Replying to the new nation-wide anti-Jewish boycott campaign initiated by the Nazi Trade and Artisans Association which is to begin March 23rd, the American Jewish Congress yesterday launched a new effort to bring about the boycott of German merchandise in this country and to eliminate German merchandise from American department stores, Dr. Joseph Tenenbaum, chairman of the Counter-Boycott Committee, announced.
An intensive radio campaign throughout the month of March which will parallel the Nazi drive in Germany has been initiated. It is to be supplemented with a white list of merchandising concerns which do not carry German products.
A communication addressed yesterday to all department stores throughout the city asks the heads of these organizations to signify whether they will continue to carry German merchandise. The communication, signed by Dr. Stephen S. Wise, honorary president, and Bernard S. Deutsch, president, declares:
As a result of an aroused public opinion grieved over what is transpiring in Germany, “The American Jewish Congress is daily besieged by innumerable inquiries through the mail, telephone and personal calls, all wishing to have a clear-cut and definite answer to the question.
“‘Which of the merchandising concerns and department stores have ceased giving aid and comfort to the Hitler regime and have eliminated Nazi made goods from their shelves and counters?”
While the Nazis are preparing a new black list of consumers who purchase from Jewish stores, the American Jewish Congress will publish an “Honor Roll of the economic champions of the highest ideals of humanity and of the American principles of liberty, freedom and democracy” as exemplified in the refusal to carry German merchandise.
Boycott activity in New York will be followed by intensified effort throughout the country, according to Dr. Tenenbaum, in order to create, in the words of Samuel Seabury “a boycott against Hitlerism-a boycott as wide as civilization and as powerful and as strong as humanity.”
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.
