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World Press Digest

May 14, 1935
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The London Morning Post in an editorial on the Nordic theory, says:

Nordic was thought to be a safer word, suggesting an origin in the cold, chaste, lusty hyper borean North. But are the Germans Nordic? The question is posed by Mr. S. K. Padover in Foreign Affairs, an American Quarterly Review. The Germans he thinks are neither “pure” nor “Nordic.” Many of them certainly came from the North but many more came from the East. The Slav is so much mingled with the German, and especially the Prussian, that there is no saying which is which. Mr. Padover thinks Prussia “probably only nine-tenths Slav,” and the rest of Germany about three fourths Slav. The other elements in the Reich are Dutch, Bohemian, French, Jewish and Teutonic. The French Huguenots were a very potent element in Brandenburg, the Great Elector having wisely appealed to those good Protestants to make their home in his territories, and to them “Germany, especially the Prussian Monarchy, owed much of its industry, its skilled crafts, its prosperity.”

The Germans, in fact, are as mixed as we are, nor is it anything against them. They are less a race than a nation, and their claim to be Nordic is, like their claim to be Aryan, a myth.

ALL REICH ABSORBS STREICHER METHODS

The New Statesman and Nation, commenting on the increasing anti-Jewish feeling in Germany, says:

The Streicher method of hounding personally every German who has any dealings with a Jew is being introduced into the whole of Bavaria and the entire Reich. The so-called “racial science,” which is the Nazi name for anti-Semitism, has been made a compulsory course of study in all the elementary schools of Germany. Herr Frick, the Prussian Minister of Interior, in an interview given to the press, foreshadows that the new Nazi Constitution will deprive the Jews of their civil rights. Even Herr Blank of the “concordat” fame has gone out of his way to deliver another speech on the Jewish question, this time to representative publishers in Berlin, whom he blamed for not having cleared their industry of Jews as thoroughly as the other German industries and professions. In short, Jews in Germany, who for some time were left in peace, are now facing once more a new anti-Semitic drive with all the ferocity, pitilessness and brutality of the drive which shook the world two years ago.

YEMEN LAUDED ON POLICY TOWARD JEWS

The Jewish Tribune of Bombay, reporting on the situation of the Jews in Yemen, says:

It is really interesting to consider that whereas Germany and other countries are anxious to get rid of their Jewish citizens and are framing all sorts of inimical laws to compel them to flee away, Yemen is pleased with its Jewish inhabitants and is treating them in a far better way than many other countries are treating them. As we have often tried to show, Jew-baiting is not altogether an extinct product in some parts of Yemen, but it may be pointed out that occurrences of molestation as distinct from persecution are rare and sporadic, exceptions to the rule. It is no doubt that the misdescription of actual conditions by indiscreet persons has been responsible for all anxiety and perplexity entertained by our co-religionists abroad on the fate of Yemen Jewry. What is of supreme significance is the government’s disfavor of anti-Jewish manifestations, the unqualified freedom it allows Jews in the observance of their religious institutions and economic pursuits without restriction, an attitude which all sober-minded Jews with a record for realities acknowledge with a sense of appreciation.

It may not be out of place to mention that there is prevailing bitter feelings as to why Alden Jews are not sufficiently considered in the allotment of Palestine immigration certificates.

COUNSELS CARE IN CRYING ‘ANTI-SEMITE’

Under the caption “Investigate First,” the Jewish Press of Omaha, Neb., publishes the following editorial:

A constantly-recurring danger which we must carefully watch in American Jewish life is that of irresponsible individuals and, occasionally, organizations labelling various business firms and movements as anti-Semitic without first thoroughly investigating. Nationally, within a period of two weeks, three such malicious allegations—which spread like wildfire—were exploded as myths … one concerning the cancellation of a radio star’s contract, another concerning discrimination against Jews in the unemployment relief administration of New York, and still a third against a certain telegraph company. Similar unfounded charges have cropped up from time to time during the past year and have proven unfounded.

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