A New York rabbi was accused by the Government in the Chamber of Deputies today of organizing a boycott of Hungarian goods in retaliation for the Government’s bill for restriction of Jews.
Minister of Justice Andreas Tasnadi-Nagy declared during the debate on the bill that Rabbi Lazar Schoenfeld, a native of Hungary, was preaching a boycott of Hungarian goods to his congregation. Anti-Semitic newspapers picked up the charge and used it to support their campaign against the Jews.
Rabbi Schoenfeld, leader of Congregation Beth David Agudath Achim in the Bronx, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that the accusation of the Hungarian Minister of Justice was based on a distortion of an article he had published in Hungarian-language newspapers here. In the article, Rabbi Schoenfeld said, he had warned that if the anti-Jewish bill was adopted by the Hungarian Parliament and if the Nazi spirit were allowed to prevail in Budapest, he would then favor a boycott of Hungarian products. This article was cabled to Budapest in a distorted summary form, the rabbi said, and made him appear as urging a boycott now. As a result, Rabbi Schoenfeld is planning a $100,000 libel suit against the Hungarian Nazi paper, Verhovai Lap.
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.
