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Digest of Public Opinion on Jewish Matters

May 6, 1926
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[The purpose of the Digest is informative: Preference is given to papers not generally accessible to our readers. Quotation does indicate approval.–Editor.]

The appeal issued to non-Jews by the Christian members of the Amos Society for a $15,000,000 fund for the East European Jews to match the fund of the United Jewish Campaign, is lauded by the New York "Times."

"It is a welcome and encouraging sign of the times," the paper observes, "when a number of prominent professors and clergymen and editors who are Christians unite in an appeal to aid the efforts of American Jews to relieve their coreligionists in Eastern Europe. As the great need is not confined to race or creed, neither should be the endeavor to meet it.

"Cooperation in good works between different churches and denominations and forms of worship has visibly been increasing in recent years. No manifestation of it has been more striking or more grateful than this gesture of sympathy and offer of aid which Christians are making in connection with a charitable work at first thought of as strictly Jewish."

JEWISH TEAM WORK

The greatest achievement of the Hakoah players, as seen by the New York "Sun", is their refutation of the old notion that Jews are incapable of team work.

"There is a curious superstition among non-Jewish athletes which, while it readily admits the Jew’s ability to shine in such competitive sports as boxing, tennis, track and field meets and the like, insists that Jewish genius is too individualistic for assimilation in a system calling mainly for team play," the "Sun" writes editorially on May 4.

"Before a large crowd at the Polo Grounds on Saturday the Hakoah players knocked this idea into the proverbial cocked hat. Each man was good enough to play well on any eleven in any country, but they played not as eleven stars but as one team. Almost perfect coordination of purpose and technic gave their open field work an appearance of ease and grace which is the ideal of correct form in any athletic endeavor."

Reflective minds cannot fail to see more than an ordinary significance in the Hakoah movement, declares the Chicago "Evening Post," in an editorial welcoming the Hakoah Soccer team, which is to play in Chicago on May 9. "After centuries of exile and persecution the Jew in Europe is again coming into his own. Greater days are in store and the Hakoah is laying foundations for them," the paper remarks.

"It is for this reason that an interest attaches to the Hakoah soccer players far transcending the ordinary interest in trained athletes."

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