Now-

an end to the efforts of the political groups that are endeavoring to revive the pogrom policy of the Russian Black Hundreds and to enthrone Nazism in Poland.

It is most deplorable that the broad minded Polish Minister was murdered. But it seems that the crimes committed against the Jews of Poland did not stir the Polish government to sufficiently vigorous action. The assassination of Bronislaw Pieracki cannot fail to arouse the Polish people to the realization of the Nazi danger that is threatening their very existence.

The Nazified Polish terrorists have overreached themselves. They have created a situation which the Polish government can ignore no longer.

THE JEWISH ATTITUDE

The resolution proposed by Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver and adopted by the Conference of American Rabbis at Wernersville, Pa., with regard to the Jewish attitude toward the Hitler regime, is a splendid document. It is dignified and Hebraic in spirit. The doctrine of non-resistance has not yet been found to be practicable in human relations. The Christian doctrine of loving one’s enemy has but rarely been translated into life during the past nineteen hundred years.

Hitlerism, which mocks Christianity and repudiates all that Christ stood for, should be regarded by the Christians as their problem. To the Jews Hitlerism is a catastrophe. To the Christians Hitlerism is an arrogant and mocking challenge.

Professor Henry J. Cadbury, a broadminded and liberal Christian friend of the Jews, said at the Conference:

“By hating Hitler and trying to fight back, Jews are only increasing the severity of his policies against them.

“If Jews throughout the world try to instill into the minds of Hitler and his supporters recognition of the ideals for which the race stands, and if Jews appeal to the German sense of justice and the German national conscience. I am sure the problem will be solved more effectively and earlier than otherwise.”

And Professor Cadbury added:

“It is the duty of Christians the world over to help right the injustices wrought by the Nazis. Every God-believing Christian, in any nation, should join in trying to atone for the wrongs done the Jewish people, if only for the sake of their own Christian beliefs and Christian doctrines of universal good will and brotherhood.”

These are noble sentiments, indeed. But Professor Cadbury seems to be extremely naive if he believes that an appeal by the Jews to the German sense of justice and the German national conscience would reach the German people. The German press is absolutely muzzled. The truth cannot be told in Germany today. Only the falsehoods fabricated by the Hitler propaganda apparatus are presented to the people of Germany day in and day out. The ritual murder myth and all other anti-Jewish falsehoods are freely circulated throughout Germany with the aid of the government. All this is the dominant part of the entire Hitler program for the German people.

Dr. Stephen S. Wise rightly said:

“The words of Professor Cadbury make it appear as if some vulgar quarrel or street brawl was existing between Hitler and the Jews, that it is merely a bloodless war.

“The boycott is a rightful refusal to have any relations morally and economically with a government which has persecuted us and which does injustice to our people. A boycott is not a war. It is a moral and economic weapon of self-defense.”

Rabbi Silver’s resolution sums up admirably the Jewish attitude in the following passages:

“The conference joins with the enlightened forces of mankind in resisting to the uttermost the attacks which are being made by the Hitler government upon civilization and upon all the moral and spiritual values which we cherish. Our resistance is not prompted by any ill will or hatred of the German people, but by an inescapable moral compulsion to defend the indispensable values of free, creative human life….

“While the conference as an official body which cannot speak for the whole of Israel, does not advocate any particular type of resistance, it believes that moral persuasion should be supplemented by every manner of nonviolent resistance calculated to bring to an end the regime of inequity and enslavement which today obtains in Nazi Germany. As Americans we call upon our fellow Americans to rally with us in defense of those American humane and democratic principles which are being violated by the Nazi government”