Extracts from sermons preached during the weekend follow:
A REPLY TO JUDGE COHALAN
RABBI LOUIS I. NEWMAN, Congregation Rodeph Sholom, 7 West Eighty-third Street–Justice Daniel F. Cohalan’s remarks regarding the alleged influence of American citizens of the Jewish faith are regrettable, and fail to give the proper perspective with respect to the relationship of non-Jews and Jews in the United States.
It is true that a few Jews have risen to eminence in the commonwealth, but their influence is exaggerated out of all proportion to its scope. Justice Cohalan seeks to show that the 20,000,000 Catholics in this country are relatively without power, but surely he does not intend that this statement shall be taken seriously.
The most superficial student of American political life, particularly in the metropolitan center, notices the large number of officials of the Catholic faith, and rejoices in this fact, when these public servants are men fulfilling their responsibilities in accordance with the ethical dictates of their faith, and the basic requirements of the community’s welfare.
STUDENT PACIFISM
We all agree that war is damnable and abhoring to civilized man, but we ought to recognize the fact that the means employed to fight war should not be militant methods. If our purpose is “peace,” then our means of attaining that ideal should be in the spirit of that goal.
Disrespect and rowdiness may fit in with the pro-war parties at some of our universities, but it is well for those who are propeace to guide themselves with peaceful conduct.
CIVIC-MINDED JEWRY
RABBI SAMUEL BUCHLER, New Peoples Synagogue, 96 Clinton Street–Among the Jewish people the continuity of political activity has been almost unbroken. They always occupied themselves with the solution of the civic problems of their respective communities. The Jewish spirit of country-building, in theory and in practice, has been recorded in the history of all nations.
I know of no country where Jews failed to produce types like Joseph, Isaacs, Disraeli and Lasker. Without exaggeration it may be asserted that in spite of our homelessness and the loss of our land, we have successfully occupied ourselves with public affairs, stood unstintedly in the service of political ideas and ideals, originated many great achievements in the countries of our adoption, and aided the uplift of nations with high-minded disinteresteduess.
DESIRE FOR SOLITUDE
RABBI ISRAEL GOLDSTEIN, Congregation B’nai Jeshurun, Eighty-eighth Street west of Broadway–There are times when we crave solitude, hoping that in solitude we may be able to discover our inner selves. We would run away from the tumult of the crowds where we fear lest our soulbe drowned in the din.
No man can live alone. No man’s life is an isolated phenomenon. From birth, it became conditioned by the lives of others. We scarcely realize how much the lives of our fellowmen are the threads by which the fabric of each individual life is woven.
Manners and morals, thought and culture, the physical comforts of living, even the language we speak, are social contributions which come to every man from the moment of birth. If one born and reared in the twentieth century is above the savage, it is only because of the social heritage by which he benefits.
The craving for solitude is usually only a temporary reaction against the excessive gregariousness and concentration of our large cities. The problem of life is how to achieve that delicate balance between the right to one’s own soul and the duty toward the social code.
POVERTY, RACE HATRED AND WAR
RABBI STEPHEN S. WISE, Free Synagogue, Carnegie Hall, Fifty-seventh Street and Seventh Avenue–The truth is, although we do not at first grasp it, the three (poverty, racial hatred and international war) are bound up with one another. I believe that war could not be without the other two, for they make war inevitable, or are caused by the same things that make war inevitable.
If Judaism were a church or only a church, it would be easy to cite dogmas. But we have no such laws; we are not a church organization in any sense of the word. There is only one criterion of Jewish judgment–the reaction of the Jewish people.
The association of the Jew with protest against poverty, racial hatred, and international war has moved the world to stigmatize the Jews as the protestant or revolutionary people. There is a disproportionate number of Jews who are ready to strive and even die so that there may be an end of the three crimes against civilization.
The three will be vanquished or they will together overcome us and put an end to the era of human civilization.
Judaism has a wonderful record in regard to protest against poverty. Because a few Jews have heaped up riches, the world imagines that we are satisfied with the present order, when one-half the Jews of the world live in abject poverty.
The Jew protests against poverty because of his teachings, his suffering, and his Messianic hope.
The Marxian teaching is the mightiest modern protest yet made against the crime of poverty.
The theory of race superiority brings us the unspeakable Nazism. Jews have always fought racial hatred. As for war, we have a glorious record. It may go hard with us if we change not in our protest against poverty, racial hatred, and international war, but “it I must die, let me die for this.”
RABBI GOLD ON TOUR
Rabbi Wolf Gold, president of the Mizrachi Organization of America, left Saturday night on a three-weeks tour of Southern and Midwestern cities in the interests of the Mizrachi Palestine Fund, it was announced yesterday. He was accompanied by Harris L. Selig, director of the fund campaign.
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.
