The hope that America may remain at peace, gratification at President Roosevelt’s peace efforts, condemnation of both Nazi and Soviet policies in occupied Poland and the observation that anti-Semitism in America has “remained an underworld movement, disapproved and condemned by American public opinion as a whole,” were voiced today by the thirty-third annual meeting of the American Jewish Committee.
The meeting, held at the Hotel Astor and attended by delegates from all over the country, reelected Dr. Cyrus Adler president of the Committee, which was established in 1906 for the protection of the civil and religious rights of Jews throughout the world.
Citing the disastrous effects of war upon all peoples, the Committee, in the annual report read by Morris D. Waldman, secretary, declared: “For the second time in the history of the Committee, we meet but a few months after the outbreak of a major European conflict. Happily, our country it not a party in this conflict. Convinced as we are of the futility of war, knowing as we do its incalculable material and moral costs, we hope and pray that it may be possible for our country to remain at peace.”
The report hailed President Roosevelt’s recent action in obtaining cooperation of the three great religions in formulating and effectuating “the religio-ethical basis of peace” and expressed gratification at the fact that Dr. Adler had been invited “to lead the Jews of America in this holy cooperative endeavor.”
Commenting on European events, the report pointed out that the Soviet Union had added 1,500,000 Polish Jews to its present Jewish population and that a like number had come under the heel of Nazi Germany. The report declared that meagre advices received here indicated that “just as in territories newly acquired by Germany, the Nazi system is applied, so in areas on the Russian side of the line of partition the Bolshevik system is but a short step behind the military forces.”
“These reports,” it continued, “tell of such measures as the banning of religious teaching in Jewish schools, of the complete closing of Hebrew schools, of the launching of an anti-religious campaign by the Moscow League of the Godless, of the overcrowding of prisons with Jewish leaders, of the conversion of synagogues and communal buildings to communist clubs, and of the deportation of rabbis to interior cities. These are all part of the established Soviet pattern, to which the entire population, regardless of religion or origin, must be made to conform. Jews who were formerly bourgeois or ‘capitalists’ are being dealt with in the same ruthless and despotic manner as Christians in the same economic class, and the practice of Judaism, its teaching to the young, and the maintenance of synagogues are made well-nigh impossible.”
The report described the terror to which Jews in Nazi Poland was being subjected, terming “fantastic” the plan to transport 2,000,000 Jews to a reservation in the Lublin area where they “would be confined in what would be a large concentration camp, where they would be doomed to degradation, misery and death.”
The effect on American public opinion of the “alliance of Red and Brown bolshevism and the Hitler war, which that alliance has made possible,” according to the report, resulted in the discrediting of “both the Nazi and Soviet regimes and everything associated with either of them, including the Nazi anti-Jewish propaganda, so widely copied in the scribblings of American demagogues.”
The report continued: “More and more, right-thinking Americans are coming to the conclusion that anti-Semitic propaganda is simply a smoke-screen behind which the enemies of democracy can work most effectively. . . . It is an encouraging commentary on the loyalty of Americans to their democratic principles that even at its height, organized anti-Semitism, ominous as it was, never succeeded in making serious inroads on American public opinion. It is hopeful and reassuring that, in all the years of alien propaganda, of economic depression, and other internal causes of tension, anti-Jewish movements never succeeded in becoming respectable. No prominent educator, no reputable newspaper, no author of standing, has, during these years, become an open advocate of Jew-baiting. Anti-Semitism has remained an underworld movement, disapproved and condemned by American public opinion as a whole.”
Turning to the refugee situation, the report pointed out that the war had not only “vastly increased the potential number of refugees; it has also made it more difficult to deal with those whose lot was the object of international concern before the war broke out.” Refugees coming to this country, limited to 30,000 annually from Greater Germany, have contributed “substantially to the cultural and economic resources of America,” the report said.
Other officers reelected at the meeting were Abram I. Elkus, honorary vice president; Judge Irving Lehman and Louis E. Kirstein, vice-presidents; and Samuel D. Leidesdorf, treasurer. Sol M. Stroock, chairman of the executive committee, presided at the morning session, and Judge Lehman presided at the luncheon. Richard C. Rothschild, chairman of the survey committee, presented a report on the educational work of the American Jewish Committee.
The following members of the executive committee of the American Jewish Committee, whose terms expire this month, were reelected: Cyrus Adler, George Backer, James H. Becker, John L. Bernstein, David M. Bressler, Abram I. Elkus, Eli Frank, Mrs. M.L. Goldman, Henry Ittleson, Albert D. Lasker, Louis B. Mayer, Louis J. Moss, Mrs. David de Sola Pool, Horace Stern, Sol M. Stroock, and William B. Thalhimer. In addition, Maurice Wertheim and Dr. Louis Finkelstein, provost of the Jewish Theological Seminary, were elected to the executive committee.
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.
