural life. This Assembly therefore calls upon all members of the Federation to fight against this enemy of the people. The fight is to be carried on particularly against the election of baptized Jews into the Protestant congregational bodies.'”

“If this peril is realized by the generality of the German people,” the Pastor concludes, “then the conversionist work among the Jews, which ignores the fact that in spite of baptism Jews remain Jews even after a hundred generations, just as much Jews as they were 3,000 years ago, will disappear into the limbo.”

The President of the Board of the Berlin Jewish Community, Commercial Councillor Gerson Simon, celebrated his seventieth birthday today. Herr Simon is the head of the firm of Jacob and Richter. He is President of the Federation of Lace Wholesalers and President of the Berlin Textile Trade Employers Federaion. He is on the Committees of many industrial and mercantile organizations.

For many years past, he has been entrusted by successive German Governments with the carrying through of important commercial undertakings. During the war he acted on behalf of the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and War in the occupied areas and in the neutral countries. Various of the post-war Governments employed his services in connection with the trade agreement negotiations, in which capacity he attended Conferences in Paris and Rome and is at present acting as Commercial Adviser in the trade negotiations with Poland.

Herr Simon comes of a well-known Jewish family in Cologne. In Jewish affairs he belongs to the Conservative wing and he is the President of the Religious Centre Party in the Berlin Jewish Community. He participates in practical Palestine work.

The Assembly and the Board of the Berlin Jewish Community presented the President with an address recording their esteem and affection.