British Jewish Deputies Demand Poles Repudiate Former Anti-jewish Policy

The Board of Deputies of British Jews today adopted a motion supporting its president, Prof. Selig Brodetsky, in a declaration that it was the business of the exiled Polish Government to make clear that it had broken with the anti-Semitic policies of the 1938 and 1939 governments.

The declaration was made during a lively debate regarding the Polish Government’s policy which followed a report of the Joint Foreign Committee, presented by Leonard Stein.

Stein denounced “the obscure group of irresponsible Polish journalists who are playing the Nazi game by thinly-disguised attempts to foment anti-Jewish feeling.” He added: “This abuse of British hospitality is resented by the British public and no less strongly by those best entitled to speak for Poland.”

During the debate a motion was introduced proposing that a deputation be sent to the Foreign Office to protest against ant-Jewish incitement by Poles.

Prof. Brodetsky, while agreeing with the Joint Foreign Committee, said he had lost patience with being put off by the Polish authorities’ assurances that Jestem Polakem, Polish nationalist anti-Semitic weekly, was an obscure paper, while the publication was allowed to carry on. He said a delegation would be a mistake, whereupon the motion was amended.

H.A. Goodman of the Agudath Israel declared there was no difference of opinion within the Jewish community that the Polish Government of today was hardly acting fairly regarding the Jewish problem. “There are laws today on the Polish statute book which are definitely anti-Jewish,” he said. “If that is true today in London, what will be the position of the future Polish state?”

Determination to continue anti-Jewish propaganda, despite official exiled Polish Government hints that a damping down of the campaign is desirable in the interest of the Polish cause, is expressed in Jestem Polakem, by its new editor, Tadeusz Rzejinski.

The editor asserts he does not believe the Poles’ attitude toward the Jews will change merely because writing about the Jews ceases. He denounces the “bribed idiot aristocrats” whom he accuses of breaking their lance for a Polish-Jewish rapprochement.