Sees Little Reason for Rejoicing

Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, writing in Opinion on Passover, says:

When in centuries has the Jewish people had reason to look forward to a Passover celebration with less of joyous expectancy than in this year 1935? Using bookkeeping terms, the credits are few if not slight, and the debits are many and massive. The status of Israel in mid-Europe could hardly be graver than it is without becoming irremediably catastrophic. The mere recital of names suffices to tell the tale—Nazi Germany, Poland, Rumania and, alas, for the inclusion of Austria! More than one-third of world Jewry dwells in these lands with which the life of Jews has been intimately and honorably bound up, save for brief intervals, for a thousand years.