A Week’s Events in Review

It is not difficult to predict that the Berne trial against the Nazis for spreading the notorious. “Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” which will be resumed Monday, will conclude victoriously for the Jews. Forced to substantiate the anti-Jewish allegations which the “Protocols” contain, the Nazis are returning to the trial empty-handed.

When the Bernie trial was deferred last October, the postponement was granted in order to give the Nazis the full benefit of bringing what they claim were “the best of their experts.” Since then much effort and funds have been spent by the Nazis all over the world to collect all possible facts and data which might help their “experts” at the resumption of the trial in Berne. It seems, however, that all these efforts were in vain.

NAZIS SHIFT ATTACK TO B’NAI B’RITH

The Nazis are returning to the trial with a changed front. They are to admit that they were mistaken in asserting that the “Protocols” are a record of the first Zionist Congress held in 1897. These “Protocols,” they now claim, are not a record of a Zionist Congress but of a B’nai B’rith Congress.

It will be an easy matter for the Jewish leaders to prove to the court that the B’nai B’rith has never held a Congress in Europe. As Alfred M. Cohen, international president of the B’nai B’rith, declared from Cincinnati this week, the congresses of the B’nai B’rith lodges are as a rule held in America, since the organization is primarily an American one.

The Nazi “expert” will have a hard time proving his new theory about the “Protocols” being a creation of the B’nai B’rith. Retreating from their charge that the Zionist Congress was the author of the “Protocols,” the Nazis will also have to withdraw the B’nai B’rith charges.

18 QUESTIONS TO CLEAR DISPUTED ISSUE

The list of eighteen questions which the Jewish leaders in Switzerland have submitted to the court to be answered by the three experts, representing the court, the Nazis and the Jews, will make it clear to the world that the “Protocols” are nothing but a forgery of the book written by a Frenchman many years before 1897, the year to which Nazi “experts” refer. It will prove now—just as the London Times proved years ago—that the “Protocols” are a forgery produced in Czarist Russia for the purpose of stimulating anti-Jewish hatred and justifying the Jewish pogroms under the Czarist regime.

Non-Jews as well as Jews will therefore watch the Berne trial. No witnesses will be called to this trial since all important witnesses already appeared last October before the trial was adjourned. The court will hear only the testimony of the three experts and the summaries of the lawyers for both sides.

Efforts were made by the Nazis from Berlin and Switzerland again to postpone the trial, but these efforts were in vain since the court is determined to settle the case which has been dragging for a long time. This attitude of the court can only be welcomed by the Jews who are also anxious to hear the verdict as early as possible.

REICH OPENS DRIVE ON SCHOOL CHILDREN

With Jewish attention focused on Berne, other events in Jewish life have attracted less interest despite the fact that they have affected Jewish rights and prestige. The drive which the Nazis in Germany have started against Jewish children is one of these events. The establishment of the first Jewish ghetto school in Austria is another.

Both in Germany and in Austria the movement to segregate Jewish children from non-Jewish children has assumed such proportions that it is becoming dangerous for a Jewish child to attend an elementary school. The Jewish communities in Germany and in Austria have therefore launched this week the establishment of special schools for Jewish children only. Administered by the Jewish communities, these schools will save the Jewish children from the humiliation and persecution which they are facing in the classrooms under a discriminatory system.

In Austria this system of segregating Jewish from non-Jewish children is directly against the existing international treaties which obligate the government to accord equal treatment to the Jewish minority. The Austrian government, however, does not seem bothered by this violation of its international obligations, just as it does not seem to be bothered by other anti-Jewish discriminations instituted in the country.

VON PAPEN INFLUENCE AT VIENNA

With Franz von Papen as Hitler’s ambassador in Vienna, the Schuschnigg cabinet, despite its opposition to the Nazis in Germany, is emulating all the Nazi regulations aimed against the Jews, to a point where there is almost no difference between Nazi Germany and Schuschnigg’s Austria as far as the treatment accorded the Jews is concerned. With von Papen in Vienna, the Hitler government hopes that sooner or later Austria will become a part of the Reich by Anschluss.

Isolating the Jewish children in special Jewish schools, the Nazi government this week dealt a blow also to the Jewish press. A new law by the Chamber of Press provides that no newspapers based on racial or religious principles should henceforth appear in Germany.

This new law, when effective, will actually isolate all the Jews in Germany from contact with the outside Jewish world. With foreign Jewish newspapers hardly permitted into Germany, and with local German Jewish newspapers prohibited, the half million Jews in Germany will remain totally mute.

The process of depriving Jews in Germany of their citizenship continued this week when citizenship rights were revoked from another 110 non-“Aryans.” Jews were prohibited this week also from serving on the board of publishing houses.

SOVIET COMBATS ANTI-SEMITISM

With the picture of the Jews in Germany getting darker and darker, cheerful news continues to come from Soviet Russia. Several decrees issued by the Soviet government this week show that the Jewish position in Russia is constantly improving. One of these decrees permits Jewish settlers in Crimea to sell freely their crops and their milk to whomever they wish. Another decree orders celebration of the tenth anniversary of Jewish colonization which coincides with the fifth jubilee of the founding of the Stalindorf Jewish autonomous region.

A strong fight is being conducted in Soviet Russia against anti-Semitism despite the fact that Russia today is the only country in the world where no anti-Semitism is openly preached. Special radio programs were broadcast this week throughout Russia explaining to the population the menace of anti-Semitism. A number of workers in Soviet shipyards were this week sentenced to several years’ imprisonment for anti-Jewish remarks.

The most important event of the week past—an event which will be recorded in Jewish history—is the secession of the Revisionists from the Zionist Organization and their decision to call their own Congress. This decision means that from now on there will be two separate Zionist organizations.

All hope for a possible peace between the Revisionists and the present Zionist Executive were shattered when the Zionist Actions Committee, which concluded its session in Jerusalem recently, failed to bring the opposing factions to an understanding and rejected the idea of calling a round-table conference. With the establishment of an Independent Zionist Organization by the Revisionists, who claim to have a membership of 190,000, a real civil war in Jewish life is inevitable.

It seems that the Zionist Organization, with all its leaders lacks one really good leader who could enjoy the respect of all and who would be the man to whom all groups and parties in the Zionist movement would listen. Pinchas Ruttenberg, the head of the Palestine Electric Corporation, is probably the only person today who enjoys the confidence of all the fighting factions. It was he who brought together Jabotinsky and Ben-Gurion for the peace pacts which were later rejected by the Histadruth plebiscite. It is he who could bring peace into the Zionist movement if he were permitted to handle the situation.

At the Zionist Congress in August, Mr. Ruttenberg may play a very important role. He is liked not only by the Zionists but also by the non-Zionists. He has the respect of the Palestine workers as well as of the industrialists. Both the Revisionists and the Histadruth seriously consider his opinions. He has no party axe to grind and no personal interests. He is the strong man that Zionism needs today. Without him it seems to me the Zionist movement will lose more and more ground, judging by the election platforms now adopted by the Mizrachi and other Zionist groups in connection with the forthcoming Zionist Congress.