Opposition to Ira M. Younker’s statement that Jews in Germany should not have children while Hitler is in power was expressed yesterday by Dr. Stephen S. Wise as he returned to New York.
Dr. Wise said in part: “It is, as the editor of the Jewish Daily Bulletin rightly says, a distinct dis-service to the United Jewish Campaign to inject a highly controversial issue into the relief drive. It is a very different thing to say, as Mr. Younker now does, that if he were living in Germany he would not wish to bring into the world children who would have to face as terrible a future as confronts them in Nazi Germany today. That, I say, is a very different thing from counseling, as Mr. Younker undertook to do, German Jews not to have children.
“In one word, this is exactly what Hitlerism would wish Jews in Germany to do, to refrain from child-bearing.
“Hitler bids Germans breed that they may slay; Mr. Younker seemed to bid German Jews not to breed lest they be slain. There has never been a time in all the centuries when Jews have not known that their children might be subjected to ignomy and hardship and suffering but the great tradition of Israel was still maintained.”
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.
