Daily Digest of Public Opinion on Jewish Matters

[The purpose of the Digest is informative: Preference is given to papers not generally accessible to our readers. Quotation does not indicate approval– Editor.]

That the Christian Church, as represented by the Vatican, would not object to a Jewish Palestine if the question of the custody of the Holy Places would be settled to the satisfaction of the Vatican, is the opinion of Cardinal Barlasina, the Pope’s representative in Palestine now visiting this country, according to Captain J. L. Racionzer, formerly connected with the Palestine Government, whose interview with the Cardinal is published in the “New Palestine” of Feb. 19.

Cardinal Barlasina, who was believed to have been an anti-Zionist, expressed to Captain Racionzer his satisfaction with Zionist developments in Palestine and declared: “Palestine had held several millions in the days of the Roman occupation, and it certainly could hold several millions more.”

Captain Racionzer tells us further:

“He (the Cardinal) regarded the so-called political differences as of negligible importance and thought that much of the trouble in the past was due more to misunderstanding than to any deeprooted ill-feeling or religious animosity. Lord Plumer’s attitude he considered was the right one.

“The Patriarch pointed out that Jews themselves had stressed the possible religious difficulties that would occur if Palestine ever became an entire Jewish State, but he regarded this scepticism as of no importance. The only possible difficulty lay in the costody of the Holy places and this could be easily solved by their being placed in the hands of an international commission. While Christianity was concerned with the preservation of these Holy places with their time old privileges it mattered little what national flag fluttered over the Holy Land. Christendom hadn’t bothered about it in the days of the Turk and the Church was not bothering about it now.”

SEES UNFAIR TREATMENT OF JEW IN AMERICA

The Jews in America, declares Dr. John W. Herring, Secretary of the Committee on Good Will Between Jews and Christians of the Federal Council of Churches of Christ, have not been treated with fairness.

Writing in the “Congregationalist” for Feb. 4, Dr. Herring asks: “Are we in America Christian in our treatment of Jews?” and answers his own question thus:

“The Jew lives daily conscious of a cordon thrown about him in subtle ways, mostly ways of which Gentile America is quite unconscious. We have done more than affront his Americanism and his race. We have betrayed our religion. A Jew is told that a hotel, a club, a fraternity, admits only ‘Christians.’ Rationalize this attitude as we will, we are nevertheless prostituting our great name to a custom that is narrow, self-centered, nakedly commercial.

“An instinct to fairness moves in the American breast. Once fully conscious of the wrong we are doing a fellow man, our conduct will become intolerable to us. In the name of Jesus we have offended against the Jew. We have offended against him again because he protested our attitude. And all this we have done against a minority far less in numbers and strength. Seeing this clearly, the America that throngs the stadiums and idealizes the sportsman must accord a new deal.”