The Jews of the world are urged by the Duke of Bedford to support the idea of a “negotiated peace” with Hitler in a letter which the Duke addressed to the Jewish people through the London Jewish Chronicle.
The letter, as published today in the Chronicle under the headline “The Gloomy Duke,” reads in part: “If Russia is defeated our last chance of securing a military victory over Germany will have gone. Only two alternatives will remain – defeat or a negotiated peace. The Jews in the past, without employing the method of war, secured for themselves freedom and justice. What they have done in the past they can do again in the future, and if they show true wisdom and adhere to those moral principles which are taught both by the Jewish and Christian faiths there is no reason why a time of sorrow and darkness should ever again return.”
Declaring that the Duke is known for his defeatist propaganda, the Jewish Chronicle, replying to his appeal, writes: “It is untrue to suppose that the Jews in the past, without employing the method of war, secured for themselves freedom and justice. Their courage and passive resistance may have helped, but the era of liberty inaugurated by revolutionary France counted far more.”
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.
