Dr. Stephen S. Wise, president of the American Jewish Congress and of the Jewish Institute of Religion, gave his views on the present situation of the Jews in the world, on conditions in European countries, and on the question of the Jewish Agency, in a Rosh Hashanah message released to the press.
If the Jewish Agency is to bring about the long deferred union of forces for the upbuilding of Palestine, it will be an Agency for much good; woe betide the Agency if the mandate of the Berlin Zionist conference is ignored and Palestine becomes another realm of Jewish charity, Dr. Wise declares.
“The year that is now passing has held no one outstanding event such as last year, which was happily memorable by reason of the Ford retraction, Aaron Sapiro supplying the motor power of the retractor,” the message states. “But the outstanding evil of 1926-1927 was renewed in the form of the Roumanian excesses in the Fall of 1927. There are those who believe the outlook in Roumania to be better, especially because the somewhat diluted Bratianu regime is committed to a policy of liberalism in relation to the Jew, forasmuch as Roumania knows that even if the present loan be granted by the Western powers, Roumania cannot maintain its status as on the highway of enlightenment and culture if it endure the brutality of such anti-Jewish excesses as were committed by the Government-subsidized, if not Government-instigated, student-body in Transylvania.
“Let us hope for a better day for our brothers in Roumania; but let us remember, at the same time, that two things are needful, neither of which is, as yet, achieved, the unity of Jewish forces with a view to safeguarding the life and property of Jews wherever these may be endangered or violated, and, again, the bringing to bear of public opinion upon the League of Nations and other international instrumentalities which are to insure the fulfillment of the Minorities Rights Treaties of Versailles.
“If Jews cannot unite for this exigent purpose, then are we cursed by cureless division and incapacity for concerted effort. As for public opinion in the League of Nations, Jews should not forget that we are only one of a group of peoples aggregating tens of millions, who dwell as minorities in the midst of majorities, with status not one of sufferance, but of incontestible legality. And, in the struggle for the safeguarding of Minority Rights, we battle not for ourselves alone. For ours is a cause that is common to many, the cause of tempering the will of the majority lest it become a rod of tyranny.
“In some ways, the great event of the year has been the development of plans looking to the formation of the Jewish Agency. It is not for me to seek to forecast what the outcome of the effort will be. If the Agency is to bring about the too-long deferred union of forces for the upbuilding of Palestine union sacre, without sacrifice of the basic principles of Zionism, then it will, in truth, be an Agency for much good. But if the mandate of the Berlin Conference of July be minimized or ignored so that, from the viewpoint of the Galuth, Palestine become another realm of Jewish charity instead of the Jewish land of self-reverence and self-sustainment, then woe betide the Agency. Above all, they who have stood aside up to this time on any ground, and it is not for us to question in the hour of conciliation, may now be expected handsomely to come forward and take their full part in the fulfillment of the supreme task of Israel. One other problem of gravest moment is before Israel. God give it that the year find the problem some what nearer solution. Are we to melt away, to change the figure, to drift and drift without compass and rudder until we are wrecked upon the rocks of a world which has not hospitality for moral and spiritual derelicts? Sometimes, I am heartened to believe that the younger among us are drawing nearer to an understanding and abiding solution of the Jewish problem. This will not be found upon the path of more forms or more formlessness.
“The Jew has too long wondered which of the bonds he is to break,–racial, religious, national. The Jew begins to see that the so-called religious bond is none other than a spiritual out-look upon the universe, Spinoza’s sub specia aeternitatis, and that no Zionist nor other ought to darken or confuse such outlook. The Jew begins to see that the racio-national bond which is interfused with the Jews signifies not bondage, to an ancient tribalism, but liberation, through having a creative part in the unfolding future of the Jewish people, with its fadeless hope of service to humankind, through spiritual, ethical leadership.
“Verily, it might have been for the Jew that Mazzini unfurled the banner, ‘Dio e popolo!’, ‘For God and People!’ not throug foreswearing the God of Sinai and His eternal Mandate; nor through desertion of the children of Moses and Isaiah, Maimuni, Spinoza, Mendelsohn and Herzl will the Jew gain aught save the awful penalties of self-content and self-obliteration. The Jew will live and pilgrim forward to the noblest ends of life only in the measure in which he holds high the standard, For God and Israel! Israel for All; God over All!” the message concluded.
The Catholic members of the New York Post Office will return the courtesy of their Jewish fellow workers, who permitted them to attend communion mass and breakfast during the Christmas holidays last year, by working for them on the Jewish holy days, next Friday and Saturday, and on September 24.
The Rev. John J. Kiernan of the Church of St. Columba, New York, spiritual director of the New York Post Office Holy Name Society, has appealed to members of his organization to make arrangements to take over the tasks of the Jewish workers, following an appeal to him by Louis Blumberg. President of the Jewish Postal Workers’ Welfare League.
MAJOR PEYSER HEARS REPORT ON GENEVA WORK
Major Julius Peyser, Washington banker and lawyer, presided at a luncheon conference of a special committee of the executive committee of the American Jewish Congress of which he is chairman, to hear a report by Nathan D. Perlman, former Congress man who returned from abroad, on the work of the Geneva bureau of the Council on Jewish Rights created under the auspices of the American Jewish Congress at its Zurich conference.
Steps were also discussed at the luncheon for the preparation and convening of a session of the Congress this Fall.
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.
