Jewish storekeepers in the compact German community around St. Ann’s avenue, Bronx, reported Friday losses of from twenty to fifty per cent of their business as a result of weekly Nazi meetings which culminated Thursday night in a call for a campaign against Jews at an anti-Semitic rally at Ebling’s Casino, 760 St. Ann’s avenue.
The casino, it was learned Friday, is owned by the Rubel Brothers Ice Company. The Rubel Brothers are Jewish. A spokesman at the office of the company told the Jewish Daily Bulletin that the Casino has been leased out and that the Rubel Brothers are powerless to prevent the lessee from permitting Nazi meetings in the hall.
Thursday night saw 1,000 Nazi sympathizers whooping it up with cries of “hang Untermyer!” and “fight the boycott!” The Jewish people were jeered as Louis Zahne, power behind the throne in the Friends of New Germany, excoriated them.
ENJOY RIBALD POETRY
M. W. Tittmann read a German poem of his own composition which drew gleeful approval from the audience as he recited ribald rhymes about Jews and the coming lynching of Rabbi Wise.
Zahne informed his auditors that “when you say Communist you say Jew and when you say Jew you say Communist, because every Communist is a Jew.”
Calling for a united front against the Jew, Zahne declared that “I’m happy to preach race; there’s nothing better than the German race. As long as I’m able, I’m going to preach the doctrine of race and preach that the German is the cream of all races.”
ZAHNE REWRITES HISTORY
Deprecating “Jewish Hester street culture,” Zahne said that the “Jews had no hand in the upbuilding of this country; they did not come over until the Germans had built up the country.”
“We have in this country,” he said with sagacity written all over his face, “a Jewish war veterans organization. I have searched everywhere and have yet to see where a Jewish war took place.
“The Jew carries on the most insidious form of propaganda—Communism. The Jews form anti-this and anti-that organizations, all to push down Germany on the other side of the ocean and the Germans on this side.
“The Jews controlled Germany and got the country on its knees, and along came one man who said this Jewish menace must stop—and that was Chancellor Hitler.”
ANTI-NAZIS ACTIVE
A small group of anti-Nazis shouted from the street, “To Hell with Hitler!” The swastika-bedecked, uniformed Ordnungsdienst, Nazi ushers, looked uneasy. Zahne, irate at being interrupted just as he had worked up his audience to the desired climax, denounced the anti-Nazis as “empty barrels.”
Banging on the swastika-be-draped speaking stand Zahne declared that “the German who came here fifty years ago is just as much a German as the one who came here five days ago.”
He charged the Jews with plotting to enforce second-class citizenship on the German Americans. “The same element that is boycotting us,” he said, “is working day and night preparing for Communism.
“The Jews prostitute the legal professions and public offices.”
Henry O. Spier, DAWA executive, echoed Zahne in calling for a campaign to purge public offices of Jews and for an economic boycott against Jewish business men.
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.
