To the Editor, Jewish Daily Bulletin:
I should like to call your attention to an error which appeared in the Jewish Daily Bulletin of March 25 in the report of the boycott conference called by the American Jewish Congress at the Hotel Commodore.
The opening paragraph of your report on this conference states that the keynote sounded at the meeting is that “the anti-Nazi boycott is primarily a Jewish movement not non-sectarian.” There was nothing in the text and the intent of the addresses delivered at this meeting to convey this impression, nor is there anything in your own quotations from the speakers to substantiate your “lead” to this report.
NOT LIMITED TO JEWS
There was a reply to the attempts made by certain small groups of Jews to prevent Jews from practicing the boycott by pointing out the dangers of what they term a Jewish boycott. The writer and others who made reference to this situation stated very clearly that it was not the intention of those who have organized the boycott to limit it to Jewish participation. I stated clearly that we advocate not a Jewish boycott but a boycott by Jews as well as all other factors of civilization, and as Jews cannot shirk their responsibility any more than may any other group assailed by Nazism in Germany.
It was emphasized too that the Jews not only have the right but the duty to take their full part in the boycott, inasmuch as Hitlerism for them is a matter of life and death. And it was stated further that if the Jews lead in the boycott, the non-Jewish world would present a united front in the boycott as well.
WRONG INTERPRETATION
Because the Jews were urged not to hide behind a non-sectarian cloak in the discharge of their duties toward their fellow-Jews is not and cannot be interpreted as a statement to the effect “that the boycott is Jewish and not non-sectarian.”
From the first the American Jewish Congress has been in close association with the American Federation of Labor in connection with the anti-Hitler fight.
For more than a year we have sought to create a united front with the Central Council of Trades in this city for the purpose of strengthening the boycott. From the first, too, the American Jewish Congress, in formal resolutions adopted advocating the boycott, has emphasized the importance of enlisting non-Jewish support. This is true of the first resolution adopted on August 20,1933, and is equally true of the most recent resolution adopted at the Extraordinary Session in Philadelphia on March 17, 1935.
Joseph Tenenbaum,
Chairman, Boycott Committee. New York City.
A MAGAZINE DIES
To the Editor, Jewish Daily Bulletin:
On February 27, a quintet of American authors, who for two and one-half years have taken the name of Spectator in vain, announced the discontinuance of their “literary newspaper” and betook themselves to their “estates.”
The five authors, known separately as George Jean Nathan, Eugene O’Neill, Ernest Boyd, James Branch Cabell and Sherwood Anderson, abandoned their collective efforts for no other reason than that they were “tired of the job” and “want to take it easy this Summer.” Not that their reason for starting the magazine was any better (it was all in fun), but they have “some ideas developing,” they assure us.
Being very much concerned about the literary prestige of America, although I am not a native of this country, I hope the “ideas” will not develop into another magazine. For, if the five gentlemen did not establish an all-time low for high brows during the life of the American Spectator they certainly have established such a record at its death! Intent for two-and-a-half years on appearing strikingly sharp, and succeeding only in being painfully pointless, their last will and testament as editors of the Spectator is the most light-minded declaration ever penned by mature writers.
These intellectual poseurs, who believed they were the life of the literary party and took themselves so seriously as to pass death sentences on bad books by printing the titles of those books, or the names of their authors, in black-bordered boxes—these serio-comical playboys of the American Spectator did not even permit their collective brain-child to die a dignified death!
In his essay on the various causes of death, Joseph Addison, the father of all the Spectators, tells of a “fanciful dream written by a Spaniard, in which he introduces the person of death metamorphosing himself like another Proteus into innumerable shapes and figures.”
To the American Spectator Death came in the form of a yawn! …
True, the editors have worked very hard trying to entertain themselves and, they hoped, their readers. They even staged a speakeasy symposium on the Jewish question and had a grand time discussing the problem like perfect boors. They also acted the part of law-givers by printing certain sophomoric sagacities in the form of little Commandments, and George Jean Nathan was at his best as a good mixer with no self-respect as a Jew.
The importance of being Ernest Boyd was not very evident to this onlooker, but Mr. Boyd did succeed in getting his anti-Semitic two cents into the chatter-box that was known as the American Spectator.
Just the same, dying from a yawn is as silly as it is pathetic!
Maurice Winograd. New York City.
LAUDS JEWISH SCIENCE
To the Editor, Jewish Daily Bulletin:
I have been wondering why your paper makes no mention of Jewish Science.
There never has been, and never will be, such a glorious knowledge of the Jewish religion as may be obtained through Jewish Science.
Where should Jewish people go for their full spiritual needs, but to Jewish Science?
You are missing plenty of reader interest by failing to recognize Jewish Science and its marvelous literature.
Hoping you will note my comment.
(Mrs.) Claudia S. Meyer, New York City.
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.
