What Bulletin Readers Say

To the Editor, Jewish Daily Bulletin:

Since the announcement of the Community Party for the forthcoming World Zionist Elections in the Bulletin I have received many requests for information as well as many admonitions.

The Community Party was organized because there is no party that represents a combination of labor and religion. The Community Party is whole-heartedly behind the Histadruth in its social ideals. The Community Party is also for a religious interpretation of Jewish living, a sympathetic understanding of Jewish tradition. In this regard we are sympathetic to the Mizrachi but from the point of view of Conservative Judaism.

Some people are apprehensive of the name “Community Party.” They are afraid it is too near the word Communist. It is silly to answer such a charge. The ideal of the party is to organize every Community—a better word might be Kehillah—and make Zionism a mass movement. It might interest the readers to know that whereas in former years maybe ten Shekels were sold in Utica and vicinity we have this year sold hundreds.

It has come to my attention that Mizrachi thinks this party is a subterfuge for the Labor party. Some prominent members of the Z.O.A. thought that this was a trick party for the Labor group, and that the Labor group fears that this is a hidden Mizrachi party.

May I answer squarely and honestly that the Community Party is an attempt to coalesce the Labor platform with religion. I, as the creator of the Community Party, am interested whole-heartedly in the upbuilding of Palestine with the social ideals of the Histadruth not because Marx or Lenin said so but because the Torah and Jewish tradition say so. It is an undeniable fact that many Laborites in Palestine are militantly anti-religious. It is the aim of the Community Party not to fight them with opposition but to win them over to a religious interpretation of Jewish life by working side by side with them.

Here is where this Party differs from the Mizrachi. If one wishes to one might say that the Community Party favors the religion of Labor but also wants to labor for religion. The Community Party—List No. 4—though it only possesses names of Uticans is not a mere local party but its appeal is to all who love Judaism and favor the social ideals of the Labor group.

S. Joshua Kohn.

Utica, N. Y.

A LAKE PLACID RESOLUTION

To the Editor, Jewish Daily Bulletin:

I notice that you failed to report from Lake Placid the resolution at the final session of the combined conference of social workers, center executives and educators touching upon the lockout of 100 workers at Beth Moses Hospital, Brooklyn, and twenty-six workers at Lebanon Hospital, Bronx, N. Y.

This heartless, high-handed treatment by Jewish directors of publicly-supported Jewish institutions of their underpaid and ill-treated workers who demanded the right of collective bargaining is of special concern to the readers of the Bulletin.

The resolution passed at the above conference views “with apprehension the discharge of 120 employees of Lebanon Hospital, New York, and Beth Moses Hospital, Brooklyn,” and calls upon both the workers and the hospital boards involved to submit to arbitration. It was passed unanimously.

(Rabbi) Michael Alper.

New York City.